Breakfast of Champions

Born in 1731 to freed slaves on a farm in Baltimore, Maryland, Benjamin Banneker was obsessed with math and science. And his appetite for knowledge only grew as he taught himself astronomy, mathematics, engineering, and the study of the natural world. As an adult, he used astronomy to accurately predict lunar and solar events, like the solar eclipse of 1789, and used his scientific expertise to pioneer new agricultural methods on his family’s tobacco farm. 

In 1792, Banneker began publishing almanacs. He was among the first Americans, and the first African-American, to publish almanacs. These provided detailed annual information on moon and sun cycles, weather forecasts, and planting and tidal time tables.

Banneker sent a handwritten copy of his first almanac to Virginia’s Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson. This was a decade before Jefferson became president. Jefferson read the almanac and wrote back in praise of Banneker’s work. 

Banneker included a letter imploring Jefferson to “embrace every opportunity to eradicate that train of absurd and false ideas and opinions” that caused prejudice against black people. The letter also denounced the Bill of Rights as disingenuous. Banneker questioned the rationale of the imperialistic position taken by the Founding Fathers, especially in light of their rebellion against the tyranny imposed on them by England as settlers seeking a better life in America.

Banneker’s correspondence with the future president is now considered to be one of the first documented examples of a civil rights protest letter in America. For the rest of his life, Banneker fought for this cause, sharing his opposition to slavery through his writing.

Banneker, in his debut almanac of 1792 , was the first to recommend the establishment of a U.S. Department of Peace. It wasn’t until nearly two hundred years later that the U.S. Institute of Peace was established by Congressional authorization in 1984. The organization acknowledges Banneker for his role as the pioneering agent of this idea and states:

The first formal proposal for the establishment of an official U.S. government peace institution dates to 1792. The product of efforts by architect and publisher Benjamin Banneker and physician and educator Dr. Benjamin Rush. The proposal called for establishing a “Peace Office” on equal footing with the War Department – noting the importance to the welfare of the United States of “an office for promoting and preserving perpetual peace in our country.

From the TED-Ed Lesson The exceptional life of Benjamin Banneker - Rose-Margaret Ekeng-Itua

These are a few moments from a great new animation published by our friends in NPR’s Global Health department (http://nprglobalhealth.tumblr.com/). It’s Part 1 of their new series on pandemics.

Watch the entire video here.

In May 1939, as the Nazis were tightening their chokehold on Europe, the United States government rejected the SS St. Louis, a German passenger vessel carrying 937 refugees who were trying to dock at the Port of Miami.

Almost all of those refugees were Jews fleeing violence in Germany and Eastern Europe, according to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. The ship was eventually forced to return to Europe, where 254 of its passengers were killed.

Sip your hot chocolate in style this season with a free W|A mug! 

I was meeting friends for coffee. I heard the missile coming towards me, though I didn’t see it. I sprinted towards a nearby building. I wasn’t fast enough.

 During the bombing raids, I stay in my room — it’s not worth the effort to go downstairs. This house only has three floors, and the missiles they are using tear right through buildings to the ground. I can’t sleep. All the doors here are broken now and the building next to mine was destroyed. The roads are closed. I don’t know how, but I’ll try to leave the house.

PBS: Police deploy water hoses, tear gas against Standing Rock protesters

Deutsche Bank (x) Deutsche Bank is a private German bank to which Donald Trump owes hundreds of millions of dollars, however they’re also in litigation with the Department of Justice over illegal mortgage deals.  Billions of dollars are on the table and any settlement could wipe out Deutsche Bank.  Meanwhile, the folks who run the Department of Justice will be selected by Donald Trump.

Trump International in DC (x) Trump has a lease with the government for this property and one of the clauses of the lease prohibits him from holding government office.  Far from trying to rectify the situation, Trump’s team actually organized an event for foreign leaders and diplomats to pitch the Trump International as a way for those diplomats to curry favor with the new President. 

National Labor Relations Board (x) Workers at one of Trump’s properties in Las Vegas voted to organize themselves into a union, but the Trump organization refused to recognize that vote.  The NLRB sided with the workers, ruling that Trump violated their rights.  Trump now gets to staff the NLRB. 

Bank of China (x) Trump also owes the Chinese government hundreds of millions of dollars through the Bank of China.  Another government-run bank, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, rents space in Trump Tower.  After so much talk about China during his campaign, his entire administration has been silent on any economic policy toward China now that he’s been elected because obviously he’s going to want his debt reduced in exchange for favorable trade regulations.

Blind Trust (x) Donald Trump – who doesn’t really know what a blind trust is – said he would be fine handing the reins of his company over to his children if he was elected and he’d have nothing to do with his business organization.  I wouldn’t ever be involved because I wouldn’t care about anything but our country, anything.  This is Ivanka and her husband sitting in on Trump’s first meeting with the Japanese Prime Minister.

His kids are part of his transition team into the White House, the kids who are supposed to be running his business that has no overlap with Trump’s running of the country.

Politics has always been a game of you scratch mine, I’ll scratch yours, and there’s no reason Donald Trump would be any different.  The problem is, he’s scratching all over the planet in his own self-interest toward becoming richer and it will absolutely be at the expense of the American people.  For some reason (::coughracismcough::), poor white people decided to believe this man who has spent thirty years cheating the little guy whenever he could suddenly cares about the average American cashing a 40-hour paycheck.  Obviously that’s not the case,  and reporting on it just means the media is crooked.

Prior to the election it was well known that I have interests in properties all over the world.Only the crooked media makes this a big deal!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 22, 2016

It’s a big deal because it’s a big deal.  Reporting on it isn’t crooked.  The situation itself is.  And the ultimate con-man is out here grinning all the way to the bank.