Hello, Gnusies, it’s nice to be back. I had to resign from my regular rotation because of a medical problem (a teeny bit of Stage 1 cancer) that would need surgery. Well, good news indeed — they got it all, it wasn’t a big deal and I’m healing up fine.
Let’s see what good news is out there for everybody.
Good News with Democrats In Charge
Ted Cruz Staged a Hearing on Tech Bias. Senate Democrats Weren’t Having It.
It seems Ted Cruz tried to set up a kangaroo hearing on how Twitter, Google, and Facebook are biased against poor Conservatives. Most of the Democrats on the panel demonstrated their disdain by not showing up.
While Democrats have rejected the idea that tech platforms are being biased against conservatives, and fought Republican members on it in previous hearings, the absences at Wednesday’s event suggested that at least some of them might be trying a different approach that combines ignoring and mocking such charges. Prior to the hearing, when asked for his thoughts about it by the Washington Post, subcommittee member Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) only chuckled and told the paper, “just note that I laughed.”
Republicans accused Facebook, Google and Twitter of bias. Democrats called the hearing ‘dumb.’
GOP lawmakers led by the panel’s chairman, Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), ultimately focused much of their efforts on highlighting what they perceive as bias against those on the political right — a charge the tech companies repeatedly denied. Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Tex.), for example, accused Google of censoring the word “Jesus” in some search results. (He did not explain or give the company a chance to respond.) Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), meanwhile, asked Facebook why controversial conspiracy site Gateway Pundit had seen a traffic drop in recent months.
Democratic Women Make Changes in the Colorado Legislature
The Blue Wave of the last election created two state legislatures that are predominately women — Colorado and Nevada. Not surprisingly, this is a Democratic phenomenon. The number of female Republicans has not changed overall.
But what the women of Colorado are doing is amazing. They are passing bills to help families and put climate change as a top priority.
And they have the scaffolding in place to continue to recruit, nurture and elect women to positions of leadership for the foreseeable future.
Good News in Reparations
Georgetown University once sold off 272 slaves to keep the university out of debt. The current students of Georgetown overwhelmingly voted for a 27.20 fee to be collected and given to the descendants of these slaves.
ABC News reports that undergrads at the Jesuit college voted Thursday, by an almost 2-to-1 margin, to approve a referendum that would mandate the fee, which would benefit descendants of slaves that Georgetown sold in 1838 to fend off financial ruin. CNN notes that the collected fees would amount to about $400,000 annually and, per the bill, would "be allocated for charitable purposes directly benefiting the descendants ... and other persons once enslaved by the Maryland Jesuits."
Good News in Science
You know the young scientist who figured out how to see a black hole? Well, not only is she smart, her enthusiasm is infectious.
Trolls hijacked a scientist’s image to attack Katie Bouman. They picked the wrong astrophysicist.
A lot of right-wing bigots couldn’t handle the idea that a woman created this breakthrough and tried to credit another member of the team, Andrew Chael — male and white — with writing the software while accusing Bouman of grabbing all the attention.
Bouman declined to take all the credit for the work of the team of scientists who put the project together saying “No one algorithm or person made this image, it required the amazing talent of a team of scientists from around the globe and years of hard work to develop the instrument, data processing, imaging methods, and analysis techniques that were necessary to pull off this seemingly impossible feat.”
Andrew was more succinct, tweeting “While I appreciate the congratulations on a result that I worked hard on for years, if you are congratulating me because you have a sexist vendetta against Katie, please go away and reconsider your priorities in life.”
By the way, their next project is to try to get a picture of the black hole that scientists believe is at the center of our Milky Way galaxy.
Good News in Good Ideas
As someone who just recently spent a couple days in a sterile hospital myself, I liked this idea of hospital sheets with games on them.
Dad turns sheets into board games so sick kids don't get bored
Ever since he was a kid, Kevin Gatlin has been bored by the monotonous environments of hospital rooms – so as a means of making sure that his children were never forced to endur e the same tedium, he came up with a simple solution to help with the hospital doldrums.
Gatlin is the mastermind behind Playtime Edventures, an interactive set of bed sheets that feature dozens of games and lessons for children confined to their hospital beds.
Good News, Schadenfreude Style
It seems Roger Stone is broke. Sad trombone.
During an interview with Sirius XM’s “Jim Norton & Sam Roberts” on Thursday, Stone lamented his woes: He’s had to move out of his $9,500 a month home in Fort Lauderdale for a crummy one-bedroom apartment, his car got impounded, his wife broke her ankle and President Trump never calls anymore.
“I’ve lost my home, my insurance, what little savings I had, my ability to make a living because people pay me to write and talk, and of course the things they want me to write and talk about are the very things I’m not allowed to talk and write about. In the blink of an eye you can lose everything,” he said.
Stone “really” misses Trump, who he hasn’t spoken to in nearly two years, and feels abandoned by Alex Jones, who isn’t selling his Stone t-shirts and hasn’t offered a dime to his legal defense fund.
Good News in Late Night
We can always find a smile in standup. This week, they are all talking about Trump’s taxes.
Here is Seth Meyers.
I really like Trevor Noah. Here’s his take on the taxes.
Stephen Colbert admires how Maxine Walker handles Steve Mnuchin.
Good News from the Big Bear Eagle cam
Remember the poor eagle covered in snow only a few weeks ago? Well, here they are now, and it looks like we are about to have a hatch soon.
Whew. I managed to throw together a diary in only a few hours. Of course, I cheated by adding the late night links, but I hope you liked them.
The best part of Good News is in the comments, anyway.
Don’t get discouraged. All evil things pass. We are winning.