Business reporter Spencer Soper of The Morning Call has won the October Sidney Award from the Sidney Hillman foundation for his expose of Dickensian conditions in Amazon.com's warehouse in Pennsylvania.

Temperatures inside the "fulfillment center" soared to over 100 degrees over the summer and management refused to throw open the doors for ventilation. Current and former warehouse employees told Soper that they felt pressured to work themselves to the point of collapse because they feared they would be penalized for slowing down or taking time off. A security guard complained that he saw pregnant workers struggling in the heat.

During a heat wave, Amazon hired a private ambulance company to wait near the warehouse to deal with all the workers succumbing to heat-related illnesses, and a local ER doc complained to authorities about the influx of workers from the facility. 

The Lehigh Valley warehouse is strategically positioned to be within a day's drive of most cities in the Eastern U.S. and Canada. So, if you live in the East and you've ordered something from Amazon lately, there's a good chance your purchase passed through this warehouse.

Amazon has issued a flurry of public statements and messages to customers since the story ran on Sept 18, but when Soper checked back with current employees for his Sep 23 follow-up story, they told him nothing had changed since his original story ran.

[Photo credit: Noelas, Creative Commons.]

Hey, Michele Bachmann, you know who was really, really pro-vaccination? The Founding Fathers. Read all about it in my new article at The Nation.

George Washington argued for mandatory inoculation of citizens against smallpox and mandated the inoculation of the Continental Army, under the supervision of fellow signatory of the Declaration of Independence, Dr. Benjamin Rush.

Thomas Jefferson was so enthusiastic about Jenner's smallpox vaccine that he invented an insulated vial to ship the serum and helped test the vaccine himself.  

It wasn't just a coincidence that Washington, Jefferson, Rush, and other Framers were pro-vaccination (or inoculation). They were sons of the Enlightenment who believed in the power of science to better people's lives.

They rejected primitive superstitions about how God makes us sick because we sin, and trying to avoid getting sick through technology invites the wrath of God. That's what people used to believe about smallpox inoculation, and what Bachmann still believes when it comes to cancer caused by sex.

[Photo credit: Gage Skidmore, Creative Commons.]

Neuroscientist James Fallon is fascinated by the brains of murderers, especially in light of his own family history. His father's side of the family was full of notorious murderers. So, he compared his family's PET scans to those of known psychopathic killers:

"And I took a look at my own PET scan and saw something disturbing that I did not talk about," he says.

What he didn't want to reveal was that his orbital cortex looks inactive.

"If you look at the PET scan, I look just like one of those killers." [NPR]

Watch the video of Fallon telling his story, "Confessions of a Pro-Social Psychopath" at the World Science Festival. It's a well-told tale that raises fascinating questions about the influence of nature and nurture on personality.

[HT: Boing Boing]

The Center for Media and Democracy and The Nation magazine have won this month's Sidney Award for excellence in socially conscious journalism, the Sidney Hillman Foundation announced Tuesday.

The winning project, "ALEC:Exposed" is a groundbreaking print and multimedia expose of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). The project consisted of a website and a special section of The Nation.

The winners obtained over 800 leaked documents from ALEC and used them to analyze the secretive organization's agenda and impact. The leaked materials were posted online for public inspection and discussion.

ALEC is a "bill mill," a membership organization where state lawmakers huddle with corporations to write cookie cutter legislation that is introduced in state houses all over the country. These model bills, which often become real laws, touch on virtually every area of state government from weakening environmental protections to eliminating collective bargaining for public sector workers. I've blogged about ALEC here at Focal Point.

I interviewed winners Mary Bottari and Lisa Graves of the Center for Media and Democracy on the story behind the story of ALEC:Exposed.

John Nichols, Joel Rogers, Laura Dresser, Wendell Potter, Lisa Graves, Julie Underwood, Mike Elk, and Bob Sloan also contributed to "ALEC: Exposed." Liliana Segura, The Nation's Associate Editor, edited this special section.

Presidential hopeful Rick Perry told a little kid that if he were a superhero, he'd be Superman, a great American. Jay Smooth of Ill Doctrine thinks that's a great idea. Watch.

[Photo credit: Dunechaser, Creative Commons.]