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Title: House Democrats Stage a Sit-in on the House Floor on Gun Control - The Atlantic

Keywords: john lewis, democratic majority, wednesday afternoon

Summary: He tweeted during the sit-in Wednesday afternoon that GOP leaders should put his proposal to prohibit suspected terrorists from buying guns on the floor.<br>Politico reports that Speaker Ryan’s office does not seem amenable to Democrats’ move.<br>This is reminiscent of when Republicans staged a protest against the Democratic majority during the summer recess in 2008, speaking in a darkened chamber to demand action on energy legislation.<br>Can we see?<br>CSPAN is still not broadcasting a live feed of the chambers, but the network is replaying members’ speeches online.<br>John Lewis has championed nonviolent protest his entire career.<br>House Democrats, led by civil-rights pioneer and Georgia Representative John Lewis, are staging a sit-in on the House floor to protest what they see as congressional inaction on gun control.<br>“We have to occupy the floor of the House until there is action,” Connecticut Democrat John Larson said, as his fellow members began to sit down late Wednesday morning.<br>Members have instead taken to Twitter to spread awareness of their action, tweeting statements and pictures from the floor.<br>#NoBillNoBreak #DisarmHate pic.twitter.com/C7BZpzNvxL<br>The 15-hour Senate filibuster led to votes Monday on four gun-control-related measures, but all failed.<br>Connecticut Democratic Senator Chris Murphy is reportedly headed to the House floor to join his House counterparts.<br>Mr. Speaker, not one thing.”<br>She said a minority of pro-gun voices “are forcing a false choice between constitutional rights and safe streets.”<br>—Nora Kelly<br>

Title: What is it? An oral history of Izzy, the mascot marketing snafu of Olympic proportions - Atlanta Magazine

Keywords: fantastic mascot—cobi, public appearances—, bob cohn, atlanta-based artist, york city, billy wanted, spanish art, children thought, vice president, senior director, blue blob, acog spokesperson, billy looked, easy character, olympic city, olympic games, olympic bid, question billy

Summary: <br>Bob Cohn, cofounder of public relations agency Cohn & Wolfe, member of Payne’s mascot committee: In Barcelona in 1992, they had a fantastic mascot—Cobi, who was typical of Spanish art and filled with creativity.<br>Some of them wrote us back letters [that essentially said] “The nerve!” or “We’re not doing anything for nothing.”<br>So it couldn’t be characters that existed in Georgia lore.<br>Somebody sent us a deer.<br>John Ryan, then senior director at DESIGNefx, the animation division of Crawford Communications: The basic job was to design something that would appeal to children and broadly on a world stage.<br>Photograph by Rich Mahan/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP<br>It wore five Olympic rings—two on its eyes and three on its tail—and oversized sneakers nearly half the size of its body.<br>Bob Brennan, then ACOG spokesperson: Billy Payne wanted to do something modern, reflective of the technological world we lived in.<br>You had movies like Jurassic Park, Total Recall.<br>Shuman: I received Hi-Rez right at the deadline, a Friday.<br>When Billy looked at that [proposal], he said, “Gee whiz, wow.<br>Payne: As CEO of the Olympic Games, I felt it was both our responsibility and within my authority to make whatever decisions needed to be made.<br>Shuman: By the time I got back on Monday afternoon, Ginger told me Billy had made his decision.<br>Were we raising enough money?<br>Shuman: You didn’t question Billy.<br>Payne: The logical question that you would ask on seeing it is “What is it?” I guess we just said, “Well, we should just put it into one word.”<br>Shuman: The name, Whatizit, was almost worse than the character itself.<br>Does it all run together?<br>Ryan: We had to have [final] designs submitted by March [1992], knowing it’d be debuted in August at the Barcelona Games.<br>It really looked funky.<br>In a huge stadium it can’t be little.<br>Shuman: To generate interest about the mascot, we did these billboards all over town saying, “Whatizit?” We built up this huge anticipation.<br>Ryan: It was made very clear that if secrecy was violated, Crawford could lose future contracts.<br>Photograph courtesy of Harry Shurman<br>Meanwhile an amorphous animated character filled the stadium’s video monitors.<br>Evans: I took the field with Gregg Burge, the famous New York [tap] dancer.<br>Joel Babbit, CEO of the Narrative Content Group, veteran ad exec who worked with Payne to promote the Olympic bid, and City Hall’s first-ever chief marketing and communications officer under Jackson: If Maynard had an opinion, he kept it to himself.<br>“How do you say ‘Whatizit’ in Mandarin?”<br>Like, this is it?<br>Completely and totally horrified.<br>They’re complaining: This is terrible.<br>But [ACOG] had a lot riding on the mascot financially from license sales.<br>Robert Hollander, then ACOG’s vice president of licensing: My heart dropped into my stomach.<br>Hula: It’s something that’s supposed to evoke an image of Atlanta, the host city, and it really didn’t do that at all.<br>We didn’t even think we were compelled to do something that would make somebody in Australia say, “That mascot must be from Atlanta, Georgia.” It never crossed our minds.<br>It was sort of like a bigger Charlotte.<br>Photograph courtesy of R. Land<br>Ronnie Land, an Atlanta-based artist, better known as R. Land, who has made Izzy-inspired art: This was our “Hey, world, we’re Atlanta” moment.<br>LaTara Smith (née Bullock), ACOG’s “project coordinator for Izzy appearances” during the Olympics: I’ve heard everything from toothpaste to blue blob.<br>Hiskey: People were going to focus on the crazy blue thing because there wasn’t a lot of other cool stuff here.<br>Bob Hope, president of Atlanta-based public relations firm Hope-Beckham Inc.: I thought [Billy] briefly lost his mind.<br>Kevin Sack, a New York Times reporter based in Atlanta, wrote in a 1996 story that “[i]t is precisely Izzy’s nothingness that has unwittingly made him an apt symbol for this Olympic city.<br>Whatizit’s costume made Mike Luckovich’s punchline.<br>People were embarrassed [by Whatizit].<br>You wish people would look at the good stuff instead of focusing on the minutiae and losing the big picture.<br>Campbell: I suspect I hurt some people’s feelings.<br>Photograph by Raymond McCrea Jones<br>ACOG officially retired Whatizit in October 1993.<br>It worked.<br>Babbit: I liked the name Izzy.<br>Jacqueline Blum, senior vice president of Film Roman, the animation studio behind The Simpsons, King of the Hill, and Garfield and Friends, which produced an Izzy cartoon for TV: Izzy was a character created by committee.<br>Ryan: You got into a scenario where you have multiple art directors and bosses.<br>Hope: [Izzy was] like New Coke.<br>Smith: Izzy developed a nose.<br>Shuman: We had these stars coming out of his tail at one point.<br>I raised my hand and said, “Maybe not?” They left the shoes the way they are.<br>The costume had to get softer.<br>Evans: Children loved the mascot.<br>I’d guess probably close to 15 percent.<br>Watkins: I’m guessing [the bestselling item] would be the doll that was 12 inches that could be carried under a kid’s arm.<br>Lounge chair pillows.<br>Shuman: Billy wanted to market the shoes.<br>Blum: It’s not a particularly easy character to animate.<br>Hollander: Our broadcast partner, NBC, had gotten out of the children’s program business.<br>Watkins: They created an Izzy balloon that flew in New York City in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.<br>Photograph by Caroline C. Kilgore<br>Evans helped create a mascot program that recruited volunteers through auditions.<br>Smith: By the time the Olympics came around, we had upwards of 20 Izzys that could be in different places at one time.<br>I asked [Izzy], “How does one become the mascot?” They were having tryouts the next weekend.<br>Don’t exclude children.<br>For example, Izzy loved everyone, so whether it was a critic or a fan, you didn’t show any negative emotion.<br>Izzy had a size 22 sneaker, so you had to fit your shoe inside Izzy’s shoe, inside another little pocket, and be able to walk around in his big feet.<br>Jay: You entered through the top of his mouth.<br>Smith: A lot of children thought it would be fun to swing on the tail.<br>Evans: The lighting bolt eyebrows and rings on the tail were prime targets for being pulled, punched, or ripped off for a souvenir.<br>Smith: Handlers began watching the perimeter.<br>Photograph courtesy of Harry Shuman<br>Is he still waiting for a shuttle bus?<br>Smith: We took over one of the Olympic headquarters offices.<br>Other times it would be outside as a crowd-pleaser.<br>Jay: We were instructed to wear the Izzy costume 30 minutes on, 30 minutes off, because you would sweat.<br>Wilsterman: There were two fans at the top of Izzy’s head [inside the costume].<br>I was able to whisper into a little microphone that went into the escort’s ear.<br>Smith: Izzy didn’t talk.<br>Izzy didn’t do public appearances—only [ones for] ticketed sponsors.<br>Brennan: I don’t think Izzy showed up at the closing ceremony.<br>Jay: When the flame went out, so did Izzy.<br>The question came up: Can someone dress up in the Izzy costume to greet visitors in the Atlanta History Center?<br>Photograph courtesy of LaTara Smith<br>Smith: I still have one of the Izzy costumes.<br>Payne: People didn’t like it.<br>I never lost my enthusiasm for Izzy.<br>Was it the greatest experience of my life?<br>Evans: I do appreciate the originality and willingness to do something different.<br>Land: Atlanta tries so hard to be what we think the world wants to view us as.<br>Shuman: Izzy was kind of like Colony Square—a little bit before his time.<br>Smith: It would’ve been easier to have a phoenix.<br>It didn’t say anything.<br>Babbit: It doesn’t matter what it was.<br>It was bizarre.<br>An image of Izzy?<br>Shuman: Usually everything Billy touched turned to gold.<br>This article originally appeared in our July 2016 issue.<br>Tags: 1996 Atlanta Olympics, 1996 Olympics, Atlanta Olympics, Billy Payne, Izzy, John Ryan, Olympics, R. Land, Whatizit<br>

Title: CRISPR gene-editing approved for first human trials

Keywords:

Summary: The trial will take place at MD Anderson Cance Center in Texas, USC San Francisco and Penn.<br>Scientists also believe that it could be used to permanently eliminate diseases like Down syndrome or Sickle-Cell Anemia.<br>Scientists in China used CRISPR on human embryos to repair a gene that causes a fatal blood disorder.<br>The decision means that CRISPR-Cas9 tech will be used even earlier on humans than expected -- a company called Editas Medicine said it would hold the first trials to treat blindness in 2017.<br>

Title: The dying breed of craftsmen behind the tools that make scientific research possible - LA Times

Keywords: government-funded research opened, snake glass coils, fuse glass beakers, organic chemistry, research hubs, world war, experienced glassblowers, glassblowers remain, church laboratory, befallen glassblowing, glass manufacturer, glass technicians, cost-cutting world, jobs tend, entry-level jobs

Summary: Hunkered down in the sub-basement of the Norman W. Church Laboratory for Chemical Biology, underneath a campus humming with quantum teleportation devices, gravity wave detectors and neural prosthetics, Rick Gerhart chipped away at a broken flask.<br>Peering into the dancing flames, he examined his work for wrinkles — imperfections invisible to the untrained eye.<br>“It not only should be functional,” he said, smoothing the rim with a carbon rod, “it has to look good.”<br>Here in Caltech’s one-man glass shop, where Gerhart transforms a researcher’s doodles into intricate laboratory equipment, craftsmanship is king.<br>In a cost-cutting world of machines and assembly plants, few glassblowers remain with the level of mastery needed at research hubs like Caltech.<br>“He’s a somewhat dying breed,” said Sarah Reisman, who relied on Gerhart to create 20 maze-like contraptions for her synthetic organic chemistry lab.<br>Rick Gerhart, scientific glass blower at Caltech, has been helping to make scientific research possible at the campus since 1992.<br>(Dillon Deaton/Los Angeles Times)<br>Similar fates have befallen glassblowing at UCLA and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.<br>Across the U.S., those who land such jobs tend to stay until retirement.<br>He chuckled: “Looks like we have to steal somebody.”<br>To master scientific glassblowing, proper training and apprenticeships are key.<br>In addition to the hands-on training, which requires a knack for precision as well as coordination, students must take courses in organic chemistry, math and computer drawing.<br>So it really takes a long time to get to a position like Rick’s.”<br>Gerhart enrolled in the Salem program in 1965, after dropping out of college to give his father’s profession a try.<br>The craft, which dates back to alchemy in the 2nd century, took hold in America by the 1930s and 1940s, after World War I cut off glassware supply from Germany.<br>The profession peaked after World War II, when booms in oil and government-funded research opened up numerous glassblowing jobs in many a lab.<br>At first, Gerhart hopped around a number of firms and worked alongside more experienced glassblowers at TRW Inc. and UCLA.<br>When he settled at Caltech in 1992, the glassblower before him handed over the key to the shop and said, “Good luck.” On his own, Gerhart pieced together his patchwork of experience to twist and fuse glass beakers and snake glass coils over vacuum chambers.<br>“That’s when I really started learning.”<br>Social media videos have sparked new interest in the craft, Briening said.<br>But while his students have no trouble getting entry-level jobs at companies like Chemglass Life Sciences, a glass manufacturer, and General Electric Global Research, rarely are universities willing to budget the overhead costs for more than one glassblower, if any.<br>“Years ago, all the universities had two or three people,” Briening said.<br>One of the few resources left for the next generation is the American Scientific Glassblowers Society, a close-knit group that hosts national workshops and swaps ideas when a researcher’s custom order stumps one of its members.<br>Its members also serve as Caltech’s best — and possibly only — options once Gerhart leaves.<br>“Rick’s one of those glass technicians that I put in the top 5%,” Ponton said.<br>

Title: LGBT and Black Lives Matter – What About Gay Rights for People of Color?

Keywords: black youth, lgbt people

Summary: The Court's Obergefell v. Hodges decision wouldn't be handed down for nearly two months; on this day, the justices were hearing the case.<br>The plaintiffs were attempting to establish the right of same-sex couples to marry in Kentucky, Michigan, Tennessee and Ohio; the marriage-equality activists who surrounded me were hoping the justices would use the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause not to just affirm a right to marriage in all fifty states but also to create a federal precedent under which any number of other rights for LGBT people might be argued for in the future.<br>This was stage-managed political theater, and the Human Rights Campaign, the LGBT-rights advocacy group, was its director.<br>Gay Men's Chorus belted out the Civil Rights-era protest song "We Shall Overcome."<br>The caucasity of the crowd couldn't be ignored.<br>That unseemly co-optation festered in my mind as I drove forty miles up I-95 to a city on fire.<br>Gray had been allegedly illegally arrested—even State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby later stated so—before he was shackled, thrown in the back of a van without being strapped in, and given a "rough ride" that is believed to have severed his spine.<br>Baltimore had quickly emerged as the new ground zero for the burgeoning Black Lives Matter movement, but the threat of ongoing violence was getting all the news.<br>As day faded into night, the nation wondered if more fires and mayhem would come.<br>Then something unexpected happened, something amazing: Black youth took control and started dancing.<br>They defiantly asserted themselves.<br>No tear gas stung our eyes.<br>These young people stared down the threat of police brutality and defiantly asserted themselves: 'We, by voguing, claim this space as our own.'<br>

Title: Is Polite Philosophical Discussion Possible? (guest post by Nomy Arpaly) - Daily Nous

Keywords: implicit bias, philosophical discussion, war crimes, moral inhibitions—

Summary: For brevity’s sake, let’s just say it’s a big part of politeness or civility not to correct people.<br>A soldier who is fighting, even for a just cause, is in a precarious situation, with regard to morality, because he has lost, of necessity, the basic moral inhibition against killing people.<br>A philosopher who is arguing with another, even in pursuit of truth, is in a precarious situation with regard to politeness, because she has lost, of necessity, the basic civil inhibition against correcting people.<br>Having lost, of necessity, the inhibition against killing people, some soldiers find themselves shedding other moral inhibitions—and committing war crimes.<br>Having lost, of necessity, the inhibition against correcting people, some philosophers find themselves shedding other social inhibitions—and being terribly, terribly rude.<br>That’s just the nature of inhibition loss.<br>You need the real thing.<br>Being compelled to break the rule of thumb against telling people that they are mistaken in the understanding of an important thing is no excuse for also yelling at them, repeatedly interrupting them and talking over them, responding to their painstakingly prepared talks with a sneering “why should I be interested in any of this”?<br>Furthermore, I will argue against the philosophical Henry Kissinger within many of us who worries that whatever might be true about war and war crimes, realistically speaking philosophical rigor just requires rudeness.<br>It’s clearly a vice, virtue ethicists would say.<br>I would like to add the following.<br>First, if everyone is rude, women are judged unfairly (as potential colleagues, for example) because rude women are treated more harshly than rude men, by everyone, due to implicit bias.<br>Again, changing behavior is much easier than changing implicit bias.<br>Some think philosophy should change here—either through what I called “pacifism” earlier or through changing the way we evaluate people, or otherwise.<br>It won’t solve everything, but if we reduce rudeness, I solemnly promise that more women will want to do philosophy.<br>It is shown most emphatically by downright quiet, mild-mannered philosophers whose objections, expressed in a nice tone of voice, are nonetheless absolutely lethal.<br>They say revenge is best served cold.<br>Philosophical discussion can legitimately feel like a very tiring game of squash.<br>(Vincent Van Gogh, detail of “Four Cut Sunflowers”)<br>

Title: The Reluctant Memoirist | New Republic

Keywords: south korea, north korea, korean origin, investigative journalism, gathering information, push back, adoptive home, returned home

Summary: After six months, I returned home with 400 pages of notes and began writing.<br>Something caught my eye: Below the title—Without You, There Is No Us: My Time With the Sons of North Korea’s Elite—were the words, “A Memoir.”<br>I immediately emailed my editor.<br>I later learned that memoirs in general sell better than investigative journalism.<br>I tried to push back.<br>“You only wish,” my agent laughed.<br>As the only journalist to live undercover in North Korea, I had risked imprisonment to tell a story of international importance by the only means possible.<br>The content of my work was what really mattered, I told myself.<br>The evangelical organization wanted to protect its close ties to the North Korean regime and the country’s future leaders.<br>The code of ethics of the Society of Professional Journalists states that reporters should “avoid undercover or other surreptitious methods of gathering information unless traditional, open methods will not yield information vital to the public.” It is hard to imagine any subject more vital to the public, or more impervious to open methods, than the secretive, nuclear North Korea; its violations against humanity, the United Nations has declared, “reveal a State that does not have any parallel in the contemporary world.” My greatest concern had been for my students, and I had followed well-established journalistic practices to ensure that they would not be harmed.<br>They called me “deeply dishonest” for going undercover.<br>My inbox began to be bombarded with messages from strangers: “Shame on you for putting good people in harm’s way for your gain.” One morning, I woke up to a Twitter message that read, simply: “Go fuck yourself.”<br>The ethics of her choice cast doubt on her reliability (another de facto peril of memoir), and her fear of discovery appears to have colored her impressions and descriptions with paranoia and distrust.”<br>My book was being dismissed for the very element that typically wins acclaim for narrative accounts of investigative journalism.<br>The backlash extended well beyond the media.<br>Why did people with no real experience of North Korea feel such a passionate need to dismiss my firsthand reporting and defend one of the world’s most murderous dictatorships?<br>Orientalism reigns.<br>What struck me was not whether the review was positive, but the selection of the reviewer, a former TV columnist of Korean origin, whose only past book-length nonfiction was on South Korean popular culture.<br>As an Asian female, I find that people rarely assume I’m an investigative journalist; even after I tell them, they often forget.<br>Such gender discrimination can manifest either positively or negatively.<br>“If I had written a highly detailed book about being embedded with a troop,” she said, “the magnitude of the actual legwork would have been recognized.” Yet she also believes that great literary journalism combines the heart and the brain.<br>I would like to report that I took the reaction to my book in stride, that I weathered all the accusations and dismissals with patience, that I understood their causes and effects.<br>In immigrant ghettos, I learned that in my adoptive home, my skin was considered yellow, the color of the forsythia that had bloomed around my childhood home back in South Korea.<br>This is why I risked going into North Korea undercover: because I could not be consoled while the injustice of 25 million voiceless people trapped in a modern-day gulag remains part of our society.<br>Here I am telling my story to you, the reader, essentially to beg for acknowledgment: I am an investigative journalist, please take me seriously.<br>