Gerry Canavan

the smartest kid on earth

Posts Tagged ‘integration

Thursday Night Links!

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* CFP: Essays on SyFy Channel Original Films.

* How Milwaukee became so segregated and why it matters when it comes to crime. Busing for Integration Worked in Milwaukee—Until It Didn’t. It’s not just Joe Biden—the Democratic Party has backed away from its commitment to fighting segregation in the public schools.

* Wisconsin could decide 2020. Inside the new Democratic plan to win it back.

Bernie Sanders’s Campaign Is Different.

* Not much hope for the University of Alaska. Enter: the accreditors!

* The 10 factors that put small private colleges and universities at risk of closure.

Odds Are, Your Doctorate Will Not Prepare You for a Profession Outside Academe.

* Now they say the individual mandate, which they always said was unconstitutional, is the only thing that made Obamacare constitutional.

* These Are The People Struggling The Most To Pay Back Student Loans.

ICE Just Quietly Opened Three New Detention Centers, Flouting Congress’ Limits. Migrant kids in overcrowded Arizona border station allege sex assault, retaliation from U.S. agents. This gay teen lost his asylum appeal & will be sent back to Iran where ‘they will execute me.’ I’m with her. Trump’s mass arrests are set to begin. Chicago gets it right.

“A nasty, brutal fight”: what a US-Iran war would look like.

* Trump backs down on rigging the Census directly, possibly for good.

* Jeffrey Epstein’s Fortune May Be More Illusion Than Fact. This is exactly how I think Jeffrey Epstein made his money. When Epstein ordered a 53-pound shredder. I was a friend of Jeffrey Epstein; here’s what I know. NYPD let convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein skip judge-ordered check-ins. 28 Women Reportedly Sent to Mar-a-Lago in 1992 for VIP Party of Two—Trump and Jeffrey Epstein. In Patriarchy No One Can Hear You Scream: Rebecca Solnit on Jeffrey Epstein and the Silencing Machine. The Jeffrey Epstein Case Is Like Nothing I’ve Seen Before.

* The depravity is bipartisan.

* The numbers are in: SF homeless population rose 30% since 2017.

Escape From New York 38 years later.

* Scenes from the class struggle in journalism.

The California Bill Challenging NCAA Amateurism Just Cleared Another Hurdle. Here’s How It Got Started.

“I Did Not Die. I Did Not Go to Heaven.” Gasp!

Red flag wildfire warning issued for much of Alaska; smoke chokes Fairbanks. New Orleans Braces for a One-Two Weather Punch. Enormous Antarctic glacier on brink of collapse could raise sea levels by half a metre alone, scientists warn. These are Canada’s worst-case scenarios. Between the Devil and the Green New Deal. Environmentalism’s Next Frontier: Giving Nature Legal Rights. The New York Times is ready. What could possibly go wrong?

* I didn’t have “the World Wildlife Fund operating a lawless paramilitary force” on my dystopia watch-list, but of course I should have.

‘These kids are ticking time bombs’: The threat of youth basketball.

* Hope you enjoyed this look at Ron’s future!

Google as a landlord? A looming feudal nightmare.

What Will Life on Mars Be Like?

* DRAGONLANCE FOREVER

* #dataspositronicbrainisinthedog

* RIP, Rip Torn.

* And while The Lion King remake has been getting absolutely brutal reviews, few can touch Dan’s brutal takedown of the original.

Written by gerrycanavan

July 11, 2019 at 6:55 pm

Tuesday Afternoon Links!

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* SFFTV 12.2 is here, with articles on Afrofuturism, time-travel surveillance cinema, Avatar, and the Anthropocene…

* CFP: Tolkien/Whedon.

* A people’s history of New Coke.

* The Atlanteans and the Middle Passage.

Stonewall, Before and After: An Interview with Samuel R. Delany.

Are we living in a simulated universe? Here’s what scientists say. Scientists are trying to open a portal to a parallel universe.

* Ugly academic war ends with unprecedented apology from USC, $50-million settlement.

* The California coast is disappearing under the rising sea. Our choices are grim. Alaska is having an environmental and political meltdown. Alaskan glaciers melt at fastest pace in centuries. Trump Administration Is Suppressing Science and Public Opinion to Drill the Arctic Refuge. Six shocking climate events that happened around the world this week. Are parts of India becoming too hot for humans? A Ferocious Heat in Delhi. India staring at a water apocalypse. All Mississippi Beaches Close Due To Toxic Algae Bloom. The Internet Is Drowning. Fish die-offs in Wisconsin expected to double by 2050, quadruple by 2100, report says. Breaching a ‘carbon threshold’ could lead to mass extinction. And sure let’s go back to killing all the bees while we’re at it.

 

* Fear of immigration raids looms as plans for ICE ‘family operation’ move forward. FBI, ICE find state driver’s license photos are a gold mine for facial-recognition searches. (81% of ‘suspects’ flagged by Met’s police facial recognition technology innocent, independent report says.) Hungry, Scared and Sick: Inside the Migrant Detention Center in Clint, Tex. ‘It’s a Terrible Existence’: The Crisis of Emergency Dialysis Care for Undocumented Immigrants. ICE deports dozens of Cambodian refugees. Officials expect Trump to try and add citizenship question to the census via executive action this week — an idea officials say was not a serious one as recently as Wednesday. Attorney General Barr tells SC reporters he’s found a legal recourse on Census question. Trump Lied to the Supreme Court, and Four Justices Don’t Care. Whatever’s coming, the career folks couldn’t abide.

On the migrant crisis, European governments are failing the first test of climate change.

The Postcolonial Case for Rethinking Borders.

Amazon Workers Plan Prime Day Strike at Minnesota Warehouse.

* Democratic candidates’ school integration plans, explained.

* Democrats will never allow the system to be reformed.

* But this time around, I don’t think 2007–8 produced anything. The resulting policies were, if anything, even more neoliberal. But the problem is that neoliberalism has lost its attractiveness and legitimacy, so is now enforced by authoritarian and right-populist means.

The Millennial Condition: History, Revolution, and Generational Analysis.

To see how the Koch brothers’ free-market utopia operates, look no further than Corpus Christi.

* I’ve always been cold on Russiagate, but I’ll believe any conspiracy theory you have to sell me about Jeffrey Epstein. Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex offender who is friends with Donald Trump and Bill Clinton, explained. The Mystery Around Jeffrey Epstein’s Fortune and How He Made It. How a future Trump Cabinet member gave a serial sex abuser the deal of a lifetime. Epstein indictment renews questions about earlier case handled by Trump Cabinet official. When Jeffrey Epstein Joked About Sex Abuse. DA knew Jeffrey Epstein was a dangerous pedophile when arguing for leniency. Flashback to 2003. Inside Epstein’s $56 Million Mansion: Photos of Bill Clinton, Woody Allen and Saudi Crown Prince. Barr won’t recuse, again.

* So much corruption you can’t even keep it all straight: Investigation Intensifies Into Top Trump Fund-raiser.

Nancy Pelosi Has Chosen Her War, and It’s With Her Own Party’s Future.

* Haunted by the Reagan era.

Progressive Boomers Are Making It Impossible For Cities To Fix The Housing Crisis.

* The Bernie-Warren Suicide Pact to Save America.

Americans Shouldn’t Have to Drive, but the Law Insists on It. Don’t Count on U.S. Regulators to Make Self-Driving Cars Safe for Pedestrians.

* MSP troopers blow through stop sign, arrest driver that ran into them.

* Most Americans like to think of their country as a meritocracy, a system that rewards hard work and intelligence over privilege. But if you look at how things actually work, @sarahrlnrd argues, it’s clear the U.S. is more of an aristocracy…

* Far from Home saving the MCU from itself.

MLMs Are A Nightmare For Women And Everyone They Know.

One woman quits coloring her gray hair and investigates the human and environmental costs of this contentious female beauty standard.

When Philip K. Dick turned to Christianity.

* Chernobyl and Russiagate.

Stranger Things and Nostalgia Now.

* Full circe.

* When a car crashed outside of tiny Tonopah, Nevada, volunteer EMS workers raced to the scene in minutes. But ever since Tonopah’s hospital closed, the town is now hours away from the nearest emergency room.

* Another animal intelligence roundup.

* Zoos Called It a ‘Rescue.’ But Are the Elephants Really Better Off? Despite mounting evidence that elephants find captivity torturous, some American zoos still acquire them from Africa — aided by a tall tale about why they needed to leave home.

* Principal Refused to Call the Holocaust a Fact. Five seconds later: Principal Who Tried to Stay ‘Politically Neutral’ About Holocaust Is Removed.

Digital Jail: How Electronic Monitoring Drives Defendants Into Debt.

* Damn, that’s dark.

On average, older adults spend over half their waking hours alone.

* A retired teacher found some seahorses off Long Beach. Then he built a secret world for them.

The Rise of the Professional Dungeon Master.

* Baseball has a home-run problem.

Will Impossible Burgers be the norm for Gen Z?

* And if aliens call, what should we do? Scientists want your opinion.


Written by gerrycanavan

July 9, 2019 at 12:20 pm

Posted in Look at what I found on the Internet

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Thursday Afternoon Links!

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* Mark Z. Danielewski has written a pilot for a potential House of Leaves TV series. It’s good! The question of adapting the novel wound up being a minor subtheme in our discussion of the book in my summer grad class last month, so I was gratified to actually get to see the script — and directly incorporating the novel into the storyworld of the TV series seems like an intriguing solution to the book’s basic unfilmability. I think I hope someone makes it!

* I haven’t had a chance to see Ant-Man and the Wasp yet, so I’m gratified someone went ahead and wrote my triennial rant about franchise fictions and narrative closure on my behalf.

* Texas Studies in Literature and Language has a special issue on Wes Anderson.

* CFP for the SFRA guaranteed panel at ASLE 19. ASLE 19 (in Davis, CA) is a week after the planned dates for SFRA 19 in Hawaii, so if you’re going to the West Coast anyway it could be almost like a two-for-one…

* The second issue of Fantastika Journal is now available.

* That the things that gave my life meaning growing up have all become vectors for recruitment to misogynistic and white nationalist hate groups is the bitterest surprise of my middle age. That and Trump. Two bitterest surprises.

Nominations Are Open for the 2018 Brittle Paper Awards.

Ken Liu Presents Broken Stars, A New Anthology of Chinese Short Speculative Fiction.

* The Fall of Wisconsin. How to win Wisconsin back.

* Shakespeare in the state parks.

* Specialized program for Marquette undergraduates with autism disorders gifted $450,000, set to launch fall 2019.

“In some ways, I now think that one of the primary functions of the university, for the ruling class, is precisely to train a generation in indebtedness, in a state of being in debt.”

The Self-Helpification of Academe: How feel-good nostrums cover up the university’s cruelty.

* Another piece on searching for work outside academia.

* Professor Faces Fraud Charges for False Job Offer. Reading the confession letter just makes me cringe.

His University Asked Him to Build an Emoji-Themed Parade Float. Then It Fired Him.

* Why Donald Trump Nominated Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. Brett Kavanaugh Will Mean Challenging Times For Environmental Laws. The Vice Report. The Coming Era of Forced Abortions. The end of net neutrality. The imperial presidency 2.0. Trump’s Supreme Court Pick Could Spell a Fresh Hell for Workers’ Rights. Brett Kavanaugh Ruled Against Workers When No One Else Did. The issue with Kavanaugh is that he seems completely reactionary, bouncing from one indefensible position to another, without applying any judgment whatsoever. Liberal media in full effect. The Liberal Case for Kavanaugh Is Complete Crap. He’s a very normal Republican pick — that’s the problem. Establishment Extremist. What’s coming. It’s bad y’all. Someone investigate precisely how this deal was made and what the terms were. And from the archives: The Three Alitos.

* The Supreme Court: still bad.

* Capitalism is ruining science. The Business Veto: The demise of social democracy shows the precariousness of any project of reform under capitalism.

* Here come the DIY guns.

Inside China’s Dystopian Dreams: A.I., Shame and Lots of Cameras.

Technoleviathan: China, Silicon Valley, and the rise of the global surveillance state. How Artificial Intelligence Will Reshape the Global Order.

Silicon Valley Is Bending Over Backward to Cater to the Far Right.

* How Silicon Valley Fuels an Informal Caste System. Rule-Making as Structural Violence: From a Taxi to Uber Economy in San Francisco.

* It’s amazing that US governmentality has finally crossed the threshold where its obvious illegitimacy can be spoken about in public.

Former Obama Officials Are Riding Out The Trump Years By Cashing In.

* The end of NATO. ‘They Will Die in Tallinn’: Estonia Girds for War With Russia.

* Trump is set to separate more than 200,000 U.S.-born children from their parents. Trump’s Office of Refugee Resettlement Is Budgeting for a Surge in Child Separations. ‘Don’t You Know That We Hate You People?’ ICE is lawless, racial profiling edition. Where Cities and Counties Are Detaining Immigrants. Pregnant Women Say They Miscarried In Immigration Detention And Didn’t Get The Care They Needed. Government Told Immigrant Parents to Pay for DNA Tests to Get Kids Back, Advocate Says. As Migrant Families Are Reunited, Some Children Don’t Recognize Their Mothers. Deported after Trump order, Central Americans grieve for lost children. ‘What if I lose her forever?’ Undocumented Grover Beach mother deported despite community rallying in her support. Facing a Tuesday deadline to reunite about 100 migrant toddlers with their parents, feds say they’ve reunited 2. Inside The Courts Where Some Immigrants Plead Guilty Without Knowing What’s Happening. Now they’re coming for grandmas.

* Woman arrested in assault of 91-year-old Mexican man who was told to ‘go back to your country.’

* Weird coincidence.

There’s been a spate of violent far-right extremism since the 2016 election.

* If you’re anti- antifa, that must mean…

* Andrew Cuomo and ICE.

It’s Not Civil Disobedience if You Ask for Permission.

Liberalism, legitimacy, and loving the Parkland kids.

Eleven Theses on Civility.

Why Marx’s Capital Still Matters.

* Nixon’s $7B carbon tax forms centerpiece of energy agenda.

* The Industrial Age May Have Actually Been Kind of a Bad Idea.

* An interview with Julia Salazar. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, In Her Own Words. Cynthia Nixon: I’m a democratic socialist. Meanwhile our old pal Joe Crowley looks like he’s trying to get away with something.

We Should Embrace the Ambiguity of the 14th Amendment.

* Sure, why not?

* Alan Dershowitz is ALL IN on Trump. But he’s not the only person with some truly around-the-bend ideas of what lawsuits can do.

* Weird science: Girls sometimes inherit almost two full sets of their dad’s genes, which seems to cause rare cancers.

The Art and Activism of the Anthropocene, Part III: A Conversation with Helen Phillips, Amitav Ghosh, and Nathan Kensinger.

An Arkansas man complained about police abuse. Then town officials ruined his life.

* Did… did Milwaukee write this?

Jeff Bezos Is Now $50 Billion Richer Than Anyone Else on Earth.

All 12 Thai Boys Successfully Rescued from Cave after Third Dangerous Mission. The only person unhappy is Elon.

WHO’s Language on Breastfeeding Really Is Flawed. This was our experience with breastfeeding  for sure; I’m sure it’s great for a lot of people but we needed formula as a supplement from the first night on. That said, the corporate forces that promote formula over breastfeeding are utterly gross.

* When the relationship status truly is complicated.

* Nabokov’s dreams.

* Scotland’s official plan if the Loch Ness Monster is found.

* Brexit: It’s bad!

* Being Bobcat Goldthwait.

* Billy Dee is back.

* Japan and the stay-at-home dad.

* Reality Winner and the espionage act.

* My Best Friend Lost His Life to the Gig Economy.

* When your child reveals sexual abuse from your parent.

The Socialist Case for School Integration.

* Factchecking David Brooks.

* Your town tomorrow: Kure residents cut off from outside world due to flooding.

* Nope, no thanks.

* I knew wearing a tie was making me stupid.

* Bad subtitling is a daily problem for deaf viewers.

* Melt Monument Ave.

How swimming pools became a flashpoint of racial tension in America.

* California brings emissions down below 1990 levels. But it’s not all good news.

Feminist Apparel CEO Fires Entire Staff After They Learn He’s An Admitted Sexual Abuser. RIP, Papa John.

There is too much uncertainty in sports; even if you bribe the officials, something unaccounted for could still cause the “wrong” result. It can be a bad idea to gather large crowds opposed to your team (and, by extension, your dictatorship). During Franco’s rule, Barcelona FC’s stadium was the only place the Catalans could wave their flag and sing their songs. Dictators are better off with tyranny and oppression. Football is for people who can accept a loss.

David Graeber’s new book argues that many of us are toiling in dummy jobs with no ostensible purpose. Any poll will show you he has a point. But his thesis is built on scant evidence and dubious claims of a ruling class conspiring to keep us busy. Bullshit jobs exist not due to orchestrated oppression but because of something altogether simpler: bad managers. 

* An even tougher review of a book that seems like a big step down from Debt.

* The SAT, constantly innovating new ways to make teenagers unhappy.

* “I sort of feel like I’m taking the bait on this, but: Can you imagine the copy they *rejected* for this Handmaid’s Tale pinot noir?”

Through such characters, Muluneh’s work explores the layered psychic realms of blackness and womanhood that the African-American science fiction writer Octavia Butler, whom she cites as a major influence, explored through her otherworldly prose. In the process, Muluneh’s work has helped reorient the way black women are perceived. “As women, especially as African women,” Muluneh said, “we forget—and the world forgets—our positioning in history and religion and culture.”

And amusing ourselves to death: 12 theme parks where the danger is real.

Written by gerrycanavan

July 12, 2018 at 1:34 pm

Posted in Look at what I found on the Internet

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Wednesday Morning!

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021814-nu-union-150* Man tragically unable to remember saying Barack Obama would make a great president says Hillary Clinton will make a great president. Meanwhile, the rest of us are reduced to talking about Obama’s secret achievements.

* Faculty on Strike at UIC.

Solitary Confinement May Dramatically Alter Brain Shape In Just Days, Neuroscientist Says.

* Last Night on Jeopardy No One Wanted to Answer Qs About Black History.

Noose Found Around The Neck Of Statue Honoring Civil Rights Icon At Ole Miss.

* On Teaching While Black.

What Does it Mean that Most Children’s Books Are Still About White Boys?

The J.R.R. Tolkien Manuscripts: Public Showings in 2014.

* Here are the hoops a college football team has to jump through to be allowed to form a union.

* 84-Year Old Nun Sentenced To Prison For Weapons Plant Break-In.

Academic freedom with violence.

Has humanity produced enough paint to cover the entire land area of the Earth? The dream remains alive.

* Whistle-blower fired from Hanford nuclear site.

“We do not agree with her assertions that she suffered retaliation or was otherwise treated unfairly,” URS said, adding Busche was fired for reasons unrelated to the safety concerns. “Ms. Busche’s allegations will not withstand scrutiny.”

Busche is the second Hanford whistle-blower to be fired by URS in recent months. Walter Tamosaitis, who also raised safety concerns about the plant, was fired in October after 44 years of employment.

* A new China Miéville short story collection, scheduled for November 2014.

* A world of horrors: There is no such thing as a child prostitute.

In the same way that certain styles of dance simulate sex, the Winter Olympics simulates scraping one’s February-chapped nostrils against the surface of a Kleenex whose aloe content is useless and reaching out for the warm escape of death. It’s an art of failed suicide attempts.

* A preliminary sketch of the data reveals, of course, that by 2050 films will be reviewing us.

* “First, why would we even think about letting it go through?”

“This whole thing is totally and completely bonkers.”

Grace Kerr sometimes jokes with her family that “Amanda was not that great. Zach is awesome.” What she means is that her son is finally happy, and is helping others.

* Diseased and unsound meat: Hot Pockets®!

In Act Of Protest, Ai Weiwei Vase Is Destroyed At Miami Museum.

* News You Can Use: Why It’s Nearly Impossible to Castrate a Hippo.

A portrait of Steve Jobs made entirely out of e-waste.

* The Ice Caves of the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore.

Candy Crush: Addictive Game, Incredible Business, Horrible Investment.

How the north ended up on top of the map.

* Inside Kappa Beta Phi, the Wall Street Fraternity.

* And our long national nightmare is over: Obama apologizes for disparaging art historians.

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Some More Links

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* Smart presidents making stupid arguments:

For instance, the FDA has long considered saccharin, the artificial sweetener, safe for people to consume. Yet for years, the EPA made companies treat saccharin like other dangerous chemicals. Well, if it goes in your coffee, it is not hazardous waste.

They call it poison. We call it life.

* From the don’t-know-if-this-is-crazy-or-awesome file: Though stem cell therapies are still in the early stages of development, some families are having their children’s baby teeth extracted and saved in anticipation of treatments that could be around by the time the child reaches adulthood, the Miami Herald reports.

* When Left-Wing Editors Fight Unions.

* When Famous Directors Lose Their Minds.

* Being Roger Ailes.

* Bomb Planted Along MLK Day Parade Route In Spokane.

* David Simon v. Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III. Discussion at MeFi.

* Last Stand 4 Children is devoted to providing all children with a quality education in spite of their teachers. See also: Billionaires for Educational Reform. (Via @mrtalbot.)

* Almost none of these “literal New Yorker cartoons” are actually “literal,” though a few are amusing nonetheless.

* Uplifting Duke/Durham story of the day: The Secret Game.

The North Carolina College Eagles were coming off their most successful season ever at that time. McLendon had just led his team to a 26-1 season. Aubrey Stanley, Henry (Big Dog) Thomas, Floyd (Cootie) Brown and James (Boogie-Woogie) Hardy were the stars on a team that ran McLendon’s fast break with great discipline.

That team was not eligible for participation in the National Invitational Tournament or the NCAA tournaments simply because they were African-Americans, but many — including the Hall of Famer McLendon — felt like the Eagles could’ve beaten anyone.

Meanwhile, Burgess and others regularly attended meetings at the local Y in Durham, as students from both sides of the tracks met secretly to discuss ways to overcome racism in the local area. During one of those meetings, the conversation turned to basketball and a bold challenge was issued: What about a secret game between the Eagles and the Duke Medical School team?

* And your couch is trying to kill you. Don’t let it!

There Was No Slave Trade on Krypton

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“In issue #239, a two-page map showed that Kryptonians Of Color had an island all to themselves, which is pretty embarrassing,” says Mark Waid, Boom! Studios Editor-in-Chief, occasional DC Comics writer, and pretty much expert in all things Superman. “I cringe to tell you this, but the Kryptonians of Color were all on ‘Vathlo Island, Home of a Highly Advanced Black Race.’ It wasn’t until the mid-70s, when more ‘World of Krypton’ back-up stories ran more regularly, that we really saw any ethnicity whatsoever on the planet.”

Newsarama considers the historic invisibility of Kryptonians of color. Via NeilAlien.

Written by gerrycanavan

January 11, 2009 at 12:35 am

True reconciliation can occur only when we honestly acknowledge our painful, but shared, past

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Vanity Fair has the long, sad-then-happy-then-sad-again story of the people behind the famous Little Rock Central High photograph, Elizabeth Eckford and Hazel Bryan.

Written by gerrycanavan

October 1, 2007 at 4:16 pm

Posted in Uncategorized

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