This week we begin something new, less about the mess in the yet-to-be drained American political swamp, more about the world at large.

We start, though, as before: the Optimist; notable dates in American history; kudos to a former student; Notre Dame; a black hole, the "now known;" women in control; Cuban baseball; freedom in Hong Kong; the California "super bloom;" America's first war on terror; children and climate change; national banking; not so unique; a new hominid; the Kelly space twins; dictator's handbook; the voice for the planet; Bernie and the Fox; immunizations.
 
Optimist. Link here.
     1. A very young musician, Avett Ray, has not let his near-total blindness limit his pursuit of perfection.
     2. A US historian vs. Nike's "Lost Cause" commercial. Megan Kate Nelson watched the Nike commercial, heard its last sentence ("Because the lost cause will always be a cause worth supporting.”) and swung into action. She researched the ad (it debuted on April Fool's Day), posted it on Twitter, asking "Is this for real? Have any #twitterstorians seen this?”" Within 6 hours, the ad was withdrawn. "The lost cause" phrase is associated with the Civil War and subsequent drive by southerners to justify their fight for slavery. For the record, this was not Nike's first advertising gaff. In 2012, a shoe named "black and tan" was renamed when it was pointed out the phrase was (1) the name of a drink and (2) associated with the brutalization of Irish by British troops in the 1920s.
     3. That "thing" out there. Einstein predicted it, doubted his own calculations, but finally we earthlings have seen an actual black hole. It took time, of course, data from ten far-flung radio telescopes, waiting for the summer in Antarctica (to transport that telescope's data out), and massive number crunching. Now there it is, "...an extraordinary, 'supermassive' black hole at the center of Messier 87, a gigantic galaxy about 55 million light-years away in the constellation Virgo."

Notable dates. 
     10 April 1866: The ASPCA (American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) was founded in NYC by philanthropist and diplomat Henry Bergh. He modeled it after the Royal Society PCA in England.
     11 April 1865: President Lincoln made a short address to people outside the White House, his last public address. 1951: President Truman relieved Gen. Douglas MacArthur of his commands in the Far East, including conduct of the Korean War.
     12 April 1861: The Civil War began as Confederate batteries opened fire on Ft. Sumpter in SC. 1945: President Franklin Roosevelt died of a cerebral hemorrhage in Warm Springs, GA. 1963: MLK, Jr. was arrested in Birmingham, AL, charged with contempt of court and parading without a permit. While in jail he wrote the famous "Letter from Birmingham Jail."
     13 April 1970: Apollo 13 suffered extensive damage and began its "iffy," but successful return to Earth. 1997: As this year's tournament was being played, it was noted that twenty-two years ago pro-golfer, Tiger Woods, became the youngest player to win the US Masters tournament.
      14 April 1865: President Lincoln was shot at Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C. 1935: Exactly 84 years ago, the sky darkened on "Black Sunday" as a massive dust storm swept across the central Great Plains.
      15 April 1865: President Lincoln died after being shot by John Wilkes Booth. 1947: On opening day, baseball great, Jackie Robinson, walked on to Ebbets Field in Brooklyn, integrating the big leagues. 2013: Two pressure cooker-bombs near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, killing three and injuring more than 260.
      16 April 1963: MLK, Jr. wrote his "Letter from Birmingham Jail," asking fellow clergymen why they questioned his non-violent tactics. He wrote, famously, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

Kudos for a Pulitzer winner. The winner in this year's news Commentary category was Tony Messenger, a former student, working at the St. Louis Post Dispatch. As Tony's citation notes, he has become a much acclaimed journalist.

World Heritage site destroyed. If you have been to Paris, you have seen/visited the iconic Notre Dame cathedral. Monday's fire has changed the "City of Light," perhaps forever.

The now seen black hole. There have been myriads of related stories, some from erudite, obscure scientific journals, others less so. Here is the link to columnist Colbert King's layman's thoughts.

Forget politics for a moment. Behold infinity. [Black holes] are places where space and time as we know them cease to exist, where the familiar parameters that define our reality lose all meaning....To see such an object is to gaze into the ultimate abyss. Dumbstruck awe is the only reasonable response....How is it even possible to take a picture of a black hole against the inky blackness of space? How do you capture an image of nothing? It turns out that some black holes, including the massive M87, are surrounded by in-falling material that circles rapidly like water going down a drain. All of that material reaches such high speeds that it forms a hot, glowing disc — a blazing doughnut around the voracious hole....Humans are capable of epic screw-ups that endanger our very existence. But sometimes, somehow, we still get it right.

Yet, on the latter point, one needs to consider the less-than humanitarian applications of Einstein's and others' equations, e.g. Trinity site, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Bikini Atoll, Nevada, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl....
     Amelia Urry, a science writer, poet, and the daughter of two astrophysicists, has her own take on the newly seen black hole.

Women in charge. Politics, first. Washington Post columnist Karen Tumulty notes the changes that occurred in the CO legislature as a result of the November 2018 election. While the artwork in the Capitol may be predominately male, the legislative branch is majority-feminine. Nor, Tumulty says, is CO alone, NV's legislature was similarly "flipped." Tumulty: "...[M]ore than half of the state representatives — 34 out of 65 — are women. Seven of the 11 House committees are chaired by women....
     "Colorado’s groundswell for more female representation has been building for years, fueled by organizations such as the state chapter of Emerge America, which operates a sort of boot camp for women interested in running at the state and local level." Hopefully, hard work and due diligence will yield even further success in 2020.
     And in farming. America's farmers are majority-male and aging. Perhaps not surprisingly, "The number of female producers increased 27 percent in the five years through 2017, according to the first new federal census of U.S. farms since 2012. More farms are reporting that multiple individuals are involved in decision making, with total producers increasing 6.9 percent from 2012."

Democrats galore. Columnist George Will is less than impressed with the Democratic field. In his inimitable style, he notes -- then explores -- "The Democrats’ presidential aspirants seem determined to prove that their party’s 2016 achievement — the election of the current president — was not a fluke that cannot be repeated." 

Cuban baseball. The Trump administration has reversed former President Obama's plan to let Cuban baseball players come directly to the US. Nevertheless, the lure of the game, money, and freedom may mean more outright defections. An obvious question: What is the difference between a poor, frightened Honduran fleeing across the Rio Grande and a soon-to-be wealthy Cuban baseball player "jumping ship" somewhere/somehow? Will Homeland Security treat each equally?
     On my recent inaugural trip to Cuba, it was impossible to not notice the plethora of baseball diamonds. (Baseball, not soccer, rules the island.) Virtually every village/town/city had at least one field and the tour guides made quick to make mention of local teams who had done well, gone on to better venues, won championships, even sent a player (or two) to the "show" (the major leagues) in the US.

Hong Kong. From Foreign  Policy's morning brief. "In Hong Kong, nine pro-democracy protesters were charged with public nuisance in response to their involvement in the Umbrella Movement protests of 2014, which called for the city to be free to elect its own leader" This important coastal city continues to be a thorn-in-the-side of the CPU. The younger residents seem to have imbibed of the city's past freedom, even as the elderly, who remember the past, die out.

CA in color. The plentiful rain in CA these past few months brought forth a so-called "super bloom" across the state. Death Valley is not often so inviting! However, not all those who came were behaving properly. Hence, the shaming on Instagram of those who trod/laid upon/uprooted or otherwise ill-treated the spectacular vistas. The account was called "Public Lands Hate You."
     The badly behaved selfie-takers were not appreciated.

The [on line] posts are part of a trend toward social-media shaming of bad behavior on America’s public lands, and have prompted brands to break with misbehaving influencers, as well as investigations from the National Park Service.

America's First War on terror. It was in the bloody aftermath of the Civil War and was aimed at deterring the KKK terror directed against blacks through the use of federal marshals and troops. Of course, this anti-Klan activity began to fade with the presidency of Andrew Johnson and ended with the compromise that resulted in election of Rutherford B. Hayes over Samuel J. Tilden (1876) by the Electoral College.

Kids and climate change. According to this article from Foreign Policy, the adults in the room are becoming unsettled. "An estimated 1.6 million to 2 million people—mostly teenagers and preteens—gathered in thousands of cities and towns in more than 125 countries to demand their political leaders meet existing climate goals. As intended, they grabbed the world’s attention." The changing climate is, so to speak, even more their long term problem than their parents'. Moreover, as these teens age and gain the vote, they will be even more mindful of what should be done to insure their future.
     According to Volker Quaschning, a professor of renewable energy systems at the University of Applied Sciences in Berlin and co-founder of Scientists for Future,  “If the politicians don’t act, they’ll lose this younger generation. They’re worried.” As well they should be; President Trump, the US Congress, and others, too.
     A Guardian article notes that an increasing number of young Republicans are splitting with their "elders" over the issue of climate change. They do not see the issue as "bull s---," like President Trump.

National Banks. The current issue of the Economist notes that the world has grown accustomed to --  and profited from -- the stability afforded the cautious policies of the world's major national banks. Economists are concerned because "President Donald Trump has demanded that interest rates should be slashed, speculated about firing the boss of the Federal Reserve and said he will nominate Stephen Moore and Herman Cain, two unqualified cronies, to its board." This appears to be just one more indicator of how the President does not realize the worldwide power of ill advised decisions.
     On Thursday, four Republican senators announced their opposition to Herman Cain's nomination, seeming to doom his chances for nomination to the Fed.

A "new" hominid. Archaeologists in the Philippines have uncovered bones of a heretofore unknown small hominid they have named Homo luzonensis. More exploration and research will attempt to further illuminate its place in the chain of human evolution.

Space twins. As the US and other nations consider trips back to the moon and much longer voyages to Mars, the twin US astronauts Scott and Mark Kelly continue to contribute to the science of extended space travel. Scientists continue to explore the genetic changes between Scott (who spent 340 days in space) and his earth-bound twin.
     Dr. Andrew Feinberg of John Hopkins says, "It marks 'the dawn of human genomics in space.' He led one of 10 teams of researchers that scrutinized the twins’ health down to the molecular level before, during and after Kelly’s 340-day stay at the International Space Station.

The Dictator's handbook. Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor, enumerates:

1. fuel public anger against the "others;"
2. conger a crisis;
3. use [that] crisis to increase your power;
4. use cruelty to spread fear;
5. take power unilaterally;
6. destroy democracy.

As in Hitler: Beer putsch, the Reichstag's fire, krystallknacht, Enabling Act, Jews, Dachau (et al)..; or Stalin: Trotsky, Fascists, Jews, Poland, Germans, gulag.........

Speaking for Mother Earth. Sir David Attenborough, the voice so much associated with stories of nature, is now giving voice to his growing concerns about climate change.

Last fall at a global climate conference in Poland, he told world leaders that "if we don’t take action, the collapse of our civilization and the extinction of much of the natural world is on the horizon....The only conditions modern humans have ever known are changing and changing fast. It is tempting and understandable to ignore the evidence and carry on as usual or to be filled with doom and gloom. … We need to move beyond guilt or blame and get on with the practical tasks at hand."

Bernie and the Fox. Far from every Democrat, even some of his supporters, are not sure that candidate Sanders should "do" a Town Hall program with Fox News. Some have gone so far as to call Fox News the closest thing we have to "state TV." The network will not be permitted to host any of the upcoming Democratic debates. Sanders, on the other hand, wonders how do you talk to the president's supporters if not directly via the network they most watch?

Immunization. Monday (15th), a CO legislative committee heard arguments until after midnight about a proposed law to increase the steps parents would have to take to secure non-immunization status for their children. Nationally, the CDC has warned of the increasing number of measles cases, with extreme outbreaks in several states and NYC. In fact, the increasing number of measles cases worldwide has been noted by the World Health Organization.

Thank you for reading. The imagination is not an escape, but a return to the true richness of ourselves; a return to reality. George Mackay Brown (Scottish poet, author, and dramatist)

This week's events: Optimist; notable dates in American history; cryptozoology; teenage activism; America's failed center; lost wild places; tech "colonization;" 2020 and Trump's enduring appeal; legislative chutzpah; ballot initiatives; Chernobyl coverup; socialism, then and now; crony capitalism; border disorder.

Optimist. Link here.
     A foster parent of a different sort. The infant, the one with no visitors for 5 months, got a mother: her pediatric nurse.
     A special 80th birthday for the school janitor: cheers, cards, hugs, and help collecting all his cards.
     The nation's first African American female mayor. No, it was not the recently elected Ms. Lightfoot of Chicago. Rather, it was Lelia Foley-Davis in Taft, OK, in April 1973. (For the record, "Doris A. Davis, the first black woman to be elected mayor in Compton, Calif., won election two months later.")
     A bicycler and his cat touring the world.

Notable dates in American history.
     3 April 1968: MLK, Jr. gave his final speech at a rally of sanitation workers in Memphis, TN. 1996: Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski was arrested at his remote cabin in MT.
     4 April 1968: MLK, Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, TN. 1975: More than 130 died, most children, when a USAF transport plane crashed on takeoff in Saigon.
     6 April 1830: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized by Joseph Smith in Fayette, N.Y. 1909: American explorers Robert E. Peary and Matthew A. Henson and four Inuits became the first men to reach the North Pole.  1917: The United States entered World War I as the House joined the Senate in approving a declaration of war against Germany that was then signed by President Woodrow Wilson. "The world must be made safe for democracy."
     8 April 1864: Congress passed the 13th Amendment, which was ratified by the states in December 1865.
     9 April 1865: Confederate commander, Robert E. Lee, surrendered to Union Lt. General Ulysses Grant at Appomattox Court House, VA. 1939: After having been denied the use of Constitution Hall by the Daughters of the American Revolution, America's world renowned African American operatic singer, Marion Anderson, sang at the Lincoln Memorial. The DAR's ill-tempered refusal is an excellent example of unintended consequences. Ms. Anderson's performance gained even greater, long-lasting worldwide acclaim.

Cryptozoology. Cryptozoology: the study of animals who existence is unproven. Lyrically, perhaps, it is a question of "Is you or is you ain't?" (Words from a blues song by Louis Jordan and Billy Austin.)
     In this HCN story, Laura Krantz wonders about "Big Foot," Sasquatch. She remembers how man has for ages read about Gilgamesh’s city-state, Beowulf’s mead hall. A friend, Robert Michael Pyle, lepidopterist, naturalist, and poet, told her, “I think we need (Bigfoot) in a deep-seated psychological way, because of our evolutionary origins...I think it goes all the way back to what we came from.”
     Krantz notes, "Half-wild creatures have been feeding the human imagination for thousands of years. We have evolved with them, and away from them. In the grand scheme of human evolution, we rarely lived without monsters at the edges...Bigfoot — that tether to a primitive state — is a reminder that the world is big and wide and wild. wilderness — a place where the unexplained still happens."
     One can only wonder, "Just what's out there," gazing at the fantastic, other worldly images from Hubble. Those weirdly wondrous pictures of galaxies, stars, nebulae, black holes.

A true teenage gift. From the editor of Tuesday's CSM email daily.

[T]he story I couldn’t let pass today was about a robotics team in Minnesota. Their gift: Freedom for a 2-year-old boy.
A group of high schoolers accepted the challenge of building a low-cost wheelchair for a toddler with mobility issues. The result is way cooler than what you might imagine.
The Farmington, Minnesota, teenagers hacked an electric toy car, rewired it and rewrote the controller code, added a custom seat, and built a joystick with a 3D printer.
Little Cillian Jackson doesn’t walk – now he flies around the house.
His parents describe it as the gift of choice and independence. “When he gets in his car, he will consciously stop and look at a doorknob or a light switch or all of these things he’s never had time to explore,” says Tyler Jackson. And his mom, Krissy, tells CNN, “It really helped his discovery and curiosity.... Having the car has really given him the agency to make choices on his own.”
These teens love competing in robotics events. But they learned innovation is most rewarding when it’s about people. Freshman Alex Treakle says that when he saw Cillian try the car for the first time, “The joy on his face really made my entire year.”

 America for sale? In Foreign Affairs, David Klion says, "Failure at the center has left the United States up for sale to the highest bidder....[He asks,] How did a decadent ruling class become a national security risk, an existential threat to the American empire?"
     African American columnist Leonard Pitts: Why today, seemingly, we are not Americans first, comments by Barack Obama (2004) and Beto O'Rourke (2019) not withstanding.

Stolen wild space. HCN reports that then-Secretary of the Interior Zinke set in motion the intrusion on some of America's/the world's most pristine spaces, the little known Izembek’s wilderness in AK's Aleutians. It was an unpublished land swap concluded with the "Aleut Natives so their cannery town of King Cove can build the final 12 miles of a 37-mile gravel road to the Cold Bay Airport. In exchange, the federal government gets an equal amount of Aleut land."
     The Aleuts first said the road was needed to haul fish, but, when they got nowhere, changed their story to that of medical necessity.

Tech "colonization." Fewer affordable housing units, skyrocketing home prices; increasing homelessness. It is not happening just in Silicon Valley; it is becoming a nationwide, and worldwide problem. A grassroots movement recently blocked NYC giveaways to Amazon in the borough of Queens (NYC), as was also the case in Berlin, Germany.

House (of Commons) Speaker. It quite a difference between being Nancy Pelosi (Speaker, US House of Representatives) and John Bercow (British House of Commons).

Border disorder. Given the news of the president's wholesale cleaning of DHS, it is not surprising that others are weighing in. From the Guardian is this piece by the former British foreign secretary, David Miliband comments about President Trump's penchant for "manfuactured crisis."

Brexit chutzpah: Thanks to the internet, the whole world can watch as the Brexit proposal of Prime Minister May is dissected and debated in the British House of Commons -- it is their CSpan. In utter dismay, the author of one such failed alternative simply saw no other choice: he publicaly resigned from the Conservative party and walked to other side of the chamber, or as we would say, he crossed the aisle.

Mass transit, then and now. This link provides interesting graphics and statistics (from both the US and Canada) to illustrate how our present day transit problems might not be as great if only we had kept what we had in the past.

The future: 5 things you should want to know about. Stephen Walt wants to know:

1. China's future trajectory?
2. How good are America's cyber capabilities?
3. What is going to happen to the EU?
4. How many states will go nuclear in the next 20 years?
5. Who will win the debate on U.S. grand strategy?

 2020 and Trump's enduring appeal. Columnist Ronald A. Klain notes the unmistakable fact: The 2020 Democratic candidate, whomever he/she may be, will have to have a platform that deals with the president's enduring appeal to the disaffected that form his base. If not, Trump will surely be re-elected.

Ballot initiatives. The initiative and referendum came out of the west and continue to be popular today. "By the 1920s, some two dozen states had adopted citizen-led ballot measures, allowing voters to legalize everything from women’s suffrage to an eight-hour workday. The practice was especially robust in the West; even today, 60% of all ballot initiatives come from Arizona, California, Colorado, North Dakota, Oregon and Washington....[and spiked at 71 in 2016]...t[T]he reasons for the spike boil down to 'voter unrest or dissatisfaction with state legislators.'”
    Many legislators are fighting back by repealing voter proffered proposals. For example, [s]heriffs in 20 Washington counties are refusing to enforce gun regulations that voters overwhelmingly passed, calling them unconstitutional."  Sheriffs in CO have announced similar views. Court cases are certain to follow.

Chernobyl cover-up. As the world considers using nuclear power as a solution in halting atmospheric warming, it should consider the past. In 1986, Operation Cyclone was initiated by the USSR leaders to save cities in Russia, especially Moscow, from the clouds heavy with radioactive waste that were drifting towards Moscow after the Chernobyl disaster. Soviet bombers shot silver iodide crystals into clouds precipitating radioactive rain -- over southern Belarus, a Soviet republic; Moscow was saved. Belorussians and others all over Europe paid the price.

As researchers monitored Chernobyl radioactivity, they made a troubling discovery. Only half of the caesium-137 they detected came from Chernobyl. The rest had already been in the Cumbrian soils; deposited there during the years of nuclear testing and after the 1957 fire at the Windscale plutonium plant.

One has to assume there were similar, worldwide downwind results from any nuclear testing sites.

Socialism. This story from HCN notes that once upon a time, in the dark days of the 1930's Great Depression,  "...nationalizing forests was labeled ‘socialist.'" Of course, today many Americans and foreign visitors revel in the forests' beauty. Currently, the so-called "Green New Deal" has stirred the forest-floor dust. Adam Soward recounts the dire times of the great depression and those  concurrent early days of environmentalism. The current concern is not that of the Great Depression, but the planet's rapidly changing climate and growing economic inequalities.

Crony capitalism, e.g. the Jones Act (1920). Mr. Will explores both the origins and present day results of an act that long ago ceased to be relevant -- unless you are a business owner looking for an advantage and are willing to disregard how it adversely affects your country and fellow citizens. A small part of the swamp that then-candidate Trump promised to drain!
     For example: "A hog farmer in North Carolina purchases corn feed from Canada rather than Iowa because delivery costs make the Iowa corn uncompetitive [sic]. A Hawaiian rancher flies cattle to West Coast feedlots and slaughterhouses to avoid Jones Act shipping costs." The list goes on and on.













Thank you for reading.    These closing quotes come from the end of the Economist's "Expresso" morning email.

There is nothing so pitiful as a young cynic because he has gone from knowing nothing to believing nothing. Maya Angelou (Today, perhaps, Ms. Angelou would add "she?"   The saddest fact of life right now is that science gathers knowleddge faster than society gathers wisdom. Isaac Asimov    

From the past week's news: Optimist; notable dates in American history; Tabor in CO; end of American century?; immigration; world's population; gerrymandering; geothermal mayhem; tariff end run; the "other" code talkers of WW II; GoFundMe of a different sort; Venezuela to the rescue?; after Exxon Valdez; Golan, Crimea, Kashmir; King Trump; college admissions; an ancient traumatic event; November 2020 for naught?

Optimist. Link here.
      MD national guard.The entire command staff are women, a first in the nation; three are African Americans and all are mothers. It was only in the mid-1950's that women were even permitted to join.
     New monument on the Washington Mall honoring Native American veterans will open in 2020.

Notable dates in American history.
     27 March 1964: On this Good Friday evening (precisely, 5:36pm local time), in Alaska, a 9.2 earthquake and resulting tsunami killed 130 people across the Pacific basin. The quake was the second most powerful ever recorded to date. This USGS film and a companion piece examine the impact and scientific studies/innovations that resulted, changes with world-wide impacts. The Defense Department civil defense film, Though the Earth Be Moved, is black/white and shaky, but dramatic.
     28 March 1979: America experienced its worst nuclear disaster, the partial meltdown of one of the reactors at the Three Mile Island nuclear power generating station (in south east PA).
     29 March 1951: Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage for the USSR. They were sentenced to death and executed on 19 June 1953.
     1 April 1954: President Eisenhower signed legislation creating the US Air Force Academy, first located at Lowry AFB, Denver, while the Academy's permanent home was being constructed near Colorado Springs. 2003: American special forces troops entered a hospital in Nasiriyah, Iraq, and rescued Army Pfc. Jessica Lynch, who had been held prisoner since her unit was ambushed on March 23.

Tabor Amendment. For the readers who are unaware, CO's infamous Tabor Amendment sets limits on our taxes and debts. Brian Vande Krol, a former Tabor supporter, has written an op-ed expressing his regret for having so long been a Tabor-backer. Since Tabor's passage in 1992, CO has seen its ranking in various national rakings sink from among the highest towards the bottom.
     Read closely, though, and you divine is that what Vande Krol really regrets is that Tabor has caused city, county, and state legislative bodies to make so many "end runs," the passage of numerous fees, effectively emboldening "the thievery." What the "captain meant to say," is that less money in the public coffers is always better. For example, there is no need to lament that CO's rankings in primary, secondary, and higher education have slumped toward the bottom of the charts.
 
End of the American century? In this London Review article Adam Tooze speculates on the impact of the Trump presidency on America's place in the world order. His is a rather darker picture than you might imagine.

Immigration. This HCN story is about the Cora, an indigenous Mexican tribe. Like so many immigrants to the US they have come north to escape violence, discrimination, and lack of opportunity at home. (Most Americans are unaware of the very real discrimination indigenous peoples face in their Mexican homeland.) They have returned precious money to their kinfolk still in Mexico and infused their American communities (several in CO) with their hope and hard work.
     In response, "...towns in [CO's] Gunnison Valley have issued proclamations for 'International Migrants Day' in December, and have formerly acknowledged migrant contributions to the region’s economy."

Aging. The Economist reports that....

FOR THE first time in history, the Earth has more people over the age of 65 than under the age of five. In another two decades the ratio will be two-to-one, according to a recent analysis by Torsten Sløk of Deutsche Bank. The trend has economists worried about everything from soaring pension costs to “secular stagnation”—the chronically weak growth that comes from having too few investment opportunities to absorb available savings. The world’s greying is inevitable. But its negative effects on growth are not. If older societies grow more slowly, that may be because they prefer familiarity to dynamism.

Bob Dylan said it, "The times they are a changin..."

Gerrymander. As the walrus said, "The time has come..." The Supreme Court, having heard two quite obvious cases of political gerrymandering (from MD and NC), may not be able to once again "dance around" dealing with obvious. In MD, the Democratically-controlled legislature sought to disadvantage the state's Republicans; in NC, it was the just the reverse.
     The Court heard arguments for just over two hours, a rarity. The Court's second newest justice, Neil Gorsuch, wondered, “Why should we wade into this?”  He noted that in 2015 the Court upheld the AZ legislature's decision to give the task of decennial redistricting to an independent commission. (As is the case in CO and four other states.) Indeed, the AP story noted that in the 2015 5-4 decision, "Chief Justice John Roberts...worried about the harm to the court’s reputation if it had to pick political winners in endless redistricting disputes, [and] suggested voters have a way of surprising people."
     Stay tuned. We will know sometime before the close of this year's term ends on June 30th.

Mid-west flooding. The media has made very evident the extent of flooding along our mid-western waterways. What is not seen is the potential risk to the one million private wells that provide water.
     "Drinking water comes from a variety of sources. Some public water supplies use rivers, streams, lakes or other bodies of water. Others use water from the ground. Either way, public water supplies are government-regulated and have safeguards to protect against contamination." Unless, of course, you have local contamination due to lead pipes.

Geothermal mayhem in NM. The use of geothermal energy to cut green house gas emissions is admirable, but only if done correctly. Incorrectly seems to be the case in NM, where problems resulted in contamination of a precious aquifer.

Tariff end run. A Chinese company producing various paper/plastic items for American restaurants faced increased prices due to President Trump's tariffs. The company avoided the tariffs by building a new plant ($4M investment) in Monterrey, Mexico, and shifting its business accordingly. Mexican workers surely did not object, either.

America's other "code talkers." Many are aware of the valued WW II service performed by the famed Navajo "code talkers." Turns out there was another group of  indigenous Americans who worked to make communications "unknowable" to the Japanese. "Army veteran Richard Bean Sr. died without anyone knowing that he and four other long-deceased Alaska Natives had used their Tlingit language to outsmart the Japanese during World War II."
     Many Americans are unaware that Japanese forces did in fact invade the US, occuping Attu and Kiska, two islands in Alaska's Aleutian chain. "The service of the indigenous service personnel was made known with the passage of the Code Talkers Recognition Act of 2008 and this month, [AK] legislators passed a formal citation honoring the Tlingit Code Talkers."

San Francisco, "GoFundMe." Those living in one of San Francisco's trendiest neighborhoods has set up a "GoFundMe" account to raise money to fight against building a homeless shelter in their neighborhood. A rival account was quickly set up. The median price of a home in San Francisco is $1.36M and a recent study found that an average family would have to earn $340,000+ more just to afford housing.

Venezuela. Events of the recent past in Venezuela seem to have pitted President Trump against his "good friend, President Putin. Russia landed a military transport plane and 100 troops at a Venezuelan airbase. President Trump has declared that Nicolás Maduro has to go, declaring US support for Juan Guaidó, who finished a close second in a very tarnished election. Trump, having loudly and repeatedly chided President Obama for disregarding his own "red line" in Syria, seems honor bound to contest Putin's actions. Trump called for the immediate removal of the Russian troops. Even as Russian involvement increases, especially a tanker ship loaded with the thinners needed for Venezuela's sludgy crude oil.
     Re Putin and Trump. In a recent column, conservative Michael Gerson opines that while the President is not a Russian agent, he is certainly a Russian stooge. Suppose, Gerson wonders what if "...on March 24 — the day Attorney General William P. Barr publicly summarized the Mueller report — all of the results of the special counsel’s probe that have dribbled out over the past two years had been revealed at once." Certainly the public reaction, even among Republicans, would have been different.

After Exxon Valdez. Last week's notable dates included the dramatic oil spill in AK's Prince Edward Sound. This story from the HCN notes the consequences that continue to haunt AK's fragile coastline.

Experts at the time said a comeback would take decades, but that the spectacular biological wealth of these waters would return if given the chance, without another oil spill to knock it down. What they didn’t anticipate was a much larger, more diffuse threat. Changes brought by human emissions of carbon dioxide — warming and acidifying ocean waters — have proved as destructive as the spill, and they will not disperse, as the oil eventually did....The climate crisis is too large, too diffuse, and is hitting too many places at once — everywhere, really — to produce the outrage that exploded when lovely animals choked on Exxon’s oil.

The lessons of Golan. This article from the CSM investigates what President Trump's decision might mean in several other of the world's potential powder kegs. Namely, how America's allies feel about Russia/Ukraine/Crimea and India/Pakistan/Kashmir. Also unmentioned by the media is the role (if any) played by the President's designated Middle East point man, son-on-law Jared Kushner.

“If the liberal hegemon says we’re no longer going to use our moral power to prevent some things from happening, and in fact we’re going to disregard the rule of law that we have led and protected since World War II, it sanctions others to do the same,” says Edward Goldberg, an assistant professor at New York University’s Center for Global Affairs.

Former Ambassador [to Russia William] Burns said. “This kind of decision is going to get used by the Vladimir Putins of the world to say ‘What’s wrong with the annexation of Crimea if the Israelis’ unilateral annexation of the Golan can be recognized?’”

Fossil fuels out. This article from Britain's Guardian repeats on yet more findings that fossil fuels are "on the way out" simply because they are pricier that solar, wind, and/or natural gas. "Renewables now account for around 17% of US electricity generation, with coal’s share declining. However, the power of coal’s incumbency, bolstered by a sympathetic Trump administration, means it isn’t on track to be eliminated in the US as it is in the UK and Germany."

King Trump. Primary season is not far off. The Democratic contests will fill volumes. However, on the Republican side, the Guardian reports that President Trump would very much like to have no opponents, no primaries would be even lovelier. Reportedly South Carolinian Republicans are considering cancelling their state's Republican primary. King Trump, candidate by proclamation.  

College admissions problems. Surely you have read the news stories. Now, the Guardian reports on anonymous comments from college professors about the toll on the college and well prepared students once an increasing number of unqualified students are admitted. “Students who can’t get into elite schools through the front door based on academic merit don’t change once they’re in class. They can’t do the work, and are generally uninterested in gaining the skills they need in order to do well.” Indeed, in the social media of one such student she admitted her primary interest was in going to sports contests and partying.
     A professor at San Francisco State wrote, "...the real untold story [is of the many unprepared students and a lack of adequate funding] . Focusing on the elite schools seems more like a distraction." In the UK, a college administrator lamented students who are "woefully under prepared to pursue independent study." Another US professor opined that perhaps teaching rigorous STEM classes tended to weed out the lazy and ill-prepared. After all, "Why would wealthy parents pay big bucks just to have their child flunk out of tough engineering, science and math courses?"

Ancient trauma. A huge archaeological dig in present day ND has found massive evidence of a traumatic, quick-acting tsunami that swept over the then extant Western Interior Seaway. This climactic event likely resulted from the tsunami triggered when the huge asteroid struck 66M years ago in modern Mexico, extinguishing 75% of Earth's animal and plant species. The ND find has yielded “a mother lode of exquisitely preserved animal and fish fossils." Plants and animals killed in an instant, not over the more usual, longer geologic time period.

Re 9 November 2020. Columnist Charles Lane opines that, for better or worse, all these intervening months/days may make no difference. That voters have already made up their minds, for or against the president's re-election. If so billions will be spend in vein.

Thank you for reading.  
In memory everything seems to happen to music. Tennessee Williams  
You're never too old to see the Grand Canyon. Rose Torphy, the park's "new" 103 year-old junior park ranger