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What do you call a group of white high school kids bullied by black adult racists and a Native American activist who lied about being victimized by that same group of white kids for attention? The end of systemic racism in America.
It’s been just over a week since the mainstream media demonized the Covington Catholic High students for wearing MAGA hats after they attended the March for Life, an anti-abortion rally on the National Mall. The students were accosted by a group of Black Hebrew Israelites yelling racial and anti-gay slurs at them while they waited for their bus. Then, Native American activist, Nathan Phillips, decided to join in on the bullying by banging his drum directly into the face of one of the students. Phillips later lied on national television by claiming that he was the victim of intimidation and mockery at the hands of the students rather than the antagonist of the incident, as subsequent video revealed. Nick Sandmann, the Covington student at the center of the controversy has since hired libel attorney, L. Lin Wood to sue news publications that knowingly misrepresented the story and defamed his name.
Although last week marked a new low in mainstream media (MSM) standards, there are several hopeful takeaways from this otherwise abuse of power by news outlets.
First, it’s blatantly clear that racism is such a non-factor in most of America today that left-wing media felt the need to manufacture a crisis between the Covington Catholic students and Nathan Phillips in order to advance the false narrative that all whites, even kids, are inherently racist. We now know that it was Nick Sandmann who was attempting to diffuse the confrontation and listen to Nathan Phillips despite being taunted by him. In other words, it was Sandmann that was showing respect to an elderly man of color. This is good news.
Secondly, by engaging the Covington students for the sole purposes of intimidating and mocking them, Nathan Phillips proved that victimhood in America is a choice. He chose to be a victim that day because that’s where he finds his purpose in life. He wants people to feel sorry for him. The good news is unlike Phillips, we can choose to walk away from victimhood and into our destiny with all of the opportunities America affords minorities today.
Thirdly, the left’s argument that blacks can’t be racist was disproven the moment the Black Hebrew Israelites entered the picture. This explains why the MSM gave them a black privilege pass by leaving them out of their reporting altogether. Conservatives now have a face to point to that isn’t that of a white male when dealing with racism in America. This is a positive thing. If race-relations are going to improve in America, both sides must acknowledge racism is a heart issue, not a Caucasian issue. We can thank the Black Hebrew Israelites for that revelation. If racism dies in America, so does the democratic party. Therefore, they’re motivated to keep hate alive. We mustn’t allow that to happen.
The Covington Catholic High students did Americans a solid! Although they were bullied, defamed and slandered due to their skin color and values, it wasn’t for naught. In an instant they proved what conservatives have been arguing for decades, racism in America is in rapid decline and it’s no longer an impediment to minority success.
For Utah Lacrosse’s Aaron Fjeldsted, his reasons are a mixture of both of the common and peculiar, but they all tie back to his faith as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Fjeldsted has been a member of the LDS church all his life. To him, his participation in the Church was always a way to find inner peace.
The junior, out of Alpine, Utah, has remarked that his time at Brigham Young University was a valuable experience for him, as it taught him how to balance the life of a student athlete while keeping true to his faith.
The University of Utah men’s lacrosse team practices at the Spence Eccles Field House in Salt Lake City, Utah on Tuesday, Feb. 13, 2018.
Fjeldsted is also familiar with keeping both worlds in balance.
Fjeldsted was able to keep up this mentality during his two-year mission for the LDS church in Toronto, Canada, where he was able to keep his training up for his return to the field.
Fjeldsted’s dedication to both the Church and the sport that he now captains at the University of Utah is a story that many LDS athletes can relate to, both at the U and away from it. Fjeldsted talked about how the transition from the BYU locker room to that of the U wasn’t as difficult as expected.
One thing that Fjeldsted emphasized was the idea that these two worlds — sports and the Church — are very similar in their design, despite the violent nature of lacrosse.
Fjeldsted and the rest of the Utah lacrosse team will look to start their inaugural Division One season with a bang, as they take on the University of Vermont on Feb. 1 in Salt Lake City.
A trip from Pensacola to Key West will cover 1,274 miles and take you from one end of Florida to the other. During that stretch, you will have the opportunity to see not only some of the most famous tourist attractions in the state, but some of the most popular tourist destinations in the country. The most well-known attractions in Florida allow you to escape reality one day and confront history the next.
The National Museum of Naval Aviation is on the Naval Air Station in Pensacola. Among the aircraft on display at the museum are Blue Angels jets, World War II Flying Tigers, World War I biplanes and even a command module from Skylab. You can try out your own flying skills on the motion-based flight simulator. Another attraction inside the museum is a reproduction of an aircraft carrier. Upstairs you can walk through an exhibit that reveals what life was like on the homefront as men and women overseas were battling against the incursion of fascism. Listen closely and you’ll hear an Abbott and Costello routine.
Outside the Kennedy Space Center sits an actual-sized replica of the Space Shuttle. The attractions available to tourists are many, beginning with a four-story IMAX theater. Also inside the theater is the NASA Art Gallery, featuring more than 200 pieces by artists such as Andy Warhol and Robert Rauschenberg. Astronaut Encounter provides the chance to be an actual astronaut. A stop by the Mercury Mission Control Room reveals the actual flight control equipment used to get to the first American astronauts into space.
Busch Gardens is in Tampa and takes on the theme of a visit to Africa. A marching band known as the Mystic Sheiks perform throughout the park at various times of the day. Rides inside Busch Gardens include the SheiKra roller coaster that climbs up 200 feet before taking you on a 70 mph ride. The Tanganyika Tidal Wave drops you down a 55-foot slide to create a wall of water that soaks both riders and spectators. Busch Gardens is also a preserve for animals ranging from parrots to rhinos.
Monkey Jungle is a Florida attraction that has been going strong since the 1930s. This animal exhibit turns the tables by allowing the monkeys and apes to run free while humans view them from inside a cage. Thirty different species of primates are represented at Monkey Jungle, including gibbons, spider monkeys and howler monkeys. You can also watch monkeys diving into a pool for treats. A walk through the Amazon Rainforest exhibit at the right time offers a chance to see some of the animals during feeding time.
Sexton, Timothy. "Main Tourist Attractions in Florida." Travel Tips - USA Today, https://traveltips.usatoday.com/main-tourist-attractions-florida-4528.html. Accessed 19 April 2019.
Miami, FL. Typical summer afternoon thunderstorm rolling in from the Everglades.
In the rural, lake-pocked exurbs north of this city, there are a series of gated communities of waterfront mansions, populated by some of the region's wealthiest.
The founder of a nationwide chain of spine surgery centers lives here, not far from the chief executive of the Tampa Bay Lightning, and a few streets over from former NFL star turned broadcaster Ronde Barber.
A few doors down from Barber, there's a particularly impressive home, with a 600-bottle wine cellar, a wraparound shower with massage jets and a soaking tub, and a sizeable pool with a waterfall and jacuzzi overlooking the lake. It belongs to Jim McVay, a sports executive who has built his wealth over the past 30 years by running the Outback Bowl, a second-tier college football postseason game featuring third-place teams.
The hefty paychecks enjoyed by bowl bosses long have been viewed by economists as a sign of exploitation in a sport played by amateurs. But even among this coterie of well-paid executives, McVay's compensation — $1,045,000 in 2017, according to the bowl's most recent tax filing — ranks as extreme, according to a review of bowl financial records and interviews with industry experts.
McVay, a former Buccaneers marketing executive and uncle to Los Angeles Rams coach Sean McVay, is the highest-paid bowl executive in the country, even though his organization's revenue — $11.9 million in 2017 — ranked 10th among bowl organizations. While several bowl bosses manage other games or major events, McVay's core duties remain as focused as they were when he took the job in 1988: negotiate contracts and sell sponsorships and tickets for one football game each year.
The chief executive of the Pasadena Tournament of Roses Association — which generated $96.7 million in revenue, and manages the Rose Bowl and the Tournament of Roses Parade — made $412,000, or less than half of McVay's income. The chief executive of Peach Bowl Inc. — which generated $32.5 million in revenue, and also manages the Chick-Fil-A Kickoff Game - made $710,500. And the chief executive of Florida Citrus Sports Events Inc. — which generated $17.4 million in revenue and manages two bowl games (Citrus and Camping World) — made $586,000.
The decision by the Outback Bowl's board — a volunteer group of local businesspeople and dignitaries — to pay McVay, year after year, more than many of his peers further stands out because their bowl, historically, is among the stingiest when it comes to giving to charity.
McVay, who has defended his pay in news reports as recently as last year, declined an interview request for this story, and a bowl spokesman cited a new policy that forbids Outback Bowl officials from publicly discussing compensation. A former Outback board chairman, in a phone interview, defended McVay's pay as "a bargain," pointing to his ability to keep Outback, the SEC and the Big Ten locked into contracts, and the economic impact of tens of thousands of visitors each December.
"We don't just throw money away … Jim's very well-compensated, yes, but he's worth every penny," said Steve Schember, board member since 1990.
In a follow-up email, in response to questions about the bowl's charitable spending, Schember wrote: "We're not the United Way. While we're happy to give to local charities that's not our purpose. Come down to Tampa New Year's Eve … see the thousands of Miss St and Iowa fans at the parade who are staying at our hotels eating in our restaurants and drinking at our bars. If you come I'll buy you a beer!"
When informed of McVay's pay and the Outback Bowl's revenue, one expert on the economy of college sports laughed.
"You really can't justify this salary," said Richard Southall, professor and director of the College Sport Research Institute at the University of South Carolina. Southall said McVay benefits from working in a niche industry with unique market factors beneficial to executives, such as cheap entertainment (the players in bowl games each get $550 of souvenir gifts, the maximum permitted under NCAA rules), and lax oversight.
Bowl executives "don't answer to any shareholders; they don't answer to any governmental entity," Southall said. "It's a party."
Football has always figured prominently in McVay's life. A native of Lancaster, Ohio, he is the son of John McVay, the former San Francisco 49ers executive who helped build the rosters of five Super Bowl winning teams in the 1980s and 90s.
McVay went to college at the University of Dayton, where he was a backup quarterback and graduated in 1976 with a bachelor's in mass communications. After a few years as a sales director for the Cincinnati Stingers of the World Hockey Association, McVay moved to Tampa for a job as marketing director for the Tampa Bay Bandits of the United States Football League.
When McVay took over, he has said in interviews, the game was deeply in debt, and though he was able to stabilize the finances, a few years later there was another ominous development. In 1992, Outback Steakhouse - one of the few large corporations headquartered in Tampa — signed a sponsorship agreement with the Gator Bowl, played in Jacksonville.
First, he improved the quality of the game, locking in the Big Ten and SEC for their third-place teams (previously, the game had pitted fourth-place teams from the Big Ten and ACC). Then, McVay negotiated a contract with ESPN that secured prime broadcast real estate on New Year's Day.
And finally, McVay lured Outback away from the Gator Bowl by agreeing to a then-novel concession: The game would be re-named the Outback Bowl — not the Outback Hall of Fame Bowl — preventing media outlets from dropping the sponsor's name when discussing the game.
By 1998 — the oldest year for which records are available — McVay was earning the equivalent of $300,000 in today's dollars, adjusted for inflation. The Outback Bowl generated $7.8 million that year, most of which was split up and paid out to the competing teams (Georgia and Wisconsin that year).
In the ensuing 20 years, as the bowl's income increased about 50 percent, McVay's compensation jumped about 240 percent.
In defending McVay's soaring pay, former board chair Schember cited his negotiating prowess. While other bowls hire consultants to hammer out major contracts, McVay handles all negotiations with ESPN, Outback, the Big Ten and SEC himself, saving the bowl hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees.
Those contracts are up for negotiation just every four or six years, however, raising questions about McVay's major duties in the intervening years.
"It's not a situation where he sits on his thumbs for three years," Schember said. "He goes up to Chicago a lot [Big Ten headquarters] … he goes up the SEC offices … it's an important job, maintaining those relationships."
Another main reason the Outback board has more than tripled McVay's pay over the last 20 years, according to Schember, is because McVay routinely tells them NFL teams are trying to pry him out of the bowl world.
"At least every other year … he'll come to a board meeting and say an NFL team has contacted me, and they've got a job in their front office, and they want to know if I'm interested … part of the reason he is so well-compensated is so he isn't tempted to leave," Schember said.
Schember declined to disclose which NFL teams have expressed interest in hiring McVay, who hasn't worked in professional football since 1987. Outback Bowl spokesman Mike Schulze, in an interview, said he believed his boss "really ought to be a GM (general manager) of an NFL team … or something higher than that." Schulze declined, however, to answer questions about the job offers McVay has told the Outback board he's received over the years.
McVay is one of only five full-time employees of the Outback Bowl, and Schember, his former board boss, cited that figure when defending McVay's pay.
"He runs the whole show with a very small staff. Our employee expenses are a fraction of what the other bowls are," he said.
"The dynamic is basically the same," Schwarz said. "These bowls generate a ton of revenue, and some of it is unclaimed, and it has to go somewhere."
In an interview at Outback Bowl headquarters earlier this month, bowl spokesman Schulze — who also serves as director of sponsorships, and earned $205,000 in 2017 — said it's a common misconception that he and his colleagues are busy only one month per year. There are about 25 promotional events throughout the year, Schulze said, and selling sponsorships for the game is also a year-round endeavour.
"People don't understand the bowl world. It's very unique," Schulze said. "People are always going to say, 'Gosh, I didn't even know that was a job.' But we all work hard. We're here every single day."
Handset chip designer MediaTek Inc (聯發科) yesterday launched its first artificial-intelligence (AI)-based processor, the Helio P60, to support growing demand for machine learning on mobile devices.
In response to lost market share to rivals, particularly Qualcomm Inc, MediaTek last year reshaped its product strategy to focus on the mid to high-end Helio P series.
The company wants to bring advanced features to flagship mid to high-end smartphones, MediaTek chief executive officer Rick Tsai (蔡力行) said in January.
It is reportedly to supply the Helio P60 to Chinese smartphone vendor Oppo Mobile Telecommunications Corp (歐珀移動) for its latest Oppo R15 model, undercutting Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 700 processor order.
The Helio P60 is the first of two AI-specific processors MediaTek plans to launch in the first half of this year, it said, adding that smartphones powered by the processor would be available globally starting early next quarter.
The latest processor, built using 12-nanometer technology, brings NeuroPilot AI technology to smartphones with on-board AI for face detection, “smart” imaging and video, MediaTek said in a statement yesterday.
Chinese companies — including Tencent Holdings Ltd (騰訊), AI company SenseTime (商湯科技), Megvil Technology Ltd (曠視科技) and Silicon Valley-based visual computing technologies developer ArcSoft Inc (虹軟) — are designing their products and services based on the Helio P60 processor, the statement said.
AI in smartphones is not new, as it has powered some basic functions for years, but “advanced AI-powered features will become crucial differentiators for smartphone vendors,” Gartner Inc said last month.
The market researcher expects AI use in smartphones to proliferate through 2022, with 80 percent of all smartphones coming equipped with on-device AI capabilities, up from 10 percent last year.
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There’s nothing worse, when you’re trying to stay awake at work during the postlunch lull, than looking over and seeing a colleague yawn. To most of us, yawning seems all too contagious, but a new study in the journal Child Development suggests that the ability to “catch” a yawn actually requires some sophisticated social skills.
Psychologists at the University of Connecticut studied more than 120 children, who ranged in age from one to six. While reading each child a story, a researcher would stop several times to yawn conspicuously. Fewer than 10 percent of the children younger than four yawned in response. Among the older kids, that percentage jumped significantly, with 35 to 40 percent of kids displaying contagious yawning.
“We know that the social brain develops over the first few years of life,” says Molly Helt, the study’s lead author and a doctoral student in psychology. Although youngsters are certainly sensitive to others’ expressions, she says, their brains may not yet be capable of unconsciously mirroring those emotions. “At some point we sort of start to take on the emotions of other people without even thinking about it,” Helt says.
In the second part of the study the researchers put kids with autism through the same scenario. They discovered that children with disorders on the autism spectrum were significantly less likely to catch yawns—among five- to 12-year-olds, 11 percent yawned, compared with 43 percent of typically developing children.
Dell and HP launched AMD-based business desktops on Monday as AMD tries to gain more traction in small business.
The Phenom processor is ready for business. On Monday, Dell and Hewlett-Packard refreshed their business desktop lineups with triple- and quad-core processors from Advanced Micro Devices, which is launching a small and medium-size business initiative.
Called "Business Class," the initiative pairs the new 780v chipset with triple-core Phenom X3, quad-core Phenom X4, or dual-core Athlon X2 processors.
Dell is refreshing its Optiplex 740 line of desktops while HP is adding two new models: the dc5850 and dx2450.
The platform supports security and manageability standards such as the Trusted Computing Group (TCG) module, which helps to lock out rogue software, and the Desktop and mobile Architecture for System Hardware (DASH) manageability standard, a suite of specifications for standards-based Web services.
Previously known by the codename "Hardcastle," Business Class taps into both AMD processor and ATI graphics technology. "One of the reasons we acquired ATI was to get the chipset and the graphics to deliver a complete commercial client platform--desktop and notebook," said Hal Speed, an AMD marketing architect.
Speed also reiterated what other AMD executives have said: That AMD has "under-penetrated" the commercial market. The Business Class strategy targets small and medium-sized business in particular, he said.
Initially, systems will not be offered with AMD's 8X50 and 9X50 series of processors that fix the outstanding "TLB" bus in silicon. (The 8450 and 9550 will, for example, replace the 8400 and 9500).
"Our customers want stability and longevity," said Speed. "They've said to us, 'I could care less about the model number. Don't break my BIOS, don't break my client image,' " Speed said, referring to difficult-to-modify corporate PC configuration settings.
The notebook component, codenamed Puma, will be coming later this quarter, Speed said.
Puma, in fact, will likely be the more interesting platform as more notebooks replace desktops. Puma is based on the RS780M mobile chipset and the dual-core Griffin processor--now called the Turion Ultra.
Zoticus (d. 204) + Martyred bishop. The bishop of Comana, Italy, he resisted the heretical movement of the Montanists until his arrest and suffering during the reign of Septimius Severus (r. 193-211). Feast day: July 21.
Starbucks has adopted an open-bathroom policy following the arrest last month of two African American men at a coffee shop in Philadelphia.
Chairman Howard Schultz says he doesn’t want the company to become a public bathroom, but feels employees can make the “right decision a hundred percent of the time,” if that choice is removed at the store level.
One of the men arrested on April 12 was denied use of a bathroom. He and his partner sat down to await a business meeting they had scheduled at the store, but were arrested minutes later by police.
The incident was captured by people using cell phones and it went viral.
The arrest of Rashon Nelson, along with his childhood friend and business partner, Donte Robinson, set off a firestorm for the company, which will shut down more than 8,000 of its U.S. stores on the afternoon of May 29 to instruct 175,000 employees how to better recognize unconscious bias.
Access to store bathrooms, for which Schultz said Starbucks had maintained a “loose policy,” came into even sharper focus after another video, taken in January, emerged. The video shows a black man claiming he was denied access to a bathroom at a Starbucks in California while a white man was allowed entry. Neither man had made a purchase, according to the video shot by Brandon Ward, which is posted on his Facebook page.
Schultz, speaking at the Atlantic Council in Washington on Thursday, said previous policy required a purchase, but that the decision was ultimately left with store managers, several media outlets reported.
The arrests in Philadelphia were a major embarrassment for Starbucks, which has long projected itself as a socially conscious company.
Nelson and Robinson settled with Starbucks earlier this month for an undisclosed sum and an offer of a free college education. Separately, they reached a deal with Philadelphia for a symbolic $1 each and a promise from city officials to set up a $200,000 program for young entrepreneurs.
"It's The Holy Bible's bedfellow," said lyricist and the Manics' minister of propaganda Nicky Wire, describing their hotly-anticipated twelfth studio album.
Recorded partly in Hansa Studios where Bowie made "Heroes", and said to be the counterpart to 2013's stripped back Rewind The Film, as well as "the sound of the Manics at their very best - a record inspired by permanent revolution, modern art and Autobahns," the Manics' own echelons of greatness raise the bar even further.
Brief bubbling space-age noises introduce the title track before a burst of Everything Must Go guitars kick off. The positive pine of Bradfield's vocal acts as an immediate sign that this is not going to be The Holy Bible pt II - or a continuation of any of their past work at all. While it may be a wonderfully typically Manics slice of arena rock, this track has a spirit to it that you've not heard from the band before.
"We'll come back one day, we never really went away," moans Wire in the elegiac chorus, singularly summing up the spirit of the Manics in 2014. This is not a comeback record. If Rewind The Film was soulful catharsis and Postcards From A Young Man was 'one last shot at mass communication', this is Manic Street Preachers fully aware that they nothing left to prove, but hell-bent on doing so anyway.
A no-brainer of a single, a slow ticking of guitar work builds into one of the most glorious choruses that the band have written in years. It certainly carries the 'European' sound that the band described, and will probably invite theories about being about missing guitarist Richey Edwards with the lyrics: "So long my fatal friend, I don't need this to end. I reimagine the steps you took, still blinded by your intellect."
However, bassist and lyricist Nicky Wire said: "People might have the idea that this song contains a lot of Richey references but it really isn’t about that, it’s about the Øresund Bridge that joins Sweden and Denmark. A long time ago when we were crossing that bridge I was flagging and thinking about leaving the band (the “fatal friend”). It’s about the idea of bridges allowing you an out of body experience as you leave and arrive in different places."
Either way, it's a ready-made Manics classic.
A fitting but bitter call to arms, this recently debuted number has military post-punk stomp of their darker moments but with the stadium-ready anthemics of their latter day work. It sounds nothing less than monumental, but its similarity to the Alton Towers theme tune has also been noted.
It certainly stands out as a potential single and future staple of the Manics' live set, not least for the brilliantly barbed Wire lyric: "Working class skeletons lie scattered in museums, and all the false economies speak fondly of your dreams."
The Manics are marching on.
Of the countless autobiographical songs from the Manics' back catalogue, this could well be their most self-referential yet. Jarring chords reminiscent of Joy Division's 'Love Will Tear Us Apart' see the track in before a krautrock beat underlies an ode to 'an old jaded Commie' who's 'the biggest living hypocrite you'll ever see'.