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Police Turn Back On Mayor DeBlasio During Second NYPD Funeral

January 4, 2015, 1:44 pm
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Officer Wenjian Liu received a Buddhist funeral service.

Police Turn Back on Mayor During Second NYPD Officer Funeral

Video: http://time.com/3652979/deblasio-nypd-funeral/


The protest defied a request from the city's police chief not to use the funeral to protest



Dozens of New York City police officers turned their backs on Mayor Bill de Blasio during services Sunday to honor and remember a police officer who was killed while on the job last month. The protest defied a request from the city’s police chief not to use the funeral to protest the mayor.
“This city welcomed Detective Liu,” de Blasio said, delivering a eulogy at the service. “New York stands a little taller today because of the time he walked among us.”
Officer Wenjian Liu was shot and killed along with his partner Rafael Ramos on Dec. 20 by a man who targeted the officers. The funeral for Liu had been delayed to allow family members to travel from China for the services. Liu himself moved to New York from China before joining the NYPD. Both the officer’s father and newlywed wife also delivered emotional eulogies for their fallen loved one.
“To me, he is my soulmate,” said Pei Xia Chen, Liu’s widow. “Wenjian is an incredible husband, son, coworker and friend. My best friend.”
News of the protest added an unusually prominent dose of politics to the somber affair. As de Blasio praised Liu, officers from the NYPD and elsewhere turned away. William Bratton, the city’s police chief, had sent a department-wide memo Saturday asking that the funeral be about “grieving, not grievance.”
“I remind you that when you don the uniform of this department, you are bound by the tradition, honor and decency that go with it,” he said in the memo.

SEE THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE GATHER FOR SLAIN NYPD OFFICER'S FUNERAL
Widow Pei Xia Chen holds a photo of slain New York Police Department officer Wenjian Liu as his casket departs his funeral in the Brooklyn borough of New York on Jan. 4, 2015.
A policeman stands next to an image of slain New York Police Department officer Wenjian Liu during his funeral in the Brooklyn borough of New York on Jan. 4, 2015.
Law enforcement officers stand with some turning their backs as New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio speaks on a monitor outside the funeral for NYPD officer Wenjian Liu in the Brooklyn borough of New York on Jan. 4, 2015.
Officers carry the casket of Police Officer Wenjian Liu from a funeral service at on Jan. 4, 2015 in the Brooklyn borough of New York.
PETER FOLEY—EPA
Widow Pei Xia Chen holds a photo of slain New York Police Department officer Wenjian Liu as his casket departs his funeral in the Brooklyn borough of New York on Jan. 4, 2015.
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"1934 Is The Hottest Year On Record." What The Science Says Vs. Dodgy Lies

January 4, 2015, 2:01 pm
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A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

"Glenn Beck: Tears Of A Clown" By Hal Crowther
A Case Study in The National Lunacy

Skeptical Science: Getting Skeptical About Global Warming Skepticism

1934 is the hottest year on record

What the science says...

Select a level... Basic Intermediate
Globally, 1934 is the 49th hottest year on record.

Climate Myth...

1934 - hottest year on record
Steve McIntyre noticed a strange discontinuity in US temperature data, occurring around January 2000. McIntyre notified NASA which acknowledged the problem as an 'oversight' that would be fixed in the next data refresh.  As a result, "The warmest year on US record is now 1934. 1998 (long trumpeted by the media as record-breaking) moves to second place." (Daily Tech).
The year 1934 was a very hot year in the United States...

However, global warming takes into account temperatures over the entire planet.

The U.S.'s land area accounts for only 2% of the earth's total surface area.

Despite the U.S. heat in 1934, the year was not so hot over the rest of the planet, and is barely holding onto a place in the hottest 50 years in the global rankings (today it ranks 49th).
Climate change skeptics like to point to 1934 in the U.S. as proof that recent hot years are not unusual.

However, this is another example of "cherry-picking" a single fact that supports a claim, while ignoring the rest of the data.

Globally, the ten hottest years on record have all occurred since 1998, with 2005 and 2010 as the hottest.
The fact that there were hot years in some parts of the world in the past is not an argument against climate change.

There will always be regional temperature variations as well as variations from year to year.

These happened in the past, and they will continue.

The problem with climate change is that on average, when looking at the entire world, the long term trend shows an unmistakable increase in global surface temperatures, in a way that is likely to dramatically alter the planet.
Last updated on 15 January 2013 by dana1981. View Archives



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Alaska's Toasty Temperatures Worry Observers, Including Sarah Palin

January 4, 2015, 2:03 pm
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Anchorage
Anchorage just wrapped up its warmest calendar year since 1926. 

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Sarah Palin: "Alaska Feels Impacts Of Climate Change More Than Any Other State"


Sarah Palin: Ardent Advocate Of Wealth Redistributrion

Alaska's toasty temperatures in 2014

The temperature in Anchorage never dropped below zero last calendar year -- the first time on record

2014 was the warmest year since 1926 in Anchorage, with a low temperature of zero degrees Fahrenheit
The biggest state in America, home to more ocean coastline than all others combined, has just set another record. This one, however, is nothing to cheer.
For the first time in recorded history, temperatures in Anchorage did not drop below zero once in an entire calendar year. In comparison, Alaska's largest city had 14 days below zero in the 2013 calendar year and 32 days in 2012. The average is 29 days.
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For the record
Jan. 3, 10:22 a.m.: An earlier headline on this article incorrectly said Alaska had a record-warm year. The state's largest city, Anchorage, set a record for above-zero temperatures. Seven other cities in the state had record-warm temperatures as well.

At midnight Wednesday, Anchorage closed the book on its warmest year since 1926, according to the National Weather Service. The lowest temperature recorded in 2014 was zero degrees Fahrenheit on Feb. 11.
Sea ice has been disappearing. Polar bear populations have dropped. The state's storied dog race was a musher's mess, spurring headlines that fretted: "Warm weather, treacherous conditions — is the Iditarod in trouble?" The Bering Sea saw its warmest summer on record.
"I didn't put my downhill skis on at all last winter, and at the moment I'm still hoping for this winter, but the prospects are not good so far," said Henry Huntington, who lives in an Anchorage suburb and serves as senior officer for the Pew Charitable Trusts' international Arctic program.

The Last Frontier didn't exactly sweat through Death Valley-style temperatures.

Anchorage's 2014 annual average was a chilly 40.6 degrees or so Fahrenheit, said Richard Thoman, climate science and services manager with the weather service in Fairbanks. Still, that was well above last year's annual average temperature of 37 degrees.
Environmentalists, policymakers and weather watchers are viewing the thermometer with concern.
"To me, the fact that Anchorage won't dip below zero degrees in calendar year 2014 is just one more signal — as if we needed another one — of a rapidly changing climate," said Andrew Hartsig, director of the Ocean Conservancy's Arctic program.
Hartsig said Anchorage's comparatively balmy weather is consistent with other long-term trends, including diminishing summer sea ice and increasing sea surface temperatures.



"These are definitely red flags that are very consistent with climate change," said Chris Krenz, senior scientist at Oceana, an international conservation group. "These are anomalies ... that show our climate system is off-kilter."
James E. Overland, a research oceanographer with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, would agree with the off-kilter part. But he would add mysterious to the mix, too.
Overland argues that Alaska's very cool heat wave is not evidence of climate change but rather the next stage in a long-term weather pattern that began with six years of warming in the Bering Sea and southern Alaska, followed by six cold years.
"This year, then, was the breakdown of the string of cold years," Overland said. "What all the scientists are wondering now [is]: Is this just one warm year? Could we flip back to a cold sequence again, or is this the start of a warm sequence? ... We don't know, and it makes a big difference."
Especially to the Alaska pollock, which NOAA's FishWatch website describes as "one of the largest, most valuable fisheries in the world." Pollock don't like really warm or really cold temperature extremes, and their food source, small shrimp, do not fare well in heat.
"We really don't understand how these sequences occur, but they appear to be random and part of the chaotic climate system, rather than part of the global warming signal," said Overland, coauthor of NOAA's 2014 Arctic Report Card. "We've had one warm year here. Is this a sucker punch or not?"
Climate change or chaos aside, the warm temperatures are both real and worrisome.
The weather service's Thoman notes that a calendar year in the Northern Hemisphere contains chunks of two separate winter seasons: January, February and March, and November and December.

In the last few months, the lowest temperature in Anchorage was 13 degrees Fahrenheit, recorded on Dec. 13, Thoman said.
One record Anchorage has yet to break is the longest stretch of consecutive days above zero. That record was set over 683 days in 2000 and 2001.
Still, Thoman said, "Anchorage has never had a winter when the temperature remained warm through the end of December."
Until now.
Just before Thanksgiving, Ned Rozell, a science writer for the Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, penned an online column with the headline "Snow-starved Alaska not the normal state."
Rozell worried that large swaths of Alaska remained "frozen, dusty and brown" through the first three weeks of November, threatening dozens of species that depend on snow cover.
"Each lovely flake joins spiked arms with others to create an air-trapping matrix above the ground surface," he wrote.
"The ground beneath the white blanket remains a consistent 27 degrees Fahrenheit no matter the temperature above," he continued.
"That relative warmth, the remnants of summer's heat released as the ground freezes, allows billions of small bodies to survive winter."
Among the species partial to snow are the bearberry shrub, yellow jackets and voles. Oil companies like it, too, said Larry Hinzman, director of the International Arctic Research Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
The massive 49th state has remarkably few roads, and most of the land is accessible only by air or water. When there is frozen ground and good snow cover, he said, parts of the state "are suddenly open for travel," for hauling supplies and exploration.
"A good snow cover," Hinzman said, "is very important to us."



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Sea Drones: Unmanned U.S. Navy Vessels Can Swarm, Overwhelm Hostile Vessels

January 4, 2015, 2:37 pm
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Pro-Science Pontiff: Pope Francis On Climate Change, Evolution And The Big Bang

January 4, 2015, 2:52 pm
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"Climate Change and The Pope Francis Formula"
Critique by a conservative Catholic 
(linking to other alarmist views of Francis"
http://pewsitter.com/view_news_id_192311.php
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"Conservatives Scare More Easily Than Liberals"

The pro-science pontiff: Pope Francis on climate change, evolution and the Big Bang

Chris Mooney
January 5, 2015
In the last decade or so, there has been a resurgence of the idea that science and religion are in fundamental conflict with one another. The argument is often associated with prominent thinkers, like neuroscientist and author Sam Harris, who has argued that "there is a conflict between science and religion, and it is zero-sum" -- but it also gains strength from the political context in which we live.
After all, we see science-religion conflicts all the time: Creationists try to disrupt the sole teaching of evolution. Religiously driven anti-abortionists come up with dubious scientific arguments for why the procedure is dangerous. Seeing these science and religion conflicts inclines us to believe that science and religion . . . conflict.
There's a difference, though, between the idea of a necessary conflict between science and religion, and the notion that conflicts merely happen at some times, for some individuals or religious groups. The latter is obvious and irrefutable -- but the former is seemingly contradicted whenever we see a prominent religious believer who also strongly embraces scientific realities. And it looks like we might be seeing, right now, the most prominent one of those in a long time: Pope Francis.
In October, the new Pope spoke at the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and appeared to endorse two major scientific concepts that have often given religious believers big trouble: the Big Bang and evolution.
On the Big Bang, he remarked that it is "considered to be the origin of the world" and "does not contradict the creative intervention of God."
And then there's evolution. "God is not ... a magician, but the Creator who brought everything to life," said Francis on the occasion. "Evolution in nature is not inconsistent with the notion of creation, because evolution requires the creation of beings that evolve."
In other words, the pope appears to be embracing an idea that had great currency in the Enlightenment -- the notion of a God who created a universe that follows laws that can be scientifically discerned. That's an idea that certainly would have appealed to deeply religious scientists like Galileo, who argued, in his famous "Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina," that the insights of Copernicus could be made compatible with the Bible.
More recently, meanwhile, the Guardian reported recently that the pope is planning to issue "a rare encyclical on climate change and human ecology" next year. Certainly, Pope Francis has been quite active on the subject of taking care of the environment, arguing back in May that Catholics must "Safeguard Creation. Because if we destroy Creation, Creation will destroy us! Never forget this!" The pope also declared, during the Lima, Peru climate change conference earlier this month, that the "time to find global solutions is running out."
Indeed, there has been much environment and climate-related activity coming out of the Vatican. Earlier this year the Pontifical Academy of Sciences (along with the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences) convened a workshop entitled "Sustainable Humanity, Sustainable Nature: Our Responsibility," bringing together a number of scientists and experts who then released a statement declaring that "If current trends continue, this century will witness unprecedented climate changes and ecosystem destruction that will severely impact us all."
Thus, while creationists may reject science out of religious belief, other religious believers accept and embrace what science tells us -- and frequently also do so out of religious motivations.
In fact, the idea that Pope Francis wants the world to do something about climate change, and that he apparently sees this as a matter of taking care of the creation, hardly makes him unique. James West of Mother Jones points to polling data suggesting that large numbers of US Catholics also support climate action, including a very strong majority among Hispanic Catholics.
But it's not just Catholics. While Evangelicals often get a bad rap for not wanting to do anything about climate change, the fact is that a substantial minority of them actually do. While a majority of white Evangelical Protestants are "somewhat or very unconcerned" about the issue, some 35 percent are either "somewhat or very concerned," according to recent polling by the Public Religion Research Institute.
The biblically based stewardship or "Creation Care" message -- which went very, very mainstream earlier this year in the blockbuster film "Noah" -- may not have won out with a majority of these believers. But it appears to have made substantial inroads. And evangelical leaders like the climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe are working every day to convince more believers, by making theologically (and politically) resonant arguments for why they need to take climate science seriously.
So in sum: The relationship between science and religion is complex, and generalisations are dangerous. There's no doubt that many religious people around the world cling to their beliefs (or, to what they think their beliefs require) in the face of evidence, and history shows science-religion conflicts popping up at regular intervals. But it also shows something else: Believers who find a way to reconcile faith and science.
If Pope Francis continues on his current course, he has the power to make this latter group a whole lot more prominent than it already is.


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NPR: The Power Of ISIS Is Waning

January 4, 2015, 3:00 pm
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Iraqi crowds cheer as the countdown and fireworks begin during a New Year's Day celebration at Firdos Square in Baghdad on Wednesday.
Iraqi crowds cheer as the countdown and fireworks begin during a New Year's Day celebration at Firdos Square in Baghdad on Wednesday.

"Self-Terrorization Is The National Pastime"

"Ebola Represents A Trivial Threat To Americans' Health"

"Shark Attacks Rise Worldwide: Risk Assessment and Aquinas' Criteria For Sin"


"Faulty Risk Assessment And The Epidemic Spread Of Self-Terrorization
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2013/02/faulty-risk-assessment-and-epidemic.html

Get smart.
Oppose "The Next War" now.

After Making Waves In 2014, ISIS' Power Appears To Ebb


In the heat of summer in 2014, Baghdad was spooked. A third of Iraq was under the control of the self-proclaimed Islamic State, or ISIS. The extremist group thrived in the chaos of the Syrian civil war, then surged over the border into Iraq and took over the cities of Mosul and Tikrit. People worried the capital might be next.
Six months on, that's changed. On New Year's Eve, for instance, the usual midnight curfew was lifted and people partied in the streets and uploaded videos of themselves letting off fireworks.
Baghdadis say that change is because they feel the pushback against ISIS has begun in earnest.
"We're always optimistic, looking for the best," says Alia al-Taiee, at a Baghdad book market. What's encouraged her is a mass mobilization of volunteers to fight the extremists.
ISIS is a Sunni Muslim group; most of those who volunteered to fight against them were Shiite. But Alia and her sister Khaha want people from every religion and ethnicity in Iraq to sign up: Sunnis, Christians and Yazidis.
And of course, the fight against ISIS hasn't come just from Iraqis, or even just from their Iranian military allies. Over Iraq and Syria, since September, American warplanes have led a coalition's efforts to cripple ISIS with bombings. Now, Americans are training Iraqi troops to fight ISIS and say they'll do the same with the rebels they back in Syria.
Analyst Hisham al-Hashemi reckons the airstrikes have already had an impact.
"The coalition targeted some of the leadership at the organizational level," Hashemi says. "This has been the most painful attack on ISIS."
Hashemi says the group has lost three senior leaders and mid-level commanders. It's more difficult for them to move around freely, and oil fields — key sources of funding — have taken a pounding. Plus, his sources tell him the number of foreigners volunteering to join them has slumped.
"There are 80 percent fewer Arab and foreign recruits," he says. "ISIS lost all of this since the coalition announced the war."
U.S. commanders say they're debating hard with Iraqi counterparts about when to push ground troops into the ISIS-occupied areas — maybe the spring.
Maj. Gen. Dana Pittard thinks the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, the most populous ISIS-controlled city, should be taken back fast.
"We're just getting indications of morale problems," Pittard says. "And with the people that are in Mosul and seeing [ISIS], they say it's not more than a thousand there now; certainly no more than 2,000."
Pittard also says the extremists are losing local support because the people in Mosul are finding that ISIS does not govern very well. Analysts reckon the group's cachet depends on its being able to govern. But Pittard says in Mosul, Iraqi Kurdish soldiers have cut off ISIS' crucial supply lines so they can't provide fuel and clean water.
"They are clearly on the defensive, except a couple [of] tactical ambushes and a couple of small tactical counterattacks," he says, "but other than that, it's not like what we saw in June at all."
The extremists themselves constantly issue propaganda with ambitious plans for expansion and global attacks. As the international efforts to stop them get more organized, that's looking more farfetched. However, Iraqi analyst Hashemi says that doesn't mean they can't cause harm.
"They have more than 20,000 fighters in Iraq directly engaged in warfare and more than 40,000 fighters in sleeper cells," he says.
Under pressure, Hashemi thinks the group could go back underground, focusing on insurgent tactics like bombings. Meanwhile, in Syria, U.S.-led training of ground forces to fight ISIS is much slower, and complicated by the messy civil war there.
The group is likely to be weakened in 2015, but no one is betting on them being defeated entirely.

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You'll Never Guess: Man Finds Out What's Been Hidden In His Arm For 51 Years

January 4, 2015, 7:09 pm
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Jesse Bogan, January 2, 2014
CREVE COEUR ‱ Unlike the times Betty Lampitt gave birth, on Wednesday morning she was the one praying the rosary in a corner of the waiting room. It was just an out-patient surgery procedure. And she said her husband of nearly 50 years was quite seasoned.
“My husband can do just about anything,” she said. “He’s a pretty smart guy. Low key. Doesn’t boast.”
Still, she was concerned. He had to go under anesthesia to have a foreign object removed from his arm.
The same left arm was injured back in 1963, not long before they’d met on a blind date. Arthur, a real estate agent at the time, was on his way to show a house when he smashed a brand new Thunderbird head-on into a huge truck.
As the family story goes, the wreck was so serious that it was mistakenly reported over the air waves around East Peoria, Ill., as a fatality. The severity of a broken hip drew attention away from Arthur’s arm, which, on the surface, was cut and flecked with broken glass.
The arm healed. Arthur and Betty married in 1965. They raised four boys in Granite City. Arthur supported the family by doing appraisals, selling real estate and working odd jobs with his rugged hands.
Then, about 10 or 15 years ago, something odd happened during a visit to the courthouse in Jerseyville, Ill., for work. Arthur’s arm set off the metal detector. A doctor’s X-ray indicated that a slender object, about the size of a pencil, was stuck in his arm. But because it didn’t cause pain, and he had full use of his arm, Arthur was told to leave it be.
It wasn’t until a few weeks ago that something gave out when Arthur was moving concrete blocks for a rental home he’s fixing up. His arm was out of whack. For the first time, he could feel a sharp point in his arm.
“Everything was fine until it started to get bigger,” Betty said. “The arm started bulging.”
Speculation spread about what the foreign object was that seemed to be working its way out. Perhaps a medical instrument unwittingly stitched up in the emergency room back in 1963?
Arthur, 75, unearthed a collection of old photographs of the mangled Thunderbird that a friend took at the scene — the same friend who took Arthur and Betty’s wedding photographs. He noticed the metal blinker lever was missing from the left side of the steering column.
Evidence in hand, Arthur was sure what he was about to deliver at the surgery center.
“Even though Dad was confident, the rest of us weren’t,” said son Ed Lampitt, 45, a U.S. diplomat currently based in Virginia. The three other sons include a Roman Catholic priest for the Peoria Diocese; a computer management specialist in Nevada; and a software marketer in San Francisco.
After less than 45 minutes with the knife Wednesday morning, hand surgeon Dr. Timothy Lang entered the waiting room at City Place Surgery Center on North New Ballas Road to give Betty the news she and others had been awaiting.
Indeed, it was the turn signal lever.
“Seven inches long,” Lang told her.
“Oh, my God,” Betty said.
Lang explained how a protective pocket had grown around the lever.
“We see all kinds of foreign objects like nails or pellets, but usually not this large, usually not a turn signal from a 1963 T-Bird,” Lang said. “Something this large often gets infected.”
Shortly after the procedure, Arthur was in a recovery room with two large bandages on his left forearm and instructions for antibiotics.
The sterilized lever, heavy for its size, lay beside him.
Betty was pleased the mystery was solved.
“You know what it’s like with a child,” she said, excitement growing in her voice. “You know it’s in your womb, but it’s not until the miraculous birth occurs that you feel the reality of it.”
Still a bit dazed by the anesthesia, Arthur took a few glimpses of the lever that had been hiding in his arm for 51 years. Other than being surprised by how corroded it was, he didn’t look long.
He wasn’t sure what he’d do with the lever. He said he’d probably hold it a lot, maybe make a key chain out of it.
“We’ll figure out something, I am sure,” he said.
Hours later, he was doing well. As soon as he got home to Granite City, he took off to work on an old house he’s fixing up.

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What It Takes To Be An Artist: MacArthur Genius' Magnificent Commencement Address

January 4, 2015, 8:30 pm
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What It Really Takes to Be an Artist: MacArthur Genius Teresita Fernández’s Magnificent Commencement Address

by 
“Being an artist is not just about what happens when you are in the studio. The way you live, the people you choose to love and the way you love them, the way you vote, the words that come out of your mouth
 will also become the raw material for the art you make.”
In 2005, artist Teresita Fernández — one of the most original and visionary sculptors of our time, whose work appears in the bewitching monograph Blind Landscape(public library) — received one of those legendary phone calls from the MacArthur Foundation. The mysterious caller informed her that the foundation’s secret committee had awarded the coveted MacArthur Fellowship — a generous $500,000 grant, with no strings attached, given solely so that the recipient can continue pursuing her or his creative work.
In May of 2013, two years after her appointment to President Barack Obama’s Commission of Fine Arts, Fernández delivered a spectacular keynote address to the graduating class at her alma mater, Virginia Commonwealth University’s School of the Arts. Titled “On Amnesia, Broken Pottery, and the Inside of a Form,” the speech is a fine addition to the greatest commencement addresses of all time and a masterwork of the “connected irrelevance” that characterizes MacArthur “geniuses.” It is also an invaluable trove of hard-earned wisdom on the creative life, with great resonance for all stages of life. Annotated highlights below.
On the usefulness of “useless” knowledge, how we really learn about life, and the true seed of creative work:
For some inexplicable reason, we seem to believe most strongly not in the actual formal lessons, but rather in those details that get into our heads without our knowing exactly how they got there. Those pivotal lessons in our lives continue to work on us in subtle, subterranean ways.
This kind of amnesia is life’s built-in way of making sure you filter out what’s not very important. You graduate today after years of hard work, immersive years of learning, absorbing, processing, accumulating, cramming, finishing, focusing. There are no more reasons, really, to even make art unless you really truly want to. Of all you learned you probably don’t need to remember most of the technical or theoretical information, as that’s all easily accessible with a quick search. And what you will remember will have less to do with the past and more to do with how it triggers reactions for you in the present. Oddly enough, what we involuntarily do retain is meant to help us move forward. This forthcoming amnesia that awaits you is just another kind of graduation, another step in a lifetime of many graduations.
You are about to enter the much more difficult phase of unlearning everything you have learned in college, of questioning it, redefining it, challenging it, and reinventing it to call it your own. More than in any other vocation, being an artist means always starting from nothing. Our work as artists is courageous and scary. There is no brief that comes along with it, no problem solving that’s given as a task
 An artist’s work is almost entirely inquiry based and self-regulated. It is a fragile process of teaching oneself to work alone, and focusing on how to hone your quirky creative obsessions so that they eventually become so oddly specific that they can only be your own.
Teresita FernĂĄndez: 'Fire,' 2005
She recounts being fascinated by an ancient Greek ostracon at the Metropolitan Museum of Art — a piece of broken pottery or stone, engraved with a message, often used as a voting ballot — and how it reveals the fragmentary nature of creativity:
I was enamored with the idea of how what seemed broken, discarded, useless was transformed into a meaningful gesture
 We are conditioned to think that what is broken is lost, or useless or a setback, and so when we set out with big ambitions we don’t necessarily recognize what the next graduation is supposed to look like. Unlearning everything you learned in college is just an exercise in learning to recognize how the fragments and small bits lead to something that is much more than the sum of its parts.
Echoing Nietzsche’s magnificent case for the value of difficulty, FernĂĄndez offers a wonderfully fresh perspective on failure amid a culture mired in “fail forward” clichĂ©s:
In Japan there is a kind of reverence for the art of mending. In the context of the tea ceremony there is no such thing as failure or success in the way we are accustomed to using those words. A broken bowl would be valued precisely because of the exquisite nature of how it was repaired, a distinctly Japanese tradition of kintsugi, meaning to “to patch with gold”. Often, we try to repair broken things in such a way as to conceal the repair and make it “good as new.” But the tea masters understood that by repairing the broken bowl with the distinct beauty of radiant gold, they could create an alternative to “good as new” and instead employ a “better than new” aesthetic. They understood that a conspicuous, artful repair actually adds value. Because after mending, the bowl’s unique fault lines were transformed into little rivers of gold that post repair were even more special because the bowl could then resemble nothing but itself. Here lies that radical physical transformation from useless to priceless, from failure to success. All of the fumbling and awkward moments you will go through, all of the failed attempts, all of the near misses, all of the spontaneous curiosity will eventually start to steer you in exactly the right direction.
Fernández extends gentle assurance that art, like science, is driven by “thoroughly conscious ignorance”:
In those moments when you feel discouraged or lost in the studio, or when you experience rejection, rest completely assured that what you don’t know about something is also a form of knowledge, though much harder to understand. In many ways, making art is like blindly trying to see the shape of what you don’t yet know. Whenever you catch a little a glimpse of that blind spot, of your ignorance, of your vulnerability, of that unknown, don’t be afraid or embarrassed to stare at it. Instead, try to relish in its profound mystery. Art is about taking the risk of engaging in something somewhat ridiculous and irrational simply because you need to get a closer look at it, you simply need to break it open to see what’s inside.
With a bow to Georgia O’Keeffe’s undying wisdom on what it really means to be an artist — “Whether you succeed or not is irrelevant—there is no such thing. Making your unknown known is the important thing.” — Fernández echoes Thoreau and exhorts us to break the tyranny of external definitions of success:
We live in a meritocratic society, where accomplishments are constantly being measured externally, where forms are always read from the outside, where comfort and lifestyle are often mistaken for success, or even happiness. Don’t be fooled. Our ideas regarding success should be our own, and I urge you to pursue it simultaneously from both the inside and the outside
 As artists, it will be especially difficult to measure these ideas of what success may be because you have chosen a practice that is entirely dependent on being willing to possibly fail, over and over again regardless of any successes that do come your way.
In a sentiment that calls to mind John Steinbeck’s unforgettable moment of choosing creative integrity over outward success — “I beat poverty for a good many years and I’ll be damned if I’ll go down at the first little whiff of success.” — Fernández adds:
Success is just another form, with both an inside and outside.
For the most part people are aware of what the outside of success looks like
 Outside success always seems to look terribly glamorous, and every once in a while it can be. But it still never means all that much, and it still never makes the work of the work any easier — if anything, it makes it a little harder because the stakes get higher; the possible humble failures become less private and more visible and more cruelly judged.
With assuring vulnerability, she reflects on her own experience of befriending that frightening moment after the completion of a major project, which she likens to a kind of creative hangover:
A kind of panic sets in the very next day, an urge to get into the studio because you know you have to start all over again, building something from nothing, seeking the company of those trusted beneficial failures, waiting for those absurd internal dialogues with your own gang of voices. It’s not a very glamorous scenario. But this is precisely what internal success looks like. It is visible only to yourself and while you can trick the rest of the world into thinking you are a good artist, you can never really convince yourself, which is why you keep trying. If you’re lucky and motivated enough to keep making art, life is quiet, you get to work at what you love doing, happily chipping away at something, constructing something, adjusting to a cycle of highs and lows and in betweens, and it doesn’t matter if you’ve been doing it for two years or 50 years, the patterns remain exactly the same. The anxiety continues to set in, the doubts creep in, the baby steps towards mending fragments starts all over again, the cautious urge to peek between the cracks is there. When you find yourself in that place, that’s when you’ll know that the inside is driving the outside.
[
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That hunger, that desire for success is nothing more than a fear of failure
 And the odd thing is that when you are actually succeeding, it tends to be quiet and comes always quite unannounced and without a lot of fanfare. You will, in fact, be the only person who ever really grasps or recognizes the internal successes. The work of the work is visible only to yourself.
Work from Teresita FernĂĄndez's 2014 MASS MoCA solo show, 'As Above So Below'
At the end, Fernández offers graduates ten practical tips on being an artist that have been helpful on her own creative journey — but they double as an ennobling moral compass for being a decent human being in any walk of life:
  1. Art requires time — there’s a reason it’s called a studiopractice. Contrary to popular belief, moving to Bushwick, Brooklyn, this summer does not make you an artist. If in order to do this you have to share a space with five roommates and wait on tables, you will probably not make much art. What worked for me was spending five years building a body of work in a city where it was cheapest for me to live, and that allowed me the precious time and space I needed after grad school.
  2. Learn to write well and get into the habit of systematically applying for every grant you can find. If you don’t get it, keep applying. I lived from grant money for four years when I first graduated.
  3. Nobody reads artist’s statements. Learn to tell an interesting story about your work that people can relate to on a personal level.
  4. Not every project will survive. Purge regularly, destroying is intimately connected to creating. This will save you time.
  5. Edit privately. As much as I believe in stumbling, I also think nobody else needs to watch you do it.
  6. When people say your work is good do two things. First, don’t believe them. Second, ask them, “Why”? If they can convince you of why they think your work is good, accept the compliment. If they can’t convince you (and most people can’t) dismiss it as superficial and recognize that most bad consensus is made by people simply repeating that they “like” something.
  7. Don’t ever feel like you have to give anything up in order to be an artist. I had babies and made art and traveled and still have a million things I’d like to do.
  8. You don’t need a lot of friends or curators or patrons or a huge following, just a few that really believe in you.
  9. Remind yourself to be gracious to everyone, whether they can help you or not. It will draw people to you over and over again and help build trust in professional relationships.
  10. And lastly, when other things in life get tough, when you’re going through family troubles, when you’re heartbroken, when you’re frustrated with money problems, focus on your work. It has saved me through every single difficult thing I have ever had to do, like a scaffolding that goes far beyond any traditional notions of a career.
Indeed, Fernández’s parting point is also her most poignant — a reminder that being human is the wider circle within which being an artist resides, and that our art is always the combinatorial product of the fragments of who we are, of our combinatorial character:
Being an artist is not just about what happens when you are in the studio. The way you live, the people you choose to love and the way you love them, the way you vote, the words that come out of your mouth, the size of the world you make for yourselves, your ability to influence the things you believe in, your obsessions, your failures — all of these components will also become the raw material for the art you make.
Complement with Debbie Millman’s fantastic commencement address on courage and the creative life and Jeanette Winterson on how art creates a sanctified space for the human spirit.


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Why Do Men Stupefy Themselves? Leo Tolstoy On Why We Drink

January 4, 2015, 8:35 pm
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Why Do Men Stupefy Themselves? Leo Tolstoy on Why We Drink

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“The seeing, spiritual being, whose manifestation we commonly call conscience, always points with one end towards right and with the other towards wrong, and we do not notice it while we follow the course it shows.”
“The people of the United States spend exactly as much money on booze alone as on the space program,” Isaac Asimov quipped in a witty and wise 1969 response to a reader who had berated him on the expense of space exploration. At no other time of the year are our cultural priorities more glaring than during our holiday merriment, which entails very little cosmos and very many Cosmos. Long before Asimov, another sage of the human spirit set out to unravel the mystery of why such substances appeal to us so: In 1890, a decade after his timelessly enlightening spiritual memoir and midway through hisCalendar of Wisdom magnum opus, Leo Tolstoy penned an insightful essay titled “Why Do Men Stupefy Themselves?” as a preface to a book on “drunkenness” by a Russian physician named P. S. Alexeyev. Eventually included in the altogether excellent posthumous volume Recollections and Essays (public library; free ebook), Tolstoy’s inquiry peers into the deeper psychological layers and philosophical aspects of substance abuse and addiction.
Decades before the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous and nearly a century before alcohol abuse was recognized as a disease by the World Health Organization, Tolstoy writes:
What is the explanation of the fact that people use things that stupefy them: vodka, wine, beer, hashish, opium, tobacco, and other things less common: ether, morphia, fly-agaric, etc.? Why did the practice begin? Why has it spread so rapidly, and why is it still spreading among all sorts of people, savage and civilized? How is it that where there is no vodka, wine or beer, we find opium, hashish, fly-agaric, and the like, and that tobacco is used everywhere?
Why do people wish to stupefy themselves?
Ask anyone why he began drinking wine and why he now drinks it. He will reply, “Oh, I like it, and everybody drinks,” and he may add, “it cheers me up.” Some those who have never once taken the trouble to consider whether they do well or ill to drink wine may add that wine is good for the health and adds to one’s strength; that is to say, will make a statement long since proved baseless.
Ask a smoker why he began to use tobacco and why he now smokes, and he also will reply: “To while away the time; everybody smokes.”
Illustration for 'Alice in Wonderland' by Lisbeth Zwerger. Click image for more.
And yet Tolstoy peers beyond this blend of apathy and pluralistic ignorance, into the true root of substance abuse:
“To while away time, to cheer oneself up; everybody does it.” But it might be excusable to twiddle one’s thumbs, to whistle, to hum tunes, to play a fife or to do something of that sort ‘to while away the time,” “to cheer oneself up,” or “because everybody does it”” that is to say, it might be excusable to do something which does not involve wasting Nature’s wealth, or spending what has cost great labour to produce, or doing what brings evident harm to oneself and to others
 There must be some other reason.
He offers a compassionate explanation of that other cause, that deep dissonance that rips the psyche asunder by pulling it simultaneously toward fulfillment and self-destruction — a nonjudgmental insight gleaned as much by “observing other people” as by observing his own experience during a period when he “used to drink wine and smoke tobacco”:
When observing his own life, a man may often notice in himself two different beings: the one is blind and physical, the other sees and is spiritual. The blind animal being eats, drinks, rests, sleeps, propagates, and moves, like a wound-up machine. The seeing, spiritual being that is bound up with the animal does nothing of itself, but only appraises the activity of the animal being; coinciding with it when approving its activity, and diverging from it when disapproving.
This observing being may be compared to the needle of a compass, pointing with one end to the north and with the other to the south, but screened along its whole length by something not noticeable so long as it and the needle both point the same way; but which becomes obvious as soon as they point different ways.
In the same manner the seeing, spiritual being, whose manifestation we commonly call conscience, always points with one end towards right and with the other towards wrong, and we do not notice it while we follow the course it shows: the course from wrong to right. But one need only do something contrary to the indication of conscience to become aware of this spiritual being, which then shows how the animal activity has diverged from the direction indicated by conscience. And as a navigator conscious that he is on the wrong track cannot continue to work the oars, engine, or sails, till he has adjusted his course to the indications of the compass, or has obliterated his consciousness of this divergence each man who has felt the duality of his animal activity and his conscience can continue his activity only by adjusting that activity to the demands of conscience, or by hiding from himself the indications conscience gives him of the wrongness of his animal life.
Illustration for Herman Melville's 'Pierre' by Maurice Sendak. Click image for more.
Tolstoy extends this duality beyond alcohol and into the broader human dilemma:
All human life, we may say, consists solely of these two activities: (1) bringing one’s activities into harmony with conscience, or (2) hiding from oneself the indications of conscience in order to be able to continue to live as before.
Some do the first, others the second. To attain the first there is but one means: moral enlightenment — the increase of light in oneself and attention to what it shows. To attain the second — to hide from oneself the indications of conscience — there are two means: one external and the other internal. The external means consists in occupations that divert one’s attention from the indications given by conscience; the internal method consists in darkening conscience itself.
As a man has two ways of avoiding seeing an object that is before him: either by diverting his sight to other more striking objects, or by obstructing the sight of his own eyes just so a man can hide from himself the indications of conscience in two ways: either by the external method of diverting his attention to various occupations, cares, amusements, or games; or by the internal method of obstructing the organ of attention itself. For people of dull, limited moral feeling, the external diversions are often quite sufficient to enable them not to perceive the indications conscience gives of the wrongness of their lives. But for morally sensitive people those means are often insufficient.
The external means do not quite divert attention from the consciousness of discord between one’s life and the demands of conscience. This consciousness hampers one’s life: and in order to be able to go on living as before people have recourse to the reliable, internal method, which is that of darkening conscience itself by poisoning the brain with stupefying substances.
One is not living as conscience demands, yet lacks the strength to reshape one’s life in accord with its demands. The diversions which might distract attention from the consciousness of this discord are insufficient, or have become stale, and so in order to be able to live on, disregarding the indications conscience gives of the wrongness of their life people (by poisoning it temporarily) stop the activity of the organ through which conscience manifests itself, as a man by covering his eyes hides from himself what he does not wish to see.
Illustration for Herman Melville's 'Pierre' by Maurice Sendak. Click image for more.
He returns to substance abuse as a symptom of this deeper pathology:
The cause of the world-wide consumption of hashish, opium, wine, and tobacco, lies not in the taste, nor in any pleasure, recreation, or mirth they afford, but simply in man’s need to hide from himself the demands of conscience.
More than that, Tolstoy considers the role of “stupefaction” in compartmentalizing good and evil in our conscience, acquitting the acts of the latter from the demands of the former:
When a man is sober he is ashamed of what seems all right when he is drunk. In these words we have the essential underlying cause prompting men to resort to stupefiers. People resort to them either to escape feeling ashamed after having done something contrary to their consciences, or to bring themselves beforehand into a state in which they can commit actions contrary to conscience, but to which their animal nature prompts them.
A man when sober is ashamed to go after a prostitute, ashamed to steal, ashamed to kill. A drunken man is ashamed of none of these things, and therefore if a man wishes to do something his conscience condemns he stupefies himself.
One particular remark strikes with its chilling prescience in light of the date rape epidemic exposed in recent years, where it is not uncommon for the perpetrator to deliberately drug the victim:
Not only do people stupefy themselves to stifle their own consciences, but, knowing how wine acts, they intentionally stupefy others when they wish to make them commit actions contrary to conscience that is, they arrange to stupefy people in order to deprive them of conscience.
Illustration for Herman Melville's 'Pierre' by Maurice Sendak. Click image for more.
But such crescendos of immorality, Tolstoy takes care to note, are the most dramatic but not the most common cause for alarm in our relationship with alcohol — he is equally concerned about the small, daily, incremental stifling of the conscience by ordinary people:
Everyone knows and admits that the use of stupefying substances is a consequence of the pangs of conscience, and that in certain immoral ways of life stupefying substances are employed to stifle conscience. Everyone knows and admits also that the use of stupefiers does stifle conscience: that a drunken man is capable of deeds of which when sober he would not think for a moment. Everyone agrees to this, but strange to say when the use of stupefiers does not result in such deeds as thefts, murders, violations, and so forth when stupefiers are taken not after some terrible crimes, but by men following professions which we do not consider
criminal, and when the substances are consumed not in large quantities at once but continually in moderate doses then (for some reason) it is assumed that stupefying substances have no tendency to stifle conscience.
We assume, Tolstoy argues, that if no crimes are committed under the influence of alcohol, there is no harm done to the conscience — ours or that of others. But this obscures the more subtle, everyday ways in which we flee from ourselves — from our highest selves — by getting drunk:
But one need only think of the matter seriously and impartially not trying to excuse oneself to understand, first, that if the use of stupefiers in large occasional doses stifles man’s conscience, their regular use must have a like effect (always first intensifying and then dulling the activity of the brain) whether they are taken in large or small doses. Secondly, that all stupefiers have the quality of stifling conscience, and have this always both when under their influence murders, robberies, and violations are committed, and when under their influence words are spoken which would not have been spoken, or things are thought and felt which but for them would not have been thought and felt; and, thirdly, that if the use of stupefiers is needed to pacify and stifle the consciences of thieves, robbers, and prostitutes, it is also wanted by people engaged in occupations condemned by their own consciences, even though these occupations may be considered proper and honorable by other people.
In a word, it is impossible to avoid understanding that the use of stupefiers, in large or small amounts, occasionally or regularly, in the higher or lower circles of society, is evoked by one and the same cause, the need to stifle the voice of conscience in order not to be aware of the discord existing between one’s way of life and the demands of one’s conscience.
Tolstoy goes on to examine how “stupefiers” appeal to us differently during different stages of life, why we seek them most urgently when confronting challenging moral questions, and what we can do to foster in ourselves the spiritual conditions that would render such escape and control strategies unnecessary.

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Nietzsche's 1882 New Year's Resolution

January 4, 2015, 8:43 pm
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Be a Yea-Sayer and a Beautifier of Life: Nietzsche's 1882 New Year's Resolution

Rather than an annual ritual of promises made to be broken, the best New Year's resolutions – the ones that actually stick and transform our lives by rewiring our physical and psychological habit loops – are enduring existential aspirations of which we remind ourselves when early January makes its convenient invitation for self-transformation. Famous resolution lists – like those of Italo Calvino, Jonathan Swift, Susan Sontag, Marilyn Monroe, Woody Guthrie, andUrsula Nordstrom – certainly embody this spirit. But hardly anyone does that more beautifully thanFriedrich Nietzsche in his classic 1882 treatiseThe Gay Science (public library) – the book he considered his most personal of all, in which his famous proclamation "God is dead" makes its first appearance.
In an entry from January of 1882 under the heading Sanctus Januarius, Nietzsche writes:
For the New Year—I still live, I still think; I must still live, for I must still think. Sum, ergo cogito: cogito, ergo sum. To-day everyone takes the liberty of expressing his wish and his favorite thought: well, I also mean to tell what I have wished for myself today, and what thought first crossed my mind this year,—a thought which ought to be the basis, the pledge and the sweetening of all my future life! I want more and more to perceive the necessary characters in things as the beautiful:—I shall thus be one of those who beautify things. Amor fati: let that henceforth be my love! I do not want to wage war with the ugly. I do not want to accuse, I do not want even to accuse the accusers. Looking aside, let that be my sole negation! And all in all, to sum up: I wish to be at any time hereafter only a yea-sayer!
A resounding secular "Amen!" to that.
Complement The Gay Science, which remains a must-read in its totality, with Nietzsche's 10 rules for writers and his assuring case for why a fulfilling life requires embracing rather than running from difficulty.
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Neil deGrasse Tyson: The 8 Books Every Intelligent Person Should Read

January 4, 2015, 8:50 pm
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Jupiter's Great Red Spot
The Great Red Spot (GRS) is a persistent anticyclonic storm, 22° south of Jupiter's equator; observations from Earth establish a minimum storm lifetime between 300 and 400 years.[69][70] It was described as a "permanent spot" by Gian Domenico Cassini after observing the feature in July 1665 with his instrument-maker Eustachio Divini.[71] According to a report by Giovanni Battista Riccioli in 1635, Leander Bandtius, who Riccioli identified as the Abbot of Dunisburgh who possessed an "extraordinary telescope", observed a large spot that he described as "oval, equaling one seventh of Jupiter's diameter at its longest."

Neil deGrasse Tyson Selects the Eight Books Every Intelligent Person on the Planet Should Read

In December of 2011, Neil deGrasse Tyson – champion of science, celebrator of the cosmic perspective, master of the soundbite – participated in Reddit'sAsk Me Anything series of public questions and answers. One reader posed the following question: "Which books should be read by every single intelligent person on the planet?" Adding to history's notable reading lists – including those by Leo Tolstoy, Alan Turing, Brian Eno, David Bowie, Stewart Brand, and Carl Sagan – Tyson offers the following eight essentials, each followed by a short, and sometimes wry, statement about "how the book’s content influenced the behavior of people who shaped the western world":

  1. The Bible (public library; free ebook), to learn that it's easier to be told by others what to think and believe than it is to think for yourself
  2. The System of the World (public library;free ebook) by Isaac Newton, to learn that the universe is a knowable place
  3. On the Origin of Species (public library; free ebook) by Charles Darwin, to learn of our kinship with all other life on Earth
  4. Gulliver's Travels (public library; free ebook) by Jonathan Swift, to learn, among other satirical lessons, that most of the time humans are Yahoos
  5. The Age of Reason (public library; free ebook) by Thomas Paine, to learn how the power of rational thought is the primary source of freedom in the world
  6. The Wealth of Nations (public library; free ebook) by Adam Smith, to learn that capitalism is an economy of greed, a force of nature unto itself
  7. The Art of War (public library; free ebook) by Sun Tzu, to learn that the act of killing fellow humans can be raised to an art
  8. The Prince (public library; free ebook) by Machiavelli, to learn that people not in power will do all they can to acquire it, and people in power will do all they can to keep it
Tyson adds:
If you read all of the above works you will glean profound insight into most of what has driven the history of the western world.
(What has driven it, evidently, is also the systematic exclusion of the female perspective. The prototypical "intelligent person" would be remiss not to also read, at the very least, Margaret Fuller's foundational text Woman in the Nineteenth Century, which is even available as a free ebook, and Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique. But, of course, the question of diversity is an infinite one and any list is bound to be pathologically unrepresentative of all of humanity – a challenge I've addressed elsewhere – so Tyson's selections remain indispensable despite their chromosomal lopsidedness. My hope, meanwhile, is that we'll begin to see more such reading lists by prominent female scientists, philosophers, artists, or writers of the past and present; to my knowledge, none have been made public as of yet – except perhaps Susan Sontag's diary, which is essentially a lifelong reading list.)
Complement with Nabokov on the six short stories every writer should read, then revisit Tyson on genius and the most humbling fact about the universe.
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Pope Francis: Moving The Moral Compass From The Individual Toward The Collective

January 4, 2015, 9:04 pm
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Francis is clear.
Nothing gets solved until we deal with the structural causes of inequality.

And as long as structural inequality endures, “there (will be) people in the world 
so hungry that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.” 
Gandhi

"A full belly does not believe in hunger."
Italian Proverb

And more often than not, "the hungry" believe in nothing but bread.
And getting it by any means necessary.

This fellow is not thinking about The 1%.

He is so focused on survival that political rights and political protest do not rise to radar.

If a government or economic class wants to keep autocratic power, 
they deliberately keep the populace poor.

They structure society so that "The Pure People" 
-- The Chaste Caste (a word deriving from the "chaste") -- 
reside at the top, and the ever-undeserving poor at the bottom.

Revolutions are not spearheaded by poor people.
They are led by disenfranchised intelligencias.
To such intelligencia rebellion, intellectuals are routinely bought off with civil service jobs
or, in modern times, with jobs in the non-profit sector.

Jobs are Gods.
Give someone a job (particularly with "benefits") and s/he will live prone before its altar.

Bone Bag cannot even think about justice.
Hunger occupies - and preoccupies - his field of consciousness.

With no one to fight for him -- not even himself! -- it is time the rest of us woke up.

The Thinking Housewife will not champion this guy.
Complacency -- or at least the memory of pre-Vatican II complacency -- are as much on her mind 
as hunger is on the mind of Bone Bag.
(Plus, he's the wrong color.)

Compendium Of "Pax" Posts On "The Thinking Housewife," Laura Wood

Enter Pope Francis. 

Nothing will ever be the same.

Thanks be to God.


Dear Fred,

Thanks for your email.

A large part of Francis' mission is to exit medieval moral confinement wherein sinfulness is determined solely by an individual's conscience in dyadic relationship with an individual's God.

Francis on the other hand is keenly aware that sin (from the testamental Greek, "hamartia"  meaning "missing the mark")  has a crucial -- and long ignored/overlooked -- structural/collective dimension.

In this newly-revealed dimension, science -- always contingent -- must serve as a new moral parameter even though it is intrinsic to "the nature of Science" that nearly nothing can be known with "absolutely certainty."(In statistical parlance there is always a "2% chance" of encountering an outlier.)



It is fundamental to science that practitioners try to disprove themselves whereas people who do not understand the contingent, ever-doubtful "nature of science" believe that Truth is determined by a hodgepodge of opinion, denial and decibelage.

If humankind is to emerge its cosmic egg -- if St. Paul's "birth pangs" are to result in progeny -- it is necessary that we abandon certitude (and even the expectation of certitude) in exchange for "doing what reasonable people would do" when their judgments are informed by "best knowledge," not certain knowledge. 

Pro-Science Pontiff: Pope Francis On Climate Change, Evolution And The Big Bang


"The terrible thing about our time is precisely the ease with which theories can be put into practice.  The more perfect, the more idealistic the theories, the more dreadful is their realization.  We are at last beginning to rediscover what perhaps men knew better in very ancient times, in primitive times before utopias were thought of: that liberty is bound up with imperfection, and that limitations, imperfections, errors are not only unavoidable but also salutary. The best is not the ideal.  Where what is theoretically best is imposed on everyone as the norm, then there is no longer any room even to be good.  The best, imposed as a norm, becomes evil.”  
"Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander,” by Trappist monk, Father Thomas Merton

More Merton Quotes



***

Your email reminds me that I forgot to post selections from today's "Brain Pickings."

One of those "pickings" concerns astronomer/cosmologist, Neil de Grasse Tyson's "8 books every intelligent person on the planet should read." 

Number 1 is "The Bible." 

Neil deGrasse Tyson: The 8 Books Every Intelligent Person Should Read
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2015/01/neil-degrasse-tyson-8-books-every.html

Pax tecum

Alan

Alan: There is a problem with the image above. 

If we were completely honest, it would read "contingent truth" not "TRUTH." 

But the moment we introduce this qualifier, everyone who fails to understand that a measure of uncertainty dwells at the heart of Science immediately feels liberated to deny Science willy nilly. 

It is illuminating to recall that The Theory of Relativity is "just" a theory.

But on that "theory" our lives depend. 

In this very real sense, Science is dependable albeit uncertain. 

Lamentably, the centrality of uncertainty is not a notion that sits well with people who resort to "common sense" to settle arguments.


"The Danger Of Science Denial"
TED Talk by Michael Specter

"Since God Doesn't Heal Amputees, Humankind Will. The Future Of Christian Theology"

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2014/07/since-god-cant-heal-amputees-mankind.html

"Theological Implications Of Ebola: Praying For A Cure? Creating A Scientific Cure"

"Just Thinking About Science Triggers Moral Behavior"
Scientific American



On Sun, Jan 4, 2015 at 8:56 PM, Fred Owens <froghospital911@gmail.com> wrote:

Pope Francis -- an expert!!!

Pro-Science Pontiff: Pope Francis On Climate Change, Evolution And The Big Bang

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2015/01/the-pro-science-pontiff-pope-francis-on.html



--
Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214

My gardening blog is  Fred Owens
My writing blog is Frog Hospital

send mail to:

Fred Owens
35 West Main St Suite B #391
Ventura CA 93001


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Meningitis Amputee Promotes Vaccination; Dances With The Stars

January 4, 2015, 10:32 pm
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Amy Purdy, who lost both lower legs because of bacterial meningitis, performs with Derek Hough on Dancing With The Stars.
Amy Purdy, who lost both lower legs because of bacterial meningitis, performs with Derek Hough on Dancing With The Stars.

"Since God Doesn't Heal Amputees, Humankind Will. The Future Of Christian Theology"

Paralympic Champion Makes The Case For Meningitis Vaccine

YouTube Video, Amy and Derek "Dancing With The Stars": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ckoimo7amdE
The last thing on your mind while you're home from school for the holidays is avoiding a deadly disease.
But imagine catching a disease as a teenager — a disease so terrible that it takes not just months to recover, but requires sacrificing both your legs.
That's what happened to Amy Purdy at age 19, when she was diagnosed with bacterial meningitis. It affects only about 4,000 people a year in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but more than 10 percent of those people die. Others, like Purdy, suffer devastating consequences, including hearing loss, brain damage, or the loss of limbs from bloodstream infection.
College students are especially vulnerable, because meningitis is spread by living in close quarters and sharing drinking and eating utensils, or kissing. (An outbreak at Princeton University in 2013 sped up approval a new vaccine for the meningitis B strain.)
That's why the CDC recommends meningitis vaccine for all teenagers, especially if they weren't vaccinated as preteens.
Purdy competes in the women's snowboard cross in the 2014 Winter Paralympics in Russia.i
Purdy competes in the women's snowboard cross in the 2014 Winter Paralympics in Russia.
Dmitry Lovetsky/AP
Purdy, now 35, went on to become a Paralympic snowboarding champion and contestant in Dancing with the Stars. She's got a new book, On My Own Two Feet: From Losing My Legs to Learning the Dance of Life, coming out Dec. 30. Shots spoke to her about her battle with the disease and people's misconceptions about meningitis. This is an edited version of the conversation.
Had you heard about meningitis before you became sick?
Of course I heard the name meningitis before. I recognized what it was, but I had no idea that I was at risk. And I have to say, my mom actually told me just about a year before I got sick about one of her friends' son's who battled this horrific disease that came out of nowhere. He ended up losing his legs and his kidneys. It was the exact same thing that I got a year later.
Do you know how you got meningitis?
Six students and a visitor have fallen ill with meningitis at Princeton University in New Jersey, shown here in August 2013. All have recovered or are recovering, officials said.

SHOTS - HEALTH NEWS

Why College Campuses Get Hit By Meningitis Outbreaks

We have no idea how I got it. I was at an age that's more at risk — I was 19 years old. However, I wasn't a college student. I didn't live in a college dorm. I really wasn't even around that environment. They do say that those who are in college dorms are slightly more at risk than the rest of the world. I don't know how I got it, I was incredibly healthy at the time, I was a massage therapist, I worked out every day, I really took care of myself. It's just this invisible killer that kind of comes out of nowhere.
How did you cope with this loss at such a young age?
For me, it was life-changing. I nearly died multiple times in the hospital. I lost my legs, I lost my spleen, I lost my kidney function. I lost the life that I knew. And going through so much in such a small amount of time and so quickly, for me it put my life into perspective. There were certain things I focused on — I focused on how grateful I was for the things I had versus things I lost. I got a second chance at life and I wanted to use it. I didn't want to waste it by dwelling on what happened or why it happened.
One of the ironies is that those losses actually led to a lot of great things, like Dancing With the Stars and the Paralympics.
Definitely. The way I look at it is, we all have disabilities. We all have things that limit us and that challenge us. But really, our real limitations are the ones we believe. And I, from the beginning, believed that I could accomplish my goals and accomplish my dreams and I set out to do that. I'm very grateful that I've had the opportunities I've had.
A new vaccine for meningitis B was approved this fall, and you're now working with the manufacturer, Pfizer, to promote it. How did that happen?
Pfizer's actually teamed up with my nonprofit organization, which is called Adaptive Action Sports. I cofounded this organization in 2005 to help people with physical disabilities get involved in action sports, go snowboarding, skateboarding. Obviously, they want to get the word out there that there's protection against this bacteria.
After contracting meningitis B, Andy Marso had all of his toes and all but one finger amputated.

HEALTH

'Worth The Pain': A Life Transformed Overnight By Meningitis

I'm really proud to be a part of this campaign, though. You hear about rare diseases and weird things happening to people on Oprah and Dateline and you just never think it's going to happen to you. And then come to find out you actually could've protected yourself against it. To me it seems like a no-brainer.
What do you want parents to ask their teen's doctor about meningitis?
The number one question is, "Do you carry the meningococcal meningitis vaccination?" I feel like if parents could vaccinate their kids against car accidents, they would. This is one of those things where there are ways to help protect your kid against this.

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Woman Who Killed Her Child Asks Early Release. The Plea Bargaining Crapshoot

January 4, 2015, 10:36 pm
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Nancy McGeoghean (center) asked the state Advisory Board of Pardons last month to allow her to leave prison.
SUZANNE KREITER/GLOBE STAFF
Nancy McGeoghean (center) asked the state Advisory Board of Pardons last month to allow her to leave prison.

By GLOBE STAFF  
NATICK — Nancy McGeoghean says she cannot remember killing her daughter.
Twenty-six years ago, McGeoghean woke up from a night of binge drinking. Her 2-year-old daughter, Sarah, lay unresponsive and blue, strapped in a car seat on the living room floor.

The young mother had strangled and smothered the child, prosecutors said.
McGeoghean was offered a deal: Plead guilty to manslaughter and she would have to spend no more than nine years behind bars. But instead she opted for a trial. Jurors found her guilty of first-degree murder, and she was given a life sentence without parole.
Now McGeoghean, 45, is being given a rare chance to persuade the state Advisory Board of Pardons to recommend she be eligible for release from the Framingham prison that has been her home for more than two decades.
On Dec. 29, McGeoghean shuffled into the board’s hearing room, shackled at the wrists and ankles.
Weeping, her voice often shaky, she struggled to explain to the four-person panel why she killed her daughter and why she could not remember the crime.
‘I loved Sarah. She was the only thing in the whole world that was mine.’
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“I ask myself that every day . . . I am ashamed of myself. I am disgusted with myself,” McGeoghean said. “I loved Sarah. She was the only thing in the whole world that was mine.”
McGeoghean appeared in court wearing a blue sweater and slacks so long the cuffs got caught under her black heels; her lawyers gave her the clothes so she would not have to appear in prison garb. During the hearing — which drew many supporters, including relatives and a priest, and some detractors, including a prosecutor — McGeoghean read aloud from a letter she wrote her daughter.
“Because of my actions, you will never see another birthday, meet your brother and get to know your nephews or feel the wind or sun in your face,” McGeoghean said. “It was never your fault. You were beautiful, innocent and you deserved so much more. I really loved you.”
Convicted murderers seldom get a shot at freedom. A governor has not commuted a life sentence for murder since 1997, when William Weld agreed to the release of Joe Salvati, who was wrongly convicted of a mob killing.
Board officials said they were compelled to hear McGeoghean’s case by her record in prison, where she has trained service dogs and counseled other prisoners. McGeoghean’s lawyers described her sentence as unusually long, because parents who kill their children more often face manslaughter charges, not first-degree murder, and are given shorter sentences.
Life sentences for women are rarer still: Of the 1,030 inmates serving life sentences without the possibility of parole in Massachusetts, only 26 are women.
McGeoghean’s commutation hearing last week was the final one slated for the board before Governor Deval Patrick leaves office Thursday. If he approves a commutation of the sentence, the case would then go to the Governor’s Council for a vote. A yes vote would make McGeoghean eligible for parole.
But the chances of McGeoghean’s case getting to Patrick before he departs are slim; the board has not stated when it will vote on her petition.
If it does rule in her favor, the petition would probably go before Governor-elect Charlie Baker, thrusting an emotionally charged issue before a new administration.
John Cunha, one of McGeoghean’s lawyers, said he believes Baker will not let worries about political blowback obstruct his judgment.
“If she’s approved, I would expect he would take that seriously, and I expect that he would act on it favorably,” Cunha said in a telephone interview the day after the hearing. “He understands that there are times when clemency is appropriate. That’s why we have the laws and I think he would have the courage to do it.”
Tim Buckley, a spokesman for Baker, did not comment specifically on cases involving people sentenced for murder, but he said Baker would consider all petitions for pardons and commutations recommended by the board.
“If the case makes it to his desk, he will examine each case individually to make a determination,” Buckley said.
According to the petition she gave to the board and testimony at the hearing, McGeoghean, the daughter of abusive alcoholics, was 18 when she gave birth to Sarah.The child’s father, whom McGeoghean married, was a drug dealer doing time for a gun charge.
Addicted to drugs and alcohol, McGeoghean was living with her daughter in a flea-infested apartment in Cambridge in August 1988.
The night of Aug. 14, McGeoghean took her child with her as she went out drinking with friends, consuming nine to 10 beers, according to court documents.
At 5:30 a.m., McGeoghean saw her daughter was not breathing and called her husband’s parents for help. She was still drunk, the petition stated.
A medical examiner concluded that the child had been strangled with a stereo cord or wire and that she had been smothered with a pillow or someone’s hand. At trial, prosecutors said that McGeoghean killed her daughter because she feared the child would tell McGeoghean’s husband that she was seeing another man.
McGeoghean denied that motive. She rejected the manslaughter deal mainly because she said she could not believe she was capable of killing her own child. Now, she said, she knows better.
“There is no other explanation,” McGeoghean said. “I believe I killed her.”
According to a report submitted by a Lexington psychiatrist who examined her, Dr. Kathryn Porter Rapperport, McGeoghean was likely overwhelmed by the responsibility of caring for a young child, was undergoing withdrawal after heavy use of cocaine, and was anxious about her abusive husband’s pending release from prison. Those factors combined with alcohol she consumed that night support McGeoghean’s belief that she may have “just snapped,” the report stated.
The loss of her memory could have been caused by the substance abuse, heavy use of prescription drugs she took to cope with her daughter’s death, post-traumatic stress disorder, and plain denial.
Right after Sarah’s death, McGeoghean became pregnant again and gave up the baby, a boy, for adoption. She has offered to take a truth serum, go under hypnosis, or take a lie detector test to find out what happened the night of her daughter’s death.
“Why do you think you did it?” asked Charlene Bonner, acting chairwoman of the board.
McGeoghean shook her head and cried.
“Not remembering is torture to me,” she said.
The people who testified last week on her behalf described her as a quiet, respectful woman who dotes on the service dogs she trains. She has reported sexually abusive prison employees, according to her petition. Sarah’s father has signed an affidavit supporting McGeoghean’s early release.
But an aunt of the child spoke out against McGeoghean’s request, as did a prosecutor.
Assistant District Attorney Adrienne Lynch from the Middlesex district attorney’s office told the board that McGeoghean deserved to die in prison. She did not address why her office was once willing to grant McGeoghean a much shorter sentence.
“Sometimes,” Lynch told the board, “the crime is so outrageous and so egregious that the punishment of life without parole should be imposed.”
Nancy McGeoghean, flanked by her lawyers, Helen Holcomb (left) and John Cunha, took an oath at the start of the Dec. 29 hearing.
SUZANNE KREITER/GLOBE STAFF
Nancy McGeoghean, flanked by her lawyers, Helen Holcomb (left) and John Cunha, took an oath at the start of the Dec. 29 hearing.
Maria Cramer can be reached at mcramer@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @globemcramer.

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Oil Plunges To $55 On Supply Glut. Saudis Set To Further Punish U.S. Producers

January 5, 2015, 6:07 am
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An man refuels a vehicle next to a pricing quotation board at a petrol station in Tokyo December 17, 2014. REUTERS/Issei Kato
An man refuels a vehicle next to a pricing quotation board at a petrol station in Tokyo December 17, 2014.

Oil hits five and a half year low under $55 on supply glut

BY CHRISTOPHER JOHNSON
LONDON Mon Jan 5, 2015







(Reuters) - Oil prices dropped to fresh 5-1/2-year lows on Monday on worries about a surplus of global supplies and lackluster demand.
Russia's oil output hit a post-Soviet high last year, averaging 10.58 million barrels per day (bpd), up 0.7 percent thanks to small non-state producers, Energy Ministry data showed.
Iraq's oil exports were at their highest since 1980 in December, an oil ministry spokesman said, with record sales from the country's southern terminals.
But oil producer group OPEC has decided not to cut output, opting to let the market find its own level.
The two crude oil benchmarks - Brent and U.S. light crude, also known as West Texas Intermediate - have now lost more than half of their value since mid-2014.
Brent crude LCOc1 for February dropped as low as $54.85 a barrel, its weakest since May 2009, before edging back to $54.90, down $1.52, by 1155 GMT (0655 ET). U.S. crude CLc1 slid to $51.36 a barrel on Monday, also its lowest since May 2009.
"The easiest path for oil is down," said Carsten Fritsch, senior oil and commodities analyst at Commerzbank in Frankfurt.
"Almost all market news and the fundamental backdrop are negative and it is difficult to see much upside at the moment."
Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Longson agreed, saying it was "hard to see much improvement in oil fundamentals near term".
"New supply has entered the market, offsetting Libya woes. Additional exports are coming primarily from Russia and Iraq," Longson wrote in a note to clients.
Lackluster economic data from the United States on Friday fueled worries about the state of the global economy and the strength of oil demand.
"Oil demand is unlikely be robust this year when we look at the state of economies in China,Japan and Europe," said Yusuke Seta, a commodity sales manager at Newedge Japan.
A weak euro may also have contributed to further oil losses as it reduces the purchasing power of euro holders for dollar-denominated oil. [MKTS/GLOB]
Investors are also increasing bets on lower oil prices.
Open interest for $40-$50 strike puts have risen several fold since the start of December, while $20-$30 puts for June 2015 have traded, said Stephen Schork, editor of Pennsylvania-based The Schork Report.

Conflict in Libya has reduced the OPEC producer's crude output to around 380,000 bpd, state-run National Oil Corp (NOC) has said.

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"Fighting Disease, Not Terrorism, Will Save More Lives in 2015," Bloomberg News

January 5, 2015, 8:28 am
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A hostage runs to armed tactical response police officers for safety after she escaped from a café under siege in Sydney, Australia, on Dec. 15.
Photographer: Rob Griffith/AP PhotoA hostage runs to armed tactical response police officers for safety after she escaped from a café under siege in Sydney, Australia, on Dec. 15.

"Shark Attacks Rise Worldwide: Risk Assessment and Aquinas' Criteria For Sin"

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2012/02/shark-attacks-rise-worldwide-risk.html

"Faulty Risk Assessment And The Epidemic Spread Of Self-Terrorization
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2013/02/faulty-risk-assessment-and-epidemic.html
"Self-Terrorization Is The National Pastime"
From Boko Haram through Islamic State, the Sydney coffee bar siege, and the school attack in Pakistan, 2014 was a year of concern about a global resurgence of terror. That concern will doubtless drive priorities and budgets from Canberra to Washington, D.C., in the years ahead. Yet for all the attention they receive, deaths from terrorist attacks are a rounding error on violent deaths worldwide, which in turn are a rounding error on global mortality statistics. On the whole, premature deaths have been declining since 2000, thanks to the spread of proven health techniques. If we dealt with the major causes of tragically early death with the same urgency we devote to combating terrorism, we could see even more progress in 2015 and the years that follow.
The National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism & Responses to Terrorism reported 11,000 killed by terror worldwide in 2012 compared with around 4,000 in 2000. The definition of a “terror attack” is endlessly debatable, but let’s take those numbers at face value and compare them with other violent deaths.
In 2000, the World Health Organization estimated that a total of 122,000 deaths were due to collective violence, including war. The WHO suggests that by 2012, that had dropped to 119,000. The WHO also reports estimates of 490,000 deaths from “interpersonal violence,” including murder, in 2000, rising to 505,000 deaths in 2012. As the world population has increased over the past 12 years, the risk of death from violence has declined from about 10 in 100,000 to less than nine deaths per 100,000 people. And terrorism accounted for perhaps 1.8 percent of violent deaths worldwide in 2012.
STORY: How the U.S. Government Botched Its Multibillion-Dollar Plan to Beat Childhood Disease
The WHO data suggest that on the whole, all forms of violence are a minor cause of death—accounting for just 1.2 percent of all deaths worldwide in 2000 and 1.1 percent of all deaths in 2012. Kidney diseases, liver cancer, suicide, and unintentional falls each killed more people than violence against others in 2012. Heart disease and stroke each killed more than 10 times as many.
The good news is that there has been a massive and rapid drop in premature deaths; around the world, people are enjoying longer lives. In 2000, 43 percent of those who died were below the age of 50. By 2012, that proportion had dropped to 34 percent. That has contributed to climbing life expectancy. Globally, someone born in 2000 could expect to live to the age of 66. By 2012, that had reached 70 years.
Particularly heartening has been declines in child mortality. Some 11.6 million children under the age of 14 died in 2000. By 2012, that number was down to 8 million. Progress against childhood illness since the year 2000 saved more than three million kids in 2012 alone, or more than 300 times as many people as died in terror attacks in that same year.
Kenny is a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development and author of The Upside of Down: Why the Rise of the Rest is Great for the West.

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Vox: "The 10 Best Movies Of 2014"

January 5, 2015, 8:34 am
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Alan: I cannot believe "Interstellar" is not on this list! Not even an Honorable Mention!
Otherwise, it's an interesting list. Without it, I would have bypassed "The Overnighters" and "We Are The Best." And although my "horror movie" days are over, I am now attracted to "The Babadook": "This is a movie about the creeping sense that you, yourself, are the worst monster of all."
Another interesting list is Daily Beast's appraisal of 2015's "Most Anticipated Movies" - with a look back at the best flicks of 2014.

The 10 best movies of 2014

Updated by  on December 31, 2014Let's start with a simple fact. I haven't seen nearly everything released in 2014. The New York Times' Manohla Dargis counts the number of films that received at least a cursory release in the US this year at nearly 1,000, a number that not even the most dedicated of film critics could hope to attain.
But scratch seeing everything. I haven't even seen most interesting things. There are films from some of my favorite directors, like Mike Leigh's Mr. Turner, that I haven't caught up with, as well as gigantic entertainments I just haven't fit into my schedule, like Big Hero 6. What I'm saying is take all of this with a grain of salt. It will almost certainly look very different a year from now. Or even a week from now.
What these are, then, are 10 films I would unreservedly recommend from the year 2014. It wasn't as good of a year as 2013 or 2012, but I still found myself with around 30 movies jostling for a position here. And that's not bad at all.
Here are 10 of the best films I saw in 2014, presented alphabetically.
The Babadook (dir. Jennifer Kent): Many of the best horror films work because the terrors of the film are somehow even worse if the supernatural isn't involved. There are few better examples of that than The Babadook, an Australian ghost story that doubles as a haunting tale of mental illness. Essie Davis plays a single mother, struggling to hold on to what little of her sanity she has left amid a long series of sleepless nights and days plagued by her terror of a son. And that's all before the bogeyman of the title starts knocking around. Some have ripped this film for not being "scary" enough, but the big jolts aren't the point. This is a movie about the creeping sense that you, yourself, are the worst monster of all.
Boyhood (dir. Richard Linklater): This lovely little coming-of-age tale might have become the victim of overhype. When it was simply an underdog indie movie with a great gimmick at its center, it was irresistible. Now that it's become an awards winning juggernaut, there's some understandable fatigue around it. But the best way to approach the film is as if you know nothing about it. Yes, it was filmed over 12 years, as the two children at its center grew up. And yes, every one of those 12 years is on screen. But to watch this movie progress is still a magic trick if you can find a way to enter it as purely as possible. There's never been anything like it, and it's the sort of thing only a great movie can pull off. (Read my review here and five things the film gets right about Texas here.)
Godzilla (dir. Gareth Edwards): Wait. Please stop laughing. I mean this sincerely. Yes, the human characters are underdeveloped. But that's also sort of the point. Gareth Edwards's spin on Godzilla emphasizes just how powerless human beings ultimately are in the face of nature, and it slowly cedes all control of its narrative over to the big guy in the title, battling against giant spider creatures for supremacy over San Francisco. This was a summer of beautifully directed blockbusters, but none were so beautiful as this one, filled with evocative images that suggested perfectly what it would be like to be in a major city in the midst of a giant monster attack.
Gone Girl (dir. David Fincher): I've written more about this than any other film released in 2014, and with good reason. This was the movie to discuss and argue about and pillory and defend this fall. Whether you loved or hated its whacked out, gonzo excesses, you had to sort of admire how it could get just about everybody who saw it to take an extremist position on either side of those debates. Above all, though, this film succeeded because it only seemed to be a tale about a woman whose husband may or may not have killed her. From that pulpy beginning, the movie became a treatise on modern marriage and an ultra-bizarre feminist manifesto. It was a delight. (Read my review here and a later, spoiler-filled piece on the film's feminism here.)
The Grand Budapest Hotel (dir. Wes Anderson): Wes Anderson, whose intricate contraptions of films hide bittersweet centers, created perhaps his most intricate contraption yet in this spring release that went on to be his most successful film at the box office. At times, the film's central setting (a lovely European hotel between the World Wars) seems a wind-up toy, which Anderson can unfold to reveal all manner of tiny dolls moving through its confines. But in the film's final passages, it reveals itself to be something much sadder, much more monumental. It's a story about the fundamental inability of anything to last forever. And, yes, we all know that's true, but Anderson seems to feel it more acutely than most and translates that to the audience.
Nightcrawler (dir. Dan Gilroy): A gloriously nasty bit of business, Nightcrawler is a dark satire of the journalism business that feels like it crawled out of the primordial ooze of 1992 and deposited itself in our modern movie theaters. Starring Jake Gyllenhaal in the performance of the year (literally), the story follows a young opportunist who finds himself chasing footage of crimes, crashes, and disasters, the better to sell to local news stations. After all, "if it bleeds, it leads." But Nightcrawler is about so much more than that. It's about how amorality can sometimes be a boon if you're willing to follow it into the dark. It's about twisted romance. And it's about Los Angeles as a glittering jewel of destruction, waiting to corrupt souls.
The Overnighters (dir. Jesse Moss): A documentary packed as full of twists as any narrative feature, The Overnighters is a searing, moving portrayal of the limits of kindness and charity. North Dakota Lutheran pastor Jay Reinke opens his church to the many men drawn to his state by the oil boom who are unable to find work and just need somewhere to sleep. This simple action ends up reverberating throughout his community, as more and more people take issue with the kinds of people Reinke is extending his charity toward. Should there be limits to this kind of Christian compassion, particularly when it's put to the test in the real world? The Overnighters is both brilliant storytelling and brilliant journalism, but it's also a kind of modern moral fable that just happens to be real. (Read my review here.)
Selma (dir. Ava DuVernay): This is not typically the sort of movie I enjoy. Big historical docudramas that attempt to capture important moments in time too often fall flat under the weight of their own hubris. Not so with Selma, making it seem all the more miraculous that this is the first major motion picture about Martin Luther King, Jr., to be made at this scale. Yet Ava DuVernay's deeply moving film takes King out of the history books and resurrects him for an era when the intolerance he battled against seems to have revealed newer, nastier faces. The conclusion of Selma is as cathartic as anything you'll see in a movie theater this year, but it doesn't suggest, for one second, that the work King began is over. (Read my review here and interviews with DuVernay and the film's star David Oyelowo here.)
Under the Skin (dir. Jonathan Glazer): A spectacularly weird and even alienating film, Under the Skin forces the contemplation of what it means to be human by making its protagonist someone who is decidedly ... not. As The Woman (the only name she is given), Scarlett Johansson is riveting, portraying some sort of alien interloper on the planet Earth who seduces men, takes them back to her place, then consumes them in a manner utterly unlike any you've ever seen in a movie. (To say more would be to spoil it.) This is not a film for everybody. There's no conventional plot to speak of, and the ending is hard to take for how rapidly it tries to shift audience's allegiances. But this is a movie that's all about the experience and the visuals and the weird, eerie ride. And on those levels, it over-delivers.
We Are the Best! (dir. Lukas Moodysson): A blast of joyous, punk rock anarchy, this Swedish film is one of the best crowd-pleasers of the year, following three young girls who start a punk band in '80s Stockholm. It goes about as well as you'd expect, but the fun of this movie is in following the characters as they discover just how wonderful it feels to express themselves. There aren't a lot of examples of pure, unfettered joy on this list, but there's lots of it in We Are the Best!, and even if it's at the end by the accident of alphabetization, it feels like it's the perfect capper to a year that could be a little dour.
13 more: Blue Ruin; Coherence; Dawn of the Planet of the Apes; Edge of Tomorrow; Ernest and Celestine (technically a 2013 release, but essentially no one saw it then); Foxcatcher; The Immigrant; The LEGO Movie; Obvious Child; Snowpiercer; Two Days, One Night; Whiplash;Winter Sleep
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"Mario Cuomo's Enduring Legacy," U.S. News & World Report

January 5, 2015, 8:43 am
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New York Gov. Mario Cuomo points to a reporter during a news conference with the Rev. Jesse Jackson on April 13, 1988, in Albany, N.Y.

A speech at the 1984 Democratic National Convention by New York Gov. Mario Cuomo, seen here in 1988, laid out themes beginning to resonate again in the Democratic Party.

Long Read: Mario Cuomo's Enduring Legacy

The late governor's political approach is gaining new life among Democrats.


By 

  • By now, most politically astute readers who visit this space probably know about the passing of former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo and his speech at the 1984 Democratic National Convention in San Francisco, the spotlight moment that propelled him to national prominence.

What’s perhaps most remarkable is how a speech delivered nearly 31 years ago has come to define the speaker far more than the political party it was meant to inspire. But Cuomo’s words echo now in the philosophy of a new liberal movement – led by another improbable politician, like him – that’s designed to pick up where his rhetoric ended.
Today’s long read comes from The New Yorker, which not surprisingly went full-tilt on Cuomo when word of his passing hit the headlines. While they posted a trio of stories profiling the late governor and his legacy of progress (and missed opportunities for liberals), the piece by Jeff Shesol, “Mario Cuomo’s Finest Moment,” probably gets closest to placing the speech in context of past, present and perhaps future politics.
Though it is arguably the most prominent of Cuomo’s legacies, Shesol writes, the convention speech – with its distinctive “Tale of Two Cities” theme – wasn’t Cuomo’s personal favorite. But it certainly did the most to establish him as a national figure, his three-term governorship aside:
[T]he speech that most resonated in the national consciousness is without doubt Cuomo’s keynote address at the 1984 Democratic National Convention, in San Francisco, the convention that marked Walter Mondale for annihilation later that year at the hands of the incumbent President, Ronald Reagan. The Cuomo keynote had much the same effect as the speech by Ted Kennedy at the Democratic Convention of 1980, where President Carter was resignedly renominated, or Reagan’s remarks at the Republican gathering in 1976, after losing the nomination to President Ford. Cuomo stole the show, leaving the delegates with the sinking feeling that they had picked the wrong man.
And they did. More on that in a minute.
Contrary to the Republican orthodoxy emerging at the time – taxes are too high, government’s too big, too wasteful and too restrictive on the individual – Cuomo lyrically declared that government was essential to creating a nation that would be made more perfect by sharing burdens as well as benefits, because we’re all in this together. Democrats, he said, “believe in only the government we need, but we insist on all the government we need.” Shesol writes:
On the floor, the speech brought catharsis. It was all the things that Democrats wished themselves to be but no longer felt they were as a party. It was bold, in its willingness to take on a popular President directly; it was unapologetic, stating its beliefs clearly and without equivocation; it drew its indignation from some inner store of strength and conviction, not from mere calculation. “Some old-timers said it was the greatest political speech they had heard,” wrote New York Times columnist Anthony Lewis. “It was as electrifying as any I remember, and I have been going to political conventions for thirty years.”

Cuomo’s speech underscored just what was missing in Mondale, who, in November, nearly managed the feat of losing all fifty states to Reagan.
Under the unwritten rules of politics, that meant Cuomo would be given a turn at bat; the Democratic nomination would be his, almost for the taking. But when Cuomo flirted with but decided not to chase the nomination in back-to-back cycles, Democrats found themselves longing for the messenger but pretty much ignoring the message he delivered in San Francisco. Instead, Shesol writes, Democrats chose “two successive anti-Cuomos” – a pair of small-state governors – to challenge Republicans:
In 1988, Michael Dukakis heralded “competence” as a core value, like a man running to be the nation’s chief operating officer. In 1992, Bill Clinton galvanized the middle class, as Cuomo had, but challenged the orthodoxies that Cuomo by then had come to represent: chiefly, the old Democratic faith in the efficacy of government.
And challenge them he did. During the Clinton era, the Democratic Party and the government moved to the right as he reformed welfare, argued for mending but not ending affirmative action and downsized the government Cuomo said we needed.
By the end of Clinton’s second term, “triangulation” was in the political lexicon and voters in New York had kicked Cuomo to the curb, handing the governorship to George Pataki, a Republican state legislator. The Democrats have struggled to define themselves and their governing philosophy ever since, and their calculations don’t seem to include New Deal liberalism.
“A decade after his triumphal appearance in San Francisco,” Shesol writes, “[Cuomo] had come to seem like something of an anachronism.”
Only not so much now, concludes Shesol. And he’s right, if you consider President Barack Obama’s recent series of executive actions, the movement to push presumed Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton to the left ahead of the 2016 primaries and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid’s decision to give Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a hero among progressives, a leadership job:
The nation’s economy is growing today, as it had been in 1984 when he gave his speech. But for many Americans, what Mario Cuomo called “the struggle to live with dignity” remains our defining challenge. It is “the hard substance of things.” Its stubborn persistence is why we hear, increasingly, echoes of Cuomo in the ardency of Elizabeth Warren and other Democrats; Mayor Bill de Blasio, of New York, has even revived “a tale of two cities.” These echoes affirm what Daniel Patrick Moynihan said about Cuomo’s convention speech: “He created a memory.” Now that Cuomo has died, it is the work of his extended family – the country – to determine what that memory means for our future.Mario Cuomo: Life and Career Remembered
NY Daily News

Video: http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/washington-whispers/2015/01/02/long-read-mario-cuomos-enduring-legacy?google_editors_picks=true




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Expert Advice About How To Drive Safely Among America's Most Dangerous Animals

January 5, 2015, 8:50 am
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White-tailed deer jumps a fence into a roadway
Sooner or later, a deer will appear and you will have milliseconds to react.

White-tailed deer are the deadliest animals in North America. Every year an estimated 1.25 million deer-vehicle crashes result in about 150 human fatalities, more than 10,000 injuries, and insurance payouts approaching $4 billion.





Alan: In the 1960s, when my sister-in-law was growing up in Henrietta, New York, a suburban Mom who lived next door was en route to the supermarket when she hit a deer that crashed through the windshield decapitating her.
The nearest body shop to where I live in North Carolina does more repair work as a result of deer-car collisions than car-car collisions.

Just Hit the Damn Deer

We now have about 30 million deer in the United States—100 times more than a century ago. Having all those deer has consequences—for us, the landscape, and the deer themselves. The one time Americans are most likely to experience a close encounter with deer is when they get behind the wheel. And even if we’re apathetic about ecological impacts, front-bumper, hood, and windshield impacts still have a way of getting our attention.
To learn more about the harsh realities behind the statistics, I spent an eight-hour shift riding along with Wisconsin state trooper Dean Luhman for a little first-hand roadkill research. Please understand: I didn’t want anyone to get hurt. I didn’t even want a deer to get hurt. Still, if it were going to happen anyway, I wanted to see for myself how troopers work a deer crash. But as the night wore on, it began to look increasingly unlikely. We saw expired plates, expired licenses, but no expired deer. But that night I did learn a lot more from Luhman about what happens at the scene of deer-car crashes. He told me his first priority is always to ensure that no further crashes occur. When he arrives on the scene, he first looks for vehicles or debris—including, possibly, the deer itself—in the roadway. Then he positions his cruiser with its emergency lights on. He may also put out flares or traffic cones, call in more units, or close the roadway.


Ride along with state trooper Dean Luhman
While the author was on his ride along with state trooper Dean Luhman, the trooper provided backup for a local deputy. The author was explicitly told to stay in the car.
Photo by Al Cambronne
Next he talks with the driver to check for injuries and size up the situation. He might need to move the driver and passengers to a safer location, or else call for an ambulance or tow truck.
Assuming everyone’s unharmed, the next question he’ll ask is about the deer. If it’s injured but still alive, it will need to be euthanized—not just to end its suffering, but also to make sure it doesn’t get back up and stumble out into traffic.
Even when a deer is dead and safely off in the ditch, roadkill is the gift that keeps on giving. “More than once,” Luhman told me, “I’ve been to a crash where someone stopped to illegally saw the antlers off a roadkill buck. They’re at a spot where they can’t pull all the way off the road, and then someone else comes along and slams into their pickup from behind. Expensive antlers.”



Other secondary crashes happen when drivers slow to gawk at nonhuman scavengers. “It happens with coyotes,” Luhman told me, “but mostly with eagles perched on deer carcasses. We get people up from the city who have never seen an eagle that close. They hit the brakes to get a better look, someone else is tailgating, and there you go.” On rare occasions, other drivers collide with gluttonous, overloaded eagles struggling to gain altitude as they flap out into the road.
If vehicles at the crash site are badly damaged, Luhman takes plenty of photos. To help drivers prove to their insurance company that a deer was involved, he always tries to get a few shots of evidence visible on the vehicle itself—usually in the form of hair, blood, or “other bodily fluids.” Then it’s time for a little paperwork. If there’s only one vehicle involved and no injuries, troopers can use an abbreviated form. That’s always a relief for everyone concerned. The long form requires Luhman to collect more information, describe the situation in more detail, and even sketch a diagram of the scene.
Here in Wisconsin, there’s also a special roadkill possession form. The law states that when drivers are still on the scene, they have first chance at the deer. Luhman always offers, and he never makes assumptions based on drivers’ age or gender—or, for that matter, the age and type of vehicle. Although some deer do end up splattered, splintered, or smeared by a collision, most are surprisingly intact. And even if the front of the deer is in rough shape, there could be a lot of good meat left on the hindquarters.



Deerland: America's Hunt for Ecological Balance and the Essence of Wildness by Al Cambronne
“I hate to see a deer go to waste,” Luhman told me, “and they rarely do.” Luhman patrols a county that’s not especially prosperous. While he’s at the scene, it’s common for other drivers to pull over and ask if the deer might still be available. And if the county has dispatched him to the scene, chances are good that someone listening to a police scanner will call the sheriff’s department to ask if the driver wants the deer. The county often receives one or two of these calls before Luhman even arrives.
After the driver, however, Luhman always give first priority to people on the list he carries in his pocket. It’s a list of names and phone numbers that have been given to him by people who are out of work and having a tough time making ends meet. “They usually come up to me when I’m stopped at the gas station,” he told me. “It’s not like they have many other opportunities. They’ll look to make sure no one else is nearby, and then they’ll walk over and hand me a phone number. I visit with them for a minute, but only if they want. Sometimes they’ll tell me about their situation. I put them on my list.”
Assuming there are no injuries, most drivers can leave on their own as soon as they’re done with the paperwork. For everyone else, Luhman has all four of the county’s tow truck operators on speed dial. If he can, he’ll call one directly so he can describe the location and what to expect. If there’s a lot going on, he’ll ask his dispatcher, a deputy, or a firefighter or first responder to make the call. Or, if the damaged vehicle is well off the road and not hidden by a hill or a curve in the road, sometimes it stays there for a while and Luhman gives the driver a ride home or into town.
The more passengers in the vehicle, the more problematic the logistics. “For years,” Luhman says, “I’ve been asking tow operators to order trucks with four doors and a second row of seats. Finally, I’m now seeing more of them. One way or another, we can usually transport everyone in the tow truck and my cruiser. Sometimes I’ll call a deputy to help. And if all else fails, I can make several trips. It happens.”
Despite the really cool hat, the uniform, the regulation haircut, the tie, and the perfectly creased trousers, the job description does includes cleanup. It’s a dirty job. At many crashes, the roadway is littered with a fair amount of broken glass, plastic grille fragments, and ragged bits of deer carcass. The longer debris remains in the roadway, the more likely it is to trigger another accident.
I asked Luhman if, back in the trunk along with his rifle and shotgun, he also carried a push broom. He told me he did—and a shovel, too. “Between the tow operator, firefighters, and myself,” he said, “we usually get the roadway cleared pretty quickly. But if there’s something major, we’ll get help.”
Examples? “Well,” he told me, “I remember the time we had one stuck down pretty hard. It was 30 below, and what was left of the deer froze to the highway. We needed a county plow to help scrape that one off.”



To help you avoid getting in scrapes of your own, Luhman offers this advice: “If you see a deer in the roadway, don’t swerve. Hit it. Cars can be fixed or replaced. As long as no one’s tailgating you, hit the brakes. But if you can’t do that, then hit the deer.”
“Here are a couple more things you can do,” he added. “Adjust your headrest so it’s at the right height to prevent whiplash. You’d be surprised how many people just leave them shoved all the way down. Maintain your lights, brakes, and tires so you can see, be seen, and stop. Wear your seat belt, don’t tailgate, and slow down.”
“And when you’re driving,” Luhman said, “drive. At deer crashes, and at a lot of other crashes, too, the number one excuse I hear is ‘I wasn’t paying attention.’ ”
Here in the north woods there’s not much stop-and-go traffic to trip up inattentive drivers; that means a fair percentage of Luhman’s calls involve deer. The same is true for local body shops; George Hertzner, the owner of Awesome Auto Body in Minong, Wisconsin, told me that more than 60 percent of his business comes from deer-car crashes. Most of the rest comes from customers who drink and drive. Hertzner figures he owes his job security to just two things: deer and beer.




George Hertzner looks at a car damaged in a car-deer collision
George Hertzner looks at a car damaged in a car-deer collision. The driver of this vehicle didn’t swerve, and the damage was relatively minor.
Photo by Al Cambronne
Despite those small-town percentages, your risk of being involved in a deer-vehicle crash is actually higher if your daily commute takes you through the suburbs of states like Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, or Virginia. That’s where deer populations are exploding, and that’s where the risk is—not way out in the woods where deer densities are lower.
Hertzner says it helps to keep vigilant, especially at dawn and dusk. And if you see one deer crossing the road, slow down. Deer often travel in groups. Just when you’ve seen one and avoided it, one or two more could be following it out onto the pavement. During the rut, a lone doe could be followed by a buck in hot pursuit. With their thoughts elsewhere, neither will remember to look both ways before crossing the street.
And those little plastic deer whistles so many drivers stick on their front bumpers? It turns out most of them don’t actually make the sound they’re supposed to make. Even if they did, deer couldn’t hear it. And even if they could, they wouldn’t notice or care.



Sooner or later, a deer will appear. You will have no warning, and you’ll have only milliseconds to react. For times like that, Hertzner has some familiar advice: “Don’t swerve. Hit the damn deer.” This isn’t because Hertzner hates deer, and it isn’t because he wants your business. He has plenty. It’s just that he’d rather not see you become earlier-than-expected business for your local funeral director.
If you swerve, chances are good that you’ll lose control and slam into a tree, veer into oncoming traffic, or hit the ditch and roll your vehicle. “If you have time to stop,” says Hertzner, “then stop. But don’t swerve and risk your neck over a deer—or worse yet, over a dog or a squirrel. Believe me, I’ve seen it happen.”
Hertzner has seen a lot, and he wants you to get your priorities straight: “Don’t worship your car, and don’t get too attached. It’s just a vehicle, a tool to get you from point A to point B. It’s insured. Cars are like socks. Be ready to change them once in a while.
“You’re worth more than a deer or a car. And your car can be fixed. Your neck can’t. Your car? That’s what insurance is for. So don’t swerve. Hit the damn deer.”
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Steven Brill: Obamacare Won't Lower U.S. Health-Care Bill, But It Was Still Worth It

January 5, 2015, 1:50 pm
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By Jason Millman January 5, 2015

About two years ago, journalist Steven Brill offered a blockbuster story in Time Magazine on why Americans' medical bills are so high. He's now followed that up with a new book released Monday explaining why he doesn't believe Obamacare will change that.
Brill's book, "America's Bitter Pill," details the backroom deals that allowed the Affordable Care Act to become law, why HealthCare.gov was such a mess when it launched in October, and why he believes the law won't do anything to keep health care costs from running wild. His assessment: the deals Democrats struck with industry to get the law passed ensured that the flawed system would remain intact.
Brill also details in his own frustrations with the health-care system when he underwent open-heart surgery during the reporting of his book, and people who's lives have been changed because of the ACA. And he closes with a vision for what he thinks health-care should look like. Below is a transcript of our conversation Monday morning, edited for brevity and clarity.
JM: This book dives into the process that led to the passage of the Affordable Care Act about five years after it became law. What lessons do you hope can be taken away from this account?
SB: The whole process by which Washington attempted to tackle and fix the largest industry and the most important industry in the country is really emblematic of how Washington works and doesn't work. What I realized as I was doing the first piece for Time Magazine — and what I realized in spades as I was reporting this book — was that the only way legislation this big, this important can possibly come out of Washington is if the most important group of special interest lobbyists say that it can.
The basic deal that the Obama administration and the Democrats in the Senate had to make was we'll get more coverage for people. But we'll get more coverage for people at the same high prices that allow the drug companies to be so profitable, that allow the non-profit hospitals to be so profitable, that allow the device-makers to be so profitable — and that is the result that is Obamacare.
So the good news is this couple I interviewed in Kentucky who hadn't had access to doctors in years suddenly had access to health care. The bad news is that you and I and all the other taxpayers are paying the same high prices for that health care that dominated and completely screwed up the system in the first place.
Is it too cynical to say that deal-making with industry is just what happens when you want to pass major legislation?
When the lobbying behind the industries that are affected by that legislation spends four times as much as the next largest industry when it comes to lobbying, which is the military industrial complex, this is what you get. The second sort of theme through the book is Washington not only is dominated by money, but it's dominated by a kind of partisanship which I think is also the result of too much money going into primaries and gerrymandering and everything else. The third overriding theme of the book is not only is Washington beset by money and by partisan politics, but it's also beset by a lack of attention being paid to the sheer competence of the government. We all missed the story, me included, in the run-up to the [Healthcare.Gov] launch. The Web site was a train wreck two or three years in the making.
Why do you think the administration missed this?
The administration missed it because they're big on policy, but when it came to governing, the nitty-gritty of governing, they just didn't pay attention to those in the White House who said we really have to focus on this. [Former OMB director] Peter Orszag reportedly wrote a memo to the president saying you've got to bring someone in from the outside to run this thing, and I asked the president about it, and his only answer was, "I don't want to engage in Monday morning quarterbacking."
Since then, they have brought on a CEO overseeing the exchanges.
Yeah, it works.
Now that the Web site works, does this the launch turn out to be a blip in the history of the ACA?
I don't think it's a "blip" because if you remember what happened on Oct. 1, the Republican party was in the doghouse with the American people. They shut the government down, and Obama was riding high. By Oct. 17, when the deadlock ended and the government was in essence re-opened, everyone was focused on the fact that this Web site was a total debacle. I don't think Obama's ever really recovered from that.
I want to come back to the idea that you can't do major health reform without cutting these major deals with the big industry players. What's the solution then?
We should allow the Cleveland Clinics of the world to cut out the middle man, sell their own insurance and become oligopolies or even monopolies. But then we should regulate them very, very tightly. Regulate their profits, regulate what kind of multiple the CEO of a hospital system can be paid as opposed to the lowest-paid practicing doctor. I think if we did that, we could save a ton of money.
Not because the insurance companies are the culprits. The insurance companies are in some ways as much victims as you and I are when we go to the doctor and get a bill. They're paying these high bills, so it's a lousy business, their profit margins are terrible and they also are terribly run. They're backed into a corner by high prices. The way they deal with it too often is abusing their customers.
What did you learn about your experience going through open heart surgery, about your own understanding of the costs and your ability to choose what health-care you receive?
It's very difficult to be a savvy consumer in the health-care marketplace, but I learned it in a very different way. I learned about the fear and confusion of being a patient in a very personal way. And what that really taught me is anyone who thinks providing health-care consumers with better information about pricing and quality — all of which is important — but anyone who thinks that's going to solve the problem just doesn't understand just how different health care is.
It seems here that you're pretty pessimistic on the ACA on cost-control measures.
It's not a cost-control measure. You look up up and down all the pages of that legislation, and you won't find any cost-control measures. You find a reference to a couple of pilot projects for bundled care and accountable care organizations. Those really can't work the way they're structured.
Though, there are health-care systems talking about the need to become more efficient because there are payment cuts built into the law. I'm not saying that's the sole driver behind this efficiency, but does the ACA deserve any credit there?
Sure, I think there's more focus, for example, on hospital readmission for Medicare patients, which is costly but in the sum total of things, it's kind of a drop in the bucket. There are little things like that, but there aren't any big things, there's nothing to control the price of drugs, there's no tort reform, there's nothing to control the profits of allegedly nonprofit hospitals. There's nothing to deal with the profits and the secret contracts that device-makers negotiate with hospitals that buy their products.
Given the industry influences you outline, what lessons can be made for future health reform efforts?
It's not just the lobbying influence. You combine that money with the emotional pull and fear that people have when they think about health care. People care more about their health than they do about health-care policy. And then you add to that the multi-channel political power of the health care industry in every congressional district, because in about every congressional district, the largest employer is the local hospital. And the local hospital is again seen as a charity. You combine that kind of local power with the lobbying power, with the fear and emotion that's attached to health care, and that makes for a toxic political stew.
How is that going to change? I think the only way it's going to change relates to what the thinking was in Massachusetts when Romneycare passed [in 2006]. They're very candid about this — we'll give everybody coverage and then when people see how much it costs, there'll be this huge political wave to say we have to reform this, or we're going bankrupt.
Given that, was the ACA worth all the effort?
I think it was. If you give me a choice between whether the Fords — the family I spent a lot of time with in Kentucky — whether she'd be alive or dead [without the ACA], she'd be dead without access to a doctor and realizing she had a near-fatal heart condition. So if you give me the choice between whether they get care or they don't get care, I'm all for the Affordable Care Act.


Jason Millman covers all things health policy, with a focus on Obamacare implementation. He previously covered health policy for Politico.


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