He Was Just Hungry

From The Root -

DC Police Looking for Man Who Broke Into Five Guys Restaurant and Cooked Meal

The unidentified suspect was caught on camera making himself food while the restaurant was closed between 3:10 a.m. and 5:05 a.m. March 18.

http://www.theroot.com/articles/news/2016/04/d_c_police_looking_for_man_who_broke_into_five_guys_and_cooks_meal.html?wpisrc=newsletter_jcr:content%26

Forget the Nerd

#YesImARocketScientist: Graduating Aerospace Engineer Tiffany Davis Breaks the Internet

http://www.theroot.com/blogs/the_grapevine/2016/04/_yesimarocketscientist_aerospace_engineer_tiffany_davis_breaks_the_internet.html?wpisrc=newsletter_jcr:content%26

Adele - Hello (Mormon Missionary Parody)

Sugar Divides the Races

An excerpt from The Charlotte Observer -

Why does sugar in cornbread divide races in the South?

If you stop by La’Wan’s Soul Food Restaurant in south Charlotte for collards and macaroni & cheese, there’s something important on your plate.

It’s a small cornbread muffin. Soft and tender, almost cake-like, with a bit of chewiness to the crust and a flavor that’s just a little sweet.

Now drive over to Lupie’s Cafe on Monroe Road and you’ll get a big square of cornbread, 3 inches across, white with a yellow tinge. Firm, almost coarse, with a crisp top.

Sweet? Not a bit. It’s defiantly not sweet.

La’Wan’s corn muffin and Lupie’s cornbread are humble things. But they represent something deeper: The dividing line between black Southerners and white ones. As examples of one of the defining staples of Southern food, they also are a marker of food history that speaks volumes about origins and identity, about family and what we hold dear.

It also raises a question: So many Southern food traditions are shared by both races. Most Southerners, black and white, revere fried chicken, pursue pork barbecue and exalt their grandmothers’ garden vegetables. So why is there such a fundamental difference between two styles of one basic bread?

Culinary historians have debated this one for years: Did the descendants of slave cooks who were exposed to British baking styles come to value cornbread that was lighter and softer? Did the children of farm-based white Southerners get used to unsweetened cornbread that tasted more emphatically like corn? Whatever caused it, the line is drawn.


Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/living/food-drink/article68763427.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/living/food-drink/article68763427.html#storylink=cpy

Apple TV – Father Time

This Dog Can Teach Kids About Going to Bed Without Complaining

How to Write Descriptively

5 Steps to Make Your Own Political Art

This Shirt Cost $460!

An excerpt from The New York Times - 

Luka Sabbat, the 18-Year-Old Fashion Influencer

Advertisers envy his social media skills. Tom Ford provided him with a

prom suit. “He’s the cool kid at the party we all want to be,” an admirer says.

Who is Luka? The question, which also happens to be his Twitter handle (@whoisluka), is unlikely to go unanswered for long. Among his roughly 184,000 Instagram and 64,000 Twitter followers, the 18-year-old New Yorker has already established himself as the coolest teenager on the Internet.

That is what Complex magazine termed him last year soon after he appeared out of nowhere — or, anyway, from that singular cohort of New Yorkers who line up on any given Thursday outside Supreme — to become a social media phenomenon.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/08/fashion/mens-style/luka-sabbat-fashion-influencer.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

Maybe He Needs a Kindle

Is it time to retire the police sketch?

It's not you. Claw machines are rigged.

Love Therapy for Priests

An excerpt from Vox -

I’ve spent 30 years counseling priests who fall in love. Here’s what I learned.

by Paul Midden on April 7, 2016

How priests find themselves falling in love

It is true that some priests "fall in love" the way most of us think about that: They meet someone to whom they are drawn; they get to know them; they get physical; they get sexual.

In the normal (i.e., noncelibate) world, this is usually a happy series of events. In the celibate world, it may be happy but constrained — by the watchful eyes of parishioners and superiors, by public expectation, by personal feelings of guilt, by the lack of a clear path toward commitment.

If this experience leads to a decision to leave the priesthood and marry, as it often does, there is no psychological problem. It is simply a life choice: a difficult one, to be sure, but not unlike decisions incumbent upon all of us.

More common is the case of Father D., a successful priest and administrator who finally revealed ongoing involvements with two women that lasted for more than a decade. The push to disclose came when he told Woman No. 1 about Woman No. 2. He was shocked at her (understandably) angry reaction.

That shock enabled him to tell the story of how he got involved, what was going on with him at the time, and how he allowed it to persist even as his career was blossoming and exposure became more threatening. This allowed Father D. to develop a more realistic approach to whatever intimacy needs he had while remaining within the bounds of a celibate priesthood if he so chose.

This is more typical of what is seen in treatment centers: men who yield to their passions but are unable or unwilling to leave the priesthood they love and on which they depend. Up to the moment it becomes known, it is a balancing act between the priesthood and a relationship, or series of relationships, which they come to believe they cannot live without. Is there love involved? Sometimes. But mostly it's a matter of juggling two incompatible things.

http://www.vox.com/2016/4/7/11325336/priests-love-therapy

Confessions of an Airport Thief

http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/07/us/airport-theft-investigation/index.html

Not Just Because I'm One

From Lifehack -

10 Reasons to Respect Our Elders

They have lived longer than us

Well this we know, obviously. But when we truly stop to think about it and walk just a little way in their shoes, it commands respect. Life is hard! Have patience and consideration for the time they have spent on this earth.

They might know more than you think

If you haven’t already found things to talk to your grandparents, or your neighbour about, ask them questions. Respect the worlds they lived through, the parts of history they survived. They have a lifetime of knowledge.

They have experienced different things than us

The world was a different place ‘back in the day’. Evolution is happening fast, and we all know that different kinds of experience means different kinds of wisdom. Compare your differences, consult them, consider them. You might learn something you never could have learned from your own world.

They see the world in a different way

Through the experiences of their own lives and through the time they have spent on this earth, they will see the world from their own perspective. They might assign themselves differently to the way they walk and talk and dress. Take note. It might just broaden your horizons.

They have walked a mile in your shoes

The advantage anybody older than yourself has, is that they have lived at the age that you have before. Although every situation is different, they do know what it is like to be where you are, or at least, at the age you are at. Unfortunately you cannot say the same about them, so have respect and listen to what they have to say.

They are more travel weary

Who knows what countries they have trailed though, what mountains they have climbed to get where they are! They might be tired – offer them a seat!

They have experience we can only dream of

The world is a different place now. The world they lived in will also never exist again as it once did. We will never know what it was like then, before things changed and became now. We can only dream of what it was like to dance in the disco era, or experience war. They lived it. Show respect for the history they have survived.

They will have stories that can benefit us

Everybody has a story to tell. Everyone. These are the stories of our lives, the tales of us. Don’t just roll your eyes when your grandma or grandpa tells you ‘again’ about the good old days … relish in a story that might influence your own.

They are still learning from us too

As we are alive, we are all still learning. They might be older, but they are learning too. Have patience.

They are our family

Your grandparents choices in life resulted in YOU! Be grateful. Look after each other. Love is the answer.

“R.E.S.PE.C.T” – Aretha Franklin, mother and grandmother. 

http://www.lifehack.org/382748/10-reasons-respect-our-elders?mtype=daily_newsletter&mid=20160407_customized&uid=789627&email=fayesharpe%40gmail.com&action=click&ref=mail

This Would Drive Me Batty!

From Atlas Obscura - 

The Asymmetrical Charm of Crooked

 Houses

They're like regular buildings, but with a twist.

http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-asymmetrical-charm-of-crooked-houses?utm_source=

Atlas+Obscura&utm_campaign=506aaf645c-Newsletter_4_7_20164_6_2016&utm_medium

=email&utm_term=0_62ba9246c0-506aaf645c-59905913&ct=

t(Newsletter_4_7_20164_6_2016)&mc_cid=

506aaf645c&mc_eid=866176a63f

This is Living!

The distinguished African-American gentleman featured in these two promos below is a friend and former colleague.  He is, hands down, one of the classiest people I've had the pleasure of knowing.

May I introduce to some and reacquaint to others, Mr. Louis Morton.

Black Girls Rock Indeed

From The New York Times - 

Long Island High School Student Sweeps All Eight Ivies

Augusta Uwamanzu-Nna is the daughter of Nigerian immigrants.

As a Long Island high school student checked her phone for the results of her college admissions applications, she was overcome by disbelief.

One by one, each relayed the same news: Harvard. Yes. Dartmouth. Yes. Princeton. Yes. The University of Pennsylvania. Yes. Cornell, Yale, Columbia, Brown: yes, yes, yes, yes.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/07/nyregion/long-island-high-school-students-sweeps-ivy-league-universities.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=Trending&region=CColumn&_r=0

Watch This!

Although I don't necessarily agree that the Chris Darden character was the highlight of this series, it was nonetheless one of the best shows I've ever seen.

If you haven't seen it, do yourself a favor and watch it.  

I know.  

I know.

You're thinking, you watched it live while it was happening twenty plus years ago.  I was too, but what the writers have done is take you behind the scene to see all of the planning and strategizing that went into every decision, and how those decisions played out on live TV on a national stage.

It is a riveting drama.

~~~~~~~~~~

An excerpt from Slate - 

What Made The People v. O.J. Simpson Trailblazing? Sterling K. Brown’s Chris Darden.

And yet now that the final episode of the Ryan Murphy–helmed saga has aired, The People v. O.J. stands to become one of the most fascinating, powerful, and illuminating depictions of the black American experience TV has ever seen. The series re-examines and dramatizes the now-legendary divide between blacks and whites on the subject of O.J.’s innocence, as well as Johnnie Cochran's indictment of the Los Angeles Police Department as a cabal of racists. But more specifically and most importantly, the show serves as a smart, hard-hitting deconstruction of what it’s like to be “the only one,” the sole person of color in a room of mostly privileged white people and under the most extreme of circumstances.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2016/04/06/sterling_k_brown_as_chris_darden_is_the_best_part_of_the_people_v_o_j_video.html?sid=554654ea10defb39638b510d&wpsrc=newsletter_tis

The Panama Papers, Explained With Piggy Banks

http://www.vox.com/2016/4/4/11361780/the-panama-papers-cartoon

15 Binder Clip Life Hacks

H/T Forrest

A Panther Review

An excerpt from Vox - 

Black Panther by Ta-Nehisi Coates and Brian Stelfreeze is brilliant, political, and human

The new Black Panther comic book series, written by Ta-Nehisi Coates and drawn by Brian Stelfreeze, is the most anticipated comic debut of the past decade. And let's get one thing squared away up front: It's excellent.

Coates and Stelfreeze have created a pocket in the ever-expanding Marvel comic universe that's daring and wondrous, but also organic and natural — a place and a comic that feels crucial and important to the company's legacy.

~~~~~~~~~~

Ultimately, Stelfreeze and Coates have woven a story that Black Panther deserves, and one that pushes his and Wakanda's preestablished narrative into brave new territory. This is a story about a man of his people, and unlike many Black Panther stories of the past, it does justice to and makes us care about those he's pledged to serve and protect. It's a brilliant start to one of Marvel's most promising new series, and like the hero whose story it tells, it's poised to defy its already grand expectations.

http://www.vox.com/2016/4/5/11362636/black-panther-tanehisi-coates-review

This Judge Lays Down the Law

It's a Small World

From Atlas Obscura - 

Look at the Tiny Tourists and Bite Size Burglars of Japan's Mini World

Tobu World Square has 102 little landmarks and 140,000 mini people.

By Thomas Beecher 

http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/look-at-the-tiny-tourists-and-bite-size-burglars-of-japans-mini-world?utm_source=Atlas+Obscura&utm_campaign=35e309cbdc-Newsletter_4_5_20164_4_2016&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_62ba9246c0-35e309cbdc-59905913&ct=t(Newsletter_4_5_20164_4_2016)&mc_cid=35e309cbdc&mc_eid=866176a63f

Puppy Love

She Speaks

From Vulture -

If You Think Beyoncé’s ‘Formation’ Is Anti-Police, She Has a Few Truth Bombs for You

By Dee Lockett

In the wake of Beyoncé's conversation-causing "Formation" drop and Black Panther–evoking Super Bowl halftime performance, many a misguided police union threatened to boycott her upcoming Formation World Tour, calling the song, video, and her entire being anti-police. Some even attempted to stage an anti-Beyoncé protest, but we all know how that went. In Beyoncé's new interview with Elle — her first time speaking actual words to the media in years — she's sounding off on the message behind the video that some so clearly seemed to have missed. In an excerpt from the digital issue, she clarifies that she's not anti-police and anyone who thought otherwise after watching the overwhelmingly pro-black "Formation" is letting their racism show:

"I mean, I'm an artist and I think the most powerful art is usually misunderstood. But anyone who perceives my message as anti-police is completely mistaken. I have so much admiration and respect for officers and the families of the officers who sacrifice themselves to keeps us safe. But let's be clear: I am against police brutality and injustice. Those are two separate things. If celebrating my roots and culture during Black History Month made anyone uncomfortable, those feelings were there long before a video and long before me. I'm proud of what we created and I'm proud to be part of a conversation that is pushing things forward in a positive way."

Carry on.

http://www.vulture.com/2016/04/beyonce-formation-isnt-anti-police-duh.html

One of My Favorites

Without a doubt, one of my favorite books is Bridges Are to Cross by Philemon Sturges, Illustrated by Giles Laroche.

It features bridges all over the world.

I used to read to my students during their lunch break, and this is one of the books that was in heavy rotation.

Each time I read it, I challenged them to explore the world and cross each bridge.

Whatcha Reading?

An excerpt from The New York Times Book Review - 

Lin-Manuel Miranda: By the Book

The star and creator of the musical “Hamilton” says “Things Fall Apart” was his favorite book to teach at Hunter College High School: “The kids walk out of the classroom as different people.”

What books are currently on your nightstand?

“The Wayfinders,” by Wade Davis; “Between Riverside and Crazy,” by Stephen Adly Guirgis; and “Unabrow,” by Una LaMarche.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/10/books/review/lin-manuel-miranda-by-the-book.html?hpw&rref=books&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

7 Egg Life Hacks

Shopping for a Mattress?

Check out these sites.

https://casper.com/mattresses

https://lull.com/#slide-5

~~~~~~~~~~

To make sure it fits, check out this floor plan app, that creates a floor plan of your home.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/magicplan/id427424432?mt=8

~~~~~~~~~~

As seen in USA Today

http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2016/04/03/these-apps-can-help-you-survive-moving-mayhem/82222352/

An Epic Mural

LOOKING OUT FROM Mokattam Mountain towards the Cairo, Egypt neighborhood of Manshiyat Naser, you’ll notice something beautiful. There, in the center of the neighborhood often referred to as Garbage City (named so for its trash-lined streets) is a painted mural that spans more than 50 buildings. From any other perspective, the swirl of orange, blue and white is beautiful but illegible. But from this mountainside, a quote from a 3rd century Coptic Bishop clearly reads in arabic calligraphy: “Anyone who wants to see the sunlight clearly needs to wipe his eye first.”

~~~~~~~~~~

To see how this mural came to be, check out the other photos in the slideshow at the link below.


http://www.wired.com/2016/04/epic-mural-spanning-50-buildings-fully-visible-one-spot/?mbid=nl_4416#slide-1

Ta-Nehisi Coates on Writing Marvel's Black Panther

Heartbreaking Sacrifices

An excerpt from The New Yorker -

The Cost of Caring

The lives of the immigrant women who tend to the needs of others.

BY RACHEL AVIV

Emma moved from the Philippines to new york to make a living as a nanny for other people's children - and hasn't seen her own in sixteen years.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/04/11/the-sacrifices-of-an-immigrant-caregiver?mbid=nl_160404_Daily&CNDID=27124505&spMailingID=8745510&spUserID=MTE0MzE0NDEyNDUyS0&spJobID=900396394&spReportId=OTAwMzk2Mzk0S0

Cloud Seeding

Rain in the UAE takes on an almost mystical status.  It is seen as a gift from God.

As I've mentioned before, the typical annual rainfall is four days.  To combat this lack of rain, cloud seeding has become popular and is used often to generate rain systems.

This video is long at 30 minutes, but it reveals some interesting information about the landscape and the cloud seeding phenomenon.

The UAE is one of the first countries of the Arabian Gulf region that have use the cloud seeding technology, which adopted the latest technologies available on a global level, using sophisticated weather radar, to monitor the atmosphere of the country around the clock, In addition to the use of a private airplane supplied by special salt flares, has been manufactured to fit with the nature of the physical and chemical properties of the  clouds that form in the UAE, these clouds have been studied previously in the past years before starting to carry out cloud seeding in the country and have classified these clouds and identify the appropriate, this study found that the best seeding for clouds form in the summer over the eastern and southwestern regions.

Cloud Seeding Applications section is specialized in the following: 

• Planning cloud seeding operations and set its time schedule in accordance to weather and climate studies of different regions in the country in different seasons.
• Take the necessary measures to carry out cloud seeding operations such as the preparation of airplanes with its necessary flares in addition to obtaining clearance for airplanes operations mission.
• Study the outputs of cloud seeding operations and in view of that prepare the necessary reports.
• Follow-up results of cloud seeding projects in other countries through climate change to benefit in enhancing the efficiency of cloud seeding operations in the country.
• Offer meteorological services.
• Secure aeronautical and maritime navigation.
• Study environmental pollution.
• Participate in the field of agriculture.
• Projects planning for urban and city.
• Play a major role in warning of anticipated natural disasters.

http://www.ncms.ae/en/details.html?id=825&lid=1500

Mom Helping Out

I'll bet Ben & Frankie never consider this.

~~~~~~~~~~

From GQ - 

This Is What Happened When My Mom Ran My Tinder for a Month  

BY CLAY SKIPPER

I’m 26, single, and four years removed from anything resembling a serious relationship. So I did what any solo twenty-something guy would do: I installed Tinder on my mom’s phone and asked her to find me a date. As me.

https://www.gq.com/story/my-mom-ran-my-tinder?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Vox%20Sentences%204/1/16&utm_term=Vox%20Newsletter%20All

The Concrete Cowboys of Philadelphia

The Truth About Your Chinese Takeout Box

A Lesson Worth Learning

From The New Yorker -

The History of Aretha, in Ten Videos

BY DAVID REMNICK

http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/the-history-of-aretha-in-ten-videos?mbid=nl_160331_Daily&CNDID=27124505&spMailingID=8733455&spUserID=MTE0MzE0NDEyNDUyS0&spJobID=883536733&spReportId=ODgzNTM2NzMzS0

JACKIE ROBINSON | An Inside Look | PBS

Let's Agree to Disagree

An excerpt from The Atlantic - 

No Spanking, No Time-Out, No Problems

A child psychologist argues punishment is a waste of time when trying to eliminate problem behavior. Try this instead.

Say you have a problem child. If it’s a toddler, maybe he smacks his siblings. Or she refuses to put on her shoes as the clock ticks down to your morning meeting at work. If it’s a teenager, maybe he peppers you with obscenities during your all-too-frequent arguments. The answer is to punish them, right?

Not so, says Alan Kazdin, director of the Yale Parenting Center. Punishment might make you feel better, but it won’t change the kid’s behavior. Instead, he advocates for a radical technique in which parents positively reinforce the behavior they do want to see until the negative behavior eventually goes away.

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/03/no-spanking-no-time-out-no-problems/475440/?utm_source=atl-daily-newsletter

An Embarrassment

From The Huffington Post - 

John Kerry: Republican Primary Race Is ‘An Embarrassment’

“They don’t know where it’s taking the United States of America.”

Secretary of State John Kerry said the Republican presidential primary is “an embarrassment.”

During an appearance on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” Kerry said foreign leaders are “shocked” by the rhetoric used in the race, particularly anti-Muslim statements.

“They don’t know where it’s taking the United States of America,” Kerry said. “It upsets people’s sense of equilibrium about our steadiness, about our reliability, and to some degree I must say to you, some of the questions, the way they’re posed to me, it’s clear to me that what’s happening is an embarrassment to our country.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/john-kerry-republican-primary-embarrassment_us_56f926c0e4b0143a9b489425

This Must be a Joke . . . Right?

From The New Yorker - 

Sample Questions from the Trump University Final Exam

BY JOHN FLOWERS

Below you will find three examples of questions from previous final exams at Trump University. Use these sample questions and the answer key provided to prepare for next week’s big test.

1. Two plus two equals what?

(a) Maybe four.

(b) Could be four. Could be. Lotta people saying it’s five.

(c) I’m not saying it’s five; I’m saying it could be—could be five. You see these establishment hacks, losers, like Mitt Romney? Real crank. They hate me. They take answers like “could be” and say, “Oh, he says two plus two equals five.” I never said that. I never—I said “could be.” Could be six. We don’t know.

(d) All of the above.

(e) None of the above.

(f) D and E.

2. Describe a major theme of “The Old Man and the Sea.”

(a) Well, the theme is big. That I can assure you. Definitely no problem in the theme department. Quite big. Quite.

(b) I know what you want me to say here. You want me to say “yuge.” Well, I’m not. I’m not gonna say that.

(c) Should I say it? . . . No. I’m not gonna say it. But it is.

(d) Now—and I don’t even wanna bring it up—but you got a lot of people. I’m not going to mention names. O.K., Marco. You got Little Marco, who has a tiny theme. No, it’s true. Very small. Probably why he’s outta the race. Seriously, find me one person who says there was a big theme behind that campaign. But anyway, here’s Little Marco, saying I’m the one with the small theme. Can you believe that? Says I’m like Santiago in “The Old Man and the Sea.” Says I sometimes lose my harpoon—you know, prematurely—when I try to reel in the big fish. Totally not true.

(e) In fact, reminds me of the time I tried to get a date with Brooke Shields. Remember Brooke Shields? Gorgeous. Not like my wife. Gorgeous, though. I asked her out. She said no. Career went downhill after that. Left me like Santiago at the end of the book, hauling this gigantic mast home with nothing to show for my troubles.

(f) Seriously, “The Old Man and the Sea”? Please. Santiago’s not a winner. Here’s what you need to read: “The Art of the Deal.” Best book since the Bible. Probably better. People say that. I don’t. People do. Bible was, like, God with sixty ghostwriters. “The Art of the Deal” was just me, dictating to Tony Schwartz. Great guy. Takes dictation better than Moses.

3. H2O is the chemical symbol for what compound?

(a) What the hell’s “huh-twenty”?

(b) No, that’s what it says, “huh-twenty.” Or maybe the “H” is silent. I dunno.

(c) I didn’t say “huh-twenty.” You said “huh-twenty.” You asked me what “huh-twenty” was. You see, this is what the media does. They claim, “You said ‘huh-twenty!’ ” And I’m like, “I said? No you said ‘huh-twenty.’ I just repeated what you said.”

(d) That’s all they do, ask these totally bogus questions, when what they should be asking about is Hillary’s e-mails. That’s what this question should be about. Because what she did—wow. I mean, that’s why she’s hugging Obama every chance she gets.

(e) You know who else hugs Obama? Chris Christie.

(f) But we love Chris, don’t we? We love Chris.

Answer key:

1. I like A. I like B, too. D doesn’t do much for me, but E and F are real winners.

2. I’m gonna have to look into A and B. C is very compelling. Very. I hear good things about D through F. But I don’t wanna say anything yet.

3. I don’t know why people are saying there were three questions. There weren’t. I mean, do you have video? Show me the video where there were three questions. You can’t, because there is no video. People come here. They try to make trouble, saying we started a question three. We did not. And lemme tell ya, we’re gonna fight back. I’m not saying we’ll sue, but we could. Throw a few punches, ya know. Because this test prep is a great test prep. You thought so, too: you signed the agreement saying that you thought this was the greatest test prep of all time and that you wanted to be sued if video surfaced of you saying otherwise.

Congratulations, this was actually the final. You’ve passed. Now give me $35,000.

http://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/sample-questions-from-the-trump-university-final-exam?intcid=mod-most-popular

This Way to 'Conjunction Junction'

This NASA Genius Invented the Super Soaker

This is Fun?

Excerpts from Slate -

Spring Break’s Cleanup Crew

It’s the worst time to be a hotel housekeeper in Miami. The rest of the year’s pretty bad, too.

At the four-star Fontainebleau Miami Beach, the iconic, ocean-facing hotel immortalized in movies such as Goldfinger and Scarface, the service can feel as opulent as the vintage decor. While guests shop or lounge poolside, a small army of housekeepers works its way up and down the angular white and turquoise towers, cleaning about a dozen rooms each over the course of a day.

Among them is Adelle Sile, a Haitian-born housekeeper with cherry-hued corkscrew curls, a compact frame, and deep-set eyes. Around this time of year, thanks to the influx of spring break and Easter break vacationers, the time she has to clean each room during her eight-hour shift gets squeezed as guests stretch their mornings to the final minutes before checkout. When she does finally get in, she sometimes opens the door to find vomit, empty bottles, crack pipes, marijuana buds, and makeshift mattresses of cushions and blankets strewn about—the season’s bacchanalian detritus.

“My back [is] hurting me. Picking up trash, picking up trash, trash everywhere, like this, like this,” Sile said recently, demonstrating the scene in her modest, pleather-upholstered living room in her working-class immigrant neighborhood in North Miami. By the end of the day, she said in a Creole-inflected drawl, “My body dead.” (The Fontainebleau declined to comment for this article.)

~~~~~~~~~~

“Spring break is all about partying, getting drunk, acting wild. … And the housekeepers, they’re the ones that have to do the cleaning up after,” said Kandiz Lamb, an organizer with the hospitality workers union Unite Here, which represents workers at a handful of area hotels and casinos. “It’s all kind of stuff that happens. People getting so drunk [they’re] like almost drowning in pools, falling asleep in hallways, aggressive, getting into fights in the hallways.”

~~~~~~~~~~

And the mess rains down when spring break season hits. “People have shit themselves, they’ve bled a lot. We’ve had to throw away everything from an entire room—pillows, everything—because they’ve shit everywhere,” R. said in a recent interview after work.

http://www.slate.com/articles/business/the_grind/2016/03/spring_break_in_miami_is_the_worst_time_to_be_a_hotel_maid.html?sid=554654ea10defb39638b510d&wpsrc=newsletter_tis

Race Trumps Class

An excerpt from The Washington Post -

Poor white kids are less likely to go to prison than rich black kids

It's a fact that people of color are worse off than white Americans in all kinds of ways, but there is little agreement on why. Some see those disparities as a consequence of racial discrimination in schools, the courts and the workplace, both in the past and present. Others argue that economic inequalities are really the cause, and that public policy should help the poor no matter their race or ethnicity. When it comes to affirmative action in college admissions, for example, many say that children from poor, white families should receive preferential treatment, as well.

In some ways, though, discrimination against people of color is more complicated and fundamental than economic inequality. A stark new finding epitomizes that reality: In recent decades, rich black kids have been more likely to go to prison than poor white kids.

"Race trumps class, at least when it comes to incarceration," said Darrick Hamilton of the New School, one of the researchers who produced the study.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/03/23/poor-white-kids-are-less-likely-to-go-to-prison-than-rich-black-kids/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Vox%20Sentences%203/25/16&utm_term=Vox%20Newsletter%20All

Greetings!

My apologies for my absence.  I was under the weather, and then out of town for a few days.

We're on spring break, so I took this opportunity to take care of some business in Qatar, a neighboring country.

It is one of the countries that make up the Gulf Cooperation Council, or the GCC, as it is commonly known.  The countries are Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, and Oman and they all border the Persian Gulf. Conspicuously absent from this group is Iraq, which also borders the Persian Gulf.

Qatar is the site of the 2022 World Cup, and pictures from my hotel room show some of the massive building projects underway in preparation of this feat.  It's ambitious, to be sure.

This was taken from my hotel room.
There's a parking lot full of construction vehicles,
and across the highway, scaffolding litters the landscape.

No matter where I go, it's always good to get back home.

Here's wishing you a belated Happy Easter.

More soon.

Witness Protection

From Atlas Obscura - 

The Strange Tale of Echo, the Parrot Who Saw Too Much

A mob's pet is said to be in hiding. Could the bird be a witness in court?BByLaurel Braitman MARCH 22, 2016

Recently, a friend of mine sent me a strange message. It was imperative, she said, that I get in touch with a guy named Geoffrey Mitchell. Geoffrey lives in the Bay Area and works for Caltrans—the California Department of Public Transportation. But before that, he worked as a marine biologist for the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries in the swamplands around Lake Charles. 

That’s, he told me, where he heard about the parrot in a witness protection program.

Mitchell’s source was a woman named Suzy Heck, founder and director of an animal rehabilitation center called Heck Haven that takes in roughly 1,000 animals a year. When I called her, Heck explained that usually she rehabs wildlife like injured raccoons or orphaned baby squirrels, but every once in a while a different sort of animal shows up.

One afternoon in the mid-‘90s, she recalls, a wildlife rehabber friend of hers from New Orleans named Corina King arrived with a male parrot in a cage, a beautiful severe macaw—green with red shoulders—named Echo. He was medium-sized, a little thin and knew dozens of words. King told Heck that the bird needed to lay low for a while, and that she should keep his presence at the center a secret.

“It was all very hush hush,” Heck says, “and I didn’t know how long he was going to stay with me.”

~~~~~~~~~~

The mystery continues below.

http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-strange-tale-of-echo-the-parrot-who-saw-too-much?utm_source=Atlas+Obscura&utm_campaign=0c18cb28e6-Newsletter_3_24_20163_23_2016&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_62ba9246c0-0c18cb28e6-59905913&ct=t(Newsletter_3_24_20163_23_2016)&mc_cid=0c18cb28e6&mc_eid=866176a63f