Weekly Writing Prompt Archive
Posted March 12, 2019
Daylight Saving Is Here. Suppose We Made This Time Change Our Last?
March 9, 2019
Kirk Johnson
The New York Times
Lexile®: 1300L-1400L
A day is a day, with so many hours of darkness and so many of light. It's a hard reality that no powerful king or brilliant philosopher has ever found a way around. And yet, every year, bless our hearts, we try.
Compelled by the augustly named federal Uniform Time Act of 1966, most Americans will leap ahead--or stumble blearily--from one configuration of the clock to another this weekend, as daylight saving time clicks in at 2 a.m. Sunday [March 10].
But many people are saying it's time for time to be left alone. State legislatures from New England to the West Coast are considering proposals to end the leaping, clock-shifting confusion of hours lost or gained, and the conundrums it can create.
Could 8 a.m. somehow, somewhere in the universe, really still be 8 a.m., even if now you're suddenly calling it 9?
"I cannot change the rotation of the earth and sun," said Kansen Chu, a California lawmaker who is sponsoring a bill to keep the state permanently on daylight time--one of at least 31 states that are addressing some aspect of daylight saving and its discontents. "But I am hoping to get more sunlight to the people of California."
Proponents of setting the clock once and being done with it, like Mr. Chu, a Democrat from the San Jose area, said that shifting back and forth in the spring and fall, if it ever really made sense, no longer does.
California voters agreed last fall, approving a ballot proposition for year-round daylight time by a wide margin.
Lifestyles and patterns of work are different now than they were when daylight saving first became entrenched nationally during and after World War II. Research, Mr. Chu and others said, has shown that human beings just aren't as flexible about their daily rhythms as they once seemed; accidents, heart attacks and strokes tend to occur in greater numbers around the time shift.
The 1966 law allows states to opt out of daylight saving, and Hawaii and Arizona do so, staying on standard time all year; so does Puerto Rico. But for reasons that historians say remain murky, the law does not allow states to opt in all the way, and choose daylight time year-round. So the California proposal, and a similar bill passed by the Florida Legislature last year, would require an act of Congress to take effect.
Josh Yokela, a Republican state legislator in New Hampshire, is working on a way around that problem. He is the lead sponsor of a bill, passed by the State House last month, to request that New Hampshire be shifted into the Atlantic time zone, which by fine coincidence would do exactly what daylight saving does now: put the state an hour ahead of Eastern Standard Time. Then the state would opt out of seasonal clock changes, as the 1966 law allows.
The key is that moving to a different time zone does not require an act of Congress--all it takes is an order from the Transportation Department, the federal agency that oversees time (a legacy of its duties regulating railroad schedules).
"We would be on the same time as the rest of the Eastern time zone for eight months of the year, because they accept daylight saving time--and when they fall back in the winter, we wouldn't," Mr. Yokela said.
Of course, it matters what your neighbors' clocks say, and not just your own. Regional considerations played a role both in how daylight time first appeared a century ago, and in the debate over what to do about it now.
New Hampshire's bill, for example, says that because the state is so closely tied economically with the other New England states, especially Maine and Massachusetts, it would only try the jump to Atlantic time if the others did as well.
Proximity also had ripple effects in the 1920s, when New York City, having tasted daylight saving as a temporary measure during World War I, decided to keep it in peacetime. Retailers found that people shopped and spent more on their way home from work when there was more evening light, and Wall Street investors liked gaining an hour of overlap with trading on the London financial markets.
Supporters also argued that nudging the clock forward to have more of a summer's daylight fall in the evening would save energy by reducing the need for artificial light.
Once New York was doing it, places like Boston that needed to stay in sync economically decided to follow suit. A similar domino effect led Detroit to petition in 1922 to move to Eastern time from Central, followed by most of the rest of Michigan. And now, with California inching toward a change, time bills are being considered in Washington, Oregon and Nevada.
The early days of experiments with time changes brought on a lot of head-scratching, said Michael Downing, a novelist and lecturer in creative writing at Tufts University who has written a social history, called "Spring Forward: The Annual Madness of Daylight Saving Time." Some people worried that an extra hour of light in the evening would dry up and brown their lawns, or that cows would become confused and not give as much milk.
"The idea of losing or gaining an hour is itself such a fantastically bad philosophical proposition that nobody knows what they're talking about," Mr. Downing said. "Most people don't even understand whether moving the clocks forward gives them more sunlight or less sunlight in the morning. They just can't remember what it does, because it so defies logic."
Scott Yates, a technology entrepreneur in Colorado who runs a website dedicated to staying on daylight saving time year-round, predicted that most of the state bills would go nowhere. Though he believes the idea has gained some legitimacy, with lawmakers thinking especially about the health effects of time changes, it is hardly a top legislative priority for anyone. At the same time, it is not a bitterly partisan issue, which in these days of divided politics feels pretty rare.
"It's sort of odd, in that it doesn't have any natural political division to it, but it doesn't have a natural constituency, either," Mr. Yates said. "It's actually kind of refreshing in that way."
Questions Using Close Reading and Critical Thinking:
- The first section of an article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" Identify the four Ws of this article. (Note: The rest of the news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- Does this article have any bias? Why or why not?
- What is the federal Uniform Time Act of 1966? Why was it created? Look here for more information if needed: https://www.transportation.gov/regulations/time-act
- California and Florida are pushing for daylight time year-round. What step or steps must be taken in order to do this?
- Republican state legislator Josh Yokela is requesting that New Hampshire switch from Eastern Standard Time to Atlantic Standard Time. What is his reasoning? What does that do for the state? Are there any other advantages? Explain your answer.
- In the '20s during World War I, New York City temporarily implemented daylight savings time and then continued it after the war ended. According to the article, why were retailers and Wall Street investors in support of this?
- Kansen Chu, a California lawmaker, stated that there is an increase in health problems during the time shift: heart attacks, strokes, and other accidents. Why do you think these health problems occur? Does shifting the hour forward or backward affect your health or sleep? Explain your answer.
- Do you think daylight savings time should be abolished? Why or why not? Support your reasoning with evidence from the article or reputable online sources.
- Was waking up Monday morning more difficult and/or did it affect your attentiveness at school, or did it not affect you whatsoever?
Click here to view more: www.nytimes.com/2019/03/09/us/daylight-savings-time.html
Posted March 5, 2019
YouTube Has a Pedophilia Problem, and Its Advertisers Are Jumping Ship
March 1, 2019
Chavie Lieber
Vox
Lexile: 1275-1375L
For years, health professionals and childhood advocacy groups have been vocal about their concerns over child safety and YouTube. The company has taken measures to try to make YouTube a safe space for children and shield its young viewers from the dangers of the internet. Four years ago, for example, it launched a special app specifically for children's content, YouTube Kids.
But despite these efforts, the problems have not gone away.
Last week, an investigation by Wired reported that on YouTube, "a network of pedophiles is hiding in plain sight." People are apparently flocking to YouTube to watch videos of children performing activities like yoga or gymnastics, or playing games like Twister; these users are then leaving sexually suggestive comments on the videos, and communicating with each other as well. Per Wired, there are hundreds of thousands of sexually suggestive comments on videos featuring children.
In a statement to Vox, YouTube says it "took immediate action by deleting accounts and channels" and that it will "continue to work to improve and catch abuse more quickly."
On Thursday, February 28, YouTube announced on its creator blog that it would be suspending the comments on all videos that feature minors and other types of content that could be at risk of "attracting predatory behavior." YouTube said a small selection of accounts will have their comments enabled but will require a moderator, which YouTube will work with directly, to actively watch the comments section.
YouTube also said it has updated its algorithm to better detect predatory comments, which is "more sweeping in scope, and will detect and remove 2X more individual comments."
Just days before the Wired story was published, a YouTube vlogger named Matt Watson said he discovered via an investigation of his own that the YouTube algorithm feeds people videos of children playing once they start looking for it--a "wormhole into a soft-core pedophile ring," as he terms it.
These are troubling findings--for parents who upload videos to YouTube of their kids playing, and for children who are increasingly abandoning television to hang out on YouTube instead. In some cases, children are even interacting with the commenters, according to Wired, responding to their questions and providing personal information like their age.
It also spells big trouble for advertisers. In the past week, brands like AT&T, Disney, Hasbro, Epic Games, and Nestle have pulled their ads from YouTube, saying they won't work with the tech giant until it can figure out how to solve this problem.
Google has claimed it's fixed the issue by banning some accounts and closing the comments sections on certain videos. But Haley Halverson, of the DC-based National Center on Sexual Exploitation, says it's still very much ongoing.
"Within two clicks, I was able to enter into a rabbit hole of videos where children are being eroticized by pedophiles and child abusers," Halverson wrote in a statement released Friday. "The content became more flagrantly sexualized the more I clicked, as the YouTube recommendation algorithm fed me more and more videos with hundreds of thousands, and sometimes millions, of views. Despite YouTube's claims to be cleaning up this content, YouTube so far still continues to monetize videos that eroticize young children and that serve as hubs for pedophiles to network and trade information and links to more graphic child pornography."
YouTube is now figuring out how it will deal with its issue of sexually exploitative comments, as advertisers abandon deals that help Google earn its billions. But like all issues involving tech giants, the solutions aren't so simple.
How YouTube became an inadvertent home to a "soft" pedophile ring
YouTube was launched in 2005 by three former PayPal employees. The idea for creating an easily accessible video site came about after one of the founders had trouble locating a video of Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction from the 2004 Super Bowl.
Google bought the site in 2006 for $1.6 billion, and today it is the second-most-visited website on the internet (behind Google.com). YouTube has 1.9 billion monthly users, which is about a third of the population of the entire internet.
YouTube today has turned into, among other things, a platform where personalities can make millions of dollars off weird DIY videos and beauty tutorials. It's also home to plenty of funny videos, many of which involve children. One of the first viral videos was "Charlie bit my finger"; the clip of 3-year-old Harry having his finger chomped on by his 1-year-old brother has more than 867 million views. There was the video of then-7-year-old David after the dentist, who got high off nitrous in 2009, or a video of an adorable then-3-year-old girl named Cody, who cried because she couldn't handle how much she loved Justin Bieber.
Like these viral videos, there are hundreds of millions of hours' worth of content about kids on YouTube, most of which is innocent. But child advocacy groups have spoken for years about the dangers of YouTube--and of the internet in general--when it comes to childhood safety, and it's now starting to bubble to the surface as it's become clear that these videos are not always being viewed with innocuous intentions.
YouTube has clear rules against explicit content. In its outline of its nudity and sexual content policy, the company writes that "content meant to be sexually gratifying (like pornography) is not allowed on YouTube" and that "videos containing fetish content will be removed or age-restricted." The company also says that "sexually explicit content featuring minors and content that sexually exploits minors" is not allowed. It says it reports content that contains imagery of child sexual abuse to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which works with law enforcement.
But as the Wired story points out, these people aren't necessarily coming to YouTube to look for pornographic content, but are interested in the more innocuous type, like videos where children's private parts are shown, both covered and uncovered, while doing exercise or playing games. People are leaving suggestive comments on the videos (which are mostly of girls, some as young as 5) and are sharing the timestamp of when this content is spotted. Per YouTube vlogger Watson's assessment, the YouTube comments section is also enabling these people to communicate with one another.
Child pornography "is being traded, as well as social media and WhatsApp addresses. YouTube is facilitating this problem," Watson writes in the description of his video, explaining how these YouTube commenters are getting in touch with each other to share sexual content about children, making their network broader and more sprawling than just YouTube.
Because of YouTube's algorithm, once viewers start watching videos of children playing and jumping, they are then fed videos that seem to be popular along the same lines; in this way, the video-sharing site is essentially feeding viewers the content they are looking for. In some cases, children on YouTube are even responding to commenters. Per Wired, "on one video, a young girl appears to ask another commenter why one of the videos had made him 'grow'."
YouTube has said that it's "aggressively" tackling this problem. In an email to Vox, a spokesperson wrote:
Any content--including comments--that endangers minors is abhorrent and we have clear policies prohibiting this on YouTube. We took immediate action by deleting accounts and channels, reporting illegal activity to authorities and disabling comments on tens of millions of videos that include minors. There's more to be done, and we continue to work to improve and catch abuse more quickly.
The company also says it's purged 400 accounts responsible for uploading videos that appear to be exploiting children, and deleted millions of comments. YouTube told Vox it constantly tries to kick users younger than 13 off the platform, and that it's been trying to hire more child safety experts, including former CIA and FBI employees.
Yet YouTube is still littered with hundreds of thousands of videos of children, and many of these still have problematic comments.
I've spent a few hours this week doing my own searches on the site. I found that many videos of children playing have had their comments sections disabled; I've also seen some videos taken down.
But there are still plenty of videos with innocent content that's being exploited, like of girls playing in skirts. These videos still have comments with timestamps, as well as the ongoing exchange of personal information.
Another "adpocalypse" as advertisers back away from YouTube
The problem becomes even more morally disturbing when you consider that money is being made from this content. The clicks are being monetized by dozens of brands, as YouTube brings Google about $3.9 billion in advertising revenue every year, per Statista.
"The pedophile crisis, like all YouTube crises, is a direct result of the platform's business model," Josh Golin, the executive director of the advocacy group Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, says. "It is extremely important to note that YouTube's algorithm was not malfunctioning; by recommending more and more videos to pedophiles of girls in swimsuits or doing gymnastics, it was functioning exactly as intended: to keep users on the site as long as possible so YouTube could make more money."
Nearly every big company you can name, from HBO to Peloton to L'Oréal to Samsung, has advertised on the video-sharing site. After these reports surfaced last week, many began pulling their advertisements from YouTube. A spokesperson for Epic Games, which owns Fortnite, told Wired that it's paused advertising on YouTube and had "reached out to YouTube to determine actions they'll take to eliminate this type of content from their service." Disney, Hasbro, and Nestle have also pulled their ads from YouTube, as has AT&T.
This is not the first time YouTube has gotten into trouble with advertisers. In 2017, brands like Verizon, Johnson & Johnson, and AT&T pulled their advertisements from YouTube and Google after it was revealed that their ads were playing alongside extremist content that promoted terrorism.
Some advocates are calling for more assertive action on YouTube's part, like cracking down on all types of children's content.
"Why isn't YouTube taking more serious steps, like temporarily shutting down all comments and recommendations; removing children's content from YouTube; and using Google's enormous reach to tell parents to keep children--and videos of children--off YouTube?" asks Golin. "Obviously, these would be drastic steps, but if having pedophiles openly trade information on your site doesn't lead to drastic action, what will?" (YouTube would not comment on why it has waited this long to start addressing the problem of sexually suggestive comments on videos of children.)
But flagging content based just on the fact that it contains children is likely not a viable solution, mainly because there are seemingly endless videos of children playing with toys, reviewing games, and so on. And some of these toy and gaming influencers bring in huge paychecks--for themselves and for YouTube. Other creators say they've been trying to take on this comment moderation issue on their own, and don't want to be punished.
"I'm not reporting the story because it negatively affects the whole YouTube community," Daniel Keem, host of the YouTube show DramaAlert, tweeted. His show covers all the drama going on in the world of social media, and he fired back after a follower asked why he hadn't brought up YouTube's issues with sexually suggestive comments on children's videos. "We don't need another ad apocalypse. What I have done behind the scenes, though, is reached out to my YouTube contacts showing them the video and my team is showing them content to take down. This is not just about me. This is about all my friends, big and small creators. I'm not reporting something that's going to affect their livelihoods."
YouTube, so far, is trying to fix the problem short term by limiting ads on videos with children. On Twitter, it said that "even if your video is suitable for advertisers, inappropriate comments could result in your video receiving limited or no ads."
This, of course, has rattled the community of YouTube stars, who are concerned their content won't make money now. Content creators can file an appeal if their videos get flagged and the ads are removed. As one mom YouTuber tweeted: "MY 5 YEAR OLD SON: does gymnastics and is a happy, sweet, confident boy. youtube: NOT ADVERTISER FRIENDLY."
Meanwhile, it's clear that even if YouTube solves its children's content problem, the task of cleaning up other concerning material on the site is going to be difficult. Just this past week, a pediatrician and blogger from Gainesville, Florida, Free Hess, said she's found content promoting suicide on YouTube, and that even though she's flagged the videos, they keep reappearing.
Posting this type of violent content is against the rules, but some of it isn't searchable. Instead, Hess found that clips are hidden inside children's videos. In one video, a man jumps in to say, "Remember, kids: Sideways for attention. Longways for results," as he pretends to slice his arm.
"I think it's extremely dangerous for our kids," Hess told the Washington Post about YouTube. "I think our kids are facing a whole new world with social media and Internet access. It's changing the way they're growing, and it's changing the way they're developing. I think videos like this put them at risk."
Searches for Peppa Pig and Doc McStuffins lead to knockoff videos of the franchises that are violent and inappropriate for children. Most recently, internet trolls have been capitalizing on the ongoing scare of the "Momo challenge," where a creepy, bug-eyed character (which is actually a Japanese sculpture) supposedly tells children to harm or kill themselves. Although the theory that kids are taking their lives because of Momo is a viral hoax, moms say they're finding that Momo is now actually appearing in kids' videos on YouTube, spliced into content to scare them (although YouTube denies the challenge is being promoted in videos on its site).
On Friday, March 1, YouTube told The Verge that it would stop running ads on videos about the Momo challenge. These videos apparently violate the company's advertiser-friendly content guidelines, which states it won't run ads on videos that depict violent or harmful acts. It will also demonetize content from news publications covering the hoax (and the scare it's causing parents), as YouTube scrambles to make its platform more child-friendly.
Tackling the issue of cleaning up content on YouTube won't be an easy fix, and it won't happen overnight. But it's a pressing matter for both parents and children, and if their concerns won't get the tech giant to act, then Google potentially losing revenue dollars because of an advertiser exodus might.
Questions Using Close Reading and Critical Thinking:
- The first section of an article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" Identify the four Ws of this article. (Note: The rest of the news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- Does this article have any bias? Why or why not?
- What have been YouTube's solutions to this problem so far? Do you think that these solutions will work?
- What advertisers have pulled ads from YouTube? Why would any of these companies do this? Use specific details from the article in your explanation.
- Explain how YouTube's recommendation algorithm contributes to the pedophilia problem.
- In the article, the author Chavie Lieber states that this "problem becomes even more morally disturbing when you consider that money is being made from this content." What does Lieber mean by this? Why do you think she finds this more "morally disturbing"?
- Why are some parents with children in YouTube videos upset with the changes YouTube has made to fix the problem?
- What is the author's purpose for this article? How do you know?
- Have you ever thought about the content you post on the internet? Will you think differently about what you post after reading this article? Explain your thinking.
Click here to view more: www.vox.com/the-goods/2019/2/27/18241961/youtube-pedophile-ring-child-safety-advertisers-pulling-ads
Posted February 26, 2019
Anger Can Be Contagious--Here's How To Stop The Spread
NPR
By Allison Aubrey
February 25, 2019
Lexile®: 900L - 1000L
Even if you're not aware of it, it's likely that your emotions will influence someone around you today.
This can happen during our most basic exchanges, say on your commute to work. "If someone smiles at you, you smile back at them," says sociologist Nicholas Christakis of Yale University. "That's a very fleeting contagion of emotion from one person to another."
But it doesn't stop there. Emotions can spread through social networks almost like the flu or a cold. And, the extent to which emotions can cascade is eye-opening.
For instance, Christakis' research has shown that if you start to become happier with your life, a friend living close by has a 25 percent higher chance of becoming happy too. And your partner is more likely to feel better as well. The happiness can even spread to people to whom you're indirectly connected.
To document this, Christakis and his colleagues mapped out the face-to-face interactions of about 5,000 people living in one town, over the course of 32 years. Their emotional ups and downs were documented with periodic surveys. "We were able to show that as one person became happy or sad, it rippled through the network," Christakis says.
It's not just happiness that spreads, unhappiness and anger can be contagious, too.
And you don't have to be in the same house or city to catch someone else's emotions. There's evidence that emotional contagion can spread through our digital interactions, too.
Say, you're in a negative mood, and you text your partner. A research study, dubbed, "I'm Sad, You're Sad," documented that in these types of text exchanges, your partner is likely to both sense your emotion and mirror it.
So, just how far does this go? A study of nearly 700,000 Facebook users suggests we can pick up on--and mirror--the emotions we encounter in our social media feeds, too.
As part of the study, users' news feeds were altered. Some people in the study began to see more positive posts, while others began to see more negative posts.
"We found that when good things were happening in your news feed--to your friends and your family--you also tended to write more positively and less negatively," says Jeff Hancock, a communications researcher at Stanford University and author the two studies on digital interactions.
And, the reverse was true, too. Viewing more negative posts prompted people to write more sad or angry things. Overall, the effects were very small, compared to what has been documented in face-to-face interactions, "but [the study] suggested that emotions can move through networks through contagion," Hancock says.
A lot of us have seen this play out on our social media feeds, especially on Twitter. Late night TV host Jimmy Kimmel pokes fun at angry tweets by asking celebrities and famous athletes to read aloud the mean things that have been tweeted about them. "Draymond Green's jump shot is almost as ugly as his face," NBA player Draymond Green read to an audience last June. "Whoa!" the audience responded.
It's funny in the moment. But when you're on the receiving end of a personal attack, it's hurtful. And it increases the likelihood that you'll lash out in return.
One study finds there may be a little bit of troll in each of us. If you read a nasty message from a troll that dishes out sarcasm or a personal attack, and you happen to be in a bad mood, the research shows you're more likely to copy the troll-like behavior.
Bottom line: It's easier to be mean from behind a screen. The rules of face-to-face interactions don't exist. "There are fewer cues," Hancock says. You don't see or hear the person on the receiving end of your tweet or post. "That makes it a little harder to view you as a person," he says.
This is what happened to a Twitter user named Michael Beatty who lives in Alabama. He's 65 and served in the military during the Vietnam War. Earlier this year, he got ticked off when he read a tweet written by comedian and actor Patton Oswalt. It was a negative tweet about President Trump.
"So I did a knee jerk reaction," Beatty told us. "I sent him two tweets back."
Beatty says he told Oswalt: "I enjoyed seeing your character in [the movie] Blade: Trinity die so horribly." In another tweet he poked fun at the actor's height.
Looking back, Beatty says, "it was harsh, uncalled for, embarrassing."
And Patton Oswalt's response? The actor scrolled through Beatty's feed and learned that he had some serious health issues. After a long hospital stay, he had medical bills piling up.
Next thing Beatty knew, Oswalt had donated $2,000 to Beatty's GoFundMe account, and encouraged his millions of followers to follow his lead. "This dude just attacked me on Twitter and I joked back but then I looked at his timeline and he's in a lot of trouble health-wise," Oswalt tweeted. "I'd be pissed off too. He's been dealt some s***** cards--let's deal him some good ones."
Beatty began to hear from Patton Oswalt's followers. Some donated money, others sent encouraging messages. His GoFundMe account grew to about $50,000.
Patton Oswalt's generosity spread. "It had a large cascade effect," Beatty says. "I honestly, truly thought I was dreaming and this couldn't happen in real life."
One act of kindness led to the next.
"I realized that knee jerk reactions to things [are] not the way to go," Beatty says. It led him to slow down and reflect. "What kind of person have I been?," he asked himself.
He says when he wrote those angry tweets, he was in a bad place, angry at himself for letting his health deteriorate: "It was easy to snap back and snarl."
But Beatty says the empathy shown towards him, changed him. He's begun to think: "People are good." He realizes that politics divides people, but one-on-one, "people are caring, generous, helpful."
Over the last month, he says he's felt his anger fade away. This manifests in lots of small ways. For instance he used to have serious road rage. But now "if someone wants to get over, I'll wave them in," Beatty says. "I have changed."
This story reminds us of what we should already know (and hopefully remember from watching Mr. Rogers): "It's good for us to be kind," Jeff Hancock says.
Not only is it good for the world around us, it makes us feel a lot better and disarms anger.
"There's lots of scientific evidence that when you are kind or express gratitude you get all kinds of psychological benefits," says Hancock.
So, next time... you're tempted to respond to an angry post, maybe you'll remember this story.
Anger leads to more anger. But a single act of kindness can help stop the spread.
Questions Using Close Reading and Critical Thinking:
- The first section of an article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" Identify the four Ws of this article. (Note: The rest of the news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- Does this article have any bias? Why or why not?
- The point of this article is that one's emotions can positively or negatively affect others around you. If you're happy or angry, that same emotion can transfer over to those with whom you come in contact. Do you believe this to be true? Why or why not?
- As stated in the article, we live in a digital age where, through texting, Facebook, or Twitter, it is easy for emotions to spread like wildfire. Have you experienced a time when someone you know (or didn't know) ranted or posted something negative, prompting you to respond in a hostile manner? If so, why did you feel the need to respond this way? If not, what prompted you to not respond with those same emotions?
- TV host Jimmy Kimmel has celebrities read negative tweets about themselves out loud. For instance, when basketball star Draymond Green was a guest on his show, Green read a tweet that said, "Draymond Green's jump shot is almost as ugly as his face." Do you think Green felt angry about this tweet? Do you agree or disagree with what Kimmel does? Why?
- Michael Beatty, a Vietnam War veteran, reacted angrily to a negative tweet that actor and comedian Patton Oswalt posted about President Trump. After doing some research, Oswalt discovered that Beatty may have had a negative reaction due to mounting medical bills. Rather than get angry, Oswalt responded with kindness and donated money to Beatty's GoFundMe account and encouraged others to follow suit. Beatty, shocked by Oswalt's kindness, decided to change his recent negative mindset. Can you think of a time when you responded with kindness to a negative situation? How did others respond? What was the outcome of this situation? Respond in 7-10 sentences.
- Have you been in a good or bad mood today? Has this "mood" had a mirror effect on your friends or classmates?
Click here to view more: www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/02/25/697052006/anger-can-be-contagious-heres-how-to-stop-the-spread
Posted February 19, 2019
What exactly is a national emergency? Here's what it means and what happens next.
The Washington Post
By Deanna Paul and Colby Itkowitz
February 15, 2019
Lexile: 1100L-1200L
After teasing it for months, President Trump is officially declaring the [U.S.]-Mexico border a "national emergency," which will allow him to circumvent Congress's constitutional powers to control spending and divert federal funds toward his much ballyhooed border wall.
His decision to do so, after not getting the money he wanted from Congress to put toward construction of his wall, has drawn immense criticism as an overreach of executive power. So, is it? Can he do this?
Let's review the basic facts of what it means for a president to declare a national emergency.
What is a national emergency?
In 1976, Congress passed the National Emergencies Act, which permits the president to pronounce a national emergency when he considers it appropriate. The act offers no specific definition of "emergency" and allows a president to declare one entirely at his or her discretion.
By declaring a national emergency, the president avails himself or herself of dozens of specialized laws. Some of these powers have funds the president otherwise could not access.
Under current law, emergency powers lapse within a year unless the president renews them. A national emergency can be re-declared indefinitely, and, in practice, that is done frequently. There have been 58 pronounced under the National Emergencies Act, of which 31 are still in effect.
When have they been declared in the past?
Presidents have declared national emergencies since World War II. As The Washington Post reported, President Bill Clinton declared emergencies 17 times, George W. Bush 12 and Barack Obama 13.
The vast majority have been economic sanctions against foreign actors whose activities pose a national threat, according to Elizabeth Goitein, co-director of the Brennan Center for Justice's Liberty and National Security Program. A handful of declarations have involved noneconomic crises:
Clinton declared a national emergency during the 1996 Cuba embargo, preventing U.S. ships or aircraft from entering Cuban territory without authorization. Obama declared a national emergency during the H1N1 swine flu epidemic in 2009 to activate disaster plans to set up proper patient treatment.
Bush declared a national emergency after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001; the order is still in effect.
Is a national emergency the same thing as an executive order?
In general, national emergencies have been declared through executive orders. An executive order is a command issued by the president that carries the force of law. The power is authorized, in part, by Article II of the U.S. Constitution.
Executive orders direct federal agencies on how to spend available resources. Thousands have been created by past presidents, covering topics as varied as the duties of the commander in chief.
The U.S. Supreme Court has only rarely held an executive order invalid, including one issued by Harry S. Truman in 1952 that seized the country's steel mills during the Korean War, and another from Clinton in 1995 involving workers on strike.
Executive orders do not create new law or allocate additional funding, which is where Trump has run up against congressional hurdles.
Following his inauguration, Trump issued an executive order making construction of a barrier wall across the southwest U.S. border a federal priority. The wall could not be built unless Congress provided him with the funds.
How does a president declare a national emergency?
A president must issue a written and signed declaration that specifies the specific emergency powers he plans to rely on and invoke.
"Unlike other executive orders, one that declares a national emergency unlocks the powers contained in more than 100 other laws," Goitein told The Post.
Of the vast statutory powers Trump would avail himself of, Goitein said two could arguably allow him to build the border wall with Defense Department funding. These federal statutes make available funds set aside for military construction projects or repurpose money originally dedicated to civil projects supporting the military and national defense.
What happens once a national emergency is declared?
Even though there aren't many limits on a president's ability to declare an emergency, it does not create complete freedom to act.
Anyone directly affected by the order can challenge it in court, which Goitein said will almost certainly happen in this case. Congress can also draft a concurrent resolution to terminate the state of emergency, leading to a somewhat novel act. Ordinarily, congressional resolutions support a president's declaration of a national emergency.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is expected to bring up a "joint resolution of termination" in the House. Doing so would force Senate Majority Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to also bring up the resolution in the GOP-majority Senate, putting his members in a difficult position.
The House Democrats can also join an outside lawsuit or choose to sue on their own.
Does Congress have enough votes to terminate the emergency declaration?
Like any legislation passed by Congress, the president could veto the resolution unless it has received supermajority support (two-thirds in each chamber). Many Republicans have been critical of this approach by Trump, mainly because they see it as a slippery slope for a future Democratic president using the power to advance his or her policy goals. But it's unclear whether there's enough of them to vote against the president (and his base) to override a veto.
Questions Using Close Reading and Critical Thinking:
- The first section of an article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" Identify the four Ws of this article. (Note: The rest of the news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- Does this article have any bias? Why or why not?
- Reread the opening paragraph. Using context clues, define the word circumvent. What words or phrases in the article did you use to help you understand the meaning of the word?
- Name some of the national emergencies declared by past presidents.
- What is the difference between a national emergency and an executive order? Using your explanation of the difference, explain why President Trump declared a national emergency instead of signing an executive order.
- Why is it expected that Congress will draft a resolution to terminate the state of emergency that President Trump declared last week? Use specific details from the article in your explanation.
Click here to view more: //www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/02/15/what-exactly-is-national-emergency-heres-what-that-means-what-happens-next/?noredirect=on
Posted February 12, 2019
In A Measles Outbreak, Demand For Vaccine Spikes
NPR
By Kristian Foden-Vencil
February 11, 2019
Lexile®: 1000L - 1100LM
More than 50 people have now been infected by the measles in an outbreak across southwest Washington state and northwest Oregon, and doctors and nurses say it's spurring people to get vaccinated.
At Sea Mar Community Health Center in Vancouver, Wash., administrator Shawn Brannan says that so many have been coming in for a measles shot recently that they had to order almost 10 times as much vaccine as usual.
"Larger populations that typically don't vaccinate their children for their own reasons are now in a mad dash, if you will, to get vaccinated," says Brannan.
He said many patients are from the former Soviet Union, where distrust of government runs deep.
But he says the clinic is also getting lots of other patients with their own reasons not to vaccinate.
"It's the Google monster unfortunately," says Brannan. "Once people Google, they find all these warnings and adverse reactions. And it can sometimes blur what's really important for the child or even people to get."
Brannan thinks people also see their kids getting colds this time of the year--with runny noses, red eyes and coughs--and worry it might be measles. Colds and measles have the same early symptoms.
Clark County public health director Dr. Alan Melnick is exasperated.
"I mean, this is a lousy way to get vaccination rates up," says Melnick. "I wish we had vaccination rates up ahead of time. I wish it didn't take an outbreak and one child already being hospitalized."
The Washington State Health Department says about 530 people were immunized against measles in this area last January. This January, there have been more than 3,000 immunizations.
Across the Columbia River in Portland, Ore., nurse practitioner Nancy Casey helps run the Health Center at Roosevelt High School.
She has had kids come to her to catch up on their shots because their parents didn't believe in vaccination. She remembers one particular 16-year-old.
"The child said, 'you know my mom really doesn't believe in vaccines, but I'm thinking that I want to start,'" says Casey.
Oregon law allows children 15 or older to consent to physical health care. So, Casey can vaccinate them without first informing a parent.
Casey says she asks students who come to her for shots questions like "why doesn't your parent want you to have vaccines?" "Do they know that you're here?" And "What would they say if they knew you were here?"
She also asks what they know about the disease the vaccine is formulated to prevent, and why that could be beneficial.
"It's helping them be advocates," Casey says. "And then we do go over scenarios. Like, 'What if your mom finds out because you tell them?'"
In the case of the 16-year-old, the student got the vaccines from Casey and the parents never saw a bill because it went to an Oregon Medicaid program.
"And by the end of her catching up to her immunization schedule over like a year and a half period, she had told her mom," says Casey. She says the student's mother wasn't thrilled, but didn't make an issue of it.
Across the Columbia River in Vancouver, Wash., Shona Carter sits at home as she has been doing for months now.
She has leukemia, which means doctors had to kill off her immune system and give her a new one in the form of a bone marrow transplant.
But a new immune system has to adapt to diseases all over again.
"I mean, you're a baby. You're brand new. You have to get all of your vaccines redone," says Carter.
"Some of them you can't have done immediately because they're like live weakened vaccines," Carter says. "So the measles is important for me to get, but I can't have it right now."
Carter's immune system isn't strong enough, so the outbreak has her very worried.
But there's not much she can do except follow doctors orders like staying at home, using lots of hand sanitizer and wearing a mask.
"I don't want any setbacks," says Carter.
"One of my fears is getting something like the measles which could... potentially kill me because I'm not strong enough to fight it off," she says.
Measles can kill or blind, but that's rare.
Authorities say the outbreak is still evolving. They don't expect it to end any time soon.
Washington and Oregon are two of 17 states that let children go to school unvaccinated because of personal beliefs. Both state legislatures are now considering changes to those laws.
Questions Using Close Reading and Critical Thinking:
- The first section of an article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" Identify the four Ws of this article. (Note: The rest of the news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- Does this article have any bias? Why or why not?
- According to the article, some parents see their kids getting colds and are worried it is measles. What are the measles? What are the symptoms, and why is it dangerous? How did the outbreak in Washington start? Search for the answer in this article: https://www.vox.com/2019/1/29/18201982/measles-outbreak-virus-vaccine-symptoms
- The Washington State Health Department has seen an increase in the number of vaccinations. How many more vaccinations did they have this January in comparison to January of 2018? Search for the answer in the NPR article.
- Name four reasons why people refuse to get vaccinated. Look online if you need help answering this question.
- Oregon law permits children 15 years of age and older to receive health care without the consent of their parents. Who is Nancy Casey, and how is this law affecting her right now?
- Who is Shona Carter, and why is she worried about contracting measles?
- Oregon and Washington are 2 out of 17 states that allow children who are unvaccinated due to personal beliefs to attend school. Do you agree with this policy? Why or why not? Defend your position in a paragraph of 8-10 sentences.
Click here to view more: www.npr.org/2019/02/11/692825201/in-a-measles-outbreak-demand-for-vaccine-spikes
Posted February 05, 2019
The Instagram's World Record Egg Revealed An Important Message About Mental Health After the 2019 Super Bowl
Bustle
By Mika Doyle
February 3, 2019
A major mystery has finally come to an end: the purpose of the Instagram's world-record egg has been revealed. After the 2019 Super Bowl on February 3, 2019, a one-minute @world_record_egg commercial ran on Hulu, highlighting a powerful and creative message about mental health.
The world-record egg became an overnight viral sensation after the photo of a brown egg on a plain, white background was posted to Instagram on Jan. 5, according to CNET. The caption to the post challenged people to make it the most-liked Instagram post of all time, saying, "Let's set a world record together and get the most-liked post on Instagram. Beating the current world record held by Kylie Jenner (18 million)! We got this." The internet rose to the challenge, and the world-record egg currently has upwards of 52 million likes on Instagram.
It only took 10 days for the internet to beat Kylie Jenner's current record, BuzzFeed News reports. Since reaching its initial goal, the account has posted four other photos leading up to the big reveal. Each was of the same brown egg on a plain white background, but the egg had more and more cracks in it with each new post. But the account holder has remained anonymous, says BuzzFeed News, although it sometimes responded to messages from the media. Like it once told BuzzFeed News that it was a chicken named Henrietta from the British countryside, but it told Mashable that the egg's name was Eugene.
Then on Feb. 1, the account posted the photo of an egg with the same number of cracks as before, but this time it looked like a football. The caption read, "The wait is over. All will be revealed this Sunday following the Super Bowl. Watch it first, only on @hulu."
During the Hulu commercial right after the Super Bowl, the cute, insta-famous cartoon egg greeted us and then slowly began to crack before our eyes, saying social media pressure was getting to it. Then, a fully cracked egg lifts its arm up and points to a prompt that tells viewers that if they're starting to crack too, there's always someone they can talk to. "We got this", the egg says, now with a smile. Then, the video points users to mentalhealthamerica.net.
While the egg's big reveal may seem surprising--its important message about mental health is being applauded on social media. As user @linipanini330 put it, "As someone who experiences mental illness myself, I was in tears watching this one minute clip. It's time to #erasethestigma." User @carolaskyn said "MoreThe World Record Egg reveal on @hulu was tremendous. Shout out to the #EggGang creator for using their 15 minutes of (anonymous) fame/massive reach for good. #TalkingEgg.["]
Seeing the most-liked Instagram post tied to a campaign about the importance of mental health not only gives visibility--and a lot of it, the @world_record_egg has 10 million followers--to such an important topic, but it gives hope to busting [the] stigma surround[ing] mental health once and for all.
Questions Using Close Reading and Critical Thinking:
- The first section of an article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" Identify the four Ws of this article. (Note: The rest of the news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- Does this article have any bias? Why or why not?
- How long did it take for the egg to beat Kylie Jenner's record?
- Why do you think the original photo of an egg became the most-liked Instagram post of all time?
- Explain the message of the cracked egg. What did the creators want to communicate to their followers and the world?
- Do you think that using an egg and Instagram fame was an effective way to communicate this message? Explain your reasoning.
- At the end of the article, the author says that this Instagram campaign "gives hope to busting [the] stigma surround[ing] mental health once and for all." Define the word stigma. Then explain how the egg can be viewed as helping to destroy the stigma about mental health.
Click here to view more: www.bustle.com/p/the-instagrams-world-record-egg-revealed-important-message-about-mental-health-after-the-2019-super-bowl-15920671
Posted January 29, 2019
Federal Employees Return To Work, But Fears Of Another Shutdown Loom
NPR
By Brakkton Booker and Rebecca Ellis
January 28, 2019
Hundreds of thousands of federal employees across the country are returning to work after being furloughed for more than a month. Thousands of others in the federal workforce did work during the 35-day shutdown but didn't get paid.
The Trump administration promises that by Friday federal workers will be paid the two consecutive paychecks that were missed as a result of the government being shuttered.
"Some of them could get paid early this week," said acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney on CBS's Face the Nation. "Some of them may be later this week but we hope that by the end of this week all of the back pay will be made up."
The scramble to get paychecks sent out is a result of the stopgap funding measure President Trump signed on Friday ending the longest U.S. government shutdown in history.
While the reopening of the government and the expectation of getting paid are welcome news for many federal workers like Towanna Thompson, a program analyst at the Department of Interior, a lot of trepidation remains.
She says even though the shutdown is over, she'll be on a budget because she knows the threat of another government shutdown is just weeks away.
"I think it's stupid. Why are you going to open us up for three weeks and then have us go back and do this again?" Thompson asks as she is picking up lunch and groceries from World Central Kitchen, a food bank run by renowned chef and philanthropist José Andrés. It's located just blocks from the White House.
"You know, Trump needs to wake up and smell the cappuccino," she says.
She says she is putting off medical procedures until after Feb. 15, the day... the current funding measure expires.
Thompson is not alone in fearing another shuttering of the federal government.
"We're still budgeting that we're not going to get a check until two weeks from now. And then a week after that we're shut down again," said Jared Hautamaki[,] an attorney at the Environmental Protection Agency. During the shutdown, Hautamaki said he had been to food banks like José Andrés'. He also picked up extra shifts at Home Depot. And even though he is going back to work at the EPA Monday, he says he won't be cutting back on the extra shifts.
"I plan on working as many hours as I can at Home Depot the next three weeks to prepare for the worst," he said.
The measure to temporarily reopen the government did not include any of the $5.7 billion the president has repeatedly demanded for a U.S.-Mexico border wall. At the Rose Garden speech Friday announcing the end to the impasse, the president signaled another shutdown is an option if House and Senate negotiators don't come to an agreement he approves of.
"If we don't get a fair deal from Congress, the government will either shutdown on Feb. 15, again, or I will use the powers afforded to me under the laws and the Constitution of the United States," Trump said.
In other words, declare a national emergency to bypass Congress and have the border wall built--a move almost surely to bring about a court challenge.
Eric Ingram and his wife Andrea Jensen are both federal workers who live in Alexandria, Va.
Ingram works for the Federal Aviation Administration and took the shutdown saga in stride.
"I guess it's cool to be part of history. That's nice," Ingram said.
If he gives the impression he's laid back, it's because his wife, who works for the Department of Energy has been on the job--and more importantly for them--has been getting paid.
Jensen, though, said the shutdown has made her wonder whether it's wise for both her and her husband to both work for the federal government at the same time.
"It seems like there's more job security in not working for the same agency or having one person in private industry and one person in government," Jensen said.
It's something her husband may consider down the line.
But Monday is his first day back, and he's got a ton of projects to get up and running before the next possible shutdown.
Questions Using Close Reading and Critical Thinking:
- The first section of an article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" Identify the four Ws of this article. (Note: The rest of the news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- Does this article have any bias? Why or why not?
- What happens in a government shutdown? Research using this website: http://time.com/5099409/what-happens-in-a-government-shutdown/
- What is the stopgap funding measure? What does that mean for government workers?
- The shutdown was lifted on Monday, so thousands of government workers returned to work. However, there were many that continued to work during the shutdown, but didn't get paid. President Trump's administration stated all workers would receive the past two paychecks. Would you continue working for a company, without pay, with the uncertainty of not knowing when you would get paid? Explain why or why not in five to seven sentences.
- Jared Hautamaki, an attorney for the EPA, has been affected by the shutdown and hasn't received a paycheck. What has he been doing to subsidize his income?
- A second government shutdown is expected on February 15 if the House and Senate can't come to an agreement. If an agreement is not reached, do you feel a second one is warranted? Explain your position in five to seven sentences.
- Andrea Jensen and her husband, Eric Ingram, are both federal workers from Alexandria, VA. One of them is getting paid still, while the other isn't. Jensen stated, "It seems like there's more job security in not working for the same agency or having one person in private industry and one person in government." Do you agree with her statement? Why or why not.
Click here to view more: www.npr.org/2019/01/28/689213240/federal-employees-return-to-work-but-fears-of-another-shutdown-loom
Posted January 22, 2019
Ever wake up to a numb, dead arm? Here's what's happening.
Vox
By Brian Resnick
UPDATED January 14, 2019
Waking up in the middle of the night to discover one of your arms has lost all feeling is frightening.
At first, the limb is limp and flops around like a useless bag of bone before coming back to life with a flood of "pins and needles" sensations.
When this happened to me as a kid, I panicked, thinking I'd done something horrible to my body, anxious that I'd never be able to move my arm again. But the feeling in my arm always came back.
This phenomenon is really common, James Dyck, a neurology researcher with the Mayo Clinic, told me in 2016. And it's actually a cool example of how the body can protect itself even during the paralysis of sleep.
Dyck explained there's a common misconception that pins and needles and numbness are caused by a lack of blood flow to the nerves. "The more likely thing is nerve compression--nerves are being pushed on and squashed, and that causes these symptoms," he says.
You have several nerves in your arm. Each serves a vital function.
The axillary nerve lifts the arm at the shoulder.
The musculocutaneous nerve bends the elbow.
The radial nerve straightens out the arm and lifts your wrist and fingers.
The ulnar nerve spreads your fingers.
Although Dyck says the exact physiology isn't completely understood, the effect of compressing any of these nerves in sleep--when you sleep on top of your arm or pin it underneath a partner--is like stepping on a garden hose. The information that flows from your extremities back to your brain is temporarily disrupted.
So why does it feel paralyzed upon waking?
Dyck suggests two reasons.
1) It is actually, temporarily, paralyzed. During REM sleep, the brain sends a signal to cause a body-wide paralysis. The purpose of this is to keep you from acting out dreams (which occur during REM). But if you wake up during one of these phases, you can be conscious before [you] fully regain control of your limbs. This is called sleep paralysis, and it can be a frightening situation. You're stuck somewhere in between dreaming and wakefulness, and you can't move.
2) The nerve compression has led to a temporary paralysis (perhaps because you got stuck in a compressed position during REM).
Compressing nerves can damage them. The good thing is that the body will naturally wake up as a protection mechanism when a nerve has been compressed too long. After you wake and relieve the pressure, the nerves will quickly come back online, usually first with a pins-and-needles feeling.
"The nerve structures, as they recover, tend to be irritable for a period of time," the University of Rochester Medical Center explains. "That's because the nerves are firing spontaneously. Most of the time, the feeling of pins and needles is a good sign. It is a temporary phase that means nerves are coming back to life."
Someone who falls asleep on a limb is unlikely to do major damage to the nerves, Dyck says. But there are some cases when compressed nerves can become a greater problem.
One such case is called "Saturday night palsy," when a person falls asleep compressing a nerve while drunk. The alcohol impairs your body's ability to wake you up and protect your nerves.
"If you're passed out drunk, you won't move your arm," Dyck says. ["]And when you wake up the next day, you can't extend your wrist and you can't extend your fingers." That might last longer than a few moments (perhaps even a few days or months) as the nerve has to repair its protective coating.
And then there's hereditary neuropathy with liability to pressure palsies (HNPP), a genetic condition that makes people more susceptible to nerve compression injuries. They might want to be extra careful not to fall asleep on a limb or even cross their leg to avoid nerve compression. (Carpal tunnel may also cause tingling or numbness in limbs at night.)
Again, for most people who wake up to a dead limb, it's just a temporary annoyance. And it "probably takes less time [to recover] than you think it does, because you're freaking out about it," Dyck says.
Questions Using Close Reading and Critical Thinking:
- The first section of an article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" Identify the four Ws of this article. (Note: The rest of the news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- Does this article have any bias? Why or why not?
- What is the purpose of this article--to inform, to persuade, or to entertain? How do you know?
- What is the likely cause of the "pins and needles" feeling?
- Explain the simile "like stepping on a garden hose." How does this figurative language help the reader to understand what is happening to the human body?
- Why does the body wake itself up when a nerve is being compressed? What can happen if the body doesn't wake up?
- Have you ever woken up with a numb or paralyzed arm? If so, describe your experience. If you haven't, do you think that knowing what is happening will help you not to panic if you wake up unable to move your arm?
Click here to view more: www.vox.com/2016/6/6/11854588/numb-arm-sleep
Posted January 15, 2019
Los Angeles teachers are on strike, leaving 600,000 students in limbo
CNN
By Holly Yan
January 14, 2019
This is the outcome nobody wanted. But it's happening anyway.
More than 32,000 Los Angeles teachers and staff members are walking off the job Monday in the country's second-biggest school district. That means about 600,000 kids will have no idea when they'll see their teachers again.
Weeks of heated negotiations between the United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) union and the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) went nowhere, leading to the city's first teachers' strike in 30 years.
Both the union and the school district say they want smaller class sizes, bigger teacher salaries, and more counselors and nurses in the district's roughly 1,000 schools.
The big debate revolves around how much to fund them.
While the adults keep struggling to find a resolution, students are still expected to go to school during the strike.
Despite the expected absences of 32,000 teachers and staff, classes will continue at all schools. About 600,000 students could be taught by more than 2,000 reassigned administrators and about 400 substitute teachers, the school district said.
Exactly how that will work out logistically remains uncertain.
"It's case by case, school by school," said Shannon Haber, chief communications officer for LAUSD.
But the massive teachers['] shortage Monday is enough to make Andrew Krowne keep his four LAUSD children home for as long as the strike lasts.
"It's just a sheer overwhelming number of children versus adults," he said. "I'm not risking my children's safety."
Numbers and accusations fly
While both UTLA and LAUSD have made some concessions, both the union and the school district accuse the other of giving misleading facts and figures.
In LAUSD's latest offer to the union Friday, the school district said it "would add nearly 1,200 more educators--teachers, counselors, nurses and librarians--in schools, reducing class size in thousands of classrooms."
Class sizes in grades four to six would be limited to 35 students, and class sizes in all middle and high school math and English classes would be limited to 39 students, the school district said.
The offer would also "ensure no increase in any class size, increase nurses, counselors and librarians at all schools, along with a 6% salary increase and back pay for the 2017-2018 school year," LAUSD said.
But union president Alex Caputo-Pearl said the offer was good for only one year and that the school district's proposal was "woefully inadequate."
The union wants LAUSD to pull from its $1.86 billion in reserves to increase school staffing and to boost teachers' salaries by 6.5%.
But the school district says it's not nearly as wealthy as the teachers' union suggests.
"School budgets in California are set in three-year increments, and from July 2018 to June 2021, Los Angeles Unified will spend $24 billion educating students. This includes its entire, existing $1.8 billion reserve," LAUSD said.
The school district said at this rate, it might not even have enough money to meet a required 1% reserve by the 2021-2022 school year.
"Our commitment to our families is to make sure all of the money we have is being spent in schools. We are doing that," LAUSD Superintendent Austin Beutner said in a statement.
The financial situation is so bad, the Los Angeles County Office of Education is stepping in. Last week, the state-funded regulatory agency assigned fiscal experts to work with the school district on a plan to "eliminate deficit spending and restore required financial reserve levels."
And the Los Angeles school board has ordered the superintendent to come up with a three-year "enterprise plan" to get more revenue by March 18. That plan "could include parcel tax and school bond measures, as well as strategies for increasing enrollment."
600,000 kids / 2,400 substitutes and administrators = 1 logistical nightmare
The big question for parents during the strike is whether to send their children to school. Many are concerned about so few adults replacing 32,000 missing educators.
LAUSD tried to alleviate concerns, urging parents to "keep kids safe and learning in school." It created a strike hotline for parents and is accommodating special-needs students at early education centers.
But Krowne, the father of four LAUSD students, said he's keeping his kids home--even though the school district will not excuse students' absences due to the strike.
He said one daughter was instructed to report to the auditorium, then rotate to the lunch area, then to the gymnasium, then to the outdoor field.
"If five teachers showed up, everyone's going to be watching movies in the auditorium," he predicted.
"There's not instruction happening. Why... would I send my kids to daycare with hundreds and hundreds of kids? My kids would be safer at home with their parents. Frankly, my kids will learn more at home."
But Evelyn Alemán said she's sending her daughter to school, even if she's taught by someone other than her regular teachers. She said any school instruction is better than nothing.
For some other parents "it's a toss-up," Alemán said. "For those parents who have children who have special needs, in special education, they're just not sure if the folks who are taking care of them that day will be able to support the needs of their children."
'Parents are caught in the middle'
While the union and school district are stuck at an impasse, parents are also in a difficult position.
"I feel like parents are caught in the middle of these two big forces that are in charge of looking out for our children," said Alemán, the mother of a 14-year-old high school freshman.
"I think most parents agree with what the teachers are asking for. We definitely want smaller class sizes. We definitely want teachers to be appropriately compensated," she said.
But as far as the strike goes, "I don't agree with the way it's taking place right now."
Krowne disagrees. He said by pulling his kids out of school, he's making a statement in support of the teachers' strike. And if enough parents do the same, it will get the school district's attention.
"My older children understand," he said. "They know what it's like to be in a mixed (grade) class of 36 or 35 students."
Questions Using Close Reading and Critical Thinking:
- The first section of an article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" Identify the four Ws of this article. (Note: The rest of the news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- Does this article have any bias? Why or why not?
- Why did the teachers in Los Angeles go on strike Monday? What are the three main requests the union is demanding from the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD)?
- This is Los Angeles' first teachers' strike in 30 years. The last teacher strike took place in 1989. How long did it last, what were the demands, and what was the outcome? Was the strike similar to this one? Search for answers in this article from the Los Angeles Daily News: https://www.dailynews.com/2019/01/12/lausd-teachers-went-on-strike-in-1989-but-are-the-stakes-higher-in-2019/
- The union wants $1.86 billion in reserves from the LAUSD, but the district is saying $1.8 billion of that is intended for the school budget for July 2018 to June 2021. As a result, the superintendent is being ordered to create a three-year "enterprise plan." What does that entail, and how could it potentially free up more funds and increase revenue? How would you propose finding funds to fulfill the union's demands? Research online if necessary.
- About 2,400 administrators and substitute teachers are stepping in for the 32,000 educators that are absent. Because of this, parents are torn on whether to keep their children in school or at home. If you were a parent in this situation, what would you do? What is your reasoning for doing so?
- What do you think will be the outcome of these negotiations? Do you think the union and LAUSD will come to an agreement in which both sides will be happy? Why or why not?
Click here to view more: www.cnn.com/2019/01/14/us/los-angeles-teachers-strike/index.html
Posted January 08, 2019
The simple idea that could help end America's opioid epidemic
Vox
OPINION by German Lopez
JANUARY 3, 2019
I spent a lot of 2018 reporting on complex systems and policies that could help end the opioid epidemic, which is now the US's deadliest drug overdose crisis ever.
But behind all the reporting that I did was a simple idea: America needs to see addiction as a medical condition, and approach addiction treatment like any other form of health care.
This simple idea was at the core of every problem and solution I wrote about: Virginia reworking its Medicaid program to confront the opioid crisis, private insurers neglecting addiction treatment, prisons failing to provide opioid addiction medications, and special training programs helping doctors get involved in addiction care. It's also at the core of some other stories I'm currently working on, including an upcoming piece on California's efforts to offer addiction treatment in emergency rooms.
Understanding this simple idea gets you a long way to solving America's opioid crisis. Once addiction is seen as a medical condition that requires health care services, many of the solutions start to seem obvious: Of course people with addiction should have access to proven medications. Of course they should be able to get access to care in the emergency room, urgent care, or at a doctor's office. Of course health insurance should pay for their treatment.
It's helpful to draw comparisons to other chronic medical conditions.
Consider one statistic: According to the 2016 surgeon general's report, just 10 percent of people with a substance use disorder get specialty treatment for their addiction--in large part because local treatment options don't exist, or if they do exist, they are unaffordable or have waiting periods of weeks or even months.
Just think, for a moment, if this was true for another medical condition, like heart disease. Imagine a world in which 90 percent of Americans with heart problems are allowed to suffer and even die without any access to health care. Imagine that a person suffering a heart attack could go to an emergency room only to be told that the ER doesn't have any way to treat him. Imagine that the ER does have a way to help, but the patient who just had a heart attack will have to wait weeks or months to get into any care. Imagine if this patient went to a doctor's office for some care only to be told that the providers there don't see his kind.
This would be a public health catastrophe. America's leaders would do everything they can, under public demand, to remedy such huge gaps in health care.
Yet this is the reality with addiction in America, even as the current overdose crisis breaks records for deaths year after year.
Stigma is still the biggest barrier
The core reason for this problem is a mix of stigma and misconceptions about addiction.
For a long time, addiction in America has been viewed not as a medical condition, but as a moral failure. This is how I have come to understand emails such as this one, which argue that people suffering from drug addiction deserve to die: "Darwin's Theory says 'survival of the fittest.' Let these lost souls pay the price of their criminal choices and criminal actions. Society does not owe them multiple medical resuscitations from their own bad judgment, criminal activity, and self-inflicted wounds."
It would be obviously ridiculous for anyone to argue anything like this for other medical conditions, including those like heart disease, diabetes, and lung cancer that can also be caused by unhealthy actions and behaviors. But with addiction, it's something I've heard repeatedly throughout my reporting--a result of a culture, society, and legal system that have for more than a century treated addiction as a moral and criminal problem.
There is no clearer example of this than the misconceptions surrounding buprenorphine and methadone, which stave off withdrawal and cravings to stabilize a person's drug use. These are highly effective medications for opioid addiction treatment: Studies show that they reduce the all-cause mortality rate among opioid addiction patients by half or more and do a far better job of keeping people in treatment than non-medication approaches.
In Richmond, Virginia, Fawn Ricciuti told me about how buprenorphine helped her get her life back on track. After years of struggling with painkiller and heroin use, buprenorphine helped her stop using. She told me about how her recovery gave her "a better relationship with my daughter, my mom," and about her dreams of starting a water ice shop. "I got a business idea. I just want to do a couple classes and make sure that I have everything set so I'm not jumping into something over my head," she said.
If you had any medication that could halve death rates among heart disease or cancer patients or produce results like Ricciuti's for other conditions, it'd be outrageous to not make it available to the people in need. And if the medication is proven to be better than other treatment options, then it would be downright unethical and immoral to not provide it through the health care system.
But with addiction, things aren't so straightforward. A lot of people, including major addiction treatment providers and the former secretary of health and human services, question whether someone who takes any drug, including a medication, is truly in recovery. Instead, taking buprenorphine or methadone is often viewed as "substituting one drug with another." By viewing a person's struggles with addiction as a moral problem, it suddenly becomes possible to dispute the basic concept that medications can treat medical diseases and disorders.
Some of this is rooted in a genuine misconception of addiction: the myth that someone is addicted simply because he's using drugs. But the problem with addiction isn't drug use per se. The problem is when drug use turns compulsive and harmful--creating health risks, leading someone to neglect family and children, driving someone to commit crimes, and so on.
As Ricciuti's story shows, buprenorphine addresses these issues by letting her get a handle on her drug use without such negative outcomes, even if it needs to be taken indefinitely. The medications don't work for everyone, with data from France and Vermont suggesting that up to half of the people with opioid addictions won't take up the medications even when they're widely available. But helping just half the people in the US who are addicted to opioids would translate to potentially hundreds of thousands of lives saved over a decade.
Yet stigma remains, keeping these medications inaccessible. Federal data suggests, for example, that fewer than half of treatment facilities offer any opioid addiction medications. These are the facilities primarily tasked with offering addiction treatment in the US, and a majority don't offer the best-known treatment for opioid addiction in the midst of an opioid crisis.
Health care systems still don't do enough
The stigma and misconceptions run deep, culminating in a health care system that's ill-equipped to treat addiction.
This applies to individual health care providers, who under federal law have to go through special courses to prescribe buprenorphine. According to the White House opioid commission's 2017 report, 47 percent of US counties--and 72 percent of the most rural counties--have no physicians who can prescribe buprenorphine. Only about 5 percent of the nation's doctors are licensed to prescribe buprenorphine.
It applies to emergency rooms, the great majority of which do little to nothing to treat addiction. The result is the equivalent of having a person come in with a heart attack, and telling them that they're on their own--because the hospital doesn't have any cardiologists or other specialists on-staff.
It applies to health care in other settings, such as prisons. When I surveyed state prison agencies about whether they offer medications for opioid addiction, for example, only Rhode Island--just one state--reported offering the three medications (buprenorphine, methadone, and naltrexone). That remains true to this day, although some states are now experimenting more with the idea.
It applies to health insurers, who often resist paying for addiction treatment. In Virginia, addiction treatment programs were notoriously underpaid by Medicaid, which covers low-income people, until recent reforms to the program boosted reimbursement rates--leading to both an increase in the number of people getting treated and a drop in ER visits for opioid use disorder, suggesting that there was a sizable population of underserved and undertreated people before.
In Illinois, I also talked to one patient, Mandy, who struggled to get her private health insurer to pay for her buprenorphine prescription. As a result, Mandy had to shell out more than $200 a month out of pocket--until, after a lengthy appeals process, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois finally agreed to pay up.
There are, of course, problems with insurance companies refusing to pay for what they're supposed to all the time, even outside the addiction space. But with addiction treatment, the problem is particularly bad, as demonstrated by the fact that these issues still surface time and time again even after the federal government and states passed laws effectively requiring insurers to cover addiction treatment.
At the core of each of these examples is the same problem: The health care system often isn't doing even the bare minimum for addiction treatment, because we haven't expected it to do anything about this issue--thanks to stigma and misconceptions--for as long as it has existed.
Once that expectation really changes, America will start to see notable progress in solving its opioid crisis. (Indeed, some of the states that saw declines in drug overdose deaths in 2017, like Vermont, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts, moved in this direction.) It's not going to be easy; policymaking is still hard, health care systems are complex, and how it all works on the ground can get messy.
But it's ultimately all rooted in a simple concept: approaching addiction treatment like any other form of health care.
Questions Using Close Reading and Critical Thinking:
- The first section of an article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" Identify the four Ws of this article. (Note: The rest of the news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- Does this article have any bias? Why or why not?
- What is the author's claim in this article?
- In argument writing, authors often use pathos--an emotional appeal where the author uses personal stories, specific word choice, tone, imagery, and figurative language--to make the audience feel a specific way about the topic. The paragraph below is an example of pathos. First, identify what the author is trying to make you feel in this paragraph. Second, explain how the author is using pathos to craft this paragraph to make you, the reader, feel this way.
Just think, for a moment, if this was true for another medical condition, like heart disease. Imagine a world in which 90 percent of Americans with heart problems are allowed to suffer and even die without any access to health care. Imagine that a person suffering a heart attack could go to an emergency room only to be told that the ER doesn't have any way to treat him. Imagine that the ER does have a way to help, but the patient who just had a heart attack will have to wait weeks or months to get into any care. Imagine if this patient went to a doctor's office for some care only to be told that the providers there don't see his kind. - Explain the difference between seeing addiction as a "moral failure" and as a medical condition.
- Identify one example of how the "moral failure" viewpoint impacts the treatment or response addicts receive, and explain how this treatment or response can negatively impact the opioid crisis.
- Did the author effectively support their claim in this article? Support your thinking with specific details from the text.
Click here to view more: www.vox.com/future-perfect/2018/12/26/18146336/opioid-epidemic-solutions-health-care-stigma
Posted December 18, 2018
How Trump Went From 'Tough On Crime' To 'Second Chance' For Felons
NPR
By Ayesha Rascoe
December 17, 2018
The Senate will begin considering a bill on Monday, December 17, that would reduce federal sentences for certain drug offenses and prepare prisoners for life after incarceration.
If the bill becomes law, a major reason will be the support it received from a surprising booster: President Trump.
Trump has made being "tough on crime" one of his calling cards. But, after months of a mostly behind-the-scenes campaign from some of his closest advisers, Trump threw his backing behind legislation that would roll back some of the stiff penalties enacted in response to the so-called "war on drugs."
Trump's endorsement of the Senate's First Step Act stands in stark contrast to some of the rhetoric he has employed while in office and marks a break with some of the policies enacted by his own Justice Department.
Among other things, the legislation would promote prison rehabilitation programs and end automatic life sentences under the three-strike penalty for certain felonies.
The president's first attorney general, Jeff Sessions, was a staunch opponent of any changes reducing federal sentencing for crimes.
Sessions rescinded Obama administration guidance that sought to shorten sentences for non-violent drug offenders. Instead, Sessions directed prosecutors to seek the toughest punishments allowed under the law.
With the U.S. facing a drug overdose epidemic, Trump, too, at times has argued that drug dealers are not punished enough. He has even talked about wanting to utilize the death penalty against drug traffickers.
"We are really going after the traffickers; I have always said that's the biggest thing," Trump said in August. "And, frankly, the punishment is getting stronger and stronger. Maybe, at some point, we'll get very smart as a nation and give them the ultimate punishment."
Advocates in his inner circle
So, how did Trump wind up coming out in favor of a bill aimed at giving a second chance to people who commit crime?
A major influence on his decision was his son-in-law and White House adviser Jared Kushner.
"This bill would have been dead on arrival without Jared Kushner," said David Safavian, who works for the American Conservative Union Foundation, which supports this new Senate legislation.
"He's been able to make the case to the president as to why this is good for neighborhoods, good for the economy, good for individuals and good for families," Safavian said.
Kushner, whose father served time in federal prison, has led the charge in the White House to make changes to the U.S. criminal justice system.
He found allies for this cause in conservative groups like Safavian's and among some of Trump's powerful evangelical supporters.
These groups and their progressive counterparts argue that unreasonably long sentences have clogged up U.S. prisons, costing taxpayer dollars without lowering crime rates.
At White House round table meetings, advocates like Shon Hopwood told Trump that there were better ways to crack down on crime.
Hopwood met with Trump earlier this year.
"What I told the president was... I committed a violent crime but I am not a violent criminal and that people can change," Hopwood said. "And the law should recognize that."
Hopwood is now a law professor at Georgetown University, but he spent nearly 11 years in prison for bank robbery. He says he thinks hearing stories like his made Trump look at prisoners differently.
The push to persuade Trump seems to have paid off.
After supporting a more limited bill in the House, last month Trump came out in favor of the more expansive Senate bill.
It also likely helped that Sessions was pushed out as attorney general in November.
Without Trump's endorsement, the bill almost certainly wouldn't have come up for a vote.
Safavian says unlike other politicians, Trump benefits from not having to worry about opponents painting him as "weak" on crime.
He describes the logic this way: "You know Donald Trump is tough on crime. Donald Trump endorses this bill -- therefore this bill is not soft on crime."
"Donald Trump advancing conservative criminal justice reform is analogous to as Nixon going to China -- only a Republican who's tough on crime could achieve the success that we are on the verge of reaching," Safavian added.
Even with Trump's support, the bill has faced intense criticism from Republicans like Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas. Cotton argues the bill "goes soft on some of the worst crimes" and that it will allow violent criminals out of prison early.
Backers of the bill dispute Cotton's arguments. They say it only allows for limited and strictly supervised release and that it only applies to prisoners who are not considered high risk.
But, even some of those that support the legislation, say that Trump's harsh language about crime and some of the actions by his administration are at odds with the bill's goals.
"This administration has a very mixed record on criminal justice reform," said Inimai Chettiar, of the Brennan Center for Justice, which has come out in favor of the First Step Act in the Senate.
Chettiar pointed to Sessions' reversal of the Obama era sentencing provisions as a harmful development under President Trump.
"They have been using extremely dangerous rhetoric around crime, particularly as it relates to immigration ... and also using a lot of 'war on drugs' rhetoric that not only is dangerous, but also those policies are just ineffective," she said.
Some on the left argue the Senate bill doesn't go far enough, though. They say it excludes a lot of people already in prison serving long sentences, who they believe should be offered some relief.
Breon Wells, a political strategist who advises activists on ending mass incarceration, says he's worried that Trump's mixed messages on crime may lead the Justice Department to not fully implement the law.
"Do we have good faith, long term, committed partners in this so that this first step doesn't become something where everyone pats themselves on the back... and then we don't revisit this for another five, 10 or even 20 years?" Wells said.
Questions Using Close Reading and Critical Thinking:
- The first section of an article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" Identify the four Ws of this article. (Note: The rest of the news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- Does this article have any bias? Why or why not?
- Trump is supporting the Senate's First Step Act, a new legislation proposed on Monday, December 17. What is the purpose of this act? What are three provisions stated in the article? For a more detailed explanation of these provisions, look here: https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2018/12/3/18122392/first-step-act-criminal-justice-reform-bill-congress.
- Due in part to the opioid epidemic, Trump stated that drug dealers should be severely punished and even referred to the death penalty for traffickers. He prided himself on being "tough on crime." Which close family member was instrumental in changing his mind, and what happened to this family member to make him be an advocate of the bill?
- Shon Hopwood informed the President that there are "better ways to crack down on crime." Who is Hopwood, and what role did he play in influencing Trump's decision?
- Based on Hopwood's story, do you feel non-violent drug offenders can change, given enough counseling and rehabilitation?
- Those in favor of this legislation have noted President Trump's change of heart and are concerned. Do you think legislators have legitimate reasons to be concerned? Why or why not?
- Do you think this bill will be effective? Write five to seven sentences on why you feel it will be effective or ineffective.
Click here to view more: www.npr.org/2018/12/17/676771335/how-trump-went-from-tough-on-crime-to-second-chance-for-felons
Posted December 11, 2018
Do you burn more calories exercising in the cold? Here's what the science says.
Vox
By Julia Belluz
DECEMBER 9, 2018
As the temperature drops this time of year, the rich, comforting foods of winter seem just right. But as we lay about, full from our heavy winter meals, we may also dream about how to quickly burn off those extra calories.
One idea that gets bandied about is that all you have to do is exercise outside in the cold. You can find it in magazines, newspapers, and maybe your email inbox--we recently got a press release from the University at Albany titled, "Winter Exercise Burns More Calories, Especially for Women."
It is true that a cold body uses more energy to keep itself warm than a warm body. But alas, exercising in the cold isn't the fabulous calorie burner you may like to think it is. Before we get to why, let's look at the reason this idea seems so intuitive and appealing.
The body does use more energy to stay warm when it's cold out
First consider a process called thermogenesis. Your body creates heat when it's cold (usually below 32 degrees Fahrenheit but in a person wearing light clothes, it can start at temperatures as high as 70).
One way is by shivering--where the muscles involuntary contract to generate warmth, and defend your body temperature (98.6 degrees Fahrenheit). Or you may begin to activate "brown fat," the kind of fat tissue whose main function is heat production. Unlike white fat, which stores heat to keep you warm, brown fat burns calories to generate heat.
"The analogy might be [an] oil tanker that drives on the highway compared to a sports car," explained Aaron Cypess, a metabolism and brown fat researcher at the National Institutes of Health. "They both have fuel, or fat, but the oil tanker stores it for use later, and that's the white fat. The sports car stores fuel to burn it, and that's the brown fat." The process of breaking down these lipids to release heat, and warm you up is called "non-shivering thermogenesis."
Both shivering and brown fat activity increase your energy expenditure, causing you to burn more calories in cold temperatures.
"You don't even know [it's] happening," explained Herman Pontzer, an associate professor at Hunter College who studies energetics. "It's below the radar of your conscious thought, but it's there ticking away."
Exercise can produce a lot of heat on its own
Now here's the rub: These processes only kick in to keep you warm when you're truly cold. But once you start exercising--running or cross-country skiing, for instance--outside, you're going to start generating heat from the physical activity. And the exercise alone may give you enough heat that your body wouldn't burn any extra calories through shivering and brown fat.
That's why you can go running in very cold temperatures wearing a light sweater and pants, but if you were just sitting around outside in the same cold climate, you'd need to bundle up in a heavy jacket and hat, or you'd start to shiver, to stay warm, Pontzer explained.
"The best way to use the cold to burn more calories would be to not exercise while you're outdoors," Pontzer added. "You'd get your brown fat cooking and making heat, and might even start shivering, all of which burns calories."
Now, it is possible to get those energy-burning heating processes going while exercising. Cypess imagined a scenario where a person is exercising in subzero temperatures, and wearing light enough clothes, that the exercise alone isn't keeping him warm, and thermogenesis kicks in.
But even in that case, you'd only burn a few additional calories at best, Cypess said. In studies where he's put participants in cold rooms for entire days, they burned off an additional 150 to 200 calories. Again, that's a full day of cold--not an hour's worth of outdoor activity.
All physical activity only accounts for a small portion of energy burn
Of course, the most important thing to remember if you're trying to make up for heavy meals is that physical activity makes up a surprisingly small portion of your total energy burn.
There are three major components to how many calories you burn off in a day: 1) your basal metabolic rate, or the energy used for basic functioning when the body is at rest; 2) the energy used to break down food; and 3) the energy used in physical activity. For most people, the basal metabolic rate accounts for 60 to 80 percent of total energy expenditure. Digesting food accounts for about 10 percent. That leaves only 10 to 30 percent for physical activity, of which exercise is only a subset. Thermogenesis is an even more minor player, Cypess said, usually accounting for less than five or 10 percent of your total energy expenditure (depending on how much time you've spent in the cold).
When I asked Cypess if he had any advice about exercising and temperature, he said he'd recommend against the extremes--even extreme heat. In very hot temperatures, during activities like hot yoga, all the sweating you do is simply losing water, and that the sweating process doesn't burn off extra calories. "Exercise at a temperature where you're not sweating too much," he summed up.
So if you overeat, the best thing to do is probably focus on having smaller meals later to make up for your indulgences. Exercising, even in cold weather, isn't going to cut it alone.
Questions Using Close Reading and Critical Thinking:
- The first section of an article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" Identify the four Ws of this article. (Note: The rest of the news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- Does this article have any bias? Why or why not?
- Reread the second paragraph. What do you think the phrase "bandied about" (in the first sentence) means? What clues from the paragraph helped you come to that conclusion?
- Summarize and explain what your body does in the cold that causes you to burn more calories.
- "Now here's the rub" is a transitional phrase (brought to us from Shakespeare's Hamlet). Look closely at the information presented before and after the phrase. What do you think it means? Name two other transition words or phrases that could have also been used here to effectively communicate the author's point.
- Why does Aaron Cypess advise against exercising in extreme temperatures?
- How is the information in the article organized (description, sequence/order, problem/solution, cause/effect, compare/contrast)? Do you think this organization was effective? Use specific details from the article to support your position.
Click here to view more: www.vox.com/2017/12/23/16774320/exercise-in-cold-burn-more-calories
Posted December 4, 2018
'Video game rehab' is just an excuse for lazy parents
NY Post
By Karol Markowicz
December 2, 2018
The kids are not alright, and parents are hoping someone else will do something about it. Last week, Bloomberg reported on parents seeking out rehab for children addicted to the popular video game Fortnite. One Michigan mom told of how her son had "been logging 12 hours a day on the video game."
This wasn't the first time Fortnite addiction created a stir. In June, there was a story out of the UK about a girl who had wet herself because she didn't want to stop playing the game. When her parents tried to take away her Xbox system, she hit her father in the face. Seemingly out of options, the parents sent their daughter to rehab to treat her video-game addiction.
That girl was 9 years old. The idea that her parents couldn't just force her to stop playing--by, say, taking away the video game console that they bought her--didn't seem to be entertained. She needed professional help.
"This game is like heroin," Lorrine Marer, a British behavioral specialist, told Bloomberg.
Except it isn't like heroin at all. There's no physical addiction, and, unlike with heroin, parents pay for the fix in the first place. You can smash the Xbox, and the addiction is over. Kids won't be able to snag another XBox on some shady corner.
Parents don't know how to parent anymore, and so they are glad to hand the reins over to someone else. Conscious of not wanting to be the dreaded "helicopter" parent, moms and dads seem to be moving dramatically in the other direction.
"Unparenting," or parenting without rules, was briefly a hip parenting ideology circa 2012. Now we are moving past even that into a new non-parenting style. Parents are washing their hands of parenting altogether.
It doesn't help that parents are frequently told that their parenting is all wrong. Last week The Washington Post featured an article about how "time-outs" don't work and can harm children. In fact, no punishment is appropriate, per the paper's reporter, who noted that "most experts agree that punishment is harmful to a child's emotional development."
A New York Times article in September urged parents to stop yelling at kids. "It doesn't make you look authoritative," parenting podcaster Stephen Marche wrote. "It makes you look out of control to your kids. It makes you look weak. And you're yelling, let's be honest, because you are weak. Yelling, even more than spanking, is the response of a person who doesn't know what else to do."
And a 2016 article in Good Housekeeping listed 50 phrases you should never say to your children, lest you damage their delicate psyches. Among them: "Don't do that." "You live under my roof, you follow my rules." But also: "You're so smart." "Great job."
If you're a parent, the "expert" consensus is apparently that you shouldn't speak at all. Instead, just nod approvingly at your child.
The inability to say what needs to be said to our children is taking a toll. We've been inundated with stories of parents who intervene on their child's behalf when they fail to make, say, a cheerleading squad. But sending the kid to video-game rehab is equally a distortion of true parenting.
In the cheerleading-tryouts case, parents cover up disappointments by forcing the squad to accept their children. The team will have to deal with having a weak member, while the parents get to skip the actual parenting part. It's easier than telling their kid to try harder or that maybe they should try some other field. Similarly, parents who send their children to Fortnite rehab are abdicating responsibility.
We think of bad parents as those who are abusive or neglectful of their children. But failing to actually parent is a problem, too. Kids need structure, they need rules and sometimes they need to be told "no."
Children don't emerge from the womb with a fully formed sense of right and wrong. They need a parent to tell them that they can't play video games all day--and then to enforce that. We're sabotaging our children by catering to their wants instead of their needs.
Instead of inventing "addictions" for which our children need rehab, let's disregard all the bad parenting advice and yell "Don't do that!" And let's put the kids in a time-out when they don't listen.
We know how to parent. We just need to actually do it.
Questions Using Close Reading and Critical Thinking:
- The first section of an article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" Identify the four Ws of this article. (Note: The rest of the news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- Does this article have any bias? Why or why not?
- Parents are struggling on how to address their kids playing video games for too long. One parent from Michigan stated her son was playing Fortnite 12 hours a day. A nine-year-old girl from the UK hit her father in the face when they tried to take away her Xbox. How would you address this issue?
- Bloomberg reported on parents who were sending their children to rehab for having an addiction to Fortnite. The parents of the young girl did just that. A British behavioral specialist, Lorrine Marer, stated that the game is like "heroin," but without the physical dependency. Do you agree or disagree with her? Do you feel videogame addiction is real and that children need professional help? Why or why not?
- Within the article, it says our society is transitioning into one focused on non-parenting, or not parenting at all. Do you think this ideology is becoming more common in today's society? Why or why not?
- Parents are often attacked for their parenting styles, especially when it comes to how they punish their children. Citing specific examples from the article, how are parents being criticized for their parenting? What are they doing "wrong"?
- If you play video games, how long do you play every day? Are you concerned you play them too much?
Click here to view more: nypost.com/2018/12/02/video-game-rehab-is-just-an-excuse-for-lazy-parents/
Posted November 27, 2018
Canned cranberry sauce, explained
Let us give thanks for a controversial American tradition.
Vox
By Rachel Sugar
NOVEMBER 21, 2018
On Thanksgiving dinner tables across America, chances are there'll be platters of perfect, glistening garnet rounds, the ridges from the can still visible along their perfect, glistening garnet sides.
This is jellied cranberry sauce. It is an American tradition. Like so many American traditions, including Thanksgiving itself, its existence is controversial. It is a feat of engineering. It is a culinary wonder. It is an abomination, some say, slandering the cranberry's good name.
It is also confusing, a substance that defies easy categorization. What is this gelatinous, artificially sweetened tube, jiggling out of the can, still can-shaped? And why, given its relative triviality--it is eaten a handful of times a year, at most, and costs less than $1.50--does it inspire such strong feelings, uniting enemies and dividing friends?
What is jellied cranberry sauce, and is it sauce?
No. Also yes. By any standard definition of the category, jellied cranberry sauce would not qualify as "sauce." A sauce, according to What's Cooking America, the nation's "most trusted culinary resource since 1997" (according to itself), is a "liquid or semi-liquid [food] devised to make other foods look, smell, and taste better, and hence be more easily digested and more beneficial." Wikipedia, my personal most trusted culinary resource, agrees that "sauces are not normally consumed by themselves," and that a liquid component is essential.
Jellied cranberry sauce--that majestic, jiggling store-bought log--does not meet these criteria: Clearly, it is a solid. In fact, one of its primary features is that it does not bleed, unwanted, into other elements of a meal. This is because it is a solid, which, by crowdsourced definition, disqualifies it from true sauce-hood, while also differentiating it from its purer sibling: whole cranberry sauce.
Whole cranberry sauce is what you'd most likely make, were you to follow the recipe on the back of a bag of whole cranberries, though it can also be purchased in a can. Unlike the jiggling cranberry towers, the whole-berry version can be spooned out, sauce-like, over other elements of the meal. It is the whole-berry version that is "cranberry sauce." The jellied cylinder qualifies as sauce only by relation, like a legacy applicant at Yale.
Yet it is beloved--not as a sauce, exactly, but as a food group of its own. Indeed, it is so different from the whole-berry version that many Thanksgiving hosts serve both, in two separate dishes, side by side. And deep down, they are not so different after all: Whole cranberry sauce indeed involves whole berries. Jellied cranberry sauce goes through much the same process, but it is heavily strained, removing elements of nature--skin, seeds--that would impede its perfect silken texture.
Where did it come from?
The history of cranberry sauce--in general, not jellied--goes back to indigenous people, who gathered the wild berries, using them for all sorts of things: textile dyes, medicines, cooking. According to the Washington Post, a report from the colonies, circa 1672, reported that "Indians and English use it much, boyling them with Sugar for a Sauce to eat with their Meat," though it did not come into fashion as a turkey-specific accompaniment until more than 100 years later.
In Amelia Simmons's 1796 tome, American Cookery, she suggests serving roast turkey with "boiled onions and cranberry sauce." (As an alternative, the Post notes, she proposed pickled mangoes.) But it did not become a requirement of Thanksgiving dinners until General Ulysses S. Grant served it, alongside designated Thanksgiving turkey, to Union soldiers during the siege of Petersburg in 1864.
"That sort of solidifies its place as part of Thanksgiving nationally," Kellyanne Dignan, director of global affairs for Ocean Spray, tells me. Cranberries themselves, she points out, only grow in five states, even now: Wisconsin grows the most, followed by Massachusetts, New Jersey, Oregon, and Washington state. (Also, British Columbia and Quebec.)
All of that is only context for what happened less than 50 years later: the introduction of canned jellied cranberry sauce, a testament to the possibilities of American ingenuity.
Cranberries are delicate fruits. They are "picky when it comes to growing conditions," explains K. Annabelle Smith at Smithsonian.com. "Because they are traditionally grown in natural wetlands, they need a lot of water. During the long, cold winter months, they also require a period of dormancy which rules out any southern region of the US as an option for cranberry farming." This reality put a cap on possibilities of the cranberry market: There are only so many cold-weather bogs to go around.
Then in the very early 1910s, Marcus Urann, a lawyer who abandoned his first career to buy a cranberry bog--and would go on to become one of the founders of what would become Ocean Spray--began canning the stuff as a way to sell the seasonal berry year-round. The cranberry harvest lasts six weeks, Robert Cox, a co-author of Massachusetts Cranberry Culture: A History from Bog to Table, told Smithsonian. "Before canning technology, the product had to be consumed immediately and the rest of the year there was almost no market." Then suddenly, there was.
The jellied log became available nationwide in 1941. Thanksgiving history was forever changed. Ocean Spray, currently the world's largest grower of cranberries, sells roughly 80 percent of its jellied sauce for the year Thanksgiving week. (There are also miniature peaks around Christmas, Easter, and the Super Bowl, thanks to a cult recipe for "Ultimate Party Meatballs.")
Americans love buying jellied cranberry sauce
Ocean Spray makes 70 million cans of jellied cranberry sauce, which Dignan observes amounts to one for every American family. It is wildly more popular than canned whole-berry sauce; three cans of jellied are sold for every one can of whole-berry. Every jellied can requires 220 cranberries.
"What's interesting about cranberry sauce is that three-quarters of Americans use store-bought sauce for their Thanksgiving," Dignan muses. "It really is the only thing on the table that the majority of people don't just buy but want to buy."
Making your own cranberry sauce is much easier than roasting your own turkey, or making your own stuffing, or baking your own pie. It is arguably even easier than throwing together your own salad, which is apparently how people celebrate, healthfully, on the West Coast. It takes 15 minutes, some sugar, and a saucepan. Yet it is our favorite thing to buy.
Here is Chris Cillizza of CNN, weighing in with passion:
Wesley Lowery of the Washington Post agrees, as does, apparently, Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown.
Nowhere is this is truer than in the southeastern United States, where they grow no cranberries at all. The biggest state for canned cranberry sauce consumption is Georgia, and while she cannot exactly explain this, it has, Dignan says, always been true.
In an age where processed food is in decline, one might imagine that canned cranberry sauce would be struggling. But according to Dignan, it is not. Seventy-six percent of people buy the stuff. "I wouldn't say cranberry sauce is something that's expanding in terms of our portfolio--we're not seeing tons of year over year growth," she says, but sales are "amazingly steady."
"I think there's a nostalgia to it," she suggests. "There's something about taking it out of the can and sort of that noise it makes and slicing it and it's very uniquely American." They don't even sell canned cranberry sauce overseas, she says; they package it like a spread, in glass jars.
The appeal is in its timelessness. "There's something about the fact that it hasn't changed much. Even if someone doesn't eat anything out of a can the whole rest of the year, I think, for some reason, cranberry sauce really speaks to them," she says. She is not alone in her assessment of the non-sauce sauce's appeal.
"How can you beat the tangy, sweet flavor of store-bought cranberry sauce," said one taste tester at Bon Appétit. At Fortune, Clifton Leaf vigorously defended the "jiggly, wiggly mold of tartness." The jellied slices, he wrote, go "down easy, like a slippery jam, potent with berry flavor and a whiff of history."
Are there dissenters? Of course. As there should be. This is America. "The wobbly crimson substance added nothing to my Thanksgiving enjoyment, unlike my mother's lemon-zested, multi-spiced version," lamented Gwen Ihnat at the Takeout. "Once you take the time to make a fresh cranberry or lingonberry jam in its place, you'll never go back," Jim Stein, executive chef at McCrady's, told Food & Wine, proposing instead a version with "fresh lingonberries cooked down in a little bit of sugar, cinnamon, star anise, and orange juice/zest." (Dissenters love to zest.)
The exquisite beauty of the great jellied cranberry debate is that unlike many divisions--between families, between nations--it does not matter. Celebrate your freedom. Dance like no one's watching; love like you've never been hurt; eat your cranberries in the gelatinous form of your choice.
Questions Using Close Reading and Critical Thinking:
- The first section of an article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" Identify the four Ws of this article. (Note: The rest of the news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- Does this article have any bias? Why or why not?
- What is the purpose of this article? How does the title and subtitle of the article communicate that to the reader?
- Describe the overall tone of this article, and include specific details or quotes to support your description.
- What literary device is used in the opening paragraphs of the article? Why do you think the author, Rachel Sugar, chose to begin her article this way? In your opinion, was the use of this literary device effective for her purpose for writing?
- Voice is the individual style and personality in which an author writes. What do you notice about Rachel Sugar's voice in this piece? Use specific quotes from the article in your explanation of Sugar's voice.
- Creative writing: Reread the opening sentence:
On Thanksgiving dinner tables across America, chances are there'll be platters of perfect, glistening garnet rounds, the ridges from the can still visible along their perfect, glistening garnet sides.
Create your own vivid description of a Thanksgiving food by using the first part of the article's opening line as a sentence starter. Use strong adjectives to paint a picture of the food you are describing without ever naming the food.
On Thanksgiving dinner tables across America, chances are there'll be platters of perfect, ____________________________.
Click here to view more: www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/11/21/18105316/canned-jellied-cranberry-sauce-ocean-spray
Posted November 13, 2018
Death toll hits 31, hundreds missing in record-breaking California wildfires
The latest fatalities brought the statewide death toll to 31, after the Woolsey Fire in Southern California killed two people.
NBC News
By Tim Stelloh
November 11th, 2018
(NBC) Deadly wildfires burning across Northern and Southern California have killed a total of 31 people across the state and forced the evacuation of hundreds of thousands.
The grim discovery of the remains of six people in the Northern California town of Paradise brought the total number of deaths related to the Camp Fire to 29, matching the deadliest fire in state history, authorities said Sunday.
Five bodies in Paradise were found in homes and one was found in a vehicle, Butte County Sheriff Kory L. Honea told reporters.
The Camp Fire, believed to be the most destructive in state history, has burned more than 6,000 homes and scorched 111,000 acres, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire.
More than 200 people were still unaccounted for after the fire, Honea said, though many of the missing may be in shelters and unable to contact loved ones who reported them to authorities.
Twenty-nine people also died in the Griffith Park Fire of 1933, according to Cal Fire.
"We drove out of the clouds into the sunshine and could see flames on ridge, consuming everything it was touching," said Joanna Garcia, who quickly fled the fire with her family on Thursday.
"You never think you're going to get out of those flames," she added.
The Woolsey Fire in Southern California also was burning Sunday across 85,000 acres--from Thousand Oaks, a city still reeling from a mass shooting that left 12 people dead last week, to the wealthy coastal enclave of Malibu. It was only 15 percent contained on Sunday evening.
In addition to killing two people, the fire threatened nearly 60,000 structures and forced the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of residents, officials said. On Sunday afternoon, Calabasas, a city of 24,000, sent out a mandatory evacuation order. In some areas of Thousand Oaks, evacuation orders were lifted and residents allowed back to their homes.
Celebrity homes were among the 177 structures destroyed by the blaze. Actor Gerard Butler posted a photo of his burnt out home in Malibu on social media, calling this a "heartbreaking time across California."
But there was a sliver of good news: After the return on Sunday of hot, dry Santa Ana winds--which blow toward the Southern California coast from the desert, fanning wildfires--fire officials said there were no new reports of burned buildings. And firefighters were able to contain flare-ups in blustery canyons.
"Today was very challenging, but we've had huge successes," Los Angeles County Fire Chief Daryl Osby told reporters on Sunday afternoon.
Still, vast swaths of the state remained under a red flag warning, a designation used by the National Weather Service to indicate ideal wildland fire conditions. Nearly 150,000 people remained under mandatory evacuation orders across the state as of Sunday afternoon, said Mark Ghilarducci, director of the California Office of Emergency Services.
With 40 mph winds forecast in Southern California through Tuesday, more evacuations were possible, Ventura County Sheriff's Sergeant Eric Bouche said.
Similar wind conditions were also forecast across much of Northern California through Monday, according to the National Weather Service.
The Camp Fire began early Thursday morning and quickly roared through the town of Paradise, population roughly 26,000 people, in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains.
Nichole Jolly, a surgical nurse at Adventist Health Feather River Hospital, recalled beginning her work day like any other--then getting an immediate evacuation order roughly an hour later and scrambling to escape town alive.
With flames on either side of her car--and a cab filling with smoke--she said she ditched the vehicle.
"I called my husband and screamed," said Jolly, 34. "I said, 'I think I'm gonna die. Tell the kids I love them. I'm not gonna make it home.'"
With her shoes melting and her throat burning, Jolly stumbled across a fire truck and banged on the door.
"Two [firemen] jump out of the truck, extinguish my pants, put me in the fire engine, wrapped me in a blanket and said: 'Brace yourself we might not make it,'" she said.
Mayor Jody Jones said that 80 to 90 percent of people in Paradise's residential areas lost their homes.
Authorities said that many of the bodies were recovered inside homes or found in cars overcome by flames. NBC affiliate KCRA reported that a mobile DNA lab and anthropologists were asked to help identify the dead.
Cal Fire said it doesn't expect to have the fire, which was 25 percent contained on Sunday, fully under control until the end of the month.
In Southern California, firefighters had mostly hemmed in one other potentially dangerous blaze--the Hill Fire, which forced evacuations in Ventura Country and destroyed two buildings.
That blaze also ignited on Thursday and tore through mobile homes and mansions as it quickly spread, NBC Los Angeles reported. Two people found dead inside a vehicle on Mulholland Drive may have died after the driver became disoriented and the vehicle was engulfed in flames, Los Angeles County sheriff's Commander Scott Gage said.
The fires follow years of drought and increasingly deadly and destructive fire seasons. Fire officials and climate scientists have, in part, attributed those fires to climate change, saying the state's fire season may now be year-round.
California Gov. Jerry Brown stressed this during a news conference on Sunday night, calling this extended period of fire danger a "new abnormal."
"This new abnormal will continue certainly into the next, 10 to 15 to 20 years," he said. "And unfortunately, the best science is telling us that dryness, warmth, drought--all those things are going to intensify."
Questions Using Close Reading and Critical Thinking:
- The first section of an article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" Identify the four Ws of this article. (Note: The rest of the news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- Does this article have any bias? Why or why not?
- With 31 deaths so far, California's Camp Fire is deemed the most vicious in the history of the state. What other fire is closest to Camp Fire for the deadliest fire in California? When did it take place? Why do you think there is a long time gap since the previous one?
- A nurse at Adventist Health Feather River Hospital, Nichole Jolly, received an immediate evaluation order an hour after arriving to work. It appears from her story she may not have had sufficient time to evacuate. What could she have done to better prepare herself in this situation? Also, most of the deceased were discovered in homes or in their cars. Do you feel residents have enough time to leave when given the mandatory evacuation orders? What can authorities do to help citizens evacuate safely?
- Cal Fire stated that 25% of the fire is now controlled, but it won't be fully contained until the end of November. What strategies do firemen have to contain such large wildfires? Look at the top 10 list at http://mentalfloss.com/article/57094/10-strategies-fighting-wildfires. Write down five strategies that you feel would be the most effective.
- What is the cause of most fires, and how do they spread so quickly? Write 8-10 sentences. Look online if you need more help in answering this question.
- Navigate to the end of the article. Scientists attribute the increase in fires to what weather pattern? California Governor Jerry Brown called these prolonged fires a "new abnormal" that will result in an increase in "dryness, warmth, and drought." Do you think the "new abnormal" and this weather pattern are related? If so, how?
Click here to view more: www.nbcnews.com/storyline/western-wildfires/firefighters-battle-deadly-california-blazes-powerful-winds-return-n934996
Posted November 06, 2018
How Starbucks's annual holiday cup became a battleground for the heart and soul of America
Vox.com
by Rachel Sugar
NOVEMBER 2, 2018
It's November, which means Starbucks has officially unveiled this year's "holiday cups"--a lineup of four festive (but not too festive!) disposable options and one reusable cup, which is plain red.
Here they are.
Will people be mad? Let's discuss.
As the press release for the occasion explains, the four cup designs are meant to capture the two-decade history of the holiday Starbucks cup, first introduced in 1997. In the spirit of nostalgia, the company "snipped pieces from Starbucks holidays past" for this year's cups, adding "doses of vintage colors and patterns ... and reinterpreted them with graphic flair, and a dash [of] glitter and shine."
The argyle green star cup--"Stargyle"--alludes to an illustration of "a couple reaching up to place a star atop a holiday tree from Christmas Blend 1999." The "Stripes" cup is intended to tastefully evoke the extremely controversial ("iconic") red cup, while also referencing the sealed seam that runs along the back of Starbucks coffee bags.
The "Flora" version features holly-esque "ripe coffee cherries," also featured on the holiday cups of 2013 and 2017, and the red-and-white "Espresso Houndstooth" has something to do with how the brand's Christmas Blend Espresso Roast coffee is dark and rich and so is the pattern of houndstooth, which is likewise seasonal, because it looks like flames. (I'm paraphrasing here.)
They're fine cups! The cup critics at Refinery29, in fact, deemed them "the best we've seen in years." They are extremely tasteful, in a very safe sort of way: pleasantly abstract; very Christmassy, but without much of the more heavy-handed iconography of Christmas--they're ripe coffee cherries, okay?--and evocative of simpler times, like 1997.
The real notable thing here is not these particular cups themselves; it is that the holiday Starbucks cup has become so culturally loaded that this is a story at all. And that speaks to a bizarre fact of modern life: Starbucks is no longer just a coffee chain. It's become--improbably, and at least partially by accident--a barometer of our national values.
Since at least 2015, the holiday Starbucks cup has become a battleground in a one-sided fight over American values.
For the first 18 years, the holiday cups featured what the brand called "symbols of the season," including but not limited to: holly, snowflakes, stockings/ice skates, reindeer, Christmas trees, Christmas lights, Christmas ornaments, and doves. With the exception of the first two years, all the cup were shades of red.
But in 2015, the brand debuted a two-tone ombré cup--the top part was "poppy red," fading into a more soulful "cranberry"--without any seasonal symbols at all. "In the past, we have told stories with our holiday cup designs," said Jeffrey Fields, Starbucks's VP of design and content, in that year's cup statement. "This year we wanted to usher in the holidays with a purity of design that welcomes all of our stories."
We can call this an ideological decision, or just a business one: Starbucks knows who its audience is, and it knows that audience is increasingly diverse.
In response to this minimalist cup, conservative Christian internet evangelist Joshua Feuerstein launched a counter-war on Starbucks, striking back at what he perceived to be their cup-based "war on Christmas."
In a video titled "Starbucks REMOVED CHRISTMAS from their cups because they hate Jesus ... SO I PRANKED THEM ... and they HATE IT!!!!," he outlined his complaint. "Do you realize that Starbucks wanted to take Christ and Christmas off of their brand new cups? That's why they're just plain red. In fact, do you realize that Starbucks isn't allowed to say 'Merry Christmas' to customers?" (The prank was that he told a barista his name was "Merry Christmas" so that they'd have to write it on the cup.)
It's worth noting here that while [the] 2015 cup was far more minimal than previous incarnations, no Starbucks cup has ever featured Jesus. Also, the cup was ombré.
As of a New York Times dispatch from the cup front in 2017, the video had been viewed more than 17 million times.
Other conservatives soon amplified Feuerstein's sentiments. Donald Trump, then a long-shot presidential candidate, used the cups as an example of the so-called "war on Christmas," a battle that has supposedly been raging since the Puritans banned celebrations of the holiday in the 17th century, but really took off in 2005 when Fox News promoted a book alleging what the New York Times describes as "liberal antagonism toward the holiday."
Mainly, this takes the form of advocating for a more inclusive society that acknowledges both the separation of church and state and the reality that non-Christian Americans exist. To some conservatives, though, the phrase has become shorthand for deep anxieties about a changing country.
In other words: The cup was an issue Trump hoped would activate his base. "I have one of the most successful Starbucks, in Trump Tower. Maybe we should boycott Starbucks?" he suggested at a November 2015 rally in Illinois. "I don't know. Seriously, I don't care. That's the end of that lease, but who cares?" Indeed. Who does care about this cup?
As Vox's Alex Abad-Santos wrote, the cup became a source of outrage in large part because performative outrage does well on the internet. "On social media, yelling about what we don't like defines us as much as the things we do like," he said, pointing out that the red cup controversy had the unfortunate side effect of flattening all Christians--a large and varied group, most of whom were not incensed about the comparative religiosity of Starbucks cups--into a monolith with Feuerstein.
Starbucks quickly released a statement explaining the cup was about simplicity, not purging the existence of Christmas from the record. "Starbucks has become a place of sanctuary during the holidays," Fields said in a statement, and while he did not mention Feuerstein's concerns specifically, he did take the opportunity to affirm that "creating a culture of belonging, inclusion and diversity is one of the core values of Starbucks."
(Despite the howls of outrage, sales that year were just fine, suggesting either that the anger was mostly for show--or that the angry weren't buying Starbucks in the first place.)
The next year, the company's holiday offering comprised 13 red-and-white cups designed by customers: 13 women from six countries. "We hope that this year's red holiday cup designs express the shared spirit of the holidays as told by our customers," Starbucks's global chief marketing officer announced in that year's statement.
And who could be mad? It was just a few extremely artistic women from around the world, sharing their personal vision of holiday cheer. (Feuerstein, as it happens, was also much happier with these cups, taking them as evidence that Christmas and the country had been "saved.")
People just keep getting mad about holiday Starbucks cups!
But the calm was not to last: In 2017, the Starbucks cup once again became an object of controversy, even though it was unequivocally Christmas-forward, featuring a Christmas tree and a stack of (Christmas) presents and (Christmas) ornaments. It was supposed to be an interactive cup--the promo video for the cup encouraged customers to draw on it, like an inconveniently shaped adult coloring book.
Here was the issue: The cup also featured two arms holding hands, and it wasn't clear, from the image, what gender of bodies the hands belonged to. It seemed possible that the hands were, in the delighted words of BuzzFeed, "definitely gay, right?"
Once BuzzFeed brought the question, already circulating on social media, to public attention, it didn't take long for some Starbucks critics to pick up the mantle they'd temporarily abandoned, suggesting that the cups were promoting a "gay agenda."
The backlash this time was far more muted--except for a few people on social media, it's not clear how many people were genuinely upset about it. (Even the conservative website the Blaze noted that there were more people mocking the outrage than actual outrage.) But it was a news event anyway, mostly because it fit a well-established narrative that placed Starbucks once again at the center of the culture wars.
It's not a coincidence that this played out at Starbucks.
The Starbucks brand has become synonymous with a certain kind of liberal who lives in a city and drives a Volvo and has $5 to spend on lattes. At the breakfast-centric website Extra Crispy, Hanson O'Haver breaks down the mechanics of the link between liberals and Starbucks. "Of course, there is cafe culture's long association with that most liberal of places, Europe," he observed, noting that while the drinks aren't necessarily all that continental, the menu "offers plenty of funny-sounding foreign words."
He also pointed to the Seattle-based chain's coastal roots: "To some conservatives, Starbucks is a force of liberal imperialism, invading their towns, misspelling their names, and suggesting they talk about diversity."
And in some ways, that is not entirely divorced from reality, even if Starbucks's attempts to build coffee-centered dialogue about race have not been ... entirely successful. Former CEO Howard Schultz has not been shy about his own politics. Writing about the cup controversies in 2016, the Washington Post's Maura Judkis broke down Schultz's more outspoken political moments:
In 2013, he requested that customers not bring guns to his stores, even in states where "open carry" is permitted. He launched "Race Together," a widely mocked attempt to start a conversation about race in stores. He endorsed Hillary Clinton for president. And just before the election, Starbucks released a green cup with an illustration of more than 100 people drawn with one continuous line--"a symbol of unity as a reminder of our shared values, and the need to be good to each other," Schultz said in a news release. People thought it was the holiday cup, and a mass freakout ensued. Schultz, by the way, was raised Jewish.
In response to Trump's travel ban in 2017, Schultz announced plans to hire 10,000 refugees over five years across the 75 countries where the company does business. After a Philadelphia Starbucks employee called the police on two black men for doing nothing, Schultz said he was "ashamed" and "embarrassed" by the incident, and the company introduced an afternoon-long racial bias training program. (Whether such programs have any effect is a separate issue.)
As Judkis points out, people could be mad at a lot of other companies with left-leaning CEOs, but Starbucks draws special ire--in part because we have a lot of practice getting mad at Starbucks. "The stage has almost been set, for not only consumers, but also media to be sensitive to what Starbucks has done, perhaps more than other brands," Derek Rucker, a marketing professor at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management, told the Post. And as the company has grown beyond the coasts, it's had to deal with an increasingly politically diverse customer base.
So if people are going to be mad about a holiday-themed paper coffee cup, it makes sense that it would be Starbucks's holiday-themed paper cup.
Why do we care what Starbucks does with its holiday paper coffee cups to begin with?
As Miranda Popkey pointed out at Extra Crispy, Feuerstein didn't call for a boycott of Starbucks; he called for a "movement." That's telling. "These protests treat the coffee chain as neither a product nor a company, but as a kind of public forum," she wrote.
And they aren't wrong, exactly. Starbucks has worked very hard to brand itself as a "third place." In Starbucks's ideal vision of the world, there are three places in your life: home, work, and Starbucks. Of those, only Starbucks is public space. "In the 19th century, townsfolk gathered around the cracker barrel," Popkey wrote. "In the 20th, office workers flocked to the water cooler; in the 21st, we check our phones in line at Starbucks."
The size and ubiquity of Starbucks--as of 2017, there were 13,930 Starbucks locations in the US--makes it seem, in some way, representative of our collective societal values. So when our corporatized moral barometer makes any kind of change, it seems meaningful, not just about who Starbucks is but about who we are as Americans. This only speaks to Starbucks's incredible success: It's more than a public forum; it's the site of our national identity.
The trouble is that we can't decide what that identity is. As the New York Times pointed out, it's likely not a coincidence that the initial red cup brouhaha bubbled up during the 2016 presidential campaign, as "political and social tensions heightened in many areas of American life."
By that logic, Starbucks should be bracing itself; it's not as though "political and social tensions" have simmered down since the 2016 election. But while this year's holiday cups have only been out one day, people seem relatively unconcerned about them so far.
Perhaps the holiday cup fury has burned itself out. Or maybe--more grimly--it's just that the anger once directed toward Starbucks cups is now playing out, at a fever pitch, in every other sphere of American existence.
Questions Using Close Reading and Critical Thinking:
- The first section of an article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" Identify the four Ws of this article. (Note: The rest of the news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- Does this article have any bias? Why or why not?
- In the beginning of the article, the author states that "Starbucks is no longer just a coffee chain. It's become--improbably, and at least partially by accident--a barometer of our national values." What is a "barometer"? What does it mean in this context?
- Describe the 2015 cup design that was so controversial. What did Jeffrey Fields, the VP of Starbucks, have to say about the design? What was the reaction from Joshua Feuerstein, a conservative Christian evangelist on the internet? What impact did the outrage over the 2015 cup have on the company?
- Describe the 2017 cup design and the controversy around it. Why would the author of the article say that this "placed Starbucks once again at the center of the culture wars"?
- Summarize the author's explanation of why people care about Starbucks' holiday cups.
- There is an old saying that "all publicity is good publicity." What do you think that saying means? Do you think that it is true for a company like Starbucks? Explain and support your thinking with details from the article.
Click here to view more: www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/11/2/18052550/starbucks-holiday-cup-explained-2018-controversies
Posted October 30, 2018
Pittsburgh synagogue gunman said he wanted all Jews to die, criminal complaint says
CNN
By Nicole Chavez, Emanuella Grinberg, and Eliott C. McLaughline
October 29, 2018
(CNN) The American Jewish community is in mourning after a gunman killed 11 worshippers Saturday morning in a Pittsburgh synagogue in the deadliest attack ever on Jews in the United States.
Jewish organizations said the violence at Tree of Life synagogue underscored the dangers of unchecked hatred in a time when anti-Semitic acts are on the rise.
According to law enforcement, suspect Robert Bowers targeted Jews online and made anti-Semitic comments during the shooting. While receiving medical care, he told a SWAT officer that he wanted all Jews to die, according to a criminal complaint.
Bowers, whom authorities believe acted alone, faces 29 federal charges, some of which are punishable by death. The US attorney in Pittsburgh, Scott Brady, is seeking approval from Attorney General Jeff Sessions to seek the death penalty against Bowers, according to a Justice Department spokesman.
Bowers is scheduled to make his first court appearance on Monday afternoon.
The shooting struck the heart of Pittsburgh's historically Jewish Squirrel Hill neighborhood and reverberated across the United States, closing out a week of traumatic events with common roots in hate. President Donald Trump ordered flags flown at half-staff in honor of the victims.
On Sunday, visiting dignitaries joined community leaders, politicians and residents of the metropolitan Pittsburgh area at the University of Pittsburgh for an interfaith service. They pledged to support the community and fight hate speech.
"We will drive anti-Semitism and the hate of any people back to the basement, on their computer, and away from the open discussions and dialogues around this city, around this state and around this country," Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto said.
A trail of hate leads to suspect
Sunday's vigil, the second since the Saturday morning shooting, came as a fuller picture began to emerge of the suspect. The 46-year-old resident of suburban Baldwin was taken into custody after a shootout with police. He is being treated in a hospital for gunshot wounds.
"They're committing genocide to my people," Bowers told police during the shootout, according to an FBI affidavit. "I just want to kill Jews."
Investigators searched Bowers' home with a robot on Saturday and searched his vehicle on Sunday, the FBI said. They're looking for surveillance footage from the area that could provide clues.
For weeks before the shooting, Bowers targeted Jews in frequent posts on Gab, a social media platform that bills itself as "the free speech social network." He used anti-Semitic slurs, complained that President Donald Trump was surrounded by too many Jewish people and blamed Jews for helping migrant caravans in Central America.
He also posted pictures of his handgun collection. Bowers has 21 guns registered to his name, said Rep. Mike Doyle, whose district includes Squirrel Hill.
Four hours before the shooting, Bowers posted about Trump. Minutes before storming inside the building, he logged onto Gab again and wrote to his followers.
"I can't sit by and watch my people get slaughtered," he wrote. "Screw your optics, I'm going in."
Gab denied supporting violence and said its mission is "to defend free expression and individual liberty online for all people." Gab said it has backed up the suspect's profile data, suspended the account and contacted the FBI.
The victims have been identified
Robert Jones, the FBI special agent in charge of the Pittsburgh office, called the shooting "the most horrific crime scene" he'd witnessed in 22 years with bureau. It began as a peaceful morning as dozens of people filed inside the building to celebrate Shabbat services with three congregations, Tree of Life, Dor Hadash and New Light.
Rabbi Hazzan Jeffrey Myers with Tree of Life said the shooting began shortly after he started services at 9:45 a.m.
"My holy place has been defiled," he said at Sunday's service. He vowed to rebuild his congregation and called on those in the audience to do their part.
"Words of hate are unwelcome in Pittsburgh. It starts with everyone in this room, and I want to address for a moment some of our political leaders who are here. Ladies and gentlemen, it has to start with you as our leaders," he said to a standing ovation.
"My words are not intended as political fodder, I address all equally. Stop the words of hate."
Authorities on Sunday released the names of the 11 victims, all of whom were from Pennsylvania. They included a married couple, a pair of brothers and a beloved physician.
Joyce Fienberg, 75, Rose Mallinger, 97, Jerry Rabinowitz, 66, Cecil Rosenthal, 59, David Rosenthal, 54, Daniel Stein, 71, Melvin Wax, 88, and Irving Younger, 69, were from Pittsburgh. Richard Gottfried, 65, was from Ross Township and Bernice Simon, 84, and Sylvan Simon, 86, were from Wilkinsburg, Allegheny County Chief Medical Examiner Karl Williams said.
The Allegheny County medical examiner's office said late Sunday that autopsies had been completed on the victims and all 11 died from rifle wounds with several suffering head wounds.
Six more people were injured: two police officers, two SWAT officers and two others, Pittsburgh Public Safety Director Wendell Hissrich said. Bowers shot three of them, authorities said.
Five people were hospitalized, including the four officers. Two were in critical condition: a 55-year-old man with multiple injuries to his extremities, and a 70-year-old man with gunshot wounds to the torso.
One officer was released Saturday and three remain in the hospital. All four were "in good spirits" when visited by a union representative on Saturday, said Robert Swartzwelder, president of the Pittsburgh Fraternal Order of Police.
Shootout ends in surrender
Squirrel Hill residents heard screams and gunshots coming from the synagogue. In minutes, police officers in tactical gear arrived and urged them to stay indoors.
Police said they received 911 calls about an active shooter around 10 a.m., five minutes after Bowers made his last social media post. When officers entered the building, they found the victims' bodies and survivors hiding. They rescued at least two people from the basement and scrambled to evacuate people as they looked for the gunman.
Two officers encountered the gunman as he was attempting to leave the building, according to a criminal complaint. The gunman fired at them, shooting one officer in the hand before fleeing back inside the synagogue. The other officer suffered several cuts to his face from shrapnel and broken glass.
SWAT officers found Bowers on the third floor of the building and exchanged gunfire with him until he surrendered, authorities said. Two SWAT officers were injured in the gunfight, along with Bowers.
Bowers used a Colt AR-15 rifle and three Glock .357 handguns during the attack, police said. Bowers legally purchased the three Glock .357s, a law enforcement official familiar with the investigation told CNN. It's not clear whether the AR-15 was purchased legally.
In addition to those four guns, investigators recovered a shotgun in the alleged shooter's car that was not used in the shooting, Doyle said, referencing information he learned from law enforcement briefings.
Suspect could face the death penalty
Bowers faces at least 29 federal charges, including 11 counts of obstruction of exercise of religious beliefs resulting in death, plus 11 counts of using a firearm to commit murder. A conviction on any could be punishable by death, US Attorney Brady said.
When asked if the shooting could be considered an instance of domestic terrorism, Brady said there would need to be evidence the suspect tried to propagate a particular ideology through violence.
"We continue to see where that line is. But for now, at this point in our investigation, we're treating it as a hate crime."
In the shootout with police, Bowers also faces four counts of obstruction of exercise of religious beliefs resulting in bodily injury to a public safety officer, and three counts of use and discharge of a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence.
He was also charged with 11 state offenses, including attempted homicide and aggravated assault.
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum said the shooting is a reminder of "all the dangers of unchecked hatred and anti-Semitism, which must be confronted wherever they appear."
In 2017, anti-Semitic incidents in the United States surged nearly 60%, according to the Anti-Defamation League. It found 1,986 cases of harassment, vandalism or physical assault against Jews and Jewish institutions last year.
The shooting drew sympathy from the Israeli government and its people. Mourners staged makeshift memorials in Jerusalem's Zion Square and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke on the phone with Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf on Sunday to express his condolences. Israeli Diaspora Affairs Minister Naftali Bennett traveled to Pittsburgh for Sunday's service.
"Nearly 80 years since Kristallnacht, when the Jews of Europe perished in the flames of their houses of worship, one thing is clear: Anti-Semitism, Jew-hating, is not a distant memory," Bennett said. "It's not a thing of the past, nor a chapter in the history books. It is a very real threat."
Adam Hertzman, director of marketing for the Jewish Federation of Pittsburgh, said it was too early to say if the community will add permanent security to synagogues in the area.
"Our focus at the moment is on mourning those who have passed and trying to comfort the people who are bereaved," Hertzman said.
Questions Using Close Reading and Critical Thinking:
- The first section of an article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" Identify the four Ws of this article. (Note: The rest of the news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- Does this article have any bias? Why or why not?
- At the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, 11 worshipers lost their lives in what is being considered the deadliest attack on Jews on U.S. soil. According to the Anti-Defamation League, anti-Semitic acts increased in 2017 by 60% with 1,986 cases of harassment, assault, and vandalism. Why do you think there is a surge in these incidents? Research two possible reasons for this.
- Community and political leaders, residents, and dignitaries came together for an interfaith service on Sunday to support the Jewish community and combat hate speech. Pittsburgh mayor Bill Peduto said, "We will drive anti-Semitism and the hate of any people back to the basement, on their computer, and away from the open discussion and dialogues around this city, around this state[,] and around this country." When a tragic event like this occurs, communities unite, stand together, and say they will fight for the cause, but time and time again another incident happens and the cycle continues. What can WE, as a country, do to better support and protect our citizens? How can we better serve our minority religious communities? Write eight sentences explaining how our country can do this.
- The killer, Robert Bowers, stated, "They're [The Jews] committing genocide to my people" and, "I can't sit by and watch my people get slaughtered." What evidence does he have to back up his claim?
- Bowers frequently used the website Gab, a social media free-speech platform, to spread his hatred of Jews. Gab said it saved Bowers' data, suspended his account, and contacted the FBI. Knowing that he targeted Jews on Gab, why didn't Gab take action sooner and alert authorities? When does free speech go too far?
- During the attack, Bowers used three Glock .357 handguns and a Colt AR-15 rifle. In total, 21 guns were registered in his name. In the aftermath of the attacks at Pulse nightclub, Parkland High School, and the killing spree in Las Vegas, stricter gun control laws were discussed. However, many say not enough action was taken. Are stricter gun control measures the answer? What will it take for real "change" to occur?
- U.S. Attorney in Pittsburgh, Scott Brady, said that this act is considered a "hate crime" and not "domestic terrorism" because Bowers didn't impose a specific ideology through violence. Do you consider the murders domestic terrorism? Why or why not?
- Bowers could face the death penalty. Do you think corporal punishment is just? Are you for or against it? State why.
Click here to view more: www.cnn.com/2018/10/28/us/pittsburgh-synagogue-shooting/index.html
Posted October 23, 2018
In the age of Instagram museums, what happens to haunted houses?
Vox
by Rebecca Jennings
OCTOBER 22, 2018
There is a place in the trendy part of Brooklyn where you can take a selfie with a cockroach. Technically you can do that in really any part of Brooklyn, although good luck getting it to stay still long enough for a decent photo. But at this one place, the cockroach selfie is like, the point.
That place is Nightmare Machine, an Instagram-optimized popup installation for the spookiest month of the year. Visitors can pose for a picture where it looks like they're being sliced up by a maniacal butcher, pose for a picture in a decrepit laundromat, pose for a picture in "hell" (a red ball pit), and yes, pose for a picture next to a terrifyingly realistic mound of thousands of plastic cockroaches.
Nightmare Machine is part of a new-ish wave of temporary "museums" or "experiences" that exist pretty much specifically to be Instagrammed, and despite criticism (the New York Times called the trend an "existential void") have seen massive success.
29Rooms, a pop-up installation by the website Refinery 29, regularly has lines that wrap around entire blocks; the Museum of Ice Cream's San Francisco location was so beloved that it's now permanent. And Dream Machine, the non-spooky, pastel-tinged foil to Nightmare Machine, saw 75,000 visitors during its run in the same space earlier this year. And at $38 a ticket, well, you can do the math.
For people looking for a festive thing to do, Nightmare Machine offers something that a haunted house does not: The opportunity to craft a perfectly stage-directed and envy-inducing photograph to share on social media. Other fall activities, like apple picking or hay rides, provide charming pastoral backdrops for the 'gram, but haunted houses? They're dark and crowded, and if they're any good, you're probably too busy being terrified to get a decent photo.
So if your main goal with your autumnal activity is to get an Instagram out of it--which, no judgment--why bother with a haunted house? And if you live in a city big enough to have a rotating selection of social media pop-ups, do haunted houses even have a place in 2018?
According to Paige Solomon, the 27-year-old founder of Nightmare Machine, maybe not. "If you want to run and just like have the living [crap]--excuse my French--scared out of you, go to a haunted house. But if you want to just have a spooky night with friends before going out or something, and you just wanna laugh a little and get scared a little bit--the biggest separating point [between Nightmare Machine and a haunted house] is it's really made for some great pictures to remember."
She explains that Nightmare Machine does take some elements of traditional haunted houses: the idea of roaming from room to room, nervously anticipating what's around the corner, for instance (and to be fair, the cockroaches are quite realistic), but she places it pretty squarely in the box of "pop-up Instagram experience" rather than a true haunted house.
It's also optimized for the pop culture savvy urban young person--there's a blood-spattered room that's an homage to American Psycho, a Clockwork Orange-inspired tunnel, and a "millennial graveyard" where each tombstone says things like "Died from not forwarding that text message to 10 people."
Nightmare Machine is also not the only "relevant" spooky experience in New York City. On October 18, I visited the L Train Shutdown Nightmare, a haunted house-slash-immersive theatre performance designed with the peculiarities of New Yorkers' worst fears in mind. The name, of course, is a reference to the impending shutdown of the L train, a vital subway line that, come spring 2019, will be closed for repairs for over a year.
Like Nightmare Machine, the L Train Shutdown Nightmare is not a place where one can expect to hear a lot of screaming. For one, the haunted house tour starts inside a dance party, and despite the fact that it's inside an enormous warehouse, the vibe is clearly one of fun, not terror. Visitors embark on the tour by walking down the street and into a different multi-level warehouse, where each floor contains things like a replica of a dirty subway car, a small tent city, and what I assumed were bed bug fumigators.
But despite its topicality, the L Train Shutdown Nightmare, tickets for which run between $20 and $35, does not cater to the 'gram in the same way the Nightmare Machine does. David Kirshoff, the artist who designed the space, said "the idea is to tap into a real fear that a great deal of the community is dealing with right now. My idea is to create an experience that is uncanny. It's a shift from reality. It utilizes elements of the world that we know and live with every day as New Yorkers. It explores a much darker side to all of those things."
And even though I was able to take photos on the tour, he also differentiated it from other pop-up experiences that are designed specifically for social media. "The thing about that is, I wanted to access something a lot deeper than I feel like those installations ever really get to, because they're tailored for a surface level interaction, a photograph," he explained.
He continued, adding that there's a difference between the sort of experience you get at Instagram "experiences" and the one he created. "My experience with them is often they are not nearly as nice in person as they are on Instagram. They're much shoddier, construction-wise. They feel maybe like you're on a set of a cheap theater production. They don't have any depth to them. That's why they exist for photographs."
But in the year 2018, paying a two-digit sum for an experience that isn't Instagrammable is an increasingly uncommon concept, which is why the existence of Gravesend Inn, a traditional haunted house in the not-quite-so-trendy Downtown Brooklyn, feels somehow almost charming.
The Gravesend Inn Haunted Hotel, which has been running annually for 20 years, is built and operated by students at City Tech, who help work the complicated system of animatronic characters and motion sensors that trigger special effects. Though it welcomes photo-taking, like most haunted houses it is both dark and intentionally rather cramped, even though the technological elements are impressive and photo-worthy.
And ultimately, Gravesend Inn is a school project. "You can think of it kind as like a theater or film program with no actors, where all the students studying technologies go out and work for the different unions and local companies," explained Sue Brandt, the general manager at Theatreworks City Tech.
Tickets are just $5 for students and $10 for adults. "We just want to make it accessible for the whole community and make it fun," she added. "So we keep the prices cheap and we get lots of people in and it's fun. And for us, it's also like an outreach to the community from City Tech."
But if Gravesend Inn is any indication, traditional haunted houses aren't in danger of being eclipsed by Instagram pop-ups, at least not yet. Brandt explained that visitors have risen steadily over the past few years, and that she hadn't even heard of the sort of social media installations like Nightmare Machine.
I explained that they were similar to traditional art installations, but that they're optimized for Instagram, and that they typically exist in locations with short-term leases and tend to be expensive. "Well yeah, because of their overhead because they're renting space," she said. By contrast, Gravesend Inn doesn't have to worry about that--the haunted house takes place inside the school. "That's why we're lucky."
She did, however, say that the idea of Instagram pop-ups sounded interesting. And as they get even more massively popular all over the country, we likely will see a lot more of them become permanent fixtures in cities.
As for Solomon, the founder of Nightmare Machine, she knows the social media-friendly museum isn't going anywhere, but that it might take a new form. "They're going to evolve. I don't think that they're gonna be this straightforward just purely for Instagram and for fun," she said. "I think that there's gonna be maybe more collaborations with charities and things like that. I know that that's what I would love to do is bring different organizations in and foster creative youth or something like that."
"But I don't know. I think selfies are here for a really long time. So I would think that things of this nature will probably be, too." Meaning that Halloween-themed Instagram pop-ups are likely just the tip of the iceberg--perhaps soon, every holiday will be enhanced with the experience of selfie-taking.
Questions Using Close Reading and Critical Thinking:
- The first section of an article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" Identify the four Ws of this article. (Note: The rest of the news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- Does this article have any bias? Why or why not?
- Using information provided in the article, how would you define a "pop-up experience" and a "pop-up Instagram experience"? What is the difference between the two?
- Paige Solomon founded the Nightmare Machine specifically to be Instagrammed. How does this concept make you feel as a social media user and consumer? Would you pay to visit a place specifically designed to give you a good Instagram photo or selfie?
- Why do you think people pay $20-$35 to visit these places? Is it just for the photo?
- How is the Nightmare Machine experience different from the L Train Shutdown Nightmare?
- Aside from the price, is there any difference between paying to experience a haunted house and a spooky or horror "Instagram experience"?
Click here to view more: www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/10/22/17996244/halloween-2018-haunted-houses-nightmare-machine
Posted October 16, 2018
Is Harvard fair?
Historic affirmative action trial begins Monday
CNN
By Joan Biskupic
October 14, 2018
Boston (CNN) A lawsuit against Harvard brought on behalf of Asian-American students who failed to gain admission goes to trial on Monday in one of the most consequential race cases in decades, with affirmative action policies across the country at stake.
The lawsuit was crafted by conservative advocates who have long fought racial admissions practices that traditionally benefited African-American and Latino students. Their ultimate goal is to reverse the 1978 Supreme Court case that upheld admissions policies that consider the race of students for campus diversity.
Parties on both sides expect the Supreme Court to eventually resolve the issue. And with President Donald Trump's two appointees, Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, the high court now has five conservative justices who may be inclined to reverse the landmark ruling.
The challengers are led by Edward Blum, a conservative activist who has devised a series of claims against racial policies, including an earlier affirmative action lawsuit on behalf of Abigail Fisher against the University of Texas and several challenges to the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
Justice Anthony Kennedy, the key vote in 2016 when the court last endorsed race-based admissions in the University of Texas case, was replaced by Kavanaugh earlier this month. Gorsuch succeeded the late Justice Antonin Scalia, who had opposed all affirmative action and criticized the University of Texas program, but died before that case was completed.
The Students for Fair Admissions group Blum founded when he filed the Harvard case in November 2014 contends the university engages in unlawful "racial balancing" as it boosts the chances of admissions for blacks and Hispanics and lowers the chances for Asian Americans.
Harvard's practices, the group says, are "the same kind of discrimination and stereotyping that it used to justify quotas on Jewish applicants in the 1920s and 1930s."
That assertion has deeply resonated with some Asian Americans who fear they are held to a higher standard than other applicants to prestigious universities. Yet Asian-American advocates, representing a wide swath of backgrounds and educational experiences, have come in on both sides of the case.
Some who back the lawsuit seek to end all consideration of race in admissions, while others, siding with Harvard, argue that universities should be able to consider race for campus diversity and that some Asian Americans, particularly those with ties to Southeast Asian countries, may have had fewer educational opportunities before applying to college.
The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund filed a brief on behalf of 25 Harvard student and alumni organizations comprising blacks, Latinos, Native Americans, Asian Americans and whites. The Legal Defense Fund calls the lawsuit an effort "to sow racial division" and emphasizes the Supreme Court's repeated endorsement of the 1978 case Regents of the University of California v. Bakke.
Those subsequent rulings, however, turned on a single vote, either that of Kennedy or Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who retired in 2006.
The Trump administration, which is separately scrutinizing of race-based admissions practices at Harvard through its Education and Justice departments based on a complaint from more than 60 Asian American groups, has backed Students for Fair Admissions.
Harvard, the country's oldest institution of higher education, denies that it engages in racial balancing or limits Asian-American admissions. It defends its longstanding effort for racial diversity as part of the education mission and says admissions officers undertake a "whole-person evaluation" that includes academics, extracurricular activities, talents and personal qualities, as well as socioeconomic background and race.
Since the case was first filed, both sides have mined similar statistical evidence and testimony but with sharply contrasting conclusions -- all of which will now be presented before US District Court Judge Allison Burroughs.
"Each party relies on its own expert reports to show the presence or absence of a negative effect of being Asian American on the likelihood of admission ... and claims that there is substantial -- or zero -- documentary and testimonial evidence of discriminatory intent," Burroughs said in an order last month rejecting requests from both sides to rule for each, respectively, before trial.
The case was brought under Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, prohibiting racial discrimination at private institutions that receive federal funds.
Burroughs, a 2014 appointee of President Barack Obama, has said she expects the trial to last about three weeks. Both sides will offer opening statements on Monday.
The stats
Harvard could fill its entire freshman class with academic stars, based on the characteristics of many who apply.
For the undergraduate class of 2019, Harvard received more than 37,000 applications and offered spots to 2,003 students. (For the more recent class of 2022, 42,749 applied and 1,962 were offered a place.) Of those who applied for the class of 2019, Harvard said in a court filing, more than 8,000 of the US applicants had perfect GPAs, and more than 5,000 US applicants had a perfect math or verbal SAT score.
Yet, as happens at universities across the country, admissions officers look for applicants with a broad range of talents beyond academic scores and seek a mix of socioeconomic, geographic and racial backgrounds. At Harvard, prospective students are rated in several categories, including academic, extracurricular, athletic, teacher recommendation and personal assessments.
As part of the case, Harvard was forced to turn over 200,000 undergraduate admissions files from a six-year period. The files included students' grades, test scores and extracurricular activities; demographic and legacy information; and admissions officers' ratings.
Students for Fair Admissions' statistical expert asserted in preliminary findings that while Asian-American applicants are, as a group, stronger than applicants of other races in the academic and extracurricular categories, they receive the lowest "personal" ratings among racial groups.
That category can come down to such personality traits as "likability," and Students for Fair Admissions says the low Asian-American scores arise from "thinly veiled racial stereotype about Asian Americans."
Justice Department officials contend Harvard has failed to provide "meaningful criteria" to explain how its admissions offers weigh factors in a candidate's application. DOJ focused on Asian-American applicants' lower scores in the "personal rating," saying that may reveal Harvard's bias.
Harvard disputes such conclusions, and its expert, looking at the same data categories, found no negative effect of being Asian American on the likelihood of admissions and said that in some years it had a positive effect.
The details of what groups siding with Students for Fair Admissions call a "black box process" and the admissions officers' judgments are expected to be on display in upcoming weeks as witnesses from both sides are called.
Harvard's lawyers have insisted in filings that the Students for Fair Admissions' arguments stem from "deeply flawed" analyses that fail to take into account all the important factors that Harvard admission officers consider. They also note that the percentage of Asian Americans in the entering classes has risen over the past decade.
Asian-American students make up nearly 23% of admitted students. African-Americans constitute about 15%, Latinos 12%. A category of all others, mainly white students, accounts for 50%.
When now-retired Justice Kennedy cast the crucial decisive vote in 2016 to uphold a University of Texas program that considered applicants' race, among other factors, he remarked on the difficult balancing act for judges.
"A university is in large part defined by those intangible 'qualities which are incapable of objective measurement but which make for greatness,' he wrote, referring to high court precedent." Considerable deference is owed to a university in defining those intangible characteristics, like student body diversity, that are central to its identity and educational mission."
"But still," Kennedy concluded, "it remains an enduring challenge to our Nation's education system to reconcile the pursuit of diversity with the constitutional promise of equal treatment and dignity."
Questions Using Close Reading and Critical Thinking:
- The first section of an article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" Identify the four Ws of this article. (Note: The rest of the news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- Does this article have any bias? Why or why not?
- What is affirmative action, and why was a policy created? Visit http://www.ncsl.org/research/education/affirmative-action-overview.aspx if you need more information.
- Asian Americans feel they are being discriminated against and not gaining rightful admissions to Harvard University. As a result, they filed a lawsuit against the university. With the newly appointed justices, there are now a total of five conservatives on the Supreme Court who are inclined to rule favorably on the lawsuit. Why do you think conservatives would support it? Both parties are advocating for the reversal of a 1978 Supreme Court case. What is this court case? Do you agree with the policy, or are you against it?
- There are Asian Americans who oppose the lawsuit. What reasons and/or evidence does each side give to support their claims? State two reasons, with specific examples from the text.
- The Justice Department claims Harvard has not provided "meaningful criteria" for admissions, which may explain why more Asian Americans are not being admitted. What specific "criteria" are in question? What other factors are considered when admissions officers look at applicants?
- After reading the article, do you feel Harvard treats Asian Americans unfairly? Why or why not? In eight sentences, explain your position.
Click here to view more: www.cnn.com/2018/10/14/politics/harvard-affirmative-action-asian-americans/index.html
Posted October 8, 2018
Banksy pranks auction by shredding million-dollar painting. Now it may be worth even more
Los Angeles Times
by August Brown
OCTOBER 6, 2018
The U.K. street artist Banksy is no stranger to provocation. But on Friday, his antagonistic streak reached beyond his painting and into its frame.
At a London Sotheby's auction of his 2006 spray-paint work "Girl With Balloon," the artist rigged a secret shredding contraption into the base of the frame that destroyed the work via remote control. The painting had sold moments before for $1.4 million to an unidentified buyer, who purchased the painting via telephone.
Banksy posted video of the event on Instagram, which showed stunned auction-goers watching as an alarm sounded before the painting slipped through the frame and shredded roughly half of the canvas into ribbons.
A representative for Banksy, when reached, cited the artist's quotation of Picasso that "the urge to destroy is also a creative urge." A representative for Alex Branczik, Sotheby's head of contemporary art in Europe, said he was unavailable for comment.
The painting, which was auctioned off as part of Sotheby's "Frieze Week" contemporary art sale, had fetched more than three times its initial estimate and set a record sale price for the artist.
Banksy--whose identity still has yet to be confirmed--often incorporates political messaging, anti-capitalist ideas, and art world satire into his work.
In 2013 he even set up a pop-up stand in New York's Central Park, where original canvases of his work were sold to customers for $60 a piece, far below the large sums his work usually demands.
In March 2005, he sneaked his own artworks into four of New York's most prominent museums, including the American Museum of Natural History, where he left a beetle with missiles on its wings in the "Hall of Biodiversity."
In September 2006, Banksy installed an inflatable version of a Guantanamo Bay prisoner near the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad ride in Disneyland.
His 2006 debut in America took place in a warehouse in downtown L.A., which featured a live elephant painted like wallpaper standing in a faux living room.
His new stunt, perhaps his most tangible critique of the art market yet, has instantly become the talk of the U.K. art world.
An art world disrupter
Artist Isaiah King, who is exhibiting at The Other Art Fair in London, said the event was abuzz with news of Banksy's antics.
"I keep waiting for him to be irrelevant, and then he goes and does something like that," King said. "If he was a lesser artist, he would have destroyed the art's value. But because it's Banksy it will only be worth more now."
Dan Chrichlow, creative director of the creative management agency Dutch Uncle, had a more skeptical view. "I think the auction house knew it was going to happen. I think the whole thing was created. They check everything," he said. "I like the fact that Banksy did it and created a whole story, which is a very Banksy thing to do. But it doesn't feel authentic."
It's unclear if Sotheby's was in on the artist's intent to destroy the work. In a statement, the auction house said it knew the elaborate gilt frame was "an integral element of the artwork chosen by Banksy himself," but Branczik told the Associated Press that "we have not experienced this situation in the past where a painting is spontaneously shredded, upon achieving a record for the artist.... We are busily figuring out what this means in an auction context."
Shepard Fairey, the popular L.A.-based street artist--most well known for his Obama "Hope" posters--said that "I do agree with the underlying sentiment of it. This is an ephemeral art form that street artists who come from the street art world understand: 'It's not gonna last.' Then, ironically, there becomes a demand for it.
"I think Banksy's idea here is that an appreciation for the concept is more important than an appreciation of the object," he added.
Roger Gastman, the street-art expert and curator for MOCA's popular 2011 "Art In The Streets" exhibition and this year's "Beyond the Streets" show in Chinatown, said in an email that with this latest move, Banksy remains one of today's preeminent art-market critics. "Banksy continues to amaze me. The king stays the king," Gastman said.
Ron English, the New York-based street artist whose surreal work frequently comments on capitalism, said that Banksy's antagonism toward his own work is like "Duchamp on steroids."
"Is the work now 10 times as valuable? Or is it worth nothing?" English asked. "He's created this really unique situation for himself."
"Girl With Balloon," which depicts a child reaching upward toward a heart-shaped balloon, was first stenciled on a wall in East London. It has since become one of Banksy's most identifiable images in a career that, despite his anonymity, is meant for maximum public view.
Sotheby's said that it was discussing how to move forward with "Balloon's" buyer, who now owns a shredded but historically significant work by one of contemporary art's most famous figures.
Becoming Banksy
Banksy began his career in the Bristol graffiti scene, tagging buildings with politically trenchant pieces critiquing police violence, Western imperialism and consumer capitalism. He frequently turns to elaborate, clandestine pranks to needle the high-end gallery and museum scene which, while making him rich, has also served as foil for his satirical work.
In 2005, he secretly hung on a wall at the British Museum a piece depicting a prehistoric human pushing a shopping cart. The work remained in the museum for several days before staff noticed it. In 2015, he built "Dismaland," an entire theme park in an abandoned swimming resort, as a comment on British depression and entertainment culture in modern capitalism.
Orange County-based artist Jeff Gillette, whose 2010 "Dismayland" works portraying a slum surrounding the theme park were included in Banksy's similarly titled project, calls Banksy's newest prank "brilliant."
"He's Banksying the establishment," Gillette says, "the art world, museum [world]--he's getting at 'em."
Though he is one of the world's best-known contemporary artists, Banksy has always had a mixed relationship with fame, even anonymously. The 2010 documentary "Exit Through The Gift Shop" took a somewhat[...] jaundiced view of the booming street art scene at the time, which made global celebrities out of artists like himself and Fairey.
Fairey likens Banksy's "Girl With Balloon" prank to performance art: ephemeral but everlasting, regardless of how the auction house ultimately proceeds regarding the work's new buyer.
"Once he realized that media would latch on to what he was doing, he thought less about the viability of the piece for long-term exposure, [and] more about if the concept and the context was strong enough, it would live forever," Fairey said. "He's always thinking in a multi-layered way, and that's part of his genius."
Protypical pranksters
Banksy's latest stunt has precedence in the art world. The German artist Gustav Metzger coined the genre "auto-destructive art" in the 1960s, and used the inherent ephemerality of his work as a commentary on the post-World War II collapse of the geopolitical order.
English cited Robert Rauschenberg's "Erased De Kooning Drawing"--where the artist bought and obliterated the work of a peer--as somewhat of a precedent for Banksy's actions.
But Scott Hove, a California artist who collaborated with Banksy on his "Dismaland" installation, said Banksy broke new ground in demolishing his own work at auction with no advance warning.
"He really ramped it up in a spectacular way. People were aghast," Hove said. "It's a moment of clarity to see someone devalue something worth millions. It's kind of refreshing to see this destruction of contrived value."
However, he also expected that, given all the media attention on the Sotheby's stunt, Banksy probably only added to the shredded piece's allure.
"If I were the buyer, I'd probably have been shocked, then I'd want to preserve it exactly as it is," Hove said. "Ironically, this will only escalate its value."
Staff writer Deborah Vankin in Los Angeles and special correspondent Christina Boyle in London contributed to this story.
Questions Using Close Reading and Critical Thinking:
- The first section of an article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" Identify the four Ws of this article. (Note: The rest of the news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- Does this article have any bias? Why or why not?
- To explain why he chose to destroy his art once it had been sold, Banksy quotes Picasso. What was the quote, and what do you think it means?
- Banksy is known for incorporating into his work "political messaging, anti-capitalist ideas, and art world satire." How are these themes at the heart of this "stunt," as well as some other "stunts" or works of art created by Banksy that are mentioned in the article?
- Isaiah King, another artist, was quoted as saying that he believes that Banksy may have increased the value of "Girl With Balloon" by shredding it. Explain how this could be possible, using the article to support your thinking.
- Popular L.A. street artist Shepard Fairey stated, "I think Banksy's idea here is that an appreciation for the concept is more important than an appreciation of the object." What do you think this comment means, and what concept do you think Banksy wants people to appreciate more than his painting?
Click here to view more: www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-et-cm-banksy-shreds-painting-20181006-story.html
Posted October 2, 2018
US and Canada reach deal on NAFTA after talks go down to the wire
CNN
By Jeremy Diamond, Kevin Liptak, Paula Newton and Donna Borak
October 1, 2018
Canada agreed late Sunday to sign on to a trade deal between the United States and Mexico, revamping the three-country North American Free Trade Agreement after more than a year of tortuous negotiations.
Just hours before a midnight deadline, the US and Canadian governments agreed to a deal that would allow US farmers greater access to Canada's dairy market and address concerns about potential US auto tariffs, officials from both countries said.
The agreement with Canada and Mexico--two of the United States' biggest trading partners-- fulfills President Donald Trump's campaign pledge to renegotiate NAFTA and avoids his threat to exclude Canada if the talks failed.
The new deal has a new name: the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement.
"It will strengthen the middle class, and create good, well-paying jobs and new opportunities for the nearly half billion people who call North America home," said US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland in a joint statement.
Trump praised the agreement early Monday as a "great deal" for all three countries that would expand markets for American farmers and manufacturers.
"The USMCA is a historic transaction!" he said on Twitter.
But some experts questioned whether the changes to NAFTA were worth the strain put on relations with Canada by Trump's threats and brinkmanship during the negotiations.
"We have really hurt relationships with our major ally... for the sake of a few gallons of milk," Jeffrey Rosensweig, a business professor at Emory University, said on CNN.
Negotiators from the three countries spent all weekend working over the phone, hoping to keep the nearly 25-year-old deal alive.
Earlier in the evening, Trump was briefed on the nearly finalized negotiations by Lighthizer and White House adviser Jared Kushner.
The Trump administration plans to send the new deal to Congress, starting a 60-day review period before Trump can sign it. Congress can suggest changes during that time.
Ahead of the weekend's talks, several lawmakers had warned that they would not support a deal without Canada.
"It would be a monumental mistake to do this without Canada," US Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, the top Democrat on the Senate committee that oversees trade, said Friday, before the text was delivered. "It's basically surrendering on fixing NAFTA."
The Trump administration has been working to sign a new trade deal before Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto leaves office on December 1. To meet that deadline, the text of the agreement had to be submitted to Congress before October.
Negotiators from the three countries began talks about updating NAFTA more than a year ago. Trump had campaigned on renegotiating or ripping up the trade pact, calling it "the worst deal maybe ever signed."
In August, the United States and Mexico resolved an issue over auto manufacturing, but several sticking points with Canada remained. Trump wanted Canada to open its dairy market to US farmers, and Canada wanted to preserve a mechanism for resolving disputes.
Those goals were achieved in the deal reached late Sunday, according to a Canadian official with knowledge of the negotiations.
The access to Canada's dairy market will closely mirror what was given under recently negotiated agreements between Canada and the European Union and a separate one with Pacific countries, the Canadian official said.
Canada and Mexico are the United States' two biggest export markets. A deal that left one of them out could cause chaos for businesses that rely on trade between the countries.
The US Chamber of Commerce has said it would be "unacceptable to sideline Canada, our largest export market in the world."
Vehicles, machinery and agricultural products make up much of the goods traded between the countries.
"We have a level playing field with Canada and Mexico, and we have for the last quarter century that NAFTA has been in place," said Rosensweig of Emory University. "This changes nothing. It's just a political move."
Katie Lobosco and Sherisse Pham contributed to this report.
Questions Using Close Reading and Critical Thinking:
- The first section of an article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" Identify the four Ws of this article. (Note: The rest of the news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- Does this article have any bias? Why or why not?
- Mexico, the U.S., and Canada each benefit from the newly named United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). What product(s) does each country produce that the other two desire?
- Why does U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland say, "It will strengthen the middle class, and create good, well-paying jobs and new opportunities for the nearly half billion people who call North America home." How has the former NAFTA deal strengthened the middle class, and how will it continue to do so in the new USMCA deal? By reviewing this article or looking at other credible news sources online, give three different reasons.
- Justin Trudeau, Canada's Prime Minister, signed the trade deal hours before the deadline. Why did it take Canada a year to come to an agreement?
- Canada is vital to the success of this treaty. How would their lack of participation affect their relations with the U.S.? Scan the article and give three reasons why.
- Some experts claim they aren't sure if the ongoing negotiations with Canada, one of the biggest allies of the U.S., was worth the tension it created between the two countries. Do you feel as if it damaged U.S. relations with Canada? Why or why not? In six to eight sentences, support your claim with evidence from the article.
Click here to view more: www.cnn.com/2018/09/30/politics/trump-nafta-canada/index.html
Posted September 25, 2018
Jesus never had Twitter. Or, for that matter, Instagram or Facebook.
Miami Herald
OPINION by Leonard Pitts Jr.
SEPTEMBER 21, 2018
"Judge not, and ye shall not be judged." Jesus preaches that in the book of Luke.
But then, Jesus never had Twitter. Or, for that matter, Instagram or Facebook. He never had, in other words, one of the social media platforms on which millions of us routinely judge other people every day. It's a habit we might do well to reconsider.
Not that anybody should feel remorse over the online humiliation administered to someone like Aaron Schlossberg, captured on video berating people at a New York City cafe for speaking Spanish. And the social media beatdown Jeffrey Whitman took after following another driver to his home in Columbus, Ohio to yell racial slurs should make no one's eyes sting with sympathy tears.
But what about Geoffrey Owens, the former "Cosby Show" actor who was infamously job-shamed for working at Trader Joe's? And what about Anthony Torres?
He was video recorded by another passenger a little over a week ago, shaving his face on a New Jersey Transit train as it pulled out of New York City. At one point he even flicked shaving cream to the floor. The clip was posted to Twitter--it has since been removed--where it racked up over 2 million views. The reaction was, not surprisingly, swift and brutal.
Torres was called "disgusting," a "dumb drunk," a "slob,"--and an "animal." Then the Associated Press found him and got his side of the story.
"My life is all screwed up," Torres told the AP. "That's the reason I was shaving on the train."
Torres, it turned out, came to that moment from a lifetime of hard knocks: peripatetic years of chasing work from state to state, sometimes sleeping in motels and bus stations, two strokes since 2016. That day, he was fresh from a homeless shelter. One of his brothers had bought him a ticket so he could go to another brother in South Jersey. Torres, 56, was shaving because he didn't want to look like what he's been through.
As to why he didn't do the obvious--shave in the restroom--Torres' brother Thomas told the AP that even as a child, Anthony lacked the ability to conceive the consequences of his actions. "When he did what he did, that, to him, was normal."
After all this came out, the response was what you'd expect: lots of recrimination and a Go Fund Me account that, as of Thursday afternoon, had raised $37,000.
The Internet taketh away, the Internet giveth.
In the process, it leaveth an observer ruminating on the hazards of an era of digital lynch mobs wherein one can carp and fault-find without ever leaving the comfort of one's couch. Problem is, there is something about viewing other people on screens--viewing them at a remove--that tends to objectify them, make them not quite real. And there is something about the anonymity of social media that does not encourage us to be our best and most compassionate selves.
That can be a toxic combination, as Owens and Torres would surely attest. It's given us a culture of instant, online opprobrium that falls on both the evil and the unlucky with indiscriminate force. Social media empower us to shame the shameful, but they also allow us to victimize the vulnerable. What does it say about us when we can't--or won't--tell the difference? What does it say about what we've become?
Someone called Torres an "animal." But he's no animal. He's just a guy whose life hasn't worked out, just someone's brother who was trying to get home.
And you can't deny someone else's humanity without losing a little of your own.
Questions Using Close Reading and Critical Thinking:
- The first section of an article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" Identify the four Ws of this article. (Note: The rest of the news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- Does this article have any bias? Why or why not?
- The author, Leonard Pitts Jr., begins his article with the Biblical quote: "Judge not, and ye shall not be judged." What does this mean, and why does Pitts choose to begin his article this way?
- What is Pitts' claim about social media? How and why does he recognize the limits and exceptions to this claim?
- How does Pitts' story about Anthony Torres support his claim?
- Based on this article, how do you think Leonard Pitts Jr. feels about social media? Write a short paragraph using specifics details from the article to support your thinking.
Click here to view more: www.miamiherald.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/leonard-pitts-jr/article218780595.html
Posted September 18, 2018
They Refused to Evacuate for Hurricane Florence. Now Hundreds Are Trapped and Calling for Help
TIME
By GINA MARTINEZ
September 14, 2018
Jon Wright considers himself one of the lucky residents of Wilmington, N.C.--so far.
The 63-year-old former firefighter says he was able to sleep through the torrential rain and thrashing winds when then-Hurricane Florence made landfall early Friday morning, only waking up to texts he received at 7 a.m. from friends checking up on him. He was pleased to get the texts, a sign that he still had cell phone reception, and decided to go rev up his generator that is now powering his refrigerator and his satellite TV, which he's spent a portion of Friday watching.
"The worst of the storm is over," Wright tells TIME.
"I've been through hurricanes before," he says. "Preparation is key. As we speak, my wife is battening down everything we can, boarding the windows. You can never predict what a hurricane is going to do but I'm just not going to run away from this."
Wright is far from the only resident in the Carolinas that chose to weather Hurricane Florence, which has since been downgraded to a tropical storm, though many who chose to stay are starting to reconsider their decision of sticking around for what North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper called a "1,000-year event." Officials in South Carolina's Craven County say conditions are much worse than some residents expected, with nearly 500 people calling the local emergency services hotline asking for help. Many of the calls are from residents who are trapped in their homes, some of whom reported floodwater rising up to the second floor.
"We're helping out a lot of people today," says Craven County Emergency Services spokesperson Amber Parker. "Some of the people who are calling had pre-existing medical issues that needed assistance and some calls are from people who were trapped in the attic of their homes. We have also gotten calls from family members worried about relatives they can't reach."
And while Florence was downgraded to a tropical storm Friday afternoon, meteorologists predict heavy rain--up to 2 feet of rain when all is said and done--will continue into the weekend. The National Hurricane Center said the area should also expect "life-threatening" storm surges, hurricane-strength wind gusts and "catastrophic" fresh water flooding as Hurricane Florence slowly churns inland.
Accuweather hurricane expert Dan Kottlowski said the worst is far from over. The coming storm surges and heavy rains will cause severe flooding that may submerge parts of the Carolinas in up to 40 inches of rain.
"More people die from storm surge than any proponent of hurricanes," Kottlowski tells TIME. "Florence may be weakening but will have a large storm surge."
Prior to Hurricane Florence's landfall, more than 1.7 million were ordered to evacuate the coast. Authorities say at least 20,000 people have evacuated their homes and sought refuge in shelters throughout North Carolina. But there are still untold numbers of people who are still in their homes--and they may need help soon.
At least 150 people were waiting to be rescued in New Bern, N.C., officials tweeted Thursday evening.
One resident, restaurant owner Tom Ballance, told the Associated Press he now thinks he should have evacuated.
"I feel like the dumbest human being who ever walked the face of the earth," Ballance said.
Questions Using Close Reading and Critical Thinking:
- The first section of an article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" Identify the four Ws of this article. (Note: The rest of the news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- Does this article have any bias? Why or why not?
- Former firefighter Jon Wright said, "I've been through hurricanes before" and "Preparation is key." He explained that hurricanes are unpredictable and it is difficult to foresee their trajectory. Why do you think residents disregarded the warnings to evacuate and decided to remain in their homes?
- For those who didn't evacuate, what repercussions does this decision have? What is their main reason for now wanting aid? Craven County Emergency Services spokesperson Amber Parker said, "We're helping out a lot of people today." How are they assisting others?
- Although Florence has now weakened to a tropical storm, Accuweather hurricane expert Dan Kottlowski said, "the worst is far from over." What does the article state are the reasons why? He also commented that a majority of people die as a result of a "storm surge." Its exact definition cannot be found within the article. Using this website, https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/surge/, describe what a storm surge is and how it is dangerous.
- In your opinion, what populations are the most vulnerable and find it difficult to find safety or leave their homes? Why do you feel they are "vulnerable?" Respond in 5-8 sentences. When finished, discuss with a classmate how your responses are similar and/or different.
- If you were in a hurricane's path and were told to evacuate, would you heed the warning and leave, or would you stay? State three reasons for your decision.
Click here to view more: time.com/5396461/hurricane-florence-north-south-carolina-trapped/
Posted September 10, 2018
Serena Williams is calling out sexism in tennis. Here's why.
CNN
By Nicole Chavez
SEPTEMBER 10, 2018
Serena Williams' heated dispute with the umpire during the US Open final is the latest controversy involving the tennis superstar in recent months.
Japan's Naomi Osaka beat Williams on Saturday in a Grand Slam showdown that ended in tears for both players--for different reasons. What was supposed to be a fairy-tale matchup for Osaka and the player she idolizes spun out of control after Williams was handed code violations that she described as unfair.
The US Open hit Williams with fines totaling $17,000 for three violations, the US Tennis Association said Sunday.
The 23-time Grand Slam champion has faced racist attacks for most of her career, and after the match Saturday, she said she believes sexism is rampant in the sport.
Here's a look back at some recent times sexism has been called out on the tennis court:
Serena calls the umpire a 'thief'
Williams accused umpire Carlos Ramos of sexism after she was handed a series of code violations during Saturday's match.
Ramos first gave Williams a code violation warning for coaching after he ruled that her coach, Patrick Mouratoglou, gave her hand signals from the stands.
Then she got a point penalty for smashing her racket, followed by a game penalty for verbal abuse after she confronted the umpire.
"You stole a point from me and you are a thief," Williams told Ramos prompting the game penalty ruling.
At a news conference following her loss, Williams said she's seen male players call other umpires "several things."
"I'm here fighting for women's rights and for women's equality and for all kinds of stuff. For me to say 'thief' and for him to take a game, it made me feel like it was a sexist remark," she said.
"He's never taken a game from a man because they said 'thief.' For me it blows my mind. But I'm going to continue to fight for women," Williams said.
Billie Jean King, a tennis legend and equal rights advocate, agreed with her.
"When a woman is emotional, she's "hysterical" and she's penalized for it. When a man does the same, he's "outspoken"... and there are no repercussions. Thank you, Serena Williams, for calling out this double standard. More voices are needed to do the same," King tweeted.
For Christine Brennan, a CNN sports analyst, the clashes between Williams and the umpire show that women are not being treated equally in the tennis world.
"We know that there's quite a history to it. Think of John McEnroe, think of Ilie Nastase, Jimmy Connors, Andre Agassi. These men all berated chair umpires, famously so. Commercials have been made. McEnroe has done, 'you can't be serious' and all the other tirades, top of his lungs over the years and none of them received a game penalty," Brennan said.
"Would he (umpire) have done that with a man? History has said, no. He would not have done that with a man."
Retired US tennis star Andy Roddick tweeted, "I've regrettably said worse and I've never gotten a game penalty."
Alize Cornet is penalized for fixing her top
Williams isn't the only tennis player to find herself at the center of a gender-focused controversy.
French tennis player Alize Cornet received a code violation a few weeks ago for briefly taking off her shirt on the court.
During a 10-minute break from the blistering heat at Flushing Meadows, Cornet rushed off-court to change her shirt. When she returned, she realized that she was wearing it the wrong way and fixed her top.
In a statement, the US Open said it regretted the way Cornet was treated. The organization added that all players are allowed to change their shirts while sitting in their chairs while female players have the option to change shirts in "a more private location close to the court, when available."
However, male players have changed shirts many times on court without a problem.
On Tuesday, John Isner changed his shirt 11 times throughout his three-plus hour match against Juan Martin del Potro. A day later, Wimbledon champion Novak Djokovic sat shirtless for several minutes while his opponent, John Millman of Australia, stepped away to change his shirt during a quarterfinals match. Neither of them was penalized.
And Rafael Nadal regularly takes off his shirt after winning a match.
Officials introduce dress code after Serena's catsuit
In Williams' first major tennis match after giving birth, her outfit stole the show.
In May, Williams wore a black catsuit at the French Open that helped her blood circulation after a difficult childbirth last September. Her Nike outfit, which she said was inspired by the movie "Black Panther," was praised by her fans but had tennis officials shaking their heads.
French Tennis Federation President Bernard Giudicelli announced late last month that he will be introducing a new dress code that would ban players from wearing such form-fitting clothes at the tennis tournament.
"One must respect the game and the place," Giudicelli said.
Unlike Wimbledon, which has an all-white dress code, the French tournament never had a dress code before.
Williams, who has dealt with body shaming and even criticism over her dark features, took the high road and said she was not upset.
"We already talked. We have a great relationship," Williams said of Giudicelli last month, laughing as she added, "Everything is fine, guys."
After the controversy, she left the suit at home and wore a stylish black-and-brown one-shoulder silhouette dress with a tulle skirt at her first US Open match this year. The $500 dress was designed by Louis Vuitton menswear artistic director Virgil Abloh in partnership with Nike.
While Serena took the dress code change in stride, many of her fans--including some famous ones--called the move sexist.
Actress Elizabeth Banks wrote on Twitter: "The amount of control men feel the need to exert over women is petty-level with this one. Serena Williams is the GOAT. The game respects HER."
Television show create Shonda Rhimes wrote: "The game seems quite content to be played no matter what women wear. Perhaps this man should focus on his own fashion choices and respect the GOAT's right to wear whatever the hell she pleases. #getoffhercourt"
Questions Using Close Reading and Critical Thinking:
- The first section of an article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" Identify the four Ws of this article. (Note: The rest of the news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- Does this article have any bias? Why or why not?
- Why is Serena Williams claiming that "sexism" is what cost her the match at the US Open and not a bad or unfair rule?
- Andy Roddick, a retired U.S. tennis star, is quoted in this article. What did he have to say about this incident with Serena Williams and why did the author choose to include his comment?
- Former tennis great, Billie Jean King, tweeted that "When a woman is emotional, she's 'hysterical' and she's penalized for it. When a man does the same, he's 'outspoken' & there are no repercussions." What is the difference between the words "hysterical" and "outspoken"? Can you think of any other words used to describe the behavior of women that are not used to describe the same behavior of men? Why do you think we, as a society, apply one word to women and a different word to men to describe similar behavior?
- How does the controversy with Alize Cornet and Serena's catsuit reinforce the claim that there is sexism within the tennis world?
- The article concludes with tweets from actress Elizabeth Banks and television show creator Shonda Rhimes. Summarize the argument made in their tweets. Why do you think the author chose to conclude the article with these statements?
Click here to view more: www.cnn.com/2018/09/09/us/serena-williams-sexism-tennis-controversy/index.html
Posted May 22, 2018
What we lose when we gain the right to die
David Goodall's physician-assisted suicide raises wider questions.
Vox
By Tara Isabella Burton
May 21, 2018
David Goodall killed himself earlier this month.
He was 104. He was not terminally ill, nor was he in physical pain. But as the Australian scientist and right-to-die advocate told the New York Times, "I no longer want to continue life, and I'm happy to have a chance tomorrow to end it." And so he traveled to a Swiss clinic to die via physician-assisted suicide.
His death, as the Times portrayed it, was a celebration of the "dying with dignity" movement: a chance for a man who had lived a long and full life to exit this world on his own terms. His death was entirely on script -- he died, the Times tells us, to the closing strains of Beethoven's "Ode to Joy," the very song he'd chosen.
Goodall is far from the first person to have chosen physician-assisted suicide (when the doctor prescribes fatal medication for a patient to take) or euthanasia (when the doctor causes death directly). In states like Oregon and Washington, where physician-assisted suicide is legal, the numbers of those who have chosen to [do] it have risen steadily.
By and large, media coverage of cases like Goodall's has been positive. Those who make the decision are generally characterized as brave pioneers.
But Goodall's case and the right-to-die movement have their critics, in both the religious and the secular sphere. And end-of-life debates more generally--whether they're instances of suicide like Goodall's or controversial cases like that of terminally ill UK infant Alfie Evans, whose parents lost the fight to keep him on life support--raise vital questions for which we, as a society, do not have fully articulated answers.
Who has the right to end a life--and why? And what does it mean to make assumptions that a life is, or is not, worth living? At what point do the sometimes competing ideas of "best interest," individual freedom, and the inherent goodness of life overlap, and where do they contradict each other? And what does the increasing medicalization of death say about our attitude to life?
Goodall was one of many right-to-die activists prominent in the media
A number of right-to-die activists, including Brittany Maynard (who ended her life in Oregon at age 29 after discovering she had terminal brain cancer) and Nan Maitland (who ended her life at a Swiss clinic) have, like Goodall, spoken publicly before going ahead with the procedure. In most cases, those who have chosen the "death with dignity" route are those suffering from terminal physical illnesses. But this is not always the case. Among the most controversial cases in recent memory was that of Aurelia Brouwers, a 29-year-old Dutch woman with mental health problems who successfully convinced courts after an eight-year battle that her severe depression made life unbearable.
But what makes Goodall's case particularly distinct was that he was not ill and was in fact, though frail, in good health. He simply did not want to live any longer. And, he argued, nobody else should have to either. He hoped he would live on "as an instrument of freeing the elderly from the need to pursue their life irrespective."
A number of public figures and activists have expressed similar sentiments. NPR host Diane Rehm, for example, has been an outspoken advocate of the "right to die" movement after witnessing her husband's excruciatingly slow death.
In each case, the idea of freedom--that it is a human right to decide how and when one will die--trumps the idea of life itself as a moral and existential good.
Catholic end-of-life social teaching is more complicated than media coverage would suggest
Traditionally, the most vocal opposition to any form of assisted dying has been the Christian (and particularly the Catholic) Church. Not only has the church been historically opposed to medically assisted suicide and euthanasia, its representatives have often vocally advocated on behalf of keeping terminally ill or vegetative patients on life support indefinitely. In the 2005 case of Florida woman Terri Schiavo, who was in a persistent vegetative state following an accident, the Catholic Church vocally opposed withholding artificial administration of food and water from Schiavo to hasten her death.
But Catholics have often been divided on interpretations of what end-of-life care should be. Generally speaking, a vast body of church documents and teaching holds that life should be preserved, but not necessarily at the cost of artificial or extraordinary measures. Where the line falls between "ordinary" and "extraordinary" measures, therefore, is a subject of extreme debate among Catholics.
As John Paris, a Jesuit priest and a bioethicist at Boston College, put it, the standard Catholic view of end-of-life care, that "life is a gift from God and the determination of life is for God to make," worked "perfectly fine" until the 13th century, when medieval technological and medical advances began to change the nature of what medical care and intervention meant.
He's wary of those Catholics who, as in the Evans case, demand that the terminally ill or those on life support be kept alive at whatever cost. All too often, he says, Catholics "don't have nuanced thinking about complex issues"--simplifying the idea of the "culture of life" to the idea that unnecessarily burdensome treatments on the terminally ill must always be carried out.
Life at all costs--life prolonged through painful or uncomfortable medical procedures--has "never been what the church has taught." Just recently, Paris said, the Jesuit priest Howard Gray was taken off a ventilator after being injured in a car accident, and this was hardly controversial among his Jesuit brethren.
But when it comes to the right to die at will, Paris is far more critical. "This is not a part of our tradition," he says. Referencing a body of pro-euthanasia and "right to die" work, including Jo Roman's 1980 book Exit House, which advocated for assisted suicide on demand, Paris expressed concern over an approach to life that emphasized human sovereignty and agency over the sheer fact of existence. "The idea that everyone is sovereign"--and should have control over all aspects of their life and body--is itself a flawed one, he said. He joked that "if that were true, I'd be 6-foot-2 and have a full head of hair."
The worry, he says, is that life is seen as something that is only worth living if it possesses certain qualities, and that life is therefore not seen as worthwhile for its own sake.
"What kind of a society wants to do that? Life is made simply an option that you have when you're happy. But if you become distressed or depressed you can end it. You shouldn't have to suffer for anything," he says.
For Catholics, Paris says, suffering is understood as a natural, if undesirable, part of life: "You don't have to suffer the use of unnecessarily medical interventions. But you have to take life as it comes. Or as God gives it."
There is a solid humanist argument against the right to die
Those sentiments might not be surprising coming from a Jesuit priest. But some humanists, too, have expressed similar concerns about the way the rhetoric over the right to die renders life itself something that is not to be prized for its own sake. Spiked Online journalist Brendan O'Neill, a controversial figure in the UK due to his vocal dislike for "political correctness," has been one of the most public critics of the idea of the right to die on humanist grounds.
O'Neill has frequently been critical of the way that views on the right to die have neatly cleaved along class lines, with a pro-euthanasia stance becoming identified with upper-middle-class, progressive social shibboleths. As he put it in a 2010 Spiked article, referencing popular UK intelligentsia class signifiers: "you read the Guardian, you shop at Waitrose, you go to the National Theatre, you support assisted dying."
O'Neill's objections to assisted dying are twofold. First, he argues, it brings what should be an intensely personal sphere into the world of bureaucracies and tribunals, causing unnecessary suffering for the dying. Second, he says, it fosters a culture where those who are terminally ill, or disabled, might be led to believe that their own lives--or indeed, life for its own sake--is not valued.
Indeed, O'Neill's argument is very similar to Paris's when he writes that debates over euthanasia have "become bound up with society's broader inability to value and celebrate human life today. It is clear that society finds it increasingly difficult to say that human existence is a good thing--you can see this in everything from the environmentalist discussion of newborn babies as 'future polluters' to the widespread scaremongering about the 'aging time bomb.'"
O'Neill further clarified his argument in a telephone interview with Vox. He sees a certain "moral exhaustion" in a society that no longer sees life for its own sake as a de facto good.
"It's very important that society doesn't give the green light to suicide," he said. "That life is worth living, however difficult it might be... is valuable." Saying to people, "Well, maybe your life isn't worth living and maybe you should give up," is an example of what he calls "moral defeatism."
Debates about euthanasia involve making a value judgment about the limitations of freedom
To suggest that societally, we have become (to use a phrase popular with Pope Francis) a "culture of death" might be overstating the case.
But despite their differing theological stances, Paris and O'Neill ask a vital question about how we as a culture conceive of the value of life. Is life essentially a neutral phenomenon, a biological accident--life can be either worth living or not worth living, but is not de facto valuable? Is the "sanctity of life" a term so mired in the cultural coding of the abortion debate that it no longer has any validity outside it?
In both the abortion debate and the euthanasia debate, we find a natural tension between the idea of choice--people should have the right to choose what happens to their own bodies--and the idea that it is always necessary to preserve life, in the abstract, at all costs. Within many religious paradigms, traditionally, one's own life takes on a sacred quality; it is, as Paris put it, a "gift from God." It's sacred because it is God-given.
In the absence of that theistic paradigm--at least, at a societal, cultural level--we haven't necessarily come to a collective conclusion about what life means.
Societally speaking, as we move toward a cultural paradigm that increasingly sees individual liberty as the ultimate moral good, we have to reckon with those instances in which life and liberty do not coincide. As Americans, we're supposed to be allowed "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." The question of when one infringes on the other is less clear.
Few people would argue that individual liberty is a bad thing. But it's worth recognizing what we lose when we collectively change our value system to accommodate its supremacy.
What Paris and O'Neill both tap into, despite their differing perspectives, is that we haven't necessarily found a way to talk about existence or life as entities in themselves. Is life "worth living" for its own sake? As a culture, we lack a secular vocabulary to talk about what Catholics sometimes call the "sanctity of life." But for both Paris and O'Neill, it's a vocabulary we need.
Questions Using Close Reading and Critical Thinking:
- 1. The first section of an article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" Identify the four Ws of this article. (Note: The rest of the news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. Does this article have any bias? Why or why not?
- 3. How does Goodall's case differ from Brittany Maynard or Nan Maitland's? Why is his death significant to right-to-die activists?
- 4. Review the following passage from the article: "In each case, the idea of freedom--that it is a human right to decide how and when one will die--trumps the idea of life itself as a moral and existential good." What are some of the "freedoms" that the U.S. Constitution guarantees its citizens? Why do you think the "right to die" was not included or has not been added to this list?
- 5. What is the Catholic Church's traditional stance on right-to-die issues? How has that position become complicated by medical advances?
- 6. Explain the "value-of-life" arguments made by those opposed to the right to die.
- 7. Near the conclusion of the article, the author discusses two conflicting paradigms (a paradigm is a distinct set of concepts or patterns of thought). Identify these two paradigms and explain the beliefs and values that put them on opposite sides of this debate.
Click here to view more: www.vox.com/2018/5/21/17360978/right-to-die-assisted-dying-suicide-david-goodall
Posted May 15, 2018
Inside NASA's epic first mission to the last planet
New York Post
By Reed Tucker
May 12, 2018
They called it the "first mission to the last planet."
In 2006, a 224-foot-tall rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral, Fla., carrying a tiny, thousand-pound probe named New Horizons. Its mission: to wing its way across billions of miles of cold, dark space for a rendezvous with the solar system's most distant planet, Pluto.
The undertaking would finally close a chapter of space exploration, marking the last of the Milky Way's planets to be probed.
The story of how a group of scientists pulled off this feat is told in "Chasing New Horizons: Inside the Epic First Mission to Pluto."
It's written by Alan Stern, a planetary scientist and the mission's principal investigator, and David Grinspoon, an astrobiologist and science journalist.
Other planets had been visited decades ago. Pluto's nearest neighbors, Neptune and Uranus, had been analyzed by the Voyager 2 probe in the 1980s. Pluto, however, remained frustratingly mysterious, a faint speck of light in telescopes.
"Pluto was the last game in town, the last train to Clarksville, the last first mission," Stern tells The Post. "What could be a bigger contribution to the field than to get [a mission] started?"
Space had always interested Stern. He watched one of the early Apollo landings and marveled as newsman Walter Cronkite held up a copy of NASA's thick flight plan. He later studied aerospace engineering.
The New Horizons mission was born in 1989 over pasta and mediocre cabernet. A group of planetary scientists, including Stern, had convened in Baltimore for a conference and began discussing the need for a mission to Pluto. That meeting launched a grassroots movement to convince NASA to plan--and most importantly, fund--just such a mission.
"A debate erupted [at NASA] between the Pluto supporters, who were mostly younger scientists, and Pluto detractors, mostly older scientists," the authors write.
The debate dragged on for more than a decade with numerous frustrating stops and starts. Time was of the essence.
Pluto had reached the closest point to the sun in 1989, and since then had been slipping farther away along its massive 248-year orbit. The farther away it got, the harder it would be to reach.
Scientists and Pluto fans launched a letter-writing and media campaign to get the mission restarted.
"I think we annoyed some people inside of NASA because we kept pushing," Stern says.
Finally, in 2000, NASA relented.
Several teams of scientists offered proposals for a probe, but NASA ultimately selected one from Stern and his team at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory and the Southwest Research Institute.
The downside was the craft had to be launched in just four to six years and the mission had to cost a fifth of that of its predecessor, Voyager. (The final bill was ultimately around $700 million.)
Pluto is too far from the sun for the spaceship to be powered by solar panels, so the team used a plutonium-powered battery.
The battery was tested in Idaho and when it was shipped to Florida for the launch, it was transported in a heavily armed convoy. NASA even sent decoy convoys to throw off anyone looking to steal or sabotage the plutonium.
On Jan. 19, 2006, "Go Atlas, Go Centaur, Go New Horizons," crackled across the radio and the spacecraft blasted off.
It was loaded with sensitive instruments, including a long-range camera, a spectrometer and a dust counter. But its most special payload was ashes belonging to Clyde Tombaugh, the astronomer who had discovered Pluto in 1930.
Stern and his team celebrated the successful launch by ceremonially burning the emergency contingency plans they didn't have to use.
With New Horizons away, now they'd have to wait. And wait. Even traveling at some 31,000 miles an hour, the craft would take nearly a decade to reach its target.
Then in August 2006, barely seven months after launch, strange news reached the team. A group of astronomers had made the head-scratching decree that Pluto would no longer be considered a proper planet but a "dwarf planet."
The New Horizons team's reaction to the decree ranged from "indifferent" to "bemused" to "seriously pissed off." But in the end, they reasoned, "Dwarf planets are planets. End of argument."
As the craft hurtled through space, the team stayed busy remotely checking its instruments, uploading new software and planning for the day when it would fly by Pluto.
After waiting nearly 10 years, the craft would only be able to study the planet for a few hours as it whizzed past.
New Horizons finally made it in July 2015. As it passed, it collected a treasure trove of scientific data. But because it was so far away and its transmitter so weak, sending all that data back to earth took more than a year.
But what was discovered "knocked our socks off," says Stern, who was just 32 when he first discussed the mission back in 1989 but was nearly 50 when it became reality. The planet's terrain was surprisingly diverse, with canyons and soaring mountains. It also turned out to be geologically active.
"That shouldn't happen in a small planet," Stern says. "It should cool off early in its history and quit evolving, not still be active 4 billion years after it formed[.] But I guess Pluto doesn't read the textbooks, because it's still active to this day."
The probe also revealed a massive nitrogen glacier, shed light on the orbits of the body's mysterious moons and hinted at a liquid water ocean inside Pluto today.
Today, the craft is another billion miles past Pluto, with enough power to run for decades. This New Year's Day it's expected to fly by an object in the Kuiper belt, an orbiting collection of rocky bodies. It will be the most distant subject ever studied. New horizon, indeed.
Questions Using Close Reading and Critical Thinking:
- 1. The first section of an article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" Identify the four Ws of this article. (Note: The rest of the news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. Does this article have any bias? Why or why not?
- 3. The New Horizons mission began in 1989. What else happened that year?
- 4. When the spacecraft took off, what was it loaded with?
- 5. What unexpected news was announced seven months after the launch? Why was the New Horizons team upset by this?
- 6. When the probe's data about Pluto finally reached Earth, the scientists were shocked at what they discovered. What surprised them and why?
- 7. Describe two personality characteristics required of the scientists working on the New Horizons mission. Why would those characteristics be important to have in this line of work?
Click here to view more: nypost.com/2018/05/12/inside-nasas-epic-first-mission-to-the-last-planet/
Posted May 08, 2018
After Native American bias incident, college says those against diversity can go 'elsewhere'
The Washington Post
By Kristine Phillips
May 6, 2018
Two suspicious young men joined a Colorado university's campus tour to which they did not belong, a woman told a 911 dispatcher. They refused to say their names, she said, and one of them started to laugh when she asked what they wanted to study.
"They were lying the whole time," the woman, a mother of another student on the tour, concluded.
"They just really stand out," she added, judging from their "odd" behavior and dark clothing with "weird symbolism or wording on it."
And one of them is "for sure" Hispanic because he said he's from Mexico.
Contrary to what the woman had suspected, the young men were part of the campus tour. They showed police an email to prove it. The brothers, 19-year-old Thomas Kanewakeron Gray and 17-year-old Lloyd Skanahwati Gray, are Native Americans from the Mohawk tribe who had driven several hours from New Mexico to Colorado State University in Fort Collins to see whether the campus would be a good fit for them. They got lost and arrived 45 minutes late.
After seeing the young men on the tour, the woman called 911. Body camera footage showed the shaggy-haired teens timidly answering questions from police officers. They were told to keep their hands visible. They were patted down because the woman had said one of them had his hand in the pocket of his oversize jacket. They were wearing black clothing, but that "weird symbolism" was metal band logos. One was that of a band called Cattle Decapitation, whose songs protest mistreatment of animals, their mother said.
They told police the woman who was suspicious of them had asked for their names, but they did not say much because they are shy. As their mother would later say, they hadn't had much experience in the outside world.
By the time police let them rejoin the tour, they had already been left behind. They drove back home.
Days after the April 30 incident, which school officials have described as the result of bias, Colorado State University President Tony Frank wrote a lengthy and sobering apology.
"Two young men, through no fault of their own, wound up frightened and humiliated because another campus visitor was concerned about their clothes and overall demeanor, which appears to have simply been shyness," Frank wrote Friday. "The very idea that someone--anyone--might "look" like they don't belong on a CSU Admissions tour is anathema. People of all races, gender, identities, orientations, cultures, religion, heritages, and appearances belong here."
Anyone who is "uncomfortable with a diverse and inclusive academic environment" should find another campus "elsewhere," Frank added.
The brothers said their experience fits a pattern of racial profiling. The incident comes after a raft of similar situations have thrown a spotlight on racial bias and perceptions in recent weeks, The Washington Post's Kyle Swenson wrote. In April, two young black men who had arrived early at a Philadelphia Starbucks for a business meeting wound up leaving the coffee shop in handcuffs. Days later, two black men were wrongly accused of not paying to use an LA Fitness gym in Secaucus, N.J., The Post's Rachel Siegel reported.
Thomas Gray, a student at Northern New Mexico College, told the Associated Press that he and his brother kept to themselves the whole time. "I guess that was scaring people," he said, "that we were just quiet."
The teens' mother, Lorraine Kahneratokwas Gray, said listening to her son recount the experience reminded her of an encounter between an officer and a black man. "Unfortunately" in that incident, the man was shot and killed by the officer, Lorraine Gray wrote on Facebook.
"I am lucky my sons are both still alive," she said.
In a lengthy message to Lorraine Gray, the tour guide said she did not believe the young men were suspicious and apologized for not realizing what had happened until later.
"I am so sorry that I did not know. I am so sorry that I could not have stopped this from happening," Gabriella Visani wrote. "I am frustrated that the mother of the other student didn't think to let me know that she was calling the police on my tour guests."
"My heart is hurting," Visani added. "Please tell your sons that they ARE welcome here, even if they don't feel like it."
A police report and audio of the 911 call were redacted and edited to avoid identifying the caller, who was described as a white female. During the 911 call, the woman repeatedly told the dispatcher that she had never called 911 on anyone before and, perhaps, she was just "being completely paranoid."
After the incident, Lorraine Gray called campus police and told the officer that she felt her sons had been racially profiled, according to the police report. The officer told Gray that police are obligated to follow up on any call they receive and that the caller was "suspicious because of the boys' actions alone."
But in his message to the campus community, Frank, the president, urged everyone to reflect on their own biases against people who don't look like them.
"It seems to me that we can all examine our conscience about the times in our own lives when we've crossed the street, avoided eye contact, or walked a little faster because we were concerned about the appearance of someone we didn't know but who was different from us," he said.
And that call for self-reflection includes him, Frank said, "a white man in a position of authority."
Kyle Swenson contributed to this report.
Questions using Close Reading and Critical Thinking:
- 1. The first section of an article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" Identify the four Ws of this article. (Note: The rest of a news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. Does this article appear to have a political bias? Why or why not?
- 3. In your opinion, was the mother of a student on this campus tour wrong to call the police about her suspicions regarding these two young men? Explain.
- 4. The campus tour guide, Gabriella Visani, stated, "I am frustrated that the mother of the other student didn't think to let me know that she was calling the police on my tour guests." Why do you think she was frustrated? How could her knowledge of the police being called have changed the situation?
- 5. A "pattern of racial profiling" is mentioned in the article. What are the two other examples provided? Why did the author choose to reference those instances in this article?
- 6. Colorado State University President Tony Frank stated in his apology that "anyone who is 'uncomfortable with a diverse and inclusive academic environment' should find another campus 'elsewhere.'" Do you believe that it is right for academic institutions, and their representatives, to make such comments about prospective students, or do you think it is the job of these institutions to teach and provide experiences for students who are "uncomfortable" with diversity to be more accepting and tolerant? Explain your thinking.
Click here to view more: www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2018/05/06/after-native-american-bias-incident-college-says-those-against-diversity-can-go-elsewhere/
Posted May 01, 2018
The staggering environmental footprint of all the food that we just throw in the trash
The Washington Post
By Chris Mooney
APR 18, 2018
The mass quantities of food Americans waste every year has staggering environmental consequences, according to a study published Wednesday.
"Our data suggest that the average person in the United States wastes about a pound of food per day," said the University of Vermont's Meredith Niles, one of the study's authors, along with researchers at the Department of Agriculture and the University of New Hampshire.
That totals about 25 percent of all food, by weight, available for consumption in the United States--or about 30 percent of all available calories, the researchers estimate--a figure that's larger than previous attempts to measure food waste.
The environmental costs of that wasted food are tremendous: 30 million acres of cropland (about the land area of Pennsylvania), 4.2 trillion gallons of water and nearly 2 billion pounds of fertilizer. Fertilizer contains compounds that can run off farm fields and compromise water quality.
The study, published in the journal PLOS ONE, did not calculate the resulting greenhouse gas emissions. But prior research has suggested wasted food, like all food production, also contributes to the warming of the planet, because agriculture is a key source of the fast-warming gases methane and nitrous oxide.
The report is the latest evidence that if the world is to manage a growing population and the massive changes that population is making to the global climate, it will have to significantly reshape its food system to use fewer resources to feed more people--efficiency that probably would require wasting far less food.
The new research is based on a massive survey of Americans' eating habits, cross-referenced with other federal data sets and amplified by modeling tools, so as to determine how much food we waste and how much environmental input that translates into.
The amount of total food wasted is undoubtedly larger than the researchers calculated, as the study focused only on waste by consumers at home or when eating out. Waste within the agricultural system before food reaches a home or restaurant was not included, nor was food wasted at supermarkets.
"What we're reporting is about 25 percent of the food that's available for consumption gets wasted," said the Agriculture Department's Zach Conrad, the study's lead author. "And there are some other data sets that are showing, that across the entire food system, it's about 30 to 40 percent."
"Food waste is a big deal," said Timothy Searchinger, a senior fellow at the World Resources Institute and a Princeton University researcher who reviewed and commented on the study by email. "It results in large increases in land use demands, other inputs, and greenhouse gas emissions."
If anything, Searchinger said he was "puzzled" that the estimates for the amount of land used to grow wasted food were not even higher in the study.
The research also contains a potentially controversial finding among those who focus on promoting healthier diets--as well as among environmental advocates who regularly attack the beef industry for its large environmental footprint.
Namely, the research finds the most wasted foods are actually the healthiest: fruits and vegetables. These represented 39 percent of the food wasted per person.
"Higher quality diets actually result in higher amounts of food waste, and that largely has to do with the fact that those diets have more fruits and vegetables in them," Niles said. "And it is the most wasted food that we found in our study."
Dairy and beef were the second and third most wasted foods, respectively.
Searchinger partly questioned this finding, noting "fruits and vegetables have high weight (due to the water content) and high loss and waste rates, due to spoilage and imperfections in appearance."
"One element of a healthier diet is less beef consumption," he wrote. "Because there is also significant wastage of beef and because beef uses so much land (although mostly pasture), there is a good chance that if you factored in pasture savings, the healthy diet would waste less land."
Although the study did not present explicit public opinion data on why people waste food, for fruits and vegetables in particular it is often the perception that they are flawed, or have gone bad. For other types of food, Niles cited issues ranging from large portion sizes to confusion about expiration dates.
Niles and Conrad said the solutions to food waste include educating people--for instance, teaching that a bruised banana can still be eaten--and a lot more meal planning.
What is clear, given the numbers here, is we cannot hope to feed even more people on Earth, with less of an environmental impact, if we cannot get food waste under control.
"We think it's really important to pursue efforts for nutrition and improving environmental outcomes simultaneously," Niles said. "As we improve our diet quality we should be thinking about the multiple strategies we have to make sure food isn't getting wasted at the same time."
Questions using Close Reading and Critical Thinking:
- 1. The first section of an article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" Identify the four Ws of this article. (Note: The rest of a news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. Does this article appear to have a political bias? Why or why not?
- 3. What is the average amount of food that a person in the U.S. wastes per day? How much of the total amount of food available does that add up to? Do these numbers surprise you?
- 4. According to the article, why is the overproduction and wasting of food a problem?
- 5. Explain why these findings are "potentially" controversial, and to whom.
- 6. What are the two solutions offered that would solve this problem? Select one solution and explain how you think it would reduce food waste.
- 7. Were you surprised by anything in this article? If yes, explain what you found most surprising and why. If no, explain why you were not surprised by it.
Click here to view more: www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2018/04/18/americans-waste-about-a-quarter-of-the-food-they-buy-and-the-environmental-consequences-are-staggering/
Posted April 24, 2018
Beyond cookies: Thousands of girls are becoming Cub Scouts
By HOLLY RAMER
AP News | 23 April 18
DURHAM, N.H. (AP)--Ten-year-old twins Tatum and Ian Weir aren't about to let matching, minor injuries deter them from their goal of becoming the first sister-brother pair of Eagle Scouts.
"I cut myself, too!" Tatum said, pausing only briefly during a recent Cub Scout meeting to touch her thumb to her brother's before continuing on with a woodworking project.
New Hampshire's Daniel Webster Council, which includes Durham's Pack 154, is among more than 170 nationwide participating in an early adopter program as the Boy Scouts of America begins welcoming girls into the organization in new ways.
The soft launch followed the Boy Scouts' announcement in October that it would begin admitting girls into the Cub Scouts starting later this year and would establish a new program next year for older girls based on the Boy Scout curriculum.
"We heard from our families, 'OK, you've made the decision, can you please give us a way to do this right now because we've got families and daughters that are just really excited about it," said Boy Scouts spokeswoman Effie Delimarkos.
"We heard that so much that we decided to kick off this early adopter program with the understanding that a lot of the materials we're working on, in terms of uniforms and handbooks and so forth were still in development," she said. "But folks were very understanding. They just wanted to be able to start."
About two-thirds of councils nationwide signed up, bringing roughly 3,000 girls into the Cub Scouts so far, she said. Under the new plan, Cub Scout dens--the smallest unit--will be single-gender, either all boys or all girls. The larger Cub Scout packs will have the option to remain single-gender or not.
Scouting leaders have some leeway, however, particularly in smaller communities.
In Durham, for example, den leader Tuck Pescosolido recently led a group of four girls and four boys as they built wooden toolboxes. As the project got underway, the girls raised their hands and waited to be called on, while the boys were somewhat silly, cracking jokes about flying airplanes when asked about drilling pilot holes. But once they settled into the activity, things leveled out.
"I didn't want to stereotype. But yes, I did expect perhaps the girls would be a little bit calmer, would be a little bit perhaps easier to manage in my role as the den leader, and to a certain extent that has played out," Pescosolido said. "But it's done so in a great way. It's not that the girls are sitting still. It's that they are very highly engaged in the task and they're less, perhaps, distracted by other things than the boys are."
The girls have gotten an enthusiastic welcome from Scout leaders and the boys themselves, he said. Some of the new members are friends the boys recommended, while others are sisters of Scouts. BSA officials have said the changes are aimed, in part, at making things more convenient for busy families, though that notion doesn't sit well with some leaders at the Girl Scouts of the USA.
"To me, a daughter is not a matter of convenience. You've made the choice for your son based on what you thought was best for him, and the daughter should be getting a similar decision. We know facts prove that the Girl Scout program is the better program for the girls and young women we serve," said Patricia Mellor, CEO of the Girl Scouts of the Green and White Mountains, which serves Vermont and New Hampshire.
"I welcome opportunity for girls, but for years, I've been reading the cases and the information coming out from Boy Scouts that their program was specifically designed for boys, only for boys," she said. "I see that they're not changing their programming and wonder why they believe a program designed by men for boys is going to meet the needs of today's girls."
In Durham, 9-year-old Sadhana Muppala said she didn't know much about Girl Scouts--"I feel like they make cookies"--but has enjoyed her Cub Scout experience so far. Building the toolbox was even more fun than she expected, she said, "Because we got to do it ourselves."
Tatum Weir agreed. She had been to a few of her brother's meetings--their dad is the assistant den leader--and was eager to join.
"I thought it would be pretty cool because I thought it would be a good opportunity to do with my brother," she said. "There's a lot of cool activities."
Asked what he likes about Cub Scouts, Ian Weir ticked off a short list: going places, nature, and "Tatum's in it."
"I was a little skeptical because it was me and my dad's thing, but when Tatum got in it was even more fun," he said.
Questions using Close Reading and Critical Thinking:
- 1. The first section of an article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" Identify the four Ws of this article. (Note: The rest of a news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. Does this article appear to have a political bias? Why or why not?
- 3. Describe the organizational structure of this article, and explain whether or not it was effective in conveying the information.
- 4. What conflicts appear as the article progresses?
- 5. One of the people interviewed for this article express a belief that boys and girls need to do different activities. Do you agree with this sentiment? Explain.
- 6. What type of tone has this author adopted? Use the author's word choices and structure to support your answer.
- 7. What do you think the article's author is hinting at with the closing line?
Click here to view more: www.apnews.com/1ea6dd147080464881e604e575233aab
Posted April 17, 2018
Why we're forgetting the Holocaust
New York Post
OPINION By Karol Markowicz
APR 15, 2018
A scary new survey released on Holocaust Remembrance Day purported to show that Americans are forgetting the atrocities of the Holocaust. What it really showed, however, was that Americans don't learn enough to forget in the first place.
The poll, conducted by Claims Conference, a group that administers compensation and other services to Holocaust survivors, found that 40 percent of millennials couldn't name a single death camp or ghetto. No Auschwitz, no Bergen-Belsen. And 31 percent of all Americans--and 41 percent of millennials--believe that fewer than 2 million Jews were killed in the Holocaust. The number is actually 6 million.
While we still use "millennials" as shorthand for young people, millennials currently range in age from mid-20s to late-30s. These are adults.
The shocked reaction to the survey is understandable but misguided. A 1993 study by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency found that "38 percent of adults and 53 percent of high-school students either said they 'don't know' or offered completely incorrect answers" when asked to define the term "the Holocaust."
Part of it is a failure of education. The 2008 book "The Emergence of Holocaust Education in American Schools" by Thomas Daniel Fallace found that in the 1960s, the Holocaust barely got a mention in American public schools. It wasn't until the 1980s that Holocaust education became a regular subject of study.
Yet lack of Holocaust knowledge had become so pervasive that in 2016, Michigan and Rhode Island passed bills requiring Holocaust and genocide education in high school, joining New York, New Jersey, California, Florida and Illinois. Several organizations are pushing to expand this mandate to all 50 states.
That would be a good start. As these surveys show, students need to be taught not just the basics but the details. The Holocaust stands apart as one of the few world events that students should have to master.
There have been genocides before, and since, but the scale and methods of murder in the Holocaust are unparalleled. Two-thirds of the Jewish population of Europe was wiped out in killings that occurred throughout numerous countries. The systematic way that the Nazis rounded up Jews and attempted to extinguish them was a unique historical event.
We think that as civilization advances, we'll have less cause to kill each other. Barbarians slaughter each other for no reason; sophisticated people do not. The Holocaust was proof that that's false. Winston Churchill wrote that the Holocaust was "the most horrible crime ever committed in the whole history of the world, and it has been done by scientific machinery by nominally civilized men."
With the recent spike in anti-Semitism across the world--including the European ground where it happened the first time--remembering how the Holocaust happened, how it developed, how responses to it evolved, etc., becomes a much more important task.
And, crucially, Jews can't do it alone. Like a word repeated too often, the stories lose their meaning. The TV show "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend" featured a comedic song about Jews overemphasizing their suffering. "I don't want to bring up the Holocaust. I know, I know, the Holocaust. But the Holocaust was a really big deal. Remember that we suffered," Tovah Feldsher sings.
It's a joke, but there's some truth there. In the same way people mock Rudy Giuliani for being "president of 9/11," Jews are mocked, and mock themselves, for always having the Holocaust at the forefront of their lives.
But this is no time to pipe down. There are still survivors of the Holocaust, people who made it out of the death camps, eluded the gas chambers, walking around to tell the tales. What happens when they're gone if Jews are too sheepish to tell their story?
There are over 60 Holocaust museums and memorials throughout the United States. Visiting them should be a part of the curriculum of any school in the vicinity of one of them.
It shouldn't end at high school either. Any world history course that includes study of the 20th century should be spending some time on the Holocaust, preferably in depth.
Adults ignorant of what happened were all teenagers once who weren't taught properly.
The problem with an event that causes us to ask "How could this have happened?" is that it's so easy to shift to "This couldn't have happened." It could, it did, and people need to know it.
Questions using Close Reading and Critical Thinking:
- 1. The first section of an article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" Identify the four Ws of this article. (Note: The rest of a news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. Does this article appear to have a political bias? Why or why not?
- 3. What is the author's claim in this article and how do the statistics in the second paragraph support that claim?
- 4. The author says, "The Holocaust stands apart as one of the few world events that students should have to master." Explain her reasons supporting this statement.
- 5. The author claims that there has been a "recent spike in anti-Semitism across the world" but does not support this with a source. Why do you think the author made that choice? Do you think she should have a statistic to back up this statement?
- 6. Why do you think so many schools aren't teaching about the Holocaust?
- 7. What organizational structure (description, cause/effect, problem/solution, sequence/order, compare/contrast) was used in this article? Was this an effective way to organize the author's opinion?
Click here to view more: www.nypost.com/2018/04/15/why-were-forgetting-the-holocaust/
Posted April 10, 2018
Asher and Alexie books among most objected to in 2017
By HILLEL ITALIE
AP News | 9 April 18 | 9:09 AM
NEW YORK (AP)--Before allegations of sexual harassment, Jay Asher and Sherman Alexie were facing criticisms of a different kind.
Asher's "Thirteen Reasons Why" and Alexie's "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian" top the American Library Association's list of "challenged" books from 2017, those most objected to by parents and other community members. The list also includes Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird" and one of last year's top-selling young adult novels, Angie Thomas' "The Hate U Give."
Complaints about books range from the theme of suicide in "Thirteen Reasons Why" to profanity and sexual content in Alexie's book. James LaRue, who runs the library association's Office for Intellectual Freedom, said that future challenges could well be based on the authors themselves. Last year, Bill Cosby's "Little Bill Books" were on the ALA list because of multiple accusations of sexual assault against the actor-comedian.
"I personally believe the book is distinct from the author," LaRue said. "But when a librarian faces that kind of challenge, my advice is to treat it like any other kind of challenge. You look at the nature of the challenge, consider the context and make the decision based on the needs of the local community."
Over the past few months, several writers have had book deals and other projects canceled or have been kicked out of organizations. Asher was dropped by his literary agent and expelled from the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators. Alexie ended up turning down one of the library association's highest honors, the Carnegie Medal, which had been awarded for his memoir "You Don't Have to Say You Love Me." The prize was announced in early February, just before allegations surfaced that he had harassed numerous women.
The ALA list is part of the association's State of America's Libraries report and marks the beginning of National Library Week, which runs through April 14. Books drawing attention, whether because of sales or a film adaptation, often become more likely to receive challenges. In 2017, "Thirteen Reasons Why" was adapted into a popular Netflix series, while "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian" has been widely read and taught since coming out a decade ago. In previous years, Maya Angelou's "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" and J.K. Rowling's "Harry Potter" series have been among notable challenged works.
Books on the new list were a mix of older works such as Lee's novel (violence, racial language) and Khaled Hosseini's "The Kite Runner" ("May lead to terrorism") and more recent books, including Cory Silverberg's "Sex is a Funny Word" and "I Am Jazz," by Jessica Herthel and Jazz Jennings ("Gender identity"). Three works were cited for "LGBT content": the gay-themed penguin story "And Tango Makes Three," by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson; Alex Gino's "George"; and Raina Telgemeier's "Drama."
The association tallied 356 challenges, up from 323 last year, but in line with numbers over the past decade. The ALA, which believes that reported cases are just a fraction of actual challenges, bases its list on news reports and on accounts submitted from libraries. A challenge is defined as a "formal, written complaint filed with a library or school requesting that materials be removed because of content or appropriateness."
LaRue did not have a number for books actually pulled from shelves, although he cited some examples. After seven students from a Colorado community killed themselves, a school district official in 2017 ordered librarians to temporarily stop circulating "Thirteen Reasons Why." An Arizona school district pulled "The Kite Runner," and offered no explanation. A superintendent in Katy, Texas, pulled "The Hate U Give" after a man attending a school board meeting complained of the book's language and depiction of drug use.
____
Top 10 list: http://www.ala.org/advocacy/bbooks/NLW-Top10
State of Libraries Report: http://bit.ly/soal-2018
Questions using Close Reading and Critical Thinking:
- 1. The first section of an article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" Identify the four Ws of this article. (Note: The rest of a news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. Does this article appear to have a political bias? Why or why not?
- 3. Describe the overall theme of this article.
- 4. What reasons are given for listing "challenged" books?
- 5. Explain why you agree or disagree with James LaRue that "the book is distinct from the author."
- 6. Why might Hillel Italie have mentioned older books that are also on the list?
- 7. Examine the concluding paragraphs of the article. What is your reaction to it? Why do you think the author chose to abruptly end the article?
Click here to view more: www.apnews.com/24b410037f2a42c2a13516c4191c3f6d/Asher-and-Alexie-books-among-most-objected-to-in-2017
Posted April 03, 2018
Martin Luther King's death tore America apart. We still can't reckon with African American demands for justice
Los Angeles Times
OPINION By JASON SOKOL
APR 01, 2018
Because Martin Luther King Jr. now stands as an exalted hero of American history, we tend to assume that his assassination 50 years ago was experienced as a national tragedy. Yet in the days and weeks after his death on April 4, 1968, Americans not only mourned and grieved but also seethed and raged.
President Lyndon Johnson designated April 7, Palm Sunday that year, as a national day of mourning. On April 9, 120 million people watched King's funeral on television. But Americans were not unified by a collective grief. Some whites were incredulous at the president's proclamation and marveled that ministers would deliver eulogies for a man they considered a communist agitator; others even celebrated King's death.
Riots decimated parts of Washington, Chicago and other cities. Many whites were angered and frightened by the violent eruptions more than they were beset by the loss of King.
There were millions of Americans, black and white, who peacefully honored the slain civil rights leader and committed themselves to King's dream of a "beloved community" of racial justice and interracial harmony. But that dream was very much in doubt even before King's death; his assassination helped to extinguish it. This was a corrosive time, a time when the divisions in American society--political, social, and most of all racial--burst to the fore, when the nation threatened to crack in two. It was a time not unlike our own.
Now, as then, a segment of white America views all forms of black protest as unacceptable and unpatriotic. There may not be a straight line that runs from Martin Luther King Jr., the prophet of nonviolence, to Colin Kaepernick, the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback who knelt during the national anthem, and others who have joined the Black Lives Matter movement. But the white hatred directed at King and these modern-day civil rights protesters some five decades later is remarkably similar.
King's detractors claimed that he was inflammatory, and that he actually created violence. When Bull Connor unleashed his attack dogs on black protesters in Birmingham, or when Jim Clark's posse fractured the skulls of marchers in Selma, whites blamed King and his followers for helping to produce that violence. So went the argument.
King attracted the most widespread scorn for his antiwar activism. In a speech at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in February 1967, King insisted that he opposed the Vietnam War "because I love America" and "because I am disappointed with America." In April 1967, in a sermon at Riverside Church in New York City, King called America "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today." He feared that his nation was approaching "spiritual death." Newspaper editors rebuked King; political leaders denounced him; the death threats intensified.
In King's last campaign, he traveled to Memphis early in 1968 to assist striking sanitation workers--1,300 black men who toiled in degrading conditions for meager wages. On March 28, 1968, King led a march during which some of the protesters behind him turned violent. King's critics thought this clinched their argument. Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia called King a "self-seeking rabble-rouser" who "undoubtedly encouraged" the violence in Memphis. Rep. Dan Kuykendall of Tennessee accused King of "agitating destruction, violence, and hatred." The criticism continued even after King's murder days later. Upon hearing of the assassination, Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina decried King as "an outside agitator, bent on stirring people up, making everyone dissatisfied."
Many white Americans thought King had received his just [desserts]. "The leaders of the government pay homage to a rabble rousing, riotous insurgent," lamented Shelbyville, Tenn., resident Richard Brantley in a letter to the Nashville Tennessean. "I am sick to my soul."
In our own time, African American protesters are similarly loathed. When Kaepernick devised his national anthem protest in 2016, he consulted with veterans precisely because he wished to express himself in a way that would not be perceived as an attack on the nation or military. He wanted to raise awareness about racial injustice, particularly the killing of black men by police officers. But he was despised and lambasted, and ultimately run out of the National Football League. In September 2017, President Trump reignited the controversy when he advised NFL owners to fire any "son of a bitch" who took a knee during "The Star Spangled Banner."
Many white Americans continue to view any criticism of the nation as disloyalty, especially if the critic is African American. Debating Tomi Lahren, the Fox News contributor who gained fame for her caustic criticism of Kaepernick, "The Daily Show's" Trevor Noah wondered how African Americans ought to exercise their 1st Amendment rights, if not through peaceful protests like Kaepernick's. "Here's a black man in America who says, 'I don't know how to get a message across. If I march in the streets, people say I'm a thug. If I go out and I protest people say it's a riot.'... What's the right way for a black person to get attention in America?" Lahren dodged the question.
King's legacy had, by 2016, become thoroughly sanitized. Many white Americans embraced him as a voice for colorblindness, and conveniently forgot about his own confrontational acts of civil disobedience.
Conservatives even invoked King in their denunciations of the Black Lives Matter movement. Bill O'Reilly charged that "Dr. King would not participate in a Black Lives Matter protest." Mike Huckabee claimed that King would be "appalled by the notion that we're elevating some lives above others." Clemson football coach Dabo Swinney recommended that Black Lives Matter protesters heed King's shining example: "I think the answer to our problems is exactly what they were for Martin Luther King when he changed the world. Love, peace, education, tolerance of others, Jesus."
All of these critics missed something fundamental. King was a man who criticized his country, who was condemned as unpatriotic in his own day, and who paralyzed American cities with massive street demonstrations.
After King's death in 1968, African Americans took to the streets--some in violent revolt and others in peaceful and interracial marches. In turn, politicians such as George Wallace and Richard Nixon promised a law-and-order crackdown. Nixon exploited white voters' racial anger en route to the White House.
In 2018, this story seems hauntingly familiar. Unarmed black men have been gunned down in our streets, yet many white Americans remain unmoved by those acts of racial violence. Their response has not been to call for justice, but to support a president who has empowered and emboldened white supremacists.
While King tried to bring the races together during his life, his death illuminated the depths of white racism just as it accelerated black militancy and helped to break the races further apart. We now stand in the wake of a vicious backlash against our first black president and confront a world in which black lives remain uniquely threatened. It is five decades since King's murder, but the same white rage tears at our social fabric.
Jason Sokol is a history professor at the University of New Hampshire and author of "The Heavens Might Crack: The Death and Legacy of Martin Luther King Jr."
Questions using Close Reading and Critical Thinking:
- 1. The first section of an article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" Identify the four Ws of this article. (Note: The rest of a news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. Does this article appear to have a political bias? Why or why not?
- 3. It is the opinion of the author Jason Sokol's that the reaction to King Jr.'s protests and modern-day civil rights protests are "remarkably similar." What are the similarities he sees?
- 4. History recognizes MLK as a "peaceful protester," and yet at the time many of his critics accused him of encouraging violence and called him an "agitator, bent on stirring people up." How do you make sense of these two conflicting views? Can both be true about MLK?
- 5. Explain the comparison Sokol makes between MLK and Colin Kaepernick. Do you agree with him that these two civil rights figures are similar?
- 6. Sokol says, "Many white Americans continue to view any criticism of the nation as disloyalty." Do you agree with his view? Explain.
- 7. Sokol points out that some conservatives have said MLK would not participate in the Black Lives Matter movement. Based on what you know about MLK, do you think he would participate? Explain your thinking.
- 8. In the concluding paragraph, the author paints a bleak picture of today's race relations in this country. Do you agree with his view? Explain your thinking.
Click here to view more: www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-sokol-mlk-assassination-20180401-story.html
Posted March 29, 2018
Pizza Industry in Chaos Over Massive Failure of Midwest Anchovy Crop
Anna Zilenski
The New York Times
Published 6:00 AM E.S.T. April 1, 2018 Updated 10:00 AM E.S.T.
"Pizza makers from large chains like Dominos, Little Caesar's and Papa Romano's right down to the mom and pop stores will be profoundly impacted by the looming anchovy shortage," according to Nancy Gallo, spokesperson for the Pizza Industry Association (PIA).
Department of Agriculture sources point to a bacterial infection that has devastated anchovy croplands throughout the Midwest, leaving farmers helpless amid acres of rotting anchovy plants. "With the U.S. heartland the sole source of supply, product in the distribution channels will soon be used up entirely," Gallo said.
"Pizza outlets face losing a segment of the market when the supply runs out." She added, "Many will simply have to close their doors, affecting not only employees but entire communities used to having the convenience of a pizza close at hand. Friday night just won't be the same in America," said Gallo.
According to figures supplied by Secretary of Commerce James Bugiardo, only a small minority of customers order anchovies on their pizza, under 6.34 percent, or only about one in 20 pizzas. However, according to Secretary Bugiardo, eliminating even that relatively small segment of customers from the narrow profit margins of the industry will spell losses for many if not all pizza retailers. "We expect a contraction of up to 43 percent of the pizza retail industry," he said.
"The taste for anchovies is an all or nothing preference," according to PIA spokesperson Gallo.
Apparently the customers who enjoy the salty treat on their pizza are adamant, and countless consumers interviewed said they will simply stop ordering pizza altogether if there are no anchovies. "We already see anchovy lovers deserting pizza for shawarma and sushi. These customers may acquire a taste for gas station sushi and never return once the crisis has passed. That is the concern," Gallo added.
Agriculture Department sources say the blight is caused by the bacterium papilio trolius, which causes the upper leaves of the plant to wilt, leaving the anchovies which grow right under the top leaves exposed. Once exposed, the lightest rain washes off the signature saltiness which also protects the anchovies from spoilage. Even if harvested immediately after wilt, the bland taste makes them unmarketable, and if left in the field, they immediately begin to rot.
With prevailing westerly winds, Tulsa, Oklahoma, has already issued a health warning as the odor and spores from the vast rotting anchovy cropland in Genesee county to the west of Tulsa reach the city.
No joking matter to those affected, nevertheless the late night comedians have checked in, Jimmy Kimmel said of the emergency, "Trump does not care."
President Trump immediately tweeted his response. "Of course I care about something so important to America. It's who we are. Anyone who says different is a liar." And in a subsequent tweet, "If the Obama administration had seen to this before, we would not be in this situation now. Plain and simple folks. It was Obama."
A spokesman for ex-President Obama said, "This was a problem we indeed studied at length, and in depth and I think we addressed the problem responsibly considering that it, the problem, was something we inherited from 8 years of Bush administration."
Wild speculation surrounds the crisis as the industry scrambles for substitutes. Synthetic anchovies made from soy protein are being considered by agriculture giant Conagra™, as well as heavily salted olives.
In the meantime, the farmers, pizza makers and pizza lovers wait with no solution immediately in sight.
Questions Using Close Reading and Critical Thinking:
- 1. The first section of an article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" Identify the four Ws of this article. (Note: The rest of the news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. Does this article have any bias? Why or why not?
- 3. Why do you suppose politicians have to "weigh in" on everything?
- 4. Was the article objective? Did the writer try to blame someone?
- 5. Did the article present both sides of the issue?
- 6. Could even a respected journal like The New York Times present fake news?
- 7. If this were fake news, how would you know?
- 8. Should you believe everything you read?
Posted March 19, 2018
This teen is delaying Harvard to be a race car driver
By Hana R. Alberts
New York Post March 18 2018
Aurora Straus never intended to become a professional race car driver.
But when she was 13, her dad signed her up for a safe-driving lesson at the Monticello Motor Club in the Catskills.
"My dad's intention was for me to learn car control skills," she told The Post of her father, Ari Straus, the CEO of the club. But during the one-on-one session (private tracks allow drivers as young as 13 to take the wheel), instructor Stevan McAleer let her drive a few fast laps for fun. It was like a switch was tripped.
"I will never forget the feeling of the machine under me. I was so small, and I had never experienced so much power. It was the first time I had ever gone into the triple digits," said the now-19-year-old from Cold Spring, NY.
Fast forward to 2018, her most challenging year yet in the sport. Aurora--who, after graduating from her Westchester high school last year deferred her admission to Harvard until the fall--will drive a $190,000 BMW M4 GT4 at the Pirelli World Challenge series in Austin, Texas, Friday through Sunday.
It's her 35th race--and she's kicking butt, having ended 2017 as the highest-finishing rookie in the Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge. In Austin, she'll be one of just three women among the 150 drivers in the series.
After the safe-driving lesson, she started racing go-karts in 2014 and then, under McAleer's tutelage, entered her first pro race--the Battery Tender Mazda MX-5 Cup, a series of 45-minute sprints.
"I was 16 and 17, and the drivers of other cars were early to late-20s, and mostly men," said Aurora, who has a younger brother and sister. "It's really hard to move up because all the cars are the same [make and model], so it makes for close car-to-car contact and wheel-to-wheel racing. It's some of the most brutal racing I've done. If you breathe the wrong way, it can cost you the race." In 2015, she finished 20th out of a field of 35.
In 2016, she took the wheel of a Porsche Cayman in the Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge as its youngest driver ever. The pupil had caught up with the master: McAleer couldn't coach her anymore because he was competing, too. Aurora finished in the middle of the pack, then rose to 11 out of 41 drivers in 2017.
An amateur guitarist and singer, she also belted out the national anthem before taking part in one of the Continental races.
Being a girl in a male-dominated field isn't easy--and Aurora first saw that at 14, when she attended a racing retreat in Florida.
"One of the instructors... told me I braked like a girl, that I handled the car like a girl," she said. "I was so discouraged that I almost quit."
More recently, a team owner made an offhand comment about how she'd lure more supporters if she wore revealing outfits.
"I'm not here for people to take photos because I'm in a tank top, but because I'm a driver they want to follow," she said. "I have encountered more men than I would have expected who would rather push me off the track than race side-by-side with a 19-year-old girl. [But] I want no business in victimizing myself."
And Aurora may have more female competition soon.
"I've seen more girls coming to races with their dads," she said. "I've had dozens of girls come up to me at race weekends saying, 'I didn't know girls were allowed to race!'"
Although she's never been involved in a major crash, earlier this year, Aurora was testing a Porsche Cayman ahead of a race at Daytona International Speedway when her brakes failed during a turn. She downshifted the engine and managed to avoid hitting anything, but the experience was a bracing reminder of the risks of the sport.
During races, she's strapped in a cockpit that heats up to more than 100 degrees for 45 minutes to an hour and a half, and her internal body temperature can spike to 103 degrees. So she works on her ability to withstand the heat by doing cardio at least five days a week.
And it's not as simple as just getting in the car and driving. "I spend hours before I go to each new track watching video of past races or practices," said Aurora, adding that she also crunches crucial numbers. The drivers "are separated by tenths of seconds if that. The only way you can get better is [by] collecting data from the car--speed, acceleration, time differences per corner."
At Harvard, she plans to study English with a minor in mechanical engineering--and race on the weekends. During her year off from school, Aurora is working weekdays at Boston-based startup ZappRx, an online platform for specialty drugs.
Sponsored by watchmaker Richard Mille and ModSpace Motorsports, she is, in addition, raising money for a nonprofit that will support women trying to kick-start careers in fields from racing to tech.
As a result, she joked, she doesn't have time to do anything else--including date. But there's one personal indulgence she's looking forward to.
Now, when she makes the podium, "I get sparkling cider," said Aurora. But once she turns 21 in September 2019, "I'll get real Champagne."
Questions using Close Reading and Critical Thinking:
- 1. The first section of an article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" Identify the four Ws of this article. (Note: The rest of a news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. Does this article appear to have a political bias? Why or why not?
- 3. How is this article organized? Why do you think the author chose to organize it this way?
- 4. Describe one instance of sexism Aurora has faced as a female driver. Why do you think some of the other drivers and coaches feel this way about her participating in the sport?
- 5. Explain why the author says, "Aurora may have more female competition soon."
- 6. In addition to being a race car driver, how else is Aurora helping women to enter male-dominated fields?
- 7. The author concludes the article by sharing that Aurora is looking forward to turning 21 and being able to have "real Champagne" when she gets on the podium. Why do you think the author chose to end the piece this way?
Click here to view more: www.nypost.com/2018/03/18/this-teen-is-delaying-harvard-to-be-a-race-car-driver/
Posted March 13, 2018
Ahead of Trump wall tour, little change on US-Mexico border
By ELLIOT SPAGAT
AP News | 12 March 19 | 10:00 AM ET
CALEXICO, Calif. (AP)--The daily commute from Mexico to California farms is the same as it was before Donald Trump became president. Hundreds of Mexicans cross the border and line the sidewalks of Calexico's tiny downtown by 4 a.m., napping on cardboard sheets and blankets or sipping coffee from a 24-hour doughnut shop until buses leave for the fields.
For decades, cross-border commuters have picked lettuce, carrots, broccoli, onions, cauliflower and other vegetables that make California's Imperial Valley "America's Salad Bowl" from December through March. As Trump visits the border Tuesday, the harvest is a reminder of how little has changed despite heated immigration rhetoric in Washington.
Trump will inspect eight prototypes for a future 30-foot border wall that were built in San Diego last fall. He made "a big, beautiful wall" a centerpiece of his campaign and said Mexico would pay for it.
But border barriers extend the same 654 miles (1,046 kilometers) they did under President Barack Obama and so far Trump hasn't gotten Mexico or Congress to pay for a new wall.
Trump also pledged to expand the Border Patrol by 5,000 agents, but staffing fell during his first year in office farther below a congressional mandate because the government has been unable to keep pace with attrition and retirements. There were 19,437 agents at the end of September, down from 19,828 a year earlier.
In Tijuana, tens of thousands of commuters still line up weekday mornings for San Diego at the nation's busiest border crossing, some for jobs in landscaping, housekeeping, hotel maids and shipyard maintenance. The vast majority are U.S. citizens and legal residents or holders of "border crossing cards" that are given to millions of Mexicans in border areas for short visits. The border crossing cards do not include work authorization but some break the rules.
Even concern about Trump's threat to end the North American Free Trade Agreement is tempered by awareness that border economies have been integrated for decades. Mexican "maquiladora" plants, which assemble duty-free raw materials for export to the U.S., have made televisions, medical supplies and other goods since the 1960s.
"How do you separate twins that are joined at the hip?" said Paola Avila, chairwoman of the Border Trade Alliance, a group that includes local governments and business chambers. "Our business relationships will continue to grow regardless of what happens with NAFTA."
Workers in the Mexicali area rise about 1 a.m., carpool to the border crossing and wait about an hour to reach Calexico's portico-covered sidewalks by 4 a.m. Some beat the border bottleneck by crossing at midnight to sleep in their cars in Calexico, a city of 40,000 about 120 miles (192 kilometers) east of San Diego.
Fewer workers make the trek now than 20 and 30 years ago. But not because of Trump.
Steve Scaroni, one of Imperial Valley's largest labor contractors, blames the drop on lack of interest among younger Mexicans, which has forced him to rely increasingly on short-term farmworker visas known as H-2As.
"We have a saying that no one is raising their kids to be farmworkers," said Scaroni, 55, a third-generation grower and one of Imperial Valley's largest labor contractors. Last week, he had two or three buses of workers leaving Calexico before dawn, compared to 15 to 20 buses during the 1980s and 1990s.
Crop pickers at Scaroni's Fresh Harvest Inc. make $13.18 an hour but H-2As bring his cost to $20 to $30 an hour because he must pay for round-trip transportation, sometimes to southern Mexico, and housing. The daily border commuters from Mexicali cost only $16 to $18 after overhead.
Scaroni's main objective is to expand the H-2A visa program, which covered about 165,000 workers in 2016. On his annual visit to Washington in February to meet members of Congress and other officials, he decided within two hours that nothing changed under Trump.
"Washington is not going to fix anything," he said. "You've got too many people--lobbyists, politicians, attorneys--who make money off the dysfunction. They make money off of not solving problems. They just keep talking about it."
Jose Angel Valenzuela, who owns a house in Mexicali and is working his second harvest in Imperial Valley, earns more picking cabbage in an hour than he did in a day at a factory in Mexico. He doesn't pay much attention to news and isn't following developments on the border wall.
"We're doing very well," he said as workers passed around beef tacos during a break. "We haven't seen any noticeable change."
Jack Vessey, whose family farms about 10,000 acres in Imperial Valley, relies on border commuters for about half of his workforce. Imperial has only 175,000 people and Mexicali has about 1 million, making Mexico an obvious labor pool.
Vessey, 42, said he has seen no change on the border and doesn't expect much. He figures 10 percent of Congress embraces open immigration policies, another 10 percent oppose them and the other 80 percent don't want to touch it because their voters are too divided.
"It's like banging your head against the wall," he said.
Questions using Close Reading and Critical Thinking:
- 1. The first section of an article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" Identify the four Ws of this article. (Note: The rest of a news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. Does this article appear to have a political bias? Why or why not?
- 3. Given the information from this article, describe a day in the life of one of these "cross-border commuters."
- 4. When Steve Scaroni says, "We have a saying that no one is raising their kids to be farmworkers," what does he mean?
- 5. Make a chart, table, or graph using any selection of statistical information provided in this article. How does your selected information impact the overall article?
- 6. The author opted to include the ages of people interviewed for this article. Why might he have made that choice?
- 7. Explain the closing line of the article. What might be the author's intent in closing with this quote?
Click here to view more: www.apnews.com/cda5777929874223a2b927338dd5d73d
Posted March 06, 2018
Letting Teenagers Live
By David Leonhardt
The New York Times March 4 2018
On the Saturday night of their high school's homecoming weekend in 2009, four teenagers were driving together in Coral Springs, Fla., when their Volkswagen jumped off the road and plunged into a canal. A 15-year-old in the car escaped. Three 16-year-olds--Anthony Almonte, Sean Maxey and Robert Nugent--drowned.
Their families were devastated. Their high school reeled. On Monday morning, one entire class was "hysterical," a student recalled. But outside of their community, few people noticed. Fatal car crashes aren't big news. That same week, dozens of other crashes across the country also killed teenagers.
I'm telling you about this particular crash because of the school that Anthony, Sean and Robert attended. It was Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, in Parkland, Fla., where last month 17 people were killed in a mass shooting.
Since that shooting, the survivors have done something many people thought impossible. They have changed the debate over guns. They've started to shake this country out of its passive acceptance of avoidable death. They have demanded that adults start protecting children from violence.
No other affluent country subjects its teenagers to the risk of violence--or early death--that the United States does, and guns are one of the two big reasons. In 2016, 1,675 Americans between the ages of 13 and 19 were murdered with a gun. That made gun homicides the second leading cause of teenage death.
The top cause, by a large margin, was motor vehicle crashes. They killed 2,829 teenagers.
If the Stoneman Douglas shooting is finally going to stir Americans' consciences about the unique violence of childhood here, let's make sure that the discussion doesn't end with guns. The goal, after all, should be saving lives.
As recently as 1990, driving in America was less dangerous than in most other high-income countries. Today, we have a higher death rate than all of our peers. And teenage driving is a huge part of the problem.
In some ways, guns and car crashes are similar public-health issues. With both, other countries have reduced deaths by following the evidence, and we can follow their lead. If anything, though, reducing vehicle deaths should be easier.
Guns have become a defining partisan and cultural clash--Republican versus Democrat, rural versus metropolitan, old versus young. As a result, reducing gun deaths depends on either persuading one political party to abandon a core position or defeating that party.
Vehicle safety is different. There is no lobbying behemoth like the N.R.A. insisting that teenagers get unrestricted licenses. The states that have adopted the safest teen-driving policies lean left, but only somewhat. Alabama, for example, passed new rules last year. Most states have gotten tougher in the last two decades, and deaths have fallen. But they haven't fallen nearly enough, because the laws are not tough enough.
Wherever you are on the political spectrum, you should be able to support a campaign to reduce teen-driving deaths. For gun-control supporters like me, it's part of a broader public-health effort. For N.R.A. supporters, it's a way to save lives that avoids the Second Amendment.
What about teenagers who don't like the idea of losing freedom? Many may not actually be upset. Today's teenagers aren't as enamored with driving as previous generations.
The solution, experts say, revolves around a system called "graduated drivers licenses," in which teenagers slowly gain privileges as they gain experience. The reality is that most 16-year-olds aren't ready to operate a lethal 2,000-pound machine that can punish a few seconds of inattention with death, for the teen or someone else on the road. The fatal-crash rate for 16- and 17-year olds is about six times higher than the rate for people in their 30s and 40s. Teen driving kills a lot of people.
The ideal system would create three license tiers: first, a permit allowing supervised driving, starting at age 16 or later (not 15, as most states allow); second, an intermediate license, which forbids nighttime driving and distractions, like phone calls or other teens in the car; and finally, after many hours of driving, the full license.
Within this framework, states can still make different choices. Rural states--where driving matters more to daily life--might choose to have somewhat lower age cutoffs. New Jersey, the most densely populated state, makes people wait until age 18 for a full license. New York and Delaware, the two states with the best laws, according to Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, have sharply cut deaths in the last decade.
No set of laws can eliminate driving deaths. But it's clear that we can keep a lot more teenagers alive. The question is whether we care enough to do so. The students of Stoneman Douglas have held the country's attention in recent weeks because of the raw moral power of their plea: Stop letting children die, and start acting like adults. Let's get to it.
Questions using Close Reading and Critical Thinking:
- 1. The first section of an article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" Identify the four Ws of this article. (Note: The rest of a news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. Does this article appear to have a political bias? Why or why not?
- 3. How and why does the author make a connection between teen driving deaths and shooting deaths?
- 4. What does the author mean when he writes, "we have a higher death rate than all of our peers"? Who is the "we" and who are the "peers" he is referring to?
- 5. Why does the author say that "reducing [teenage] vehicle deaths should be easier" than reducing gun deaths? Explain his thinking.
- 6. Describe the "graduated drivers licenses" system.
- 7. Why do you think the high rates of teenage vehicle death are not reported more often in the news?
- 8. What is the author's call to action at the end of the article?
- 9. Do you think the author was effective in communicating his view? Explain your thinking.
Click here to view more: www.nytimes.com/2018/03/04/opinion/teenagers-driving-cars-guns.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fopinion
Posted February 27, 2018
Pediatricians Call For Universal Depression Screening For Teens
By Allison Aubrey
NPR.org | 26 February 2018 12:03 AM ET
Only about 50 percent of adolescents with depression get diagnosed before reaching adulthood. And as many as 2 in 3 depressed teens don't get the care that could help them.
"It's a huge problem," says Dr. Rachel Zuckerbrot, a board-certified child and adolescent psychiatrist and associate professor at Columbia University.
To address this divide, the American Academy of Pediatrics has issued updated guidelines this week that call for universal screening for depression.
"What we're endorsing is that everyone, 12 and up, be screened... at least once a year," Zuckerbrot says. The screening, she says, could be done during a well-visit, a sports' physical or during another office visit.
Zuckerbrot helped write the guidelines, which have been in development for a while. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force also recommends depression screening, and many pediatricians have already woven the screenings into their practices.
"Teenagers are often more honest when they're not looking somebody in the face who's asking questions," about their emotional health Zuckerbrot says. So, most pediatricians use a self-reported questionnaire that teens fill out themselves, either on an electronic device or on paper.
"It's an opportunity for the adolescent to answer questions about themselves privately," she says.
The questionnaires contain a range of questions. For instance, one version, asks: 'Over the past two weeks, how often have you been bothered by any of the following problems: feeling down, depressed or hopeless? Or, little interest or pleasure in doing things?' Teens are also asked questions such as, 'Are you having difficulty with sleep, either too much or too little?' 'Any problems with eating?'
The new recommendations also call for families with a depressed teen to develop a safety plan to restrict the young person's access to lethal means of harm. Suicide is a leading cause of death for children aged 10 to 17, and "adolescent suicide risk is strongly associated with firearm availability," according to an AAP report.
There's growing awareness in the U.S. of the need for young people to have good access to mental health care, says Dr. Doug Newton, a child psychiatrist at Kaiser Permanente in Colorado. "As a nation this has become part of the dialogue; it [is] increasing."
"People are aware of what's happening in our schools and the importance of mental health," Newton says. Kaiser Permanente has a stigma-reduction campaign called Find Your Words.
"Stigma is a huge challenge," he says, "specifically for adolescents. Often times they're not coming in to get help because of the stigma attached."
It's not easy to talk about depression, yet the problem is fairly common. During the teenage years, there's about a 20 percent [chance] of having depression or anxiety, research suggests.
"It's highly prevalent," Newton says. The goal of the "Find Your Words" campaign is to help make depression easier for everyone to talk about.
Another challenge to diagnosis is that families often don't detect depression, or they confuse it for something else.
"Sometimes teens are acting out or misbehaving," Zuckerbrot says. They're seen as being hostile or bad. "When, instead, they're really suffering from depression."
Questions using Close Reading and Critical Thinking:
- 1. The first section of an article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" Identify the four Ws of this article. (Note: The rest of a news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. Does this article appear to have a political bias? Why or why not?
- 3. List three questions you would like answered by the experts mentioned in this article.
- 4. What screening methods are being used to assess depression in teens, and why are these considered more effective?
- 5. Expand on the examples provided by addressing other ways stigma could keep a teen from seeking help.
- 6. Describe a behavior not mentioned that an adult might "confuse" for something other than depression.
- 7. What is another obstacle that might prevent a teen from being diagnosed or getting help with depression?
Click here to view more: www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/02/26/588334959/pediatrians-call-for-universal-depression-screening-for-teens
Posted February 20, 2018
Marches, walkouts and sit-ins: Gun control battle heads to the street
By Susannah Cullinane
CNN Mon February 19, 2018
(CNN)--As survivors of Wednesday's school shooting demand that it be the last such massacre, marches are being planned around the country to amplify the students' message that action must be taken to end gun violence.
The marches share one mission: to put pressure on Congress to pass gun reform and make schools safer.
Fourteen students and three teachers were killed and many injured when a gunman opened fire at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida last week.
The shooting was at least the eighth at a US middle or high school this year and has reignited a debate over gun control.
In an emotional rally Saturday in Fort Lauderdale, politicians and Marjory Stoneman Douglas students called for a ban on weapons like the one used at the high school, and urged voters to kick out lawmakers who oppose the move or who take money from the National Rifle Association.
#Enough Walkout
Women's March organizers have lent their voices to the call, encouraging students, teachers and their allies to walk out of schools on March 14 to protest gun violence.
They're demanding that Congress take legislative action on gun control.
The event is the brainchild of EMPOWER, the Woman's March youth branch, and will take place exactly one month after the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
It's scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. in every time zone and last for 17 minutes--one for each victim who lost their life in the massacre.
Much like the original Women's March, the #Enough Walkout started as a Facebook event that is quickly growing to include dozens of schools across the US, from elementary schools to colleges and universities.
March For Our Lives
Students who survived the shooting in Florida are also planning to protest in Washington, D.C. on March 24 at an event organized by March For Our Lives.
"Here's a time to talk about gun control: March 24. My message for the people in office is: You're either with us or against us. We are losing our lives while the adults are playing around," junior Cameron Kasky said Sunday.
According to a mission statement for March For Our Lives, students will converge to say the nation can no longer wait to tackle issues of school safety and gun control reform.
They're asking that like-minded folks who can't make it to the nation's capital stage solidarity marches in their own communities.
"Every kid in this country now goes to school wondering if this day might be their last. We live in fear," the March For Our Lives website says. "It doesn't have to be this way. Change is coming. And it starts now, inspired by and led by the kids who are our hope for the future. Their young voices will be heard."
National Day of Action Against Gun Violence in Schools
Another national walkout is slated for April 20, the nineteenth anniversary of the Columbine shooting in Colorado.
The Network for Public Education has organized the National Day of Action Against Gun Violence in Schools.
It has called for school communities to engage in acts of protest around their schools.
"Organize sit-ins, teach-ins, walkouts, marches--whatever you decide will show your school and community's determination to keep our students safe," it said. "It is time to let our legislators know that they must stand up to the gun lobby and enact meaningful reform to protect students and staff."
Addressing lawmakers
Meantime Florida lawmakers will experience the Parkland students' political motivation firsthand when they arrive at the state Capitol this Wednesday to speak to members of the Legislature.
Ryan Deitsch, 18, a senior planning to make the six-hour trip, says organizers have arranged buses to transport about 100 people, students and chaperones, to the capital.
They'll travel Tuesday night and plan to address senators Wednesday morning and representatives that afternoon. The plan is to split up into teams of three to five students and visit with legislators individually, he said.
Town hall
Later that day, CNN is holding a nationally televised town hall with the victims' classmates, parents and community members.
"Stand Up: The Students of Stoneman Douglas Demand Action" will air live at 9 p.m., ET, on Wednesday, February 21 at the BB&T Center.
So far, Florida Rep. Ted Deutch, Sen. Bill Nelson and Sen. Marco Rubio have accepted an invitation to participate in the town hall.
Florida Gov. Rick Scott said he would be unable to attend because he would be working on legislative solutions in Tallahassee. And President Donald Trump also declined an invitation to speak.
White House 'listening session'
The White House announced that a "listening session" would be held with high school students and teachers Wednesday. The White House said more information would be made available closer to the event.
Alex Wind, a survivor, told CNN's Fredricka Whitfield that he did not plan to attend and that the President needed to reach out to the students.
"If Donald Trump wants to listen to us, he should have taken the first invitation," Wind said. "We are not going to come to him. He is going to need to come to us."
Emma Gonzalez, speaking in the same interview, said she suspected his scheduled listening session could be a sign Trump does not want to face outraged victims of the shooting.
"The fact that he has organized this just proves that he's scared of us and that he doesn't want to have to face us," Gonzalez said.
But while the protests against gun violence and perceived inaction by lawmakers grow, so does the list of incidents involving schools.
In the less than a week since the shooting, the hopes of Marjory Stoneman Douglas students that their tragedy would be the last have appeared precarious.
As of Sunday night, there had been at least 12 reports of other incidents involving a threat to a school or a weapon on a school campus.
And so they march.
Questions using Close Reading and Critical Thinking:
- 1. The first section of an article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" Identify the four Ws of this article. (Note: The rest of a news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. Does this article appear to have a political bias? Why or why not?
- 3. "March For Our Lives" is a protest planned by students who survived last week's shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Explain their reasons for holding this protest and what they hope to accomplish.
- 4. What is the significance behind the two dates for the national walkouts and what purpose do these demonstrations serve?
- 5. What other methods do the survivors of last week's shooting plan to use to get their message across and create change?
- 6. After high-profile mass shootings in the past, there have been calls for greater gun control laws and reform. What makes these protests and demonstrations different? Do you think these actions will be able to bring about change? Explain your thinking.
- 7. Review the last couple of sentences of the article. What factual information is provided in these sentences, and what do you think the author's purpose or reasoning was for including it?
Click here to view more: www.cnn.com/2018/02/19/us/florida-parkland-shooting-marches/index.html
Posted February 13, 2018
Wind, ice and cold are making this Olympics too wintry
By GRAHAM DUNBAR and HOWARD FENDRICH
AP News | 12 February 2018 | 9:41 AM
PYEONGCHANG, South Korea (AP)--The Winter Olympics are supposed to be cold, of course. Just maybe not THIS cold.
Wind and ice pellets left Olympic snowboarders simply trying to stay upright in conditions that many felt were unfit for competition, the best ski jumpers on the planet dealing with swirling gusts and biathletes aiming to shoot straight.
All around the games, athletes and fans are dealing with conditions that have tested even the most seasoned winter sports veterans.
Low temperatures have hovered in the single digits, dipping below zero Fahrenheit with unforgiving gusts whipping at 45 mph (70 kph) making it feel much colder. Organizers have shuffled schedules, and shivering spectators left events early.
The raw air sent hundreds of fans to the exits Sunday when qualifying was called off after women's slopestyle devolved into a mess of mistakes, and Monday's final started 75 minutes late. Of the 50 runs, 41 ended with a fall or a rider essentially giving up. The temperature dropped to 3 Fahrenheit, with high winds.
American Jamie Anderson won the gold medal by watching most of her competitors struggle, and then completing a conservative run that paled in comparison to her winning performance at the X Games just two weeks ago.
"It has to be absolutely petrifying, terrifying, being up that high in the air, and having a gust 30 mph coming sideways at you," said United States Ski and Snowboard Association CEO Tiger Shaw.
Many of the snowboarders didn't think they should have been out there.
"You're going up the chairlift and you see these little tornadoes," said Czech snowboarder Sarka Pancohova, who finished 16th, "and you're like, 'What is this?'"
At ski jumping, giant netting was set up to reduce the wind that can blow at three times the optimal velocity for the sport. Didn't help all that much, though: The men's normal hill final on Saturday was pushed back repeatedly and eventually finished after midnight.
"It was unbelievably cold," said Japan's Noriaki Kasai, competing at his record eighth Olympics. "The noise of the wind at the top of the jump was incredible. I've never experienced anything like that on the World Cup circuit. I said to myself, 'Surely, they are going to cancel this.'"
Alpine skiing, meanwhile, still hasn't been able to get started at all, leaving stars like Mikaela Shiffrin of the U.S. and Aksel Lund Svindal of Norway waiting for their turn in the spotlight. Each of the first two races on the program--the men's downhill Sunday, and the women's giant slalom Monday--were called off hours before they were supposed to begin. Both of those have been moved to Thursday, when things are supposed to become slightly more manageable.
The forecast calls for more high winds Tuesday and Wednesday, although temperatures are expected to climb to 26.
"I am pretty sure that soon," men's race director Markus Waldner said with a wry smile, "we will have a race."
Until then, he and other officials are left trying to come up with contingency plans and ways to get the full 11-race Alpine program completed before the Olympics are scheduled to close on Feb. 25.
As it is, logistical complications are real concerns.
Waldner pointed out that he needs to figure out a way to get three men's races--the combined, downhill and super-G--completed by Friday, because there is only one hotel right by the speed course at the Jeongseon Alpine Center. The male skiers need to vacate their rooms to make way for their female counterparts, whose speed events are supposed to begin Saturday.
"Now, it's getting tight," he said.
Even those attending indoor events have been tested. Long, cold waits for buses have left workers, media and fans complaining.
Those involved in winter sports are used to this sort of thing, of course.
At the 2007 Alpine world championships in Sweden, for example, strong winds wiped out [the] first three days of competition. At the 1993 world championships in Japan, the men's super-G was never contested.
Can happen the other way, too. At the 2010 Vancouver Games, the first two Alpine races were postponed because of rain and--get this--too-warm temperatures in the 40s (below 10 Celsius). The entire Alpine world championships slated for Spain in 1995 were rescheduled for a whole year later because of a lack of snow.
"That's a piece of the puzzle that, I guess, fortunately or unfortunately is part of our world," U.S. Alpine men's speed coach Johno McBride said. "You're dealing with Mother Nature."
___
AP Sports Writers Jim Armstrong, Pat Graham, Eddie Pells and Jake Seiner contributed to this report.
___
More AP Olympic coverage: https://wintergames.ap.org/
Questions using Close Reading and Critical Thinking:
- 1. The first section of an article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" Identify the four Ws of this article. (Note: The rest of a news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. Does this article appear to have a political bias? Why or why not?
- 3. What imagery is used to give the readers perspective?
- 4. Why might the information in this article be as important to communicate as the results of the Olympic games?
- 5. Other than the athletes and spectators, who and what else have been affected by the weather?
- 6. In your own words, paraphrase the "logistical complications" described in the article.
- 7. Describe a time when Mother Nature interfered with a special event you attended.
Click here to view more: www.apnews.com/5917ebd70c1340f98fc09914f7bd14dc/Wind-ice-and-cold-are-making-this-Olympics-too-wintry
Posted February 06, 2018
Martin Luther King Jr. Commercial for Ram Trucks Is Swiftly Criticized
By SAPNA MAHESHWARI
FEB. 5, 2018
The online blowback was swift for Ram on Sunday after the carmaker used a sermon given by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as the voice-over for a Super Bowl ad.
The general sentiment: Did the company really just use Dr. King's words about the value of service to sell trucks?
The commercial showed scenes of people helping others while Dr. King extolled the virtues of service. At the end, the phrase "Built to Serve" was shown on the screen, along with the Ram logo.
"MLK wanted equal rights and for me to buy a Dodge Ram," one Twitter user wrote. Another wrote: "Black people [can't] kneel and play football but MLK should be used to sell trucks during the super bowl. Unbelievable."
The response put Ram in a position that advertisers dread--misfiring with a commercial in the Super Bowl, which sells 30 seconds of airtime for upward of $5 million and is watched by more than 100 million people.
"It's the wrong mistake to make given everything that's going on in the U.S. right now," said Tim Calkins, a marketing professor at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management. "There's so much emotion right now around race in this country that this was a high-risk move, and clearly it's not going over very well."
The ad came after a tumultuous year for the N.F.L., which had a national spotlight placed on football players who sat or kneeled during the national anthem, a controversial gesture meant to draw attention to racial oppression and police brutality against black Americans. President Trump sharply criticized the players, which heightened some of the rhetoric surrounding the protests.
And while many advertisers release their ads before the game, Ram did not, which added to the social media maelstrom.
"I think it was well intentioned, but they're going to have a lot of explaining to do," Mr. Calkins said. "They did not release this ahead of time, so they went for the surprise. They got that, but at the same time, they now have a big problem with feedback and people being upset."
Adding to the disconnect, the sermon in question, delivered exactly 50 years ago, touched on the danger of overspending on items like cars and discussed why people "are so often taken by advertisers." That was not lost on the ad's detractors.
The King Center said on Twitter that neither the organization nor the Rev. Bernice King, one of Dr. King's daughters, is responsible for approving his "words or imagery for use in merchandise, entertainment (movies, music, artwork, etc) or advertisement." It said that included the Super Bowl commercial.
Ram approached Dr. King's estate about using his voice in the commercial, said Eric D. Tidwell, the managing director of Intellectual Properties Management, the licenser of the estate.
"Once the final creative was presented for approval, it was reviewed to ensure it met our standard integrity clearances," Mr. Tidwell said in a statement. "We found that the overall message of the ad embodied Dr. King's philosophy that true greatness is achieved by serving others."
Fiat Chrysler Automobiles U.S., which owns Ram, said in a statement that it was honored to work with the group to celebrate Dr. King's words about the value of service.
"We worked closely with the representatives of the Martin Luther King Jr. estate to receive the necessary approvals, and estate representatives were a very important part of the creative process every step of the way," the company said.
Susan Credle, global chief creative officer of the agency FCB, marveled at the speed of the online backlash around the ad and said it showed the risks of wading into social commentary, especially during an event like the Super Bowl.
"You get so crucified, so fast," she said, adding, "We're just in a place where we get called out on authenticity and people don't want to be emotionally manipulated."
Margaret Johnson, chief creative officer of the agency Goodby Silverstein & Partners, was also surprised at how quickly the negative reaction coalesced online.
"The intent was right but maybe the timing was wrong," she said.
Questions using Close Reading and Critical Thinking:
- 1. The first section of an article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" Identify the four Ws of this article. (Note: The rest of a news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. Does this article appear to have a political bias? Why or why not?
- 3. Why do some people have a problem with Martin Luther King Jr.'s sermon being used in a truck commercial? If something other than a truck were being advertised, would it change how people feel about using MLK's sermon?
- 4. How did Dr. King's family and the King Center react to the commercial? Should their perspective impact how the commercial is perceived by the public?
- 5. What makes the Super Bowl such a high-stakes event for advertisers?
- 6. Margaret Johnson, the chief creative officer of the agency Goodby Silverstein & Partners, said, "[t]he intent was right but maybe the timing was wrong" about the Ram commercial. What do you think she means? Do you agree with her view?
Click here to view more: www.nytimes.com/2018/02/05/business/media/mlk-commercial-ram-dodge.html
Posted January 30, 2018
U.S. soldiers are revealing sensitive and dangerous information by jogging
By Liz Sly
The Washington Post | 29 January 18 | 5:22 AM
BEIRUT--An interactive map posted on the Internet that shows the whereabouts of people who use fitness devices such as Fitbit also reveals highly sensitive information about the locations and activities of soldiers at U.S. military bases, in what appears to be a major security oversight.
The Global Heat Map, published by the GPS tracking company Strava, uses satellite information to map the locations and movements of subscribers to the company's fitness service over a two-year period, by illuminating areas of activity.
Strava says it has 27 million users around the world, including people who own widely available fitness devices such as Fitbit and Jawbone, as well as people who directly subscribe to its mobile app. The map is not live--rather, it shows a pattern of accumulated activity between 2015 and September 2017.
Most parts of the United States and Europe, where millions of people use some type of fitness tracker, show up on the map as blazes of light because there is so much activity.
In war zones and deserts in countries such as Iraq and Syria, the heat map becomes almost entirely dark--except for scattered pinpricks of activity. Zooming in on those areas brings into focus the locations and outlines of known U.S. military bases, as well as of other unknown and potentially sensitive sites--presumably because American soldiers and other personnel are using fitness trackers as they move around.
The U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State said on Monday it is revising its guidelines on the use of all wireless and technological devices on military facilities as a result of the revelations.
The existing rules on the privacy settings to be applied to devices such as fitness trackers are being "refined" and commanders at bases are being urged to enforce existing rules governing their use, according to a statement from the Central Command press office in Kuwait.
"The rapid development of new and innovative information technologies enhances the quality of our lives but also poses potential challenges to operational security and force protection," said the statement, which was issued in response to questions from the Washington Post.
"The Coalition is in the process of implementing refined guidance on privacy settings for wireless technologies and applications, and such technologies are forbidden at certain Coalition sites and during certain activities," it added.
The Pentagon has encouraged the use of Fitbits among military personnel and in 2013 distributed 2,500 of them as part of a pilot program to battle obesity.
The Global Heat Map was posted online in November 2017, but the information it contains was publicized Saturday only after a 20-year-old Australian student stumbled across it.
Nathan Ruser, who is studying international security and the Middle East, found out about the map from a mapping blog and was inspired to look more closely, he said, after a throwaway comment by his father, who observed that the map offered a snapshot of "where rich white people are" in the world.
"I wondered, does it show U.S. soldiers?" Ruser said, and he immediately zoomed in on Syria. "It sort of lit up like a Christmas tree."
He started tweeting about his discovery, and the Internet also lit up as data analysts, military experts and former soldiers began scouring the map for evidence of activity in their areas of interest.
Adam Rawnsley, a Daily Beast journalist, noticed a lot of jogging activity on the beach near a suspected CIA base in Mogadishu, Somalia.
Another Twitter user said he had located a Patriot missile system site in Yemen.
Ben Taub, a journalist with the New Yorker, homed in on the location of U.S. Special Operations bases in the Sahel region of Africa.
The site does not identify app users and shows many locations that may be connected to aid agencies, U.N. facilities and the military bases of other nations--or any group whose personnel are likely to use fitness trackers, said Tobias Schneider, an international security analyst based in Germany.
But it is not hard, he said, to map the activity to known, or roughly known, U.S. military sites and then glean further information.
The location of most of the sites is public knowledge--such as the vast Kandahar air base in Afghanistan. The Pentagon has publicly acknowledged that U.S. Special Operations troops maintain a small outpost at Tanf in the Syrian desert near the Iraqi border, which shows up on the map as a neatly illuminated oblong, probably because U.S. soldiers wearing Fitbits or similar devices either jog around or patrol the perimeter.
But the data also offers a mine of information to anyone who wants to attack or ambush U.S. troops in or around the bases, Schneider said, including patterns of activity inside the bases. Many people wear their fitness trackers all day to measure their total step counts, and soldiers appear to be no exception, meaning the maps reveal far more than just their exercise habits.
Lines of activity extending out of bases and back may indicate patrol routes. The map of Afghanistan appears as a spider web of lines connecting bases, showing supply routes, as does northeast Syria, where the United States maintains a network of mostly unpublicized bases. Concentrations of light inside a base may indicate where troops live, eat or work, suggesting possible targets for enemies.
At a site in northern Syria near a dam, where analysts have suspected the U.S. military is building a base, the map shows a small blob of activity accompanied by an intense line along the nearby dam, suggesting that the personnel at the site jog regularly along the dam, Schneider said.
"This is a clear security threat," he said. "You can see a pattern of life. You can see where a person who lives on a compound runs down a street to exercise. In one of the U.S. bases at Tanf, you can see people running round in circles."
"Big OPSEC [operations security] and PERSEC [personal security] fail," tweeted Nick Waters, a former British army officer who pinpointed the location of his former base in Afghanistan using the map. "Patrol routes, isolated patrol bases, lots of stuff that could be turned into actionable intelligence."
By no means is all the activity discovered related to U.S. forces, Schneider said. The perimeter of the main Russian base in Syria, Hmeimim, is clearly visible--as are several routes out of the base that are presumably taken by patrols, he said.
Other Russian bases also show up, but Iranians either don't use fitness trackers or prudently turn them off, he noted.
Strava apps and devices contain an option to turn off the data transmission service, making it more the responsibility of the user to ensure that security isn't breached, Ruser said. "It seems like a big oversight," he said.
Strava issued a statement overnight saying that it is "committed to working with military and government officials to address sensitive areas that might appear." An earlier company statement had urged its subscribers to check their privacy settings and provided a link to a site that explained how to do that.
_____
Dan Lamothe in Washington contributed to this report.
Questions using Close Reading and Critical Thinking:
- 1. The first section of an article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" Identify the four Ws of this article. (Note: The rest of a news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. Does this article appear to have a political bias? Why or why not?
- 3. Summarize the problem revealed by the discovery of the heat map.
- 4. What are some potentially positive ways this map could be used?
- 5. While this story is newsworthy, should news outlets publish it given the danger it poses to U.S. military personnel and operations security?
- 6. What does Tobias Schneider mean by "a pattern of life"?
- 7. What is the implication of the line, "Other Russian bases also show up, but Iranians either don't use fitness trackers or prudently turn them off, he noted"?
Click here to view more: www.washingtonpost.com/world/a-map-showing-the-users-of-fitness-devices-lets-the-world-see-where-us-soldiers-are-and-what-they-are-doing/2018/01/28/86915662-0441-11e8-aa61-f3391373867e_story.html
Posted January 23, 2018
The government has officially shut down
The government enters its third day of shutdown.
By Tara Golshan and Dylan Scott Updated Jan 21, 2018, 10:14pm EST
On Monday, January 22, the federal government will go into the work week still shut down.
But this time, there's a "glimmer of hope"--as Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) put it Sunday--that Democrats and Republicans can come to an agreement by noon tomorrow, when the Senate is set to vote again to fund the government and open the doors.
Republicans and Democrats have been stuck in a standoff over government spending this weekend, after failing to reach an immigration and spending deal Friday. House Republicans passed a bill on Thursday to fund the government for four weeks and extend the Children's Health Insurance Program for six years. But on a procedural vote late Friday, which needed 60 votes to advance the House spending bill, 45 Senate Democrats--and five Senate Republicans--rejected it because it didn't include legal protections for young immigrants, shutting down the government.
Since Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has made Democrats a counter offer: a shorter short-term spending bill that would keep the government open until February 8, with promise of immigration negotiations in that time.
Democrats have been frustrated with President Trump's unwillingness to accept a bipartisan proposal to address the nearly 700,000 immigrants in legal limbo after he pledged to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program by March. They've been demanding GOP leaders give firm assurances that an immigration bill will pass Congress well before the March 5 deadline.
McConnell, who gave assurances that he would allow a vote on the immigration issue on the Senate floor once the government has been funded, has been unable--or unwilling--to bind the House in these negotiations. But Republicans appear more positive about the prospects of a deal by Monday.
"On balance, it's better to have a successful vote tomorrow at noon than it is a failed vote," Majority Whip Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) told reporters Sunday night after lawmakers agreed to postpone what was originally set as a 1 am vote to Monday noon. Only hours before he had said he was not confident an agreement could be reached. Something had changed.
"I think it takes a little while for people to absorb what's happened here, and to get out of their bunker and hopefully meet in the DMZ and try to work things out. I'm optimistic."
But that doesn't change the fact that the government will begin the week Monday still without funding.
What does a federal shutdown actually mean?
A government shutdown means a lot of "nonessential" government activities suddenly cease. As Vox explained, it's not unusual for Congress to go to the brink of a shutdown; it happened several times in Trump's first year in office alone. But it's rare they actually don't make the deadline.
During shutdowns, federal employees are split into "essential" and "nonessential" groups. Nonessential employees receive furloughs: They stop getting paid and are off work until the shutdown is resolved. Essential workers also stop getting paid, but they still have to work. Usually when a shutdown is over, federal employees are paid back the salaries they went without.
A shutdown usually suspends a lot of government functions. Though the military, air traffic control, federal prisons, and Social Security and other benefit payments typically aren't affected, the Office of Management and Budget estimated that the shutdown resulted in 120,000 fewer jobs and cut economic growth by 0.2 to 0.6 percent in the last quarter of 2013, the last time the government shut down.
The effects of the 2013 shutdown were pretty substantial:
- Tax refunds totaling almost $4 billion were delayed.
- The Women, Infants, and Children nutrition program went unfunded.
- Federal research activities at the National Institutes of Health (which lost about three-quarters of its employees), the National Science Foundation (which lost 98 percent of its workforce), and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (which lost two-thirds) shut down nearly entirely; the CDC scaled back its monitoring of disease outbreaks.
- Environmental Protection Agency inspections halted at 1,200 locations.
- The Food and Drug Administration delayed approval of drugs and medical devices.
- The national parks shut down, resulting in $500 million in lost consumer spending from tourism.
- Reviews of veterans' disability applications slowed to a halt, with nearly 20,000 applications per week not being evaluated.
So while shutdowns don't usually result in senior citizens going without their Social Security checks, or shut down the military, it's still a very serious matter.
For Congress, there's now a mad scramble to end the shutdown
To end a government shutdown, Congress has to pass a spending bill.
That means Congress can 1) pass the appropriations bills, likely in an omnibus, which just crams together 11 appropriations bills into one spending package; 2) pass a "continuing resolution" (CR), which would fund the government at its current levels, basically buying more time to negotiate the actual appropriations bills (this is what Congress has done since last October); or 3) pass a "CRomnibus," which is a combination of the two, extending the deadline on certain more contentious appropriations--like for the Department of Homeland Security--and passing a spending bill on the rest.
McConnell has already proposed another CR--one slightly shorter than the one that failed on the floor earlier this evening.
But it's important to note that Democrats voted down a short-term spending bill Friday over stalled immigration negotiations, and it's unlikely they'd vote for one without some kind of agreement on the future of the DACA program.
After months of inaction, immigration negotiations have intensified in recent days, but not without tribulations. President Donald Trump and Republican leadership continue to engage hardline immigration hawks who have shown no interest in compromise. Trump reportedly told Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) and Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC), who occupy the most conservative spaces in the immigration debate, that he wouldn't support a proposal without their blessing. Trump has already nixed one bipartisan proposal put forward by Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Jeff Flake (R-AZ) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill).
That's a serious red flag for Democrats, whose votes are needed to pass anything on immigration. Meanwhile, Republicans continue to push for immigration negotiations to be kept outside of spending talks. Flake and Graham, both of whom joined Democrats in voting against the four week spending bill, now support McConnell's counter offer, saying they trust the GOP leader's assurance on immigration.
"It's up to Democrats to find a way to get to yes," Graham told reporters. "Mitch has given me a way to yes. And I would argue I care as much about getting immigration resolved as anyone in the body."
By Sunday night, Schumer said he and McConnell had yet to reach a final deal. But with a shutdown hanging overhead, it's possible Democrats will agree to a shorter CR with the assurance that an immigration bill will be struck in the interim.
The blame games continue
Both parties have spent the past few days trying to set up the other side to take the blame for the shutdown, as Vox previously explained:Senate Republicans are already prepping plans for the weekend, if the government does shut down, to force vulnerable Senate Democrats to take uncomfortable votes, as Politico reported.
The truth is, Republicans didn't even have the votes to keep the government open on their own. But Democrats also weren't going to let the government stay open without a DACA deal, even if Republicans had the votes. After Trump blew up the DACA talks in the "shithole" meeting, they felt they had no choice and saw the spending bill as the best leverage.
Democrats say that Republicans control both chambers of Congress and the White House--of course it's their fault if they can't keep the government open. Republicans, meanwhile, are accusing Democrats of withholding their needed votes in the Senate in order to press for a resolution to the impasse in the immigration debate, even at the expense of the Children's Health Insurance Program.
Democrats have been saying--as Republicans knew--that tying a DACA deal to a spending bill was the only way they could be assured of its success. Immigration hawks are trying to blow up the emerging deal from a bipartisan group of senators. Cotton, one of the hawks who have Trump's ear, on Friday called the proposal from Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Dick Durbin (D-IL) "preposterous."
The hardliners, and Republican leaders, are digging in. Democrats have already decided that now is the time to force the DACA issue. The government won't reopen until one side feels the squeeze--and blinks.
The blame game, however, has began the moment the shutdown was triggered. The White House has coined this the "Schumer shutdown."
As for Schumer, he says only Trump is responsible: "This will be called the Trump shutdown."
Questions using Close Reading and Critical Thinking:
- 1. The first section of an article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" Identify the four Ws of this article. (Note: The rest of a news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. Does this article appear to have a political bias? Why or why not?
- 3. What issue could Republicans and Democrats not agree on in order to pass a spending bill that would have kept the government open? Explain the Republican and Democrat sides of this issue.
- 4. What do the terms "essential" and "nonessential" mean during a government shutdown?
- 5. Identify three government positions, organizations, or programs that were impacted by the shutdown.
- 6. What is a "continuing resolution"?
- 7. Republicans and Democrats are blaming each other for the shutdown. Explain each party's reasons for why the other party is to blame.
Click here to view more: www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/1/20/16910722/government-shutdown-2018-shut-down
Posted January 16, 2018
Poverty, past linked to Native Americans focus on MLK Day
By RUSSELL CONTRERAS and FELICIA FONSECA
AP News | 15 January 18 | 9:42 AM
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP)--Anti-poverty activists in Albuquerque and a groundbreaking Cherokee Nation declaration about the tribe's role in promoting equality after years of fighting to exclude descendants of slaves from its rolls are part of the focus of Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebrations.
At gatherings across the nation Monday, activists, residents and teachers are honoring the late civil rights leader ahead of the 50th anniversary of his assassination in Memphis, Tennessee.
In Atlanta, King's daughter, the Rev. Bernice King, will be the keynote speaker at a commemorative service honoring her father at Ebenezer Baptist Church, where he once preached.
The day will take on a renewed meaning for descendants of black slaves owned by the Cherokee Nation but whose tribal citizenship was in flux until recently, despite a treaty guaranteeing rights equal to native Cherokees.
The tribe--one of the country's largest--is recognizing the King holiday for the first time this year with calls to service and speeches in which the tribe plans to confront its past. King's writings spoke of injustices against Native Americans and colonization, but Cherokee Secretary of State Chuck Hoskin Jr. said the tribe had its own form of internal oppression and dispossession.
"The time is now to deal with it and talk about it," said Hoskin. "It's been a positive thing for our country to reconcile that during Dr. King's era, and it's going to be a positive thing for Cherokee to talk about that history as part of reconciling our history with slavery."
Such talk from tribal officials would have been surprising before a federal court ruled last year that the descendants of former slaves, known as Freedmen, had the same rights to tribal citizenship, voting, health care and housing as blood-line Cherokees.
One descendant of Freedmen, Rodslen Brown-King, said her mother was able to vote as a Cherokee for the first and only time recently. Other relatives died before getting the benefits that come with tribal citizenship, including a 34-year-old nephew with stomach cancer, she said.
"He was waiting on this decision," said Brown-King, of Fort Gibson, Oklahoma. "It's just a lot of struggle, a lot of up and down trauma in our lives. It's exciting to know we are coming together and moving forward in this."
Derrick Reed, a city councilman in Muskogee, Oklahoma, and director of the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center there, said Monday's events will be the first attended by the Cherokee Nation in honor of the holiday. Principal Chief Bill John Baker is scheduled to speak at an after-party the tribe is sponsoring, and Hoskin is serving breakfast earlier in the day.
"All the Freedmen are finally relieved to be recognized, and their story itself has been a civil rights struggle," Reed said. "It's definitely a turning point in the history of the relationship with the Freedmen Indians as well as the message the tribe is sending to the nation."
___
Fonseca reported from Flagstaff, Arizona. Associated Press Writer Corey R. Williams in Detroit contributed to this report.
Questions using Close Reading and Critical Thinking:
- 1. The first section of an article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" Identify the four Ws of this article. (Note: The rest of a news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. Does this article appear to have a political bias? Why or why not?
- 3. What is meant by "citizenship was in flux"? Describe and give evidence from the article.
- 4. Explain who the "Freedmen" are according to this article.
- 5. Describe how the authors of this article chose to introduce the subject of the article.
- 6. What do you think is meant by the statement, "her mother was able to vote as a Cherokee for the first and only time"?
- 7. This article presents one facet of progress in the fight for inclusion and recognition by a group of people who have been denied connection. How would you explain those feelings to someone who has not read the article?
- 8. List three questions that you could research to further your understanding of the topic presented in this article.
Click here to view more: apnews.com/d2aa5b97312049a0ab5405793f9f1d40/Poverty,-past-linked-to-Native-Americans-focus-on-MLK-Day
Posted January 9, 2018
The U.S. Has Fewer Crimes. Does That Mean It Needs Fewer Police?
By JOSE A. DEL REAL
JAN. 7, 2018
With the close of the year, the tally was in: Crime was down in the 30 largest cities in the United States, and even a worrisome uptick in urban murders had subsided.
More than two decades of safer cities has cleared the way for major changes in the nation's criminal justice system: fewer prisoners, shorter sentences and more pardons.
But fewer crimes have not resulted in fewer police officers on the streets.
In 2016, there were slightly more officers per capita than in 1991, when violent crime peaked, according to data collected by the F.B.I. Now, officers deal with half the crimes per capita that they did then.
But hardly anyone questions the size of police forces. Not taxpayers, who might expect the decades-long drop in crime to produce some budget savings. Not politicians, though they have a host of competing priorities, like schools and hospitals.
The notion of pruning the police inevitably raises the specter of more crime, even if there is little evidence to support such fears. The relationship between the number of officers and lawful behavior is not clear-cut. In New York City, for example, the police force peaked at more than 40,000 in 2000. Since then, both the number of officers and the crime rate have declined.
In Chicago, notorious for violence and shootings in recent years, there are 44 officers for each 10,000 residents. That is almost the same ratio as New York. But though crime in Chicago declined in 2017, according to a year-end analysis by the Brennan Center for Justice, the crime rate there was still far higher than in New York, which recorded its lowest crime rate since the 1950s.
Philadelphia also has about the same number of officers per capita; homicides there surpassed 300 for the first time in five years, but violent crime in general went down in 2017.
The American city with the highest murder rate in the Brennan analysis is Baltimore, which has 41 officers for each 10,000 residents and would like to have more. St. Louis, where murders hit a record high, has 38. Each of these cities has many more officers than average for cities of similar size, according to an analysis by Governing magazine.
The factors driving the crime rate are complex, mysterious and can vary from city to city. Data-driven policing strategies, economic growth and decreased alcohol consumption were bigger contributors to the overall drop in crime than having more police or higher incarceration rates, said Inimai Chettiar, the director of the Brennan Center.
Last year, a study by three economists found that opening a new drug treatment center could save a city about $700,000 a year in crime-related costs. Another new study found that expanding Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act caused a 5.8 percent reduction in violent crime.
Still, the police do have a bigger job than they once did, with a mandate that includes fighting terrorism, cybercrime and identity theft--much of which is not reflected in those F.B.I. crime graphs, said Meghan Hollis, a criminologist and expert in police staffing at Texas State University.
Downsizing is not in their DNA, she added: "Police departments, as long as they have the funds, they're going to keep their force size the way it is or grow it, regardless of the crime rate. They can always adjust their statistics to make it look like they need the officers that they have."
Officers are increasingly relied on to deal with mental illness, homelessness and drug addiction. But tough-on-crime rhetoric has made it hard to have discussions about reallocating resources to address those problems, according to Ronal Serpas, a former police chief in Nashville and New Orleans and a co-chairman of Law Enforcement Leaders to Reduce Crime and Incarceration, a group of current and former police chiefs and prosecutors.
"American police officers are screaming, 'Help us with mental health, with drug and alcohol addiction. Help us to stop using arrest to deal with these problems.'" Mr. Serpas said. "And then there are others who are screaming: 'Crime is up. Help us arrest everyone again.'"
Attorney General Jeff Sessions, for example, has warned that "violent crime is back with a vengeance" and advocated a more traditional law-and-order approach.
But Mr. Serpas said he would like to see more cities follow the lead of Tucson and Seattle, which have funneled resources into special support units that are trained to deal with the mentally ill, taking pressure off patrol officers.
Tre Murphy, a community organizer in Baltimore, said he believed that reducing the number of officers on the street would be beneficial to black Baltimore residents, citing the deep fear and distrust many black residents feel toward the city's police. He said the money saved from shrinking the police force should be reinvested in nonprofits and other community development projects.
"The answer to fixing trust inside the community is to not put more distrust into it," Mr. Murphy said. "The answer to violence is not to put more violence into the community, and that's what they're doing by increasing the police force."
"In Baltimore, where communities are struggling, the only thing we get more of are police officers, who just perpetuate the cycle," he added. "Instead of police officers, what would it look like to get more counselors in the community, people who are doing the work in the community?"
Black Lives Matter activists, who oppose police brutality and racial bias, have regularly called for redirecting money from the police to community intervention programs, which could deploy "community conflict de-escalators, gang intervention specialists, and mental health response centers" to deal with nonviolent situations.
There are few points of agreement between the Black Lives Matter movement and police unions, which maintain that officers are overworked and unfairly criticized. But they agree that the police should be better trained for the types of situations they are asked to handle. Employing fewer officers could free up money for better training, and perhaps also for higher pay.
After all, said Chuck Wexler, the executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, the police are called on to make life-or-death decisions. "I would rather have highly paid, highly identified, highly skilled police officers who can respond to these crises," Mr. Wexler said. "I equate what the police do to an emergency room physician."
Questions using Close Reading and Critical Thinking skills:
- 1. The first section of an article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" Identify the four Ws of this article. (Note: The rest of a news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. Does this article appear to have a political bias? Why or why not?
- 3. Why don't cities decrease the number of police officers when crime rates go down?
- 4. Why does the author compare the number of officers per capita in New York City, Chicago, and Philadelphia?
- 5. According to the article, what can cause crime rates and crime-related spending to decrease?
- 6. Who is Ronal Serpas? What have the cities of Tucson and Seattle done that he believes would be beneficial in other places?
- 7. Tre Murphy claims that reducing the number of officers in Baltimore would be beneficial to black residents. Explain his view point and whether or not you think this would positively impact the community and crime rates. Use the article to support your ideas.
Click here to view more: www.nytimes.com/2018/01/07/us/crime-police.html
Posted December 19, 2017
New Supreme Court cookbook dishes up history, recipes
By JESSICA GRESKO
AP News | 18 December 17 | 4:06 AM
WASHINGTON (AP)--At Christmastime, Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor would send her colleagues gift-wrapped packages of homemade beef jerky from her family's cattle ranch in Arizona. Her colleague Ruth Bader Ginsburg pronounced it "very spicy."
Now, home chefs can try making their own, with guidance from O'Connor's supplier, her brother. His jerky-making instructions, minus the family's secret sauce, are part of a new book on the Supreme Court's food traditions. Table for 9: Supreme Court Food Traditions & Recipes, out this month, is part history book, part cookbook. It includes more than three dozen recipes associated with justices and their families.
"Food in good company has sustained Supreme Court Justices through the ages," Ginsburg writes in the book's [foreword].
Food is a way the court's nine justices connect. There are welcome dinners for new justices and retirement dinners for those who are departing. O'Connor, the court's first female justice, revived a tradition of the justices regularly eating lunch together. And when a justice has a birthday, there is wine, a toast and the singing of "Happy Birthday," a tradition begun by Chief Justice Warren Burger, who led the court in the 1970s and '80s.
Clare Cushman, the book's author, says her offering is in part a response to visitors asking at the Supreme Court's gift shop whether the court had a cookbook. The White House visitor center's gift shop has several books on food and entertaining, and some tourists expected the court would too, said Cushman, the Supreme Court Historical Society's director of publications. So, for a decade, when Cushman came across a recipe or a food anecdote with a link to a justice, she'd put it in a folder.
"The more I researched the more I realized that this was a really substantial topic and that it wasn't going to be fluffy or ridiculous to ask these extremely distinguished judges questions like: What are your favorite foods and what do you eat for lunch?" Cushman said.
Cushman said that to research the book she, with help from Supreme Court curator Catherine Fitts, contacted 35 families of justices to ask for recipes and family food stories. The results include instructions for the pineapple and coconut cake Chief Justice William Rehnquist's wife baked annually for his birthday. Maureen Scalia, the wife of the late Justice Antonin Scalia, the first Italian-American to serve on the court, contributed a pasta sauce recipe.
Louise Gorsuch, the English-born wife of Justice Neil Gorsuch, shared her marmalade recipe. Gorsuch, the court's newest member, by tradition serves on the committee that oversees the court's public cafeteria.
Readers also learn about the justices' food habits. The first chief justice, John Jay, liked oysters for breakfast. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. brought his lunch in a tin ammunition box. And Justice John Paul Stevens' regular lunch was a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with the crusts cut off.
Some of the photos accompanying the text have never been published before. There are pictures of justices eating together and pictures of birthday cakes served to the justices. There's a picture of justices preparing to eat a 28-pound salmon that Justice Stephen Breyer caught in Alaska and of Sonia Sotomayor serving homemade Chinese food long before she became a justice.
"For me, eating is sacred. You should not waste a meal, and so it can be simple and healthy but it has to be tasty," Sotomayor said during a 2016 event on the Supreme Court's food traditions at the National Museum of American History, an event that helped spur the book's creation.
The book has stories from the court's early history, too. It describes how in the early 1800s, the justices lived and ate together at a boarding house. Justice Joseph Story reported they drank wine, but only when it was raining. If he looked out the window and the sun was shining, he was sometimes told, "it must be raining somewhere."
In the late 1800s, when arguments were scheduled from noon to 4 p.m. with no break for lunch, the justices would step away individually or in pairs to eat at small tables behind the bench, the rattle of their knives and forks audible to spectators.
The book is not the first associated with food and the Supreme Court. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's husband, Martin Ginsburg was a talented chef. After his death in 2011, a book of his recipes, called Chef Supreme, was compiled as a tribute.
Now, both books are available online through the Supreme Court Historical Society's website and at the court's gift shop.
Follow Jessica Gresko on Twitter at www.twitter.com/jessicagresko
Questions using Close Reading and Critical Thinking skills:
- 1. The first section of an article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" Identify the four Ws of this article. (Note: The rest of a news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. Does this article appear to have a political bias? Why or why not?
- 3. Who is the author of this cookbook, and what inspired them to create it?
- 4. Which Supreme Court justice renewed the tradition of lunching together? Why do you think they did that?
- 5. What historical information about the Supreme Court in this article is interesting or valuable to know?
- 6. Why do you think visitors to the Supreme Court gift shop would ask if there was a cookbook?
- 7. How has the author of the article incorporated humor in this story and for what purpose?
Click here to view more: www.apnews.com/1be2c3af0ac1452c8295fe1c58757410
Posted December 12, 2017
Firefighters protect seaside California towns as blaze rages
By CHRISTOPHER WEBER
AP News | 11 December 17 | 9:18 AM
LOS ANGELES (AP)--Firefighters kept a wall of flames from descending mountains into coastal neighborhoods after a huge and destructive Southern California wildfire exploded in size, becoming the fifth largest in state history.
Thousands remained under evacuation orders Monday as the fire churned west through foothill areas of Carpinteria and Montecito, seaside Santa Barbara County towns about 75 miles (120 kilometers) northwest of Los Angeles. Much of the fire's rapid new growth occurred on the eastern and northern fronts into unoccupied areas of Los Padres National Forest, where the state's fourth largest fire burned a decade ago.
The blaze, which had already destroyed more than 750 buildings, burned six more in Carpinteria on Sunday, officials said. It's just 10 percent contained after charring nearly 360 square miles (930 square kilometers) of dry brush and timber.
"We're still anxious. I'm not frightened yet," Carpinteria resident Roberta Lehtinen told KABC-TV. "I don't think it's going to come roaring down unless the winds kick up."
Forecasters predicted that dry winds that fanned several fires across the region for a week would begin to lose their power Monday. But the possibility of "unpredictable" gusts would keep firefighters on edge for days, Santa Barbara County Fire spokesman Mike Eliason said.
Santa Ana winds have long contributed to some of the region's most disastrous wildfires. They blow from the inland toward the Pacific Ocean, speeding up as they squeeze through mountain passes and canyons.
Containment increased on other major blazes in Los Angeles, Riverside and San Diego counties. Resources from those fires were diverted to the Santa Barbara foothills to combat the stubborn and enormous fire that started Dec. 4.
Fires are not typical in Southern California this time of year but can break out when dry vegetation and too little rain combine with the Santa Ana winds. Though the state emerged this spring from a yearslong drought, hardly any measurable rain has fallen in the region over the past six months.
"This is the new normal," Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown warned Saturday after surveying damage from the deadly Ventura fire. Brown and experts said climate change is making wildfires a year-round threat.
High fire risk is expected to last into January.
The air thick with acrid smoke, even residents of areas not under evacuation orders took the opportunity to leave, fearing another shutdown of U.S. 101, a key coastal highway that was closed intermittently last week. Officials handed out masks to residents who stayed behind in Montecito, the wealthy hillside enclave that's home to celebrities such as Oprah Winfrey, Jeff Bridges, and Rob Lowe.
"Our house is under threat of being burned," Ellen DeGeneres tweeted at midday Sunday. "We just had to evacuate our pets. I'm praying for everyone in our community and thankful to all the incredible firefighters."
Ojai experienced hazardous levels of smoke at times, and officials warned of unhealthy air for large swaths of the region. The South Coast Air Quality Management District urged residents to stay indoors if possible and avoid vigorous outdoor activities.
Despite the size and number of wildfires burning in the region, there has only been one confirmed death: The death of a 70-year-old woman, who crashed her car on an evacuation route, is attributed to the fire in Santa Paula, a small city where the Thomas Fire began.
Most of last week's fires were in places that burned in the past, including one in the ritzy Los Angeles neighborhood of Bel-Air that burned six homes and another in the city's rugged foothills above the community of Sylmar and in Santa Paula.
For complete coverage of the California wildfires, click here: www.apnews.com/tag/Wildfires
Questions using Close Reading and Critical Thinking skills:
- 1. The first section of an article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" Identify the four Ws of this article. (Note: The rest of a news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. Does this article appear to have a political bias? Why or why not?
- 3. Review the opening statement of the article. Why do you think the author began the article this way?
- 4. Why do you think the author includes the names of some famous residents of Montecito in this article?
- 5. What information does Gov. Brown provide that might be considered controversial? Explain.
- 6. What questions about the fire do you feel are unanswered by this article?
- 7. The history of fires in California is mentioned a couple of times. Why might the author have found it important to include that information?
- 8. What is the implication of the single confirmed death? What might that mean?
Click here to view more: www.apnews.com/a4aaa87a2eed4b76b33f5809febd14a0/Firefighters-protect-seaside-California-towns-as-blaze-rages
Posted December 5, 2017
Amid the bloodshed, Baltimore group seeks to break the cycle
By Juliet Linderman
apnews.com | 3 December 2017
BALTIMORE (AP)--Akai Alston was 13 when he was shot for the first time. It was during a robbery in East Baltimore, in broad daylight.
As he lay in his hospital bed, shaken and frightened, he knew he had a choice to make.
"I put it in my head that I'd rather be a suspect than a victim," he said.
Ten years later, Alston faced another grim decision. He was dealing crack and hooked on prescription pills. He'd squeezed triggers, and seen friends and family members lose their lives to gunshots. After his last conviction, for accessory to murder, he knew he was on the path to die in jail or die in the streets. This time, he rejected both.
Now Alston is a community outreach coordinator for U-TURNS, a project that tries to give Baltimore teenagers and young adults an alternative to the streets. They can find a safe space, food, job training, holistic health practices such as yoga and acupuncture, mental health services and--most important--mentorship.
The initiative's been in operation less than a year and couldn't come at a more pressing time. As of Dec. 3, Baltimore has seen 321 homicides this year, surpassing the 2016 total of 318. At least ninety-eight victims were no older than 25. Gun Violence Archive data show that from January 2014 to June 2016, roughly 7.2 teenagers of every 10,000 were shot. The figure, based on an analysis of news articles and police data, is likely an undercount.
This year, Police Commissioner Kevin Davis announced that he'd dedicate additional officers to street patrol. Two years ago, Davis launched a multiagency initiative called the "war room" to try and map the web of relationships among victims and perpetrators.
Still, the violence continues.
Alston and Kelvin Parker, 34, are both former drug dealers--and both victims and perpetrators of gun violence as teens. Now, in the early afternoons, they head to the same West Baltimore street corners where they used to deal. They try to persuade the corner boys to leave their posts. For about three hours daily, they walk through the Gilmor Homes projects and past blocks of vacant rowhouses in Sandtown, the neighborhood where the 2015 death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray prompted protests and rioting. They wear black jackets with "Outreach" emblazoned in white on the back.
Building trust in a community where it's in short supply is one of their main goals.
One 17-year-old who started dealing at 14 comes to U-TURNS almost daily. Dealing was his only option, he said, after losing his mother at 3.
"The only way I knew that I could be somebody or have money in my pockets or accomplish anything was by turning over to the drug life," he said.
At 15, he was stabbed in the stomach. When he recovered, he decided he needed a change.
Now he's in therapy and helps care for children at Kids Safe Zone, an afterschool center that houses U-TURNS.
"I've learned that not everything revolves around violence, that not everything revolves around you," he said.
Alston and Parker, he said, are "my role models. They've been through what I've been through."
Parker grew up in Sandtown with his grandmother and a dozen others in a two-bedroom apartment. At 7, a gun was pulled on him for the first time, and he saw two men beat another unconscious with a 2-by-4. With his father in jail and mother too busy to raise him, Parker looked up to an older cousin, a notorious dealer.
"Guns on the table, guns in the cabinet, guns in the bathroom--that was my normal," he said. "Coming up in a place where no one else values life, where no one else really cares, it's hard not to become what you're around."
By 12, he'd started selling drugs. The lifestyle had a price--jail time.
"I didn't see a whole year on the street until I was 21," he said.
Alston also grew up fast. Born in 1991, at the height of the crack epidemic, his mother was addicted, leaving him and his sister to fend for themselves.
"I didn't have little army men," he said. "I had colored vials."
Alston said he spent most of his childhood bouncing from one house to another. Although he didn't start selling drugs until after he was shot, he admired neighborhood dealers for their clothes and cars, and ability to provide.
Alston fired his first gun at 14, in retaliation for a punch in the jaw so forceful it made his ear ring.
Parker had never fired a gun before he was struck. After he was shot, he knew he'd have to.
"Retaliation was a must," he said. "It made me feel like a man, or what I thought a man was."
Parker said he didn't realize until he started training as an outreach worker how much of what he endured as a child influenced him. He only recently came to understand trauma, he said, and is working to move past his own.
In group therapy sessions, Alston and Parker use an approach to processing trauma that focuses on safety, emotions, loss, and the future. One afternoon, they gathered a half-dozen teens, all boys but one, and screened a "Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" clip in which Will Smith's character discusses growing up without a father. Alston and Parker asked the teens to share an experience; almost all said they came from broken homes, with drugs and violence commonplace.
At another session, Alston led a discussion with a dozen teens about fear and danger, and explained how trauma can manifest in the body and mind.
Keeshanna Mobley, 17, bounced her baby nephew on her knee. She'd been coming to U-TURNS for a few months, since an arrest for fighting. She's on probation, and feels safer now that she spends time at the center instead of the streets, she said.
"There was a lot of stuff I was getting into before this, trouble, getting locked up, getting myself into the wrong situation at the wrong time," she said. "Since I joined U-TURNS, it's been a lot less, because I'm here."
Questions using Close Reading and Critical Thinking skills:
- 1. The first section of an article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" Identify the four Ws of this article. (Note: The rest of a news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. Does this article appear to have a political bias? Why or why not?
- 3. Why is mentorship the "most important" feature of the U-TURNS program?
- 4. Alston and Parker share bits of their stories. Pick one and retell it in your own words.
- 5. How is the statistical information impactful when compared to the shared experiences of the individual people?
- 6. How do personal and environmental circumstances play a key role in the lives of these individuals?
- 7. Based on what you have read, do you think this program is or will be effective, or do you believe another approach would be more helpful to the youth in Baltimore? Explain your thinking.
Click here to view more: www.apnews.com/3ac32cf1dfe0466ca90a102b2be5b4f4/Amid-the-bloodshed,-Baltimore-group-seeks-to-break-the-cycle
Posted November 28, 2017
Flat-Earther Delays Launch In His Homemade Rocket, Saying 'It's Not Easy'
November 26, 2017 - 11:49 AM ET
By Colin Dwyer
It appears we will need to wait a while longer to find out whether more than two millennia of thinkers and explorers--from Aristotle and Ferdinand Magellan, to Neil deGrasse Tyson and John Glenn--have been wrong about the shape of the Earth.
"Mad" Mike Hughes, limousine driver and self-proclaimed flat-Earther, announced that he had to delay his plan to launch himself 1,800 feet high in a rocket of his own making. The launch, which he has billed as a crucial first step toward ultimately photographing our disc-world from space, had been scheduled for Saturday--before the Bureau of Land Management [BLM] got wind of the plan and barred him from using public land in Amboy, Calif.
Also, the rocket launcher he had built out of a used motor home "broke down in the driveway" on Wednesday, according to Hughes. He said in a YouTube announcement that they'd eventually gotten the launcher fixed--but the small matter of federal permission proved a more serious stumbling block (for now).
The BLM "informed me that they were not going to allow me to do the event there--at least at that location," Hughes said.
Hughes asserted that the BLM last year had tacitly left the matter of permissions to the Federal Aviation Administration, and "of course, they can't honestly approve it," he added. The FAA "just said, 'Well, we know that you're going to do it there.'"
It turns out the BLM wasn't satisfied with that explanation--particularly after The Associated Press first reported on the launch for a national audience.
"Someone from our local office reached out to him after seeing some of these news articles [about the launch], because that was news to them," a spokeswoman for the agency told The Washington Post, adding that Hughes had not applied to the local BLM field office for the necessary permit.
"So, it turned out to be not a good thing," Hughes said.
Still, Hughes has not relented in his quest to launch himself roughly 500 mph on a mile-long flight across the sky above the Mojave Desert. He said he has found private property near his original launch site, where he anticipates finally taking off as early as this coming week.
For Hughes, this launch would not be his first in a homemade rocket. In 2014, the 61-year-old sent himself flying a quarter-mile across the Arizona desert before pulling out several parachutes of questionable quality on his fall to Earth. He was "in a walker for a couple weeks" after that launch, he told a flat-Earth community Web show.
He also hopes it will not be his last such attempt. Since converting to the flat-Earth belief after "research[ing] it for several months in between doing everything else," Hughes has seen a marked uptick in fundraising contributions to his rocket projects. And he has big plans, hoping eventually to launch himself into space, where he believes he can overturn a scientific understanding that predates NASA by at least 2,300 years.
"I don't believe in science," Hughes told the AP earlier this month. "I know about aerodynamics and fluid dynamics and how things move through the air, about the certain size of rocket nozzles, and thrust. But that's not science, that's just a formula. There's no difference between science and science fiction."
For now, his mission will have to wait.
"It's been very disappointing and, I guess, enlightening--this whole week. It really has been," he said. "But it's not easy because it's not supposed to be."
Questions using Close Reading and Critical Thinking skills:
- 1. The first section of an article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" Identify the four Ws of this article. (Note: The rest of a news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. Does this article appear to have a political bias? Why or why not?
- 3. What does Mike Hughes hope to prove by launching himself in his rocket? How will he prove it?
- 4. The Bureau of Land Management will not let Hughes launch on public lands because he doesn't have a permit. If he applied for one, do you think he would receive it? Explain your reasoning.
- 5. Hughes says he doesn't "believe in science." Discuss how this comment conflicts with the goals of his mission and the building of his rocket.
- 6. If something happens during the launch, flight, or landing of the rocket that causes Hughes or someone else to be harmed, who is responsible?
- 7. Given the danger of injury or death, should Hughes--a private citizen--be allowed to carry out his self-operated rocket launch? Explain your reasoning.
Click here to view more: www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/11/26/566583007/flat-earther-postpones-launch-in-his-homemade-rocket-saying-it-s-not-easy
Posted November 14, 2017
Florida school lets parents buy bulletproof panels for students to put in backpacks
By Travis M. Andrews
The Washington Post
November 7
Florida Christian School in Miami put a few order forms on its website to make school supply shopping easier. Parents can purchase their children T-shirts bearing the school's logo or some snugly winter wear. Or, for $120, they can buy them bullet-resistant panels designed to slip into their backpacks in case of a school shooting.
The nondenominational kindergarten through 12th grade school hasn't been the scene of any gun violence, but its private security wants to be prepared just in case. The panel is a "tool" to help protect children in case of a horrific event, just like its sound-enabled surveillance cameras and active shooter drills, according to George Gulla, the school's head of security.
"I'd rather be prepared for the worst than be stuck after saying 'Wow, I wish we would've done that,'" Gulla told the Miami Herald.
The panel comes from Applied Fiber Concepts, a body armor company based in nearby Hialeah and owned by Alex Cejas, who has two children at the school. He attended one of Gulla's active shooting drills last year and suggested the company make custom armor plates for students.
"While books and stuff in your backpack may stop a bullet, they're not designed to," Cejas told the Miami Herald. "I wouldn't bet my life on it."
The slim panels, which weigh less than a pound, can slip easily in the students' backpacks among their school books. They're reportedly able to protect students from bullets such as a .44 Magnum or a .357 SIG, both pistol cartridges. Stopping rifle bullets would require heavier armor.
Students are taught to hold their backpacks containing the panels over their chests in case of [...] active shooters.
"We want to protect our students' center mass," Gulla said.
His company isn't the only business marketing bulletproof "accessories" to schools in the aftermath of mass shootings across the [country]. Bullet Blocker, a Massachusetts company, began developing a range of products after the Virginia Tech massacre in 2007 that left 32 dead. The company's products include bulletproof backpacks, fleeces, briefcases--and even binder inserts to place among loose-leaf paper.
After the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shooting that killed 20 first-graders and six educators, Bullet Blocker saw a spike in bulletproof backpack sales--selling about 10,000 in three weeks, even though it normally sold 20 a week, Marketplace reported.
The focus isn't only on backpacks. For instance, the University of Maryland Eastern Shore purchased hundreds of bulletproof whiteboards in 2013, as did the Minnesota Rocori School District, where a shooting left two students dead in 2003.
"It's a writing tablet that doubles as a bulletproof shield," university spokesman William Robinson told CNN Money.
Not everyone thinks buying students ballistic armor is the best way to protect them. School safety consultant Kenneth Trump is among the loudest voices decrying the practice.
"Focus on fundamentals and get back to the basics," Trump told NPR. "There is a security product for every possible need that your budget will buy. The question is, is that the best use of limited resources?"
For Florida Christian School, however, Gulla thinks the option to buy the backpack inserts might calm some parents.
"We thought, yeah, let's offer it to anyone who wants it," he told the Miami Herald. "It's not required. But if it gives you extra peace of mind."
"It's out of the norm, but what is the norm?" he added.
Questions using Close Reading and Critical Thinking skills:
- 1. The first section of an article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" Identify the four Ws of this article. (Note: The rest of a news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. Does this article appear to have a political bias? Why or why not?
- 3. What have some schools done to prepare their staff and students in the event of an active shooter situation?
- 4. Why doesn't Kenneth Trump, a school safety consultant, support the practice of "buying students ballistic armor"?
- 5. George Gulla, Florida Christian School's head of security, says at the end of the article, "It's out of the norm, but what is the norm?" What do you think he means by this?
- 6. In your opinion, does making bulletproof school supplies help solve the problem of mass shootings in schools? Explain.
Click here to view more: www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/11/07/florida-school-lets-parents-buy-bulletproof-panels-for-students-to-put-in-backpacks/
Posted November 7, 2017
Shalane Flanagan becomes first U.S. woman to win NYC Marathon since 1977, Kenyan Geoffrey Kamworor wins men's race
By CHRISTIAN RED
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS | 5 November 2017 | updated: 3:25 p.m.
Shalane Flanagan, a Boulder, Colorado-born and Massachusetts-raised distance runner, became the first American woman to win the New York City Marathon since 1977, when she clipped the finish line tape Sunday at 2:26:53. The 24-year-old Kenyan Geoffrey Kamworor, meanwhile, won his first New York City Marathon, finishing first in the men's race with a time of 2:10:53, three seconds ahead of countryman and 2014 winner, Wilson Kipsang.
"I've dreamed of a moment like this since I was a little girl," a tearful Flanagan said after winning her first marathon race. Before Sunday, Miki Gorman was the last American woman to win the signature race in New York, when she won the second of back-to-back New York Marathon races in 1976-77. Flanagan's triumph prevented Kenya's Mary Keitany from winning the New York Marathon for a fourth consecutive year. Keitany, 35, finished second Sunday with a time of 2:27:54.
Flanagan was emotional several times while sitting on the dais in the media center after her victory, thanking her family and supporters, while also paying tribute to the victims of Tuesday's terrorist attack in lower Manhattan, when a man drove a Home Depot truck into the bike line adjacent to the Hudson River and killed eight people.
"I absolutely, before this race, was thinking about how this was a really tough week for New York. I could relate to it because I was in the Boston bombings of 2013," Flanagan said, referring to the terrorist attack at the finish line of the Boston Marathon four years ago. Flanagan said she was honored to be "presented the opportunity to be that person for New York" to try and lift the city's spirits in the wake of Tuesday's attack.
"Athletics (are) a great way to make people feel good, and to smile, kind of forget about some of the negative things in the world," said Flanagan.
On the men's side, American Meb Keflezighi finished in 11th place Sunday. Keflezighi, 42, had already announced that Sunday would be his 26th and final marathon, ending a stellar distance running career that saw the Eritrea-born, American citizen Keflezighi win the 2009 New York Marathon and the 2014 Boston Marathon, a year after the tragic bombings there. Keflezighi also won a silver medal in the marathon event at the 2004 Athens Olympics.
"I gave it all that I had. I wanted to get to that finish line. The emotion gets into you," said Keflezighi, who collapsed near the finish line in the marathon at the 2016 Rio Olympics, only to do push-ups in a sequence that went viral.
"There was no push-up today," Keflezighi said to laughs Sunday.
When asked about his victory in 2014 in Boston a year after the tragedy, and Flanagan's victory Sunday, only days after another terrorist attack, Keflezighi said: "Sports is a celebration. It makes us appreciate that much more for life. We have to move on somehow, some way."
Five days after the terrorist attack in lower Manhattan numbed the city, the 47th running of the New York City Marathon went off as planned, with an estimated 50,000 runners taking to the streets of the five boroughs, and with a heightened security presence stationed along the 26.2-mile route.
Flanagan, who attended the University of North Carolina, finished sixth at the Rio Olympics last year, and Sunday was the first time she had run a marathon since Rio, as she was forced to pull out of this year's Boston Marathon due to injury. Flanagan said Sunday that she was "heartbroken" to have missed the Boston race, but that she kept telling herself "there's going to be delayed gratification."
Under overcast skies and with an ideal, 57-degree temperature for the start of both the women's and men's races, the sport's elite runners dashed from Staten Island through Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, the Bronx and finally back into Manhattan finishing at Tavern on the Green restaurant.
When she neared the finish line, Flanagan pumped her fists toward the crowd and then broke into tears after finishing first among the women. Flanagan made her move away from Keitany and Ethiopia's Mamitu Daska near the Mile 23 mark, and then shifted into cruise control once she reached Central Park. Daska finished third at 2:28:08.
Flanagan said it had been "way too long" since an American woman had won the New York Marathon. "Hopefully this inspires the next generation of American women," she said.
Kamworor looked over his shoulder several times during the final stretch to keep an eye on Kipsang, but was able to muster enough energy to cross the finish first.
"I have to believe myself, do my best to make sure I won," said Kamworor. The men's defending champion, Eritrea's Ghirmay Ghebreslassie, dropped out of Sunday's race. Ethiopia's Lelisa Desisa finished third Sunday (2:11:32) behind Kamworor and Kipsang.
Flanagan had the second-fastest time ever by an American on the New York course. "I had no physical limitations today," she said. Flanagan was part of the lead pack throughout the race before breaking away. Keitany, meanwhile, almost wiped out at a water station near Mile 12 when fellow Kenyan Edna Kiplagat cut in front of her, but Keitany recovered to stay near the lead.
While Keflezighi raced his final marathon, Flanagan said she would sit down with her training team and decide what's in store next. "We'll have some decisions to make," she said.
Flanagan added that she was honored to have run in the same era as Keflezighi, an athlete she called "the absolute best role model."
"I was thinking of that as I finished, how it was amazing that Meb was able to be that clutch person in 2014, and how now I've been presented the opportunity to be that person for New York this time," said Flanagan. "Today, I just thought, 'Just be like Meb as much as you can.' He's the person that you would want your kids to emulate, and I want to emulate Meb. I was absolutely thinking of him and thinking, 'I've got to make (Keflezighi) proud today.'"
NOTE: In the wheelchair division of the marathon, Switzerland's Manuela Schar beat American and four-time defending champion Tatyana McFadden. Schar's time was 1:48:09. On the men's side, Switzerland's Marcel Hug won with a time 1:37:17. It was the first time the New York Marathon wheelchair race was won by two athletes from the same country.
Questions using Close Reading and Critical Thinking skills:
- 1. The first section of an article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" Identify the four Ws of this article. (Note: The rest of a news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. Does this article appear to have a political bias? Why or why not?
- 3. How is the text organized? Is the structure effective? Explain.
- 4. What kind of tone has the author set for the piece? How do the word choices help with achieving that?
- 5. The win would have meant a great deal to second-place finisher Mary Keitany. Explain why that is.
- 6. Shalane Flanagan mentions the recent Lower Manhattan terrorist attack, which occurred on 10/31/17, a couple times. Summarize her feelings and experiences and how they relate to her participation in the marathons.
- 7. After her win, Flanagan said "Athletics (are) a great way to make people feel good, and to smile, kind of forget about some of the negative things in the world." Meb Keflezighi, the American men's 11th-place finisher, shared similar sentiments, saying, "Sports is a celebration. It makes us appreciate that much more for life. We have to move on somehow, some way." What do these quotes mean? Can you think of any other time in sports history that this has been true?
- 8. Shalane Flanagan talks about how she used Meb Keflezighi as her focus and inspiration, and how she thought, "I've got to make (Keflezighi) proud today." Whom do you seek to emulate either in short- or long-term goal setting? How has it helped you?
- 9. There are multiple instances where delayed gratification is mentioned directly and indirectly. What are they?
Click here to view more: www.nydailynews.com/sports/more-sports/american-shalane-flanagan-wins-women-nyc-marathon-article-1.3612849
Posted October 31, 2017
MLB FANS OUTRAGED ASTROS' YULI GURRIEL IS NOT SUSPENDED FROM WORLD SERIES AFTER RACIST GESTURE
BY MARIA PEREZ ON 10/28/17 AT 7:26 PM
Updated | Fans are angry after Major League Baseball said it would allow Houston Astros' infielder Yuli Gurriel to serve his five-game suspension for an anti-Asian gesture next season rather than during the remainder of the World Series.
On Friday night, the Astros first baseman, Gurriel, celebrated a home run off Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Yu Darvish by putting his fingers next to the side of his eyes and saying "chinito," a derogatory term in Spanish that translates to "little Chinese." The gesture earned Gurriel the suspension, which he will serve next season, but the reprieve outraged many fans, who pointed out that Gurriel has made his racist gesture on baseball's biggest stage, so he should pay for it there, too.
"Nobody was calling for Gurriel to be suspended for the next four World Series games. But sitting him [Saturday night] would have sent a message," said Twitter user Molly Knight, referring to Game 4 in Houston.
Rebekah Watley also had a problem with the MLB decision regarding the 33-year-old Cuban.
"I am an Astros fan but wouldn't it make more of an impact to suspend him for the rest of the World Series?" she posted.
Others pointed out the hypocrisy of Major League Baseball allowing the suspension to be served when far fewer people would care.
"Racism is not tolerated in our league," tweeted Gerry Dee. "But, it is kind of not tolerated when we are in the playoffs". -MLB #Gurriel
Gurriel may have earned leniency from MLB for saying he did not mean to offend the pitcher.
"I didn't try to offend nobody," Gurriel said through a translator after the game. "I was commenting to my family that I didn't have any luck against Japanese pitchers here in the United States."
Darvish, whose 1 2/3-inning debacle in Game 3 was his shortest appearance in his MLB career, had turned the other cheek towards Gurriel, who had 62 games in the Japanese leagues in 2014.
"No one is perfect," Darvish tweeted. "What he had done today isn't right, but I believe we should put our effort into learning rather than to accuse him. If we can take something from this, that is a giant step for mankind."
The Astros said the team will donate Gurriel's salary during the five-game suspension to charity.
"The Houston Astros were surprised and disappointed by the behavior displayed by Yuli Gurriel during (Friday's) game," the team said in a statement on Saturday. "The Astros and Major League Baseball pride ourselves on the diversity of our sport and in showing great respect to all cultures represented by our players, front office staff, fans and members of the media."
This is not the first time a [player] has been suspended for a racial remark. Last September, the Seattle Mariners suspended Steve Clevenger for the remainder of the 2016 season after he tweeted that protesters rallying against the fatal police shooting of Keith Lamont Scott should be "locked behind bars like animals."
"BLM (Black Lives Matter) is pathetic again! Obama you are pathetic once again! Everyone should be locked behind bars like animals!" one of his tweets read.
Clevenger apologized, but ended up playing the 2017 season for the minor league Lancaster Barnstormers.
This story was amended on October 29 to correct the spelling of Yuli Gurriel's name.
Questions using Close Reading and Critical Thinking skills:
- 1. The first section of an article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" Identify the four Ws of this article. (Note: The rest of a news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. Does this article appear to have a political bias? Why or why not?
- 3. Why do you think the League is allowing Gurriel's punishment for the anti-Asian gesture to be served next season?
- 4. Gerry Dee tweeted his belief that the MLB is being hypocritical by sending the message that racism "is kind of not tolerated when we [the MLB] are in the playoffs." What does he mean by "kind of not tolerated"? Do you agree with his viewpoint?
- 5. Gurriel said that he "didn't try to offend nobody." Do you believe him? Why or why not?
- 6. Earlier in his career, Gurriel played in the Japanese baseball league. Does this impact how his gesture should be understood?
- 7. Should the League have a role in punishing players for inappropriate or racial comments made about other players? Explain.
Click here to view more: www.newsweek.com/mlb-fans-outraged-astros-player-not-suspended-world-series-games-after-racist-695631
Posted October 24, 2017
The big picture: Niger and what we know about what happened to U.S. troops
By Allison Graves, Angie Drobnic Holan, Sophie Kaplan
Politifact | 22 October | 3:44 p.m.
An attack in Niger that left four American military members dead has triggered a fight between President Donald Trump and U.S. Rep. Frederica Wilson, D-Fla. Wilson said that Trump's words of condolence to one of the widows were insensitive. Trump and chief of staff John Kelly in turn attacked Wilson for publicizing Trump's call.
"Wacky Congresswoman Wilson is the gift that keeps on giving for the Republican Party, a disaster for Dems. You watch her in action & vote R!" Trump tweeted Oct. 22.
Behind the name-calling and tweets, there are still unanswered questions regarding the ambush that sparked the political controversy.
Here, we take a look at what we know about the events that transpired in Niger.
Niger--the background
Niger is a landlocked, west African country bordered by Libya, Algeria, Nigeria, Benin, Burkina Faso, Mali and Chad. Since its independence from France in 1960, it has experienced military rule, coups and now a democratically elected government. The current president of Niger is Issoufou Mahamadou.
According to the CIA World Factbook, Niger is one of the poorest countries in the world. Food production isn't keeping up with the population growth due to the arid climate, the lack of farmable land and the high fertility rate.
Recent terrorist attacks near the uranium mines in Niger have also hurt its economy. Uranium is a main source of income for Niger, in addition to agriculture.
What terrorist groups operate in and around Niger?
Groups linked to both ISIS and al-Qaida are active in and around Niger.
Niger shares a border with many countries where terrorists groups operate. For example, at one point, al-Qaida affiliated groups and other Islamic groups took control over northern Mali. In Libya, ISIS is regrouping. And in Nigeria, a militant Islamist group known as Boko Haram has wreaked havoc in the region.
These groups promote a strict form of Sharia Law. Boko Haram, which was founded in 2002, encourages a type of Islam which says it [is] forbidden ("haram") for Muslims to participate in activities related to Western society.
Al-Qaida, another militant Islamist group, was formed in the late 1980s against the Soviet invasion in Afghanistan. Now, thousands of troops fight for al-Qaida affiliated groups in North Africa, [Somalia], Yemen and elsewhere. ISIS started as an al-Qaida splinter group and is known for trying to create an [Islamic] state across Iraq and Syria and for setting up terrorist attacks across Europe.
Why were U.S. troops in Niger and when did they get there?
U.S. troops started arriving in Niger in 2013. During this time, extremists were on the rise in northwest Africa. The French had intervened in Mali in 2012 when an al-Qaida affiliated group and other tribal groups took control of the northern part of the country. In addition, Boko Haram continued its assault on Nigeria through bombings and killings.
Former President Barack Obama deployed 40 U.S. military personnel to provide support to the French forces. This brought the total number of troops in Niger to 100 in 2013. Since then, the number has grown to 800.
"This deployment will provide support for intelligence collection and will also facilitate intelligence sharing with French forces conducting operations in Mali, and with other partners in the region," Obama said in a letter to the House speaker.
Currently, troops are assisting the U.S. Embassy in Niger's capital of Niamey, while others are working on construction efforts at Air Base 201 in Agadez, according to U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM).
What has the military said about what happened?
Four soldiers died in Niger [on] Oct. 4; the Defense Department said that it was "as a result of hostile fire while on a reconnaissance patrol." The first three identified were Army Staff Sgt. Bryan C. Black, 35, of Puyallup, Wa.; Army Staff Sgt. Jeremiah W. Johnson, 39, of Springboro, Ohio; and Army Staff Sgt. Dustin M. Wright, 29, of Lyons, Ga.
The fourth soldier identified was Sgt. La David T. Johnson, 25, of Miami Gardens, Fla. He died Oct. 4, but his body was recovered by U.S. personnel Oct. 6, according to the Defense Department.
Military officials have provided few details publicly about what happened or how events unfolded. They also have offered no explanation for the reason that Johnson's body was recovered two days after the other soldiers. (The New York Times reported a detailed account of events that day based on anonymous sources; the report acknowledged there were conflicting accounts.)
Defense Secretary James Mattis said at an Oct. 19 press conference that a full investigation was underway but had not been completed. "We in the Department of Defense like to know what we're talking about before we talk, and so we do not have all the accurate information yet," Mattis said.
Mattis specifically criticized the media for asking questions about the delay in recovering the body of Sgt. La David Johnson.
"The U.S. military does not leave its troops behind, and I would just ask that you not question the actions of the troops who were caught in the firefight and question whether or not they did everything they could in order to bring everyone out at once," Mattis said.
Kelly, Trump's chief of staff, said on Oct. 19 that more was known about events than has been reported in the press but that he would not disclose it.
What questions does Congress want answered about Niger?
Nearly two weeks after the deaths of the service members, members of Congress said they are still seeking answers about what happened.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., told reporters recently that Congress could use subpoena power to compel answers if necessary.
"We did not know about Niger until it came out in the paper. We need to have a process of communications, which I've had with other administrations, of exchanging information and knowledge," said McCain, who serves as chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, on Oct. 19.
McCain's Democratic counterpart on the committee, Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, said the same day that he and McCain hoped to receive a classified briefing on the incident, and that it was "dismaying" that the defense secretary didn't seem to have all the facts yet, either.
"The secretary of defense and national command should be able in this time--we're talking about days, not hours--to be able to assemble a good picture of what happened," Reed said on CNN.
Reed said he specifically wanted to know about intelligence, air cover, evacuation plans, and why the United States seemed to have a slow response when events in Niger went wrong.
Is Niger like Benghazi?
There are many differences between the recent events [in] Niger and the attacks that happened in Benghazi, Libya, in September 2012. Most notably, one was a military endeavor while the other was diplomatic. Those who died in Niger were members of the U.S. Army. In Libya, the U.S. ambassador and a colleague, as well as two security contractors were killed.
The events are broadly similar in that administration officials have struggled to explain to Congress and the public exactly what happened, and that security lapses may be to blame.
In Benghazi, independent investigators faulted the State Department for not taking more security precautions in Libya.
McCain suggested in remarks on the Senate floor that a lack of funding for the U.S. military means that troops are being sent into situations without sufficient resources.
"We are sending our young men and women into hazardous situations without their being completely equipped and capable of defending themselves. That is wrong," McCain said Oct. 19. "Four just died in Niger. How many of the 100 Members of this body knew that we even had an operation in Niger? I will not go into the details, in deference to the family, but this is wrong, what we are doing. We saw it in the 1970s, and now we are seeing it again."
Overall, though, it's far too soon to tell if there are any real similarities between the two events.
Click here to view the article: www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2017/oct/22/big-picture-niger-and-what-we-know-about-what-happ/
Questions using Close Reading and Critical Thinking skills:
- 1. The first section of an article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" Identify the four Ws of this article. (Note: The rest of a news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. Does this article appear to have a political bias? Why or why not?
- 3. How is this text organized? Is this structure effective? Explain.
- 4. According to the article, why are there troops in Niger?
- 5. This article mentions another article in The New York Times that provided an account of the late recovery of Johnson's body. Why do you think the writers decided not to include that information in this article?
- 6. Explain why the writers may have chosen to include both Senator Reed's and Senator McCain's quotes about questions they want answered.
- 7. Write three questions about the events in Niger, which you hope further investigation will answer.
Posted October 17, 2017
Lighter winds help crews gain on California wildfires
By SUDHIN THANAWALA and BRIAN MELLEY
AP News | 16 October 2017 | 2:01 PM
SANTA ROSA, Calif. (AP)--Firefighters kept gaining on the California wildfires Monday with help from lighter winds that made it easier to attack the flames that have killed at least 40 people and destroyed thousands of homes and businesses.
After days of gusts that constantly fanned the fires, better weather offered a chance for crews to get the upper hand more than a week after the blazes started chewing through the state's celebrated wine country.
"The weather has not been in our favor over the past week in general, but we are still marching forward with our progress," said Daniel Berlant, spokesman for California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
Also Monday, a water truck driver died when his vehicle rolled over near one of the fires. No other information was available on the driver or the crash, which happened shortly before daybreak.
The smoky skies started to clear in some places, and thousands of people got the all-clear to return home. About 40,000 evacuees were still waiting for permission to go back to their communities, down from a high of 100,000 on Saturday.
"This is my home. I'm going to come back without question," said Howard Lasker, 56, who returned Sunday with his daughter to their torched house in Santa Rosa. "I have to rebuild. I want to rebuild."
Although the weather was still hot and dry, the calmer winds and the possibility of rain later in the week should help crews tamp down the deadliest, most destructive cluster of blazes in California history.
"Any sort of moisture is welcome at this point," said Scott Rowe, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. "In terms of fire, the weather outlook is looking to be improving."
He predicted a quarter-inch (0.6 centimeters) would fall late Thursday in Sonoma and Napa counties.
Hundreds of people remained unaccounted for, although authorities said many of them are probably safe but have not let anyone know. The number of people under evacuation orders was down to 75,000 from nearly 100,000 the day before.
In hard-hit Sonoma County, Sheriff Rob Giordano said authorities have located 1,560 of the more than 1,700 people once listed as missing. Many of those names were put on the list after people called from out of state to say they could not reach a friend or relative.
Authorities said they will not let people return home until it is safe and utilities are restored. Pacific Gas and Electric Company said it expects to restore power and gas to the area by late Monday.
Many evacuees grew increasingly impatient to go home--or at least find out whether their homes were still standing. Others were reluctant to go back or to look for another place to live.
Juan Hernandez, who escaped with his family from his apartment Oct. 9 before it burned down, still had his car packed and ready to go in case the fires flared up again and threatened his sister's house, where they have been staying in Santa Rosa.
"Every day we keep hearing sirens at night, alarms," Hernandez said. "We're scared. When you see the fire close to your house, you're scared."
At the Sonoma fairgrounds, evacuees watched the San Francisco 49ers play the Redskins on television, received treatment from a chiropractor and got free haircuts.
Michael Estrada, who owns a barbershop in neighboring Marin County but grew up in one of the Santa Rosa neighborhoods hit hard by the blazes, brought his combs, clippers and scissors and displayed his barbering license in case anyone doubted his credentials.
"I'm not saving lives," he said. "I'm just here to make somebody's day feel better, make them feel normal."
Lois Krier, 86, said it was hard to sleep on a cot in the shelter with people snoring and dogs barking through the night.
She and her husband, William Krier, 89, were eager to get home, but after being evacuated for a second time in a week Saturday, they didn't want to risk having to leave again.
"We're cautious," she said. "We want to be safe."
Nearly 11,000 firefighters were still battling 15 fires burning across a 100-mile swath of the state. The blazes have destroyed some 5,700 homes and other structures.
Those who were allowed back into gutted neighborhoods returned to assess the damage and, perhaps, see if anything was salvageable.
Jack Daniels recently completed a yearlong remodel of his Napa house near the Silverado Country Club and watched it go up in flames last week as he, his wife, 7-year-old grandson and two pugs backed out of the driveway.
His neighbors, Charles Rippey, 100, and his wife, Sara, 98, were the oldest victims identified so far in the wildfires.
Daniels, 74, a wine importer and exporter, said he lost everything left behind, including his wife's jewelry and 3,000 bottles of wine in his cellar.
"It's heartbreaking," the 74-year-old said. "This was going to be our last house. I guess we've got one more move. But we're fortunate. We got away. Most things can be replaced. The bank didn't burn down."
___
Melley reported from San Francisco. Associated Press writers Ellen Knickmeyer in Santa Rosa and Janie Har and Daisy Nguyen in San Francisco contributed to this report.
___
Note that the article was periodically updated due to its nature; therefore the linked content may vary from the text above. Read the article here: www.apnews.com/4c26bbc6f50e4a09b942aee8e8ae18cd
Questions using Close Reading and Critical Thinking skills:
- 1. The first section of an article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" Identify the four Ws of this article. (Note: The rest of a news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. Does this article appear to have a political bias? Why or why not?
- 3. This article describes the reactions of evacuated residents next to statistical information about houses burned and lives lost. What is the impact on the reader of having both the subjective personal accounts and the objective factual data?
- 4. Juan Hernandez is keeping his belongings packed in his car. What reasons does he have and what are his feelings about his situation?
- 5. According to Michael Estrada, why is giving haircuts to evacuees helpful?
- 6. Imagine fleeing from your home and what it would feel like not knowing what you would find when you returned. Describe what that might feel like.
- 7. If you were told to evacuate your home, where would you go, how would you get there, and what would you take with you?
Posted October 10, 2017
As Overdose Deaths Pile Up, a Medical Examiner Quits the Morgue
By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE
OCT. 7, 2017
CONCORD, N.H. -- In the state morgue here, in the industrial maze of a hospital basement, Dr. Thomas A. Andrew was slicing through the lung of a 36-year-old woman when white foam seeped out onto the autopsy table.
Foam in the lungs is a sign of acute intoxication caused by an opioid. So is a swollen brain, which she also had. But Dr. Andrew, the chief medical examiner of New Hampshire, would not be certain of the cause of death until he could rule out other causes, like a brain aneurysm or foul play, and until after the woman's blood tests had come back.
With the nation snared in what the government says is the worst drug epidemic in its history, routine autopsies like this one, which take more than two hours, are overtaxing medical examiners everywhere.
"It's almost as if the Visigoths are at the gates, and the gates are starting to crumble," Dr. Andrew said. "I'm not an alarmist by nature, but this is not overhyped. It has completely overwhelmed us."
As Dr. Andrew, an energetic man of 60 who, with his close-cropped gray beard, resembles the actor Richard Dreyfuss, has watched the drug toll mount, he is no longer content simply to catalog it. He wants to try, in his own small way, to stop it.
After laboring here as the chief forensic pathologist for two decades, exploring the mysteries of the dead, he retired last month to explore the mysteries of the soul. In a sharp career turn, he is entering a seminary program to pursue a divinity degree, and ultimately plans to minister to young people to stay away from drugs.
"After seeing thousands of sudden, unexpected or violent deaths," Dr. Andrew said, "I have found it impossible not to ponder the spiritual dimension of these events for both the deceased and especially those left behind."
With 64,000 overdose deaths last year nationwide--a staggering 22 percent jump over the previous year--it is little wonder that overdoses, the leading cause of death among Americans under 50, are reducing life expectancy. They are also straining the staffs and resources of morgues, and causing major backlogs.
This is especially true in New Hampshire, which has more deaths per capita from synthetic opioids like fentanyl than any other state. Last year the overdose death toll here reached nearly 500, almost 10 times the number in 2000.
Some medical examiners, especially in hard-hit Ohio, have had to store their corpses in cold-storage trailers in their parking lots. In Manatee County, Fla., Dr. Russell Vega, the chief medical examiner, said that when he reaches "overflow" conditions, he relies on a private body transport service to store the bodies elsewhere until his office can catch up.
In Milwaukee, Dr. Brian L. Peterson, the chief medical examiner, said that apart from the "tsunami" of bodies--his autopsy volume is up 12 percent from last year--the national drug crisis has led to staff burnout, drained budgets and threats to the accreditation of many offices because they have to perform more autopsies than industry standards allow.
At the same time, severe staff shortages unrelated to the drug crisis are crippling the profession, said Dr. Peterson, who is president of the National Association of Medical Examiners, which oversees accreditation. Few people go into forensic pathology in the first place, he said, largely because of low salaries, and as more forensic pathologists retire, fewer are replenishing the supply.
The result, Dr. Peterson said, is a national crisis that has already cost at least four offices their accreditation, which can undermine public confidence and lead to court challenges over a medical examiner's findings.
For Dr. Andrew in New Hampshire, where a backlog of autopsies has put the state at risk of losing accreditation, that prospect is particularly distressing. He spent the first eight of his 20 years here professionalizing the office and earning its accreditation. Despite the caseload, the office has one of the most timely and transparent surveillance and reporting systems in the country.
A medical examiner's office is considered deficient if an individual pathologist must perform more than 250 autopsies per year. Last year, Dr. Andrew and Dr. Jennie V. Duval, the deputy chief medical examiner, performed 250 each.
If this year's number exceeds last year's, New Hampshire could be in trouble. Pathologists cannot refuse to do autopsies just because they might risk losing accreditation. Nor would Dr. Andrew rush through them, he said, even if all signs pointed to a drug overdose.
Since the overdose toll began to climb about six years ago, Dr. Andrew has pleaded for more pathologists. The legislature finally authorized one in July, but until then, his office had only two, the same number as when he started, in 1997.
Upstairs from the morgue at Concord Hospital, in his cluttered office, Dr. Andrew pointed to a stack by his microscope of more than 80 folders containing glass slides of tissue samples taken during autopsies. Each folder represented an open case.
"Not all are drug cases," he said. "But all are swept up in the backlog."
He pulled out a logbook going back to 1997, when his handwritten entries began charting the earliest stages of what would become the drug epidemic.
There's a blunt impact, a drowning, one drug overdose," he said, scanning an early page. A few years on, he found seven overdoses on a single page. A more recent page: 12 overdoses. Most were caused by fentanyl, which by now has so thoroughly replaced heroin as the biggest killer on the streets here that the state no longer talks of a heroin epidemic but a fentanyl one.
The logbook also revealed that drug users in their 20s and 30s are increasingly dying of heart-valve infections, known as endocarditis. The ages are young for such infections; in these cases, they result from dirty needles.
"We have seen more endocarditis in the last two years than we have in the previous 15 combined," Dr. Andrew said.
The arrival in May in New Hampshire of carfentanil--the elephant tranquilizer that is 10,000 times as potent as morphine--has also ratcheted up pressure on his office.
So far this year, New Hampshire has had 41 suspected carfentanil deaths, 11 of them confirmed, far more than most states.
"It makes me feel like my hair is on fire, and I don't even have hair," Dr. Andrew said of the threat of increasingly potent drugs. "We're already so far behind the eight-ball here, if we have an influx of carfentanil in this state, heaven help us."
Back in the morgue, Dr. Andrew said he had learned to cope in this job, and its full immersion in death, by compartmentalizing what he sees and "locking it away."
Every day, he said, a pathologist faces the fleeting nature of mortality. The people on his examining table could have lived a lot longer "but for a few millimeters of cholesterol in the wrong blood vessel, a second of inattention by the driver of a car or the lethal potency of a drug obtained on the street."
And after a while, he said, one is bound to ask, "What's all this about?"
His plan is to become an ordained deacon in the United Methodist Church, with two goals: to serve as a chaplain for the Boy Scouts of America, and to join the Appalachian Trail Chaplaincy of the United Methodist Church so he can minister to troubled hikers, at least on the 161 miles of the storied trail that cross New Hampshire and its White Mountains.
Dr. Andrew said he developed an appreciation for the essence of life by seeing its fragility. Most of the nearly 5,800 people he has examined on his stainless steel autopsy table, he said, "woke the day they died oblivious to the fact that it would be their last on earth."
Examining cadavers, he said, as he removed the three pairs of gloves (two made of latex, one of Kevlar) that protect him during autopsies from blood-borne diseases, "is profound, profound work." But, he said, it has only affirmed for him the view of the philosopher Thomas Hobbes, who called the human condition "nasty, brutish and short."
For him, there is comfort in the concept of an afterlife.
"I'm very, very hopeful for what comes after this, because this--" he said, gesturing toward the woman he had just autopsied--"is pretty awful."
Questions using Close Reading and Critical Thinking skills:
- 1. The first section of an article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" Identify the four Ws of this article. (Note: The rest of a news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. Does this article appear to have a political bias? Why or why not?
- 3. What are some of the problems or consequences of "backlogs" in morgues?
- 4. What does the term "burnout" mean, and how is the opioid crisis contributing to it in the field of forensic pathology?
- 5. According to the article: "a medical examiner's office is considered deficient if an individual pathologist must perform more than 250 autopsies per year." Explain how the opioid crisis is increasing the number of medical offices being considered deficient and losing accreditation.
- 6. Why do you think pathologists are only allowed to perform 250 autopsies per year? Use the article to support your conclusions.
- 7. What two trends did Dr. Andrew's autopsy logbook reveal?
Click here to view more: www.nytimes.com/2017/10/07/us/drug-overdose-medical-examiner.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fus
Posted October 03, 2017
Supreme Court kicks off blockbuster term: Cases to watch
By Ariane de Vogue,
CNN Supreme Court Reporter
Updated 9:07 AM ET, Mon October 2, 2017
Washington (CNN) - A full-strength Supreme Court will take the bench Monday for what could be the most consequential term in decades, as the ideologically split justices consider cases as diverse as religious liberty, immigration, cell phone privacy, voting rights and possibly the legality of President Donald Trump's controversial travel ban.
"There is only one prediction that is entirely safe about the upcoming term, and that is it will be momentous," Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said at an event at Georgetown Law recently.
The justices spent most of last term with only eight members rendering narrow opinions--at times--in an attempt to ward off 4-4 splits.
But that's all over now.
Justice Neil Gorsuch has settled into his new role as a staunch conservative, filling the role previously held by the late Justice Antonin Scalia.
That means there are five conservatives and four liberals on the bench, with Justice Anthony Kennedy resuming his post as the swing vote from the conservative- to liberal-leaning side. Sources say he has been seriously considering retiring, and liberals fear that their last remaining chance at a win on issues--like LGBT rights--might rest with him.
Here are the big issues this year:
Travel ban
Leading the docket, until recently, was a challenge to Trump's signature policy: the travel ban. The justices were scheduled next week to hear oral arguments and decide whether the President was legally justified when he temporarily blocked travel from several Muslim-majority countries, citing national security concerns.
Challengers argue that the executive order violates the Constitution. They say the President was motivated in part by religious animus and point to some of the things Trump said during the campaign calling for a Muslim ban.
"The President has claimed limitless authority to exclude any alien he wishes," Neal Katyal, the lead lawyer for Hawaii, wrote. "This court has the power and the duty to police these excesses."
But the administration says the White House has the authority to act to restrict immigration.
"The Constitution and Acts of Congress confer on the President broad authority to suspend or restrict the entry of aliens outside the United States, when he deems it in the Nation's interest," Acting Solicitor General Jeffrey Wall wrote in court papers.
Late last spring the justices allowed part of the travel ban to go into effect, pending appeal, for foreign nationals who "lack any bona fide relationship with any person or entity in the United States." They were scheduled to hear oral arguments October 10--but that's now been postponed.
The twist: Last month, the President replaced a major provision of his controversial March executive order with new restrictions that have yet to go before any court.
Now, the justices must decide whether they should hear the challenge, or send the case back down to the lower courts to take a fresh look.
Immigration
The court this week will rehear two immigration-related cases will be watched closely for tea leaves of what justices are thinking on the travel ban, although they don't pertain to it specifically.
Monday, the court will rehear a case concerning mandatory deportation of lawful permanent residents for criminal convictions.
The Sessions v. Dimaya case was argued before the court in January, before Gorsuch was nominated and confirmed. At the end of June, the justices signaled they were divided 4-4 on at least some aspects of the case and wanted Gorsuch to weigh in.
Tuesday, justices rehear another immigration related case, Jennings v. Rodriguez. The case was brought by a class of immigrants--some who sought entrance at the border, others lawful permanent residents--who are fighting removal and arguing that they cannot be held in prolonged detention. After six months of detention, they seek hearings to prove that they are neither a flight risk nor a danger to society.
"Both cases implicate the scope of the government's authority over different classes of immigrants in ways that won't directly bear on the travel ban litigation, but could provide important clues into what the key justices are thinking," said CNN legal analyst and University of Texas Law School professor Steve Vladeck.
Voting rights and gerrymandering
Tuesday, justices will tackle a case that could reshape electoral maps across the country.
At issue is partisan gerrymandering--or the length to which legislators go when they manipulate district lines for partisan advantage. Democratic voters in Wisconsin are challenging maps they say were drawn unconstitutionally to benefit Republicans.
While the Supreme Court has a standard limiting the overreliance on race in map drawing except under the most limited circumstances, it has never been successful in developing a test concerning the overreliance on politics.
Wisconsin, in its arguments, says that both the challengers have no power to bring such a claim and that the issue should be decided not by the judiciary but the political branches.
Redistricting is an issue close to former President Barack Obama, who has vowed to dedicate part of his post-presidency to the issue. Prominent Republicans such as Arizona Sen. John McCain and former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger have filed briefs in support of the challengers, arguing that the issue does not only adversely impact Democrats.
"It's not a Democratic or a Republican issue," Schwarzenegger said in a recent conference call, "it's simply a power issue."
Another election law case, Husted v. Randolph Institute, will be heard in early November dealing with Ohio's method of removing names from its voter rolls. A federal appeals court ruled that the program violates the National Voter Registration Act.
Religious liberty
One of the most controversial cases of the term pits claims of religious liberty against LGBT rights.
At the center of the case is Jack Phillips, who owns a bakery called Masterpiece Cakeshop in Colorado. In 2012, he refused to make a cake to honor a couple's same-sex marriage, citing his religious beliefs. Lower courts ruled in favor of the couple, citing a state anti-discrimination law.
Now Phillips, who calls himself a "cake artist," is asking the Supreme Court to protect his rights, and he received a big boost last month from the Trump administration.
"Forcing Phillips to create expression for and participate in a ceremony that violates his sincerely held religious beliefs invades his First Amendment rights," acting Solicitor General Jeff Wall wrote for the Justice Department in briefs filed to the court.
"The government may not enact content-based laws commanding a speaker to engage in protected expression: An artist cannot be forced to paint, a musician cannot be forced to play, and a poet cannot be forced to write," Wall added.
Louise Melling, an ACLU lawyer representing the plaintiffs, says that the Masterpiece case is "making a radical argument."
"When you look at it, they are saying there is a constitutional right, whether it's rooted in speech or religion, to discriminate," she said in an recent interview.
"A ruling for the bakery would have implications far beyond LGBT people and would put in jeopardy our longstanding laws against discrimination," she said.
Cell phone privacy
The court will also hear a major case concerning privacy in the digital age when it determines whether investigators need to obtain a warrant for cell tower data to track and reconstruct location and movements of cell phone users over extended periods of time.
The case was brought by the ACLU on behalf of two men who were arrested after a string of robberies in Michigan and Ohio. At trial, the government's evidence included records from the defendants' phones that showed that the men used their phones within a close radius to several robberies.
How the justices decide the issue could provide a framework for other issues such as facial recognition technology and surveillance law.
Most courts have held that there is a diminished privacy interest in this area because the information has already been provided to third parties such as phone companies.
Questions using Close Reading and Critical Thinking skills:
- 1. The first section of an article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" Identify the four Ws of this article. (Note: The rest of a news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. Does this article appear to have a political bias? Why or why not?
- 3. In the discussion of the travel ban case, both "limitless" and "broad" are used to describe the president's authority. What are the denotative and connotative differences between these adjectives? How do these adjectives help the reader understand the two sides to this issue?
- 4. What is the meaning of the phrase at the start of the immigration section of the article: "watched closely for tea leaves"? Why was it used as a transition from the travel ban to immigration?
- 5. How can someone prove or disprove that partisan gerrymandering has occurred when individual voting records are private?
- 6. Why is Jack Phillips' personal identification as a "cake artist" important to his case with the Supreme Court?
- 7. Why is the cell phone privacy case significant to the future of facial recognition technology and surveillance law?
- 8. Why is it important for U.S. citizens to stay informed on Supreme Court cases and rulings?
Click here to view more: www.cnn.com/2017/10/02/politics/supreme-court-blockbuster-cases-to-watch/index.html
Posted September 26, 2017
More than 200 protest racism in loud NFL statement
By Paul Schwartz, Zach Braziller, and Bruce Golding
The New York Post
Sunday, 24 September 2017
More than 200 NFL players defiantly took a knee during the national anthem at their games Sunday while hundreds of other grid stars locked arms with their coaches--and even some team owners--in protest of President Trump, who had ripped the league over the weekend.
Three New York Giants--Landon Collins, Damon Harrison and Olivier Vernon--were among those who knelt on the field, a first for Big Blue players in the ongoing controversy over the symbolic opposition to racism.
"I've been raised the right way. I know what's right and what's wrong. Ain't nobody ever going to scare me. I don't care if he's the president or not. You ain't my president," Vernon said of Trump after the Giants' matchup against the Eagles in Philadelphia.
Trump created an uproar during a speech in Alabama on Friday when he urged NFL team owners to fire any player who kneels during the anthem.
"Wouldn't you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, 'Get that son of a bitch off the field right now. Out! He's fired. He's fired!'"
He continued his attacks on the league throughout Sunday, suggesting in one tweet that fans boycott NFL games "until players stop disrespecting our Flag & Country."
An emotional Collins defended his and other players' decision to kneel.
"There's nothing that we're saying we disrespect our country," he said. "It hurt me to take a knee. I was about to break down in tears. I love this country.
"But at the same time, we respect each other, and we have a family over here, and we're gonna fight for each other."
TV networks took the unusual step of broadcasting the singing of "The Star-Spangled Banner" before the games in anticipation of the demonstrations, which erupted at all but one of the 13 daytime matchups.
In Sunday's slew of other on-field politics:
• Giants wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. raised his fist in a "black power" salute after scoring his second touchdown.
• The entire New York Jets team linked arms along with acting owner Christopher Johnson, who later issued a statement expressing pride in the players' "positive, constructive, and unifying impact."
• New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady--who supported Trump ahead of last year's presidential election--stood with his right hand over his heart and his left arm entwined with teammate Phillip Dorsett.
• Cleveland Browns players launched the largest take-a-knee protest, with 21 of their 53 players joining in, after team owners Dee and Jimmy Haslam issued a statement blasting Trump's statements as "divisive," "misguided" and "uniformed."
• There were reports of some booing inside stadiums where players took a knee, with some fans chanting, "Stand up!" ahead of the Patriots' game against the Houston Texans in Foxborough, Mass.
The protests also spread to Game 1 of the WNBA finals, with the Los Angeles Sparks leaving the court to skip the anthem, while the home team Minnesota Lynx locked arms along the free-throw line in front of their bench.
Oakland Athletics catcher Bruce Maxwell also took a knee for his second game in a row and said he would continue doing so.
Meanwhile, three football teams--the Seattle Seahawks, Pittsburgh Steelers and Tennessee Titans--stayed in their locker rooms. The Steelers' coach said it was to avoid politics, while the other two teams said it was to make a protest statement.
Virtually every player who was on the field for the anthem either took a knee or locked arms. Some raised their right fists in a move reminiscent of the "black power" salutes by American track stars Tommie Smith and John Carlos at the 1968 Olympic Games.
The NFL demonstrations began last year with then-San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who took a knee during a preseason game.
"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 NFL Media in August 2016.
Trump's anti-kneeling remarks dominated football's pregame shows Sunday.
Former Buffalo Bills and New York Jets coach Rex Ryan said, "I'm pissed off, I'll be honest with you, because I supported Donald Trump.
"When he asked me to introduce him at a rally in Buffalo, I did that," Ryan, an ESPN analyst, said during the network's "Sunday NFL Countdown" show.
"But I'm reading these comments, and it's appalling to me, and I'm sure it's appalling to almost any citizen in our country. It should be."
Former Steelers quarterback Terry Bradshaw took a different tone on "Fox NFL Sunday," disagreeing with the protests but adding:
"If our country stands for anything, folks--what--it's freedom. People die for that freedom. I'm not sure if our president understands those rights, that every American has the right to speak out and also to protest," Bradshaw said on the popular pregame show.
Former Los Angeles Raiders star Howie Long also said white NFL players had a special obligation to their African-American teammates.
"What keeps getting lost is the message of inequality. To put it in perspective, as a white father having raised three boys, there were a million things to worry about on a daily basis, but it's impossible for me to truly understand the challenges an African-American father faces at every turn while raising his children," the Fox analyst said.
"But in a league comprised of nearly 70 percent African-American players, if you're a white player in an NFL locker room, you are in a unique position to better understand the struggles and subsequently support your teammates in your own way."
Early Sunday evening, Trump denied that he was inflaming racial tensions before boarding Air Force One for a return trip to the White House from his golf club in Bedminster, NJ.
"This has nothing to do with race. I never said anything about race," he told reporters at Morristown Municipal Airport.
"This has nothing to do with race or anything else. This has to do with respect for our country and respect for our flag."
When asked if he thought the players who knelt Sunday should be fired, Trump said: "I certainly think the owners should do something about it."
Trump--who had come under attack Saturday by NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell for his "divisive" comments--tweeted earlier in the day, "Courageous Patriots have fought and died for our great American Flag--we MUST honor and respect it! MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!"
Additional reporting by David K. Li and Mark Moore
Questions Using Close Reading and Critical Thinking Skills:
- 1. The first section of an article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" Identify the four Ws of this article. (Note: The rest of a news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. Does this article appear to have a political bias? Why or why not?
- 3. Prior to President Trump's comments about the NFL anthem protests, only a handful of players were participating. Why do you think players, coaches, and team owners felt the need to start protesting, link arms, or speak out against the president's condemnation?
- 4. Colin Kaepernick began kneeling during the national anthem last football season. About what issue was he trying to raise awareness? Do you think this was the most effective way for him, and now others, to draw focus?
- 5. Why was the New York Jets' coach, Rex Ryan, angry about Trump's comments?
- 6. Terry Bradshaw said he disagrees with the protest, but also said the country stands for freedom and the "right to speak out and protest." Are disagreeing with the protest and supporting free speech mutually exclusive ideas? Explain your thinking.
- 7. Howie Long says that "the message of inequality" is "getting lost." What does he mean by this? Do you agree?
- 8. Trump has repeatedly said that owners of the teams should do something to end the protest or punish the protesters. Do you think the president should voice his opinion on how private companies or organizations are managed, or on what policies they set?
Click here to view more: nypost.com/2017/09/24/about-100-protest-national-anthem-in-loud-nfl-statement/
Posted September 19, 2017
Juggalos march on Washington: 'We're a family not a gang'
By Adam Gabbatt
The Guardian
Sunday, 17 September 2017
WASHINGTON--In 1864, Abraham Lincoln was being besieged by a clown.
Dan Rice, the most famous clown of the time - he was also an animal trainer and a strong man - was running for state senate in Pennsylvania. He had based his campaign on attacking Lincoln over his handling of the civil war.
Rice lost the election and Lincoln's clown problem ended. Until Saturday, that is, when more than a thousand people, many wearing clown make-up, gathered at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial on Washington DC's national mall for the long-awaited Juggalo March.
The Juggalos - the name given to fans of the band Insane Clown Posse - were in Washington to demonstrate against the FBI labelling them a "gang", a designation they say has led to discrimination from police and in the workplace.
Paint-clad protesters began to gather at around 1pm. Some Juggalos wore full face make-up in tribute to Insane Clown Posse duo Shaggy 2 Dope and Violent J; others were wearing actual clown trousers and shoes; many more sported Juggalo T-shirts and sipped Faygo, a midwestern soda popularized by the band.
Just like Lincoln, these clowns had a problem - in the form of a hastily arranged pro-Trump rally that was also taking place on the mall, less than a mile away.
The Trump event, which organizers had dubbed the "mother of all rallies", had been called by supporters of the president, aiming to give him a shot in the arm after a turbulent introduction to the White House.
The mother of all rallies could have overshadowed the Juggalo event. But among the Insane Clown Posse enthusiasts, it was clear they were not worried. Juggalos had travelled from across the country to attend the march, a rare opportunity to gather en masse, and they were determined to enjoy it.
Chris Fabritz, with whom the Guardian spent the day, is known as "mankini" among certain Juggalos due to his penchant for wearing a bikini. He was hosting 14 Insane Clown Posse fans in his two-bedroom apartment over the weekend, which he said illustrated the bond between Juggalos.
"We're a family. We welcome everybody with open arms," Fabritz said. "We're people who genuinely believe in the human spirit."
Fabritz added that he and his fellow Juggalos would "give you the shirt off our back if you needed it". He was wearing a black bikini top and a pair of American flag underpants at the time.
The clown paint and overtly masculine music of Insane Clown Posse - during the march Shaggy 2 Dope described the band's output as "the world's most hated music" - has given the band and their adherents something of a comical air.
But the FBI designation of Juggalos as a "loosely-organized hybrid gang", made in its 2011 National Gang Threat Assessment, has had real consequences for fans of the group.
"Many Juggalos subsets exhibit gang-like behavior and engage in criminal activity and violence" the FBI assessment said. "Law enforcement officials in at least 21 states have identified criminal Juggalo sub-sets, according to [National Gang Intelligence Center] reporting."
Insane Clown Posse say that designation is unfair, claiming various people who commit crimes could often be said to be fans of certain musicians.
A number of Juggalos, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Michigan and Insane Clown Posse themselves, are attempting to have the ruling overthrown. Until then, Juggalos are suffering.
Todd Okan, 35, was among those on the mall. He said he was pulled over by police in Sacramento, California, because he had stickers of Insane Clown Posse's "hatchet man" mascot on his car.
"They said these symbols are considered a gang symbol," Okan said. "They were asking me, like: 'Are you a leader of this gang?'" Okan, who is an accounting auditor, said he was not in a gang.
"I was like: 'This is the music I listen to.'"
Others had similar stories. Jessica Bonometti, from Manassas, Virginia, said she was fired as a probation officer in March 2016 as a result of her support for Insane Clown Posse. She had liked several photographs of the band on Facebook, she said, and was told by her boss that her affiliation was the reason she was fired.
She said she had been unable to find a job since then, hampered by the firing and a lack of references.
"My job was everything to me," she said. "I'm 34, I don't have kids, I don't have a husband, so my job was like my life. I didn't leave my house for a year after. I just couldn't deal with people. I felt like a misfit. Like I don't belong. So to say that the effects of it have been devastating would be a serious understatement."
The Juggalos began marching just after 5pm, after an expletive-laden speech from Shaggy 2 Dope - real name Joseph Utsler - and Violent J, aka Joseph Bruce. The Juggalos pride themselves on a sense of community: chants of "family, family" echoed around the Reflecting Pool, as did the Juggalo identification cry of "whoop, whoop".
In the late afternoon sunshine people waved signs - "Is your band next" was a popular one - as they strolled east along the mall and ringed the Washington Monument, passing around 500m from the Trump event.
Ahead of the Juggalo event there had been concerns about the proximity between the two groups. In Charlottesville in August, a rightwing demonstration ended in the death of anti-racism activist Heather Heyer as white supremacists launched attacks on counter-protests.
Organizers of the Trump rally had claimed thousands of people would attend. On Saturday, streets surrounding the mall were blocked by police cars. But instead, by mid-afternoon, the mother of all rallies had only attracted around 400 people. The crowd gathered in a space the size of a football field on the lush grass of the mall - which made for a lot of free grass - where they listened to hourly pledges of allegiance and numerous renditions of the Star Spangled Banner.
The supporters milled around amiably in the fenced-off enclosure. Some picnicked on the grass, others held American flags aloft.
Tahnee Gonzalez, 31, was carrying a cloth banner that depicted Trump holding an assault rifle, standing on top of a tank. There was also an eagle on it. She had travelled from Phoenix, Arizona, to attend the rally. She said she decided to come to "show the fake news that there is support for our president".
"It's America first now. We can no longer support any other country until ours is completely united and strong again," she said. "I want my fellow millennials to know they need to rise up before it's too late."
The only millennials rising up on the mall that day were on the other side of the Washington monument.
The upbeat, open-minded nature of the Juggalo march, in spite of the reason for it taking place, provided a stark contrast to the Trump event, where people waved anti-communism flags and talked variously about Hillary Clinton's emails, the need to "take our country back", and craven politicians.
The only palpable similarities between the events was that both took place on the national mall and both offered free face-painting - although the stars and stripes designs at the Trump rally differed in style from those of the Insane Clown Posse crowd.
"When you step in we throw politics aside," Fabritz said as the Juggalo march wound its way back to Abraham Lincoln's statue. "We're Juggalos, and we just love everyone."
Questions Using Close Reading and Critical Thinking Skills:
- 1. The first section of an article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" Identify the four Ws of this article. (Note: The rest of a news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. Why did the author structure the article as a compare and contrast between the Juggalo protest and the pro-Trump rally?
- 3. Consider what Chris Fabritz said about his fellow Juggalos. How does this description compare or contrast to your understanding or knowledge of gangs?
- 4. Do you think it is fair for the FBI to designate the whole group as a gang when only some subsets of the group have participated in violent behavior?
- 5. One of the Juggalos interviewed, Jessica Bonometti, was fired from her job for showing her support of Insane Clown Posse by liking photos on social media. Should employers be allowed to monitor their employees on social media and fire them for what they participate in or like outside of work?
- 6. Near the conclusion of the article the author says, "the only millennials rising up on the mall that day were on the other side of the Washington monument." What observation about millennials do you think the author was trying to make with this statement?
- 7. This is not the first time in history that music has been used to judge or discriminate against others. The music of Elvis, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Marilyn Manson, and Black Sabbath--just to name a few--have all raised concerns about delinquency and changing moral values. Why do you think music has a history of being controversial?
Click here to view more: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/sep/17/juggalo-march-washington-gang-fbi-pro-trump-rally
Posted September 12, 2017
Florida Is No Stranger to Hurricanes, but This Is Different
By AUDRA D. S. BURCH and JESS BIDGOOD
The New York Times
SEPT. 10, 2017
ORLANDO, Fla. -- Bracing for hurricanes is almost a summer tradition here: the steady, clanking sound of wood banged to windows, the endless lines for bottled water and fuel, the pilgrimages to fortified shelters.
But Irma, which struck Florida's coastline twice and then tore through the state with a fury, is anything but a run-of-the-mill hurricane. It was wider than the peninsula itself. There was hardly anywhere in the state to escape its blustery wrath.
Certainly not in the tiny islands of the Keys, which found themselves nearly under water on Sunday after Irma zeroed in on Cudjoe Key, Fla., just after 9 a.m.
Not in the shimmering high-rises of Miami, where hurricane winds partially knocked down two construction cranes. Not in and around the tourist havens of Orlando and Tampa, where theme parks were shuttered.
Even the most northern pockets in Tallahassee, the capital, and the small towns along the Florida-Georgia line, were cowering with the rest of the state for a thorough pummeling from tropical-force winds.
To try to escape Irma, Floridians scattered across the state on clogged interstates. They slept on cots inside high schools, on narrow beds in roadside motels, on friends' couches and wherever they could reach on a tank of gas. The question for everyone was whether to go, and then where to go, to best outlast the winds.
Irma's ruinous march was, for a while, aimed directly at South Florida, prompting much of the population, with memories of Hurricane Andrew and fresh scenes from Hurricane Harvey, to flee to the north and west. But by Saturday morning, the storm had shifted west. And suddenly, Naples, Fort Myers and Tampa, a collection of Gulf Coast cities particularly vulnerable to storm surge, found themselves in harm's way. For days, that part of the state had been considered for some a safe haven; all of a sudden it was the bull's eye.
"I feel like the storm is chasing us," said Antonella Giannantonio, 51, who wasted no time last week packing her family, including her octogenarian parents, into two cars, then driving from North Miami Beach to Naples, then Tampa.
Wearing a Navy cap, Florida's governor, Rick Scott, stood before a bank of microphones as the storm crept closer, sounding the alarm in brutally direct sound bites: Evacuate. Leave now. Get out. His plain-spoken words and Irma's promise of devastation forced one of the largest evacuations this country has seen.
On Sunday, as Irma's winds left millions of Floridians in the dark, Mr. Scott's message was even more sobering, as if there might be little else to say: "Pray."
In Key West, a place so vulnerable that the authorities had said to remain was the most foolhardy of moves, Richard Peter Matson stayed anyway, and slept little as Irma neared. Even with a Category 4 storm bearing down on his home, he defended his decision to stay put, despite what he described as a challenging night. "I kept tossing, turning," said Mr. Matson, an 81-year-old artist. "Things kept smashing and banging," he said.
When the winds moved on, the Key West holdout stepped outside to briefly inspect his street, now strewn with debris and branches, broken shutters and windows. He saw a downed cable and remembered the voices of friends who had warned him he'd be electrocuted if he stayed behind.
If there is an opposite of a storm-chaser, it would be Brian Plate, a Key West boat captain who spent the past few days on the run. Mr. Plate, 36, took a cat and a friend and hit the road at about 2:30 a.m. Thursday, headed for St. Petersburg, a seemingly safe 400 miles away. Two hours into the seven-hour ride, he was so tired that he pulled over to take a nap. He awoke the next morning to grim news: Irma, then a Category 5 storm, was now headed for St. Petersburg.
He hit the road again, and about eight hours later, pulled into a friend's farm in Sale City, Ga., carrying 100 pounds of rice and beans, plenty of tortillas, a generator and a portable stove. He learned there that the storm is headed for Georgia, too--but he is done running.
"My nerves are completely shot," he said, expressing worry for his friends who stayed "down there."
After ramming Key West, Irma marched north on Sunday, eventually coming ashore again at Marco Island, Fla., near Naples, around 3:30 p.m. In Miami, which escaped a direct hit, the storm nonetheless intensified enough to make a solid five-story hotel vibrate. Rain fell hard, the wind howled, and the daytime sky grew dark. In many places, water made the pavement go away, flooding areas across South Florida, from Fort Lauderdale to Miami and Miami Beach.
Behind the Element hotel by the Miami International Airport, a lake overflowed, sending water into the parking lot and up to the sandbags protecting the lobby.
The guests were a mix of residents of surrounding neighborhoods, stranded airline passengers and crew, and cruise-ship travelers who were brought back to port early and left to ride out the storm. Among the crowd was Ana Matia, who lives in the Brickell neighborhood of Miami. She felt safe in her building, she said, but worried about being cut off with her daughter, Alejandra, 5, for days on end. So they decamped to the hotel. Ms. Matia had friends who fled west, only to hear about the storm's trajectory and flee back east again.
Four days before Irma hit, the Stovall family left their Coconut Grove cottage for St. Petersburg to escape the worst of the storm. John and Colleen Stovall; their son, Chaille; and their two cats made the 270-mile journey.
Mrs. Stovall, 57, the producing artistic director of Shakespeare Miami, who also lived through Hurricane Andrew, rescued her grandmother's silver, some jewelry and her own beloved 2nd edition of The Norton Shakespeare.
"We are feeling a little snakebit," Mrs. Stovall, said while a crew worked furiously to cover the 80 windows of her brother-in-law's three-story house in a historic St. Petersburg neighborhood, six blocks from the bay. "We are eating breakfast, and my brother-in-law says: 'I have good news and bad news. The good news is, your house won't be destroyed. The bad news is, it's coming for us.'"
Before Irma, Randy Rogers and Chuck Anderson, retirees, neighbors and fishing buddies, were accustomed to taking their identical 22-foot Hurricane deck boats out on the Caloosahatchee River in Fort Myers in pursuit of sea trout, redfish and snook.
As Irma's driving rain swept across the windows of the hotel where they took refuge on Sunday, the two men wondered what would be left of that life after the storm. Even if the water somehow spared their homes and boats, Mr. Rogers said, the wind probably would not.
Audra Burch reported from Orlando, and Jess Bidgood from Tampa, Fla. Reporting was contributed by Marc Santora, Frances Robles and Lizette Alvarez from Miami.
A version of this article appears in print on September 11, 2017, on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: A Humdinger Even for Those With Practice.
Questions Using Close Reading and Critical Thinking Skills:
- 1. The first section of an article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" Identify the four Ws of this article. (Note: The rest of a news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. Instead of just giving general information or statistics, this article includes accounts from those living in the path of Irma. Why do you think the journalists included so much detail about and from individuals?
- 3. Consider the two writers and three reporters that contributed to the article. Why might it have been necessary to have so many on such a short article?
- 4. What word choices have the writers used, and what kind of tone have they set for the piece?
- 5. How have you seen friends, family, celebrities, or other people you follow on social media reacting to Hurricane Irma or Hurricane Harvey?
- 6. Look at the word choices of the journalists in describing the governor's announcement. Explain why the hat is significant.
- 7. How would you react if you were told you had four hours to evacuate your home? Where would you go? How would you get there? What would you take with you?
- 8. Why do you think some people chose to stay in their homes, even though government agencies pleaded with residents to evacuate?
Click here to view more: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/10/us/key-west-naples-florida.html
Posted May 30, 2017
Springfield judge denies clown's plan to juggle for jurors as centerpiece of defense
By Jack Flynn
of MassLive.com
Updated on May 27, 2017 at 8:10 AM Posted on May 27, 2017 at 8:04 AM
SPRINGFIELD--Every clown has a down day occasionally, and Orlando Melendez had one this week in Springfield District Court.
During a pretrial hearing Thursday, a judge rejected Melendez's plan to showcase his juggling skills for jurors at his upcoming trial.
"The keystone to his defense is: He's literally a clown," the defendant, writing in the third person, explained in a motion that elicited a one-word response from Judge Robert Murphy.
"Denied," the judge wrote on the motion.
Melendez, 20, is charged with using a toy gun during an attempted robbery of a Forest Park convenience store in December. He pleaded not guilty to two counts of attempting to commit a crime and was ordered held on $5,000 bail.
Jury selection is scheduled to begin on June 8. Melendez, who fired his court-appointed lawyer, has represented himself since February.
During Thursday's hearing, Melendez outlined his defense strategy in a hand-written motion declaring he was, in effect, just clowning around when he walked into a Cumberland Farms store at 3:15 a.m. and allegedly demanded money from the register.
Juggling three wads of paper for 20 seconds would show jurors that Melendez is a serious clown, and prove the attempted robbery was just a misunderstanding, the motion states.
The juggling act would be "not only the simplest, but the only possible proof that the defendant is a jester," the motion said. To deny the request would be to deny the defendant's Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment rights to a fair trial, the motion added.
Murphy, who is presiding over the case, denied the request anyway, without elaborating.
He approved several other defense motions, including a request to sequester jurors and witnesses and to question prospective jurors about their willingness to believe testimony from police officers.
The trial is expected to last one or two days, with testimony from four to seven witnesses, Assistant District Attorney Thomas Prendergast stated in a report to the judge.
Questions using Close Reading and Critical Thinking skills:
- 1. The first paragraph of a news article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" List the who, what, when, and where of this news item. (Note: The rest of a news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. Is this a serious problem or is it being overblown in the media?
- 3. Do you think there is such a thing as a "serious clown"? Why or why not?
- 4. How could the store clerk have known the suspect was a clown without a red nose, big shoes, and a fake gun with a "BANG!" flag?
- 5. Are you disappointed that the suspect isn't wearing clown makeup in his mugshot?
- 6. Do you have any interesting plans for the summer? Share with the class.
- 7. Writing Prompt Wednesday and Teacher's Discovery® aren't clowning around when they wish you a fun, safe, and educational summer vacation!
Click here to view more: //www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2017/05/springfield_judge_frowns_on_cl.html#incart_river_home
Posted May 23, 2017
In New Orleans, Confederate monuments are gone
By Janet McConnaughey and Rebecca Santana
Associated Press
May 19, 2017
NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- They were among the city's oldest landmarks, as cemented to the landscape of New Orleans as the Superdome and St. Louis Cathedral: a stone obelisk heralding white supremacy and three statues of Confederate stalwarts.
But after decades standing sentinel over this Southern city, the Confederate monuments are gone, amid a controversy that at times hearkened back to the divisiveness of the Civil War they commemorated.
The last of the monuments--a statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee facing defiantly north with his arms crossed--was lifted by a crane from its pedestal late Friday. As air was seen between Lee's statue and the pedestal below it, a cheer went out from the crowd who recorded the history with their phones and shook hands with each other in congratulations. Many in the crowd had waited since morning.
"I never thought I would see this day!" shouted Melanie Morel-Ensminger with joy. "But look! It's happening."
Lee's was the last of four monuments to Confederate-era figures to be removed under a 2015 City Council vote on a proposal by Mayor Mitch Landrieu. It caps a nearly two-year-long process that has been railed against by those who feel the monuments are a part of Southern heritage and honor the dead. But removal of the monuments has drawn praise from those who saw them as brutal reminders of slavery and symbols of the historic oppression of black people.
Landrieu called for the monuments' removal in the lingering emotional aftermath of the 2015 massacre of nine black parishioners at a South Carolina church. The killer, Dylann Roof, was an avowed racist who brandished Confederate battle flags in photos, recharging the debate over whether Confederate emblems represent racism or an honorable heritage.
While Roof's actions spurred a debate in many parts of the South about whether it was appropriate to fly the Confederate battle emblem--and many places have taken it down--the reaction in New Orleans seemed to go even further, knocking away at even weightier, heavier parts of history.
Landrieu drew blistering criticism from monument supporters and even some political allies. But in explaining his reasoning, the mayor has repeatedly said they do not represent the diversity and future of New Orleans.
"These statues are not just stone and metal. They are not just innocent remembrances of a benign history. These monuments celebrate a fictional, sanitized Confederacy; ignoring the death, ignoring the enslavement, ignoring the terror that it actually stood for," he said Friday.
"After the Civil War, these statues were a part of that terrorism, as much as burning a cross on someone's lawn. They were erected purposefully to send a strong message to all who walked in their shadows about who was still in charge in this city," he added.
Of the four monuments, Lee's was easily the most prominent: The bronze statue alone is close to 20 feet (6 meters) tall. It's a bronze sculpture of Lee looking toward the northern horizon from atop a roughly 60-foot-tall column.
It's not massive like the Superdome or alluring like Bourbon Street, but Lee in his uniform was a familiar landmark for tourists and commuters alike.
Lee's removal was planned during the day, and announced in advance. Earlier removals happened after nightfall, a precautionary measure due to security concerns for contractors and workers involved in the effort. Landrieu said the change was out of safety concerns because the statue was close to electrical wires and New Orleans' famous streetcar lines.
The atmosphere Friday was almost festive as dozens of people, some with lawn chairs, came out to see what many called history in the making.
"If you can see history as it happens, it's more meaningful," said Al Kennedy, who supported the removal. Speaking of the Confederate past, he said: "It's my history, but it's not my heritage."
But others criticized the move.
"Mayor Landrieu and the City Council have stripped New Orleans of nationally recognized historic landmarks," said the Monumental Task Committee, an organization that maintains monuments and plaques across the city. "With the removal of four of our century-plus aged landmarks, at 299 years old, New Orleans now heads in to our Tricentennial more divided and less historic."
The city turns 300 in 2018.
In 2015, the City Council voted 6-1 to remove the monuments after a succession of contentious public meetings. Contractors involved in the removal process have been threatened; statue supporters sued repeatedly to keep the statues up.
At last, a court decision cleared the way for the April removal of what is likely the most controversial of the monuments--seen as an overt tribute to white supremacy. Statues to the Confederacy''s only president Jefferson Davis and Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard followed in quick succession until only Lee was left.
Attention now shifts to where the monuments will go and what will take their place.
The city announced an outline of its plans late Thursday. It said it has received offers from public and private institutions to take individual monuments, so it will solicit proposals on where they will go through an "open and transparent selection." Only nonprofits and government entities will be allowed to take part, and the city said the process will not include the Beauregard statue because of legal issues.
The city said those taking the statues cannot display them outdoors on public property in New Orleans.
The city plans to leave the column at Lee's Circle intact and will mount public art in its place.
An American flag will stand where the Davis statue used to be, and the area where the Liberty Place monument used to stand "will remain as is." The City Park Improvement Association, civic groups and the city will decide what will go where the Beauregard statue once stood.
The city wants to finish the work during its tricentennial year.
Associated Press writers Kevin McGill in New Orleans and Jesse J. Holland in Washington contributed to this report.
Questions using Close Reading and Critical Thinking skills:
- 1. The first paragraph of a news article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" List the who, what, when, and where of this news item. (Note: The rest of a news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. Do you think the statues should have been removed? Why or why not?
- 3. What did Mayor Landrieu mean when he said, "These monuments celebrate a fictional, sanitized Confederacy"?
- 4. What is the difference between "history" and "heritage" in Al Kennedy's statement, "It's my history, but it's not my heritage"?
- 5. How can New Orleans or other cities memorialize events and people of the Civil War or other eras while being respectful of today's sensibilities?
- 6. Should monuments from the past be updated or removed because our perception of history has changed? Is this an attempt to respect people or an attempt to revise history?
- 7. What should happen to the statues? How would you use them as part of an educational process?
Click here to view more: //www.yahoo.com/news/final-confederate-monument-come-down-orleans-131405096.html
Posted May 16, 2017
School lunch shaming: Inside America's hidden debt crisis
By Heather Long
CNN Money
May 10, 2017
12:15 PM ET
Matt Antignolo has worked in public school cafeterias for 24 years.
He's learned two key truths: Just about every kid loves pizza, and an alarming number of American youngsters still can't afford a $2.35 lunch, despite the dramatic expansion of free and reduced lunch programs.
When a student doesn't have enough money for lunch, cafeteria staff in many districts, including Antignolo's, take away the child's tray of hot food and hand the student a brown paper bag containing a cold cheese sandwich and a small milk. Some schools take away their lunch entirely.
"It's the worst part of the job. Nobody likes it," says Antignolo, who's now director of food services at the Lamar Consolidated District outside Houston.
All the other kids in the lunch line know what's going on. Getting that brown bag is the lunch line equivalent of being branded with a Scarlet Letter. It's been dubbed "school lunch shaming."
It happens across the country: 76% of America's school districts have kids with school lunch debt, according to the School Nutrition Association. The horror stories keep coming. In 2015, a Colorado cafeteria worker says she was fired for personally paying for a first grader's meal. Last year, a Pennsylvania lunch lady quit in protest after being forced to take food away from a student who was $25 in debt.
Policies vary, but many schools serve an "alternate meal," like a cheese sandwich, once a student's debt hits $15.
Last month, New Mexico banned any form of lunch shaming. The dramatic move highlighted this hidden crisis in schools and ignited a national conversation about what to do when students can't pay. The federal Department of Agriculture, which oversees school meals, is requiring that districts at least have a written policy in place by July 1.
"It's very obvious who the poor kids are in the school," says New Mexico state senator Michael Padilla, who drafted the bill to stop lunch shaming. He told NPR that he mopped the cafeteria floors in order to afford lunch as a kid.
The USDA is urging districts to stop "embarrassing" and "singling out" students who don't have enough money for lunch. On [May 8], US Senator Tom Udall of New Mexico introduced a bill in Congress, the Anti-Lunch Shaming Act, to ban schools from singling children out "by requiring them to wear wristbands or hand stamps or do extra chores" if they have unpaid lunch bills.
Teacher says, 'I felt I had to do something'
Chris Robinson hopes Texas passes a similar bill to New Mexico's. Growing up in a mostly black school, Robinson was ridiculed for not having lunch money. There was a separate line for pizza at his school. He could never afford to stand in it.
Now 33, Robinson is a special education teacher in Houston. In his first year teaching a few years back, he watched a young boy go around the cafeteria collecting food scraps before the lunch period ended. He said it took all his inner strength not to cry.
Currently, 20 million young people--about 40% of all US students--receive free lunches, up significantly from 13 million in 2000. Robinson can see first-hand that kids are still unable to pay for food.
"I just felt I had to do something. I can't save everyone, but if I could do something about these cheese sandwiches, it would be worth it," says Robinson. He posted a video on GoFundMe, a fundraising website, asking for donations to pay off student lunch debt. He and his wife also pitched in.
The campaign raised about $700. He took it to the Fort Bend District in Sugar Land, Texas. A few days later, he received a letter in the mail from an elementary school student. It was elaborately decorated with crayon drawings of butterflies and flowers.
The note read: "Thank you for giving money to go and clear my account. My mom really appreciated [it]. My mom is really thankful. She couldn't believe it."
There are 30 GoFundMe campaigns to raise money specifically to pay off school lunch debts so students can get hot meals. One is from Amina Ishaq, the PTO president of an elementary school in Antignolo's district. She's raised about $2,100 so far.
Like Robinson and Padilla, Ishaq grew up in a low-income household. Her parents divorced, and the family often lived paycheck to paycheck. She was one of those kids who was "right above that cutoff line" for free lunch.
The kids have become pawns
Schools resort to cheese-sandwich shaming to get lunch debts paid off because they have to fork over the money at the end of the year to cover whatever debt parents don't pay.
The amounts add up quickly. When Antignolo arrived at the Lamar district in 2013, there was over $180,000 in unpaid school lunch debt that year. It could have funded two or three teachers. The School Nutrition Association reports some districts have debts as high as $4.7 million a year.
"Some families have the money and just don't pay," Antignolo laments. But he knows others are legitimately struggling because the school often gets a large influx of payments every other Friday--a common payday.
Antignolo helped institute a program to aggressively call and send letters home encouraging parents to apply for free and reduced lunches. He realized many families likely qualified but didn't know it. His efforts appear to be working: School lunch debt has fallen to about $61,000 this year. But there are still over 4,000 students carrying debt.
"The kids we're most concerned about are kids on reduced-price school meals who are struggling to come up with the co-pay of 40 cents at lunch," says Crystal FitzSimons, a director at the Food Research and Action Center.
A family of four earning under $31,400 can get free lunch for the kids. The reduced lunch cutoff is about $45,000 for a family of four.
Families have to reapply every year for the aid. That's where a lot of the issues come in, say experts. Antignolo sees a bunch of debt pile up in early October, the expiration for the grace period to enroll again.
It's slowly getting better, as districts use technology to aggressively call, text and email parents when their kids' accounts get low, let alone overdrawn. Families also qualify automatically for free lunches if they are on food stamps or a child is in foster care. But the fact that some districts are racking up $4.7 million in unpaid school lunch debt signals that something is still very wrong.
The lifesaver for some schools: Community Eligibility Program
"It's the working poor who get screwed," says Jill Duban, who heads up a program called Common Threads in the Lamar district that helps low-income and homeless families. "The lunch ladies are not always nice about it."
A homeless student was recently in tears in Duban's office because she had a $100 balance from a time before her family lost their home. She feared she wouldn"t be allowed to walk at graduation. Thankfully, some of the money Ishaq raised in her GoFundMe campaign went to pay off the young woman's debt.
The Trump administration has proposed a massive cut of 21% to the USDA's budget, but it's unlikely school lunch funding will be impacted since it's considered an entitlement program. Still, it's a sign there likely won't be more money for these programs.
People on the front lines tell CNNMoney that the Community Eligibility Program has become a lifesaver. Enacted in 2010, CEP gives free lunches to every student in a school where at least 40% of the families are extremely poor and automatically qualify for government aid.
"It gets rid of the school meal application process and saves a lot of paperwork for the schools," says FitzSimons.
In the Lamar district where Duban and Antignolo work, 10 elementary schools qualify for CEP out of 40 total. They wish more of their schools could be part of it.
"We provide all students with a free bus ride and free textbooks. Why not provide them with a free meal while they're in our care during the day?" Antignolo asks.
Questions using Close Reading and Critical Thinking skills:
- 1. The first paragraph of a news article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" List the who, what, when, and where of this news item. (Note: The rest of a news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. Do you think this is a real nationwide problem or is it being overblown? Why or why not? Has this been an issue at your school?
- 3. Are there better ways to ensure lunch bills are paid? Are there different ways to provide a good lunch? How can a school prevent "shaming" a student when their family owes money for lunches?
- 4. Matt Antignolo said, "Some families have the money and just don't pay." Do you think some families are trying to game the school lunch program? How does the school system ensure people are qualified for programs and bills are paid?
- 5. If you saw a student who had been denied a hot lunch, what would you do?
- 6. Several of the people quoted in the article have started GoFundMe accounts to help pay student lunch debt. Do you think this is the right way to address the problem? What could be some of the drawbacks? What are some of the advantages?
- 7. Matt Antignolo is quoted as saying, "We provide all students with a free bus ride and free textbooks. Why not provide them with a free meal while they're in our care during the day?" Are these things "free"? How are they funded? How does a school system prioritize what is included in programs offered to students?
Click here to view more: //www.money.cnn.com/2017/05/09/news/economy/school-lunch-shaming-debt-crisis/index.html
Posted May 9, 2017
Oxford High School students begin project called '13 Reasons Why Not'
By Monica Drake
The Oakland Press
Posted: 05/04/17, 11:26 AM EDT
In the popular Netflix show "13 Reasons Why," the main character gives 13 reasons why she wants to die. But, for students at Oxford High School [Michigan], they are giving 13 reasons to live.
Beginning this week and continuing for 13 days, a recording of a different student will play during the morning announcements. In the recording, played for the entire student body, the teens reveal a problem they're struggling with. At the end of the recording, instead of blaming someone, the students thank a classmate who has helped them.
This project was the brainchild of Dean of Oxford High School Pam Fine in memory of Megan Abbott, a freshman who [committed] suicide four years ago.
"I watched the series. I thought it accurately depicted the problems that teenagers in high school are facing now. But it was incredibly troubling to me that suicide was portrayed as being, almost, inevitable, like she had no other option," said Fine.
"The idea was to come up with 13 reasons why not, because that was not portrayed in the show. ... Even though it can get very dark, there is always hope. Our message is that there are no 13 reasons why. Suicide is not an option."
The project was kept secret. So, while students were expecting to hear the normal Monday morning announcements, they were surprised to hear the voice of senior Riley Juntti.
"Worthless. Self-centered. No morals. Easy. Grimy. Cake face. You would be better off dead. That's just the start of what you would label me as every day for two years," Juntti said in her recording.
At the end of the recording, instead of naming the person she was talking about, she thanked a classmate. "This tape is for you Elise Godfrey. You saw me when no one else did and continued to listen, share and appreciate the small things with me. Thank you for your kindness I cannot repay. You are one of my 13 reasons why not."
Afterward, Juntti's phone and social media accounts blew up with support from her classmates --some who she's never met. One tweet read, "Riley Juntti is braver than anyone for doing what she did."
Juntti said she knew she may receive backlash from what she said, but she didn't care. She wanted to help the girls she knows who have been victims of sexual, physical or emotional abuse.
"Standing up for what is right has always been more important to me than my peers' approval, and this project wasn't an exception," she said.
"Oxford has come together to create an environment this past week where talking about mental illness is socially acceptable. ... I've helped people come forward with their struggles and that's more than what I can ask for from this project."
Tuesday morning's announcement was by Jordan Jadan, the captain of the Oxford Wildcat's basketball team. Unbeknownst to his fellow classmates, Jadan has had a rough year. He moved in with his grandmother after his mom moved to Florida for her job. During this life change, he's been receiving several explicit and degrading text messages from a previously close family member.
"I've had no one to talk to, and it's been hard," he said. "I know I could have given up a long time ago. ... My reasons to live are my two little sisters and my mom."
"There's always someone who cares about you. You're never alone. There's always something to live for."
Since this started, Fine said an outpouring of students have been writing out their stories, wanting to be one of the 13 kids featured during the morning announcements. The remainder of the recordings, which will air every day until May 17, will be selected from these submitted stories.
"It was a risk, and it's paid off. ... I'm incredibly thankful for the response," she said.
Oxford High School Principal Todd Dunckley is supportive of this project.
"I think it makes students realize that, every day, they can affect someone with their words and actions," he said. "It's a nice way to start the day, to be quite honest."
In Memory
Megan Abbott, 15, killed herself on May 31, 2013 in a wooded area behind Oxford High School. Fine said she wanted to do this project for her and for her sister Morgan, who is currently a junior at the school.
Morgan said she loves the idea and, in response to the project, she has seen positive messages written on the mirrors in the bathroom and notes in each stall saying, "You're beautiful."
Amy Hafeli, Megan and Morgan's mom, said, "I thought it was a wonderful idea. It brought a positive spin on something so negative."
Megan was diagnosed with depression, and Hafeli said she also showed signs of borderline personality disorder. Before Megan died, she was being enrolled into dialectical behavior therapy.
"I wish we could have gotten her in there, but she just couldn't wait for it, " Hafeli said. "I understand that she was in pain. But I couldn't get her to understand that life can still be wonderful."
Hafeli and Morgan said they wish Megan was alive to hear these messages.
"I think if Megan had something like this going on in school when she was there, we would have had more time with her," said Morgan.
Hafeli added, "I'm proud of the school for getting involved and for putting that message out there - not just when it happens, but being proactive about it. Because, once it happens, what can you do? You can't bring the kid back."
Last year, in honor of what would have been Megan's graduation year, Hafeli and her husband Darrin started the "Pay It Forward" Scholarship Fund. They awarded three students $1,000 and two students $500 from the college savings that would have gone to Megan. This is their way to try and give students another "reason why not."
"If we can save another family from going through this, then we're all about it," said Hafeli.
Editor's note: If you are feeling suicidal, or know someone who is, please reach out for help. Crisis lines in your community can be found here. For further resources, you can consult the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention or the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.
Questions using Close Reading and Critical Thinking skills:
- 1. The first paragraph of a news article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" List the who, what, when, and where of this news item. (Note: The rest of a news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. Did you read the book the series 13 Reasons Why is based on? Have you watched the show? What's your opinion of the book, the show, the characters, and the plot? Does the show differ from the book? How? Are the differences good or bad?
- 3. Is the show a benefit or detriment to teens that are already combating depression or suicidal thoughts? Does it raise awareness about teenage suicide and present alternatives, or do you agree with the Dean of Oxford High School, Pam Fine, that the show portrays suicide as an almost inevitable "solution"?
- 4. Some critics have commented that the show presents the aftermath of suicide in a somewhat romanticized view, that even though the person is dead they will get to "see" the effects of their death on others. Do you think the book or the show presents this viewpoint? Why or why not?
- 5. Should the makers of a show created to provide entertainment--with a message--be scrutinized or held accountable for how their show presents teenage suicide to viewers? Why or why not?
- 6. Are Oxford High School students changing the discussion with their project "13 Reasons Why Not"? Do you think that this (or something similar) could be a worthwhile project to do at your school?
- 7. How would you help a friend who told you they were depressed or having suicidal thoughts? Who could you turn to for support and what would you do?
- 8. Privately reflect on your life, friends, family, and experiences. Write freely about your experiences with bullying, suicide, or depression. Imagine you are speaking to yourself or another. What would be one of your strongest "13 Reasons Why Not"?
Click here to view more: //www.theoaklandpress.com/general-news/20170504/oxford-high-school-students-begin-project-called-13-reasons-why-not#author1
Posted May 2, 2017
That Wasn't Mark Twain: How a Misquotation Is Born
By Niraj Chokshi
The New York Times
April 26, 2017
How fitting that the man often credited with saying "a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes" most likely did not invent the phrase.
Commonly attributed to Mark Twain, that quotation instead appears to be a descendant of a line published centuries ago by the satirist Jonathan Swift. Variants emerged and mutated over time until a modern version of the saying was popularized by a Victorian-era preacher, according to Garson O'Toole, a researcher who, like Twain, prefers a pseudonym.
Seven years ago, Mr. O'Toole started Quote Investigator, a popular website where he traces the origins of well-known sayings. This month, he published "Hemingway Didn't Say That: The Truth Behind Familiar Quotations," a book in which he collected and updated many of the posts from his site and offers new theories on how misquotations form.
"When I started off, it was mysterious exactly where these misquotations were coming from, and it was interesting that sometimes you could find these clues that pointed to how they may have originated," said Mr. O'Toole, an alias for Gregory F. Sullivan, a former teacher and researcher in the Johns Hopkins computer science department who now spends his time writing.
In the book, Mr. Sullivan offers 10 common "mechanisms" that he says lead to misquotation and incorrect attribution.
Through one such process, which he labels "textual proximity," a famous person mistakenly gets credit for a quotation merely by having their name or likeness published close to the words. In another, "ventriloquy," a statement about an individual's work is perceived to be so apt that it is eventually confused for their own words.
Both may explain how Anton Chekhov, the Russian writer, became associated with the saying: "Any idiot can face a crisis, it's the day-to-day living that wears you out," as outlined on Mr. Sullivan's website and, now, in his book.
In May 2013, Mr. Sullivan heard from a reader who, after a fruitless attempt to prove Chekhov's authorship of those words, wanted help uncovering the true history of the quotation.
Mr. Sullivan accepted the challenge.
Google Books led him to "The Tradition of the Theatre," a textbook published in 1971 and edited by Peter Bauland and William Ingram. Only snippets were available online, so he visited a university library to review the book in full. In it, he found the following, written by Mr. Bauland and Mr. Ingram:
"A character in a Hollywood film of the 1950s casually drops this line: 'Any idiot can face a crisis; it's this day-to-day living that wears you out.' The screenplay was by Clifford Odets, America's chief inheritor of the dramatic tradition of Anton Chekhov, and in that one line, he epitomized the lesson of his master."
Though Mr. Sullivan was unable to confirm Mr. Odets's authorship of the sentence, he theorized that Mr. Odets wrote something similar, which was then misquoted in the 1971 textbook. The earliest citation Mr. Sullivan could find crediting the saying to Chekhov was from 1981.
That final attribution could have been the result of: textual proximity, in which an oblivious reader saw Chekhov's name and blindly attributed the quotation to him; ventriloquy, in which a reader found the line so resonated with Chekhov's style that these words were mistaken for his; or some combination.
Mr. Sullivan published his analysis in June 2013, but more than two years later, a reader came forward with a new lead, referring him to the 1954 movie "The Country Girl," based on a play by Mr. Odets.
Mr. Sullivan watched the movie and discovered these words uttered by Bing Crosby:
"I faced a crisis up there in Boston, and I got away with it. Just about anybody can face a crisis. It's that everyday living that's rough."
The movie was based on a play by Mr. Odets, but, after failing to find the line in a 1951 edition of the script, Mr. Sullivan believes that yet another man most likely coined the phrase. Ultimately, he would credit the "any idiot" line to George Seaton, who wrote the screenplay.
The other mechanisms Mr. Sullivan identified include:
• Synthesis and streamlining, a process in which a quotation is simplified over time;
• Proverbial wisdom, in which a quotation is elevated to the status of a proverb because its source is unknown;
• Real-world proximity, when an individual wrongly gets credit for a quotation because they share a real-world connection to the true author;
• Similar names, the mistaken attribution of a quotation to someone whose name resembles that of the true author;
• Concoctions, which are pure fabrications, intentional or otherwise;
• Historical fiction, when an individual gets credit for words uttered by a character portraying them in a movie, novel or other work of fiction;
• Capture, when a famous person gets credit for echoing the words of someone less well-known;
• Host, in which an individual, simply by being famous, attracts credit for quotations they never delivered, with Mr. Twain and Albert Einstein being popular examples.
Questions using Close Reading and Critical Thinking skills:
- 1. The first paragraph of a news article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" List the who, what, when, and where of this news item. (Note: The rest of a news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. Do you think accurate attribution for quotes and sources is important? What sources can you recommend to research the correct author of a quote?
- 3. The article lists the 10 mechanisms that contribute to false attribution. Can you think of a few other ways quotes are misattributed?
- 4. How does this article relate to the topic of fake news? Choose three of the mechanisms Gregory Sullivan (O'Toole) identified and connect them to the way fake news is created and distributed via the internet.
- 5. What is your favorite saying or quote? Who said it? Where did you find it--from a famous person, a book, a poem, a friend, or family member? Do you know if the saying is correctly attributed?
- 6. Research your favorite quote (try Sullivan's //www.quoteinvestigator.com/2014/07/13/truth), and see if the quote is correctly attributed. What did you find? Share with the class.
Click here to view more: //www.nytimes.com/2017/04/26/books/famous-misquotations.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur
Posted April 25, 2017
Dogs Are Doggos: An Internet Language Built Around Love For The Puppers
By Jessica Boddy
National Public Radio
All Tech Considered
April 23, 2017 - 9:01 AM ET
Some dogs are doggos, some are puppers, and others may even be pupperinos. There are corgos and clouds, fluffers and floofs, woofers and boofers. The chunky ones are thicc, and the thin ones are long bois. When they stick out their tongues, they're doing a mlem, a blep, a blop. They bork. They boof. Once in a while they do each other a frighten. And whether they're 10/10 or 12/10, they're all h*ckin' good boys and girls.
Are you picking up what I'm putting down? If not, you're probably not fluent in DoggoLingo, a language trend that's been gaining steam on the Internet in the past few years. The language most often accompanies a picture or a video of a dog and has spread to all major forms of social media. It might even change the way we talk out loud to our beloved canines.
DoggoLingo, sometimes referred to as doggo-speak, "seems to be quite lexical, there are a lot of distinctive words that are used," says Internet linguist Gretchen McCulloch. "It's cutesier than others, too. Doggo, woofer, pupper, pupperino, fluffer--those have all got an extra suffix on the end to make them cuter."
McCulloch also notes DoggoLingo is uniquely heavy on onomatopoeias like bork, blep, mlem and blop.
It's no surprise DoggoLingo is made up of cutesy suffixes and onomatopoeias. "You're taking on characteristics of how people would address their animals in the first place," McCulloch says.
What's more, DoggoLingo is spoken by humans online, as opposed to in memes like LOLcats, doge and snek where the animals themselves do the talking. This makes DoggoLingo much more accessible, McCulloch notes, and perhaps more likely to find its way into spoken human speech.
It wouldn't be surprising if people started to call their Samoyeds fluffers, point out a Labrador's mlem or call an overweight pug a fat boi [...]. In fact, the're probably saying these out loud already.
"A new cutesy word for a thing you're already used to using cutesy words for? That's such an easy entry to vocabulary," McCulloch says.
A menagerie of meme-speak
DoggoLingo's array of words is a hodgepodge of existing Internet language.
For example, the phrase "doing me a frighten," used to describe startled dogs, comes from an image posted in late 2015 according to KnowYourMeme.com. In it, a tiny Rottweiler puppy shocks its parent with a flurry of borks. The parent replies, "stop it son, you are doing me a frighten."
The origin of "bork" itself is less clear, but it's clearly onomatopoeic. It's perhaps most well-known thanks to Gabe the Dog, a tiny floof of a Miniature American Eskimo/Pomeranian whose borks have been remixed into countless classic tunes. Jurassic Bork, The Bork Files, Doggos of the Borkribbean, Imperial Borks--the list goes on and on. [...]
Internet circles define DoggoLingo
McCulloch thinks DoggoLingo may have become popularized and perhaps even solidified in this way thanks to accounts like WeRateDogs on Twitter, and also to dog-devoted groups on Facebook with thousands of members.
One such group is called Dogspotting. At more than 500,000 members--and gaining around 10,000 a week--it's one of the larger dog-devoted groups on Facebook. [...]
Essentially, members around the world post photos and videos of dogs they happen across in their daily lives. The No Known Dogs rule makes sure people don't spam posts of their own pets, the No Selfies rule keeps the posts dogs-only (no humans!), and the Don't Drive and Spot rule keeps spotters safe.
The result: thousands of doggos and puppers flood the Dogspotting group--and members' newsfeeds--every single day.
Of course, with members constantly posting and writing captions, the group is a breeding ground for DoggoLingo.
"We can't help but be socially influenced by each other," McCulloch says. "The fun part of a meme is participating in something that other people recognize."
So, if one person calls a fat Corgi a loaf [...] and others find it funny, it's easy for terms like that to proliferate and eventually become part of a language like DoggoLingo.
Dogspotting may even be the birthplace of DoggoLingo's titular term "doggo."
Though created in 2008, Dogspotting really took off in the summer of 2014, particularly in Australia.
This is significant because, as McCulloch points out, adding "-o" to words is very Australian. For example, where we'd say def to abbreviate the word definitely, Australians would say defo.
So were Australians posting in Dogspotting saying "doggo," which English-speakers around the world picked up on and turned into a viral Internet word?
"That makes a shocking amount of sense," says John Savoia, who founded Dogspotting and runs the page with Reid Paskiewicz and Jeff Wallen.
"I bet you anything [doggo] was used before Dogspotting and we just made it part of the lexicon," Paskiewicz says. [...]
All in all, it's possible that doggo got a boost shortly after more Australians joined Dogspotting. Pages like Ding de la Doggo may have also assisted its slingshot into meme stardom.
A canine oasis
Dogs' wholesomeness could be why groups like Dogspotting and accounts like WeRateDogs have become so popular. They're an escape from a news cycle that's become terrifying and depressing for so many.
Nelson isn't sure why exactly dogs are so genuinely heartwarming. "Maybe they represent this sort of unconditional love that we strive for," he says, "or they just embody this innocent perfection that we can't really find in ourselves or immediately in other animals."
"Dogs in general are wholesome and uplifting," says Dogspotting moderator Molly Bloomfield. "Irrelevant of your political views, your gender, your socioeconomic status; everyone loves dogs and dogs love everyone."
To preserve this oasis and prevent conflict among members, Dogspotting doesn't allow its members to take political stands in their posts.
"We try our hardest to be fair to everyone," Wallen says. "We allow spots from rallies, protests and such, but we don't allow people to project their agendas onto the spotted dogs." For example, a Dogspotter could say, "I spotted this pup at the anti-Trump rally," but not, "This dog hates Trump." [...]
DoggoLingo in the dictionary
This dog-centric positivity has driven the popularity of DoggoLingo to new heights. Even Merriam-Webster is aware of terms like doggo and pupper. Though they have a long way to go before they're eligible for dictionary-entry--they need to be used in published, edited work over an extended period of time--they're definitely candidates.
"I personally like both," says Emily Brewster, an associate editor at Merriam-Webster, Inc. "I think it's great when people play with their language, and the new 'doggo' is way more fun than the unrelated adverb meaning 'in hiding.'"
McCulloch thinks some DoggoLingo terms have staying power, too: "I wouldn't be surprised if we see 'doggo' around in 50 years and people never realize it came from a meme."
Questions using Close Reading and Critical Thinking skills:
- 1. The first paragraph of a news article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" List the who, what, when, and where of this news item. (Note: The rest of a news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. Families and groups of friends tend to create their own language for things. What are some created words for things or events you've used? What are the origins of the words? How can you describe them to outsiders?
- 3. What is "onomatopoeia"? Can you list five onomatopoeic words from the article? Why are the words considered onomatopoeias?
- 4. Can you think of some words that you first read on the internet that are now part of your language?
- 5. Internet linguist Gretchen McCulloch mentions new words that will still be used in 50 years. What current "invented" words do you think will still have meaning and be in use in 50 years?
- 6. What words would you banish, and why?
Click here to view more: //www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2017/04/23/524514526/dogs-are-doggos-an-internet-language-built-around-love-for-the-puppers
Posted April 18, 2017
New York becomes first state to offer free four-year college tuition
By Dayana Morales Gomez
PBS NewsHour
April 12, 2017 at 5:18 PM EDT
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed a bill into law [April 12] providing free tuition to students attending the state's public colleges and universities, making New York the first state to offer free four-year college.
The New York legislature greenlit the program last week as a part of the state budget. With the stroke of his pen, Cuomo made the program official Wednesday at a ceremony attended by supporters of the measure, including Former Secretary of State and 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
"We are restoring the promise of the American Dream for the next generation and forging a bold path forward of access and opportunity for the rest of the nation to follow," Cuomo said, surrounded by supporters, including students from New York's public universities.
"With a college education now a necessity to succeed in today's economy, I am proud to sign this first-in-the-nation legislation that will make college accessible," he said.
Funds from the program will be available exclusively for tuition purposes, meaning that students will still need to find other resources to pay for room, board and other indirect fees. Like programs in other states, New York students will only receive tuition subsidies to cover costs that are not paid for by other grants.
Students in New York whose families make less than $100,000 per year--an income limit that will be raised to $125,000 in two years--will be eligible for the grant if they enroll full-time at any community college or public university in the state.
San Francisco became the first city earlier this year to offer free community college tuition to its residents.
And Rhode Island is now considering a similar measure, which would make two years of college free for in-state students. The scholarship would cover tuition for students regardless of income at public colleges. Like the New York program, it would only apply to full-time students, but it would cover either the first two years of community college or the last two years of university.
Other states already offer their own tuition subsidies, including Kentucky, Oregon, Tennessee and Minnesota. These programs cover remaining tuition fees after state and federal grant aid, with varying eligibility requirements.
Republicans in the New York state senate also successfully lobbied to force students to live and work in the state of New York for as many years as they received aid. If they do not, their grant will turn into a loan. Moreover, only students enrolled full-time will be eligible, even though about one-third of students in New York public universities are enrolled part-time, according to the most recent data available.
Some professors argue that forcing beneficiaries to stay in the state after graduation will cost them more money.
Meanwhile, others note that the full-time enrollment requirement will make many ineligible.
But some education advocates are commending that part of the bill.
"The program's 30-credit requirement [a full course load in the state]-which has been criticized by some-is a research-proven strategy to raise GPAs, increase retention rates and ultimately boost college completion in the state," Tom Sugar, president of Complete College America, said in a statement posted online.
Restrictions aside, New York's program has been hailed as an example for other states looking to promote higher education. Sanders made free college a central message of his presidential campaign last year and has been a strong proponent of New York's law.
Last week, Sanders and Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington state introduced bills to the Senate and House to make public higher education free for students whose families make up to $125,000. But the bill has no Republican support and is unlikely to get a hearing.
Questions using Close Reading and Critical Thinking skills:
- 1. The first paragraph of a news article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" List the who, what, when, and where of this news item. (Note: The rest of a news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. Does your state or community offer tuition assistance?
- 3. Who is paying for "providing free tuition to students"?
- 4. Do you agree with Governor Cuomo that a college education is a necessity to succeed in today's economy?
- 5. According to the article, what are the initial restrictions on the free tuition offer?
- 6. Do you think any of the restrictions are deal-breakers? Which one(s) might be the most difficult to accommodate?
- 7. Would free tuition change your mind about attending college or attending a school in your state? Why or why not?
Click here to view more: //www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/new-york-offers-free-college-many-residents-rhode-island-line-follow
Posted April 11, 2017
New Pittsburg, Kan., High School principal resigns after student journalists question her credentials
By Mará Rose Williams
The Kansas City Star
April 4, 2017 5:03 PM
Days after student reporters at Pittsburg High School in Kansas dug into the background of their newly hired principal and found questionable credentials, she resigned from the $93,000-a-year job.
"She was going to be the head of our school, and we wanted [to] be assured that she was qualified and had the proper credentials," said Trina Paul, a senior and an editor of the Booster Redux, the school newspaper. "We stumbled on some things that most might not consider legitimate credentials."
Minutes into a closed special meeting [April 3] of the Pittsburg Community Schools Board of Education, board president Al Mendez emerged to announce to a packed boardroom that Amy Robertson, the new principal, had resigned.
"In light of the issues that arose, Amy Robertson felt it was in the best interest of the district to resign her position," Superintendent Destry Brown said in a statement after the executive session.
The board agreed with that decision and said [it] will reopen the principal position Wednesday morning and contact others who had applied for the job to see if they are still interested.
"Our goal is to find the best person to be our principal that we can find," Brown said. "I know the students want that too."
Pittsburg journalism adviser Emily Smith said she is "very proud" of her students. "They were not out to get anyone to resign or to get anyone fired. They worked very hard to uncover the truth."
Student journalists published a story [March 31] questioning the legitimacy of the private college--Corllins University--where Robertson got her master's and doctorate degrees years ago. U.S. Department of Education officials, contacted by The Star, confirmed student reports; the federal agency could not find evidence of Corllins in operation. The school wasn't included among the agency's list of schools closed since 1986. Robertson earned her bachelor's degree from the University of Tulsa.
Students found and The Star confirmed the existence of several articles referring to Corllins as a diploma mill--where people can buy a degree, diploma or certificates. And searches on the school's website go nowhere. No one from the university responded to emails sent by The Star this week.
Contacted by email Friday, Robertson, who has lived off and on for 19 years in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, said, "The current status of Corllins University is not relevant because when I received my MA in 1994 and my PhD in 2010, there was no issue."
She also said, "All three of my degrees have been authenticated by the US government." Robertson declined to comment directly on students' questions about her credentials, saying, "I have no comment in response to the questions posed by PHS students regarding my credentials because their concerns are not based on facts."
The Pittsburg Board of Education approved hiring Robertson at its meeting March 6.
In a news release about the hiring, district spokesman Zach Fletcher said that "Robertson comes to Pittsburg with decades of experience in education."
Robertson is CEO of Atticus I S Consultants, "an education consulting firm where she gained leadership and management experience at the international equivalence of a building administrator and superintendent," the release said.
Robertson, after application reviews and interviews with administrators, faculty and students, "emerged as the best fit" for the job, said Brown. He said the district relies on the Kansas Department of Education to approve a candidate's credentials.
"I felt like she is very knowledgeable about what is going on in education today in college and career readiness, she is very familiar with Common Core, she knows about how a building works and about maintaining a safe environment," he said.
He was surprised students questioned Robertson's credentials.
"The kids had never gone through someone like this before," Brown said. But he said he encouraged them to seek answers. "I want our kids to have real-life experiences, whether it's welding or journalism."
Despite questions, Brown said Friday that the district's school board had "100 percent supported the Robertson hire."
Tuesday night he said he felt bad about how it all turned out. "I do feel it is my responsibility. As superintendent I feel like I let the teachers and the students down. I publicly admit that."
Robertson, who he said also has a teaching degree from the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England, isn't licensed in Kansas. She would have had to take classes at Pittsburg State University, pass a test and acquire her license before she could officially hold the principal post. That isn't uncommon for someone hired from outside the state, Brown said.
Maddie Baden, a 17-year-old Pittsburg High junior, said the student news staff began looking into Robertson's background after an electronic search of her name turned up several articles published by Gulf News about an English language school connected to Robertson in Dubai.
The 2012 articles said Dubai's education authority had suspended the license for Dubai American Scientific School and accused Robertson of not being authorized to serve as principal of that school. The private, for-profit school received an "unsatisfactory" rating on Dubai education authority inspection reports every year from 2008 to 2012 and was closed in September 2013.
"That raised a red flag," Baden said. "If students could uncover all of this, I want to know why the adults couldn't find this."
She had originally interviewed Robertson for a routine school newspaper story "to introduce the new principal to the community," Baden said. "No one knew who she was."
Pittsburg is about 90 minutes south of Kansas City on U.S. 69. The high school has 900 students.
Six students worked about three weeks looking into Robertson's past work and education.
When they went to Corllins University's website, "We found a website that didn't work," Baden said. And a student checking with the Council for Higher Education Accreditation found that Corllins was not listed in its database of 7,600 schools accredited by a recognized accrediting agency in the United States.
But officials there told The Star the school could have been accredited in the past.
Questions using Close Reading and Critical Thinking skills:
- 1. The first paragraph of a news article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" List the who, what, when, and where of this news item. (Note: The rest of a news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. Do you think it's appropriate for student journalists to investigate school officials?
- 3. Do you think the information the students discovered was disqualifying?
- 4. Do you think Amy Robertson should have resigned?
- 5. What does this say about the vetting process for new hires at this school district? Do you think the process will change? Predict what might change.
- 6. The First Amendment protects free speech, and students' rights to free speech in school are protected as well. The rights are not unlimited, but in 1969 the Supreme Court ruled that students do not "shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate." What does that statement mean to you? Which rights are protected and which ones are not? Why do you think some rights are not protected? Write a paragraph explaining why First Amendment rights should or should not apply to students' free speech while in school.
- 7. Do you think kids get the respect they deserve for knowing how to research and, sometimes, knowing more about how the internet works than adults?
Click here to view more: //www.kansascity.com/news/local/article142682464.html#storylink=cpy
Posted April 4, 2017
So, Um, How Do You, Like, Stop Using Filler Words?
By Christopher Mele
The New York Times
Feb. 24, 2017
So, how do you, like, um, stop using verbal fillers that can make you sound, you know, nervous or not so smart?
Is there a name for this?
Communications experts describe "um," "aah," "you know" and similar expressions as discourse markers, interjections or verbal pauses.
They often occur when we are trying to think of the next thing we are going to say, Susan Mackey-Kallis, an associate professor at Villanova University who teaches public speaking, said in an email.
When stakes are high or we are nervous--in a job or media interview, or during a speech, presentation or conference call--we tend not to breathe as much and we talk faster, so our words get ahead of our thoughts, Lisa B. Marshall, a communications expert and the author of "Smart Talk: The Public Speaker's Guide to Success in Every Situation," said in an interview.
In some cases, the phrases are used to signal that you are about to say something and that the person listening should not interrupt, or that you are going to say something you want to emphasize, said Emily Tucker Prud'hommeaux, an assistant professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology and a leader of its Computational Linguistics and Speech Processing Lab.
"In fact, if you listen to someone use 'like,' you'll sometimes notice that the next noun or verb or adjective that comes along sounds more prominent," she said in an email. "You want the listener to pay attention."
Does this make me sound stupid?
In short, everyone relies on verbal fillers.
Ms. Marshall said she had not seen any research attributing speech patterns to certain demographics but had noticed that "like" is used heavily by the younger generation, "so" by those in their 30s and "uptick" or "upspeak"--ending a declarative sentence in such a way that it sounds like a question--by women in their 20s and 30s.
Ms. Mackey-Kallis said "like," as a speech affectation of young speakers, is perceived as "cool" or "generational speak."
"You will notice that 'like' often infects the speech patterns of 20-somethings more so than the speech of 40-somethings," she wrote.
"The use of the verbal pause 'like' conveys social solidarity among members of this age cohort, but is perceived as less intelligent by older listeners."
If everyone does it, what's the harm?
"Once you start into the pattern, it becomes a crutch," Ms. Marshall said. It is not uncommon for people to use filler phrases such as "like," "so" and "you know," but it becomes a problem when the phrases are overused to the point of distraction.
She compared it to vulgarity: The occasional use is acceptable but when too frequent, it loses its meaning and signals to listeners that the person speaking is lazy about language.
It also matters when the speech "disfluency" occurs, Ms. Marshall said. If it happens before a thought is expressed, the speaker is more likely to be perceived as lacking confidence or competence, or as being unprepared. If it happens in the middle of a thought, the speaker is judged less harshly.
Speakers who are well known in their professions but overuse verbal pauses are still perceived as credible because they have built a reputation. Audience members will chalk up those habits to just the way they talk, Ms. Marshall said.
For instance, when Justice Antonin Scalia of the Supreme Court spoke, his "discourse was nearly always crammed with fillers," Sean P. O'Rourke, director of the Center for Speaking and Listening at Sewanee: The University of the South, in Tennessee, noted in an email.
But newcomers who use as many interjections as seasoned professionals will be seen as less credible because they do not have the years of experience.
Andy Mangum, a speech instructor at Brookhaven College in Dallas, said in an email that "so" had become the new "like."
"I noticed it happening frequently in interviews," he said. "People are asked a question, and they preface their answer with an elongated 'soooo. ...' It used to sound intelligent. Now, not so much."
How do you, like, stop it then?
Awareness is the first step, Ms. Marshall said. She recommended that clients record themselves in conversations and listen to the recordings five minutes a day for two weeks.
"Trust me, after a week of listening, or recording and listening, you'll have become acutely aware of your specific problems," she wrote in a blog post. "You need to be able to hear your disfluencies in your mind before you blurt them out."
Speakers need to relax and take a deep breath when finishing a thought. A focus on breathing will make it more difficult to introduce a wayward expression.
Substitute silence for the verbal fillers, Ms. Marshall added. That might be awkward at first, but it is better to have a moment of quiet than a distracting "you know" or "um."
Ms. Prud'hommeaux suggested a more hands-on approach: "If no one has come up with it yet, maybe we need an app that would shock you whenever it hears you say 'like.' Or hire a friend to punch you whenever you say it."
Questions using Close Reading and Critical Thinking skills:
- 1. The first paragraph of a news article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" List the who, what, when, and where of this news item. (Note: The rest of a news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. Why is clarity important in speaking and writing? How do you achieve clarity?
- 3. What are your verbal fillers? If you think you don't have any, ask your teacher or friends.
- 4. Can you think of some famous people/speakers in history who had some obvious verbal fillers, which developed into a memorable style? Are there some whose style overshadowed their message?
- 5. The article advises a speaker to practice speaking, relaxing, taking a deep breath, and using silence as a tool. Can you think of some situations where this advice would be helpful?
- 6. Writers and songwriters tend to use certain words or phrases as part of their style--or as filler or a fallback. Can you think of a writer who uses the same words repeatedly to describe people or things? Is that style or laziness? What could they do to improve their diction?
- 7. List the speech fillers you notice and dislike. Do they match any of the words or patterns mentioned in the article?
- 8. What do you think of adults who deliberately use words that teens use? How does that habit make them appear to you?
- 9. When we're friends with someone, we tend to adopt their speech pattern. Why do you think this is?
Click here to view more: //www.nytimes.com/2017/02/24/us/verbal-ticks-like-um.html?em_pos=medium&emc=edit_ed_20170324&nl=the-edit&nl_art=0&nlid=78933962&ref=headline&te=1&_r=0
Posted March 28, 2017
Senate Votes to Let ISPs Sell Your Data Without Consent
By Alex Johnson
NBC News
The Senate took the first step [March 23] toward blocking rules that would restrict how some big tech companies share and sell your personal data, a prospect that digital activists said would be a huge loss for online privacy.
On a party-line vote of 50-48, the Senate passed a joint resolution that would bar the Federal Communications Commission from enforcing rules it approved last year--when it was under Democratic control--that sought to ban internet service providers like cable and cellphone companies from selling your data without your consent.
The vote has little immediate impact: The measure would have to pass the House and be signed by President Donald Trump before it could become law. No timetable for House action has been set. In the meantime, the FCC rules that the measure would overturn aren't scheduled to go into effect until December.
If it becomes law, the measure, in effect, would preserve a two-track regulatory system that treats ISPs--the companies that connect you to the internet, which are overseen by the FCC--differently from web companies like Google and Facebook, which are regulated by the Federal Trade Commission.
The rules passed last year by the Democratic majority on the FCC would require ISPs to ask you explicitly to "opt in" to letting them share personal information. On web-based ad networks, data sharing is usually turned on by default and you have to dig through menus and setting and opt out of it.
Here's why that's important: Just by themselves, Google and Facebook take in 54 percent to 60 percent of all U.S. digital ad revenue, depending on who's doing the counting.
More tellingly, Google and Facebook snapped up 90 percent of all new online ad spending in the first half of 2016, the last period for which complete figures are available, according to data compiled by PricewaterhouseCoopers U.S. for the Internet Advertising Bureau.
That leaves everybody else to fight it out for the remaining 10 percent of new ad spending. And the big cable and phone companies said the Senate vote was a step toward keeping that tiny playing field somewhat level.
CTIA, formerly the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association, applauded the measure's sponsors Thursday for "seeking a common-sense and harmonized approach to protecting Americans' privacy."
"Wireless carriers are committed to safeguarding consumer privacy, and we support regulatory clarity and uniformity across our digital economy," it said in a statement.
Ajit Pai, the new chairman of the newly Republican-led FCC, also welcomed the Senate vote, telling reporters afterward: "My own core goal is to make sure that [the] uniform expectation of privacy is vindicated through the use of a regulatory framework that establishes a more level playing field."
But advocates for online privacy slammed the vote.
Neema Singh Guliani, a legislative counsel specializing in surveillance and privacy issues for the American Civil Liberties Union, said the Senate was content to "sacrifice the privacy rights of Americans in the interest of protecting the profits of major internet companies, including Comcast, AT&T and Verizon."
(NBC News is a division of NBCUniversal, which is owned by Comcast Corp., the nation's largest cable provider.)
Others noted that the measure would also bar the FCC from advancing "substantially similar" rules in the future, which Kate Tummarello, a policy analyst for the nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation, said "would be a crushing loss for online privacy."
"ISPs act as gatekeepers to the Internet, giving them incredible access to records of what you do online," Tummarello said. "They shouldn't be able to profit off of the information about what you search for, read about, purchase and more without your consent."
They were joined by Mignon Clyburn, the only Democratic member of the FCC, who said the Senate measure would "frustrate the FCC's future efforts to protect the privacy of voice and broadband customers."
The vote, she said, opens up "a massive gap in consumer protection law."
Questions using Close Reading and Critical Thinking skills:
- 1. The first paragraph of a news article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" List the who, what, when, and where of this news item. (Note: The rest of a news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. Are you concerned about your cell phone service provider selling your online history to a company that could target advertising toward you?
- 3. What is the difference between the information your cell phone provider may have about you and what a search engine may gather from your search history?
- 4. Can you think of examples that could affect your privacy? For example, if your records were sold, an insurance provider could infer you're sick or have a pre-existing condition if you used your phone to search on WebMD.
- 5. The article mentions that the "measure would also bar the FCC from advancing 'substantially similar' rules in the future." What could be the consequences--intended or unintended--of such a provision in the law?
- 6. Do you read the terms of service on websites and apps? Have you ever decided against using a site after reading its terms of use?
- 7. What is the difference between explicitly opting in to an agreement and opting out?
- 8. Do you think the cable and phone companies should be treated differently than search engines like Google, Bing, or Yahoo, which already collect your data and use it to target you for advertising?
Click here to view more: //www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/senate-votes-let-isps-sell-your-data-without-consent-n737921
Posted March 21, 2017
Prom police: Rockford schools crack down on revealing outfits
By Corina Curry
The Rockford Register-Star
Staff writer
ROCKFORD--The hottest looks in fashion are getting girls across the country in trouble on prom night, and Rockford is no exception.
Bare midriffs, plunging necklines, mesh cutouts, see-through lace, high slits, minidresses and open backs are just some of the latest trends in high school prom fashion.
They dominate runways, red carpets and racks at popular dress shops, and they represent everything some teenage girls envision themselves wearing at their first formal event.
The problem is the flirty, high-fashion designs are being worn to proms, which are school activities. And schools have dress codes. They have them for the school day. They extend to basketball games, and they--and perhaps even more rules--apply to school dances.
With prom season just around the corner, so begins another year of controversial blowups involving allegations of everything from body shaming to discrimination as high schools attempt to police what girls wear to prom.
Girls are being asked to have their dresses approved in advance by school leaders. They're given extensive rules on what styles are acceptable and which ones are not. They're being told to buy dresses that meet "modesty" standards, or have them altered, or expect to be stopped at the door.
Schools across the country are taking heat as students and parents stand up against such policies, turning a memorable rite of passage into a nightmare of angry meetings and crying girls on prom night.
Boylan Catholic High School in Rockford joined the ranks of those schools in January.
That was when the school unveiled its new Prom 2017 Proper Dress and Dance Policy. The 21-page rule book--complete with pictures and intricate details of what's acceptable and what's not--clearly states that students and guests who do not meet the standards outlined in policy will not be allowed into the prom, and no refunds will be issued. Boylan prom tickets will cost $65 a person this year.
"We wanted everyone to know the expectations ahead of time," Boylan President Amy Ott said. "We think it's important as a Catholic institution to help our students see that they can be elegant and modest and beautiful at the same time."
Body shaming?
At other schools, a couple of lines in Boylan's policy are raising eyebrows and causing some to question whether the policy does more to make girls feel ashamed of their bodies than it does to promote modesty.
Boylan's dress policy states: "Some girls may wear the same dress but due to body types, one dress may be acceptable while the other is not."
Body image and media expert Robyn Goodman of the University of Florida calls that body shaming.
"This line in the code is discriminatory and supports body shaming," Goodman said in an email. "Girls do not have a choice in how their bodies were made so more voluptuous bodies are going to have more cleavage and curves. Taller girls' dresses will hit higher up on the leg than a shorter girl. It's nature.
"Telling one girl she has to restrict her body by only wearing certain fashions and telling another her body is fine for any fashion is sending a message about what is the 'right' body to have and what is the 'wrong' body. These messages are often damaging to girls. We are not allowed to discriminate in the U.S. based on race, disability, gender, age, etc. ... So why are schools discriminating against girls based on their bodies?"
Ott said the school's intent was to ensure appropriate attire is worn at this year's prom. The guidelines are there to help girls not hurt them.
"We're all different shapes and sizes," Ott said. "You have to try a dress on and see what it looks like on you, not how it looks on someone else. ... It's like shopping for any other kind of clothing in this day and age. You want to look your best and look appropriate."
At Boylan's Homecoming dance last fall, several girls' dresses failed to meet criteria. They were given large T-shirts to wear over their dresses and were told they had to keep them on or they'd have to leave.
Since then, school leaders have decided enough is enough. There will be no T-shirts at prom. Students who break the rules will be told to leave.
Senior girls were gathered for a proper prom attire meeting at the school. They were given a presentation on expectations and an explanation on how one dress doesn't fit all because of body types. Students questioned the school's intent and challenged the messages being sent to girls about what they can and cannot wear.
"There is a lot of understandable discontent among the girls over the strict enforcement of the new dress code," said Boylan Student Council President Kaleigh Brauns.
Some students are upset about the rules, Brauns said. Some have talked about not going to prom this year, Brauns said, but she thinks most students will attend.
"We must understand that being part of a Christ-centered community means holding ourselves to a higher discipline in the way we speak, in the way we act and in the way we dress."
Seeing too much
Dress shops in the area are well aware of Boylan's new rules.
Students and parents have been talking about them as they shop or come in for alterations to make a dress they already bought or that someone else wore the year before meet the requirements.
"The two-piece dress that shows some midriff is very popular right now," said Nino Castronovo, owner of Castronovo's Bridal Shop of Rockford. "Most schools have some criteria about what you can or cannot show. ... Like it has to be above the belly button."
Debra Fennell, owner of Sara Grace Co. of Rockford, said she learned about this year's dress restrictions from parents and students as they shopped for prom.
Some were angry, Fennell said. Some didn't mind.
"Kids have been coming in with a laundry list of what they can't wear," she said. "Years ago, these restrictions didn't exist. Now, we have to know about them."
Some of today's most popular looks cannot be worn without an alteration, Fennel said.
"Jewel tones and cutouts are popular," Castronovo said. "Bling is popular. Slits up the leg are popular."
Seamstresses can add extra material--called modesty panels-- to necklines or underneath cutouts along the torso or back. High slits can be sewn shut.
Ott said she noticed such alterations at last year's prom and thought the girls looked "absolutely beautiful."
Prom dress styles of today simply mirror what young women see on television, Castronovo said. They see the looks that are popular on the west and east coasts, he said, and they want to bring that to the Midwest, even if just for one night.
Castronovo served on Boylan's prom committee years ago.
"I've seen some pretty revealing dresses over the years," he said. "I think some of the sponsors may have just seen too much."
Dictating selection
Different schools have different rules. Fashion trends are different in different parts of the country. Online stores expose girls to trends they might not see in local stores.
On the other hand, dress shops as close as Chicago may not be familiar with local dress codes and could sell dresses to girls that they may not be able to wear.
Girls can spend as little as $100 on a new prom dress. In Rockford, most girls try to stay around $200 to $300, Castronovo said. When you add in Chicago and online, girls can easily drop $800 to $1,000 on a dress.
Prom fashions ebb and flow. In the past five years, Castronovo said, trends have tended to mirror awards shows, which may not be the look schools want.
A lot of the dresses at Castronovo's meet Boylan's dress requirements or can be easily altered to do so, Castronovo said. He bought them for that reason.
"We want to sell our prom dresses so we look to buy things in that framework," he said.
Fennell said she does the same thing. Because of what she knows about Boylan's rules, she specifically seeks out dresses that provide more coverage and tries to avoid the ones that are more risqué.
"I don't want to take too many chances," she said. "A lot of how the dress looks and whether it will meet the criteria or not depends on the shape of the girl."
School-related event
Boylan isn't the only local school to deal with the clash of teenage fashion sense and school rules.
In public schools, the words "public decency" are used to help explain the guidelines. In private schools, the word "modesty" often is used.
Janice Hawkins, who was a principal at Guilford High School and now is principal at Auburn High School, both in Rockford, said she had never ejected a girl from prom because of what she was wearing.
That's not to say she hasn't been tested.
"I have some kids who will come to me and show me a picture of their dress just to make sure it's OK," Hawkins said. "If there's an issue with a part being too sheer, I'll usually just tell them that they better figure out what they're going to do with that. They can wear a tank underneath or add a panel.
"Kids have been pretty good."
Hawkins directs students to Rockford Public Schools' Student Code of Conduct Dress Code when asked about guidelines for prom attire.
"Prom is a school-related event, just like a basketball game," she said. "A lot of the same rules apply. Dresses can't be too short or too see-through."
Hawkins laughed when she recalled past years when administrators worried about spaghetti straps and strapless gowns. Things have changed.
"No matter what dress code you come up with, you will always have kids that will say it's too restrictive," she said. "They don't want to be told."
Fashion police
Freeport High School Principal Beth Summers drafted her annual letter to parents about prom a couple of weeks ago.
"They're going to be out shopping soon, and we want them to make wise decisions," Summers said.
Freeport's rules aren't as extensive as Boylan's. Summers said she typically includes a few lines about skin exposure and how two-piece dresses are fine but the two pieces must be touching when the girl stands.
"They can't have their lower back or belly exposed," she said.
"We really haven't had any issues here. ... It's been a long time. We have a lot of long dresses, so we don't have to worry about too-short dresses."
Randy Taylor, superintendent at Rockford Christian High School, echoed Summers.
Rockford Christian hasn't had to adopt any specific guidelines on prom night attire because students tend to make good choices, Taylor said.
"We don't want to get into an area where we're saying 3 inches is OK, but 4 is sinful," he said. "We try to share a message of modesty and integrity. We talk to our student about taking control of how they look and what that means."
Goodman said schools that find themselves in battles with students over prom dress codes should ask themselves why they feel the need to police prom fashion.
"There seems to be an unspoken cause-and-effect thinking at work in these policies," she said. "If a girl shows her midriff or has cleavage, what do they believe will happen?"
Questions using Close Reading and Critical Thinking skills:
- 1. The first paragraph of a news article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" List the who, what, when, and where of this news item. (Note: The rest of a news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. Do you think this issue is a big deal or has it been overblown by the media?
- 3. Does your school have a dress code? Does it have a dress code for special events? Do you know how it addresses "modesty" and "public decency"?
- 4. If you disagree with your school's dress code, what is your option for presenting your perspective?
- 5. Why are the girls' dress styles the focus of attention? "There seems to be an unspoken cause-and-effect thinking at work in these policies [...] If a girl shows her midriff or has cleavage, what do they believe will happen?" Write a paragraph discussing what that statement means and its implications.
- 6. Is telling girls what they can and can't wear to the prom based on body type "body shaming"? Why or why not?
- 7. What should a dress code say about boys' attire at the prom?
Click here to view more: //www.rrstar.com/news/20170304/prom-police-rockford-schools-crack-down-on-revealing-outfits
Posted March 14, 2017
Is 'fake news' fooling kids? New report says yes
By Kelly Wallace
CNN
Updated 10:31 AM ET, Fri March 10, 2017
(CNN) If you wondered whether we need to do more to help our kids recognize "fake news," a new report makes it clear the answer is a resounding yes.
Although 44% of tweens and teens in a recent survey said they can tell the difference between fake news stories and real ones, more than 30% who said they shared a news story online during the past six months admitted that they didn't get it exactly right.
They said they later found out that a story they shared was wrong or inaccurate, according to the survey by Common Sense Media, a nonprofit organization focused on helping parents, kids and educators negotiate media and technology.
The survey of 853 children ages 10 to 18 in the United States also asked kids how much they trust the information they received from each of their news sources.
Family got higher marks than teachers, news organizations and friends. Sixty-six percent of tweens and teens said they trust the information they received from family, compared with 48% for teachers and other adults, 25% for news organizations and just 17% for friends.
The problem here is that adults, just like children, are having some troubles differentiating between news stories that are real and those that are fake. Some are also sharing news they know is false.
According to a survey by the Pew Research Center, only 39% of American adults felt "very confident" that they can recognize news that is made up. In the survey of more than 1,000 adults, 23% said they have shared a fake news story. Fourteen percent said they shared a story that they knew was fake at the time, and 16% said they shared a story that they later learned was fake.
Beyond fake news, the Common Sense Media study "News and America's Kids" had some interesting findings about how kids feel about the news and about where they get their news.
Kids feel misrepresented by the news
Nearly 70% of the tweens and teens who took part in the survey said they feel that the media have no idea about the experiences of people their age.
Part of the problem, they said, is that the media don't showcase people their age nearly enough. Seventy-four percent said that instead of having grownups talk about them, the media should include more people their own age in stories. (I learned this firsthand when I did a story on the acronyms teens and tweens use on social media and failed to interview any tweens and teens for the story.)
Kids see plenty of racial and gender bias in the news
Half of kids said that when they see children who aren't white on the news, the stories are negative and/or related to crime and violence. Not surprisingly, African-American, Hispanic and Latino kids were more likely to feel this way.
When it comes to gender bias, women were less likely to feel that the media treat women and men fairly: Twenty-nine percent of young women felt this way, versus 40% of men. Only one-third of children believed there was equality in the portrayals of women and men in the media.
How the news makes them feel
I've written more times than I can count about how parents can talk to their kids about tragic news such as a school shooting or a terrorist attack and how news stories about and the images from such tragedies can dramatically impact our kids. The Common Sense Media survey reinforces that point.
For most kids, the news had a negative impact on their mood. Sixty-three percent said the news makes them feel one or more of these emotions: angry, afraid, sad/depressed.
It's no surprise that more tweens than teens said the news makes them feel afraid: 43% of tweens versus 31% of teens.
Where do they get their news?
Although they may trust their families more than any other news source, they still say social media is their preferred news source. Thirty-nine percent said they prefer to get their news from social media, versus 36% who chose family, teachers and/or friends and 24% who selected traditional media.
Teens said Facebook is their No. 1 social media news source, while tweens named YouTube.
Is news important to them?
While kids say that they feel misrepresented and that the news has a negative impact on their mood, the "news" about this new survey is not all grim: Tweens and teens still value it.
Forty-eight percent said that following the news was important to them, and half said that following the news makes them feel prepared to make a difference in their communities.
Questions using Close Reading and Critical Thinking skills:
- 1. The first paragraph of a news article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" List the who, what, when, and where of this news item. (Note: The rest of a news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. Is keeping up with the news important to you? Why?
- 3. How much do you trust the news you read and see? Do you have a preferred source for news? Which sources are more trustworthy than others? Why?
- 4. What practices should a media organization follow to ensure its stories are accurate?
- 5. How can you tell if a source is fake or unreliable? What do you do to verify information? Do you think you have a responsibility to verify news stories?
- 6. Do you think the news misrepresents kids? Why or why not? If you think there is misrepresentation, discuss examples of it and brainstorm solutions to change the way kids are represented.
- 7. The article mentions gender and racial biases present in the news. Do you think there is bias in the news? What have you observed? What would you do to remove bias?
Click here to view more: //www.cnn.com/2017/03/10/health/fake-news-kids-common-sense-media/index.html
Posted March 7, 2017
School seminar near Chicago sparks civil rights, race debate
By Sophia Tareen
The Associated Press
Feb. 26, 2017 11:53 AM EST
WINNETKA, Ill. (AP) -- When a largely white public school nestled in Chicago's wealthiest suburbs planned a daylong civil rights seminar, it drafted two National Book Award winners as keynote speakers and crafted a syllabus that would be the envy of most liberal arts colleges.
But New Trier, a high-achieving, 4,000-student high school regularly ranked among the nation's best, found itself stepping into the minefield of the national dialogue on race and civil rights. Some parents and conservative groups have deemed the event during Black History Month "radical" and "divisive." Dueling petitions circulated, heated emails were exchanged and hundreds of people packed a school board meeting beyond capacity.
While New Trier's demographics and resources aren't reflective of many public schools, the debate highlights the complications of teaching civil rights when much of the country struggles to discuss race. Some educators worry their work will become more difficult after a polarizing election that's fueled divisions, even in homogenous and largely Democratic areas like the upscale Lake Michigan suburbs making up New Trier.
For educators the goal is simple.
"One of the things we most hope happens is for the kids to be able to see the world through someone else's eyes," said Superintendent Linda Yonke.
Dozens of workshops [February 28] cover such topics as voter suppression, affordable housing and police brutality. Colson Whitehead, whose historical fiction "The Underground Railroad" has won literary accolades, will speak.
Organizers want students to think about how race might affect daily life and be moved to action, if necessary. Administrators and many parents say it's particularly important because of the school's population: Roughly 85 percent of the students are white with similar demographics among the teachers. In Winnetka, home to the main campus, the median household income is more than $200,000 and stately brick mansions are common.
New Trier began all-school seminar days in the early 1990s, though it's not an annual event. Students and teachers write the curriculum and regular attendance rules apply. Topics vary. In previous years, the school has addressed the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
The first hint of a pushback started last year, when the event coincided with Martin Luther King Jr. Day and one workshop included ways to explore white guilt.
As this year's Seminar Day approached, opposition spread.
Breitbart News--once led by White House chief strategist Steve Bannon--deemed the event "a major left-wing indoctrination project." The National Review weighed in, as did the Illinois Family Institute, calling it a "smorgasbord of ideologically non-diverse seminars." A local publication backed by a conservative activist and businessman dug up school administrators' voting records. A Wall Street Journal opinion piece proclaimed it a "racial indoctrination day."
Parents, some linked to conservative organizations, formed a small but vocal opposition group.
"The school went about this in a way that ensures it will be narrow and divisive," said Betsy Hart, who has two children enrolled. Hart, a senior writer at the conservative Heritage Foundation who says her school activism is separate from her day job, expects the parent group to continue pushing for more conservative voices at New Trier High.
Among its numerous and nuanced requests, the group wants to add research supporting voter identification laws to a session on voter suppression and ensure a panel on affirmative action includes contrasting views such as the suggestion that it's detrimental for minorities. The group has presented the district with a three-ring binder full of research and an annotated schedule for the day: yellow highlights for language the parents find objectionable and green for suggested alternatives.
Still, most students and their parents have expressed support for the day. About 450 people signed a petition seeking different speakers versus roughly 5,000 signatures for keeping the lineup as is.
School administrators said parents had opportunities to air concerns, and adding last-minute speakers doesn't boost the seminar's quality.
"Critical thinking is about more than having two opposing views," said Tim Hayes, an assistant superintendent.
He and others worry the opposition is in reaction to the nation's political climate and not the educational content. Experts say most schools already struggle with teaching civil rights.
A 2012 study by the Southern Poverty Law Center examined curriculums in every state and concluded the majority failed to require teaching about the movement while others oversimplified it.
Isabelle Hauser, a 17-year-old junior, said she won't attend the seminar. The biracial teen, whose father is white and mother's family is from Ecuador, said she was turned off by last year's talk about white guilt.
"It's a matter of the day being balanced. I see it as being too progressive and liberal," she said. "You shouldn't feel guilty for attending such a great school and having a great education. You should feel blessed."
Other students argue that's the point. Some have prepared for Seminar Day by watching Spike Lee's 1989 film, "Do The Right Thing," which tells the story of simmering racial tension in a New York neighborhood that erupts in violence.
"When the thing that your community is most worried about is that your education is too liberal, I feel like that's a motivating factor to get out more," said 17-year-old Celia Buckman, a senior at New Trier. She writes for the Huffington Post, including an article supporting the seminar. "It really makes you think about the kind of privilege that your community really has."
Read the original article here: //www.bigstory.ap.org/article/e686b7ded1474da2a9bb4200f20daaa8/school-event-near-chicago-sparks-civil-rights-race-debate
Editor's Note: According to the Pioneer Press as reprinted in the Chicago Tribune, an update after the event:
New Trier officials: seminar day attendance lower than normal, higher than 2016 event
By Kathy Routliffe
Pioneer Press
March 3, 2017, 12:23 PM
Student attendance for New Trier High School's seminar day on racial civil rights was lower than a regular school day, but higher than last year's Martin Luther King Jr. Day seminar event, according to district officials who released the figures [March 2].
Overall attendance Tuesday at the district's Northfield and Winnetka campuses stood at 77 percent, which Supt. Linda Yonke said was significantly higher than the 60 percent recorded last year.
"Attendance was below a normal day, but it is not below what I'd expect for a day like this when there were no tests or homework assignments involved," Yonke said. "It's certainly significantly better than last year, and the kids who were there were engaged, attentive and interested."
Source: //www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/winnetka/news/ct-wtk-seminar-day-attendance-tl-0309-20170302-story.html
Questions using Close Reading and Critical Thinking skills:
- 1. The first paragraph of a news article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" List the who, what, when, and where of this news item. (Note: The rest of a news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. Why would an event planned to highlight diversity and inclusion be viewed by some as "radical" and "divisive"?
- 3. Should parents have become as involved as they did or should planning have been left to students and faculty?
- 4. Why would Breitbart News, the National Review, the Wall Street Journal, and other media outlets comment on a school event? Is the affair of national importance or interest? What happens to local events when national interest is encouraged?
- 5. The parents group that opposed the original event agenda put forth "numerous and nuanced requests" to change the program. What do you think "nuanced" means in this sentence and in the context of the article?
- 6. Discuss the meaning of this viewpoint: "Critical thinking is about more than having two opposing views."
- 7. Has your school held similar events to discuss civil rights, LGBTQ rights, race relations, or other potentially divisive topics? If so, how were the events structured and received? If not, should your school examine and discuss hot topics?
- 7a. In a group, discuss the merits of a day devoted to discussing current issues facing your community. What topics are important to you and your community? How would you structure such an event? Who would be involved? How would decisions be made? How would you ensure fair and equitable representation of opposing views? Make notes as you discuss and write three to five paragraphs to describe your group's vision of an event.
Posted February 28, 2017
Teenagers Who Vandalized Historic Black Schoolhouse Are Ordered to Read Books
By Christine Hauser
The New York Times
Feb. 8, 2017
After five teenagers defaced a historic black schoolhouse in Virginia with racist and anti-Semitic graffiti last year, a judge handed down an unusual sentence. She endorsed a prosecutor's order that they read one book each month for the next 12 months and write a report about it.
But not just any books: They must address some of history's most divisive and tragic periods. The teenagers can read "Night," by Elie Wiesel, to learn about the Holocaust. They can crack open Maya Angelou's landmark 1969 book, "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings," for an unsparing account of the Jim Crow South. They can also dive into "The Kite Runner," by Khaled Hosseini, a captivating tale about two boys from Afghanistan.
Those books were among the 35 works of literature that the judge, Avelina Jacob, ordered the unidentified teenagers, ages 16 and 17, in Loudoun County to choose from last week after they pleaded guilty to spray-painting the Ashburn Colored School, a dilapidated, one-room 19th-century schoolhouse that had been used by black children during segregation in Northern Virginia.
The teenagers' sentence, known as a disposition in juvenile cases, also includes a mandatory visit to the Holocaust Museum in Washington and the Smithsonian's Museum of American History's exhibit on Japanese-American internment camps in the United States.
The graffiti sprayed in September on the building in Ashburn, a community of about 43,000 people northwest of Washington, included swastikas, dinosaurs, sexual images and the phrases "brown power" and "white power."
Two of the teenagers are white and three are minorities, the commonwealth attorney's office said in a statement announcing the decision last week. They were arrested in October, and each pleaded guilty to one count of destruction of private property and one count of unlawful entry. At least one of the teenagers said he did not know the symbolism of a swastika.
Alejandra Rueda, a deputy commonwealth attorney who came up with the idea, said in a telephone interview on Wednesday that it was the first time in her 19-year career as a prosecutor that she has assigned a reading list as part of a disposition.
"It occurred to me that the way these kids are going to learn about this stuff is if they read about it, more than anything," Ms. Rueda said. "Yes, they could walk into court and plead guilty and get put on probation and do some community service, but it wasn't really going to bring the message home."
"I just thought maybe if they read these books, it will make an impression on them, and they will stand up for people who are being oppressed," she added.
Ms. Rueda said she had been inspired by her own history growing up in Guadalajara, Mexico, in the 1980s, when her librarian mother handed her Leon Uris's books "Mila 18" and "Exodus" to learn about Israel and the Holocaust while she was participating in a model United Nations project.
She later went on to read Alan Paton's "Cry, the Beloved Country," which touched on race and injustice in South Africa.
The teenagers will also be required to write a paper about the impact swastikas and "white power" messages have on African-Americans and members of the broader community. The paper must include historical references such as Nazism, lynchings and discriminatory laws.
They must also listen to a recorded interview of Yvonne Neal, a Virginia woman who described her experiences as a student from 1938 to 1945 at the Ashburn Colored School, its official name in tax records.
"We are seizing the opportunity to treat this as an educational experience for these young men so they may better appreciate the significance of their actions and the impact this type of behavior has on communities and has had throughout history," the commonwealth's attorney, Jim Plowman, said in the statement.
Some of the books on the list have been banned or challenged in the past: like "Black Boy," the 1945 autobiography by Richard Wright; "The Handmaid's Tale," by Margaret Atwood; and Ms. Angelou's book, according to the American Library Association.
Ms. Rueda said she first gave the list to defense lawyers to make sure there were no objections from the boys' families on religious or other grounds.
"Given how fractured our country is right now," she said, "the more people who are open minded, the better our country will be."
Probation officers will check the work of the youths, who are public school students.
Deep Sran, the founder of the Loudoun School for the Gifted, a private school that owns the Ashburn Colored School and is renovating it to use as an education museum, said of the vandalism: "It was just profoundly disappointing. Profoundly disappointing because this building is evidence of the worst story in American history: swastikas, white power. I teach history, and at some point you think the story will end."
Dr. Sran said in a telephone interview he was told about the vandalism in an email in October from a man who rents space on the grounds of the old schoolhouse to smoke meat overnight for his barbecue food truck business. Dr. Sran and his colleagues raced over to the school to find spray paint on the windows and the sides of the building, a sight that was particularly upsetting because students had raised money to upgrade the windows a week before.
He said the school worked with Ms. Rueda on suggestions for the book list. One of the school's English teachers balked at the idea of using literature as punishment, inspiring the inclusion of Ms. Neal's interview, he said.
Eventually, Dr. Sran and his colleagues pitched several options, including Wright's "Black Boy" and Ta-Nehisi Coates's memoir, "The Beautiful Struggle."
"If things like this are still happening in 2016 in a very diverse county with all the resources in the world, it's an indictment on teachers, if a 16- or 17-year-old thinks this is how you should spend a Friday night," Dr. Sran said.
He added, "If any good can come out of this, it has to be through an effort to educate."
THE READING LIST
• "The Color Purple," Alice Walker
• "Native Son," Richard Wright
• "Exodus," Leon Uris
• "Mila 18," Leon Uris
• "Trinity," Leon Uris
• "My Name Is Asher Lev," Chaim Potok
• "The Chosen," Chaim Potok
• "The Sun Also Rises," Ernest Hemingway
• "Night," Elie Wiesel
• "The Crucible," Arthur Miller
• "The Kite Runner," Khaled Hosseini
• "A Thousand Splendid Suns," Khaled Hosseini
• "Things Fall Apart," Chinua Achebe
• "The Handmaid's Tale," Margaret Atwood
• "To Kill a Mockingbird," Harper Lee
• "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings," Maya Angelou
• "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks," Rebecca Skloot
• "Caleb's Crossing," Geraldine Brooks
• "Tortilla Curtain," T.C. Boyle
• "The Bluest Eye," Toni Morrison
• "A Hope in the Unseen," Ron Suskind
• "Down These Mean Streets," Piri Thomas
• "Black Boy," Richard Wright
• "The Beautiful Struggle," Ta-Nehisi Coates
• "The Banality of Evil," Hannah Arendt
• "The Underground Railroad," Colson Whitehead
• "Reading Lolita in Tehran," Azar Nafisi
• "The Rape of Nanking," Iris Chang
• "Infidel," Ayaan Hirsi Ali
• "The Orphan Master's Son," Adam Johnson
• "The Help," Kathryn Stockett
• "Cry the Beloved Country," Alan Paton
• "Too Late the Phalarope," Alan Paton
• "A Dry White Season," André Brink
• "Ghost Soldiers," Hampton Sides
Questions using Close Reading and Critical Thinking skills:
- 1. The first paragraph of a news article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" List the who, what, when, and where of this news item. (Note: The rest of a news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. Do you agree with this form of punishment for the vandals? Do you think they will learn and change after reading books, visiting museums, and writing a paper? Which experience do you think will have the greatest and most lasting effect?
- 3. What kind of punishment would you have given for vandalizing the schoolhouse?
- 4. How many of the listed books have you read? In pairs or in groups, make a list of the books you have read. Compare the lists. Choose a book from your list and tell your group why it was memorable and why they should read it.
- 5. Are there other books that you would add to the list included in The New York Times article? Which ones? List the books and tell the class why you have included them.
- 6. The founder of the school that owns the property is quoted as saying, "If things like this are still happening in 2016 in a very diverse county with all the resources in the world, it's an indictment on teachers, if a 16- or 17-year-old thinks this is how you should spend a Friday night." Do you agree that this is an indictment of teachers? Why or why not?
Click here to view more: //www.nytimes.com/2017/02/08/us/black-school-racist-sexist-graffiti.html?_r=0
Posted February 21, 2017
Food stamps and sweets: Should they be kept apart?
By Aimee Picchi
CBS News MoneyWatch
February 20, 2017, 6:00 AM
The food-stamp program is credited with helping 44 million people in America afford groceries, providing what supporters say is a needed benefit for some of the country's most vulnerable.
Yet critics of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) say the anti-hunger program is easily abused, and the latest questions about the program are stirring a hornet's nest of debate. One hot-button issue: Should food-stamp recipients be banned from buying soda and candy?
House lawmakers on Thursday heard experts discuss the issue in what appeared to be a fact-finding mission, as the House Agriculture Committee said it wanted to hear the "pros and cons."
The debate aligns two sides that may not appear to have much in common: critics on the right of government overspending and public health advocates. Debate about how food-stamp benefits are spent was sparked by a November report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which found that households receiving SNAP benefits used 20 cents of every dollar to buy soda, candy, desserts and other unhealthy foods.
"Almost half of added sugars consumed by the U.S. population come from sweetened beverages," said Angela Rachidi, research fellow in poverty studies at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, during testimony at the House committee hearing. "This is why it is so alarming that such a notable percentage of food/beverage purchases in American households are for sweetened beverages."
She added, "Supporting such purchases, especially at levels suggested in the data, directly contradicts the stated goals of the program," which say the money should be used for "improved levels of nutrition among low-income households."
Yet some policy experts point out that banning purchases of sugary drinks and foods doesn't really solve the problem. First, it's not as if SNAP families rely on the food program for their entire grocery budget. As the program's name suggests, food stamps provide supplementary aid. The average benefit is $1.39 per person per meal, or about $126 per month for the typical recipient, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
Banning soda purchases would likely have no impact on what recipients buy at the grocery store, because they would likely shift their budgets and use their own money to buy soda, while relying on food-stamps for their other purchases. On top of that, the burden of restricting soda and candy purchases would fall on retailers, adding to their costs, The Hamilton Project director Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach told the committee.
"A ban will likely increase the administrative costs of the program to both the USDA and retailers, and increase the stigma faced by recipients when they use the benefits, but not have the benefit of inducing any behavioral changes," she said.
A ban could hurt not only retailers, but food manufacturers, given that the Agriculture Department report found that food-stamp recipients are spending billions on sweetened beverages, desserts and soda.
It's not the first time that lawmakers have considered cutting soda from the food-stamp program. A bipartisan congressional commission on hunger urged that sugary drinks be barred from the program last year, according to Politico.
Some state lawmakers have also taken up the issue. Maine's health department is asking the U.S. Agriculture Department for a waiver that would allow it to ban soda and candy from the food-stamp program. Maine estimated its residents are spending about $13 million in food-stamp benefits on sugary foods and drinks.
Such efforts may raise concerns that advocates and lawmakers are trying to police the eating habits of poor Americans, creating another stigma for them when soda consumption is common across all income levels. For instance, the Agriculture Department's report on food-stamp recipients' spending on food found nearly identical levels of soda purchases between households receiving aid and those that don't.
Maine's health and human services department framed the issue of soda and candy purchases as something that wealthier citizens have noted while shopping.
"Maine taxpayers have seen this happening in convenience stores and grocery stores while they wait in line," the state's health and human services commissioner, Mary Mayhew, said in a statement. "Too many tax dollars are being wasted on candy and soda instead of being used for nutritional foods."
Questions using Close Reading and Critical Thinking skills:
- 1. The first paragraph of a news article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" List the who, what, when, and where of this news item. (Note: The rest of a news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. Do you think purchasing sweets and sodas with food stamps is a real problem? Why or why not?
- 3. If someone is receiving food stamp assistance, should their purchases be restricted or should they be able to use the food stamps as they choose?
- 4. Should the government legislate personal decisions? Can you point to other examples of government legislating individual judgment? List them and describe if you think they are helpful or if they are intrusive.
- 5. In the article, Maine's health and human services commissioner states, "Maine taxpayers have seen this happening in convenience stores and grocery stores while they wait in line. [...] Too many tax dollars are being wasted on candy and soda instead of being used for nutritional foods." What kind of rhetorical appeal is the commissioner using in this statement? Do you agree with her statement? Support your answer with examples from the article and from your experiences.
- 6. Many school districts restrict sales of sugary foods. Do you agree with that policy? Why or why not?
- 7. Are there other methods that might be effective way to influence the consumption of sugary foods? What solutions can you think of that would help people spend less on added-sugar products and more on fresh food?
Click here to view more: //www.cbsnews.com/news/food-stamps-and-sweets-should-they-be-kept-apart
Posted February 14, 2017
Surprise! Social media can help, not hurt, your college prospects
By Kelly Wallace, CNN
Updated 11:56 AM ET, Fri February 10, 2017
By now, the idea that some college admissions officers might check an applicant's social media accounts shouldn't sound too far-fetched.
With the explosion of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and all the others, there have been plenty of stories about how a student's social media could hurt their chances of getting into the school of their choice--enough accounts to worry teenagers that what they post could come back to haunt them at college time.
But what teens--and their parents--might not be aware of is how often college admissions officers say social media positively impacts a prospective student's application, as opposed to reducing their chances of admission.
Thirty-five percent of the 365 college admissions officers who participated in a telephone survey by the educational services company Kaplan Test Prep said they check social media during the admissions process. That number is down from 40% last year but dramatically up from 10% in 2008, when Kaplan started asking the question about social media as part of its annual survey.
Of those who said they look at a student's social media networks, a larger number said the review benefited the applicant: Forty-seven percent said what they found had a positive impact on prospective students versus 42% who said what they discovered had a negative impact.
One example, according to Yariv Alpher, executive director of research for Kaplan Test Prep, is a student who took to Twitter to describe facilitating a panel on LGBTQ rights. It was not something the student had mentioned on her application, he said.
"There are a lot of positives here," Alpher said. "It shows diversity, it shows initiative, it shows leadership, and it stood out positively to an admissions officer."
Colleges today, he said, are very mindful of who they admit because they think of the incoming class as a community. "Getting that better idea of who the entering class is is pretty important to them," he said.
There's no question that grades, test scores, recommendations and activities, the traditional factors, are overwhelmingly going to impact a student's admission, said Alpher. But when admissions officers are looking for something more to get a sense of a student, social media can provide some additional clues.
"This, I think, is what we're also hearing between the lines is the need to get a slightly more nuanced picture of an applicant and that social media can actually be very helpful with that because it's unstructured," he said. "There's a degree of being unscripted" that stands out to admissions officers.
A 'virtual first impression'
Alan Katzman is founder and chief executive officer of Social Assurity, which provides social media education to students for college and career readiness.
He and his colleagues encourage students to create profiles on LinkedIn, a network traditionally used by working professionals, to help an admissions officer get a better sense of who they are and what skills they bring to the table.
"We kind of encourage them to focus along the lines of teamwork, time management (and) problem-solving," he said. "We want them to get self-reflective and authentic and not see LinkedIn as a résumé, but see it as really a portfolio of who they are as a person."
Based on feedback from students he's worked with, Katzman said that about 80% who create LinkedIn profiles and include them on their applications report that someone from the college they're applying to has looked at their profile. (LinkedIn is one of the few social media platforms for which you get notifications about who has reviewed your profile.) [Editor's note: Notifications are part of the premium subscription package.]
There is no way to know whether the LinkedIn profile swayed school admissions officers, Katzman said. But he says the students who said someone from a university or college looked at their LinkedIn profiles usually report that they got into that particular school.
"It goes into this whole fact of, if you're offering it up, they're going to click," Katzman said. "The link is right there in front of them."
And, it can be influential, he believes. "It gives you a window into that applicant. It gives you a lot more data on which to assess that applicant than you can within the four walls of the common application."
Another way social media is playing a role in the admissions process, Katzman says, is during alumni interviews. These are interviews of prospective applicants conducted by graduates of the college or university who happen to live in the same area as the student.
The interviewer very often tells the student they have checked them out on social media, he said.
"The student didn't invite them to do that," Katzman said. "This is something that is offered by the interviewer, 'I checked you out. I have a few questions, but I learned a lot about you,' so it helps set that virtual first impression."
Most admissions officers: Social media off-limits
The majority of college admissions officers say they do not check an applicant's social media, according to the Kaplan survey.
Beth Wiser, executive director of admissions for the University of Vermont, said that as a matter of policy, her school does not review a student's social media accounts.
That said, if a student includes a link to a digital destination, a YouTube account or possibly a social media platform, the reader of the application may check out that link, she said.
"It's not possible to check every single one, but there are times where we are able to do that," Wiser said.
[...]
When social media can hurt
As anyone knows after going through the college admissions process, either themselves or indirectly through their children, the process is already daunting, with pressure to have terrific grades, test scores, recommendations and a slew of unique activities to set you apart from the immense competition.
There is some concern on the part of people close to the admissions process that if students realize social media can help them get into the school of their choice, they may add perfecting their accounts to the already long list of things they need to do for college.
Kids should still be able to be kids on social media, Wiser said. "We want to make sure that students still have a means to have fun and be able to connect socially and not have to worry about 'how I am presenting myself for a college,' except for the fact of just make sure you're not posting things that you'll regret."
Though more admissions officers in the Kaplan survey said social media positively impacted a student's application, there were still 42% who said it made a negative impression.
Katzman tells parents and students that it's not a photo of the student with a beer bottle that is likely to hurt their college chances but something controversial that they might have said or posted.
"We see this a lot, just emotional outbursts, 'I can kill my teacher,' or quoting a song lyric that somebody might not recognize as being a song lyric and thinking it's you, and it could have a racial tone to it," he said.
Those first impressions are strong. When an admissions officer sees something controversial or offensive, they might think, "wow, I don't want this person here," he said.
It may be hard to believe in the digital age that many students still don't necessarily realize that everything they post is permanent, Katzman said. "And if it's permanent, it's discoverable, and the potential audience is anyone in the world with an interest in finding it."
Monitoring a student's social engagement with colleges
What students might also not realize is how admissions officers go on social media to see what prospective students are saying about their institutions, said Alpher, of Kaplan Test Prep.
This can help or hurt a student, he said.
For instance, on the negative side, if a student takes a tour, posts a photo from the school's cafeteria with not very flattering words about the food offerings and tags the school, there is a chance someone at the university will see that post, he said.
If someone in the admissions office sees the post, they could take it as low enthusiasm on the part of the student for the school, and that could impact admission, Alpher said.
Katzman said many schools across the country are very concerned about yield, ensuring that they ultimately end up with enough students who were accepted and who choose to enroll. If a school has two candidates with the exact same credentials but there are signs--including through social media--that one of the candidates is more excited and engaged with the school, the more enthusiastic and engaged candidate may win admission.
He encourages students he works with to engage with universities through social media but also warns them to be mindful that when they engage, someone from the university could visit their profiles.
[...]
This doesn't mean students shouldn't be themselves when they are engaging on social media with universities. In fact, admissions officers are schooled enough to understand what is authentic communication and what is not.
Still, a student might want to make sure a post that seems good at the moment might not be the best in the long run.
"You may get your likes. You may get your shares, but you may also get somebody reading more than you intended to in that" post, Alpher said.
"Be mindful of what you put out there. ... So when in doubt, leave it out."
Questions using Close Reading and Critical Thinking skills:
- 1. The first paragraph of a news article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" List the who, what, when, and where of this news item. (Note: The rest of a news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. Do you think college admissions officers and others should check your personal social media as part of admissions vetting? Why or why not?
- 3. Are you careful about what you post on your accounts? Why or why not?
- 4. If you don't provide links to your social media accounts on your application, should the admissions officer bypass a review of your accounts?
- 5. The article references local alumni looking at social media prior to an interview. Do you think that's reasonable? Were you aware of this before reading this article?
- 6. The article doesn't mention what kind of weight social media is given in the application process. How do you think it should be weighted along with academics, athletics, and extracurricular activities?
- 7. Allen Katzman said of LinkedIn, "It gives you a window into that applicant. It gives you a lot more data on which to assess that applicant than you can within the four walls of the common application." Do you have a LinkedIn profile? Do you think it is necessary for a student to have one? Do you think it provides a true or valuable assessment of you and your high school career?
- 8. Review the headline and the statistics the writer uses to support the viewpoints in the article, then rewrite the headline and the first paragraphs to make it clearer and easier to read/understand.
Click here to view more: //www.cnn.com/2017/02/10/health/college-admissions-social-media-parents/index.html
Posted February 7, 2017
If you thought Lady Gaga's halftime show was apolitical, consider the origin of 'This Land is Your Land'
By Travis M. Andrews February 6 at 5:54 AM
The Washington Post
Lady Gaga's high-wire, drone-assisted Super Bowl halftime show was immediately praised by fans and publications alike as being apolitical.
"Lady Gaga keeps political poker face while singing of inclusion at Super Bowl," announced the Guardian. "Lady Gaga steers clear of politics in Super Bowl show," claimed the Hill. Breitbart, Fox and various other outlets published articles with similar headlines.
Some, though, argued Gaga included a veiled message with her song choices. Much has been noted of her set's inclusion of "Born This Way," "a melodic celebration of 'gay, straight, or bi, lesbian, transgender life.'"
Most, though, seem to think that was her only subversive choice on Sunday.
What many of the commentators may have missed, though, was that Gaga's decision to sing "This Land Is Your Land" may have been an inherently political statement.
Though many consider the song to be an unblinkingly patriotic anthem -- the American flag set-to-music--it was originally conceived as a sarcastic protest song by legendary folk singer and labor agitator Woody Guthrie.
By the 1940s, Guthrie was sick of hearing Kate Smith singing Irving Berlin's "God Bless America" (ironically, the song Gaga opened her set on before slipping in a couplet from "This Land is Your Land.")
While holed up in a fleabag hotel in New York City during a marathon writing session in 1940 during which he penned "Hangknot Slipknot," "The Government Road" and "Dirty Overalls," Guthrie kept hearing the Kate Smith hit on the radio.
In an irritated fit, he wrote the words for a response song he sarcastically titled, "God Blessed America for Me," according to NPR. Each verse also ended with this line.
It wasn't seemingly meant as a love song to his country. As noted pop critic David Cantwell wrote in Slate:
Guthrie had battled his way through the Depression-torn 1930s, boots on the ground, from Texas to Los Angeles and all around the American West. What he'd seen during his hard travelin' -- prejudice and hatred and violence, crowded labor camps, empty stomachs and hungry eyes -- led him to conclude that heavenly endorsement was the last thing America had coming.
Eventually, he scratched this title off the lyric sheet, replacing it with "This Land is Your Land." He also replaced the closing line of each verse.
After borrowing the melody from a 1930 gospel recording, "When the World's on Fire," to strum on his guitar, which was famously adorned with a sticker reading "This Machine Kills Fascists," he was ready to perform the new tune.
In 1944, he recorded it with Moses Asch, but that version mostly disappeared. It wasn't published until 1997. Had it been, Americans may have viewed the tune in a different light.
As Robert Santelli wrote in "This Land Is Your Land: Woody Guthrie and the Journey of an American Folk Song,"
The version of "This Land is Your Land" that most Americans claim familiarity with does not contain the lyrics that doubt America's integrity or questions the country's commitment to essential freedoms.
Those lyrics in the fourth and sixth verses of the song often have been washed away or simply ignored, which is why "This Land Is Your Land" has been able to stand side by side with the other great patriotic paeans to America.
The Asch recording contained one of these two verses. The official recording, released years later, contained neither. Gaga did not sing them either during the halftime performance.
The forgotten fourth verse, included in the 1944 recording, feels particularly prescient in the infancy of a new administration led by a president who has imposed a travel ban on citizens of seven predominantly Muslim countries. Consider that President Trump signed executive actions to build a border wall with Mexico, and it sounds downright prophetic.
There was a big high wall there that tried to stop me.
The sign was painted, said 'Private Property.'
But on the backside, it didn't say nothing.
This land was made for you and me.
The meaning is as blunt as the sign he sings about. America claims to be for everyone, but it isn't.
Meanwhile, the sixth verse, which was scribbled on that original lyrics sheet but doesn't appear in the 1944 recording, is even more politically charged. This lyrical quartet is sharply critical of America, hinting at an unfulfilled promise that the government would take care of its citizens.
One bright sunny morning in the shadow of the steeple,
by the relief office I saw my people.
As they stood hungry,
I stood there wondering if God blessed America for me.
Guthrie's daughter Nora said she wasn't sure why this verse wasn't included in the recording, nor did she know why the 1944 recording was never released. But she suspected it has to do with the government's strong-armed reaction to such divisive art during that time period.
"This is the early '50s, and [U.S. Sen. Joseph] McCarthy's out there, and it was considered dangerous in many ways to record this kind of material," Nora told NPR.
Still, as NPR noted, the original version "was sung at rallies, around campfires and in progressive schools. It was these populist lyrics that had appealed to the political Left in America."
But much like with our national anthem, the verses that don't quite fit a patriotic narrative have been, intentionally or not, edited out of the sociocultural consciousness. Now, outside of certain circles, they've been all but forgotten.
Some artists, such as folk singers Pete Seeger and Guthrie's son Arlo, have nonetheless striven to preserve the original lyrics, singing them whenever they performed the song. This tradition continues to be upheld by many of today's stars, such as Bruce Springsteen.
So, no, Lady Gaga did not make the sort of bold political statement Beyoncé did at last year's Super Bowl, when she appeared with 30 dancers in Black Panther berets.
Sometimes, though, statements can be subtle. Gaga's inclusion of "Born This Way" certainly carried a political message. There's a good chance her incorporation of "This Land is Your Land" did the same.
On the other hand, maybe she was trying to have it both ways: "God Bless America" for the right and Woody Guthrie for the left. After all, she does have an album and a tour on the way.
Questions using Close Reading and Critical Thinking skills:
- 1. The first paragraph of a news article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" List the who, what, when, and where of this news item. (Note: The rest of a news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. Do you think political statements belong in entertainment?
- 3. Should entertainers have the right of free speech, or should they confine their public efforts and opinions to singing, acting, or playing a sport? Should politics and entertainment be mutually exclusive, or are they naturally entwined? Explain your position and support it with examples.
- 4. Do you think the inclusion of the lyrics from Woody Guthrie's "This Land is Your Land" was a commentary on America and American politics?
- 5. Were you aware of the history of "This Land is Your Land"? Do the commonly excluded verses change or enhance the meaning of the song?
- 6. After reading the article, do you feel differently about Lady Gaga's halftime performance?
- 7. Do you perceive any bias in this article? Why or why not? Support your answer with examples from the piece.
Click here to view more:https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/02/06/if-you-thought-lady-gagas-halftime-show-was-apolitical-consider-the-origin-of-this-land-is-your-land/
Posted January 31, 2017
Bullied kids suffer academically, too, study says
By Susan Scutti, CNN
Updated 9:08 AM ET, Mon January 30, 2017
Bullying isn't just about physical violence or emotional pain--it can impact kids' educations, too.
Kids bullied their entire school career have declining test scores, a growing dislike of school and failing confidence in their abilities, say the authors of a study published Monday in the Journal of Education Psychology.
Researchers tracked several hundred children in the United States from kindergarten through 12th grade, and found nearly a quarter experienced chronic bullying through their school years.
"The good news is that it goes down. The longer kids stay in school, the less likely it is that they will be victimized," said Gary W. Ladd, professor of psychology at Arizona State University, who led the study.
Once the kids start high school, the aggression tends to taper off.
Ladd wondered about the bullied kids who said "they didn't like school and didn't want to go there."
"The majority of research done on bullying and victimization addresses children's psychological and health adjustment," Ladd said.
But when it comes to understanding their school achievement, there wasn't much out there, leading him and his colleagues to investigate.
Vulnerability to victimization
In 1992, Ladd and his colleagues enlisted 383 kindergarteners--190 boys, 193 girls--into their study. The participants attended various public schools, mostly in Illinois. The team then frequently assessed each child's feelings of victimization, enthusiasm for school, academic esteem and performance via teacher evaluations and standardized test scores.
Among the assessments were annual surveys in which the children described their experiences with bullying, addressing whether they had been hit, picked on, or verbally abused by other kids. Frequency was measured on a scale of one, meaning "almost never," to five, meaning "almost always." The study is part of a larger investigation of children's social, psychological and academic adjustment funded by the National Institutes of Health.
Nearly one-quarter of the children came from families with low annual incomes ($20,000 or less) and 39% from middle to high incomes (more than $50,000), with the remaining students, about a third, from the middle level in between these two extremes. Approximately 77% of the children were white, 18% African-American, while the remainder had Hispanic, biracial or other ethnic backgrounds.
Though the study began largely in Illinois, by the fifth year, participants had spread to 24 states, which Ludd noted as evidence of the "mobility of the American population, especially in the rust belt area."
The new study found that both the prevalence and frequency of victimization declined over the years of schooling, but they also identified subtypes revealing differences in both the bullying and its effects.
Nearly a third of the kids, 32%, experienced little or no bullying. Meanwhile, about a quarter of the kids, 26%, suffered decreasing bullying over time. The academic scores of this group were similar to those of the little or no bullying group, suggesting that kids could recover when bullying lessened over time.
"There are some kids who seem like they escape or they are able to become less victimized as they move through school," said Ladd. "I'm sorry that we don't know why. I think that's one of our next questions."
Nearly a quarter of the kids (24%) suffered chronic levels of bullying during their school years. These kids had lower academic achievement, a greater dislike of school and less confidence in their academic abilities.
About a fifth (18%) experienced moderate bullying, which increased later in their school years. Their results were similar to those who had been chronically bullied.
Overall, boys were much more likely to suffer chronic or increasing bullying than girls. And, in every age group, even though bullying in general declines over time, more boys than girls were bullied.
"So some children appear to start school well, but become more vulnerable to victimization as they move along," said Ladd. "Of course, that group worries us more than the group escaping from victimization because if you're going to prevent these problems, it's important to find kids early and do something about it." [...]
Wondering what a bully will do next
For a student who experiences bullying, it's hard to escape into school work.
"The children who are frequently bullied are not only not liking school and not wanting to be there, but are finding it hard to participate in the classroom," said Ladd, adding that there are a lot of factors that probably discourage their engagement.
"Most of the classrooms that we worked in had some kind of group activities, collaborative activities with other children," he said. "It might be especially hard for kids who are victimized to participate in those groups if their bully is sitting there with them."
"One of the things kids talked about was that it was harder for them to pay attention when they were sitting in the classroom thinking about what the bully was going to do to them next or what they were going to do to them after school or things of that nature, so we also wondered about whether or not this was a major distraction for children." [...]
'Bullies are often suffering, too'
According to Michelle K. Demaray, a psychology professor at Northern Illinois University, the long study period was a strength, but also contributed to a flaw in the research: By 12th grade, 23% of the participants had left the study.
"As with any longitudinal study, a disadvantage was the attrition or drop-out rate," said Demaray.
But the researchers themselves acknowledged this and adjusted their calculations accordingly. They also compared the "kids who dropped out to those who didn't and only one major difference was found--boys were more likely to drop out," said Demaray. The comparison showed no racial or family income differences.
[...] Ryan M. Hill, an instructor in the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at UTHealth McGovern Medical School, found the study to be "exceptionally well done."
"The research has been clear for years that the impacts of bullying are profound and varied," said Hill, noting that bullying influences depression, suicide-related behaviors, and a range of other mental health outcomes.
"Bullying doesn't just impact a handful of students," Hill said. Adding up the numbers, he noted that "more than 40% of children" have their academic performance impacted by bullying.
Though his own research focus is on the prevention of depression and suicide, Hill said it is also important to "not forget about the bullies."
"The research is clear that bullies are often suffering, too," said Hill. "Both bully victims and perpetrators are in need of services and preventing bullying means also preventing children from becoming the bullies."
Adding that verbal, physical, and cyber bullying all have impacts on children's well-being, Hill concluded: "Each new piece of evidence about the effects of bullying emphasizes the need to develop policies and interventions to prevent and address bullying in our schools and communities."
Questions using Close Reading and Critical Thinking skills:
- 1. The first paragraph of a news article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" List the who, what, when, and where of this news item. (Note: The rest of a news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. Is bullying a problem in your school? Do you have firsthand knowledge of bullying? Why are some kids bullied and others not?
- 3. Does your school have a policy regarding bullying behavior? Do you know what it is? Is it effective?
- 4. The study suggests that academic performance and bullying are related. Do you agree? Why or why not?
- 5. The website stopbullying.gov defines bullying as: "unwanted, aggressive behavior among school aged children that involves a real or perceived power imbalance. The behavior is repeated, or has the potential to be repeated, over time." How would you define bullying?
- 6. Write a paragraph about a bullying incident from the viewpoint of a bullied teen. Then, reverse the point of view, and write as if you were the bully. Share with the class.
- 7. The article mentions "bullies are often suffering, too." What kind of program or materials do you think would make an effective anti-bullying promotion? What would you create and what information would you include in a bullying awareness campaign? How would you address both victims and bullies? With a partner or a group, brainstorm ideas, make a list, and assess the practicality of creating a bullying awareness campaign for your school. Include traditional mediums (posters, skits, public address announcements) and social media to increase your outreach.
Click here to view more://www.cnn.com/2017/01/30/health/bullying-academic-achievement-study/index.html
Posted January 24, 2017
Study: Facebook can actually make us more narrow-minded
By AJ Willingham, CNN
Updated 1:51 PM ET, Sun January 22, 2017
On the surface, it seems like social media has the boundless potential to expand our world, connecting us to ideas and people we otherwise would never have found. However, a new study claims just the opposite: Social media actually isolates us, creating and facilitating confirmation biases and echo chambers where old--and sometimes erroneous--information is just regurgitated over and over again.
If it sounds bleak, it's because it kind of is.
The findings were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Using data modeling, a team of researchers from Italy mapped the spread of two types of content: conspiracy theories and scientific information.
"Our findings show that users mostly tend to select and share content related to a specific narrative and to ignore the rest. In particular, we show that social homogeneity is the primary driver of content diffusion, and one frequent result is the formation of homogeneous, polarized clusters," the paper concludes.
In other words, you and all of your friends are all sharing the same stuff, even if it's bunk, because you think alike and your tightly-defined exchange of ideas doesn't allow for anything new or challenging to flow in.
What this means for "fake news"
Alessandro Bessi, a postdoctoral researcher with the Information Science Institute at the University of Southern California, co-authored the paper. He says the point of the study was really to investigate how and why misinformation spreads online.
He says the team got interested in the phenomenon after the World Economic Forum listed massive digital misinformation as one of the main threats to modern society.
"Our analysis showed that two well-shaped, highly segregated, and mostly non-interacting communities exist around scientific and conspiracy-like topics," Bessi told CNN. "Users show a tendency to search for, interpret, and recall information that confirm their pre-existing beliefs." This is called "confirmation bias," and Bessi says it's actually one of the main motivations for sharing content.
So instead of sharing to challenge or inform, social media users are more likely to share an idea already commonly accepted in their social groups for the purpose of reinforcement or agreement. This means misinformation -- which is a much more appropriate term for "fake news" -- can rattle around unchecked.
"Indeed, we found that conspiracy-like claims spread only inside the echo chambers of users that usually support alternative sources of information and distrust official and mainstream news," Bessi says.
What can we do about it?
Even if you pride yourself on avoiding misinformation and think you're having open, accepting conversations online, Bessi cautions that we're all subject to confirmation bias on some level.
"If we see something that confirms our ideas, we are prone to like and share it. Moreover, we have limited cognitive resources, limited attention, and a limited amount of time."
This can lead to reckless sharing--we sometimes share something without really examining what it is.
"For example, I may share a content just because it has been published by a friend that I trust and whose opinions are close to mine," Bessi says.
In the future, Bessi says, there may be programs or algorithms that can help clean up misinformation. For now, he recommends a more analog approach: Do your own fact-checking --and soul-searching--before you share.
Questions using Close Reading and Critical Thinking skills:
- 1. The first paragraph of a news article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" List the who, what, when, and where of this news item. (Note: The rest of a news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. Is social media isolation a real problem? Is this something that is being blown out of proportion or underestimated in its severity?
- 3. The article mentions "confirmation bias." Are you familiar with that term? Have you seen it used in other articles? How would you define it?
- 4. Why do people seek out like-minded others? Can you provide any examples of confirmation bias from your experiences?
- 5. The article mentions "misinformation." Is misinformation and confirmation bias the same thing? Why or why not?
- 6. What are the benefits of seeking and considering differing opinions?
- 7. Do you think confirmation bias applies to your social media life? To your real life?
- 8. Do you think Facebook is relevant? Are there other social media sites that are more important to you? Which ones? Why are they more applicable to you?
- 9. The article mentions fact-checking. What role does the media play in fact-checking? How much responsibility should fall on users to do their own research?
Click here to view more://www.cnn.com/2017/01/22/health/facebook-study-narrow-minded-trnd/index.html
Posted January 17, 2017
Animal activists finally have something to applaud at Ringling Bros. circus: Its closure
By Amy B Wang
The Washington Post
January 15 at 11:28 AM
When Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus announced late Saturday that it would permanently end all of its performances this May after a 146-year run, there seemed to be a collective gasp online, along with a smattering of nostalgia for "The Greatest Show on Earth."
The show has been, after all, nearly synonymous with "the circus" in the United States since the 1800s, when showman Phineas Taylor Barnum partnered with ringmaster James A. Bailey to produce an exhibition of animals and human oddities. Meanwhile, five brothers from the Ringling family in Wisconsin had set up their own variety act.
After they merged, the circus spent decades touring the U.S. by train, transporting its iconic spectacle--along with hundreds of animals, performers and big-top tents--from city to city.
However, in recent years, the circus had been facing mounting obstacles that even its most acrobatic members could not overcome: declining ticket sales, high operating costs and an increasingly negative public sentiment about forcing captive wild animals to perform as entertainment.
"There isn't any one thing," Kenneth Feld, chairman and CEO of Feld Entertainment, told the Associated Press. "This has been a very difficult decision for me and for the entire family."
His father, Irvin Feld, bought the circus in 1967, and it has been operated by the family-owned Feld Entertainment since. Today, the company has about 500 employees, who were informed Saturday night about the closure.
Kenneth Feld told the AP that it was becoming increasingly difficult to make a traveling circus viable and relevant in a world of modern entertainment.
"Try getting a 3- or 4-year-old today to sit for 12 minutes," he added, referring to the show's 12-minute tiger act.
Ringling Bros. had also been the target of protests by animal rights groups and was involved in protracted legal battles with many of them.
In 2015, Ringling Bros. announced it would stop using elephants in its shows. The lumbering mammals delivered their final performances last May--dancing, spinning and standing on pedestals at the command of the ringmaster--and then were retired to a reserve in central Florida.
The move exacerbated the show's demise; the elephants' departure ultimately expedited what was a "difficult business decision."
"Ringling Bros. ticket sales have been declining, but following the transition of the elephants off the road, we saw an even more dramatic drop," Kenneth Feld said in a statement Saturday. "This, coupled with high operating costs, made the circus an unsustainable business for the company."
Among animal activist groups, news of its closure Saturday was met with a resounding cheer.
The Humane Society of the United States described itself as "long a bitter adversary of Feld Entertainment and Ringling Bros." in its response to the news. In 2014, Feld Entertainment won $25.2 million in settlements from groups including the Humane Society, ending a 14-year fight over allegations that circus employees mistreated elephants, the AP reported.
"Ringling Bros. has changed a great deal over a century and a half, but not fast enough," Wayne Pacelle, president of the Humane Society, said in a statement. "It's just not acceptable any longer to cart wild animals from city to city and have them perform silly yet coercive stunts. I know this is bittersweet for the Feld family, but I applaud their decision to move away from an institution grounded on inherently inhumane wild animal acts."
The animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals also welcomed the announcement Saturday night, calling it "the end of the saddest show on earth" and demanding that other acts follow suit.
"All other animal circuses, roadside zoos, and wild animal exhibitors, including marine amusement parks like SeaWorld and the Miami Seaquarium, must take note: society has changed, eyes have been opened, people know now who these animals are, and we know it is wrong to capture and exploit them," PETA said in a statement.
As The Washington Post's Elahe Izadi reported in 2015, the death in 1998 of Kenny, a 3-year-old Asian elephant with the Ringling Bros., ultimately led to complaints about and greater attention to the treatment of the circus's elephants:
He sat out a third show that day but was led into the arena to watch. Kenny died overnight in his stall.
His death triggered a series of events: A whistleblower tipped off People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, the group said, and it contacted the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The agency eventually brought a complaint that charged the circus with failing to handle Kenny in a way that "did not cause behavioral stress and unnecessary discomfort" and said that handlers made the young elephant perform even after discovering he was sick and needed to be seen by a veterinarian. Eventually, the USDA dropped the complaint and the circus's parent company agreed to donate $20,000 to Asian elephant organizations.
Last year, California and Rhode Island moved to ban the use of the bullhook, also known as an elephant goad or ankus--a tool used to train elephants that activist groups describe as cruel and inhumane. The Rhode Island ban took effect Jan. 1. The California ban takes effect in 2018.
Ringling Bros. currently has two circus units: The final shows will be in Providence, R.I., on May 7, and in Uniondale, N.Y., on May 21. While the show retired its elephants last year, the circus still has a huge menagerie, including lions, tigers, camels, donkeys, alpacas, kangaroos and llamas, according to the Associated Press.
Juliette Feld, chief operating officer for Feld Entertainment, told the AP that homes will be found for the animals but that the company will continue operating the Center for Elephant Conservation in central Florida.
Questions using Close Reading and Critical Thinking skills:
- 1. The first paragraph of a news article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" List the who, what, when, and where of this news item. (Note: The rest of a news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. The circus isn't closing due to one factor. What are the causes listed in the article? Can you think of any other reasons that might have affected the circus?
- 3. Have you ever attended a circus? Do you think it has become irrelevant?
- 4. Through the years, Ringling Bros. tried to update the performance to attract a new audience. What do you think they could have done to remain viable?
- 5. Should animals be bred or caught, and then trained to perform for our entertainment? What do you think will happen to the remaining animals in the circus?
- 6. Other shows, including zoos, rodeos, and Sea World, which still has dolphin and sea lion shows, use animals for entertainment. Does the circus closing affect other shows? Do animal shows have an entertainment or educational value?
Click here to view more://www.washingtonpost.com/news/animalia/wp/2017/01/15/animal-activists-finally-have-something-to-applaud-at-the-ringling-bros-circus-its-closure/?utm_term=.21d946e27746&wpisrc=nl_most-draw7&wpmm=1
Posted January 10, 2017
A lawyer rewrote Instagram's terms of use 'in plain English' so kids would know their privacy rights
By Amy B Wang
January 8 at 9:37 AM
The Washington Post
It's no secret that teenagers love social media.
Members of "Generation Z" can spend up to nine hours a day sharing photos on Instagram, consuming "content" on YouTube and talking to friends on Snapchat. (Just don't ask them to get excited about Facebook.)
But how much do these teens understand what they've agreed to give up when they start an account with those sites?
Probably very little, according to a report released last week--and dense terms and conditions that are "impenetrable and largely ignored" are partly to blame.
"'Terms and conditions' is one of the first things you agree to when you come upon a site," Jenny Afia, a privacy lawyer and partner at Schillings law firm in London, told The Washington Post. "But of course no one reads them. I mean, most adults don't read them."
Afia was a member of a "Growing Up Digital" task force group convened by the Children's Commissioner for England to study Internet use among teens and the concerns children might face as they grow up in the digital age.
The group found more than a third of Internet users are younger than 18, with 12- to 15-year-olds spending more than 20 hours a week online.
Most of those children have no idea what their privacy rights are, despite all of them agreeing to terms and conditions before starting their social media accounts, Afia said. The task force, which included experts from the public and private sector, worked for a year and released its report Wednesday.
"The situation is serious," Afia said in the report. "Young people are unwittingly giving away personal information, with no real understanding of who is holding that information, where they are holding it and what they are going to do with it."
One reason for this became apparent when the task force asked a group of teenagers to read and interpret Instagram's terms and conditions. Many of them balked at the exercise: Instagram's terms of use in total run at least seven printed pages, with more than 5,000 words, mostly written in legalese.
"Boring!" one 13-year-old girl declared during the exercise. "It doesn't make any sense."
After 20 minutes, the same teen questioned why she should continue reading.
"Are you sure this is necessary?" she said. "There are, like, 100 pages."
Afterward, the teenagers said they understood very little about privacy rights on Instagram, despite getting through the terms and conditions.
"I don't know due to the sheer amount of writing and the lack of clarity within the document," a 15-year-old said, according to the report.
The group ran Instagram's terms and conditions through a readability study and found that it registered at a postgraduate reading level, Afia said.
She was tasked with rewriting the company's terms and conditions "in plain English." It took her several hours, she said.
"It was doable," Afia said. "But it was quite taxing and definitely time-consuming."
The simplified terms of service fit on a single page. The following paragraph is taken from Instagram's terms of use:
You are responsible for any activity that occurs through your account and you agree you will not sell, transfer, license or assign your account, followers, username, or any account rights. With the exception of people or businesses that are expressly authorized to create accounts on behalf of their employers or clients, Instagram prohibits the creation of and you agree that you will not create an account for anyone other than yourself. You also represent that all information you provide or provided to Instagram upon registration and at all other times will be true, accurate, current and complete and you agree to update your information as necessary to maintain its truth and accuracy.
After Afia rewrote it for teenagers to be able to understand, it became, simply: "Don't use anybody else's account without their permission or try to find out their login details."
Other complex paragraphs were similarly condensed to sentences that were easier to digest:
• "Don't bully anyone or post anything horrible about people."
• "Officially you own any original pictures and videos you post, but we are allowed to use them, and we can let others use them as well, anywhere around the world. Other people might pay us to use them and we will not pay you for that."
• "Although you are responsible for the information you put on Instagram, we may keep, use and share your personal information with companies connected with Instagram. This information includes your name, email address, school, where you live, pictures, phone number, your likes and dislikes, where you go, who your friends are, how often you use Instagram, and any other personal information we find such as your birthday or who you are chatting with, including in private messages (DMs)."
The result was heartening, the report said. The task force asked the same group of children and teenagers to read the simplified terms and found they understood them far more clearly.
"I think they should show these Terms and Conditions to people who sign up because otherwise you don't really know what you're signing up to," said the 13-year-old who had declared the original document "Boring!"
"I would use Direct Messaging a lot less if I knew [Instagram] could read them," she added.
The task force said the same message could be applied to most social media sites, but it focused on Instagram for its ubiquity and popularity among teenagers. Last month, Instagram announced that it had grown to 600 million users, with 100 million of those joining during the previous six-month period.
According to the report, more than half of 12- to 15-year-olds in the United Kingdom--and nearly half of 8- to 11-year-olds--who are active on social media have an account on Instagram, despite the company dictating in its terms that users have to be at least 13.
"Instagram, like many social networks, leaves the user with very little information to exercise their rights or any genuine privacy," the report said. "This exercise makes it clear that the current offering made by websites and apps to their users is not acceptable. Children and young people have the right to know how the relationship between their rights and the rights of the service that they have signed up to use, functions."
Instagram did not respond to an interview request over the weekend.
The group hopes its study--and the simplified terms of use--will spur conversations between parents and their children that privacy online is important, no matter the platform.
"I think the timely goal is just plain English so that children can actually give informed consent," Afia said. "And then once there is more transparency around how the site works, we hope that will lead to some consumer pressure from the children and they will start demanding more... And parents need to bear in mind children are children until they become adults--not until they pick up a smartphone. We need to treat them as children."
At least one teenager quoted in the report said he would take privacy matters into his own hands, however, after going through the exercise.
"I'm deleting Instagram," 13-year-old Alex said, "because it's weird."
Questions using Close Reading and Critical Thinking skills:
- 1. The first paragraph of a news article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" List the who, what, when, and where of this news item. (Note: The rest of a news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. Do you read the terms of use before you sign up for a website?
- 3. Why do people click "OK" on terms of use but ignore the fine print?
- 4. Do you think Instagram's terms of use as described in the article infringe on your privacy? Why or why not?
- 5. What steps do you take to preserve your online privacy? Do you think it's important?
- 6. Look up the terms of use on your favorite social media site. Did you read them when you began using the site? Are they easy to understand?
- 7. With a partner or a group, read the terms of use for your chosen site and rewrite them for clarity and ease of understanding. What parts did you change? Why? Which parts did you delete? Why?
Click here to view more://www.washingtonpost.com/news/parenting/wp/2017/01/08/a-lawyer-rewrote-instagrams-terms-of-use-in-plain-english-so-kids-would-know-their-privacy-rights/?utm_term=.79a1640cab9d&wpisrc=nl_most-draw7&wpmm=1
Posted December 13, 2016
As more teens vape, surgeon general sounds alarm on e-cigarettes
By Tony Briscoe and John Keilman Contact Reporters Chicago Tribune
DECEMBER 8, 2016, 4:07 PM
The growing use of e-cigarettes by American teens "has the potential to create a whole new generation of kids who are addicted to nicotine," the U.S. surgeon general warned Thursday.
In a new report in which he cast "vaping" as an emerging public health threat for young people, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said more research is needed into the effects of e-cigarettes but added that they aren't harmless and too many teens are using them.
Federal figures made public Thursday show that last year 16 percent of high school students reported at least some use of e-cigarettes, even some who said they've never smoked a conventional cigarette.
The statistics on "vaping" mark a threefold increase among the age group since 2013, and e-cigarette use is higher among high school students than adults, according to the report.
While not all contain nicotine, Murthy's report says e-cigarettes can include harmful ingredients like diacetyl, a chemical flavorant linked to serious lung disease, or heavy metals, including lead.
If e-cigarettes drive users to other tobacco products, "then we are going to be moving backward instead of forward," Murthy told The Associated Press.
Battery-powered e-cigarettes turn liquid nicotine into an inhalable vapor without the harmful tar generated by regular cigarettes. Vaping was first pushed as safer for current smokers. There's no scientific consensus on the risks or advantages of vaping, including how it affects the likelihood of someone either picking up regular tobacco products or kicking the habit.
But Victoria Vasconcellos, president of Smoke-Free Alternatives Trade Association of Illinois, called Murthy's analysis "shameful," saying it failed to look at the broader landscape of smoking among adolescents.
"Perhaps the most glaring point missed though is that with this increase in vapor product use, youth smoking rates are at all-time lows," said Vasconcellos, the owner of a chain of vape shops in suburban Chicago. She said the numbers show "vapor products are proving to be a stepping stone away" from traditional cigarettes.
"It continues to amaze and disappoint me that those we look to for public health continue to mislead the public about vapor products armed only with unscientific fear-mongering, and this misinformation is coming from the highest of levels," she said.
For decades, public health officials have crusaded against smoking and in recent years have made major strides, bringing cigarette smoking among high school students to the lowest levels since the National Youth Risk Behavior Survey began in 1991, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Earlier this year, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration finalized a rule to regulate e-cigarettes and prohibited their sale to minors, though Illinois and other states already had such bans in place.
Illinois went further this year by prohibiting those under 18 from possessing e-cigarettes, just as they are not allowed to have regular cigarettes or other tobacco products. Violators can be fined up to $100 for repeated offenses and be subject to up to 30 hours of community service.
Some communities have tried to curb the risk even more by adding e-cigarettes to their smoke-free ordinances, making it unlawful to vape anywhere smoking is prohibited. Chicago has also imposed a tax on "liquid nicotine products," a move one alderman said was meant primarily to make e-cigarettes too expensive for young people.
The new FDA rules also, for the first time, will require makers of nicotine-emitting devices to begin submitting their ingredients for regulators to review. The vaping industry argues the regulations will wipe out small companies in favor of more harmful products, and likely will lobby the incoming Trump administration to undo the rules.
The spike in e-cigarette use among young people comes as no surprise to James Martinez, a spokesman for the American Lung Association of the Upper Midwest, who pointed to industry marketing aimed at younger people.
"It's Big Tobacco up to their old tricks," Martinez said. "E-cigarettes weren't regulated until a year ago. ... Before that, a 13-year-old or 12-year-old could buy an e-cigarette.
"During those times, the e-cigarette (liquid) would come in flavors like cotton candy and gummy bear. As if that wasn't enough, stores placed them in the candy aisle. It wasn't until all of the health organizations came in that they raised that minimum purchasing age and put it behind the counters," Martinez said.
At the Smoque Vapours in Chicago's Loop, many of the customers are from local universities. But store manager Xalia Marquez, 24, says even older generations are turning to vaping as a cheaper alternative and, to some, a way to wean themselves off cigarettes completely.
Marquez herself switched from traditional cigarettes to vaping two years ago. She agrees more research into e-cigarettes is needed.
"I think it's mostly fear of the unknown," Marquez said of the concerns raised by the federal government. "With cigarettes, we know what we're getting. It's pretty straightforward. Vaping, we don't know the long-term effects, but I can say, I feel a lot better than when I used to smoke cigarettes. I don't have trouble breathing and I'm not hacking up brown stuff."
Dr. Dean Schraufnagel, a University of Illinois at Chicago medical professor who has written about young people's vulnerability to e-cigarettes, said Thursday's pronouncement could discourage the use of the products, much as the surgeon general's warnings about the danger of smoking did with cigarettes.
"When the surgeon general has indicated this is a dangerous product, then the population takes on the attitude that it's not OK, it's something we should discourage," he said. "The culture of tobacco smoking has changed dramatically from 50 years ago. That's the kind of careful thought we want not just with electronic cigarettes, but any toxic substance people will be tempted to ingest."
Associated Press contributed.
Questions using Close Reading and Critical Thinking skills:
- 1. The first paragraph of a news article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" List the who, what, when, and where of this news item. (Note: The rest of a news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. Do you think e-cigarettes and vaping are harmless or harmful? Why or why not?
- 3. Do you think you have enough knowledge about e-cigarettes or vaping to make an informed decision? Do you think people research a topic like smoking or vaping before taking up the habit?
- 4. A spokesperson for the American Lung Association said, "It's Big Tobacco up to their old tricks." What is "Big Tobacco"? Why would the spokesperson call out tobacco companies about e-cigarettes?
- 5. How long ago did the manager of the vaping store begin vaping to quit smoking?
- 6. The manager of the vaping store is quoted saying, "Vaping, we don't know the long-term effects, but I can say, I feel a lot better than when I used to smoke cigarettes. I don't have trouble breathing and I'm not hacking up brown stuff." Do you think one person's experience is a fact or an opinion? What would you say to the manager in response to her statement?
- 7. What is the "culture of tobacco smoking"? How would you describe the attitude toward smoking at your school? What is the viewpoint toward smoking among your friends? Do your friends' attitudes toward smoking or vaping influence you?
Click here to view more://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-vaping-e-cigarettes-surgeon-general-health-met-20161208-story.html
Posted December 6, 2016
Dakota Access Pipeline could be rerouted
By Max Blau, Sara Sidner, Caroline Kenny and Gregory Krieg, CNN
Updated 2:01 PM ET, Mon, December 5, 2016
Near Cannon Ball, North Dakota (CNN)
Celebrations, tears of joy, chanting and drumming rang out among thousands of protesters after the US Army announced it will not--for now--allow developers to build a portion of the Dakota Access Pipeline under Lake Oahe here.
The Army will not let the pipeline cross the federally administered reservoir on the Missouri River "based on the current record," because the decision requires more analysis, including a deeper consideration of alternative routes, Assistant Secretary of the Army Jo-Ellen Darcy wrote in a letter Sunday.
"A more robust analysis of alternatives can be done and should be done ... before an easement is granted for the Dakota Access Pipeline to cross the Missouri River on Corps land," Darcy wrote.
The news has been cheered by Standing Rock Sioux Tribe members and their supporters who argue that the pipeline, if it were to rupture at the lake, would endanger the tribe's water supply. The tribe's reservation lies a half-mile south of the proposed crossing location.
But tribal leaders warn their fight isn't over, as the Army's statement does not rule out approval for the current plan in the future.
"We are asking our supporters to keep up the pressure, because while President Obama has granted us a victory today, that victory isn't guaranteed in the next administration," said Dallas Goldtooth, lead organizer for the Indigenous Environmental Network.
The pipeline's builders, Energy Transfer Partners and Sunoco Logistics Partners, said late Sunday that they still would press for the project's completion "without any additional rerouting in and around Lake Oahe."
The companies alleged the Army's move was an attempt to delay a decision on the crossing "until President Obama is out of office." The companies received permission from the Corps to cross the lake in July, but they need a second form of permission--the easement from the Army under the Mineral Leasing Act.
"The White House's directive today to the Corps for further delay is just the latest in a series of overt and transparent political actions by an administration which has abandoned the rule of law in favor of currying favor with a narrow and extreme political constituency," the developers said in a news release.
Protesters 'ready to keep going'
The $3.7 billion pipeline project would move about 470,000 barrels of crude oil daily from two North Dakota oil fields to an existing crude oil market near Patoka, Illinois. The pipeline would stretch across 1,172 miles through four states.
The North Dakota oil fields are said to contain an estimated 7.4 billion barrels of undiscovered oil.
The Army's decision comes after protesters spent months camping out in the area. The tribe, besides voicing concerns about water, also has said the construction would cut through sacred land and destroy burial sites.
The protests were largely peaceful but sometimes devolved into chaos, as law officers fired rubber bullets and tear gas and sprayed water at some activists they say were unruly. Authorities say some protesters set fires, vandalized construction equipment and threw objects at officers.
North Dakota's governor had ordered protesters to leave their campsite by Monday, citing harsh weather conditions. The Army Corps of Engineers had warned that activists could be arrested if they hadn't left by Monday, but the agency later said it had no plans to forcibly remove those who stay.
Instead of backing away, the protesters have recently come out in full force, even inviting US military veterans to join their already robust presence.
"I'm really happy that I'm here to witness it and celebrate with a lot of my elders and the youth, but I think that we also need to keep in mind that we need to be ready to keep going," protester Morning Star Angeline Chippewa-Freeland said.
Army: Look for alternative routes
The tribe sued the Army in an attempt to stop the crossing after the Army Corps of Engineers granted permits in July.
Darcy's decision Sunday comes three weeks after her office announced it was delaying a decision about whether to grant the easement amid protests from the tribe and its supporters.
Since that time, she wrote, representatives of the Army, the pipeline backers and tribal officials discussed additional measures that "could further reduce the risk of a spill or pipeline rupture," including pipeline safety enhancements.
These proposals, as well as alternative routes and a deeper examination of the risk of a spill, need to be discussed further, Darcy said.
She called for the drafting of an official environmental impact statement, a months-long process that would require further study and allow the public to weigh in. She did not announce a timetable or propose alternate routes for the pipeline.
Her letter noted that one previously proposed alternative--having the pipeline cross the Missouri River about 10 miles north of Bismarck, which itself is well north of Lake Oahe--was eliminated early in the planning phase.
Pipeline supporters speak out
Energy Transfer Partners and Sunoco Logistics Partners said Sunday night that they believe the Army's decision was a politically motivated move triggered by the White House.
Since the studying proposed by Darcy would take months, it remains to be seen how Obama's departure from the presidency on January 20 will affect events.
Jason Miller, spokesman for the transition team of President-elect Donald Trump, said Monday that the pipeline is generally "something that we support construction of." The Trump administration will review the matter after the inauguration, Miller said.
House Speaker Paul Ryan tweeted his criticism of the Army's announcement, calling the intervention "big-government decision-making at its worst."
"I look forward to putting this anti-energy presidency behind us," Ryan tweeted.
North Dakota's sole member in the House of Representatives, Rep. Kevin Cramer, a Republican, slammed Obama.
"It was becoming increasingly clear he was punting this issue down the road," Cramer wrote in a statement. "Today's unfortunate decision sends a very chilling signal to others who want to build infrastructure in this country."
Opponents ready for next fight
The Army's decision may be useful in a court challenge, according to Jan Hasselman, an Earthjustice staff attorney representing the Standing Rock Sioux tribe.
"If the incoming administration tries to undo this and jam the pipeline through despite the need for an analysis of alternatives, we will certainly be prepared to challenge that in court," he said. "It's not so simple for one government administration to simply reverse the decisions of the former one."
May Boeve, the executive director leading environmental action group 350.org, celebrated the decision but also sounded a warning against any future plans to reverse it.
"The fight against Dakota Access has fired up a resistance movement that is ready to take on any fossil fuel project the Trump administration tries to approve," she said. "On Dakota Access and every other pipeline: If he tries to build it, we will come."
CNN's Sara Sidner reported from Cannon Ball, North Dakota; Jason Hanna and Max Blau reported and wrote from Atlanta. CNN's Caroline Kenny, Gregory Krieg, Allie Malloy, Barbara Starr, Susanna Capelouto and Kevin Bohn contributed to this report.
Questions using Close Reading and Critical Thinking skills:
- 1. The first paragraph of a news article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" List the who, what, when, and where of this news item. (Note: The rest of a news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. What was (or still is) at stake for Native Americans? What is at stake for corporations that want to build the pipeline?
- 3. Apply what you know about the history of the government and its relationship with Native Americans. Should that past affect how this issue is viewed today? Is this a conflict with the government, with corporations, or both? Are they separate issues?
- 4. Should others who joined the protest have as much of a voice as the residents who might be affected by the pipeline? Why or why not?
- 5. What do you know about the history of social protest in the United States? Have you participated in a protest at your school or in your town? What did you accomplish? What were your methods? Do you think there is value in nonviolent protest?
- 6. Is completing the pipeline--or stopping the pipeline--necessarily a win-lose situation? Is there a compromise solution that might satisfy both protesters and pipeline supporters? And if not, is there a resolution that might be deemed fair and equitable considering all of the circumstances? Write a short essay outlining your position, and support your claim with examples from this article and others.
Click here to view more://www.cnn.com/2016/12/05/us/dakota-access-pipeline/index.html
Posted November 29, 2016
Fidel Castro, Cuba's communist leader, dies at age 90
By Associated Press, adapted by Newsela staff
11.28.16
MIAMI, Fla.--Fidel Castro has died at age 90. The leader of Cuba for a half-century led a rebel army to improbable victory, embraced communism and defied the power of 10 American presidents.
With a shaking voice, President Raul Castro said on state television that his older brother died at 10:29 on Friday night. He ended the announcement by shouting the revolutionary slogan, "Toward victory, always!"
A Tense Relationship With The U.S.
Castro's reign over the island-nation 90 miles (145 kilometers) from Florida was marked by its tenuous relationship with the United States.
In 1961, during the Bay of Pigs invasion, the United States' Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) tried and failed to overthrow the Castro government. A year later, the Communist USSR tried to keep nuclear missiles in Cuba, causing U.S. President John F. Kennedy to threaten nuclear war.
At the time, the United States was in a Cold War standoff with the USSR because of its spreading communist ideals. In communist countries, the government owns most things and few people have private property or possessions. The citizens of those countries also have fewer freedoms as a result. The United States opposed communism and embraced capitalism, where the government and business remain separate. The U.S. also embraced a democratic government. Eventually, the USSR agreed to remove the missiles.
"Socialism Or Death"
Castro was a bearded revolutionary who survived a crippling U.S. trade embargo as well as dozens, possibly hundreds, of assassination plots. He died 10 years after ill health forced him to hand power over to his brother Raul.
Castro overcame imprisonment at the hands of Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista. He was exiled in Mexico and his rebellion had a disastrous start before it succeeded. He rode into Havana, Cuba's capital, in January 1959 to become, at age 32, the youngest leader in Latin America.
His commitment to socialism was unwavering, though his power finally began to fade in mid-2006 when health issues forced him to hand over the presidency to Raul in 2008.
"Socialism or death" remained Castro's rallying cry even as Western-style democracy swept the globe and other communist governments in China and Vietnam embraced capitalism. The changes around the world left Cuba, an island of 11 million people, economically crippled.
Reactions In Today's Changing Cuba
Fidel Castro survived long enough to see Raul Castro negotiate an opening with U.S. President Barack Obama on December 17, 2014. At that time, Washington and Havana announced they would move to restore government ties for the first time since they were severed in 1961. He cautiously blessed the historic deal with his lifelong enemy in a letter published after a monthlong silence. Obama made a historic visit to Havana in March 2016.
Carlos Rodriguez, age 15, was sitting in Havana's Miramar neighborhood when he heard that Fidel Castro had died.
"Fidel? Fidel?" he said, slapping his head in shock. "That's not what I was expecting. One always thought that he would last forever. It doesn't seem true."
But the news cheered the community of Cuban exiles in Florida who had fled Castro's government. Thousands gathered in the streets in Miami's Little Havana to cheer and wave Cuban flags.
Castro's Journey To Power
Fidel Castro Ruz was born on August 13, 1926, in eastern Cuba's sugar country. There, his Spanish immigrant father worked first recruiting labor for U.S. sugar companies and later built up a successful plantation of his own.
Castro's life as a rebel began in 1953 with a reckless attempt to steal equipment from the Cuban military in the eastern city of Santiago. Most of his comrades were killed and Fidel and his brother Raul went to prison.
When he finally succeeded to become Cuba's leader, the U.S. was among the first to formally recognize his government. The country cautiously trusted Castro's early promises that he merely wanted to restore democracy, not install socialism.
Within months, though, Castro made huge changes in how Cuba traded and did business. Members of the old government went before courts, and many were killed by firing squads over two years. Non-government newspapers were closed and in the early years, gay people were herded into camps for "re-education."
In 1964, Castro admitted to holding 15,000 people as political prisoners and thousands of Cubans fled, including Castro's own daughter and sister.
Mixed Views On The Revolution
Still, the revolution thrilled millions in Cuba and across Latin America. Across Latin America, many people saw it as an example of how the seemingly arrogant Americans could be defied. Many on the island were happy to see land being taken from the upper class.
As Castro became aligned with the USSR and communism, Washington began working to get him out of power by cutting the United States' purchases of sugar, the island's economic mainstay. Castro, in turn, took businesses and houses owned by Americans on Cuba and took them for the Cuban government.
The American government put into place a block on trade. It banned nearly all U.S. products going to the island except for food and medicine, and it cut its government dealings with Cuba on January 3, 1961.
Castro helped other revolutions in Latin American countries and Africa in the 1960s and 1970s. Over the years, he sent Cuban doctors abroad to help the poor and helped to hide Black Panther leaders from the United States government.
Plans For Funeral
By the time Castro left power 49 years after his triumphant arrival in Havana, he was the world's longest-ruling head of government, aside from monarchs.
Cuba's government announced that Castro's ashes would be buried on December 4 in the eastern city of Santiago that was a birthplace of his revolution. That will follow more than a week of honors, including a nearly nationwide caravan retracing, in reverse, his tour from Santiago to Havana with the triumph of the revolution in 1959.
Questions using Close Reading and Critical Thinking skills:
- 1. The first paragraph of a news article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" List the who, what, when, and where of this news item. (Note: The rest of a news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. What are three things you knew about Castro before reading the article?
- 3. When did Castro come to power in Cuba? What are some other world events that were happening at the time?
- 4. According to the article, many people were happy when Castro seized power. He became a dictator. What could have made Castro change from a liberator to a dictator?
- 5. Do you think the U.S. embargo was effective against Cuba? Did it harm Castro or the people of Cuba?
- 6. Why would people in the U.S. cheer at Castro's death?
- 7. What are three freedoms you enjoy in your life that you think might not be available to all in Cuba? Do you think life in Cuba will change now that Castro is dead?
Click here to view more://www.newsela.com/articles/fidel-castro-obit/id/24427
Posted November 15, 2016
#TooYoungToVote but not too young to critique campaign coverage
Story by Kelly Wallace, CNN
Video by Jason Basso, CNN
Updated 4:06 AM ET, Thu November 10, 2016
(CNN) -- The silence spoke volumes.
When I asked 14 members of a New York middle school newspaper whether they thought the media did a good job covering this most unusual presidential campaign, not one student raised his or her hand.
Griffin Must, co-editor-in-chief of his school's paper, InsidetheHalls.com, summed up what a lot of his peers seem to be feeling about the nonstop election coverage over the past 18 months.
"I believe (the media) could have done a better job on policies and finding what citizens need to know to vote," said Griffin, 13 and an eighth-grader at Mott Hall II, one of the most diverse middle schools in Manhattan. "Yes, you can focus on the scandals, but maybe dig in deep, like why did this person do it?"
The scandals -- from questions about Hillary Clinton's private email server to offensive comments made by Donald Trump on the "Access Hollywood" tape, plus accusations of sexual assault -- got too much attention, some students said, leaving little time for the issues that matter most when it comes to running the country.
"That's what everyone's really attracted to. They're all attracted to this drama," said Saira Medunjanin, an eighth-grader. "I'm attracted to the drama. I want to see what's going on, but it really draws away from what's the main purpose: Why are these people running for president?"
'Draw them in with the drama'
So what would they do if they were running a news network, newspaper or digital news outlet? They may be #tooyoungtovote, but they're not too young to have interesting ideas about what they would do differently.
Jonas Yukins, a seventh-grader, said that if he were covering the campaign today, he would intertwine the scandalous topics that people seem to want to hear a lot about with coverage of the important issues confronting the next president.
"If I was on TV, I could be talking about the emails or something and then slightly change the subject without it being noticeable and start talking about gun control or climate change," he said.
"I would draw them in with the drama, but then I would go into (the candidates') beliefs and statements, and I would forget about the drama," said Jada Isabel Hugo, an eighth-grader.
Griffin, who hopes to run for the presidency someday (he already promised me the first interview!), said he'd try to see how the scandal affects one of the candidates' policies or something they have said before and work that into a story. If that weren't possible, he said, he'd do two stories: one on the scandal and another on the issues.
"I bet you most of the time, if you have a catchy title, they'll click on both," he said. "A good headline always sells it."
Pressing for answers
A few of the students said they would press the candidates more to answer the questions they're asked.
"I would ask you to answer the question," Nia Mills, a seventh-grader, said when I asked her to role play and pretend I was either Trump or Clinton. "I would ask you the question again so that you can give me a direct answer instead of just saying another complete off-topic answer."
But what if the candidate still wouldn't answer the question?
"I would assume that they're not prepared, they don't know the answer, and then move on," said Jada Isabel, who would like to go into a career in journalism. "And I'd state that aloud. I'd say that 'you don't know the answer; you're not comfortable answering the question,' and then I'd move on to the next candidate."
Hannah Kitson, a seventh-grader, would ask the candidates more questions about their personal lives, such as what qualities they value in a friend, and light-hearted topics such as where they like to get pizza.
"I think (the media) could have done a better job at actually looking at their personal life a little bit," said Hannah, who will probably choose law over journalism when she gets older. "If you look inside of how they are on the inside, you could see something completely different, and I think that's what people should be voting based on."
Loucas Tzanis, an eighth-grader, said the media spent too much time focusing on just a few candidates, namely Trump and Clinton, as well as Bernie Sanders, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz when they were still battling it out for their respective parties' nominations.
"I'd probably want to interview a bunch of the other candidates, see their points of view on stuff," he said. "Go and maybe interview the third party, because not a lot of people notice that there's a third party, so go into the things that nobody really notices."
Lingering damage?
In my conversations with these budding journalists, I also heard concerns about what they believe is damage left behind by the media and reporting that was not always objective.
"I think the media has a bad bias," said Max Freund, an eighth-grader. "The bias is bad, because it's forcing the viewers and readers to be biased, because it gives them this mindset that that's how they should vote."
Isaac Wolff, also in the eighth grade, is concerned about all the arguments, the anger and the back-and-forth we've seen in the media over the past year and a half.
"There are people that might say something about a candidate, and then people will get mad at that," Isaac said. "There are people who say things that they don't mean. There are people who say really weird things that they actually do mean. There are people who just announce that they're voting for people for the wrong reasons."
What would have helped would have been more fact-checking of the candidates' statements and arguments, said Leon Leveau, a seventh-grader who had the idea of bringing a school newspaper to Mott Hall II last year. He is also the paper's co-editor-in-chief.
"The news organizations need to have live or a bit after-the-fact fact-checking" to make it clear what statements by the candidates are truths and which are lies, said Leon.
Asked whether he's optimistic the media will do a better job in the 2020 election, he said he was.
"I think they will, because they'll have candidates that are more predictable, probably," he said with a chuckle.
Marlon Lowe, Mott Hall II's dynamic principal, said his students are learning a valuable lesson from working on a school newspaper at a time when information is available 24/7 to teenagers.
"This is such a refreshing change from where things are going right now because I know we have a problem in society where what's spread on social media is now becoming fact, and there is no fact-checking. There is no validation of information. It's just a stream of information, and we process everything that we're receiving," Lowe said.
"I think, going through this process, these young men and women will appreciate information and the nuances of providing it, sharing it and knowing what's factual and what's not."
Questions using Close Reading and Critical Thinking skills:
- 1. The first paragraph of a news article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" List the who, what, when, and where of this news item. (Note: The rest of a news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. What did you think of the campaign coverage? Did you read or watch the news with family or friends and discuss it?
- 3. Do you think the "mainstream media" understood the issues that concern you? Are your concerns different than ones that received a lot of attention? What issues did the media overlook or underplay?
- 4. What did the mainstream media focus on in this election? Did you detect any bias towards one candidate over the other? Provide examples to reinforce your claim.
- 5. The article mentions fact-checking. What role does the media play in fact-checking? How much responsibility should fall on the voters to do their own research on statements made by the candidates?
- 6. What role does social media play in contemporary news coverage? Do you think social media had a greater influence on voters than traditional news sources? Why or why not?
- 7. If you had been able to ask one question of the candidates, what would it have been? If they hedged or didn't answer a direct question, how would you elicit the information you wanted to know?
Click here to view more://www.cnn.com/2016/11/10/health/middle-school-newspaper-media-coverage-presidential-campaign/index.html
Posted November 8, 2016
Emoji fans meet up in San Francisco to celebrate the tiny icons
By Selena Larson @selenalarson
November 5, 2016: 5:55 PM ET
Have you ever wondered how emoji are made? Or why crying emoji look different on iOS and Android?
In San Francisco [last] weekend, the inaugural Emojicon brought together the world's foremost experts on emoji, language and design to answer some of our most pressing emoji questions.
Emoji are changing the way we communicate--new slang has worked its way into our lexicon (hair toss, anyone?), and storytelling through tiny icons is as important for self expression as actual words.
As linguist Tyler Schnoebelen explains, the ways we use emoji varies based on where we live and who our friends are. And some of the humorous, serious or controversial ways people use emoji have become iconic representations of language.
Precursors to today's emoji didn't have cartoonish design or facial expressions, and early emoji didn't have the option to change skin color or different physical characteristics.
As emoji evolved, so did the ways people use them.
Schnoebelen said that before changing skin tone was an option, tweets about #BlackLivesMatter rarely included emoji, because tweeting a yellow fist didn't fit the message. But once people could change skin color, emoji use increased. Twitter even created a special fist icon to automatically accompany the hashtag.
Following criticism about stereotypically gendered emoji, Google engineers proposed a suite of new professional emoji represented by women, like a farmer, health worker and a scientist.
Rachel Been, an art director and designer at Google who proposed the set of new female characters, said that representation in emoji matters.
Google changed its people emoji from yellow blobs to more human-like icons, and made conscious decisions about how best to represent gender and race. For instance, Google changed the color of female emoji clothes from pink to purplish-blue.
Further, Been said, it was important to consider how people use emoji--the professional emoji could be used to represent jobs, memes, or pop culture references. Being too specific can limit creative expression. For instance, some people use fruit emoji to describe body parts, and the "information desk person" emoji to communicate a hair toss.
"There's this fine line between specificity in design and making sure people understand what this thing is, but also allowing the audience to use it for metaphor purposes," Been said.
Anyone can submit their own proposals to the Unicode Consortium, the group that decides which emoji actually get be added to our phones. Few proposals make it mainstream, but once an emoji is approved, it's usually a part of our culture forever. Apple broke with this trend and recently removed an emoji from its library, changing the gun emoji to a squirt gun.
A separate room at the conference was home to people working on emoji proposals. Suggestions included a hijab, peacock, hammer and sickle, pretzel, and ever more hand expressions. The Emoji Request website showcases the most-requested emoji and lets users vote on what they'd like to see in the future. The two most-requested emoji are yellow smileys, one with a finger to its lips, and another with hearts around its head.
About 1,000 people were scheduled to attend Emojicon, which is both a celebration of the characters we text to friends and an exploration of how they'll continue to change our culture. It invites people to think more critically and creatively about the messages we send and how they can be interpreted.
Questions using Close Reading and Critical Thinking skills:
- 1. The first paragraph of a news article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" List the who, what, when, and where of this news item. (Note: The rest of a news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. The article states, "Emoji are changing the way we communicate." Do you agree? Why or why not?
- 3. Is using an emoji a loss or a gain in communication? Do you think they are specific enough to substitute for words? Or do they complement words?
- 4. What does it say about the way we communicate today that we need thousands of emoji to express ourselves? Discuss the ties emoji have to written communication through the centuries.
- 5. Is it easier to write a message to your friends or to your parents using emoji? When is it appropriate to communicate with emoji, and when is it not the appropriate time?
- 6. Think about your favorite passage from a book. Could you rewrite it using emoji? What would the sentence(s) look like? Would someone else be able to understand it?
- 7. New ideas for emoji can be submitted to the Unicode Consortium, which currently recognizes about 1,800 symbols (www.voanews.com/a/original-emojis-exhibited-newyork-museum/3568010.html). What ideas would you submit? On a sheet of paper, list three ideas, draw your designs, and explain what they are meant to communicate.
Read the original article here: //www.money.cnn.com/2016/11/05/technology/emojicon-san-francisco-language/index.html
Posted November 1, 2016
The plague of fake news is getting worse--here's how to protect yourself
By Brian Stelter @brianstelter - CNN Money
October 30, 2016: 6:56 PM ET
It's time for a new rule on the web: Double, no, triple check before you share. Especially if it seems too good to be true.
Why? Look no further than Donald Trump's Twitter account. Trump claimed Sunday morning that "Twitter, Google and Facebook are burying the FBI criminal investigation of Clinton."
Not only was there no proof of this, but it was pretty easy to disprove. The FBI email inquiry was at the top of Google News; FBI director James Comey's name was at the top of Facebook's "trending" box; and Twitter's "moments" section had a prominent story about the controversy.
Nevertheless, Trump's wrong-headed "burying" claim was his most popular tweet of the day. About 25,000 accounts retweeted it and almost 50,000 "liked" it, helping the falsehood spread far and wide.
The rise of social media has had many upsides, but one downside has been the spread of misinformation. Fake news has become a plague on the Web, especially on social networks like Facebook. As I said on Sunday's "Reliable Sources" on CNN, unreliable sources about this election have become too numerous to count.
So that's what I recommended a "triple check before you share" rule.
New web sites designed to trick and mislead people seem to pop up every single day. For their creators, the incentives are clear: more social shares mean more page views mean more ad dollars.
But the B.S. stories hurt the people who read and share them over and over again. Many of these fakes reinforce the views of conservative or liberal voters and insulate them from the truth. The stories prey on people who want to believe the worst about the opposition.
A recent BuzzFeed study of "hyperpartisan Facebook pages" found that these pages "are consistently feeding their millions of followers false or misleading information."
The less truthful the content, the more frequently it was shared--which does not bode well for the nation's news literacy during a long, bitter election season.
"Right-wing pages were more prone to sharing false or misleading information than left-wing pages," the BuzzFeed reporting team said.
On a few occasions, made-up or highly misleading stories have even snuck into Facebook's "trending" box--a problem that the company says it is trying to address.
In a few cases, Trump aides and family members have themselves been duped by fake news stories, including a hoax version of ABC News with a story headlined "Donald Trump Protester Speaks Out: 'I Was Paid $3,500 To Protest Trump's Rally.'"
A close look at the web site reveals that it is not, in fact, the actual ABC News. But the site tricked Trump's son Eric Trump in early October. "Finally, the truth comes out," he tweeted, promoting a link to the bogus story.
As soon as I spoke about this on television on Sunday, CNN detractors filled my inbox with messages saying that CNN is the ultimate example of "fake news."
But that's a deliberate attempt to confuse the issue. Whatever faults CNN has, news organizations small and large try very hard to report the truth.
Fake news sites and Facebook feeds, on the other hand, traffic in misinformation. My sense is that there are three buckets of these sites:
#1, Hoax sites with totally made-up news headlines that try to trick you;
#2, Hyperpartisan sites that aren't lying, per se, but are misleading, because they only share good news about your political party and bad news about the other party;
#3, "Hybrids" that purposely mix a little bit of fact and then a lot of fiction.
These sites aren't going away, so it's up to Internet users to spot fake news and avoid spreading it.
Fact-checking sites like Snopes can help--they are devoted to ferreting out hoaxes and tricks.
Josh Stearns, a longtime media activist who now works at Democracy Fund, said newsrooms also have a role to play.
"Fact checking has taken center stage in this election, but newsrooms need to go beyond fact checking politicians statements and help debunk viral misinformation too," he told me. "At a time when trust in media is at an all time low, journalists should call out these fake news stories and help citizens tell fact from fiction."
Trump's false claim about Google, Facebook and Twitter "burying" bad news about Clinton criticized what he called the "very dishonest media." Ironically, he was using Twitter to blast Twitter.
Trump may have gotten the idea from an inaccurate Zero Hedge blog post alleging a "social media blackout." The blog post contained false information. I asked the Trump campaign to provide a source for the wild claim, but no one has responded.
Questions using Close Reading and Critical Thinking skills:
- 1. The first paragraph of a news article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" List the who, what, when, and where of this news item. (Note: The rest of a news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. Do you think fake news sites are a real problem? How do you know a site is a "real" news source or a fake one? Have you seen some fake news sites?
- 3. What is a "hyperpartisan," and how might that person differ from someone with a "partisan" or "bipartisan" view?
- 4. What sources do you use for news? Do you think they present fair and accurate coverage? How do you know? Do you look for news that supports your views or challenges them?
- 5. When you think a news source isn't presenting an accurate story, how do you check it against other sources?
- 6. Do you think this story has a bias? Does the writer use words that have connotations? Decide if the story presents one side more fairly than the other and write a short paragraph, with examples of words, phrases, or sentences that support your claim.
- 7. What do you think of the election coverage you've seen and read? Do you think it's been fair? How can news organizations prevent bias?
Read the original article here: //www.money.cnn.com/2016/10/30/media/facebook-fake-news-plague/index.html
Posted October 25, 2016
Facebook to allow graphic posts if deemed 'newsworthy'
By Seth Fiegerman @sfiegerman
October 21, 2016 3:31 PM ET
Facebook is taking steps to avoid a repeat of last month's Napalm Girl controversy, while potentially opening itself up to a new headache.
Facebook announced Friday that it plans to cut down censorship of offensive posts that may violate its community standards against nudity and violence--that is, if those posts are deemed to be in the public interest.
"In the weeks ahead, we're going to begin allowing more items that people find newsworthy, significant, or important to the public interest--even if they might otherwise violate our standards," according to a blog post from Joel Kaplan, VP of global public policy at Facebook and Justin Osofsky, its VP in charge of media partnerships.
The shift comes one month after Facebook found itself at the center of an international outcry for preventing users from posting the iconic "Napalm Girl" picture. The image, one of the most famous war photographs in history, depicts a naked girl fleeing a Napalm attack.
Facebook eventually reinstated the image under pressure, concluding that "the value of permitting sharing outweighs the value of protecting the community by removal."
The company also came under fire this week for removing a breast cancer awareness video in Sweden for being graphic. The company later apologized and said it was incorrectly removed.
The announcement to cut down on censorship comes as Facebook employees reportedly debated whether to remove certain posts from Donald Trump for violating its rules against hate speech.
Facebook's policy shift may win praise as a common sense move, but it potentially puts the social network in the position of determining what is and is not newsworthy.
For years, Facebook has stressed it is a technology company and not a media brand. It prefers to lean on clear community standards and algorithms to maintain order among its 1.7 billion users, rather than editorializing. Facebook even ditch some of its human editors recently.
Now, according to Friday's post, Facebook plans to work "closely" with "publishers, journalists, photographers" and others "to do better when it comes to the kinds of items we allow."
Facebook is staying vague for now on exactly how this will work. Who will be involved in determining if a post is newsworthy? Will officials in certain countries be able to deem certain critical posts as not in the public interest? Will graphic but newsworthy posts include a warning?
Reps for Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment. One thing seems clear, though: It will take more than just an algorithm to solve this problem.
Questions using Close Reading and Critical Thinking skills:
- 1. The first paragraph of a news article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" List the who, what, when, and where of this news item. (Note: The rest of a news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. Discuss the questions from the article: Who will be involved in determining if a post is newsworthy? Will officials in certain countries be able to deem certain critical posts as not in the public interest? Will graphic but newsworthy posts include a warning?
- 3. What does "newsworthy" mean to you? Write a couple sentences and describe it. Now, share with the class. How many different definitions of newsworthy are there in your class?
- 4. Do you want a social media provider determining what you can and cannot post? Do you think there are times when the provider should monitor and/or censor content?
- 5. Everyone applies different standards to determine what is offensive. With the class, decide on five to seven categories for potentially offensive content, i.e. violent images, pornography, etc. Then, take a quick survey in class and post the results on the board. Is there a category that gets more "votes" than the others? Are there any patterns to the results? If you performed this survey school-wide, do you think the results would remain the same? Why or why not?
- 6. The article mentions that Facebook recently eliminated people who monitored newsfeeds and replaced them with algorithms. Is this something that can be monitored and managed with computer procedures? Why or why not? If you were in charge at Facebook, what kind of policy would you put in place? How would you apply and monitor it?
Read the original article here: //money.cnn.com/2016/10/21/technology/facebook-news-community-censorship/index.html
Posted October 18, 2016
Some students will miss homecoming dance, thanks to a few of their peers
CBS News - October 13, 2016, 8:09 AM
Many high schools are embracing a new trend to combat underage drinking and other student antics.
Corona del Mar High School's homecoming football game went on as scheduled last week. But this past weekend's homecoming dance was canceled. Administrators said some of their students were drinking and became disruptive at a football game last month, prompting them to cancel the dance. But some wonder whether it's counterproductive to punish everyone for the actions of a few, reports CBS News correspondent Mireya Villarreal.
"The behavior of many of our student fans was despicable and deplorable," principal Kathy Scott said in a Facebook video.
"That's just out of control. You know, when you're underage, you shouldn't be drinking anyways," said a parent, Angela Bradford.
The school decided to send a clear signal.
"As a consequence to the extremely inappropriate and totally inexcusable behavior, the homecoming activities have been canceled," Scott said.
"You're punishing everybody because of a select bunch of idiots. I mean, come on," said one parent, Gil Cottrell.
At Walpole High School south of Boston, student drinking at school dances forced the principal to halt them all, except for prom.
"It kind of takes away from the other kids 'cause they want to have fun at the dance, too," said a student, Christopher Reilly.
Walpole's principal, Stephen Imbusch, issued a statement to CBS News. "We are working together to move forward and address this age-old, but increasingly pervasive issue head on."
"I think some of the responsibility has to go to the parents," said Zoltan Csuka, whose child attends Corona del Mar.
The National Institute of Health says the percentage of high school students engaging in binge drinking has actually declined over the past decade, but the percentage of students drinking at levels far beyond the binge threshold is a growing concern.
Rob Pickell and his daughter Sammy, who attends Corona del Mar High School, understand why the homecoming dance was canceled.
"I think sometimes, actions as big as that are actually necessary, even though it's a real bummer for the students who weren't participating," Sammy said.
"If it actually facilitates something positive, then it was the right decision. And if that doesn't happen, then you certainly could question whether that was the right call," said her father.
High school officials in Portland, Maine say they canceled almost all their dances because of concerns over students attending drunk or under the influence of drugs.
© 2016 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Questions using Close Reading and Critical Thinking skills:
- 1. The first paragraph of a news article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" List the who, what, when, and where of this news item. (Note: The rest of a news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. Do you think the school officials' cancelation of a dance was a fair reaction to drinking at a football game? Why or why not?
- 3. Are there better or fairer methods of dealing with drinking at school events? What would you suggest? List three suggestions and support each one with two or three sentences.
- 4. Is drinking a problem at your school? What is the school doing to prevent it? What is your school's alcohol policy? If you were asked to suggest ways to stop kids from drinking, what ideas would you offer?
- 5. We hear about the effects of peer pressure on teens. Is this an opportunity for positive peer pressure? What are some ways you could influence your friends?
- 6. Imagine you are a student who was not at the football game and was denied an opportunity to attend the homecoming dance. Write a letter to school officials, explaining your disappointment and using a persuasive argument to ask them to reinstate the dance.
Read the original article here: //www.cbsnews.com/news/high-schools-homecoming-dance-cancel-punish-students-underage-drinking-antics/
Posted October 11, 2016
Coulrophobics Beware: America's Creepy Clown Problem Continues
By Camila Domonoske - National Public Radio
America has a scary clown problem.
Last month, the Two-Way reported on a spate of creepy-clown sightings across America. It seemed to begin in Greenville, S.C., where there were reports that "suspicious clowns were attempting to lure children into the woods."
That was followed by sightings in Alabama, Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Kentucky, with arrests made in Alabama and Kentucky. Many sightings were hard to verify, leaving people wondering: Jokes? Hoaxes? Figment of our collective imaginations? Cyclical clown uprising?
The reports were unsettling even for those who don't suffer coulrophobia, or the fear of clowns. And in the weeks since, the clown situation--there's no way around it--has gotten worse.
It's also gotten more complicated. There are now, as far as the Two-Way can tell, three distinct categories of clown quandaries. First, the original nightmare:
1. People actually dressed as clowns and acting creepy
There are multiple allegations of individuals in clown masks or makeup behaving alarmingly.
In some cases, the clown has not been found, and it's difficult to verify the sighting: A San Francisco Bay Area mother told police that a man in a clown suit attempted to snatch her 1-year-old child out of her arms at a bus stop in broad daylight. She says she kicked him away.
In Abilene, Texas, a man told police that two clowns held him at gunpoint after he took his dog outside to do its business around 4:30 a.m. A local TV station writes that, according to the police report, the man had a "hair-raising stare-down" with the clowns--one of whom was armed with an "AR-type rifle." The tense situation was resolved when the victim "retreated into his residence to get a bigger dog," and the clowns drove away.
But in other cases, suspects have been identified and arrested by police.
In Baytown, Texas, teens were arrested and charged with dressing as clowns and chasing people with sticks. A man reportedly running around in a clown mask in Sheboygan, Wis., was arrested and charged with carrying a concealed weapon.
Police arrested a man in Altamont, Ill., after he allegedly used a chain saw to cut brush... while wearing a clown mask, alarming nearby pedestrians.
In Arkansas, police say they arrested a man who was dressed as a clown and "terrorizing people with a horn" in Bentonville. They also arrested two accomplices and say the three men "did not intend harm."
Not even Canada is safe from the grinning menace: A 24-year-old man in Nova Scotia was arrested after witnesses said he was wearing a clown mask and grabbed at a boy's clothing.
At least some of the "clowns" appeared to focus on schools: In southern Oregon, after a clown holding a sign that said "We Are Here" was photographed outside local schools, police arrested a 21-year-old man. In Louisiana, two high school students were arrested after donning clown masks and riding around a school.
Which brings us to the second category of clown trouble:
2. Empty clown-related threats against schools
High schools. Middle schools. Even elementary schools.
Across the country, dozens of schools have had to cope with threats posted on social media accounts promising violence--with pictures of terrifying clowns attached.
In some jurisdictions, the threats are being investigated. In others, a child or teenager has been arrested and charged with posting the noncredible threat.
Such arrests were reported across the country: Washington County and Prince George's County in Maryland, Fontana and Fresno in California, Methuen and Rehoboth in Massachusetts, and Toms River, N.J.
Pasco County, Fla. Washington state. Austin and Houston and Rockwall, Texas. Smyrna, Del. Canton, Ill. Ansonia, Conn. Hammond, Ind. Philadelphia. Possibly a school district near you--this list is by no means complete.
Several police spokesmen describe these as copycat incidents, with students inspired by hearing of other clown-related threats.
We realize we risk contributing to that trend with this post, so let's emphasize: Each of the examples above involved someone being arrested for the threats, and in many cases, charged with felonies. Felonies are no joke, kids.
But it's crucial to note that, amid the panic, there's no actual clown involved. Which brings us to the third kind of clown chaos:
3. Unfounded hysteria
Creepy clowns are creepy. But the panic over creepy clowns can easily be greater than any actual threat from bemasked individuals.
In more than a dozen cases, reports of creepy clowns have led to arrests--not of scary entertainers, but of the people police say lied about their sightings.
Clownless clown panic can also happen without malice or intention. In Chicago, authorities say children--spooked by the general atmosphere of national clown anxiety--convinced themselves they saw clowns where, in fact, there were none.
And then there are the mobs of college students.
At Penn State on Monday night, hundreds of students took to the street ostensibly searching for a clown, according to the local Centre Daily and student paper Penn State Collegian.
There were, in fact, no verified reports of a sighting, police say--unless you count an image of a clown projected on a building. But that didn't stop students from running through the streets, apparently in search of vengeance, based on the expletives they hurled at the alleged "clown."
A similar anti-clown mob materialized Monday in Connecticut, the AP reports:
"Carrying golf clubs, shovels and hockey sticks, several hundred University of Connecticut students gathered just before midnight in a cemetery, ready to do battle with menacing clowns they had heard might be lurking among the headstones."
Again, no clowns were found.
In conclusion, the Fresno police chief expressed some sentiments that--while referring to threats to shut down schools--might apply equally well to the whole spectrum of clown misbehavior, from masked menaces to pranksters to wild mobs:
"Quite frankly, we are fed up," police Chief Jerry Dyer said. "We want this to stop immediately."
Questions using Close Reading and Critical Thinking skills:
- 1. The first paragraph of a news article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" List the who, what, when, and where of this news item. (Note: The rest of a news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. In reality, how big is the "clown" problem? Is this something that is being blown out of proportion or underestimated in its severity?
- 3. The article cites three possible reasons for the uptick in clown incidents. What could be some other reasons for them? List the possibilities and cite an example of each.
- 4. In your English classes, you've likely read "The Lottery" or The Crucible. Discuss the effect of the influence of a crowd or mass hysteria on decision-making and compare it to the events in the short story or the play.
- 5. If a person in a clown costume is shot by a frightened victim, who is responsible or at fault? What are some of the implications and possible unintended consequences of what some may see as a prank?
- 6. Clowns. Creepy or cool? Write a paragraph discussing your reaction to clowns and use descriptions and figurative language to help your reader understand why you feel the way you do about clowns.
Read the original article here: www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/10/06/496850197/coulrophobics-beware-americas-creepy-clown-problem-continues
Posted October 4, 2016
A President's Best Friends Often Have Four Legs
By JENNIFER A. KINGSON - SEPT. 30, 2016 - The New York Times
No, Donald Trump does not have a yellow Labrador retriever named Spinee that is recovering from surgery. Neither does Hillary Clinton. Those rumors, curiously enough, are propagated by an internet hoax site that seems to delight in pranking celebrities.
But Mrs. Clinton does have two dogs, Tally and Maisie, which, if she were elected president, would be the latest in an illustrious and colorful line of first pets.
Mr. Trump, if elected, would be the first president since Harry Truman without a pet. (Mr. Truman's family was given a couple of dogs that did not take up permanent residence at the White House.)
It is one of the many things that set the two major party nominees apart, though how much this matters to the public is unclear. But owning a cute dog or mischievous cat can be a political asset: When Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin was running for the Republican nomination, his allergy to pet dander was seen as a potential liability.
Entire books have been written about presidential pets, and presidents are frequently given animals once they reach office (though often those animals are re-gifted). So presumably, if Mr. Trump reached office, he would receive some animals as a reward. (Feel free to speculate about the type and breed.)
While dogs have been the most popular option for leaders of the free world, there have been many exotic animals in the White House: John Quincy Adams kept an alligator in a bathtub near the yet-to-be-finished East Room; William Howard Taft brought his cow, Mooly Wooly, with him to Washington; and Theodore Roosevelt and his large family owned, at various times, a pig named Maude, a snake named Emily Spinach and a badger named Josiah.
Dave Baker, co-owner of the Presidential Pet Museum, is partial to the story of Andrew Jackson's pet parrot, Poll. "It was taught to curse like a sailor, and caused such a ruckus at Jackson's funeral that the bird was promptly escorted out," said Mr. Baker, of Queens, a 41-year-old copy editor who also runs a website called Petful. The story of Poll, he said, "keeps going viral on Reddit."
The Presidential Pet Museum--such as it is--exists as a website full of information and pictures, plus a motley collection of memorabilia currently in storage.
The items were lovingly collected and curated by Claire D. McLean, a retired dog groomer who took care of President Ronald Reagan's bouvier des Flandres, Lucky. Ms. McLean spirited out some of Lucky's fur trimmings in a bag, and her mother made a portrait of the dog that incorporated them, inspiring her daughter to start the museum.
Ms. McLean, who is no longer able to operate the museum, and Mr. Baker, who has other things to attend to, are trying to sell the website and artifacts in an online auction, so far without luck.
So how do the current candidates fit into this mostly four-legged history?
Mrs. Clinton is a well-known dog lover who has spoken out against puppy mills. Her dog Maisie is a curly-haired mutt, and Tally is a toy poodle mix.
When Bill Clinton was in the White House, the couple acquired a chocolate brown Labrador retriever named Buddy, who was a comfort to the president during the difficult days of his impeachment over the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Buddy later died after being hit by a car in Chappaqua, N.Y., where the couple reside. The Clintons adopted a great-nephew of Buddy's, Seamus, in 2002; he died recently, apparently of old age.
Socks, the Clintons' White House cat, was a favorite of the first daughter, Chelsea, but not of her parents, both of whom are allergic to cats, or of Buddy. So great was the acrimony that when the family decamped for Chappaqua after Mr. Clinton's second term, Socks did not make the trip; he was sent into "exile," as news reports described it, with Mr. Clinton's secretary, Betty Currie, in suburban Virginia.
Chelsea Clinton is now a dog person. Her miniature Yorkshire terrier, Soren, is named after the Danish existential philosopher Soren Kierkegaard.
When it comes to animals, the Trump family is better known for hunting them. Mr. Trump's two eldest sons have been criticized for a safari they took in Zimbabwe in 2011, when they posed for pictures next to a large water buffalo and other creatures they had shot for sport.
Mrs. Clinton used this episode as a political weapon in August, telling animal rights protesters that the Trumps had "killed a lot of animals."
Mr. Trump has no pets, according to his campaign. However, a curious hoax website called MediaMass has for years been pumping out the fiction that "Donald Trump's adored Labrador retriever 'Spinee' has undergone a risky surgery on Wednesday and is luckily beginning the slow process of recovery."
People have been sending Mr. Trump heartfelt tweets wishing Spinee a speedy recovery since at least 2013.
But wait, there's more: MediaMass--a site that says its goal is "media criticism through satire"--has been spreading the exact same Spinee rumor about thousands of celebrities and public figures, including Mrs. Clinton. The identical article has been written about Stephen King, Miley Cyrus, Denzel Washington and Steve Martin, to name a few.
An email to MediaMass, which seems to be based in China, went unanswered, perhaps not surprisingly.
Questions using Close Reading and Critical Thinking skills:
- 1. The first paragraph of a news article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" List the who, what, when, and where of this news item. (Note: The rest of a news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. This is a light feature about presidential pets. Do you perceive a bias or a slant to this article? After you read the article, what were your impressions of each candidate based on their "pet profile"?
- 3. The article states that "owning a cute dog or mischievous cat can be a political asset." Hillary Clinton has dogs; Donald Trump has no pets. Are there connotations associated with owning pets? Would owning a pet influence your vote? Why or why not? What are some of the issues that influence your perceptions of the candidates?
- 4. The article doesn't state why Donald Trump has no pets but does mention that the Trump family enjoys hunting. Is this a moral equivalence or a false analogy? Discuss with the class.
- 5. Are you a cat person or a dog person? What are the connotations associated with being one or the other?
- 6. During a presidential election year, when important issues are at stake, do you think an article like this is fun or inconsequential? Does it make you think of the candidates differently? If so, which candidate improved in your estimation and which one weakened? Why?
Read the original article here: //www.nytimes.com/2016/10/01/us/politics/presidential-pets-clinton-trump.html?hpw&rref=politics&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region®ion=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well
Posted September 26, 2016
Disney pulls offensive 'Moana' Halloween costume
USA Today
HONOLULU (AP)--Disney said Wednesday [September 21] it would no longer sell a boy's costume for a Polynesian character that some Pacific Islanders have compared to blackface.
The getup depicts Maui--a revered figure in Polynesian oral traditions and viewed by some Pacific Islanders as an ancestor--who is a character in the upcoming animated movie Moana. It has a long-sleeve brown shirt and long pants featuring full-body tattoos. It comes with a fake shark-tooth necklace and green-leaf "skirt."
Disney's online store had offered boy's pajamas and a men's t-shirt in a similar design, but those products were no longer available Wednesday.
"The team behind Moana has taken great care to respect the cultures of the Pacific Islands that inspired the film, and we regret that the Maui costume has offended some," the company said in a statement. "We sincerely apologize and are pulling the costume from our website and stores."
Chelsie Haunani Fairchild said it's off-putting to have a child wear the skin of another race.
"Polyface is Disney's new version of blackface. Let's call it like it is, people," Fairchild said in a video she posted on Facebook.
The Native Hawaiian college student said in an interview the costume doesn't honor or pay homage to a culture or person, but makes fun of it.
Fairchild, who is attending school in San Antonio, Texas, later said she accepted the apology, but it didn't change what the company did. She said Disney only stopped marketing the outfit because people spoke out.
Moana is due for release in November. The animated feature is about a teenager who sails through the South Pacific to a fabled island. She meets Maui, who helps her explore the ocean.
The Disney online store began selling the costume recently, just in time for Halloween. The listing noted the getup had "padded arms and legs for mighty stature!"
Tevita Kaili, a professor of cultural anthropology at Brigham Young University-Hawaii, said he was happy Disney responded to the criticism and pulled the product.
He said the costume featured tattoos that would be used in Polynesia by chiefs, adults and those committed to the community. They're removed from their cultural context by appearing on a Halloween costume, he said.
For example, the outfit has triangle designs used to symbolize sharks. These would normally be used by families who consider sharks to be ancestral guardians, he said.
Kaili himself views Maui as an ancestor, like many people from his home island of Koloa in Tonga, where a temple is dedicated to him.
Kaili said stories handed down about Maui snaring the sun or pulling islands out of the ocean are just metaphors for how he discovered new islands as he sailed the ocean.
"For most of us in the Pacific, in Polynesia, we see Maui as an important ancestor to us--as a real person," he said.
The costume earned international condemnation.
Marama Fox, a co-leader of New Zealand's indigenous Maori Party and a member of New Zealand's parliament, said the costume was a case of cultural misappropriation and an example of a company trying to profit off of another culture's intellectual property.
The movie itself, she said, appeared to be playing into stereotypes.
"It depicts Maui as a bit of a beefy guy, and not in a good way. That's not the picture I have of the Maui who fished up the North Island, and had a number of feats attributed to him," she said.
Associated Press writer Nick Perry in New Zealand contributed to this report.
Questions using Close Reading and Critical Thinking skills:
- 1. The first paragraph of a news article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" List the who, what, when, and where of this news item. (Note: The rest of a news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. What is "cultural misappropriation"? Can you think of some other examples of it? Discuss and share with the class.
- 3. What is your reaction to the costume? Do you think the public's reaction to the costume would be different if it didn't include "skin" and tattoos?
- 4. Do you think this is a case of "political correctness" or corporate insensitivity? Why is it wrong to sell a Halloween costume based on Polynesian characters but OK to depict the characters in a movie? How does context change interpretation of events?
- 5. If you were marketing the Halloween costume for Disney, what could you have done to create a more educational experience for a parent who purchased them or a child who wore them?
- 6. What are some of your cultural traditions and how would you depict them for someone who knows nothing about them? Write a short story or create a visual interpretation of your family's heritage and traditions.
Read the original article here: //www.usatoday.com/story/life/movies/2016/09/21/disney-moana-costume-maui/90814040/
Posted September 19, 2016
This once-bullied teen has a simple solution so no one has to eat alone in the cafeteria ever again
By Colby Itkowitz - The Washington Post - September 14
Natalie Hampton spent most of her 7th and 8th grade school years eating lunch alone.
The new girl at an all-girls private school in Los Angeles, she became the target of a clique of "mean girls" who excluded her from parties, called her names and even physically assaulted her, she said. They told her she was ugly and would never have any friends. They shoved her in a locker, scratched her and even threatened to kill her.
She feared telling on them, afraid of their retaliation. Once a kid who loved going to school, Natalie now dreaded it. She stopped eating, she couldn't sleep. The anxiety became so bad that she had to be hospitalized. Her mom calls it "the darkest period of our lives."
Natalie switched schools for high school. She chose a school that, when she toured it, seemed to prioritize community. Now a 16-year-old junior, she's happy there, with a group of close friends and extracurricular activities. But she's never forgotten those two dark years when she was bullied and isolated by her peers.
And she hates the idea of other kids going through what she did.
So Natalie came up with an idea that would allow students a judgment-free way to find lunch mates without the fear of being rejected. She developed an app called "Sit With Us," where students can sign up as "ambassadors" and post that there are open seats at their lunch table. A student who doesn't have a place to sit can look at the app and find an ambassador's table and know they are invited to join it.
When signing up as an ambassador, the student takes a pledge that they'll be kind and welcoming to whoever comes to sit with them.
"Lunch might seem really small, but I think these are the small steps that make a school more inclusive," she said. "It doesn't seem like you're asking that much, but once you get people in the mindset, it starts to change the way students think about each other. It makes a huge difference in how they treat each other."
There is research that backs that up. In January, professors from Rutgers, Princeton and Yale universities found that when students actively take a stand against bullying, and not teachers or administrators, it's more effective. They did so, by testing what would happen if a random group of students started actively promoting anti-bullying campaigns at their schools. In the participating schools, they saw a "30 percent reduction in disciplinary reports."
Bullying is such a serious problem among children and teens that even the White House has created an initiative to address it. One statistic shows that 1 in 4 students say they've been bullied in a given school year, and 64 percent of them don't report it.
"If there's one goal of this conference, it's to dispel the myth that bullying is just a harmless rite of passage or an inevitable part of growing up," President Obama said in 2010. "It's not."
The once-bullied Natalie, who is active in the school yearbook, theater and dance, community service and aspires to study psychology and neuroscience in college, introduced her app on Monday at an assembly in front of her entire school. She's been interviewed on NPR and local television. She's been invited to attend a "Girls Can Do" conference in Washington in November to give a presentation about her experience.
She and her mom, Carolyn Hampton, have scheduled multiple phone conversations with academic administrators all over the country about the "Sit With Us" app and how they can implement it in their schools.
"It's nice to see how resilient she is," Carolyn Hampton said. "It was such a tough period in our lives and she's turned it around and doing something really positive."
When Natalie first started in her new high school, she made friends easily--the way she was before middle school, her mom said. Yet even as a new student, when she saw peers sitting alone, she asked them to join her, Natalie said. Now, many of those kids, are "an essential part of our friend group," she said.
"I'm extremely lucky I got the chance to get out and share my story with other people," she said.
Questions using Close Reading and Critical Thinking skills:
- 1. The first paragraph of a news article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" List the who, what, when, and where of this news item. (Note: The rest of a news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. What is your definition of "bullying"?
- 3. Do you think this is a good solution for bullying? What could be the results of having a group to join at lunch?
- 4. Does your school have a policy regarding bullying behavior? Do you know what it is? Is it effective? What would you propose to address the kind of behavior described in the article?
- 5. What is your experience with bullying? Write a paragraph about your experiences, describe how you felt, and what you did as a result.
- 6. Write a paragraph about a bullying incident from the viewpoint of a bullied teen. Then, reverse the point of view, and write as if you were the bully. Share with the class.
Read the original article here: www.washingtonpost.com/news/inspired-life/wp/2016/09/14/this-once-bullied-teen-has-a-simple-solution-so-no-one-has-to-eat-alone-in-the-cafeteria-ever-again
Posted September 14, 2016
After outcry, Facebook will reinstate iconic Vietnam War photo
BY JETHRO MULLEN AND CHARLES RILEY @CNNTECH
Facebook will reverse course and allow users to post the iconic "Napalm Girl" image hours after facing fierce criticism for censoring one of the most famous war photographs in history.
"After hearing from our community, we looked again at how our Community Standards were applied in this case," a spokesperson for Facebook said in a statement. "Because of its status as an iconic image of historical importance, the value of permitting sharing outweighs the value of protecting the community by removal, so we have decided to reinstate the image on Facebook where we are aware it has been removed."
The photograph, which depicts a naked girl fleeing a napalm attack during the Vietnam War, was said to have violated Facebook's ban on images of naked children.
Facebook says the picture will be available to share "in the coming days." It also promised to work to "improve our policies to make sure they both promote free expression and keep our community safe."
The editor of a top Norwegian newspaper on Thursday addressed an open letter to Zuckerberg saying he was "upset, disappointed -- well, in fact even afraid" about Facebook's impact on media freedom.
Espen Egil Hansen said his newspaper, Aftenposten, received a demand from Facebook to remove the iconic Vietnam War photo.
"Less than 24 hours after the email was sent, and before I had time to give my response, you intervened yourselves and deleted the article as well as the image from Aftenposten's Facebook page," Hansen wrote.
Kim Phuc, the Vietnamese girl pictured in the 1972 photo, was not available for comment. But Phuc's personal manager, Anne Bayin, said she supports the use of the image.
"Kim is saddened by those who would focus on the nudity in the historic picture rather than the powerful message it conveys," Bayin said in an email to CNNMoney. "She fully supports the documentary image taken by Nick Ut as a moment of truth that captures the horror of war and its effects on innocent lives."
His complaint highlights growing concern about Facebook's vast and expanding influence over news and other content seen by more than a billion people around the world.
"You create rules that don't distinguish between child pornography and famous war photographs," Hansen wrote to Zuckerberg. "Then you practice these rules without allowing space for good judgment."
Earlier Friday, Facebook said it recognized that the photo is iconic, but stressed that it's "difficult to create a distinction between allowing a photograph of a nude child in one instance and not others."
'Editing our common history'
The pressure intensified on Friday when Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg accused the company of deleting the image from her own public page.
"What they do in removing such pictures, whatever their reasons, is to edit our common history," Solberg said in a statement that urged Facebook to face up to its responsibilities as a major media platform.
In an interview with CNN's Richard Quest shortly before Facebook reversed course, Solberg said that the social network "should have not a machine-run, but a moral-run way of editing things."
The saga began when Norwegian author Tom Egeland posted a series of historic war photographs on Facebook.
The social network removed one of the images -- the famous Vietnam photo of the naked girl, Kim Phuc, fleeing the napalm attack -- and later suspended Egeland's account after he posted a reaction to the deletion.
When Aftenposten posted its article about what happened to Egeland on Facebook, that too fell foul of the rules.
"You even censor criticism against and a discussion about the decision -- and you punish the person who dares to voice criticism," Hansen wrote.
Ut's dramatic photo won a Pulitzer Prize and is regarded as one of the most memorable images of the 20th Century. Despite its graphic nature, the photo has been credited with helping to turn U.S. public sentiment against the war in Vietnam.
Hansen told CNNMoney's Nina Dos Santos on Friday that Zuckerberg is now "the most influential editor-in-chief in the world."
"With that follows a great responsibility," Hansen said. "I ask him to think through what he is doing ... to the public debate all over the world."
An attack on democracy?
Rolv Erik Ryssdal, chief executive of Aftenposten's publisher, said in a statement that Facebook's position "is not acceptable" and constitutes an attack on democracy and freedom of expression.
Zuckerberg has tried to fend off pressure about Facebook's role in managing what articles and images people see.
"We're a technology company, we're not a media company," he said last month. "We do not produce any of the content."
Facebook says it relies on users to report offensive content. Items they flag are then reviewed by teams of workers around the world who speak many languages, including Norwegian.
But some media experts say the system is fatally flawed.
"Whether intentional or desired or not, Facebook does now play a critical role in the distribution of news," Jeff Jarvis, a journalism professor at the City University of New York, wrote earlier this year. "An editor -- or perhaps an ethicist-in-chief -- could help set the services standards and policies."
Jarvis seized on Hansen's letter to Zuckerberg, tweeting that it's an example of "exactly why I keep suggesting Facebook needs a top level journalist."
Facebook was engulfed by controversy in May over how news stories were chosen for its "trending topics" box. Last month, it removed the humans responsible for manually writing news descriptions and headlines for the section, turning the job over to software programs.
Seth Fiegerman and Aaron Smith assisted with this story.
Questions using Close Reading and Critical Thinking skills:
- 1. The first paragraph of a news article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" List the who, what, when, and where of this news item. (Note: The rest of a news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. Have you seen this image before? Are you familiar with the events surrounding it? Discuss with the class.
- 3. When you read, you are told to look for "context clues." "Context" is defined by Merriam-Webster as "the words that are used with a certain word or phrase and that help to explain its meaning"; "the situation in which something happens: the group of conditions that exist where and when something happens." Does context matter when we decide if an image or a piece of writing is offensive? Should the image be judged solely on its contents?
- 4. Was Facebook correct to remove the image? Why or why not?
- 5. Is Facebook censoring content or protecting its users from offensive images? Why does Facebook censor or remove some kinds of content but allow others?
- 6. What kind of policy would you write and put in place to cover a situation such as this? Would the policy be different for print material and social media?
- 7. What is your school paper's policy about printing material that may offend someone? Who makes the decisions about inclusion or exclusion?
Read the original article here: //money.cnn.com/2016/09/09/technology/facebook-censorship-vietnam-war-photo/index.html
Posted August 31, 2016
Ryan Lochte charged by Brazilian authorities
Rio de Janeiro (CNN)--US swimmer Ryan Lochte has been charged with falsely reporting a crime, Rio police said Thursday.
The department's chief has requested a letter be sent to Lochte explaining the legal process related to the charges, according to a statement.
The 12-time Olympic medalist will now be summoned to Rio, according to Tourist Support Special Precinct officials.
Lochte can opt to send a lawyer and does not need to appear in court.
If convicted, Lochte, 32, could face between one to six months in jail, although the judge could choose to levy a fine instead. There would be no negotiations in that case, Clemente Braune, a commissioner with the Special Tourist Police in Rio, said Thursday.
Lochte would also have the opportunity to appeal any decision.
Jeffrey Ostrow, Ryan Lochte's attorney, told CNN he has not heard from Brazilian authorities.
'Over-exaggerated'
Lochte has apologized for poor behavior during an incident at a Rio gas station on the morning of August 14. Lochte told Olympics broadcaster NBC on the day of the altercation that he and three other swimmers were robbed at gunpoint after the cab they were in was pulled over.
The other swimmers--Gunnar Bentz, Jack Conger and James Feigen--have since publicly shared their version of the events with stories that differ from Lochte's original tale and essentially match surveillance video released by Brazilian police.
Authorities said there was no robbery, but security guards had drawn guns and stopped the swimmers from leaving after they vandalized the gas station. The money was to pay for items that were broken, they said.
Feigen said in a statement this week that he was questioned by a detective later that day and gave a statement in which he left out parts about the swimmers urinating behind the building and Lochte pulling down a framed poster.
Days later, as scrutiny on Lochte's story increased, police questioned Feigen again. In his second statement, he gave more details, he said.
The court then proposed he pay a $31,250 fine and do 15 days of community service, Feigen said. He rejected the offer and the judge increased the amount to $46,875, the swimmer said.
Feigen's attorney negotiated a fine of $10,800 and the swimmer was given back his passport and allowed to leave Brazil.
Lochte told NBC's Matt Lauer that he had been interviewed by police while he was still in Rio. He also changed his version of the story slightly to include that the swimmers had stopped to use the bathroom and the incident occurred as the quartet was going back to their cab.
In a second interview with Lauer, he said he had "over-exaggerated" when describing the events of the morning to NBC and others.
The four-time Olympian also faces potential discipline from the US Olympic Committee and the International Olympic Committee.
A copy of the indictment also will be sent to the International Olympic Committee's ethics commission.
CNN's Jill Martin, Flora Charner and Julia Jones contributed to this report.
Questions using Close Reading and Critical Thinking skills:
- 1. The first paragraph of a news article should answer the questions "Who?", "What?", "When?", and "Where?" List the who, what, when, and where of this news item. (Note: The rest of a news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. Do you think this incident has been overblown or not taken seriously enough by Americans? What consequences should Lochte and the others face?
- 3. Why do you think Lochte and the other swimmers lied about the incident? Do you think they thought people would believe them and not local authorities?
- 4. Word choice or diction matters. Are there differences between "lie," "false," and "exaggerate"? What could those differences mean for intention and understanding?
- 5. What are the denotative meanings for each word?
- 6. What are the connotative meanings for each word? How would you use each word appropriately in a sentence?
Read the original article here: www.cnn.com/2016/08/25/americas/ryan-lochte-brazil
Posted May 25th 2016
History
Memorial Day, originally called Decoration Day, is a day of remembrance for those who have died in service of the United States of America. Over two dozen cities and towns claim to be the birthplace of Memorial Day. While Waterloo N.Y. was officially declared the birthplace of Memorial Day by President Lyndon Johnson in May 1966, it's difficult to prove conclusively the origins of the day.
Regardless of the exact date or location of its origins, one thing is clear - Memorial Day was borne out of the Civil War and a desire to honor our dead. It was officially proclaimed on 5 May 1868 by General John Logan, national commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, in his General Order No. 11. "The 30th of May, 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers, or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village and hamlet churchyard in the land," he proclaimed. The date of Decoration Day, as he called it, was chosen because it wasn't the anniversary of any particular battle.
On the first Decoration Day, General James Garfield made a speech at Arlington National Cemetery, and 5,000 participants decorated the graves of the 20,000 Union and Confederate soldiers buried there.
The first state to officially recognize the holiday was New York in 1873. By 1890 it was recognized by all of the northern states. The South refused to acknowledge the day, honoring their dead on separate days until after World War I (when the holiday changed from honoring just those who died fighting in the Civil War to honoring Americans who died fighting in any war).
It is now observed in almost every state on the last Monday in May with Congressional passage of the National Holiday Act of 1971 (P.L. 90 - 363). This helped ensure a three day weekend for Federal holidays, though several southern states have an additional separate day for honoring the Confederate war dead: January 19th in Texas; April 26th in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and Mississippi; May 10th in South Carolina; and June 3rd (Jefferson Davis' birthday) in Louisiana and Tennessee.
Red Poppies
In 1915, inspired by the poem "In Flanders Fields," Moina Michael replied with her own poem:
We cherish too, the Poppy red
That grows on fields where valor led,
It seems to signal to the skies
That blood of heroes never dies.
She then conceived of an idea to wear red poppies on Memorial Day in honor of those who died serving the nation during war. She was the first to wear one, and sold poppies to her friends and co-workers with the money going to benefit servicemen in need. Later a Madam Guerin from France was visiting the United States and learned of this new custom started by Ms. Michael. When she returned to France she made artificial red poppies to raise money for war orphaned children and widowed women. This tradition spread to other countries. In 1921, the Franco-American Children's League sold poppies nationally to benefit war orphans of France and Belgium. The League disbanded a year later and Madam Guerin approached the VFW for help.
Shortly before Memorial Day in 1922 the VFW became the first veterans' organization to nationally sell poppies. Two years later their "Buddy" Poppy program was selling artificial poppies made by disabled veterans. In 1948 the US Post Office honored Ms. Michael for her role in founding the National Poppy movement by issuing a red 3 cent postage stamp with her likeness on it.
National Moment of Remembrance
The "National Moment of Remembrance" resolution was passed in Dec 2000, which asks that at 3 p.m. local time, for all Americans "To voluntarily and informally observe in their own way a Moment of remembrance and respect, pausing from whatever they are doing for a moment of silence or listening to 'Taps."
Questions using Close Reading and Critical Thinking skills:
- 1. The first paragraph of a news article should answer the questions "who?", "what?", "when?", and "where?" List the who, what, when, and where of this news item. (Note: The remainder of a news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. Did you know the history of Memorial Day before you read the article? Why is it important to honor Americans who died in combat?
- 3. Do you have family members who served in wars or during peacetime? If so, do you know their story? If not, your assignment is to interview them at the picnic or barbecue this weekend. Email questions to family members you won't see in person. Compile a family history of military service.
- 4. If you know the background of a family member who served in a war, share with the class. Tell something about who they are/were, where they served, and what they did. Bring their story alive with descriptive words so the class "knows" them.
- 5. Memorial Day is the unofficial start of summer. What are your plans? Can you write your "What I Did Last Summer" essay now because your summer is mapped out? Are you going to do something you've never done before? What are you looking forward to doing? Share with the class.
- 6. The school year is done, finished, over, finito. What did you learn this year? How will you apply it?
- 7. Your friends at Teacher's Discovery® wish you a fun, safe, and sun-filled happy summer! See you in August!
Read the original article here://www.usmemorialday.org/?page_id=2
Posted May 18th 2016
Arrest of Tennessee children exposes flawed juvenile justice
By SHEILA BURKE
Associated PressNASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) -- A Tennessee police officer tried to prevent the arrests that would embroil his department in a national furor over policing in schools, but his colleagues and supervisors refused to change course.
They insisted on arresting children as young as 9 years old at their elementary school and took them away - two in handcuffs - in view of waiting parents to a juvenile detention center as the school day came to an end.
What followed in Murfreesboro, about 30 miles southeast of Nashville, was an unusually public examination of how police handle children suspected of wrongdoing. Amid protests from parents and community leaders, the incident put the new police chief, Karl Durr - who had come from Oregon less than two weeks earlier - in a tough spot.
The chief formed a committee with a mandate to examine the situation. It found a series of internal conflicts and miscommunications between police and school authorities leading up to the arrests on April 15. The committee's report, though partially redacted, lays bare a reality that frustrates many parents in communities across the nation: Officers assigned to schools often have wide leeway when handling juveniles, and the interests of children don't always come first.
Ten children, all African-Americans 9 to 12 years old, were taken to the juvenile detention center that day. Their alleged crime: taking part in some off-campus neighborhood bullying weeks earlier. Some kids had recorded the bullying on their smartphones. An excerpt posted online shows a group of kids following and taunting a boy who shakes off some punches from smaller children.
The report says Officer Chris Williams wasn't aware of the planned arrests at Hopgood Elementary when he arrived. He later was told the students would be pulled out of class just before the afternoon bell. Bad idea, he thought.
The school's principal, Tammy Garrett, also tried to intervene, texting another officer to ask why the children couldn't be arrested at their homes, to avoid a spectacle during the school's afternoon dismissal.
But the text went unanswered, and two other officers who had concerns remained silent. And as Williams went up the chain of command, he was told to follow orders.
The bullying episode took place off school grounds, and was posted on YouTube on March 20. It's not clear exactly when it happened, and why officers waited for weeks to make the arrests at school. Murfreesboro Police spokesman Kyle Evans said in an email that state law prohibits him from answering these questions. Juvenile court petitions show 10 children - mostly boys - were charged with "criminal responsibility for the actions of another."
The report recommends 16 areas for improvement, including "establish protocol for juvenile operations in schools," and seeing that police supervisors are "proactively and fully addressing concerns of other officers." A group of local ministers is involved, recommending firmer standards and lines that shouldn't be crossed.
The officer who obtained the petition against the children has since been transferred, and a supervisor is on paid leave while under investigation.
The report places no blame on Williams, who did not respond to a request from The Associated Press for comment. But he apologized to his congregation and others during a public meeting at the First Baptist Church of Murfreesboro, with Chief Durr in the audience.
Williams told the crowd his wife had only seen him cry twice: when his grandfather died and after the children were arrested, according to a report from WKRN.
"The principal shed tears, the vice principal shed tears, and the office staff shed tears," Williams added.
His pastor, the Rev. James McCarroll, said he thinks the new chief and other local officials want juvenile justice reforms that could create "a model for the rest of the country."
This goes way beyond Rutherford County, he said: "The school-to-prison pipeline is a problem around the country."
Lawyers and juvenile justice experts say it shows what can go awry when adults don't consider what's best for the children.
Nationwide, their treatment in criminal justice situations varies widely. Some states, counties and cities allow even young children to be arrested; others don't. Some bar the shackling and handcuffing of kids; others make no exceptions. Some allow police to issue citations to juveniles rather than arrest them. Some require parents to be present when children are interrogated.
Whether to arrest a child at school for a minor offense committed off campus is a decision that varies by police agency, said Mo Canady, executive director of the National Association of School Resource Officers. The organization's guidelines for restraining or arresting kids is focused on children with special needs, he added.
Unlike some other states, Tennessee doesn't have a minimum age for when a child can be arrested. And under Rutherford County's rules, children must be brought to the juvenile detention center for even the most minor infractions, unless an officer decides to issue a verbal warning.
"I can't understand why we would treat a juvenile more harshly then we are treating adults who are accused of a crime," said Tom Castelli, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee.
There is no clear national data showing how often children are handcuffed like adult criminals for relatively minor offenses, said Terry Maroney, a law professor at Vanderbilt University.
"It's safe to think this happens less frequently than you fear, but more than what you would like," Maroney said.
Questions using Close Reading and Critical Thinking skills:
- 1. The first paragraph of a news article should answer the questions "who?", "what?", "when?", and "where?" List the who, what, when, and where of this news item. (Note: The remainder of a news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. Should the police have the authority to arrest juveniles at school when there is no active or ongoing crime? Why or why not?
- 3. The officer assigned to the school wasn't aware of the planned arrests. The principal protested but was overruled. Who should have the authority and decision-making power in a situation such as this? What are the parents' roles?
- 4. There was confusion about the roles and authority during the arrest. Suggest two solutions to clear up confusion during difficult incidents when there are many parties involved.
- 5. Think about cause and effect. Are there other disciplinary methods that can be used in incidents like this? What might be more effective to punish the children? Do you think this arrest will result in a kid being "scared straight" or into more rebellious behavior?
- 6. Tennessee and other states do not have age minimums for juvenile arrests. How young is too young to be arrested?
- 7. The article mentions that the video of the original alleged bullying incident was posted on YouTube. Does this make you reconsider your position in any way?
Read the original article here://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_ELEMENTARY_STUDENTS_HANDCUFFED?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2016-05-13-03-31-55
Posted May 11th 2016
U.S. cracks down on e-cigarettes and cigars, bans sales to minors
By Caroline Humer and Clarece Polke
NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government on Thursday took wide-ranging steps to crack down for the first time on e-cigarettes and cigars, growing in popularity among teens, and banned sales to anyone under age 18 in hopes of sparing a new generation from nicotine addiction.
The Food and Drug Administration's action brought regulation of e-cigarettes, cigars, pipe tobacco and hookah tobacco in line with existing rules for cigarettes, smokeless tobacco and roll-your-own tobacco. The new rules take effect in 90 days.
The rules promise to have a major impact on the $3.4 billion e-cigarette industry that has flourished in the absence of federal regulation, making the nicotine-delivery devices the most commonly used tobacco products for U.S. youngsters.
The FDA said it will require companies to submit e-cigarettes and other newer tobacco products for government approval, provide it with a list of their ingredients and place health warnings on packages and in advertisements.
Health advocacy groups hailed the move. Industry officials said the regulations could hurt smaller companies and cripple their job-creating business due to the expense of the regulatory process. Wall Street analysts expect the regulations to herald a new wave of consolidation led by big tobacco companies.
E-cigarettes are handheld electronic devices that vaporize a fluid typically including nicotine and a flavor component. Using them is called "vaping."
The FDA will require age verification by photo identification, ban sales from vending machines except in adults-only locations and stop the distribution of free product samples.
The new regulations had been highly anticipated after the agency issued a proposed rule two years ago on how to oversee the e-cigarette industry and the other products.
"Millions of kids are being introduced to nicotine every year, a new generation hooked on a highly addictive chemical," U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Sylvia Burwell told reporters, calling the rules a first step toward breaking the cycle of addiction.
Burwell said health officials still do not have the scientific evidence showing e-cigarettes can help smokers quit, as the industry asserts, and avoid the known ills of tobacco.
The e-cigarette vapor industry, which includes e-cigarettes, vapors, personal vaporizers and tanks, is expected to have about $4.1 billion in sales in 2016, Wells Fargo estimated in a recent research note.
"These new regulations create an enormously cost-prohibitive regulatory process for manufacturers to market their products to adult smokers and vapers," said Cynthia Cabrera, president of the Smoke-Free Alternatives Trade Association, representing the e-cigarette industry.
Three million U.S. middle and high school students reported using e-cigarettes in 2015, compared with 2.46 million in 2014, according to the most recent federal data.
A University of Southern California study of high school students last year found that those who used e-cigarettes were more than twice as likely to also smoke traditional cigarettes. While some researchers believe e-cigarettes pose lower cancer risk because they do not burn tobacco, other researchers view e-cigarette vapor as potentially harmful because of chemicals released during the burning process.
"This is a real epidemic and banning the sales of these products to minors, much like cigarettes, is a critical step to protecting their health now and into the future," said Democratic U.S. Representative Lois Capps of California.
Reynolds American Inc , Imperial Brands Plc and Altria Group Inc are among the largest makers of e-cigarettes.
Altria, which makes Marlboro cigarettes and e-cigarettes, said it was concerned the regulations reached back to 2007 to determine which products to review, spokesman David Sutton said. Reynolds, which sells Newport and traditional cigarettes as well as Vuse e-cigarettes, will discuss with the FDA how to establish a reasonable structure for review and approval, spokesman David Howard said.
CONTROVERSY OVER FLAVORS
Public health advocates also have urged the FDA to ban the use of flavored nicotine liquid in e-cigarette and personal vaporizers. They contend the flavors, which can range from bacon to bubble gum, lure youngsters into taking up vaping.
FDA officials said they would consider future regulation on flavors based on further study of vaping's potential risks and benefits. The FDA did ban flavors in cigars.
The agency said as more scientific data emerges on potential dangers from e-cigarette vapor, it will consider restricting advertising of the products.
In 2009, Congress allowed the FDA to extend its oversight to all tobacco products. The agency began looking at e-cigarettes, which were quickly gaining traction in the U.S. market.
Cigars had previously not been regulated by the FDA. Cigar makers had lobbied for their more expensive, typically hand-rolled products to be excluded from such oversight.
The FDA will review products introduced after Feb. 15, 2007, but will give manufacturers of e-cigarettes and these other products up to two years to submit applications. E-cigarette makers can continue to sell those products while the review is pending.
Agency officials expect that most products on the market will require its review, a costly prospect for the many smaller manufacturers of vaping devices.
"The winners are the large tobacco manufacturers, primarily Altria and Reynolds (American), which have the experience and financial wherewithal" to deal with FDA processes, Morningstar equity analyst Adam Fleck said. "The net result is a very fragmented e-cigarette market is likely to be consolidated."
The cigar market is expected to grow to more than $8.9 billion in 2019, up from $7.4 billion in 2009, according to Euromonitor. It is dominated by Swisher International, Altria and Imperial, which combined in 2014 sold about half of the cigars in the United States, according to Euromonitor.
Companies will be allowed to continue marketing their products while the FDA conducts its reviews, which could take 12 months after submission.
(Reporting by Caroline Humer, Jilian Mincer and Bill Berkrot in New York and Clarece Polke and Toni Clarke in Washington; Editing by Michele Gershberg and Will Dunham)
Questions using Close Reading and Critical Thinking skills:
- 1. The first paragraph of a news article should answer the questions "who?", "what?", "when?", and "where?" List the who, what, when, and where of this news item. (Note: The remainder of a news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. Do you think e-cigarettes and other tobacco products should be regulated? Why or why not?
- 3. Are manufacturers targeting teens? Does the addition of flavorings make a product more attractive to a younger market? What do you think of calculated marketing campaigns?
- 4. What makes the teen market so attractive to corporations? Do you think being part of a pursued segment of society is a good thing? Is their marketing effective? What kinds of words, phrases, and images are meant to be attractive to teens? Do they work if you're aware of them?
- 5. Could there be unintended consequences to this regulation? What happens to small businesses if they can't comply with new laws? Does that matter when the business may be creating a harmful product?
- 6. Do you use e-cigarettes or other tobacco products? Have you used them and stopped? Have you made a conscious decision to avoid them? Write several paragraphs and explain your decisions. Use examples from your own experiences to help your reader understand your thought process.
Read the original article here://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-ecigarettes-idUSKCN0XW1C9
Posted May 4th 2016
Teens on social media go from dumb to dangerous
By Jericka Duncan CBS News April 28, 2016, 7:31 PM
NEW YORK -- A lawsuit filed last week blames Snapchat -- a messaging app for photos and videos -- for a Georgia car crash that left one man seriously injured.
It was the latest in a string of disturbing incidents involving young people and social media.
Amy Joyner, 16, of Delaware, died last week after being beaten in her high-school bathroom. A student allegedly recorded the attack with a cellphone and shared it on social media.
"Social media plays a big part in a lot of what's going on nowadays," said senior Suleida Zayas, who attended a vigil for Joyner. "It's cool to record a fight and it's cool to be on social media because of a fight and I think that's where a lot of us mess up."
In Ohio last week, an 18 year-old allegedly live streamed the rape of a 17-year-old girl on the Periscope app. She faces up to 40 years in prison on charges including for the illegal filming of a minor. In March, near Tacoma Washington, three teenagers were charged with raping a 15-year-old girl and posting it on Snapchat.
The way Snapchat works is that you can take video and pictures and choose from a number of filters, including one that measures speed, before posting.
Last year, 18-year old Christal McGee from Atlanta allegedly used that filter to take a selfie and show her friends she was driving 107 miles per hour. Moments later, she crashed into a driver, who survived but was seriously injured. McGee survived but continued to post pictures of herself while on a stretcher with the caption, "lucky to be alive."
Facebook also recently launched a live video feature.
"I have teenagers say that things don't feel real 'til you see them on social media," said Dr. Lisa Damour, a child psychologist, adding that "It's so tough with teenagers because their better judgment can be overridden by their wish to be connected to their friends."
Snapchat put out a statement that said: "We actively discourage our community from using the speed filter while driving." The company says a warning not to snap and drive appears in the app but when this reporter used it, no such caution appeared.
Questions using Close Reading and Critical Thinking skills:
- 1. The first paragraph of a news article should answer the questions "who?", "what?", "when?", and "where?" List the who, what, when, and where of this news item. (Note: The remainder of a news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. How might the headline "dumb to dangerous" affect a reader? What is your reaction to the headline?
- 3. Why is word choice important in a news article? If you were to retitle the article, what would you write? If you think the headline is acceptable, support your position.
- 4. Do you have any unanswered questions after reading the article? List the questions and discuss with a partner or the class.
- 5. Is social media dangerous for teens? Why or why not? Have you ever posted anything or done anything on a social media site you've regretted?
- 6. What are the positive aspects of social media? Do you think those aspects get as much attention from the media? Why or why not?
Read the original article here://www.cbsnews.com/news/teens-on-social-media-from-dumb-to-dangerous/
Posted April 27th 2016
Harriet Tubman will be face of the $20
by Kevin Liptak, Antoine Sanfuentes and Jackie Wattles @CNNMoney April 21, 2016: 12:38 AM ET
Alexander Hamilton will stay on the front of the $10 bill, and Harriet Tubman will boot Andrew Jackson from the face of the $20.
After months of debate and controversy over how to incorporate a woman's portrait onto the $10 bill, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew announced plans to redesign the $10, $20 and $5 bill. All three denominations will have a female presence.
The updated bills will also be the first in U.S. history to include a tactile feature to aid the blind.
The $10 bill
The redesigned $10 bill is expected to enter circulation by 2020, in time for the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, which granted women the right to vote. It will also mark the first time a woman's portrait has appeared on U.S. paper currency in more than a century.
A montage of women involved in the American suffrage movement -- Lucretia Mott, Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Alice Paul -- will be on the back of the $10.
The ten was the bill that started it all. When Lew first announced his plan to put a woman on a U.S. banknote in June last year, the ten was the next bill that anti-counterfeit officials had slated for redesign so that its security features could be updated.
The $20 bill
Lew also announced Wednesday that Andrew Jackson will move from the front of the $20 to the back, making way for Tubman. She'll become the first black woman ever to front a U.S. banknote.
Tubman, who died in 1913 at the age of 91, escaped slavery in the south and eventually led hundreds of escaped slaves to freedom as a "conductor" of the Underground Railroad. After the slaves were freed, Tubman was a staunch supporter of a woman's right to vote.
"What she did to free people on an individual basis and what she did afterward," Lew said. "That's a legacy of what an individual can do in a democracy."
The $5 bill
Lew said the $5 bill will keep Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president, on the front. The back of the bill will depict the Lincoln Memorial along with portraits of individuals involved in historic events that took place there.
That includes Marian Anderson and Eleanor Roosevelt. The African-American opera singer and former first lady held a concert at the memorial in 1939 in an effort to move the civil rights movement forward. Martin Luther King Jr. will be added the back of the bill. The Lincoln Memorial was the site of his famous "I Have a Dream" speech in 1963.
It's not clear when the $20 or $5 will enter circulation, though they're likely to be years behind the $10. Lew said Wednesday that he's instructed the Bureau of Engraving to "accelerate the process," but updating currency can take more than a decade.
The debate
Nearly a year ago, when Lew first announced his plans for redesigning the $10 bill, he said it would feature a woman alongside Hamilton.
He promised to spend time collecting public opinion, and it turned out that Americans had plenty to say about the matter. The question of which woman should receive this honor was hardly the only point of contention.
Some argued that a woman shouldn't have to share her bill with a man.
Others argued Hamilton shouldn't have to share top billing with anyone else. He was the nation's first treasury secretary, a key figure in the history of the American banking system, and Lew himself even called Hamilton a personal hero.
There has also been a chorus of voices calling to replace Andrew Jackson on the $20. His legacy includes the "Trail of Tears," in which he forcibly relocated Native Americans, leading to the death of thousands.
-- Saskya Vandoorne contributed to this story CNNMoney (New York) First published April 20, 2016: 12:45 PM ET
Questions using Close Reading and Critical Thinking skills:
- 1. The first paragraph of a news article should answer the questions "who?", "what?", "when?", and "where?" List the who, what, when, and where of this news item. (Note: The remainder of a news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. Do you agree with the choices made for the new faces on U.S. currency? Why or why not?
- 3. Some have said the change is in response to "political correctness." Do you think currency portraits should only portray politicians and Founding Fathers, or should the portraits be a greater reflection of the diversity of America?
- 4. What does "political correctness" mean to you? How would you define it?
- 5. Do you think the debate about portraits on money is silly or is it a symbol of a larger issue?
- 6. Whom would you choose to place on the $5, $10, or $20 bills? Support your choices with an explanation of the person's place in history or effect on society.
Read the original article here://money.cnn.com/2016/04/20/news/10-bill-hamilton-20-tubman/index.html
Posted April 20th 2016
The Citadel considers first-ever uniform exception: allowing a Muslim hijab
By Susan Svrluga - The Washington Post
The Citadel is considering a request from an admitted student that she be allowed to wear a hijab in keeping with her Muslim faith, a move that would be an unprecedented exception to the school's longstanding uniform requirements.
If the request for the traditional Muslim hair covering is granted, it apparently would be the first exception made to the Citadel's uniform, which all cadets at the storied public military college in South Carolina are required to wear at nearly all times. (At beaches, for example, college rules stipulate that, "Cadets will change into appropriate swimwear upon arrival and change back into uniform when departing.") A spokeswoman said that to her knowledge, in its nearly 175-year history, the school has never granted a religious, or other, accommodation that resulted in a change to the uniform.
As word spread on social media, students, alumni and others responded strongly to the idea of an exception being made at an institution where uniformity, discipline and adherence to rules are defining values, where loyalty to the corps is paramount and individual preferences are trivial.
That the first exception might be for a Muslim student was an additional provocation for some -- and welcome symbolism for others -- in the midst of a national discussion about Islam in U.S. culture.
Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump has called for strict limits on Muslims entering the U.S. because he considers the religion one of hatred and violence, while President Obama has said the fight against extremist terrorism is not a fight against one of the world's largest religious faiths.
Nick Pinelli, a cadet working in marketing and DJing who is expecting to graduate in May, wrote a long post about the issue on Facebook Wednesday with his objections, including:
The Citadel should be able to tell the prospective student to wear what they tell her to wear. Not because they are concerned with the religion she is trying to practice or the speech expressed by doing so, but because they are concerned with the execution of an essential part of the system the Citadel puts in place. Agree or not with the system, this institution has that system for a reason (that most maintain has worked exceptionally for almost 200 years) and the disruption of that system by exempting those who don't wish to conform is legally pronounced a slippery slope that will lead to the further disintegration of said system. Unfortunately, after seeing what has happened in the military in similar cases, the school is being financially responsible in not fighting it.
He pointed out that he doesn't speak for the Citadel (which he doesn't blame for considering the request) or for the Trump campaign, for which he is an intern, and wrote:
If I valued liberal ideology, I would go to UC Berkeley. I'd wear, say, and do whatever I wanted and it wouldn't cost the university any time or money for me to do so. If I valued conservative ideology and wanted to challenge myself in a military environment, I would go to the Citadel. It's no secret that you can't wear what you want when you're at the Citadel. You're punished even for wearing what you want when you're not on campus. But, those who come here are signing up for that, no matter how much they hate it (we do). So it's not unfair to those people who want to join an organization with the intentions of excluding themselves from the regulations, it's unfair to those who practice within the realms of those regulations. It's unfair to the school having to change rules and adjust to the individual, when the individual could've gone to USC without incident. Your expression of self shouldn't place a burden of cost on others.
This girl should be welcomed to the Corps with open arms, as should any person of any religion, race, gender, or identity. That's equality. It's not equality to let one of those groups follow a different set of rules Pinelli wrote about a cadet whom he admires, a young man with cerebal palsy. "As you can imagine, one with such a physical condition would face challenges meeting the standard for physical fitness. Instead of showing up seeking a different set of rules, he jumped right into a challenge that was a perpetually uphill battle. Instead of saying he shouldn't have to pass the PT test because of his disability, he failed it time and again and suffered the ramifications of holding himself to the same standard as the rest of the Corps." He did not give up, and ultimately passed the test.
Pinelli wrote that another cadet had called him a bigot for objecting to the idea of an accommodation for a Muslim student. But it was not her religion but her "sense of entitlement" in asking for the accommodation that bothered him, he wrote.
Someone wrote in response to his post that if the rules were not changed, "she would either have to break the rules of the Citadel or the rules of her religion." Another wrote, "... I hope the best for this young lady. ... I applaud our school and administration."
But many voiced strong opposition to the idea of altering the college's traditions. One cadet responded:
It doesn't bring harm to the school. But it is a blatant disrespect to what a military school stands for. We come here and willingly give up our individuality and become a part of a group that upholds the time honored traditions of this school. So for anyone to come, not even walk through our hallowed gates, and force the school to go to extreme lengths both financially and resourcefully, to accommodate one person, isn't right. I can't wear a tshirt around campus that says "I love Jesus". Why? It's not because of religious intolerance, it's because it does not meet uniform requirements that all 2400 of us are held to. Am I offended that I can't wear a religious tshirt? Nope. Why? Because I accepted the system that I have become a part of, and I'm willing to let it change me and join a long line of men and women who I will be honored to call my brothers and sisters.
The college, founded in 1842, has won praise for its academics as well as the leadership skills taught to its 2,300 or so undergraduates, about 170 of whom are women (the school began admitting women in 1996). The college has several Muslim students enrolled now, a spokeswoman said.
She said that to her knowledge, the admitted student had not asked for other accommodations.
Questions using Close Reading and Critical Thinking skills:
- 1. The first paragraph of a news article should answer the questions "who?", "what?", "when?", and "where?" List the who, what, when, and where of this news item. (Note: The remainder of a news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. Should an accommodation be made for this student? Why or why not?
- 3. If the uniform code is changed to allow a hijab, do you think accommodations will end with that? What do you think could happen next?
- 4. What do you think are the school's objections to breaking the uniform code? What is the intention behind wearing a uniform at school?
- 5. Do you think there is a difference between asking for an accommodation based on religion and on a personal preference? What is the difference?
- 6. Based on what you read in the article and what you know about school uniform policies, do you think the administration must grant her request? If the decision were yours, what would you do?
- 7. If you were admitted to a school with a strict and established dress code, would you ask for accommodations?
Read the original article here:https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2016/04/14/the-citadel-considers-first-ever-uniform-exception-allowing-a-muslim-hijab/
Posted April 13th 2016
U.S. Women, Fighting for Equal Pay, Win Easily as Fans Show Support
By FILIP BONDY APRIL 6, 2016 - The New York Times
EAST HARTFORD, Conn. -- The United States women's national soccer team flexed its negotiating power Wednesday night, whipping outclassed Colombia, 7-0, in an exhibition match while drawing yet another large, appreciative audience.
The women had good reason again to celebrate the support of 21,792 chilled fans at Pratt & Whitney Stadium, as they continued to make their case against U.S. Soccer in a suit filed before the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, demanding similar compensation, bonuses and per diem as the men's national team players.
This early Olympic tuneup offered more proof the Americans were the No. 1 team in the world and that they were producing substantial revenue at the box office.
"We have the best fans in the world," said Becky Sauerbrunn, a defender on the field and one of the plaintiffs in the suit. "To support us like that, we're really appreciative."
If this is as much a public-relations campaign as a lawsuit, then the women appeared to be getting their message across. They entered the field below large fan banners on a nearby wall that read, "Equal Play=Equal Pay" and "Grass Only," a reference to the artificial turf fields that have bothered the women for years.
"We've known about this and supported them for a long time," Tom Lovkay, president of the American Outlaws-Hartford fan group, said, referring to pay inequality. The group had hung the banners earlier in the afternoon.
He added, "We want fair play for women everywhere."
Meanwhile, the suit filed by the women's team with the E.E.O.C. chugs along. U.S. Soccer's president, Sunil Gulati, who lives in the area, did not attend the East Hartford event and declined to comment. According to a U.S. Soccer spokesman, there are no talks scheduled between the two sides at the moment. The federation has until Tuesday to file for a summary judgment against the women's case, and then an arbiter is scheduled to rule on that motion by May 25.
The team's coach, Jill Ellis, is awkwardly caught in the middle as a federation employee who must motivate her players.
"It's probably unique," Ellis said of her situation. "But I've been able to deal with both parties, who've been incredibly professional. I don't think anything impacts what the players bring to the field."
The disparity in pay between the men and women is significant, though the federation has a defense readied against any claim of discrimination. U.S. Soccer officials argue there is an existing collective bargaining agreement in place that won't expire until the end of the year. A federation source insisted Wednesday that U.S. Soccer is prepared to renegotiate now, before such talks are mandated in December, but would like the women to abide by the collective bargaining agreement until a new agreement is reached.
The women are pressing for more immediate action, asking the E.E.O.C. to throw out the old contract and to force U.S. Soccer to match the men's compensation. The women are salaried and receive benefits, while the men are paid on an appearance basis, which makes comparisons more complicated.
"They get those benefits from their club team, and we're not at that level yet," Saurbrunn said. "If our teams in the NWSL ever get there, then we won't need the benefits either."
The women's negotiating leverage will never be greater than it is now, coming off a profitable World Cup victory tour and approaching the Olympics in Rio. Once those Summer Games are done, the women will lose a considerable amount of sway. The most visible segment of their four-year cycle will be complete. The next World Cup won't happen until 2019 in France.
Sauerbrunn insisted that the timing of the Olympics was not a catalyst for the suit, but that the women were becoming frustrated with stagnated negotiations. The Americans know everything is relative, in any case. Carli Lloyd said that Yorely Rincon, the Colombian midfielder and a friend, told her that players on that team had not been paid for four months.
"We want to help them, too," Lloyd said. "It's a shame. We're trying to set the standard and get what we deserve."
The Americans' explosiveness went on display midway through the first half, when the United States scored four goals in an 12-minute span to break open a scoreless match. After a series of blocked shots in the box, the ball found its way to Crystal Dunn, who finished neatly, low and left, with a right footer from about 10 yards in the 27th minute.
Five minutes later, Allie Long converted a header off a Lindsey Horan cross from the left side. Shortly after, in the 33rd minute, Mallory Pugh scored off a through pass from Carli Lloyd. Six more minutes later, Pugh returned the favor with an assist to Lloyd.
Such dominance was remindful of the nearby Connecticut women's basketball champions, who were celebrating with a victory parade of their own Wednesday night in Storrs. Fans would never know there was a controversy stirring below the surface.
"We're not going to waste time thinking about all that now," Lloyd said, about the suit. "It'll work itself out."
Questions using Close Reading and Critical Thinking skills:
- 1. The first paragraph of a news article should answer the questions "who?", "what?", "when?", and "where?" List the who, what, when, and where of this news item. (Note: The remainder of a news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. Do the women soccer players deserve equal pay for equal work? Why or why not?
- 3. Women have been striving for equal pay for decades. Do you think professional sports players help spotlight the issue or marginalize it?
- 4. What does "equal pay for equal work" mean to you? How do you apply that standard to different professions and workplaces?
- 5. Could there be unintended consequences if women win equal pay? Do women's games attract as much paid attendance as the men's? If the talent were more expensive, could the games cost more to put on than they bring in at the gate? Has raising wages ever killed a business?
- 6. The women players' salaries were agreed upon under a collective bargaining agreement. What do you know about collective bargaining? Did the players agree to a contract they negotiated with the U.S. Soccer Federation? Do you think they should wait until the next contract negotiation to address wage disparity? What reasons might drive them to act now? Should the E.E.O.C. negate the existing agreement and allow new contract negotiations?
Persuasive Essay
Research the history of collective bargaining in the United States and write a five-paragraph essay taking a position defending or opposing it. Apply your position to the issue of "equal pay for equal work." Support your position with evidence from the article and from your research.
Click here to view more://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/07/sports/soccer/uswnt-colombia-friendly-equal-pay-complaint.html?_r=0
Posted April 6th 2016
FBI seeks to nip terror threat in schools
By Thomas J. Cole / Journal Investigative Reporter
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- Recruited on social media by the terrorist group ISIS, three Denver-area girls - ages 15, 16 and 17 - boarded a plane for Turkey in October 2014, planning to make their way to Syria. Law enforcement intercepted the trio during a layover in Germany and returned them home.
The father of one of the girls said there were no warning signs of his daughter's plan.
"She's just like any teenager," the father said in a recent interview with Denver7 TV. "It came out of nowhere."
The story is one example of a growing number of U.S. teens who have been recruited by ISIS over the Internet and have attempted to travel or have traveled to Syria.
The FBI is moving to combat the trend with programs aimed at students and school personnel - a move that civil libertarians call an intrusion into thought and speech protected by the U.S. Constitution.
Last month, the FBI unveiled an interactive website called "Don't Be a Puppet" for use in schools to educate teens about violent extremism, both foreign and homegrown, and to encourage students to report suspicious behavior to teachers or others, including law enforcement.
The listed possible warning signs of someone planning to commit violent extremism: "talking about traveling to places that sound suspicious," "researching or training with weapons or explosives" and "studying or taking pictures of potential targets (like a government building)."
The FBI has also released a 27-page guide for school personnel that encourages them to notify law enforcement when a student exhibits "concerning behaviors and communications - students embracing extremist ideologies and progressing on a trajectory toward violence."
The website's examples of international violent extremist groups include ISIS, al-Qaida and Hezbollah, all based in the Middle East. The website doesn't name domestic violent extremist groups but says they include abortion extremists, animal rights and environmental extremists, white supremacy extremists and militia extremists.
Program critics
Hugh Handeyside, staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union's National Security Project, says the FBI wants educators to police the thoughts of students even though their thoughts, beliefs and speech are protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
"Our schools shouldn't be mini-FBI offices," Handeyside says, adding that research shows future terrorists can't be identified by their thoughts.
The FBI website acknowledges that extremist thoughts are not illegal, and it encourages students to be tolerant and inclusive of all people.
But Handeyside says that is "lip service" to free speech rights, and he notes that the guide for educators warns there is "a very small period of time" between a youth embracing an extremist ideology and acting in furtherance of that ideology.
Handeyside also says the FBI's efforts to curb violent extremism are focused on American Muslims. He points to a sentence in the FBI guides that says, "Some immigrant families may not be sufficiently present in a youth's life due to work constraints to foster critical thinking."
The FBI declined to comment for this story.
School use
The FBI says in its guide for educators that high schools can incorporate a two-hour training on violent extremism awareness as part of their core curriculums. It says it developed the "Don't Be a Puppet" website for help with that training.
The state Public Education Department requires that schools have plans to address a wide array of safety issues but not specifically violent extremism, says department spokesman Robert McEntyre. He says PED wouldn't discourage schools if they wanted to use the FBI material.
Rigo Chavez, a spokesman for Albuquerque Public Schools, says he wasn't able to find anyone at APS who is working specifically on trying to prevent violent extremism among students.
"We do have staff who work in bullying prevention and other related counseling efforts," Chavez says.
Jo Galvan, a spokeswoman for Las Cruces Public Schools, says the district hadn't heard of any issues related to violent extremism and hasn't tapped into the FBI resources.
"Perhaps this is more of an issue in larger urban areas," Galvan says.
Santa Fe Public Schools didn't respond to an inquiry.
Gaming threat
The FBI website defines violent extremism as "encouraging, condoning, justifying, or supporting the commission of a violent act to achieve political, ideological, religious, social, or economic goals." It adds, "Many violent extremist ideologies are based on the hatred of another race, religion, ethnicity, gender, or country/government."
The website says violent extremism organizations "represent fringe ideologies and should not be confused with the beliefs of any mainstream religious, ethnic, or political group."
Possible warning signs of someone planning to commit violent extremism include "spending a lot of time reading violent extremist information online," "using code words or unusual language" and "looking for ways to disrupt computers or other technology," according to the website.
The website advises students to immediately tell a person they trust or a person in a position of authority - such as a teacher, social worker or law enforcement officer - if they are contacted by a violent extremist or come across any suspicious or dangerous behavior.
"High school students are ideal targets for recruitment by violent extremists seeking support for their radical ideologies, foreign fighter networks, or conducting acts of targeted violence within our borders," the FBI guide for educators says.
The guide says risk factors for students include nutrition, health care, parents, neighborhoods, cultural background and employment opportunities.
"One or several of these factors might affect a student's coping ability and drive acceptance of violent extremist ideologies," it says.
The guide says supporters of extremist organizations make contacts through online gaming to assess youth for recruitment opportunities.
"Online gaming can also teach rudimentary warfare protocols, rules of engagement, and other military actions, which can be applied to real-life scenarios such as conducting an act of targeted violence," the guide says.
The guide says schools can expand their current efforts to identify and help at-risk students to include youths who have shown concerning behavior involving violent extremism. Intervention in extremism cases should involve law enforcement, it says.
"Acting decisively is paramount for educators," the guide says. "There are limited opportunities for intervention with at-risk youth and schools must be cognizant of this. ... It's imperative schools maintain a compendium of local law enforcement, civic leaders, and trusted partner to aid in developing an individualized school support network and action plan."
Questions using Close Reading and Critical Thinking skills:
- 1. The first paragraph of a news article should answer the questions "who?", "what?", "when?", and "where?" List the who, what, when, and where of this news item. (Note: The remainder of a news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. Do you think teachers and students should spend class time viewing FBI videos and discussing methods to prevent teens from joining terrorist groups?
- 3. Whose responsibility is it to educate students about anti-terrorism efforts?
- 4. Do you think internet recruiting is a real threat to students in the United States? How should the government and schools deal with terrorist groups who use the Internet to recruit members?
- 5. Can the government censor internet recruiting videos? If they can, should they do so? Is viewing anything on the Internet a right?
- 6. What could attract teens to join a terrorist group? List some causes that might make a teen leave home to join a group. How would you counter some of the reasons a teen could offer?
- 7. The article mentions that the FBI video is only concerned with groups from the Middle East. Is that too narrow a view of terrorist groups? What defines "terrorism" for you? List three examples of domestic incidents and why you would or would not define them as terrorist acts.
- 8. Assume students and teachers are encouraged to report suspicious or unusual activity. Have you ever been considered unusual? Could something like this make us fear nonconformity in others and ourselves? Does it encourage intolerance?
- 9. Did Adolf Hitler ask schools to report unusual behavior? What are the implications of this?
- 10. The FBI says, "Many violent extremist groups are based on hatred of...government." If Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton becomes president and you really disliked them, would you be guilty of hating government and be under suspicion?
- 11. If you knew a friend was watching videos and thinking about joining a terrorist group, what would you do?
Click here to view more://www.abqjournal.com/743586/front-page/fbi-seeks-to-nip-terror-threat-in-schools.html
Posted March 30th 2016
Alabama District to Monitor Students' Social Media Accounts
By Raymond Scott
An Alabama school district intends to begin monitoring its students' social media and, if necessary, punish them accordingly for the content of their posts.
Dr. Casey Wardynski, the superintendent of Huntsville City Schools, says a robust monitoring system for students' social media accounts is justified in the wake of fights throughout the school district. Students have circulated posts and videos on social media to plan, rally, and aggravate the confrontations between themselves.
Wardynski argues that if the district had the power to monitor these posts, it could prevent these conflicts before their outbreak. "We're going to implement a procedure that directly addresses an area that's become a real concern again, which is how violence in our schools - how threats to our schools - interact with social media and how social media can play a role, if we pay attention to it, in heading off problems."
According to Aaron Homer of the Inquisitor, Alabama already has a social media monitoring program that was set up in 2014 through the Students Against Fear (SAFe) Program. The program has monitored the social media accounts of 600 students. The program, spearheaded by Wardynski, was implemented after the National Security Administration (NSA) reported a potential threat to a teacher to authorities in the Alabama district.
The program is unable, however, to target all of the district's 24,000 students. It has a much more limited scope, targeting only a few hundred. Wardynski wants to expand this program to provide teachers, police, and administrators of potential threats against school and student safety.
Anna Claire Vollers writing for the AL.com, which covers news from Alabama, the school's director of operations would be empowered to use supervision technology, tips from students and teachers, and information from campus security officers to pinpoint potential troublemakers. In doing so, they would have access to these students' social media posts and could punish students for postings regardless of whether such posts were done privately or publicly.
Various activists, public officials, and civil liberties groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), have raised objections to the expansion of the surveillance program, which was also heavily criticized at the time of its inception.
The expansion of the surveillance program in Alabama comes at a moment when educators and local authorities nationwide are debating the merit of monitoring students' social media. A writer for eSchoolNews, Jerry Davich, cites several instances from this year in which students have been arrested after posting threateningly cryptic sentiments on their social media profiles.
"I truly believe this technology is a game-changer for both public and private safety," said Sheriff David Lain of Porter County, Indiana, where there had been an occurrence of school officials using monitoring technology to prevent a potentially dangerous incident.
Indeed, school monitoring procedures have also been instituted throughout California and Canada. Amidst the specter of school shootings, there will be an intensified push among law enforcement and school officials to do everything they can to maintain the safety of campuses and school districts. "There may be some occasions when monitoring by school authorities may be justified, but it should only be conducted under very delimited, transparent and accountable conditions," says Andrew Clement, a professor of information studies at the University of Toronto.
Questions using Close Reading and Critical Thinking skills:
- 1. The first paragraph of a news article should answer the questions "who?", "what?", "when?", and "where?" List the who, what, when, and where of this news item. (Note: The remainder of a news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. Do you think school officials' monitoring of students' social media is warranted? Is the reason given--fights among students--enough for such surveillance? Support your position with three current examples.
- 3. The Supreme Court has said, "Students don't shed their constitutional rights at the school house gates." Is this a violation of students' rights? Do you think school districts have the legal grounds to monitor student social media? Why or why not?
- 4. Can you cite other examples of governments seeking to investigate social media traffic? List three recent incidents and why you think monitoring various social media accounts may or may not be justified.
- 5. Are there circumstances that justify the greater good over privacy concerns? If giving up some privacy could stop terrorist attacks, would you agree to government monitoring of social media? Should a court have to order a search warrant as they do when a home or car is searched for evidence?
- 6. Would you change the way you communicate with friends if you knew others were reading your messages?
- 7. Have you heard of "mission creep"? What could be the effects of mission creep under these circumstances?
- 8. In the novel 1984, George Orwell wrote of a government that could monitor all aspects of a citizen's life. Provide three examples from the book and compare them to technology and situations of today.
- 9. The National Security Administration has repeatedly said that they do not monitor the content of phone calls or social media, and that they gather only bulk data of who calls whom. How does the NSA know about a message between students that was threatening? Are the American people in control of their employees at the NSA? Should the American people fire somebody?
Click here to view more://www.educationnews.org/technology/alabama-district-to-monitor-students-social-media-accounts/
Posted March 23rd 2016
Mississippi House passes bill requiring teachers to grade parents
By Steve Wilson
If a bill passed by the Mississippi House becomes law, students won't be the only ones receiving grades from teachers.
Under House Bill 4, also known as the Parent Involvement and Accountability Act, teachers would be required to grade parents' involvement with their children's education.
The legislation, by state Rep. Gregory Holloway (D-Hazlehurst), would mandate a section be added to each child's report card on which the parents are graded on their responsiveness to communication with teachers, the students' completion of homework and readiness for tests, and the frequency of absences and tardiness.
Mary Clare Reim, research associate on education at the Heritage Foundation, said the bill is the wrong way to encourage more parental involvement.
"My initial reaction is, this is absurd," Reim said. "The concept that parents should be graded by teachers on their involvement is a reversal of what the education system should look like. Parents should be grading teachers on their performance. Putting grades on parental involvement from the top down is not the way this should work."
The bill also would require any school district graded by the Mississippi Department of Education on its annual evaluations as a C or below to:
These requirements would affect much of the state: 88 of Mississippi's 151 school districts scored a C or below in the MDE's annual assessment of districts and individual schools in 2014.
The Republican-dominated House passed the measure 75-43. The bill includes what is known as a reverse repealer, which would force the measure into a conference committee with the Senate. Lawmakers use the reverse repealer as a way to keep a bill alive past the deadline for legislative action.
Critical-Thinking Questions:
- 1. The first paragraph of a news article should answer the questions "who?", "what?", "when?", and "where?" List the who, what, when, and where of this news item. (Note: The remainder of a news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. Should parental involvement become a mandated item? Do you think a state legislature has the right to extend its reach from the school to the home? List some potential drawbacks and some potential benefits of this bill.
- 3. Can parental interest and involvement be legislated?
- 4. The article doesn't mention what the consequences could be for a failing grade. Using three examples from your life, discuss the difference between an incentive to change and a punitive action. Suggest three ideas that could provide incentives to change--one each to benefit the students, the parents, and the school--and support them.
- 5. The bill would also mandate homework and reading requirements. Do you think that is necessary?
- 6. The bill includes a school uniform clause and a dress code for teachers. Why do you think that's included? What do you think of school uniforms? If you wear them, do they make a difference in your daily education experience? Should teachers have to dress a certain way? Why or why not?
- 7. In a poor school district, could mandated uniforms become a financial hardship on parents? How should that be addressed by the school district and the state?
//watchdog.org/259010/grade-parents/
Posted March 16th 2016
Graduate sues law school for fraud
By Katie Lobosco
Anna Alaburda still couldn't find a job as an attorney three years after graduating from Thomas Jefferson School of Law. So she sued the school.
This isn't the first time a law school's been sued by former students, but it's rare for one to make it to trial. This one started Monday [March 7, 2016].
Alaburda claims the school misrepresented the number of its students who found jobs after graduating, and that she wouldn't have enrolled if she knew it was inflated.
Instead, she borrowed $100,000 to get her law degree at Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego. She passed the California bar exam on her first attempt, but was unable to find employment, according to court documents.
The job placement stat in question was published in U.S. News and World Report, which ranks graduate schools each year and is a go-to reference for those comparing programs. When Alaburda was applying to Thomas Jefferson in 2004, the school reported that 80% of its recent graduates found jobs within nine months.
She assumed that referred to law-related jobs. Turns out, it didn't.
Judge Joel Pressman allowed the case to go to trial, which began Monday in California Superior Court in San Diego. He wrote that it was reasonable for someone to assume the employment figures didn't include "any and all" jobs, and a figure that does is "meaningless in the context of a legal education."
In court documents, Thomas Jefferson said it reported post-graduate employment correctly -- by the method required by U.S. News and the American Bar Association.
Law school rankings are dependent on this nine-month employment statistic, among other things including LSAT scores and completion rates.
"When the market was tanking for law school grads, you'd get hammered in the rankings if you didn't count all kinds of employment. Circa 2011, every school had about a 97% employment rate," said William Henderson, a law professor at Indiana University.
At the same time, the National Association for Law Placement was reporting employment rates closer to 65% for law school grads who were finding jobs in the legal field.
The method of reporting has changed since Alaburda first filed her lawsuit in 2011, around the same time a handful of other students filed similar ones. Most have since seen their cases dismissed.
Law schools must now report details about the jobs grads are getting, indicating whether you need to pass the bar for the position, if having a J.D. is an advantage, and if it's full- or part-time. The school must report these numbers to the American Bar Association.
Last year, Thomas Jefferson said 92 of its 293 (31%) grads found a job that required bar passage. Another 78 (about 27%) were unemployed but looking for a job, and the status of 28 grads was unknown.
But transparency alone doesn't make the job market easier for law grads. While it's improving, just 66% of those in the class of 2014 have found a job that required passing the bar, according to NALP. It was the first year the employment rate for law school grads rose since 2007.
More than 10% are unemployed. And the median starting salary of $63,000 is well below what it was before the recession: $72,000.
It's unclear whether Alaburda ever got a job as an attorney since she first filed the suit five years ago. Her attorneys were not made available for comment for this story.
In one court document that references her deposition, she admits to turning down an offer by a Southern California law firm paying $60,000 because it would not pay for her bar dues and required her to travel for one month of training.
While the law school would not comment on specifics of the case during litigation, it issued a statement from Dean Thomas Guernsey late Monday that said the school "is whole-heartedly committed to providing our students with the knowledge, skills and tools necessary to excel as law students, pass the bar exam and succeed in their professional careers."
CNNMoney (New York). First published March 8, 2016: 6:19 PM ET
Critical-Thinking Questions:
- 1. The first paragraph of a news article should answer the questions "who?", "what?", "when?", and "where?" List the who, what, when, and where of this news item. (Note: The remainder of a news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. Whose responsibility is it to research a chosen field or school?
- 3. Do you think the article presents information that supports Alaburda's choice to sue, or information that weakens it? After reading the article, do you agree or disagree with the lawsuit?
- 4. Is a college degree or an advanced degree a "promise" of a well-paying job in that field?
- 5. Have you researched colleges and how you will pay for school?
- 6. Are potential college costs affecting your decisions for your future? If so, how?
- 7. Do you think college degrees are necessary for success today? Why or why not?
- 8. Is there an expectation that everyone will attend college? Do alternatives choices receive the same level of respect as college attendance?
//money.cnn.com/2016/03/08/pf/college/lawsuit-thomas-jefferson-school-of-law/
Posted March 9th 2016
South Dakota governor vetoes law on transgender bathrooms
By JAMES NORD and DIRK LAMMERS
Mar. 1, 2016 11:40 PM EST
PIERRE, S.D. (AP) -- South Dakota's governor vetoed a bill Tuesday that would have made the state the first in the U.S. to approve a law requiring transgender students to use bathrooms and locker rooms that match their sex at birth.
Republican Gov. Dennis Daugaard, who initially reacted positively to the proposal but said he needed to research the issue, rejected the bill after groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union and the Human Rights Campaign insisted it was discriminatory.
In his veto message, Daugaard said the bill "does not address any pressing issue" and that such decisions were best left to local school officials. He also noted that signing the bill could create costly liability issues for schools and the state. The ACLU had promised to encourage legal action if the bill became law.
"I am so happy right now. You have no idea," said 18-year-old Thomas Lewis, a transgender high school student in Sioux Falls. Lewis said he has support at his school, but that the veto shows such support goes beyond his friends.
"The government's not going to hold me back from who I really am," he said.
The bill's sponsor, Republican Rep. Fred Deutsch, said he would ask lawmakers not to override the veto, saying more focus on the issue would detract from the Legislature's other accomplishments this year. The Republican-controlled Legislature approved the bill last month, with supporters saying it would protect student privacy.
Transgender rights have become a new flashpoint in the nation's cultural clashes following the landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling that legalized same-sex marriage last year. The high court victory encouraged advocates for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights to push harder, prompting backlash from conservatives.
Caitlyn Jenner, the transgender activist and former Olympic decathlon gold medalist, had called on Daugaard to veto the bill. Opponents also used the South Dakota Tourism Department's Twitter hashtag to take aim at the state's roughly $3.8 billion tourism industry.
Other high-profile cases include last week's vote in North Carolina by the Charlotte City Council to allow transgender people to choose a bathroom. The vote was immediately criticized by Gov. Pat McCrory, who said it denied privacy rights for those who expect to share restrooms or locker rooms only with people born with the same anatomy.
In Texas, Houston voters soundly defeated an ordinance that would have banned discrimination against transgender people after opponents alleged it would allow sexual predators to go into women's bathrooms.
Daugaard initially offered a positive reaction to South Dakota's proposal, but said he wanted to listen to testimony before making a decision. Last week, he met with three transgender individuals and heard their personal stories; before the meeting, the governor said he had never knowingly met a transgender person.
Opponents said the legislation was an attack on vulnerable transgender students that would further marginalize them at school. They also criticized comments made by some lawmakers, including Republican Sen. David Omdahl.
"I'm sorry if you're so twisted you don't know who you are," Omdahl said when asked about the bill last month. "I'm telling you right now, it's about protecting the kids, and I don't even understand where our society is these days."
Under the plan, schools would have been required to provide a "reasonable accommodation" for transgender students, such as a single-occupancy bathroom or the "controlled use" of a staff-designated restroom, locker room or shower room.
Supporters said the proposal was a response to changes in President Barack Obama administration's interpretation of the federal Title IX anti-discrimination law related to education. Federal officials have said barring students from restrooms that match their gender identity is prohibited under Title IX.
Deutsch had said the plan pushed back "against federal overreach and intrusion into our lives."
Heather Smith, executive director of the ACLU of South Dakota, said Tuesday that had the governor signed the bill, schools would have been forced to choose whether follow state or federal law. She also said her organization would have encouraged any student harmed by the new law to file a federal civil rights complaint.
Smith said people from across the state and country reached out to the governor to urge this veto. She said that's the true testament of democracy.
Chad Griffin, president of the Human Rights Campaign, added that the governor "chose to do the right thing."
"Today, the voices of fairness and equality prevailed, and these students' rights and dignity prevailed against overwhelming odds and vicious opponents in the state Legislature," Griffin said.
Critical-Thinking Questions:
- 1. The first paragraph of a news article should answer the questions "who?", "what?", "when?", and "where?" List the who, what, when, and where of this news item. (Note: The remainder of a news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. What do you think about sharing bathrooms with transgender teens at school? What experiences have influenced your thinking?
- 3. Is this a case of interest groups overreacting?
- 4. Do you think this is an issue that should be decided at the federal, state, local, or school level? Support your answer.
- 5. In the article, Gov. Daugaard is quoted as saying "he had never knowingly met a transgender person." Do you have to know a person to empathize with them and their situation? Give an example from your own life to support your answer.
- 6. Is this a privacy issue or a discrimination issue? Support your answer.
- 7. Do you think it helps or hurts a cause when celebrities get involved?
Posted March 2nd 2016
Google Admits Tracking Personal Student Data,
But Claims It's Only for Educational Purposes and Not Advertising
By Horia Ungureanu, Tech Times
February 17, 9:53 AM
Google recently admitted that it did track the personal data of students, but it claims that it did so exclusively for educational reasons.
In January, Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) sent Google a long list of questions regarding the company's policy on collecting and using students' personal data. Google replied with a seven-page letter, explaining that its ever-growing presence in educational software has nothing to do with commercial matters.
Not anymore, that is.
The lengthy letter, signed by Sue Molinari, Google's vice president for public policy and government relations, notes that Google refrains from using K-12 students' personal info in order to push targeted ads. However, the company tracks data from students so it can improve its own educational products.
When students who are logged in their Google Apps for Education account or use Google services, they are being tracked by the company. Such services could be, but are not limited to Google Search, Blogger, Google Docs and Calendar.
Franken, the ranking member of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology and the Law, says that Google's reply was "thorough," and that he is appreciative of the company's engagement in the issue. Still, he wants to get more specific answers about the privacy policies that apply to students' data.
In response, a Google spokesperson says that the company is at Franken's disposal, should he have more questions on the subject.
Google affirms that it refuses to sell the personal data of students to third parties, and adds that disclosure of personal information happens under strict circumstances. One such case could be a legal warrant that would make the disclosure mandatory.
In his letter to Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Franken states his commitment to the "fundamental right to privacy," explaining that parents and students should be aware of when, if or how their data are being gathered and used.
To Target or Not To Target Ads
Aside from asking Google whether or not it targeted ads at students before, Franken asked the company if it did so in the past. Google didn't give a straight answer, but says that ads in educational services were "always off by default."
The company adds that since 2014, an "additional step" was taken so that administrators can no longer switch on the ads.
In April 2014, Google faced a lawsuit where it was accused of illegally scanning emails of students in order to send them targeted ads. The company underlines in a blog post that it "permanently removed all ads scanning" in its email service for schools.Privacy advocates interpret this part of the blog post as Google's tacit confession to scanning student emails for commercial gains in previous years.
Nate Cardozo, a lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, sees a similar pattern in the recent letter. He notes that the Molinari-signed letter is the first time that Google unambiguously says that it does not use targeted ads for K-12 students. Cardozo speculates that Google might have done so in the past, and has only recently changed its practices.
Critical-Thinking Questions:
- 1. The first paragraph of a news article should answer the questions "who?", "what?", "when?", and "where?" List the who, what, when, and where of this news item. (Note: The remainder of a news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. Do you use Google Apps for Education? Does your school have an online privacy policy, and if so, have you read it?
- 3. When you log onto a new site or app, do you read the privacy policy statement? If not, why not?
- 4. What do you think of data collection? What can companies do with your information? Do you have any examples of companies targeting you for ads and services?
- 5. What are some of your concerns about online privacy? Do you take any steps to preserve your online privacy?
- 6. What does the phrase "If you're not paying for it, you become the product" mean?
- 7. In "bureaucrat speak," the phrases "for education" or "for the children" are used to effectively halt further discussion or inquiry. Do you think that is the case here?
Posted February 24th 2016
Majority of students vote to rename Dallas school named for Confederate general
By Tawnell D. Hobbs, The Dallas Morning News
February 5, 2016
A majority of students at John B. Hood Middle School voted Friday to drop the Confederate general's name from their school.
Sixty-one percent of students voted to support efforts to remove the name from the campus. Final approval must come from the Dallas ISD Board of Trustees.
LaTonya Lockhart, Hood's principal, called for the referendum after students asked a teacher about the appropriateness of having a Confederate general's name on their school. Hood, the youngest general to lead an army during the Civil War, was a decorated hero. But he fought on the side that supported slavery.
Lockhart said she wanted to let her students decide whether to ask the board to change the school's name. She called it a lesson in democracy.
But not everyone is happy with the idea. Lockhart said she's heard from former students who feel that John B. Hood was a great man. They oppose the change.
Lockhart said she plans to have an area set aside for memorabilia about the school's history, including the name Hood, to honor the school's past.
Kids at the Pleasant Grove school filled out their ballots during their lunch period. Some marked their ballots quickly, while others took time to think or consulted with friends before making a decision.
Younger students in sixth grade seemed more willing to rid the school of the name, concerned about John Bell Hood's place in history.
"Since it had to do with a bad man who worked with the Confederacy, I think we should change it," said sixth-grader Nidia Hernandez, 12. "He wanted to keep slaves."
But some eighth-graders who have been at the school longer spoke of wanting to keep the name because of tradition.
"He was a Confederate soldier," said Cristina Ramirez, 13. "What he did -- everybody knows it was bad, but why change history?
Forty-eight percent of eighth-graders, 68 percent of seventh-graders and 66 percent of sixth-graders voted to change the name.
Dallas ISD trustee Bernadette Nutall, whose area includes Hood, supports the name change. She said that she's proud of the kids for being a part of the process.
"I think it's an excellent civics lesson for our children, and the kids have spoken," Nutall said. "This is democracy."
Hood opened in 1955 and serves about 1,000 students. The student body is 84 percent Hispanic, 15 percent black and less than 1 percent white.
Lockhart said some kids had a second concern with the name. She said some people poke fun at the name because it is in Pleasant Grove, which some consider as being in "the hood."
She said students will get information Monday on how to recommend a new name for the school.
She also plans to seek community input. District policy requires that recommendations for the renaming of facilities be received from the school community, including a member of the school's PTA, an administrator and at least one person from the school's site-based decision-making committee. That committee is made up of parents, professional staff and community members.
The proposal must be submitted before April 1 each calendar year. Trustees review renaming proposals in early May, with a vote taking place in June.
If the name is dropped, it will be the first time students have led the way for such a change.
Some kids were just pleased to have a say in the matter.
"I'm happy that people are kind of giving us a chance to voice our opinion," said eighth-grader Sarah Woods, 13. "I'm very proud of our principal because she gives us a choice. Our voice can be heard."
Critical-Thinking Questions:
- 1. The first paragraph of a news article should answer the questions "who?", "what?", "when?", and "where?" List the who, what, when, and where of this news item. (Note: The remainder of a news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. Is this an example of political correctness or of righting a wrong? Support your answer.
- 3. After reading the article, do you know enough about John Bell Hood to make a decision about renaming the school? Could students have been swayed by the information presented--or not presented--to them about Hood?
- 4. Are there costs associated with a name change to consider? The article doesn't mention them, but are they important? Or, does the end justify the means? How should school districts apportion funds?
- 5. What are some other examples of recent name-change controversies? List as many as you can. Do you agree with them? Support your answer.
- 6. If your school had to change its name, how would you react?
Personal Opinion Essay Question:
Teenagers in the Confederate states went to war and sacrificed their lives because their society and their parents told them it was the right thing to do. The cause may not have been heroic, but was their selfless sacrifice heroic? Some say the Iraq war was a mistake. Does that make the sacrifice of U.S. soldiers any less heroic?
Posted February 17th 2016
Forgotten knives meet zero tolerance
Hundreds ask Escondido school board to give two students a break
[Photo credit: San Diego Union-Tribune]
By Pat Maio, San Diego Union-Tribune
Feb. 9, 2016
Escondido -- Hundreds of people flooded an Escondido Union High School District board meeting Tuesday night, urging the district not to expel two San Pasqual High School students who were suspended in separate incidents after authorities found knives in their trucks parked in the campus lot.
The students -- 18-year-old Brandon Cappelletti and 16-year-old Sam Serrato -- are acquaintances who ran afoul of school officials on the same day and under similar circumstances.
Cappelletti -- who has already enlisted in the Marine Corps, hoping to follow in his father's and grandfather's footsteps -- had been on a family fishing trip to Dixon Lake in early January and had brought along three knives to cut line and filet any fish he might catch. When it was time to head home, he tossed two of the knives into the console of his Ford Ranger and one in the toolbox pushed behind his seat.
The knives were forgotten until a few weeks later, on Jan. 27, when security officials with drug-sniffing dogs were scanning the parking lot and the dog alerted on Cappelletti's truck. He was summoned from class to unlock the vehicle, where officials discovered the knives and a bottle of Advil.
Cappelletti now faces expulsion, as does Serrato, an honor student and football standout, who had also brought Advil to school that day. When the dogs alerted to his GMC Yukon, officials found a pocketknife that his dad had tossed into the glove compartment.
The boys have each been charged with a misdemeanor under a state law that forbids anyone from bringing onto school campus a knife with a blade longer than two-and-a-half inches. A conviction could mean a maximum one-year prison sentence, an outcome that's unlikely for students without prior offenses. But even an expulsion would have serious consequences.
"Sometimes I can't sleep and I wake up in the middle of the night," said Serrato, who as a junior had begun to think about universities where he might play football. "If I end up getting expelled, I'd have to go to a community college. It's not what I really want to do. My whole life would change."
Cappelletti's mom said an expulsion is a stiff sentence that she never dreamed could happen to her son.
"This has been very disheartening," said Amy Cappelletti. "He's the most patriotic student. He never gets into trouble. These weren't Crocodile Dundee knives."
About 200 San Pasqual students, parents and teachers attended the Escondido Union High School District board meeting on Tuesday night urging the district to show leniency. Among them was San Pasqual football coach Tony Corley, who said he believes the zero-tolerance policy needs to be revisited.
"There are rules and laws that the district has to follow, but this (situation) is unfortunate," Corley said.
"I'm willing to stick my neck out for these kids because they are the kind we want representing us in society," he said. "They made an honest mistake. They will learn from it and I hope their lives won't change because of an innocent mistake."
The school district contracts with a private security company that conducts the drug searches at district high schools perhaps a couple times a year. It's unclear why the dogs alerted on the two trucks; no drugs were found in either vehicle, but both boys brought Advil to school that day.
After the dogs alerted, the teens were taken out of class and asked to unlock their trucks. They did as requested.
Police were called after the three knives were found in Cappelletti's truck. In the driver's side door, they also found a multi-tool that had a screwdriver, pliers and a tiny blade.
In Serrato's truck, officials found the pocketknife that his father, Sal Serrato, had tossed into the glove compartment after buying the knife at Kobey's Swap Meet a few weeks before.
The boys were immediately suspended. An administrative hearing on whether they will be expelled has been set for Feb. 25.
"It's sad. I'm very confused that they are doing this to my son. He's a three-sport athlete," the elder Serrato said. "I coached him and pushed him since he started walking. He's an honor student kid who has certificates after certificates."
School district spokeswoman Karyl O'Brien said Tuesday she couldn't comment on the specifics of each case but that "providing for the education of all students in a safe environment is a top priority..."
"While the district does not have an across-the-board zero-tolerance policy, we, along with all public education institutions in the state, are governed by the California education code," O'Brien said.
While awaiting the hearing, Cappelletti has enrolled in Calvin Christian, an Escondido private school. He's working part-time at the Sky Zone Trampoline Park in San Marcos.
A misdemeanor conviction could prevent him from following in the footsteps of his brother, father and grandfather -- all of whom were Marines. He enlisted last summer and planned to report to boot camp at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego on June 20.
"I love our freedom, and want to be a contributing member of society," he said.
Serrato is also trying to stay active. His mom bought him a gym membership, hoping that working out would keep the worry at bay.
Both families say they hope common sense prevails.
"I feel it's good to have rules set in a school system, but you have to consider them on a case-by-case basis," Sal Serrato said. "I couldn't fill his shoes. This man makes me proud."
Critical-Thinking Questions:
- 1. The first paragraph of a news article should answer the questions "who?", "what?", "when?", and "where?" List the who, what, when, and where of this news item. (Note: The remainder of a news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. What is "zero tolerance"? Is there a similar policy at your school? If not, is there a need for a policy like it?
- 3. Is "zero tolerance" a policy that makes decisions for officials easier or harder? Can officials and students write policies that account for all possibilities or exceptions?
- 4. One student is described as "patriotic." Does patriotism excuse having weapons? Is this an example of the rhetorical device "appeal to emotion"?
- 5. Find examples of other rhetorical devices in this article. List them and their desired effect(s).
//www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/2016/feb/09/zero-tolerance-escondido-knife-expulsion/
Posted February 10th 2016
Illinois students left out of state exams, labeled ineligible for testing
Photo credit: Dave Gathman, The Courier-News
By Diane Rado, Chicago Tribune
January 25, 2016
DuPage County's Addison Trail High School enrolled nearly 600 freshmen at the start of the 2014-15 school year, but when it came time to give a new state exam in ninth-grade-level English language arts, more than 100 of the kids disappeared from the testing roster.
Nearly 20 percent of freshmen were left out of PARCC testing in English -- but not because families opted out or reported students absent on exam day.
Administrators labeled most of those youths ineligible to test, part of the new and controversial way Illinois is testing high school students across the state: Kids take state exams only if they're in particular courses, and not because they're in a certain grade.
Last year, students in developmental, special education, limited English and even gifted and honors classes were removed from state testing, the Tribune found, raising questions about how those ineligible kids affected overall test performance at schools, and when those students will be given state exams.
Federal law requires that students be tested annually in reading and math at least once in high school.
"Are all freshmen in the state doing the ELA 9 test? The answer to that is no. That is the dilemma," said DuPage High School District 88 Superintendent Scott Helton. Both Addison Trail and Willowbrook High School in his district excluded dozens of students from the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers English exam, with Helton describing the situation as a "gray area" in terms of defining which courses would count for students to test.
It's a complicated task in the stratified world of high school, where students land in a hodgepodge of courses from remedial to advanced, and administrators have latitude from the state to decide which courses will align to which exam.
For example, some of the excluded students in District 88 were in English as a second language courses rather than a regular ninth-grade English class, district officials said, so those students weren't tested. In the past, limited-English-proficient students have been required to take state exams, with some exceptions.
The district also said that several dozen students labeled as freshmen in state enrollment data were actually older students who had failed courses. Those students were excluded because they weren't enrolled in classes aligned with the ninth-grade-level PARCC exam in English. It is uncertain when those students will take the state exam.
In Palatine-based Township High School District 211, administrators excluded some English-language-limited students as well as special education students in lower-level classes. Students with the most severe disabilities take an alternative test, but other special education students have been required to take the regular state exams in the past, and schools were held accountable for the performance of those students.
Lisa Small, the associate superintendent for instruction in District 211, said it was a frustrating experience for special education students because they were handed a test and couldn't engage in it.
"If you are looking for a universal system to test all kids, that is really hard to do," Small said.
In the past, all high school juniors had to sit for the state's now-defunct Prairie State Achievement Examination and couldn't get their diplomas without taking it, with some exceptions.
But for years, controversy swirled around the Prairie State when districts used loopholes to define what constitutes a "junior" and exclude certain students from testing, including low-performing teens who could pull down test results. Ultimately, changes in the law and state rules helped ensure that juniors would be tested.
Then came PARCC, the Common Core-based exam that gave schools more flexibility in how to test students. Districts could pick which PARCC exams to administer, such as ninth-grade-level English language arts and algebra I, or 11th-grade-level English and algebra II. And students taking the tests could be in different grades, as long as they were in specific courses that would coincide with the PARCC exams.
So in math, for example, a student might be in ninth, 10th or a higher grade and take the PARCC algebra I test, as long as he or she was in an algebra I class or another class linked to that exam.
A list of the courses used in 2015, provided by the state to the Tribune, showed a variety of classes that would allow students to be tested. For the ninth-grade-level PARCC exam in English language arts, though, many districts chose the ninth-grade English/language arts I course as the springboard for identifying which students should be tested. Other courses sufficed, though they were rarely used, such as creative writing and British literature.
It's not clear how many high school students didn't take state exams in 2015 because they weren't in the designated courses. The Illinois State Board of Education said it does not track that statistic, and districts had the autonomy to determine which courses would align with the PARCC exams.
At the same time, "It is ISBE's expectation that districts fully comply with all federal and state laws and rules regarding assessment of students with IEPs (an individualized educational program for students with special needs) and English Learners," the agency wrote in response to questions from the Tribune.
At the very least, hundreds of students were likely left out of the exams, based on high school enrollment figures and the number of students considered eligible to test, the Tribune found.
The Tribune reviewed data for nearly 300 high schools that offered the ninth-grade-level English language arts exam, comparing the number of freshmen enrolled at the beginning of the school year to the number considered eligible to take the spring exams. Dozens of schools had differences in those numbers.
Lake County's Grant Community High School enrolled 482 freshmen in 2014-15, according to state figures, but only 257 students were tested on the ninth-grade-level ELA exam.
Greg Urbaniak, the high school's director of curriculum, instruction and assessment, said 150 or more freshman honors students were excluded from testing because they were essentially doing 10th-grade coursework. "In reality, what it did was it kind of hurt our scores, because our best kids at grade level weren't testing," Urbaniak said.
"Now we may need to rethink why we had to do that. Our best kids are never going to be tested."
In Elgin-based School District U-46, several dozen ninth-graders in a gifted program at Elgin High School didn't take the English language arts PARCC exam because they were in a gifted world literature course and not the typical ELA class for freshmen, district spokeswoman Mary Fergus said.
Fergus also said an estimated 200 to 250 second-year high school students were labeled as freshmen in the fall because of a lack of credits and would not be eligible to take the state exam because they likely were not in a freshman English class in 2014-15. The district also said ninth-graders could be excluded from the exam if they had failed the first part of their freshman English class and were no longer taking the course, she said.
Fergus said the district did give PARCC exams to English language learners, except those just new to the country -- an allowed exception.
The practice of giving high school exams based on student courses will continue in the upcoming testing season. Statewide, third-through-eighth-graders still will take state exams based on their grade level, though PARCC allows for an advanced middle school student to take a high school-level math exam.
In addition, fifth- and eighth-graders as well as high school students are scheduled to take a new online state science exam. The high school exam will be in biology and, like the current situation, teens will take the exam if they're in the designated courses.
For 2016-17, the Illinois State Board of Education has recommended increasing the state budget for testing and expanding PARCC exams in high schools.
Critical-Thinking Questions:
- 1. The first paragraph of a news article should answer the questions "who?", "what?", "when?", and "where?" List the who, what, when, and where of this news item. (Note: The remainder of a news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. What is a "gray area"? How is an objective test a gray area? List three reasons given in the article.
- 3. Do you think a universal test can really measure what you know? Why or why not?
- 4. If you don't perform well on a test, is it because of the test or the teacher, or is it your own fault? Reverse your answer and support a good performance on a test: who gets the credit?
- 5. If a test is tailored to a particular group, is it still a valid test of knowledge? Write a five-paragraph essay addressing this question, and support your reasoning.
Posted February 3rd 2016
Teen suspended for helping friend won't return to school
Associated Press
January 25, 2016 4:02 PM
KILLEEN, Texas (AP) -- A Texas teenager who was suspended from school after helping a classmate who was having an asthma attack won't return to the school, the teen's mother said Monday.
Mandy Cortes said she will home-school her 15-year-old rather than have him return to Gateway Middle School in Killeen.
Anthony Ruelas was suspended for a day last week when he disobeyed his teacher by picking up his classmate and leaving the classroom to carry her to the nurse's office.
The teacher had emailed the nurse when the girl began suffering the attack and fell to the floor. A disciplinary form explained that the teacher was awaiting a response from the nurse when Anthony uttered an expletive about not waiting and picked up the girl, Cortes said.
School officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday. The Killeen school district last week issued a statement that read, in part, that the district "applauds the efforts of students who act in good faith to assist others in times of need."
Cortes said the girl later told her son that she's OK and that she doesn't remember being carried to the nurse's office.
"I was proud of him for the way he handled the situation," Cortes said, saying her son has a big heart.
Cortes said she's been frustrated with the school as Anthony has worked to overcome a learning disability and last week's suspension persuaded her to home-school him. She may try to enroll him in a public school next school year.
Critical-Thinking Questions:
- 1. The first paragraph of a news article should answer the questions "who?", "what?", "when?", and "where?" List the who, what, when, and where of this news item. (Note: The remainder of a news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- 2. Is emailing a nurse sufficient when a student is having a medical issue? Why or why not? Support your answer.
- 3. Is the school district's response contradictory to the suspension? How would you explain any conflict in messages?
- 4. What would you do in this situation? Write a five-paragraph essay, and support your reasoning.