Saturday, February 13, 2016
Friday, February 12, 2016
Simply the Best
An excerpt from The New York Times -
Biles is the best American gymnast since, well, probably ever. She is 4 feet 9 inches, with size 5 feet, but there is an unfathomable amount of power packed into her petite package. She flies through the air as if she were part bird and part cannonball. When she competes, it is nearly impossible not to stop and stare.
Last fall, at the world championships, Biles, 18, won the world all-around title for the third consecutive time, a streak that was unheard-of before she came around and shredded the old book. Her 10 gold medals at the world championships are the most for any woman; her 14 overall medals are more than any other American woman.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/13/sports/olympics/simone-biles-gymnast-rio-olympics.html
For World’s Top Gymnast, a Body in Motion and a Mind at Rest
 |
| Simone Biles is a three-time all-around world champion, but for now she is trying not to think about the coming Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. |
Biles is the best American gymnast since, well, probably ever. She is 4 feet 9 inches, with size 5 feet, but there is an unfathomable amount of power packed into her petite package. She flies through the air as if she were part bird and part cannonball. When she competes, it is nearly impossible not to stop and stare.
Last fall, at the world championships, Biles, 18, won the world all-around title for the third consecutive time, a streak that was unheard-of before she came around and shredded the old book. Her 10 gold medals at the world championships are the most for any woman; her 14 overall medals are more than any other American woman.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/13/sports/olympics/simone-biles-gymnast-rio-olympics.html
Havana Here We Come!
WASHINGTON – Starting Tuesday, U.S. airlines will have 15 days to submit proposals to the Transportation Department to fly as many as 100 flights daily to Cuba, with competition expected for at least the routes to Havana, officials announced Friday.
Department officials said they will review the proposals with an eye toward providing the most benefit to the most passengers. Scheduled flights could begin as early as fall, with up to 20 per day to Havana and up to 10 flights to each of nine other Cuban cities prepared to receive international flights.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2016/02/12/us-flights-cuba-could-begin-fall/80299114/
Not Just Here
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/brazilian-beauty-queen-says-she-was-dethroned-for-being-too-black_us_56be13b6e4b08ffac124e66e
Black Brilliance 3
Annie Easley
Annie J. Easley (April 23, 1933 – June 25, 2011) was an African-Americancomputer scientist, mathematician, and rocket scientist.[1] She worked for the Lewis Research Center of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and its predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). She was a leading member of the team which developed software for the Centaur rocket stage and one of the first African-Americans in her field.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annie_Easley
Black Brilliance 2
Dorothy Vaughan
Dorothy Johnson Vaughan (1910–2008) was an African American mathematician who worked at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), the predecessor agency to NASA. Prior to arriving at NACA's Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory in 1943, Vaughan worked as a math teacher at R.R. Moton High School in Farmville, VA.[1]
In 1949, Vaughan became the head of the West Area Computers, a work group composed entirely of African-American female mathematicians.[2] Mathematician Katherine Johnson was assigned to Vaughan's group before being transferred to Langley's Flight Research Division.
Vaughan continued at Langley after NACA became NASA, specializing for the rest of her career in electronic computing and FORTRAN programming. She worked in the Langley Research Center's Analysis and Computation Division, and also participated in Scout Project (Solid Controlled Orbital Utility Test system) tests at Wallops Flight Facility.[3]
She retired from NASA in 1971, and died on November 10, 2008.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Vaughan
Black Brilliance
Taraji P. Henson (Cookie from Empire) will portray Ms. Johnson in a film entitled "Hidden Figures."
Katherine Johnson
Katherine G. Johnson (born August 26, 1918) is an American physicist, space scientist, and mathematician who contributed to America's aeronautics and space programs with the early application of digital electronic computers at NASA. Known for accuracy in computerized celestial navigation, she calculated the trajectory for Project Mercury and the 1969 Apollo 11 flight to the Moon.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katherine_Johnson
http://variety.com/2016/film/news/taraji-p-henson-hidden-figures-katherine-johnson-1201702679/
Damning Truths
An excerpt from The Nation - "Why Hilary Doesn't Deserve the Black Vote"
Bill Clinton presided over the largest increase in federal and state prison inmates of any president in American history. Clinton did not declare the War on Crime or the War on Drugs—those wars were declared before Reagan was elected and long before crack hit the streets—but he escalated it beyond what many conservatives had imagined possible. He supported the 100-to-1 sentencing disparity for crack versus powder cocaine, which produced staggering racial injustice in sentencing and boosted funding for drug-law enforcement.
Clinton championed the idea of a federal “three strikes” law in his 1994 State of the Union address and, months later, signed a $30 billion crime bill that created dozens of new federal capital crimes, mandated life sentences for some three-time offenders, and authorized more than $16 billion for state prison grants and the expansion of police forces. The legislation was hailed by mainstream-media outlets as a victory for the Democrats, who “were able to wrest the crime issue from the Republicans and make it their own.”
When Clinton left office in 2001, the United States had the highest rate of incarceration in the world. Human Rights Watch reported that in seven states, African Americans constituted 80 to 90 percent of all drug offenders sent to prison, even though they were no more likely than whites to use or sell illegal drugs. Prison admissions for drug offenses reached a level in 2000 for African Americans more than 26 times the level in 1983. All of the presidents since 1980 have contributed to mass incarceration, but as Equal Justice Initiative founder Bryan Stevenson recently observed, “President Clinton’s tenure was the worst.”
http://www.thenation.com/article/hillary-clinton-does-not-deserve-black-peoples-votes/
Bill Clinton presided over the largest increase in federal and state prison inmates of any president in American history. Clinton did not declare the War on Crime or the War on Drugs—those wars were declared before Reagan was elected and long before crack hit the streets—but he escalated it beyond what many conservatives had imagined possible. He supported the 100-to-1 sentencing disparity for crack versus powder cocaine, which produced staggering racial injustice in sentencing and boosted funding for drug-law enforcement.
Clinton championed the idea of a federal “three strikes” law in his 1994 State of the Union address and, months later, signed a $30 billion crime bill that created dozens of new federal capital crimes, mandated life sentences for some three-time offenders, and authorized more than $16 billion for state prison grants and the expansion of police forces. The legislation was hailed by mainstream-media outlets as a victory for the Democrats, who “were able to wrest the crime issue from the Republicans and make it their own.”
When Clinton left office in 2001, the United States had the highest rate of incarceration in the world. Human Rights Watch reported that in seven states, African Americans constituted 80 to 90 percent of all drug offenders sent to prison, even though they were no more likely than whites to use or sell illegal drugs. Prison admissions for drug offenses reached a level in 2000 for African Americans more than 26 times the level in 1983. All of the presidents since 1980 have contributed to mass incarceration, but as Equal Justice Initiative founder Bryan Stevenson recently observed, “President Clinton’s tenure was the worst.”
http://www.thenation.com/article/hillary-clinton-does-not-deserve-black-peoples-votes/
Having to Define Blackness
I’m a black actor. Here’s how inequality works when you’re not famous.
by Bear Bellinger on February 12, 2016
I walk into the theater; the director, his assistant, and an intern are seated behind a table. The music director is set up on my left to accompany me on piano. I say a pleasant hello, gather myself, check to make sure the music director knows my tempo, and began to sing:
"I'm a colored spade, a Negro, a black nigger..."
I'm auditioning for Hair, the groundbreaking rock musical on hippie culture, race, and sexuality during the late '60s. I'm asked to prepare Hud's song "Colored Spade," which is basically a list of every imaginable slur for black people. As I finish up, content with the line I had just walked between anger and pain, I look up at the four white faces staring back at me. The director stands up, smiling broadly, walks over to me, and says:
"Great, great job, Bear. I'd like for you to do it again. This time I want you to imagine if you were a black man and someone was saying all of these things to you."
I look down at my skin to reaffirm what I already know: Yup, I am still a black man. Here I am, yet again, the only black man in a sea of white faces, being asked by people with no reference point to have a "blacker" reaction, to respond more "authentically." I sang the song again. I won the role.
Another day in the life of a blacktor.
I have been a working actor in the Chicagoland area for seven years now. That includes time auditioning for, and performing in, anything from musicals to plays to variety shows to TV to movies. The one common denominator, in all this time, is that I am a black man constantly having to conform my blackness to what white people, mainly men, on the other side of the table believe to be true. These men have no ill intent in their ideas about or depictions of blackness; they also have no lived experience. And mine, as the only actual black person in the room, is almost never valued or understood.
http://www.vox.com/2016/2/12/10958356/working-black-actor
by Bear Bellinger on February 12, 2016
I walk into the theater; the director, his assistant, and an intern are seated behind a table. The music director is set up on my left to accompany me on piano. I say a pleasant hello, gather myself, check to make sure the music director knows my tempo, and began to sing:
"I'm a colored spade, a Negro, a black nigger..."
I'm auditioning for Hair, the groundbreaking rock musical on hippie culture, race, and sexuality during the late '60s. I'm asked to prepare Hud's song "Colored Spade," which is basically a list of every imaginable slur for black people. As I finish up, content with the line I had just walked between anger and pain, I look up at the four white faces staring back at me. The director stands up, smiling broadly, walks over to me, and says:
"Great, great job, Bear. I'd like for you to do it again. This time I want you to imagine if you were a black man and someone was saying all of these things to you."
I look down at my skin to reaffirm what I already know: Yup, I am still a black man. Here I am, yet again, the only black man in a sea of white faces, being asked by people with no reference point to have a "blacker" reaction, to respond more "authentically." I sang the song again. I won the role.
Another day in the life of a blacktor.
I have been a working actor in the Chicagoland area for seven years now. That includes time auditioning for, and performing in, anything from musicals to plays to variety shows to TV to movies. The one common denominator, in all this time, is that I am a black man constantly having to conform my blackness to what white people, mainly men, on the other side of the table believe to be true. These men have no ill intent in their ideas about or depictions of blackness; they also have no lived experience. And mine, as the only actual black person in the room, is almost never valued or understood.
http://www.vox.com/2016/2/12/10958356/working-black-actor
Who Marries Who?
Fascinating chart.
http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2016-who-marries-whom/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Vox%20Sentences%202/12/16&utm_term=Vox%20Newsletter%20All
http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2016-who-marries-whom/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Vox%20Sentences%202/12/16&utm_term=Vox%20Newsletter%20All
Thursday, February 11, 2016
Quote
"He’s better than anybody realized," says David Axelrod, who served as Obama's chief strategist in 2008. "There is a rumpled authenticity to Bernie Sanders that really resonates, particularly with young people who have finely tuned bullshit meters."
http://www.vox.com/2016/2/11/10967374/obama-staffers-bernie-sanders
Wednesday, February 10, 2016
Best Yearbook Prank
From The Huffington Post -
When it comes to microaggressions, Asian-Americans have heard it all. "How come you guys all look the same?" "Where are you really from?" And the classic, "Are you all related?"
Four Vietnamese high school students who've probably heard that last one too many times served a rejoinder in a hilarious, coordinated yearbook stunt.
The students, all of whom have the common Vietnamese surname "Nguyen," added text below their photos (where an inspirational quote usually goes) that add up to the sentence: WE ARE NOT RELATED.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/four-vietnamese-students-yearbook-prank_us_56b4d556e4b04f9b57d956d9
Tuesday, February 9, 2016
Math Whiz Kids
From The Atlantic -
The Math Revolution
The number of American teens who excel at advanced math has surged. Why?
On a sultry evening last July, a tall, soft-spoken 17-year-old named David Stoner and nearly 600 other math whizzes from all over the world sat huddled in small groups around wicker bistro tables, talking in low voices and obsessively refreshing the browsers on their laptops. The air in the cavernous lobby of the Lotus Hotel Pang Suan Kaew in Chiang Mai, Thailand, was humid, recalls Stoner, whose light South Carolina accent warms his carefully chosen words. The tension in the room made it seem especially heavy, like the atmosphere at a high-stakes poker tournament.
Stoner and five teammates were representing the United States in the 56th International Mathematical Olympiad. They figured they’d done pretty well over the two days of competition. God knows, they’d trained hard. Stoner, like his teammates, had endured a grueling regime for more than a year—practicing tricky problems over breakfast before school and taking on more problems late into the evening after he completed the homework for his college-level math classes. Sometimes, he sketched out proofs on the large dry-erase board his dad had installed in his bedroom. Most nights, he put himself to sleep reading books like New Problems in Euclidean Geometry and An Introduction to Diophantine Equations.
Still, it was hard to know how his team had stacked up against those from the perennial powers China, Russia, and South Korea. “I mean, the gold? Did we do well enough to get the gold?” he said. “At that moment, it was hard to say.” Suddenly, there was a shout from a team across the lobby, then a collective intake of breath as the Olympians surged closer to their laptops. As Stoner tried to absorb what he saw on his own computer screen, the noise level in the lobby grew from a buzz to a cheer. Then one of his team members gave a whoop that ended in the chant “U.S.A.! U.S.A.!,” and the smattering of applause from the other Olympians grew more robust, and finally thunderous. Beaming, one of Stoner’s teammates pulled a small American flag out of his backpack and began waving it. Stoner was grinning. For the first time in 21 years, the United States team had won first place. Speaking last fall from his dorm at Harvard, where he is now a freshman, Stoner recalled his team’s triumph with quiet satisfaction. “It was a really great moment. Really great. Especially if you love math.”
It also wasn’t an aberration. You wouldn’t see it in most classrooms, you wouldn’t know it by looking at slumping national test-score averages, but a cadre of American teenagers are reaching world-class heights in math—more of them, more regularly, than ever before. The phenomenon extends well beyond the handful of hopefuls for the Math Olympiad. The students are being produced by a new pedagogical ecosystem—almost entirely extracurricular—that has developed online and in the country’s rich coastal cities and tech meccas. In these places, accelerated students are learning more and learning faster than they were 10 years ago—tackling more-complex material than many people in the advanced-math community had thought possible. “The bench of American teens who can do world-class math,” says Po-Shen Loh, the head coach of the U.S. team, “is significantly wider and stronger than it used to be.”
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/03/the-math-revolution/426855/?utm_source=atl-daily-newsletter
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