Juneteenth

Juneteenth: 150 Years Ago, Black America Got Its Own Independence Day

Links!

• Libraries, Books, Writers, & Suchlike
• Hiring: The First Librarian of Congress for the Internet Age "Though named by the president and confirmed by the Senate, the Librarian doesn’t change with every new White House. After being appointed, Librarians are free to serve as long as they want—that’s why there have been only 13 of them since 1802.  In other words, this will be the first time a new Librarian has been appointed since the invention of the web."
• CBLDF Joins Coalition Defending The Kite Runner in North Carolina School District
• Egypt Cracks Down on Street Art "In June 2010, about eight months before the Tahrir Square uprising, a 28-year-old Egyptian blogger named Khaled Said was arrested and beaten to death after he posted a damning video that allegedly showed police helping themselves to the spoils of a drug bust. In the tumultuous months that followed, Said’s face became a potent symbol of revolution as street artists stenciled it on walls throughout Cairo and other cities. But five years later, an article at Middle East Eye shows that this brand of art with a message has virtually disappeared from Egypt under a government crackdown."
• Atena Farghadani’s Lawyer Also Under Arrest in Iran "Just a few weeks after Iranian artist and activist Atena Farghadani was sentenced to over 12 years in prison for drawing a cartoon of her country’s lawmakers, her defense lawyer Mohammad Moghimi has now been arrested as well. The alleged crime: shaking his client’s hand, which authorities say constitutes adultery." Related: Cartoonists #Draw4Atena 
• Charleston
• On Meeting a Neo-Confederate in Richmond Today Related: So The Confederacy Didn't Go To War Over Slavery? Not included in that list of primary documents is Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens' "Corner Stone" speech, which included the fact the Confederate government "... is founded upon exactly the opposite idea [the idea, that is, of the equality of the races]; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth." It is disingenuous and insulting to state the Civil War was not about slavery. 
• NRA Board Member Blames Charleston Victim For His Own Death It's times like this that I struggle with that whole "love everyone" commandment... 
• Watch Jon Stewart simply lose the ability to tell jokes over America's gun violence:

• Health & Science
• CBO puts $353 billion price tag on Obamacare repeal That's a pretty big chunk o' change.
• MERS spreads to Thailand 
• Earth’s sixth mass extinction has begun, new study confirms 
• Education
• Policing Expression: NJ School Removes Student Project "A display focusing on police brutality and community relations was taken down in Gloucester County, New Jersey after a high school received complaints from the local Police Benevolent Association. The display, part of an awareness campaign project in Clearview Regional High School’s humanitarian studies class, featured a silhouette of a person with raised hands and posters stating statistics on crime, brutality, and police in the community. It was, one student said in an interview, meant to converge the ideas that police are society’s protectors, yet are still human and are not infallible. The project does not, students note, defame the police or cast them in a negative light....Isn’t healthy debate part of a rigorous educational environment? The humanitarian studies class, part of the high school’s English department, highlights social injustices around the world, ranging from poverty to genocide.. The award-winning teacher who designed the class, Jennifer Satterfield, said she did so with a focus on action, asking students to think about what they can do 'to limit those injustices and promote justice for all human beings, whether they live in Gloucester County or Zimbabwe.'" 
• International
• Thai aviation sector 'red flagged' for safety 
• Other (Serious Stuff)
• The President We Need: Bernie Sanders Asks His Donors To Give To SC Church 
• Other (Interesting Stuff)
• I found my dream house: This is the mysterious 'Dr. Seuss' house that sits in the middle of the Alaskan wilderness Um...maybe I just want one like it. But not in Alaska. Can we build me one here? Thanks.