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Friday, March 9, 2018

The Rickshaw Driver Starting a Revolution

Ember Trio - Destiny's Child Medley Violin Cello Cover

Rethinking Prisons

An excerpt form the NY Times -

Turn Prisons Into Colleges
By ELIZABETH HINTON

Imagine if prisons looked like the grounds of universities. Instead of languishing in cells, incarcerated people sat in classrooms and learned about climate science or poetry — just like college students. Or even with them.

This would be a boon to prisoners across the country, a vast majority of whom do not have a high school diploma. And it could help shrink our prison population. While racial disparities in arrests and convictions are alarming, education level is a far stronger predictor of future incarceration than race.

The idea is rooted in history. In the 1920s, Howard Belding Gill, a criminologist and a Harvard alumnus, developed a college-like community at the Norfolk State Prison Colony in Massachusetts, where he was the superintendent. Prisoners wore normal clothing, participated in cooperative self-government with staff, and took academic courses with instructors from Emerson, Boston University and Harvard. They ran a newspaper, radio show and jazz orchestra, and they had access to an extensive library.

Norfolk had such a good reputation, Malcolm X asked to be transferred there from Charlestown State Prison in Boston so, as he wrote in his petition, he could use “the educational facilities that aren’t in these other institutions.” At Norfolk, “there are many things that I would like to learn that would be of use to me when I regain my freedom.” After Malcolm X’s request was granted, he joined the famous Norfolk Debate Society, through which inmates connected to students at Harvard and other universities.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/06/opinion/prisons-colleges-education.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&region=CColumn&module=MostEmailed&version=Full&src=me&WT.nav=MostEmailed

Girls Ruling the World

From the Huffington Post -

16 Girls Who Changed The World
Proof you’re never too young to make an impact.
By Caroline Bologna

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/16-girls-who-changed-the-world_us_5a8f4f09e4b01e9e56b9e26c

The Wire Cast - Where Are They Now?

From Complex -

Ranking the Careers of 'The Wire' Cast, 10 Years After the Series Finale
BY KHAL, DRIA ROLAND, FRAZIER THARPE, BRANDON JENKINS, KIANA FITZGERALD, SHAWN SETARO, ANGEL DIAZ

http://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2018/03/the-wire-character-career-ranking-after-series-finale/

Blacks Leaving White Churches

From the NY Times -

A Quiet Exodus: Why Black Worshipers Are Leaving White Evangelical Churches
By CAMPBELL ROBERTSON

Black congregants — as recounted by people in Chicago, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Fort Worth and elsewhere — had already grown uneasy in recent years as they watched their white pastors fail to address police shootings of African-Americans. They heard prayers for Paris, for Brussels, for law enforcement; they heard that one should keep one’s eyes on the kingdom, that the church was colorblind, and that talk of racial injustice was divisive, not a matter of the gospel. There was still some hope that this stemmed from an obliviousness rather than some deeper disconnect.

Then white evangelicals voted for Mr. Trump by a larger margin than they had voted for any presidential candidate. They cheered the outcome, reassuring uneasy fellow worshipers with talk of abortion and religious liberty, about how politics is the art of compromise rather than the ideal. Christians of color, even those who shared these policy preferences, looked at Mr. Trump’s comments about Mexican immigrants, his open hostility to N.F.L. players protesting police brutality and his earlier “birther” crusade against President Obama, claiming falsely he was not a United States citizen. In this political deal, many concluded, they were the compromised.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/09/us/blacks-evangelical-churches.html?smprod=nytcore-ipad&smid=nytcore-ipad-share

Thursday, March 8, 2018

Why Literally (Almost) Every Price Ends in 99 Cents

Key & Peele - Country Music

The Logistics of Living in Antarctica

Meet the Man Who Built His Own Power Plant

3-D Heart Scanner

Prison Reform

Demanding Less

An excerpt from the Washington Post -

Hundreds of Canadian doctors demand lower salaries. (Yes, lower.)
By Amy B Wang

In a move that can only be described as utterly Canadian, hundreds of doctors in Quebec are protesting their pay raises, saying they already make too much money.

As of Wednesday afternoon, more than 700 physicians, residents and medical students from the Canadian province had signed an online petition asking for their pay raises to be canceled. A group named Médecins Québécois Pour le Régime Public (MQRP), which represents Quebec doctors and advocates for public health, started the petition Feb. 25.

“We, Quebec doctors who believe in a strong public system, oppose the recent salary increases negotiated by our medical federations,” the petition reads in French.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2018/03/07/hundreds-of-canadian-doctors-demand-lower-salaries/?utm_term=.722bfe351051

Whoopi's Shoes

From Buzzfeed -

https://www.buzzfeed.com/morganmurrell/whoopi-goldberg-insane-shoe-collection?utm_term=.wwbqYN9K1G#.kawQrYLovG