Bedtime Stories

That speak to the millions of kids who have parents, especially fathers, who are incarcerated.

https://newrepublic.com/article/132808/bedtime-stories-jail?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=New%20Campaign&utm_term=TNR%20Daily%20Newsletter

Vindicated

Frankie, this one's for you.

As most of you know, I have two sons, Ben (34) and Frankie (32).

Although they were born in the same week (September 16 and 10 respectively), under the same astrological sign (if you believe in that stuff), they're as different as night and day.

Growing up, Ben was focused and driven; Frankie was carefree and fun loving.

Ben always did his homework, with projects turned in early.

Frankie's used to say, "Mom, you know I know how to do this.  My teacher knows I know how to do this, so why do I have to do it?"

Yeah, getting Frankie to do his homework was always a struggle.

There was no doubt in my mind that Frankie was innately smarter than Ben, but Ben worked harder, so his grades were better.

In sports, Ben was a fierce competitor, disappointed with every loss, no matter how strong his performance was.  Frankie was equally competitive, but he kept it in perspective.  He'd say, "Mom, the coach is taking this way too seriously."

They played soccer, football, basketball, baseball, and in high school, Frankie wrestled and played rugby.

Ben was neat and Frankie, not so much.

Back then, OK maybe even now, I was the queen of nagging.

I used to ride Ben and Frankie all the time about everything it seems, but I especially got on Frankie about his hair ( that's another message for another day) and his messy room.

His room was in a constant state of disarray, until finally, after hearing me complain enough, he'd clean it.

And I mean he'd really clean it from top to bottom.

In fact, no one cleans and organizes better than Frankie; he just doesn't do it often.

And now, as I sit in my apartment, surrounded by empty boxes (under the pretense of saving them to ship things back to the US), cabinets and drawers pulled out and not returned to their rightful places when I was searching for something, where dust bunnies have found a home and keep adding to their spread, where piles of wind-blown sand are making mini pyramids near the doors and windows, where clothes are hanging on every door instead of returned to the closet, where the floors haven't been swept or mopped in forever, I realize even more that Frankie is just like me.

I, too, am that messy person who is content to live in the mess, until I'm not, who then goes in like a storm, scrubbing, purging, and making it clean again.

The apple truly doesn't fall far from the tree.

So Frankie, for all the times I was on your case, I'm sorry.

Maybe even then, I realized you were just like me, and as I worked overtime in trying to correct your bad habits, I should have used some of that time to fix my own.

Know this.

I love you.

I love your thoughtfulness, your kindness, and your unique way of seeing the world.  I love how you wear your intelligence, not as a badge of honor, but as a tool to better understand those around you.

And most of all, I love the man you have become, mess and all.  I could not be prouder of the husband, father, and man you've grown up to be.

Quote

From The New York Times - 

Prince’s Holy Lust
By TOURÉ

It’s as if Prince introduced himself to us by talking about his dirty mind and how he was all about controversy, and once we got intrigued by him, because he’d told us how much hot sex he was having, then he said, well, now that I’ve got your attention, let me tell you about my lord and savior, Jesus Christ.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/24/opinion/sunday/princes-holy-lust.html?ribbon-ad-idx=15&rref=opinion&module=Ribbon&version=context&region=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Opinion&pgtype=article

A Moving Tribute

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/goodbye-prince-you-were-the-best-of-us-20160422

Not Quite All

Amazon's same day delivery excludes many predominantly black areas where its needed the most.

~~~~~~~~~~

An excerpt from Bloomberg via Vox -

Amazon Doesn’t Consider the Race of Its Customers. Should It?
By David Ingold and Spencer Soper
April 21, 2016

In six major same-day delivery cities, however, the service area excludes predominantly black ZIP codes to varying degrees, according to a Bloomberg analysis that compared Amazon same-day delivery areas with U.S. Census Bureau data.

In Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, and Washington, cities still struggling to overcome generations of racial segregation and economic inequality, black citizens are about half as likely to live in neighborhoods with access to Amazon same-day delivery as white residents.

The disparity in two other big cities is significant, too. In New York City, same-day delivery is available throughout Manhattan, Staten Island, and Brooklyn, but not in the Bronx and some majority-black neighborhoods in Queens. In some cities, Amazon same-day delivery extends many miles into the surrounding suburbs but isn’t available in some ZIP codes within the city limits.

http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2016-amazon-same-day/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=4/22/16&utm_term=Vox%20Newsletter%20All

http://www.vox.com

Eligible to Vote

From The Washington Post -

Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) will make all ex-felons in Virginia eligible to vote in the upcoming presidential election, part of a years-long effort to restore full voting rights to former convicts.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/04/22/about-200000-convicted-felons-in-virginia-will-now-have-the-right-to-vote-in-november/?hpid=hp_no-name_no-name%3Apage%2Fbreaking-news-bar

Formatting Issues

Sincere apologies for some formatting issues I'm experiencing.

There is USA graphic map that was included in a post a while ago, that is obnoxious and oversized and continues to appear in spite of sincere efforts to delete it.

So, until I figure this out, please excuse the mess.

Prince RIP

Quote

“When Eric Clapton was asked how it felt to be the world’s best guitarist he replied: ‘I don’t know. Ask Prince.’ #RIP”

Put Your Dancing Shoes on Sac!

http://www.californiamusicaltheatre.com/events/motown/

"Keanu" Red Band Trailer - From the Minds of Key & Peele - Uncensored

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/24/movies/with-keanu-key-peele-break-into-feature-films-with-kittens-in-tow.html?hpw&rref=movies&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

Clever T-Shirt

From CNN - 

The T-shirt that can speak in any language

(CNN) Call it the ultimate fashion statement -- a shirt that can do the talking when no one understands a word you're saying.

This genius item of clothing is printed with nearly 40 icons that travelers can use to try to get their message across if they don't know the language.

Inspired by a communications breakdown on the road, the shirt is part of a range of items created by a team of Swiss guys who've formed a company, Iconspeak.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/19/travel/iconspeak-t-shirt-speaks-any-language/index.html

~~~~~~~~~~

It's available at Amazon.  Search "icon t-shirt."

We called random Swedes. They told us about … foraging?

Quote

"In an historic first, U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts used sign language from the Supreme Court bench on Tuesday as he welcomed a dozen deaf and hard-of-hearing lawyers who took part in a ceremony authorizing them to argue cases before the court." [Reuters / Lawrence Hurley]

Amazon Echo

On sale today only.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2016/04/19/amazon-offers-one-day-sale-echo/83224644/

Newton's Laws

From The New Yorker -

Newton’s Laws of Marriage

BY JOHN QUAINTANCE

I wish we could derive the rest of the phænomena of nature by the same kind of reasoning from mechanical principles.
—Sir Isaac Newton, “The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy”

LAW I: A body in motion will be kept in motion. A body at rest will be asked what its plans for the day are.

The First Law deals primarily with inertia—which is often mistakenly identified as “relaxing”—and the different ways one body can affect another inert (and perfectly content) body. Conversely, it states that a body in motion will be kept in motion with a list of errands, written on the back of an envelope, before that body “becomes one with the couch for the rest of the day,” which seems like an unnecessary characterization. Also known as “The Saturday Principle.”

An object at rest will not start moving unless acted upon by an unbalanced force. But definitely don’t use the word “unbalanced.” That will not work out well for the object. Also, any force that causes another body to transition from a state of inertia to “trying to maybe accomplish something today” technically can be measured by describing its magnitude and its direction, but never describe the force’s magnitude.

When an object in motion finally comes to rest (so many hours later than it wanted) and it becomes clear that the object has forgotten one item (I) that was written on the other side of the envelope (E), it will get zero (0) credit for the things it did remember, and for which it waited in traffic (T), thanks to a screw-up with Waze (W), we can say that (E – I)(T + W) = 0.

LAW II: The heavier the object, the greater the force needed to move it, especially if it refuses to move, in a misguided effort to make some kind of point.

The Second Law states that the heavier an object is physically, mentally, and emotionally, the more it is affected by inertia, and the more the object can expect to have that thrown in its face if, God forbid, the object refuses to get out of bed for three days after losing the only job the object ever loved.

The oppositional force provided by the inert object is affected not only by its literal mass—which increases due to forces of gravity, time, too much takeout, and low-grade depression—but also by its tendency to actively resist change. This tendency is either due to the constant and unreasonable nature of the forces acting on it, or a psychological aversion to being told what to do because of some weird thing with its dad, depending on who you ask.

The more opposition that is provided, the stronger the force required to overcome it, which often leads to mutual structural damage, also known as “saying things you can’t take back” and “slamming the silverware drawer so hard you break the soft-close feature.”

The inevitability of this law and its consequences may be expressed as the mathematical equation F = ML, where F = Fuck and ML = My Life.

LAW III: For every action there is an opposite and bewildering reaction.

The Third Law states that one object will always appear to have a completely disproportionate negative reaction to the action of the other. This is called the Out of Nowhere Fallacy, and is based on the illusion that reactions are responses only to the action at hand, rather than to every similar action that has occurred in all previous interactions between the two objects. This is often referred to as the Cumulative Fatigue with Your Bullshit Index.

Take, for example, an object in motion that tries to rest, just for a moment, to keep from crying in front of the kids, like that one time, and happens to audibly lock the bathroom door. While it seems mathematically impossible that this would cause a two-and-a-half-hour blowout fight, the reaction is appropriate when corrected for the fact that this brings up trust issues from the time the secret checking account was discovered, even though that was a million years ago, or 106 (y).

While far less common, an action can also cause an unexpected positive reaction. Consider an automobile travelling from a restaurant to a house: while the acceleration is affected by mass and external friction, it is also affected by forces inside the vehicle.

If two bodies are at rest inside—alone by a scheduling anomaly; held together by time, a mutual expansion of mass, and the indefinable constant of love—one body may notice something about the other body, like the way it pretends to know the words to the song on the radio, and it may take the other by the hand and smile and suggest a change of direction, because the sitter isn’t expecting them for an hour, and tonight, for once, neither body is pushing or pulling at all.

http://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/newtons-laws-of-marriage?mbid=nl_160419_Daily&CNDID=27124505&spMailingID=8810442&spUserID=MTE0MzE0NDEyNDUyS0&spJobID=902058505&spReportId=OTAyMDU4NTA1S0

OUCH!

An excerpt from The Wrap -

‘Nina’ Review: Zoe Saldana, What Happened to Your Miss Simone Biopic?

Miscast and misbegotten, this catastrophic biopic plays like a sketch-comedy version of a bad movie about a legendary performer

“Nina,” an infuriatingly amateurish picture about the great singer and pianist Nina Simone, is a new low for the musical biopic genre. First time writer-director Cynthia Mort, whose main experience is as a writer on the sitcoms “Roseanne” and “Will & Grace,” unforgivably exploits Simone’s memory and name with a movie that plays like a sketch comedy parody of the worst possible Nina Simone biopic. No one involved seems to have a clue who Simone was or what she stood for.

http://www.thewrap.com/nina-review-zoe-saldana-nina-simone/

HANDS OF STONE

Will This Work at Keeping Kitty Off the Counter?

http://ovens.reviewed.com/news/this-kitty-friendly-kitchen-is-purr-fect-for-cat-owners?utm_source=Reviewed+Newsletter&utm_campaign=ea30dd300d-Newsletter_10_1_1410_1_2014&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_6f226ffe23-ea30dd300d-96781213

Tainted Success

From 2Paragraphs -

‘Ebony and Ivy’ — The Book That Exposed University Ties To Slavery

by 2Paragraphs in Culture | April 18, 2016

Georgetown University (photo by Flapane via Wikimedia Commons)

After Brown University went public with its deep historical roots to slavery in 2007, a wellspring of revelations began to emerge that rained on far more than Brown's ugly past. In a country that holds as national icons men who, like George Washington, were slaveholders, a complex and brutal legacy means that any longstanding institution is liable to harbor connections to America's slavery history. That includes many of its most respected institutions. Further investigation predictably revealed that many of the US's proudest and most accomplished universities -- from Harvard to Princeton to Georgetown -- aren't one or two degrees removed from slavery connections, but directly implicated. These prestigious universities have been roiled by controversy since -- not merely by their slavery connections but also by post-slavery racism like that practiced by Woodrow Wilson, a former president at Princeton.

The wellspring of outrage and historical revision that has stained the history of these schools is delineated in Craig Steven Wilder's 2013 book Ebony and Ivy: Race, Slavery, and the Troubled History of America's Universities. Wilder, a professor of history at MIT,  exposes the recondite underbelly of this nefarious slavery-university history in America. His book has had a major impact and seems destined to continue to have far-reaching consequences.

http://2paragraphs.com/2016/04/ebony-and-ivy-the-book-that-exposed-university-ties-to-slavery/