‘…[P]icture the most intense, bleeding-heart liberal you know, the type who has five signs in their front yard, rage-watches the news, and has spent the past ten years worried that Donald Trump will march us straight into fascism. Now imagine all that discontent freed from the burden of uninspiring Democratic candidates like Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and Kamala Harris. Where does that energy go?…’ (Jay Caspian Kang via The New Yorker)
‘Though the two outbreaks are in the same region (the Équateur Province), it’s not certain yet whether they are truly connected. People in both outbreaks have experienced similar symptoms, which include fever, vomiting, diarrhea, fatigue, abdominal pain, and headache. Some people have also experienced hemorrhaging (potentially life-threatening blood loss), but tests for Ebola and Marburg virus—well-known causes of hemorrhagic fever—have come up negative in both outbreaks….’ (via Gizmodo)
‘Users online documented how a dictation tool input ‘Tr*mp’ in place of ‘racist’; other words such as ‘rampant’ also trigger what Apple called a ‘bug’…’ (Aaron Tilley via WSJ)
In the 1920s, the Ku Klux Klan was everywhere, riding an “America First” slogan into the mainstream. They felt unstoppable, until people stopped them. (via dansinker.com)
‘Without minimizing the potential for the utter destruction of the rule of law in this country—a genuine possibility!—I want to make two basic points that may be helpful in restoring a little fire to everyone who does not care to live in a fascist state. First: the political faction carrying out the Tr*mp-M*sk agenda right now does not have the support of the majority of the public. Far from it. And second: the fraction of the public that is happy with the agenda currently being enacted is going to get smaller for the foreseeable future….’ (Hamilton Nolan via How Things Work, with a nod to kottke)
‘Donald Tr*mp intends to rule as an autocrat. On this, his statements and past conduct are clear... [H]e will have considerable leeway to follow through on this aim.
If he and his allies approach the task astutely (admittedly a tall order in their case), they can transform the executive branch into an instrument of his will. They can then use key federal agencies, along with deputized state and local law enforcement and thuggish extremists like the Proud Boys, to try and sideline his opponents.
Any laws they break in the process are of little concern. Chief Justice John Roberts and his band of enablers saw to that last summer in Tr*mp v. United States, when they effectively anointed (Republican) presidents elected kings.
Tr*mp’s freedom of action is not absolute, however. His bid to become a dictator will run up against some serious obstacles, including federalism, a vibrant civil society, his own unpopularity, and others we will cover today. These obstacles serve as loci of potential resistance. If democratic Americans, including but not limited to the Democratic Party, exploit them to their full effect, they can thwart the coming lurch toward authoritarianism.
To help identify these various points of leverage, we will draw on the experiences of other countries where aspiring autocrats put democracy at risk. In places like Belarus, Hungary, India, Russia, Turkey, and Venezuela, elected strongmen overpowered their opponents and forged authoritarian regimes. In others, like Brazil, Poland, Slovakia, and Ukraine, oppositions were able to frustrate such efforts, allowing democracy to survive….’ (Neil A. Abrams via The Detox)
‘Inspired by photographs in old reports and on social media, an expedition of botanists trekked into the remote Meliau Range in Sabah in Borneo and confirmed a new and amazing species of pitcher plant. Then, they immediately realised it’s already endangered.
The newly described Nepenthes pongoides has a remarkably large pitcher, the jug-like leaf that evolved to trap and digest insects for nutrients that are limited in the soil. The largest pitcher they found was 45cm tall and could hold at least two litres of liquid!…’
‘There’s no need to overreact to the fact that the president of these United States casually tweeted out on a Saturday morning the statement, “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.”
No — it’s sobering enough that the Chief Magistrate of our Republic would favorably repeat the words of Napoleon Bonaparte (the quote is perhaps apocryphal) on this subject and his excuses for the reality that he deformed his own republic into an empire, with himself as its monarch….’ (Mark Antonio Wright viaNational Review)
‘”Humpback whales can’t swallow a human. Here’s why,” says National Geographic’s title. And here’s the article in a nutshell:
Though a humpback could easily fit a human inside its huge mouth—which can reach around 10 feet—it’s scientifically impossible for the whale to swallow a human once inside, according to Nicola Hodgins of the Whale and Dolphin Conservation, a U.K. nonprofit.
A humpback’s throat is roughly the size of a human fist, and can only stretch to about 15 inches in diameter to accommodate a bigger meal.
…it’s scientifically impossible for all but one whale species—the sperm whale—to swallow something as large as a person.
Perhaps the humpback clutched the man in its mouth before releasing him, or perhaps it just dragged him under water before the man popped back up. Either way, it was a terrifying experience on its own, and made for some awesome video, even if we didn’t get to see the inside of a whale’s throat….’
‘A Russian drone strike has damaged the massive protective shield covering Chernobyl’s infamous nuclear reactor, the BBC reports.
The overnight attack caused a fire at the facility that houses the remains of the 1986 nuclear disaster, though radiation levels remain stable both inside and outside the complex….’
‘Professor Christina Pagel of University College London has mapped the actions of the Tr*mp administration’s first few weeks into a Venn diagram (above) with “five broad domains that correspond to features of proto-authoritarian states”:
Undermining Democratic Institutions & Rule of Law; Dismantling federal government
Dismantling Social Protections & Rights; Enrichment & Corruption
Suppressing Dissent & Controlling Information
Attacking Science, Environment, Health, Arts & Education
Aggressive Foreign Policy & Global Destabilization
This diagram is available as a PDF and the information is also contained in this categorized table. Links and commentary from Pagel can be found on Bluesky as well.
Also very helpful is this list of authoritarian actions that the Tr*mp administration has taken, each with a link to the relevant news story. I will be referring back to this list often in the coming weeks…’
‘If you hire a driver, or use a taxi, offer to pay the driver to take you to visit their mother. They will ordinarily jump at the chance. They fulfill their filial duty and you will get easy entry into a local’s home, and a very high chance to taste some home cooking. Mother, driver, and you leave happy. This trick rarely fails…’
‘Staggering sales drops, swastika-daubed EVs, companies culling fleet models, and fan-forum owners selling their cars—Elon Musk’s alt-right antics are seriously impacting his electric car business….’
‘Despite its name, the Department of Government Efficiency is not, so far, primarily interested in efficiency. DOGE and its boss, Elon Musk, have instead focused their activity on the eradication of the federal civil service, along with its culture and values, and its replacement with something different. In other words: regime change….’
‘The legal clashes over President Trump’s blizzard of executive actions are intensifying, with new lawsuits and fresh rulings emerging day and night.
As of Feb. 12, 18 of those rulings have at least temporarily paused some of the president’s initiatives. Already, the administration has asked higher courts to intervene. Some of these cases could reach the Supreme Court in the weeks and months to come.
Jump to a section:
The dozens of lawsuits fall into these categories. Cases with the most recent actions are listed first….’
‘The former prime minister was quizzed on Donald Tr*mp’s plans for the Middle East, at the World Governments Summit in Dubai on Wednesday (12 February). The former Conservative leader said his recent work trip to Mar-a-Lago made him realise what a great place it was. He said: “It’s an absolutely fantastic place if you want to resettle millions of people there.” His comments come after Tr*mp said he would “own” the Gaza Strip, declaring it would be a “real estate development for the future” in an interview with Fox News….’
‘On Wednesday, a team of researchers announced that they got extremely lucky. The team is building a detector on the floor of the Mediterranean Sea that can identify those rare occasions when a neutrino happens to interact with the seawater nearby. And while the detector was only 10 percent of the size it will be on completion, it managed to pick up the most energetic neutrino ever detected….’
‘On Tuesday morning, Google searches for the Gulf of Mexico returned an official “Gulf of America” knowledge panel at the top, complete with a tile showing the updated name on Google Maps. Soon after, Apple Maps and Bing had echoed that change….’
‘Lawrence O’Donnell Flames Tr*mp’s ‘Subservience’ to Elon Musk in Oval Office…’ (via MSN)
Musk brought his 4-year-old to the Oval Office. It wasn’t just a photo op.
‘Throughout Musk’s stop by the Oval Office, X knelt by the Resolute Desk, picked his nose and whispered to the president. In other words, he acted very much like a 4-year old child.
But X’s presence also underscored the outsized presence that the unelected Musk is playing in American politics. The preschooler’s appearance in the Oval Office nods to the double standard faced by women in politics and reinforces the gender roles inherent in Musk’s beliefs about family.
Musk, a father of 12, is an avowed pronatalist, or someone who believes declining population rates are a major concern and has committed to work to remedy this by having as many children as possible. He sees part of his life’s work as repopulating the planet with as many children — and exceptional children at that — as possible….’
‘Mr. Byrd missed out on a brush with history when his original poster for the Woodstock Music and Art Fair in 1969, featuring a neoclassical image of a nude woman with an urn, was replaced for various logistical reasons by Arnold Skolnick’s — the now famous image of a white bird perched on a guitar neck. Mr. Byrd took it in stride.
“I didn’t think of it as any kind of ‘branding’ for the event,” he said of his poster. “I thought of it as a souvenir of the event.”
Mr. Byrd was impressed by — and to a degree, aligned with — the work of the so-called Big Five psychedelic poster artists of San Francisco: Alton Kelley, Rick Griffin, Victor Moscoso, Stanley Mouse and Wes Wilson, who were known for using kaleidoscopic patterns, explosions of color and fonts that seemed to bend and ooze like Salvador Dalí clocks.
But, based 3,000 miles from the Haight-Ashbury scene, Mr. Byrd was also influenced by Broadway and advertising, employing standard typefaces and drawing on the Art Nouveau movement of 1890s Europe. His work is “kind of like Art Nouveau on acid,” said Thomas La Padula, an adjunct professor of illustration at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, where Mr. Byrd taught in the 1970s..’ (Alex Williams via The New York Times)
‘The newer variant of avian influenza that recently infected dairy cattle in Nevada has a genetic change that’s thought to help the virus copy itself in mammals — including humans — more easily, according to a new technical brief from the US Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.
It’s unclear whether these viruses pose a bigger threat to people, however. The CDC says the risk of H5N1 to the public is still low, although people who work on farms or who have backyard flocks are at higher risk….’ (via CNN)
‘In 2022, I was named the national student poet of the West, one of the nation’s highest honors for youth poets. During my year of service, I performed my work across the country, including at the White House. Yet I couldn’t tell the difference between T.S. Eliot and ChatGPT.
Apparently, I’m not alone in this lapse of discernment. According to a study published in Nature in November, Americans are more likely to appreciate AI-generated poems than poetry from humanity’s most celebrated authors: Emily Dickinson, Sylvia Plath and, of course, Eliot.
In fact, not only did the participants prefer ChatGPT’s poetry, but they also found it “more human than human.” AI-written poetry was 17 percentage points more likely to be judged as having been written by a human than the actual human-authored poetry. It was also rated more favorably in terms of “rhythm and beauty.”…’ (Diane Sun, a sophomore at Harvard University studying philosophy and linguistics, via The Washington Post)
‘According to an OECD study conducted a few years ago, Japanese sleep the shortest among all 33 member countries. And Japan’s own internal statistics showed that roughly 40% of their population gets less than six hours of sleep. This alarming data triggered the government in 2023 to publish guidelines for recommended amounts of sleep, but that clearly wasn’t enough. The government has now announced that it has developed the ZZZN SLEEP APPAREL SYSTEM, a wearable product designed to improve sleep environments and sleep itself.
Working with digital transformation firm NTT DX Partners and creative design agency Konel, Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) has announced their innovative sleepwear that allows users to “carry sleep” wherever they go.
The new system, which walks a line between healthcare and fashion, incorporates the concept of ”polyphasic sleep,” or segmented sleep in which the day’s sleep is divided into multiple sessions rather than taken all at once. The system provides an optimal sleep environment even outdoors by measuring autonomic nerves and stress levels based on heart rate and heart rate variability obtained by the wearable device….’ (via Spoon & Tamago)
‘The Tr*mp spike in racism, sexism, and hate — it’s the emotional foundation for the entire Make America Great Again movement, that nostalgia for when life in America was simpler and paler. But as soon as we began addressing it — boom! extinction burst…
Extinction burst is actually really simple. It’s when you have a behavior and a reward, and you withdraw the reward in order to change the behavior. When you do that, usually to change an undesirable behavior, the behavior itself increases in frequency and intensity for a short period of time until ultimately the subject changes the behavior and then that behavior goes extinct…
Now, extinction burst at the national level is much slower, but in this case we actually know very clearly what triggered it: it was Obama’s election in 2008. Sarah Palin, the Tea Party Movement, the birther movement, and ultimately MAGA. It is a 10-year tsunami of rage in the face of inevitable extinction.
This is why Republicans are still so angry. They know they know Tr*mp winning can’t stop it, and they know Tr*mp in office can’t stop it — they can feel the inevitable extinction of their own terrible beliefs.
At this point, the only thing that’ll stop it is if we let up. If you stop interfering with that undesirable behavior, it will go back to normal. So no, you’re not crazy; yes, you are doing the right thing; and yes, if you persevere, the extinction burst will end…
[T]he extinction burst concept explains why the reaction seems to be getting more extreme, from QAnon to an increased number of book bans to anti-trans laws to anti-abortion laws to Elon Musk doing Nazi salutes in public to openly expressed racism by many Republican politicians to January 6th to the 2025 Coup. We are seeing behavior that 15-20 years ago would have been almost unthinkable — now it’s daily….’ (Jason Kottke via Kottke)
‘To me, a constitutional crisis will arrive when the third branch — the judiciary — steps in to constrain the president’s powers, and the president openly ignores the court order. That’s the makings of a democratic breakdown.
In fact, it’s one of the more common ways for a democracy to fail: it’s pretty risky, when you think about it, to all be playing a game where the umpire has no inherent power and everything is just premised on the players trusting that the other players will do what the umpire says….’ (Gabe Fleisher via Wake Up to Politics)
‘Regardless of your immigration status, you have guaranteed rights under the Constitution. Learn more here about your rights as an immigrant, and how to express them….’ (ACLU)
Select from different scenarios including law enforcement questions, arrival of police or ICE at your home, being detained near the border, challenging a deportation order, etc.
‘The World War II-era “Simple Sabotage Field Manual” is full of steps that office workers can take to resist leadership….’ (Jason Koebler via 404media)
‘A fresh-voiced singer and Mick Jagger’s muse in the 1960s, she went on to experience more than her share of hard times before emerging triumphant….’ (via New York Times)
‘…[S]tep by step, all the things that made writing at the Times worthwhile for me were taken away. The Times eliminated the blog at the end of 2017. Here’s my last substantive blog post, which gives a good idea of the kind of thing I was no longer able to do once it was eliminated.
For a while I tried to make up for the loss of the blog with threads on Twitter. But even before Elon Musk Nazified the site, tweet threads were an awkward, inferior substitute for blog posts. So in 2021 I opened a Substack account, as a place to put technical material I couldn’t publish in the Times. Times management became very upset. When I explained to them that I really, really needed an outlet where I could publish more analytical writing with charts etc., they agreed to allow me to have a Times newsletter (twice a week), where I could publish the kind of work I had previously posted on my blog.
In September 2024 my newsletter was suddenly suspended by the Times. The only reason I was given was “a problem of cadence”: according to the Times, I was writing too often. I don’t know why this was considered a problem, since my newsletter was never intended to be published as part of the regular paper. Moreover, it had proved to be popular with a number of readers.
Also in 2024, the editing of my regular columns went from light touch to extremely intrusive. I went from one level of editing to three, with an immediate editor and his superior both weighing in on the column, and sometimes doing substantial rewrites before it went to copy. These rewrites almost invariably involved toning down, introducing unnecessary qualifiers, and, as I saw it, false equivalence. I would rewrite the rewrites to restore the essence of my original argument. But as I told Charles Kaiser, I began to feel that I was putting more effort—especially emotional energy—into fixing editorial damage than I was into writing the original articles. And the end result of the back and forth often felt flat and colorless.
One more thing: I faced attempts from others to dictate what I could (and could not) write about, usually in the form, “You’ve already written about that,” as if it never takes more than one column to effectively cover a subject….’ (– via Contrarian)
‘Google Maps, the most popular mapping software in the world, said on Monday evening that it will begin using new names for two prominent geographical features in North America, the Gulf of Mexico and Mount Denali. As soon as “they have been updated in official government sources,” Google said on the social media site X, it would change the names of these features to the Gulf of America and Mount McKinley.
The announcement comes a little less than a week after President Donald Trump signed an executive order to, in his words, “promote the extraordinary heritage of our Nation and ensure future generations of American citizens celebrate the legacy of our American heroes.” This included renaming the Gulf and the highest mountain in North America….’ (via Ars Technica)
‘For the past 48 hours, thousands of TikTok users have been posting and sharing videos ostensibly about “cute winter boots.”
“I see a lot of people on this app right now making plans to buy cute winter boots,” one TikToker posted on Thursday, “…but there’s a lot of things that you guys are missing.”
“Here’s some safety tips for going out in your cute winter boots,” another user posted, “you’re going to memorize your first amendment rights, because those are the rights you’re exercising when you’re out in your cute winter boots.”
The phrase “cute winter boots” is not about footwear. It’s a code phrase being used to discuss resistance to Trump and how to fight back against the draconian immigration policies his administration is enacting. Users talking about “cute winter boots” keeping people safe from “ice,” are referencing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “Cute winter boots” is just the latest example of algospeak, coded phrases and words aimed at subverting algorithmic filters.
As the U.S. government seeks to enact stricter controls over speech online, TikTok users are adopting more coded language specifically aimed at criticizing the government and alerting others to government surveillance of online spaces. For instance, the phrase “Senator, I’m Singaporean,” a quote uttered by TikTok’s CEO Shou Chew in response to Sen. Tom Cotton’s racist line of questioning implying that Chew was a Chinese government agent, is now frequently posted in the comments of videos by users seeking to warn others about the content they’re posting. The phrase “Senator, I’m Singaporean,” has come to mean that a video is not something that the government wants, or that they’re going to show this type of video to congress, a creator explained.
The videos discussing “cute winter boots” leverage the TikTok algorithm’s preference for product-focused content to amplify their reach. “What the algorithm likes is products,” said Diana, the admin of @/citiesbydiana, a TikTok account about urban planning. “It’s a way to talk about resisting the federal government in a way that will actually reach people.”
Many “cute winter boots” videos also include links to TikTok shop, but instead of selling boots they’re selling things like Night by Elie Wiesel, a book about the Holocaust, or items that may be useful to have in a protest, like protective gear. Some are promoting the date January 29th as a day of protest….’ (via TikTok)
‘TOKYO (AP) — A solitary sunfish at an aquarium in southwestern Japan lost its appetite, began banging into the side of the fish tank and appeared unwell days after the facility closed last month for renovations. As a last-ditch measure to save the popular fish, its keepers hung their uniforms and set up human cutouts outside the tank.
‘Ninety-two years ago this month, on Monday morning, January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler was appointed the 15th chancellor of the Weimar Republic. In one of the most astonishing political transformations in the history of democracy, Hitler set about destroying a constitutional republic through constitutional means. What follows is a step-by-step account of how Hitler systematically disabled and then dismantled his country’s democratic structures and processes in less than two months’ time—specifically, one month, three weeks, two days, eight hours, and 40 minutes. The minutes, as we will see, mattered….’ (Timothy W. Ryback via The Atlantic)
Please note: For awhile now, my typographic convention has been to spell the Orange Menace’s name in all lower case, reflecting the extent to which I feel he does not warrant the respect indicated when we capitalize proper names. Henceforth, I am shifting to referring to him as “Tr*mp”, because he is quite simply an obscenity. (Thanks to Tananarive Due)
‘In light of Tr*mp II’s predictably cruel and bonkers beginning, many people are asking: “What can I do now?” Here are 10 recommendations.
1. Protect the decent and hardworking members of your communities who are undocumented or whose parents are undocumented This is an urgent moral call to action. As Donald Tr*mp’s Ice begins roundups and deportations, many good people are endangered and understandably frightened.
One of Tr*mp’s new executive orders allows Ice to arrest undocumented immigrants at or near schools, places of worship, healthcare sites, shelters and relief centers – thereby deterring them from sending their kids to school or getting help they need.
If you trust your mayor or city manager, check in with their offices to see what they are doing to protect vulnerable families in your community. Join others in voluntary efforts to keep Ice away from schools, hospitals and shelters.
Organize and mobilize your community to support it as a sanctuary city, and to support your state as a sanctuary state. Tr*mp’s justice department is already launching investigations of cities and states that go against federal immigration orders, laying the groundwork for legal challenges to local laws and forcing compliance with the executive branch. Your voice and organizing could be helpful in fighting back.
I recommend you order these red cards from Immigrant Legal Resource Center and make them available in and around your community: Red Cards / Tarjetas Rojas | Immigrant Legal Resource Center | ILRC. You might also find these of use: Immigration Preparedness Toolkit | Immigrant Legal Resource Center | ILRC.
2. Protect LGBTQ+ members of your community Tr*mp may make life far more difficult for those who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and of other expansive identities through executive orders, changes in laws, alterations in civil rights laws or changes in how such laws are enforced.
His election and his rhetoric might also unleash hatefulness by bigoted people in your community.
I urge you to work with others in being vigilant against prejudice and bigotry, wherever it might break out. When you see or hear it, call it out. Join with others to stop it. If you trust your local city officials, get them involved. If you trust your local police, alert them as well.
3. Help protect officials in your community or state whom Tr*mp and his administration are targeting for vengeance Some may be low-level officials, such as election workers. If they do not have the means to legally defend themselves, you might help them or consider a GoFundMe campaign. If you hear of anyone who seeks to harm them, immediately alert law-enforcement officials.
4. Participate or organize boycotts of companies that are enabling the Tr*mp regime, starting with Elon Musk’s X and Tesla, and any companies that advertise on X or on Fox News Don’t underestimate the effectiveness of consumer boycotts. Corporations invest heavily in their brand names and the goodwill associated with them. Loud, boisterous, attention-getting boycotts can harm brand names and reduce the prices of corporations’ shares of stock.
5. To the extent you are able, fund groups that are litigating against Tr*mp Much of the action over the next months and years will be in the federal courts. The groups initiating legislation that I know and trust include the American Civil Liberties Union, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, the Center for Biological Diversity, the Environmental Defense Fund and Common Cause.
6. Spread the truth
Get news through reliable sources, and spread it. If you hear anyone spreading lies and Tr*mp propaganda, including local media, contradict them with facts and their sources.
7. Urge friends, relatives and acquaintances to avoid Tr*mp propaganda outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, X and, increasingly, Facebook and Instagram They are increasingly filled with hateful bigotry and toxic and dangerous lies. For some people, these propaganda sources can also be addictive; help the people you know wean themselves off them.
8. Push for progressive measures in your community and state Local and state governments have significant power. Join groups that are moving your city or state forward, in contrast to regressive moves at the federal level. Lobby, instigate, organize and fundraise for progressive legislators. Support progressive leaders.
9. Encourage worker action Most labor unions are on the right side – seeking to build worker power and resist repression. You can support them by joining picket lines and boycotts, and encouraging employees to organize in places you patronize.
10. Keep the faith. Do not give up on America Remember, Tr*mp won the popular vote by only one and a half points. By any historical measure, this was a squeaker. In the House, the Republicans’ five-seat lead is the smallest since the Great Depression. In the Senate, Republicans lost half of 2024’s competitive Senate races, including in four states Tr*mp won.
America has deep problems, to be sure. Which is why we can’t give up on it – or give up the fights for social justice, equal political rights, equal opportunity and the rule of law. The forces of Tr*mpian repression and neofascism would like nothing better than for us to give up. Then they’d win it all. But we cannot allow them to.
We will never give up….’ (Robert Reich via The Guardian)
‘We’ve talked about viruses as being an outlier that strains the definition of life. Viruses do not have the ability to reproduce on their own, but must harness a host cell of another species to replicate. But now there’s a new type of life form that is even more primitive than viruses called obelisks. Obelisks consist of a viroid-like disc of RNA, but they do not have the protein shell that viruses have. Their genetic information is completely distinct from any known species, putting them into a unique phylogenic group. They reproduce by infecting another cell, like viruses do. They haven’t yet been classified into the Tree of Life because scientists aren’t really sure where they belong. But obelisks have been found in the microbiome of humans, in the digestive tract. One type of obelisks studied infects the bacteria Streptococcus sanguinis, found in human mouths. The impact of obelisks in the human biome has not been determined, but they’ve been there all this time and just haven’t been found until recently….’ (via Neatorama)
Master instrumentalist and last surviving member of The Band
’A rustic figure with an expansive forehead and sprawling beard, Hudson was a classically trained performer and self-educated Greek chorus who spoke through piano, synthesizers, horns and his favored Lowrey organ. No matter the song, Hudson summoned just the right feeling or shading, whether the tipsy clavinet and wah-wah pedal on “Up on Cripple Creek,” the galloping piano on “Rag Mama Rag” or the melancholy saxophone on “It Makes No Difference.”…’ (via Boston Globe obituary)
‘Many in Europe avoid describing Russia’s sabotage campaign outside Ukraine as war because they’d rather not have to do anything in response….’ ( Phillips Payson O’Brien via The Atlantic)
‘The US military debates possible deployment on US soil under trump. trump has said he wants to use active duty U.S. troops to quell protests and round up immigrants. Will the military comply? (via POLITICO)
‘2024 was the year in which benchmark after benchmark for AI capabilities became as saturated as thePacific Ocean. We used to test AIs against a physics, biology, and chemistry benchmark called GPQA that was so difficult that even PhD students in the corresponding fields would generally score less than 70 percent. But the AIs now perform better than humans with relevant PhDs, so it’s not a good way to measure further progress.
On the Math Olympiad qualifier, too, the models now perform among top humans. A benchmark called the MMLU was meant to measure language understanding with questions across many different domains. The best models have saturated that one, too. A benchmark called ARC-AGI was meant to be really, really difficult and measure general humanlike intelligence — but o3 (when tuned for the task) achieves a bombshell 88 percent on it.
We can always create more benchmarks. (We are doing so — ARC-AGI-2 will be announced soon, and is supposed to be much harder.) But at the rate AIs are progressing, each new benchmark only lasts a few years, at best. And perhaps more importantly for those of us who aren’t machine learning researchers, benchmarks increasingly have to measure AI performance on tasks that humans couldn’t do themselves in order to describe what they are and aren’t capable of.
Yes, AIs still make stupid and annoying mistakes. But if it’s been six months since you were paying attention, or if you’ve mostly only playing around with the free versions of language models available online, which are well behind the frontier, you are overestimating how many stupid and annoying mistakes they make, and underestimating how capable they are on hard, intellectually demanding tasks…'(Kelsey Piper via Vox)
‘Facebook, Instagram, and Threads are ditching third-party fact-checkers in favor of a Community Notes program inspired by X, according to an announcement penned by Meta’s new Trump-friendly policy chief Joel Kaplan. Meta is also moving its trust and safety teams from California to Texas…
…Zuckerberg said he was inspired by X, where Musk has championed this approach since taking over….’ (Jess Weatherbed via The Verge)
I don’t think this actually has a whole lot to do with Zuckerberg’s or Meta’s commitment to free speech. What Zuckerberg and Meta have realized is the value, demonstrated by Trump, Musk, and MAGA antagonists, of saying that you’re “protecting free speech” and using it as cover for almost anything you want to do. For Meta, that means increasing engagement, decreasing government oversight and interference, and lowering their labor costs (through cutting their workforce and strengthening their bargaining position vs labor) — all things that will make their stock price go up and increase the wealth of their shareholders.
‘Pine needle tea is made from white pine needles chopped, added to boiling water, steeped, and strained. The drink can be enjoyed hot, iced, or blended with other herbal teas, notes registered dietitian nutritionist Kate Spurgin.
The Ohio Department of Natural Resources reports that the tea is rich in antioxidants, vitamin A, and vitamin C, which can boost immunity and soothe colds.
WebMD also notes that certain molecules in pine needles can bind to a specific receptor in the body that plays an important role in regulating metabolism….’ (Meredith Kile via Vice)
‘Greenland is not small. We would never disrespect Greenland by calling it small. But it’s not as big as it looks, flattened out, on the Mercator projection. It is not roughly the same size as Africa. It is my belief, however, that trump does not know this and believes that it is the size of Africa, which makes him fixated on it enough to threaten war—trade war or shooting war—with a NATO ally over its control.
The same applies to Canada, which trump also says he wants, and which also appears enormous on the Mercator projection….’ (Jim Newelll via Slate)
‘First, to keep in full view what I wrote earlier in “Is This What Democracy Looks Like?” – that trump’s candidacy was only viable because the justices he appointed to the Supreme Court: (1) disabled the insurrection clause of the 14th Amendment (which should otherwise have barred him from holding office again) and (2) shielded him from standing trial before the election for trying to overturn the 2020 results or for hoarding classified documents (which would have kept his criminality in full view of the electorate, and possibly rendered his candidacy a non-starter due to a jail sentence or loss of support). In any other country, we would understand that as part of an autocratic takeover, not a democratic victory.
Second, as this post will show, the results are best understood as a vote of no confidence in Democrats, not an embrace of trump or MAGA….’ (Michael Podhorzer via Weekend Reading)
‘Shame is what keeps us in check, or at least it should. It certainly used to. Trump, devoid of shame, has gone to great lengths to eviscerate that societal check….’ (Rex Huppke via USAToday Opinion)
‘Justice Juan Merchan, in an 18-page opinion and order, rejected a number of trump’s arguments against his sentencing, including that a president-elect is entitled to the same immunity as a president. He also rejected a motion to dismiss trump’s case in the interest of justice. Among the factors the court found weighing against dismissal was trump’s character: “Defendant’s disdain for the Third Branch of government, whether state or federal, in New York or elsewhere, is a matter of public record. Indeed, Defendant has gone to great lengths to broadcast on social media and other forums his lack of respect for judges, juries, grand juries and the justice system as a whole.” In a related scathing footnote, Merchan accused trump’s lawyers of engaging in “dangerous rhetoric” in attacking the integrity of the court.
The footnote might also signal something about the peculiar timing of the ruling, so close to trump’s reascent to the presidency and with no time left for any sentence to be carried out. In it, Merchan all but accuses trump’s attorneys, led by trump’s nominee for deputy attorney general, Todd Blanche, of attempting to intimidate the judge in their recent pleadings. The implication could be that Merchan is laying down a marker that he will go ahead with the sentencing at this late date to demonstrate that the judiciary will not be intimidated by the incoming president.
Merchan notes specifically that trump’s filings “accuse … this Court of engaging in ‘unlawful’ and ‘unconstitutional’ conduct,” adding that such terms are synonymous with “criminally punishable.” Merchan then cited Chief Justice John Roberts’ recent paean to the sanctity of judicial independence. “Attempts to intimidate judges for their rulings in cases are inappropriate and should be vigorously opposed.”…’ (Richard Hasen and Jeremy Stahl via Slate)
‘The business of measuring big waves is a tricky one. There’s multiple entities with their own calculation methods, there’s debate about where waves bottom out and where they peak, and there’s the endless stream of keyboard warriors speculating, arguing, and offering armchair analyses.
Unlike other, more objective world records, computing wave size is a byzantine science.
Nevertheless, there’s a new contender for the Guinness World Record of “Largest Wave Surfed,” as tossed into the ring by Alessandro “Alo” Slebir with his monster ride at Maverick’s from December 23rd, 2024. It’s speculated, potentially, that Alo’s wave measured 108 feet. And that would smash the current record held by Sebastian Steudtner and his 86-footer at Nazaré, Portugal in 2020….’ (via surfer.com.)
‘donald trump’s admirers are losing what remains of their minds because the President-elect said something that wasn’t cruel or insulting. On Sunday, trump posted an uncharacteristically presidential-sounding tribute to the late Jimmy Carter — one so well-written and lacking in ALL CAPS that it clearly came from someone else’s keyboard. The giveaways? Complete sentences, zero exclamation points, and not a single “WITCH HUNT!!!”…’ (Ellsworth Toohey via Boing Boing)
‘…[A] conviction still matters, even if a politician erases it. It’s a reality that says a lot about the meaning of a pardoned Jan. 6 conviction, not so much in the law books as in Washington’s public memory.
And it also explains why the ongoing Jan. 6 prosecutions aren’t the fool’s errand that some may think….’ (Michael Schaeffer via POLITICO)
This is my annual New Year’s post, a longstanding tradition here at FmH. Please let me know if you come across any broken links.
A while ago, I came across a Boston Globe article from January 1st that compiled various folkloric beliefs about what to do, eat, and avoid on New Year’s Day to bring good fortune for the year ahead. I’ve regretted not clipping and saving it ever since—though I tend to think about it around this time every year (grin). As a parent now, I’m especially interested in traditions that go beyond the typical New Year’s activities like binge drinking, watching bowl games, and making resolutions.
A web search brought me this, less elaborate than what I recall from the Globe but to the same point. It focuses on food-related traditions, which is interesting because, unlike most major holidays, New Year’s Day in 21st-century America doesn’t seem to revolve much around special foods (except, perhaps, the inevitable New Year’s resolution to lose weight). But…
Traditional New Year’s Foods
In many parts of the world, certain foods are considered good luck for the coming year. Many cultures believe that anything shaped like a ring is auspicious because it symbolizes the completion of a cycle. For example, in the Netherlands, eating donuts on New Year’s Day is thought to bring good fortune.
Black-Eyed Peas and Other Good Luck Foods
In the United States, a traditional New Year’s meal often includes black-eyed peas, sometimes served with hog jowls or ham. These peas are believed to bring prosperity, and the hog symbolizes abundance because of its forward-moving nature. Cabbage, another lucky food, is consumed on New Year’s Day in many cultures, symbolizing paper currency. Some regions also consider rice a lucky food for the new year.
In Scotland, New Year’s celebrations (Hogmanay) focus heavily on warmth, hospitality, and making a fresh start. Special foods enjoyed during Hogmanay include shortbread, oatcakes, ginger cordial, currant loaf, and scones. Another tradition involves “First Footing,” where the first person to cross your threshold at midnight should be a tall, dark-haired man, ideally bearing gifts like coal or whiskey to ensure prosperity for the coming year.
Here’s why we clink our glasses when we drink our New Year’s toasts, no matter where we are. Of course, sometimes the midnight cacophony is louder than just clinking glassware, to create a ‘devil-chasing din’.
New Year’s Traditions Around the World
Georgia (USA): Eating black-eyed peas and turnip greens on New Year’s Day symbolizes prosperity and wealth. The Southern dish Hoppin’ John, made with black-eyed peas, bacon, and rice, is also a popular New Year’s tradition.
Greece: On New Year’s Day, a sweetbread called Vasilopita is traditionally served with a silver coin baked inside. The person who receives the slice with the coin is thought to be blessed with good fortune.
Italy: Lentils, oranges, and olives are commonly served. Lentils represent wealth (because they resemble coins), oranges symbolize love, and olives are associated with prosperity.
Norway: In Norway, a traditional New Year’s meal might include lutefisk (dried cod), while in Pennsylvania, sauerkraut is said to bring good fortune.
Spain: At midnight, Spaniards eat twelve grapes—one for each stroke of the clock, each grape bringing luck for a specific month of the year.
Denmark: Jumping off a chair at midnight symbolizes leaping into the new year.
Brazil: People in Rio celebrate by receiving blessings from the “Mother-saints” of the Macumba and Candomblé religions. Afterward, they dive into the ocean, jumping over seven waves to ensure good luck for the year ahead.
Unlucky Foods and Rituals
There are also foods to avoid on New Year’s Day. Lobster, chicken, and cows are considered unlucky because of how they move—lobsters crawl backward, chickens scratch the ground, and cows move slowly, symbolizing setbacks. Read on for more foods superstitious people try to avoid on the holiday. (Mental Floss)
The crescent-shaped Copacabana beach… is the scene of an unusual New Year’s Eve ritual: mass public blessings by the mother-saints of the Macumba and Candomble sects. More than 1 million people gather to watch colorful fireworks displays before plunging into the ocean at midnight after receiving the blessing from the mother-saints, who set up mini-temples on the beach.
When taking the plunge, revelers are supposed to jump over seven waves, one for each day of the week.
This is all meant to honor Lamanjá, known as the “Mother of Waters” or “Goddess of the Sea.” Lamanjá protects fishermen and survivors of shipwrecks. Believers also like to throw rice, jewelry and other gifts into the water, or float them out into the sea in intimately crafted miniature boats, to please Lamanjá in the new year.
Ecuadorian families make scarecrows stuffed with newspaper and firecrackers and place them outside their homes. The dummies represent misfortunes of the prior year, which are then burned in effigy at the stroke of midnight to forget the old year. Bolivian families make beautiful little wood or straw dolls to hang outside their homes on New Year’s Eve to bring good luck.
China: People clean their homes to appease the Kitchen God and scare away evil spirits. Red paper cuttings are displayed in windows for good luck, and during the Dragon Dance, families open their doors to welcome in fortune.
India (Diwali): The festival of lights is celebrated with thousands of small clay lamps (dipa), attracting good fortune for the year.
Thailand: On New Year’s Day, people pour fragrant water over the hands of their elders as a mark of respect.
France: Eating a stack of pancakes is a New Year’s breakfast tradition.
Denmark: banging on friends’ doors to “smash in” the New Year, where it is also a good sign to find your doorstep heaped with broken dishes on New Year’s morning. Old dishes are saved all years to throw at your friends’ homes on New Year’s Eve. The more broken pieces you have, the greater the number of new friends you will have in the forthcoming twelve months.
Japan: In Japan, people cleanse their souls by listening to a gong toll 108 times—one for each sin.
Puerto Rico: At midnight, people throw water out of their windows to rid the house of evil spirits.In China, homes are cleaned spotless to appease the Kitchen God, and papercuttings of red paper are hung in the windows to scare away evil spirits who might enter the house and bring misfortune. Large papier mache dragon heads with long fabric bodies are maneuvered through the streets during the Dragon Dance festival, and families open their front doors to let the dragon bring good luck into their homes.
going in the front door and out the back door at midnight in Ireland.
making sure the First Footer, the first person through your door in the New Year in Scotland, is a tall dark haired visitor.
water out the window at midnight in Puerto Rico rids the home of evil spirits.
cleanse your soul in Japan at the New Year by listening to a gong tolling 108 times, one for every sin
it is Swiss good luck to let a drop of cream fall on the floor on New Year’s Day.
Belgian farmers wish their animals a Happy New Year for blessings.
In Germany and Austria, lead pouring” (das Bleigießen) is an old divining practice using molten lead like tea leaves. A small amount of lead is melted in a tablespoon (by holding a flame under the spoon) and then poured into a bowl or bucket of water. The resulting pattern is interpreted to predict the coming year. For instance, if the lead forms a ball (der Ball), that means luck will roll your way. The shape of an anchor (der Anker) means help in need. But a cross (das Kreuz) signifies death. This is also a practice in parts of Finland, apparently.
El Salvadoreans crack an egg in a glass at midnight and leave it on the windowsill overnight; whatever figure it has made in the morning is indicative of one’s fortune for the year.
Some Italians like to take part in throwing pots, pans, and old furniture from their windows when the clock strikes midnight. This is done as a way for residents to rid of the old and welcome in the new. It also allows them to let go of negativity. This custom is also practiced in parts of South Africa, the Houston Press adds.
In Colombia, walk around with an empty suitcase on New Year’s Day for a year full of travel.
In the Philippines, all the lights in the house are turned on at midnight, and previously opened windows, doors and cabinets throughout the house are suddenly slammed shut, to ward off evil spirits for the new year.
In Russia a wish is written down on a piece of paper. It is burned and the ash dissolved in a glass of champagne, which should be downed before 12:01 am if the wish is to come true.
Romanians celebrate the new year by wearing bear costumes and dancing around to ward off evil
In Turkey, pomegranates are thrown down from the balconies at midnight for good luck.
is a famous cult classic in Germany and several other European countries, it is virtually unknown in the English-speaking world, including Britain, its birthplace.” (Watch on Youtube, 11 min.)
The early Christian Church was initially opposed to New Year’s celebrations, viewing them as pagan rituals. It wasn’t until the Middle Ages that the tradition of celebrating January 1st as the start of the new year became more widely accepted. Documentation of observance of the new year dates back at least 4000 years to the Babylonians, who also made the first new year’s resolutions (reportedly voews to return borrowed farm equipment were very popular), although their holiday was observed at the vernal equinox. The Babylonian festivities lasted eleven days, each day with its own particular mode of celebration. The traditional Persian Norouz festival of spring continues to be considered the advent of the new year among Persians, Kurds and other peoples throughout Central Asia, and dates back at least 3000 years, deeply rooted in Zooastrian traditions.Modern Bahá’í’s celebrate Norouz (”Naw Ruz”) as the end of a Nineteen Day Fast. Rosh Hashanah (”head of the year”), the Jewish New Year, the first day of the lunar month of Tishri, falls between September and early October. Muslim New Year is the first day of Muharram, and Chinese New Year falls between Jan. 10th and Feb. 19th of the Gregorian calendar.
The classical Roman New Year’s celebration was also in the spring although the calendar went out of synchrony with the sun. January 1st became the first day of the year by proclamation of the Roman Senate in 153 BC, reinforced even more strongly when Julius Caesar established what came to be known as the Julian calendar in 46 BC. The early Christian Church condemned new year’s festivities as pagan but created parallel festivities concurrently. New Year’s Day is still observed as the Feast of Christ’s Circumcision in some denominations. Church opposition to a new year’s observance reasserted itself during the Middle Ages, and Western nations have only celebrated January 1 as a holidy for about the last 400 years. The custom of New Year’s gift exchange among Druidic pagans in 7th century Flanders was deplored by Saint Eligius, who warned them, “[Do not] make vetulas, [little figures of the Old Woman], little deer or iotticos or set tables [for the house-elf] at night or exchange New Year gifts or supply superfluous drinks [another Yule custom].” (Wikipedia)
The tradition of the New Year’s Baby signifying the new year began with the Greek tradition of parading a baby in a basket during the Dionysian rites celebrating the annual rebirth of that god as a symbol of fertility. The baby was also a symbol of rebirth among early Egyptians. Again, the Church was forced to modify its denunciation of the practice as pagan because of the popularity of the rebirth symbolism, finally allowing its members to cellebrate the new year with a baby although assimilating it to a celebration of the birth of the baby Jesus. The addition of Father Time (the “Old Year”) wearing a sash across his chest with the previous year on it, and the banner carried or worn by the New Year’s Baby, immigrated from Germany. Interestingly, January 1st is not a legal holiday in Israel, officially because of its historic origins as a Christian feast day.
Auld Lang Syne
Auld Lang Syne (literally ‘old long ago’ in the Scottish dialect) is sung or played at the stroke of midnight throughout the English-speaking world (and then there is George Harrison’s “Ring Out the Old”). Versions of the song have been part of the New Year’s festivities since the 17th century but Robert Burns was inspired to compose a modern rendition, which was published after his death in 1796. Its lyrics, asking whether old friends should be forgotten, have become synonymous with New Year’s celebrations. (It took Guy Lombardo, however, to make it popular…)
Brazilian: Boas Festas e Feliz Ano Novo means “Good Parties and Happy New Year”
Chinese: Chu Shen Tan Xin Nian Kuai Le (thanks, Jeff)
Czechoslavakia: Scastny Novy Rok
Dutch: Gullukkig Niuw Jaar
Finnish: Onnellista Uutta Vuotta
French: Bonne Annee
German: Prosit Neujahr
Greek: Eftecheezmaenos o Kaenooryos hronos
Hebrew: L’Shannah Tovah Tikatevu
Hindi: Niya Saa Moobaarak
Irish (Gaelic): Bliain nua fe mhaise dhuit
Italian: Buon Capodanno
Khmer: Sua Sdei tfnam tmei
Laotian: Sabai dee pee mai
Polish: Szczesliwego Nowego Roku
Portuguese: Feliz Ano Novo
Russian: S Novim Godom
Serbo-Croatian: Scecna nova godina
Spanish: Feliz Ano Nuevo
Swedish: Ha ett gott nytt år
Turkish: Yeni Yiliniz Kutlu Olsun
Vietnamese: Cung-Chuc Tan-Xuan
If you speak any other languages, feel free to share a New Year’s greeting in the comments!
Which of these customs appeal to you? Are they done in your family, or will you try to adopt any of them? However you’re going to celebrate, my warmest wishes for the year to come… and eat hearty!
[thanks to Bruce Umbaugh (here or here) for original assistance]
‘Congratulations to our nation’s most prestigious media outlets, who are currently locked in a thrilling race to see who can normalize trump’s fascism with the most cowardly headlines!…’ (Ellsworth Toohey via Boing Boing)
‘On the clear, cold morning of December 29, 1890, on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, three U.S. soldiers tried to wrench a valuable Winchester away from a young Lakota man. He refused to give up his hunting weapon. It was the only thing standing between his family and starvation, and he had no faith it would be returned to him as the officer promised: he had watched as soldiers had marked other confiscated valuable weapons for themselves.
As the men struggled, the gun fired into the sky.
Before the echoes died, troops fired a volley that brought down half of the Lakota men and boys the soldiers had captured the night before, as well as a number of soldiers surrounding the Lakotas. The uninjured Lakota men attacked the soldiers with knives, guns they snatched from wounded soldiers, and their fists.
As the men fought hand to hand, the Lakota women who had been hitching their horses to wagons for the day’s travel tried to flee along the nearby road or up a dry ravine behind the camp. Stationed on a slight rise above the camp, soldiers turned rapid-fire mountain guns on them. Then, over the next two hours, troops on horseback hunted down and slaughtered all the Lakotas they could find: about 250 men, women, and children.
Fifteen years ago, I wrote a book about the Wounded Knee Massacre, and what I learned still keeps me up at night. But it is not December 29 that haunts me.
‘Unsolvable problems, many-dimensional wheels and new prime numbers are among new mathematical discoveries this year…’ (Clara Moskowitz via Scientific American)
‘With President-elect donald trump once again making noise about seizing Greenland from Denmark, MSNBC columnist Hayes Brown decided to examine the origins of trump’s years-long fixation on buying the large ice-covered territory.
After reviewing past reports on trump national security officials’ interactions with him during his first term about Greenland, Hayes finds that trump seems to simply covet Greenland because it’s a large piece of land.
In fact, trump is directly quoted by reporters Susan Glasser and Peter Baker as saying of Greenland, “I love maps. And I always said: ‘Look at the size of this. It’s massive. That should be part of the United States.’”
Taking stock of this, Hayes comes away unimpressed with trump’s geopolitical acumen. “As tends to be the case with trump, the real donald trump answer is both entirely on-brand and deeply weird,” writes Brown. “Even if trump really did come up with the idea of buying Greenland himself as he claimed, the motivation of ‘it’s massive’ doesn’t speak highly of his strategic vision for the United States — or his own business sense as a developer.”
Hayes then adds that, were trump to get serious about taking Greenland for the United States, it would likely not end well for him.
“It’s especially fitting that a real estate developer whose properties have declared bankruptcy multiple times is besotted with this particular landmass,” he writes. “Greenland is one of the oldest bait-and-switch real estate cons in the book, named to encourage settlement on what is a mostly barren expanse of ice. And, as any cartography fan would tell you, the way Greenland looks on most common maps is extremely misleading thanks to the distortion needed to make a globe flat. Instead, the island — while still huge — isn’t quite as massive as trump seems to think.”…’ (Brad Reed via Raw Story)
‘Five years ago, the science fiction writer Cory Doctorow published a short story whose plot might seem eerily similar to followers of the past few weeks’ news.
In Radicalized, one of four novellas comprising a science fiction novel of the same name, Doctorow charts the journey of a man who joins an online forum for fathers whose partners or children have been denied healthcare coverage by their insurers after his wife is diagnosed with breast cancer and denied coverage for an experimental treatment. Slowly, over the course of the story, the men of the forum become radicalized by their grief and begin plotting – and executing – murders of health insurance executives and politicians who vote against universal healthcare….’ ( Cecilia Nowell via The Guardian)
‘Dec. 21 marks the winter solstice in the Northern Hemisphere. It’s the shortest day of the year, and it’s rooted in astronomical and religious significance.
Many early cultures celebrated this as the day the sun “came back,” commencing a period of longer days. Here are five things to know about the winter solstice….’ (Kathryn Whitbourne via HowStuffWorks)
The Shortest Day
So the Shortest Day came and the year died
And everywhere down the centuries of the snow‐white world
‘Democrats may be in the minority, but they are not yet an opposition.
What’s the difference?
An opposition would use every opportunity it had to demonstrate its resolute stance against the incoming administration. It would do everything in its power to try to seize the public’s attention and make hay of the president-elect’s efforts to put lawlessness at the center of American government….’ (Janelle Bouie via New York Times)
‘The startling photo [above] was reportedly taken between Cornfields and Greasewood, Arizona on the Navajo Nation. After generating a buzz in the cryptozoology community, an individual named Lottie came forward to report that her aunt snapped the photo two years ago….’ (via (Boing Boing)
Reporter finds GOP-led states are hiding abortion ban death toll
‘Some Republican-led states that passed near-total abortion bans have mysteriously stopped collecting statistics on maternal mortality over the last couple of years — and some observers suspect it’s not a coincidence, wrote Susan Rinkunas for MSNBC.
This comes as reports begin to trickle in of cases of women who have died after being denied abortion care in dangerous pregnancies, despite every state with an abortion ban ostensibly having exceptions for the life of the mother — women of color being the bulk of these cases….’ (via Raw Story)
‘Educator Arum Natzorkhang quite seamlessly pronounced every iteration of certain English swear words as they evolved from 5000 BCE to 2024 CE into the words we know today….’ (via Laughing Squid)
‘A group of the world’s leading biologists have called for an immediate halt on a technology you’ve probably never even heard of — but is so dangerous, they say, that it could upend the order life itself on this planet, if not wipe it out.
In a nearly three-hundred page technical report published this month, the scientists describe the horrifyingly existential risks posed by what’s known as mirror life: synthetic organisms whose DNA structures are a mirror image to that of all known natural organisms….’ (Frank Landymore via Futurism)
‘The Geminid meteor shower, one of the brightest and most prolific meteor showers of the year, peaks overnight on December 13 and 14. As the winter nights grow longer and colder, the celestial phenomenon is just the excuse we needed to bundle up and get outside.
But this year, an almost full moon will compete with the annual spectacle of shooting stars. Called the “Cold Moon” or “Long Night Moon,” December’s full moon inconveniently falls on the 15th of the month—meaning the bright light will make it harder to see the Geminids, and making it all the more important to plan ahead and find a slice of darkness near you.
With an unobscured dark sky, you could typically see between 100 and 120 shooting stars per hour as Earth passes through the densest part of the Geminids debris trail. While visibility becomes more difficult with city lights or a full moon, you can still expect to see 10 to 20 per hour this year….'(via Condé Nast Traveler)
Culture is humanity’s way of making sense of the world, expressed through language, traditions, and beliefs. Ancient customs—like the Pirahã people living without past or future tense, or the Inca communities risking their lives to rebuild a grass bridge—reflect the beauty and diversity of human creativity. Yet, globalization and economic pressures threaten these traditions. As languages vanish, villages depopulate, and artisans abandon their crafts, we lose not just skills but unique ways of understanding life.
The custodians of these traditions—whether a night watchman in Sweden, a soy sauce brewer in Japan, or a pasta maker in Sardinia—are inseparable from their crafts. Their quiet devotion reminds us of the profound value in dedicating oneself to something enduring. In a homogenizing world, their stories rekindle wonder and show us that humanity is defined by its beliefs, and the richness of life lies in the diversity of its expression.
By preserving these cultural wonders, we honor not just the past but the whimsical, soulful essence of what makes us human. (viaThe Next Big Idea Club)
‘MeMind has connected 10,000 at-risk people with mental health treatment, contributing to a 9% drop in suicides….’ (Lillian Perlmutter via Rest of World)
‘The rate of medical assistance in dying – also known as euthanasia – has grown in Canada for the fifth straight year, albeit at a slower pace.
The country released its fifth annual report since legalising assisted dying in 2016, which for the first time included data on the ethnicity of those seeking euthanasia.
Around 15,300 people underwent assisted dying last year, accounting for 4.7% of deaths in the country. Canada lawmakers are currently seeking to expand access to euthanasia to cover people with mental illnesses by 2027….’ (via BBC)
‘The renowned poet Nikki Giovanni has died. Giovanni died on Monday, Dec. 9, following her third cancer diagnosis, according to a statement from friend and author Renée Watson. She was 81. “We will forever be grateful for the unconditional time she gave to us, to all her literary children across the writerly world,” said poet Kwame Alexander in the statement.
Giovanni published her first poetry collection, Black Feeling Black Talk, in 1968. It established her as an emerging figure out of the Black Arts Movement. In it, Giovanni writes about the intersections of love, politics, loneliness and race. Her language is sometimes spare and longing, other times dense and righteous. The final lines in “Word Poem” read, “let’s build / what we become /when we dream.”…’ (Andrew Limbong via NPR)
‘Google on Monday announced Willow, its latest, greatest quantum computing chip. The speed and reliability performance claims Google’s made about this chip were newsworthy in themselves, but what really caught the tech industry’s attention was an even wilder claim tucked into the blog post about the chip.
Google Quantum AI founder Hartmut Neven wrote in his blog post that this chip was so mind-boggling fast that it must have borrowed computational power from other universes.
Ergo the chip’s performance indicates that parallel universes exist and “we live in a multiverse.”…’ (Julie Bort via TechCrunch)
‘Given the degeneration of the Republican Party into a cult of personality, it is not at all unthinkable that if trump is still physically fit in 2028 that he and JD Vance could switch places on the GOP ticket, with the goal of having Vance elected and then stepping down to allow trump to return to the helm. There is nothing unconstitutional on its face about such a scheme. And there is no reason to think trump’s MAGA base would raise any objections to keeping their dear leader in power….’ (Bill Blum via Alternet.org)
‘It’s impossible to get catchy songs out of your head. That’s why we brought together music psychologist Dr. Kelly Jakubowski and audio engineers to create the Earworm Eraser – a scientifically-engineered track designed to get rid of earworms for good.The Earworm Eraser audio track works by incorporating scientific principles of music and the brain to disrupt the neural patterns that keep a catchy tune stuck in one’s head. The track features a series of audio patterns and rhythmic structures that are carefully designed to break the loop of the song in the listener’s mind.
‘Journalists who’ve lived through freedom-of-the-press-hating dictators who have some words of warning for us here in Murica: with trump in office.
The Nieman Foundation at Harvard asked journalists from places like Hungary, the Philippines, and other spots where democracy’s taken a few kicks to the teeth what they think about our current situation.
Remember when trump sued CBS News for $10 billion because he was mad about how they edited a Kamala Harris interview? Or when he threatened to yank broadcast licenses from media outlets that hurt his feelings? Our international journalist friends say these are the early warning signs:
“American colleagues, prepare for the worst,” writes Glenda Gloria, editor of Rappler, a news site in the Philippines whose staff endured years of personal attack and legal torment from the Rodrigo Duterte administration. “If it doesn’t happen, you’ll be happy to be proven wrong. If it happens, it could happen fast.”
And when trump’s out there at rallies saying things like, “Somebody would have to shoot through the fake news to get to me,” journalists who’ve seen their colleagues actually get murdered think it’s smart to take him at his word…’ (via Boing Boing)
‘Over and over again during the first reign of donald trump, weary students of strongman corruption and late imperial decline warned that “there is no bottom.” They were proven right, of course, and we’re about to experience an accelerated lurch into authoritarian chaos that makes the whole notion of a bottom seem quaint. Yet, with all those provisos fixed clearly in mind, it’s also safe to say that Kash Patel, hurriedly tapped over Thanksgiving weekend via the president-elect’s Truth Social account as the incoming director of the FBI, represents a significant signpost in the direction of the deeper chasms of the bottom….’ (Chris Lehmann via The Nation)
‘Joe Biden has now provided every Republican—and especially those running for Congress in 2026—with a ready-made heat shield against any criticism about trump’s pardons, past or present. Biden has effectively neutralized pardons as a political issue, and even worse, he has inadvertently given power to trump’s narrative about the unreliability of American institutions. …’ ( Tom Nichols via The Atlantic)
This morning, I awakened realizing that Follow Me Here is a quarter-century old. I misremembered and thought it was actually twenty-five years to the day since my first post, but looking back I actually opened the blog on November 15, 1999. Too bad, it would have been fitting if the anniversary were Thanksgiving Day! It has been a tumultuous quarter-century and also a third of my life. My career has grown and deepened as has my marriage. We have raised two children, the younger of whom was born just the year before, 1998. (Neither my wife, my son, or my daughter seem to be very interested in this pet project of mine although they certainly do not resent it and FmH has never been an intrusion or an interference in our family life, I would venture to say.) I am still in the same home I lived in when I started FmH, and it is still the same home on the web.
I don’t have the time right now to go back and read through the twenty-five years of posts but you can dive in if you like. Best is by simply going to the URL https://followmehere.com/yyyy/mm/, for any year yyyy and month mm. Or, in the righthand sidebar, navigate back month by month by the calendar, more painstakingly. I started out using the Blogger platform and migrated several years later to WordPress, which I still use. The Blogger posts, with a lot more hardcoded HTML, were imported into the WordPress corpus so I am not sure exactly when the transition occurred. I have played not so much with design tweaks through the years, changing the style of the attribution of each post and varying the page themes. But, in WordPress, whenever I change the theme it applies the change retroactively to the entire body of posts, so you won’t see the actual historical appearance of old pages, if you care. Maybe the Wayback Machine could help, I haven’t looked.
I have played a little more with the succinctness of the posts. Once in awhile but not too often, posts like this one have reflected on the meaning and purpose of blogging in a meta- sort of way. As you can tell by the name of the blog, Follow Me Here has always been mostly a chronicle of my reading on the web. I make no claims that it is anything more than a ‘weblog’, which is the original nomenclature for ‘blog’ if you weren’t aware. For a long time I insisted on using the full term but long ago ceded that battle to popular culture. Sometimes I have simply posted links to interesting content although it has usually been more than a tumblelog or microblog. At other times I have written original reactions or done a brain dump prompted by a link. Most often recently, as I am sure you have noticed, it has been mostly curating blockquotes, perhaps with a pithy comment at the bottom. While some readers over the years have pressed me to do more commentary, I am really more interested in trusting you to have your own reactions to things I point you to.
Especially with my attention to the deterioration in American political life after bearing witness to 9/11, the Bush Jr administration and its risible War on Terror, and of course the current Orange Menace and Orange Menace Resurgent, I have more than had my fill of self-important punditry and have no intention to add to that cacophony, although I am certainly opinionated and you probably do not read FmH unless your your worldview and mine intersect well. There have been times when posts have been more conflictual and provoked dismissive or hostile comments. I have always delighted in keeping comments turned on for all posts, although reader responses are few and far between these days… but always welcome and encouraged. (It is good that the WordPress commenting system is so functional that the moderator can readily eliminate imbecilic spam, I would add!)
The weblogging phenomenon has had its ebbs and flows, of course, over these years. It hasn’t mattered to me, since I haven’t cared about being faddish and haven’t been overly insecure about an audience’s flagging attention or size. I honestly don’t know what makes the difference about how much attention a blog attracts. It has been the furthest thing from my mind to do any search engine optimization, for example, and I have never had the slightest intention to monetize this site. This is pure and simple a ‘hobby’. As such, I cannot even take tax deductions for the associated expenses.
As weblogging has waxed and waned as a cultural phenomenon, I have been honored to be a peer to other thoughtful blogs over the years, few of which (with the notable exception of Kottke, around about as long but far more widely read) are active anymore. I think it was a site called Wood S Lot, with whom I had a friendly rivalry although he was far more erudite than I have been, that I felt the most kinship. And I felt close to another blogging pioneer, Rebecca Blood, who wrote an early book about the history of blogging and the cadre of ancestral sites that included FmH. I would also like to give a nod to another blogger for the ages, John Gruber and his Daring Fireball. The world of tech blogging that he inhabits (dominates?) rarely casts its shadow on FmH’s content, although, Mac geek in me, I do follow the field in my spare time.
Apart from the wild ride of the last quarter-century’s politics, FmH posts reflect other areas that grab me in my reading and thinking. At times I have tried to examine and explain new developments in my areas of professional interest, psychiatry and neuropsychiatry, although that is sort of a busman’s holiday, since that is what consumes me during my professional activities. I am a clinician, administrator, participate a little in research, but at this stage in my career I increasingly enjoy my teaching — students in mental health fields, younger colleagues, my patients, their families, and the lay public who (I am sure you will not disagree) need to understand human psychology and mental health problems better so we can remove impediments to addressing human suffering as best we can on an interpersonal and societal level. Over the FmH years, largely coinciding with the arc of my career, I have been so pained to see the decreasing dominance of dedicating oneself to service and the alleviation of suffering in my field. As Allen Ginsburg said, “And what’s the work? To ease the pain of living. Everything else, drunken dumbshow.” I have always believed in living a value-driven life as my way of addressing the problem of being, and like to bring others along for the ride. One of the most cherished compliments bestowed on my work at FmH was the late writer (and later friend) Steve Silberman‘s comment that he found me to be the “Oliver Sacks of blogging”, which I accepted with gratitude although I am too humble to accept that mantle. So, at least every once in awhile, I will probably go off on a fascinating psychological topic. On the other hand, this is anything but a psychiatric blog. I have read a few of these and they seem far to lackluster, narrow and constrained for my taste. And, of course, sometimes self-serving.
Before it became a kitschy term, I also aspired to posting “edgy” topics here, In the sidebar, I have always proclaimed, “You can only tell the shapes of things by looking at their edges…” In 20th and 21st century hubris, we have tended to think we know what’s what, no matter the topic, which strikes me as limited and pitiful at times. Some of my posts simply point to the mysterious events or phenomena in the world that we do not understand. It is as if I am simply saying, “Anomalous events happen. Get used to it. Don’t filter them out.” This is also in the service of a mindful approach to life, without simply trying to impose too much meaning. Even though I have always thought of myself as intellectually curious. On the other hand, another type of blog this emphatically is not, as you know by reading it, is one of the credulous sites that explore paranormal, supernatural, or cryptozoological topics exclusively. That’s just the spicing here.
As far as cultural criticism goes, I am an inveterate cultural consumer, although I am stuck way in the past, as befitting my age. The blog may at times reflect my love of the Beat poets, outsider art, and musical trends hearkening back to the counterculture of the ’60’s and ’70’s, as well as jazz and classical music. Apart from the reading I do in my professional field, I go for lowbrow and contemporary fiction. Some of that creeps into the things I log on FmH, I think. Cultural experiences for me are a nuanced balance between challenge and reverence for the past, so sometimes if I take note of a new, more disruptive, cultural trend, you can feel me rolling my eyes or shaking my head between the lines. Old fuddy duddy, maybe? But proud of it, and, yes, decrying the decline of western civilization. Also, when I am politically dispirited and particularly now as the authoritarian threat looms, I am more attracted to expressing resistance and rebellion in broader cultural terms.
Certainly, the frequency and intensity of my posting has fallen off. So, probably, has my readership, although I do not follow the statistics with any regularity. I think I am getting at most dozens, rarely hundreds, of visitors per day. But you few can count on continuing to find my awed, cynical, irreverent, enraged, wondering tone here, and I am immensely grateful you are following me here. To the next twenty-five years?
A special nod to my lifelong friend abby, who has enthusiastically supported my effort and dedicatedly read Follow Me Here since day one, as well as pointing me toward numerous pertinent items to post. (Hmmm, especially now that he is retired from his career, should I make him a co-author of Follow me Here?)
‘The word “kakistocracy” is trending as Trump makes cabinet picks – but it’s not the first time it’s been used to describe lousy leadership…’ ( Matthew Cantor via The Guardian)
‘Demure’, as used in a novel and divergent way, is apparently dictionary.com’s word of the year. Sorry, but this seems to me to be another sign of the decline of western civilization. (via CNN)
‘Some of the orcas off North America’s west coast have taken to wearing dead salmon on their heads, resurrecting a curious trend that was first reported in the 1980s.
Local photographers noticed the salmon-wearing orcas last month – and so did researchers. Deborah Giles, science and research director for the non-profit organisation Wild Orca, was observing the marine mammals in South Puget Sound in south-west Washington a few weeks ago. “We saw one with a fish on its head,” she says. “So that was fun – it’s been a while since I’ve personally seen it.”
We still don’t understand why the orcas – or killer whales – behave this way. “Honestly, your guess is as good as mine,” says Giles. But that doesn’t mean we will never find an explanation.
This trend seems to be specific to the west coast orcas, and given their long lifespan, it could have spread through the same whales that wore fish as hats decades earlier. “It does seem possible that some individuals that experienced [the behaviour the] first time around may have started it again,” says Andrew Foote at the University of Oslo, Norway….’ (Colin Barras via New Scientist)
‘trump hasn’t been sworn into office yet but, as one U.S. senator recently said, he’s already delaying his legal responsibilities when it comes to signing an ethics agreement that has to be on file before a presidential transition takes place.
The trump transition’s “unprecedented delay” is causing an issue with access to government records and even cybersecurity assistance, according to Politico.
For example, according to Politico, trump’s pick to head the Department of Health and Human Services has been “rebuffed” in efforts to communicate with outgoing government officials.
“Advisers to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. reached out to the Health and Human Services Department multiple times after donald trump tapped him to lead the massive agency, hoping to jumpstart coordination before his takeover in late January. They were rebuffed,” according to the report. “Kennedy’s inability to communicate with the agency he may soon manage, confirmed by an administration official with knowledge of the episodes granted anonymity to describe internal deliberations, is just one consequence of the president-elect’s continued foot-dragging on signing the standard trio of ethics and transparency agreements with the federal government — something h donald trump is team pledged to do shortly after the election.”
That’s not the only thing that’s being held up by the “standoff,” the report states.
“It also means they can’t access cybersecurity support or secure email servers for transition-related work, or request FBI background checks for their nominees,” it says. “Amid an uptick in hacking this year — including breaches of trump’s own team as recently as August — experts are alarmed that the transition is eschewing federal cybersecurity support, particularly as they begin to receive intelligence briefings.”
The report further states that, “until the standoff is resolved, trump’s Cabinet nominees will gain no more insight than the general public into the workings of the departments they’re supposed to run.”…’ (David McAfee via Raw Story)
‘It’s thought that 4 per cent of the global population is plagued by a persistent, rumbling sound in their ears – the source of which is a total enigma. Ellie Harrison speaks to the people who’ve been trying to get to the bottom of a noise that has been wreaking havoc for many years…
The earliest reliable reports of the Hum date from the Seventies, when numerous Bristol residents wrote letters to the Bristol Evening Post to complain about hearing the noise, which has since been compared to the sound of an idling truck or thunder – and is different from tinnitus. Some Bristolians still hear it to this day, and it’s been reported in places around the world, from the suburbs of Tokyo to Taos in New Mexico and Largs in Scotland. It’s left many “hearers” anxious and depressed, and has been linked to several suicides. Over the years, many theories have been posed and investigations conducted, but there is no clear consensus on the cause…’ ( Ellie Harrison via The Independent)
‘Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), a former constitutional law professor, said he suspects trump doesn’t actually want a constitutional crisis ― but also doesn’t care if he triggers one if that’s what it takes to get a loyalist like Gaetz running the Department of Justice. “He wants what he wants, and he’s not going to allow the Constitution to stand in the way,” Raskin told HuffPost. “But you know, he has happened upon, really, one of the Senate’s core functions.”
Raskin is optimistic that Republican senators, who this week elected Sen. John Thune of South Dakota as their incoming majority leader, will stand up for their institutional prerogatives. Thune has said he wouldn’t discard the filibuster, for example, and offered only a half-hearted endorsement of allowing recess appointments. “I don’t think, in the final analysis, that members of Congress are going to surrender our essential constitutional functions,” Raskin said.
Former Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, meanwhile, could see no good outcome if the choice is between installing the likes of Gaetz into the top law enforcement job in the country or bringing on a constitutional crisis. “I don’t even know what the difference is, what you just described. They both sound like the same thing,” Pelosi said.
For his part, Thune suggested Thursday evening in a Fox News interview that if trump did not have the votes to get someone like Gaetz through the Senate, then he also did not have the votes he would need to have the chamber agree to an adjournment.
“The same Republicans… that might have a problem voting for somebody under regular order probably also have a problem voting to put the Senate into recess,” Thune said….’ (via HuffPost Latest News)
‘What will you do if men in uniforms arrive in your neighborhood, and an immigrant neighbor gets a knock on the door and is led away in handcuffs? Or if the uniforms are not police uniforms, and there is not even a knock?…’ ( Rick Perlstein via The American Prospect)
‘Long-term zinc creep-induced failure in the 57-year-old telescope’s cable spelter sockets was the root cause of the telescope’s collapse, the report says. Sockets filled with zinc held in place a set of cables suspending the telescope’s main platform over the reflector dish. Gradually the zinc lost its hold on the cables and allowed several of them to pull out, leading to the collapse of the platform into the reflector. …’ (via National Academies)
In the 1920s, the Ku Klux Klan was everywhere, riding an “America First” slogan into the mainstream. They felt unstoppable, until people stopped them. (via dansinker.com)
‘A plan to harness grassroots energy—and to hold Democratic leaders accountable…’ (Ezra Levin and Leah Greenberg via The Nation)
Here’s why we clink our glasses when we drink our New Year’s toasts, no matter where we are. Of course, sometimes the midnight cacophony is louder than just clinking glassware, to create a ‘devil-chasing din’.
In Germany and Austria, lead pouring” (das Bleigießen) is an old divining practice using molten lead like tea leaves. A small amount of lead is melted in a tablespoon (by holding a flame under the spoon) and then poured into a bowl or bucket of water. The resulting pattern is interpreted to predict the coming year. For instance, if the lead forms a ball (der Ball), that means luck will roll your way. The shape of an anchor (der Anker) means help in need. But a cross (das Kreuz) signifies death. This is also a practice in parts of Finland, apparently.
…Did anyone manage to catch the Geminids this weekend? Sky conditions by me precluded.
Culture is humanity’s way of making sense of the world, expressed through language, traditions, and beliefs. Ancient customs—like the Pirahã people living without past or future tense, or the Inca communities risking their lives to rebuild a grass bridge—reflect the beauty and diversity of human creativity. Yet, globalization and economic pressures threaten these traditions. As languages vanish, villages depopulate, and artisans abandon their crafts, we lose not just skills but unique ways of understanding life.
‘MeMind has connected 10,000 at-risk people with mental health treatment, contributing to a 9% drop in suicides….’ (Lillian Perlmutter via Rest of World)
‘The rate of medical assistance in dying – also known as euthanasia – has grown in Canada for the fifth straight year, albeit at a slower pace.
‘Even a single degree of warming can have devastating consequences for the natural world….’ (Benji Jones via Vox)
‘Journalists who’ve lived through freedom-of-the-press-hating dictators who have some words of warning for us here in Murica: with trump in office.
‘Long-term zinc creep-induced failure in the 57-year-old telescope’s cable spelter sockets was the root cause of the telescope’s collapse, the report says. Sockets filled with zinc held in place a set of cables suspending the telescope’s main platform over the reflector dish. Gradually the zinc lost its hold on the cables and allowed several of them to pull out, leading to the collapse of the platform into the reflector. …’ (via National Academies )
