Just Links!

Links!

• Libraries, Books, Writers, & Suchlike
• The Future of the Stacks "How closing libraries means losing more than just good memories"
• May 9, 1860: James Barrie, creator of Peter Pan, is born in Scotland on this day. Not gonna lie, I expected a Google Doodle today. Kind of disappointed. Related: Happy Birthday J.M. Barrie: YA Novels Inspired by Peter Pan 
• May 9, 1950: L. Ron Hubbard publishes Dianetics 
• Health & Science
• As Ebola Leaves Liberia, Measles Makes A Forceful Comeback "The eruption of measles, he says, is a direct result of the Ebola outbreak.  That's because when Ebola hit, it caused an almost complete collapse of health care in Liberia, including routine childhood immunization programs. Once clinics did start to reopen, parents didn't want to bring their kids anywhere near health care centers, which had been hotbeds of Ebola transmission."
• Scientists Crack A 50-Year-Old Mystery About The Measles Vaccine "Like many viruses, measles is known to suppress the immune system for a few weeks after an infection. But previous studies in monkeys have suggested that measles takes this suppression to a whole new level: It erases immune protection to other diseases....[S]ay you get the chicken pox when you're 4 years old. Your immune system figures out how to fight it. So you don't get it again. But if you get measles when you're 5 years old, it could wipe out the memory of how to beat back the chicken pox. It's like the immune system has amnesia..." This theory, of course, needs more research - but it is known that something about measles affects the immune system drastically, leaving kids' systems open to deadly infections for two to three years afterwards. Yet another excellent reason to vaccinate your kids!
• Hawaii Will Soon Get All Of Its Electricity From Renewable Sources 
• Climate change deniers in Congress complain about a lack of data while trying to defund NASA’s climate change research. 
• Why Are There Clouds? 
• Education
• This for-profit college failed, but its students are left with the wreckage 
• Louisiana 
• 2015’s Best & Worst States for Working Moms Louisiana came in dead last. Guys, that's just embarrassing.
• Discrimination against students of color rampant in Louisiana school district "Three years after a Southern Poverty Law Center complaint sparked a U.S. Department of Education (DOE) investigation into the disproportionate number of African-American students arrested for minor rule violations in Louisiana’s Jefferson Parish Public School System, the problem has worsened, the SPLC told federal authorities this week....The latest complaint describes how one eighth-grader was arrested at school after allegedly throwing Skittles candy at another student on a bus. The boy was charged with simple battery and handcuffed in front of his class by an officer. When he cried out as the officer twisted his arm, the officer said he was going to also charge him with resisting arrest. The boy was held at Rivarde Juvenile Detention Center for six days.  The complaint also describes how a 10-year-old African-American student diagnosed with autism ended up handcuffed and face down on the ground with a police officer’s knee in her back." 
• New Orleans Police Department says alligator to blame for fatal crash on Interstate 10 "According to New Orleans police, a man driving a Ford van in the middle lane struck the alligator and hit his brakes after the animal became lodged underneath his vehicle."
• Other (Serious Stuff)
• The Trans-Pacific Partnership suggests Obama has no sense of irony "Last week, the president, who claims he's running the most transparent administration in history, went on the record saying there’s nothing secret in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), as he asked Congress for special authority to 'fast track' the agreement....The TPP is a massive, legally binding, agreement involving 12 countries that has been negotiated entirely behind closed doors by government officials and industry lobbyists. The text of the TPP agreement is classified. The public can’t see it. Even members of Congress’ access to the text is severely restricted, and they face criminal prosecution if they tell their constituents what they've read." NOTHING TO SEE HERE, PEOPLE! MOVE ALONG! Yep. Sure.
• ast week, the president, who claims he’s running the most transparent administration in history, went on the record saying there’s nothing secret in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), as he asked Congress for special authority to “fast track” the agreement. Trans Pacific Partnership: Obama ready to defy Democrats to push secretive trade deal Read more Today, President Obama will give another speech defending the TPP from critics who say the deal is a corporate power grab. The TPP is a massive, legally binding, agreement involving 12 countries that has been negotiated entirely behind closed doors by government officials and industry lobbyists. The text of the TPP agreement is classified. The public can’t see it. Even members of Congress’ access to the text is severely restricted, and they face criminal prosecution if they tell their constituents what they’ve read. 
• Stop judging poor moms. Bad policies hurt their kids — not bad parenting.