Sorry, was only able to get through NPR this morning, so all except the first link are NPR stories. Not that that's a bad thing.
For young genre writers… "To apply to Alpha, you will need to submit an original short story and a $10 application fee. The tuition for the workshop will be $300, and will only be collected upon acceptance. Scholarships and financial aid are available for accepted students, and if the $10 fee presents a barrier to application, please contact us. The application form and additional details are below." Applications open January 4th until March 14th. This will again be a virtual workshop (not ideal, but better than nothing), and the first guest lecturer is DongWon Song. Alpha is run by Parsec who host the Confluence con every summer in Pittsburgh. This is a long running group with great credentials. Part of the workshop experience is meeting other writers at your level and the bonding and community you build with them. I'm not sure how well that will work virtually, but you're only young once.
I think I linked to a different article about this, but in case I didn't… "Raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2025 would increase wages for at least 17 million people, but also put 1.4 million Americans out of work, according to a study by the Congressional Budget Office released on Monday." For context, in the month of January we averaged 1 million new unemployment claims every single week. By keeping the status quo the job losses have been multiples of 1.4 million.
"Many school districts across the country have reported big drop-offs in attendance as they've shifted to remote learning. Some students, like Ducharme, dropped off the map entirely… In response, some schools have been calling, texting and even knocking on doors to try to connect with students." This is why the failure fo the Trump administration and conservatives is so damning. Yet another generation fucked over.
"A judge has barred Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón from implementing a significant piece of his criminal justice reforms, ruling the progressive's policy to end sentencing enhancements in criminal cases is unlawful… Monday's ruling comes after the Association of Deputy District Attorneys for Los Angeles sued their boss over the changes. The union challenged Gascón's directives, which he issued after taking office in December. The deputy attorneys argued that Gascón's orders posed serious ethical issues for deputy district attorneys." Yes, we must change the laws.
The Planet Money podcast with… "When you commit a crime, yes, you are entitled to an attorney, but you don't get a free attorney. You have to pay for it. You pay for a stenographer to type up your court minutes; you pay to maintain the court website and law libraries." And you pay for programs that state legislatures are unwilling to raise taxes to pay for. This is unconscionable.
"The Biden administration will start the transition process for Senate-confirmed U.S. attorneys as early as Tuesday, but expects to keep in place two prosecutors leading high-profile, politically sensitive investigations, a senior Justice Department official tells NPR… The transition process is routine for an incoming administration, although there were questions — particularly from Republican lawmakers — about what the Biden team would do about both the Hunter Biden and the Durham probes."
"A constitutional law professor whose work is cited extensively by former President Trump's lawyers in their impeachment defense brief says his work has been seriously misrepresented." Reading comprehension is not a conservative value.
"Nearly every day since insurrectionists stormed the U.S. Capitol, the list of those charged in the attack has grown longer. The government has now identified more than 200 people for their alleged role in the Jan. 6 rioting, which ended with five people dead, including a U.S. Capitol Police officer… As Congress considers a presidential impeachment related to the attack, those criminal cases provide clues to questions surrounding the incident: Who exactly joined the mob? What did they do? And why?" While there is some historical, criminal, and future intelligence value in understanding the thought process and motivation of these people, sometimes I can't help but think, "I am not concerned with the thoughts of the enemy" as I pull the trigger. There is a need to know, to pull into the light all their connections for prosecution, to dissuade others and to destroy their organizations and salt the earth in which they grew. To be alert to the seeds these mental aberrations may have spread beyond the fields we can see, to recognize the poisonous weed before it takes root elsewhere.
"When websites flooded with hate speech or harmful disinformation become too radioactive for the Internet, the sites often turn to one company for a lifeline… That company is run by Rob Monster, a 53-year-old Dutch-American." It's good money from clients who have no other resource.
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