Thursday, December 14, 2017
Wednesday, December 13, 2017
Quote
From USA Today Editorial -
A president who would all but call Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand a whore is not fit to clean the toilets in the Barack Obama Presidential Library or to shine the shoes of George W. Bush.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2017/12/12/trump-lows-ever-hit-rock-bottom-editorials-debates/945947001/
A president who would all but call Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand a whore is not fit to clean the toilets in the Barack Obama Presidential Library or to shine the shoes of George W. Bush.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2017/12/12/trump-lows-ever-hit-rock-bottom-editorials-debates/945947001/
Monday, December 11, 2017
Sunday, December 10, 2017
Fighting Mass Incarceration With An App
An excerpt from Salon -
Want to fight America’s racist mass-incarceration system? There’s an app for that
The app Appolition automatically collects your spare change to help bail disadvantaged black people out of jail
By Rachel Leah
As a social engineer, Kortney Ziegler is always thinking of new ideas and posting them to his Twitter.
"An app that converts your daily change into bail money to free black people," he tweeted in July.
Like many of his brainstorms, it was a one-off gesture thrown into the digital ether. But something was different about this one. It quickly got hundreds of retweets and affirmations. "I'd sign up!" many users wrote back.
Impressed and inspired by the response, Ziegler decided to make the app a reality.
The result is the web-based service "Appolition," which officially came to life on Nov. 14. Ziegler, along with his co-founders in Atlanta, hoped to reach 200 users by mid-December. As of today, Appolition has close to 6,000. And its current, web-based form is just the beginning. Ziegler says mobile apps for iPhone and Android users are on the way.
Here's how it works: Appolition connects to your bank account and rounds up each purchase you make to the nearest dollar. The spare change is then donated automatically once it accrues to at least 50 cents. By signing in to the website, it takes you to a personal secure dashboard where you can track your contributions to bail relief as you spend. It's both passive — you don't even notice you're using it — and effective.
https://www.salon.com/2017/12/09/want-to-fight-americas-racist-mass-incarceration-system-theres-an-app-for-that/
https://appolition.us
Want to fight America’s racist mass-incarceration system? There’s an app for that
The app Appolition automatically collects your spare change to help bail disadvantaged black people out of jail
By Rachel Leah
As a social engineer, Kortney Ziegler is always thinking of new ideas and posting them to his Twitter.
"An app that converts your daily change into bail money to free black people," he tweeted in July.
Like many of his brainstorms, it was a one-off gesture thrown into the digital ether. But something was different about this one. It quickly got hundreds of retweets and affirmations. "I'd sign up!" many users wrote back.
Impressed and inspired by the response, Ziegler decided to make the app a reality.
The result is the web-based service "Appolition," which officially came to life on Nov. 14. Ziegler, along with his co-founders in Atlanta, hoped to reach 200 users by mid-December. As of today, Appolition has close to 6,000. And its current, web-based form is just the beginning. Ziegler says mobile apps for iPhone and Android users are on the way.
Here's how it works: Appolition connects to your bank account and rounds up each purchase you make to the nearest dollar. The spare change is then donated automatically once it accrues to at least 50 cents. By signing in to the website, it takes you to a personal secure dashboard where you can track your contributions to bail relief as you spend. It's both passive — you don't even notice you're using it — and effective.
https://www.salon.com/2017/12/09/want-to-fight-americas-racist-mass-incarceration-system-theres-an-app-for-that/
https://appolition.us
Saturday, December 9, 2017
It Shouldn't Be This Hard
An excerpt from Salon -
NYC’s high school wars: Helicopter parenting hits a new peak
“School choice” in New York has birthed a bizarre system that rewards parental madness and reinforces inequality
By ANDREW O'HEHIR
I spent eight hours trapped with hundreds of other parents in the prison-like cafeteria at Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School — that’s the performing arts school from “Fame” — while my daughter auditioned for a spot in their drama program. (Hey, she got a call-back.) We waited in a four-block-long line for 90 minutes to get into a brief presentation at a former groovy-lefty alternative school that is now — this is not so much ironic as inevitable — intensely competitive and desirable. My son and I tried to visit a tiny math-and-science target school in Harlem (which features, I kid you not, mandatory German) and found ourselves in a mob scene perhaps five times the size of the school’s entire student population. But there was one small moment, in itself neither controversial nor alarming, that summed up this whole strange experience.
https://www.salon.com/2017/12/09/nycs-high-school-wars-helicopter-parenting-hits-a-new-peak/?source=newsletter
NYC’s high school wars: Helicopter parenting hits a new peak
“School choice” in New York has birthed a bizarre system that rewards parental madness and reinforces inequality
By ANDREW O'HEHIR
I spent eight hours trapped with hundreds of other parents in the prison-like cafeteria at Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School — that’s the performing arts school from “Fame” — while my daughter auditioned for a spot in their drama program. (Hey, she got a call-back.) We waited in a four-block-long line for 90 minutes to get into a brief presentation at a former groovy-lefty alternative school that is now — this is not so much ironic as inevitable — intensely competitive and desirable. My son and I tried to visit a tiny math-and-science target school in Harlem (which features, I kid you not, mandatory German) and found ourselves in a mob scene perhaps five times the size of the school’s entire student population. But there was one small moment, in itself neither controversial nor alarming, that summed up this whole strange experience.
https://www.salon.com/2017/12/09/nycs-high-school-wars-helicopter-parenting-hits-a-new-peak/?source=newsletter
It Says It All
An excerpt from the Huffington Post -
This Book’s Title Says What We’re All Thinking About Donald Trump
“The windows are dark in D.C./ Your staff huddles down to silently weep/ I’ll read you one last story from InfoWars/ If you promise you’ll then go to sleep.”
By David Moye
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/stop-tweeting-donald-trump-book_us_5a27127de4b0c2117626883e?ncid=APPLENEWS00001
This Book’s Title Says What We’re All Thinking About Donald Trump
“The windows are dark in D.C./ Your staff huddles down to silently weep/ I’ll read you one last story from InfoWars/ If you promise you’ll then go to sleep.”
By David Moye
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/stop-tweeting-donald-trump-book_us_5a27127de4b0c2117626883e?ncid=APPLENEWS00001
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