Relationships and Going Places

Jo Freeman writes: Reparations for slavery has been in the air this year. It comes with lots of questions. In this book, Woodley answers them for one group who suffered directly from white supremacy. In 1959 the Prince Edward County school board closed its public schools rather than integrate them. Most white students were able to attend private academies for whites only. Black students had to leave the county or go without an education. Not until 1964 did the Supreme Court rule that the county had violated the students constitutional rights and ordered the public schools to reopen. Forty years later a Virginia professor calculated that these five years without public schools resulted in 2,202 black and 258 white youths receiving no formal education in their lifetimes. more »

“We’re facing a perfect storm of a highly contagious infection introduced into pockets of unvaccinated children,” says Melissa Stockwell, an associate professor of population and family health at Columbia Mailman and of pediatrics at Columbia University Irving Medical Center. While most cases of the measles are mild, one in twenty infected children in the US is hospitalized with pneumonia, and some infections can cause deafness. In 2017, the illness killed 110,000 people worldwide, nearly all young children in low-income countries. more »

As I search for clues to my nomadic lifestyle, I often return to that childhood in Chicago's Humboldt Park neighborhood. Was there something way back when family lived down the block, when we romped with our buddies on the concrete streets, when parents sat on folding chairs watching over us — that stuck? Is it familial closeness, comfortable camaraderie, a sense of security that has spurred my frequent quests? Or is the answer much simpler: I like moving, and I have no regrets about any of the 17. So, I hereby announce I will no longer be cowed by my compulsion. more »

On Thursday, the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee will hold a hearing, “Achieving the Promise of a Diverse STEM Workforce;” Bills introduced: A bill to ensure that certain incidents involving a covered employee that are reported to the Title IX coordinator at an eligible institution of higher education have been reviewed by the president of the institution and not less than one additional member of the institution's board of trustees, and for other purposes; A bill to prohibit group health plans and health insurance issuers offering group or individual health insurance coverage from imposing cost-sharing requirements or treatment limitations with respect to diagnostic examinations for breast cancer that are less favorable than such requirements with respect to screening examinations for breast cancer. more »