Freaky Friday News: February 19, 2016

Justice Antonin Gregory Scalia Died This Week

Associate Justice Antonin Scalia of the U.S. Supreme Court died during the night between February 12 and 13th.  A conservative member of the Court known for his support of presidential powers and a more literal interpretation of the U.S. Constitution, Scalia's death leaves a hole in the Supreme Court at a time when several key issues are up for debate.

While my personal belief system did not line up with Justice Scalia's, I still respected the man for his work and his opinion.  I've read several tribute to Scalia this week, but the one presented by Stephen Colbert actually sums up  my feelings on the matter rather nicely.

Goodbye, Antonin Scalia.  The world misses you.

A 5-Year-Old Saves Her Blind Grandmother from a House Fire

This past Wednesday morning, Chloe Woods and her grandmother, 76 year-old Claudia Arceneaux,

Chloe Woods, age 5

were asleep while Chloe's mother dropped off her siblings at school.  The smoke alarm went off, waking Chloe up to a house full of smoke.  Remembering her preschool's class trip to a fire station, Chloe knew to get out of the house.

She also knew that her blind grandmother needed help.

So Chloe woke her grandmother up and lead her out of the burning house with the family dog, Coco, following along.  She didn't even let her grandmother stop to get shoes.

Good job, little girl!  You are definitely a hero!

If you want to help Chloe, her preschool, Our Lady of Perpetual Help,  put up a GoFundMe page to raise money to replace the objects lost to the fire.

Time for Yosemite's Firefall

Every year during the middle to end of February, Horseshoe Falls in Yosemite look as though the water has turned to lava during sunset.  

This phenomena is the result of the angle of the sun, though there needs to be enough water and clear skies for firefall to occur.

If the weather is too cold for the snow to melt, or the sky is cloudy, then the waterfalls just looks like a waterfall.

Wordless Wednesday: Baby Gotham Bat

Happy Valentine's Day!

#CodedWithLove

Wordless Wednesday: Snow Skull

Death in our Community

This past weekend, a student from my son's high school successfully committed suicide.  No, it's not someone I know, or someone that my son even knows.

But that doesn't matter.

The ripples from a suicide go well beyond the grieving family.  All of the people who thought they were this person's close friends now wonder if they missed a sign, wonder if they could have said something that would change the past.  People who knew this kid as a casual friend or an acquaintance wonder the same thing.  And people who don't know this kid now wonder if any of their friends feel depressed enough to try suicide.

His past and present teachers quietly cry in the background, convinced that they could have stopped this, if only...if only they had done something, anything, differently.  School counselors alternate between sadness and rage:  sadness at the senseless death and rage at the system that keeps them so busy with paperwork that it sometimes feels as though they don't have time to be with the kids.

As for us parents, we wonder if we might miss signs with our own kids.  We wonder about our kid's friends who seem depressed, and we worry that someday that kid will just not be around.

With all the crap and drama in the world, it is easy to overlook problems closer to home.  It's easy to say, "Oh, he'll be all right.  It's just a phase."  Or "She's just looking for attention.  If you give it to her, she'll just act out more."

Even if it is a "phase", that doesn't make it hurt any less.  And if someone is feeling so ignored that they act up, ignoring them more is not the answer.

I am angry right now - angry at the way society poo-poos mental health issues and tells people to "get over it" without any knowledge or understanding of what "it" is.  I am angry at the way politicians use mental health as a political tool.  I am angry at how we have a blind spot to things we can't see; injuries to a person's psyche don't exist if we can't see them.

But I'm also incredibly sad - sad that this child thought his life was so worthless that death sounded like the better option.  Now. we'll never know what that life might have become, because it's no more.

Wordless Wednesday: Stained Glass Batman

Freaky Friday News: January 29, 2016

Barbie Gets a Makeover

From Glamour Magazine

After years of criticism and questions about the influence of Barbie, Mattel finally released a new set of Barbie dolls, including Tall, Petite, and Curvy as new body types.  While I applaud the toy company for updating this iconic doll, I wonder if they couldn't have done a bit more.  Why are Tall, Petite, and Curvy exclusive?  Why not have Tall and Curvy or Petite and Curvy?

Also, what happened to the Little People Barbie?  I know that Little People are not the majority in the country, but that doesn't mean that they don't want appropriately sized dolls.

A Vegan Butcher Shop?!??

No, I did not type that wrong.  A brother and sister team, Kale and Aubrey Walch, ran a successful Kickstarter campaign last year to raise money to open a vegan butcher shop in Minneapolis named The Herbivorous Butcher.  In their new shop, the Walch siblings will create meat-free sausages, pepperoni, jerky, and other typically meat-based products.

From The Herbivorous Butcher

I feel a bit divided over this new venture.  While I applaud them for offering meat-less proteins for vegans and vegetarians, I wonder about the name.  It implies that everyone needs meat, which seems contrary to what a lot of vegans I know think.   But I hope that they do well.

Cleaning the Oceans, One Bucket at a Time

Last month, a new-ish venture called Seabin launched an IndieGoGo campaign to raise money to help them clean the oceans.  Seabin creates special buckets that go into harbors, cleaning out the physical rubbish and oily residue from the water, as explained in the diagram below.

From the Indiegogo Campaign

Pete Ceglinski and Andrew Turton, two surfers from Australia, founded the Seabin project over four years ago.  Basing the bucket on skimming systems used to clean aquarium tanks, these men prototyped and perfected this idea in Spain, using local harbors to test out their invention.

Basically, these men want harbors and marinas to buy and use seabins to clean rubbish and oil out of the local water, thereby helping to keep the surrounding waters cleaner.  While this will not rid the Pacific Ocean of its plastic sea, I believe that seabins will make a difference.  And at the moment, I think we need to do all that we can.