A delusional, dangerous Trump is harming America's security - CNN

None of this can possibly come as a surprise to anyone who has been paying attention to Trump's tenure, or even anyone who has listened to the president speak. But it is more disturbing evidence that this president, along with his enablers in the White House and the Republican Party, poses a direct threat to American interests and our country's future.

Drawing on multiple sources who have heard the president's conversations with foreign leaders, Bernstein paints a picture of an impulsive and delusional bully, a man so out of his depth and unhinged from reality that he spends phone calls with autocratic leaders like Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan or Russia's Vladimir Putin exaggerating his own accomplishments and allowing those smarter than he to gain strategic advantage.

By contrast, he is condescending and bullying to America's allies, particularly those nations led (at the time of these calls) by women, like Great Britain's Theresa May and Germany's Angela Merkel. He has, Bernstein's sources assert, dimmed America's power while emboldening and empowering Russia. He's so happy to speak with Erdogan that Trump even takes the Turkish strongman's calls from the golf course.

According to Bernstein's sources, it was the conversations with Erdogan, a serial human rights abuser who quashes dissent and fair-minded reporting on his regime, that shaped Trump's decision-making in Syria -- "including the President's directive to pull US forces out of the country, which then allowed Turkey to attack Kurds who had helped the US fight ISIS and weakened NATO's role in the conflict," Bernstein writes.

The question is, what now? While it's jarring to see all of these damning claims compiled in such a deeply sourced exposé, the claims themselves are mostly things we've heard before, or could have surmised based on the president's public behavior (do we really think that he's more professional, coherent, and thoughtful in private than in planned press conferences and pre-written speeches?).

During the 2016 election, we were in fact privy to one particularly memorable private chat between Trump and Billy Bush, wherein the now-president bragged about grabbing women by their genitals. He has been accused of sexual harassment and assault by over a dozen women. He has appointed fewer women than any president in the previous decade (and possibly fewer than any president in 20 years). Is anyone surprised that he aggressively mistreats female heads of state?

We've all seen the president take the podium and lie to the press and the public. We've seen him invent claims about the coronavirus pandemic seemingly on the spot, putting public health and American lives at risk. We've seen him fire those who investigate his alleged bad acts. It does not take great imagination, or anything other than looking honestly at what is in front of your face, to see that this is a man dangerously unfit for the office he occupies.

And yet we've seen his support among his base and GOP leadership go largely unchanged. Few current or former members of the administration have sounded the alarm on what a liability this president truly is, perhaps because they're craven and, like John Bolton, apparently more interested in cashing in on a tell-all book than walking the country back from the brink. Or perhaps they look at congressional Republicans and conclude that all of this information is already obvious, and the president's party has chosen to defend a clearly damaged and harmful man.

According to Bernstein, "One person familiar with almost all the conversations with the leaders of Russia, Turkey, Canada, Australia and western Europe described the calls cumulatively as 'abominations' so grievous to US national security interests that if members of Congress heard from witnesses to the actual conversations or read the texts and contemporaneous notes, even many senior Republican members would no longer be able to retain confidence in the President." But why in the world would this be the conclusion, knowing what we do about ongoing Republican support for Trump even after impeachment hearings brought to the fore the president's incompetence and choice to put self before country?

The sources in Bernstein's story have a stark choice in front of them: Continue to prop up a man who they know threatens the nation, or stand up for the future of this country and put their name and face behind the truth. If these high-level public servants really believe that "even many senior Republican members would no longer be able to retain confidence in the President" if they knew the truth, then surely Republicans in Congress -- and the rest of the country -- deserve to know just that.

There is an election in four months. American voters, and our elected officials, must know the full story of this president's first term. And we need to hear it not from cowardly anonymous sources, but from the men and women who have witnessed these abominations themselves. If those men and women are the patriots they believe themselves to be, they'll speak out, and they'd do it before November.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

"Opinion" - Google News
July 01, 2020 at 03:43AM
https://ift.tt/38cEEIy

A delusional, dangerous Trump is harming America's security - CNN
"Opinion" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2FkSo6m
Shoes Man Tutorial
Pos News Update
Meme Update
Korean Entertainment News
Japan News Update

Carl Reiner, 98 years of funny - CNN

Way too soon.

Come on, now. You know that's funny. Carl Reiner would have known that was funny. He'd back me up on it -- except that he's the one who died at age 98.

He'd also know why it's funny. "The absolute truth," Reiner said, "is the thing that makes people laugh."

And Reiner, even though he was at the age when, to paraphrase Casey Stengel, most other people are dead, was still an active, sharp-witted presence on the pop-cultural scene along with his lifelong pal and frequent foil Mel Brooks. Both of them, just this past weekend, were photographed celebrating Brooks' 94th (!) birthday wearing "Black Lives Matter" shirts.

And now he's dead? Already? The way Reiner was going, we all thought he'd have 98 more years. At least.

It's also funny, just as an aside, because Reiner appreciated funny numbers. And 98 happens to be one of those numbers that, for whatever mysterious reason, is a funny number. Like 32. or 63. Or 2,000, which was the number of years assigned to Brooks' alter ego, "The 2,000-year-old man," to whom Reiner played straight man and interlocutor on several comedy albums and hundreds of TV and stage shows.

Maybe the first place to start assessing Carl Reiner is as a second banana, which is how he achieved nationwide attention as part of the unparalleled ensemble of comic actors backing up the explosively versatile Sid Caesar on the groundbreaking "Your Show of Shows" TV comedy-variety series (1950-54).

Reiner not only proved himself in that crucible of late-night live television to be the paragon of an agile, responsive and unstinting ensemble player, but was also an important part of a legendary team of writers for both "Show of Shows" and its successor, "Caesar's Hour" (1954-57), that included such future hall-of-famers as Brooks, Neil Simon, Larry Gelbart and Woody Allen.

Reiner's comedic instincts, appreciation for collective talent and abilities in a writers' room combined to create what he and others consider his masterpiece: "The Dick Van Dyke Show" (1961-66). Even in its earliest form, the show was based on Reiner's experiences as a suburbanite, father (one of whose children would grow up to be film director and actor Rob Reiner) and comedy writer, but Reiner had initially cast himself in the lead role of Rob Petrie. It was producer Sheldon Leonard, according to Reiner, who stepped in and said, "We need to get an actor better than you." Reiner agreed, Van Dyke got the part and the rest is ottoman-tripping, multiple-Emmy-winning history.

Reiner never quite attained such thin-air reaches of achievement again, but he stayed busy and kept on being -- and writing -- funny. The on-stage-and-in-studio partnership with Brooks spilled into the 21st century and he had an admirable record as a writer-director of such films as "Where's Poppa" (1970) and "Oh God" (1977). His run of good luck included a streak of big-screen collaborations with Steve Martin, beginning with "The Jerk" (1979) and continuing with "Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid" (1982), "The Man with Two Brains" (1983) and "All of Me" (1984).

Throughout, he kept faith with the medium that made him -- television -- where he popped up frequently as a talk show guest and showed he still could deliver as a bit player, whether playing himself as Bernie Mac's neighbor, giving voices to animated characters on "Family Guy," "Bob's Burgers" or "The Penguins of Madagascar" (he played Santa) or stealing scenes on "Two and a Half Men" as geriatric roué Marty Pepper.

Reiner, in other words, never stopped showing up. Which, as his onetime writing colleague Woody Allen insists, is the -- or maybe, just "a" -- key to success.

He was (of course) an inveterate tweeter, submitting both one-liners and political commentary (he, along with Van Dyke and Brooks, supported Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign this year) on his feed. His June 27 tweet began with what turned out to be a graceful and fitting epitaph: "Nothing pleases me more than knowing that I have lived the best life possible."

Funny? Maybe not. But absolutely true.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

"Opinion" - Google News
July 01, 2020 at 06:12AM
https://ift.tt/2NG5qQ0

Carl Reiner, 98 years of funny - CNN
"Opinion" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2FkSo6m
Shoes Man Tutorial
Pos News Update
Meme Update
Korean Entertainment News
Japan News Update

How I want to remember my dad - CNN

"I'm David," I say.

"Were you thinking of someone else?" I ask him.

I told my dad it was time to take a shower and start the day. He couldn't lift his body up off the couch.

"Let me help you."

A few minutes go by as he struggles to push his body up.

"I can help you."

A few more minutes go by.

"I will help you up and then you can shower."

A few more minutes go by. He's still struggling to get up off the couch.

"OK," he says as he looks at me. He's defeated.

I place my arms under his, bend my knees and let him lean into me for balance as he straightens his legs and he's able to stand upright.

He showers. But when he gets out of the shower, he slips and falls in his bedroom. He's seated on the ground in his bathrobe, helpless. I help him stand up.

That was just one morning in my life 60 days ago. It's part of a series of scenes now stuck in my head over the past 100-plus days.

The time he lost his balance, fell and cut his head when we were on a walk together.

The last time he climbed the stairs on his own, and the first night he had to sleep in a hospital bed in the living room.

The night the health aide woke me up at three in the morning because he was coughing up blood.

The last time he could stand on his own legs.

The first time I had to give him morphine.

I became the primary caretaker for my father, terminally ill with brain cancer, when my mother died suddenly of a brain aneurysm in March. In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, I learned what it means to care for a dying parent in isolation, while still grieving for another parent.

It hasn't exactly been "Tuesdays with Morrie." My dad didn't sit around telling me stories with beautiful life lessons. The brain tumor had already damaged his short-term memory and his emotional responses. He would often ask me where my mother was, and I would have to remind him that she died.

He spent most days looking at his watch. I don't know if it's because he couldn't remember what time of day it was. Did he know it was 9 a.m.? Did it matter? It did remind me at least that time was running out.

He couldn't hold a conversation. I could ask him questions and he might respond.

"What year is it?"

"2020," he told me.

"Who is the President?"

"Ronald Reagan," he said.

I told him I loved him. I rubbed his back. I kissed his forehead.

Most of the time I had to just show my love by being there.

I tried to cook his favorite foods -- or sometimes just order them. On more than one occasion I let him eat cupcakes for breakfast and ice cream for dinner.

It's been over 100 days now.

Over 100 days without any visitors, just the two of us.

He's now in bed and unable to do anything. He's been like this for over a week.

He's not eating or drinking.

The last food he ate was some chocolate Jell-O pudding. At least it was chocolate. He loved chocolate.

He looks so close to death.

His legs are shriveled up. There's no more muscle. His arms are just loose skin draped over a bone.

This isn't how I want to remember my dad.

I want to remember him as the dad who would put on his Walkman and mow the lawn while screaming out Chuck Berry songs.

I want to remember him as the dad who took me to my first R-rated movie when I was five years old.

I want to remember him taking me on a business trip with him, staying up late, watching "Hill Street Blues" and ordering strawberry cheesecake from room service.

I want to remember him picking me up from overnight camp because I was homesick by day three.

I want to remember him as sarcastic and clever.

I want to remember him telling my mother he didn't need to ask for directions.

I want to remember him eating Oreos by the sleeve.

I want to remember him getting angry when the ball went through Bill Buckner's legs in Game 6 of the 1986 World Series.

I want to remember him spending endless hours on eBay trying to rebuild his entire childhood baseball card collection.

I want to remember him taking my kids to Chuck E. Cheese while I was away on a Bahamas vacation, only to come home and find out that both kids had the flu because my dad definitely didn't make them wash their hands before they ate pizza.

Two days before my dad took his last breath my wife and kids came to visit to say a final goodbye.

My seven-year-old son kneeled on the chair next to my father's bed and just stared.

Later that night, my son woke up and couldn't go back to sleep.

I took him downstairs and we turned on the TV and watched Jimmy Kimmel. My son had never watched a late-night comedy show before.

It's exactly what my dad would have done in that situation.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

"Opinion" - Google News
June 30, 2020 at 07:23PM
https://ift.tt/2YNPz8x

How I want to remember my dad - CNN
"Opinion" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2FkSo6m
Shoes Man Tutorial
Pos News Update
Meme Update
Korean Entertainment News
Japan News Update

Opinion: Use the Pandemic to Expand the Lab to the Home - The Scientist

COVID-19 will not be the last pandemic we face in the coming years. This is an opportunity to learn how to decentralize scientific research and make it more robust. Research is a crucial area in which the world must become quarantine-proof. While some kinds of experiments clearly must be done entirely inside a state-of-the-art laboratory, there is a considerable sector of the scientific community’s research portfolio that could continue even when social distancing prohibits normal operation of laboratories. To do this, there are steps that laboratory heads, educators, reviewers, journal editors, and university administrators should take now to keep the essential stream of basic science flowing during this and subsequent quarantines. I propose that we must now begin to take the necessary regulatory, cultural, and logistical steps to enable some kinds of basic research to be done at home by scientists who cannot go to the lab or who want to minimize their in-person presence there.

For many of us, our homes will become “field stations” so that work can continue. Of course, this will not be the optimal way to do science. And doing real discovery (other than computational work) from home may seem impractical to researchers used to unfettered 24/7 access to world-class facilities. But research cannot simply grind to a halt due to epidemics, and as in other areas of life, we have to adapt and creatively transform our expectations of what is normal. We are rapidly moving away from a world in which we can assume that real science has to be done in large laboratories. In fact, the history of science is full of remarkable breakthroughs that were made by committed, resilient investigators working under remarkably disruptive conditions (for example, wartime).

I believe that it should be possible to set up logistics and operational frameworks to enable some researchers to work on amphibians, invertebrates, plants, microbiota, and many other systems in their homes, at least part-time. Behavioral observation in simple environments, progressive steps of regeneration or development under various conditions, and other experiments that do not require expensive culture conditions can readily be done. Microscopy, microphotography, molecular biology, incubation, and even automation are increasingly available to all via inexpensive equipment.

This is an incredible opportunity to engage with the thriving movements for the democratization and crowdsourcing of science.

For example, a researcher studying the effects of various compounds on spinal cord regeneration in tadpoles could take home frog embryos, keeping them in a simple incubator. They could be monitored, photographed, and manipulated over the course of a week, and then brought back to the lab for confocal microscopy. All of the steps leading up to the sophisticated imaging can be done at home with minimal space requirements and cost, reducing interpersonal contact in the lab and freeing up space in the lab for those who have to be there. Other examples include long-term evolution experiments with yeast and bacteria, and behavioral experiments on addiction, memory, and problem-solving in easy-to-use model systems such as planaria, plants, slime molds, and even unicellular forms.

This is not only a call to normalize and reinvigorate the “independent scientist” role that was prevalent early in the last century, nor is it only about virus-induced quarantines. This is also an incredible opportunity to engage with the thriving movements for the democratization and crowdsourcing of science, low-cost STEM education available to all social strata, frugal science, citizen science and biohacking, facilitation of research for those with disabilities or during pregnancy and breastfeeding, and enabling of research in developing countries.

Many procedures have been developed to facilitate discovery at field stations and in environments completely different from modern laboratories. It is essential to develop and begin to implement a roadmap for what I call Science@Home in which the products of those movements are integrated and deployed across the research enterprise to facilitate research at home, preserving the path of progress despite lab shutdowns.

Essential steps include: 

1. education of university administrators, funding agencies, and regulatory bodies on the critical need to change long-held, largely unquestioned beliefs about how research must be done
2. creation of an online clearinghouse that is inclusive to the movements mentioned above and aggregates in one portal all of the advances and resources for science out of the lab, as well as providing information on local ordinances that may govern certain kinds of work 
3. dissemination of this information to PIs so that they can begin to formulate a strategy that includes the optimal amount of Science@Home activity for their research programs
4. development of inventory control systems to enable scientists to borrow equipment when feasible
5. discussions with regulatory committees and government bodies to establish best practices for what can and cannot be done at home (with respect to chemical and biological safety and animal use) and establish teleconference protocols for inspection, certification, and oversight of remote workspaces
6. forums with journal editors, especially those of open science publications such as eLIFE and iScience, to develop policies and educate referees for reviewing work done outside of traditional labs
7. outreach to funding sources that already support science in the field for grants to improve and quarantine-proof the research enterprise

Benefits include not only the maintenance of existing funding contracts, careers, and discoveries, but also a continued cycle of improvements of methods and devices to enable science across the world, including in places where advanced labs are not available, making it accessible at low cost and helping move forward the educational and research missions of academia. Examples include PCR at home, centrifuges made out of salad spinners, cardboard microscopes, autoclaves made of kitchen appliances, punchcard microfluidics, and much more.

There are clearly many regulatory and logistical issues to overcome, including inventory control, biosafety, and animal use. But I argue that there is no practical alternative to grappling with these issues now.

I call on universities to break down the outdated, artificial barriers demarcating “official places of science” and develop best practices for facilitating a thriving research enterprise. Partnerships between local governments and universities are needed to address permitting. Foundations with interest in facilitating science in the developing world, as well as government agencies that fund research, should establish funding for advancement of equipment and procedures that can be used in non-lab conditions, as well as for pivoting recent advances in remote surgery and virtual reality to real-time remote control of laboratory apparatus.

The very last thing we should be doing during pandemics is squandering our intellectual and biological resources and losing momentum on impactful research programs after all the grant-writing, review, and administrative effort that has been spent on initiating them. Establishing research continuity and enabling inexpensive science to take place wherever and whenever possible should be the mission of the educational and research communities, not only during pandemics but always. COVID-19 can help us do this.

Michael Levin is the director of the Allen Discovery Center at Tufts University, where he works at the intersection of computer science, developmental biology, and cognitive science. Follow him on Twitter @drmichaellevin and share your experiences doing science at home with the hashtags #Science@Home and #PostLabScience.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

"Opinion" - Google News
July 01, 2020 at 03:00AM
https://ift.tt/2BqKQjZ

Opinion: Use the Pandemic to Expand the Lab to the Home - The Scientist
"Opinion" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2FkSo6m
Shoes Man Tutorial
Pos News Update
Meme Update
Korean Entertainment News
Japan News Update

Arcadia High sexual assault investigation prompts #MeToo-type discourse - The Pasadena Star-News

israelob.blogspot.com

The Arcadia Police Department is investigating allegations against a former Arcadia High student who recorded himself and a female student having sex without her knowledge and then distributed the video in an online group chat with fellow students.

Both were minors at the time of the incident, according the female student, a recent Arcadia High graduate who requested the pseudonym Judy to protect her privacy. Investigators have called it a sexual assault and are asking anyone with knowledge about the video to contact the department.

Meanwhile, school officials say they are taking the allegations seriously.

Judy took to social media on Sunday, June 21 — seven months after the recording incident —to share her experience and call out students who saw the videos but did not report them. To this day, Judy does not know who has seen the video or if anyone is in possession of it, she said.

“My personal experience with (the perpetrator) was something that consumed my mind daily for more than seven months,” Judy said. It was time to share.

In her post, Judy alleged the same male student had recorded — without permission — sexual acts with other underage students. Arcadia police say they also are seeking any other potential victims to contact the department.

In her case, Judy learned in November she had been secretly recorded during sex when a friend of a friend saw the video posted in a social media group chat in which posts typically disappear after 24 hours. After Judy confronted the male student, he admitted to recording her and sending the video to the group chat, she said.

Judy shared a recording of the alleged perpetrator’s confession with investigators, and she said she is satisfied by the department’s handling of her case so far.

Recognizing Judy’s allegations, two recent Arcadia High graduates posted on social media a highly-circulated letter directed at investigators. Hailey and Shria, identified by their first names to protect their privacy, claimed in the letter they had called the Arcadia Police Department on behalf of acquaintances in June 2019 to report a similar incident.

However, Arcadia police Capt. Paul Foley, said Wednesday, June 24 that the department does not have any records of this call last year.

Hailey and Shria said they had seen an online group chat, dubbed the “Fap Chat,” in which male students from Arcadia High posted videos allegedly of themselves having sex with female students. Hailey and Shria believed these videos were recorded without consent.

“These boys swapped sex videos of minors like trading cards,” Hailey wrote in her letter.

Following Judy’s allegations, Hailey and Shria hope that more victims will feel comfortable reporting sexual abuse, they said.

“A lot of the girls were scared or ashamed to speak out in the past. It was really hard to bring it up to the authorities in the past, because (the girls) got backlash for ruining these boys’ reputations,” Hailey said.

Reached for response, Arcadia Unified spokesman Ryan Foran said an action plan is being developed to implement further education and resources for our students surrounding sexual assault.

“Our immediate priority is to continue to listen and support any of our students who are victims,” he wrote in an email.

Dozens of students, inspired by Judy’s candor, shared their own stories of sexual abuse on social media in the days following Judy’s initial post. This movement spurred the creation of several social media accounts dedicated to exposing and condemning sexual misconduct among Arcadia High students, including one that spreads awareness about students’ rights under Title IX, the federal law which prohibits sex discrimination in education.

Another account publicly posted allegations that included graphic descriptions of sexual assault and alleged perpetrators’ names. Within a day after it was created on Tuesday, June 23, it gained 1,400 followers and posted more than 200 posts in one day.

When the account owner was contacted by this newsgroup, they refused to comment on their involvement unless they were paid.

However, the account was removed the day after it was created. Almost immediately, a new account took its place, and remains active.

Among students who said these social media posts have encouraged them to speak out was Kasy, a recent graduate who requested a pseudonym to protect her privacy. She said reading other students’ stories helped her come to terms with a personal experience of sexual assault, unrelated to the sex recordings under investigation.

“I didn’t know what (my assault) was until I read everyone’s stories, and then I realized that I was relating,” Kasy said. “Now I’m realizing how wrong it was.”

Judy does not regret speaking up because she had “initiated a movement,” she said.

“I’ve had many girls privately message me, thanking me for my courage to speak out because they had gone through something similar as well,” Judy said. “It’s extremely heartbreaking and saddening to know that so many girls went through such trauma.”

It’s not just young girls for whom these allegations have prompted reflection.

In an email sent to Arcadia High students and families on Friday, June 26, principal Angie Dillman expressed empathy with the victims, sharing her own experience with sexual assault as a child and her fear of being viewed differently if she had reported it.

“Clearly, sexual harassment and sexual assault are pervasive in our society, and, unfortunately, schools are not immune to this,” Dillman wrote. “This generation fills me with great hope that they will have the bravery that I didn’t have as a student to move us all forward to a more just society.”

Shria believes Dillman is taking the sexual assault allegations seriously, a hopeful sign of change to come, she said.

“We’re really happy that this is blowing up and actually being taken seriously for once,” Shria said.

Dillman, who became Arcadia High’s principal just last year, believes in listening to student voices to guide change, she said in an interview.

“If you never have leaders you can believe in that will make a difference, you’ll always stay silent,” she said. “We all need to be open to having discussions about uncomfortable topics, and painful topics, because the results of not having those discussions are so much worse.”

The Arcadia Police Department can be reached at 626-574-5163.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

"discourse" - Google News
July 01, 2020 at 02:50AM
https://ift.tt/2YN3XxO

Arcadia High sexual assault investigation prompts #MeToo-type discourse - The Pasadena Star-News
"discourse" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2KZL2bm
https://ift.tt/2z7DUH4

WHO says it wants respectful global discourse on COVID-19 after Trumps Kung flu remark - Republic World - Republic World

israelob.blogspot.com

The World Health Organisation (WHO) would like to have a respectful discourse over coronavirus pandemic, said Executive Director of WHO Health Emergencies Programme Michael Ryan. During a virtual briefing, Ryan was asked to comment on US President Donald Trump’s “Kung-Flu” remarks, to which he said the UN agency obviously want to have an international discourse that's based on mutual respect.

“And, in that sense, we encourage all people at all levels and in all countries to use language that is appropriate, respectful and is not associated with any connotations that are negative," said the WHO official.

Trump had called the novel coronavirus “Kung Flu”, blaming China for the deadly outbreak across the globe which has now crossed the sombre milestone of 10 million cases. Addressing an election rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Trump said that COVID-19 has more names than any other disease in history and he can name different versions of it.

"I can name - Kung flu. I can name 19 different versions of names. Many calls it a virus, which it is. Many calls it a flu. What difference. I think we have 19 or 20 versions of the name," said Trump, playing around the term “Kung Fu” which is a Chinese martial arts practice.

Read: China Warns Against Using Words That 'stigmatize' Country After Trump's ‘Kung Flu’ Remark

China hits back at Trumo

Responding to Trump’s remark, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said that Beijing firmly opposes any words or actions that try to use the origins of the coronavirus to stigmatise any country. He also emphasised that the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the international community are against linking the virus to any country.

The WHO has often cautioned against the stigma around the contagious disease saying the level of stigma associated with COVID-19 is based on several factors which include the fear of unknown and associating the fear with ‘others’. It has also tried to address the issue of social stigma associated with COVID-19 because people are labelled, stereotyped, discriminated against, and treated separately due to the perceived link to the disease.

Read: US NSA Says Trump Wasn’t Briefed On Russian Bounties, Lambasts Officials For Leaking Info

Let's block ads! (Why?)

"discourse" - Google News
June 30, 2020 at 05:48PM
https://ift.tt/3g8cykc

WHO says it wants respectful global discourse on COVID-19 after Trumps Kung flu remark - Republic World - Republic World
"discourse" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2KZL2bm
https://ift.tt/2z7DUH4

Opinion: Israel Annexation Plan Diminishes Hope For Better Ties With Gulf Arab States - NPR

Enlarge this image

Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz (right) and his son Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at a session of the 40th Gulf Cooperation Council summit in Riyadh in December. Fayez Nureldine/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

toggle caption

Fayez Nureldine/AFP via Getty Images

Bilal Y. Saab, a senior fellow and director of the Defense and Security Program at the Middle East Institute, served from August 2018 to September 2019 in the Office of the Secretary of Defense as senior advisor for security cooperation in the Middle East. Charlotte Armistead is a research assistant at MEI's Defense and Security Program.

On July 1, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vows to commence the process to annex Jewish settlements and the Jordan Valley in the West Bank. This move, should it come to fruition, may kill any hope of peace with the Palestinians. But what it will also do is vastly reduce the chances of marked improvement in ties between Israel and the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council.

This is relevant for Washington — which is still considering whether to support annexation — because significantly enhanced political relations between Israel and the Gulf Arab states could crack the code of broader Arab-Israeli security cooperation, which theoretically should improve regional security, a primary U.S. interest in the Middle East.

Much has been made of the seemingly burgeoning relationship in recent years between Israel and the Gulf Arab states, and for understandable reasons. The two sides, which do not have formal relations, perceive and combat shared threats posed by Iran and Sunni terrorism. They have modestly cooperated on security since the 1960s, when Israel militarily aided Saudi-friendly factions in the 1962-1970 Yemeni civil war. In 2018, the United States, Israel and the United Arab Emirates held a joint military exercise in Greece.

Israeli and Gulf Arab leaders also have held talks in public and private, including in 2018, when Netanyahu visited Oman and met with the late Sultan Qaboos bin Said.

But writing earlier this month in the Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot, UAE Ambassador to the United States Yousef Al Otaiba warned Israelis that annexation would harm Israel-Gulf relations. "Annexation will certainly and immediately upend Israeli aspirations for improved security, economic and cultural ties with the Arab world and with UAE," he wrote.

Qatari authorities also threatened to stop aid to the Gaza Strip if Israel goes ahead with the annexation.

As significant as the Emirati and Qatari concerns are (Bahrain, Kuwait, and Oman also have condemned Israel's annexation plan), it is the Saudi attitude that matters the most. The kingdom commands the Gulf Arab pack. No GCC country will seriously contemplate normalizing ties with Israel unless Saudi Arabia does it first. And the Saudis, who have officially condemned the annexation plan as well, are nowhere close to that prospect.

No matter how risk-tolerant Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman may appear in foreign policy, on the issue of Israel he simply cannot move an inch. This is despite him warming up to Israel in 2018, at least rhetorically, saying in an interview that Israelis, like the Palestinians, "have the right to have their own land."

The de-facto ruler of the kingdom may be champing at the bit to officially partner with the Israelis, who can bloody the nose of Saudi Arabia's arch-rival Tehran as no Arab power can. But he cannot, because he will risk losing everything he has been trying to accomplish at home.

Since his speedy ascendance and consolidation of power a couple of years ago, his top priority has been to reform the Saudi system by diversifying the economy, reducing the influence of the more conservative elements in the Saudi clergy and relaxing social mores — all of which require domestic control and cooperation, or at least minimal obstruction, from the Saudi religious establishment, which is already ticked off by the young leader's measures to open up the country culturally.

If the future King Mohammed (the health of his father, 84-year-old King Salman bin Abdulaziz, is believed to be deteriorating) were to officially embrace Israel before the Palestinians sign a peace accord with the Jewish state, the Saudi clergy would most likely revolt and make life extremely difficult for him.

As Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, a title he will hold once he becomes king, the crown prince will be responsible for not only safeguarding and maintaining the two holiest sites of Islam, but also for making sure that the fate of Jerusalem is negotiated justly and fairly between Israelis and Palestinians. Jerusalem, home of the Al-Aqsa mosque, the third-holiest Muslim site, is a historical cornerstone of any Israeli-Palestinian peace deal and an issue that carries deep religious significance to Saudi society and Muslims worldwide.

The risk is not that the kingdom's clerics would unseat Mohammed bin Salman and take over if he is perceived as giving up Jerusalem. The threat is that their role and authority would catapult upward, jeopardizing all that he has promised, stood for and worked to fulfill in his country.

It is also possible that a premature official Saudi acceptance of Israel would lead to the reemergence of extremist militancy, which wreaked havoc in the kingdom in 1979 and then again in 2003-2004. Historically, the issue of Palestine, and particularly Jerusalem, has been a widely utilized tool in jihadist recruitment and activities, including the creation of al-Qaida.

So, until Israel concludes a peace accord with the Palestinians that fairly settles the issue of Jerusalem, a scenario that looks as remote as ever, given Netanyahu's reckless and politically motivated actions, don't bet on Saudi Arabia — or any other Gulf Arab nation — to officially recognize the Jewish state and team up against Iran.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

"Opinion" - Google News
June 30, 2020 at 10:56PM
https://ift.tt/2BSt8Wy

Opinion: Israel Annexation Plan Diminishes Hope For Better Ties With Gulf Arab States - NPR
"Opinion" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2FkSo6m
Shoes Man Tutorial
Pos News Update
Meme Update
Korean Entertainment News
Japan News Update

Opinion: Why San Jose should not switch to strong mayor system - The Mercury News

The San Jose City Council will consider Tuesday placing a measure on the November ballot asking voters to decide whether to switch to a strong mayor form of government. (Bay Area News Group File Photo)

The San Jose City Council on Tuesday will consider a City Charter revision for the November ballot to change to a strong mayor form of government in San Jose.

As I read about changes to the City Charter, I was reminded of an old saying, “If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it.”

As the only likely living member of the 1965 Charter Committee who wrote the present City Charter, I don’t believe we need a strong mayor form of government.

We don’t need an emperor. The current council-manager form of government favors the people of San Jose by providing a check-and-balance system among the mayor, council members and the city manager. For years, this system has proved to be effective in running our government and in keeping corruption out. Big California cities that have a strong mayor form of government such as Los Angeles, San Francisco and Oakland have suffered from institutional corruption for as long as I can remember. It hurts cities because it favors those in power and their close allies and neglects the public interest.

When we wrote the original charter in 1965, we defined mayor as the political head of the city. That meant the mayor could be as strong as he or she had the ability to be, which is exactly what we still have today.

San Jose has had good fortune since 1967 because the elected mayors have been good people and have done a great job. If we change, someday we might elect an Al Garza or a Donald Trump type as mayor, which would be disastrous under a strong mayor form of government.

Councilman Al Garza ran for mayor in 1978 and was luckily defeated, because a few years later while still a councilman he went to prison for corruption. I fear what a Trump type would do as mayor of San Jose. San Jose is a great city. If we want to sustain it, we should keep the charter as is and only make changes after extensive public review.

Under our current system, the mayor and City Council have the power to hire and fire the city manager. The city manager is a trained professional who runs the City Hall staff. Under a strong mayor system, the mayor, a politician, would run everything. Mayors come and go more often than city managers do, and many mayors are not professionals trained to run city departments such as the police or fire department.

In 1960, the City Council decided to make charter changes without proper public input and proposed changes that would politically benefit councilmembers at the expense of good government, but the people were not fooled and overwhelmingly turned it down at the ballot. Today, we are faced with a similar situation where changes to the charter are being proposed without proper public input. I hope the City Council will do what is right Tuesday and vote against putting the proposed changes to the charter on the November ballot. The process has always been to organize a committee of citizens of San Jose to evaluate the pros and cons of proposed changes and bring back recommendations for Council consideration and approval. This is the prudent and right thing to do.

Soon I will be 90 years old. I will be gone before things can go bad if things are changed, but I care too much about our city that I cannot stay quiet. No one else who cares should,  either. As far back as I can remember, we have always had a good city, the best city in California and one of the best cities in the nation. I encourage the people of San Jose to become actively involved and turn down the proposal for strong mayor form of government.

Charles W. Davidson of San Jose was a member of the San Jose Charter Committee in 1965 that helped write the current City Charter.

Get Morning Report and other email newsletters

Sign Up

Let's block ads! (Why?)

"Opinion" - Google News
June 30, 2020 at 08:10PM
https://ift.tt/2BSpQCR

Opinion: Why San Jose should not switch to strong mayor system - The Mercury News
"Opinion" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2FkSo6m
Shoes Man Tutorial
Pos News Update
Meme Update
Korean Entertainment News
Japan News Update

READ: Supreme Court opinion on funding for religious schools - CNN

Read the opinion and dissents here:

Let's block ads! (Why?)

"Opinion" - Google News
June 30, 2020 at 09:34PM
https://ift.tt/2YMU3Mx

READ: Supreme Court opinion on funding for religious schools - CNN
"Opinion" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2FkSo6m
Shoes Man Tutorial
Pos News Update
Meme Update
Korean Entertainment News
Japan News Update

Opinion: The little-known law that gave birth to Google - The Mercury News

Google co-founders Sergey Brin, right, and Larry Page speak with reporters in this May 10, 2006 file photo in Mountain View. It’s unlikely Google would have become the world’s most popular search engine without the sorts of patent protections provided by the Bayh-Dole Act, a little-known law passed in 1980.

When Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin spoke to my colleagues at Stanford’s technology licensing office in the late 1990s, other search engines already existed.

But Page and Brin, who were graduate students at the time, believed the page-rank algorithm they had developed at Stanford was superior, even though no other entrepreneurs saw its potential. So they decided to launch a start-up. The Stanford licensing office saw merit in their idea and licensed the algorithm — which was owned by the University — back to the entrepreneurs. The rest is history.

It’s unlikely Google would have become the world’s most popular search engine without the sorts of patent protections provided by the Bayh-Dole Act, a little-known law passed in 1980. In fact, over the past 40 years, Bayh-Dole has given rise to some of our nation’s most revolutionary innovations. And as you read this piece, it’s fueling promising research into and development of COVID-19 vaccines and therapies.

Universities are the birthplace of this innovation. But prior to Bayh-Dole, just a small fraction of government-funded university research initiatives ever saw the light of day. That’s because the federal government retained patents that resulted from this research — and did a poor job of licensing the patents to private firms that could turn academic discoveries into real-world products. In fact, fewer than 5 percent of all federally-funded research patents were licensed commercially.

That was bad for everyday Americans, who weren’t seeing many tangible products result from the research programs funded by their tax dollars. In December 1980, the Bayh-Dole Act broke this logjam by empowering many universities, to maintain ownership of their patented inventions and commercially license them.

That enabled institutions to create a system for academics to license their discoveries. And it enabled businesses to raise the capital for follow-on research that turned discoveries into real-life products.

It also gave small firms the chance to develop these products and commercially compete with larger companies. Today, universities issue 70 percent of all patent licenses to start-ups and small companies.

I saw thousands of licenses pour out of Stanford during my tenure, first as a licensing associate and later as executive director.

Consider the license we issued for functional antibody technology. This technology fused mouse and human antibodies together to develop better treatments for several conditions, including multiple sclerosis and cancer. The invention made an important contribution to several breakthrough drugs.

Bayh-Dole has yielded significant benefits for the broader U.S. economy. From 1996 to 2017, academic technology transfers generated up to $1.7 trillion in U.S. gross industrial output, according to AUTM, a non-profit that supports academic research. The law has supported nearly 6 million jobs and helped launch more than 13,000 start-ups. And it has spurred the development of over 200 new medicines.

It should come as no surprise that Bayh-Dole is driving the development of several coronavirus therapies. For example, the biotech firm Moderna, which has one of the most promising COVID-19 vaccine candidates, has an IP arsenal that includes licenses obtained from Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania.

Critics of Bayh-Dole claim that federal funding drives much of America’s innovation, and that private companies reap the rewards while taking minimal risks. But that’s not true. Tech transfer is still enormously risky. Even with Bayh-Dole, it’s still quite difficult to commercialize many academic innovations. Finding just one company interested in licensing a new technology and bringing it to market is often a huge accomplishment.

Without Bayh-Dole, researchers may have never developed these inventions. As the law approaches its 40th anniversary, it’s time for consumers and policymakers alike to recognize Bayh-Dole as the driving force behind so many of our most ingenious inventions. We need to protect Bayh-Dole now more than ever to foster even greater innovations in the future.

Katharine Ku, the chief licensing advisor in the Palo Alto office of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, served as the executive director of Stanford University’s Office of Technology Licensing for 27 years.

Get Morning Report and other email newsletters

Sign Up

Let's block ads! (Why?)

"Opinion" - Google News
June 30, 2020 at 08:43PM
https://ift.tt/3ijy5bB

Opinion: The little-known law that gave birth to Google - The Mercury News
"Opinion" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2FkSo6m
Shoes Man Tutorial
Pos News Update
Meme Update
Korean Entertainment News
Japan News Update

Dear Gen Z, don't give up on America just yet - CNN

Back in 2001, in the months following 9/11, a group of students at Harvard Kennedy School's Institute of Politics saw a problem: many young Americans wanted to engage in public service, but they were not nearly as engaged in public policy or politics. Namely, they didn't vote in large numbers. Seeking an explanation for this dissonance and hoping to understand how young Americans felt about their place in our country, they created the Harvard Public Opinion Project, the longest-running poll of young American attitudes toward politics and public service. Today, we're still investigating how young people feel about America.

Earlier this year, we asked ourselves: if we could change one thing about the country, what would it be? For us, the answer was "patriotism." We felt that our generation was losing its enthusiasm about America. We wondered if this might impact youth political engagement, so we decided to ask about it in our poll, which surveyed 18-29-year-olds across the country.

When we first wrote these questions in early February, coronavirus felt more like a nuisance that threatened to disrupt our spring break plans -- not our entire lives. But by the time we fielded the poll, everything had changed; the poll's first day in the field was one day after Harvard decided to send its students home indefinitely. We realized that pure chance had given us an opportunity to gauge real-time sentiment among young Americans at a critical moment in global history, just as our predecessors did on the heels of 9/11.

What we found shocked us. While young Americans still care deeply about the people in their country, they identify as far less patriotic than their counterparts did two decades ago -- a 30 points difference to be precise. During our last moment of collective national tragedy, the country seemed united in its belief in itself, with 92% of young Americans identifying as patriotic. Today, only 62% feel the same.

Indeed, the coronavirus pandemic has unmasked young Americans' waning faith in their national identity.

But it's hard to blame them. The government used to serve as a symbol of safety and order in times of chaos; it was the dependable light that could guide our country through its greatest challenges, from the World Wars to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Now, as we were sent away from our campuses in a flurry of missed experiences and irretrievable goodbyes, turning on the television to watch the daily federal and state press briefings has largely failed to quell our uncertainty about the future.

And as we prepare to graduate off an economic cliff, young Americans are not confident that American institutions will be there to break the fall. Actually, a majority of them feel that American politics are no longer able to meet their needs at all.

To be sure, national tragedy is not experienced uniquely by our generation, but this deep-rooted lack of trust in American institutions is particularly high among young Americans today, and it has likely been exacerbated by the ongoing pandemic. In short, young Americans are turning away from -- not toward -- their country and their government in a time of universally experienced struggle.

So, do young Americans just hate America? Not at all. They want to feel pride in their country, and they want to make things better. We found that they have a vision for the future, and it includes an acute sense of altruism and optimism. In poll after poll and focus group after focus group, we've found a prevailing narrative of change toward hope and hope for change.

Just look at the ongoing protests in reaction to police brutality toward an unarmed black man -- young Americans have taken to the streets, to the phones and, in November, may even take to the ballot box seeking systemic change. These actions stem from anger at America's past and present, but they also reflect our generation's commitment to making robust change for the future. We believe that we can make things better.

But patriotism is a two-way street. If we don't want to lose a generation's belief in this nation entirely, our elected leaders and our institutions will have to rise to the challenges we face in a way they haven't yet. And just as American leaders need to give "Generation Pandemic" a reason to believe in this country, our generation has the responsibility to make America something in which we can believe.

To our own generation: Don't give up on America just yet! We love our country because we have the power to change it. And for now, while our own health may not be at the same level of risk as our older citizens, this is our responsibility to the generations that came before us. Continue to stay at home whenever possible, help elderly neighbors however you can and support essential workers wherever you are. To create the America that we envision, we must continue to rally behind each other and our communities.

To our leaders: Our friends are losing pride in our country because this nation isn't living up to what they believe it can be. Our institutions must respond to this pandemic on a national level, so we are turning to you. We won't resolve these challenges to our health and our economy without good faith, bipartisan cooperation that recognizes the scale of response this crisis demands. We need a clear, consistent vision to give us renewed trust in our government. Give us solutions aimed at fixing the problem for all of America; give us a united message that reminds us what it means to be the United States.

We would all be wise to keep in mind that this is a pivotal moment for many young Americans' feelings about the United States. How we respond to this crisis matters -- not just for our nation's health and economy, but for our belief in our country and in each other.

This isn't 2001, and this generation is not the same as the one that carried our nation through 9/11. But we believe that young Americans are no less ready and willing to help our country through this new crisis; they are no less up to the challenges of the present moment.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

"Opinion" - Google News
June 30, 2020 at 06:04PM
https://ift.tt/2Vwo55j

Dear Gen Z, don't give up on America just yet - CNN
"Opinion" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2FkSo6m
Shoes Man Tutorial
Pos News Update
Meme Update
Korean Entertainment News
Japan News Update

Letter: Tired of bullying over differences of opinion - Chico Enterprise-Record

I have been noticing an issue that is causing me great concern from within our communities. This issue is one that seems to affect everyone, from boardrooms to school yards.

Bullying is the issue. No matter what your stance, politically, when the first or only response to someone whose views differ from yours is character assassination or name-calling that brings the speaker to the level of bully. Bullies operate out of fear and anger, insecurity and helplessness.

I am a supporter of freedom and of choice. I do not like when I am forced to give up either. And yet, it appears both sides of the political fence want to force me to give up one or both of these precious jewels.

Comments about how ignorant Trump supporters are is a perfect example of the issue of bullying. Just because we disagree doesn’t mean  folks are idiots. I know folks on both sides of the fence … even those in the extreme right and left … and none of them at what I would call “ignorant.” They just think differently. When their opponents can’t find logical debate satisfying enough, insults are thrown instead. That does nothing to get friends to listen and consider different points of view.

I see that both sides want to curtail freedom and choice to fit their agendas. Why don’t we all just stop the name calling and insults and try to listen – just understand where our friends are coming from. Why don’t we just stop the bullying?

— Lori Haven, Magalia

Let's block ads! (Why?)

"Opinion" - Google News
June 30, 2020 at 03:14PM
https://ift.tt/2BPIIlN

Letter: Tired of bullying over differences of opinion - Chico Enterprise-Record
"Opinion" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2FkSo6m
Shoes Man Tutorial
Pos News Update
Meme Update
Korean Entertainment News
Japan News Update

The lasting gift of the Fourth of July - CNN

A recent Gallup poll shows that national pride in the United States is at a record low. Our country's increasing division and the unwillingness by some to participate in a healthy civilized debate and listen to dissenting opinions is fostering greater fissures.

In the face of social unrest, economic distress, and the ongoing pandemic, it is perhaps not surprising that Americans have lost some faith in their institutions and in their national story. Another CBS News poll found that 67% of Americans consider the country is on the "wrong track."

Mindless pride should always be questioned, but mindless rejection is also a danger. These trends occur against a backdrop of low achievement in civics and history understanding, which exacerbates the problem of governance in this country.

Americans are expected to govern themselves, but we are neglecting to provide our citizens with the foundations to uphold these responsibilities, our shared values as a nation, and how this country has evolved over time. Nations need to have symbols, creeds and stories that allow different individuals to imagine a shared sense of purpose and interest. Without them, it is hard to find common ground. People who do not understand why they have the beliefs that they have are often unable to have a constructive conversation about the difficult issues that democracies need to fix collectively.

The Fourth of July should be a day for Americans to celebrate the common values that spring from the origin of our nation. When the American patriots separated from Great Britain, they famously declared their reasons, noting that "a decent respect to the opinions of mankind" required an explicit statement.

The first part of the Declaration would enshrine two powerful principles that have come to define the fundamental values of the American nation. The first was a claim that governments must be responsive to the consent of the governed, and the second was an assertion that all men are created equal, with rights that are inalienable and should be protected.

These two concepts created the cornerstone of American liberty, and the justification for American democracy. They have powerfully shaped American values and identity -- but it did not have to be that way.

Earlier in 1776, William Henry Drayton, a patriot from South Carolina, wrote a declaration of independence from Great Britain that had similar grievances against the crown -- the same complaints about the tyranny of the British -- but did not use any of the phrases regarding popular consent or the equality of rights for the people. Instead, he used a more conservative argument, which emphasized that the king had abdicated his responsibilities to his subjects in the colonies, and therefore the colonies were allowed to establish their own governments.

Without an emphasis on popular sovereignty and equal rights, it would have been a very different declaration indeed. Without the creed of liberty, the document would not have been so significant, and would not have contained the transformational fuel that powers the aspirational values of our nation.

But our Declaration of Independence did argue that all men are created equal and that governments need to respect fundamental rights and represent the consent of the people. And so, Americans immediately seized upon these concepts to reshape the world around them.

Despite the limitations of the right to vote for poor men, for women, the continued existence of slavery and limitations on the civil rights of African Americans in the moment of our independence, the powerful rhetoric of equality and consent had a transformative impact.

As early as 1780, language similar to that of equality in the declaration was used to create the first gradual law of manumission in Pennsylvania, which would end slavery in a generation. Language similar to the Declaration of Independence was used to end slavery in a judicial argument in Massachusetts in 1782, as well as other northern states -- the first large scale emancipations in modern history.

Poor men throughout the nation would use the language of equality and popular sovereignty to claim equal access to vote during the founding era. Equal rights language would bring down the monopoly on religious truth, long controlled by the state in the Eurocentric world, and guarantee a belief in the freedom of conscience of all people in the US.

Immigrants would use the Declaration to claim equal treatment and access to citizenship, and therefore representation. It would be used to justify the idea of the legitimacy of an opposition party against elected majorities, and it would be used to protect the rights of individuals in the Constitution, as well as the state constitutions, which came to define American citizenship.

Abraham Lincoln would use the language in his Gettysburg Address in 1863 to remind a shattered country that the nation was "conceived in Liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal," and that the fight in the Civil War would help see whether these assertions could endure.

Women would use the Declaration of Independence to demand equal laws and the right to vote. Unions would use it to organize labor against capital. The American people would use it to navigate between the charms of fascism and communism when our systems seemed to be failing. Abolitionists would use it to attack the institution of slavery and Fredrick Douglass and Martin Luther King, and many others, would use it to point out the hypocrisy of white citizenship in the face of continued black oppression. And we still use these principles to measure the freedom of other nations, whether or not we decide to shape our foreign policy to our values.

George Washington, as he became the first president of this new nation, with such grand ideals, declared that it was to be "a great experiment in human happiness." He also reminded the founding generation that "it is yet to be decided, whether the Revolution must ultimately be considered as a blessing or a curse: a blessing or a curse, not to the present age alone, for with our fate will the destiny of unborn Millions be involved."

The founding generation did not make a perfect country. In many ways, they failed to live up to their powerful vision of liberty. Nevertheless, they gave us our founding aspirations and institutional inheritance that we still rely upon to solve our problems. We can be proud of it. It is a foundation that has been continuously built upon, but it can only last if we teach our history.

Washington's challenge is still upon us as we struggle to live up to the high ideals of our nation. It is not the founders who are responsible for our failures to live up to the creed of this nation, we are free to shape our future. Our shared values of equality and popular consent still drive our frustrations with our imperfect society today, but these are our values and we should be proud to celebrate them.

So, on the Fourth of July, go ahead and have a cookout, shoot off some fireworks, raise a flag and salute the promise of America, and all those who have fought and lived for it. And be proud to recognize that we, the people, control the meaning of equality and popular rule in our future, which is our inheritance and our great trust.

Let's block ads! (Why?)

"Opinion" - Google News
June 30, 2020 at 05:34PM
https://ift.tt/2AfsKks

The lasting gift of the Fourth of July - CNN
"Opinion" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2FkSo6m
Shoes Man Tutorial
Pos News Update
Meme Update
Korean Entertainment News
Japan News Update