How not to be hated on Facebook: 10 more rules
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Claire Suddath
Time.com
YourTango.com, a self-described "community for love, sex, dating and relationship advice," has created an instructional video called "Facebook Manners and You." Styled after one of those frighteningly cheery '50s educational films, the video's instructions for proper behavior on the "electric friendship generator" is funny in a hits-close-to-home way. (I mean, no it doesn't. No one has ever posted embarrassing photos of me on the Internet!)
The video covers everything from how to dump someone (do not break up with your partner by changing your relationship status) to the best practices for starting a hate group (don't create an "I hate so-and-so" group. But if you already did, don't use it to call someone a communist). Still, there are a number of Facebook etiquette rules the video does not cover. TIME would like to suggest these additional "electric friendship" guidelines:
1. Stop taking quizzes. Nobody cares what literary time period you are.
2. If you sync your Twitter account to Facebook so that you fill others' news feeds with a constant stream of mundane updates and references to people with little @ symbols before their names, be prepared for people to de-friend you. Maybe even in real life.
Video: How viruses spread
Program Note: Tune in tonight to hear more on how viruses spread from Dr. Nathan Wolfe on AC360° at 10 p.m. ET.
In this clip from Planet in Peril: Battle Lines, Anderson Cooper talks to Dr. Nathan Wolfe about disease transmission.
If spring lasts longer than four hours immediately contact your doctor
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Jack Gray
AC360° Producer/Writer
There’s nothing quite like spring in New York City. You can smell it in the air. An intoxicating blend of tree blossoms and crushed dreams. And, of course, everyone is saying, “spring has sprung.” Which, I don’t know about you, sounds to me like the tagline of a seasonal Viagra ad.
This past weekend actually didn’t feel so much like spring as it did like summer, at least here in Manhattan. To be honest, I wasn’t quite ready for it. And apparently neither were a few other people. Let’s just say Hell hath no fury like a Mama Cass look-alike behind the wheel of a 1987 Toyota Corolla wagon stuck in gridlock on Seventh Avenue.
At one point I went to Hudson River Park to enjoy the breeze. I had forgotten how much skin people show down there when the weather warms up. I kicked myself for not bringing a wad of dollar bills.
I was going to take my dog with me but she couldn’t decide on which tube top to wear so I left her at home with a jug of Pina Colada mix and those Larry King DVDs.
Deciphering swine flu in Mexico
Program Note: For more from Dr. Sanjay Gupta on the Swine Flu outbreak, tune in to AC360° tonight at 10 p.m. ET.
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Dr. Sanjay Gupta | BIO
AC360° Contributor
CNN Chief Medical Correspondent
It’s 4:30 a.m. here in Mexico City, and we are outside the largest public hospital in the city. Some of the earliest cases of swine flu were brought here and many of them died.
It is clear to us now that for the first several days, the doctors had no idea what was killing their patients. At first, they told me, they thought it was just a late-season flu, but one thing kept nagging at them: Patients who typically die from flu are elderly or very young. But this flu was striking people in their 20s, 30s and 40s. I immediately recalled my reporting on SARS and avian flu. It’s counterintuitive; typically, someone with a weakened immune system would be most at risk — the elderly and young — but in this case, it is people with the strongest immune systems. Why? At least in the cases of SARS and avian flu, it was not so much the virus that did the killing, as the body’s response to it – an overwhelming immune response, with inflammation that was deadly to the patients. Think about that. A stronger immune system means a stronger response and a more likely death. The same thing was seen during the 1918 pandemic that killed at least 50 million people worldwide.
In Mexico City, doctors were mystified, until someone brought up the possibility of this being caused by a virus the world had never seen. Two weeks of testing later, this new variant of the swine flu was discovered. The symptoms are similar to the more common flu, but there seem to be more gastrointestinal symptoms and it often appears with a sudden onset of dizziness.
Give Obama an “incomplete”
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Julian E. Zelizer
Special to CNN
When President Obama moved into the White House, press speculation immediately began about what his first 100 days would look like.
Journalists as well as scholars looked to history to speculate about which models of presidential leadership he might follow.
As we reach the end of the first 100 days this week, Obama remains much of a mystery. If we are talking grades, the best we can give him at this point is an "incomplete."
Given that the first 100 days is only an artificial marker - it's been used since the presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt - it is not surprising that it is too early to reach sweeping conclusions about what this presidency will be. It is worth remembering that Jimmy Carter, whose presidency would become deeply troubled by his second year, ended his first 100 days with high approval ratings and positive media coverage.
Financial Dispatch: Flu fears hit global markets
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Andrew Torgan
CNN Financial News Producer
With the World Health Organization calling the outbreak of swine flu a "public health emergency of international concern," stock markets around the world stumbled overnight and into Monday morning.
At a time when the global economy and financial system are already fragile, such a health scare will likely put the brakes on global travel and trade. The European Union, for example, is urging its citizens to avoid non-essential travel to Mexico and the United States in the face of the outbreak.
Meanwhile, airline and hotel stocks are tanking across the board on fears that a potential pandemic will cripple the global tourism industry.
And as you might expect, shares of the leading flu vaccine makers are getting a lift on the expectation that orders will increase.
Oil prices tumble
Crude oil fell more than 5% overnight as concerns about the potential economic repercussions of a swine flu pandemic weighed on the market and lifted the U.S. dollar.
Clinton: American travelers take “caution”
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Charley Keyes
CNN Senior Producer
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Monday said the State Department is working with both domestic and international agencies to combat swine flu.
She said the State Department is “urging caution” for Americans considering travel. “We have put up on our web site information urging caution for those who are planning to travel,” Clinton said at a photo-taking session at the State Department Monday morning. So far the State Department has not issued a specific travel warning for Mexico or elsewhere.
She said the State Department was coordinating “very closely” with other federal agencies including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Homeland Security. “We are taking this very seriously and working also with the World Health Organization … to try to develop a strategy to prevent the spread of this form of swine flu. We do believe that our efforts are developed and prepared to confront this wherever it might occur inside our own country. And enhanced cooperation across boundaries will be very important,” Clinton said.
Money for Nothing
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Paul Krugman
The New York Times
On July 15, 2007, The New York Times published an article with the headline “The Richest of the Rich, Proud of a New Gilded Age.” The most prominently featured of the “new titans” was Sanford Weill, the former chairman of Citigroup, who insisted that he and his peers in the financial sector had earned their immense wealth through their contributions to society.
Soon after that article was printed, the financial edifice Mr. Weill took credit for helping to build collapsed, inflicting immense collateral damage in the process. Even if we manage to avoid a repeat of the Great Depression, the world economy will take years to recover from this crisis.
All of which explains why we should be disturbed by an article in Sunday’s Times reporting that pay at investment banks, after dipping last year, is soaring again — right back up to 2007 levels.
Why is this disturbing? Let me count the ways.
George Clooney: 'I considered politics'
Bono interviewed George Clooney for the Time 100/AC 360° Special. Clooney says he considered entering politics. Watch more on the Time 100/AC360 special airing this Friday, May 1, at 11:00 p.m. ET.
Read Producer Chuck Hadad's behind-the-scenes account of the interview.
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