Here’s your week in review, in haiku
1.
A child is tased in
hard time Cincinnati: you
wonder why he kneels?
2.
Anonymous speaks,
Spartacus leaks, Dorsey peaks,
and Kavanaugh squeaks.
3.
He’s making a list,
checking it twice. “Look loyal,
people. He’s coming!”
4.
A mystery no
more! We finally know what
Elon was smoking
5.
Of twenty-seven
amendments, only one is
truly a lodestar
Have an inspirational weekend!
On Point
| Medical school struggles with bias in honor society nominations |
| The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City recently halted student nominations to the prestigious honor society Alpha Omega Alpha, because it has determined that the selection process is biased and discriminates against students of color. A student-led protest revealed the disproportionately low number of students of color nominated by Icahn in the past; its findings were supported by a 2017 study in JAMA Internal Medicine showing that black and Asian students were less likely than their white counterparts to be selected by schools across the country. Entrance into AOA gives a significant advantage to students, but part of the criteria considered reflect leadership potential and other things that lend themselves to bias. Other schools are re-thinking their own nomination processes. "Systems we use [for student evaluation] fail to take into account the extra work minorities are doing," Dr. Catherine Lucey, vice dean for education at University of California at San Francisco, tells NPR. |
| NPR |
| The two words that launched a revolution in Hollywood |
| “Inclusion rider.” When actor Frances McDormand uttered those words at the Academy Awards last March, the concept of a structural commitment to inclusion, in this case a contract that commits a producer to hire a diverse cast and crew, seemed to wake up the industry. The latest studio to embrace the idea is WarnerMedia, committing to diversity in hiring and promising an annual report on its success. The first project to fall under the new policy is Just Mercy, starring Michael B. Jordan and produced by his company. “Inclusivity has always been a no-brainer for me, especially as a black man in this business,” said Jordan. “It wasn’t until Frances McDormand spoke the two words that set the industry on fire — inclusion rider — that I realized we could standardize this practice.” WarnerMedia companies include Warner Bros., HBO and Turner – click through for their entire statement. |
| Hollywood Reporter |
| A school principal is cleaning up bullying |
| When Akbar Cook, the principal of West Side High School in Newark, N.J., realized that kids were staying home from school because they were being bullied for their dirty clothes, he installed a free laundromat in the school. Some kids had been taunted on social media for looking dirty or smelling bad; another student who lived in a shelter was unwilling to let her bags be searched because she was ashamed that she needed to bring her clothes to school. For students whose parents don’t have access to a washing machine, it’s been a true gift. The machines came from a grant from a local utility, and the community donates detergent and dryer sheets. It’s hard to be poor. |
| Dearly.com |
The Woke Leader
| The truth about opioid addiction |
| He’d gone to treatment. He lived in a supportive, sober living environment. He had a family who loved him. He worked. He had things in his life he enjoyed. And yet, Scott Sternberg could not beat opioid addiction. Bill Sternberg, the editor of the USAToday editorial page, lays his heart and the facts out in this wrenching piece about losing his son to an overdose. “Addiction is cruel. As one therapist put it to us, it hijacks your brain,” he writes. But the information and resources for families and addicted people are equally cruel. Hitting bottom is not the answer, he says, and medication-assisted recovery programs may be helpful but there are no guarantees. And, he says, our addiction treatment practices are a national disgrace. “There are no easy ways for people to navigate the system and get reliable, consumer-friendly information about specific programs and providers,” which means that the field is rife with scammers and well-meaning but unqualified people. A must read and share. |
| USA Today |
| On an augmented Charlottesville and a community that plays together |
| This is a beautiful essay that manages to weave together wildly disparate elements into a poignant thread: The unresolved pain of slavery, the unique violence of the current moment, and augmented reality. Cassius Adair is a writer and radio producer living in Charlottesville, Va., and has much to say about the death of Heather Heyer and the counter-protest that still haunts his city and his dreams. But he is also part of the Pokémon Go community, and notes with mixed feelings how the digital landscape provided by the game does a better job identifying important markers while making other ones, like Lost Cause Confederate statutes, shrink to their proper size in history. “I am ashamed to play Pokémon Go at an Unmarked Slave Graveyard, and I am also ashamed that without Pokémon Go, I may never have known that there is this small memorial in my neighborhood,” he writes. |
| Nursing Clio |
| Who was William Shockley? |
| William Shockley is a Silicon Valley legend. He won the 1956 Nobel Prize for his groundbreaking work on the transistor. His employees went on to found Fairchild Semiconductors, which ultimately begat Intel, and venture giants Kleiner Perkins and Sequoia Capital. But he was also a virulent racist, who believed that the races varied by intelligence and strongly advocated for the voluntary sterilization of black people, people with low IQ, and potential addicts. He also argued that the welfare state was allowing the worst human traits to be passed on. But you wouldn’t know any of this if you attended the recent dedication of the site of the former Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory, long considered the birthplace of Silicon Valley. The very minor squabble about how to present his legacy went largely unnoticed. Nothing in the elaborate memorial, which includes an electronic kiosk filled with information, mentions it. “He was racist and I want to forget about that,” said one long-time semiconductor engineer told KQED. "That's not what we're here to celebrate." If you’ve got the time and stomach for it, check out his 1974 interview on Firing Line with William Buckley here. |
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