Friday, March 31, 2017
When the Ducks Had Just One
From the Undefeated -
Oregon basketball team’s first out-of-state black player paved the way with his struggles and success
The Ducks’ majority-black roster didn’t always look that way — but my father is part of the reason it does
BY KURT STREETER
It’s a team picture I’ll always cherish, even though I’d never seen it until 11 years ago, shortly after my father died.
It shows him as a young man, in the early 1950s. He was in college then, at the University of Oregon, where he was a fixture on the basketball team. In the photograph he’s No. 11, sitting in the front row, a familiar gleam in his eye. His teammates were all white. My father, Mel Streeter, was the only African-American player on the Ducks.
As much as I love this photograph, it also presents a mystery. My dad didn’t talk all that much about his playing days, or what it was like to be a dark-skinned, 6-foot-4 black guy in a virtually all-white town and a virtually all-white state in the years of Truman and Eisenhower. I can’t stop wondering what those days were really like for him.
https://theundefeated.com/features/oregon-ducks-basketball-ncaa/
Oregon basketball team’s first out-of-state black player paved the way with his struggles and success
The Ducks’ majority-black roster didn’t always look that way — but my father is part of the reason it does
BY KURT STREETER
It’s a team picture I’ll always cherish, even though I’d never seen it until 11 years ago, shortly after my father died.
It shows him as a young man, in the early 1950s. He was in college then, at the University of Oregon, where he was a fixture on the basketball team. In the photograph he’s No. 11, sitting in the front row, a familiar gleam in his eye. His teammates were all white. My father, Mel Streeter, was the only African-American player on the Ducks.
As much as I love this photograph, it also presents a mystery. My dad didn’t talk all that much about his playing days, or what it was like to be a dark-skinned, 6-foot-4 black guy in a virtually all-white town and a virtually all-white state in the years of Truman and Eisenhower. I can’t stop wondering what those days were really like for him.
https://theundefeated.com/features/oregon-ducks-basketball-ncaa/
Podcast Love
From the New York Times -
Liked ‘Serial’? Here’s Why the True-Crime Podcast ‘S-Town’ Is Better
By AMANDA HESS
“S-Town” is not another tale of a journalist trying to solve a murder with just a microphone and a little elbow grease, and thank God. Instead, “S-Town” transcends the podcast procedural with a destabilizing narrative structure in which one small-town mystery leads to another, all surrounding Mr. McLemore and his acquaintances. There is that murder, but also a treasure hunt, a land grab and a mysterious benefactor. Mr. Reed’s investigation turns psychological and emotional — into how people come to be branded as bad, and the hidden relationships among men in the rural South.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/30/arts/true-crime-podcast-s-town-serial.html
Liked ‘Serial’? Here’s Why the True-Crime Podcast ‘S-Town’ Is Better
By AMANDA HESS
“S-Town” is not another tale of a journalist trying to solve a murder with just a microphone and a little elbow grease, and thank God. Instead, “S-Town” transcends the podcast procedural with a destabilizing narrative structure in which one small-town mystery leads to another, all surrounding Mr. McLemore and his acquaintances. There is that murder, but also a treasure hunt, a land grab and a mysterious benefactor. Mr. Reed’s investigation turns psychological and emotional — into how people come to be branded as bad, and the hidden relationships among men in the rural South.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/30/arts/true-crime-podcast-s-town-serial.html
This Will Wake You Up
From Food & Wine -
The Most Caffeinated Coffee in the World Is Now Available in the US
By Mike Pomranz
Launched in 2016, Black Insomnia, a South Africa-based coffee company, is the most recent brand to claim that title, saying it has scientific proof that its blend is the most caffeinated in the world – with “dangerously high levels of caffeine” as the brand awkwardly boasts. And now, the king of caffeinated coffees is finally available in the US.
http://www.foodandwine.com/news/black-insomnia-coffee-available-us
The Most Caffeinated Coffee in the World Is Now Available in the US
By Mike Pomranz
Launched in 2016, Black Insomnia, a South Africa-based coffee company, is the most recent brand to claim that title, saying it has scientific proof that its blend is the most caffeinated in the world – with “dangerously high levels of caffeine” as the brand awkwardly boasts. And now, the king of caffeinated coffees is finally available in the US.
http://www.foodandwine.com/news/black-insomnia-coffee-available-us
We invited Ugandan Olympic hopefully Brolin Mawejje to forerun the slope...
http://www.ozy.com/rising-stars/the-extraordinary-story-of-ugandas-first-major-snowboarder/74962
Wow!
From Deadspin -
Here Is A Rugby Player With His Face In Another Rugby Player's Bare Ass
By Billy Haisley
http://deadspin.com/here-is-a-rugby-player-with-his-face-in-another-rugby-p-1793895706
Here Is A Rugby Player With His Face In Another Rugby Player's Bare Ass
By Billy Haisley
 |
| Photo credit: Matt King/Getty |
Play Only. Keep Your Opinions to Yourself.
From the Washington Post -
NFL players and the value — and potential cost — of political activism
“It’s amazing, I think, to see how many people will call us ‘athletes’ and will tell us we need to be in the communities and we need to serve in the different communities that we play in or live in,” Boldin said, walking the tunnels beneath Capitol Hill, hustling from House to Senate side Thursday afternoon. “But as soon as you take a political stand, they tell you, ‘Stick to football.’ You can’t have it both ways. If you’re expecting me to be a role model for younger kids or for society in general, how is it wrong for me to speak out when I do see injustices?”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/redskins/nfl-players-and-the-value--and-potential-cost--of-political-activism/2017/03/30/8d8793d8-1580-11e7-9e4f-09aa75d3ec57_story.html?utm_term=.bb676013577f&wpisrc=nl_rainbow&wpmm=1
NFL players and the value — and potential cost — of political activism
By Barry Svrluga
“It’s amazing, I think, to see how many people will call us ‘athletes’ and will tell us we need to be in the communities and we need to serve in the different communities that we play in or live in,” Boldin said, walking the tunnels beneath Capitol Hill, hustling from House to Senate side Thursday afternoon. “But as soon as you take a political stand, they tell you, ‘Stick to football.’ You can’t have it both ways. If you’re expecting me to be a role model for younger kids or for society in general, how is it wrong for me to speak out when I do see injustices?”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/redskins/nfl-players-and-the-value--and-potential-cost--of-political-activism/2017/03/30/8d8793d8-1580-11e7-9e4f-09aa75d3ec57_story.html?utm_term=.bb676013577f&wpisrc=nl_rainbow&wpmm=1
Thursday, March 30, 2017
Lessons From "The Wire"
From the Huffington Post -
This Law School Created A Criminal Justice Class Based On ‘The Wire’
Long live Omar’s code!
By Taryn Finley
The University of Pittsburgh Law School is bringing the real life lessons from HBO’s classic series “The Wire” to the classroom.
The 3-credit course, “Crime, Law and Society in ‘The Wire,’” will use the Baltimore-based drama to analyze many of the contemporary issues in the criminal justice system. According to the course description, these include, “drug enforcement, race, confessions, police manipulation of crime statistics, mass incarceration, use of force, gender, criminal organizations, gun violence, and honesty and accountability in law enforcement.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/law-school-criminal-justice-class-the-wire_us_58dd1601e4b08194e3b7b3e8?9r68b0avqi7msra4i&
This Law School Created A Criminal Justice Class Based On ‘The Wire’
Long live Omar’s code!
By Taryn Finley
The University of Pittsburgh Law School is bringing the real life lessons from HBO’s classic series “The Wire” to the classroom.
The 3-credit course, “Crime, Law and Society in ‘The Wire,’” will use the Baltimore-based drama to analyze many of the contemporary issues in the criminal justice system. According to the course description, these include, “drug enforcement, race, confessions, police manipulation of crime statistics, mass incarceration, use of force, gender, criminal organizations, gun violence, and honesty and accountability in law enforcement.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/law-school-criminal-justice-class-the-wire_us_58dd1601e4b08194e3b7b3e8?9r68b0avqi7msra4i&
The future of mobility. As usual.
http://www.upworthy.com/a-hilarious-commercial-in-sweden-is-getting-people-hyped-about-public-transport?c=upw1&u=6861cbea6edfdfe5a709ee39ad3c14b64135e61f
Black Women Being Humiliated . . . Again
From the Atlantic -
The Day Bill O'Reilly Apologized
The Fox News host—like White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer—landed himself in hot water Tuesday for responding to how a woman of color looked, and not to what she said.
By ALEX WAGNER
Tuesday was not a good day for America’s hard-charging white men. Fox News host Bill O’Reilly began his day on the set of Fox & Friends, where he was asked about remarks that Representative Maxine Waters made Monday evening on the floor of Congress about Trump supporters and patriotism. Instead of responding to Waters’s comments, O’Reilly opted to focus on something else. “I didn’t hear a word she said,” O’Reilly said, interrupting his hosts. “I was looking at the James Brown wig.”
~~~~~~~~~~
At the same time that O’Reilly was feverishly attempting unwind these peculiar and offensive comments about a prominent black woman, several hundred miles south in Washington D.C., White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer was at the podium, scolding April Ryan of American Urban Radio Networks—a black, female journalist who’d drawn Spicer’s ire by pressing him on the Trump administration’s alleged collusion with Russia.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/03/oreilly-waters-spicer-ryan/521145/
The Day Bill O'Reilly Apologized
The Fox News host—like White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer—landed himself in hot water Tuesday for responding to how a woman of color looked, and not to what she said.
By ALEX WAGNER
Tuesday was not a good day for America’s hard-charging white men. Fox News host Bill O’Reilly began his day on the set of Fox & Friends, where he was asked about remarks that Representative Maxine Waters made Monday evening on the floor of Congress about Trump supporters and patriotism. Instead of responding to Waters’s comments, O’Reilly opted to focus on something else. “I didn’t hear a word she said,” O’Reilly said, interrupting his hosts. “I was looking at the James Brown wig.”
~~~~~~~~~~
At the same time that O’Reilly was feverishly attempting unwind these peculiar and offensive comments about a prominent black woman, several hundred miles south in Washington D.C., White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer was at the podium, scolding April Ryan of American Urban Radio Networks—a black, female journalist who’d drawn Spicer’s ire by pressing him on the Trump administration’s alleged collusion with Russia.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/03/oreilly-waters-spicer-ryan/521145/
Black Women Making History
http://www.essence.com/celebrity/15-modern-day-black-women-who-made-history-their-firsts
Wednesday, March 29, 2017
Gaming the System
From OZY -
WHY TECH'S LATEST FASHION ACCESSORY IS A FACE MASK
By Leslie Nguyen-Okwu
These days, being online can feel like living in a glass house. According to a 2016 report from Georgetown Law’s Center on Privacy and Technology, about half of all U.S. adults can be found in one of the many facial recognition databases maintained by law enforcement. But never fear — there are ways to game the system. In an age when privacy often feels more like a luxury than a civil right, a creative cadre of artists, designers and makers are fashioning a new kind of camouflage for today’s intrusive digital era.
The privacy strategy of the photobomber, which retails for $288, revolves around glass nanospheres embedded in the fabric that reflect light in every direction, leaving your face eerily backlit and indiscernible, says Chris Holmes, a DJ who designed the cowled garb back in 2015. In London, designer Saif Siddiqui sews crystal spheres into an anti-paparazzi scarf ($362) that, like the hoodie, reflects camera flashes to obscure the wearer’s face. Austrian Wolf Prix brought Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak to life as the Jammer Coat; it incorporates metallic fabrics that can block radio waves, cellphone signals and tracking devices, providing off-the-grid anonymity even while the wearer is strolling busy city streets.
http://www.ozy.com/fast-forward/why-techs-latest-fashion-accessory-is-a-face-mask/76529
WHY TECH'S LATEST FASHION ACCESSORY IS A FACE MASK
By Leslie Nguyen-Okwu
These days, being online can feel like living in a glass house. According to a 2016 report from Georgetown Law’s Center on Privacy and Technology, about half of all U.S. adults can be found in one of the many facial recognition databases maintained by law enforcement. But never fear — there are ways to game the system. In an age when privacy often feels more like a luxury than a civil right, a creative cadre of artists, designers and makers are fashioning a new kind of camouflage for today’s intrusive digital era.
The privacy strategy of the photobomber, which retails for $288, revolves around glass nanospheres embedded in the fabric that reflect light in every direction, leaving your face eerily backlit and indiscernible, says Chris Holmes, a DJ who designed the cowled garb back in 2015. In London, designer Saif Siddiqui sews crystal spheres into an anti-paparazzi scarf ($362) that, like the hoodie, reflects camera flashes to obscure the wearer’s face. Austrian Wolf Prix brought Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak to life as the Jammer Coat; it incorporates metallic fabrics that can block radio waves, cellphone signals and tracking devices, providing off-the-grid anonymity even while the wearer is strolling busy city streets.
 | ||||
| Betabrand’s Flashback Photobomber Hoodie is coated with reflective glass nanospheres that thwart smartphone flash photos. | SOURCE COURTESY OF BETABRAND |
Love Notes
My favorite: #4
http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/1CMdLB/:1Fo2LAw7e:iMyIPL76/www.boredpanda.com/modern-relationship-love-notes
http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/1CMdLB/:1Fo2LAw7e:iMyIPL76/www.boredpanda.com/modern-relationship-love-notes
A Plain Old Box
From Upworthy -
Here's why American parents are now ditching expensive cribs for a simple, cardboard box.
EVAN PORTER
One of the biggest problems new parents in developed nations face is SIDS, or sudden infant death syndrome, which is exactly as frightening and unpredictable as it sounds.
Experts can't always pinpoint the cause of every death from SIDS, but more often than not, it has to do with unsafe sleeping environments that accidentally cut off the baby's air supply with blankets, toys, or other obstructions.
For years now, many of the world's leading countries in this area have had a secret weapon in the fight against SIDS: cardboard boxes.
Or "baby boxes" as they're known.
http://www.upworthy.com/heres-why-american-parents-are-now-ditching-expensive-cribs-for-a-simple-cardboard-box?c=upw1&u=6861cbea6edfdfe5a709ee39ad3c14b64135e61f
Here's why American parents are now ditching expensive cribs for a simple, cardboard box.
EVAN PORTER
One of the biggest problems new parents in developed nations face is SIDS, or sudden infant death syndrome, which is exactly as frightening and unpredictable as it sounds.
Experts can't always pinpoint the cause of every death from SIDS, but more often than not, it has to do with unsafe sleeping environments that accidentally cut off the baby's air supply with blankets, toys, or other obstructions.
For years now, many of the world's leading countries in this area have had a secret weapon in the fight against SIDS: cardboard boxes.
Or "baby boxes" as they're known.
http://www.upworthy.com/heres-why-american-parents-are-now-ditching-expensive-cribs-for-a-simple-cardboard-box?c=upw1&u=6861cbea6edfdfe5a709ee39ad3c14b64135e61f
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