It appears all the vegan doughnut makers turned away by Pips Original Doughnuts last year now have new job prospects. Doe Donuts hung up its open sign on May 7 at 8201 SE Powell Blvd., and within four hours, it had sold out of 1000 doughnuts. Portlands first vegan-dedicated doughnut shop clearly had to step up production, with flavors like powdered matcha and the signature Golden Child, featuring ganache and ornately topped with chocolate shavings, chocolate chips, and gold pearls. But also because this is Portland, where anything involving veganism and fried dough will assuredly attract lines.

With prices ranging from $2.75 to $4, Doe Donuts sits closer to the gourmet side of the doughnut world. According to the website, the entirely animal-free shop uses Organic, Fair Trade, and Non GMO ingredients when possible, and it also works with many local food artisans, from Eugene's Glory Bee, to Townshend's Dr. Brew Kombucha and Stumptown Coffee.

Carly Sitner and Crystal Wegener own Doe Donut, and the partners met while working at an organic grocer, which is actually where Sitner made her first doughnuts as a way of attracting more customers. What started two years ago as two doughnut flavors served on Sundays only is today Doe Donuts.

Sitner and Wegener come with experience, too. Sitner has been baking for more than 13 years in locations across the U.S. from restaurants to wholesale. An Oregon native, Wegener graduated from culinary school with a degree in baking and pastry management.

Doe Doughnuts is now open early and frying every day except Tuesdays. The hours are Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, from 6 a.m. to 3 p.m.; Saturday, from 7 p.m. to 5 p.m.; and Sunday, from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Note the shop is not a gluten- or nut-free facility.

See the article here:

Portland's First Vegan Doughnut Shop Is Open and Frying - Eater Portland

Emily Drooby

May 12th 2017 11:34AM

There are several reasons why it's best to buy organic, but buying organic may not always be best!

You might be used to paying extra for avocado, but don't buy organic. According to Cheat Sheet, their thick skin protects them from pesticides.

The same goes for pineapple, cantaloupe, and kiwis. Lisa Lee Freeman, a savings expert at Flipp, says never buy organic seafood either -- because organic seafood is farmed, not caught, wild-caught fish is healthier.

Pests don't like the bitter taste of asparagus, so it's less likely to need pesticide protection. It's also why Cheat Sheet suggests not buying organic onions.

So, what should you buy? Freeman suggests buying grass-fed meat.

Related: Food shopping on a budget

26 PHOTOS

How to Buy Organic Foods on a Budget

See Gallery

The Environmental Working Group has identified 12 fruits and vegetables you should be buying organic and 12 fruits and vegetables that are least likely to be contaminated with pesticide residues.

Peaches: Buy Organic

Image Credit: Stuart Minzey/ Getty Images

Apples: Buy Organic

Image Credit: Digital Vision/ Getty Images

Sweet Bell Peppers: Buy Organic

Image Credit: Steve Wisbauer/ Getty Images

Celery: Buy Organic

Image Credit: Ursula Alter/ Getty Images

Nectarines: Buy Organic

Image Credit: Rosemary Calvert/ Getty Images

Strawberries: Buy Organic

Image Credit: Lew Robertson/ Getty Images

Cherries: Buy Organic

Image Credit: Chris Stein/ Getty Images

Pears: Buy Organic

Image Credit: Sasha Bell/ Getty Images

Grapes: Buy Organic

Image Credit: Echo/ Getty Images

Spinach: Buy Organic

Image Credit: Rob MacDougall/ Getty Images

Lettuce: Buy Organic

Image Credit: Visuals Unlimited Inc./ Inga Spence/ Getty Images

Potatoes: Buy Organic

Image Credit: Adam Gault/ Getty Images

Papaya: Don't Buy Organic

Image Credit: Riou/ Getty Images

Broccoli: Don't Buy Organic

Image Credit: Mint Images/Tim Pannell/ Getty Images

Cabbage: Don't Buy Organic

Image Credit: Mint Images/ Tim Pannell/ Getty Images

Bananas: Don't Buy Organic

Image Credit: Andrew Dernie/ Getty Images

Kiwi: Don't Buy Organic

Image Credit: Paul Frederiksen Jr./ Getty Images

Frozen Sweet Peas: Don't Buy Organic

Image Credit: Kroeger Gross/ Getty Images

Asparagus: Don't Buy Organic

Image Credit: Bill Deering/ Getty Images

Mango: Don't Buy Organic

Image Credit: Rosemary Calvert/ Getty Images

Pineapple: Don't Buy Organic

Image Credit: Rosemary Calvert/ Getty Images

Frozen Corn: Don't Buy Organic

Image Credit: Richard Clark/ Getty Images

Avocado: Don't Buy Organic

Image Credit: Rick Lew/ Getty Images

Onions: Don't Buy Organic

Image Credit: Phillip Hayson/ Getty Images

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Dive Brief:

Organic grain-based food producers are struggling to keep up with U.S. consumer demand, according to Food Business News.

Suppliers of organic wheat, yeast, dough strengtheners, oils and other ingredients have implemented strategies to boost acreage and specialty ingredient production, but organic demand is so strong that hardly any domestically grown organic wheat, corn or soybeans is exported.

Organic food sales are expected to see a CAGR of 7.6% to 2025, according to Rabobank figures although it warns the lack of an established supply chain could restrict further growth. John David Roeg, senior consumer foods analyst for Rabobank said:Food producers should increase their focus on organic, through new products and brands, or through the reformulation of existing products to help grow their top lines. This will also help them to position themselves as responsible businesses.

There is now more organic farming in the United States than ever before. The number of organic operations increased 12% in 2015 from the prior year, according to USDA figures, and is up nearly 300% since 2002. However, farms classified as organic still account for just 0.7% of the total operations in the U.S.

The main problem for farmers is that converting from conventional to organic farmland is time consuming and expensive. It takes at least three years, during which time farmers must use organic practices but are not paid organic prices.

There are plenty of incentives for U.S. farmers to make the switch to organic farming, including the USDAs Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP)which offers first-time organic farmers technical assistance as well as a one-off payment that varies by region. Food manufacturers and retailers also have put programs in place as they struggle to meet their needs for organic ingredients and products. Stonyfield Farms, Organic Valley, Whole Foods and Natures Path Foods are among those who have offered grants and technical assistance to farmers in an effort to boost supply.

For many manufacturers it is often a challenge to source organic ingredients, whether they be specialty ingredients like organic herbs and spices, which may not be grown in the U.S., or mainstream commodity crops like wheat. Digital platforms have been set up to help, such as GreenTrade.net or Mercaris Auction Platform, which claims to have traded 280,000 bushels of organic grain so far this year more than what was traded during the whole of 2016.

The Organic Trade Association also provides a range of resources for suppliers and manufacturers alike, including pricing and market data, and a directory of certified organic suppliers.Shortages of some organic products have cause price spikes. In some cases, livestock producers, hungry for organic feeds, have imported it from overseas because they can't find enough domestically.

Some grocery stores and restaurants have worked closely with farmers and ranchers to give them an idea as to how much of the product they will need in the future. Wal-Mart, for example, works with farmers and other suppliers to outline its organic needs several years in advance..Elevation Burger, which sells organic, grass-fed, free-range beef, shares information like growth projections and store openings with its suppliers.

Top image credit: Food Dive

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Growing demand for organic ingredients leads to supply challenges - Food Dive

Alexander C.N., et al. Treating and preventing alcohol, nicotine, and drug abuse through Transcendental Meditation: A review and statistical meta-analysis. Alcoholism Treatment Quarterly 11: 13-87, 1994.

Aron E.N. and Aron A. The patterns of reduction of drug and alcohol use among Transcendental Meditation participants. Bulletin of the Society of Psychologists in Addictive Behaviors 2: 28-33, 1983.

Clements G., et al. The use of the Transcendental Meditation programme in the prevention of drug abuse and in the treatment of drug-addicted persons. Bulletin on Narcotics 40(1): 5156, 1988.

Gelderloos P., et al. Effectiveness of the Transcendental Meditation program in preventing and treating substance misuse: A review. International Journal of the Addictions 26: 293325, 1991.

Gelderloos P., et al. Effectiveness of the Transcendental Meditation program in preventing and treating substance misuse: A review. International Journal of the Addictions 26: 293325, 1991.

Orme-Johnson D. W. Transcendental Meditation as an epidemiological approach to drug and alcohol abuse: Theory, research, and financial impact evaluation. Alcoholism Treatment Quarterly, 11, 119-165, 1994.

Royer A. The role of the Transcendental Meditation technique in promoting smoking cessation: A longitudinal study. Alcoholism Treatment Quarterly 11: 219-236, 1994.

Shafii M. et al. Meditation and marijuana. American Journal of Psychiatry 131: 60-63, 1974.

Shafii M. et al. Meditation and the prevention of alcohol abuse. American Journal of Psychiatry 132: 942-945, 1975.

Wallace R.K. et al. Decreased drug abuse with Transcendental Meditation: A study of 1,862 subjects. In Drug Abuse: Proceedings of the International Conference, ed. Chris J.D. Zarafonetis (Philadelphia: Lea and Febiger): 369-376, 1972.

Walton K. G., and Levitsky, D.A. A neuroendocrine mechanism for the reduction of drug use and addictions by Transcendental Meditation. Alcoholism Treatment Quarterly 11: 89-117, 1994.

Original post:

Transcendental Meditation (TM) Technique - Cleveland, OH

Editor's note: You can hear Sarathy Korwar and other leading players in London's jazz scene in this week's Jazz Night In America radio episode.

Sarathy Korwar, a percussionist and electronic producer born in the United States but raised in India and now working in London, released a knockout album last year, Day To Day. Working with his own field recordings of the Sidi Troupe of Ratanpur, which consists of five drummers who also vocalize, Korwar sought to illuminate patterns of human migration and drift, and the small-scale but profound ways in which cultures can meld.

During the 2017 South by Southwest music festival in Austin, Texas, Jazz Night In America asked Korwar to perform a track from Day To Day for NPR's "Night Owl" series. He played "Indefinite Leave To Remain," a song whose themes bear direct relevance to the issue of cultural exchange in an era of high geopolitical tension. On the street below, revelers and traffic made a distant racket but Korwar, sitting on an open-air hotel balcony, created a zone of quiet focus and meditative intent.

CREDITS:

Director: Nickolai Hammar; Producer: Josie Holtzman; Animation: CJ Riculan; Video: Nickolai Hammar; Audio Engineer: Josh Rogosin; Series Producer: Benjamin Naddaff-Hafrey; Series Creator/Supervising Producer: Mito Habe-Evans; Executive Producer: Anya Grundmann

See the article here:

Watch Sarathy Korwar Play A Nighttime Meditation On Tablas And ... - NPR

Dallas gym focuses on your brain with meditation

Sonia Azad, WFAA 8:48 AM. CDT May 12, 2017

Meditation class at Mastermind

By 42, life caught up to Sha Roehm.

"I had to start going to a cardiologist because I thought there was something internal going on. I hit a wall," said the wife and mom who struggled with anxiety.

She's not alone.

According to the American Psychological Association, 75 percent of adults report experiencing moderate to high levels of stress in the past month.

"If your mind is unhealthy, your physical body is going to be unhealthy," said Chelsey Charbeneau of Mastermind in Dallas.

Mastermind is a relatively new concept in boutique fitness: a studio that exclusively offers guided meditation. There are no treadmills or pilates reformers. This is a gym for your brain, designed to quiet your relentless mental chatter.

Meditation classes are guided by trained instructors. You can choose to sit or recline -- whatever is more comfortable for you. There are no phones allowed in the meditation room. No shoes allowed. No talk about religion or politics. All that's required is breathing.

"Even if they know they can do this at home, on an app or with a video, they may not have the peace and quiet that they need or the environment set up to make them feel comfortable," said Charbeneau, 34, who moved from Los Angeles to Dallas to help get the Mastermind concept off the ground in Texas.

"It kind of clears the space a little bit," said Hal Penchan, 32, after his second meditation class.

The busy husband and father of two young children works in real estate and comes to Mastermind with colleagues from work.

"Whether its the middle of the day or morning or middle of the week its a good reset, refresh."

The effects of meditation on the brain are undisputed.

"It actually stimulates or increases thevagal nerve tone, and it naturally will lower heart rate, it will naturally lower your blood pressure, and it will naturally lower those cortisone levels and bring things back into a normal state," said Dr. Melita Williams, who is on staff at Texas Health Plano.

Roehm has it figured out. She's made meditation a daily habit. Her health has improved and so have her relationships.

"My husband has seen changes in me, my daughter -- Im not yelling or screaming or anything like that now," said Roehm, who is finding time to do everything she wants by setting aside a little time -- first-- for herself.

For more information on meditation classes at Mastermind go here.

2017 WFAA-TV

Continued here:

Meditation helps exercise your brain, de-stress from life - WFAA

A quarter of a century before the apparently imminent Oriental Renaissance was mentioned in France, German thinkers in Heidelberg, Ina, Bonn and Berlin were already projecting a romantic ideal of sorts through their interpretations of certain Indian philosophical texts. The aspect of starting afresh, without losing common Aryan origins and antiquity, was appealing indeed.

Herder was undoubtedly one of the first to share this peculiar perspective, and he declared the Indian texts to be representative of a sublime moral. His student, Frederic Schlegel, propagated this romantic idealism in a more direct and radical fashion. Declaring that India was the source of all languages, thoughts and history of the human spirit, Schlegel constructed an idea of India that was like an all-comprehensive, all-inclusive mother.

So how did, one may enquire at this point, this immense popularity of Indian philosophical tradition subside so briskly and end up in complete oblivion?

The answer to this question is multifaceted. Many academic, intellectual and political developments led to the premature demise of the renaissance of Indian philosophy.

First, European interest towards Indian philosophy in the nineteenth century was more of a romantic obsession than a scholarly discovery. A multitude of prevalent ideas about Indian philosophy in that epoch had originated from bits and pieces of roughly translated extracts from the Vedas and the Upanishads. Some of these romanticised myths about Indian philosophy were gradually debunked by scholars like Colebrooke, who, in 1824, discovered the material aspects of Samkhya and thus started on a long process of disillusionment with the purely pious, spiritual and most primitive status of Indian texts.

Secondly and similarly, the translation of the Vedas by Rosen in 1830 revealed the polytheism of Indian religious and philosophical systems, thus destroying the wrongly construed beliefs of an original, primary monotheism which could correspond and be linked to the theory of emanation.

Third, the notion of Sanskrit being the mother of all languages was dispelled by Bopp who, through his linguistic research, destroyed the myth of Sanskrit as the mother of all European languages, and managed to show that although they are certainly related, the tag of the universal mother language was erroneous.

Fourth, other terms related to primitivity and pureness of Indian traditions and the Aryan tribes began to acquire new and not always positive significations. Aryan, signifying noble in Sanskrit, was a term employed many a time in Arthur de Gobineaus racist 1853 text An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races. And we are all aware of how the term would be eventually employed in Nazi propaganda.

But the loss of a sense of primitivity or the distinction to be the first text could not be the only reasons for this disenchantment with Indian philosophy. At the time when Schlegel and his brethren had been delighting over the universality and primitivity of Indian thought, a very few Indian texts had actually been translated from Sanskrit to European languages. Hence, (and here is the fifth reason) placing Indian thought on such a high pedestal of perfect totality, perfect divinity, perfect spirituality did more harm than good to the reputation of Indian philosophy in Europe.

Sixth, one must not forget the role played by the rise of the Buddhist school of thought in the Western cultural sphere. A brief study of the Indian history of ideas would clearly reveal the important dialectics that runs through it. The Hindu and the Buddhist traditions, if to be understood in a philosophical context, must be viewed as the constituting entities of this dialectics and not as contrasting religious and social categories of orthodox and reformation (as was the case with the Catholic and Protestant doctrines).

It can be argued that Europe, accustomed to understanding foreign cultures only by appropriation, failed to comprehend this crucial Hindu-Buddhist dichotomy and accepted Buddhism as a reformed Hindu tradition (purged of social evils like the caste system), while failing to acknowledge the clearly distinctive philosophical stand-points of the two very different schools of thought and, in the process, terminated its engagement with Indian philosophy.

It is hardly surprising that the Orientalist tradition of Europe failed Indian philosophy. What is of greater importance and deserving of our attention is the fact that this oblivion of Indian philosophy has become a norm in India itself. This is where the debate acquires a predominantly social, political and ideological colour. It is an almost established fact that the Left has won the culture war in India. From the advent of Nehruvian socialism to the romanticising of the Naxalbari movement, and the more recent azadi campaign, leftist intellectuals of India have established a strong footing in premier academic institutions and the cultural sphere. This has resulted in a prolonged, unopposed demonisation of the Indian philosophical tradition.

Unfortunately, the arguments proposed by the left-liberal intelligentsia for the advancement of their political ideologies have been heavily anachronistic. A very common and simplistic example would be the burning of the ancient Hindu text of Manusmriti. The burning of this particular text by political and student organisations has become almost ritualistic in many educational institutes. While the intellectual discourse opposing the ideas of Manusmriti, namely the Ambedkarite canon, is widely taught, distributed and celebrated as the flag-bearer of progressive and intellectual discourse, the original texts which are constantly opposed therein are either burnt or forced to dwell in obscurity, without any possibility of an academic defence.

One may, for the sake of argument, accept the commonly offered explanation by the left that ancient Indian philosophical texts are not the subject of research and academic attention because of their inherently racist, casteist and sexist tones. But how do we then reconcile this logic with the fact that the same educational institutes prescribe to their students the texts of philosophers like Aristotle, who said that a woman is nothing but a deformed male, like Hegel, who said women regulate their actions not by the demands of universality but by arbitrary inclinations, and like Nietzsche, who declared that when women turn to scholarship there is usually something wrong with their sexual apparatus? The argument is, as quite evident, ridiculously anachronistic. By allowing this propagandist discrimination towards the study of Indian philosophical texts, we have forced the study of these texts to recede into religious and spiritual organisations, into the hands of priests and gurus, which has further diminished the credibility of the Indian philosophical tradition.

If there is any chance of its rescue from the dark pit of oblivion, from the extremist ideologues and from the merchandise stores of spiritual bazaars, the effort must come from within Indian academia, or else we must concede once and for all, to live with the disappointment of the aborted renaissance of Indian philosophy.

Original post:

How And Why Did Indian Philosophy Get Reduced To Words Like 'Meditation' And 'Spirituality'? - Swarajya

He madehe made a recommendation, Donald Trump said yesterday of his Deputy Attorney General, Rod Rosenstein in an interview with NBC News. Hes highly respected, very good guy, very smart guy. The Democrats like him; the Republicans like him. He made a recommendation, but regardless of the recommendation, I was going to fire Comey.

There it is, directly from the presidential mouth: Trump happily traded the reputation of Rosenstein, who began the week as a well-respected career prosecutor, for barely 24 hours of laughably transparent talking points in the news cycle. The White House sent out person after personincluding the Vice Presidentto insist that Rosensteins memo constituted the basis for the Presidents action against the FBI director. The White House described a bottoms-up dissatisfaction with Comeys leadership, which Rosensteins memo encapsulated and to which the President acceded. And then, just as casually as Trump and his people set Rosenstein up as the bad guy for what was obviously a presidential decision into whose service Rosenstein had been enlisted, Trump revealed that Rosenstein was, after all, nothing more than a set piece.

Heres the entire exchange between Trump and NBC:

LESTER HOLT: Monday you met with the deputy attorney general, Rod RosenRosenstein

DONALD TRUMP: Right.

LESTER HOLT: Did you ask for a recommendation?

DONALD TRUMP: Uh what I did is I was going to fire Comeymy decision, it was not [OVER TALK]

LESTER HOLT: You had made the decision before they came in the room?

DONALD TRUMP: II was going to fire Comey. Uh Ithere's no good time to do it by the way. Uh theythey were [OVER TALK]

LESTER HOLT: Because you letter you said II, I accepted their recommendation, so you had already made the decision.

DONALD TRUMP: Oh I was gonna fire regardless of recommendation.

LESTER HOLT: So there was [OVER TALK]

DONALD TRUMP: He madehe made a recommendation, he's highly respected, very good guy, very smart guy, uh the Democrats like him, the Republicans like him, uh he made a recommendation but regardless of recommendation I was going to fire Comey knowing, there was no good time to do it. And in fact when I decided to just do it, I said to myself, I said you know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made up story, it's an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should have won.

Note that Trump did not merely reveal Rosenstein as a set piece here; he revealed him as a set piece in Trump's own effort to frustrate the Russia investigation. The story as told by the president to NBC now is that Trump decided to fire Comey in connection with saying to himself that the Russia investigation was a made up story, and that it was in that context that he got Rosenstein to write a pretextual memo.

Rosenstein appears to know he has been used. The Washington Post reports that he threatened to resign, as the Post puts it, after the narrative emerging from the White House on Tuesday evening cast him as a prime mover of the decision to fire Comey and that the president acted only on his recommendation. Rosenstein yesterday denied that he had threatened to resign, and the Wall Street Journal offers a slightly more modest version, in which Rosenstein pressed White House counsel Don McGahn to correct what he felt was an inaccurate White House depiction of the events surrounding Comeys firing. He left the impression he couldnt work in an environment where facts werent accurately portrayed.

And Rosenstein got what he wanted: The White House, and Trump himself, have come clean.The firing of Comey had nothing to do with Rosensteins memo. As the White House has now made clear, in a timeline released Wednesday, there were other reasons. As the Journal reports:

The timeline didnt mention Mr. Rosensteins letter until the fourth bullet point, and said Mr Trump had been strongly inclined to remove Mr. Comey after watching his testimony in front of a Senate panel last week.

Subsequently, administration officials said Mr. Trump had been growing increasingly frustrated by the former directors demonstrative performance in a series of congressional hearings, combined with his refusal to clear Mr. Trumps campaign of any wrongdoing, put the president over the edge.

The trouble is that while Rosenstein got what he wanted, Trumps idea of correcting the record was to say publicly exactly the thing about a law enforcement officer that makes his continued service in office impossible: That Trump had used his deputy attorney general as window dressing on a pre-cooked political decision to shut down an investigation involving himself, a decision for which he needed the patina of a high-minded rationale.

Once the President has said this about youa law enforcement officer who works for him and who promised the Senate in confirmation hearings you would show independenceyou have nothing left. These are the costs of working for Trump, and it took Rosenstein only two weeks to pay them.

The only decent course now is to name a special prosecutor and then resign.

I say this with not a trace of joy. Comeys firing has shaken me very deeply, and no aspect of it has shaken me more than the apparent corruption of Rosenstein, on whom I was counting to be a support base for the career men and women of the Justice Department in their efforts to continue honorable service in difficult times.

When Trump nominated Rosenstein as deputy attorney general, I was delighted. I have known Rosenstein for a long time. I have always thought well of him. I've admired his ability to serve at senior levels in administrations of both parties and impress both sides with apolitical service. I considered it a positive sign that Trump had installed a career professional as deputy attorney general under Jeff Sessions, who is a polarizing figure to many. And I quietly told many people anxious about Sessions that I was not worried that anything too terrible would happen at the department with Rosenstein and Rachel Brandwho has not yet been confirmed as associate attorney general and of whom I think extremely highlyin the deputy's and associate's offices respectively.

I was profoundly wrong about Rosenstein.

Rosenstein's memo in support of Comeys firing is a shocking document. The more I think about it, the worse it gets. I have tried six ways from Sunday to put an honorable construction on it. But in the end, I just cannot find one. The memo is a press release to justify an unsavory use of presidential power. It is also a profoundly unfair document. And it's gutless too. Because at the end of the day, the memo greases the wheels for Comey's removal without ever explicitly urging itthus allowing its author to claim that he did something less than recommend the firing, while in fact providing the fig leaf for it.

In other words, Rosensteins actual role was even less honorable than the one he reportedly objected to the White House's tagging him with. If the original story that Rosensteins recommendation drove the train had been true, after all, that at least would involve his giving his independent judgment. But the truth that Trump told is far worse than the lie Rosenstein insisted the White House correct. Rosenstein was taskedto provide a pretext, and he did just that.

Lets give Rosenstein the benefit of the doubt and assume he believes every word of the memo he wroteand I do assume as much. A lot of people, including a lot of people with institutionalist Justice Department views, share the belief that Comey screwed up, as the President would say, big league. Even I, who have defended the good faith of Comeys actions and believe he was in an impossible situation, do not agree with every one of his decisions during the 2016 election period. So Im perfectly willing to believe that Rosenstein felt able to take on the assignment to write this memo because he, in fact, believes the things he said in it.

Lets go a step further and assume that everything Rosenstein says in the memo about Comeys conduct is actually truein other words, not merely that Rosenstein believes it all, but that hes right. (This I do not believe, but I dont want to relitigate the question of Comeys handling of the Clinton emails matters.)

For that matter, let's set aside the fact that the memo criticizes Comey for actions taken many months ago that the current president never criticized and that the previous administration did not think amounted to a firing offense.

Even with these assumptions, the memo is indefensible. Paul Rosenzweig has ably detailed its deficiencies; Bob Bauer has described how the document, which was produced in the less-than-two-weeks that Rosenstein has been in office, does not indicate whom Rosenstein consulted with and on what factual record his conclusions depended. Daphna Renan and David Pozen make a similar point, arguing that the process by which Comey was fired appears to raise a version of the same professional concerns that the firing supposedly responds to: a breach of Justice Department norms developed to protect integrity and independence.

I wont rehash their many points in detail here but I wish to add a few, all around one general theme: Rosensteins memo wasnt honorable, and it debasesthe office of the deputy attorney general for the occupant of that office to issue such a memo.

First off, the document, even if a recitation of Rosensteins actual views, wasas Trumps comments yesterday made so very clearnot a good faith exercise in advising the attorney general or the President. Trump, after all, had already made his decision, and Rosenstein clearly knew that. He met with the President on Monday, after all, along with Sessions. What happened at that meeting? The president asked that they put their concerns and recommendations in writing, which is the letter that you all had received, said White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders a little too candidly,the Washington Post reports. So Rosenstein was simply memorializing his concerns about Comeys handling of months-old matters in a document he knew would be used for political ends. In this context, the deployment of the obviously pretextual rationale that Democrats had previously embraced is not the conduct of a deputy attorney general but, well, something you might expect from Sarah Huckabee Sanders or Sean Spicer. Did Rosenstein think he would fool anyone? How does a person of honor write such a weak document at the Presidents request in support of a decision already made?

Second, Rosensteins memo wasnt decent. If youre going to recommend that someone be fired, you should have the decency to pick up the phone and give him a chance to address the substantive matters that form the basis of your recommendation. You should particularly do that if you know that the document youve written is likely to become public. And you should even more particularly do it if youre making your recommendation knowing that youre short-circuiting an inspector general investigation of the subjects handling of precisely the matters that form the basis of your memo. (So you dont think Im being hypocritical here, I emailed Rosenstein before publishing this article, offering to share to the draft with him and to discuss the matters at issue.)

The memo was also cowardly. Rosenstein doesn't even take responsibility for the recommendation he was plainly making. He has, quite bizarrely in my view, gotten credit for this in some quarters, with some observers suggesting that perhaps he stopped short of explicitly recommending the firing because he, in fact, had no intention of precipitating that event when he wrote the memo.

Please.

Rosenstein has been around the block in this town too many time not to know exactly what he was doing when he wrote this.

His omission actually cuts in the opposite direction. If he did not want Comey to be fired, he should have written a memo explaining how Comey had erred and why those errors did not in his view amount to a firing offense. Conversely, if he believed that Comey needed to go, he should have had the courage to make that view explicit. Except, of course, that as Trump has now told us, Rosenstein wasnt actually giving advice at all. He was filling in some blanks on a preprinted form. The decision had already been made. The recommendation, such as it was, was retroactive.

Nor is it quite true that Rosenstein did not recommend Comeys firing, except in the very limited sense that he did not write the words, I recommend that you fire Jim Comey. Heres what he did write: The FBI is unlikely to regain public and congressional trust until it has a Director who understands the gravity of the mistakes and pledges never to repeat them. Having refused to admit his errors, the Director cannot be expected to implement the necessary corrective actions. Stopping just short of explicitness in order to retain some marginally plausible deniability was not an honorable course. It was an excercise in Washington CYA, and it compounds the indecency of the episode.

In the end, Trump was able to make set piece out of Rosenstein, because Rosenstein let himself be used as a set piece. And theres an important lesson in that for the many honorable men and women with pending appointments and nominations to serve in senior levels of the Justice Departmentor who are considering accepting such appointments. It took Donald Trump only two weeks to put Rosenstein, a figure of sterling reputation, in the position of choosing between continued service and behaving honorablyand it took only two days after that for the President to announce that Rosensteins memo, after all, was nothing more than a Potemkin village designed as a facade on Trumps predecided outcome.

Do you really want this to be you? Do you really think Trump will not leave your reputation as so much roadkill on the highway after enlisting you in sliming someone else a week or two after you take office?

The lesson here is that these are not honorable people, and they will do their best to drag you down to their level. They will often succeed.

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Et Tu Rod? Why The Deputy Attorney General Must Resign - Lawfare (blog)

An early morning dance party created in New York, now in Austin provides an alternative to the nightlife scene.

Jay Wallis, KVUE 7:27 AM. CDT May 12, 2017

Americans have been considered to be some of the most overworked people in the entire world -- giving up certain relaxation time -- to get work done. However, there is a new outlet that just arrived in Austin that can help people kickstart their work day in a weird way.

Radha Magrawal lives in New York and started to get tired of the nightlife scene through time as well as the negative qualities that are associated with it.

"We were sort of overcome by how nightlife had gotten overrun by drugs and alcohol and everyone on their cell phones," Magrawal said. "We wanted to create something that was clean. Something that was community driven."

So Magrawal and a friend created Daybreaker in 2013. This is an early morning dance party that provides the same energy, music and dancing as a club -- but starting at 6 a.m.

"It's really pure fun," Magrawal said. "We've become so segmented, and our goal is to really bring back the intergenerational communities."

These dance parties are alcohol-free and also are supported by local artists and musicians from wherever Daybreaker takes its services. Eli Clark-Davis works for Daybreaker with Magrawal in New York City, and he said this also provides a safer atmosphere for those people who like to dance.

"People are really embracing it around the country," Clark-Davis said. "This all just came from the frustration of nightlife. There are a lot of people that don't feel confident going out there. There is going to be a lot of creepy things going on, as well as just unsafe. We've created a space where people can fully express themselves and get completey into it.

Clark-Davis also brings up the fact that Magrawal and her team looked into the science behind starting your day in a positive way. They call it the "Daybreaker Dose." They say your body releases your brain's natural "happy chemicals" through this early morning dancing, which consists of dopamine (getting up early), oxytocin (receiving hugs), serotonin (upbeat music) and endorphins (excercise from dancing).

"People end up dancing harder here than they do on a Saturday night," Clark-Davis said.

For Magrawal, as her company continues to expand well beyond New York City, she hopes to see the makeup of people at these parties continue to be diverse.

"Let's stop calling ourselves Millennials, Generation X, Generation Z or Generation Y," Magrawal said. "We are all the same thing here."

Magrawal plans to schedule a Daybreaker party once a month in Austin, as it debuted Wednesday, May 10. To learn more about the next Daybreaker event, you can visit daybreaker.com.

2017 KVUE-TV

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Early morning dance party lands in Austin - KVUE

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Police, legal authorities go an extra mile to unite mentally-challenged man with family The Hindu It's after more than three years that Nohar Bhog from Chattisgarh saw his mentally-challenged, 25-year-old elder brother Javaharalal Bhog in the Seon Ashram in Gandebagilu in Belthangady on Friday. They hugged each other and were overwhelmed to see ...

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Police, legal authorities go an extra mile to unite mentally-challenged man with family - The Hindu