Fahad Faruqui: Recipe For Divorce: The Wealth-Driven Marriage

Arranged marriages are common throughout the Muslim world -- primarily because dating before marriage is a big "no-no" and also because "parents know best." While some, very few, fall in love after marriage, other wealth-driven traditional marriages are nothing but a recipe for disaster.

A 31-year-old Pakistani bachelor from Karachi told me that he has no qualms about an arranged marriage. But since he wants to be sure that his bride-to-be is the one that he wants to spend the rest of his life with (without a shred of doubt), he doesn't accept the decision with the nonchalant attitude of "let's see if it works out or not." Being pushed into marrying a girl who he's not the least bit attracted to, he is unsure how to deal with his family members as they aggressively lobby for that girl.

"I don't ask for much," he said, adding that "the push is due to the fact that she's from a 'good family.'" In explaining what constitutes a good family, the would-be bridegroom says: "what else, they are moneyed and politically well-connected and that has blinded nearly everyone in my family."

Though the priorities may differ from one family to another, wealth remains a factor that is integral to the choice of a marriage partner, regardless of which strata of society you look at. The gardener at my family home in Karachi cried bitterly as he narrated how his daughter's marriage was called off because he couldn't meet the groom's increasing demands for dowry. The dynamics remain the same when you look at the educated and wealthy classes, the only difference being that they use the code words "good family" or "socially acceptable" as euphemisms for "wealthy."

A marriage between individuals of differing socioeconomic status could benefit one party or the other, or a marriage between equals could be a merger of two giants aiming to further climb the social ladder. Whatever the circumstances of an economics-driven match, there's certainly nothing wrong with marrying into wealth if the couple is agreeable and is able to lead a happily married life. But more often than not, I've seen such arrangements, in which compatibility is overlooked in favor of economic gain, lead to a debacle.

Though divorce is religiously permitted in Islam, it is considered the the most abhorring thing by God.

According to a 2011 report, "more than 100 divorces are registered in [Lahore] family courts in a day." Besides the ego that influences two people to split apart, "forced marriages and early marriages" contribute to failed marriages in Pakistan, said psychiatrist Najeeb Zaheer. Other Muslim-majority countries, such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt, are witnessing a similar trend.

"The [Jeddah] court registers 40 marriages and 20 divorces a day," Somayya Jabrti, now deputy editor of Arab News, wrote in an article published in 2003. "The situation has only worsened," a Saudi said on grounds of anonymity. In addition to polygamy and illicit relationships that fuel breakups, lack of compatibility is also to be blamed for failed marriages.

When I asked around, friends in Saudi Arabia claimed that they knew divorcees in every other household in their social circle, despite the social stigma attached with divorced women and the enormous pain a woman has to endure in separating from a spouse unwilling to cut the marital cord.

In Egypt, while I was teaching high school Social Studies in an American curriculum school, nearly every other teacher said that I was wasting my breath in pushing my female students to challenge themselves in order to realize their true potential. The reason I was given was that most of the girls that I taught would be married off after high school or college and divorced soon thereafter -- at least that's the trend.

On my parting note, I implored my students to realize their dreams. When I had joined the school, shortly after the Egyptian revolution, most of them replied with blank stares when I asked, "what do you want to do with your life?" Five months later, almost everyone had something to say. Interestingly, one of the 10th graders, who perhaps understood my emphasis on "doing something constructive in life," said "don't worry...I will not marry a rich man and end up divorced soon after...I will become an architect and make you proud." Well, I truly hope so!

Even though the correlation between marriage for money and the increasing divorce rate cannot be backed by quantifiable data, one cannot reasonably expect marriages devoid of love and respect to stand the test of time.

Being coerced into marriage -- because wealth, power and tribal ties are good for you -- is the beginning of a slippery slope towards renouncing all autonomy in life decisions for those willing to sell their souls for material gain.

For those looking for a lasting relationship with their mate, they may want to investigate what they really want in a spouse. If you want buff, you'll get buff, but, hey, don't expect emotional support. If you want fair and lovely, you'll probably find someone, but how long that romance will last is a question that you have to ponder.

"A marriage based on the desire for security, money, privileges, culture, beauty or lust can never be a fulfilling marriage," said Maryam Agha, 27, from Karachi.

Marriage, as a union between two people, tends to last when it's predicated upon profound understanding of the spouse, coupled with unconditional acceptance of each other, and underpinned with patience to endure through thick and thin. Anything less will not likely endure.

?

Follow Fahad Faruqui on Twitter: www.twitter.com/fahadfaruqui

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/fahad-faruqui/recipe-for-divorce-the-we_b_1063613.html

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Kutcher pulls back on Twitter after Paterno tweet (omg!)

NEW YORK (AP) ? Ashton Kutcher is handing over his Twitter account to his personal management after he tweeted several uninformed messages about Joe Paterno's exit from Penn State.

On Wednesday night, Kutcher defended the football coach on Twitter before learning the details of the alleged sex-abuse scandal swirling around former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky. Kutcher then recanted and apologized on Twitter.

He followed with a blog post Thursday saying he would have Katalyst Media manage his feed as "a secondary editorial measure to ensure the quality of its content."

Kutcher, who has more than 8.2 million followers, said Twitter had grown beyond more than "a fun tool." The 33-year-old "Two and a Half Men" star said the platform has become "too big" for him to manage alone.

___

Online:

http://aplusk.posterous.com/twitter-management

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/entertainment/*http%3A//us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/external/omg_rss/rss_omg_en/news_kutcher_pulls_back_twitter_paterno_tweet222246506/43562829/*http%3A//omg.yahoo.com/news/kutcher-pulls-back-twitter-paterno-tweet-222246506.html

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Russia opposes new Iran sanctions over IAEA report (Reuters)

MOSCOW (Reuters) ? Russia on Wednesday vehemently criticized a U.N. nuclear watchdog report saying Iran appeared to have worked on designing an atom bomb, saying it contained no new evidence and was being used to undercut efforts to reach a diplomatic solution.

Sharpening opposition to any new sanctions against Iran in the U.N. Security Council, where Russia has veto power, senior diplomats said further punitive measures would be "destructive" and urged a revival of talks between Tehran and global powers.

The Russian remarks came during a visit by a senior Iranian official for talks on the program which Tehran says is peaceful but the United States and its allies fear is aimed at developing the capability to build atomic weapons.

They underscored a divide between Russia and the West over a report by the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency that deepened U.S. and European suspicions about Tehran's intentions.

"According to our initial evaluations, there is no fundamentally new information in the report," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

"We are talking about a compilation of known facts, given a politicized tone," it said, adding that interpretations of the report brought to mind the use of faulty intelligence to seek support for the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Earlier, in a barrage of Russian comments on Iran, Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov said any new sanctions "will be seen in the international community as an instrument for regime change in Tehran," Interfax reported.

"That approach is unacceptable to us, and the Russian side does not intend to consider such proposals."

Russia's point man for Iran diplomacy, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, said Moscow opposed "strengthening sanctions pressure on Iran" and is trying to bring other nations in line with that stance, Itar-Tass reported.

"We are showing them the faulty and destructive nature of that policy," Ryabkov said.

In its report on Tuesday, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said Iran may still be conducting secret research with no logical application other than developing nuclear bombs.

A U.S. official said the United States could impose more sanctions on Iran. French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said the Security Council should be convened and that Paris was ready to adopt "unprecedented" sanctions if Tehran refused to cooperate with efforts to ensure it is not pursuing nuclear weapons.

Russia has grudgingly approved four rounds of U.N. sanctions on Iran after watering them down, with China. But it has criticized Western states for imposing additional punitive measures and signaled in recent months that it would oppose a new push for sanctions in the Security Council.

Russia has close commercial ties with Iran and built a nuclear power plant that was switched on in the Islamic Republic this year. It has repeatedly said too much pressure on Tehran is counterproductive.

Russia is instead calling for a step-by-step process under which existing sanctions would be eased in return for actions by Tehran to dispel international concerns.

MOSCOW CRITICISES IAEA REPORT

In its statement, the Foreign Ministry said discussions of the IAEA report had turned into a tool for attempts to scuttle the Russian initiative and doom chances for a diplomatic settlement, warning that could sow confrontation.

"Russia is very concerned that the report is being used to undermine efforts by the international community for the swiftest possible political and diplomatic resolution of the situation surrounding Iran's nuclear program," it said.

"We also see in this an attempt to deliver a blow to Russian initiatives whose aim to foster a solution."

In a visit that appeared to have been timed to coincide with the report's release, Ali Baqeri, deputy secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, met Russian presidential Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow on Wednesday.

In the meeting, they emphasized the need for new talks between Iran and six global powers -- Russia, China, the United States, Britain, France and Germany -- as well as the IAEA, the Russian Security Council said in a statement.

Senior Russian security officials accept the West has legitimate concerns about Iran's nuclear program. But officials, including Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who is expected to return to the presidency next year, have said there is no clear evidence Iran is trying to develop a nuclear bomb.

Analysts say Moscow may have calculated that it has little to gain from supporting new sanctions against Iran. This would further hurt ties already damaged by Russia's backing of the most recent measures in June 2010, when President Dmitry Medvedev also scrapped a deal to deliver air-defense missiles to Tehran.

Those sanctions were adopted at a time of improving relations between Russia and the United States, after President Barack Obama downsized a European missile defense plan that Russia opposed and signed a nuclear arms limitation treaty with Medvedev.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/iran/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111109/wl_nm/us_nuclear_iran_russia

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China October inflation cools, more policy tweaks seen (Reuters)

BEIJING (Reuters) ? China's annual inflation rate fell sharply in October to 5.5 percent in a further pullback from July's three-year peak, giving Beijing more room to fine tune policy to help an economy feeling the chill of a global slowdown.

Other data, including figures showing industrial output in October grew at its weakest annual pace in a year, provided the latest evidence of a modest slowdown in the world's second-biggest economy.

Inflation fell from 6.1 percent in September and marked the third straight decline since a peak of 6.5 percent in July, bolstering expectations that price pressures were on a solid downtrend.

Premier Wen Jiabao said prices had fallen further since October, adding to the view that policymakers will edge toward more pro-growth policies, although inflation is still too high to expect a cut in interest rates.

"As inflation worries ease, the room for fine-tuning monetary tightening is getting bigger," said Ting Lu, an economist at Bank of America/Merrill Lynch in Hong Kong.

"Policymakers might still put taming inflation as a top priority, but we will see policies to be increasingly nudged toward pro-growth.

"That said, we don't expect a major change in monetary policy stance or some high profile moves such as cuts of policy rates and RRR (required reserve ratios)."

The inflation figures soothed investors concerns about a sharp slowdown in China, supporting oil prices and underpinning Chinese shares, although market direction is being largely set by events in Europe.

The 5.5 percent rise in the consumer price index in the year to September was bang in line with expectations from a Reuters poll.

Producer price inflation also showed a marked slowdown to 5.0 percent in October, a one-year low, from 6.5 percent in September. The median of a Reuters poll had forecast an October reading of 5.7 percent.

Economist Lu said the combination of figures suggested his forecast that consumer inflation would drop to 4.6 percent in December may now be too high.

Indeed, Wen suggested prices had continued to fall.

"Since October, overall domestic prices have been falling noticeably," Wen was quoted as saying by a government website. "Prices of pork and eggs have fallen, but prices of fruit, dairy products, beef and mutton remain at high levels," he said.

Industrial output rose in October by 13.2 percent from a year earlier, slightly below expectations for a 13.4 percent rise and the weakest pace since October 2010, suggesting factories were bearing the brunt of the economic slowdown.

Retail sales rose 17.2 percent, also slightly below expectations for a 17.4 percent rise. Fixed asset investment in January through October increased 24.9 percent from the same year-earlier period, topping expectations.

China's leaders have begun talking in recent weeks about "fine tuning" macroeconomic policy to maintain economic growth, which slowed in the third quarter to 9.1 percent, its weakest in more than two years.

But they have also made it clear that stabilizing prices and fighting inflation remain the top priority, so analysts rule out a rate cut or reduction in bank reserve ratios anytime soon.

Most evidence of the fine-tuning has so far been seen through tweaks to tax policy aimed at small and medium-sized businesses and some signs that bank lending to that sector of the economy -- which supports 75 percent of China's jobs -- could be relaxed.

"The best way of controlling price rises is to boost production," said Wen.

The premier also said Beijing would not loosen policies to rein in the red-hot property market, a report on the official Xinhua news agency said.

Wen said the construction of government-subsidized housing projects would help relieve some supply strains and ease housing inflation.

The latest data showed that food prices, a major source of inflationary pressure in China, rose 11.9 percent in October from a year earlier, the smallest annual increase since May.

But they fell 0.2 percent from September, the first decline since May.

"This indicates inflation pressure is indeed slowing," said Zhang Zhiwei, an economist at Nomura in Hong Kong, who said consumer inflation may drop below 5 percent in November.

"Lower inflationary pressure leaves room for further policy fine tuning. The PBOC has already marginally loosened liquidity by open market operations in October.

"We expect this type of fine-tuning to continue, but RRR and interest rates will be kept unchanged for the rest of 2011."

RISK OF IMMINENT EASING

While most analysts rule out an immediate cut in interest rates, there is more debate on when the central bank might reduce bank reserve ratios. At 21.5 percent, the RRR is at a record level for big banks.

Analysts at ANZ believe the economy is deteriorating so quickly that the PBOC could soon start to ease policy by reversing some of the nine hikes to RRR made in the tightening cycle that began in October 2010.

Annual economic growth rates have fallen for three straight quarters. Analysts forecast growth would slow to less than 9 percent next year for the first time in a decade.

The country's big manufacturers ran at their slowest pace in October since early 2009, the latest private-sector survey of purchasing managers showed, though there were signs of smaller firms bouncing back and a sharp fall in factory-gate prices.

"We revise our 'selective' policy easing call to an 'outright' policy easing, meaning that in an imminent move, the PBOC will likely make a 50 basis point cut to the RRR for all banks, with a possible larger cut of 100 bps for small and medium-sized banks," ANZ said in a note to clients last week.

The bank cites signs of softness in the real estate market as being particularly important, given that Chinese banks tend to prefer land and property as loan collateral.

Some interpretation of conditions in the real estate market could be made by 0530 GMT when fixed asset investment (FAI) data are released. Real estate makes up about 20 percent of China's FAI, a primary driver of overall economic growth.

FAI growth is expected to have eased marginally to 24.7 percent in October from 24.9 percent in September and continuing a broad two-year trend of gradual cooling.

A strong showing for FAI and retail sales -- also due at 0530 GMT -- would tend to support risk appetite as evidence of still strong domestic demand, assuring jittery investors that China is coping with a slowing global economic backdrop.

Industrial output figures, also due later on Wednesday, are seen showing a rise in October from the year earlier of 13.4 percent, easing from September and the weakest rate since May.

(Reporting by Nick Edwards; Editing by Kim Coghill and Neil Fullick)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/china/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20111109/bs_nm/us_china_economy

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Sex With Animals Linked to Penile Cancer (LiveScience.com)

For many people, bestiality is a bad joke, but for some it could be a matter of life or death, according to a new study finding that men who had sex with animals in their lifetimes were twice as likely to develop cancer of the penis as others.

The study of 492 men from rural Brazil found that 35 percent of study participants, who ranged from 18 to 80 years old and included both penile cancer patients and healthy men, reported having sex with animals (SWA) in their lifetimes. A team of urologists from centers around Brazil co-authored the paper, which looked at risk factors for penile cancer in men who had visited 16 urology and oncology centers in 12 Brazilian cities. In addition to SWA, three other risk factors for penile cancer were found: smoking, the presence of premalignant lesions on the penis and phimosis, a condition where the foreskin cannot be retracted over the penis.

Men who had sex with animals also reported a higher incidence of sexually transmitted diseases.

Of the 118 penile cancer patients, 45 percent reported having sex with animals, compared with 32 percent of healthy men, who visited the medical centers for benign conditions, check-ups or cancer prevention. Fifty-nine percent of men who had sex with animals did so for one to five years, while 21 percent continued the behavior, also known as zoophilia, for more than five years. The subjects reported a variety of frequencies for their sex acts, ranging from monthly to daily. [10 Surprising Sex Statistics]

The researchers found no association between penile cancer and the number of animals the men used over time, the species (which included mares, cows, pigs and chickens, among other animals) or the number of other men who also participated. However, the higher rate of reported sexually transmitted diseases in men who had sex with animals could be a result of group sex, said lead author St?nio de C?ssio Zequi, a urologist inS?o Paulo. More than 30 percent of subjects practiced SWA in groups.?

Thirty U.S. states, under their animal cruelty legislation, have enacted laws that prohibit sexual contact between humans and animals, according to Michigan State University College of Law.

Theorizing a causal role

Sex with animals could be as ancient as sex itself. "Since time immemorial, this habit has been described in folk music, theater, jokes and oral traditions," Zequi told LiveScience. "In some antique civilizations there were temples or rituals designated for SWA practices." Yet SWA is underrepresented in scientific literature, and the new study is the first to link the practice to male genital cancers. Penile cancer accounts for up to 10 percent of cancers in men in Asia, Africa and South America, although it is rare in the U.S.

Micro-injuries to the penis are a well-recognized risk factor for the development of penile cancer. Such physical trauma could explain how sex with animals causes the cancer.

"We think that the intense and long-term SWA practice could produce micro-traumas in the human penile tissue," Zequi said. "The genital mucus membranes of animals could have different characteristics from human genitalia, and the animals' secretions are probably different from human fluids. Perhaps animal tissues are less soft than ours, and non-human secretions would be toxic for us," he explained.

Zequi theorizes that micro-lesions caused by this toxicity could facilitate the action of some yet unrecognized microorganism during contact between different mammalian species.

Tobias K?hler, a urologist at Southern Illinois University School of Medicine who was not involved in the research, said the study was rigorous. "It adds to our knowledge of cancer prevention and gives us epidemiological data we never really had before on sex with animals.?

K?hler, who specializes in sexual medicine, speculates that the friction during SWA causes micro-lesions. "The vagina in humans has moisturizing properties, which prevent penile injury. With animals, you're at higher risk for micro-trauma, like cuts and scratches. And then whatever pathogens are there, like bacteria and viruses, are more likely to cause a problem."

K?hler said it's "absolutely plausible" that microorganisms present during sex with animals could cause penile cancer, citing the fact that human papilloma virus (HPV) causes cervical and penile cancer.

He postulated that the lifestyle of men who have sex with animals could also be a factor. "The study reported that these men also have more sex with prostitutes," K?hler said. "Are they using condoms when they have sex with people? Are they engaging in higher infectious-risk anal intercourse with people?"

However, Zequi said that SWA remained as a significant risk factor for penile cancer in the analysis, independent of lifestyle choices.

Circumcision also seems to play an important role in the development of penile cancer in men who have sex with animals. In global populations where the foreskin is removed soon after birth, the rates of penile malignancies are near zero. Uncircumcised men may develop more micro-traumas during sex, according to one theory on why circumcision protects against cancer. Smegma, the white secretion that collects around the glans of the penis in uncircumcised men, is composed of fatty acids that have been shown to be highly carcinogenic, and could also help to explain the increased risk. [5 Myths About the Male Body]

"As the majority of subjects in our study were uncircumcised, or were circumcised later, this may have contributed to the incidence of penile cancer," Zequi said. "I have no doubt that when both the conditions are present in [the] same man, the risks are multiplied by each other, configuring the most unfavorable scenario andthe highest risk for this cancer," he said, referring to both an uncircumcised penis and incidence of sex with animals.

Not just a rural problem

The subjects recruited from the study all grew up in rural areas of Brazil. The researchers wrote that they chose this population to investigate because sex with animals is common in rural areas with high rates of penile cancer, and a connection seemed plausible. In fact, Zequi said he was not surprised that 35 percent of participants had had sex with animals.

"We know that in rural zones of our country, and probably worldwide, young men have sexual experiences with domestic animals," he said. Most of the subjects reported that they stopped having sex with animals when they began having sex with people. [Q&A: Discoverer of Dead Gay Duck Sex]

Men who have sex with animals in developing countries are usually poor and illiterate, with little or no access to hygiene, health care or the Internet, Zequi said. The opposite is true in developed countries such as the U.S., where SWA seems to occur in the educated population.

A study published in in the Archives of Sexual behavior in 2003 examined the demographics of 114 self-defined zoophiles in the U.S., Australia, New Zealand and Europe. An online survey revealed that 36 percent lived in large cities and 83 percent were either college graduates or had completed some college. Forty-five percent of the respondents worked in informatics or technology, and some of them earned high incomes.

"SWA is not a sexual behavior limited only for poor rural populations," Zequi said. "It is actually a growing health concern today. Just give a few clicks on the search sites on the Internet and you'll come across numerous 'zoo' sites or virtual communities focused on bestiality, many of which are pornographic and sometimes with degrading images." Zequi wants men (and women) who have sex with animals to know that the practice could be hazardous to their health, and he wants clinicians to spread the word to at-risk populations.

K?hler agreed, saying, "From a penile cancer prevention point of view, SWA should be discouraged based on the results of this study." He recommended standard safety precautions with any type of high-risk sexual intercourse: Wear a condom.

The new study was published online Oct. 24 in the Journal of Sexual Medicine.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/cancer/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20111108/sc_livescience/sexwithanimalslinkedtopenilecancer

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Conrad Murray Calls Michael Jackson 'Deceptive'

In MSNBC's 'Fatal Friendship' documentary, doctor says that on the day he died, pop star was begging for propofol to help him sleep.
By James Montgomery


Dr. Conrad Murray
Photo: Getty Images

Dr. Conrad Murray, found guilty Monday of involuntary manslaughter in the death of Michael Jackson after a nearly six-week trial, says the King of Pop lied to him about his medical history during the time Murray served as his personal physician.

That's just one of the claims Murray makes in his controversial interview with NBC, conducted just days before his guilty verdict was read. It is part of a larger documentary called "Michael Jackson and the Doctor: A Fatal Friendship," set to air Friday (November 11) on MSNBC.

"I only wish that maybe in our dealings with each other, he was more forthcoming and honest to tell me things about himself," Murray says about his interactions with Jackson. "Certainly, he was deceptive by not sharing with me his whole medical history, doctors he was seeing, treatment that he might have been receiving." Murray also denies knowing Jackson had an addiction problem, though he admits he was attempting to wean the singer off the anesthetic propofol in his final days. On the day he died, Murray says Jackson was "a desperate man" who begged his physician for more propofol to help him sleep. According to trial testimony, Jackson's nickname for the drug was "milk."

"He asked me, 'Please, please, Dr. Conrad ... I need some milk so that I can sleep. If I don't get any sleep today, I cannot perform, I cannot do anything,' " Murray says. "He was pleading and begging me to please, please let him have some 'milk,' because that was the only thing that would work."

Earlier this week, in a letter to the heads of NBC, MSNBC and Comcast (which owns a majority stake in the NBCUniversal media conglomerate,) the co-executors of the Michael Jackson estate blasted the "Fatal Friendship" documentary as "one-sided" and "reprehensible," and demanded MSNBC "exercise proper judgment and refrain from airing" the program. They also called into question whether or not the network paid Murray for his interview, a claim NBC has yet to address.

Share your thoughts on the documentary in the comments below!

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Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1674174/conrad-murray-michael-jackson-documentary.jhtml

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Cable cos. to offer $9.95 broadband for poor homes

(AP) ? Cable companies said Wednesday that they will offer Internet service for $9.95 per month to homes with children that are eligible for free school lunches.

The offer will start next summer and is part of an initiative the Federal Communications Commission cobbled together to get more U.S. homes connected to broadband.

One third, or about 35 million homes, don't have broadband. That affects people's ability to educate themselves and find and apply for jobs, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said.

"The broadband adoption gap in the U.S. is very large, and the costs of digital exclusion are high and getting higher," Genachowski said.

The initiative, called Connect-to-Compete, also includes Microsoft Corp., which pledges to sell PCs with its Office software suite for $250 to low-income families. A firm called Redemtech is offering to sell refurbished computers for $150, including shipping.

For those who can't afford those prices, Morgan Stanley is pledging to develop a microfinance lending program for community-based financial institutions.

People are still signing up for broadband, but growth has slowed in recent years. For those who still haven't signed up, cost is a minor factor. Most say they're simply not interested or don't need it, according to a report by the Commerce Department based on Census Bureau data from last year.

To help address the lack of interest and computer skills, Best Buy Co., Microsoft and nonprofits such as America's Promise Alliance and United Way are promising to support the initiative with training.

All major cable companies are standing behind the $9.95 offer, which will be valid for two years. The price doesn't include taxes, but the companies are pledging to charge nothing for installation or modem rental.

The minimum download speed will be 1 megabit per second, less than one tenth of average cable speeds. Brian Dietz, a spokesman for the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, said it will be up to the individual cable companies to decide what speeds they provide.

The NCTA estimates that about 5.5 million homes that don't have broadband will be eligible for the offer. According to the Commerce Department study, 78 percent of households with school-age children already have broadband, making them far more likely to be connected than the average household.

The big broadband gap is between younger and older households: Only 45 percent of people older than 64 have broadband. Black and Hispanic households were less likely to have broadband, even when adjusting for income, according to the study.

Comcast Corp., the largest cable company and the country's largest Internet service provider, is already offering broadband to $9.95 to low-income families, with a 1.5 megabit per second download speed. It offered to do that so regulators would let it take control of NBC Universal.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/495d344a0d10421e9baa8ee77029cfbd/Article_2011-11-09-US-TEC-Cheap-Broadband/id-c9d6e8f87b0f4a00a0112cf15a4ba5bd

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Psychologists increase understanding of how the brain perceives shades of gray

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Vision is amazing because it seems so mundane. Peoples' eyes, nerves and brains translate light into electrochemical signals and then into an experience of the world around them. A close look at the physics of just the first part of this process shows that even seemingly simple tasks, like keeping a stable perception of an object's color in different lighting conditions or distinguishing black and white objects, is, in fact, very challenging.

University of Pennsylvania psychologists, by way of a novel experiment, have now provided new insight into how the brain tackles this problem.

The research was conducted by professor David H. Brainard and post-doctoral fellow Ana Radonji?, both of the Department of Psychology in Penn's School of Arts and Sciences. They collaborated with Sarah R. Allred and Alan L. Gilchrist of Rutgers University's Department of Psychology.

Their research will be published in the journal Current Biology.

The process of seeing an object begins when light reflected off that object hits the light-sensitive structures in the eye. In terms of color shade, the perception of an object's lightness depends on the object's reflectance. Objects that appear lighter reflect a larger percentage of light than those that appear darker; a white sheet of paper might reflect 90 percent of the light that hits it, while a black sheet of paper might only reflect 3 percent.

Interestingly, due to differences in illumination across a scene, the intensity of the light that comes from a surface to an observer's eye does not tell the observer about the surface's lightness. Although it might seem counterintuitive, a black sheet of paper in direct sunlight might reflect thousands of times more light into a person's eyes than a white object in the shade. To determine the shade of gray of a paper, the brain must therefore do more than measure the absolute intensity of light entering the eye.

"The amazing fact about our brains is that they deliver a perception of objects that is stable over the huge range of light that gets to our eyes. We want to know how the brain takes the amount of light that gets to the eye and turns it into a perception that depends on the object rather than on that total amount of light," Brainard said. "If the brain couldn't do that, objects wouldn't have a stable appearance, and it would be a disaster."

One of the puzzling aspects of this capability is that the range of the reflectance of objects is relatively small, especially compared to the range of light intensities in images coming from the world. In the earlier example, the white paper is only 30 times as reflective as the black paper, but the absolute amount of light that they actually reflect can vary by a much greater degree.

"Within one snapshot, the intensity of light coming of the brightest portion of the image could be a million times greater than that coming from the darkest portion," Radonji? said. "The question is how does the visual system map the huge range of intensities within a single image onto the much smaller but meaningful range of surface lightnesses."

Indeed, it is the mismatch of ranges that presents one of the fundamental perceptual challenges for the brain. If it picks the lightest part of an image as "white" and a shade 30 times as dark as "black," preserving the reflectance range, there could be a tremendous number of shades that are darker still that would be indistinguishable from each other.

One hypothesis is that the brain works around this problem by segmenting the image into separate regions of illumination, thereby reducing the range of luminance it must compare.

"If you can get all of the surfaces to be in the same region of illumination, then the reflectance range and luminance range will match, allowing the visual system to use within-region ratios to estimate surface lightness," Radonji? said.

To test whether this is indeed the mechanism at work, the researchers decided to push the limits of the visual system. They conducted an experiment where participants viewed images that, similar to real world images, had a very large range of light intensities ? as large as 10,000 to 1. Unlike natural images, however, those images did not contain any cues that would allow the visual system to segment them into separate regions of illumination.

To perform the experiment, the research team built a custom high dynamic range display. Participants were then asked to look at a 5x5 checkerboard composed of grayscale squares with random intensities spanning the 10,000 to 1 range. The participants were asked to report what shades of gray a target square looked like by selecting a match from a standardized gray scale.

If the visual system relied only on ratios to determine surface lightness, then the ratio of checkerboard intensities the participants reported should have had the same ratio as that of the black and white samples on the reflectance scale, about 100 to 1. Instead, however, the researchers found that this ratio could be as much as 50 times higher, more than 5,000 to 1.

"We're pushing this visual system beyond the limit we think it normally has to deal with, and because people can still make discernments in this situation it means that the ratio hypothesis is not the only one that's at work. Our experiment blows that out of the water," Brainard said. "What seems to happen instead is that the visual system takes that huge intensity range and maps it gracefully onto grayscale values in a way that preserves one's ability to discern between shades across high ranges of light intensities."

While the experiment doesn't reveal the actual mechanism behind the brain's ability to reconcile the mismatch in ranges, it does suggest new avenues of vision research in both psychology and biology. Further experiments may show how these discernments are made, why the eyes and brain are able to keep making them even in situations beyond what can be encountered in the real world, and how the phenomena demonstrated in this experiment operate along with other visual mechanisms for images that incorporate more of the richness of the real world.

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University of Pennsylvania: http://www.upenn.edu/pennnews

Thanks to University of Pennsylvania for this article.

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Source: http://www.labspaces.net/115104/Psychologists_increase_understanding_of_how_the_brain_perceives_shades_of_gray

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