The NCAA tournaments, men and women, have begun. March Madness we call it. Madness is the right word so far this year. Some crazy upsets and games.
(CNN) — To say the past year has been a difficult one for people across the globe is something of an understatement.
Not only has the Covid-19 pandemic resulted in the deaths of over 2.6 million people worldwide, it's also led to a massive shake up in everyday life for many of us.
But despite the devastating events of the last 12 months and the resulting decline in mental health in a number of destinations, there's been no change at the top spot when it comes to ranking the happiest country in the world.
For the fourth year running, Finland has come out on top in the annual list powered by data from the Gallup World Poll, with Denmark, Switzerland, Iceland and the Netherlands following in second, third, fourth and fifth position respectively.
"We need urgently to learn from Covid-19," said report co-editor Jeffrey Sachs, professor and director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University.
"The pandemic reminds us of our global environmental threats, the urgent need to cooperate, and the difficulties of achieving cooperation in each country and globally."
CHICAGO — A gas giveaway sponsored by Chicago businessman Willie Wilson caused gridlock around the city Thursday morning.
Wilson gave away $200,000 in fuel at 10 different gas stations throughout the city.
Starting at 7 a.m., each vehicle received $50 in gas until $200,000 was exhausted — which ended out being about three hours.
The giveaway was at the following gas stations:
Amstar — 368 E. Garfield Blvd.
Citgo —9155 S. Stony Island
Marathon — 1839 E. 95th St.
Citgo — 1345 N. Pulaski Rd.
Gulf — 9901 S. Halsted St.
Mobil — 2800 S. Kedzie Ave.
Amoco — 7201 N. Clark St.
BP — 4359 N. Pulaski Rd.
Marathon — 340 S. Sacramento Blvd.
Falcon — 43 N. Homan Ave.
Some vehicles started lining up around 2 a.m. at some locations, eventually causing gridlock.
Traffic was at a standstill near the CITGO gas station at 91st Street and Stony Island Avenue. Northbound Stony Island was a disaster with drivers blocking the road as they attempted to get in the line for gas, causing delays back to the Bishop Ford.
Byrd breaks genuinely new ground by offering a theology of gender based in the Song of Songs (also known as Song of Solomon), in keeping with the long history of Christian interpretation that sees this book as an allegory of the relationship between Christ and the church. In the theology she articulates, men and women’s embodied existence point all of us to truths about who God is and who we are. It means something to be male or to be female, in ways we can lean into. But it does not mean men rule over women, and it does not mean men or women should conform to a set of stereotypical traits.
Byrd begins by highlighting the problem with the meaning of maleness and femaleness articulated by contemporary complementarian theology. In one of the founding documents of the movement, Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood (1991), John Piper defines masculinity and femininity:
“At the heart of mature masculinity is a sense of benevolent responsibility to lead, provide for and protect women in ways appropriate to a man’s differing relationships. At the heart of mature femininity is a freeing disposition to affirm, receive, and nurture strength and leadership from worthy men in ways appropriate to a woman’s differing relationships.”
Mike Bird points to a hit piece on her:
Have you ever encountered an ex-husband who keeps sending his ex-wife angry text messages and keeps complaining to wider family members about how awful his ex-wife is, how everybody should hate her and shun her, because, you know she left him? The fact that he did not treat her kindly is beside the point, she left him, and so she should never have to stop paying for it. Yes, it is sadly all too common.
Sorry if that triggers any women out there who have experienced this kind of harassment, but I find this analogy best explains the strange fixation that CBMW has with my friend Aimee Byrd.
Over at CBMW, Colin Smothers points out that Aimee Byrd once wrote an article for Reformation21 where she said that preaching sermons was not the “calling” of women, even if women can still be teachers in the world, church, and home.
The reason Smothers brings out this blast from the past is because Aimee recently preached her first Sunday sermon at Covenant Baptist Church in Shepherdstown, West Virginia. Her flip-flop on women preaching is doubly worse because she preached in a Southern Baptist Church! This means that Aimee’s theological threat level has been upgraded from tribal defector to denominational saboteur!
Smothers is not content to leave it there, but points out that I, Aimee’s partner in theological gender crime, have committed the same treasonous offense of changing our minds about women and ministry and gender roles in the church.
Scientists have found and filmed one of the greatest ever undiscovered shipwrecks 107 years after it sank.
The Endurance, the lost vessel of Antarctic explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton, was found at the weekend at the bottom of the Weddell Sea.
The ship was crushed by sea-ice and sank in 1915, forcing Shackleton and his men to make an astonishing escape on foot and in small boats.
Video of the remains show Endurance to be in remarkable condition.
Even though it has been sitting in 3km (10,000ft) of water for over a century, it looks just like it did on the November day it went down.
Its timbers, although disrupted, are still very much together, and the name - Endurance - is clearly visible on the stern. [HT: DM]
Do masks affect skill development?
Masks can obscure a smile, muffle a voice, and make lip reading impossible.
But those are minor obstacles to human interaction, says Lindsay Yazzolino, who is blind.
"It's interesting to me how face-seeing is considered to be the be-all and end-all in so many contexts," she says.
That's why Yazzolino says she is puzzled by the current debate over masks in the classroom.
Some parents express worry that masks might interfere with children's ability to learn or to socialize. Other parents fear that unmasking will lead to more COVID-19 cases.
Amid the debate, a small but growing body of research is offering hints that masks do not have a significant impact on speech or social skills.
Some of that research involves people like Yazzolino, who are blind. Their ability to master language and social skills shows that the human brain is really good at finding a way to communicate.
Yazzolino, an accessible-technology consultant, has been blind since birth. But she went to school with sighted kids.
"I always had a really great experience in school," she says. "I had a lot of really supportive teachers, I was reading at an early age. I loved math and science."
She relied on braille to read and write. And it was hard for her to get some course materials in that format.
But social interactions were never a problem, she says.
"You hear emotion in people's voices, so I definitely used that as a cue," she says. "And I talk to people."
Pretty hard to hide that theft:
CHILTON, Ala. (AP) — An Alabama man who called a wrecker service asking to have a 70-ton crane pulled out of the woods is now charged with stealing the heavy machinery, sheriff’s officials said.
The owner of a towing service contacted the Chilton County Sheriff’s Office on Monday, saying the man had called claiming someone gave him the crane, and he wanted it removed so he could sell it for scrap, the agency said in a statement.
The wrecker service owner recalled moving the same crane a few years before and contacted its owner, who denied having given it away. The towing operator then called law enforcement. The man who wanted the crane moved fled before officers arrived, driving the rig into a ditch where it became stuck.
The 26-year-old Clanton man was arrested Tuesday on a probation violation and first-degree theft charges. Court records didn’t include the name of a defense attorney who could speak on Mims’ behalf.
Scot, you could have been describing a dear friend of mine who after 42 years of continuous criticism (turning everything upside-down and inside-out), finally came to see that God would allow her to file for divorce. That's another aspect of the issue for Christian women locked in abusive marriages. They continue to endure endless abuse because they do not want to do anything contrary to God's "will." I suspect it's easier for non-Christian women to get out of a sick and harmful marriage than it is for godly women enduring constant abuse because they don't see any way out that does not violate what they've been taught about "God's will." SIGH.
“This means that Aimee’s theological threat level has been upgraded from tribal defector to denominational saboteur!“
#QuoteOfTheWeek 💜