Category Archives: News to use

Useful news for all to advance knowledge of the world and how it works

Attorney General Merrick B. Garland Administers the Oath of Allegiance and Delivers Congratulatory Remarks at Ellis Island Ceremony in Celebration of Constitution Week and Citizenship Day | OPA | Department of Justice

…each of you has now made a commitment not only to this nation and your fellow Americans, but to the generations of Americans who will come after you.

In that commitment, you have given your posterity – and the posterity of all of us – a precious gift.

I know how valuable that gift is because it is the same one my grandparents gave my family and me.

I come from a family of immigrants who fled religious persecution early in the 20th Century and sought refuge here in the United States. Some of my family entered right here, at Ellis Island.

My grandmother was one of five children born in what is now Belarus. Three made it to the United States, including my grandmother who came through the Port of Baltimore.

Two did not make it. Those two were killed in the Holocaust.

If not for America, there is little doubt that the same would have happened to my grandmother.

But this country took her in. And under the protection of our laws, she was able to live without fear of persecution.

I am also married to the daughter of an immigrant who came through the Port of New York in 1938.

Shortly after Hitler’s army entered Austria that year, my wife’s mother escaped to the United States. Under the protection of our laws, she too, was able to live without fear of persecution.

That protection is what distinguishes America from so many other countries. The protection of law – the Rule of Law – is the foundation of our system of government.

Source: Attorney General Merrick B. Garland Administers the Oath of Allegiance and Delivers Congratulatory Remarks at Ellis Island Ceremony in Celebration of Constitution Week and Citizenship Day | OPA | Department of Justice

More Bricks in the Wall?

Idiomas RalFer

Pink FloydThe Wall

THOUGH IT INno way endangers themeisterwerkmusical status ofDark Side of the Moon(still on the charts nearly seven years after its release),Pink Floyd’s twelfth album,The Wall, is the most startling rhetorical achievement in the group’s singular, thirteen-year career. Stretching his talents over four sides, Floyd bassist Roger Waters, who wrote all the words and a majority of the music here, projects a dark, multilayered vision of post-World War II Western (and especially British) society so unremittingly dismal and acidulous that it makes contemporary gloom-mongers such as Randy Newman or, say, Nico seem like Peter Pan and Tinker Bell.

The Wall is a stunning synthesis of Waters’ by now familiar thematic obsessions: the brutal misanthropy of Pink Floyd’s last LP, AnimalsDark Side of the Moon‘s sour, middle-aged tristesse; the surprisingly shrewd perception that the music…

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10 Interesting Things I Found on the Internet #87

Content Catnip

Do you want to see pigeons at a tiny rave? do you want to learn how algae can stop palm oil deforestation? walk past a sulky dog? find the heart of Trinidad- Tobago in a jewellry case? learn about the secret to a long life? You can do all of those things in edition #87 of Interesting Things…so get cosy!

Funky throw-back 80’s house music from Peggy Gou

I can hear a bit of early New Order and Madonna in the sound of this funky song. I also like the unexpected addition of a tropical bird sample in there, I can’t get enough of this!

I am sure that pigeons would enjoy the sound of Peggy Gou, and if they could…they would play it on tiny turntables and speakers

By Buitengebieden the indefatiguable vanguard of cute animals on Twitter.

Originally tweeted by Buitengebieden (@buitengebieden) on July 29, 2022

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Women playing Jazz

Idiomas RalFer

Women in jazzstill face many barriers to success – newresearch

There are are relatively few female musicians in jazz. Recordings led by women formed only one-fifth of the top 50 albums NPR Music Jazz Critics Poll over2017 to 2019, and this seems to be a long-term trend: asurvey ofBritish jazz musicians in 2004 suggested 14% were female.

Rather than there being explicit barriers to entry,scholarly attentionhas focused on gender differences in preferences and socialisation: men seeing concerts as a male space, and male musicians more likely to be encouraged to continue following early experience of playing with others – particularly in terms of learning improvisation andtaking a solofrom a young age.

It’s a cliché that music is a meritocracy, in which success is seen to arise from a combination of talent and effort. If women are not present in jazz, it…

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Orcas attack boats in Europe – Mágica Mistura を

These animals, which are known as “killer whales” but actually belong to the dolphin family, attacked boats on the coasts of France and Portugal – where the orcas even sank a vessel with five occupants, which were rescued in time.

In May, they had already damaged boats in the Strait of Gibraltar, which connects the Mediterranean Sea to the Atlantic Ocean.

The attacks have taken place against sailboats (which usually sail with the engine off and make no noise, which would normally scare the orcas) and fishing boats.

Animals have gone after sailboats and fishing boats – and have even sunk a vessel with five people

Source: Orcas attack boats in Europe – Mágica Mistura を

The COVID Cruise

Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm

A poem in Vietnamese by Phan Nhiên Hạo
Translator: Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm


The COVID Cruise

Grey sky, through the clouds, escaped rays of light

the glaring sun indifference upon a ship aground

the silent port.

The ship docked, but the passengers weren’t allowed home.

They waited for a decision from the mainland,

countless meetings by those who can’t swim.

They waited too for their name to be called next

by an illiterate, the Grim Reaper.

On a ship railing, a seagull watched

two older people pacing in their cabin

like lightly battered caged birds.

The pair married in February.

Now March, on their honeymoon,

after separate divorces ten years past.

A person riding a bike stopped, asked.

“Is there anything I can do for you two?”

The woman asked for a leaf;

The man wanted sildenafil.

Instead, they smiled and waved.

Beneath…

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बारिश / Rain

Kaushal Kishore

जाने कौन से
दिल के गड्ढे रह गए हैं
भरने से,
जिनके लिए लौट आती है
यह बारिश
फिर फिर से…

🌧️ 🌧️ 🌧️ 🌧️ 🌧️ 🌧️

Don’t know
which pits of the hearts
are yet to be filled,
for which the rain
keeps coming back
again and again…

–Kaushal Kishore

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