January 9, 2013 - Yay, a comic about negative body image and self-esteem. Wait... I almost definitely shouldn't have opened with the word, "yay."

Tangentially Slate came to a similar conclusion that the infographic I rambled about yesterday was inaccurrate, and brought to light more questions about the enliven project's use of data. So I editted my graphic again to show the difference between the falsely accused and the falsely reported. And then drew up a new graphic where I divided the incident rates by six (as most rapists are serial rapists who commit an average of six assaults) while not touching the statistics that were people. So I ultimately have no idea which of these graphics is the most accurate. It's all based on THE SAME DATA! But does show how much statistics can be skewed. In all honesty I'd like the last graphic to be the correct one as I feel it's the most positive about encouraging victims to report their crimes and promotes faith in the justice system the best. It's still unfortunate how many sexual assaults go unreported , but the slate article says it's at 54% which is better than the 65% statistic I used from 2007 data and better than the 90% statistic the enliven project used from 2002 that actually used a number of 75%-95% which was very likely closer to the 75% figure based on it's 1997 data which showed a 40.9% increase in the number of assaults reported over five years which is consistent with the 65% I used and the 54% slate used (collected by the same source as the 2007 data, dunno why they went with the older info).

Ultimately though, I don't want to do math for a while. Victims aren't statistics they're people, and this data doesn't help what they're going through or change the horrible things they've experienced. And I'd rather focus on individuals such as this great story of overcoming such a history and trying to motivate others to change circumstances for future generations which I also found today.

Lastly while on Slate I found this request for "interns." The call for an intern who can "work without much supervision" looks highly suspect to me. So I sent this following e-mail to both hanna.rosin@gmail.com and slatedcinterns@gmail.com:

dear ms rosin,

recently i saw your post on xxfactor requesting interns (http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2013/01/08/doublex_needs_an_intern.html). your post states candidates must "work quickly, efficiently, and without much supervision."

This is NOT an internship.

Under law, internships must meet the following six criteria (http://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs71.htm):

1. The internship, even though it includes actual operation of the facilities of the employer, is similar to training which would be given in an educational environment;
2. The internship experience is for the benefit of the intern;
3. The intern does not displace regular employees, but works under close supervision of existing staff;
4. The employer that provides the training derives no immediate advantage from the activities of the intern; and on occasion its operations may actually be impeded;
5. The intern is not necessarily entitled to a job at the conclusion of the internship; and
6. The employer and the intern understand that the intern is not entitled to wages for the time spent in the internship.

i've bolded the particularly revelant text that implies your "internship" offer does not meet the legal definition of an internship. recent developments with fox searchlight and harper's bazaar have uncovered a country-wide misuse of this term and exploitation of young workers with little benefit to them. please hold slate to a higher standard and either pay your employee what they're entitled to, ensure this is actually an internship (which it does not sound it is), or withdraw your request.

thank you,
-d

I encourage everyone to send similar e-mails to this and any other similar request for interns to end the cycle of exploitation of young people in the workforce.

And that's it til tomorrow. Sorry if you don't like long blog posts.

-D