Though the current project started as a series of posts charting my grief journey after the death of my mother, I am no longer actively grieving. Now, the blog charts a conversation in living, mainly whatever I want it to be. This is an activity that goes well with the theme of this blog (updated 2018). The Sense of Doubt blog is dedicated to my motto: EMBRACE UNCERTAINTY. I promote questioning everything because just when I think I know something is concrete, I find out that it’s not.
Hey, Mom! The Explanation.
Here's the permanent dedicated link to my first Hey, Mom! post and the explanation of the feature it contains.
Jane Mayer, one of America's finest reporters, has gotten herself a scoop. Specifically, she got audio of a conference call in which some super dark money garbage beasts are freaking out because this whole "For The People" Act thing the Democrats are trying to push? It's popular. And they don't know how to message against it! Part of the bill the Democrats want to pass through the Senate, HR1/S1, bans dark money! And they are dark money!
AIYEEEEEEEEEEEE!
Mayer's piece in the New Yorker begins with reporting what says that when they're not in public, Republicans are singing a very different tune on HR1/S1 than they're screaming on Fox News:
They admit the lesser-known provisions in the bill that limit secret campaign spending are overwhelmingly popular across the political spectrum. In private, they concede their own polling shows that no message they can devise effectively counters the argument that billionaires should be prevented from buying elections.
The American people think billionaires should not be able to buy elections? Where did it all go wroooooooooong?
Here's what happened with the conference call, which happened just after the Capitol insurrection, and just after the Georgia special election that gave Democrats control of the whole kit and kaboodle:
The conference call with the leaked audio happened, Mayer explains, on January 8, and the participants were "a policy adviser to Senator Mitch McConnell and the leaders of several prominent conservative groups—including one run by the Koch brothers' network."
And they were just freaking out. It's not just dirty stinky liberals who do the cha cha while Young Nasty X pole-dances his way to the devil who want to ban billionaires buying elections. It's also conservatives!
It wasn't even worth it to try to fight against the bill on an ideas level, they were discovering. They just had to do underhanded dark money Koch-brothers-type thing and get the bill murdered. Luckily, they were literally the underhanded dark money Koch brothers type of people!
Kyle McKenzie, the research director for the Koch-run advocacy group Stand Together, told fellow-conservatives and Republican congressional staffers on the call that he had a "spoiler." "When presented with a very neutral description" of the bill, "people were generally supportive," McKenzie said, adding that "the most worrisome part . . . is that conservatives were actually as supportive as the general public was when they read the neutral description." In fact, he warned, "there's a large, very large, chunk of conservatives who are supportive of these types of efforts."
In other words, when they didn't lie to people about what was in the bill, people liked the bill. And worst of all, conservatives loved it AS MUCH as the stinky liberals!
Read how gloomy this is, y'all:
As a result, McKenzie conceded, the legislation's opponents would likely have to rely on Republicans in the Senate, where the bill is now under debate, to use "under-the-dome-type strategies"—meaning legislative maneuvers beneath Congress's roof, such as the filibuster—to stop the bill, because turning public opinion against it would be "incredibly difficult." He warned that the worst thing conservatives could do would be to try to "engage with the other side" on the argument that the legislation "stops billionaires from buying elections." McKenzie admitted, "Unfortunately, we've found that that is a winning message, for both the general public and also conservatives."
It's almost like when you have good legislation and a good message, people actually like it. That is not the world the Koch Brothers and other GOP donors have been paying for these past many decades! This rigged system is broken!
He said that when his group tested "tons of other" arguments in support of the bill, the one condemning billionaires buying elections was the most persuasive—people "found that to be most convincing, and it riled them up the most."
When they asked people, hey, you want some fucking dicks just buying politicians and elections? Because that's what this bill bans. Again, it's called the "For The People Act," and not the "For Some Fucking Dicks Act." Folks were down with that!
(You hear that, Joe Manchin? Folks were down with that.)
(It shouldn't be surprising that Mayer reports these dark money rightwing assholes are all the way up Manchin's ass right now, trying to get him to oppose HR1/S1.)
They tried a message that said Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez sucks. Didn't work too great. They tried saying both sides do it, arguing that even Planned Parenthood and the ACLU hate this bill, because it's bad. (Mayer notes that Planned Parenthood does not actually hate this bill, and the ACLU likes most of it, but has some concerns about some of the donor disclosure provisions.)
They even tried a message that said "cancel culture." Seriously. In trying to get voters mad at a bill banning dark money billionaires buying elections, they tried a message that said "cancel culture," and it didn't work.
"Sadly," he added, not even attaching the phrase "cancel culture" to the bill, by portraying it as silencing conservative voices, had worked. "It really ranked at the bottom," McKenzie said to the group. "That was definitely a little concerning for us."
This is the funniest Jane Mayer article we have ever read, and she is known for some knee-slappers!
Mayer reports the conference call was put together by a consortium of state-level wingnut think tanks called the State Policy Network. Other participants included Heather Lauer, head of People United For Privacy (for dark money donors) and fucking Grover Norquist, who just sounded like he was crying tears so big you couldn't even drown them in the bathtub:
"The left is not stupid, they're evil," he warned. "They know what they're doing. They have correctly decided that this is the way to disable the freedom movement."
OK, Grover.
Also on the call were Caleb Hays, a lawyer for the House Republicans, and Steve Donaldson, a policy guy on Mitch McConnell's staff who also sounds like he was pretty freaked out.
But don't worry, they say they'll never quit, never back down from the yeoman's work of protecting billionaires' sacred and God-given right to buy elections and use them as play-toys for their personal whims.
"When it comes to donor privacy, I can't stress enough how quickly things could get out of hand," Donaldson said, indicating McConnell's concern about the effects that disclosure requirements would have on fund-raising. Donaldson added, "We have to hold our people together," and predicted that the fight is "going to be a long one. It's going to be a messy one." But he insisted that McConnell was "not going to back down."
How inspiring.
More leaked audio of rightwing assholes saying the quiet part loud, please!
And for this leaked audio, hit that New Yorker link just below.
We don't want to write this post. We don't want to write about every belch and grunt and wet fart from Donald Trump, and we don't. It's usually not news, but rather misspelled whining from a guy who doesn't speak English very well, a guy who claims he passed a dementia test and thinks that makes him one of the world's great minds. We of course continue to write about the criminal investigations into him. That's news, plus we like it.
That said.
We guess Dr. Deborah Birx going on TV and talking about her perfect call with Donald Trump and whatever Dr. Anthony Fauci said in the same CNN documentary where Birx's comments aired, they have hurt Trump's feelings something fierce. Poor thing got a Fauci Ouchie, on his heart. And he released a statement, and we just want you to behold it with us. We do not come to rebut the words in it, mostly, because Trump really isn't worth that.
But yeah, we can read it together and maybe we'll make fun of something here and there.
"Based on their interviews, I felt it was time to speak up about Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx, two self-promoters
Fauci and Birx, biiiiiiig self-promoters.
trying to reinvent history to cover for their bad instincts and faulty recommendations, which I fortunately almost always overturned.
'Kay.
They had bad policy decisions that would have left our country open to China and others, closed to reopening our economy, and years away from an approved vaccine—putting millions of lives at risk.
We developed American vaccines by an American President
"Vaccines by an American President"? They branded like his shitty steaks or something? 'Kay.
in record time, nine months, which is saving the entire world. We bought billions of dollars of these vaccines on a calculated bet that they would work, perhaps the most important bet in the history of the world.
Also he didn't dofuck to make Pfizer and Moderna make those oh my god why are we rebutting this shit, we just said we wouldn't.
Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx moved far too slowly, and if it were up to them we'd currently be locked in our basements as our country suffered through a financial depression.
Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx did not do their vaccine experiments as quickly as Donald Trump did, in his lab.
Families, and children in particular, would be suffering the mental strains of this disaster like never before. In a fake interview last night on CNN,
So fake it didn't even happen!
Dr. Fauci, who said he was an athlete in college but couldn't throw a baseball even close to home plate, it was a "roller,"
Oh my God.
tried to take credit for the vaccine, when in fact he said it would take three to five years, and probably longer, to have it approved. Dr. Fauci was incapable of pressing the FDA to move it through faster. I was the one to get it done, and even the fake news media knows and reports this.
Dr. Fauci is also the king of "flip-flops" and moving the goalposts to make himself look as good as possible. He fought me so hard because he wanted to keep our country open to countries like China. I closed it against his strong recommendation, which saved many lives. Dr. Fauci also said we didn't need to wear masks, then a few months later he said we needed to wear masks, and now, two or three of them. Fauci spent U.S. money on the Wuhan lab in China—and we now know how that worked out.
Nope. Not getting pulled into rebutting again. It doesn't matter, because he's worthless.
Bet Fauci thought this was pretty funny though.
Dr. Birx is a proven liar with very little credibility left. Many of her recommendations were viewed as "pseudo-science," and Dr. Fauci would always talk negatively about her and, in fact, would ask not to be in the same room with her.
Oh OK, try to start a fight between Birx and Fauci, good luck with that.
The States who followed her lead, like California, had worse outcomes on Covid, and ruined the lives of countless children because they couldn't go to school, ruined many businesses, and an untold number of Americans who were killed by the lockdowns themselves. Dr. Birx was a terrible medical advisor, which is why I seldom followed her advice. Her motto should be "Do as I say, not as I do." Who can forget when Dr. Birx gave a huge mandate to the people of our Nation to not travel, and then traveled a great distance to see her family for Thanksgiving—only to have them call the police and turn her in? She then, embarrassingly for her, resigned.
'Kay.
Finally, Dr. Birx says she can't hear very well, but I can.
He has perfect ears, on his athletic and decidedly un-Fauci-esque baseball body!
There was no "very difficult" phone call, other than Dr. Birx's policies that would have led us directly into a COVID caused depression. She was a very negative voice who didn't have the right answers. Time has proven me correct. I only kept Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx on because they worked for the U.S. government for so long—they are like a bad habit!"
'Kay.
Before this, the last "newsworthy" thing Donald Trump did was bumblefuck onstage at a couple's wedding and dry-drunkenly babble about all the things that have upset him in the last year.
Lori Chavez, a middle school social studies teacher in Kewa Pueblo, N.M., discusses the importance of staying connected to your community during lockdown.
COMIC: Pueblo Tribal Teacher On The Difficulty Of Getting Students Online
It's been a year since teachers were handed an unprecedented request: Educate students in entirely new ways amid the backdrop of a pandemic. In this comic series, we'll illustrate one teacher's story each week from now until the end of the school year.
Posted by EditorDavid from the humbled-opinions dept.
While President Trump's former CDC director says he still thinks SARS-Cov-2 somehow originated from a lab in China, "a team of experts from the World Health Organization, Dr. Anthony Fauci, and a number of virology experts have said the evidence to support such a claim just isn't there," reports CBS News:Redfield, a virologist who headed the CDC under President Trump, stressed several times that this is just his opinion, not a proven fact. "I'm allowed to have opinions now," he said... Dr. Anthony Fauci addressed Redfield's comments at Friday's COVID-19 response briefing and suggested that most public health officials disagree.... Kristian G. Andersen, director of the infectious disease genomics, translational research institute at Scripps Research, told CBS News that "none of (Redfield's) comments" on the lab theory are "backed by available evidence."
"It is clear that not only was he the most disastrous CDC director in U.S. history where he utterly failed in his sworn mission to keep the country safe, but via his comments, he also shows a complete lack of basic evolutionary virology," Andersen said.
Andersen was the lead author of a study published in Nature Medicine last year which found that the virus was a product of natural evolution. Furthermore, through analysis of public genome sequence data, the scientists "found no evidence that the virus was made in a laboratory or otherwise engineered," according to a press release from Scripps. "By comparing the available genome sequence data for known coronavirus strains, we can firmly determine that SARS-CoV-2 originated through natural processes," Andersen said at the time. W. Ian Lipkin, a study co-author with Andersen and the director of the Center for Infection and Immunity at Columbia's Mailman School of Public Health, said that while there's still a lot we don't know about the virus, including exactly how long it's been circulating, there is "no evidence" to suggest that it was created in a lab...
Andersen noted that "We know that the first epidemiologically linked cluster of cases came from the Huanan market and we know the virus was found in environmental samples — including animal cages — at the market," he said. "Any 'lab leak' theory would have to account for that scenario — which it simply can't, without invoking a major conspiracy and cover up by Chinese scientists and authorities."
His scathing conclusion: "Redfield has no idea what he's talking about — plain and simple. It's no surprise given his disastrous tenure as CDC director."
ALSO... I am seeing a big discrepancy between the Johns Hopkins data in death totals and WORLDOMETER data, which aggregates data from many more sources. Could this be the slow down due to the change in how the CDC obtains the data, having it filter first through Health and Human Services department.
WEEKLY PANDEMIC REPORT - JOHNS HOPKINS
Anyway, as usual, here's the weekly links to the data about cases (lower than reality) and deaths (lower than reality, also) due to COVID-19.
Worldometer manually analyzes, validates, and aggregates data from thousands of sources in real time and provides global COVID-19 live statisticsfor a wide audience of caring people around the world.
Over the past 15 years, our statistics have been requested by, and provided to Oxford University Press, Wiley, Pearson, CERN, World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), The Atlantic, BBC, Milton J. Rubenstein Museum of Science & Technology, Science Museum of Virginia, Morgan Stanley, IBM, Hewlett Packard, Dell, Kaspersky, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Amazon Alexa, Google Translate, the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20), the U2 concert, and many others.
Dr. Deborah Birx, former White House COVID-19 response coordinator, has opened up lately about how godawful it was serving under an anti-science moron posing as the president. This weekend, Dr. Birx told CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta she knew she was being “watched" constantly, and that everybody inside the previous administration was waiting for her to “make a misstep," so they could presumably remove her from the coronavirus task force.
She went on to describe an “uncomfortable conservation" she had with President Pandemic. This was after she warned rural Americans in August that they weren't immune from COVID-19 and should wear a goddamn mask.
BIRX: That was a very difficult time because everyone inside the White House was upset with that interview.
This is what Dr. Birx had told CNN's Dana Bash, which so infuriated the COVID deniers in the White House.
BIRX LAST YEAR: And that is why we keep saying, no matter where you live in America, you need to wear a mask and socially distance, do the personal hygiene pieces. […] This epidemic right now is different, and it's more widespread. And it's both rural and urban.
There are no lies here, and the one-term loser can't claim he was running a “no-drama" administration. He'd spent the summer claiming Black Lives Matter and antifa were going to break into your house while you slept or just move next door and lower your property values. Either way, it's a tragedy.
Dr. Birx said the former White House squatter called her after the CNN interview. This was August, so he wasn't trying to pressure her to find votes for him in key swing states, but she did imply the tone of the calls was similar. (CNN played creepy serial killer music at this point, which was both disturbing and appropriate.)
BIRX: Well, I think you've heard the conversations people have posted with [the one-term loser]. I would say it was even more direct than what people have heard.
The twice-impeached thug straight-up threatened Georgia GOP Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, so we can only imagine what he told Dr. Birx, whose horrible offense was trying to keep Americans safe during a pandemic. That didn't seem to be a pressing consideration for any of the major players in that crapsack administration.
BIRX: It was very uncomfortable, very direct, and very difficult to hear.
Dr. Birx, who holds the rank of colonel, was an active duty member of the US Army for almost 15 years. It's not like she grew up on a commune and only worked at places with a flat organizational structure where no one gives or receives orders. If you've seen An Officer and a Gentleman, you know how tough the military is. Yet, she appeared terrified when describing her private discussion with President Mob Boss.
Dr. Gupta asked if the former guy threatened her, and Dr. Birx would only reiterate that "it was a very uncomfortable conversation." The previous White House squatter is a bully who lashes out like a mad dog when cornered. We've heard the Raffensperger tapes. It's not a stretch to imagine he directly threatened her professionally if she didn't toe the line.
We've criticized Dr. Birx for her complicity, but her most egregious presidential ass-kissing took place during the spring, before the administration's malicious ignorance had let the virus spread almost unchecked. When she did challenge the White House position in August, she was pretty much on her own. Even Speaker Nancy Pelosi declared she no longer had any confidence in Dr. Birx.
The original coronavirus surge led to almost 100,000 American deaths. Dr. Birx said “all of the rest of them could've been mitigated or decreased substantially." As of Sunday, at least 548,606 Americans have died from COVID-19. It's a shocking number of preventable deaths, but Dr. Birx alone couldn't have prevented them. So stop blaming her.
Dr. Birx NEVER went before the cameras and said what you're being told by Trump is a LIE. And yet Dr. Birx never quit in protest. And yet Dr. Birx never wrote an op-ed alerting America to the lies they were being told.
Yeah, that op-ed in the New York Times would've done the trick. MAGA morons chose to wage war against mask mandates rather than the virus. Dr. Birx is one woman. She couldn't defeat a deliberate rightwing disinformation campaign that seemed intent on killing us with dumbness. The thing that squatted in the Oval Office still brags about doing “the opposite" of what his medical experts advised.
Dr. Birx will live with the regret of not doing more, which she could have if Joe Biden or Hillary Clinton was president last year. The heartless ghoul who was the president won't experience a moment's remorse, even though his malicious incompetence is directly responsible for the more than 400,000 Americans who didn't have to die.
A national moratorium on water shutoffs could have prevented almost half a million Covid infections and saved at least 9,000 lives, according to new research.
Good hygiene is essential to preventing the spread of the highly contagious coronavirus. Amid pressure from public health experts and rights groups, hundreds of utilities and states suspended disconnections for overdue bills to ensure households kept running water for hand-washing and sanitation.
But many refused, others let the bans expire after a few months, and Congress refused to step in with a national moratorium. By the end of 2020, 211 million Americans—including a disproportionate number of households of color—faced the threat of having their taps turned off during the worst public health and economic crisis in modern history.
This patchwork protection cost thousands of American lives between April and December last year, according to research by Cornell University and the national advocacy group Food & Water Watch (FWW).
Researchers found that states which suspended disconnections significantly reduced their growth rates of Covid infections and deaths, compared to states without similar orders. The biggest reduction was seen in states with comprehensive bans covering all private and public utilities.
If similar policies had been adopted across the US, the study model shows that Covid cases might have been reduced by 4 percent and deaths by 5.5 percent in the 41 states without a full moratorium.
“This research clearly shows us that the pain and suffering caused by the pandemic was exacerbated by political leaders who failed to take action to keep the water flowing for struggling families,” said Wenonah Hauter, FWW’s executive director.
The findings come amid growing pressure on Michigan and New York state officials to extend their state moratoriums, both of which expire at the end of March. Failure to do so would leave a further 27 million people at risk of losing their water supplies for unpaid bills, as concerns grow about a potential third wave.
Advocates are also urging Joe Biden to impose a national moratorium and make water a priority in the forthcoming infrastructure bill.
An investigation by the Guardian last year found millions of Americans were facing unaffordable bills even before the pandemic as ageing infrastructure, environmental clean-ups, changing demographics and the climate emergency fueled exponential price hikes in almost every corner of the US.
Federal funding for water systems has plummeted since peaking in 1977.
Mildred Warner, a professor of local government at Cornell University, said: “This study shows the importance of a national standard for access to water, especially for low-income households.
“The Covid-19 pandemic has revealed so many structural inequities in our society, and access to drinking water is one that demands our attention.”
Tucker Carlson is upset. Yes, we know, stop the presses. On his Wednesday night show, the host of Fox News's "Scaring Old White People Hour" got very indignant indeed about a terrifying threat to basic human rights and freedoms, right on America's doorstep. Only this time it's our northern doorstep for a change. How's this for a terrifying scenario?
What if your next-door neighbor suddenly went dangerously insane and started holding people hostage in his house? Would you consider that threatening? Would you even notice? These aren't theoretical questions. Something very much like that just happened in our neighborhood.
Canada — the land mass directly to our north and our single largest trading partner, with whom we share the longest international border in the world — took a dramatic move toward legitimately dangerous authoritarianism. Yes, Canada.
Good heavens! Canada's taking hostages and doing authoritarianism? Why yes indeed, says Carlson, citing a March 29 Twitter thread by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. According to Carlson, Canada is now "locking people up" in "internment camps," which is clearly the only possible way to describe what's happening, unless you prefer the term "requiring travelers to quarantine for 14 days," some or all of it in a "hotel," depending on the results of a COVID-19 test. Marriott, Manzanar; both start with M and are internment camps.
Here's how it works in the real world: Before even being allowed into the country, travelers of any nationality have to demonstrate that they have a plan for their 14-day quarantine. Canadians flying home (travel for nonessential foreigners is pretty much on hold) have to be tested at the airport when they land in Canada, and then wait three days in an approved hotel for the results. Yes, at their own expense; you shouldn't be traveling now anyway. If the test is negative, they can then wait out the rest of the quarantine at home. If they test positive, they have to do the rest of the quarantine period in a government quarantine facility (that's a hotel again) to make sure they aren't out there spreading infection.
Carlson sure tried to make it all seem terrifying, eh? He made sure to call Trudeau "Mussolini" and to include photos of the PM wearing a weird funny foreigner "costume," too (from a trip Trudeau made to India).
Here's the Trudeau tweet that really set Carlson off:
See? Totally fascist, at least if you don't know anything about fascism, and you think big hotel chains like Hilton, Radisson, Days Inn, or Sheraton are literally gulags — travel writers' hyperbole notwithstanding.
"Designated government facilities." When this happens in other countries, and it does, we call those internment camps. Because this is Canada we're talking about, a place we assume is passive and polite and Anglo to the point of parody, no one thinks to use that term. In fact, no one seems to think about it at all.
Trudeau's internment policy has been in been place since last month, and as far as we can tell, no major U.S. news network has mentioned it. Neither has our State Department, which ordinarily seems to exist to make unhappy noises about human rights violations around the world. But not a word about Canada. Preconceptions may play a role in this. We assume that interning people is what Russia does. Boring people is what Canada does. But not anymore.
Oh, so now Carlson finds something unkind to say about Russia. But he sure is brave, being the only person on TV to notice all the oppression like that.
Carlson then went on to say that if you fail the COVID test, "they'll lock you up without trial. Go ahead and try to disobey." And as Vice News points out, he flat-out lies about the penalty for refusing to take the tests: He claims that "anyone who attempts to avoid detention in a government internment facility could face a million-dollar fine and three years in prison."
In reality, though, the fine for breaking quarantine rules at a hotel is $3,000 per violation — in pretend Canadian money, at that. The super-heavy fines Carlson mentioned, however, would only be a risk if someone breaks quarantine and "causes the death of or serious bodily harm to another person," which is rather different from simply refusing to stay in your hotel room.
And as Vice notes, virtually all of Carlson's rant — twelve insufferable minutes of it — is recycled from rightwing Canadian gripes about the horrors of the quarantine hotels, where sometimes the room service meals have arrived cold. Carlson doesn't even seem to believe they're really hotels at all — that's just a polite euphemism for "internment cells" where "there are shortages of food and water. You could be sexually assaulted."
Again, Vice acknowledges that
One concerning sexual assault case did take place at a Montreal quarantine hotel. Health Canada said it's aware of the incident and is investigating. In the meantime, "government of Canada employees and security personnel are stationed at designated quarantine facilities to help provide a safe and secure environment," the official site says.
Now, for all Carlson's bloviating, Canadians have complained about the inconvenience and expense of the quarantine requirements, but they don't seem quite ready to call for Trudeau to be hauled off to the Hague. And it's hardly a uniquely Canadian torture camp requirement that travelers cool their heels in a hotel for public health, either: Government-mandated quarantines of arriving travelers have been used in New Zealand, Australia, Thailand, the UK, South Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan, too.
OMG, one of those is Communist China! Soon they all will! And maybe America's next!
That, or maybe Carlson will find something else to proclaim the greatest threat ever to freedom. He tends to find those fairly regularly.
From quarantining in dorms to staring at the screen in online classes — it was a wild year to be a college student. And, it turns out, it was a good year for us to welcome college students for the first time to the NPR Student Podcast Challenge.
Today we're announcing our favorites! From podcasts submitted from college students across the country, we've narrowed the list down to 10 finalists. You can read and listen to the full list here.
From this list, our judges will select the grand-prize winners. We'll announce those winners next week, along with our honorable mentions. Then, over the coming weeks we'll talk to the winners and tell their stories on NPR's Morning Edition and All Things Considered.
Our list of finalists covers a full spectrum of college life. We obviously heard a lot about COVID-19, but we also heard great podcasts about identity and music. About public transportation and friendship and racism in art. We even got some colorful tours through food and culture. Following the pandemic, our second most popular topic was family: tons of multi-generational stories with family histories, traditions and rich storytelling.
Here is a quick rundown of our 10 finalists:
Anya Steinberg from Colorado College, explored what it felt like to learn that her biological father — a sperm donor she had always been told was a doctor — was in fact a jazz musician. Listen to "23 Chromosomes" here. (A warning for listeners — this podcast contains some language that may not be suitable for children.)
Do you like crawfish? Brian Le at Emory University started his podcast with that question, and from there, "A Tale of Two Crawfish" takes us on the journey of two fictional crustaceans, Cajun and Viet, to illustrate the Vietnamese American experience. Along the way, we learn about a little known branch of cajun cuisine.
From Princeton University, Andrew Zacks sent us a podcast that talks about food in a very different way. "Men, Well Done" explained the gendered marketing and history of grilling. And while Andrew whips up a sizzling hot burger, he has a mini heart-to-heart with us because, he explains, when you're behind the grill that's what you do!
Lennon Sherburne, who attends Simmons University in Boston, really went deep in exploring their feelings. They describe how, for them, the pandemic experience was different than most due to one big reason: no computer screens. Listen to the "Let's Do The Time Warp" here.
That sense of isolation amid the pandemic came up over and over again. Elijah McKee from Skidmore College put that feeling into sound in a postcard to his bedroom. Through sound design, and poetic writing, McKee really took us inside his head for his podcast, "A Postcard."
Other podcasts zoomed out for a wider picture. Savannah Kelley from Northwestern University investigated one Iowa high school's response to proposed state legislation that would allow trangender students to use the bathroom of their choice. You can hear her reporting here.
Miriam Colvin from Penn State University also did some digging. "Competition with the Best" reveals the story of a young Muhammad Ali and a fateful boxing match that happened a few years before he became "The Greatest."
After living through a summer of protests centered around monuments to Confederate leaders in Richmond, Va., Gabriela Santana, Joshua Gordon and Hassan Fields examined the difference between vandalism and art. The students at Virginia Commonwealth University took a critical eye to the statues that surround their campus in "When Time Slows Down."
At the University of Chicago, the student podcasters behind "PWI-ing While Black" talked about some of the issues students of color face on their campus, and took a satirical look at the traditional admissions brochure. Lena Diasti, Hope Houston, Chase Leito, Daisy Okoye, Dinah Clottey and Jonathan Brooks all contributed to the piece.
And last, but certainly not least, have you ever heard music in the subway? Not someone busking or humming next to you, but music in the subway trains themselves? Bennett Cook from Buffalo State College does, and he definitely convinced us in his finalist entry "Subway Symphony."
Our congratulations to all the finalists! Coming next month, we'll be announcing the finalists in our Student Podcast Challenge for middle and high school students.
Posted by BeauHD from the time-to-act-is-now dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian:New energy policies are urgently needed to put countries on the path to net zero greenhouse gas emissions, the world's leading energy economist has warned, as economies are rapidly gearing up for a return to fossil fuel use instead of forging a green recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic. Most of the world's biggest economies now have long-term goals of reaching net zero by mid-century, but few have the policies required to meet those goals, said Fatih Birol, the executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA).
The IEA's latest figures show global coal use was about 4% higher in the last quarter of 2020 than in the same period in 2019, the clearest indication yet of a potentially disastrous rebound in the use of the dirtiest fossil fuels, following last year's lockdowns around the world when emissions plummeted. Birol told the Guardian: "We are not on track for a green recovery, just the opposite. We have seen global emissions higher in December 2020 than in December 2019. As long as countries do not put the right energy policies in place, the economic rebound will see emissions significantly increase in 2021. We will make the job of reaching net zero harder."
He urged governments to support clean energy and technology such as electric vehicles, and make fossil fuels less economically attractive. "Governments must provide clear signals to investors around the world that investing in dirty energy will mean a greater risk of losing money. This unmistakable signal needs to be given by policymakers to regulators, investors and others," he said. Birol said stronger 2030 targets were essential to meet net zero. "Looking at the energy sector, the next 10 years will be very, very critical," he said. "If governments put money in clean energy finance, in the context of their economic recovery plans, that will make the challenge less difficult."Birol called on the U.S. to lead the way on setting out a national plan, called a nationally determined contribution (NDC), for cutting emissions strongly in the next 10 years. He also urged governments to put in place strong policies to discourage drivers from buying SUVs, which make up nearly half of all cars sold in key economies.
Posted by BeauHD from the mechanisms-of-life dept.
Five years ago, scientists created a single-celled synthetic organism that, with only 473 genes, was the simplest living cell ever known. However, this bacteria-like organism behaved strangely when growing and dividing, producing cells with wildly different shapes and sizes. Now, scientists have identified seven genes that can be added to tame the cells' unruly nature, causing them to neatly divide into uniform orbs. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) reports:Scientists at JCVI constructed the first cell with a synthetic genome in 2010. They didn't build that cell completely from scratch. Instead, they started with cells from a very simple type of bacteria called a mycoplasma. They destroyed the DNA in those cells and replaced it with DNA that was designed on a computer and synthesized in a lab. This was the first organism in the history of life on Earth to have an entirely synthetic genome. They called it JCVI-syn1.0.
Since then, scientists have been working to strip that organism down to its minimum genetic components. The super-simple cell they created five years ago, dubbed JCVI-syn3.0, was perhaps too minimalist. The researchers have now added 19 genes back to this cell, including the seven needed for normal cell division, to create the new variant, JCVI-syn3A. This variant has fewer than 500 genes. To put that number in perspective, the E. coli bacteria that live in your gut have about 4,000 genes. A human cell has around 30,000.
NIST's role was to measure the resulting changes under a microscope. [...] The result was stop-motion video that showed the synthetic cells growing and dividing. This video shows JCVI-syn3.0 cells -- the ones created five years ago -- dividing into different shapes and sizes. Some of the cells form filaments. Others appear to not fully separate and line up like beads on a string. Despite the variety, all these cells are genetically identical. These videos and others like them allowed the researchers to observe how their genetic manipulations affected the cell growth and division. If removing a gene disrupted the normal process, they'd put it back and try another. Of the seven genes added to this organism for normal cell division, scientists know what only two of them do.The findings have been published in the journal Cell.
The Crew Dragon capsule poised to fly four civilian astronauts to space this year is getting an upgrade: a glass dome will be added at the top to give space tourists a 360-degree view of the cosmos. MSN reports:The glass dome-shaped window replaces Crew Dragon's docking adapter at its nose since the spacecraft won't be docking to the International Space Station. It's similar to the famed cupola aboard the International Space Station, but Crew Dragon's appears to be an uninterrupted sheet of glass, with no support structures dividing the window's view. Crew Dragon's protective aerodynamic shell that shields the hatch door area during launch will pop open to expose the glass dome once the craft is safely in orbit. Based on the rendering SpaceX tweeted, the cupola would fit at least one crew member from the chest up, revealing panoramic views of space.
NASA, which certified Crew Dragon for astronaut flights last year, said it doesn't plan to use the cupola version of Crew Dragon for NASA astronaut missions and that the window's installation doesn't require NASA safety approval. "We've done all the engineering work, we continue to go through all the analysis and testing and qualification to ensure everything's safe, and that it doesn't preclude any use of this spacecraft for other missions," Benji Reed, SpaceX's director of Crew Dragon mission management, said during a press conference on Tuesday.
Posted by BeauHD from the can't-act-like-I'm-surprised dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Record by Recorded Future:Academic research published last week looked at the telemetry traffic sent by modern iOS and Android devices back to Apple and Google servers and found that Google collects around 20 times more telemetry data from Android devices than Apple from iOS. The research, conducted by Professor Douglas J. Leith from Trinity College at the University of Dublin, analyzed traffic originating from iOS and Android devices heading to Apple and Google servers at various stages of a phone's operation... [...] The study unearthed some uncomfortable results. For starters, Prof. Leith said that "both iOS and Google Android transmit telemetry, despite the user explicitly opting out of this [option]." Furthermore, "this data is sent even when a user is not logged in (indeed even if they have never logged in)," the researcher said.
But while the Irish researcher found that Apple tends to collect more information data types from an iOS device, it was Google that collected "a notably larger volume of handset data. During the first 10 minutes of startup the Pixel handset sends around 1MB of data is sent to Google compared with the iPhone sending around 42KB of data to Apple," Prof. Leith said. "When the handsets are sitting idle the Pixel sends roughly 1MB of data to Google every 12 hours compared with the iPhone sending 52KB to Apple i.e., Google collects around 20 times more handset data than Apple."In response to the findings, a Google spokesperson said: "This research outlines how smartphones work. Modern cars regularly send basic data about vehicle components, their safety status and service schedules to car manufacturers, and mobile phones work in very similar ways. This report details those communications, which help ensure that iOS or Android software is up to date, services are working as intended, and that the phone is secure and running efficiently." The Android maker also disputed the paper's methodology, which they claim under-counted iOS' telemetry volume by excluding certain types of traffic, which Google believes resulted in skewed results that found Android devices collecting 20 times more data than iOS.
Apple echoed its rival's response. "The report conflates a number of items in relation to different services and misunderstands how personal location data is protected," an Apple spokesperson told The Record. "Apple is not collecting data that can be associated with individuals without a user's knowledge or consent."
Additional information about the findings can be found here (PDF).
Posted by BeauHD from the asteroid-redirection dept.
A new NASA mission, called the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission due for launch this summer, aims to launch a spaceship that will directly punch an asteroid. Motherboard reports:The mission's target is an asteroid system called Didymos, which contains two space rocks that orbit each other. In late 2022, DART will forcefully impact the smaller asteroid in this system, a tiny moon called Dimorphos, so that scientists can assess the feasibility of knocking any space rocks that threaten Earth off course in the future. [...] DART will pioneer a subtler form of planetary defense, in which the trajectory of an asteroid is changed by a very small amount that becomes significant over time. Late next year, the mission will crash into Dimorphos at about seven kilometers per second. Shortly before the collision, the spacecraft will deploy a small satellite provided by the Italian Space Agency that is tasked with watching "the mess we make," [said Andy Rivkin, a planetary astronomer at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory and the investigation team lead for DART].
Observations from the Italian satellite, as well as from powerful telescopes on Earth, will reveal just how much Dimorphos was affected by the crash. Rivkin and his colleagues expect the change in orbital speed to be small -- about one millimeter per second -- which would add up to a shortening of the orbital period by about 10 minutes. But even this very slight shift would be enough to redirect the trajectory of a hazardous asteroid that threatened Earth, provided scientists have a lead-time of a decade or two before the projected impact.
- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2104.03 - 10:10
- Days ago = 2101 days ago
- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I plan to continue Hey Mom posts at least twice per week but will continue to post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.
United States
.gif){kind=link}
No comments:
Post a Comment