Monday, May 1, 2017

Sanity Sunday- Three on a Theremin

by Nomad

The year 1928 produced a lot of technological marvels. British inventor John Logie Baird broadcasted a transatlantic television signal from London to New York.
Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly across the Atlantic as a passenger on June 18th of that year.
And the first machine sliced, machine- wrapped loaves of bread were sold in Chillicothe, Missouri.

It was also in that year that Russian inventor, Léon Theremin (Термéн), patented the electronic musical instrument known as thereminophone or termenvox/thereminvox and later shortened to simply the Theremin.

Friday, April 28, 2017

Film Friday- Sarah’s Uncertain Path

by Nomad



Filmmakers Andrew Droz Palermo and his cousin Tracy Droz Tragos produced this 2014 vignette called Sarah’s Uncertain Path, documenting a low-income family in western Missouri.
We are introduced to Sarah, a pregnant Midwestern teen, who is struggling to beat the odds in a tragic family tradition.

Wednesday, April 26, 2017

Congress Demands Legal Justification for Trump's Syrian Missile Attack

by Nomad



Dear Mr. President

You might not have seen the joint press release from Congressman Adam Schiff and Senator Tim Kaine issued yesterday. It was in regards a letter they sent to the Trump administration concerning legal matters and the Syrian missile attack earlier this month.

An interesting letter it was, too.

Washington, DC Yesterday, Congressman Adam Schiff (D-CA), Ranking Member of the House Intelligence Committee, and Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA), a member of the Senate Armed Services and Senate Foreign Relations Committees, sent a letter to President Trump asking that he detail the legal basis for the strike against, which has yet to be provided to Congress and the American people.
Schiff and Kaine stated that a full understanding of the domestic and international legal basis for the strike is of great importance to Congress in exercising its constitutional responsibilities.

As the letter states, “By articulating a legal basis for military action, as well as laying out a strategic vision for such action, a president provides a justification for the use of the momentous power to commit American lives to a cause, but also an understanding of the limits of those powers.”
Both Schiff and Kaine believe that Bashar al-Assad must be held accountable for his atrocities and war crimes, but have argued that the missile strikes on the Syrian regime without congressional approval were unlawful.
The full text of the letter is below: