Ideas, Actions, and Inspiration for a Better Tomorrow - October 24 Edition

Travel, Friendship

Why a Road Trip Is the All-American Way to Build a Friendship

"Halfway to the coast, Genny announced that she hadn’t brought a gun. I glanced at the glove compartment of the Toyota Corolla with a sting of surprise and relief. Her nephew had given her shooting lessons for her last birthday, when she’d turned 76, but apparently she’d decided not to take up the offer of a pistol for our road trip. “They say you shouldn’t have a gun if you have any doubt whether you would shoot it or not,” said Genny, turning her eyes from the road to look at me. “I don’t own a gun, but the one thing I do know is: I would shoot.”

We were only two hours into our trip, and I was already nervous about what else I might learn about Genny on our way. We had been pen pals since a chance meeting in North Carolina four years ago; she was an avid reader and a curious soul, and our shared love of books and meeting new people had kept us corresponding after I returned home to England. But Genny rarely talked about herself. The idea that she—at five feet tall with white hair and impeccable Southern manners—might be the Thelma to my Louise had never occurred to me.

Outside the passenger window, the yellow wash of South Carolina’s soy fields gave way to clouds of cotton, ready for harvest. I considered what I did know. Like me, Genny had lived alone in a city most of her life—Charlotte in her case, London in mine. Like me, she had never married. Our shared circumstances had forged a bond that made us feel, instinctively, that we would be good traveling companions. So I’d asked Genny if she’d take a trip with me, and we’d chosen the coast of South Carolina, a place she knew and loved."

Puerto Rico, Disaster Relief

Appeal for hurricane aid backed by former presidents raises $31 million

"The five living former presidents put aside politics and appeared together for the first time since 2013 at a concert on Saturday to raise money for victims of devastating hurricanes in Texas, Florida, Louisiana, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Democrats Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter and Republicans George H.W. and George W. Bush gathered in College Station, Texas, home of Texas A&M University, to try to unite the country after the storms.

Texas A&M is home to the presidential library of the elder Bush. At 93, he has a form of Parkinson’s disease and appeared in a wheelchair at the event. His wife, Barbara, and George W. Bush’s wife, Laura, were in the audience.

Grammy award winner Lady Gaga made a surprise appearance at the concert that also featured country music band Alabama, Rock & Roll Hall of Famer ‘Soul Man’ Sam Moore, gospel legend Yolanda Adams and Texas musicians Lyle Lovett and Robert Earl Keen.

The appeal backed by the ex-presidents has raised $31 million since it began on Sept. 7, said Jim McGrath, spokesman for George H.W. Bush."

New York City, Libraries, Children

New York City’s Libraries Will Forgive All Children’s Fines

"Library books are free, until they aren’t: Patrons who rack up $15 in late fees at the city’s public libraries are blocked from taking out more books until the fine is paid.

Among those with suspended privileges are 160,000 children, most of them from the city’s poorest neighborhoods, who cannot afford to pay.

“Learning is a right. Reading brings you to new worlds,” said Octavia Loving, a 17-year-old student at Special Music High School, as she stood amid the stacks at Countee Cullen Library in Harlem, one of the neighborhoods with the highest concentration of children with blocked cards, according to library officials. “They shouldn’t block us from reading because of money.”

On Thursday, the city’s three library systems — the New York Public Library, which serves Manhattan, the Bronx and Staten Island; the Queens Library; and the Brooklyn Public Library — will forgive all fines for children 17 and under and unblock their cards. The one-time amnesty is being underwritten by the JPB Foundation, a philanthropy that supports civic causes, which will make up $2.25 million of the shortfall in revenue from the forgiven fines."

Criminal Justice, Poverty, Bail

The Criminal Justice Gospel

"In May 2016, Maranda Lynn O’Donnell, a waitress and mother of a 4-year-old girl in Harris County, Texas, was arrested for allegedly driving with a suspended license, a misdemeanor offense. She did not have $2,500 to bail herself out, so she was locked up in jail for two days, unable to go home to her daughter. The same day, Robert Ford was arrested for allegedly stealing cosmetics worth $100, also a misdemeanor. He too was sent to the Harris County jail, where he remained for five days, unable to shell out $5,000 for bail. The day after that, Loetha McGruder—who was pregnant with two children at home, including one with Down syndrome—was arrested and detained for falsely identifying herself to an officer. With bail set at $5,000, she remained in jail for four days.

All three of the defendants are plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit that aims to overhaul the bail system in Harris County, Texas, home of the nation’s third-biggest county jail system. The suit, filed in May 2016 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, calls bail setting in the state’s largest county a “wealth-based detention scheme” that punishes defendants accused of misdemeanors for being poor and encourages them to plead guilty to avoid jail time.

In April, Chief Judge Lee H. Rosenthal decided in their favor, writing that it was unconstitutional to jail people because they can’t afford bail. Rosenthal ruled that Harris County would have to ask defendants about their financial backgrounds and release them if they didn’t have enough money to pay their bonds. The county challenged the decision, and the case now sits with the 5^thU.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, known as one of the most conservative courts in the country. In light of this setback, the plaintiffs and their lawyers have been searching for allies to support their case. They now have a powerful group on their side: religious leaders that say they have a duty to fight for the poor."

Aging, Adventure

Pennsylvania woman celebrates 94th birthday by skydiving

"A Pennsylvania woman has celebrated her 94th birthday by going skydiving along with her granddaughter and great-granddaughter.

Williamsport resident Eila (AY’-lah) Campbell says she figured she might not “make it for another year” at her age, so she took the 10,000-foot (3,048-meter) plunge on Sunday at Hazleton Regional Airport."

Ideas, Actions, and Inspiration for a Better Tomorrow - September 28 Edition

Heroes, Vietnam War

The Vietnam War’s John Musgrave on Fighting, Coming Home, and “Thank You for Your Service”

"In writing my preview of Ken Burns and Lynn Novick’s epic 10-part documentary The Vietnam War, which is now airing on PBS and streaming on the network’s app, I couldn’t stop thinking about one particular figure who reappears throughout the series: an eloquent, soft-spoken veteran named John Musgrave. In recent days and weeks, I have learned, other viewers and professional reviewers have found Musgrave equally captivating. Why? Take heed that some big spoilers lie ahead in the next paragraph, if you haven’t yet watched the full series.

It isn’t only that Musgrave is able to vividly summon the fear and pain he experienced as an 18-year-old Marine serving in Con Thien in 1967, but also that he underwent a profound evolution after suffering grievous wounds and then coming home to an America that was in no mood to honor its veterans. As the documentary advances, Musgrave, who grew up in a Missouri town where his father and his neighbors were revered for their World War II service, retreats into depression, considers suicide, and ultimately evolves into an anti-war activist and member of the organization Vietnam Veterans Against the War (V.V.A.W.). One of the series’ most dramatic moments comes in a later episode, when a bearded, long-haired protester first glimpsed in a still near the very top of Episode 1 is revealed to be the formerly clean-cut Musgrave: a transformed man.

For my V.F. article, I spoke by phone earlier this year with Musgrave, who now lives outside of Lawrence, Kansas, and has published volumes of poetry about his wartime experiences. Here are some previously unpublished excerpts from our conversation, about the documentary, his life, and the pride Musgrave still takes, despite everything, in having served as a Marine in Vietnam."

Puerto Rico, Hurricane Maria, Disaster Assistance

Royal Caribbean Cancels Cruise, Sends Ship On Mission To Help Puerto Rico

"Royal Caribbean, which operates cruise ships and tours around the world, canceled a voyage so that its ship can help with recovery efforts on the Caribbean islands devastated by Hurricane Maria. 

Royal Caribbean announced Wednesday that it will cancel its Adventure of the Seas cruise, which was scheduled to depart from San Juan, Puerto Rico, on Sept. 30 and sail to various islands in the Caribbean, to free up the cruise liner to dock in ports in San Juan and on the U.S. Virgin Islands of St. Thomas and St. Croix to aid in relief efforts.

The ship will bring donated supplies to each port and bring evacuees from the islands to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, ahead of ship’s next scheduled cruise on Oct. 6.

The company said it will give full refunds to the customers who were booked on the Sept. 30 cruise, including for payments for onshore activities. On top of that, Royal Caribbean will offer a 25 percent cruise credit for those who rebook trips within 30 days." 

Opioids, Addiction

‘Our Compassion Is Being Challenged’: A West Virginia Doctor’s War Against Opioids

"The gravest public health emergency in America has hit Brumage’s home state hard, with the nation’s highest drug overdose rate that claimed nearly 900 lives last year.

Brumage, executive director and health officer of the Kanawha-Charleston Health Department, runs a harm-reduction program that includes overseeing a clean needle exchange for opioid users. It’s powered not with federal or state dollars, but with donations, grants and volunteers. In just over two years, it has grown as large as a similar program run by the city of Baltimore after 20 years ― serving some 3,700 patients.

People enrolled in a harm-reduction program are five times more likely to go into recovery than if they’re not a part of it, he said.

And while the challenge is immense, Brumage ― who also serves as assistant dean at the West Virginia University School of Public Health among other social positions ― has pushed ahead with his innovative approach to a stark crisis.

“I’m convinced based on the evidence that syringe service programs, as part of a larger harm-reduction program, are really one of the major solutions to dealing with the epidemic,” Brumage said. “So in the syringe service program, of course, what we’re trying to do is avoid becoming the next Scott County, Indiana, where they had over 200 cases of HIV in about a year.”"

Child Care, Work

Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce Champions Increased Public Investment in Child Care

"When workers have access to affordable, high-quality child care, they are less likely to experience unplanned absences, which reduce productivity and hurt an employer’s bottom line. These absences aren’t negligible, either. A 2017 survey reported that 21% of households with at least one working parent reported being absent from work in the last three months. Some employers even provide child care on premises as a way to keep productivity high and as a recruitment tool.

With access to child care, they’re also less likely to drop out of the workforce entirely, which is a tremendous expense for employers. For most workers, it costs approximately 20% of salary to replace a lost employee. That’s significant whether you’re a small or large business.

We also know that investing in high-quality early learning now will pay off in the long run for our future workforce. In fact, high-quality child care has been shown to have positive impacts on children’s cognitive and social developments, leading to better outcomes in school and later in life.  When I ran the YMCA of Greater Miami, countless parents from our child care program would share with me how much more prepared their child was for kindergarten than many of the other children in the class."

Business, Email Etiquette

5 Email Etiquette Rules Even Smart People Get Wrong

"If you're brand spanking new to the professional world, there are hundreds of perfectly good lists of email etiquette tips out there, reminding you to do basic things like proofread, keep it brief, and use a short, sensible subject line. This list is not one of those.

This list is for people who have been firing off emails for years, who have not only long ago banished excessive exclamation points and long-winded asks, but have even mastered the dark art of the subtle email clapback and figured out how to pack even complicated communication into a tight, five-line missive.

But even email pros sometimes make mistakes. They're not just the "reply all" disasters of the less experienced (or less cautious). Instead, they're usually errors of context, timing, or empathy, like these below, that can lead to misunderstandings, hurt feelings, or blown deals."

Ideas, Actions, and Inspiration for a Better Tomorrow - September 25 Edition

Disaster Relief, Puerto Rico

  

Here’s How You Can Help People In Puerto Rico

"At least 13 people are dead. Most people don’t have water or power. There’s no cell service. Roads have been totally washed away or blocked by debris. This is life right now in Puerto Rico, where 3.5 million Americans are struggling to recover from the devastation of last week’s Hurricane Maria.

Local officials described the scene as “apocalyptic” on Sunday. And just two weeks earlier, Hurricane Irma blew through and caused as much as $1 billion in damages to the island.

A lot of mainland Americans don’t realize that Puerto Ricans are Americans. FEMA has been providing lifesaving resources to the island, but people there could use any help they can get to try to rebuild their destroyed lives. While President Donald Trump may be spending his weekend trashing football players on Twitter, if you want to lend a hand to a fellow American in need, there are easy ways to kick in a few bucks".

Click HERE to find out where and how you can contribute.

Crime, Housing, Public Policy

How 2 state legislatures are quietly making America a better place

"Between January 1 and July 31 this year, the state of New Jersey has seen its pretrial jail population — the number of people sitting in detention, awaiting trial, without having been convicted of a crime — fall by 15.8 percent.

That’s an astonishing drop in under a year. It means that 2,167 fewer people were in pretrial detention on July 31, 2017, than were at the same time in 2016. That’s more than 2,000 people who have not been convicted of any wrongdoing, and who get to live at home with their families rather than in a jail cell, who stand a better chance of keeping their jobs and their kids, whose lives aren’t unnecessarily disrupted so they can be locked in a cage.

And as this happened, New Jersey’s crime rate actually fell. Violent crime in January through August 2017 was 16.7 percent lower than the same period of 2016. Murder fell by 28.6 percent, assault by 13.3 percent, robbery by 22 percent. By contrast, violent crime only fell 4.3 percent in 2016, and didn’t budge in 2015. It’s far too soon to say if bail reform contributed to the big year-to-year drop. But at the very least, bail reform hasn’t been accompanied with some dramatic increase in danger or crime. More people are free, and more people are safe.

The jail trends are the result of sweeping bail reforms adopted by the New Jersey state legislature, with the help of a voter-approved constitutional amendment, in 2014."

Global Poverty & Disease, Foreign Aid, Development Goals 

New Gates Foundation Report Highlights Remarkable Progress Against Global Poverty and Disease, Warns Future Progress in Jeopardy

SEATTLE, Sept. 13, 2017 – "The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation today launched an inaugural annual report showcasing the remarkable progress that has been made in reducing extreme poverty and disease in recent decades, but issuing a stern warning to the world that future progress is in jeopardy.

Goalkeepers: The Stories Behind the Data, co-authored and edited by Bill and Melinda Gates and produced in partnership with the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, highlights past progress against some of the most devastating issues facing poor countries and uses breakthrough data projections to forecast good and bad future scenarios – with millions of lives hanging in the balance.

In all, the report tracks 18 data points from the UN Sustainable Development Goals, or Global Goals, including child and maternal deaths, stunting, access to contraceptives, HIV, malaria, extreme poverty, financial inclusion and sanitation. The report looks beneath the numbers to pinpoint the leaders, approaches and innovations that made a difference.

Through the data and first-person accounts from six contributors, the report showcases the stunning progress the world has made in the past generation: cutting extreme poverty and child deaths in half and reducing HIV deaths and maternal deaths by nearly half, among many other accomplishments. But as the report shows, serious challenges remain – including deep disparities between countries – and future progress is not inevitable."

Women, Menstrual Politics

Seeing Red

"Flowing with wry wit through its lively chapters (each, from “Code Red” to “Shark Week,” named after a euphemism for menstruation), Weiss-Wolf’s compelling book Periods Gone Public: Taking a Stand for Menstrual Equity is part memoir and part social analysis. It’s also a loving homage to 2015, which National Public Radio dubbed “The Year of the Period” and which brought period panties, the rise of tampon-themed games and other cutting-edge products to the mainstream market while simultaneously heralding major shifts in menstrual politics. It was in 2015 that Weiss-Wolf began spearheading the grassroots campaign to eliminate the tampon tax in the U.S. Though nations from Canada to Kenya have eliminated sales tax on menstrual products, most American states still subject such goods to levies of 4 to 10 percent. “Why are pads and tampons still taxed when Viagra and Rogaine are not?” actor Ashley Judd demanded in a firebrand speech at the Women’s March in Washington, D.C., in January.

To explain why sanitary products are still taxed—and not routinely offered in prisons, shelters or schools, nor covered by food stamps, Medicaid or Flexible Spending Account allowances—Weiss-Wolf examines the shame and stigma surrounding the essential biological process that makes women (and also many transgender and gender non-conforming people) bleed for an average of five days per month. From rules prohibiting menstruating Jewish women from having sex to strictures barring their Muslim sisters from entering mosques, prohibitions surrounding menses have endured for centuries. At the dawn of the 20th century, Weiss-Wolf writes, “instability caused by menstruation was among the reasons touted to discredit universal suffrage.” And in the first leg of his presidential campaign, Donald Trump maligned Fox News correspondent Megyn Kelly for having “blood coming out of her wherever.”"

Climate Change, Campaign Contributions, Lobbying

What Drives Climate Change Denial? Campaign Donations and Lobbying

"Why do so many American politicians feel so comfortable sticking their heads in the sand on climate science? One reason is that some major donors insist on this stance and then spend millions (and in some cases billions) lobbying for a dangerous denial of the overwhelming evidence.

As the Union of Concerned Scientists reported a few years back, companies promoting climate change denial often hide their fingerprints by spending through trade associations. This technique is also used to conceal corporate political spending. One of the ways so-called “dark money” becomes “dark” is by spending through trade associations.

But not all of the money spent on politics and lobbying is dark. According to OpenSecrets.org, the energy and natural resources sector generally ranks fourth among all industries, behind health and finance/insurance/real estate, and well ahead of defense. So far in 2017, 650 lobbyists reported spending $64 million on behalf of 154 oil and gas clients.

In the past decade (2007 to 2017), the oil and gas industry has spent $1.4 billion on federal lobbying. Among the heavy hitters in this period   are Exxon ($167 million total); Koch Industries ($114 million); Chevron ($112 million); Shell (Royal Dutch Petroleum) ($96 million); Conoco Phillips ($89 million); the American Petroleum Institute, an oil and gas trade association, ($76 million); BP ($68 million); and Peabody Energy ($51 million).

Climate change denial also gets a boost from campaign donations. Peter Thiel, the billionaire co-founder of  PayPal and a climate change skeptic, donated more than $1 million to Trump’s campaign and inauguration. And, of course, the Koch Brothers’ long spending in politics has also shaped the debate. As Jane Mayer notes in Dark Money, “[b]y 2015, their [the Koch Brothers’] antigovernment lead was followed by much of Congress. Addressing global warming was out of the question.”"

Ideas, Actions, and Inspiration for a Better Tomorrow - September 21 Edition

Foreign Aid, Refugees

U.S. to give $32 million for Myanmar’s Rohingya refugees

“The United States will contribute nearly $32 million in humanitarian aid to help Rohingya Muslim refugees, the State Department said Wednesday, in the Trump administration’s first major response to the mass exodus from Myanmar.

The new money for food, medical care, water, sanitation and shelter comes as the U.S. joins a growing chorus of international condemnation over the minority group’s plight. In less than a month, some 421,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh, one of the world’s poorest countries, as the United Nations and others raise allegations of ethnic cleansing.

The U.S. said the new money makes up roughly one-fourth of what global aid groups say they need to address the humanitarian crisis, with the expectation that the rest of the world will make up the remaining three-quarters. Over time, the overall cost will probably run into many hundreds of millions, said Eric Schwartz, the president of Refugees International.

“I’ve been doing this work for 30 years,” Schwartz said by phone as he flew back from Bangladesh. “This is as bad as anything I’ve ever seen in terms of the human mystery that the Burmese military has created.””

Inspiration, Science, Kindness

(Read or Listen)

Once Teased For Her Love Of Bugs, 8-Year-Old Co-Authors Scientific Paper

“Sophia Spencer, 8, loves bugs — especially grasshoppers. She's an expert on insects, and likes to give her littlest friends an occasional ride on her shoulder.

That used to earn her mockery from her peers. But now it's earned her a massive outpouring of support — and a byline in the Annals of the Entomological Society of America.

Everything changed after Sophia's mom, Nicole Spencer, reached out to scientists for support last year.

She wrote to the Entomological Society of Canada and explained the dilemma. Her daughter wanted to know if she could learn more about bugs as a job, but her mom wasn't sure how to encourage her. And she wanted to reassure her that her entomological enthusiasm wasn't weird.

Mission accomplished. The organization tweeted out the appeal, with the hashtag #BugsR4Girls, and hundreds of people responded with encouragement. Scores of working entomologists reached out to share their stories. And Sophia joined forces with Morgan Jackson, the entomology Ph.D. candidate who wrote that tweet, to write a paper about the role Twitter can serve in promoting women in science.”

Women, Military

  

From March 2017:

There is only one way to undo decades of ingrained institutional sexism in the US military

“The US military is the largest employer in the world, but only about 15% of its nearly 1.3 million active-duty workforce are women. In the Marine Corps, it’s only about 7%.

The small numbers are a very big problem.

The latest US military scandal is shocking in its both scale and the level of malice: Hundreds of current and former Marines posted and commented on nude and sexually suggestive photos of female colleagues in a 30,000-member, private Facebook group.

Online harassment, not limited to the Marine Corps, is only one of the problems the US military struggles with to make the armed forces a suitable workplace for women. And while there are a number of critical steps to take toward true integration, the military needs, first and foremost, more women.

The military is slowly moving to draw them into more combat jobs. The Army also wants to increase the number of female recruiters by 1% per year. Neller’s initiative to recruit more women focuses on high-school athletes. His stated goal is modest—increasing female ranks to 10%. Even that is proving difficult. It’s been twice as hard to find women recruits.”

Disaster Relief, Mexico

Help Mexico with earthquake relief efforts

“A devastating 7.1-magnitude earthquake struck near Mexico City on Tuesday, killing at least 139 people.

With power and phone lines down, people are having trouble getting in touch with loved ones. To make matters more stressful, the country was already recovering from an earthquake that hit less than two weeks ago.

Instead of feeling hopeless in the face of the destruction, here's how you can help earthquake victims. 

Donate what you can

Organizations like UNICEF Mexico are looking for monetary donations. 

There's a big need for clothes, water, and food. Giving to places like the Red Cross Mexico, Oxfam Mexico, and Save the Children Mexico is a way to get resources flowing. Smaller nonprofits like Project Paz are also collecting donations for earthquake relief.

A rescue brigade, Topos Mexico, was huge part of efforts back in 1985 and is hard at work with the latest earthquakes and taking donations.”

Read the entire article to find more ways to help.

Cancer, Coping

The Importance of Positive Self-Talk During Cancer 

“Sometime, during my cancer trial, I began to believe the lies cancer told me. Lies like, “You’re not good enough. You’re no longer a real woman. Your life is over.” Those words wormed their way into my heart and mind, taking up residence there. They would surface whenever I let my guard down. At first, I didn’t recognize the damage they were doing. I found myself saying, “I can’t” more often. I used my health issues as an excuse to get out of doing things I would normally do. But as I found myself speaking negatively more often, I realized something had to change. I needed to learn to discern fact from fiction.

By encouraging myself with positive self-talk, I found, like the little engine that could, that tasks were easier to complete. At first, I felt silly being my own cheerleader, but even when I didn’t speak the words aloud, my thoughts gradually shifted from negative to positive ones. If I needed to accomplish a task for which I didn’t have the strength or energy, I’d tell myself I’d try. Sometimes I’d attempt a task multiple times before it was complete, but if I persisted, I usually succeeded. Whenever I managed to get the job done, I’d compliment myself by saying something like, “See, you did it!” or “Slow and steady wins the race.” I was happier because even though my physical limitations were real, the power of positive thinking helped me a great deal.”