Beyond Labels

A 360° Discussion of Foreign, National and Local Policy Issues

Topic 23 Jan 2017: Update

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iou Expanding on the earlier post about this week’s topic (link here) the homework/preparation for Monday is to watch the confirmation hearings, the inaugural address  (full text annotated by NPR, fact check by Politifact, Washington Post, ) and read the news to see what Trump does in the first 2 days.

Time’s report of Trump’s first day.  And the NY Time’s report of Trump’s first days, and Sean Spicer’s weird press briefing.

You can also read what’s been put up at the new Whitehouse.gov site. Much was made of the fact that Trump had taken down pages about LGBTQ issues and Climate Change. This is true, but misleading. Everything was taken down (and archived at a news site). Then it has been replaced with a new site.]

This is in accord with a plan posted on the White House site.

 

Topic for 23 Jan 2017: The first three days of Trump

To the best of Scott’s and my recollection,  homework/preparation for Monday was to watch the confirmation hearings, the inaugural address and read the news to see what Trump does in the first 2 days.

If you have links that you’d like to share, send me an email with the link, and a sentence or two on why you think it’s worth reading/viewing/listening. If you don’t know my email, you can reply to this post. I will consolidate links daily, and post updates.

To start, here’s a link to post from Maureen Dowd in the New York Times on “pre-traumatic stress disorder.”

One of my daughters is on her way to Washington with her husband, three kids and a bunch of local friends, I will share some of her eyewitness accounts.

Here’s what she posted on FB (the post is public, so you can sign up and follow her public posts is you want.)

So much has changed in my life the past six months. Sometimes in life you have growth spurts. I think I’m in one.

I learned a lot during the campaign last year and since Election Day. I’ve learned a lot about politics, though there’s much more to learn, and I’ve learned a lot about the world by pushing myself to understand politics more.

I have also learned about the lens I see the world through. I’d never appreciated how that lens blurs my reality of what’s right or wrong; and what’s a fact versus just an opinion.

Over the last three months, many things I thought I knew have turned out to be wrong.

So I’m challenging myself to refocus my lens.

And now I find myself, with my family, preparing to march on Washington and watching the dialogue unfold. And I see everyone retreating to their corner after the fight.

So I am looking for that greater focus…

Our family is not going to D.C. to March against our new President.

We are attending the Women’s March because we believe part of a Great America means loving your neighbor.

We are marching because we believe in a Great America there would be equal rights for all.

We will hold our signs and stand in crowds because the Great America that we are proud of allows freedom of speech, and religion and a woman’s right to choose.

We will March, because we are proud Americans that believe we can have it all – jobs and love and equality and education and safety and environmental protection AND freedom. We believe you don’t have to pick just one or two. If we work hard and if we work together, we can have it all.

And we are attending because we are teaching our children that you can respect authority while asking for change, if you believe the system is broken. It’s not one or the other.

#OneLove #AmericansWantItAll #NotGivingAwayOurShot

 

Internet University, Blue Hill Campus

I’ve decided to start evangelizing the web  more actively, and here’s my first experiment: a website that I built for Internet University (http://internet-u.org).

Internet University, with its beautiful Blue Hill Campus in the Cloud, is announcing its first course. It’s an internet-based cooking course, created by  Harvard and offered through the learning site edX. If enough people in the Blue Hill area are interested then Internet U will set up some local, real life get-togethers or community-oriented web activities.

The course rolls out this week through edX and Internet U, but if you’re late to sign up, no worries. You can join until  the course ends and they take the course material down–which may be a long time.

To find out how I built the website, check my blog post, or wait for the new course.

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