Mediaboss Marketing

Elise Ferguson, of Randolph, representing St. Mary of the Hills School, recently earned first place for her division in The Bostonian Society and Boston Duck Tours Essay Contest. St. Mary of the Hills School is celebrating their sixth year in this statewide competition, taking home first, second, and third place for the fifth- and sixth-grade division as well as the seventh- and eighth-grade division. Ferguson, grade seven, won first place with an essay on loyalism. Aoidin Salmon, of Milton, grade eight, took second place, while Colson Ganthier, of Milton, grade eight, placed third. The seventh- and eighth-grade classes edited their submissions under the instruction of English teacher, Colin Flaherty. The middle school students also did well in their division with Kevin Gallius, of Milton, and Jenysis Pitter, of Hyde Park, winning the first and third place prizes, while sixth grader Anna McANulty, of Milton, took home second place. Fifth- and sixth-grade students wrote and revised these essays under the instruction of Christine Norton. This is the second year in a row that St. Marys has swept the competition with a first, second, and third place victory. This is the sixth consecutive year that a St. Marys student has won the grand prize. The Bostonian Society and Boston Duck Tours honored St. Marys students during an assembly on Jan. 20. Jim Healy of the Boston Historical Society, congratulated these students and gifted them with exciting awards. In addition to earning a free Duck Tour for her entire class, contest winner Elise Ferguson also won a thousand dollars to put towards her school tuition. In this years essay contest, The Bostonian Society and Boston Duck Tours have encouraged the students to think outside of the box as they were asked to sympathize with a loyalist point of view during the American Revolution. The contest also tasked students with discussing historical sites that preserve the loyalist traditions. To prepare his students, Faherty had his classroom review expository five paragraph writing, a style of essay used to present a topic in a straightforward and logical manner. Coincidentally, American History is the focus of the seventh- and eighth-grade social studies curriculum, so this was an opportunity to test their knowledge. The research ranged from textbooks to websites, and essays were enthusiastically peer reviewed. The parochial schools who enter the contest always do exceptionally well when it comes to writing said Healy. Professors from the history departments of Northeastern and Suffolk University judged thousands of submissions to choose these winners. The students will travel to the city this spring to view the city on a Boston Duck Tour.

See more here:
Randolph student places first in essay contest - Wicked Local Randolph

Forbes

Wall Street Surges Anew As Donald Trump Vows To Dismantle Dodd Frank Forbes Bank stocks surged when President Donald Trump won the election, gaining about 25% in the weeks after Nov. 8 as investors prepared for his agenda of deregulation. Now, as Trump completes his second week in the White House and fulfills his promise of a ... Donald Trump Just Gave the 7 Biggest Banks a $35.4 Billion Boost In ValueFortune Donald Trump's Excuse for Gutting Wall Street Regulations Is Hilariously FlimsySlate Magazine (blog) Donald Trump Plans to Undo Dodd-Frank Law, Fiduciary RuleWall Street Journal The Independent all 368 news articles »

Link:
Wall Street Surges Anew As Donald Trump Vows To Dismantle Dodd Frank - Forbes

Democrats held thecongressional district that runs across Ohios southeastern border for more than a decade until 2010. That year, Republicans snagged the 6th district seat, and by the next election, they redrew the boundaries to make it a little safer for GOP Rep. Bill Johnson.

On Election Day 2016, this former swing district went for Donald Trump by more than 42 points 69 percent to 27 percent marking the single biggest pro-Republican shift in the country in the Year of Trump. Trumps astounding margin in this Appalachian district was 30 points bigger than Mitt Romneys just four years prior.

While thats the biggest shift we saw in the 2016 election, its hardly the only one. According to data compiled by the good folks at Daily Kos Elections, congressional districts across the country that normally move a few points from one presidential election to the next suddenly shifted well bigly.

Margins shifted by 10 points or more toward Trump or toward Hillary Clinton in 119 out of 435 districts. That's more than 1 our of every 4 districts.

Looking at the biggest shiftsconfirms just about everything we thought we knew about Trumps win. The districts the moved big toward Trump tend to be more rural, blue-collar, heavily white districts where culturally conservative Democrats still linger. The districts that moved the most toward Clinton were diverse, suburban, more affluent and highly educated. Oh, and more Mormon. (More on that later.)

Case in point: Minnesota. If you look at a red-versus-blue map of U.S. congressional districts, Minnesota will instantly stand out. Its basically the one place in theMidwest where Democrats still hold the big (square mileage-wise) rural districts. In fact, they hold all three of them in the state one in southern Minnesota, one in western Minnesota, and one in northern Minnesota, which is home to the Iron Range.

All three of these districts shifted between 16 and 21 points for Trump last year. President Obama won two of them in 2012; Trump carried all three by double digits. And the western and northern Minnesota districts were both in top four as far as pro-Trump shifts.

Contrast that with Rep. Erik Paulsens (R-Minn.) fabulous suburban district west of Minneapolis (which this Fix writer once called home). There, just four years after Obama eked out a narrow win, Clinton carried the district by 10 points.

So three rural, Democratic-held districts shift big for Trump, and one suburban, Republican-held district shifts big for Clinton. These trends follow throughout the country.

The other biggest pro-Trump shifts came in the Scranton-based 17th district in Pennsylvania, the Flint-based 5th district in Michigan, two districts that neighbor Ohio's 6th, andfour districts in Iowa and Wisconsin that bear plenty of similarities to those rural Minnesota districts.

The biggest pro-Clinton shifts, meanwhile, came in Utah, where third-party candidate Evan McMullin siphoned off plenty of conservative voters and reduced the GOPs margins of victories by 25 to 35 points in all four districts. Those were the four biggest pro-Clinton or more aptly, anti-Trump shifts in the country.

Aside from those unusual cases, Clinton improved upon Obamas margins in the suburbs of Houston (3 of the 25 biggest pro-Clinton shifts), Dallas (3), Chicago (3), Atlanta (2), Washington D.C. (2), and up and down California, where she did especially well in Orange County.

The point is that the 2016 election forced us to rejigger some of our preconceptions about what states and districts are blue, red and in-between. An unorthodox candidate at the top of either ticket can shift votes both for and against their party even though our country remains hugely partisan and swing voters are supposed to be an endangered species.

As these districts show, these swing voters do exist in very specific areas and circumstances.

(And make sure to check out all the data at Daily Kos Elections. Those guys have done yeomans work collectingall of this.)

See the original post:
How Donald Trump redrew the political map - Washington Post

Less than a week before the 2016 presidential election, when most media observers thought Hillary Clinton was a lock to win, Elon Musk called CNBC and unloaded on Donald Trump. He doesn't seem to have the sort of character that reflects well on the United States, he said.

In the three months since Trump's surprise victory, Musk has changed course, becoming something of an ally to Trump. When the then president-elect held a tech summit in December, Musk agreed to attend. He wasnt the only one. Apples Tim Cook, Amazons Jeff Bezos, Facebooks Sheryl Sandberg, Microsofts Satya Nadella, and others joined him at the table. But they didnt agree to a larger role advising the Trump administration as did Musk, who has met with the president and his team more than any other tech industry leader, save for Peter Thiel.

Last weekend, after Trump signed an executive order barring Syrian refugees from the United States, along with refugees and citizens from six other Muslim-majority nations, several tech leaders released statements of opposition, if not outrage.

Sergey Brin, the Google co-founder who first came to America as a refugee, attended a protest at San Francisco International Airport, and spoke at a mass walk-out by more than 2000 Google employees on Monday. I came here to the U.S. at age 6 with my family from the Soviet Union, which was at that time the greatest enemy the U.S. had, he said. [Even] under the threat of nuclear annihilation ... the U.S. had the courage to take me and my family in as refugees.

Tim Cook wrote to Apple employees, criticizing Trumps immigration order in uncompromising terms, as did Facebooks Mark Zuckerberg. Microsoft and Amazon have since announced plans to challenge the order in court. Yesterday, Ubers Travis Kalanick quit Trumps economic advisory council in response to the #deleteuber campaign that followed in the orders wakeand, according to The New York Times, pointed questioning from Ubers employees as to why he hadnt resigned already.

Musk has also come out against the order, albeit gently. On Twitter, he described it as not the best way to address the countrys challenges. And unlike Kalanick, he remains committed to his advisory role in the Trump administration, even amid reports that some Tesla customers are cancelling their Model 3 orders in protest.

I cannot support a company where the CEO is acting as a conduit to the rise of white nationalism and fascism in the United States, one customer wrote on a cancellation form obtained by Buzzfeed. Ive always been a fan of Mr. Musks, but his recent actions have been abhorrent. ... Take a stand, Elon.

Last night, Musk took to Twitter to defend his continuing relationship with Trump. Advisory councils simply provide advice and attending does not mean that I agree with actions by the Administration, he wrote. In tomorrows meeting, I and others will express our objections to the recent executive order on immigration and offer suggestions for changes to the policy.

Musk, who is an immigrant himself, says he understands the perspective of those who object to his attendance at the meeting, but he believes that engaging [with Trump] on critical issues will on balance serve the greater good.

The on balance part is important. Musk knows that every time he accepts an invitation from the White House, he allows Trump to leverage his unique cultural status in American life, as perhaps the most admired technologist since Steve Jobs. In the decidedly pro-immigration technology industry, many were already suspicious of Trump, and are especially so now, following the executive order. Many Tesla owners hold similar views. Musk is paying a price for these repeated meetings, among his current staff, future prospective hires, and his customers. And yet, he seems to think that any reputational hit he takes will be more than offset by the good he can do as a policy advisor to the president.

I take Musk at his word that his decision is borne of this balance, and not narrower business interests involving Tesla or SpaceX. Even in Silicon Valley, where it is commonplace to talk of changing the world, Musk has always stood out for his earnestness. Few others are so comfortable using explicitly moral language to describe their technological ambitions. He once told me that his rocket company was a humanitarian project. Its no surprise that Musk would think hed spotted some greater good that others can't see.

But is he right?

It must give him a chill to consider the fates of Al Gore and Leonardo DiCaprio, who both made trips to Trump Tower in late 2016, hoping to persuade the then-president-elect that climate change is a real and urgent problem. DiCaprio met with Trump on December 7th, two days after Gore. On December 8th, Trump repaid these kindnesses by picking Scott Pruitt to run the Environmental Protection Agencythe same Scott Pruitt who helped lead the legal fight against the Clean Power Plan, the Obama Administrations most aggressive climate change mitigation policy. As my colleague Robinson Meyer explained at the time, what distinguishes Pruitts [time as Oklahomas Attorney General] is not just his opposition to using regulation to tackle climate change, but his opposition to using regulation to tackle any environmental problem at all.

In Musks statement on Twitter, he said that one of his goals is to accelerate the world's transition to sustainable energy. According to Bloomberg, he has already floated the idea of a carbon tax to the president. But so far, there is no evidence that Musk has had any effect on the administrations climate and energy policy. And in his statement on Twitter, Musk did not indicate why he thinks hell be more persuasive on immigration, which replaced birtherism as Trumps signature issue at the very start of his presidential campaign.

Musk has left himself one out, however. At this time ... he said, in his Twitter statement, implying that he could one day change his mind as to the merits of continued engagement with Trump. Sooner or later, he may decide that his voice is more powerful in protest than it is as a soft whisper in the presidents ear. Whether he suffers a serious loss of stature in the meantime remains to be seen.

Continue reading here:
Elon Musk Is Betting Big on Donald Trump - The Atlantic

Jokes about Donald Trump arent funny anymore, The Economist declared in 2015. The magazine took the example of the Roman poet Juvenal, noted practitioner of the art of Satura, who once noted that it was hard not to write satire, when one lived within the corruption and decadence of the unjust City. Trump, the magazine noted, poses a curious inversion to this: He makes satire almost impossible.

Its a complaint that has been often articulated about Trump, as the larger-than-life mogul became a larger-than-life presidential candidate became a larger-than-life actual president: How do you mock someone who so readily mocks himself? How do you penetrate those layers of toughness and Teflon to reveal its underlying absurdities? How, as The Economist noted, do you take a tweet like thisSorry losers and haters, but my IQ is one of the highest and you all know it! Please dont feel so stupid or insecure, its not your faultand make it even more ridiculous?

South Park Imagines the Trumpocalypse

One answer: You dont. Thats the solution come to, at any rate, by Matt Stone and Trey Parker, the creators and writers of, among other works of irreverent pop culture, the long-running show South Park. As Parker told the Australian Broadcasting Company in a recent interview, while promoting the Australian premiere of The Book of Mormon: Making fun of the new U.S. government is more difficult now than it was before, because satire has become reality.

Parker noted how challenging it had been for him and Stone to write the last season (season 20) of South Park, which attempted to create a pseudo-Trump through the person of South Park Elementarys fourth-grade teacher, Mr. Garrison. Mr. Garrisons political fortunes rose throughout the season, to the extent that its finalespoilerfound Garrison becoming the 45th president of these United States. It might have been a cheeky take on Trumps own unconventional rise to power; instead, the season struck something of a sour note. As Esquire put it, South Parks 20th Season Was a Failure, and Trey Parker and Matt Stone Know It.

It explained, of the seasons frantic creative process:

Ideas were started and abandoned. Story lines fizzled out (What happened to the gentlemens club? What exactly happened with the Member Berries?). The stories that were completed either made no sense or seemed like they were forced together, as if Parker and Stone tried to shove a puzzle piece into the wrong spot. (Why was SpaceX involved? What were they trying to say with Cartmans girlfriend? What was the deal with Star Wars and J.J. Abrams?) It was a season of half-thoughts and glimmers of brilliance that never amounted to anything. And because they were trying to keep up with the rapid changes in the election, the jokes and analysis suffered.

South Park in many ways suffered from the same thing that plagued many creators of pop culture in the aftermath of the election: Things hadnt gone as many had thought they would. They had to adjust not just their expectations, but also their creative plans. Which was unfortunate: The 2016 election came on the heels of a 19th season that was exceptionally prescient in its assessment of Trump. One episode, the much anticipated Where My Country Gone?, was expected to take on immigration. It did, but its story also doubled as a dire warning about treating a man who was, in 2015, still a long-shot presidential candidate as a joke. (Nobody ever thought hed be president! one of the episodes Canadian refugees wailed, about the man who had turned his country into an apocalyptic hellscape. It was a joke! We just let the joke go on for too long. He kept gaining momentum, and by the time we were all ready to say, Okay, lets get serious now, who should really be president? he was already being sworn into office.)

The episode was smart. It was nuanced. It was Neil Postman, in the guise of Eric Cartman. But it worked because it was able to do what the best satire always does: to point out that which is hiding in plain sight. It warned about laughing at Donald Trump long before it occurred to other people to adopt the same anxieties.

And now that @realDonaldTrump is also President Donald Trump, the threats he represents to American democratic institutions are more obvious than they were before. Trump himself, through his executive orders and his seemingly stream-of-consciousness Twitter feed, has made them obvious. Satire, in that context, is more difficult. South Parks roleand the value it can addis less clear. So, Parker explained, we decided to kind of back off and let them do their comedy and well do ours.

Its a fairly shocking decision, coming from writers who have, for so many years, reliably delighted in the absurdities of American culture. Theres a certain defeatism to it. But theres a certain realism, too. As Stone put it: People say to us all the time, Oh, you guys are getting all this good material, like were happy about some of the stuff thats happening. But I dont know if thats true. It doesnt feel that way. It feels like theyre going to be more difficult. Were having our head blown off, like everybody else.

Here is the original post:
South Park's Creators Have Given Up on Satirizing Donald Trump - The Atlantic