by Kevin Schofield
This weekend’s read is a report from three researchers at Seattle University’s Crime and Justice Research Center on the demographics of the people who serve on juries in Washington’s State courts.
Continue reading Weekend Reads | How Representative Are Jurors?by Kevin Schofield
This weekend’s read is an updated study from corporate consultant McKinsey & Company on Women in the Workplace, its ninth annual edition of the report. It drills down into the details of the “pipeline” for women to work their way up the corporate ladder and debunks four common myths on why women are underrepresented at higher management levels.
Continue reading Weekend Reads | Fixing the ‘Broken Rung’ on the Ladder to Career Success for Womenby Kevin Schofield
For this weekend’s read, we’re going to explore an idea at the intersection of biology and philosophy. It’s a paper written in 2017 by two biology researchers, one in the U.K. and the other in Brazil, that challenges our preconceived ideas about cognition and how we draw the boundary around the portion of our bodies that allows us to think.
Continue reading Weekend Reads | Spider Brains: How Tiny Creatures Create Large Cognitive Systemsby Kevin Schofield
This weekend’s read is a report published by the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) last month on a question that may be top of mind for a bunch of South Seattleites: How’s the West Seattle Bridge doing?
Continue reading Weekend Reads | Evaluating the West Seattle Bridge Repair One Year Laterby Kevin Schofield
This weekend’s read is a recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) National Center for Health Statistics looking at connections between drug overdose deaths and specific occupations and industries. Drug overdoses have skyrocketed over the past 10 years, largely because of the proliferation of synthetic opioids, such as fentanyl — synthetic opioids now account for about two-thirds of all overdoses in the United States — and also stimulants, such as methamphetamine.
Continue reading Weekend Reads | Your Risk of Drug Overdose Might Have to Do With Where You Workby Kevin Schofield
This weekend’s read is a new report from Gallup and the Walton Family Foundation that discusses Generation Z’s perspective on its own well-being and future prospects. “Generation Z” refers to those born between 1997 and 2011 — currently age 12 to 26. Gallup surveyed over 3,000 members of that generation living in the United States to hear their self-reported assessments of their lives, their future, what is important to them, and how well they feel the U.S. education system is preparing them for the future.
Continue reading Weekend Reads | Is Gen Z Thriving? Here’s What They’re Sayingby Kevin Schofield
This weekend’s read is a fascinating deep dive into the social isolation of America’s economic classes. It’s been known for a while that we’re seeing increasing levels of segregation by income in our residential neighborhoods, schools, and work sites, but this new study by researchers at the Naval Postgraduate School and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology looks at how much income segregation there is while we go about our daily activities: shopping, eating out, going to church, visiting the library, walking through the park, etc. These “third places,” as sociologists like to call them (as opposed to home and work), make up a large portion of the time we interact with other people, so it’s important to understand whether they are bringing us together or further isolating us.
Continue reading Weekend Reads | Examining Social Segregation by Classby Kevin Schofield
Through most of the late 2010s, we here in Seattle were told the city was going through an unprecedented population boom, fed in large part by furious hiring by tech companies. Then, many of us were surprised when the 2020 census results were published, which knocked tens of thousands off even the U.S. Census Bureau’s own estimates (the Census Bureau takes an official count every 10 years, then uses various methods in between to generate annual estimates of year-to-year growth). Was it the pandemic, or the high cost of living, or perhaps just “irrational exuberance” in how the estimations were done that fed a desired narrative of a booming Seattle?
Continue reading Weekend Reads | Is Seattle’s Population Booming or Busting?by Kevin Schofield
There was big news last week for the cannabis industry: The Biden administration is looking to move marijuana from the Schedule I list of drugs to the Schedule III list under the federal Controlled Substances Act. Schedule I drugs are believed to have no medicinal value, they have the tightest controls, and handling money on behalf of people buying or selling them is usually illegal — which makes it nearly impossible for a marijuana-related business to have a bank account.
Continue reading Weekend Reads | The Problem(s) With Potby Kevin Schofield
This weekend’s read is an essay looking at the phenomenon known as “MrBeast,” a man named Jimmy Donaldson who has made himself rich and enriched others through a pair of truly unique YouTube channels.
Continue reading Weekend Reads | The Meaning of MrBeast’s YouTube Philanthropy
