Tulane University - Project creates expanded access to history of free people of color
The Louisiana Research Collection at Tulane University will share a $194,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities for the project “”Free People of Color in Louisiana: Revealing an Unknown Past.” The project will digitize and provide free public access online to family papers, business records, and public documents pertaining to free people of color in Louisiana and the lower Mississippi Valley.
If you missed any of the #ComedyFest live-stream with Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner and Judd Apatow, you can watch the entire event here.
Today’s #ComedyFest events continue at 7pm EST / 4pm PST with the Workaholics guys doing a Q&A on Twitter. Tweet your questions to @ADAMDEVINE, @UncleBlazer, @Ders808 and @KyleNewacheck using #ComedyFest.
Then at 8pm EST / 5pm PST, watch an episode of Key & Peele while @KeeganMKey and @JordanPeele tweet along.
As always, be sure to follow @ComedyCentral for all things #ComedyFest!
Allan Savory: How to green the world’s deserts and reverse climate change
Not at all what I expected. For just over half his talk, Savory discusses the issue of desertification, which many of you are familiar with. He (like many others) makes the case for restoring these deserts.
Then, in the last six minutes, he completely blows everyone’s minds. You just gotta see it.
![theatlantic:
How Cuban Villagers Learned They Descended From Sierra Leone Slaves
They were adamant about going all out. People who sing the village’s songs—melodies and rhythms that tie them to this inaccessible chiefdom — are considered family. “Our grandparents who told us the stories about our people going as slaves, we know now that they didn’t lie,” says Joe Allie, an elder of the village and Pokawa’s uncle.
“These must be our people,” says Solomon Musa, a young man who works as a teacher in the village, “when we saw the people who practice the same things we used to do, we were so happy, we are full of joy.”
Read more. [Image: They Are We]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/4bc00ead7217c62733da6ad83d2b1144/tumblr_mlpr24OnUA1qcokc4o1_500.jpg)
How Cuban Villagers Learned They Descended From Sierra Leone Slaves
They were adamant about going all out. People who sing the village’s songs—melodies and rhythms that tie them to this inaccessible chiefdom — are considered family. “Our grandparents who told us the stories about our people going as slaves, we know now that they didn’t lie,” says Joe Allie, an elder of the village and Pokawa’s uncle.
“These must be our people,” says Solomon Musa, a young man who works as a teacher in the village, “when we saw the people who practice the same things we used to do, we were so happy, we are full of joy.”
Read more. [Image: They Are We]
![newsweek:
What BP Doesn’t Want You To Know About The 2012 Gulf Oil Spill
“It’s as safe as Dawn dishwashing liquid.”
That’s what Jamie Griffin says the BP man told her about the smelly, rainbow-streaked gunk coating the floor of the “floating hotel” where Griffin was feeding hundreds of cleanup workers during the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Apparently, the workers were tracking the gunk inside on their boots. Griffin, as chief cook and maid, was trying to clean it. But even boiling water didn’t work.
“The BP representative said, ‘Jamie, just mop it like you’d mop any other dirty floor,’” Griffin recalls in her Louisiana drawl.
It was the opening weeks of what everyone, echoing President Barack Obama, was calling “the worst environmental disaster in American history.” At 9:45 p.m. local time on April 20, 2010, a fiery explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig had killed 11 workers and injured 17. One mile underwater, the Macondo well had blown apart, unleashing a gusher of oil into the gulf. At risk were fishing areas that supplied one third of the seafood consumed in the U.S., beaches from Texas to Florida that drew billions of dollars’ worth of tourism to local economies, and Obama’s chances of reelection. Republicans were blaming him for mishandling the disaster, his poll numbers were falling, even his 11-year-old daughter was demanding, “Daddy, did you plug the hole yet?”
Griffin did as she was told: “I tried Pine-Sol, bleach, I even tried Dawn on those floors.” As she scrubbed, the mix of cleanser and gunk occasionally splashed onto her arms and face.
Within days, the 32-year-old single mother was coughing up blood and suffering constant headaches. She lost her voice. “My throat felt like I’d swallowed razor blades,” she says.
Then things got much worse.
Like hundreds, possibly thousands, of workers on the cleanup, Griffin soon fell ill with a cluster of excruciating, bizarre, grotesque ailments. By July, unstoppable muscle spasms were twisting her hands into immovable claws. In August, she began losing her short-term memory. After cooking professionally for 10 years, she couldn’t remember the recipe for vegetable soup; one morning, she got in the car to go to work, only to discover she hadn’t put on pants. The right side, but only the right side, of her body “started acting crazy. It felt like the nerves were coming out of my skin. It was so painful. My right leg swelled—my ankle would get as wide as my calf—and my skin got incredibly itchy.”
[Photo: Benjamin Lowy/Getty]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/705ef3e02b7b954bb9539d01e65fdc81/tumblr_mlnznszc2w1qzs5cqo1_500.jpg)
What BP Doesn’t Want You To Know About The 2012 Gulf Oil Spill
“It’s as safe as Dawn dishwashing liquid.”
That’s what Jamie Griffin says the BP man told her about the smelly, rainbow-streaked gunk coating the floor of the “floating hotel” where Griffin was feeding hundreds of cleanup workers during the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Apparently, the workers were tracking the gunk inside on their boots. Griffin, as chief cook and maid, was trying to clean it. But even boiling water didn’t work.
“The BP representative said, ‘Jamie, just mop it like you’d mop any other dirty floor,’” Griffin recalls in her Louisiana drawl.
It was the opening weeks of what everyone, echoing President Barack Obama, was calling “the worst environmental disaster in American history.” At 9:45 p.m. local time on April 20, 2010, a fiery explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig had killed 11 workers and injured 17. One mile underwater, the Macondo well had blown apart, unleashing a gusher of oil into the gulf. At risk were fishing areas that supplied one third of the seafood consumed in the U.S., beaches from Texas to Florida that drew billions of dollars’ worth of tourism to local economies, and Obama’s chances of reelection. Republicans were blaming him for mishandling the disaster, his poll numbers were falling, even his 11-year-old daughter was demanding, “Daddy, did you plug the hole yet?”
Griffin did as she was told: “I tried Pine-Sol, bleach, I even tried Dawn on those floors.” As she scrubbed, the mix of cleanser and gunk occasionally splashed onto her arms and face.
Within days, the 32-year-old single mother was coughing up blood and suffering constant headaches. She lost her voice. “My throat felt like I’d swallowed razor blades,” she says.
Then things got much worse.
Like hundreds, possibly thousands, of workers on the cleanup, Griffin soon fell ill with a cluster of excruciating, bizarre, grotesque ailments. By July, unstoppable muscle spasms were twisting her hands into immovable claws. In August, she began losing her short-term memory. After cooking professionally for 10 years, she couldn’t remember the recipe for vegetable soup; one morning, she got in the car to go to work, only to discover she hadn’t put on pants. The right side, but only the right side, of her body “started acting crazy. It felt like the nerves were coming out of my skin. It was so painful. My right leg swelled—my ankle would get as wide as my calf—and my skin got incredibly itchy.”
[Photo: Benjamin Lowy/Getty]
In America, there might be better gastronomic destinations than New Orleans, but there is no place more uniquely wonderful. So I would say New Orleans. With the best restaurants in New York, you’ll find something similar to it in Paris or Copenhagen or Chicago. But there is no place like New Orleans. So it’s a must see city because there’s no explaining it, no describing it. You can’t compare it to anything. So, far and away New Orleans.
This is going around as a .gif set, but I’m a video man — here’s the question of a zombie attack coming up in the Canadian House of Commons.
For the first time scientists have printed human embryonic stem cells using a 3D printer.
The Heriot-Watt University team’s research could eventually lead to human organs being printed on demand and an end to animal drug testing. Jim Drury of Reuters reports.Not possible to understand this. Mind blowing.
DEANDRE JORDAN IS THE UNDERTAKER
Check out the full GIF here.
This wins.
Mic drop.
