Rhiannon Giddens:
Happy Hour: Lee Morgan – Soft Touch…
https://youtu.be/9Mb-IqEo14s
Feelin’ groovy
Simon & Garfunkel:
http://youtu.be/xgRi5QFmEsM
Panhandle Slim… Art for Folk…
Daydream
Lovin’ Spoonful:
How political consultants took a Texas oilman for a ride
A 15-minute walk can stop junk food cravings
What a good man
(RNS) When Pope Francis pays a visit to Naples this Saturday (March 21) he will have lunch with some 90 inmates at a local prison, a contingent that will reportedly include 10 from a section reserved for gay and transgendered prisoners, and those infected with the virus that causes AIDS.
The stopover at the Giuseppe Salvia Detention Center in Poggioreale, near Naples, was originally not scheduled to include lunch, according to a report from Tv2000, an Italian television network operated by the country’s Catholic bishops.
But the pope insisted on the meal, which will be prepared by the prisoners, some of whom will come from two other detention centers. The 90 were chosen by lottery from among 1,900 inmates, according to the Vatican Insider website.
Among the many innovations Francis has made since his election two years ago this month has been a new tone and approach to gay and transgender people.
One of his signature phrases, “Who am I to judge?,” came in response to a question about whether a gay man could be a priest. And in late January he met privately in the Vatican with a transgender man from Spain who had written to Francis about the rejection he was experiencing in his home parish.
Francis has made an outreach to detainees a signature part of his ministry to the “marginalized.” On Holy Thursday next month, he will wash the feet of men and women inmates at a facility near Rome, as he did shortly after his election.
New subpoena to Port Authority
There’s just so much there, I really don’t see how Chris Christie honestly expects to be a presidential contender:
Federal prosecutors issued a new subpoena to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey this week seeking possible evidence of claims New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s administration retaliated against the Democratic mayor of Jersey City.
The subpoena seeks records from a broad range of former authority officials regarding their interactions with Jersey City, according to a person familiar with the matter, including two Christie allies who resigned from the authority amid the George Washington Bridge lane closure scandal, David Wildstein and Bill Baroni.
Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop has said that the Christie administration punished him when he failed to endorse the governor’s reelection in 2013.
Within an hour of his decision not to provide Mr. Christie a coveted endorsement from across the political aisle, Mr. Fulop has said, meetings his administration had scheduled with state commissioners were abruptly canceled.
This is awesome
If you want climate change preparedness money, you have to admit there’s such a thing as climate change! Can’t wait to hear what Fox News does with this one:
In an elegant reply to politicians who aren’t scientists but don’t mind ignoring experts who are, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has come up with a simple solution: States whose governors decide there’s no need to plan for the consequences of a changing climate will no longer qualify for federal grants for emergency preparedness. For climate deniers like Louisiana’s Bobby Jindal, Florida’s Rick Scott, or Texas’s Greg Abbott, it’s a pretty clear opportunity for them to put their coastlines and their populations where their mouths are. Governors who refuse to consider climate in their states’ hazard mitigation plans could lose hundreds of millions of dollars in FEMA money.
The new policy would only apply to grants aimed at disaster preparedness — funding for FEMA assistance following natural disasters would not be affected.
“If a state has a climate denier governor that doesn’t want to accept a plan, that would risk mitigation work not getting done because of politics,” said Becky Hammer, an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council’s water program. “The governor would be increasing the risk to citizens in that state” because of his climate beliefs.