April 13, Voter Registration & Info at Merchant

Friday, April 13, 2018
Voter Registration & Info at Merchant 

6 to 8 pm
Wondering how to register online and vote from abroad? 
Don't know when your state is holding primaries?
Lost the address of your county registrar?
Volunteers will be on hand to answer questions, provide forms,
and help you connect with online resources.

Friday, April 13 at Merchant Pub
6 to 8 pm (possibly longer if needed)

Already registered?
Stop in to show your support!

​STOP, LOOK, LISTEN! by Kathy Sherretts

Just the facts, Ma'am.
A news site launched this week with the mission of delivering coverage of important news stories free of bias.
Knowhere News uses artificial intelligence (AI) to choose a story based on what’s popular on the internet right now, then compiles its own “impartial” version of the story using the most basic facts from more than a thousand news sources. It also presents a left- and right-biased version of each piece, demonstrating how word selection and emphasis can produce biased reporting. The site is not searchable, probably because it is too new to have assembled much of an archive yet; and since it aggregates only trending stories, it won't help gauge the veracity of random weird factoids like Ryan Zinke's commemorative coins. As Kristin Houser writes in this Futurism article, "Impartiality is Knowhere’s selling point, so if you think it sounds like a site you want to visit, you’re probably someone who already values impartiality in news... You aren’t the problem." 
Kathy Sherretts

Podcast:
NPR: Madeleine Albright Warns: Don't Let Fascism Go 'Unnoticed Until It's Too Late' (36 min)
The United States has traditionally been viewed as a nation that opposes authoritarianism and supports democratic principles and human rights, but that perception is changing.
"What Trump is doing is making America seem like a victim. Everything is somebody else's fault: Countries are taking advantage of us, the Mexicans are sending drug dealers, countries are not paying their dues, the trading system is unfair..."

Article:
GQ Magazine: Patagonia vs. Donald Trump by Rosecrans Baldwin
U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources sent out an e-mail with the subject line “Patagonia: don't buy it.” This wasn't just Trump whining on Twitter. The federal government basically called for the boycott of a privately held company—provoking a former director of the Office of Government Ethics to label the action “a bizarre and dangerous departure from civic norms.”

Article:
New York Times: ‘It Has to Be Perfect’: Putting Out a Yearbook After the Parkland Shooting by Patricia Mazzei and Sam Hodgson
The Times followed the yearbook staff as they chose photographs, laid out pages, and made the painstaking decisions on how to best honor the students and staff who had died. The 452-page yearbook is scheduled to be published in May.

Just for fun, a two-minute video from the WTF Department.

As the person who posted this video commented: "Did they realize what they were singing?! Gail Farrell and Dick Dale sing Brewer and Shipley's song 'One Toke Over The Line,' on The Lawrence Welk Show. Lawrence describes this song as a "modern spiritual". Ummm, okay, I guess so, 'technically"'...

For more ways to take action check out the action plan put together by PAGE (Progressive Action Global Exchange), and Americans of Conscience; read the last blog post by Indivisible; or you can always watch the four sessions of the Fall 2017 series of the Resistance School, Leadership: Story, Structure, Strategy.
​

TAX DAY: HOLD YOUR MOC ACCOUNTABLE FOR THE TAX SCAM ON APRIL 17