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#TryBeatingMeLightly Shows Pakistani Women Won’t Stand For Wife-Beating Bill

Watch Powerful Spoken Word Poem “Black Joke” By Taylor Steele

In her poem “Black Joke” poet Taylor Steele highlights the most common jokes White people throw at Black people. She perfectly explains how unthoughtful it is of people to say such things and how an intention to come off as funny turns you into a racist. Next time you come up with a witty remark, think twice before letting unwholesome word proceed from your mouth.

Full poem

#BlackLivesMatter

The Easterbunny Comes to NGC 4725 

At first called “Easterbunny” by its discovery team, officially named Makemake is the second brightest dwarf planet of the Kuiper belt. The icy world appears twice in this astronomical image, based on data taken on June 29 and 30 of the bright spiral galaxy NGC 4725. Makemake is marked by short red lines, its position shifting across a homemade telescope’s field-of-view over two nights along a distant orbit. On those dates nearly coincident with the line-of-sight to the spiral galaxy in the constellation Coma Berenices, Makemake was about 52.5 astronomical units or 7.3 light-hours away. NGC 4725 is over 100,000 light-years across and 41 million light-years distant. Makemake is now known to have at least one moon. NGC 4725 is a famous one-armed spiral galaxy.

Credit: Bob English

10 Ways to Look After Your Mental Wellbeing (with added kitties)

1. Talk about your feelings

Talking about your feelings can help you stay in good mental health and deal with times when you feel troubled.

2. Keep active

Regular exercise can boost your self-esteem and can help you concentrate, sleep, and look and feel better. Exercise keeps the brain and your other vital organs healthy, and is also a significant benefit towards improving your mental health.

3. Eat well

Your brain needs a mix of nutrients in order to stay healthy and function well, just like the other organs in your body. A diet that’s good for your physical health is also good for your mental health.

4. Drink sensibly

We often drink alcohol to change our mood. Some people drink to deal with fear or loneliness, but the effect is only temporary.

When the drink wears off, you feel worse because of the way the alcohol has affected your brain and the rest of your body. Drinking is not a good way to manage difficult feelings.

5. Keep in touch

There’s nothing better than catching up with someone face to face, but that’s not always possible. You can also give them a call, drop them a note, or chat to them online instead. Keep the lines of communication open: it’s good for you!

6. Ask for help

None of us are superhuman. We all sometimes get tired or overwhelmed by how we feel or when things don’t go to plan.

If things are getting too much for you and you feel you can’t cope, ask for help. Your family or friends may be able to offer practical help or a listening ear.

Local services are there to help you.

7. Take a break

A change of scene or a change of pace is good for your mental health.

It could be a five-minute pause from cleaning your kitchen, a half-hour lunch break at work, or a weekend exploring somewhere new. A few minutes can be enough to de-stress you. Give yourself some ‘me time’.

8. Do something you’re good at

What do you love doing? What activities can you lose yourself in? What did you love doing in the past?

Enjoying yourself can help beat stress. Doing an activity you enjoy probably means you’re good at it, and achieving something boosts your self-esteem.

9. Accept who you are

We’re all different. It’s much healthier to accept that you’re unique than to wish you were more like someone else. Feeling good about yourself boosts your confidence to learn new skills, visit new places and make new friends. Good self-esteem helps you cope when life takes a difficult turn.

10. Care for others

‘Friends are really important… We help each other whenever we can, so it’s a two-way street, and supporting them uplifts me.’

Caring for others is often an important part of keeping up relationships with people close to you. It can even bring you closer together.

(Source: mentalhealth.org.uk)

Chicago task force releases landmark report, calls on Police Chief to acknowledge racism in police force

Yesterday, Chicago’s Police Accountability Task Force released its final report. Historically, the report called on the newly appointed Chicago Police Superintendent to acknowledge the force’s “history of racial disparity and discrimination.” Many believe the report, which many believe forced Mayor Rahm Emanuel to publicly acknowledge the Chicago Police Department’s continued issues with racism and to consider dismantling the city’s widely criticized Internal Police Review Board.

The task force was established in response to the public outcry in the wake of the death of Laquan McDonald, who was shot 16 times while running away from a Chicago Police Officer. The task force “dug deeper into the complaints of so many about the callous and disrespectful way in which they had been treated by some officers” within the CPD, and recommended sweeping changes to what it described as “systemic problems in CPD.”

The source of the current state of mistrust and animosity between the public and the CPD, it found, was the result of 

racism

a mentality in CPD that the ends justify the means 

a failure to make accountability a core value and imperative within CPD

a significant underinvestment in human capital

Below are the recommendations of the task force:

How We Propose to Empower People.

Create a Community Safety Oversight Board, allowing the community to have a powerful platform and role in the police oversight system.

Implement a citywide Reconciliation Process beginning with the Superintendent publicly acknowledging CPD’s history of racial disparity and discrimination, and making a public commitment to cultural change.

Replace CAPS with localized Community Empowerment and Engagement Districts (CEED) for each of the city’s 22 police districts, and support them accordingly. Under CEED, district Commanders and other leadership would work with local stakeholders to develop tailored community policing strategies and partnerships.

Renew commitment to beat-based policing and expand community patrols so that officers learn about and get to know the communities they serve, and community members take an active role in partnering with the police.

Reinvigorate community policing as a core philosophy and approach that informs actions throughout the department.

Evaluate and improve the training officers receive with respect to youth so that they are prepared to engage in ways that are age-appropriate, trauma-informed and based in a restorative justice model.

Require CPD and the police oversight system to be more transparent and release to the public incident-level information on arrests, traffic and investigatory stops, officer weapon use and disciplinary cases.

Host citywide summits jointly sponsored by the Mayor and the President of the Cook County Board to develop and implement comprehensive criminal justice reform.

Encourage the Mayor and President of the Cook County Board to work together to develop and implement programs that address socioeconomic justice and equality, housing segregation, systemic racism, poverty, education, health and safety.

Adoption of a citywide protocol allowing arrestees to make phone calls to an attorney and/or family member(s) within one hour of arrest.

Implementation of citywide “Know Your Rights” training for youth.

How We Propose to Address the Inadequate Emphasis on Accountability

Create a dedicated Inspector General for Public Safety, which would independently audit and monitor CPD and the police oversight system, including for patterns of racial bias.

Replace the Independent Police Review Authority with a new and fully transparent and accountable Civilian Police Investigative Agency, which will enhance structural protections, powers and resources for investigating serious cases of police misconduct, even in the absence of sworn complaints. The new CPIA should ensure an accessible, professional and supportive complaint process.

Implement a data-driven, best-in-class Early Intervention System for CPD to identify officers with problems before they become problems for the community.

Fundamentally change provisions in the collective bargaining agreements that are impediments to accountability, such as allowing for anonymous complaints, eliminating the ability to change statements after reviewing video and removing the requirement to destroy complaint records.

Fully implement the first-in-the-nation written video release policy for officer-involved shootings.

Expand CPD’s body cam pilot program.

Require that all disciplinary information be provided online so that citizens can track complaints and discipline histories.

How We Propose to Address Other Systemic and Longstanding Problems

Establish for the first time in Chicago a Deputy Chief of Diversity and Inclusion in CPD.

Implement policies to dismantle the institutionalization of the police “code of silence,” including substantial changes to the collective bargaining agreements between the police and the City, ending command channel review, reforming the role of CPD supervisors and pattern and practice analysis.

Establish a smart 911 system for OEMC, allowing residents to pre-enter information on mental health or other issues that would be instantly available to OEMC operators.

Create a multi-layer co-responder system where mental health providers work with OEMC and CPD to link individuals to treatment.

Expand significantly the Crisis Intervention System for CPD and other first responders.

Create a “Mental Health Critical Response Unit” within CPD that is responsible for mental health crisis response functions, training, support, community outreach and engagement, cross-agency coordination and data collection.

Create a hotline for CPD members, whether civilian or sworn, to lodge complaints, and develop a third-party system for the processing and follow-up of all comments and complaints reported to the hotline.

What is it Like to Visit Jupiter?

Jupiter is the largest planet in our solar system. For some perspective, if it were hollow, more than 1,300 Earths could fit inside of it! The giant planet contains two-thirds of all the planetary mass in the solar system and holds more than dozens of moons in its gravitational grip. But what about a visit to this giant planet?

Let’s be honest…Jupiter is not a nice place to visit. It’s a giant ball of gas and there’s nowhere to land. Any spacecraft – or person – passing through the colorful clouds gets crushed and melted. On Jupiter, the pressure is so strong it squishes gas into liquid. Its atmosphere can crush a metal spaceship like a paper cup.

Jupiter’s stripes and swirls are cold, windy clouds of ammonia and water. Jupiter’s Great Red Spot is a giant storm BIGGER THAN EARTH! This storm has lasted hundreds of years.

Since Jupiter’s atmosphere is made up of mostly hydrogen and helium, it’s poisonous. There’s also dangerous radiation, more than 1,000 times the lethal level for a human.  

Scientists think that Jupiter’s core may be a thick, super hot soup…up to 50,000 degrees! Woah!

The Moons

Did you know that Jupiter has its own “mini solar system” of 50 moons? Scientists are most interested in the Galilean satellites – which are the four largest moons discovered by Galileo Galilei in 1610. 

Today, Galileo would be astounded to know some of the facts about these moons. The moon Io has active volcanos. Ganymede has its own magnetic field while Europa has a frozen crust with liquid-water underneath making it a tempting place to explore for future missions.

When Juno arrives to Jupiter on July 4, it will bring with it a slew of instruments such as infrared imager/spectrometer and vector magnetometer among the half a dozen other scientific tools in its payload.

Juno will avoid Jupiter’s highest radiation regions by approaching over the north, dropping to an altitude below the planet’s radiation belts – which are analogous to Earth’s Van Allen belts, but far more deadly – and then exiting over the south. To protect sensitive spacecraft electronics, Juno will carry the first radiation shielded electronics vault, a critical feature for enabling sustained exploration in such a heavy radiation environment.

Follow our Juno mission on the web, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Tumblr.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

“Schrödinger’s Smoke. We describe a new approach for the purely Eulerian simulation of incompressible fluids. In it, the fluid state is represented by a ℂ²-valued wave function evolving under the Schrödinger equation subject to incompressibility constraints.” YouTube.

WATCH THE FULL SPEECH: Caitlyn Jenner Takes ESPYs By Storm: ‘Trans People Deserve Something Vital. They Deserve Your Respect’

The Migration of Anatomically Modern Humans

In paleoanthropology, the recent African origin of modern humans, frequently dubbed the “Out of Africa” theory, is the most widely accepted model describing the geographic origin and early migration of anatomically modern humans. The concept was speculative until the 1980s, when it was corroborated by a study of present-day mitochondrial DNA, combined with evidence based on physical anthropology of archaic specimens.

Genetic studies and fossil evidence show that archaic Homo sapiens evolved to anatomically modern humans solely in Africa, between 200,000 and 150,000 years ago, that members of one branch of Homo sapiens left Africa by between 125,000 and 60,000 years ago, and that over time these humans replaced earlier human populations such as Neanderthals and Homo erectus. The date of the earliest successful “out of Africa” migration (earliest migrants with living descendants) has generally been placed at 60,000 years ago as suggested by genetics, although migration out of the continent may have taken place as early as 125,000 years ago according to Arabian archaeology finds of tools in the region. Read More

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