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The Koreas
Category: Humanity
This claim was easy to fact-check: There are zero black governors for the 50 states. But there are two governors who’ve apologized for wearing blackface.
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Out of 50 sitting governors, 47 are white, and the remaining three are Hispanic, Asian American and Native American.
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Only two African Americans have been elected governor, with the most recent being Democrat Deval Patrick, who was voted into office in Massachusetts in 2006. Democrat Douglas Wilder had previously been elected as Virginia’s governor, a post he held from 1990 to 1994.
Before Wilder’s election, the only black governor had been P. B. S. Pinchback, who stepped in as Louisiana’s governor for 34 days in 1872 while the incumbent faced impeachment.
In a new model of living, residents will have their own “microunits” built around a shared living space for cooking, eating and hanging out.
(http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/11/coliving/414531)
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Terry Gross and the Art of Opening Up
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“Over the years, Gross has done some 13,000 interviews, and the sheer range of people she has spoken to, coupled with her intelligence and empathy, has given her the status of national interviewer. Think of it as a symbolic role, like the poet laureate — someone whose job it is to ask the questions, with a degree of art and honor. Barbara Walters was once our national interviewer, in a flashier style defined by a desire for spectacle. Gross is an interviewer defined by a longing for intimacy. In a culture in which we are all talking about ourselves more than ever, Gross is not only listening intently; she’s asking just the right questions.”
(http://nytimes.com/2015/10/25/magazine/terry-gross-and-the-art-of-opening-up.html)
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Self-control saps memory resources
Exercising willpower impairs memory function by draining shared brain mechanisms and structures
(http://www.theguardian.com/science/neurophilosophy/2015/sep/07/self-control-saps-memory-resources)
“I know our visitation is at 9 AM, and I saw the lady and the two young children sitting in the chairs,” Deputy Bussell said. “I assumed they were here to visit someone in our jail. When I walked back out a while later, the children were asleep, and the lady was still sitting there, so I inquired if she needed assistance.”
The lady had been evicted from her home in Oxford, Ohio where the children attend school. She stated she is in the waiting process for assistance with housing and should know something by Wednesday. Deputy Bussell, with the assistance of Dispatch Supervisor Miranda Sheppard, tried several shelters and other avenues to get them a place to stay. “Most of the shelters were overcrowded or there was a time requirement to be there and we were past that,” Deputy Bussell said. So he contacted a hotel in Oxford and booked a hotel for 10 days out of his own pocket.
Deputy Bussell took the family to the Walmart in Oxford. He told them to pick out clothes and to call him when they were ready to check out. The little boys asked if they could get shoes, and Deputy Bussell told them they absolutely could.
“He went to the Walmart when they were done and paid for everything,” Sheriff Jones said. “This is a true act of kindness. He did not tell anyone at work what he had done but the lady took a picture with him and posted it on Facebook. That’s actually how we found out. It was shared so many times that I got a phone call asking if I knew what a generous gesture my deputy did.“
(http://www.cbsnews.com/news/ohio-deputy-goes-out-of-his-way-to-help-homeless-family)
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Abdi and the Golden Ticket
This week’s This American Life about a Somali refugee trying to get a US visa green card is amazing.
(http://thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/560/abdi-and-the-golden-ticket)
This is a great discussion about how water rights were originally divided in the West and how it could have been done better based on new and better information.
danelabonte 