Today’s comic by Tom Tomorrow is Sensible talk:
What you may have missed on Sunday Kos …
• Think you’re anxious about the prospect of a Donald J. Trump presidency? Pity the staffers who would have to work for him:
There’s been talk among current staffers about retiring rather than working for a polarizing Donald Trump. “I think a Trump election and transition would be a disaster,” says Christine Limerick, who was the head housekeeper during her tenure from 1979 to 2008. “I think that Donald Trump and his family would think that the mansion is too small, too old, and not glamorous enough for them. He might say, ‘Who cares about the history of the place or the fact that it has been the home of every president except George Washington? You don’t want to make the changes I want? You’re fired!’”
• How a glitch in mapping IP addresses turned a Kansas farm into digital hell for a decade.
• Filmmaker Ken Burns’ two-part documentary Jackie Robinson starts tonight on PBS. Burns was interviewed by Mother Jones magazine. Here’s an excerpt:
"You get rid of this sentimental nostalgia about Jackie, that he's the 'good Negro' who turned the other cheek and behaved the way a Negro is supposed to at that time, and understand the fiery, competitive kid who's unwilling to accept second-class status—and how he carried that throughout his professional life and into his post-baseball life until the very end. It's an existential story about not just talking the talk, but walking the walk. We begin to realize how important Jackie is. He is obviously the most important person in the history of baseball, and I would suggest in American sports. But the story goes way beyond that.
"We felt that once you're free from the barnacles of that sentimentality, once you've liberated them from the mythology, then all of a sudden, what's this film about? Well, it's about Black Lives Matter. They didn't call it that back then. It's about driving while black. It's about stop-and-frisk. It's about integrated swimming pools. It's about the Confederate flag. It's about black churches that are torched by arsonists. It's about the Southern strategy, beginning in the 1960s more fully, took the party of Lincoln, founded in 18[5]4 with one principle, the abolition of slavery, and turned it into and detailed a pact with the devil that Jackie witnessed firsthand. That they would then, because of the civil rights bill, go after disaffected Southern whites who had normally voted Democratic and employ what we call generously the Southern strategy."
• China, Japan and United States lead the solar boom: Although Europe led for years, the focus is now in Asia and the U.S. A new report by the International Energy Agency finds that about 50 gigawatts worth of solar panels were installed across the planet in 2015, a 25 percent increase over 2014. Three countries installed more than half of that: China, with 15.3 gigawatts; Japan, with 11 gigawatts; and the United States with 7.3 gigawatts. The cumulative total worldwide is now 230 gigawatts, and is expected to supply 1.3 percent of global demand for electricity this year. Still a long, long way to go.
• On today’s Kagro in the Morning show: Next stop: NY. Lots of delegates. Lots of claims to home team advantage. Lots of nuance. Mr. “Art of the Deal” can’t close. Will things get rough? Does “Trump” really give to “charity?” Can developers even politics, bro?
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