Good morning.
Sunday in Whitewater will see morning rain give way to occasional sunshine and a high of thirty-nine. Sunrise is 6:54 AM and sunset 5:23 PM, for 10h 29m 26s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 97.3% of its visible disk illuminated. Today is the {tooltip}ninety-sixth day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}
Abraham Lincoln is born this day in 1809. On this day in 2002, Verona, Wisconsin’s Casey FitzRandolph wins a gold medal at the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympic Games in the Men’s 500 Meters.
Recommended for reading in full —
J. Weston Phippen writes that Yale Changes the Name of Calhoun College Over Ties to Racism: “Yale University announced Saturday that it would rename its residential college that bore the name of John C. Calhoun, a Yale graduate, U.S. vice president, white supremacist and advocate of slavery. The college will now be named after Grace Murray Hopper, a mathematician who graduated from the university in 1934 and left a teaching role to enlist in the Navy during World War II. The name change is a reversal of a decision made last spring, when Yale’s president, Peter Salovey, said he would not remove Calhoun’s name, because he thought it better to confront history, not to erase it. In that same spirit, Calhoun’s name will not be removed from the college, but will appear alongside Hopper’s, although the college will only be referred to by the latter. Hopper left her teaching job at Vassar and joined the Navy to help defeat Fascism, and she remained in service most of her life. But she is much better known for her work on early computers, developing code and language that allowed non-specialists to use them. ”
Oliver Willis describes How To Fight Cult Leaders Like Donald Trump And L. Ron Hubbard And Win (Willis – a progressive, not a libertarian – has for months now described Trump’s appeal as that of a cult leader): “In the last fifteen years or so there has been a steady stream of books, tv series, and documentaries about just how crazy the behavior of the church [of Scientology] has been historically and leading up to the bizarre behavior of current leader (and Tom Cruise bestie) David Miscavige. This informational war has demystified the church in the minds of most of the public, turning it into more of a punchline than anything….In an ideal world, a Trump supporter would learn about the bed of lies his entire persona is built on and simply leave the Trump compound of their own accord. But in the real world, this is unlikely to happen. If anything, Trump cultists will double down on their loyalty due to external attacks, with Trump issuing verbal kool-aid to them by describing everything outside the bubble as “fake news.” But outside reporting and debunking of his lies and mendacity does erode the cult of Trump. It galvanizes those of us on the left who are opposed to him with a shared set of information and logic to pass back and forth within our ranks as ammunition. Then for those moderates who are open to a logical argument, it arms them with information they need to form an informed opinion. With these two divisions of an information army continually supplied with material, you can win a war.”
Emma Green describes how These Conservative Christians Are Opposed to Trump—and Suffering the Consequences: “Earlier this month, Jonathan Martin jotted off a sad tweet. “I’ve lost count of the number of people who say they’ve had ministry jobs threatened/been fired for speaking out in some way in this season,” the Christian author and speaker wrote. Confirmation rolled in: one story from a church planter in California, another from a former worship leader in Indiana. These are “not people who would historically self-identify as progressives, at all,” Martin told me later. They’re “people who see themselves as being very faithful evangelicals.” Donald Trump has divided conservative Christian communities. Most white Christians support Trump, or at least voted for him. Some who have spoken out against his presidency or his policies, though, have encountered backlash. For a small group of people working in Christian ministry, music, and nonprofit advocacy, the consequences have been tangible: They’ve faced pressure from their employers, seen funds withdrawn from their mission work, or lost performing gigs because of their political beliefs.”
Daniel Dale has The complete list [so far – it’s only been three weeks] of all 57 false things Donald Trump has said as president: “U.S. President Donald Trump makes frequent false claims about matters big and small. The Star is planning to track them all. Contact Daniel Dale at ddale@thestar.ca if you hear Trump say anything you know is false or should be checked. Last updated: Feb. 10, 2017….
53. Feb. 7, 2017 —
Meeting with the National Sheriffs’ Association
The claim: “The murder rate in our country’s the highest it’s been in 47 years, right? Did you know that? 47 years? I’d say that in a speech and everybody’s surprised. Because the press doesn’t tell it like it is. It wasn’t to their advantage to say that.”
In fact: The homicide rate is not even close to a 47-year high. In fact, it remains near historic lows. There were 10 homicides per 100,000 residents in 1980, eight per 100,000 residents in 1995; in 2015, the latest year for which there is national data, it was five per 100,000 residents. Trump sometimes correctly notes that the increase in the homicide rate between 2014 and 2015 was the largest in more than 40 years. But that is far different than the actual rate being the highest.”
Tea & Kung Fu? Of course —
Ya’an, China, is home to some of the country’s best tea. It’s also home to the amazing long spout tea performers. This performance art, which dates back to 220 AD, mixes Kung Fu and the long spout metal teapot. Liu Xumin is a tea performer who has spent years mastering this ancient art form. His hope, he says, is to “achieve the integration of tea pot and human, of heaven and human, and of tea and human.”