Jul 12
Jul 12
Photographer Michael Sutton spent hours getting up close and personal with a hive of honey bees at Hillside Apiaries in New Hampshire. He got stung three times. But he also got this gorgeous slo-mo footage of honey bees in flight. I bet you’ll never look at a bee the same way.
Jul 12
Android Wear is finally here. Two devices were launched at Google I/O: LG’s G Watch, and Samsung’s Gear Live. Both became available in the Play store this week, and while we’re sure you read our comprehensive review, with much of the spec-sheet…
Jul 12
We have the potential to do so much better and even create enjoyable lives for everybody. This is a believe I share with many others. But, we should not be blind to things that are happening around us, which at times can be discouraging. All the misery we see can make us feel helpless and insecure about the future. Feel helpless. I mean don’t fight this feeling, let it exist. Get familiar with it. Apathy or indifference is trying not to feel the pain. It is closing yourself of. Whether it is with your personal issues or with larger ones. What I am trying to say is that feeling helpless is not the same as being helpless. Feeling helpless is allowing yourself not to know what’s going to happen in the future. Feeling helpless allows you to get out of the state of expectations and into the state of being, and more doing. According to Socrates the only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing. What I had to learn is that this wisdom of not knowing is something I needed to feel. A feeling of knowing the unknown.
It is only interesting if it might not work. This is what my head teacher in the subject of Insecurity Seth Godin tells me. There was a time that I wanted everything to work. In order to achieve that I needed to control everything. To be able to control everything I needed to know what was going to happen. And I only could know what was going to happen, if I had experienced the situation before. In others words, situations where I could not predict the outcome became very frightening and I did not know how to deal with them. It made me insecure and less playful, and consequently more serious. My world remained small or as big as it was. I had managed to box myself in. I did not want to feel helpless. I thought feeling helpless was bad. So, I would not enter into situations in which I could be rejected. I did not know how to deal with rejection. I had a desperate need to be recognized for the things I did, constantly seeking for approval. Basically, I took everything that did or did not happen much too personal.
I didn’t realize that what I was doing was quite so dangerous, until I saw a presentation of Dr. Stuart Brown of the National Institute of Play. In which presentation he explained that play is essential for our survival as a species. He further explains that play is borne out of curiosity. That curiosity through play leads us to explore the surroundings and options. That playing with other people is also a way of regulating our emotions. That play learns us to adapt to new situations, because we’re not afraid to experiment with it. But, we only play if it feels save to play. If it is save enough to take risks. Playing builds life experience. So, when we’re not playing and the situation gets “dangerous” we have the skills to cope with it. Which we would not have had, if we hadn’t played beforehand. Therefore this presentation of Brown is called “Play is more than just fun.”
An important factor of creating something new is the ability to play with the subject or object one’s trying to create. Seth Godin will tell you, that if you know the result beforehand, it isn’t new. So, to be creative we need to play with a subject or object, which will lead us to an uncertain outcome. Because of this knowledge, my main objection against massive standardized testing is simply that it is not stimulating creative thought and practice. Secondly, you cannot teach what you don’t understand yourself. I do Shotokan Karate, and I have two wonderful teachers who have a great understanding of karate. Luckily for me, it gives me the opportunity to learn a lot. Creativity is like karate, you learn it by doing and you need a teacher with a black belt in creativity. Creativity like karate is a process of continues learning. An endless well of exploration of your creative abilities. In my home country the Netherlands I am at the moment trying to launch a program on the creative process, which will put together artists, entrepreneurs and scientists to share their experiences on this topic. I may not succeed in this grandiose enterprise and I do wish you to be able to benefit from the creative knowledge I have collected thus far. If you’re interested you can find a collection of presentations on the creative process via this link. Please don’t hesitate to add the stuff that inspires you, it is most welcome and appreciated.
If we’re going to play it is nice and practical to have a playground. You can have your own. I for some weird reason enjoy it more and more to play in the sandbox of somebody else. And one of my favorite sandboxes to visit is The Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA). Their Chief Executive, Winnetou, excuse me I mean Matthew Taylor, has started a new game and has invited the (global) tribe to come and play. The name of the game is “#PowerToCreate“. Taylor argues that we need to work towards a world that gives people the freedom to make the most of their capabilities. And that this will involve tackling the many constraints that limit individuals, and lock them out of the creative process. He states that this can be done by combining new leadership and institutions that give us hope and excitement about the future, with a championing of individual creative endeavor and a 21st century spirit of solidarity and collaboration.
Let’s play together. Join this initiative of integrating different people and organizations for a common goal of a glorious future, whatever that may be. One team with many players bundling their power to create.
Jul 12
In today’s information age, an individual’s ability to learn is more critical than ever. Education is becoming a lifelong pursuit and is following the trend of general media consumption — that we are beginning to consume and experience more of it but in smaller chunks, from a diversity of sources, with it becoming increasingly integrated into our everyday lives. This trend of informal learning was examined through a survey given to working professionals to help reveal the importance, prevalence, and opportunities for informal learning.
See the full infographic below:
Mehr Singh, an education research assistant, contributed to this research.
Jul 12
Central American Minors Seek Refuge in the US: A Crisis of Children as Targets of War
Posted in: Today's ChiliChildren have been all over the news, and for the wrong reasons. Three missing Israeli teens were found dead in the occupied West Bank, sparking the reprisal killing of a Palestinian boy who was burned alive. Reports of tens of thousands of unaccompanied children arriving into the U.S. from Central America have dominated the media as politicians and the public grapple with how we as a nation should respond.
I did not make the connection between the two sets of tragedies until I read a short piece entitled “The New Way of War: Killing the Kids.” The notion that children are increasingly not only collateral casualties but also targets of war was amongst the findings in the annual report, “Children and Armed Conflict,” recently released by the United Nation. Examples provided in the U.N. report include the kidnapping of schoolchildren in Nigeria, children being used as human shields in Syria, and the killing and maiming of youth in the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The Central American countries from where most of the recent unaccompanied minors entering the U.S. began their arduous journeys — El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala — are not in the U.N. report. But there is ample evidence to support that many of them are in a similar situation of targeted violence. First, mainstream media and human rights organizations report that children from these countries are on the front lines of gang violence. Gangs are in schools and on the streets, targeting boys for recruitment and girls for “sexualized killings.” A Washington Post article quoted a young boy interviewed by the Women’s Refugee Commission: “In El Salvador, there is a wrong — it is being young… It is better to be old.”
Then there are interviews from the children themselves:
After interviewing more than 400 children who successfully fled their home countries, the UNHCR [United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees] found that almost 60 percent of children had legitimate claims to seek asylum in the United States. Most were escaping recruiting attempts by violent gangs who forced participation or threatened the entire families of children who refused.
Which is why the U.N. is advocating that these Central American children arriving into the U.S. be treated as refugees. Even the Department of Homeland Security acknowledges that they are “com[ing] from extremely violent regions where they probably perceive the risk of traveling alone to the U.S. preferable to remaining at home.”
Yet, some politicians seem to be simplifying the dire reasons for these minors’ migration, attributing it to a rumor that they would receive permission to stay and blaming their parents for bringing them here unlawfully (some are coming to unite with their parents, which is a related but also separate issue concerning our broken immigration system, but more than 60 percent do not have a parent in the U.S.). The government’s response to these children has been considerably more punitive than humanitarian, by focusing on detaining and quickly processing the young arrivals — the latter is not necessarily punitive, until you put it in the context of White House advisor Cecilia Muñoz’s remarks doubting that most can make a case to stay, and that children as young as ten years old have had to appear in court without a lawyer.
I have been representing indigent immigrants for the better part of my career, and so have witnessed many wrenching situations that are almost impossible to solve. This is not one of them. We know that children are increasingly the targets of wars across the world. Some of them are coming from neighboring countries into the U.S. to seek refuge. They are youth who can integrate into and contribute to our society. We should at least give them a fair chance to make their case.
Jul 12
Beyond Accomodation: Hobby Lobby as a Challenge to Our Perception of Religious Organizations
Posted in: Today's ChiliDespite the fact that Americans continue to walk away from organized religion en masse, the nation continues to engage in its perpetual struggle to characterize religious institutions.
The Supreme Court’s decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. has engrossed the American public for many reasons — its implications span ongoing debates over healthcare, religion and reproduction. Appropriately, commentary on the case runs the full gamut as well: conservatives and liberals alike have exhaustively explicated the 95-page opinion handed down by SCOTUS.
But the national discourse surrounding the ramifications of this case is replete with continuing attempts to identify the reason that this case has struck such a resounding chord within Americans. Liberals focus on its effect on women, while conservatives continue to expound the decision’s benefits for religious liberty.
Sorting through the litany of commentary that continues to grow exponentially, however, elucidates a fundamental disagreement between liberal and conservative camps — the criteria that constitute a religious organization entitled to religious accommodations.
Professor Paul Horwitz of the University of Alabama School of Law wrote that Americans are especially disconcerted by the Supreme Court’s increasingly lax attitude toward accommodation. He wrote:
The first source of controversy is the collapse of a national consensus on a key element of religious liberty: accommodation. Throughout American history, there has been widespread agreement that in our religiously diverse and widely devout country, it is good for the government to accommodate religious exercise. We have disagreed about particular accommodations (may a Muslim police officer wear a beard, despite police department policy?), and especially about whether religious accommodations should be ordered by judges or crafted by legislators. But we have generally agreed that our nation benefits when we help rather than burden those with religious obligations. That consensus seems, quite suddenly, to have evaporated.
I am not so sure, however, that the ostensible evaporation of a “consensus” (if it ever existed –a claim that is contestable in and of itself) can be evidenced by the debate surrounding Hobby Lobby. This is because such an explanation assumes that Hobby Lobby’s complaint can be characterized as “religious exercise” that merits a spot among claims that we have historically accommodated (according to Professor Horwitz). Americans do not universally consent to the majority opinion’s claim that Hobby Lobby constitutes a religious organization entitled to the same accommodations as religious communities like churches or religious non-profit organizations in the first place. In other words, this is an issue even more fundamental than an argument about accommodation; instead, it is an argument about whether Hobby Lobby has even the right to approach the table as a religious organization. It is the Supreme Court majority’s decision on this argument that has left many Americans reeling, and others cheering.
While there have been legal arguments and political analyses alike analyzing whether Hobby Lobby ought to have a claim to accommodation, as Linda Greenhouse points out, the point of contention in this case lies beyond its doctrinal matters. In more pragmatic terms, it simply seems problematic that a company boasting an annual revenue of over $2 billion, 572 locations and 21,000 employees can enjoy religious freedom.
But those Americans who continue to doubt the recent appraisal of Hobby Lobby as an organization that can tenably petition the courts for a religious accommodation are in good company, for the Supreme Court seemed to be split over this very point. Writing on behalf of the minority, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissented:
Until this litigation, no decision of this Court recognized a for-profit corporation’s qualification for a religious ex-emption from a generally applicable law, whether under the Free Exercise Clause or RFRA … The absence of such precedent is just what one would expect, for the exercise of religion is characteristic of natural persons, not artificial legal entities. As Chief Justice Marshall observed nearly two centuries ago, a corporation is ‘an artificial being, invisible, intangible, and existing only in contemplation of law’ … Corporations, Justice Stevens more recently reminded, ‘have no consciences, no beliefs, no feelings, no thoughts, no desires’ …
Religious organizations exist to foster the interests of persons subscribing to the same religious faith. Not so of for-profit corporations. Workers who sustain the operations of those corporations commonly are not drawn from one religious community. Indeed, by law, no religion-based criterion can restrict the work force of for-profit corporations. The distinction between a community made up of believers in the same religion and one embracing persons of diverse beliefs, clear as it is, constantly escapes the Court’s attention. One can only wonder why the Court shuts this key difference from sight.
I count myself among those individuals, like Justice Ginsberg, who hesitate to believe that Hobby Lobby — or companies that identify with it — is entitled to the protections stipulated by the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). After all, as Justice Ginsburg continues, the decision handed down last week seems to belie the intention of the RFRA as a bipartisan, democratic response to the Supreme Court’s decision in Employment Division v. Smith (1990), in which the Court ruled that individuals could not seek religious exemptions from generally applicable laws with a compelling purpose.
Hobby Lobby was, notably, not a First Amendment case. Nevertheless, so long as the RFRA is in effect, Hobby Lobby – -along with other “closely held corporations” — will be entitled to protection from “a rule of general applicability [except if it] furthers a compelling governmental interest and is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest.”
Decisions from the Court have already proven that this case will serve as precedent for many to come. Hobby Lobby has already gone beyond informing court opinions — it has challenged us to examine our perception of religious organizations and their privileges (or lack thereof) in an increasingly diverse public square.
Jul 12
MILWAUKEE (AP) — Milwaukee Brewers shortstop Jean Segura is returning home to the Dominican Republic after the death of his 9-month old son.
The team broke the news to Segura after Friday night’s game, a 7-6 loss to the St. Louis Cardinals. He was placed on the bereavement list Saturday. Segura’s mother attended Friday’s game and told several of the wives of Brewers players. And they told Segura.
The Brewers recalled Elian Hernandez from Triple-A Nashville.
Jul 12
Months before the first whistle of the World Cup, Juan Carlos Rodriguez, the president of Univision Communications’s sports division, presented his engineers with a challenge: Could they figure out how to beam its soccer broadcasts into American homes faster than its English-language competitors?
Jul 12
This Brooklyn 'Wedding Watcher' Has Witnessed Couples' Joy In Same Spot For 4 Decades
Posted in: Today's ChiliSince the ’70s, Rhoda Hill has been going to Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn, New York, on Saturdays for one purpose: to watch the wedding parties that come to the picturesque park to take photos.
“I come because it’s something nice to see. It’s a happy occasion, everybody’s very friendly,” the 79-year-old says in the New York Times documentary above. “And I enjoy it. It’s something I look forward to every Saturday.”
At one time, Hill brought as many as 25 friends with her to watch. Now, there are only a few “wedding watchers,” but Hill still takes great pleasure in the beauty and joy surrounding the newlyweds who frequent the park.
She says she plans to keep coming to watch couples gather for as long as she can, because, “it’s a beautiful thing seeing two people starting their life together.”
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