*my legit questions

(I am in the USA). There was 8 Henry s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_VIII_of_England

He shouldn't have fought back when the guy pointed the shot gun at him

I’ve been talking to a man, we have mutual interest in each other. We talked on the phone for over an hour the night before last and it was an amazing conversation. The next day he had no contact with me, which in my mind it didn’t bother me and still kind of isn’t I think he just is doing his own thing and likes his personal space. I’m not too bothered or worried but still questioning why? Is it normal for a man to kinda disappear and have no contact for a day?

What band was he with before?

Record number of Venezuelans are emigrating to escape the country's economic mismanagement, insecurity, and shortages. This article examines the causes of the current crisis and draws from a study of thousands of Venezuelans abroad to examine who is leaving, where they have headed, and what their hopes are for the future of Venezuela. It also scopes future opportunities for diaspora engagement.

A small, isolated country, Iceland has been home to a largely homogenous population for much of its history. But in recent years, a booming economy and expanding tourism sector have drawn rising numbers of immigrants to the island nation. This article explores Iceland's balancing act of maintaining economic growth through immigration while preserving its culture and language.

A relatively new destination for immigrants, Spain has developed a labor migration system that builds on longstanding relationships with countries outside the European Union and that actively involves employers, trade unions, and regional governments. This report examines how this legal framework has evolved in recent decades, and how it could serve as a model for EU policymakers in admitting non-EU workers.

More than 1 million Tajiks migrate to Russia every year—a sizeable outflow for a country of about 9 million people. These high levels of emigration have had major effects for Tajikistan, especially in the generation of remittances that help lift everyday Tajiks out of poverty but have also made the country increasingly dependent on Russia. This article explores challenges faced by Tajik migrants in Russia and the effects of emigration on Tajikistan’s economy and society.

Since the mid-1990s, Australia has moved away from a focus on family reunification to place greater emphasis on workers coming via temporary and permanent channels. The evolution of the country's points-based model for selecting economic migrants and move to a predominately employer-driven system offer lessons for other countries that seek to develop a tailored and targeted immigration selection system.

Some nominally high-risk individuals may have a lower chance of developing dementia than once thought

-- Read more on ScientificAmerican.com

 The best way to have a good death is to live a good life

-- Read more on ScientificAmerican.com

Neither approach is ideal. The best option is to temper your negative emotions by focusing on positive ones

-- Read more on ScientificAmerican.com

Being female is a risk factor for Alzheimer’s. Why?

-- Read more on ScientificAmerican.com

Rigorous new studies should be able to settle the matter

-- Read more on ScientificAmerican.com

America is awash in secrets and conspiracies. Moviegoers are agog over the 2,000-year-old conspiracy theory in "The Da Vinci Code," which suggests that Jesus may not have died celibate. In a conspiracy exactly one order of magnitude smaller, Brad Meltzer's new novel, "The Book of Fate," tells about...

President Bush came to Washington promising to be a uniter, but public opinion polls show that apart from a burst of camaraderie after Sept. 11, 2001, America is more bitterly divided and partisan than ever.

In 1935, researchers from Columbia University fanned out around the city of Allentown, Pa., and handed out leaflets ahead of local and state elections. What residents did not know was that they were part of an experiment in political persuasion -- an experiment whose results came to mind last week...

Let's say someone stuck a microphone in your face and gave you 45 seconds to say something meaningful to a billion people. Let's say, moreover, that this is the only chance you will ever have to directly address the entire world.

The conviction of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby last week gave Americans a chance to pick at the scab of what has become a favored obsession -- the debate over the motives of the Bush administration in the run-up to the war in Iraq.

Here is a measure of the state of the war in Iraq: The number of Iraqis dying each month now rivals the total number of people who died in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Accountability is in the air in Washington. At one end of Pennsylvania Avenue, Paul Wolfowitz is struggling to save his job as president of the World Bank after getting caught arranging a sweetheart deal for his, well, sweetheart. A few blocks down the road, President Bush faces endless questions...

There are two ways to think about the staggering amounts of money given by special interest groups to politicians -- the type of contributions that were detailed for the last quarter in reports filed yesterday by presidential candidates and members of Congress.

Long before word recently broke that white referees in the National Basketball Association were calling fouls at a higher rate on black athletes than on white athletes, and long before studies found racial disparities in how black and white applicants get called for job interviews, researchers no...

In the courts and in Congress, Sen. Larry Craig is fighting to withdraw his guilty plea to a misdemeanor charge that may suggest he tried to solicit sex from a man in June at a Minneapolis airport bathroom. Rather than resign yesterday, as the senator had promised and Republicans had hoped, Craig...

If you happen to stop by a Victoria's Secret store this Wednesday evening, on the eve of Valentine's Day, you will learn something fascinating about human nature that will tell you a lot about people and relationships.

Through much of the Republican presidential primary, Sen. John McCain and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney could barely restrain their contempt for each other. During one Republican debate in New Hampshire in early January, McCain landed a zinger that summed up Romney's opportunistic...

In May, the baby-faced chief executive of IndyMac Bancorp, Michael Perry, lashed out at critics who said the bank was on weak footing: "Given the decline in our stock price, some people have questioned IndyMac's survivability in the current environment. I am here to tell you that I believe we hav...

The Center for Responsive Politics recently estimated that it cost $5.8 billion to finance the 2008 general elections. To most people that is a staggeringly large sum and evidence of the profoundly corrupting role that money plays in politics, but to some very smart political watchers, the better...

Last year, as the financial meltdown was getting underway, a scientist named Yaneer Bar-Yam developed a computer model of the economy. Instead of the individuals, companies and brokers that populate the real economy, the model used virtual actors. The computer world allowed Bar-Yam to do what...

I didn’t go to the joint meetings (JMM) this year. This is despite the following good reasons I had to go:  I’m in my fifth year, applying for jobs, and this is the time when you’re supposed to get out … Continue reading →

The EU-Turkey deal has been credited with helping to end the migration crisis of 2015-16, and after two years in force it has fostered a myth that such deals are cure-alls. They are not, as this MPI Europe commentary explores. Recent EU responses place great emphasis on transit routes to Europe. But what if the next major event is a different kind of shock altogether?

Fostering the social and economic inclusion of refugees has long been the domain of governments and NGOs. In the wake of the 2015–16 European migration and refugee crisis, however, new actors have emerged and taken on important roles in integrating newcomers. This report describes key discussions and takeaways from an MPI Europe conference on these developments.

Refugees encounter a range of challenges after resettlement—from adjusting to a new culture and language, to finding a job. Many resettlement countries invest in predeparture orientation to help refugees develop the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to face these challenges. This report explores the many forms these programs take, highlighting important design questions and key elements that effective programs share.

Six months on from the original March 2019 Brexit date and staring a new deadline in the face, many EU countries still had only skeletal plans for how to adjust the status of their resident UK nationals should a no-deal Brexit come to pass. This policy brief highlights critical gaps in these plans, the groups most likely to be affected by them, and strategies Member States and the United Kingdom could adopt to soften the impact.

As EU Member States struggle to deliver on the European Union's call to expand channels for foreign workers, they should focus more on attracting the middle- and low-skilled third-country nationals needed by the labor market yet for whom few opportunities for admission exist. They also would do well to consider their migration policies in light of labor market, foreign policy, and development objectives, rather than as a means to reduce irregular migration, this report cautions.

Marking the release of an MPI report, this webinar examines the challenges and successes major host countries in Europe and North America are experiencing in providing high-quality early childhood education and care (ECEC) services for children from refugee and asylum seeker families.

Moran's account of giving birth to her first child is absolutely terrifying. I'm not sure if she ended up in a hospital with an incompetent staff, or whether this is standard at NHS hospitals in Britain. Let's just say that when you read it, you want to make sure that you completely vet your hospital staff before the big day.

However, once the horrors of childbirth are over, Moran enjoys being a parent. Although she does compare it to being in a perpetual state of war, she gets much joy out of her two children. She also finds that having kids has made her an amazing multitasker who is afraid of nothing and who has developed incredible time management skills.

She does point out the tremendous pressure that society puts on women to have children. Whenever she interviews a female celebrity, in addition to asking them about their clothes, she ismalso expected to ask them about their kids, or if they are childless, whether they want kids, and when they plan to have them. Moran once again ties this to sexism:

"Part of this feeling that women can only become powerful elders in society when they have kids..is, I suspect, linked to the fact that women aren't valued when they actually do get old: essentially, the peak of your respectability and wisdom is seen to coming in the years you're still fertile, holding down a family, and increasingly, a job at the same time. By the time you hit 55 you're being fired from the BBC and getting sniped at for being wrinkly." (p. 235)

Since a menopausal-aged woman can no longer have children, society views them as useless and therefore as extraneous.

Childless men, however, are not viewed as useless or extraneous:

"No one has ever claimed for a minute that childless men have missed out on a vital aspect of their existence, and were the poorer and crippled by it. Da Vinci, Van Gogh, Newton, Faraday, Plato, Aquinas, Beethoven, Handel, Kant, Hume, Jesus. They all seem to have managed quite well" (p. 238)

Or if at least not quite well, they led creative and productive lives. In fact, looking at some of the names on this list, it was probably a good thing that these men remained childless.

Moran calls for women to freely admit that they choose to be childless, and for other women and society in general not to view childless women as useless failures. With the increasing number of single women in society and the choice of many to live alone, childlessness may become the new norm in First World Countries.

In chapter 13, Macafarlane and David Quentin follow the Ridgeway, a track over the chalk downs of Neolithic origin, using cross-country skis. They ski past two great Neolithic sacred sites, Silbury Hill (a giant mound) and Avebury, a giant stone circle that rivals Stonehenge. Macfarlane describes some vivid scenery - black horses against the white snow, a white horse that looks grey against its snowy white background. At the end of the trip, he and David Quentin meet a huge black cat with gold eyes that they are convinced is a panther as they are heading back to the Ridgeway. Since they are in a van and not on skis, they survive to tell the story.

What I found fascinating about the snow chapter is that although Macfarlane is walking over an extremely ancient landscape and he sees animals - hares, horses, buzzards- that have existed in that area for centuries. He also sees hawthorns, ancient bushes that have been used for hedges for hundreds, if not thousands of years. Their red berries not only nourish birds but are supposed to guard witchcraft and evil. Macfarlane does not fully concentrate on this timeless landscape, but instead muses on the career of British painter Eric Ravilious.

Ravilious, who died in WWII, spent much time walking the Downs, which he depicted in his watercolors and woodcuts. He was fascinated by paths, which appear in many of his paintings. I had never heard of him, and searched online to find images of his art. I find his woodcuts to be charming depictions of country scenes- snow, birds on wires - but his paintings to be disquieting due to his choice of color and depiction of light. Macfarlane describes the Down light as a flat light like the light of the polar regions (p.297). Ravilious, who was fascinated by the poles and the extreme north, loved the light and tried to show it in his art. I find the flattening effect to be a little eerie.

My first exposure to Lucy Maria Boston's Green Knowe series came when my older brother took a an introduction to children's literature class during his first year in college. He was required to read The Children of Green Knowe. I found the copy that he had checked out of our village library, loved it, and worked my way through the other books in the series:

Recently while listening to WNYC, I heard a segment about the lack of diversity in children's literature. While the US's population is becoming more diverse, it is apparently not reflected in children's books. Lucy Maria Boston was a head of the curve since four of the Green Knowe books could be regarded as multicultural since they contain not only Asian and African main characters but also a physically disabled character and deal with the issues of slavery and exile due to war.

Ping, a young refugee from Burma, is the main human character in A Stranger at Greene Knowe and a supporting character in The River at Green Knowe and An Enemy at Green Knowe. Ping has spent most of his life in a hostel for displaced children and goes to stay at Green Knowe during his summer holiday. He is eventually asked by Mrs. Oldknow to live with her and Tolly at Green Knowe. His experiences as a homeless child trapped in the grey world of the London home cause him to appreciate not only the natural world around the house but also to empathize with the escaped gorilla, Hanno. Boston wanted to dedicate Stranger to a gorilla keeper that she knew but was forbidden to do so by the zoo since it portrayed captivity for animals as cruel and harmful to the animal. When Green Knowe is under siege from evil in Enemy, Ping calls back Hanno with a traditional prayer to help save the house.

Jacob, in Treasure at Green Knowe, is bought as a child in a slave auction by Captain Oldknowe as a companion for the Captain's blind daughter, Susan. Susan's mother is uninterested in Susan since she views her as an unmarriageable burden. Susan's blindness puts her outside of the normal constraints for an upper-class girl so she can spend her time climbing trees with Jacob and learning how to write with him and their tutor Jonathan. Susan's brother Sefton views Jacob as less than human, buying him clothes patterned on those of an organ-grinder's monkey. Both Jacob and Susan rely on each other to navigate the rules of a society that views them as worthless because of their respective race and disability. They work together to educate themselves and lead successful adult lives despite their differences in race, sex, and station.

Despite the fifty or so years since they were written, the books still hold up due to the quality of the writing, the strong characterizations, and the universal themes. They are well-worth being placed on any reading list, multicultural or not. Good children's books should be read whether or not they are written by US authors.

BRUSSELS — While the European Union has called on Member States to expand channels for foreign workers as a way to meet labour market needs and potentially tackle spontaneous migration, they have struggled to deliver on this pledge. To date, policies have focused more on attracting high-skilled workers, but less attention has been paid to admission of low- or middle-skilled nationals. Policymakers would do well not to overestimate the potential of legal channels to reduce irregular migration.

WASHINGTON — Latinos and immigrants are at least twice as likely to lack health insurance coverage as the overall population in three central Kansas City metro counties, a new Migration Policy Institute (MPI) study reveals. In fact, they are four times as likely to be uninsured in Johnson County, Kansas. 

WASHINGTON — A new age of migration has been ushered in by large-scale spontaneous migration flows on both sides of the Atlantic, which have upended asylum adjudications systems and placed enormous stress on reception, housing and social services, particularly in Europe.

WASHINGTON – A pesar de que los gobiernos de América Latina y el Caribe han tomado medidas generosas e innovadoras para lidiar con el desplazamiento forzado desde Venezuela y más recientemente desde Nicaragua, la cálida bienvenida se ha enfriado en algunos lugares a medida que el número de entradas, la presión sobre los servicios públicos y la preocupación del público aumenta.

WASHINGTON – While the new Trump administration public charge rule is likely to vastly reshape future legal immigration based on its test to assess if a person might ever use public benefits in the future, the universe of non-citizens who could be denied a green card based on current benefits use is quite small.

Brussels and Gütersloh, 05.03.2020 — Anticipated reform of the Common European Asylum System (CEAS), which was high on the agenda as nearly 2 million asylum seekers arrived at Europe’s door in 2015-16, quickly fell victim to EU Member State competing views on what constitutes equal burden-sharing, domestic politics around migration and the urgency of first addressing overtaxed national asylum systems.