Great News!

An excerpt from The New York Times -

New Procedure Allows Kidney Transplants From Any Donor

In the anguishing wait for a new kidney, tens of thousands of patients on waiting lists may never find a match because their immune systems will reject almost any transplanted organ. Now, in a large national study that experts are calling revolutionary, researchers have found a way to get them the desperately needed procedure.

In the new study, published Wednesday in The New England Journal of Medicine, doctors successfully altered patients’ immune systems to allow them to accept kidneys from incompatible donors. Significantly more of those patients were still alive after eight years than patients who had remained on waiting lists or received a kidney transplanted from a deceased donor.

The method, known as desensitization, “has the potential to save many lives,” said Dr. Jeffery Berns, a kidney specialist at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine and the president of the National Kidney Foundation.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/10/health/kidney-transplant-desensitization-immune-system.html?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Vox%20Sentences%203/10/16&utm_term=Vox%20Newsletter%20All&_r=0

Daylight Saving Time Explained

Texas. Texas. Texas. Part 3

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/lawn-mower-dog-texas_us_56e0e731e4b0b25c9180d662

Bionic Fingertips May Be Medical BreakThrough

Meet 15 Black Tech Innovators Diversifying SXSW

http://www.theroot.com/articles/culture/2016/03/meet_15_black_tech_innovators_who_are_bringing_diversity_to_south_by_southwest.html?wpisrc=newsletter_jcr:content%26

A Touching Moment

From The Root -

Photo of Baltimore Teen Praying Over Homeless Man Goes Viral

The unidentified teen was walking to the bus when he saw a sleeping homeless man. He stopped, knelt, touched the man's foot, and prayed over him.

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

School Janitor Singing Sam Cooke

The Return of the Black Panther

An excerpt from The Atlantic -

The Return of the Black Panther
A behind-the-scenes look at the revival of Marvel’s first black-superhero series—and an exclusive preview of the first issue

By Ta-Nehisi Coates

~~~~~~~~~~

Some of the best days of my life were spent poring over the back issues of The Uncanny X-Men and The Amazing Spider-Man. As a child of the crack-riddled West Baltimore of the 1980s, I found the tales of comic books to be an escape, another reality where, very often, the weak and mocked could transform their fallibility into fantastic power. That is the premise behind the wimpy Steve Rogers mutating into Captain America, behind the nerdy Bruce Banner needing only to grow angry to make his enemies take flight, behind the bespectacled Peter Parker being transfigured by a banal spider bite into something more.

But comic books provided something beyond escapism. Indeed, aside from hip-hop and Dungeons & Dragons, comics were my earliest influences. In the way that past writers had been shaped by the canon of Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and Wharton, I was formed by the canon of Claremont, DeFalco, and Simonson. Some of this was personal. All of the comics I loved made use of two seemingly dueling forces—fantastic grandiosity and ruthless efficiency. Comic books are absurd. At any moment, the Avengers might include a hero drawn from Norse mythology (Thor), a monstrous realization of our nuclear-age nightmares (the Hulk), a creation of science fiction (Wasp), and an allegory for the experience of minorities in human society (Beast). But the absurdities of comics are, in part, made possible by a cold-eyed approach to sentence-craft. Even when the language tips toward bombast, space is at a premium; every word has to count. This big/small approach to literature, the absurd and surreal married to the concrete and tangible, has undergirded much of my approach to writing. In my journalism here at The Atlantic, I try to ground my arguments not just in reporting but also in astute attention to every sentence. It may not always work, but I am really trying to make every one of those 18,000 words count.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/04/the-return-of-the-black-panther/471516/?utm_source=atl-daily-newsletter

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...