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The Good, the Bad, and the Unknown About Telecommuting

Ravi Gajendran and David Harrison conducted an analysis of 46 studies on telecommuting and published the results in the Journal of Applied Psychology as The Good, the Bad, and the Unknown About Telecommuting (18 page PDF). They found that small amounts of telecommuting have small but mainly beneficial effects on perceived autonomy, work-family conflict, job satisfaction, performance, turnover intent, and role stress, with no detrimental effects on the quality of workplace relationships. Posted: 12/17/07; 5:22:12 PM #

iPower to the People

In iPower to the People, Jessica Clark explores the "peril and promise of point and click politics". It's not a deep piece and it focuses far too much on the presidential debates (which have been fundamentally flawed since the two major parties ripped them out of the hands of the League of Women Voters), but it's a very solid introduction to the difference between engagement and enfranchisement. The Internet can help even more people be shallow entertainers or it can help them take power. Which do you think we're doing? Posted: 12/17/07; 5:14:53 PM #

2007's Top 10 Rights & Liberties Stories

The staff of AlterNet has compiled a list of 2007's Top 10 Rights & Liberties Stories. Counting down, their titles are: (10) Disappeared: Five Years in Guantanamo, (9) America Gone Wrong: A Slashed Safety Net Turns Libraries into Homeless Shelters, (8) Life in Solitary Confinement: 12,775 Days Alone, (7) The War on Drugs Is Really a War on Minorities, (6) In Violation of Federal Law, Ohio's 2004 Presidential Election Records Are Destroyed or Missing, (5) The 'Silent' Ninth Amendment Gives Americans Rights They Don't Know They Have, (4) Is a Presidential Coup Under Way?, (3) Don't We Have a Constitution, Not a King?, (2) The End of America? Naomi Wolf Thinks It Could Happen, (1) The Rise of Christian Fascism and Its Threat to American Democracy. Posted: 12/17/07; 5:04:54 PM #

The Shocking Stories of the Aid Workers Just Released From Gitmo

Andy Worthington is an historian based in London whose recent book is The Guantanamo Files. In an excerpt entitled The Shocking Stories of the Aid Workers Just Released From Gitmo, he tells the stories of Adel Hassan Hamad, a hospital administrator who worked for a Saudi charity, and Salim Muhood Adem, who worked with orphans for a Kuwaiti NGO. Although it's easy to make ourselves feel safer by noting the ways in which we're not like these two men, I encourage you to read this without those defenses in place and consider what these actions and others like them mean for anyone who wants to do good work in the world. Posted: 12/17/07; 4:59:18 PM #