Sookie is the new Buffy Right now I'm in the throes of my True Blood binge. Sookie is the new Buffy on opiods, peyote, and Rock & Roll. This is an epic elegy on the vissitudes of intolerance in the deep South of America, specifically Louisiana. The supernatural is a vehicle for a hard look at war, government neglect, natural disasters, poverty, racism, religion,  superstition, gender identify politics, substance abuse, and more. Every episode is titled after an awesome song that plays at the end of the show. Vampires are the main attraction but are supported by a plethora of other magical creatures like werewolves, fairies, shape shifters, ghost mediums, witches, demons, werepanthers, goddesses, gods, etc. The Southern dialect and colorful language make the show more awesome. https://www.amazon.com/True-Blood-Season-1/dp/B006GLLXXK/ref=tmm_aiv_swatch_1?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

THE TRAILBLAZING WOMEN WHO FIGHT CALIFORNIA’S FIRES https://www.wired.com/story/portraits-san-francisco-female-firefighters?mbid=nl_060518_daily_list3_p1&CNDID=43763409 THE TRAILBLAZING WOMEN WHO FIGHT CALIFORNIA’S FIRES CHRISTIE HEMM KLOK’S 3-year-old son couldn't get enough of firefighters. He had a toy engine truck, a plastic helmet he wore all the time, and a collection of books showing firefighters dousing fires and saving lives. But most of them were men, and the lack of women bugged Hemm Klok. "There was maybe one female in any of the books," she says, "and she had short hair and maybe a pink shirt on." Hemm Klok wanted to show her son a more inclusive vision of the world. She began visiting firehouses in San Francisco, where she lives, to photograph female firefighters. Her new book The Women of the SFFD features 45 portraits of women who spend their days running into burning buildings. “I want to raise a son who thinks he can be whatever he wants—and so can everybody else," she says. More than 270 women serve in the San Francisco Fire Department, which services 1.5 million people across the city's 49 square miles. They make up roughly 16 percent of the force, compared to just half of one percent of the New York City Fire Department. The numbers don’t necessarily speak to the city’s open-mindedness, though. Oh sure, the fire department made a couple women honorary members in the 19th century (including a pretty opera singer who never picked up a hose). But it didn't allow women to apply for a job before 1976—and it didn't hire any until 1987, when a federal judge forced it to. Current chief Joanne Hayes-White became the first female to fill the role in 2004. “Now it’s not crazy for a woman to be a firefighter in San Francisco,” Hemm Klok says. “They’re on, like, every truck.” Hemm Klok started noticing the women on fire trucks after moving to San Francisco in 2015 to work at WIRED. She left the company in 2016, and began the series later that year, showing up at firehouses with her Canon 5D Mark IV and a portable light kit and inviting the women to pose for a portrait. More often than not, they'd get called away to fight a fire before she could snap their photo. “I can’t tell you how many times I was just sitting alone in the garage of a firehouse,” she says. Eventually, she began showing up early in the morning, after the women had finished their 24-hour shifts. And when she didn't have childcare, she brought her son. "The firefighters spoiled him like crazy," she says. ....

I rise Dr. Maya Angelou's 90th birthday #StillIRise #GoogleDoodle https://g.co/doodle/hqbawy?ds=tw. #mayaangelou https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46446/still-i-rise Still I Rise BY MAYA ANGELOU You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may trod me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I'll rise. Does my sassiness upset you? Why are you beset with gloom? ’Cause I walk like I've got oil wells Pumping in my living room. Just like moons and like suns, With the certainty of tides, Just like hopes springing high, Still I'll rise. Did you want to see me broken? Bowed head and lowered eyes? Shoulders falling down like teardrops, Weakened by my soulful cries? Does my haughtiness offend you? Don't you take it awful hard ’Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines Diggin’ in my own backyard. You may shoot me with your words, You may cut me with your eyes, You may kill me with your hatefulness, But still, like air, I’ll rise. Does my sexiness upset you? Does it come as a surprise That I dance like I've got diamonds At the meeting of my thighs? Out of the huts of history’s shame I rise Up from a past that’s rooted in pain I rise I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide, Welling and swelling I bear in the tide. Leaving behind nights of terror and fear I rise Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear I rise Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave. I rise I rise I rise.

Maya Angelou Dr. Maya Angelou's 90th birthday #StillIRise #GoogleDoodle https://g.co/doodle/hqbawy?ds=tw. #mayaangelou https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46446/still-i-rise Still I Rise BY MAYA ANGELOU You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may trod me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I'll rise. Does my sassiness upset you? Why are you beset with gloom? ’Cause I walk like I've got oil wells Pumping in my living room. Just like moons and like suns, With the certainty of tides, Just like hopes springing high, Still I'll rise. Did you want to see me broken? Bowed head and lowered eyes? Shoulders falling down like teardrops, Weakened by my soulful cries? Does my haughtiness offend you? Don't you take it awful hard ’Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines Diggin’ in my own backyard. You may shoot me with your words, You may cut me with your eyes, You may kill me with your hatefulness, But still, like air, I’ll rise. Does my sexiness upset you? Does it come as a surprise That I dance like I've got diamonds At the meeting of my thighs? Out of the huts of history’s shame I rise Up from a past that’s rooted in pain I rise I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide, Welling and swelling I bear in the tide. Leaving behind nights of terror and fear I rise Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear I rise Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave. I rise I rise I rise.

Maya Angelou

Dr. Maya Angelou's 90th birthday #StillIRise #GoogleDoodle
https://g.co/doodle/hqbawy?ds=tw. #mayaangelou

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46446/still-i-rise

Still I Rise

BY <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/maya-angelou">MAYA ANGELOU</a>

Music and Language, Jellyfish, Crystals https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/music-and-language-jellyfish-crystals Music and Language, Jellyfish, Crystals. Jan 26, 2018 The untold story of jellyfish is one of perception versus reality.Plus, researchers tested if listeners could identify lullabies, dance, love, and healing songs from different cultures.

Agricultural Bees, China’s Energy Future, Frankenstein In Class. Feb 2, 2018, Part 1 https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/agricultural-bees-chinas-energy-future-frankenstein-class-feb-2-2018-part-1 image: Shanghai, China. China's thirst for energy is rising. But to save its cities from suffocating pollution, leaders are looking to carbon-free energy sources and electric vehicles. Click here for more information about China's energy future. We need domestic bees. But what happens to wild bees when they share a space? We discuss the good and the bad in the latest installment of Good Thing, Bad Thing. Plus, Ira checks in with the SciFri Book Club. This week, the club receives a call for help and discuss how Frankenstein is still relevant to today’s high school students. And Maggie Koerth-Baker of Five Thirty Eight gives Ira a tour of this week's science headlines in our weekly News Round-up.

Egyptian Dinosaurs, Leaking Data, Huntington’s Research, Mole Rats. Feb 2, 2018, Part 2 https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/egyptian-dinosaurs-leaking-data-huntingtons-research-mole-rats-feb-2-2018-part-2 image: An artist's rendering of the new titanosauimagerian dinosaur Mansourasaurus shahinae on a coastline in what is now the Western Desert of Egypt approximately 80 million years ago. Dinosaurs existed all over the world—fossils have been found on every continent. Africa is no exception, but far fewer fossils have been found there from the late Cretaceous era—the period before the dinosaurs went extinct. But a new discovery in Egypt could provide clues about the evolution of dinosaurs in Africa. Click here to learn more. Last weekend, an Australian researcher pointed out on Twitter that a “heat map” of popular running locations released by the fitness app Strava could be used to help identify the locations of military installations in deserted areas. Is big data revealing more than you know—or want other people to know? New research shows that decades before outward signs of the neurological illness show, Huntington’s disease will affect the development of an embryo. What the naked mole rat lacks in conventual cuteness it makes up for with some superpower-like qualities—including an aversion to cancer and the ability to defy the laws of aging. Ira digs into the data to find out what else we could learn from these, well, interesting-looking creatures.