Music: Jon Hassell — ‘Moons Of Titan’
Wade Davis on the unraveling of America
Wade Davis writes: Never in our lives have we experienced such a global phenomenon. For the first time in the history of the world, all of humanity, informed by the unprecedented reach of digital technology, has come together, focused on the same existential threat, consumed by the same fears and uncertainties, eagerly anticipating the same, as yet unrealized, promises of medical science. In a single season, civilization has been brought low by a microscopic parasite 10,000 times smaller than…
Number of voters who are deeply engaged on issue of climate change is rising sharply
The New York Times reports: The number of Americans who feel passionately about climate change is rising sharply, and the issue appears likely to play a more important role in this year’s election than ever before, a new survey shows. What’s more, despite the turmoil caused by overlapping national and global crises, support for action to curb climate change has not diminished. Backing for government to do more to deal with global warming, at 68 percent in May of 2018,…
Why do some people catch coronavirus without getting sick?
By Emily Laber-Warren, Undark, August 24, 2020 One of the reasons Covid-19 has spread so swiftly around the globe is that for the first days after infection, people feel healthy. Instead of staying home in bed, they may be out and about, unknowingly passing the virus along. But in addition to these pre-symptomatic patients, the relentless silent spread of this pandemic is also facilitated by a more mysterious group of people: the so-called asymptomatics. According to various estimates, between 20 and…
FDA ‘grossly misrepresented’ blood plasma data for Covid patients, scientists say
The New York Times reports: At a news conference on Sunday announcing the emergency approval of blood plasma for hospitalized Covid-19 patients, President Trump and two of his top health officials cited the same statistic: that the treatment had reduced deaths by 35 percent. Mr. Trump called it a “tremendous” number. His health and human services secretary, Alex M. Azar II, a former pharmaceutical executive, said, “I don’t want you to gloss over this number.” And Dr. Stephen M. Hahn,…
The platform the GOP is too scared to publish
David Frum writes: Republicans have decided not to publish a party platform for 2020. This omission has led some to conclude that the GOP lacks ideas, that it stands for nothing, that it has shriveled to little more than a Trump cult. This conclusion is wrong. The Republican Party of 2020 has lots of ideas. I’m about to list 13 ideas that command almost universal assent within the Trump administration, within the Republican caucuses of the U.S. House and Senate,…
Trump has now siphoned $2.3 million of campaign-donor money into his private business
Forbes reports: Donald Trump continued to shift money from his donors to his business last month, as his reelection campaign paid his private companies for rent, food, lodging and other expenses, according to a review of the latest Federal Election Commission filings. The richest president in American history, who has yet to donate to his 2020 campaign, has now moved $2.3 million of contributions from other people into his private companies. The most recent expenses look familiar. The president accepted…
Time for humans to learn what other animals are saying
Michelle Nijhuis writes: Bryony Lavery’s 2018 play Slime revolves around seven young interns at the Third Annual Slime Crisis Conference, which takes place at an unspecified time in a not-too-distant future. It is a multispecies gathering, convened in response to a toxic slime that is taking over the world’s oceans. The interns’ job is to interpret the squawks, squeaks, and groans of the cormorants, seals, guillemots, toads, and other animals in attendance, and to encourage all species to participate in…
Music: Jon Hassell — ‘Fearless’
Trump’s Republican Party is the very definition of a cult of personality
Tim Alberta writes: Earlier this month, while speaking via Zoom to a promising group of politically inclined high school students, I was met with an abrupt line of inquiry. “I’m sorry, but I still don’t understand,” said one young man, his pitch a blend of curiosity and exasperation. “What do Republicans believe? What does it mean to be a Republican?” You could forgive a 17-year-old, who has come of age during Donald Trump’s reign, for failing to recognize a cohesive…
Business partner of Falwells says affair with evangelical power couple spanned seven years
Reuters reports: In a claim likely to intensify the controversy surrounding one of the most influential figures in the American Christian conservative movement, a business partner of Jerry Falwell Jr has come forward to say he had a years-long sexual relationship involving Falwell’s wife and the evangelical leader. Giancarlo Granda says he was 20 when he met Jerry and Becki Falwell while working as a pool attendant at the Fontainebleau Miami Beach hotel in March 2012. Starting that month and…
New York attorney general files legal action against Trump Organization
The Washington Post reports: The New York attorney general is investigating President Trump’s private business for allegedly misleading lenders by inflating the value of its assets, the attorney general’s office said Monday in a legal filing. In the filing, signed by a deputy to Attorney General Letitia James, the attorney general’s office said it is investigating Trump’s use of “Statements of Financial Condition” — documents Trump sent to lenders, summarizing his assets and debts. The filing asks a New York…
Trump’s plasma push stands to delay clearer reading on science
Bloomberg reports: The Trump administration’s decision to authorize the use of a blood-plasma treatment for Covid-19 with no clear evidence it works could frustrate efforts to better understand the therapy’s benefits. Several clinical trials are examining the use of so-called convalescent plasma for Covid-19, but none have been completed and results aren’t expected for at least several more weeks. Some of the studies are struggling to attract participants because of programs that give patients a more certain path to the…
Trump is back to his worst
James Downie writes: This time, the false hope started with the president’s press secretary. In a tweet Saturday night, Kayleigh McEnany told the world that Trump would announce “a major therapeutic breakthrough” on the novel coronavirus at a Sunday evening news conference. As the president took the podium, he echoed McEnany, promising a “very historic breakthrough … that will save countless lives.” The truth — not surprisingly — was different: Trump did not announce any breakthrough vaccine or miracle cure,…
The UAE-Israel deal
Avi Shlaim writes: At a press conference in the White House on 13 August, US President Donald Trump proudly announced the deal he had helped broker between the United Arab Emirates and Israel to establish full diplomatic relations. He lauded it as “a significant step towards building a more peaceful, secure and prosperous Middle East”. Trump’s national security adviser Robert O’Brien told reporters that this deal should make the president “a front-runner for the Nobel Peace Prize”. Reactions to this…
Seeing human society as a complex system opens a better future for us all
Jessica Flack and Melanie Mitchell write: We’re at a unique moment in the 200,000 years or so that Homo sapiens have walked the Earth. For the first time in that long history, humans are capable of coordinating on a global scale, using fine-grained data on individual behaviour, to design robust and adaptable social systems. The pandemic of 2019-20 has brought home this potential. Never before has there been a collective, empirically informed response of the magnitude that COVID-19 has demanded….