rightful insubordination

"In addition, I am responsible for ensuring that the positions we take in court remains consistent with this institution's solemn obligation to always seek justice and stand for what is right. At present, I am not convinced that the defense of the Executive Order is consistent with these responsibilities nor am I convinced that the Executive Order is lawful...

Consequently, for as long as I am the Acting Attorney General, the Department of Justice will not present arguments in defense of the ExecutiveOrder, unless and until I become convinced that it is appropriate to do so."

- Sally Yates, former Attorney General (NYT)

education, equality, progress

thought-provoking articles this month/week:

NY Times | When Baltimore Burned (link)
"The real crisis isn’t one night of young men in the street rioting. It’s something perhaps even more inexcusable — our own complacency at the systematic long-term denial of equal opportunity to people based on their skin color and ZIP code."

NY Times | 1.5 Million Missing Black Men (link)
"They are missing, largely because of early deaths or because they are behind bars. Remarkably, black women who are 25 to 54 and not in jail outnumber black men in that category by 1.5 million, according to an Upshot analysis. For every 100 black women in this age group living outside of jail, there are only 83 black men. Among whites, the equivalent number is 99, nearly parity."

Bloomberg | This Is How Fast America Changes Its Mind (link)

NY Times | College for the Masses (link)
"Back then, a high school education was the new ticket to the middle class. Today, a college education is. And when it comes to people’s own children, there is remarkably little disagreement about the value of college, even when it requires taking on debt. Affluent, middle-class and lower-income parents alike, in overwhelming numbers, aspire for their children to finish college.

Americans agree that “our kids” should go to college. The debate is really about who qualifies as “our kids.”"

a little respect for dr. foster | nicholas kristof

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/29/opinion/sunday/nicholas-kristof-a-little-respect-for-dr-foster.html?em_pos=large&emc=edit_nk_20150328&nl=nickkristof&nlid=65271035

"Today, among urban Americans and Europeans, “evangelical Christian” is sometimes a synonym for “rube.” In liberal circles, evangelicals constitute one of the few groups that it’s safe to mock openly... 

Yet the liberal caricature of evangelicals is incomplete and unfair. I have little in common, politically or theologically, with evangelicals or, while I’m at it, conservative Roman Catholics. But I’ve been truly awed by those I’ve seen in so many remote places, combating illiteracy and warlords, famine and disease, humbly struggling to do the Lord’s work as they see it, and it is offensive to see good people derided... 

On a recent trip to Angola, the country with the highest child mortality rate in the world, I came across a rural hospital run by Dr. Stephen Foster, 65, a white-haired missionary surgeon who has lived there for 37 years — much of that in a period when the Angolan regime was Marxist and hostile to Christians... 

One son contracted polio; a daughter survived cerebral malaria; and the family nearly starved when the area was besieged during war and Dr. Foster insisted on sharing the family rations with 100 famished villagers. This created family tensions at times, but today the kids speak glowingly of their dad... 

Most evangelicals are not, of course, following such a harrowing path, and it’s also true that there are plenty of secular doctors doing heroic work for Doctors Without Borders or Partners in Health. But I must say that a disproportionate share of the aid workers I’ve met in the wildest places over the years, long after anyone sensible had evacuated, have been evangelicals, nuns or priests. 

Likewise, religious Americans donate more of their incomes to charity, and volunteer more hours, than the nonreligious, according to polls. In the United States and abroad, the safety net of soup kitchens, food pantries and women’s shelters depends heavily on religious donations and volunteers. 

Sure, it puzzles me that social conservatives are often personally generous while resisting government programs for needy children, and, yes, evangelicals should overcome any prejudice against gays and lesbians — just as secular liberals should overcome any prejudice against committed Christians struggling to make a difference. 

The next time you hear someone at a cocktail party mock evangelicals, think of Dr. Foster and those like him. These are folks who don’t so much proclaim the gospel as live it. They deserve better."

for-profit schools

US Senate Committee Health, Education, Labor and Pensions | Harkin: Report Reveals Troubling Realities of For-Profit Schools (link)

“In this report, you will find overwhelming documentation of overpriced tuition, predatory recruiting practices, sky-high dropout rates, billions of taxpayer dollars spent on aggressive marketing and advertising, and companies gaming regulations to maximize profits. These practices are not the exception -- they are the norm; they are systemic throughout the industry, with very few exceptions,” Harkin said.

NY Times | "Federal Rule Would Cut Funding to Some Career- Training Programs" 

The government would cut off funding to programs that consistently fall short under the "gainful employment" rule, to be published Thursday--effectively a death sentence for the programs, because a majority of their revenue comes from federal student loans and Pell grants... 

... They frequently note that as a whole, for-profit schools have low graduation rates and charge more than nonprofit schools. Their students tend to borrow more money, and former students are far more likely to default on their loans.  

For-profit schools also disproportionately serve low-income and minority students... Consumer advocacy groups say the schools simply prey on unsophisticated consumers...

middle east

Harvard Gazette | "The Islamic State of play" (link):  

“What ISIS offered was order, and people were craving order in Syria. The second thing ISIS offered was a respite from the bombing,” said Amos, noting that the Syrian government largely refrained from bombing ISIS-held territories. “If you were a Syrian and you’d been through two years of complete chaos in northern Syria, ISIS looked pretty good.”  

In Iraq, “By and large, the Iraqi Army had behaved so badly in Mosul that they [ISIS fighters] were welcomed when they first arrived,” said Amos. “So that is how they do it: They find places where there is chaos — people don’t know how to survive, they have no way to make a living — and ISIS brings order.”

NY Times | "A Town Shouldn't Fight the Islamtic State Alone" (link)

We are defending a democratic, secular society of Kurds, Arabs, Muslims and Christians who all face an imminent massacre... 

Western governments should increase their pressure on Turkey to open a corridor for Syrian Kurdish forces and their heavy weapons to reach the defenders of Kobani through the border...

The people of Kobani need the attention and help of the world.

interesting reads

1. The Atlantic | "The World's Greatest Fears, Mapped by Country" (link)

2. NY Times | "To Siri, with Love" (link)

The developers of intelligent assistants recognize their uses to those with speech and communication problems -- and some are thinking of new ways the assistants can help. According to the folks at SRI International... the next generation of virtual assistants will not just retrieve information -- they will also be able to carry on more complex conversations about a person's area of interest. "Your son will be able to proactively get information about whatever he's interested in without asking for it, because the assistant will anticipate what he likes..." 

Gus: "Siri, will you marry me?
Siri: "I'm not the marrying kind."
Gus: "I mean, not now. I'm a kid. I mean when I'm grown up."
Siri: "My end user agreement does not include marriage."
Gus: "Oh, O.K."

3. NY Times | "The Building Blocks of a Good Pre-K" (link)

While grown-ups recognize that pretending helps children find their way into the world, many adults think of play as separate from formal learning. The reality is quite different. As they play, children develop vital cognitive, linguistic, social and emotional skills.... It is so deeply formative for children that it must be at the core of our early childhood curriculum. 

What is referred to as self-regulation in preschool becomes resiliency in high school.... this trait, which she [Dr. Duckworth] famously calls grit, can make or break students, especially low-income students.... have their roots in early childhood.

RIP michael brown, trayvon martin, oscar grant, kajieme powell, rest in peace

Mentally-speaking, what happens when you hear about another unarmed black teen killed by police/police-like officers? For me, it goes something like this: First, anger, a kind of 360-degree, completely unfocused, completely diffuse anger; but since anger is a fairly cheap emotion it fades, and sadness settles in; and then I get that familiar helpless feeling you get when you realize what you're doing is utterly rote, almost Pavlovian, but you don't know how else to deal. To put it another way: For reasons I'm still trying to parse out, I've realized that simply mourning the deaths of other young black men isn't good enough any more. 

I don't mean for this to sound melodramatic, because my emotions don't really matter; or, they matter less than a murdered black boy whose body was left in the street. But what I'm trying to describe here is something real, a sinking-in-quicksand feeling familiar to anyone who is tired of the terror—which is the only really truly appropriate term—police officers exact on young black men. When an unarmed black boy is killed by a police officer, again, and some loud-talking reporter is interviewing the boy's mother, again, and you can see his mother's shoulders slumped until they can't slump any more, and she's been crying so much she's gotten to the point of simply not bothering to wipe the tears away, and you watch her as she tries to look into every camera and speak into every microphone, and watch her as she suddenly gets the spectacle of all of this, and starts listing all of the good things her boy ever was, so that everyone can remember him the way she's remembering him right then, in that moment—when will we decide this is not okay?...

Aren't we all tired yet? We know that what happened to Michael Brown was not a unique incident but part of a larger phenomenon—and that it will happen again, soon. Which means we know an even deeper truth: that to be black in this country means constantly paying a tax on your life. Some of us pay in dignity, some of us pay in blood. What I'm trying to say is this: Never again will I pay with my dignity.

-Lanre Akinsiku, "The Price of Blackness" 

http://gawker.com/the-price-of-blackness-1622972582