What she did next defied all expectations. When Alice Walton stepped into her massive inheritance from Walmart, she became one of the wealthiest women on the planet, sitting atop a fortune that currently rivals the GDP of entire nations. Most people look at a number that large and see a score to be guarded—a hoard to be protected at all costs. But Alice looked at her billions and saw a powerful tool to change the world. Alice was born in 1949 and grew up watching her father, Sam Walton, transform a small, dusty five-and-dime store into a global retail empire. Her father was famously frugal, driving an old pickup truck even when he became one of the richest men in the world. When he passed away in 1992, he left his children a massive mountain of capital. While her brothers, Jim and Rob, stepped straight into the corporate boardrooms to keep the family business thriving, Alice chose a path that was much less predictable. Her heart was never under the bright fluorescent lights of a department store. Her eyes were always drawn to the walls instead of the balance sheets. "Art was always a lifeline for me, a way to see the world through a completely different lens," Alice once shared when reflecting on her childhood. She started collecting art at a young age, but she eventually realized that keeping beautiful things locked away in a private living room didn't do the world any good. In 2011, she shocked the global art community by opening the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas. It was a massive 1.2 billion dollar gamble, and big-city critics in New York and London initially laughed at the idea. They couldn't understand why world-class masterpieces by iconic artists like Andy Warhol, Georgia O’Keeffe, and Jackson Pollock were being sent to a tiny town of 50,000 people in the rural Ozarks. They dismissed it as a billionaire’s expensive hobby. Alice ignored the critics completely. She had a vision that was radical in its simplicity. "Why shouldn't a kid from a rural trailer park have the same access to the soul of American culture as a socialite living on the Upper East Side?" she noted before the opening. To make sure that dream came true, she made a bold decision: admission to the museum would be completely free for everyone. The gamble paid off in a huge way. Since the doors opened, over six million people have walked through the halls of Crystal Bridges. It didn't become a playground for elite critics. Instead, it filled up with local school groups, working families, and travelers who finally had a reason to stop in rural Arkansas. By removing the price tag, Alice tore down the invisible wall that usually separates everyday people from high culture, proving that art belongs to everyone, not just the wealthiest zip codes. But her ambition didn't stop with art. Recently, she turned her attention from the spirit to the body, addressing a major crisis facing rural America: a desperate shortage of doctors. She founded the Alice L. Walton School of Medicine in her home state. To build a healthcare system that actually serves forgotten communities, she made another incredible announcement. For the first classes of the school's operation, the students would pay absolutely zero tuition. "We have to change how we think about medicine," she stated during the development of the school. "It is about teaching new doctors to focus on whole-health, treating the entire person rather than just the disease, and making sure they can afford to practice where they are needed most." Alice's story isn't a traditional rags-to-riches tale, and her philanthropy doesn't magically erase the deep public debates about wealth inequality or corporate labor practices. However, her choices provide a fascinating lesson in what it means to live with intention. For many ultra-wealthy individuals, money is an addiction where the hunger only grows the more you consume. They spend their entire lives trying to turn billions into even more billions, trapped in a loop of endless accumulation. Alice broke that cycle. She saw that while wealth can trap you in wanting more and more, it can also help free someone else. She knew that the real worth of money is not in keeping it, but in giving it away.

From someone who teaches AP US History: If you are confused as to why so many Americans are defending the confederate flag, monuments, and statues right now, I put together a quick Q&A, with questions from a hypothetical person with misconceptions and answers from my perspective as an AP U.S. History Teacher: Q: What did the Confederacy stand for? A: Rather than interpreting, let's go directly to the words of the Confederacy's Vice President, Alexander Stephens. In his "Cornerstone Speech" on March 21, 1861, he stated "The Constitution... rested upon the equality of races. This was an error. Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth." Q: But people keep saying heritage, not hate! They think the purpose of the flags and monuments are to honor confederate soldiers, right? A: The vast majority of confederate flags flying over government buildings in the south were first put up in the 1960's during the Civil Rights Movement. So for the first hundred years after the Civil War ended, while relatives of those who fought in it were still alive, the confederate flag wasn't much of a symbol at all. But when Martin Luther King, Jr. and John Lewis were marching on Washington to get the Civil Rights Act (1964) and Voting Rights Act (1965) passed, leaders in the south felt compelled to fly confederate flags and put up monuments to honor people who had no living family members and had fought in a war that ended a century ago. Their purpose in doing this was to exhibit their displeasure with black people fighting for basic human rights that were guaranteed to them in the 14th and 15th Amendments but being withheld by racist policies and practices. Q: But if we take down confederate statues and monuments, how will we teach about and remember the past? A: Monuments and statues pose little educational relevance, whereas museums, the rightful place for Confederate paraphernalia, can provide more educational opportunities for citizens to learn about our country's history. The Civil War is important to learn about, and will always loom large in social studies curriculum. Removing monuments from public places and putting them in museums also allows us to avoid celebrating and honoring people who believed that tens of millions of black Americans should be legal property. Q: But what if the Confederate flag symbol means something different to me? A: Individuals aren't able to change the meaning of symbols that have been defined by history. When I hang a Bucs flag outside my house, to me, the Bucs might represent the best team in the NFL, but to the outside world, they represent an awful NFL team, since they haven't won a playoff game in 18 years. I can't change that meaning for everyone who drives by my house because it has been established for the whole world to see. If a Confederate flag stands for generic rebellion or southern pride to you, your personal interpretation forfeits any meaning once you display it publicly, as its meaning takes on the meaning it earned when a failed regime killed hundreds of thousands of Americans in an attempt to destroy America and keep black people enslaved forever. Q: But my uncle posted a meme that said the Civil War/Confederacy was about state's rights and not slavery? A: "A state's right to what?" - John Green Q: Everyone is offended about everything these days. Should we take everything down that offends anyone? A: The Confederacy literally existed to go against the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and the idea that black people are human beings that deserve to live freely. If that doesn't upset or offend you, you are un-American. Q: Taking these down goes against the First Amendment and freedom of speech, right? A: No. Anyone can do whatever they want on their private property, on their social media, etc. Taking these down in public, or having private corporations like NASCAR ban them on their properties, has literally nothing to do with the Bill of Rights. Q: How can people claim to be patriotic while supporting a flag that stood for a group of insurgent failures who tried to permanently destroy America and killed 300,000 Americans in the process? A: No clue. Q: So if I made a confederate flag my profile picture, or put a confederate bumper sticker on my car, what am I declaring to my friends, family, and the world? A: That you support the Confederacy. To recap, the Confederacy stands for: slavery, white supremacy, treason, failure, and a desire to permanently destroy Selective history as it supports white supremacy. It’s no accident that: You learned about Helen Keller instead of W.E.B, DuBois You learned about the Watts and L.A. Riots, but not Tulsa or Wilmington. You learned that George Washington’s dentures were made from wood, rather than the teeth from slaves. You learned about black ghettos, but not about Black Wall Street. You learned about the New Deal, but not “red lining.” You learned about Tommie Smith’s fist in the air at the 1968 Olympics, but not that he was sent home the next day and stripped of his medals. You learned about “black crime,” but white criminals were never lumped together and discussed in terms of their race. You learned about “states rights” as the cause of the Civil War, but not that slavery was mentioned 80 times in the articles of secession. Privilege is having history rewritten so that you don’t have to acknowledge uncomfortable facts. Racism is perpetuated by people who refuse to learn or acknowledge this reality. You have a choice. - Jim Golden

L’atitude 52 has came out with smart glasses that actually look different. I obviously had to check out the orange lenses to match my Cosmic Orange iPhone. 🍊 They come with live translation, an AI tour guide, and a 12 MP camera with 107° field of view. What do you guys think about these glasses? #berlin# #smartglasses# #latitude52# #aiglasses#

L-7 days. 1 week! And here is another Launch tradition: we plant a tree in the alley of astronauts. There are trees going back as far as Yuri Gagarin. It’s a little hot, so I hope this one gets some water!