Monday, March 4, 2024
Thursday, February 29, 2024
Still Fighting at 101 Years Old!
An excerpt from Dan Rather's Steady Column -
A 101-Year-Old’s Fight Against Book Banning
Inspiring young 92-year-olds like me
DAN RATHER AND TEAM STEADY
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| Credit: PEN America/Damarcus Adisa |
I’m often inspired by those younger than I who work tirelessly to help our country survive and thrive. But at 92, it’s not every day I find someone older who is such an inspiration. Grace Linn is a spry 101-year-old with strong opinions about what’s happening where she lives in Martin County, Florida. The school board there has been at the forefront of book bans in the state, removing more than 80 titles from county classrooms.
I recently came upon a remarkable and inspirational interview with Linn. Her husband died in 1944 fighting the Nazis, who were notorious book burners. Linn was so disgusted by the book bans in her Florida school district that she made a quilt depicting 84 banned books and displayed it while testifying before the school board. “Banning books and burning books are the same. Both are done for the same reason: fear of knowledge,” Linn said. “Fear is not freedom. Fear is not liberty. Fear is control.”
Linn’s dedicated activism got me thinking about the surge in book bans specifically and the culture war being waged more broadly. The idea of a culture war is not something new in America.
https://steady.substack.com/p/a-101-year-olds-fight-against-book?
Wednesday, February 28, 2024
CIA's Former Chief of Disguise Reveals Secrets
An excerpt from People -
CIA's Former Chief of Disguise Reveals Spy Secrets: 'People Who Knew Me Well Will Be Shocked' (Exclusive)
Trailblazer Jonna Mendez revolutionized the CIA’s techniques — and now she’s finally sharing her own story
By Dawn Klavon
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| “I didn’t join the CIA thinking I’d drive over the Alps in a Jaguar like James Bond,” says Jonna Mendez (in 2023 and, opposite, disguised as a man in 2005). PHOTO: NANCY PASTOR/THE WASHINGTON TIMES; TINA LEU |
When Jonna Mendez, then the CIA’s chief of disguise, was asked to brief President George H.W. Bush on the agency’s new mask technology in the early 1990s, she wanted to make a powerful impression to secure more funding.
“It’s expensive to make these masks,” says Mendez, 78.
Meeting Bush in the Oval Office disguised as a Latina woman with black curly hair, she described the extraordinary results her team achieved to evade Russia’s KGB. Bush curiously glanced to her side, perhaps looking for a briefcase holding the new disguise. She told him she was wearing it.
“He said, ‘Hold on, don’t take it off yet.’ Then he got up and took a closer look,” she recalls. “He said, ‘Okay, do it.’ ”
Like a Mission: Impossible character, Mendez slowly peeled off a remarkably lifelike mask, revealing her true face: blue eyes, fair skin and short, dark blonde hair. When she held up the disguise that duped everyone in the room, Bush and his advisers seemed dazzled.
“The masks were something that no one else, not even Hollywood, could do,” she says.
That’s just one memory from Mendez’s 27-year tenure as a master of disguise that she’s mined for her CIA-reviewed memoir In True Face: A Woman’s Life in the CIA Unmasked, out March 5.
“This is my career that no one knows about,” she tells PEOPLE in this week's issue from her Reston, Va., home. “You step into that world, and the door closes behind you. I thought it would be interesting to open the door. People who knew me well will be shocked.”
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| The cover of Jonna Mendez's book, "In True Face," out March 5. Photo: PUBLICAFFAIRS |
https://people.com/cias-former-chief-of-disguise-reveals-spy-secrets-people-who-knew-me-well-will-be-shocked-exclusive-8594627
10 Landmark R & B Albums Turning 50 This Year
An excerpt from People -
The Sound of '74: 10 Landmark R&B Albums Turning 50 This Year
Learn more about the making of iconic albums by Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Al Green and more.
By Jordan Runtagh
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| PHOTO: Getty |
The year 1974 saw a host of legendary Black performers reach the peak of their powers, with icons like Stevie Wonder, Al Green, Millie Jackson and Aretha Franklin releasing works that defined both their careers and the decade through bold sonic innovations or powerful social commentary. It was a transitional time for the sound of Black America, as the ever-expanding scope of R&B grew to include emerging genres including funk, disco and even early hip-hop. In celebration of Black History Month, learn about — and listen to! — these landmark works by some of the greatest Black artists of all time.
01 'Perfect Angel' by Minnie Riperton
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| 'Perfect Angel' by Minnie Riperton. |
Released: Aug. 6, 1974
Standout Tracks: "Can't Get Enough of Your Love, Babe,” "You're the First, the Last, My Everything"
Far more than just a velvet-voice, White was a writer, producer, arranger and key pioneer of the developing disco sound thanks to his run of early ‘70s solo albums that fused Memphis funk, Philly Soul, lush strings, and infectious four-on-the-floor beats with his unmistakable stage-rattling croon. Can’t Get Enough, his third solo disc, is the maestro at his peak. "Can't Get Enough of Your Love, Babe,” the lead single, became his first No. 1 under his own name, and “You’re the First, the Last, My Everything” — which began life as an unreleased country song from the 1950s before White reworked it — remains a sultry R&B standard half a century after its release.
The amped-up romance came from a real place for White. While producing the R&B group Love Unlimited, he fell in love with their singer, Glodean James. During one sleepless night, he poured his passionate sweet nothings for James into a song that became the title track. They were married by the time it topped the charts that September.
2nd HBCU Vet School to Open
An excerpt from Black Enterprise -
THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND EASTERN SHORE TO BECOME 2ND HBCU TO HAVE VETERINARIAN SCHOOL
The University of Maryland Eastern Shore is making strides in diversity, becoming the second HBCU to host a veterinarian program.
by Nahlah Abdur-Rahman
The University of Maryland Eastern Shore in Princess Anne, Maryland, is set to become the second HBCU to have a veterinarian school. Classes are set to begin in 2026.
Not only will the school join Tuskegee University as the only HBCU in the nation to have the program, it will soon be part of the just over three dozen schools that grant the degree, as reported by USA Today on Feb. 20, granting more opportunities for aspiring Black veterinarians.
“We are hoping that our new school will open the door and create plenty of opportunities in an underserved field,” said Moses Kairo, the dean of agricultural and natural sciences at the university.
“There are very few vet schools being established, so there’s room for growth. We feel our timing is just right.”
Black veterinarians only make up 1.2% of all professionals in the United States, according to a 2021 Bureau of Labor Statistics report.
First Medical School Staff President
An excerpt from Black Enterprise -
MEDICAL SCHOOL’S FIRST BLACK GRADUATE MAKES HISTORY AGAIN AS FIRST BLACK MEDICAL STAFF PRESIDENT
Dr. James D. Griffin, the first Black graduate of the University of Texas Southwestern’s medical school, was elected as the first Black president of the Medical Staff at Parkland Health.
By Daniel JohnsonDr. James D. Griffin is the first Black graduate of the University of Texas Southwestern’s medical school to join the school’s faculty, as well as the chief of Anesthesiology at Parkland Health, a hospital located in Dallas, Texas. Griffin made even more history, recently he was elected as the first Black president of the medical staff at Parkland Health.
Griffin, as NBC DFW reported, shares a special connection with Parkland; he was born in the hospital’s segregated wing in 1958. In an interview with the outlet, Griffin reflected on that history and his parents, who he says pushed him to believe in himself, beyond the limits that society placed on Black people in the Jim Crow South. “To be born at Parkland in a time when my mother could not receive health care in any other hospital was important. At that time, Parkland’s maternity ward was segregated so the African American babies were born in one part of the hospital and everyone else was born somewhere else,” Griffin said.
Griffin continued, praising the values his parents instilled in him, “We never talked about what we couldn’t do. It was always based in faith on what was possible if we put our minds to it.
https://www.blackenterprise.com/first-black-president-parkland-health/
Monday, February 12, 2024
Wednesday, February 7, 2024
Scarf Bombing
An excerpt from the Washington Post -
‘Scarf bombing’ is helping keep people warm in the winter months
The act of leaving handmade garments in public places when it’s cold out has spread across Canada and the U.S.
By Sydney Page
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| A "scarf bomb" in Pittsburgh in December 2022. (Scarf Bombardiers) |
The 14 handmade scarves were a mystery.
Ten years ago, they appeared around the necks of famous statues in Ottawa on a chilly January day. Each scarf was tagged with a note that read: “I am not lost! If you are stuck out in the cold, take this scarf to keep warm.” It was later revealed that a few university students were behind the good deed.
The incident went viral, and is part of a movement now known as “scarf bombing” — leaving handmade scarves in public places to warm people up during the winter months. The scarves are typically tied around fences, benches and railings, and are especially intended to support those experiencing homelessness.
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While the Ottawa scarf bombing was the first to go big online, the phenomenon had already arrived in other places, including Winnipeg.
The scarf bombing movement has spread across Canada and the United States — including in Maryland, Virginia, Iowa, New York City, the Twin Cities and Jacksonville, Fla.
“Most of us are doing it because that one person did,” said Michelle Chance-Sangthong, who saw the Ottawa story online in 2014 and started scarf bombing in Jacksonville. She created a Facebook group called Scarf Bomb Jax and has recruited dozens of volunteers over the past decade. They range in age from their teens to their 80s.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2024/02/02/scarf-bomb-winter-homeless-kindness/
Wednesday, January 24, 2024
Why He's "The Boss"
This is a truly wonderful story from Bruce @springsteen and I hope you listen to the end of it.
— Don Winslow (@donwinslow) July 26, 2023
It's a reminder to all artists...be humble, be grateful.pic.twitter.com/QC380HC1ua
Driven by Curiosity: The Lanny Smoot Story
An excerpt from AfroTech -
Lanny Smoot Becomes The Second Person From Disney, Since Walt Disney Himself, To Get Inducted Into The National Inventors Hall Of Fame
By Ashley Turner
Smoot is making history as the first Disney Imagineer to receive this honor. He’s also only the second Walt Disney Company employee since Walt Disney to earn the recognition.
During Smoot’s 45-year career, he has been a theatrical technology creator, inventor, electrical engineer, scientist, and researcher. The innovator has amassed a collection of over 100 patents, 74 of them created during his 25-year stint at the Walt Disney Company.
Before working at Disney, Smoot was talented.
After graduating with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering from Columbia University, Smoot developed multiple innovations, such as video-on-demand technology, video conferencing, and specialized television for remote locations, to name a few.
Smoot has been integral in creating some of the most technically advanced special effects at Disney theme parks and experiences. Some examples of these special effects include Madame Leota’s floating in the Séance Room at Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion, Disney Live Entertainment’s extendable lightsaber, the Magic Playfloor interactive game experience on the Disney Cruise Line, and the Fortress Explorations adventure at Tokyo DisneySea.
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