npr: (via Lady Mechanic Initiative Trains Women For ‘The Best Job’ : NPR) In Nigeria, the Lady Mechanic Initiative trains women to fix cars. Founder Sandra Aguebor-Ekperuoh started the initiative after having a vision from God. She has trainee mechanics all around the country. Some of the young women are from disadvantaged backgrounds, some former sex workers and others just hugely enthusiastic. Faith Macwen, who graduated from the Lady Mechanic Initiative in 2009, now works for a top automobile company in Nigeria. Macwen says men at work were initially dismissive. “Actually, at first, the male were feeling, ‘You can’t do it, that it’s our world.’ But we made them realize — I made them realize — we can do it. I want other ladies to take up the opportunities. Go out. When you have a flair for something, go in for it,” she says. “Don’t let anybody tell you you can’t do it. You can do it.” Photo: Ofeibea Quist-Arcton/NPR things that make me happy.
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(via Lady Mechanic Initiative Trains Women For ‘The Best Job’ : NPR)

In Nigeria, the Lady Mechanic Initiative trains women to fix cars. Founder Sandra Aguebor-Ekperuoh started the initiative after having a vision from God.

She has trainee mechanics all around the country. Some of the young women are from disadvantaged backgrounds, some former sex workers and others just hugely enthusiastic.

Faith Macwen, who graduated from the Lady Mechanic Initiative in 2009, now works for a top automobile company in Nigeria.

Macwen says men at work were initially dismissive. “Actually, at first, the male were feeling, ‘You can’t do it, that it’s our world.’ But we made them realize — I made them realize — we can do it. I want other ladies to take up the opportunities. Go out. When you have a flair for something, go in for it,” she says. “Don’t let anybody tell you you can’t do it. You can do it.”

Photo: Ofeibea Quist-Arcton/NPR

things that make me happy.

Lessons From SXSW 2013: Take The Middle Road : The Record : NPR

At the second of her two Austin shows, Friday night at the Central Presbyterian Church, Maines looked ultra-modern in a pompadour haircut and all black clothes. What mattered more was the confidence she found within a new band led by Harper in a set that included covers of songs by Vedder, The Jayhawks, Dan Wilson and others, as well as a couple of catchy originals.

Although the closing guitar duel between Harper on lap steel and Maines’s father Lloyd on pedal steel was fun, the set’s crowning moment came when she dared to try a version of the late Jeff Buckley’s “Lover, You Should Have Come Over.” That sweeping ballad’s technical difficulty is enhanced by the challenge of living up to Buckley’s vocal, which hit otherworldly heights. Fully committing herself, Maines scaled the song’s tricky melody like a free mountain climber, hitting notes that seemed to defy any scale. Immersed in the music, unconcerned about whether she was living up to anyone’s definition of success, Maines presented us with the privilege of witnessing her own internal process of rediscovery.

nprradiopictures:

A few weeks ago, a few of us headed over to the Supreme Court to retrieve a suitcase. It belonged to Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, and it contained, effectively, her family history in photographs. We sat in the kitchen in her chambers over her lunch break. She ate a bowl of soup and told us stories about the photos.

NPR’s Nina Totenberg went back a few weeks later to get Sotomayor’s full story (airing throughout the week): a childhood in tenement housing in the Bronx; a diagnosis with diabetes; her father’s death to alcoholism; her cousin’s death to drugs; and her divorce.

She also shares memories of huge family parties, cooking with her grandmother and receiving a scholarship to Princeton (and her corollary thoughts on affirmative action).

Without further delay, check out the presentation, in which Sotomayor shares her photos and stories.

(P.S. Hey, other justices: We’re currently accepting suitcases of photos.)

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Justice Sotomayor and Kainaz Amaria/NPR

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Source: NPR

Same Streets, Different Lives In Zadie Smith's 'NW' London : NPR

“I grew up reading a generation of American and English people like [Saul] Bellow, [John] Updike or [Martin] Amis. Everybody’s neutral unless they’re black — then you hear about it: the black man, the black woman, the black person. Of course, if you happen to be black the world doesn’t look that way to you. I just wanted to try and create perhaps a sense of alienation and otherness in this person, the white reader, to remind them that they are not neutral to other people.”

I couldn’t get into her White Teeth, but after Roxane Gay’s recommendation and hearing this NPR piece this morning, I plan to give Smith’s new novel NW a try.

While working as a waiter, Richard Simmons saved up a year-and-a-half worth of tips to open his first aerobics studio in Beverly Hills in 1974. Ever since then, he has been planting himself in America’s pop-culture psyche with dozens of infomercials and best-selling books, myriad parodies of his over-the-top persona, and seemingly endless TV and film appearances. Imagine my excitement at a dinner party last spring, when a friend of a friend told me about Simmons’ Beverly Hills aerobics classes. Turns out, whenever Simmons is in town, he leads the courses himself, in that same studio. The classes are open to the public, cost only $12, and they have a cult following in Los Angeles. I knew I had to go, and record it. So, I convinced Simmons’ team to let me shadow him one Saturday afternoon in May, traipsing behind the dynamo — with a big fuzzy shotgun mic in hand.

Through Thick And Thin, Simmons Is Still Sweatin’ by Sam Sanders.

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(via npr)

In the past few weeks, two NPR reporters have interviewed New Jersey small business owner Joe Olivo. Both times, listeners were told that Joe owns a small print shop in New Jersey. Both times, the reporters neglected to tell listeners that Joe’s affiliated with a lobby group called The National Federation of Independent Business. We interviewed Joe and NPR’s ombudsman to find out what’s going on here, exactly.

(via onthemedia)

(via onthemedia)

I would say, ‘Tell me about what happens at the end of the world,’ and she would describe her vision of that, which was these crazy things with people’s hands falling off and their clothes burning up and the light in the sky turning on and off really fast, like all these visions that she has. And I remember — this is just one example — but I remember asking her, ‘If all these things were your fault, what would you do?’ And she said, ‘I would just try to fix it. I would do whatever I can to fix what I broke.’ And then I said, ‘What would you do to fix it?’ And she said, ‘Well, I would always brush my teeth. I would listen to my parents.’

‘Beasts’ Finds Its Heart In A 6-Year-Old Heroine  (via npr)

I am so eager to see this movie, you don’t even know.

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