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Wednesday, March 15, 2017

File This Under "Do We Really Need This?"

Luxurious Tiny House With A Split Level Floor Plan

The GOP health care plan: The more you need, the less you get

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks: Official Trailer (HBO)

Funny Father

From the Huffington Post -

Ryan Reynolds Might Be One Of The Funniest Dads On Twitter
The actor shares his musings on raising two kids under 3.
By Caroline Bologna

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ryan-reynolds-twitter-dad_us_589a4854e4b04061313a25e0?


Bill Withers - Hello Like Before

Child Prodigy

From the Daily Mail -

Child virtuoso AGED 11 will make history as the world's youngest conductor as he commands the 75-strong Nottingham Symphony Orchestra
By RACHAEL BURFORD

A British child prodigy is set to make history as the world's youngest orchestra conductor at just 11 years old.

Talented Matthew Smith is a Grade 5 standard violinist and also plays the guitar, drums, piano and viola.

Incredibly he will take the lead when Nottingham Symphony Orchestra (NSO) play Die Fledermaus at the Royal Concert Hall in the city on April 2.



Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4312256/Child-virtuoso-make-history-youngest-conductor.html#ixzz4bP3yuqh3
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4312256/Child-virtuoso-make-history-youngest-conductor.html#ixzz4bP3gn8il

Monday, March 13, 2017

Hilarious Indeed!

From the Huffington Post -

Twitter Hilariously Burns Kellyanne Conway For Microwave Comment
Because it’s **BEEPING** insane.
By Elyse Wanshel

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/twitter-responds-kellyanne-conway-microwave-camera-comment_us_58c6ce27e4b0d1078ca86b60?

HBCU @ SXSW

From USA Today -

Push to get more African-Americans into tech leads to SXSW
By Jarrad Henderson

Mariah Cowling promised her father she would apply to Spelman College, with dreams of becoming an aerospace engineer. There was just one problem: the historically black women's liberal-arts college didn't have an engineering program.

So she became a computer science major instead. That's how Cowling, who is headed to Microsoft as a coder in its virtual reality division after she graduates from Atlanta's Spelman in May, finds herself surrounded by tens of thousands of tech professionals at the SXSW Interactive Festival here.

She's one of 100 students from Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) participating in the HBCU@SXSW initiative, a partnership between South By Southwest Convention and Festivals and organizations such as Opportunity Hub, Huddle Ventures and Stemmed. These have teamed up to help students of color attend the popular music, interactive and film festival in Austin.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2017/03/13/push-get-more-african-americans-into-tech-leads-sxsw/99103260/

Four Tops - I Believe In You And Me

Hilarious Jack Russell Goes Crazy with Excitement at Crufts 2017!

Forensic artist helps catch over 1000 criminals - Meet the Record Breakers

Now, Everyone Can Afford 3D Printing (Monoprice Mini Select Review)

American Health Care Act: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

Making Connections

From the Hollywood Reporter - (Bold is mine)

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: Why 'Get Out' Is 'Invasion of the Black Body Snatchers' for the Trump Era
by Kareem Abdul-Jabba

It's horrifying watching poor Chris Washington (Daniel Kaluuya) paralyzed in that chair while his will and body are being stolen, because growing up, I felt as paralyzed as him. Watching James Baldwin struggle with the frustrations of black bodies being destroyed both physically and mentally in the documentary reminded me of my own struggles as a young black man in the '60s. I was the poster child for the Good Boy, which to many Americans meant Good Negro. Everyone was telling black children that if you studied hard and did what you were told, you could be successful and welcomed into white society. I studied hard and earned good grades. I practiced hard and earned a good living. But I knew as a child that my name and religion were not my own. Alcindor was the Christian slave monger who owned my ancestors. I was paralyzed by that past, by white America's expectations for how a black man should behave, by how much gratitude I should constantly express for allowing me to succeed. I overcame that paralysis when I adopted a religion and name that I felt connected me more to my cultural roots. Reading The Autobiography of Malcolm X and James Baldwin's The Fire Next Time inspired me to find my own voice. When I used that voice to speak about political and social injustice, some Americans responded with hatred and death threats. Ironically, I was just doing what people came to America to do since it was founded: reinvent myself according to my beliefs rather than someone else's.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/kareem-abdul-jabbar-why-get-is-invasion-black-body-snatchers-trump-985449

Cautionary Tale

From the LA Times -

His NFL-to-prison cautionary tale leaves students transfixed. Here is Ryan Leaf's story, in his own words
By Sam Farmer

There was a joke going around campus when I was at Washington State. It went, “What’s the difference between God and Ryan Leaf?” The punchline was, “God doesn’t think he’s Ryan Leaf.”

When I came into the NFL, there were three things that were very important to me: money, power and prestige. I was powerful now because I was a famous athlete. I had prestige because I was doing what everybody wanted to do. And I had a lot of money.

When I’m talking to parents, I tell them an analogy. My emotional level was kind of stunted when I was about 13, so I tell them to try this experiment at home: Give your 13-year-old child $31 million and see how that works out.

So I’m 21, have $31 million, and I wasn’t responsible to anyone anymore for money or really anything. If anybody said “no” to me, I would discard them from my life. That included my parents at one point. I just had zero perspective on what was important.

http://www.latimes.com/sports/nfl/la-sp-ryan-leaf-20170311-story.html

Sunday, March 12, 2017

Confiscated From Migrants

From the New Yorker -

A JANITOR’S COLLECTION OF THINGS CONFISCATED FROM MIGRANTS IN THE DESERT
By Peter C. Baker

When migrants are apprehended, Customs and Border Protection agents
dispose of personal-hygiene items such as toilet paper during intake.
Thomas Kiefer INSTITUTE


Tom Kiefer was a Customs and Border Protection janitor for almost four years before he took a good look inside the trash. Every day at work—at the C.B.P. processing center in Ajo, Arizona, less than fifty miles from the border with Mexico—he would throw away bags full of items confiscated from undocumented migrants apprehended in the desert. One day in 2007, he was rummaging through these bags looking for packaged food, which he’d received permission to donate to a local pantry. In the process, he also noticed toothbrushes, rosaries, pocket Bibles, water bottles, keys, shoelaces, razors, mix CDs, condoms, contraceptive pills, sunglasses, keys: a vibrant, startling testament to the lives of those who had been detained or deported. Without telling anyone, Kiefer began collecting the items, stashing them in sorted piles in the garages of friends. “I didn’t know what I was going to do,” he told me recently. “But I knew there was something to be done.”

http://www.newyorker.com/culture/photo-booth/a-janitors-collection-of-things-confiscated-from-migrants-in-the-desert?intcid=mod-latest

A Master Thief

From the New Yorker -

A PICKPOCKET’S TALE
The spectacular thefts of Apollo Robbins.
By Adam Green

Robbins, who is thirty-eight and lives in Las Vegas, is a peculiar variety-arts hybrid, known in the trade as a theatrical pickpocket. Among his peers, he is widely considered the best in the world at what he does, which is taking things from people’s jackets, pants, purses, wrists, fingers, and necks, then returning them in amusing and mind-boggling ways. Robbins works smoothly and invisibly, with a diffident charm that belies his talent for larceny. One senses that he would prosper on the other side of the law. “You have to ask yourself one question,” he often says as he holds up a wallet or a watch that he has just swiped. “Am I being paid enough to give it back?”

In more than a decade as a full-time entertainer, Robbins has taken (and returned) a lot of stuff, including items from well-known figures in the worlds of entertainment (Jennifer Garner, actress: engagement ring); sports (Charles Barkley, former N.B.A. star: wad of cash); and business (Ace Greenberg, former chairman of Bear Stearns: Patek Philippe watch). He is probably best known for an encounter with Jimmy Carter’s Secret Service detail in 2001. While Carter was at dinner, Robbins struck up a conversation with several of his Secret Service men. Within a few minutes, he had emptied the agents’ pockets of pretty much everything but their guns. Robbins brandished a copy of Carter’s itinerary, and when an agent snatched it back he said, “You don’t have the authorization to see that!” When the agent felt for his badge, Robbins produced it and handed it back. Then he turned to the head of the detail and handed him his watch, his badge, and the keys to the Carter motorcade.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/01/07/a-pickpockets-tale