Dear Commons Community,

Frank Rich has an article in this week’s edition of New York Magazine on the Republican Party’s problem with attracting the women’s vote in the upcoming election.  Abortion, contraception, and sexual harassment are touched upon as issues which the Party has not been particularly pro-women.  To the contrary, he comments:

“It’s not news that the GOP is the anti-abortion party, that it panders to the religious right, and that it’s particularly dependent on white men with less education and less income—a displaced demographic that has been as threatened by the rise of the empowered modern woman as it has been by the cosmopolitan multiracial male elites symbolized by Barack Obama.”

He also reviews some history and points to prominent Republicans (Barry Goldwater, Richard Nixon, George H.W. Bush) who were fairly supportive of women issues including abortion and contraception.

His most provocative comments were reserved for Rush Limbaugh who awakened the women’s issue with his attack on Sandra Fluke, the Georgetown student to whom he referred as a “slut”:

“GOP apologists like Peggy Noonan are hoping now that Limbaugh and Limbaugh alone will remain the issue—a useful big fat idiot whom Republicans can scapegoat for all the right’s misogynistic sins and use as a club to smack down piggish liberal media stars.”

I don’t think so.  The Republican Party because of its affiliations with the religious right will have a problem with the women’s vote this November. Rich provides good insight into the issue.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

This cartoon was sent to me by my colleague, Larry Scripp.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

The federal government is beginning a major research initiative in big data computing. The effort, which will be announced today, involves several government agencies and departments, and commitments for the programs total $200 million. The New York Times is reporting:

“Administration officials compare the initiative to past government research support for high-speed networking and supercomputing centers, which have had an impact in areas like climate science and Web browsing software.

“This is that level of importance,” said Tom Kalil, deputy director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. “The future of computing is not just big iron. It’s big data.”

Big data refers to the rising flood of digital data from many sources, including the Web, biological and industrial sensors, video, e-mail and social network communications. The emerging opportunity arises from combining these diverse data sources with improving computing tools to pinpoint profit-making opportunities, make scientific discoveries and predict crime waves, for example.

“Data, in my view, is a transformative new currency for science, engineering, education, commerce and government,” said Farnam Jahanian, head of the National Science Foundation’s computer and information science and engineering directorate. “Foundational research in data management and data analytics promise breakthrough discoveries and innovations across all disciplines.”

On Thursday, the National Science Foundation will announce a joint program with the National Institutes of Health seeking new techniques and technologies for data management, data analysis and machine learning”

At the CUNY Graduate Center, the possibilities of doing research on “big data” was discussed this past summer.  And Paul Attewell and Bob Haralick have been conducting an exploratory seminar on the topic this semester.

Tony