Over Reaction Maybe?

Some interesting tidbits from Charles Blow’s column today:

“White men represent just a third of the U.S. population, but about 60 percent of adults with guns in America today are white men.” (U.S. New & World Report)

“If you’re a Christian or a white man in the U.S.A., it’s open season on you. Therefore, Hillary Clinton has an advantage.” (Bill O’Reilly

“…when [Obama]’s finished, he intends to go out with the coronation of Hillary Rodham Clinton. Yeah, I have to tell you, eight years of one demographically symbolic president is enough.”

Happy Tax Day

 

I’m feeling pleased this tax time as I finished my taxes two weeks ago—a check to the state and a request for a refund from the feds.  Here John Oliver crudely defends the IRS.  Listen if you like, or, skip to 13.51 and hear Michael Bolten sing a love song to the IRS:  "How are we supposed to live without you?..."

 

A Shower of Ions

The 10,000-years old Niagara Falls are the dramatic result of the Niagara River encountering a 188 food drop in height as the Great Lakes race along the river on their way to the ocean.  I spent last weekend in Niagara Falls, Canada, in a pleasant state of awe.  Some say that ions are created by so much falling water, ions that cause happy feelings (and therefore a good honeymoon location).  I have no idea if that corresponds with science, but that amazing rush of water roaring over a cliff did make me happy.

And other lands...

"This Is My Song," a song that can't be posted too many times.

It's Poverty

An article in the Pacific Standard talks about the real problem in our schools: 

But what if it turned out that education reform, with its teacher-blaming assumptions, got it all wrong in the first place? That’s the conclusion being drawn by a growing number of researchers who, armed with a mountain of fresh evidence, argue that 30 years of test scores have not measured a decline in America’s public schools, but are rather a metric of the country’s child poverty—the worst among developed nations—and the broadening divide of income inequality.