The American Way

O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
Those are the words they taught me to sing.

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I Call Bullshit

I grew up in a Jewish household. Both my parents were Jewish. Both of their parents were Jewish. And on and on as far back as you can go. How do I know that? According to 23andme, my DNA is 99.7% Eastern European Jew. I’d really love to know more about that .3%!

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Gaza by the Numbers

Depending on your news sources, you may not be fully aware of the industrial level of death and destruction Israel has wrought on Gaza. Here is a summary of the horrifying statistics, courtesy of The Guardian.

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Not In My Name

I’ve hesitated to write about this tragedy, because I know this article is going to offend some people. But I’ve decided that staying silent about injustice makes me part of the problem.

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Like an old infomercial claim (“It slices! It dices!"), this article’s title sounds too good to be true, but it is true – in one article, I’m going to explain how the web works and you will walk away a better informed human being. All you have to do is give me a few minutes of your time.

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Colin Hay

I really enjoyed seeing Colin Hay perform live in London last Friday night. You’d have to be a certain age to remember Men At Work but whether you know his music or not, he’s a captivating performer - a guitar virtuoso, his voice sounds great, and he’s just an incredibly funny and self-deprecating story teller.

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Surfing Saved My Life

Growing up surrounded by poverty and gang violence, this inspiring and mesmerizing short film tells the story of a young man who found his path to happiness on a surfboard.

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The Eyes Have It

Another case where AI does things we can’t explain: apparently male and female retinas are different enough that a computer can guess your gender just by looking at your eyes.

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From Darkness to Light

After 20 years in the Marine Corps, including tours of duty in Afghanistan, Mac returned home with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and a deep seated hatred toward all Muslims. That’s all he knew, all he’d ever been taught.

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The Human Side of AI

This is the best thing I watched this week. It looks like a film about technology, but it’s actually a story about people, our egos and frailty, and how we collectively navigate this brave new world.

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DeKalb Elementary

This short video is not something you watch as much as something you experience. It’s a journey into a world none of us wants to visit, but one that’s become part of our collective reality.

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Breaking 108 Bones

The best thing I read this week was this gripping and beautifully written story about a building engineer who, in 2013, fell five stories from a church attic, shattered half the bones in his body, and somehow managed to survive.

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Chain Gang 2

The answer to each clue is the name of a well known person, where the last name of each answer gives the first name of the next answer (give or take a slight variation). The resulting sequence of answers forms a circular chain, where the bottom of the list connects to the first entry in the same fashion.

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In what should surprise no one, human gender identity is more complex and nuanced than the conceptual frameworks on which most of us were raised. Expressing a preferred pronoun helps, but there’s a problem with that approach.

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