Category Archives: News to use

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

“If I Thought It Would Help …”

Filosofa's Word

The lawman’s words at the end of the press conference were …

“If I thought it would help, I’d apologize.”

Rather like a spouse trying to end an argument saying, “Okay, fine, whatever it is you’re mad about, I’m sorry for whatever it is I did.”  Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.  Or that old classic, “I’m sorry, but …”

Law enforcement of every stripe that showed up in Uvalde, Texas last Tuesday deserve no kudos, no thumbs-up, for they were cowards … to a man, they were cowards.  When you put on that badge, you are expected to do everything in your power to protect the citizens of your city/county/state, even if it means putting your own life at risk.  You are expected to be courageous.  The response by law enforcement to a shooter murdering children inside Robb Elementary School that day was reminiscent of Keystone Kops.  The bungling Toody and Muldoon…

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Barnard Kemter’s microphone cut off during speech on Black roots of Memorial Day – The Washington Post (Me: A shameful move for Hudson, OH with a history of active involvement in the fight to save the Union – see below)

Source: Barnard Kemter’s microphone cut off during speech on Black roots of Memorial Day – The Washington Post

Hudson in the Civil War

If a person stands on the Hudson Green you can walk a couple of blocks in two directions and confront history and Hudson’s role in the Civil War and the lead up to this great conflict.  In 1837, John Brown spoke at the Congregational Church, now site of the Town Hall, and dedicated his life to the abolition of slavery.  In 1854, former slave, Frederick Douglass, gave his famous commencement address, on the “Claims of the Negro Race”, at the Western Reserve College Chapel.  And, in 1861, in a snowstorm, Abraham Lincoln came to the train’s back platform to acknowledge the crowd while en route to lead a nation falling into Civil War.

Travelling to the US – first solo trip!

Saania's diary - reflections, learnings, sparkles

Last week, my sister and I travelled around the US. This was our first ever travel trip without our parents, so it was a fulfilling journey of independence and learning (along with ridiculously crazy instances).

Here’s what we did in a nutshell:

We organised this trip primarily to tour around campuses of the universities we may be joining this fall. So our first stop was Illinois, as we wanted to see the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. It was located at a serene location complete with squirrels, rain drops, fresh trees, and lots and lots of greenery.

Me on your left, my twin sister Diza on your right

My sister and I in front of the UIUC campus

We also stayed in Chicago for a day and something really scary happened. We were filling the gas of our (rented) car and in America, as I learnt, we have to do everything…

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Minbari Mondays, and Two Lessons from “And The Rock Cried Out, No Hiding Place” (B5:s3e20) on Volunteering — Inspiring Critical Thinking and Community via Books, Lessons, and Story

This week’s lessons:           1.   Those who care will come when called, even to the death, if “the cause is just and fair, and necessary.”           2.   Volunteering, when it comes down to brass tacks, really can make a difference.             This episode begins on December 7th (ironically enough), 2260, […]

Minbari Mondays, and Two Lessons from “And The Rock Cried Out, No Hiding Place” (B5:s3e20) on Volunteering — Inspiring Critical Thinking and Community via Books, Lessons, and Story

Repeating myself about guns

The Weekly Sift

https://theweek.com/political-satire/1013894/the-web

The only change since the last time I covered this issue is that more people have died.


From your cousin on social media to TV talking heads and syndicated columnists, everybody who comments on current events is facing the same conundrum: What do you say when nothing has changed since the last time you spoke out? There are no new insights to offer, no arguments that didn’t prove to be futile last time.

And yet, how can you stay silent? Silence is complacency that can even be interpreted as consent. Ten-year-olds get massacred in a public school? Grandmothers get killed for shopping-while-Black? Asians get shot at a church luncheon? It happens. This is America. Things that don’t happen anywhere else happen here, sometimes one right after another. And in spite of all the other countries that have responded to horrifying mass killings by taking effective action…

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Adult Fears

The Weekly Sift

People who feel safer with a gun than with guaranteed medical insurance don’t yet have a fully adult concept of scary.

William Gibson

This week’s featured post is “Repeating myself about guns“.

This week everybody was talking about gun violence

This week’s featured post is my confession that I’ve got no new ideas about America’s gun problem. Instead, I review what I’ve written on the topic since 2015. As far as I can see, nothing has changed in the last seven years, other than the list of mass shootings getting longer.

I also can’t report any ideas from others that struck me as new this week. The battle of ideas, such as it is, has been going around in circles for a very long time.

What did seem fresh, though, was the earnestness of emotion that I heard from many people, particularly from folks who aren’t politicians…

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