Fine Unpaid Internships

Internships are in high demand, and my students are very eager to get them. The unpaid internships always leave me with a bitter taste- it can qualify as exploitation. Some of these involve tasks that are not related to any academic work, and involve routine clerical duties.

Growth of Unpaid Internships May Be Illegal, Officials Say - NYTimes.com: "Convinced that many unpaid internships violate minimum wage laws, officials in Oregon, California and other states have begun investigations and fined employers. Last year, M. Patricia Smith, then New York’s labor commissioner, ordered investigations into several firms’ internships. Now, as the federal Labor Department’s top law enforcement official, she and the wage and hour division are stepping up enforcement nationwide."

Let's pack the food...

Over the past year the topic of food has gained quite a bit of attention in our classes.

More articles are referring to the health issues facing humans and the connection to food.

While the topic is gaining more attention in the U.S., a greater number of Asians are eating more packing food and with greater intensity. Maggie noodles, chips, and other snacks are very popular in India.

Metrics - Factory Food - NYTimes.com: "Americans eat 31 percent more packaged food than fresh food, and they consume more packaged food per person than their counterparts in nearly all other countries. A sizable part of the American diet is ready-to-eat meals, like frozen pizzas and microwave dinners, and sweet or salty snack foods.

'Americans tend to graze rather than sit down and eat a full meal, so the food is tailored for convenience,' said Mark Gehlhar, who has studied global food consumer preferences at the Economic Research Service of the Agriculture Department. 'And Americans do not seem to be as discerning about quality.'"

Scientific English

Next Big Thing - Literary Scholars Turn to Science - NYTimes.com: "onathan Gottschall, who has written extensively about using evolutionary theory to explain fiction, said “it’s a new moment of hope” in an era when everyone is talking about “the death of the humanities.” To Mr. Gottschall a scientific approach can rescue literature departments from the malaise that has embraced them over the last decade and a half. Zealous enthusiasm for the politically charged and frequently arcane theories that energized departments in the 1970s, ’80s and early ’90s — Marxism, structuralism, psychoanalysis — has faded. Since then a new generation of scholars have been casting about for The Next Big Thing."

It's hot in India - Car Sales

Maruti Leads India Auto Sales Higher - WSJ.com: "But auto sales remained robust, with Maruti--India's biggest auto maker by sales--posting an 11% rise in March sales to 95,123 vehicles.

Local sales rose 8% to 79,530 vehicles, while exports surged 32% to a record 15,593 units, beating a previous monthly high of 14,847 posted in August 2009, the Indian unit of Japan's Suzuki Motor Corp. said.

But Maruti's small car sales, considered its bread-and-butter, slipped to 54,763 vehicles in March, down 1.2% from 55,415 a year earlier."