Stephan: Here is some excellent news about a trend that has received virtually no coverage except this report.
Students learn about some of the technologies used to harness solar energy in a rooftop lab at Discovery Elementary in Arlington, Virginia. The school has a 495-kilowatt solar array. Credit: Lincoln Barbour
In a field behind an elementary school in rural Middlesex County, Virginia, near the Chesapeake Bay, an ambitious plan has been taking shape: Schools Superintendent Peter Gretz and other local administrators are preparing to power their school district with solar energy.
By next August, Virginia-based solar developer Sun Tribe Solar expects to have an array of solar panels in place in that field that can generate enough electricity to power the county’s elementary school and middle school—at a price well below their current electricity costs—while offering students, teachers and the community a way to learn about clean energy.
“We felt it was important work for our kids, and we wanted them to see the community leading in a way that was responsible and sustainable, as well as fiscally responsible and efficient,” Gretz said.
The number of schools powered by solar is growing quickly. About […]
Stephan: Here is some more good news. The United States, where the internet began actually, as things have played out, has some of the worst internet speeds in the developed world, and the U.S. standing is going down year by year. In the first two quarters of 2017 the U.S. lost footing in the global race for fastest mobile internet speeds with a rank slip from 42nd to 44th in the world. Few Americans seem to realize this. It also seems to surprise most Americans to learn that there are large parts of the U.S. where internet connection is both difficult and slow -- unless you happen to live in one of those areas, in which case it is a constant irritant.
Given this situation it is very good news to hear about local community efforts to make internet access if not faster at least easier or, as in large areas of Detroit, possible in the first place.
Detroit internet
Being stuck without access to the internet is often thought of as a problem only for rural America. But even in some of America’s biggest cities, a significant portion of the population can’t get online.
Take Detroit, where 40 percent of the population has no access to the internet—of any kind, not only high speed—at home, according to the Federal Communications Commission. Seventy percent of school-aged children in the city are among those who have no internet access at home. Detroit has one of the most severe digital divides in the country, the FCC says.
“When you kind of think about all the ways the internet affects your life and how 40 percent of people in Detroit don’t have that access you can start to see how Detroit has been stuck in this economic disparity for such a long time,” Diana Nucera, director of the Detroit Community Technology Project, told me at her office.
Nucera is part of a growing cohort of Detroiters who have started […]
Stephan: Here is yet another facet of the christofascist drive to breech the wall of church and state and to make the new cult version of Christianity the defining force in America. These people are very serious, and they are willing to work the nooks and crannies of U.S. culture to get their way.
Jack Phillips, owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop, is at the center of a case that will be considered by the Supreme Court on December 5. Credit: AP / David Zalubowski)
On a sunny morning in September, Representative Vicky Hartzler, a Missouri Republican, held a press conference with four of her congressional colleagues to announce their support for Jack Phillips, a Colorado baker. The conservative Christian and “cake artist” had been found in violation of Colorado’s anti-discrimination law when he refused to bake a wedding cake for a same-sex couple. Phillips is now the plaintiff in one of the most closely watched cases on the Supreme Court’s docket this term, Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission.
This article was reported in partnership with the Investigative Fund at the Nation Institute. Additional research by Eli Clifton, Queen Arsem-O’Malley, Evan Malmgren, and Jake Bittle.
Hartzler had just spent a good part of her summer pressing for a ban on transgender people in the military because she believes they constitute a “domestic threat.” She was […]
Stephan: Sexual dysfunction is one of the hallmarks of conservative religiosity. It is a very real and particularly toxic part of christofascism. Almost every day I see at least one story on this trend but, today I saw seven, all dealing with christofascists caught up in some kind of sexual dysfunction issue. I thought about doing the entire day's edition on this one subject but decided, when I saw some reports on good news trends, not to waste the issue on that topic, although I consider it to be an important trend. So I will just let this single report stand for the whole. You get the point.
In the interest of full disclosure I have to admit that I feel sorry for Mr. Shortey. It's a shame he could not have grown up in a family and a community where he could feel free to express his homosexuality in a healthy manner.
Ralph Shortey, former Trump campaign coordinator for Oklahoma and Republican state senator, plead guilty to child sex trafficking.
Ralph Shortey, a former Oklahoma state senator and county campaign coordinator for President Donald Trump’s campaign last year, will plead guilty to a child sex trafficking charge after being accused of soliciting sex from a 17-year-old boy in March.
In exchange for his guilty plea, government prosecutors have agreed to drop three counts of child pornography against him.
Shortey is scheduled to plead guilty on November 30, two weeks before his trial was set to commence on December 5. Sex trafficking of a minor carries a minimum sentence of 10 years in prison, but Shortey could be sent to life in prison for the offense at a sentencing hearing in early 2018.
Shortey is married and has four children.
“Mr. Shortey feels this is a necessary step in putting this painful and humiliating ordeal behind him, for both himself, his family and for the state of Oklahoma,” Shortey’s attorney Ed Blau said on […]
Stephan: Just how sick is American society's gun psychosis. I'm not even going to try to comment. Just read this.
And note that this was published in a British newspaper read around the world. If you lived in another country and read this, what would you think?
Mike Cronk was sitting half-naked on a street corner, hands covered in blood, when the TV news reporter approached. The 48-year-old, who had used his shirt to try to plug a bullet wound in his friend’s chest, recounted in a live interview how a young man he did not know had just died in his arms.
Cronk’s story of surviving the worst mass shooting in modern US history went viral, but many people online weren’t calling him a hero. On YouTube, dozens of videos, viewed by hundreds of thousands of people, claimed Cronk was an actor hired to play the part of a victim in the Las Vegas mass shooting on 1 October.
Conspiracy theorists harassed him on Facebook, sending messages like “How much did they pay you?” and “How does it feel to be part of a hoax?” The claims multiplied and soon YouTube’s algorithm began actively promoting the conspiracy theory.
Mike Cronk was sitting half-naked on a street corner, hands covered in blood, when the TV news reporter approached. The 48-year-old, who had used his shirt to try to plug a bullet wound in his friend’s chest, recounted in a live interview how a young man he did not know had just died in his arms.
