What goes through my my mind when I read the news with my morning coffee. …Or for the Simon's Rockers in the group, this is my response journal.
Anthony was the last of 20 students who fled into a room and was trying to lock the door that day when he was shot, Carlos told “Good Morning America” in February. Anthony held his ground in the doorway, putting his body in between the bullets and his classmates, who all survived uninjured, Carlos said.
Last Stoneman Douglas shooting victim leaves hospital – ABC News
hmmm
Speaking at an Axios event Friday focused on the gun debate, Hogg was asked about where the news media tripped up in its coverage of the tragic shooting at his Parkland, Florida school that left 17 people dead.
“Not giving black students a voice,” Hogg responded, via Axios. “My school is about 25 percent black, but the way we’re covered doesn’t reflect that.”
Parkland Student David Hogg Says Black Classmates Weren’t Given a Voice by Media
hmmmm
New York state is leading a group of 17 states, seven cities and the U.S. Conference of Mayors in a lawsuit against the Census Bureau and Commerce Department to try to remove a new citizenship question from the 2020 census questionnaire. It comes more than a week after California filed a similar lawsuit in San Francisco federal court against Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who oversees the bureau, and Census Bureau officials.
The states joining New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s lawsuit filed Tuesday in Manhattan federal court are Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia and Washington. The cities are Washington, D.C.; Chicago; New York; Philadelphia; Providence, R.I.; Seattle; and San Francisco, plus the United States Conference of Mayors, a bipartisan group.
The census has not asked all U.S. households about citizenship since 1950.
17 States, 7 Cities Sue To Remove Citizenship Question From 2020 Census : NPR
hmmmm
Not nearly as comprehensive as I would have wished, and certainly not perfect, but still, a decent start towards a more honest and less limited narrative.
The Supermarket Recovery Program is intended as a large scale society project that will benefit the 400,000 people, including 150,000 children who, each month, have no choice but to turn to a food program for help.
…In 2016, the pilot project resulted in the recovery of almost 2.5 million kg of food from 177 supermarkets, representing a market value of almost $20 million. Our project also allowed a reduction of more than 2,000 tons of eqCO2 of greenhouse gases. When fully functional, the program will recover approximately 8.5 million kg of food annually in 645 supermarkets, thereby avoiding more than 7,500 tons of eqCO2 of greenhouse gases each year – the equivalent of taking 1,600 cars off the road!
Supermarket Recovery Program – Les Banques alimentaires du Québec
I was 22, fresh from undergrad, and, as a child of the “girl power” 1990s, entirely unused to the idea that anyone would take me less seriously simply because I was not a man. I soon learned that being taken seriously depended on style and self-presentation as much as on intelligence and insight.
The male graduate students in my cohort displayed their academic seriousness with an ease that I found impossible to imitate. They knew how to dress for class (blazer, oxfords, a touch of tweed); how to speak forcefully in seminar, without making apologies or soliciting approval*; how to shake hands with male faculty members in a way that was both chummy and professional.
…”Women are welcome,” announced the male graduate student who directed the Hegel reading group, as if women needed his permission** to think dialectically.
…Anxious and confused about how to establish a suitable academic self, I spent my first few years of graduate school vacillating between girlishness and a kind of steely professionalism. I started wearing dresses, then chopped off all my hair. I spoke with ingratiating, self-effacing “uptalk” one day, and was entirely too strident the next.
As the years went by, and I advanced toward the Ph.D., the rules for women became more numerous, and the box for acceptable behavior grew smaller still. Do be an approachable teacher, but don’t be too friendly with your students, or they’ll take advantage of you. Don’t wear a dress to your MLA interview; you’ll be in a hotel room, possibly proximate to a bed, and men won’t be able to stop themselves from sexualizing you. At your job talk, be sure to say “thank you” after each question; men shouldn’t do this — they would appear obsequious — but women must (or so a female faculty member advised me). Be extremely careful when speaking about partners and families, or you might not get the job.
…Hierarchies — of gender, race, and class — are established and reinforced through hirings and firings, handshakes and outfits.
What It’s Like to Be a Woman in the Academy – The Chronicle of Higher Education
hmmmm
* – one be inclined to add, without fear of their confidence being interpreted as being over-the-top, bitchy, unfounded, or inappropriately aggressive, and giving rise to reactions like, “Who do he think he is?”
** – (or encouragement and support)
But these teenagers won’t be returning to a normal high school experience. Instead, they’ll be met with strict security measures which are intended to protect them from another mass shooting but have some students feeling as if they’ll be learning in a prison.
…MSD students will only be allowed to carry clear backpacks on campus and will be required to wear new student IDs at all times.
There will be an increased police presence on campus, as Gov. Rick Scott provides extra Florida Highway Patrol officers to beef up security and provide support to Broward County sheriff’s deputies. Students will have limited points of entry to the school.
…”We have no sense of normalcy anymore,” said [student, Isabelle] Robinson, 17.
…”It feels like being punished,” Robinson told CNN. “It feels like jail, being checked every time we go to school.”
…Many students, like Robinson, aren’t happy about the new security measures. She pointed out that the gunman, Nikolas Cruz, was not a student of Stoneman Douglas at the time of the shooting, so the new security measures that appear to target students are counterproductive.
“It’s like putting into place all these rules that wouldn’t have changed anything,” Robinson said.
…I understand why they are doing it, but if a person wants to bring a gun on campus, they just aren’t going to put it in their backpack.” [- Senior, Demitri Hoth]
…[Sophomore, Daniel] Bishop said he would support metal detectors but called the clear backpacks “an invasion of privacy.” He believes the increased security measures will make students “safer,” but that doesn’t mean they’ll be “safe.”
…The increased police presence has also given students of color at Stoneman Douglas a sense of unease, according to Kai Koerber, a junior. He said the school is being turned into “a police state.”
“Every day, students lose more and more freedoms at MSD,” Koerber said. “Students of color have become targets and white students have become suspects. We do not welcome the militarization of MSD. It is terrible to see our school lose control over the protection of their students and their families.”
Parkland students return to school with clear backpacks, increased security – CNN
Jeezus… The crass stupidity of good intentions not backed up by thinking things through….
Israel said on Monday it has canceled a plan to deport African migrants to Africa and reached an agreement with the U.N. refugee agency to send more than 16,000 to Western countries instead.
Other migrants, many of whom are seeking asylum, will be allowed to remain in Israel for at least the next five years, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement.
Netanyahu named Canada, Italy and Germany as some of the nations that will take in the migrants – although they appeared not to have been informed of the plan yet.
Israel Reaches Deal To Send 16,000 African Immigrants To West – The Forward
hmmmm
But who determines whether or not it’s ethical to eat wild game, whether all restaurants should be vegan? And does the right of those who feel aggrieved by the ethically suspect actions of others have the right, as is the case with the Antler protest, to disrupt and harass someone they disagree with?
The trouble with that notion that it fundamentally undermines liberty, it fuels subjective, oppressive and authoritarian consequences.
Democratic notions of liberty permit protest and dissent but also embrace tolerance. At the end of the day, that means individuals are entitled to engage in ethical behaviour others find wrong or even abhorrent.
…Ugar is a dog walker. There are animal rights activists who view pet ownership as slavery and by that reasoning ought to be entitled to picket outside her house, disrupt her business and scream “SLAVER” when she takes her dogs for a walk.
Hunter is the one whose rights are being violated by bullying, intolerant and self-appointed vigilantes, the real animals in this dispute.
WALLACE: Protesters real animals in Antler dispute | Toronto Sun
Exactly.
Protesting a restaurant because you didn’t like the joke they made is obnoxious. Deciding that your beliefs and eating habits are worth destroying a small business person’s livelihood is beyond obnoxious. These people are why plenty of innocent, non-preachy and not holier-than-thou vegans get some so much verbal abuse.
And finally, butchering up a leg of venison next to some presumptuous, judgmental, self-righteous, and wholly without consideration for their fellow human protesters is the best thing I heard all weekend.
Can wait for the chance to eat at Antlers!
In North Dakota’s oil patch, a humbling comedown
what goes up, shall come down
Pruitt has come under scrutiny over his accommodations in Washington after ABC News reported last week that he rented a room in a luxury townhouse co-owned by the wife of a top gas industry lobbyist. That same day, Bloomberg News reported that Pruitt paid $50-a-night for the room, well below market value for a place in that neighborhood. The EPA’s Office of General Counsel issued a hasty memo on Thursday arguing that the administrator paid a fair rate.
… Pruitt’s use of taxpayer-funded security details on trips home to Tulsa, Oklahoma, a family vacation to Disneyland in Anaheim, California, and an outing to the Rose Bowl college football game in Pasadena, California.
…Federal regulations require government employees to be “prudent” when “making official travel arrangements” and book “the least expensive class of travel that meets their needs.”
Yet Pruitt spent between $2,000 and $2,600 on first-class flights to Oklahoma, and regularly books $1,400 to $4,000 flights to Boston, New York and Corpus Christi, Texas, according to The Washington Post. He often stays at luxury hotels.
Pruitt’s international travel costs are especially high. His trip to Italy for an environmental summit last June cost more than $120,000. Pruitt’s trip to Morocco in December to promote liquefied natural gas ― a bizarre decision for an EPA administrator ― cost nearly $40,000, according to E&E News.
… Pruitt made his name on the national stage suing the EPA more than a dozen times to block rules such as the Clean Power Plan, President Barack Obama’s landmark greenhouse gas regulation, which Pruitt is in the process of repealing. He championed Exxon Mobil Corp. in investigations into whether the oil giant committed fraud by covering up evidence that emissions from burning fossil fuels warm the planet.
Scott Pruitt Buffeted By Growing Pressure To Resign From EPA | HuffPost
hmmm
Patent filings by both companies — most of which are still under consideration — indicate that both tech giants want their smart home devices to listen more astutely to what happens in the home.
…A device could analyze speech patterns and pitch to identify that a child is present, sense movement while listening for whispers or silence, and give parents the option to program a smart speaker to “provide a verbal warning.
The filing gives the example that when children are near a liquor cabinet or are in their parents’ bedroom, the system may “infer that mischief is likely to be occurring…the system may report and/or record the findings for subsequent use,” and could then give the child a warning as a form of “deterrence.”
The patents also outline the possibility for monitoring the “emotional state” of the occupants of a home. For example, “crying may signify a sad emotional state, whereas laughing may signify a happy emotional state.” The document also discusses monitoring body temperature, audio signatures, and facial expressions.
…John M. Simpson, Consumer Watchdog’s privacy and technology project director [said] in a statement, “If these patents are implemented, there will be unparalleled surveillance of our private lives.”
hmmmmm
Hogg did not accept Ingraham’s apology. He told the New York Daily News on Friday that Ingraham will have to admit she slandered his classmates in her coverage of their gun protests.
…Liberty Mutual Insurance and Office Depot are the latest Fox News sponsors that have said publicly they will not run commercials in the conservative commentator’s nightly prime-time program “The Ingraham Angle.”
…Other defectors include Nestle, Johnson and Johnson, TripAdvisor, Nutrish, Expedia, Jos. A. Bank and Hulu, the streaming video service that is one-third owned by Fox News parent 21st Century Fox.
…The thinned herd of advertisers was apparent during Thursday’s edition of “The Ingraham Angle.” While major national brands such as Pfizer, Progressive.com, Gillette and WeatherTech remained in the program, there were several promos for other Fox-owned cable networks and spots from direct response advertisers — usually a sign of ad cancellations.
More advertisers drop Laura Ingraham’s Fox News show despite apology to David Hogg
hmmm
Foster is one of a small group of ‘‘emergency backup’’ goaltenders who are kept on hand, usually in the press box or the stands, in the highly unlikely event both regular goalies on the roster are hurt or otherwise unavailable.
It is ‘‘among hockey’s great quirks,’’ as Hockey News put it, ‘‘is that it’s the only pro sport with the potential for someone not on the roster to come out of the stands and actually play in the game.’’ But, ‘‘it takes a very rare set of circumstances to open that door . . .’’
…Foster was an impenetrable wall, stopping all seven of the shots he faced, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.
In the 14 minutes and one second that Foster played, the Internet went wild.
His spotless performance stunned fans, with Sun-Times reporter Satchel Price tweeting an all-caps reminder that Foster had ‘‘NEVER PLAYED PRO HOCKEY.’’
36-year-old accountant with no NHL experience stars in Blackhawks win
What an amazing thing, a true Cinderella story!
Comments From The Peanut Gallery 