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Friday, July 28, 2017

Retiring at 98

An excerpt from Poynter -

He’s spent nearly 7 decades at The San Francisco Chronicle. This year, at 98, he’s retiring.
By Daniel Funke

David Perlman was born in 1918 — a decade before the discovery of penicillin and the Big Bang Theory.

And, for the majority of his career, he covered scientific progress in the 20th century and beyond, writing thousands of articles about everything from the beginning of the space age to the computer age.

Until now.

The 98-year-old science editor is retiring from The San Francisco Chronicle after nearly seven decades at the newspaper, a decision he said had been coming for a while.

http://www.poynter.org/2017/hes-spent-nearly-seven-decades-at-the-san-francisco-chronicle-this-year-at-98-hes-retiring/468149/

San Francisco Via Drone Part 1

Music is obnoxious.  You might consider muting it.  Otherwise great views.

Turmoil in the Trump Administration: The Daily Show

Slow & Painful

An excerpt from the Washington Post -

The Trump administration: Where your pride goes to die
By Aaron Blake

Getting close to President Trump, it seems, means checking your pride at the door and taking some very public abuse.

Trump's first big-name supporters in 2016 were Chris Christie and Jeff Sessions. He spent the bulk of the rest of the campaign embarrassing Christie before firing him as head of the Trump transition effort. And now he's spent the bulk of the last week haranguing Sessions, his own attorney general, apparently in hopes Sessions will resign.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/07/28/the-trump-administration-where-your-pride-goes-to-die/?tid=pm_politics_pop&utm_term=.eee8ef039074

Black Gun Owners

An excerpt from the Washinton Post -

‘It seems cool to be racist now’: The rising profile of the black gun owner
By Wesley Lowery

Mark Warner was hovering over the counter of handguns, about midway through the morning shift at Blue Ridge Arsenal, the black-owned gun store in Fairfax County where he’s worked for the past 18 years, when he spotted me.

“I heard you want to talk about black people buying guns,” Warner, himself black, declared in the matter of fact, teasing tone that has endeared him to the store’s regulars. “So what do you want to know?”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/07/27/it-seems-cool-to-be-racist-now-the-rising-profile-of-the-black-gun-owner/?utm_term=.c589dc2eff63&wpisrc=nl_rainbow&wpmm=1

He's Smart Enough to Quit

From the Daily Mail -

Ravens star, 26, who is also pursuing a PhD in math at MIT, RETIRES abruptly after shock study shows 99% of NFL players' brains are affected by degenerative disease CTE
By James Wilkinson

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4736612/Math-whiz-Ravens-star-quits-NFL-brain-damage-study.html#ixzz4o8jYykur
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

Blog Love

From http://www.freehomeschooldeals.com/free-printable-life-skills-checklist-for-kids/

comes a wonderful chart that lists life skills that kids should have at each from preschool through high school.


A Very Necessary Message Delivered in a Great Little Book

One of the best books I've seen that discusses the issues of black kids dying at the hands of folks hired to protect them is Momma, Did You Hear the News by Sanya Gragg.


It is a must read for anyone raising black kids in America.


Pilot Shortage

An excerpt from CNN -

The U.S. has a staggering pilot shortage
by Jon Ostrower

Over the next two decades, 87 new pilots need to be trained and ready to fly a commercial airliner every day in order to meet our insatiable demand to travel by air.

That's one every 15 minutes.

Passenger and cargo airlines around the world are expected to buy 41,000 new airliners between 2017 and 2036. And they will need 637,000 new pilots to fly them, according to a forecast from Boeing released this week. That staggering figure is matched only by how many will leave the profession in the next decade -- particularly in the U.S.

http://money.cnn.com/2017/07/27/news/companies/pilot-shortage-figures/index.html

Thursday, July 27, 2017

The Tesla Model 3: The Culmination of Elon Musk's Master Plan | WIRED

Heaven Forbid

School Segregation

An excerpt from Vox -

School segregation didn’t go away. It just evolved.
How parents are gerrymandering school borders and fencing out poor kids.
Updated by Alvin Chang

Their idea was simple: to create their own school district.

Their stated reason was simple: Schools do better when they’re part of smaller, city-based districts where they can make hyperlocal decisions.

So five years ago, organizers in Gardendale, Alabama, decided it was time to secede from the Jefferson County School District — because of the changing “dynamics.”

But this simple idea has historically caused a contentious debate about race, class, and education in America. And when the courts ruled on this issue, it resulted in the biggest setback to school integration since Brown v. Board of Education: a legal decision that allows parents to use borders to segregate their kids away from their less desirable peers.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/7/27/16004084/school-segregation-evolution


Falling Sperm Count

An excerpt from New Scientist -

Sperm count has fallen by nearly 60 per cent in richer countries
By New Scientist staff and Press Association

An analysis of research into male fertility suggests that there has been a steep decline in sperm counts for men living in richer nations.


The review pooled data from 185 different studies, and found a 59.3 per cent drop between 1973 and 2011 in the average amount of sperm produced by men from North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand. No similar pattern was seen in South America, Asia and Africa, although fewer studies had been conducted in these countries.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2141784-sperm-count-has-fallen-by-nearly-60-per-cent-in-richer-countries/#link_time=1501018098

The Next Time You Have A Slice of Birthday Cake

An excerpt from the Atlantic -

Blowing Out Birthday Candles Increases Cake Bacteria by 1,400 Percent
But it’s okay, really!
By SARAH ZHANG

I can identify the exact moment when my relationship with birthday cake changed forever, and it was last week, when I read a study titled “Bacterial Transfer Associated with Blowing Out Candles on a Birthday Cake.”

Of course, the more cautious (aka germophobic) among us have already thought about it in gruesome detail. One colleague said she scrapes off the top layer of frosting, a habit that suddenly made perfect sense but which I for some reason had never before considered. I had been living in ignorant, saliva-splattered bliss.

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/07/birthday-candle-bacteria/534987/?utm_source=nl-atlantic-daily-072717

Here are the Trump administration's worst spelling errors

How fentanyl is making the opioid epidemic even worse

Why Is the ‘Mona Lisa’ So Famous?

'L-G-B-T' - James Corden Sings for Transgender Troops