@FrankBruni: Oversharing in Admissions Essays – NYTimes

Frank Bruni

THE Yale applicant had terrific test scores. She had fantastic grades. As one of Yale’s admissions officers, Michael Motto, leafed through her application, he found himself more and more impressed.

Then he got to her essay. As he remembers it, she mentioned a French teacher she greatly admired. She described their one-on-one conversation at the end of a school day. And then, this detail: During their talk, when an urge to go to the bathroom could no longer be denied, she decided not to interrupt the teacher or exit the room. She simply urinated on herself. Continue reading @FrankBruni: Oversharing in Admissions Essays – NYTimes

#Poetry: Two poems by @CharlieBraxton – Shout Out UK

Charlie R. Braxton is a poet, playwright and essayists from McComb Mississippi. He is the author of two volumes of verse, Ascension from the Ashes (Blackwood Press 1991) and Cinder’s Rekindled (Jawara Press 2013). His poetry has been published in various literary publications such as African American Review, The Minnesota Review, The Black Nation, Specter Magazine, Sepia Poetry Review and The San Fernando Poetry Journal Continue reading #Poetry: Two poems by @CharlieBraxton – Shout Out UK

@BillMoyersHQ: Too Big to Comply? #NSA Says It’s Too Large, Complex to Comply With Court Order

In a remarkable legal filing on Friday afternoon, the NSA told a federal court that its spying operations are too massive and technically complex to comply with an order to preserve evidence. The NSA, in other words, now says that it cannot comply with the rules that apply to any other party before a court — the very rules that ensure legal accountability — because it is too big.

The filing came in a long-running lawsuit filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation challenging the NSA’s warrantless collection of Americans’ private data. Recently, the plaintiffs in that case have fought to ensure that the NSA is preserving relevant evidence — a standard obligation in any lawsuit — and not destroying the very data that would show the agency spied on the plaintiffs’ communications. Yet, as in so many other instances, the NSA appears to believe it is exempt from the normal rules.

In its filing on Friday, the NSA told the court:

[A]ttempts to fully comply with the Court’s June 5 Order would be a massive and uncertain endeavor because the NSA may have to shut down all databases and systems that contain Section 702 information in an effort to comply.

Continue reading @BillMoyersHQ: Too Big to Comply? #NSA Says It’s Too Large, Complex to Comply With Court Order

Who Owns Your Womb? Women Can Get Murder Charge for Refusing C-Sections | Alternet

By Michelle Goodwin

When most women become pregnant, understandably they believe the choice of how they give birth will remain theirs; whether to deliver vaginally or through cesarean surgery or where to give birth, at home or at a hospital. Decades ago, those decisions were well within the domain of pregnant patients whose reproductive liberty and autonomy interests gained constitutional recognition in the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade.

After all, whose body is it anyway? But what may have seemed clear-cut decades ago, is now put to the test by doctors and lower courts.

Decades ago, refusing to undergo cesarean surgery was not a crime. That’s another matter now in the wake of recent “fetal protection” enactments that make it a crime for a pregnant woman to engage in any conduct that might threaten harm to a fetus. Some doctors believe this applies to how a woman gives birth.

Melissa Rowland refused to undergo the cesarean surgery recommended by her doctor. She was later charged with murder after one of her fetuses was stillborn. Rowland accepted a plea deal, which made her criminally liable for child endangerment. Continue reading Who Owns Your Womb? Women Can Get Murder Charge for Refusing C-Sections | Alternet