Stella Young: "I am not your inspiration"

YouTube link.

Stella Young is a comedian and journalist who happens to go about her day in a wheelchair — a fact that doesn't, she'd like to make clear, automatically turn her into a noble inspiration to all humanity. In this very funny talk, Young breaks down society's habit of turning disabled people into "inspiration porn."

Stella Young had osteogenesis imperfecta.  Her biography is here.

"Consider the prison-phone industry" - updated

From an article explaining how the prison system in the United States has been corporatized into profitable ventures:

The profits generated by the corrections economy have not been definitively calculated, and a comprehensive audit would be a staggering accounting task. The figure would have to include the cost of private-prison real estate, mandatory drug testing, electronic monitoring anklets, prison-factory labor, prison-farm labor, prison-phone contracts, and the service fees charged to prisoners’ families when they wire money for supplies from the prison commissary. Contracted commercial activity flows in and out of every city jail, rural prison, suburban probation office, and immigration detention center. For stakeholders in the largest peacetime carceral apparatus in the history of the world, the opportunities for profit add up. For analysts like Sommer, the system also offers a safe, government-secured investment...

Consider the prison-phone industry. For inmates, especially urban felons shipped to far-off rural sites, calls to the outside are a social lifeline and a proven method for reducing recidivism. But here, too, Wall Street has identified a high-demand, low-supply commodity. Other government contractors, be they food suppliers or dentists, collect fees paid out by the state. Prison-phone companies, and the prison-wire-transfer companies that are following their model, extract revenues directly from inmates and their families. (Fifteen dollars for a fifteen-minute phone call is not uncommon.)

As with partnership corrections, profits are largely determined by contracts, but phone and money-transfer companies sweeten the deals for their public partners with profit-sharing perks. These commissions kick back anywhere from 40 to 60 percent of revenue to the contracting government agency. According to a study by Prison Legal News, a publication of the Human Rights Defense Center, about 85 percent of non-federal jails sign up for commission-added contracts, and because commissions increase in proportion to the total contract value, cash-strapped public officials are motivated to choose the most expensive contract available. Prison Legal News found that when Louisiana put out a public request for proposals for phone services in 2001, the agency stated the wish explicitly: “The state desires that the bidder’s compensation percentages . . . be as high as possible.”

Addendum/update:  I posted the above in March of 2015.  Now in October comes a report that the FCC is going to mandate a cap of 11 cents per minute:

The FCC said its vote yesterday "lower[s] the cap to 11 cents per minute for all local and long distance calls from state and federal prisons, while providing tiered rates for jails to account for the higher costs of serving jails and smaller institutions."

Part of the problem is that jails and prisons have been charging phone companies big commissions in exchange for exclusive contracts. These commission payments are passed on to prisoners.

The FCC did not outlaw commissions but said that it "strongly encourages parties to move away from site commissions and urges states to take action on this issue." Clyburn said that "states must do their part and take a hard look at their site commission practices and how such payments impact prices, service, and the reverberating impact on the community."

A man's unborn twin fathers his child

A hat tip to Miss C at Neatorama for posting a most interesting story from Buzzfeed.

A couple had a child with fertility assistance, but later found out that the child’s blood type did not match either parent. A paternity test, using cheek swabs, determined that the man was not the father of the baby. The couple had more tests, and was prepared to sue the fertility clinic. Then they did a genetic test through 23andMe, which tests many more markers than a standard paternity test in order to establish genetic ties in extended families. That test said the man was the baby’s uncle!

The explanation is that the man is a genetic chimera. Before he was born, he had a fraternal twin that did not develop into a viable baby. But the vanished twin’s DNA survived by being absorbed into the surviving twin...

However, since the cells of his lost twin brother are a part of him, he is still the father. The case shows how a person cannot be defined by their DNA. About one in eight single-child births start out as multiple pregnancies, so chimerism is probably more common than we know.

Last year I posted a similar article involving a young mother:

In order to qualify for financial assistance in supporting her young family, Fairchild was required to undergo DNA testing to prove that she was the mother of children for whom she was claiming... To her horror, the young mother was informed that she would be the subject of an investigation into possible welfare fraud as the DNA tests had revealed no genetic link between her and the children she claimed were hers...

More information at the links, or type "chimera" in the new search box in the right sidebar to see unusual butterflies, apples, and legendary monsters.

One wonders how many lives have been affected/disrupted by genetic testing that did not take the possibility of chimerism into account - especially paternity cases.

Trailer for Coen brothers' latest movie

YouTube link.

Checking out bedbugs from the library

"...bedbugs have discovered a new way to hitchhike in and out of beds: library books. It turns out that tiny bedbugs and their eggs can hide in the spines of hardcover books. The bugs crawl out at night to feed, find a new home in a headboard, and soon readers are enjoying not only plot twists but post-bite welts.

As libraries are scrambling to deal with the problem, so are some book borrowers. Not wanting to spread the misery, considerate patrons sometimes call ahead to discuss with librarians how best to return lent materials from their bedbug-infested homes. Usually, a meeting is arranged so the patron can hand off the offending books or DVDs in Ziploc bags to an employee outside the library.

John Furman, the owner of Boot-a-Pest [ed: clever name], a team of bedbug exterminators based on Long Island, said he has had hundreds of clients buy a portable heater called PackTite to kill bedbug life, baking any used or borrowed book as a preventive measure before taking it to bed...

To reassure skittish patrons like Mrs. McAdoo, libraries are training circulation staff members to look for carcasses and live insects... Others vacuum the crevices of couches, and some furniture is being reupholstered with vinyl or leatherette to make it less hospitable to insects...

Lots more information at the New York Times source article, published in 2012.

Unusual shadow

Via the "Creepy" subReddit.

In 1942 it was an honor to be termed a bigot

From Wikipedia:

A BIGOT list (or bigot list) is a list of personnel possessing appropriate security clearance and who are cleared to know details of a particular operation, or other sensitive information.

One common etymology is that BIGOT is a reversal of the codewords "TO GIB", meaning "To Gibraltar". The context of this etymology is the Allied invasion of North Africa in November 1942: "TO GIB" was stamped on the orders of military and intelligence staff travelling from Britain to North Africa to prepare for the operation. The majority of personnel made a dangerous journey by sea, through areas patrolled by German U-boats, however certain individuals whose contribution to the campaign or whose mission was vital were classified "TOGIB", and were flown to Africa on a safer route via Gibraltar.

Several sources state that BIGOT was a codeword for Operation Overlord, the Western Allies' plan to invade German-occupied western Europe during World War II, and that the term was an acronym for "British Invasion of German Occupied Territory". It is possible that the term, supposedly suggested by Winston Churchill himself, was a "backronym"—a phrase created to fit an acronym such as the existing "To Gibraltar" code.

The list of personnel cleared to know details of Overlord was known as the BIGOT list, and the people on it were known as "Bigots". The details of the invasion plan were so secret, adherence to the list was rigidly enforced. U.S. military advisor George Elsey tells a story in his memoirs about how a junior officer turned away King George VI from the intelligence centre on the USS Ancon, because, as he explained to a superior officer "...nobody told me he was a Bigot."

Although both derivations are of British origin, the term is widely used in the United States intelligence agencies.

Relevant links at the source.  This looks like excellent material for the QI elves on No Such Thing as a Fish.

Immense El Niño is "too big to fail"

The image and the report in the Los Angeles Times was posted several weeks ago.  I'm putting it up now because of the reports of the biggest hurricane in the history of the Western Hemisphere now boiling in the ocean off the western coast of Mexico.

Hurricane Patricia is expected to arrive on the coast with 200-mph winds and a foot of rain, which will effectively scrub the arrival site to the ground as a tornado does.  It is then expected to attentuate over land, heading toward Texas, where many legislators continue to deny the existence of climate change.

Addendum:  A hat tip to reader Danack, who found this graph showing the degree to which Hurricane Patricia is an outlier compared to all other recorded storms in the Eastern Pacific:

Apparently "commentate" is a verb

During the recent political debates, my wife and I were musing about whether "commentate" was a verb.  "Commentators" are abundant in politics (and in sports), but we thought "commentate" would be a ridiculously elaborate form of "comment" in the way that "to orientate" is misused for the verb "to orient."

But  "commentate" does exist.  The link goes to the online Wiktionary; the hard-copy dictionaries in our house vary in this regard.  Some don't list it, others cite is as "rare."  (I do have the sense that if/when used, "commentate" would imply a simultaneous response to an activity - sporting event, news item - as opposed to "comment," which might refer to a long-ago event.)

I know there are readers out there who are proofreaders or have editorial experience and may have a well-thumbed Strunk and White on the bookshelf.  Please feel free to commentate.

TYWKIWDBI has a new search gadget

It's embedded in the right sidebar below the translator and above my profile.

This replaces the Lijit search box that was available when I first set up the blog about a hundred years ago.  It had become outmoded and of modest value, and frankly I had reverted to searching my own blog by typing TYWKIWDBI and the search term into Google (one of the advantages of having an odd name).

This morning the "sovrn Publisher Support Team" notified users that the Lijit search was being "laid to rest."  At their suggestion I have inserted in its place a Google Custom Search, which performs a basic Google search, displaying results you can sort by relevance or date.  I suppose it might sneak in some ads, but TYWKIWDBI itself will remain ad-free.

There are now over 13,000 posts on TYWKIWDBI, so I think an improved search engine should be quite useful/entertaining.  Try searching something on this blog, and let me know what you think of the usefulness, capabilities, or limitations of the tool.

Saturday Night Live presents the Democratic debate

YouTube link.

Hillary Clinton (Kate McKinnon), Bernie Sanders (Larry David), Jim Webb (Alec Baldwin), Lincoln Chafee (Kyle Mooney) and Martin O'Malley (Taran Killam) face off at the Democratic presidential debate, hosted by CNN's Anderson Cooper (Jon Rudnitsky).

Larry David's performance as Bernie Sanders has been widely praised.

"The light bulb conspiracy"

 

YouTube link.

A hat tip to my cousin in Barcelona for sending me the link to this video, which is a European production aired by the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation.

This is a documentary that examines the history and present implementation of "planned obsolescence."  It begins with the worldwide Phoebus cartel that controlled light bulb manufacturing in the early 20th century, then looks at computer printers - at least some of which are manufactured with a chip that locks up the printer after X number of pages are printed.

Probably not 1 in 100 readers of this blog will have the time to view an hour-long program, but I encourage those interested to at least skip ahead to see the effects of global e-waste dumping and Ghana and listen to some of the arguments for "de-growth."

An open letter to a teenage skateboarder

Posted in the Hamilton Spectator:

You're probably about 15 years old, so I don't expect you to be very mature or for you to want a little girl on your skate ramp for that matter. 

What you don't know is that my daughter has been wanting to skateboard for months. I actually had to convince her that skateboarding wasn't for just for boys. So when we walked up to the skate park and saw that it was full of teenaged boys who were smoking and swearing, she immediately wanted to turn around and go home.

I secretly wanted to go too because I didn't want to have to put on my mom voice and exchange words with you. I also didn't want my daughter to feel like she had to be scared of anyone, or that she wasn't entitled to that skate park just as much as you were.

So when she said, "Mom it's full of older boys," I calmly said, "So what, they don't own the skate park." She proceeded to go down the ramp in spite of you and your friends flying past her and grinding rails beside her.

She only had two or three runs in before you approached her and said "Hey, excuse me ..."

I immediately prepared to deliver my "She's allowed to use this park just as much as you guys" speech when I heard you say, "Your feet are wrong. Can I help you?"

You proceeded to spend almost an hour with my daughter showing her how to balance and steer, and she listened to you a feat not attained by most adults.

You held her hand and helped her get up when she fell down and I even heard you tell her to stay away from the rails so that she wouldn't get hurt.

I want you to know that I am proud that you are part of my community, and I want to thank you for being kind to my daughter, even though your friends made fun of you for it.

She left the skate park with a sense of pride and with the confidence that she can do anything, because of you.

Jeanean Thomas, Cambridge

Divertimento

Share the joy and amazement as a baby experiences rain for the first time.

In a Spiegel Online interview, "whistleblower Peter Wilmshurst discusses how pressure from Big Pharma corrupts research into new medicines and leads companies to cover up fraudulent data. He says he has no regrets about taking on an entire industry."

Listen to a porcupine vocalizing as it enjoys eating a pumpkin.

Paul Krugman counteracts the "fantasies and fictions of the first Republican candidate debate."

Finally, a likely explanation for what happened to the lost colony at Roanoke.

A Bloomberg op-ed piece opines why the Fed should raise interest rates now.

"With Red: A Natural History of the Redhead, Jacky Colliss Harvey sets out to discover everything — what it takes to make a redhead, where in the world they come from and why they exist at all; whether redheads are actually different or just treated differently; how they got their reputation, what that reputation might be and whether they deserve it."

High-school football is undergoing some dramatic changes:

"...convention is being challenged by a more professional model at the highest levels as top players urgently pursue college scholarships, training becomes more specialized, big business opens its wallet, school choice expands, and schools seek to market themselves through sports, some for financial survival. Increasingly, prep football talent is being consolidated on powerful public, private, parochial, charter and magnet school teams. And recruiting to those schools is widespread in one guise or another."

How lights are changed in an IMAX theater.

An impressive apple peeler-slicer from Pampered Chef.

A report that 4/5 of the cocaine being sold in Britain has been cut with a veterinary deworming medicine (levamisole), giving users ulcerating skin lesions.

Razor scooter fail reminds us that smokers and drinkers aren't the only ones causing higher costs for medical insurance.

"A postgraduate student of counter-terrorism was falsely accused of being a terrorist after an official at Staffordshire University had spotted him reading a textbook entitled Terrorism Studies in the college library."

A compilation of incidents occurring during the Hajj.

Robert Reich:  "Meritocracy is a lie."

Watch out!  Slow down!  Be careful on this corner!

A North Carolina woman says she is happier than ever after she fulfilled her lifelong wish of becoming blind.  Drain cleaner to the eyes did the job: "My eyes were screaming and I had some drain cleaner going down my cheek burning my skin,” she said. “But all I could think was ‘I am going blind, it is going to be okay.”

A discussion thread of "what's considered trashy if you're poor, but classy if you're rich."

Arguably the greatest slam dunk in the history of basketball.

A school district has banned elementary students from playing the game of tag:

“The Mercer Island School District and school teams have recently revisited expectations for student behavior to address student safety. This means while at play, especially during recess and unstructured time, students are expected to keep their hands to themselves. The rationale behind this is to ensure the physical and emotional safety of all students..."

A Congressman drank the Pope's leftover water.  "The congressman also gave some of the papal water to his wife Debra, and two staff members, to drink. He then invited US Senator Bob Casey, also from Pennsylvania, into his office. Senator Casey brought his wife and mother and they all placed their fingers in the glass."

Security camera footage gif of a bored schoolboy.  Definitely worth the 15-second watch time.

A review of the battle of Agincourt.  I used to include Agincourt in my lectures about death by asphyxiation.

A feel-good story for the day.  "I couldn't imagine spending five hours a day traveling back and forth to work, let alone on foot,” Officer Stamper said..."

The world's only menstruation museum.

A list of this year's winners of MacArthur foundation "genius grants."

A Danish travel company's humorous advertisement ("Do it for Mom") encourages young people to have sex and explains how grandmothers can help them.

A cat gif is better when sound is added.  Or like this.  If you are among those who detest cat gifs, the links are still useful for adding sound to other gifs.

"Few people know that the U.S. government is directly responsible for Popeye's dependence on the canned green vegetable. In the 1930's, America was mired in the Great Depression. The U.S. government was looking for a way to promote iron-rich spinach as a meat substitute. To help spread the word, they decided to hire one of America's favorite celebrities, Popeye the Sailor Man.  It was a smart plan. And it worked like a charm."

The impressive caterpillar of the Hickory Horned Devil (becomes a moth, Citheronia regalis).

A delineation of 994 mass shootings in the United States in 1004 days.

Why the American family farm is the deadliest workplace.

"The City of Montreal is going ahead with its controversial plan to dump eight billion litres of raw sewage into the St. Lawrence River."

If you need a quick or cheap engraved ID tag for your keys or luggage, go to a pet store and use their tag machine.

California governor Jerry Brown has signed into law "Right To Die" legislation.

A vicar clearing out a cupboard at his church found a forgotten first edition King James Bible dating back to 1611.

Stoke your schadenfreude with this video of the owner of a Lamborghini revving his engine until it catches fire and destroys the vehicle.

"Inside the Koch Brothers' Industrial Empire."

Impressive performance with one and with two hula hoops.

When the NHL goes into overtime now, the competition is 3-on-3.

After an attack by a swan, a man gives the swan what for.

Tips on eating barbecue.

gif of uranium in a cloud chamber.

The top photo is of a replica of the 1868 locomotive "Leviathan," constructed by David Klocke, and photographed by Fred Boucher at Steamfest 2009.  The other images embedded in this divertimento come from a gallery of drawings posted at BibliOdyssey, as a reminder to me that not all early American locomotives were painted black.  Identities and information about the locomotives at the link.

Unlucky?

Photo cropped for emphasis from the original at imgur.