Sunday, March 26, 2017
Living Large on Our Dime
From the Washington Post -
Brace yourself, taxpayers: Trump’s plutocracy doesn’t come cheap
By Dana Milbank
The average family of four in the United States pays about $4,000 a year in federal income taxes. That means the entire tax bill for 15,000 families for the year will go toward these additional protection measures for Trump. And the Secret Service is just a slice of the overall expense. Figure in costs incurred by authorities in Florida and New York, the Pentagon and others, and costs related to the Trump sons’ international business trips, and we’re well over $100 million a year.
That’s the annual federal income-tax bill for some 25,000 American families. Each trip Trump takes to his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, where he has gone most weekends since his inauguration, is estimated to cost taxpayers in excess of $3 million.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trumps-plutocracy-doesnt-come-cheap/2017/03/24/9a1f79d8-10a5-11e7-ab07-07d9f521f6b5_story.html?utm_term=.9002bd954e04
Brace yourself, taxpayers: Trump’s plutocracy doesn’t come cheap
By Dana Milbank
The average family of four in the United States pays about $4,000 a year in federal income taxes. That means the entire tax bill for 15,000 families for the year will go toward these additional protection measures for Trump. And the Secret Service is just a slice of the overall expense. Figure in costs incurred by authorities in Florida and New York, the Pentagon and others, and costs related to the Trump sons’ international business trips, and we’re well over $100 million a year.
That’s the annual federal income-tax bill for some 25,000 American families. Each trip Trump takes to his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, where he has gone most weekends since his inauguration, is estimated to cost taxpayers in excess of $3 million.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trumps-plutocracy-doesnt-come-cheap/2017/03/24/9a1f79d8-10a5-11e7-ab07-07d9f521f6b5_story.html?utm_term=.9002bd954e04
Haunted by the Truth
From the Huffington Post -
Haunted By ‘Get Out’ — But Not Because It’s A Horror Film
It highlighted for me how we can all make buffoons of ourselves in the face of diversity.
By Shira Hirschman Weiss
The film may also have another message for its audience about Caucasians adopting black culture, glorifying it and even including parts of it as its own without acknowledging origins. Because I love pop culture, I’ll look there for examples: While Eminem frequently credits his predecessors and professional influences, do other white rappers pay homage to those who paved the way? When Tom Hanks youngest son talks like an African American in a video - despite the fact that we know he’s Rita and Tom’s son - is it fine to just chalk it up to immaturity?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/haunted-by-get-out-but-not-because-its-a-horror_us_58d6e9e1e4b06c3d3d3e6e7e?
Haunted By ‘Get Out’ — But Not Because It’s A Horror Film
It highlighted for me how we can all make buffoons of ourselves in the face of diversity.
By Shira Hirschman Weiss
The film may also have another message for its audience about Caucasians adopting black culture, glorifying it and even including parts of it as its own without acknowledging origins. Because I love pop culture, I’ll look there for examples: While Eminem frequently credits his predecessors and professional influences, do other white rappers pay homage to those who paved the way? When Tom Hanks youngest son talks like an African American in a video - despite the fact that we know he’s Rita and Tom’s son - is it fine to just chalk it up to immaturity?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/haunted-by-get-out-but-not-because-its-a-horror_us_58d6e9e1e4b06c3d3d3e6e7e?
Saturday, March 25, 2017
The Sacrifices Paid Off
From the Undefeated -
STUNTIN’ LIKE HIS DADDY: HOW DEVIN BOOKER’S FATHER PAVED HIS PATH TO THE NBA
The preservation of a basketball legacy strengthened Melvin Booker’s relationship with his son
BY MARC J. SPEARS
It took a lot of persuading for former NBA player Melvin Booker to get his son to move to Mississippi away from his mom to best aid his hoop dream. It wasn’t an easy move for a teenager who only knew suburban life to switch to an “urban environment” at a high school where his dad was a star. While going back to Michigan did get strong consideration, Devin Booker’s perseverance not only led to an NBA career but also a close bond with father.
https://theundefeated.com/features/stuntin-like-his-daddy-devin-booker-father-paved-his-path-to-the-nba/
STUNTIN’ LIKE HIS DADDY: HOW DEVIN BOOKER’S FATHER PAVED HIS PATH TO THE NBA
The preservation of a basketball legacy strengthened Melvin Booker’s relationship with his son
BY MARC J. SPEARS
It took a lot of persuading for former NBA player Melvin Booker to get his son to move to Mississippi away from his mom to best aid his hoop dream. It wasn’t an easy move for a teenager who only knew suburban life to switch to an “urban environment” at a high school where his dad was a star. While going back to Michigan did get strong consideration, Devin Booker’s perseverance not only led to an NBA career but also a close bond with father.
https://theundefeated.com/features/stuntin-like-his-daddy-devin-booker-father-paved-his-path-to-the-nba/
Waving or Drowning?
From NY Magazine -
Is Political Gravity Finally Sinking Donald Trump?
By Andrew Sullivan
Is he waving or drowning? Swimming or sinking?
I ask this question because we’re more than two months in and the trauma has not subsided, but it has, perhaps, bifurcated. Sure, Trump still shows alarming potential as a would-be tyrant, contemptuous of constitutional proprieties, and prone to trashing every last norm of liberal democracy. But he is also beginning to appear simultaneously as a rather weak chief executive, uninterested in competent management or follow-through, bedeviled by divisions within his own party, transfixed by cable news, and swiftly discrediting himself by an endless stream of lies, delusions, and conspiracy theories. Even the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal challenged his credibility last Tuesday. They did this because, at this point, among sane people, he quite obviously has none.
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/03/sullivan-is-political-gravity-finally-sinking-donald-trump.html
Is Political Gravity Finally Sinking Donald Trump?
By Andrew Sullivan
Is he waving or drowning? Swimming or sinking?
I ask this question because we’re more than two months in and the trauma has not subsided, but it has, perhaps, bifurcated. Sure, Trump still shows alarming potential as a would-be tyrant, contemptuous of constitutional proprieties, and prone to trashing every last norm of liberal democracy. But he is also beginning to appear simultaneously as a rather weak chief executive, uninterested in competent management or follow-through, bedeviled by divisions within his own party, transfixed by cable news, and swiftly discrediting himself by an endless stream of lies, delusions, and conspiracy theories. Even the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal challenged his credibility last Tuesday. They did this because, at this point, among sane people, he quite obviously has none.
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/03/sullivan-is-political-gravity-finally-sinking-donald-trump.html
Latina & Muslim
From the LA Times -
Like an invisibility cloak, Latina Muslims find the hijab hides their ethnicity — from Latinos
By Cindy Carcamo
Like an invisibility cloak, Latina Muslims find the hijab hides their ethnicity — from Latinos
By Cindy Carcamo
http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-muslim-latinas-20170324-story.html
When We Fail Kids
As an educator, I'm a mandated reporter of suspected abuse. In my personal dealings with CPS workers, I was alarmed and frustrated at the indifference on display the few times I made contact.
One incident that stands out is when a 6th-grade student came to me to share what was happening in her home that she shared with her father. It was alarming. She asked that I call CPS to request that she be moved. She understood what she was asking as she had been in and out of foster care most of her life. I made the request and the CPS worker I spoke with flipped it off as "typical kid stuff" and dismissed it as she felt the complaint was without merit. I was livid. I told her that if anything happened to this child, it was on her. Further intervention on the school's part lead to the student moving out to live with relatives.
I'm sure there are wonderful, hard working CPS workers who care about the children they are responsible for monitoring, but this does not describe the ones I dealt with, at all.
~~~~~~~~~~
From the LA Times -
4 L.A. County social workers to face trial in horrific death of 8-year-old boy
Melissa Etehad and Richard Winton
Los Angeles County judge ruled Monday that four social workers should stand trial on child abuse and other charges in the death of an 8-year-old Palmdale boy they were assigned to protect, allowing prosecutors to push ahead with a case that has sent a chill through the ranks of child protection workers nationwide.
Superior Court Judge Mary Lou Villar said that “red flags were everywhere” during the months before Gabriel Fernandez died and that the social workers mishandled evidence of escalating abuse and failed to file timely reports on what was happening in the boy’s home before he was allegedly killed by his mother and her boyfriend in 2013. The judge said the workers’ conduct amounted to criminal negligence.
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-social-worker-charges-20170320-story.html
One incident that stands out is when a 6th-grade student came to me to share what was happening in her home that she shared with her father. It was alarming. She asked that I call CPS to request that she be moved. She understood what she was asking as she had been in and out of foster care most of her life. I made the request and the CPS worker I spoke with flipped it off as "typical kid stuff" and dismissed it as she felt the complaint was without merit. I was livid. I told her that if anything happened to this child, it was on her. Further intervention on the school's part lead to the student moving out to live with relatives.
I'm sure there are wonderful, hard working CPS workers who care about the children they are responsible for monitoring, but this does not describe the ones I dealt with, at all.
~~~~~~~~~~
From the LA Times -
4 L.A. County social workers to face trial in horrific death of 8-year-old boy
Melissa Etehad and Richard Winton
Los Angeles County judge ruled Monday that four social workers should stand trial on child abuse and other charges in the death of an 8-year-old Palmdale boy they were assigned to protect, allowing prosecutors to push ahead with a case that has sent a chill through the ranks of child protection workers nationwide.
Superior Court Judge Mary Lou Villar said that “red flags were everywhere” during the months before Gabriel Fernandez died and that the social workers mishandled evidence of escalating abuse and failed to file timely reports on what was happening in the boy’s home before he was allegedly killed by his mother and her boyfriend in 2013. The judge said the workers’ conduct amounted to criminal negligence.
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-social-worker-charges-20170320-story.html
Reaction to the Loss
From the Daily Mail -
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4347808/Democrats-mock-House-Republicans-healthcare-failure.html?ITO=applenews
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4347808/Democrats-mock-House-Republicans-healthcare-failure.html?ITO=applenews
Friday, March 24, 2017
We've Seen This Before
From the Huffington Post -
Colin Kaepernick Is To The NFL What Black People Are To America
Hatred of the quarterback among NFL owners feels all too familiar.
By Ja’han Jones
With this, the NFL and its exclusive cohort of wealthy, white male owners seem eager to quell any sort of social activism practiced by its players, a great many of whom are black. (It is noteworthy, also, that a black person has never majority-owned an NFL team in the league’s history.) In so doing, the league is acting in accordance with longstanding, oppressive, American tradition by silencing black voices seeking refuge from oppression. And the coordinated ostracism of Kaepernick betrays a familiar, frustrating plight to many black people in the United States.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/colin-kaepernick-is-to-the-nfl-what-black-people-are-to-america_us_58d59e25e4b03787d358ce3d?s2djbb0qyc766r&
Colin Kaepernick Is To The NFL What Black People Are To America
Hatred of the quarterback among NFL owners feels all too familiar.
By Ja’han Jones
With this, the NFL and its exclusive cohort of wealthy, white male owners seem eager to quell any sort of social activism practiced by its players, a great many of whom are black. (It is noteworthy, also, that a black person has never majority-owned an NFL team in the league’s history.) In so doing, the league is acting in accordance with longstanding, oppressive, American tradition by silencing black voices seeking refuge from oppression. And the coordinated ostracism of Kaepernick betrays a familiar, frustrating plight to many black people in the United States.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/colin-kaepernick-is-to-the-nfl-what-black-people-are-to-america_us_58d59e25e4b03787d358ce3d?s2djbb0qyc766r&
Loser
From the Daily Kos -
Quoting Dan Rather.
Loser. That's a word that Donald Trump fears being called more than any other. It is a word that he has wielded with relish against his enemies. But if the health care bill goes down in defeat, and at this point that is still a big if, Mr. Trump will be seen as a loser, and so will his new cheerleader Speaker of the House Paul Ryan.
A loser president. It's a moniker that every president dreads, but especially President Trump. It strikes at the very essence of his being. It is why he rails away at conspiracy theories about voter fraud. Once you are seen as a loser in Washington your enemies are emboldened and your allies become skittish. Power can evaporate faster than dew in Dalhart.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/03/24/1646681/--A-loser-president-Dan-Rather-hits-him-where-it-hurts
Quoting Dan Rather.
Loser. That's a word that Donald Trump fears being called more than any other. It is a word that he has wielded with relish against his enemies. But if the health care bill goes down in defeat, and at this point that is still a big if, Mr. Trump will be seen as a loser, and so will his new cheerleader Speaker of the House Paul Ryan.
A loser president. It's a moniker that every president dreads, but especially President Trump. It strikes at the very essence of his being. It is why he rails away at conspiracy theories about voter fraud. Once you are seen as a loser in Washington your enemies are emboldened and your allies become skittish. Power can evaporate faster than dew in Dalhart.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/03/24/1646681/--A-loser-president-Dan-Rather-hits-him-where-it-hurts
Hey Guys, Which Are You?
From the New Yorker -
MEN AS DOORS
By Olivia de Recat
http://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/men-as-doors
MEN AS DOORS
By Olivia de Recat
http://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/men-as-doors
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