A SONG LED THEM HOME

https://www.harrisnecklandtrust.org/amelia-s-song

In 1933 African American linguist Lorenzo Turner and musicologist Lydia Parish visited Harris Neck and recorded 53-year-old Amelia Dawley singing a song that had been taught to her by her mother.  The song, in a language unknown to Mrs. Dawley, had been passed down in her family from mother to daughter as far back as anyone in Harris Neck could remember.

 

In 1997 Amelia’s daughter, Mary Moran, and other members of the Moran family were invited to Sierra Leone, West Africa, where they were welcomed in Freetown by Sierra Leone’s President and then flown by helicopter to the country’s interior.  There, in the small village of Senehun Ngola, Mary and Bendu Jabati met and sang this song together for the first time.  Years earlier, Bendu’s grandmother had told her that this song, which had been passed down in her village from mother to daughter for centuries, would one day reunite her to long-lost relatives.

 

Through a series of amazing and perhaps miraculous events – and lots of hard work – beginning in the late 1980s, anthropologist  Joseph Opala first rediscovered this song and then, with the help of musicologist Cynthia Schmidt and others, traced the song from Senehun Ngola to Harris Neck.  

The Resentment Fueling the Republican Party Is Not Coming From the Suburbs

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/25/opinion/rural-voters-republican-realignment.html

Urban-rural “apartheid” further reinforces ideological and affective polarization. The geographic separation of Republicans and Democrats makes partisan crosscutting experiences at work, in friendships, in community gatherings, at school or in local government — all key to reducing polarization — increasingly unlikely to occur.

Geographic barriers between Republicans and Democrats — of those holding traditional values and those choosing to reject or reinterpret those values — reinforce what scholars now call the calcification of difference. As conflict and hostility become embedded in the structure of where people live, the likelihood increases of seeing adversaries as less than fully human. 

The First Interview with the Panama Papers Whistleblower

https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/the-first-interview-with-the-panama-papers-whistleblower-the-russian-government-wants-to-see-me-dead-a-9f830d70-297a-472a-b0cc-9632ff2f514a

DER SPIEGEL: What kind of instability do you mean?

Doe: The rise of fascism and authoritarianism globally, from China to Russia to Brazil to the Philippines, but especially now in the United States. America has made some terrible blunders in its history, but it has served as a balancing force against the absolute worst regimes when needed most. That balance has functionally ceased to exist.

DER SPIEGEL: Tax havens seem to be of crucial importance for strongmen in autocratic regimes.

Doe: Putin is more of a threat to the United States than Hitler ever was, and shell companies are his best friend. Shell companies funding the Russian military are what kill innocent civilians in Ukraine as Putin's missiles target shopping centers. Shell companies masking Chinese conglomerates are what kill underage cobalt miners in the Congo. Shell companies make these horrors and more possible by removing accountability from society. But without accountability, society cannot function.

The Problem with Polling Might Be Unfixable

https://www.richardhanania.com/p/the-problem-with-polling-might-be

But what if the problem is that Republican voters are the type of people that don’t talk to pollsters? And the few Republicans that do talk to them are unrepresentative of the party itself? If this were the case, then there would be no clear fix. A recent paper by Vanderbilt University professor Joshua Clinton and two colleagues called “Reluctant Republicans, Eager Democrats? Partisan Nonresponse and the Accuracy of 2020 Presidential Pre-Election Telephone Polls” indicates that this is exactly what is happening.

The authors looked at 12 competitive states in the 2020 election. Telephone surveys as part of the National Exit Poll by Edison Research were conducted between October 19 and November 1, 2020. In some states, those making the phone calls had access to the party registration of the people they were trying to reach, while in others potential respondents were given an imputed partisan lean based on demographic characteristics. Republicans were 3.2 points less likely than Democrats to cooperate with pollsters, and Independents were even more non-responsive. 

The Soldiers I Remember

https://www.thefp.com/p/hr-mcmaster-the-soldiers-i-remember

In World War II, America lost 291,557 military lives in combat. But, as Pulitzer Prize–winning author Rick Atkinson wrote, “each death is as unique as a snowflake or a fingerprint. The most critical lesson for every American is to understand, viscerally, that this vast host died one by one by one; to understand in your bones that they died for you.” 

Perhaps back then, it was easier for more Americans to feel that reality in their bones. These days, with a relatively small all-volunteer force, the American people are more distant from those who fight in their name.

Combat veterans suppress dreadful memories of battles, but never forget their comrades who fell alongside them one by one. Their countenances, often smiling or laughing, flash before our mind’s eye. I see them unexpectedly. Sometimes they come in waves.  

How to Raise $89 Million in Small Donations, and Make It Disappear

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/05/14/us/politics/scam-robocalls-donations-policing-veterans.html

A group of conservative operatives using sophisticated robocalls raised millions of dollars from donors using pro-police and pro-veteran messages. But instead of using the money to promote issues and candidates, an analysis by The New York Times shows, nearly all the money went to pay the firms making the calls and the operatives themselves, highlighting a flaw in the regulation of political nonprofits.

Federal inquiry details abuses of power by Trump's CEO over Voice of America

https://www.npr.org/2023/05/21/1177208862/usagm-michael-pack-voa-voice-of-america-investigation-trump-abuse-of-power

The 145-page report independently corroborates many of the whistleblower complaints. It also lends new weight and depth to earlier reporting by NPR, inquiries by a U.S. inspector general and rulings by a federal judge and a local District of Columbia judge.

Taken together, they depict Pack's brief tenure as an ideologically driven rampage through a government agency to try to force its newsrooms and workforce to show fealty to the White House.

Pack punished executives who objected to the legality of his plans, interfered in the journalistic independence of the newsrooms under his agency, and personally signed a no-bid contract with a private law firm to investigate those employees he saw as opposed to former President Donald Trump. The law firm's fees reached the seven figures for work typically done by attorneys who are federal employees. 

Ecosystem Success Metrics

https://developer.squareup.com/blog/ecosystem-success-metrics/

For each individual product, there are focused success metrics to prioritize for different product milestones (e.g. free trial starts, first revenue event, etc).

However, for shared spaces such as our public web page (squareup.com), our general web signup flow, and our internal seller dashboard, we often have to make decisions that involve a tradeoff between different products. For example, during onboarding, we can suggest certain products over others, so the question becomes: how do we prioritize them? What is our criteria for making tough decisions between products? How do we measure the impact of a specific change to the overall ecosystem? Our strategy is to get the right fit for sellers - but there are many different ways to measure this with different pros and cons. Let's take a look at some possible ecosystem success metric approaches:

u/toketsupuurin on trauma baggage

https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/12q9mfs/oop_is_asked_out_by_a_girl_who_used_to_bully_him/jgpr5iv/?context=3

Getting past baggage can be both impossible and stupidly easy all at the same time.

The thing about trauma baggage is that you carry it around partly as a coping mechanism. You brain says "no! You can't let this happen again! You have to remember! You have to do these things! You have to be safe!"

As you work through the healing process you start to unpack those bags and they get lighter and lighter. But you have to deal with them every day and the change is so slow that you don't notice. You just keep thinking "these bags are so heavy and they make me miserable. I hate carrying them."

Eventually you hit a point where the bags are unpacked. Everything has been handled. You are, effectively healed. You have scars, true, but you're recovered. The problem is that by this point carrying those bags is a habit. Your brain thinks you need them. You've defined yourself by these bags for so long that it feels like they're a part of you. You've defined yourself as a victim of trauma and made those bags part of your identity.

The very last step in healing is to put the bags away in the closet and recognize that you don't need to drag them around anymore. They should no longer define you, and you no longer want them to.

Some people never figure this out. They spend their entire life collecting luggage to drag around with them, because it's who they decided to be.

Some people learn to do it through therapy. They practice putting the bags down and going out for the day without them. One day they realize that they haven't picked the bags up in a month.

And some people are like OP. Something happens in their life, and they take stock of themselves. And then they see that they've been dragging around an empty bag that they no longer need. So they just set it down and abandon it.

You can't get rid of baggage until it's empty. It will absolutely crop up if you don't deal with it. But if you have actually dealt with it, it can be the easiest thing in the world to toss the empty bag. The tricky part is recognizing that it's empty and you don't need it anymore.

u/lightiggy on Benjamin Ferencz, the last surviving prosecutor from the Subsequent Nuremberg Trials

https://www.reddit.com/r/HistoryPorn/comments/12gpbsq/benjamin_ferencz_was_the_last_surviving/jflesk4/?context=1

I genuinely believe that this man is one of the greatest Americans in this entire country's dark history. He is up there with John Brown. I will not give you a summary.

Instead, I will give you Ferencz's entire life story.

Ferencz wasn’t a prosecutor at the International Military Tribunal, the trial which everyone knows about. Instead, he was a chief prosecutor at one of the Subsequent Nuremberg Trials.

The Subsequent Nuremberg Trials were a series of major war crimes trials conducted after the International Military Tribunal. There were differences between the two.

The Nuremberg Trials which people know about were conducted by an international tribunal consisting of Britain, France, the United States, and the Soviet Union. The Subsequent Nuremberg Trials were conducted exclusively by the United States.

There had been plans for more international trials, but worsening relations between the West and the East made that impossible. However, the major Allied powers agreed that they were still obligated to prosecute suspected war criminals in their respective occupation zones of Germany.

Now, some people know that many war criminals were treated leniently, ignored, or even outright protected for political or other reasons. That said, there were still hundreds of trials conducted against thousands of defendants.

The British conducted most of their minor war crimes trials in Hamburg, the French in Rastatt, the Americans on the grounds of the former Dachau concentration camp (they found that the prison bunker was convenient for housing suspects), and the Soviets in various parts of Eastern Germany.

Shortly after the international tribunal issued its verdicts, the U.S. high command established the Office of the Chief of Counsel for War Crimes (OCCWC), a war crimes investigation team. The OCCWC was instructed to prepare major war crimes trials in the American occupation zone.

The likes of Dachau Trials handled mostly concentration camp guards and soldiers who murdered POWs. Sometimes, more important war criminals were tried in those trials.

The OCCWC was different; their sole purpose was to pursue those more important war criminals. They were supposed to pursue of the more important people who'd managed to avoid prosecution in the likes of the Dachau Trials.

At the time, Ferencz was a nobody. The only thing special about him was his height.

Sunset: Hunkering down for the winter!

https://brr.fyi/posts/sunset

At exactly 90° South latitude, the sun rotates in a near-perfect counterclockwise circle around the sky. There is no difference whatsoever between “night” and “day”. On any given day, 2pm looks the same as 2am. The sun is at the same height, just in a different part of the sky.

The sun reaches its highest point in the sky, about 23.5° above the horizon, around the December Solstice (December 21).

After the sun reaches its peak, it begins to set. It’s still rotating in perfect circles around the sky; they’re just getting lower and lower each day.

The Masters Tournament At Augusta Is Leaving $269 Million On The Putting Green

https://www.forbes.com/sites/justinteitelbaum/2022/04/07/the-masters-tournament-at-augusta-is-leaving-269-million-on-the-putting-green/?sh=569a142c5eb1

Augusta has just six sponsors—AT&T, Delta, IBM, Mercedes Benz, Rolex and UPS—which split a minimalistic four minutes of commercial time per hour of event coverage. Most of the sponsorship money goes directly to Augusta’s media partners, CBS and ESPN, to cover the cost of production, with the rest going to pay to host hospitality events for VIP patrons. Given that the U.S. Open generates at least $15 million per year in sponsorship revenue, it is safe to assume that the Masters could pull in at least $20 million, thanks to its much higher TV viewership.

The Masters generates no domestic TV revenue because its agreements with CBS and ESPN allow Augusta complete control of the broadcast in exchange for no compensation. In comparison, the USGA receives $93 million per year from NBC to air the U.S. Open. Lee Berke, who runs consulting firm LHB Sports, Entertainment and Media, said that Augusta could command $100 million or more if the club were ever to fully commercialize and auction its domestic media rights.

u/GruntMarine's 9/11 poem

https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/120hmfg/me_20_years_ago_today_32403_3rd_day_of_the_iraq/jdhl899/?context=1

9/11 MASQUERADE. A poem, by me

We came from all around
Pledged allegiance with resound
And gave to Uncle Sam our rights away

A soldier corps
Built just for war
With ranks of those
Who yearned for more
Were drilled and taught to kill both night and day

We stood in line
Time after time
Were stripped of thoughts
Issued a mind
And told to hate and who to hate as well

As time went on
It wasn’t long
All childhood innocence
Was gone
We new recruits bought all that they could sell

/u/breckenridgeback on technical advances

https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/12f6oz1/eli5_if_humans_have_been_in_our_current_form_for/

There were, broadly, roughly eight major turning points in that time. Most of them didn't involve any fundamentally new idea - they just used the advancements going on in the background to make a new thing work. And since those advancements became more and more enabled by each progressive step, so too were we able to make more and more things work.

The first was language, around 60,000 to 100,000 years ago....

When My Father Got Alzheimer’s, I Had to Learn to Lie to Him

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/07/opinion/alzheimers-dementia-lying.html

When my father was declining from Alzheimer’s disease, one of the things my siblings and I used to argue about was whether to correct his confusions.

For example, my father, in his impaired state, expected his live-in aide to work for room and board and would lash out at her (and us) whenever he learned that she had been paid. My siblings tended to think that it was fine to lie to him about matters like this if it helped him (and us) get through one of his rancorous moods.

I fought against this practice as a matter of principle. As a doctor, I had seen how even well-meaning deception, such as withholding bad news, could be damaging. To me, a healthy relationship with our father, even in his debilitated state, could be based only on truth and trust. Small lies, even if told with the best of intentions, would undermine his dignity and erode what little connection we had left with him.

As it happens, the disagreement between me and my siblings mirrored a larger debate in the medical community over the past few decades about how best to treat dementia patients. Should the ethical demands of truth-telling give way to the everyday needs of dementia care? Or is telling the truth always the best way to uphold the dignity of patients and serve their mental health? 

A Good Friday funeral in Texas. Baby Halo's parents had few choices in post-Roe Texas

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/04/06/1168399423/a-good-friday-funeral-in-texas-baby-halos-parents-had-few-choices-in-post-roe-te

Her name was Halo, and she was born last week, on March 29, two months early and weighing 3 pounds. She lived for four hours, dying in the arms of her father, Luis Villasana.

Her mother, Samantha Casiano, knew their baby wouldn't survive long because she had anencephaly – part of Halo's brain and skull never developed.

Now, they can't afford to give their newborn daughter the funeral they would like to give her. 

‘He’s a war criminal’: Elite Putin security officer defects

https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/hes-war-criminal-elite-putin-security-officer-defects-98350058

LONDON -- On Oct. 14, a Russian engineer named Gleb Karakulov boarded a flight from Kazakhstan to Turkey with his wife and daughter. He switched off his phone to shut out the crescendo of urgent, enraged messages, said goodbye to his life in Russia and tried to calm his fast-beating heart.

But this was no ordinary Russian defector. Karakulov was an officer in President Vladimir Putin’s secretive elite personal security service — one of the few Russians to flee and go public who have rank, as well as knowledge of intimate details of Putin’s life and potentially classified information.

Karakulov, who was responsible for secure communications, said moral opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and his fear of dying there drove him to speak out, despite the risks to himself and his family. He said he hoped to inspire other Russians to speak out also.

“Our president has become a war criminal,” he said. “It is time to end this war and stop being silent.”

The age of average

https://www.alexmurrell.co.uk/articles/the-age-of-average

This, however, was the point. The art was not the paintings themselves, but the comment they made. We like to think that we are individuals, but we are much more alike that we wish to admit....

This article argues that from film to fashion and architecture to advertising, creative fields have become dominated and defined by convention and cliché. Distinctiveness has died. In every field we look at, we find that everything looks the same.

 

After a 1935 tragedy, a priest vowed to teach kids about menstruation

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/03/25/florida-schools-bill-menstruation-crisis-suicide-hotline-mcclain/

Nine decades ago, a 13-year-old girl’s death by suicide after getting her first period sparked an effort to educate kids about their bodies to prevent fear and confusion — a once-settled issue that new legislation in Florida is resurfacing.

That teenage girl in 1935, who had never been taught about menstruation, thought her period was a “terribly shameful, retributive disease,” says one account of the history. The fact that this British girl who believed she had a venereal disease had no one to teach her about her body, and no one to talk to, deeply impacted Chad Varah, the 23-year-old deacon who officiated her burial.

Standing over her grave, Varah, who later became a priest, promised to devote his life to battling ignorance and despair about sexual issues.

The Legacy of inBloom

https://datasociety.net/pubs/ecl/InBloom_feb_2017.pdf

Many people in the area of educational technology still discuss the story of inBloom. InBloom was an ambitious edtech initiative funded in 2011, launched in 2013, and ended in 2014. We asked ourselves why the story of inBloom is important, and conducted a year-long case study to find the answer. For some, inBloom’s story is one of contradiction: the initiative began with unprecedented scope and resources. And yet, its decline was swift and public. What caused a $100 million initiative with technical talent and political support to close in just one year? A key factor was the combination of the public’s low tolerance for risk and uncertainty and the inBloom initiative’s failure to communicate the benefits of its platform and achieve buy-in from key stakeholders. InBloom’s public failure to achieve its ambitions catalyzed discussions of student data privacy across the education ecosystem, resulting in student data privacy legislation, an industry pledge, and improved analysis of the risks and opportunities of student data use. It also surfaced the public’s low tolerance for risk and uncertainty, and the vulnerability of large-scale projects to public backlash. Any future U. S. edtech project will have to contend with the legacy of inBloom, and so this research begins to analyze exactly what that legacy is.