Serena
It’s never too early to look forward to the 2016 elections (grooooaaaan), but as the media rev up for candidate coverage, NYU journalism prof Jay Rosen offers some thoughtful strategies for writing about climate-denier candidates.
A stunning new project, Humans for Humans, from Canadian homeless advocacy group Raising the Roof, features short videos of people experiencing homelessness reading so-called “mean tweets” about the homeless. They respond to some of them, sharing difficult and extremely varied stories of their respective paths to homelessness.
Alan
“A growing number of researchers… argue that 30 years of test scores have not measured a decline in public schools, but are rather a metric of the country’s child poverty and the broadening divide of income inequality.” This bracing critique of the pap that passes for analysis of education is worth your attention.
A brief and insightful essay on how undemocratic Vancouver, BC’s giant transit referendum is – and, by extension, on how public votes often are. Something I think about a lot is the mixed blessing of Oregon and Washington’s hybrid direct/representative democracy.
Clark
Check out these cool animated maps of US voter data by race and ethnicity, from our pals at Moonshadow Mobile.
And check out this video of a bike path in South Korea, shaded by a huge array of solar panels.
Keiko
Seattle’s soulful hip-hop duo, THEESatisfaction, is making music that actually sounds good about the planet! These two lovely ladies describe themselves as “funk-psychedelic feminista sci-fi epics with the warmth and depth of Black Jazz and Sunday morning soul, frosted with icy raps”. Spot on! Their newest album, EarthEE, has songs about GMOs, post-racial society, and consumerism. You can read about their track-by-track breakdown and listen to their grooves here.
The North Cascades Highway opens today and offers a unique car-free cycling experience for those who get there before 10 am. If you are reading this now, you might be too late for the car-free bike ride, but you can still look forward to getting on your boots and start hiking!
The Humans for Humans video was heart-stopping. What a fast, straightforward way to humanize homeless people and shame those who say degrading things about them. Even those of us who don’t write the tweets are complicit in our silence.