Music: Phronesis — ‘One For Us’
Plastic rain is the new acid rain
Wired reports: Hoof it through the national parks of the western United States—Joshua Tree, the Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon—and breathe deep the pristine air. These are unspoiled lands, collectively a great American conservation story. Yet an invisible menace is actually blowing through the air and falling via raindrops: Microplastic particles, tiny chunks (by definition, less than 5 millimeters long) of fragmented plastic bottles and microfibers that fray from clothes, all pollutants that get caught up in Earth’s atmospheric systems and…
Study says 100% face mask use could crush second, third Covid-19 wave
SFGate reports: We’ve all heard it many times: Wear a face covering — indoors, outdoors, on trains and buses. At work, in the supermarket and at church. But now a new modeling study out of Cambridge and Greenwich universities suggests that face masks may be even more important than originally thought in preventing future outbreaks of the new coronavirus. To ward off resurgences, the reproduction number for the virus (the average number of people who will contract it from one…
Americans are pretending that the pandemic is over
Yascha Mounk writes: A second wave of the coronavirus is on the way. When it arrives, we will lack the will to deal with it. Despite all the sacrifices of the past months, the virus is likely to win—or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that it already has. In absolute terms, the United States has been hit harder than any other country. About a quarter of worldwide deaths have been recorded on these shores. And while the…
Seattle’s CHAZ: Inside the occupied vegan paradise – and Trump’s ‘ugly anarchist’ hell
The Independent reports: There were activists with bullhorns, and artists painting designs on the street. Stalls collected donations for the homeless and others offered vegan curry. There were people posing for images in front of a boarded-up police station, while others sat on the grass. There were people of colour, and there were white people, lots of white people. But the “ugly anarchists” denounced by Donald Trump on Twitter that very morning? Could it be they existed only in his…
Most Americans, including Republicans, support sweeping Democratic police reform proposals, poll finds
Reuters reports: Most Americans, including a majority of President Donald Trump’s Republican Party, support sweeping law enforcement reforms such as a ban on chokeholds and racial profiling after the latest death of an African American while in police custody, according to a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll released on Thursday. The national survey on June 9-10, shows the public broadly on the side of Democratic lawmakers, who proposed a series of changes to police departments (here) in the United States as protesters…
Trump prizes re-election more than public health
The Daily Beast reports: As President Donald Trump prepared to return to the campaign trail amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, administration officials and several close advisers warned him of the dangers that could come with packing a venue full of his political supporters. He was not dissuaded. “He’s been [gently] reminded of the concerns,” said a senior administration official, regarding the potential for spreading the virus at large public gatherings. “The president said something like, ‘My team will make sure…
Bolton rips Trump: ‘Getting reelected was the only thing that mattered’
Politico reports: President Donald Trump repeatedly endangered national security — and committed a series of potentially impeachable offenses — to boost his reelection prospects, former national security adviser John Bolton argues in a forthcoming White House memoir. Bolton writes that the House should have broadened its impeachment inquiry to other areas of his foreign policy, contending that he can document — and identify witnesses to — “Ukraine-like transgressions … across the full range of his foreign policy,” according to a…
Music: Phronesis — ‘The Tree Did Not Die’
America is losing in the fight against Covid-19
The Hill reports: When throngs of tourists and revelers left their homes over Memorial Day weekend, public health experts braced for a surge in coronavirus infections that could force a second round of painful shutdowns. Two weeks later, that surge has hit places like Houston, Phoenix, South Carolina and Missouri. Week-over-week case counts are on the rise in half of all states. Only 16 states and the District of Columbia have seen their total case counts decline for two consecutive…
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff apologizes for his role in Trump’s Lafayette Square photo op
The New York Times reports: The country’s top military official apologized on Thursday for taking part in President Trump’s walk across Lafayette Square for a photo op after the authorities used tear gas and rubber bullets to clear the area of peaceful protesters. “I should not have been there,” Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in a prerecorded video commencement address to National Defense University. “My presence in that moment and in that…
Why are so many NYPD officers refusing to wear masks at protests?
The New York Times reports: Riot helmets, ballistic vests, shields, batons — fully decked-out police officers have become staples in New York City as the protests against racism and police brutality approach their third week. But increasingly, one piece of equipment has attracted attention with its absence: the face mask. On any given day, any corner, any group of officers, some or all of them are not wearing masks. Others wear them below their chin. With masks having become as…
Inside Seattle’s ‘autonomous zone’ with free food, free speech, and no police
The New York Times reports: On the streets next to a police precinct in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood, protesters and officers spent a week locked in a nightly cycle of standoffs, at times ending with clouds of tear gas. But facing a growing backlash over its dispersal tactics in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis, the Seattle Police Department this week offered a concession: Officers would abandon their precinct, board up the windows and let the protesters have…
Four years embedded with the alt-right
Daniel Lombroso writes: White nationalists have always been able to find one another in America, but the recent resurgence of the white-nationalist movement—and the extent to which its ideas have seeped into the mainstream alongside Donald Trump’s political ascent—is stunning. In November 2016, I captured footage of Trump supporters throwing Nazi salutes in celebration of his presidential victory, a moment that became an explosive story in the days that followed, and set the tone for the Trump presidency. In the…
Federal arrests show no sign that antifa activists plotted protests
The New York Times reports: Inciting a riot. Hurling a Molotov cocktail. Plotting to sow destruction. Those are some of the most serious charges brought by federal prosecutors against demonstrators at protests across the country in recent weeks. But despite cries from President Trump and others in his administration, none of those charged with serious federal crimes amid the unrest have been linked so far to the loose collective of anti-fascist activists known as antifa. A review of the arrests…
Why are there so many humans?
By Karen L. Kramer, Sapiens, June 9, 2020 Something curious happened in human population history over the last 1 million years. First, our numbers fell to as low as 18,500, and our ancestors were more endangered than chimpanzees and gorillas. Then we bounced back to extraordinary levels, far surpassing the other great apes. Today the total population of gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos, and orangutans is estimated to be only around 500,000, according to the World Wildlife Fund. Many species are critically…