Author: Matthew Clemente

Colorado Community Pushes Back Against Fracking

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Colorado Community Pushes Back Against Fracking

A short segment (4 min.) on NPR’s All Things Considered discussed the ballot initiatives in few Colorado communities that would put limits on fracking, or hydraulic fracturing.

Here is how the story began:

The 2013 election marked a victory for foes of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, in Colorado. Voters in three Front Range communities decided to put limits on the practice.

Next week, the north Denver suburb of Broomfield will launch a closely watched vote recount on a proposed moratorium there.

Oil and gas companies say the measures create an uncertain business environment.

During its original vote count, Broomfield felt more like Miami-Dade County circa 2000 than a sleepy Denver suburb. About two dozen lawyers and other observers invested in the outcome of the proposed five-year fracking moratorium crowded into a windowless room.

Do Violent Video Games Lead to Less Violent Crime?

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Do Violent Video Games Lead to Less Violent Crime?

That was one of the questions asked on the Freakonomics Radio podcast.  

Here is a description of the episode: 

Our latest podcast is called “Who Runs the Internet?” (You can subscribe to the podcast at iTunes, get the RSS feed, or listen via the media player above. You can also read the transcript; it includes credits for the music you’ll hear in the episode.)

It begins with Stephen Dubner and Steve Levitt talking about whether virtual mayhem — from online ranting to videogame violence — may help reduce mayhem in the real world. There is no solid data on this, Levitt says, but he hypothesizes: 

LEVITT: Maybe the biggest effect of all of having these violent video games is that they’re super fun for people to play, especially adolescent boys, maybe even adolescent boys who are prone to real violence. And so if you can make video games fun enough, then kids will stop doing everything else. They’ll stop watching TV, they’ll stop doing homework, and they’ll stop going out and creating mayhem on the street. 

This episode then moves on to a bigger question about the Internet itself: who runs it? As Dubner asks: “Who’s in charge of the gazillions of conversations and transactions and character assassinations that happen online every day?”

Internet scholar Clay Shirky, author of Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations, tells us that 60 percent of adults around the world are now connected to the same communications grid. (South Korea, he says, is the “most wired” country.) And this global connectivity is interesting, he says, because it’s not like there is an international body governing what’s online:

SHIRKY: Well, I mean, famously, the regulatory overhead on the Internet is permissive and minimal. In fact, the thing that freaked everyone out about it in the 90s when it was spreading on the wings of the web was that no one was in charge. … There are famous stories of bosses fretting that because all of their employees were suddenly sending international emails that they were suddenly going to be hit by the bill by the people who ran the Internet. 

Cuts in Food Stamps Hurt Rural Areas

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Cuts in Food Stamps Hurt Rural Areas

Heading into the Thanksgiving holiday, All Things Considered a rather depressing story about how reductions in food stamp spending is expected to have a particularly deleterious effect on rural families.  

Here is how the story (4 minutes)  began: 

One recent evening, some shoppers at the Countryside Market in Belvidere, Ill., were loading up on staples, like milk and eggs. Others, like Meghan Collins, were trying to plan Thanksgiving on a newly tightened budget.

“My work has been cut,” says Collins. “I’m working half the hours I used to work. So yeah, I’m making half of what I made last year.”

That could be bad news for stores like Countryside, which are already bracing for the ripple effect from the recent $5 billion reduction in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), also known as food stamps. It’s the first Thanksgiving since a temporary increase in those benefits expired on Nov. 1, affecting some 47 million Americans.

Sunday Funday: Homeboy Bakery

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Sunday Funday: Homeboy Bakery

This edition of Sunday Funday is more heartwarming than humorous.  It is about a bakery in Los Angeles, the Homeboy Bakery, which turns gang members into productive members of society by giving them jobs and teaching them marketable (legal) skills.

Here is a description of the story from The CBS Sunday Morning Show:

Twenty-five years ago Father Greg Boyle started working with gang members in the poorest parish of Los Angeles. Today, his program, Homeboy Industries – a bakery and cafe employing former gang members – has grown to become one of the largest and most successful gang intervention efforts in the nation. Carter Evans reports.

For more public policy related video/audio, be sure to check out the SLACE Archive.

Sunday Funday: Homeboy Bakery

/ Matthew Clemente / Leave a comment

Sunday Funday: Homeboy Bakery

This edition of Sunday Funday is more heartwarming than humorous.  It is about a bakery in Los Angeles, the Homeboy Bakery, which turns gang members into productive members of society by giving them jobs and teaching them marketable (legal) skills.  

Here is a description of the story from The CBS Sunday Morning Show: 

Twenty-five years ago Father Greg Boyle started working with gang members in the poorest parish of Los Angeles. Today, his program, Homeboy Industries – a bakery and cafe employing former gang members – has grown to become one of the largest and most successful gang intervention efforts in the nation. Carter Evans reports.