The findingDulcinea Blog

How Do I Know If I Have Swine Flu?

Photo: Ryan Remiorz/AP

In case you haven’t heard, there’s a global panic, er, we mean pandemic, called swine flu. Or, at least it was called swine flu until the name was changed to protect the innocent. (Pigs, that is.) It’s now going by the clunky but nonoffensive title of influenza A (H1N1). Thankfully, we’re all clear on one fact: You can’t get swine flu from eating pork.

Unfortunately, when people start to panic, facts are hard to come by. On Twitter, which has been heralded as a hub for so-called citizen journalists, not every post tagged “#swineflu” contained information that was accurate, or even worth reading. People using the Twitter search engine to find answers may not have been employing the soundest judgment.

But even the professional media was responsible for creating a bit of a scare. As one Huffington Post blogger observed, a few headlines reading “Death Toll Rising” can lead the innocent news consumer to feel like “there’s a plague on.”

And while there have been comparisons to the flu epidemic of 1918, suggesting that influenza A might be the next Spanish influenza, we won’t help ourselves by giving in to hysteria. Still, a trait shared by the two viruses is that they start out mild. Spanish influenza eventually got worse, and influenza A has that potential.

In short: We can’t stop paying attention. Somewhere in between panic and ignorance is a happy medium.

That’s why we decided to find five sites with reliable, accurate and comprehensive information about swine flu. Get all your questions answered about how the disease started, why it’s a concern, what the symptoms are and how swine flu affects travel. The only thing the article won’t tell you is where you can buy a surgical mask.

Rachel Balik
Senior Writer

Gay Rights in the Mainstream Media, Gay Rights in the Twitter Stream

Rep. Beth Bye of Connecticut holds her marriage license, the first issued to a gay couple in the state, on March 6, 2009. (Photo: George Ruhe/AP)

When Proposition 8 appeared on the California ballot in November 2008, gay rights were not yet a mainstream topic. Ironically, when Prop 8 passed, support for gay marriage started to mount. Whereas once homophobia was considered “the last accepted prejudice,” people came out in large numbers to protest the ban, and the media covered it. More states started to push harder for marriage laws. Recently, Iowa and Vermont passed laws in favor of gay marriage, and the District of Columbia council voted to recognize marriage in other states.

Now, the media watch on gay marriage is so tuned in that The New York Times City Room blog published a piece yesterday about N.Y. Gov. David Paterson’s anticipated but unconfirmed plans to introduce a gay marriage bill. Ten years ago, homosexuality was still a taboo topic, but in the past year, most media outlets, and many Americans, take the importance of gay rights as a given.

But perhaps the best example of all was the fast spread of news about the so-called #amazonfail on Twitter. A handful of gay authors found that their books had been reclassified as “adult” on Amazon and therefore could not be found on search. A decade ago, I genuinely believe that those few authors would have been the only ones to know or care about that situation. But this weekend, #amazonfail became the most popular search topic on Twitter.

Amazon decided it was such an emergency that employees were called in on Easter Sunday to fix the problem. The fact that the mistake is being called a PR disaster tells me that somewhere along the way, this country’s attitude toward homosexuality has shifted. No longer is homophobia “the last accepted prejudice.”

Rachel Balik
Senior Writer

Using EncontrandoDulcinea as a Spanish Language Learning Tool

Even though encontrandoDulcinea is primarily designed for people who speak Spanish as a first language, or who would rather receive their news and information in Spanish, this bilingual site is also an excellent online resource for those who are trying to learn Spanish or improve their fluency in it.

EncontrandoDulcinea covers stories from the fields of science, politics, nature, health, history, art and international relations, and offers entertaining and informative articles for adults as well as educational material for younger audiences. The “On This Day” feature, for instance, highlights historical events that are of particular interest to the Latino community. As the articles are written in Spanish, they also provide an opportunity to practice reading in Spanish while learning history at the same time.

Considering the exponential way in which bilingualism in the United States is growing, it’s no wonder that more and more people are interested in improving their language skills.

The Instituto Cervantes, a nonprofit organization sponsored by the Spanish government, is devoted to enhancing the teaching of the Spanish language and advancing the culture of Spanish speaking nations. In the U.S., the Institute has venues in New York and Chicago. Whether you’re taking a Spanish course such as the ones offered at the Institute, or are practicing the language on your own, the articles that encontrandoDulcinea offers can be a great source of language practice.

Our Web Guide to Learning Spanish is also a valuable resource for those looking to learn Spanish or improve their skills via the Web.

Recession-Themed Shopping: Stimulate Your Taste Buds, Stimulate the Economy

The recession may be a bitter pill to swallow. But in the adversity inherent in an economic downturn comes opportunity for marketers looking to sweeten our lives with recession-themed products.

Among the products whose (figurative) stock is rising: FinancialCrunch.com, home of “Sweet Assets.” Mentioned in an earlier post on the findingDulcinea blog, the site allows consumers to slake their recession-tide cravings with a whole portfolio of confections including “Short Change,” a box of chocolate coins (above); “Nest Eggs,” a hollow milk chocolate egg filled with dark chocolate coins inside; and the “Stimulus Package,” guaranteed to provide happy returns.

Wash it all down with some bright green “Stimulus Soda.” The blue raspberry/pineapple-flavored concoction, which the makers dubbed “the nation’s first bailout brew,” tastes a bit like a Sweet Tart, according to NBC Chicago.

For weight-conscious folk looking to get a sour-sweet recession-themed punch, Design Glut’s Dow Jones handkerchiefs put the DJIA’s performance over the past five years right around your neck. Or place an online bid for some preppy-chic Lehman Brothers swag.

After all, bailout is the new black (or way to get into the black, at least).

Anne Szustek
Senior Writer

For sweet financial news during this recession, check out my daily column, Chin Up in the Downswing. To wrap your head around the subprime mortgage crisis, see our Web Guide to the Global Financial Crisis. To wrap your head in curlers, see either the year 1955 or findingDulcinea’s Web Guide to Beauty.

Qwidget: A Better Way to Comment

The comment section on most Web sites is an area of controlled, and sometimes uncontrolled, chaos. The great thing about the Qwidget, the comment widget that we use on all our news articles, is that it's all about conversation, not just commentary. The Qwidget is a project of the company Chat the Planet, which is responsible for critically acclaimed 2007 documentary "Hometown Baghdad."

The Qwidget asks you a question about an aspect of a story or blog post you've just read, as posed by the publisher of the article. You respond "yes," "no," or "maybe," and are then prompted with "Why?" You can then respond at greater length on the issue. As Phil Glockner of Scribkin puts it, “Think of it as a easy yes/no poll box that’s been pumped full of social media goodness.” After you input your response, you can look at everyone else's comments and respond privately to the people whose answers you're intrigued by. This is a great way to get to know your fellow users, as well as take part in an organized debate online.

The Qwidget calls itself "the conversation starter." Indeed, the Qwidget is worthy of a better description than "comment thread." Threads are easy to lose. But the conversations that happen with the Qwidget aren't. What I like most about it is that it encourages me to read thoroughly. It's not easy to answer a question about an issue like Mexican drug trafficking without having read an article attentively. Learn more about the Qwidget mission here.

Soon we're going to be rolling out the Qwidget in some of our features articles, where we often talk about timely matters that affect you, like the recession. We want to hear more of your opinions and hope to include them in some "people's choice" editions of popular feature articles like "5 Things Worth Spending Money On During the Recession."

Head to any of our news stories to see what Qwidget is like. After you answer your first question, you can create an account in a couple of easy steps!

Liz Colville
Senior Writer
Audience Development

Spanish-Language News Sources on the Web

To live as a Spanish speaker in the United States means to live in a bilingual environment in which both Spanish and English play a role in everyday experiences and interactions. Compared to the many English news sources available for readers in the U.S., both online and in print, Spanish-only resources are limited. EncontrandoDulcinea is not only a news source in Spanish—it’s a bilingual tool, a way to guide Spanish-speaking readers to the best English resources the Web has to offer.

The Wall Street Journal, for instance, offers a comprehensive version of its original English site in Spanish that focuses on news from the United States and Latin America. The site also includes content on investments, people and lifestyle geared toward a Latino audience.

Similarly, El Nuevo Herald is a Miami-based newspaper that offers news entirely in Spanish on topics that would be of interest to the Latino community. The editorial tone of El Nuevo Herald is lighter than that of the Wall Street Journal, and includes news on entertainment, fashion, health and sports along with stories about politics and the economy.

The New York City newspaper El Diario is another excellent Spanish news source that provides news stories from the U.S. and Latin America with a focus on the New York City area.

At the beginning of March, encontrandoDulcinea started publishing news stories aimed at the Spanish-speaking Latino community in the U.S. The site takes a unique bilingual approach to news, providing original narrative in Spanish and then guiding the reader to trusted news sources in English. In this way, encontrandoDulcinea aims to bridge the language gap, making it easier for the Spanish-speaking reader to access English news sources on the Web.

Anita Gutierrez-Folch
Senior Writer

Follow encontrandoDulcinea on Twitter!

Stung by the Facts: We Need Animals

For a while there, it seemed like every time I turned on the news, someone was talking about cutting the pork. A lot of people were quite worked up over projects in the budget that seemed unnecessary. So it caught my attention when I learned that England has recently allotted $9 million to funding an initiative to revive the bee population. It turns out that something called Colony Collapse Disorder is causing bees to die off in record numbers.

OK, I thought. What does this mean? Fewer kids get stung, and Honey Combs cereal has to change its name to High-Fructose Corn Syrup Combs (which is more truthful anyway). Who cares? But as I read on, I learned that bees help to produce one-third of the food we eat through pollination. Basically, without bees, we’d be very hungry.

A few days later, I was reading Nature magazine and discovered that bats are incredibly beneficial to humans. They also help to spread seeds that grow crops. Even vampire bats can be useful, as their saliva may turn out to be a medicine for stroke patients.

I was completely inspired. What other animals are we dependent on that we don’t know much about? Could I prove that money for helping the environment wasn’t pork at all, but rather integral to our survival on this planet?

Well, I don’t know how persuasive I’d be in Washington, D.C., but I did find that in addition to bats and bees, worms, fish and butterflies provide immense value to humans and the environment. And so I wrote “5 Animals We Need to Survive.” Not only did I learn how to make a worm compost for my kitchen, but I’m thinking of emailing my congressperson.

Rachel Balik
Senior Writer

Good News to the Rescue!

Think of the word “news” and you inevitably think of tickers streaming across the television screen, aircraft circling over war zones and anchors looking stern (except if they’re Rachel Maddow, Jon Stewart or Steven Colbert).

There’s a market for good news, especially during a recession. In fact, we just began a daily column of good news called “Chin Up in the Downswing,” written by our finance writer Anne Szustek. Anne is also creating a Twitter account devoted to good economic news. (Read our second, March 12 installment of the series, "Chin Up in the Downswing: Buckle, American Public Education, Short Selling Uptick Rule.")

Sites like the Good News Network and Happy News run the gamut from happy health news to happy financial news. Happy News also has videos and reviews of so-called happy products. Another such site is Gimundo, which also has videos and hopeful stories from around the globe.

The teen volunteering site Do Something has a blog, Celebs Gone Good, that spotlights celebrities who are volunteers or otherwise active in philanthropy.

Netherlands-based Ode Magazine is a proponent of good news (get their news in a nutshell by following them on Twitter). As co-founder and editor-in-chief Jurriaan Kamp explains the effect of the mainstream media, “We only learn about whatever goes wrong. And then we are supposed to believe that that is our reality.”

You can always spread your own positive message through volunteering, which this news story tells us has not been dwindling during the recession. Peruse our Web Guide to Philanthropy and Nonprofits to find more ways to create your own good news.

Liz Colville
Senior Writer
Audience Development

Introducing encontrandoDulcinea, a Cultural News Source for the Hispanic Reader

encontrandoDulcinea, findingDulcinea’s sister site in Spanish, has been live on the Web for about six months, steadily growing in the wealth and variety of its content and expanding its reach with a host of relevant and educational news and features.

Adding to our selection of more than 60 research guides, encontrandoDulcinea now includes profiles, interviews and an educational series.

The material featured in encontrandoDulcinea is intended for bilingual readers who prefer to have Web content delivered to them in Spanish but who understand English well enough to make use of the original recommended sites. The site covers topics and materials that are educational and particularly relevant for the Spanish-speaking community of the United States.

Given the exponential growth of the Hispanic population in the U.S., as evidenced in this recent article by the Associated Press, bridging the language barrier online is more important than ever.

The content provided by encontrandoDulcinea helps to reach out to those who aren’t entirely fluent or highly proficient in English. By creating a bridge over the language barrier, encontrandoDulcinea makes educational and enriching material available to readers who feel more comfortable approaching it in Spanish.

Anita Gutierrez-Folch
Senior Writer
encontrandoDulcinea

Keep up to date with encontrandoDulcinea by following us on Twitter!

The Most Memorable News Stories of 2008

As the year draws to a close, we look back on the stories that captured the nation (and the world) in 2008.

Our staff put together a list of the 10 Stories That Defined 2008 that includes the election of Barack Obama, the Beijing Olympics, Somali pirates, and the collapse of Merrill Lynch and Lehman Brothers.

Some articles from 2008 that didn't make our staff's list were huge hits with our audience, so with that in mind, here is a list of the top five most popular (according to traffic) findingDulcinea stories from 2008.

5. McCain Taps Relative Unknown Palin as VP. The story of McCain's choice of Sarah Palin for his running mate nearly broke our site record for most visits to a story in a single day, and was a good indication of the media frenzy that followed Palin throughout the campaign.

4.On This Day: Witold Pilecki Allows Himself to Be Captured by the Nazis.  Nearly 70 years after it happened, people are still captivated by the story of a man who risked his life to provide information about Auschwitz to the Allied forces from within the walls of the concentration camp.

3. Scientists Develop a Possible Cure for HIV. The world was stunned in November to learn that scientists had engineered "super T-cells" that might be able to attack the virus, testing of this could begin as early as next year.

2.Gay Penguin Egg Snatchers Get Their Own Brood. Many people were intrigued to learn that this couple from a Chinese zoo had been stealing eggs from other penguins and replacing them with rocks, the zoo finally caved in and gave them an egg of their own to raise.

1. Males of All Species Becoming More Female. A shocking study indicated that chemicals released into the environment were causing males of many species (including humans) to develop more feminine characteristics.