Author Archives: Editors

INVENTED BY WOMEN

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When someone says the word “inventor,” prolific and history-making men like Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, George Washington Carver and Benjamin Franklin spring to mind. But what about all the women who invented amazing things, women we don’t hear about very often?

We’ve rounded up eight awesome things — many of which we all use frequently — that you probably didn’t know were invented by ladies. Here’s to entrepreneurial girl power:

Windshield Wipers

windshield wipers

Mary Anderson thought up the windshield wiper out of necessity in 1903. During a road trip from Alabama to New York City, Anderson noticed drivers stopping to clear snow and ice off their windshields. Soon after, she came up with the windshield wiper — an arm with a rubber blade that could be activated without getting out of your car. She applied for a patent in 1904, and it was issued in 1905. Although the device did not gain popularity until nearly a decade later, it’s hard to imagine what it would be like to drive without windshield wipers today.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

m.huffpost.com/us/entry/3744401?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000003

MAY BE OLDEST LIVING BEING PERSON EVER

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FRASQUIA, Bolivia — If Bolivia’s public records are correct, Carmelo Flores Laura is the oldest living person ever documented.

They say he turned 123 a month ago.

The native Aymara lives in a straw-roofed dirt-floor hut in an isolated hamlet near Lake Titicaca at 13,100 feet (4,000 meters), is illiterate, speaks no Spanish and has no teeth.

He walks without a cane and doesn’t wear glasses. And though he speaks Aymara with a firm voice, one must talk into his ear to be heard.

“I see a bit dimly. I had good vision before. But I saw you coming,” he tells Associated Press journalists who visit after a local TV report touts him as the world’s oldest person.

Hobbling down a dirt path, Flores greets them with a raised arm, smiles and sits down on a rock. His gums bulge with coca leaf, a mild stimulant that staves off hunger. Like most Bolivian highlands peasants, he has been chewing it all his life.

Guinness World Records says the oldest living person verified by original proof of birth is Misao Okawa, a 115-year-old Japanese woman. The oldest verified age was 122 years and 164 days: Jeanne Calment of France, who died in 1997.

Guinness spokeswoman Jamie Panas said it wasn’t aware of a claim being filed for the Bolivians.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/16/carmelo-flores-laura-aymara-bolivia-oldest-man-person-ever_n_3769218.html

ILLINOIS POLICE DEPARTMENTS CANCEL EVENTS WITH ANTI MUSLIM TRAINER

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Good News Alert: Illinois Police Departments Cancel Events with Anti-Muslim Trainer

Sam-Kharoba

CAIR-Chicago to work with appropriate agencies to ensure high standards for qualified trainers on Islam

(CHICAGO, IL, 8/16/2013) — The Chicago chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-Chicago) today announced that the Lombard Police Department has joined the Elmhurst and Highland Park police departments in cancelling previously scheduled trainings featuring controversial anti-Islam trainer Sam Kharoba.

CAIR-Chicago commended officials in Lombard for their swift action in addressing the Muslim community’s concerns about the police trainings offered by Kharoba, an unqualified notoriously biased expert, and organized by the North East Multi-Regional Training academy (NEMRT). CAIR-Chicago thanked Lombard Village President Keith Giagnorio for his commitment to high standards of training.

CAIR-Chicago also thanked the dozens of callers from the community, as well as partner coalition members from the Jewish, African-American and Latino communities, who expressed outrage at the trainings and support for CAIR’s outreach efforts. CAIR-Chicago additionally expressed appreciation for the role Moon Khan played in bringing the matter to Lombard officials.

Kharoba teaches extremist views about Islam that are inaccurate and biased. Such views were featured in “How We Train Our Cops to Fear Islam,” an investigative piece published in Washington Monthly‘s March/April 2011 edition:

  • “When I look at the life of Muhammad, I get a very nasty image,” said Kharoba, pausing to look around the auditorium. The audience was silent. “I am talking about a pedophile, a serial killer, a rapist,” Kharoba said. “And that is just to start off with. Anyone who says that Islam is a religion of peace,” he continued, “is either ignorant or flat out lying.”
  • “Islam is a highly violent radical religion that mandates that all of the earth must be Muslim.”
  • “When you have a Muslim that wears a headband, regardless of color or insignia, basically what that is telling you is ‘I am willing to be a martyr.'”
  • http://www.cair.com/press-center/press-releases/12081-illinois-police-departments-cancel-events-with-anti-muslim-trainer.html