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Saturday, September 30, 2017

Consider Heading North Kids

An excerpt from the Boston Globe -

Canadian colleges offer US students lower tuition and Trudeau instead of Trump
By Laura Krantz

CAMBRIDGE — In a sweaty high school gymnasium on a recent Monday evening, 25 college recruiters set up tables with glossy brochures and free pens. Among them were Quest University, Mount Allison University, the University of Waterloo, and Bishop’s University.

Most Americans can’t locate these schools on a map (hint: they’re all in Canada), but nonetheless about 100 US students and their parents attended the fair, curious to learn about them. Why? The lure of reasonably priced tuition and a chance to study outside the United States.


As private college costs in the United States creep ever-closer to $70,000 a year, Canadian schools are seizing on unprecedented interest among Americans increasingly unwilling to accept mountains of debt for an undergraduate degree.

Colleges in Canada, which are almost all public and receive more government support than their US counterparts, are significantly cheaper, as little as $8,000 per year at Brandon University in Manitoba, or $15,000 at McGill, in Montreal.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2017/09/27/canadian-colleges-focus-recruitment-efforts-students/esfIXhe9ctB66yrrQ7a2cO/story.html?et_rid=606374700&s_campaign=todaysheadlines:newsletter

Friday, September 29, 2017

Lt Gen Silveria addresses cadets about racism incident

Co-opted

An excerpt from Vox - (Bold is mine)

The NFL has officially whitewashed Colin Kaepernick’s protest
The co-opting of protests against racism has a storied history in our country.
Updated by Louis Moore

Last Sunday, in the largest single-day athlete protest in American sports history, players across the league linked arms and took a knee during the national anthem. But it was a toothless gesture. The demonstration, which started as a protest against police brutality by San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, had become a “mere picnic.”

Last weekend’s wave of protest was prompted by an angry rebuke by President Trump during a rally in Alabama. The president called for any “son of a bitch” who took a knee to be fired by the NFL. In response, players across the nation knelt in front of the flag during Sunday’s games. But these protests meant something different. Billionaire team owners who had donated to Trump’s campaign joined in. The symbol of taking a knee came to mean something else — unity, anger toward Trump, free speech. Kaepernick’s bold statement against systemic racism had been co-opted.

The beauty and brilliance of Kaepernick’s protest the previous season is that it put all athletes and fans on notice. "I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color," Kaepernick told reporters. He did not mince words.

And his truth drew the ire of white fans. For two minutes, they had to confront systemic racism and police brutality, something most fans don’t want to acknowledge, especially during a football game. In short, Kaepernick took a page from Bill Russell’s activist athlete playbook. As Russell noted in 1964, “We have got to make the white population uncomfortable, because that is the only way to get their attention.”

https://www.vox.com/first-person/2017/9/28/16379618/nfl-take-a-knee-protest-colin-kaepernick

Wardrobe Malfunction Statement

From Vox -

Someone took an upskirt photo of actress Natalie Morales. Her response is required reading.
Updated by Constance Grady


https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/9/27/16375446/natalie-morales-upskirt-photo-response

Thursday, September 28, 2017

What is Solar Power? | National Geographic

Meet The Black Comedian Who Has Become Japan’s Most Unlikely Star (HBO)

A Supreme Court Clerk

From the Washington Post -

From her dad’s killing during the crack epidemic to a Supreme Court clerkship
By John Woodrow Cox



https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/from-her-dads-killing-during-the-crack-epidemic-to-a-supreme-court-clerkship/2017/09/27/e631eb7c-8de0-11e7-8df5-c2e5cf46c1e2_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_wright-1130a-1%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.0f6e0abe7bac

Quote

“The flag is drenched with our blood.” - Fannie Lou Hamer

From the NY Times - Charles Blow

(A powerful article. Too good from start to finish to post snippets. - Faye)

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/28/opinion/the-flag-is-drenched-with-our-blood.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-left-region&region=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region&_r=0

Three Amigos


ROB CARR VIA GETTY IMAGES
Former U.S. Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton enlivened the opening ceremonies of the Presidents Cup at Liberty National Golf Club on Sept. 28, 2017, in Jersey City, New Jersey.

Terrible

Inside One of Baseball’s Last Manual Scoreboards

Donald Trump Won't Admit Defeat on Health Care

Wake Up to Gabe Fleisher | September 27, 2017 Act 3 | Full Frontal on TBS

A City Built For Driverless Cars

Excerpts from Now I Know -

The Town that Drives Itself

Ghost towns have a few hallmark features — lots of buildings, lots of roads, and no residents. These uninhabited towns were once bustling with commerce and community, but for reasons which often differ from place to place, they’re now desolate and abandoned.

~~~~~~~~~~

That’s hardly a ghost town. It’s bright, clean, and airy. And — importantly — the stoplights are working.

Really, that’s the most important part. Mcity wasn’t built for people. It was built for cars — autonomous ones.

~~~~~~~~~~

Mcity opened its doors — er, roads — in 2015. It is a 32-acre urban landscape with all sorts of roadways. There are railroad crossings, roundabouts, differently-paved streets, highway on-ramps, crazy intersections with confusing left turns, and more. The buildings, as you can probably tell by the above, are just facades, and there are no people beyond the researchers; instead, there are fake pedestrians that don’t know how to safely cross the street. (The image below is an example.) The purpose of the city is to test driverless cars and the technology which controls them, with researchers across disciplines and employers taking advantage of this one-of-a-kind city.

http://nowiknow.com/the-town-that-drives-itself/

How cars went from boxy to curvy

Grooving at California’s Most Retro Roller Rink

Painless Way to Save Money

I've discovered a painless way to save money with these weekly plans.  They were found on Pinterest.  Here's to happy savings!






Wednesday, September 27, 2017

Is an unusual name good for you?

Renew Your Passports Pronto!

From PureWow - H/T Alisha

Yikes, Here’s What Happens if You Don’t Renew Your Passport This Fall
By HEATH GOLDMAN

Unless you renewed your passport yesterday, do yourself a favor and take it out right now. If it expires anytime next year, get yourself renewed now.

Why is that? Well, as reported by the L.A. Times, fewer people apply in the fall, so wait times from September to December are the shortest (just four weeks instead of months).

Here’s another (very tricky) reason: In January 2018, the Real ID Act kicks in. This means driver’s licenses from 23 states (including New York and California) won’t cut it for domestic travel, forcing folks to use their passports.

https://www.purewow.com/news/best-time-to-renew-passport?utm_medium=email&utm_source=national&utm_campaign=25100&utm_content=News_editorial

I won't trade in my iPhone 6s for an iPhone 8 or iPhone X