Genevieve Brown documented what it is like to work
from home with kids
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10/26/2020
Science mom’s work-from-home tweet goes viral
SALT LAKE CITY — The first photo shows Gretchen Goldman — who is research director for the Center of Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists and has a Ph.D. in environmental engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology — during a Monday interview with CNN.
She was on air to critique the appointment of David Legates, a University of Delaware professor of climatology, to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Goldman, a scientist and mother of two young boys, appeared in her professional-looking canary yellow blazer and is seated in front of a blanket-covered couch. Vacation photos hang against a cream-painted wall in the background.
The second photo shows the reality of Goldman’s cable news-studio-from-home surroundings. Toys are scattered everywhere. Her computer is resting on a chair stacked atop a coffee table. And the busy mom’s yellow blazer is paired with black shorts and sandals.
Scientist and
mother Gretchen Goldman never expected her message to go viral.
“It’s really neat to see the response,
especially from moms and other parents struggling right now,” she said in a
telephone interview.
Goldman and
her husband — who is also a working scientist — are raising 2- and 4-year-old
boys in their D.C. home. She laughs when she says she and her husband are “just
trying to put out fires” with the two boys at their demanding ages.
“I wanted to be honest about the situation
that we are all struggling with now and make it more visible that parents are
dealing with these challenges right now.”
Goldman hopes
her viral tweet can help normalize the existence of children in workspaces and
the idea that people are caregivers, as well as employees.
The life of a
working parent isn’t easy, but the pandemic has made things more difficult,
Goldman said.
Parents,
especially moms, have the “added challenges and burdens and mental load that is
required to care for kids and also be expected to be in the workforce. And the
way that parents have made that work is by having external support and that’s
been removed in this situation for the pandemic. I think the stress of all of
that really makes parents exhausted by 5 p.m. everyday,” she said.
From Deseret News
10/25/2020
The final 2020 US presidential debate (captions)
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10/19/2020
A French schoolteacher
PALAISEAU,
France (Reuters) - Sylvain Helaine, 35, is a schoolteacher whose body, face and tongue
are covered in tattoos after spending 460 hours under tattooists’ needles.
He says that,
after an initial shock when they see him for the first time, his pupils see
past his appearance.
Last year he
was teaching kindergarten at the Docteur Morer Elementary School in Palaiseau,
a suburb of Paris, when the parents of a three-year-old child complained to
educational authorities. They said their son, who was not taught by Helaine,
had nightmares after seeing him.
A couple of
months ago the school authorities informed him he could no longer teach
kindergarten children since pupils under six “could be frightened by his
appearance”. Anyway, he could teach older kids.
Despite the
setbacks, Helaine will stick with his chosen career. “I’m a primary school
teacher ... I love my job.”
He started getting
tattoos at the age of 27 when, while teaching at a private school in London, he
had an “existential crisis”. Since then, he said, “Getting tattoos is my
passion.”
He hopes to
show his pupils that they should accept people who are different from the norm.
“Maybe when they are adults they will be less racist and less homophobic and
more open-minded,” he said.
From Reuters (edited)
10/11/2020
FinCEN files (captions)
FinCEN is the US Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. These are the people at the US Treasury who combat financial crime. Concerns about transactions made in US dollars need to be sent to FinCEN, even if they take place outside the US.
These documents - Suspicious Activities Reports or SARs - are some of the international banking system's most closely guarded secrets. Banks use them to report suspicious behavior but they are not proof of wrongdoing or crime.
The FinCEN files are more than 2,500 documents, most of which were sent to the US authorities between 2000 and 2017. They raise concerns about what their clients might be doing.
They were leaked to Buzzfeed News and shared with a group that brings together investigative journalists from around the world, which distributed them to 108 news organizations in 88 countries.
IBM is reinventing itself
The 109-year-old company is splitting into two public companies, with a spin-off handling the firm’s legacy IT infrastructure work, and allowing IBM to focus on new high-margin businesses, particularly cloud services and AI.
The IBM shares closed nearly 6% higher after the announcement.
This is IBM’s latest shift to diversify away from its traditional businesses.
IBM, which currently has more than 352,000 workers, expects the separation will
cost $5bn.
The new company will be called NewCo for now and will receive a permanent name next year. Its annual revenues will be $19bn, will serve 75% of Fortune 100 companies and will have 90,000 employees-
Chief Executive Arvind Krishna was the key architect behind IBM’s $34bn
(£26bn) acquisition of cloud company Red Hat last year.
“To drive growth, our strategy must be rooted in the reality of the
world we live in. Today, hybrid cloud and AI are swiftly becoming the locus of
commerce, transactions, and over time, of computing itself,” Mr Krishna wrote
in a blog post.
The new IBM will be mostly focused on its hybrid cloud platform, which represents a $1 trillion market opportunity. Right now, the cloud market is dominated by Amazon and Microsoft, but continues to see strong growth, particularly as the global pandemic encourages remote work.
“With tighter integration and focus on its open hybrid cloud and AI solutions, IBM will move from a company with more than half of its revenues in services to one with a majority in high-value cloud software and solutions,” said IBM in a press release.
10/06/2020
The White House broke 4 Covid rules (video)
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'Mafalda' cartoonist Quino dies (audio)
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10/01/2020
Chaotic US presidential debate (captions)
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