Roosevelt Must-Reads: Double Standards

In a week filled with much debate, I can’t help but think that some of the stage interactions we saw tell us little to nothing about what voters really care about when it comes to each candidate. Perhaps because I just finished reading Quiet (excellent read btw), debates to me only seem to reassert our biases, valuing those who speak the loudest and are not afraid to interrupt—in detriment of those who are more composed and thoughtful and also might be much more suited for the job.

And talking about double standards, this great piece from the In Her Words section of NYT brings attention to how much sex sells—but not when it’s for female pleasure. While there are plenty of explicit allusions to male body parts and images that attend to the male eye all over the MTA system ads, the MTA decided to ban these ads for female sex toys, raising questions on whether sex sells or if sex for men sells. Doesn’t seem very fair.

To wrap up the fairness talk, I was surprised by how little attention these news stories published on Wired received: The first ever murder case based on forensic genealogy went on trial this month. In line with current conversations on privacy and data collection by private companies, this raises big issues in terms of what type of data can and should be used in the criminal justice system—and what are the consequences for people who, regardless of what data is used, still suffer from biased treatment by the entire system.

Finally, if this was getting too “real world” for you, step into the Twilight Zone with this piece in The Atlantic, which does an excellent job at diving deep into the mysteries surrounding the Malaysia flight MH370, bringing together all the information we do have and pointing to the mistakes made by the Malaysian government, including whatever information they have failed to release.