Your week in review, in haiku.
1.
Twenty-two years, two
kids, twenty shots, one cell phone.
#StephonClarkLastOne
2.
Trash a man’s grades, he’ll
slap your wallet out your hands:
Shut up and dribble.
3.
You better have their
money, Howard. No, Tyrone:
you can’t use their loan.
4.
Survivor.gov:
When you don’t get fired on
the john or Twitter.
5.
What back tattoo should
R. Kelly get so we can
cancel him for good?
Have a Good and Happy weekend. Love to all who celebrate.
On Point
| Ted Lieu: The military transgender ban is “transphobia masked as policy” |
| Rep. Lieu (D-CA) has written a strongly worded op-ed saying that the Trump administration’s ban on transgender troops is as disgraceful as it is unconstitutional. Lieu, an immigrant and former active duty officer in the U.S. Air Force and current Colonel in the Reserves, says that it’s unconscionable to prevent people from serving. “Like so many others, my military career was anchored by a calling to give back to a country that had given me so much,” he says. There is no credible evidence for the ban and no discernible justification for it. “There is zero evidence that a transgender sniper is any less accurate or a transgender missile launch officer is any less reliable than someone who is not transgender.” |
| Fortune |
| Los chicos del verano no les gusta tu presidente |
| Last year, a record 31% of professional baseball players and 50% of minor leaguers were Latino immigrants. But this year, tensions are brewing in the dugout, as players express concerns about President Trump’s anti-immigration policies. “We are conscious of everything happening, and the situation this country is currently in. It is regrettable,” Venezuelan-born minor Leaguer Willians Astudillo tells The Guardian. Baseball has played a role in racial reconciliation in the past, and some owners worry that their attempts to welcome their increasingly diverse fans will become untenable. But other owners who vocally support the president, are risking alienating some of their most promising players and their fans. |
| The Guardian |
| Black Stoneman Douglas students held a press conference yesterday |
| The students said they felt overlooked and underrepresented by both the media and their fellow students, and took the opportunity to explain how the gun control conversation needed to include their specific concerns about an increased police presence at their school. Gun violence and the police were very real fears for them, they said, and they are already deeply traumatized. “It’s bad enough we have to return with clear backpacks,” said 17-year-old Kai Koerber. “Should we also return with our hands up?” According to the Miami Herald, 11% of the Stoneman Douglas students are black. |
| Miami Herald |
The Woke Leader
| How Accenture found the courage to host public forums on difficult conversations |
| Bringing “our full selves to work,” often requires having difficult conversations about hot-button topics, like race, religion, harassment, etc. But how can you make trust and candor scale? For inspiration, check out this installment of Adam Grant’s WorkLife podcast about building trust. It starts in outer space, but ends up back on earth with Accenture IT manager Darnell Thompson talking about how a Facebook post expressing his anguish over police violence and his fears for his infant son encouraged the company's human resources chief, Ellyn Shook, to reach out. The end result is a now-regular series of company-wide conversations tackling race and other topics called Building Bridges that’s transformed the culture. While the podcast (the first of two installments) offers an excellent blueprint, the true beauty of this story lies in the courage of two workplace friends, one with serious position power, and their willingness to make love a corporate value. Enjoy, then share it with your own fearless leader. |
| WorkLife podcast |
| Trump-loving Roseanne gets record ratings, but Roxane Gay won't be back |
| Writer Roxane Gay analyzes the cognitive dissonance around the recently resurrected Roseanne, a television show which was once groundbreaking and refreshing, but in her view, fails to hit the mark. Partly, it’s Roseanne herself. “Where once she was edgy and provocative, she is now absurd and offensive,” writes Gay. And while the political tensions in the show mirror those in the country at large, it’s the myth-making about Trump supporters that pose the bigger problem. “When a lot of the mainstream media talks about the working class, there is a tendency to romanticize, to idealize them as the most authentic Americans,” she writes. Except these days, the working class don’t look or live like the Connors, and they voted in large measure for the Democratic candidate. Come for the thoughtful analysis on the power and dangers of pop culture, stay for the receipts. |
| New York Times |
| In the footsteps of Vincent Van Gogh on his 165th birthday |
| Follow along as columnist, commentator and newsroom adviser Heidi N. Moore shares her quest to better understand Vincent by visiting the places he painted. Her first stop was the little church in Auvers-sur-Oise, where she discovered, quite by chance, that she could recreate some of the vibrancy of the painting if she edited her photos to be more saturated with color. “Then it *did* replicate Van Gogh’s painting almost eerily," she tweets. “Van Gogh saw the world in maximum color saturation.” As she continued her journey, she mused on his life, his genius and his struggles with mental health, and how his work was a desperate fight to ward off his demons. “The most important thing to get across is that the color saturation and joy of Van Gogh’s paintings belied how often depressed and angry and tormented he was,” she says. “And he poured all this paint…into fighting that darkness and turning it into paintings with force and color and joy, reflecting a world almost too intense to withstand.” Enjoy the walkabout, and keep fighting the good fight, everybody. |
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