Valley Voice: East Coachella Valley residents, speak out for a healthier environment – The Desert Sun

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Lesly Figueroa and Rebecca Zaragoza, Special to The Desert Sun Published 11:51 a.m. PT Sept. 16, 2019

Javier Ramos carries empty water bottles to refill in order to avoid drinking contaminated tap water at his mobile home in Thermal.(Photo: Omar Ornelas/ The Desert Sun)

The eastern Coachella Valley stands to benefit from a pair of Sacramento decisions. Now the state needs to hear from local residents.

In April, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Executive Order N-10-10. It directs the California Natural Resources Agency, the California Environmental Protection Agencyand the California Department of Food and Agriculture to recommend actions to help create climate-resilient water systems and healthy waterways as part of Californias Water Resilience Portfolio Initiative. This is a major step toward sustainable and equitable access to this precious resource during this climate crisis.

Earlier this summer, after 10 years of organizing, community members and organizations celebrated the signing of SB 200 by Gov. Newsom in the central valley community of Tombstone. Known as the Safe and Affordable Drinking Water Fund, SB 200 establishes a mechanism that creates a stable, ongoing fund to support disadvantaged communities affected by lack of access to safe and affordable drinking water. More than 1 million Californians across the state will benefit.

This means new opportunities for a better future locally. The unincorporated communities of Thermal, Oasis, Mecca, and North Shore have unique challenges that require meaningful investment. Weve consistently fought alongside residents to demand recognition and support. Continued lack of investment, however often intentional by those in powerfurther limits the region's growth and sustainability.

The state's moves open up more opportunities for extension of drinking water service, operations and maintenance for domestic wells, and even demands action for Salton Sea conservation. The myriad issues east valley residents face are exacerbated by the public health impacts of the receding Salton Sea.

We have an opportunity to really tell the state what it should be doing better, by first prioritizing residents around the sea, improving air quality with stronger mitigation measures, and challenging environmental racism and injustice.

Meanwhile, "Polanco Parks" are in especially great need. Many Polancos are small, family-owned mobile home parks served by domestic wells and septic systems which are often unreliable and costly to maintain. Most park residents cannot drink their water. Arsenic levels continue to increase and no amount of filters or reverse osmosis will solve this problem.

Some question the limited growth and investment in the east valley. The answer is complicated, but a main focus must be the lack of water and wastewater infrastructure. Growth and an enhanced built environment cannot be achieved without appropriate infrastructure.

The real solution lies in consolidation. Thats precisely what SB 200 can do. Working-class park owners face too many financial challenges, but are still asked to pay for such consolidation. This is unrealistic, inequitableand classist.

What role does community play in shaping the state's Water Resilience Portfolio Initiative? Community input is key in ensuring community water challenges are written into policies that will enhance resident quality of life.

On Sept. 19, at 6 p.m., the State Water Resource Control Board will host an outreach meeting in the San Jose Community Center, 69-455 Pierce Street, in Thermal.Well be talking about safe and affordable drinking water, protection for fish and wildlife, implementing sustainable groundwater lawsand adopting new and innovative technologies for the sustainability of water systems. We hope to see community members, owners of mobile home parksand allies join in to discuss solutions to the east valley's urgent environmental and water issues.

Rebecca Zaragoza(Photo: Courtesy)

Lesly Figueroa(Photo: Courtesy)

Rebecca Zaragoza and Lesly Figueroa are with Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability in Indio, which works to elevate social justice issues and improve conditions for residents of the eastern Coachella Valley. Email them at lfigueroa@leadershipcounsel.org and rzaragoza@leadershipcounsel.org.

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Chera Amlag bakes up the perfect recipe for community advocacy through Hood Famous – The International Examiner

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Chera Amlag at Hood Famous Cafe + Bar. Photo courtesy of Chera Amlag.

From humble roots beginning with a monthly pop-up called Food and Sh*t, to opening her first storefront in Ballard, and now with a brick and mortar cafe in the Chinatown-International District, Chera Amlag (along with her husband Geo Quibuyen) have come a long way. With all of these accomplishments, it is no surprise that Amlag is being recognized by the International Examiner, and is this years 2019 Business Leadership Award recipient.

Together with her husband Geo Quibuyen, finding a home in Chinatown-International District (CID) for her new Hood Famous Cafe + Bar was an intentional, and significant decision. Reflecting on her history and connection with the neighborhood, she shared:

It is very significant to be able to open up Hood Famous Cafe + Bar in a neighborhood that we have a deep personal connection with. One of my first memories of the C-ID is going to an isangmahal (one love in Tagalog) show at the Theatre Off Jackson in my early 20s. It was a monthly open mic organized by a kollective of Filipino poets, dancers, djs, and other artists often highlighting the immigrant experience. We became active members and helped curate the monthly shows.

She continued, After college, Geo landed a job at The Wing Luke Asian Museum and I accepted a position at WAPIFASA (Washington Asian Pacific Islander Families Against Substance Abuse) on Maynard. Geo conducted and transcribed oral histories and curated exhibits, while I ran after school and summer programs for neighborhood youth. We learned a lot about the history of Filipino Americans and other marginalized and immigrant communities in the district.

Knowing the rich Filipino American history and current struggle for recognition of Filipino Town in the C-ID, we wanted to make sure that the experience guests had in our shop extended beyond serving great food, drink, and hospitality, but also evokes a connection from past to present. We worked with the Filipino American National Historical Society to showcase black & white archival photos on our walls to highlight and honor the legacy of folks who lived, worked, and ran businesses in the district long before we did. We put a lot of work and intention in the design of the space and hope that the shop helps guests that come in learn or remember the Filipino presence in the district, and for those that feel there isnt enough spaces in the city that reflects them that they feel the comfort of being seen.

The intersectionality of Amlags identity as a small business owner, a woman of color and immigrant has all shaped and influenced the way she advocates for the community and runs her small business. The impact that these aspects have on her small business is apparent, with Hood Famous Cafe + Bar becoming a vibrant, bustling space that pays homage to the neighborhoods former Filipino Town. It has become a recognizable gathering space for community building and camaraderie in the C-ID, and a clear reflection of Amlags approach to running her small business for social good and community benefit.

With about six years of Amlag creating and perfecting her delectable ube cheesecakes, her perseverance has proven to be worth it. Her achievements to date have been nothing short of remarkable, and for current and future community leaders she shares, Persistence really pays off, and everything takes time. That is why its so important for you to believe in and feel passionately about what youre creating, offering, advocating for. With the expansion of the Hood Famous brand in the C-ID and an expanding menu at the Cafe + Bar, there seems to be no slowing down for Amlag anytime soon.

Hood Famous Cafe + Bar is located at 504 5th Avenue S, Suite 107A, open Monday-Thursday 7am-3pm, Friday 7am-7pm, Saturday-Sunday 10am-4pm. The Bakeshop is located at 2325 NW Market St., open Thursday-Sunday 11am-8pm. To learn more, visit http://www.hoodfamousbakeshop.com

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Chera Amlag bakes up the perfect recipe for community advocacy through Hood Famous - The International Examiner

Wyoming women honored at influence awards | News – Laramie Boomerang

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CASPER Whether you know it or not, you have a superpower.

I have a superpower, and that superpower makes people feel 10 feet tall. It makes them feel important, and it makes them feel confident, powerful and like anything in this life is possible, Brook Kaufman, CEO of Visit Casper, said to a crowd of about 350 on Thursday night at the Women of Influence banquet, which honors women across Wyoming each year.

Here is the cool part. You have the same superpower that I have, she said. It is this ability to inspire and empower the people around you.

The banquet recognized 110 women who were nominated in 13 categories, 15 of whom were selected by a panel of past honorees as Women of Influence. The seventh annual dinner was held at the Casper Event Center as a kick-off event for the annual Wyoming Womens Expo. This is the first year the Women of Influence banquet was combined with the Wyoming Womens Expo, which continues today and Saturday.

To celebrate the 150th anniversary of womens suffrage in Wyoming, documentary filmmaker Geoff OGara premiered a trailer for his new film, State of Equality.

OGara said that during this Year of Wyoming Women, as declared by former Gov. Matt Mead, the most interesting conversations are happening when women talk to each other. In fact, a conversation like that was the impetus for OGaras documentary, he said. When the nation began gearing up for a 2020 centennial celebration of womens suffrage in Washington, D.C., Diana Enzi decided Wyoming needed to get on the ball.

I think there was some gentle prodding from the Wyoming delegation that we needed to tell the story of womens suffrage in Wyoming, OGara said. Diana Enzi got to work.

It is the story of the first woman voter, Louisa Swain, and the Dec. 10, 1869, landmark decision by the Wyoming Territorial Legislature to recognize womens right to vote and hold public office more than 50 years before the U.S. ratification of the 19th Amendment, as told in OGaras documentary, which will be released Dec. 10.

In addition, Enzi ensured that Wyoming will be included in exhibits about the 19th Amendment in 2020 in Washington, D.C., through work she did with Dr. Carla Hayden, the first female librarian of Congress, OGara said. Coming full-circle, Hayden makes an appearance in OGaras documentary.

It is in these kinds of relationships and they dont have to take place at the Library of Congress that women can empower each other at every level, and across the state.

Why should we empower each other? Kaufman asked. A third of American women today struggle with anxiety, and 12 million have serious depression. Will inspiring each other solve this? No, Kaufman said, but it can help.

It is also an economic issue, she continued. Women make 75 cents for every dollar made by men. That is a national statistic and the wage gap in the Equality State is one of the worst, she said.

We are on track to close that wage gap in 2059, she said. But when women succeed economically, their families succeed, their communities succeed. We talk about the legacy industries in Wyoming like tourism and agriculture. What if we give women the opportunity to help diversify our economy? Would we close that wage gap sooner? I sure hope so.

Part of doing this, she said, means creating opportunities for women to succeed. That means supporting each other in tangible ways, asking each other what our goals are and creating pathways to achieve them.

It also means recognizing the accomplishments of Wyoming women publicly. It took Kaufman three years to nominate a peer as a Woman of Influence. You dont need to nominate a woman for an award, she said, but honor her publicly. Make it known that her hard work matters.

Make it a priority, Kaufman said. Until we really make this a priority, we are not going to see great change. Get real interested, and real intentional.

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Dr. Kim Thorburn: Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife fulfills mandate – The Spokesman-Review

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By Dr. Kim Thorburn and Wildlife

The mandate of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife is to preserve, protect and perpetuate the states fish and wildlife. It is an awesome and daunting responsibility in the Western state with the smallest land mass and second-highest human population. The duty is further complicated by the need for a public agency to balance the diverse values, interests and needs of all of its constituents.

Washingtons large and growing human population signifies less space for wildlife and more unwanted human encounters. This means much Fish and Wildlife Department mission effort is expended on managing human-wildlife conflict: a skunk under the porch, wild turkeys gobbling apples, elk crashing through fences, wolves attacking livestock, even a cougar stalking a child.

Early in Euro-American settlement of the West, nuisance or dangerous wildlife encounters were dealt with by killing the animals. Management has evolved. Today, as much as possible, wildlife biologists and enforcement officers attempt to alter wildlife behavior by nonlethal methods. When the strategies fail, it may become necessary to kill offending animals. The departments wildlife conflict management has received considerable attention as gray wolves have repopulated our state during the past decade.

Under the traditional wildlife management scheme, wolves were eliminated from Washington 80 years ago. Early this century, wolves began returning to Washington by natural recolonization. Most Washington wolves are part of a healthy population that rapidly proliferated throughout the Northern Rockies from wolf reintroduction to Yellowstone National Park. The eastern third of our state is the western edge of their range.

Northern Rockies gray wolves are not endangered and are aggressively managed by neighboring states. Nonlethal tools are important because theres agreement that conflict avoidance is always best. Other strategies include population caps, eradication of wolves from areas of high potential conflict, and hunting. In these states, wolf coexistence with humans is effective and the wolf population remains healthy.

The Northern Rockies wolf population demonstrates the resilience and fecundity of the species. Since gray wolves returned to Washington, the states population has steadily grown despite a substantial known annual mortality, most of which is human-caused including collisions, poaching and conflict eliminations. The proportionate number of intentional wolf removals for conflict in Washington is far smaller than similar killings throughout the rest of its range, even during recovery.

A recent opinion column by the Center for Biological Diversity (Wolf killing also wastes taxpayer money, Sept. 14) criticized the Washington Fish and Wildlife Department wolf management as cruel, brisk and brutal. It was also full of accusations against ranchers who are trying to sustain a livelihood in wolf country. It seems crueler to level fraught allegations of malfeasance against passionate professionals devoting their lives to the preservation, protection and perpetuation of the states wildlife and to force unscientific anthropomorphic values on rural communities living among wolves.

Gray wolves are generalists, meaning they thrive in a variety of habitats as long as theres food and minimal human development. Washington has expended considerable resources on their recovery, which is one of the great paradoxes of wildlife species protection. The cost of wolf recovery arises mostly from social concerns. The Center for Biological Diversity piece did not mention that organizations contributions to the social costs of managing wolves. The biologic aspects of wolf recovery are straightforward. Weve removed bounty hunting and intentional poisoning that led to their elimination.

Human development and density in our state pose more difficult challenges to preserving biological diversity when it comes to species that rely on specific and fragile habitats. Various sensitive, threatened or endangered invertebrate, burrowing mammal, snake, frog and salamander, fish and bird species receive far less public attention and resources than wolves. Yet their recovery is often more biologically complex and their contributions to ecosystem health are usually essential. You can be sure that the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife is also paying attention to those species needs as well as inadequate resources allow.

Dr. Kim Thorburn is a Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife commissioner. The views in the opinion piece are hers and do not necessarily represent the WDFW Commission or WDFW.

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Charles "Chazz" Scott: Teaching Youth To Overcome Adversity Through Positive Thinking – Black Enterprise

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Cyber defense engineer, motivational speaker; 27; executive director of Positively Caviar Inc.

Twitter: @Mr_CaViar; Instagram: @mr_caviar

As the executive director and chief creative optimist of Positively Caviar Inc. based in the Baltimore-Washington metropolitan area, I lead a passionate team that focuses on empowering, inspiring, and motivating all human beings, with a special emphasis on youth, to instill mental resilience by way of intentional positive thinking. To accomplish our mission, we host our signature B.U.I.L.D.(Being Unique While Learning and Developing) self-empowerment workshops, high-intensity speaking engagements, and develop positive digital media that have served over 5,000 workshop attendees and followers. Our fun, interactive, and science-centric informative workshops introduce youth to the importance of optimism and how it affects their emotions, decision making, well-being, and future.

I am also a full-time cyber defense engineer at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. In this role, I also function as a technical advisor responsible for helping to attract, identify, and recruit minority cybersecurity professionals and engineers.

HOW HAVE YOU TURNED STRUGGLE INTO SUCCESS?

Ive had quite a few struggles, especially as it relates to running a nonprofit. Starting a business of any kind will make you question yourself during times of adversity. One of my mentors told me that being an entrepreneur is one of the closest experiences to death humanly possible. You are essentially vulnerable every single day while trying to bring your heartfelt ideas into fruition despite the naysayers and numerous disappointments.

A couple of years ago I started to question the mission and objectives of our nonprofit because of the discouragement and disappointments I was facing regarding my full-time job, obtaining support and nonprofit grants, and just downright not believing in myself. Additionally, I did not do so well on a recent organizational presentation to a mental health clinic and potential donors. I began questioning my abilities as a speaker, writer, and leader. My negative self-talkabout my life, my nonprofit, the value of positive thinking, and my careerwas terrible, and I felt like I couldnt combat it. I stopped going to the gym, reading, waking up early, and began binge-watching TV for hours. I was paralyzed by my fears and insecurities.

I knew I couldnt live like this. I started to see the effects of how my negative self-talk carried over into my relationships. I wanted to change the internal dialogue within myself to shift my focus toward helping others, and I knew I the only way I could do this was to go to work on myselfmentally, emotionally, and spiritually. So, I did just that. I started eating more fruits and vegetables, meditating, reading inspirational books, and developed a rigorous morning routine that made me unstoppable. As I started meditating more, I began to uncover unconscious behaviors that were ultimately influencing my decisions. One of them happened to be realizing that I resorted to binge-watching TV shows only during times when I was avoiding a fear that I needed to overcome. I was suffering from analysis paralysis and I didnt even know it. It took some time, but I ended up turning a very dark moment in my life into rocket fuel to take me to the stars. Still, to this day I will never miss a day of my morning routine of meditating, reading, and running.

WHO WAS YOUR GREATEST MALE ROLE MODEL AND WHAT DID YOU LEARN FROM HIM?

My greatest role model is my late grandfather, Ackneil M. Muldrow. He had such an impact on just about every aspect of my life. He was a very well-respected businessman for the city of Baltimore who worked tirelessly to uplift underserved communities and help economically disadvantaged businesses gain access to capital. He was on more boards of directors than I could count. Additionally, he was one of the very first individuals to participate in the Greensboro sit-ins while he was in undergrad attending North Carolina A&T. The synchronicity in his life, his tenacity in helping people, his selfless spirit, and tireless work ethic allowed him to rise to his highest self in business and in life. He taught me to never give up, helped me secure my first internship at a civil engineering company in high school, exposed me to the importance of ownership, and showed me the importance of selflessly helping others.

He passed in late 2018. There is not a day that goes by when I dont think about him. I model my life every single day because of how he lived. He would have been so proud of my selection for this award from BLACK ENTERPRISE, because of what this magazine meant to him and the black community he passionately fought for.

WHATS THE BEST ADVICE YOUVE EVER RECEIVED?

The best advice Ive been given was from one of my mentors, Dr. Freeman A. Hrabowski III, who is the president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). While attending high school, when I was still trying to discover myself and my purpose, he said this: You are older than you think you are.

This one quote added urgency and instilled purpose into my life. As a high schooler, you think you have the rest of your life to figure it all out. This could not be the furthest thing from the truth. As I grew older, I began to really see just how fast life can move. I was hungry to make a name for myself. I began mapping out my entire lifefrom attending Hampton University, summer internships, and obtaining my masters degree. This one statement allowed me to internalize that you cant just wait around for things to just happen in life, you have to map it out and attack it with everything you have.

WHAT PRACTICES, TOOLS, BOOKS, ETC. DO YOU RELY ON FOR YOUR SUCCESS?

Meditation has led to a lot of my success. Setting my intentions in the morning has created moments of synchronicity in my life that continue to let me know I am on the correct path of my life journey. Its provided me guidance that can only stem from sitting in a room at 4:00 a.m. with no phone, no distractions, and absolutely no social media. In these moments, I am able to train my mind and direct it toward thoughts that support my life. Our brains are like muscles; this was my time to exercise my brain to ensure it is performing at an optimal level. In these quiet moments, I combat my ego, insecurities, and fears. Spending time with these attributes and getting to know them every single day allows me to begin to use them as an advantage, and not my downfall. Meditation has allowed me to stay in the fight longer when adversity arises and take the experience and emotion objectively for what it is. I dont lose control when things may not go the way that I planned. All of this stemmed from just 15 minutes of meditation a day.

Your life depends upon your internal dialogue with yourself. Control your mind, and you will control your life. Meditate, read, and exercise, if you can, every single day to leave nothing on the table that God wants you, and only you, to bring into the world. Remember, your life will move in the direction of your thoughts and words. Speak victory, not defeat!

WHAT DO YOU LIKE MOST ABOUT BEING A BLACK MAN?

I absolutely love being the underdog. As black men, we are the underdog in America. Mentally, we are bombarded subconsciously with information to support a false narrative about ourselves. This not only influences society but also makes us question ourselves. Every black male suffers from the internal conflict within ones self of how we perceive ourselves and how the world perceives us. The media portray us to be violent, lazy, and selfish. This is the furthest thing from the truth. Our perceptions about our lives and how others see us can either lead to our downfall or lead to our rise. I chose the latter. We were taught to harm one another and unconsciously told not to believe in ourselves, and even taught that our black skin makes us inferior. Every single day when I wake up in the morning I make a conscious choice to battle these perceptions and lift my family, friends, and community in any way that I can. We can love, we can express our emotions, we are not broken, we are mentally strong, and we can provide for our families. We are passionate, driven, and, most importantly, selfless.

BE Modern Man is an online and social media campaign designed to celebrate black men making valuable contributions in every profession, industry, community, and area of endeavor. Each year, we solicit nominations in order to select men of color for inclusion in the 100 Black Enterprise Modern Men of Distinction. Our goal is to recognize men who epitomize the BEMM credo Extraordinary is our normal in their day-to-day lives, presenting authentic examples of the typical black man rarely seen in mainstream media. The BE Modern Men of Distinction are celebrated annually at Black Men XCEL (www.blackenterprise.com/blackmenxcel/). Click this link to submit a nomination for BE Modern Man:https://www.blackenterprise.com/nominate/. Follow BE Modern Man on Twitter: @bemodernman and Instagram: @be_modernman.

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Charles "Chazz" Scott: Teaching Youth To Overcome Adversity Through Positive Thinking - Black Enterprise

How to reduce gun violence in Philly with innovative policing – The Philadelphia Citizen

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About five years ago, the city of Philadelphia embarked on two different violence-reduction strategies that seemed to be sending the city in the right direction.

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In three districts in South Philly, the police department launched Focused Deterrence, which identified the relatively few neighborhood residents responsible for gun violence in the area and concentrated their efforts on reaching them. Meanwhile, in North Philly, Temple University School of Medicine launched Cure Violence, which deployed people formerly involved in violence to intercede before shootings could occur.

Both were successful.

Focused Deterrence brought shootings down by 35 percent over two years, and Cure Violence by 30 percenthopeful signs in a city that needed it.

But then Mayor Kenney was elected, appointing a new police commissioner; a new district attorney, Larry Krasner, came in to office two years later. They had different agendas that did not include Focused Deterrence or Cure Violenceor even, seemingly, working together. Meanwhile, gun violence citywide has spiked: Murders in Philadelphia went up 13 percent in 2017 and 12 percent last year. Right now, its up another 2 percent, the highest in a decade.

You can have all the brilliant strategies in the world, but this requires government to work and work strategically, says Cunningham. If the people in charge of government are not on the same page, its not going to work.

What might it have looked like instead if we had learned from those pilots and launched Focused Deterrence or Cure Violence citywide? The answer may lie in Oakland, California.

Throughout the early 2000s, Oakland experienced a spike in homicides not unlike what weve seen in Philly over the last few yearsenough to make the city of 450,000 the third most violent in America by 2012. The violence included a few horrific murdersof children shot and killed in the crossfirethat shocked, but also galvanized, the community.

Faith leaders and other residents pushed city officials to launch Oakland Ceasefire, informed by the groundbreaking work that slashed the homicide rate in Boston in the 1990s. The work of Oakland Ceasefire has been hard; it has been unceasing for the last seven years. And it has succeeded.

As of last year, Oakland had cut its number of homicides in half, from 126 in 2012 to 68 in 2018; cut non-fatal shootings also in half; and reduced other violent crime in the city.

Oakland, say Mike McLively and Brittany Nieto in an April report by the Giffords Law Center to Reduce Gun Violence, gives us reason to hope that reducing gun violence in our most impacted communities is possible, and a basic framework for how to get there.

Oaklands success comes after years of struggle to get Ceasefire off the ground. The citys first attempt under then-Mayor Jerry Brown was in 2004, after a different rash of shootings shook the city. With only minimal support from the police department, and without dedicating any staff to the work, it failed. A couple years later, then-Mayor Ron Dellums tried to revive the effortsand got pushback even from within his own office.

That, too, failed. The lesson was clear: You can have all the brilliant strategies in the world, but this requires government to work and work strategically, says Reygan Cunningham, senior partner of the California Partnership for Safe Communities, who oversaw Oakland Ceasefire from 2012 to 2018. If the people in charge of government are not on the same page, its not going to work.

In 2012, a few things changed. A new mayor, police chief and city administrator were in office. (Unlike in Philly, Oakland has a city administrator who oversees day-to-day operations of the city; meanwhile, the district attorney is for all of Alameda County, so is not a city position.) The continued violence had prompted a faith group, now called Faith in Action, to research Ceasefire andin public forums, where they sometimes bussed in up to 200 residentsdemand city leaders enact it.

Their urging, Cunningham says, gave city officials the pushin some ways, even, coverto relaunch Ceasefire despite the previous failures, and to do it right.

So often people think that the people who live in these communities are apathetic, Cunningham says. Its not true; but the organizing piece is often missing. Here, they organized around violence, did the research and made an ask. They were consistent enough that their voice rose to the top.

We are not solving world peace, Cunningham says. We are solving shootings and homicides. Thats our focus.

This time, Mayor Jean Quan appointed Cunningham to run Ceasefire out of her office, and then-police Chief Howard Jordan was also on board. They then set to work, strategically and methodically, with five main priorities:

1. Analysis

During the first iterations of Ceasefire, Oakland mistakenly assumed most of the shootings were drug-related incidents by young people in the city. This time around, the city hired a data team to take a deep dive into the stats that showed instead that shooters and victims tended to be between 28 and 35, more gang-related than drug. And it identified the highest risk people400 Oakland residents in total, or 0.1 percent of the population.

This helped with a couple things: directing resources specifically to those (mostly) men most at risk of violence. And building community trust, particularly with the police. This allowed law enforcement to focus on people who are violentnot on someones husband or brother on the corner in a hoodie, but rather that guy holed up with guns in his house, Cunningham says. That builds legitimacy in neighborhoods where the violence is happening.

2. Call-ins

Oakland instituted periodic in-person gatherings with those at risk of being involved with violence, most of whom were mandated by a court to attend. The gatherings unfold in two parts: First, law enforcement officials warn the attendees that if they continue down the path to violence, they will be arrested, sent to jailor killed on the street. They are often unaware that being shot before increases the risk dramatically of being shot again, and killed, Cunningham says. They are also unaware of the inconsistencies of the criminal justice system: Unlike state crimes, federal prosecutors almost always win their cases, which can mean a prison sentence far from home.

Since police started Procedural Justice training, use-of-force incidents in Oakland have gone down by 75 percent. Whats more, the homicide solve ratewhich in Philly hovers around 40 percentrose from 29 percent in 2011, to more than 70 percent in 2017.

Then, the police leave and the men hear from community membersoften pastors, gunshot victims, mothersabout the tragic consequences of shootings; and from social service workers about the kinds of help they can getjob training, housing, food vouchers.

3. Relationship-based social services

Taxpayers fund a city agency called Oakland Unite, which distributes money and oversees nonprofits that provide services that include mentoring, education, jobs training, assistance to victims and their families.

The key here is the individualized approach: After identifying a potential shooter or victim, Oakland Unite sends a workeroften, Cunningham says, people who had been in the life, are connected and can build relationshipsto talk with him in person, to understand his immediate needs, anything from emergency housing in another neighborhood to food vouchers and employment opportunities.

The intent is to break the pathway to violence in the immediate term, so things cool down, and then to take on the longer-term needs that will keep that person out of jail and alive.

The message is, We love you, we want to help you make better decisions, we know its not easybut you got to put the guns down, Cunningham says. We know we cant just deliver the message and they will change. Its the first step.

4. Narrowly-focused law enforcement actions

Oakland, like Philly and other cities, had a strained relationship between community members and the police, which hampered (among other things) the ability to solve crimes. That, in turn, often led to more violence.

When the city implemented Ceasefire, it made two major changes to the way the police department operated. First, every police officer in the city is now trained in procedural justice, an evidence-based approach that emphasizes understanding, neutrality, voice and respect in all community interactions.

Since the training started in 2012, use-of-force incidents in Oakland have gone down by 75 percent. Whats more, the homicide solve ratewhich in Philly hovers around 40 percentrose from 29 percent in 2011, to more than 70 percent in 2017.

The department also shifted the way it investigates shootings by launching one central Ceasefire Unit to focus on the most serious violence citywide, rather than separate units within each police district. Cunningham says this came about after a particular rash of shootings between rival gangs in different parts of the city made it clear that no one district could own the violence, even within its boundaries.

5. Intentional management

Perhaps the most important key to Oaklands success is citywide coordination on confronting and solving the problem of gun violence.

Every Thursday, Cunningham says she ran two weekly meetings to review every shooting in the city. One was with law enforcement and included the police departments Ceasefire and criminal investigation units, Housing Authority police, probation, parole, the District Attorney and other agencies as needed, including nearby Berkeley Police, school police, FBI or U.S. Marshalls.

She followed that with a meeting with social service agencies, to review the cases and assess the needs from a different angleperhaps a victim needing a hospital visit, or outreach to those who might want to retaliate, or someone who needed a visit from a life coach.

Cunningham was the only link to these meetings, which were intentionally kept separate, to maintain trust with the community.

Periodically, the groups would meet together, for an analysis of the violence and prevention efforts over a period of months. These meetings helped shape strategy, but also helped them work through conflicts that inevitably arise around different approaches.

Police want to arrest bad guysnot offer them social services; sometimes, though, they dont have the evidence they need to make their case, so Oakland Unite would step in to at least prevent another shooting. And sometimes police have to put a perimeter up around a neighborhood because they know the person they are looking for is hiding there. With Ceasefire, these arguments happen around a conference room table, and are granular, down to one individual, one situation at a time.

That was difficult in 2012and it remains so. Ceasefire is a huge undertaking that can never let up. Some version of it has been tried, to varying degrees of success, in several cities around the country, and in places where they have stopped the focus on violence, violence has gone up. (This is one reason that New Havens violence prevention effort is called Project Longevity.)

Its always hard, Cunningham says. Now we have evidence that it works. But it doesnt hit a tipping point where it gets easier. People move in and out of these positions, and the cultural shift is huge for everyone.

Securing citywide buy-in for Oaklands violence prevention efforts dates back to the earliest efforts to bring Ceasefire there. In 2004, the city convinced voters to approve a measure that added a $100 parcel tax and parking fees into its coffers, divided 60 percent for police and 40 percent for social services. In 2012, despite the failures of Ceasefire, voters again approved the tax. Those fees now provide $14 million for Oakland Ceasefire every year.

People often say they dont have the money to do this, Cunningham says. But violence has a cost, and were already paying for it.

California is also one of five states that allocates significant funding to cities to fight gun violence; last year, the state distributed around $21 million. McLively, at the Giffords Center, has studied three of themNew York, Connecticut and Massachusettsand all have significantly reduced the number of shootings in their cities. The Giffords Center is working to convince Pennsylvania to allocate funding, too; meanwhile, Gov. Wolf gave Philly around $200,000 for violence prevention efforts, with no guarantee of future investment.

People often say they dont have the money to do this, Cunningham says. But violence has a cost, and were already paying for it. This is why, she notes, even cities like Stockton, Californiathe first to declare bankruptcyis doing CeaseFire, along with San Bernardino and Richmond.

In Philly, the pilot cost $130,000not enough to be fully successful, according to researchers, but enough to make the pointwhich is a mere fraction of the money the City spends on violence prevention. It is already a city with high taxes, and additional fees on things like parking and soda. Still, it seems entirely possible that, as in Oakland, residents would be willing to invest in a safer city, because of the benefits to all of us.

After years of rising gun violence, Philly may be on the brink of embracing a version of Ceasefire. This week, the Philadelphia Foundation hosted an event for civic leaders with Thomas Abt, author of Bleeding Out: The Devastating Consequences of Urban Violenceand a Bold New Plan for Peace in the Streets, who talked about policies that have reduced violence around the country, including the Kansas City Gun Experiment and Oakland Ceasefire. Acting Police Commissioner Christine Coulter was at that meeting, feverishly taking notes. Earlier this year, the police department launched Operation Pinpoint, to identify and target the worst offenders in particular neighborhoodsone piece of the Ceasefire puzzle.

Theron Pride, Mayor Kenneys senior director of Violence Prevention Strategies and Programs, says planning for Focused Deterrence is ongoing right now, and expects a decision will be made shortly. (In Philly, that would also require Krasner to sign on, which he has not done publicly.) But he also notes that several pieces still need to come together for the work to be successful. In January, about six months after Pride started his job, the City released the Philadelphia Roadmap for Safer Communities, which laid out a public health approach to gun violence, one of many ways cities have defined the issue.

Framing the problem to get everyone on the same page can take a fair amount of work, says Pride, who worked on anti-violence efforts in New York City and Pres. Obamas Justice Department. Even if we take a ready-made model like Ceasefire or Focused Deterrence off the shelf, we need a foundation and a frame so we can see where they align. Until you can work collaboratively and intentionally, you cant get where you want to be.

In the meantime, Prides office is in the midst of filling positions and putting together systems that address some portions of Ceasefiredata analysis and a homicide review team, for example. In June, the City gave out $700,000 to 47 grassroots organizations in the neighborhoods most prone to violence. This is not, Pride readily admits, going to have the short-term effect of reducing the homicide ratewhat he knows everyone is clamoring for. Instead it is intended to help those doing the work on the ground feel supported and part of the conversation.

Even if we take a ready-made model like Ceasefire or Focused Deterrence off the shelf, we need a foundation and a frame so we can see where they align, says Pride. Until you can work collaboratively and intentionally, you cant get where you want to be.

In this work, we often talk about cohesivenessa neighborhood is able to take back streets because there is a bit more cohesiveness, he says. This has empowered people, which has a shelf-life longer than the investment.

Thats fine, as far as it goes. But whats missing from this is an urgency for real changeand maybe more than that, an urgency for a real attitude shift in the way police operate, politicians address the problem, and residents work to make change happen. In Oakland, clergy and community members came together to demand police and politicians implement Ceasefire. In Philly, community groups do the hardest work individually, in individual neighborhoods; what would happen if they pulled together, like they did in California, to insist on citywide collaboration to solve this problem that affects everyone in the city? We wont know until they do it.

As Oakland showed over the course of the last 15 years, it is possible to stem gun violence, even in todays Americabut not piecemeal. That became clear during Oaklands first few attempts at Ceasefire, when funding for social service programs was directed to everything from after school services to hunger-fighting-programs, with the general idea that it would stop shootings before they happened. This time around, the fundingand the effortsall coalesce around one thing: Fighting violence.

We are not solving world peace, Cunningham says. We are solving shootings and homicides. Thats our focus.

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How to reduce gun violence in Philly with innovative policing - The Philadelphia Citizen

King County Council Flirts with Year-Long Scooter Pilot for White Center – TheStranger.com

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Meet me in White Center for a romantic scooter ride this fall. PATRICIAENCISO/GETTY IMAGES

King County Council Member Joe McDermott put forward legislation Tuesday to get a 12-month scooter pilot rolling in White Center. If McDermott has his wayand he's feeling optimistic that the rest of the KCC will be receptive to getting some scooters on the groundWhite Center will be e-scootin' by November, he told The Stranger. His legislation passed the transportation committee today 6-0 and is headed for the full council.

McDermott, a self-described scooter enthusiast, sees scooters as a way to achieve more links for first and last-mile connections and increasing mobility. He's ridden them all overfrom commuting to dinner in Santa Monica to sightseeing in Copenhagento get around in a number of different circumstances.

Picking White Center was an intentional move. "Its important to have a pilot program in this neighborhood in a diverse community so that we're making sure we dont leave anyone out," McDermott said. "The app will be in multiple languages, there will be a means for people who are unbanked to use scooters, and outreach to the broader communities."

The program will last a year "to be inclusive of all seasons in Seattle." There will be two check-ins at six months and nine months. If, after the year is up, KCC wants to move forward with permanent scooter-share then they will base all the tweaks and changes needed to cement the program on the nine-month check-in. That means there will be no lag time between the pilot and the permanent programwhich is not typical. Portland's four-month pilot ended in November 2018 and its current year-long pilot started in April. Spokane's pilot ended in late 2018 and their permanent program started up in May of this year. According to Lime spokesperson Jonathan Hopkins, "both Portland and Spokane wish their programs didn't take a break."

"If it works well I dont want to build in an automatic cease and restart the program," McDermott said. "If its working well I want to continue it seamlessly."

That's best practice, Hopkins said, because with successful scooter pilots come behavior change. According to initial survey data after Portland's four-month pilot, 16 percent of users thought about getting rid of their cars while Portland had scooters. Six percent actually did.

"Having a pilot then taking a break has an impact on those who have already changed their behavior," Hopkins said.

The companies for the pilot program haven't been picked. Two companies will be selected but they will have to apply. Currently, only Lime operates e-scooters in Washington state. If the pilot does launch, the scooters will probably be geo-fenced so that they can't operate outside the green-lit area.

McDermott is hoping to get the pilot jumpstarted this fall but that all depends upon the legislative timeline. My gut instinct was to worry that scooters launching in November or December wouldn't be used. "Would the weather impact scooters?" I asked.

"Do you go to work when it's raining?" McDermott responded wryly.

"Yes."

"Me too. I also go get Full Tilt ice cream when it's raining." McDermott said. The scooters will launch rain or shine if the legislation passes. If it does, then White Center will just keep on getting cooler.

Meanwhile, Seattle may pull together a pilot program by spring 2020. Though Mayor Durkan made a big show of finally allowing a pilot this past May, after about a year of flat-out no's, there has been minimal progress made to actually launch the thing. Most recently, in late August, the city announced a "robust public engagement process." You can email any and all thoughts to scootershare@seattle.gov.

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King County Council Flirts with Year-Long Scooter Pilot for White Center - TheStranger.com

Marketing to a post-gender world is key for White Claw – messenger-inquirer

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White Claw keeps tightening its grip on a thirsty nation, and its appeal is understandable. The alcoholic seltzer has a low calorie count, LaCroix-adjacent flavor and a meme-ability that millennials love -- so much so that stores nationwide are running out, and last week, the company instituted panic-inducing rationing. But while the fizzy drink is getting a generation buzzed, it's also not-so-quietly busting a glass ceiling. Unlike so many of its boozy predecessors, the Claw is equally beloved by men and women.

For decades, our televisions told us that men drank beer, women drank wine, and that's just the way the world was. Beer commercials, even when they're not overtly objectifying women, often still truck in mundane male fantasy: dudes sharing brews with their bros on game day, hanging out over the grill or golfing.

Wine, meanwhile, is often sold as Mommy Juice to stressed-out ladies who escape the suburban carpool grind with slugs from labels such as Little Black Dress and Skinnygirl.

Sometimes, after years of such gendered marketing, a company will realize that it has ignored or alienated half of its potential customer base, and then overcorrect, occasionally to awkward effect. In a new Coors Light commercial, a woman is shown performing post-workday rituals that include grabbing a beer from the fridge and whipping off her bra through her sleeve. The ad dubbed Coors "The Official Beer of Being Done Wearing a Bra" -- and immediately touched off a debate: Was it sexist? Relatable?

"The alcohol industry keeps shooting itself in the foot," says Susan Dobscha, a professor of marketing at Bentley University. "It's shortsighted to genderize an entire product category."

White Claw, meanwhile, has sidestepped all that whiplash.

It's huge among men and women in equal measures. There's a clean 50-50 split in younger consumers of hard seltzer, according to a study last month by Bank of America Merrill Lynch that analyzed the drinking preferences of millennials. And according to Nielsen data, White Claw accounts for more than half of seltzer sales. Women love it. Even frat boys and the bro-iest of men love it. Comedian Trevor Wallace's YouTube testosterone-steeped ode to White Claw ("it's like Perrier that does squats") has been viewed millions of times -- and spawned the oft-echoed catchphrase "ain't no laws when you're drinking Claws!"

"You could see White Claw as the dawning of this post-gender world where millennials and Gen Z are comfortable with the idea of gender fluidity," Dobscha says.

White Claw's ads and social media posts feature the canned product -- slimmer and taller than a traditional beer can -- front and center, with men and women firmly in the backdrop. And when they do appear, they're on equal footing.

There's football -- not on a bar TV, but rather a co-ed game being played outdoors. Women might be shown in tightfitting clothes, but it's athletic gear or just regular beachwear, and the models look strong and fit instead of seductive.

That's entirely intentional, says Sanjiv Gajiwala, vice president of marketing for White Claw. When the brand launched in 2016, the idea behind it was that the traditional worlds depicted in beverage marketing had pretty much gone extinct. White Claw would be the drink of the new gender norms, of the kinds of "group hangs" that define young peoples' social lives. "It wasn't a world where guys got together in a basement and drank beer and women were off doing something else, drinking with their girlfriends," Gajiwala said. "Whatever we put out creatively and how we positioned the brand really reflects that everyone hangs out together all the time."

Hard seltzer is an entire category born catering to the millennial sensibility.

"Beer marketers have been trying to crack the code of being gender-neutral after years of ignoring half the population," says Harry Schuhmacher, editor and publishe r of Beer Business Daily. "Big brewers haven't really been able to do it, but then White Claw came in, and it's always been a gender-neutral thing."

Danelle Kosmal, vice president of Nielsen's beverage alcohol practice, sees hard seltzer as one of the few beverages that's managed to pull off this feat. "Hard seltzer is one of the most gender-neutral products we have seen across the alcohol industry," she said in an email. "In comparison, traditional beer drinkers are two times more likely to be men than women." And the relatively new drink is gaining on beer: A recent Bank of America Merrill Lynch study found that it accounts for 5% of the beer market.

Over the summer, it seemed that White Claw morphed from a mere drink into a full-on lifestyle. What started out as "Hot Girl Summer" was re-dubbed "White Claw Summer," a selfies-by-the-pool, hashtagged shorthand for good times.

"It's aspirational," says Bank of America Merrill Lynch analyst Bryan Spillane, of hard seltzers' low-sugar, low-calorie appeal to younger drinkers -- men and women -- who want to party beachside and care how they look doing it. It's also gluten-free. "It's the whole low-carb, keto-friendly, CrossFit life." And even drinkers who aren't hardcore health nuts buy in. "They might be keto in their minds," Spillane says. "It's aspirational, in ways that have nothing to do with gender."

All kinds of communities have sprung up around White Claw. Ashley Schmillen is a member of the Facebook group Phish Fans Who Love White Claw, a page started by a friend of hers this summer as a joke that's now up to more than 4,500 members. The group posts lyrics from the jam band -- altered, of course, with references to their favorite drink. They mark one another's birthdays by posting videos of themselves shotguning Claws.

Members of the group are genuinely passionate about the drink -- but Schmillen, a 34-year-old stay-home-mom from Minneapolis, says they're just as into the shared humor of it all. "They're there for the jokes," says Schmillen, who has an Etsy shop where she sells stickers and tank tops bearing the group's name.

"There's this balancing act between it being a meme and it being a real thing," says Don Carter, an engineer in Los Angeles. Although he approaches the drink with a bit of irony, he appreciates its convenience. As an exclusive vodka-and-soda drinker, he says, he has welcomed finding cans of White Claw at parties. "Usually you'd go to a barbecue and there's just beer -- so it fits the bill there."

Schuhmacher says the beer industry in particular has been slower to adapt because the biggest companies have historically been family-owned. "Habits and mores change more slowly than when you have a publicly traded company with shareholders," he said.

Hard seltzer even has appeal among drinkers who would ordinarily consider themselves too sophisticated to swill a canned malted liquor. Brad Glynn, the co-founder and vice president of marketing of Minnesota craft brewery Lift Bridge, said his company decided to develop its own line of hard seltzers after seeing the success of the national brands -- even with beer connoisseurs. All it took was overcoming a little beer snobbery. "We looked around and saw that all of our friends are drinking it -- we're drinking it -- so why are we scared of that?" he said. Their strategy? "Let's do it and let's do it better."

The entry of craft brewers into the category suggests that the hard seltzer phenomenon is more than a blip, unlike its spiritual predecessor, the 1990s one-hit wonder that was Zima, Coors' lemon-lime malt drink. Zima, which become a synonym for "effete" in David Letterman's late-night jokes, never could shake its "girly-man" association.

The industry is taking notice: Natural Light just launched a new seltzer line (and hired Wallace for a marketing stunt that involved the comedian famous for his love of Claw to land a Natty-Light-branded helicopter on a yacht off Catalina Island). A higher-alcohol (and probably higher-testosterone) entry is expected soon from Four Loko, the company best known for a mid-2000s caffeinated malt liquor that was ultimately banned by the Food and Drug Administration. They'll join other White Claw competitors, including Boston Beer's Truly and Anheuser-Busch InBev's Bon & Viv.

Some forecasters suspect that overall, hard seltzer sales might fall off a bit in cooler weather. But there's no indication that the fizzy party is close to being over. According to data from Nielsen, sales are projected to top the $1 billion mark by the end of 2019. And the Bank of America Merrill Lynch study finds that there is "a big untapped market potential" for the category.

The end of summer brings tailgates, Halloween parties and holiday revelry -- or in the language of White Claw's marketing department, plenty more chances for a co-ed group hang.

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Marketing to a post-gender world is key for White Claw - messenger-inquirer

Black America saddles up to own its cowboy heritage – The Guardian

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America is never far from the frontier mentality and 2019 is proving no exception, with an African American cultural boom in all things cowboy, known colloquially as the yee-haw agenda. Surprised? You should not be. African American cowboys have largely been erased from the record by Hollywood narratives starring John Wayne and Robert Redford, but were estimated to amount to one in four in the wild west. Now artists and musicians seem determined to put a stop to the exclusion with figures including Beyonc, her sister Solange Knowles and Cardi B adopting western style.

One reason is the increased awareness of the part African Americans played on the western ranges at the end of slavery, when many former slaves headed to Texas looking for work.

That history is now proving as rich for black America as it had been for the film director John Ford and the stories they tell are not very different. In 1907, the African American cowboy Nat Love wrote of his life in Dodge City, Kansas, as a great many saloons, dance halls, and gambling houses, and very little of anything else. Love, who was born into slavery near Nashville, Tennessee, drank with Billy the Kid, participated in shootouts with Native Americans, rounded up cattle and amused himself with activities like dare-devil riding, shooting, roping and such sports.

However, life for freed slaves was hardly an idyll where racism and oppression had suddenly ceased to exist; the word cowboy itself, some say, had roots in a slur on these black labourers.

Along with the rise of racism and xenophobia in Donald Trumps America, there has also been a reassertion of the role of African Americans in places that are not normally acknowledged.

The New York University photography professor Isolde Brielmaier says: This is much less of a trend and much more about representation and visibility and addressing the erasure of that culture in the American imagination. Were seeing a very strong move on the part of marginalised communities to say: We were here and we exist.

From a cultural standpoint, its hard to find a rhythm and blues star who did not at some point don a cowboy hat. Ray Charles recorded country tracks throughout his career, putting out the great Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music album in 1962, and often said he was drawn to the stories in the songs from Nashvilles songwriters.

From Charlie Rich to Otis Redding once filmed on his Big O ranch in denim overalls to Curtis Mayfield and the Gap Band (who put out the single Burn Rubber on Me with a video of the trio in denim and cowboy hats), the western style has always been in the fringes, so to speak.

Lest any of this rich history go to waste, Idris Elba is to star in Concrete Cowboys, a film about Philadelphias black equestrian community, the Fletcher Street Urban Riding Club, which has provided safety and security for the neighbourhood for more than a century.

The film was inspired by Greg Neris 2011 novel Ghetto Cowboy about a 15-year-old boy from Detroit who is abandoned by his mother and sent to live in Philadelphia with the father he has never met, who is a black urban cowboy. In an interview last year, the director Ricky Staub said he was surprised to see a cowboy ride past his office. What the heck is going on? he wondered. Why are you riding a horse in the hood?

In the murder capital of Compton in Los Angeles, there is another effort to harness horses and the cowboy ethos as a counter to gangs and violence. The Compton Cowboy posse officially came together as a group in 2017, though the area of Richland Farms has been home to African American equestrians since the mid-20th century.

They dont pull us over or search us when were on the horses, Compton Cowboy Anthony Harris, 30, told the New York Times last year. The horses, Harris explained, protected the 10 members of the posse from police harassment. They would have thought we were gangbangers and had guns or dope on us if we werent riding, but these horses protect us from all of that.

Elba and the Compton Cowboys, it turns out, will be in good company. Nashvilles ability to turn out crossover stars such as Kacey Musgraves has helped re-establish an upbeat version of country in the pop mainstream, but it is the black cowboy who has been turning up all over town, as witnessed by Texas pop-culture commentator Bri Malandro.

Malandros Instagram account @theyeehawagenda serves as a celebration of black cowboy aesthetics in popular culture. Its a treasure trove where youll find anyone and everyone, old and new, offering a nod to the western style, from Beyonc in her Destinys Child days wearing a cowboy hat to her more recent Daddy Lessons, and her sister Solange who put western visuals to her album When I get Home.

Meanwhile, the New York fashion label Telfar put the black cowboy aesthetic on the catwalk in its autumn/winter collection this year.

But it is hats off, as it were, to Lil Nas X, creator of the unclassifiable, record-breaking Old Town Road, now registering on Billboard as the longest-running Hot 100 hit of all time. Earlier this month at the VMA music awards, 20-year-old Nas X walked the red carpet in a silver sequined suit, ruffled shirt and silver cowboy boots a little yee-haw mixed with the rock-star flash of Little Richard and Prince, noted Billboard. Nas X may not be the first R&B star to put out a countrified hip-hop song Nelly, UGK and Outkast have been there but he has single-handedly codified what had been bubbling up as a style trend for a year or two.

Vogue decided that Nas Xs look from designer Christian Cowan may just be the most dazzling interpretation of the boundary-pushing trend.

Now we know even the Lone Ranger is based on an African American cowboy, the black cowboy in pop culture, crossing and recrossing cultural lines, erasing them in the process, is in full swing.

To Brielmaier, the yeehaw agenda is about reasserting visibility.

Its very intentional on the part of Lil Nas X to place a black, gay cowboy in our visual purview. His playfulness is grounded in an important history that has gone underrepresented for a long time. Im here. This is my space. Whats the big deal?

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Black America saddles up to own its cowboy heritage - The Guardian

Pritzker names 2020 census co-coordinators – Peoria Journal Star

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SPRINGFIELD Gov. JB Pritzkers office announced the appointment of two census co-coordinators Monday, a position created by an executive order he signed in June to maximize participation in the 2020 U.S. Census.

State officials say up to two congressional seats and more than $1 billion in federal funding are at stake in Illinois if the complete population is not counted in 2020. Thats why the General Assembly allocated $29 million in state funding to an outreach effort that will be led by the newly created Census Office within the Illinois Department of Human Services.

Pritzker announced the co-coordinators of that office will be Marishonta Wilkerson, who has been serving in the role since August after more than two years as assistant counsel to Democratic Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, and Oswaldo Alvarez, who has more than 10 years of program implementation experience in the nonprofit sector.

The 2020 census will determine if Illinois gets our fair share of federal resources and representation, and these outstanding leaders will be committed to ensuring a complete and accurate count, Pritzker, a Democrat, said in a news release Monday. With a $29 million investment and a new Census Office, the state of Illinois will fight against the fear tactics coming from the federal government and make known that were proud to be home to vibrant, thriving communities of all backgrounds.

At the June signing of the Executive Order 10, which created the Census Office, Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton said Illinois could lose $120 million annually for each 1 percent of the population that is undercounted about $1.2 billion over the 10-year period between each census.

Illinois outreach effort will center on partnerships with community groups that are already working to promote census turnout. The deadline for those groups to apply for grants was Friday, Sept. 13.

According to the Census Offices September report, $20 million has been allocated for the initial grants, while $9 million will be reserved for an additional round of grants to address identified needs and communications and marketing efforts.

According to the report, the Census Office anticipates awarding a grant to at least one regional intermediary in each of 12 regions identified by the office. The intermediaries will coordinate outreach efforts and provide subawards to subgrantees that will conduct census outreach efforts in their communities.

The hardest-to-count communities will be prioritized for the grants. The U.S. Census Bureau deems an area hard to count if the self-response rate in the 2010 decennial census was 73 percent or less.

Illinois is using 18 variables associated with low census response, including housing, income, household language and internet access, to determine where the millions in grant funding will be distributed.

The largest grant distributions will go to organizations operating in Chicago, with a minimum allotment of $5 million and a maximum of $8.9 million. The Suburban Cook County region will receive between $2.1 million and $3.5 million, and the collar county region will receive between $1.8 million and $2.2 million.

Other regions include: Central Illinois ($400,000-$600,000), Northeast Central ($500,000-$695,000), North Central ($500,000-$650,000), Northern ($750,000-$920,000) Northwest ($350,000-$475,000), Southeast Central ($290,000-$400,000), Southern ($600,000-$700,000), Southwest Central ($530,000-$660,000), and West Central ($250,000-$300,000).

Anita Banerji, director of the Democracy Initiative of the nonprofit organization Forefront, which participates in census outreach, said the key to ensuring an accurate count is building trust in hard-to-count communities. In a July interview with Capitol News Illinois, she stressed that any information a person puts on census forms is confidential.

There will be a lot of misinformation and disinformation out there in the year ahead, she said. The advocates will have to be working smarter and harder to ensure that all residents across the state have accurate information, they feel safe and protected, and understand why it's necessary to self-report.

One of the reasons self-reporting is necessary, Banerji said, is because census data helps determine a number of demographic figures that could affect business interest on top of federal and state government funding.

You can't be that thoughtful or that intentional about where these new roads or new hospitals or these kinds of (English as a second language) classes need to go if you don't have accurate data, she said. So it behooves all of us to participate in this national civic engagement, civic duty, so that we can be providing a better future.

In Mondays release, IDHS Secretary Grace Hou said Illinois is well on its way to ensuring a complete and accurate count.

Weve never seen such a significant investment in the census until now, and were seeing a lot of excitement from our partners and stakeholders in the community, she said. We look forward to working with our grantees to continue our efforts and reach the communities and demographics that have previously been hard to count.

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Pritzker names 2020 census co-coordinators - Peoria Journal Star

‘There’s nothing there:’ Bahamian reporters weather Dorian, and the international press – Columbia Journalism Review

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A relief plane departs on September 6, 2019 in Elbow Key Island, Bahamas. (Photo by Jose Jimenez/Getty Images)

Most Bahamians still get their news offline, from local papers and radio rather than international English-language media networks. So, as Hurricane Dorian approached the Abaco Islands earlier this month, Bahamian journalists felt an urgent duty to their readers. In the two weeks since the storm, journalists struggled to report with fewer resources and during phone outages and gas shortages. Nevertheless, they were able to share vital survival information, news of the islands plans to rebuild, and the painful rise of the death toll.

Then the international press arrived, and some local reporters felt their access start to slip. Deandre Williamson, a night editor with The Bahama Journal in Nassau, contacted CJR to discuss the problem. Here, in their own words, Williamson and other Bahamian journalists tell us of the reporting challenges theyve faced in the wake of the storm.

Clint Watson

News Director, Eyewitness News

Weve had no access issues reporting on the storm. Every story weve done is based on how people are impacted and how society has changed. Our duty is to the people of the Bahamas and the families affected. Communities have been changed forever.

I went to Marsh Harbour just after the storm with the Progressive Liberal Party, the opposition. We spoke to people about why they chose to remain. Some wanted to help with the clean up, and for some it was just their home and they werent leaving. The stories that are hardest are stories of loss, loss of loved ones. Im still getting over it, its very difficult to talk about. Its an atomic bomb.

The main challenge is staying on it. It takes a lot out of you. Its a continuing and evolving story, seven days a week. We pray a lot. I get five hours of sleep a night.

I feel every day I can make a difference. Somebodys depending on me to be able to make informed decisions: how to move forward, where to get food, how to find loved ones that are missing, whos passing out relief and assistance, how to ensure you treat your water. We cover it all.

The international coverage is not as accurate. Every station has an agenda, so they cover it from that angle. Even if theyre on the ground, they dont have the connections or resources we have. Our message is: were still open for business. The Bahamas is an archipelago of islands. Two were devastated. The rest are open for business.

Jared Higgs

Broadcast Reporter, Our News and the Nassau Guardian

I went to Marsh Harbour four or five days after the storm moved past. I was able to fly in to Sandy Point, a 60-mile drive to Marsh Harbour, and then I caught a ride with a couple of customs officers. I was lucky to get that ride. They told me at the time, youre not going to be able to get a ride back. Everybody is looking out for themselves over there. In Marsh Harbour, somebody charged us $50 for a five-minute ride.

The most shocking thing was that there were so many dead bodies that had not been collected yet. People were putting up rest in peace Facebook posts for the deceased, but as a journalist Im not going to report on deaths until I know for certain. I needed more proof. Some people told me that they could show me where the bodies were. We walked 10 minutes from the government clinic in Marsh Harbor to the Pigeon Peas migrant village, and I was shown the bodies of three men. One was pinned under a home. The others were just lying among the rubble.

I was told I could be taken to where one mans mother was as well. She was also dead. I did not accept that offer. Im a news reporter and I cover a lot of crime, especially gun homicides, in Nassau. Id never seen a body that had just been left though. The smell was like a sign that says, City limits, Marsh Harbour. That was when I knew we were close.

Hurricane Dorian is probably the biggest story that Bahamian journalists will ever cover. And we are outnumbered by the international press. Were a small country with limited resources, whereas the BBC or ABC can send a team of five: two cameramen, two producers. Im going on assignment with my cameraman, and he was very anxious about being able to leave Marsh Harbour. Youre responsible for yourself, theres not some big company behind you. Therefore I think that we as journalists take a lot more risk.

We probably do feel that government officials are providing information to the international press more readily. Last Friday night, I was waiting to go on a live phone interview with Rachel Maddow on MSNBC, and she says, Just in: the office of the prime minister has confirmed that the death toll is now 43. She had updated information that I didnt haveI got a statement about an hour later.

Before the storm even arrived, I was at a NEMA press briefing. The whole local press corps was waiting to get interviews with the ministers, and they let the NBC people take our minister of tourism outside for an exclusive. The Bahamas needs all the help with its economy it can get right now, including letting the local media break Bahamian news.

Reporter Berthony McDermott interviews Dionisio DAguilar, the Bahamian Minister of Tourism and Aviation. (Photo courtesy of Berthony McDermott)

Berthony McDermott

Reporter, Jones Communication Network

The official death toll now is 51. But people on the ground say that hundreds died. One of the former prime ministers said that after he went through. Its not 50 peoplehundreds or thousands have died. But I dont know what the process is for making the count.

Officials gave the international press a little more access. I dont know if it was intentional. But at one NEMA briefing, I told the Minister of Tourism that I wanted to do an interview with him afterwards. Another reporter said that she had told him the same. When the press conference ended, we were waiting for him to come out, and the communications director of the Office of the Prime Minister walked out with him and took him straight outside to MSNBC. We followed, and they said, No local media, please wait. MSNBC wants to do an exclusive interview with the minister.

I felt very much insulted. I felt like I was being pushed to the side, when we are the ones reporting the stories for our people. Local media has the upper hand in getting announcements, and knowing people on the ground. This is our environment. I felt like we were disregarded and taken for granted.

I have seen the international media report a few inaccurate things. They said that NEMA requested that people on the islands who were affected by the storm go online and fill out a form. Thats not what NEMA saidthey know that if youre on the island you dont have access. It was for people who are missing relatives. If you have loved ones that are missing, fill in the form with their name so they can look for them.

Deandre Williamson

Print Journalist, The Bahama Journal

Local reporters will say exactly where a storm hits. We say it happened in Abaco, in Marsh Harbour and the settlement, and which parts of Grand Bahama were affected. In the international press, though, they just say The Bahamas. The Bahamas is made up of so many islands, and only two islands were affected.

Locally, weve been reporting where to get shelter, medical care, food, where to get relief, how relief is coming into the islands. We let readers know how they can help from Nassau. Also the death toll. We sent a team to Abaco and a team of Grand Bahama. We were invited to go back, but the news director said the scent of bodies was so strong that she does not want to send the team back again.

The US media now is focusing on immigration. I noticed stories about Bahamians going over there and how the US government is not going to allow them temporary status. So the US news is localizing the story for themselves. Today at a press conference in Nassau a Washington Post reporter asked about the relationship between Haitians and Bahamians. This is because Trump said he doesnt want more Haitians in the United States, and accused Haitians in the Bahamas of trying to illegally come to the US as hurricane victims.

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'There's nothing there:' Bahamian reporters weather Dorian, and the international press - Columbia Journalism Review

Pearson: London performer in forefront of fight against bullying – The London Free Press

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The kids are back in school and old routines are re-emerging busier roads, packing lunches, rushing for school buses, team tryouts, and bullying.

Thats right bullying.

Its a pressing reality for families, teachers, administrators and the broader community.

There are some harsh realities we have to deal with. Its troubling to learn that Canada peaceful Canada has the ninth highest bullying rate among 13 year olds out of 35 countries. Forty-seven per cent of Canadian parents report their children being victims of bullying practices. One in three students report being bullied recently.

Some of the harsh treatment is reserved for targeted groups. For example, the rate of discrimination experienced among students who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans-identified, queer, questioning or two-spirited, (LGBTQ2) is three times higher than among heterosexual youth.

The practice of bullying involves physical and emotional oppression that is controlling, damaging and intentional. For boys it most often comes in the form of physical force; for girls, its often verbal abuse. It can take place in person or on the internet, where girls are often the victims. Its a blight on any community, turning a school, home, community organization or city into a place of intimidation, fear and isolation.

The harassment is serious enough that it leads to higher risks of suicidal death in youth. So the arrival of the school season brings with it increased levels of danger.

Our education systems are situated at the forefront of this trend and they have taken steps to deal with the problem and educate the broader community about its responsibilities.

One of the most powerful resources in the anti-bullying campaign is Saidat Vandenberg, a London talent whose influence has reached impressive levels.

Her powerful skill is more than matched by the kind of enthusiasm that mobilizes youth. Her live production, The Saidat Show, has made its way through a long string of communities, especially schools. Performing in front of 600,000 kids in recent years has helped Saidat who performs under her first name shape a message for those experiencing bullying.

Being recognized by the likes of Justin Bieber, Shawn Mendes, Sony Music Canada and tens of thousands of fans has assisted this Londoner in spreading her captivating voice even further.

What makes The Saidat Show unique is its positive and affirming tone the opposite of the negative communications often delivered about bullying. Yes, people need to stand up to the practice of oppressing others, especially kids, but Saidat feels one of the best defences against bullies is to build up the confidence and self-respect of those frequently targeted.

She does this through arts. Her powerful singing voice and magnetic on-stage presence confirm for kids that standing up for oneself is good not only for those targeted but also for their families and communities.

If bullying is to be defeated, it will take a co-ordinated community response to assist the school system and parents in providing safer settings.

Similar to Saidat, American young adult author Megan Kelley Hall (Dear Bully) feels its time to stop the blame game and get on with the task of building more secure communities.

School administrators cant say its up to the parents. Parents cant say its up to the teachers. Teachers cant say its not their job. And kids cant say, I was too afraid to tell, she says. Every single one of us has to play our role if were serious about putting an end to the madness. We are all responsible. We must be.

If were looking for an example of someone who has learned to take a hurtful practice and turn it into a community message designed to strengthen the bullied and not just curtail the bully, Saidat Vandenberg is a great example.

Soon she will embark on a tour that will take her success in London farther afield. A message, honed in London, that maintains that one can be attacked but that their self-respect cant be destroyed unless it is surrendered, might help us turn the corner on developing a full community response toward this growing problem.

Glen Pearson is co-director of the London Food Bank and a former Liberal MP for the riding of London North Centre. glen@glenpearson.ca

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Pearson: London performer in forefront of fight against bullying - The London Free Press

Ahold Delhaize USA raises sustainability standards – Supermarket News

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Ahold Delhaize USA has adopted a new sustainable chemistry policy for its products and packaging.

Under the initiative, the companys Food Lion, Giant Food, Giant/Martins, Hannaford and Stop & Shop supermarket chains; Peapod online grocery arm; and Retail Business Services (RBS) support unit will restrict certain chemicals from products and packaging as well as work with suppliers to ensure products meet standards for ingredients beyond whats required by law.

Related: Ahold Delhaize USA builds fresh kitchen in Rhode Island

The five grocery retailers, Peapod and RBS also will collaborate with suppliers to address the causes of any contaminants, Ahold Delhaize USA said yesterday in announcing the effort.

The great local brands of Ahold Delhaize USA are known for their close local and personal connections with customers and communities, Brittni Furrow, vice president of sustainable retailing and healthy living at Ahold Delhaize USA, said in a statement. Consumers indicate they want more transparent products for their families, made with ingredients they can feel good about. Were pleased to launch this new commitment, which will bring more sustainable options, free from unwanted ingredients, to neighborhood grocery stores.

Related: Ahold Delhaize USAs RBS arm opens new tech office

Under the new practices, Ahold Delhaize USA and its subsidiaries will restrict the intentional use of chemicals of concern including per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), bisphenol A (BPAs) and phthalates, among others and put them on a restricted substance list for the companys private-brand products and food packaging. The list also will help ensure that more sustainable alternatives for these chemicals are used, the company added.

Starting in 2020, Ahold Delhaize USAs business units will expand supplier testing requirements to confirm that priority products meet standards above whats required by U.S. law for potential chemicals of concern. The company said its local brands are committed to using credible certification programs that further address priority materials for coffee, tea and cocoa products with Rainforest Alliance, Fair Trade or organic programs.

Ahold Delhaize USA and its brands, too, will partner with suppliers, agricultural producers and external organizations to research and minimize potential contaminants of concern in finished products, as well as to advance greener chemistry options. The company said it also aims to provide more product ingredient information to consumers, beyond whats required by law, to support the selection of trusted brands and products.

In addition, beginning next year, Ahold Delhaize USA and its companies will participate in The Chemical Footprint Project and report annually on the companys progress toward its sustainable chemistry commitment.

Each of the Ahold Delhaize USA companies is committed to sustainable chemistry from farms and fields to production and packaging to store shelves, Furrow explained. Sustainable chemistry is a complex and evolving topic, but one that Ahold Delhaize USA and its companies are committed to addressing in collaboration with others in the best interest of consumers.

According to Food Lion, Ahold Delhaize USAs largest chain by stores, with more than 1,000 locations in the Southeast, the company will also monitor emerging information and reports to ensure that their restricted substance lists are updated regularly.

The Salisbury, N.C.-based grocery chain noted that the work builds on an effort begun last year by RBS to remove synthetic colors, artificial flavors and preservatives, sweeteners, MSG and high-fructose corn syrup from all private-label products by 2025. RBS, also based in Salisbury, develops private-brand products for each of the Ahold Delhaize USA supermarket brands.

Food Lion is committed to caring for our customers and our communities. This sustainable chemistry commitment is just one more way we are demonstrating that care through our sustainability initiatives, stated Meg Ham, president of Food Lion. Food Lion has always been committed to making available the best products for our customers to nourish their families and today we are taking that commitment one step further.

Overall, Ahold Delhaize USA operates nearly 2,000 supermarkets on the East Coast and generates more than 6 billion annualized online grocery orders.

Parent company Ahold Delhaize, based in Zaadam, the Netherlands, said at the end of 2018 that its delivering on its 2020 sustainability targets, including 50% of own-brand food sales recognized for good nutritional value, a 20% reduction in food waste since 2016 and a 30% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions since 2008. By 2025, the company aims to make 100% of its own-brand plastic packaging recyclable, reusable or compostable.

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Ahold Delhaize USA raises sustainability standards - Supermarket News

Turning Up the Heat: Immigration Activism in the Summer – The Dartmouth

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by Novi Zhukovsky | 9/18/19 2:25am

Theres a saying at the College that its easy to get caught up in the Dartmouth bubble. Since Hanover, NH pop. 11,485 provides limited forms of entertainment for college students, the attention of the school community turns inward. Not much can lever our attention away from the center. This summer, however, the sacred Dartmouth bubble was popped.

Between July 29 and Aug. 1, 18 people were arrested by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents in Hartford, VT. These raids were part of a nationwide federal crackdown on immigrants without documentation. But some observers thought they came at a suspicious moment, just when the Hartford Selectboard was set to discuss passing a local ordinance that addresses how much information local police are required to share with federal immigration officers regarding the documentation status of local citizens. English and women, gender and sexuality studies professor Alexis Jetter, a veteran activist who has been involved in protesting ICE activity near campus, said she believes that authorities used these raids to discourage protest.

This is exactly what ICE loves to do. Come into communities where there is resistance to ICE and show us that we are helpless in the face of their power, might and cruelty. They are showing that no one can escape, she said.

Many activist groups were quick to respond. Rise! Upper Valley, a grassroots organization focused on immigration policy, staged a rally in Hartford on Aug. 14 to protest the ICE arrests, according to Valley News. The protest kicked off in Lyman Point Park with speeches, and eventually evolved into a march along Route 14, with the group coming to a stop at the Route 5 intersection. The rally spread across the road and blocked traffic for several hours. The protest eventually ended with a total of 26 arrests including those of several Dartmouth faculty and students. History professor Pamela Voekel was among those arrested. While she had not attended the rally with the intention of being arrested, in the moment, she decided that it was the right thing to do. Voekel explained that many of the other protestors who were arrested shared a similar view.

There was a real feeling that with the privilege we have, either as professors or older, wealthier people, it made sense for us to put ourselves in the fight, Voekel said.

As a professor who teaches Mexican history, many of Voekels students are part of the affected communities or are undocumented themselves. Moreover, her knowledge of Mexican history gives her a deeper empathy for the challenges Mexican migrants experience.

History professor Annelise Orleck, another participant in the Rise! Upper Valley protest, believes that professors can play key roles in guiding political activism. Orleck said she thinks that professors can help advise and inform students who may have less experience with political activism. She also said that professors especially history professors are well-positioned to help their students understand the wider background of the movements so that their activism is more intentional and knowledge-based.

Knowing history is really important. And I think that faculty can help place their students activism in a larger historical context, she said.

Both Voekel and Orleck believe that regardless of their own personal political views, they have a responsibility to create a classroom environment in which their students feel open to express their own opinions. They say that they welcome respectful discourse and dissent and encourage their students to base their beliefs whatever they may be in knowledge and understanding.

My sense of responsibility as a teacher is to create a thoughtful, respectful, open environment for discussion in my classroom and to encourage students to ground their arguments in evidence and speak to each other respectfully, Orleck said. I know that I have to make sure that students of all kinds, and holding of all views, feel safe to express themselves in my classroom.

Voekel said her own political views are not the focus. While she makes no attempt to hide them, she argues that students learn more when their assumptions and biases are challenged rather than when being lectured or told what to think.

But the real world continues to intrude. Following the August raids and the RISE! Upper Valley protest, ICE set up a checkpoint along I-89, just outside of Lebanon, the day before Pre-Orientation for Dartmouths international students. Dartmouth was quick to produce a statement criticizing ICEs actions and emphasizing the schools mission to maintain a school environment that is open and welcoming.

Some, however, believe that the Colleges comments did not go far enough. Jetter said that the statement was weak, and that Dartmouth needs to take a stronger public stance to protect its undocumented students. However, she acknowledged that behind closed doors, Dartmouth has taken measures to protect its at-risk students. She said that the contrast between the Colleges public and private actions reflects a clear strategy to support its students without calling the ire of its conservative alumi and donors.

Remember, when the president of Dartmouth speaks, the alums are the audience. And many of them are conservative. In fact, lets be specific here, many of the people who have historically given the most money have been conservative. Republican hedge fund managers are the ones who have the most money to give, and they have historically been overrepresented in the Board of Trustees, Jetter said.

Voekel also said that Dartmouth does not consistently support students with immigration issues. Students frequently complain to her about how difficult it is for them to speak with a faculty member who has the resources and knowledge to help them. And as immigration-related issues are frequently time-sensitive, maintaining an efficient and intuitive system is especially important.

Voekel said that she believes that Dartmouths organizational issues in the immigration office are due to a combination of factors. Similarly to Jetter, she said that systemic issues within the College can hinder its motivation and ability to streamline access to resources and aid.

Dartmouth doesnt have a practice of listening closely enough and privileging the voices of people from the affected communities, she said. And thats in part because we are also the whitest faculty in the Ivy League. And that matters. Not because there arent plenty of liberals, or that any given faculty member is a racist, but overall, it creates a kind of blind spot. We tend not to respond with the same kind of alacrity we should be responding with And so its a two-pronged problem. We have many conservative alums and an overwhelmingly white faculty.

There has been a mixed response to the recent events by students across campus. Riley Gordon 22, president of the Dartmouth Democrats, wrote in an email that he condemned recent federal actions and believes that members of the Dartmouth community need to support each other during this time.

The scare tactics of ICE and CBP are not welcome here. Its important not only for local leaders to take steps to welcome and protect immigrants but for students, regardless of immigration or citizenship status, to know their rights and to stick up for one another, he wrote.

Conversely, the Dartmouth Republicans pledged their support for the efforts of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and disagreed with the way in which the College approached their response to the checkpoint. In an official post on its Facebook page, the organization stated that while it agrees with Dartmouths stance that issues regarding immigration and security are important, they strongly criticized the Colleges declaration of open and welcoming values. The club said that Dartmouths statement disregarded the rule of law and irresponsibly and shamelessly denounced the morality of the federal law enforcement.

Regardless of which side of the political spectrum on which one falls, immigration is an issue that will continue to create friction within the nation until Congress is able to craft a coherent immigration policy. Judging by the recent activity on campus and in the larger Upper Valley, many are unhappy with the direction that the current American administration is taking. Headlines about detention camps, arrest raids and family separation have been prominent in the news and on social media, dividing the populace. Immigration issues have also taken a front row seat in the recent Democratic presidential debates, with each candidate offering his or her opinion on how to solve the crisis.

However, there is some hope. This issue has brought together students, faculty and lifetime activists who are passionate about finding a solution.

I am excited by the political and moral mobilization of the youngest activists, Orleck said. And I do think that your generation will lead the way because you have to. And because I am a historian and an activist, I believe that you always need to know whose shoulders you stand on and learn from the experiences of those who came before. I am very heartened by this growing cooperation across the generations of activists.

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Turning Up the Heat: Immigration Activism in the Summer - The Dartmouth

Student resident life improved through Nebraska Resident Experience – Daily Nebraskan

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A new program through the University of Nebraska-Lincolns residence halls looks to help students plan for their future.

To Tony Rathgeber, the interim director of residence life and associate director of housing, student life in the residence halls is an important aspect to their time at the university. Thats why he and a team of campus staff worked to create the Nebraska Residential Experience.

The Nebraska Residential Experience works to take traditional practices used in a classroom and utilize those in residence halls, according to Jordan Black, the associate director for Learning Experiences in Residence Life.

In other words, its an intentional, cohesive approach to creating meaningful learning experiences for students based on the Husker Student POWER framework, Rathgeber said in an email.

POWER, which stands for Purpose, Ownership, Well-being, Engagement and Relationships, focuses on students being able to refine what their idea is for their future, discover what resources they can use to help them and realize they have members of their residence hall there to guide them, according to the Nebraska Residential Experience website.

Its a matter of how we are leveraging the expertise of all of our staff, Black said.

Development of the curriculum began during spring break earlier this year with the help of an expert consultant and workshop activities for the Residence Life staff. Twenty members of the Academic Affairs and Student Affairs departments participated, Rathgeber said.

As the interim director of residence life and associate director of housing, Rathgeber leads Residence Life and aids the leadership of University Housing, he said.

Black said he played a role in the creation of the curriculum by overseeing changes in the learning program communities, hall government and evaluation of the apartments.

One obstacle the team faced was working against time, Rathgeber said.

Most campuses spend 12-18 months developing what weve created in five months, he said. And the recommendation from our consultant was to launch at the start of this semester close to 40% completed, which weve done.

The team couldnt be prouder of the curriculum, Black said.

I think the people that contributed to it have made a phenomenal product for our first iteration, he said. I think one of the things that it really shows is the dedication people within the department have.

The team will make continual changes and improvements to the program over the next three years, Rathgeber said.

Its important to note that a project like this is never truly done and lives in a state of continuous assessment, refinement and improvement, he said.

Black said its important to know that students needs are constantly changing.

We want to make sure the curriculum is responsive to that and not that wed develop something and let it sit on a shelf, he said.

Transparency, positive experiences and relationships are all things that the team wants students to see in the residential halls, according to Black.

The curriculum is allowing us to create an intentional, holistic experience within the residence halls that we know is consistent across every one of our halls and that all of our students are benefitting from, Black said.

news@dailynebraskan.com

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Student resident life improved through Nebraska Resident Experience - Daily Nebraskan

Residential Education centralizes program curriculums – Daily Trojan Online

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USC sports psychologist Lani Lawrence spoke to students at a Residential Education event on Sept. 10. Residential Education took over planning programming this year to lessen the work load for resident assistants. (Ally Wei | Daily Trojan)

Residential Education has implemented extensive changes to this Falls residential curriculum. It will now create the programs hosted by resident assistants to offload the RAs stress of creating their own weekly events.

Some of the [resident assistants] would be over-programming and running the risk of not taking time for themselves to slow down and to focus on their academics, just to breathe and be a student, said Emily Sandoval, the senior director for Residential Education.

According to Natalia Wurst, a second-year RA at Trojan Hall, the majority of her free time during her first year as a resident assistant was used for extensive planning, coordinating and hosting events. Now, Wurst, a junior majoring in public policy and psychology, says she has a much smaller input on the programs.

You get to pick the theme of your event I could have done pizza instead of an ice cream social [for my event], but for the most part, the core components of the program are the same for all the RAs, Wurst said. I think thats just so [Residential Education] can standardize what is being presented to residents.

Bulletin boards are another large responsibility that was offloaded from the residential advisors. In the previous curriculum, advisors were expected to decorate bulletin boards in their residential college under certain guidelines.

I know [the bulletin boards] were something that took a lot of time and I dont really think [they were] that important, said Maya Hildebrand, a past residential advisor at Cowlings and Ilium and a senior majoring in mechanical engineering. I know, for example, RAs would put up bulletin boards and then they would get torn down by the end of the day.

A primary goal of offloading programming and activities like bulletin boards was to encourage the resident assistants to have genuine and intentional interactions with their residents.

RAs wanted to be involved with our program because they wanted to help their fellow Trojans, one of the number one priorities for RAs becoming RAs, said Erin Hunter, the Residential Education Associate Director for the University Park Campus. We were hoping that reducing the programmatic effort would allow them to have Trojan Talks with intentional interactions, relationship-building opportunities and tough conversations more frequently.

Hunter created a committee of staff to pilot the new residential curriculum model in March 2019. Dr. Keith Edwards, a national keynote speaker on topics like sexual violence prevention, student affairs leadership and the residential experience, attended a two-day intensive training with Hunters staff, allowing the committee to organize its pivot to the new curriculum.

Dr. Keith Edwards worked really closely with us He said to launch the curriculum at 40%, Sandoval said. Were not 100 percent% done planning it out Part of the beauty of this is that we adjust and evolve to what the residents need.

The curriculum focuses on four goals: equity and inclusion, self-awareness, well-being and community engagement. Each goal has intended outcomes that Residential Education hopes will meaningfully contribute to global communities as a result of their residence on campus at USC, the educational priority of the new programming.

Hildebrand said she hopes Residential Education continues making changes based on the well-being of the resident assistants, citing that tough conversations often magnified their levels of stress.

The biggest stress doesnt come from the programming itself, but it comes from feeling like you are this resource for your floor, youre this therapist for your floor, youre also a police for your floor and all of the above, Hildebrand said. Another good step would be having more resources for an RA, such as a counselor at Engemann specifically for RAs to go see.

As for Residential Education, they will continue altering the new curriculum as they receive feedback from resident assistants, residents and residential college coordinators.

I think that no matter what a first-year student chooses to do what academic college they are in, what student organizations they decide to join, if theyre a student-athlete or a part of student government where their head hits the pillow has to be home, Sandoval said.

Residential Education encourages residents and resident assistants to submit their feedback on the residential experience in a survey that will be sent to students in October.

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Residential Education centralizes program curriculums - Daily Trojan Online

At an Illinois parish, we set about normalizing the work of justice – National Catholic Reporter

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The 1971 Synod of Bishops made it clear that the work of justice is essential to our Catholic Christian identity. The bishops said that action on behalf of justice is a "constitutive dimension" of Christian living.

I serve on the adult faith formation committees at St. Nicholas Parish in O'Fallon, Illinois. Over the past several months, we have been discussing how we as a parish can normalize the work of justice, make justice part of "the way we do things."

The people of St. Nicholas have an excellent track record when it comes to doing the work of charity. Whether it be the St. Vincent de Paul Society, the Soup Bus that feeds people in East St. Louis, Illinois, the ministry to sick and homebound persons, or many others the willingness of the St. Nicholas faith community to share time, talent and treasure with persons in need is impressive.

But we have also come to realize that we are not good at doing the work of justice. We've uncovered several reasons why social justice isn't on our radar screen:

It's big. The social justice teaching touches every aspect of our personal and communal lives family, parish, diocese, workplace, local community, nation, world.

It's complicated. The social teaching is based on a web of interactive moral values and principles the dignity of the human person, human rights and responsibilities, stewardship of the Earth, the common good, the preferential option for the poor, peacemaking. The interplay among these various values and principles makes the social teaching difficult to understand and apply to specific issues.

It's "idealistic." The social teaching presents a hope-filled vision of the world as God intends it to be. That leaves it open to the criticism that "it's pie in the sky that's not how the real world works."

It's "political." Issues like the death penalty, care of the environment, and immigration are often considered taboo. So they're rarely addressed from the pulpit and quickly shushed when they come up in everyday conversation.

It's threatening. Who among us wants to admit our own prejudices? Who is willing to challenge the views of family and friends who believe the government is "giving away everything for free" to poor people? Who would dare challenge the profit motive, free enterprise or any of the other principles upon which our economy is built?

It's countercultural. It challenges some of the bedrock assumptions and values of our economy, our culture and our politics. Most of us assume that the cultural status quo is acceptable, or even the way things ought to be.

It's hard work. The principles of social justice demand that we make changes in the way we think and act. Who likes to call out sexism and race prejudice? How many of us want to live more simply? Who is willing to change the way they think about whom to vote for and against?

The members of the adult faith formation committee know that action on behalf of justice is something we need to do as a parish. So far, we've reached consensus on three elements of a strategy to normalize the work of justice.

First, we need to become more aware of the social teaching. The principles of the social teaching should become part of our standard operating procedure.

Msgr. Bill Hitpas, pastor of St. Nicholas, has begun to make social justice a more intentional focus of his homilies. He knows that his homilies reach more parishioners than any other form of parish communication and that his words carry much weight.

We need to read about it and talk about it in discussion groups, study groups, and small Christian communities. We've concluded that it's not enough to have a group of 15 parishioners participate in JustFaith or some similar program.

Throughout the fall, St. Nicholas is hosting a series of Scripture studies on the prophets, and on the prophetic role of the laity in the church. The prophets were heralds of God's justice, and the Second Vatican Council clearly articulated our baptismal calling to exercise our prophetic role in the world.

We have scheduled an evening meal through an organization known as Welcome Neighbor STL. We will be served a meal prepared by a family of refugees from Afghanistan. We will then hear their story, and engage in dialogue with them about the challenges they have faced as they start a new life in this country.

Second, we need to internalize the social teaching. We need to reflect on it and pray about it regularly and repeatedly. It should shape our worldview, become a primary lens through which we interpret our personal and social experience.

We need to challenge ourselves and our lifestyle. Do I own more possessions than I truly need? Do I choose to live in my neighborhood because it's not integrated? Do I send my kids to Catholic schools so they won't be a minority at their public school? Does the company I work for treat its employees justly, pay its fair share of taxes, help to protect the environment?

Third, we need to act on the social teaching. There are many things we can do organize a meeting, join a march, seek signatures on a petition, call or write our legislators. This will be an ongoing topic of conversation.

Jesus came to establish the reign of God on earth to transform the political, social and religious status quo in such a way that God's loving justice is visible and available to all. It is a necessary part of our Christian vocation to help make the reign of God on earth a reality. We are called to shake up the system, to turn the world's unjust normalcy on its head. This is not an option for us.

The reign of God will not come about in its fullness, and the peace that is the result of social justice will not happen, unless we make it happen.

[Mark Etling is coordinator of adult faith formation at St. Nicholas Parish in O'Fallon, Illinois. He is an adjunct assistant professor of theology at St. Louis University.]

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At an Illinois parish, we set about normalizing the work of justice - National Catholic Reporter

Oculus Chief Researcher’s Predictions Of The Future Of Virtual Reality – UploadVR

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For the last half-decade at each Oculus Connect, Facebooks top VR researcher presented an annual look at the future of the technology.

The research-focused talk by Michael Abrash is a highlight of the annual conference hosted by Facebook and well hope to see a similar update during Oculus Connect 6. Hired from Valve, Abrash built up Facebooks long-term VR research efforts first at Oculus Research and then under its new name Facebook Reality Labs.

You can watch everything he said about the future of the technology during his presentations from 2014 to 2018 in the video below.

Abrash offers an overview of Oculus Research and tries addressing the question of with VR failing to reach mass adoption in the past why it is going to be different this time.

In a very real sense its the final platform, he says. The one which wraps our senses and will ultimately be able to deliver any experience that were capable of having.

He says Oculus Research is the first well-funded VR research team in 20 years and their job is to do the deep, long-term work of advancing the VR platform. He points to a series of key areas they plan to pursue including eye tracking. The idea behind foveated rendering is that if you track the eyeballs movements fast and reliably enough you could build a VR headset which only draws the most detailed parts of a scene directly where you are looking. He also described the fixed focal depth of modern VR headsets as not perceptually ideal and admits they can cause discomfort or may make VR subtly less real while hinting at several possible ways of addressing this problem requiring new hardware and changes to the rendering model.

This is what it looks like when opportunity knocks, he says.

In late 2015 Abrash outlines a more specific series of advances required to drive human senses with VR technology. He says hes fine leaving the sense of taste to future VR researchers, and both touch and smell require the development of breakthroughs in delivery techniques. He also discusses the vestibular system which he describes as our internal accelerometer and gyroscope for sensing change in orientation and acceleration and that conflict between our vestibular sense and what you see is a key cause of discomfort.

Right now theres no traction on the problem, he says.

For hearing, though, theres a clear path to doing it almost perfectly, he says. Clear doesnt mean easy though. He breaks down three elements of audio simulation as Synthesis (the creation of source sounds), Propagation (how sound moves around a space), and Spatialization (the direction of incoming sound) and the difficulties involved in doing all three well.

We understand the equations that govern sound but were orders of magnitude short of being able to run a full simulation in real time even for a single room with a few moving sound sources and objects, he says.

He predicts that in 20 years youll be able to hear a virtual pin drop and it will sound right the interesting question is how close well be able to get in five years.

He describes photon delivery systems as needing five attributes which are often in conflict with one another, requiring trade-offs in field of view, image quality, depth of focus, high dynamic range and all-day ergonomics.

All currently known trade offs are a long way from real-world vision, he says.

He provides the following chart showing the current market standard and the desired attributes of a future VR vision system.

Abrash describes other areas of intense interest for Facebooks VR research as scene reconstruction as well as body tracking and human reconstruction. Interaction and the development of dexterous finger control for VR is a particularly difficult problem to solve, he adds.

Theres no feasible way to fully reproduce real-world kinematics, he says. Put another way, when you put your hand down on a virtual table theres no known or prospective consumer technology that would keep your hand from going right through it.

He says it is very early days and the first haptic VR interface that really works will be world-changing magic on par with the first mouse-based windowing systems.

Facebooks PC-powered Oculus Rift VR headset launched in 2016 but Facebook hadnt yet shipped the Oculus Touch controllers for them just yet. Echoing the comments he made in 2015, he says haptic and kinematic technology that isnt even on the distant horizon is needed to enable the use of your hands as direct physical manipulators. As a result, he says, Touch-like controllers will still be the dominant mode for sophisticated VR interactions in five years.

The prediction came in a series as Abrash essentially outlines what a new PC-powered Rift made in 2021 might be able to achieve. The biggest risk to many of his predictions, though, is that eye-tracking quality required for many advances in VR displays is not a solved problem. It is central to the future of VR, he says. He suggests foveated rendering is even key to making a wireless PC VR headset work.

Eliminating the tether will allow you to move freely about the real world while in VR yet still have access to the processing power of a PC, he said.

He said he believes virtual humans will still exist in the uncanny valley and that convincingly human avatars will be longer than five years away.

At Oculus Connect 4 in 2017 Facebook changed the Abrash update into a conversational format. Among the questions raised for Abrash was how his research teams contribute to VR products at the company.

Theres nothing in the current generation that has come from us, he said. But there is certainly a number of things that we could see over the next few years.

While there isnt a lot about the future in this session the following comment helped explain what he sees as the purpose of Facebooks VR and AR research:

How do we get photons into your eyes better, how do we give you better computer vision for self-presence, for other peoples presence, for the surroundings around you. How do we do audio better, how do we let you interact with the world better it is a whole package and each piece can move forward some on its own but in the long run you really want all the pieces to come together. And one really good example is suppose that we magically let you use your hands perfectly in VR, right? You just reach out, you grab virtual objects well remember that thing I said about where youre focused? Everything within hands length wouldnt actually be very sharp and well focused right. So you really to solve that problem too. And it just goes on and on like that where you need all these pieces to come together in the right system and platform.

At last years Oculus Connect conference Abrash updated some of his predictions from 2016. While they were originally slated for arrival in high-end VR headsets in 2021, this time he says he thinks theyll likely be in consumer hands by 2022.

He suggests in this presentation that the rate of advancement in VR is ramping up faster than he predicted thanks to the parallel development of AR technology.

He suggests new lenses and waveguide technology might have a huge impact on future display systems. He also says that foveated rendering and great eye tracking still represent a risk to his predictions, but now hes comfortable committing to a prediction that highly reliable eye tracking and foveated rendering should be doable by 2022.

Audio presence is a real thing, Abrash said of Facebooks sound research. It may take longer than I thought.

Abrash showed Facebooks work on codec avatars for convincing human avatar reconstructions and suggests that it is possible these might arrive along the same time frame as his other predictions 2022.

He also makes his longest-term prediction in saying he believes by the year 2028 well have useful haptic hands in some form.

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Oculus Chief Researcher's Predictions Of The Future Of Virtual Reality - UploadVR

Move Over Online Dating! Virtual Reality Is The Future Of Finding Love – Forbes

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Around 40% of Americans use online dating, contributing to the $3 billion industry thats set to grow 25% by 2020. Online dating is no longer seen as a last-ditch attempt to find love. Instead, it is becoming the standardone-third of marriages in the USA begin online.

The market is flooded with dating apps like Tinder, Bumble and Hinge. Each has different features that allow you to trawl your way through potential suiters and find the one. Unfortunately, its not always rosy53% of people lie on their profile about their height, weight or job. This may explain why nearly 1 in 5 US dating app users say theyve had negative experiences.

A key promise of VR is the possibility of remote social interaction that is more immersive than any other media. Ive looked before at how people socialize in the virtual space, but what about meeting your future partner in VR?

A VR date should be a more intense and personal experience than online dating. Moving from screen to VR invokes presencethe feeling of actually being in the virtual space itself. Studies show that using apps like Skype and Facetime results in greater trust and satisfaction, compared to just talking over the phone. It follows that VR dating will achieve this to an even greater extent.

Could your future partner be found through using VR?

Imagine a date where you take a spacewalk together or go on a romantic stroll through Paris, serenaded by your favorite band. By creating limitless spaces and unique experiences for people to share without spending a dime, virtual reality becomes a low-risk way to foster attraction.

Experiences shared in virtual reality can be just as powerful as those in real lifewhich opens up the door for romance to blossom between VR users, if thats what they are both looking for. Lindsay Portnoy, an educational psychologist and co-Founder and Chief Learning Officer at Killer Snails, said:

The ability to engage users through multiple senses, communicate from the safety of your own space, and the capacity to hear, see, and maybe even feel your partner in a virtual space are some of the many reasons why virtual reality may be the future of dating and love.

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Move Over Online Dating! Virtual Reality Is The Future Of Finding Love - Forbes

Virtual Reality Video Games That Double as Exercise – The New York Times

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During the harshest months of Minnesotas long, dark winters, when it takes only a few moments for your eyes to start watering and your cheeks to begin stinging, I give up my outdoor hobbies and get creative about exercising indoors. Sometimes that means hopping on a stationary bike. But more and more I find myself turning to an entirely different landscape: virtual reality.

Pulling a ski-mask-like VR headset over your eyes drops you into a virtual world where you can watch movies, play games, and, yes, exercise. Sensors track the location of your hands, body, and head while you smash opponents as Adonis Creed in Creed: Rise to Glory. Other apps let you dance, bike, do yoga, and meditate.

On sites like Reddit, praise abounds on the mental and physical benefits of exercising in virtual reality, often from people who had trouble making other exercise habits last. One of those VR enthusiasts, Robert Long of Maryland, said he used VR games to improve his health and to lose more than 100 pounds, after years of managing pain resulting from two car accidents. There are many factors that contribute to weight loss, but Longs before and after pictures have generated discussions about health in forums that are usually dedicated to sedentary entertainment.

Most people never stick to a workout, because its not fun, and you are well aware its a workout, says Long. But VR has the ability to trick the mind into thinking it's a game and not exercise.

Marialice Kern, chair of the Department of Kinesiology at San Francisco State University, describes VR as an alternative form of exercise. SFSUs wellness center offers VR fitness classes three times a week, alongside more traditional recreation options like intramural sports and a climbing wall.

There are certain people who dont like to exercise, whether thats hiking or biking. But they love to play video games, Kern says. Why not get both?

While you might remember getting sweaty hopping around a Dance Dance Revolution pad or hula hooping in Wii Fit, a VR headsets ability to block out the real world makes it even easier to get lost in the flow of exercise disguised as a game. Virtual reality is still niche, but a growing crop of VR games with a fitness element could inspire people to pick up a headset for the first time. Heres what to know before you get started.

Whether you want to start exercising at home or youre looking to augment an existing workout routine with aerobic activity, consider getting a virtual reality headset. As a tech reviewer, Ive tested dozens of VR headsets and think the $400 Oculus Quest is the first one that could have mass appeal. It costs about the same as a cheaper stationary bike or treadmill.

I like the Quest for workouts because its powerful enough for most active games and also cordless, so you wont trip on any cables. I recommend trying one before buying so that it doesnt wind up with other abandoned workout gear. Oculus, which is owned by Facebook, publishes a page where you can search for local demo spots. Once you bring the headset home, dont forget to clear furniture and other obstacles out of the way. Youre going to need at least a few feet of space in every direction.

Long and I share the same obsession: a game called Beat Saber, which tasks you with swinging lightsabers through a series of blocks that are flying through the air. Usually set to electronic music, the levels have the same frenetic, beat-centered activity of the classic console games Dance Dance Revolution and Guitar Hero. The first time I played, it took only a few songs of slashing and ducking before I realized I was sweatinga lot.

Kerns lab measures how much energy people expend playing VR games, for the Virtual Reality Institute of Health and Exercise. The institute likens working out with Beat Saber to playing tennis, and it estimates that players burn 6 to 8 calories per minute. Boxing games, which involve lots of quick jabs and hops, dominate the top categories. They usually burn between 6 and 10 calories a minute.

To pick your first game, find a game description that appeals to you and then check its activity level on the VR Institutes website. Games that let you play through (and repeat) short levels give you more control over your level and length of activity. I find that whatever game you choose, the key is to commit. Its easy to pass Beat Saber levels by moving as little as possible. But if you commit to dramatic lightsaber swings and leaping around the room to avoid objects instead of simply leaning, youll see faster results (and higher scores).

While boxing games are one of the fastest ways to burn calories, I still turn to Beat Saber for a quick workout. Creed: Rise to Glory just doesnt hold my attention the way slicing and dicing Beat Saber blocks does.

Matthew Farrow, a health researcher at the University of Bath in the UK, conducted one of several studies that show enjoyment and intensity of exercise increase when someone is playing a game in VR. The game used in Farrows study challenged players to cycle along a road while avoiding trucks and police cars. The game also placed a ghost version of the player in the game that indicated their previous performance, allowing them to race against themselves. The study found that players worked 9 percent harder, without their motivation decreasing.

People need to remember to try and make their exercise fun and not a daily chore, Farrow says. This is one of the reasons why using virtual-reality games to increase exercise enjoyment is so effective. Games also offer the opportunity to set, monitor, and achieve exercise goals, which helps maintain exercise motivation.

If youre just starting to get moving, the key is to pick an exercise that can become a routine. Worry less about how many calories you are burning per minute and more about what you enjoy enough to keep doing.

If youre serious about getting a full workout in VR, a few accessories can help. Aaron Garcia, an American College of Sports Medicinecertified trainer and coach based in the Los Angeles area, says a fitness tracker (Wirecutter has a few recommendations) can help ensure that youre increasing your heart rate enough to get an effective workout. It will also give you a more reliable calorie count; Kern noted that her lab sometimes finds the built-in calorie trackers in VR games to be inaccurate.

Additionally, a weight vest or ankle weights can make VR workouts more challenging and introduce a weight-training element. Garcia recommends treating VR as just one element in a well-rounded workout regimen. Pilates, yoga, and weight training are all complementary to VR. Many of his clients join him for weight-lifting training several times a week, and then they exercise on their own at home with tools like VR.

I recommend one more accessory: disposable masks. The VR headset I use has a foam face pad, and it quickly becomes soaked with sweat. Its gross, especially considering how many friends and co-workers borrow my headset each month. A hygienic mask cuts down on the ick factor dramatically.

Garcia emphasized that no matter how you choose to exercise, you should listen to your body. If youre sore, stop. Dont push through an activity to the point of injury just because youre having fun.

I think VR is going to be awesome, Garcia says. For people who are sedentary, just to start doing something is so awesome. It just depends on how far you want to go with it.

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Virtual Reality Video Games That Double as Exercise - The New York Times