When Precious Daniels lay down in front of the Blue Cross Blue Shield building in Detroit on a chilly morning in November 2009, she wasn’t giving her future job prospects much thought.

She was, however, thinking about all of the money the insurance company was spending on its lobbyists. A supporter of the Affordable Care Act, Daniels wanted to make sure that the insurance company knew that she wasn’t OK with its efforts to block Obama’s healthcare law.

“It was a peaceful protest. Me and another young man did a peaceful non-violent act of blocking the doors by lying down and demanding to speak with someone higher up to present our case,” she says.

The police were called, and Daniels was arrested for public trespassing and disturbing public peace. Less than six hours later, she was released on $50 bail. Months later, in January 2010, she showed up for her hearing, only to find out that the cop who made the arrest wasn’t there.

“I was pretty much under the assumption that since the cop didn’t show up that the charge was dropped,” she says. Turns out she was wrong. The arrest, which was reported to the FBI’s master criminal database, popped up weeks later when Daniels applied for a job with the US Census Bureau. She did not get the job.

Daniels isn’t the only one haunted by her activism. According to the Wall Street Journal, nearly one in three adults has a file in the FBI’s criminal database—77.7m Americans in total. And the number is growing, with 10,000 to 12,000 new names added each day. As Americans take to streets to strike for a range of causes—from climate change to better wages—they take the the risk of having their name added to that database of doom.

Protesting for a cause – and having an arrest on record – can have a long-term effect: once it’s marked on someone’s legal record, it could cause him or her to lose out on jobs in the future.

Jana Kasperkevic writing in Occupy climate change protests raise specter of losing a job after arrest for The Guardian.

I’m ashamed that back in 2012 I was asked if I was willing to be arrested as part of an Occupy Cleveland protest. I said no. I said no because I strongly suspected that my livelihood would be seriously endangered. I just wasn’t willing to risk homelessness.

That is not how the First Amendment is supposed to work, but I couldn’t afford months (years) of unemployment, or gross under-employment while court appearance and legal fees consumed my life to make my point.

I doubt that the founders would recognize the America I live in.

Rule No. 80 – Compost.

From Food Rules, an eater’s manual by Michael Pollan

Previously…

Found in my electronic chapbook. See also Eating Mindfully by Jan Chozen Bey.

Today’s headlines include:

Local News

End in sight for most summer construction projects
The Ruble file
School report cards are in
10 years later: Memories of Ivan
25th annual POW/MIA Day

Top Headlines Poll: Do you approve or disapprove of the new traffic patterns around town?

Great pictures of Marietta…

What’s going on here…

Previously..

Fred O’Neill writes:

The “Truth and Justice” rally came off fairly well. About 150-200 of us lined Pennsylvania Avenue (the only access to the Shrine Club where Barton spoke).

Passing dinner attendees responded to us in one of three ways: 1) they drove by as quickly as possible and tried to pretend that we weren’t there (this included the WTAP news lady who I heard had been instructed to ignore the rally), 2) some waved and smiled (this reinforces my thesis that not all local Republicans were thrilled by their party’s choice of Barton as their guest-speaker) and 3) at least one guy slowed down and yelled at us something to the effect that we were “going to turn America into the Soviet Union)

The Times coverage this morning was pretty much what I expected, although the reporter DID describe Barton as an “ultra-conservative author” (the “author” part is inaccurate since Barton’s book was withdrawn by its publisher for “gross inaccuracies and distortions”).

Times coverage of the alternative rally was limited to a few comments rejecting Barton’s homophobic statements. While the LGBT community is correct to be concerned about Barton’s views, his speech (as I suspected) had little to do with that topic and was concerned with his revisionist notions about the religious views of the nation’s founders. The Times photo shows a department-store mannequin Continue Reading »

Calmness is the rarest quality in human life. It is the poise of a great nature, in harmony with itself and its ideals. It is the moral atmosphere of a life self-centred, self-reliant, and self-controlled. Calmness is singleness of purpose, absolute confidence, and conscious power, ready to be focused in an instant to meet any crisis.

The Sphinx is not a true type of calmness, petrifaction is not calmness; it is death, the silencing of all the energies; while no one lives his life more fully, more intensely and more consciously than the man who is calm.

The Fatalist is not calm. He is the coward slave of his environment, hopelessly surrendering to his present condition, recklessly indifferent to his future. He accepts his life as a rudderless ship, drifting on the ocean of time. He has no compass, no chart, no known port to which he is sailing. His self-confessed inferiority to all nature is shown in his existence of constant surrender. It is not calmness.

The man who is calm has his course in life clearly marked on his chart. His hand is ever on the helm. Storm, fog, night, tempest, danger, hidden reefs, he is ever prepared and ready for them. He is made calm and serene by the realization that in these crises of his voyage he needs a clear mind and a cool head; that he has naught to do but to do each day the best he can by the light he has; that he will never flinch nor falter for a moment; that, though he may have to tack and leave his course for a time, he will never drift, he will get back into the true channel, he will keep ever headed toward his harbor. When he will reach it, how he will reach it, matters not to him. He rests in calmness, knowing he has done his best. If his best seem to be overthrown or overruled, then he must still bow his head in calmness. To no man is permitted to know the future of his life, the finality. God commits to man ever only new beginnings, new wisdom, and new days to use the best of his knowledge.

Calmness comes ever from within. It is the peace and restfulness of the depths of our nature. The fury of storm and of wind agitate only the surface of the sea; they can penetrate only two or three hundred feet, below that is the calm, unruffled deep. To be ready for the great crises of life we must learn serenity in our daily living. Calmness is the crown of self-control.

William George Jordan’s introduction to his 1905 book: The Majesty of Calmness; individual problems and possibilities

In the current issue of The Atlantic, Jessica Lahey interview Stephen King in How Stephen King Teaches Writing. Here are a few bits I found interesting.

Lahey: You have called informal essays “silly and unsubstantial things,” not at all useful for teaching good writing. What kinds of essay assignments are useful?

King: I tried to give assignments that would teach kids to be specific. I used to repeat “See, then say” half a dozen times a day. So I would often ask them to describe operations that they take for granted. Ask a girl to write a paragraph on how she braids her sister’s hair. Ask a boy to explain a sports rule. These are just basic starting points, where students learn to write on paper what they might tell a friend. It keeps it concrete. If you ask a kid to write on “My Favorite Movie,” you’re opening the door to subjectivity, and hence to a flood of clichés.

Previously…

Parents of an autistic child on Thursday sued the Ohio Department of Health and others in federal court, alleging discrimination against Ohio’s autistic children by failing to provide what the lawsuit describes as federally mandated treatment.

Gary and Nikki Ruhl, of Mansfield, in northern Ohio, sued in U.S. District Court in Cleveland on behalf of their 3-year-old son. The lawsuit charges the health department and the coordinator of Ohio’s system that provides early intervention services aiding the development of children up to age 3 refused to provide necessary treatment. The complaint is similar to one recently settled in federal court in Cincinnati over an autistic boy in southwestern Ohio.

The Ruhls’ lawsuit alleges the health department and system coordinator Wendy Grove refused to provide intensive treatment known as applied behavioral analysis for their son and “all infants and toddlers with autism in Ohio.” It also alleges the state has denied funding for services to make up for the earlier lack of treatment.

Lisa Cornwell writing in Autistic boy’s parents sue Ohio health department for the Associated Press.

This is a story to watch.

Rule No. 79 – Treat Treats as Treats.

From Food Rules, an eater’s manual by Michael Pollan

Previously…

Found in my electronic chapbook. See also Eating Mindfully by Jan Chozen Bey.

Today’s headlines include:

Local News

Digging deeper
GOP dinner attraction
Killer appeals his guilty plea
City will renew effort to sell Phillips St. lot
Fort Frye celebrates roof, gifts

Top Headlines Poll: Do you plan to get a flu shot this fall?

I have gotten a flu shot every year for the past 10 years or so (my doctor at the Veterans Administration insists) because I regularly work with a number of students who have compromised or non-existent immune systems whose health I must help protect. Generally, I agree with my doctor that flu shots just make good sense. JH

Great pictures of Marietta…

What’s going on here…

Previously…

San Diego unified school district said it was painting its MRAP white and hoping to use the Red Cross symbol on it to assuage community worries, said Ursula Kroemer, a district spokeswoman. The MRAP had been stripped of weapon mounts and turrets and would be outfitted with medical supplies and teddy bears for use in emergencies to evacuate students and staff, she said.

From the Associated Press: US school districts given free machine guns and grenade launchers

Take it away, Buddy…

In the current issue of The Atlantic, Jessica Lahey interview Stephen King in How Stephen King Teaches Writing. Here are a few bits I found interesting.

Lahey: You extol the benefits of writing first drafts with the door closed, but students are often so focused on giving teachers what they want and afraid of making mistakes that they become paralyzed. How can teachers encourage kids to close the door and write without fear?

King: In a class situation, this is very, very hard. That fearlessness always comes when a kid is writing for himself, and almost never when doing directed writing for the grade (unless you get one of those rare fearless kids who’s totally confident). The best thing—maybe the only thing—is to tell the student that telling the truth is the most important thing, much more important than the grammar. I would say, “The truth is always eloquent.” To which they would respond, “Mr. King, what does eloquent mean?”

Previously…

Rule No. 78 – Eat with Other People Whenever You Can. We should look for someone to eat with before looking for something to eat and drink. —Epicurus

From Food Rules, an eater’s manual by Michael Pollan

Previously…

Found in my electronic chapbook. See also Eating Mindfully by Jan Chozen Bey.

Today’s headlines include:

Local News

Guns, ammo find
Arrest pleases Clark’s family; fond memories of victim flow
Cold Case Unit leads probe
Beverly Council looking to cut pool’s red ink
Corporate Challenge returns

Top Headlines Poll: Are more inclined to play the lottery if there’s a reallybig jackpot?

Great pictures of Marietta…

What’s going on here…

Previously…

“Well prior to Edward Snowden, online jihadists were already aware that law enforcement and intelligence agencies were attempting to monitor them.” This point would seem obvious in light of the fact that terrorist groups have been employing tactics to evade digital surveillance for years. Indeed, such concerns about their use of sophisticated encryption technology predate even 9/11. Contrary to claims that such groups have fundamentally altered their practices due to information gleaned from these revelations, the report concludes. “The underlying public encryption methods employed by online jihadists do not appear to have significantly changed since the emergence of Edward Snowden.”

These findings are notable both for empirical rigor through which they ascertained, as well as their contradiction of apparently baseless statements made by high-ranking U.S. officials regarding the impact of the leaks on U.S. national security. This is particularly important as it pertains to the ongoing public debate over the alleged threat of ISIS. In making his case that the danger from ISIS to the United States is “imminent”, Marco Rubio recently claimed that the group has: “…learned a lot about our intelligence-gathering capabilities through a series of disclosures and other sorts of things, and they have become increasingly capable of evading detection.”

Earlier this month former NSA head Michael Hayden also stated, “The changed communications practices and patterns of terrorist groups following the Snowden revelations have impacted our ability to track and monitor these groups”, while Matthew Olsen of the National Counterterrorism Centre would add “Following the disclosure of the stolen NSA documents, terrorists are changing how they communicate to avoid surveillance.”

Olsen went on to say that terrorist groups are, “….moving to more secure communications platforms, using encryption and avoiding electronic communications altogether.” In fact, it’s well known that terrorist groups have employed such tactics as a means to protect their data and communications for years. Correspondingly, it’s difficult to imagine how statements suggesting that such tactics are new developments prompted by Snowden could be made in good faith.

Murtaza Hussain writing in No, Snowden’s Leaks Didn’t Help The Terrorists for The//Intercept.

In the current issue of The Atlantic, Jessica Lahey interview Stephen King in How Stephen King Teaches Writing. Here are a few bits I found interesting.

Lahey: By extension, how can writing teachers help students recognize which words are required in their own writing?

King: Always ask the student writer, “What do you want to say?” Every sentence that answers that question is part of the essay or story. Every sentence that does not needs to go. I don’t think it’s the words per se, it’s the sentences. I used to give them a choice, sometimes: either write 400 words on “My Mother is Horrible” or “My Mother is Wonderful.” Make every sentence about your choice. That means leaving your dad and your snotty little brother out of it…

Previously…

I am obsessed with index cards.

A number of us, actually, suffer from this condition. For several years, the largely blog-based movement known as “lifehacking” has embraced the unassuming index card as an unrivalled tool for personal organisation – a dirt-cheap, portable medium for keeping lists, taking notes, brainstorming, memorising, organising your schedule, or leaving reminders for yourself. You might recall the “Hipster PDA“—a tongue-in-cheek proposed replacement for electronic organisers, consisting of a stack of cards, a bulldog clip … and nothing else. (For more uses of index cards, see the blogger Dustin Wax’s exhaustive summary. [More Wax Index Card Hacks. JH]

To get theoretical for a moment, the cards fulfil two requirements of any good information storage system. First, it’s easy to put stuff in: I’m far less likely to record a thought if I have to fiddle with a handheld device. Second, it’s easy to manipulate stuff once it’s in. You can’t, by contrast, endlessly rearrange the pages of a notebook in order to prioritise tasks, structure a piece of writing, discard things you no longer need, etc.

But might the power of index cards be greater still – mysterious, almost? I’ve wondered this ever since reading Robert Pirsig’s novel Lila, in which the lead character is a philosopher who lives on a boat, writing his magnum opus on thousands of cards. As each thought occurs, he records it. Then, for hours, he rearranges the cards, grouping similar ideas together until a structure begins to emerge, seemingly independent of his will. This kind of “emergent order” is a hallmark of the web – think Wikipedia – but it’s somehow spookier when it happens on paper, and involves only one human.

Oliver Burkeman writing in his column will change your life for The Guardian.

Rule No. 77 – Leave Something on Your Plate. (This one will be particularly hard, but good practice to strengthen discipline.)

From Food Rules, an eater’s manual by Michael Pollan

Previously…

Found in my electronic chapbook. See also Eating Mindfully by Jan Chozen Bey.

Previously…