Sunday, May 29, 2016
Saturday, May 28, 2016
Friday, May 27, 2016
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
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
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/lukas-grahams-singer-on-growing-up-in-denmarks-anarchist-utopia-20160527
Hand Job
From Wired -
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
 |
| "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
Thursday, May 26, 2016
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#
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#
Not Like Clarence
An excerpt from VerySmartBrothas -
DEAR BLACK PARENTS: PLEASE LOVE YOUR CHILDREN SO THEY WON’T GROW UP TO BE CLARENCE THOMAS
DEAR BLACK PARENTS: PLEASE LOVE YOUR CHILDREN SO THEY WON’T GROW UP TO BE CLARENCE THOMAS
But mostly I want her to be in love with who she is. Not a suffocating, consuming, constricting, and narcissistic love where she’s the only meaningful entity in her universe. But a love where she’s able to acknowledge, accept, embrace, and find the beauty and the value in all the things that make her her. A love of herself and her skin and her nose and her lips and her hair and her people and her parents and her Blackness that exists without reservation or shame and permeates and inspires others around her to strive for their best selves.
Basically, I do not want her to be Clarence Thomas.
Because if she were to become Clarence Thomas — a person whose shame of and disgust with himself and his Blackness is so pervasive and palpable and, unfortunately, powerful that it can literally alter history — it would mean that I failed. That I was an abject and thorough disaster of a parent. That something I did or didn’t do turned this smiling, rolling, bouncing, and burping six-month old bundle of Blackness into a joyless and self-loathing schlemiel who grew to rue the day she was born Black.
http://verysmartbrothas.com/dear-black-parents-please-love-your-children-so-they-wont-grow-up-to-be-clarence-thomas/
New Nudes
From The Huffington Post -
The concept of “nude” has long referred only to pale tones when it comes to cosmetics and clothing. Thanks to efforts by both small and large brands, the term has started to become more inclusive of what’s nude for everyone.
But the desire for diverse options when it comes to skin tones is not limited to shoes, outwear and makeup: There’s a need for nude underneath, too.
Enter Naja, a lingerie brand from creative director Catalina Girald and actress Gina Rodriguez. Thanks to a new range of nude underwear modeled by 10 diverse women, the company has turned the “typical nude” on its head.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/nude-lingerie-skin-tones-diverse_us_5745bf1ce4b0dacf7ad38833
The concept of “nude” has long referred only to pale tones when it comes to cosmetics and clothing. Thanks to efforts by both small and large brands, the term has started to become more inclusive of what’s nude for everyone.
But the desire for diverse options when it comes to skin tones is not limited to shoes, outwear and makeup: There’s a need for nude underneath, too.
Enter Naja, a lingerie brand from creative director Catalina Girald and actress Gina Rodriguez. Thanks to a new range of nude underwear modeled by 10 diverse women, the company has turned the “typical nude” on its head.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/nude-lingerie-skin-tones-diverse_us_5745bf1ce4b0dacf7ad38833
You Can Help With Cancer Research
From Upworthy -
I spent a few minutes digging in my yard all in the name of cancer research.
By Erin Canty
There is rainwater seeping into my jeans, and my instructions are about to blow away. But my front yard could hold the cure to cancer, so I keep digging.
I am outside my home in Portland, Oregon, digging in the soil with a small plastic scoop I requested from the Natural Products Discovery Group at the University of Oklahoma. An interdisciplinary team of researchers are hard at work there, looking for fungi and natural products found in soil that may be used for a host of drugs and cures for cancer, infectious diseases, and even heart disease.
So the least I can do is get my knees wet.
http://www.upworthy.com/i-spent-a-few-minutes-digging-in-my-yard-all-in-the-name-of-cancer-research?c=upw1
http://npdg.ou.edu/citizenscience
I spent a few minutes digging in my yard all in the name of cancer research.
By Erin Canty
There is rainwater seeping into my jeans, and my instructions are about to blow away. But my front yard could hold the cure to cancer, so I keep digging.
I am outside my home in Portland, Oregon, digging in the soil with a small plastic scoop I requested from the Natural Products Discovery Group at the University of Oklahoma. An interdisciplinary team of researchers are hard at work there, looking for fungi and natural products found in soil that may be used for a host of drugs and cures for cancer, infectious diseases, and even heart disease.
So the least I can do is get my knees wet.
http://www.upworthy.com/i-spent-a-few-minutes-digging-in-my-yard-all-in-the-name-of-cancer-research?c=upw1
http://npdg.ou.edu/citizenscience
History Lesson
From BlackAmericaWeb.com
Little Known Black History Fact: Tallahassee Bus Boycott
On this day in 1956, FAMU students Wilhelmina Jakes and Carrie Patterson sat on a city bus in Tallahassee, Florida. and began what would become a seven-month boycott of the transit system. Through the efforts of a local church leader and civic groups, protesters were able to get Black drivers hired and integrate the bus lines.
http://blackamericaweb.com/2016/05/26/little-known-black-history-fact-tallahassee-bus-boycott/?omcamp=es-baw-nl&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=New%20Campaign&utm_term=BAW%20Subscribers%20%28Weekly%29
Little Known Black History Fact: Tallahassee Bus Boycott
On this day in 1956, FAMU students Wilhelmina Jakes and Carrie Patterson sat on a city bus in Tallahassee, Florida. and began what would become a seven-month boycott of the transit system. Through the efforts of a local church leader and civic groups, protesters were able to get Black drivers hired and integrate the bus lines.
http://blackamericaweb.com/2016/05/26/little-known-black-history-fact-tallahassee-bus-boycott/?omcamp=es-baw-nl&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=New%20Campaign&utm_term=BAW%20Subscribers%20%28Weekly%29
Fruity Bus Stops
From Atlas Obsura -
 |
| Strawberry Bus Stop |
http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/konagai-japan-fruit-shaped-bus-stops?utm_source=Boomtrain&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20160526&bt_email=fayesharpe@gmail.com&bt_ts=1464275422442
Wednesday, May 25, 2016
Authors Say NO!
From Rolling Stone -
Stephen King, Cheryl Strayed Sign Open Letter Condemning Donald Trump
"The rise of a political candidate who deliberately appeals to the basest and most violent elements in society ... demands ... an immediate and forceful response," over 400 authors write in letter
Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/stephen-king-cheryl-strayed-sign-open-letter-condemning-donald-trump-20160525#ixzz49jJFlAeY
Follow us: @rollingstone on Twitter | RollingStone on Facebook
Stephen King, Cheryl Strayed Sign Open Letter Condemning Donald Trump
"The rise of a political candidate who deliberately appeals to the basest and most violent elements in society ... demands ... an immediate and forceful response," over 400 authors write in letter
Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/stephen-king-cheryl-strayed-sign-open-letter-condemning-donald-trump-20160525#ixzz49jJFlAeY
Follow us: @rollingstone on Twitter | RollingStone on Facebook
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