Caption: “On this day in 1953, two young men announced Rosalind Franklin’s stunning work on X-ray photography of the DNA Double Helix.”
Internet: We saw what you did there, and we approve.
Reminder Rosalind Franklin was Jewish.
Context: Rosalind Franklin’s ground breaking research into DNA was stolen by Watson and Crick via one of Franklin’s own interns stealing her research for them.
and reminder that even though it’s pretty much widely agreed these days that she was robbed of a Nobel prize, the Nobel committee doesn’t award posthumously so it’s kind of like they just went ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
CultureHISTORY: The “Lost Friends” Ads - New Orleans, LA (1879-1880)
A heartbreaking piece featuring the newly digitized collection of
original advertisements from a New Orleans newspaper between November
1879 and December 1880. Because it was part of the institution of
slavery to split up families, after the Civil War, African Americans
began the search for their lost kin. Once they were free, this was one
of the few options former slaves had to try and find their families.
Writing ads in local newspapers. Just another piece of American History.
Who could have known that Trump would turn out to be a terrible, terrible leader?
The Trump White House sees enemies in every direction. They’re skulking in the Senate. Marching in the streets. And certainly slinging arrows in the press. But the biggest concern isn’t outside. They can’t just lock the doors of the White House and man the barricades. Because there’s a suspicion that every person inside the walls could already be ... one of them.
Leaks are hardly the only cause of Trump’s problems — the uproar over FBI Director James Comey’s dismissal wasn’t the result of a leak. But Trump-friendly talking heads see something that stretches the realms of believability. Far-right radio host Alex Jones warns of a plot by “deep-state” globalists to impeach Trump. On Fox News, Sean Hannity warned Wednesday of a “destroy Trump alliance” that is now “aligning to take down President Trump.”
Leakers. Faceless, hidden, deep-state leakers. They may look like ordinary staffers, but when not under close observation by Trump loyalists, they’re quick to slip away and drop a dime to the NYT.
This narrative, that the White House corridors are crowded with more in-disguise monsters than a remake of The Thing, isn’t just a staple of alt-right news hosts. It’s something that’s sincerely believed by the man at the middle of the ersatz siege, Donald Trump. As a result, the White House may not be filled with secret monsters, but it’s certainly weighed down by fear.
Staffers are on edge, weary from endless speculation about their jobs and struggling to keep their bearings amid the ever-shifting political terrain.
What really helps in an organization that feels like it’s being treated unfairly from the outside? An extra helping of internal strife and mistrust egged on by a boss that is 100 percent rage and zero percent empathy.
It... needed to be said? I mean, yay for Gal Gadot, I think she's great (what I've seen, which isn't much), but who was the idiot asking her?
Some stories are so obviously feminist it seems irrelevant to ask TV and film adaptors about the inherent message within, yet plenty of showrunners and producers bend over backwards to avoid the F word. It’s refreshing that the star of Wonder Woman is embracing the term.
Fantasy lizard people where the females don’t have breasts they just figured out that bras are perfect for holding heat packs.
Fantasy lizard people where the males figured this out too and can’t understand why humans keep mistaking them for females because obviously they have five brow spikes not six like females do??
In light of Lawfare editor Benjamin Wittes’s recollection that former FBI director James Comey—after trying to blend into the curtains—had been “disgusted” by Trump’s attempt to hug him at a White House event in January, former Clinton staffer Philippe Reines released a video of Hillary Clinton practicing dodging his…
Representative Cummings is a good man, and we are blessed to have him.
If there was any doubt that Mike Pence was simply lying about his ignorance of Michael Flynn’s work for foreign governments, here’s a final nail for that coffin. On November 18, less than two weeks after the election, Representative Elijah Cummings sent a letter to Mike Pence as the head of Donald Trump’s transition team.
Dear Vice-President-Elect
I am writing to raise questions about the apparent conflicts of interest of the Vice-Chairman of the Presidential Transition Team, retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, who reportedly has been selected by the President-elect to be National Security Advisor.
What’s first up on Rep. Cummings’ list of potential conflicts?
Recent news reports have revealed that Lt. Gen. Flynn was receiving classified briefing during the presidential campaign while his consulting firm, Flynn Intel Group, Inc., was being paid to lobby the US government on behalf of a foreign government’s interests.
Cummings’ detailed, footnoted, carefully annotated letter lays out step by step Flynn’s lobbying for the Turkish government—the exact information that Mike Pence would claim he didn’t know.
Vice President Pence is standing by his claims that he did not know former national security adviser Michael Flynn had been secretly lobbying for the Turkish government until March, despite a new report claiming Flynn had actually disclosed to the Trump transition team back in January that he was under a federal investigation.
Mike Pence was told by Flynn in January. He was told by Cummings in November. As Mike Pence plans for the day when he gets to take the big chair, he should remember—Agnew went first.
Honestly, the best thing the press could do for the future of humanity is to highlight just how much Pence is throwing Trump under the bus.
Donald Trump is a liar, a blustering fool, and a con man. That’s who he was before moving into the White House. That’s who is after moving into the White House. It seems increasingly likely that he’ll be a liar, a blustering fool, and a con man after he’s kicked out of the White House.
But the guy warming up in the bull-shit pen isn’t just the uptight, lily white, hard right, ultra conservative he pretends to be. He’s also a practiced prevaricator who’s neck deep in everything that’s likely to send Donald Trump kicking and screaming into the night. Mike Pence, who by a total coincidence, created his own Trump-free PAC this week, is playing a game designed to leave him holding onto Trump’s dead-enders with one hand and a big writ of “I didn’t know” with the other. To get there, Pence is lying. About pretty much everything. Especially when it comes to what he knew about Michael Flynn ...
PENCE: “Well, let me say, hearing that story today was the first I'd heard of it. And I fully support the decision that President Trump made to ask for General Flynn’s resignation.” …
But just a day later, The Washington Post and others reported that Flynn had informed Trump's legal team that he might need to register as a foreign agent even before Trump was inaugurated. And late Wednesday, the New York Times reported that Flynn also had disclosed that he was under federal investigation for it.
Pence also dug deep into his store of radio talk show host pretense as he lied about his knowledge of why Comey was fired, but it’s in the Flynn scandal where he’s really excelled at blinking with waif-like innocence when it’s clear that he was on the inside at every step.
According to MSNBC’s Joy Ann Reid, if President Donald Trump is impeached for his scandal tsunami and cover-ups, Vice President Mike Pence should be forced out along with him.
Your players must fight a robot. It can’t be bargained with, it can’t be reasoned with, it doesn’t feel pity or remorse or fear, it absolutely will not stop until the party are dead, also it’s 3 inches tall and wielding a sharp pencil
see, if you’re charming, intriguing, & have good negotiation skills, you can, in fact, keep your soul while bargaining w/ some sort of centuries-old entity, demonic or otherwise
“what even prompted this” i went to a car dealership
when you try and learn something about your speacial intrest but youre haveing a bad sensory day so you cant learn the stuff you want to learn and your like rfgrlbvwlrjebvwe >:(
Last Thursday night, I tweeted: “The story we’re dropping tomorrow is the 1st time I wish I had a superpower to *force* people to read a thing.”
I still think that.
“The Last Person You’d Expect to Die in Childbirth” is the first part of our investigation with NPR into how the United States has become the most dangerous place to be pregnant among the world’s more affluent nations.
Every year 700 to 900 women die from pregnancy or childbirth-related causes, and some 65,000 nearly die. Almost 60 percent of the deaths are preventable.
We told the story of Lauren Bloomstein — a nurse, married to a doctor — who died at her own hospital 20 hours after her daughter was born. Here’s a video her husband Larry took soon after the birth.
When we first asked readers months ago to share their stories, we said we would give regular updates on our reporting. Today, we’re giving you the backstory to the project, and where we’re going from here.
How We Started — and Learned That a Public Health Problem Is Too Often Treated as a Private Tragedy
It’s been seven months since our engagement team started to work with reporter Nina Martin on the investigation. Lack of data was among the main challenges. By almost every measure, basic tracking of maternal deaths and near-deaths is inadequate. Numbers are vague and ambiguous.
This left us looking to unconventional sources for names, causes of death and places where women are dying. We found particular success on the crowdfunding site GoFundMe.
Families and loved ones were sharing devastating details on pages set up to help cover the unexpected costs of losing a mother. This was particularly striking because people so rarely talk about maternal deaths elsewhere. Even the most popular mommy blogs don’t often delve into mortality and near-deaths. We realized that it’s part of a pattern: Treating the death of a mother due to pregnancy or childbirth as a private tragedy rather than as part of a public health crisis.
We heard from 2,500 people the first week, mostly women reporting that they had nearly died. Women told us they were rarely asked about what happened.
More than 3,100 people have now responded to our detailed questionnaire.
We’ve also heard from many, many others via email. And some, like New York Times reporter Catherine Saint Louis, publicly recounted their own near-death experiences:
We’re Looking Next at Racial Disparities, And Here’s How You Can Help
As successful as our callout has been, we want to reach more women of color. African Americans are three to four times more likely to die from childbirth complications than whites, yet we have only heard about 120 stories relating to black mothers.
We are now researching an upcoming article about racial disparities. Last week, we asked the black women we’ve heard from where they talk with other women about surviving childbirth complications.
We’re also working on several partnerships to reach wider audiences.
If you are interested in hosting our questionnaire, please let us know. In addition to our reporting teams at NPR and ProPublica, we worked with two university classes. Journalism students at NYU helped verify information about the women’s deaths we found via GoFundMe and Facebook research. And students from CUNY’s social journalism program worked on outreach strategies to get our callout in front of as many people as possible.
We are just getting started. As we move forward, we want your help too.
Do you know someone who should see the callout? Share it with them. Do you know about a group, organization or person who is thinking about this that we should talk to? Tell us. Do you have a story we need to hear about or information that will help not only us but the women and families impacted by this issue? Get in touch.
I love the implication that we know that Trump didn't collude with Russia because Russia still exists, and hasn't imploded because of his basic incompetence yet.
