Adult children of the 1980’s rejoice. Inspector Gadget is back in March 2015! Netflix has announced their new children’s programming lineup. It is adding five new shows including remakes and original content to their latest kids programming announcement. Gadget won’t be back in is faded, flat color scheme as you remember him. This is a CGI Inspector Gadget series. Netflix … Continue reading
Du nuh nuh nuh nuh, Inspector Gadget is coming to Netflix. The absolutely amazing 80s gadget adventure show is being resurrected in CGI form along with the amazing 80s spy show Danger Mouse and three other kids’ shows. The best part? This is happening very soon. Inspector Gadget premieres on March 27.
A bacteria that triggers deadly diarrhea and is one of the most common causes of U.S. infectious disease deaths is caused, in part, by antibiotics.
Clostridium difficile, or C-diff, is a toxin-producing microbe that infected almost a half-million Americans in 2011 and was linked to 29,000 deaths, according to a report released Wednesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It said 15,000 deaths were “directly attributable” to C-diff infections. The bacteria is the leading cause of hospital-acquired diarrhea in the industrialized world. In the U.S., the rate of hospital-acquired C-diff infections doubled from 2001 to 2010, to 8.2 infections per 1,000 admissions.
Dr. Fernanda Lessa, a CDC medical epidemiologist and lead author of the report, called the control of C-diff infections a “national priority.”
“There is no vaccine for Clostridium difficile, and we know that good antibiotic stewardship is a big step forward in terms of its prevention,” Lessa said in a phone interview with The Huffington Post. “We had a publication last year showing that if hospitals can reduce 30 percent of antibiotic use, rates of C-diff can be reduced by 25 percent.”
The bacteria’s spores make inroads in people who either recently took antibiotics or are currently taking them. Antibiotic use creates an ideal environment for C-diff because the medication indiscriminately wipes out beneficial bacteria that help prevent disease, along with bacteria that are the source of infection.
C-diff spores can survive a wash in hand sanitizer gel and can live for a long time on surfaces, so infection control and personal hygiene for health care workers is key, officials said during a CDC press conference on Wednesday. In fact, almost all of the C-diff infections in 2011 were associated with a stay or visit to a health care facility. That shows the deadly and costly infections are preventable.
C-diff produces a toxin that can cause horrific diarrhea and holes in the large intestine, putting people at risk of sepsis if fecal matter leaks into the body. In the worst cases, patients need to have portions of their colon surgically removed and use a colostomy bag for an extended period while their intestines heal.
The standard treatment for most C-diff infections is, strangely, antibiotics — which experts at the CDC press conference expressed concern about. Further, antibiotics don’t work for everybody. The report estimated that 83,000 people — about one in five — experienced at least one recurrent C-diff infection in 2011, which burdens patients and gives the bug more opportunity to be spread to others.
“What we’ve seen is that for many patients, there can be multiple rounds of antibiotics required to finally suppress the infection and, with luck, finally give the body enough time to go back to normal in terms of the bacteria with the gut,” said Dr. Michael Bell, deputy director of the CDC’s division of Healthcare Quality Promotion. “The challenge that we have is that by giving antibiotics, in many ways we are continuing to disturb the normal bacteria in the bowels, so it’s not a perfect solution.”
Given this treatment difficulty, doctors are increasingly turning to a promising, relatively new treatment — fecal transplant. It’s what it sounds like: an infusion of healthy feces, through an enema or a colonoscopy.
Intestines are teeming with bacteria that help us digest food and eliminate waste. But a healthy balance of gut bacteria can get thrown off, either because of aggressive antibiotic treatment, poor diet that starves helpful bacteria, or an infectious microbe that begins to colonize in the intestines. Fecal transplants deploy a donor’s good bacteria to defeat the bacteria wreaking havoc in the recipient’s gut.
While fecal transplants are technically experimental, the treatments have largely been successful to treat recurrent C- diff infections. The Food and Drug Administration doesn’t require doctors to ask permission, in the form of a new drug application, before performing one.
“Originally, this was sort of a last-ditch, desperation-type treatment,” explained Bell. “I think increasingly, we’re seeing it move earlier into the process,” in order to avoid surgery and its complications.
In small but compelling experiments that include a randomized trial, researchers have found that transferring feces from a healthy donor into a C-diff patient is much better at treating recurrent infections than antibiotics — so much so that the trial was stopped early because it was considered unethical to deny the control group access to fecal transplants.
Still, few hospitals are equipped to screen fecal donors and store or administer feces. The CDC doesn’t track the number of doctors that offer fecal transplants, but a nonprofit organization called the Fecal Transplant Foundation says 92 providers across 32 states perform the transplants. Open Biome, the first stool donor bank, counts more than 200 hospitals and medical centers in its clinical network and says more than 80 percent of Americans live within four hours of a clinic that does the procedure.
Catherine Duff, a C-diff survivor and founder of the Fecal Transplant Foundation, said the CDC press conference was encouraging, but more needs to be done to make fecal transplants accessible. Instead of only allowing fecal transplants for people who have had multiple C-diff infections, Duff argued the treatment should be a first line of defense offered to patients with their first infection.
“If doctors could more easily identify and diagnose C-diff, we would like see fecal transplant offered as one of the first line of treatments,” said Duff in a phone call to HuffPost. “You would guess that the majority of people would choose a fecal transplant” — partly because it works, but also because it doesn’t destroy the microbiome and leave you vulnerable to future infections.
Duff, who suffered eight bouts of C-diff from 2005 to 2012, had multiple sections of her colon removed because of complications from the infection. She was on the brink of surgically removing the entire colon before she discovered that fecal transplants were a promising therapy.
She had to convince her doctor to look into it. Then, they couldn’t find a provider near where she lived in Carmel, Indiana. After persevering, Duff eventually had two fecal transplants — once via an enema at home, and once through a colonoscopy. After each transplant, she said she felt instantly better.
“I just became more bothered by the idea this procedure is so simple and can offer relief to so many people, and it remains so inaccessible,” said Duff.
Case studies from the Journal of Medical Case Reports and Open Forum Infectious Diseases point to the challenges of living far from a facility and of working with doctors who have limited experience in providing transplants.
CDC study co-author Dr. L. Clifford McDonald expressed hope about the experimental treatment, if only that it gets patients off the antibiotics that left them vulnerable to infection in the first place.
“Some people do just fine with the antibiotic treatment,” said McDonald during the briefing. “But it is a problem that we’re using an antibiotic to treat a disease that really occurs because someone got an antibiotic in the first place.”
It’s all over the news right now, this idea that Central America needs some sort of saving. Its children are fleeing to our borders by the hundreds of thousands. Our vice president is submitting budgets to Congress in a better-late-than-never attempt to stave off the flow of immigrants. Former police officials are finally being arrested. According to mainstream media, Central America is — quite literally — erupting for all the world to see.
But that is only half of the story.
It just so happens that while news of the newly conceived Plan Central America was exploding across our headlines, people on the ground in Guatemala were witnessing a much slower and more sustainable intervention take effect. This transformation wasn’t the product of a billion dollars — however inadequate that might be on a national level — but rather the result of a very meager investment. For less than $5 per day, a team of passionate and resourceful Americans was helping a group of courageous indigenous teenagers do the unthinkable — finish their high school educations.
This may seem like a rather small feat, but it’s not. In rural Guatemalan communities, less than 10 percent of students finish high school. This isn’t the product of laziness or apathy. It’s not a reflection of Guatemalan values or the people’s lack of potential. These desperate statistics are nothing more than the result of a fundamentally broken and exclusionary education system.
The Guatemalan government, rife with corruption and racism, spends less than three percent of its GDP on education. Precious little of that figure ever reaches the indigenous Mayans who comprise more than 50 percent of the country’s population. In rural, indigenous communities classrooms have no books, poorly paid teachers only sometimes show up, and rote memorization takes the place of actual learning. As a result, more than half of the population is illiterate and families struggle to survive on as little as $4 per day. Parents go into debt to buy their children the textbooks and uniforms they need for school, and when they can’t pay it off they face merciless collectors who threaten, extort, and kidnap family members to get what they want.
The cycle of poverty presses on, and another generation is caught in its trap.
This doesn’t have to be the case, but a “financial rescue mission” is not the answer.
The research is clear: education is far and away the most effective means by which to interrupt the cycle of poverty in low-income communities. Acting through diverse mechanisms, education improves maternal health, household income, and child mortality. Educated girls will marry later, delay having children, and will space pregnancies to improve health outcomes. A child born to a literate mother is also 50 percent more likely to survive past the age of five. Educated mothers engage in healthy behavior; they boil their water, receive prenatal care during pregnancies, and seek treatment for their kids when they are sick. In this way, education of one generation benefits the health of the next. Education also teaches students to assimilate information from experts, a skill that is imperative to navigating social systems, such as health care, later in life. Furthermore, every year of education increases an individual’s earning potential by as much as 10 percent, leaving researchers to estimate that if every student left school with basic literacy skills more than 170 million people could be lifted out of poverty.
It doesn’t take long to witness the transformative effect of education.
Linda Smith is the Founder and Executive Director of Reading Village — a Colorado-based nonprofit organization which leverages scholarship, leadership, and literacy to interrupt poverty in rural Guatemala.
In the eight years that we’ve been working in Guatemala, we’ve seen our scholars finish high school despite the inconceivable barriers they face. But, perhaps more importantly, we’ve also seen their confidence soar. They are achieving something that 90 percent of their peers don’t have the opportunity to achieve, and the combination of education and leadership development ignites in them the passion and gives them the skills to continue to achieve more and to do better by their communities.
The change is contagious, just like the research shows. Teens in school become role models for younger children. And as more of their scholars are finishing high school and competing for professional employment, the families that Reading Village works with are seeing the benefits of greater incomes. Books are floating around the community for the first time ever. Younger siblings are taking an interest in reading, and parents — finally witnessing the benefits of education — are prioritizing their income to keep their younger children in school.
For those who are familiar with the desperate circumstances of rural Guatemalan communities, this cycle of change is humbling. And it is evidence that a strategic investment of small sums of money are still among the most sustainable ways to propagate prosperity around the world. “The country was never ours to save,” says Smith.
The future of Guatemala doesn’t hang in the balance of a foreign aid policy. The future of Guatemala lies in the potential of its youth. If you can harness the energy of those intrepid young adults who are willing to fight against all odds for their right to an education, you can you can change the trajectory of entire communities. That potential is potent and it is the country’s very best resource.
When you think about Millennials, those born between 1979 and 1990, what comes to mind? Perhaps someone in their late 20s still living at home with their parents? How about the recent graduate who just completed their third master’s degree? What about someone who has figured out how to use their money to create both financial and social return? Am I getting warm yet? I’m guessing that the savvy young investor was not your first pick…
The reality is however that there are many in the financial markets and social sector who firmly believe that Millennials are critical stakeholders who will unleash impact investing’s true potential within the next two decades.
[Spoiler alert: I do too.]
In fact, within the next 10 to 20 years, I’m betting that “impact investor” will be one of the most common phrases used to describe the next generation. Given that Millennials have come to define themselves as a generation driven by purpose and passion it seems like a fait accompli that they would also choose to direct their private capital, and that of the organizations with which they work, in order to generate measurable social good and financial returns. For champions of impact investing, the next generation represents an unprecedented opportunity to galvanize perceptions and to catalyze how investors look at long-term risks and returns.
Acknowledging that Millennials will play a significant role in the future of impact investing, we must also recognize that they won’t, and can’t, do it alone. With this immense potential and rapid growth of the impact investing ecosystem comes various considerations that have the potential to dramatically influence what happens 10, 15, 20 years from now — including whether or not our big bet on Millennials and impact investing will become a reality.
Here are three critical insights for investors, financial advisors, government, impact businesses, corporations and foundations as they undertake efforts to support the Millennial generation’s shift towards impact investing.
1. Millennials are the Next Generation of Social Good Stewards
At 86 million strong, the Millennial generation is the largest generation in modern history. They are on the receiving end of one of the largest wealth transfers between generations in recent times — they’ll share an estimated $30 to $41 trillion with Gen X from Baby Boomers over the next 40 years. With this transfer will come a new generation of stewards with preferences and ideas for how to direct their assets that will differ from that of the generations that preceded them. For example, Merrill Lynch recently released a survey that revealed 71 percent of Millennials prefer to self-direct their own investments, which is not surprising when this generation values peer recommendations and reviews above most other forms of information (as shared in the 2014 Millennial Impact Report).
For the impact investing movement to evolve, Millennials must be empowered to leverage their assets and integrate the deployment of them with their beliefs regarding blended value and social change.
2. They’re Creating the New Norm
We’re already starting to see the purpose-driven influence of this generation take hold. The 2014 Millennial Impact Report confirmed how a Millennials “desire to ‘do good’ is reflected in their employment — from the companies they consider in an initial job search to the effect an employer’s cause work has on overall job satisfaction.” The bottom line… what an organization does, sell or produces is a primary consideration for this generation when deciding whether or not to apply for a job.
We won’t have to wait long before what an organization invests in is linked to similar considerations for this generation of changemakers. Forward-thinking organizations are already taking notice and shifting their strategies to attract and retain not only the best next generation talent, but also to cater to next generation consumers and constituents.
Today, impact investments represent a mere 0.02 percent of the $210 trillion in financial markets around the world, when in reality it could easily be 10 to 20 times that size (US National Advisory Board on Impact Investing Report). The next generation is poised to achieve this as a confluence of factors has brought both Millennials and impact investing to this watershed moment.
3. But It’s Not Going to Happen Overnight
Millennials have grown up in a relatively volatile era defined by events such as 9/11, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the Great Recession and Occupy Wall Street. Moving forward, the recent college graduate will have approximately $27,500 in student loans and will enter a job market where 40 percent of unemployed workers are Millennials. Not surprisingly given this perceived instability, most Millennials today are considered to be conservative and skeptical in relation to investing and saving — even more so than their parents. When it comes to investing in the stock market, a recent report shows that 51 percent of high-net-worth Millennials “fear they will lose money by investing in traditional equity securities and 64 percent responded that they were “more comfortable investing in physical assets rather than stocks.”
Yet, responses from Millennials, regardless of their net worth, show that there’s something even greater at play, something that trumps the fear of losing money and investments with a higher risk profile or lower returns — investments that create a positive social or environmental impact. In fact, in a 2013 survey of high-net worth Millennials 45 percent expressed their desire to use their wealth to help others and that they considered social responsibility a factor when investing (Spectrem Group study).
By rallying together to address these specific needs and concerns of the next generation of investors, we can harness their influence, dollars and convictions to not only meet their own investing needs and desires, but also finally move impact investing from niche to mainstream.
By Roberta Rampton
WASHINGTON, Feb 25 (Reuters) – President Barack Obama raised the political pressure on Republicans over immigration on Wednesday, telling young members of Miami’s Latino community that Republicans were to blame for stopping reform and urging them to make it an issue in the 2016 elections.
Obama took questions about his stalled immigration executive actions at a town hall-style event at Florida International University, which claims to be first in the nation in awarding degrees to Hispanic students. It was televised on Spanish-language network Telemundo and MSNBC.
Obama told the audience that he would veto any move by Congressional Republicans to block his plans, announced in November, to offer work permits and lift the threat of deportation for as many as 4.7 million undocumented immigrants who are parents of U.S. citizens and legal residents, or were brought into the country illegally as children.
“They can have that vote. I will veto that vote,” Obama said.
Congressional Republicans said he overstepped his powers, but Obama said the failure of Congress to reform outdated immigration laws left him with no choice but to take action.
But he said his actions were only temporary, and he told the audience that it was up to them to pressure Republicans to pass a bill to reform outdated immigration laws.
“If they start feeling enough pressure, that can make a difference,” he said. “When they start asking for votes, the first question should be, do you really intend to deport 11 million people?”
Obama acknowledged that former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, who is considering a run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, supports immigration reform.
But he said that he wished Bush would talk to Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives John Boehner to help move things along.
“I gave the Republicans a year and a half — a year and a half — to just call the bill. We had the votes. They wouldn’t do it,” he said.
Obama’s unilateral plans were supposed to take effect last week, but were thwarted by a Texas judge who halted the actions. The Justice Department has asked for an emergency stay on that action, and is also appealing the decision.
Obama said on Wednesday that he is confident his administration ultimately will win the legal battle to proceed with his executive actions on immigration, but said that the fight will take a couple months.
“We expect to win,” he said, promising the audience that his administration would continue to fight the case even if the appeal fails.
In the meantime, Obama promised Latinos that his border and immigration officials would focus on deporting criminals and recent border crossers, rather than people who have been living in the country for many years.
“You are going to see a substantial change even as the case makes its way through the courts.”
(Editing by Eric Walsh)
BOSTON (AP) — A University of Massachusetts student filed a civil rights lawsuit Wednesday against Amherst police alleging he was wrongly arrested last year during rowdy, pre-St. Patrick’s Day parties known as the “Blarney Blowout.”
Thomas Donovan says he was assaulted on March 8 after using his smartphone to videotape police officers appearing to use excessive force while making an arrest. He says he was pepper sprayed and tackled to the ground when he refused to stop recording the incident. Donovan’s video also shows an officer appearing to stomp repeatedly on the phone in an attempt to break it.
The initial police report said Donovan was pepper sprayed after he approached officers and refused orders to leave, but Donovan’s lawyers say the video shows he was more than 20 feet from the scene and standing behind a chain-link fence.
David Milton, Donovan’s attorney, says recording police officers is protected by the First Amendment, a right that has been affirmed recently by the federal appeals court in Boston.
“I have the utmost respect for police officers who conduct themselves with integrity, but officers who blatantly disregard the law and are willing to arrest innocent civilians to cover up their own misconduct must be held accountable,” Donovan, now a college senior, said in a statement.
His lawsuit seeks unspecified monetary damages.
Police and university officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the lawsuit.
UMass-Amherst initially suspended Donovan for a semester but reversed course after conducting an investigation, according to the lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court in Springfield. The criminal charges also were dismissed.
The university has rolled out a plan to prevent a repeat of last year’s “Blarney Blowout” rowdiness, in which more than 50 people were arrested.
This year, UMass students living in dorms will be banned from hosting guests from March 5 until March 9. The university will provide alternate activities such as a concert, and downtown bars will not be doing any advertising for weekend events.
More than 7,000 people registered as guests in UMass dorms during last year’s Blowout weekend, which is a series of parties on and off campus. Less than half were UMass students.
After filing for divorce last year, billionaire Kenneth Griffin reportedly says his wife is claiming $1 million in monthly expenses to support their three children.
So, what does Anne Dias Griffin’s monthly tally entail? According to NBC News and Page Six, it includes:
Griffin, the CEO of Chicago investment firm Citadel, earned $1.1 billion in 2014 according to Forbes; Newser reports he’s worth $5 billion overall. His wife, a Harvard Business School grad, founded her own hedge fund before meeting Griffin in 2002.
The couple married in 2005 and separated in 2012, and Dias Griffin is asking to have their prenup voided. According to the Daily Mail, she says the figures are an accounting of their child-related expenses during their marriage, and argues that her ex is required to maintain the children’s lifestyle.
Such stationary needs are a little puzzling, if you ask us. But hey, everyone’s different!
Keep in touch! Check out HuffPost Divorce on Facebook and Twitter.
KNIGHTS LANDING, Calif. (AP) — Police have found the body of 20-day-old baby boy in a swampy region near the Sacramento River in Northern California after dozens of searchers spent the night looking for a missing infant.
Authorities found the body shortly before 10 a.m. PST Wednesday near the rural town of Knights Landing about 30 miles west of Sacramento. They have not identified the body. Justin Rees and his mother, Samantha Green, 23, of Woodland were reported missing Monday.
About 5:30 p.m. PDT Tuesday, a Knights Landing resident called 911 to report a hysterical and crying woman who turned out to be Green on a nearby levee along the river, Woodland Police Capt. Dale Johnson said. Her car was found at the opposite end of the wetlands.
The woman was cooperative, but she was too upset and disoriented to provide details about where she and the baby had been while missing, Johnson said. A night-long search was then launched between the area where Green turned up and where her car was found on the opposite side of the wetlands known as the River Cut Slough.
Johnson said that “foul play is not suspected at this time” and the investigation continues.
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Information from: KNTV-TV.
They walk among us — those agents of change. Sometimes, we just need to be reminded of who they are. Take note of five stand-outs creating significant sea changes.
Ethan Bearman
Let’s face it: today’s media has turned into a seemingly never-ending chat fest. Who on the air doesn’t have an opinion about something? Even your meteorologist chimes in about his/her thoughts. With that being the sobering reality in which we now live, it’s up to us to decipher what broadcast personalities to trust — maybe it always has been. Nevertheless, if you’re eager to hear a voice of reason — yeah, I actually said it — and, perhaps, the voice of talk radio’s future, turn to radio personality/author/public speaker Ethan Bearman. In just a short span of time, Bearman’s nationally syndicated radio talk show, The Ethan Bearman Show has quickly risen among the ranks as one of the more thought-provoking outings on the airwaves. Why? The host is unabashedly witty, yes, but he’s also deeply interested in current events, politics, science, tech and other rich topics. Beyond that, he appears to have a rare gift of being able to dissect half truths, offering realistic takes on complex topics, and somehow allow the listener to find a curious and perhaps unexpected respite with him somewhere in the middle of The Here And Now. That he does it with fascinating bravura and razor-sharp wit is an added bonus. A significant voice of Gen X, Bearman was listed in 2014 as one of Talker’s magazine’s “Heavy Hundred.” His upcoming book, Liars and Whores: How Big Government And Big Business Are Working To Save Their Own Asses, Not Yours, will be released in summer of 2015. In the meantime, he recently made waves on The Rick Amato Show. You can catch his nationally syndicated show Sundays on the Genesis Communications Network, 4-6 p.m. PST/7-9 p.m. EST. Take note: Listen Saturdays and Sundays from 4-7pm PST Pacific Time on AM 560 KSFO in San Francisco. Keep a watch out for this one.
Kresy-Siberia Foundation
First the big news: 2015 marks the 75th anniversary of Joseph Stalin’s mass deportation of nearly 2 million Polish people to the Siberian Gulags, events and their ripple effects that were nearly swept under the rugs of history. Now the good news: Those events of the 1940s and the lives of the Polish people whose lives were already hanging on a shredded thread, will not be forgotten. This is where the Kresy-Siberia Foundation plays such a vital part in turning around the ships of time and creating a significant sea change in its ongoing mission to shed more light on what has already been dubbed Poland’s “forgotten odyssey.” Although those deportations and their aftermath could easily be called the Forgotten Holocaust — nearly half of the nearly 2 million Poles uprooted perished and according some reports, Stalin’s extensive death toll during his precarious tenure hovers somewhere near 40 million. But back to the good: What began back in September of 2001 as an internet discussion forum known as the Kresy-Siberia Group — the goal was to research, remember and recognize the Polish citizens deported, enslaved and killed by the Soviet Union during World War Two — has now morphed into a fascinating if not soul-stirring movement. In addition to offering one of the more vibrant research and educational portals on the web on this subject, the organization’s website also houses a Virtual Museum with survivors’ testimonies, archival photographs and other documents and photos submitted by either the survivors of the deportations or their offspring. The majority of this group’s original members were actually the children of Second World War survivors of the Soviet occupation of Poland’s eastern Borderlands (known as the Kresy), many of which now reside in the West. “Upon reaching middle age, this Second Generation finally acquired the wisdom to seek to understand what their elders had lived through,” the site notes. Under the helm of foundation president Stefan Wisnioski, the organization rises among the ranks of 2015’s top agents of change.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
There is simply not ample space here to aptly covey just how vital and necessary USHMM actually is. This living memorial to the Holocaust does more than inspire citizens and leaders worldwide to, as it notes, “confront hatred, prevent genocide, and promote human dignity.” It is a vibrant cultural beacon that will not dim. And nor should it. That said, there was something unique I came across recently, and quite by “accident” actually. I was in the throes of a book launch and other press matters when a colleague connected me with one of the main Project Coordinators at the museum. Unbeknownst to me at the time was the fact that the museum has expanded the types of stories it shares via its Oral History portal. The collection contains interviews with survivors of the Holocaust and persecution by the Nazis, yes, but what stood out for me were three other words: “and their collaborators.” Well, it certainly opened up the playing field to include many Eastern Europeans affected by Stalin’s decisions (see above.) The interviewees here include Jews, Roma (Gypsies), Polish Gentiles, Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, and political prisoners. One can also discover testimonies of liberators, non-Jewish witnesses, and rescuers. In a year when the world is beginning to recognize that when it comes to World War II, the scope of atrocities lies beyond just Hitler, this extension of the USHMM is quite remarkable. Also of note: The International Tracing Service (ITS), with whom the museum works closely. ITS is able to scour documents in a prominent historic database and offer family members with vital records of their own relatives’ past. Powerful indeed. Onward …
Chopin Theatre
Led by the husband-and-wife team/proprietors Zygmunt Dyrkacz and Lela Headd, Chicago’s resilient Chopin Theatre fascinates for a number of reasons. For starters, it’s all in the diversity it offers. This month playwright/actor Anna Deavere Smith’s brilliant expose on the L.A. riots, “Twilight,” continued to generate standing ovations with an all-female cast in tow. This spring, there’s The Seven Secrets of Madame Caprice, which shines the light on outcasts brought together by a woman-on-the-fringe who attempts help them navigate through life. There’s always plenty to savor throughout the year, and all of it open to The Windy City’s wild mix of theater companies wanting to get in there and make some magic happen — and in a place with a distinctly original Bohemian vibe that mirrors some of the theater experiences of yore — particularly in Europe. Bravo.
David Zak and Pride Films & Plays
As executive director of this prominent creative Chicago-based enterprise, David Zak is known to many as an educator and journalist — and to a great many more as a kind of Pied Piper of significant theatrical merit. When, in 2013, he was inducted into the City of Chicago’s Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame, it was a fitting and well deserved honor. After all, Zak nabbed 7 Jeff Awards in Chicago — four for directing, two for writing, and a special Jeff Award for “Fostering Diversity in Chicago Theater.” Needless to say, this makes the man one of the more vibrant forces behind Pride Films & Plays. Birthed in 2010, the organization utilizes stories with characters or themes that are GLBT-centric and shines the work on stage — and now, in film — for all audiences. In fact, last year it invited a team of Chicago-area filmmakers to enter the fold to launch the film side of PFP. Two memorable film screenings were held at Chicago Public House Theater in June and November. Currently, The Book of Merman — Leo Schwartz’s witty, tongue-in-cheek yet memorable musical ride with huge doses of “Ethel” — is capturing attention in an extended run. Better still is how open PFP is in welcoming the works of new writers through a variety of contests. It all comes to life in three fests of various staged readings with the authors themselves taking part in the rehearsal process in Chicago’s Hoover-Leppen Theater at the Center on Halsted. Also of note: Generation Next, a contest for high school, college and university students who would like to pen plays or screenplays with GLBT characters or themes. Bottom line: A powerful and empowering entity worth experiencing. (Photo By Bob Eddy)
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
