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Below is a note from Erica Lafferty whose mother, Dawn Hochsprung, was killed at Sandy Hook Elementary with 20 of her students and five other staff members. If you feel moved by Erica’s words, please forward this message to your friends and family and ask them to be part of this movement.
A few years ago, I was fortunate enough to visit the U.K. Prime Minister’s residence at 10 Downing Street. During a tour of the residence, we were shown a painting of an elegantly dressed woman. “Of course, you know Lady Lovelace,” we were told.
Imagine our surprise to learn that we were staring at a portrait of the woman who is considered to be the world’s first programmer. Our group had never heard of her.
Ada Lovelace’s experience remains all too familiar: So many of the breakthrough contributions of women in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields continue to go untold, too often fading into obscurity.
Then add an untold history of your own, and make a commitment to share these stories in any way you can to help inspire more young women and men to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, and math.
Women were central in the early teams building the foundation of modern programming. They unveiled the structure of DNA. Their work inspired new environmental movements and led to the discovery of new genes. It’s past time to write their stories permanently into history, so they can stand side by side with the extraordinary men like them who have used their technical and innovation skills to bring needed solutions and discoveries to our world.
And here’s what’s worth noting: Telling and sharing these stories will actively help create more of them in the future.
Research shows us that a key part of inspiring more young people to pursue careers in science and technology is simply sharing the stories of role models like them in these fields who have had a significant impact on our world.
Stories like that of Rosalind Franklin, whose research was essential for revealing the structure of DNA. There’s Katherine Johnson, who calculated key flight trajectories during the Space Race. The ENIAC team — six young women “Computers” who were the first digital programmers in America. Or Navy Rear Admiral Grace Hopper, who first developed computer languages and a compiler to translate them into machine code.
You just might inspire the next Ada Lovelace.
Thanks,
Megan
Megan Smith
U.S. Chief Technology Officer
The White House
@USCTO
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Background checks are under attack already. Despite the fact that even gun dealers, who are now complying with the law when they sell weapons, have told their customers that the new law, “is basically the same as if you bought it in the store,” the gun lobby is already planning to complicate, erode, and repeal what we’ve all fought so hard for. And the attack starts this Saturday, when the gun lobby holds its “I Will Not Comply” rally on the green in front of the capitol in Olympia. The gun lobby is standing up Saturday against background checks — will you stand with us today to help protect the background checks we worked so hard to make law? This rally is going to be pretty nuts — they’ve lined up the son of Cliven Bundy, the tax-dodging rancher who nearly started a shooting war with local law enforcement last year. This is what we’re up against when the legislature convenes in January. They’re not going to give up — and we can’t either. Thank you for keeping up the fight. Zach Silk
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feat. picture is from Pinterest
The Senate stands adjourned until 10:00am on Monday, December 15, 2014.
Following any Leader remarks, the Senate will proceed to Executive Session to consider the Murthy, Santos, Rose, Saldana, and Blinken nominations.
Monday, 5:30pm—Up to 4 roll call votes
Tuesday, Approximately 10:00am—Up to 2 roll call votes
Tuesday, 2:30pm—Up to 2 roll call votes
Tuesday, 6:00pm—Up to 2 roll call votes
By unanimous consent, the Senate passed the following bills:
Passed H.R.2754: Collectible Coin Protection Act
Passed H.R.3572: Coastal Barrier Resources System Units
Passed H.R.1206: Electronic Duck Stamp
Passed H.R.1378: To designate United States Federal Judicial Center located at 333 West Broadway in San Diego, California, as the “John Rhoades Federal Judicial Center” and to designate the United States courthouse located on 333 West Broadway in San Diego, California, as the “James M. Carter and Judith N Keep United States Courthouse.
Passed H.R.5050: May 31, 1918 Act Repeal
Passed H.R.5185: EARLY Act Reauthorization of 2014
Passed H.R.5816: United States Commission on International Religious Freedom
Passed S.706: Transnational Drug Trafficking Act
Passed the following Post Office Naming Bills, en bloc:
– H.R.3027 – To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 442 Miller Valley Road in Prescott, – Arizona, as the “Barry M. Goldwater Post Office”.
– H.R.4416 – To redesignate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 161 Live Oak Street in Miami, Arizona, as the “Staff Sergeant Manuel V. Mendoza Post Office Building”.
– H.R.4651 – To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 601 West Baker Road in Baytown, Texas as the “Specialist Keith Erin Grace Jr. Memorial Post Office”.
– H.R.5331 – To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 73839 Gorgonio Drive in Twentynine Palms, California, as the “Colonel M.J. ‘Mac’ Dube, USMC Post Office Building”.
– H.R.5562 – To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 801 West Ocean Avenue in Lompoc, California, as the “Federal Correctional Officer Scott J. Williams Memorial Post Office Building”.
Passed H.R.4276: Veterans Traumatic Brain Injury Care Improvement Act of 2014
Passed H.R.5687: To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 101 East Market Street in Long Beach, California, as the “Juanita Millender-McDonald Post Office”.
5:32pm The Senate began a 15 minute roll call vote on the motion to invoke cloture on Executive Calendar #681, the nomination of Vivek Murthy, to be Surgeon General;
Invoked: 51-43
5:59pm The Senate began a 10 minute roll call vote on the motion to invoke cloture on confirmation of Executive Calendar #681, Vivek Murthy, to be Surgeon General. The remaining votes in this series will be 10 minutes in length.
5:59pm The Senate began a 10 minute roll call vote on the motion to invoke cloture on confirmation of Executive Calendar #681, Vivek Murthy, to be Surgeon General. The remaining votes in this series will be 10 minutes in length.
6:18 The Senate began a 10 minute roll call vote on the motion to invoke cloture on Calendar # 979, Daniel Santos, Member, Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety;
Invoked: 54-39
Next:
Cloture on Executive Calendar #635, Frank Rose, Asst Sec State – Verification.
Cloture was invoked on the Rose nomination 54-39. The previously scheduled 10:00am votes tomorrow on confirmation of the Santos and Rose nominations will be voice votes. At 2:30pm tomorrow, there will be 2 roll call votes and at 6:00pm there will be 2 more votes.
Tuesday, December 16:
2:30pm—Up to 2 roll call votes:
6:00pm—Up to 2 roll call votes:
Senator Blumenthal asked unanimous consent that the Senate take up and pass H.R.5059, Clay Hunt Suicide Prevention for American Veterans Act.
Senator Coburn objected.
Senator Portman asked unanimous consent the Energy Committee be discharged from further consideration of H.R.2126, and the Senate take up and pass the bill.
Senator Coburn objected.
WRAP UP
Roll Call Votes
Legislative Business
Passed H.R.2754: Collectible Coin Protection Act
Passed H.R.3572: Coastal Barrier Resources System Units
Passed H.R.1206: Electronic Duck Stamp
Passed H.R.1378: To designate United States Federal Judicial Center located at 333 West Broadway in San Diego, California, as the “John Rhoades Federal Judicial Center” and to designate the United States courthouse located on 333 West Broadway in San Diego, California, as the “James M. Carter and Judith N Keep United States Courthouse.
Passed H.R.5050: May 31, 1918 Act Repeal
Passed H.R.5185: EARLY Act Reauthorization of 2014
Passed H.R.5816: United States Commission on International Religious Freedom
Passed S.706: Transnational Drug Trafficking Act
Passed the following Post Office Naming Bills, en bloc:
Passed H.R.4276: Veterans Traumatic Brain Injury Care Improvement Act of 2014
Passed H.R.5687: To designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 101 East Market Street in Long Beach, California, as the “Juanita Millender-McDonald Post Office”.
Passed Calendar #606, S.1744: Security Clearance Accountability, Reform, and Enhancement Act, with committee-reported substitute amendment and committee-reported title amendment by voice vote.
Passed H.R.2901: Senator Paul Simon Water for the World Act of 2014.
Passed H.R.1068: To enact title 54, United States Cod, “National Park Service and Related Programs”, as positive law.
Passed H.R.2866: Boys Town Centennial Commemorative Coin Act, with a Johanns amendment.
Executive Business
Confirmed all nominations on the Secretary’s desk in the Foreign Service.
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Last Floor Action:12/12
3:10:44 P.M. – The Speaker announced that pursuant to the order of the House of today, the House stands adjourned until noon on Tuesday, December 16, 2014, unless it sooner has received a message from the Senate transmitting its adoption of H. Con. Res. 125, in which case the House shall stand adjourned pursuant to that concurrent resolution. Agreed to without objection
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| Dear Readers:In 1910, when Mexicans launched their revolution, a major grievance involved the company store, which kept the working poor enslaved to a plantation economy. |
| Today, the Los Angeles Times reveals that this vestige of an oppressive past remains a fixture of Mexican agriculture, including export mega-farms that supply tomatoes, cucumbers and other produce to American consumers.Read: Company stores trap Mexican farmworkers in cycle of debt |
| Workers at camps are held in a kind of indentured servitude thanks to the low pay and high prices. Desperate workers scale barbed wire at night to escape their debts. Please read the story |
| by Times writer Richard Marosi and see the pictures by Don Bartletti. |
| The piece on company stores is the third in our “Product of Mexico” series. Our first installment told readers about unbearable conditions at labor camps operated by Mexican mega-farms. Our second offered an inside look at Bioparques, one of Mexico’s biggest tomato exporters and a supplier to Wal-Mart. |
| Our reporters’ expose of the company store left me thinking of Faulkner’s line about history: “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” |
| Davan Maharaj, Editor |
| P.S. Don’t miss the faces of farmworkers captured by the Times photojournalist Don Bartletti as he traveled across nine Mexican states. |
Be a Seed for Change 
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