Which way up? Poverty, chess and code in Uganda
Phiona is a brilliant, determined, hard-working and respectful teenage girl with an uncertain future. Queen of Katwe by Tim Crothers describes her difficult path from street to competing in the...
View ArticleValue Driven: The Humanity Project
You won’t find standing up to bullies in the common core curriculum, but being bullied is a common experience for many kids. Sierra, a 10th grader writing for the Humanity Project for Kids, explains...
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"You have to be a fair amount of crazy"
Kathe Padilla wasn't the only person to read a Arizona Daily Star article about orphan children starving in Zambia. But she may have been the only one who went from reading about it to flying to...
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Transparency, Torture and Terrorism
If Said-Emin Ibragimov is telling the truth, he was tortured with knives and cigarrettes for two days by Putin's operatives for making statements opposing the regime. If a Russian citizen opposes the...
View ArticleLessons from Ft Lauderdale
Thanks to a patron with a cell phone, the cop who slapped a homeless man in Ft Lauderdale is facing an investigation. Police abuse of force should be addressed systematically, but not only by...
View ArticleProgressives should be fearless defenders of human rights
Yara Sallam believes in standing up for human rights. So when a delegation from the UN came to visit her in El-Qanater Prison in Egypt, where she is currently serving a 2-year sentence for protesting...
View ArticleWhich Republican said self-interest as a primary principle is incompatible...
The longer quote is this:"...it (an action the speaker disagreed with) forces so many really good men amongst ourselves into an open war with the very fundamental principles of civil liberty --...
View ArticleWhen your mother is 'illegal'
What does it do to a community when a significant fraction of its members are declared illegal by their presence? It creates a culture of fear. When a 6% of the people in a state are "illegal" they...
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Fewer Slaves on Boats thanks to the NYT: Investigative Journalism Works
The world is full of injustice and problems. Relatively speaking, I'd consider being kidnapped and held on a boat miles from shore for months, subject to beatings and shackles, pretty high on the...
View ArticleGoal for the day: not to be complicit in horrible crimes
"No trading partner or trade agreement is worth sacrificing our values and becoming complicit in such horrible crimes." was Rep Grijalva's immediate response to the issue of human trafficking in the...
View ArticleWhat about the hard problems?
I absolutely agree that a registry of Muslims is a disgusting, disturbing idea that is completely antithetical to our values. I also agree that Syrian refugees and other refugees from war-torn Arab...
View ArticleAn idea for controlling access to guns by terrorists
So maybe this is a dumb idea, but…In order to manufacture a weapon, a structured society with cooperation is required. The metals, machining, processes involved are all results of complex...
View ArticleUrgent! Now! Emergency! We're being too shrill!
Here are some quotes from recent fundraising emails I’ve received, perhaps you have too:“we’re DESPERATE””DEVASTATING news””URGENT problem”“we could miss tonight's make-or-break … goal”um...its May,...
View ArticleHow to talk to conservatives: Science is the Bridge
Talia Fuentes is an optimist. She is running as a Democrat in Arizona's 5th district, which in the last presidential election favored the Republican Romney by nearly 30%. So on a daily basis, in...
View Article"Brave Vladmir Putin" is Google's top hit - someone is playing pagerank
Try searching on Google for ‘putin assassination’. Unless the Google wizards have fixed it, your first link will start with the words “Brave Vladmir Putin...” and go on from there to explain how the...
View ArticleThe Trump Handy Reference Guide
So my cousin Ken Larsen assembled these nifty lists of Trumpisms. They are the most complete cataloging that I’ve seen, and I wanted them out here for posterity (and possible last day conversation)....
View Article"You can do something here" #Aleppo
There IS something everyone can do about Aleppo right now; we can do what Zouhir is asking. He asks that everyone please demonstrate against the Russian embassies. And that is possible. If not in...
View ArticleCore principles for Fighting while Listening
Between the attacks on health care, tearing apart families at the border, and corruption at the highest levels of our government, it may seem tame and disconnected to back up and talk about core...
View ArticleWe have to have a plan to fight terrorism
It’s not enough to bash the idiots running our country. Three terrorists just killed and injured innocent people on London Bridge. Its not only the numbers, it is the fear that anyone enjoying their...
View ArticleLittle Old Ladies Counting Ballots Are Our Best Bet for Democracy
A friend of mine who is a doctor, asked my advice as a software engineer, how best to safeguard our elections. Which, after all, are pretty much our only hope for escaping from the nightmare we wake...
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