Mehrsa Baradaran on The Color of Money

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On this week’s episode, Mehrsa, Anna, Emily, and Felix discuss black banks and the racial wealth gap.

• The Color of Money: Black Banks and the Racial Wealth Gap by Mehrsa Baradaran
• The New York Times: “Wall Street, Seeking Big Tax Breaks, Sets Sights on Distressed Main Streets”

In the Slate Plus segment: Mehrsa talks about the PUSH Coalition Wall Street Project and the conversations she’s had with the Rev. Jesse Jackson about the racial wealth gap.

Email: slatemoney@slate.com

Twitter: @felixsalmon, @Three_Guineas, @EmilyRPeck, @MehrsaBaradaran

Podcast production by Max Jacobs.

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The Stars of the Triangulum Galaxy

Like grains of sand on a cosmic beach, stars of the Triangulum Galaxy are resolved in this sharp mosaic from the Hubble Space Telescope's Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS). The inner region of the galaxy spanning over 17,000 light-years is covered at extreme resolution, the second largest image ever released by Hubble. At its center is the bright, densely packed galactic core surrounded by a loose array of dark dust lanes mixed with the stars in the galactic plane. Also known as M33, the face-on spiral galaxy lies 3 million light-years away in the small northern constellation Triangulum. Over 50,000 light-years in diameter, the Triangulum Galaxy is the third largest in the Local Group of galaxies after the Andromeda Galaxy (M31), and our own Milky Way. Of course, to fully appreciate the Triangulum's stars, star clusters, and bright nebulae captured in this Hubble mosaic, you'll need to use a zoom tool. via NASA https://ift.tt/2NnzwGV

Billionaire-Bashing Is In Fashion Again. But What Good Can It Really Do?

SpaceX FRR And Friendly Ghosts From Apollo

Keith's note: NASA has completed its Flight Readiness Review (FRR) for the SpaceX Demo-1 fight of its crewed Dragon. The flight is scheduled for 2 March and will use a vehicle identical to the one which will eventually fly with humans with some sort of SpaceX dummy on board (think Starman in the Tesla). The only real issue that was mentioned had to do with software and one of the partners (Russia) wanted more work to done. Luckily the Russians did not detect any drilling mistakes ;-).

Listening to the NASA people talk at the press briefing today I could help but notice a certain weirdness. They all seemed to be pinching themsleves - either because this is the first time NASA has approached a human mission in a while or that the spacecraft was not built by NASA. Or maybe a little of both.

I had hoped to ask Bill Gertstenmaier about this weirdness but KSC PAO decided otherwise. Had I been allowed to ask a question it would have been this:

"Bill, you and I sat in the same design reviews 30 years ago for Space Station. Our bosses were old Apollo guys. We were looking to build something that was a paradigm shift from what they did. Every now and then however they'd say something that spoke of great wisdom. This SpaceX Review was being held in the same room where shuttle FRRs were held. And there was a capsule on the powerpoint slides - just like Apollo. I was wondering if there were any friendly ghosts in the room prompting you to be the guy offering the wisdom."

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Pete Buttigieg Is Polling at 0 Percent in the Democratic Primary. He May Have Just Found a Way to Move the Needle.

White History Month Is a Horrible Idea, but America Does Need an Education in Whiteness

How Hollywood Uses Warhol to Make Its Characters Larger Than Life