#Global Research Institute of Management and Research

[best-child-neurologist-in-delhi]

Best BCA College in Haryana: Global Research Institute of Management & Technology has been established to impart high quality technical and management education amongst the vast youth talents, with a special emphasis to Research & Development (R & D). All efforts have been made to arrange the best faculty and to provide the next generation infrastructure, furniture, equipments, library and comfortable Air-conditioned class rooms congenial for higher study.

Management College in HaryanaV.P.O. :

Radaur, Dist. Yamuna Nagar,

9355688204

admissions@grimtradaur.ac.in

https://www.grimtradaur.ac.in/bca.html

[writingwithcolor]

My alternate universe fantasy colonial Hong Kong is more authoritarian and just as racist but less homophobic than in real life, should I change that?

@floatyhands asked:

I’m a Hongkonger working on a magical alternate universe dystopia set in what is basically British colonial Hong Kong in the late 1920s. My main character is a young upper middle-class Eurasian bisexual man.  I plan to keep the colony’s historical racial hierarchy in this universe, but I also want the fantasy quirks to mean that unlike in real life history, homosexuality was either recently decriminalized, or that the laws are barely enforced, because my boy deserves a break. Still, the institutions are quite homophobic, and this relative tolerance might not last. Meanwhile, due to other divergences (e.g. eldritch horrors, also the government’s even worse mishandling of the 1922 Seamen's Strike and the 1925 Canton-Hong Kong Strike), the colonial administration is a lot more authoritarian than it was in real history. This growing authoritarianism is not exclusive to the colony, and is part of a larger global trend in this universe.  I realize these worldbuilding decisions above may whitewash colonialism, or come off as choosing to ignore one colonial oppression in favor of exaggerating another. Is there any advice as to how I can address this issue? (Maybe I could have my character get away by bribing the cops, though institutional corruption is more associated with the 1960s?) Thank you!

Historical Precedent for Imperialistic Gay Rights

There is a recently-published book about this topic that might actually interest you: Racism And The Making of Gay Rights by Laurie Marhoefer (note: I have yet to read it, it’s on my list). It essentially describes how the modern gay rights movement was built from colonialism and imperialism. 

The book covers Magnus Hirschfeld, a German sexologist in the early 1900s, and (one of) his lover(s), Li Shiu Tong, who he met in British Shanghai. Magnus is generally considered to have laid the groundwork for a lot of gay rights, and his research via the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft was a target of Nazi book-burnings, but he was working with imperial governments in an era where the British Empire was still everywhere. 

Considering they both ended up speaking to multiple world leaders about natural human sexual variation both in terms of intersex issues and sexual attraction, your time period really isn’t that far off for people beginning to be slightly more open-minded—while also being deeply imperialist in other ways.

The thing about this particular time period is homosexuality as we know it was recently coming into play, starting with the trial of Oscar Wilde and the rise of Nazism. But between those two is a pretty wildly fluctuating gap of attitudes.

Oscar Wilde’s trial is generally considered the period where gay people, specifically men who loved men, started becoming a group to be disliked for disrupting social order. It was very public, very scandalous, and his fall from grace is one of the things that drove so many gay and/or queer men underground. It also helped produce some of the extremely queercoded classical literature of the Victorian and Edwardian eras (ex: Dracula), because so many writers were exploring what it meant to be seen as such negative forces. A lot of people hated Oscar Wilde for bringing the concept to such a public discussion point, when being discreet had been so important.

But come the 1920s, people were beginning to wonder if being gay was that bad, and Mangus Hirschfeld managed to do a world tour of speaking come the 1930s, before all of that was derailed by wwii. He (and/or Li Shiu Tong) were writing papers that were getting published and sent to various health departments about how being gay wasn’t an illness, and more just an “alternative” way of loving others. 

This was also the era of Boston Marriages where wealthy single women lived together as partners (I’m sure there’s an mlm-equivalent but I cannot remember or find it). People were a lot less likely to care if you kept things discreet, so there might be less day to day homophobia than one would expect. Romantic friendships were everywhere, and were considered the ideal—the amount of affection you could express to your same-sex best friend was far above what is socially tolerable now.

Kaz Rowe has a lot of videos with cited bibliographies about various queer disasters [affectionate] of the late 1800s/early 1900s, not to mention a lot of other cultural oddities of the Victorian era (and how many of those attitudes have carried into modern day) so you can start to get the proper terms to look it up for yourself.

I know there’s a certain… mistrust of specifically queer media analysts on YouTube in the current. Well. Plagiarism/fact-creation scandal (if you don’t know about the fact-creation, check out Todd in the Shadows). I recommend Kaz because they have citations on screen and in the description that aren’t whole-cloth ripped off from wikipedia’s citation list (they’ve also been published via Getty Publications, a museum press). 

For audio-preferring people (hi), a video is more accessible than text, and sometimes the exposure to stuff that’s able to pull exact terms can finally get you the resources you need. If text is more accessible, just jump to the description box/transcript and have fun. Consider them and their work a starting place, not a professor. 

There is always a vulnerability in learning things, because we can never outrun our own confirmation bias and we always have limited time to chase down facts and sources—we can only do our best and be open to finding facts that disprove what we researched prior.

Colonialism’s Popularity Problem

Something about colonialism that I’ve rarely discussed is how some colonial empires actually “allow” certain types of “deviance” if that deviance will temporarily serve its ends. Namely, when colonialism needs to expand its territory, either from landing in a new area or having recently messed up and needing to re-charm the population.

By that I mean: if a fascist group is struggling to maintain popularity, it will often conditionally open its doors to all walks of life in order to capture a greater market. It will also pay its spokespeople for the privilege of serving their ends, often very well. Authoritarians know the power of having the token supporter from a marginalized group on payroll: it both opens you up directly to that person’s identity, and sways the moderates towards going “well they allow [person/group] so they can’t be that bad, and I prefer them.”

Like it or not, any marginalized group can have its fascist members, sometimes even masquerading as the progressives. Being marginalized does not automatically equate to not wanting fascism, because people tend to want fascist leaders they agree with instead of democracy and coalition building. People can also think that certain people are exaggerating the horrors of colonialism, because it doesn’t happen to good people, and look, they accept their friends who are good people, so they’re fine. 

A dominant fascist group can absolutely use this to their advantage in order to gain more foot soldiers, which then increases their raw numbers, which puts them in enough power they can stop caring about opening their ranks, and only then do they turn on their “deviant” members. By the time they turn, it’s usually too late, and there’s often a lot of feelings of betrayal because the spokesperson (and those who liked them) thought they were accepted, instead of just used.

You said it yourself that this colonial government is even stricter than the historical equivalent—which could mean it needs some sort of leverage to maintain its popularity. “Allowing” gay people to be some variation of themselves would be an ideal solution to this, but it would come with a bunch of conditions. What those conditions are I couldn’t tell you—that’s for your own imagination, based off what this group’s ideal is, but some suggestions are “follow the traditional dating/friendship norms”, “have their own gender identity slightly to the left of the cis ideal”, and/or “pretend to never actually be dating but everyone knows and pretends to not care so long as they don’t out themselves”—that would signal to the reader that this is deeply conditional and about to all come apart. 

It would, however, mean your poor boy is less likely to get a break, because he would be policed to be the “acceptable kind of gay” that the colonial government is currently tolerating (not unlike the way the States claims to support white cis same-sex couples in the suburbs but not bipoc queer-trans people in polycules). It also provides a more salient angle for this colonial government to come crashing down, if that’s the way this narrative goes.

Colonial governments are often looking for scapegoats; if gay people aren’t the current one, then they’d be offered a lot more freedom just to improve the public image of those in power. You have the opportunity to have the strikers be the current scapegoats, which would take the heat off many other groups—including those hit by homophobia.

In Conclusion

Personally, I’d take a more “gays for Trump” attitude about the colonialism and their apparent “lack” of homophobia—they’re just trying to regain popularity after mishandling a major scandal, and the gay people will be on the outs soon enough.

You could also take the more nuanced approach and see how imperialism shaped modern gay rights and just fast-track that in your time period, to give it the right flavour of imperialism. A lot of BIPOC lgbtqa+ people will tell you the modern gay rights movement is assimilationalist, colonialist, and other flavours of ick, so that angle is viable.

You can also make something that looks more accepting to the modern eye by leaning heavily on romantic friendships that encouraged people waxing poetic for their “best friends”, keeping the “lovers” part deeply on the down low, but is still restrictive and people just don’t talk about it in public unless it’s in euphemisms or among other same-sex-attracted people because there’s nothing wrong with loving your best friend, you just can’t go off and claim you’re a couple like a heterosexual couple is.

Either way, you’re not sanitizing colonialism inherently by having there be less modern-recognized homophobia in this deeply authoritarian setting. You just need to add some guard rails on it so that, sure, your character might be fine if he behaves, but there are still “deviants” that the government will not accept. 

Because that’s, in the end, one of the core tenants that makes a government colonial: its acceptance of groups is frequently based on how closely you follow the rules and police others for not following them, and anyone who isn’t their ideal person will be on the outs eventually. But that doesn’t mean they can’t have a facade of pretending those rules are totally going to include people who are to the left of those ideals, if those people fit in every other ideal, or you’re safe only if you keep it quiet.

~ Leigh

[fiercynn]

In a recent report published by Open Research Africa discussing disparities in Covid-19 research funding and leadership, scientists revealed that the majority of Long Covid research in Africa is primarily financed and overseen by foreign nations. The report’s authors analyzed projects documented in a global database tracking funded Covid-19 research projects. Out of a staggering 17,995 research projects cataloged in the Tracker as of July 2022, only 786 were carried out in African countries. Noteworthy contributors to Covid-19 research efforts on the continent included Morocco, with 183 projects, South Africa with 128 projects, and Kenya with 91 projects. In total, 75 research funders representing 17 countries directed USD $267 million to Covid-19 research in Africa. But the funders of these projects were predominantly public or governmental organizations from Europe and the U.S. Institutions such as the National Center for Scientific and Technical Research and UK Research and Innovation led the charge. While the bulk of funding stemmed from international entities, nine funders based in Africa also contributed to the cause.  This imbalance in research investments poses a challenge for African scientists, as local research needs may differ from external agendas. The lack of sufficient evidence produced within and in the context of Africa worsens the marginalization of Long Covid in the region and weakens attempts to advocate for its acknowledgment and management.

[micewithknives]

Top 5 archaeological sites in Australia that you feel people should know more about? Or top 5 Australian artefacts?

I feel like I’ve talked a bit about artefacts in a few recent asks, and also I feel like a lot of Australian archaeology (and as such, sites) are very underrated, particularly on a global scale. Its often acknowledged in Australian archaeology that getting international academia to recognise the importance of our country’s archaeology is very very difficult.

While there’s a million and one sites I’d love to talk about, I’m going to TRY and give sites that relate to different aspects and locations

This is probably going to be long, so...

1. Nauwalabila, Madjedbebe (Malakunanja II), and the Deaf Adder Gorge region, Northern Territory (Aboriginal)

Rock shelters in this region, and specifically Madjedbebe, are currently the oldest location of human habitation in Australia. Dating evidence from 2017 excavations provided an estimate of earliest occupation of 50 000 years at certainty, possibly extending back as early as 65 000 (+/-6000). It also has provided a lot of evidence for research into the extensive grind stone technologies of the Pleistocene.

2. Cloggs Cave and the Buchan region of the Victorian Gippsland (Aboriginal)

So much research has been done into this region in various ways. Josephine Flood focused her research on Bogong Moth usage (and festivals) within this region, providing some of the earliest accepted academic research in support of Aboriginal peoples’ claims of large scale Bogong Moth Festivals in Australia’s highlands (although the fac that no one really believed communities until then…………..). In 2021 grind analysis found Bogong Moth residue, making this the earliest stone artefact with evidence of insect food remains. And in addition to that recent 2017 research in the area investigated Holocene occupation with Aboriginal community members, with a focus on understanding the interaction of spirituality with the resources found in the caves.

3. Mabuyag Island, Torres Strait Islands, Queensland (Torres Strait Islander)

Mabuyag Island (alternatively known as Mabuiag or Mabuyaagi) has archaeological evidence of human occupation since 7300 years ago. The island is both associated with recent religious practices associated with he heavy processing of dugong remains, and totemic associations with these, which played a role in early 2000s into community lead and directed archaeological research into ritual and religious traditions and practices. In addition to this, Mabuyag is the location of the first archaeological excavations in Australia to find pre-colonial pottery fragments. The fragments at the two sites on the island were associated with Melanesian and Papua New Guinean pottery trade. The excavations relating to pottery on the island played an important role in our understanding of domestic and international trade in pre-colonial Australia, and also formed an influence for the recent excavations at Lizard Island, 300km south, which identified the first datable domestically made pottery technology found in Australia.

4. Hyde Park Barracks, Sydney, NSW

Hyde Park Barracks is part of a collection of colonial heritage structures in Australia, relating to Australia’s time as a penal settlement. Hyde Park Barracks in particular were the location of the housing of convict men from 1819 to 1830, with the 1830s to 1840s also involving the site being a location of additional convict punishment, and the base for the Board of Assignment of Servants. Following on from a reduction of convicts to NSW in the 1840s, the Barracks became the Female Immigration Depot, and the Orphan Institution, later becoming the Asylum for Infirm and Destitute Women.

This time period of women’s occupation provides some of the most interesting archaeological remains, as redevelopment and management of the site has found high rates of preservation within walls, and in areas below floorboards. This includes textiles and fabrics, papers, and other non-organic materials such as pipes (with their tobacco intact) stashed in what was once floor, wall, and ceiling cavities. Archaeological investigations in the area form one of the most detailed assemblages of artefacts relating to instituted women in the British Empire during the 19th century.

5. Notch Point, Western Australia (Multicultural heritage)

Notch Point is a site of varied and mixed archaeology, ranging from pre- and post- colonial period Aboriginal heritage, to diverse 19th century occupation of the region by Chinese, European, Malay, and Aboriginal peoples in association with pearling industries off the coast. In addition to this, the point is located on Dirk Hartog Island (otherwise known as Wirruwana), the site of the earliest European arrival in Western Australia in 1616, and contains archaeological evidence of both various early Dutch interactions with the island in 1616 and 1697, as well as French arrival in 1772, 1801, and 1818. Notch Point in particular also contains evidence of conflict between the predominantly Chinese population of the pearling industry, with white-Australian and European pearling masters, and pastoral agents. Its not a site that is widely discussed, but provides a fascinating overlay of the amount of varied cultural groups that can be present within Australia’s archaeological sites.

-

-

Honourable mentions to:

Lake Mungo and the Willandra Lakes which should 100% be on this list, but also I feel like I talk about it ALL the time and I wanted to mention sites that I actually don’t see discussed a lot. Theyre super important for cultural reasons, for archaeological reasons, and also for their role the development of archaeology, Aboriginal community consultation, and the role its played in developing repatriation practices in modern Australia. I have multiple posts about them HERE

Budj Bin Eel Traps in Victoria (same reasons, I’ve definitely talked about them before).

Juukan Gorge (and its destruction, im still horrified)

Harrietville Chinese Mining Village

Strangway Strings and The Peake Afghan Cameleer sites

Recherche Bay in Tasmania, and its 1792 French settlement sites

Homebush Mill & Mission Hall in QLD and Beowa National Park sites containing South Sea Islander heritage

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The Collective Intelligence Institute

History is written by the winners, which is why Luddite is a slur meaning “technophobe” and not a badge of honor meaning, “Person who goes beyond asking what technology does, to asking who it does it for and who it does it to.”

https://locusmag.com/2022/01/cory-doctorow-science-fiction-is-a-luddite-literature/

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/07/full-stack-luddites/#subsidiarity

Luddites weren’t anti-machine activists, they were pro-worker advocates, who believed that the spoils of automation shouldn’t automatically be allocated to the bosses who skimmed the profits from their labor and spent them on machines that put them out of a job. There is no empirical right answer about who should benefit from automation, only social contestation, which includes all the things that desperate people whose access to food, shelter and comfort are threatened might do, such as smashing looms and torching factories.

The question of who should benefit from automation is always urgent, and it’s also always up for grabs. Automation can deepen and reinforce unfair arrangements, or it can upend them. No one came off a mountain with two stone tablets reading “Thy machines shall condemn labor to the scrapheap of the history while capital amasses more wealth and power.” We get to choose.

Capital’s greatest weapon in this battle is inevitabilism, sometimes called “capitalist realism,” summed up with Frederic Jameson’s famous quote “It’s easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism” (often misattributed to Žižek). A simpler formulation can be found in the doctrine of Margaret Thatcher: “There Is No Alternative,” or even Dante’s “Abandon hope all ye who enter here.”

Hope — alternatives — lies in reviving our structural imagination, thinking through other ways of managing our collective future. Last May, Wired published a brilliant article that did just that, by Divya Siddarth, Danielle Allen and E. Glen Weyl:

https://www.wired.com/story/web3-blockchain-decentralization-governance/

That article, “The Web3 Decentralization Debate Is Focused on the Wrong Question,” set forth a taxonomy of decentralization, exploring ways that power could be distributed, checked, and shared. It went beyond blockchains and hyperspeculative, Ponzi-prone “mechanism design,” prompting me to subtitle my analysis “Not all who decentralize are bros”:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/12/crypto-means-cryptography/#p2p-rides-again

That article was just one installment in a long, ongoing project by the authors. Now, Siddarth has teamed up with Saffron Huang to launch the Collective Intelligence project, “an incubator for new governance models for transformative technology.”

https://cip.org/whitepaper

The Collective Intelligence Project’s research focus is “collective intelligence capabilities: decision-making technologies, processes, and institutions that expand a group’s capacity to construct and cooperate towards shared goals.” That is, asking more than how automation works, but who it should work for.

Collective Intelligence institutions include “markets…nation-state democracy…global governance institutions and transnational corporations, standards-setting organizations and judicial courts, the decision structures of universities, startups, and nonprofits.” All of these institutions let two or more people collaborate, which is to say, it lets us do superhuman things — things that transcend the limitations of the lone individual.

Our institutions are failing us. Confidence in democracy is in decline, and democratic states have failed to coordinate to solve urgent crises, like the climate emergency. Markets are also failing us, “flatten[ing] complex values in favor of over-optimizing for cost, profit, or share price.”

Neither traditional voting systems nor speculative markets are up to the task of steering our emerging, transformative technologies — neither machine learning, nor bioengineering, nor labor automation. Hence the mission of CIP: “Humans created our current CI systems to help achieve collective goals. We can remake them.”

The plan to do this is in two phases:

Value elicitation: “ways to develop scalable processes for surfacing and combining group beliefs, goals, values, and preferences.” Think of tools like Pol.is, which Taiwan uses to identify ideas that have the broadest consensus, not just the most active engagement.

Remake technology institutions: “technology development beyond the existing options of non-profit, VC-funded startup, or academic project.” Practically, that’s developing tools and models for “decentralized governance and metagovernance, internet standards-setting,” and consortia.

The founders pose this as a solution to “The Transformative Technology Trilemma” — that is, the supposed need to trade off between participation, progress and safety.

This trilemma usually yields one of three unsatisfactory outcomes:

Capitalist Acceleration: “Sacrificing safety for progress while maintaining basic participation.” Think of private-sector geoengineering, CRISPR experimentation, or deployment of machine learning tools. AKA “bro shit.”

Authoritarian Technocracy: “Sacrificing participation for progress while maintaining basic safety.” Think of the vulnerable world hypothesis weirdos who advocate for universal, total surveillance to prevent “runaway AI,” or, of course, the Chinese technocratic system.

Shared Stagnation: “Sacrificing progress for participation while maintaining basic safety.” A drive for local control above transnational coordination, unwarranted skepticism of useful technologies (AKA “What the Luddites are unfairly accused of”).

The Institute’s goal is to chart a fourth path, which seeks out the best parts of all three outcomes, while leaving behind their flaws. This includes deliberative democracy tools like sortition and assemblies, backed by transparent machine learning tools that help surface broadly held views from within a community, not just the views held by the loudest participants.

This dovetails into creating new tech development institutions to replace the default, venture-backed startup for “societally-consequential, infrastructural projects,” including public benefit companies, focused research organizations, perpetual purpose trusts, co-ops, etc.

It’s a view I find compelling, personally, enough so that I have joined the organization as a volunteer advisor.

This vision resembles the watershed groups in Ruthanna Emrys’s spectacular “Half-Built Garden,” which was one of the most inspiring novels I read last year (a far better source of stfnal inspo than the technocratic fantasies of the “Golden Age”):

https://pluralistic.net/2022/07/26/aislands/#dead-ringers

And it revives the long-dormant, utterly necessary spirit of the Luddites, which you can learn a lot more about in Brian Merchant’s forthcoming, magesterial “Blood In the Machine: The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech”:

https://www.littlebrown.com/titles/brian-merchant/blood-in-the-machine/9780316487740/

This week (Feb 8–17), I’ll be in Australia, touring my book Chokepoint Capitalism with my co-author, Rebecca Giblin. We’ll be in Brisbane tomorrow (Feb 8), and then we’re doing a remote event for NZ on Feb 9. Next are Melbourne, Sydney and Canberra. I hope to see you!

[Image ID: An old Ace Double paperback. The cover illustration has been replaced with an 18th century illustration depicting a giant Ned Ludd leading an army of Luddites who have just torched a factory. The cover text reads: 'The Luddites. Smashing looms was their tactic, not their goal.']

[probablyasocialecologist]

A recent study has found it is currently “not feasible” for the global livestock industry to sequester enough carbon to cancel out its planet-warming emissions — and that policy efforts geared toward that goal may be deeply misguided. The study, which was published in the journal Nature Communications, shows that 135 gigatons — or 135 billion metric tons — of carbon would need to be returned to soils to balance out the amount of methane emitted annually by ruminants like cattle, sheep, bison, and goats. That would be an unthinkable task, said Peter Smith, a co-author of the study and Chair of Plant and Soil Science at the University of Aberdeen in the United Kingdom. 135 gigatons is roughly equal to all the carbon lost due to agriculture over the past 12,000 years. We could completely rewild much of the planet and still not quite get there. “It’s a nail in the coffin for the suggestion that carbon sequestration can offset the methane emissions” of livestock, Smith said. “The overblown claims by the livestock industry, that you don’t need to worry about anything because we’re sucking up all carbon, we’re doing a climate-positive job — that’s just bullshit.” 

[...]

That’s not to say that any use of cattle in agriculture is inherently problematic. Research has convincingly demonstrated that integrating ruminants into pastures and croplands really can help to sequester more CO2 in some circumstances. “Study after study after study after study has shown that one of very few agricultural systems that sequester carbon are pasturelands,” said Nicole Tautges, director of the Agroecology Program at the Michael Fields Agricultural Institute in East Troy, Wisconsin. However, as herds become more dense, methane and nitrous oxide emissions can quickly override the potential climate benefits. As Waginen University’s Corina E. van Middelaar, a co-author on the study, put it, “the emissions that you get from having more animals on that plot of land outweigh the additional carbon sequestration.” According to the Nature analysis, even the most ideal conditions can only support about one cow per hectare of land, about the average density of grazing animals in Europe. That figure was reached assuming cattle emit less than 100 pounds of methane annually on land with abundant carbon storage potential, conditions that “actually hardly exist,” van Middelaar said. The real world is likely to be much more unforgiving, with higher-emitting animals often raised on land with lower sequestration capacity. To make matters worse, it’s believed that most farmland can only store a finite amount of carbon — meaning even very well-managed pastures can max out their sequestration potential over time. At the same time, bad management decisions, like allowing cattle to overgraze or compact soil too much with their hooves, can easily reverse those gains. The inevitable conclusion, van Middelaar said, is that “we should move to systems with less animals to begin with.” Raising fewer ruminants would make it more possible to bring methane emissions and soil carbon levels into better balance, Smith said.

[kp777]

By Lynn Paramore, Institute for New Economic Thinking

Common Dreams

May 15, 2024

Shameful fact: the plight of U.S. retirees is a global exception. In their pursuit of lower taxes, America’s wealthiest individuals support policies that make it extremely difficult for seniors to manage the increasing costs of healthcare, housing, and basic necessities. Not so in other rich countries like Germany, France, and Canada, where robust public pensions and healthcare systems offer retirees stability and dignity. After a lifetime of hard work, older citizens in the U.S. find their reward is merely scraping by, as savings diminish under the weight of soaring medical costs in the most expensive healthcare system in the developed world.

The solution from America’s elites? Suck it up and work longer.

An example of this mindset appeared in a New York Times op-ed by C. Eugene Steuerle of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center and Glenn Kramon, a Stanford Business School lecturer. The two accused older folks of robbing economic resources from the young through Social Security and Medicare—never mind that workers fund these programs with their own lifelong payroll contributions. They paint a picture of 65-year-old Americans jauntily playing “pickleball daily” and jet-setting “far and wide,” proposing to increase the age to collect Social Security and Medicare benefits, essentially forcing future retirees to work longer. (Curiously, they overlook how this move robs young people—too young to vote—of future retirement years. This echoes 1983, when the Reagan administration and Congress pushed the Social Security age from 65 to 67, impacting Gen X before they could even vote on it).

Steuerle and Kramon prop up their plan with studies that extol the health and wellbeing perks of working into old age, adding that “each generation lives longer” and therefore, it’s a patriotic duty for the elderly to stay on the job.

Are we all really living longer? Let’s first point out that Princeton economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton, noted for their research in health and economics, recently showed that many Americans are not, in fact, enjoying extended lives. As they stated in their own New York Times op-ed, those without college degrees are “scarred by death and a staggeringly shorter life span.” According to their investigation, the expected lifespan for this group has been falling since 2010. By 2021, people without college degrees were expected to live to about 75, nearly 8.5 years shorter than their college-educated counterparts.

Overall life expectancy in America dropped in 2020 and 2021, with increases in mortality across the leading causes of death and among all ages, not just due to COVID-19. In August 2022, data confirmed that Americans are dying younger across all demographics. Again, the U.S. is an outlier. It was one of two developed countries where life expectancy did not bounce back in the second year of the pandemic.

So the argument that everyone is living longer greatly stretches the truth—unless, of course, you happen to be rich: A Harvard study revealed that the wealthiest Americans enjoy a life expectancy over a decade longer than their poorest counterparts.

Could the idea that working into our seventies and beyond boosts our health and well-being hold true? Obviously, for those in physically demanding roles, such as construction or mining, prolonged work is likely to lead to a higher risk of injury, accidents, and wearing down health-wise. But what about everybody else? What if you have a desk job? Wouldn’t it be great to get out there, do something meaningful, and interact with people, too?

Perhaps it’s easy for people like Steuerle and Kramon to imagine older people working in secure, dignified positions that might offer health benefits into old age – after all, those are the types of positions they know best.

But the reality is different. Economist Teresa Ghilarducci, a professor at the New School for Social Research, focuses on the economic security of older workers and flaws in U.S. retirement systems in her new book, Work, Retire, Repeat: The Uncertainty of Retirement in the New Economy. She calls those praising the health perks of working longer “oddballs” – those fortunate folks in cushy positions who have a lot of autonomy and purpose. Like lawmakers or tenured professors, for example.

She points out that academic researchers often base their theories about the benefits of working longer on a hypothetical person who just tacked on a few extra years in the same position, noting that researchers often make the faulty assumption that people are not only living longer, but can also easily choose to work longer, keep their jobs without facing pay cuts, and continue stacking up savings into later life.

That’s not really how it plays out in real life for most folks. Ghilarducci found that most people don’t actually get to decide when they retire, noting that “the verb ‘retire’ isn’t a verb that really belongs to the agency of the worker – it’s the employers’ choice.” Retirement often means somebody above you telling you it’s time to go. You’re ousted—laid off or pushed out because your productivity’s slipping or your skills are aging like last year’s tech. Or simply because of biases against older workers. Age discrimination is a huge issue, with two-thirds of job seekers aged 45 to 74 reporting it. In fact, people trying to find a job say they encounter significant biases as early as age 35. For the high-tech and entertainment industries, this is particularly true.

So there’s that.

There’s also the fact that continuing to work in an unfulfilling job might be hazardous to your health. The reality is, a lot of us are grinding in jobs that are stressful and insecure, and that constant stress ties into a whole host of health issues — hypertension, heart problems, messed up digestion, and a weaker immune system, not to mention it can kickstart or worsen mental health troubles like depression and anxiety.

Many are stuck in what anthropologist David Graeber memorably dubbed “bullshit jobs” — roles that feel meaningless and draining. Graeber described these jobs as a form of ‘spiritual violence,’ and found them linked to heightened anxiety, depression, and overall misery among workers. His research found strong evidence that seeing your job as useless deeply impacts your psychological well-being.

The link between job dissatisfaction and poor health has been found to be significant in study after study. Unrewarding work can demotivate people from staying active, eating well, or sleeping regularly, potentially leading to obesity, type 2 diabetes, and other health issues. In contrast, retiring from such a job could free up time and energy for wellness activities, enjoyable hobbies, and a healthier lifestyle overall.

Ghilarducci points out that reward-to-effort ratios, crucial for job satisfaction, are declining due to factors like stagnant real wages. She also highlights the problem of subordination, explaining that it can be “lethal” to remain in a job where you lack control over the content or pace of your work. According to her, such factors can lead to higher morbidity and lower mortality rates.

Okay, what about social engagement? That’s crucial for seniors, right? True, but demanding or unfulfilling jobs can make it hard to find the time and energy to socialize, leading to isolation and loneliness, which are major factors in declining mental health and quality of life for the elderly.

Also, when talking about delaying retirement, we can’t ignore cognitive decline. Sure, working longer might keep your mind sharp if the job is stimulating. However, research indicates the opposite for dull jobs. Florida State University researchers found that not only can tedious work accelerate cognitive decline, leading to increased stress and reduced life satisfaction, but “dirty” work does as well. They show that jobs in unclean environments with exposure to chemicals, mold, lead, or loud noises significantly impact brain health as we age.

Even university professors can suffer the effects of dirty jobs: North Carolina State University has recently come under fire for knowingly keeping faculty and staff working for decades in a building contaminated with PCBs, resulting in dire health consequences, including nearly 200 cases of cancer among those exposed.

Finally, it’s not a coincidence that those talking about raising the age for Social Security and Medicare are usually white men. They would suffer less from it than women, especially women of color. Women typically outlive men but earn less over their lifetimes, which already means smaller Social Security checks. It’s even tougher for Black women who often earn way less than their white peers and are more likely to have unstable jobs with skimpy benefits. Plus, women frequently take breaks from their careers for caregiving, shaving off years of paid work and further slicing their Social Security benefits. Pushing the retirement age higher forces women, especially Black women, to either toil longer in poor-quality jobs or retire without enough funds, making them more vulnerable to poverty and health problems as they get older.

Ghilarducci observes that for women in low-paying jobs with little control and agency, “working longer can really hasten their death, and the flip side of that is that retirement for these women really helps them.”

Bottom line: The whole “work longer, live healthier” spiel doesn’t fly for most. In the U.S., the well-off might be milking the joys of extended careers, but lower-income folks, particularly women and people of color, often endure the slog of thankless jobs that negatively impact their health and well-being. Elites shout from their comfortable positions that we need to push retirement further back as if it’s the magic fix to all economic woes. But when such people fantasize about happy seniors thriving at work, they’re missing the harsh reality many face—painful, boring, insecure jobs that speed death.

The myth that we’re all living longer and healthier is just that—a myth belied by life expectancy stats showing not everyone’s in the same boat. What America desperately needs is a beefed-up, fair Social Security and Medicare system that serves all Americans, not just the ones who can afford to retire without a worry. No one should be stuck choosing between a crappy job and retiring into penury.

Yet Republicans are on the warpath against Social Security and Medicare. Senator Mike Lee has explicitly stated his goal to completely eliminate Social Security, aiming to “pull it up by the roots, and get rid of it.” His fellow Republicans are enthusiastically getting the ball rolling: House Republicans have released a new proposal to weaken Social Security by raising the retirement age. For his part, former and possible future president Donald Trump indicates a willingness to consider cuts to Medicare and Social Security, despite previously criticizing his primary rivals on the issue, who were almost wall to wall demanding drastic cutbacks.

Democratic lawmakers typically show more support for Social Security and Medicare in public, though their track record has not fully alleviated concerns about the present and future vulnerability of these programs. In his recent State of the Union speech, President Biden advocated for the expansion and enhancement of Social Security and Medicare, declaring that “If anyone here tries to cut Social Security or Medicare or raise the retirement age, I will stop them!” But it’s important to keep in mind that he supported raising the retirement age during the 1980s and again in 2005.

Polling shows that voters, whether Democrats or Republicans, do not want to cut these programs. Actually, they want to expand Social Security and Medicare. That’s because those who face the realities of daily life understand that working endlessly is a cruel and unreasonable – not to mention unhealthy — expectation that no society should endorse. The idea that America can’t afford to do this is outlandish when the evidence is so clear that American billionaires pay historically low tax rates that are now lower than those for ordinary workers. What America can’t afford is the super-wealthy and their paid representatives working the rest of us to death.

[mariacallous]

The phone or computer you’re reading this on may not be long for this world. Maybe you’ll drop it in water, or your dog will make a chew toy of it, or it’ll reach obsolescence. If you can’t repair it and have to discard it, the device will become e-waste, joining an alarmingly large mountain of defunct TVs, refrigerators, washing machines, cameras, routers, electric toothbrushes, headphones. This is “electrical and electronic equipment,” aka EEE—anything with a plug or battery. It’s increasingly out of control.

As economies develop and the consumerist lifestyle spreads around the world, e-waste has turned into a full-blown environmental crisis. People living in high-income countries own, on average, 109 EEE devices per capita, while those in low-income nations have just four. A new UN report finds that in 2022, humanity churned out 137 billion pounds of e-waste—more than 17 pounds for every person on Earth—and recycled less than a quarter of it.

That also represents about $62 billion worth of recoverable materials, like iron, copper, and gold, hitting e-waste landfills each year. At this pace, e-waste will grow by 33 percent by 2030, while the recycling rate could decline to 20 percent. (You can see this growth in the graph below: purple is EEE on the market, black is e-waste, and green is what gets recycled.)

“What was really alarming to me is that the speed at which this is growing is much quicker than the speed that e-waste is properly collected and recycled,” says Kees Baldé, a senior scientific specialist at the United Nations Institute for Training and Research and lead author of the report. “We just consume way too much, and we dispose of things way too quickly. We buy things we may not even need, because it's just very cheap. And also these products are not designed to be repaired.”

Humanity has to quickly bump up those recycling rates, the report stresses. In the first pie chart below, you can see the significant amount of metals we could be saving, mostly iron (chemical symbol Fe, in light gray), along with aluminum (Al, in dark gray), copper (Cu), and nickel (Ni). Other EEE metals include zinc, tin, and antimony. Overall, the report found that in 2022, generated e-waste contained 68 billion pounds of metal.

E-waste is a complex thing to break down: A washing machine is made of totally different components than a TV. And even for product categories, not only do different brands use different manufacturing processes, but even different models within those brands vary significantly. A new washing machine has way more sensors and other electronics than one built 30 years ago.

Complicating matters even further, e-waste can contain hazardous materials, like cobalt, flame retardants, and lead. The report found that each year, improperly processed e-waste releases more than 125,000 pounds of mercury alone, imperiling the health of humans and other animals. “Electronic waste is an extremely complex waste stream,” says Vanessa Gray, head of the Environment and Emergency Telecommunications Division at the UN’s International Telecommunication Union and an author of the report. “You have a lot of value in electronic waste, but you also have a lot of toxic materials that are dangerous to the environment.”

That makes recycling e-waste a dangerous occupation. In low- and middle-income countries, informal e-waste recyclers might go door-to-door collecting the stuff. To extract valuable metals, they melt down components without proper safety equipment, poisoning themselves and the environment. The new report notes that in total, 7.3 billion pounds of e-waste is shipped uncontrolled globally, meaning its ultimate management is unknown and likely not done in an environmentally friendly way. Of that, high-income countries shipped 1.8 billion pounds to low- and middle-income countries in 2022, swamping them with dangerous materials.

High-income countries have some of this informal recycling, but they also have formal facilities where e-waste is sorted and safely broken down. Europe, for example, has fairly high formal e-waste recycling rates, at about 43 percent. But globally, recycling is happening nowhere near enough to keep up with the year-over-year growth of the waste. Instead of properly mining EEE for metals, humanity keeps mining more ore out of the ground.

Still, the report found that even the small amount of e-waste that currently gets recycled avoided the mining of 2 trillion pounds of ore for virgin metal in 2022. (It takes a lot of ore to produce a little bit of metal.) The more metals we can recycle from e-waste, the less mining we’ll need to support the proliferation of gadgets. That would in turn avoid the greenhouse gases from such mining operations, plus losses of biodiversity.

The complexity of e-waste, though, makes it expensive to process. As the chart above shows, even an ambitious scenario of a formal e-waste collection rate in 2030 is 44 percent. “There is no business case for companies to just collect e-waste and to make a profit out of this in a sustainable manner,” says Baldé. “They can only survive if there is legislation in place which is also compensating them.”

The report notes that 81 countries have e-waste policies on the books, and of those, 67 have provisions regarding extended producer responsibility, or EPR. This involves fees paid by manufacturers of EEE that would go toward e-waste management.

Of course, people could also stop throwing so many devices away in the first place, something right-to-repair advocates have spent years fighting for. Batteries, for instance, lose capacity after a certain number of charge cycles. If a phone can’t hold a charge all day anymore, customers should be able to swap in a new battery. “Manufacturers shouldn't be able to put artificial limitations on that ability,” says Elizabeth Chamberlain, director of sustainability at iFixit, which provides repair guides and tools. That includes limiting access to parts and documentation. “Repair is a harm-reduction strategy. It's not the be-all-end-all solution, but it's one of many things we need to do as a global society to slow down the rate at which we're demanding things of the planet.”

At the core of the e-waste crisis is the demand: A growing human population needs phones to communicate and fridges to keep food safe and heat pumps to stay comfortable indoors. So first and foremost we need high-quality products that don’t immediately break down, but also the right to repair when they do. And what absolutely can’t be fixed needs to move through a safe, robust e-waste recycling system. “We are consuming so much,” says Baldé, “we cannot really recycle our way out of the problem.”

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from Inside Climate News:

Many existing marine protected areas might be something like screen doors on a submarine, at least as far as their impact on ocean conservation.

A new study finds that only a third of the world’s largest marine protected areas (MPAs) currently implement meaningful conservation measures.

Increasingly, marine conservation is the art of separating humans from parts of the ocean. More often than not, marine protected areas, swaths of the sea that are set aside and managed to preserve sea life and its habitats, are the flagship models for government efforts to accomplish this.

However, a recent analysis published in Conservation Letters revealed alarming inadequacies in the effectiveness of the world’s largest MPAs. The study, conducted by an international group of researchers spearheaded by the Marine Conservation Institute in Seattle, Washington, focused on the largest 100 MPAs in the world, which together encompass over 7 percent of the world’s ocean area.

“There are 18,000 MPAs, but a hundred of them make up 90 percent of the area,” said Beth Pike, director of the Marine Protection Atlas and the study’s lead author. “These are the big needle movers.”

Pike and her colleagues found only a third of these MPAs’ total expanse to be under high or full protection—just 2.6 percent of the global ocean footprint. They found another third of these MPAs’ territories allowed for destructive activities, such as mining and industrial fishing, making them inherently incompatible with conservation. Additionally, another quarter of the protected area they analyzed were deemed “paper parks,” meaning that while these ocean spaces had been officially proposed or designated as MPAs, they had yet to implement any subsequent conservation measures. For example, over 60 percent of the OSPAR MPA network, which jointly covers roughly 7 percent of the Northeast Atlantic Ocean, appears to have benefited from no protection activities aside from its listing as a protected area.

These findings stand in stark contrast with the agreement by 188 governments to protect 30 percent of the world’s lands and waters by 2030—the 30×30 initiative—in the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework adopted during the United Nations Biodiversity Conference (COP15), in December 2022. 

[southeastasianists]

Tan Ming Li is a certified death doula. Just as there are those who facilitate bringing new life into the world, there should be people facilitating more and better ways to talk about death and dying, she reasons.

In 2023, she started The Life Review, a social venture with the mission to normalise conversations about death, dying and bereavement. Events open to the public include Life Stories, a series of chat sessions with topics such as “Motherless daughters”, “Real men don’t cry” and “Pet loss and our enduring bonds”; as well as Death Over Dinner, in which people come together to have conversations guided by Tan about their personal experiences with loss while sharing a meal.

The last Death Over Dinner took place at South Indian restaurant Podi & Poriyal, where participants were served dishes containing ingredients with special life and death significance in South Indian culture such as black sesame seeds, which signify purification; and jackfruit, the wood of which is often used as funeral pyre logs during cremation.

“What better way for Asians to connect than through food?” said Tan, explaining that Death Over Dinner is actually a global movement that originated in the US, “but we tweaked it so that food was a much bigger component, building the conversations around the ingredients and dishes. In other countries, the concept is just for people to talk about death over the dinner table.”

Tan, who is in her 40s, believes that getting comfortable with talking openly and honestly about such topics is vitally important.

“A nationwide survey conducted last year (by the Singapore Management University) revealed that ‘only 53 per cent of Singaporeans are comfortable discussing their own death while barely a third (33.4 per cent) would do so with someone who is dying’,” she shared.

She feels there is also a tendency to over-medicalise conversations about death, focusing on treatments and doctors.

“As a society, death is not something that is commonly discussed and we tend to be ‘death-denying’. Healthcare and wellness are all about ‘preventing’ death. In fighting against death, we are unaccepting of this natural part of life. This makes it hard to be vulnerable about our emotions around it,” she said.

Even if you haven’t lost a loved one yourself, “When someone else experiences a loss, many of us don’t know how to address the topic and end up using platitudes like ‘I’m sorry for your loss’ or worse, ‘Everything happens for a reason’,” she pointed out.

Ironically, avoiding the subject of death inadvertently gives it more power. “This power can then suppress our thoughts, beliefs and behaviour,” she opined.

NO STRANGER TO DEATH AND DENIAL

Tan speaks from personal experience. When she was 17, her mum died of cancer. “Dad said, ‘Don’t worry, she will recover.’ Her sudden passing left us in shock. I remember my dad brought me to the hospital canteen, broke the news to me and simply said, ‘We just have to accept it and move on’. I don’t think he ever recovered. As far as I recall, there were no conversations about it within the family.

“In the years that followed, I lost my dad, grandma, uncles and aunts… I was frozen in my grief response and it took a mental health crisis for me to start addressing these issues.”

Concurrently, Tan had always been interested in social work, from her university years when she volunteered to support children with special needs, to volunteering to teach yoga and breathing at various institutions including the Society for the Physically Disabled (SPD) and the Institute of Mental Health (IMH). She also lived in Thailand for several years, where she gave her time to a social enterprise helping indigenous craftsmen sell their goods.

Her career was in Advertising Research until she took a sabbatical and travelled to India in 2013. Following that period of time in which to think and reflect, she embarked on a new path, offering services such as mindfulness and movement.

“In the course of my work, I encountered clients who are terminally ill or grieving the loss of a loved one. Curious about how to better support them, I started researching the topic,” she recalled. “One day, I received an email from students working on a grief literacy event, inviting me to facilitate a somatic movement session for parents who had lost their child. Somatic movement involves exploring the body's sensations and movements to promote healing. During this session, many participants were able to release long held emotions within their bodies, even years after their loved one had passed.”

Motivated by the experience, she enrolled in the death doula course offered by the International End of Life Doula Association, an organisation in the US. Participants acquire skills revolving around how to support and comfort the dying and their loved ones.

“As I delved deeper into the subject, I realised that this was something that needed to go beyond supporting my clients one-to-one. The societal reluctance to discuss death openly leads to a lot of discomfort and unresolved emotions surrounding the topic, and I realised the need to scale and bring this out to the public,” she said.

So, “I decided to pursue a Masters of Science degree in Thanotology – even doctors go, ‘What’s that?’ – and start The Life Review as a platform for people to get comfortable discussing end-of-life matters through education and engagement.”

As far as she knows, she’s the only one in Singapore taking a Masters in Thanatology (“When the course started, the Programme Director said, ‘Now we are an international programme, thanks to Ming Li!’”) and one of just four people in Singapore who have completed death doula training.

“While trying to help people going through bereavement and grief, it struck me that I also had to look at my own experiences and work through all the emotions and experiences that I hadn’t known how to deal with – or even realised was necessary to,” she divulged.

“The way society operates, if we experience a loss, we are given three days of compassionate leave – and only for immediate family – and then we are expected to get back to ‘normal’ as productive members of society. But what about losing a friend? A partner? A pet? Do you get over it in three days? Since the norm was to get on with life, that’s what I did. It was only later in life that I realised that it was affecting me in ways that I did not immediately connect back to my earlier experiences, such as in the way I interacted with people in relationships and friendships. I would not get too close in case they would disappear,” she shared.

And so, “The main reason I’m doing this now is because of what I have gone through in my own life. The programmes I’m planning are skewed towards caregivers for now, as I don’t want anyone to be in a situation that I was in.” She added, “It was a turning point for me to adopt cats, knowing that they will die before me, yet to accept this and love them.”

Her work has also turned into “my legacy project for my parents”.

“I have a purpose to fulfil now, to bring The Life Review into fruition, in the remaining years left of my life. And in a way, I’m already planning for my end, making sure that I don’t regret things that I could or should have done,” she said.

DINNER WITH A PURPOSE

At Death Over Dinner events, “The framing of conversations is intentionally designed to be inclusive and non-confrontational. Participants are encouraged to share their thoughts and experiences without feeling pressured to delve into deeply personal reflections or imagine their own funerals,” Tan said.

The dinner serves as a casual starting point for discussions about a normally taboo topic to unfold naturally, fostering a sense of comfort and familiarity around the topic of death, she continued. “The intention is not to impose rigid guidelines or restrictions but rather to offer gentle guidance and prompts to steer the dialogue in a constructive direction” while embracing cultural elements within our specific society.

It is also about equipping people with the knowhow and language to either walk alongside a person who is dying, or to support a caregiver.

There are sessions taking place every quarter, which are open for individual sign-ups. The next Death Over Dinner event is planned for Apr 25 at Podi & Poriyal, with a group size of 12 to 16 people. Tan is also open to private group bookings, and hopes to possibly work with other restaurants as well.

The topic of death is rarely broached when everyone is healthy, she mused. But, in the face of loss, which comes sooner or later to all of us, “People may struggle to find the right words to express their feelings or fears, fearing that broaching the topic could cause further distress or discomfort to the person who is ill. As a result, conversations about end-of-life wishes, funeral arrangements, or even acknowledging the possibility of death may be avoided altogether, creating a palpable tension and unease.

"Dealing with it openly and saying what needs to be said can help the ones left behind adjust to the loss after the person passes away.”

And, “In the case of someone who knows they are dying, people around them not wanting to talk about it can leave them feeling unheard. They may not be able to express their desires; there may be things left unsaid; there may be people tiptoeing around them and telling them, ‘You’re going to be fine’ when they know full well they won’t be.”

The question of how we can begin to approach the topic of death in a meaningful way begs another: How talking about death openly and frankly can help us to live our lives more fully and intentionally.

“Accepting the finite nature of life and finding peace with it can change our outlook on life. When we acknowledge that life inevitably starts and ends, we are able to define what happens in between that holds significance,” Tan said.

“How do we make what happens in the middle matter? How do we leave a legacy for ourselves and future generations? Do we want to spend our time sweating the small stuff and harbouring grudges, or instead, use it to create memories and foster deep relationships? Living intentionally prompts us to confront these questions and align our actions with our values.

“Ultimately, embracing the impermanence of life compels us to live authentically, love fiercely and leave a legacy of compassion and connection.”

To sign up for Death Over Dinner, visit https://thelifereview.org/death-over-dinner.

[best-child-neurologist-in-delhi]

Best Diploma Colleges in Haryana Global Research Institute of Management & Technology is the amongst top engineering college in Haryana and best diploma colleges in Haryana. This is the best engineering college in Haryana and amongst top m tech colleges in Haryana.

[dandelionsresilience]

Good News - May 8-14

Like these weekly compilations? Support me on Ko-fi! Also, if you tip me on Ko-fi, at the end of the month I'll send you a link to all of the articles I found but didn't use each week - almost double the content!

1. Critically endangered fish with red hands and 'sad toad face' returned to the wild in Tasmania

“Conservationists in Australia are celebrating the return of 18 critically endangered red handfish to the sea after they were taken into care at the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies (IMAS) in January to protect them from marine heatwaves.”

2. A rare Australian marsupial is being genetically modified to save it from extinction. Here's how

“Scientists are trying to genetically 'edit' the endangered northern quoll to make it resistant to the neurotoxin of the invasive cane toad. […] Now experts in gene-editing […] say they can introduce genetic resistance to the toxin by taking DNA from a species of South American lizard and ‘edit’ that into the cells of a northern quoll. They have already managed to do this with the cells of the closely related dunnart, another endemic marsupial.”

3. More and faster: Electricity from clean sources reaches 30% of global total

“For the first time, 30% of electricity produced worldwide was from clean energy sources as the number of solar and wind farms continued to grow fast. [...] Some of [the past year’s] new demand was for heat pumps, which are an efficient way to both heat and cool buildings, and for electric vehicles. [... Last year was also] the 19th year in a row that solar was the fastest-growing source of electricity generation.”

4. Standards Established To Improve Health Care For Kids With Disabilities

“Developed by a panel of health care experts, adults with disabilities and caregivers, the plan published recently in the journal Pediatrics […] calls for providers to be trained about caring for those with neurodevelopmental disabilities, improved communication with patients and their families and proactive planning in advance of health care encounters to ensure that patients are at ease and provided accommodations.”

5. Working together to better understand Alaska’s beluga whales

“Beluga conservation efforts depend on an accurate count of whales. Indigenous hunters also need to know how many belugas there are so that they [can] decide how many can be safely harvested. That’s why WWF is bringing together Western science and Indigenous knowledge […. U]sing hydrophones to detect belugas in the Yukon River works—and it is an approach that is both cost-effective and non-invasive.”

6. Robotic system feeds people with severe mobility limitations

“Researchers have developed a robotic feeding system that uses computer vision, machine learning and multimodal sensing to safely feed people with severe mobility limitations, including those with spinal cord injuries, cerebral palsy and multiple sclerosis. […] The robotic system successfully fed 13 individuals with diverse medical conditions in a user study spanning three locations[….] Users of the robot found it to be safe and comfortable, researchers said.”

7. Senate Passage of America’s Conservation Enhancement Act a Win for Wildlife

“The Senate’s reauthorization of the America’s Conservation Enhancement (ACE) Act will benefit America’s wildlife and way of life. Led by Senators Tom Carper (D-Del.) and Shelley Capito (R-W.Va.), the bill invests in wetlands and habitat restoration projects across the country as well as strategies to reduce conflicts between wildlife and livestock. […] The passage of this bill shows us once again that Americans are united on the need to protect wildlife and our outdoor heritage,” said Andrew Wilkins, director of land conservation policy at the National Wildlife Federation.”

8. Liberals and conservatives differ on climate change beliefs--but are relatively united in taking action

“The study, led by researchers at New York University, finds that when given the opportunity, liberals and conservatives take action to address climate change at roughly the same levels -- and that this is due to conservatives choosing to take action despite their climate-change beliefs rather than liberals failing to act on theirs.”

9. Democratic state attorneys general are teaming up to protect abortion access

“A group of Democratic attorneys general are working to strengthen state-level protections for abortion, contraception and gender-affirming care. These protections could include expanding the use of so-called “shield laws,” which assert that states where abortion or gender-affirming care are legal won’t cooperate with out-of-state efforts to prosecute anyone who helped provide treatment.”

10. Antwerp gives residents free trees

“The Belgian city of Antwerp has 2,000 trees to give away, and it wants to give them to residents to plant in their gardens [...] with the aim of involving citizens in the greenifying process of the city. [...] What’s more, the city website offers practical advice on how to proceed with planting and caring for the tree so that it will meet the standards set by the municipality. [...] The City makes sure to give dead trees a second life by using their wood in the making of natural kids’ playgrounds.”

May 1-7 news here | (all credit for images and written material can be found at the source linked; I don’t claim credit for anything but curating.)

[whencyclopedia]

Smoke and Ashes: Opium's Hidden Histories

"Smoke and Ashes: Opium’s Hidden Histories" is a sweeping and jarring work of how opium became an insidious capitalistic tool to generate wealth for the British Empire and other Western powers at the expense of an epidemic of addiction in China and the impoverishment of millions of farmers in India. The legacy of this “criminal enterprise,” as the author puts it, left lasting influences that reverberate across cultures and societies even today.

Written in engaging language, Smoke and Ashes is a scholarly follow-up to the author’s famous Ibis trilogy, a collection of fiction that uses the opium trade as its backdrop. In Smoke and Ashes, the author draws on his years-long research into opium supplemented by his family history, personal travels, cross-cultural experience, and expertise in works of historical verisimilitude. Composed over 18 chapters, the author delves into a diverse set of primary and secondary data, including Chinese sources. He also brings a multidimensional angle to the study by highlighting the opium trade's legacy in diverse areas such as art, architecture, horticulture, printmaking, and calligraphy. 23 pictorial illustrations serve as powerful eyewitness accounts to the discourse.

This book should interest students and scholars seeking historical analysis based on facts on the ground instead of colonial narratives. Readers will also find answers to how opium continues to play an outsize role in modern-day conflicts, addictions, corporate behavior, and globalism.

Amitav Ghosh’s research convincingly points out that while opium had always been used for recreational purposes across cultures, it was the Western powers such as the British, Portuguese, the Spaniards, and the Dutch that discovered its significant potential as a trading vehicle. Ghosh adds that colonial rulers, especially the British, often rationalized their actions by arguing that the Asian population was naturally predisposed to narcotics. However, it was British India that bested others in virtually monopolizing the market for the highly addictive Indian opium in China. Used as a currency to redress the East India Company (EIC)’s trade deficit with China, the opium trade by the 1890s generated about five million sterling a year for Britain. Meanwhile, as many as 40 million Chinese became addicted to opium.

Eastern India became the epicenter of British opium production. Workers in opium factories in Patna and Benares toiled under severe conditions, often earning less than the cost of production while their British managers lived in luxury. Ghosh asserts that opium farming permanently impoverished a region that was an economic powerhouse before the British arrived. Ghosh’s work echoes developmental economists such as Jonathan Lehne, who has documented opium-growing communities' lower literacy and economic progress compared to their neighbors.

Ghosh states that after Britain, “the country that benefited most from the opium trade” with China, was the United States. American traders skirted the British opium monopoly by sourcing from Turkey and Malwa in Western India. By 1818, American traders were smuggling about one-third of all the opium consumed in China. Many powerful families like the Astors, Coolidges, Forbes, Irvings, and Roosevelts built their fortunes from the opium trade. Much of this opium money, Ghosh shows, also financed banking, railroads, and Ivy League institutions. While Ghosh mentions that many of these families developed a huge collection of Chinese art, he could have also discussed that some of their holdings were most probably part of millions of Chinese cultural icons plundered by colonialists.

Ghosh ends the book by discussing how the EIC's predatory behaviors have been replicated by modern corporations, like Purdue Pharma, that are responsible for the opium-derived OxyContin addiction. He adds that fossil fuel companies such as BP have also reaped enormous profits at the expense of consumer health or environmental damage.

Perhaps one omission in this book is that the author does not hold Indian opium traders from Malwa, such as the Marwaris, Parsis, and Jews, under the same ethical scrutiny as he does to the British and the Americans. While various other works have covered the British Empire's involvement in the opium trade, most readers would find Ghosh's narrative of American involvement to be eye-opening. Likewise, his linkage of present-day eastern India's economic backwardness to opium is both revealing and insightful.

Winner of India's highest literary award Jnanpith and nominated author for the Man Booker Prize, Amitav Ghosh's works concern colonialism, identity, migration, environmentalism, and climate change. In this book, he provides an invaluable lesson for political and business leaders that abdication of ethics and social responsibility have lasting consequences impacting us all.

Continue reading...

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

NASA scientists gear up for solar storms at Mars

In the months ahead, two of NASA's Mars spacecraft will have an unprecedented opportunity to study how solar flares—giant explosions on the sun's surface—could affect robots and future astronauts on the Red Planet.

That's because the sun is entering a period of peak activity called solar maximum, something that occurs roughly every 11 years. During solar maximum, the sun is especially prone to throwing fiery tantrums in a variety of forms—including solar flares and coronal mass ejections—that launch radiation deep into space. When a series of these solar events erupts, it's called a solar storm.

Earth's magnetic field largely shields our home planet from the effects of these storms. But Mars lost its global magnetic field long ago, leaving the Red Planet more vulnerable to the sun's energetic particles. Just how intense does solar activity get on Mars? Researchers hope the current solar maximum will give them a chance to find out. Before sending humans there, space agencies need to determine, among many other details, what kind of radiation protection astronauts would require.

"For humans and assets on the Martian surface, we don't have a solid handle on what the effect is from radiation during solar activity," said Shannon Curry of the University of Colorado Boulder's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics. Curry is principal investigator for NASA's MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN) orbiter, which is managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. "I'd actually love to see the 'big one' at Mars this year—a large event that we can study to understand solar radiation better before astronauts go to Mars."

Measuring high and low

MAVEN observes radiation, solar particles, and more from high above Mars. The planet's thin atmosphere can affect the intensity of the particles by the time they reach the surface, which is where NASA's Curiosity rover comes in. Data from Curiosity's Radiation Assessment Detector, or RAD, has helped scientists understand how radiation breaks down carbon-based molecules on the surface, a process that could affect whether signs of ancient microbial life are preserved there. The instrument has also provided NASA with an idea of how much shielding from radiation astronauts could expect by using caves, lava tubes, or cliff faces for protection.

When a solar event occurs, scientists look both at the quantity of solar particles and how energetic they are.

"You can have a million particles with low energy or 10 particles with extremely high energy," said RAD's principal investigator, Don Hassler of the Boulder, Colorado, office of the Southwest Research Institute. "While MAVEN's instruments are more sensitive to lower-energy ones, RAD is the only instrument capable of seeing the high-energy ones that make it through the atmosphere to the surface, where astronauts would be."

When MAVEN detects a big solar flare, the orbiter's team lets the Curiosity team know so they can watch for changes in RAD's data. The two missions can even assemble a time series measuring changes down to the half-second as particles arrive at the Martian atmosphere, interact with it, and eventually strike the surface.

The MAVEN mission also leads an early warning system that lets other Mars spacecraft teams know when radiation levels begin to rise. The heads-up enables missions to turn off instruments that could be vulnerable to solar flares, which can interfere with electronics and radio communication.

Lost water

Beyond helping to keep astronauts and spacecraft safe, studying solar maximum could also lend insight into why Mars changed from being a warm, wet Earth-like world billions of years ago to the freezing desert it is today.

The planet is at a point in its orbit when it's closest to the sun, which heats up the atmosphere. That can cause billowing dust storms to blanket the surface. Sometimes the storms merge, becoming global.

While there's little water left on Mars—mostly ice under the surface and at the poles—some still circulates as vapor in the atmosphere. Scientists wonder whether global dust storms help to eject this water vapor, lofting it high above the planet, where the atmosphere gets stripped away during solar storms. One theory is that this process, repeated enough times over eons, might explain how Mars went from having lakes and rivers to virtually no water today.

If a global dust storm were to occur at the same time as a solar storm, it would provide an opportunity to test that theory. Scientists are especially excited because this particular solar maximum is occurring at the start of the dustiest season on Mars, but they also know that a global dust storm is a rare occurrence.

[homosexuhauls]

Neha Wadekar in Baringo county, Kenya

Susan Chomba glares out the window of the Prado Land Cruiser at dozens of motorcycles speeding in the opposite direction. Each motorcycle carries at least five bags of charcoal and for every bag, at least three medium-sized acacia trees must be chopped down and burned. Charcoal production is banned in Kenya, but is still widely used for domestic heat and cooking.

Chomba loves trees. She can rattle off the scientific and local names of countless species and detail their ideal growing conditions. She holds a PhD in forest governance and master’s degrees in agriculture development and agroforestry. She is director of food, land and water programs, continent-wide, at the World Resources Institute (WRI), a global environmental research non-profit. She manages a portfolio of $20m and a staff of 100.

She is a rarity.

Roughly 12% of the world’s top climate scientists are women and fewer than one percent are from Africa – a continent hard hit by climate change. “If you look at the way the world operates, it’s almost blind to the fact that women bear the biggest burden and brunt of climate change,” Chomba says. That Chomba is an African woman in such a key role is potentially revolutionary, especially because she goes out of her way to solicit the views of those most affected and often most unheard – local farmers, community elders and, notably, women.

“The way climate is seen in the world, it’s seen very much from a masculine perspective,” Chomba says. For example, while male climate scientists focus heavily on developing renewable sources of energy to replace fossil fuels like oil and gas, Chomba believes they pay far less attention to the hundreds of millions of women worldwide who are burning wood for tasks like cooking. Incorporating the perspectives of women – particularly poor, rural women – would better ensure comprehensive solutions, she says.

Chomba is 40 years old but still remembers the hunger pangs she suffered as a child when the land failed to yield enough food for her family. More people, most likely women and children, will suffer the same fate, or worse, if wise and profound changes aren’t made soon.

Today, she is traveling with a team of WRI experts from Nairobi to Baringo county in Kenya’s Great Rift Valley, home to mountainous forests that supply 75% of Kenya’s water. But the expansion of agriculture into previously natural environments, deforestation for charcoal and logging, urbanization and climate change have ravaged the land, leaving it thirsty and bare. Locals say they haven’t had a yield of maize or beans, their staple crops, in three years.

Chomba and her team visit a giant gully that has split the ground into two in the middle of the farmland. The area has been overharvested and overgrazed, with few natural grasses or indigenous trees left to hold the soil together. That, combined with climate change and an intense dry season, has left the earth looking like parched, cracked skin.

An elderly farmer points to a tree and says cooking oil can be extracted from the native species.

“How can we do this through the Terrafund?” Chomba asks her team, referring to the WRI’s lending program to support businesses addressing land degradation and restoration. “We have a muze [an elder] with knowledge, a fund that wants to invest and a place that needs seedlings.”

There’s an urgent need for community-driven ideas, but hasty, half-baked “solutions” can exacerbate harm, Chomba argues on the drive to Baringo county. At the end of last year, for example, Kenya’s newly-elected president, William Ruto, announced his intention to plant 15bn trees in Kenya by 2032. But Chomba says the plan fails to specify which species will be planted (native or foreign), where they will be planted (forest reserves or communal farms), why they will be planted (for timber, carbon, fruit, or soil fertility), and who will actually grow them.

“The devil is in the details, and that’s lacking,” Chomba says. “If you don’t address deforestation causes, forget about your tree planting. It’s useless.”

Chomba grew up in Kirinyaga county in central Kenya, where her mother cultivated a small plot of land owned by a step-uncle. Chomba’s mother grew capsicum and french beans and formed cooperatives with other farmers so they could pool their products for export. Because her mother was a single parent and was always working, Chomba was largely raised by her grandmother.

“She used to tell me that if she could have gone to school, she would have studied so much that knowledge would be smoking out of her nostrils,” Chomba says. “She made sure that I knew that education was my only path out of poverty, out of the life we had back then.”

When Chomba was nine, her mother wanted to send her to a local boarding school, but the admissions staff in Kirinyaga took one look at her shabby clothes and turned her down.

“I’m not ashamed of my childhood poverty,” Chomba says today. “It’s what propelled me back then and what makes me sensitive to-date.”

Instead, Chomba traveled alone on a bus to a different boarding school in Western Kenya. A few years later, when Chomba’s mother ran out of money, Chomba returned to the provincial high school in Kirinyaga. Each student was given their own small patch of land to farm, and Chomba grew cabbage because they thrived in Kirinyaga’s cold climate. She experimented with organic farming, opting to use garlic and blackjack instead of chemical pesticides.

Chomba flashes a broad smile: “My cabbages were absolutely massive.”

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, when Kenyans were pushing back against the dictator Daniel Arap Moi, Wangari Maathai was pressing for forest conservation and fighting for multiparty democracy. Maathai, the first African woman to win a Nobel peace prize, inspired a generation of young, female Kenyan environmentalists.

“We just admired Professor Wangari,” Chomba says. “She taught us that nature belongs to all of us.”

Chomba wanted to study law, but she missed the university cut off by a single point. Her second choice was agricultural economics, but by a strange twist of fate, she was placed in a forestry course. It wasn’t until her third year, when Chomba took an agroforestry class, that she realized she had found her calling.

“The gods chose my life for me,” she says.

While Maathai was protesting in the streets, Chomba chose another path more aligned to her strengths – research.

“I have a lot of respect for activism, I think we need activism,” Chomba says. But she opted instead for a job that relies on evidence-based data as the basis to change systemic structures.

Chomba joined the International Centre for Research in Agroforestry (ICRAF) and led an eight-country land restoration program, called “Regreening Africa,” which restored one million hectares of Africa’s degraded lands. By now a single parent, Chomba had to leave her son at home with her mother to pursue dual master’s degrees in Europe.

“[S]he had to really fight,” says Tom Vandenbosch, one of Chomba’s first mentors at ICRAF. “Her having a young son when she had to move to Europe to finish her studies – that’s not something which is so easy to do.”

Chomba returned to ICRAF as a climate change researcher advising some of the brightest diplomatic minds in Africa convened to tackle climate change at the Conference of Peoples (COP). Chomba called it “the most humbling space I ever occupied as a young researcher,” and says the job “touched the social justice part of my soul.”

This experience convinced Chomba to get her PhD at the University of Copenhagen.

Chomba married her husband in 2009 and gave birth to their son in 2010. Both her sons seem interested in the environment, but “kids never do what their parents want them to do”, Chomba admits.

Chomba's team pulls up to the Baringo county government offices after a five-hour drive, enters a tiny office and crams around a table occupied by local officials. She will need their staff, resources and approval to operate in the county.

She strategically mentions budget numbers for Terrafund and as she utters the amount set aside for the Greater Rift Valley region – $6m – the officials straighten up, their interest piqued.

But challenges remain. Chomba broaches the issue of illegal charcoal production. One government official waives aside her concerns, citing Kenya’s struggling economy. “They are selling charcoal because they have no other option,” he says.

Chomba rolls her eyes.

The following morning, Chomba spends hours in the stifling heat speaking with women who are part of a grassroots gender-empowerment cooperative. Florence Lomariwo fled her home as a child to escape female genital cutting and child marriage and became a college-educated teacher. She describes how the drought is causing armed clashes between male herders, who are ranging farther from home to graze and water their livestock. Left alone, women are bearing the brunt of this.

“Most of the women are suffering deaths because of lack of water,” Lomariwo says. “For our family to survive, a woman [must] travel, even if it is 100km.”

Monicah Aluku, a 37-year-old widow, speaks up.

“Feel our pain,” she says. “There is no water. Women are walking so far to get water that they are miscarrying. There is no healthcare system. Kids are drinking dirty water and getting typhoid. We are really suffering.”

Chomba leans forward. She nods intently with a serious, steady gaze. Chomba and her team were scheduled to head back to Nairobi around 1pm, but they don’t leave until hours later. And only after Chomba has heard from every woman in the room.

This story was produced by the Fuller Project, a global newsroom dedicated to groundbreaking reporting that catalyzes positive change for women

[fatehbaz]

On May 28, 1914, the Institut für Schiffs-und Tropenkrankheiten (Institute for Maritime and Tropical Diseases, ISTK) in Hamburg began operations in a complex of new brick buildings on the bank of the Elb. The buildings were designed by Fritz Schumacher, who had become the Head of Hamburg’s building department (Leiter des Hochbauamtes) in 1909 after a “flood of architectural projects” accumulated following the industrialization of the harbor in the 1880s and the “new housing and working conditions” that followed. The ISTK was one of these projects, connected to the port by its [...] mission: to research and heal tropical illnesses; [...] to support the Hamburg Port [...]; and to support endeavors of the German Empire overseas.

First established in 1900 by Bernhard Nocht, chief of the Port Medical Service, the ISTK originally operated out of an existing building, but by 1909, when the Hamburg Colonial Institute became its parent organization (and Schumacher was hired by the Hamburg Senate), the operations of the ISTK had outgrown [...]. [I]ts commission by the city was an opportunity for Schumacher to show how he could contribute to guiding the city’s economic and architectural growth in tandem, and for Nocht, an opportunity to establish an unprecedented spatial paradigm for the field of Tropical Medicine that anchored the new frontier of science in the German Empire. [...]

[There was a] shared drive to contribute to the [...] wealth of Hamburg within the context of its expanding global network [...]. [E]ach discipline [...] architecture and medicine were participating in a shared [...] discursive operation. [...]

---

The brick used on the ISTK façades was key to Schumacher’s larger Städtebau plan for Hamburg, which envisioned the city as a vehicle for a “harmonious” synthesis between aesthetics and economy. [...] For Schumacher, brick [was significantly preferable] [...]. Used by [...] Hamburg architects [over the past few decades], who acquired their penchant for neo-gothic brickwork at the Hanover school, brick had both a historical presence and aesthetic pedigree in Hamburg [...]. [T]his material had already been used in Die Speicherstadt, a warehouse district in Hamburg where unequal social conditions had only grown more exacerbated [...]. Die Speicherstadt was constructed in three phases [beginning] in 1883 [...]. By serving the port, the warehouses facilitated the expansion and security of Hamburg’s wealth. [...] Yet the collective profits accrued to the city by these buildings [...] did not increase economic prosperity and social equity for all. [...] [A] residential area for harbor workers was demolished to make way for the warehouses. After the contract for the port expansion was negotiated in 1881, over 20,000 people were pushed out of their homes and into adjacent areas of the city, which soon became overcrowded [...]. In turn, these [...] areas of the city [...] were the worst hit by the Hamburg cholera epidemic of 1892, the most devastating in Europe that year. The 1892 cholera epidemic [...] articulated the growing inability of the Hamburg Senate, comprising the city’s elite, to manage class relationships [...] [in such] a city that was explicitly run by and for the merchant class [...].

In Hamburg, the response to such an ugly disease of the masses was the enforcement of quarantine methods that pushed the working class into the suburbs, isolated immigrants on an island, and separated the sick according to racial identity.

In partnership with the German Empire, Hamburg established new hygiene institutions in the city, including the Port Medical Service (a progenitor of the ISTK). [...] [T]he discourse of [creating the school for tropical medicine] centered around city building and nation building, brick by brick, mark by mark.

---

Just as the exterior condition of the building was, for Schumacher, part of a much larger plan for the city, the program of the building and its interior were part of the German Empire and Tropical Medicine’s much larger interest in controlling the health and wealth of its nation and colonies. [...]

Yet the establishment of the ISTK marked a critical shift in medical thinking [...]. And while the ISTK was not the only institution in Europe to form around the conception and perceived threat of tropical diseases, it was the first to build a facility specifically to support their “exploration and combat” in lockstep, as Nocht described it.

The field of Tropical Medicine had been established in Germany by the very same journal Nocht published his overview of the ISTK. The Archiv für Schiffs- und Tropen-Hygiene unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Pathologie und Therapie was first published in 1897, the same year that the German Empire claimed Kiaochow (northeast China) and about two years after it claimed Southwest Africa (Namibia), Cameroon, Togo, East Africa (Tanzania, Burundi, Rwanda), New Guinea (today the northern part of Papua New Guinea), and the Marshall Islands; two years later, it would also claim the Caroline Islands, Palau, Mariana Islands (today Micronesia), and Samoa (today Western Samoa).

---

The inaugural journal [...] marked a paradigm shift [...]. In his opening letter, the editor stated that the aim of Tropical Medicine is to “provide the white race with a home in the tropics.” [...]

As part of the institute’s agenda to support the expansion of the Empire through teaching and development [...], members of the ISTK contributed to the Deutsches Kolonial Lexikon, a three-volume series completed in 1914 (in the same year as the new ISTK buildings) and published in 1920. The three volumes contained maps of the colonies coded to show the areas that were considered “healthy” for Europeans, along with recommended building guidelines for hospitals in the tropics. [...] "Natives" were given separate facilities [...]. The hospital at the ISTK was similarly divided according to identity. An essentializing belief in “intrinsic factors” determined by skin color, constitutive to Tropical Medicine, materialized in the building’s circulation. Potential patients were assessed in the main building to determine their next destination in the hospital. A room labeled “Farbige” (colored) - visible in both Nocht and Schumacher’s publications - shows that the hospital segregated people of color from whites. [...]

---

Despite belonging to two different disciplines [medicine and architecture], both Nocht and Schumacher’s publications articulate an understanding of health [...] that is linked to concepts of identity separating white upper-class German Europeans from others. [In] Hamburg [...] recent growth of the shipping industry and overt engagement of the German Empire in colonialism brought even more distant global connections to its port. For Schumacher, Hamburg’s presence in a global network meant it needed to strengthen its local identity and economy [by purposefully seeking to showcase "traditional" northern German neo-gothic brickwork while elevating local brick industry] lest it grow too far from its roots. In the case of Tropical Medicine at the ISTK, the “tropics” seemed to act as a foil for the European identity - a constructed category through which the European identity could redescribe itself by exclusion [...].

What it meant to be sick or healthy was taken up by both medicine and architecture - [...] neither in a vacuum.

---

All text above by: Carrie Bly. "Mediums of Medicine: The Institute for Maritime and Tropical Diseases in Hamburg". Sick Architecture series published by e-flux Architecture. November 2020. [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me. Text within brackets added by me for clarity. Presented here for commentary, teaching, criticism purposes.]