This picture has gone viral as thousands of people deliver searing indictments of both smartphones and teens.

I’ve met a couple of teens. I’ve had a couple smartphones. Could these teens be playing Angry Birds or texting stupid jokes to each other? Yeah, they could.

But they could also be googling provenance for that painting or taking a second to text a friend about how amazing the museum is or completing an assignment given off-screen by someone standing just beside the photographer. They could be taking notes about the palette choice so that later they turn into a generation of artists that take your breath away.

Women have been a leading force in sanitation strikes, calling for equal treatment and job security. This particular service industry has been the focus of multiple feminist manifestos and employment goals. Women fought long and hard to gain the right to work in sanitation, and they’re continuing that effort to open up the field more. This issue is so big that Parks and Rec even made an episode about it. 

Female sewer workers have repeatedly sued the DEP for unfair treatment, seeking to open up the industry and gain equal status with their male peers. Sewer work is often targeted for its biased hiring practices. Hundreds of female candidates fight for limited available positions, but most are turned away, despite having the necessary experience and skills. Feminist workers recognize that these women are willing and able to do the work, but aren’t getting the opportunity to gain employment here. 

Historically, coal mining is one of the most highly targeted careers for gender bias. Women have been petitioning for the opportunity to mine safely since the Industrial Revolution. This is actually one of the primary and best studied examples of women fighting to enter traditionally male fields. Lots of women, who both succeeded in the mines and didn’t, continue to petition for increased access to this field. 

And yeah, women want white collar jobs too. Go figure - A diverse population of women, with different abilities, interests and levels of education, are all fighting for the right to seek diverse forms of employment. Fighting for equality in one sphere doesn’t mean that we’ve forgotten about the others. 

For any non-Aussies out there, Karl Stefanovic is a pretty beloved TV presenter on the morning show “Today”. He’s created many hilarious TV moments like eating the world’s hottest pie, losing his shit over grumpy cat, the conversation about the long stabby thing - and there was also that time where he told a bad pun Dalai Llama joke TO the Dalai Llama. 

Well today he revealed that (as a comment on sexism in the media) he has been wearing the same suit on air every day for a year with nobody noticing. He started doing it deliberately after seeing the backlash that his female co-hosts would constantly get over their appearances. 

Black Girls Code

This month’s WIRED cover features 12-year-old Paloma Noyola Bueno, currently the top ranking student in México. This cover story filled me with joy and not because it’s focused on poverty in borderlands and autodidactism (although that’s definitely a plus), but because it’s heartening to know that there is people like Sergio Juárez Correa creating contrast in education in Mexico, especially in poverty-stricken areas that don’t have a lot of resources. Juárez Correa, tired of ineffective teaching methods and fruitless results, began to research new teaching methods and came across Sugata Mitra’s methods on self-directed learning. Mitra is best known for his experiments in India where he left computers for children to use and “without any instruction, they were able to teach themselves a surprising variety of things, from DNA replication to English.”

With the first trial of self-directed learning lessons, Juárez Correa, not only was able to bring down the national standardized exam fail rates (from 45 percent in math to 7 percent and 31 percent in Spanish to 3.5 percent), but he was able to bring his students to the top of the math and Spanish rankings in Mexico. He also didn’t just lead self-directed learning in math and Spanish, but in other topics including controversial topics.

Juárez Correa began hosting regular debates in class, and he didn’t shy away from controversial topics. He asked the kids if they thought homosexuality and abortion should be permitted. He asked them to figure out what the Mexican government should do, if anything, about immigration to the US. Once he asked a question, he would stand back and let them engage one another.

The article has great studies that have been done on self-directed learning. You can read the article here.

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver pretty much nails the television news media’s treatment of the climate change (non)debate.

Come for the Bill Nye cameo, stay for the overwhelming weight of scientific evidence and universal consensus showing that man-made climate change is real and happening now.

Bill Nye to CNN: “The two sides aren’t equal’ on climate change

Science educator Bill Nye on Monday told CNN that they weren’t doing the public any favors by giving climate change deniers equal airtime because ‘the two sides aren’t equal.”

“There are a couple of things that you can’t really dispute,” Nye explained to CNN’s Carol Costello. “Sixteen of the last 17 years have been the hottest years on record. That’s just how it is.”

“I appreciate that we want to show two sides of the stories — there’s a tradition in journalism that goes back quite a ways, I guess — but the two sides aren’t equal here. You have tens of thousands of scientists who are very concerned and you have a few people who are in business of equating or drawing attention to the idea that uncertainty is the same as doubt. When you have a plus or minus percentage, that’s not the same thing as not believing the whole thing at all.”

The Washington Post noted on Sunday that scientists had been warning for years that because of warming weather and severe droughts, Colorado’s “table was set” for monster wildfires like the ones currently sweeping through the state.

“It is because of the heat ultimately,” Nye told Costello. “Just two years ago, it was was wet in Colorado and there was a lot of growth in forests. And then you can say they should have responsibly cleared that growth — it’s a difficult thing. So then two years later when it’s especially dry and the forest flora gets especially dry and then there’s a lightening strike, the fire is that much more intense than it would have been.”

“But the people who are politicizing this issue, they seem to be winning because not much is being done on the issue of climate change,” Costello pointed out.

“If you’re a voter consider taking the environment into account as well as the economy,” Nye advised. “I think the two candidates running for president right now have different views about the validity, for example, of science and the importance of it and what you would do about climate change in the coming years.”

“We in the science education community chip away at this problem all the time. We have an enormous population of people in the United States that don’t believe in evolution, the fundamental idea in all of life science. It would be like saying, I don’t believe in earthquakes or something. The analogies are disturbing.”

Earlier this year, a Media Matters analysis determined that coverage of climate change had dropped by 80 percent on U.S. broadcast networks between 2008 and 2011.

PLEASE  WATCH THIS VIDEO. IT’S VERY IMPORTANT. 

So everyone knows Sam Pepper has been sexually assaulting women in public “for a joke”. Then he claimed it was all set up, but I think we all know that’s bullshit.

After all of this went viral, women who have been abused by him began to voice out. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Wgviv47pBc -In this video, a girl named Dottie explained her experience.

ARTIST OF THE WEEK: THIS MIGHTY ART

Here it it! The post you all been waiting for. This week’s interview with Juliette Medina Lopez.

Here’s this week’s “ARTIST INTERVIEW” with the delightful agentsoftherealm.

I encourage all of you to check her out and read up on the latest page of her webcomic. It’s pretty sweet!

And please, please reblog this! Spread the word about wonderful artists such as Mildred. If you haven’t already read our first Artist Interview featuring thismightyart. You can see that here.

Follow us for more artist interviews posted  weekly and amazing artwork posted daily. You will not be disappointed! And hey, check out our twitter while you’re at it. 

Join us next week, for another artist interview.