330 Homer St., Newton, MA 02459. 617-796-1360

All programs are free and open to the public; parking is free. The Newton Free Library is handicapped accessible.

Visit newtonfreelibrary.net.

All programs take place in Druker Auditorium unless otherwise noted. In case of inclement weather, call 617-796-1360 or visit http://newtonfreelibrary.net to see if we have closed due to a storm.

Programs and events

The library offers Newton residents discounted passes to over 20 area museums including the Boston Harbor Islands, the Childrens Museum, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Garden in the Woods, the Museum of Science and more. To reserve passes: http://newtonfreelibrary.net; 617-796-1360.

CALL FOR ARTISTS: The Newton Free Library is seeking proposals of 2-D, original work by local artists for the July-December 2018 time period. Exhibiting policy at newtonfreelibrary.net under the Events tab. Deadline: Noon Dec. 8. For information: Ellen, emeyers@minlib.net, 617-796-1410.

Talk to Us!: Newton Talks is an oral history project that is being conducted through the collaborative efforts of the library, the Newton Senior Center, Historic Newton and Crossing Generations. The first phase of the project will be interviewing veterans who live or have lived in Newton. Info contact Ilana Levine at 617-796-1670 or ilevine@newtonma.gov. Pick up an information packet and the necessary forms at the librarys Circulation Desk or the Senior Center.

MUSEUM PASSES FOR NEWTON RESIDENTS: The library offers Newton residents discounted passes to over 20 area museums including the Boston Harbor Islands, the Childrens Museum, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Garden in the Woods, the Museum of Science and more. To reserve a pass online: http://newtonfreelibrary.net; 617-796-1360.

Ongoing Help for Area Small Business Owners: Every Thursday SCORE volunteers will provide area small business owners with free, one-hour counseling and advice sessions. SCORE (Service Corps of Retired Executives), Americas premier source of free and confidential small business advice for entrepreneurs and small businesses, is a nonprofit association dedicated to entrepreneur education and the formation, growth and success of small business nationwide. Register (required) at scoreboston.org or call 617-565-5591.

SUPPORT THE FRIENDS OF THE LIBRARY AT BREWERS COALITION: 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Sept. 13. 20 percent of purchases will be donated to the Friends of the Library when diners bring a Friends/Brewers Coalition card to the restaurant (available at library self-check stations), or show them the online version (available from the librarys homepage).

EBOOKS AT THE LIBRARY: 1-2 p.m. Sept. 13, second floor Computer Center. With more than 30,000 titles, the library has something for everyone to download and read. Attendees should bring their Kindle, iPad, iPhone or Android Tablet and learn how. Attendees must bring their Apple ID and password, or Amazon email and password for Kindles, along with their library card and password. Register online.

Read to a Dog at the Library: 4 p.m. Sept. 13. Canine friends Milani and Poppy will visit to listen to children in grades K-5 read. Appointments are for 15 minutes. Appointment times will be sent via email after registration. Space limited. Online registration required.

WRITING COLLEGE ESSAYS THAT MAKE A DIFFERENCE: 7 p.m. Sept. 13, Druker Auditorium. Dr. Adam Schwartz will provide strategies for writing a college application essay that can make the difference between a Yes and a Maybe by reviewing case studies of successful essays. Schwartz taught writing at Harvard and Wellesley College where he also served on the Board of Admissions. Those who would like Schwartz to review their essay should email their draft by Sept. 10 to teens@newtonfreelibrary.net. For teens and families. Register online.

TECH TIME: 2-4 p.m. Thursdays, Sept. 14, 21 and 28, Study Room 2H, behind the second floor Computer Center. Each person gets 30 minutes for advice. The sessions are for educational and informational help only. No repairs. Patrons can sign up for one session every other week. Register online.

SPANISH BILINGUAL DROP-IN STORYTIME: 4 p.m. Sept. 14. A special bilingual storytime with stories, songs and movement in English and Spanish. Ages 3-5. Space limited. Tickets available 15 minutes before the program.

LIVING AND AGING IN NEWTON SERIES, PLANNING FOR A LIVABLE ALL AGE-FRIENDLY NEWTON: 7 p.m. Sept. 14. Attendees learn about the results of the 300-plus listening sessions that have been conducted since Newton was designated as a member of the AARP Network of Age-Friendly Communities, an affiliate of the World Health Organization Age-Friendly Cities and Communities Program. Attendees will have the opportunity to provide feedback on priorities for how to address social isolation, increase mobility, improve housing options and more. Residents of all ages are encouraged to participate. Cosponsored by the Newton Council on Aging and the City of Newton Department of Senior Services. Facilitated by Margaret Leipsitz, senior services outreach and engagement coordinator.

HENNA TATTOO: 4 p.m. Sept. 15, Druker Auditorium. Attendees learn about the art and history of mehndi henna tattooing with Manisha Travedi, a professional henna artist from Henna Caf. For grades 5-12. Register online.

NEWTON READS EVENT, TEAM HOPE WALK: 10 a.m. Sept. 16, Tewksbury. Participants walk to support the mission of the Huntingtons Disease Society of Americas to improve the lives of everyone with Huntingtons disease. Join and/or donate to the Newton Free Library Team effort online. Check-in will be between 9-10 a.m. at the Tewksbury Hospital Saunders Building, 365 East St., Tewksbury.

FAMILY FRIENDLY CONCERT AND INSTRUMENT DEMONSTRATION: 2 p.m. Sept. 17, Druker Auditorium. Attendees join the members of Maestro Musicians Academy for a 30-minute performance which will be followed by demonstrations of the cello, violin and piano. Anyone who wishes will be permitted to try the instruments (with supervision). The program is appropriate for children ages 5-10 and their parents/caregivers. Adults without children are also welcome. No registration required. Seating limited; first come, first served. The musicians will be: Daniel Broniatowski, violin; Elena Korableva, cello; and Yige Liu, piano.

COFFEE, TEA AND ENGLISH TOO: 10 a.m. Sept. 18, Druker Auditorium. A free informal social gathering for adult English language learners. Attendees interact and make friends as they speak English in a relaxed setting. No registration required. Refreshments courtesy of Whole Foods.

GAME NIGHT FOR ADULTS: 6-8:30 p.m. Sept. 18, third floor Language Center desk area. Participants drop in and play board games. Players can bring their own or use the librarys. For ages 16 and older. No registration required.

GIRLS WHO CODE INFORMATION SESSION: 7 p.m. Sept. 18, Druker Auditorium. For those who want to learn to build an app, design a video game and change the world through code. Girls Who Code is a national nonprofit organization leading the movement to inspire, educate and equip girls with the computing skills to pursue 21st century opportunities. The session will cover what GWC is, what to expect for the year, how to register, when it will begin and more. GWC is for girls in Grades 6-12. Register online.

TYPEWRITER POETRY: 7 p.m. Sept. 18, second floor Teen Area. Participants will use old-school typewriters and write poems for library patrons on the spot. Grades 7-12.

LETS TALK: 12:30 and 7 p.m. Sept. 19, third floor Rear Arc. Free conversation groups for all levels of adult English Language Learners. No registration necessary. Drop-in.

DEATHSTARS AND DRAGONS SCI-FI FANTASY BOOK CLUB: 7 p.m. Sept. 19, Room B. A discussion of A Confusion of Princes by Garth Nix. The October book will be The Girl with All the Gifts by M.R. Carey. For information: Erica Yuen, eyuen@minlib.net.

POETRY SERIES AND OPEN MIKE: 7 p.m. Sept. 19. Ben Berman, Richard Waring and Clara Silverstein will open the 2017-18 Poetry Series. An open mike will follow with a limit of one poem per person. Attendees should come early to sign up for the open mike; limited slots available, time permitting. Facilitated by Doug Holder of Ibbetson Street Press.

GRADES FIVE-SIX BOOK DISCUSSION: 7 p.m. Sept. 19. Kids in grades five and six and their parents come together to talk about a new book each month. All are expected to read the book in advance in order to discuss it together in the book group. Meets once a month on Sept. 19, Nov. 21, Jan 16, March 20 and May 15. Register online. Register at the same time for all five months.

NEWTON READS EVENT, BOOK DISCUSSION: 2 p.m. Sept. 20, Newton Senior Center, Library Lounge. A discussion of Inside the OBriens by Lisa Genova. Registration required. To register: http://newtonma.gov/gov/seniors.

BLOOD DRIVE: 2-7 p.m. Sept. 20.

September art shows and displays

GALLERY, MAIN HALL AND THREE MAIN HALL CASES NEWTON ART ASSOCIATIONS 68TH ANNUAL AWARDS SHOW: On view Sept. 5-28. Original works by more than 80 Newton Art Association members including paintings, photographs, prints, sculpture and ceramics. NAA will award $1200 in prizes to show participants.

ATRIUM 1 AND 2: On view Sept. 5-28. Photographs of the Nathaniel Allen House, a mid-19th century Newton home and school where students from all over the world came to attend. The house included bedrooms for students, classrooms and a bowling alley. The Webster Street home is now owned by the Newton Cultural Alliance and is being renovated as a local arts center. Current and historic photographs will be exhibited. For information: Tira Khan, http://tirakhan.com.

THIRD FLOOR LANGUAGE AND LITERACY CENTER COUNTRY DISPLAY: On view Sept. 5-28. Visitors learn about Italy from a display of books, CDs and DVDs.

Teen Gallery and second floor display cases: A Snapshot of Newton South Arts. The show will be on view through fall 2017 and includes a representative selection of work from Newton South High School Students. Frames donated by Eric Blomster of Abraxis Framing Company in Auburndale.

Excerpt from:
Newton Free Library announces September programs - Wicked Local Newton

Gravesite is Open to the Public

Media Contact:

Jeff LevineCommunications Manager845-451-1372j_levine@culinary.edu

Hyde Park, NY An unpretentious headstone in a cemetery on the grounds of The Culinary Institute of America marks the final resting place of one of the great thinkers of the 20th century. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin died 60 years ago this week, on April 10, 1955, in New York City. It was Easter Sunday. The controversial philosopher, paleontologist, and scholar was buried the following day in Hyde Park on the grounds of what was then the St. Andrew-on-Hudson Jesuit novitiate.

Among Fr. Teilhards famous quotes is, The day will come when, after harnessing space, the winds, the tides, and gravitation, we shall harness for God the energies of love. And on that day, for the second time in the history of the world, we shall have discovered fire (Toward the Future, 1936).

Born in France, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was one of the first Catholic scholars to espouse the theory of evolution and to seek a serious reconciliation of modern science and religion. He was a professor of geology at the Catholic Institute in Paris, director of the National Geological Survey of China, and director of the National Research Center of France. Fr. Teilhard lived in China for many years and played a major role in the discovery of Peking Man. He was living in New York City at the time of his death. A full biography can be found at the American Teilhard Association website.

The Jesuits occupied St. Andrew-on-Hudson from 1903 until 1968 and maintained a cemetery on their grounds. The Culinary Institute of America purchased the property soon after and moved to the Hudson Valley from New Haven, CT in 1972. The main seminary building, now known as Roth Hall, houses three public restaurants and many of the colleges classrooms and teaching kitchens. Visitors to campus can obtain a key to the cemetery from the CIA Campus Safety office and are welcome to visit Fr. Teilhards grave.

Photo Caption and Hi-Res Image

The grave of Jesuit philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin at The Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, NY. (Photo credit: The Culinary Institute of America)View hi-res image >

Founded in 1946, The Culinary Institute of America is an independent, not-for-profit college offering associate degrees in culinary arts and baking and pastry arts and bachelor's degree majors in management, culinary science, and applied food studies, as well as certificates in culinary arts and wine and beverage studies. As the world's premier culinary college, the CIA provides thought leadership in the areas of health & wellness, sustainability, and world cuisines & cultures through research and conferences. The CIA has a network of 48,000 alumni that includes industry leaders such as Grant Achatz, Anthony Bourdain, Roy Choi, Cat Cora, Dan Coudreaut, Steve Ells, Johnny Iuzzini, Charlie Palmer, and Roy Yamaguchi. The CIA also offers courses for professionals and enthusiasts, as well as consulting services in support of innovation for the foodservice and hospitality industry. The college has campuses in New York, California, Texas, and Singapore.

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Renowned Jesuit Philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin ...

The human species is an amazing product of evolution. A fundamental part of it, our consciousness, itself a natural wonder, also happens to include self-awareness. Unlike other animals, we not only know some things, but we know that we know them.

It's why the Delphic oracle (so it's said) was able to first think about it, and then say, "Know thyself."

It's also why we can have philosophy cafes to discuss practical and esoteric subjects, while octopi don't. They may be smart, but they don't take that next step and think about why they are so smart.

Human sentience and unique self-awareness are astonishing capacities that, ironically, few humans actually think about.

Few humans think about how they are able to think, perhaps because of another unique feature of our cognitive state: denial. No clearer example is the denial over human-caused climate change.

Despite the fact climate change is established science, as certain as gravity, the denial mechanism is about as fired up as it can get.

Trouble is, science doesn't care whether it's believed or not. It just is.

Another thing is increasingly obvious about how this denialism is powered. For most denialists just like, unsurprisingly, Donald Trump nothing is going to change their minds about the reality of climate change (again, the science), how it has been caused (our use of fossil fuel) and what to do about it (rapidly replace our energy sources with renewable, sustainable energy sources).

For real-time examples of denialism run amok, just skim over the comments that'll most certainly appear below.

Another thing is obvious too: While Canadians love to chortle about how we are smarter than Americans, ignorance and basic human stupidity about climate change don't magically get turned back at the border.

"Build that Wall"?

If there were one for repelling callowness, I'd be all for it. Yet we have enough of our own homegrown elements to suffice.

As I peer out my window, all I see is smoke. Smoke from forest fires raging out of control in B.C. Despite the red flags burning our eyes and throats, it still isn't enough to get Canadians to seriously ask how our forests have become such tinder-boxes.

But let's do it anyways, even though I hear the denialists already.

So for starts, let's agree that, yes, some of it is natural occurrence. Yes, some of it is due to poor forestry practices.

But let's try to focus, shall we, and understand the issue as science sees the ferocity and frequency of these fires like those seen in Fort McMurray just last year.

Whatever other issues are playing their part, the intensity of these fires is due to how we remain willfully ignorant about how addiction to fossil fuels is having a cumulative effect, intensifying climate change.

Let's connect the dots.

Interesting that several weeks ago, with sunny clear blue skies, we were reading about the Kinder Morgan pipeline. Some of us were musing over Mr. Trudeau's assertion that it was going to happen, and that no leader would leave 170 billion barrels of Alberta bitumen in the ground.

So, what will it take to acknowledge the science?

We need to realize that our environmental policies shouldn't have to wait for denialists. Decisions should be dependent on the science, as any other policy.

Pinterest

After all, nature, once abused, pushes back to remind us that our actions have real consequences. So as mentioned, while Trump and others deny it, the effects as they are reported, practically on a daily basis, are as clear as can be:

"Thousands of studies conducted by tens of thousands of scientists around the world have documented changes in surface, atmospheric and oceanic temperatures; melting glaciers; disappearing snow cover; shrinking sea ice; rising sea level; and an increase in atmospheric water vapor. ... The last few years have also seen record-breaking, climate-related weather extremes, as well as the warmest years on record for the globe." Executive Summary of the National Climate Assessment

Sadly, watching our province burn to the ground, the horror we have fleeing our homes, choking on the smoke, witnessing the destruction of our wildlife, and counting the millions of dollars in damages and the incredible hardship on those fighting the fires maybe more will begin to connect the dots.

If so, they'd better hurry, because the rest of us can't wait.

See more here:
Choking On Denial: Forest Fires And Climate Change - Huffington Post Canada

In a chat with YourStory, Deep talks about how his companys culture to be empathetic to customers and employees has helped SAPs growth in the country.

Deb Deep Sengupta, President and MD, SAP India, has his priorities for his company as well as for himself as a leader very straight. Ask him what he believes is the job of the head of a company, and pat comes an analogy on player-coach: essentially a coach who leads from the front but one who does not hesitate to get his hands dirty in the field with his players every once in awhile.

SAPs plan for India is clear; the enterprise software multinational wants to not just make efforts to increase growth and rake in profits, but the company wants to create a social impact as well.

Stressing on the concept of growing through giving back, Deep says, Social impact should not be just for NGOs. There is no point if the company cannot be empathetic and create social impact.

Among its many initiatives, what stands out is the companys digital literacy programme, in partnership with its many customers including ITC and L&T to provide tech knowledge to rural youth, women and specially-abled people in all parts of the country.

But what is the company doing with startups? Deep elaborates: We have an entrepreneurship development programme with IIT Bombay and Ahmedabad. We also have a big facility in Bangalore and Gurgaon, which has a startup studio, where people can come in, meet with mentors and can bounce off ideas. SAP taps into its global network and provides access to portals and systems. Also, we give access to private equity and venture capital fund. SAP has a fund called Sapphire Ventures. We look at interesting ideas and do select M&As to be part of our portfolio. We also to connect with PEs in our network.

Deep makes a passionate case for technology-led companies, pointing out that all the flak they receive for not creating jobs is misplaced. E-commerce and aggregating companies have created 1.3 million jobs in the past five years, he adds.

Deep, who has an 11-year-old son and two dogs, follows the same rule of empathy at home as well, often looking from his sons point of view when he is backed into a corner.

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Empathy and self-awareness, the most important traits of a leader ... - YourStory.com

A new study carried out by the Department of Psychology at Barnard College in the U.S. used a sniff test to evaluate the ability of dogs to recognize themselves. The results have been published in the journal Behavioural Processes.

The experiment confirms the hypothesis of dog self-cognition proposed last year by Prof. Roberto Cazzolla Gatti of the Biological Institute of the Tomsk State University, Russia. Dr. Alexandra Horowitz, the lead researcher, wrote, "While domestic dogs, Canis familiaris, have been found to be skillful at social cognitive tasks and even some meta-cognitive tasks, they have not passed the test of mirror self-recognition (MSR)."

Prof. Horowitz borrowed the "Sniff test of self-recognition (STSR)" proposed by Prof. Cazzolla Gatti in 2016 to shed light on methods of testing for self-recognition, and applied it to 36 domestic dogs accompanied by their owners.

This study confirmed the previous evidence proposed with the STSR by Dr. Cazzolla Gatti showing that "dogs distinguish between the olfactory 'image' of themselves when modified: Investigating their own odour for longer when it had an additional odour accompanying it than when it did not. Such behaviour implies a recognition of the odour as being of or from 'themselves.'"

Prof. Cazzolla Gatti firstly suggested the hypothesis of self-cognition in dogs in a 2016 pioneering paper entitled after the novel by Lewis Carroll "Self-consciousness: beyond the looking-glass and what dogs found there."

As the Associate Professor of the Tomsk State University anticipated: "this sniff-test could change the way some experiments on animal behaviour are validated." Soon, the study of Dr. Horowitz followed.

"I believe that dogs and other animals, being much less sensitive to visual stimuli than humans and many apes, cannot pass the mirror test because of the sensory modality chosen by the investigator to test self-awareness. This in not necessarily due to the absence of this cognitive ability in some animal species," says Cazzolla Gatti.

Prof. Cazzolla Gatti's idea, as recently confirmed by Dr. Horowitz on a larger samples of dogs, shows that "the sniff test of self-recognition (STSR), even when applied to multiple individuals living in groups and with different ages and sexes, provides significant evidence of self-awareness in dogs, and can play a crucial role in showing that this capacity is not a specific feature of only great apes, humans and a few other animals, but it depends on the way in which researchers try to verify it."

The innovative approach to test the self-awareness highlighted the need to shift the paradigm of the anthropocentric idea of consciousness to a species-specific perspective. As Prof. Cazzolla Gatti anticipated last year in his paper: "We would never expect that a mole or a bat can recognize themselves in a mirror, but now we have strong empirical evidence to suggest that if species other than primates are tested on chemical or auditory perception base we could get really unexpected results."

This new study published in the journal Behavioural Processes, validating the sniff test of self-recognition (STSR) and the hypothesis of a self-awareness in dogs and other animals developed by Prof. Roberto Cazzolla Gatti, pushes ethologists to move "beyond the looking-glass to see what other animals can found there."

Explore further: Dogs (and probably many other animals) have a conscience too

More information: Alexandra Horowitz, Smelling themselves: Dogs investigate their own odours longer when modified in an "olfactory mirror" test, Behavioural Processes (2017). DOI: 10.1016/j.beproc.2017.08.001

Journal reference: Behavioural Processes

Provided by: National Research Tomsk State University

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STSR tests confirm that dogs have self-awareness - Phys.org - Phys.Org

MINNEAPOLIS Davis Powell works at Pomps Tire Service outside the Twin Cities, where he inspects and repairs tires. Overall, its a good job with good benefits, said Powell, 33, a two-year employee.

Powell has gone from being a penniless inmate in a Minnesota state prison four years ago to a $14-an-hour employee, plus benefits and ample overtime, a shared apartment, a car and a future.

Powell also represents an untapped national workforce of millions of formerly incarcerated people.

My crime came out of pride and low self-esteem, said Powell, who was released months early in 2013 for good behavior following a robbery conviction. Im not going back to prison.

Powell, while on probation, went through personal-empowerment and job-skills training provided by Twin Cities Rise, the 25-year-old nonprofit that helps unemployed and underemployed folks boost their technical and personal skills and advance in careers through jobs that range from office work to mechanics and bus drivers. While enrolled at Rise, Powell also worked a temp job that required a three-bus commute.

Empowerment training, which Rise teaches to business managers as well as former inmates, involves humility, decisionmaking, communication skills and owning your choices.

Empowerment motivated me, Powell said. Ive gained the skills. To listen and express myself professionally. I took the classes. I went from a low credit score to high credit (score). Despite my background, I felt I deserved a second chance. And I know if I do well, maybe other people and employers will see that. And it will help open the door for others.

One of my goals is to take a vacation. And I want to own a home one day.

Formerly incarcerated people, disproportionately lower-income people of color, have been a tough group to employ, even in a worker-hungry, low-unemployment rate economy. However, theres evidence that employers and society are starting to reconsider.

A groundbreaking report this summer by the American Civil Liberties Union and its Trone Private Sector and Education Advisory Council, provides a road map. Called Back to Business: How Hiring Formerly Incarcerated Jobseekers Benefits Your Company, the report has been embraced by the disparate likes of criminal justice reformers, including Google, Total Wine, the Ford Foundation, Open Society Foundation, Koch Industries, Walmart and others.

We have hired individuals with criminal records as employees for decades by getting to know them as candidates first and looking into their background only after they have received a conditional offer, Mark Holden, general counsel of Koch Industries, said in a prepared statement. These employees have been humble and diligent contributors, and we encourage other employers to think about hiring differently.

Seventy million Americans one in three adults have a criminal conviction, according to the report authors.

The ACLU report offers practical advice for employers looking to tap into this often overlooked talent pool, providing case studies, compliance recommendations and hiring advice.

The report stresses the importance of not simply creating entry-level positions, but also career pathways that start with prison education and training that continues along the employment ladder.

Large and small businesses alike can reap dividends by providing second-chance opportunities to returning citizens, said Janice Davis, vice president and general counsel of eWaste Tech Systems. Our experience has shown returning citizens to be as reliable, if not more reliable, than citizens without any criminal history.

CEO Tom Streitz and Jeff Williams, director of the Empowerment Institute at Twin Cities Rise, said the retention rate for their graduates who were formerly incarcerated is higher than average.

We have 80 percent retention for one year and 70 percent for two years, Streitz said. Thats double the national average of retention on a (entry-level) job. We not only provide a great employee, but one who will stick.

However, Williams said barriers persist, including concern that hiring former inmates will drive up insurance rates.

Its a myth that anyone who has committed a crime is a bad person who cannot change, he said.

CEO Thomas Adams of Better Futures Minnesota runs a social enterprise that has trained and employed 150 former incarcerates over the last three years. Better Futures generated $5 million in revenue from deconstructing houses, recycling and selling 70 tons of building materials that once were landfilled. Yet, the organization has yet to see a significant uptick in the pace of hiring since Minnesota law was changed to no longer require job applicants to check a box if they are a former prison inmate.

Adams said 70 percent of his trainees were in prison because of drug dependency or sales.

Sixty percent of the men we serve in Hennepin County without intervention go back to prison within six months, Adams said, referring to the Twin Cities-area county.

Better Futures employs a two-year model involving training, support and employment, including housing, personal health and mentor coaching.

When they leave us, in as little as eight months, they have a work history and certifications in forklift operation, construction safety, janitorial-custodial, hazardous-material removal, other certifications, he said.

Those jobs pay $16 to $18 an hour, but criminal convictions mean they usually have to start out in food service or light manufacturing, where pay is more like $10.50 an hour.

We try to keep them motivated that the change they recognize in themselves (will eventually be recognized and rewarded by employers). For us, success is even the guy who gets a full-time job making $11 or $12 an hour and who can pay the rent on time.

We want to help them not be dependent on somebody else or the correction system, but to be self-sufficient.

The fork ratings are based primarily on food quality and preparation, with service and atmosphere factored into the final decision. Reviews are based on one unsolicited, unannounced visit to the restaurant.

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A job after prison: Advocates make the case for an under-used workforce - WatertownDailyTimes.com

Run The Jewels. Phillipe Callant for NPR hide caption

Run The Jewels.

The story-in-progress of Run The Jewels is one of triumph. El-P and Killer Mike met in 2011, and after a fruitful collaboration joined forces officially in 2013, forming Run The Jewels. Four years and three critically acclaimed albums later, they have become one of the most unlikely success stories of 21st century hip-hop.

Both rappers have had long, bumpy journeys in different scenes: El-P (born Jaime Meline) was an original member of New York City's Company Flow and co-founded a record label, Definitive Jux. Killer Mike (aka Michael Render) is Atlanta born-and-bred he made his debut with a feature on OutKast's Stankonia and, between numerous solo albums, has collaborated with Big Boi, T.I. and the Dungeon Family collective.

Before they met, both rappers were at crossroads in their respective careers, struggling with a lack of recognition and grappling with loss both personal and financial. The emergence of Run The Jewels is, therefore, not just a meteoric rise, but a remarkable career renaissance for these two hip-hop veterans.

On this episode of What's Good with Stretch & Bobbito, El-P and Killer Mike talk about how they turned "run the jewels," originally slang for a robbery, into an empowering slogan, homophobia in hip-hop, emphasizing shared humanity and freedom over political differences and more.

El-P on the origin of the name "Run The Jewels"

Run The Jewels, me and Mike, and our connection and everything, came out of a period of time where I had personally lost everything. Everything I had been working on, including any personal money that I had, you know, the record label I had been working on for 10 years and all, and friends that had passed away a lot of stuff kind of fell out from underneath my feet, completely. And I had a period of time where I was, a couple years where I had been humbled by the world. I'd been humbled by the universe. But I remember, when I started making music and started to feel good again, and I remember I was listening to "Cheesy Rat Blues" off of the Mama Said Knock You Out album [by LL Cool J]. And it's a story about him losing everything, about him being a rap star and losing everything, and the friends that he thought that he had going away, and him getting desperate. And it just connected with me at that time, I'll be honest. And at the end of the song he went, "Throw your hands in the air, wave 'em like you just don't care, keep 'em there run the jewels." All of a sudden it meant something to me, bigger than that. All of a sudden it felt powerful. All of a sudden it felt like, "You know what? I don't have anything, but get ready. I'm gonna take it. I'm gonna take something."

Killer Mike on seeing past political differences toward shared humanity

What I care about is that people know we're free. The older I get, the more of an anarchist I become. And I don't mean in the punk rock type of way where I just seek to destroy things. I mean, I believe truly we're not going to progress as a species until we feel responsible to educate and to bring every heart, or every person who belongs to this species, up to a point where we don't have a need for culture, religion, or nations to define us. I'm not saying you can't do your culture, religion or your nation, but that can't be the only thing that defines you as a human being, you know? I have to see your humanity before I see you as a Spanish man. I have to see your humanity before I see a white man. Doesn't mean I don't see a Spanish man. Doesn't mean I don't see a white man. It means that I don't let those things interfere with me respecting and loving you as a human being. That is sacred to me.

Killer Mike on people of all races participating in hip-hop

Let's give black people and black music some credit: they are a very inclusive bunch. You know, black people don't really keep people out of their thing. If you say to a black woman on the train, "I've always wanted to go to a black church," she's gonna invite you to her church. If you look at rock 'n' roll, they never tried to keep white artists out. ... Black people are a good people! In terms of culturally sharing with people. So as long as you have love and respect, and prove authentic, there has always been a way for people that have been let in the door that did right by it. Because you grew it. We need allies. That is my pet word. Like, none of us progress without allies. None of us progress. I am happy [about] the amalgamation of people that has taken and pushed this art form forward.

NPR Music news assistant Karen Gwee contributed to this story.

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Run The Jewels On Empowerment And Shared Humanity - NPR - NPR

Open Road Films

Hallie Meyers-Shyers Home Again is a fascinating banality, the movie equivalent of a staring at a bucolic motel painting until you start to see skeletons in the haystacks. Its a rom-com about an adrift 40-year-old named Alice (Reese Witherspoon) who introduces herself by introducing her dad, a fictitious 70s auteur who made films you dont have to see to have seen: personal sagas about heartbreak and death starring ingenues in bikinis, most of whom he shagged. Alices mom Lillian (a breezy Candice Bergen) was less than half his age when they got married, and not much older when they divorced atypical only in that she got a ring and baby out of the deal.

Pops was away shooting in Mykonos when Alice was born, and hes long-dead before Home Again begins. But his ghost hides in the shadows of Alices sun-dappled life. Hes there in the selfish record executive (Michael Sheen) she married and had two daughters with, one of whom (Lola Flanery) is begging to go on anti-depressants. His statuettes and scripts clutter the Brentwood mansion she flees to when she and her husband, Austen, separate. And most of all, hes there in the way Alice acts like her own back-up singer, halfheartedly trying on vanity careers like a clothing designer and a photographer while waiting for another loud man to seize her mic. So while it might seem off-kilter when she takes home 27-year-old Harry (Pico Alexander), a cocky director who just moved to LA after his short won SXSW, her therapist, if she had one, would say her terrible mate selection is perfectly in-key. (And her best friend, played by Dolly Wells, cant resist noting that all their male friends are also dating millennials.)

Harry is a tall, handsome nothing, a strutting mannequin whose defining quality is skin as smooth and dense as butterscotch candy. He talks in a tranquilizing Hey Girl coo. Before taking Alice to bed, he purrs, Got anything from IKEA I can assemble? But hes no fantasy man; Meyers-Shyer smartly makes him too selfish for that. Instead, she emphasizes his immaturity: the face that looks airbrushed, the ego thats never taken a hit, the heart thats never dealt with any relationship more complicated than a college fling. Occasionally, he gives a grand speech about his passion for film, which to the movies credit, no one takes seriously. Hes also gloweringly jealous of Austen a beat that the movie considers both foolish and endearing, like a kid sulking over a participation trophy while demanding total devotion from his creative partners, aspiring screenwriter George (SNL escapee Jon Rudnitsky) and his own actor-brother Teddy (Nat Wolff.) To anyone whos survived dating 27-year-old, just-moved-to-town, wannabe directors, Harrys more strung up with red flags than Chinese New Years. During the scene where he talks over his own black-and-white film while showing it to Alice in bed, the theater seats in LA will shudder like a 5.6 earthquake.

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By Monovithya Kem and Samathida Kem By Monovithya Kem and Samathida Kem September 7 at 12:58 PM

The Cambodian government has jailed opposition leader Kem Sokha for alleged treason. Here, his daughter Monovithya Kem of the Cambodia National Rescue Party warns that Prime Minister Hun Sen is testing just how authoritarian he can be ahead of elections. (Gillian Brockell,Kate Woodsome/The Washington Post)

Monovithya Kem is the deputy director-general of public affairs at the Cambodia National Rescue Party. Samathida Kem is an international economics consultant.

It was 30 minutes past midnight Sept. 2, 2017, when they came for our father, Cambodian opposition leader Kem Sokha. Dozens of heavily armed policemen converged on his house in Phnom Penh in the darkness. They had no warrant, but they told his guards that they would be destroyed if they didnt open the door. Then the police charged in. They pushed two female housekeepers to the floor, putting guns to their heads and robbing them of their phones and money. Our fathers last words to us over the phone were, Theyre handcuffing me. Then they dragged him away as our mother cried for help.

Everyone in Cambodia has heard stories like this from the 1970s. Our own grandfather was taken from his home by the Khmer Rouge in 1975 and never returned. But this is September 2017.

Our fathers dream of democracy was born from the sleepless nights of the Khmer Rouge regime, when a small circle of well-armed men in black robes sold their year zero dogma of destruction to Cambodias youths. The Khmer Rouge nearly succeeded in their mission to erase our history and culture by denying the differences that animate our individual humanity.

Yet despite all the horrors we experienced in the 20th century genocide, war, foreign occupation ordinary Cambodians have clung to the dream of a society in which they can choose their leader and shape their own fates. Tonight, our father dreams that dream from behind bars, accused by Prime Minister Hun Sen of treason for preaching grass-roots democracy. And outside those prison bars a terrified citizenry looks to the outside world to save it once again.

Our father first became involved in politics in the early 1990s, when he was elected as a member of parliament. In the course of his work he came to believe that Cambodians needed to learn more about democracy if they were to participate in it effectively, so he resigned to found the Cambodian Center for Human Rights (CCHR), a U.S.-funded nonprofit, in 2002.

CCHR was different from other human rights organizations in Cambodia in the sense that not only that it defended human rights and promoted democracy but also effectively encouraged people to defend and demand their own rights within democratic principles. It gave people a platform to voice their opinions through public forums that were broadcast on local radio.

When the first public forum took place the first of its kind since the genocide it was attended by roughly a dozen people. Supporters of the ruling party ridiculed the event, but they underestimated the change that was about to happen. Through years of our fathers tireless traveling to every village in the country, the CCHR forums became popular among rural villagers. Hundreds, sometimes thousands, of them showed up at each forum, eager to take hold of the microphone and tell the world what they had kept secret for decades. It was through the CCHR forums that many traumatized Cambodian people first felt the sense of personal pride, empowerment and dignity that comes from having their voices heard, their grievances aired and their views respected.

As soon as the government realized that this was happening, our father became a target. In late 2005, the authorities accused him of defamation for displaying banners with handwritten criticisms of the government by ordinary citizens. He was arrested at his office on New Years Eve. He was released 17 days later.

This time the charge is far more serious. The brutality of his arrest is revealing: His work has become a threat to the ruling party. The government is accusing him of treason based on a video publicly broadcast with his knowledge in 2013. In the video, he explains his willingness to learn from experts from around the world, his effort to effect nonviolent change from the grass roots, and his return to politics to make that happen. The government has produced and distributed a selectively edited version of the video to buttress its claims. Yet what it calls treason is nothing more than an expression of support for grass-roots empowerment and effective opposition in democracy.

Whether they like it or not, Cambodians attitudes towards freedom and democracy have already changed. And the change is here to last. As our father has said, they may detain our bodies, but they may not detain our conscience. Yes, his arrest frightens us. But we will never again be the passive victims the world once saw during the Khmer Rouge regime. The governments crackdowns on the opposition, the media and civil society will not bring the silence it hopes for. Its repression is only contributing to political instability, and that is not in anyones interest.

A politically unstable Cambodia is not good for the world. Those foreign governments who seek favor with the current leadership for political or economic reasons are misguided. It is never a wise policy to ally oneself with a government that is an enemy of the people.

Today we once again call for the international community to take action to reverse the deteriorating political situation in our country. It is too late to save our grandfather and the millions of Cambodians who were murdered and oppressed by the Khmer Rouge. It is not yet too late to help the millions who are craving change now, including my father. But time is running out.

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With even Vladimir Putin now warning of global catastrophe from the recent tensions in Korea, we are in arguably the worst period of nuclear brinkmanship since the end of the Cold War. It is partly thanks to a strand of thinking among the American right that a nuclear attack on Pyongyang would succeed where decades of diplomacy has failed.

Welcome to the cult of the technological fix. It is the conviction that social and political problems can be side-stepped by clever engineering. The same logic finds its way into many recent initiatives. It helps explain why Donald Trump continues to pursue a 1,000 mile wall with Mexico as the answer to Americas problem with illegal immigrants, for example.

Technological fixes are nothing new, of course. Controlling the flow of populations with physical obstructions lay behind the medieval Great Wall of China and Hadrians Wall in England in the second century. The layout of 19th century Paris was transformed with broad avenues to prevent mobs from barricading the streets. In the 1880s, streetcar manufacturers experimented with automatic doors to make joyriding impossible.

In the 20th century, technological fixes were packaged and given the name by one tireless promoter, Alvin M Weinberg. Weinberg was a reactor designer during the wartime Manhattan Project, the Allies bid to be first to create an atomic bomb. He went on to become director of a national laboratory exploring applications of nuclear energy.

Imagining a world transformed by nuclear power, Weinberg became convinced that technological innovation was the best way of dealing with any social issue. Well placed to gain the ear of engineering peers and American policymakers, he invented a durable term for this confident new environment: Big Science.

For Weinberg, conventional problem solving through education, law enforcement and moral guidance was slow and ineffective. Convert such issues into technological problems to be solved by engineers, he argued. The Hiroshima bomb had dodged the need for political negotiation, he claimed, stabilising international relations in the process.

In the wall-building stakes, Weinberg was Trumps fellow traveller. He petitioned the Johnson administration to build a wall between North and South Vietnam, though privately admitted shortly after that his scheme was very amateurish. He also promoted the idea of funding air conditioners in slum districts, arguing they would literally cool down tensions during the hot summer months to avoid urban riots.

This too was left on the drawing board, but other less provocative ideas gained traction. He shared road safety campaigner Ralph Naders observation that car seatbelts were more effective than traffic laws or driver education for reducing fatalities. He claimed that intra-uterine contraceptive devices like the coil meant birth control was no longer a desperately complicated social problem. He pushed cigarette filters as an easier way to reduce the harms of smoking than persuading users to quit.

Weinbergs faith in engineers is even more widespread today. His championing of the likes of cigarette filters anticipated the way we value technological fixes for improving individuals particularly their health and well-being.

To address our cultural preoccupation with weight control, for example, why have diet plans or exercise regimes when there are low-calorie sugar substitutes, over-the-counter appetite suppressants, gastric bands and liposuction? And if you eat healthily and exercise anyway, dont worry: there are wearable technologies to monitor, cajole and regiment us further.

When Apple came up with theres an app for that to promote software-based tech fixes, it epitomised Silicon Valleys reinvention of Weinberg dogma as solutionism. Where Weinberg promoted societal benefits, now it had become about personal empowerment for the me generation.

The message is that if youre deficient in willpower, attention and consistency, its okay a consumer engineering fix is only a few clicks away. And the future promises to be still brighter. Say hello to genetic engineering, nootropics and implantable microchips.

Weinbergs agenda also endures at the policy level. To address terrorism, we have locks on cockpit doors, metal detectors, surveillance monitoring, bomb-sniffing devices and body scanners at airports. We seem to prefer such responses to anything so socio-political as negotiation or education.

Environmental concerns are another favourite. Electric motors promise more cars on the road with less air pollution. Oil-digesting microbes promise to clean up oil spills. Plastic packaging that degrades in sunlight could make litter disappear without clean-up campaigns.

Geo-engineering could even deal with climate change overall limiting temperature rise, carbon dioxide levels or both. Life can continue as usual, we are told again and again.

For all this confidence and hubris, we need to pay more heed to the drawbacks. Critics have long argued that technological fixes overlook deeper problems. Weinberg himself conceded they can look like band-aids, but believed they were still worthwhile while a better solution was being sought.

Yet this risks settling for the band-aid. We might become so pleased with electric cars that we stop worrying about the continued proliferation of roads, sedentary lifestyles and social segregation. If Trumps wall reduces illegal immigration, progressive Americans might lose interest in helping Mexico to become prosperous.

An even deeper concern is with placing problem solving in the hands of narrowly trained technical experts. Take the coil, for example: unlike condoms or the pill, where users make a daily choice, intra-uterine devices are a one-off insertion under a doctors authority. The flip-side of relying on engineering cures may be a passive and powerless public.

Weinberg never used the term technocracy, yet he did acknowledge that some technological solutions were incompatible with liberal democracy. Ironically, of course, it is exactly such frustrations that helped usher the current American president into office.

None of this is to say technological fixes are always wrong; more that they can be overly seductive. We need to recognise when they seem too good to be true, and consider them cautiously. That way we can steal back some of that democratic thunder before its too late starting, one would hope, by avoiding nuclear war in Korea.

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Beware the cult of 'tech fixing' it's why America is eyeing the ... - The Conversation UK