discrimination | Chris Aldrich

🎧 ‘The Daily’: Trump’s Travel Ban Goes to the Supreme Court | New York Times

Listened to ‘The Daily’: Trump’s Travel Ban Goes to the Supreme Court by Michael Barbaro from nytimes.com

After being blocked for months by lower courts, President Trump’s executive orders that restricted travel from several predominantly Muslim nations have finally reached the Supreme Court. The justices seem focused on one question: Should the president’s authority have anything to do with his personal beliefs?

On today’s episode:

• Adam Liptak, who covers the Supreme Court for The New York Times.

Background reading:

• The Supreme Court’s conservative majority appeared poised to defer to the president’s national security judgments and discount his campaign promises to impose a “Muslim ban.”

• Read annotated excerpts from the arguments before the Supreme Court on the travel ban.

🎧 ‘The Daily’: Fired Over an Instagram Post | New York Times

Listened to 'The Daily’: Fired Over an Instagram Post by Michael Barbaro from nytimes.com

The dismissal of a professional cheerleader has drawn attention to the sports industry, which seemed to be operating outside the #MeToo movement. Until now, that is.

Holy crap! Radicals in the US decry Sharia law as making its way into our system–little did they know that it has apparently taken root within the NFL first. I always thought the whole professional cheerleader bit was horrible and generally pathetic from a broader social perspective, but with the types of workplace repression and environment cheerleaders are apparently working within, prostitution almost sounds like a Sunday picnic. Given what they do for the NFL and what they go through to have their jobs in the first place, I’m appalled that they’re making minimum wage–or less really since very little of their wardrobe and direct needs are covered by the organization.

There are a myriad number of additional social reasons to do so, but I’m going to boycott the NFL until they can manage to remedy this kind of toxic environment.

🎧 ‘The Daily’: Racism’s Punishing Reach | The New York Times

Listened to ‘The Daily’: Racism’s Punishing Reach by Michael Barbaro from nytimes.com

For decades, Americans have believed that the best way to end racial inequality is to end class inequality. But a landmark 30-year study is debunking that logic.

On today’s episode:
• Emily Badger writes about cities and urban policy for The Upshot, The New York Times’s data-driven venture.
• William O. Jawando worked in the Obama administration on My Brother’s Keeper, a mentoring initiative for black boys.

Background reading:
• Extensive data shows the punishing reach of racism for black boys.

Is there no humanity left in the world? The more I see and hear of the world, the more I want to remove the positive connotation that the word humanity is frequently assigned.

This story is both very powerful and painfully depressing for me, and yet I know there are many that are still far worse. I hope we can find something in these statistics that can help drastically improve the paying field.

👓 What I believe II (ft. Sarah Constantin and Stacey Jeffery) | Shtetl-Optimized

Read What I believe II (ft. Sarah Constantin and Stacey Jeffery) (Shtetl-Optimized)

In my post “The Kolmogorov Option,” I tried to step back from current controversies, and use history to reflect on the broader question of how nerds should behave when their penchant for speaking unpopular truths collides head-on with their desire to be kind and decent and charitable, and to be judged as such by their culture. I was gratified to get positive feedback about this approach from men and women all over the ideological spectrum. However, a few people who I like and respect accused me of “dogwhistling.” They warned, in particular, that if I wouldn’t just come out and say what I thought about the James Damore Google memo thing, then people would assume the very worst—even though, of course, my friends themselves knew better. So in this post, I’ll come out and say what I think. But first, I’ll do something even better: I’ll hand the podium over to two friends, Sarah Constantin and Stacey Jeffery, both of whom were kind enough to email me detailed thoughts in response to my Kolmogorov post.

🎧 Flip the Script | Invisibilia (NPR)

Listened to Flip the Script from Invisibilia (NPR)

Psychology has a golden rule: If I am warm, you are usually warm. If I am hostile, you are too. But what happens if you flip the script and meet hostility with warmth? It's called "noncomplementary behavior" — a mouthful, but a powerful concept, and very hard to execute. Alix and Hanna examine three attempts to pull it off: during a robbery, a terrorism crisis and a dating dry spell.

Wow! Just wow! This concept is certainly worth thinking about in greater depth.

I loved the story of police and harassment; it is particularly interesting given the possible changes we could make in the world using these techniques. It shows what some kindness and consideration can do to reshape the world.