UMass students can earn academic credit for building LGBTQA-themed electronic light displays - The College Fix:
"Take some electrical engineering and throw in a little LGBTQA and what have you got? “Queer Lights.”
No, seriously.
It’s the newest class at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Students can earn academic credit for literally “building LGBTQA-themed electronic light displays.”
The 1-credit course, first reported on by The Liberty Standard, was announced Jan. 27 via the “Engineering E-News Letter.”
“‘Queer Lights’ will cast light on lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer, and asexual (LGBTQA) topics while the students in the class literally cast light–building LGBTQA-themed electronic light displays,” an online description of the course states.
“An engineering professor will teach the students how to create and program the displays, and the director of the Stonewall Center will lead the students in discussions about LGBTQA issues in the news and in their own lives.”
“Some of the topics to be covered include the intersections of racial and LGBTQA identities, the campus climate for LGBTQA students, and the legal and political rights of LGBTQA people today.”"
Transparency International released its 2015 Corruption Perceptions Index, ranking the world’s countries by levels of corruption, in January 2016. Why a “perceptions” index? According to the institute, it’s the best way:
“Corruption generally comprises illegal activities, which are deliberately hidden and only come to light through scandals, investigations or prosecutions. There is no meaningful way to assess absolute levels of corruption in countries or territories on the basis of hard empirical data. Possible attempts to do so, such as by comparing bribes reported, the number of prosecutions brought or studying court cases directly linked to corruption, cannot be taken as definitive indicators of corruption levels. Instead, they show how effective prosecutors, the courts or the media are in investigating and exposing corruption. Capturing perceptions of corruption of those in a position to offer assessments of public sector corruption is the most reliable method of comparing relative corruption levels across countries.”
With that in mind, here’s the map of the perception of corruption globally:
The top ten, least-corrupt countries are the following:
- Denmark
- Finland
- Sweden
- New Zealand
- Netherlands
- Norway
- Switzerland
- Singapore
- Canada
- Germany, Luxembourg, United Kingdom (3-way tie)
Since you’re probably curious, the United States ranks sixteenth in the world for the lowest perceived levels of corruption.