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Tuesday, May 19, 2020

Dad Advice

From Upworthy -

Man whose dad walked out when he was 12 shares his own fatherly wisdom  'Dad, How Do I?' channel
by Annie Reneau


Rob Kenney's dad left his family when he was 12. One of eight kids, Kenney went to live with his older brother when he was 14, spending his teenage and young adult years without a father to guide him.

Now a father of two grown children himself, Kenney is offering others the fatherly wisdom and skills he had to gain on his own. His YouTube channel "Dad, How Do I?" shares videos on everyday practical things most people might ask their dad like the proper way to tie a tie, how to unclog a sink and how to check the car oil. Since it was launched April 1, the channel has exploded in popularity.

https://www.upworthy.com/man-whose-dad-walked-out-when-he-was-12-shares-his-own-fatherly-wisdom-dad-how-do-i-channel

This 8-year-old’s financial knowledge is mind blowing l GMA Digital

Friday, May 15, 2020

Favorite Zoom Meeting EVER!

We Could Learn From Them, But We Won't

An excerpt from the New Yorker -

What African Nations Are Teaching the West About Fighting the Coronavirus
By Jina Moore

n early March, Ingrid Gercama left her home in the Netherlands and flew to war-torn South Sudan. An applied-research anthropologist with a special interest in epidemics, she had spent time on the African continent during a public-health emergency before, remaining in Liberia, in 2014, during that country’s Ebola outbreak. When she landed at the frill-free airport in South Sudan’s capital of Juba, she was taken to a separate screening area, the shape and size of a shipping container, where her temperature was recorded by government health workers, along with her hotel address and her local telephone number. Gercama was asked a series of questions about her travel and health, she recalled, including whether she had recently come into contact with a bat. The screening area’s walls were covered with posters about covid-19 and its symptoms, and she was ushered into the country past a banner explaining the disease and offering a telephone number for a national coronavirus hotline, which she was to call if she developed a fever. She had to wash her hands once to get into the screening area, and again when she left.

Much of what Gercama encountered at the airport had been designed to prevent Ebola. Since 2018, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Sudan’s neighbor to the southwest, has been struggling with the disease. But local public-health officials’ quick repurposing of Ebola protocols and infrastructure impressed Gercama, as did the work of rapid-response teams, whom she twice witnessed respond to suspected coronavirus cases during the week she spent in the country. She left South Sudan on March 19th, a few days after the country began quarantining arriving passengers, and a few days before they stopped international flights altogether. From Juba, she flew through Stockholm, where no one asked her where she had been nor recorded her temperature, and landed back in Amsterdam, where, again, she was not questioned about her travel history or health. When she passed through passport control, she found no leaflets, no covid-19 awareness banners, no hotline. “They didn’t even tell me to self-isolate,” Gercama told me. “I did so because I have common sense.”

https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/what-african-nations-are-teaching-the-west-about-fighting-the-coronavirus

Tuesday, May 12, 2020

Princeton’s First Black Valedictorian In School’s 274-Year History


View this post on Instagram

Congratulations to Nicholas Johnson, named valedictorian and Grace Sommers, named Latin salutatorian for #Princeton20! 👏⁣ ⁣ Nicholas Johnson ’20⁣ Hometown: Montréal, Québec⁣ Major: Operations Research and Financial Engineering⁣ Certificates: Statistics and Machine Learning, Applied and Computational Mathematics, and Applications of Computing⁣ Residential College: @whitmanatprinceton⁣ Thesis: “Sequential Stochastic Network Structure Optimization with Applications to Addressing Canada’s Obesity Epidemic”⁣ Post-grad plans: Johnson begins Ph.D. studies in operations research at @MITpics.⁣ ⁣ “My favorite memories of my time at #PrincetonU are [those] spent with close friends and classmates engaging in stimulating discussions - often late at night - about our beliefs, the cultures and environments in which we were raised, the state of the world and how we plan on contributing positively to it in our own unique way."⁣ ⁣ Grace Sommers ’20⁣ Hometown: Bridgewater, NJ⁣ Major: Physics⁣ Certificates: Applications of Computing, Applied and Computational Mathematics, Ancient Roman Language and Culture⁣ Residential College: @butlercollegeprinceton⁣ Thesis: “Order and Disorder in a New Class of Spin Systems”⁣ Post-grad plans: Sommers begins Ph.D. studies in physics right here at #PrincetonU.⁣ ⁣ “In addition to the joy of learning the material … the approachability of my professors, both as advisers and as instructors, has been a highlight of my learning experience … I’ve enjoyed having thought-provoking conversations with my professors and classmates."⁣ ⁣ Johnson and Sommers will participate in the 2020 virtual commencement on May 31, 2020. Congrats to Nicholas and Grace!
A post shared by Princeton University (@princeton) on

Sunday, May 10, 2020

Learning From Mom

An excerpt from the Washington Post -

Everything I learned about being a dad, I learned from my mom
By Nevin Martell

As soon as my son, Zephyr, arrived, I realized my autonomy had an unexpected downside: It felt like going up a certain creek without a paddle. I needed a lodestar to help guide me through the process. I had so many questions and so few answers. Sometimes, I even considered reading all the books still taking up space on my nightstand. But, nah. Too much work.

And then, my mother came to live with us for several weeks to help us transition into parenthood smoothly. Whenever Indira needed a break from holding Zephyr and I wasn’t there, my mom swooped in to take him before she was even asked. I’d be feeling tired, and my mother would magically ask whether I’d like a cup of the coffee she was thinking of brewing. Zephyr would be on the verge of getting fussy, and she would suddenly be rocking him while cooing and making cute faces. She seemed to anticipate everyone’s every needs, often offering help before we even knew to ask.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2020/05/08/everything-i-learned-about-being-dad-i-learned-my-mom/

Thursday, May 7, 2020

A Shining Star

An excerpt from the Washington Post -

Kizzmekia Corbett spent her life preparing for this moment. Can she create the vaccine to end a pandemic?
This 34-year-old African American woman scientist is a rarity. But with increased visibility comes increased scrutiny.
By Darryl Fears
Kizzmekia Corbett talks with President Trump, Anthony S. Fauci
and other officials at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., in early March. (Evan Vucci/AP)


Halfway through the school year, Myrtis Bradsher found herself paying close attention to a little girl called Kizzy. She always looked sharp, with ribbons knotted to her ponytails and socks that matched every outfit. But it was the way she rushed to help other fourth-graders with classwork that really stood out. “She had so much knowledge,” the teacher recalled. “She knew something about everything.”

In 25 years at Oak Lane Elementary School in rural Hurdle Mills, N.C., Bradsher had not seen a child like her. Bradsher was one of a few black teachers, and Kizzy was a rare black student. At a parent-teacher conference, Bradsher pushed to give the girl the advantages she felt she deserved. “Look,” she recalled saying to her mother, Rhonda Brooks, “she’s so far above other children. We need to send her to a class for exceptional students. I need you to say we have your permission.”

Bradsher’s recommendation put Kizzmekia Corbett on a path that ultimately led her to the National Institutes of Health, where she is heading the government’s search for a vaccine to end the coronavirus outbreak that has infected more than 1.2 million Americans, killed over 70,000 and devastated the economy.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2020/05/06/kizzmekia-corbett-vaccine-coronavirus/

Tuesday, May 5, 2020

Kindness Remembered Almost 200 Later

An excerpt from Upworthy -

Irish help raise $1.8 million for COVID-hit Navajo Nation, repaying $170 sent during the potato famine
by Annie Reneau

The Navajo Nation and Hopi Reservation in the southwestern U.S. have been hit hard by the coronavirus outbreak. With a third of the population having no running water, proper virus-avoiding hygiene is nearly impossible. Access to groceries is limited, and the community has a high number of elderly and individuals with health conditions that put them at higher risk of complications from the virus.

A GoFundMe fundraiser was organized on behalf of the Rural Utah Project Education Fund to raise money for groceries, water, health supplies, and other necessary items in these Native communities. And this week, they have received a huge influx of donations from a seemingly unlikely source—Ireland.

If you're wondering what would prompt people on an island across the Atlantic to send money to a specific community in the U.S., the answer is simple. Gratitude.

In 1847, Native American tribes were struggling to get established after being forced to relocate from their homelands during the cruel and shameful Trail of Tears. The tribes had suffered greatly and had very little. But when the Choctaw nation heard about the suffering of the Irish people during the potato famine, they pulled together a donation of $170—around $5000 in today's dollars—to send to Ireland.

That collective act of sacrificial generosity was not forgotten. And now people in Ireland are repaying that gift many times over in a beautiful expression of historic human connectedness.

https://www.upworthy.com/navajo-covid


Sunday, May 3, 2020

Rings Hollow

An excerpt from the Washington Post -

Heroes, we cannot possibly repay you for your sacrifice, so we will make no effort to
By Alexandra Petri

Good news, front-line worker: You are essential. No, more than that: You are a hero.

Look, some jets are flying over!

Here is your salute! Here is your banging of pans! Look, your employers have made you — with their own dollars! — a commercial with gentle piano music, in the tenderest possible tone, to say thank you. We salute you. No, we do more than that: We owe you a debt of gratitude. No, wait, let us not introduce the word “debt,” which might imply monetary compensation of some kind. You are a hero, after all. You are beyond all that money nonsense. We are beyond all that.

Look, here are some more jets!

We cannot hope to thank you for this sacrifice you are making so we can be fed and entertained and comforted. But we will offer you this word: essential! Do you not feel better? Is the word itself not better than any kind of safety gear? Okay, here are some masks — not to wear, but affixed together into a big collage, as a symbol! As the vice president has shown, masks are optional. But symbolism — that is essential.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/30/heroes-we-cannot-possibly-repay-you-your-sacrifice-so-we-will-make-no-effort/