Author Archives

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Silence

How do you feel about cold weather?

The silence is almost unbearable. The cold, the silent snow flakes falling. Even though now spring approaches, I feel the deafening effect of the cold. It lingers even as the sun rise shifts. The moon rises earlier and earlier. I feel the shift. Sun breaks through my bedroom window earlier now. Sun sets later now. But the cold still lingers. Shed the layers of warmth I needed for months now. Not only a shift in seasons but now a paradign shift. The whole country is shifting too. Not just the seasons but also the culture. I feel a wave of acceptance and hope for the future. The haze is lifting. I can almost see my future or at least the hope of a future. The hope of one after my love, the love of my life has died and left me to figure it all out on my own. He believed in me. I believe in me. For some reason I keep waking up, morning after morning. I still have a life to live. Seasons to experience… one after another as God created. Ain’t life grand?

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Restoring voting rights for people with felony convictions can improve public safety, report finds

https://news.yahoo.com/restoring-voting-rights-for-people-with-felony-convictions-can-improve-public-safety-report-finds-214741100.html After Akeem Simms spent 11 months and his 30th birthday in a Pennsylvania correctional facility for a felony conviction for drug possession with the intent to …

“The report found that voting is a prosocial behavior that can improve public safety, by promoting and creating a positive self-identity and offering a sense of inclusion to those who have served time for a felony conviction. The research it surveyed demonstrated that restoring voting rights can lead to a reduction of contact with criminal activity. It also showed that returning citizens were 10% less likely to reoffend if they were released in automatic restoration states, as opposed to states where people convicted of felonies are permanently disenfranchised.”

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10 great songs dropped from Grateful Dead live shows

https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/10-great-songs-dropped-from-grateful-dead-live-shows/?amp=

“With Pigpen’s death came a permanent abandonment of ‘Mr. Charlie’. There were rumours that Pigpen was potentially going to work on a solo album in his later years and ‘Mr. Charlie’ would have made a great addition. Garcia lamented the fact that the band never recorded the song in 1993, saying: “I thought ‘Mr Charlie’ was a great tune. I’m sorry we never got a chance to do that one in the studio.” Tyler Goslin

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Social Security Reserves Projected to Run Out Earlier Than Expected – The Wall Street Journal.

Social Security Reserves Projected to Run Out Earlier Than Expected https://www.wsj.com/articles/social-security-reserves-projected-to-run-out-earlier-than-previously-forecast-60932de5

“Social Security won’t have enough money to pay all beneficiaries the amount they are entitled to starting in 2034, according to the latest report by the program’s trustees. Unless Congress takes action to shore up the program, beneficiaries would receive about 80% of their scheduled benefits after that point.” According to Dave Harrison WSJ

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Tenure, academic freedom, free speech

“Academic freedom cannot be a privilege of those who only espouse prevailing views but a protected right of all faculty,” the Academic Freedom Alliance wrote in July to the university’s president, M. Elizabeth Magill, arguing that the school should end the process to sanction Professor Wax.” https://nyti.ms/3Lfuxbt

But for many students, her public speech, which often mixes public policy with insulting broadsides, is the point.

Students have asked: Aren’t these statements relevant to her performance in the classroom? Don’t they show the potential for bias? And does this professor, and this speech, deserve the protection of tenure?”

These are timeless, and yet timely questions about free speech and unpopular views.

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NYTimes: The Liberal Maverick Fighting Race-Based Affirmative Action

The Liberal Maverick Fighting Race-Based Affirmative Action https://nyti.ms/3Zlrzp3

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“For the college class he teaches on inequality, Richard D. Kahlenberg likes to ask his students about a popular yard sign.

“In This House We Believe: Black Lives Matter, Women’s Rights Are Human Rights, No Human Is Illegal, Science Is Real,” it says.

His students usually dismiss the sign as performative. But what bothers Mr. Kahlenberg is not the virtue signaling.

“It says nothing about class,” he tells them. “Nothing about labor rights. Nothing about housing. Nothing that would actually cost upper-middle-class white liberals a dime.”