Black Brilliance 3

Annie Easley

Annie Easley
Cover of Science and Engineering Newsletterfeaturing Easley at the Lewis Research Center
Born	April 23, 1933 Birmingham, Alabama
Died	June 25, 2011 (aged 78) Cleveland, Ohio
Nationality	American
Education	B.S. in Mathematics, 1977
Alma mater	Cleveland State University
Occupation	Computer Engineer
Employer	Lewis Research Center at National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA); National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics
Known for	NACA Work

Annie J. Easley (April 23, 1933 – June 25, 2011) was an African-Americancomputer scientist, mathematician, and rocket scientist.^[1] She worked for the Lewis Research Center of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and its predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). She was a leading member of the team which developed software for the Centaur rocket stage and one of the first African-Americans in her field.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annie_Easley

Black Brilliance 2

Dorothy Vaughan

Dorothy Johnson Vaughan (1910–2008) was an African American mathematician who worked at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), the predecessor agency to NASA. Prior to arriving at NACA's Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory in 1943, Vaughan worked as a math teacher at R.R. Moton High School in Farmville, VA.^[1]

In 1949, Vaughan became the head of the West Area Computers, a work group composed entirely of African-American female mathematicians.^[2] Mathematician Katherine Johnson was assigned to Vaughan's group before being transferred to Langley's Flight Research Division.

Vaughan continued at Langley after NACA became NASA, specializing for the rest of her career in electronic computing and FORTRAN programming. She worked in the Langley Research Center's Analysis and Computation Division, and also participated in Scout Project (Solid Controlled Orbital Utility Test system) tests at Wallops Flight Facility.^[3]

She retired from NASA in 1971, and died on November 10, 2008.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Vaughan

Black Brilliance

Taraji P. Henson (Cookie from Empire) will portray Ms. Johnson in a film entitled "Hidden Figures."

Katherine Johnson

Katherine Johnson
Born	August 26, 1918 (age 97) White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, West Virginia, U.S.
Residence	Hampton, Virginia
Nationality	American
Fields	Mathematics, computer science
Institutions	NACA, NASA
Alma mater	West Virginia State University West Virginia University
Known for	contributions to America's aeronautics and space advances
Notable awards	2015 Presidential Medal of Freedom

Katherine G. Johnson (born August 26, 1918) is an American physicist, space scientist, and mathematician who contributed to America's aeronautics and space programs with the early application of digital electronic computers at NASA. Known for accuracy in computerized celestial navigation, she calculated the trajectory for Project Mercury and the 1969 Apollo 11 flight to the Moon.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katherine_Johnson

http://variety.com/2016/film/news/taraji-p-henson-hidden-figures-katherine-johnson-1201702679/

Damning Truths

An excerpt from The Nation - "Why Hilary Doesn't Deserve the Black Vote"

Bill Clinton presided over the largest increase in federal and state prison inmates of any president in American history. Clinton did not declare the War on Crime or the War on Drugs—those wars were declared before Reagan was elected and long before crack hit the streets—but he escalated it beyond what many conservatives had imagined possible. He supported the 100-to-1 sentencing disparity for crack versus powder cocaine, which produced staggering racial injustice in sentencing and boosted funding for drug-law enforcement.

Clinton championed the idea of a federal “three strikes” law in his 1994 State of the Union address and, months later, signed a $30 billion crime bill that created dozens of new federal capital crimes, mandated life sentences for some three-time offenders, and authorized more than $16 billion for state prison grants and the expansion of police forces. The legislation was hailed by mainstream-media outlets as a victory for the Democrats, who “were able to wrest the crime issue from the Republicans and make it their own.”

When Clinton left office in 2001, the United States had the highest rate of incarceration in the world. Human Rights Watch reported that in seven states, African Americans constituted 80 to 90 percent of all drug offenders sent to prison, even though they were no more likely than whites to use or sell illegal drugs. Prison admissions for drug offenses reached a level in 2000 for African Americans more than 26 times the level in 1983. All of the presidents since 1980 have contributed to mass incarceration, but as Equal Justice Initiative founder Bryan Stevenson recently observed, “President Clinton’s tenure was the worst.”

http://www.thenation.com/article/hillary-clinton-does-not-deserve-black-peoples-votes/

Having to Define Blackness

I’m a black actor. Here’s how inequality works when you’re not famous.
by Bear Bellinger on February 12, 2016

I walk into the theater; the director, his assistant, and an intern are seated behind a table. The music director is set up on my left to accompany me on piano. I say a pleasant hello, gather myself, check to make sure the music director knows my tempo, and began to sing:

"I'm a colored spade, a Negro, a black nigger..."

I'm auditioning for Hair, the groundbreaking rock musical on hippie culture, race, and sexuality during the late '60s. I'm asked to prepare Hud's song "Colored Spade," which is basically a list of every imaginable slur for black people. As I finish up, content with the line I had just walked between anger and pain, I look up at the four white faces staring back at me. The director stands up, smiling broadly, walks over to me, and says:

"Great, great job, Bear. I'd like for you to do it again. This time I want you to imagine if you were a black man and someone was saying all of these things to you."

I look down at my skin to reaffirm what I already know: Yup, I am still a black man. Here I am, yet again, the only black man in a sea of white faces, being asked by people with no reference point to have a "blacker" reaction, to respond more "authentically." I sang the song again. I won the role.

Another day in the life of a blacktor.

I have been a working actor in the Chicagoland area for seven years now. That includes time auditioning for, and performing in, anything from musicals to plays to variety shows to TV to movies. The one common denominator, in all this time, is that I am a black man constantly having to conform my blackness to what white people, mainly men, on the other side of the table believe to be true. These men have no ill intent in their ideas about or depictions of blackness; they also have no lived experience. And mine, as the only actual black person in the room, is almost never valued or understood.

http://www.vox.com/2016/2/12/10958356/working-black-actor

Beautiful & Smart - Marley Dias Talks #1000BlackGirlBooks

Pennies Are Useless

Who Marries Who?

Fascinating chart.

http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2016-who-marries-whom/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Vox%20Sentences%202/12/16&utm_term=Vox%20Newsletter%20All

Quote

"He’s better than anybody realized," says David Axelrod, who served as Obama's chief strategist in 2008. "There is a rumpled authenticity to Bernie Sanders that really resonates, particularly with young people who have finely tuned bullshit meters."

http://www.vox.com/2016/2/11/10967374/obama-staffers-bernie-sanders

PREACH - Teaching the Teacher

Best Yearbook Prank

From The Huffington Post -

When it comes to microaggressions, Asian-Americans have heard it all. "How come you guys all look the same?" "Where are you really from?" And the classic, "Are you all related?"

Four Vietnamese high school students who've probably heard that last one too many times served a rejoinder in a hilarious, coordinated yearbook stunt.

The students, all of whom have the common Vietnamese surname "Nguyen," added text below their photos (where an inspirational quote usually goes) that add up to the sentence: WE ARE NOT RELATED.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/four-vietnamese-students-yearbook-prank_us_56b4d556e4b04f9b57d956d9

The Present

The Present from Jacob Frey on Vimeo.

Math Whiz Kids

From The Atlantic - 

The Math Revolution

The number of American teens who excel at advanced math has surged. Why?

On a sultry evening last July, a tall, soft-spoken 17-year-old named David Stoner and nearly 600 other math whizzes from all over the world sat huddled in small groups around wicker bistro tables, talking in low voices and obsessively refreshing the browsers on their laptops. The air in the cavernous lobby of the Lotus Hotel Pang Suan Kaew in Chiang Mai, Thailand, was humid, recalls Stoner, whose light South Carolina accent warms his carefully chosen words. The tension in the room made it seem especially heavy, like the atmosphere at a high-stakes poker tournament.

Stoner and five teammates were representing the United States in the 56th International Mathematical Olympiad. They figured they’d done pretty well over the two days of competition. God knows, they’d trained hard. Stoner, like his teammates, had endured a grueling regime for more than a year—practicing tricky problems over breakfast before school and taking on more problems late into the evening after he completed the homework for his college-level math classes. Sometimes, he sketched out proofs on the large dry-erase board his dad had installed in his bedroom. Most nights, he put himself to sleep reading books like New Problems in Euclidean Geometry and An Introduction to Diophantine Equations.

Still, it was hard to know how his team had stacked up against those from the perennial powers China, Russia, and South Korea. “I mean, the gold? Did we do well enough to get the gold?” he said. “At that moment, it was hard to say.” Suddenly, there was a shout from a team across the lobby, then a collective intake of breath as the Olympians surged closer to their laptops. As Stoner tried to absorb what he saw on his own computer screen, the noise level in the lobby grew from a buzz to a cheer. Then one of his team members gave a whoop that ended in the chant “U.S.A.! U.S.A.!,” and the smattering of applause from the other Olympians grew more robust, and finally thunderous. Beaming, one of Stoner’s teammates pulled a small American flag out of his backpack and began waving it. Stoner was grinning. For the first time in 21 years, the United States team had won first place. Speaking last fall from his dorm at Harvard, where he is now a freshman, Stoner recalled his team’s triumph with quiet satisfaction. “It was a really great moment. Really great. Especially if you love math.”

It also wasn’t an aberration. You wouldn’t see it in most classrooms, you wouldn’t know it by looking at slumping national test-score averages, but a cadre of American teenagers are reaching world-class heights in math—more of them, more regularly, than ever before. The phenomenon extends well beyond the handful of hopefuls for the Math Olympiad. The students are being produced by a new pedagogical ecosystem—almost entirely extracurricular—that has developed online and in the country’s rich coastal cities and tech meccas. In these places, accelerated students are learning more and learning faster than they were 10 years ago—tackling more-complex material than many people in the advanced-math community had thought possible. “The bench of American teens who can do world-class math,” says Po-Shen Loh, the head coach of the U.S. team, “is significantly wider and stronger than it used to be.”

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/03/the-math-revolution/426855/?utm_source=atl-daily-newsletter

Touching Short Film

http://video.newyorker.com/watch/we-can-t-live-without-cosmos

When your dad is a twin...

Cat Receives a Promotion

Nailed It!

Here's a personality test based on my favorite Girl Scout Cookie

8. Caramel deLites

Heeral Chhibber for LittleThings

Also known as Samoas, these are one of the most beloved Scout cookies on record!

Introduced in the mid-’70s, these round caramel-covered cookies are known for their unique donut shape, as well as their signature fudge stripes and coating of toasted coconut.

If this is your favorite cookie, you may be an adventurous type who doesn’t know the meaning of the phrase “less is more.”

Why settle for one good thing when you could have a snack covered in caramel, coconut, and chocolate? You’re warm and charismatic with a big personality.

http://www.littlethings.com/girl-scout-cookie-guide/?utm_source=huffingtonpost.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=pubexchange

Fascinating!

From Atlas Obscura - 

WHAT NATIONALITY IS A BABY BORN MID-FLIGHT?

What is the nationality of a baby born on a plane? (Photo: mliu92/Flickr CC BY-SA 2.0)

Imagine that you are a pregnant lady. (Perhaps you actually are, but if you are not, then do your best to imagine.) You are in your third trimester, and you get on a plane because you weren't paying attention during your last doctor's visit, where she advised you against traveling. Somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean, your water breaks.

In some miracle there is a gynecologist on board, a few aisles down from you, and therefore your labor goes as smoothly as it could possibly go in those circumstances. And then, while you are still over the Atlantic Ocean, your baby is born. You arrive at United States customs, clutching your newborn baby, who obviously does not have a passport. Where do you say your baby is from?

The answer is quite complicated, and contested. Countries have different laws governing the citizenship of babies born on their soil–either jus soli or jus sanguinis; Latin for right of the soil versus right of blood, respectively. Most countries follow jus sanguinis, which dictates that the baby can only assume citizenship via one or both parents. However, the U.S. and some of its neighbors observe the more generous jus soli, which grants automatic citizenship to babies born on their soil. 

Babies born in-flight are sometimes considered citizens of the country where the airline is registered, but this is not the case for US aircraft. (Photo: Claude Covo-Farchi/Wikipedia Commons CC BY-SA 2.0)

Things get a little shadier on ships and aircraft. Is an airplane considered to be the soil of the country which owns the airline? According to the United Nations, a baby born on a flight is a citizen of the country where the airline is registered. However, this is not always the case. Weirdly enough, despite its general adherence to jus soli, the United States will not recognize a baby birthed on a U.S. vessel unless it is docked at a U.S. port or flying within the country's airspace.

There are plenty of stories about real life "sky babies." There was the woman who boarded a plane in May 2015 not knowing she was pregnant, and left the flight having delivered a surprise child. There was a Taiwanese woman in October 2015 who gave birth on her flight to the United States, and was accused of attempting "birth tourism"—in which pregnant women travel to countries in the hopes of gaining citizenship via jus soli. 

There is at least one perk to being a citizen of the sky, which could make up for any identity crises resulting from being born in the air: airlines have been known to grant free air travel to babies born on their planes. 

http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/what-nationality-is-a-baby-born-midflight?utm_source=Atlas+Obscura&utm_campaign=b3c490021d-Newsletter_2_9_20162_8_2016&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_62ba9246c0-b3c490021d-59905913&ct=t(Newsletter_2_9_20162_8_2016)&mc_cid=b3c490021d&mc_eid=866176a63f

Kudos to Target

One of the things I miss the most . . . shopping at Target.

They introduced a new cart that is lauded far and wide.

It's called Caroline's Cart and it's designed for children and adults with disabilities.

AWESOME!!!

Honey Badger Houdini - I LOVE THIS GUY!

H/T - Forrest

Helping to Explain It

From The Root - 

Father Pens Book to Explain Protest to Kids in the Time of Black Lives Matter

When Kenneth Braswell, the founder of Fathers Incorporated, realized that he could not explain protesting to his then-6-year-old son in the face of the Baltimore protests for Freddie Gray, he came up with a solution that would also help other parents of young children facilitate the conversation.

Kenneth Braswell reading Daddy, There’s a Noise Outside  

http://www.theroot.com/articles/culture/2016/02/father_pens_book_to_explain_protest_to_kids_in_the_time_of_black_lives_matter.html

The NFL's Magic Yellow Line

Sisters Sharing Secrets

Theia - 8 months, Zadie - 5 years old

Kindle Fire is on Sale!

Entry level one is $39!

Somebody Thought This Was Funny?

It's wrong on so many levels.

Let's start:  4 white guys rob a bank and are pursued by cops.

Let's change the passengers to black guys:  4 guys pursued by cops, headed to the morgue.

If I ever considered a Prius, it's off my list now.

Tasteless garbage.

Capital Hill Clocks

Here's a fascinating article from Atlas Obscura -

Library of Congress rotunda clock (Photo: Library of Congress)

In Washington, D.C., on Capitol Hill, there are clocks everywhere. Every Congressional office suite, according to the Architect of the Capitol, has at least three clocks in it. There are around 4,000 clocks on the House side of the Hill, and just slightly less on the Senate side. There are fancy, old clocks, that need to be regularly wound; there are newer, decorative clocks that adorn the mantlepieces of legislators’ personal offices; and there are practical wall clocks, with wide white faces, that look a lot likethe clocks in elementary school hallways and classrooms.

These thousands of clocks, though, don’t just tell the time. They’re part of system more than a century old that sends signals, in a code of sounds and lights, to members of the House and Senate.

Look along the top of a Congressional wall clock, and you’ll see seven small light bulbs. Even the fancier clocks in members’ offices have them. From time to time, these will light up in particular sequences, accompanied by loud, long buzzes or series of shorter buzzes. These patterns all have meanings: they’re meant to communicate to people working on the Hill when electronic votes are called, when one chamber or the other is adjourned or in recess, and when members need to think about actually being in the Senate or House chamber.

http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/congressional-clocks-have-a-secret-code?utm_source=Atlas+Obscura&utm_campaign=9c0ea9d784-Newsletter_2_8_20162_5_2016&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_62ba9246c0-9c0ea9d784-59905913&ct=t(Newsletter_2_8_20162_5_2016)&mc_cid=9c0ea9d784&mc_eid=866176a63f

My Hero!

Betty White, dabbing away at 94 years old!

10 Places You're Not Allowed to See on Google Maps

From Stumbleupon - 

The Royal Palace of Amsterdam in the Netherlands -- called Koninklijk Paleis Amsterdam -- joins a long list of places blurred on Google Maps related to the Dutch royal family, including the Royal Stables and another residence called Huis ten Bosch.

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/22zsnx/:12lP!8-.B:pAfVjoy7/mashable.com/2012/03/20/google-maps-censored

Please note this link won't open using Safari.

The Story of the Little Tree Car Air Fresheners: So Fresh and So Clean

Great Concept!

I couldn't figure out how to embed this video, but click on the link below to see entrepreneurship at its finest.

Video length = less than 2 minutes

http://money.cnn.com/video/technology/2015/06/23/upstart-30-makers-row-shirt-garment-factory.cnnmoney/index.html

If You're Interested

I've had several people ask how Forrest & I traveled to Cuba via Mexico.  

I expect travel to and fro Cuba to open up soon, but in the mean time, if you're interest, here's what we did below.

~~~~~~~~~~

Steps we took to get to Havana from Houston:

1) Booked flight from Houston to Cancun; (make sure to have US dollars; they are accepted in Mexico & Cuba; US credit cards are NOT accepted in Cuba)

2) Got Mexican Pesos from ATM & purchased tickets to Havana at the counter, along with a visa; I've attached the card of the guy who walked us thru the process

3) Two flights/day from Cancun to Havana - one in the morning & the other in the afternoon

4)  If you had to stay in Cancun, there is a hotel at the airport

5)  Flight from Cancun to Havana is about an hour

6)  Passport Control took a while when we landed

7)  We were told there were no hotel rooms available, but it was clear they were trying to get folks to rent rooms (Cuba's version of AirBnB)

8) First hotel we stayed in was a dump, but it was a block away from a great one, so we walked our bags over and checked in to that one the next day; The name of it is the HOTEL HABANA LIBRA. It's surprisingly not rated that high, but it was a really nice place.  Great location!  http://www.hotelhabanalibre.com/en/

9)  We hired a cab driver to give us a tour, but there were tour buses (Hop on Hop off available, too)

10)  Interestingly, there were no clocks around and we didn't realize Cuba is on East Coast time.  Thankfully, we were plenty early for our return flight or we would have been up a creek

Here's hoping you'll consider taking the plunge before Americans show up in droves and there's a Starbucks on every corner.  

Happy travels!

Not a Fan, But . . .

I appreciate the messages Beyonce is sending in song/video.



http://www.theroot.com/articles/culture/2016/02/beyonce_drops_formation_for_the_people_the_black_people.html?wpisrc=newsletter_jcr:content%26

Global Citizen

From The Huffington Post - 

I didn't growing up knowing I was Black or having to deal with the idea of Blackness because I was born and raised in Nigeria. In a country where "Black" is the default, it doesn't need to be defined or spoken about or made a topic of discussion. I knew I was Yoruba and Nigerian for the first 9 years of my life. I did not become conscious of my color and all that came with it until I moved to the United States with my family. 

It was my first time feeling that being born Black could be a liability. It was my awakening to doubt. It was my introduction to race as an influence. Through my school years, I learned more about slavery, anti-Black racism and oppression in the US, and my Blackness could no longer be an afterthought. I started wearing it proudly and as my consciousness deepened, so did my love for Black folks.

Through the struggles, I see so much beauty, and the grace of melanin cannot be overstated. Plus, the work it does to keep us from cracking deserves all the praise. We stay looking 25 at 50 years old, thanks to the gods of moisturizer, shea butter and noir blessings! But most importantly, I am heartened by the connection of Black people everywhere. 

Being a global citizen and lover of travel has recently taken me to over 20 countries so far, and one thing that always moves me is how I see home all around me. 

You can go to Brazil and find natives speaking a language close to Yoruba. You can be in Ghana and see someone who looks like someone you know in Chicago. My Trinidadian friends can suck their teeth in a way that makes me think of my Mom doing the same. Some of my Black American friends look like my cousins, betrayed by those high cheekbones that won't quit. I can go to a club in Nigeria and listen to Hip Hop and R&B. The way we move, the foods we eat, and our power connects us, and I carry that with me and it finds me wherever I go.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/luvvie-ajayi/global-blackness-and-diasporan-dopeness_b_9180678.html

Brr! It's Cold!

That's not something you hear often coming from these neck of the woods, but it's true.  The temperature had been hovering just above 40 for the past week.

I know.

I know.

That may seem mild to many of you, but it's down right frigid here.

This little town sits on the water, with very few structures to block the wind coming off the sea.  Add a strong gust on most days, and you have all for an excuse to bundle up.

I spent the day in a floor length sweater, covered with two quilts (thanks Deb!) and still I was cold.

Of course, there is no heat in the buildings.

I had a small space heater that was faulty, so I ditched it.  I started to buy another one, but really, you only it for a about a week, so I decided to tough it out.

Side note - This town, like most others, has several names, all official.  The sign on the main road that leads to the exit names it "Baya Sila."  I was told that "baya" refers to water, so folks passing buy will know that this town sits next to the water.  Good information for those traveling through the desert.

I'm a Monkey!

According to the Chinese Calendar, 2016 is the year of the monkey.

Click on the link to find your animal.

http://www.travelchinaguide.com/intro/social_customs/zodiac/

Le Petit Chef

H/T Forrest

“Super Bowl Babies Choir” feat. Seal | Music Video

Living With AIDS

The Daily Show - The Big Game's Quarterback Matchup

Coming Soon

Lego will soon release a figure that uses a wheelchair.

http://www.upworthy.com/legos-new-minifigure-may-be-tiny-but-its-impact-will-be-huge?c=upw1

Kids Leading the Way

The Heavy Price of Success

Football’s Polynesian moment: Samoa’s athletic outliers are paying a steep price for their commitment to the game 

The things that make them so good at football also make them most vulnerable--as embodied by the great Junior Seau

~~~~~~~~~~

An Excerpt From Salon - 

Football has reached a crossroads, its future imperiled by the very physicality driving its popularity. The number of boys playing Pop Warner and high school ball plunged over the last decade as the neurological, physical and fiscal costs of the game became more troubling. That’s on top of the already severe decline in the game’s scholastic ranks in the Rust Belt—football’s original heartland—during the 1980s and ‘90s.

But one group has bucked that trend—Polynesians, especially Samoans in American Samoa, Hawaii, California and Utah, as well as in pockets of Texas and the Pacific Northwest. American Samoa is the only place outside the United States where football has taken hold at the grass roots, the only one that sends its native sons to the NFL. In just a few decades, the sons of Samoa and Tonga, mostly young men who came of age in the States, have quietly become the most disproportionately over-represented demographic in college and professional football.  

Football has become the story Samoans tell about themselves to the world. But the narrative has grown bittersweet. While creating a stunning micro-culture of sporting excellence, these athletic outliers are paying a steep price for their commitment to the game. Sadly, that which makes them so good at football—their extraordinary internalization of discipline and warrior self-image that drives them to play with no fefe (no fear)—also makes them especially vulnerable. Nobody lived and died that irony more than Junior Seau, who became the first Samoan in the Pro Football Hall of Fame after a 20-season NFL career in which, inexplicably, he was never diagnosed with a concussion. Not long after retiring, Seau shot himself in the chest, unable to live with the demons of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, the tragic downside of playing with no fefe.

http://www.salon.com/2016/02/05/footballs_polynesian_moment_samoas_athletic_outliers_are_paying_a_steep_price_for_their_commitment_to_the_game/?source=newsletter

The President Remembers Maurice White

From Entertainment Weekly - 

President Barack Obama eulogized Maurice White on Friday, the day after news broke that the Earth, Wind & Fire founder had died at age 74.

“Michelle and I were saddened to hear of the passing of Maurice White,” Obama wrote of the seven-time Grammy winner in a message posted to social media. “With his brothers and bandmates of Earth, Wind and Fire, Maurice fused jazz, soul, funk and R&B into a quintessentially American sound that captured millions of fans around the world. Their playlist is timeless, the one that still brings us together at birthdays and barbecues, weddings and family reunions.”

The president continued, “Only Maurice could make such sophisticated songs so catchy. Only he could inspire generations of such diverse artists. And only he could get everyone — old and young, black and white — to let the groove move them on the dance floor. Our thoughts and prayers are with Maurice’s family, friends and bandmates. He is the shining star in heaven tonight.”


White died in his sleep Wednesday at his home in Los Angeles after a long battle with Parkinson’s disease. Earth, Wind & Fire are set to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Grammys later this month.

~~~~~~~~~~

Side note - As a young woman coming of age in the 70's, Earth, Wind & Fire's music served as the anthem for my life. As I enter my sixth decade, it continues to be. Their greatest hits album is my go-to playlist when I need to get something done.  RIP Maurice. 

Forgotten Super Bowl Gems

Too Close For Comfort

MILES AHEAD (2016) - Official HD Trailer

MUST SEE: Against the Tide - SHOWTIME Sports Documentary Film - Trailer

The Word is Out

Everybody Hates Ted . . . Cruz

This a quick read.

The more you know, the less you like/trust or want to have anything to do with him.

https://newrepublic.com/article/128808/everybody-hates-ted?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Vox%20Sentences%202/4/16&utm_term=Vox%20Newsletter%20All

Another Damn Shame!

This is an excerpt from an interview with Bill Marler, a lawyer specializing in food-borne illness.

The story he tells below hits home because my nephew was one of the very young e coli victims, getting seriously ill after drinking Odwalla juice.

~~~~~~~~~~

You keep telling me that you have all these crazy stories—all these things I wouldn’t believe. Can you share one of them?

I actually have the perfect one, which I told at a recent conference, and really floored people.

Do you know the juice Odwalla? Well, the juice is made by a company in California, which has made all sorts of other juices, many of which have been unpasteurized, because it’s more natural. Anyway, they were kind of like Chipotle, in the sense that they had this aura of good and earthy and healthful. And they were growing very quickly. And they had an outbreak. It killed a kid in Colorado, and sickened dozens of others very seriously, and the company was very nearly brought to its knees. [The outbreak, which was linked to apple juice produced by Odwalla, happened twenty years ago].

If you look at how they handled the PR stuff, most PR people would say well, they handled it great. They took responsibility, they were upfront and honest about it, etc etc. What’s interesting though is that behind the scenes, on the legal side of the equation, I had gotten a phone call, which by itself isn’t uncommon. In these high profile cases, people tend to call me—former employees, former government officials, family members of people who have fallen ill, or unknown people giving me tips. But this one was different. It was a Saturday—I remember it well—and someone left me a voicemail telling me to make sure I get the U.S. Army documents regarding Odwalla. I was like 'what the heck, what the heck are they talking about?' So I decided to follow up on it, and reached out to the Army and got something like 100 pages of documents. Well, it turned out that the Army had been solicited to put Odwalla juice on Army PX’s, which sell goods, and, because of that, the Army had gone to do an inspection of a plant, looked around and wrote out a report. And heres what’s nuts: it had concluded that Odwalla’s juice was not fit for human consumption.

Wow.

It’s crazy, right? The Army had decided that Odwalla’s juice wasn’t fit for human consumption, and Odwalla knew this, and yet kept selling it anyway. When I got that document, it was pretty incredible. But then after the outbreak, we got to look at Odwalla’s documents, which included emails, and there were discussions amongst people at the company, months before the outbreak, about whether they should do end product testing—which is finished product testing—to see whether they had pathogens in their product, and the decision was made to not test, because if they tested there would be a body of data. One of my favorite emails said something like “once you create a body of data, it’s subpoenable.”

So, basically, they decided to protect themselves instead of their consumers?

Yes, essentially. Look, there are a lot of sad stories in my line of work. I’ve been in ICUs, where parents have had to pull the plug on their child. Someone commented on my article about the six things I don’t eat, saying that I must be some kind of freak, but when you see a child die from eating an undercooked hamburger, it does change your view of hamburgers. It just does. I am a lawyer, but I’m also a human.

That Odwalla story is one of the crazier stories I can think of, but there are many others, and there would be many fewer if the way we handled food safety here made more sense.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/02/02/why-a-top-food-safety-expert-doesnt-eat-oysters-and-always-orders-meat-well-done/?wpisrc=nl_rainbow