Search This Blog

Friday, August 18, 2017

Terminate Hate

From the Good -

This Map Reveals The True Value Of $100 In Each State
by Penn Collins

https://money.good.is/articles/one-hundred-dollars


Thursday, August 17, 2017

Six Words

Check out Six Word Memoirs at the links below.

https://www.sixwordmemoirs.com

http://ew.com/books/2017/08/17/mila-kunis-aziz-ansari-fresh-off-boat-six-word-memoirs/

New at ALCU

An excerpt from the Wall Street Journal -

ACLU Will No Longer Defend Hate Groups Protesting with Firearms
Executive director says violence and guns at Charlottesville rally spurred new stance
By Joe Palazzolo

The American Civil Liberties Union, taking a tougher stance on armed protests, will no longer defend hate groups seeking to march with firearms, the group’s executive director said.

Following clashes over the weekend in Charlottesville, Va., the civil-rights group also will screen clients more closely for the potential of violence at their rallies, said Anthony Romero, who has been the ACLU’s executive director since 2001.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/aclu-changes-policy-on-defending-hate-groups-protesting-with-firearms-1503010167

Pro-Choice Victory

An excerpt from the Washington Post -

Oregon approves sweeping bill expanding abortion access
By Sandhya Somashekhar

Oregon Gov. Kate Brown (D) on Tuesday signed into law what advocates called the nation’s most progressive reproductive health policy, expanding access to abortion and birth control at a time when the Trump administration and other states are trying to restrict them.

Called the Reproductive Health Equity Act, the measure requires health insurers to provide birth control and abortion without charging a co-pay. It also dedicates state funds to provide reproductive health care to noncitizens excluded from Medicaid.

Antiabortion groups swiftly condemned the new law, saying it will force taxpayers to foot the bill for a procedure many consider to be a form of murder, and that it cements Oregon’s status as the most liberal state when it comes to abortion.

~~~~~~~~~~

The Pro-Choice Coalition of Oregon, which helped write the law, said it will benefit hundreds of thousands of Oregonians, not only by increasing access to abortion but also birth control and postpartum care for low-income women.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/08/15/oregon-approves-sweeping-bill-expanding-abortion-access/?utm_term=.55a56b371de9

Saving the Dead Sea From Sink Holes, One Man's Mission

For the Best Food in Bangkok, Try This Chef’s Home

Roller Derby - Texas Style

Gelato shop opens to create jobs for deaf, educates community too

Why We Sleep Under Blankets?

An excerpt from Atlas Obscura -

Why Do We Sleep Under Blankets, Even on the Hottest Nights?
There’s great comfort in being covered.
BY DAN NOSOWITZ

The other element that might explain our need for blankets is what Hoagland refers to as “pure conditioning.” “Chances are you were raised to always have a blanket on you when you went to sleep,” she says. “So that’s a version of a transitional object, in sort of Pavlovian way.” Basically, our parents always gave us blankets to sleep with—babies are a bit worse than adults at thermoregulation, meaning they get cold easily, meaning well-meaning adults put blankets on them—and so getting under a sheet or blanket is associated with the process of falling asleep. Instead of Pavlov’s dogs drooling at the sound of a bell, we get sleepy when covered with a sheet.

If you Google around for this question, you’ll end up with a bunch of theories about blankets simulating the warm, enclosed feeling we had in the womb. There could be some element of theoretical protection or security imbued by the blanket, which might be another bit of conditioning, but Hoagland thinks the womb comparison is pretty unlikely. “I’m very suspicious of anyone who implies that this goes back to the feeling of being in the womb,” she says. “I think that’s very far-fetched.”

http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/blankets-summer-hot

Looking Sharp

An excerpt from the LA Times -

Tijuana's big growth industry? Barbershops, with 100 opening in three years

By Phillip Molnar, Alejandro Tamayo

Tijuana had roughly 50 to 80 barbershops in 2013 but now has more than 150, said the city’s economic development office.

Retail experts say going to a barbershop is a way of projecting masculinity, but there are other factors that attract clients: nostalgia, bargain prices, access to beard products and increased amenities offered by barbers.

Ruben Chavarria, 40, a machinist in San Diego who lives in Tijuana, used to get his haircut in San Diego now but goes to Don Edgar Barberia once a week.

http://www.latimes.com/world/mexico-americas/la-fg-tijuana-barbers-20170817-story.html#nws=mcnewsletter



Amazon's Convenience Stores

An excerpt from the Washington Post -

What it’s like to shop in Amazon’s version of the convenience store
By Hayley Tsukayama

BERKELEY, Calif. — Amazon has been aggressively courting students as part of its experiment to bring its enormous online shopping operation into the brick-and-mortar world. Now, the company is launching Amazon Instant Pickup, a service that allows customers to order certain items from their smartphones for pickup within minutes of purchase.

Essentially, Amazon has launched its own version of the convenience store.

Five college campus locations will introduce Instant Pickup this week, including the University of California at Berkeley and the University of Maryland at College Park. (Amazon chief executive Jeffrey P. Bezos is the owner of The Washington Post.)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/08/16/what-its-like-to-shop-in-amazons-version-of-the-convenience-store/?utm_term=.73ec9def8e95&wpisrc=nl_rainbow&wpmm=1

Charlottesville: Race and Terror – VICE News Tonight on HBO

Shown No Mercy

An excerpt from Salon -

White privilege turned deadly in Charlottesville: How would police have reacted if a mob of angry black people had gathered there?
Imagine this thought experiment: Hundreds of armed, angry black protesters descend on a small Southern city
By CHAUNCEY DEVEGA

Imagine this: What if the white right-wing thugs in Charlottesville had instead been African-American or Hispanic?

The police would not have shown restraint. They would have been joined by the National Guard and other forces. A bloodbath might well have ensued. The events in Ferguson, Missouri after the shooting of Mike Brown, demonstrate how America’s police respond to unarmed black and brown American who dare to engage in civil disobedience and protest. People of color with guns or other weapons would be shown no mercy.

http://www.salon.com/2017/08/16/white-privilege-turned-deadly-in-charlottesville-how-would-police-have-reacted-if-a-mob-of-angry-black-people-had-gathered-there/

A New Kind of School

An excerpt from the NY Times -

A New Kind of Classroom: No Grades, No Failing, No Hurry
By KYLE SPENCER

Few middle schoolers are as clued in to their mathematical strengths and weakness as Moheeb Kaied. Now a seventh grader at Brooklyn’s Middle School 442, he can easily rattle off his computational profile.

“Let’s see,” he said one morning this spring. “I can find the area and perimeter of a polygon. I can solve mathematical and real-world problems using a coordinate plane. I still need to get better at dividing multiple-digit numbers, which means I should probably practice that more.”

Moheeb is part of a new program that is challenging the way teachers and students think about academic accomplishments, and his school is one of hundreds that have done away with traditional letter grades inside their classrooms. At M.S. 442, students are encouraged to focus instead on mastering a set of grade-level skills, like writing a scientific hypothesis or identifying themes in a story, moving to the next set of skills when they have demonstrated that they are ready. In these schools, there is no such thing as a C or a D for a lazily written term paper. There is no failing. The only goal is to learn the material, sooner or later.

For struggling students, there is ample time to practice until they get it. For those who grasp concepts quickly, there is the opportunity to swiftly move ahead. The strategy looks different from classroom to classroom, as does the material that students must master. But in general, students work at their own pace through worksheets, online lessons and in small group discussions with teachers. They get frequent updates on skills they have learned and those they need to acquire.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/11/nyregion/mastery-based-learning-no-grades.html

Books For Kids

From the NY Times -

How to Talk to Your Kids About Charlottesville
By MARIA RUSSO

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/14/books/review/children-violence-racism-charlottesville.html?em_pos=medium&emc=edit_rr_20170816&nl=race-related&nl_art=6&nlid=38867499&ref=headline&te=1&_r=0

History Lesson

From EW -

Stan Lee shares 1968 column against bigotry after Charlottesville violence
‘As it true today as it was in 1968,’ the writer tweeted
By CHRISTIAN HOLUB


After Charlottesville, how do we cover an immoral president?

Quote

Prelude to a Coup?

An excerpt from Slate -

Chain of Confusion
Military commanders’ rebuke of Trump after Charlottesville points to a crisis for civilian control of the military.
By Fred Kaplan

n a stunning bit of news, the chiefs of all four U.S. military services—Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines—have issued statements this week condemning racism in all its forms. This can only be seen as a rebuke to President Trump’s equivocating statements on last weekend’s violence in Charlottesville, Virginia—i.e., as a rebuke to their commander in chief.

If we lived in a different sort of country, this could fairly be seen as the prelude to a military coup—and a coup that many might welcome.

The United States is not that sort of country. The principles of civilian control and an apolitical military are hammered into every officer’s sensibility in every forum of education and training. Yet, at the same time, so are principles of equality and nondiscrimination—enshrined in the Uniform Code of Military Justice and bolstered by the military’s heritage as a spearhead of racial integration shortly after World War II, long before other segments of American society followed along.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/war_stories/2017/08/trump_s_generals_rebuke_him_after_charlottesville.html?wpsrc=newsletter_tis&sid=554654ea10defb39638b510d