Saturday, December 31, 2016
Ingenuity on Display
An excerpt from the New Yorker -
MY PRISON CELL: LEARNING TO HEAR ON A CARDBOARD PIANO
By Demetrius Cunningham
On my bottom bunk bed, I sat in deep thought. I had an unusual problem. The prison choir that I sang in needed a piano player, and they needed one quickly. I thought to myself, How could I teach myself to play? I had no prior experience with the piano, but I can still remember running down the hallways of my grandmother’s house as a boy. Every time I ran past her old upright piano, I would slam all the keys at the same time. Sometimes in the mornings before school, as I listened to cassette tapes of my favorite R. & B. and gospel songs by Mary J. Blige and John P. Kee, I imagined myself playing the piano. I sang in the church choir from the age of seven on. In the sixth grade, I learned to play the xylophone. I had an uncle who played piano professionally at Las Vegas casinos and on cruise ships. When he came to visit, I sat in awe as he played our upright. Music has been my constant companion. It’s like my DNA has tiny quarter notes infused into it.
One day while I was watching TV in my cell, I flipped past a show on BET that highlighted famous musicians, including the gospel singer Andrae Crouch, who described his first piano. It was made out of cardboard. I had an idea that was literally out of the box.
The first moment I could, I searched for a cardboard box. I wandered by cells, examining the garbage. I rummaged through every trash bag I could find. I soon realized that it was tissue day. Every Tuesday, the institution hands out hundreds of rolls of tissue, one roll per inmate. I knew that there would be plenty of cardboard boxes around. I found a large empty box abandoned at the end of the gallery. I tore off the top flaps and quickly went back to my cell.
http://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/my-cell-learning-to-hear-on-a-cardboard-piano
MY PRISON CELL: LEARNING TO HEAR ON A CARDBOARD PIANO
By Demetrius Cunningham
On my bottom bunk bed, I sat in deep thought. I had an unusual problem. The prison choir that I sang in needed a piano player, and they needed one quickly. I thought to myself, How could I teach myself to play? I had no prior experience with the piano, but I can still remember running down the hallways of my grandmother’s house as a boy. Every time I ran past her old upright piano, I would slam all the keys at the same time. Sometimes in the mornings before school, as I listened to cassette tapes of my favorite R. & B. and gospel songs by Mary J. Blige and John P. Kee, I imagined myself playing the piano. I sang in the church choir from the age of seven on. In the sixth grade, I learned to play the xylophone. I had an uncle who played piano professionally at Las Vegas casinos and on cruise ships. When he came to visit, I sat in awe as he played our upright. Music has been my constant companion. It’s like my DNA has tiny quarter notes infused into it.
One day while I was watching TV in my cell, I flipped past a show on BET that highlighted famous musicians, including the gospel singer Andrae Crouch, who described his first piano. It was made out of cardboard. I had an idea that was literally out of the box.
The first moment I could, I searched for a cardboard box. I wandered by cells, examining the garbage. I rummaged through every trash bag I could find. I soon realized that it was tissue day. Every Tuesday, the institution hands out hundreds of rolls of tissue, one roll per inmate. I knew that there would be plenty of cardboard boxes around. I found a large empty box abandoned at the end of the gallery. I tore off the top flaps and quickly went back to my cell.
http://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/my-cell-learning-to-hear-on-a-cardboard-piano
2016 in Pictures
From the Washington Post -
Here are the best photos of 2016
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/here-are-the-best-photos-of-2016/2016/12/22/b8bf6cd4-c13d-11e6-9a51-cd56ea1c2bb7_gallery.html?hpid=hp_no-name_photo-story-b-2%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.4a87616515cc
Here are the best photos of 2016
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/here-are-the-best-photos-of-2016/2016/12/22/b8bf6cd4-c13d-11e6-9a51-cd56ea1c2bb7_gallery.html?hpid=hp_no-name_photo-story-b-2%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.4a87616515cc
The Irony of It All
An excerpt from the Mercury News -
Bay Area stalled in a wireless traffic jam
By LOUIS HANSEN
Silicon Valley, capital of high-tech and hub of innovation, is stalled in a wireless traffic jam of its own making. Increasing demand for data — driven by the products made by Bay Area tech companies – and lagging infrastructure coupled with intense local politics have helped create the dropped calls, frozen videos and blank web pages on our screens.
Industry analytics company RootMetrics ranks San Jose at 49 and San Francisco at 58 out of 125 metropolitan areas in quality of mobile network service. That puts the Bay Area ahead of Santa Rosa (122) but lagging far behind Modesto and Sacramento (7 and 8).
http://www.mercurynews.com/2016/12/30/bay-area-stalled-in-a-wireless-traffic-jam/
Bay Area stalled in a wireless traffic jam
By LOUIS HANSEN
Silicon Valley, capital of high-tech and hub of innovation, is stalled in a wireless traffic jam of its own making. Increasing demand for data — driven by the products made by Bay Area tech companies – and lagging infrastructure coupled with intense local politics have helped create the dropped calls, frozen videos and blank web pages on our screens.
Industry analytics company RootMetrics ranks San Jose at 49 and San Francisco at 58 out of 125 metropolitan areas in quality of mobile network service. That puts the Bay Area ahead of Santa Rosa (122) but lagging far behind Modesto and Sacramento (7 and 8).
http://www.mercurynews.com/2016/12/30/bay-area-stalled-in-a-wireless-traffic-jam/
Friday, December 30, 2016
Camel Beauty Contest Crowns a Winner
From the National -
http://www.thenational.ae/uae/heritage/winners-of-camel-beauty-contest-at-al-dhafra-festival-crowned#5
 |
| The winners of this year’s camel beauty contest at the Al Dhafra Festival in the Western Region of Abu Dhabi have been crowned. Wam |
http://www.thenational.ae/uae/heritage/winners-of-camel-beauty-contest-at-al-dhafra-festival-crowned#5
Before the Holocaust
From the New York Times -
Germany Grapples With Its African Genocide
By NORIMITSU ONISHI
WATERBERG, Namibia — In this faraway corner of southern Africa, scores of German soldiers lie in a military cemetery, their names, dates and details engraved on separate polished tombstones.
Easily missed is a single small plaque on the cemetery wall that gives a nod in German to the African “warriors” who died in the fighting as well. Nameless, they are among the tens of thousands of Africans killed in what historians have long considered — and what the German government is now close to recognizing — as the 20th century’s first genocide.
A century after losing its colonial possessions in Africa, Germany and its former colony, Namibia, are now engaged in intense negotiations to put an end to one of the ugliest chapters of Europe’s past in Africa.
During German rule in Namibia, called South-West Africa back then, colonial officers studying eugenics developed ideas on racial purity, and their forces tried to exterminate two rebellious ethnic groups, the Herero and Nama, some of them in concentration camps.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/29/world/africa/germany-genocide-namibia-holocaust.html
Germany Grapples With Its African Genocide
By NORIMITSU ONISHI
WATERBERG, Namibia — In this faraway corner of southern Africa, scores of German soldiers lie in a military cemetery, their names, dates and details engraved on separate polished tombstones.
Easily missed is a single small plaque on the cemetery wall that gives a nod in German to the African “warriors” who died in the fighting as well. Nameless, they are among the tens of thousands of Africans killed in what historians have long considered — and what the German government is now close to recognizing — as the 20th century’s first genocide.
A century after losing its colonial possessions in Africa, Germany and its former colony, Namibia, are now engaged in intense negotiations to put an end to one of the ugliest chapters of Europe’s past in Africa.
During German rule in Namibia, called South-West Africa back then, colonial officers studying eugenics developed ideas on racial purity, and their forces tried to exterminate two rebellious ethnic groups, the Herero and Nama, some of them in concentration camps.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/29/world/africa/germany-genocide-namibia-holocaust.html
This Breathalyzer Can Do So Much More!
From LiveScience -
One Breath Into This Breathalyzer Can Diagnose 17 Diseases
By Laura Geggel, Senior Writer
A single breath into a newfangled breathalyzer is all doctors need to diagnose 17 different diseases, including lung cancer, irritable bowel syndrome and multiple sclerosis, a new study found.
Researchers invited about 1,400 people from five different countries to breathe into the device, which is still in its testing phases. The breathalyzer could identify each person's disease with 86 percent accuracy, the researchers said.
http://www.livescience.com/57345-breathalyzer-detects-17-different-diseases.html
One Breath Into This Breathalyzer Can Diagnose 17 Diseases
By Laura Geggel, Senior Writer
A single breath into a newfangled breathalyzer is all doctors need to diagnose 17 different diseases, including lung cancer, irritable bowel syndrome and multiple sclerosis, a new study found.
Researchers invited about 1,400 people from five different countries to breathe into the device, which is still in its testing phases. The breathalyzer could identify each person's disease with 86 percent accuracy, the researchers said.
http://www.livescience.com/57345-breathalyzer-detects-17-different-diseases.html
Shopping Trends
From Vox -
Check out the charts in this article. Really interesting.
At what age do people stop shopping at Ikea?
Updated by Zachary Crockett
http://www.vox.com/culture/2016/12/30/14114306/ikea-shopping
Check out the charts in this article. Really interesting.
At what age do people stop shopping at Ikea?
Updated by Zachary Crockett
http://www.vox.com/culture/2016/12/30/14114306/ikea-shopping
Prison Routines
An excerpt from the New Yorker -
Below is an introduction to the story that follows.
In February, Jennifer Lackey, a philosophy professor at Northwestern University, where I teach journalism, invited me to speak to a class she teaches at the Stateville Correctional Center, a maximum-security prison an hour outside of Chicago. Her students, fifteen men, are all serving long sentences, mostly for violent crimes. Some will be at Stateville until they die. I talked with the students about storytelling, and had them complete an exercise in which they described their cells.
I was so taken by what they wrote that I suggested that they develop these stories about the space, which, for some, had been home for twenty years. Over the past ten months, I have worked with them from draft to draft to draft. This process was not without obstacles. Sometimes, Jennifer couldn’t return my marked-up drafts because the prison was on lockdown. One student missed class for a month because, after surgery, he had to wear a knee brace, which the prison considered a potential weapon. Another student was transferred to a different prison. (I continued working with him by mail and phone.) One despaired at my comments and edits, writing to me that “this must be my last draft because clearly I’m incapable of doing it correctly.” But with encouragement and gentle nudging they kept going. Below is one of five of these stories that will appear on the site this week.
—Alex Kotlowitz
MY PRISON CELL: A PLACE KEPT COMPULSIVELY CLEAN
By Ramon Delgado
It’s not uncommon for me to receive a compliment from other inmates who take notice of how neat and organized I keep my cell. I love cleaning. Maybe a little too much.
I’ve been cleaning practically all my life. My mother demanded it from us. I can remember the day my mother put a mop in my hands. I was just six years old. We were living on the second floor, in the back end of a four-unit apartment building. There were five of us in a two-bedroom apartment. While my mother was showing me how to hold the mop handle—one hand at the top of the mop stick and the other in the middle—and how to maneuver it across the floor, my older brother and younger sister were each busy with a small rag in their hands, wiping dust off the few pieces of furniture we owned. This is how we cleaned our house every Saturday morning. So I come by my compulsion honestly.
http://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/my-prison-cell-a-place-kept-compulsively-clean
Below is an introduction to the story that follows.
In February, Jennifer Lackey, a philosophy professor at Northwestern University, where I teach journalism, invited me to speak to a class she teaches at the Stateville Correctional Center, a maximum-security prison an hour outside of Chicago. Her students, fifteen men, are all serving long sentences, mostly for violent crimes. Some will be at Stateville until they die. I talked with the students about storytelling, and had them complete an exercise in which they described their cells.
I was so taken by what they wrote that I suggested that they develop these stories about the space, which, for some, had been home for twenty years. Over the past ten months, I have worked with them from draft to draft to draft. This process was not without obstacles. Sometimes, Jennifer couldn’t return my marked-up drafts because the prison was on lockdown. One student missed class for a month because, after surgery, he had to wear a knee brace, which the prison considered a potential weapon. Another student was transferred to a different prison. (I continued working with him by mail and phone.) One despaired at my comments and edits, writing to me that “this must be my last draft because clearly I’m incapable of doing it correctly.” But with encouragement and gentle nudging they kept going. Below is one of five of these stories that will appear on the site this week.
—Alex Kotlowitz
MY PRISON CELL: A PLACE KEPT COMPULSIVELY CLEAN
By Ramon Delgado
It’s not uncommon for me to receive a compliment from other inmates who take notice of how neat and organized I keep my cell. I love cleaning. Maybe a little too much.
I’ve been cleaning practically all my life. My mother demanded it from us. I can remember the day my mother put a mop in my hands. I was just six years old. We were living on the second floor, in the back end of a four-unit apartment building. There were five of us in a two-bedroom apartment. While my mother was showing me how to hold the mop handle—one hand at the top of the mop stick and the other in the middle—and how to maneuver it across the floor, my older brother and younger sister were each busy with a small rag in their hands, wiping dust off the few pieces of furniture we owned. This is how we cleaned our house every Saturday morning. So I come by my compulsion honestly.
http://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/my-prison-cell-a-place-kept-compulsively-clean
Thursday, December 29, 2016
A Surprising Benefit of DNA Testing
An excerpt from the Washinton Post -
To bring a divided country together, start with a little spit
By Susan Svrluga
Anita Foeman’s students had just gotten the results from their genetic tests, and they couldn’t wait to talk.
One said her dad cheered when she told him she has Zulu roots. A girl with curly red hair said her family always gathers around a Nativity scene on Christmas Eve and sings carols over the baby Jesus, and this year, after learning that she’s 1 percent Jewish, she said: “We’re going to sing the dreidel song!”
When a white student said that 1 percent of his ancestry was African, two black students sitting next to him gave him a fist bump and said: “Yes! Brother.”
“Some people have never had a happy conversation about race,” Foeman said. But in her class at West Chester University, there’s laughter. Eagerness. And easy connections where there might have been chasms. “Our differences are fascinating,” she said.
At a time when tensions over race and politics are so raw, the stakes, Foeman said, seem particularly high. Her students have been talking all fall about riots, building walls, terrorist attacks, immigration, the election. “You can feel it buzzing around the halls like electricity,” Foeman said.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2016/12/24/to-bring-a-divided-country-together-start-with-a-little-spit/?hpid=hp_hp-more-top-stories_dnatesting-830pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.73ef2f745961
To bring a divided country together, start with a little spit
By Susan Svrluga
Anita Foeman’s students had just gotten the results from their genetic tests, and they couldn’t wait to talk.
One said her dad cheered when she told him she has Zulu roots. A girl with curly red hair said her family always gathers around a Nativity scene on Christmas Eve and sings carols over the baby Jesus, and this year, after learning that she’s 1 percent Jewish, she said: “We’re going to sing the dreidel song!”
When a white student said that 1 percent of his ancestry was African, two black students sitting next to him gave him a fist bump and said: “Yes! Brother.”
“Some people have never had a happy conversation about race,” Foeman said. But in her class at West Chester University, there’s laughter. Eagerness. And easy connections where there might have been chasms. “Our differences are fascinating,” she said.
At a time when tensions over race and politics are so raw, the stakes, Foeman said, seem particularly high. Her students have been talking all fall about riots, building walls, terrorist attacks, immigration, the election. “You can feel it buzzing around the halls like electricity,” Foeman said.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2016/12/24/to-bring-a-divided-country-together-start-with-a-little-spit/?hpid=hp_hp-more-top-stories_dnatesting-830pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.73ef2f745961
My Kinda Momma
From Buzzfeed -
A Mom Put A Message For Her Teen Son On A Vodka Bottle If He Ever Tried To Drink It
People are applauding Cheryl’s “extra” parenting methods.
By Tanya Chen
https://www.buzzfeed.com/tanyachen/drink-this-n-cheryl-will-whoop-ya-ass?utm_term=.didLLgzWK#.pg800YKjz
A Mom Put A Message For Her Teen Son On A Vodka Bottle If He Ever Tried To Drink It
People are applauding Cheryl’s “extra” parenting methods.
By Tanya Chen
https://www.buzzfeed.com/tanyachen/drink-this-n-cheryl-will-whoop-ya-ass?utm_term=.didLLgzWK#.pg800YKjz
Priceless Tips
From the New York Times -
11 Ways to Be a Better Person in 2017
By ANYA STRZEMIEN
My favorite - #3
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/12/28/style/ways-to-be-a-better-person-in-2017.html?action=click&contentCollection=fashion®ion=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=3&pgtype=sectionfront
11 Ways to Be a Better Person in 2017
By ANYA STRZEMIEN
My favorite - #3
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/12/28/style/ways-to-be-a-better-person-in-2017.html?action=click&contentCollection=fashion®ion=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=3&pgtype=sectionfront
Very Black Things
From Vulture -
29 Very Black Things That Happened on TV in 2016
By Dee Lockett
http://www.vulture.com/2016/12/29-very-black-things-that-happened-on-tv-in-2016.html
29 Very Black Things That Happened on TV in 2016
By Dee Lockett
http://www.vulture.com/2016/12/29-very-black-things-that-happened-on-tv-in-2016.html
Patterns Galore
An excerpt from Phys.org -
Love of sewing patterns leads to world-class collection
by Jennifer Mcdermott
If a costume designer wanted to recreate a World War I era wraparound dress, a 1940s zoot suit or even a bodice from 1875, the sewing patterns are in Rhode Island.
The University of Rhode Island has the largest known collection of sewing patterns in the world, according to the collection's curator, Joy Spanabel Emery, and the United States Institute for Theatre Technology.
About 50,000 are on paper and 62,000 are in an electronic database. They're at the university because of Emery's love of patterns.
Emery donated her personal collection of patterns and periodicals to the university years ago and has painstakingly sorted through the donations sent there as word spread about the growing repository. Three more boxes full just arrived to be added to the overflowing filing cabinets.
Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2016-12-patterns-world-class.html#jCp
Love of sewing patterns leads to world-class collection
by Jennifer Mcdermott
If a costume designer wanted to recreate a World War I era wraparound dress, a 1940s zoot suit or even a bodice from 1875, the sewing patterns are in Rhode Island.
The University of Rhode Island has the largest known collection of sewing patterns in the world, according to the collection's curator, Joy Spanabel Emery, and the United States Institute for Theatre Technology.
About 50,000 are on paper and 62,000 are in an electronic database. They're at the university because of Emery's love of patterns.
Emery donated her personal collection of patterns and periodicals to the university years ago and has painstakingly sorted through the donations sent there as word spread about the growing repository. Three more boxes full just arrived to be added to the overflowing filing cabinets.
Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2016-12-patterns-world-class.html#jCp
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