Ideas, Actions, and Inspiration for a Better Tomorrow - September 29 Edition

Athletics, Education, Well-being

What's Lost When Only Rich Kids Play Sports

“A two-tiered system of youth sports—one in which the wealthy play on pricey private clubs and the less well-off are limited to uncompetitive community programs—also undermines one of the quieter virtues of team sports: They can be places of organic integration, where economic and racial differences are supplanted by ordinary friendship and the collective desire to win. A football player interviewed by Canadian researchers on his sports experience explained how that social mixing played out on his team:

Before football, I had never like had different friends of different races. And in football, everyone’s just, yeah your Jamaican kids, Somalian kids, people from Singapore, some Italians. So it really helps you learn how to be, how to deal, like not deal, but how to make friends, diverse friends.

Groups of all kinds, including community organizations, nonprofits, major league sports teams, and corporations, are mobilizing to bring athletic opportunities to all kids. Many gathered at the Aspen Institute’s Project Play Summit in September to share their ideas. Theresa Lou Bowick from Rochester, New York, talked about the no-frills bike-riding initiative she founded six years ago, Conkey Cruisers, that invites residents of all ages to ride around the neighborhoods on donated bikes; riders meet at the corner of Conkey and Clifford Avenues for nightly “voyages.”

In Eugene, Oregon, Kidsports provides sports options for 14,000 kids in grades kindergarten through eight, regardless of income or athletic ability. Club teams and other expensive sports options have cut the number of kids who participate in Kidsports, said Beverly Smith, the executive director. But Smith embraces the fact that her inclusive local group is the default organization for some: “It’s a point of pride,” she said. Nike, Dick’s Sporting Goods, and Major League Baseball, among other organizations, pledged to make sports more available to low-income children.”

Communities, Urban Renewal, Opportunity

Pittsburgh’s Back, Thanks To People Who Pulled Their City Up

“Besides true grit and 40 years of steady effort to come back, the Pittsburgh region ― the city and surrounding counties that together constitute the nation’s 26th largest metro area ― has benefited from a host of special circumstances. They include geography that kept the focus on a downtown that did not collapse and on neighborhoods that did not lose their communal identity; two top-flight educational institutions, the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon; a tradition of family philanthropy that includes names such as Mellon, Heinz, Frick and Carnegie; a world-class bank, PNC, heavily committed to the city; the world-class University of Pittsburgh Medical Center; abundant energy sources, including frack-able natural gas; an infrastructure of parks, libraries and other cultural institutions left over from the city’s wealthy heyday; and, of course, pro sports teams such as the Steelers, Penguins and Pirates, who style themselves as emblems of the city.

“Pittsburgh may not be exactly a blue-collar town now,” said Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin, a Virginia native who settled his family in a city neighborhood. “But the blue-collar mentality survives,” he told me during training camp late this summer.

The challenge now is to translate that mentality into what Mayor Bill Peduto called “a fourth industrial revolution,” focused primarily on human capital ― through education, housing and jobs that lift people out of poverty ― and the environment. “The fourth revolution is about people fulfilling their potential and about giving those who’ve been left behind a full chance to be part of the future,” Peduto said.

That means focusing on the low-income neighborhoods that are too often ignored (in Pittsburgh they tend to be on hard-to-reach hilltops) and on other neighborhoods that are gentrifying long-term residents out of their homes.”

Breast Cancer, Cancer Treatment

FDA approves new treatment for certain advanced or metastatic breast cancers

"The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today approved Verzenio (abemaciclib) to treat adult patients who have hormone receptor (HR)-positive, human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)-negative advanced or metastatic breast cancer that has progressed after taking therapy that alters a patient’s hormones (endocrine therapy). Verzenio is approved to be given in combination with an endocrine therapy, called fulvestrant, after the cancer had grown on endocrine therapy. It is also approved to be given on its own, if patients were previously treated with endocrine therapy and chemotherapy after the cancer had spread (metastasized).

"Verzenio provides a new targeted treatment option for certain patients with breast cancer who are not responding to treatment, and unlike other drugs in the class, it can be given as a stand-alone treatment to patients who were previously treated with endocrine therapy and chemotherapy," said Richard Pazdur, M.D., director of the FDA’s Oncology Center of Excellence and acting director of the Office of Hematology and Oncology Products in the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research.

Verzenio works by blocking certain molecules (known as cyclin-dependent kinases 4 and 6), involved in promoting the growth of cancer cells. There are two other drugs in this class that are approved for certain patients with breast cancer, palbociclib approved in February 2015 and ribociclib approved in March 2017.

Breast cancer is the most common form of cancer in the United States. The National Cancer Institute at the National Institutes of Health estimates approximately 252,710 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer this year, and 40,610 will die of the disease. Approximately 72 percent of patients with breast cancer have tumors that are HR-positive and HER2-negative."

Kindness, Paying it Forward

‘I Grew Up Poor And Now I’m Not’: Mystery Couple Regularly Picks Up Tabs At Washington Restaurant

Read or watch:

"A husband and wife sit at the bar at the Applebee’s in Washington, Pa.

They are there three or four times a week, and they randomly pick up the tab of some diners. Several people have benefited from their generosity.
She posted on Facebook, “Thank you to the person that took care of the bill tonight at Applebee’s in Washington! This person paid for the whole party of 16. I have never had this happen before and it brought tears to everyone’s eyes.”

Good food, good times, and sometimes, when you least expect it, the meal is taken care of. It happened earlier this week to Jolie Welling. It was her daughter’s birthday celebration.

“I was almost in tears,” Samantha Powell said. “It touches me, too.”

Powell was the server the night of the birthday party.

But who are these people?"

Politics, Gerrymandering, Supreme Court

Gerrymandering Is On Trial

"Is partisan gerrymandering constitutional? And if not, how is it to be measured? Those are the questions at the heart of one of the most consequential Supreme Court cases of the year, which the justices will hear next week. How the court answers those questions in the case, Gill v. Whitford, has the potential to fundamentally change how we build our representative democracy.

Later this fall, FiveThirtyEight is launching an audio documentary series about the challenges of reforming the redistricting process in America. Traditionally, state lawmakers redraw the maps that determine the races in which you vote after the census every 10 years. Reformers want to change who draws the maps and/or the criteria for drawing them. One of the episodes of our series focuses on the gerrymandering case before the Supreme Court. Rather than keep it in our pocket until after the case is heard, we wanted to share it with you ahead of oral arguments, which are on Oct. 3. So here it is! Listen here or subscribe to the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast feed."

Ideas, Actions, and Inspiration for a Better Tomorrow - September 13 Edition

Women, Afghanistan

Why Women Journalists In Afghanistan Matter

"The young women of Sahar Speaks can tell Trump what the U.S. has been doing in their country for most of their lives. Trillions of dollars of U.S. taxpayers’ money has been spent, mostly on supplying U.S. troops and training a large Afghan army and police force. Billions of dollars of aid money was notoriously misspent. Civilian deaths are at their highest in 16 years, and Afghan troops are being killed in ever-greater numbers. Islamic State has made inroads. The current unity government led by President Ashraf Ghani is incredibly weak: as of the start of this year, the Taliban controls almost half of the country. 

Many of the women also benefited from U.S. intervention. They learned English at American-funded institutions and were given the opportunity to attend university, despite their gender. They were encouraged. They enjoyed some semblance of civil society. They were given a glimpse ― albeit some would say fleetingly ― of what it looks like to live in a world where women have more rights.

But now, where once there was hope, there is a vacuum. The young women of contemporary Afghanistan live under the long shadow of a void, of what was meant to be a better life. This is reflected in their stories, which are told with a mixture of poignancy and urgency, a reaction to what many see as a broken promise."    

Diplomacy

The Diplomacy of Dog Walking in Russia

"MOSCOW — Since the waning days of Bill Clinton’s presidency, Svetlana has walked the dogs of American diplomats in Moscow.

The 52-year-old Russian is not a U.S. Embassy employee but has come to this work through recommendations by American pet devotees, lovingly passed down by word of mouth through the years. Svetlana, who gave only her first name, doesn’t remember how many dogs she’s looked after. “It’s definitely under 100,” she says, pushing her oval glasses up the bridge of her nose. “But more than 60.”

Soft-spoken and extremely affable, with her charcoal-colored hair pulled back into a loose ponytail, Svetlana never set out to work for foreign diplomats. But what started out as a side job to earn a bit of cash while raising her children has become her life. She doesn’t speak any English, only Russian, but “language doesn’t matter,” she tells me. “Dogs are like babies. They automatically know when someone is a good person.”"

Hurricane Harvey, Kindness

A Stranger in Maryland, Touched by a Hurricane Story, Sends 3 Cups to Houston

“I desperately wanted to replace that broken cup. The world is a broken place, but also a place of great strength, dignity, and personal courage. That’s what I wanted to honor. Also, I figured that the cups could also be from her mother, just a long way around, hopping a few decades in the journey.”

Women, Football

Beth Mowins, first woman to call NFL game in 30 years, gets America talking

"Beth Mowins took the microphone in the broadcast booth for the Monday Night Football game between the Los Angeles Chargers and the Denver Broncos and became the first woman to call an NFL game in 30 years.

She dreamed of that moment her whole life, from her days as a young girl in Syracuse, New York, broadcasting neighborhood kickball games into a toy microphone and then later calling high school games as a teenager. The last woman to call an NFL game was Gayle Sierens in 1987, and when Mowins was a kid, her dad cut out a photo of Sierens from a newspaper and gave it to his daughter.

She thought then, “I can do it, too,” she told CNN recently.

She was right."

Impact Investing, Economics, Finance

A new bond taps private money for aid projects in war zones

"INVESTORS might be expected to run a mile from a deal on offer in a conflict-torn part of Africa. At best, it will pay an annual return of 7%; at worst, 40% of the original investment is lost. But a dozen social investors have pooled SFr26m ($27m) to finance the world’s first “humanitarian impact bond”, issued by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). It will pay for three rehabilitation centres to be built and run in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mali and Nigeria.

The ICRC’s obligations are backed by “outcome funders”, ie, donors, mostly governments. The bond is an example of “impact investing”, in which private investors seek out social and financial returns, and of “blended finance”, in which public funds help them to do so. Variants have included a bond aimed at educating girls in India and a World Bank-led initiative to raise money to respond to pandemics. The novelty in the ICRC’s bond is that the money raised will be used in conflict zones.

Of the 90m disabled people in the world in need of a mobility aid, the ICRC estimates only 10% have access to adequate rehabilitation. So centres that make wheelchairs, crutches and prostheses, and train people to use them, can have a big impact. The ICRC helps build and run such centres all over the world. But its budgets are set on an annual basis, and it has been hard to plan ahead. Bond markets can help."

Ideas, Actions, and Inspiration for a Better Tomorrow - August 15 Edition

Writing, Creativity

The Author Of "The Artist's Way" On Why You Should Write Every Day

"For more than 25 years, I have faithfully written Morning Pages—three pages of longhand stream of consciousness that serves to unlock my creativity, guiding me a page at a time into my future. The pages, I often say, are like lanterns—illuminating the path ahead. I write them daily, aware that skipping them leads back to blocks. The faithful practice of pages leads to freedom. They bring ease and inspiration to my life.

1. The first thing I've learned is that persistence pays off.

Doing the pages day in and day out, even when they seem dull, boring, or difficult, eventually leads to breakthroughs. Because they can be about anything, pages are like taking a whisk broom to the corners of our consciousness."

To read 2 – 10, click here.

Grief, Kindness

94-year-old puts in pool for neighborhood kids

"MORRIS, Minn. – Peace and quiet seem like a good thing, until you’ve had too much. Keith Davison got his fill in the months that followed the death of his wife Evy.

“You just can’t imagine what it's like,” says Davison, who lost his wife to cancer in 2016 after a marriage of 66 years. “You cry a lot. That's just the way it is, because she's not here.”

But it’s not quiet at Davison’s house anymore.  Late this spring the 94-year-old retired judge installed in his backyard an in-ground pool – then filled it with the neighborhood kids."

Education, Soft Skills

Social And Emotional Skills: Everybody Loves Them, But Still Can't Define Them

"More and more, people in education agree on the importance of schools' paying attention to stuff other than academics.

But still, no one agrees on what to call that "stuff."

I originally published a story on this topic two years ago.

As I reported back then, there were a bunch of overlapping terms in play, from "character" to "grit" to "noncognitive skills."

This bagginess bugged me, as a member of the education media. It bugged researchers and policymakers too. It still does.

If anything, the case for nonacademics has gotten even stronger since then. In fact, it has been enshrined in federal law. The Every Student Succeeds Act mandates that states measure at least one nonacademic indicator of school success.

There is also new research indicating that school-based interventions to promote social and emotional skills have large, and long-term, positive impacts: an average of $11 for every dollar invested, according to an analysis by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (which is a supporter of NPR).

But despite all the hoopla there is still — still! — no consensus on how to define these indicators, or even on what to call them."

Communication, Social Justice

Ten Counterproductive Behaviors of Well-Intentioned People

(This article is from 2016 but definitely worth a read.)

"This is a follow-up to my previous piece entitled Ten Counterproductive Behaviors of Social Justice Educators. The latter was written for folks who consider equity work as their core life purpose. I wrote Ten Counterproductive Behaviors of Well-Intentioned People for the folks who consider themselves good people invested in social justice and conversations around equity, but who may show up in the ally role most often. Well-intentioned people make mistakes, lots of them. Mistakes must be expected and being held accountable has to be expected as well. The points below outline some of the common behaviors that show up often in social justice conversations.

I want to be clear that we all participate in some of the following counterproductive acts. We are not all privileged or all oppressed. We are complex people with complex identities that intersect in complex ways. Therefore, we all show up in problematic ways with our privilege. I own that my background is from the higher education setting, but I think the points below can be useful for all folks interested in creating dynamic change in the communities around them. Moreover, this piece was written in the midst of the Michael Brown and Eric Garner non-indictments (many more people could be listed), so some of it may feel specific to race. However, these rules apply beyond the identity of race; in fact, these rules only exist in the dynamic of intersections. Below are ten counterproductive behaviors that people who want to do “good” commit and must actively work to correct: Click here."

Single, Childless, Work-Life Balance

How to say no at work when you don’t have kids

"So, what should single workers do if they feel they’re being singled out because of their personal life choices or situation, yet don’t want to jeopardise their careers and reputations?

“Don’t bitch and moan about your particular circumstances,” is the first advice dished out by UK-based business mentor David Carter.

He argues that “the answer is in the crowd.” Single colleagues should consider clubbing together, he says, to identify and propose changes to company practices that might benefit the organisation more widely, while at the same time demonstrating their own problem-solving skills.

That may be easier to do than ever, as unprecedented numbers of us are settling down later in life or not at all. A 2014 Pew Report study estimated that one in four young adults in the US will have never married by the time they turn 50, while the most common type of household in the European Union in 2016 was that of a single person, according to the EU’s number-crunching agency Eurostat."