#but ill be an expert just until december

[tchaikovskym]

it's so funny that i'm employed as an "expert". lmao. i'm only a silly tumblr blogger. just some guy. avid weird stuff practitioner. and now - an expert!

[elektroskopik]

What science is just starting to understand about periods

Menstruation affects the body and mind in countless ways. A new study is just the beginning.

PMS, food cravings, “period flu”: Anybody who menstruates knows from experience that the monthly cycle can have a profound impact on the body and mind. But researchers are still only beginning to explore exactly how menstruation can affect health — and, in some people, worsen symptoms of illness.

In one recent study, psychologist Jaclyn Ross and a team at the University of Illinois Chicago asked 119 female patients who had experienced suicidal thoughts in the past to track their feelings over the course of a menstrual cycle. They found that for many patients, suicidal thoughts tended to get worse in the days right before and during menstruation. On those days, patients were more likely to progress from thinking about suicide to actually making plans to end their own lives.

These results might seem sadly unsurprising to people living with depression, who have been telling their therapists — and talking among themselves — for years about how their periods affect their symptoms. But thanks to misogyny in science and medicine, these effects haven’t been studied in a systematic way until recently, frequently leaving patients on their own to navigate fluctuations in mood that doctors may not know how to diagnose or treat.

In fact, menstruation has been understudied for decades, creating a knowledge vacuum in which patients with pain or heavy bleeding wait years for a diagnosis. In recent years, however, more scientists have begun to study the process and menstrual fluid — research that could uncover crucial information about human health that’s been unjustly ignored.

Menstruation can affect mental health symptoms

Ross’s colleague, psychologist Tory Eisenlohr-Moul, had the idea for the research after one of her therapy patients mentioned worsening symptoms around her period, she told the Chicago Tribune. “I thought if we had some evidence that this was common then maybe we could do something about it,” she said.

The connections between periods and mental health have started to get more attention in the last decade. Clinicians have long known that a small percentage of the population experiences a condition called premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD), characterized by severe feelings of anxiety, depression, or irritability in the days leading up to menstruation. PMDD was added to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) in 2013, and experts believe 3 to 8 percent of menstruating people have the condition.

But Ross and her team wanted to study whether menstrual cycles affected more people’s mental health, too.

So the patients in their study were not diagnosed with PMDD, and instead were chosen because they reported suicidal thinking in the past month. The researchers asked participants to record symptoms like depression, anxiety, and hopelessness every day of their cycle. They also asked about suicidal ideation and suicidal planning. Ideation tended to be more intense, and planning was more likely, on the days around menstruation, Ross told the Tribune.

“What’s fascinating is that even though we did not recruit for PMDD, we see that a majority of participants reporting recent suicidal ideation tend to experience worsening symptoms around the days before and during menses onset,” she told Vox in an email.

Most people don’t experience major psychiatric symptoms in response to hormonal changes, Ross said. However, research has found that people with underlying mental illness — including 60 percent of women with depressive disorders — often do feel worse around their periods.

Ross’s study, published in December in the American Journal of Psychiatry, suggests that therapists, psychiatrists, and OB-GYNs should be giving patients information about how menstruation can affect emotional symptoms, especially suicidality. Patients might also benefit from charting their own symptoms for a few months to see whether a cyclical pattern emerges.

The lab where Ross works, led by Eisenlohr-Moul, is also studying behavioral and pharmaceutical treatments that could help people whose symptoms are tied to their menstrual cycles, from dialectical behavioral therapy to hormone-blocking drugs.

Researchers are fighting the stigma around periods

The findings add to an area of study that’s still battling silence and stigma. People with PMDD still struggle to get a diagnosis; in a 2022 survey, around 40 percent of PMDD patients said their mental health care providers had no knowledge of the condition. The impact of menstruation on other mental health conditions, like depression, is even more poorly understood.

However, a growing body of research and reporting is shedding light on how menstruation works and the many profound ways that our menstrual cycles can affect us, mentally and physically.

Researchers are also exploring whether menstrual fluid could be used in early detection of conditions like uterine fibroids, cancer, and endometriosis. Studying menstruation, in which the uterus sheds and regrows its own lining, could provide insight into wound healing, midwife and author Leah Hazard told Vox’s Byrd Pinkerton.

In the last two years, researchers have also confirmed what many patients reported anecdotally: that Covid-19 vaccines have small but measurable effects on menstrual cycles. The findings could push vaccine manufacturers to test their products’ effects on menstruation so that patients won’t be caught off guard. (The menstrual effects of the Covid vaccine are temporary and do not impact fertility, experts say.)

Many of the connections between menstruation and other aspects of physical and mental health went undiscussed for years, at least in public, because scientists and doctors simply weren’t studying them. When it comes to understanding menstrual health, “we’re very, very behind,” Alice Lu-Culligan, a pediatrics resident at Boston Children’s Hospital who has studied menstruation, previously told Vox.

In 2023 — yes, last year — researchers finally conducted one of the first studies to test the capacity of menstrual products using real blood.

Studies like Ross’s, however, show that clinical research is starting to catch up with what many people who menstruate already know: that the process is an inextricable part of human functioning that has a lot to teach us, if we care to listen.

[shanduhthepanduh]

It took almost 3 years, but I contracted COVID-19 this weekend. My boss appeared sick on Friday, so I gave him a test and he stayed in his office and we were masked and distanced if discussing anything. Woke up Saturday morning with a dry throat. 🥺 By that afternoon, had a very low grade fever of 99°F. Woke up congested on Sunday and tested positive. I took an antihistamine to dry up my mucous, Sinex spray and Sudafed to open up my sinuses. Fever increased to 101.7°F but I didn’t take any analgesics or cough syrup until just before bedtime. I’m coughing and congested again this morning, so same medications were taken this morning. Fever back down to 99°F, so no Tylenol yet. I’m pleased that the illness is this mild. I’m fully supportive of booster vaccines. I got Moderna X 2 in January/February of 2021 and a Pfizer booster in December 2021. My last booster was the bivalent Pfizer in December 2022. I don’t go to many crowded places, but I don’t wear masks 100% of the time either (like in the office). From recent print news, “People who haven't had COVID will likely catch XBB.1.5 – and many will get reinfected, experts say variant XBB.1.5 is very contagious, meaning everyone is at risk even if you've already been infected.” Sounds about right. Also, my boss was sick with COVID last January, and he’s faring better this time around. He’s also vaxxed to the max. Get vaccinated folks—for COVID, for influenza. It *will* keep you out of the hospitals, which are packed this time of year. Much love to everyone out there. Oh, and I plan to use that “COVID brain” excuse to the max, so be prepared. 😏

[scotianostra]

20th December 1862 saw the death in London of Robert Knox, the Edinburgh surgeon and anatomist.

Knox was a renowned lecturer of anatomy, esteemed zoologist, ethnologist and doctor but  is most infamous for buying bodies from the West Port murderers Burke and Hare. I’ve covered Knox and the West Port murders many times, todays post I shall concentrate on the career of Dr Knox up until then.

Robert, the eighth child of an Edinburgh Schoolmaster, was born in 1791 and educated at the High School of Edinburgh (later the Royal High School) where, in his final year, he was Gold Medallist and Dux of the School. He entered the Medical Faculty of Edinburgh University in 1810 and graduated MD four years later. As an undergraduate he attended the extramural Anatomy class of Dr John Barclay, then regarded as the foremost anatomist in the British Isles, who considered him to be his most brilliant pupil. After a period of Army service as a regimental surgeon during which he spent three years in South Africa, Knox returned to Edinburgh in 1822 and joined the staff of Dr Barclay’s anatomy school as an assistant lecturer. He began to publish scientific papers on a wide variety of anatomical and pathological subjects and, in 1823, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. In 1821, Dr Barclay had offered to the College his large personal collection of anatomical specimens on condition that it would be properly displayed in a purpose built hall. Three years later Knox with Barclay’s encouragement submitted to the College a plan for a museum based on the Barclay collection and offered to supervise the establishment of such a museum within the College. This could not be done in Old Surgeons Hall and it was Dr Barclay’s gift and Robert Knox’s museum plan that convinced the College of its urgent need for new premises, Knox’s proposals were accepted by the College Council and, early in 1825, he was formally appointed to the newly created office of Museum Conservator. Later that year Knox was admitted a Fellow of the College and granted full partnership with joint charge of his extramural anatomy school by Dr Barclay. On Knox’s recommendation the College in 1825 purchased Sir Charles Bell’s extensive anatomical and surgical collection; he also supervised its transfer from London to Edinburgh and made arrangements for its safe storage until such time as the College acquired new premises in which along with Dr Barclay’s collection it could be adequately housed.

Dr Barclay died in 1826 leaving Knox in sole charge of the anatomy school to which increasing numbers of students were attracted by his remarkable abilities as a teacher. The University Chair of Anatomy was at that time held by the lazy and incompetent Alexander Monro tertius, of whom Charles Darwin, then a student famously remarked “ He made his lectures on anatomy as dull as he was himself”. There could be no greater contrast to Monro’s dull pedantry than Knox’s brilliant lectures, which were always vividly illustrated by expert dissections. A major attraction of Knox’s extramural class was his guarantee that students attending his course would see the human body completely dissected and for the fulfilment of this promise he obviously required an ample provision of anatomical “subjects”. Knox’s success aroused the jealousy of other anatomists and surgeons conducting extramural classes and their hostility was exacerbated by his intellectual arrogance and his ill concealed contempt for their professional abilities. His major achievements as Museum Conservator were the preparation of the first comprehensive catalogue and the advice on the requirements of the Museum, which he gave to William Henry Playfair, the architect of new Surgeons Hall.

Knox’s teaching commitments increased rapidly and, in the academic year 1827-28, just over 500 students were enrolled in his extramural anatomy class. He employed a number of assistants and demonstrators, some of whom such as William Ferguson ultimately gained fame in their own right as surgeons and anatomists but it was at this time that Knox became involved in the macabre events which ultimately brought about his ruin.

Burke and Hare sold the bodies of their 16 victims to Knox’s anatomy school but there is no evidence that he had any awareness of the provenance of these particular “subjects” and according to most sources, it is said that he never met either of the two murderers. 

The discovery of the murders in November 1838 provoked a furious public outcry and, although Knox was never accused of any crime, the Edinburgh populace at large regarded him as being only marginally less culpable than Burke and Hare. He was publicly vilified and the Edinburgh mob attacked his house but, although they smashed its windows, they were unable to force an entry.

Knox left Scotland in disgrace, but continued having a successful career in London  until his death on this day in 1862.

Knox was buried in Brookword Cemetery near Woking but his grave was neglected and forgotten until in 1966 it was rediscovered by Professor Eric Mekie, his lineal successor as Conservator of the College Museum. Professor Mekie and Sir John Bruce arranged for the clearance of the weeds and foliage which had overgrown the grave, the original memorial was a flat ledger stone which may or may not have included an inscription.The small granite block on top of this ledger stone was placed there in 1966 by the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh.

[msclaritea]

Golden Globes 2024 Review: Awards Fail to Rise from the Ashes

But after years of scandals, a pandemic, strikes and pivots, including a forced hiatus from TV and then a break with NBC, the Globes spent the run-up to this Sunday’s ceremony (now on CBS) indicating that the institution had changed. For one thing, the HFPA itself is no more, replaced by a for-profit venture with an expanded, diversified voting body. Some of these adjustments were welcome, even overdue; Hollywood has enough opportunities for nepotism without the title formerly known as Miss Golden Globe. Yet the Globes also risked throwing out the baby with the bathwater — or rather, Jennifer Lawrence’s lukewarm chardonnay. If the Golden Globes, the organization, got its act together, could the Golden Globes, the annual celebrity extravaganza, still be fun?

It turns out this year’s Globes were still a trainwreck — just not the kind one likes to watch. At just a hair over three hours, the ceremony was efficient on paper, but felt interminable in practice. With forced banter, ill-conceived staging and a woefully unqualified MC, this year’s show was hardly a triumphant return, let alone a showcase for a new and improved Golden Globes.

Host Jo Koy took the job less than two weeks ago, after bigger names like eventual winner Ali Wong had publicly passed on the gig. Koy’s performance failed to seize the spotlight, instead making for an inauspicious beginning to the Globes’ attempted rebrand. Rather than endearing the stand-up to a new audience, Koy’s monologue was filled with cringe-worthy jokes about “Barbie” breasts and bitter jabs at a crowd that was audibly not on his wavelength. Previous hosts like Jerrod Carmichael and Ricky Gervais have gleefully turned their satiric blades on the Globes itself. (Unfortunately for Koy, Gervais’ shadow only became more prominent when his fellow comic won a prize in absentia.) The kindest compliment one could pay Koy’s performance, at least from the show’s point of view, is that it was enough of a boondoggle to distract from his employer’s own struggles. Unlike in years past, the Globes’ troubles went largely unmentioned until Robert Downey Jr.’s wry acceptance speech for Best Supporting Actor.

"The former Marvel star brought the same sarcastic charm that enlivened his erstwhile character Tony Stark. (“It’s so fun proving agents right!”) 🙄

But the evening was otherwise dominated by rushed, perfunctory speeches by honorees who hardly seemed happy to be there. Highlights, like Ayo Edebiri’s shoutout to her reps’ assistants or Greta Gerwig’s shoutout to Noah Baumbach’s inner Barbie girl, came and went quickly, a pace encouraged by an unseen, though frequently commented on, countdown clock. Nor did the presenters seem any more enthusiastic, with the notable exception of Jon Batiste and Andra Day. Onlookers in and out of the room seemed to seize on the pair’s easy chemistry like an oasis in a charisma desert, as much a testament to their own appeal as the lack of highlights before and after their appearance.

The Globes did pull off the coup of getting Taylor Swift in the room by handing her a nomination for Cinematic and Box Office Achievement, an award all but made up to lure megawatt stars to the Beverly Hilton. But Koy quickly squandered that win, alienating the pop star with a cheap shot about her presence at NFL games. Swift, an expert at making the most of wordless TV cutaways, telegraphed her displeasure with a single swig of her drink. The night was surprisingly light on prominent no-shows, besides former Gervais and the team behind “The Boy and the Heron.” But given what greeted those who did attend, producers may have difficulty luring in stars of Swift’s caliber again. Lesser-known nominees like Christine Vachon, producer of “May December,” publicly complained about terrible seats at the room’s margins, adding to the impression that a show that bills itself as one big party was failing to satisfy its guests. For viewers, the dampened vibe was both palpable and contagious."

[bookwormstarwarsfan]

So after a little Tumblr trouble I'm back with the second part on the actual anniversary.

I already told the story, let's see the explantation: why is this event so important for the Hunagrian millenials (or Ducktales generation as we like to call them)? And how is this event gives a perfect picture of Hunagrian political culture?

It's December 12th 1993. A few long minutes passed since the Funeral March started playing. Now the majority of the country knows that Prime Minister József Antall is dead.

But 2.2 million kids don't care about this, they are just waiting for the Ducktales episode to continue. But it doesn't. They have to wait for the Monday repeat, which also never comes. And this is when the trauma becomes whole.

And I'm not overreacting, or misusing the word trauma, this real phenomenon is studied by phsyhologsists and media experts for 30 years now. But what are the reasons?

Of course the first thing that comes to our minds is the death part, this is not a nice way for kids to come in contact with death, but surprisingly this has the smallest part in the trauma. One of the studies talks about how until around the age of 9 children don't fully understand death and this is why even in their adulthood these people only remember the lost episode and don't show much empathy towards the death of such an important, honorable figure.

Reading lot of comments and anecdotes from those children, it seems the biggest wound is how this event, the best part of the week was lost. Everybody was preparing for days, this was the reward at the end of the week, when there is only 2 channels, not so much programme is for the children. There are even urban legends about how the at that time usually crowded playgrounds were empty because of the Disney afternoon.

Also, as I said, this happened not long after the terrible socialist era, the memory of transmission breaks, programme interruptions and politics poisoning everything was still a vivid memory.

A much worse consequence was how this affected their relationship with politics. Lot of them says that with a little stretch this made them instantly hate politics for a long time, really the worst way to meet politics for the first time.

This leads us to another interesting discovery. Majority of these people only remember this one political-social event, even though there was a lot spectacular stuff happening in that decade, but this one is so clear that they can recall all the details. This is a flashbulb memory for them, just like the Kennedy assassination or 9/11 for many other.

And while reading this, you may have noticed a strange detail. The episode was interrupted at 18.08, it's normal for such breaking news, you would say. But didn't the old man said Antall died just after 5 pm? Why not announce it at the minute they get the news, or if they already waited an hour, why not wait a little bit more until the end of the episode?

His death didn't come unexpected, he was very ill for a long time already. So why was the channel so unprepared, interrupting a children's tale with an awkwardly long break before the announcement?

The reasons for these two questions are Boross and the Hunagrian political culture. Now we know that days before the death he clearly stated that only he can announce the death, meaning that the channel had to wait for him when the time came:

'I only know one thing guys. If it happens, I run to the television and announce the news.'

What politics wants, politics gets.

Seven years later the first commercial channel finally played the whole lost episode, and now, 30 years later anybody can watch it on Disney+, if they are not too effected by the trauma. But this event will forever be one of the most iconic, interesting moments in Hungarian politics, and today, as every year on this day, more 'Ducktales interrupted' than 'Antall died on this day' headlines will be seen.

Thirty years ago the interruption of the Ducktales shocked a whole generation of children

A few days ago I saw some Ducktales here and decided to write about one of my favourite Hungarian historical moments, but then I realized that the anniversary is in less than a week, so I scheduled this post exactly on the 30th anniversary even for the minute, at 18:08 CET. (Edit: fuck Tumblr, it messed up scheduling, but second part is on its way)

So let me to present you the story of the Ducktales generation of Hungary, the children born in the 80s, who were traumatized by the aforementioned cartoon exactly 30 years ago, on December 12th 1993 at 18:08.

The year is 1993. The ill-fated little Central-European Hungary is barely out of the more than 40 years of terrible communist dictatorship, it only elected it's first in decades democratic government in 1990 and the last occupying Soviet soldier left the the country in the Summer of 1991.

The first media war is on full rage, meaning that there is still only two, government owned, tv channel, (and time to time HBO, if you were at the right place at the right time) but unlike during the socialism, Western programmes are allowed. This two facts together mean that every time there is a kid's programme on, practically every children who has access to tv, watches it.

Every Sunday afternoon is for Walt Disney, but most importantly for Ducktales. This one has a chokehold on every kid, the absolutle favourite. (Interestingly never became popular for any other generations in Hungary, unlike other iconic programmes, despite being aired a few more times in the following decades.)

So we get to the Sunday of December 12th. Allegedly 2.2 million children is in front of the tv, accompanied by many adults. The episode "A Whale of a Bad Time" is at its emotional high. Scrooge McDuck (or as we know him, Uncle Dagobert) is histerically jumping on the dinner table, because the ship with his money is lost. At 18:08 one of the most famous last sentence is said: 'A sea monster ate my ice cream!!!'

The screen goes black and white, the programme stops, blackness, then the grey channel logo shows up and Chopin's Funeral March starts playing. For long minutes nothing happenes, except of course for the hundreds of thousands of kids having a temper tantrum. By the time the March is coming to the end, even more adults are in the room, either because of the screaming kid or the sudden change of mood.

After 2 whole minutes again a moment of blackness, then a fat, old man in thight black suit comes up with a flag in the the background.

For many of the children watching, this was the first time to ever come to contact with politics, and for some of them, with death. Because the man, Péter Boross, who at that first moment still unbeknownst to the audience had already been the Prime Minister for less than an hour, had an important message:

'Fellow citizens, Hungarians, here at home and around the world. Destiny gave me a painful duty. Dr József Antall, Prime Minister of Hungary today after 5 pm passed away.'

Of course the passing of the reigning Prime Minister would be breaking news everywhere, especially if he is the first democratically elected one in more than 40 years, but this event became more important for a different cause.

[theramseyloft]

i read your long pigeon poop post, and after some poking around online i saw that a loft in melbourne australia failed. do you have any idea why that is?

Oh... my fucking God. I am so furious.

Look at this thing!

$70,000 went into this monstrosity?

It looks like they converted a fucking water tower by punching holes in it and welding on entryways shaped like the stereotypical toddler’s first house drawing!

Who fucking researched this?!

Was it designed by a committee purely by aesthetic?!

Here is an article I found on it’s decomission and removal.

https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/melbourne-city-councils-70000-pigeon-loft-turned-into-scrap-metal-20160724-gqcmsc.html

According to the pigeon expert quoted in this article: 

“Frank Hayes is the president of the Australian National Pigeon Association. While his group is mostly interested in show pigeons, a different breed to the city pests, he says it was fairly predictable the coop idea was never going to work.”

“ "The nature of the pigeon is that they find a home and they stick with it. So finding them somewhere else to go is a bit of a dream," said Mr Hayes.”

“ "Trying to shift them is one big headache. It's a worldwide problem and no one has ever figured out how to deal with it." ” 

LOOK at this structure!!!

It’s made of fucking METAL!!!

In AUSTRAILIA!!!

In the fucking OPEN!!!!

From this charming article:

 http://melbournedailyphotodaily.blogspot.com/2011/03/pigeon-loft-batman-park.html

“The loft is painted with light coloured corrosion resistant to reflect the heat and minimise internal over-heating. It houses two hundred nesting boxes for pigeon breeding. Eggs laid will be replaced with artificial eggs intended as a humane way to control and reduce pigeon numbers.”

That is a metal structure in the Melbourne sun...

No amount of Paint is gonna make that less an oven.

And I can’t imagine you can add anything to paint to make it corrosion resistant that isn’t noxious in a small space when the metal under it heats up.

“Bird feeding around the loft base is permitted to attract birds out of the CBD to this area. Bird feeding is not permitted in any other area around the CBD.”

But the city council is not actually providing the birds with good quality fed...

“... and no one has ever figured out how to deal with it."

No one, you ignorant twit?

NO ONE?!?!

Here is the site of a successful branch of the German Stadttauben Projekt, translated:

https://stadttauben-stuttgart.de/

“The Stuttgart pigeon project

Dear prospective customers,

nice that you found our homepage. We would like to introduce our project to you on the following pages:

The Stuttgart City Pigeon Project is an animal welfare-friendly concept for regulating and reducing city pigeons for the benefit of people and animals. We operate several supervised pigeon shots in the Stuttgart city area, in which the pigeons are cared for and their eggs are exchanged for dummies so that no offspring hatch. By the end of 2019, there had been well over 45,000 eggs. By feeding grain mixtures in our shots, the animals are no longer forced to look for food on the streets and squares in the area. They spend 80% of the day and the entire night in the dovecote. Ergo - your droppings also stay there and no longer land on roofs or balconies.

We were awarded the Baden-Württemberg State Animal Protection Award 2015 for our commitment .

The city pigeon is one of the most successful residents of the urban living space and today populates all major cities worldwide. It is the free-living descendant of the wild rock pigeons from the coastal and mountain areas in Africa and Eurasia. Long ago, the rock pigeons were domesticated by humans primarily for the purpose of meat production and thus also carried to our latitudes and cities. In modern times, the stock of the archetypal rock pigeon increasingly mixed with breeding, racing and sports pigeons that either escaped, were abandoned or, exhausted by exhausting competitive flights, ran aground in the cities. Today's city pigeons are the overgrown children and children's children of these rock, breeding and sports pigeons.

In cooperation with the state capital of Stuttgart, the Tierschutzverein Stuttgart und Umgebung eV launched the pigeon project in 2008. The cooperation was formed with the aim of bringing about a permanent and humane solution to the city pigeon problem.

The concept of the Federal Working Group for City Pigeons or the so-called * Augsburg Model * was helpful. It is based on scientific publications, practical experience and has already been successfully recommended by several federal states such as Hesse, North Rhine-Westphalia and Baden-Württemberg. Today it is implemented in more than 80 German cities and towns. For example, there are pigeon houses looked after in Aachen, Augsburg, Hamburg, Berlin, Frankfurt, Saarbrücken and Wuppertal.

We aim for a small, supervised and healthy pigeon population in Stuttgart. Then the image of the city pigeon may rise again. Because healthy animals, which have a permanent home and receive animal feed, do not bother anyone!”

https://stadttauben-stuttgart.de/?page=1,0,0,Chronik+%26+Fakten

“Care instead of fighting: our chronicle

2008:The first step was a dovecote at platform 1 in Stuttgart main station

2009:The second blow was made in the roof of the Leonhardskirche

2009:The third pigeon house was on the Mühlgrün parking garage in Bad-Cannstatt, which has since been demolished and replaced by the pigeon tower in the rope

2010:The fourth facility was the pigeon tower in the city garden on Max-Kade-Weg

2011:The fifth pigeon house stood on the roof of the town hall garage until February 2016. Reconstruction on the roof of the city comb in April 2016.

2011:The sixth dovecote was a second stroke on the roof of the Leonhardskirche (other roof side)

2013:The seventh dovecote was built in the roof of the Fairkauf building in Stuttgart-Feuerbach

2014:The eighth pigeon loft was built (as a replacement for the location at the main station) on a flat roof in the Kriegsbergstrasse

2016:Dovecote number 9 was inaugurated in July 2016 at the Marienplatz in Stuttgart in the roof structure of the imperial building

2017:

On Landhausstrasse in the east of Stuttgart, we were able to set up dovecote No. 10 in the attic of a residential building. It was opened in June 2017

2018:In summer, an indoor pigeon tower was opened at Seilerwasen in Bad Cannstatt as a replacement for the Mühlgrün pigeon house

2019In autumn a new pigeon facility was inaugurated at the station in Zuffenhausen and the first egg was laid in December.    

In addition, a dovecote (trailer) on the grounds of the shelter Stuttgart and Nistwand for about 30 pigeons on the will of the ASPCA Stuttgart  House  Adam Müller-Guttenbrunn in Stuttgart Zuffenhausen care.

... more dovecotes are to follow!

Health hazard facts

A health hazard due to pigeons flying around, running and sitting can be largely excluded. New scientific studies have shown (again) that pathogens that may be contained in the pigeon droppings are usually bird-specific and are therefore not transmitted to humans. This was confirmed in 1995 by the Federal Ministry of Health.

The general classification of the pigeon as a pest was withdrawn by the Federal Institute for Consumer Health Protection back in 1989 on the basis of research results at the time and the opinion from 2001.

Feed facts about pigeons

Feeding pigeons in Stuttgart is prohibited on public land. Well-meaning pigeon friends increase the population density of the city pigeons by regular feeding in the same place, without offering the additionally attracted animals sleeping and nesting places where they are tolerated or the clutch can be exchanged. This creates people who work there or often live more pigeon hate and more pigeon misery.

Above all, too many food scraps are thrown away on the streets and squares of the city! This waste is mostly not compatible with pigeons. They lead to illnesses, shortages and thus, among other things, to the unsightly liquid starvation. Nevertheless, due to the scarcity of bird-friendly feed in cities, these human foods are usually the main basis for the feeding of city pigeons, but their organism is designed for pure hard grain feed. So this means sick pigeon populations that nonetheless reproduce disproportionately due to their (pet) genes raised by humans.

If you would like to help sustainably, please contact us. Only other supervised dovecotes in the city area (including food and egg exchange) start at the root of the "problem". We welcome any support!”

From their gallery:

Here is a loft.

Small, wooden, well insulated from heat and cold.

Those openings are not the nests. They are just doorways with a landing ledge designed around the comfort of pigeons, which are social birds.

Here is the inside.

Lots of comfortable nest boxes, perches in the back, food, water, comfortable socialization space...

Here is an entry into another loft currently in use.

Here is the inside.

Water and feed are provided by the care takers. You can see feed and drinking stations all over the floor.

And this is the inside of a huge new loft in Frankfurt.

These German Taubbenhauses are designed around meeting the birds’ needs for food, comfort, safety from the elements, and socialization with their flock mates.

None of these birds had to be coerced or forcibly relocated.

Because their needs were better met, they came on their own.

Look at the $70,000 Melbourne monstronsity again!

More specifically, look at the bridge behind it.

And tell me where you would rather me.

Compact metal tower designed exclusively around convenient human access, metal nest boxes, 0 landing platforms, no socialization space, no protection from the elements, still no choice but to forage for what ever garbage people toss you...

or the comfortably Cool space under a concrete bridge with a convenient water source.

Three guesses what’s more comfortable for the pigeons.

Now, would you rather live under a bridge with constant noise from traffic, open to predators, 

or

A well insulated apartment building with comfortable suites, a spacious common area, and a nutritious free meal plan with clean water included by default.

"It's a worldwide problem and no one has ever figured out how to deal with it."

My ass, Mr. Hayes!

[sloggervlogger]

NEW Gorilla Troop Series - Meet..... I'm so excited to introduce the new Gorilla troop temporary series from the "MÜNCHENER TIERPARK HELLABRUNN" showing you this gorilla family every Thursday until further notice. Why is this so special you wonder. Have a look at the first gorilla, bronze hair on his head and back, legs crossed, facial expression and that walk. No, it's not gorilla Lope, but his older brother Okanda. Don't they just look alike? I was just amazed when seeing him. He's Lope, just bigger. Okanda was born on April 17th 2011. Okanda and Lope have the same parents Mother Ozala and Silverback Oumbie. I saw some photos of Okanda when he was little and he actually looked more like Shufai the youngest brother. Okanda was very ill at an early age and some tests had to be done. Ozala was very protective of her son and she had to be sedated so the staff was able to give him a proper examination. Okanda was put back with his family after the tests, but unfortunately, Ozala's milk didn't have the nutrition that Okanda needed to get healthy again. That's when staff had to intervene. Sarah Chapman, the zoo’s expert vet took on his full-time care in her own home. Thanks to Sahra's round-the-clock care he got better after and he got moved back into accommodation at the Twycross Zoo where John Buchan, head of primates, took over. Twycross Zoo tried everything to reintroduce Okanda again, but unfortunately was rejected by his family. They found a new home for him and he got moved to the Zoologisch-botanischer Garten Wilhelma in Germany on 17 January 2012. This is where Okanda met Tano. Who was also rejected by his family in Prague. On the 07 April 2015 both gorillas Okanda and Tano (November 8th 2011) were moved to the Münchner Tierpark Hellabrunn where they joined Gorilla Bagira ( June 6th 1986), Sonja ( December 8th 1989), Neema (July 1st 1987) and gorilla baby Nafi (February 8th 2013). Gorilla Bagira who was the female silverback got moved on to the Zoologischer Garten Saarbrücken on 24 January 2018. To give either Okanda or Tano a chance of becoming a silverback. To the video: The first clip, that bronze crown, many of us familiar with it from our lovable gorilla Lope. A quick look at Okanda's face. The feet, crossed just like Lope does. Sitting there like that, just gives you goosebumps how similar they do look. Look at that face. Okanda has a little charge towards the window. Looking at Tano and Okanda, neither are silverbacks yet (November 2021). Lots of food for the gorilla troop and Okanda seems to favour the carrots. That little leg flip we know so well and then the highlight the upright walk. Second, up is the oldest gorilla of the troop called Neema. She is a force to be reckoned with. The few days I was able to observe and film, I've seen her charging more times than I can count. 3rd up is Tano jumping at the window. Tano's dad is Richard from Prague Zoo. There are a couple of videos of Richard in the Gorilla Prague playlist. https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXC1aShJSBiXxXmz4POajyqN6wbsemuMG A worried mother, pulling her child away seen in the reflection. Tano seemed to love looking at the people. 4th clip is of Gorilla Sonja eating the bark of a stick. She seems to have the same problem as Kera at the Bristol zoo. It looks like she pulled nearly all her hair. She also seems quite timid like Gorilla Asante. Next up Gorilla Nafi standing on the tree trunk. She is the only one in the troop that has been raised by her parents. She's got the same upright walk as Okanda. She's trying to see through the glass as the keepers get ready to feed them. Okanda and Nafi were very playful the time I was there and she seems very smitten by Okanda. Not sure Okanda is quite that keen :-). Nafi is still on the tree and Okanda swinging by trying to grab her. Okanda balances on the ropes to the other side. The last clip is of Nafi trying to grab Okanda. You'll see a lot more of these two and the rest of the gorilla troop. More next Thursday. Hopefully, you enjoyed the introduction. I don't really talk about myself, but this trip was very special to me as I saw my parents again after 3 years of waiting, the first time since the pandemic started. All the jabs and tests were done and any other precautions we had to take and we took the plunge to take the flight. My parents made the long journey to Bavaria as well and only my dad knew that I was meeting them there. You can imagine there were a lot of happy tears when my mum found out. Definitely a big surprise that went all to plan. Mum SloggerVlogger is probably reading this, so why not give her a hello? :-) I know she'll probably have another happy tear moment. Thank you, everyone. Travel videos of beautiful Bavaria coming up on my other channel: https://bit.ly/WatchAndSubTravel #SloggerVlogger #GorillaOkanda #SloggerVloggerGorillas SloggerVlogger

[riyanshmartell]

name:  riyansh martell

nickname:  ry, ansh

title:  prince of drone

age:  thirty five years old

birthdate:  december 16th, 105

house:  martell

region:  drone

𝑭𝒂𝒎𝒊𝒍𝒚.

father:  nymor martell

mother:  aahna dayne ( deceased )

step-mother:  allyria yronwood 

siblings:  eleyana, loreza, nymeria martell

wife:  tba

lover:  tba

𝑯𝒊𝒔𝒕𝒐𝒓𝒚.

The first born to Ruling Prince Nymor and Princess Aahna, Riyansh was the first ray of light in the next generation of the Martell lineage. Unbowed, unbent, unbroken, and as sure as the dawn. The words of two great houses of Drone have always reverberated in the dornishmans mind grounding him, and elating him. As heir apparent every path he’s been led down, and taken of his own volition has always led toward the seat of Sunspear. And the Prince has never disappointed, as straying from his responsibilities has never been in his nature, not when he’s always had two pillars of strength to aspire to. His father who has always exemplified strength and resolve, and his mother who bore the title of Sword of the Morning until her dying breath, and upheld the promise sworn on her noble blade till the end, the picture of grace and valor.

Trained by both the sword and spears from a young age, Riyansh has perhaps always felt most comfortable amidst affray, and restless when in a state of repose. Though he lost his mother at the age of ten, he’d already spent years under his mothers expert tutelage, having started his swordsmanship training with her not long after he could walk, having known her illness would soon claim her life Aahna had ensured her son would be taken care after her passing as well. Thus Riyansh would go on to spend much time in Starfall in his youth further training with his uncle and cousin. After his mother’s passing Dawn was entrusted to Riyansh, to bestow the honor upon another knight worthy of upholding his mothers legacy. That honor went to his cousin when they both turned eighteen, the two had always been thick as thieves he considers her his closest friend and confidant to this day. It is known by all when he assumes the title of ruling prince, she will be his hand.

From his father in his early years he learned how to fight with the spears the Martells are so keen too, as well as hand to hand combat, strategy and battle formations. Though his learning did not end there, in his early twenties Riyansh traveled to Essos to see the world, and learn from cultures apart from his own. He spent some time in many of the different regions of the continent only returning home after five years when his father sent word about the impending war, though Drone had no plans to participate he got the message, he wanted his son beside him should Drone get pulled into the conflict regardless. Riyansh spent the years upon his return reacquainting with his homeland establishing his credibility and garnering support to make his ascension whenever it should happen go smoothly.

Riyansh has always been more of a militant personality, partially due to how much he favors physical might, but also because he’s a straightforward and direct man, political intrigue and the mind games have never really held any interest to him. He’s result oriented and analytical, finding solace in strategizing a battle more so than an alliance. Thankfully this isn’t the case for his sisters, and while he’s very protective of all three of them, he also respects Eleyana and Loreza enough to recognize their strengths, and not hold them back. 

As rigid as he may appear in his personal life, outside the responsibilities he has to his title and people, Riyansh is deeply passionate about the arts, having brought back with him from Essos many craftsman and artistes. He’s a man who lives by his word, and loyal to his friends and family. Someone who holds himself to just morals and despises deception, and those who go back on their word. Those closest to him see an even more impassioned side, married since his early twenties his relationship with his wife is unconventional perhaps to some, she was by his side the his first year in Essos before she returned to Sunspear to act in his stead. In their time apart they both kept lovers, knowing of all whom occupied each others time. A year after he returned home, when the woman who occupied much of his time and heart in Essos arrived barring his son, she welcome them with open arms. The three of them over time grew to share a unique bond of love, and mutual respect.

[covidclinic]

7 Things To Know About the Delta Variant

7 Things To Know About the Delta Variant The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released new guidelines on the urgent need to enhance COVID-19 immunization coverage on July 27, 2021, along with a recommendation that everyone in areas with significant or high transmission wear a mask in public indoor places, even if they are fully vaccinated. The CDC published this updated recommendation in response to a number of alarming trends and fresh data signals.

Infections & Spread:

-The Delta version is more contagious; The Delta variant is far more contagious than earlier variants, being more than twice as contagious.

-According to some evidence, the Delta variation may cause more severe sickness in unprotected people than in prior forms; Individuals infected with the Delta variant were more likely to be hospitalized in two separate trials from Canada and Scotland than patients infected with Alpha or the original virus that causes COVID-19.

-Unvaccinated people continue to pose the biggest threat of transmission: Unvaccinated people are far more likely to become infected and thus spread the virus. COVID-19 (also known as breakthrough infections) is less common in fully vaccinated people than in unprotected ones.

People who have been fully vaccinated but nevertheless have a Delta variant breakthrough illness can pass the virus on to others. People who have been vaccinated, on the other hand, tend to spread the virus for a shorter amount of time: COVID-19 samples from fully vaccinated persons who suffered breakthrough infections contained less viral genetic material than COVID-19 samples from unvaccinated people.

7 Facts About The Delta Variant:

The Delta version has five characteristics that you should be aware of: -The Delta virus strain is more contagious than the others; According to F. Perry Wilson, MD, a Yale Medicine epidemiologist, one of the things that distinguish Delta is how quickly it spreads. “Delta will undoubtedly exacerbate* the pandemic” over the planet, he claims. (*worsen)

The first Delta case was discovered in December 2020, and the virus’s variation quickly became the prevalent strain in both India and the United Kingdom. According to CDC estimates, Delta was responsible for more than 80% of new COVID-19 cases in the United States by the end of July.

-People who have not been immunized are at risk; The people who have not been properly vaccinated against COVID-19 are the ones who are the most vulnerable.

In the United States, states with poor vaccination rates, such as Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi, Missouri, and West Virginia, have a disproportionate number of unvaccinated persons. (In some of these states, the number of instances is increasing, while in others, limits are being lifted since the number of cases is decreasing.)

-’ Hyperlocal epidemics’ could occur as a result of the Delta. Dr. Wilson thinks the major questions will be about heightened transmissions — how many people will catch the Delta variant and how quickly will it spread — if Delta continues to move fast enough to quicken the pandemic.

According to him, the answers could be influenced by where you reside and how many individuals in your area have been vaccinated. “I call it ‘patchwork vaccination,’ where you have pockets of people who are well vaccinated next to those who are only 20 percent vaccinated,” Dr. Wilson explains. “The difficulty is that the virus can hop, skip, and leap from one inadequately vaccinated area to another as a result of this.”

-The symptoms of the COVID-19 Delta variant appear to be the same as the original form. Physicians, on the other hand, are witnessing people becoming ill more quickly, particularly among the young. According to this research, the Delta variant grows significantly faster — and too much higher levels — in the respiratory system.

When those who have been vaccinated contract the Delta form, they are frequently asymptomatic or experience just minor symptoms. Their symptoms are similar to those of a regular cold, such as cough, fever, and headache, but they often include a substantial loss of smell.

-Even if you’re fully vaccinated, some experts advise wearing masks. Despite being completely vaccinated against COVID-19, several health specialists around the country are donning masks. They’re also encouraging vaccinated persons to stay away from large gatherings and wear masks indoors when other people’s vaccination status is uncertain.

-The easiest way to avoid being infected with Delta is to get vaccinated. The most crucial thing you can do to protect yourself from Delta is to get fully vaccinated, according to the doctors. That means that if you obtain a two-dose vaccine, such as Pfizer or Moderna, you must have both doses and then wait the recommended two weeks for the shots to take full effect. It’s also vital to follow CDC preventative guidelines, which are available for both vaccinated and unvaccinated people, whether or not you’ve been vaccinated.

-There are likely to be more COVID-19 versions in the future; COVID-19’s Delta version is currently the most well-known strain, but the Lambda variety from South America is also making waves. According to health experts, if individuals wish to return to normal, a large section of the population must be vaccinated. New strains of the virus will continue to evolve and cause difficulties as long as a significant portion of the global population remains uninfected.

People who have been fully vaccinated against the coronavirus continue to have good protection against COVID-19, according to what we know so far. Doctors warn that anyone who is not vaccinated and does not use preventive measures is at significant risk of contracting the new type.

Vaccines:

The COVID-19 vaccines approved or authorized in the United States, including the Delta form, are highly successful at preventing serious sickness and death. However, they are not 100 percent effective, and some people who have been fully vaccinated will become infected (known as a breakthrough infection) and become unwell.

The vaccine offers the best protection against serious illness and death for everyone.

This concludes that…

Vaccines are critical in restricting the virus’s transmission and reducing the severity of the sickness. Vaccines are highly effective, but they are not without flaws, and there will be vaccine-related diseases. Vaccination has reached millions of people in the United States, and the number is growing.

Irrespective of how things work out, the best deal for everyone out there is to get vaccinated the first chance they get and use their masks whenever in public places. Stay safe everyone! You can also go to our website and search for the test that best fits your needs. Until then, stay safe!

[shining-red-diamond]

Keep the Change (Part 1)

Words: 2.1k

Pairing: Jisung x Sunhee (OC) (feat. NCT DREAM and OCs)

Rating: PG-13

Genre: fluff, some angst, comedy

Warnings: violence, fighting, language, brief character death, mentions of vandalism, illness, and robbery

Summary: Being the youngest of twenty-three members, Jisung can get into trouble. He loves his members, but he feels as if everyone else, except for his girlfriend Sunhee, push him around at times. However, the morning after a fight with a member, he realizes that he’s been accidentally left behind. Although he has temporary freedom until his members return, there’s also trouble around the neighborhood caused by two thieves targeting wealthy families’ homes like Sunhee’s. Inspired by the holiday classic Home Alone. (Part of the NEOHOLIDAY event)

-

December 22

“Go finish packing,” Taeyong commanded for the last time.

Jisung obeyed and exited the room, infuriated with being denied just even sitting in the same room with someone. He was all packed for the trip to Paris he, the other NCT members, and some of their wives and girlfriends were going on for the holidays. Jisung just wanted some time to spend with the people he was closest to, but they were busy packing, playing video games, or tending to their small children.

“Dude,” Mark scoffed as he walked by, his large suitcase in his hands, “you’re like eighteen. Tattling is for six year olds. That should have died out for you twelve years ago.”

“Who said I was tattling?” the younger male defended as he followed Mark into his room, “I was expressing how I was being left out.”

“By going to Taeyong to call Johnny a jerk without saying it to his face?”

Jisung just crossed his arms and huffed. “I’m just tired of being treated like a baby around here.”

Mark patted his shoulder. “Then, don’t act like one, and Johnny was messing with you.”

That reply earned him an eye roll. He meant well, but Mark didn’t always say the right thing correctly.

“By the way,” the older boy added, “since Sierra and Alex are coming, you’ve been assigned to bunk with Alex for tonight.”

“I’m aware,” Jisung shrugged.

“You didn’t let me finish. Alex is scared of the dark, and knowing you don’t have a nightlight for him, don’t be surprised if he wakes up screaming and crying.”

Mark walked off without another word to go help another member to pack.

“Pizza’s here!” Jaehyun called from the kitchen.

Immediately, everyone dropped what they were doing and headed towards the kitchen, Jisung trailing behind them as he was still moody from his members rejecting them. He loved them dearly, but being the youngest of twenty-three members proved to be wrong sometimes. The only two members closest to his age were Sungchan and Chenle, but even they weren’t babied as much as he was.

As he crossed the front entryway, he noticed a cop by the door somewhat taking a look around the house and wanting someone to speak to. No one robbed them as far as he knew, but he really couldn’t be bothered.

Most of the members had sat down to eat already, plates full of two or three slices of their favorite kind. Despite having eaten some ramen earlier out of frustration from not being able to see his girlfriend Sunhee, Jisung grabbed a plate and anticipated having just a slice of cheese.

“Daddy, what time are we leaving tomorrow?” Alex asked Johnny.

“Early,” he replied, “we’re leaving at eight in the morning.”

“Sweetheart, the pizza boy needs 133000 won,” Taeyong’s wife Savannah told him as she was feeding Hayden some bite-sized beef slices.

“For pizza?” he replied as he was getting some milk.

“Ten pizzas times 12000 won.”

“You want us to pay for it?” Johnny offered.

“Nope, we’ve got it,” Taeyong shook his head as he searched his wallet.

Jisung opened a few boxes of pizzas, but couldn’t find any cheese. The boxes were either empty or had some sort of topping.

“Did anyone get a plain cheese?” he asked.

Lucas, who was standing by and shoving slices into his mouth, smirked and said, “Well, yeah, we did. But if you want any, someone’s gonna have to barf it all up.”

If anyone knew how to mess around with people, it was Lucas, but it was always out of love. He had a younger brother himself, so he was somewhat of an expert on picking and poking at people. However, he had no knowledge of Jisung’s frustration, yet it was no excuse for the joke he was pulling on the maknae.

“Jisung,” Lucas cried as he made a shocked face, “quick grab a plate!” He slumped over mockingly and made gagging sounds before chuckling at his own joke.

This, mixed with the worry of Alex’s midnight banshee screams and being left out all day, triggered Jisung’s anger and pushed him over the edge. In one swift motion, he balled up his fist and punched the older boy in his face. Hard.

Lucas ended up stumbling backwards, his elbows hit the cups filled with sodas and water; and it all spilled onto the-

“Passports!” Taeil cried as he and Johnny worked quickly to rescue them.

The other members helped with drying them, and Kun and Jeno pulled the fighting boys apart. Lucas’s nose was bleeding, but thankfully it wasn’t broken. Alex was startled by the chaos and started crying, and Sierra took him out the kitchen to calm him down.

Taeyong, in full dad mode now, finally stepped in and raised his voice at Jisung. “What is the matter with you?”

“He started it!” Jisung snapped. “He knows I don’t like the other toppings.”

The maknae knew it wasn’t just Lucas’s antics that made him lash out, but rather everything from that day. However, there would still be consequences to his actions.

“Look what you did, dummy!” Ten snapped as he was trying to dry his soda-stained jeans.

Jisung looked around at his members. It was all silence, except for Alex’s sniffles in the next room. Everyone else just had a look of disappointment on their faces as they stared back at him.

“Jisung, just go to your room,” Taeyong finally sighed.

“Why?”

With a huff, Taeyong pulled the maknae by his elbow. He complied and Taeyong was able to let go of him as he knew that Jisung wasn’t Alex’s age.

“Why do I always get treated like trash?” Jisung demanded.

The police officer and pizza boy were still standing by the door.

“I’m sorry,” the leader chuckled as he pulled out the money for the delivery boy. “With so many people going on a trip, it’s a little crazy. Some of our members have young children, so the chaos escalates a bit. It’s just nuts.”

He paid the pizza boy, and the young man wished them a Merry Christmas before walking out of the door.

“Having a reunion or something?” the officer asked.

“No,” Taeyong replied. “The group has some time off for the holidays, and some of us have families of our own, so we want to spend Christmas and New Year’s with them. Paris is where we’re heading.”

“To Paris, you say?”

“Yeah, We hope to leave tomorrow morning.”

“Excellent.”

Jisung just rolled his eyes. Why was the officer here in the first place?

“If you’ll excuse me, this one’s out of sorts. I’ll be right back.”

Taeyong guided the maknae by the shoulder, and the officer called to them, “Don’t worry about me. I spoke to your wife already. And don’t worry about your home. It’s in good hands.”

NCT’s leader marched the boy up the stairs as the man left the premises. “There are twenty-three members in our group, and you’re the only one who has to make trouble.”

“I’m the only one getting dumped on,” Jisung shot back.

“You’re the only one acting up. Now, get in the room.”

He had led them to the guest room instead of Jisung’s bedroom.

“The guest room?”

“Go.”

“It’s scary in there.”

Taeyong didn’t buy his guilt trip. “Don’t be silly. Alex will be up in a little while.”

“I’m not sharing a room with Alex. You know about him. He screams in the middle of the night.”

The leader sighed and massaged his temples. “Fine. We’ll put Alex somewhere. Just get in there and cool off.”

Jisung had already chilled out by now. He tried to apologize, but Taeyong shook his had and said, “It’s too late. Go.” If a frustrated huff, he stomped into the room.

“I don’t want to see you again until tomorrow morning,” the leader said just before closing the door.

Plopping face down on the bed, he pulled out his phone and texted Sunhee, who wasn’t able to join the group due to her having plans with her family for Christmas. She was quick to respond. Sunhee was one of the sweetest people anyone could ever meet, and Jisung was happy she was his. His career did make it difficult to see her sometimes, but he always tried to make time for her. It was just as frustrating for her as she was about to graduate high school and working hard to stay on top of homework and final projects. Jisung ranted about how he felt he was being pushed around by everyone and just wanted to stop being treated like a baby, as he was eighteen years old. Sunhee was very understanding as she was one of the youngest of her cousins, but she said something similar to Mark in a much more kind manner. He knew they were right, but it somehow stuck with him more than the way the older boy had said it.

After they talked, Jisung put his phone down and got ready for bed.

-

Silence.

The only sound Jisung woke up to was silence. Not a word, a child’s babbling, or even a footstep could be heard from outside the bedroom. Maybe everyone was in the kitchen eating breakfast before heading to the airport. He didn’t bother checking his phone before stepping out into the hallway.

The lights were on, so that was a good sign, at least. Some of the doors were open, some were closed. He peeked into a few of them, but they were empty with piles of mess of some sort in each room.

“Taeyong?” he called out as he made his way to the kitchen. “Taeyong? Mark? Johnny? Lucas? Savannah? Sierra?”

He continued calling out everyone’s names, even the ones who were just starting to talk. After calling for Jeno, he gave up. Was he alone in the house? He sat down at the table and remembered everything he had been jabbed with the night before.

“Tattling is for six year olds. That should have died out for you twelve years ago.”

“…if you want any, someone’s gonna have to barf it all up.”

“There are twenty-three members in our group, and you’re the only one who has to make trouble.”

“Look what you did, dummy!”

Now, Jisung didn’t feel so bad. He realized that the members had left and possibly forgotten him, but now he had some freedom for a while before they could realize anything. Soon, he was dressed, danced whatever choreo around the house to whatever music he desired, and even went through the other members’ personal stuff as well.

Lucas’s, however, was a gold mine. He had some things from his family such as a letter from his parents and a picture of him and his younger brother, and a white Louis Vuitton purse with Sydni’s (his girlfriend) name tagged on it, which must have been a Christmas gift for her. What hit the jackpot was some firecrackers hidden beneath some magazines. Jisung wasn’t sure how Lucas sneaked them in, but there they were.

Once they were placed in his room for the time being, Jisung decided to make a huge ice cream sundae for himself with a side of snacks. He put in an old drama titled Filthy Souled Angels. A mafia piece, he thought. Interesting.

The drama began with a man in a trench coat and fedora entering an office of some sort.

“It’s me, Weasel,” the man told an older gentleman sitting at a desk. “I got the stuff.”

“Leave it on the doorstep,” the older man shouted at him, “and get the hell out of here.”

“All right, Junseo, but what about my money?”

“What money?”

“Acey said you had some for me.”

“Is that a fact? How much do I owe you?”

“Acey said 10%.”

The older man, Junseo, smirked. “Too bad Acey ain’t in charge no more.”

As he watched and snacked in the living room, he called out, “Guys, I’m eating junk and watching a mafia drama. You better come out and stop me.”

“He’ll call when he gets out of prison,” Junseo continued, Weasel looking defeated. “Hey, I’ll tell you what I’m going to give you, Weasel’ –Junseo pulled out a rifle from under his desk and aimed it at Weasel- “I’m going to give you to the count of ten to get your ugly, yellow no-good ass off my property before I pump your guts full of lead.”

“All right, Junseo, I’m sorry,” Weasel backed up. “I’m going.”

“1, 2, 10.” Junseo opened fire at the Weasel, cackling as the man dropped to his knees and died on the spot.

This surprised Jisung, and he was quick to cover his eyes as it scared him so bad. He kept his eyes covered until the last bullet was fired and Junseo said, “Keep the change, you filthy animal.”

Jisung turned it off, and switched it to classic Christmas movies for a while. Once he caught his breath, he cleaned up the kitchen and living room, and then returned to the couch. He fell asleep during How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

[ltwilliammowett]

Cannibalism at Sea

Introduction

Before you wonder what this is all about, please read this introduction carefully. The topic is a very special and not everyone's business and who knows me and reads my stuff regularly knows that I also work a lot with pictures,although I have largely refrained from doing so here. Well for protection reasons the whole article can be found under the read more line. It should be said that this article is about cannibalism at sea and the question whether it is allowed or not. In addition there are some case examples. Whereby I tried to write this as nice and factual as possible.

When you start looking at cannibalism at sea, you get the feeling that it's all just a horror story and that it simply can't be true. Because on a well-equipped boat on a sea full of fish it seems unimaginable that you could eat your friends and colleagues. But when things go wrong in a bad way, precedents show that the vast ocean can conjure up the spectre of "survival cannibalism" surprisingly quickly. In the 18th century, this practice was so widespread that it was known as the "custom of the sea", with some unwritten rules that seafarers in hopeless situations should follow.

The rules of the game

Drifting along the open ocean in a small open boat and facing imminent death by starvation, the moral, ethical and legal implications seem rather trivial, as confirmed by various court cases. Prior to the 19th century, cannibalism was thought to be inherent in man as a kind of instinct and was therefore excusable in extreme circumstances. However, this argument is only valid if those who consume their fellow sailors have already exhausted all other organic food sources. This includes everything from candles to shoes, other leather goods and even blankets.

But the rules of the game go much further. For example, everyone on board must agree to the act of cannibalism before the first incident occurs. And then the dead must be consumed first. Once all the dead are eaten up, they have to stick in some form, or whatever was available has to be pulled to draw lots. The unhappiest one is killed and consumed first, but the next unhappiest one is appointed as his executioner. This process must be repeated until salvation comes or death overtakes all and releases them from suffering.

Examples

The Méduse, or Medusa, was a French warship captained by Hugues Duroy de Chaumareys, an aristocrat with limited naval experience. In 1816, the warship ran aground on the Arguin Bank off of the African shore. Of the 400 people on the ship, some elected to stay aboard, while the rest escaped onto lifeboats and a large makeshift raft. The lifeboats had promised to pull the raft, but after only a few minutes at sea, they cut the rope and left the raft stranded.

During the second night at sea, all hell broke loose on the raft. Some passengers got drunk on wine (the raft's only provision, in addition to some "soggy biscuits") and 60 people were either killed or committed suicide. Over 13 days of depravity, passengers of the raft drank their own urine, ate human flesh, starved, became ill, and threw weak survivors overboard. Finally, the French ship Argus spotted the raft and saved the remaining 15 survivors, though five of these died shortly after rescue.

Raft of the Méduse

During a winter storm in December 1710, the Nottingham Galley crashed into Boon Island, located near the coast of York, Maine. The 14 surviving crew members took refuge on the desolate island, eating a seagull raw. When the ship's cook died, they pushed his body into the sea. By Christmas, two weeks had passed, and the 13 survivors sheltered from the cold under a piece of canvas sail, subsisting on bits of cheese that had floated ashore from the shipwreck and some fresh water. However, without winter clothing and the means to make fire, the men were near dying from exposure to the frigid conditions.

In the days before their rescue, the desperate men resorted to eating the corpse of the ship’s carpenter in order to survive. The captain, who had trained as a butcher, beheaded and disemboweled him then cut his flesh into strips before giving it to the crew. After 24 days on the island, help finally arrived to rescue the remaining men.

The Francis Mary was on passage from Canada to Liverpool. On February 1, 1826, the ship encountered strong winds that dislodged the two of its masts. Strong waves washed away the ship’s galley and the vessel was rendered immobile. The crew survived on cheese and bread while waiting for help to arrive. American ships got close to the Francis Mary, but could not offer assistance due to the harsh weather. The food did not last long and people started to die from starvation and lack of fresh water.

On February 22, a man by the name of James Wilson perished and was cannibalized by the crew. They cut his body into fourths and hung the flesh on pins to dry it out before eating. Before their rescue by the HMS Blonde in March, eight more men would die and have parts of their bodies eaten - including their hearts.

The Francis Mary, 1826

The Peggy was an american schooner that sailed from New York to Faial Island in the Azores in 1765. After doing some trading, the crew, including one enslaved African, started their return voyage. They didn’t get far into their journey before encountering trouble when the ship was disabled by a severe thunderstorm. The storm outlasted their rations and the men began to subsist on wine and brandy and eat a pigeon, a cat, tobacco, leather, and candles.

After exhausting all of these options, the men were forced to draw lots to decide who to kill and consume. The enslaved man supposedly drew the shortest lot, but it is speculated that the men predetermined his fate. One sailor ate his liver raw and died three days later, in a fit of madness. The others pickled and cooked the rest of his body. When no meat remained, lots were drawn again, but the crew was rescued by the Susanna just before the next sailor was due to be killed.

The Franklin Expedition, who does not know the tragic Arctic expedition of Sir John Franklin who set out in 1845 with HMS's Terror and Erebus to find the Northwest Passage. They left, and then no one heard of the ship - or the 128 men on board.

Over the years, experts have been able to piece together a story of what might have happened, but it is still not possible to do so in its entirety, as parts of the puzzle are still missing. The ships got stuck in the ice and although the crew had supplies on board, they set out to search the frozen land of King William Island for a trading post.  Some men died of hypothermia, scurvy, but probably starved to death. The Inuit claimed to have seen signs of cannibalism, such as heaps of broken human bones.  Anthropologists who studied the bones found on the island supported these stories. The men's bones were broken and covered with knife marks and also showed signs of being heated, probably to extract bone marrow. One should emphasize that, in both the case of Franklin's men, we have no indication that anyone actively sought to kill anyone else for the purpose of eating them.

A 1945 photo of skulls of some men of the Franklin Expedition, bleached white by the sun, discovered around King William Island in what is now Nunavut

The Mignonette was an English yacht purchased by lawyer Jack Want in 1884, to be sailed from Essex to Sydney. A four-man crew was assembled, consisting of Captain Tom Dudley, Edwin Stephens, Ned Brooks, and 17-year-old Richard Parker. Just weeks after the crew set sail, a wave struck the Mignonette, washing away the windward fortification, causing the ship to rapidly sink and forcing the crew to escape onto a 13-foot dinghy. They were unable to bring any fresh water or food with them, beyond two tins of turnips.

The crew survived for days on turnips, urine, and an unlucky turtle, but they were becoming desperate. Tom Dudley introduced the idea of killing and eating Parker, who had become ill and unconscious from drinking seawater. The perpetrators assumed that Parker's blood would be more edible if he did not die a natural death but was killed. Stephens and Brooks agreed to it, though Brooks refused later to participate. The three men devoured Parker’s body; it kept them alive for weeks until the German barque, Montezuma, found the men after 24 days at sea.

The end of Richard Parker

Change in legislation

With the case of the Mignonette everything changed, whether it was because one did not see here the correct following of the rules as assumed or simply the feeling of such an act as a custom to watch simply no longer there. The Vicorian Era had a very different view of morality and considered many things to be outdated and babaric, so it is quite possible that this new moral perception played a big role.

The three survivors were brought to justice and although the whole population stood behind them and their actions, the three survivors were not allowed to go to court. The three were convicted of murder and should be punished by hanging. However, due to the resistance of the population, the punishment was changed to six months in prison. The three survivors never accepted this punishment.  But from then on the custom of the sea was no longer exempt from punishment, instead it is now mostly punished by imprisonment.

[deadstrangeblog]

The Sad Case of The Lipstick Killer

North Kenmore Avenue is a much sought-after residential area in the city of Chicago, with a children’s park surrounding the apartments and transport links within walking distance. It lies around the corner from a prestigious Catholic school and the uptown setting is popular with young families and elderly residents alike, it’s safe atmosphere and cheap living costs appealing to people from all walks of life. North Kenmore wasn’t always as safe though. In 1945, in Apartment 4108, a woman was brutally murdered there.

It was June 5th when 44-year-old Josephine Ross was found slain on her apartment floor. Police were greeted by a messy scene– Pools of blood surrounded Josephine and the smashed up apartment indicated there had been a struggle. She had been stabbed multiple times and a dress had been wrapped around her head. Usually, when a killer covers the face of a victim, it suggests that they feel a great deal of remorse about the crime they have committed and that death is almost always the end result of an impulsive sex crime. However, this seemed different. No evidence of sexual assault was present and death had definitely been the result of a frenzied attack. Police found a clump of dark hair in Josephine’s hand, as if she had been in a violent struggle with somebody. Naturally, police turned to her ex-boyfriends and ex-husbands, all of whom had an alibi. Although the neighbourhood was frightened at the prospect of a murderer living close by, the police assured people there was nothing to worry about and that Ms. Ross had been killed by a startled burglar. Her murder didn’t make the front page, and she was sadly written off by investigators.

Six months later, and we are in December. Our killer strikes again but, this time, police begin to take notice. On the 10th of the month, divorcee Frances Brown was found dead in her apartment. She had been stabbed and shot, the bread knife used in her murder still lodged in her throat when a cleaning lady discovered the body. The grim message shown above, written in unusual handwriting, was scrawled on the apartment wall in red lipstick (earning the killer his moniker) but apart from that, little evidence was found. Compared to the first murder, police did have a bit more to go on: a bloody fingerprint and a possible eyewitness. John Derick, the concierge for the lobby, said he saw a nervous man and heard “possible gunshots” at around 4 a.m. Given the lack of surveillance technology during the 40s, it was impossible to confirm John’s account.

The last known murder of the deluded “Lipstick Killer” was a truly shocking crime against an innocent little girl. Six-year-old Suzanne Degnan (below) was snatched from her bedroom in Edgewater, Chicago, on January of 1946. Her bedroom window had been left open and a wooden ladder was still propped up against it. At the time, police had no reason to believe her abduction was connected to the Lipstick killer, as kidnapping little girls didn’t fit his modus operandi. A ransom note left at the scene read “GeI $20,000 Reddy & wAITe foR WoRd. do NoT NoTify FBI oR Police. Bills IN 5’s & 10’s. BuRN This FoR heR SAfTY.” That night, a man persistently telephoned the Degnan residence demanding the ransom, only to hang up as details were being exchanged. Those phone calls would later turn out to be a cruel joke performed by two high-school students, Vince Costello and Theodore Campbell. Sick with anguish, her family could only hope that the police could find Suzanne before it was too late. Sadly, their worst fears were confirmed. Acting on an anonymous tip, detectives travelled to a sewer just a block away from the Degnan residence and found Suzanne’s decapitated head. Where was the rest of her body? Investigators were now faced with the grim prospect that somebody had dismembered a little girl, and they were unfortunately right. They found her torso in storm drain, and both her legs had been discarded in separate catch basins. Her tiny arms were found a month later in another sewer. Blood, presumed to be Suzanne’s, was found in the drains of laundry tubs in the basement laundry room of a nearby apartment building. This crime was truly grisly, and without advanced forensic technology, it was hard to bring the killer to justice.

In a desperate bid to catch the murderer, police questioned hundreds of suspects and gave polygraph examinations to about 170 of them. In several press releases, they claimed to have captured the killer terrorising the city of Chicago, but they were always mistaken. All suspects were eventually released.

In June, 17-year-old criminal William Heirens (below) was burgling an apartment when he was confronted by the janitor and fled. Police were called, and Heirens was subdued by an off-duty police officer who dropped several flowerpots onto his head to render him unconscious. From the day of his arrest on June 26, 1946, things travelled on a downward spiral for Heirens and this once lucky burglar had run all out of luck. For some reason, police believed that Heirens was the Lipstick Killer and decided to question him. For six consecutive days, he was interrogated by police officers. He was denied food, water, and the right to an attorney, and two psychiatrists even gave him Sodium Pentothal (a potent barbiturate) without his consent. Most shocking of all, the 17-year-old was given a spinal tap without any anaesthesia. For days later, he was in incredible pain and couldn’t perform a polygraph test because his adrenaline-fuelled heart was beating too fast. Eventually, he cracked. He confessed to police that he had committed these crimes under an alter-ego named “George.” He explained to psychologists that he always took the rap for the crimes of “George” including theft, murder, and everything in between. The Chicago police department were suspicious of this defence, and accused Heirens of lying in the hopes of getting an insanity defence in court. Apart from his confession, police had nothing to go on. No evidence linked Heirens to the murders, and this polite University of Chicago student seemed incapable of such heinous crimes. It seemed like a bizarre arrest, but for the general public, it was good enough.

As suggested by his defence attorneys, Heirens confessed to all crimes. On his court date on August 7, 1946, Heirens took full responsibility for the three murders. The prosecution had him reenact the abduction and murder of Suzanne Degnan in court multiple times, all of which he did inconsistently. On the night of September 4th, Heirens attempted suicide in his cell and had timed it to coincide during a shift change of the prison guards. He was discovered hanging and was revived successfully by prison guards. He said later that sheer despair drove him to attempt suicide; “Everyone believed I was guilty…If I weren’t alive, I felt I could avoid being adjudged guilty by the law and thereby gain some victory. But I wasn’t successful even at that. …Before I walked into the courtroom my counsel told me to just enter a plea of guilty and keep my mouth shut afterward. I didn’t even have a trial..”

The next morning, the prosecution and defence were making their closing statements. The judge, Chief Justice Harold G. Ward, formally sentenced Heirens to three life terms. Somehow, he had been lucky enough to avoid the electric chair. As Heirens waited to be transferred to Stateville Prison from the Cook County Jail, Sheriff Michael Mulcahy asked Heirens if Suzanne Degnan suffered when she was killed. Heirens simply replied: “I can’t tell you if she suffered, Sheriff Mulcahy. I didn’t kill her. Tell Mr. Degnan to please look after his other daughter, because whoever killed Suzanne is still out there.”

Likely innocent, William Heirens still spent the rest of his life imprisoned. In 2002, a petition for his release was filed but eventually denied. In his older years, he suffered from diabetes and was confined to a wheelchair with limited eyesight. He died of natural causes on March 5th, 2012, due to complications with his illness.

In 1994, Dolores Kennedy formed a team of forensic experts to look into the murders and they found several inconsistencies, most notable was that Heirens’ confessions didn’t fully match the evidence. Heirens claimed that he was forced to confess by the police, and this is also supported by other evidence. They also concluded that the handwriting of the lipstick message and that of the ransom note were not the same and that neither matched that of Heirens. They also looked into the police force working on the case: Before Heirens was arrested, police had taken particular interest in a janitor called Hector Verburgh. 65-year-old Hector was from Belgium, and struggled to write fluently in English. With this in mind, isn’t it odd that police still arrested him and accused him of the murders? How could a man with no knowledge of English writing, scribble such an eloquently written note on his supposed victim’s wall? It didn’t stop there. Like Heirens, Verburgh was subjected to extreme torture. For two days, police interrogated him and beat him so badly that he sustained a dislocated shoulder. After his terrifying ordeal, he successfully sued the Chicago Police Department for $15,000.

“Oh, they hanged me up, they blindfolded me … I can’t put up my arms, they are sore. They had handcuffs on me for hours and hours. They threw me in the cell and blindfolded me. They handcuffed my hands behind my back and pulled me up on bars until my toes touched the floor. I no eat, I go to the hospital. Oh, I am so sick. Any more and I would have confessed to anything.”

With such atrocious behaviour from the police department, it’s safe to say that the man convicted of these crimes was not the real killer, merely a scapegoat for shoddy police work. The true identity of the Lipstick Killer is yet to be discovered, and, sadly, it seems that those who were murdered were not the only victims in this disturbing case.

[mathieuberinut]

Discord thread || Mat & Roman

Discord thread featuring: Mat & @romanbeckett

When: 21st December

Where: The Grind

Mentions: @skyking91 @samuelburton

Description: Mat and Roman talk (hint: they don’t get along)

Trigger Warnings: None

Mathieu

If anyone asked him, he did feel a little bad for using Roman to get to Sky. He didn’t particularly care about Sam, never having gotten along with the guy but Roman never really did anything to him. He was just collateral damage in his plan to finally get to Sky. So when they bumped into each other after the mess that was the holiday party, Mat wasn’t sure what to say. Did Roman even know he was the reason why Sky even found out about it all? He was hoping to avoid any interaction with the barista but he should have known that would never work. Especially if he kept getting his coffee from The Grind. “Oh, hey. Um...a chai latte please?”

Roman.

Roman was already exhausted from being up all night, insomnia was a bitch, and he was even more of an anxious mess when it came to calling into work. He lived right above it, so his excuses were kind of out the window unless he was deathly ill. Unfortunately lack of sleep wasn’t a great excuse to use a sick day. Needless to say, the barista was in a sour mood anyway when he looked up to see Mat standing in front of him, making Roman clench his jaw, and write down the man’s order before he turned around to start making it. “Any good gossip lately?” He then asked dryly, a lot more sassy than he normally was to people he didn’t care for. It seemed like a good enough dig anyway, since Mat apparently liked to talk.

Mathieu

Mat’s hopes that the incident wouldn’t be brought up went out the window after Roman’s question and he found himself narrowing his eyes at the other. He should just ignore him and move on with his life after getting his coffee but his inability to let things go was one of his weaknesses. There was no way he could let Roman get the last word. “It depends, have you hooked up with any of your friends’ exes recently?” he asked, raising an eyebrow in challenge. After all, it was true that Mat was the one who talked about it but he didn’t lie.

Roman.

Roman wasn’t a vindictive person. He didn’t hold grudges, and he certainly didn’t talk about them in the middle of public like this. He especially didn’t like showing how things could really effect him, but Mat was being an asshole, and he couldn’t help the way it was making him react. “Excuse me??” He asked in challenge, his face twisted in shock that the man would even say something like that to him here. “You’ve got a lot of nerve, I hope you know that. What I do, or who I hook up with, is none of your bloody business.” He really shouldn’t be doing this at work, but he could feel his blood boiling.

Mathieu

“I really couldn’t care less about who you hook up with.” And he really didn’t. The only reason he even paid attention when he saw the other with Sam was because he knew of the relationship they had with Sky. His ‘girlfriend’ was getting on his nerves so much that he was willing to make use of anything to get her off his back. If he’d seen Roman with anyone else he wouldn’t have even looked twice. “Just a little advice though, if you really don’t want who you hook up with to be anyone else’s business then maybe you shouldn’t do it in the middle of Throuple where everyone can see.” He did feel for Roman in a way. If Sky threw a glass at him for telling her what he saw, Mat couldn’t even begin to imagine what she did to Roman for actually being part of it.

Roman.

Roman wasn’t a violent person at all, but he really did find himself in the mood to punch Mat in the face. He was stepping on all of the actor’s nerves. “You’re an asshole. You know that?” He asked while finishing up the man’s latte, which of course he still made flawlessly, and sat it in front of Mat. “Five eighty nine please.” What an awkward time to ask for money.

Mathieu

Mat had been called an asshole so many times at this point by Sky that having it said by someone different didn’t make much of a difference to him. It did make him see Roman in a new light. Gone was the reluctant attraction to him and instead what Mat was seeing was someone who thought with his dick first than cried over the consequences. “I’ve been told that multiple times by my girlfriend but I feel like she might consider you an ever bigger asshole than me. Which is quite a feat, congratulations”, he snorted. He didn’t even think that the other might find it weird for Sky to think that, considering they were supposed to be in love. Getting out a twenty dollar note, he handed it over and picked up his drink. “Keep the change”, he winked, hoping to irritate the barista further.

Roman.

Roman knew that Sky wasn’t happy with Mat. It didn’t take a genius to see that it was mostly for clout. But still, to hear the way Mathieu was talking, they pretty much hated each other. Why even bother? Clearly sky was in love with someone else. If she wasn’t, she wouldn’t be so kissed about Roman sleeping with her ex. “Things not okay in paradise?” The barista decided to then prod, taking the twenty without protest, because he really could use the tip.

Mathieu

This wasn’t someone he could trust with his ‘secret’, especially since Roman was clearly upset about him telling Sky. “I’d love for you to show me a couple who doesn’t argue occasionally”, he shrugged, going for the cover up story his management had pretty much forced him to learn by heart. “We’re still very much in love though, don’t worry about it.” Until January at least.

Roman.

“Right. I’m sure your only issues are arguments.” Roman replied pointedly, looking at the other male like he was able to read between the lines. Of course, the barista was a lot smarter than he looked anyway. He was able to break down human behavior easily, a gift that helped him develop his own characters while acting. There was so much more to this situation than was being shared, however, it was technically none of his business, though...Mat seemed to be an expert on jumping into situations that weren’t any of his business as well. So. Do with that what you will. “Very much in love, yet vindictive? You had to have a reason for telling the love of your life about what you saw, I would assume, and her reaction doesn’t concern you? Interesting.” Ro muttered allowed, and then looked over towards the front door as it opened. “Anythin’ else I can get for you?”

Mathieu

Mat knew what the barista was hinting at but pretended not to. He was a good actor but not a miracle worker. While he could more or less pretend that he and Sky were together, even he couldn’t make it believable that they were very much in love. At least not after that holiday party. Better to fake obliviousness than to make things worse. “Trust me, her reaction concerns me very much.” Her throwing the glass at him got them both a good talking to the next day so he could have done without. “Let’s put it this way...Sky considered you one of her good friends and yet I saw said good friend getting it on with her ex. I was just helping the girl I have feelings for know her true friends. I would never hook up with a friend’s ex but I guess you don’t feel the same way.” Mat looked behind him, grateful for the distraction. “That’s all, thanks for the drink.”

Roman.

Roman could feel himself getting more, and more upset with every word out of Mat’s mouth. He already felt guilty enough, but having someone who genuinely didn’t know him well enough to be judging him, trying to tell him how bad of a friend he was, it was just a lot. Of course the actor was going to save face, and act like it didn’t phase him, so he simply nodded, and stared the smaller male down until he ultimately left. Transparently though, he was going to cry about this again later. Maybe Mat was right. He was just a shitty friend, and there was nothing he could do to fix it at this point.

[papermoonloveslucy]

SPEECH FOR CIVIC ORGANIZATION

February 4, 1949

“Speech for Civic Organization” (aka “Liz Debates Alaska in Town Forum”) is episode #29 of the radio series MY FAVORITE HUSBAND broadcast on February 4, 1949 on the CBS radio network.

Synopsis ~ Liz, anxious to win the approval of an important dinner guest, simply agrees with everything he says. The guest is so impressed with her intelligence that he invites her to be a speaker at his next civic forum.

“My Favorite Husband” was based on the novels Mr. and Mrs. Cugat, the Record of a Happy Marriage (1940) and Outside Eden (1945) by Isabel Scott Rorick, which had previously been adapted into the film Are Husbands Necessary? (1942). “My Favorite Husband” was first broadcast as a one-time special on July 5, 1948. Lucille Ball and Lee Bowman played the characters of Liz and George Cugat, and a positive response to this broadcast convinced CBS to launch “My Favorite Husband” as a series. Bowman was not available Richard Denning was cast as George. On January 7, 1949, confusion with bandleader Xavier Cugat prompted a name change to Cooper. On this same episode Jell-O became its sponsor. A total of 124 episodes of the program aired from July 23, 1948 through March 31, 1951. After about ten episodes had been written, writers Fox and Davenport departed and three new writers took over – Bob Carroll, Jr., Madelyn Pugh, and head writer/producer Jess Oppenheimer. In March 1949 Gale Gordon took over the existing role of George’s boss, Rudolph Atterbury, and Bea Benadaret was added as his wife, Iris. CBS brought “My Favorite Husband” to television in 1953, starring Joan Caulfield and Barry Nelson as Liz and George Cooper. The television version ran two-and-a-half seasons, from September 1953 through December 1955, running concurrently with “I Love Lucy.” It was produced live at CBS Television City for most of its run, until switching to film for a truncated third season filmed (ironically) at Desilu and recasting Liz Cooper with Vanessa Brown.

REGULAR CAST

Lucille Ball (Liz Cooper) was born on August 6, 1911 in Jamestown, New York. She began her screen career in 1933 and was known in Hollywood as ‘Queen of the B’s’ due to her many appearances in ‘B’ movies. With Richard Denning, she starred in a radio program titled “My Favorite Husband” which eventually led to the creation of “I Love Lucy,” a television situation comedy in which she co-starred with her real-life husband, Latin bandleader Desi Arnaz. The program was phenomenally successful, allowing the couple to purchase what was once RKO Studios, re-naming it Desilu. When the show ended in 1960 (in an hour-long format known as “The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour”) so did Lucy and Desi’s marriage. In 1962, hoping to keep Desilu financially solvent, Lucy returned to the sitcom format with “The Lucy Show,” which lasted six seasons. She followed that with a similar sitcom “Here’s Lucy” co-starring with her real-life children, Lucie and Desi Jr., as well as Gale Gordon, who had joined the cast of “The Lucy Show” during season two. Before her death in 1989, Lucy made one more attempt at a sitcom with “Life With Lucy,” also with Gordon.

Richard Denning (George Cooper) was born as Louis Albert Heindrich Denninger Jr., in Poughkeepsie, New York. When he was 18 months old, his family moved to Los Angeles. Plans called for him to take over his father’s garment manufacturing business, but he developed an interest in acting. Denning enlisted in the US Navy during World War II. He is best known for his  roles in various science fiction and horror films of the 1950s. Although he teamed with Lucille Ball on radio in “My Favorite Husband,” the two never acted together on screen. While “I Love Lucy” was on the air, he was seen on another CBS TV series, “Mr. & Mrs. North.”  From 1968 to 1980 he played the Governor on “Hawaii 5-0″, his final role. He died in 1998 at age 84.

Ruth Perrott (Katie, the Maid) was also later seen on “I Love Lucy.” She first played Mrs. Pomerantz (above right), a member of the surprise investigating committee for the Society Matrons League in “Pioneer Women” (ILL S1;E25), as one of the member of the Wednesday Afternoon Fine Arts League in “Lucy and Ethel Buy the Same Dress” (ILL S3;E3), and also played a nurse when “Lucy Goes to the Hospital” (ILL S2;E16). She died in 1996 at the age of 96.

Bob LeMond (Announcer) also served as the announcer for the pilot episode of “I Love Lucy”. When the long-lost pilot was finally discovered in 1990, a few moments of the opening narration were damaged and lost, so LeMond – fifty years later – recreated the narration for the CBS special and subsequent DVD release.

Gale Gordon (Rudolph Atterbury) and Bea Benadaret (Iris Atterbury) had not yet joined the cast as regular characters.  

GUEST CAST

Frank Nelson (Mr. Barton) was born on May 6, 1911 (three months before Lucille Ball) in Colorado Springs, Colorado. He started working as a radio announcer at the age of 15. He later appeared on such popular radio shows as “The Great Gildersleeve,” “Burns and Allen,” and “Fibber McGee & Molly”. This is one of his 11 performances on “My Favorite Husband.”  On “I Love Lucy” he holds the distinction of being the only actor to play two recurring roles: Freddie Fillmore and Ralph Ramsey, as well as six one-off characters, including the frazzled train conductor in “The Great Train Robbery” (ILL S5;E5), a character he repeated on “The Lucy Show.”  Aside from Lucille Ball, Nelson is perhaps most associated with Jack Benny and was a fifteen-year regular on his radio and television programs.

Steve Allen (Scott Campbell, Expert on Alaska) was a talk show and variety host as well as a published composer. Although he was seen with Lucille Ball on awards and quiz shows, their first time acting together on screen didn’t come until 1978′s “Lucy Calls The President”.  In 1980, Ball appeared on the premiere of “The Steve Allen Comedy Hour”. He died in 2000 at age 78. 

TRIVIA: Madelyn Pugh and Bob Carroll Jr. were writers for the Steve Allen radio show and left that job to write for “My Favorite Husband.”  They paid Allen to write his own show one week so they could focus on creating a script submission for “My Favorite Husband.”

EPISODE

ANNOUNCER: “As we look in on the Coopers tonight, they’ve settled down for a quiet evening at home. Liz has discovered an intelligence quiz in a magazine, but she’s having George’s attention, because he is lost in a gripping, blood-curdling murder mystery.” 

George is reading “The Mummy’s Tummy” but Liz spoils the ending to get his attention. George can’t seem to answer any of the IQ questions correctly. 

Q: “What is the name for the chemical formula H2S04?”  

A: Sulfuric Acid

Q: “What does it say on the lid of a United States mailbox?” 

A: Pull Down

Q: “For what was Ma Ferguson noted?” 

A: The first woman Governor of Texas

George decides to quiz Liz, asking her a few questions. 

Q: “What is the poop deck of the ship?” 

Liz’s Answer: “The deck where the sailor’s rest when they’re pooped.”

Real Answer: “A raised portion of the rear deck.” 

Q: “Does sound travel faster or slower in water than it does in air?” 

Liz’s Answer: “Next question.”

Q: “Chicle is the main ingredient in chewing gum. Where is the largest deposit found?”

Liz’s Answer: “Under theatre seats.”

Liz realizes that they aren’t very smart and should probably do something about it. Dr. Guilfoyle, author of the quiz, suggests that a score under 50 needs to be addressed.  

Liz is going to send for his book “How To Improve Yourself.” 

LIZ: “Look at the people who recommend this book: Truman and Goldwyn.” GEORGE: “Harry Truman and Sam Goldwyn?” LIZ: “No, Sam Truman and Harry Goldwyn!” 

Harry Truman (1884-1972) was the 33rd president of the United States from 1945 to 1953, succeeding Franklin D. Roosevelt after his death. He implemented the Marshall Plan to rebuild the economy of Western Europe, and established the Truman Doctrine and NATO. Sam Goldwyn (1879 -1974) was a film producer best known as the founder of several motion picture studios in Hollywood. 

A few days later, the book has arrived and Katie the Maid notices Liz is engrossed in it. Liz states that the Doctor has three rules to impress people: 

Learn Ten New Words a Day

Be a Good Listener

Have One Subject Down Cold So You Can Steer The Conversation Around To It

Liz’s has already got her ten new words and has put them in a sentence.

LIZ: “By assiduous application, I have promulgated a plethora of altruistic ubiquity and lugubrious perspicacity.”

The telephone rings, it is George telling Liz he is bringing home an important person named Mr. Barton, to dinner.  

LIZ: “How important is he, George? Sirloin, T-bone, meatloaf, or hash?” GEORGE: “Strictly sirloin.” 

George explains that Mr. Barton is the one who picks the speakers for the open forums in town. George wants to get picked to be one of the first speakers so he can impress his boss, Mr. Atterbury, and possibly land a raise. George warns Liz to be herself and not try to impress him. 

Liz decides to enact rule #3 and cracks open an encyclopedia to pick the subject.  Much to her surprise, the subject she randomly picks is bees!   Walking up to the house that evening, Mr. Barton (Frank Nelson) confides in George that he is looking forward to meeting a simple housewife, since in his line of work the women are always trying too hard to impress him with their intellect.   George introduces Liz to Mr. Barton, who immediately notices that her vocabulary is amped up. Unfortunately, Liz is using the wrong words most of the time, saying ‘plethora’ for ‘pleasure’ and ‘diversify yourself’ for ‘divert yourself.’

George assures a nervous Mr. Barton that Liz is ‘just an old fashioned girl’.

MR. BARTON: “Sounds like she’s had too many Old- Fashioneds!” 

An Old Fashioned is a cocktail made by mixing sugar with bitters and water, adding whiskey or brandy, and garnishing with orange zest and a cocktail cherry. It is traditionally served in a special glass called an Old Fashioned glass.  A variation on this wordplay was used on “I Love Lucy” in “Million Dollar Idea” (ILL S3;E13) in 1954 when Lucy (disguised as an average housewife selected at random) describes the taste of Aunt Martha’s Old Fashioned Salad Dressing to deliberately encourage buyers to cancel. 

LUCY: “Looks like Aunt Martha had too many Old-Fashioneds!” 

In the kitchen, George tells Liz to stop using fancy words, so Liz moves on to rule #3 - her special subject: bees!  She no sooner starts buzzing about bees when she is chided by George. 

GEORGE (sternly aside): “Liz! Haven’t you forgotten? Mr. Barton’s forum!” LIZ: “Well, I’m for ‘em, too!”

Coincidentally, Lucille Ball was one of several actors known as ‘Queen of the ‘B’s’ - which referred to ‘B’ pictures - films that were done quickly, on a budget, with lesser-known actors. In 1963′s “Lucy’s Barbershop Quartet” (TLS S1;E19) Lucy suggests they sing about bees! 

Mr. Barton tells George he is going to sponsor a Shakespearean Company, if they can convince the City Council to fund them. 

LIZ: “To bee or not to bee!” 

"To be, or not to be" is the opening of a soliloquy by Prince Hamlet in William Shakespeare's play Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 1. In the speech, Hamlet contemplates death and suicide. It is one of the most quoted phrases in all of literature. To Be or Not to Be is a also the title of a 1942 film starring Lucille Ball’s good friend Carole Lombard and Jack Benny, who later became her next door neighbor. The plot concerns a troupe of actors in Nazi-occupied Poland. The film was released one month after Lombard was killed in an airplane crash.

George drags Liz into the hall again, warning her to stop talking about bees! After telling him to “mind his own beeswax”, Liz reluctantly agrees just to listen attentively and agree with everything Mr. Barton says. This works so well, that Mr. Barton barely acknowledges George, but only talks to Liz!  He is so impressed by Liz, he offers to have her on the panel of their very first forum on Saturday night!  She instantly agrees!

Two days later she learns that the forum’s topic is “the effect of jet propulsion and supersonic flight on the future of aviation.” But Liz is un-phased. She has been preparing by buying a new dress, which she tells George has ‘a dive bomb neckline.’  

George and Liz role play to prepare for the forum. Against George’s advice, Liz intends to talk about the Wright Brothers!  

Orville and Wilbur Wright were inventors and pioneers of aviation. In 1903 the Wright brothers achieved the first powered, sustained and controlled airplane flight; they surpassed their own milestone two years later when they built and flew the first fully practical airplane.

At the meeting that night, Mr. Barton announces to the assembled crowd that their aviation expert, Colonel Davis, could not make it. 

MR. BARTON: “He started her from Los Angeles, but he got slightly mixed up in a snowstorm and has just cabled us from Bombay, India.”

Bombay, India is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It was formerly renamed Mumbai in 1995 to better reflect the city’s roots and cut ties with its British origins. Coincidentally, a few months after this broadcast, the 1942 film Bombay Clipper was re-released. Although the Lucy gang never traveled to Bombay, it was mentioned in 1955′s “The Hedda Hopper Story” (ILL S4;E21) when everyone was looking for Mrs. McGillicuddy. 

RICKY (Into phone): “Do you have any flights numbered 930? You do? Where's it coming in from? Bombay?” LUCY: “Bombay?” RICKY: “Well knowing your mother... No, even she wouldn't fly from New York to Los Angeles by way of India.”

Instead, Mr. Barton announces that the guest speaker is a famous authority on Alaska, Mr. Scott Campbell (Steve Allen). Unfortunately, Liz knows nothing about Alaska - so she starts to talk about the Wright Brothers instead!

In 1949 Alaska was not yet one of the United States, but was a US territory. The statehood movement gained its first real momentum in 1946 and Alaska was officially proclaimed a state on January 3, 1959. To mark this event, Desilu created a special episode of “The Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse” in which the Ricardos and Mertzes travel to Nome to cash in on a land deal, although no actual filming was done in the 49th state. 

In 1952’s “Lucy Gets Ricky on the Radio” (ILL S1;E32) Lucy presciently (but incorrectly) answers the question “What was the last state to be admitted to the union?” by saying Alaska. At the time, the correct answer to the question was Arizona, admitted on Valentine’s Day 1912.

MR. BARTON: “No!  When are you going to get to Alaska?”  LIZ: “Let me get the plane invented and I’ll fly up there!” 

With nothing else to talk about, Liz starts to talk about bees, but Mr. Barton quickly cuts her off and turns the podium over to Mr. Campbell, who launches into a serious speech about the welfare of the children of Alaska. He suddenly turns to Liz and asks “Who is responsible for these children, Mrs. Cooper?” 

LIZ: “You really want me to answer that?  Wilbur and Orville Wright!” 

In the bedtime tag, it is 4 o’clock in the morning and Liz is eating crackers in bed. Wrestling them away from her, George gets cracker crumbs all over the bed. A few seconds later, Liz is eating an apple!  George takes it from her. He hears her eating a third time and goes to grab whatever it is away from her.  

GEORGE: “Whoah!  What was that!” LIZ: “A glass of cold milk. Goodnight, George.”

End of Episode

Bob LeMond reminds listeners that Lucille Ball will soon be seen in the Paramount Picture Sorrowful Jones. 

[newstfionline]

Monday, January 11, 2021

The workers hit hardest during Covid-19’s first wave are getting pummeled again (Yahoo Finance) Since the beginning of the pandemic, one group of workers has been hurt far more than others: those working in the service industries, specifically in leisure and hospitality jobs. And in December after some progress, that industry lost jobs once again. “The most recent surge in coronavirus cases is once again battering the US labor market,” Indeed’s economic research director Nick Bunker wrote in a note. “The economic fallout from this wave of cases is hitting the industries and workers pummeled hardest by the initial damage before they fully bounced back from that first hit.” The latest hit isn’t as bad as the spring, as vaccines are rolling out and certain measures are in place, but restaurants, bars, and other jobs that depend on people interacting still cannot do business in a pandemic environment.

Squelched by Twitter, Trump seeks new online megaphone (AP) One Twitter wag joked about lights flickering on and off at the White House being Donald Trump signaling to his followers in Morse code after Twitter and Facebook squelched the president for inciting rebellion. Though deprived of his big online megaphones, Trump does have alternative options of much smaller reach. The far right-friendly Parler may be the leading candidate, though Google and Apple have both removed it from their app stores and Amazon decided to boot it off its web hosting service. Trump may launch his own platform. But that won’t happen overnight, and free speech experts anticipate growing pressure on all social media platforms to curb incendiary speech as Americans take stock of Wednesday’s violent takeover of the U.S. Capitol. Facebook and Instagram have suspended Trump at least until Inauguration Day. Twitch and Snapchat also have disabled Trump’s accounts, while Shopify took down online stores affiliated with the president and Reddit removed a Trump subgroup. Twitter also banned Trump loyalists including former national security advisor Michael Flynn in a sweeping purge of accounts promoting the QAnon conspiracy theory and the Capitol insurrection. Some had hundreds of thousands of followers.

Navy’s Priciest Carrier Ever Struggles to Get Jets On, Off Deck (Bloomberg) Aircraft takeoff and landing systems on the USS Gerald R. Ford remain unreliable and break down too often more than three years after the $13.2 billion carrier was delivered, according to the Pentagon’s top tester. The latest assessment of the costliest warship ever built “remains consistent” with previous years, director of testing Robert Behler said in his new summary of the program obtained by Bloomberg News before its release in an annual report. The Ford’s new systems—which propel planes off the deck and into the sky and then snag them on landing—are crucial to justifying the expense of what’s now a four-vessel, $57 billion program intended to replace the current Nimitz class of aircraft carriers. The continuing reliability woes with the carrier systems built by General Atomics of San Diego are separate from another continuing challenge: the installation and certification of elevators needed to lift munitions from below deck. As of November, six of 11 “advanced weapons elevators” that should have been installed when the ship was delivered in May 2017 are now operational.

In Central America, tensions rise as soldiers aim to stop migrants (Reuters) Guatemalan and Honduran soldiers will be deployed to prevent new U.S.-bound migrant caravans from advancing, military officials said, amid growing desperation among those seeking to cross and signs that some groups will depart later this month. Two devastating hurricanes late last year along with severe economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic have pushed millions of people in the already-poor region closer to hunger, leading to a steady rise in U.S.-bound migration through Mexico. In online forums, many Honduras have indicated they plan to leave next weekend in a new caravan, which has caught the attention of U.S. officials who have called on the region’s governments to stop them. Many migrants in recent years have chosen to travel by caravan because being part of a large group offers protection from criminals who might prey on them, even though traveling alone is often faster.

Johnson under fire as UK again faces onslaught of COVID-19 (AP) The crisis facing Britain this winter is depressingly familiar: Stay-at-home orders and empty streets. Hospitals overflowing. A daily toll of many hundreds of coronavirus deaths. The U.K. is the epicenter of Europe’s COVID-19 outbreak once more, and Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative government is facing questions, and anger, as people demand to know how the country has ended up here—again. Many countries are enduring new waves of the virus, but Britain’s is among the worst, and it comes after a horrendous 2020. More than 3 million people in the U.K. have tested positive for the coronavirus and 81,000 have died—30,000 in just the last 30 days. The economy has shrunk by 8%, more than 800,000 jobs have been lost and hundreds of thousands more furloughed workers are in limbo. Even with the new lockdown, London Mayor Sadiq Khan said Friday that the situation in the capital was “critical,” with one in every 30 people infected. “The stark reality is that we will run out of beds for patients in the next couple of weeks unless the spread of the virus slows down drastically,” he said.

In the Cold and Rain, India’s Farmers Press Their Stand Against Modi (NYT) Under a rain-slick tarpaulin, half a dozen elderly women bake roti on a wood-fired griddle—flattening dough, flipping browned bread from dawn until the sun retreats into Delhi’s evening smoke. Anyone who walks in gets served rice and cooked vegetables and, to wash it down, a cumin-flavored yogurt drink. Across the road, Jagjeet Singh, a burly man with a large fanny pack and a light purple turban, churns a hefty pot of milk coffee from 5 a.m. to 5 p.m. The scenes stretching for miles around the Indian capital don’t come from a fair. They make up one of the largest sustained protests the country has seen in decades, persisting through steady rains and dozens of deaths that farmers and the Indian media have attributed to the weather, illness or suicide. For six weeks now, tens of thousands of farmers have choked the city’s four main entry points. They are challenging Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has crushed all other opposition and stands as the country’s dominant political force, over his effort to reshape how farming in India has been done for decades. “They sold everything else. Only the farmers are left,” said 18-year old Ajay Veer Singh, who has been at the protest with his 67-year-old grandfather since it began in November. “Now they want to sell the farmers to their corporate friends too.”

China sees growing outbreak south of Beijing (AP) More than 360 people have tested positive in a growing coronavirus outbreak south of Beijing in neighboring Hebei province. The outbreak has raised particular concern because of Hebei’s proximity to the nation’s capital. Travel between the two has been restricted, with workers from Hebei having to show proof of employment in Beijing to enter the city. Almost all of the cases are in Shijuazhuang, the provincial capital, which is about 260 kilometers (160 miles) southwest of Beijing. A handful have also been found in Xingtai city, 110 kilometers (68 miles) farther south. Both cities have conducted mass testing of millions of residents, suspended public transportation and restricted residents to their communities or villages for one week.

Pompeo voids restrictions on diplomatic contacts with Taiwan (AP) Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced Saturday that the State Department is voiding longstanding restrictions on how U.S. diplomats and others have contact with their counterparts in Taiwan, another move that is expected to upset China as the Trump administration winds to an end. The Trump administration has sought to strengthen bilateral relations with Taiwan. It announced Thursday that U.N Ambassador Kelly Craft would go to Taiwan, a move that sparked sharp criticism from Beijing and a warning that the U.S. would pay a heavy price. In August, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar became the first Cabinet member to visit Taiwan since 2014. Pompeo said that the State Department has created complex restrictions when it comes to contacts between the two parties. He said those actions were taken to appease the Communist regime in Beijing. “No more,” Pompeo declared in a statement. “Today I am announcing that I am lifting all of these self-imposed restrictions.” The Chinese government maintains that mainland China and Taiwan are parts of “one China.” China has been stepping up its threats to bring the self-governing island under its control by military force with frequent war games and aerial patrols. It has been using its diplomatic clout to stop Taiwan from joining any organizations that require statehood for membership.

Japanese pray for end to pandemic in annual ice bath ritual at Tokyo shrine (Reuters) Men wearing traditional loin clothes and women dressed in white robes clapped and chanted before going into an ice water bath during a Shinto ritual at a Tokyo shrine on Sunday to purify the soul and pray for the end of the COVID-19 pandemic. Only a dozen people took part in the annual event at Teppou-zu Inari Shrine, scaled down this year due to the health crisis, compared to over a hundred in early 2020. After doing warming-up exercises and chanting under a clear sky with outside temperatures at 5.1 degree Celsius (41.18 Fahrenheit), the nine male and three female participants went into a bath filled with cold water and large ice blocks. Fewer participants at the Shinto ritual made the water extra cold, participant Naoaki Yamaguchi told Reuters. “Normally we have more participants and it makes the water temperature a little bit warmer. But this year, there were just twelve people, so it (the cold) was crazy,” the 47-year-old said.

Indonesian divers find parts of plane wreckage in Java Sea (AP) Indonesian divers on Sunday located parts of the wreckage of a Boeing 737-500 at a depth of 23 meters (75 feet) in the Java Sea, a day after the aircraft with 62 people onboard crashed shortly after takeoff from Jakarta. Earlier, rescuers pulled out body parts, pieces of clothing and scraps of metal from the surface. It’s still unclear what caused the crash. There was no sign of survivors. Fishermen in the area between Lancang and Laki islands, part of an archipelago around Thousand Islands north of Jakarta’s coast, reported hearing an explosion around 2:30 p.m. Saturday.

At a Yemen hospital wracked by U.S. funding cuts, children are dying of hunger (Washington Post) Her infant son, weakened by hunger, needed a better-equipped hospital in the capital, Sanaa, roughly 30 miles away. But Hanan Saleh could no longer afford even the $30 taxi fare. Before, she depended on a Western aid organization, Save the Children, for funds, drawn from money donated by the United States, to cover the travel costs, said employees of the organization and hospital officials. But last year, the United States slashed its funding to United Nations groups and others such as Save the Children. So Saleh had to raise money to treat her son, Mohammed, in Sanaa until those funds ran out, too. Her last option was a small hospital in this northern Yemen market town, a 15-minute walk from their home. The staff tried to build up his skeletal, malnourished 9-month-old body. “He died two months ago,” Saleh recalled in November, breaking down in tears. Aid cuts by the Trump administration and other Western countries, intended to prevent Yemen’s Houthi rebels from diverting or blocking funds, are worsening the country’s humanitarian crisis, already considered the most severe in the world. Last year’s pledges totaling $1.61 billion were less than half of 2019’s funding, and hundreds of millions of dollars committed by donors have not yet been paid, according to the U.N.’s humanitarian office for Yemen. At least 15 of the U.N.’s 41 major programs have been scaled back or closed, and additional programs could shutter in the months to come, if more funds are not received, U.N. officials say.

The Tiny Satellites That Will Connect Cows, Cars and Shipping Containers to the Internet (WSJ) Scientists who track the health of Adélie penguins on the ice-covered wastes of Antarctica are managing their cameras from thousands of miles away—via tiny satellites orbiting above our heads. Energy companies are exploring using the same technology for monitoring hard-to-reach wind farms; logistics companies for tracking shipping containers; and agribusiness companies for minding cattle. It even helped National Geographic track a discarded plastic bottle from Bangladesh to the Indian Ocean. In the near future, it isn’t unreasonable to imagine this evolving satellite technology could put a distress beacon in every automobile, allow remote monitoring of wildlife in any environment on earth, and track your Amazon shipment—not just when it’s on a truck, but backward, all the way to the factory that produced it. And it could be done at a fraction of the cost of earlier satellite tracking systems. These novel networks of nanosats—aka cubesats—are a result of a number of factors. First, the satellites themselves are smaller, cheaper and more capable than ever. Just as important, there’s the rollout and adoption of new long-distance, low-power wireless communication standards that can work just as well in outer space as they do on the ground. In the next year, hundreds of satellites from more than a dozen companies are set to launch.