Day archives: November 29th, 2021

What to Know About the Challenge to Roe v. Wade

KFF: “Abortion at SCOTUS: Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health – “Abortion is among the most contentious issues in the country today. On December 1, the Supreme Court will hear the first abortion case since Justice Amy Coney Barrett was seated and cemented a solid 6-3 conservative majority on the bench. The case under consideration, Thomas E. Dobbs, State Health Officer of …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Courts, Government Documents, Health Care, Legal Research

Who Owns a Recipe? A Plagiarism Claim Has Cookbook Authors Asking.

The New York Times: “U.S. copyright law protects all kinds of creative material, but recipe creators are mostly powerless in an age and a business that are all about sharing…U.S. copyright law seeks to protect “original works of authorship” by barring unauthorized copying of all kinds of creative material: sheet music, poetry, architectural works, paintings …

Subjects: Copyright, Food and Nutrition, Legal Research

You’re not paranoid to cover your webcam. But the cameras you can’t cover are scarier.

The Washington Post: “Plastic sliders won’t solve the privacy problems of the future….But there’s a bigger question at play here, said Kavya Pearlman, CEO and co-founder of XR Safety Initiative, a not-for-profit that focuses on privacy and security in virtual reality, augmented reality and mixed reality settings. The cameras on our laptops, phones and tablets …

Subjects: Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, Internet, Privacy

The Rise of Plain Language Laws

Blasie, Michael, The Rise of Plain Language Laws (October 1, 2021). University of Miami Law Review, 2022 Forthcoming, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3941564 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3941564 “When lawmakers enacted 778 plain language laws across the United States, no one noticed. Apart from a handful, these laws went untracked and unstudied. Without study, large questions remain about these …

Subjects: Education, Government Documents, Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Legislation

Inside the ‘Misinformation’ Wars

The New York Times: “…While some academics use the term carefully, “misinformation” in the case of the lost laptop was more or less synonymous with “material passed along by Trump aides.” And in that context, the phrase “media manipulation” refers to any attempt to shape news coverage by people whose politics you dislike. (Emily Dreyfuss, …

Subjects: Education, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Social Media

Merriam-Webster chooses vaccine as the 2021 word of the year

AP: “With an expanded definition to reflect the times, Merriam-Webster has declared an omnipresent truth as its 2021 word of the year: vaccine. “This was a word that was extremely high in our data every single day in 2021,” Peter Sokolowski, Merriam-Webster’s editor-at-large, told The Associated Press ahead of Monday’s announcement. “It really represents two …

Subjects: Education, Health Care