Shohei Ohtani and Aaron Judge

Dear Commons Community,

It’s hard to envision a more star-studded and magnetic World Series matchup than this one — both a throwback to when baseball reigned supreme in the U.S. while also showcasing the greatest talents in the game.

The New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers represent the two largest markets in Major League Baseball. They entered the season with the second-largest payroll in the sport (Yankees) and the fifth largest (Dodgers). They will now meet for a twelfth time in the World Series, the most by any two teams.   As reported by NBC News.

Decades ago, the key players were luminaries like Mickey Mantle, Joe DiMaggio, Roy Campanella and Jackie Robinson.

Legends of the game, for sure, and now that star power has returned in 2024.

Shohei Ohtani — who just rewrote the history books with baseball’s first season of 50 home runs and 50 stolen bases — certainly appears to have a flair for the dramatic, crushing a three-run homer in his postseason debut.

Ohtani, the marquee name in the sport, was part of the Dodgers’ $1 billion offseason overhaul that saw them pad a star-studded roster with two pitching aces — fellow Japanese countryman Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Tyler Glasnow, acquired from the Tampa Bay Rays.

On the Yankees side, general manager and senior vice president Brian Cashman made a major offseason splash of his own — acquiring 25-year-old phenom Juan Soto, whom many consider the most complete hitter in baseball, adding to a lineup that already features American League home run king Aaron Judge and the fearsome Giancarlo Stanton.

Soto not only delivered with a career season of 41 home runs and 109 runs batted in, but he also just unleashed one of the most epic at bats you will see in postseason play — daring Cleveland Guardians pitcher Hunter Gaddis to throw him a fastball in extra innings Saturday, only to belt it over the centerfield fence and send the Yankees past upstart Cleveland and into their first World Series since 2009.

Judge and Ohtani, meanwhile, are both making their first appearance in the Fall Classic, a fact that might seem hard to fathom given their already robust resumes. Judge and Ohtani are both MVP winners and are the favorites to win it again this season. Judge flirted with the Triple Crown by batting .322 with 58 home runs and 144 RBIs. Ohtani nearly matched those numbers, with a .310 average, 54 home runs and 130 RBIs.

“This is sweeter — it’s even sweeter,” Judge said on Fox Sports about reaching the World Series and whether the reality matched expectations.

“This group we have is something special,” he said. “You know, all the work they put in the offseason, the ups and downs during the regular season, there’s no better group. … That’s what you grind all season for — moments like this.”

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts echoed those sentiments after his team ousted the magical New York Mets to reach their fourth World Series in the last seven years, though with only one ring to show for it, in the Covid-shortened 2020 season.

“I’ve never believed in a group of guys more than I believe in these guys,” Roberts said, ahead of the impending clash of the titans. “Most importantly, they believe in each other.”

The playoffs this season have been a hit with fans as TV viewership is at its highest levels in years.

The last time the two teams faced off in the World Series was in 1981 (the Dodgers won), and Tyler Kepner, the longtime baseball writer now with The Athletic, reflected on the rarity of what we’re seeing.

“There was a 40- or 41-year span, from 1941 to 1981, where we saw that matchup [in the World Series] 11 times … but in the last 41 years, we haven’t had one.”

And with Judge and Ohtani headlining the two juggernauts, another feat is now happening that’s taken more than four decades, too.

“To have two Hall of Fame-type players in MVP seasons making their World Series debuts against each other, that’s only happened once,” Kepner said. “That was George Brett and Mike Schmidt in 1980 — so it is kind of a perfect storm of fun stuff that would happen if it’s Yankees and Dodgers.”

Let the games begin!

Tony

A miner walks in a shaft of the CSM coal mine in Stonava, Czech Republic, Monday, Oct. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Petr David Josek). Click on to enlarge.

Dear Commons Community,

This photo appeared in The Associated Press. Below is the text that accompanied it.

What an image!

Tony

—————————————–

AP photographer Petr David Josek started working with The Associated Press in 2002 and became a full-time staffer in 2011, when he got the Prague bureau job.

Since then, he has covered the Iraq War, eight Olympics and four World Cups among numerous sports and news assignments.

Here’s what he had to say about this extraordinary photo.

Why this photo?

When walking through the dark shafts of the mine in northeastern Czech Republic you come across quite a few miners, but this guy’s unique physique obviously struck me. I figured it would be nice to get some portraits of the man.

Luckily, he walked past me more than once, so I had few chances to shoot a couple of frames as he was doing his work.

How I made this photo

I shot this picture on 24mm 1.4 lens at 1000/sec. Going to the mine is somehow specific. It’s a very dusty and dark environment, so I figured less equipment is better for that. I took two cameras that I covered with foil for protection from the dust and two fixed lenses, 24 mm and 85 mm. I was equipped with a flashlight that you use to navigate through the mine – it also helped for the pictures, as you can light up your subject.

Why it works

I had several pictures of this man, but I think in this one, the combination of his strong posture, his facial expression and the dirt on his body reflects the best, just how hard this job really is.

Also, the fact that his eyes aren’t seen makes it a bit more mysterious.

Ryan Walters

Dear Commons Community,

Opponents of an Oklahoma law for schools to teach the Bible are suing the state’s superintendent of public instruction, calling the mandate unlawful and asking the state’s highest court to halt the purchase of materials intended to be taught this academic year.  As reported by Education Week.

The lawsuit—brought on behalf of more than 30 community members which include parents, teachers, and religious leaders—was filed with Oklahoma’s state Supreme Court Oct. 17. It argues that the mandate should be ruled invalid, and that political firebrand Ryan Walters, a Republican who serves as the state’s elected superintendent of public instruction, is illegally appropriating funds for the $3 million purchase of approximately 55,000 Bibles.

The complaint states the directive violates the Oklahoma’s constitution by using state funds to purchase religious materials as the mandate “represents a governmental preference for one religion over another.”

Legal experts say this is a case other states will likely be watching, as it comes at a time when conservative state officials are testing the church-state divide. For instance, Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry, a Republican, recently signed a bill requiring all public schools to display a copy of the Ten Commandments in every classroom. That law is also being challenged in court.

Walters, who announced the Bible mandate in June and issued subsequent teaching guidance a month later, has garnered national attention for his handling of LGBTQ+ student rights and position on teaching about race and racism. He’s been active in former President Donald Trump’s 2024 reelection effort and has said he supports dismantling the U.S. Department of Education. His name has been surfaced as a possibility for education secretary in a Trump administration.

Walters recently drew scrutiny from his own party, with a number of state GOP lawmakers calling for an investigation into his stewardship of the department’s budget, spending priorities, and transparency.

In a statement, Walters said Oklahoma would not be “bullied by out-of-state, radical leftists who hate the principles our nation was founded upon.”

“It is not possible for our students to understand American history and culture without understanding the Biblical principles from which they came, so I am proud to bring back the Bible to every classroom in Oklahoma,” he said. “I will never back down to the woke mob, no matter what tactic they use to try to intimidate Oklahomans.”

The lawsuit argues Bible mandate violates the separation of church and state

The 32 plaintiffs—which include 14 public school parents, four public school teachers, and three faith leaders—argue that Walters is pushing his religious beliefs, violating the separation of church and state.

In the complaint, parents—both those who are Christians, and those who are not—argue that he is overstepping, and that the mandate interferes with the upbringing of their children. One longtime educator believes “the Bible contains confusing concepts, many of which are not age-appropriate for elementary- and middle school students,” according to the complaint. One religious leader’s “conscience is violated by a sacred Christian religious text being used for what he considers to be political grandstanding,” the filing states.

The complaint alleges that the $3 million to purchase the Bibles also is illegally reallocated from education department staff salaries. It also alleges that the specifications limit acceptable Bibles. Earlier this month, the state officials amended the original request to broaden eligible Bibles after backlash that the original request favored an edition endorsed by Trump.

The complaint alleges that school districts have the authority to select academic materials, and that Walters and the state’s education department do not.

Lawyers representing the community members said the mandate is an erosion of church-state separation, and a political stunt. The plaintiffs are represented by Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Oklahoma Foundation, the Freedom From Religion Foundation, and Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law & Justice.

Rachel Laser, president and CEO of Americans United, one of the firms representing the plaintiffs, said in a statement that Walters was “abusing the power of his office” through the mandate.

“Not on our watch,” she said. “We’re proud to defend the religious freedom of all Oklahomans, from Christians to the nonreligious.”

Broadly, religion in schools has been litigated since the mid-20th century, said Whittney Barth, executive director for the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University. Courts have found devotional reading of the Bible and the offering of the Lord’s Prayer to be unconstitutional, as is religious instruction in classrooms.

The Bible has historically been taught as literature, and has been seen to have academic merit as a historical document, she said. The American Academy of Religion has guidance on teaching the Bible.

“What’s interesting about this case is the integration of the Bible into the curriculum in ways that, I think, many people would say have both devotional aspects as well as potentially academic aspects,” Barth said. “I do think this raises those kinds of concerns.”

Teaching the Bible is religious instruction. Even if this case should ever reach the conservative U.S. Supreme Court, the Oklahoma law will be overturned.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

The New York Liberty finally have a WNBA championship after beating the Minnesota Lynx 67-62 in overtime of a decisive Game 5 last night.

Jonquel Jones scored 17 points to lead New York, which was one of the original franchises in the league. The Liberty made the WNBA Finals five times before, losing each one, including last season. This time they wouldn’t be denied, although it took an extra five minutes.

The win gave the city of New York its first basketball title since 1973 when the Knicks won the NBA championship.

With stars Breanna Stewart and Sabrina Ionescu struggling on offense, other players stepped up. Leonie Fiebich started off OT with a 3-pointer, and then Nyara Sabally had a steal for a layup to make it 65-60 and bring the sellout crowd to a frenzied state.

Minnesota didn’t score in OT until Kayla McBride hit two free throws with 1:51 left. The Lynx missed all six of their field goal attempts in overtime. After Ionescu missed a shot with 21 seconds left, her 18th miss on 19 shot attempts, the Lynx had one last chance, but Bridget Carleton missed a 3-pointer with 16 seconds left.

Stewart, who missed a free throw with 0.8 seconds left in Game 1, hit two free throws with 10.1 seconds left to seal the victory.

As the final seconds ticked off the clock the players hugged and streamers fell from the rafters

Napheesa Collier scored 22 points to lead Minnesota before fouling out with 13 seconds left in OT.

Congratulations Liberty!

Tony

(OSV News/Gregory A. Shemitz)

Dear Commons Community,

The New York Times columnist, Maureen Dowd,  came out swinging at New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan for allowing Trump to showcase at the AL Smith Dinner last week. Here is an excerpt.

“The cardinal should go to confession.

Timothy Dolan let a white-tie charity dinner in New York showcase that most uncharitable of men, Donald Trump.

At the annual Al Smith dinner, Dolan suffused the impious Trump in the pious glow of Catholic charities. Dolan looked on with a doting expression as Trump made his usual degrading, scatological comments about his foils, this time cloaked as humor.

“We have someone in the White House who can barely talk, barely put together two coherent sentences, who seems to have mental faculties of a child,” Trump told the New York fat cats. “It’s a person who has nothing going, no intelligence whatsoever. But enough about Kamala Harris.”

Trump also offered this beauty: “I used to think the Democrats were crazy for saying that men have periods. But then I met Tim Walz.” When Trump joked about keeping Doug Emhoff away from nannies, even he admitted it was “too tough.”

As he did in 2016 when he crudely attacked Hillary Clinton as she sat on the dais, Trump added a rancid cloud to what used to be a good-tempered bipartisan roast.

Dolan could have stood up and told Trump “Enough!” We have been longing for that voice of authority who could deliver the Joseph Welch line — “Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?” — to our modern Joe McCarthy. It is the church’s job, after all, to teach right from wrong.

Instead of telling Trump he was over the line, Dolan enabled him in his blasphemous effort to cast his campaign as a quasi-religious crusade and himself as a saintly martyr saved by God. The conservative cardinal didn’t care about soiling the legacy of the great Democratic patriot Al Smith.

As a Catholic, I have had little confidence in the leadership of Cardinal Dolan.  He seems to relish in closing churches in poor neighborhoods. I agree with Dowd, his fawning and laughing at Trump was close to sacrilegious!”

Dowd’s entire column is below.

Tony

————————————————

The New York Times

Trump’s Charity Toward None

Maureen Dowd

October 20, 2024

The cardinal should go to confession.

Timothy Dolan let a white-tie charity dinner in New York showcase that most uncharitable of men, Donald Trump.

At the annual Al Smith dinner, Dolan suffused the impious Trump in the pious glow of Catholic charities. Dolan looked on with a doting expression as Trump made his usual degrading, scatological comments about his foils, this time cloaked as humor.

“We have someone in the White House who can barely talk, barely put together two coherent sentences, who seems to have mental faculties of a child,” Trump told the New York fat cats. “It’s a person who has nothing going, no intelligence whatsoever. But enough about Kamala Harris.”

Trump also offered this beauty: “I used to think the Democrats were crazy for saying that men have periods. But then I met Tim Walz.” When Trump joked about keeping Doug Emhoff away from nannies, even he admitted it was “too tough.”

As he did in 2016 when he crudely attacked Hillary Clinton as she sat on the dais, Trump added a rancid cloud to what used to be a good-tempered bipartisan roast.

Dolan could have stood up and told Trump “Enough!” We have been longing for that voice of authority who could deliver the Joseph Welch line — “Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?” — to our modern Joe McCarthy. It is the church’s job, after all, to teach right from wrong.

Instead of telling Trump he was over the line, Dolan enabled him in his blasphemous effort to cast his campaign as a quasi-religious crusade and himself as a saintly martyr saved by God. The conservative cardinal didn’t care about soiling the legacy of the great Democratic patriot Al Smith.

Like Trump, Smith, the “Happy Warrior,” was a native New Yorker — half Irish and half Italian. His track was the reverse of Trump’s, starting in politics and ending in skyscrapers. Smith was born into an Irish community nestled under the Brooklyn Bridge and left school at 14, after his father died, to help his family by working at the Fulton Fish Market. When his political career ended, he became the president of the corporation that built the Empire State Building. From his office in the sky, he could see the street he grew up on.

The gregarious four-term governor of New York believed deeply in lifting up the less fortunate, and in America’s founding principles. Emotionally devastated after helping investigate the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire that killed scores of women and girls in 1911, he crusaded to create laws for safer working conditions.

Anti-Catholic bigotry destroyed his presidential bid in 1928, and he hated bigotry of all kinds. He early on decried lynching, racial violence, the Ku Klux Klan and Naziism. He would have detested Trump, a bigot cynically stoking racial fears and bloodthirsty impulses to get elected.

Unlike Trump, Smith was a man of faith. He died with a prayer on his lips, next to his parish priest. He had no patience for bickering and was praised in his obits as “warmhearted” and “honest as the noonday sun.”

Despite Trump’s contention this past week that he has a “good heart” and his father had a “big, big heart,” both Trumps’ hearts were cold. Young Donald helped his dad, Fred, refuse Black tenants.

Trump is proudly amoral. He disdains the Christian values I was taught by nuns and priests. His only values are self-interest and self-gratification. He has replaced a code of ethics with the Narcissus pool.

Certainly, Dolan is happy with Trump’s abortion crackdown. But can’t he see that Trump is corroding our country’s moral core? Trying to steal an election violates the Eighth Commandment. And Trump has broken the commandments about cheating and lying and coveting.

As Anne Applebaum points out in The Atlantic, Trump uses the language of Stalin, Hitler and Mussolini to rouse hate and violence. This, while sacrilegiously calling Jan. 6 a “day of love.” He compares the jailed rioting thugs to the Japanese interned in World War II. It’s not a big leap to saying migrants are “poisoning the blood of our country” and calling his political opponents “vermin,” given his belief — inherited from his father with the “big heart” — in superior genes and blood lines.

This past week, he called Democrats “evil,” “dangerous” and the “enemy from within,” limning them as a bigger threat than Russia and China, a threat that he said might require him to sic the military on his opponents. He denounced the national treasure Nancy Pelosi — who is a devout Catholic — and her husband — who was attacked with a hammer by a far-right conspiracy theorist — as “sick” and “evil.”

The echoes of McCarthyism reverberated when Trump was asked at a town hall whether he really believed the debunked story that Haitian immigrants were eating neighbors’ cats and dogs. “I was just saying what has been reported,” an unrepentant Trump replied. “All I do is report.”

The pols on the dais looked like a Last Supper for this unnerving election. Hopefully, it’s not a Last Supper for the Republic.

Dear Commons Community,

I am in the middle of reading Yuval Harari’s current bestseller, Nexus:  A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI.  As the title suggest, this is no small, short topic.  If you have read any of his earlier books such as Sapiens:  A Brief History of Humankind, you know that a Harari book is long and slow.  I need to keep my iPhone near me when I read his work so I can look up terms and phrases.  And at over 400 pages, Nexus… is not a quick weekend read.

I read one chapter yesterday that I feel compelled to share.  In Chapter Eight, entitled, Fallible:  The Network is Often Wrong, Harari takes aim at underlying reasons why social media has come to dominate not always for the good much of what we see on the Internet. He starts by relating several examples of how the Stalinist regime controlled and manipulated information in Russia. Harari quotes and refers to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago, during the discussion and moves to today’s social media companies such as Facebook and YouTube.  In between, Harari also incorporates background on Napolean Bonaparte and Carl von Clausewitz, a 19^th Century Prussian general and military theorist. Here are several quotes from this chapter reflecting on 21^st Century social media.

In discussing YouTube, he mentions that the company in studying how to boost its viewership (from 100 million hours per day to 1 billion per day) used AI algorithms that concluded that “outrage drives engagement”.  And when “users dialed down outrage and stuck to the truth, the algorithms tended to ignore them.”  

Harari also references Facebook’s whistleblower Frances Haugen who stated:

“We have evidence that our core product mechanics, such as vitality, recommendations, and optimizing for engagement, are a significant part of why hate speech, divisive political speech, and misinformation flourish on our (Facebook’s) platform”.

Harari concludes:  “As we have seen again and again throughout history in a completely free information fight, truth tends to lose.”

In reading this chapter, I kept thinking about our current presidential election.

God help us!

Tony

Juan Soto and Giancarlo Stanton- ALCS Heroes

Dear Commons Community,

The New York Yankees will be going to their record-breaking 41^st World Series after defeating the Cleveland Guardians 5-2 in extra innings last night. 

Juan Soto provided his biggest blast in pinstripes, a 10th-inning home run that lifted the Yankees passed the Guardians.

Winning an epic seven-pitch battle against Guardians reliever Hunter Gaddis with two outs and two on in Game 5 of the American League Championship Series, Soto drove a 1-2 pitch high and deep to center field. And the ball kept carrying, and carrying – all the way to the Fall Classic.

It landed in the bullpens beyond the fence in right center field, a three-run home run that delivered a 5-2 victory and a 4-1 ALCS conquest of Cleveland.

New York will open World Series Game 1 on Friday, either at Los Angeles against the Dodgers or home to the New York Mets. Either way, ace Gerrit Cole will be aligned for the start.

Thanks to a one-out error on shortstop Brayan Rocchio, who muffed an easy force play at second in the top of the 10th, Soto got a shot to hit just as the game’s leverage was teetering back toward Cleveland.

He floated the ball 402 feet into the outfield, capping a series in which the Yankees’ superstar sluggers – capping a series in which the Yankees’ superstar sluggers – Soto, Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton – came up huge.

“It’s the best feeling you can ever have. That’s what you play for,” said Soto, who won a World Series title in 2019 with the Washington Nationals.

“Now, we are the best team in the American League.”

Stanton had tied Saturday’s game with a two-run, sixth-inning home run. Meanwhile, the Yankees’ bullpen once again came up nearly perfect, pitching 5 ⅓ shutout innings, capped by Luke Weaver’s two-inning effort, the second frame shutting down the Guardians after Soto’s blast.

Last night,  the Yankees demonstrated why they are called the “The Bronx Bombers”.  Congratulations to the entire team!

Tony

Leading Men fellow Davontez Johnson at Dorothy I. Height Elementary School in Baltimore.

Dear Commons Community,

The posting below is taken from an article that appeared in The Associated Press yesterday.

Our schools at all levels can surely use more Black and Latino male teachers!

Tony

The Associated Press

Black male teachers are a rarity in preschools. This pioneering program wants to change that

Before 19-year-old Davontez Johnson found himself in a preschool classroom at Dorothy I. Height Elementary, he was a senior at a nearby high school who, like many students his age, was unsure of what he wanted to do with his life. Not in his wildest dreams could he have imagined himself standing on a colorful carpet, leading a gaggle of 4-year-olds in a chant and dance about phonics.

“Words have parts — that’s syl-a-bles,” he said, enunciating for effect. The preschoolers craned their heads up at Johnson and echoed him. “Clap your hands now, syl-a-bles! Stomp your feet now, syl-a-bles!”

Johnson is part of the Leading Men Fellowship, which trains young Black and Latino men to become early literacy instructors in preschool classrooms across the country. It’s a program that aims to tackle several problems at once: a shortage of early educators, a dearth of Black and Latino male teachers and the acute challenges boys of color face in schools because of their race and gender.

“We’re not only affecting change in the classroom with these school students, but (we’re) also developing these young future educators,” said Ivan Douglas of the Literacy Lab, which runs the Leading Men Fellowship.

Many fellows, like Johnson, are recruited right out of high school. After an interview process and intensive summer training, they go to work in schools where they may be among the only male educators. Fellows make between $16.50 and $18 an hour.

A former high school offensive lineman, Johnson knows some parents would say he looks out of place in a preschool classroom. And the statistics back him up: Less than 1% of elementary and early education public school teachers are Black men, according to federal data. But that’s part of the reason he wanted to do it.

“I really thought it was a great opportunity. Because I know if I saw someone like me, you know, in pre-K, I’d be pretty excited,” Johnson said. “You don’t see a lot of young Black males.”

Researchers have shown that Black male students encounter discrimination before they even set foot in a kindergarten classroom, facing higher rates of expulsion and suspension from preschool even though evidence suggests they do not misbehave more than their white peers. Boys also are far more likely than girls to be expelled.

But there’s a growing body of evidence that Black teachers can make a difference for Black students — and for Black boys in particular. In the years since the Leading Men Fellowship was founded, in 2016, researchers have repeatedly found that students of color seem to fare better when they have teachers who look like them.

Johns Hopkins University economist Nicholas Papageorge, who is based not far from Heights Elementary, studies the impact of Black teachers on Black students. His research found that Black teachers have higher expectations for Black students than do non-Black teachers.

“If a Black student had a white teacher and a Black teacher, that white teacher had systematically lower expectations,” Papageorge said.

His later research found Black students who have a Black teacher are less likely to drop out of high school and more likely to attend college. The effect of having a Black teacher had the greatest impact on Black boys from low-income households.

Through his coursework, Johnson has learned the intricacies of early education — and that it involves a surprising amount of singing and dancing for someone not working on Broadway. Children learn best by repetition, and when they can pair information with movements and song.

Bridget Jeffrys, whose preschool classroom hosts Johnson, said she had never worked alongside a male educator until Johnson arrived at the start of the last school year. She said she’s watched Johnson grow more confident with her students, going from reserved to enthusiastic. Jeffrys said his voice and dance moves could use some work, but he performs the songs with such heart that it doesn’t matter.

“It was so beautiful because usually you don’t see men really get down to the child level,” Jeffrys said. “That excited them even more. A lot of kids think he’s a big kid.”

Along with teaching at Heights Elementary, Johnson is studying political science at University of Maryland Global Campus and hopes to go into politics. His colleagues, though, are encouraging him to stick with teaching.

While Johnson is there to provide targeted literacy instruction, he has been fully integrated into the school day. His second week in the classroom, he sang the class’s morning greeting song in a robot voice. When a child is squirming on the carpet or wandering away from story time, Johnson is there to rein them in.

On this October day, Johnson pulled students aside to help them work on writing their names. He had only been with this cohort for a couple weeks, but many students were drawn to him. During free-play time, he encouraged a student who was working on a crayon rubbing of a leaf.

“You’ve done a wonderful job,” he said to the girl, who stared up at him, eager for reassurance. Another student interrupted him by handing him a fistful of play money.

After lunchtime, as most of the preschoolers sat on the carpet held rapt by a story read by Jeffrys, 4-year-old Kodi Hendricks wandered toward the door and peered into the hallway until Johnson beckoned him back. Johnson bent his large frame to tie the boy’s shoe and then they sat together for a penmanship lesson.

“What’s the first letter?” he asked the boy.

“K,” he replied. Johnson showed him, in slow motion, how to draw a K.

“No, I can’t do it,” said the boy.

“It’s all right,” Johnson said. He urged him on.

“You can do it. It just takes practice.”

Dear Commons Community,

Cuba’s power grid failed and the entire nation plunged into darkness yesterday, less than a day after the government stressed the need to save electricity in the face of major gasoline shortages and large-scale, local outages.

The electricity went out nationwide yesterday morning after a failure at a thermoelectric power plant in Matanzas, east of Havana, Cuba’s Energy Ministry said on X.  As reported by The New York Times.

The blackout came less than a day after the prime minister, Manuel Marrero Cruz, held a late-night television address with state officials to discuss the ongoing electricity crisis, which experts said was the worst the nation — long accustomed to food and electricity shortages — had ever experienced.

For weeks, the country has lacked the fuel to run the power grid, which has left large parts of the nation without electricity for 15- to 20-hour stretches.

When electricity does return, demand surges, further straining the power grid, Mr. Marrero said on Thursday night as he urged people to cut back on usage.

To ease the stress on the electrical network, officials announced on Thursday night that all schools would be closed until Monday and that cultural and nonessential activities such as nightclubs would be shuttered.

Only essential employees should go to work, according to an announcement posted on government websites, which said hospitals would remain open. Any energy-demanding service that was not vital would be suspended.

Alfredo López Valdés, the director general of the national electric company, said the country was working on solutions but added that they would not come quickly.

“We are fighting; we are not sitting on our hands,” Mr. López said. “We recognize that the situation is very hard.”

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

During a sit-down interview with Bret Baier on Wednesday, Oct. 16, the Fox News host attempted to corner Harris by asking her if she believes that Trump’s supporters are “stupid.”  He was trying to get her to say “Yes” and create sound bite similar to Hillary Clinton calling  Trump supporters “deplorable” in the 2016 election. However, Harris was quick to see his ploy.

“Oh, God, I would never say that about the American people,” Harris, 59, responded. “And in fact, if you listen to Donald Trump, if you watch any of his rallies, he’s the one who tends to demean and belittle and diminish the American people. He’s the one who talks about an ‘enemy within’ … talking about the American people. Suggesting he would turn the American military on the American people.”

Harris was referencing Trump’s recent string of comments where he has described “radical left lunatics” — using California Rep. Adam Schiff as an example — as the United States’ “enemy from within,” at one point offering up an idea that the military could be used to wrangle the left.

Baier, 54, told Harris that Trump had already cleared the air about his troubling comments, then played a clip for Harris of how the former president explained them on The Faulkner Focus.

“They were saying I was threatening, I’m not threatening anybody,” Trump, 78, said in the clip that Harris was shown. He then claimed that he has been the victim of “weaponization of government.”

What the clip left out is that seconds before Trump told Harris Faulkner that he wasn’t threatening anybody, he had doubled down on his rhetoric against the “enemy from within,” saying that a “strong president” is needed to “handle” anti-MAGA Democrats, whom he described as “sick” and “evil.”

Former Fox News host Gretchen Carlson was unimpressed by Bret Baier’s explanation that the network played the wrong clip during the  controversial exchange.

“Now Bret Baier says ‘his mistake’ was that he ran the wrong Trump ‘enemy from within’ clip during interview w/ Harris,” Carlson posted Thursday on X, “Newsflash: When wrong clips run (which happens) hosts can easily say ‘Sorry that was the wrong clip’. He or his producers would have known it was the wrong one right then.”

Harris called Baier out for the shorter clip on the spot and made him look like a manipulator.

The interview proved again that Baier, Faulkner, and the whole Fox News crew (except Neil Cavuto) are flunkies for Trump and the Republicans.

Tony