From the New York Times obits: Sharon Begley, a Top Science Journalist, Is Dead at 64 Long at Newsweek, she was regarded as one of her generation’s pre-eminent science writers. An “Enlightenment-era figure,” Jon Meacham said. … Dr. Francis S. Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, wrote on Twitter that Ms. Begley would … [Read more…]
Ed Yong writes in the Atlantic about America Is Trapped in a Pandemic Spiral and ends with this: 9. The Habituation of Horror The U.S. might stop treating the pandemic as the emergency that it is. Daily tragedy might become ambient noise. The desire for normality might render the unthinkable normal. Like poverty and racism, … [Read more…]
A federal lab found a way to modernize the grid, reduce reliance on coal, and save consumers billions. Then Trump appointees blocked it. The Atlantic Story by Peter Fairley
One scathing essay and one graphic strip in the New York Review Daily which need sharing: The first is an essay from David Rothkopf: ‘The Most Ignorant and Unfit’: What Made America’s Worst Ever Leader? “Being president,” former First Lady Michelle Obama has said, “doesn’t change who you are, it reveals who you are.” In … [Read more…]
The Guardian, again, hits the nail on the head with this spot on essay “Republicans are hypocrites. They happily ‘de-funded’ the police we actually need” by David Sirota: After two weeks of police violence and protests, Republican politicians have been pretending to have a fainting spell over the phrase “defund the police.” “There won’t be … [Read more…]
In the Guardian today, June 3, 2020, is an essay on the remarks from Jane Goodall about farming practices and food habits. “If we do not do things differently, we are finished,” she said. “We can’t go on very much longer like this.” She called for people to be lifted out of poverty, pointing to … [Read more…]
In the Columbia Journalism Review is an essay The bad news quietly buried during the pandemic by Zoë Beery: With the world’s attention glued to the coronavirus pandemic, news about anything else has been slipping farther and farther down the proverbial front page. But that doesn’t mean nothing’s been going on. Whether by design or … [Read more…]
Over at the New York Review of Books Daily, Bill McKibbon writes about the how big oil is losing its “big”. Read it here, from May 12, 2020. A study published this week in the journal Nature by economists at the Beijing Institute of Technology calculated that while investments to reduce greenhouse gases in line … [Read more…]
At about 04:30 AM this morning, I woke while dreaming that I was watching Joe Biden’s inauguration speech on TV. Biden was speaking of the need for a green new-deal and infrastructure initiative to put America back to where it should be and increase employment. It was the most pleasant dream I’ve had in many … [Read more…]
Last time I shaved off my beard was in 2009, just after I was fired during the recession. Then I did it just to see what was under the facial hair, as part of the ritual of self-examination during a fit of depression. This time I cut it off slowly to make sure my face … [Read more…]