Texas. Texas. Texas. Part 2

Last week Dorothy Patton Barrera, who is white, approached her hometown cemetery, seeking to bury the ashes of her husband, who was cremated. Barrera later said that she was turned away because her husband, Pedro, was Hispanic and the plot was for “whites only.”

http://www.theroot.com/articles/news/2016/03/_white_s_only_texas_cemetery_reverses_decision_after_denying_widow_place.html?wpisrc=newsletter_jcr:content%26

Severe Weather

Here's hoping you can access these video clips of the storm we experienced here in the UAE this week.

First, as a point of reference, the official rainfall for this country is four days per year.  

It has rained four days this week!  

Now granted, some days were not more than a hard drizzle, but it rained nonetheless.

However, on Tuesday, we expereinced a real rainstorm with downpours, 75 mph winds, and hail.  

In my little town, there was some thunder and lightning, but not much more, thank God.

Other parts of Abu Dhabi were not so lucky.

This is the majlis (sitting area) in someone-s home.

Window blowing into office.

Rain falling inside of school - not mine.

Glass doors blowing into building.

Painkillers Kill More Than Pain

Texas. Texas. Texas.

https://youtu.be/qgoypDIHKAQ

Cat Attacks Mail Man || KARMA

Ooops

I just reread "Gratitude," an earlier post from today and caught several errors.

Like I've said many times over these almost five years of blogging, I do proofread before hitting "send," but many times I just can't see the errors.

Isn't that same thing oftentimes true with life?

We can't see the error of our ways until some time has passed away, or someone has brought it to our attention?

So, here's to always striving for error-free posts and an error-free life.

Who thinks there might be slip ups?

Yeah, me too.

"A" for effort though.

The Carmichael Show - Successful People Cheat (Sneak Peek)

Get More Sleep People!

An excerpt from FastCompany - 

Why Six Hours Of Sleep Is As Bad As None At All

Getting six hours of sleep a night simply isn't enough for you to be your most productive. In fact, it's just as bad as not sleeping at all.

~~~~~~~~~~

WHY SIX HOURS OF SLEEP ISN'T ENOUGH

As you can imagine, the subjects who were allowed to sleep eight hours per night had the highest performance on average. Subjects who got only four hours a night did worse each day. The group who got six hours of sleep seemed to be holding their own, until around day 10 of the study.

In the last few days of the experiment, the subjects who were restricted to a maximum of six hours of sleep per night showed cognitive performance that was as bad as the people who weren't allowed to sleep at all. Getting only six hours of shut-eye was as bad as not sleeping for two days straight. The group who got only four hours of sleep each night performed just as poorly, but they hit their low sooner.

One of the most alarming results from the sleep study is that the six-hour sleep group didn't rate their sleepiness as being all that bad, even as their cognitive performance was going downhill. The no-sleep group progressively rated their sleepiness level higher and higher. By the end of the experiment, their sleepiness had jumped by two levels. But the six-hour group only jumped one level. Those findings raise the question about how people cope when they get insufficient sleep, perhaps suggesting that they're in denial (willful or otherwise) about their present state.

http://www.fastcompany.com/3057465/how-to-be-a-success-at-everything/why-six-hours-of-sleep-is-as-bad-as-none-at-all

Personality Test

These are always fun.

https://www.16personalities.com/free-personality-test/ba7699efa9f803dc2545edc3903ef4f1

H/T Alisha

Gratitude

As most of you know, I was married for twenty years and have been divorced now for seventeen.

I spent the first twelve of those years after my divorce being angry and bitter and resentful.  I couldn't see past the hurt and pain, to recognize the gift of freedom that I had been given.

It was only when I decided to forgive my ex for the wrongs, real or perceived, that I was truly able to move on and live life to the fullest.

It was only when I could honestly see him for the flawed man that he is, that I was able to see and understand that he was doing the best he could.  He was working at capacity.

So, I've replaced those feelings of betrayal and resentment, with feelings of gratitude and peace.

This is why I appreciated this open letter a woman sent to her ex.

And like her, I wish my ex only the best.

http://matadornetwork.com/life/dear-ex-boyfriend-open-letter-wrong-one/?utm_source=Traverse&utm_campaign=aea42ada05-Tuesday_Traverse_March_8_2016&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c4e20459d5-aea42ada05-80146797

Bernie & Blacks

 An excerpt from VerySmartBrothas - 

MAYBE BLACK PEOPLE AREN’T FEELING BERNIE SANDERS BECAUSE WE’RE TIRED OF PEOPLE SAYING WE SHOULD BE

Damon Young, 3/8/16

This — Sanders’s standing with Black voters — has spawned myriad incredulous articles, segments, blogs, status messages, tweets, and annoyingly millennial emojis from Sanders supporters; all wondering aloud why Sanders struggles with Blacks when he should be the Black person’s BFF.

“Yes, Sanders might not be perfect on race” the piece will assert “but they should realize he’s a much better candidate for them than the others.” 

“He’s progressive on crime” another piece might state “and he looks just like Larry David. And Larry David had Wanda Sykes and J.B. Smoove on his show, so you know he loves the Blacks!”

And while I get it — Sanders’s political views do seem like they’d be more favorable for Black Americans than the other candidate’s — these people are ultimately treating Black voters like we’re sick toddlers refusing to take our Bernietussin.

“This will be good for you, Little Jahiem. Trust me. A spoonful of Bernietussin will stop your sniffles.”

This bit of parental admonishment is even implied in many of the “Why don’t Black people support Sanders?” pieces that don’t outright condescend. Because just the act of crafting a piece around that premise implies that Black people should be supporting Sanders, but there’s some mysterious reason preventing us from doing so. And not only is this infantilizing, it has the potential to actively turn potential Black voters away. Because White people — and yes, liberal White people too — convincing Black people to do something with “Trust me. It’s for your own good” has never really worked out very well for us, historically.

http://verysmartbrothas.com/maybe-black-people-arent-feeling-bernie-sanders-because-were-tired-of-people-saying-we-should-be/

H/T Ben

Incarcerated Women Perform "The Wiz" At Bedford Hills Maximum Security P...

Why Voting in 2016 Could Be Nearly Impossible For Some Americans

What a Cutie Pie!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/serious-grumpy-baby-mood-changes-jackson-5_us_56dda726e4b03a4056792f0a

Playing Dead For a Living

Got the Right Stuff?

http://www.wired.com/2016/03/watch-us-epically-fail-nasas-astronaut-test/?mbid=nl_3716

Mavis

Guilty as Charged

Quote from Salon - 

I hate to have to say it, but the conclusion stares us in the face: We’re a stupid country, full of loud, illiterate and credulous people. Trump has marched straight to the nomination without offering anything like a platform or a plan. With a vocabulary of roughly a dozen words – wall, Mexicans, low-energy, loser, Muslims, stupid, China, negotiate, deals, America, great, again – he’s bamboozled millions of Americans. And it’s not just splenetic conservatives supporting Trump or your garden-variety bigots (although that’s the center of his coalition), it’s also independents, pro-choice Republicans, and a subset of Reagan Democrats.

http://www.salon.com/2016/02/24/america_youre_stupid_donald_trumps_political_triumph_makes_it_official_were_a_nation_of_idiots/

Another Reason to Vaccinate

From Now I Know -

The Measles Mystery

In the 1960s, children throughout the America began receiving a vaccination for measles. And as the chart above (via Wikipedia) shows, the vaccine, by and large, made the disease history. But that's not all that happened.  As NPR reported, after widespread use of the vaccine began, "childhood deaths from all infectious diseases plummeted. Even deaths from diseases like pneumonia and diarrhea were cut by half." Somehow, the measles vaccine was keeping other diseases at bay, too.

And until recently, no one knew why. 

The measles vaccine, like most others, is designed to inoculate the patient against a specific disease. The modern measles vaccine (the "MMR"), as the UK's National Health Service explains, "contains weakened versions of live measles, mumps and rubella viruses. The vaccine works by triggering the immune system to produce antibodies against measles, mumps and rubella." Those antibodies, though, aren't useful against other diseases -- the MMR shot won't prevent a child from getting anything else.

But, as noted above, that's exactly what was happening. Children who were inoculated against the measles were significantly less likely to die from other diseases than children who hadn't received the vaccine.

At first, the medical community thought this was simply because those receiving vaccinations had better access to medical care than those who didn't. But when the vaccine made its way to other nations -- often poorer nations -- the same thing happened: the incidence of measles fell, but so did the incidence of other diseases. So scientists looked for other explanations. And as it turns out, the most likely reason is that measles is more dangerous than we originally thought.

In a paper published in the May 8th issue of Science, a team lead by a Princeton biology postdoc and Emory medical student named Michael Mina explained why: the measles virus didn't just cause measles, but also weakened the immune system overall. How? As the New York Times reported, "studies suggest that measles infection depletes B and T lymphocytes, specialized white blood cells that produce antibodies that 'remember' the measles virus, providing immunity against further attacks." Mina compared this to amnesia, as he told NPR in the above-linked article: 

Well, say you get the chicken pox when you're 4 years old. Your immune system figures out how to fight it. So you don't get it again. But if you get measles when you're 5 years old, it could wipe out the memory of how to beat back the chicken pox.

That's been known for a while, but the effects were believed to be short-lived, perhaps only as long as the measles virus was active in a person's system. Mina and team came to a different conclusion. Per their research, this "immune amnesia" can last two or three years -- long enough where children are exposed to lots of different diseases to which they have become once again vulnerable. 

Avoiding the measles, therefore, also avoids this eradication of the immune system. So while the measles vaccine itself doesn't increase the body's ability to fight non-measles disease, the net result is the same: for years after inoculation, the measles shot reduces the spread and effect of other, unrelated childhood diseases.

http://nowiknow.com/the-measles-mystery/

~~~~~~~~~~

Moral of the story - vaccinate your kids!

Turning the Tables on the Typical Soup Kitchen

http://www.upworthy.com/a-soup-kitchen-disguised-as-a-restaurant-is-making-a-big-difference-in-kansas-city?c=upw1