New Faces, New Places

Over the last several weeks, you may have noticed some changes at Gizmodo?and not just the layout. We’ve been sharpening our coverage of design, concepts, and the objects and ideas that are shaping our world, and growing our team to help us do it. Now it’s time to meet the people who are leading that charge?starting with our new Editor in Chief, Geoff Manaugh.

If you’re not familiar with Geoff by name, you’ve almost certainly seen his work. He currently runs BLDGBLOG, where he has established himself as one of the Internet’s leading voices on design and technology in the built world. His writing has also appeared in publications as varied as Dwell, Wired UK, and?yep?Gizmodo. He’s a brilliant thinker, a talented writer, and a curious mind. Geoff will start here officially in late September, but we’ll be toasting him tonight at an event at the New Museum. Frankly, we couldn’t have found a better fit.

What makes Geoff so perfect for Gizmodo is his innate interest in the things Gizmodo has always been drawn toward. How and why things are built, how they look, what they can do to elevate our lives; those have always been the core of our coverage. Hardware is more than a spec sheet. Software is more than code. And technology is more than just gadgets. It’s systems, cities, buildings, and art. We’ll continue providing the core gear coverage we always have. But we’re adding layers that reflect the way technology itself has evolved.

Geoff’s not the only new face. In fact, our team has already started to grow. Last month Gizmodo welcomed Kelsey Campbell-Dollaghan as our new Design Editor. The posts she’s already written for Gizmodo speak for themselves, but her influence extends far beyond her own writing. As we continue to increase our focus on design, art, and architecture, Kelsey has and will continue to set our course towards a more tasteful tomorrow.

Joining her and Geoff will be Matt Novak, who might be better known to you as Paleofuture. For the last several years, Matt has carved out a role as the world’s foremost retrofuturist; from Jetsons tech to yesteryear’s newspapers of tomorrow, no one covers our visions of the future with more intelligence and verve. We’re thrilled that he’s chosen to make Gizmodo his new home?Paleofuture name, content, and voice intact?starting today.

Last?for now?and certainly not least, Adam Clark Estes will also be joining Gizmodo next week as a Senior Writer. Adam had previously been pulling double duty at Motherboard and The Atlantic Wire, and will be bolstering our tech coverage with the same whip-smart, informed, opinionated takes that have become his hallmark those places and elsewhere.

And even beyond the people we’ve added, we’re proud to announce also that the leading architectural voice that is Architizer has made a home for itself on Kinja. You’ll be seeing plenty of their content on Gizmodo in the very near future.

It’s a lot of change in a short time, but all of it for the good. We’re not content to just say that we’re interested in broadening our scope; we’re putting the pieces in place that will make Gizmodo every bit as authoritative a voice in the areas of design and architecture and the future as we’ve always been in tech. And we’re only just getting started.

Source: http://gizmodo.com/new-faces-new-places-504786565

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By Margarita Antidze and Liza Dobkina

TBILISI/ST PETERSBURG, Russia (Reuters) – Large crowds of anti-gay protesters broke up homosexual rights rallies in Georgia and Russia on Friday, underlining deep hostility in the former Soviet bloc.

Priests and thousands of Georgians pushed their way through police barriers protecting around 50 people marking International Day Against Homophobia in a square in capital Tblisi.

Waving banners marked with the slogans “Stop Homosexual Propaganda in Georgia” and “Not in our city”, they forced the small groups of campaigners to flee in buses.

In the Russian city of St Petersburg, an aggressive, mostly male crowd threw smoke bombs over police barriers and shouted “Death to Faggots” and other insults.

A hugely outnumbered band of gay rights campaigners also had to pile into buses minutes after the start of their rally.

“Stalin would have showed you and exiled all these,” a man dressed in urban camouflage shouted as activists hurried away.

Attitudes towards gay people in Russia and former Soviet states are largely shaped by repressive Stalin-era policies, when sodomy was punishable by up to five years in jail.

The resurgent Christian Orthodox Church, which says homosexuality is a sin, also holds great sway.

“The rally… had a funeral-like atmosphere since homophobic crimes in Russia are on the rise… by the kind of people who view Jews as abnormal, blacks as abnormal and gays and lesbians as second-class citizens,” Yuri Gavrikov, head of the Russian LGBT-rights organization Ravnopravo, or Equal Rights, said.

CHURCH URGES BAN

In Georgia, around 28 people including policemen and journalists, suffered slight injuries in the clashes, government officials said.

“We won’t allow these sick people to hold gay parades in our country … It’s against our traditions and our morals,” said Zhuzhuna Tavadze, brandishing a bunch of nettles and adding that she was ready to fight.

Later in the evening, rowdy crowds took to the streets in the capital of the former Soviet republic, shouting and roughing up anyone they thought might be homosexual.

Amnesty International called for the perpetrators to be punished, saying in a statement that impunity for such acts was becoming a “dangerous trend in Georgia”.

The head of Georgia’s influential Orthodox Church in the mostly Christian nation of 4.5 million condemned the violence, but called on authorities to ban gay-rights rallies.

“We don’t approve of violence, but propaganda of this (homosexuality) must not be allowed. It is a sin,” said Patriarch Ilia II.

While support for same-sex marriage and other forms of equality increases in the West, in Russia and several other former Soviet states gay people say they are facing increasing discrimination.

Homosexuality was decriminalized in Russia in 1993, two years after the Soviet Union broke up. But the stigma remains strong and much of the gay community is underground.

A survey by independent pollster Levada last year found that nearly 50 percent of Russians believe homosexuals should be given medical or psychological treatment.

Gay and lesbian groups in Russia say a recent law banning gay “propaganda” encourages prejudice.

A 23-year-old man in the southern city of Volgograd was tortured and killed in May after revealing he was gay during a drinking session.

(Reporting by Margarita Antidze and Liza Dobkina; Writing by Alissa de Carbonnel; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/crowds-break-gay-rights-rallies-georgia-russia-192824248.html

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WASHINGTON (AP) ? The organic food industry is gaining clout on Capitol Hill, prompted by rising consumer demand and its entry into traditional farm states. But that isn’t going over well with everyone in Congress.

Tensions between conventional and organic agriculture boiled over this week during a late-night House Agriculture Committee debate on a sweeping farm bill that has for decades propped up traditional crops and largely ignored organics.

When Rep. Kurt Schrader, D-Ore., a former organic farmer, offered an amendment to make it easier for organic companies to organize industrywide promotional campaigns, there was swift backlash from some farm-state Republicans, with one member saying he didn’t want to see the industry get a free ride and another complaining about organics’ “continued assault on agriculture.”

“That’s one of the things that has caught me and raises my concerns, is that industry’s lack of respect for traditional agriculture,” said Rep. Austin Scott, R-Ga., referring to some organic companies’ efforts to reduce the number of genetically modified crops in the marketplace.

At the same time, Scott acknowledged that he and his wife buy organic foods.

Growing consumer interest in organics has proved tough for some Republicans on the committee to ignore. Eight Republicans, most of them newer members of the committee, joined with all of the panel’s Democrats in supporting the amendment, which was adopted 29-17.

Rep. Vicky Hartzler, a Missouri Republican who owns a farm equipment business and a corn and soybean farm, said she supported the amendment not only because helping organics is good for agriculture but because many of her constituents eat organic foods.

“Organics are a niche market in agriculture with a growing market share, so it makes sense for me to allow farmers to invest some of their own funds to promote their products,” she said.

The amendment would allow the organic industry to organize and pay for a unified industry promotional campaign called a “checkoff” that is facilitated by the Agriculture Department but is no cost to the government. These promotional programs have traditionally been limited to individual commodities or crops, producing familiar campaigns like “Got Milk?” and “Beef: It’s What’s for Dinner.”

The amendment would not set up such a program for organics, but it would allow USDA to approve an organic promotional campaign if the industry decided it wanted one. Laura Batcha of the Organic Trade Association says one reason the industry would approve a campaign is that many organic producers are concerned that consumers don’t understand that products labeled “natural” aren’t necessarily organic, which requires certification.

The organic industry has exploded in the last decade, with $35 billion in sales and 10 percent growth just last year. There are more than 17,000 certified organic businesses in the country.

Producers of organic crops and conventional crops have long been at odds, as organic products have grabbed market share ? more than 4 percent of food and beverage sales in 2011 ? and the industry has advertised organic foods as healthier than other foods. Organic products are required to be certified by the USDA and are grown without pesticides and genetically modified ingredients, mainstays of traditional agriculture.

Government-managed promotional checkoff programs like the one that would be allowed under the amendment are required to be positive and not disparage other products, and some lawmakers seemed wary that such a campaign would be possible.

“How do I present organic pork without disparaging non-organic pork?” asked House Agriculture Chairman Frank Lucas, R-Okla., who opposed the amendment.

Mike Conaway, R-Texas, took issue with part of the amendment that would allow the organic producers to opt out of other commodity campaigns, an option that isn’t given to conventional producers.

“Looks to me like they have a free ride on this thing,” Conaway said, in an at times angry exchange with Schrader.

Despite the rancor, the chances that the amendment will become law are good, as the Senate Agriculture Committee added the same amendment to its version of the farm bill.

Schrader told his colleagues that embracing organics is essential to appealing to consumers in a time when big farms are often demonized by popular culture. He said that many young people are coming back to farms because of nontraditional agriculture.

“American agriculture is under siege,” he said. “Urban folks do not understand where their food and fiber comes from. … The point here is to hopefully position American agriculture where we’re not always trying to catch up to what the American consumer wants.”

___

Follow Mary Clare Jalonick on Twitter: http://twitter.com/mcjalonick

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2013-05-17-Organic%20Foods-Politics/id-542c8d434d4c4fc5ae159e2c2fe9f22e

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