#American Illustration 39

[stone-cold-groove]

Tonight’s lesson for the Japs ...subtracting zeros. Bell Aircraft Corporation ad - 1943.

[lamaery]

100 Portraits | Part 6 & 7 These are mostly from my Shallan / Veil and Jasnah references. (With a bit of overspill from my Dalinar page). 39 comes actually really close to how I imagine Shallan.

Part six

36) American actor and former pro-wrestler Dwayne Johnson 37 -38) British-japanese actress and dancer Soyona Mizuno 39 - 41) American actress and model Devon Aoki 42) Japanese singer and songwriter Mariya Takeuchi

Part seven

43) American actress Peyton Elizabeth Lee 44) Japanese shamisen player and vocalist Noriko Tadano 45 - 46) American actress Rosario Dawson 47) British actress Lorena Andrea 48) American actress Julia Jones

As for a link to go with this: Women Who Draw is an open directory of female* illustrators. You can also filter for aspects like ethnicity, location, orientation or religion if you are looking for someone with a specific range of themes, experiences or perspective. Part 1 – Start of the project Part 2 – Kaladin Part 3 & 4 – Adolin and Renarin Part 5 – Dalinar Part 8 & 9 - various people and skin tones Part 10 – a little bit for The Lopen Part 11 & 12 - Wit and Navani Part 13 - ofmd und Dev Patel :)

[literary-illuminati]

2024 Book Review #39 – Inglorious Empire: What the British Did To India by Shashi Tharoor

I honestly forget who first recommended this book to me – quite possible I just googled ‘good indian history books’ and found it that way? - but it’s been on my TBR list for functionally forever at this point. Which meant I went into it essentially blind, with no memory of what if any details I’d been given with the recommendation. Which meant I had a moderately disappointing reading experience just because I was hoping for a narrative history and not an explicit polemical/persuasive text. Still, taken on its own merits as one of those, it’s really quite a good one.

The book is an adaptation and expansion of a performance the author gave at an Oxford debate (arguing against the notion that the British Empire was a good thing) which was recorded and went viral enough to make it a commercially viable prospect. The origin story shines through in the form – aside from an introduction and conclusion, each chapter is a clear and specific argument against some specific justification offered for the British conquest and colonization of India, full to bursting with statistics and quotations buttressing every point.

I would very much like to say that most of it is devoted to stuff the average reader will know anyway (if illustrated with clear and affecting examples), but, going by the apparent public response to the original debate and some polling cited in the conclusion, apparently not! The YouGov polls about the English public’s knowledge and opinion of the Empire are bleak enough that yeah this probably is a direly needed work of public education, if mostly for people who will not at any point read it.

Still, the fact that the British Raj was explicitly and institutionally racist and reserved functionally all positions of real power and authority for white men shouldn’t be much of a surprise, nor the fact that the ‘rule of law’ was basically a sick joke as far as crimes across the colour line went, nor the fact that the extraction of wealth from India to make fortunes in Britain was the explicit goal of policy, nor the fact that resistance (especially resistance successful enough to spook the authorities) was responded to with utter and excessive brutality. All that is basically the meat of what having been a colony means.

That said, I was taken a bit aback by the sheer rapaciousness of early Company government – it’s one thing to hear about oppressive taxation, another to get quoted the census figures of how they were so extreme that enough peasants fleeing their land and homes to look for greener pastures to show up as overall population decline in the areas under HEIC control. Similarly, my understanding of how India was turned into a captive market for British goods was much more subtle and indirect than the outright smashing of looms and legal prohibition of any attempts to compete with British industries that were actually used.

Whereas I did know about the deadly famines that kept occurring throughout the Raj, but the sheer cartoonish malevolence of colonial authorities when faced with them always manages to shock me a bit. ‘Nature’s solution to overpopulation’ was a really horrifyingly opinion at the time.

The audience of the debate performance the book’s based on definitely shines through in the choice of sources – wherever possible, Tharoor quotes from or cites western (Anglo-American, generally) sources for his eye-witness accounts and always takes care to introduce and ground them in terms of western governments or academia. The quotes themselves are all helpful illustrations, though there’s probably slightly more than are really strictly necessary – I’m pretty sure by wordcount at least a chapter of the book was actually written by Will Durant.

I’m not sure if it’s because of the original format or just how Tharoor writes, but the book also just has a great love of adjectives. Seemingly every source referenced is ‘historic’ or ‘path-breaking’ unless it is merely ‘compendious’ or outright ‘invidious’. Not a bad thing, but once I noticed it I was totally unable to stop doing so.

The book is straightforward polemic and Tharoor makes no bones about his position, so I take his verging-on-idyllic descriptions of pre-colonial Indian governance (especially regarding land tenure and caste) and the probability that India would have unified into a modern nation state without colonialism a dose pour of salt. There’s a few other inaccuracies I noticed (referring to the East India Company’s theft of Chinese tea plans as the ‘birth of agricultural espionage), for example), but it was all in the realm of little asides or colourful anecdotes rather than anything load-bearing.

It is rather funny that the book repeatedly draws comparisons with French colonies to argue that India was worst off, on the grounds that Paris at least made gestures towards integrating Indochina or Algeria and their peoples into France (however inadequate and hypocritical those efforts were), whereas in India the maintenance of total domination and the clear policy that India and Indians were things to be exploited for the benefit of England never changed. Funny, because from the book of Vietnamese history I read a few months ago the perspective of nationalists in Indochina was quite the reverse, seeing the English as at least somewhat honest brokers who were willing to grant some level of (limited and inadequate) self-government, compared to the French. Grass is always greener, I guess.

Though that does get at Tharoor’s argument as to why the British were worse not just in degree but in kind to the Mughals and any other empire-builders from outside South Asia who had come before them. The Mughals became Indian, both in the simple material sense that all their taxes didn’t end up back in Samarkand and Indian merchants were intentionally ruined for the benefit of traditional central asia trade routes, and in the more cultural sense that the ruling class set down roots and intermarried with their subjects rather than establishing a cloistered ruling class. Instead, the Raj was more akin to Tamerlane’s sack of Delhi, extended across 200 years. (One gets the sense Tharoor thinks a permanent settler population moving into stolen palaces would have been preferable to the rotation of soldiers and officials arriving from the metropole for long enough to get rich before heading back to build mansions in the Home Counties.)

Also, speaking of Vietnamese history, I only have a sample size of two but it’s interesting how in both cases a class of liberal (in the western sense) intellectuals and bourgeois emerged who tried to take the colonial propaganda at its word and enter some sustainable partnership with the imperial power – and in both cases got at best ignored and at worst imprisoned, tortured and executed for their trouble.

Anyways, interesting read, if one that makes me want something more specific and rigorous about basically any specific section of it (though, not to jump up and yell ‘Canada Mentioned!’ but every time Trudeau was used as an example of a colonial power’s leader handling the apologizing and acknowledging stuff gracefully and well I had to really try not to laugh).

[posttexasstressdisorder]

Donald Trump’s Dancing Shows Just How Crazy He’s Become

FRIGHT NIGHT

Trump’s weird dancing episode may finally bring his mental decline center stage for voters—and reveal him as the worst possible choice for president.

David Rothkopf

Updated Oct. 16, 2024 4:50PM EDT Published Oct. 16, 2024 11:35AM EDT 

Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Getty/Reuters

This is the week Donald Trump’s fitness for office finally became an issue.

It wasn’t, as we all have been shocked to discover, the treason or the rape or the 34 felony counts or the impeachments that did it though. In fact, the moment Trump crossed the line from extremist maniac to extremist maniac who appears to need round-the-clock care, soft foods and an early bedtime, was not caused by any of his traditional acts of recklessness or mayhem.

Perversely, in fact, what ultimately did him in may turn out to have been the fact that most Americans didn’t think he could get any worse as a dancer than he has been all his adult life…and then he did.

And oh, the way he did it.

‘Morning Joe’ Baffled by Trump’s ‘Bizarre’ Rally DancingBEATS MEDan Ladden-Hall

This is a guy, after all, who was known as a true pioneer of the white man’s overbite back in his Studio 54 days. More recently, his Grandpa Used to Know How to Dance Dance, was even more cringe but candidly, I’m not that sure we’d be much more comfortable seeing Joe Biden or Mitch McConnell dance these days either.

But as we discovered this week, his skills have, almost impossibly, faded further. Appearing at a rally in Pennsylvania on Monday, he resembled nothing so much as one of those battery-operated dancing Santas you might see on the counter at your local hardware store at holiday time. But one whose battery was nearly dead. Who twitched and stared blankly into space.

While such rogue electronic toys have been a scary standard in movies since Close Encounters of the Third Kind, this was something even more chilling. Trump’s spasmodic rocking and peculiar arm movements were the centerpiece of one of the weirdest incidents in modern American political history. As the Washington Post described it in a Tuesday headline, “Trump sways and bops to music in a bizarre town hall episode.”

By now, thanks to countless Internet memes and social media commentary, or an airing of the full nearly 40 minute incident on Nicolle Wallace’s MSNBC show Deadline: White House, you have probably seen what happened.

Unaccountably, in the middle of what was advertised as a town hall, Trump briefly stopped the program to enable care to be given to two attendees who had medical incidents and then decided he didn’t want to change things up a bit, “Let’s not do any more questions. Let’s just listen to music. Let’s make into a music (sic). Who the hell wants to hear questions, right?”

And for the next 39 minutes as an eclectic variety of hits played over the arena loudspeakers (many apparently without necessary permissions from the artists who recorded them), Trump did his failing battery operated Santa dance. His team encouraged him to take more questions via teleprompter. But he ignored them.

The moderator for the evening, South Dakota governor and noted pet murderer Kristi Noem tried to wrap up the event. But Trump ignored her too. And when she could not persuade him to wrap up, she tried half-heartedly to dance along with him. Hands to the left. Hands to the right. Repeat. She looked pained, like she was hoping someone would put her out of her misery. And for most of this awkward display, Trump stared into the middle distance, alone in a strange and distant world we can only imagine.

It was too strange to ignore. It went on for too long. His flacks tried to spin it as a “lovefest.” But no one who saw it will ever be able to wipe from their memory banks the image of the addled and lost former president unaware of his surroundings or it seemed, just what a candidate for president is supposed to do at a rally.

The optics were made worse by the fact that the next day, Wednesday, Trump cancelled not one but two scheduled media appearances without explanation. Rumors started to spread that even his staff was freaked out by this lengthiest of Trump’s increasingly frequent meltdowns.

Then, he did an event at the Chicago Economic Club at which he could not maintain a thought for all but a few questions and proved unable to answer even the most basic questions much to the consternation of the moderator, Bloomberg Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwaite who was forced to fact-check and challenge the loopy ex-president throughout.

Republican presidential nominee former U.S. President Donald Trump dances during a town hall campaign event in Oaks, Pennsylvania, U.S., October 14, 2024.

David Muse/Reuters

It was precisely the kind of thing that resonated with a quote that also garnered headlines this past week, from Bob Woodward’s new book War. In it, General Mark Milley, who served as chairman of the joint chiefs of staff under Trump was revealed to have described Trump as “fascist to the core” and as the greatest individual threat America faces.

It is fair to state that Americans have never seen such a public meltdown of a presidential candidate nor one that coincided with such increasingly erratic behavior. Trump’s niece, Mary Trump, a trained psychologist said that he was “decompensating in front of our eyes.” Other experts concurred.

Trump’s opponent in the presidential contest, Vice President Kamala Harris, embraced inventive tactics to drive home the message about how unsuited Trump is to be our commander-in-chief. She actually showed video of Trump’s threats to turn the army on the American people at a rally. In her remarks, she called him, without fear of contradiction, “increasingly unstable,” “unhinged” “a huge risk for America” and out for “unchecked power.”

Her campaign also acidly tweeted an account of the event with just the statement, “Hope he’s okay.”

Because of this confluence of events, although no doubt informed by the cumulative impact outlandish and destructive Trump behavior over the years, it seemed very possible that the seemingly comic episode on the stage in Oaks, Pennsylvania, might actually leave voters and the media concerned about Trump’s fitness to serve in a way that his leading an effort to overthrow the government or his alleged serial sex crimes had not.

The next three weeks will tell. But in my view, Trump’s mental decline will become an ever bigger issue during that time and in the end, will be cited by many voters as the reason they ultimately felt they could not vote for him.

It makes sense. A president can unilaterally launch a nuclear strike that could essentially destroy all humanity. He or she can do it in a matter of just a few minutes. And it is almost impossible to stop him. The fact that Trump is not someone you would trust to drive your kids to school, who seems more likely to be the subject of a silver alert than he is to handle a national security red alert, is a pretty compelling reason to cast your ballot for the experienced, capable, high-character, sound judgement of Vice President Harris.

If all that pans out that way, you may look back on the bizarre dancing episode as an unexpected turning point for the addled president. Indeed, it may be said that in the end the October surprise was that Trump himself revealed himself to be a candidate who would be surprised to find it was actually October.

An earlier version of this story said Kristi Noem is the governor of Idaho. She is the governor of South Dakota.

[coochiequeens]

I've posted many times before about how surrogacy exploits vulnerable women and turns their babies into commodities. This article is about the impact of the fertility industry on the children themselves.

‘I slept with my half-sibling’: Woman’s horror story reflects loosely regulated nature of US fertility industry

By Rob Kuznia, Allison Gordon, Nelli Black and Kyung Lah, CNN | Photographs by Laura Oliverio, CNN

Published 10:00 AM EST, Wed February 14, 2024CNN — 

Victoria Hill never quite understood how she could be so different from her father – in looks and in temperament. The 39-year-old licensed clinical social worker from suburban Connecticut used to joke that perhaps she was the mailman’s child.

Her joke eventually became no laughing matter. Worried about a health issue, and puzzled because neither of her parents had suffered any of the symptoms, Hill purchased a DNA testing kit from 23andMe a few years ago and sent her DNA to the genomics company.

What should have been a routine quest to learn more about herself turned into a shocking revelation that she had many more siblings than just the brother she grew up with – the count now stands at 22. Some of them reached out to her and dropped more bombshells: Hill’s biological father was not the man she grew up with but a fertility doctor who had been helping her mother conceive using donated sperm. That doctor, Burton Caldwell, a sibling told her, had used his own sperm to inseminate her mother, allegedly without her consent.

But the most devastating revelation came this summer, when Hill found out that one of her newly discovered siblings had been her high school boyfriend – one she says she easily could have married.

“I was traumatized by this,” Hill told CNN in an exclusive interview. “Now I’m looking at pictures of people thinking, well, if he could be my sibling, anybody could be my sibling.”

Hill’s story appears to represent one of the most extreme cases to date of fertility fraud in which fertility doctors have misled their female patients and their families by secretly using their own sperm instead of that of a donor. It also illustrates how the huge groups of siblings made possible in part by a lack of regulation can lead to a worst-case scenario coming to pass: accidental incest.

In this sense, say advocates of new laws criminalizing fertility fraud, Hill’s story is historic.

“This was the first time where we’ve had a confirmed case of someone actually dating, someone being intimate with someone who was their half-sibling,” said Jody Madeira, a law professor at Indiana University and an expert on fertility fraud.

A CNN investigation into fertility fraud nationwide found that most states, including Connecticut, have no laws against it. Victims of this form of deception face long odds in getting any kind of recourse, and doctors who are accused of it have an enormous advantage in court, meaning they rarely face consequences and, in some cases, have continued practicing, according to documents and interviews with fertility experts, lawmakers and several people fathered by sperm donors.

CNN also found that Hill’s romantic relationship with her half-brother wasn’t the only case in which she or other people in her newly discovered sibling group interacted with someone in their community who turned out to be a sibling.

At a time when do-it-yourself DNA kits are turning donor-conceived children into online sleuths about their own origins – and when this subset of the American population has reached an estimated one million people – Hill’s situation is a sign of the times. She is part of a larger groundswell of donor-conceived people who in recent years have sought to expose practices in the fertility industry they say have caused them distress: huge sibling pods, unethical doctors, unreachable biological fathers, a lack of information about their biological family’s medical history.

The movement has been the main driver in getting about a dozen new state laws passed over the past four years. Still, the legal landscape is patchy, and the US fertility industry is often referred to by critics as the “Wild West” for its dearth of regulation relative to other western countries.

“Nail salons are more regulated than the fertility industry,” said Eve Wiley, who traced her origins to fertility fraud and is a prominent advocate for new laws.

Accountability in short supply

More than 30 doctors around the country have been caught or accused of covertly using their own sperm to impregnate their patients, CNN has confirmed; advocates say they know of at least 80.

Accountability for the deception has been in short supply. The near-absence of laws criminalizing the practice of fertility fraud until recently means no doctors have yet been criminally charged for the behavior. In 2019, Indiana became the second state, more than 20 years after California, to pass a statute making fertility fraud a felony.

Even in civil cases that have been settled out of court, the affected families have typically signed non-disclosure agreements, effectively shielding the doctors from public scrutiny.

Meanwhile, some doctors who have been found out were allowed to keep their medical licenses.

In Kentucky, retired fertility doctor Marvin YussmanMarvin Yussman admitted using his own sperm to inseminate about half a dozen patients who at the time were unaware that he was the donor. One of them filed a complaint to the state’s board of medical licensure when her daughter – who was born in 1976 – learned Yussman was the likely father after submitting her DNA to Ancestry.com.

“I feel betrayed that Dr. Yussman knowingly deceived me and my husband about the origin of the sperm he injected into my body,” the woman wrote in a letter to the board in 2019. “Although I realize Dr. Yussman did not break any laws as such, I certainly feel his actions were unconscionable and depraved.”

In his response to the medical board, Yussman said that during that era, fresh sperm was prioritized over frozen sperm, meaning donors had to arrive on a schedule.

“On very rare occasions when the donor did not show and no frozen specimen was available, I used my own sperm if I otherwise would have been an appropriate donor: appropriate blood type, race, physical characteristics,” Yussman wrote.

He added some of his biological children have “expressed gratitude for their existence” to him and even sent him photos of their own children. Yussman, who noted in his defense that he didn’t remember the woman who made the complaint, said his policy decades ago was to inform patients that physicians could be among the possible donors, though neither he nor the complainant could provide records that clarified the protocol.

The board declined to discipline him, citing insufficient evidence, according to case documents. Reached on the phone by CNN, Yussman declined to comment.

The story that really put fertility fraud on the national radar was that of Dr. Donald Cline, who fathered at least 90 children in Indiana. Cline’s case spurred lawmakers to pass legislation that outlawed fertility fraud but wasn’t retroactive, meaning he was never prosecuted for it. But he was convicted of obstruction of justice after lying to investigators in the state attorney general’s office who briefly looked into the case. Following that conviction in 2018, Cline surrendered his license. Cline’s lawyer did not respond to an email seeking comment.

Netflix followed up with a documentary about Cline in 2022 that inspired two members of Congress – Reps. Stephanie Bice, an Oklahoma Republican, and Mikie Sherrill, a New Jersey Democrat – to coauthor the first federal bill outlawing fertility fraud. If passed, the Protecting Families from Fertility Fraud Act would establish a new federal sexual-assault crime for knowingly misrepresenting the nature or source of DNA used in assisted reproductive procedures and other fertility treatments. The bill has found dozens of backers – 28 Republicans and 20 Democrats – amid a renewed effort to push it on Capitol Hill.

In this March 29, 2007 file photo, Dr. Donald Cline, a reproductive endocrinologist and fertility specialist, speaks at a news conference in Indianapolis.Kelly Wilkinson/The Indianapolis Star/AP/File

A group of advocates including Hill plans to go to DC to champion the bill on Wednesday.

To be sure, passage wouldn’t mean that any of the dozens of doctors who have already been accused of fertility fraud would go to prison, as the crime would have occurred before the law existed. But the measure would provide more pathways for civil litigation in such cases.

The push to better regulate the fertility industry isn’t without critics. It inspires unease – if not outright opposition – from some who fear any industry crackdown could have the unintended effect of making the formation of families less accessible to the LGBTQ community, which comprises an outsized share of the donor-recipient clientele.

“I think we should pause before creating additional criminal liability for people practicing reproductive medicine,” said Katherine L. Kraschel, assistant professor of law and health sciences at Northeastern University. “It gives me great pause … to say we want the government to try to step in and regulate what amounts to a reproductive choice.”

Some experts also point out that the advent of take-at-home DNA tests by companies such as 23andMe and Ancestry has pretty much stamped out fertility fraud in the modern era.

“To my knowledge, the majority of fertility fraud cases took place before 2000,” said Julia T. Woodward, a licensed clinical psychologist and associate professor in psychiatry and OBGYN in the Duke University Health System, in an email to CNN. “I think it is highly unlikely any person would engage in such practices today (it would be too easy to be exposed). So this part of the landscape has improved significantly.”

But activists in the donor-conceived community still want laws, in part to provide pathways for civil litigation, and also to send a message to any medical professional who might feel emboldened by the lack of accountability.

“Let’s say arguably that it doesn’t happen anymore,” said Laura High, a donor-conceived person and comedian who, with more than 600,000 followers on TikTok, has carved out something of a niche as a fertility-industry watchdog on social media. “Pass the f**king legislation just in case.

“Why not just out of the optics – just out of a, ‘Hey we’re going to stand by the victims.’ Let’s just do this. We know it’s never going to happen anymore, but let’s just make this illegal.”

Victoria Hill and her two children play with toys in the living room of her mother's house in Wethersfield. Laura Oliverio/CNN

‘You are my sister’

The lack of a law in Connecticut appears to have been a stumbling block for a pair of siblings seeking recourse for what they allege is a case of fertility fraud.

The half-siblings – a sister and brother – sued OBGYN Narendra Tohan of New Britain in 2021, saying he deceived their mothers when using his own sperm in the fertility treatments.

He has derailed the suit with a novel defense, arguing successfully that it amounts to a “wrongful life” case, which typically pertains to people born with severe life-limiting conditions and isn’t recognized in Connecticut. Tohan, who is still practicing, did not return an email or call to his office seeking comment. The siblings are appealing the ruling.

Madeira, the expert in fertility fraud from Indiana University, called the “wrongful life” decision absurd.

“In fertility fraud, no parent is saying that – no parent is saying I would have gotten an abortion,” she said. “Every parent is saying, ‘I love my child. I just wish that my wishes would have been respected and my doctor wouldn’t have used his sperm.’”

And then there is Dr. Burton Caldwell, who declined CNN’s request for an interview. One of his apparent biological children decided to sue him last year, even though she knows it will be an uphill battle without a fertility fraud law on the books. Janine Pierson and her mother, Doreen Pierson, accuse Caldwell – who stopped practicing in the early 2000s – of impregnating Doreen with his own sperm after having falsely told her that the donor would be a Yale medical student.

Half-sisters Alyssa Denniston, Victoria Hill and Janine Pierson pose for a portrait in Hartford, Connecticut. The three of them say they — and at least 20 others — all share a biological father, Dr. Burton Caldwell. Laura Oliverio/CNN

Janine Pierson, a social worker, thought she was an only child until she took a 23andMe test in the summer of 2022 and was floored to learn she had 19 siblings. (That number has since grown to 22.)

“It was like my entire life just came to this screeching halt,” she told CNN.

When she learned through one of her siblings that Caldwell was the likely father, Pierson said she immediately phoned her mom, who was stunned.

“We both just cried for a few minutes because it just felt like such a violation,” Pierson said.

Pierson said she decided to pursue the lawsuit even though she knows the lack of a fertility-fraud law in Connecticut could pose a challenge.

“It shouldn’t just be, you know, the Wild West where these doctors can just do whatever it is that they want,” she said.

Hill is watching her newly discovered half-sister’s case closely.

For her, the first surprise was learning the dad she grew up with wasn’t her biological father.  Although her mom had told her when Hill was younger that she’d sought help conceiving at a fertility clinic, she also said – falsely – that the doctor had used her dad’s sperm.

When Hill learned that the biological father appeared to be Caldwell a few years ago, she contacted lawyers to inquire about filing a suit, but was told she doesn’t have much of a case, so she didn’t pursue it. Now, she said, her statute of limitations is about to expire.

Last year, Hill was hit with another shattering revelation.

In May, she and her three closest friends were celebrating their 20-year high school reunion over dinner.

She was sharing the tale with them of how she learned about her biological father. Everyone was captivated, except one person – her former boyfriend. He looked like he was turning something over in his head. Then he noted that his parents, too, had sought help conceiving from a fertility clinic.

A couple months later, in July, as Hill was leaving for a summer vacation with her husband and two young children, the ex-boyfriend texted her a screenshot showing their 23andMe connection.

“You are my sister,” he said.

Fertility industry regulations in US lax relative to other countries

Hill’s high school boyfriend isn’t the only person she knew in the community who turned out to be a sibling.

“I have slept with my half-sibling,” Hill said. “I went to elementary school with another.”

What’s more, Hill said, back in the early 2000s, she lived across the street from a deli in Norwalk she often went to that was owned by twins who she later learned are her siblings.

Pierson, too, discovered recently that she’d crossed paths with a sibling long ago. She said she has a group photo from when she was a kid at summer camp that shows her on a stage and a boy in the audience. In 2022, she learned that he is her older half-brother.

“Within 20 feet of one another, and we have no idea,” she said.

In general, the bigger the sibling pool, the greater the risk of accidental incest – regardless of whether fertility fraud came into play.

“I don’t date people my age. I can’t do it,” said Jamie LeRose, a 23-year-old singer from New Jersey who has at least 150 siblings from a regular sperm donor, not a doctor. “I look at people my age and I’m automatically unattracted to them because I just, I go, that could be my sibling.”

With this in mind, activists also often advocate for laws that cap the number of siblings per donor – and that do away with donor anonymity. (Neither of these restrictions are included in the proposed federal bill.)

Other countries have instituted such regulations. Norway for instance limits the number of children to eight; Germany, to 15. Germany and the UK have banished anonymity at sperm banks.

The United States government has no such requirements – and the professional association that represents the fertility industry wants to keep it that way.

“What we have not done very much in this country is pass regulations about who gets to have children,” said Sean Tipton, the chief advocacy and policy officer for the American Society for Reproductive Medicine. “If you’re going to say you should only be able to have 50 children, that’s fine. But that should apply to everybody. It shouldn’t apply just to sperm donors.”

Regarding the concern among donor-conceived people about accidental incest, Tipton added, “if you want to be sure that before you have children with somebody, you can run DNA tests to make sure you’re not related.”

The ASRM, which often clashes with donor-conceived activists, has not taken a stance on the federal bill, Tipton told CNN.

The organization does offer nonbinding guidelines that address concerns about incest, recommending for instance no more than 25 births per donor in a population of 800,000.

Although most of the donor-conceived people who spoke with CNN for this story said they wanted to see legislative change, they also described an emotional aspect of the topic that no new law or regulation could begin to quell: a yearning to better understand one’s origins and identity. For Pierson, it was this desire, coupled with a mix of anger and curiosity, that compelled her to pay Caldwell an unannounced visit one day in 2022 – weeks after she’d learned he was most likely her biological father.

Confronting Caldwell

“I woke up that day and I had decided I didn’t want to call him,” Pierson said. “I didn’t want to give him the opportunity to say no. So I just drove directly to his house from work.”

Pierson, who lived in Cheshire at the time, describes an experience that was equal parts surreal and awkward.

After an hourlong trip, she pulled up to a large, stately house with a long driveway not far from the Connecticut coast. When she knocked on the door, nobody answered. But when a neighbor stopped by to drop something off, Caldwell opened the door. Seizing the moment, Pierson introduced herself. He let her in.

Laying eyes for the first time on her biological father, Pierson, 36, saw a man in his 80s with a slight tremor due to Parkinson’s, sporting a blue golf shirt.

He invited her inside and they sat at his dining room table.

Caldwell, she said, didn’t seem surprised – likely because Hill had made a similar visit a couple of years earlier.

“He was not in any way apologetic,” Pierson said, but she added that he did not deny using his own sperm when working in the 1980s at a New Haven clinic. She said Caldwell confessed that he “never gave it the thought that he should have … that there would be so many (children), and that it would have any kind of an impact on us.”

Pierson said Caldwell asked her questions that gave her pause.

“One thing that really has always bothered me is that he asked me how many grandchildren he had,” she said. “And he was very curious about my scholastic achievements and what I made of myself. … Like how intelligent I was, basically.”

She said their conversation ended abruptly when, looking uncomfortable, Caldwell stood up, which she took as a signal that the visit was over. Before parting ways, she asked if he would pose for a photo with her. He consented.

“I knew it would be the only time that I actually ever had that opportunity to take a picture,” she said. “Not that I wanted like a relationship with him in any way because – it was just like mixed of emotions of, you know, like, I despise you, but at the same time, I’m grateful to be here.”

Janine Pierson displays a selfie she took with Caldwell on her phone in Hartford, Connecticut. Pierson took the photo during a visit with Caldwell in 2022 and it is the only photograph she has with him. Laura Oliverio/CNN

[arthistoryanimalia]

For #AudubonDay + #InternationalFlamingoDay:

Robert Havell Jr. (engraver) after John James Audubon (artist) American Flamingo, 1838: The Birds of America, Plate 431 hand-colored engraving and aquatint on Whatman wove paper image: 87.63 × 58.58 cm (34 1/2 × 23 1/16 in.) plate: 97 x 65 cm (38 3/16 x 25 9/16 in.) sheet: 101.3 x 68.3 cm (39 7/8 x 26 7/8 in.) National Gallery of Art DC collection (1945.8.431)

Audubon insisted on illustrating every bird in The Birds of America life-size, including this one, but even using the largest paper available (the "double elephant folio") he still had to cheat the pose a bit to make it fit, swooping the neck down in a U-shape.

[semper-legens]

39. The Plucker, by Brom

Owned: No, library Page count: 143 My summary: Jack is facing the worst thing that a toy can face. He has been abandoned to the Underbed, the place where the lost toys that Thomas no longer loves are thrown. But things are getting even worse. Thomas' father has brought back a new toy from the war. And it wants to destroy everything that Jack knows and loves... My rating: 2/5 My commentary:

A library assistant peruses the shelves. They are down in the stacks, down where the old and forgotten books lie, down alone among the dust and cobwebs. Taking an armful of books, they head to the shelves, aiming to place the books back where they belong. They are just about to leave when...something catches their eye. Oversized, sticking out of its place, the cover dark and pages yellowed. A book about a toy. A strange book. But one they cannot help but take home.

So yeah, this thing's fucking weird. More under the cut!

I came into this book expecting to like it, and certain aspects of it, I did. For one, the illustrations are great. They're dark, creepy, atmospheric, and unsettling, and really add some extra spice to the story that's unfolding. The 'twisted toys' aesthetic has been done, admittedly, but this is a really good example of it. The story itself is strange and largely compelling, refusing to explain itself, and gritty and grimy where it wants to be. There's a real sense of dystopia here, of twisting up the ideas of a toy wanting to protect his owner and taking it to a desperate struggle for life and death, and I really admire that, you know?

Unfortunately, I can't overlook the rest of this weird little book. So there's two things here where the book falls down. One is that the plot is pretty bogstandard, and the characters are broad stereotypes. Jack is a Determined Hero trying to save Angel, who is a Girl. That's all her character is, she's a damsel in distress. Plot points are brought up and then kind of unceremoniously dropped - Jack being abandoned under the bed by Thomas never really comes up again, nor does Jack's social ostracism by the other toys, on account of them all dying. I feel like this story might have done a lot better as an animated short or something like that, a silent one where we can infer more from their surroundings. The secondary problem is that of race. The malevolent doll is a spirit from Africa who wants to possess/kill a child, and doesn't have much of a personality beside that. Some of the female dolls are stereotypes of Indigenous women (one Native American, the other Hawaiian) that are a bit uncomfortable. Sure, they're toys that a kid would have in the 1940s, but still. And there's a servant in the house whose entire role in the story is to sacrifice her life for the kid and is subservient to the white characters. She doesn't get fleshed out much, she just exists to empower Jack and die for Thomas. And it's lazy! Black people are either subservient (though she still has evil magic) or evil and need to be destroyed so some little white boy can live. Stereotypes on stereotypes. I was not impressed.

Next up...hoo boy. Time to flame a book that a lot of people love. Oops.

[lboogie1906]

Raymond Anthony Townsend (December 20, 1955) is a retired professional basketball player. He played three seasons in the NBA with the Golden State Warriors and the Indiana Pacers. He played college basketball with the UCLA Bruins, earning all-conference honors in the Pacific-8. He was selected by the Warriors in the first round of the 1978 NBA draft, with the 22nd overall pick, and became the first Filipino American to play in the NBA. He played at the point guard position.

He attended Camden High School and Archbishop Mitty High School, in San Jose, California, where he played high school basketball. As a high school senior, he averaged close to 28 points a game for the Camden High Cougars. This was before the 3-point shot line was regulated. After graduating from high school, he played college basketball at UCLA.

He played college basketball at UCLA. He was a member of the 1975 UCLA National Basketball Championship team, which was the 10th and final NCAA championship team of the school’s head coach, John Wooden. He earned first-team All-Pac-8 honors as a senior.

He concluded his NBA career in 1982, as a member of the Indiana Pacers. He played in Italy’s LBA. He won the 1984 edition of the FIBA Intercontinental Cup.

He was born in San Jose, California. He is half-Filipino through his mother. A 1976 Sports Illustrated issue featured his father, Ray Sr., in its “Faces in the Crowd” section. He was recognized as “the oldest junior college basketball player in history.” At age 39, he was the second man off the bench.

His brother, Kurtis is an assistant coach for the Kansas Jayhawks team that won the 2008 and 2022 NCAA Championships. After his basketball playing career, he worked as a youth sports development coordinator in San Jose. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence

[creature-wizard]

Cisco Wheeler and Fritz Springmeier, who pushed ideas such as jewel programming and color programming (Svali clearly gets a lot of her ideas from them), are very much proponents of the "global satanic cult that wants to take over the world and install the Anti-Christ as ruler" brand of conspiracy theories. For Wheeler and Springmeier, this is the whole purpose of Project Monarch, an alleged CIA/Illuminati program that supposedly practices mind control by way of inducing DID into young children. (There's no evidence that it ever existed. By the way, there's info on how DID entered the Satanic Panic myth more generally over here.) Thus, Wheeler and Springmeier's assertion that people are intentionally inducing DID for the purpose of mind control cannot be separated from their conspiratorial apocalyptic Christian narrative.

Like everything else in the Satanic Panic, it's just repackaged witch hysteria and antisemitism intended to demonize anyone who wasn't the "right" kind of Christian, and scare those who were into remaining such. If you can understand why the witch trials of Europe and the various persecutions of Jews throughout history were bullshit, you can understand why this is bullshit, and you can understand why current attempts to rehabilitate the conspiracy theory by putting a "progressive" spin on it are also bullshit.

Their 1995 book, They Know Not What They Do: Illustrated Guide to Monarch Mind Control, makes a number of absurd claims.

It claims that the American eagle represents "the power of the air," IE, Satan, and:

Ancient Egypt's sexual magic is with us today. Their phoenix/eagle is placed on the items of various law enforcement groups, and reminds us that the government, the judicial system, and the military system have been seriously controlled by the Illuminati. (p. 11)

The eagle represents several important related occult concepts. First, the eagle was originally drawn for the great seal as a phoenix bird. The eagle has represented the Aryan Hittites and the Tribe of Dan. The phoenix is very highly significant within the occult world, as it represents the Anti-Christ system arising out of the chaos of wars, revolution and anarchy. (p. 13) It literally represents no such thing, outside the claims of conspiracy theorists like these people.

It claims Doctor Josef Mengele was brought over in Operation Paperclip, where he practiced trauma-based mind control under the auspices of the CIA/Project Monarch. The book also claims that he "was very skilled in creating trauma bonds between himself and children" and he was an adept in Kabbalistic magic. (p.15, 23) Supposedly, he wore a Nazi uniform while working with the children. (p.39)

Actually, Josef Mengele went to South America and died in Brazil. His work with the Nazis had nothing to do with psychology, and most of his "experiments" were little more than torture for the sake of torture. The man was an evil clown, not an evil genius.

It claims that the System (Wheeler) was "designed to be part of the Anti-Christ’s elite imperial guard for the enthronement of the Anti-Christ in 2000." (p.17)

The book claims that part of Wheeler's torture included being violently assaulted by chimpanzees. (p. 21) I know I've said it before, but if Wheeler had actually been attacked by chimpanzees, she wouldn't have survived to co-write this book.

The book claims that the Illuminati is perpetuating mind control through things such as fluoride, artificial sweeteners, electromagnetic frequencies, subliminal messages, and implants - basically, all the usual suspects in conservative conspiracism. (p. 31)

On page 43, it claims that "Vice-President Al Gore is a vampire and carries a briefcase of blood with him." It also claims that among members of the Illuminati, "The last steps are to literally become vampires. The victims of sacrifice secrete enzymes as they look in terror at their last few minutes of life. Drinking their blood gives a high." It also claims that:

The Illuminati would gather for banquets. The men would wear tuxes, white tuxes, and there would be fine linen and gold or silver utensils (sometimes gold, other times silver). You might think that with all this refinement that a real banquet would be served. What was served at these meals was cannibalistic. They would devour the entire person’s body. They might spare the left hand to hold a candle though. At other times, they used the fat and skin of some sacrifices for further uses.

This is simply repackaged blood libel, and relates to the QAnon belief that "the elite" sacrifice innocent children to drink their adrenochrome.

The book claims that the Illuminati practices "twinning." Note that this is somewhat different from what Svali claims - the book claims that "all the Illuminati twins we know of were programmed to die if their twins were deprogrammed or if their twin would die." It also asserts that, "Although the world is not ready to believe this, Monarch twins are given occult training to communicate telepathically. Anything that affects one of the twins, has the potential to affect the other twin." (p.45)

The book claims that religions other than Christianity are "false": Recently, on television a show portrayed a village of women who have sex with males and then sacrifice them. The show was portraying by accident or secret design the ritual practice of the Mothers ofDarkness. The false gods of Babylon, India and Egypt had false trinities. The Mothers of Darkness alters are on pedestals and they have been taught that they are goddesses. On each pedestal is a trinity of3 Mother alters who spin together.One alter is the maiden, one is the mother, and the other is the old crone. The old crone is the wise one which lurks in the background. (p.57)

Oh, and the Illuminati is big into Kabbalah, the book claims: Our programmers were adepts at Caballistic magic. (p.57)

The book claims that the following can occur if "the mind-controlled slave steps out of line": Auditory problems, Blood flow/circulation, Digestive failure, Headachcs-split brain, Heart failure, Histamine production, Optic problems, Respiratory failure, Sleep deprivation, Sleeping program, and Temperature change. (p.67) Random Symptoms are a sign of SRA now.

The book claims that Druidism "takes a person into demonology. It is not a benign worship of nature." It also claims that "Halloween has come to us from the Druids. Halloween is Satan's birthday, and the Jack-o-lanterns are for his birthday. The Jack-o-lanterns are in the picture because they represent Satan's birthday." (p. 73)

In the book, Wheeler claims that "there is a strong jewish flavor to the conspiracy." Wheeler also claims that her family "had a generational occult background that stretched for centuries back into antiquity." (p.83)

It also claims: David Carrico wrote an excellent book recently that does a survey of Satanic rituals today and shows that there is a one-to-one correspondence between SRA (Satanic Ritual Abuse) and the Egyptian Book of the Dead (Pert Em Hru). (p.92) I really hope I shouldn't have to elaborate on why "the Book of the Dead is about SRA, Actually" is complete bullshit.

The book claims that ancient Romans were satanists: Both Sun worship and Saturn worship are linked to Satan worship. Upon close examination Saturn and Sun worship are but fronts for Satan worship. The occult world knows this, but outside of the occult world it remains a secret to many. Rome was the City ofSaturn. Rome has been an important center for satanism and its mystery religions for many centuries. (p.97)

So yeah, this whole thing about cults intentionally giving people DID and stuff? Goes back to people like this. It's all a big shitty conspiracy meant to demonize anyone who wasn't a conservative Christian and scare anyone who already is one into remaining so. Don't try to rehabilitate this crap, because crap is literally all it is.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Jesse Duquette

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

May 13, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

MAY 14, 2024

Today illustrated that the Democrats have become America’s cheerleaders, emphasizing how investment in the nation’s infrastructure has created jobs and rebuilt the country. This week, the Biden-Harris administration is touting its investments in rebuilding roads and bridges, making sure Americans have clean water, getting rid of pollution, expanding access to high-speed internet, and building a clean energy economy, contrasting that success with Trump’s eternal announcements of an “Infrastructure Week” that never came. 

The White House today announced that it has awarded nearly $454 billion in funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, including more than 56,000 projects across more than 4,500 communities across the nation. Those include fixing more than 165,000 miles of roads and more than 9,400 bridges and improving more than 450 ports and 300 airport terminals. It has funded more than 1,400 drinking water and wastewater projects and projects to replace up to 1.7 million toxic lead pipes, as well as more than 8,000 low- and zero-emission buses. It has funded 95 previously unfunded Superfund projects to clean up contaminated sites. It has improved the electrical grid and funded 12,000 miles of high-speed internet infrastructure, and exposed internet junk fees.  

The White House explained that this investment is making it cheaper to install clean energy technology and lowering families’ monthly energy bills, and highlighted today the available rebates to enable people to take advantage of the new technologies. 

On Wednesday, May 8, a report from the Semiconductor Industry Association and the Boston Consulting Group explored the “breathtaking speed,” as the president of the semiconductor organization put it, at which the industry is growing. In the Financial Times on May 9, John Thornhill reported that the CHIPS and Science Act, which provided a $39 billion investment in  the semiconductor industry, has “primed a torrent of private sector investment.” With the influx of both federal money and an additional $447 billion of private investment in 83 projects in 25 states, the report forecasts that the U.S. will increase its share of global manufacturing capacity for leading-edge chips from today’s rate of 0% to 28% by 2032. Thornhill compared this investment to that spurred by Russia’s 1957 launch of the Sputnik satellite. 

The Economist yesterday announced that the U.S. “is in the midst of an extraordinary startup boom,” and explored “[h]ow the country revived its “go-getting spirit.”

In contrast to the Democrats’ confidence in America, the Republicans are all-in on the idea that the country is an apocalyptic wasteland. At a rally in New Jersey Saturday, Trump announced: “On day one we will throw out Bidenomics and reinstate MAGAnomics.” He promised to extend his 2017 tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations.

But the gist of his speech was an angry, vitriolic picture of a failing nation full of “enemies” that are “more dangerous” than China and Russia and who are “going to destroy our country.” In his telling, the criminal case against him in Manhattan is “bullsh*t,” and President Biden has done more damage than the “ten worst presidents in the history of our country” combined: “[h]e’s a fool; he’s not a smart man…[h]e’s a bad guy…the worst president ever, of any country. The whole world is laughing at him.”

Trump lied that other countries are “emptying out their mental institutions into the United States, our beautiful country. And now the prison populations all over the world are down. They don’t want to report that the mental-institution population is down because they’re taking people from insane asylums and from mental institutions.” Then he riffed into “the late great Hannibal Lecter,” the fictional murderer and cannibal in the film The Silence of the Lambs, apparently to suggest that similar individuals are migrating to the U.S.

House Republicans this week are working to pass a nonbinding resolution to condemn Biden’s immigration policies, although it was Republicans, under orders from Trump, who killed a strong bipartisan immigration bill earlier this year. 

The only way to turn back this apocalypse, Trump and his supporters insist, is to put Trump and his team back into the White House. From there, Republicans will return those they consider “real” Americans to power. 

The last few days have added new information about what that means. On Thursday, May 9, Senators Katie Britt (R-AL), Marco Rubio (R-FL), and Kevin Cramer (R-ND) introduced the More Opportunities for Moms to Succeed (MOMS) act. Britt—who is best known for her disastrous response to Biden’s State of the Union speech from her kitchen—said the measure would provide a federal database of resources for pregnant women and women parenting young children, but that information excludes anything that touches on abortion.

The measure is clear that it enlists the government in opposition to abortion, but more than that, it establishes that the government will create a database of the names and contact information of pregnant women, which the government can then use “to follow up with users on additional resources that would be helpful for the users to review.” 

A government database of pregnant women would give the federal government unprecedented control over individuals, and it is especially chilling after the story Caroline Kitchener broke in the Washington Post on May 3, that a Texas man, Collin Davis, filed a petition to stop his ex-partner from traveling to Colorado, where abortion is legal, to obtain an abortion. Should she do so, his lawyer wrote, he would “pursue wrongful-death claims against anyone involved in the killing of his unborn child.” Now Davis wants to be able to depose his former partner along with others he says are “complicit” in the abortion. 

Antiabortion activists are also seeking to make mifepristone and misoprostol, drugs used in many abortions, hard to obtain. In Louisiana, state lawmakers are considering classifying the drugs as “controlled dangerous substances,” which would make possessing them carry penalties of up to ten years in prison and fines of up to $75,000. 

More than 240 Louisiana doctors wrote to lawmakers saying that the drugs have none of the addictive characteristics associated with dangerous controlled substances and warning that the drugs are crucial for inducing routine labor and preventing catastrophic hemorrhage after delivery, in addition to their use in abortions. “Given its historically poor maternal health outcomes, Louisiana should prioritize safe and evidence-based care for pregnant women,” the doctors wrote. 

Louisiana lawmakers also rejected a bill that would have allowed anyone under age 17, the age of consent in Louisiana, to have an abortion if they became pregnant after rape or incest. Passionate testimony from those who suffered such attacks or who treated pregnant girls as young as 8 failed to convince the Republican lawmakers to support the measure. “That baby [in the womb] is innocent.… We have to hang on to that,” said Republican state representative Dodie Horton. 

Today, at the Asian Pacific American Institute for Congressional Studies, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization promoting Asian American and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander participation and representation at all levels of the political process, Vice President Kamala Harris encouraged young people to innovate and to move into spaces from which they have been traditionally excluded.

“So here’s the thing about breaking barriers,” she said. “Breaking barriers does not mean you start on one side of the barrier and you end up on the other side. There’s breaking involved. And when you break things you get cut. And you may bleed. And it is worth it every time…. We have to know that sometimes people will open the door for you and leave it open. Sometimes they won’t. And then you need to kick that f*cking door down.”

Harris’s advice reflects the history that happened on this date in 1862, when the enslaved mariners on board the shallow-draft C.S.S. Planter gathered up their families, fired up the ship’s boilers, and sailed out of the Charleston, South Carolina, harbor. The three white officers of the ship had gone ashore, leaving enslaved 23-year-old pilot Robert Smalls to take control. Smalls knew how to steer the ship and give the proper signals to the Confederates at Fort Sumter, Fort Moultrie, and three other checkpoints. 

Smalls piloted the Planter, the sixteen formerly enslaved people on it, and a head full of intelligence about the Confederate fortifications at Charleston to the U.S. Navy. In Confederate hands, the Planter had surveyed waterways and laid mines; now that information was in U.S. hands. Smalls went on to pilot naval vessels during the war, and in 1864 he bought the house formerly owned by the man who had enslaved him. 

A natural leader, Smalls went on to become a businessman, politician, and strong advocate for education. After serving in the 1868 South Carolina Constitutional Convention that made school attendance compulsory and provided for universal male suffrage, he went on to serve in the South Carolina legislature from 1868 to 1874, when he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, where he served until 1887. When President Barack Obama signed an executive order establishing the nation’s first national monument concerning Reconstruction, he cited the life of Robert Smalls.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[comicsart3]

Senorita Rio was the first Latina comic book character and she was one of the few tough women characters of the Golden Age to be a fully fledged spy and secret agent. As Rita Farrar, she started out as a Hollywood screen star and cabaret singer in the US, attracting millions of fans worldwide. Her fiancé was killed during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, prompting the government to approach Rita to work for them as a spy in his memory. She agreed, using her many tours and locations to gather information as to Nazi and fascist activities, especially in South America, Spain and Portugal. Once the war ended, Rita faked her own suicide and became a full-time operative, now codenamed Senorita Rio, and continued to work clandestinely in Latin America in the main, rooting out fugitive Nazis, helping the peasantry overthrow corrupt landlords or military dictators, and capturing communist agents.

Rio’s combination of sultry looks, seductive cunning, skills with a firearm and blade and aptitude in unarmed combat, made her perhaps the ultimate comic book femme fatale. She featured mainly in Fight Comics, first appearing in issue #19 in June 1942, and significantly she eventually became the title’s cover star, a testament to her popularity. Rio’s stories were usually written by Nick Cardy and she was illustrated by Lily Renee. Rio enjoyed a long 39 issue run in Fight Comics.

The page featured is typical of Senorita Rio’s adventures in which she foils foreign agents attempting to set up an intelligence gathering centre in an un-named South American country. It was published in Fight Comics #64 (October 1949).

Sources: Comicbookplus and Comic Vine for much of the narrative.

[stone-cold-groove]

Your son may be our boss. Bell Aircraft Corporation ad - 1943.

[demi-shoggoth]

2023 Reading Log, pt 8

36. Everything You Wanted to Know About Indians but Were Afraid to Ask, Revised and Expanded Edition by Anton Truer. This book is written by an Ojibwe professor (as in, both that he’s Ojibwe and teaches Ojibwe language), and is aimed primarily at a novice, non-Native audience. Truer’s whole career is based on expanding education of Native languages, preserving endangered languages, and revitalizing tribal culture while simultaneously building bridges with mainstream American culture. It does a very good job of summarizing issues about land rights, sovereignty, history and civil rights about Native Americans. It’s written in an engaging style, and is doing good anti-racism work, I think. But it has issues, and the big one is the Culture chapter. The Culture chapter is written basically assuming that all Indian Country (his words) works the way that Ojibwe tribes and their neighbors do, with minor variations. Obviously, this is both an introductory book and one that needs to summarize an immensely diverse group of people, but I think the author does himself no favors by saying things like all Native American religions are monotheistic. So definitely take the cultural material with a grain of salt.

37. Hyena by Mikita Brottman. This book is part of the Animal series by Reaktion Books, little chapbook sized books about the natural and cultural history of some particular animal. This book focuses much more on the cultural than natural history, talking about how hyenas have been reviled by many cultures (including modern pop culture) and consistently confused with each other by early scientists. That bit, about the entangling of different hyenas, is the part that was the most novel and interesting to me, as I quite like the history of science. The book is well illustrated, with a variety of woodcuts and illustrations from vintage European books, as well as artifacts from people who live among hyenas, and photos of hyenas wild, in zoos and tamed by people. I did find it a weird oversight that, in a chapter that includes Magic the Gathering cards of hyenas and hyenas in World of Warcraft, that it didn’t talk about gnolls or anthropomorphic hyenas in fantasy fiction.

38. The Monster Overhaul by Skerples. This book is a monster book for fantasy RPGs, written for a generic OSR style game. It’s different in that it focuses on a relatively small number of monsters for its size, instead doubling down on plot hooks, descriptions and ways to otherwise bring creatures to life at the table. The gimmick? Random tables for everything, even the table of contents. The organization is somewhat intentionally bizarre, but the book is well indexed. It’s also highly readable for a book that is comprised mainly of tables. The Monster Overhaul is thoughtful about its uses for monsters, has clever takes on some D&D staples (like how manticores are all male and are the embodiment of male entitlement and bitterness, or how “brain eaters” are literally addicted to humanoid brains), and is very funny to boot. Highly recommended for anyone interested in fantasy RPGs, regardless of system.

39. Healing with Poisons by Yan Liu. This is an academic text discussing the development of Chinese medicine in the 3rd through 10th centuries. The focus is on du, roughly translated as “potency”, a force ascribed to medicinal ingredients that were generally toxic. The book talks about the philosophy of medicine in medieval China and how that philosophy changed between authors, how the government got more involved in standardizing medical texts, and how regional differences between practices and ingredients influenced that standardization. It also goes into a lot of detail about how various toxic minerals, particularly arsenates and mercury, were used to make “elixirs of life”, and how the fact that these often very clearly killed people was rationalized away for centuries before “internal alchemy” became more popular than “external alchemy”. There’s also a discussion of a royal scandal involving the court during the Sui dynasty being plagued by a cat demon!

40. Geopedia by Marcia Bjornerud. This is the best of the –pedia series I’ve read (sorry, Darren Naish!). It covers bits of geology, with a focus on explaining major earth formations and covering the history of science. As such, there’s a lot that I didn’t know that I learned from this book, especially about some of the also-ran hypotheses that were rejected when plate tectonics was understood to be the driving force behind most earth processes. It’s highly readable and does a very good job of drawing connections between bits of seemingly disparate information to explain how the Earth works. This book is a very good resource for people who know a bit about geology and want to learn more.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Brian Kennedy and Alec Tyson

Published: Nov 14, 2023

Among both Democrats and Republicans, trust in scientists is lower than before the pandemic

A new Pew Research Center survey finds the share of Americans who say science has had a mostly positive effect on society has fallen and there’s been a continued decline in public trust in scientists.

Key findings

Impact of science on society

Overall, 57% of Americans say science has had a mostly positive effect on society. This share is down 8 percentage points since November 2021 and down 16 points since before the start of the coronavirus outbreak.

About a third (34%) now say the impact of science on society has been equally positive as negative. A small share (8%) think science has had a mostly negative impact on society.

Trust in scientists

When it comes to the standing of scientists, 73% of U.S. adults have a great deal or fair amount of confidence in scientists to act in the public’s best interests. But trust in scientists is 14 points lower than it was at the early stages of the pandemic.

The share expressing the strongest level of trust in scientists – saying they have a great deal of confidence in them – has fallen from 39% in 2020 to 23% today.

As trust in scientists has fallen, distrust has grown: Roughly a quarter of Americans (27%) now say they have not too much or no confidence in scientists to act in the public’s best interests, up from 12% in April 2020.

Ratings of medical scientists mirror the trend seen in ratings of scientists generally. Read Chapter 1 of the report for a detailed analysis of this data.

How scientists compare with other prominent groups

The Center survey of 8,842 U.S. adults conducted Sept. 25-Oct. 1, 2023, finds that, despite recent declines in ratings, scientists and medical scientists continue to be held in high regard compared with other prominent groups in society. Smaller shares of Americans express confidence in business leaders, religious leaders, journalists and elected officials to act in the public’s best interests. As with scientists, most of these groups have seen their ratings decline in recent years.

Americans have expressed low trust in federal government and other institutions, like Congress, for decades. And political polarization – the widening gap between the views of Republicans and Democrats across a broad range of issues and attitudes – has come to be a dominant feature of American political life.

Differences between Republicans and Democrats in ratings of scientists and science

Declining levels of trust in scientists and medical scientists have been particularly pronounced among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents over the past several years. In fact, nearly four-in-ten Republicans (38%) now say they have not too much or no confidence at all in scientists to act in the public’s best interests. This share is up dramatically from the 14% of Republicans who held this view in April 2020. Much of this shift occurred during the first two years of the pandemic and has persisted in more recent surveys.

Confidence in scientists has also moved lower among Democrats. The share of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents with a great deal of confidence in scientists – which initially rose in the pandemic’s first year – now stands at 37%, down from a high of 55% in November 2020. But unlike Republicans, a large majority of Democrats (86%) continue to express at least a fair amount of confidence in scientists to act in the public’s best interests. The overall differences in partisan views remain much more pronounced today than they were prior to the coronavirus outbreak.

One of the starkest illustrations of polarization in views of science is the drop in the share of Republicans who view the societal impact of science positively.

Fewer than half of Republicans (47%) now say that science has had a mostly positive effect on society. In 2019, 70% of Republicans said that science has had a mostly positive effect.

A majority of Democrats (69%) continue to say science has had a mostly positive effect on society, though this share is 8 points lower than it was in 2019.

Republicans were largely critical of the country’s response to the coronavirus outbreak. For instance, large shares said too little priority was given to respecting individuals’ choices, supporting businesses and economic activity, and meeting the needs of K-12 students. In addition, many Republicans felt that public health officials’ personal views had too much influence on policy and that officials were too quick to dismiss views that challenged their scientific understanding.

Government investments in science

Despite declines in ratings of scientists and science, a large majority of Americans continue to see government investments in science as worthwhile. And most place at least some importance on the United States being a world leader in scientific achievements.

About eight-in-ten Americans (78%) say government investments in scientific research are usually worthwhile for society. Far fewer (20%) think these investments are generally not worthwhile. Large majorities across demographic and education groups see government investments in scientific research as worthwhile, as do large majorities of both Democrats and Republicans.

In addition, 52% of Americans think it is very important for the U.S. to be a world leader in scientific achievements; an additional 37% think this is somewhat important. These shares are more or less unchanged since last year.

==

Not good.

The deliberate lying about whether men can have babies and women can have penises sure hasn't helped.

[mongrelmutt]

My books read list for 2023! For the first time I met my goal of at least one book a week!! 😁

1. "A Conspiracy of Kings" -- Megan Whalen Turner

2. "Thick as Thieves" -- Megan Whalen Turner

3. "Return of the Thief" -- Megan Whalen Turner

4. "Vatican II" -- John O'Malley

5. "The Catholic Church: A Short History" -- Hans Küng, translated by John Bowden

6. "Confessions" and "Letter to Coroticus" -- St. Patrick

7. "Through the Brazilian Wilderness" -- Theodore Roosevelt

8. "The Wind in the Willows" -- Kenneth Grahame

9. "Period: The Real Story of Menstruation" -- Kate Clancy

10. "Star Wars: Padawan" -- Kiersten White

11. "Star Wars: Master and Apprentice" -- Claudia Gray

12. "Deep Down Dark" -- Héctor Tobar

13. "The Lost World" -- Michael Crichton

14. "Provida Mater Ecclesia: Apostolic Constitution of Pope Pius XII Concerning Secular Institutes" (English translation) -- Pope Pius XII

15. "Frankenstein" -- Mary Shelley

16. "Kenobi" -- John Jackson Miller

17. "Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law" -- Mary Roach

18. "Trigun" and "Trigun Maximum" -- Yasuhiro Nightow

19. "Contagion of Liberty: The Politics of Smallpox in the American Revolution" -- Andrew M. Wehrman

20. "Gay and Catholic: Accepting My Sexuality, Finding Community, Living My Faith" -- Eve Tushnet

21. "The Making of Biblical Womanhood: How the Subjugation of Women Became Gospel Truth" -- Beth Allison Bar

22. "Turtles All The Way Down" -- John Green

23. "All Systems Red (Murderbot Diaries #1)" -- Martha Wells

24. "Artificial Condition (Murderbot Diaries #2)" -- Martha Wells

25. "Rogue Protocol (Murderbot Diaries #3)" -- Martha Wells

26. "Exit Strategy (Murderbot Diaries #4) -- Martha Wells

27. "Network Effect (Murderbot Diaries #5) -- Martha Wells

28. "Fugitive Telemetry (Murderbot Diaries #6) -- Martha Wells

29. "Isaac's Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History" -- Erik Larson

30. "The Johnstown Flood" -- David McCullough

31. "The Last Days of the Dinosaurs: An Asteroid, Extinction, and the Beginning of Our World" -- Riley Black

32. "Beastly Brains: Exploring How Animals Think, Talk, and Feel" -- Nancy F. Castaldo

33. "The Rise and Reign of Mammals: A New History from the Shadows of the Dinosaurs to Us" -- Steve Brusatte

34. "Dog Sense: How the New Science of Dog Behavior Can Make You a Better Friend to Your Dog" -- John Bradshaw

35. "Evolution Gone Wrong: The Curious Reasons Why Our Bodies Work (or Don't)" -- Alex Bezzerides

36. "Immune: A Journey Into the Mysterious System that Keeps You Alive" -- Philipp Dettmer

37. "Catholicism and ADHD: Finding Holiness Despite Distractions" -- Alex R. Hey, PCAC

38. "The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons: The History of the Human Brain as Revealed by True Stories of Trauma, Madness, and Recovery" -- Sam Kean

39. "An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us" -- Ed Yong

40. "Lesser Beasts: A Snout-to-Tail History of the Humble Pig" -- Mark Essig

41. "The Mind's Eye" -- Oliver Sacks

42. "Loveless" -- Alice Oseman

43. "The Monkey Trial: John Scopes and the Battle Over Teaching Evolution" -- Anita Sanchez

44. "The Great Quake: How the Biggest Earthquake in North America Changed Our Understanding of the Planet" -- Henry Fountain

45. "Kiki's Delivery Service" -- Eiko Kadono (translated by Emily Balistrieri)

46. "Origin: A Genetic History of the Americas" -- Jennifer Raff

47. "Ancillary Justice" -- Ann Leckie

48. "An Elegant Defense: The Extraordinary New Science of the Immune System: A Tale in Four Lives" -- Matt Richtel

49. "System Collapse (Murderbot Diaries #7)" -- Martha Wells

50. "Spying on Whales: The Past, Present, and Future of Earth's Most Awesome Creatures" -- Nick Pyeson

51. "Howl's Moving Castle" -- Diana Wynne Jones

52. "We Have Always Lived in the Castle" -- Shirley Jackson

53. "Sarah, Plain and Tall" and "Skylark" -- Patricia MacLachlan

54. "The Haunting of Hill House" -- Shirley Jackson

55. "All Creation Waits: The Advent Mystery of New Beginnings" -- Gayle Boss (illustrated by David G. Klein)

[debutart]

Debut Art is pleased to announce that we are now representing artist Liam Eisenberg!

Liam Eisenberg is an illustrator based in New York. His work relies on bold outlines and graphic colors to communicate narrative and conceptual ideas. He is a graduate of Montclair State University (BFA Illustration & Animation) and School of Visual Arts (MFA Illustration). In addition to freelancing, he teaches illustration at St. John’s University in Queens, NY.

One of Liam’s main strengths is his figurative work. He depicts people in relatable and surreal situations. Liam has an ability to tackle a wide range of topics, taking complex subjects and communicating them in simple ways. His work relies on strong linework and bold colors.

Artistic Influences: Al Hirschfeld, Akira Toriyama, Patrick Caulfield, Milton Glaser, Seymour Chwast, James McMullan, David Hockney.

Partial Client List: Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Penguin Random House, Apple Store Williamsburg, The New York Times, The New Yorker, American Eagle, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, NPR The Wall Street Journal, Medium, Politico, NBC, Weight Watchers, Complex, Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, WNYC, The Nation, Buzzfeed, Insider, Men’s Health, Dream Clients, Nike, Adidas, Apple, TD Five, Boro Bike Tour, Pentagram, Vans, MOMA, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Uniqlo, Lacoste, Hermes, Book Covers, Packaging, Advertising, Murals.

Awards:

American Illustration 42 Archive Winner - 2023 Society of Illustrators 65 Jury Selected - 2022 Society of Illustrators West 60 - 2022 3x3 Illustration Annual Merit Winner - 2022 American Illustration 40 Archive Winner - 2021 American Illustration 39 Archive Winner - 2020 World Illustration Awards Short List Artist - 2020

You can see more of Liam's work here.