Here’s your week in review, in haiku
1.
Oh, to find a way
to change the wifi password!
Tweet-free Air Force One
2.
If you wanna eat
out, you gotta cut it out.
It don’t lie: Romaine
3.
Payless gets petty;
Marriott into the breach.
Deutsche: “Halte mein bier”
4.
Tick tock tick tock tick
tock tick tock tick tock tick tak
5.
No sense tryin’ to
knock Meek back, lock him in the
cell, he didn’t snap
Have a liberating and stress-free weekend.
On Point
| A controversial Trump judicial appointee is set to fail |
| South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott pulled the plug on the aspirations of Thomas Farr last night, after a contentious nomination process which included revelations of Farr’s previous support for a controversial voter ID law and other voter suppression tactics targeting black voters in North Carolina. Farr is President Trump's nominee to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina; Scott, the only black Republican in Congress, joined Arizona Republican Sen. Jeff Flake and all Senate Democrats to end his bid. |
| NPR |
| Four Saint Louis police officers indicted for beating an undercover cop during protests |
| “[I’t’s gonna be a lot of fun beating the hell out of these (expletive) once the sun goes down and nobody can tell us apart!!!!” one of the officers is reported to have texted to his friends, an indication, federal prosecutors say, of their “excitement about using unjustified force against them and going undetected while doing so.” The four officers hurt an undercover police officer so badly during the September 2017 protests following the acquittal of former police Officer Jason Stockley for the fatal shooting of Anthony Lamar Smith, that he has been unable to return to work. Click through for the whole sordid story; one officer allegedly destroyed the injured officer’s cell phone in an attempt to quash the investigation, and the four face a potential (but unlikely) 20 years in federal prison. |
| Saint Louis Today |
| Hate crimes in Canada up 47% last year |
| The crimes were primarily targeting Muslims, Jews and black people, reports Statistics Canada, with the biggest increase in crimes targeting the Muslim population. “We were shocked by the numbers - and, at the same time, we weren’t,” Ihsaan Gardee, executive director of the National Council of Canadian Muslims told Reuters. “This increase didn’t occur in a vacuum.” While the statistics include crimes that were motivated by hatred to a group, other surveys indicate that some two-thirds of these incidents go unreported to the police. The number of hate crimes more than doubled last year, from 139 to 349. |
| Clarion Ledger |
The Woke Leader
| Michael B. Jordan chose therapy to help him shed Killmonger character |
| Suffering and art often go hand in hand, and playing the uniquely villainous Erik Killmonger character in Black Panther took a toll on Jordan. To play Killmonger, who sought the violent overthrow of Wakanda to seek wider justice in a racist world, Jordan found himself in a dark place. "Once I got finished wrapping the movie, it took me some time to talk through how I was feeling and why I was feeling so sad and like a little bit depressed." This revelation came as part of a longer conversation with Bill Simmons on his excellent podcast, as the pair discuss Creed II, Jordan's plans to build a LeBron James-style development “ecosystem”, and more. He even gives a tantalizing preview of the upcoming film Just Mercy and his portrayal of civil rights attorney Bryan Stevenson. Jordan’s interview starts at 1:02:35. Enjoy. |
| The Ringer |
| A Louisiana prep school’s long con |
| Prepare to have your heart broken. Several of the moving college acceptance videos that went viral in the past few years came from students from the T.M. Landry College Preparatory School in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana. The small private school had made headlines for its ability to take mostly black students from humble or difficult circumstances and get them ready for an elite education. Turns out, it was all a myth. “In reality, the school falsified transcripts, made up student accomplishments and mined the worst stereotypes of black America to manufacture up-from-hardship tales that it sold to Ivy League schools hungry for diversity,” reports The New York Times in this blistering expose. Worse, after surviving a culture of fear and abuse, many students find themselves lost in college or worse. |
| New York Times |
| What technology can learn from the wisdom of the crowd |
| This lively analysis from “geek comedian” and commentator Heather Gold takes what she’s learned about communicating in front of live audiences and helps identify what makes for authentic conversation. “I believe the single most important element in aiding someone to speak in a group is the feeling of being listened to with interest,” she says. But thanks to poorly designed video chat, it will be largely impossible. She singles out the main features coded into Google Hangouts and Apple’s new Group FaceTime, which make the image of the speaker REALLY BIG - rewarding the loudmouth in the chat - while making all the listeners, even the truly engaged ones, equally small. She raises fascinating questions about what this means for marginalized people in the workplace, and then explores a remedy. “Let’s think about what this would look like as a piece of software design,” she posits. What if the design actually helped speakers connect with the most attentive listeners? |
| Medium |
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| Meek Mill on his new album |
