Let Children Get Bored Again

On By peanutgallerynhIn Media and Culture,, Modern Parenting,Leave a comment

Only a few short decades ago, during the lost age of underparenting, grown-ups thought a certain amount of boredom was appropriate.

…Nowadays, subjecting a child to such inactivity is viewed as a dereliction of parental duty.  …Claire Cain Miller cited a recent study that found that regardless of class, income or race, parents believed that “children who were bored after school should be enrolled in extracurricular activities, and that parents who were busy should stop their task and draw with their children if asked.”

…When you reach your breaking point, boredom teaches you to respond constructively, to make something happen for yourself. 

…The ability to handle boredom, not surprisingly, is correlated with the ability to focus and to self-regulate.

Opinion | Let Children Get Bored Again – The New York Times

hmmm

You Can Throw Breadcrumbs At This Ersatz Ivanka Trump And She’ll Vacuum Them Up

On By peanutgallerynhIn Media and Culture,Leave a comment

Rubell found the 16-year-old model who plays Trump through a casting agency. “The idea that a 16 year old can convincingly depict a [37] year old says a lot about the self presentation of that [37] year old.”

…Attendee Peter Sharp says he showed up out of curiosity, …and describes his emotions in watching the scene as a “back and forth of feeling empathy and not so much.”

You Can Throw Breadcrumbs At This Ersatz Ivanka Trump And She’ll Vacuum Them Up | DCist

hmmmm

If Rosa Parks rode a bus in Boston today, she’d see nearly the same segregation she fought

On By peanutgallerynhIn Boston,, Infrastructure and Transportation,, Money, Class, and Poverty,, Race,Leave a comment

If Rosa Parks boarded a bus in Boston today, she wouldn’t see black and white sections; she’d see a dysfunctional system that is disproportionately failing the low-income people — largely people of color and immigrants — whose livelihoods depend on it.

…Even though white and minority riders use the bus system in roughly equal numbers, differences in reliability and frequency of service on routes that serve mostly black and mostly white riders effectively steal more than a week and a half of work [from riders who are not white]— 3 percent of a person’s annual productivity, skimmed right off the top.

…“These studies are replicated around the nation. It’s one of the greatest transportation injustices,” said Julian Agyeman, a professor of urban and environmental policy and planning at Tufts University.

…Only 19 of the T’s 176 bus routes offer frequent, all-day service. And 63 percent of area residents are not served by any of those 19 routes, which mostly run along major corridors and feed big job centers like Longwood or Kendall Square.

If Rosa Parks rode a bus in Boston today, she’d see nearly the same segregation she fought – The Boston Globe

sigh…

A United States Government (USG) Shows that the USG: “planned to traumatize children and intentionally create a humanitarian crisis”

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Modern Parenting,, Race,, The Americas,Leave a comment

A United States Government (USG) Memorandum Released by Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley to NBC News Shows According to Him that the USG: “planned to traumatize children and intentionally create a humanitarian crisis” | Robert Crown Law Library Blog

hmmmm

2019 Media layoffs: over 2,100 jobs cut at BuzzFeed, HuffPost, and Vice

On By peanutgallerynhIn Media and Culture,, Money, Class, and Poverty,Leave a comment

The media industry seemed to be in freefall on Friday following the announcement that Vice Media would cut 10% of its staff and that McClatchy Company offered buyouts to 450 employees, bringing the total number of media jobs cut in 2019 to over 2,100.

The massive cuts so far this year represent a recent trend of cuts at digital-media companies that sprung up as newspapers around the country were shrinking and disappearing.

2019 Media layoffs: over 2,100 jobs cut at BuzzFeed, HuffPost, and Vice – Business Insider

hmmmm

Nancy Pelosi and the sarcastic point clapback heard round the world.

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Media and Culture,Leave a comment

Nancy Pelosi and the sarcastic point clapback heard round the world.

heh

Report: Missing Migrant Children Being Funneled Through Christian Adoption Agency | Michael Stone

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Media and Culture,, Modern Parenting,, Race,, Religion,Leave a comment

 

The Trump administration says it can’t reunite missing migrant children with their families; instead, many of the children are being shipped to a Christian adoption agency with ties to Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.

Earlier this week the Trump administration told a federal court that it would require too much effort to reunite migrant children with their parents.

…The Trump administration is also concerned that reunification would “present grave child welfare concerns” because the children would be removed from their “sponsor” homes.

…Bottom line: The Trump administration says it can’t reunite missing migrant children with their families; instead, many of the children are being funneled through Christian adoption trafficking mills like the DeVos connected Bethany Christian Services.

Report: Missing Migrant Children Being Funneled Through Christian Adoption Agency | Michael Stone

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

European slaughter of Native Americans changed the climate, study says

On By peanutgallerynhIn Environment,, Science and Stuff,, The Americas,Leave a comment

European settlers killed 56 million indigenous people over about 100 years in South, Central and North America, causing large swaths of farmland to be abandoned and reforested, researchers at University College London, or UCL, estimate. The increase in trees and vegetation across an area the size of France resulted in a massive decrease in carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere, according to the study.

Carbon levels changed enough to cool the Earth by 1610, researchers found. 

…”The ice cores showed that there was a larger dip in CO2 (than usual) in 1610, which was caused by the land and not the oceans,” said Alexander Koch, lead author of the study.

A small shift in temperatures — about a 10th of a degree in the 17th century — led to colder winters, frosty summers and failing harvests, Koch said.

European slaughter of Native Americans changed the climate, study says – CNN

hmmm

The north magnetic pole just changed. Here’s what that means.

On By peanutgallerynhIn Environment,, Science and Stuff,Leave a comment

Magnetic north’s routine plod has shifted into high gear, sending it galloping across the Northern Hemisphere—and no one can entirely explain why.

The changes have been so large that scientists began working on an emergency update for the World Magnetic Model, the mathematical system that lays the foundations for navigation, from cell phones and ships to commercial airlines.

…“Things are acting very strangely at high latitude,” says Livermore, who notes that this increase seemed to coincide with a strengthening jet in the planet’s liquid outer core. Though the events could be linked, it’s not yet possible to say for sure.

… The north magnetic pole seems to be controlled by two patches of magnetic field, he explains, one under northern Canada and one under Siberia. Historically, the one under northern Canada seems to have been stronger, keeping the magnetic pole in its clutches. But recently, that seems to have changed.

“The Siberian patch looks like it’s winning the battle,” he says. “It’s sort of pulling the magnetic field all the way across to its side of the geographic pole.”

…This may be a result of a jet within the core smearing and thus weakening the magnetic field under Canada, he says. The jet’s increase in speed seems to have coincided with the last few decades of the magnetic pole zipping north.

The north magnetic pole just changed. Here’s what that means.

hmmm

Students Can Name Columbus, But Most Have Never Heard of the Taíno People

On By peanutgallerynhIn Media and Culture,, The Americas,Leave a comment

In 1494, Columbus launched the transatlantic slave trade, sending at least two dozen enslaved Taínos to Spain, “men and women, boys and girls,” as he wrote. The next year, 1495, Columbus launched massive slave raids, rounding up 1,600 Taínos, from which the “best” 500, perhaps 550, were selected to be shipped to Spain. Of the hundreds of captives left over, “whoever wanted them could take as many as he pleased,” one eyewitness, a Spanish colonist, Michele de Cuneo, wrote, “and this was done.”

…It began as early as Columbus’s first trip back to Spain, when he left 39 Spaniards at his La Navidad settlement, confident that the powerful Spaniards could handle the supposedly timid Taínos. In response to the Spaniards’ rapacity, the Taínos killed all 39 Spaniards, and burned their fort.

If Columbus’s first trip, with three vessels and maybe 100 men, was an exploratory probe, the second trip, with 17 ships and between 1,200 and 1,500 men, was a full-scale invasion. When slavery turned out not to be profitable on la Española (the island that today is Haiti and the Dominican Republic), Columbus instituted a tribute system for the Taínos, demanding quotas of gold and cotton, with sadistic punishments for those who failed to comply.

…Contrary to some scholarship, the Taínos were not all killed off by Columbus and subsequent occupiers, and today members of the Taíno diaspora along with people in the Caribbean who claim Taíno ancestry are reviving and celebrating their culture. 

Whose History Matters? Students Can Name Columbus, But Most Have Never Heard of the Taíno People

sigh…

Immigrant rights attorneys and journalists denied entry into Mexico

On By peanutgallerynhIn American Injustice System,, Race,, The Americas,Leave a comment

Two U.S. immigrant rights attorneys and two journalists who have worked closely with members of a migrant caravan in Tijuana said they had been denied entry into Mexico in recent days after their passports were flagged with alerts by an unknown government.

Immigrant rights attorneys and journalists denied entry into Mexico – Los Angeles Times

hmmmm

Trump: ‘A lot of people in the NFL have been calling and thanking me’ for judicial reform

On By peanutgallerynhIn American Injustice System,, Media and Culture,, Race,Leave a comment

“A lot of [the protest] is having to do with reform, from what I understand,” he said. “Whether it’s criminal justice or whatever, it may be and they have different versions and everybody seemed to have a different version of it. But a lot of it had to do with that, and I took care of that.”

In boasting about the criminal justice bill, Trump also sidestepped questions from Brennan about his handling of race issues. He also echoed his past statements about low African-American unemployment, saying: “Best numbers they’ve had — literally the best numbers they’ve had in history. And I think they like me a lot and I like them a lot.”

Trump: ‘A lot of people in the NFL have been calling and thanking me’ for judicial reform | TheHill

oy…