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When “Queer as Folk” debuted in 2000, the Showtime series was ahead of its time in its portrayal of LGBTQ people on television. Based on a British series of the same time, “Queer as Folk” continues to resonate among many viewers even though it went off the air in 2005. As Entertainment Weekly noted in its LGBTQ issue last month, the show ― which starred Gale Harold, Randy Harrison and Hal Sparks as a trio of gay men living in Pittsburgh ― has enjoyed a second life among younger, binge-watching audiences on streaming services. In the latest installment of his “Culture Cruise” video series, Seattle-based writer Matt Baume breaks down a 2002 “Queer as Folk” episode simply titled “Pride” in an effort to determine whether the narrative would hold up following the Supreme Court’s 2015 ruling on same-sex marriage and other LGBTQ-related social strides. As Baume discovers, many components still strike a chord. One plotline, for instance, seems to anticipate the ongoing debate over the so-called “corporatization of Pride” ― that is, the increasingly visible presence of consumer and retail brands at Pride parades and other queer-themed festivities. On the flip side, Baume points out that few people of color are represented throughout the episode, while the transgender community isn’t referenced at all. Then, there’s one scene in which the character of Michael (Sparks) gives an unsuspecting co-worker an open-mouthed kiss without consent ― a now-jarring moment in the wake of the Me Too and Time’s Up movements. “Through various intertwined stories, the show asks questions about Pride that the queer community is still grappling with today,” Baume told HuffPost. While the series was “able to foresee the issues we’d be grappling with today,” he added, “It’s amazing what the show completely missed.”

Bloomberg/Getty Images President Donald Trump and Jim Mattis, U.S. secretary of defense, during a cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, D.C., on March 8, 2018. After quietly scrubbing troop numbers for Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria from the Defense Manpower Data Center’s website earlier this year, the Pentagon — which has repeatedly promised to improve “transparency” regarding troop statistics— is under renewed scrutiny over its public information blackout. NPR’s David Welna reported Tuesday that the public Pentagon website that had, for more than a decade, provided information about the number of U.S. troops in war zones was still devoid of numbers for Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria. When pressed to answer why these figures were no longer being made available to the public, Pentagon spokesman told Welna that it was to “protect our forces.” “We have to make sure that the American people know what their forces are doing,” said Army Major Adrian Galloway. “But we have to protect our forces as well. And a part of that is making sure that we keep a handle on what information we release to the public in general.” Galloway told Welna that the “approximate” number of troops currently in Afghanistan is 14,000 ― but said he could not provide the exact figure. “I do know the real numbers, but unfortunately the real number is classified and I just can’t talk about it,” Galloway said. The Pentagon has stopped reporting troop levels for Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria following President Trump's declaration that the U.S. would not talk about troop numbers in Afghanistan.https://t.co/A2dvYC1R2Z — NPR (@NPR) July 4, 2018 The data blackout comes after repeated promises by the Pentagon to be more “transparent” regarding deployment numbers. Mattis told reporters in August, for instance, that he’d changed the “accounting process” to ensure the Pentagon had more accurate troop tallies and pledged to be more transparent in reporting those numbers. President Donald Trump appeared to undermine that position a week later, however, by saying that the government would “not talk about numbers of troops or our plans for further military activities” in Afghanistan. For more than 10 years, the Pentagon, via the Defense Manpower Data Center, had released a quarterly report of the number of troops stationed overseas. But its latest report, dated December 2017 and released in March, “just had blank spaces where Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan figures used to be,” The Military Times reported in April. A note at the bottom of the report said: “With ongoing operations, any questions concerning DoD personnel strength numbers are deferred to OSD Public Affairs/Joint Chiefs of Staff.” The Military Times reported that the Pentagon had also removed troop numbers for Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan from the previous quarterly report, dated September 2017, and had appended the same disclaimer to it. “Years worth of the previous quarterly reports” were also removed from the web, the outlet added. Mini-scoop: DOD has scrubbed all of the previously reported #s of troops in combat in #Iraq #Syria #Afghanistan. The numbers have been available for years on DMDC. They are now all gone. #transparency. Our story: https://t.co/BUQnbaBM2Y pic.twitter.com/IHIgxMLnhM — Tara Copp (@TaraCopp) April 9, 2018 Alarmed by the sudden dearth of data, Democratic members of the House subcommittee on national security penned a letter to Mattis in May, urging him to “immediately reverse the Trump administration’s recent decision to redact key data on U.S. personnel strength from the Defense Department’s quarterly public reports.” “This data has been publicly available for more than a decade and provides Congress and the American people with critical information pertaining to [military missions overseas],” the letter read. “As Secretary of Defence, you have underscored your commitment ‘to developing a more transparent accounting of our troops in the field,’” the letter added. “We believe that an immediate reversal [of this decision] ... would fulfill your commitment and greatly enhance transparency and accountability in this area.” In his response to the Democrats, Mattis insisted the policy change was a positive one that balances “the need for transparency with the need to protect sensitive information that could advantage our enemy.” Mattis said the Pentagon was also “publicly reporting certain previously undisclosed temporary duty personnel deployed in Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq.” NPR noted, however, that there was no evidence that those numbers are being publicly reported. In a Foreign Affairs op-ed in May, national security experts Loren DeJonge Schulman and Alice Friend wrote about the Pentagon’s “transparency problem” and how its failure to provide accurate troop levels to the public was impacting civilian awareness and support for the American military. “[R]ecent administrations have understood that the public relies on troop levels as an imperfect marker of American strategy, commitment, and even success,” the authors wrote.

On August 12th, 2017, an act of domestic terrorism propelled by racists and white nationalists occurred in Charlottesville, Virginia. I’m calling it domestic terrorism propelled by racists and white nationalists (or white supremacists), because it’s time (for white people, in particular) to name this for what it is. And while it may be legal for white supremacists to express their alt-right, morally repugnant views, it is absolutely unacceptable to do so in this day and age. It’s far beyond time for all Americans (but most especially white Americans) to use our privilege, our platforms, and our collective, rhetorical power to denounce racism, and to say that it is absolutely unacceptable for anyone to be a white supremacist, or neo-Nazi, or alt-right member in 2017 America. We cannot afford the normalization of this anymore. What originally started with members of the alt-right conducting a “rally to unite the right” and protesting against the removal of a Robert E. Lee statue, ended tragically with a driver smashing into a line of cars, causing a chain reaction that killed one person and injured at least nineteen others, who were peacefully counter-protesting the white nationalist gathering. 20-year-old James Alex Fields was the driver, who now stands charged with second degree murder. Reuters White nationalists carry torches on the grounds of the University of Virginia, on the eve of a planned Unite The Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia James Alex Fields was also identified in a photograph, standing with and being part of the “blood and soil” white supremacist group, Vanguard America. Their manifesto includes core beliefs like, Our America is to be a nation exclusively for the White American peoples who out of the barren hills, empty plains, and vast mountains forged the most powerful nation to ever have existed. Though they quickly denounced Fields’ actions, and they claim to be pro-law and against criminal activity, they still push alt-right, violence-inciting rhetoric. Another core belief listed in their manifesto reads: The ideal structure of a family is one in which a hard-working father and nurturing mother instill strong values in the children of our nation. This family structure is, and has proven to be, the strongest core foundation for any nation, and thus any assault on the family must be met with swift and decisive action. We realize that equality does not exist in nature, and a government based in the natural law must not cater to the false notions of equality. This same type of hard-working, tough guy imagery was often implied and romanticized by Trump throughout his campaign trail, (“The forgotten men of America,” anyone?) and this is precisely the type of rhetoric known to ramp up the blood pressure, and embolden previously dormant violent tendencies of the alt-right racists, and white nationalists in general. It was, after all, during Trump’s announcement of his candidacy for President of The United States that he called Mexicans “rapists,” among other bad things, and his rhetoric all just continued spiraling downwards from there. Of course, only his base ate this up, but it was harmful to everyone because it further perpetuated the public misconception that crime is correlated to immigration, particularly, illegal immigration. Of course Trump’s message resounded with this despicable group of vile sub-humans. The blame for Charlottesville lies squarely on Trump’s shoulders. This is his America, whether he wants it or not. This is the monster he created. Anyone who thinks that there’s no correlation between a.) people planning and willingly going to Charlottesville without donning hoods or masks, openly protesting the removal of a confederate statue, and b.) the legacy of Donald Trump’s candidacy for POTUS, is simply exposing a high level of idiocy. Just think about what the people who came to Charlottesville to protest were actually protesting: the removal of the statue of a man who led the Confederate Army to defend slavery, who married into the wealthiest slave-owning family in Virginia, and whose ideology was white supremacy. Robert E. Lee was a man who, in a letter to his wife regarding slaves, famously stated, “The blacks are immeasurably better off here than in Africa, morally, socially & physically. The painful discipline they are undergoing, is necessary for their instruction as a race, & I hope will prepare & lead them to better things. How long their subjugation may be necessary is known & ordered by a wise Merciful Providence.” These white supremacy groups in Charlottesville were protesting the taking down of a statue of that man, which coincidentally, was erected in 1924, just as the second resurgence of the KKK was happening. This is significant because in the 1920s, post WWI, white Americans were becoming more and more bitter and resentful over immigration and the idea that immigrants were taking jobs away from them, and they were worried that immigrants and people of color were diluting the (myth of) “racial purity” of American society as a whole. Basically, a bunch of white supremacists had irrational paranoia over losing their power, their status, and their country. If that sounds familiar, it’s because now, we have the third rising of the KKK (which has been growing steadily, and even more so since the 1960s). Only this time, they’re carrying citronella tiki torches into the the night, and they’re emboldened by Trump and his ilk to show their hoodless, maskless faces. The correlation between Donald Trump’s presidency parading in on the coattails of his open, inflammatory, hateful rhetoric like a reality freak show, and the willingness of white supremacists to show their faces in public is no coincidence. This rhetoric appeals to people in the same way the NRA does, as well as Breitbart News, Fox News, and right-wing talk radio programs like Rush Limbaugh. This toxic rhetoric is making white people think they are being overpowered and outnumbered by different races and liberals, and further, that their lives are somehow in danger. It’s just time for white people to have a serious conversation and face the fact that their paranoia, and frankly, their insecurities about America being overwhelmed by the likes of immigrants, liberals, muslims, and black people, is simply ridiculous. In 2017, America is still dominated by white people, conservatives, and Christianity. They still dominate government, too, with Republicans controlling The White House, both houses of Congress, The Supreme Court, and most of the country’s governorships. That these white (men, mostly) have the gall to act like a besieged minority is mind-blowing. Fields’ mother, appearing somewhat bewildered after hearing the news of her son, said she knew her son was attending a rally. She also said that her son had mentioned “alt-right,” but she didn’t know what that meant. When it was explained to her that the alt-right was composed of white supremacists, she said, “I didn’t know it was white supremacist, I thought it had something to do with Trump.” When she then stated with authority, “Trump’s not a supremacist,” you could almost hear the collective gasps of everyone, everywhere, who has been calling out Trump’s racism, xenophobia, and all the other ‘isms’ and phobias he has failed to condemn since day one. Fields’ mother also explained that she didn’t get involved with her son’s politics, specifically, that she tried to “stay out of his political views.” And that’s where we have a huge, reoccurring problem: She didn’t know. She either didn’t know, didn’t care to know, or pretended not to know that her son was a Trump fan, and an alt-right fan. While many Trump voters surprised us by being Trump voters, their votes still may have come from good intentions, however misguided. But the divide between human beings with moral decency, and those who are alt-right is not subtle. Furthermore, stances taken by the alt-right (and by association he has yet to condemn, Trump) are not even about politics in the first place – they’re about whether one embraces the collective moving forward of society towards a common honorable goal, or the moving backwards of society to a romanticized past that never actually existed. Forwards, or backwards. Progressive, or regressive. Decent human beings, or the alt-right. It really is that cut and dry. The fact that James Alex Fields’ mother didn’t know leads directly to this point: White families actually need to have the difficult conversations nobody wants to have. White people need to come to the kitchen table and discuss hard topics like systemic racism, the many faces and intersections of privilege, the unfair stigma of mental illness, the problems with reinforcing a cisgender, heteronormative culture while not teaching diversity, and even stuff as seemingly trivial as the ever-shifting, evolving cultural language our teenage youth are adopting. White families, who by skin color are automatically endowed with white privilege, regardless of class, need to shift out of their comfort zones and honestly discuss their values and ideals. They need to admit and confront their fears and insecurities, their non-negotiables, and even (and especially) their political views, if for no other reason than that anyone’s child could be the next James Alex Fields, and any parent could remorsefully claim, “I just didn’t know.” As this news of white supremacists, alt-right, and racism apparently sunk in some time later, Fields’ mother on-camera said, “I mean, he had an African-American friend! I mean, so…” and then trailed off, with a somewhat uncomfortable, disbelieving kind of chuckle. Laughable, because in her mind surely her son wasn’t associated with racists or white supremacists – look, he has a black friend; that proves he’s not racist! That type of reasoning is exactly on par with someone saying, “I’m not homophobic, I have gay friends,” or “I’m not transphobic” but then using transphobic language such as “sex change,” “transvestite,” or “transgendered” (which is no more a real word than “gayed,” or “straighted”). So her argument, implying that her son couldn’t possibly be racist or white supremacist because he had “an African American friend,” is the perfect case in point for the statement: Just because you have black friends doesn’t automatically mean you’re not racist. In fact, it’s a terrible excuse for racism. This was the first major episode of deadly domestic terrorism to occur under the reign of President Trump. From the beginning of his campaign, Donald Trump has chosen not to deal with the topic of racism head-on, if at all, though he was more than happy to chide and even taunt former President Obama in ways like starting the (very racist, very untrue) “birther” conspiracy theory. In fact, it’s very telling that it took people like former President Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton, who didn’t win the presidency, to denounce this act of racism on social media long before the sitting President did – a man who, on a normal day, sends out tweets like dandelion seeds in a gust of wind. Trump’s very late response to the events that unfolded in Charlottesville seemed forced; He appeared before TV cameras begrudgingly, emotionless, his eyes not leaving the prepared script, much like the way a ten year old child might read a written, forced apology for kicking their 5th grade nemesis on the playground. That is, until Trump got to the the part where he said bigotry was being seen “on many sides, on many sides.” For that part, he looked up and returned to his usual tone of voice. That part seemed to be a last minute ad lib, to sort of defiantly go rogue and throw in a promise to his base (with a wink and a nod) that he was still with them. After that, basically everyone not in his base tuned out and disregarded the rest of that ill-penned, pitiful and vague speech. It was a huge missed opportunity and a complete failure on the President’s part. And yet, it seems like this is all unfolding perfectly, according to Trump’s plan. That during this pitiful speech he got to tout the phrase, “What is vital now is a swift restoration of law and order and the protection of innocent lives,” sounded less like denouncing white supremacy and more like a rallying cry for Americans to get behind this insinuated “need” for us to extend manpower and militarize the police in our streets. Trump has already made sweeping attempts to take away the freedom of the press, and freedom of speech. Perhaps removing freedom of assembly is the next constitutional right he’ll chip away at. These are all things many believe to be part of Trump’s ultimate endgame – which, as many people have noted, is frighteningly the exact same thing Hitler did. Hitler posed as a “traditional values” man, a champion of law and order. The Nazi police liked to take preventative action, making arrests based on suspicion or whim, beating people into submission with no oversight from the courts, etc. When Hitler and the Nazi party gained traction, they were easily able to take away basic human rights that had already been granted, including freedom of the press, freedom of speech, and freedom of assembly, for starters. What Trump is doing is nothing new. After that pitiful speech on Saturday, many were vocal over the fact that he didn’t name the attack for what it was – an act of domestic terrorism propelled by racists and white nationalists. All over the news and social media, people were calling for Trump to denounce white supremacy immediately. But he never did. In addition to his pathetic speech which actually said more with its silence than with its words, Trump now can add, “shows moral cowardice in the face of domestic terrorism” to his report card. But why would we expect anything different? This is who he is. This is who he was all over the campaign trail. We are merely reaping the consequences now of electing a white supremacist. We are reaping the consequence of his actions, like surrounding himself in The White House with influential figures like Steve Bannon and Sebastian Gorka, who are known white supremacists. We see their white nationalist influence on Trump when we see something like his response to what just happened. We see it in the way he seemed to bend over backwards to try and not call a spade a spade, by not naming the act, and by not saying that it was a racially motivated act of domestic terror. Saturday’s speech was a display of Trump simply going through the motions because people forced his hand. The “White House-issued” clarification later (issued by an unnamed White House spokesman) was laughable, claiming that when he condemned bigotry, Trump was including racism and white supremacy. But Trump didn’t say it himself. He never looked into the camera and said to his country, “I condemn white supremacy, racism, and Neo-nazis.” Some assistant issued a statement claiming he condemns them. For it to be believed, though, Trump has to say it and do it himself, through both words and actions. Sadly however, I’d argue there’s no need to wait for him to publicly denounce white supremacy. That’s because, as time has proven over and over again, we need only to look at his actions, not his words. Unfortunately, his actions have always either failed his words, or confirmed his silence. Of course, the roots of what happened in Charlottesville didn’t start with Trump; they go back to the founding of our country. Racism has always been present, but there are also figures who emerge and seem to fan its flames over the years. We saw this when white people began protesting the election of our first black President in 2008. And Donald Trump was listening. In that audience he found a well and tapped into it. He built his entire campaign platform on the foundation of a disobedient, rogue, enabling environment, one that incited and welcomed violence on the campaign trail, which then spilled over into his presidency. During his gratuitous, self-congratulatory “thank you tour” to the states who showed their Trump loyalty by voting him in, Trump continued this rhetoric. And by then, he was already full-tilt into building his cabinet with known white supremacists who would greatly influence him. The responsibility now for all of us white people, whether we voted for him or not, is to consistently and perpetually point out how abnormal all of this is, and how this is fundamentally NOT what our country stands for. We must have the difficult conversations with our family around the kitchen table. We must call and write our representatives, local and otherwise, to state our discontent. We must complain to them about the normalization of white supremacists in The White House - white supremacists who are attempting to make policies across the boards that are gradually dismantling our individual rights and undermining our defining American values and ideals. We have to do more. We have to demand more. We deserve more. Let the American people speak whenever Donald Trump goes silent. Actually, let the American people speak, particularly, the decent white people who say they’re not racist. Let those Americans speak. Period.

Alexis Keegan releases “Heaven” today. And it’s hecka-good! Alexis Keegan has toured and opened for Ron Pope, Howie Day, Lee DeWyze, Kate Voegele, Tyler Hilton and O-Town, as well as dropping two well-received EPs, Clean Slate and Endless Road. Originally from New Jersey, Keegan now resides in Los Angeles. Stylistically, Keegan’s sound merges R&B and soul into potent melodies chock-full of primitive energy suffused with palpable throbbing rhythms. “Heaven” starts off with a funky R&B groove thick with nuances of cool soul. The melody pulses with rhythm and instrumental harmonics. The heavy bassline contrasts with the crisp crunch of the guitar accents. The thud of the bass drum provides visceral punch while Keegan’s evocative voice soars above, radiating a wildly exotic resonance moussed to wickedly vibrant colors. Shimmering horns spin out waves of luminous sonic pigments, providing a veil of cascading tones. Superb background vocal harmonies deliver glistening clots of tang-filled sonority. In fact, the vocals on “Heaven” reflect flamboyance simultaneously sharp and imminent, righteous and intent. The overall feel of the tune conveys a ferociously ramped up grinding sensuality, along with frigid disdain and subliminal hyperbolic flashes of passion. Keegan’s voice is unparalleled, providing a dense plexus of flavors from raw and organic to piercing and incandescent. It’s a voice of proximate power, unbelievable projection and urgent remarkable charm. It can freeze you into immobility or catapult you into ecstasy. When she zings out her cat-cry yowl, it sends shivers up your spine and makes your hair stand on end. To say Alexis Keegan has it going on is an understatement. She sets it on fire on this song! It’s yazum. The R&B/soul melody is rife with sensual energy and palpitating rhythm. The lyrics construe delightful eventualities and Keegan’s voice sizzles with tart piquancy. Whatever you do, don’t miss “Heaven.” It’s burning with vitality. Find out more about Alexis Keegan here and here.

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Black celebrities are calling for the removal of Confederate statues in favor of replacing them with monuments that honor black heroes and icons in Mic’s latest project. Confederate monuments have long embodied America’s infatuation with its racist past. Though there have been many petitions and protests throughout the years, demanding the removal of these monuments, the Black Monuments Project “aims to correct this sordid legacy through a blend of history and imagination.” “It repurposes our nation’s Confederate-centric memory of the Civil War as a chance to celebrate black heroes, well and lesser known, instead of the white supremacists who would see them locked in chains,” wrote Mic reporter Zak Cheney-Rice in the project’s mission. After a year dominated by talk of Confederate monuments, Mic imagines a country where black monuments bloom in every state. @kerrywashington, @Usher, @Common, @YaraShahidi and more share our nominees. #BlackMonuments pic.twitter.com/kuBBmXS7TD — Mic (@mic) February 1, 2018 A video accompanies the project, in which celebs, activists and politicians call for us to honor figures like Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), musician Prince and Virginia resident Henrietta Lacks, whose cancer cells were the source of one of the most important cell lines for medical research. ″We need a monument in South Carolina for the Charleston Nine,” said “Orange Is the New Black” actress Danielle Brooks. “It is the collective name given to the nine souls that were brutally murdered in Charleston, South Carolina.” Launched on the first day of Black History Month, the project’s website features an interactive map, highlighting icons for each state and territory in the U.S. along with accompanying biographies. Octavia Butler, a pioneer in the world of black science fiction, represents California. While Marsha P. Johnson, a trans activist integral in the beginnings of the Stonewall Riot, reps New Jersey. Bayard Rustin, a leader for both civil rights and gay rights, stands in for Pennsylvania. Some biographies include 3-D Snapchat lenses, filters that allow users to snap a picture with an imagined statue of a black hero. This is the latest campaign echoing calls for the removal of Confederate monuments, which many see as symbols of America’s unwillingness to formally apologize for chattel slavery. In August 2017, a mob of white supremacists and other extremists protested through the streets of Charlottesville, Virginia, demanding the city preserve the statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. The ensuing conflict left many anti-racist activists injured and 1 person dead. President Donald Trump downplayed the danger posed by white supremacists, claiming there were “very fine people on both sides” of the protests. What happened in Charlottesville is part of a much longer history of romanticizing Lee and the Confederacy. Although Lee was a Confederate solider known for how he tormented his slaves, his image has been whitewashed, perpetuating the myth of a virtuous Confederate South. These are the narratives the Black Monuments Project hopes to reverse.

Turkey has conducted a referendum, which legally terminated their republic. But it had already died long ago, having been eroded under Recep Tayyip Erdogan since he took charge in 2003. “So this is how democracy dies, with thunderous applause.” These words were uttered not by a member of the opposition to the Nazis in Germany, or a victim of Japan’s termination of the Taisho Democracy, crushed as easily as Hitler’s destruction of the Weimar Republic. It didn’t even come from a Turk, luckless enough to be left behind in Erdogan’s Empire. The quote came from actress Natalie Portman, playing Senator Amadala in the Star Wars movie “Revenge of the Sith,” as she sadly observes how her old republic was converted into a Galactic Empire, not by force but by an overwhelming vote to give the Supreme Chancellor the power to do whatever he wanted. Atrocities followed rather quickly. But in the case of Turkey, it’s the last breath of a patient who has been on life support since Erdogan came to power. Erdogan took advantage of dissatisfaction with secular parties to help his Islamist party come to power, via elections. He seemed to the very person who could blend his Middle East party with democracy, a model for others in the region. But such a commitment to freedom turned out to be a smoke screen for the development of a hereditary dictatorship. First he sought to oust the military leadership, the guardians of the republic. He even won support in such an endeavor from other Islamists and democratic political parties, who chafed under prior coups. Then he targeted the followers of Fethullah Gulen, who made the mistake of uncovering massive corruption by Erdogan family members, as well as government links to terrorists. The purge began long before any military coup, with Gulenists being fired from their jobs, their media enterprises being taken and turned into government mouthpieces and businesses were shut down. Then it was the Kurds’ turn. When they had the audacity to vote for their own savvy political party, the HDP, they made the mistake of denying Erdogan a majority in parliament. Erdogan got even by ending the ceasefire with the Kurds, and thousands were slaughtered in the anti-Kurdish campaign. Academics who spoke out against the genocide were fired from their university jobs. The ruling party members didn’t seem to mind when the leaders of the Kurdish political party were arrested and jailed, so they couldn’t oppose the referendum. They didn’t complain when Erdogan spoke admiringly of Hitler’s form of government (he claimed he was misquoted, but there’s no way that quote could have ever said anything critical of Hitler). Few in the majority complained when ISIS bombs only killed scores of younger people at opposition party gatherings, instead of ruling party rallies. Then came the military coup. Even though waged only by a small unit of disgruntled junior military officers, Erdogan saw to it that judges, reporters, professors, teachers and anyone even related to a follower of Fethullah Gulen was arrested. More than 100,000 were fired and more than 40,000 were arrested. Ask yourself how a democracy is one of the world leaders of incarcerated journalists. During the “election” he used his “state of emergency powers” to deny the opposition the ability to campaign. Opposition party members were locked up, and others were afraid to openly campaign, or get arrested themselves, or get a “Gezi Park Protest” special, with water cannons and jailings. So Erdogan has his win, and can be a legal dictator until 2029. His appointment powers, ability to run roughshod over the legislature, continue to give privileged positions to relatives can continue unabated, to the cheers of his supporters and AKP. Meanwhile, expect even more ISIS attacks, pro-democracy refugees to beg for asylum, continued opposition to Israel and America’s foreign policy, another Putin pal and a generation of Turks to be educated by strictly-controlled bureaucrats that their leader is descended from above and the U.S.A. is the enemy, as Erdogan’s family continues his legacy. It will be like having North Korea in the Middle East, right next to Europe.

President Donald Trump had a lot to say on Twitter Monday morning ― but none of his posts addressed the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, on Saturday, where a car rammed into a group of pedestrians protesting a white supremacist rally, killing one woman. Over the weekend, Trump condemned the “violence” and “hate” in general terms but stopped short of explicitly naming any of the white supremacist groups responsible for the event. He also blamed “many sides” for the unrest, which took place in a protest over the planned removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. In his tweets Monday, the president called out “obstructionist Democrats” as well as Ken Frazier, the CEO of pharmaceutical company Merck, who resigned from Trump’s manufacturing council over the president’s tepid response to the terror attack. Heading to Washington this morning. Much work to do. Focus on trade and military. #MAGA — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 14, 2017 Luther Strange of the Great State of Alabama has my endorsement. He is strong on Border & Wall, the military, tax cuts & law enforcement. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 14, 2017 The Obstructionist Democrats have given us (or not fixed) some of the worst trade deals in World History. I am changing that fast! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 14, 2017 Now that Ken Frazier of Merck Pharma has resigned from President's Manufacturing Council,he will have more time to LOWER RIPOFF DRUG PRICES! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 14, 2017 According to the White House, Trump is scheduled to meet with Attorney General Jeff Sessions and FBI Director Chris Wray on Monday to discuss the Charlottesville violence. It’s unclear whether he will offer any public remarks after the meeting.

If you talk to young libertarian men passionate about technology, it is only a matter of time before the conversation turns to cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, and their potential to disrupt the entire concept behind fiat currencies. Bitcoin is powered by blockchains, a complicated computer technology that records transactions in a way that is currently considered to be unalterable. While the technology originated in relation to digital currencies, modern technology experts like Evgeniy Novitsky say there’s no reason that blockchain can’t be use to record any sort of transaction. With the new partnership between Bauman MSTU (of which Novitsky is the chair of the Board of Trustees) and Imperial College, Novitsky hopes to see new uses of blockchain to the general market. Considered Unhackable One of the reasons that blockchain technology is considered so powerful for information storage is that it stores information in long series of “blocks” which cannot be altered. With Bitcoin, for example, each transaction adds a block to the chain, creating a permanent record of the transaction. Novitsky says that the security of this technology “creates a fundamentally new method of organization and operation of many industries.” Distributed Information Blockchain is sometimes referred to as the technology of distributed registry. Understanding what this means is crucial to understanding the potential of blockchain. For example, in cloud storage. Right now, storing your information in the cloud means having it all in one place with a centralized provider. With blockchain technology, it may be possible for information to be stored across a wide variety of locations, distributed and decentralized. If a group were to gain access to one particular storage area, they would be unlikely to gather enough information to create a coherent picture. Secure Identity Since people began to conduct transactions online, keeping identity secure has been a priority, with varying levels of success. Individuals rely on companies to collect data responsibly, and secure it carefully. Not all companies have the ability to do that, however, and major hacks—like those at Target, Sony, and Equifax—expose individual information to a wide variety of negative possibilities. Hacks and identity theft are said to cost over $18 billion annually, with that figure likely to continue to rise as thieves get more sophisticated and more people use online tools to manage their lives. Blockchain technology could be used to create more sophisticated and secure login technology. It could create chains of all identity related documents which could create an online profile for each individual, keeping their information securely stored and unalterable. Novitsky says that one key feature of the new partnership between Bauman and the Imperial College is the potential it offers to students. Students have access to the international playing field of technology, which Novitsky says enables the school to “provide a close connection to the developed prototypes with real-world context.” Time Stamping and Verifications Some countries have begun using blockchain technology to allow online votes to be cast in elections. One of the main arguments against online voting has been vulnerability to the election process; if hackers can steal identity information and credit card numbers from incredibly secure databanks, how much work would it really take for them to break into election servers, especially given that government technology is unfortunately not always state of the art? With blockchain technology, however, some experts suggest that voters could see that their vote has been properly cast, and computers could more accurately tally votes while limiting the possibilities for interference. Talking about the new partnership, Novitsky is clear that he is excited to see what the new relationship between the two universities can bring. Novitsky himself is a graduate of Bauman MSTU, though the school was called the Moscow Higher Technical School at the time. The new partnership with Imperial College in London, which Novitsky calls a world leader in the development of cryptocurrency, will enable students to establish a wide range of possible contacts within the international business community. “Such opportunities are fundamentally important to guide the creative and scientific initiative of young engineers in today’s most demanded technology track.”

This article originally appeared on Fatherly. Children are fickle, but they are not alone. Adults are fickle too and the smart ones – the ones that pay attention and soak up information – tend to change their minds. This can present some awkwardness in the adult-child relationship, which is at its most reassuring when it’s at its most consistent. Feelings of both trust and safety can be undercut when parents go back on their word. “Daddy disagrees with himself,” is not a sentiment that inspires confidence in young kids. Because of this, managing a change of heart in front a child can feel like a faintly political process of backtracking and obfuscation. The trick to doing it well is not to make a big deal out of it and to hope – and this is arguably the part of the process most analogous to politics – that no one notices. “Obviously we should try to not do it too frequently,” says clinical psychologist Anna Prudovski, clinical director of Turning Point Psychological Services. She notes that younger kids in particular have difficulty when a parent changes their mind because it erodes their sense of stability and parents should be the most stable people in a kid’s life. “It’s very important for parents to think before promising something,” she says. “It’s a very common mistake. It’s just easier for parents to promise just because they want children to feel better in the moment.” But, of course, the moment is not the time to make guarantees for either better (“We’ll go tomorrow”) or worse (“I will throw all your toys away”). In the case of promises made in anger or out of expediency and subsequently broken, Prudovski urges a brief apology and a calm, simple, explanation as to why the change is occurring. The apology, which might feel a bit unnatural, models humility to kids. Making the explanation brief keeps the change from becoming a big deal. “The best thing is to give a pretty quick response and see the kids reaction,” Prudovski explains. That’s because when parents defend, try to explain away the change or become too apologetic, they’re essentially signaling to their child they believe the kid can’t handle their error. “Sometimes we underestimate their resilience,” she says. “And they may be okay.” If they are okay, there is nothing more to do. Parents can go on with their day happy to have dodged a tantrum. They can also rest secure in the knowledge that their kid confronted a disappointment and lived to tell about it. That’s ultimately a good thing, because a parent will not be the last adult in their life to disappoint them. Some kids, however, may lose their shit. This isn’t the time for parents to offer more explanation. “Parents talk a lot when they are upset and stressed, but they don’t talk enough when they’re calm,” says Prudovski. “That’s not how to develop a relationship with a kid.” She suggests that parents should wait out the storm, not feeding the behavior, until the child is calm. At that point, a parent can ask their kid to help them find an appropriate solution to the problem. In the case of a blown consequence, parents can ask the child if they can come up with a better consequence. In the case of poor time management a parent can collaborate with a kid on solutions, or do-overs, by offering a limited slate of options from which they can choose, like doing the activity on the weekend, or the same day after dinner, or maybe even at home.

This article originally appeared on Fatherly. When I was eighteen, I had an apartment in Florence, a shaved head, and a cockamamie theory that women communicated through their breasts and men communicated through their penises. Naturally, I decided one evening to get a pair of rudimentary images of the aforementioned theory tattooed on my skull. At the time, I was not considering having children, but, fifteen years later, those images are still — of course — on my skull and my kids have questions. They are also interested in why I have a pin-up girl on my shoulder, Serge Gainsbourg on my back, a weird tree house from a Silver Jews album on my torso and a “Mom” tattoo on my arm. Most of these tattoos I, to varying degrees, regret. I have other tattoos I do not regret. Explaining the former is a lot tougher than explaining the latter, but also, I’ve been shocked to discover, more rewarding. This is not just a problem for me. In 2015, a Harris Poll study estimated that 47% of Millennials have at least one tattoo. (This isn’t counting the children who have tattoos.) Based on my experiences, that likely means that 40% of people regret or should regret either the placement, the subject, the technique or the existence of said their ink. Statistically, over 70 percent of these millions will become parents. And then, a few years later, they’ll have to account for themselves. It is simple enough, though often embarrassing, to answer the what: “Daddy, who is that lady on your arm?” “Well, son, remember that Altoids ad from like 2003? No? Ok, well, it’s a lady.” “Why is she on fire and not wearing any clothes?” “A) She’s a demon and B) she did have clothes on, a red dress, but the ink fell out and now you can see her nipples. ” “But why do you have that on your arm?” That is a tougher query to which to respond. On the one hand, saying something to the effect “Your dad was an idiot” both undermines one’s credibility as not-an-idiot and is also not completely factual. There are hard-to-parse reasons beyond idiocy. On the other hand, standing by the tattoo is pretty lame as well. The pin-up girl, in particular, is troubling since I’m trying to raise woke-ass dudes who respect women and I find it impossible to defend my decision, years ago, to get a scantily clad woman depicted on my arm forever. After ducking the question for a number of times, I settled on what I think is an appropriate response that teaches my sons something about me, something about the universe and something about tattoos. In addition, like the best responses to the queries of children, it is just a slightly tweaked version of what I tell myself. I say: “People change. Who I am now is not who I was ten years ago, five years ago, yesterday, even. It is not a complete change. I am still, of course, your Daddy and I’ll always be your Daddy and I will always love you. But what I like to eat, what I like to wear, the things I like to do with my body, how I treat people, those have changed. When I was younger, I thought these tattoos were a good idea so I got them. I do not regret them now. However, I would not get them again. They are tattoos and so they are permanent. There is nothing to be ashamed about it. I was that. I am now this. So, instead of regarding them with shame or regret, I look at these tattoos as reminders of the guy I used to be and as a reminder that I can change.”

A town in southwest Virginia has the highest per capita opioid prescribing level in the country. New state prescribing rules could help change that. The Pew Charitable Trusts A reminder of southwest Virginia’s robust industrial heritage, shuttered factories dot the landscape in Martinsville, Henry County, and the surrounding area. Counties in economic decline tend to have the highest rates of opioid painkiller prescribing, according to a new analysis by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. By Christine Vestal MARTINSVILE, Va. — For most of the last decade, this once thriving city had the highest unemployment rate in Virginia. Its disability and poverty rates are consistently double the state average, and its population is aging. In July, the former textile and furniture manufacturing mecca earned another dubious distinction. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, its drugstores dispense the highest volume of opioid painkillers per capita in the nation. Using 2015 data from retail pharmacy receipts, the CDC for the first time reported the volume and potency of pain tablets sold in the nation’s drugstores and calculated per capita rates of morphine equivalent doses sold at the county level. Martinsville drugstores came out on top, selling enough Vicodin, Percocet, OxyContin and other opioid painkillers to medicate every man, woman and child in the city for 136 days, nearly seven times the national average. In 2015, Americans on average consumed the equivalent of 21 days of the average dose of morphine per person, three times the rate of opioid use in 1999, according to the CDC. Martinsville’s health and law enforcement officials are convinced the CDC’s calculation of their city’s opioid consumption is inflated, mainly because people from nearby towns purchase pain medicine in Martinsville, which remains a major market hub for the largely rural region. The city of 13,000 lies near the North Carolina border in Henry County, which has a population of about 50,000. Its one hospital and 10 primary care clinics serve many of the residents in the surrounding county. Because county residents and others from farther away, including North Carolina, tend to shop in Martinsville, the CDC’s pharmacy dispensing data don’t necessarily reflect how many opioids local doctors are prescribing or how many pills the town’s residents are ingesting, explained Dr. Jody Hershey, the city’s public health director. Still, there’s no question Martinsville has a pill problem. Its rates of drug-related hospital admissions, overdose deaths and opioid-exposed newborns are also among the highest in the nation. “Our opioid problem has been many years in the making,” Police Chief Eddie Cassady said. “And it’s going to take an ongoing, long-term effort to change it.” The Pew Charitable Trusts Nancy Bell, left, and Sharon Ortiz-Garcia analyze data on hospitalizations, overdose deaths and infectious diseases related to opioid and heroin use for the Virginia health department’s West Piedmont Health District in Martinsville. Prescriptions Decline Nationally In an opioid epidemic that is killing more than 140 Americans every day, the CDC’s county- and city-level data can help public health officials deploy resources where they are needed most, said Caleb Alexander, co-director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Drug Safety and Effectiveness. Despite the sharp rise in drug overdose deaths in the last five years, fueled primarily by heroin and the even deadlier opioid fentanyl, the rate of prescribed opioid consumption has started to decline slightly. That could mean lower rates of heroin use, addiction and overdose deaths in the future. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, 86 percent of young injection drug users said they had abused prescription painkillers before using heroin. According to the CDC, in 2015 nationwide use of opioid painkillers declined for the first time in decades, dropping 18 percent from 2010 levels. “It’s a modest decline, but still significant,” Alexander said. “The crux is that to a large degree, the opioid epidemic has been driven by the volume of opioids prescribed, largely in primary care.” For years, law enforcers have been cracking down on fraudulent physicians who run so-called pill mills that sell dangerously high doses and excessive numbers of pills to patients without sufficiently examining them. Florida, in particular, has had success at eradicating this type of illegal prescribing, Alexander said. But more recently, much of the focus has been on ethical doctors and dentists who are simply following outmoded prescribing practices they learned in medical or dental school before the dangers of addiction to opioids were widely known. Instead of giving patients a three- to seven-day supply of opioids for acute post-operative pain after a tooth extraction or cesarean section, for example, they routinely prescribe a 30-day supply or more, even though the pain from those procedures typically subsides within a week. The result is that the patient either takes the extra pills and risks addiction, or stores them in an unlocked medicine cabinet where they find their way into illicit drug markets via family members and friends. In Virginia, David Brown, director of the state agency that oversees doctors and other health care providers, said he sees signs that overprescribing of opioids has started to decline in the state. In March, Virginia became one of only a handful of states to make recent CDC opioid prescribing guidelines mandatory for all health care providers. Arizona, Connecticut, Maine, New Jersey, New York and Rhode Island have taken similar measures. Virginia has also fortified its prescription monitoring program, allowing non-medical staff access to the system to help busy doctors check to see what other drugs their patients are taking before handing out opioid painkillers and other controlled substances. And in the last two years, the state has tightened its rules on the use of its drug monitoring system, making it mandatory for pharmacists to enter patient information within 24 hours of filling a prescription. For prescribers who may not consistently be checking patient drug use, the state sends alerts when a patient sees more than one doctor or more than one pharmacy for opioids in a 30-day period. Pain, Poverty and Addiction When the CDC released its county prescribing data last month, acting director Anne Schuchat said: “We still have too many people getting prescribed opioid prescriptions for too many days at too high a dose.” She also said the new data, which show a sixfold difference between the highest-prescribing counties and the lowest-prescribing counties, indicate that health care providers are inconsistent in their prescribing practices and that patients are subject to widely varying risks of addiction, depending on where they live. With few exceptions, the counties and independent cities with the highest prescribing rates have economic and demographic profiles that are similar to Martinsville’s. Hershey, the public health director, said the root cause of his city’s opioid problem is pain, poverty and unemployment. Not only does the stress of unemployment result in depression and anxiety that can lead to substance abuse, but lack of income creates a temptation to sell prescription opioids to pay the rent, fueling further exposure to the highly addictive drugs. On top of that, a large percentage of Martinsville residents are aging workers who have spent a lifetime in accident-prone professions that has taken a toll on their bodies. Lack of insurance has added to the problem. Virginia did not choose to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, leaving many with no way to pay medical or dental bills. As their health problems lingered untreated, many sought opioid painkillers to get up in the morning, and overworked doctors typically handed them out freely. Martinsville’s medical community, Hershey said, faces a steep challenge in trying to humanely treat chronic pain while guarding against further diversion of the prescription drugs many have relied on for decades. Local residents are also prone to hypertension, diabetes and kidney disease, all of which limit the type of medications they can take to ease the pain of arthritis and old injuries, said Patrick Favero, a primary care doctor who sees thousands of Martinsville residents. “Ninety-nine percent of my patients on pain medication came to me that way,” he said. “They’d been on them for decades.” Favero said he’s been taking extra precautions for the last three years to prevent opioid diversion. He orders long-acting painkillers that are harder to abuse whenever possible. He pays a full-time medical assistant to check patient records in the state prescription database, keep track of controlled substance prescriptions, call patients in to count their pills, and run drug screening tests to make sure patients are taking the painkillers, not selling them. He has posted a sign in his waiting room that reads, “All criminal activity will be reported” — and he turns in one or two patients every week.

We all go through periods of highs and lows. However, it’s much easier to have vigor for life when your energy level is high. For baby boomers, maintaining energy is not always easy. While caffeine and other energy boosters may look like an appealing way to make it through the day, they can actually sap you of energy. Not only that, for people over 50, too much caffeine can lead to increased blood pressure and heart rate as well as symptoms that can mask as a heart attack. The next time you feel a little drained, here are some aspects and ideas to consider to naturally boost your energy – and your lust for life. 11 way to naturally boost your energy 1. Cut back on large meals. Huge meals direct the blood to your digestive tract, away from your muscles and other areas that require it for energy. Plus, the sugar from such a large intake of food produces more damaging free radicals than your body’s natural defenses, antioxidants, can handle. Eating small meals throughout the day instead of one large meal is a better, more effective way to maintain ongoing energy. Just be sure that these meals or snacks contain both complex carbs and protein. 2. Keep an eye on gut bacteria. Your gut contains a wide variety of bacteria, most of which are beneficial. This good bacteria, which is essential for survival, helps us break down food and absorb nutrients. Meanwhile, our gut also hosts some “bad” bacteria, which may cause inflammation or infection and can deplete our energy. To boost the good bacteria in your gut, add a probiotic pill or yogurt that contains probiotics every day. 3. Consider taking supplements. As we age, people over 50 may have trouble absorbing nutrients, like vitamin B12, from natural sources, such as red meat. A B12 deficiency can lead to fatigue, among other health issues. Additionally, sometimes the drugs we need to stay healthy may impact our energy levels. For instance, diuretics can reduce potassium, which can result in lowered energy. It’s important to talk to your doctor if you can’t seem to shake your energy slump. Perhaps adding daily vitamin supplements or switching current medicine will help. 5. Increase your protein. Protein-rich foods give the body the fuel it needs to repair and build tissues. Protein also takes longer for the body to break down, which provides a longer-lasting source of energy. People who wait until the end of each day for a protein-packed dinner often feel tired throughout the day. So be sure to eat 20-30 grams of protein per meal or snack, whether from dairy, meat, eggs, fish, nuts or beans. You’ll not only start feeling more energetic but also in a better mood. 7. Minimize sugar intake. By now we can all attest to the fact that while sugary foods and beverages may provide an initial energy rush, a crash inevitably follows. Sugar inhibits blood flow, which prevents important nutrients from being delivered within the body where they are needed for energy. Instead of sugar, focus on foods that are rich in complex carbohydrates, like whole grains, green veggies, sweet and regular potatoes, beans and lentils. Like protein, they take longer to digest, leaving your body with longer-lasting energy than any sugary treat can provide. 8. Avoid alcohol. It may feel good while it’s going down, but alcohol drains people of energy. Even just one or two drinks can negatively affect your sleep, not to mention dehydrate you. As dehydration contributes to fatigue, skip the alcohol and increase your water intake. While you’re at it, cutting back on your caffeine intake will also decrease your risk of dehydration and, consequently, exhaustion. 9. Get more sleep. A good night’s sleep does wonders for boosting energy levels, no matter your age. Try going to bed an hour earlier. A great way to promote deeper sleep is to get rid of any electronic screens before bed. They emit blue light that inhibit your body’s natural production of melatonin, which controls your body’s cycles of sleep and wakefulness. 10. Get physically active. People who remain stationary for too long not only have lower energy levels but are also less healthy overall. Engaging in any type of exercise or physical activity, even 20 to 40 minutes each day, will increase a person’s energy level, not to mention enhance their physical and mental health.

The push for California secession just suffered a major setback. The colorful co-founder of the “Calexit” movement revealed that he’s withdrawing his petition for a California nationhood ballot and setting up home permanently in Russia. Louis Marinelli published a lengthy farewell statement on the website of the Yes California Independence Campaign announcing his move Monday. “I do not wish to live under the American flag,” he wrote. “I do not wish to live under the American political system or within the American economic system.” The succession campaign started before President Donald Trump’s election, though Yes California co-founder Marcus Ruiz Evans ― who is now pushing for a new nationhood bid with a rival group ― told the Los Angeles the surprise result sped up the move to submit a proposed ballot measure to the state attorney general’s office in December. Marinelli’s announcement surprised many ― but while his “Calexit” movement is supposedly headquartered in San Diego, he’s been living in a town on the edge of Siberia for some time and his ties to Russia run deep. He first moved to Russia a decade ago, is married to a Russian citizen and works as a teacher in Yekaterinburg. And he studied at St. Petersburg State University when he was younger. Marinelli, who was born in Buffalo, New York, said in his farewell statement that he had planned to return one day to “occupied California to struggle for her independence from the United States so we could build the kind of country that reflects our progressive values,” but now his “disillusion” with the U.S. points to a “new direction. Russia offers Marinelli “a new happiness, a life without the albatross of frustration and resentment toward one’s homeland,” he said, as he lamented the “animosity that has thus far engulfed my entire adult life.” “If the people of Russia would be so kind as to welcome me here on a permanent basis, I intend to make Russia my new home,” he added. Marinelli, who once battled gay rights before changing his mind and supporting same-sex marriage, told KQED that Russian President Vladimir Putin is helping American secession movements –- including his own campaign –- as part of a strategy to hit at U.S. power. “I kind of don’t blame them because it’s what the United States has been doing to them, and to every country around the world,” he said. But he also stressed that he wasn’t receiving any direct support, so it wasn’t unclear what kind of Putin “help” Marinelli was referring to. News of Marinelli’s move drew mixed responses on social media: Desperately seeking a place to plant progressive values, the leader of Calexit chooses to live under...Putin's rule. 🤔🤔🤔 Oh. Mmkay. https://t.co/2okYL9sIln — Eric Garland (@ericgarland) April 17, 2017 This is ironic in the traditional Webster's sense. https://t.co/JP19q0aCMx — Kevin Fox 🦊 (@kfury) April 17, 2017 I still believe in Calexit/Westexit and am pleased that it will have the opportunity to go forward untainted by this goon. https://t.co/4tvnkDMLVC — Erica L. Satifka (@ericasatifka) April 17, 2017 Trump’s victory has triggered major support in California for secession. A third of the state’s population now wants to secede, according to a January poll. Marinelli’s petition to place the secession measure on the 2018 ballot for a vote in 2019 has some 100,000 supporters, though 585,000 signatures are required on the ballot petition by July for it to qualify in time. But a formal request has already been issued to withdraw the petition. Ruiz Evans, the campaign’s vice-president, announced on Monday that he’s leaving Yes California, the San Diego Union-Tribune reports. He told the Sacramento Bee that secession supporters got “spooked” when they learned about Marinelli’s links to Russia. He’s joining another pro-nationhood group, the California Freedom Coalition, and Ruiz Evans said he hopes to have another ballot proposal ready to go on May 1. The Freedom Coalition won’t accept any foreign money, and contributions from other states must be cleared by the group’s board, spokesman Steve Gonzales told the San Francisco Chronicle.

Disclaimer: The following views are mine alone and do not represent the views of my employer. If you’ve spent any time in Iowa, it is likely you’ve heard a local proudly proclaim that we are “Iowa nice.” While there is no actual definition of “Iowa nice,” in practice it means that we are overly friendly and go out of our way to help our fellow citizens. “Iowa nice” means that we pull over on the side of the road to help a stranger change a tire. However, “Iowa nice” has caused the city of Des Moines, and the state of Iowa, to slow progressive ideals that were once the cornerstone of the state. 'Iowa nice' has caused the city of Des Moines, and the state of Iowa, to slow progressive ideals that were once the cornerstone of the state. Before my current position, my knowledge about local government was limited to the NBC sitcom “Parks and Recreation.” However, I came to realize that my ignorance to civic engagement was not unique, but rather an endemic to the populace. Des Moines, Iowa was a once beacon of progress throughout not only the state but also the U.S. In 1948, civil rights pioneer Edna Griffin organized a series of sit-ins and boycotts at Katz Drug Store in Downtown Des Moines. This was seven years before Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat in 1955. The Des Moines Human Rights Commission was established in 1951, more than a decade before Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Same-sex marriage was legally recognized by the state of Iowa in 2009, six years before Obergefell v. Hodges legalized it across America. So what happened? Civic engagement at the local level has a greater impact on the everyday lives of citizens than anything occurring in D.C. under Donald Trump or Barack Obama. If not for people in small communities voicing their opinions to their leaders, we would be in a constant state of stagnation. While everyone may not agree with the institution of federalism, it undeniably allows constituents to voice their opinions to local leaders who have the power to affect the laws and policies where they live. If “Iowa nice” is a characteristic of our communities, why doesn’t “Iowa nice” translate into municipal or state policy? On November 15, 2016 the Des Moines School Board responded to a student demonstration protesting the election. This meeting was standing room only, and after leaving, I felt a sense of pride, because Des Moines had shown up to support its students and their beliefs. The meeting concluded with the school board declaring that they stood with the teachers and students who protested the election. The student demonstration and support from the community resulted in a school board vote passing a resolution to declare the Des Moines Public Schools a sanctuary district. This was the best instance of civic engagement I can remember from the past year. However, far too often, less than five people attend city meetings that are open for public comment. If no one shows up to inform local leadership about issues in the city, how can city leaders be expected to resolve problems they do not know about? If no one shows up to inform local leadership about issues in the city, how can city leaders be expected to resolve problems they do not know about? There are numerous issues in the city that are not being actively addressed. Despite the flurry of development in the downtown area, there continues to be slum housing conditions that primarily impact the refugee and immigrant population, while black or African American households in Polk County continue to earn an average of $33,119 less than the median household income in the county. Allowing members of the Des Moines community to endure substandard housing and failing to address the earnings gap isn’t very “nice.” Has it somehow become “mean” to speak out and pressure elected officials to help change a flat tire in the name of progress? HuffPost is hitting the road this fall to interview people about their hopes, dreams, fears ― and what it means to be American today. “Iowa nice” has led to complacency and an expectation that issues needing to be addressed will be handled by our local leaders. But when our leaders are focusing their attention on economic development that wins Des Moines numerous awards, how can they be expected to address systemic issues of inequality? There is currently very little political pressure placed on local leadership to address these issues. The Des Moines City Council is elected by the people of Des Moines to represent the ideals of their constituents. However, when the biggest problem these leaders are forced to address is the placement of a bike lane, then maybe it is not the leaders who are failing but instead the people who are too “nice” to point out where the city’s policies are failing. In last November’s general election, Hillary Clinton received over 26,000 more votes than Donald Trump in Polk County. If a majority of the residents in Des Moines are progressive, then why are residents of Des Moines failing to take action and instead relying on city leaders to act for us. When our leaders are focusing their attention on economic development that wins Des Moines numerous awards, how can they be expected to address systemic issues of inequality? On Monday, October 9, 2017 at 4:30 p.m., the Des Moines City Council will be discussing an “Inclusivity Proclamation.” The purpose of this proclamation is to notify undocumented residents that the City of Des Moines Police Department recognizes the power to regulate immigration remains exclusive to the federal government, and the DMPD will not assist I.C.E. This proclamation does not establish Des Moines as a sanctuary city. While any policy coming out of City Council may only have power within the city of Des Moines, the impact that a unified voice and vision has in the state’s capitol cannot be ignored. The principles of “Iowa nice” should be reflected in the actions of state leaders who are elected to reflect and represent the beliefs of their constituency. Welcoming city and inclusivity proclamations would do wonders in small communities in Iowa that heavily rely on an immigrant workforce. It is our duty and responsibility as the capitol of Iowa to show these communities they have support here in Des Moines. Helping those who are in need of assistance is the “Iowa nice” thing to do.

Thousands of demonstrators marched on Saturday to demand that Donald Trump release his tax returns. But, barring an unexpected surprise – a W2 form issued by Vladimir Putin, for example, or a payment in kind from Anthony “Fat Tony” Salerno – we already know Trump’s ugliest tax secrets. We will reveal those secrets … … right after this break. Most readers will recognize that reference to Rachel Maddow’s televised release of Trump’s 2005 tax return, where viewers were kept in suspense for a total of 84 minutes before learning that Trump paid an effective federal tax rate of 24 percent that year. That was considered an anticlimax. It even led some observers to speculate that Trump might have leaked the return himself, since many people had assumed that Trump hadn’t paid any federal taxes at all for years. That gets us to Trump’s first terrible tax secret: His tax return was not unusual. Few wealthy individuals pay the official rate, which is currently 39.5 percent, even though the rich have never been richer at any point in this country’s history. A tax return released during Mitt Romney’s presidential run, for example, showed that Romney paid just over 14 percent in 2011 (and that year may have been chosen because others were even more embarrassing.) The tax code has been heavily rewritten by lobbyists for wealthy individuals and corporations. The resulting loopholes make it very rare for any individual or corporation, no matter how prosperous, to pay anything close to the top rate. Given their eagerness to avoid paying the official rate, you might think that rate is excessive. But the top marginal tax rate in this country is much lower than it’s been for most of the last century, despite today’s extreme concentration of wealth at the top: Eskow/OurFuture.org; Source: IRS.gov Although the official rate is only slightly more than one-third of its highest levels, an entire industry has been formed to help the wealthy avoid paying it. (This story shines a light on one small corner of that industry.) As James Kwak points out, Warren Buffett – a much more altruistic figure than Trump – takes advantage of today’s tax code on a much larger scale than Trump does. Trump’s second terrible tax secret is one he shares with the entire Republican Party: Instead of being grateful toward the country that has allowed them to accumulate such wealth, Trump and the GOP are willing to let people die for an additional tax cut. They were willing to deprive millions of people of health insurance in order to repeal a 3.8 percent tax on investment income and a tax of less than one percent on high wages. (More detail here.) Trump’s third tax secret? The tax-driven attack on the Affordable Care Act is just the start. His tax plan represents a massive tax giveaway to his billionaire friends and associates, and to corporations that are also paying far less than the official tax rate. Americans for Tax Fairness has summarized the injustice behind Trump’s tax plan, including the fact that it would raise taxes on approximately 9 million families while lowering the top tax rate even more. The Trump/GOP assault on the estate tax is a giveaway to America’s aristocracy. Trump’s even trying to eliminate the biggest tax he pays personally – the alternative minimum tax. The fourth secret is this: Trump and his party don’t believe in progressive taxation at all. As we wrote recently, Trump Budget Director Mick Mulvaney recently suggested that he preferred to let the ultra-wealthy “keep their money” – an extremist and inaccurate framing that is well outside the mainstream of both Republican and Democratic thought over the last century. They especially dislike the idea of taxing billionaires to help people in need. That’s pretty terrible. The fifth and final secret is this: Trump and his billionaire friends are able to pay these low tax rates because rich people have far too much influence over our political system. In fact, as political scientists Martin Gilens and Lawrence Page found in a 2014 study, “economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence.” In other words, the wealthy are de facto oligarchs who almost always get the policies they want. In a response to their critics, Gilens and Page wrote, “The affluent are, not surprisingly, (even) better at blocking policies they dislike than achieving policy change they desire. When a policy is strongly opposed by the affluent … that policy is adopted only 4 percent of the time.” That’s why today’s tax code is so excessively favorable to the wealthy and corporations. It’s very difficult to make changes that they dislike, and tax increases for the wealthy are certainly among the changes they dislike the most. But that’s no reason to quit. Americans have overthrown oligarchies before, most notably at the end of the era Mark Twain described as “the Gilded Age.” (We are, by any reasonable definition, going through a second Gilded Age today.) You don’t need Donald Trump’s tax returns to know that we need a more just tax system, one that calls upon the wealthy and corporations to pay their fair share. What’s more, the fight for fair taxation is inseparable from the fight against oligarchical wealth. That’s more reason to keep fighting. This weekend Donald Trump tweeted that “someone should look into who paid for” the “small” rallies demanding that he release his tax returns. The real question is, who pays for all the tax breaks that are given to people like Donald Trump?

How much should you haggle when buying a used car? originally appeared on Quora - the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world. Haggling is not appropriate when you are trying to buy something unique and in high demand — say, a Ferrari or a super-luxury custom car. The seller knows how much he can get, and he knows there will be a buyer at his established price. So trying to haggle will just get you thrown out, politely if you are lucky. For more ordinary cars, they are usually priced somewhat over what the seller is actually willing to take for the vehicle. But that amount or percentage differs among sellers, and what they are willing to take will change somewhat depending on how long they have owned the vehicle. The longer it has been on the lot, the more eager they are to move it out. Unfortunately, you won’t know how long they have had it. Typically a used car dealer has a pretty accurate idea of how much any given vehicle will bring, at an auction. He will want to get much more than that in a commercial sale; but if he has held the car long enough, and feels he will have to take it to the auction, he will be willing to sell it for only a few hundred dollars about his estimate of the auction price. But you have no way of knowing those things. By far the most effective and most time-saving technique is for you to have a solid idea in advance of how much you are willing to pay for such a vehicle. You can base that on whatever you want — Blue Book listings, eBay transactions, average internet listing prices, or whatever else you want. But have your number in mind, and stick with it. When you are talking with the salesman, show interest in the car but not joy that this is the vehicle you feel destined to own. There will be a sticker price posted, and you can ask if that is actually what he expects to receive for the car. He will of course say yes, and you can say OK, maybe I should look at something else. He will then almost certainly offer you a somewhat reduced price, and you should thank him; but say you are nevertheless going to look at something else. The salesman may or may not continue to offer you a lower price, but pretty quickly he is going to say “This is the best we can do”. That is not a time when you should begin haggling. You should not haggle at all. You should say OK Thanks, and turn away. Even leave the place. If the salesman actually lets you leave, you can be pretty sure that you have heard the best price you can get there. More likely, he will stop you or call you back, and ask what you have in mind for that car. That is when you tell him how much you are ready to pay. That had better be an actually realistic price for such a vehicle, not just some fantasy you have about what price would constitute an amazing bargain for you. If you approach it with that idea, you are never going to make a deal, on that car or any other. Salesmen quickly recognize someone whose only motive is to get an amazing bargain that they can brag about, and they won’t waste any more time with such a person. So if you have a realistic price in mind, and you are ready to make the deal immediately at that price, you can say “I would take that car for $5500, but that’s all I have. Can we have a deal at that price?”. If you have in fact set a reasonable price, the salesman will either accept it on the spot, or will go through a little act of discussing it with his manager. He may try to ratchet you up a bit, but you have to stand firm. He will soon either accept it, or you will see that it is time for you to leave. Never go back and raise your offer. As soon as he sees you are willing to go up a couple of hundred, or a couple of thousand, the lowest price he previously gave you will be set into stone. You have no chance of getting him to come down, not even by a dollar. You have made your first and final bid for the car, and unless it is accepted you have to go somewhere else and find another car. That is why you should never fall in love with a car at any dealership. If you do, you are lost. You are going to end up paying whatever they want for the car. Instead, you have to realize that there are plenty of cars, plenty of different makes and models and years, that would all be just fine for you. So when you are looking at a specific vehicle, know in advance what that vehicle is worth to you. At the appropriate time, make your offer for it, and if it is not accepted, go on to something else. That is a far better approach than trying to haggle your way into a bargain. But don’t make the stupid mistake of deciding that your price should always be ten percent under the sticker price, or twenty percent, or any other such ridiculous reasoning. Do enough research to know what is the realistic market value of the car, independent of the dealer’s sticker or the salesman’s offer. Don’t feel that you deserve, or need, to have the lowest price or the best bargain of anyone; you don’t. Note that when you are trading in a car, you are putting yourself in the position of trying to set two prices at one time — the price for the car you want to buy, and the price for the car you want to sell. That is more than twice as difficult as making two separate deals. You will do much better, ordinarily, to sell the car you have, then go out and buy another. Trying to get a dealer to pay you a higher price, while you are also trying to get him to sell you something for a lower price, is an impossible task.

Adam Bettcher via Getty Images A Dakota Pipeline protester hangs from the ceiling of the U.S. Bank Stadium during the Minnesota Vikings and Chicago Bears game. Spectators at a Minneapolis Vikings football game were treated to an unexpected aerial act when a pair of North Dakota pipeline protesters hung from the rafters to unfurl a banner reading: “Divest.” The message was for U.S. Bank, sponsor of the Vikings’ U.S. Bank Stadium, which pipeline opponents accuse of being a key financial backer of the controversial project. The pair unfurled the banner in the second quarter and were busted when they touched back down to earth at the end of the game was over, reported the Minneapolis Star Tribune. The football action continued without interruption, even as the two protesters — one wearing a Brett Favre Vikings jersey — dangled from the rafters. The banner, which included the “USBank” logo and “#NoDAPL,” hung over the crowd for the rest of the game. Fans, however, were cleared from eight rows of seats beneath the protesters as a precaution. Adam Bettcher via Getty Images Protesters hang out. As the protesters dangled in the air, organizers of the action sent a release to news outlets quoting one of the climbers as saying: “We are here in solidarity with water protectors from Standing Rock to urge U.S. Bank to divest from the Dakota Access Pipeline. The pipeline’s route violates treaty rights of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and poses a significant threat drinking water and the health of the Missouri River.” The organizers contend that U.S. Bank has tens of millions of dollars in credit lines active with the pipeline’s parent company. There was no immediate response from U.S. Bank. SMG, the operators of the stadium, issued a statement saying that the protesters had climbed over a guardrail to reach a roof truss leading to a catwalk beneath the roof. The Minneapolis Police Department identified the climbers as Karl Mayo, 32, and Sen Holiday, 26. They were charged with burglary and trespassing, and a third person was charged with obstructing the legal process, reported WCCO-TV. It’s not the first time pipeline protesters have targeted banks. Last month Minneapolis protesters blocked Wells Fargo Bank employees from going to work. On another occasion last month protesters briefly padlocked doors to a Wells Fargo branch in the city. Construction of the pipeline is currently on hold. In the wake of a widescale onsite protest by Native Americans and supporters, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in early December denied a permit for the section of the pipeline planned for beneath the Missouri River in North Dakota. But pipeline protesters are worried about incoming President-elect Donald Trump, who has said he supports the pipeline — and owns stock in companies building the project. The $3.7 billion Dakota Access Pipeline will run almost 1,200 miles from North Dakota’s oil-rich Bakken Formation to Illinois, moving as many as 470,000 gallons of crude oil a day. The Vikings won 38-10.

I took my teen son to an empty school parking lot on Sunday afternoon to practice driving and a police officer pulled him over. I was in the passenger seat, and the officer asked my permission to chat with Mini-Me #2. Sgt. Hugate (who gave me permission to use his name) had watched my son practice signaling and turning and parking for about half an hour before motioning for him to stop, with a smile and a welcoming gesture. With my consent, he spent about 10 minutes sharing his perspective as a member of law enforcement about how Mini-Me #2, as a teen driver, could stay safe if/when pulled over. Before he launched into the advice, he led with his heart, telling Mini-Me #2: - He spent the day before driving around a similar school parking lot teaching his own son how to drive, so he knew how meaningful and memorable the task at hand was. - Everyday when he goes to work, he wants to be sure to make it home to his family; so the advice he was prepared to share was designed to keep both my son and him safe. Then he walked through how an officer typically approaches a vehicle and explained that an alert officer is always on guard because he never knows who or what he may encounter when making a routine traffic stop - regardless of race, gender, age, etc. Next, he told Mini-me #2 a few things that most parents of color often share already with their adolescent sons and daughters, during what we call "The Talk:" - Keep your hands visible at all times. (He demonstrated where to position them on the steering wheel and suggested that placing them on driver's side windowsill would be another option.) - Over-communicate about every single move you make, from shifting to reach for your license to reaching to open your door. - Stay calm and respectful and respond to all questions when asked. (Most people actually talk themselves INTO getting tickets, he said, because they can't manage to stay calm.) - If the situation permits, before placing your hands on the steering wheel or outside the window, call a parent and put him/her on speakerphone, so that there is a "third party witness to keep both of us safe." My son appreciated the feedback, which reinforced messages he has already heard from me and his dad and others in our "village." Sgt. Hugate, who is Caucasian, looked Mini-Me squarely in the eyes while informing him that yes - there are indeed some cops who shouldn't be wearing badges or in the law enforcement field, because they don't do what is right or good; but he is not one of them. We didn't discuss Charlottesville, Trayvon Martin, or any of the senseless violence that has occurred in many instances in between. In those few minutes in that high school parking lot, the olive branch he extended was an aha moment that even some officers are willing to be real and honest about the realities of what it takes to stay safe in this day and time. Everyone wants to make it home alive. Note: This post first appeared on Stacy’s Facebook page. Due to the tremendous response it has received, she is posting it here on HuffPost and also on her blog, Life Untapped. Stacy Hawkins Adams uses the written word to encourage readers to recognize their relevance, use it for good and enjoy their journey. She has penned 10 books, including fiction that fosters personal growth, illuminates journeys of faith, explores social justice issues and humanity, and inspires women to live fully.

This post first appeared at BillMoyers.com. Editors Note: Susan K. Smith almost didn’t make it last summer to the Chautauqua Institute in upstate New York — that historic community of adult learning to where outstanding speakers have been holding forth since its founding in l874. Because of cancelled flights she spent a long and sleepless night in an airport, finally arriving at Chautauqua, an hour from Buffalo, just in time to grab some breakfast and less than an hour’s shuteye before addressing an audience of over 2,000 people on the subject, “Grappling with the Myths of Democracy and Monotheism in a World Where Neither Exists.” It was a handful of a topic and a warm day but the audience never strayed as Smith spoke of America’s current turmoil in the context of the documents that guided its founding, in particular the Constitution and the Bible. After she called out “The Religion of Empire” and “The God of the State” the questions came fast but not furious, and lively exchanges followed. Smith has done a lifetime of homework in American history, culture and religion. She earned her B.A. in literature at Occidental College, her master’s at Yale Divinity School (where she was the first woman president of the student body), and her doctorate at United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio. She’s been a minister of music and senior pastor, led outreach programs to the poor in Columbus, Ohio, and organized a multi-racial, multi-ethnic social justice organization that was recently instrumental in getting the Ohio legislature to enact a law which prevents pay lenders from charging clients exorbitant interest rates. She’s spoken on tensions between the secular and the sacred — and their sometimes coupling — at venues from Oxford University to…..well, Chautauqua, where we met. I had arranged this interview before the massacre in Las Vegas, a story still unfolding as we talked. —Bill Moyers Moyers: Why do you think America nurtures such violence? Smith: I think there is a tie, a connection between violence and the desire for power. Violence is seen as some type of a badge of strength. If you can be violent physically, or if you can be violent emotionally or if you can be violent spiritually, you’re strong. Moyers: One reason some people like football is that’s it’s authorized violence. Before the massacre in Las Vegas, I intended to talk to you about the protest of the professional football players, and especially why they took issue with the Pledge of Allegiance and the national anthem. You’ve done a lot of work on the myths of America — the myths of democracy. Why do you think they took the knee during the Pledge of Allegiance and the national anthem? Smith: I think it’s a sign of emotional fatigue and a way to try to get people to listen to them when they say that they are tired of the racial violence that African-Americans specifically go through. You know, kneeling can be a sign of protest, but also a sign of reverence — reverence for the flag, reverence for this country, reverence for the Constitution — but protest as well because these symbols of respect have not brought respect to black people. It’s not like burning the flag. Burning the flag would’ve been a sign of disrespect. This was a sign to say, “Will you who love this country see what we’re talking about? Will you see that our people, too, have died for this country and we are still treated as second-class citizens? We respect the flag but this flag and its tenets do not respect us as a people.” I think that’s at least partly why they did it. Moyers: So do you think that when they hear the national anthem declare this is the land of the free and the home of the brave, the athletes hear hypocrisy? Smith: Yes, absolutely. It is hypocritical. Bill, I struggle with the disconnect between what we say we believe and what we are and how we act. When I was growing up I became aware of the difference between how black people and white people were treated. I went to integrated schools. We had to say the Pledge of Allegiance every day and for a while I would say the whole thing, including the last line, “with liberty and justice for all.” But around fifth, sixth grade, I stopped saying that because I realized that there was no “liberty and justice for all.” There was liberty and justice for some. And then when I read the history of how the Pledge of Allegiance was written and how that line, “with liberty and justice for all” was added later — there was even a debate about whether or not that line should go in — I was struck by the contradiction in what we were saying aloud and what was happening to African-Americans at the same time. We — African-Americans — were being told to respect this flag, respect this country, no matter what this country does or does not do to you or for you, and that became a painful problem for me. Moyers: When I saw Colin Kaepernick kneel that day a couple years ago I thought, he didn’t flash the bird, he didn’t raise his fist. He knelt, as you say, which is often an act of reverence, like a prayer — as The New York Times pointed out, he faced the flag and solemnly kept his gaze ahead. He was not on his phone, as fans in the stands were. He was not in a beer line, as fans in the stands were. He was not chewing on nachos, as fans were. And he was protesting, as he later said, he used the word “bodies on the street.” He was protesting the killing of unarmed black people by police. It struck me as an act of reverence. Smith: And I think it was. It was a gesture of reverence and protest, and almost despair, like, “Will you ever understand what’s going on?” Critics have turned all this into a statement against the military, and that’s not so. So many African-Americans died in uniform for this country. We have fought in every single war in this country, we have died in every single war, and every time we have come home from war, we have come to a place where we are treated as second-class citizens — called the “N” word, lynched, beaten while in uniform. So when Colin Kaepernick knelt, it was an action that said, “You have got to hear us. You have got to stop killing our young men in the streets and not holding anyone accountable for it.” It was never meant to be a sign of disrespect for the military. That’s just crazy. Moyers: You’re saying these athletes were in effect taking a knee to protest the system of racism and white supremacy that has prevailed for so long in this country. Smith: Absolutely, right. It’s the system. It’s the system. And it was laid down in the beginning. Moyers: Yes, you’ve said elsewhere that the system has been teaching white people how to think about black people since before the Mayflower landed, that it’s inherent in America’s DNA and therefore when it comes to race, we’ve separated ourselves from reality from the start. Smith: Yes, it is. It is inherent. It is a culturally inherited social malady. And it goes so far back. This whole belief system of one group of people being better than or superior to another group of people goes so far back. It was written in our founding and foundational documents, sure, but it goes back even further than that — thousands of years. I’m reading a book now by Charles Dew called The Making of a Racist, and he talks about how growing up he was inculcated with the notion that white people were just better than black people just by watching daily life. Black people couldn’t use the front door. You never shook hands with a black person, and so on — of course they were inferior. See? Moyers: I do. On Saturdays at the movies in my home town, black people had to sit in the balcony — “the crow’s nest.” They couldn’t sit at the drug store counter. Or swim in the municipal pool. Their “inferiority” was demonstrated daily. So you have suggested that white supremacy is like a mental illness — like schizophrenia. Smith: Because I think that when people under the curse of white supremacy actually begin to believe the lie that some people are superior to others, there is a break with reality. Scientifically, the reality is that people are inherently the same. We have the same capacities, we have the same capabilities — whether or not we use them is one thing, but we have them — but because white supremacists believe white people are better, and that causes a break with reality. Those who adhere to white supremacist beliefs act in ways they would not normally not do if they were connected to the scientific and physiological reality of the basic sameness of human beings, race notwithstanding. When they do that, they do the things that you just mentioned and worse. Now, if you are a clinically diagnosed schizophrenic, you will claim and believe, for example, that you’re Julius Caesar and you’ll act like Julius Caesar. But you are not Julius Caesar. You live in a state of altered reality. If you are a white supremacist and you believe that you are superior, you will create policies and act in ways as though there is really a superior race. That’s a break with reality, in my opinion. Moyers: You describe it as a long-term mental disorder of a type involving a breakdown in the relation between thought, emotion and behavior — and here’s the payoff — leading to a faulty perception. So that’s one way whites came to a faulty perception of blacks. Smith: Yes. Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying. And you see it in different ways and in different situations. For instance, when I was accepted at Yale Divinity School, I was working as a reporter in Texas and I told the managing editor that I was going to resign to go to seminary — and he asked where, and I said Yale. The publisher came up to me — I will never forget this — with a smirk on his face. He said, “You’re going where?” And I said, “I’m going to Yale.” He said “Oh, come on. Well, How did you get to do that? What are your grades like?” And I thought to myself — there it was. There it was right in my face — his belief that I was inferior. He was saying, “You are not good enough to go to Yale!” And the implication was that I could never have gotten in on my own. African-Americans get that all the time. It’s a break with reality. I studied very hard, I got pretty good grades, but the publisher of the paper blew me out right in the middle of the newsroom. Moyers: Does this help explain why you have spent so much of your adult life grappling with the myths of democracy, as you did in that speech I heard last summer. You are trying to correct the faulty perception of black people by exposing the myths to scrutiny? Smith: Absolutely. I believe in the power of words. And I said at Chautauqua that I think that America has two guiding sacred texts, the Christian Bible and the US Constitution, and within both those texts are words that should lead us to a place of community and understanding of humanity on pretty much the same level. But the words in those texts have been violated, or perhaps it is that we have ignored them, but whatever the reason, they have not been successful in bringing us to a place where we can use them to destroy racism and sexism. So “all men are created equal” does not mean what we think those words should mean. At their very inception they meant white, male, Christian property owners were created equal. These are powerful words, life-giving words, but at the time they were never meant to apply to African-Americans — or women or Native Americans, for that matter. By the same token, the words in the Bible, which are also life-giving, are not interpreted the same way by whites and blacks, by people who study the same words but who belong to different races. I don’t remember if it was the late Strom Thurmond or the late Sen. Robert Byrd, but both were religious men and one of them was asked if he knew the Bible, and he said yes, of course. And he was asked, “Do you believe the words that say that you should love your neighbor as yourself?” And the senator answered, “Sure, I know those words, but I get to choose my neighbor.” Well, if we get to make decisions about the validity of those words being something universally applied or not, the words lose their power. The Bible is said to be “holy” but the definition of “holy” seems defined by culture — different cultures in different ways. So I’ve come to believe we are really a polytheistic society. We have at least two different Gods — the God of the oppressed and the God of the oppressor. The God of the oppressor seems to sanction and agree with the practices of those who oppress others. This God sanctions and supports militarism, sexism, homophobia and capitalism. We also have one Bible — but at least two groups of people who interpret the same words in a radically different way. And when it comes to the Constitution, we have two groups who interpret those words in radically different ways. As for democracy, well, for me there is no such thing as the egalitarian democracy we were told about as children, where the worth of all people is respected and appreciated. That’s a myth. You know, the Pledge of Allegiance thing about “liberty and justice,” or the Declaration on equality. The white supremacist and I worship different Gods. The white supremacist’s God is okay with somebody going out on a Saturday night and lynching somebody else, then going to church on Sunday morning in a three-piece suit and giving communion. The God that my mama taught me, the God that I learned about in my Sunday School lessons, was different than the God that is evident in our society today. That God taught us to love our enemies. When my mama told me that, I would look over at the white folks on the other side and say, “How come they don’t have to do God like I have to do God? Moyers: Let me ask you about the Declaration of Independence. As we know, it says that “we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, and they’re endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, and among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Are those words sacred to you? Smith: They are very sacred to me. And they’ve been sacred to black people for the longest time. It’s what has helped us to keep our sanity in our tenacious fight for justice and equality in this country. “All men are created equal” — those are words which seem crystal clear. What they say, to me, is what they mean and that’s why they’re sacred. Moyers: But they were written by slaveholders and adopted into a Constitution also written by slaveholders that set up a government that would deny their fulfillment to black people for over 200 years. Smith: I know that, but when we learned this stuff in school, it was not stressed that the writers of those words were slaveholders. We got the same lesson as the white kids got and nobody talked about the slavery thing and the belief that black people were inherently inferior and were not considered fully human. I mean, we heard about the 3/5 clause, but we didn’t dwell on it. Those words were given as the “gospel of American democracy,” in my opinion. So as a little girl, I grew up believing that “all men are created equal” — meant just that, that I and all people …were equal according to the Declaration of Independence! I didn’t think about black people being out of the equation or women either, for that matter. Moyers: Or genocide against Indians. Smith: Yes, right, right, no attention to that. But I must say, the idea that all people are created equal and we are endowed by God, the one God, the one sovereign God of everybody, with certain inalienable rights — through all the racism and all the hatred and all the horrible things that had been done to people, those words were life-giving. Believing in those words gave African-Americans the tenacity and the drive to keep on pushing for the equality those words described! In this country, where the sacred words did not match the discriminatory and oppressive actions of white Americans, those words kept us going. They were and have been as powerful as the words and stories in the Bible which tell the story of the Israelites getting their freedom from Pharaoh. It’s almost like God stepped in and, through the word in the Constitution and the Bible — in spite of those words being ignored in real life — God stepping in and giving oppressed people hope and life. Moyers: When you talk about the “romantic idolatry of the concept of democracy” and “idolization of the Christian Bible” in discussing the myths of democracy and Christianity, doesn’t it get you into trouble? Smith: It does. It does. These are two separate texts and I am criticizing or at least questioning their authenticity. I am talking about our Constitution and our country and our flag and all of them are sacred to Americans. In the same breath, in my work, I are talking about God and the Bible. We hold both these texts as sacred, but in my observations, that sacredness is based on myth. We worship the Bible (bibliolatry, according to the late Rev. Peter Gomes) and we worship the Constitution and the ideas both offer but we ignore them and go our own way — in spite of these texts. I was just reading Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who talked about how we Christians we say pious words but we don’t mean them. He says we have fallen into “pious secularism” and says that we Christians have separated themselves from God and what God means. We have put God and the words of the Bible on the periphery of our lives. So when I start talking like that about God and about religion and specifically about Christianity, people’s horns go up because they think I am disrespecting God and the Bible, when in fact, by our falling into the trap of pious secularism we have already disrespected God. But Bill, if we don’t talk about all this it and break our hypocrisy and confusion open and see why we are in such a bad state in this country, we are never going to heal. All I heard after the most recent massacre in Las Vegas and after Charlottesville, was that we have to work for reconciliation, but you can’t have reconciliation until you have truth. And the truth of the matter is that we have been mired in myth from the beginning, the Bible and the Constitution notwithstanding. I mean, the Seventh Amendment says that we Americans are entitled to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed. We’re not supposed to be subject to excessive bail or fines imposed by the government, or “cruel and unusual punishment.” But just look at real life. So this is myth, too. Moyers: You say that one myths posits “the separation of church and state.” Words first used by the dissenter Roger Williams, the founder of Rhode Island, an early Baptist, back in the first half of the 17th century. You quote a letter from 1644 in which he wrote: “There should be a hedge or wall of separation between the garden of the church and the wilderness of the world.” But you go on to point out that our Constitution did not advocate such separation and that church and state became inextricably intertwined in the early days of this century, that in effect, they were bedfellows. The church helped the state maintain the status quo and the words of Jesus were manipulated and contorted to that end. Smith: Absolutely, that’s what I said. From the beginning church and state were intertwined. The Congress held Christian services in the Capitol on Sundays. The Supreme Court building was used to house church services on Sunday. Twelve of the original 14 states required religious tests for those seeking public office. After the Civil War, the First Congregational Church of Washington used the House of Representatives for worship. I think it was Supreme Court Justice David Brewer who said in l892: “This is a Christian nation. (The separation of church and state) was neither conceived of nor carried out.” As Howard Zinn wrote in his history, far from being left to itself, religion was imbedded into every institution of American life. Wes Howard-Brook wrote this book Empire Baptized, in which he talks about a religion of creation, which is what Jesus would have taught us, and a religion of empire, which came into being with the Roman Empire. And he said that early Christian writers, in the process of establishing the religion of empire, almost inverted the gospel to create a religion totally antithetical to what Jesus taught. Yahweh became the God of the empire. Living in the Roman Empire, you were supposed to be loyal to the empire, to follow the dictates of the empire. Jesus was a Palestinian Jew — I get in trouble for saying that — he was not part of the Roman superior class. His way of practicing religion challenged the state. So when he taught “Our father which art in heaven,” it was in direct opposition to what the empire wanted. The empire needed for people of faith to be in agreement with the rulers, for the sake of power. So this religion that Jesus pushed, which was a religion of community and sharing all that you have and loving your enemies and your neighbor, was antithetical to all of the things that the empire pushed. That means that the merger of the empire and the church started early, even in this country. The notion of “freedom” was defined by the state and confirmed too often by the church. Clerics in the 18th and 19th century would say things like, “Where the scriptures are silent [on slavery], the Church must be silent, too…What the Scriptures have sanctioned, she does not condemn.” You could even hear them say, “If slavery was evil, Christ would have spoken against it. Since he did not, it is presumptuous for man to do so.” Check out Forrest Wood’s The Arrogance of Faith. Moyers: And this is what you mean by a religion of empire and a god of the state? Smith: Yes, absolutely, that’s what I’m saying. The god of the state. Now, for instance, we have conservative evangelicals supporting an administration where racial hatred is being [pause] pushed — where instead of protecting individuals rights, doctrines and policies are being put in place which will further denigrate and separate people and deny them lose their rights. All of that is being done with cooperation of many “good” Christians, evangelical and nonevangelical. I think capitalism is in the midst of all of it, so many people wanting profit, seeking profit. Greed has taken over. The state is greedy and these churches are greedy as well. And so the church and the state are working together at the expense of what Jesus called “the least of these.” Moyers: What do you make of this: Since the violence in Charlottesville, when Trump said there were some fine people among those militant whites, some fine people “on both sides,” including, we can presume, the storm troopers who marched through town threatening Jews, not a single white member of Trump’s council of evangelicals has resigned — all right wing Christians, Ralph Reed, Falwell Jr. others. Not one. Smith: I think it represents the fact that white people and black people are taught from the beginning to buy into the white supremacist ethos. Maybe underneath we have a veneer of civility and “goodness” but at the heart of what we have all been taught, is the belief that black people are bad and that white people are superior, the very thing that made white pastors say during the civil rights movement, “If you support civil rights, then your very salvation is threatened” — that belief undergirds much of what we still do and say. These people advising Trump think they are in line with Jesus. They think God sanctions Trump and them. And they can remain quiet because they believe that Trump is carrying out, even enforcing, the law of God. Moyers: 81 percent of evangelical voters last year supported Trump. And he is delivering on his promises to them. This is a man who is clearly bigoted. He spews hate. He hurls racist taunts. He demeans Mexicans and Muslims. He and his family are grifters for whom too much is never enough. He cheats his contractors. He never stops lying. He degrades women. He threatens. The filmmaker Ken Burns asked, “What is it you see in Donald Trump that reminds you of Jesus?” Yet these right-wing evangelicals have become his most ardent advocates. Smith: That’s because their Jesus is different than the Jesus I’m talking about. Their Jesus is, remember, the same Jesus that would have been okay with white people lynching people on a Saturday night and going to church on a Sunday morning. Their Jesus would be the Jesus that would be okay with ushers meeting people of color at the door of their church and keeping them out. Their Jesus would be the one that would be okay with telling Gandhi that he could not come into their church because he was a brown person. Their Jesus is different than my Jesus, or the Jesus that I write about. That’s why I believe that we are a polytheistic society. In their minds they think they are doing the will of God. So when a white supremacist Christian calls on the Lord Jesus, it always makes me cringe because I know that’s not the Jesus that I was taught. But they think God is okay with that. Moyers: So we create God in our image?Smith: Absolutely. That’s exactly what we do. We create God in our image. Moyers: I imagine you’ve read Carolyn Dupont’s book Mississippi Praying: Southern White Evangelicals and the Civil Rights Movement. It tells of sermons preached in white churches during the opposition to the Civil Rights Movement back in the 1950s and ‘60s. One pastor is quoted saying, “God Himself established segregation to spare whites from contamination to blacks and any attempts to destroy those God-given distinctions opposes God’s plan.” Smith: That’s exactly it. Moyers: Has Donald Trump’s behavior in some paradoxical — even perverse — way finally forced us to bring the historic reality out in the open? Are we stripping the lie from the past? Peeling away the mythology looking at our history without blinking? Trump as the incarnation of all that was denied may be calling out the alternative. Smith: I think we’re looking at our racist past with honest eyes, even though our truth is ugly. I think that what he has done is gotten right into that, the core of it, and is pulling it to the surface. Before Trump, I could walk around and make myself believe that I was in a pretty safe place to live despite the difference in races around me. But now I walk around and sense the distrust, and I find myself looking at white people and wondering, “Are you one of them? What do you really think about me? “ I’m always testing the danger level. Before it was kind of hidden but now it’s coming more and more up to the surface. In my neighborhood about two months ago, there was a guy driving around — I’d never seen this before in my neighborhood — very slowly with a confederate flag on his truck. And he was just driving and looking and leering at people. It was very frightening. It’s frightening because it feels that we people of color are not even close to having any protection. Moyers: How much can we attribute this current backlash to the fact that we had for eight years the first black president of the United States? I know many white people reacted with disbelief after he was elected and then re-elected. How much do you think this current savage backlash embodied in Trump is because of Obama’s presidency?

NEW YORK ― President Donald Trump’s administration issued a new rule Friday that allows all employers to opt out of including birth control in their health insurance plans for any moral or religious reason, rolling back the Obama-era requirement that guaranteed contraception coverage at no cost to 62 million women. Requiring insurance plans to cover birth control imposes a “substantial burden” to the free exercise of religion guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, and could promote “risky sexual behavior” among adolescents, the administration told reporters Thursday night. The Affordable Care Act deemed contraception an essential part of women’s preventive health care for the first time in history, requiring that it be covered under most insurance plans, along with prenatal care, breast exams and well-woman visits. The birth control mandate compelled for-profit employers to cover the full range of contraceptives, including the pill, the intrauterine device and the Plan B morning-after pill, at no out-of-pocket cost to women, while carving out exemptions for churches and nonprofit religious organizations. The Trump administration, which is stacked with officials who oppose contraception, will now allow any employer or for-profit company, regardless of whether they are religious, to refuse to include the coverage in their health insurance plans for moral reasons. This could mean that tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of women in the United States will once again have to pay out of pocket for birth control. “I think what the Trump administration is trying to do is effectively gut the rule without repealing it, because repealing it would be so unpopular,” said Gretchen Borchelt, vice president for reproductive rights and health at the National Women’s Law Center. “They’re taking contraception coverage away from women without justification.” “If you truly want to reduce the need for abortion, invest in women’s health and preventative care.” Planned Parenthood spokeswoman Dana Singiser Women’s health groups have argued that the policy, crafted and supported by anti-abortion activists, will have the opposite of its intended effect. Before the law took effect in 2012, one in three women struggled to afford her birth control prescription each month, which can cost up to $50 a pack for the pill and much more for long-acting methods like the IUD. And more than 20 percent of women of childbearing age had to pay for contraception out of pocket. The preventive health benefit saved women $1.4 billion on birth control in the first year it went into effect, which has contributed to an all-time low in unintended pregnancy and the lowest U.S. abortion rate since the procedure became legal in 1973. “If you truly want to reduce the need for abortion,” Planned Parenthood spokeswoman Dana Singiser told reporters on Thursday, “invest in women’s health and preventative care.” Many religious conservatives who oppose birth control coverage believe some forms of contraception, including the IUD and the morning-after pill, are akin to abortion. According to a report by the left-leaning think tank the Center for American Progress, 45 companies have applied for exemptions to the birth control rule, more than half of which are for-profit companies. Trump’s much broader loophole would allow any boss to object to the coverage. Shutterstock / naihei Requiring insurance plans to cover birth control could promote “risky sexual behavior” among adolescents, according to the Trump administration. The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a legal advocacy group that has fought the contraception mandate in court on behalf of nonprofits, praised Trump’s new workaround. “We believe that people with sincere religious beliefs should be able to use an exemption,” said Lori Windham, an attorney with the group. “It’s a good way to protect those Americans who want to be able to provide quality health insurance, but can’t in good conscience provide contraceptives.” Several progressive legal groups, including the National Women’s Law Center and the American Civil Liberties Union, have indicated that they will challenge the move. The Supreme Court told the Obama administration in April 2016 that it must find a way to accommodate religious employers while also guaranteeing that women continue to receive full and equal contraception coverage, regardless of where they work. Trump’s rule does nothing to guarantee women seamless coverage. The groups could also challenge the new regulation on the grounds that it discriminates against women by singling out a women’s health benefit.

Dennis Edwards, former lead singer of the Temptations, died Friday in Chicago, one day before his 75th birthday, according to CBS Chicago. The cause of death has not been made public. Edwards joined the legendary Motown quintet in 1968 and sang lead on some of their biggest hits, including “I Can’t Get Next To You,” “Cloud Nine” and “Ball Of Confusion.” Edwards was born in Birmingham, Alabama, and started singing at the age of two in his father’s church. The family moved to Detroit when Edwards was 10, and Edwards became the choir director at his new church while still in high school, according to STLPublicRadio.com. Edwards switched from gospel to pop in his twenties, but his mom didn’t approve and refused to take any of his earnings. Before joining the Temptations, Edwards sang in the Countours, years after their big hit, “Do You Love Me,” but that allowed him to get the attention of Motown founder Berry Gordy. “I signed with Motown and at the time the roster was completely full. Mr. Gordy, he had the foresight to just keep me on the roster,” Edwards told RnBShowcaseMag.com. “I had the opportunity to sing with the Contours for a couple of years, and I got the chance to meet the Temptations.” Edwards joined the group in 1968 to replace lead singer David Ruffin. It was a time when the band’s sound was changing from smooth soul focused on a lead singer to a grittier funk that relied more on a group blend. The first hit he sang on was “Cloud Nine,” followed by “I Can’t Get Next To You,” “Psychedelic Shack,” “Ball Of Confusion” and “Papa Was A Rollin’ Stone,” among others. The group split with Motown in 1976 and moved to Atlantic, which ended Edwards’ first stint with the group. He worked with the Temptations on and off in the 1980s before touring with former Temptations David Ruffin and Eddie Kendricks, according to RollingStone.com. In 1989, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Temptations.

Anyone who lives alone and manifests no longing to be in a relationship is – in our times – almost automatically (though more or less secretly) viewed as both pitiable and deeply troubled. It’s simply not thought possible to be at once alone and normal. This sets us up for collective catastrophe, for it means that a huge number of people who have no innate wish to live with anyone else, and are at heart deeply ill-suited to doing so, are every year press-ganged and shamed into conjugal life, with disastrous results for all involved. It is essential for the happiness of couples and the single that one regularly rehearses the very many good reasons why it’s OK to spend one’s life without anyone. Only once singlehood has completely equal prestige with its alternative can we ensure that people will be free in their choices and hence join couples for the right reasons; because they love another person, rather than because they are terrified of remaining single. Here, then, are a seven good reasons to spend your life alone: 1. For a start, we should recognize that the idea of being deeply in love with one special partner over a whole lifetime, what we can call Romantic love, is a very new, ambitious and odd concept, which is at best 250 years old. Before then, people lived together of course but without any very high expectations of being blissfully content doing so. It was a purely practical arrangement, entered into for the sake of survival and the children. We should recognize the sheer historical strangeness of the idea of happy coupledom. A good Romantic marriage is evidently theoretically possible, but it may also be extremely unlikely, something only some 5 or 10 per cent of us can ever properly succeed at – which should make any failure feel a good deal less shameful. As a society, we’ve made something normal that’s in fact a profound anomaly. It is as though we’d set up high altitude tight rope walking as a popular sport. No wonder most of us fall off – and might not want to, or be able to, face getting back on. 2. Those among us who chose to stay single should not be thought un-Romantic. Indeed, we may be among the very most Romantic of all, which is precisely why we find the possibilities open to us especially unappetizing. It’s in the end the fervent Romantics who should be especially careful of ending up in mediocre relationships: relationships best suit the kind of people who don’t expect too much from them. Those among us who chose to stay single should not be thought un-Romantic. 3. Though it is a sign of some maturity to know how to love and live alongside someone, it may be a sign of even greater maturity to recognize that this is something one isn’t in the end psychologically really capable of – as a good portion of us simply aren’t. Retiring oneself voluntarily, in order to save others (and oneself) from the consequences of one’s inner emotional turmoil may be the true sign of a great and kindly soul. 4. The most logical response to really liking someone can be to choose not to live with them – because it is almost impossible to cohabit and not eventually succumb to a degree of scratchy familiarity, contempt and ingratitude. The properly respectful response to love may be to admire, praise, nurture – and then walk away. 5. The only people we can really think of as normal are those we don’t know very well. From close up, over long periods, almost everyone is condemned to seem pretty dispiriting. 6. Being alone spares you from constant reminders of how difficult and strange you are. No one is there to hold a mirror up – record your antics and constantly make you accountable for them. If you’re lucky, you will be able to tolerate and even like yourself. 7. It may be better to feel alone and be denied sex outside of a relationship than inside one. The single are never denied hope. All this isn’t to say that being alone is without problems. There are of course drawbacks to both states, being single and being in a couple: loneliness in the one; suffocation, anger and frustration in the other. The truth is, we’re simply not terribly good at being happy whatever state we are in. We will probably be a bit miserable rather often whatever our relationship status – which is ultimately an argument for neither rushing too fast into a couple, nor rushing too fast out of one.

NOW PLAYING Omarosa Panel Appearance Brings Chaos The former reality TV star, who now works for the Trump administration, was at the National Association of Black Journalists convention to discuss police violence. It didn't go well.

The forces of evil unleashed in the Trump Era seem overwhelming. They are attacking the very basic foundations of the letter and spirit of America’s Democratic Republic and the promise of our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution. This past weekend we witnessed the empowerment of Racism as embodied by White nationalists, the KKK, anti-Semites, fascists and Neo Nazis, many wearing Trump MAGA hats, to bully, hurt and kill anyone who was not one of them or did not stand with them, the “superior race”! They, like the religious fascists who while espousing traditional family values, god and country, have united to elect a proud in your face philanderer, sociopathic liar, cheat and draft dodger. Trump has been consistently delivering for them as he gave them Neil Gorsuch, who as a youth was an open supporter of Fascism, and delivered again when he announced in a morning tweet barely a couple of weeks ago that he, in the interest of saving money, was firing all transgender military personal, discarding perhaps 15,000 volunteer patriots! Saving money? Who is kidding who? This is pure bigotry and it comes at a huge cost to America, to all of us on many different levels, both directly and indirectly. Unlike Rex Tillerson who told the people in Guam that they should sleep well tonight, perhaps like the folks in Charlottlesville, Virginia we all should feel less safe from enemies both foreign and domestic. So let’s keep it simple and just look at the costs associated with Trump’s dumping of trans troops. In early August in a prompt yet scholarly response to Trumps transphopic tweets of July 26 that transgender individuals cannot serve in the armed forces because our military “cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs,”, a group of current and retired professors at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey issued a report projecting that President Trump’s proposed ban on transgender military members would cost $960 million. “. . . President Trump’s ban would cost $960 million in pursuit of saving $8.4 million per year.” While some estimate the number of transgender troops to be around 15,500, the Naval professors’ report estimates there are 12,800 transgender service members currently serving. The report finds that discharging and replacing those 12,800 troops would cost over 100 times more than providing them with transition-related health care. Referring to a generally accepted 2015 estimate by the RAND Corporation on the actual cost of hormones and gender confirmation surgeries, the report concluded that “Fully implementing President Trump’s ban would cost $960 million in pursuit of saving $8.4 million per year.” The Naval professors’ report published by the Palm Center uses a “replacement-cost method” to calculate the overall cost of ousting transgender troops. It is a reasonable assumption that military would have to recruit and train thousands of people just to replace those who would be forcibly discharged under a ban, therefore the total price must include the costs of adequately training their replacements. The professors used an average per-person cost of recruiting and training a replacement for each service member who is discharged of $75,000. $75,000, We will come back to that very conservative number. But wait, there’s more! After reading the Palm Center report Brigadier Gen. David Brahms USMC ret. observed that “The cost estimates are not even close.” He predicted that there will be law suits, expensive lawsuits. In fact LGBT legal groups have already initiated a lawsuit seeking to enjoin enforcement of the ban. The National Center for Lesbian Rights and GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders on behalf of five anonymous transgender service members identified as “Jane Doe.” Filed a 15-page complaint last Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Although the Pentagon has said there would be “no modifications” to transgender service until further guidance from the White House, the lawsuit — known as Doe v. Trump — maintains Trump’s announcement “upset the reasonable expectations of plaintiffs and thousands of other transgender service members and the men and women with whom they serve and fight.” “Execution of the president’s directive will result in an end to service by openly transgender service members and has already resulted in immediate, concrete injury to plaintiffs by unsettling and destabilizing plaintiffs’ reasonable expectation of continued service,” the lawsuit says. This undermining of transgender service members’ expectation of continued military service amounts to a violation of the right to equal protection and due process under the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, the lawsuit alleges. “Also violated by the intent to ban transgender people from the U.S. armed forces, the complaint says, is the legal doctrine of estoppel — a legal doctrine against making assertions contradictory to a previously held position. Trump’s transgender military ban violates estoppel, the lawsuit says, because the Obama administration assured transgender people the ability to serve last year by lifting the medical regulation barring their service. More from The Washington Blade. The complaint seeks a declaration Trump’s proposed ban on transgender military service is unconstitutional and an injunction barring it from going into effect. Shannon Minter, a transgender legal expert and an author of legislation that has withstood constitutional challenges and legal director for the National Center for Lesbian Rights, said in a statement “the harms of Trump’s proposal to ban transgender military service are already clear.” “Trump’s directive to exclude transgender people from military service has created a tidal wave of harms that have already been felt throughout our armed services,” Minter said. “Transgender service members have been blindsided by this shift and are scrambling to deal with what it means for their futures and their families. The president’s mistreatment of these dedicated troops will serve only to weaken and demoralize our armed forces.” In addition to lawsuit filed by GLAD and the National Center Lesbian Rights against Trump’s anti-trans military policy, The Washington Blade has reported that both Lambda Legal and the LGBT military group OutServe-SLDN have also pledged to take Trump to court over the ban. General Brahms stressed that most importantly, “you can’t replace an active duty service member with 10 years of experience with a newbie fresh out of basic training.” “Readiness will suffer. The cost of schooling to bring a newbie up to speed over time will be expensive.” In fact it is well known that transgender personnel are serving as pilots, Special Forces, officers, leaders, and in highly specialized and important positions. That $75,000 figure seems puny as we begin to scratch the surface. One of the plaintiffs is an active duty airman who has served in the U.S. Air Force for almost 20 years and has undertaken multiple tours of duty abroad, including two in Iraq. Just consider the cost of the two 2017 service academy graduates who are unable to serve now . . . how much have taxpayers already invested in their education to qualify and prepare them to serve and defend America and then just turn them away? How foolish, wasteful and hurtful! I cannot help but think of now retired infantry SGM Jennifer Long who received multiple decorations including a bronze star for combat valor in her last tour in Afghanistan while in the midst of her officially stealth medical transition. At the end of her last overseas tour she retired , unable to come out at that time. One can only imagine the cost to replace the skills, the schooling and experience of a nearly 30 year outstanding career where on certain missions she reported directly to a 3 star General! General Brahms reminded me that the VA benefits to deal with the service-connected trauma of being fired will be costly. Would Trump go after VA benefits? More lawsuits? Firing competent troops will create a significant loss of credibility of the military that will be significant and fewer will volunteer. What effect will this have on gays, lesbians, Jews, Muslims, Hispanics, any other minorities? Who will be next? Brahms noted that the pool of eligibles in the prime recruiting cohort (17-24 year-olds) is already small. It is estimated that a significant majority of that group is ineligible by reason of a lack of education, a criminal conviction or obesity. If that cohort is further limited, what alternatives are left, downsize or reduce qualifications? Lastly, what about existing minorities already serving who don’t fit into Trumps white nationalist base. Will they stay, will they be next?

Amidst scandals and media squabbles at home, United States President Donald Trump’s agenda in the Middle East finally broke through the news cycle this summer during his widely-publicized trip to the Gulf nations. The famous businessman demonstrated his desire to cut some deals, including some interesting — and vacillating — positions on the recent sanctions by other Arab nations against Qatar. The events of that trip were highly scrutinized and alarmed some critics, but despite his reputation as a wild card and at times zig-zagging actions, thus far Trump’s handling of the situation in Qatar is an indicator that he may be more effective at foreign policy than he’s been given credit. If stability continues, it may also bode well for his stature among Middle Eastern nations. Qatar is a pivotal component of the U.S. fight against ISIS, housing Central Command’s regional headquarters. This week two U.S. envoys have been dispatched to Qatar to deal with escalating tensions since the small-but-powerful nation declined to comply with 13 demands made by Arab neighbors, including closing a Turkish military base and shutting down Al Jazeera. The situation has been mired in tough talk, but relations have remained relatively neutral considering the seriousness of the threats involved. As the U.S. State Department navigates its strategy, things could still get ugly depending on what happens next. Even though Trump’s bait-and-switch strategy has worked so far, it would be wise to expect the unexpected. We’ve already seen a number of eyebrow-raising moments as the conflict surrounding Qatar developed. The U.S. envoys to Qatar come on the heels of an abrupt and short-lived break in diplomatic relations. On June 5, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt and several other Arab countries announced their grievances with the emirate accusing it of supporting terrorism and trying to destabilize the situation in the region. Qatar was subjected to a blockade, and former close allies announced the cessation of multi-directional relations. In addition, Saudi Arabia also excluded Qatar from the ruled Arab-led coalition in Riyadh. Tel Aviv supported the anti-Qatar campaign. Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman said that “the diplomatic rift between Qatar and fellow Arab countries in the region opens up opportunities for cooperation in the fight against terrorism.” Trump created a stir when, despite the longstanding allied relationship between the the two countries, he took credit for the organized sanctions, saying that Qatar “unfortunately has historically been a funder of terrorism at a very high level.” It is interesting that the largest Arab monarchies broke off diplomatic relations with Qatar shortly after Trump arrived in Saudi Arabia on his first foreign visit. In Riyadh, Trump spoke to the leaders of the 55 Muslim countries, giving a speech in which he harshly criticized terrorism and the states that support it. During the visit to Riyadh, Trump also closed a $110 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia, the largest in history. The agreement provides for the modernization of the armed forces of Saudi Arabia, including the improvement of the air defense systems of the kingdom and the localization of the production of other types of weapons. In addition, the United States decided to supply Air Riyadh armament for $350 billion over the next 10 years. After Trump's very successful visit to Saudi Arabia, unexpectedly on June 14, Qatar made a deal with the United States to secure F-15 fighters worth $12 billion. This news surprised many who expected Trump to remain in solidarity with Arab sanctions against Qatar. After this deal, the U.S. launched into the Gulf nations taking action against Qatar. Heather Nauert of the State Department said, "Now that it has been more than two weeks since the embargo started, we are mystified that the Gulf states have not released to the Qataris, nor to the public, the details about the claims they are making toward Qatar.” According to Nauert, "The more that time goes by, the more doubts are raised by the actions taken by Saudi Arabia and the UAE… At this point, we are left with one simple question: Were the actions really about their concerns regarding Qatar’s alleged support for terrorism? Or were they about the long-simmering grievances between and among the GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council] countries?” Secretary of State Rex Tillerson further complicated the mess a week later, stating that “Qatar has begun its careful review and consideration of a series of requests presented by Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and UAE. A productive next step would be for each of the countries to sit together and continue this conversation. We believe our allies and partners are stronger when they are working together towards one goal which we all agree is stopping terrorism and countering extremism. The United States will continue to stay in close contact with all parties and will continue to support the mediation efforts of the Emir of Kuwait.” This massive flip-flop was and continues to be a very significant moment in Trump’s Middle East policy. Was it intentional or a flub? Regardless, the deal demonstrates to the countries of the region, including Saudi Arabia, that the United States is seeking to regulate the conflict and continues to regard Qatar as its ally. Upon evaluation, we can say that Trump’s visit to the Persian Gulf and ongoing crisis management turned out to be successful for the United States. The Americans received big contracts worth billions, and Trump sent a message that he will continue mutually beneficial relationships in the region. Trump’s prestige increased as a result of positioning himself as a conflict mediator, and he projected control of the situation by reassuring major players like Saudi Arabia and Israel. He also put Qatar in check.

This is probably the only time your spouse would endorse an affair: when you’re having one with them. Therapists say nothing livens up a couple’s sex life quite like channeling those hot-and-heavy early days through role playing. If you need inspiration, watch this scene from “Modern Family,” where married couple Claire and Phil pretend to be strangers meeting up for a hookup. Things get a little dirty at the hotel bar (and later, super awkward at the hotel elevator, but that’s beside the point). Below, marriage therapists from around the country share six reasons feigning an affair with your spouse could change your sex life for the better. 1. It’s a good reminder that your spouse is pretty damn sexy. “So often, we take our partners for granted and get caught up in a negativity bias: we notice all of the things they aren’t doing or could do, versus what they already are. That probably doesn’t inspire you to show up as your best, flirty and sexiest self. So consider having an affair: Instead of hanging out in sweats or your most comfortable PJs, think about what you would wear and how you would greet and engage your partner if it was a first date or the man you’d want to have an affair with. Bring your A-game, leave your history behind for the night and step into the anticipation of what’s possible.” ― Megan Fleming, a New York City-based sex therapist and the author of Invisible Divorce: Finding Your Way Back to Connection 2. It helps keep the kinky, dirty, raunchy side of you alive. “For most, long-term relationships dictate that the we should only be attracted to, fantasize about and be sexual with the person that we marry. We then trade in that dirty, animalistic side for a romantic love, which kills sex in the bedroom. This also lends to other societal conditioning about how you’re suppose to treat your spouse (case in point: the Madonna/whore complex). We feel bad treating someone we respect in a kinky or dirty way, yet oftentimes, these very visions are what entice us and arouse us. Role-playing is a great way for couples to reignite that which may have been lost, by stepping out of their role as dutiful wife, husband and caregiver and getting back to that place where they can throw caution to the wind and embrace that raw, lewd side of themselves.” ― Moushumi Ghose, a sex therapist and author of Classic Sex Positions Reinvented 3. Bringing something “forbidden” to the forefront can be surprisingly sexy. “Many people may think this idea could be throwing gasoline on the fire ― and it is. But that doesn’t have to be a bad thing. If a couples is stable in their relationship and trusting, this could bring a new level of heat and beauty. When we bring in the forbidden and play with it consciously, it brings with it a strong sexual charge that drives arousal off the charts.” ― Keeley Rankin, a sex therapist in San Francisco, California 4. It gives you an opportunity to work on your flirting skills. “Most of the long-term couples I see have forgotten the art of flirting and seduction. I often will create exercises for couples to take on new or fantasy roles which help them get back to playing with one another in a more erotic fashion. The scene in ‘Modern Family’ shows how important it is for couples to leave the domestic behind (both literally ― by going on a date to a location that elicits frisson, and psychologically ― by not discussing to-do lists, the kids schedule or finances). Many couples find their minds are not present to the erotic chase or the experience of teasing due to their minds being distracted by the day’s responsibilities and routines. Playing requires a kind of mindful focus to the role at hand.” ― Sari Cooper, a couple’s therapist in New York City and host of the web show “Sex Esteem.” 5. Dressing up for your spouse can pay off in a major way. “Perhaps you don’t usually take the time to prepare at all for sex. Knowing you’ll be having a special getaway ― or meeting someone ‘new’ ― could inspire you to take that extra step. You wear that sexy lingerie, shave your beard (or anything else that needs a little trim), wear a scent that’s enticing or try out a new style of suit or dress. Then, you take the time to actually undress each other, enjoying each new layer as it is uncovered. Little things like that can be extremely arousing.” ― Celeste Hirschman, sex expert and author of Making Love Real, co-authored by Danielle Harel 6. It could open up your mind to new opportunities in the bedroom. “This is an opportunity to try new things you’re not used to: explore new pleasures and play with dynamics of power. See how it feels both to give and receive in different ways. If it’s a ‘new’ or ‘side’ relationship, why not use that mindset to ask for what you want? Creating a little space for the unknown ― for wanting and longing ― can spice up any relationship.” ― Megan Fleming

We are not our grandparent's generation and we do not have to fight the same battles. We don't need a wall, we need a mirror. I've heard commentators say, "Maybe the Republicans and their supporters are getting exactly what they deserve," but what about the rest of us. All that talk about wanting a straight shooter has left America with a President who cavalierly talks about firing rockets at two different countries at the same time. Haven't we seen how this story plays out already? Jesus Christ, how short are your memories? Look at what is going on across this country. White supremacists are openly marching in the streets, openly appearing on cable news, and openly occupying the highest levels of the U.S. government. This cannot be the new normal. This is 2017, not 1963. We cannot allow these separatists to be sanitized by calling them things like the alt-right or white nationalists, these are white supremacists. These are racist separatists. These are our grandparents' worst nightmare in chinos and $75 haircuts. We cannot allow ourselves be gaslit into submission. We cannot allow ourselves to be gaslit into complacency. We are at a fork in the road. For years Democrats have lampooned and mocked the extreme right as rednecks and inbreds. We didn't take them seriously, why would we? In my lifetime there has been so much progress, why would I ever think that we would go backwards? Well, that's exactly what is going on in front of our very eyes. We're watching the rise of white supremacists and being told that it's just our imagination. We can't ignore what we're witnessing. As white supremacists march across college campuses with racist flags, assault weapons, and torches, right wing news networks inundate their viewers with selective images of black protesters surrounded by militarized police. As Republican political pundits defend the President joking about violence against minorities, the President of the United States refuses to speak out about the bombing of a mosque in Minnesota. As our country continues to fracture in an all too familiar fashion, we have to ask ourselves whether we have what it takes to self-correct. Can you imagine the outrage from the right if black people took to the street with weapons, to protest a perceived slight? I can, it consistently ends with the local police dressed like seal team six and white pundits referring to the protesters and "thugs" and "criminals." Let's not pretend we'll see the same outrage from those pundits when it comes to Charlottesville. That would actually require principles. The rise of White supremacists didn't happen overnight, it's an illness that's been consistently fed. Men like Pat Buchanan, Newt Gingrich, and their millennial remixes, have helped to create an environment conducive to joking about internment camps on national tv. Political pundits like Tomi Lahren, pundits who speak without considering the consequences or basing their opinions on anything close to a fact, have become the norm. Republicans have to ask why in 2017 white supremacists feel comfortable marching in public without hoods on. In the age of social media and camera phones. Why are white supremacists unconcerned with the potential consequences of their actions? In 2017, why are Republicans slow to criticize flying the Confederate flag, but quick to question the patriotism of Colin Kaepernick? Where does the political hackary end and consistent political policy begin? I'm sure I'll make a lot of enemies saying this, but we have to start taking attendance and naming names. We can't allow the loudest voices to be the only voices heard. We can't allow people in search of nothing other than fame and fortune to pull this country apart at the seams. I know too many rational, well-intentioned Republicans to believe that these intellectual frauds represent the entire party. Republicans have to speak up and speak out against the vitriol on display. America needs Republicans to put politics aside now more than ever. This isn't about left or right, this is about right and wrong. I woke up this morning to scenes of the Klu Klux Klan and white supremacists attacking members of the clergy on my tv. My first thought was, "Is that what it looks like when America is made great again?" To wake up to that in 2017 is wrong. Period.

It’s a warm, sunny day here on Long Island, and I write this to your from my parents’ home. Every Tuesday and Friday, I visit my hometown of Port Washington, and work with my grandmother on rehab from hip replacement surgery last summer, and my dad on improving his strength, tone and overall cardiovascular health. Since my Holiday Jump Start Program started on Monday, one of the main focuses of the week has been on nutrition! Our call this past Wednesday evening focused on Phase 1 of my recommended Nutrition Program for Permanent Weight Loss, which is to follow the 80/20 Rule in regards to food quality. We don’t count calories or points, nor do we watch our portions… We eat real, whole, organic foods, and we minimize our intake of the crap that got us to this starting point in the first place! One of the most common staples my new group members or private clients have in their diets is pasta. And look, I get it — It’s cheap, it’s easy, and it can taste good! That being said, grains are completely devoid of any nutritional value, and have been linked to many of the health issues the global population is currently suffering from, such as obesity, Type-2 Diabetes, and heart disease. What I found worked best when making my nutrition-based lifestyle shift is to change as little as possible about what you’re currently eating. Below you’ll find my Top 3 Recommendations for eating pasta without the negative heath or weight consequences: 1) Buy pre-spiralized squash or zucchini. Most grocery stores (at least in my area!) have pre-spiralized squash or zucchini packaged in the produce section. Simply pick up a container of either, bring it home, and either boil or sauté it. I recommend sautéing both, as the hot water can make the squash or zucchini become extremely squishy, which isn’t something that my palate appreciates. You may be different, though, so if you like squishy pasta, by all means! I’ll typically sauté my squash or zucchini in organic butter or avocado oil. 2) Buy some Pasta Zero. A client recently turned me onto this brand of low-carb, grain and soy-free pasta, and after examining the nutritional information, I give it my personal stamp of approval! Early feedback from her, as well as other clients who have come on since the recommendation, give Pasta Zero the green light, as well. You can try ti for yourself by ordering some on Amazon here: https://smile.amazon.com/Nasoya-Light-Shirataki-Fettuccine-Pasta/dp/B00KOBSELC/ref=sr_1_3_a_it?ie=UTF8&qid=1507300009&sr=8-3&keywords=pasta+zero 3) If you really must (you really mustn’t, so no excuses, but let’s pretend!) eat a grain-based pasta, only eat 1/2 a cup or less in any sitting it’s involved in. This quantity seems to minimize any damage the pasta will have on both your weight and your health. Hope you found this helpful! Please remember that you can have your cake and eat it, too — You just might have to change the ingredients to the cake a ‘lil bit ;-) Sincerely, Pete Weintraub [email protected] P.S. If you’re looking for more great substitutes like the one above, then you’re definitely going to want to check out my Healthy Recipe Book! This e-book contains 72 recipes spanning breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, appetizers and desserts. It gives great recipe substitutions for some of my personal favorites like bread, pizza, and potato chips.

BAGHDAD, Jan 2 (Reuters) - Gunmen wearing suicide vests attacked two police stations in the central Iraqi city of Samarra on Monday, killing at least seven policemen, security sources said.

Scrolling the Facebook this weekend, I noticed that many residents of my hometown—Muskegon, MI—dismiss the notion that the candidacy and election of President Donald Trump has led to increased incidents (and the normalization) of racism and hate throughout both America and Muskegon County. To these individuals, I would plead: “Wake up, please.” Noose found hanging in Muskegon, MI As I will attempt to indicate below, circumstances have become such that continuing to deny a correlation between Donald Trump and the new rise of hate and white supremacy in America is akin to Germans explaining away anti-Semitic propaganda during the ascent of Hitler. Today, we refer to those latter individuals as “Nazi sympathizers”. So to Muskegon resident Duane Langlois (and the 7 individuals adding a ‘like”) who responded to the above photo on Facebook with: “To tie this to our President shows a special kind of stupid,” I present the cited facts below. I hope they help to make clear the connection between President Donald Trump and the tide of white supremacy now creeping insidiously through our country. * This weekend a noose was found hanging from a swing set at Glenside Early Childhood Center in Muskegon, Michigan. The pre-school student body at Glenside Elementary is largely African American. A mother taking her child to play first discovered the noose, photographed it, and posted it on Facebook. * This Saturday in Charlottesville, Virginia a group of white males gathered with torches, Nazi and Confederate flags to protest the removal of a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee from the campus of the University of Virginia. This group of white males identified themselves as White Nationalists and were seen throughout the course of the rally giving Nazi salutes while shouting “Heil Trump” in the same manner and inflection that Nazi soldiers reserved for the recognition of Adolf Hitler. * This Saturday at approximately 1:45pm EST 20 year-old Ohio resident James Alex Fields—seen in a photograph taken earlier in the day alongside members of the White Nationalist organization Vanguard of America—ran his car into a group of counter-protesters in Charlottesville, killing 32-year old Heather Heyer. * Here is video of a February 2016 interview with President Donald Trump. President Trump is asked if he renounces the support of the Ku Klux Klan. He claims to not know who the organization is. *The UK publication “The Independent” reported yesterday that President Donald Trump’s father, Fred Trump, was arrested at a 1927 Ku Klux Klan rally in Jamaica, Queens. The rally featured 1,000 white-robed Klansmen marching through neighborhoods until a brawl broke out. Though the nature of President Donald Trump’s father, Fred Trump’s, involvement is not known, it should be noted that he was represented by the same attorney as the only six other individuals arrested at the riot were. *Here is a video detailing the extent of support Trump has from the Ku Klux Klan and other White Supremacist Groups in the United States. *On Saturday, August 12th, 15 minutes after Heather Heyer was killed by James Alex Fields, the former president of the Ku Klux Klan, David Duke Tweeted to President Donald Trump: “I would recommend you take a good look in the mirror & remember it was White Americans who put you in the presidency, not radical leftists.” *This is a video of an African American protester at a March 10th, 2016 rally for President Donald Trump being sucker-punched by a white man in the crowd. *This is a video of an African American protester being beaten and dragged from a December 2015 Las Vegas, NV rally for President Donald Trump. In the background of the video you can hear a white man yell “Sieg Heil” while another yells “Burn the motherfucker”. *Below is a very recent picture of the 2017 Montague Varsity football team posing proudly with a President Donald Trump “Make America Great Again” sign after practice. Montague is a predominantly white, rural township in Muskegon County. Montague Varsity Football Team poses with a Trump sign. * Below is a picture of a noose found hanging from a swing set in Muskegon, MI this weekend. Such nooses were used to lynch African Americans throughout American history and are often used now to symbolize this act. This noose was found hanging from a swing set in Muskegon, MI this weekend; on the playground of an pre-elementary school where little black children are taught about fairness and equality, and where, each morning, they set their hands to their hearts and pledge allegiance to a flag that continues to let them, and us, down.

A clamor is rising in America over the issue of “Men’s Rights.” Some scoff, considering it offensively outré to suggest that men might be the victims of structural sexism or reverse discrimination. A dawning consensus, however, acknowledges systematic injustices -- particularly against fathers, and particularly in the legal realm. Documentaries like “The Red Pill,” and a recent Supreme Court verdict (which struck down some aspects of maternal legal priority) add to a groundswell of recognition that this generation must right wrongs on both sides of the gender equation. At the very least, the blatantly unequal treatment of fathers under the law gives the modern rallying cry to “dismantle the patriarchy” a rather ironic twist— it is fatherhood, not male dominion, which is being systematically dismantled. In divorce and custody arbitration, something rotten is buried within the legal code—reflexive favoritism toward mothers and insufficient attention to due process is disproportionately harming men, and this harm has devastating consequences for children and families. This problem is especially magnified amongst the working poor, where relatively “minor” financial iniquities (in the minds of courts) can have outsized effects. I freely admit, I was one of the scoffers. I thought rumors of unequal legal treatment were overblown. Until it happened to me. Here’s my story: A couple of years ago, my wife of fourteen years went down to the courthouse and filed for divorce—nothing noteworthy in this I’m afraid, except that it initiated a legal process that utterly wrecked me and my family. I was evicted from my home, isolated from my children, and compelled to bankroll an extraordinary legal vendetta against my natural role as a father--all without the slightest legal pretext. After two and a half years, I’ve come to recognize the dismaying truth that the legal deck is overwhelmingly stacked against me, and that only with a full commitment of every ounce of resolve and resourcefulness can I hope to reclaim my role as father. The desperation caused by this stunning iniquity is unhealthy for me and my children, to be sure, but the problem is even broader than that: fatherhood, especially what I call “working fatherhood,” is under assault, and our culture is willfully oblivious to it. I knew nothing of the impending divorce-- it hardly bears repeating that men can be astonishingly obtuse. I only note it here to establish the considerable disadvantage faced by the “surprised” spouse in divorce filings. Our marriage was on the ropes (as many so often are), and I had readily admitted my full share of faults, and was working to turn a new leaf. The complicated calculus of divorce, however, was being altered by a background influence of court-incentives that my then-wife was anything but blind to--I was too busy working on our “recovery” homework to notice her legal preparations. It was comic in a way; she secretly filed for divorce in the midst of the marriage counselor’s “radical honesty” module, meaning the fatal blow was perfectly timed. She’d done her homework, as is often the case. After the fact, I discovered she’d transferred over $40,000 in advance so that she’d have plenty of “padding” when the fireworks began. She’d pulled all the bank statements, started her own accounts, paid off her new car, made sure all the credit debt was in my name, retained an attorney—you know, the basics. Smart. I credit the strategic acumen. My only contention is that the legal system hands the “prepared one” an additional, overwhelming advantage after a divorce is filed. Courts are quite accommodating. No questions asked, they granted her Ex Parte Temporary Orders that sent a process server to our door who notified me I had fifteen minutes to evacuate the home or the “police would take me away.” He recommended I get a lawyer. Stunned, I waved away his advice in utter disbelief—I thought it was a joke. In a foggy daze, I lived in my car because I didn’t think to bring any cash and was worried about spending money from our joint account. I didn’t know what to do--I was a devastated wreck…words cannot convey. I say this not for sympathy, but to emphasize that the person thrown from their home is at an extraordinary emotional, physical, and financial disadvantage in the first round of a very serious legal matter that has enormous long-term implications for every member of a disintegrating family. To this day I have no idea what my children felt when Papa didn’t come home that night. Did they think I had abandoned them? Were they scared? I couldn’t speak with them or give them a hug goodbye. I can only imagine it is that much worse for families with fewer resources. All around the country, fathers are summarily ejected without notice or cause and forced to engage in a rear-guard legal action without any of the advantages of preparation or adequate defense. According to Liz Mandarano at the Huffington Post, “…men are drastically more likely to be the spouse who has an order enforced against them” which means they are dramatically more likely to be at a strategic disadvantage in a divorce. I spoke yesterday to a young black father, David, who is experiencing a very similar set of forces arrayed against him. The only difference is that for him, the relative disadvantages mean he can’t see his eldest son. Ever. Men like to believe they are tough--I’m old fashioned enough to consider it a manly virtue to accept adversity with minimal complaint. General fortitude, however pretentious it may be, is no justification for unequal treatment under the law. I was desperate to see my children, but the Temporary Orders explicitly gave my ex-spouse residential custody and allowed her to grant me “reasonable visitation.” Yes…“visitation.” In a prison, it denotes a basic incapacity—complete with overtones of marginalization, exclusion, and shame. My ex-spouse felt it unreasonable that I should “visit” our children any more than once every couple of weeks. Faced with sudden homelessness and childlessness, I tried as best I could—finding a new place to live, setting up new bank and utility accounts, begging for my personal belongings, all while hoping for reconsideration and working futilely toward some kind of reconciliation. I was still too shocked to fully believe what was happening. Again, though, try to imagine this burden imposed on society’s less fortunate, good men like David, where adequate housing and basic provisions are proportionally harder to access. A month in, the other shoe dropped: a worksheet at the end of the Temporary Orders, calculated by the court using input only from my estranged wife, notified me that I was required to send her a child support payment each month for $1,720. This is not a small number, and represents over a third of my income—an immense burden for someone attempting to regain their bearings after a bolt from the blue. This type of financial load regressively affects poorer parents (overwhelmingly fathers) all the more. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 86.2% of parents receiving child support are mothers, and though women are 33.5% of higher earners, they represent only 3.8% of alimony payers. Title III of the Consumer Credit Protection Act allows up to 60 percent of earnings to be garnished for child support, even if custody is split equally. The New York Times noted that, “Poor fathers are often asked to pay significantly more, as a percentage of their income, than middle- class fathers…[and] when it comes to poor fathers, state and federal laws penalize and isolate men, usually without helping mothers or children.” David explained to me how, after working minimum wage 50 hours a week, he was left with $130 a month to live on. And herein lies the core of the problem: in nearly all jurisdictions, Temporary Orders decrees are granted without due process. This invariably places a tremendous punitive weight on Respondents/Defendants who are then obliged to defend their rights from an impossibly disadvantageous position. Believe me, it is not easy to sweep the broken pieces of your life back together when you haven’t the benefit of a home or resources and are suffering the anguish of having your children removed from your life. In fairness, this “Temporary Orders” advantage would have theoretically gone to me if I had been savvy enough to preemptively file for divorce. But most men, it appears, don’t think that way—women file 69% of all divorces. Even if men did file in rough parity, it seems inconceivable that courts would actually kick mothers out of their homes with minutes notice, squeeze their children from their lives, and force them to pay their estranged ex-husbands thousands of dollars a month while trying to reclaim their status as “Mom.” I eventually reluctantly retained an attorney as it became increasingly clear this was a “To be a Father, or Not to be a Father” showdown. This was not an easy thing to do: my ex-spouse had locked up all the attorneys in our town, “interviewing” all of them before filing for divorce so that each would have a conflict of interest if I came seeking their counsel. This is a well-articulated trick, promoted by Internet sites like womansdivorce.com, which are dedicated to ensuring women exploit every strategic legal advantage. Again, I can hardly fault anyone for making the best of the rules, but it’s disappointing that the rules are so easily exploited. After retaining counsel from out of town, and after almost a year trying, I was able to request that the court alter its Temporary Orders. The court ordered a “temporary” modified parenting plan that now gives me 35% of parenting time. Expending considerable resources, I had managed to claw my way back to one-third of parenting time—a depressing sort of win that still leaves my children largely without a father figure. Attorneys and men’s groups I’ve talked with claim my situation is “above average.” I cannot help but wonder: are fathers really expected to passively accept that they are one-third of a parent? What loving father would willingly concede away a major portion of their children’s lives? I have no choice but to tenaciously fight for equity despite the structural disadvantages. Many working men aren’t so lucky: they simply cannot withstand the overwhelming odds and run out of time, money, or heart before they can attain justice. Children suffer, fathers suffer, and frankly, mothers suffer as well—it’s a legally sanctioned social tragedy. Despair I weathered the initial storm. After the first frightening period of watching my children fade from my life, I have managed (through extraordinary efforts facilitated by a flexible schedule) to realign myself in their lives. I no longer lie awake at night wondering if they will ever really know who their father was. Again, though, imagine that instead of a fairly comfortable academic career I was instead a lonely father who has to be on a paving crew every morning at 5 am for a 12-hour shift at minimum wage. Between being forced to find new lodgings, enduring the inestimable loss of the company of his kids, and suffering under substantially reduced means, many men simply give up. One can hardly blame them. Men take their own lives at an astonishingly high rate: according to the Centers for Disease Control, 77.9% of suicides are committed by men, and divorced men are twice as likely as non-divorced men to kill themselves. In women, poignantly enough, no statistical difference exists between divorced and married suicide rates. Although roughly as many men die by their own hand (over 32,000) as women die of breast cancer (39,000) each year, society appears blind to the epidemic—how many marches, bumper stickers, and lapel pins have you seen calling attention to male suicide? The reasons for this are being explored, but as a study published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health noted, “…societal institutions tend to ignore or minimise male problems as evident in suicide statistics.” The study went on to note, “…it may well be that one of the fundamental reasons for the observed association between divorce and suicide in men is the impact of post divorce (court sanctioned) ‘arrangements’.” As I can personally attest, the indescribable heartache caused by the trauma of divorce, coupled with the inequity of custody law is enough to make anyone despair. If you’re poor, it’s that much worse--it’s easy to imagine that the addition of more prosaic burdens like making rent is enough to push many men over the edge. In my case, despite the change in parenting time, the support payments went unchanged (“pending final orders” was the explanation). My flexible schedule allowed me to be the primary caregiver to my kids, especially after school, yet the court insisted that I contribute to daycare expenses incurred because my ex-spouse was unwilling to allow me to watch the children after school. Though the mother could not be present during her parenting time, and I was willing to step in, the court found that there was no “cause” to adjust my crushing support payments. How many thousands of working men have to work even harder to stay solvent and current on their child support payments so they can pay for the privilege of not seeing their own children? I’m a reasonably well-educated and reasonably well-off father of three adoring children. I can well imagine, however, the desperate plight of fathers with fewer resources who are driven away from their homes and families because the system reflexively rewards the first-to-file for divorce-- an advantage that disproportionately privileges women. I also happen to be lucky enough to be struggling within the jurisdiction of a comparatively benign legal code—Kansas is better than most states to weather this kind of legal tornado. Despite these relative advantages, it has taken every ounce of emotional, financial, and logistical reserves I can muster to achieve any semblance of parental equity under the current configuration of the law. Forty-three states received a “C” or below rating from the National Parents Organization for legal parental equity. In state after state, there are tens of thousands of fathers who are marginalized or completely eliminated from their children’s lives under hostile legal codes and crushing financial burdens. In David’s case, he is fighting an impossible battle to gain custody of his daughter against a deadbeat mom who would rather play softball than be a parent—and yet he is forced to pay her child support. Thankfully, I’m an optimist, and confident justice will prevail in my case and that I will remain a central figure in my children’s lives. If I do, it will be despite, rather than because of, the current legal structure. I doubt if David will be so lucky. Moreover, my case is far from over--the extraordinary time it has taken to explain and defend my position is one of the more warped aspects of this ordeal, highlighting yet another awful injustice buried at the foot of custody law: the time it takes to achieve judgment is itself an injustice. Justice Delayed is Justice Denied Judges, understandably enough, don’t like to make alterations to Temporary Orders before a final trial, and this points to another ugly element in the vicious cycle: an expeditious trial is not in the interests of the party that is sitting on advantageous “temporary” orders. My ex-spouse’s attorneys have delayed a final trial for well over two years on technicalities that postpone my opportunity to present compelling evidence for equal parenting. Despite two separate court-ordered child custody investigations that strongly support my equal role as a parent, the status quo established by Temporary Orders is that “mom” be given Primary Residential Custody, that she raise the kids 65% of the time, and that I subsidize this state of affairs to the point of bankruptcy. This is extremely advantageous legal high ground that the petitioning side has no intention of giving up without a fight—they have sought and received fie separate delays of final trial. If that weren’t enough, the lengthy delay has generated an additional set of perverse incentives: over the last two years I have been the target of two “anonymous” child abuse accusations (both found to be without substance), an attempt to exclude me from the military installation where my kids go to school (also defeated), a ludicrous “Protection From Stalking” order (denied for lack of grounds), accusations of stealing my kids’ lunch money (rebuffed), and an ever-growing litany of Motions to the Court for every bump, blister and bruise my rambunctious children get while under my care. I’ve experienced the distinctly unpleasant mini-trauma of having the police called on me for me seeing my children off at the bus stop, and sitting handcuffed in the back of a police cruiser until the false report was realized. I’m a kind and decent man, and defending myself against these “extra” abuses places an immense emotional strain that is difficult to convey—my body says it best: I’ve gone gray and have become a hollowed shell of my former self. Systematic abuses are nothing new. In fact, they are often aimed at the father who wishes to remain relevant in his children’s’ lives, under already enormously adverse conditions. Yet each new spurious allegation receives the tacit initial approval of the entire legal matrix. And it’s not just me: between 2 and 3 million protective orders a year are issued, and studies show they are overwhelmingly frivolous or tactically abusive. If it’s tough for me, it’s tougher for the man on the street. As David says, “false accusers are the abusers…” Emotional strain aside, the delay in trial also generates an ever-mounting financial challenge. My ex-wife now makes over $100,000 a year, while I make roughly half that managing my own business and teaching. The Temporary Order, though, still requires me to pay nearly $2,000 a month (equivalent to a mortgage payment on a quarter-million dollar home) directly into her bank account. I will have paid over $51,000 by the time we get to final trial, assuming no more “delays.” This sum, which is probably not going to backpacks and notebooks, let alone a college savings account, is almost certainly being funneled toward legal fees. She has retained a large law firm and now has FOUR lawyers working to delay justice while I do my best with an attorney who “only” charges $175 an hour. Moreover, as an attentive dad I spend nearly $2,000 a month on top of the child support payment in order to provide my kids with the groceries, clothes, and sundries that come with modern parenting. It’s a double bind: as a “Non-Residential” parent I am considered by the court as an absentee provider, but in an adversarial environment I dare not economize on anything relating to childcare--her attorneys have already indicated they believe I house the children in “substandard” conditions in my barely affordable two-bedroom apartment. As the “out” parent in this deplorable legal environment, I face an uphill battle that only gets steeper as time goes on, since I am actually bankrolling my own legal attack. This situation is that much worse if you are the working poor with limited means and limited time. David was in tears of desperation about how to get his lights turned back on while his wages are garnished to pay child support to a mother who is never around. I just can’t imagine the strain he is under—I worry for him. Like beans-and-bullets in a protracted military campaign, the finances of a custody dispute often determine the outcome more than the merits of the case. Despite being confident of the justice of my cause and the virtues of my fatherhood, these delays in justice exacerbate a financial imbalance that benefits the side generating more billable hours. In an indication of things to come, the other side has already requested award of legal fees—they might just have the manpower to pull off such a claim… Reflections Thank goodness for tragedies I suppose. This crisis in my life has highlighted just how important my children are to me, and has drawn us together in unexpected ways. It has also highlighted something awful in today’s legal setting: families are being obliterated by a set of perhaps well-intentioned, but ultimately counterproductive incentives flowing from the courthouse. People respond to incentives, whether or not those incentives are intended by the “system.” It is well-known folk wisdom, for instance, that men get the “short end” of the stick in divorce and custody suits. Women, logically concluding that they get the longer end, not surprisingly are considerably more inclined to file for divorce than men. Granted, this is not the sole reason people (again, mostly women) choose to enter the harrowing gauntlet of a divorce. But ceteris paribus, court incentives should be negligible or non-existent factors in the complicated decision to end a marriage and break up a family. Instead, existing legal incentives practically beg for the logical “fire first” strategy, a prisoner’s dilemma structural setup with nasty implications. It’s impossible to estimate how many families suffer as a result of this inappropriate legal incentive. The structural discrepancy in legal treatment of the non-filing parent (most usually fathers) is in desperate need of review and rectification. While there is room for legitimate dialogue about the role of the state in the institution of marriage, it would seem logical that to the extent the state has a role to play, it ought to generally err on the side of preventing broken homes and children raised by single parents. As it stands now, in nearly every state in the union, it is the reverse. The “first-fire” advantage given to the plaintiff, coupled with default Temporary Orders giving them residential custody creates a death spiral of desperation and pain that often leads to the severing of the bond between fathers and their children. In my case, even in the best of outcomes, the more than two years spent under deeply unfair Temporary Orders will never be returned to me—the golden years of my children’s lives have been distinctly tarnished by an destructive legal code. And I’m lucky: for countless working fathers, those two years would have been enough to exclude him completely—ironically probably earning him a “deadbeat dad” epithet to boot (pray for David…). A Way Forward State legislatures could make two simple administrative changes that would have enormous implications for children and families across the nation. First, at the very least they ought to adopt an “equal parenting” statute to govern courts in establishing Temporary Orders. Alaska and Arizona have already done so, and the Governor of Missouri just signed House Bill 1550 that does the same. We are working on one in Kansas. Second, legislatures should adopt a “Back-your-Claim” clause for divorcing parents. If one spouse wishes to unilaterally seek a divorce, they need to bear the most immediate repercussions of that decision. If the divorcing spouse knew that after signing the order s/he couldn’t go home that night, had to find a hotel to stay in, had to schedule “visitations” with their kids, and had to pay the non-divorcing parent a third of their income in support payments, the perverse incentives would practically evaporate. Indeed, it would probably go some significant way toward preventing divorce, a not-altogether deplorable idea. At the very least, it would ensure (in Solomon-like simplicity) that the active party bears the burden of the change in status quo, and that all parties would be motivated to seek an amicable settlement or expeditious reckoning in court. As it stands currently, the incentives are structured in reverse—with all the predictable results. I hope to see equity and justice prevail in my case. I pray that my kids will get their father fully (well, “halfly”) in their lives and reap the emotional, physical, and psychological advantages that come with having me back. For the children of many men, I’m afraid, this is a luxury they simply cannot expect, and that their fathers simply cannot afford. According to the US Census Bureau, only 17% of children in broken homes have the advantages of equal parenting. Working parents, especially fathers with limited means, are forced out of their homes and away from their children by a systemic inequality that treats them as lesser parents. The disturbingly common legal default is that the mother is primary, the father a distant second. Men--particularly poor men--bear this structural injustice disproportionately, while the system imposes enormous emotional and financial burdens that cut deeply into the lives of countless separating families. The time has come for society to recognize the problem and work to fix it.

By: Solange Lopes “What would you want someone like me to know about women of color at work?” When Gregg Stebben, host of Forbes Books Radio, asked me this question as part of my interview during #BlogHer17, something clicked. Here I was, a working woman of color and entrepreneur, with a mission to start and continue a conversation around providing women with the opportunity to have work and lives they love. Yet, it was apparent that a significant part of the narrative of women of color at work is unknown (or falsely known) to many. Here I was, faced with the confirmation that as women of color at work, we need to tell our stories in order to fuel this conversation. You know when you know something, and think that everyone else does too? When you believe that the reality of your experience, struggle and identity is obvious to others? Most often, it is not. Most often, the “unconscious bias” in others is fueled in large part by ignorance. There are of course other very much negative factors affecting the way we’re perceived, but by not telling our stories, we’re indirectly reinforcing them. Our stories are made to be shared. Not just amongst those who are in the midst of them, but among those who may not suspect the intricate tapestry of our lives and work. It’s not until we shed light on the reality of what we face that we can hope to bridge the understanding divide. I remember on one occasion, a cultural initiative was launched in my then department to share our origins with the rest of the employees. There was this large world map on the back of a cubicle wall, and every employee was asked to volunteer to pin her/his place of origin. As expected, most pins ended up on the European continent, with a large majority of them resting on Ireland, Italy and England. Then a couple of solitary pins, mine included, floating over Africa. Conversations started buzzing about each and everyone’s ancestry, and how they found out about their origins, as well as their family traditions and recipes. As the only (or one of the very few) Black women in the room, it felt intimidating to share my own story. Thoughts of being judged based on the inaccurate, yet popular prejudices about Africa, started swirling in my mind. As much as I wanted to share my own stories about rice and fish, traditional holidays, and my favorite family traditions, I remained silent. Instead of continuing the conversation, I waited for a hypothetical invite to partake in the cultural sharing, which never came. This is an example of one of the many ways in which we sometimes fail to share our stories. Not just for the sake of sharing, or entertainment, but to shed light on facts and figures most often hidden from general view and understanding. To be a part of the ongoing conversation, whether we’re invited or not. Very often, as women of color, we owe it to ourselves, our fellow women of color, and our communities to make ourselves part of the conversation. There may not be invitations or much encouragement to do so at first. Yet it is our responsibility to spread the knowledge and information without which we may not be understood, acknowledged or recognized. I’m an immigrant, and my experience is part of the tapestry of the American and world history. It defines my contributions to work and life in general in invaluable ways that can only be recognized and acknowledged when I dare to own my story. In the same way, whether you’re an immigrant, or a first-generation college graduate, or a single mom striving to climb the corporate ladder or create your own business, the invaluable experience you bring to the table is needed. Yet it must be known to be used and make an impact. “Will it even make a difference to tell my story?” “Will it not actually hurt my chances at advancement and success to reveal that I’m an immigrant, or a first-time graduate in my family?” “Does it even make a difference? I can just come in, do my work, get my paycheck and just blend in.” “It’s safer to wear a mask at work, and pretend all is well and dandy. Who wants to attract unwarranted attention?” Many are the questions raised to the forefront when it comes to sharing your story as a woman of color at work. We still feel the need to hide a large part of who we are, where we come from, and what we really are about, when the rest of the world uses those very factors as competitive advantages. I’m learning that there are no real work personas. We take all of us with us everywhere we go. That includes our beliefs, mindsets, origins, and unique life experiences. While we may at times think these may hinder us, or slow our progress, we forget that without authenticity there is no power. At work or anywhere else. This is not about exposing your dirty (or clean) laundry in the middle of the office floor. Neither is it about revealing private facets of your life or experience you’d rather keep to yourself. Nor is it about resurrecting the past. It’s about participating in the global conversation around women in and out of work. It’s about showing that there are educated women doctors, engineers, lawyers, finance gurus, entrepreneurs who happen to be first-generation graduates; or were unwed mothers at 18; or come from a family of immigrants with beautiful and original traditions; or have faced discrimination and rose above it; or are creating new paths for other women. It shouldn’t take a hashtag in response to extreme breaking news for us to share our stories and pictures as brilliant women doctors (or any other profession). We shouldn’t wait for permission, or the perfect opportunity, or for reality to become unbearable, to speak up and share our stories. To show a young girl in high school how a teen mom survived to become a trailblazing entrepreneur. To sit with a young college girl and share our testimonies of starting out in the trenches of Big Corporate and rising through the ranks. To teach, inspire and educate from our unique life experience, beliefs and mindsets. To give other women the freedom to do the same. There’s a conversation going on around women at work, and as women of color, we must sit at the table. With or without invitation. With or without fear. With or without the perfect opportunity. How do you share your story as a woman of color at work? If you haven’t, what prevents you from doing so? -- Solange Lopes is an author, CPA and writer/blogger. She blogs about career and lifestyle for professional women in her blog The Corporate Sister. She’s passionate about writing and women’s issues.

Hundreds of women joined together in Poland on Sunday to voice their frustration with a campaign by Roman Catholic bishops to further restrict abortion access in the country. The abortion rights activists were speaking out against a decision by the Polish bishops’ conference to support a bill that would ban abortion in cases where the fetus had a congenital disorder or deformity. About 400 people demonstrated outside the Catholic archbishop’s headquarters in Warsaw, according to The Associated Press. Another group protested in front of an archdiocese building in Krakow. The protesters carried wire hangers to symbolize the dangers facing women driven to obtain illegal abortions by Poland’s already stringent laws. JANEK SKARZYNSKI/AFP/Getty Images People hold up wire hangers as they demonstrate in front of the seat of the Warsaw archdiocese on March 18. The anti-abortion bill began as a citizens’ initiative pushed by conservative groups. On Monday, it won the support of a parliamentary committee on human rights, which means it will be studied by a second committee before potentially being submitted for a vote in Poland’s parliament, according to Agence France Presse. If the measure passes these remaining hurdles, Polish President Andrzej Duda has pledged to sign the bill into law, AFP reports. But according to the Federation for Women and Family Planning, a Polish reproductive rights group, the measure had been languishing in a “legislative freezer” ― until the Catholic bishops intervened. “This illustrates the enormous power of the Church and the strong resistance of the politicians to put human rights over their own interests in the light of the upcoming elections in 2018 (local) and 2019 (national),” the federation said in a statement. JANEK SKARZYNSKI/AFP/Getty Images The women in Warsaw chanted the slogans “Nothing about us without us!” and “Save the women!” Poland already has some of the most stringent anti-abortion laws in Europe. The staunchly Catholic country made abortion illegal, with a few exceptions, in 1993. The move was strongly supported by Polish Catholic church leaders. Then-Pope John Paul II campaigned in his home country in favor of the bill. Today, women in Poland are allowed to obtain abortions only if the mother’s life is at risk, there’s a fetal abnormality, or the pregnancy resulted from rape or incest. Women can have a hard time finding doctors who will perform abortions even when they fall under those exceptions, according to Time. As a result, some women travel to nearby countries like Germany to have the procedure done or seek abortions from underground providers in Poland. Others order pills for abortions online. Omar Marques/SOPA Images via Getty Images A female protester holds a sign during the demonstration in Krakow. According to Poland’s official statistics, about 1,000 legal abortions occur there every year. (The country has a population of roughly 38 million.) Abortion rights activists say the number of illegal abortions could be more than 10 times higher. An estimated 95 percent of legal abortions in Poland are obtained because of fetal abnormalities, The Guardian reports.

A viral tweet on Monday claimed that an attorney for porn star Stormy Daniels, who allegedly had an affair with Donald Trump in 2006, said there was a compromising photo of the president. More specifically, a tweet from Twitter conspiracy theorist Claude Taylor, who worked in the White House under President Bill Clinton, claimed there was a picture of Trump’s, well, ... : Stormy’s Lawyer on MSNBC. I’ll paraphrase. “We have photos of Trump’s penis”. — Claude Taylor (@TrueFactsStated) March 19, 2018 However, Daniels’ attorney Michael Avenatti said no such thing, not even in paraphrased form. But that didn't keep the tweet from being shared thousands of times. Avenatti said on MSNBC (above) that he had “a lot of information, a lot of evidence, a lot of documents that haven’t come to light yet.” That’s about it ― but similar rumors surfaced last week when Avenatti proposed a deal in which Daniels would return a $130,000 payment to Trump attorney Michael Cohen to end her nondisclosure agreement, signed shortly before the 2016 election. The deal would allow her to talk about the alleged affair and “use and publish any text messages, photos and/or videos relating to the President that she may have in her possession, all without fear of retribution and/or legal liability for damages,” according to an offer letter cited by CNN. The reaction on Twitter on Monday ranged from horror to humor: Oh lord...right when u think 2018 couldn't get any worse...now we have to worry about Trump's dick pics leaking...I give up — Colton Haynes (@ColtonLHaynes) March 19, 2018 hey guys that photo of trump's penis you're all tweeting about is one person on twitter's rhetorical flourish and not, like, an actual real thing that we know exists — Nicky Woolf (@NickyWoolf) March 20, 2018

BAD FEELINGS!! 😫😱😡I don't exactly welcome them into my life, but I'm learning to respect them when they show up. They're almost always around for a reason, and they almost always have something important to teach me. A post shared by Tori (@revelatori) on Apr 11, 2017 at 11:20am PDT

This article originally appeared on Fatherly. Monopoly, the despotic king of board games, is remembered less than fondly by the millions who watched their siblings accrue wealth and wield it with terrifying tyranny. Because the game, which debuted in the early 20th century, is responsible for so many bad memories, there has long been a cottage industry around making it slightly less confrontative. The question that the people leading this charge never thought to ask? What if you could make Monopoly worse? You can and, in fact, many sociologists would argue that you should. For decades, sociologist have been using Monopoly as a tool for teaching students and subjects about inequality. Change the rules a bit and the game models different types of privilege. But this exercise in intentional, evidence-driven frustration has historically been reserved to classrooms. There’s a reason for that: ”I want to play a board game at a marked disadvantaged!” exclaimed no child ever. But playing versions of the game designed to illustrate the effects of gender prejudice, racism, and social stratification can do a lot to help kids understand the world in which they operate. For starters, it helps them understand that there is no such thing as a pure meritocracy. That might sound like a lesson young children can wait a few years to learn, but psychological studies show that children who grow up believing they’re playing on an even playing field mature into less happy adults. If Monopoly in its most basic form is a lie (it’s not, it’s a game, but hang in there), modified versions represent truth-telling. And kids dig that. Here are three versions of Monopoly that can help children understand their world and prepare them to think strategically while standing on a slope. This version of the game operates on a gender binary and essentially assumes that all of the marriages are monogamous and heterosexual. Before you begin, give each participant an unmarked envelope. That envelope will be stuffed with: Your gender (male or female) Your number of children (0, 1, 2, 7) Your marital status (Married, Unmarried The rules that correspond with those statuses are as such: If you are a female, you collect 20% less than your male counterpart when passing “GO!” or earning any income (so a male would collect 200, a female would collect 180) If you are a female, you pay 10% more for each purchase If you have any children, you pay 10$ per round per child of the game at the bank. If you are married, you become a “dual income household.” That means you collect an extra $100 dollars when you pass GO. This is to show both the wage gap but also how much more money women have to spend on products like feminine hygiene products, etc. Spending more on services also represents the larger chunk of money that purchases take out of a woman’s paycheck over a man’s. The money taken from parents illustrates that children are a financial drain (maybe consider cushioning that blow with younger players). The extra $100 dollars on passing GO illustrates to your child that married people generally make more money, whether or not the household has two income-earners. As is often the case, if one marital partner stays home, they are instead on top of all of the unpaid-labor of keeping a home together, which helps families save money, and time. While playing the game, unveil announcements and a Divorce card at different times. Stacy L. Smith, the professor who created the game, suggests these examples, although you can do something a little less gruesome if you’re afraid of upsetting your kid. That being said, you’re playing Monopoly. They are going to be upset no matter what happens. About 20 minutes into the game, announce Announcement 1: “For players with children: one of your children climbed a tree and fell out, breaking an arm and resulting in an emergency room visit. Pay $200 dollars to the community chest.” This shows that not only do accidents happen but that they harm people with less money more than those with more money. A more affluent player in the game will be able to recover easily from this accident. For others, it will be an extreme financial drain. About 10 minutes after that, play announcement 2. “All players: last night, you went out to a party and had a great time. Unfortunately, you were tipsy when you left the party and you totaled your car. You owe $100 to the bank for a new car. If you have more than two children, you must buy a bigger, more expensive car: you owe $150 to the bank.” While you will probably change Announcement 2 to something a little more kid-friendly — maybe a car accident with no alcohol involved, or your fridge breaking and needing repairs or replacement — this reasons behind the Announcement appear to be pretty self-explanatory. They resemble the hard knocks of life — and how they occasionally knock some harder than others. The Divorce card should be played about 10 minutes before you end the game. This one is particularly brutal and may make your kid hate you forever. Depending on how many players you have, you want to distribute this card to at least one, but not all, of the married players of the game. If given a divorce card, a player must: Divide all of assets and debt (money, property, houses) in half and return half to the bank. Sell property or cards as needed to accomplish this task. No longer collect $100 when you pass “GO!” If “Male” with children, pay $10 per child per round to the “Female” player to your right. If “Female” with children, your per child tax increases by $5 per round Divorce is rough on everyone, and marriage is a financial benefit as well as an emotional one. For some, losing two-income-household status will hit them hard. At the end of the game, talk to your kid about their experiences. What did they notice when playing the game? Did they think any of it was unfair? Do they ever want to play Monopoly again, but hopefully not? Much like the gender-stratified monopoly, this version also provides unmarked envelopes based on a person’s identity, specifically race. This game, created by Maria Paino, Matthew May, Lori A. Burrington, and Jacob H. Becker, does not just deal with race, but also gender, but you can simplify the game if you wish (and also if you have fewer players). At the beginning of the game, pass out unmarked envelopes stuffed with the following: White man – 1500 dollars, 200 when passing go White woman – 1200 dollars, 160 when passing go Black man – 1050 dollars, 140 when passing go Black woman – 950 Dollars, 125 when passing go Latino Man – 900 Dollars, 120 passing go Latina Woman – 800 dollars 110 passing go You can deal as many envelopes as there are players. The money that each player has in their bank is a reflection of their gender identity and race. The amount of money they get when they pass go is a reflection of what their paycheck would be, based on their identity and race in the real world. Pass the envelopes out at random. Community Chest and Chance Cards For the purposes of this game, a good way to highlight structural inequality in race and gender is by subverting the Community Chest and Chance Cards. Instead of the normal cards, throw in a few that are decidedly real world. For the Community Chest and the Chance Cards chest respectively, create a “Disadvantage” Pile and an “Advantage” Pile. The disadvantaged pile is for anyone who is not a white man or white woman. For Community chest cards, in the advantage piles, you get to have insurance maturation, a 100 dollar inheritance, a stock sale, etc. For disadvantages, you could have jail time, hospital fees, income tax refund, or a beauty pageant win. For Chance Cards, the advantage pile gets great things like Advance to Go, the bank paying you dividends, getting out of jail free, etc. Disadvantage cards are stuff like advancing to the nearest bill, going to jail, moving back 3 spaces, etc. Although each pile doesn’t represent negative or positive — there are positive and negative experiences in all of the piles — the type of negatives and positives are what is important here. This is to show that even the negative pulls from the advantage pile will have less of an effect or are less severe than the corresponding pile for the disadvantaged players. When a disadvantaged person falls, they fall down hard. When they rise, they do so only barely. At the end of the game, talk to your kid about how it felt to play someone else — or even themselves. It could provide a thoughtful discussion about the challenges they will likely face in the world as they grow older, and teach them empathy towards others who may not look like them. The great American “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” ethos is frequently taught in schools. However true it may or may not be, Class-Stratification Monopoly is designed to show people just how hard it is to survive — and thrive — in each wealth quintile. Since the total amount of cash each player gets in regular Monopoly is 1500 per person, and this game requires five players, the cash allotment to each player will reflect their percentage of ownership of wealth in the real world. For the record, here is how wealth shakes out in the United States today: Fifth (Highest) Quintile: 51.1 percent Fourth Quintile: 23.2 percent Third Quintile: 14.3 percent Second Quintile: 8.2 percent of wealth First (Lowest) Quintile: 3.1 percent of wealth, Each player gets an unmarked and stuffed envelope with tokens, cash, and property ownership based on their quintile of wealth distribution. An optional way to do it is to assign certain tokens to certain wealth quintiles to demonstrate what we associate with wealth. The envelopes are as follows: Fifth Quintile – Horse token, 3,832 dollars, all Railroad Properties, all Boardwalk properties, and Park Place. When pass GO, 500 dollars. Fourth Quintile – Hat token, 1,740 dollars, Pennsylvania Avenue and Oriental properties.When pass GO, 230 dollars. Third Quintile – Car, 1,072 dollars, no properties. When pass GO, 150 dollars. Second Quintile – Dog, 615 dollars, no properties. When pass GO, 89 dollars. First Quintile – Iron, 232 dollars, no properties. When pass GO, 36 dollars. These stratifications are to show both the wealth distribution — math based on real numbers — but also the real wealth of property ownership. Those who have the most money are more likely to be property owners, while those who have the least are more likely to rent, and therefore be unable to accrue the wealth that comes with home ownership. As we saw in the earlier versions of the game, passing GO is also a reflection of how much each person’s income is. The professors who made the game, Catherine L. Coghlan and Denise W. Huggins, chose not to tell their students what their identity was before the game, rather allowing them to figure it out as they counted their money. The professor also elected to not explain the rules of the game to her students, rather allowing them to figure it out as they went along, as a way to mimic the real experience of those who are forced to “learn the rules” of the game of life when it comes to moving up the economic ladder. At the end of the game, make sure you have your little ones count out how much money they have compared to their friends. It’s way more likely that those who started the game rich stayed rich and those who started poor stayed poor.

After spending a weekend not writing about politics, you just know what's bursting at the seams. After all, SO much has already been exclaimed, pouring out deafening American outrage at not only the contemptible actions of white supremacists, neo-Nazis and the KKK in Charlottesville -- but directed at the shocking, sudden inability of the president to point direct fingers at those at the core of it all. And yes, I know this is long. But I spared you writing about it over the weekend, so you get the whole pent-up thing here now. But then, you also get some perspective on it all at the end, as well... But first things first. Let's be exceedingly clear, this past weekend is not about racists or hate nor it it even about white nationalists. "White nationalists" is a comforting term, like the comfy "alt-right." It's white supremacists. And it's neo-Nazis -- on American soil. "Nazi" is a word I'm always reticent to use for others not part of the Third Reich, even during the past year of hatred, racism and violence -- but then when you're dealing with swastikas and with sieg heil salutes, there's no other appropriate word to use. They're neo-Nazis. Anything else is obfuscation and skirting the issue. And make no mistake, the movement they're pushing is what their namesake Nazis pushed -- hostile bullying through hatred and violence, which ultimately is terrorism. And how did Trump deal with this over the weekend? Neo-Nazis on American soil and white supremacists and the KKK? His first "tweet" was, at best, just empty, generic typing. No specifics of what was actually happening in Virginia -- which was pretty hard to miss, especially for someone who watches so much TV -- but instead, something so devoid of thought that it actually wished "Best regards" to everyone. Yes, "best regards" the sort of thing you'd include in a birthday card -- albeit an impersonal one, to someone you really weren't close to, but felt an obligation to sen. "Condolences to the family of the young woman killed today," he typed, "and best regards to all of those injured, in Charlottesville, Virginia. So sad!" Reading this, coming from the so-called American president, you might have thought that maybe a patio collapsed where a garden party was being held. (Well, except for the whole "best regards" part. That might have bewildered you. Sending a nice, little "howdy" wave.) If anything was "So sad!", that was it. That was it. The epitome of "So sad!" -- but only until the public statement he finally made. While I know that most of the country focused instantly on the the words Trump said -- and didn't say -- my first reaction was something else entirely, which I haven't heard commented on. And it's that this was a written statement that read so incredibly poorly, with no thought or understanding of the words someone else put down for him. I watched aghast that this soulless man was unable to speak extemporaneously at all, unable to express himself from the heart about this horror unfolding before us all. Yes, I know it's too easy to quip, "Well, that's because he doesn't have a heart." But of course he has one. It's just that he has no idea how to access it normally like a functioning human. And as we all know now, not only didn't he name white supremacists or neo-Nazis in his brief talk, likely written by Steve Bannon it would seem (good job on the ball there, Chief of Staff John Kelly -- remind us again why you were brought in to be the "adult" in the room), but he merely talked in the most generic terms about this violence going on, using the phrase that, at this point, we all know ended up ratcheting the national outrage towards him, as he tried to suggest that the violence was "on many sides. On many sides." (The repetition of the second "On many sides" appears to have been the only unprepared words Trump had it in him to speak.) It doesn't take much observational skill to grasp the sickness of the statement. NO, don't drag others into this. This is about white supremacists, neo-Nazis, and the KKK. Not many sides. It's about one side. That side. The side of violence, bullying and terrorism. (The best comment I read about this came from Michael Viser of the Boston Globe. He wrote -- "There were two sides during World War II, too. We picked one.") Bizarrely, though not surprisingly, Trump even figured out a way to unnecessarily and inappropriately bring Barack Obama into his remarks, stating in an oh-so "thoughtful" way that this hatred didn't start during Obama's presidency -- as if we shouldn't think he bore responsibility. Which we didn't. Though in fairness, a lot of violent racism actually was ratcheted up by racists, white supremacists, neo-Nazis and the KKK over there being a black president. So, no, I can't imagine that any rational, thinking person did consider that Barack Obama bore any responsibility for this hatred. Such people understand that it was on Trump. And by "such people," I include those who have entered pre-kindergarten and up. It's not that Trump hasn't denounced the hatred and violence of white supremacists, neo-Nazis and the KKK during the past year (going so far as trying to say that he supposedly didn't even know who former-KKK leader and one-time Louisiana senate candidate David Duke was -- which if it was true, and it isn't, he would be even more ignorant a candidate for president that he was already), merely commenting off-handedly that he supposedly didn't want their votes, but also that Trump's lack of condemnation has continued to the present day. Even amid all the current violence this weekend, Trump still has not even commented on the mosque bombing in Minnesota, which has been called an "act of terrorism" by the FBI. Not one word from Trump! Still. (Imagine for just a moment if it had been a church that had been bombed, and by Muslims -- or by anyone, since he likely would have blamed it on Muslims anyway, and made it a case of domestic terrorism.) His silence, his total inability to even dare criticize white supremacists, neo-Nazis and the KKK -- ever -- is what gives aid and comfort to them, gives them a sense of protection to spew more hatred and violence and terrorism because they know they have not been denounced by the president of the United States. And the end result is that it causes the violence and death of Charlottesville. It was a truly ghastly public statement, showing Trump relinquishing any chance of even pretending to ever claim moral leadership. (Not that he could have before, but this eliminates it even being ruminated on a bad day.) Chris Cillizza put it powerfully in a scathing article for CNN, whose title explains it succinctly and best -- "Donald Trump's incredibly unpresidential statement on Charlottesville." I heartily recommend reading it, which you can find here. Amid all his few efforts at addressing the public during the weekend, the best Trump could offer was to merely type empty words in one "tweet" that "We ALL must be united & condemn all that hate stands for. There is no place for this kind of violence in America. Lets come together as one!" Yet he didn't name a single group among the perpetrators, he didn't say who actually caused the violence and death to occur. If Trump truly believed that "There is no place for this kind of violence in America. Lets come together as one!", it would be adorable (and shocking) if he would tell this to Steve Bannon, whose Breitbart News proudly proclaims itself as the home of the alt-right. And tell it to Sebastian Gorka. And to Stephen Miller. And to whoever brought them into HIS White House. The problem is, that would be him. Meanwhile, he could also cc: Eric Trump on the memo, since his son so often likes to re-tweet from white supremacist websites. And we would be remiss if we didn't note the equally weak words and lack of specifics from the chief legal official in the United States, the Attorney General Jeff Session. Just a pastiche of generic, bland blather. But then, given his background, It caused me to wonder if Mr. Sessions will have to recuse himself from any white supremacist prosecutions... And the default of leadership by Mike Pence is best left to the trash bin of history. Put on your adventurer's pith helmet and try track it down with a magnifying glass. It's not as if Trump got no support, mind you. One of the more notable quotes on behalf of the so-called president came from that aforementioned former-leader of the KKK, David Duke. He said that white supremacists would "fulfill the promises of Trump" If anyone blind enough still needs convincing of the impact of Trump on hate, you have it. I wrote elsewhere that I hope the press would ask Trump his reaction to Duke's quote. It turns out that subsequently they did ask at a White House press conference, but it was ignored and wandered away from. It should be asked again and again. But for all the visceral sensibilities of the weekend, I think there are some fascinating realities that point to a very problematic future for Trump. Most importantly, to begin with, as sickened as most Americans were at seeing the violence of these terrorist groups on American soil, I believe that this neo-Nazism is FAR more likely to unite aggressive opposition to it -- and to Trump -- across patriotic party lines than grow its own macabre support. Indeed, beyond the many Democratic officials who spoke out loudly, we've already seen a surprising number of Republican senators and some Congressman bluntly outraged in their very-specific condemnation of "white supremacists" and "terrorism." Republican senator Cory Gardner of Colorado was especially outspoken. So were some unlikely voices like Republican Charles Grassley of Iowa. And even Speaker of the House Paul Ryan. All of this shines the klieg light intensely on Trump's silence against neo-Nazis and highlights it in its fullness. In fact, I think Trump’s inaction to criticize or even just name neo-Nazis (wait, let's repeat that, since it's so stunning a concept to say -- "Trump's inaction to criticize or even just name neo-Nazis"!!!) is going to be more of a tipping point than has been addressed in the media thus far. No, not that it's THE tipping point -- it isn't. Just one, "a" tipping point, only one of several that could lie ahead, but one which is very real, I believe, not merely the "Well, this should finally outrage people" kind of thing we seen that goes nowhere. Because it is creating an impact with people on both sides of the spectrum, as I noted. Here's the very big "tipping" problem for Trump on this -- conservatives will defend anything conservative, even deeply FAR right conservatism. But they will NOT defend actual neo-Nazis. Actual swastikas, actual sieg heils. That's something else entirely. That's not conservatism. We've seen this from these many Republican officials, in addition to Republican outrage online and in public. And so, because Trump refuses to condemn it -- refuses to even name what is there in full, clear, real pictures -- he is out on the limb alone. Further, the more that Republican senators and Republican representatives and Republican voters criticize Trump openly on this, the more they break that umbilical cord of not criticizing their party leader, and in doing so bring down the impenetrable barrier. Not condemning neo-Nazis is not only a bridge too far for Republicans, it's not Republican. Not conservative. It's antithetical to America, and why we fought in World War II. To be very clear - although it's still essential that as president of the United States Trump speak out specifically against "white supremacists" and "neo-Nazis" and the "KKK" by name, and denounce their hatred and violence, the country knows he is far too late to the table and has already shown HIS side. Any condemnation remains necessary from the president, even if he is forced into a corner to do it -- but being forced into a corner against his best judgment to do what the mass of Americans understand is morally and politically and humanely and properly right is now officially and forever on Trump's side of the ledger. By the way, for the record, if anyone in the White House is paying attention -- what took place in Charlottesville over the weekend actually is real news. This is what it looks like. And the thing is, Trump cannot hide behind his base on this one, hoping that speaking to them will protect him, because THEY are the problem. Whatever Trump decides to eventually do or say about white supremacists and neo-Nazis and the KKK and their domestic terrorism, he has already failed. The best he can hope for is to glue the broken pieces of the heirloom vase back together, because that's his obligation. But it's still broken, and he did it. That's the Pottery Barn Rule. You break it, you own it. In the end, here is the "rock and a hard place" Trump finds himself in now amid violence, death, swastikas, sieg heils and outcries of domestic terrorism by neo-Nazis -- he can keep Steve Bannon as his adviser and showcase White House support for maintaining a staff overloaded with white supremacists, or he can fire Bannon and become the target of Breitbart wrath. It's his disastrous mess. And he caused it. And he owns it. Meanwhile, Robert Mueller, the FBI, the Senate and House keep right on investigating... *

Women’s interest magazines are emotional rollercoasters rife with contradictory statements about self-love and confidence. They often tell us to love ourselves the way we are while pushing weight loss and wrinkle creams. That’s what makes this news so exciting: Allure just declared it will no longer use the term “anti-aging,” acknowledging that growing older is something that should be embraced and appreciated rather than resisted or talked about as if it’s a condition that drains away beauty. Scott Trindle for Allure See you later, harmful aging rhetoric. “Whether we know it or not, [the term is] subtly reinforcing the message that aging is a condition we need to battle — think antianxiety meds, antivirus software, or antifungal spray,” wrote Editor-in-Chief Michelle Lee on Monday, adding, “Repeat after me: Growing older is a wonderful thing because it means that we get a chance, every day, to live a full, happy life.” Fashion has slowly but surely done a better job at being more inclusive and accepting of race, size and age. The beauty industry has been a bit slower on its feet. Plus-size model Precious Lee previously pointed out that beauty advertisements exclude models over a certain size, for example, despite the fact that women of all sizes can wear makeup. Like visual representation, language matters, too. Lee not only banned “anti-aging” from Allure, but called on readers to think about their own words: When talking about a woman over, say, 40, people tend to add qualifiers: ‘She looks great...for her age’ or ‘She’s beautiful...for an older woman.’ Catch yourself next time and consider what would happen if you just said, ‘She looks great.’ Yes, Americans put youth on a pedestal. But let’s agree that appreciating the dewy rosiness of youth doesn’t mean we become suddenly hideous as years go by. It’s great to see Allure pioneer a movement to embrace aging, and commit to actually helping women live their best lives in any decade. Allure’s September issue stars actress Helen Mirren, who, aside from looking drop-dead gorgeous in a slew of on-point looks (including one corset belt that might just change our minds about corseted dressing), waxes poetic on the topic. Scott Trindle for Allure Stunner. She explained to Lee that women “know we’re getting older. You just want to look and feel as great as you can on a daily basis.” Scott Trindle for Allure See? Flawless. Mirren’s no-holds-barred approach shines through in the rest of her spread and interview, too. She talks plastic surgery, being too polite in her younger years and the Trump family.

I was looking through old photos at my parent’s house and found a poem that I wrote after I was diagnosed with autism. Even though I was diagnosed with autism at 4, I wouldn’t find out about autism diagnosis till 11.5. I always knew I was special, but I didn’t know why. Then, one day after school, I decided to ask my parents why I was special. That’s when they told me about having autism for the first time. I almost forgot about this poem completely, but when I saw it I was brought me back to my early childhood in an instant. The poem reads… I have autism I’m not broken I’m not dumb I have autism I’m not always overwhelmed I’m not always wanting to be by myself I have autism I’m different but different is okay I’m unique and also have a unique perspective of the world that makes me special I have autism I’m the only person in my family to have this I’m excited to make friends and for you to get to know me I have autism and I hope you can accept me and others like me – We long to belong. Thank you to everyone out there who helps our community. It means a lot.

Americans should not be ashamed of our food culture When I wrote the James Beard Award-winning cookbook “It’s ALL American Food” roughly 20 years ago, things were starting to change in what we eat as a nation. I captured some of this in the book’s introduction, an excerpt from which is republished here. All of these trends have since accelerated, making America a vastly changed gastronomic place in 2017. What pleases me the most is that the heart and soul of this piece is so close to the heart of soul of the Flavored Nation event coming up Oct. 28 and 29 in St. Louis: The glorification of real American food, the things that real Americans eat, has been the foodie agenda for decades. It’s All American Food Pierre Hermé, the pastry and chocolate god of Paris, and I were judges together at a chef’s competition in the unlikely setting of Reykjavik, Iceland. At the start of the competition, the judges walked directly behind the chefs through a very large, bright, American-style supermarket in the ingredient-gathering phase of the event. When the judges returned to the judge’s room, I noticed that Pierre and his wife, the wonderfully food-obsessed Frédérick Grasser-Hermé, were themselves clutching a bag from the supermarket. “You bought something!” I exclaimed. “Oui,” said they. “What is it?” asked I. “Ell-man’s mayonnaise,” they said proudly. “Oh? Why?” I asked, somewhat startled. “Because it is the best,” said Frédérick. “As good as the mayonnaise you make at home?” I asked. “Much, much bett-AIR,” said Pierre. “And you’re buying it in Iceland, because ...?” I asked. “Because we cannot find it in France. So we buy a lot of it wherever we can find some.” Now, I guarantee that this comes as a shock to many American foodies. I am certain that were Pierre and Frédérick to be visiting their American-foodie homes, and were the menu to include mayonnaise, out would come the old mixing bowl, the whisk, the egg yolks, the Provençal olive oil, and on would go 30 minutes of vigorous beating and emulsifying. And to the great surprise of the earnest American foodies, Pierre and Frédérick would be secretly disappointed! But this is our national delusion and our self-imposed national shame. We feel guilty about using convenience products. We often use them in cooking for ourselves, but many of us even feel guilty about that when we do it. Some would rather go through contorted gastronomic hoops to extract a small bit of fresh garlic flavor in a sauce than simply sprinkle on a little garlic powder. The latter practice, to this crowd, is cheating. It doesn’t matter how good the finished product is; if you cheated to get there, the dish is flawed. Here are a just a few “cheating” ingredients that most foodies secretly love, that have the ability to make foods taste great, that most foodies rarely admit to using, and that should by all rights come out of the cupboard: Hellman’s Mayonnaise, or Best Foods Mayonnaise. The big one, the secret love of almost everyone in the U.S., whether he or she admits it or not. Pierre and Frédérick Hermé are right: can you imagine a tuna salad sandwich with homemade mayo? I’m not saying it’d be bad, but it sure wouldn’t be what most of us expect. Homemade mayo has a great place in classical European cuisines — when it’s used like an almost-runny sauce to coat, say, room-temperature poached chicken breasts, I’m all for it. But the stiffer American Hellmann’s version, with less of a pronounced oily taste, first marketed in 1912 and today called Best Foods Mayonnaise west of the Rockies, is much better suited for the delicious kinds of salads and sandwiches that we make in this country. Admit it: it’s great stuff! Heinz Ketchup. Can you imagine a burger without ketchup on it, particularly the kind of rich, sweet, tomato-ey stuff exemplified by Heinz? Starting in the 1980s, many a New Wave do-it-yourselfer embarked on homemade ketchup projects, because there was a stigma attached to the Heinz product. It seemed too mundane. Well, I’ve liked many a homemade ketchup, but they’re always different from Heinz, usually mucked up a bit, never as simply satisfying on a burger. French’s Mustard. You probably won’t hear too many foodies confessing, even under duress, to a secret preference for French’s mustard; to many palates, the darker, spicier Dijon-style mustard is superior. However, the thin, vinegary, turmeric-scented French’s product is delicious in its proper American context. It’s a perfect fit on ballpark hot dogs, and no tart Southern Mustard Slaw could be taken seriously with Dijon mustard in it. Garlic powder. Many food snobs abhor the idea of using garlic powder when garlic is called for in a recipe. I would go so far as to say, in fact, that Cajun/Creole cuisine took a PR plunge around the country when cooks discovered that both garlic powder and onion powder are used extensively in Louisiana cooking. But there’s no real reason for this unease, especially when you apply a most important principle: a “convenience” product should never be viewed as a substitute for the “real” product. Yes, if you think about the ways in which you enjoy “real” garlic, and then think about substituting garlic powder, you may well be resistant to the switch. I, for example, love the taste of fresh garlic in Linguine with White Clam Sauce, and would never dream of substituting garlic powder there. But, for example, in the dry rub for Blackened Redfish, or in the Maryland steamed crab coating, or in the seasoning for Southern Fried Chicken, a good garlic powder is just the thing you want. It’s not just that it’s easier to use, it also carries the flavor better. It is not “cheating!” Margarine. Once upon a time, margarine was touted as a healthy alternative to butter, and it was during this period that many incipient foodies learned to use the old oleo. Then came the fall: the revelation that margarine is not better for you than butter is. And the revelation that, due to the creation of something called trans fat in margarine-making, it may be worse. So ask a foodie today about margarine, and you’ll probably be told (proudly) that he or she hasn’t purchased any in 20 years. Typical snobbery. In reality, there are some good uses for margarine. It adds color to pastry. It keeps its flavor better than butter does after long cooking. In some cooking situations, food cooked with margarine, or part margarine, seems less greasy than food cooked with butter alone. Lastly — and most important — it has a higher smoking point than butter, so you run a lower risk with margarine of burning or over-browning food. Paul Prudhomme, an American master of bringing food in a pan to its peak, wrote in “Paul Prudhomme’s Louisiana Kitchen”: “I use margarine, often with butter, instead of oil ... I usually prefer the taste of margarine to olive or vegetable oil for frying when butter is also being used.” As a California friend said to me: “I’ve had it with screening out ‘gastronomically incorrect’ ingredients. It’s silly. I now feel this: If it tastes good, use it.” Love what you eat, eat what you love Why do we assign some kind of quality hierarchy to different types of food? I can love a great dish in a three-star restaurant in France as much as the next palate does, but am I on some different plane of being when my palate lights up over a BLT? Is it a different order of experience? I think not! We’re not comparing different forms of, say, love: parental, platonic, devotional, romantic. We’re talking about sensations experienced on your tongue. Is the source of one pleasure-giving sensation to be ranked higher in some bizarre taxonomy than the source of another pleasure-giving sensation? There’s nothing “better,” or “finer” about great food at a three-star restaurant compared to great food in your kitchen. It certainly is different food, but why should the taste sensations at one place make you feel like you’re living correctly, while the taste sensations in your kitchen make you feel like an aesthetic miscreant? These days, I think it’s more important than ever to preserve our informal, down-home traditions. For what you can get in the fancy restaurants of New York, Chicago, Las Vegas, San Francisco is not awfully different anymore from what you can get in the fancy restaurants of Paris, Madrid, Tokyo and Sydney. What you cannot get outside of the U.S. is American barbecue, Maryland crab feasts, Chicago hot dogs, Santa Fe comfort food, Pacific Northwest salmon roasts, Cal-Mex burritos and tacos, delicious American pies and cakes.

"You guys know what this represents? Maybe it's the calm before the storm." That's the word from our President last night as he prepared for a dinner meeting with his military commanders. The press asked him WTF he was talking about - as the President has many enemies he'd like to attack from Kim Jong Un to NBC News - who knows which way the drones are going to fly and Trump, ever the consummate game-show host, left us with a cliffhanger saying "You'll find out." Certainly Trump needs a distraction after such a terrible week for his Presidency and he's been working overtime to keep the haters spinning in circles, rolling back environmental regulations, arguing for gerrymandering in the courts, taking away birth control, taking away abortion (the GOP needs more poor babies to vote for them), demanding Congress violate the first amendment while defending the second in the wake of tragedy... Hell, I bet you don't even know the US refused to join the rest of the civilized World in condemning the DEATH PENALTY for LGBT people in other countries. That's right, the US actually voted AGAINST a UN resolution that condemned the death penalty as a punishment for being gay. This is not fake news, this really happened - in America - in 2017. The fact is that we live in a world where even today gay people are being arrested, tortured and killed because of their sexual orientation. And the United States didn't just let an opportunity to condemn those atrocities pass by - it did much worse. It took a stand against that condemnation. This latest vote came as a stark reminder that under the current administration, the United States hasn't just given up its commitment to advancing human rights. It has, instead, changed sides in that struggle. The resolution urged countries that have still not abolished the Death Penalty (most countries have) to make sure it is not imposed as punishment for "apostasy, blasphemy, adultery and consensual same-sex relations." That's right, blasphemy too - like speaking out against the Trumpster! Maybe that's why you haven't heard about this from your regular news outlets... The fact that the United States, the birthplace of the modern human rights movement, has opposed a measure supported by every single Western and Eastern European country in the body, and every Latin American country (only Cuba abstained), and instead sided with Saudi Arabia, Egypt, China and other countries with troubling human rights records, makes it a very dark day for human rights. Joe Biden made a speech condemning Trump saying the US is "heading down a very dark path” and urged Washington’s foreign policy establishment to take a stand: “I really feel incredibly strongly that the women and men sitting before me, who have been the intellectual backbone of the foreign policy establishment in this country for decades, have to start to speak out. President Obama and I have been very quiet and respectful, giving the administration time, but some of these roots are being sunk too deeply. I believe it’s time to challenge some of the dangerous assumptions that are attempting to replace that liberal world order.” Acknowledging that many Americans feel left behind by globalization, he said: “The appeal to populism and nationalism is a siren song, a way for charlatans to aggrandize their power, raise themselves up, break down those mechanisms that were designed, whether in our constitution or internationally, to limit the abuse of power, and destabilize the world. It’s not alarmist. We’re walking down a very dark path that isolates the United States on the world stage and, as a consequence, endangers – not strengthens – endangers American interests and the American people.” He derided Trump’s recent appearance at the UN, where the president emphasized national sovereignty and self-interest. “To stand in the well of the general assembly, and wave the flag of narrow nationalism, while warning of a future vulnerable to ‘decay, dominion and defeat’ marks a dangerous revision of political small-mindedness that led the world to consume itself in two world wars in the last century, and it abandons America’s hard-won position as the indispensable nation, as a leader that inspires more than fear. Trading insults. Deploying taunting nicknames. Promising to ‘totally destroy’ a country of 25 million people. Such erratic action only worsens the crisis and rejects the possibility of diplomacy.” Sorry if this has "nothing to do with the markets" but it has to do with life on Earth and, if you are first hearing about these things from me - you need to wonder what has happened to the once-free press in America that a massive reversal of position on Gay Rights goes unreported and former VP, Joe Biden's criticism of Trump goes uncovered or that the President of the United States hinting of a coming war passes with barely a mention - and the markets march up and up - as if nothing is wrong in the World. We're in for a rude awakening - we just don't know when... 8:30 Update: Complete and utter disaster on the Jobs Report! Non-Farm Payrolls were DOWN 33,000 jobs (with +100,000 expected by leading economorons) and that's off from August's +169,000 and the first negative number in many years - go Trump! You can't blame this on the Hurricanes: As it turns out, the number of people hired by insurance companies as claims adjusters more than made up for the number of jobs that were displaced by the storm. Also, from the bureau of fake statistics, July has now been revised down from 189,000, which boosted the Dow 1,000 points that month, to 139,000 the lowest number of jobs added since July (though now trounced by September). Will the market now take back those 1,000 Dow points (5%) and then what about this month's terrible report? Is bad news still good news or is the Fed already locked into a December hike, no matter how crappy the data? There's nothing good about this jobs report for the markets. Less jobs is less consumers to spend and wages continue to pressure upwards, 0.5% this month on a 6% annualized pace - there's a margin-killer. There are 159,830,000 working Americans who are making an average of $26.55/hr. That's $22.23 for the bottom 99%, "non-supervisory" positions and in order to increase the average by $4.32 by including the Top 1%, we can see that the Top 1% has to average $450/hr - about 20x more than the Bottom 99% make. Yep, that's about right. So if you hear reports about 6% wage growth and your paycheck isn't moving - now you know where the money is going! You can't grow an economy by only giving money to the richest 1% of the people. This has been proven over and over again for thousands of years. This is the leading cause of revolutions, for God's sake! At a certain point, it occurs to 99 people that if they kill that one guy and divided his $450 by 99 ($4.55 each), they'd ALL be 20% richer. THAT'S Democracy! It's not only bad for the continuation of a peaceful nation but it's simply bad for the economy when you pool wealth in the hands of so few people. Businesses that cater to the masses are very vulnerable as the masses run out of disposable income and the GOP's joke of a tax cut (see previous rants) is only going to make things worse, not better. At some point (and we think it's this earnings period, which covers the -33,000 jobs and the -50,000 revision) this will start to show up in the earnings of a lot of companies that are trading at record highs because people don't think about the repercussions of these policies - they simply believe tax cuts are good and buy every stock in sight. That's how bubbles form. We may soon see how they pop! Have a great weekend,

After watching the domestic terror that unfolded in Charlottesville, Va. over the weekend, it’s easy to feel angry, scared and helpless. The Unite The Right rally and the ensuing violence created in its wake left at least 19 injured and a 32-year-old woman, Heather Heyer, dead. As we’ve seen over the past seven months, the best way to channel that anger productively, and to push back on the fear and helplessness, is to take action. As Sen. Kamala Harris wrote on Facebook Sunday: “If we say this is not who we are, it’s on us to show that.” Below are a few ways you can help those impacted by the attacks ― and groups of people who are most vulnerable to future white supremacist actions ― right now, even if you live hundreds of miles from Charlottesville: Donate money to directly support Charlottesville victims... Medical Fund for Charlottesville Victims Members of the Democratic Socialists of America started a GoFundMe to cover medical expenses, trauma counseling and any other needs those injured in Charlottesville may have. Donate here. C-ville Victim Relief A group called Unity Cville also created a GoFundMe to support the victims of the weekend’s attacks. The group plans to transfer the funds to the City of Charlottesville or “another appropriate body” once the campaign ends. Donate here. GoFundMe for Deandre Harris And finally, there is a GoFundMe set up specifically to help Deandre Harris, the 20-year-old black activist who was assaulted by white supremacists with poles in Charlottesville. The funds will go toward covering his medical bills. Donate here. Chip Somodevilla via Getty Images A wall is covered with chalk writing outside city hall as an informal memorial August 14, 2017 in Charlottesville, Virginia. Donate money to support marginalized communities in Charlottesville... Brody Jewish Center at the University of Virginia UVA’s Hillel offers community and education ― including Shabbat dinners, interfaith dialogues and volunteer opportunities ― to Jewish students and their allies at the university. Donate here. Charlottesville Health Center ― Planned Parenthood This Planned Parenthood clinic serves Charlottesville and the surrounding areas, offering low-income people (especially women) access to affordable health care. Donate here. Black Lives Matter Charlottesville The Charlottesville chapter of the Black Lives Matter network is dedicated to “working for the validity of Black life.” Donate here. Charlottesville Pride Community Network Charlottesville Pride is an LGBTQ advocacy and outreach organization dedicated to creating “a vibrant, visible, and inclusive LGBTQ community presence in Charlottesville” and the surrounding area. Donate here. Showing Up For Racial Justice Charlottesville SURJ is dedicated to ending white supremacy. According to the organization’s GoFundMe page, these specific donations will go toward “supporting communities of color with supplies for this summer, honorariums for trainings and workshops run by people of color, paying artists for their work that is used at trainings and workshops, day-of supplies like water and food, printing and media costs, responding to the needs and requests of people of color in this community, and securing training space and day-of childcare.” Donate here. The Women’s Initiative The Women’s Initiative offers mental health services to women in Charlottesville, specifically focused on counseling, social support and education. Donate here. Legal Aid Justice Center The Legal Aid Justice Center has 40 offices across the state of Virginia ― including one in Charlottesville. They aim to “battle poverty and injustice by solving critical legal problems for individuals and communities.” Donate here. Islamic Society of Central Virginia The ISCV serves the Muslim community in Charlottesville and Abermarle. Donate here. Donate your time to show solidarity... Attend a vigil or protest. Hundreds of vigils have been planned across the country since Saturday. Look up your zipcode on Indivisible’s website to see if there is an event happening this week near you. Showing solidarity in a visible way matters. Call your representative.

With the protests in Charlottesville, Virginia and the murder of Heather Heyer, the enduring identity crisis of America escalates to once again claim yet another life. Listening to the debate over the weekend, it becomes increasingly clear that many Americans don’t grasp what American values truly are. The election of Donald Trump has not only further deteriorated already eroding fault lines but also given anti-American sentiment its day. Cries of white supremacy, white victimhood, white redemption, drown out cries for love of country, of these United States. Even still, American patriotism isn’t as complex as one might be led to think. American values are not so abstract that they shift and shape according to whomever claims them. Contrary to popular belief, American values are not regional. There is no “real America” within America. The truth of the matter is anti-intellectualism, with its myriad of causes, has depreciated the genuine character of the country. Too few Americans have actually read the Constitution so they haven’t a clue of the founding principles. Too many have no detailed knowledge of America’s history--like how the first Constitution had to be scrapped and rewritten because it didn’t go far enough in uniting the states; or how the Declaration of Independence was undergirded by the European Enlightenment. Indeed, many of us don’t even realize that there were only thirteen states when the United States was founded. American values are today somehow lost in contradictions. Our identity is personified in both the bully and the freedom fighter. Our creed is synonymous with liberty, freedom and equality on the one hand, and bravado, coarseness, and domination on the other. We need unity more than ever as we face an old adversary who is aggressively trying to thwart our democracy. Yet, at present, it seems we are more likely to embrace civil war than solidarity. We have retreated into partisan corners, which have devolved into tribal allegiances suggesting that, ultimately, our hatred for one another is only eclipsed by hatred for American values and their obligations. Hatred of American values on the Left is fueled by a rather myopic view of America’s history. Patriotism on the Left is often conditioned by America’s history, especially that of slavery, Jim Crow and the early actions of the CIA. The actions of the early CIA can be understood as a craven policy of national interest in a shrinking world. Jim Crow can be understood as an the expression of the brutish nature of men of low character threatened by the equality promised in the Civil War Amendments. Slavery, however, requires closer speculation to truly understand. Many of us on the Left tend to view colonial history with a rather puerile anachronism. We don’t understand how young America is and how its emergence in the Imperial Age of Europe pretty much determined the parameters of government. We see slavery solely as our founding fathers’ hypocrisy, a contradiction of the values they laid out in the Declaration of Independence. Ironically, we fail to recognize that the Declaration was a guiding principle of abolitionists, and that although slavery was a negotiating tactic in creating a unified country, four of the five writers of the Declaration expressed the need to abolish slavery. We overemphasize the racial component of American slavery, ignoring the fact that Africans and Arabs were purveyors of the trade; not to mention, Russian and Eastern European serfs weren’t emancipated until 1861, and indentured servitude wasn’t outlawed until 1917. Overall, we fail to understand slavery was one of many forms of unfree labor that supported the mercantile system in the Imperial Age. Most of the world’s population, whether British, European, Russian, Asian, Native American, or Middle Eastern, have ancestors that lived in bondage and were subjected to cruelty only the human imagination could conceive. It was to this world that America was born and it was in this world that America threw off the scourge of slavery relatively early in its history. While it is reasonable to acknowledge that America’s chattel slavery, especially in the deep South, was of a particular brand of brutality, it should not be cause to ignore that this brutality is not what has endured and thereby should not be cause to relinquish patriotism to the Right. While hatred on the Left is fueled by an acute awareness of the blemishes on America’s history, hatred for American values on the Right is fueled by selective ignorance of America’s history. America was not founded as a Christian nation. America was founded as a country free from religious designation, as a civil society. In fact, the First Amendment of the Constitution reads: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” Surprisingly, we tend to concentrate on the second half of the law, “free exercise of religion,” while ignoring the first half, “make no law respecting the establishment of religion.” America was so free from religion Thomas Jefferson published his own redacted bible, an act that could get you executed in the Old World. In America’s first century, newfangled denominations like Deists, Baptists, Pentecostals, Shakers, Amish and Mormons flourished alongside the Jewish faith. It was the freedom, not the religion, in “freedom of religion” that was underscored as the underlining principle of America. On that point, it can be argued that the more one tries to impose religion into American government, the less patriotic one becomes. America was not founded as a white country. Besides the fact that the largest numbers of Europeans immigrated here in the 20th century when most African-Americans were native born due to the Act to Prohibit the Importation of Slaves of 1807, black men with property had the right to vote in America before landless white men got the right in 1838, and well before white women got the vote in 1920. Indisputably, the founding fathers and those that ran governments in the thirteen states were wealthy men who saw the world as English society did: through the prism of class. In pamphlets popular in colonial times, conservatives wrote “it is ridiculous to think that ‘every silly clown and illiterate mechanic deserved a voice in government’.” John Adams, a radical for independence and freedom, believed “men without property had no judgment of their own,” and defended traditional social ranks, which he believed voting landless white men threatened to destroy. These beliefs underscore the history of race that all sides ignores: “whiteness” is a fairly modern concept. In colonial times, ethnicity and culture were well-developed in the human imagination, and wars over religion and sovereignty had long divided Europeans. There was no “monoculture” of whiteness. Europeans operated in a world of language barriers, custom and history differences, and most importantly, competition for trade. This is not to say colonial America was a colorblind society, but to be certain, “white” came to consciousness well after “American,” and for most of the country’s earliest history authentic Americanism excluded non-English speaking, non-Protestant, so-called “ethnic” whites. Societal stratification didn’t much change in the late 19th and first half of the 20th centuries. Suspicion and rejection of non-Protestant European immigrants took root with “Americanization.” In 1907, an American woman who married a foreigner automatically forfeited her American citizenship. The “Ford Motor Company created a sociological department to teach immigrant workers how to dress, furnish their homes, speak English and prepare non-fragrant food, even going so far as to fire those who failed to adapt to American standards.” Additionally, teaching in foreign languages was prohibited; state governments demanded that immigrants demonstrate unwavering loyalty to the United States and speeches on assimilation were a regular occurrence on the national stage. In essence, race was inconsequential in determining your “Americanness.” The proof was in the putting. So what are American values? How does one define them? The answer is much simpler than we may be led to believe by the false equivalence of American opinion being bandied about in the media today. American values are clearly laid out in the Constitution. Among them are equality, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. While many may debate what is meant by “life,” equality and liberty are pretty widely understood. The pursuit of happiness is the belief that people should be free to pursue lawful interests and occupations that bring them personal joy. Employment discrimination and bathroom bans, just to name a couple, would definitely fall under impediments to the pursuit of happiness. Prior to their adoption by the founders, these values were explored and espoused by John Locke, Jean-Jacque Burlamaqui, and other Enlightenment philosophers thus they were not unique to the United States. However, while these values propelled revolutions against absolute monarchy across Europe, the United States of America remains the only western democracy founded on these values. It stands to reason that American patriotism is upholding American values. This patriotism requires the realization that America is not some blank canvas for partisans to project their agenda onto or some territory for foreigners and corporations to extract wealth from. America is a real nation with a history of missteps and triumphs, but a set of distinct values. To claim to love this country but not know and uphold those values is a contradiction. And to try to shift the values of this country to suit religious, commercial, ethno-racial, or party interests is truly a betrayal of American values. Furthermore, disregard for domestic tranquility is hatred for American values. To seek to reduce free speech, or reduce free press, or reduce the right of the people to protest is hatred for American values. If we don’t preserve American values, above all others we hold dear, we will surely lose America. To understand the weight of such a loss, we should pay close attention to the death of democracy in Venezuela, Eastern Europe and Russia. We should notice the growth of oligarchy in the developing world, and the rising discord in the West. Above all, we should be grateful for the nation we’ve been given and ensure it lives up to its promise because if the light of liberty goes out in the United States, democracy loses its brightest beacon in the world.

The man who has led Armenia for the past decade bowed to popular demand and unexpectedly resigned on Monday, only a week into his new role as prime minister. After Serzh Sargsyan reached his two-term limit as president, the country’s legislative body voted to switch his role to prime minister earlier this month. Protests erupted across the small country, with people demanding that opposition leader Nikol Pashinyan instead be given a chance to lead. The demonstrations, which began almost two weeks ago, climaxed Sunday when Pashinyan was arrested for calling for Sargsyan’s ouster. He was released Monday to the delight of the protesters. “I was wrong,” Sargsyan said in a statement about his resignation. “The street movement is against my tenure. I am fulfilling your demand.” Artyom Geodakyan via Getty Images People celebrate in in central Yerevan after Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan announced his resignation following mass protests. Sargsyan’s spokesman, Hovhannes Nikoghosyan, called the former leader’s decision a “clear demonstration of a democracy in force” in an interview with the BBC. “It’s the happiest day in my life,” one protester, Karine Stepanyan, told Reuters. “We showed to the entire world that our country’s destiny is in hands of Armenian people.” Former Armenian Prime Minister Karen Karapetyan will now serve as the country’s acting prime minister until parliament chooses a new leader. The opposition plans to meet with Karapetyan this week, The Associated Press reported, although just how much power the government is willing to cede to the other side remains unclear. The political upheaval also happens to coincide with the country’s Genocide Remembrance Day on Tuesday, when people were already planning to take to the streets to commemorate the 1915 conflict.

Can I share something with you? Being a parent has been the second best thing I have ever done. The first, of course, was marrying my wife! To be sure, being a parent has made me a much better person, in so many ways. Yet the road to being a parent for me took a sad path in the beginning. My first child died of a disease known as anencephaly, a condition where the brain, scalp, and skull never truly form. When my wife gave birth to our child, she was in labor for 92 hours before our first daughter was born. When my wife gave birth to our child, the tiny infant died immediately upon reaching oxygen. The next several months saw my wife and I both suffer from overwhelming grief. We both reacted differently with the loss of our first child. Kelly grieved in a healthy fashion, while I did not. I remained in denial for quite some time, in fact for the next two years. I buried myself in my work, refusing to grieve or feel sadness. It was not healthy for either I or for our marriage. Since that time, my wife has given birth to three healthy children, and we have adopted three more from foster care. Furthermore, we have been foster parents to dozens of more children, as we have tried to help children in need. As a result of our first child dying, as well as four failed adoptions, I have come to realize that the gift of children is a precious one, and that the responsibility of raising children is one that is so very important. There have been those moments when I have questioned whether or not I was making a difference. There have been those times when I have grown frustrated with the system, as I have had to stand by and watch some of the children in my home go back to environments and situations which I knew that were not healthy or safe, for that matter. To be sure, I have also watched my wife’s own doubts, and her desire to no longer foster, as her heart had been broken numerous times from the many children she had grown to love, only to see them return to homes where the children were once again placed in jeopardy. It is the same for so many foster parents who have shared their stories with me. I have heard from foster parents who lose sleep each night for weeks and months on end, trying to calm and soothe a baby born addicted to crack, heroin, or meth. I have heard from foster parents who have been yelled at on a daily basis from foster teens who are so emotionally upset by their own experiences that they take it out on their foster parents. I have heard from those who have been told one day they could adopt their foster babies, only to be told another day that the baby would return instead to a biological family member the child had never met. The stories are countless, the stories are heartbreaking, and the stories are never ending. Surely, there is no earthly reason to be a foster parent. So, why do we do it? For many, like my wife, we are answering a call. The call to take care of children who are hurting, who are scared, who are in need. As a foster parent myself, I want to remind you that what you are doing is important. What you are doing matters. What you are doing is truly making a tremendous difference in the lives of children in need. Though you may feel exhausted at times, and though you may feel that you are not making an impact, you are changing the life of a child. You are planting a seed in the life of a child in foster care that WILL grow, and WILL bloom. You may not see this transformation while the child is living in your home; this seed may not blossom until much later, but it will blossom if you plant it with love, water it with your tears, and nurture it with your time and compassion. Sometimes, we may not be able to save a child from having a horrible and tragic experience before they come to live with us. Yet, we are given the chance, as foster parents, to save them from experiencing other future horrors, and taking them away from dangerous situations. Without a doubt, this is a joy itself. As a foster parent; indeed, as a parent, you are making a difference! You are saving a child from harm! It is my hope that you continue caring for children in foster care. There are so many children in care, yet so few willing to help. May you have the strength and resources, compassion and support; and may you continue to change the life of a child in foster care.

A Louisiana televangelist is convinced that God wants him to own a fourth private jet ― and he’s calling on others to donate toward that lofty goal. Evangelist Jesse Duplantis asked listeners to “pray about becoming a partner” in his grand dream to own a Dassault Falcon 7X, a luxury plane that’s reported to be worth at least $54 million. Duplantis claims he needs the private plane with seating for up to 19 and an optional onboard shower to efficiently spread the gospel. “I really believe that if Jesus was physically on the Earth today, he wouldn’t be riding a donkey,” Duplantis said in a May 21 video posted on his website. “Think about it for a minute. He’d be in an airplane preaching the gospel all over the world.” Pascal Rossignol / Reuters A Dassault Aviation Falcon 7X takes part in a flying display near Paris on June 13, 2009. Duplantis is a purveyor of the prosperity gospel, a strand of Christianity that teaches that earthly riches are a sign of God’s favor. His organization, Jesse Duplantis Ministries, is headquartered in Destrehan, Louisiana, with a global reach facilitated by a television program, magazine and web series. The evangelist has over 700,000 followers on Facebook. In a recent episode of his web show, “This Week With Jesse,” Duplantis showed viewers framed photos of three jets he has already “purchased for the Lord.” Two of them are now being used by other pastors, while the third, his current Falcon 50, is no longer up to par, he claims. Watch "this Week with Jesse" as Jesse shows the importance of using aviation as an amazing tool for evangelizing the world! Tune in each Monday at https://t.co/hnG6BhPAvH or on our JDM App. Click to watch https://t.co/PLfSYt2A3U pic.twitter.com/sAvKskmokO — Jesse Duplantis (@jesse_duplantis) May 21, 2018 With a Falcon 7X, the evangelist says he could fly “one stop” to faraway locales “for a lot cheaper,” using fuel from his own fuel farm instead of paying for jet fuel during stops. The revelation that he needed a Falcon 7X came straight from heaven, Duplantis said. During the video, he recalled a conversation he claims to have had with God. ″[God] said, ‘I want you to believe me for a Falcon 7X,’” the evangelist said. “The first thing I thought of was how am I going to pay for it? And a great statement that he told me in 1978 flooded into my mind, and he said, ‘Jesse, I didn’t ask you to pay for it, I asked you to believe for it.’” “I am a blessed man,” he added. “You looking at a blessed man.” HuffPost has reached out to Jesse Duplantis Ministries for comment. In the past, the evangelist has said he needs a private jet because of his demanding schedule. Duplantis’ Facebook page shows events scheduled throughout the summer in the U.S. and Canada. Prosperity preachers have been criticized heavily for using private jets. In 2015, televangelist Creflo Dollar asked donors to pitch in $300 each to help fund a $65 million Gulfstream G650 jet. Dollar has yet to purchase the jet, according to The Washington Post, since they are in high demand among billionaires. Duplantis and fellow prosperity gospel preacher Kenneth Copeland defended their use of private jets in a television broadcast. Copeland, who was on President Donald Trump’s evangelical advisory board during the 2016 campaign, claims in the video that pastors use these private jets as a “sanctuary” where they can talk directly to God. “The world is in such a shape, we can’t get there without this,” Copeland said during the broadcast. “We’ve got to have this. The mess that the airlines are in today I would have to stop ... at least 75 to 80, more like 90 percent of what we’re doing because you can’t get there from here.” “It’s impossible,” Duplantis said. “You can’t manage that today,” Copeland added later, “this dope-filled world, and get in a long tube with a bunch of demons. And it’s deadly.” On Twitter, several Christians chimed in to argue against the idea that preachers who own private jets are following Jesus’ example. I'm a Senior pastor of a local church. Here's a picture of me on my plane on my last ministry trip. I had many opportunities for ministry while people were waiting for the toilet. pic.twitter.com/izf4jWOuhn — Matt Krachunis (@krachunis) May 29, 2018 Pastor says: "I really believe that if Jesus was physically on the Earth today, he wouldn't be riding a donkey. He'd be in an airplane preaching the gospel all over the world." Umm...Jesus was poor. Poor people don't own private jets. #whatsupwiththathttps://t.co/GKBwtuxL0F — Lino Rulli (@linorulli) May 30, 2018 Pretty sure Jesus doesn’t need a jet and does not require those who spread his message of loving the poor and oppressed to have one either. #wwjd 'It's what Jesus would do': Televangelist asks followers for $54m to buy private jet https://t.co/D3iHfKnuLU via @YahooNews — James Thompson (@JamesThompsonKS) May 29, 2018 Embarrassed & ashamed that this “pastor" is using the name of Jesus to satisfy his own greed. Please do not think he represents all US clergy. Quite a few of us work multiple jobs & live at poverty level so we can preach the Word the God. #JesseDuplantis https://t.co/p0p98aQsGU — Chris Elrod (@ChrisElrod) May 29, 2018 In his pitch for the Falcon 7X, Duplantis said he knew not everyone would agree that preachers need jets. But, he said, he’s simply trying to follow one of the last commands that Jesus gave his disciples: “Go into the world and preach the gospel to every creature.”

Kushner Cos. has said that a third party was contracted to file the paperwork and that documents were amended whenever errors were discovered. “Kushner Companies values all of our tenants and takes our legal and ethical responsibilities very seriously,” said a company statement. Housing Rights Initiative, however, said that paperwork often wasn’t amended for a year or two, by which time tenants had already been driven out. Jared Kushner stepped down from his role as CEO last year but still holds major stakes in a number of family real estate holdings. He maintains a holding in Westminster Management, the Kushner Cos. subsidiary that oversees its residential properties. Westminster has been hit with a class-action lawsuit by Maryland tenants who say they were charged mysterious fees in a bid to drive them out, a charge the company has denied. Special counsel Robert Mueller is reportedly looking into Jared Kushner’s efforts to secure financing for family real estate operations from foreign investors during the presidential transition that may have influenced his work in the White House.

Not quite the hot look she had in mind. Spartanburg, South Carolina, resident Erika Shoolbred posted a video Monday showing her hair dryer catching fire and then appearing to shoot flames. “Talk about a bad hair day!” Shoolbred joked in a Facebook post. “My new hair dryer (more like hair frier) from OraCorp on Amazon.com became a blow torch on its first use this morning.” Shoolbred was left with a small burn on her hand but was otherwise unharmed. She said she had to run the dryer “under the sink” to finally extinguish the flames. The product has apparently been pulled from Amazon, and Shoolbred told her friends that she’s gotten a full refund from the site. While most commenters were happy she was OK, some were skeptical of the video’s authenticity, pointing out that you don’t see the back of the hair dryer. We’ll leave that judgment call to you. We’re just thankful this incident didn’t happen to someone wearing the company’s bonnet dryer attachment.

Marvel Comics icon Stan Lee is being sued by Chicago-based massage therapist Maria Carballo for allegedly sexually harassing and grabbing her during two massage appointments last year. Carballo’s complaint, filed Monday in Cook County circuit court, names Lee and his assistant Mac “Max” Anderson, who arranged the massage appointments. The complaint lists charges including assault, battery and emotional stress, and Carballo is seeking over $50,000 in damages, according to documents obtained by People. Lee, 95, denied the allegations through his attorney Jonathan Freund, who told the Chicago Tribune that his client was shocked by the allegations. “He is a high-profile public figure and I think it’s a shakedown,” Freund told the Chicago Tribune. “The guy is 95, I don’t think he would do that.” Neither Lee or his attorney immediately responded to HuffPost’s request for comment. According to the lawsuit, Lee hired Carballo to perform a two-hour massage on April 21, 2017, at the Hyatt Regency hotel in Chicago while Lee was in town for an annual comic expo called C2E2. About a half hour into the massage, Carballo alleges that Lee “began to fondle himself” while he was face down on the table. Later in the appointment, Lee allegedly began moaning as Carballo massaged his legs. Carballo immediately became uncomfortable and ended the massage, the suit says. The next day, Carballo says, her boss called her asking that she massage Lee again. She initially refused, but her boss pressed the issue by apologizing for Lee’s behavior and reiterating the importance of “appeasing VIP clients,” according to the complaint. Eventually, Carballo acquiesced because she was afraid she would lose her job, she says. An hour into the massage on April 22, 2017, Carballo claims Lee began moaning again, at which time she attempted to end the massage. According to the complaint, Lee stood up, naked and angry, and demanded that Carballo continue the massage. She says she agreed to 10 more minutes, fearing what he would do if she did not continue. Carballo switched to a shiatsu massage method, which uses only the masseur’s feet, in order to keep her distance, the Chicago Tribune reports. According to the lawsuit, “Lee grabbed [Carballo’s] foot and moved it against his penis and scrotum.” Carballo says she immediately ended the massage, collected $240 for the appointment and left. Before she got on the elevator, Lee’s assistant allegedly gave her a big tip in cash. She did not report the incident because she was “fearful that, in light of Lee’s wealth and status, reporting the incident to police would hurt her job,” the lawsuit states. “For a long time, I was afraid to ask anyone to help me hold Mr. Lee accountable for how he treated me. He is rich and famous. I am not,” Carballo said in a statement provided to Page Six. “After seeing other women fight to be treated with dignity and respect, I decided, me too. I am still nervous and afraid, but not as much as I was before because I have other people helping me.” Lee’s business partner, Keya Morgan, told TMZ that Lee is “completely harmless” and “100 percent innocent.”

The evidence from neuroscience suggests that the one change that changes everything for a human being is the mindful shift from a conditioned state of stress and anxiety to a dynamic state of inner peace. Sustaining this shift literally stimulates the brain connectivity which generates neural integration. Neural integration represents an exponential increase in brain function that delivers the level of intelligence and well-being that predicts a more successful, happier, and healthier life. Yet, as much as we may strive for such a result, making the shift from fear to peace is the one change that has tended to elude most of us. Our high-pressure culture has buried peace of mind under an impossible to-do list of a thousand other priorities and demands, affording peace little chance to spread its magnificent wings and lift us higher into a more expansive experience of life. We can think we have no time or opportunity for even a moment’s peace and tend to regard peace as a far-off, unattainable ideal that only monks in Himalayan caves achieve. But take heart, peace and its ascendant joy are not far off. Both are as near to you as your own thoughts. Peace is a natural state that arises all by itself when we meet its conditions, which, first and foremost, is letting go of fearful thinking. This book offers you a simple path to accomplishing just that. In using the word “simple” I do not necessarily mean “easy”, but I do assert that the simpler life gets, the easier it gets, and peace simplifies everything. To quote Thomas Merton, “All problems are resolved and everything is clear, simply because what matters is clear.” And what matters most in building a powerful brain is the quality of your inner experience as you face the outer world. Make no mistake, our very cells take their signals from our state of mind, and peace is the crown jewel of a positive mindset that can change our biology, alter the way our genes express, and expand higher brain function to enable us to transform possibilities into probabilities. Despite the evidence, our cultural institutions continue to promote fear - from schools, to religion, politics, business, and media. Seen from within a competitive, aggressive value system peace appears weak, complacent or withdrawn, instead of what it is, which is the neurological catalyst that drives success. “In a world of fugitives,” states T.S. Eliot, “the person taking the opposite direction will appear to run away.” Peace is a radical change in direction. Here is what is radical about it: In an high stress culture, it is radical to discover that the fearful stress-provoking thoughts we are believing are often not even true, but largely mind-made illusions that vanish like smoke when we stop believing them. It is radical to flow through a challenging task and succeed by virtue of the presence, enthusiastic engagement, and creativity that inner peace sustains. It is radical to experience the joy and serenity that arises all by itself when we are not afraid of anything. It is radical to lift our thinking from its dense and pointless preoccupations, quietly witnessing the beauty and mystery happening all around us. It is radical to engage a storm of adversity with calm, creativity and optimism when others are losing theirs. It is radical to let go of a depressing past and an anxious future to be wholly present and at peace with nothing between us and happiness. It is radical to free ourselves to change and grow into who we want to be simply by accepting ourselves exactly as we are. It is radical to allow our grievances and regrets to dissolve in unconditional positive regard for everyone, including (most especially) ourselves. It is radical to see our criticism and judgments of others as a projection of what remains unhealed in us. It is radical to learn that being vulnerable is how we grow stronger. It is radical to discover that the intrinsic worth of a human being is unconditional, independent of his or her strengths, faults, successes or failures. It is radical to think that whether we live in a penthouse on Fifth Avenue or under a freeway, we are worthy; whether we are a teetotaler or an alcoholic on a bar stool, at our core we are golden; whether we are the chief of police or behind bars, we belong. It is radical to learn that anticipating a desired outcome optimistically sets in motion a chain of positive thoughts, feelings, actions, and grace that work together to make the outcome happen. canstockphoto.com These ways of relating to life all represent a radical shift – a 180° shift for most people - but when sustained it can generate an enormous change in the way the brain functions, giving us the capacity to switch our experience at the point of inception from stressed, reactive, and negative to calm, creative and positive. click for The End of Stress at Amazon

Co-authored by Dorothy Shapiro, Fellow and Lecturer in Law, The University of Chicago Law School President Trump has promised to revitalize American manufacturing by renegotiating trade agreements and incentivizing companies to retain domestic operations. But there is another problem plaguing some American companies: poor corporate governance. And this one should be easier to fix. All it requires is that board members faithfully represent shareholder interests. Exhibit A is the governance failures unearthed by activist hedge fund Elliot Management in its battle with the management of Arconic, part of the aerospace and automotive parts manufacturer formerly known as Alcoa. These failures exemplify the way that outdated corporate governance structures can harm the competitiveness of American companies. Shareholders, employees, and countless other Americans suffer as a result. Alcoa was a prototypical rust-belt manufacturing company. It opened production in New Kensington, Pennsylvania in 1891, and its successes benefited millions in Pittsburgh and around the country. The trouble for Alcoa started in 2008. The company’s stock had a horrific year of returns falling from over $100 to around $10. Around this time, Dr. Klaus Kleinfeld stepped in as CEO, with a plan to rebuild the business and make strategic acquisitions. The plans largely failed, producing shareholder returns at the very bottom for large American companies. Nevertheless, Kleinfeld kept his job and earned millions in pay. Last year, Alcoa spun off its aluminum production business into a new company called Alcoa, re-naming the parent company Arconic. The tale of these two companies is a case study in the impact corporate governance can have. This spinoff created two very different companies—New Alcoa was given “a much better governance structure” than Arconic, in the words of Alcoa CFO William Oplinger. Specifically, Alcoa incorporated in Delaware, the preferred choice of shareholders seeking to unlock corporate value. Alcoa also established an annual election of the board of directors, separated the chairman and CEO role, and lowered the voting requirements for removing directors. Arconic did not follow suit. It remained a Pennsylvania corporation, thus enabling it to enact management friendly policies that would be off limits in Delaware. Arconic also retained its staggered board despite mounting evidence that such a structure leads to entrenchment and reduced firm value. It is now one of only a handful of large corporations with this outdated governance structure. Finally, Kleinfeld continues to serve as both CEO and Chair of the board, which is responsible for overseeing management. While of these old-school governance approaches might be in the interests of shareholders in some cases, Arconic has refused to modernize despite increased shareholder pressure for it to do so. This flies directly in the face of recent empirical evidence indicating that when governance that diminishes shareholder power is unilaterally imposed by the board, firm value suffers. A good board might be able to overcome these structural failures, but Arconic is a poster-child for a bad board too. The Arconic board is plagued with severe conflicts of interest. The lead independent director, Pat Russo, also serves as the as the chair of the HP board, of which Kleinfeld is also a director. Russo is charged with overseeing Kleinfeld’s compensation at Arconic, while Kleinfeld oversees Russo’s compensation at HP. This perverse relationship may help explain the fact that both Kleinfeld and Russo continue to reap huge sums, while shareholders and others at both companies suffer. There’s also evidence that the Arconic board has been asleep at the wheel. The board appears to have been unaware of a voting agreement that put nearly nine million shares of Arconic stock in the effective voting control of Kleinfeld for two years. To make matters worse, the voting agreement was only revealed to Arconic shareholders after a dead-hand provision had kicked in causing these shares to be voted for management no matter who owned them. Enter Elliot Management. Since taking an activist stake in 2016, Elliot has successfully put three independent directors on the Arconic board and has proposed a long-term strategy, unlike some activist shareholders only interested in stock buybacks or other short-term fixes. But Elliot, which has a 13 percent stake in Arconic, now seeks more dramatic changes: ousting Kleinfeld, nominating four more independent directors, and revamping the company’s governance. It also seeks operational changes, including reducing high expenditures associated with Arconic’s presence in Manhattan. On Tuesday, Elliot released a 300-page presentation detailing its grievances and its plans for Arconic. This presentation called for Arconic to move its headquarters out of New York City altogether, suggesting as one possibility that the headquarters be moved back to Pittsburgh. Arconic responded by threatening shareholders with a “poison put” – arguing with no legal foundation that a contract with an employee pension trust required a payment of $500 million in the event Elliott is successful in its campaign. The threat reeks of entrenchment.

Every organization has written and unwritten rules. Written rules and policies require written changes, which are generally shared and acknowledged. What trips many people up about new bosses are unanticipated, unrealized changes to the unwritten rules. When you get a new boss, do everything you can to read the unwritten rule changes and adapt to your new boss's rules immediately. When you are the new boss, help others understand your unwritten rules as part of your onboarding. At Lever Brothers in the early 1980s in the New York metro area, the written rules were that salesmen should be in their first store by 8:00 am, complete each call's paperwork at the end of the call and leave their last store after 5:00 pm and call on nine stores per day. In an effort to minimize unproductive travel time I had the salespeople on my team save their paperwork for the end of the day and call on as many stores as they could between 8:00 am and 4:00 pm, then drive home and do their paperwork there. This allowed each salesman to complete an average of one extra sales call per day. When I moved on from the area, I made sure the salespeople knew to go back to their normal 8:00-5:00 routine so they wouldn't get in trouble with their new boss. In an earlier article on Seven Keys to Adjusting to a New Boss I suggested: Foundation - Treat your new boss decently. Attitude - Choose to be optimistic. Approach - Proactively tell your new boss that you want to be part of the new team. Learning - Present a realistic and honest game plan to help the boss learn. Expectations - Understand and move on your new boss' agenda immediately. Implementation - Adjust to your new boss' working style immediately. Delivery - Be on your "A" Game. Since many of the changes in unwritten rules have to do with implementation, let's dig into that. Think in terms of control points, decisions and communication. Control Points Different bosses have different biases in terms of metrics and processes for controlling what is really going on. You'll need to understand and switch to the things your new boss wants measured, tracked, and reported and how - and what is not being formally tracked but informally watched in the shadows. Decisions Different bosses want to have different roles in different decisions. Get clear on what decisions your new boss wants to make himself or herself and when he or she wants to have input into your decisions, be informed or not be informed. Communication Understand your new boss's preferred communication modes, manner, frequency and method of disagreement. Mode refers to the type of communication: e-mail, text, We Chat, voice mail, in person, and so on. Manner is the style of communication: more formal and disciplined or less so. Frequency is how often your new boss prefers to be communicated with: daily updates, weekly, only when the project is completed, and so on. Different bosses have different tolerances for being wrong and openness to disagreement and may suggest: Never disagree with me. Challenge me one-on-one privately. Challenge me in team meetings; but never let anyone outside "the family" know what you're thinking. Challenge me in any meetings, but gently. Gloves off, all the time, because public challenges communicate the culture we want. Ask about this, but don't believe the initial answers you get. Initially, start at the top of the list and wait to see how your new boss responds to disagreements and challenges from others before you start disagreeing with or challenging him or her. Beware of the implications of your choices Do understand that there is risk in being too adaptable to your new boss and losing perspective on what really matters and why. If your new boss is asking you to do something that goes against your organization's fundamental values, push back - hard. Adapt to your new boss - appropriately. Follow George Bradt on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@georgebradt

Redding is known for its 300 plus days of sunshine, hiking and biking trails, the Mounts Lassen and Shasta, nearby lakes and kayaking. As I am not an outdoors activities person, I decided to explore what else you can do in Redding in 48 hours –like eating and drinking and even painting. Here are my recommendations if you only have two days or less in Redding for wine, dining, and artistic experiences. This applies to a specific visit to this wonderful city or if you just happen to be passing by on I-5 going to points north or south. T Zervaki Thursday 5 p.m. This newly founded family winery sources all of its grapes from an array of local counties. The limited-production wines are aged in French and American oak and bottled in the family cellars. Try the Unoaked Chardonnay which is a delightful expression of Chardonnay fruit, the balanced 2013 Syrah as well as the 2015 award winner Cabernet Sauvignon; the unoaked Tempranillo is good enough to be enjoyed by itself or with some good food and chocolate. Winemaker Rob Early will share a glass with you and Patti will be pouring in this cozy tasting room. T Zervaki 7 p.m. Head to the famous Market Street Steakhouse offering 36-oz. steaks and a great selection of mouthwatering appetizers from bruschetta to poke to ribs. Wine is plenty but cocktails are also there for you. My Korean style ribs as an appetizer were to die for and both cocktails, the Margarita and the Mojito worth every sip. 10 p.m. Enjoy unique wines from California. This lovely venue organizes plenty of events and gatherings so check it out. Friday 9:30 a.m. T Zervaki Start your morning with a stroll in the old town. Déjà Vu is an amazing spot for a sit-down breakfast with a choice of a brunch menu, located in the historic Lorenz Hotel. The adjacent coffee bar offers great cold brews and the best iced Matcha lattes. 11:30 a.m. Designed by Spanish architect and engineer Santiago Calatrava that reportedly costed $24 million, this bridge is not to miss. The suspension bridge is also a real sundial and reaches 217 feet into the sky and spans 710 feet across Sacramento River. It was constructed so as to not disturb the adjacent salmon-spawning habitat. On the bridge you feel like entering a small cozy space where couples, family with kids and travelers from all over the world can relax and spend time together while enjoying the dazzling view from the bridge and through the translucent structural glass deck. If you like to explore more, just keep walking to the McConnell Arboretum & Botanical Gardens and riverside trails. T Zervaki Tehama Oaks 1 p.m. Tehama Oaks Winery in Red Bluff A great selection of reds and a few white wines is not to be missed at the Tehama Oaks Winery and tasting room. Let owner and winemaker Bob Douglas pour and tell you stories about his handcrafted wines from his own vineyards and from premium vineyards in Northern California. The 2013 Roussanne is marvelous and the 2012 Red Rock Red blend made with Cabernet Sauvignon, Petit Syrah, Syrah and a splash of Viognier is irresistible. I also loved the 2012 Cabernet Sauvignon that is an award winner, aged and sophisticated. 3 p.m. T Zervaki The oldest bonded winery in Shasta County was planted in 1981 and established in 1984. This family owned winery grows its own varieties in the country and experiments with magnificent blends that you will love. The unique 2015 Shasta Glazer, a white blend of Colombard, Chenin Blanc, Orange Muscat, Semillon, Sauvignon Blanc and Viognier served chilled is perfect for a hot and dry day. Another favorite, the 2015 Trinity, the light red GSM that is so easy to drink. Ask winemaker Roger Matson to guide you around the facilities and you will see the old barrels and his experiments. 5 p.m. –early dinner A three-time winner in Best of the North State 2016. A great menu selection of one-of-a-kind appetizers and signature main dishes won’t disappoint you. The grilled crab cakes are a must and also is the filet mignon meat loaf. Pair with a Smokin’s martini and a summer cocktail and you are all set for the night. 7 p.m. T Zervaki Boost your creativity while tasting award winning wines from the Mosely Family with music. Professional artist Scott Burroughs will guide you through step-by-step on how to paint on canvas so at the end, you have an acrylic painting to show to your friends and perhaps even a masterpiece to bring home to hang on your wall as a memento of your stay in Redding. Saturday 9 a.m. T Zervaki Start your day at the Hearth Bakery & Café. The conveniently located eatery offers a great selection of omelets, wraps, pastries, sandwiches and great coffees and teas. I had the New Orleans Cold Brew, an authentic favorite. My scramble eggs were as I wanted them, a protein-full breakfast to kick start my day. 10 a.m. The popular farmers market lasts for nine months from April to December and has everything you need for your healthy diet. Go as early as 7:30 a.m. to get the best quality items before they sell out. 12 p.m. T Zervaki The last winery to visit is the Mosely Family Cellars. This winery features a great tasting room and plenty of whites and reds that will tell their own story. The wines are made from Napa and Sonoma imported grapes crushed and bottled in Redding. The 3-sisters Chardonnays are all good but I preferred the “oldest” of all, the Beurre Blanc from Carneros that is buttery and oaky. From the reds, the Le Jardin Rouge, the 2014 GSM blended with 2% Viognier is fruity with a complex and smoky finish. 2 p.m. Stroll the downtown area and head to the Coffee Bar for a serious shot of a single origin coffee along with a freshly made sandwich. Then explore local boutiques, bookstores and the Enjoy The Store with local specialties before driving to the airport. General information Redding has a small airport — Redding Municipal Airport — that offers daily service to San Francisco on United Airlines and to Portland on PenAir.

This post is written by Global Citizen Year Brazil Fellow Elise Steenburgh. Global Citizen Year alum Fernanda Tornell (’17) cleaning sea turtles during her apprenticeship at Projeto Tamar in Brazil. I never had plans to take a gap year. Ever since the age of five, I planned on attending the most prestigious college immediately after high school. Through French Immersion, Gifted and Talented Enriched Studies, Middle Years Program, and finally International Baccalaureate, I maintained an impeccable transcript with high grades in hard courses. Topping all that off with solid SAT and ACT scores and a strong report card at the end of junior year, I was certain to get into my dream school. The dream school that could be any of the eight I would apply to. Global Citizen Year appeared on my radar at the end of August, the very beginning of senior year. I remember sitting at my computer, allowing the Common App website to slowly burn into my retinas, when suddenly my dad barged into my room and broke my trance. He told me to go to globalcitizenyear.org and apply for the gap year program. I was taken aback; dad always encouraged me to set my sights on the Ivy Leagues, but now he was telling me to forget all that? Before I could express my incredulity, dad shocked me with, “Oh and do it quickly. The deadline is in 3 days.“ I had no time to lose. I logged onto the website and began skimming through the program overview and country descriptions. It looked interesting enough, and then the apprenticeship options popped up. “Wildlife Preservation & Environmental Sustainability” in Brazil? Sign me up! It wasn’t until a few months later, when I asked my dad why he told me to apply to Global Citizen Year, that I found out the apprenticeship opportunities were also the reason he thought I would thrive. I always dream of traveling to different countries and saving the environment, and dad said this was exactly that. Thanks, dad. The application process was very straightforward and I finished it with barely any time to spare. It was much easier and shorter than the Common App, that’s for sure. What shocked me most about the process was how quickly I learned of my acceptance. A week after I submitted my application, I was invited to interview. Less than a month after that, I received a packet in the mail saying I was accepted. It was only early October and I already knew what I was going to do next year. I cried, I was so overwhelmed. I called my friends, ecstatic and sobbing, I couldn’t even form sentences. I didn’t even know which country I was going to, but I had my sights on Brazil. And I still had my sights on college. For the rest of fall, I focused on my college applications. I had visited most of the schools over the summer, so I figured I might as well apply. I also thought I knew what I wanted, so I went through the process with the goal of deferring my attendance. After a long and arduous wait, the acceptance letters that I hoped for manifested into a long list of rejection emails. And it felt… good. Of course, immediately after opening the emails, my cheeks burned as if slapped in the face. My grades and scores should have cut it, but no one wanted me. I guess I just didn’t look good on paper. Soon after, however, I realized that maybe this was a good thing, like a sign or something. By the end of March and early April, the student checking for college admissions notifications was completely different from the one who had sent in the applications. I don’t understand why so much pressure is put on students during junior year, because senior year is way more important than junior year. When I apply to colleges this time around, I will have so much more to write about and show for myself. In senior year, International Baccalaureate hit me like a train. While most of my friends were cruising through senior year (with *cough* senioritis), it seemed like IB had a never ending supply of IAs and EEs and SLs and HLs to throw at me. Looking back on it, thank goodness for that. I fully realized my academic potential, having stayed afloat even when things were looking grim, and that helped me learn what I was really capable of. Not only did the purpose of academia make much more sense to me after senior year, but life made more sense too, simply because I got older. There is so much to learn between the ages of 16 or 17, when we start the college process, and 18, when we are expected to lock in our life for the next 4 years. As my friends and I would say, “We gained so much life XP”. There were boyfriends and girlfriends cried over, fights resolved, moves made, and new experiences had that changed our worldview, all in the span of senior year. 5% of our lives. I think that’s what’s often glossed over. At this young an age, all we know is school. By the time we graduate, at least 65% of our days are spent in school, or doing school work over the weekend, or doing summer work for school. 20% of it we can’t remember because we were too young, and the slim rest is (hopefully) fun summer breaks. We haven’t had time to experience the world yet. When we decide where to go to college for the next for years, we’re deciding what we’re going to do for the next 20% of our lives. So that’s why I’m applying to colleges again. I did get accepted to a couple of great schools; I could have deferred if I wanted to. But I didn’t want to. I am going to take this second opportunity to apply to new colleges, write new essays, show that I have changed and will continue to change and grow. If I already realized the huge impact senior year had on me after I already submitted my applications, then I know that Global Citizen Year will give me so many more opportunities to grow. I’m not taking a gap year because I don’t know what I want to do. I know that I’m going to dedicate my life to preserving and protecting the environment for all its inhabitants for generations to come. I’m doing GCY because I need a boost of life XP so I can level up. I’ll learn Portuguese, follow my dream in an apprenticeship, love new people, experience a new culture, and make memories I wouldn’t be able to anywhere else. It will be a lot of work, both taking a bridge year and applying to colleges again. I know that from experiencing last years Common App process (don’t forget FAFSA, and ACT, and SAT, and all the other acronyms and financial aid forms), and conversely from not really knowing what’s ahead during my year in Brazil. But I know that I’m more prepared for it all now than I was last year. I know I can do it, so I know it will be worth it.

You’ve got to give it up for Chris Pratt. Most actors would take a hard pass on all award shows, let alone the Teen Choice Awards, after a very public break up. But not him. Pratt made his first public appearance since announcing his separation from Anna Faris earlier this month at the ceremony in Los Angeles on Sunday ― with his usual wit and charm intact. He skipped the red carpet, but took the stage later in the night to accept the Choice Sci-Fi Movie Actor prize for “Guardians Of The Galaxy 2.” After thanking presenters Millie Bobby Brown, Maddie Ziegler and Grace VanderWaal, Pratt went on to share his own Hollywood origin story. “When I came to Los Angeles, I came from Hawaii and I had all of this blonde hair and I was tan and I met an agent because I really wanted to be an actor and get an agent and he said, ‘Wow. Bro, you must surf?’ And I said ‘Yeah,’ and that was the first of many lies I told to get where I am today,” he told the crowd. Joe Maher via Getty Images Anna Faris and Chris Pratt's last public appearance as a couple before the announcement of their split. As a deeply religious man, Pratt also made sure to mention one of the most important forces in his own life. “I would not be here with the ease and grace I have in my heart without my lord and savior, Jesus Christ,” the actor continued. The 38-year-old closed the speech by thanking “Guardians of the Galaxy” director James Gunn for bringing the films to life and promising that fans have much to look forward to in the third installment. Pratt seems to be leaning on his faith since separating from Faris. He took their 4-year-old, Jack, to church hours before the award show on Sunday, smiling for the cameras as he carried his son in the parking lot. Danny Moloshok / Reuters Chris Pratt, Anna Faris and their son at Pratt's Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony. Last Sunday, Faris and Pratt broke our collective hearts with a joint statement revealing that they are separating after eight years of marriage. “We tried hard for a long time, and we’re really disappointed. Our son has two parents who love him very much and for his sake we want to keep this situation as private as possible moving forward. We still have love for each other, will always cherish our time together and continue to have the deepest respect for one another.” Neither party has revealed the reason behind the split, but Faris’ upcoming book, which reportedly delves heavily into their relationship, is still set for an October release with a foreword written by Pratt.

I have never considered myself a feminist. Sure, I continually encourage women in technology through active participation in Women in Technology International (WITI), contributions to Code like a Girl,, and by mentoring women, but I have never felt as engaged as I am now. It has been nearly 100 years since women were given the right to vote in 1920, with steady progression since. Who would expect that in the 21st century we would have a setback? A recent series of events has put generations of progress at risk. Our political environment fueled by our newly elected president’s stance on women has been interpreted by some as a license to promote bias and bigotry. Recent venture capitalist scandals have rocked the Silicon Valley with female entrepreneurs reporting unwanted sexual advances were tied to the fate of receiving an investment , raising the question as to whether this is just the tip of the iceberg. Ongoing Labor department investigation of Google, Oracle and other tech companies for gender-related wage inequality. More recently, Google engineer James Damore published a 10-page anti-diversity manifesto filled with generalizations and stereotypes claiming women are less fit to be engineers because of biological differences. This manifesto was followed internally by many and eventually leaked to the press. Mr. Damore has since been let go for violating Google’s code of conduct in the aftermath of negative PR. Historically, U.S. corporations have played a positive role in global culture change embracing diversity over the last several decades. Collectively, the U.S. has earned considerable economic success because of it. In fact, research by McKinsey and Company showed that companies in the top quartile for gender diversity are 15% more likely to have financial returns above their national industry peers. As a woman in technology I personally cannot complain. Things haven’t always been fair, but the reverse has also sometimes been true. However, this is not the experience of all women. Affirmative Action, or Positive Discrimination as it is known in the UK was introduced in the 1960’s as an effort to “level the playing field” and filter out those disadvantaged solely due to discriminatory factors. I am not a strong believer in it, as it may solve for statistical inequities, but creates a whole new set of issues by forcing people into it. For instance, women ascending to a leadership position are questioned on whether it was fully based on merit. Conversely, people overreact and abuse the intent making men ill at ease. I have noticed instances where men were uncomfortable riding in an elevator alone with a woman or extending a compliment for fear of accusations. The U.S culture of increasing lawsuits exacerbates the issue and fuels the problem. For example, on a KQED forum a candid but publically anonymous VC admitted he doesn’t hire women out of fear he will get sued. Real cultural change is the only answer, but it takes time and effort. To influence change, majority rules, and there are several ways to vote. All companies’ cultures are different and dynamic. You have to decide for yourself if change is possible, or if you are a better match elsewhere. Ask yourself, do I embrace or can I influence the culture? Then vote with your heart, your brain, or your feet. Heart If you are in a company where the culture is engaging and the majority shares your same values, vote with your heart and stay to make a difference by creating critical mass and enforcing this culture so it thrives. This is the culture at my current employer, Egnyte, where the favorable environment with opportunity open to all genders allowed me to take on the chief strategy officer role. Brain Other companies may have pockets of culture that you embrace, but you may feel in the minority. In this case, you see positive momentum toward a culture change that ultimately will be a better match for your values. If you are in a position to influence continued positive change by hiring non-sexist people, making your team a gender-neutral meritocracy, or influencing the executive team and — more importantly if you are patient and are ready to power through it, you should stay to keep transforming the culture and vote with your brain. This was my experience at a former employer, where I was able to make a difference as the first female Business Unit General Manager because my manager had unwavering ideals and opened up opportunity to anyone who was the best match for the job in a position that had historically always been held by a male. Feet If you do not share the belief of the leadership team then chances of you influencing a culture change are very low and you will be swimming against the current all the way. A better use of your time and value would be to go to another company more aligned with your aspirations and vote with your feet. Work for a company that values people and their skills regardless of gender or any other discriminatory factor. This is the opportunity I sought after when I first came to this country. As a young worker entering the workforce, I was not in a position of power to influence change in my company nor in my country. So I decided to vote with my feet, leaving France to seek a technical career in Silicon Valley where the cultural match was closer to my ideals. If you think that the last scenario is giving up (flight versus fight), think again. If a company wants to stay competitive and thrive, embracing diversity in a way that will retain male workers but also attract female workers is essential. Even a company with an innovative product or service could struggle by the weight of internal discrimination and bigotry, such as the deep wound left in Uber’s culture created and nurtured by its former CEO. In our Google example of James Damore, he suggested that more conservative employees were thinking of leaving Google because they thought the company had a left-wing bias that was “getting so bad.” They also have a choice to vote with their feet. It obviously works both ways. The next generation of workers has great potential to influence our positive momentum. Millennials know that diversity fosters innovation, broader market comprehension, and better reflects the customers they serve. In fact, 78% of millennials say workplace environment affects their decisions to stay at a job. More specifically, top traits millennials look for in employers are treat employees fairly (73.1%), corporate social responsibility (46.6%), brand image (39.5%), and prestige (30.5%). Each individual and situation is different over time. You may choose to vote with your heart, brain, or feet at different points in your career. Start now by assessing what you can change or influence and what you can’t and decide how and where you can contribute the most. It may lead to difficult decisions such as: Leaving a well-paid position that you have poured a lot of time and effort into knowing the company does not respect your contribution as much as your male colleagues’, to start new in a company that shares your values and has the right culture for you both to be successful. Staying in an unfriendly environment that is on the right path to help reach critical mass by influencing the discussion and seeing improvement over time. Become a women entrepreneur and fight for funding and customers on your own terms. In my career I have voted with my heart, brain and feet, and looking back I have no regret. I worked alongside great colleagues of both genders to strengthen cultural values which undoubtedly resulted in a competitive edge for the companies who nurtured diversity. And more importantly I have had a sense of accomplishment and happiness. I can even see positive changes in France, my native country, thanks to other women who made a different choice than I and were in a different position to contribute positively. Don’t accept a setback. Decide where your heart/brain/feet will be best leveraged for the greater good and for your happiness. You too have a vote, use it. PS: Opinions are my own and not the views of my employer

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As a student of political science, my particular region of interest is South Asia and particularly, India and Pakistan. I am naturally interested in Pakistan’s politics as I am a Pakistani national. However, I am also greatly interested in Indian politics. In my opinion, no country is as fascinating as India when it comes to an extraordinary mystery with respect to sustenance of democracy. India, according to Professor Oldenberg of Columbia, is an exception and not a norm. In fact, I was present in one of his lectures which he gave as a guest lecturer at Cornell. He remarked that it was expected that India after a brief flirtation with democracy would either fall into autocratic rule or a quasi democratic rule dominated by some communal party. And yet, India defied the odds and to this date remains a liberal democracy. Yes, by no stretch of imagination it espouses, in realistic terms, everything which a modern Western democracy espouses, but given the fact that India at independence was an underdeveloped and impoverished state, its democracy is still a remarkable achievement. And this adherence to liberal democracy has come at a cost. And that cost is economic prosperity and to some extent even merit. Here you have to understand that there is a difference between democracy and a liberal democracy. Former is the rule of majority whereas the latter fuses definite minority rights with democracy. The latter is in fact a compromise. Today USA is a liberal democracy as its Bills of Rights, actually place a check on what simple majority can do. India democracy, at least to some extent is formed on the same principles though instead of individual liberty it is more concerned with group rights, which again is understandable given the society is formed less on individual freedom but more on collectives like religious, ethnic , caste and linguistic identities. To keep the social fabric cohesive in the face of so many cleavages which can always explode is an extremely difficult thing. And to keep everything together with parliamentary democracy is even more difficult. Many of today’s loathed concepts like “minority appeasement” have in fact played a role in maintaining social cohesiveness under the democratic umbrella. In India despite its secular constitution, religion and communal politics in recent times have become electoral factors and have been whipped up to get votes. Religion is at times whipped up in a crude and direct way. But other times, it is brought in to attack the present notion of secularism in India. In Indian context secularism is often understood as protection of religious minorities rather than strict separation of state and faith. For example, benefits or privileges given to minorities are mocked as “pseudo secularism” and it is also accused that despite being a majority, Hindus are being treated as a minority due to excessive minority appeasement. This tactic has been successful for a variety of reasons. First it appeals to the base instincts of some hardline elements. Second, it is also effective in convincing educated middleclass that secularism is a hoax and facade by liberal leaning parties to cover their “crimes” and incompetency and that by adhering to strict merit ( which does not take account into structural differences between various religious and ethnic groups) India can move forward. This line of thinking actually makes a case for doing away with minority protection and indulging of politics of progress rather than that of inclusion. In recent times, Indian voters have consistently warmed up to right wing BJP despite its obvious communal rhetoric. Some vote due to that rhetoric and some despite it. Those who vote despite it have generally cited factors such as “crime control” and “development” as major reasons. This set of people does not deny communalism of BJP but tend to trivialize it by calling it an overblown issue by Leftists which can easily be tolerated as other factors like development, crime control etc. are more important. This mindset has chiefly been instrumental in the rise of extremely controversial person like Modi and morerecently of Yogi Adityanath. In 2014, Modi won in a landslide despite the stigma of Gujrat riots because many thought development was more important. There was also trivialization of the possible dangers of increase in communal rifts. Modi won and I don’t know whether India has become more “developed” or not, but communal rifts and religious intolerance have increased confirming the worst fears. Even more striking example is of Yogi Adiyanath. In 2014, Modi still campaigned around the slogan of development. In 2017, Utter Pradesh (UP) elections, the campaign was starkly communal, polarizing and whipped up hatred against Muslims. Many voted for BJP despite open display of hatred and apparently incompetency of the previous Yadav regime particularly in economy and crime control were the major factors. Open bigotry was once again trivialized by the educated also and BJP won in a landslide. Yogi was then nominated by BJP to head the state. During the campaign he had been active but many did not predict that after the elections, he would be nominated as obviously he was a polarizing figure. Yet BJP nominated him. Some tried to justify his nomination due to his strict stance towards high crime rate in the state. The fear that his rule would witness increase in communal violence was again trivialized and called as baseless propaganda of Indian pseudo seculars or sickulars (as they tauntingly called). Five months after the elections, the results are in front of us. Communal violence and intolerance has risen as per the fears while crime rate, the so called reason for voting BJP, has also risen dramatically. Apparently the honeymoon period is over.

Rarely will you come across an easier opportunity to inject new dollars into your corporate budget than claiming the Federal R&D tax credit. Unbeknownst to most early stage companies is the easy availability and accessibility of this generous incentive meant to propel continued innovation. While the credit has been on the books for 35 years only recently was it updated to now incentivize thousands of early stage companies to continue investing in their efforts to innovate. How Does it Work​​ The R&D tax credit is a dollar for dollar offset to your future payroll tax expenses up to $250,000 each year. Unlike a tax deduction, a credit is a direct reduction in the amount you owe whereas a deduction only reduces your total taxable income. Claiming this credit is effectively a direct cash infusion because you immediately transfer cash that is earmarked to pay payroll taxes into new budget that can be reinvested in the business however you choose. Courtest of The rad app by Indago https://theradapp.com ​​Why Haven’t I Heard About this Earlier To some, this sounds too good to be true and to many others R&D tax credits aren’t the preferred topic of conversation. existing regulations were made permanent and new regulations were recently enacted (see the PATH Act for full details) ​​Previously, your business had to be profitable in order to benefit from this credit, but since most software startups aren’t profitable in their early years the credit had little to no value and therefore wasn’t incentivizing these companies to increase or maintain their R&D spend as the law is intended to do. What Changed?​​ For the past 35 years, the R&D credit was a temporary part of the U.S. tax code. The Protecting Americans from Tax Hikes Act of 2015 - PATH Act - made the research credit a permanent benefit, enabling thousands of small businesses to be qualified to use up to $250,000 of R&D credits to offset payroll tax liabilities. ​​ Who is Eligible? ​​If you’re developing software for sale, lease, license or to be marketed to third parties, including for online use to transact business than your business is subject to the 4-part test as seen in the graphic above. However, the simplest way I’ve found to test your companies eligibility is by using this calculator developed by R&D tax credit specialty firm indago who has developed a web based app specifically for the early-stage companies positively effected by the new regulation called the rad app that streamlines the application and claim process. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that $10 billion dollars in what would have been tax revenue will stay in the hands of these early stage companies. As a frame of reference to the magnitude of $10b, only $6 billion of venture capital was invested in the state of California in 2016.

This article originally appeared on Fatherly. The superhero genre has been going strong for a decade and shows no sign of drying up anytime soon. The latest entry: Netflix has ordered 10 episodes of Raising Dion, an hourlong, superhero(ish) family drama based on a short film and comic book from director Dennis Liu. By all accounts, it seems primed to be a must-watch. Raising Dion centers around Nicole Reese, a mom who is forced to raise her son Dion all on her own after the death of her husband Mark (played by Jordan). Things get a lot more complicated when Dion begins to develop superhero-esque abilities that neither he, nor his mother, understand. Nicole must do what it takes to protect her son from those who might want to exploit her son’s abilities, while simultaneously trying to figure out why and how he has these powers in the first place. Veteran showrunner Carol Barbee adapted Liu’s original short film and comic book and Barbee, who will be Raising Dion‘s showrunner, is teaming up with Liu and actor Michael B. Jordan for the project. Jordan will contribute through his production company Outlier Society, along with playing a supporting role on the show. In an interview, Liu, who has worked mainly on commercials and music videos, spoke on his excitement about the show’s pick up. He says he originally came up with the idea because he wanted to see more diversity and representation in media and entertainment. “More than ever, we need more stories told from different points of view and my hope with Raising Dion is to create a cinematic experience for all families that will lift your spirits and make you laugh and cry,” he explained.

Over six years ago I wrote about a stage in Blue Ridge GA morphing into a back porch with angelic harmonies and boot tapping rhythms from the Roxie Watson band. A mostly southern audience more than enthusiastically embraced their creative mix of “alterna-grass” bluegrass and country. Some things have changed. Reviews must be condensed into 600 words for mobile devices, and the five-piece has become four with the departure of Sonia Tetlow (Cowboy Mouth) as she pursues a solo career. Call it destiny powered by raw talent, this band is just plain fun and deserves the recognition it has gained along the way from Georgia Music and others. Read Bret Love’s view from the audience here. The band has matured and the future is theirs. On August 19, Roxie Watson releases their latest full-length, Try a Little Kindness, at Atlanta’s Buckhead Theatre. With roots stretching from sea to shining sea through Washington State and Maine, master electrician Lenny Lasater, session drummer Linda Bolley (she has a Grammy nomination), Mom and lamp repairs guru Becky Shaw (“lighting up Decatur one lamp at a time”), and Georgia film industry worker Beth Wheeler bonded over music in their home base of Decatur Georgia. They are the only all gay bluegrass band I know of, and a staple on the Georgia music scene. I offer that because times have changed and it does not make one particle of difference as far as audiences and fans are concerned, despite one reviewer’s comment that it was somewhat of an “elephant in the room.” Becky Shaw put that to rest in an email exchange. The band refuses to be put into a box—whether it is political or social. “Labels can shut people out, or keep audience members at arm’s length - our music appeals to people just by virtue of the music, and I think also because of the authenticity of where we’re coming from as individuals and as a group of friends,” Shaw writes. Paraphrasing the rest, whether you are gay or straight, everyone is invited to Roxie Watson’s back porch. Roxie Watson is not a political band and you will not hear politics discussed on that virtual back porch. Maybe what we need is more great music and less arguing. They are a favorite in their backyard of Atlanta/Decatur, as well as North Georgia, Asheville, Chattanooga, Birmingham, and New Orleans. Top it off with callbacks from the Bluebird Café in Nashville and you know they must be as good as it gets. An original written by Becky Shaw (BMI) is an invitation to appreciate the little things that really matter most in our diverse country. It features Becky Shaw on lead vocal, acoustic guitar; Linda Bolley on harmony vocal, electric guitar; Beth Wheeler on mandolin; and Lenny Lasater on harmony vocal, bass guitar. Like the song suggests, America needs a back porch where the whiskey drinkers and teetotalers can hang out and appreciate shared values. For that reason, “Simple American Life” is one of my favorite cuts. Reviews are nothing more than punditry by listeners with a virtual pen and access to a platform. I usually avoid writing them unless I feel it is important to do so. I keep falling back on a quote from Patti Smith in her book, Just Kids. She wrote that as a reviewer she centered on “obscure” musicians and wasn’t so much interested in criticizing as she was in alerting her readers to important artists that were overlooked. What really matters for the artist, and the members of Roxie Watson are passionate artists, is how the music evolves and how it resonates with an audience. Bassist Lenny Lasater puts it this way. “With the release of our fourth album I see the band getting much tighter, more comfortable on stage and improving as writers, musicians and arrangers.” She adds, “Our audiences are hungry for great stories, harmonies and musicianship. From the beginning with our first CD, folks came up to us at shows to share that they heard their own stories in our songs.” As far as the departure of Tetlow is concerned, the band wishes her well. Linda Bolley says, “The departure of Sonia allowed us to go deeper into a country feel, which is our natural place, just as rock/punk/ and a little New Orleans is Sonia’s natural place.” Yes, the band is taking change and growth day by day. It was an amicable split, and the women are all still friends. Every story leads to another interesting backstory. Mandolin player Beth Wheeler, while providing some of the sweetest sounds Roxie Watson has to offer, is the quiet one. You have to pry the comments and stories out of her. Wheeler the Wielder might be a good moniker. Truly, Wheeler wields that mandolin like Joan of Arc’s sword. She has “one if not both of those gold records” her father and Dolly are seen holding. That pic (circa 1979 or 80) was taken in her father’s office at RCA on music row in Nashville. Musical roots run deep. Her father, Dave Wheeler, was a record executive at RCA records in Nashville in the 70’s and 80’s. Chet Atkins was his boss he was president of sales and marketing until he retired. The elder Wheeler got to hang out with some interesting folks back in the day.

For Glamour, by Suzannah Weiss. Stocksy April is Sexually Transmitted Disease Awareness Month, which makes it a great time to think about what you would do if you contracted an STI — after all, around half of the human population will get one at some point. While that might seem a little scary, it also means that testing positive shouldn’t be a source of embarrassment or instant panic. Most STIs are treatable if you manage them properly, says Anne Hodder, a sex and relationship coach who teaches about STIs with Planned Parenthood Los Angeles. But once you find out you’ve got one, it’s hard to know how to start handling it responsibly. If your health care clinic (or at-home test) reveals you’ve contracted an STI, here are the first steps to take to make sure you’re keeping yourself and your partners safe. 1. See a doctor. Ask your doctor or another health care provider (like someone from Planned Parenthood) every question you can think of. Don’t hold back — they’ve heard everything. Also, ask where you can look online if more questions come up. Hodder recommends the sites for Planned Parenthood, the CDC, and Scarleteen. “Do your best not to self-diagnose or fall down the Internet spiral, because there is a sea of misinformation, harmful and shaming rhetoric, and factually inaccurate information out there about STIs and treatment,” she says. “So save yourself the trouble and stick to professional advice.” If you feel like your doctor is being judgmental, find another one or join an online forum for support. Ask your doctor or another health care provider (like someone from Planned Parenthood) every question you can think of. 2. Get treatment right away.. A lot of STIs get worse — and spread more frequently — if you wait to treat them. If you don’t take care of HPV right away, for instance, it could lead to cervical cancer, and some STIs can decrease your fertility. So head to the drugstore ASAP once you have a prescription. Viral STIs like herpes and HPV aren’t curable, but they are treatable, and bacterial ones like gonorrhea and chlamydia can usually be cured with antibiotics. Even if your symptoms go away, you still need to strictly follow the treatment plan your health care provider prescribes. “Absence of symptoms does not mean the STI is gone,” says Hodder, “and some STIs don’t present with overtly obvious symptoms, anyhow.” You should also do all the things you normally would to take care of your body, like sleeping and eating well, because STIs clear faster when you’re in good health. 3. Tell your partners ASAP. Your partners won’t necessarily have your STI, but anyone you’ve had sexual contact since you last tested negative could have gotten it. Out of respect for them, let them know about your results. “Start with the facts and only the facts: your test came back positive for an STI and there is a chance that they might have come in contact with it,” says Hodder. “Then tell them that the only way for them to know for sure is to get tested. Conjecture or ‘I’m sure you’re fine’ comments will not be helpful in the long run, so avoid them. Your best bet is to ask them something like, ‘How can I support you right now? What can I do to help?’ and give them the space to communicate their needs and feelings.” If you absolutely can’t muster up the courage to divulge this information, there’s an app for that. The anonymous STD test notification tool STDcheck.com can tell someone they may have an STD without revealing who it could be from. While this kind of potentially upsetting news would probably be best coming directly from you, the most important thing is that they’re notified. Period. 4. Practice safe sex. Hold off on having sex until you’ve talked to a professional. After that, use condoms and dental dams or abstain from sex until a bacterial STI is gone. If you’ve got an STI that can’t be cured, it’s more easily spread when you have a sore or another open infection, so some couples just use barriers or abstain during those times. But you can also spread the virus when you don’t have any symptoms, so avoid unprotected sex. Talk to new partners before you sleep with them and figure out an arrangement you both agree on. There’s no single right way to handle this scenario — it just depends on what you’re both comfortable with.

SAN FRANCISCO ― California Attorney General Xavier Becerra (D) announced Friday he has filed a lawsuit challenging President Donald Trump’s decision to end insurance coverage requirements for birth control. Becerra’s suit comes hours after Trump’s administration announced a new rule that will allow all employers to opt out of including birth control in their health care plans, rolling back an Obama-era mandate that guaranteed 62 million women access to contraception at no cost. “Donald Trump wants businesses and corporations to control family planning decisions rather than a woman in consultation with her doctor. These anti-women’s health regulations prove once again that the Trump Administration is willing to trample on people’s rights,” Becerra said in a statement Friday. “The California Department of Justice will fight to protect every woman’s right to healthcare, including reproductive healthcare. We’ll see the Trump Administration in court.” In announcing the decision, the administration argued the coverage requirement created a “substantial burden” on employers’ free exercise of religion as protected by the U.S. Constitution. The new regulations will allow any employer to deny coverage for contraception on religious and/or moral grounds. This, Becerra argues, violates the Constitution as well as federal law. The complaint makes the case that the rollback violates the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause by allowing employers to use their religious beliefs to deny women a health care benefit. Becerra also argues the regulations violate the Fifth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. The new rules “specifically target and harm women,” reads the complaint. “The [Affordable Care Act] specifically contemplated disparities in health care costs between women and men, and specifically sought to rectify this problem by giving women cost-free preventative services. The new [regulations] undermine this action and is discriminatory to women.” The suit also contends the rules violate the federal Administrative Procedure Act, which requires a notice and comment period for major policy changes, and that the new rules will harm the state of California by burdening it with additional costs to fill coverage gaps. “Millions of women in California may be left without access to contraceptives and counseling and the State will be shouldering that additional fiscal and administrative burden as women seek access for this coverage through state-funded programs,” reads the complaint. Becerra filed the suit Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The American Civil Liberties Union filed a similar suit Friday, also arguing the rules violate the Establishment and Equal Protection clauses. “The Trump administration is forcing women to pay for their boss’s religious beliefs,” ACLU senior staff attorney Brigitte Amiri said in a statement.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday condemned the violent white supremacist rallies held over the weekend in Charlottesville, Virginia, during which one of the participants allegedly drove a car into a crowd of counter-protesters and killed a 32-year-old woman. Merkel’s spokesman Steffen Seibert told reporters the chancellor strongly opposed the rallies’ ideology and supported those who peacefully stood up against far-right views. “The scenes at the right-wing extremist march were absolutely repulsive ― naked racism, anti-Semitism and hate in their most evil form were on display,” Seibert said, according to Agence France Presse. Such hateful beliefs are “completely contrary to what the chancellor and the German government works for politically,” Seibert added. Many of the protesters in Charlottesville carried Nazi flags and symbols, something that has been banned in Germany since the end of World War II. Merkel’s spokesman also said the chancellor expressed her sympathies for the victim of the car ramming, Heather Heyer, calling the Saturday incident “an evil attack.” In the United Kingdom, Prime Minister Theresa May’s spokesman on Sunday also strongly condemned the far right. Opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn went further, taking aim at U.S. President Donald Trump for his muted response to the violence incited by the white supremacist gathering. What happened “was the [Ku Klux Klan] and its supporters, white supremacists, arrived in Charlottesville in order to cause trouble,” Corbyn said. “Surely every president of every country in the world ... should be able to condemn that.” Trump has been widely criticized for his statement on Saturday that condemned violence “on many sides,” and made no mention of the far-right, white nationalist nature of the rallies. White House officials attempted to strengthen Trump’s message in later clarifying statements, but the effort failed to quell persistent criticism of the president’s initial failure to issue a strong and explicit condemnation of far-right extremism. Trump, speaking from the White House early Monday afternoon, delivered a stronger message, saying “racism is evil” and that those “who cause violence in its name” ― including Ku Klux Klan members, neo-Nazis and white supremacists ― are “criminals and thugs.” Such hate groups “are repugnant to everything we hold dear.”

We understand the instinct. Poultry sometimes feels like it could use a little wash ― it can have a somewhat slimy quality to it. But whatever you do this Thanksgiving, absolutely DO NOT wash your bird. According to the USDA, rinsing your turkey will not get rid of unwanted bacteria ― that is virtually impossible. Actually, washing it can increase the chance of spreading bacteria. This is because water that splashes from the bird onto countertops or other surfaces spreads the bacteria and creates a real possibility for cross contamination. “The risk of cross-contamination through washing poultry is far greater than shoving it in the oven without washing it, which makes the risk almost zero,” Fergus Clydesdale, head of the food science department at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, told The New York Times.

Lucinda Cross I am The Corporate Hustler. For this interview, I proved it. The sponsor of my dreams (my job), decided to send me to Seattle for a project on short notice. Normally that is not an issue, until I realized it was the same day I’d scheduled an interview with the awesome Lucinda Cross, Mrs. ‘Vision Board’ herself! I rushed from the airport to check into my hotel. Luckily, no not luckily, I had fifteen minutes to spare. I didn’t need them. Although I may have been a little anxious, I was prepared. As I introduced myself and we began to talk, a calm came over me because she was just so down to earth. Often as new entrepreneurs, we see people who have already accomplished goals that we desire as not normal. Well guess what? They are not normal. They are go-getters, they are people who turn no into yes, and they make no excuses. Enjoy this awesome interview with Lucinda Cross. After reading, I hope you ‘Activate’ and get ish done. Demishia (The Corporate Hustler): So, you named your conference ‘Activate’. What made you choose that particular word? Lucinda Cross: The whole movement and my company is Activate. Activate worldwide, and the movement is The Activate Movement. That is based on my own frustrations as a procrastinator. I was the president of the procrastination committee. From that word I realized that a lot of people get stuck with their perfectionism, and that's why I activate. You must activate your gifts, activate your talent, activate your life, and activate everything period. That’s where that word came from. The name was basically birthed out of my own frustration of being a procrastinator. Demishia (The Corporate Hustler): How did you decide to become an entrepreneur versus going into corporate America? Lucinda Cross: From college, there was a rocky road and a pivotal moment in my life where things shifted and you know, I ended up… you know. I tried to take success into my own hands, and serving time because of a decision that I made. When my peers were graduating from college, I was graduating from the school of hard knocks. From there, I knew my first goal had to be going back to school. Then, I went into corporate America. Corporate America made me feel like I was incarcerated again. It just felt like a violent therapy. Every day going to a job that was just draining me. At that point I said, you know what, let me exercise my skills. I linked up with a mentor who showed me how to hone my corporate skills into my entrepreneurial journey. Demishia (The Corporate Hustler): Will you tell me what qualities we should look for in mentors? Lucinda Cross: Yes I will. For my mentor, I wanted someone who has already been there and they're on to the next level. Someone who could open doors of access. My mentor was able to do that, and he had the keys for me. He was holding the keys that gave me the needed information and knowledge. He is the one who originally opened up the opportunity for me to have my first joint venture within the first two years in my business. I didn't seize that opportunity, but, you know, for me, a mentor’s somebody who has been there, done that and has shortened your learning curve. They can take ten years of their experience and break it down to ten months or even ten weeks for you to get it. That's what I look for. Somebody who's been there, done that. They have not financially invested in my business, if that makes sense. They are more invested in seeing me grow verses what can I get out of this, or what can you give me. It was more so him pouring his knowledge, wisdom. He was watching me work, pulling out my strengths, and helping me to focus on what those strengths look like and how to use them to my advantage. Demishia (The Corporate Hustler): Some people would think it's odd that you chose a male to be your mentor. You talked about how sometimes women get stuck in only choosing female mentors or heroes to look up to when sometimes they really need to look beyond just the genders. Lucinda Cross: Absolutely. So for me, when I first came home, it was difficult for me to find a woman who was open enough to give access and wisdom. A lot of the women that I ran across at that time were going to their own thing, and I didn't want that. It just didn't seem like a perfect… it didn't seem like a good fit. It wasn’t necessary… for my mentor to be in the same business that I wanted to be in. One of my mentors is in the meatpacking industry. He is the one that's behind the scenes. He puts meat in the supermarkets. He is a multimillionaire, He travels the world talking about meat, but his skills in terms of business and the table that he sits at, that information is invaluable. That particular mentor, Andrew Marson, he was a speaker, he was a coach, he was all over Africa, building schools, and implementing programs. He also had a desire to tap into the justice system to help them open up small businesses. He had no clue about my story until four years into our mentorship. It's not about just connecting with a woman or connecting with someone you know that is in the field that you're in. I've been groomed by both female and male mentors, but my first mentor was a male and then my friend. Once he created a lion out of me, I needed a female mentor to kind of smooth my rough edges. I was just out there warring all over the place. It was beneficial for me to go after a male and to see how to operate this business world. At this point I just want to yell, will you be my mentor? I can’t do that, so I ask another question. Mrs. Cross’ energy is awesome and you want to Activate ASAP when you talk to her! We continue to discuss mentorship and how it can come from different places. Demishia (The Corporate Hustler}: Yeah, that’s great! So, I know you were saying… what advice… because in Corporate America, we have people who tire themselves from nine to five and then start their hustle from five to nine to make money 24/7. What advice can you give this Corporate Hustler? Lucinda Cross: Definitely, continue with your your side hustle. Your side hustle can become your main hustle if you desire it to be. For me, I was looking at my job at that time, towards my exit. Once I said; my job is my sponsor, my job is my investor. I started to shift that mindset, It made me go even harder for my business. What I would say is, One: if you're struggling with your corporate job, think of that as… this is your investor, this is your sponsor. Take a portion of that check, as much as you can, and put it to the side because they're sponsoring your passion and your purpose. Just because you’re getting the check doesn't mean that you step over dollars to get coins. You still push forward, you still charge when you work, you still… You operate as if you're a full time entrepreneur and you just show up and still build those buildings because you can. For me once I started to make it, I would have still been at my job because I liked what I was doing at the time. I didn't like the people I was with but; for those who are looking to make that transition, you have to be willing to start collaborating and make the strategic alliances now, so that your business can grow ten times faster and larger, without you wasting time. You'll start seeing, it's hard, and your energy is being wasted here. Nine to five and then five to nine you’re here and then you can't even sleep because you're thinking about your passion. There are always things to get done. Lunch time I use for building my business. Break times, I use for making phone calls. Structure your exit plan, your exit strategy right, you know that letter of resignation. Create that celebration that you're going to have when you do leave but rocket fire hustle out like I said, don't step over dollars to get coins, just because you're working nine to five, you’re still in charge of what you are. Demishia (The Corporate Hustler): That is great! We’re down to the last few questions - How do you feel about failure? Lucinda Cross: Failure can only be defined by you. I used to allow the rejection and failure you know... I don't think I did good and I would beat myself down. Because of rejection or because of fear of failure, but when I looked at it like who can define failure for me? Who can define failure? No one can define failure for you. Just like no one can define success. You have to make up your own definition of what success looks like for your life and it's what I had to tell myself. You also have to define what success looks like. What if you never, what if you're not failing? What if everything that you do is just a stepping stone towards success? Once I realized that, nothing was a failure for me and I didn't feel bad about things not going the way that I quote unquote thought they should look like. No one can define failure for me but me. No one can say Lucinda, you really didn't do good at this last event because only twenty people showed up. Two hundred showed up at the next person's event. That doesn't mean that I'm a failure. What if I impacted every single one of the twenty individuals who showed up? To me, failure is your own definition of what it looks like. I'm looking for the next mistake that I'm going to make. What is my next big risk? I'm ready for one. What's my next mistake? It sounds crazy but that's how I live. If I'm going to make it happen, whether it's going to come out the right way or whether I have to figure out how to redo it again, let's go for it. That's something that we can only define for ourselves. For me, there is no such thing, there's no such thing. I'm never failing, I'm always winning, even when it looks like I'm losing. Demishia (The Corporate Hustler): I love that. So what new projects are you working on? How can we find you? How can we touch and agree with you? Whatever we need to do to be in relation, that’s what I heard you call it. What do we need to do? Let us know how to find you and other projects you have going on. Lucinda Cross: Yes! So, this year I’m excited - In September, we have our fifth annual Activate Diversity Conference. We have partnered with H.S.N. who will be doing our product. An exclusive product search. They're looking for individuals who have home based products in their kitchen, what you're making in your living room kind of thing. To put them on television and give them an opportunity to showcase their products. We are also partnered with several other companies from Essence, to I Fund Women. They will do a boot camp on crowd-funding. This conference is a door opener and it's created for diversity, It’s created for winning. That is one of my projects. The other project that I’ll be working on is the halfway house project. There are some people that don't want these type of houses in their community. This house that I’m involved with is for women who are really fighting hard not to go back to prison. They are non-violent first time offenders in their late teens to early twenties. They want rehabilitation. This is something that I wish I had when I came home. Creating this first halfway house and having it up by 2017, moving towards getting the women in by 2018 is the goal. So that's what I need the support on, it’s just the access to get this halfway house up and get the message out to as many re-entry centers as I possibly can. To say, “You're not who they say you are. You don't have to wear that ex-con label”. I'm not 39312054, I’m Lucinda Cross. The more women I can share that with, I think the better they'll be in terms of success, and not going back to prison. Demishia (The Corporate Hustler): Awesome! And that's a very powerful thing. You’re going to touch so many people that way. Do you have any last words for us? Anything you want to share that I didn't touch on? Lucinda Cross: You know, I just love your vibe. I love your direct questions. There's nothing that I can think of. If there was just one thing that I had to say to you, it would be to never give up. I think that is probably one of the most powerful messages. I don't care what it looks like right now, but don't give up. I shared a message yesterday on Facebook. To give it one more try. I think that's where a lot of us fail. We're not willing to give it one more try by asking for the things that we need, and asking for the support that we want, out of fear of being rejected or fear of someone wanting something from us. But I say, just go for it, just go for it. Give it one more try. Lucinda Cross is a positive force that you just have to experience. We are excited about her upcoming conference Activate in Miami this September. I will be bringing you all the Corporate Hustle from it!

Ryan J. Reilly/HuffPost Officials of the union representing Bureau of Prisons workers -- Kenneth Juhasz, left, Don Drewett, Darrell Palmer and Kristan Morgan -- speak in Washington last month while seated in front of images of the last three BOP officers killed in the line of duty. WASHINGTON ― Throughout the presidential campaign, Donald Trump described himself as the “law and order candidate” and promised he’d have law enforcement officers’ backs. But nearly a year and a half into the Trump presidency, officers in one of the nation’s largest federal law enforcement agencies say they feel abandoned by the administration, which has made cutbacks to the federal Bureau of Prisons that they say put their lives at risk. “A lot of our staff and officers inside of federal prisons did vote for Mr. Trump. He spoke very highly of law enforcement and said he would support us,” said Darrell Palmer, a union official who represents BOP employees at 19 facilities in the Northeast. “But I’ve been doing this 28 years, and I ain’t never seen nothing like this.” A hiring freeze imposed by the administration at the start of Trump’s term has left BOP severely short-staffed, just as the administration’s law enforcement policies have begun to increase its workload. The bureau is one of the largest prison systems in the world’s most incarcerated nation, and it currently houses 155,000 of the nation’s nearly 184,000 federal inmates. Federal prisons have suffered from overcrowding for years, but a drop in the federal prison population toward the end of the Obama administration made it seem as though a path to sustainability was within sight, officials say. Instead, Trump’s federal hiring freeze left the prison bureau unable to fill vacancies. Now many facilities operate on a skeleton crew, BOP employees say. Health workers, secretaries and teachers at the facilities report regularly being pressed into guard duty. And it’s just a matter of time until the crisis will start claiming lives, said Kristan Morgan, a nurse practitioner at a low-security facility in Tallahassee, Florida, at a recent news conference. ″My reality is that it’s not if but when. When will the inmates realize that they outnumber a nurse working as a novice officer 150-to-1? When will I have to call for assistance from the depleted ranks that exist due to hiring freezes and budget cuts? How many will come? How long will it take?” Morgan asked. “Am I next to be kidnapped? Raped? Murdered? All in the name of doing more with less?” Officials say the crisis has already taken a toll. One example: A secretary at a federal facility in Colorado was sexually assaulted recently while on guard duty. “She thought she was going to work on [budget and procurement] detail. She wound up getting sexually assaulted in the way of masturbatory product being thrown in her face,” said Kenneth Juhasz, a union official. “No one should be put in that situation. That’s not what she signed up for.” “The morale is pathetic within the federal Bureau of Prisons,” Juhasz added. “There’s a breaking point right now, and we’re at that point where the bough breaks. You can’t push any group of people that hard, that fast and for that long and expect them to maintain their composure.” Eric Young, the national president of the American Federation of Government Employees’ Council of Prison Locals, now prays before he looks at his phone every morning, worried he’ll receive a message from BOP’s director notifying him of a staff death. Young estimates that around two-thirds of his union members were Trump supporters. That makes sense: It’s a law enforcement agency that leans white and male (72 percent male, 62 percent white), and many federal prisons are in rural parts of the country, which Trump dominated. But Young said many of his Trump-supporting members are “quite upset” with what they’ve seen at the prison bureau. BOP has long suffered the kind of problems you’d expect for a massive bureaucracy centered on caging tens of thousands of people. The federal population skyrocketed from less than 25,000 in 1980 to nearly 222,000 by 2013. A bipartisan, congressionally mandated report on federal prisons issued in 2016 said the system was in a state of crisis and called for massive changes to the nation’s sentencing policies in order to relieve the strain. Unsurprisingly in an election year, wide changes weren’t implemented. Still, Barack Obama, because of moderate changes in sentencing and prosecutions, became the first president since Jimmy Carter to leave office with a smaller federal prison population than when he became president. The Trump administration says its budget cuts reflect that drop in the prison population. Justice Department official Lee Loftus told reporters during a February briefing on the administration’s budget proposal that the department was looking to eliminate two of the Bureau of Prisons’ six regional offices as well as minimum security prisons. The administration is also eliminating open positions within the bureau ― even though Congress authorized an increase in BOP’s salaries and expense budget. “Because of the declining population, you are going to see some adjustments in the staff,” Loftus said in February. Yet, with the Trump administration implementing harsher sentencing and charging policies, BOP is anticipating its population will expand in the coming years. And it has already seen an uptick. Some already overstretched federal prisons in recent months have been tasked with receiving immigration detainees. Around 1,000 immigration detainees were recently sent to the federal complex in Victorville, California, overwhelming the thin staff there. Employees at the facility have warned that inadequate medical staffing is putting lives at risk, and several told HuffPost they see a riot on the horizon if nothing changes. “If you’re going to stand behind mandatory minimum prison sentences, if you’re going to stand behind prosecuting harsher sentences, if you’re going to stand behind prosecuting every offender that actually crossed the border, you need to fund our prisons, period,” Young said. *** There have been a number of obvious signs of stress within the bureau: Former Acting Director Mark Inch ― a retired Army major general who took the helm in August 2017 ― resigned in May, reportedly upset over being cut out of major decisions on staffing, budgets and policy. Palmer, who has been with the prison bureau since 1990 and now works as a prison counselor, said dealing with the recent shortages has been a “psychological nightmare” for staffers. The stress of the job weighs heavily upon corrections officers ― an officer at one of his facilities died by suicide last month, he said ― and he said he’s seen the retirement rate skyrocket. The Bureau of Prisons did not provide comment on staffing issues. And the agency hasn’t indicated any changes since a New York Times story brought some of the staffing shortages to national attention last month. Some BOP employees worry the budget cuts are part of an administration plan to expand the privatization of federal incarceration. A 2016 report by the Justice Department’s internal watchdog found that privately run facilities were more dangerous than federally run prisons and needed more oversight. But Attorney General Jeff Sessions reversed Obama-era restrictions on the Justice Department’s use of private prisons early on in the Trump administration. “I feel that the administration is setting our agency up for failure. As violence and recidivism rises, our staff struggles to meet accreditation requirements, and we will be blamed for these failures,” Brian Shoemaker, who works at a U.S. penitentiary in Lee, Virginia, said in a statement. “Then, the Administration will point to this as an excuse to contract out our law enforcement role to the private prison industry.” Motive aside, federal prison employees say the Trump administration’s policies have severely weakened the force. Though union officials maintain that a federal prison job is still a pathway to a decent salary and solid benefits, Palmer and Young said that they couldn’t in good conscience recommend a career with the bureau at the moment. “The Bureau of Prisons would be the last place I’d look for employment right now because of what’s currently going on,” Palmer told HuffPost. “It’s totally uncalled for to put staff in danger the way they are.” Have a tip about the Bureau of Prisons? Get in touch: [email protected]

The night before the 2000 election, I was working on a story — perhaps my first seriously reported story — about O, the violent reimagining of Othello that Miramax’s Dimension division was then sitting on, perhaps out of deference to the cringey clean-media message of the Al Gore–Joe Lieberman campaign, which Weinstein was publicly supporting; already there was talk of Weinstein’s ambitions in Democratic politics. After Weinstein failed to respond to my calls for comment, I was sent, on Election Eve 2000, to cover a book party he was hosting, along with my colleague Andrew Goldman. Weinstein didn’t like my question about O, there was an altercation; though the recording has alas been lost to time, I recall that he called me a cunt and declared that he was glad he was the “fucking sheriff of this fucking lawless piece-of-shit town.” When my colleague Andrew (who was also then my boyfriend) intervened, first calming him down and then trying to extract an apology, Weinstein went nuclear, pushing Andrew down a set of steps inside the Tribeca Grand — knocking him over with such force that his tape recorder hit a woman, who suffered long-term injury — and dragging Andrew, in a headlock, onto Sixth Avenue.

Five months after his sentencing, the rapper Meek Mill is expected to be released from prison Tuesday afternoon, according to multiple reports. Mill, also known as Robert Rihmeek Williams, tweeted out a statement Tuesday afternoon: I’d like to thank God, my family, and all my public advocates for their love, support and encouragement during this difficult time. While the past five months have been a nightmare, the prayers, visits, calls, letters and rallies have helped me stay positive. — Meek Mill (@MeekMill) April 24, 2018 To the Philly District Attorney’s office, I’m grateful for your commitment to justice. I understand that many people of color across the country don’t have that luxury and I plan to use my platform to shine a light on those issues. — Meek Mill (@MeekMill) April 24, 2018 In the meantime, I plan to work closely with my legal team to overturn this unwarranted conviction and look forward to reuniting with my family and resuming my music career. — Meek Mill (@MeekMill) April 24, 2018 The Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s decision to release Williams comes on the heels of Judge Genece Brinkley denying his bail last week, despite prosecutors asking her to toss the conviction. The rapper was sentenced to two to four years in prison in November for charges from two arrests earlier in the year. One was for a fight and another was for popping wheelies on a dirt bike. Williams was on probation from a 2008 gun and drug case, which he then violated with these charges and a failed drug test. Williams’ sentencing led many to voice their support, both in person and on social media. November’s #Rally4Meek in Philadelphia saw protesters marching through the streets, chanting “Free Meek Mill” and rapping his song “Dreams and Nightmares.” Rapper Jay-Z, aka Shawn Carter, has been a staunch supporter of Williams, arguing in a New York Times op-ed in November that “what’s happening to Meek Mill is just one example of how our criminal justice system entraps and harasses hundreds of thousands of black people every day... A person on probation can end up in jail over a technical violation like missing a curfew.” “As of 2015, one-third of the 4.65 million Americans who were on some form of parole or probation were black,” Carter went on. “Black people are sent to prison for probation and parole violations at much higher rates than white people.” Most recently, Carter advocated for Williams while speaking to David Letterman for the former “Late Night” host’s Netflix show. Many on social media, including a slew of celebrities, expressed their excitement Tuesday for Williams’ release: A post shared by Kevin Hart (@kevinhart4real) on Apr 24, 2018 at 12:50pm PDT BREAKING: MEEK MILL IS OFFICIALLY FREE FROM PRISON 🙌 pic.twitter.com/M1zoZ9quQQ — SEASONS (@04SEASONS) April 24, 2018 Joe Tacopina, Williams’ lawyer, said he was “thrilled” that the court released Williams on bail. “As we have said all along, Meek was unjustly convicted and should not have spent a single day in jail,” Tacopina said, according to 6ABC. “We are also pleased that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has noted that Judge Brinkley may opt to remove herself from presiding over any further proceedings in Meek’s case in the interests of justice. Meek is excited to be reunited with his family, and we, along with Meek, intend to continue to shine the light on a justice system in need of reform to prevent any other citizen from being put through what Meek has endured.” Williams’ legal team had filed a petition in February that focused on the credibility of a police officer involved in the rapper’s arrest in 2007. The Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office filed a response to that petition, saying “there is a strong showing of likelihood of the Petitioner’s conviction being reversed (in whole or in part).” According to Pitchfork, the D.A.’s office “cited testimony from an officer whose prior testimony against corrupt cops resulted in hundreds of conviction reversals.” A spokesperson for the D.A.’s office told HuffPost that the court’s decision “on Meek Mill being released on bail is consistent with the position of the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office.”

Osteoarthritis is a degenerative joint disorder that is widely responsible for restricted activity. In fact, it is currently listed as the 6th leading cause of disability worldwide. Therapies are complicated and knee replacements are highly invasive and non-reversible. Ultimately finding the underlying cause of knee osteoarthritis could offer insight on preventative methods. Studies have shown evidence that hypertension may be a risk factor for knee osteoarthritis, however, the link is unclear and still quite controversial. Hypertension is a component of metabolic syndrome has been identified as being the 3rd leading cause of disability worldwide. A new classification for identifying the genetic make-up for osteoarthritis suggested it includes metabolic syndrome, aging, and posttraumatic-related osteoarthritis. There has been research that has indicated that components of metabolic syndrome, such as hypertension, may be risk factors for knee osteoarthritis. A study published in 2017 by Zhang, Wang & Liu, aimed to assess the relationship between hypertension and knee osteoarthritis. It was found that hypertension was significantly associated with higher rates of radiographic and symptomatic knee osteoarthritis risks. More research is needed to accurately define and identify a more concrete understanding of how osteoarthritis and hypertension are related. In the meantime, we do recommend an active and healthy lifestyle to minimize risks of hypertension or managing the condition. Find 20 to 30 minutes in your day to do any activity Avoid sodium intake Increase consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables daily Work on decreasing stress - discuss with professionals as need be Listen to your body - see a professional regarding injuries, pain, or any condition that is uncomfortable

OK, I’m what you might call a “stresser.” I can’t help it, I come from a long line of dedicated “stressers”…the types that spend a lot more time than they should trying to get everything done, worrying about nothing, and believing that doing anything requires only their very best efforts. Yeah, it’s exhausting. But, lucky for me and anyone else out there suffering from the effects of stress (and, hey, who isn’t?), there are some highly effective and relatively simple ways to de-stress yourself. The cool part is that, in addition to helping to reduce your daily stress, these techniques can also boost your energy, better your mood, and improve your overall mental and physical health. Sounds pretty good, huh? Well, read on and get ready to relaaaaax… Progressive Muscle Relaxation This one is my favorite because it’s easy to learn, it works quickly, and you can apply it anytime, anywhere. Basically, progressive muscle relaxation (PMR) is a two-step process in which you systematically tense and relax different muscle groups in your body. You start by practicing it in a quiet setting so that you can get familiar with the sequence and the sensations. Mindfulness practitioners suggest 1-2 times a day for 10-15 minute sessions. During these sessions, you will gain a good familiarity with what tension and then complete relaxation feels like throughout your body. This practice, in turn, will help you detect your body’s early signs of tension as you go about your day, and then signal you to relax those muscles. And as your body relaxes, so will your mind. Say, for example, you have a bad tendency to work at your computer for hours at a time, barely taking any breaks (yes, I’m speaking from personal experience). If you’ve been practicing progressive relaxation regularly, you’re much more likely to become aware that your shoulders are tense, or your neck is tight as you work away. At those points, you can take a moment to consciously relax, or even do a quick tense-then-relax of those muscles right on the spot. The other secondary benefit is that it forces you, if only momentarily, to take a break! To get your PMR practice started, you can either download a script like this one on The Guided Meditation Site or go on youtube.com and get free instructional videos. If you prefer getting a DVD, amazon.com and other retailers have plenty to choose from. Mindfulness Meditation This is another one that I’ve found to be incredibly helpful. The idea behind mindfulness meditation is to focus your mind on the present moment, rather than letting it run wild, worrying about the future or dwelling on the past. Meditations that cultivate mindfulness have long been used by cultures around the world to reduce stress, anxiety, depression, and other negative emotions. You might already be familiar with mindfulness meditations that bring you into the present by focusing your attention on one repetitive action, such as your breathing, a repeated word (I like “calm”), or the flickering light of a candle. You can also use other forms of mindfulness meditations during activities such as walking, exercising, or eating. Honestly, anyone of any age can benefit from mindfulness meditations and practices. They’ve even integrated it into some middle and high school programs. In fact, they are so popular now that you can download free mindfulness meditation apps that are quite good. Click here for mindfulness.org’s review of the five they think are the best ones. Yoga It’s no secret that yoga can be extremely effective in helping you to de-stress. But, I find that a lot of people shy away from yoga because they assume that you have to be super limber, or already a person that can stand sitting still for a while (I sure wasn’t). Well, I’m here to dispel that myth, as I know of many past naysayers, including myself, who now swear by their practice. For those of you not terribly familiar with yoga, it involves going through a series of both moving and stationary poses, and combining them with deep breathing. There are many different types of yoga for all ages, skill levels and purposes. Right now, power yoga, a more vigorous type of yoga, is super popular, but there are several others like Iyengar, Vinyasa, Restorative, that are much more mellow. Check out this Guide to the 8 Major Types of Yoga from Gaiam.com to get a better sense. Although there are many different types of yoga, health experts agree that any practice can work well in reducing anxiety and stress, while also improving flexibility, strength, balance, and stamina. It’s important to mention that healthcare professionals warn that injuries can happen when yoga is practiced incorrectly, so it’s smart to learn by going to a group classes taught by a reputable teacher (’cause there are some serious doozies out there). Once you’ve got down the basics, you can practice alone or continue with group classes, tailoring your practice as you see fit. Because yoga classes can be expensive, once you get the basics, I suggest mixing in practicing at home using a DVD. There are many great ones for all levels and types of yoga. YogaDirect.com has a good selection of DVDs and yoga accessories. Be sure to use these Yoga Direct coupons, discounts and deals to help you save.

This has been co-written by Josh Infante. Prison has a universal fascination. It’s a real-life horror story because, given the right set of circumstances, anyone could find themselves behind bars. – Wentworth Miller Life is a long road, and we all have to make that walk. For some, the journey is pretty standard. For others, there is a more difficult path to follow. John McLeod has traveled down the path and as a result, we are offered his new single, ‘Razor Wire’. Singer and songwriter, John McLeod, introduces a first hand description of the struggle behind a prison fence. Desperation, loneliness and longing for home, these are all examples of what you can expect when you come face to face with the razor wire. Drawing from his personal memories and stories, McLeod introduces the listener to a world where anything goes, and those who are allowed to leave are forever changed. “I poured my heart and soul into this song to really give it that mournful sound,” McLeod recalls. If you examine the lyrics, McLeod refers to ‘the razor wire’s game’, giving this ominous reference an identity and soul all its own. No matter what the wire’s intentions are, the message is very clear. Once you come face to face with the prison yard fence, you’re playing its game, and you are playing by different rules. During my conversation with the artist, he recalled multiple instances where inmates would risk scaling the fence, even though they were merely two weeks from release. One inmate in particular severely injured himself as a result of the deep cuts. We can only imagine how desperate you must be to risk so much for freedom as soon as possible. After a twenty-month sentence in prison, John McLeod had to let his story be told. Razor Wire is a direct result of his experiences behind bars. Knowing what time of day it was by looking through the keyhole and witnessing the gruesome day-to-day struggle all inmates encounter were a direct influence for his lyrics. McLeod doesn’t draw inspiration from any particular artist for this single. But, the overall tone of this song resonates a blue-collar feel that his predecessors have touched on before. McLeod chooses to pave his own path with his songwriting and subsequently has discovered his own personal sound. McLeod did mention, however, his liking of Merle Haggard in his younger years. The twang of his guitar and electric riffs are a familiar sound to any fan of country and easy listening music. The steady beat and smooth harmonica give this composition a groovy rock vibe, one that brings an upbeat feel to the somber subject material. But, what will perk the interest of any music fan is a universal message. No matter who you are, where you come from, or your place in society, the prison yard is a grave life changer. Quite frankly, it’s a crying shame.

When I feel hopeless and impotent, the quickest cure is to be of service in some way. When I read the news of the disgusting (and wholly unsurprising, for those who’ve been following along at home) racist march in Charlottesville, I wanted to know how I could help. Well, first I got angry. And I said some unkind things. (I honestly feel pretty okay about most of those things.) But then I remembered the other part, the part where I feel better when I do something. Maybe it’s selfish in a sense, but if it helps folks, maybe it’s the good kind of selfish. Anyway, some simple Google searching led me to write a Twitter thread on local nonprofits (you can find it here.) But since not everybody is on Twitter, I figured I’d write a quick blog post that you can share on FB, via email, or however you like. Here are some places that would likely be grateful for your support during this troubling time (and, to be honest, at any time — nonprofits can usually use the help.) Disclaimer: I don’t work for any of these organizations and I’ve never worked with them. But I found some good information online that pointed to them as important pillars of the community (and a few suggestions came through after I wrote my original thread), so I’m sharing them here. Hope you’ll find something that appeals to you. Even a little bit of money helps. NAACP Albemarle-Charlottesville (Branch 7057) merged two NAACP branches in 2001. The Albemarle branch was founded in 1953 and the Charlottesville branch in 1947. Charlottesville Pride is an LGBTQ organization that runs a variety of programs and events in Charlottesville. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic serves various communities, Charlottesville among them. National Organization for Women, Charlottesville chapter seeks to empower women in Charlottesville and beyond. Meals on Wheels of Charlottesville serves nutritious meals to many individuals, particularly homebound seniors who may have no other visitors. African American Teaching Fellows is an organization working to increase diversity among teaching staff in a system where only 10% of educators are African-America. Congregation Beth Israel is the only synagogue in Albemarle County. Drop them a kind email and tell them you’d like to donate. IMPACT Charlottesville is an interfaith organization working for social justice. The Women’s Initiative provides mental healthcare to women regardless of a patient’s ability to pay. The Arc of the Piedmont helps adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities. The Virginia Centers for Independent Living comprise an organization that helps adults with disabilities to lead independent lives as full members of their communities. Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Central Blue Ridge provides mentorship to young people in the Charlottesville area. Piedmont Housing Alliance helps diverse clientele in the Charlottesville area access affordable housing and attain financial solubility and independence. Legal Aid Justice Center provides legal assistance to low-income individuals and seeks equal justice for all who live in Virginia. Beloved Community Charlottesville specifically seeks to meet hatred with love in a very creative way. The Haven provides respite and care for homeless folks in downtown Charlottesville. Interntional Rescue Committee has an office in Charlottesville, where they work to settle refugees in the surrounding area. (Thank you Lauren Kathryn Berry-Kagan for commenting with the helpful link.) Sexual Assault Resource Agency (SARA) does extraordinary work. Great Expectations is a personal favorite of mine. They work through the whole state of Virginia to help foster youth (a vulnerable and diverse population of young people) transition to work and community college. These kids usually don’t have much or any support from their family of origin, financially or otherwise. They may have bounced around to various homes and endured a lot of trauma in their lives. GE provides mentorship and guidance for the hundreds of youth who age out of foster care and services each year. Now, Virginia is a diverse and beautiful state. (My main problem with Virginia is that it takes so damn long to drive through, but otherwise, I’m a fan.) The people who marched the other night don’t represent all Virginians, or even most Virginians. (And yeah, some of them were from out of state, but I’m sure plenty of ’em were from in-state. That’s not my point here.) There are a lot of good people in Virginia, and many of them benefit from, work for, volunteer with, or donate to the organizations listed above. I leave you with this: VA is the birthplace of one @MissyElliott. That alone is evidence the place can yield greatness. Don’t lose hope just because some people are the worst. Some people are the best, too. The rest of us are somewhere in between, but we keep striving for better. Charitable acts are one way to help us get there. Update Sunday, August 13: There are GoFundMe accounts set up for the family of Heather Heyer, murdered by a white domestic terrorist yesterday, and Deandre Harris, whose skull was cracked open by white domestic terrorists yesterday in a parking garage right next to the Charlottesville Police Station. You can read more about Deandre in an interview with Yesha Callahan of The Root right here. From last night, here’s a thread I wrote on Twitter (warning: contains grown-up language for grown-up minds) about white Americans’ responsibility to engage with and educate one another, even those we don’t want to claim as “our own.” Because those white terrorists who marched on Charlottesville — some of them beating and one even murdering those who disagreed with them — are not imaginary monsters from another dimension. And they’re not all white men. There were a few white women among them, and more white women back home supporting, enabling, or approving. It’s tempting to imagine Charlottesville to be some wild aberration in American history, but it is not. I’m not an expert. I really don’t know as much history as I should. I know even as I work on myself I still have my ignorance and prejudice too about various things. I certainly walk with a lot of unearned privilege that protects me from experiences of certain types of pain. I say all this so you know I’m not preaching, “Well, I read all the books and went to all the marches and by the way did you see my Instagram selfie of me looking adorable holding a sign? I worked on my makeup.” But this thread doesn’t talk about guilt (we don’t have time for guilt, which is often a useless emotion and which wastes time when folks are dying in the street and being beaten right next door to the police.) It talks about personal responsibility. I wrote it because I know I have a lot of white followers who are figuring this stuff out privately, and it might help to see somebody else awkwardly try to figure it out publicly. It’s not eloquent and I’m sure I make some mistakes, but it’s an honest attempt to talk about stuff we’re often taught to sweep under the rug. And if you read it and think I sound stupid in spots, which I very well may, use that and go, “Okay I’m gonna be smarter than her.” A lot of us, even those of us who consider ourselves pretty with-it and aware citizens of the modern enlightened world, are still waking up belatedly to stuff our friends of color (and family members of color and coworkers of color and strangers of color) have known forever because they’ve lived it. This is why I say in this thread (in more vivid language) that it’s a little precious to be surprised by what happened in Charlottesville. We wouldn’t be “shocked” if these kinds of stories were part of our own family’s heritage of experience. So it’s time to listen and learn and act. I believe in the Superhero Sidekick theory of helping, which is to say that if you’re trying to ally yourself with the interests of an oppressed group of which you are not a part, you pull a Robin, not a Batman. You’re not the star of the show, so you don’t direct the mission. You listen, you learn, you assist. You definitely don’t lounge around and wait for the superhero to do all the work and then take all the credit. You also don’t throw up your hands and wail, “WHAT WILL WE EVER DOOOOOOO? THIS IS HOPELESS!” when Batman is right there going, “Um, Robin? There’s like ten things you could do today that would help everybody out. You listening?” In that spirit, here’s THE CHARLOTTESVILLE SYLLABUS from the UVA Graduate Student Coalition for Liberation. It’s full of resources, most of them by and/or featuring the voices of people of color. And these are the people to whom folks like me ought to listen, particularly when it is uncomfortable. And these are the folks from whom we learn. If you need a little spot of hope, I got an email from Great Expectationsearlier today saying they’ve gotten a lot of donations this weekend. And an acquaintance told me he donated to the Legal Aid Justice Center of VA and they sent an email saying they’d gotten over 200 donations as of this morning. You can still be a good person and be ignorant, but you become a jerk when you refuse to acknowledge the ignorance and take the steps to educate yourself through reading, watching, and listening. I’m trying to become less of a jerk, which is about as humble an endeavor as possible. You don’t get brownie points or awards for the act of trying to be less awful. You just get to be less of a jerk, and more helpful. You might also make some more friends.

Donald Trump humor, and the sense that he was an over-privileged spoiled twit, has been around for a very long time. As I wrote here in the Huffington Post about my Forbes 400 interviews with the then-wannabee billionaire in 1982, “Donald Trump’s insatiable need to impress and his sociopathic willingness to deceive and crassly diminish others made him a running joke among the fast growing Forbes Rich List team.” Yet in the wake of the Charlottesville tragedy, and what the lead headline in the Huffington Post earlier today framed as: “Trump’s Unwillingness To Directly Denounce White Supremacy Grows Conspicuous,” what may be the most scathing anti-Trump meme of all time (above) is sweeping across Facebook pages tonight. Not surprisingly, the source of the one word title, “Twitler,” is impossible to trace. The image of Trump with a Nazi armband has been around since the election, but the image with the mustache and Twitler nickname seems to have first appeared in early March, unattributed, in the Tasmanian Times. A brief Wikipedia page for the name “Twitler” dates back to June 21. This Huffington Post report from May 10 noted a “Stop Twitler now” sign carried by a protester. And what may be the most outrageously caustic anti-Trump Facebook group of all, “Herr Twitler of Dumbfuckistan,” with the wicked graphic below, has been around since December 11.

Never underestimate the government's ability to exploit a disaster via privatization. Art by Jesse Mechanic Though the devastation in Puerto Rico has faded to the background somewhat in recent days, the region is not nearly out of the woods. According to data reported by FEMA on Wednesday only half of the island has access to drinking water and only 5% has electricity (recent numbers reported by a status site put up by the PR Governors Office has electricity at 9.2% now). It's absolutely crucial to keep these numbers in the conversation so the public is aware of the ongoing issues Puerto Rico are facing. As attention fades so does activism, aid and accountability. Curiously, as the Washington Post reported, FEMA deleted this information from their website yesterday. William Booher, a FEMA spokesman told the Post that the deleted data was still being listed on the aforementioned website of the Governor of Puerto Rico, Ricardo Rosselló. The site reporting the data is not a known destination for anyone outside of Puerto Rico. In other words, they're trying to hide the numbers; they're trying to push this story to the sidelines. As the Post pointed out, the only information left on the FEMA site lauds the government's actions by listing their accomplishments thus far. They are attempting to swing the narrative by deifying the federal response and erasing the harsh reality of the situation. FEMA has offered no rationale for deleting the info because the rationale is obvious: they don't want these numbers readily accessible by the public. They want to continue to move at the pace they believe is sufficient and they don't want the pesky public weighing in with their thoughts. With all that is going on between North Korea, the shooting in Las Vegas, tax reform, DACA, health care and whatever Tweet the president is set to unleash on the public next, the rebuilding process in Puerto Rico is a prime candidate to take a back seat. Don't let it. Keep checking status.pr and keep raising awareness, because now is the time when a truly spectacular failure can occur. Now is the time where resources can be diverted, and disaster capitalism (a term coined by Naomi Klein in her book The Shock Doctrine) can take over and turn a catastrophe into a corporate free-for-all that laces the pockets of opportunistic CEOs. Never underestimate the federal government's ability to exploit a disaster via privatization; it happens time and time again. Elements of the recovery and rebuilding efforts will almost certainly be privatized and outsourced to U.S. corporations, and Puerto Rico will be far worse off for it. We need to keep paying attention in order to hold those in power accountable. Don't let FEMA erase the problems of Puerto Rico. Written by Jesse Mechanic

The downside of having technology at our fingertips is that we lose human interaction. People become more focused on what is happening on social media versus experiencing things first-hand. However, for those who aren’t in that realm, the upside is the ability to create content at any moment. Enter Hopeless Records rockers, Young and Heartless. The band recently filmed their brand new music video for “Bad Brain” entirely on an iPhone (which was then edited by the band) and today we’re excited to premiere the video, which can be found in the player below! In the video, we dive into the mind of lead singer and guitarist Jeremy Henniger after he falls off a boat and lands in a Twin Peaks-esque dream world. “Bad Brain navigates the fear of growing older and pressures of accomplishment," he shares. The result is trippy, hypnotic, and really freaking cool. As for how the video came to be, he tells us: "We filmed in [drummer, Jake Lepley]’s bedroom on an iPhone 6 with a green screen. We then over-dubbed other shots we filmed in an old funeral home, and on the river adjacent to Three Mile Island in Harrisburg, PA. The locations themselves were pretty creepy to begin with, so it gives the video a pretty unique and unsettling vibe. For instance, the spot where I am sitting on the couch, is where they used to display the bodies at the viewing." Fans interested in catching a live set from the band can find them on tour through the end of November - dates listed below! October 6th- Carlisle, PA- with Handguns October 13th- Frederick, MD - Cafe Nola, with Blue Heaven October 20th - Columbus, OH @ Double Happiness October 21st - Lancaster, PA @ Lizard Lounge October 22nd - Amityville, NY @ Amityville Music Hall October 23rd - Brooklyn, NY @ Gold Sounds October 24th - Harrisonburg, VA @ The Golden Pony October 25th - Charlotte, NC @ The World Famous Milestone October 26th - Myrtle Beach, SC @ Rockin' Hard Saloon October 30th -Orlando, FL @ Backbooth October 31st - Tampa, FL @Transitions Art Gallery November 1st - Atlanta, GA @ The Masquerade November 2nd - Murfreesboro, TN @ Strike & Spare November 3rd - Indianapolis, IN @ The Hoosier Dome November 4th - Lansing, MI @ Mac's Bar November 5th - Chicago, IL @ SubT Downstairs November 21st - Lancaster, PA- Chameleon Club with Balance and Composure —

The Wreck of a Republic They will not put their country first; The lust for power they have nursed Is stronger than the policies They cast aside to grab the keys Of agencies whose work they dodge In preference of sabotage. By lacking such a bloody thirst, The best give over to the worst, Who marshal all their energies In scorning craft and expertise, Without which rivals will dislodge Their proud supremacist mirage. Our edge is lost, our boasting cursed, Our global dominance reversed. With muscles withered by degrees, We turn from dreams to elegies And watch, without their camouflage, A pirate captain's entourage. Copyright © 2016 by Richard J. Rosendall. All rights reserved.

By: Ruth Pearce Have you ever noticed that thriving seems like a force of nature? When things are tough, nature finds a way to overcome adversity and flourish. Flowers grow in the cracks of sidewalks, foxes find a way to adjust to living in the city. In an article from 2015, the Guardian reported that there is a ​wealth of wildlife near Chernobyl, despite continuing high levels of radiation and original projections that the area would be devoid of life for generations to come. I see the same drive to thrive every day, in my family, my friends and my clients. I even see that drive to thrive in my dogs. Harry My first dog Harry was the runt of the litter. He was afraid of everything and failed every puppy test. The entire litter had already been sold and the seller told me I should wait for the next litter. Instead, I took him home and he learned to thrive. He overcame his fear of people, noises, sudden movement and other dogs, and became the most sociable happy-go-lucky dog. He even helped a little girl get over her fear of dogs and thrive, too! Sally Sally was a rescue. She had lived cooped up in an apartment, was underfed and scared of everything. She gained confidence and learned to thrive. We were warned she would always eat everything in sight and we would have to monitor her eating, and constantly watch her weight. She learned to manage her own appetite, only eating what she needed. She became an explorer and adventurer. She was feisty, funny and confident. Milo Our dog Milo has a checkered history. He was living alone in a basement. Before that, he had been in a shelter. He was shy and we even believed he could not wag his tail. When he was sleeping, he would pant with nervousness and jump up at the slightest sound. But he learned to thrive. Six months after he moved in, he wagged his tail for the first time. He is now a regular visitor at our local inn where he greets the visitors. He loves people and is full of energy and enthusiasm. On paper, none of these dogs would be expected to thrive. They were broken, damaged, less than perfect. Yet they all learned to be the best that they could be! They have never told me about their early experiences, or any traumas they experienced. They just learned a new way of being. Human Thriving What does this have to do with human thriving and anxiety? Well for a start, all my dogs were anxious when we got them. Finding out “the trigger” for their anxiety was not an option. Getting to the root of their issues was not a necessity. Yet in therapy that is what we do time and again. They had to build confidence in us and themselves, they had to learn how to feel safe. All three of them became sociable, loving, energetic dogs. They learned to thrive. Building Mental Health When we learn to walk, we practice. We work first at standing up, then at taking tentative steps, then at being more adventurous and walking across the room. Our parents hopefully cheer when we succeed and encourage us to get up and try again when we fall – as we inevitably do. We practice until walking steadily and evenly, and even running and jumping becomes natural and ordinary. What training is there for mental health? Often, we model ourselves on people who did not get any mental health training. Here are two conversations I heard recently that while well intentioned, are probably not training children to have social confidence, self-esteem and an ability to cope: Child (about 2 years old, sitting on his father’s knee, looking at my dog Milo): “I don’t like the dog, daddy.” Father: “Why not? Is he scary? Are you afraid? You don’t have to go near him.” Child: “I just don’t like him.” Father: “It’s OK, I used to be afraid of dogs when I was a child too.” Child – running and jumping on the lawn at a concert, full of energy and enthusiasm. Mother – obviously exasperated with his exuberance: “Sit down and keep still. You are totally crazy! People will think you are insane. Look at everyone else just sitting quietly. You have to learn to be like them or people will not like you.” As children, we have all experienced that type of feedback. As parents, we have all inadvertently given it. Mental Health Training So, how can we learn to thrive? We need to be aware of what beliefs we have and self-talk we use that gets in the way of us being the best we can be. Often, we need help from others to learn new ways of thinking. For me, the secret was an applied positive psychology coaching course that offers the training that few of us get in childhood. It helped me relearn my thinking, and like other things in nature, find my drive to thrive. The creator of the program was a therapist. As he watched clients go through treatment, he started to recognize that whatever route clients took, a successful outcome always looked the same. A change in beliefs, an increase in self-confidence and self-esteem, and changes in the way of thinking and the way of processing experiences. We can build strong self-esteem and self-confidence, we can learn to believe in our ability to handle what life throws at us – not always with grace, but always with hope. We, too, can thrive! This does not just benefit us, it benefits those around us in both our personal and professional lives. How can you build your self-esteem and self-confidence? What can you do to help you be your best self? And what can you do to help others? How are you helping others to be their best selves? -- Ruth Pearce is an experienced program manager, positive psychology practitioner and owner of A Lever Long Enough, where she helps project managers develop the skills needed to fully engage their teams. She is also the first THRIVE Programmeconsultant in the US - a program developed in the UK that helps people with anxiety to THRIVE. She is writing a book - The Project Management Effect: From Organizing to Engaging, and regularly presents on engagement at conferences including for PMI and the WBI Embodied Positive Psychology Summit.

Regulatory projects and the 12 rules for project managers that make their fast-track projects a success Regulatory projects are not projects about rocket science, but in most cases can be very trying and time-consuming. One of the reasons can be the considerable management attention required. Even if they take a lot of attention, it should not give us a reason to forget the basics about the tested ways of managing our projects. Below are the golden rules for successful regulatory projects: 1. Politely exclude your manager from your project meetings, as otherwise no one will listen to you and your project will end in a disaster where two managers are involved, with none of them being really 100% in charge. 2. Make sure that your experts' holidays are aligned with your deliverables and ask your experts to make sure their holidays are aligned with your deliverables. 3. In case you have the luck to have an excellent core team of experts and your project was a success, ask the line managers of your experts via email to consider their commitment and efforts for the year-end assessment and include your project sponsor in this communication. 4. Assign a clear responsibility to each expert and make sure that the experts are involved in all decisions related to his or her subject. 5. Make sure you build a unity where all experts respect and support each other. 6. Make sure your meetings are kept small and include only the relevant project members. Relevant people are those who have a task to perform after each meeting. 7. Avoid involving senior managers, as they will waste their time and their experts' time to explain details that are only relevant to the experts. 8. Set up a call or meeting for 20-30 minutes to inform relevant senior managers about the current project status and include the relevant experts in this call/meeting. 9. Send weekly updates to senior managers via a short email and inform them about the project status of the week, what the issues are and what is planned to be performed next week. 10. Set up daily meetings with the relevant experts and send daily updates to senior managers when time is critical. 11. Ask your core team of experts about the right communication style for the project and, after agreeing on it, stick to it. 12. Make your project a success by following the rules above and add new rules once the existing rules have become part of the culture in all your projects. Let us know if there are other basic rules around regulatory projects that should be included. Follow Ella Thuiner on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ourfuturebank

By 28, Sean Mapes had a successful online education business, and by 30 he was the co-founder of a growing advertising agency. In less than two years, he was working with clients ranging from New York Times Bestselling authors to top pod-casters and multi-million dollar e-commerce companies. In the winter of 2016, from an outside perspective, things couldn't have been going better for Sean. One of his clients had just reached #1 on the New York Times Bestsellers list, but he was "miserable and burned out." He even spent part of Christmas Day working on a client's campaign instead of enjoying it with his family. "I realized I lost focus on my why, and started chasing money and working with clients that were not a good fit." That's when he decided he needed to start listening to that "little voice inside" again. The voice was telling him to make a change. He decided to follow his passion and work with small businesses. And he decided to start in West Michigan, where he lives. For Sean, there is three main reason why he loves working with small businesses: 1. Ability to Make a Larger Impact In a smaller organization, it's easier for one person to make a bigger impact. It makes sense. Sean says, he missed "seeing the impact of his work," not only in ROI but freedom and lifestyle of the business owners. "It's awesome to help grow people's businesses and make them money. I love hearing business owners tell me they were able to hire more people and now they don't to work nights and weekends anymore. For me, it's about helping business owners build a life with more time and freedom." 2. Fast Decisions & Quick Implementation Big companies have a lot of advantages: larger teams, more resources. But these same benefits can be a double edged sword. Small businesses may not always have huge budgets or teams, but they can be quick and agile. "I love working with small businesses. They have the ability to make quick decisions and move fast. With digital marketing where things are changing day to day, this gives them an advantage." "Small business owners take action. They see an opportunity, and they take it. There's not asking for approvals and waiting for the chain of command. It's the fact that they're action takers that lead them to start their own business in the first place." 3. The "Local" Advantage "Too many small businesses look at being small and local as a disadvantage. If you look at what the big guys are doing and try to beat them at it, yes, you're going to get crushed. But if you look at the things the big guys can't do, this is where you will win." There are two ways Sean mentions that small local businesses can stand out. The first is by offering more personalized customer service. And the second is by having a "local twist" in your marketing. "For example, we work with a local jeweler. One of the things we do for the jeweler is promote an article on the best places in West Michigan to get engaged. This article helps do two things. It attracts people looking to get engaged but also lets them know that we're local and part of the community."

On August 12, 2017, a woman named Heather Heyer was murdered by a white nationalist who plowed his car into a crowd of protesters. Her friends have recalled her as an essentially decent person dedicated to fighting injustice, passionate about making the world a better place. She was, in short, a hero who died fighting white supremacy. As is often the case with such tragedies, some have—in a move of breathtaking intellectual dishonesty—suggested that we not “politicize” her death. By this they mean: do not call upon President Trump to explicitly condemn the bigoted movement that produced her death, do not seek to demolish the monuments to the Confederacy against which she marched, do not speak of her death as having any political significance at all. In their eyes, apparently, Ms. Heyer’s death is an unfortunate but isolated incident, pertaining to nothing in particular. Such a suggestion rests upon the false supposition that if we did not vindicate in death the principles by which Ms. Heyer lived her life, this would be “non-political.” To the contrary, erasing the beliefs of those who fight and die in pursuit of justice is the most “political” move of all; it necessarily entails a pretense that reality is not as it is in service of maintaining a fundamentally unjust status quo. Sadly, I did not have the privilege of knowing Ms. Heyer (nor, notably, do those self-righteously denouncing the so-called “politicization” of her death). Accordingly, I cannot speak to what she would have wanted now. But having observed the eternal rhetorical move of the Right in the face of tragedy—to silence its ideological opponents by condemning them as insensitive when they demand justice in the wake of horror—I feel it worthwhile to make clear now, as explicitly as possible, what I want to happen if I should ever meet a similar fate. Maybe you should, too. Perhaps this, at least, will give shills like Tomi Lahren even the slightest pause before claiming to speak to what I—or you—would have wanted in death. Shameless as they are, certainly nothing less has ever stopped them before. If I die at the hands of a Nazi, politicize my death. Pull out all of the stops. Condemn the hateful movement that nourished and motivated my killer. Instead of flowers, send donations to the causes—unapologetic, anti-Nazi, anti-white supremacist, causes—I supported during my lifetime. Rather than an obituary, write an op-ed. Leverage my death for “political gain”: demand the condemnation of the rising power of hate groups in the United States, the destruction of altars to a traitorous movement dedicated to the preservation of slavery, an end to the influence of racists and white nationalists at any level of government.

New parents today have a completely different mindset about products than their predecessors. Millennials are far more connected to ecological and global issues, and want to do business with responsible companies that share their values. As they evolved, brands have begun to evolve to meet their needs. Sustainability is a novel idea in the baby industry. About four million babies are born in the U.S. each year, and their parents shell out at least $23 billion to keep them in clothes, diapers, and other paraphernalia. From diapers to furniture, it's all designed to be outgrown...and fast. Every new mom knows the story. As her due date nears, relatives and friends pick local stores clean of adorable tiny clothes. Then the baby comes, and within a month or two, nothing fits. Piles of once-worn (or never-worn) clothing are given away or packed for a future child, toys are handed off to friends or charity, and furniture is replaced, while tired parents try to find time to shop for an endless supply of new stuff. Today's parents want brands to exercise more responsibility, and some manufacturers are stepping up to the plate. Sustainable Baby Clothes Whitney Sokol is an entrepreneurial mom on a mission, who knows the struggle all too well. She designed SproutFit baby clothes to make life less complicated for new parents. Her cleverly designed tops and reversible bottoms offer adjustable snaps and roll-up cuffs with just enough stretch to be super comfortable. Made to last through growth spurts, the collection grows with babies from 0 through 12 months and 12 to 24 months and reduces the need for constant repurchasing. As a millennial mom, Whitney is committed to responsibly making SproutFit in fair-trade U.S. facilities where employees are paid living wages and operate with a zero-waste mentality. Using fabric made from bamboo makes sense from a sustainability standpoint, as well. It's durable, soft and comfortable, and bamboo is one of the fastest growing plants on the planet. Convertible Furniture In business since 1991, Romina Furniture is a European company with old-world values. Their hallmark is quality, from solid dovetail wood construction to high-tech fittings, their baby furniture is made to last a lifetime. Cribs convert to several settings and when the baby is not longer a baby, the crib becomes a stylish daybed. The company adheres to an old-fashioned work ethic, using only ethically sourced materials and hand-finished construction for lasting quality. Biodegradable Disposable Diapers Piling up in landfills at a rate of 1,800 tons a day, about 20% of U.S. landfills are giant, stinking mountains of used diapers made from non-biodegradable materials. Tethis, a manufacturer based in North Carolina, intends to change the industry with a core material from biodegradable cornstarch. While there are still a few details diaper manufacturers would have to hammer out, the bio-based material will make a huge difference. One possible solution might be to partner with a cloth diaper manufacturer like RagaBabe, another startup with a bright future. Their adorable cotton diaper designs are designed with pockets to hold cloth inserts, which they also manufacture. Baby Bath and Body Products The founder of California Baby is another mom who wanted to do the right thing for her kids and would up founding a line of popular products. Jessica Iclisoy was shocked to learn that commercial products meant for babies had carcinogens. She launched her company with one product, an organic calming shampoo and body wash made with safe, natural ingredients. Today, California Baby has a full line of safe, sustainable skin products made with Calendula flowers grown on their own organic farm.

This is the first part of a multi-part series where online bullying and harassment highlighted. I recently had the opportunity to sit down with digital personality Meredith Placko about her personal experiences. Prevalence of Online Abuse Recent studies performed by Pew Research show that 70% of women see online harassment as a "major problem," while nearly double feel it's more important to feel welcome and safe online as compared to being able to speak their minds freely. Last year, digital security firm Norton conducted research in Australia, showing that 76% of women under 30 experienced online abuse or harassment online. Elle Hunt of the Guardian further details: Harassment ranged from unwanted contact, trolling, and cyberbullying to sexual harassment and threats of rape and death. Women under 30 were overrepresented in every category. One in seven – and one in four women aged under 30 – had received general threats of physical violence. Almost one in ten women under 30 had experienced revenge porn and/or “sextortion.” In 2014, Soraya Chemaly of Time detailed other types of harassment women encounter online, "Women are also the majority of people experiencing revenge porn, the distribution of non-consensual photography, often involving nudity and sex. Last month’s theft and distribution of the private photographs of more than 100 celebrities, almost all female, was a case in point." Chemaly continues: In theory, these things can happen to anyone—but they don’t. They happen overwhelming to women and the abusers are overwhelmingly men. Stalking, off and online, is a crime in which men are the majority of perpetrators and women the targets. Justice Department records reveal that 70 percent of those stalked online are women. More than 80 percent of cyber-stalking defendants are male. Conversation With Meredith Meredith Placko Meredith Placko is an online personality who works for numerous outlets including appearing on The Young Turks Network as a TV review panel member on the What The Flick production. Throughout our in-depth conversation, Meredith spoke on a range of issues including lessons from GamerGate, how women online should not be seen as hopeless, her personal experiences dealing with online harassment, and how men can help to reduce cyber bullying. The discussion also compares the harassment men receive online in relation to women. At moments, extremely emotional stories are shared which speak to empowerment, workplace bullying, and how companies can create a positive working environment for all of their employees. Meredith also goes into detail as to why she left the profession and experiences in the field - including commentary on her facing sexism from a former female boss. The Full Interview With Meredith Can Be Seen Below

A prominent Washington, D.C., attorney said his law firm will represent, pro bono, anyone who wants to challenge the draconian nondisclosure agreements President Donald Trump reportedly demanded early last year from his senior White House officials. Mark Zaid, who represents government workers in free speech and national security cases, was responding to a Sunday report from The Washington Post that administration officials are prohibited from disclosing information both during their employment and “at all times thereafter.” Each infraction would be subject to a $10 million fine, according to a draft agreement the Post obtained. The draft covered all “non public” communications, including conversations with the press and with any other government official. It even barred any revelations in works of fiction. Zaid, a founding partner of the nonprofit law firm Whistleblower Aid, said the staffers can only lawfully be constrained from disclosing classified information when their employment is over. This is an unconstitutional prohibition on 1st Amendment rights. My law firm offers to rep pro bono any signatory (or individual legitimately contemplating) of these NDAs. Former employees can only be lawfully prevented from disclosing classified info.@BradMossEsq @AndrewBakaj https://t.co/awdjHweJmF — Mark S. Zaid (@MarkSZaidEsq) March 19, 2018 Several free speech and civil rights experts besides Zaid said the agreement is unconstitutional, and therefore unenforceable. “Public employees can’t be gagged by private agreements,” Ben Wizner of the American Civil Liberties Union said in a statement. “These so-called NDAs are unconstitutional and unenforceable.” The agreements “strike me as clearly unconstitutional under the First Amendment,” University of Minnesota law professor Heidi Kitrosser told Reuters. University of Florida law professor Mark Fenster told the outlet that “public employees can’t be forced to sign away the right to speak.” Experts also noted that White House staffers don’t technically work for Trump, but for the United States, which would be the only party that could enforce the NDAs — and that’s not likely to happen. The highest-profile nondisclosure agreement currently linked to the president is the one between Trump lawyer Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels, the adult film star whose real name is Stephanie Clifford. Daniels says she had a year-long affair with Trump, but Cohen has warned her that she could be sued for up to $20 million if she violates the nondisclosure pact she signed in 2016, reportedly in exchange for $130,000. The White House has not denied the existence of nondisclosure agreements for senior administration staffers. However, it told Reuters on Monday that staffers “were never asked or required to sign NDAs with $10 million clauses.”

More than two weeks after Hurricane Maria made landfall on Puerto Rico, scientists are still scrambling to save the more than 1,000 rhesus monkeys that live on a small piece of land off the main island’s southeast coast. Bonn Aure Caribbean Primate Research Center Researchers take a boat to Cayo Santiago to assess the damage from Hurricane Maria. Cayo Santiago, known as “Monkey Island,” has been a crucial resource for researchers studying primate behavior, cognition and genetics since the 1930s, when scientists brought monkeys to the island from southeast Asia. Since then, a population of rhesus macaques has thrived there, offering scientists a window into the primates’ lives. An NPR profile of the island in 2015 characterized it as a monkey paradise, where human researchers ate their lunches in cages while the macaques roamed free. Miraculously, the monkeys largely survived the initial impact of Hurricane Maria. Alexandra Rosati, an assistant psychology professor at the University of Michgain, wrote at The Conversation about the joy and relief that researchers felt when they discovered a particularly beloved monkey had made it through the hurricane. “Monkey Zero-Zero-Oh is a female we sometimes called “Ooooo,’” Rosati wrote. “She is now an old lady in monkey years, beloved for her spunky personality.” But the storm devastated the small island, destroying its lush vegetation and wrecking the infrastructure that provided its inhabitants with fresh water, according to news releases from Yale University and the University of Michigan — two of several institutions now working to care for the monkeys. Noah Snyder Mackler, University of Michigan Aerial photos of Cayo Santiago before and after the storm. Researchers are now transporting shipments of food and water to the island, and working to rebuild the rainwater cisterns that the storm destroyed. They’re also distributing supplies and helping with rebuilding efforts in the local community in nearby Punta Santiago, a 15-minute boat ride from Monkey Island. Many of the staff who work on Monkey Island are residents of Punta Santiago. This heartbreaking message is from our flyover of #PuntaSantiago. #Humacao #PuertoRico needs a bigger response, & it needs it now. pic.twitter.com/8d7UH4vw7Q — NYU Primatology (@nyuprimatology) September 25, 2017 Two GoFundMe pages are now in place to aid relief efforts for the animals of Monkey Island and for the community of Punta Santiago.

President elect Trump has vowed to end "all unnecessary regulations" in the energy industry as part of an "America-first energy" plan. Much attention has been paid to how regulations, which limit environmental and human-health impacts from pollution, restrict the use of fossil fuels. However, a recent study indicated that antiquated regulations are providing a barrier for renewable energy - specifically preventing an additional $70 billion market to the already explosive growth of solar energy. As Elon Musk, the Chief Executive Officer overseeing the Solar City - Tesla marriage, is happy to point out, solar cells are extremely cost effective. Due to the tremendous drop in costs for solar technology, solar photovoltaic generated electricity, is now regularly less expensive than grid electricity and adoption is now rising rapidly throughout the U.S. Bloomberg reports that the American solar industry had a record first quarter in 2016, and for the first time, it drove the majority of new power generation. As an August article in the Harvard Business Review pointed out because the U.S. solar industry is creating a lot of jobs (bringing on new workers 12 times faster than the overall economy), it could literally absorb all the jobs lost to the entire coal industry if U.S. coal is completely shut down in bankruptcy. Most people jumping onto the solar bandwagon at this point are doing it for cost savings created by the opportunity of ever increasing electric utility rates. The wealthy can afford to install a large high power solar energy system - enough to meet their energy needs over the entire year. Families without the up-front capital rely on zero money down programs like those offered by Solar City and other solar lease providers. They will not save as much money, but they still come out comfortably ahead, while helping green and modernize the grid. However, the average American moves over 11 times over their lifetime and more than a third of Americans rent so making a 25 year investment in fixed solar photovoltaic system on a roof is challenging. How can these people take part in the solar energy revolution and all the money savings that come with it? A technical solution to this is problem is called "plug and play solar photovoltaic" (PV) systems. They are affordable (you buy 1 solar panel at a time for a few hundred dollars) and portable grid-tied solar electric systems. They can be purchased and installed by an average person with no training. This sounds great. Unfortunately, they are largely thought to be illegal in the U.S. because of antiquated regulations. Customers must check to find out with their local utility. Earlier this year my research group painstakingly went through a technical/safety analysis of plug-and-play PV in the U.S. The study showed there is no valid technical reason we should not follow the trends in other advanced industrialized nations and allow plug and play solar in America. Countries like the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Switzerland already encourage plug and play solar. Even the Czech Republic permits it! A blanket federal U.S. electrical regulation may allow plug and play solar in the future (and it could fit nicely into the Trump deregulation goals). However, such a shift in regulations could radically alter the current solar market - for the better. This new study provides an estimate of this new U.S. market for plug and play PV systems if such regulations are updated by investigating personal financial decision making for Americans. This is an additional market on what is already going on with full home solar systems. The potential savings for the prosumer (producing consumer) are mapped for the U.S. over a range of scenarios. The results show the total potential U.S. market for plug and play solar is over 57 gigawatts (GW). That is actually quite a lot of power as it is equivalent to about 57 large coal or nuclear plants. For comparison there are already less than 100 nuclear plants in the U.S. These plug and play systems would generate approximately 108,417,000 MWh/year, which is 4 times the electricity generated from U.S. solar in 2015. This is remarkable because it would come from systems of only 1 kW or less - tiny 1 to 4 solar panel systems! This distributed solar energy made possible from plug and play solar would provide American consumers approximately $13 billion/year in cost savings! This would be a huge boon for the working and middle class. However, all the money is not going only to the little people. Big established companies also stand to make a fortune on plug and play solar. Perhaps most interesting to investors is the effect this deregulation of the electric system would have on American retailers such as Wal Mart, Costco, Home Depot, Lowes, Target, etc. Plug and play solar represents an opportunity for sales for retailers from $14.3-$71.7 billion depending on your assumptions about the capital cost of plug and play solar systems. Not exactly pocket change for a new market. Happy deregulation!

This footage is definitely amooseing. A man hiking in Sweden on Friday night captured the above video of a rare white moose, fulfilling a lifelong dream. Hans Nilsson Nilsson was hiking in Varmland County when he came across the creature walking through a creek, according to Storyful.com. Luckily, Nilsson had his camera. A white moose (called an elk in Europe) is very rare: Less than 100 are known to live in the area, according to the BBC. Regardless of what you call it, this majestic animal is definitely beautiful. Nilsson’s video of the moose has been shared more than 10,000 times on Facebook, and he is proud.

If you are a democrat who is worried about the future of America, take five minutes to read this warning from a broadcaster and fellow democrat My name is Fred Lundgren. I am the co-founder and CEO of KCAA Radio, the NBC News affiliate located in the Riverside market of Southern California. KCAA broadcasts on 102.3 FM, 1050 AM and 106.5 FM throughout the Inland Empire, east of Los Angeles... First, a personal note... I am a third generation democrat with roots in Austin politics. Between the years of 1983 and 1989, I served as a staff assistant to then Texas Commissioner of Agriculture Jim Hightower. I have worked in several Presidential campaigns and in House and Senate campaigns from Texas to California and the Midwest. Most importantly, I have a rural and farming background. I know instinctively how red state people think and why they react against those of us who wear and bleed blue. I'm convinced that to reach them, we must broadcast a loud, convincing, repetitive and inclusive voice to them on terrestrial talk radio. Talk radio planted the seeds that lost them to right wing nationalism and we must use the same medium to win back their hearts and minds. It serves no purpose for democrats to send out angry emails to fellow democrats that are replete with invectives about red state “deplorables”. Nothing will close the widening abyss as long as democrats remain in their online ecosystem and refuse to speak directly and reasonably to red state voters in THEIR language. The anger expressed in the voting booth during the last election has put the future of our country in jeopardy. Democrats are not reaching the people who have the voting power to change America AND ABOVE ALL, THAT MUST CHANGE . We must reach these voters where they spend time almost every day, and that's listening to talk radio. The answer is to put progressive talk shows on the air in every media market in America. The content of these shows must be carefully crafted to speak the “language” of middle America. These shows must offer real practical solutions that will reverse the decline of the middle class. These solutions must include economic stimulus that reaches their community and their family. Most importantly, it must be free of condemnation, blame and fear. To produce such a program, start by visiting your local talk radio station and ask to speak with the Sales Manager. Find out what it takes to buy an hour of broadcast time each week. Then, go back to your democratic group and raise the money to put a program on the air, not just once a year, but at least once a week for years. Don’t expect free air time. Those days ended during the Reagan era. There is no FCC rule that gives you the right to demand free air time. Too many democratic activists have made the mistake of underestimating the power of broadcast radio. To those people I say... Stop it! Wake up and realize that you are not the type of person you need to reach with your message. Most red state voters don’t stare at a computer screen or thumb a smart phone all day. So, get off the internet and turn on your AM radio and listen. It may come as a shock to some of you but AM refers to a lot more more than just the time of day. Even small stations will have more listeners than you can possibly attract to your local Democratic meeting with an email blast and text messaging, even if you promise free beer after the meeting. In some cases, the radio station you approach will try to overcharge you or reject your program request out of hand. If it happens, feel free to invoke my name and the KCAA call sign. Don’t bother to approach your favorite music station. You won’t get beyond the receptionist. By the way, as the CEO of a news/talk station, I’ve never understood why it takes a staff of 40 people to play a song... but I digress. If all else fails, KCAA can produce, broadcast and distribute a one hour weekly radio show for only $200 and syndicate the show on satellite for another $100 per week which will make the show available to over 4,000 radio stations nationwide. Use these numbers as a benchmark for negotiating a deal with your local station and again, if you simply can’t make a deal, call me. Now, with the finesse that would rival the likes of the late Paul Harvey, I will make a seamless transition to a commercial. You may choose KCAA as your flagship station because we provide live production by remote Skype connections from your location to our main studio in Redlands, California plus over 20 additional services including audio and video streaming, Tunein, Spreaker, Youtube, USTREAM, podcasting, social media promotion, a website landing page and regular submissions to iHeart.com. See http://www.kcaaradio.com/Media_Kit.pdf And now, The Rest of The Story. Always remember that the prime directive of a federally licensed radio station is to act in the public interest, convenience and necessity for the communities it serves. So, feel free to remind the station manager about his responsibility if you get excuses like, “Your show would not match the station’s format”. Please share this message with your other team members and additional progressive groups.

I think it’s becoming more and more clear as the days roll on that Donald J. Trump will either be impeached or crushed in the 2020 general election. Now that is good news. However, what greatly concerns me is what will happen after Trump is finally gone. As we all well know, the alt-right is a cancerous, insidious movement. They make Republicans from yesteryear—from Richard Nixon to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney—look like mere choirboys/girls. I often worry about how these deluded militias will respond to a Trump ouster from the Oval Office. Already, there are people on social media openly promoting civil war and domestic terrorism. We are quickly reminded of the tragedy we have seen this week in Charlottesville, Virginia, when a deranged, far-right extremist plowed his Silver Dodge Charger into a crowd of counter-protesters, killing four, injuring nineteen. There are all kinds of budding home-grown terrorists in this country, members of what has become colloquially known as “Y’all Qaeda.” They’re out there: Men and women, husbands and wives, who own enough assault rifles to overthrow a small island nation. They were a threat to us when it looked like Trump was going to lose in 2016; and they’ll be an even bigger threat when he is either voted out in 2020, or if congress kicks him to the curb before then. When either scenario finally happens, these people are going to be trouble. There is a way these people could effectively be stopped, for these weeds to be dramatically and drastically uprooted, for this country to become much safer once again. While reading FBI Agent Joseph D. Pisone’s book “Donnie Brasco: My Undercover Life in the Mafia,” I was astonished to learn just how much damage the book’s author, Joseph D. Pistone, had inflicted upon the Italian-American mob. With his deep-cover name, Donnie Brasco—as well as a”take no s___ from anybody attitude”—Pistone convincingly formed alliances with many members and associates of La Cosa Nostra. At the end of the operation, Pistone racked up 200 indictments against the Mafia, which resulted in over 100 convictions. While reading this, I couldn’t help but wonder: What’s to stop FBI agents from forming deep cover operations into all these far-right militias? Surely, these militas are a far, far greater threat to our lives and democracy than the Mafia ever was. I sincerely believe that by targeting and infiltrating these extremist groups the Federal Bureau of Investigation could deal a chrushing blow to these home-grown terrorists. The RICO statue alone would scare many people away from ever even associating themselves with these militant lunatics. Generally speaking, I am against the RICO statute. I always felt its “guilt by association” implications were morally questionable. With RICO, someone can be tried and convicted of crimes they never actually committed themselves. They only have to be a part of a criminal organization. Wisegeekcom describes G. Robert Blakey’s controversial but highly effective act: In the United States, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act is a federal law that was enacted to give extended penalties in the prosecution of organized criminal acts. The RICO Act is codified as Chapter 96 of Title 18 of the U.S. Code, which deals with federal crimes and criminal procedure. Although it was intended to be used against the Mafia and others engaged in organized crime, the RICO Act has been used to prosecute all sorts of criminal activity.” That last part screams at me: All sorts of criminal activity. In conclusion, I believe a concerted effort by FBI agents to infiltrate these far-right militias and stomp them out before they radically transform America into something resembling Nazi Germany is of paramount importance. To any FBI agents reading I offer one piece of invaluable advice:

I have looked death in the face on more than one occasion. Yet no other challenge was as life- and mind-altering as being diagnosed with breast cancer. After getting the news, I felt like I was living through the apocalypse. I thought, “This must be a hoax. This can’t be happening to me.” Trapped in the prison of my body, as traitorous cells tried to take over, I was frightened and internally screaming. One day, I had a powerful realization: that this was my life... and it didn’t come with a money back guarantee. There was no “no risk,” “verified” or “secure” way to live. I didn’t get to get a refund if I didn’t like the cards I was dealt. Knowing that I could be facing death scared the sh*t out of me ― enough to make me wake the hell up and live. Here’s what I learned. 1. You can’t live scared. Cancer gave me an urgency of life; and while it didn’t eradicate my fears, it gave me the freedom to play with them. In a sense, I now had the kryptonite that rendered fear useless. So, instead of running from what made me scared, I could choose to not indulge my fears anymore. 2. Surrender. Life happens while you’re worrying, but no matter how much you worry about the future, it may or may not happen anyway. Control is an illusion, so just surrender to the flow and have faith. 3. I didn’t know how to live. I’d spent 16 years getting an education but didn’t know how to live. School doesn’t teach us how to handle emotions, how to manage thoughts and energy, how to shift our mindset, how to dig into our fears and how to breathe when life is falling apart. I now had the challenge of, and the opportunity to teach myself how to live. My unraveling through cancer gave me an education about myself, which I learned from, including putting together a toolkit that helped me, not only get through cancer, but to play the game of life. 4. I could change my story at any time. I didn’t know I could do that! I thought that “this was how life was.” While undergoing chemotherapy, I realized I was co-creator of my life, and I could re-write it! So, I did! I wrote a hell of a new story, and in this new script, my life would be real, amazing, astonishing, mesmerizing, delicious, delectable, yummy, exquisite, epic, incredible, captivating, magnificent, soulful, spiritually orgasmic and sublime. 5. It’s okay to fall apart. I’d had the belief that being strong meant keeping it all together, but when sh*t hits the fan, there were times when my strength was like “Bye Felicia,” while I simultaneously lost my Wonder Woman cape. Yikes! So, I fell apart... and it was okay. I learned to sit with it; I learned from it and I grew from it. 6. From the day we are born, we are dying. The panic I felt about having cancer became so overwhelming that I couldn’t function. For months, I was in a daze, until I realized... wait... newsflash! I didn’t want die now... or ever, but from the day we are born, we are dying. I wish that I’d had this epiphany before! Many people live without direction, zest, passion or joy. Cancer, while f-cked up, was now making me realize that I was going to die one day, anyway. So, I need to go gangbusters up in this piece. And, I wasn’t going to give cancer all the freakin’ power. It had served its purpose as a catalyst, but now, it needed to bow down. I was in control; and I intended to get to living. 7. There was beauty in my brokenness. As I looked at the perfect disaster my life had become, I saw myself for the first time, without filters or masks... and through the broken pieces, my true essence began to emerge. The purity of me that I’d forgotten, lost or layered over was looking at me in the mirror. My reflection was beautiful. This was me. From this place, I began to see myself in a whole new way. I explored my pain and more deeply reconnected with me. 8. I could never again forget to stay in communication with my soul. As I got reacquainted with myself, I realized I didn’t know my purpose ― the reason that my soul had chosen to be here. God had designed me for a reason, but, somewhere between birth and then, I’d forgotten it. I began to spend the majority of my waking moments asking, listening and seeking to connect deeper with my God and my soul. Along the way, I remembered my why. Now, I would live a life of soul purpose, and not just for me. 9. I’m not waiting to die to get my wings. Why wait to get to Heaven to to live as if you’re in the Promised Land? I would create my paradise on Earth. I would manifest my Nirvana every day. I would put on my wings and soar. Going forward, I would give zero f*cks about other people’s opinions, live my truth and live every day in relentless, unabashed pursuit of my bliss. 10. Cancer didn’t make me a survivor ― I always was.

In 1981, I began showing symptoms of what would become known as HIV/AIDS. It started with painful swollen lymph nodes larger than golf balls in my armpits and groin. Tests for mononucleosis and a biopsy for Hodgkin’s disease came back negative. Next came night sweats that soaked my sheets, exhaustion despite 12 hours of sleep, skin rashes, fungal and yeast infections in body creases, Harry Leukoplakia on my tongue, and reoccurring shingles. I was a petrified 26-year-old closeted old gay man when it began, living in an abandoned brownstone in Harlem with no heat or hot water that I had purchased to renovate. I was a varsity college wrestler with a Master’s Degree working two jobs: a human resources professional for a Fortune 500 company by day, while working night and weekend shifts in a restaurant for extra cash to pay plumbing and electrical contractors. Soon I met my soulmate Scott, a Wall Street lawyer and varsity Ivy League tennis player. Simultaneously, in a living room in lower Manhattan, Gay Men’s Health Crisis, the first organization ever created to combat AIDS, was being formed. GHMC would change how the world reacted to HIV/AIDS. The effort to create GMHC was led by Larry Kramer, who I was lucky to meet shortly after I moved to New York in 1980. From providing me with the names of gay doctors familiar with AIDS so I could seek treatment myself, to offering counsel when my boyfriend Scott came down with Kaposi’s sarcoma, Larry and GMHC were there for me. After I reached out to thank him for his historic “Essay 1,112 and Counting” published in March of 1983 in the New York Native, Larry suggested I start attending “The AIDS Network” meetings in which a number of GMHC members participated. When I called Larry to tell him that Scott had died on an airplane on his way home to visit his mother, he told me, “Go to GMHC’s partner bereavement program, you’ll be with other guys who have lost their partners, or close friends or family members of people who died of AIDS. They will know what you’re going through. It will help. And when the bereavement group is done there are support groups and counseling sessions.” At that dark time, GMHC was a beacon of hope for me. It was a beacon of hope for so many people living with AIDS, living with partners and close friends with the illness, of gay or bi-sexual men who were afraid and facing discrimination and stigma --- being fired from their jobs, evicted from their apartments, or denied access to services like health insurance or government support. Unlike what we faced at every turn, at GMHC I was treated with human dignity. GMHC’s hotline, numerous education and testing programs, volunteers, buddy programs and support groups and meals program and mental health services --- not to mention their work in public policy --- helped me and an immeasurable number of my friends with whom I shared Larry’s advice to me: CALL GMHC. Attending GMHC’s Bereavement Group restored my will to live. When I lost Scott I became deeply depressed, and didn’t think I could continue to live without him. The support I found at GMHC helped save my life. When I was back on my feet in March of 1987, I reached out to Larry wanting to get involved using my housing development skills to create housing for the growing number of people with AIDS who were homeless or becoming homeless because of AIDS. I was now renovating my second abandoned brownstone in Harlem and 5 of the seven people living with me in my first building had AIDS. This time Larry asked me to attend what became his famous speech at the LGBT Center, to be an ally in the audience --- to stand up and volunteer to help organize the first civil disobedience demonstration and to encourage others to join his efforts to create an AIDS protest movement. Attending Larry’s historic speech that month changed my life. I joined Larry and others to create what became ACT UP, an activist movement to fight for an effective societal response to AIDS and for treatments to save lives. It gave me a vehicle to channel my grief (from losing Scott) and my rage (at society, drug companies and our government that did nothing to try to save Scott’s life) - into action for social change. While AIDS has changed a great deal since the early 1980’s with the advent of effective medications that make HIV a manageable chronic disease, GMHC is still here – continuing to save lives every day. GMHC still operates that hotline, still provides counseling and testing for HIV, sexually transmitted illnesses, Hep B and Hep C and links people who test positive to treatment. GMHC is still providing food security through a pantry and a hot meals program, advocacy for access to the public safety net, coordinating care, providing legal services, and now provides supportive housing and services to transgendered and gender fluid individuals. In addition, GMHC runs a a mental health clinic, is opening a substance use clinic, and operates a long term survivor’s hub. We advocate for human rights, legal protections, adequate funding for services and access to healthcare through the Public Affairs and Policy Department – of which I am the current Vice President.

A new Paris brothel featuring sex dolls should be shut down because the lifeless, life-sized silicone partners habituate men to degrade women and fuel rape fantasies, say French feminists. Owner Joaquin Lousquy, 28, opened the business last month in an apartment in a “discreet” building in a neighborhood in the heart of the city, Paris Match reported. It features three bedrooms for sex (the “Xdolls” are spray-cleaned and “disinfected” in another room) and a choice among three very expensive sex dolls made in China (Lily, Sofia and Kim). Bookings are made online. Clients have an Xdoll all to themselves for $110 an hour but can pay less for less time. Lousquy said most visitors are “clean” executive-type men ages 30 to 50, and some couples. The brothel is currently registered as a“game center” to dodge French restrictions. It’s illegal to own or operate a brothel. But some feminists and Communists in the local Paris Council are blasting the operation as degrading to women. They worry that abusive experiences with sex dolls may carry over into relationships with real women. Lorraine Questiaux of the feminist group Mouvement du Nid (Nest Movement) called the brothel a “place that makes money from simulating the rape of a woman,” The Telegraph reported. Pierre Laurent, the national secretary of the Communist Party, complained that some sex dolls can evoke thoughts of sex with children. Lousquy doesn’t believe the brothel degrades women. He says the dolls are “sex toys,” not stand-in women. But he told Paris Match that the experience is “100 percent” about the client, with absolutely no need to ever worry about the pleasure (or pain) of a partner. Men are encouraged to give free rein to their fantasies. The “experience is incomparable,” Lousquy told Paris Match. The Paris Council plans to debate the future of the business this week.

Maybe that’s why Chewie’s fur is so big: It’s full of secrets about Han Solo. Last month, Disney CEO Bob Iger raised eyebrows in a University of Southern California lecture hall when he said an upcoming “Star Wars” movie focusing on a young Han Solo would reveal “how he got his name.” The suggestion that Harrison Ford’s beloved smuggler was perhaps not born “Han Solo,” but acquired it as a nickname through unknown circumstances, caused mass confusion. Thankfully, another studio insider has stepped in to clarify the comment. “I’m not sure that’s entirely what Bob meant,” Kathleen Kennedy, a producer on the much-anticipated “Star Wars: The Last Jedi,” told MTV News on Monday. “There’s more to Han Solo’s name, but it’s not that it’s not his name. It’s obviously his name. It will always be his name.” To recap: Han Solo is Han Solo. But he’s more than just Han Solo. Got it? The yet-untitled “Star Wars” film will reveal the character’s past, following him from age 18 through 24 with Alden Ehrenreich (”Hail, Caesar!”) in the title role. All-stars Emilia Clarke, Thandie Newton, Woody Harrelson, Donald Glover and Phoebe Waller-Bridge round out the cast. “There are a few significant things that happen in Han Solo’s life,” Iger explained last month, “like acquiring a certain vehicle and meeting a certain Wookiee that will happen in this film.”

Mayor Jim Gray charted a deliberate course when deciding how to remove two Confederate monuments that stand in front of the historic downtown courthouse of Lexington, Kentucky. The white supremacist groups came to Charlottesville in part because the city had changed the name of a park that honored Confederate commander Robert E. Lee. “We’ve been examining the question for almost two years,” Gray told HuffPost on Monday. “Some would say that’s way too long. I would say that change is better accepted when it’s understood. It’s not unexpected that you’d have pushback and challenge and different points of view on this. We’ve given it time for understanding, and th erefore, there’s a better chance for acceptance of the path forward.” Lexington, like Charlottesville, is a genteel southern university town with a progressive tilt that sets it apart from the more conservative areas around it. Unlike Virginia, Kentucky did not leave the Union during the Civil War, but it was a slave state that sent thousands of soldiers to fight for the South, and Confederate imagery is not an uncommon sight there. Confederate monuments dot the state’s landscape, at least seven high schools still use “Rebels” as their mascot, and Kentucky is home to nearly 20 groups affiliated with the Ku Klux Klan or other white nationalist organizations, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. But so far, most responses to Gray’s announcement have been positive, he said, even if some local residents disagree with the plan. The Lexington Police Department, meanwhile, is not aware of any potential organized protests or actions from white supremacist or similar groups, said Brenna Angel, a spokeswoman for the department. Police are monitoring such groups online, and the department has begun to examine the way police handled the rallies and counter-protests in Charlottesville, Angel said. She said the police have also been in contact with groups who support Gray’s effort, and plan to keep communicating with them throughout the process of moving the monuments in an effort to ensure that potential counter-demonstrations would remain peaceful. Bill Pugliano via Getty Images Lexington Mayor Jim Gray wants the statue of John C. Breckinridge, a former U.S. vice president and Confederate war secretary, removed from outside the city's historic courthouse. Even if Gray’s plans were to evince a stronger reaction ― if white nationalists or neo-Nazis descend on the city as they did in Charlottesville, and have in multiple other cities ― those opposed to the monuments’ removal shouldn’t expect their resistance to work, said Steve Kay, Lexington’s vice mayor and a member of the city council. “The fact that there might be some kind of reaction is, in my mind, no reason not to go forward with something that is right for our community,” Kay said. “If people from the outside or locals feel they need to protest or counter-protest, we need to be ready to handle that. But the last thing in the world we want to do is to be intimidated. That’s exactly the wrong thing to do, is to back off from what’s right because some people threaten violence.” Gray and Lexington’s city council began exploring the removal of the two Confederate statues that sit outside the historic courthouse in 2015, when a grassroots group known as Take Back Cheapside began pushing the city to remove them from the courthouse location. The monuments honor two Lexington natives: John C. Breckinridge, the 14th vice president of the United States who later became the Confederate secretary of war; and John Hunt Morgan, a general who led Confederate troops in raids across Kentucky, Indiana and Ohio before a Union soldier killed him in battle in 1864. The statues’ location is a major reason why Gray and other city officials feel they need to be removed. The Cheapside area, where the old courthouse is located, was once the site of Lexington’s slave auctions, where thousands of slaves were bought and sold while others were held in prison pens nearby as they awaited sale to locations deeper in the South. “The Cheapside location, when you think about it clearly, there’s really no other choice,” Gray said. “We have two Confederate statues that are standing on really sacred ground. These men fought to preserve slavery and today they’re honored on the very ground where men and women and children were sold into slavery. That just isn’t right.” Councilwoman Angela Evans, one of three black members of Lexington’s city council, said that the statues’ presence in Cheapside has made the area “a sore spot and a place of pain for the African-American community.” “I’m certainly happy to see that it is now being recognized for what it is, and what it means to a large part of Lexington,” Evans said. These men fought to preserve slavery and today they’re honored on the very ground where men and women and children were sold into slavery. That just isn’t right. Lexington Mayor Jim Gray Gray on Tuesday will formally submit a proposal to the city council to remove the Confederate monuments. The council must first vote to accept the proposal before it would hold a final vote later in the week on whether to approve it. Council approval would forward the proposal to the Kentucky Military Heritage Commission, which would also have to approve the measure in order for the city to relocate the statues from their current site. Even if the Heritage Commission approves the petition, the statues won’t disappear from the city: the current plan would move them to a park in Lexington’s suburbs, where there are other military monuments, and where they would be joined by two statues honoring Union soldiers. That plan, Gray said, is the result of the city’s lack of total control over the monuments and their location. The commission would not approve a move unless the city found a new location for them, he said. Kay, Evans and Councilman Jake Gibbs, who represents the area where the statues are located, all support the plan to remove the monuments, and all three said that while they had not discussed Gray’s proposal with their fellow members, they expected it would win the eight votes needed to pass. (They were the only three members who responded to HuffPost’s general inquiry to the council.) “I’ve had interesting conversations with people who think we should respect the past and not tinker with it,” said Gibbs, who also teaches history at Bluegrass Community and Technical College in Lexington. “I respectfully disagree with them.” Bill Pugliano via Getty Images Gray also hopes to remove a statue of Confederate Gen. John Hunt Morgan. The statues, Gibbs noted, were put in place shortly after the Civil War, amid efforts to derail Reconstruction and prevent the full enfranchisement of newly-freed African-Americans. “Statues like these in Lexington and all over the South started popping up around this time,” Gibbs said. “They were statements that white supremacy was back.” Groups promoting white supremacy and similar ideas have been on the rise in recent years, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. Richard Spencer, the white supremacist leader who has organized rallies across the country, said Monday that his group and others will return to Charlottesville for more demonstrations, and said they could venture to other cities as well. No matter what opposition he may face, however, Gray said that the last few days have only bolstered his resolve. “What the events in Charlottesville did was confirm that this was the right thing to do,” he said.

We Still Have A Long Way To Go Fifty-four years ago this month, on August 28th, 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. gave his "I Have A Dream" speech. Two hundred and fifty thousand civil rights activists had gathered at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington to hear it. He said, "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." Five decades later as we watch the tragic events unfold in Charlottesville we wonder, "What can we do?" We can use our voices where we live. We can speak up if we see inequality or racism. We can teach our children that everyone is equal, no matter their race, skin color, sexual orientation, religion, weight, education or bank account. We can work to never be bystanders. We can live by the mantra that love conquers hate. That we are more alike than different. One hundred years before Martin Luther King's speech, in 1863, President Abraham Lincoln gave the Gettysburg address. Lincoln said, "Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." We still have a long way to go. But we have the power to raise our voices each day. To do what is right. To do what is good. To always lead with love. To never give up on the dream.

Last month, thousands of medical students donned their white coats as they took their first steps into hospitals nationwide to begin clinical rotations. This marks an important transition from the classroom into an actual inpatient setting to demonstrate the knowledge they’ve accumulated over the past two years. For most students, this means pretending to hear and correctly identify heart and breath sounds while agreeing with whatever the attending says. During my brief time on the floors, I’ve not only learned a great deal of medically relevant information, but also things that weren’t advertised to me when I was a student. 1. Nurses go criminally underappreciated Despite all the chaos that goes on in the hospital, nurses are continually monitoring and managing their patients around the clock. They are truly the worker bees of the hospital, fulfilling endless orders from the residents and attendings. Just last week, I observed a nurse clean up an elderly patient without hesitation after they defecated and urinated on the floor to show their displeasure with the hospital. Medicine is a team sport and the nurses are integral members. 2. Nothing makes us feel more guilty than waking a patient up from a deep sleep I’ve had to deal with my fair share of Jewish guilt growing up, but never have I felt worse than when I am tasked with finding out something inconsequential like if my patient has any allergies to squid tentacles while they’re passed out. My options are risk disappointing my superiors or get looks of “really, idiot?” from my patients after waking them. Since my superiors write my evaluations that determine the rest of my future, I just have to find a way to deal with the incessant guilt. 3. A great deal of hospitalizations are preventable Only being in the hospital for a short time, I was surprised to see how many admissions are due to medication non-compliance or bad habits that patients refuse to give up. Smoking and obesity are rampant in this country and drive up the cost of healthcare. I recently listened to a very inspiring speech about smoking cessation my attending gave to a lifetime smoker after he got admitted for a heart attack to which the patient wholeheartedly agreed with while walking outside to go smoke again. 4. The lower the education level of the doctor, the more attention the patient gets Depending on the hospital, an attending oversees about 30 patients, while a resident oversees about 20 patients, while an intern oversees about 10 patients, while a medical student oversees about 1-2 patients. Although patients are weary of interacting with medical students, the truth is we have the most time to spend with and really care for them. 5. Doctors have awful handwriting All the stereotypes about physicians having the worst handwriting are absolutely true. I’m tasked daily with trying to decipher what chicken scratch a consult wrote from the day prior for a patient I need to present. Hospitals are beginning to transfer over to electronic health records which is crucial in preventing medical errors through potential miscommunication. 6. Nobody knows how to correctly pronounce medication names My favorite part of the day is morning rounds when residents and medical students including myself present patients to the attending while quickly mumbling over difficult medication names in hopes they don’t ask us to repeat it. Usually just saying the last syllable suffices as long as the dose makes sense. Needless to say, the pharmacy department hates us. 7. Free food creates chaos Like clockwork, the hospital supplies the medical staff with lunch after 12pm conference every day. The second the conference ends, everybody pushes and shoves through the auditorium doors to get to the tables the food rests on. It’s at this point where everyone forgets how to form lines and a bunch of hands reach towards the plates like zombies rising from the ground. The stragglers are left with scraps and empty stomachs. Survival of the fittest. 8. There are too many medical abbreviations Since hospitals are so busy, there’s an abbreviation for just about everything medical these days. On one of my first days while trying to interpret someone’s emergency room admission note, the physician detailed the patient with having ‘AMS’, something I’ve never heard of before. With the help of Google, I quickly learned it stood for Atypical Measles Syndrome which I presented to my attending. Luckily, someone far more intelligent quickly corrected me that it meant Altered Mental Status. Bottom line: there are too many abbreviations that cause confusion, especially for fools like me. 9. Medical documentation takes up most of the day In this day and age where everything needs to be documented, writing medical progress notes, consults, and orders takes up most of a physician’s time. Unfortunately, this leads to less time with the patient and more time in front of the computer. I’m not sure if there’s a good solution to this problem, but something has got to change in the future. 10. Pursuing a medical career is worth it

There IS something in a name. It says a lot, speaks for itself you might say. And so when we first found out we were having a girl-after the initial incredible excitement, my first thought was- what will we name her? It didn't take long. I have always loved the name Grace. Classic. Elegant. Understated-yet important. One syllable (important to a former 1st grade teacher). Beautiful-think Grace Kelly. The name gained a whole new significance after December 14th, when my solace was found in the lyrics of Amazing Grace. There were days all I could bring myself to do-was to hum the song. The words gave me such hope, in a time of such deep despair. I hung tight to the refrain ‘I once was lost, but now am found, was blind, but now I see.’ I believed that I could be found, saved, that I would see the joy in life again. The lyrics became a promise I so desperately needed to come true. And so, Grace, became her name. But I knew it wasn’t complete. I knew it was important to include more in her name. Specifically, to honor those who have gone before us, especially those who have passed-whom we have loved, looked up to…3 individuals to be exact. Lynn, my husbands’ Mom, who I never had the privilege of meeting, as she passed away before I met Nick. However, I always say, that I know how incredible she was, because of the man she raised. I knew my daughter needed a piece of her Grandma Lynn, with her always, so that she could feel that connection of knowing her-even though she only will through stories and memories shared. But most of all because they now share a name. Likewise, my Grandparents’ Easton played a pivotal role in my childhood. I spent almost every weekend at their home. They taught me so many crucial life lessons, and although my daughter will never know them-she will carry a piece of them in her name. And so, 3 incredible people, who shaped both mine and my husband’s lives in such profound ways, are now a part of our daughter’s, inextricably-forever.

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I believe that, when the history of the debacle that is the Donald Trump presidency is written, we may finally learn of the true role played by the U.S. Intelligence Community in helping to contain and finally derail the train wreck that is his administration. In my estimation, Trump was already a marked man when he took his oath of office. A year and a half earlier, he had denounced Sen. John McCain, saying he was not a war hero because he had been a prisoner of war. Later, he insulted a Gold Star family whose son had died in combat, saying they didn’t deserve his respect because “they sacrificed nothing.” These remarkably disrespectful and unpatriotic comments must have been offensive to the tens of thousands of men and women who risk their lives every day – and sometimes lose it – in the service of their country. These people –unsung American heroes –expect, in the very least, that their country’s leaders would always recognize and honor them for their acts of valor. Trump’s words were the ultimate affront. His comments must have been especially galling because he himself had notoriously avoided military service by claiming five deferments, four for college and one for bad feet. Building a Wall When Trump compared the U.S. Intelligence agencies to Nazi Germany, falsely accusing them of leaking a scandalous dossier on him to the media, the agencies must have started making phone calls to one other. In the days following his inauguration, they set their plans in motion after a speech he gave before the CIA’s sacred Memorial Wall that commemorated 117 members killed in the line of duty. Rather than acknowledging their comrades’ ultimate sacrifices, Trump praised himself and bragged about the size of his inauguration crowd, never once apologizing for having insulted all of the men and women standing before him, who had sacrificed and even died for their country. A disgusted CIA Director, John Brennan, who had resigned days earlier after Obama left office, called the speech, a “despicable display of self-aggrandizement in front of CIA’s Memorial Wall of Agency heroes.” But Trump continued to insult at every turn, openly questioning the competency of the Intelligence Community over their reports of Russian meddling in the U.S. 2016 Presidential election. He fired and subsequently insulted their former leader, FBI Director James Comey, calling him a “nut job” to the very people who were confirmed enemies of America: Russian officials who were suspected spies. Worse, he did it in the Oval Office, where he also clumsily revealed highly sensitive military secrets, endangering the United States and its allies – and he had a good laugh over it with them. ‘Un-Presidented’ This is why, I believe, John Kelly came into the Oval Office as White House Chief of Staff, and has been extremely successful in curtailing the dangerous comedy of errors that is internal affairs within Trump’s inner circle. Kelly had a conversation with Trump, laying out in clear terms the new rules: “Say whatever you want in public, puff out your chest all your want, but we’re running the show now behind the scene.” Or else. This is why, I believe, Trump cannot fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller as he doggedly investigates Trump’s possible collusion with Russia and his possible obstruction of justice in firing Comey. Mueller has repeated crossed the red line – Trump’s private business practices – that Trump has warned him against crossing, and has suffered no consequences for it. Leaders of the Pack World leaders have also been briefed. They are all now working behind the scene with U.S. officials. They confidently ignore and even mock Trump, whenever he tweets, knowing that the U.S. Intelligence Community has their backs and will prevent him from following through on any potentially detrimental threat. Kim Jong-un was on-target when he called Trump’s bombastic utterances and tweets the bark of “a frightened dog.”