Quote

From Vox -

"If there are 300 million guns in the United States, and we impose a tax of $3,600 per gun on the current stock, we would eliminate the federal government deficit. But $3,600 is coming nowhere close to the potential damage that a single weapon could cause." [Stephen Williamson]

A Housing Option

http://thevanual.com

Introducing Malcolm Gladwell's "Revisionist History" Podcast

What's Your #GradAdvice? | GOOD

People Powered Tesla

http://www.wired.com/2016/06/best-new-gren-energy-tech-right-underfoot/?mbid=nl_61316

A Victory Lap in Their Blood

An excerpt from The Atlantic -

A Victory Lap in Blood
Forty-nine people die in Orlando, Florida, and Donald Trump wants a pat on the back.
By RON FOURNIER

Obama shouldn’t resign, but you should consider a different line of work after suggesting today that the president might somehow be involved in the Orlando massacre. A baseless, disgraceful lie.

You could argue that it’s important to give the enemy a name. OK, let’s do that:

Islamic extremism. Islamic extremism. Islamic extremism.

Radical Islam. Radical Islam. Radical Islam.

Wait for it… No, ISIS didn’t crumble.

You’re wrong, Donald Trump. Words don’t win wars.

But your words do undermine the commander-in-chief. Your words do exploit fears, stir prejudices, and divide Americans. Your words might even win you the election.

Which is the point, right? In March, you said talk about terrorist attacks “is probably why I’m number one in the polls.”

Forty-nine innocent people dead and you took a victory lap in their blood.

Congratulations.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/06/a-victory-lap-in-blood/486836/?utm_source=nl-atlantic-daily-061316

Why Daddy?

From the Science Creative Quarterly -

A DIALOGUE WITH SARAH, AGED 3: IN WHICH IT IS SHOWN THAT IF YOUR DAD IS A CHEMISTRY PROFESSOR, ASKING “WHY” CAN BE DANGEROUS
by W. Stephen McNeil

http://www.scq.ubc.ca/quarterly011/0101mcneil.html?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Vox%20Sentences%206/13/16&utm_term=Vox%20Newsletter%20All

Stamp Collecting

An excerpt from Atlas Obscura -

“The stamp collecting community basically is synonymous with old white guys,” says Don Neal, the newsletter Editor in Chief at ESPER (Ebony Society of Philatelic Events and Reflections). ESPER, founded in 1988 and named after its creator, Esper G. Hayes, set out to change that limiting definition. Hayes, a stamp collector, met the black Olympian Jesse Owens a stamp show in the ‘70s, where she waited in line for his autograph. They were the only two black people at that show. After a solemn handshake, she pledged to Owens that she would do something to help African-Americans in the philatelic community.

ESPER members at a 25th anniversary event in 2013. (Photo courtesy of Don Neal)

In reaction to Owen’s death in 1980, Hayes made good on that promise: ESPER’s global society is now 28 years old and 300 members strong. It hosts booths at stamp conventions around the country, supports youth organizations, convenes social events and provides a network for African Americans in philately.

http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/want-to-make-america-more-inclusive-start-with-stamps

Summer Camps

An excerpt from The Root -

10 STEM Summer Camps for Students of Color

Summer camps across the country are boasting access to science, technology, engineering and math for students of color.  BY: SHERRELL DORSEY

1. Black Girls Code Summer Camp

About the curriculum and experience: Day camps provide 10 days of hands-on, project-based instruction in which girls engage in tech instruction. The camps run for six hours a day and include lunch, breaks, community building, field trips and, of course, coding. No prior coding experience is required.

Camps offer a space where girls of color can learn computer science and coding principles in the company of other girls like themselves, along with mentorship from women they can see themselves becoming.

Age requirement: 11 to 14 years

Locations and dates (to register, click the links below): 

• Washington, D.C.: June 27-July 12
• Los Angeles: July 18-29
• Chicago: July 18-22
• Boston: July 25-Aug. 5
• San Francisco Bay Area: Aug. 1-12
• New York City: Aug. 15-26

Registration for other cities to be shared soon and available here.

Cost: $300 for two-week camps in Los Angeles, the Bay Area, New York City, Boston and Washington, D.C., and $150 for one-week camp in Chicago. For all camps, a limited number of need-based scholarships will be offered on a first-come, first-served basis.

http://www.theroot.com/articles/lists/2016/06/10-stem-summer-camps-for-students-of-color/?wpisrc=newsletter_jcr:content%26

When You Love a Sport That Doesn't Love You

From RadioLab -

Surya Bonaly (Photo Credit: Getty Images/Getty)

At the 1998 Olympics in Nagano, Japan, one athlete pulled a move that, so far as we know, no one else had ever done in all of human history.

Surya Bonaly was not your typical figure skater.  She was black. She was athletic. And she didn’t seem to care about artistry.  Her performances – punctuated by triple-triple jumps and other power moves – thrilled audiences around the world.  Yet, commentators claimed she couldn’t skate, and judges never gave her the high marks she felt she deserved.  But Surya didn’t accept that criticism.  Unlike her competitors – ice princesses who hid behind demure smiles – Surya made her feelings known.  And, at her final Olympic performance, she attempted one jump that flew in the face of the establishment, and marked her for life as a rebel.

This week, we lace up our skates and tell a story about loving a sport that doesn’t love you back, and being judged in front of the world according to rules you don’t understand.

http://latifnasser.com

You have no idea where camels really come from | Latif Nasser

Dads are the Real Heroes | Father's Day - 60 sec | Dove Men+Care

A Father's Tribute to His Daughter

An excerpt from Essence 2009 -

Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Veteran Journalist Ed Gordon: Daddy's Little Girl

I always wanted a child. But, like many men, when I dreamed of becoming a father I dreamed of having a boy, a "little man" to follow in my footsteps. I wanted a son who would make me the proudest father in the gym after he hit the game-winning basket and then gave me a wink as he took the arm of the finest girl in the school. Yes, I fell victim to this all-too-common male fantasy. It never occurred to me that I might have a little girl.

When I found out that my wife, Karen, was pregnant, I was elated and ready to take on the task of fatherhood. There was one snag: The ultrasound showed that the blessing would be delivered in pink, not blue. I told my brother, who was already a father to a daughter, that another girl was on the way. He said, "You're about to experience a love that is unmatched, a special unconditional love." He assured me I'd get over my macho desire for a boy. I took his assurance, but I couldn't help wondering why I had never dreamed of having a daughter.

Certainly I've always thought little girls are just as important as boys. I abhorred the practice in some societies of selling or killing infant girls because they weren't considered to be as valuable as boys, who might grow up to help support their families. But I started to wonder if, unknowingly, I might have absorbed the idea of girls as second-class citizens. Well, if I did, I was about to get an education.

Taylor Nicole Gordon, now 12, has brought an immeasurable joy to my life, and no little hardheaded boy could ever take her place. Since the day she was born, I have not once lamented the fact that I didn't have the next Michael Jordan or Colin Powell. In fact, I've embraced the idea that I may have the next Serena Williams or Condoleezza Rice.

I admit I might be more interested in taking a boy to football practice than I am in dropping Taylor off at her dance class. But I am just as sure that I couldn't have been more pleased the day she nailed a dance routine she'd been having trouble with. Just hours before her recital, we'd been in the basement as she tried, frustratingly, to master the routine, and I guaranteed her she could climb this mountain. That night my pride swelled as I watched my daughter onstage hit every move. I knew that my chest wouldn't have been any higher if she had just run an 80-yard touchdown.

http://www.essence.com/2009/03/24/veteran-journalist-ed-gordon-daddys-litt

http://www.essence.com/2016/06/06/ed-gordon-essay-daddys-still-got-you?xid=20160612

A House Divided

Excerpts from the Huffington Post - 

‘A House Divided Against Itself Cannot Stand’: Ken Burns’ Stanford Commencement Address

A mentor of mine, the journalist Tom Brokaw, recently said to me, “What we learn is more important than what we set out to do.” It’s tough out there, but so beautiful, too. And history—memory—can prepare you.

I have a searing memory of the summer of 1962, when I was almost nine, joining our family dinner on a hot, sweltering day in a tract house in a development in Newark, Delaware, and seeing my mother crying. She had just learned, and my brother and I had just been told, that she would be dead of cancer within six months. But that’s not what was causing her tears. Our inadequate health insurance had practically bankrupted us, and our neighbors—equally struggling working people—had taken up a collection and presented my parents with six crisp twenty dollar bills—$120 in total—enough to keep us solvent for more than a month. In that moment, I understood something about community and courage, about constant struggle and little victories. That hot June evening was a victory. And I have spent my entire professional life trying to resurrect small moments within the larger sweep of American history, trying to find our better angels in the most difficult of circumstances, trying to wake the dead, to hear their stories.

~~~~~~~~~~

You know, it is terribly fashionable these days to criticize the United States government, the institution Lincoln was trying to save, to blame it for all the ills known to humankind, and, my goodness, ladies and gentlemen, it has made more than its fair share of catastrophic mistakes. But you would be hard pressed to find—in all of human history—a greater force for good. From our Declaration of Independence to our Constitution and Bill of Rights; from Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation and the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, Fifteenth and Nineteenth Amendments to the Land Grant College and Homestead Acts; from the transcontinental railroad and our national parks to child labor laws, Social Security and the National Labor Relations Act; from the GI Bill and the interstate highway system to putting a man on the moon and the Affordable Care Act, the United States government has been the author of many of the best aspects of our public and personal lives. But if you tune in to politics, if you listen to the rhetoric of this election cycle, you are made painfully aware that everything is going to hell in a handbasket and the chief culprit is our evil government.

~~~~~~~~~~

For 216 years, our elections, though bitterly contested, have featured the philosophies and character of candidates who were clearly qualified. That is not the case this year. One is glaringly not qualified. So before you do anything with your well-earned degree, you must do everything you can to defeat the retrograde forces that have invaded our democratic process, divided our house, to fight against, no matter your political persuasion, the dictatorial tendencies of the candidate with zero experience in the much maligned but subtle art of governance; who is against lots of things, but doesn’t seem to be for anything, offering only bombastic and contradictory promises, and terrifying Orwellian statements; a person who easily lies, creating an environment where the truth doesn’t seem to matter; who has never demonstrated any interest in anyone or anything but himself and his own enrichment; who insults veterans, threatens a free press, mocks the handicapped, denigrates women, immigrants and all Muslims; a man who took more than a day to remember to disavow a supporter who advocates white supremacy and the Ku Klux Klan; an infantile, bullying man who, depending on his mood, is willing to discard old and established alliances, treaties and long-standing relationships. I feel genuine sorrow for the understandably scared and—they feel—powerless people who have flocked to his campaign in the mistaken belief that—as often happens on TV—a wand can be waved and every complicated problem can be solved with the simplest of solutions. They can’t. It is a political Ponzi scheme. And asking this man to assume the highest office in the land would be like asking a newly minted car driver to fly a 747.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ken-burns/ken-burnss-commencement_b_10430204.html

Billy Crystal's Muhammad Ali tribute - 15 Rounds (1979)

Online Legal Aid

An excerpt from the Huffington Post -

Legal Aid With a Digital Twist

by Tina Rosenburg

Matthew Stubenberg was a law student at the University of Maryland in 2010 when he spent part of a day doing expungements. It was a standard law school clinic where students learn by helping clients — in this case, he helped them to fill out and file petitions to erase parts of their criminal records. (Last week I wrote about the lifelong effects of these records, even if there is no conviction, and the expungement process that makes them go away.)

Although Maryland has a public database called Case Search, using that data to fill out the forms was tedious. “We spent all this time moving data from Case Search onto our forms,” Stubenberg said. “We spent maybe 30 seconds on the legal piece. Why could this not be easier? This was a problem that could be fixed by a computer.”

Stubenberg knew how to code. After law school, he set out to build software that automatically did that tedious work. By September 2014 he had a prototype for MDExpungement, which went live in January 2015. (The website is not pretty — Stubenberg is a programmer, not a designer.)

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/01/opinion/legal-aid-with-a-digital-twist.html?rref=collection%2Fcolumn%2Ffixes&action=click&contentCollection=opinion&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=2&pgtype=collection&_r=0

Possible Solution

An excerpt from Good -

An Unexpected Solution To Our Organ Donor Crisis
by Alicia Kennedy

There are currently more than 120,000 Americans waiting for a life-saving organ transplant, and every day, another 22 will die before they receive one. Procuring organ donations is a notoriously complicated and unpredictable business (for starters, something tragic usually needs to happen to a donor first), and can’t come close to meeting demand.

Researchers have been hard at work seeking a safer, more reliable way to increase the organ supply. For awhile, one method in particular seemed to be gaining traction: Figure out how to grow a human organ in an animal, then harvest it as needed. However, late last year, the government revoked all funding for this type of research in what the Mercury News called “a startling reversal of policy, reminiscent of the Bush administration's 2001 ban on embryonic stem cell funding.”

To many, the idea of human-animal hybrids (a.k.a. chimeras) provokes an unease straight out of our darkest sci-fi landscapes. But at UC-Davis, one reproductive biologist Pablo Ross persists in his exploration of the field despite a lack of funding. For now, Ross does something called “gene editing.” The process is more than a little reminiscent of Frankenstein: First, he takes a pig embryo and deactivates the gene necessary for developing a pig pancreas. Then, a few days later, he adds in human stem cells to grow a human pancreas instead.

https://www.good.is/articles/pigs-as-organ-factories

Sherman for President

An excerpt from the Huffington Post -

Richard Sherman Wants Billionaires To Pay For Their Own Damn Stadiums
Sherman said that’d be a top priority if he ever gets a desk in the Oval Office.
By Juliet Spies-Gans

Thinking on his feet and improvising what he’d want his campaign slogan to be — he settled on “Make America the place you want to raise your kids” — Sherman put forth what he deemed to be a “pretty ingenious plan for our economy”: make the rich pay for their own toys.

“I’d get us out of this deficit,” he told Clayton. “I’d stop spending billions of taxpayer dollars on stadiums and probably get us out of debt and maybe make the billionaires who actually benefit from the stadiums pay for them. That kind of seems like a system that would work for me.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/richard-sherman-billionaires-stadium_us_57597ff6e4b0e39a28acb20f?ir=Black+Voices&section=us_black-voices&utm_hp_ref=black-voices

Celebrities take part in Promo Campaign for new book, I'm a Brilliant Li...

A Hot Box

From The Huffington Post -

This Container Brings Internet To People In Need, Refugees In Remote Areas
So outside of the box.

By Elyse Wanshel

A Zubabox dubbed the”Dell Solar Learning Lab” in Cazuca,
a suburb of Bogota, Colombia.

Here is an idea that really delivers.

ZubaBox is a shipping container converted into a solar-powered internet café or classroom for people in need living in remote areas — including refugee camps.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/solar-powered-zubabox-internet-shipping-container-rural-areas-refugee-camps_us_5757155ce4b0b60682df2435

K & P

All the sketches of Key & Peele.

http://www.cc.com/shows/key-and-peele

Roping as a Way of Life: The Proud History of Texas' Black Cowboys

D. Watkins "The Cook Up: A Crack Rock Memoir"

Locked Up

An excerpt from Medium -

MI LIBRO by Pablo Guzman
CHAPTER ONE: MAY 30, 1973

“You are to begin your sentence of two years on each count immediately. To be served concurrently.” And yes, Federal Judge Charles Metzner brought down the gavel. My hands were cuffed behind my back.

I turned to say goodbye to my family and friends. It was Wednesday, May 30th 1973. I was 22. The courtroom at Foley Square was packed. It was like looking out on an audience. Different though than the audiences I had looked at speaking in colleges or street rallies. Those always made me a bit nervous, even though people said I was good; I always got nervous. Now, I was more than nervous; I was scared. But, had to put up a front. Big time. Could not show fear. My parents, though divorced, were there together for me. My cousin Gil. Reporters I had dealt with the past four years. And about 150 colleagues and supporters. No time to be a punk.

At the railing I leaned forward. But two court officers grabbed me, one by the throat, and twisted me backwards. Though my Dad was not yet fifty-five, he was in good shape and took the railing, punching out first one officer and then a second. Amateur boxer. He came out of Spanish Harlem, and you did not fuck with those cats. As more officers swarmed, my father’s action was almost a signal to the many Young Lords in the gallery. After all, this is what we did for a living. In seconds the melee in court resembled one of the brawls in Errol Flynn’s Gentleman Jim, a favorite of my Dad and me. “The Corbetts are at it again!” Officers dragged me out of there and threw me in a holding cell. It’s true: when that cell door clangs shut, there’s no other sound quite like it. It fuckin’ rings in your head.

https://medium.com/@yoruba69/mi-libro-f895f07f7cdb#.agdfxbmrq

I Would Rather . . .

An excerpt from McSweeney's -

I WOULD RATHER DO ANYTHING ELSE THAN GRADE YOUR FINAL PAPERS.
BY ROBIN LEE MOZER

Dear Students Who Have Just Completed My Class,

I would rather do anything else than grade your Final Papers.

I would rather base jump off of the parking garage next to the student activity center or eat that entire sketchy tray of taco meat leftover from last week’s student achievement luncheon that’s sitting in the department refrigerator or walk all the way from my house to the airport on my hands than grade your Final Papers.

http://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/i-would-rather-do-anything-else-than-grade-your-final-papers

Watching Over Us

Just like we experienced terrorism long before 9/11, so too have we experienced surveillance long before it's widespread use today.

An excerpt from Political Research -

TRACKING BLACKNESS: A Q&A WITH DARK MATTERS AUTHOR SIMONE BROWNE
By Lindsay Beyerstein

We tend to think of mass surveillance as a relatively new phenomenon, a byproduct of the digital revolution. Examples of high-tech surveillance spring readily to mind, including the NSA scooping up our emails, Samsung televisions picking up living room chitchat along with your voice commands, and Oral Roberts University collecting data on its entire student body via Fitbit activity trackers. But, as it turns out, our high-tech surveillance society had lower-tech precursors.

Simone Browne, an associate professor of African and African Diaspora Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, describes her new book, Dark Matters: On The Surveillance of Blackness, as a conversation between Black Studies and Surveillance Studies—the latter a young discipline devoted to investigating the technological and social dimensions of surveillance. Browne’s research shows that surveillance was an essential part of transatlantic slavery, a system that held millions of people against their will and tracked them as property. And she argues that slavery created an ongoing demand for technologies to monitor Black bodies. The day-to-day enforcement of slavery raised familiar-sounding questions: Is this person who they say they are? Are they allowed to be here? How do we know? Dramas of surveillance and counter-surveillance played out constantly.

If surveillance is the state watching the individual, sousveillance is the individual looking back at the state. The history of slavery is full of examples of both kinds of watching. Slave catchers hunted down runaway slaves for money. The catchers were themselves carefully watched, and the news of a slave catcher’s whereabouts could also spread rapidly through the Black community. Abolitionists also circulated handbills warning free Blacks and their allies to be on guard against slave catchers.

- See more at: http://www.politicalresearch.org/2016/06/07/tracking-blackness-a-qa-with-dark-matters-author-simone-browne/#sthash.Q72kGxUr.4M31FFEi.dpuf

A Photo Essay of Us

An excerpt from The Huffington Post -

How Contemporary Photography Is Changing The Image Of Blackness In America
“How many movements began when an aesthetic encounter indelibly changed our past perceptions of the world?” by Pricilla Frank

For centuries, people of color were not visualized with veracity and careful attention in photographs or books or movies, but reduced to one-dimensional black bodies. Their images existed only as objectified stereotypes that failed to accurately represent the realities of black lives, rendering them virtually invisible.

That time, thankfully, is no longer. Contemporary photographers and filmmakers are capturing the black experience in its full nuance and complexity, and the world is watching. Aperture magazine’s most recent 152-page edition, titled “Vision & Justice,” celebrates the artists responsible for this current cultural moment, in which black lives are immortalized through images that contain multitudes — just like their subjects.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/the-monumental-role-of-contemporary-photography-in-the-fight-for-racial-equality_us_57521015e4b0eb20fa0e0a5e?utm_hp_ref=arts&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Culture%20Shift%20061016&utm_content=Culture%20Shift%20061016+CID_286a6284aef982d9aca7a9863fdc390e&utm_source=Email%20marketing%20software&utm_term=Read%20more%20here

Cuba Bound

From the Atlantic -

More Flights to Cuba
Six U.S. airlines will begin scheduled flights to the island nation.

Americans will now have more opportunities to fly to Cuba.

On Friday, the U.S. Department of Transportation approved six domestic airlines to begin flights to Cuba from Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Minneapolis/St. Paul. This is the first time there have been scheduled flights between the U.S. and Cuba in more than 50 years. Charter flights between the two countries, though, have been allowed for several years, making around 100 crossings per week.

http://www.theatlantic.com/news/archive/2016/06/flights-to-cuba/486611/?utm_source=nl-atlantic-daily-061016

Robert Smalls: How a Slave Became an American Hero

It's Like a Hot Tub, Except Filled with Beer

It's Over

From the Huffington Post -

Brock Turner Banned For Life By USA Swimming
His “promising” swimming career is done.

Former Stanford University student Brock Turner is no longer eligible to compete in events sanctioned by USA Swimming, USA Today confirmed Monday afternoon.

The ban, which includes Olympic tryouts, was confirmed by USA Swimming spokesman Scott Leightman in an email to USA Today.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/brock-turner-banned-for-life-by-usa-swimming_us_575accb3e4b0ced23ca7c919

Prospective Jurors Boycott

An excerpt from the Huffington Post -

Prospective Jurors Boycott Judge Aaron Persky As 1 Million People Demand His Recall

“I can’t be here, I’m so upset,” one prospective juror reportedly told Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Aaron Persky on Wednesday.

“I can’t believe what you did,” said another.

These two individuals were among several prospective jurors who reportedly refused to serve under Persky in a misdemeanor stolen property case.

Persky is the judge who presided over Brock Turner’s sentencing for sexual assault.

The East Bay Times said at least 10 prospective jurors declined to serve in the unrelated case. KPIX-TV said the number was double that, and the jurors cited the judge as a hardship.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/aaron-persky-juror-boycott_us_575a5fcce4b00f97fba7ee6f

"Slow Jam the News" with President Obama

The United State of Women

Voting

True confession . . .

I didn't cast my first vote until I was 40.

Yes, I was 40 freaking years old!

What an idiot!

Thousands of people shed their blood and gave their lives for me to have the opportunity to vote, and I blew it off like it was no big deal.

I'd like to blame it on youthful indiscretions, but 40 is far removed from any reasonable measure of youth.

I have few regrets, but not taking advantage of the right to vote is definitely one of them.

Here's hoping that others will learn from my foolish ways, and my newfound zeal will motivate them to do just the opposite.

That is . . .

To recognize the power that voting affords us.

To understand the responsibility that it holds.

To appreciate what so many around the world wish for.

It took me a while, OK a long while, to grasp the gravity of this vital civic responsibility, but now that I have, I want to shout it from the rooftops.

To all those Bernie supporters, and I am counted among them, we must focus on the task at hand, that is, keeping Trump out of the White House.

Hillary may not be all that we want or even need her to be, but even on her worse days, she'll be a thousand times better than that vile, disgusting, racist, sexist, narcissistic Trump.

So, take it from me.

If you've never voted before in your life, or if you've half-heartedly voted in the past, or if you're a regular voter, come November let us join together and vote in droves with a renewed energy so that our voices and our votes will drown out and defeat Trump, who would be an embarrassment and a danger to us all.

Not Good Google

An excerpt from USA Today -

Google image searches for "three black teenagers" and "three white teenagers" get very different results, raising troubling questions about how racial bias in society and the media is reflected online.

Kabir Alli, an 18-year-old graduating senior from Clover Hill High School in Midlothian, Va., posted a video clip on Twitter this week of a Google image search for "three black teenagers" which turned up an array of police mugshots. He and friends then searched for "three white teenagers," and found groups of smiling young people.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2016/06/09/google-image-search-three-black-teenagers-three-white-teenagers/85648838/

Heads Are Starting to Roll

From The Washington Post -

Navy admiral to plead guilty in ‘Fat Leonard’ corruption scandal
By Craig Whitlock

A one-star Navy admiral will plead guilty today to lying to federal investigators in the “Fat Leonard” corruption scandal, his attorney said, which would make him the highest-ranking officer so far to be convicted in the case.

Rear Adm. Robert Gilbeau, a special assistant to the chief of the Navy Supply Corps, is scheduled to appear in U.S. District Court in San Diego late Thursday afternoon, court records show. He will plead guilty to one count of making a false statement to investigators, said David Benowitz, his defense attorney.

~~~~~~~~~~

Gilbeau, 55, came to know Francis — known in maritime circles as “Fat Leonard” for his girth — during several deployments to Asia and was also under investigation for his relationships with other contractors when he served in Afghanistan in 2012 and 2013, according to the individuals familiar with the investigation.

Gilbeau departed Afghanistan shortly after Francis, 51, was arrested in an international sting operation in San Diego in September 2013.

Francis has since admitted to bribing Navy officials with cash, sex and gifts worth millions of dollars so he could win more defense contracts. His company, Glenn Defense Marine Asia, provided critical support for the Navy’s 7th Fleet for a quarter-century by resupplying and refueling submarines and ships in ports throughout Asia.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/navy-admiral-to-plead-guilty-in-fat-leonard-corruption-scandal/2016/06/09/6955e5ec-2e4e-11e6-9de3-6e6e7a14000c_story.html

Home Girl

From Rolling Stone -

Janis Joplin's Childhood Home Up for Sale
Owners asking for nearly ten times market value for singer's Port Arthur, Texas house

Before Janis Joplin became one of the definitive voices of Sixties rock, she was a child growing up in Port Arthur, Texas. Now, the home where the singer spent the early part of her life is up on the market, according to SFGate.

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/janis-joplins-childhood-home-up-for-sale-20160608#ixzz4B3S4saj7
Follow us: @rollingstone on Twitter | RollingStone on Facebook

More Than a Survivor

Continued Fascination

An excerpt from Slate - (Bold is mine)

O.J.: Made in America
Forget your O.J. Simpson fatigue—ESPN’s 7½-hour documentary is a revelation.
By Jack Hamilton

Twenty years after a California jury declared O.J. Simpson not guilty of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman after a trial that changed the way people watch TV, the two best things on American television this year have been FX’s The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story and now ESPN’s O.J.: Made in America, a 7½-hour documentary that is the best piece of original programming the cable sports network has ever produced. The film is part of ESPN’s 30 for 30 series, which for the past seven years has produced some of the best sports documentaries around but has never previously come close to producing a work of this magnitude and power.

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/television/2016/06/o_j_made_in_america_on_espn_reviewed.html?sid=554654ea10defb39638b510d&wpsrc=newsletter_tis

Pay Gap

An excerpt from Vox - 

The jarring pay gap between black and white doctors

by Julia Belluz

Harvard Medical School associate professor Anupam Jena wanted to find out whether the black-white pay gap would persist among this homogenous group.

In a new study, published today in the BMJ, he and other researchers from Harvard and the University of Southern California used race and employment data from two nationally representative surveys to find out.

The picture they paint is alarmingly consistent with overall labor trends: Despite the uniform education levels and credentials among doctors, black physicians still earn significantly less than white physicians. The disparity between female black and white doctors is smaller, but female physicians of both races earned significantly less compared to men, the study found.

More specifically, the adjusted average annual income between 2010 and 2013 for white male physicians was $253,042 — nearly $65,000 more than what black male physicians earned ($188,230). White female physicians got $163,234 and black female physicians about $10,000 less at $152,784.

http://www.vox.com/2016/6/8/11876976/pay-gap-black-and-white-doctors

Breaking a Monster Official Trailer 1 (2016) - Music Documentary HD

He Saw Himself

An excerpt from Mimesis Law as seen in Vox -

BROCK ALLEN TURNER: THE SORT OF DEFENDANT WHO IS SPARED “SEVERE IMPACT”
by Ken White

June 8, 2016 (Mimesis Law) — Ten years ago my firm represented a kid on a minor drug charge. This kid played an instrument – for the sake of this story, let’s call it a xylophone. He approached the xylophone like he approached geometry, by which I mean he often showed up for it and probably wouldn’t fail it.  But by the time we were done writing about that kid in the sentencing briefs, he was the most xylophone-playing motherfucker ever to walk the Earth.  He was the YoYo Ma of xylophones, someone whose skills would make angels weep and the doors of fame and success slam open.

We didn’t do that because people who play xylophones are less criminally culpable than people who don’t. We did it because a defense attorney’s challenge is to humanize their client at sentencing. Judges process dozens of defendants a month, or a week, or even a day.  If judges confronted the defendants’ individual humanity as they caged them one after another, they’d go quite mad.  It’s impossible and inadvisable.

The trick is to light a spark that catches the judge’s eye, that transforms your client even momentarily from an abstraction or a statistic or a stereotype into a human being with whom the judge feels a connection.  Judges are people, and people connect with each other through commonalities – family, hobbies, sports, music, and so forth.  At sentencing, a good advocate helps the judge to see the defendant as someone fundamentally like the judge, with whom the judge can relate.  It’s harder to send a man into a merciless hole when you relate to him.

Empathy is a blessing.  But empathy’s not even-handed.  It’s idiosyncratic.  Judges empathize with defendants who share their life experiences – and only a narrow and privileged slice of America shares the life experiences of a judge.

That’s one reason that justice in America looks the way it does.

Last week Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Aaron Persky sentenced Brock Allen Turner to six months in jail.  Turner will probably do half of that – about the length of a single quarter at Stanford University, where he was a student.  Most people think that was an appallingly and unjustly lenient sentence for what Turner did: brutally sexually assaulting a drunk, unconscious young woman behind a dumpster outside a party.

Judge Persky clearly empathized with Brock Allen Turner.  Turner was a championship swimmer and a Stanford student; Judge Persky was a Stanford student and the captain of the lacrosse team.  Judge Persky said that sending Turner to prison would have a “severe impact” on him, that he did not believe that he would be a danger to others, and that he was young.  Turner’s victim was not spared a severe impact, despite her youth and lack of criminal record.  Her statement was harrowing. Her sentence is lifelong.

http://mimesislaw.com/fault-lines/brock-turner-the-sort-of-defendant-who-is-spared-severe-impact/10288?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Vox%20Sentences%206/8/16&utm_term=Vox%20Newsletter%20All

First Dates

From The Washington Post -

Your romantic first dates? Restaurants hate them.
By Lavanya Ramanathan

The guy had left the table for only a minute.

But as soon as he was out of sight, his date whipped out her phone, opened Tinder and started swiping.

“It was deceitful, a little bit,” says Chris McNeal, general manager of Bar Dupont, who’d watched the scene unfold, slightly aghast that this is how people find love in the modern age. It wasn’t even the first time he’d seen a Tinder meetup turn sour.

First dates — those angst-filled encounters when two strangers size each other up as romantic prospects — fill restaurants and bars so often that the staff is keenly aware when you’re on one.

“They’re moderating how much alcohol they drink,” McNeal says. “They have that twitchy-eye thing where, like, they don’t know each other.”

Your first-date banter? Banal. And the bartender is pretending that he hasn’t seen you twice already this week. With different women. Using the same, somewhat-creepy lines.

Greg Algie, co-owner of the Fainting Goat, a popular Washington first-date destination, has witnessed more than one Tinderella arrive, get a glimpse of the person they’re supposed to meet — and head right back out the door.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/your-romantic-first-dates-restaurants-hate-them/2016/06/07/bf45adfc-1df5-11e6-8c7b-6931e66333e7_story.html?wpmm=1&wpisrc=nl_rainbow

Compounded F*ckup

An excerpt from VerySmartBrothas -

WHEN PEAK WHITE PRIVILEGE AND PEAK RAPE CULTURE CREATE THE PERFECT FUCKSHIT SOUFFLÉ
Damon Young

If you are a person who…

1. cares at all about concepts like social justice, racism, gender equality, feminism, patriarchy, and privilege

…and…

2. carries a frustration with people who have either been unable or unwilling to possess a nuanced understanding for what any of these concepts mean

…convicted rapist Brock Turner, his father Dan, and Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Aaron Persky just provided a Fisher Price-meets-Trump University-level lesson plan for recognizing White privilege and rape culture. You will never find a plainer, less sophisticated, and easier to grasp example of these particular strains of pervasive shitty. Anyone who reads the details of this story and still comes away unconvinced these things exist is either trolling, a member of the Turner family, or “Simple Jack’s” replacement for the dumbest motherfucker that ever lived.

Of course, you can’t make a fuckshit soufflé without the proper ingredients.

http://verysmartbrothas.com/when-peak-white-privilege-and-peak-rape-culture-create-a-fuckshit-souffle/

Broadway Carpool Karaoke ft. Hamilton & More

Basket Building

From Atlas Obscura -

Ohio's Famed 7-Story Basket Building Might Be Doomed
Tough times for the big basket business.

By Erik Shilling

http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/ohios-famed-7story-basket-building-might-be-doomed?utm_source=Boomtrain&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20160608&bt_email=fayesharpe@gmail.com&bt_ts=1465332417306

President Obama Meets 108-Year-Old Lester Townsend

He Refused to Be a Part of This Mess

An excerpt from Rolling Stone - (bold is mine)

Muhammad Ali Was a Hero, But His Enemies Have a Legacy Too

Pentagon learned from the epic mistake of making a martyr of the world's most gifted and famous athlete

By Matt Taibbi

Ali was famously a person who could make a stage out of anything. Even his weigh-ins turned into acts worthy of Carnegie Hall. But on April 28, 1967, the U.S. government handed him the biggest stage of his life.

At an armed forces examining station in Houston, he refused to step forward to a white line when his name was called. That one step would have signified his willingness to be drafted.

The awesome drama of that moment made Ali hated at the time, but also turned him into a martyr to history. The symbolism of a man who made his living fighting refusing to fight was extraordinarily powerful.

Ali furthermore brilliantly used the moment to link America's bloody quagmire overseas to the domestic warfare that had broken out in places like Watts, Rochester, Newark, Cleveland, Detroit, and Division Street, Chicago.

"My conscience won't let me shoot my brother or some darker people," Ali said. "And shoot them for what? They never called me nigger."

Asking Ali to step forward that day in Houston was an epic strategic blunder. The last thing Lyndon Johnson or his successor Richard Nixon needed was to have Americans of any age, but particularly young people, making a connection between racism at home and wars of colonial domination abroad.

But by demanding that a man as prideful and magnetic as Ali submit to becoming a cheerleader for the bloodshed in Vietnam, that's exactly what they did.

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/muhammad-ali-was-a-hero-but-his-enemies-have-a-legacy-too-20160605#ixzz4AunxnDuH
Follow us: @rollingstone on Twitter | RollingStone on Facebook

Carlos Santana Sings the National Anthem for NBA Finals Game 2

Deltas(?) in Dubai

From Essence Magazine - 

http://www.essence.com/life/15-best-black-travel-moments-you-missed-week-soror-love-uae

I Wonder . . .

If this guy was black, would the results be the same?

An excerpt from The Root -

#WhitePrivilegeMuch: College Rapist Gets Light Sentence Because Prison Would Be Bad for Him
The judge’s lenient sentence is just the latest example of white privilege run amok.

There is nothing scarier than a white man losing his power. Good thing Brock Turner won’t have to face the full weight of what that really means. If you haven’t already heard, Turner is the young, white ex-Stanford University swimmer whose dreams are more precious than the woman he raped.

On Jan. 17, 2015, Turner sexually assaulted a 23-year-old unconscious woman behind a dumpster after they both left a campus party. Turner stopped assaulting the woman only after he was spotted by two students, who chased him off of the victim and held him until the cops came. Turner cried only after learning that the cops had been called. Maybe then he realized what his actions meant to his dreams.

During his trial, it was revealed what a toll the rape had taken on Turner. He doesn’t have the appetite he once had for rib-eye steaks. His dream of swimming in the Olympics had been dashed. He used to have a welcoming smile, and now, that has faded. All of which his father made sure to point out in his letter asking for clemency for his son.

Poor Turner.

That’s what Turner’s father said in his statement, comparing what his son lost for “20 minutes of pleasure.”

Poor white man.

That’s what the judge said when he decided that, even after a jury found Turner guilty of rape and he faced a maximum sentence of 14 years, he would only serve six months in a county jail. He wouldn’t even be sentenced to prison because the judge said he felt it would have “a severe impact on him.” A columnist for the San Jose Mercury News wrote that Turner’s sentencing was correct.

http://www.theroot.com/articles/uncategorized/2016/06/whiteprivilegemuch-college-rapist-gets-light-sentence-because-prison-would-be-bad-for-him/?wpisrc=newsletter_jcr:content%26

The More Things Change . . .

Living in a poor neighborhood changes everything about your life
by Alvin Chang

In 1940, a white developer wanted to build a neighborhood in Detroit.

So he asked the US Federal Housing Administration to back a loan. The FHA, which was created just six years earlier to help middle-class families buy homes, said no because the development was too close to an "inharmonious" racial group.

Meaning black people.

It wasn't surprising. The housing administration refused to back loans to black people — and even people who lived around black people. FHA said it was too risky.

So the next year, this white developer had an idea: What if he built a 6-foot-tall, half-mile-long wall between the black neighborhood and his planned neighborhood? Is that enough separation to mitigate risk and get his loan?

http://www.vox.com/2016/6/6/11852640/cartoon-poor-neighborhoods

Hatch Baby Smart Changing Pad

Defiance At It's Best

An excerpt from the AP -

Ali's confidence, cockiness made him symbol of black pride
By JESSE J. HOLLAND

For Muhammad Ali, the idea of being a humble athlete — someone pre-packaged and palatable for white America — was never an option.

Instead, he demanded respect not only as a boxer but as a brash, unbought and unbossed black man and endeared himself to African-Americans as a symbol of black pride. He radiated courage and confidence, skill and showmanship.

"He became the incarnation of black defiance, black protest and black excellence at the same time," said Rev. Al Sharpton, a longtime friend of Ali's.

http://bigstory.ap.org/df5dc823ab17402b8f7b2f46ca48fffa

Woman Attacks Muhammed Ali's Character as Arrogant

1968 Olympics The Black Power Salute

Give Us This Day (2013) - GRANT HS FOOTBALL - Sacramento, CA

Serious About Solar Energy

http://www.upworthy.com/theres-a-solar-farm-in-morocco-thats-so-big-you-can-see-it-from-space?c=upw1

Kinky Boots: Just Pee (Where You Wanna Pee)

His Life in Pictures

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/the-life-of-the-greatest-muhammad-ali/2016/06/04/7d8594aa-290c-11e6-ae4a-3cdd5fe74204_gallery.html?hpid=hp_no-name_photo-story-a%3Ahomepage%2Fstory

Mosquitoes Be Gone!

From Pinterest - 

Beer in the Pipeline

From The AP -

BRUGES, Belgium (AP) — The idea may have seemed mad, but after all, the beer is called the Madman of Bruges — or Brugse Zot in Dutch.

With the help of crowdfunding efforts among some 400 Madman fans, the dream of building a beer pipeline through the Belgian city of Bruges is becoming real.

"You have to be a bit crazy — like the beer — to do such a project. I just had the money for that, and I liked it. So I went crazy and gave the money to the brewery," said restaurant owner Philippe Le Loup, who poured $11,000 into the pipeline.

Brewer Xavier Vanneste got the idea four years ago to pump beer from his Bruges brewery to a bottling plant outside of town in a pipeline instead of having hundreds of trucks blighting the cobblestoned streets of the UNESCO-protected medieval city.

What at first seemed like an outrageous dream, began to seem possible when Vanneste started talking to local beer enthusiasts.

Jokes were coming in fast, with people saying "we are willing to invest as long as we can have a tapping point on the pipeline," Vanneste said. "That gave us the idea to crowdfund the project."

http://bigstory.ap.org/81c3442817fc41cd99c16ab14adf089f

The Psychology of Narcissism - W. Keith Campbell

Trump, Kanye, someone you know?

"A Butterfly in the Land of Caterpillars"

From Slate - (Bold is mine)

The Eccentric Genius of Muhammad Ali’s Boxing Style

He was the greatest, hands down.

By Eric Raskin

Muhammad Ali was so much more than just a boxer. “I came to love Ali,” two-time foe Floyd Patterson told David Remnick for his book King of the World. “I came to see that I was a fighter and he was history.” Ali was a political, social, and religious activist, as divisive a figure as any celebrity during the turbulent 1960s. He was the godfather of trash talk. He was a master media manipulator. He was, simply, the most famous man on the planet. Then he became the public face of Parkinson’s and perhaps the most convincing argument for future generations of kids not to pursue boxing. He was, until the end on Friday night, as widely beloved a human as the world knew.

~~~~~~~~~~

At heavyweight, he was a self-styled butterfly in a land of caterpillars.

http://www.slate.com/articles/sports/sports_nut/2016/06/the_eccentric_genius_of_muhammad_ali_s_boxing_style.html

"What's My Name?"

Ali the Poet

From CNN -

The Greatest, The Poet: A look at Muhammad Ali's verse

"You think the world was shocked when Nixon resigned?

Wait 'til I whup George Foreman's behind.

Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.

His hand can't hit what his eyes can't see.

Now you see me, now you don't.

George thinks he will, but I know he won't.

I done wrassled with an alligator, I done tussled with a whale.

Only last week I murdered a rock, injured a stone, hospitalized a brick.

I'm so mean, I make medicine sick."

— Before regaining the title by upsetting George Foreman Oct. 30, 1974.

http://bigstory.ap.org/e6045bb6ea59497c89bed87679675722

His Silence Made Him Safe

From The Root -

A Silenced Ali Was a Likeable Ali for White People
White America only embraced the most loquacious black man in sports after he couldn’t speak anymore.
By Lawrence Ross

“I am the greatest.”

There will be thousands of well-deserved tributes to Muhammad Ali, and all will talk about his transformation from heavyweight boxing champion to international humanitarian. And that is important to note. But the thing most will miss is how Ali’s voice, a bold black and Muslim voice that spoke eloquently for the aspirations of oppressed peoples in America and throughout the world, was reviled by most of white America at its height, and rendered nearly mute as Parkinson’s disease overtook his neurological functions. As his physical voice disappeared, Ali gradually moved from being a complex human being to a safe idea, a living icon defined by an America that loves to believe that in its essence, it is as great as the black man who boldly stated that he was the greatest of all time.

http://www.theroot.com/articles/culture/2016/06/a-silenced-ali-was-a-likeable-ali-for-white-people/?wpisrc=newsletter_jcr:content%26

Swiss Celebrate World's Longest Tunnel

This is how they did it.

We've Come A Long Way

From Salon -

Black women are now the most educated group in the United States

http://media.salon.com/2016/06/6.1.2016_BlackWomenCollege_ashaparker.mp4

Mohamed Ali - The Greatest

An excerpt form The Root -

President Obama quotes Mohamed Ali and shares his thoughts on the impact of his life -

“I am America,” he once declared. “I am the part you won’t recognize. But get used to me – black, confident, cocky; my name, not yours; my religion, not yours; my goals, my own.  Get used to me.”

That’s the Ali I came to know as I came of age – not just as skilled a poet on the mic as he was a fighter in the ring, but a man who fought for what was right.  A man who fought for us. He stood with King and Mandela; stood up when it was hard; spoke out when others wouldn’t.  His fight outside the ring would cost him his title and his public standing.  It would earn him enemies on the left and the right, make him reviled, and nearly send him to jail.  But Ali stood his ground. And his victory helped us get used to the America we recognize today.

http://www.theroot.com/articles/culture/2016/06/obama-on-ali-he-shook-up-the-world-and-the-world-is-better-for-it/?wpisrc=newsletter_jcr:content%26

High Tech Sac Stadium

An excerpt from Wired -

The Highest-Tech Stadium in Sports Is Pretty Much a Giant Tesla

FOR AN ARENA that will soon play host to more than 17,500 fans nightly, the new Golden 1 Center doesn’t make a huge first impression. Sacramento Kings owner Vivek Ranadive may have likened his team’s new arena to the Roman Colosseum, and it may be a much-needed cultural centerpiece for a city that desperately needs one, but the arena feels almost modest in its proportions.


Except for what’s underneath. Construction on the Golden 1 Center began in October 2014 after the city fought successfully to keep the Kings in Sacramento. Eventually Sacramento officials promised $255.5 million to the project, which Kings president Chris Granger says will be a billion-dollar project in all. And a not insignificant amount of that money is going toward building what the team hopes will be the most technologically advanced sports arena ever built.

~~~~~~~~~~

Gameday 2016
One day this fall, here’s the way Granger and his team hope you’ll spend an evening. You unlock your phone, open up the Kings app, and look for tickets. You buy them (and a parking pass) in the app, which is connected to the team’s loyalty program, so you’re automatically on the list for last-minute ticket upgrades. As you approach the stadium, your phone buzzes: a notification from the team telling you which lot’s the easiest to park in right now. You park, walk up to the arena, scan the ticket displayed on your smartwatch and stroll through the turnstile. Your app guides you to your seat and asks if you want a hot dog or a foam finger. Attendants can bring either one to your seat in a few minutes. You’re late, but that’s fine; the app has replays and stats. Or you can just look up at the 84-foot (that’s foot, not inch) screen that’s carefully designed to make sure you can see it perfectly no matter where you are in the stadium. (Or out of the stadium—more on that in a minute.)

http://www.wired.com/2016/06/highest-tech-stadium-sports-built-like-tesla/?mbid=nl_6316

Anonymous Guy

An excerpt from Vox -

Confessions of a stock photography model
by Andrew Kimler

You don't know me, but chances are you've seen me. I did some things I'm not proud of for money. I was desperate.

I was a stock photography model.

I began stock photography modeling (or "modeling," if you want to get fancy) when I was in my mid-20s. I didn't do it often — maybe once a year or so, if and when a job fell into my lap. To date I've probably been a part of 10 to 20 stock photo shoots.

It was never a passion; I never had illusions about becoming a model or walking down a runway. I was an actor, and I did it for a buck when I desperately needed a buck fifty. I would shoot, collect my money, and be on my way. Most of the time those photos never saw the light of day. This all happened many years ago. But time, just like a well-placed stock photo, makes fools of us all.

Here are four lessons I learned as a stock photography model.

http://www.vox.com/2016/6/3/11841828/stock-photography-model

The Best

From Salon -

The Black Film Canon

The 50 greatest movies by black directors.

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/cover_story/2016/05/the_50_greatest_films_by_black_directors.html?sid=554654ea10defb39638b510d&wpsrc=newsletter_culture

Dancing with the Doctors

Adding Some Perspective to the Conversation

An excerpt from VerySmartBrothas -

ON HARAMBE, WORST CASE SCENARIOS, AND BEING JUDGMENTAL WHEN THE RAINBOW ISN’T ENOUGH
by Panama Jackson

Let’s cut to the chase. It’s sad that this animal had to be put down. But it had to be done. People over animals, b. We have no fucking clue what Harambe may or may not have done to that child. The situation itself lasted 1o minutes. Imagine being a parent watching your child effectively living in the wild with a behemoth animal that can literally crush a coconut with his hands for 10 damn minutes. Have you ever tried to do that? You can’t do that. It’s a wild animal. It’s a zoo. I know some of us have this INSANE belief in this country that the lives of animals are more precious than humans, but its simply not true. While man has definitely been an asshole towards nature, the fact is, we run this earth shit. #factsonly

It sucks that this main attraction had to die this way, but it was the only plausible and reasonable solution for each and every reason that the have-something-to-lose zoo officials presented.
But the part that gives me the redass is the people pretending, and yes all of you motherfuckers are pretending, that in NO way, shape, or form could anything remotely “irresponsible” happen to you and your brood.

Get. The. Fuck. Over. Your. Selves.

For those of you without kids, do you know what parenting really is all about? Especially up to, say, age six? Keeping your kids alive. That’s it really. Everything is about making sure they don’t get dead. Keeping them from chasing that ball into the street. Making sure they understand to walk on sidewalks. Looking both ways before crossing the street. Not touching the stove. Not walking out the door without a parent. Always holding hands with an adult. ALWAYS walking in front of me so that I can see you, etc.

Parenting is one big ass exercise in survival training. So, yes, the parent of that three-year-old (or four-year-old, I’ve seen conflicting age reports, though it matters not) should have been paying attention to her kid. Because of course she should. Then again, there’s no proof that she wasn’t. But you know what else? Kids are fast as fuck, fam. And when they get an idea in their head they get tunnel vision. As somebody with small children, I’m aware of this and its a herculean task. The zoo? The zoo is where you put your skills to the test. If you’re one of those parents who put your kids on a leash at the zoo, well, congrats, I get it. You decided to avoid the game altogether and ensure a favorable result. But the rest of us, we spend all of our time looking at and for our kids. But look, nobody is perfect. It is entirely possible to take your eye off your child for a SPLIT second and then feel like you’re trying to find fucking Waldo.

Kids are fast and they move quick. In 99 percent of the instances, we eventually locate our children, avert a national calamity (see Harambe) and go on about our lives like usual until the next time we avert a national calamity (see Harambe). But every now and then, we get a calamity (see Harambe). That’s what happened here. The absolute (well second to absolute) worst case scenario happened. A child managed to find himself in an enclosure with a wild animal and LUCKILY is alive. We can talk about how that parent should have been looking out for her children. And yes, she should be. But who is to say that she wasn’t? All it takes is a split second. And if you’re a parent, even the best parent alive, you’ve definitely taken your eyes off of your child for a second. You have. Shit, half of you people text and drive and that’s LITERALLY playing with other people’s lives.

And likely, something has happened to your child before that just isn’t national news or common knowledge.

http://verysmartbrothas.com/on-harambe-worst-case-scenarios/

Hiding in Plain Sight

An excerpt from Atlas Obscura -

How a Black Man From Missouri Passed as an Indian Pop Star
Korla Pandit's true identity wasn't discovered until after his death.

By John Turner

Turning on the TV in Los Angeles in 1949, you might have come face-to-face with a young man in a jeweled turban with a dreamy gaze accentuated by dark eye shadow. Dressed in a fashionable coat and tie, Korla Pandit played the piano and the organ—sometimes both at once—creating music that was both familiar and exotic.

According to press releases from the time, Pandit was born in New Delhi, India, the son of a Brahmin government worker and a French opera singer. A prodigy on the piano, he studied music in England and later moved to the United States, where he mastered the organ at the University of Chicago. Not once in 900 performances did he speak on camera, preferring instead to communicate with viewers via that hypnotic gaze.

~~~~~~~~~~

In June of 2001, a friend sent me a story in Los Angeles Magazine written by R.J. Smith called “The Many Faces of Korla Pandit.” I started reading the article with excitement, which was soon followed by a clouded curiosity and later capped with a disclosure that shook what I knew about him (which apparently wasn’t that much because the name he was born with was John Roland Redd). I shared the article with a fellow KGO producer, Eric Christensen, who grew up in San Francisco and remembered his mother saying she was mesmerized by Pandit’s eyes, which seemed to see right through her.

We agreed that Pandit’s true story was astonishing, tragic, and yet illuminating—the foundation for a movie and a true American archetype of self-invention. Unbeknownst to the rest of us, he had actually been one of the first African-American television stars. Twelve years later, when we were both retired, Eric and I decided to use our pensions and social security to make that movie.

http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/how-a-black-man-from-missouri-passed-as-an-indian-pop-star

A Father-Daughter Story

An excerpt from The New York Times "What We're Reading Now" -

The idea took hold a few months ago. It’s hard to say exactly what sparked it other than … well, have you ever been the parent of a 14-year-old girl? It is a daunting experience. Elizabeth is a good person. She’s a good student. She has a huge heart. She’s a loyal friend. She’s funny too. She likes Death Cab and Spinal Tap and comic books and reading. The other day, she told me that her favorite movie of all time is “The Godfather.” I mean, she is more me than I am.

But she is 14, and in some ways that explains everything. In some ways it doesn’t. There are times I feel closer to her than ever … and times I feel so much further away. Farther away? Further away? One gorgeous day in autumn, I was sitting on the porch, working, and she came outside and sat next to me, and it became clear after a few choice words about tattoos and nose rings and such that she had come out for the sole purpose of starting a fight. There was no specific reason for it other than she’s 14, and I’m her father, and this is the timeless story.

http://joeposnanski.com/hamilton/

15-Yr-Old Kelvin Doe Wows M.I.T.

Quote

From Vox -

"The millions of admirers of the TV presentation of ‘Roots’ didn’t include Ronald Reagan, who said, ‘Very frankly, I thought the bias of all the good people being one color and all the bad people being another was rather destructive.’" [Washington Post in 1977, via Post / Bethonie Butler]

Rot at the Top 2

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/investigations/seducing-the-seventh-fleet/?hpid=hp_no-name_graphic-story-b%3Ahomepage%2Fstory

Quote

Leonard Matlovich's tombstone at the Congressional Cemetery, which reads:

"A Gay Vietnam Veteran

When I was in the military, they gave me a medal for killing two men and a discharge for loving one."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Matlovich

The Good Old Days (featuring Donald Trump & the Greensboro 4)

I've Learned . . .

There are wonderful people all over the world.

I've learned . . .

You don't have to speak the same language to communicate with someone.

I've learned . . .

We have so much more in common with people than we realize at first blush.

I've learned . . .

The US doesn't have a monopoly on red tape.

I've learned . . .

That religion can be scary, but relationships break the barriers.

I've learned . . .

That a smile is universal.

I've learned . . .

That connections matter.  Not for what someone can do for you, but connecting because they matter.

I've learned . . .

That solitude doesn't equal loneliness.

I've learned . . .

To let go of the hurt, and move on.

I've learned . . .

How little I know.

He Did It!

An excerpt from BlackAmericaWeb -

Harlem Drug Dealer Turned His Life Around In The Most Amazing Way

David Norman proves it's never too late to follow your dreams.

A former Harlem drug dealer just received his bachelor’s degree from New York City’s Columbia University. David Norman now holds a degree in philosophy and cried tears of joy as he reflected on the hardships he endured to get there.

http://blackamericaweb.com/2016/05/29/harlem-drug-dealer-turned-his-life-around-in-the-most-amazing-way/?omcamp=es-baw-nl&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=New%20Campaign&utm_term=BAW%20Subscribers%20%28Daily%29

Futuristic straddling bus allows cars running underneath

The Teen Sneaker Dealer to the Rich and Famous

Check This Out

An excerpt from StumbleUpon -

2. SELF-DESTRUCTING EMAIL ADDRESSES

With 10 Minute Mail, you can create an extremely temporary email address that will automatically self-destruct in 10 minutes, allowing you to sign up for sites, lists, and deals without the unbearable spam cannon that normally accompanies your quiet compliance. Also good for anonymous threats and insults to friends/family members. Not that I'd do that, of course.

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/AGFkFR/:w02!$tLM:l6oW5fBF/mentalfloss.com/article/79130/14-totally-free-things-internet-everyone-should-take-advantage

Everyday People | Turnaround Arts | Playing For Change | #ArtsForChange

I Love This Momma!

Penn's 2016 Commencement Ceremony- Commencement Speaker Lin-Manuel Miranda

Rot at the Top

An excerpt from the Washington Post -

The Man Who Seduced the 7th Fleet

In perhaps the worst national-security breach of its kind to hit the Navy since the end of the Cold War, Francis doled out sex and money to a shocking number of people in uniform who fed him classified material about U.S. warship and submarine movements. Some also leaked him confidential contracting information and even files about active law enforcement investigations into his company.

He exploited the intelligence for illicit profit, brazenly ordering his moles to redirect aircraft carriers to ports he controlled in Southeast Asia so he could more easily bilk the Navy for fuel, tugboats, barges, food, water and sewage removal.

Over at least a decade, according to documents filed by prosecutors, Glenn Defense ripped off the Navy with little fear of getting caught because Francis had so thoroughly infiltrated the ranks.

The company forged invoices, falsified quotes and ran kickback schemes. It created ghost subcontractors and fake port authorities to fool the Navy into paying for services it never received.

Francis and his firm have admitted to defrauding the Navy of $35 million, though investigators believe the real amount could be much greater.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/wp/2016/05/27/fat-leonard/?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_fatleonard-930a%3Ahomepage%2Fstory

Lukas Graham - 7 Years [OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO]

Not my usual fare, but . . .







http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/lukas-grahams-singer-on-growing-up-in-denmarks-anarchist-utopia-20160527

Hand Job

From Wired -

"As a child I was routinely teased by my siblings about my hands being so soft.
Now I'm a hand model and they're a carpenter, an electrician and a mechanic." — Cliff

HANDS APPEAR EVERYWHERE IN advertising. Flip through any magazine and you’ll see them flaunting watches, washing dishes, stroking faces. Hand modeling is a real job done by professional models, which makes you wonder who they are and what they look like. Oli Kellett and Alex Holder introduce you to some of them in their wonderful book Hand Jobs.

The idea came to them while shooting a commercial in 2012. They spotted a petite woman wearing enormous gloves while reading a paperback. It turns out she was a hand model, protecting her hands. “The image just stuck with us,” Kellett says.

With that, the duo went to Hired Hands, an agency in London. They convinced 24 models to pose for portraits and hold a banana in a suggestive manner, an idea that lends the series a certain cheekiness (and required buying dozens of bananas, raising eyebrows at the supermarket). Each model offers an insight into their unusual profession. One man, for example, followed his father and uncle into the business. Others went into modeling after repeatedly hearing they have lovely hands.

http://www.wired.com/2016/05/oli-kellett-alex-holder-hand-jobs/?mbid=nl_52716#slide-9

Can You Solve This?

http://nowiknow.com/decipher-this/

Celebration | Playing For Change | Songs Around The World

Sittin' On The Dock Of The Bay | Playing For Change

Unicycles + Football: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

A Modern Day Warrior: Mastering Mounted Archery

Oreos, Bananas & Coconuts

An excerpt from Vulture -

Why The Mindy Project’s ‘Coconut’ Episode Was a Smart Response to Criticism of the Show

More frequently, this critique has been aimed at the fact that Mindy Lahiri only dates white men. My own line on the show’s racial politics has been that the problem isn’t that Mindy exclusively dates white men, but rather that the show didn’t engage with the contours of those interracial relationships. There are plenty of Asian-Americans who only date white people, but to suggest that race isn’t a factor is willfully naïve: You encounter people who won’t date you because of your race, people who want to date you only because of your race, and the ones who claim not to see race at all. The Mindy Project brushed over Mindy's dating choices when there was plenty of comedy to be mined there. And so it was a both surprise and a delight when The Mindy Project dropped the “C” word during the recent episode “Bernardo & Anita”: coconut.

Coconut, of course, is one of those lightly pejorative, food-based words to describe people of color who are “white on the inside.” (Other gastronomic equivalents include Oreos and bananas.) It’s a label that’s usually leveled by a member of the same race, a way to tut-tut the other person's failure to properly rep for the tribe. Having Indian-American suitor Neel (Kristian Kordula) call Mindy Lahiri a coconut was a smart and playful way to address a longstanding criticism of the show itself, while remaining true to the show’s protagonist.

http://www.vulture.com/2016/05/mindy-project-criticism-response-bernardo-anita.html#