Sunday, April 16, 2023

April Tuesdays Together Higher Education National Speaker Series Event

The North Carolina Central University Higher Education Administration Program and the School of Education invite you to the April 2023 Tuesdays Together National Speaker Series conversation with Dr. Tressie McMillan Cottom, '09, NCCU alumna, New York Times columnist, 2020 MacArthur Genius Fellow, and UNC-Chapel Hill professor. The conversation is scheduled on Tuesday, April 18, 2023, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the North Carolina Central University School of Education Room 1071, 700 Cecil St., Durham, NC 27702.

Dr. Tressie McMillan Cottom is a trenchant cultural critic, celebrated sociologist, and award-winning writer. She is known for rearranging your brain in the span of a carefully-turned phrase. Her breadth is phenomenal – it moves from the racial hierarchy of beauty standards and the class codes of dressing for work to the predation of for-profit colleges and the stain of racial capitalism on our plural democracy – all while reimagining the essay form for the 21st-century as she goes.

Dr. Tressie McMillan Cottom's first book, Lower Ed, captures the zeitgeist on how profit, and debt, moved from the margins of higher education to bankrupt the very heart of American meritocracy. Influential change-makers like Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and activists like The Debt Strike Collective cite her book as important for changing the conversation about higher education. Her sharp insights do not let anyone off the hook – she argues that bad federal policy, state disinvestment, amoral narratives about meritocracy, and prestige-driven cultures of traditional higher education all share responsibility for Lower Ed.

Her far-ranging intellectual interests include books, articles, magazine profiles, and opinion editorials, but it is her essays that routinely shape the discourse. Her version of the essay – or Tressays, as her devout fans refer to them – is part revolutionary pamphlet, part poetic chapbook, part sociological analysis, and part call-to-arms. Her 2019 collection of essays, Thick, was a National Book Award finalist that reimagines the modern essay form. Tressays are powerful storytelling that make problems for power. Careful and poetic, Tressie explores the everyday culture of big ideas like racism, sexism, inequality, and oppression by giving us the language to live better lives.

Dr. McMillan Cottom holds a B.A. (2009) in English and Political Science from North Carolina Central University and a Ph.D. (2015) in Sociology from Emory University. She was affiliated with the Department of Sociology at Virginia Commonwealth University from 2015 to 2020 and has been a faculty affiliate of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University since 2015. McMillan Cottom's additional publications include the edited volumes Digital Sociologies (2016) and For-Profit Universities: The Shifting Landscape of Marketized Higher Education (2017), and she has been a contributor to Slate, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, and Inside Higher Ed.

In July 2020, she joined the faculty of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill as an associate professor in the School of Library and Information Science and senior research faculty at the Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life. She is a 2020 MacArthur Foundation Fellow and New York Times contributing opinion writer.

The conversation will be moderated by Dr. Tryan L. McMickens, associate professor of Higher Education and program coordinator of the Higher Education Administration Program at North Carolina Central University, on a wide range of topics including race, culture, and higher education leadership.

POLITICS Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas reportedly has been claiming thousands of dollars annually from a shuttered real estate firm

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas reported on financial disclosure forms that his family has earned thousands of dollars in rental income from a Nebraska real estate firm that has been shuttered since 2006, according to a report by the Washington Post Sunday.

Thomas has reported income from a firm called Ginger, Ltd., Partnership over the last two decades, but in 2006 it was shut down and replaced by a new firm, the report said. The new firm, Ginger Holdings, LLC, is similarly named, but there is no mention of it in Thomas' records.

In recent years, Thomas reportedly continued to disclose between $50,000 and $100,000 in income from the old firm annually.

Even if the misstatement can be reduced to a paperwork error, it marks the latest question around the justice's financial practices after a recent ProPublica report revealed Thomas has accepted secret luxury trips from Republican megadonor Harlan Crow for more than two decades in apparent violation of a financial disclosure law.

Thomas, the 74-year-old conservative associate justice who has served on the nation's highest court since 1991, has not reported the trips on his financial disclosures as required by law, the nonprofit newsroom reported. ProPublica later reported that Crow bought property from Thomas as well, which the justice also failed to disclose.

The investigation offers more fuel for Thomas' critics, who say his refusal to recuse himself from cases touching on issues related to his wife's political work in conservative circles — including her involvement in schemes to overturn the 2020 election — poses a conflict of interest.

The Senate Judiciary Committee's Democratic majority on Monday called for an investigation into Thomas' behavior. Chief Justice John Roberts should "immediately open" a probe into "how such conduct could take place" on his watch, read a letter from Chairman Dick Durbin of Illinois and the Senate Judiciary panel's 10 other Democratic members.

The committee announced in the letter that it would hold a hearing "in the coming days" on "the need to restore confidence in the Supreme Court's ethical standards."

Thursday, April 13, 2023

Trump’s GOP rivals try to grab media coverage, but he dominates with Fox interview

Nikki Haley's presidential campaign has raised more than $11M in the first six weeks since announcing her candidacy

Nikki Haley ranks high on the list of Republicans who don't want to directly criticize Donald Trump.

In fact, she deflects every question about the front-runner and insists only the media are asking her about this.

But she came up with a not-so-subtle method of taking a few swipes at her rivals. It's called the confidential memo. And I can't exactly say it has no fingerprints.

The Haley campaign simply leaked the memo to Axios – which touted it as a scoop. An Axios reporter confirmed it came from the campaign (duh). And a leaked memo is sexier to journalists than, say, a sitdown interview.

Haley has raised $11 million in six weeks, and the memo from campaign manager Betsy Ankney says: "Donald Trump had a pretty good Q1, if you count being indicted as 'good.'"

Zing!

"Still, it's increasingly clear that Trump's candidacy is more consumed by the grievances of the past and the promise of more drama in the future, rather than a forward-looking vision for the American people." Perfectly fair shots – but why couldn't Haley say these things herself? Who is she fooling? Perhaps she thinks she's avoiding a Trump counterattack by laundering it through the press. The memo also says of Ron DeSantis that he's "not ready for prime time."

Still, the memo didn't make much news, not in this environment. Sen. Tim Scott announced a presidential exploratory committee yesterday. Which means he's running. \

The Senate's only black Republican is an attractive candidate with a compelling life story, which he summarizes as "from cotton to Congress."

In a video, Scott stressed his optimistic message: "I know America is a land of opportunity, not a land of oppression. I know it because I lived it." But given the nature of today's GOP, Scott has to be regarded as a long shot. And as more Republicans jump in, they increase the chances of Trump cruising to the nomination as they divide the opposition vote.

Both Haley and Scott got a sliver of the coverage that Trump attracted, not surprisingly, by sitting down with Fox's Tucker Carlson.

The former president was full of provocative responses, such as saying he'll stay in the race even if he's convicted in the Stormy Daniels case. When he was brought in for the arraignment, "They were actually crying. They said 'I'm sorry.' They'd say '2024, sir, 2024.' And tears are pouring down their eyes."

Will Joe Biden stay in the race?

"Look, I watch him just like you do, and I think it's almost inappropriate for me to say it. But I deal with other people. I don't see – I don't see how it's possible.

And it's not an age thing."

Then what is it?

Trump delivered his standard riff about the president being surrounded by "smart" but "vicious" left-wingers, as if Biden isn't really in charge.

In a particularly strange series of exchanges, Trump said Biden "is not top of the line" and then proceeded to praise dictators around the globe.

Vladimir Putin? "Very smart," said Trump, despite the fact that he has decimated his military and committed countless war crimes by invading Ukraine.

"People ask me, how smart is Xi? I say, top of the line. You've never met anybody smarter. How smart is Kim Jong-un? Top of the line."

But was Kim, who inherited his job, smart enough to make a nuclear deal with Trump? No.

Whether you agree or disagree with Trump's comments, they're all designed to generate buzz and be replayed (and even denounced) on television. That leaves those with leaked memos and exploratory groups in the shadows, and it leaves the indicted former president even more of a front-runner than he was a week ago.

Tuesday, April 11, 2023

Christina Hammock Koch Will Become The First Woman On The Moon

/NASA has named four astronauts as the first people who will fly around the moon in over 50 years, leading a pivotal spaceflight before humans return to the lunar surface.

U.S. astronauts Christina Hammock Koch, Victor Glover, and G. Reid Wiseman will ride in the Orion spacecraft for the Artemis II mission, expected to launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida, as early as November 2024. Joining them will be astronaut Jeremy Hansen from the Canadian Space Agency.

The 32-story mega moon rocket — the most powerful in the world — will shoot them into the sky with 8.8 million pounds of thrust, a force equal to that of 160,000 Corvette engines. Not since the final Apollo flight in 1972 have astronauts made this journey.

Though women have trained and tested alongside men since the early 1960s, this mission marks the first time in history any woman will have traveled into deep space, hundreds of thousands of miles beyond the low-Earth orbiting International Space Station. For years, NASA simply said female applicants did not meet the stringent requirements for crew assignments. Now in 2023, the agency freely admits this day has been a long time coming.

"You have already been in the history books as a record-setting astronaut. You're a trailblazer and a role model for every generation to come," said Joe Acaba, NASA's chief of astronauts, of Koch, who will be the first woman to travel into deep space. "And as the only professional engineer in the crew, I know who mission control will be calling on when it's time to fix something on board."

NASA and the Canadian Space Agency announced the Artemis 2 crew: mission specialist Christina Hammock Koch, pilot Victor Glover, mission commander G. Reid Wiseman, and mission specialist Jeremy Hansen.

Artemis II will break another barrier by including the first person of color on a space mission beyond low-Earth orbit, pilot Victor Glover. NASA officials say the diverse crew assignments signify the immense cultural shifts that have taken place within the agency since the dawn of the program decades ago, when white men dominated human space exploration and aeronautics.

"All four astronauts will represent the best of humanity as they explore for the benefit of all," said Vanessa Wyche, director of NASA Johnson Space Center, in a statement.

Artemis II purpose

The mission is expected to serve as a crucial stress test of Orion's life-support systems, the new passenger spacecraft NASA hopes will shuttle astronauts to the moon to carry out its long-term ambitions: establishing a permanent lunar base for research. The agency intends to use the moon as a testbed for a future mission to Mars, over 130 million miles in the distance. The crew selections were announced Monday morning from NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston.

NASA announced crew selections for Artemis II on Monday morning from NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston.

"The commitment to go to the moon should be seen in the context of going to Mars," Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA's former associate administrator for science, told Mashable last year. "That is perhaps one of the hardest things we'll have ever done as humans, in terms of technology, in terms of objectives. It's harder than going to the moon, it's harder than the Apollo program. And the way we're doing it is very different. We're doing it as a world, not as a country."

"The way we're doing it is very different. We're doing it as a world, not as a country."
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That vision, a future in which people can travel to and survive on Mars, means NASA needs practice and can't do it single-handedly. By the time the agency is ready to send the first astronauts to walk on the moon as early as 2025, for example, it will have spent about US$93 billion on the project, according to a federal watchdog. To become multiplanetary requires a host of other spacefaring nations and commercial partners to bear the costs.

Artemis II will be the first mission to send a woman or person of color into deep space.

NASA has been getting buy-in on its plans from other nations through the Artemis Accords, an international agreement establishing standards for safe and collaborative space exploration. Agency officials say this mission, which includes a Canadian astronaut, demonstrates their commitment to international partnerships through the Artemis program.

"It is not lost on any of us that the United States can choose to go back to the moon by themselves," Hansen said. "But America has made a very deliberate choice over decades to curate a global team, and that, in my definition, is true leadership."

Artemis 2 mission

Artemis II will send four astronauts on a journey around the moon as a crucial flight test before returning to the lunar surface for Artemis III.

Over 10 days, the Artemis II astronauts will make two oval-shaped loops around Earth before flying around the moon. A Houston team will control most of the flight, but for the second Earth orbit, the astronauts will take charge of piloting a maneuver. That step will test Orion's capabilities for docking and undocking — necessary during the next Artemis III mission.

For the duration of the flight, NASA will observe how the spacecraft handles the air supply, removing carbon dioxide and water vapor as the astronauts breathe, especially during periods when they exercise.

Orion will make a single lunar flyby during the mission, putting the astronauts on a path that will use Earth's gravity to reel them back home.

Test dummy Cmmdr. Moonikin Campos sits in the pilot seat during the Artemis I mission.

This second mission follows the completion of the inaugural Artemis spaceflight last December. NASA launched the empty Orion spacecraft with its mega moon rocket on Nov. 16, 2022. It flew a 1.4 million-mile journey, testing various orbits that had never been previously attempted.

After 25.5 days, the spacecraft splashed down in the Pacific Ocean and was recovered. Three months later, after reviewing flight data, the U.S. space agency called the mission a success.

But since its return, NASA's post-flight analysis has found the rocket's platform and spacecraft suffered excess damage during the launch and reentry into Earth's atmosphere, respectively. Teams are particularly concerned about the overly charred heat shield that protects Orion as it zooms 24,500 mph in 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit on its way back. The team has not determined yet whether the material needs to be redesigned.

"With Artemis I, we set out to prove that the hardware was ready," Acaba said. "Artemis II will leverage that by putting humans in the loop, executing operations in the critical path, leading to new footprints on the lunar surface."

Woman at the Heart of Infamous Malaysian ‘Basikal Lajak’ Court Case Acquitted

Malaysia's Court of Appeal has reached a unanimous decision to acquit Sam Ke Ting in the infamous and drawn-out "Basikal Lajak" court case that began in 2017.

On April 13, 2022, local clerk Sam was found guilty of causing the death of eight young cyclists along a stretch of a dimly-lit road in Johor Bahru at 3.20 a.m. on February 18, 2017, and was handed a six-year prison term alongside an RM6,000 (US$1,358) fine.

After an investigation by the police, it was found that Sam had not been speeding and was not under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Also, the eight deaths had arisen after a large group of youths had been riding modified bicycles along the poorly-lit and winding road that Sam had been using when she collided into them.

While many observers had deemed Sam's sentence unfair due to the nature of the calamity — something many consider to be a freak accident, she was nevertheless deemed guilty despite initially being freed from a reckless driving charge by the magistrate's court in 2019.

However, the latest ruling by the court of appeal has seen Sam receive an acquittal, with her conviction under Section 41(1) of the Road Transport Act 1987 being set aside by a three-judge panel led by Justice Hadhariah Syed Ismail. All three judges agreed that the charge held against Sam was defective.

Thursday, April 6, 2023

Whitmer strikes 1931 abortion ban from Michigan law

A near-century old abortion ban that fueled one of the largest ballot drives in Michigan history was repealed Wednesday by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, just months after voters enshrined abortion rights in the state's constitution.

Somaliland lifeline organization

Sunday, April 16, 2023

April Tuesdays Together Higher Education National Speaker Series Event

POLITICS Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas reportedly has been claiming thousands of dollars annually from a shuttered real estate firm

Thursday, April 13, 2023

Trump’s GOP rivals try to grab media coverage, but he dominates with Fox interview

Nikki Haley's presidential campaign has raised more than $11M in the first six weeks since announcing her candidacy

Tuesday, April 11, 2023

Christina Hammock Koch Will Become The First Woman On The Moon

Artemis II purpose

Artemis 2 mission

Woman at the Heart of Infamous Malaysian ‘Basikal Lajak’ Court Case Acquitted

Thursday, April 6, 2023

Whitmer strikes 1931 abortion ban from Michigan law

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Judge orders Stormy Daniels to pay Donald Trump another $120,000 in legal fees

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