As a species, we've got a long history of being shitty to one another for no other reason than skin color. White folks, myself included, have arguably earned the right to drop the mic on bigotry. Over the centuries, we honed systemic racism to such a razor edge that the cuts our ugly worldview made are still being suffered today. As our world's recent politics have illustrated, a lot of people still buy into this superiority-of-the-white-man bullshit. But it's getting better. Views are changing, albeit slowly, and we're crawling on our knees towards equality.

I think that one of the reasons that it's taking us so long to get there is that no one likes to admit that they're wrong. Doing so puts you in a perceived position of weakness, which is ironic given that owning one's faults can be so powerful. Believing this as I do, I was really surprised to read this morning that National Geographic decided to call itself to account for the racist reporting that its correspondents have written and they've published over the decades:

Instead of wasting their time on naval gazing, the magazine's editorial team asked an outsider, historian John Edward Mason, to hunt down all of the ugly, racist writing he could find from National Geographic's archives. As National Geographic's current Editor-in-Chief Susan Goldberg explains, examining the publication's past was both painful and necessary:

I’m the tenth editor of National Geographic since its founding in 1888. I’m the first woman and the first Jewish person—a member of two groups that also once faced discrimination here.

My wife and I love Shakey Graves. Love. Him.

His music is in constant rotation in our motorhome, no matter whether we're parked or on the move. He fills our ears when we're out for groceries or driving our pooch to the park. After years of listening to him from afar, we finally had the opportunity to catch him live this past November. The show was in San Antonio, Texas. The doors opened 90 minutes before Shakey hit the stage. We were surrounded by people half our age. The concrete pad we were standing on and a chill in the air had everyone there uncomfortable in feet and temperature. Everyone drank $10 mixed drinks and buckets of canned beer in a misguided attempt to stay warm. Some folks partook in left-handed cigarettes. Those people were kicked out. The wife and I re-upped our cups with hooch from the flask I'd snuck past the doormen. She and I discovered that maybe we're getting too old for going to outdoor gigs. She and I agreed that maybe we were even too old to bother with any venue that doesn't come with theater seating. Our feet and knees hurt for a days, afterwards.

But it was totally worth it.

I've seen a lot of performers in my time. I used to be one myself. Some are terrible. Some, like me, are capable but have no presence on stage--ham and eggers looking to make a living. Others are all show and no real talent--they rely on a skilled band and tricks of the trade to sell songs and tickets. Read the rest

Working as a housekeeper at a hotel is a disgusting, thankless job. Read the rest

Viola Desmond was the badass mother of the Canadian civil rights movement.

Born in 1914 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, she grew up in the predominately pale-faced province avoiding notoriety until until she was old enough to leave home. In her home province, her skin color made it impossible for her to attend beauty school – local educators wouldn't have her. Determined to better herself, Desmond traveled to Montreal for her education as an aesthetician, before continuing on to Atlantic city and New York City to round out her skills. Returning to Nova Scotia, she opened her own beauty salon – the first by a black woman in the province. While chasing down her dream of being a business owner is impressive, it's not what brought her the most notoriety in our country.

While attending a movie in the village of New Glasgow, Nova Scotia in 1946, she called bullshit on the theatre's bigoted ticketing rules. The owner of the theater demanded that whites and blacks sit in different parts of the building. Additionally, anyone with skin that wasn't as white as the driven snow was forced to pay an additional penny for the privilege of seeing a film. Desmond refused to pay more than the white moviegoers did, nor would she comply with the owner's order to leave the whites-only seating area. For her trouble, she was charged for a tax violation – it was the only way that the government of her day could punish her for daring to defy the horse shit of racial segregation. Read the rest

A war hero who saved American lives under fire deserves the best care our government can muster. It's the very least they deserve for bravely serving overseas. Unfortunately, not all soldiers returning from active duty have been paid this respect. Nor have the canine soldiers in their ranks.

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In a country that has so much, it should be a crime to leave the less fortunate with so little. But it isn't, so here we are: As part of a United Nations study on poverty and human rights abuses in America, researchers have stated that rural Alabama is home to the worst poverty in the developed world.

According to Advance Local,  the U.N. Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Philip Alston, was shocked at the level of environmental "degradation," economic inequality and systematic racism in the state:

Of particular concern to Alston are specific poverty-related issues that have surfaced across the country in recent years, such as an outbreak of hookworm in Alabama in 2017—a disease typically found in nations with substandard sanitary conditions in South Asia and Subsaharan Africa.

You should know that economic inequality and racial discrimination lend themselves to civil rights abuses. That makes poverty a human rights issue.

A lot of us, including myself, live comfortably enough. I know where my next meal is coming from. Too many of our fellow citizens aren't as fortunate. The fault for this, according to Alston, can be laid at the feet of our governments:

“The idea of human rights is that people have basic dignity and that it’s the role of the government — yes, the government! — to ensure that no one falls below the decent level,” he said. “Civilized society doesn’t say for people to go and make it on your own and if you can’t, bad luck...

Whaling isn't as cool as it used to be, and it's far from necessary. Many of the products we used to make from whale carcasses, such as lamp oil or whale bone baleen – which was used to make everything from typewriter springs to shirt collars – have been replaced by modern technologies. So it's puzzling to hear that Norway has announced a 28% increase of its whaling quote this year.

According to The Guardian, the new quota will raise the number of whales that the Norwegian fisheries are allowed to harvest to 1,278 animals. The increase smacks of political bullshit, given the fact that, in recent years, Norway's fishing industry wasn't able to kill enough whales to meet the existing quota. In 2017, Norwegians only killed 432 whales. Two years earlier, their fisheries took out 660 animals. That sounds like an industry in decline to me. But Norway has a different spin on the falling numbers: high fuel prices and too few whale processing plants have kept the nation's fishing industry from fulfilling its quota.

Greenpeace disagrees:

“Greenpeace believes Norway should take the logical consequences of the International Whaling Commission’s ban on commercial whaling, the widespread opposition to whaling, as well as the lack of local market for the products, and close down this unnecessary and outdated industry.”

The increased quota might be a stab at stimulating Norway's fishing industry, creating new jobs and infrastructure spending. If that's the case, it's a shortsighted plan, at best. There's only three countries in the world that still authorize whaling: Norway, Japan and Iceland. Read the rest

According to The Hill, a Florida middle school teacher who moonlighted as a hate-spewing white nationalist podcast host has been removed from the classroom by the school board she worked for. Her suspension from shaping young minds was put in place by school board officials while they investigate exactly how shitty a person she might be:

On Friday, March 2, 2018 the Citrus County School District was made aware of a concerning podcast by a Huffington Post reporter. The reporter indicated they believed one of the persons participating in the podcast was a teacher at Crystal River Middle School. The Human Resources department was notified and an investigation was initiated immediately. The teacher has been removed from the classroom and the investigation is ongoing. Pursuant to Florida Statute an open investigation and materials related to it are exempt from public record and cannot be discussed until the investigation is complete.

Last week, the Huffington Post reported that Dayanna Volitich, a 25-year-old social studies teacher at Crystal River Middle School, located just north of Tampa, was hosting a white supremacist podcast, using the name "Tiana Dalichov.” to separate her racist bullshit from her life as a teacher. Given that Volitich bragged on a recent about podcast about bringing white nationalist ideals into her classroom, her being kicked to the curb, even on a temporary basis, is a win for anyone who doesn't want the next generation of Americans raised with a head full of hateful bullshit.

Image via Wikipedia Read the rest

According to Engadget, America's futurist military think tank, DARPA, wants to figure out the means to slow down the biological functions of the human body to provide more time for medics and doctors to treat their wounded patients.

If the notion of biostasis sounds like the stuff of science fiction to you, that's because it totally is – at least for now. While some creatures are able to regulate the cells in their body to the point where they can survive long-term freezing or dehydration, humans are, comparatively, delicate little snowflakes. We bleed out, we die. By finding a way to slow down or freeze the functions of our bodies, combat-injured soldiers could have more time to make it to life-saving treatments away from the front lines. Were DARPA to find a way to do this for soldiers, the rest of us could likely wind up benefiting too. In the past, other medical technologies, antihemorrhagic compounds, like those found in QuikClot bandages, found their start on the battlefield, but have made their way into the civilian market.

If you're interested in seeing how DARPA's biostasis program pans out, you'd best get comfortable. DARPA won't even start answering the questions from companies looking to throw science at the problem until later this month.

Image via Military.com Read the rest

Storm Emma, a massive weather system that brought bitter cold and snow to the U.K. this past week did a lot of damage to power grids, forced the closure of schools and caused havoc for anyone looking to travel anywhere in Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland (the Republic of Ireland took its share of knocks, too.) Perhaps worst of all, was the destructive effect the drastic drop in temperature had on sea life in the water surrounding the United Kingdom. This YouTube video shot at Ramsgate Beach in Kent, illustrates what a change in temperature can do to a delicate species of animal--if this isn't a prime example of why climate change is such an important issue, I don't know what is. Read the rest

Traveling by air is thirsty work.

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We don't hear as much about ISIS as we used to, but the fight against their particular brand on evil is still being waged.

In Syria, for example, a Kurdish militia group called YPG is still waging war on the terrorist group. The YPG is composed of volunteers, drawn largely from areas around and in Syria, but also from countries as far away as the United States. As the militia is currently backed by the United States, it's not a crime for American citizens to find their way to groups like the YPG, get trained up and then deploy to the front lines. Caleb Stevens, a 23 year old from Illinois, felt that he wanted to make a direct impact in the world by standing against those who would do harm to unarmed civilians. After talking to YPG representatives online, he made his way overseas and boned up on the use of Soviet-era small arms before heading to the front lines with his unit in Syria. Caleb took the fight to ISIS, fending them off from civilians for months before he was shot in the calf, bringing his war, at least for the time being, to an end.

In the wake of being wounded, he sought out treatment, first at hospitals in Syria, Baghdad and Jordan, before walking into a hospital emergency room in Chicago to be properly patched up.

It's one hell of a story, it's covered, in detail, over at the Chicago Tribune.

Image: Nûçe Ciwan - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5jA7EiXQsc, CC BY 3.0, Link Read the rest

Earlier this month, I was lucky enough to get my hands on a Pocket Sprite – a $55 piece of game emulation hardware that fits in the palm of your hand. Measuring just an inch wide and two inches tall, the Pocket Sprite looks like the smallest Game Boy you've ever seen. It plays like it too, with A, B, start and selection buttons and a wee display with dimension sized to make playing games from the 1980s and 1990s in their original format feel "right."

Out of the box, the Pocket Sprite can play homebrew games designed to work with Game Boy, Game Boy Color and Sega console emulators. Before you ask, yes, this also means that any Game Boy or Sega ROMs you happen to find online will work with the hardware.

Before laying hands on it, I was apprehensive about how playable the Pocket Sprite might be. I still carry around a Game Boy Micro console with me, everywhere I go. I find that it's juuuuust small enough to pocket and still large enough that playing Super Mario World for 30 minutes can actually be enjoyable. The Pocket Sprite's way smaller than my GB Micro is. I was surprised by how easy its chunky controls were to use. But I was disappointed by how hard it was to keep track of a game's action on its display. For my eyes, it's just too small. But maybe your experience will be different.

Whether or not the Game Sprite is worth $55 really depends on why you're buying it. Read the rest

Equifax, a company that specializes in disseminating unsecured user information, upped its game. Despite having already loosed the personal data of around 143 million people into the wild, Equifax still felt that they could do better. After much effort, they've managed to pinch off the data of 2.4 million more people for identity fraud aficionados to leverage. What an amazing achievement!

According to Reuters, despite their zest for massive security breaches, the company has framed its latest efforts with a good deal of humility:

The company said the latest batch of consumers affected had their names and driver’s license information stolen, but noted less information was taken because it did not include home addresses, driver’s license states, dates of issuances, or expiration dates.

Oh, you should know that the company sometimes dabbles in providing credit score information, too. In a statement to the media, Equifax promised that they'll be reaching out to their newly affected millions to inform them of the breach as soon as possible.

Image: GotCredit/Flickr Read the rest

I've been transparent about it elsewhere online, but I'll say it again here: my last career left me with a Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (you can drop the 'D' from that if it troubles you, I get it) diagnosis. I spent years, crippled by depression, flashbacks and alcoholism before finding the strength to reach out for help. Thanks to counseling, a few gnarly prescriptions and the support of a strong partner, I've been able to crawl back from the edge. It wasn't easy.

After entering counseling, I worked to be more open about my issues. Doing so caused me to lose a gig that I'd had for years, even though they were cool with my performance up until then. It left me feeling more alienated and alone than I had in years. But, a few years later, I'm now in a better head space than I have been in close to two decades. So, saying that, causes that promote awareness and understanding of Post Traumatic Stress and battlefield injuries are close to my heart.

This is one of those.

As a veteran of the Royal Marines, Tim Crockett's seen his share of combat and knows more than a few soldiers who have been kissed by Post Traumatic Stress during the course of their duties. This year, he'll be rowing a 20-foot long boat across the Atlantic Ocean to help raise awareness, understanding and helping those of us with PTS(D) to get the help we need. It's a 3,000 nautical mile trek that'll start in the Canary Islands and end in Antigua. Read the rest

As anyone who travels frequently by bus, plane or train can tell you, important service announcements are best when they're utterly incomprehensible: being able to hear and understand that your gate has changed or that you left your phone at a security checkpoint denies people of that rush of adrenaline and feeling of vitriol that makes getting from point A to B such a rewarding experience.

If you've ever wondered how the men and women behind the microphone are able to ensure that no one EVER has a clue of what in the hell they're saying, you'll want to head on over to Paste Magazine – they've got the goods on how New York City subway conductors warm up their voices before going on shift. It's all useful stuff. Knowing this one handy hint alone could help speed you on your way to a new career in the transportation industry:

When used correctly, your tongue can make any vital service change announcement sound like it’s dialogue in a movie where an explosion just happened and everyone’s ears are ringing. As a warm up exercise, try to keep your tongue completely still, hovering in the middle of your mouth. Now try announcing, “F trains are now running along the A line.” With your tongue motionless, you won’t be able to articulate a single consonant sound. Your passengers will have no idea what the hell is going on. Feel free to also try this exercise while holding your tongue between two of your fingers.

I've lived my whole life as a pale, red headed fella. So, I say this, with authority: white people are dicks.

According to Smithsonian.com, white pioneers and archeologists in the 18th and 19th centuries pumped out a bullshit story about Cahokia, once the largest Native American city north of Mexico, as having been built by the Welsh, Vikings, Hindus – anyone but the indigenous population:

The city of Cahokia is one of many large earthen mound complexes that dot the landscapes of the Ohio and Mississippi River Valleys and across the Southeast. Despite the preponderance of archaeological evidence that these mound complexes were the work of sophisticated Native American civilizations, this rich history was obscured by the Myth of the Mound Builders, a narrative that arose ostensibly to explain the existence of the mounds. Examining both the history of Cahokia and the historic myths that were created to explain it reveals the troubling role that early archaeologists played in diminishing, or even eradicating, the achievements of pre-Columbian civilizations on the North American continent, just as the U.S. government was expanding westward by taking control of Native American lands.

So yeah: it's hard to claim that you're displacing or irradiating a gaggle of savages when they prove themselves to be part of a society with a culture and history that's just as complex as your own.

Cahokia's collection of earthen mound structures aren't the only ones said to have been created by a mysterious group of builders. Similar sites can be found all over Ohio, the Mississippi Valley and well into the Southeast. Read the rest