#scientists march on washington

[deramin2]

Working at a Renaissance Faire for 18 years has made me totally immune to thinking it's a failure of Bell's Hells to not have unified opinions.

Literally no one at a Renaissance Faire agrees on how shit should be done or what's most important to do or what improvement would even look like or whether anyone's ideas would even work. There are people who have been threatening to quit for a quarter of a century because they're sick of putting up with everyone's stupid bullshit, but they'll be back every single year until they drop dead and we build them a memorial while carrying on in their names.

That's just what it takes to get shit done in the real world. People talk about activist groups like they had unity and every battle planned out, but I promise you they were also a bunch of disagreeable squabbling geese honking at each other while still flocking. Various factions always think others with virtually identical views are standing in the way of progress and true liberation with their stupid ideas and actions.

Even the AIDS quilt, widely regarded as one of the most moving works of political art ever created, had plenty of other queer activists who thought it was a bad idea holding back real progress. So did the Civil Rights Movement March on Washington where MLK gave his I Have A Dream speech. Climate change scientists on the bleeding edge of research into how to best protect the planet are constantly getting into passive aggressive paper publishing wars about why each other's conclusions are total horse shit. The work gets done anyway.

You bitch at each other about how things should get done, but crucially while also doing the work and making the next decision in front of you. Then writers look back later and pretend all those decisions were cohesive and everyone definitely agreed this was the correct path to take. That's what we put in all the stories. But the truth is that everything seems like incoherent bickering while it actually happens because no one knows what the results will really be. It's holding out for unity and clear solutions that actually undermines progress. All that really matters in the end is you keep working together to make things better. Because really none of us has the faintest clue what better really is.

To me that's a story worth telling.

[mindblowingscience]

Scientists have uncovered the fossilized skull of a 270-million-year-old ancient amphibian ancestor in the collection of the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History. In a paper published today, March 21, in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, the team of researchers described the fossil as a new species of proto-amphibian, which they named Kermitops gratus in honor of the iconic muppet, Kermit the Frog. According to Calvin So, a doctoral student at the George Washington University and the lead author on the new paper, naming the new creature after the beloved frog character, who was created by puppeteer Jim Henson in 1955, is an opportunity to get people excited about the discoveries scientists make using museum collections.

Continue Reading.

[icereader12]

I know I'm either preaching to the choir, or screaming into the void about this, but I feel the need to say it anyway. The phrase "from the river to the sea" is antisemitic. Full stop. Don't like it? Disagree? Unfortunately reality disagrees with you. And in a fight over information, reality should always win.

Let's start with origins. The phrase first gained traction, or general use, in the 1960s. It was co-opted by the PLO in 1964. The PLO was a group of Palestinian liberation groups, hence the name. Throughout the 1960s - the 1990s, they launched terrorist attacks around the world, but mostly in the Middle East. (Brittanica, Nov 16, 2023) The US designated them a terrorist organization, and their first leader, who brought the phrase "from the river to the sea into the limelight, repeatedly called for the destruction of Israel using this phrase (University of Michigan). The PLO claimed to represent Palestinians, and was a fighting force in the Arab-Israel war of 1967, which was declared by the Arab, and lost by them. When the PLO and Arab nations lost, the PLO rallies, and began attacking Israel with guerilla warfare. So the phrase originally referred to the desire to destroy the only majority Jewish state in the world.

History of the phrase continued.

When the PLO decided to recognize reality and acknowledge a two-state solution might be a good idea, many more radical groups in it refused to follow along and broke with the PLO. One of those group was Hamas. Hamas, widely recognized as a terrorist organization, uses the phrase in its charter. Hamas, also in their original charter, states that there will be no peace in the region until all the Jews in said region have been killed.(translation done by Federation of American Scientists). For those who can't connect the dots, that's a call to genocide. By putting that phrase next to their stated desire for genocide, Hamas confirms that that phrase, to them, is a call for genocide. (Business Insider, Nov. 6, 2023) So, in more modern day, it is still a call to genocide.

How the phrase is treated today.

Many who march for Palestine, including Palestine-American Representative Tlaib, say the phrase has changed meanings to them, and that they do not use it as a call for Jewish genocide. (Washington Post, Nov, 2023.) However, most Jewish organizations still regard the phrase as antisemitic, both for its origins, and for how people use it. This includes the ADL, AJC, Jewish Journal, etc. all of whom provide in depth analysis on why the phrase is bad to use. Most of it has to do, as previously stated, with the continued use of the phrase by terrorist organizations such as Hamas and PLEP to call for genocide. While some Palestinians argue that phrase has been commandeered by extremists, but it's okay if they use it because they aren't, that is an horrible argument. The extremists didn't take the phrase from them, they took it from the extremists (see above proof). You'd think, since many pro-palestinians claim to not support the extremists like Hamas, they wouldn't use the same phrases, so as to distance themselves from the crazies. Instead, they embrace the rhetoric.

Nevertheless, the real problem with continuous use of the phrase is that, when a minority group collectively says "that phrase is harmful to our community, please stop saying it", we oblige. When Black Americans said, "stop using the n-word, it's hurtful", we listened, because they were the community being hurt . And soon enough, we as a society realized those still using that word were racist. When the disabled community asked, "stop using the r-word, it's hurtful", we listened, because they were the community being hurt. And soon enough, we as a society realized those who kept using the word despite the harmed community's wishes were bigoted. The phrase "from the river to the sea" has been continuously used, both in the past and now as a rallying call for destruction of an ethnic group on the grounds that those calling for said destruction didn't like having to share land with said ethnic group. It has been used to kill people and incite violence. That's not up for debate, that's a historical fact. It is still being used to incite violence and get people killed. That is also fact. Marginalized communities are allowed to reclaim hurtful phrases for themselves. But the phrase "from the river to the sea" wasn't and still isn't used to hurt Palestinians, it's used to hurt Jews. Therefore, the only ones allowed to reclaim it are the Jews.

I don't care some Palestinians claim to not be using the phrase as it was originally meant. They are still using the rhetoric of an extremist group that uses that rhetoric to call for Jewish genocide. And when people use that same rhetoric for the same cause (liberating Gaza/ Palestine), they are saying, intentionally or not, that they agree with the rhetoric and actions of the terrorists who use that phrase to call for genocide. We can't read minds. Intention means very little when people call for hate. Whether they "mean it" or not, they are still calling for hate. It's the same cause, with the same words. If pro-palestinians insist on using the same phrases used by terrorists, they need to stop getting mad when we confuse them for supporting terrorists. The is nothing wrong with calling for a two-state solution. There is everything wrong with supporting a terrorist organization that calls for genocide. If you use language that could mean either but has historically meant the latter, people will think you are the latter. Calling for the death of all the Jews in a region is antisemitic. The phrase "from the river to the sea" has historically been used, and is currently being used to call for the death of all Jews in Israel. No one cares if you think you're using it differently. To the community still being hurt by that phrase, it is one and the same. Either pick a different slogan or stop being upset that you are being called an antisemitic terrorist supporter.

[fenrislorsrai]

Extremely Rare Guam Rails Hatch at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo by Smithsonian's National Zoo Via Flickr: Photo Credit: Jim and Pam Jenkins, FONZ Photo Club As Washington, D.C.’s unseasonably warm winter turns into spring, a baby boom is underway at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo. Two Guam rail (Gallirallus owstoni) chicks hatched March 3 and 4; they join six others in the Zoo’s collection—three of which live at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in Front Royal, Va. This brings the total population of these small, flightless birds to 162 individuals. Each hatching is significant—the International Union for Conservation of Nature lists these birds as extinct in the wild. In about six weeks, keepers will separate the chicks from their parents, and Zoo veterinarians will perform a routine medical exam and take feather samples to determine their sexes. To date, 82 chicks have hatched at the Zoo and SCBI, and each provides scientists with the opportunity to learn about the growth, reproduction, health and behavior of the species. The Zoo sent 29 Guam rails to the government of Guam for release and breeding, and an additional 25 birds have gone to other institutions to breed. Guam rails flourished in Guam’s limestone forests and coconut plantations until the arrival of the brown tree snake (Boiga irregularis), an invasive species that stowed away in military equipment shipped from New Guinea after World War II. Because these reptiles had no natural predators on Guam, their numbers grew and they spread across the island quickly. Within three decades, they hunted Guam rails and eight other bird species to the brink of extinction. In 1986, Guam’s Department of Aquatic and Wildlife Resources captured the country’s remaining 21 Guam rails and sent them to zoological institutions around the globe—including the National Zoo—as a hedge against extinction. The Association of Zoos and Aquariums created a Species Survival Plan for the birds. The SSP pairs males and females in order to maintain a genetically diverse and self-sustaining population. Today, 118 Guam rails are thriving on two islands near the mainland: Rota and Cocos. The availability of release sites continues to shrink, however, due to deforestation and human expansion. Controlling the brown snake population remains a significant challenge as well, though researchers have made progress in developing a variety of barriers, traps and toxicants. Forty-four birds reside in zoos and other facilities in North America. Visitors to the Smithsonian’s National Zoo can see these birds on exhibit in the Bird House. In stark contrast to their brown-and-white-plumaged parents, Guam rail chicks sport black downy feathers. nationalzoo.si.edu/Animals/Birds/

[good-old-gossip]

Netanyahu wants to escalate this genocide into a regional war to bring big bad brother U.S. to fight Israel's battles

Benjamin Netanyahu continues to raise the risk of a Mideast regional war which could draw in the U.S. — and the mainstream media is hiding the danger from its audience. Israel’s provocative aerial assassination of a senior Iranian military leader in Damascus on April 1 is only Netanyahu’s latest effort to expand the fighting across the region, partly to put off his own painful day of reckoning. He knows that America has troops stationed all over the Mideast, and he hopes that Iran will retaliate against them, escalating conflict.

It is clear Netanyahu does not want an immediate end to the current conflict spreading throughout the Middle East. A permanent ceasefire in Gaza means Israeli voters would soon turn him out of office, end his shattered political career in disgrace — and re-start his corruption trial, which could send him to prison. 

Netanyahu’s real motivation is widely understood among those who follow the Mideast. But the U.S. media totally ignored that angle. The New York Times report at least smuggled in a comment from a former CIA official, who called Israel’s airstrike “incredibly reckless.” But the Times did not examine Netanyahu’s selfish personal motivation. The Washington Post report said nothing about recklessness. National Public Radio also played dumb, as did the PBS NewsHour. A CNN on-air report did say Israel ordered the killing, but no Netanyahu angle there either.

Meanwhile, the Iranian-American Mideast expert Sina Toossi told the truth, at the Center for International Policy website. His headline was: “Israel’s Damascus airstrike was a deliberate provocation.” 

He went on: “Netanyahu’s decision to green-light the airstrike on Damascus seems to be a calculated act to amplify the hostilities. Such a move sharply contrasts with international appeals for restraint and indicates a deliberate escalation strategy.”

Toossi didn’t hesitate to speculate about Netanyahu’s real motivation:

“Netanyahu seems to be aiming to provoke Iran and intensify the conflict to galvanize domestic and international political support and justify wider military actions, potentially in Rafah and against Hezbollah and Iran. This strategy risks drawing the United States deeper into the conflict. . .” 

Sina Toossi surely has a telephone and a computer and would talk to the New York Times and CNN. They don’t have to agree with his analysis — just recognize that their audience deserves to hear it. And if Toossi seems too risqué for the mainstream, they could instead turn to Amos Harel, the hard-headed military affairs reporter at the Israeli daily Haaretz, who just warned that Netanyahu “is actually seeking a forever war that will postpone the national settling of accounts for responsibility for the terrible failure of October 7, and possibly delay his criminal trial.” 

Netanyahu’s strategy is not new. This site has long reported on how he has instigated conflict between the U.S. and Iran, even before his own political survival was at stake. He tried to sabotage the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, and during the Trump administration Israel launched regular clandestine attacks inside Iran, including assassinations of scientists. Back then, Netanyahu wanted the U.S. to destroy what he argued was Iran’s march toward a nuclear weapon. 

Today, his selfish motivation must be part of any legitimate analysis. His foot-dragging over even agreeing to a temporary ceasefire in Gaza makes sense in that light. This does not mean that he’s conning an Israeli public that is actually peace-loving. It does mean that he could be making a terrible situation even worse — and the U.S. media are not telling the truth to the American public. 

[rjzimmerman]

Hawaii’s Mauna Loa Observatory just captured ominous signals about the planet’s health. (Washington Post)

Hawaii’s Mauna Loa Observatory just captured an ominous sign about the pace of global warming.

Atmospheric levels of planet-warming carbon dioxide aren’t just on their way to yet another record high this year — they’re rising faster than ever, according to the latest in a 66-year-long series of observations.

Carbon dioxide levels were 4.7 parts per million higher in March than they were a year earlier, the largest annual leap ever measured at the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration laboratory atop a volcano on Hawaii’s Big Island. And from January through April, CO2 concentrations increased faster than they have in the first four months of any other year. Data from Mauna Loa is used to create the Keeling Curve, a chart that daily plots global atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration, tracked by Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California at San Diego.

For decades, CO2 concentrations at Mauna Loa in the month of May have broken previous records. But the recent acceleration in atmospheric CO2, surpassing a record-setting increase observed in 2016, is perhaps a more ominous signal of failing efforts to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions and the damage they cause to Earth’s climate.

“Not only is CO2 still rising in the atmosphere — it’s increasing faster and faster,” said Arlyn Andrews, a climate scientist at NOAA’s Global Monitoring Laboratory in Boulder, Colo.

A historically strong El Niño climate pattern that developed last year is a big reason for the spike. But the weather pattern only punctuated an existing trend in which global carbon emissions are rising even as U.S. emissions have declined and the growth in global emissions has slowed.

Each annual maximum has raised new alarm about the curve’s unceasing upward trend — nearing 427 parts per million in the most recent readings, which is more than 50 percent above preindustrial levels and the highest in at least 4.3 million years, according to NOAA. Atmospheric CO2 levels first surpassed 400 parts per million in 2014. Scientists said in 2016 that levels were unlikely to drop below that threshold again during the lifetime of even the youngest generations.

Since that year, carbon dioxide emissions tied to fossil fuel consumption have increased 5 percent globally, according to Scripps.

[chaifootsteps]

"I first met Tokitae (also known as Toki, Lolita and Sk’aliCh’elh-tenaut), a female orca who had been captured off the coast of Washington, in 1987. I was a biology graduate student at my first professional conference, and the scientific society hosting this event held the opening reception at the Seaquarium.

Toki was 20 feet long and 7,000 pounds, and should have been in the Salish Sea traveling 40 miles a day and diving 500 feet deep with her mother and siblings. Yet there we were, a few hundred marine mammal scientists who mostly did field research, watching this magnificent being perform silly tricks in a bathtub.

That’s not really an exaggeration in Toki’s case. Toki’s tank was the smallest enclosure in the world for her species. It was only 35 feet at its widest point and 80 feet long. It was 20 feet at its deepest; if Toki hung vertically in the water, her tail flukes touched bottom. Captured in 1970 when she was 4 or 5 years old, she lived in this tiny space for 53 years.

The federal Animal Welfare Act (AWA), administered by the US Department of Agriculture, has a ludicrous requirement for tank width — only twice the length of an average adult orca (or 48 feet). But Toki’s tank didn’t even meet that weak standard. For years, the USDA offered various excuses for not taking steps to revoke the exhibitor’s license. None of them made sense, as the tank was plainly not to code. Activists repeatedly tried to sue the USDA for failing to enforce the law, without success.

Toki’s was a strange, lonely life. Despite many campaigns to repatriate her to her family (the L pod in Puget Sound), years passed. The stadium around her slowly and literally crumbled.

The ‘Blackfish’ Effect,” named after the 2013 documentary that eventually reached tens of millions of people globally, has shifted the captive cetacean paradigm in the past decade. Businesses have severed ties with marine theme parks, and policymakers have passed laws ending the commercial display of orcas and other cetacean species. SeaWorld, the company that built its brand on Shamu, is phasing out orca display — no longer capturing, breeding or trading them.

And still Toki languished in the South Florida heat. The Seaquarium’s two owners during Toki’s first 52 years there were adamant that she would never leave the park and disdainfully dismissed talk of returning her to her family.

In March 2022, however, Toki’s outlook finally seemed brighter. The Seaquarium was sold to a company whose business model relied primarily on swim-with-dolphin encounters. An orca didn’t fit that model, and these owners were willing to let her go. Efforts could finally begin in earnest to return her home. The Lummi Tribe, who gave her the name Sk’aliCh’elh-tenaut and considered her a relative, had prepared detailed plans for a seaside sanctuary in the Salish Sea.

Then, last month, Toki died. The hope felt by so many that she would finally go home disappeared in an instant.

Captivity robs orcas of a true life in the deep open sea. It robs them of family, of purpose, of change and challenge. Captivity is tremendous monotony for these socially complex, wide-ranging, intelligent animals. We should not perpetuate that.

Zoos and aquariums long ago relegated dancing bears and tricycle-riding chimps to circuses, but still claim that cetacean shows — loud extravaganzas featuring leaping orcas and cavorting dolphins — are educational (they are not). The industry could and should invest in seaside sanctuaries — it’s a win-win choice, as the industry would be heroes and the animals’ welfare would improve.

Let Toki’s miserable, isolated life and sad death mean something for her fellow captives. These amazing beings should not have to die to finally be free."

Dr. Naomi Rose is senior scientist (marine mammal biology) for the Animal Welfare Institute in Washington, D.C.

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

NASA's mini BurstCube mission detects mega blast

The shoebox-sized BurstCube satellite has observed its first gamma-ray burst, the most powerful kind of explosion in the universe, according to a recent analysis of observations collected over the last several months.

“We’re excited to collect science data,” said Sean Semper, BurstCube’s lead engineer at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “It’s an important milestone for the team and for the many early career engineers and scientists that have been part of the mission.”

The event, called GRB 240629A, occurred on June 29 in the southern constellation Microscopium. The team announced the discovery in a GCN (General Coordinates Network) circular on August 29.

BurstCube deployed into orbit April 18 from the International Space Station, following a March 21 launch.

The mission was designed to detect, locate, and study short gamma-ray bursts, brief flashes of high-energy light created when superdense objects like neutron stars collide. These collisions also produce heavy elements like gold and iodine, an essential ingredient for life as we know it. 

BurstCube is the first CubeSat to use NASA’s TDRS (Tracking and Data Relay Satellite) system, a constellation of specialized communications spacecraft. Data relayed by TDRS (pronounced “tee-driss”) help coordinate rapid follow-up measurements by other observatories in space and on the ground through NASA’s GCN.

BurstCube also regularly beams data back to Earth using the Direct to Earth system — both it and TDRS are part of NASA’s Near Space Network.

After BurstCube deployed from the space station, the team discovered that one of the two solar panels failed to fully extend. It obscures the view of the mission’s star tracker, which hinders orienting the spacecraft in a way that minimizes drag. The team originally hoped to operate BurstCube for 12-18 months, but now estimates the increased drag will cause the satellite to re-enter the atmosphere in September. 

“I’m proud of how the team responded to the situation and is making the best use of the time we have in orbit,” said Jeremy Perkins, BurstCube’s principal investigator at Goddard. “Small missions like BurstCube not only provide an opportunity to do great science and test new technologies, like our mission’s gamma-ray detector, but also important learning opportunities for the up-and-coming members of the astrophysics community.”

BurstCube is led by Goddard. It’s funded by the Science Mission Directorate’s Astrophysics Division at NASA Headquarters. The BurstCube collaboration includes: the University of Alabama in Huntsville; the University of Maryland, College Park; the Universities Space Research Association in Washington; the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington; and NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville.

IMAGE: BurstCube, trailed by another CubeSat named SNOOPI (Signals of Opportunity P-band Investigation), emerges from the International Space Station on April 18, 2024. Credit NASA/Matthew Dominick

[bloodyke]

(aqui esta el articulo en español de CPIPR)

(link to english articule from washington post)

[image ID: the first image is a picture of a road on one of puerto ricos forrested mountains with the headline "Más personas muerten en Puerto Rico mientras el sistema de salud se desmorona." The subheading reading "Pese a las vacunas y a la disponibilidad de medicamentos para el COVID-19, en 2022 murieron 35,400 personas en el Isla, la mayor cifra de los últimos 20 años."

the second image is an overhead shot of various graves located in Puerto Rico, with the headline reading "More people are dying in Puerto Rico as its healthcare system crumbles." The subheading reads "Islanders died of chronic conditions and COVID-19 in 2022 at numbers that surpassed even Hurricane Maria's toll." : end ID]

Excerpt from The Washington Post Article:

AGUAS BUENAS, Puerto Rico — In a purple house along a narrow road in Puerto Rico’s Central Mountain Range, Margarita Gómez Falcón’s breathing suddenly grew labored one March evening. She called an ambulance and began a grim two-hour wait for paramedics to arrive.

Health services across this self-governing island have been deteriorating for years, contributing to a surge in deaths that reached historic proportions in 2022, an investigation by The Washington Post and Puerto Rico’s Center for Investigative Journalism has found.

[....]

The case of Gómez Falcón, 67, underscores the many ways a faltering medical system has contributed to elevated death rates.

[...]

Aguas Buenas, a small, working-class town in the central highlands, had one working ambulance for its 25,000 people when Gómez Falcón called for help, so dispatchers sent a private one that had trouble finding her home in the town’s winding back roads.

[...]

Puerto Rico, with a population of 3.3 million people, experienced more than 35,400 deaths last year. That’s nearly 3,300 more than researchers would ordinarily expect based on historic patterns, according to a statistical analysis by The Post and Puerto Rico’s Center for Investigative Journalism (CPI).

This “excess mortality” — a term scientists use to describe unusually high death counts from natural disasters, disease outbreaks or other factors — resulted in part from a covid spike early last year that killed more than 2,300 people, health data shows.

[...]

The recent jump in mortality is the latest warning sign that years of natural disasters and financial crises have taken a deadly toll.

[...]

“It’s been nearly six years since Maria, and nothing has been resolved,” said Nereida Meléndez‚ a community activist in Aguas Buenas. “Here there are bridges that no one has done anything for. There are damaged highways no one has done anything to fix. Here one says, ‘What about that money they sent us? Where is it? What are they doing with it?’”

[...]

Puerto Rico’s public health system was once the envy of the Caribbean. Then-Gov. Pedro Rosselló privatized it in the 1990s, in what became known as “La Reforma.” Most government-owned hospitals were sold in an effort to control costs and streamline operations. But the opposite took place: By 2006, Puerto Rico’s economy tanked and public debt ballooned[.]

Puerto Rico's healthcare system is crumbling (alongside many other public utilities - one notable such example is the powergrid, as many of you have probably heard about recently due to the massive wave of protests against LUMA the current private company in charge of maintaining it) due to lack of resources and support. This is a crisis that has been building for decades due to many factors, such as the installment of an unelected board of overseers who have control of the puerto rican economy due to the enactment of. PROMESA in 2016, the enactment of ACT 60, a bill that incentivizes wealthy mainland U.S. citizens to move to Puerto Rico due to the increased tax breaks they will recieve that include a 100% tax exemption from Puerto Rico income taxes on: dividends, interest, short-term and long-term capital gains, and an exemption from the local and state property taxes equal to 75%, the withholding of emercency aid and support after natural disasters (the most notable example being the absolutely horrendus response to Hurricane Maria, that ended with the then Governor, Ricky Rosselló, resigning from his position after his sexist, racist, and homophic Telegram messages that included disparaging remarks about the victims of Hurricane Maria were leaked.)

This also includes the contiuned privitization of all aspects of puerto rican life, including the attempt to privatize the public beaches, lakes, canals, and parks in 2020, and the attempt to privatize the Taíno Caguana Ceremonial Indigenous Heritage Center in April 2023, though these are only two of many many many examples.

[beguines]

With the collapse of both the rural and urban economies, millions, including many children, took to riding the rails. In 1932, Southern Pacific, just one of many railroads, threw almost seven hundred thousand people off its trains. Shantytowns, aptly dubbed "Hoovervilles," emerged in major cities around the country, especially in those like Chicago that were transportation centers. Spontaneous struggles, including group raids on food stores, emerged. And into this environment stepped the Unemployed Councils (UC), led by the Communist Party (CP). In a matter of months, hundreds of militant mass organizations had been organized around the country. On March 6, 1930, Communists worldwide took part in unemployment demonstrations. In the United States, where more than a million demonstrated, it is estimated that fifty thousand protestors turned out in Boston, thirty thousand in Philadelphia, twenty-​five thousand in Cleveland, twenty thousand in Pittsburgh and Youngstown, and one hundred thousand each in New York City and Detroit. Active UCs existed around the country, including the South; Atlanta, Birmingham, Richmond, and Chattanooga were early centers. Yet isolated areas were not immune. Especially militant and well organized were groups in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. In the iron mining town of Crosby, Minnesota, the Communist leader of the UC won election as mayor, began hiring unemployed miners, and led a hunger march on the state capital. Yet as Lorence notes, although Michigan was among the most active places, with large, influential unemployed movements not only in Detroit and the Upper Peninsula, but in Flint, Saginaw and Bay City, and Pontiac, the more conservative western part of the state was less militant and confrontational.

Piven and Cloward call it the "largest movement of the unemployed the country has known". As a contemporary social scientist, Helen Seymour, argues, "Every large city, most small cities and towns, practically all states . . . witnessed the growth, with tremendous variation as to type, duration, method of accomplishment, of relief pressure groups". The Musteite Unemployed Leagues claimed a hundred thousand members in 187 branches in Ohio alone, and another forty to fifty thousand members in Pennsylvania in 1933, and they were dwarfed by the much larger Communist-​led Unemployed Councils in members and branches. Of course, some areas were passed over, and even when they did emerge, they did not approach high levels of militancy. Nevertheless, what is most striking is the ubiquity and range of unemployed struggles and active groups.

One of the richest accounts of early unemployed activity is given by Nathaniel Weyl. The UCs were organized by blocks and in tenements, and also in breadlines, flophouses, and relief centers, all with their particular demands and forms of action. One of the major activities of the neighborhood committees was to fight evictions: they amassed crowds, fought evictors, including police, moved furniture back when it had been removed, and re-​hooked up utilities. By 1932, in some cities evictions had all but ended. All over the country, unemployed groups organized marches on relief stations, city halls, and even state capitals, demanding greater relief. In Chicago, where the Socialist Party (SP) was especially strong, the UC initiated a joint demonstration of tens of thousands of unemployed, demanding no cut in relief and an end to evictions. Chicago and Illinois officials rushed to Washington, DC, to borrow 6.3 million dollars from the Reconstruction Finance Corporation in order to meet the demands. Mayor Anton Cermak responded to critics by highlighting the seriousness of the growing radicalization of the masses: "I say to the men who object to this public relief because it will add to the tax burden on their property, they should be glad to pay for it, for it is the best way of ensuring that they keep their property". The central national demand of the UCs was unemployment insurance at the expense of employers and the state, embodied in the Frazier-​Lundeen Bill and eventually supported by unions as well as all unemployed groups.

In addition, many of the unemployed groups were industrially oriented. United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) locals in West Virginia, Ohio, and Pennsylvania established active unemployed organizations of their laid-​off members. Communists organized unemployed stockyard workers for hunger marches. The CP-​led Auto Workers Union (AWU) led marches and picket lines at auto plants protesting layoffs, the most famous of which was the March 7, 1932, Ford Hunger March in Detroit and Dearborn, Michigan. As the subsequent chapters demonstrate, active, mass-​supported groups of unemployed in steel towns and wood centers were widespread and played important roles in union organizing.

Michael Goldfield, The Southern Key: Class, Race, and Radicalism in the 1930s and 1940s

[lboogie1906]

Second Lieutenant William Conan Davis (August 22, 1926 - March 16, 2022) was a professor emeritus and was chair of natural sciences at St. Philip’s College. The William C. Davis Science Building is named in his honor.

He was born in Waycross, Georgia to Kince Charles Davis and his wife Laura Jane. He was employed as a railway construction engineer and crew boss, a position that brought him threats from the kkk. He started a herbal medicine business, the only source of medical care accessible to many Black people in Georgia. He spent time during the summers with his maternal grandfather Jonnas Franklin.

He received a high school diploma from Dasher in 1944. His family was active in civil rights and supportive of their children’s education. On one occasion Kince Davis drove his sons William and Kenneth to Tuskegee Institute to attend a workshop with George Washington Carver and Henry Ford. This experience fueled his interest in becoming a chemist.

To prepare him for college, his family sent him to New York City. He lived with his older brother, actor and civil rights activist Ossie Davis. He attended the City College of New York but was advised to transfer to Talladega College where he could get more individual support in calculus.

He was enrolled in the Army Reserve Officers’ Training Corps. He was drafted to serve in the Korean War. He was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the Army Corps of Engineers. He served in Germany and was awarded a Purple Heart.

He completed his BS in Chemistry at Talladega College. He was one of three students chosen for a George Washington Carver research fellowship to attend Tuskegee Institute. It was almost impossible for a Black scientist to train for a professional career in research in the US. Even at Tuskegee, the usual career track was to train as a teacher, with a specialization in one’s area of interest. He worked with Clarence T. Mason of Tuskegee and studied the hydrolysis rate of compounds in jet fuel. He received his MS in Organic Chemistry. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence

[dailyanarchistposts]

Footnotes, 101-150

[101] Joost A. M. Meerloo, Mental Seduction and Menticide: The Psychology of Thought Control and Brain-Washing (London: Jonathan Cape, 1957), 163–164, 184.

[102] B. A. Robinson, “Promise Keepers, Pro and Con: Part 1,” Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance, November 2, 2003, www.religioustolerance.org.

[103] Jena Recer, “Whose Promise Are They Keeping?” National NOW Times, August 1995, www.now.org.

[104] James Dobson, “Building Moral Character in Kids,” radio broadcast, Focus on the Family International, February 8, 2006, www.oneplace.com =2/8/2006.

[105] Tony Kushner, Angels in America (New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1995), 46.

[106] James Dobson, Marriage under Fire: Why We Must Win This Battle (Sisters, OR: Multnomah, 2004), 41.

[107] “Focus on the Family,” Citizen Magazine January 2003, quoted in Jeff Lutes, A False Focus on My Family (Lynchburg, VA: Soulforce, 2004), 8.

[108] Dobson, Marriage Under Fire, 49.

[109] James Dobson, Bringing Up Boys (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House, 2001), 127.

[110] Robert Knight, “The Homosexual Agenda in Schools,” Family Research Council, quoted in Matthew Shepard, “Nazi Anti-Jewish Speech vs. Religious Right Anti-Gay Speech,” Hatecrime.org, www.hatecrime.org.

[111] P. Gibson, “Gay Males and Lesbian Youth Suicide,” in M. R. Feinleib, ed., Report of the Secretary’s Task Force on Youth Suicide, Volume 3: Prevention and Interventions in Youth Suicide(Rockville, MD: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; Public Health Service; Alcohol, Drug Abuse, and Mental Health Administration, 1989; DHHS publication ADM 89–1623), 110.

[112] Pat Robertson, quoted in Richard K. Fenn, Dreams of Glory, 8.

[113] Kavan Peterson, “Washington Gay Marriage Ruling Looms,” Stateline.org, March 7, 2006, cms.stateline.org; “Same-Sex Marriage Measures on the 2004 Ballot,” National Conference of State Legislatures, November 2004, www.ncsl.org.

[114] Mel White, Stranger at the Gate (New York: Penguin, 1995), 25.

[115] Ibid., 22–23.

[116] Ibid., 29.

[117] Ibid., 14.

[118] Ibid., 49–50.

[119] Ibid., 96.

[120] Ibid., 107.

[121] Ibid., 142.

[122] Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism(New York: Harcourt, 1979), 353.

[123] Scott LaFee, “Local Scientists, Doctors and Professors Talk About ‘Intelligent Design,’” San Diego Union Tribune, June 8, 2005, F-1.

[124] Frank Newport, “Third of Americans Say Evidence Has Supported Darwin’s Evolution Theory,” Gallup Poll, November 19, 2004, poll.gallup.com.

[125] Keith Graham, Biology: God’s Living Creation (Pensacola, FL: A Beka, 1986), 404.

[126] Alfred M. Rehwinkel, The Wonders of Creation (Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House, 1974), in Graham, Biology, 133.

[127] Graham, Biology, 163.

[128] Graham, Biology, 351.

[129] Carl Wieland, “Darwin’s Bodysnatchers: New Horrors,” Creation 14:2 (March 1992), 16–18.

[130] Carl Wieland, “Apartheid and ‘The Cradle of Humankind,’” Creation 26:2 (March 2004), 10–14.

[131] “What Happened When Stalin Read Darwin?” Creation 10:4 (September 1998), 23.

[132] Jerry Bergman, “Darwinism and the Nazi Race Holocaust,” Technical Journal 13:2, 101–111.

[133] “Evolution and the Hutu-Tutsi Slayings,” Creation 21:2 (March 1999), 47.

[134] Graham, Biology, 347.

[135] Jerry Bergman, “Was Charles Darwin Psychotic? A Study of His Mental Health,” Impact (January 2004).

[136] Raymond Hall, “Darwin’s Impact—The Bloodstained Legacy of Evolution,” Creation 27:2 (March 2005), 46–47.

[137] Graham, Biology, 347.

[138] Ibid., 349.

[139] Hannah Arendt, Origins of Totalitarianism, 371.

[140] “Intelligence Report,” Southern Poverty Law Center (Spring 2005), 4. www.splcenter.org.

[141] Union of Concerned Scientists, “Scientific Integrity in Policy Making: An Investigation into the Bush Administration’s Misuse of Science,” March 2004, 2; 32, www.ucsusa.org.

[142] This lecture was taped and transcribed by Timothy Nunan of Princeton University.

[143] Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1971), 1:96.

[144] Max Blumenthal, “Justice Sunday Preachers,” The Nation, May 9, 2005 (Web edition only), www.thenation.com.

[145] Ibid.

[146] Ibid.

[147] David Kirkpatrick, “Club of the Most Powerful Gathers in Strictest Privacy,” The New York Times, August 28, 2004.

[148] Ibid.

[149] Max Blumenthal, “Who Are Justice Sunday’s Ministers of Ministry?” Talk To Action, January 6, 2006, www.talk2action.org.

[150] Quoted in Daniel Lev, The Terrorist Next Door (New York: Thomas Dumae/St. Martin, 2002), 27.

[aimmyarrowshigh]

Hello! Dropping into your inbox to ask you about your research for

"Lent From Tomorrow (today was too small for us)." You must have done a ton of historical research for it to get so many of those details. I think that sort of thing is a lot of fun, and I'm very curious to know if you came across anything especially cool/fascinating/weird during your writing research.

Ooh, thank you for the ask! How fun!

There's SO MUCH research in this fic, from the codebreaking to the science of how to defrost a supersoldier to what was on the radio on specific days in 1943. I've got a whole folder of just Lent From Tomorrow research, and the back half of my WIP document is just copy-pastes of quotes from soldiers, scientists, codebreakers, radio hosts, etc.

But, to be fair, I've been reading nonfiction about WWII codebreakers for like 20 years. It's one of my special interests~ and something that I just love learning about. WWII *battles*, I don't care about at all, but everything else about the time period is fascinating to me -- probably because of Molly McIntire, haha.

My FAVORITE little tidbit actually comes up in this coming week's chapter, so I'm not going to spoil it, but it's my favorite recollection in Code Girls by Liza Mundy. That was definitely the book that I used the most for this fic, since the main characters are basically all "code girls," or code omegas, whatever. I also used a lot from PBS Nova's The Mind of a Codebreaker, which I watched when it first came out in 1999 and it rewired my entire brain. I immediately did a report on the women of Bletchley Park in 7th grade (and another on the WASP/WAVE/WAC pilots, so I was really excited to be able to have Carol Danvers make a cameo in Lent!).

But I also looked up specifics for just about every scene -- the snippet of Quiz Kids that's on the wireless radio when Steve and the Asset are listening to the wireless is a quote and actually aired that day. The Torah portion that Steve hears when he goes to shul with the gals and Scott is the Torah portion from that particular Shabbat service in December 1942. The movie scene is the actual movie, newsreel, and cartoon that were shown together at a theater in Washington, DC, on that Friday in March 1943.

I leaned on a former-scientist friend of mine to point me in the right direction to find out how they would have frozen and defrosted the Asset, and also how The Arm might work in a way that isn't just "::shrug:: it's Superhero Science." Her husband is a mathematician, and she suggested some avenues that Steve might have written his big 1929 math paper about, too. And then I read a bunch of math papers from the 1920s and tried to understand them and it was. a lot.

I also did a lot of research into Steve's various disabilities and ailments and the treatments available by the early 1940s, particularly asthma and his childhood polio. (I'm forgetting whether the backstory of his polio experience has actually shown up in the fic yet or if it's coming up soon in a chapter? If it hasn't been posted yet, then spoiler, I guess, Steve had polio as a kid [although I *think* that's canon?]). Steve's experience of being disabled is really important to me, and I wanted it to matter and be a part of his life in this story (and any story I write about Steve).

There's a lot more specific stuff coming up in the back half of the fic, now that we've reached the midway point... Bucky's backstory requires a lot of research into things that I don't know as much about, just because I don't tend to look into actual battle/military histories, and because [redacted for spoilers].

[jackalopegirlantlers]

Ruby Beach

In response to Eve Tuck's essay "What Is Your Theory of Change These Days?" (link here)

November afternoon, warm sun slanting through wind-sheared Douglas-fir, pungent seaweed and cedar aloft on salty breeze. I watch gray fog on the far horizon, somewhere out over the continental shelf, stretching as far north and south as I can see. The wind plays with the fog. It billows this way and that, like bellows on a fire, like inhalations and exhalations. Chatter of Steller’s jays and human children mingles with crash of waves twice my height, too tall to bear their own weight. The beach collects driftwood. Elderly trees felled and eroded then returned to the land, bark and cork stripped, sensitive innards salinated, outer layers gray with sunburn.

I have been here before.

March 2020. My girlfriend Sammy and I are removed from student housing to return to our “permanent homes.” We have nowhere else to go, nowhere safe; Juneau is our permanent home. Our car barely survives the trek down the Alaska Highway. We are forced into my parents’ house in rural Colorado. It stands in the middle of a recently razed forest. They hope prairie fire will prove easier to fight than forest fire in the increasingly dry, combustible summers. My body is rounding out and reorganizing from the effects of potent estradiol and antiandrogens; I am just beginning to understand that male and cis privilege were never mine. My parents’ fear of my new body fuels hot and sudden fights. My parents are more dangerous than the virus.

We escape with little more than a backpack each and a car on its last legs. We turn our eyes northwest, as near to Juneau as we can get, Bellingham, Washington, searching for jobs and housing at a time when the world is shut down. We occupy ourselves with day trips as our funds dwindle. Even the entrance gates to Ruby Beach are closed. We park on the shoulder of the 101 and climb over them. The tide is out, and crows play in wind currents above the muddy beach. It is cloudy, the ocean a deep slate color, darker even than the driftwood that dwells on the beach. Strong winds threaten to topple older trees into the sea. Here, in old growth forest, taller trees protect younger, shorter ones. When trees do fall, they become nurse logs. Saplings grow from centuries-old nutrients held in xylem and phloem. In deforested or reforested areas, entire hectares account for just one generation of trees and a single Pacific storm can blow over the whole forest. The wind here is constant, a limiting factor, a factor of death and regrowth.

The head gasket blows; we sell the car for $400. We spend a month saving for a U-haul and a security deposit to a shitty studio on the eighth floor of the tallest building for 900 miles around. But it’s in Juneau. So we return.

September 2021. My parents convince Sammy and I we can get better jobs Down South than in Juneau, where the ecotourism industry is still closed for the pandemic. It is soon obvious that they have invited us not out of goodwill, but out of spite, for the lack of control they have over our lives. They try to regain it, keeping us close in this too-familiar small town.

Jobs here are slim. The closest work we can find is twenty miles away; we spend the last of our savings on a down payment for a new-to-us car. We fight with my parents as much as we work. Wildfires burn in the Front Range, pines and willows scorched, leaving the landscape ripe for fertilization. Lodgepole pines and wildflowers germinate in the temporary heat. Still, scientists and locals call it “unnatural,” “unprecedented.” Smoke chokes prairies and reddens sunsets. Savings replenish until, one day, our bed and the roof over our heads are removed. As the rest of the world convinces itself it’s “going back to normal,” we realize that normal is not static. Unlike Juneau, it is not something to which one can ever return.

We work the gig economy south, following warmth, spending months driving through unfamiliar cities, delivering groceries and fast food to mansions and high-rises, sleeping in stiff sedan seats. I lapse on my medication, an unecessary expense in this time. I am faced with the abandonment of my parents, the threat of homelessness, the mental instability of forced detransition. Eight months I will go without it, body hair and anger sprouting where they hadn’t before. Finally, we have enough to buy a ferry ticket out of Bellingham. We follow the Mexican border west, then the Pacific Ocean north.

The first day of the new year. Snowclouds vacate the sky. Everything is fresh, as if reconstructed overnight. Waves are calm, lapping the snow on Ruby Beach, melting it as the tide comes in. I feel worn, hollow, surprised I am not as gray and eroded as the dead cedar and spruce in front of me. Each gnarled tree is longer than a bus. I cannot imagine the length of time they spent at sea, the process of erosion they underwent. I cannot imagine the splash of one of these trees into the sea after it succumbs to centuries of constant, cold wind. We continue northward, towards Juneau.

November 2023. Ocean wind is quiet and soft on my face. Sammy and I are in another Washington interlude, another time spent Down South and waiting for return to Juneau. For the first time, however, we have savings, a one-bedroom. For the first time, it is of our own accord that we have left. Seattle promises career advancements, a way to find stability, a way not to tumble over in the Juneau winds, blowing stronger in recent years. We sit together on the remains of a Sitka spruce, at least four feet in diameter, smooth and gray. We watch the waves collapse on themselves, watch the fog roll in.

[maaarine]

Bibliography: articles posted on this blog in 2023

Posted in January

To grasp how serotonin works on the brain, look to the gut (James M Shine, Psyche, Jan 03 2023)

Thousands of records shattered in historic winter warm spell in Europe (Ian Livingston, The Washington Post, Jan 02 2023)

“Il faut que tu sois belle maintenant” : en Égypte, des femmes libérées du voile restent prisonnières des diktats (Aliaa Talaat, Al-Manassa via Courrier International, 20 nov 2022)

Mystery of why Roman buildings have survived so long has been unraveled, scientists say (Katie Hunt, CNN, Jan 06 2023)

Colombia’s surrogacy market: Buying a baby for $4,000 (Lucía Franco, El País, Jan 04 2023)

How to spot an eating disorder (Phillip Aouad & Sarah Maguire, Psyche, Jan 11 2023)

UAE sparks furious backlash by appointing Abu Dhabi oil chief as president of COP28 climate summit (Sam Meredith, CNBC, Jan 12 2023)

Don’t tell me that David Carrick’s crimes were ‘unbelievable’. The problem is victims aren’t believed (Marina Hyde, The Guardian, Jan 17 2023)

Baromètre Sexisme 2023 : "La situation est alarmante", estime le Haut Conseil à l'Égalité (Juliette Geay, Radio France, 23 janvier 2023)

—

Posted in February

Spain approves menstrual leave, teen abortion and trans laws (NPR, Feb 16 2023)

Are Men the Overlooked Reason for the Fertility Decline? (Jessica Grose, The New York Times, Feb 15 2023)

American teenage girls are experiencing high levels of emotional distress. Why? (Moira Donegan, The Guardian, Feb 16 2023)

Figures that lay bare the shocking scale of toxic influencer Andrew Tate’s reach among young men (Maya Oppenheim, The Independent, Feb 17 2023)

Why psychological research on child sex offenders is important (Meetali Devgun, Psyche, Feb 22 2023)

Derrière les chiffres des féminicides, des visages et un continuum de violences contre les femmes (Fanny Declercq, Le Soir, 27 fév 2023)

—

Posted in March

English is not normal (John McWhorter, Aeon, Nov 13 2015)

Are Iranian schoolgirls being poisoned by toxic gas? (BBC News, March 03 2023)

‘Why do we need a supermodel?’: Backlash after Fifa makes Adriana Lima Women’s World Cup ambassador (Henry Belot, The Guardian, March 02 2023)

New Human Metabolism Research Upends Conventional Wisdom about How We Burn Calories (Herman Pontzer, Scientific American, Jan 01 2023)

Polish woman found guilty of aiding an abortion in landmark trial (Harriet Barber, The Telegraph, March 14 2023)

How Diet Builds Better Bones: Surprising Findings on Vitamin D, Coffee, and More (Claudia Wallis, Scientific American, Jan 01 2023)

Met police found to be institutionally racist, misogynistic and homophobic (Vikram Dodd, The Guardian, March 21 2023)

Chinese Dating App Does the Swiping for Singles to Find Love (Nikki Main, Gizmodo, March 21 2023)

Aphantasia can be a gift to philosophers and critics like me (Mette Leonard Høeg, Psyche, March 20 2023)

—

Posted in April

Facts Don’t Change Minds – Social Networks, Group Dialogue, and Stories Do (Anne Toomey, The LSE Impact Blog, Jan 24 2023)

Uganda’s failure to jail child rapists as teen pregnancies soar (Tamasin Ford, BBC News, April 17 2023)

Italy risks ‘ethnic replacement’ because of low birth rate and high immigration, says minister (Nick Squires, The Telegraph, April 19 2023)

Putin, Trump, Ukraine: how Timothy Snyder became the leading interpreter of our dark times (Robert P Baird, The Guardian, March 30 2023)

India overtakes China to become world’s most populous country (Hannah Ellis-Petersen, The Guardian, April 24 2023)

—

Posted in May

Des crèches ferment toutes les semaines, « et ce n’est pas près de s’arrêter » (Le Soir, 5 mai 2023)

People in comas showed ‘conscious-like’ brain activity as they died, study says (Hannah Devlin, The Guardian, May 01 2023)

Chinese woman appeals in battle for right to freeze her eggs (The Guardian, May 09 2023)

Women CEOs: Why companies in crisis hire minorities - and then fire them (The Guardian, DG McCullough, Aug 08 2014)

Glass cliffs: firms appoint female executives in times of crisis as a signal of change to investors (Max Reinwald and Johannes Zaia and Florian Kunze, LSE Business Review, Aug 19 2022)

—

Posted in June

Afghan women in mental health crisis over bleak future (Yogita Limaye, BBC News, June 05 2023)

Support Of Amber Heard Alongside French Feminists & Cinema Figures (Melanie Goodfellow, Deadline, June 05 2023)

Why is Japan redefining rape? (Tessa Wong & Sakiko Shiraishi, BBC News, June 07 2023)

Catching the men who sell subway groping videos (Zhaoyin Feng & Aliaume Leroy & Shanshan Chen, BBC News, June 08 2023)

Netherlands to provide free sun cream to tackle record skin cancer levels (Kate Connolly, The Guardian, June 12 2023)

The Cause of Depression Is Probably Not What You Think (Joanna Thompson, Quanta Magazine, Jan 26 2023)

—

Posted in July

‘Farsighted impulsivity’ and the new psychology of self-control (Adam Bulley, Psyche, Feb 03 2021)

Can a perfectionist personality put you at risk of migraines? (Shayla Love, Psyche, July 25 2023)

—

Posted in August

How Loneliness Reshapes the Brain (Marta Zaraska, Quanta Magazine, Feb 28 2023)

Why religious belief provides a real buffer against suicide risk (David H Rosmarin, Psyche, Aug 07 2023)

—

Posted in September

What Are Dreams For? (Amanda Gefter, The New Yorker, Aug 31 2023)

Rape Cases Seize Italy’s Attention and Expose Cultural Rifts (Gaia Pianigiani, The New York Times, Sep 03 2023)

Councils in England in crisis as Birmingham ‘declares itself bankrupt’ (Heather Stewart and Jessica Murray, The Guardian, Sep 05 2023)

Nearly one in three female NHS surgeons have been sexually assaulted, survey suggests (Jamie Grierson, The Guardian, Sep 12 2023)

Domination and Objectification: Men’s Motivation for Dominance Over Women Affects Their Tendency to Sexually Objectify Women (Orly Bareket and Nurit Shnabel, Sep 09 2019)

In Spain, dozens of girls are reporting AI-generated nude photos of them being circulated at school: ‘My heart skipped a beat’ (Manuel Viejo, El País, Sep 18 2023)

When the human tendency to detect patterns goes too far (Shayla Love, Psyche, Sep 19 2023)

—

Posted in October

My Brain Doesn’t Picture Things (Marco Giancotti, Nautilus, Oct 04 2023)

“Inverse vaccine” shows potential to treat multiple sclerosis and other autoimmune diseases (Sarah C.P. Williams, The University of Chicago, Sep 11 2023)

Poland election: exit polls point to Law and Justice defeat as Tusk hails ‘rebirth’ (Shaun Walker, The Guardian, Oct 16 2023)

—

Posted in November

What I have learned from my suicidal patients (Gavin Francis, The Guardian, Nov 22 2019)

Did natural selection make the Dutch the tallest people on the planet? (Martin Enserink, Science, Apr 07 2015)

Tumblr Is Always Dying (Elizabeth Minkel, Wired, Nov 14 2023)

How accurate is the new Napoleon film? Sorting fact from fiction (Andrew Roberts, The Sunday Times, Nov 19 2023)

Far-right party set to win most seats in Dutch elections, exit polls show (Jon Henley and Pjotr Sauer and Senay Boztas, The Guardian, Nov 22 2023)

Climate change: Rise in Google searches around ‘anxiety’ (Lucy Gilder, BBC, Nov 22 2023)

—

Posted in December

The sexual assault of sleeping women: the hidden, horrifying rape crisis in our bedrooms (Anna Moore, The Guardian, June 15 2021)

Afghanistan: Taliban sends abused women to prison - UN (Nicholas Yong, BBC News, Dec 15 2023)

Longitudinal Associations Between Parenting and Child Big Five Personality Traits (University of California Press, Nov 18 2021)

Scientists Pinpoint Cause of Severe Morning Sickness (Azeen Ghorayshi, The New York Times, Dec 13 2023)

[burr-did-nothing-wrong]

In your opinion, do you think Montgomery would have become the commander-in-chief if he hadn't been killed in Quebec?

Hi Anon! Thank you kindly for this ask. I am always happy to answer questions about Montgomery!

I am in the middle of a move right now, so both of my books on Montgomery (as far as I know, the only two written about him!) are packed away. But I can answer to the best of my ability based off what I've read and remember.

This is an interesting question for a few reasons: while a lot would depend on the outcome of the Quebec campaign, it is my opinion that a victory in Canada would not have led to Montgomery replacing Washington. If Quebec was taken, the British would have attempted to retake it. I think it likely that Montgomery or Arnold would have remained in Canada for a large portion of the war. The river running beside the city could have proven a boon or hindrance. Immediately after the failed siege, America spent some months in a kind of arms race with the British, building ships for the fight that would take place in Lake Champlain. To me, this would indicate that the colonial forces lacked the naval power to control the Gulf of St. Lawrence. It would be in the interest of the British to control the Gulf and then the river, as with it, they could sail directly to Ticonderoga. This river was also of importance for the shipping of supplies inland.

There is also the matter of who really would receive credit for a victory, if it had happened. Benedict Arnold had proposed campaign to reinforce Canada to George Washington personally, the previous summer. His march into Canada was also a highly dramatic affair. In this sense, Arnold's name was tied heavily to the campaign. On the other hand, Arnold notoriously fails time and again to receive credit where it is due. But--at least in the instance of Arnold's heroism at Lake Champlain, while Arnold may have slowed and hampered the British advance, these efforts had no large impact on the objectives of either army. This would not be the case when it came to securing Quebec, so I think this would be one instance where Arnold did receive credit where it was due. On the other, Montgomery was a fairly popular figure among leadership--he was know as the conqueror of Montreal, and was given praise and promotion where Arnold was not.

Much more important, I think, would be to consider the temperaments of the generals in the army. As we know from Arnold's difficulties with rank and recognition, often what mattered more was personality and image. Washington was a respected and admired figure. Most importantly, he was trusted. While he did not have ambition for power, he was concerned with his legacy, and he was very much aware that his station and conduct during the revolution would be crucial in how he was remembered after he was gone. Benedict Arnold was ambitious, but the effect was the same. According to Philbrick, Arnold had an acute desire to distance himself from his origins.

Montgomery was very much the opposite. While he felt bound by duty and honor to serve the colonial cause, he had no desire for notoriety, as both Arnold and Washington did. And unlike Arnold, he had no desire for power. Montgomery's ambitions were confined to his desire to be a gentleman farmer/scientist. Popular at the time was the idea of a gentleman developing land--and indeed, Montgomery had land and plans for development that were put on hold by the war. While this is similar to Washington's desire to retire to a peaceful life at Mount Vernon, Montgomery was not concerned with his legacy in the same way. In fact, he wrote extensively (for the little writing he left) of his desire to avoid fame. He desired anonymity, and in fact seemed to suffer some degree of anxiety that he would become a public figure.

For these reasons, I don't think it at all likely Montgomery would participate in the political jostling needed to upset someone like George Washington from his position. Were the position offered to General Montgomery, it would certainly come with a level of turmoil and political malcontent that would be impossible to miss. I think it very unlikely Montgomery would accept.