Contemplations – 10

I'm incurably curious about many aspects of this journey of ours. Here are a few noteworthy items I've stumbled across that I'm making a note of so I can revisit them from time to time.

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Appetizer:

What would the American political landscape look like if we all just use this phrase: "for the love of humanity"? I'm going to make this vote based on "for the love of humanity." What would that look like, if we created policies for the love of humanity?
– LaTosha Brown, co-founder of Black Voters Matter⩘  speaking to Don Lemon on the Silence Is Not an Option⩘  podcast, Nov 12, 2020.

We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings.
– Ursula K. Le Guin, in her acceptance speech⩘  for the National Book Foundation's Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, Nov 2014.

2021

Kurt Vonnegut: Unstuck in Time

Directed by Robert B. Weide and Don Argott; written by Robert B. Weide

Such a wonderful documentary!

My library contains all of Vonnegut's novels. I've appreciated them all and have read several multiple times. I also was deeply touched by the powerful book of essays he wrote late in his life, A Man Without a Country⩘ .

   Do you know what a humanist is? My parents and grandparents were humanists, what used to be called Free Thinkers. So as a humanist I am honoring my ancestors, which the Bible says is a good thing to do. We humanists try to behave as decently, as fairly, and as honorably as we can without any expectation of rewards or punishments in an afterlife. My brother and sister didn't think there was one, my parents and grandparents didn't think there was one. It was enough that they were alive. We humanists serve as best we can the only abstraction with which we have any familiarity, which is our community.

This documentary has an interesting twist: Vonnegut and Weide worked together on the project for more than two decades and became very good friends, to the point that their friendship couldn't be separated from the documentary itself and became incorporated into it. So while the documentary remains primarily focused on Vonnegut's life, we see the two of them together many times laughing and enjoying each other's company. From the documentary's website⩘ :

   In 1982, a young filmmaker wrote a letter to his literary idol, proposing a documentary on the author's life and work. Kurt Vonnegut soon met with Robert Weide and authorized the production.…
   Filming on the documentary finally commenced in 1988 and continued, on-and-off, through the years, taking the pair to several locations, including Vonnegut's hometown of Indianapolis (where the author reminisced through his boyhood homes, his grade school, his high school, and many landmarks of his youth), Iowa City, where Vonnegut taught at the famous Writer's Workshop in the mid-60's, and Buffalo, New York, where Vonnegut would attend the world premiere performance of a humanist Requiem he had authored. Weide's camera would follow the author to his 60th high school reunion, to several public speaking engagements, and on a promotional tour for his final novel, "Timequake."
   As the years rolled by, something unexpected happened—filmmaker and subject would become close friends. The upside to this was that Vonnegut would open up to Weide about his life and work in a personal way never before captured on camera. The downside was Weide's concern that he might be jeopardizing the "journalistic integrity" of the film. Despite his uncertainty, Weide kept filming Vonnegut (and principal people in his life) until shortly before the author's death in 2007.
   After Vonnegut's passing, Weide would still log time in the editing room, but with his friend now gone, and no concrete financing in place, the film lingered. Finally, it was Vonnegut scholar Jerome Klinkowitz (one of the interview subjects) who suggested full disclosure, citing that the evolving friendship between author and fan should be folded into the film—in the same way that Vonnegut often interacts with characters in his own fictional narratives. Filmmaker Don Argott was recruited to document the new "meta" angle, while Weide carried on with Vonnegut's life story, as originally planned.

Perhaps the most wonderful aspect of the film is Vonnegut's frequent, wholehearted, and infectious laughter.

We are here on earth to fart around. Don't let anybody tell you any different.

I'm now inspired to revisit all of his books, to take another journey through his universe, our community.

Related: Library of America has a beautiful boxed set of all of his novels as well as selected short stories, essays, and talks: Kurt Vonnegut: The Complete Novels⩘ .

Kurt Vonnegut: Unstuck in Time⩘ 

The Butterfly Nebula

The Butterfly Nebula⩘ , Jun 7, 2013, image credit: NASA/ESA/Hubble

The epidemiology of abortion

One of my most trusted sources of information about the pandemic is the Your Local Epidemiologist⩘  newsletter, which is written by Katelyn Jetelina, who "has a Masters in Public Health and PhD in Epidemiology and Biostatistics. She is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Epidemiology, Human Genetics, and Environmental Sciences at the UTHealth School of Public Health where her research lab resides and where she teaches PhD, MD, and Masters students."

Per https://dataheroawards.org⩘ : Her posts are 100% data-driven and backed by the most recent scientific evidence. Some of these are her own analyses, some of these are based on other brilliant scientists peer reviewed studies, and some are science-driven resources.

Recently, she posted an excellent single article about the epidemiological science of abortions⩘ , which I consider an essential read.

It's important to review the science so you can equip yourself with the facts and, maybe one day, policymakers can make more evidence-based, data-driven decisions.

Bottom Line: Access to safe and legal abortion is vital to the physical and mental health of women in the United States. The science says this. The women on the ground say this. If only policy-makers would come to the same conclusion.

This is not about COVID19, but another important public health topic: Abortion⩘  by Dr. Katelyn Jetelina, Your Local Epidemiologist, Sep 3, 2021
Article referenced in her post: The Life Abortion Gave Me: On endings and beginnings⩘  by Jessica Valenti, All in Her Head, Sep 1 2021

Understanding inflation

Professor Hausman does a good job of explaining the current inflation we're experiencing in a brief article. A bit of a perfect storm.

COVID Has Broken the Economy⩘  by Josh Hausman, associate professor of public policy and economics at the University of Michigan, The Atlantic Dec 10, 2021

Particulate peril

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

Sobering information given that it seems to be smoky all summer long the past few years!

   Woodsmoke from massive wildfires burning in California shrouded much of the West last summer, making it harder for people suffering from respiratory illnesses to breathe.
   Those respiratory consequences can be dangerous—even life-threatening—but Matthew Campen, Ph.D., a professor in The University of New Mexico College of Pharmacy, sees another hazard hidden in the smoke.
   In research published online this week in the journal Toxicological Sciences, Campen and his colleagues report that inhaled microscopic particles from woodsmoke work their way into the bloodstream and reach the brain, and may put people at risk for neurological problems ranging from premature aging and various forms of dementia to depression and even psychosis.
   "These are fires that are coming through small towns and they're burning up cars and houses," Campen says. Microplastics and metallic particles of iron, aluminum and magnesium are lofted into the sky, sometimes traveling thousands of miles.

Particulate peril: Researchers find wildfire smoke poses neurological hazards⩘  by Michael Haederle, University of New Mexico, Medical Xpress, Dec 6, 2021

Our beautiful universe

Messier 101, a.k.a., the Pinwheel Galaxy

As part of my morning ritual, alongside sipping a comforting cup of Hojicha, I visit NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day⩘ . Every couple of weeks, I'm rewarded with an image that leaves me awed and grateful.

The problems on our planet can at times feel overwhelming to me. When I have an opportunity like this to take a look far into our solar system, our galaxy, our universe, I feel a warm wave wash through me of peacefulness, acceptance, appreciation, awe. I enjoy a deep breath and remember that we are part of something that is infinitely vast and beautiful. Such a gift.

Assembled from 51 exposures recorded by the Hubble Space Telescope in the 20th and 21st centuries, with additional data from ground based telescopes, this mosaic spans about 40,000 light-years across the central region of M101 in one of the highest definition spiral galaxy portraits ever released from Hubble.… Also known as the Pinwheel Galaxy, M101 lies within the boundaries of the northern constellation Ursa Major, about 25 million light-years away.

View image a bit larger >

Astronomy Picture of the Day, Nov 27, 2021⩘ 

Image Credit: NASA⩘ , ESA⩘ , CFHT⩘ , NOAO; Acknowledgement – K.Kuntz (GSFC⩘ ), F.Bresolin (U.Hawaii⩘ ), J.Trauger (JPL⩘ ), J.Mould (NOAO), Y.-H.Chu (U. Illinois⩘ )

Insights on Long COVID

Interesting article about the confounding complexities of Long COVID.

To help people with long COVID, scientists need to define it⩘ , Maryn McKenna, Wired.com, via Ars Technica, Nov 27, 2021

Thank you, healthcare workers!

I don't know how you do it, and feel a deep sense of gratitude for your tireless work helping us as best you can to get through this on and on and ongoing pandemic. You are stars and your personal sacrifices are noticed and appreciated.

Why Health-Care Workers Are Quitting in Droves⩘  by Ed Yong, The Atlantic, Nov 16, 2021
See also: What Medicine's Own COVID Long-Haulers Have Faced⩘  by Ed Yong, The Atlantic, Nov 24, 2021

The potential of harnessing local wind energy

Photo by Joe Doucet

Sometimes the state of the world relative to our planet's health seems fairly bleak and depressing. But once in awhile, an idea comes along that seems to have real Aha! potential, such as designer and entrepreneur Joe Doucet's idea for wind turbines we could build in our cities and even in our own yards.

Doucet has built a prototype for a single spinning rod and run simulations based on that. The average annual electricity consumption for an American home uses a little over 10,000 kilowatt-hours per year. One of these walls would be enough. But where Doucet sees true potential is in larger-scale commercial buildings and even cities. "Instead of the typical retaining walls along roads and freeways, you'd have an array of these," says Doucet, who says he's in conversation with several manufacturers to help him bring the product to market. "With the added wind boost from trucks, our highways could take care of all our energy needs."

Article: This ingenious wall could harness enough wind power to cover your electric bill⩘  by Elissaveta M. Brandon, Fast Company, Oct 21, 2021
Video: Wind Turbine Wall by Joe Doucet⩘ , Aug 2021

The vaccine breaks the chain of transmission

Katie Martin / The Atlantic

Craig Spencer, an emergency-medicine physician and the director of global health in emergency medicine at New York Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center, provides a good perspective on the role of the vaccine in preventing the spread of the coronavirus. This seems to be a much misunderstood aspect of the pandemic, and helps to clarify why the question of whether or not to get the vaccine is about more than personal rights or freedom; it's also about, I think primarily about, our responsibility to those around us, especially those who are immunocompromised and therefore more vulnerable.

Vaccinated People Are Not ‘Just as Likely' to Spread the Coronavirus as Unvaccinated People⩘  by Craig Spencer, The Atlantic, Sep 23, 2021

See also:

• 'Waning' immunity: What Falling Antibody Counts Really Mean⩘  by Katherine J. Wu, The Atlantic, Oct 20, 2021
• Medicine Has Always Been About Playing the Odds⩘  by Elizabeth Bruenig, The Atlantic, Oct 21, 2021
• The Anti-vaccine Right Brought Human Sacrifice to America⩘  by Kurt Anderson, The Atlantic, Jan 25, 2022

One of history's fateful moments

Photo by Thomas Lin from Pexels⩘ 

I'm seldom find what politicians say to be worth listening to. A rare exception is what U.S. Senator Angus King (I-ME) said recently, as quoted in Letters from an American, Oct 19, 2021⩘  by Professor Heather Cox Richardson:

The Senate will vote tomorrow on whether to take up the Freedom to Vote Act, with Republicans threatening to filibuster that procedural vote. Senator Angus King (I-ME) established himself today as a key advocate of the measure, and as the Senate's conscience.

He reminded his colleagues that in a world of absolute monarchs, the U.S. was founded on the radical idea "that the people… are the ultimate source of power and can govern themselves through their elected representatives." That idea "was tested at Gettysburg, Antietam, Shiloh, and the Wilderness. It was defended at Anzio, Iwo Jima, and Normandy, and was reaffirmed in 1965."

But democracy is fragile, and it most often fails "from erosion from within."

The senator warned that most failed democracies start with legitimate elections, but that leaders then manipulate the system to stay in power, just as they have done recently in Russia, Turkey, Venezuela, and Hungary. In the U.S., if the new laws suppressing the vote and permitting partisans to choose their own electors over the wishes of the voters are allowed to stand, "we will be left with a downward spiral toward a hollow shell of democracy, where only raw power prevails and its peaceful transfer becomes a distant memory."

King noted the profoundly dangerous breakdown of trust in the electoral system and called out the Republicans' "overtly partisan attempt" to use the loss of trust as a justification to skew elections in the future. He demolished the idea that our elections are corrupted by "voter fraud," and suggested the new election laws going into effect in Republican-dominated states are "stone-cold partisan voter suppression."

King urged his colleagues to change course, "to pull our country back from the brink, and to begin the work of restoring our democracy as we did in the Revolution, as we did in the Civil War, and as we did in the Civil Rights struggles: first, by simply telling the truth and then by enacting a set of basic protections of the sacred right to vote." If they will not, he said, we will lose "our identity as a people,… the miracle of self-government, and … the idea of America."

"We are the heirs and trustees … of a tradition that goes back to Lincoln, Madison, and, yes, our friend John McCain," Senator King reminded his colleagues. "All of them were partisans … but all shared an overriding commitment to the idea that animates the American experiment, the idea that our government is of, by, and for the people…. Now is the moment that we're called upon to reach beyond our region, our state, our party, ourselves to save and reinvigorate the sputtering flame of the American idea."

"Indeed," he said, "destiny has placed us here at one of history's fateful moments. Our response to it will be our most important legacy…. I believe we all know our responsibility, and whether we like it or not, history will record whether we, each of us, meets that responsibility."

Worth thinking carefully about.

A COVID Serenity Prayer

We need the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, courage to change the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference

An excellent essay by Lucy McBride, an internal medicine doctor in Washington, D.C., mother of three, and "lifelong student of the human condition."

We have to accept that there is no inoculum for uncertainty—that no human contact is risk-free, that no vaccine is perfect, that we can never guarantee safety in life.… Health also means accepting that living is about more than simply not dying.

Dr McBride publishes a weekly COVID-19 Newsletter⩘  focused on "real-time, fact-based information and guidance on getting through the pandemic, physically and mentally."

Over the past twenty years—and particularly right now— I've recognized the critical importance of replacing fear with facts, following evidence and experts, and translating complicated medical information into digestible, relatable, and actionable language for my patients, friends, and family.

Article: A COVID Serenity Prayer⩘  by Lucy McBride, MD, The Atlantic, Oct 10, 2021; Website: ⩘ Lucy McBride, MD; Newsletter: COVID-19 Newsletter⩘ .

Facebook … a hostile foreign power

Photo by Thought Catalog⩘  from Pexels

Once again, Adrienne LaFrance provides some excellent insights into the shithole* that is Facebook.
* My descriptor

Facebook is not merely a website, or a platform, or a publisher, or a social network, or an online directory, or a corporation, or a utility. It is all of these things. But Facebook is also, effectively, a hostile foreign power.
   This is plain to see in its single-minded focus on its own expansion; its immunity to any sense of civic obligation; its record of facilitating the undermining of elections; its antipathy toward the free press; its rulers' callousness and hubris; and its indifference to the endurance of American democracy.

In a subsequent article, LaFrance talks about the "Facebook Papers" (my emphasis):

I've been covering Facebook for a decade now, and the challenges it must navigate are novel and singularly complex. One of the most important, and heartening, revelations of the Facebook Papers is that many Facebook workers are trying conscientiously to solve these problems. One of the disheartening features of these documents is that these same employees have little or no faith in Facebook leadership. It is quite a thing to see, the sheer number of Facebook employees—people who presumably understand their company as well as or better than outside observers—who believe their employer to be morally bankrupt.

The lesson for individuals is this: You must be vigilant about the informational streams you swim in, deliberate about how you spend your precious attention, unforgiving of those who weaponize your emotions and cognition for their own profit, and deeply untrusting of any scenario in which you're surrounded by a mob of people who agree with everything you're saying.

It's also worth reading about the testimony of Frances Haugen, the whistleblower former employee of Facebook who worked on their so-called Civic Integrity team. Here's an excerpt from an article by Tim De Chant in Ars Technica:

After reviewing study after internal study, Haugen came to a conclusion—automated recommendation tools may never be safe. What Facebook has built, she told the WSJ, is fatally flawed. "As long as your goal is creating more engagement, optimizing for likes, reshares, and comments, you're going to continue prioritizing polarizing, hateful content," she said.
   At Facebook, that optimization was pursued aggressively, Haugen said. "The thing I saw at Facebook over and over again was there were conflicts of interest between what was good for the public and what was good for Facebook. And Facebook, over and over again, chose to optimize for its own interests, like making more money," she told CBS.
   "I've seen a bunch of social networks, and it was substantially worse at Facebook than anything I'd seen before."

Sources:

• The Largest Autocracy on Earth: Facebook is acting like a hostile foreign power; it's time we treated it that way⩘  by Adrienne LaFrance, The Atlantic, Sep 27, 2021
• The Facebook Papers – 'History Will Not Judge Us Kindly': Thousands of pages of internal documents offer the clearest picture yet of how Facebook endangers American democracy—and show that the company's own employees know it⩘  by Adrienne LaFrance, The Atlantic, Oct 25, 2021
• Facebook "is tearing our societies apart"⩘  by Tim De Chant, Ars Technica, Oct 4, 2021

See also:

• Article: Facebook Is a Doomsday Machine⩘  by Adrienne LaFrance, The Atlantic, Dec 15, 2020
• TED Talk: Dear Facebook, this is how you're breaking democracy⩘ , Yaël Eisenstat, TED2020, Aug 2020
• Article: How Facebook Failed the World⩘  by Ellen Cushing, The Atlantic, Oct 25, 2021

The Social Dilemma

To dive deeper into this topic, see the excellent documentary, The Social Dilemma⩘ , in which a group of leading technologists who actually built these platforms along with scientists who are studying their impact discuss how extremely—and intentionally—destructive they are.

If something is a tool, it genuinely is just sitting there, waiting, patiently. If something is not a tool, it's demanding things from you, it's seducing you, it's manipulating you, it wants things from you. And we've moved away from having a tools-based technology environment to an addiction and manipulation-based technology environment. That's what changed. Social media isn't a tool that's just waiting to be used. It has its own goals, and it has its own means of pursuing them by using your psychology against you. – Tristan Harris

Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts

Another good deep dive is Jaron Lanier's Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now. Lanier identifies social media as "Our grand mistake" and explains that "Now everyone who is on social media is getting individualized, continuously adjusted stimuli, without a break, so long as they use their smartphones. What might once have been called advertising must now be understood as continuous behavior modification on a titanic scale." He discusses the ten reasons in compelling detail:

1. You are losing your free will
2. Quitting social media is the most finely targeted way to resist the insanity of our times
3. Social media is making you into an asshole
4. Social media is undermining truth
5. Social media is making what you say meaningless
6. Social media is destroying your capacity for empathy
7. Social media is making you unhappy
8. Social media doesn't want you to have economic dignity
9. Social media is making politics impossible
10. Social media hates your soul

Macmillan Audio, 2018, Libro.fm⩘ 

See also: Why you should quit social media⩘ , Cal Newport, TEDxTysons, Jun 2016

Ivermectin

Rebecca Watson's video, Why Are People **REALLY** Taking Horse Dewormer for COVID-19?⩘ , Aug 31, 2021, seems like a pretty clear-eyed overview of why Ivermectin became associated as a COVID-19 drug (a lot of it appears to be based on flawed studies), and the danger of using the livestock version (if you like your intestines, it may be a good idea to stay away from the livestock version).

Pien Huang has written a clear-eyed overview article for NPR Shots Health News: How Ivermectin Became The New Focus Of The Anti-Vaccine Movement⩘ , Sep 19, 2021. Huang points out the "poor quality of evidence" supporting the use of Ivermectin for COVID-19, including early studies that appeared to support its use but were later shown to be flawed. She also mentions that several higher quality studies are underway that may provide a more definitive answer soon. In the meantime, it seems clear the evidence doesn't yet support the use of Ivermectin for COVID-19, and that ignoring that evidence can lead to additional risks.

While those studies are underway, some people's belief in ivermectin over other proven options, like masks and vaccines, is giving them a false sense of security and control.
   In some cases, the misinformation is actually killing them, says Kolina Koltai, a researcher who studies vaccine dissent at the University of Washington. Koltai likens vaccine refusal to not wearing a seatbelt in a car because you heard of someone who survived an accident without a seatbelt.
   "If someone thinks they're safe [because they're taking ivermectin], they're making a judgment that impacts not only their health but their community's health," she says, "by either use of resources at the hospital, or [by getting and] spreading COVID. That is the real risk and danger of misinformation."

See also:

• The anonymous meta-analysis that's convincing people to use ivermectin: What happens when you leave the analysis out of a meta-analysis?⩘  by John Timmer, Ars Technica, Sep 21, 2021.
• Ivermectin: How false science created a Covid 'miracle' drug⩘  by Rachel Schraer & Jack Goodman, BBC Reality Check, Oct 7, 2021.

Professor Heather Cox Richardson

I began reading Professor Cox Richardson's daily Letters from an American⩘  nearly two years ago in the autumn of 2019. I've continued to read them daily and find that they help me understand the constitutional crisis we are facing, as well as its historical context (Richardson is a Professor of History at Boston College⩘ ).

In her post that I'm reading this morning (September 15, 2021⩘ ), Professor Richardson wrote something I'm inspired by and want to remember and share:

I write these letters because I love America. I am staunchly committed to the principle of human self-determination for people of all races, genders, abilities, and ethnicities, and I believe that American democracy could be the form of government that comes closest to bringing that principle to reality. And I know that achieving that equality depends on a government shaped by fact-based debate rather than by extremist ideology and false narratives.

Saturn night side

This beautiful image of Saturn at night was captured by the Cassini spacecraft two days before the end of its 13-year mission to Saturn.

Via: Astronomy Picture of the Day⩘ ; Image Credit: NASA⩘ , JPL-Caltech⩘ , Space Science Institute⩘ , Mindaugas Macijauskas⩘ 
See also: A Spiral Aurora over Iceland ⩘ 

A program of human betterment for all time

Focused on Labor Day, today's Letters from an American⩘  post by Professor Heather Cox Richardson is an excellent and hard hitting look at the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire on March 25, 1911 in New York City and how it inspired activist Frances Perkins to fight even harder for workers' rights. She went on to be the Chief Investigator of the commission formed to improve fire safety in factories, sanitary conditions, unsafe conditions, long hours, low wages, child labor, overwork, among other issues. The report they produced led to laws to improve labor conditions.

Perkins then worked on labor issues from within state and federal government.

In 1933, after the people had rejected Hoover's plan to let the Depression burn itself out, President-elect Roosevelt asked Perkins to serve as Secretary of Labor in his administration. She accepted only on the condition that he back her goals: unemployment insurance; health insurance; old-age insurance, a 40-hour work week; a minimum wage; and abolition of child labor.

Her work helped lead to the 1935 Social Security Act and the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act establishing a minimum wage and maximum hours, as well as banning child labor.

"There is always a large horizon…. There is much to be done," Perkins said. "It is up to you to contribute some small part to a program of human betterment for all time."

Letters from an American⩘ , Professor Heather Cox Richardson, Sep 5, 2021

The Southwest's most important river is drying up

An excellent illustrated and interactive article about the Colorado River and the water crisis that is occurring due to a combination of drought, smaller annual snow packs, and extensive and growing agricultural and urban water use.

No doubt about it, we're in trouble.

Drew Kann, Renée Rigdon, and Daniel Wolfe, The Southwest's most important river is drying up⩘ , CNN, Aug 21, 2021

COVID vaccine: what we know about immunity

Another excellent article by Katherine J. Wu, providing better context about the immunity provided by the COVID-19 vaccine, as well as the implications of recently reported waning of the immunity, and whether a booster shot may be needed, and if so, when. Basically, for those of us have the vaccine, we should still take prudent precautions; beyond that, we can take a deep breath and relax.

Katherine J. Wu, What We Actually Know About Waning Immunity⩘ , The Atlantic, Sep 3, 2021

See also: No, Vaccinated People Are Not 'Just as Likely' to Spread the Coronavirus as Unvaccinated People⩘  by Craig Spencer, emergency medicine physician and director of global health in emergency medicine at New York Presbyterian / Columbia University Medical Center, The Atlantic, Sep 23, 2021

Mona Lisa is Missing

Recently, I came across a novel with an intriguing premise: the behind-the-scenes story of the theft of the Mona Lisa. The book was disappointing, but it did make me aware that the Mona Lisa actually had been stolen in 1911, and a search led me to this documentary, which is anything but disappointing!

Joe Medeiros spent decades thinking about this story, then years researching and creating this documentary, which was finally released in 2014, winning multiple awards.

It's the true story of Vincenzo Peruggia, the man who stole Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece and kept it for two years before attempting to sell it to an art dealer in Italy, where he was caught. It's a crazy story, which Medeiros does a wonderful job of telling with lots of heart and good humor. Although Vincenzo is the focus of the story, his daughter, Celestina, who was in her mid-80s when the film was being made, absolutely steals the spotlight. What a sweetheart!

Mona Lisa is Missing is an absolutely delightful documentary.

Website: Mona Lisa is Missing website⩘ 
Available to rent or buy: Vimeo⩘ 

The Phantom Galaxy

Mesmerizing! The Phantom Galaxy, a.k.a., Messier 74, is such a beautiful galaxy!

[M74 is an] island universe of about 100 billion stars, 32 million light-years away toward the constellation Pisces.

View image a bit larger >

Via: Astronomy Picture of the Day⩘ 
Image credit: NASA⩘ , ESA⩘ , Hubble⩘ , HLA⩘ 
Processing: Mehmet Hakan Ozsarac⩘ 
Related Wikipedia article: Messier 74⩘ 

An iconic moment

I find it challenging to comprehend the actual size of the audacious SpaceX Starship and Super Heavy booster⩘ . Sometimes when I'm reading about its inspiring development or watching a video—like this excellent tour of the Starbase with Elon Musk by Tim Dodd, Everyday Astronaut (@Erdayastronaut⩘ ) on Twitter: Part 1⩘ , Part 2⩘ —I look at the width of our living room, in which my desk is located, try to imagine a stainless steel ship that is even wider, and attempt to picture myself standing within that massive structure.

Elon Musk just shared this iconic photo of the first time the Starship is being stacked on the Super Heavy booster to verify the fit ahead of continued development, testing, and eventual launch possibly later this year. Mind blowing!

Update: Too bad Musk and his teams can't get their shit together enough to create equitable and respectful work environments at SpaceX and Tesla:
SpaceX whistleblowers allege widespread sexual harassment⩘  by Eric Ralph, Teslarati, Dec 14, 2021
Tesla sexual harassment lawsuits multiply as 6 more women sue Musk-led firm⩘  by Jon Brodkin, Ars Technica, Dec 15, 2021

Updates:

• Elon Musk's behavior seems to be getting more and more erratic. What has been happening with his on-and-off-and-on again Twitter acquisition is simply baffling. I had already had enough and wanted nothing to do with any of his companies when my Starlink reservation finally came to the front of the queue after a very long wait, so I canceled. But the real tipping point for me is his erratic behavior towards Ukraine, first supporting them with Starlink capability, then advancing a "peace" proposal that would have almost entirely capitulated to Russia's illegal and barbaric invasion, then threatening to pull his support for the now crucial Starling capability. WTF? I definitely don't want to have anything to do with any Musk enterprise anymore.
  "For Ukraine, the stakes are staggeringly high: The satellite service offered by Starlink is now a primary mode of online communication in the country, a consequence of Russia's sustained attack on Ukraine's online infrastructure. A satellite cutoff could cripple Ukraine's military and hand a major advantage to the Kremlin."
  Musk suggests openness to continue funding Starlink access in Ukraine⩘ , The Washington Post, Oct 15, 2022.
• The meltdown continues: Elon Musk tweets misinformation about Paul Pelosi⩘  by Sara Fischer, Axios, Oct 30, 2022. "It's been just two days since Elon Musk officially bought Twitter. Already, the billionaire businessman is using the platform to spread misinformation to his 112 million followers—about the biggest U.S. news of the weekend."
• As I read about the Tesla engineers who are descending on Twitter to review their codebase, I can't help but think about all of the Tesla Autopilot fail videos I've seen … right, like Tesla can afford to lose the productivity of some of its senior engineers.
• Like Trump, Elon Musk reveals a vapid mind super-charged by wealth and ego⩘ , opinion by Siva Vaidhyanathan, The Guardian, Oct 31, 2022. "This goofy collection of dorm-room-bong-hit-level ideas is taken deeply seriously among the rich boys of Silicon Valley. While, like the libertarianism that intersects with it, longtermism is easy to dissect and dismiss, it is also dangerous because it's so attractive to the rich and powerful. The short-term implications of longtermism include a tolerance, if not embrace, of chaos agents that might include antisemites, fascists, misogynists, tricksters and trolls."
• Nov 19, 2022: I never imagined I'd see anything like what has been happening at Twitter under Musk. What a shitstorm. I feel particularly sorry for the employees and contractors going through this, those who were let go, those who chose to go, and most of all, those whose circumstances force them to stay (visa status, financial situation, etc.), as well as for people who used Twitter for legitimate purposes to build a community.
  
  • Today I came across a site that is keeping track of the unfolding shitstorm on a timeline: Twitter is Going Great!⩘ .
  • "The timeline is incomplete but captures a lot of the chaos. It more or less begins with Elon's first appearance at Twitter HQ after the purchase was finalized, sink in hand(s)."
  • "Who is behind this? A collection of people who care about Twitter perhaps a little too much."
  • "Why are you doing this? Because we care about Twitter, and the communities we've found or forged on the site, we want to highlight the damage being done to the reputation, quality, and experience on the site. We also care about the treatment of the Tweeps who built Twitter and who tried to make it a safer place."
• Nov 30, 2022: As I continue to follow the chaos at Twitter via Twitter is Going Great!⩘  and the regular press, I find myself in near disbelief. If I had read something like this in a novel, I would scoff and think it was not credible, yet this is what is unfolding in full view. Accounts that were banned by Twitter's previous moderation team for infractions like abuse, misinformation, and violent conduct are being restored by the tens of thousands. Employees are being treated like unappreciated serfs. And at a time when the pandemic is still killing hundreds of Americans each day and burning across the globe, Twitter is no longer enforcing its COVID-19 misleading information policy. It's like a dystopian nightmare.
• Dec 18, 2022: This article sums it up nicely. Elon's stale playbook⩘  by Linette Lopez, Business Insider, Dec 18, 2022. "At Tesla and SpaceX, Elon Musk was a jerk with a grand vision. At Twitter, he's just a jerk."
• Jan 20, 2023: Here's a good overview of Musk's casual abuse of the concept of truth: Musk told Tesla staff it was fine to stage self-driving demo⩘ .
  "If there was any doubt that Tesla CEO Elon Musk knew the company's much-watched 2016 self-driving demo was staged, emails obtained by Bloomberg should lay that to rest. 'Just want to be absolutely clear that everyone's top priority is achieving an amazing Autopilot demo drive,' Musk wrote in an email. 'Since this is a demo, it is fine to hardcode some of it, since we will backfill with production code later in an OTA update.'
  "As we now know from Tesla's head of Autopilot software, Ashok Elluswamy, the parking demo actually saw the Model X SUV crash into a fence. A 2021 New York Times article—now mostly confirmed by Elluswamy's testimony in a lawsuit into the death of Walter Huang—also alleged that the car drove over a curb and through some bushes before finding the fence.
  This is not the first time Tesla has shown a difficulty in working with facts. In 2019, we discovered that the company's repeated claims that Autopilot reduced crashes by 40 percent were bogus, and in fact, the system may have increased crashes by 59 percent.
  That same year, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration had to tell Tesla it was misleading customers by claiming that NHTSA had labeled the Tesla Model 3 the safest car it had ever tested."
• I Watched Elon Musk Kill Twitter's Culture From the Inside⩘  by Rumman Chowdhury, The Atlantic, Feb 17, 2023.
• Why the Tesla Recall Matters⩘  by Caroline Mimbs Nyce, The Atlantic, Feb 19, 2023. "More than 350,000 Tesla vehicles are being recalled by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration because of concerns about their self-driving-assistance software.… 'We have never been in a more dangerous place in automotive-safety history, except for maybe right when cars were invented and we hadn't figured out brake lights and headlights yet.' – Missy Cummings, a professor in the computer-science department at George Mason University and a former NHTSA regulator."
• Elon Musk Wants to Relive His Start-Up Days. He's Repeating the Same Mistakes.⩘  by Peter Marx, Disconnect, Feb 10, 2023. "Since the beginning, Musk has been a terrible boss who expected his workers to be, as he calls it now, 'hardcore.'"
• Elon Musk Is Convinced He's the Future. We Need to Look Beyond Him⩘  by Paris Marx, Time, Aug 8, 2022. "The tech industry enjoys casting itself as our savior, delivering empowerment and convenience, but along with it has come an unprecedented expansion of surveillance, an erosion of workers' rights, and the empowerment of white nationalist and fascist groups."
• Elon Musk Laughs at Twitter Worker Who Asked If He Still Had a Job⩘  by Jody Serrano, Gizmodo, Mar 7, 2023.
  
  • See also:
    
    • Worker asks Elon Musk on Twitter: Have I been fired?⩘  by James Clayton, BBC, Mar 7, 2023.
    • Haraldur Þorleifsson Sweeps Person of the Year Awards⩘  by Erik Pomrenke, Iceland Review, Jan 2, 2023.
    • This is a website; I made it for you⩘  by Haraldur Thorleifsson (Þorleifsson)
    • Elon Musk backpedals after mocking disabled Twitter worker in tweet 'storm'⩘ , Associated Press, Mar 7, 2023. "Thorleifsson's next move: 'I'm opening a restaurant in downtown Reykjavik very soon,' he tweeted. 'It's named after my mom.'

Voice Above Water

Voice Above Water⩘  is a beautiful short film by Dana Frankoff about Wayan Nyo, a 90-year-old fisherman living on Bali, Indonesia who has been collecting discarded plastic floating in his beloved ocean since 2000.

My dream has always been to live by the ocean, I love it. You can see everything. You can feel the movement of the wind and the waves. I'm the happiest when I'm close to the ocean. I look one way and it's beautiful. I look the other way and it's beutiful.

Nowadays I can't catch these big fish anymore because the plastic has pushed them away.

I want my island back to how it was before.

I am worried about the plastic in the ocean because someday all the plastic will cover and ruin our ocean. We need to clean it all out.

If I clean here and people elsewhere don't do the same, it will be useless.

I will stop worrying about the ocean once I die.

Voice Above Water⩘  by Dana Frankoff on Vimeo

2021

Fire season is not fun

In mid-October last year, during our formerly normal fire season, a fire broke out that quickly threatened our neighborhood. Over the course of the next week, we had to evacuate twice, watching from a distance as the wall of flames advanced towards the place we call home. We got lucky: both times the flames were advancing, things changed and the fire stalled. Others weren't so lucky.

This spring, we had a lot of rain, more than usual. I was relieved thinking that the ground had soaked up a lot of moisture and maybe, just maybe, fire season wouldn't be so bad this year. Then it suddenly turned unseasonably hot, everything quickly became very dry, and the skies filled with a smoky haze from all the fires burning across the West. It's only July, yet I'm already really worried about wildfires and this place we call home.

Today, I came across a piece by The Real Sarah Miller, All The Right Words On Climate Have Already Been Said⩘ , and she pretty much sums up how I'm feeling.

There's only one thing I have to say about climate change … and that's that I want it to rain, a lot, but it's not going to rain a lot, and since that's the only thing I have to say and it's not going to happen, I don't have anything to say.

She actually has a bit more to say, and it's definitely a worthwhile read.

Update a week later: Finally, some rain! While the forecast included flash flood warnings, we received some very nice, gentle rain yesterday evening and overnight. For the first time in about a month, the wildfire smoke from the many wildfires across the West has lessened and the air this morning is cool and fragrant. So grateful!

Why I'm still wearing a mask

Photo by Karolina Grabowska from Pexels⩘ 

Since SARS-CoV-2 first struck in early 2020, I've been paying careful attention to its progress. On a daily basis, I monitor the John Hopkins University COVID-19 dashboard⩘ . In addition, I read a lot of articles by doctors as well as science-based experts and writers.

I've found the response to the pandemic in the U.S. to be often puzzling and even pathetic, but the past couple of months have been the most confusing so far.

While I'm fully vaccinated and live in a county that has a decent vaccination rate, I'm still puzzled by how rapidly people here have abandoned simple precautions like masking when visiting indoor places where strangers mingle (in other words, not friends, family, or acquaintances whose vaccination status you hopefully can trust). For example, beyond the staff, I'm now often the only person or one of only a few wearing a mask at our post office. Our post office facility is not well ventilated, and I think it is only respectful of the dedicated staff there to wear a mask as a small way to help protect them.

I found the CDC guidance about it being okay for fully vaccinated people to go without masks in public places, but that unvaccinated people should still wear masks to be, frankly, stupid. There is no reasonable way to enforce something like that, so there's no way to know whether someone who is unmasked is vaccinated or not. In fact, I would venture to guess that a good percentage of people who aren't vaccinated will also be choosing not to wear a mask. Unvaccinated people are more susceptible to being infected by COVID-19 and, if infected, the risk of them inadvertently spreading high viral loads of the virus is greater. That's a risk I don't want to expose myself to any more than absolutely necessary.

Because I pay careful attention to science-based news about SARS-CoV-2, it's been clear to me for more than a month now that the Delta variant was going to spread like crazy in the U.S. and had the potential to cause major havoc, as we're now beginning to see. From the beginning, it's also been clear that while the vaccinations are highly effective, especially at preventing more serious infections requiring hospitalizations and, possibly, leading to death, vaccinated people are still susceptible to infections and even serious illnesses and death. The risk is much, much smaller for fully vaccinated people, but not zero. Given what a terrible disease COVID-19 is, my personal decision has been and remains that I want to minimize my risk of catching and transmitting it, which translates to continuing to wear masks, especially when indoors around unmasked people I don't know.

Today, I came across several articles with insights I appreciate.

Susan Matthews in her article in Slate, The New COVID Panic⩘  shared this by emergency physician Jeremy Samuel Faust: "Even here in Boston where the case counts are low, I would mask in indoor settings where everyone's vaccination status is unknowable."

Science writer Katherine J. Wu, whose articles in The Atlantic I often find interesting and valuable, wrote a piece titled, 4 Reasons I'm Wearing a Mask Again⩘ , and shared this as her second reason:

2. I don't want people around me to get COVID-19. If I get infected, that affects more than just me. I worry about the strangers I encounter—many of them maskless—whose immune status I don't know. I worry about the youngest kids in my social network, who aren't yet eligible for shots, and the elderly and immunocompromised, whose defenses may be weaker than mine. I worry about the people in my community who have been structurally barred from accessing the vaccines, or who are reluctant to take the shots. My risk of getting COVID-19 is low. Theirs is very much not.

Her entire is article is well worth taking a few minutes to read. Her three other reasons are also thoughtful and, for me, entirely valid:

1. I don't want to get COVID-19.

3. I trust the vaccines, but I understand their limits.
4. Wearing an accessory on my head doesn't feel like a huge cost to me.

Finally, Dr. Brytney Cobia shared this sobering post in her Facebook account⩘ :

I've made a LOT of progress encouraging people to get vaccinated lately!!! Do you want to know how? I'm admitting young healthy people to the hospital with very serious COVID infections. One of the last things they do before they're intubated is beg me for the vaccine. I hold their hand and tell them that I'm sorry, but it's too late. A few days later when I call time of death, I hug their family members and I tell them the best way to honor their loved one is to go get vaccinated and encourage everyone they know to do the same. They cry. And they tell me they didn't know. They thought it was a hoax. They thought it was political. They thought because they had a certain blood type or a certain skin color they wouldn't get as sick. They thought it was 'just the flu'. But they were wrong. And they wish they could go back. But they can't. So they thank me and they go get the vaccine. And I go back to my office, write their death note, and say a small prayer that this loss will save more lives.

See also:

• The New COVID Panic: What vaccinated people should really know about their risk from the delta variant⩘ , by Susan Matthews, Slate, Jul 21, 2021
• 4 Reasons I'm Wearing a Mask Again⩘ , by Katherine J. Wu, The Atlantic, Jul 22, 2021
• I hold their hand and tell them that I'm sorry, but it's too late⩘ , Facebook post by Brytney Cobia, MD, Jul 18, 2020
• I'm wearing a mask. Stop trying to shame me⩘ , opinion by Jade Wu, CNN, Aug 3, 2021
• How the Pandemic Now Ends⩘  by Ed Yong, The Atlantic, Aug 12, 2021
• Work in progress: Why the Lab-Leak and Mask Debates Are Such a Disaster: We're still pretending to know things about COVID that we don't⩘  by Derek Thompson, The Atlantic, Mar 3, 2023.
     "An abundance of crappy or confusing research gives audiences access to an armory of factoids, from which they can construct and defend any narrative they choose.…
     "'Poor-quality masks, worn poorly, work poorly, and high-quality masks, worn properly, work well,' Jimenez offered as a summation of the evidence." [Jose-Luis Jimenez is a professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder who studies the transmission of airborne diseases like COVID, and is one of the country's most cited researchers on the nature of aerosols.]
• There are no easy answers – Do masks work? It's a question of physics, biology, and behavior⩘  by Michael Schulson, Undark, via Ars Technica, Mar 4, 2023.
• Cochrane Library statement: Statement on 'Physical interventions to interrupt or reduce the spread of respiratory viruses' review⩘ , Mar 10, 2023:
     The Cochrane Review 'Physical interventions to interrupt or reduce the spread of respiratory viruses' was published in January 2023 and has been widely misinterpreted. Karla Soares-Weiser, Editor-in-Chief of the Cochrane Library, has responded on behalf of Cochrane:
     "Many commentators have claimed that a recently-updated Cochrane Review shows that 'masks don't work', which is an inaccurate and misleading interpretation.
     "It would be accurate to say that the review examined whether interventions to promote mask wearing help to slow the spread of respiratory viruses, and that the results were inconclusive. Given the limitations in the primary evidence, the review is not able to address the question of whether mask-wearing itself reduces people's risk of contracting or spreading respiratory viruses.
     "The review authors are clear on the limitations in the abstract: 'The high risk of bias in the trials, variation in outcome measurement, and relatively low adherence with the interventions during the studies hampers drawing firm conclusions.' Adherence in this context refers to the number of people who actually wore the provided masks when encouraged to do so as part of the intervention. For example, in the most heavily-weighted trial of interventions to promote community mask wearing, 42.3% of people in the intervention arm wore masks compared to 13.3% of those in the control arm.
     "The original Plain Language Summary for this review stated that 'We are uncertain whether wearing masks or N95/P2 respirators helps to slow the spread of respiratory viruses based on the studies we assessed.' This wording was open to misinterpretation, for which we apologize. While scientific evidence is never immune to misinterpretation, we take responsibility for not making the wording clearer from the outset. We are engaging with the review authors with the aim of updating the Plain Language Summary and abstract to make clear that the review looked at whether interventions to promote mask wearing help to slow the spread of respiratory viruses."
• 'Being truthful is essential': scientist who stumbled upon Wuhan Covid data speaks out⩘  by Michael Safi and Eli Block, The Guardian, Mar 27, 2023. "Florence Débarre's discovery of genetic data online showed for first time that animals susceptible to coronavirus were present at market."

Waiting to be arrested

Tahir Hamut Izgil, one of the most prominent Uyghur poets as well as a filmmaker and activist, fled Xinjiang in 2017 to escape possible arrest by the Chinese authorities and is now living in exile in the U.S. His excellent article in The Atlantic describes firsthand his gut-wrenching experience of living in Xinjiang, as well as the circumstances that led him to flee with his family. Incredible read.

English translations of Tahir Hamut Izgil's poetry have been published in several magazines, including Asymptote⩘ .

One by One, My Friends Were Sent to the Camps⩘  by Tahir Hamut Izgil, The Atlantic, Jul 14, 2021. Introduction and translation by Joshua L. Freeman; illustrations by Adam Ferriss; photograph by Stephen Voss

Mass infection is not an option

Given the way the Delta variant is exponentially exploding the COVID-19 pandemic around the world, including in many communities here in the U.S., I've been puzzled by how many people have totally relaxed their mitigation strategies. So I found enlightening the letter that was published in The Lancet recently by 122 leading scientists and doctors arguing against the lifting of most protective restrictions that is scheduled to happen on July 19th. The reasons they listed are compelling, and speak to us here in the U.S., as well:

• First, unmitigated transmission will disproportionately affect unvaccinated children and young people who have already suffered greatly.
• Second, high rates of transmission in schools and in children will lead to significant educational disruption.
• Third, preliminary modelling data suggest the government's strategy provides fertile ground for the emergence of vaccine-resistant variants.
• Fourth, this strategy will have a significant impact on health services and exhausted health-care staff who have not yet recovered from previous infection waves.
• Fifth, as deprived communities are more exposed to and more at risk from COVID-19, these policies will continue to disproportionately affect the most vulnerable and marginalised, deepening inequalities.

Another point that was covered in a subsequent panel discussion is that significant percentage of people who have been infected by COVID-19 go on to suffer what is being called Long COVID, defined as the chronic suffering of debilitating symptoms lasting longer than three months.

In their letter, they go on to say "we consider any strategy that tolerates high levels of infection to be both unethical and illogical." I totally agree. In the U.K., where cases are soaring due to the Delta variant, they are several weeks ahead of the U.S. in terms of when the Delta variant became prevalent, but it's increasing rapidly (exponentially) here in the U.S. as well, and we have many communities in which vaccination rates are dangerously low, so we certainly face some grim times ahead. We're seeing this already in Missouri where their hospitals once again are being stretched to the breaking point.

As much as we are all tired of the mitigations—wearing masks, social distancing, etc.—this is not the time to be relaxing our efforts. I feel this very strongly whenever I visit our post office, which is not a very well ventilated facility. Over the past few weeks, we've gone very quickly from everyone wearing masks to almost no one wearing masks. While the risk to any individual is small given the small amount of time spent there, out of respect for the postal workers, who must work in that environment all day long, I think we all should still be wearing our masks.

Certainly, the risks to those of us who are vaccinated have decreased, but the new Delta variant is so much more transmissible that I find it reckless to drop our guard at this time. Even those of us who are fully vaccinated can still become infected—even if it's less likely and even if the infection is likely to be less severe—and the risk of Long COVID appears not to be correlated with the severity of an infection.

Mass infection is not an option: we must do more to protect our young⩘ , a letter published in The Lancet on Jul 7, 2021 and signed by 122 leading scientists and doctors
Panel discussion⩘  on Citizen TV, Jul 8, 2021

It's up to all of us

Professor Heather Cox Richardson posted a good reflection⩘  about President Biden's Independence Day speech.

   Biden recalled that the United States of America was based not on religion or hereditary monarchy, but on an idea: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all people are created equal, endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights—among them life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
   We have never lived up to that ideal, of course, but we have never abandoned it, either. Those principles, he said, "continue to animate us, and they remind us what, at our best, we as Americans believe: We, Americans—we believe in honesty and decency, in treating everyone with dignity and respect, giving everyone a fair shot, demonizing no one, giving hate no safe harbor, and leaving no one behind."
   But, he said, democracy isn't top down. "Each day, we're reminded there's nothing guaranteed about our democracy, nothing guaranteed about our way of life," he said. "We have to fight for it, defend it, earn it…. It's up to all of us to protect the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; the right to equal justice under the law; the right to vote and have that vote counted; the right … to breathe clean air, drink clean water, and know that our children and grandchildren will be safe on this planet for generations to come … the right to rise in the world as far as your God-given [talent] can take you, unlimited by barriers of privilege or power."

Letters from an American, Jul 5, 2021⩘ , Professor Heather Cox Richardson

Orion Nebula: The Hubble View

Image Credit: NASA⩘ , ESA⩘ , Hubble Legacy Archive⩘ ; Processing: Francisco Javier Pobes Serrano⩘ 

Wow!

Astronomy Picture of the Day⩘ 
Jun 29, 2021

Generational amnesia: The memory loss that harms the planet

Interesting article about how each successive generation experiences generational amnesia. There are many effects related to this: the "kids these days" complaints (which has been expressed in writing since the Ancient Greeks); taking for granted the advances in technology, health, and social progress that previous generations worked so hard to achieve; and something known as "Shifting Baseline Syndrome," which can make it difficult to evaluate things like degrading ecosystems.

What this blindspot meant, Pauly argued in a short-but-influential paper, was that the scientists were failing to account fully for the slow creep of disappearing species, and each generation accepted the depleted ocean biodiversity they inherited as normal. He dubbed the effect "shifting baseline syndrome".

Generational amnesia: The memory loss that harms the planet⩘ , by Richard Fisher, BBC, Jun 25, 2021

Cancel Prime
The subscription service is Amazon's greatest—and most terrifying—invention

A thought-provoking article by Ellen Cushing about the social and personal costs of Amazon Prime and, by extension, Amazon itself.

"Consumerism has become a key way that people have misidentified freedom," says Jake Alimahomed-Wilson, a sociology professor at California State University at Long Beach and co-editor of The Cost of Free Shipping: Amazon in the Global Economy. "But what Amazon represents is a corporate infrastructure that is increasingly directed at getting as many consumers as possible locked into a consumerist process—an Amazon consumer for life."

I've been contemplating this for years now:

As I've learned over the years just what a ruthless and unethical company Amazon can be, how badly they treat many of their employees and contractors⩘ , and how poorly they perform at protecting their customers from third-party vendors they allow on their site that sell bad and even dangerous goods⩘ , I now try to minimize my business dealings with Amazon and all of the companies they've swallowed up. If I want something and can find it elsewhere locally or online, I buy it elsewhere, even if it costs more and takes longer to arrive. If I can't find it elsewhere, I carefully ask myself if I really need it. If I don't, I pass.

How greedy can you get? It is a travesty to be one of the richest corporations in the world headed by one of the wealthiest men in the world, and still not be willing to spend a little bit more money to ensure the safety of your customers, and still not be willing to spend a little bit more money to ensure the safety and well-being of your frontline employees. What a disgraceful company. What a disgraceful CEO.

– From my contemplation: Shun Amazon⩘ .

At the same time, I acknowledge that a colossus like Amazon isn't going to be in any way impacted by my actions. However, something Cushing shares turns this thought around entirely from a powerless action to a powerful one:

[O]ne person canceling Prime won't do much of anything to a multinational corporation's bottom line. "It's statistically insignificant to Amazon. They'll never feel it," Caine¹ told me. But, he said, "the small businesses in your neighborhood will absolutely feel the addition of a new customer. Individual choices do make a big difference to them."

[1] Danny Caine is the owner of the Raven Book Store⩘  in Lawrence, Kansas, and is the author of How to Resist Amazon and Why⩘ .

Cancel Prime⩘  by Ellen Cushing, The Atlantic, Jun 22, 2021

Three Transgender Kids Share Their Stories

Excellent article. These kids are so much more mature than I remember being at their ages!

What do you wish people knew about being trans?
The main thing is that it's not a choice. It's a choice to come out, but being trans is not a choice. It wasn't like one day I woke up and felt the way the wind blew and wanted to be a girl. I ALWAYS knew I wasn't a boy. It wasn't that I wanted to be a girl; I WAS a girl. I just had to put that into words and explain that.
– Violet, she/her, age 13

Three Transgender Kids Share Their Stories⩘  by Joanna Goddard, A Cup of Jo, Jun 14, 2021

A galactic powerhouse

Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, A. Riess et al.

We live in such an astonishing, mind expanding universe, a place of infinite wonder!

NGC 3254 has a fascinating secret that it is hiding in plain sight—it is a Seyfert galaxy, meaning that it has an extraordinarily active core, known as an active galactic nucleus, which releases as much energy as the rest of the galaxy put together.

View image a bit larger >

ESA/Hubble images: A Galactic Powerhouse, NGC 3254⩘ 

The Fundamental Question of the Pandemic Is Shifting

Another very good article by Ed Yong, who just deservedly received the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for explanatory reporting for his pandemic coverage in The Atlantic. As he has during the entire course of this challenging time, he once again has helped me make sense of the unfolding crisis, this time related to the latest CDC guidance, which I've found profoundly confusing and disorienting, especially in the face of the so-called Delta variant that is spreading so rapidly around the world including now in the U.S.

In this deep dive, he explores the public health challenges created by our national mythos of individualism, as well as how our response has ended up putting the most vulnerable among us at the greatest risk.

We understand how this will end. But who bears the risk that remains?

Ed Yong, The Fundamental Question of the Pandemic Is Shifting⩘ , The Atlantic, June 9, 2021

What America's racial reckoning can learn from Germany's atonement with the Holocaust

Excellent opinion essay by Michele L. Norris⩘  exploring how Germany has worked to look "directly at the evil" of its past, while the U.S. has not yet. She quotes Susan Neiman, a moral philosopher at Berlin's Einstein Forum: "They got right the idea that a nation has to face its criminal past in order to become whole and strong and not riven by unsaid guilt, unsaid resentment…."

I have pondered this over and over again, especially over this past year. It seems to me that the only way we can move forward towards a better future is by fully coming to terms with our past. Norris shares stories about how the Germans have been attempting this. It isn't easy and it's certainly uncomfortable, but they are courageously working on it. One example of something they do: in an act of atonement, a group of people, perhaps neighbors, come together to research and create what they call "stumbling stones," which are small plaques placed in sidewalks that memorializes one of the victims of the holocaust.

Imagine traveling through an American state and coming upon small, embedded memorials that listed key facts about the lives of the enslaved. Their names. Their fates. Their birth dates. The number of times they were sold. The ways they were separated from their families. The conditions of their toil. Imagine how that might shape the way we comprehend the peculiar institution of slavery, its legacy and its normalized trauma. Imagine if there were similar embedded memorials for Indigenous peoples, who were forced from their land, relegated to reservations far from their normal ranges and regions. Imagine stopping to fill up the tank at a roadside gas station and noticing the reflection off a gleaming brass marker that bears the names of the tribal elders who once lived where you are standing.

As President Biden said in his speech marking the 100-year anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre: "We should know the good, the bad, everything. That's what great nations do: They come to terms with their dark sides. And we're a great nation."

Towards the end of her essay, Norris shares an insight that deeply touched me:

Our contributions—in blood, sweat and bondage—must be told. Our children, indeed, all of America, deserve to know what we have endured and survived to understand the depth of our fortitude, but also to understand that, despite centuries of enslavement and years of Black Codes and brutal Jim Crow segregation, our contributions are central to America's might.

Germany faced its horrible past. Can we do the same?⩘  by Michele L. Norris⩘ , The Washington Post, June 3, 2021

This virus is more likely to be a product of nature than a product of a laboratory

In a well argued article by Angela L. Rasmussen, a virologist specializing in emerging viruses at the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization at the University of Saskatchewan, and Stephen A. Goldstein, a virologist at the University of Utah studying virus evolution, they reach the conclusion that "This virus is more likely to be a product of nature than a product of a laboratory."

While they "don't disagree about the benefits of doing … a more thorough examination of the possibility of a lab escape," they argue that our priorities should be guided by what is most likely. They discuss the most prevalent arguments being put forward right now to suggest that the source was a lab leak and show how each is unlikely. And they explain the importance of lab research:

Ironically, given the recent prominence of the lab escape theory, the questions the world wants answered about the virus—and the astonishingly fast development of the vaccines that can quash the pandemic—depend entirely on research conducted in labs like the Wuhan Institute of Virology and across the world over the past several decades.

I really appreciate their carefully reasoned and calmly argued article, which is based in science. I wish more of our current public discourse was like this.

This virus is more likely to be a product of nature than a product of a laboratory⩘  The Washington Post, June 4, 2021.

More research about COVID-19 coronavirus origins:

• Coronavirus came from Wuhan market and not Chinese lab, twin studies say⩘  by Martin Pengelly The Guardian, Feb 26, 2022.
• Scientists hone argument that coronavirus came from Wuhan market⩘  by Joel Achenbach, The Washington Post, Jul 26, 2022.
• Work in progress: Why the Lab-Leak and Mask Debates Are Such a Disaster: We're still pretending to know things about COVID that we don't⩘  by Derek Thompson, The Atlantic, Mar 3, 2023.
     "In the absence of certainty, we should proceed as if both theories [lab-leak and natural exposure to an infected animal in a wet market] are true.…
     "I share the Department of Energy's assessment, even though I don't have access to its information. I think the lab leak is probable, by the slimmest of margins, and have also reconciled myself to the fact that I'll never know for sure. I think the government should proceed as if the lab leak is 100 percent true and push for global gain-of-function limitations that reduce the likelihood of future catastrophic lab leaks."

Coping with pandemic numbers

Comic by Connie Hanzhang Jin: "It's like wearing a face mask: if, at the end of the pandemic, I prevented transmitting COVID-19 to one person, wasn't that enough?"

Connie Hanzhang Jin introduces her Coronavirus, illustrated⩘  comic by saying:

Each week I check the latest deaths from COVID-19 for NPR. After a while, I didn't feel any sorrow at the numbers. I just felt numb. I wanted to understand why—and how to overcome that numbness.

She researched what she was experiencing and learned it's a phenomenon called psychic numbing. Then she talked to Paul Slovic, a research psychologist at the University of Oregon, to learn why this happens and how we can deal with it in our daily lives. From this, she produced a quite insightful and heartfelt short comic.

I have to admit that I initially stumbled on the use of the word "comic" in this context because there's absolutely nothing comical about this, but as Wikipedia⩘  explains, "Comics is a medium used to express ideas with images."

I've definitely felt the numbness she describes myself. One way I've been trying to keep those suffering from this pandemic in my heart is to update a webpage I created on a daily basis: Visualizing our massive loss⩘ . Spending a few moments each day thinking about this—and remembering that no matter how large the number, these are individuals—helps me keep myself motivated to continue being careful and caring even when I feel incredibly exhausted by the effort.

Coronavirus, illustrated: For My Job, I Check Death Tolls From COVID. Why Am I Numb To The Numbers?⩘  by Connie Hanzhang Jin, NPR, Apr 25, 2021

Why Confederate Lies Live On

The Children of Whitney⩘ , a series of sculptures by Woodrow Nash representing former slaves as they were at the time of emancipation: children.

A few years ago, Clint Smith "decided to travel around America visiting sites that are grappling—or refusing to grapple—with America's history of slavery." He visited plantations, prisons, cemeteries, museums, memorials, houses, and historical landmarks. His forthcoming book, How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning With the History of Slavery Across America⩘ , is based on his experiences, including the ones this excellent article shares of his visits to the Blandford Cemetery, in Petersburg, Virginia including the Memorial Day ceremony held there; the People's Memorial Cemetery was founded in 1840 by 28 members of Petersburg's free Black community across the street from the Blandford Cemetary; and the Whitney Plantation in Louisiana.

"There's so many misconceptions about slavery," Yvonne [Director of Operations, Whitney Plantation⩘ ] said. "People don't really consider the children who were brought over, and the children who were born into this system, and the way to get people to let their guard down when they come here is being confronted with the reality of slavery—and the reality of slavery is child enslavement."

Did the white visitors, I asked her, experience the space differently from the Black visitors? She told me that the most common question she gets from white visitors is "I know slavery was bad … I don't mean it this way, but … Were there any good slave owners?"
   She took a deep breath, her frustration visible. She had the look of someone professionally committed to patience but personally exhausted by the toll it takes.
   "I really give a short but nuanced answer to that," she said. "Regardless of how these individuals fed the people that they owned, regardless of how they clothed them, regardless of if they never laid a hand on them, they were still sanctioning the system … You can't say, 'Hey, this person kidnapped your child, but they fed them well. They were a good person.' How absurd does that sound?"

As I've said before, only by fully knowing about and acknowledging this horrendous history can we ever hope to truly grow beyond it. The way I see it, only once there is full acknowledgment followed by sincere, deeply felt regret and apology can there be the possibility of forgiveness and redemption.

Why Confederate Lies Live On⩘ , story by Clint Smith, The Atlantic, June 2021 issue, based on his forthcoming nonfiction book How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning With the History of Slavery Across America⩘ 

'I'd Never Been Involved in Anything as Secret as This'

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, along with with members of the national security team, receive an update on the mission against Osama bin Laden in the Situation Room, May 1, 2011. | Pete Souza/White House

The plan to kill Osama bin Laden—from the spycraft to the assault to its bizarre political backdrop—as told by the people in the room.

Very good article revealing what happened behind the scenes.

On the morning of May 1, 2011, most Americans had never heard of Abbottabad.…

'I'd Never Been Involved in Anything as Secret as This'⩘  by Garrett M. Graff with research contributed by Caroline Pahl, Politico, Apr 30, 2021

The Blue Marble

NASA Earth Observatory⩘ : View of the Earth as seen by the Apollo 17 crew traveling toward the moon. This translunar coast photograph extends from the Mediterranean Sea area to the Antarctica south polar ice cap. This is the first time the Apollo trajectory made it possible to photograph the south polar ice cap.

Toby Ord, Senior Research Fellow in Philosophy at Oxford University and author, recently looked through some 18,000 images of the Earth taken by the 24 Apollo astronauts who journeyed far enough to see the whole Earth against the black of space, selected 50 and digitally restored them, and then posted them on his website on a page he titled Earth Restored⩘ .

I restored these images over the course of many long evenings. On warmer nights I'd open the window to the Moon and stars and the black of space. The work was often slow and painstaking. But it was also deeply uplifting: seeing the images come to life, and gazing for the first time at the beauty of some of the lost pictures of our world.

The image above is his restoration of The Blue Marble (see his website⩘  for the glorious full resolution version), about which he has this to say:

One of the most famous photographs ever taken. The crew of Apollo 17 captured this image of the Earth five hours after liftoff—29,000 km into their journey to the Moon.

This final Apollo mission had a unique trajectory. It passed almost directly between the Earth and the Sun, allowing a photograph showing a very nearly 'full Earth'. Only a tiny sliver (on the right) is still in darkness. One can trace the equator by its ring of clouds, giving the image a sense of depth.

[Astronaut] Eugene Cernan: And I suppose we're seeing as 100 percent full Earth as we'll ever see; certainly as I've ever seen.… it's about 99 percent pure. Bob, it's these kind of views that stick with you forever.

[Astronaut] Jack Schmitt: I'll tell you, if there ever was a fragile-appearing piece of blue in space, it's the Earth right now.

Date – 10:39 UTC, 7 December 1972
Lens – Zeiss Planar ƒ-2.8/80mm
Code – AS17-148-22727
Scan – LPI (not online)
(Rotated 180°)

I'm looking forward to listening to his book, The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity⩘ , the cover of which features one of the images he digitally restored of the crescent Earth rising over the Moon:

Website: Toby Ord - Earth Restored⩘ 
NASA: The Blue Marble photograph info: The Blue Marble⩘ 
NASA: The Blue Marble source photograph: AS17-148-22727⩘ 

Reflections on the guilty verdict

Like many, I felt a sense of relief when I reflected on the guilty verdicts in the trial of Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd. It is a small, but significant step on the long road we must travel to a more just society.

This morning, I read a thoughtful article about the reflections of five other Americans: Georgia Ferrell, who lost her innocent son to a police shooting; Reverend Otis Moss III, a pastor in Chicago; Bob Gill, a defense attorney; Ari Tulay, a university student who was arrested and held for 30 hours when peacefully protesting George Floyd's murder; and Justin Boardman, a former police officer who served for 15 years as a police officer in West Valley City, Utah.

I agree with something Boardman shares, though I think it is long, long past the time when those harder conversations should have been started:

This is an opportunity to look inside—to look inside us as a culture, as police departments and as human beings and to see opportunities for change. I am hoping it is something that will get some of those harder conversations started. It is time to have those conversations about implicit bias, about teaching history to cadets. I think that could make us a much kinder and compassionate type of police system. I also hope that the pressure to readjust our thoughts and our biases, and to learn, continues.

With a verdict, troubled reflections⩘ , The Washington Post, Apr 21, 2021

A scientist's unwavering belief in mRNA

Credit Katalin Karikó

Katalin Karikó is a hero.

I had tears in my eyes when I received my first mRNA vaccine shot, felt an initial sense of relief three weeks later when I received my second shot knowing that my protection would be building up by then, and breathed a deep breath of gratitude two weeks after that knowing my protection was peaking.

The mRNA vaccines are incredibly effective. I remember chatting a few years ago with a friend who is an ER nurse and teacher who explained to me that a flu vaccine that is only 25% effective is still a good thing by saying, simply, "A 25% chance of avoiding a potentially deadly illness is much better than a 0% chance!" The mRNA vaccines appear to be more than 90% effective at preventing the illness and well over 99% effective at preventing a more serious infection that can lead to hospitalization and, possibly, death.

More than 40 years ago, Professor Katalin Karikó began researching how mRNA might be used for strokes, cancer, influenza, and other diseases. In the mid-80s, she moved to the University of Philadelphia to continue her work. She faced incredible skepticism, was rejected time after time for grants related to her research, and was even demoted by the university because she wasn't able to secure funding. In the face of these headwinds, she maintained her conviction, stay focused, and, after decades of work, she and a few others—including Dr. Drew Weissman, Dr. Uğur Şahin, Dr. Özlem Türeci, Dr. Barney Graham, and Kizzmekia Corbett—eventually gave the world vaccines based on this new technology to help us get past this horrendous pandemic.

"Redemption! … I was grabbing the air, I got so excited I was afraid that I might die or something."
   Katalin Karikó laughs as she recounts her reaction to the news that the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine, which is based on research she pioneered and risked her career for, was 90 per cent effective in protecting against Covid-19.

Article: 'Redemption': How a scientist's unwavering belief in mRNA gave the world a Covid-19 vaccine ⩘  by Sarah Newey and Paul Nuki, The Telegraph, Dec 2, 2020.
Related article: How Pfizer Makes Its Covid-19 Vaccine⩘ 
Wikipedia: Katalin Karikó⩘ 

An alternate viewpoint: Millions Are Saying No to the Vaccines. What Are They Thinking?⩘ , by Derek Thompson, The Atlantic, May 3, 2021. This helped me understand why some people are deciding not to get vaccinated against COVID-19, even if I don't agree with that position.

Walking by a Mountain Stream

Walking by a Mountain Stream
Traditionally attributed to Shen Zhou (1427-1509)
Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art⩘ 

Occasionally, existence surprises us with a gift. I was performing an online search this evening. The second result, quite unrelated to what I was searching for, was a link to this painting. It immediately captivated me. I totally dropped what I was searching for, pausing to enjoy some time being entranced by the tranquility of this painting, which has welcomed me into a wonderful state of consciousness. View it a bit larger >

#BoulderStrong

Denny Strong, 20
Neven Stanisic, 23
Rikki Olds, 25
Tralona Bartkowiak, 49
Suzanne Fountain, 59
Teri Leiker, 51
Eric Talley, 51
Kevin Mahoney, 61
Lynn Murray, 62
Jody Waters, 65
 

Most honey bees are very gentle

Once in awhile, I come across a story about someone who takes an entirely different and fresh attitude towards some other beings that normally evoke fear and even revulsion in many people, for example, The woman who swims with sharks⩘  or The Bear Man⩘ . These stories always blow my mind and touch my heart, reminding me how much our preconceptions can taint our experiences, and how much we can gain by approaching our life experiences with as much openness as we can muster. This video by Erika Thompson of Texas Beeworks⩘  is such a story.

"I didn't become a beekeeper because I wanted to sell honey, and I think that's what separates me from a lot of other beekeepers," she says. "Whatever way you're inspired by bees or to keep bees I think is wonderful. But in full transparency … I'd rather focus on creating more bees than having them produce more honey.

Bee Removal - Backyard Shed⩘  with Erika Thompson of Texas Beeworks⩘ , via Kottke.org⩘ 

How I Lost My Mom To QAnon

Fervent belief in conspiracy theories really puzzles me, so I appreciate articles that help me gain insight into this phenomenon. The article by Albert Samaha, an investigative reporter for BuzzFeed News, about his mom's journey into QAnon doesn't provide answers, but does an excellent job of contextualizing the issue. Definitely a worthwhile read.

With a fervor I knew was futile, I'd tell my mom she was missing the real conspiracy: The powerful people shaping policy to benefit their own interests, to maintain wealth and white predominance, through tax cuts and voter suppression, were commandeering her support solely by catering to her stance on the one issue she cared most about.

How I Lost My Mom To QAnon⩘  by Albert Samaha, BuzzFeed News, Mar 12, 2020
Albert Samaha's website: albertsamaha.com⩘ 
Related YouTube video: QAmom – My mom got sucked into the world of internet conspiracy theories⩘  by Sean Donnelly, May 24, 2021

How were the COVID-19 vaccines developed so quickly?

Scientist in Laboratory⩘ . Photo by Polina Tankilevitch, 2020, from Pexels⩘ 

Jason Kottke has posted an excellent overview identifying the key reasons why it was possible to develop effective and safe COVID-19 vaccines so quickly. In his article, he discusses each of the following reasons in more detail and includes links to the source material as well as to further reading. I'm sure feeling grateful for this effort as I near the day when I'll have developed maximum immunity.

1. The need was urgent.
2. Funding & focus.
3. Availability of volunteers & high incidence of disease.
4. International & corporate collaboration.
5. We knew a lot about coronaviruses from previous work.
6. Scientific and technological capability.

"As Dr. Faheem Younus put it, 'We didn't cut corners; we cut the crap!'"

How Were the Covid-19 Vaccines Developed So Quickly?⩘  by Jason Kottke, Kottke.org, Mar 12, 2021

Incarceration in Real Numbers
The actual number of Americans jailed or imprisoned, about 2.3 million.

I really appreciate this eye-opening data visualization project by Matt Korostoff as it helped me understand the immense size of the challenge we face as a society. As you scroll down through the display of the massive numbers of people who are incarcerated, you can view related information, data, and reflections.

There is no human development goal beyond our reach. We could build a society that is more just, more peaceful, and more prosperous than any that has ever existed on the planet. Millions could be freed from cages, and millions more could be freed from the burden of crime.

Push away the cynical voice inside yourself that says this can't be done. Forget the lifetime of politicians claiming that you need to be caged; that freeing you would lead to anarchy; that your poverty is a moral failing; that your pain is deserved; that your needs cannot be met. You know in your heart it isn't true.

You know in your heart that this society could be ours. All we need to do is make it.

A better world is possible.

Incarceration in Real Numbers⩘  is an independent data visualization project by Matt Korostoff⩘ , launched autumn 2020. About the project and table of contents⩘ .
See also: Wealth shown to scale⩘ .

Create Escape
(a.k.a., the Joy of Painting with Bob Ross & Banksy)

This is brilliant!

Video (YouTube): Create Escape⩘ , banksyfilm, Mar 4, 2021
More info: Banksy Creates Bob Ross-Dubbed Process Video of New Work Depicting Oscar Wilde Escaping Prison⩘ , Colossal, Mar 4, 2021

The Secret Life of a Coronavirus

Wow! Fascinating essay about coronaviruses and viruses in general by Carl Zimmer, NYT science columnist and author of the upcoming Life's Edge: The Search for What It Means to Be Alive⩘ , which I'll definitely be listening to.

So far, scientists have identified 21,000 species of phages [a type of virus that infects bacteria and other single-celled organisms] residing in our guts. More than 12,000 of them came to light in a single study published just this month.
   Most of these resident viruses infect the bacteria, fungi and other single-celled organisms that live inside us. Some studies suggest that our resident viruses help keep our inner wilderness in balance, preventing any one species from getting out of control and making us sick.

The Secret Life of a Coronavirus⩘  by Carl Zimmer, New York Times, Feb 26, 2021

Bats and the Origin of Outbreaks

Illustration of a Flying Fox by Catherine Tai, Reuters Graphics

Fascinating and beautifully illustrated article about bats and why they are so frequently the origin hosts of disease-causing viruses that lead to zoonotic diseases spreading to humans.

Among the reasons are that they make up approximately 20% of all mammal species; have a relatively long lifespan for their size (up to more than 30 years), which makes it easier for viruses to develop as chronic infections; some bat species live in large, close-quarter colonies; and they are the only mammal capable of flight, which elevates their body temperatures, meaning that viruses that evolve in bats are less susceptible to being neutralized by human fevers.

On the other hand, they play a vital ecological role in plant pollination and biological insect control. The article doesn't talk about mosquitoes, but I know from other reading that mosquitoes are responsible for massive amounts of human disease and deaths, and bats eat a lot of mosquitoes. So it certainly seems possible that bats may help us more than they harm us.

Bats and the Origin of Outbreaks⩘  by Julia Janicki and Simon Scarr, with illustrations by Catherine Tai, Reuters Graphics, Mar 2, 2021
Related: The Batman and the Bridge Builder⩘ , 99% Invisible, Feb 23, 2021

Inside a Covid I.C.U., Through a Nurse's Eyes

This is both heartwarming and heartrending. From the description:

NYT Opinion Video producer Alexander Stockton spent several days reporting at the Valleywise Medical Center in Phoenix. Two I.C.U. nurses wore cameras to show what it's like to care for the sickest Covid patients a year into the pandemic.

If you know a nurse, figure out a way to reach out and give them a virtual hug.

Inside a Covid I.C.U., Through a Nurse's Eyes⩘  by video producer Alexander Stockton, NYT Opinion, Feb 25, 2021

A world large enough for Democracy, and too small for race prejudice, discrimination, injustice and hate

A portrait of Nannie Helen Burroughs, born in 1879. (Library of Congress)

"We salute you ALL – black and white – Jews and Gentiles – who are fighting under Old Glory, the undefeated banner of a free nation, to make the world large enough for Democracy, and too small for race prejudice, discrimination, injustice and hate."
– Nannie Helen Burroughs, from a radio address to Americans in arms, 1943⩘ 

For more information, see The Nannie Helen Burroughs Project⩘ 
See also, Denied a teaching job for being ‘too Black,' she started her own school – and a movement⩘  by Jess McHugh, The Washington Post, Feb 28, 2021

Raven and the Box of daylight

To be honest, there's not much that I admire about the USPS these days, but I find this US Forever stamp design by Tlingit artist Rico Worl—who lives in Juneau, Alaska—to be one of the most beautiful stamp designs I've seen in years.

The artwork is based on a traditional Tlingit story, Raven and the Box of daylight, which concludes: "Raven brought the sun, the moon, and the stars to the universe."

Rico has this to say about his design:

The stamp depicts a moment of climax in one of his heists. Stealing the stars. Raven is trying to grab as many stars as he can, some stuck in his feathers and in his hands or in his beak. Some falling around him. Its a frazzled moment of adrenaline. Partially still in human form, as depicted as his hand still being human, as he carries the stars away. I think it depicts a moment we all have experienced, the cusp of failure and accomplishment.

The stamp will be released sometime during the summer of 2021. I'm going to need to find reasons to mail some letters.

2021 update: The actual stamp is much more beautiful that the image at the top of this post suggests.

I designed a stamp for USPS⩘  by Rico Worl, Nov 21, 2020

A fresh way of looking at our world

J. Richard Gott, an astrophysicist at Princeton, Robert Vanderbei, a mathematician at Princeton, and David Goldberg, a cosmologist at Drexel University in Philadelphia have created a new map of the Earth that they believe is the most accurate flat map of Earth yet. Although I'm showing both sides above, the two halves can be better pictured back to back. In that configuration, any point on one side can be traced to the corresponding point on the other side by simply flipping the map. What an awesome map they have created!

One thing that immediately struck me when I first viewed this map is how it helped me better understand the immensity of the Pacific ocean. For fun, I created a second version of the image that rotates the two halves to emphasize this:

Thinking more about this map, I ended up wanting to move the map around freely so that any given point on Earth was centered, making it possible to get an even better idea of the size and relationship of various landmasses and oceans. I realized that what I was hoping for was a 3D globe projected onto the 2D surface of my monitor. A quick search led me to exactly what I was hoping for: the wonderful eChalk 3D Interactive Earth Globe⩘ , which provides a variety of views to play with including Photorealistic, Terrain, Tectonic, Climate Zones, a variety of data-based views, etc.

J. Richard Gott III, David M. Goldberg, Robert J. Vanderbei, Flat Maps that improve on the Winkel Tripel⩘ , Cornell University, Feb 15, 2021
Joshua Sokol, Can This New Map Fix Our Distorted Views of the World?⩘ , New York Times, Feb 24, 20201
eChalk 3D Interactive Earth Globe⩘ 

The moments that could have accidentally ended humanity

Thought provoking article about risk, which discusses a couple moments when small groups of scientists made decisions that carried a small chance of ending humanity: the first nuclear explosion, which might have ignited the entire atmosphere; and the opening of the hatch of the returning first Apollo moon mission capsule, which might have brought back life-ending contaminants from the moon, while the capsule was still on the open ocean. I recall similar concerns being expressed just before the CERN Large Hadron Collider particle accelerator was first used. AI, gene editing, and advanced weaponry may carry similar risks.

Fisher discusses the vulnerable world hypothesis⩘ , which posits that "there is some level of technology at which civilization almost certainly gets destroyed unless quite extraordinary and historically unprecedented degrees of preventive policing and/or global governance are implemented."

He finishes with a brief look at the concept of the tragedy of the uncommons, our tendency to misperceive a rare catastrophic risk, which is compounded by the way our perception of risk "does not grow linearly with the severity of a catastrophe." Think back to the shock felt a year ago when the first few people began dying from COVID-19, then the first scores and then hundreds of people. Now we are seeing thousands of people in the U.S. dying every day—on some days it has been over 5,000 people in a single day— and we are on the cusp of half a million having died from this terrible scourge in just a bit more than a year's time, yet there is a sort of numbness to this frankly immensely shocking new reality.

Just this morning, I saw an article headline about how wonderful this coming summer might be if we can get the pandemic under control. While there's a certain truth to that, it masks that immense challenges we face, challenges that will be unaffected by whether or not this current pandemic fades away, for example, the now ever-present risk of ecological collapse triggered by climate change.

The moments that could have accidentally ended humanity⩘  By Richard Fisher, BBC, Feb 2021

The curious observer's guide to quantum mechanics

A folded spectrum from the High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher

Ars Technica has a fascinating seven-part series exploring quantum mechanics written for non-mathematicians by Miguel F. Morales, professor of physics at the University of Washington. It's a fun way for someone like me to get a glimpse into some of the weirdness underlying our existence.

1. Particle/wave duality⩘ 
2. The particle melting pot⩘ 
3. Rose colored glasses⩘ 
4. Looking at the stars⩘ 
5. Catching a wave⩘ 
6. Two quantum spooks⩘ 
7. The quantum century⩘ 

Interesting tidbit I hadn't previously known: "the ground you … are sitting on typically rises and falls by ~5cm a day due to land tides." Nothing is quite what it seems … or everything is much more than it appears at first glance. What a crazy, fascinating, wonderful existence we are surfing!

Miguel F. Morales, Exploring the Quantum World⩘ , Ars Technica, Jan - Feb 2021

Harriet

About a year and a half ago, I read Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom⩘  by Catherine Clinton. I found it to be an excellent biography of an extraordinary person. I'm not much of a film person, typically preferring to pass my time listening to or reading books, so I missed the release of the film Harriet.

Recently, however, when the news that we are once again considering honoring Harriet Tubman by placing her image on our $20 bill, I did some more research, came across this film, and decided to invest some of my time in watching it.

My time invested was richly rewarded. While the film takes a few liberties with some of the actual events (see What's Fact and What's Fiction in Harriet⩘ , Slate, Oct 2019), I think what it accomplishes is far more important: making the key events of Tubman's life viscerally vivid. Cynthia Onyedinmanasu Chinasaokwu Erivo delivers an amazing performance as Harriet, the supporting roles are well played, and Kasi Lemmons' directing is strong.

I don't think I can improve upon how I described Harriet Tubman's impact in my previous book review. Just as the book does, the film provides "a vivid portrait of this amazing woman's life and work, from her strength in the face of slavery, to her courageous act of escaping from slavery, her heroic work assisting others to free themselves from their unjust bondage at great personal peril, her valiant work on behalf on the Union army to help win the Civil War, her dedication of her remaining lifetime to helping those less fortunate than herself and advancing the causes of justice and equality. She is a true American hero."

I hope we do honor her by placing her image on our $20 bill.

Harriet, the film⩘ 

Finally, the stock market explained

Image by Michael Goodwin, author of Economix, economixcomix.com⩘ 

I really appreciate the clarity with which Goodwin explains what the #$@%! is going on with the stock market going up and up while the real economy is tanking. I hadn't previously understood the impact of stock buybacks. It'll be interesting to look back at this in a year or so.

What's Going On With the Stock Market?⩘  by Michael Goodwin

10 golden rules for tree-planting

The beautiful bark of an old Ponderosa pine in a Rocky Mountain forest

Scientists have proposed 10 golden rules for tree-planting, which they say must be a top priority for all nations this decade. The golden rules are explained more fully in the original article⩘ .

1. Protect existing forests first
2. Put local people at the heart of tree-planting projects
3. Maximise biodiversity recovery to meet multiple goals
4. Select the right area for reforestation
5. Use natural forest regrowth wherever possible
6. Select the right tree species that can maximise biodiversity
7. Make sure the trees are resilient to adapt to a changing climate
8. Plan ahead (how to source seeds or trees)
9. Learn by doing
10. Make it pay

Scientists address myths over large-scale tree planting⩘  by Helen Briggs, BBC, Jan 25, 2021

May this be the story that inspires us

"Together we shall write an American story of hope, not fear, of unity, not division, of light, not darkness. A story of decency and dignity, love and healing, greatness and goodness. May this be the story that guides us, the story that inspires us, and the story that tells ages yet to come that we answered the call of history."
– President Joe Biden, Inaugural address, Jan 20, 2021

The power to protect the guilty

As I scan the list of the soon-to-be-ex-president's pardons this morning shortly before the inauguration, I'm reminded of an article by David Frum published nearly four years ago, shortly after the start of the outgoing administration.

As one shrewd observer told me on a recent visit, "The benefit of controlling a modern state is less the power to persecute the innocent, more the power to protect the guilty."
– David Frum, "How to Build an Autocracy⩘ ." The Atlantic, Mar 2017

A moment of grace

Our nation's first memorial service for the victims of COVID-19, Jan 19, 2021.

"To heal, we must remember." – President-elect Joe Biden

"For many months, we have grieved by ourselves. Tonight, we grieve and begin healing together." – Vice-president-elect Kamala Harris

Four Hours of Insurrection

For the past ten days, I've been slowing wrapping my mind around what happened on January 6th. It was shocking on that day, but the true horror of the situation has been sinking in as more news reports have come out. Today, I became fully aware of just how depraved the riot was when I listened to a Radiolab podcast episode about the insurrection, and then listened to the full podcast episode that it was based on from The Washington Post. Hearing the sounds of the mob interweaved with interviews with police, congresspeople, and reporters who were on the scene really drove it home. Here's how The Washington Post introduces its episode:

Today, we reconstruct the riot inside the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 – hearing from the lawmakers, journalists and law enforcement officials who were there, and answering lingering questions about how things went so wrong.

Reporters Rebecca Tan, Marissa J. Lang, Rhonda Colvin, and photojournalist Bill O'Leary were all witnesses to the violence on Jan. 6. They share their harrowing accounts of what it was like, inside and outside of the Capitol.

Reporter Peter Hermann explains how battered D.C. police made a stand against the Capitol mob.

And reporter Carol D. Leonnig chronicles the experience of outgoing Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund, who told her that House and Senate security officials hamstrung his efforts to call in the National Guard.

One of the most horrifying segments was the interview afterwards with officer Daniel Hodges, who a video from that day showed being crushed in a doorway by the mob, interwoven with sounds recorded of the actual incident:

As officers fell back, I would work my way to the front. And eventually I got to the very front there where you saw me in the corner next to the door. I just tried to hold them back as best I could. And eventually just the shear numbers and all of them pushing in unison wedged me in the door. [Mob shouting and Officer Hodges screaming in pain.] My arms were pinned and I couldn't really defend myself at that point, so the guy in front of me took that opportunity to rip my mask off, rip my riot baton away from me, started beating me in the head with it. [More painful screaming.] You know, I didn't want to be the one guy to start shooting because I knew that they had guns, we'd been seeing guns all day, all yesterday, and the only reason I could think of that they weren't shooting us is that they were waiting for us to shoot first. And if it became a fire fight between a couple hundred officers and a couple thousand insurrectionists, then we surely would've lost.

Later in the episode, another officer adds:

It's just … the zealotry of these people is absolutely unreal. They believe wholeheartedly in something that there is no evidence of, and they refer to themselves as patriots even while they're besieging the Capitol of the United States, and they call us traitors even while they're waving the thin blue line flag and beating us with it, literally in some cases.

At least 56 D.C. police officers were injured during the insurrection, and U.S. Capitol Police Officer Brian D. Sicknick died of the injuries he suffered when an insurrectionist clubbed him on the head with a fire extinguisher.

When I think about Trump sitting in the White House watching this unfold live on television, by all accounts enjoying it and doing nothing for hours to try to come to the aid of the United States Senators and Representatives, his own Vice President, and the police who were under siege … well, I'm left nauseated and disgusted.

Original podcast episode: Four hours of insurrection⩘ , by reporters Rebecca Tan, Marissa J. Lang, Rhonda Colvin, Peter Hermann, Carol D. Leonnig, and photojournalist Bill O'Leary, The Washington Post, Jan 15, 2021
Related article: The four-hour insurrection: How a Trump mob halted American democracy⩘ , by Marc Fisher, Meagan Flynn, Jessica Contrera and Carol D. Leonnig, The Washington Post, Jan 7, 2021
Related videos: 41 minutes of fear: A video timeline from inside the Capitol siege⩘ , by Dalton Bennett, Emma Brown, Sarah Cahlan, Joyce Sohyun Lee, Meg Kelly, Elyse Samuels, Jon Swaine, The Washington Post, Jan 16, 2021; Disturbing video shows officer crushed against door by mob storming the Capitol⩘ , by Kelsie Smith and Travis Caldwell, CNN, Jan 9, 2021
Related Radiolab podcast episode: Post Reports: Four Hours of Insurrection⩘ , Radiolab, Jan 16, 2021

Update early May, 2021:
Related PBS Frontline/ProPublica documentary: American Insurrection⩘ , featuring some amazing investigative reporting by producer and correspondent A.C. Thompson, Apr 14, 2021.
Related NPR podcast: No Compromise⩘ , very well reported by Lisa Hagen of WABE and Chris Haxel of KCUR, Sep/Oct, 2020.

Update early July, 2021:
Related New York Times investigation: Day of Rage: How Trump Supporters Took the U.S. Capitol⩘ , incredible reporting, the result of a six-month investigation, presented in a 40-minute video by Dmitriy Khavin, Haley Willis, Evan Hill, Natalie Reneau, Drew Jordan, Cora Engelbrecht, Christiaan Triebert, Stella Cooper, Malachy Browne and David Botti, The New York Times: Visual Investigations, Jun 30, 2021.

Update early Nov, 2021:
Related Washington Post investigation: The Attack: The Jan. 6 siege of the U.S. Capitol was neither a spontaneous act nor an isolated event⩘ . "This project is based on interviews with more than 230 people and thousands of pages of court documents and internal law enforcement reports, as well as hundreds of videos, photographs and audio clips." The Washington Post, Oct 31, 2021.

I wasn't sure I would read this entire lengthy report when I first came across it this morning, but figured I'd at least take a quick look. Ended up spending most of the day reading. It's a thorough report and a compelling read.

Here's an excerpt from Letter from Washington Post Executive Editor Sally Buzbee about The Post's Jan. 6 investigation⩘ :

The insurrection that took place on Jan. 6 at the United States Capitol was one of the most consequential moments in American history. The events of that day led to an expansive federal investigation that has already resulted in 650 arrests and triggered an ongoing congressional inquiry.
   Yet nearly 10 months after the attack, key questions remain: What did law enforcement officials know in advance? How did President Donald Trump respond to the deadly clash that day? What has been the fallout for Americans' faith in their elections?
   Throughout much of this year, a team of 75 Washington Post journalists has been working to produce a definitive account of Jan. 6 — its causes, its costs and its aftermath. The result of that investigation, a three-part series being published today, makes clear that the violence that day was neither a spontaneous act nor an isolated event.

The report is presented in three parts:

1. Before: Red flags – As Trump propelled his supporters to Washington, law enforcement agencies failed to heed mounting warnings about violence on Jan. 6.
2. During: Bloodshed – For 187 harrowing minutes, the president watched his supporters attack the Capitol—and resisted pleas to stop them.
3. After: Contagion – Threats and disinformation spread across the country in the wake of the Capitol siege, shaking the underpinnings of American democracy.

When good people who are trying to do their jobs honorably are attacked and threatened, the only conclusion I can draw it that reality is dangerously broken.

Nikole Hannah Jones

Nikole Hannah-Jones is a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter covering racial injustice for The New York Times Magazine and creator of the landmark 1619 Project.

I was deeply touched⩘  when I experienced the 1619 Project in the autumn of 2019, so I very much appreciated this Axe Files episode in which Nikole Hannah Jones shares insights into her upbringing, the experiences that led her to create the 1619 Project, as well as the denunciation of the project by a small, vocal group of historians, and the way that controversy is now influencing politics. She also addresses our current challenges and her thoughts about where we are headed and what transformational change could look like.

Update, Jun 2021: Bravo, Nikole Hannah-Jones has been granted the UNC tenure she deserves.
Update, Jul 2021: Congratulations to Nikole Hannah-Jones, who has declined the UNC offer of tenure and instead has accepted a tenured position at Howard University where she also will found the Center for Journalism and Democracy together with Ta-Nehisi Coates. Huge loss for UNC.

Website: Nikole Hannah-Jones⩘ 
Podcast: The Axe Files, episode 405, Nikole Hannah-Jones⩘ 

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