I won't be talking to you, period. https://t.co/3aQNfsEF86

— God (@TheTweetOfGod) February 7, 2020

_{• • • to set a mood • • •}

_{^{• • • none of the things I read while eating breakfast • • •}}

The Blood Rains of the Samedi Islands appear to be a mixture of plant matter, industrial pollutants, and a bizarre ingredient commonly associated with wizards.

— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) February 7, 2019

The Mystery of Neolithic Slovakia’s Rotating Villages

_{It’s hard to think straight when your brain is asymmetric.}

_{Is there more to see on the left side of this photo? Or is your mind playing tricks?}

OVER 5,000 YEARS AGO IN what is today Slovakia, a Neolithic community erected a new building. It wasn’t the first “longhouse” in Vráble, an early town comprising about 100 buildings in all. But like those that came before it, the new construction sat a little leeward. So did the one after that. And the one after that. Over time, the entire village slowly turned counterclockwise—and the Stone Age inhabitants of Slovakia likely had no idea it was happening.

They weren’t alone. “We find [these longhouses] from the Paris Basin to Ukraine,” says Nils Müller-Scheeßel, an archaeologist at Kiel University and lead author of a recent paper, published last month in the journal PLOS One. “And what we find archaeologically is almost indistinguishably similar. They basically use the same building technique.”

These buildings were put up roughly once every 30 or 40 years, and each time the skew was counterclockwise—a pattern that occurred consistently over the course of 300 years.

_{Excavations near the modern Slovakian town of Vráble, for which the site is named, offered archaeologists new insights into the counterclockwise rotation of ancient construction.}

Almost imperceptible today, and certainly invisible to the naked Neolithic eye, the curious rotation of the houses can be attributed to an esoteric glitch in the brain—a psychological process called pseudoneglect. …

Once issued to British foreign agents, these ornate china tea saucers function as parabolic microphones, and can detect a whisper up to 200 feet away.

— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) February 7, 2019

Big Swinging Brains and fashy trolls: how the world fell into a clickbait death spiral

_{In the years leading up to Trump’s election, traditional media gatekeepers found themselves shoved aside by trolls and tech companies who told us they were only giving us what we wanted.}

In 2012, a small group of young men, former supporters of the libertarian Republican congressman Ron Paul, started a blog called The Right Stuff. They soon began calling themselves “post-libertarians,” although they weren’t yet sure what would come next. By 2014, they’d started to self-identify as “alt-right”. They developed a countercultural tone – arch, antic, floridly offensive – that appealed to a growing cohort of disaffected young men, searching for meaning and addicted to the internet. These young men often referred to The Right Stuff, approvingly, as a key part of a “libertarian-to-far-right pipeline”, a path by which “normies” could advance, through a series of epiphanies, toward “full radicalisation”. As with everything the alt-right said, it was hard to tell whether they were joking, half-joking or not joking at all.

The Right Stuff ’s founders came up with talking points – narratives, they called them – that their followers then disseminated through various social networks. On Facebook, they posted Photoshopped images, or parody songs, or “countersignal memes” – sardonic line drawings designed to spark just enough cognitive dissonance to shock normies out of their complacency. On Twitter, the alt-right trolled and harassed mainstream journalists, hoping to work the referees of the national discourse while capturing the attention of the wider public. On Reddit and 4chan and 8chan, where the content moderation was so lax as to be almost non-existent, the memes were more overtly vile. Many alt-right trolls started calling themselves “fashy”, or “fash-ist”. They referred to all liberals and traditional conservatives as communists, or “degenerates”; they posted pro-Pinochet propaganda; they baited normies into arguments by insisting that “Hitler did nothing wrong”.

When I first saw luridly ugly memes like this, in 2014 and 2015, I wasn’t sure how seriously to take them. Everyone knows the most basic rule of the internet: don’t feed the trolls, and don’t take tricksters at their word. The trolls of the alt-right called themselves provocateurs, or shitposters, or edgelords. And what could be edgier than joking about Hitler? For a little while, I was able to avoid reaching the conclusion that would soon become obvious: maybe they meant what they said.

I spent about three years immersing myself in two worlds: the world of these edgelords – meta-media insurgents who arrayed themselves in opposition to almost all forms of traditional gatekeeping – and the world of the new gatekeepers of Silicon Valley, who, whether intentionally or not, afforded the gatecrashers their unprecedented power. …

PREPARE TO SPEND A WHILE; it’s The Long Read.

The Easiest Way(s) To Beat Trump

As a political outsider I often find both Democrats and Republicans to be very funny. The current Democratic primaries are the most interesting I’ve ever seen. In a recent survey, Democrats said the most important quality in a candidate, more important than agreeing with them, is their ability to beat Donald Trump. Yet, Democrats seem to be actively working towards the exact opposite.

In recent conversations with staunch Democrats I have learned two important things: Democrats have no idea how to attract voters, and Democrats don’t understand why they lost in 2016. Don’t worry, I promise I’ll enlighten you. In fact, the two are closely related. Plus, as the title suggests, we’ll wrap it all up with the two easiest ways to defeat Donald Trump.

The first problem is Democrats aren’t appealing to anyone but Democrats. I know, it sound incredibly simple, yet they don’t seem to understand. I’m sure you all remember the outrage over how Bernie Sanders was treated. Now this time around there has already been allegations of favoritism towards Joe Biden. History seems doomed to repeat itself.

In a recent conversation on Facebook, I told a couple Democrats that if Biden is their nominee I will not vote for him. Can you guess their response? Was it:

• Why not?
• Who would you vote for?
• A defense of Joe Biden?

If you guessed none of the above, they called me an obstructionist, you win today’s no-prize!

The core of the reason that Clinton lost is because she didn’t appeal to anyone but Democrats, and she didn’t think she needed to. Democrats thought they would win by default because they dislike Trump so much. But if history has taught us anything, it’s that not everyone dislikes Trump as much as you or I do. …

How It Feels to Live With AIDS for 30 Years

_{Three decades ago, Christopher Cunningham was diagnosed with AIDS—yet he’s still here to share his story.}

THE FIRST TIME I MET CHRIS, he told me he had AIDS. And I laughed out loud.

Let me explain.

We were at a brunch last year hosted by a notable Twitter/media personality. Every so often, she gathers a group of folks from various industries for food and drinks and some low-pressure networking. Not my thing, usually, but I was there as my boyfriend’s plus-one — well, one of his plus-two. He also invited his brother Chris so we could meet. Except Chris was late.

Eventually, I saw him step in, dapper and assured. He surveyed the room and then sat across from me at the table — but not without giving me the up-and-down outfit check. (I passed, I guess.) We discussed the menu, agreed on the oxtail hash, and then continued reading the room and making small talk. It was a fish-out-of-water sort of solidarity: The room skewed millennial, and everyone looked like social media stars with massively successful podcasts we’d never heard of, so we used each other as lifelines.

Somewhere between mimosas two and three, the notable Twitter/media personality urged a round of introductions — dressed up in the question “What’s been your biggest flex of 2019?” As the tidal wave of personal accomplishments rolled around the room, Chris and I made eye contact with a silent, shared question: What are you going to say? Not that we haven’t been successful in our lives, but these folks were saying things like, “I just got my second patent!” (Cue golf claps and woo-hoos.) “My Grammy shelf got a little more crowded!” (Cue more golf claps and woo-hoos.)

Chris leaned over to me.

“You know what I got?” he stage-whispered.

I shake my head.

“I got AIDS.”

His timing and delivery, that full-on eye-rolling sarcasm dripped in crushing reality, made me choke-laugh on my drink.

“I’m serious,” said Chris, a smirk playing on his face. “That’s my flex. I made it to my 30th year with AIDS. And I’m alive. And thriving.”
At that moment, I knew I loved Chris. …

DEGREE OF DIFFICULTY: How do you survive AIDS for 30 years?

_{Ed. This brought tears to my eyes.}

Video Goodnesses
_{and not-so-goodnesses}

Cartel violence has gotten so bad in an indigenous area of Guerrero that locals have formed an armed militia with boys as young as 6.

_{THANKS to HBO and VICE News for making this program available on YouTube.}

A defiant, post-acquittal President Trump delivered two fiery speeches on Thursday, taking shots at his rivals, threatening investigations into those who crossed him, and lavishing praise on his defenders in the Republican party.

_{THANKS to CBS and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert for making this program available on YouTube.}

Seth takes a closer look at the president reeling off a deranged tirade at the White House, where he celebrated his sham impeachment acquittal with his Republican co-conspirators.

_{THANKS to NBC and Late Night with Seth Meyers for making this program available on YouTube.}

突然床がふわふわになっていたら――？This is the prank that soft and fluffy cushions are laid on the floor.

Ottawa’s Sardine Dome is surfaced with vulcanized sardines. Scientists believe “sardinite” is more durable than plaster

— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) January 22, 2017

\\

FINALLY . . .

Centuries of Crap and Some Historical Treasures in an Old London Cesspit

_{An art museum found a very old toilet—right under where its new bathroom was being built.}

_{Surprise, surprise: It didn’t smell great down there.}

IN THE 15TH AND 16TH centuries, London was not a pleasant place to poop. The city was bustling with people and light on sewers, which means it was just teeming with excrement. Many, many residents had no choice but to squat over communal cesspits—deep openings in the ground often covered with wood planks cut with butt-sized holes. When the pits reached capacity, people either closed them up and dug fresh ones or called for a “gong farmer,” a poor sod who scooped them out and carted the mess away, often to the nearby Thames or Fleet River, waterways that often seemed to be more waste than water. In the sorry Fleet, the 16th-century poet Ben Jonson once wrote, “arses were heard to croak, instead of frogs.”

Most of London’s stinking cesspits have thankfully disappeared, but one recently resurfaced near the Thames. It was buried beneath present-day Somerset House, a sprawling neoclassical complex that contains the Courtauld Gallery, renowned for its collection of Impressionist and Postimpressionist paintings. And no one was more surprised to find it there than the people who know the place best.

_{Flemish artist Anthonis van den Wijngaerde sketched this view of the Strand from Southwark around 1543, but experts aren’t sure which building represents the Bishop of Chester’s Inn.}

Archaeologists regularly find old surprises waiting when new roads go down or new buildings go up—even in the densest, most developed urban areas. In some places, the input of archaeologists is mandated by law, to ensure that the march of progress doesn’t destroy significant historical artifacts. When these experts start poking around, they’re sometimes surprised by what they find—maybe the remains of a vast kiln, maybe 2,000-year-old Native American site, maybe a bomb from World War II.

The Courtauld Gallery is undergoing extensive renovations in preparation for a reopening in 2021. Before crews broke ground, researchers dug into the history of the site to get a handle on what they might encounter. “We had no idea,” says Stephanie Hall, the Courtauld’s project director overseeing the revamp. …

These Hong Kong storekeepers use trained chihuahuas to ward off shoplifters. Sometimes it works

— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) January 22, 2017

_{Ed. More tomorrow? Possibly. Probably. Maybe. Not? Likely, perhaps.}

_{• • • to set a mood • • •}

After the Orbit launch skillfully performed by “Tengri and Friends”, at the helm of our ship is now the turn of one of the most respected young producers in the “alternative” festival scene: Decomposer, born Agostino Maria Ticino from Italy. We asked the Roman producer to confront himself with the works of some of the major exponents of the Parvati roster and to use his proverbial eclecticism and long experience as a remixer to draw the guidelines of a new musical forest universe. This is the result.

_{^{• • • some of the things I read while eating breakfast • • •}}

Harborus of Persia, an educator from 600 BC, is often pictured bearing a torch. Long-assumed to represent the light of knowledge, historians now suspect it represents an episode where he theorized that his house was sentient and attempted to set fire to it.

— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) February 8, 2019

The Artist Trying to Explain Kentucky’s ‘Meat Shower’ of 1876

_{A historical head-scratcher inspired the world’s worst jelly bean flavor.}

_{The meat shower, here shown falling on Mrs. Crouch, caused confusion across the nation.}

EVERY OCTOBER, AROUND 200,000 PEOPLE gather in Kentucky for Court Days, the largest outdoor event in the state. Ever since 1794, locals have bought, traded, or sold various goods at the festival, held in the city of Mount Sterling. But in one of the strangest offerings in Court Days history, Kurt Gohde, professor of art at Transylvania University, handed out meat-flavored jelly beans in 2007 to anyone who would eat them.

Some people said the flavor of the dark red jelly beans reminded them of raw bacon. Another pair agreed with each other that they tasted like “strawberry pork chop.” Gohde, who commissioned the jelly beans with their specific flavor profile, describes them as tasting like “a heavily sugared bacon, with a metal aftertaste.”

The jelly beans were flavored like the 1876 meat shower, a mysterious event where chunks of flesh rained down over nearby Olympia Springs, one early March day. Gohde had hoped that meat connoisseurs at Court Days might help him determine the true identity of the mysterious substance.

Gohde, likely the foremost expert on meat rain, first learned about the incident in a book about strange weather phenomena over 20 years ago. He had just moved to Kentucky from upstate New York, and was keen on asking his students more details about the unusual event. To his surprise, none of them knew what he was talking about.

_{Kurt Gohde has been fascinated by the meat shower for decades.}

…

DEGREE OF DIFFICULTY: “I have a tremendous appetite for wonder. “I believe people need wonder in their lives. I know I do.”

_{Ed. This is my faborite kind of story. After this brief intro, I had absolutely no idea where it was going to go.}

The world’s largest pipe organ has a biome more diverse than that of the human body

— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) December 11, 2017

The Great Affordability Crisis Breaking America

_{In one of the best decades the American economy has ever recorded, families were bled dry.}

In the 2010s, the national unemployment rate dropped from a high of 9.9 percent to its current rate of just 3.5 percent. The economy expanded each and every year. Wages picked up for high-income workers as soon as the Great Recession ended, and picked up for lower-income workers in the second half of the decade. Americans’ confidence in the economy hit its highest point since 2000, right before the dot-com bubble burst. The headline economic numbers looked good, if not great.

But beyond the headline economic numbers, a multifarious and strangely invisible economic crisis metastasized: Let’s call it the Great Affordability Crisis. This crisis involved not just what families earned but the other half of the ledger, too—how they spent their earnings. In one of the best decades the American economy has ever recorded, families were bled dry by landlords, hospital administrators, university bursars, and child-care centers. For millions, a roaring economy felt precarious or downright terrible.

Viewing the economy through a cost-of-living paradigm helps explain why roughly two in five American adults would struggle to come up with $400 in an emergency so many years after the Great Recession ended. It helps explain why one in five adults is unable to pay the current month’s bills in full. It demonstrates why a surprise furnace-repair bill, parking ticket, court fee, or medical expense remains ruinous for so many American families, despite all the wealth this country has generated. Fully one in three households is classified as “financially fragile.”

Along with the rise of inequality, the slowdown in productivity growth, and the shrinking of the middle class, the spiraling cost of living has become a central facet of American economic life. It is a crisis amenable to policy solutions at the state, local, and federal levels—with all of the 2020 candidates, President Donald Trump included, teasing or pushing sweeping solutions for the problem. But absent those solutions, it looks certain to get worse for the foreseeable future—leaving households fragile, exacerbating the country’s inequality, slowing down growth, smothering productivity, and putting families’ dreams of security out of reach. …

Mayor Pete’s message is connecting with the unemployed https://t.co/IluFaddj1o

— The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) February 8, 2020

The time I sabotaged my editor with ransomware from the dark web.

As you may be aware, there’s money to be made on the internet. The question, of course, is how. Not everyone has the reality-distortion skills to start their own tech unicorn, or the Stanford connections to become an early employee there, or the indifference to sunlight necessary to become a world-class Fortnite gamer. Not everyone lives in the relatively few places where software engineering jobs are well-paying and plentiful.

If you’re willing to break the law—or at least the laws of the U.S., a country you may not yourself call home—your options expand. You can steal credit card numbers, or just buy them in bulk. You can hijack bank accounts and wire yourself money, or you can hijack email accounts and fool someone else into wiring you money. You can scam the lonely on dating sites. All of these ventures, though, require resources of one kind or another: a way to sell the stuff you buy with other people’s plastic, a “mule” willing to cash out your purloined funds, or a talent for persuasion and patience for the long con. And, usually, some programming skill. But if you have none of these, there’s always ransomware.

Malicious software that encrypts data on a computer or a server, ransomware allows an attacker to extort a payment in exchange for the decryption key. Over the past year in the U.S., hackers hit the governments of Baltimore, New Orleans, and a raft of smaller municipalities, taking down city email servers and databases, police incident-report systems, in some cases even 911 dispatch centers. Hospitals, dependent on the flow of vital, time-sensitive data, have proved particularly tempting targets. So have companies that specialize in remotely managing the IT infrastructure of smaller businesses and towns—hacking them means effectively hacking all their clients.

As the number of attacks has grown, so has the scale of the victims and ransoms. “Ransomware really started as something that targeted individuals,” says Herb Stapleton, a section chief in the FBI’s cyber division. “Then it started targeting smaller companies without strong internet security protections, and now it’s evolved to larger companies and municipalities.” In 2019 the Weather Channel, the French media group M6, and the shipping services firm Pitney Bowes Inc. were all hit. Last summer two small Florida towns paid $1.1 million between them to unlock their data. According to the BBC, the European forensics firm Eurofins Scientific also paid off attackers, though it hasn’t confirmed this. Travelex Ltd. also won’t say whether it paid its multimillion-dollar ransom, though as I write this the global currency exchanger’s website remains down, a month after it was attacked. …

POINT OF REFLECTION: It may not have been responsible to post this article. Perhaps someone might be tempted to try this out. And, perhaps, I may be unprepared for the karmic collateral damage that will certainly befall everyone involved.

The Controversial Actress Whose Invention Changed The World

If you could have dinner with any Hollywood celebrity from history, alive or dead, who would it be? And before you answer, remember that most of these people are probably insufferable and/or incoherent. So can I suggest Hedy Lamarr? In the course of her life, she made an erotic movie that pushed the envelope so hard it immediately got banned, married an evil arms dealer, then helped invent the technology you’re probably using to read this article. It definitely seems like she’d have some stories to tell.

4. It Started With The First Movie Orgasm

Hedwig Kiesler was born in Austria in 1914. As a child of privilege, she did all the absurdly fancy shit wealthy kids did back in the day. She studied ballet and piano, and probably also did the kind of weird stuff with horses that I picture rich people back then liked to do. You know, how they inexplicably got off on making horses trot in ridiculous ways in front of about nine other uber-wealthy people who were politely clapping, but whispering that their own horse trots way weirder and dumber. They’ve got the ultimate weird-ass horse, goddammit.

Anyway, Hedwig grew up to be stunningly gorgeous and started a career as an actress, going by “Hedy” and immediately getting naked. That’s unremarkable now, but we’re talking the late ’30s, when nudity in film would send audiences into a frenzy. Such panic can only be matched today when a rare non-Disney movie sneaks through the cracks. In the 1933 film Ecstasy, Kiesler plays the sexually frustrated young bride of a much older man who spices things up a bit with a hot young guy in town. What made this particularly noteworthy was that it featured what’s believed to be the first onscreen orgasm (outside pornography, that is).

She committed completely to the scene, possibly because the director was allegedly poking her in the butt with a pin. (There is perhaps no better portrait of most men’s understanding of the female orgasm.) The film would go on to be about as controversial as you’d expect for a movie with a female orgasm in it at a time when most people would head to confession after touching their genitals while pissing. Hedy became known as “Ecstasy Girl,” which would bring the worst kind of man into her life. …

Lawrence Brorman eases his pickup through plowed farmland in Deaf Smith County, an impossibly flat stretch of the Texas Panhandle where cattle outnumber people 40 to 1. The 67-year-old farmer and rancher brings the vehicle to a stop at the field’s southern edge. Just across the fence line, Brorman eyes a mess of cattle standing sentinel upon a mound of dirt and compacted manure. They peer back at him, chewing cud, mooing, and, of course, pooping.

Though Brorman grazes 80 or so cattle on his land in Hereford, Deaf Smith’s county seat, the animals he’s currently staring down aren’t his. They’re held by Southwest Feedyard, one of the oldest cattle feedlots in the county. This place holds 45,000 head of cattle in bare-dirt pens for months at a time, fattening the animals on flaked corn before sending them to slaughter. It’s part of a vast constellation of feeding operations that dot the western Panhandle, which accounts for one-fifth of the entire U.S. beef supply. If you’ve ever eaten a hamburger, there’s a good chance the meat came from here.

Brorman rolls down the driver’s side window, and a rank odor wafts in from the Southwest feedlot. While good fences make good neighbors, they do nothing to stop the wind from sweeping up tiny fragments of dried manure from the feedlot surface and spreading them across Brorman’s farm. Some summer days, especially during droughts, the particles—which scientists call “fecal dust”—form dense plumes that blot out the sun. When the wind is high, a wall of dust churns through the town of 15,000, coating homes and businesses and limiting visibility on U.S. Highway 60 so severely that motorists must switch on their headlights well before sunset.

“You go outside and it’ll just burn your nose and your eyes,” Brorman says. The dust brings foul odors so pervasive that they can penetrate the Brormans’ farmhouse even when the doors and windows are closed. Lawrence and his wife, Jaime, use a more explicit term for the fecal dust: “shust,” a portmanteau of “shit” and “dust.” (Other folks who live here are partial to “shog,” a mashup of the same first word and “fog.”) …

This Week's Onion Magazine: https://t.co/lzBilp40RL pic.twitter.com/Sgf1AHxvwP

— The Onion (@TheOnion) February 7, 2020

Inside the mind of Dominic Cummings

_{He is now the country’s de facto project manager, but what does he actually believe? In a bid to find out, I read (almost) everything Cummings has written in the last decade.}

When the prime minister of the day describes you as a “career psychopath”, your chances of preferment in the political world may not seem rosy. When associates of a leading minister refer to you as “that jumped-up oik”, you may sense you’re not winning friends in high places. When a senior official in the department where you are employed calls you “a mutant virus”, you may feel less than wholly accepted. And when a prominent MP in the party you work for denounces you as “an unelected foul-mouthed oaf”, it may seem that the game is up. Furnished with these testimonials, some downsizing of career ambitions may appear to be in order.

But Dominic Cummings has never played by the rules, and now, as Boris Johnson’s de facto chief-of-staff, he has become perhaps the most powerful unelected political figure in the country. He thus has an exceptional opportunity to put his ideas into practice. But what are his ideas? Commentators seem vaguely aware that, although he studied history at university, he has dabbled in more than one scientific discipline over the years, but no one, it appears, has really tried to take the measure of Cummings as a serious thinker.

There has, of course, been no shortage of comment on the various roles he has played in British political life in the last couple of decades. He came to the fore as a special adviser to the Tory politician Michael Gove between 2007 and 2013 (ie both before and during Gove’s tumultuous years as secretary of state for education); he attracted further attention as the chief administrative mastermind behind the successful leave campaign in the 2016 referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU; and when Boris Johnson became prime minister in July 2019, Cummings was installed as his chief aide, directing operations from within Downing Street.

What may be less well known is that for much of this period Cummings has maintained an unusual blog, where he has posted extensive ruminations on his reading, enthusiastic reports about breakthroughs in science and pungent contributions to debates about education, spicing the mix with some notably unbuttoned ad hominem side-swipes – for example, describing David Davis, then the Brexit minister, as “thick as mince”. Several of these posts have an intrinsic intellectual interest, but, given his current role at the heart of power, they may also yield insights into the thinking of someone whose ideas could soon have consequences for all of us. …

PREPARE TO SPEND A WHILE; It’s The Long Read.

Video Goodnesses
_{and not-so-goodnesses}

Mike Nayna thought he was exposing a racist and sexist monster for the good of society. Then, the narrative got out of his hands.

Former White House Chief Strategist Stephen K. Bannon joins Bill to discuss President Trump’s “best week so far.”

_{THANKS to HBO and Real Time with Bill Maher for making this program available on YouTube.}

Bill shares a few fun “facts” about President Trump’s son-in-law and White House Senior Advisor Jared Kushner.

In his editorial New Rule, Bill calls out Republicans over their undemocratic behavior and warns that when republics fall, they do so quietly.

Former VP Joe Biden remains optimistic about his chances despite taking a “gut punch” in the Iowa caucus. Who stands to gain the most? Mike Bloomberg’s campaign thinks their candidate is the real winner coming out of Iowa.

_{THANKS to CBS and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert for making this program available on YouTube.}

CAUTION: Some language may not be appropriate for work or children.

Here’s me review of drunk animals. So glad us humans aren’t like this ey.

The story we know as Robinson Crusoe began as a public service message against corrupt hypnotists

— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) December 15, 2017

FINALLY . . .

The Uncertain Future of a Border-Straddling Liquor

_{Sotol could bring Texans and Mexicans together, or divide them.}

_{A traditional spirit stirs up fresh debate among craft distillers living along the U.S.–Mexico border.}

BRENT LOOBY OF DESERT DOOR Distillery wants to share sotol with the world. “It’s a gateway to West Texas,” he writes, “that tastes unquestionably of the Texas land.” The spirit is distilled from dasylirion, a spiky succulent that dots the arid terrain of the Chihuahuan Desert, which spans the U.S.–Mexico border. Desert Door is the first commercial sotol distillery in the United States.

The venture has some detractors.

“It’s an appropriation that should be dealt with,” says Jacob Jacquez, the sixth-generation sotolero, or sotol distiller, behind Sotol Don Celso in Janos, Mexico. The company is named for his late father, a sotolero and politician who defended the niche spirit which, for much of the 1900s, was outlawed and violently suppressed. “I think they should take a step back and respect the families that were persecuted, that fought for that word: ‘sotol.’”This transnational debate within the craft community now has advocates in the U.S. and Mexican governments. The USMCA, a trade deal signed by President Trump last week to replace NAFTA, includes a provision that may classify sotol as distinctively Mexican. In other words, Texan sotol distillers like Looby could be—like Californians who must make “sparkling wine” rather than champagne—barred from using the word.

On a deeply fraught border, a storied spirit stands to either bridge the divide or deepen it. …

@God, care to elaborate? https://t.co/2hHPIesJd2

— Jef Norton (@BirdJanitor) February 8, 2020

FOLLOW-UP: Elon Musk boasts that his EDM track is the “8th hottest song on SoundCloud!”

_{And now it’s climbed to number 7!}

As you may have heard, tech entrepreneur Elon Music has followed-up his first foray into the world of electronic music with Don’t Doubt ur Vibe, a remarkably unremarkable EDM track that features (we think) the Tesla CEO on heavily-processed vocals.

However, despite its lack of distinguishing features – other than the fact that it’s produced by Elon Musk, of course – the song quickly raced to number 8 in SoundCloud’s most-played chart, and it seems that the SpaceX founder was pretty jazzed about it. In fact, he took to Twitter to boast about his achievement. …

_{Ed. More tomorrow? Possibly. Probably. Maybe. Not? Yeah… it could happen, maybe.}

_{• • • to set a mood • • •}

_{^{• • • some of the things I read while eating breakfast • • •}}

Wildebeest trackers in Scotland often resorted to witchcraft, and published their unorthodox recipes in illicit fan zines

— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) February 9, 2018

In Sydney, Intricate New Models Depict Australia’s Brutal Colonial Era

_{A redesigned museum hopes to grapple with the thorny legacy of the “convict period.”}

_{Welcome to Sydney Harbour.}

SOMEWHERE IN DARUG COUNTRY, AUSTRALIA, much of which is now greater Sydney, a forest is under attack. A path cuts through the densely wooded area like a scar, and freshly felled trees wait to be loaded onto a wagon nearby. A group of incarcerated men scrape and hack at the remaining trunks. Beyond the grove, at a distance, a group of Aboriginal Darug men watch, helpless. The scene is a microcosm of the island’s colonial period—literally. You will probably have to squint to see it all.

“Timber-Getters” is a miniature model of Australia’s history, at 1:100 scale, one of nine scenes built for the newly redesigned Hyde Park Barracks in Sydney. The historic compound opened in 1819 to house incarcerated men during Australia’s “convict period,” and is now managed by Sydney Living Museums (SLM). This makeover, two years in the making and wrapping up in February 2020, is meant to communicate a fuller, more inclusive history of the early colonization of Sydney, including its impact on Aboriginal people; the barracks themselves are built on traditional Gadigal land. For all their modern perspective, the models are charmingly retro. “That model [“Timber-Getters”] alone gets across the story of the colonial process and the devastation it wreaks on the country and its people,” says Gary Crockett, a curator at SLM. “Sometimes something cartoonish can capture a really large issue and boil it down into something that is immediately graspable.”

_{Hyde Park Barracks, at full scale.}

Britain began banishing its imprisoned people overseas in the early 17th century, primarily to the North American colonies. The infractions involved were largely petty affairs, as more serious crimes were punishable by death. The Revolutionary War shifted the focus to New South Wales, Australia, in 1788. In the early years, the sentenced people were not imprisoned exactly, but were forced to do labor for much of the day. “They worked until three or four in the afternoon and then were free to do their own work,” Crockett says. “In the early years, that level of freedom was quite extraordinary.”

But that changed when British officer Lachlan Macquarie commissioned incarcerated architect Francis Greenway to design barracks for 600 men, in the hope that living there would improve their moral character. (Macquarie was so impressed with Greenway’s work that he pardoned him.) “The barracks were all about control,” Crockett says. “It was a system of difficulty, punishment, and cruelty.” The barracks opened in 1819, and were copied in other British penal colonies. …

The Rastafarian Mafia’s activities in this abandoned Boston factory ultimately inspired “Snakes on a Plane”

— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) February 9, 2018

‘The system is broken’: the billionaire investor who fears a return to the 1930s

_{Ray Dalio, who has a near $19bn fortune, is one of a handful of the 0.01% to go public with concerns about the system that created that wealth.}

_{A page from Ray Dalio’s book Principles for Success. ‘I think everybody would benefit from writing down their principles, not in an abstract way.’}

Ray Dalio, the billionaire investor, has just released his first children’s book. It’s a bedtime story he hopes will inspire a new generation of entrepreneurs and leaders. There are other stories that keep Dalio awake at night.

Stock markets have soared in recent years, employers are struggling to find workers, inflation is under control. And yet: “This period is very similar to that of the 1930s,” he says. “We’re at each other’s throats when these are the best of times. I worry about the bad times.”

Dalio, the founder of investment firm Bridgewater Associates, one of the world’s largest hedge funds, and a man with a personal fortune that tops $18.7bn, is one of a handful of the 0.01% who have gone public with their worries about the system that created that wealth.

“The world has gone mad, and the system is broken,” he wrote in a series of viral posts on the issues he sees in the modern economy last year.

The gap between rich and poor has grown too wide, and most people have not seen real income growth in decades, he wrote. The economy is stacked against those at the bottom. Education, healthcare, the tax system, the prison system and political deadlock have created a situation that presents an “existential risk” to the US and the rest of the world. It was a searing indictment of the status quo, not least because it came from someone who had benefited from it the most. …

What happens to class conflict in the fight against inequality?

_{$400,000 ≠ $20,000}

_{Economic inequality in the spotlight during a 2011 Occupy Wall Street rally.}

The numbers of wealth inequality in 2020 are striking: 2,153 billionaires have more wealth than 4.6 billion people, which means there is more wealth in the hands of 0.00003% of the world population than in 60% of it. In the US, where the highest number of billionaires live, the disparity between the ultra rich and everyone else is at a five-decade high: The richer 0.1% earn almost 200 times as much as the remaining 90%.

Since the 2008 recession and, shortly after, the inequality protests of Occupy Wall Street, the idea that the world—and chiefly, America—has an inequality problem has gotten into the mainstream, and become a key programmatic point of progressives.

A wealth tax has widespread support amongst Americans of various political leanings; meanwhile, conservatives decry it as an attempt to have the US capitulate to socialism.

But who is the fight against inequality and for income redistribution going to benefit? According to the Economic Policy Institute, as of 2018 the threshold to qualify to the 1% was about $421,000 a year. This means that someone making $400,000 a year and someone making $20,000 a year both belong to the 99%, while surely their lives and struggles are not alike. …

Gigantic Problems We’re Solving (With Stoner Logic)

Generally speaking, our society values the ability to “think outside the box” and come up with unexpected solutions to pesky problems. But some of the ideas that come sailing out of left field are so bizarre that you’re not sure whether they’re awful or awesome. Here are a few ways we’re using straight-up stoner logic to solve the world’s problems.

5. “You Know What We Need to Stop Polar Ice From Melting? SNOW CANNONS!”

The ice caps are receding at a quicker rate than Jude Law’s hairline. Antarctic ice loss has tripled in the past 25 years, declining by 3.15% every decade. Venice is already mostly underwater, and if the trend continues, more low-lying major cities like New York, London, and Shanghai will soon be part of Aquaman’s kingdom. That’s to say nothing of the impact on the Arctic and Antarctic environments. Yes, it’s a huge deal, but rest assured that the scientific community’s best and brightest have come up with a plan: massive snow cannons.

We can’t say for sure how many edibles it took to reach this idea. We’re assuming that it beat out “Can we train penguins to fart snow?” and “What if Sub-Zero from Mortal Kombat, but real?” At any rate, scientists from Germany and the United States think we can stop Antarctic ice loss by installing a “system of snow cannons” across the continent. The plan would involve desalinating the surrounding seawater, pumping it inland, and blanketing the ice with fresh snow to keep it from melting. According to the simulations, it would take an eye-watering 7,400 gigatons of artificial snowfall over the next 10 years to stabilize the ice sheet, as well as tens of thousands of wind turbines to power the whole operation.

READ ON FOR “What If We Give Humans TAILS So We Can Have Crazy Good ANIMAL Balance?” and other barely uninteresting at all stoner things at the link above.

“Manhattan Is Going to Crumble”

_{A New York City broker reacts to state regulators’ new rule effectively banning broker fees for renters.}

_{A new ban on brokers’ fees has the New York City real estate community on edge.}

On Wednesday, regulators effectively eliminated one of the biggest obstacles to renting an apartment in New York City: broker fees. Tenants in the city have often had to deal with middlemen contracted by landlords who control apartment listings, viewings, and leases. Even if renters find their own apartment online, they can still be required to pay landlords’ brokers upfront—an amount that can range from an extra month’s worth of rent to 15 percent of the lease. That’s in addition to paying the first month’s rent and a security deposit to the landlord.

In a surprise addendum to the sweeping rental laws passed last year, regulators determined that renters can no longer be charged broker fees, eliminating one more barrier for tenants who don’t have the extra income to afford them. City renters praised the news. Brokers, on the other hand, were left reeling from yet another change that upended their entire business world, with two industry groups filing a lawsuit to oppose the rule.

Slate spoke to one broker at Nooklyn, a Brooklyn-based real estate agency, who wished to remain anonymous. She estimates that she makes around $5,000 per year from broker fees—and notes that that’s much less than brokers at many other agencies make. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

What was your reaction when you heard about this—not a new ruling, but a new interpretation of a ruling?

My initial reaction is a little confused, to be honest. I’m not necessarily opposed to it. As a human being, I understand it. But I think that it, like most of these laws that have changed since July, is having a lot of adverse effects that these lawmakers are not understanding. It’s very much clear to me that a lot of these lawmakers don’t have a real sense of how this business works in this city, because they’re also harming New York residents with some of these laws. …

River-bottom Bones: The Strange World of Underwater Fossil Hunting

_{This cache from a dive in the Cooper River includes several shark’s teeth as well as a brass Colonial belt buckle.}

Winding through the South Carolina low country, the Cooper River is a reed-lined haven for sportfish and shorebirds. The waterway originates in Berkeley County’s Lake Moultrie. From there, it proceeds all the way down to Charleston, where it merges with the Ashley and the Wando to form that city’s world-famous harbor. (Ever hear of Fort Sumter?)

The Cooper River took its name from Anthony Ashley Cooper, a 17th-century English lord. As time wore on, it became a lifeline in the region’s burgeoning rice trade. But the Cooper also bears the hallmarks of a far more ancient chapter in South Carolina history.

If you know where to look, and you’ve got scuba gear handy, you just might find a mammoth tusk lurking beneath the water’s surface.

Matthew Weas knows that feeling. He and his father, Joe Harvey, are experienced local divers who patrol the Cooper for fossils — many of which end up on display at the Berkeley County Museum in Moncks Corner, South Carolina.

Not all the giants they encounter are prehistoric. To hear Weas tell it, run-ins with living modern-day river-beasts aren’t uncommon. …

Video Goodnesses
_{and not-so-goodnesses}

A special message of Christian concern to Donald J. Trump* from America’s Best Christian, Mrs. Betty Bowers.

They look like little peoples.

One town’s struggle with its reputation as “The Mecca of Wax Prostitutes”

— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) June 27, 2017

FINALLY . . .

The Joy of Collecting Stamps From Countries That Don’t Really Exist

_{“Bogus Cinderellas” can come from micronations, outer space, or parallel dimensions.}

_{Sealand is perhaps the best known and most persistent micronation. It was created, first as a pirate radio station, and then as a state, by Paddy Roy Bates.}

THE POSTAGE STAMP LOOKS LIKE a postage stamp is supposed to look: white, perforated edges, and part of a circular cancellation mark in the corner. It also has the country and postage clearly printed, though its depiction of the pirate Blackbeard during an attack might be more dramatic than most philatelic subjects. But it’s not a postage stamp, not really, because its country of origin is Sealand—a metal platform about the size of a tennis court, off the English coast. Sealand is one of the quirky, strangely numerous states known as “micronations,” or self-proclaimed polities with no legal recognition. Some of them, to simulate legitimacy or at least make a little money, have issued their own flags, passports, coins, and yes, postage stamps.

Laura Steward, curator of public art at the University of Chicago, who organized an exhibition at the 2020 Outsider Art Fair in New York of stamps from micronations and other dubiously defined places, believes that these tiny squares are more than a toss-off: They’re art, proof of imagination, and rather sophisticated bids for public recognition. “A postage stamp is a small but mighty symbolic emissary from one particular nation to the rest of the world,” Steward writes in text accompanying the exhibit. “A functioning postal service, made visible in stamps, is an unmistakable expression of national legitimacy…. As a result, the postage stamp is an excellent vehicle for spurious, tenuous, or completely fictitious states to declare their existence.”

_{Sealand’s postage often carries an appropriately nautical theme.}

Steward, who’s a stamp collector herself, refers to these types of stamps as “Bogus Cinderellas.” They are “bogus” because they don’t represent officially recognized entities, and “Cinderellas” because they are stepchildren to genuine postage. “Most serious stamp collectors consider them illegitimate despite their extraordinary ability to conjure an entire nation on a tiny piece of paper,” Steward wrote. Some collectors are fascinated by them nonetheless, and so micronations (and other not-quite-places) keep putting them out. The Republic of Molossia issued some as recently as 2019.

Atlas Obscura spoke with Steward about the wonders of discovering and collecting stamps from these rather curious, suspect places.

_{In the mid-1970s, Alec Brackstone became alarmed by Australia’s drift away from constitutional monarchy. So he declared his four-hectare farm north of Adelaide to be the independent Province of Bumbunga. Bumbunga’s postage always features the British royal family.}

…

Dutch artist Trölls van der Jöosstenbeeke’s demonic children’s books provoked an Edict of Decency from the King

— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) January 23, 2017

_{Ed. More tomorrow? Possibly. Probably. Maybe. Not? I might, maybe.}

_{• • • to set a mood • • •}

_{^{• • • some of the things I read while eating breakfast • • •}}

These small stone chapels found throughout Siberia’s Irkutsk Oblast incorporate Pacific Bell payphones as sacred altars.

— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) December 10, 2018

Where in the World Is Saint Valentine?

_{Why shell out for chalky candy or saccharine cards this February 14 when you can go relic-hunting instead?}

IF YOU’RE A ROMANTIC OR CHOCOHOLIC, you might crush on Valentine’s Day, but if your tastes skew more toward the macabre—say, actual organs instead of heart-shaped cards—you might feel more flushed when you think about relics. In that case, none will titillate you quite like bones or blood around the world said to have come from the body of Saint Valentine himself.

Several churches, from Chełmno, Poland, to Florissant, Missouri, claim to possess some of the saint’s remains. But there are a couple more wrinkles to the story. For one, the true identity of Saint Valentine is fuzzier than a stuffed teddy bear. The name “Valentine,” or something like it, was popular in the Roman Empire, probably owing to its association with Latin words that emphasize strength and power, and there are thought to be a few saints with that name. The 15th-century Nuremberg Chronicle recounts the saga of one Valentine—a Roman priest—martyred in the third century for helping out Christians, who weren’t beloved by the emperor, Claudius II, or Claudius Gothicus. Other accounts describe Saint Valentine as the Bishop of Terni, Italy. The history of Saint Valentine’s association with amorousness is a little murky, too. Some scholars think it might have begun as a revamp of the ancient festival of Lupercalia. Others suspect that the romantic trope is largely an invention of Geoffrey Chaucer and his pals, who cast the saint in poems about lovers, both human and avian.

The relics could be from one of the Saints Valentine, or from someone else entirely. And there’s a problem common to the world of holy relics: duplicates. Several churches claim to have his skull—but as far as we know, Saint Valentine, whoever he was, only had one head. (Unless, or course, there were two of him.)

We can’t promise that any of these relics really came from the man whose name launched a thousand greeting cards, but here are eight places you can (allegedly) meet Saint Valentine, just in time for his feast day on February 14. …

The Nebuchadnezzic Monks believe that Holofernes survived—and went on to found the world’s first chain of department stores

— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) December 19, 2017

This Is How Reaganism and Thatcherism End

_{In a hotel ballroom in Rome, leaders of the nationalist right took a grim view of Western liberal democracy—which Cold War conservatives deeply believed in.}

In an Italian hotel ballroom of spectacular opulence—on red velvet chairs, beneath glittering crystal chandeliers and a stained-glass ceiling—the conservative movement that once inspired people across Europe, built bridges across the iron curtain and helped to win the Cold War came, finally, to an end.

The occasion was a conference in Rome last week called “God, Honor, Country: President Ronald Reagan, Pope John Paul II, and the Freedom of Nations.” Inspired by the Israeli writer Yoram Hazony, convened under the banner of “National Conservatism,” this event was co-organized by Chris DeMuth, a former president of the American Enterprise Institute (in the era when it supported global capitalism and the Iraq War) and John O’Sullivan, a former speechwriter for British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. O’Sullivan now runs the Danube Institute, which is funded, via a foundation, by the Hungarian government. The conference itself was funded, according to DeMuth, by an anonymous American donor. This was the successor to the National Conservatism Conference held in Washington, D.C., last year. That occasion featured a strange agglomeration of new and old conservatives, including both John Bolton and Tucker Carlson, people who still talk hopefully about shrinking the state and those who want to enlarge it, people still jockeying to be relevant and people full of confidence that they now are.

The conference in Rome was different in many ways, beginning with the aesthetics: No room in Washington contains quite so many Corinthian columns. The purpose, at least at first, seemed a little more mysterious, too. If Reagan and John Paul II were linked by anything, it was a grand, ambitious, and generous idea of Western political civilization, one in which a democratic Europe would be integrated by multiple economic, political, and cultural links, and held together beneath an umbrella of American hegemony. John Paul II wanted Poland to join the European Union; in his famous speech in Normandy, Reagan declared that not just “one’s country is worth dying for,” but “democracy is worth dying for, because it’s the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man.” At least when she was still prime minister, Margaret Thatcher was also a proponent of this vision of the West. She was one of the driving forces behind the European single market, the continent-wide free-trade zone that also required a unified regulatory system—the same unified regulatory system that the British have now rejected—and had great faith in the importance of human rights. She said so explicitly: “The state is not, after all, merely a tribe. It is a legal entity,” Thatcher declared in Zagreb, Croatia, in 1998, according to her biographer Charles Moore. “Concern for human rights … thus complements the sense of nationhood so as to ensure a nation state that is both strong and democratic.”

The new national conservatism, at least as articulated in Rome, is very different from Reaganism and Thatcherism. The starting point is that European integration and American hegemony are both evil, and that universal ideals like human rights are a dangerous ideology. These, in fact, are arguments made in Hazony’s book, The Virtue of Nationalism, a work that synthesizes biblical history, the writings of John Locke, and contemporary politics into a caricature of a political philosophy for our times. Hazony has invented a definition of the nation—tribes that have agreed to live together, more or less—that applies to no existing modern state, not even Israel. He also attributes all of the good things about modern civilization to the nation and all of the bad things to what he calls “imperialism.” He puts countries and institutions he likes into the first box, and those he doesn’t like into the second. Thus it emerges that the Nazis, who specifically called themselves nationalists, were not nationalists but imperialists, as is the European Union, an organization created to prevent the resurgence of Nazism. Britain, Spain, and France, despite their long history as empires on land and sea, count as nations. …

SNL: Larry David’s Bernie Sanders Exposes His ‘Army of Internet Trolls’

_{“Could I stop them in their tracks? Of course,” he said. “Should I? Yes. Will I? Eh.”}

_{THANKS to NBC and Saturday Night Live for making this program available on YouTube.}

After giving Alec Baldwin’s Donald Trump his impeachment victory lap during last week’s cold open, Saturday Night Live turned its attention this week to yet another star-studded Democratic primary debate.

Former SNL cast member Jason Sudeikis kicked things off as Joe Biden, addressing his poor performance in Iowa by saying, “I’ll be honest, losing Iowa was a real kick in the nuts.” But he wasn’t worried at all, promising that by the time the candidates get to South Carolina, he was going do “what Joe Biden does best, creep up from behind.”

“Just when you think your lead is safe, my numbers are going to come up and surprise you with a nice, sweet kiss on the neck,” he added.

“I still can’t believe all this mess happened in Iowa because of an app,” Larry David’s Bernie Sanders said. “Hey, I have an idea for an app, it’s called no apps. No apps, no computers, no gadgets, no gizmos. You show up to your polling place, take a number like you do at the butcher, they call your ticket, you walk up to the counter and say to the guy, ‘give me a pound of whatever’s about to go bad.’”

After a word from the debate’s sponsor, Mike Bloomberg—“Try Bloomberg: He’s not as short as Trump is fat”—Sanders and Elizabeth Warren (Kate McKinnon) tried to “out-poor” each other and Colin Jost’s Pete Buttigieg was forced to address his lack of support from black voters. …

Media Scandals From Around The World (That Make America Look Sane)

Americans endure an unending media circus in which the main attraction is having to guess whether the government or the news is less trustworthy. But instead of stumbling around looking for the last shreds of integrity in our institutions, we should take a page from other countries — specifically the front page of any given newspaper. It turns out that American media scandals are often pretty bland in comparison to the wild stuff they go through. For example …

5. A British Rag Had A Spy Posing As A Footman Inside The Royal Palace

In 2003, the tabloid Daily Mirror decided it was a good idea to commit minor treason by spying on the royal family. The paper sent an intern named Ryan Perry to infiltrate Buckingham Palace as a footman and report on any information that was in the public interest. So what royal secrets did he expose? Apparently the Queen is a bit obsessive about her cornflakes, Prince Edward plays hide and seek with a toy monkey, and the royals occasionally swear at the help. And it sure must be hard to pretend you’re the British Woodward and Bernstein when your notebook includes details on how much marmalade her majesty’s corgis like on their toast.

When The Mirror started publishing every single invasion of privacy, the crown retaliated by seeking an injunction on the story and suing Perry. Fortunately for the snooper, he didn’t have a criminal record or a cousin in al-Qaeda, so he could only be prosecuted for breaching his confidentiality clause. But The Mirror and its head editorial ghoul Piers Morgan denied any wrongdoing. They claimed they were justified, having exposed serious security flaws. It’s a bit like your landlord claiming you should thank him for showing you how easy it is to install cameras in your bathroom.

Wanting to avoid further embarrassment, the queen quickly settled, dropping the charges if The Mirror stopped publishing details and paid legal fees to the tune of 25,000 pounds ($42,800). Morgan agreed … while simultaneously bragging that he had already made a small fortune telling everyone the color of Prince Philip’s pajamas.

But The Daily Mirror and Ryan Perry did make a single worthwhile contribution to investigative journalism: They exposed what a shit job being a royal footman is. Not only did readers find out it only pays a measly 11,881 pounds ($20,340) per year minus living expenses, but footmen also have to sleep in tiny rooms, share toilets, and are banned from walking in the middle of hallways to avoid wearing out the carpet. Who would have guessed that being the personal attendant to royalty was Britain’s equivalent of being a greeter at Walmart? …

Powerful Cyber Attack Takes Down 25% Of Iranian Internet

_{A cyber-attack against Iranian infrastructure blamed for massive internet shutdown.}

Hot on the heels of a “serious” cyber-attack that compromised United Nations servers, and in the same week that the head of the European Central Bank, Christine Lagarde, warned of the global financial implications of cyber-attacks, Iran has seemingly come under cyber-attack. Indeed, so powerful was the impact of this alleged attack that the internet was disrupted across the country.

The NetBlocks internet observatory, which maps internet freedom in real-time, confirmed that there was extensive Iranian telecommunications network disruption on the morning of February 8. The internet observatory, an accurate and impartial monitor of internet availability, uses a combination of measurement and classification techniques to detect disruptions and critical infrastructure cyber-attacks in real-time. In a NetBlocks tweet, the national internet connectivity drop to 75% was said to be due to Iranian authorities activating the “Digital Fortress” cyber-defense mechanism, also known as DZHAFA.

Confirmed: Internet partially shut down #Iran from 11:45 a.m. local time (08:15 UTC); real-time network data show national connectivity fall to 75% after authorities reportedly activated "Digital Fortress" isolation mechanism; incident ongoing

https://t.co/Qb8bxYUT71 pic.twitter.com/bsETg1Sfxb

— NetBlocks.org (@netblocks) February 8, 2020

In a NetBlocks report, the DEZHFA activation is said to have been implemented in order to “repel a cyber-attack on the country’s infrastructure.” With both fixed-line and mobile network providers impacted, it was seven hours before normal internet connectivity was resumed. A spokesperson for Iran’s Telecommunication Infrastructure Company, affiliated to the ministry of ICT and Iran’s sole provider of telecommunications infrastructure, Sadjad Bonabi, tweeted that a “distributed denial of service attack” (DDoS) had been “normalized” with the “intervention of the Dzhafa Shield.”

در ساعت ١١:۴۴ امروز به دلیل حمله منع سرویس توزیع شده، اینترنت برخی اپراتورهای همراه و ثابت برای مدت یک ساعت با اختلال مواجه شد که با مداخله سپر دژفا و تلاش همکاران شرکت زیرساخت‌ این ارتباطات هم‌اکنون عادی شده است. #گزارش_به_مردم

— Sadjad Bonabi (@sadjadb) February 8, 2020

It is certainly not unusual for DDoS attacks to be used as a cyber-weapon by nation-states. Indeed, at the start of December 2019, China was reported to have fired the “Great Cannon of China” at an online forum used to coordinate Hong Kong pro-democracy protests. However, the Financial Tribune quotes Bonabi as saying that “no sign of state sponsorship” of the attack had been detected, and that both attack sources and destinations were “highly distributed.” …

Potential record gust of 209 mph recorded at California peak

_{Storm clouds gather over Santa Monica Bay off Manhattan Beach Sunday, Feb. 9, 2020. A gust of 209 mph was recorded by an instrument on Kirkwood Mountain south of Lake Tahoe. The National Weather Service it could take months for state climatologists to verify the record.}

A gust of 209 mph was recorded atop a California peak on Sunday, a potential record that wowed forecasters monitoring a cold storm moving south through the state.
The blast of wind was captured around 7:45 a.m. by an instrument at 9,186 feet on Kirkwood Mountain south of Lake Tahoe, said National Weather Service forecaster Alex Hoon.

He and his colleagues at the NWS office in Reno watched in surprise as wind speeds across the crest of the Sierra Nevada hit 150 mph and kept rising.

“It went up and up,” Hoon said. It could take months for state climatologists to verify the record, he said.

“But the way that the winds did ramp up, it looks legitimate,” Hoon said. “It’s an exciting moment for sure.”

The previous record was a gust of 199 mph at Ward Mountain west of Lake Tahoe on Nov. 16, 2017. …

Video Goodnesses
_{and not-so-goodnesses}

CAUTION: Graphic content. May not be appropriate for work or children.

Violence in Mexico reached unprecedented levels in 2019 revealing the deadly power of the cartels, and the weakness of the state.

In a country where more than 90% of crimes go unsolved, searching for truth and justice can make you a target. Civilians, journalists and politicians have been intimidated, killed or have disappeared.

We sent VICE News correspondent Gianna Toboni to investigate the roots of this spiraling murder rate and meet the people who refuse to be silenced.

_{THANKS to HBO and VICE News for making this program available on YouTube.}

“We have an archaic idea of what family is,” says Brooks in a new episode of The Idea File. The nuclear family unit, Brooks argues, is a privilege of the wealthy. Across the world, 38 percent of people still live with extended family. And over the past half-century, the share of people living alone in America has doubled. The nuclear family is no longer the norm—and it should no longer be the ideal.

For more, read Brooks’s article, The Nuclear Family Was a Mistake

Relive some of our favorite Deep Cut’s moments with this ‘best of’ compilation video. Watch as Hasan talks aliens, Indian Uncles, name pronunciation, and the event that made him want to create Patriot Act.

_{THANKS to Netflix and Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj for making this program available on YouTube.}

A little-known Senate rule—last invoked on this day in 1874—allows the Sergeant-at-Arms to arrange and preside over boxing matches on the Senate floor

— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) December 20, 2017

FINALLY . . .

Australian Wildfires Uncovered Hidden Sections of a Huge, Ancient Aquaculture System

_{The Gunditjmara have been building an eel-farming system at the Budj Bim Cultural Landscape for more than 6,000 years.}

_{Gunditjmara people started building this elaborate aquaculture system before the construction of Egypt’s oldest pyramids.}

IN VICTORIA, AUSTRALIA, AN ANCIENT labyrinth of waterways snakes across a once-volcanic landscape. This is the Budj Bim Cultural Landscape, a vast aquacultural system the Gunditjmara Aboriginal people, who still call this country home, began constructing 6,600 years ago. Parts of the system are still in use today.

Ask locals about Budj Bim, and you’ll invariably be directed to Uncle Denis Rose. A Gunditjmara elder, Rose, who has lived here most of his life, cares for the complex as Project Manager of the Budj Bim Sustainable Development Project. His knowledge of this country and its history has earned him the honorific “Uncle,” a term of respect for Aboriginal elders. Bring up the title, however, and he’ll demur. “I don’t refer to myself as that, no,” Rose says. “I’m in a little bit of denial about my age.”

Recently, Rose’s expertise has been in even greater demand. Since December 2019, massive wildfires have devastated Australia, killing dozens of humans and an estimated billion other animals. But in Gunditjmara country, the wildfires have left an unexpected gift. They’ve uncovered stunning and previously unknown sections of the 24,500-acre complex, including an 82-foot channel that was obscured by thick brush. The find reinforces our understanding of the vast scale and sophistication of the system, which UNESCO designated a World Heritage Site in 2019 after decades of Gunditjmara struggle to reclaim their land and culture.

The aquaculture system was born in a fiery act of creation. Around 30,000 years ago, the Budj Bim volcano began coating the country in streams of lava. Gunditjmara ancestors understood the explosions as the work of an Ancestral Being they called Budj Bim, who transformed himself into the landscape through lava flows. Eventually, volcanic activity slowed, and the hot basalt rock cooled into a foundation for vibrant wetlands, including present-day Lake Condah.

_{“It’s traditional country here,” says Uncle Denis Rose, a Gunditjmara ranger, of this sprawling landscape.}

…

Hidden in plain site, this sequence of world-ending runes was only recently discovered via Google Earth.

— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) December 10, 2018

_{Ed. More tomorrow? Possibly. Probably. Maybe. Not? Likely, perhaps.}

_{• • • to set a mood • • •}

_{^{• • • some of the things I read while eating breakfast • • •}}

Frank “Wild Mario” Bellini, an old-West entertainer, killed two men with only playing cards. Bellini could hurl a paper card at more than 90 miles an hour and later patented “swish cards”, concealed, innocuous-looking weapons similar in function to throwing stars.

— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) February 11, 2019

Burying the Dead in Taipei’s Public Parks

_{The eco-friendly approach reflects Taiwan’s shifting funerary practices.}

_{The tree burial area of ​​Fudekeng Environmental Restoration Park, Taipei. The rock says: “6, Fragrant Camphor Garden.”}

TWICE A YEAR, THE CHEN< brothers Boris and Po-An hop onto the latter’s motorcycle and make their way up the mountainous district of Wenshan in Taipei. It’s a scenic journey that will take them past the leafy grounds of a solar farm that sits on a restored former landfill called the Fudekeng Environmental Restoration Park. The Taiwanese government implemented this urban rehabilitation project in 2003 to protect vestigial green space in the capital, hoping to repair damage caused by unfettered urban expansion through the 1980s.

The Chens continue driving until they arrive at a beautiful arboretum that was parceled off from the same area as the solar farm. It defies belief that this verdant sanctuary was once covered in waste. Here, the brothers set their cans of chilled coffee down underneath a grove of cinnamon trees. “Our mother’s ashes are buried there,” Boris says, pointing to a spot under the trees, about three feet away from him. No physical markers point to the presence of human remains. Aside from the Chens, there are four other people taking a stroll around the park. “The weather is not ideal today,” says Po-An, “or there might be more people.”

_{People gathered around a tree burial service.}

Welcome to Yong’ai Garden, an area of land stretching across 1.2 hectares and one of two public parks in Taipei where tree burials have been taking place since 2007. The concept of a tree burial is simple: family members place the ashes of the deceased into a biodegradable container, and take it to the garden. They then choose from 13 clusters of almost 8,000 trees: cherry blossoms, osmanthus, magnolia, and camphor are some of the more popular options. The caretakers of Yong’ai Garden provide the family with shovels and direct them to the burial area they have chosen. They are careful not to disturb specific sites, marked by small iron rods, where another tree burial has taken place recently. The family digs a hole in the ground that is approximately half a meter deep (1’8”), places the ashes into the hole and covers it with soil and stones. The entire process is completely free of charge. In an innovative turn on traditional Chinese funerary beliefs, the bereaved are also encouraged to set up online memorial tablets for their loved ones, in place of physical gravestones.

_{Cherry blossoms are among the vibrant flowers of Yong’ai Garden.}

Taiwan has the lowest birth rate in the world, faces the looming threat of almost half its population being elderly by 2065, and is constantly battling the problem of land scarcity. For these reasons, tree burials and other types of eco-friendly internment are becoming an increasingly popular and space-efficient way of dealing with the dead. Over the last two decades, large public columbaria, which enable the storage of urns holding human remains, have stalled the need for the development of more burial sites. These columbaria essentially serve as apartment blocks that house the dead. But as occupancy across columbaria fills up, the Taiwanese—especially those in densely populated cities like Taipei—must reckon with alternative methods of addressing death. The draw of tree burials is particularly strong because it is free, as compared to having to purchase a niche at a columbarium, which according to funeral industry experts cited by Quartz could cost upwards of NT 200,000 ($6,500)—a hefty sum, considering that the average monthly salary in Taiwan was NT 49,989 ($1,700) in 2018. …

The peculiar story of Apophomas, a mostly forgotten Biblical figure who used his lock-picking abilities to spring the unrepentant from Hell.

— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) February 11, 2019

The U.S. Military Is Not Ready for a Constitutional Crisis

_{When I joined the navy, I swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution. But not once, in all of my training, did I receive meaningful instruction on the document to which I had pledged my life.}

I spent nine years on active duty in the U.S. Navy. I served as an aircraft commander, led combat reconnaissance crews, and taught naval history. But the first thing I did upon joining the military, the act that solemnized my obligation, was swear an oath to support and defend the Constitution. How strange, then, that despite all of my training, the millions of taxpayer dollars devoted to teaching me how to fly, lead, and teach, not once did I receive meaningful instruction on the document to which I had pledged my life.

For most of my time in uniform, my lack of understanding about the Constitution was entirely academic. No one I served with imagined that we would ever find ourselves choosing between following orders and upholding our oath. Some were dimly aware that our compatriots long ago had wrestled with these issues. As an instructor at the Citadel, I taught my students about the My Lai massacre, and about the obligation to disobey an unlawful order. But it was theoretical. To my students, Vietnam was a faint echo.

Then, the global War on Terror hit its stride. We began to hear about black sites, where prisoners were detained in secret. We learned about the practice of rendition, in which captives were sent to other countries, beyond the reach of our laws. And we became aware of waterboarding, an extreme interrogation method that simulates drowning. I had left the Navy and was in law school when news of the torture memo broke. This was the George W. Bush administration’s attempt to offer a legal justification for “enhanced interrogation.” I had been through Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape (SERE) school, the military’s interrogation training program, from which these techniques had been adopted. I understood the “enhanced” methods described by the Bush-administration lawyers for what they were: torture.

At the time, I found it unconscionable that legal scholars would be complicit in underwriting our government’s disregard for the Geneva Conventions. But with the benefit of hindsight, though I still find the torture memo appalling, I can at least acknowledge that the Bush administration cared enough about the law to offer the pretense of legality. …

Trump puts Cuban doctors in firing line as heat turned up on island economy

_{After US allies expel foreign health missions, Havana warns that patients will pay the highest price for campaign against its scheme.}

_{Doctors have recently been expelled from Bolivia and Brazil and returned to Cuba.}

A Cuban medical programme that has helped some of the world’s poorest communities has become the latest target of the Trump administration’s escalating attempts to pressure Havana’s faltering economy.

Dubbed “Cuban doctors”, the celebrated – if controversial – humanitarian medical mission was founded more than half a century ago in the aftermath of Fidel Castro’s revolution, in part to enhance the country’s international influence.

Currently active in over 60 countries, the scheme has provided healthcare across the globe, from indigenous Amazon peoples to slum residents in Africa to the victims of Haiti’s 2010 earthquake.

Now its work has come under renewed fire via a combination of allegations, led by Washington, which has accused Havana of using the doctors to undermine democracy, not least in Venezuela – which hosts one of the biggest missions.

Havana has also been accused – in claims taken up by Washington – of “exploiting” the medical staff sent on the missions. One report suggested work conditions, low salaries and coercion amounted to “modern slavery”. …

A Brief History Of Why America’s Healthcare System Sucks

Isn’t it kind of weird that your boss can decide whether you die of cancer? That’s effectively the logic behind employer-based health insurance. If you have it, you can get chemotherapy; if you don’t, then go ahead and be independently wealthy. If you can’t even manage that, then just die already.

Americans do not apply this logic to other necessary services. It’s not like if your house is on fire, the fireman says, “Sorry, you don’t have coverage for this, so if you want me to save your house, I’m going to need $250,000. That’s just to start. Steve’s really the door specialist, though, and that’s gonna be a whole other set of charges …” So why aren’t doctors provided as a public service like firemen, police officers, teachers, or lawyers? As with many terrible things in life, from the Cowboys to presidential assassinations, you can thank Dallas.

Even into the 20th century, hospitals were not places you went to heal. You went there to die, and that was pretty much it. Healthcare was barely regulated, riddled with snake oil, and extremely cheap. In 1900, healthcare cost the average American around 5 bucks a year (about $100 adjusted for inflation).

But healthcare rapidly improved with antibiotics, rigorous training, and scientific evidence. By the 1920s, clean and educated doctors could save your life, rather than just saw off a leg or throw cocaine at you until you died. But this came at a cost that most people couldn’t afford. Hospitals needed money to run. So that’s when administrators at Baylor University Hospital in Dallas hatched a plan. They offered healthcare to teachers on a rolling basis for 50 cents a month. By the time of the Great Depression, hospitals around the country copied the program by offering cheap plans to workers’ groups. Today you know that program as Blue Cross.

This program was hospitals negotiating directly with workers, though. How, then, did it become the standard for employers to offer private plans? It’s another oddity of the American system. Why would companies willingly shoulder the majority of an enormous cost for its employees? To understand that aspect of the American healthcare system, you have to mix in a pinch of Hitler.

‘Why did she have to die?’ Mexico’s war on women claims young artist

_{Isabel Cabanillas de la Torre was shot as she cycled home last month in the violent border city of Ciudad Juárez. Her friends and comrades have little hope of justice.}

_{A woman with a pink cross on his forehead takes part in a protest to demand justice for Isabel Cabanillas, an activist for women rights was murdered, in Ciudad Juárez.}

They gathered in the chill of a high desert night, around a bakery on a street corner in the US-Mexican border city of Ciudad Juárez, to blend homage with mourning, love with sorrow.

Opposite them: a mural of painted eyes and the words “Te observan” – they’re watching you. And a self-portrait by the artist, Isabel Cabanillas de la Torre, 25, shedding a tear. It is a prescient touch: at the foot of the painting is a floral tribute to Cabanillas, who was shot in the head on 18 January while cycling home.

Days of rage followed: marches downtown blocking the Santa Fe border bridge; women wearing pink balaclavas to commemorate the victims of the rash of murders of women in Juárez during the 1990s and 2000s – of which this outrage is the latest mutation.

Tonight is music, conversation and celebration of Isabel’s metier: art, for sale tonight at voluntary prices towards a fund for her now motherless four-year-old son. “We’re doing what she would have wanted us to do”, said Arón Venegas, the founder of Pure Borde, the art collective to which Isabel belonged.

_{Graffiti and a pink bicycle at the scene of Isabel’s murder, Calle Ochoa, Ciudad Juárez.}

Lydia Graco, a member of Pure Borde, said in a heart-wrenching moment: “Isa, we’re sorry we couldn’t stop your femicide. Forgive us, Isa, please. We owe you, comrade, we owe you.” …

‘A lying, dog-faced pony soldier’: just what was Joe Biden talking about?

_{Biden called a woman a ‘lying, dog-faced pony soldier’ – but no one can find the film he thinks he’s quoting from.}

_{Joe Biden with Madison Moore at the campaign event in Hampton, New Hampshire. His remark has left people wondering what Biden was referencing.}

It was all going so badly for Joe Biden. And then it got worse.

Concerns for the former vice-president’s 2020 bid were mounting after he was caught on camera calling a woman a “lying, dog-faced pony soldier” at a campaign stop in New Hampshire on Sunday.

When Madison Moore, a 21-year-old economics student, asked Biden whether voters could remain confident in his campaign after his poor performance in the Iowa caucuses, Biden asked her if she had ever attended a caucus. When Moore said yes, Biden responded: “No you haven’t! You’re a lying, dog-faced pony soldier.”

There didn’t seem to be any hard feelings – footage showed the audience laughing at Biden’s quip, and even Moore seems to be having a little giggle.

Joe Biden to New Hampshire voter asking about why he lost in Iowa “you’re a lying dog-faced pony solider” pic.twitter.com/H7F6zwjLkL

— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) February 9, 2020

But his remark has still left people wondering what on earth Biden was referencing. …

Video Goodnesses
_{and not-so-goodnesses}

Murray Siple’s feature-length documentary follows a group of homeless men who have combined bottle picking with the extreme sport of racing shopping carts down the steep hills of North Vancouver. This subculture depicts street life as much more than the stereotypes portrayed in mainstream media. The film takes a deep look into the lives of the men who race carts, the adversity they face and the appeal of cart racing despite the risk. Shot in high-definition and featuring tracks from Black Mountain, Ladyhawk, Vetiver, Bison, and Alan Boyd of Little Sparta.

Democratic presidential candidates go hard against Pete Buttigieg, and Joe Biden calls a woman a “lying, dog-faced pony soldier” at a campaign event in New Hampshire.

_{THANKS to Comedy Central and The Daily Show with Trevor Noah for making this program available to embed.}

In the wake of the chaos that defined the Iowa Democratic caucus, Ronny Chieng goes to New Hampshire to find out if the state can pull off a smooth primary election.

On Friday, the President kicked off a post-acquittal purge of his administration, firing impeachment witnesses Amb. Gordon Sondland and Lt. Alexander Vindman.

_{THANKS to CBS and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert for making this program available on YouTube.}

Seth takes a closer look at President Trump’s retaliation against impeachment witnesses as his attorney general works with Rudy Giuliani to keep digging up dirt on his political rivals.

_{THANKS to NBC and Late Night with Seth Meyers for making this program available on YouTube.}

CAUTION: Some language may not be appropriate for work or children.

Me critical analysis of some drag defences people around the world can use against airlines and authorities.

やっと入手した”ねこじゃすり”。I got the new cat groomer.

Andrew Jackson was fired from his job as police officer for committing “aggrievous smuggery”. This is still a crime in seven states

— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) January 25, 2018

FINALLY . . .

What a Viral Video of a Coyote and Badger Says About Interspecies Duos

_{Sometimes they’re buddies. Sometimes it’s strictly business.}

_{A mutually beneficial arrangement.}

WHEN HE SAW THE VIDEO of the coyote and badger, Neal Sharma was speechless. “The playful body language of the coyote first got my attention,” he says. “But when the badger snout entered the frame, it blew me away.”

Sharma is the wildlife linkages program manager at the Peninsula Open Space Trust (POST), the organization that recently released a short video shot under a highway near the southern part of California’s Santa Cruz Mountains. In it, a coyote dances playfully at the entrance to a culvert (a tunnel beneath a roadway), appearing to wait for the badger that follows. The pair then travel into the tunnel together. Nature-video gold.

They may seem an unlikely duo, but coyotes and badgers have a long-recognized relationship as occasional hunting partners—a phenomenon known to Native Americans and early settlers (and described in an 1884 paper in American Naturalist).

Out on the prairie, both species go after animals such as ground squirrels, but in different ways: Coyotes search, stalk, chase, and pounce, while badgers “are basically backhoes,” excavating tunnels and digging up animals hiding underground, says evolutionary biologist Marc Bekoff, a professor emeritus at the University of Colorado, Boulder. While shared prey makes them competitors, joining their skill sets turns out to be mutually beneficial. …

The archebolt was a medieval weapon designed to hurl rotting carcasses at enemies

— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) January 29, 2018

_{Ed. More tomorrow? Possibly. Probably. Maybe. Not? Likely, perhaps.}

_{• • • to set a mood • • •}

_{^{• • • some of the things I read while eating breakfast • • •}}

The Depression-era children’s game of “Knock the Bobbin” was actually a form of capoeira developed by the British military

— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) February 12, 2018

Generations of Handwritten Mexican Cookbooks Are Now Online

_{North America’s largest-known Mexican cookbook collection inspires both tears and restaurant dishes.}

_{Chefs Elizabeth Johnson of Pharm Table in San Antonio and Juan Cabrera Barrón of Fonda Fina in Mexico City page through the collection’s oldest book.}

THE STORY OF MEXICAN FOOD is usually told as a happy merging of indigenous ingredients and techniques with those brought by the Spanish in the 1500s, as if the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire was just a means to a better burrito. In fact, what we now know as Mexican cuisine is the result of centuries of shifting borders and tastes.

“When it came to culinary cultural exchange in the colonial period, the conquistador Bernal Díaz del Castillo referred to corn dishes as the ‘misery of maize cakes,’” says Stephanie Noell, Special Collections Librarian at the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA). “On the other side, the Nahuas were not impressed by the Spaniards’ wheat bread, describing it as ‘famine food.’”* The eventual confluence of native and European ingredients and traditions is, of course, what defines North American cuisine to this day.

_{Doña Ignacita’s cookbook, from 1789, is the collection’s oldest.}

A rough timeline of this transformation exists in the UTSA’s Mexican cookbook collection, the largest-known trove of Mexican and Mexican-American cookbooks in North America. It started with a donation of nearly 550 books from San Antonio resident Laurie Gruenbeck in 2001, amassed during her decades of travel throughout Mexico. It now has more than 2,000 books, including some of renowned chef and scholar Diana Kennedy’s rarest books, as well as her personal papers. It has the oldest cookbooks published in Mexico (from 1831), elaborate vegetarian cookbooks from 1915 and 1920, corporate and community cookbooks, and much more.

The earliest book in the collection is from 1789, making it one of the oldest Mexican cookbooks in existence. This so-called “manuscript cookbook”—written by “Doña Ignacita,” who Noell believes was the kitchen manager of a well-off family—is a handwritten recipe collection in a notebook, complete with liquid stains, doodles, and pages that naturally fall open to the most-loved recipes. These manuscript cookbooks, never intended for public scrutiny, provide essential insight on how real households cooked on a regular basis. Though the UTSA only has about 100 manuscript cookbooks, they are impossibly rare documents that form the heart of the collection. …

The series of 1950s postage stamps that, when arranged into a specific pattern, formed a vulgar message intended for Stalin

— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) December 12, 2017

‘We Knew They Had Cooked the Books’

_{The Trump administration’s attempt to kill one of America’s strongest climate policies has been a complete debacle.}

On a drizzly day in January 2018, Jeff Alson, an engineer at the Environmental Protection Agency’s motor-vehicles office, gathered with his colleagues to make a video call to Washington, D.C.

They had made the same call dozens of times before. For nearly a decade, the EPA team had worked closely with another group of engineers in the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA, pronounced nits-uh) to write the federal tailpipe-pollution standards, one of the most consequential climate protections in American history. The two teams had done virtually all the technical research—testing engines in a lab, interviewing scientists and automakers, and overseeing complex economic simulations—underpinning the rules, which have applied to every new car and light truck, including SUVs and vans, sold in the United States since 2012.

Their collaboration was historic. Even as SUVs, crossovers, and pickups have gobbled up the new-car market, the rules have pushed the average fuel economy—the distance a vehicle can travel per gallon of gas—to record highs. They have saved Americans $500 billion at the pump, according to the nonpartisan Consumer Federation of America, and kept hundreds of millions of tons of carbon pollution out of the air. So as the call connected, Alson and the other EPA engineers thought it was time to get back to work. Donald Trump had recently ordered a review of the rules.

Speaking from Washington, James Tamm, the NHTSA fuel-economy chief, greeted the EPA team, then put a spreadsheet on-screen. It showed an analysis of the tailpipe rules’ estimated costs and benefits. Alson had worked on this kind of study so many times that he could recall some of the key numbers “by heart,” he later told me.

Yet as Alson looked closer, he realized that this study was like none he had seen before. For years, both NHTSA and the EPA had found that the tailpipe rules saved lives during car accidents because they reduced the weight—and, with it, the lethality—of the heaviest SUVs. In 2015, an outside panel of experts concurred with them.

But this new study asserted the opposite: The Obama-era rules, it claimed, killed almost 1,000 people a year. …

‘Trust your dog’: extraordinary pets help solve crimes by finding bodies

_{After grueling training, a rare few civilians and their dogs are allowed to participate in criminal investigations by searching for cadavers.}

_{Sundance, a nine-year-old dog searches for a buried sample in the woods of St Tammany parish, Louisiana.}

Bob Ward keeps baby wipes, canned soup, and bottled water in his truck. “If I need a bath or a meal, there it is,” he explained in a Walker, Louisiana Waffle House. Calls can come at anytime, and his truck remains loaded, his bag packed.

Today is a rare day off from both of his jobs: a nine to five at a printing company and volunteer work looking for dead bodies with his Australian shepherd, Niko. Ward and Niko are one of approximately 500 volunteer cadaver dog-handler pairs across the country who assist law enforcement in recovering human remains.

Ward remembers a call a few years back: a missing female, suspected homicide. He put 1,500 miles on his truck over the course of a month searching for her, but they found nothing. Then, on a scorching day in a wooded field, the humidity weighing on Ward and 15 law enforcement officers, Niko started running. After a few yards, he abruptly sat down. He had found part of a pelvis and a leg, all bone, unburied. Soon they found most of a full skeleton.

“That one has stayed with me for some reason. I knew the victim’s name,” Ward said. “You take the emotions, and you set it aside, because you’ve got a job to do. You deal with the grief, or the anger, afterwards.” …

6 Sleazy Tactics Tech Companies Use To Get Ahead

It’s no secret that tech companies use unethical schemes to get ahead. For instance, the infamous blood testing company Theranos was just guessing results based on your star sign while selling your blood to hot dog manufacturers. But while they collapsed in infamy and shame, plenty of tech giants were punished for their bizarre and cruel scams by, uh, getting even richer. Look at how …

6. Uber’s “Safe Rides Fee” Was A Lie For More Profit

In 2014, Uber faced bad publicity over drivers assaulting passengers. So they rolled out a new $1 safe rides fee on every trip, pledging to use “industry leading” driver screening to ease anyone’s fears of getting into a stranger’s car. Your cab driver might spend the whole ride snorting lines off a flensing knife, and your Lyft driver might pull up with a necklace of human toes and a running chainsaw, but with Uber, you were safe. The safety fee was right there on the receipt!

The new fee was a huge selling point that brought in an estimated $500 million over the next two years. It was even higher in some markets, costing $1.35 in San Francisco, presumably to fund anti-Zodiac screening, and a whopping $1.65 in Los Angeles, where each car had to be equipped with a turret gunner in case they drove past Harvey Weinstein’s house. We’re just kidding, of course. What Uber actually did with that $500 million was … absolutely nothing.

Uber never planned to roll out new safety features, and its driver screening remained a joke. The whole program boiled down to a few instructional videos, which were unlikely to stop the Mazda Mangler from striking again. An Uber insider later said the fee was “devised primarily to add $1 of pure margin to each trip. It was obscene.” It does take a certain kind of depravity to read passenger safety horror stories and only hear cartoon cash register noises.

In 2016, Uber was sued and paid a settlement of $25.8 million to passengers. That’s about 0.82 cents per passenger, and as any math teachers in the audience may know, $28.5 million is substantially smaller than $500 million. But don’t worry, Uber was also required to rename the “Safe Rides” fee to a “Booking” fee — a brutal punishment which we’re sure will dissuade corporations from ever trying something like this again. …

People Born Blind Are Mysteriously Protected From Schizophrenia

_{The possible explanations could help us better understand the condition.}

It as something Tom Pollak had heard whispers about—an odd factoid, referred to now and again, usually with bewilderment: No person who was born blind has ever been diagnosed with schizophrenia.

Over the past 60-some years, scientists around the world have been writing about this mystery. They’ve analyzed past studies, combed the wards of psychiatric hospitals, and looked through agencies that treat blind people, trying to find a case.

As time goes on, larger data sets have emerged: In 2018, a study led by a researcher named Vera Morgan at the University of Western Australia looked at nearly half a million children born between 1980 and 2001 and strengthened this negative association. Pollak, a psychiatrist and researcher at King’s College London, remembered checking in the mental health facility where he works after learning about it; he too was unable to find a single patient with congenital blindness who had schizophrenia.

These findings suggest that something about congenital blindness may protect a person from schizophrenia. This is especially surprising, since congenital blindness often results from infections, brain trauma, or genetic mutation—all factors that are independently associated with greater risk of psychotic disorders. …

Photo of mice squabbling on subway platform wins prestigious photography award

_embiggenable

The sight of two mice scurrying across a London Underground platform in the evening is, to many, an unwelcome feature of life in the city.

But a young photographer is hoping his award-winning shot changes that perception.

Sam Rowley’s “Station Squabble” has been picked from more than 48,000 images to claim a wildlife photography award from London’s Natural History Museum, voted for by the public.

The image features two mice fighting over a few leftover crumbs in a subway station.

“Everybody knows about the mice on the Underground but I don’t think anyone’s seen them in that light before,” Rowley, a 25-year-old researcher at the BBC, told CNN.

He admitted that he got a handful of “strange looks” from commuters while laying on the floor of various central London stations, but added: “People were quite curious — they were quite chatty and nice about the whole thing.” …

Video Goodnesses
_{and not-so-goodnesses}

3D-printing innovations in recent years have brought a sea change in the fabrication of everything from automobile parts to human bio-tissues.

VICE’s Krishna Andavolu delves into the cutting-edge research behind what’s being called the next industrial revolution, meeting the scientists and entrepreneurs pushing the boundaries of manufacturing, material science, and even space exploration.

_{THANKS to HBO and VICE News for making this program available on YouTube.}

Ronny Chieng breaks down the misinformation and racism surrounding the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak.

_{THANKS to Comedy Central and The Daily Show with Trevor Noah for making this program available on YouTube.}

President Trump held a rally in Concord on the eve of the New Hampshire primary to take the spotlight off Democrats and get out some important messages about family and health.

_{THANKS to CBS and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert for making this program available on YouTube.}

"G.I. Gerard", the biodegradable action figure that Hasbro introduced in 1978—and has been trying to forget ever since

— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) December 12, 2017

FINALLY . . .

The Unexpected Elegance of Apocalyptic Seed Vaults, In Photos

_{The images, by artist and professor Dornith Doherty, are ethereal and oddly comforting.}

_{The kangaroo grass, Themeda triandra, looks delicate.}

NATURE PHOTOGRAPHERS OFTEN ZIP ON warm coats before lugging their cameras into the wintry outdoors. Dornith Doherty, an artist and professor at the University of North Texas, bundles up to photograph nature indoors—and sometimes in suspended animation. Doherty documents the vaults and research hubs that store seeds for any number of uncertain futures.

These archives are sometimes known as “arks of the apocalypse.” Inside, seeds are dried, stored, and safeguarded, often at subzero temperatures. The facilities are insurance against pests, disease, and other forms of destruction that could strike a species. Each seed bank is a botanical backup plan: The hope is that humans can draw on these reserves to save plant populations on the brink.

Since 2008, Doherty has visited these collections to photograph their operations and contents. She has traveled to Australia, Italy, the Netherlands, and Brazil, as well as around the United States. She has documented the Desert Legume Program in Tucson and Yuma, Arizona, and the National Collection of Genetic Resources for Pecans and Hickories, in Texas. Doherty visited Svalbard, the snow-flanked vault on a Norwegian archipelago north of the Arctic Circle, and Sussex, England, to step inside the Millennium Seed Bank, which stores more than 2.3 billion seeds spanning more than 40,000 species. Arranged in rows of glass jars on shelves, they look like pantry staples, such as decanted beans, oats, or rice—but with much higher stakes.

The results are photos of the spaces themselves, and x-rays of the seeds and tissue specimens housed there. Doherty sometimes arrays these in ethereal, gossamer collages that evoke Anna Atkins’ pioneering, 19th-century cyanotypes of British algae. More than a decade on, the project is still in progress. “I think it will continue indefinitely,” Doherty says. “There are over 1,700 seed banks worldwide.” She corresponded with Atlas Obscura about cold vaults in a warming world. …

35 years ago, this small Indiana town was nearly devastated by a science experiment that went disastrously wrong. Now the Department of Energy wants to re-open the lab

— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) February 12, 2018

_{Ed. More tomorrow? Possibly. Probably. Maybe. Not? I have absolutely no idea.}

If I were you I’d immediately start transforming the collective consciousness to transcend the ego-illusion and unite as one species to save each other and the planet.

But that’s just Me.

— God (@TheTweetOfGod) February 13, 2020

_{• • • to set a mood • • •}

_{^{• • • some of the things I read while eating breakfast • • •}}

These abandoned radomes in Washington State conceal a terrifying past

— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) June 21, 2017

In Buenos Aires, Queer Tango Takes a Revolutionary Dance Back to Its Roots

_{In traditional tango, men lead and women follow. Queer tango is creating a new paradigm.}

_{In 2017, Mexico City hosted its seventh annual International Queer Tango Festival at the Sergio Magaña Theater. Similar festivals have been held in Germany, Argentina, the United States, and several other countries.}

TWO DECADES AGO, WHEN MARIANA Docampo was in her twenties, she went looking for somewhere she could dance tango with another woman. Buenos Aires, where she lived, was a dance capital and the home of countless milongas, or gatherings of Argentinian tango dancers. But as she learned to dance the leading role, she realized that she was looking for something that didn’t exist. “I had loved tango from the first time I discovered it, but milongas were a place you could go only if you played a certain role and certain identity,” she says. “That was the beginning.”

For many, the word “tango” comes with certain expectations: charming men dancing with women in high heels, tables ordered around a dimly-lit dance floor, wine bottles over here, candles over there. That classic milonga, which developed around the turn of the 20th century, has not changed much in a hundred years. But in recent years, queer milongas have slowly transformed the roles and dress codes of traditional tango.

_{Together, Augusto Balizano (left) and Mariana Docampo founded the International Queer Tango Festival in Buenos Aires. It is now in its 14th year.}

In 2001, a group of German dancers organized a Queer Tango Festival in Hamburg, and Argentina was quick to follow. In Buenos Aires, Augusto Balizano founded the first gay milonga, La Marshàll. In 2005, Docampo opened Argentina’s first permanent lesbian milonga: Tango Queer. These milongas aimed to serve specific communities, but were open to people of all genders, and have broadened their aims over time.

In the years that followed, the Argentinian government passed laws that enshrined the civil rights of LGBTQ people, from marriage equality to gender expression. “Queer dancing was a social need,” says Balizano, an internationally known tango dancer who has performed in Germany, France, Denmark and even Russia, which is not known for LGBTQ rights. “When La Marshàll started, it was revolutionary, and existed long before those laws, so I think the fact spaces like ours existed was a big contribution.” Together, Docampo and Balizano founded the International Queer Tango Festival, an annual event that is now in its 14th year, and that attracts dancers from all over the world. …

1960s sportswriter Buford Hunt designed and manufactured his own golems. Newspapers called him “Frankenstein with sideburns"

— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) December 15, 2017

Why the Middle Class Home Owner Crisis Exists

_{“We had a situation over the last 10 years, where every step of the way, the government could have intervened on behalf of families, and instead, intervened on behalf of a small group of vulture capitalists.”}

Aaron Glantz has won a Peabody, been nominated for a Pulitzer and three Emmys, and written three books, including his most recent book, Homewreckers: How a Gang of Wall Street Kingpins, Hedge Fund Magnates, Crooked Banks and Vulture Capitalists Suckered Millions Out of Their Homes and Demolished the American Dream. He’s written for the New York Times, ABC News, NPR and the PBS NewsHour and his reporting has led to criminal probes by the DEA, the FBI and the FTC. But perhaps the least relatable thing about Glantz is that he’s a homeowner — and that he bought his home in 2009.

The year his son was born, Glantz and his wife bought a house in San Francisco, taking advantage of the bottomed-out housing market to buy a home that has now, clearly, become their largest financial asset. He assumed, at the time, that many other middle class families would be able to do the same: take advantage of cheap housing prices, buying on the ground floor, and waiting to sell until the market got healthy again while growing wealth. But when he began reporting on the Great Recession, the housing crisis, and the bubble he realized that he was an exception. A very rare one.

“I had naively assumed that there were going to be a lot of other families like mine — families of middle class but modest incomes — that were able to use this historic price drop that came with the foreclosure crisis to become homeowners,” he says. “But as a journalist, I watched year over year as the home ownership rate in America went down. It went down not only in 2008, and 2009, but every year until 2016, when it bottomed out to a 50-year low.”

Recognizing that home ownership wasn’t stabilizing — and that he was more or less a rare benefactor of the low housing costs in the midst of the recession — Glantz had a few questions. What happened to all of those homes? Where did they go? They didn’t just disappear, Glantz knew. And if he was an exception, what was the rule? …

House Democrats ask Secret Service for details about its payments to Trump’s company

_{Eric Trump, who is running President Trump’s company while his father is in the White House, speaks at a news conference in Des Moines on Feb. 3.}

The House Oversight Committee on Wednesday asked the Secret Service to provide a full accounting of its payments to President Trump’s private company after The Washington Post revealed that the Secret Service had been charged as much as $650 per night for rooms at Trump clubs.

In a letter to the Secret Service, signed by Chair Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.) and member Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.), the committee asked for records of payments to Trump properties, and copies of contracts between the Secret Service and Trump clubs.

Last week, The Post reported that the Secret Service had been charged nearly $400 and as much as $650 per night for rooms at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida, and charged $17,000 a month for a cottage that agents used at Trump National Golf Club Bedminster in New Jersey. President Trump still owns his companies. These payments show he has an unprecedented — and largely hidden — business relationship with his own government.

_{New documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act reveal the rates the Secret Service paid at President Trump’s properties.}

Officials at President Trump’s company maintain that Trump and the firm do not profit when government officials stay at their properties.

“They stay at our properties for free — meaning, like, cost for housekeeping,” Eric Trump, who runs his father’s company day-to-day, said last year in an interview with Yahoo Finance. He estimated the charge per room was “50 bucks.” …

Kraft Macaroni And Cheese Is A Sexual Aid Now, Just In Time For Valentine’s Day

It’s always painful to watch big companies try to cram whatever they’re selling into upcoming holidays or major events, and it’s no different with Kraft, of mac and cheese fame. Kraft is trying to link the un-linkable by promoting their brand-new enormous container of microwavable macaroni and cheese by pairing it with the general concept of desperate parents trying to work in a quick fuck on Valentine’s Day:

Kraft is a multibillion-dollar multinational corporation, so they get what it’s like to be a parent who just wants a moments peace to have an orgasm on the day where sex is an obligation. And that, according to the ad, is where the Big Bowl comes in. It just a big thing of mac & cheese that puts kids into a food coma, leaving horny parents to do whatever they so choose to each other’s bodies while their child sucks in heaping nose-fulls of mac & cheese into their sinuses after they’ve face planted into their microwavable macaroni dinner only a few bites in.

If it’s horny parents they’re trying to go after, the enormity of the container of mac & cheese being sold undercuts the goal of shutting up their child’s hunger so they can have sex in peace. It conjures images of parents, their loins engorged with sexual anticipation, hovering around their child, urging them to hurry up and finish their fucking gigantic tub of orange slop already because mommy and daddy have things to do. Lost in all of this is a subtle point: Kraft has turned macaroni and cheese into a sexual aid. You can find it at the local sex shop between the buttplugs and bigger buttplugs. …

_{Ed. Let that image sink in for a moment. I’m sure you’re now thanking Kraft for putting that image permanently in your brain. I know, I did.}

America’s Hopelessly Anemic Response to One of the Largest Personal-Data Breaches Ever

_{The government has indicted four members of China’s People’s Liberation Army for hacking into the credit-reporting agency Equifax. The question is why.}

The Justice Department raised eyebrows on Monday when it unveiled charges against four members of China’s People’s Liberation Army for hacking into the credit-reporting agency Equifax and stealing sensitive information on 147 million Americans. The charges are the latest in a campaign of indictments against Chinese-government-linked hackers that dates to 2014 but has ramped up considerably since 2017, the year the Equifax breach took place. Like the defendants in several prior hacking indictments, the men whose identities were revealed to the world this week are based in China and almost certainly will never appear in a U.S. court to stand trial. Taken alone, the indictments are a hopelessly anemic response to one of the largest personal-data breaches ever recorded.

The bigger picture doesn’t look much better. As the Harvard law professor Jack Goldsmith and I have argued before, if deterrence is the measure of success, the United States’ Chinese-hacking indictment strategy has all the earmarks of a spectacular failure. A raft of media and government reports suggests that China’s state-sponsored cybertheft has not meaningfully diminished in response to the U.S. indictment campaign. This shouldn’t come as a surprise: The costs to China of being “named and shamed” are almost certainly dwarfed by the billions of dollars of value obtained from pilfering U.S. technologies and the untold intelligence benefits of cultivating a massive database on American citizens.

If not deterrence, what might be the purpose of these indictments instead?

Some have argued that one aim of the indictment strategy is to enforce a norm against state-sponsored theft of intellectual property carried out to support a nation’s commercial firms. The norm was articulated in President Barack Obama’s September 2015 meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, with each country agreeing that it would not “conduct or knowingly support cyber-enabled theft of intellectual property, including trade secrets or other confidential business information, with the intent of providing competitive advantages to companies or commercial sectors.” (This commitment was later endorsed by the G20.) The cyber agreement followed on the heels of the first ever U.S. indictment of Chinese People’s Liberation Army hackers, in 2014; many at the time credited the indictments with facilitating the establishment of the norm. In hindsight, however, the fact that China and other countries have continued their theft of U.S. commercial secrets with little penalty suggests that the cybertheft norm is not much of a norm at all.

Even if norm construction were the objective, the Equifax allegations do not obviously breach a standard that the United States has embraced. The 2015 U.S.-China agreement did not mention hacking for national-security purposes (as opposed to commercial benefits), and the U.S. government has hardly suggested that it would forgo stealing data to protect U.S. national security. Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper illustrated this dilemma when discussing China’s 2015 breach of the Office of Personnel Management, which compromised background-investigation files on 22 million Americans. Clapper observed, “You have to kind of salute the Chinese for what they did. If we had the opportunity to do that, I don’t think we’d hesitate for a minute.” …

“NO LONGER TETHERED TO THE FUNDAMENTALS”: A NASSIM TALEB PROTÉGÉ ON HOW TO PREPARE FOR THE COMING MARKET CRASH

_{Hedge-funder Mark Spitznagel believes the central banks have created a monster they don’t know how to stop. And when it comes (like in 2008) he’ll be ready.}

What do you do when the bond market is basically uninvestable and the stock market keeps hitting all-time highs and you know in your gut that none of this will end well? What do investors—big and small—do in such unfortunate circumstances, like the ones we collectively find ourselves in now? I’ve been racking my brain for years to figure that out. Increasingly desperate and with the end getting near, I called Mark Spitznagel, the founder of Universa Investments, a hedge fund that exists to help investors grapple with the inevitable market crash.

Spitznagel, 48, and a former trader in the Chicago pits and at Morgan Stanley, understands what’s been happening and how for the last decade central banks around the world have been warping our financial markets by keeping interest rates artificially low. “These monetary distortions lead to this reckless reach for yields that we are all seeing,” he tells me. He sees risk being mispriced everywhere. “Randomly go look at a screen and it’s pretty crazy,” he says. “Big caps, small caps, credit markets, volatility; it’s crazy. Reach for yield is everywhere.” He thinks we are in one of those periods where people have lost their collective minds when it comes to the financial markets.

“When the stock market is no longer tethered to fundamentals—that’s the distorted environment we live in, that’s just where we are—when that happens, any price can print,” he says. “Any price can print. We shouldn’t be surprised by anything on the upside at this point because what’s tethering the markets? People need yield and when they pursue yield because of the momentum that we have in the markets today, anything is possible.”

He thinks the yield hunger games, as I like to call what’s been happening for the last decade, “makes people take crazy risks” because “interest rates and prices are wrong” and “otherwise wouldn’t even clear the market. They are just absolutely wrong. But of course, central bankers think they know what the natural rate is and that it will all be fine. They think they’ve got it all figured out.”

He disagrees. …

Video Goodnesses
_{and not-so-goodnesses}

Andrew Yang drops out of the presidential race, and Ronny Chieng reports on a family that took a test drive of Yang’s universal basic income proposal.

_{THANKS to Comedy Central and The Daily Show with Trevor Noah for making this program available on YouTube.}

In contrast to the messy Iowa caucus, the New Hampshire primary produced clear-cut results. And while they weren’t good for Joe Biden’s campaign, the Granite State vote tally meant the end of the road for Andrew Yang, Michael Bennet and Deval Patrick.

_{THANKS to CBS and The Late Show with Stehepn Colbert for making this program available on YouTube.}

As we all expected, Trump reacted to his impeachment acquittal with stoicism and grace. Just kidding! He’s on a revenge rampage and no political enemy, sanctuary city, or basic cable late night host is safe!!

_{THANKS to TBS and Full Frontal with Samantha Bee for making this program available on YouTube.}

Seth takes a closer look at Bernie Sanders’ New Hampshire primary win and Trump bullying the Justice Department into going easy on one of his convicted henchmen.

_{THANKS to NBC and Late Night with Seth Meyers for making this program available on YouTube.}

CAUTION: Some language may not be appropriate for work or children.

Me aussie commentary on a thrilling fight day. Undies Guy vs The Tall Man.

The Queere Mages of Midsomer Hagley were said to specialize in weather witchery and harvest plagues, but their main area of success seemed to be lottery fraud

— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) January 4, 2018

FINALLY . . .

Pablo Escobar’s Hippo Herd Is Treating Colombia’s Lakes Like One Big Toilet

_{They’re thriving, pooping, and fouling up the water around the drug lord’s former estate.}

_{You can’t easily spot the poop in the soupy green water, but it’s definitely down there.}

PABLO ESCOBAR, THE LATE COLOMBIAN drug lord who founded the notoriously violent Medellín Cartel, had a thing for hippos. He once installed a quartet of them on his extravagant Colombian estate, Hacienda Nápoles, where they joined a lavish menagerie. When Escobar was killed in 1993, the other creatures were schlepped off to zoos, but the huge hippos were deemed too unruly to wrangle. Free to roam, the four multiplied into dozens that have been ambling around the Magdalena River Basin ever since. They’ve been spotted more than 90 miles from Escobar’s estate, leaving prodigious droppings all the way.

The hippopotamus is native to sub-Saharan Africa and grazes on land but spends most of its life in water, and treats rivers and lakes as big toilets. Each year, a single hippo can dump more than 1,650 pounds of carbon and other nutrients into the water—and it does so mainly by pooping, says Jonathan Shurin, an ecologist at the University of California, San Diego.

A few years ago, Shurin started wondering what all that poop was doing to a smattering of small lakes on Escobar’s old estate in northwestern Colombia. To figure it out, he and his collaborators needed to get close. The poop doesn’t stink up the air, Shurin says, and “the lakes are all pretty green and soupy” to begin with.

_{A sign at Hacienda Nápoles reminds visitors to give the creatures some space.}

In 2017 and 2018, Shurin and seven collaborators sampled water from 14 humble lakes dotting Hacienda Nápoles. Some were known to harbor hippos. The researchers assessed water quality, oxygen levels, and signatures of stable isotopes. They found that hippos were hauling a lot of carbon into the water, and that, in the lakes where the ungulates wallow, the amount of dissolved oxygen sometimes dipped below the level that fish can handle. In hippo-studded lakes, researchers also detected larger quantities of cyanobacteria, which can cause stinky, harmful algae blooms. “Our results suggest that ongoing population growth and range expansion by hippos may use a threat to the quality of water resources in the Magdalena Basin,” Shurin and the other researchers write in a new paper in the journal Ecology. …

Similar to the secret menus offered by some fast-food chains, many polling locations will provide a list of secret candidates to those who request it.

— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) November 6, 2018

_{Ed. More tomorrow? Possibly. Probably. Maybe. Not? Likely, perhaps.}

ahem • • •

I HAVE BEEN, AND probably will be, able to cobble these errant ramblinbs barely uninteresting at all things more often because Karen thought my working in the early morning is unnecessary. Now if they’ll stop calling, asking me how to do stuff, maybe I’ll learn how to sleep in late once in a while.

Curiously, my Pandora stream and the mood stream from the start of this are playing the same piece: Glitter Love. And… providing that hyperlink, started a third stream of the piece. I think I’ll let it play out.

You're a mass extinction event posing as a civilization.

— God (@TheTweetOfGod) February 13, 2020

_{Ed. Curiously, the only person God follows is Justin Bieber.}

_{• • • to set a mood • • •}

_{^{• • • some of the things I read while eating breakfast • • •}}

In parts of Maine, one can purchase heavy antlered “moose hats” designed for warning off romantic rivals. While mostly considered gag gifts, hat owners can enter the annual Lovers’ Joust held at the local fairgrounds, where they face off against strangers—or even their partners.

— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) February 14, 2019

St. Valentine’s Skull

_{The skull of the patron saint of lovers lies in the Basilica di Santa Maria in Cosmedin—maybe.}

_{The skull is flanked by flowers. Embiggenable.}

A SKULL RESIDES IN A GLASS reliquary in Rome’s Basilica di Santa Maria in Cosmedin, surrounded by flowers. Lettering painted across the forehead identify the owner as none other than of the patron saint of lovers, St. Valentine.

Knowing just exactly whose skull it is, though, is complicated. There was more than one Catholic saint known as Saint Valentine, and there was approximately 1500 years between those martyrs’ deaths and the enthusiastic distribution and labeling of bodies in the Victorian era. Finally, and most troubling, there is the fact that no less than 10 places around the world claim to house the saint’s relics.

Though not much is really known of the real men behind the myth, at least two of the Saints Valentine lived in Italy in the late 3rd century, and another in North Africa around the same time. Over time, the stories of these different men seem to have merged. Most of the mythology about Valentine centers around him being a patron of lovers. In 496, Pope Gelasius I made February 14—originally part of the Roman festival of Lupercalia—a feast day dedicated to St. Valentine. …

Well into the 1960s, Minnesotans of Scandinavian ancestry followed the centuries-old Valentine’s tradition of constructing wax figurines of oneself and one’s beloved, which were then ceremonially melted into one large blob.

— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) February 14, 2019

The Undocumented Agent

_{After spending nearly two decades facilitating deportations as a Customs and Border Protection officer, Raul Rodriguez discovered that he was not a U.S. citizen. Now he’s at risk of deportation himself.}

One afternoon in April 2018, Raul Rodriguez was working on his computer at the U.S. Customs and Border Protection office in Los Indios, Texas, when two managers entered the building. Somebody must be in trouble, he thought. The managers usually arrived in pairs when they needed a witness.

For nearly two decades, Rodriguez had searched for people and drugs hidden in cargo waiting to get into the United States. He was proud of his work as a Customs and Border Protection officer; it gave him stability and a sense of purpose. Even in the spring of 2018, when public scrutiny of CBP began to intensify—the agency had officially started separating children from their parents—Rodriguez remained committed to his job. Though he wasn’t separating any families at the border, he’d canceled the visas and initiated the deportations of thousands of people in his years of service.

“Hey, Raulito,” one of the managers said, calling him over. Rodriguez walked past agents who were trying to look busy on their computers. Just two years from being eligible to retire, Rodriguez says he had an unblemished record. He couldn’t imagine what the managers wanted.

Rodriguez had been crossing bridges at the border since his parents, who were Mexican, had sent him to live with relatives in Texas when he was 5 years old. He’d wanted to stay in Mexico, but his mother insisted that he go: He was a United States citizen. She’d given birth to him just across the border in hopes that he would have a better life, and it was time for him to seize that opportunity. He started first grade at a public school in Mission, Texas. From then on, he saw his parents only on school breaks. …

Raul Rodriguez was proud to be a border agent. For nearly two decades, he had searched for people and drugs hidden in cargo before it entered the United States. In his years of service as a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officer, he’d initiated the deportations of thousands of people. His job gave him security and a sense of purpose. Then, one day in 2018, that all came crashing down. Investigators came to Rodriguez’s office to tell him his career in immigration—and his military service before that—was based on a lie. His United States citizenship was fraudulent. He was an undocumented immigrant himself.

McClatchy: newspaper publisher bankruptcy ‘a loss for democracy’, experts warn

_{Struggling firm insists there’ll be no changes in its 30 newsrooms but experts worry powerful journalism could be lost.}

_{The publisher of the Miami Herald, the Kansas City Star, the Sacramento Bee and dozens of other newspapers nationwide is filing for bankruptcy protection.}

To executives of McClatchy, Thursday’s bankruptcy of the second largest newspaper chain in the US is the fault of its pensioners, who outnumber current employees by a margin of 10 to one.

To industry analysts of the troubled newspaper sector it was simple economics, the inevitable consequence of a company expanding its empire through accumulated debt at the same time its customer base was shrinking.

Yet whatever the reasons for the failure of a company that publishes many of the biggest titles in American journalism, including the Miami Herald, Fort Worth Star Telegram, Charlotte Observer and its hometown Sacramento Bee, there is no doubting the cost: truth and knowledge in an era of rampant fake news and misinformation.

“It’s a big, big loss for American democracy,” said Nicholas Lemann, the dean emeritus of the Columbia school of journalism.

“It’s not just the super incredible home run Jeffrey Epstein story by the Miami Herald that’s gone, it’s the day-to-day coverage of the mayor, the governor, the major companies, you know just being there to make the people who run the place know they’re being watched.” …

5 TV Couples We Should Never Have Rooted For

Television loves “Will they or won’t they?” couples, and will drag shows way past their reasonable expiration date for years simply because they know we’ll tune in to see if two New Yorkers are gonna make out. The thing is, while that kind of romantic conflict is fun to watch in a fictional context starring Jennifer Aniston, it becomes borderline tragic when you apply the lens of reality. Here are just a few of the couples who’ve skewed our idea of what a healthy relationship is supposed to look like …

5. Scully And Mulder Would Never Be Happy Together

I’m sorry, but Dana Scully, a smokin’ hot doctor who works for the FBI, and Fox Mulder, a man whose main personality trait is that he masturbates to blurry videos of Bigfoot, make no sense as a couple. I’m not the only one who thinks that, either. Chris Carter, the creator of The X-Files, shocked everyone by saying just before the premiere of the reboot that the two had “a platonic relationship,” despite the series originally ending with them kissing over their infant son. He famously never wanted them to get together at all, but the internet couldn’t see two people that hot in the same room without screaming “MAKE THEM KISS,” until the writers were forced to do just that.

They clearly weren’t designed to go together, and the writers didn’t know what that would even look like, so they just decided to keep the relationship in a weird limbo for the entirety of the show’s run. They weren’t just a “Will they or won’t they?” couple, they were a “Did they? Wink wink” couple. That’s how little their romance is in the actual DNA of the show. The X-Files is fun because you have a person who doesn’t give two shits about the Loch Ness Monster being a buddy cop to someone who writes Nessie fanfiction. If the creator can’t be bothered to seem enthusiastic about the leads getting it on, then maybe we should ease off it a bit too?

Also, can you imagine what going on a date with Mulder would be like? Or a vacation? What is his actual personality when separated from his work? There are a lot of jokes about Mulder jerkin’ it, but that seems pretty reasonable, since he doesn’t have any kind of social life outside of the X-Files. He has no interest in dating. In Season 8, when Scully is preparing to have a second child from medical rape at the hands of a shadowy organization, she says she “can’t live like this, the subject of some unending X-file.” But that’s the only way Mulder wants to live. …

A TINY AREA OF THE BRAIN MAY ENABLE CONSCIOUSNESS, SAYS “EXHILARATING” STUDY

_{Scientists examine the “engine for consciousness.”}

_embiggenable

In a wild new experiment conducted on monkeys, scientists discovered that a tiny, but powerful area of the brain may enable consciousness: the central lateral thalamus. Activation of the central lateral thalamus and deep layers of the cerebral cortex drives pathways in the brain that carry information between the parietal and frontal lobe in the brain, the study suggests.

This brain circuit works as a sort-of “engine for consciousness,” the researchers say, enabling conscious thought and feeling in primates.

To zero in on this brain circuit, a scientific team put macaque monkeys under anesthesia, then stimulated different parts of their brain with electrodes at a frequency of 50 Hertz. Essentially, they zapped different areas of the brain and observed how the monkeys responded. When the central lateral thalamus was stimulated, the monkeys woke up and their brain function resumed — even though they were STILL UNDER ANESTHESIA. Seconds after the scientists switched off the stimulation, the monkeys went right back to sleep.

This research was published Wednesday in the journal Neuron.

“Science doesn’t often leave opportunity for exhilaration, but that’s what that moment was like for those of us who were in the room,” co-author Michelle Redinbaugh, a researcher at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, tells Inverse. …

Simple, solar-powered water desalination

_{System achieves new level of efficiency in harnessing sunlight to make fresh potable water from seawater.}

_{Tests on an MIT building rooftop showed that a simple proof-of-concept desalination device could produce clean, drinkable water at a rate equivalent to more than 1.5 gallons per hour for each square meter of solar collecting area.}

A completely passive solar-powered desalination system developed by researchers at MIT and in China could provide more than 1.5 gallons of fresh drinking water per hour for every square meter of solar collecting area. Such systems could potentially serve off-grid arid coastal areas to provide an efficient, low-cost water source.

The system uses multiple layers of flat solar evaporators and condensers, lined up in a vertical array and topped with transparent aerogel insulation. It is described in a paper appearing today in the journal Energy and Environmental Science, authored by MIT doctoral students Lenan Zhang and Lin Zhao, postdoc Zhenyuan Xu, professor of mechanical engineering and department head Evelyn Wang, and eight others at MIT and at Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China.

The key to the system’s efficiency lies in the way it uses each of the multiple stages to desalinate the water. At each stage, heat released by the previous stage is harnessed instead of wasted. In this way, the team’s demonstration device can achieve an overall efficiency of 385 percent in converting the energy of sunlight into the energy of water evaporation.

The device is essentially a multilayer solar still, with a set of evaporating and condensing components like those used to distill liquor. It uses flat panels to absorb heat and then transfer that heat to a layer of water so that it begins to evaporate. The vapor then condenses on the next panel. That water gets collected, while the heat from the vapor condensation gets passed to the next layer. …

Video Goodnesses
_{and not-so-goodnesses}

In 1969, two “conventional” married couples met, swapped partners, and lived in a group marriage, hoping to pioneer an alternative to divorce. It didn’t work. Read more: https://www.theatlantic.com/video/ind…

A massive iceberg breaks away from Antarctica, a freak-out over a reclined airplane seat goes viral, and a photographer wins a major award for his photo of fighting mice.

_{THANKS to Comedy Central and The Daily Show with Trevor Noah for making this program available to embed.}

President Trump and Michael Bloomberg slam each other on Twitter, and Bloomberg comes under fire for his past comments defending stop-and-frisk policing.

With the Democratic presidential candidates turning their attention to South Carolina ahead of that state’s primary, proud Charlestonian Stephen Colbert plans to be all over this election like shrimp on grits.

_{THANKS to CBS and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert for making this program available on YouTube.}

Few people outside of Hollywood know that the hosts of “Last Week Tonight” and “The Late Show,” John Oliver and Stephen Colbert, moonlight as movie stars. Tonight they offer a sneak peek at a few of their upcoming films.

Seth takes a closer look at President Trump and his attorney general turning the Justice Department into a political weapon to protect Trump’s friends and punish his enemies.

_{THANKS to NBC and Late Night with Seth Meyers for making this program available on YouTube.}

CAUTION: Some language may not be appropriate for work or children.

Here’s me commentary on a royal rumble between a Honey Badger, a Python, and a Jackal. Cheers to all you legends who’ve been sending this video over to me for a couple o’ months. Have a good one!

CAUTION: Some language may not be appropriate for work or children.

There is no other animal in the kingdom of all animals, as fearless as the crazyass Honey Badger. Nasty as hell, it eats practically whatever it wants. Randall is disgusted.

From the comments:

When I grow up, I want to be a honey badger.

はなが珍しく小さな箱に入ったので、まるにも横に並んでもらいました。そうしたら、まるがまさかの格好に…。It is rare that Hana gets into the small box.

Actual translation:

The hana was unusually in a small box, so I had it lined up sideways. If you do that, it looks like it ’s just…

Millard Fillmore's private collection of mummified beehives lives on in this small-town apothecary

— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) December 28, 2017

FINALLY . . .

The Rude, Cruel, and Insulting ‘Vinegar Valentines’ of the Victorian Era

_{Nothing like getting surprise hate mail from a would-be lover on February 14.}

_{A vinegar valentine for spurning advances.}

IN THE 1840S, HOPEFUL AMERICAN and British lovers sent lacy valentines with cursive flourishes and lofty poems by the thousands. But what to do if you didn’t love the person who had set their eyes on you?

In the Victorian era, there was no better way to let someone know they were unwanted than with the ultimate insult: the vinegar valentine. Also called “comic valentines,”* these unwelcome notes were sometimes crass and always a bit emotionally damaging in the anti-spirit of Valentine’s Day.

_{Vinegar valentines were not sweet at all.}

Vinegar valentines were commercially bought postcards that were less beautiful than their love-filled counterparts, and contained an insulting poem and illustration. They were sent anonymously, so the receiver had to guess who hated him or her; as if this weren’t bruising enough, the recipient paid the postage on delivery. In Civil War Humor, Cameron C. Nickels wrote that vinegar valentines were “tasteless, even vulgar,” and were sent to “drunks, shrews, bachelors, old maids, dandies, flirts, and penny pinchers, and the like.” He added that in 1847, sales between love-minded valentines and these sour notes were split at a major New York valentine publisher.

_{For the mean saleslady in your life.}

Some vinegar valentines were playful or sarcastic, and sold as comic valentines to soldiers—but many could really sting. “Lady Shoppers” and salesmen were sent or handed vinegar valentines admonishing their values; some vinegar valentines called physicians names like “Doctor Sure-Death” (a character who ran expensive bills), and others chided the “stupid postman” who was sending the note. One vinegar valentine titled “Old Maid” and reprinted by Orange Coast magazine in 1984, is more than a little harsh …

The Lazarusaur could return to life if left undisturbed in a cave for four days

— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) February 14, 2018

_{Ed. More tomorrow? Possibly. Probably. Maybe. Not? Likely, perhaps.}

_{• • • to set a mood • • •}

_{^{• • • some of the things I read while eating breakfast • • •}}

Worrall’s Drain is a mysterious, 4-foot-diameter stone disk embedded in the depths of the Mariana Trench. Named for its discoverer, it is rumored to plug a hole that could drain the oceans if uncovered.

— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) February 15, 2019

How a Minnesota Town Fell In and Out of Love With Its Ginormous Geese

_{Like most human-fowl relationships, it’s complicated.}

_{Love fades.}

ELEANORE SUTHERLAND, A LABORATORY SCIENCE student, used to have to stop her car in the middle of the street to clear the geese out of the way.

“They don’t react to car honks,” she says, “so you had to get out and chase them in order to get through. I’ve been bitten for trying to not run them over.”

Many cities in the United States and Canada have a problem with Canada geese. Rochester, Minnesota, however, is a town that is uniquely proud of—and plagued by—its goose population.

Best known as the home of the world-famous Mayo Clinic, Rochester is also home to a subspecies of Canada goose that was once thought to be extinct: the giant Canada goose. These birds look just like regular Canada geese, only much, much larger. In fact, a giant Canada goose can weigh up to 24 pounds and have a wingspan of more than seven feet—twice the size of a normal goose.

_{Welcome to the giant Canada goose capital of America.}

Normally, the narrative around extinct and endangered species is one of how mankind has made the world uninhabitable for wildlife. Rochester’s story is exactly the opposite: Its love affair with these geese was once so strong that it took a species from near extinction to omnipresent nuisance. …

In early 2004, NASA offered a brief period during which one could become ceremonially married to the Opportunity rover.

— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) February 15, 2019

YUVAL NOAH HARARI’S HISTORY OF EVERYONE, EVER

_{His blockbuster “Sapiens” predicted the possible end of humankind. Now what?}

_{Harari, who is slim, soft-spoken, and relentless in his search for an audience, defines himself as both a historian and a philosopher.}

In 2008, Yuval Noah Harari, a young historian at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, began to write a book derived from an undergraduate world-history class that he was teaching. Twenty lectures became twenty chapters. Harari, who had previously written about aspects of medieval and early-modern warfare—but whose intellectual appetite, since childhood, had been for all-encompassing accounts of the world—wrote in plain, short sentences that displayed no anxiety about the academic decorum of a study spanning hundreds of thousands of years. It was a history of everyone, ever. The book, published in Hebrew as “A Brief History of Humankind,” became an Israeli best-seller; then, as “Sapiens,” it became an international one. Readers were offered the vertiginous pleasure of acquiring apparent mastery of all human affairs—evolution, agriculture, economics—while watching their personal narratives, even their national narratives, shrink to a point of invisibility. President Barack Obama, speaking to CNN in 2016, compared the book to a visit he’d made to the pyramids of Giza.

“Sapiens” has sold more than twelve million copies. “Three important revolutions shaped the course of history,” the book proposes. “The Cognitive Revolution kick-started history about 70,000 years ago. The Agricultural Revolution sped it up about 12,000 years ago. The Scientific Revolution, which got under way only 500 years ago, may well end history and start something completely different.” Harari’s account, though broadly chronological, is built out of assured generalization and comparison rather than dense historical detail. “Sapiens” feels like a study-guide summary of an immense, unwritten text—or, less congenially, like a ride on a tour bus that never stops for a poke around the ruins. (“As in Rome, so also in ancient China: most generals and philosophers did not think it their duty to develop new weapons.”) Harari did not invent Big History, but he updated it with hints of self-help and futurology, as well as a high-altitude, almost nihilistic composure about human suffering. He attached the time frame of aeons to the time frame of punditry—of now, and soon. His narrative of flux, of revolution after revolution, ended urgently, and perhaps conveniently, with a cliffhanger. “Sapiens,” while acknowledging that “history teaches us that what seems to be just around the corner may never materialise,” suggests that our species is on the verge of a radical redesign. Thanks to advances in computing, cyborg engineering, and biological engineering, “we may be fast approaching a new singularity, when all the concepts that give meaning to our world—me, you, men, women, love and hate—will become irrelevant.”

Harari, who is slim, soft-spoken, and relentless in his search for an audience, has spent the years since the publication of “Sapiens” in conversations about this cliffhanger. His two subsequent best-sellers—“Homo Deus” (2017) and “21 Lessons for the 21st Century” (2018)—focus on the present and the near future. Harari now defines himself as both a historian and a philosopher. He dwells particularly on the possibility that biometric monitoring, coupled with advanced computing, will give corporations and governments access to more complete data about people—about their desires and liabilities—than people have about themselves. A life under such scrutiny, he said recently, is liable to become “one long, stressing job interview.”

If Harari weren’t always out in public, one might mistake him for a recluse. He is shyly oracular. He spends part of almost every appearance denying that he is a guru. But, when speaking at conferences where C.E.O.s meet public intellectuals, or visiting Mark Zuckerberg’s Palo Alto house, or the Élysée Palace, in Paris, he’ll put a long finger to his chin and quietly answer questions about Neanderthals, self-driving cars, and the series finale of “Game of Thrones.” Harari’s publishing and speaking interests now occupy a staff of twelve, who work out of a sunny office in Tel Aviv, where an employee from Peru cooks everyone vegan lunches. Here, one can learn details of a scheduled graphic novel of “Sapiens”—a cartoon version of Harari, wearing wire-framed glasses and looking a little balder than in life, pops up here and there, across time and space. There are also plans for a “Sapiens” children’s book, and a multi-season “Sapiens”-inspired TV drama, covering sixty thousand years, with a script by the co-writer of Mel Gibson’s “Apocalypto.” …

What I learned at the Ayn Rand conference

_{In San Francisco, devotees of the US philosopher and author assembled to revere her doctrine of selfishness. But if we expand the notion of “the self”, could Rand’s ideas yet be harnessed for progressive ends?}

If you’d walked past the W San Francisco in the autumn of 2018, you might have seen an unusual sight. Along with several other Marriott-owned hotels across the US, the high-end establishment in San Francisco’s South of Market district was the site of a persistent picket line – the result of a tense contract negotiation between Marriott and the labour union UNITE HERE. Even in the dead of night, striking workers and their supporters maintained the picket, drumming and chanting while carrying signs that stated “One job should be enough”.

It took two months of almost constant strikes, but the union’s campaign succeeded. On 3 December 2018, Marriott management conceded to a host of worker demands, including pay rises, increased pension contributions, and better protection against sexual harassment. Through collective action, workers were able to secure substantive gains they likely wouldn’t have been able to achieve alone.

On 25 January 2020, the W San Francisco hosted a different kind of crowd. That Saturday, the Ayn Rand Institute was holding an all-day conference on Objectivism, a school of thought developed by the eponymous US philosopher and author, which hails individual rationality and free-market capitalism. No union signs could be seen here; instead, about a hundred lanyard-wearing attendees milled around a conference room on the fourth floor. On a side table, stacks of Rand books, including The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, were being given away for free (her books have sold more than 30 million copies worldwide). In this quiet conference room, disturbed by neither drumming nor chanting, the focus was the individual, rather than the collective. The programme included talks entitled “The Virtue of Selfishness” and “How to be the Hero of Your Own Life”.

I attended primarily as a sceptic. The theme of the conference was Silicon Valley, and as I’d recently written a decidedly anti-capitalist book about the tech industry (Abolish Silicon Valley), I found the prospect of a pro-capitalist perspective dubious, but intriguing. I was perplexed by the conference website’s suggestion that Silicon Valley lacked rigorous intellectual underpinnings; I had naively imagined that the region was already a Randian paradise. In a city marked by extreme inequality – one renowned for having the world’s highest density of billionaires amid vast homelessness – it was jarring to see such a brazen celebration of capitalist ideals. Why, I wondered, would anyone feel the need to defend so-called “wealth creators”? Weren’t their wealth hoards defence enough? …

5 Historical Places We’ve Managed To Totally Trash

With nearly 8 billion people living on Earth, there are all kinds of different folks and an almost endless variety of strokes. But despite differing cultures and backgrounds, there are a few things the human race almost universally values — such as coffee, or Tom Hanks, or things that are very old. But while most people unaffiliated with ISIS have proper respect for historic places or things, there are times when someone clearly missed the memo. Like when …

5. Some Guy Destroyed Shakespeare’s House Because He Got Tired Of Tourists

Unlike many of history’s greatest artists, William Shakespeare was fortunate enough to be popular, even famous, in his lifetime. But living ye olde life of celebrity can take its toll, so he gave up the bustle of London for a house in the quiet village of Stratford-upon-Avon (because every English village has to have a name of Targaryen-title-like length). While living there, he wrote his last few plays, and liked to read in the shade of a mulberry tree he planted himself. Well, before you Willy Shakers (the preferred term for Shakespeare fans) plan a trip to visit, we’ve got a bit of bad news.

You see, except for camera phones, fans in the 1600s were a lot like fans today: loud, obnoxious, and not giving a fuck about personal space. This was a problem for Reverend Francis Gastrell, who purchased Shakespeare’s former home in 1753. Almost immediately, Gastrell became irritated by the constant stream of tourists nosing around the place and peeking into the garden. In 1756, Gastrell’s wife ordered the second-most unkindest cut of all and had the famous mulberry tree chopped down. That failed to stem the tide of visitors, so in 1759, Gastrell decided to handle things once and for all by tearing down the house.

The people of Stratford were enraged, and Gastrell became so incredibly unpopular that he got out, out of the damned spot and moved 45 miles away to Lichfield. The house was never rebuilt, but archaeologists began studying the site in 2010 and located its foundations, as well as the remains of Shakespeare’s kitchen and cellar. Today the place is a garden, with sculptures and benches featuring famous lines from his plays and poems. It also has a VR tour of the house where you can presumably tell a CGI Gastrell to go to hell. …

How ultra-processed food took over your shopping basket

_{It’s cheap, attractive and convenient, and we eat it every day – it’s difficult not to. But is ultra-processed food making us ill and driving the global obesity crisis?}

_Embiggenable

Nearly three decades ago, when I was an overweight teenager, I sometimes ate six pieces of sliced white toast in a row, each one slathered in butter or jam. I remember the spongy texture of the bread as I took it from its plastic bag. No matter how much of this supermarket toast I ate, I hardly felt sated. It was like eating without really eating. Other days, I would buy a box of Crunchy Nut Cornflakes or a tube of Pringles: sour cream and onion flavour stackable snack chips, which were an exciting novelty at the time, having only arrived in the UK in 1991. Although the carton was big enough to feed a crowd, I could demolish most of it by myself in a sitting. Each chip, with its salty and powdery sour cream coating, sent me back for another one. I loved the way the chips – curved like roof tiles – would dissolve slightly on my tongue.

After one of these binges – because that is what they were – I would speak to myself with self-loathing. “What is wrong with you?” I would say to the tear-stained face in the mirror. I blamed myself for my lack of self-control. But now, all these years later, having mostly lost my taste for sliced bread, sugary cereals and snack chips, I feel I was asking myself the wrong question. It shouldn’t have been “What is wrong with you?” but “What is wrong with this food?”

Back in the 90s, there was no word to cover all the items I used to binge on. Some of the things I over-ate – crisps or chocolate or fast-food burgers – could be classified as junk food, but others, such as bread and cereal, were more like household staples. These various foods seemed to have nothing in common except for the fact that I found them very easy to eat a lot of, especially when sad. As I ate my Pringles and my white bread, I felt like a failure for not being able to stop. I had no idea that there would one day be a technical explanation for why I found them so hard to resist. The word is “ultra-processed” and it refers to foods that tend to be low in essential nutrients, high in sugar, oil and salt and liable to be overconsumed.

Which foods qualify as ultra-processed? It’s almost easier to say which are not. I got a cup of coffee the other day at a train station cafe and the only snacks for sale that were not ultra-processed were a banana and a packet of nuts. The other options were: a panini made from ultra-processed bread, flavoured crisps, chocolate bars, long-life muffins and sweet wafer biscuits – all ultra-processed.

What characterises ultra-processed foods is that they are so altered that it can be hard to recognise the underlying ingredients. These are concoctions of concoctions, engineered from ingredients that are already highly refined, such as cheap vegetable oils, flours, whey proteins and sugars, which are then whipped up into something more appetising with the help of industrial additives such as emulsifiers. …

PREPARE TO SPEND A WHILE; it’s The Long Read.

Why SpaceX Wants a Tiny Texas Neighborhood So Badly

_{The residents of Boca Chica didn’t ask Elon Musk to move in, but now his company is taking over.}

Mary McConnaughey was watching from her car when the rocket exploded on the beach. The steel-crunching burst sent the top of the spacecraft flying, and a cloud of vapor billowed into the sky and drifted toward the water.

McConnaughey and her husband had planned to drive into town that day in late November, but when they pulled out onto the street, they noticed a roadblock, a clear sign that SpaceX technicians were preparing to test hardware. She didn’t want to miss anything, so she turned toward the launchpad, parked her car at the end of a nearby street, and got her camera ready.

The dramatic test was a crucial step in one of Elon Musk’s most cherished and ambitious projects, the very reason, in fact, he founded SpaceX in 2002. Weeks earlier, Musk had stood in front of the prototype—164 feet of gleaming stainless steel, so archetypically spaceship-like that it could have been a borrowed prop from a science-fiction movie—and beamed. He envisions that the completed transportation system, a spaceship-and-rocket combo named Starship, will carry passengers as far away as Mars. A few months before the explosion, hundreds of people came to the facility in South Texas, on the edge of the Gulf Coast, to see the spaceship, and thousands more watched online. “It’s really gonna be pretty epic to see that thing take off and come back,” Musk gushed at the event, as if he were seeing the finished Starship in front of him.

McConnaughey was there, and even posed for a picture with Musk. At the end of the night, she made the short trip home to her house on a small road lined with stout palm trees. McConnaughey lives in Boca Chica Village, a tiny neighborhood located in startling proximity to SpaceX’s facilities. Many of the village’s residents have lived there for years, long before SpaceX arrived, some before the company even existed.

Friction between next-door neighbors is quite different when one of them is a rocket company. Instead of an ugly fence, there might be an ugly fence with massive tanks of cryogenic liquid behind it. When residents find papers stuck in their front door, the notes don’t ask them to keep the noise down or clean up after their dogs; they warn them that their windows could shatter. …

Video Goodnesses
_{and not-so-goodnesses}

Bill recaps the top stories of the week, including Trump’s interference in the Roger Stone trial and Michael Bloomberg’s free-spending presidential campaign.

_{THANKS to HBO and Real Time with Bill Maher for making this program available on YouTube.}

In a special Valentine’s Day New Rule, Bill explores the latest emerging sexual trend: people who don’t need people – and why it’s bad news for humanity.

These are the top 10 Reasons for Marriage amendment to stop or prevent Robosexual (Human & A.I.) Marriage:

1) It will destroy the institution of marriage and lead to massive numbers of children born out of incubators.

2) The introduction of legalized Robosexual marriages will lead directly to polygamy, incest, bestiality and other alternatives to two-human unions.

3) With the family out of the way, all rights and privileges of marriage will accrue to Robosexual partners without the legal en tangle ments and commitments here to fore associated with it.

4) With the legalization of Robosexual marriage, every public school in the nation will be required to teach that this perversion is the moral equivalent of traditional marriage between a human and a human.

5) From that point forward, courts will not be able to favor a traditional family involving one human and one human over a Robosexual couple in matters of adoption. Children will be placed in homes with parents representing only one human on an equal basis with those having two humans.

6) Foster-care parents will be required to undergo “sensitivity training” to rid themselves of bias in favor of traditional marriage, and will have to affirm Robosexuality in children and teens.

7) How about the impact on Social Security if there are millions of new dependents that will be entitled to survivor benefits? It will amount to billions of dollars on an already overburdened system. And how about the cost to American businesses? Unproductive costs mean fewer jobs for those who need them. Are state and municipal governments to be required to raise taxes substantially to provide extended warrantee insurance and other benefits to millions of new “spouses and other dependents”?

8) Marriage among Robosexuals will spread throughout the world, just as pornography did after the Nixon Commission declared obscene material “beneficial” to mankind. Almost instantly, the English-speaking countries liberalized their laws against smut. America continues to be the fountainhead of filth and immorality, and its influence is global.

9) Perhaps most important, the spread of the Gospel of Flying Spaghetti Monster will be severely curtailed. The human pirate has been FSM’s primary vehicle for evangelism since the beginning.

10) The technology war will be over, the world may soon become “as it was in the days of Bush”. This is the climactic moment in the battle to preserve the internet, and future generations hang in the balance.

Questions:
1) If an AI robot has feelings and is capable of learning as well as making consensual decisions, do you think they should be allowed the right to marry? Please let us know in the comments section below.

_{Ed. There is no comment section here.}

CAUTION: Some language may not be appropriate for work or children.

Me critical analysis of Pandas.

The Ozark Mountain Elf was dismissed as a legend until 1975, when naturalists discovered that it not only exists but is the only species of monkey native to North America.

— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) November 14, 2018

FINALLY . . .

The Legend of a Cave and the Traces of the Underground Railroad in Ohio

_{In 1892, a newspaper described a cave that sheltered 21 formerly enslaved people. Ohioans are still looking for it.}

_{Before the Civil War, the Middletown area was home to a network of abolitionist Quakers. This image shows modern-day Middletown, with the Great Miami River in the background.}

WHEN DONALD ALTSTAETTER WAS GROWING up, not far from Middletown, Ohio, he overheard a mysterious conversation between a local landowner and a hunter. The landowner was willing to allow the hunter onto his property, but only if he stayed away from a specific area. “If I find out you’ve been there, I’ll never allow you back,” Altstaetter remembers the landowner saying.

Alstaetter is now a retired high school principal in his 90s, yet all these decades later, he has never forgotten that conversation. The landowner’s words remind him of a dark local legend, rooted in several newspaper articles from 1892. Before the Civil War, homes in this part of rural Ohio were a part of the Underground Railroad. Once, the story goes, a nearby cave provided shelter to 21 people who were escaping slavery in the South. But the cave is said to have filled with toxic fumes, and purportedly became a sealed tomb.

More than 150 years after the end of the Civil War, the story of the cave still has a remarkable hold on the local imagination. Marlese Durr, a sociology professor at Wright State University who has studied the legacy of slavery, calls it “one of the first mysteries of the Underground Railroad in Ohio.” Durr hopes that it will inspire people to look more closely at history, and help them see that slavery is not a closed chapter. “They think it is over, but it isn’t over,” she says.

_{Donald Altstaetter, a retired high school principal in his 90s, has spent years researching the legend of the cave.}

On a late-winter day in early 2019, before invasive honeysuckle has had a chance to strangle the forest floor, Altstaetter walks slowly toward the edge of a patch of woods. His steps are labored, his walker sinks into the mud with each step. “Up there,” he says, referring to the cave. “It’s up there.” Years earlier, he had seen a spot where the rocks looked disturbed and inconsistent with the surroundings. …

Widely assumed to be a representation of time, the blinking 12:00 displayed by unset digital clocks is actually the name "Oozi", upside-down. It is an homage to Uziel "Oozi" Kirschbaum, a mostly unknown engineer whose innovations are still used in modern digital clocks.

— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) November 14, 2018

_{Ed. More tomorrow? Possibly. Probably. Maybe. Not? Unlikely, perhaps.}

You have $500 in the bank, and you spend $2.75 on a subway swipe in the crumbling MTA.

A billionaire has $64 billion in the bank, and spends $350,000,000 on TV ads bragging about how good of a mayor they were.

You’ve spent more of your wealth than the billionaire has.

— Jack Califano (@jackcalifano) February 16, 2020

_{• • • to set a mood • • •}

_{Ed. I have no idea why I’m finding it barely uninteresting at all to simultaneously listen to two different streams while coding up these errant ramblings barely uninteresting at all things. Wanna trty? Stream this, while letting the above continue to play. Also it works good when you’re a little bit high. Or tired.}

_{^{• • • some of the things I read while eating breakfast • • •}}

This 19th-century mathematician built a computer whose inner workings were based on the movement of frogs.

— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) January 17, 2019

Peregrine Falcons Came Home to Roost in a Boeing 737 Plant

_{After pausing production of the 737 MAX, Boeing will get help evicting its resident birds of prey.}

_{A peregrine falcon who just had lunch.}

FOR TWO YEARS, A RUMOR flew through Seattle’s small community of raptor enthusiasts: An unusual pair of birds had taken over a Boeing airplane assembly plant. No one was allowed inside the plant, so the rumor remained a rumor. “An occasional birder would say something about it, that they heard thirdhand from a Boeing worker, but we never got any confirmation,” says Ed Deal, the president of the Urban Raptor Conservancy. “Until this summer.”

The birds were a nesting pair of peregrine falcons, which are approximately the size of crows, and are the fastest birds in the world. The Seattle Times reports that the pair apparently lived in the plant for four years, taking refuge in a nest they wedged on top of a metal girder. Deal estimates that it was more than 60 feet off the floor. The birds feasted on pigeons and starlings that would flutter into the hangar, minding their own business, and they left streaks of poop the color of alabaster. “This is a fairly unusual situation,” CJ Nothum, a Boeing spokesperson, writes in an email.

The Boeing factory, located in the Seattle suburb of Renton, is the final assembly point of the Boeing 737 MAX, which was involved in crashes in 2018 and 2019 that killed 346 people. “When the 737 assembly line is in full swing, they’re producing one finished airplane a day,” Deal says. “The doors open at least once a day for a plane to go out, letting the birds come in.” The plant shut down indefinitely in January, according to The Seattle Times, which means its doors will open far less often than usual, Deal says.

_{Boeing’s 737 plant in Renton, a peregrine falcon hunting ground for the past four years.}

Though the plant’s daily exhalation welcomed the falcons, it also invited in a host of other birds, such as pigeons, gulls, and starlings. These smaller, gentler birds are frequent occupants of airport terminals and hangars, as the rafters offer a spot to roost that’s often free from predators, according to the company BirdBarrier.com, whose website has three main sections: “About Birds,” “Where They Perch,” and “How to Stop Them.” …

MY TAKEAWAY: Makes me wonder if the value of my own website, BirdJanitor.com, will increase as demand soars for janitorial services to clear up the splattered remains of dismembered creatures killed in large indoor spaces by birds of prey.

The Flat Time Theory, proposed in 1934 by banker and philanthropist Conroy Welson, presumes—among other things—that all human beings live precisely 200 years, but at different rates.

— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) November 16, 2018

How Private Equity Ruined a Beloved Grocery Chain

_{An investment firm was supposed to help Fairway survive. So why is the company now filing for bankruptcy?}

The ews of Fairway Market’s second foray into bankruptcy, this time with the threat that stores could be liquidated to pay off the unsustainable debt hanging over the grocery chain, dismayed its legions of loyal Manhattan customers. Fairway’s New York City stores draw an eclectic crowd of shoppers: local residents, professors and students at schools from the City University of New York to Columbia University, and others seeking its fresh-baked breads, unusual cheeses, and wide range of international foods. Upscale and idiosyncratic, with its humble roots still evident, Fairway is emblematic of the city in which it has become a storied institution. But, fatefully, it is also emblematic of the way private-equity investors—including Fairway’s former owner Sterling Investment Partners—have hastened the fall of brick-and-mortar stores caught in the so-called retail apocalypse.

The story is a familiar one, even for shoppers hundreds of miles from the nearest Fairway. Most consumers have seen some of their favorite chains—Toys “R” Us, Shopko, Claire’s, Payless ShoeSource, Nine West, Gymboree, Staples, and A&P, among many others—face financial distress and shutter some or all of their stores. Like Fairway, these businesses were owned by private equity, a form of finance in which investors buy, overhaul, and then sell companies. Also like Fairway, the other retail chains were profitable at the time they were taken over. Before those buyouts, these businesses had low debt levels and owned their real estate—a necessary precaution for companies suddenly facing more competition or industries seeing widespread changes.

Most companies mean to stay in business for the long term, and those in the industries most exposed to the business cycle know that low debt and no rent are the keys to surviving hard times and then prospering when the good times return. The motivation is very different for private-equity owners, who operate under a shorter time frame, often just three to five years, before moving on. For them, low levels of debt and high levels of real-estate ownership present a get-rich-quick opportunity.

The low debt means that private-equity firms can acquire retail chains by putting up very little of their own money and can take on high levels of debt that the company, not the investors who own it, must ultimately repay. The real estate gives investors an opportunity to sell off some of it and pocket the proceeds, leaving the stores to pay rent on properties they once owned. Especially attractive to private-equity owners is the high cash flow in retail operations. Private-equity owners have not been shy about putting their hands in the till to pay themselves exorbitant dividends. …

Plastic roads?

_{More research is needed before CDOT turns waste into roadways.}

At the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) campus, there is a 250-foot stretch of road that’s unlike any other in the U.S. It’s made with asphalt that uses recycled plastic waste instead of conventional fossil fuel bitumen — and you probably wouldn’t even notice the difference if you were standing on it.

“It’s flat and black and smooth,” says Gary Oshima, the constructions commodity designer at UCSD. “If you happen to be an asphalt installer, there’s a little bit of a sheen on the asphalt they can notice, but no way that regular people would know the difference.”

The plastic asphalt offers a new way to reuse plastic waste, while reducing the replacement/maintenance costs of conventional roads by making them stronger.

The company that installed the UCSD road, MacRebur Plastic Road Company, claims that, “After years of tests and trials all over the world,” the method results in “enhanced and more durable roads” made from 100% plastic waste material that does not leach plastic or toxic fumes into the environment.

While places like the U.K. and the City of Los Angeles are enthusiastically pursuing pilot project programs for plastic roads, the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) remains hesitant to adopt this new sustainable solution too quickly. …

5 Unknown People Who Shaped History (While Being Lunatics)

“It’s so crazy, it just might work” is a groan-worthy stock phrase in cheesy action movies. But believe it or not, there’s a stunning amount of historical precedent for that type of thing happening. And crazy ideas don’t only come from normal folks in stressful situations. Many times they come from genuine lunatics who just know what works. We’re talking about people like …

5. The Prussian Commander Who Defeated Napoleon At Waterloo Believed He Was Pregnant With An Elephant

The military leader who was arguably the most vital to kicking Napoleon Bonaparte in the boules one last time was Prussian Field Marshal Gebhard Leberecht von Blucher, Furst von Wahlstatt. In what we’re hoping was a sign of respect, his soldiers simply called him “Marshal Forward,” on account of his tendency to stampede in battle, knocking down anything in his path. And who could blame him? Marshal Blucher believed he had a little elephant in him, after all.

During the Battle of Waterloo, the Prussian army was integral to defeating the French, launching an exhausting march to catch Napoleon’s army at the rear. It was a dangerous offensive that would not have happened without the strong leadership of Blucher, who rallied his troops to attack once more after suffering a crushing defeat the day before. But despite his reputation for frontline leadership, the aggressive field marshal had to excuse himself from combat on account of a medical emergency. He was about to give birth — and here’s where we gotta take a bit of a deep breath — to a baby elephant.

This wasn’t just some “Don’t ask, don’t tell” way of asking fellow soldiers if they would like to see his trunk. Historians agree that in the harrowing two months before Waterloo, Blucher had suffered a schizophrenic episode that had him convinced the French impregnated him with an unplanned pachyderm, despite his physiology, advanced age (nobody’s getting preggo in their 70s), and difference in species. He was also getting into fistfights with ghosts, and hopped around on his tiptoes because he believed the floor was lava (his servants had been paid to heat it by the French). To his credit, Blucher knew there was something wrong with his head. It was made of stone, which is why he regularly asked people to hit him with a hammer.

Despite other superior officers knowing of Blucher’s breakdown, they considered him such an amazing battlefield commander that the chief of the Prussian General Staff himself wrote that he “must lead though he have a hundred elephants inside of him.” They were right to trust the obvious madman, as Blucher managed to lead his forces better than the Duke of Wellington could, striking a decisive blow at Napoleon’s troops which led to their retreat. For this he was later granted a sovereign princedom and was decorated officer, which must’ve made his large grey son very proud. …

Human compost funerals ‘better for environment’

_{The process takes 30 days and relatives can then scatter the remains on plants or under a tree.}

A US firm has given scientific details of its “human composting” process for environmentally friendly funerals.

A pilot study on deceased volunteers showed that soft tissue broke down safely and completely within 30 days.

The firm, Recompose, claims that its process saves more than a tonne of carbon, compared to cremation or traditional burial.

It says that it will offer the world’s first human composting service in Washington state from next February.

Speaking exclusively to BBC News, Recompose’s chief executive and founder, Katrina Spade, said that concerns about climate change had been a big factor in so many people expressing interest in the service.

“So far 15,000 people have signed up to our newsletter. And the legislation to allow this in the state received bi-partisan support enabling it to pass the first time it was tabled,” she said.

“The project has moved forward so quickly because of the urgency of climate change and the awareness we have to put it right.” …

Resource brokers

_{Peer support professionals have become integral for Colorado’s behavioral health workforce. But will they get the support they need to keep going?}

Victor King applied for his job at Mental Health Partners (MHP) on a handwritten note from the Boulder County Jail. He was in the transitions program at the time, taking classes and seeing counselors to help him prepare to reenter the community. One of the counselors told him about a job opening at MHP for a peer support professional, someone with a history of mental health issues or substance abuse who uses their experience to help support and mentor others.

“Peer support is going to meet someone where they’re at with respect and dignity,” King says. “Being able to connect with someone and really sit down and listen to them and be authentic, you know, creates a connection, which is important. It also shows people that hope is possible.”

King first came to Boulder in 1993 as a college student at the University of Colorado, but he quickly got into the party scene and eventually dropped out. When he experienced a loss in his family, he didn’t have the appropriate coping skills, he says, which led to substance abuse and bouts of homelessness, almost entirely in Boulder. The longest stretch was from 2010 to 2014, and he eventually landed in jail.

King wasn’t initially hired by MHP. He still had to go through the drug court program and finish his probation. Plus, he wanted to get his son out of foster care. In the meantime, he completed a five-day peer support training and eventually applied for the job again. …

DEGREE OF DIFFICULTY: “No matter how great my story is, it’s not about me, it’s about this person and their experiences and if they’re ready to get help. So sometimes I can show them those ropes and sometimes they have to find it on their own.”

Video Goodnesses
_{and not-so-goodnesses}

America’s infrastructure is in desperate need of more than $4 trillion in upgrades and improvements. President Trump campaigned heavily on overhauling the country’s crumbling infrastructure and promised to invest big to fix it.

VICE correspondent Thomas Morton explores the most vital bridges, tunnels, and waterways in the U.S. to see how much the situation has deteriorated and to find out if the Trump Administration’s promise is being kept.

_{THANKS to HBO and VICE News for making this program available on YouTube.}

As presidential candidates continue to discuss Medicare for All, John Oliver explores how much it might cost, what it will change, and who it will help.

_{THANKS to HBO and Last Week Tonight for making this program available on YouTube.}

Everything you need to know about Bernie Sanders.

_{THANKS to Comedy Central and The Daily Show with Trevor Noah for making this program available on YouTube.}

CAUTION: Some language may not be appropriate for work or children.

Here’s me commentary on Public Transport. Have a mint week ya legends!

標準装備。Standard equipment.

The Bowerbird puts on a show to impress the female but will it be good enough? Taken from Life Story.

_{THANKS to BBC Earth for making this program available on YouTube.}

French inventor Jacqueline Duchenne terrified audiences with her "Duchennotypes"; X-ray-like photographic exposures that supposedly revealed peoples' souls.

— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) November 16, 2018

FINALLY . . .

What comes to mind when asked the question What is coffee rust?

What Tiny Snail Poop Could Mean For Latin America’s Coffee Farms

_{“I just followed a trail of excrement.”}

_{A small snail’s new diet has some big implications.}

ZACHARY HAJIAN-FOROOSHANI NEVER EXPECTED TO find snails in the mountainous, coffee-producing heart of Puerto Rico. In 2016, when he was a University of Michigan masters student, he and his peers noticed some curious excrement on the undersides of coffee plants, which they eventually traced to the invasive Asian tramp snail. “Cool things pop out and you follow up with them,” says Hajian-Forooshani, who has made the snails and their colorful poop the subject of his doctoral research. “I just followed a trail of excrement.”

The oddly colored snail poop was, not coincidentally, the same bright-orange color as coffee rust, a parasitic fungus that’s coming for your morning buzz.

_{Zachary Hajian-Forooshani at work, surveying the coffee farms of central Puerto Rico.}

Coffee leaf rust has been a menace for more than a century. After appearing on Sri Lanka in the late 1800s, it enveloped the island within 20 years, ridding what was once the world’s greatest coffee exporter of its cash crop in near entirety. Traveling on the wind across Africa’s coffee belt, coffee rust reached the Atlantic coast by the 1950s. Its arrival in Brazil in 1970 sowed panic in a heavily coffee-reliant economy, and within 12 years, no coffee-producing region in Latin America, where seven-eighths of the world’s joe is produced, was rust-free. Today, 70 percent of Central American farms are infected, costing the region $3.2 billion in damage and lost income.

Much to Hajian-Forooshani’s delight, these tiny mollusks were eating coffee leaf rust without damaging the plant itself. …

1979's "Heavy Duty" was the first pornographic film to feature only pickup trucks—and no human actors

— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) January 17, 2018

_{Ed. More tomorrow? Possibly. Probably. Maybe. Not? Likely, perhaps.}

_{• • • something google suggested • • •}

Hello beautiful people! We are proud to present to you, our latest song tuned to 528Hz, made with the intent to serve as an anchor of love & positive vibration for miracle healing of the mind, body & soul. Let the frequency of love ascend you into the inner heavens of bliss. – Love, The Mantra Collective.

Read more about the 528Hz frequencies on our website: www.tribeofthehealers.com

_{^{• • • some of the things I read while eating breakfast • • •}}

AngelBrix, produced by the Albermarle China Studio, were religiously themed statuettes that could be combined to form various structures. No longer made, they were endorsed by televangelists throughout the 1980s and were even used to build an entire church in Missouri.

— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) February 18, 2019

The Man Who Turned His Home Into a ‘Mosaic Palace’

_{Yossi Lugasi spent decades making portraits of famous people out of smashed ceramics.}

_{Political leaders in tile form, created by Yossi Lugasi. Embiggenable.}

YOSSI LUGASI WAS TIRED DURING during the final months of his life. He had a hard time getting out of bed, moving or eating. His wife, Yaffa, begged him to finish the portrait of Donald Trump he started working on when he was still feeling better. Lugasi would get up, drag himself to his work table, glue some orange, pink and yellow mosaic pieces to a net, and go back to bed.

Lugasi passed away a year ago. The small mosaic portrait of Trump hangs in a discreet corner of the living room in his apartment, in the Israeli port city of Jaffa. It is hidden among hundreds of such portraits, mostly of Zionist leaders, Jewish historical figures, and Israeli pop culture icons. The portraits cover the walls, doors, door frames and floors of the humble housing project apartment. They spill out onto the roof: artists and actors, prime ministers, presidents and philosophers, Holocaust martyrs, war heroes, members of failed American peace conferences, and the spy Eli Cohen, portrayed by Sacha Baron Cohen in the Netflix series The Spy. The portraits hang on walls on the roof, overlooking the Jaffa projects, blending into a landscape of solar water heaters and clothes lines.

_{There are over 600 tile portraits in and on Lugasi’s apartment building. Embiggenable.}

Over four decades, Lugasi—who left school during the 5th grade, was barely literate and never studied art formally—created no less than 1,090 mosaics.

Yaffa Lugasi, who retired a few years ago from her position as a departmental secretary at the Electric Company, gives tours of her home for a modest fee, which also includes a film about her husband’s life. She says the house is the world’s largest mosaic creation. According to her, the family contacted Guinness World Records to have it included, but was turned away under the pretext that the house belongs in a new category, which Guinness has yet to define. …

Hannah Stover’s Death Engine served as the foundation for medieval England’s centuries-long remote viewing program.

— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) February 18, 2019

Have Zombies Eaten Bloomberg’s and Buttigieg’s Brains?

_{Beware the Democrats of the living dead.}

I’m in Spain right now, talking about zombie ideas — ideas that should have been killed by evidence, but just keep lurching along. In the modern United States, most important zombie ideas are on the right, kept undead by big money from billionaires who have a financial interest in getting people to believe things that aren’t true.

But sometimes zombie ideas also manage to eat centrists’ brains. Sure enough, some of the most destructive zombies of the past dozen years have shambled their way into the Democratic primary fight, where a couple of centrists are repeating ideas that were thoroughly debunked years ago.

And as it happens, the experience of Europe, and Spain in particular, provides some of the bullets we should be using to shoot these particular zombies in the head.

So let’s start with the origins of the 2008 financial crisis, a topic that remains relevant if we want to avoid repeating past mistakes.

Although few saw 2008 coming, in retrospect it was a classic banking panic, the type of thing that happened frequently before the 1930s. First, lenders got caught up in a gigantic housing bubble; then, when the bubble burst, much of the financial system just froze up.

What made this panic possible, after two generations of relative financial calm? The answer, clearly, was the erosion of effective financial regulation over the previous few decades. …

Are plastic containers safe for our food? Experts say it’s hard to know

_{The plastics industry says its containers are safe but some experts advise consumers to avoid heating them and advocate using glass or metal instead.}

_{There are thousands of compounds found in plastic products across the food chain, and relatively little is known about most of them.}

Many of us have an overflowing kitchen cupboard of plastic containers to store our leftovers.

But as awareness grows over the health and environmental pitfalls of plastic, some consumers may be wondering: is it time to ditch that stash of old deli containers?

Only 9% of all the plastic waste ever created has been recycled. From its contributions to global heating and pollution, to the chemicals and microplastics that migrate into our bodies, the food chain and the environment, the true cost of this cheap material is becoming more apparent.

There are thousands of compounds found in plastic products across the food chain, and relatively little is known about most of them. But what we do know of some chemicals contained in plastic is concerning.

Phthalates, for example, which are used to make plastic more flexible and are found in food packaging and plastic wrap, have been found by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in measurable levels across the US population (including in the body of Guardian journalist Emily Holden). They have been linked to reproductive dysfunction in animal studies and some researchers have suggested links to decreased fertility, neurodevelopmental issues and asthma in humans. …

America’s ‘recycled’ plastic waste is clogging landfills, survey finds

_{Many facilities lack the ability to process ‘mixed plastics’, a category of waste that has virtually no market as new products.}

_{Fewer than 15% of recycling facilities surveyed could process plastic clamshells, like these.}

Many plastic items that Americans put in their recycling bins aren’t being recycled at all, according to a major new survey of hundreds of recycling facilities across the US.

The research, conducted by Greenpeace and released on Tuesday, found that out of 367 recycling recovery facilities surveyed none could process coffee pods, fewer than 15% accepted plastic clamshells – such as those used to package fruit, salad or baked goods – and only a tiny percentage took plates, cups, bags and trays.

The findings confirm the results of a Guardian investigation last year, which revealed that numerous types of plastics are being sent straight to landfill in the wake of China’s crackdown on US recycling exports. Greenpeace’s findings also suggest that numerous products labeled as recyclable in fact have virtually no market as new products.

While the report found there is still a strong recycling market for bottles and jugs labeled #1 or #2, such as plastic water bottles and milk containers, the pipeline has bottomed out for many plastics labelled #3-7, which fall into a category dubbed “mixed plastics”. While often marketed by brands as recyclable, these plastics are hard for recyclers to repurpose and are often landfilled, causing confusion for consumers.

“This report shows that one of the best things to do to save recycling is to stop claiming that everything is recyclable,” said John Hocevar, director of Greenpeace’s Oceans Campaign. “We have to talk to companies about not producing so much throw-away plastic that ends up in the ocean or in incinerators.” …

5 Monopolies That Hate The Average American

There are few businesses as noble as utility companies. They keep us warm, clean, and connected, and prevent us from drowning in our turds. Sure, the fact that they require billions of dollars of singular infrastructure means you can’t make them as capitalistically competitive as cupcake stores, but they’re all just run by workaday Joes trying to do right by the people, right? Well, no. It turns out that any market with an impossible barrier of entry and which 100% of the public has be a customer of (or else they, y’know, die) doesn’t attract the most humanitarian of money-lovers. In fact, by the looks of the American public utility system, it’s Mr. Burnses all the way down. For example …

3. California’s Oldest Power Company Switches Off Whenever There’s A Stiff Breeze

With its earthquakes, wildfires, and unreasonably long waiting times at Nobu, California isn’t the most welcoming of places. So you’d think that the state’s utilities would be equipped to handle these constant calamities, making sure the water and your fridge keep running. But that would require a lot of money and upkeep, and no monopoly would ever let a silly thing like having to do their job get in the way of turning a profit.

Pacific Gas & Electric earned its monopoly the old-fashioned way: It was there first. Established in 1852, most of California’s power has been provided by PG&E since before the E was even invented. The 19th century was also apparently the last time the investor-owned utility updated any of its infrastructure. In the home of the American bush fire, its transmission lines are so old and sparky that they caused the 2018 Camp Fire, the most destructive wildfire in California history, costing $16 billion in damages and 86 lives.

After that tragedy, PG&E vowed to never let that happen again — being liable for damages, that is. Now, at even the slightest hint of dry and windy weather, PG&E simply shuts down power to hundreds of thousands of households, in what they call preemptive blackouts. That sounds more like something a bored trophy wife does 20 minutes before her terrible stepchildren come home from soccer practice.

While Californians are used to dealing with blackouts whenever the sky turns orange or Lex Luthor is trying to sink half of the state into the ocean for real estate reasons, it’s a whole other fuck-you when your fridge fails or the gas pumps won’t work just because your energy company doesn’t feel like putting in the work. And because these outages are “preventative,” citizens can’t even get disaster relief from their insurance, as the damage isn’t caused by an act of God, but an act of greed. And if they had to pay out every time an American company stabbed its customers in the back, AT&T and Verizon alone would’ve bankrupted every insurance company in the world.

Why doesn’t PG&E just spend its billions on safeguarding its power lines and updating its infrastructure? Well, it has more important uses for that money. Like getting its shareholders massive payouts. And of course, since their callous endangering of thousands of lives has given them a bit of an image problem, they’ve needed to spend hundreds of millions on the most expensive lobbyists and image consultants in the U.S.

But not even with half of the former Clinton PR team (they know how to defend a boss infamous for fucking over pretty people) could they grease enough wheels to allow them to plunge the entire state into darkness whenever they feel like it. As of 2020, the state is trying to pass a bill to municipalize the firm. And if you need government bureaucrats to step in to streamline and modernize your infrastructure, you’re doing something wrong. …

LEAVING THE BLEAK for a while, how about something more upbeat barely uninteresting at all to listen to? Crank it and feel free to leave that first thing Google suggested streaming.

_{Ed. These people might help you make sense of this. Word to the wise, Elon Musk isn’t the only guy making really stupid music that Google wants me to share in these errant ramblings barely uninteresting at all things.}

INTERMISSION’S OVER. Feel free to leave some or all of it streaming.

Why the Restoration Hardware Catalog Won’t Die

_{The surprising persistence of the mail-order business}

When you enter the RH (formerly Restoration Hardware) megastore in New York City’s Meatpacking District, you might think it’s a place to buy furniture. Technically it is, with tens of thousands of square feet filled with dining-room sets and king-size beds and couches, upholstered in shades of gray and beige and beiger, and accessorized with plush rugs and metal-armed lamps. Or maybe you’ll mistake it for a hotel lobby, with its high ceilings, ample seating, and smiling concierge.

But on either side of the store’s broad central path, you’ll see its true spiritual, if not practical, purpose: as a temple to the high-end furniture chain’s infamous “source books.” On twin circular tables large enough for an extended family’s Thanksgiving dinner (yours for $7,995 each), eight different editions sit in neat stacks and offer inspiration tailored to ski chalets, beach getaways, or nurseries for rich babies, depending on the tome. Bathed in golden light from enormous $12,000 chandeliers, the gods of direct-mail marketing beckon enticingly from their “carbonized split bamboo” altars.

The biggest of RH’s 2019 catalogs was 730 glossy pages—from a few feet away, you might think it’s the September issue of Vogue. The company would not reveal how much it spends on the lavish compendiums, but in 2012, an industry expert estimated that they would require a multimillion-dollar budget, with each individual book costing as much as $3 to print and ship—a figure that doesn’t include the tab for photography or page design. RH’s catalogs, and its price points, were similar to Pottery Barn’s and Crate & Barrel’s until the late aughts, when the source books and opulently appointed stores began to be introduced. Both are part of what longtime Chairman and CEO Gary Friedman has described as a strategy to project abundance and turn the heads of wealthy customers; apparently, it’s worked. In 2001, the company was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. While there have been bumps along the way, RH’s sales since then have increased dramatically, and in December its stock price hit an all-time high.

All the pageantry for catalogs might seem puzzling, given that print media and retail stores are struggling to compete with the infotainment hub of the smartphone. But although the number of catalogs mailed in America has fallen since its high of 19 billion in 2007, an estimated 11.5 billion were still sent in 2018. As retailers become ever more desperate to find ways to sell their stuff without tithing to the tech behemoths, America might be entering a golden age of the catalog. …

DEGREE OF OPPORTUNTY: “You can’t make me open your email, you can’t make me open your website, you can’t make me go to your retail store, but you can send a large-format mail piece I have to pick up. It’s invasive, but it’s welcome.”

Mushroom Advocates Eyeing Boulder As Next Decriminalization Target

_{First Denver, now Boulder.}

Denver made history in May 2019 by becoming the first place in America to decriminalize psychedelic mushrooms. After that, the dominoes started to fall. Oakland was next, and then came Santa Cruz, California.

Now it’s Boulder’s turn.

“Boulder makes sense just because it seems like the path of least resistance,” says Matthew Duffy, a Boulder resident who was part of the Denver decriminalization campaign.

On Tuesday, February 11, around twenty advocates of psychedelic mushrooms, including Duffy, gathered at an office building in Boulder for the first meeting of Decriminalize Nature Boulder County (links to Facebook).

The group, which has already registered as a lobbying organization, is aiming to decriminalize psychedelic mushrooms — as Denver did in May, when voters approved Ordinance 301, the Psilocybin Mushroom Initiative — while also decriminalizing other natural psychedelics, such as peyote and ayahuasca, throughout Boulder County.

Beyond including more substances, the decriminalization efforts in Boulder will differ from Denver’s in other ways. In Denver, proponents launched a signature-gathering campaign to get their proposal on the city’s ballot. In Boulder, advocates plan to skip the petition path and instead lobby elected officials in municipalities throughout Boulder County to decriminalize the natural substances. …

Video Goodnesses
_{and not-so-goodnesses}

In ancient times, wildcats were fierce carnivorous hunters. And unlike dogs, who have undergone centuries of selective breeding, modern cats are genetically very similar to ancient cats. How did these solitary, fierce predators become our sofa sidekicks? Eva-Maria Geigl traces the domestication of the modern house cat.

_{Ed. I still have the 528Hz piece streaming. The effect is barely uninteresting at all.}

The Atacama in northern Chile is the driest desert in the world, and may be the oldest. It also holds 40% of the world’s lithium – an essential ingredient in the rechargeable batteries used in green technology. Indigenous leaders and scientists say Chile’s plans to feed a global green energy boom with Atacama lithium will kill the desert. As violent protests rock the country, they are fighting for the mining to stop.

CAUTION: Some language may not be appropriate for work or children.

Me critical analysis of creepy clowns!

Before he was a famous writer, Charles Dickens was a passionate monster hunter who made it his life’s goal to acquire the head of a Lummagog

— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) January 18, 2018

FINALLY . . .

What Is the Hardest Language in the World to Lipread?

_{There’s a whole lot we don’t know vision and speech perception.}

_{Lipreading might be more art than science.}

LIPREADING HAS AN ALMOST MYSTICAL PULL on the hearing population. Computer scientists pour money into automated lipreading programs, forensic scientists study it as a possible source of criminal information, Seinfeld based an entire episode on its possible (mis)use at parties. For linguists, it is a tremendously controversial and fluid topic of study. What are lipreaders actually looking at? Just how accurate is the understanding of speech on the basis of visual cues alone? What language, of the 6,000-plus distinct tongues in the world, is the hardest to lipread?

This last question, though seemingly simple, resists every attempt to answer it. Every theory runs into brick walls of evidence, the research is limited, and even the basic understanding of what lipreading is, how effective it is, and how it works is laden with conflicting points of view. This question, frankly, is a nightmare.

WHEN WE THINK of lipreading, generally we’re assuming that a lipreader is operating in complete silence, which is not, thanks to the popularity and technical improvements in cochlear implants and hearing aids, often the case. Seattle-based professional lipreader Consuelo González started to lose her hearing at a very young age, beginning at about four-and-a-half. “Over a period of about four years it went down to off the charts,” she says. (We conducted an interview over video chat, so she could read my lips.) Today she is profoundly deaf, and without hearing aids, she hears no sound at all. With them, she can pick up some environmental sounds, some tonality in speech, but not enough to understand what is being said to her—without seeing it, that is.

It turns out that we all do a bit of what González does—that is, use what we see to understand what is being said to us even if we can’t hear it well. “As far back as the 50s, there were classic studies that showed that people are better at perceiving speech in the presence of background noise if you can see the face of the talker,” says Matthew Masapollo, who studies speech perception at Boston University. There is a profound connection between the auditory and visual senses when understanding speech, though this connection is just barely understood. But there are all sorts of weird studies showing just how connected vision is to speech perception. …

Winifred Rotham, of Worm, devoted her life to constructing ornate shrines for dead robots. Twenty-one are known to still exist

— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) January 18, 2018

_{Ed. More tomorrow? Possibly. Probably. Maybe. Not? Likely, perhaps.}

There are 175,000 federal prisoners. Many are serving harsh sentences and deserve mercy.

Yet, Trump uses pardons almost exclusively for:

1) Political supporters
2) Wealthy individuals
3) Contestants on his TV show

And worse abuses are almost surely to come.

— Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) February 18, 2020

_{• • • google suggests • • •}

Solfeggio frequencies form part of an ancient scale that was rediscovered by Dr. Joseph Puleo in 1974. They are a 6 tone sequence of special electromagnetic frequencies. They were originally used in Gregorian chants many hundreds of years ago, and recently, they were brought back to everybody’s attention for their healing powers.

These frequencies induce movements of consciousness that will help stimulate new changes that are necessary for individuals who would like to achieve awakening. So, if these frequencies are so good, why not many people truly know about them?

Well, as it turns out, the Solfeggio frequencies were lost for many years. In specific, it was back in 1100 CE, when the Catholic Church started to look at music as something to look down upon, as it was considered to be blasphemous. However, it wasn’t all completely lost down the history lane, as similar scales have been produced as time went by.

And even though it’s very difficult to find a peer-reviewed study that will prove or disapprove the use of the Solfeggio frequency as a way of healing or therapy, it has been said that these frequencies have helped many individuals throughout the centuries to undo difficult situations, to change their perspective of things, to turn sadness into happiness, but above all, it has also helped many to reconnect with their own true selves.

The frequencies are the following: …

_{Ed. Pairs well with one of my stations on Pandora.}

_{^{• • • some of the things I read while eating breakfast • • •}}

Meet the city that would have inspired unknown writer Eva Stoneman to write “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” if Douglas Adams hadn’t written it first.

— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) February 19, 2019

Floridians Are Eating Their State Tree to Help Their State Animal

_{Swamp cabbage is native, but a nuisance.}

_{There are only about 100 panthers left in the state of Florida.}

ALONG EVERY HIGHWAY, ROAD, AND boulevard in Florida, cabbage palms stand tall. The majestic trees, with their brown-gray trunks and green, leafy fronds have been a local symbol long before 1953, when they were named the official state tree. It’s hard to imagine eating the towering palms, but their tender cores are used in salads and other dishes. Yet the cabbage palms themselves have grown too abundant—good for chefs and landscapers, perhaps, but not for wildlife.

Over the last decade, this native plant has crowded out other species, devastating vital pine flatwood and wet prairie communities across southern Florida. These habitats “are critical for species like panthers, cockaded woodpeckers, and all kinds of other critters,” says Kevin Godsea, project leader at the Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge.

“Cabbage palms in and of themselves are fine. They’re the state tree,” says Godsea. The problem, he notes, is that the region’s hydrology has been altered with the installation of canals and roads, negatively impacting groundwater levels. Historically, pine flatwood habitats had groundwater for about seven months out of the year. Since the hydrology change—which happened gradually over the past decade—those same areas now only get “wet maybe one, two, three months out of the year,” says Godsea.

_{Clearing away cabbage palms is hard work.}

This shift created the perfect environment for hardy cabbage palms to flourish when other plants can’t. Something as simple as drainage can impact larger plant communities and the animals that depend upon them, in particular Florida’s state animal, the endangered Florida panther. With only about 100 panthers left in the state, loss of habitat is one of the primary reasons behind their endangered species status. Of those remaining, the majority are found in south Florida and roam “less than five percent” of their historical range, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. …

There is a town named “Be Silent Or I Shall Halt This Vehicle Forever” in Alaska. It has 66 residents—all of whom, supposedly, are related.

— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) February 19, 2019

The white swan harbingers of global economic crisis are already here

_{Seismic risks for the global system are growing, not least worsening US geopolitical rivalries, climate change and now the coronavirus outbreak.}

_{A swan fighting with crows on a beach.}

In my 2010 book, Crisis Economics, I defined financial crises not as the “black swan” events that Nassim Nicholas Taleb described in his eponymous bestseller but as “white swans”. According to Taleb, black swans are events that emerge unpredictably, like a tornado, from a fat-tailed statistical distribution. But I argued that financial crises, at least, are more like hurricanes: they are the predictable result of builtup economic and financial vulnerabilities and policy mistakes.

There are times when we should expect the system to reach a tipping point – the “Minsky Moment” – when a boom and a bubble turn into a crash and a bust. Such events are not about the “unknown unknowns” but rather the “known unknowns”.

Beyond the usual economic and policy risks that most financial analysts worry about, a number of potentially seismic white swans are visible on the horizon this year. Any of them could trigger severe economic, financial, political and geopolitical disturbances unlike anything since the 2008 crisis.

For starters, the US is locked in an escalating strategic rivalry with at least four implicitly aligned revisionist powers: China, Russia, Iran and North Korea. These countries all have an interest in challenging the US-led global order and 2020 could be a critical year for them, owing to the US presidential election and the potential change in US global policies that could follow.

Under Donald Trump, the US is trying to contain or even trigger regime change in these four countries through economic sanctions and other means. …

EPONYMOUS… There’s a word I need to go look up.

‘Vegans need their own shelf in the office fridge’

There’s new advice for supporting vegans in the workplace, including having a shelf in the office fridge.

The Vegan Society has shared suggested guidelines to help businesses look after their vegan staff.

They range from offering vegan menus at events to providing vegan-friendly work-wear for people who want it.

The charity wants vegans to be exempt from corporate events like horse racing or activities that might include cooking a “hog roast” on a barbecue.

Other recommendations include colour-coded kitchen equipment and separate areas to prepare meat-free food – as well as non-leather phone cases, being exempt from any part of purchasing non-vegan goods and the chance for staff to have discussions about vegan-friendly pension options.

_{Warning: Third party content may contain adverts.}

The Vegan Society says these new guidelines are intended to create a positive atmosphere at work.

“Fostering a general attitude of respect towards vegan employees is key,” it writes.

“If ‘jokes’ made about an employee’s veganism become burdensome, steps should be made to improve this.” …

_{^{UNRELATED: The Coronavirus Outbreak Could Bring Out the Worst in Trump}}

_{Virology isn’t politics.}

When a senior White House aide would brief President Donald Trump in 2018 about an Ebola-virus outbreak in central Africa, it was plainly evident that hardships roiling a far-flung part of the world didn’t command his attention. He was zoning out. “It was like talking to a wall,” a person familiar with the matter told me.

Now a new coronavirus that originated in China is confronting him with a potential pandemic …

Boy, Disney Has Sure Screwed Up The Muppets

There’s been a lot of talk lately about Disney arguably ruining a certain giant franchise. You know, the one that begins with “star” and ends with a surname-obsessed old woman harassing a bored teenager in the desert. Putting that old debate aside, we’d like to focus on another iconic beacon of nostalgia that was acquired by Disney, only to be run into the ground: the Muppets. Since they currently have no shows running or movies in the pipeline, the biggest recent platform for Jim Henson’s beloved creations was an ad for Facebook Portal, an online chat service that presumably opens up a “portal” between you and pervy Facebook employees.

Sure, the Muppets have appeared in tons of commercials before, from their earliest days to the time Denny’s forced Miss Piggy to devour her dead friends and relatives on camera. But this ad somehow seems extra depressing — not just because the Muppets are shilling for Facebook, but also the spot’s storyline, which finds them scattered across the globe and only able to talk to each other through Portal (apparently Skype doesn’t exist in their universe). Didn’t the Muppets just get back together? Is this commercial canon? Regardless, this bummer of an ad perhaps inadvertently serves as a perfect encapsulation of the sad state of the Muppets.

Related: Disney Owning ‘The Simpsons’ Is Going To Get Weird

To truly understand modern Muppet-dom, we have to look at the Jim Henson Company’s history with Disney, which makes George Lucas’ fraught relationship with the Mouse House look downright cozy by comparison. Disney was all set to buy the Muppets in 1989, for $150 million. They even planned to promote the sale by replacing Disneyland’s costumed characters with an all-Muppet roster for an entire year. The entrance to the park would be re-dressed to read “Muppetland,” animatronics of Miss Piggy and Animal would randomly show up in classic rides, and the Matterhorn was going to be painted Kermit’s shade of green — which, conveniently, would also camouflage any evidence of motion sickness. …

David Lazarus Column: Great news! A relative you never heard of left you $10 million!

_{In this version of the inheritance scam, the perpetrator uses phony letterhead, a phony website, identity theft and a whole lot of chutzpah}

Stanley Silver isn’t dumb. When he received a call recently informing him that he needed to pony up some cash to settle tax problems with the Internal Revenue Service, he hung up.

When he and his wife received a call saying their grandchild was in trouble and required urgent financial assistance, they hung up.

But the San Fernando lawyer was intrigued when a fax arrived the other day from a top Canadian law firm letting him know he stood to inherit nearly $10 million.

Pay attention to how this unspools. It’s a classic scam that the perpetrator — or perpetrators — has taken to a new level with phony letterhead, a phony website, identity theft and a whole lot of chutzpah. …

_{^{UNRELATED: Manufacturing employee recovering after partial hand amputation}}

_{A woman is recovering after her hand was partially amputated Monday, Feb. 17, in an workplace industrial incident.}

A woman is recovering after her hand was partially amputated while working at a waxed paper manufacturer on Monday, Feb. 17.

Emergency crews responded around 6:30 p.m. to Handy Wacks Corporation, located at 100 E. Averill St. NW in Sparta, on reports of an employee with a possible hand amputation, said Sparta Fire Department Chief Dan Olney.

DEGREE OF IRONY: Why is this news? The company name says it all, they whack hands.

POINT OF REFLECTION: It may have been on poor taste to poke fun at the woman’s serious injury, even though the ironic company name made me laugh.

The simple maths error that can lead to bankruptcy

_{The “gambler’s fallacy” – which can affect everyone from athletes to loan officers – creates deceptive biases that lead you to anticipate patterns that don’t really exist.}

Fifteen years ago, the people of Italy experienced a strange kind of mass hysteria known as “53 fever”.

The madness centred on the country’s lottery. Players can choose between 11 different wheels, based in cities such as Bari, Naples or Venice. Once you have picked which wheels to play, you can then bet on a selection of numbers between 1 and 90. Your winnings depend on how much you initially bet, how many numbers you picked and how many you got right.

Sometime in 2003, however, the number 53 simply stopped coming up on the Venice wheel – leading punters to place increasingly big bets on the number in the certainty that it must soon make a reappearance.

By early 2005, 53 fever had apparently led thousands to their financial ruin, the pain of which resulted in a spate of suicides. The hysteria only died away when it finally came up in the 9 February draw, after 182 no-shows and four billion euros worth of bets.

While it may have appeared like a kind of madness, the victims had been led astray by a reasoning flaw called the “gambler’s fallacy” – a worryingly common error that can derail many of our professional decisions, from a goalkeeper’s responses to penalty shootouts in football to stock market investments and even judicial rulings on new asylum cases. …

Video Goodnesses
_{and not-so-goodnesses}

There are decisions being made right now that could have an effect on global populations for generations to come. As part of this project, we commissioned an artist to investigate some of the themes raised in the podcasts. This work of fiction imagines a future where gene editing has become mainstream and discusses the moral, ethical and political divides that this might create.

CAUTION: Some language may not be appropriate for work or children.

Special comments from Mozza in this one. Fuck yes!

_{Ed. That was disgusting.}

みんなで海を満喫しました。We enjoyed the sea.

Ambrose Bierce may have spent his last hours in this giant martini-glass-shaped shrine.

— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) December 19, 2018

FINALLY . . .

For These Young Street Artists, Amman Is a Beige Canvas

_{Color, community, and empowerment are enlivening Jordan’s capital.}

_{Miramar Al Nayyar, a 23-year-old émigré from Iraq, is at the forefront of a burgeoning art scene. Embiggenable.}

PASSERBY IN SECONDHAND OVERCOATS scattered to get out of the rain as dusty Parisian songs mingled with old favorites from Lebanon and Egypt at a fashionable café in Amman’s Jabal Luweibdeh. The district is popular with expats and home to a large portion of the city’s cultural centers, coffee houses, pastry shops, and bars.

This café is usually a hipster hive, filled with large beanies, oversized glasses, and pricey lattes, plus a nice staff, well-watered plants, and a couple of stray cats. But on a cold Monday night in January, the biting rain had chased most everyone away.

Though not quite everyone: Miramar Al Nayyar, a 23-year-old artist, dawdled at a pub table behind the barista bar, smoking cigarettes, discussing the city’s changing art scene, and describing her life with humor and candor.

_{Al Nayyar and 22-year-old Dalal Mitwally (left) have collaborated on murals that address female empowerment and gender-based violence.}

She spoke about her family, and how they fled Iraq in 1992, when government officials targeted her father for forging documents used to get imprisoned communists out of jail. She spoke about her decision to drop out of college and pursue art full time. And she spoke about emotion, philosophy, and the fundamentals of art, as her eyes wandered in search of words to describe it all. …

This prohibition-era whisky cartel never accepted the end of Prohibition, and continues to operate a highly clandestine speakeasy in an an abandoned subway station somewhere beneath Boston.

— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) November 19, 2018

_{Ed. More tomorrow? Possibly. Probably. Maybe. Could happen, perhaps.}

The fakest news of all time. pic.twitter.com/sGpkgmrHGg

— God (@TheTweetOfGod) February 17, 2020

_{• • • to set a mood • • •}

_{^{• • • some of the things I read while eating breakfast • • •}}

This 1950s-era kit for Communist-hunters contained—among other things—a crucifix, a sprig of wintergreen, and a corncob pipe blessed by Dwight D. Eisenhower.

— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) December 20, 2018

For Sale: A Sprawling Carriage Factory and the House on Its Roof

_{A Syracuse rooftop still holds some pretty puzzling real estate.}

_{The rooftop house, pictured here on the left, goes way back. Embiggenable.}

HARVEY A. MOYER GOT INTO the carriage-making business about a quarter-century before the Ford Motor Company started making cars. It was a hard time to bet on the horse-hauled market. Moyer, who eventually got into the luxury automobile business himself, operated out of a vast brick factory complex in Syracuse, New York, at a time when other manufactures were revving up production to try and keep pace with rivals. More than a century after Moyer’s business ran out of gas, his old factory is up for sale. It comes with a storied history and a mysterious house perched on top.

Moyer mainly trafficked in handmade, horse-hauled vehicles. The H. A. Moyer Carriage Company set up shop in 1876, and the first building in Moyer’s industrial compound in Syracuse—which would eventually sprawl across some 200,000 square feet—went up in 1880, according to the Preservation Association of Central New York. By the first decade of the 1900s, when automobiles started bumping their way into the mainstream, Moyer expanded the factory’s footprint and broadened his business to so-called “horseless carriages.” He peddled a humble number of cars each year, built one at a time. But as Henry Ford and other manufactures began sending cars rolling off assembly lines—which led to zippier production and lower prices for customers—it was clear that Moyer was getting left in the dust.

_{Moyer’s carriages were advertised in circulars like this one from June 1887.}

After the Moyer business went defunct, the complex became home to Porter-Cable, which still manufactures power tools. Later, it was home to the Penfield Manufacturing Co., and produced mattresses and box springs. The factory’s most recent owner, Yiorgos Kyriakopoulos, purchased the facility around 2005 and used it as a parking garage for a vast collection of vehicles.

Kyriakopoulos died a few years ago, and his estate is looking to offload the property, says Martin McDermott, a real estate salesperson at JF Real Estate who is overseeing the sale. The property is listed at $1.625 million, which includes all of the buildings and 2.2 acres of land. …

The final resting place of Old Miseryguts, the riverboat that was supposedly powered by hellfire and brimstone.

— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) November 20, 2018

‘Designed to wake people up’: Jonathan Jones unveils major public work at Hyde Park barracks

_{Stones have transformed 2500 sq metres of the barracks’ courtyard – reframing the site’s colonial history – in a work designed to be worn away.}

_{Emu print or colonial logo? Jonathan Jones’ installation untitled (maraong manaóuwi).}

From 1819 until 1848, Hyde Park barracks housed some of Sydney’s convict labour force, their toil helping to displace and decimate the Gadigal people of the Eora nation. When Aboriginal people resisted the British colonisers, former and serving convicts sometimes joined armed soldiers and free settlers in murderous retaliation.

The barracks remains a Unesco world heritage-listed museum, and this weekend will reopen with new, immersive audio and visual technology telling its history inside.

The outside of the structure has been reinvented, too. Wiradjuri-Kamilaroi artist Jonathan Jones’ new public art installation – untitled (maraong manaóuwi), which means emu footprint in Gadigal – required a team of a dozen people to cover 2500 sq metres of the courtyard with stones, to symbolise shared black and white history.

In a design repeated on each square metre of the courtyard, workers have used stencils to embed white stones in the shape of what might be interpreted as an emu’s footprint – but which is also reminiscent of the colonial broad arrow printed on convict uniforms. …

_{^{Related: Hyde Park Barracks Reopening: How Sydney Living Museums is changing the way we look at history}}

_{Sensory immersion: Local Projects created a museum for the future, where present and past collide in an experiential symphony.}

When Hyde Park Barracks reopens in February 2020, it will deliver a whole new museum experience – one in which visitors don’t just read about history, but are immersed in it.

It’s one thing to read about the conditions that Australia’s early convicts endured. But to really understand what life in Sydney was like in the first half of the 19th century, you have to be able to feel it. …

The Hidden History of Sanders’ Plot to Primary Obama

_{Democrats’ previous president and maybe their next one have a particularly fraught relationship.}

_{When Bernie Sanders mounted his initial Senate run in 2006, then-Senator Barack Obama came to Vermont to campaign for him.}

BERNIE SANDERS got so close to running a primary challenge to President Barack Obama that Senator Harry Reid had to intervene to stop him.

It took Reid two conversations over the summer of 2011 to get Sanders to scrap the idea, according to multiple people who remember the incident, which has not been previously reported.

That summer, Sanders privately discussed a potential primary challenge to Obama with several people, including Patrick Leahy, his fellow Vermont senator. Leahy, alarmed, warned Jim Messina, Obama’s presidential reelection-campaign manager. Obama’s campaign team was “absolutely panicked” by Leahy’s report, Messina told me, since “every president who has gotten a real primary has lost a general [election].”

David Plouffe, another Obama strategist, confirmed Messina’s account, as did another person familiar with what happened. (A spokesman for Leahy did not comment when asked several times about his role in the incident.)

Messina called Reid, then the Senate majority leader, who had built a strong relationship with Sanders but was also fiercely defensive of Obama. What could you be thinking? Reid asked Sanders, according to multiple people who remember the conversations. You need to stop. …

_{^{Unrelated: ‘The Daily Show With Trevor Noah’ Gives Mike Bloomberg And His Pips A Few Hits During The Democratic Debate}}

_{Trevor Noah}

One of these things is not like the other, as tonight’s Democratic presidential candidates debate featured the debut of former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who has been furiously spending his way into the scrum.

Bloomberg’s stalking of the candidates field has thrown a chaotic fray into panic mode, as he’s been spending, spending, spending in advance of Super Tuesday. To his competitors, that means he must be stopped now at tonight’s Maginot Line.

So far, Bloomberg has gotten a warm and fuzzy greeting from his on-stage companions, and The Daily Show with Trevor Noah gave him a few online kicks as well.

…

The Boy Scouts Of America Runs Out Of Pedophile Funds, Declares Bankruptcy

The Boy Scouts of America is all about learning how to survive. And over the past century, it sure has created a lot of survivors, with 7,819 documented cases of suspected abusers and 12,254 of underaged victims, and those numbers are still rising. So now, with the help of the government, the organization is finally taking drastic steps to safeguard what is most important to them, making sure Adult Boys Scouts won’t be getting their hands on their sweet, innocent funds.

Thanks to direly needed adjustments to local state laws regarding sexual assault, the Boy Scouts of America, where you earn your Eagle Scout badge by pretending not to see the rampant child molestation, is being overwhelmed by hundreds of new lawsuits from abused former Boy Scouts. But afraid they’ll run out of money long before they’ll run out of victims, the Boy Scouts have officially filed for bankruptcy, as it will allow them to make payouts through a trust instead of loud, public lawsuits.

While the Boy Scouts has done much good for its 130 million members over its lifetime, it’s hard to feel bad for an organization that has knowingly covered up for its abusers since day one. As early as the 1920s, the Boy Scouts have been keeping lists of known “degenerates” who they were letting take kids into the woods. These “Perversion Files” were supposed to keep tabs on molesters and make sure they never Scouted again, but were never voluntarily shared with law enforcement or parents, only made public in 2012 when an Oregon court ordered the Boy Scouts to do so — after also ordering them to pay out $18,5 million in punitive damages.

Instead, the Perversion Files were only seen by Scout members who had earned their sexual predator coverup badge, the kind of people who wrote back to concerned local chapter heads: “I agree that sleeping in the nude and showing boys pornographic books indicated very poor judgment with dealing with Cub Scouts. I do not know, however, that this is a serious enough offense to refuse registration.” Or as another top BS executive, when asked under oath if he was aware of the “problem of scouts being molested by adult leaders,” put it: “Not quite sure it’s a problem.” As a result, rampant abuse with little oversight continued throughout the Boy Scouts’ existence, leading to the sorry state of affairs today where thousands of men can’t tie an Alpine Butterfly knot without their hands trembling or hear the unzipping of a tent flap without PTSD flashbacks. …

We’ve Vastly Underestimated How Much Methane Humans Are Spewing Into The Atmosphere

_{Tiny bubbles of ancient air trapped in ice cores from Greenland suggest we’ve been seriously overestimating the natural cycle of methane, while vastly undervaluing our own terrible impact.}

Methane is an ‘invisible climate menace‘ – roughly 30 times more potent as a heat-trapper than carbon dioxide – and while some of this atmospheric gas is produced naturally, new research indicates humans are responsible for far more of it than we thought until now.

Before the industrial revolution, when humans began to extract and burn fossil fuels on the regular, natural methane emissions were an order of magnitude smaller than current estimates, the study suggests.

Today, this means our own methane emissions might be up to 40 percent higher than suspected.

“Our results imply that anthropogenic methane emissions now account for about 30 percent of the global methane source and for nearly half of [all] anthropogenic emissions… ” the authors write.

Over the past three centuries, methane emissions have shot up by roughly 150 percent, but because this atmospheric gas is also produced naturally, it’s been difficult to tell exactly where the emissions are coming from. …

Fashion Institute apologises for ‘clearly racist’ show

A New York City-based fashion college has apologised after a catwalk show was labelled racist.

Models were asked to wear prosthetic ears, lips and bushy eyebrows for a collection run by fashion design students at the event in Manhattan.

The accessories were criticised online after an African-American model said she would not wear the “clearly racist” items at the event on 7 February.

The Fashion Institute of Technology said the matter was being investigated.

“Currently,” its president Joyce F Brown said in a statement, “it does not appear that the original intent of the design, the use of accessories or the creative direction of the show was to make a statement about race. …

Video Goodnesses
_{and not-so-goodnesses}

This violinist played her violin while undergoing brain surgery so surgeons would know she could still perform.

_{THANKS to HBO and VICE News for making this program available on YouTube.}

Can we have an honest discussion about the Happy Birthday song?

_{THANKS to Comedy Central and The Daily Show with Trevor Noah for making this program available on YouTube.}

If it fits in my cheeks, I eats! Wild hamsters roam the graveyards of Vienna in search of fresh flowers and candle-wax, sometimes with hilarious consequences!

_{THANKS to BBC Earth for making this program available on YouTube.}

CAUTION: Some language may not be appropriate for work or children.

Me commentary on a bunch of drunk blokes having a swimming race after downing vodka. Source video is from an Estonian TV show (i.e it’s a sketch). Looks like it was made in a darkly comical manner to address drinking and swimming, which you should not do of course ya dickheads!

In The Know panelists discuss how Alcoholics Anonymous wreaks havoc on the friendships of Americans by turning the ‘life of the party’ into a sanctimonious bore.

In 1960s Moscow, the most stylish item you could wear to a party was a necklace of exquisitely crafted porcelain jellyfish.

— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) November 20, 2018

FINALLY . . .

The ‘Pie Designer’ Baking Up a Diverse Vision of America

_{Lauren Ko is as American as mango pie.}

_{Ko’s American pies represent a broader slice of the country.}

WHEN LAUREN KO SAYS SHE’S a pie designer, she often gets quizzical looks—until she opens Instagram. Her account, Lokokitchen, which functions like a baker’s portfolio, is flush with a mesmerizing kaleidoscope of colors, geometric patterns, and scrumptious fillings that make one thing clear: Her pie game is on another level.

Ko’s colorful creations have won her big-name acclaim—she’s been featured in The Washington Post, Vogue, and Martha Stewart. But her most recent project, My American Pie, tells the stories of Americans from all over the country, from the verdant hills of Kentucky to the lively shores of Rockaway Beach in New York City. Working with the collaboration lab ResidNYC, Ko took stories sourced by the lab and baked them into a celebration of America’s diversity.

“The traditional image of an American is usually Caucasian with blonde hair and blue eyes,” says Ko, “but there are lots of people who identify as American.”

_{Ko’s pie is tinged with sapphire blue, which is inspired by the colors of the Honduran flag and her Chinese grandmother’s porcelain.}

Ko kicked off the series on Instagram last July with her own pie, which she filled with mango, a nod to her picking the fragrant fruit as a kid. In her post, she’s vulnerable about growing up in a multicultural household. “I’m not just Chinese, I’m not just Honduran and not just American, but all of that plays and factors in together to create my own story,” Ko says. …

_{Ed. What a cool place to end today.}

A little-known Senate rule—last invoked on this day in 1874—allows the Sergeant-at-Arms to arrange and preside over boxing matches on the Senate floor

— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) December 20, 2017

_{Ed. More tomorrow? Possibly. Probably. Maybe. Not? Not saying ‘no’, probably.}

Be the change you wish to see in the world.

Stop exhaling carbon dioxide.

— God (@TheTweetOfGod) February 20, 2020

_{• • • google suggested • • •}

Shamanizm Parallelii is a Russian psychedelic rock, downtempo, and dub band founded by Pavel Yashan and Arkadiy Tronets (also known as JBC Arkadii) in 2008. Their music can be described as ’70s psyrock meets psychedelic dub, all wrapped up with interesting melodies and space rock atmospheres.

_{^{• • • some of the things I read while eating breakfast • • •}}

Nivikkana Iskandar, of Greenland, declared herself “Empress of the North Pole”—and attempted to invade a land mass that didn’t exist.

— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) December 21, 2018

Life Along the Border That Cuts Cyprus in Two

_{In Nicosia, physical barriers separate the Greek and Turkish communities—but many residents don’t seem to mind.}

_{A young woman stands near the barricades of the U.N. buffer zone in the Greek-Cypriot part of Nicosia.}

A SHARP LINE CUTS ACROSS the island of Cyprus. It runs through the middle of Nicosia, the capital, marked by stacked barrels, makeshift walls, and barbed wire. Soldiers in camouflage stand guard behind the barricades, and the letters “UN” loom in thick black letters on various buildings. To an outsider, this border within a country may feel like the markings of a battleground, but the city is not at war. The line through Nicosia exists to separate the city’s Turkish and Greek ethnic communities.

Just south of the stacked barrels and blocked roads, on the Greek side of town, a store called Phaneromenis 70 sells local artworks and serves as a kind of creative nucleus for Nicosia. Monika Ioakim, a DJ and associate of the Phaneromenis 70 collective, has seen this corner of Nicosia transform during her 48 years. “When I was growing up, we were told not to go too close to the border for fear of being shot or stepping on a landmine,” she says. “There was a lot of fear.”

Today, the border is little more than a formality. A civilian can cross to the other side by flashing a passport at Nicosia’s Ledra Street checkpoint. But the history of the border that divides Cyprus is long and troubling, and it haunts the city to this day.

_{A 1597 map of Nicosia that Giacomo Franco, of Venice, created for his book Viaggio da Venetia a Constantinopoli per Mare.}

Cyprus experienced almost eight centuries of foreign control, first under King Richard I of England and then the Knights Templar, the French family of Lusignan, the Venetians, and the Ottomans, whose descendants are Turkish Cypriots. The British returned in 1878 as the last in this chain of invaders, and they ruled the island for approximately 80 years. During that time, Cypriots grew resentful. Roughly 80 percent of the population identified as Greek Cypriots and believed that Cyprus belonged to Greece. …

Tea leaves spelled out Napoleon’s doom—but were they actually nanotechnological life forms?

— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) December 21, 2017

The First Days of the Trump Regime

_{The president has interpreted the Republican-controlled Senate’s vote to acquit as a writ of absolute power.}

THERE ARE TWO KINDS of Republican senators who voted to acquit Donald Trump in his impeachment trial two weeks ago: those who acknowledged he was guilty and voted to acquit anyway, and those who pretended the president had done nothing wrong.

“It was wrong for President Trump to mention former Vice President Biden on that phone call, and it was wrong for him to ask a foreign country to investigate a political rival,” Senator Susan Collins of Maine declared, but added that removing him “could have unpredictable and potentially adverse consequences for public confidence in our electoral process.”

But Collins, like her Republican colleagues Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, was an outlier in admitting the president’s conduct was wrong. Most others in the caucus, like Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, deliberately missed the point, insisting that Democrats wanted the president removed for “pausing aid to Ukraine for a few weeks.”

What all these senators share is a willingness to ignore the nature of the offense. Both Collins, who has worked in government in some capacity since the 1970s, and Cotton, a Harvard-educated attorney, understood the basic constitutional arguments for removing a president who attempts to rig a reelection campaign in his favor, which is why they simply ignored them. Collins insisted that the matter be decided by the forthcoming election, disregarding the fact that Trump was impeached because he tried to use his official powers to manipulate that election, while Cotton simply pretended to be clueless about what was at issue. …

The vampire video game that sinks its teeth into the 1%

_{Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 mixes sex and the shadow economy in a fiercely political horror fantasy.}

_{‘Stockpiling resources, preying on the vulnerable’ … the creators of Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 present a city in thrall to unaccountable elites.}

Vampires have stood for many things over the centuries. In European medieval folklore, they were metaphors for disease and for the outsider, roaming the darkness beyond the village bounds. In the world of Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2, however, the bloodsuckers have made it inside the gates. They’ve found their way into the organs of finance and the state, creating an unseen society parallel to our own, and they’re doing rather well for themselves.

Set in a parallel version of present-day Seattle, Bloodlines is a knowing feast of vampires new and old, from sewer-dwelling ghouls redolent of Count Orlok to impeccably dressed matriarchs who recall the Underworld movies – but it’s all woven around a complex investigation of a city in thrall to unaccountable elites. As senior narrative designer Cara Ellison explains, the developers have conceived of vampires as “parasites on society, the 1%, stockpiling resources for themselves. Removing things from general circulation and preying on the vulnerable.”

_{Players take the role of a fledgling ‘thinblood’ in Seattle’s complex world of warring vampire clans.}

Bloodlines 2 casts you as a fledgling “thinblood”, suddenly endowed with immortality during a mysterious vampire rampage. In this version of Seattle – which forms part of White Wolf Publishing’s World of Darkness universe – the undead are forbidden from revealing themselves to humans. As an unauthorised convert, you are lugged before a council of elders and slated for termination, but an explosion of in-fighting sets you loose on the city. Playing in first-person, you’ll need to get to grips with powers such as the ability to become mist, as well as sate your mounting bloodthirst and find your niche in an underworld of warring factions.

Like the somewhat goofy original 2004 game, Bloodlines 2 is a tale of two cities. There are the crowded thoroughfares and open spaces of human existence, where vampires must keep up the masquerade of the title, and a series of back alleys and catacombs where you’re free to scuttle up buildings or glide about on batwings to your (unbeating) heart’s content. The Resonance system, a kind of psychic profiling app, helps you track down the tastiest prey. It tags passersby according to their mood, which charges their blood with beneficial properties. Feed on a clubgoer who is in a state of lust, for instance, and your character may become more charismatic for a period thereafter. …

Sci-Fi Predictions About Life In 2020 That Fell Flat

If there’s one thing sci-fi has taught us, it’s that it’s way easier to predict technology than people. Writers of the past knew that our computers would only get smaller, and that eventually we’d have screens on our wrists. When it came to guessing how we’d apply that technology, though, they stumbled. Having arrived in the futuristic decade of the 2020s, we now know that …

4. Housework Is Way Too Complicated For Even The Best Robot

You can see it in everything from shows like The Jetsons to ’80s-era interviews with children. Everyone thought we would have humanoid robots helping out around the house by now. Not just sad little Roombas that vacuum your floors and get hung up on the curled corner of a rug every five minutes, but full-on maids and butlers that do everything from washing dishes to cooking dinner to ironing your sports coat. Rocky Balboa even had one in a movie set in present-day 1985.

But it turns out that mundane stuff like ironing clothes is actually incredibly complex. Let’s pick one “simple” household task: washing dishes. Dishwashers exist, of course, though they can cost up to a thousand bucks with installation. But think about what it would cost to get a dishwasher that does the whole task: taking the plates from the table, scraping off the uneaten food, washing them, drying them, then putting the dishes back in the cabinet. A robot capable of just doing that seems to exist only in the realm of Boston Dynamics demonstration videos.

Even if Elon Musk himself demanded such a machine for his home and said money was no object, he couldn’t get one that actually does the job without a human having to step in and help it out. You know, it’s almost as if futurists assumed the housework their wives were doing was a lot easier than, say, stacking boxes or welding cars in a factory.

The reality is that if you wanted to fully automate your house without having to hire a human to be a butler to your robot butler, you’d have to get a robot for every step of every chore. A machine that just folds laundry costs $980, is still stuck in the prototype stage, and still requires humans at both ends of the process. You’d need a whole slew of support robots to prep the other robots to be able to do your bidding.

But there’s probably a bigger obstacle that no futurist saw coming: children. For example, Walmart plans to unleash Bossa Nova on humanity, a robot that makes sure boxes are displayed on shelves correctly and lets humans know if something is out of stock. The problem? It’s no match for kids. The robot’s sensors are easily overwhelmed by children who try to touch it and even ride it, because as civilized as we get, children will forever remain wild animals. If all-in-one housekeeper bots are still decades away, a version that can’t be destroyed by a few rambunctious tots will be decades behind that. …

Why Does It Cost $750,000 to Build Affordable Housing in San Francisco?

_{As California’s governor vows to tackle the state’s homelessness crisis, housing “insanity” stands in the way.}

_{MacArthur Commons is a high-density housing complex under construction in Oakland. The high cost of building affordable housing is a seen as a huge part of California’s homelessness problem.}

The average home in the United States costs around $240,000. But in San Francisco, the world’s most expensive place for construction, a two-bedroom apartment of what passes for affordable housing costs around $750,000 just to build.

California’s staggering housing costs have become the most significant driver of inequality in the state. On Wednesday, California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, mentioned the issue 35 times during an impassioned speech, urging lawmakers to solve the state’s homelessness crisis by building more and faster.

But the vertiginous prices of housing in California show how difficult that will be.

Building affordable housing in California costs on average three times as much as Texas or Illinois, according to the federal government.

The reasons for California’s high costs, developers and housing experts say, begin with the price of land and labor in the state. In San Francisco a construction worker earns around $90 an hour on average, according to Turner & Townsend, a real estate consulting company. …

Revealed: quarter of all tweets about climate crisis produced by bots

_{Draft of Brown study says findings suggest ‘substantial impact of mechanized bots in amplifying denialist messages’}

_{The researchers examined 6.5m tweets posted in the days leading up to and the month after Trump announced the US exit from the Paris accords on 1 June 2017.}

The social media conversation over the climate crisis is being reshaped by an army of automated Twitter bots, with a new analysis finding that a quarter of all tweets about climate on an average day are produced by bots, the Guardian can reveal.

The stunning levels of Twitter bot activity on topics related to global heating and the climate crisis is distorting the online discourse to include far more climate science denialism than it would otherwise.

An analysis of millions of tweets from around the period when Donald Trump announced the US would withdraw from the Paris climate agreement found that bots tended to applaud the president for his actions and spread misinformation about the science.

The study of Twitter bots and climate was undertaken by Brown University and has yet to be published. Bots are a type of software that can be directed to autonomously tweet, retweet, like or direct message on Twitter, under the guise of a human-fronted account.

“These findings suggest a substantial impact of mechanized bots in amplifying denialist messages about climate change, including support for Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris agreement,” states the draft study, seen by the Guardian. …

Video Goodnesses
_{and not-so-goodnesses}

School choice is an education reform movement that promotes charter schools and voucher programs as alternatives to traditional public schools. One of the biggest advocates for “choice” over the past two decades, Betsy DeVos, is now serving as President Trump’s secretary of education.

VICE’s Gianna Toboni traveled to DeVos’ home state of Michigan to see school choice in action and understand what the future of public education might look like.

_{THANKS to HBO and VICE News for making this program available on YouTube.}

In this episode listen to These American Lies, hosted by Desi Lydic and Michael Kosta, where they explore President Trump’s claim that 3-5 million people voted illegally in the 2016 presidential election. It’s sure to be the talk of your next Upper West Side dinner party.

_{THANKS to Comedy Central and The Daily Show with Trevor Noah for making this program available on YouTube.}

The Heretic is a short film created by Unity’s Demo Team.

The film uses every aspect of Unity’s High Definition Rendering Pipeline, features advanced effects created with the VFX Graph, and showcases Demo Team’s first realistic digital human.

Read more at https://on.unity.com/36jOXHY

Mmmmm. Happy Time.

CAUTION: Some language may not be appropriate for work or children.

Me critical analysis of that savage 1000 degree glowing knife.

A weekly show hosted by John Green, where knowledge junkies get their fix of trivia-tastic information. This week, John debunks 50 common misconceptions that most people have about topics such as vikings, exploding birds and peanut butter.

The infamous “trollface” is said to be inspired by Atapuk, the ancient Mohitian god of trickery and evil

— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) February 21, 2018

FINALLY . . .

For Sale: Royally Minted Coins, Decorated With Dinosaurs

_{It’s change 165 million years in the making.}

_{The Royal Mint coins—available in bronze, silver, and gold—are a testament to English paleontology.}

ENGLAND IS FAMOUS FOR ITS rich archaeology, a result of the island nation’s long-standing habitation and record-keeping. But deep below the Victorian, Georgian, Anglo-Saxon, and Roman strata of Albion, the paleontological record speaks to a time long before any simian stepped foot in the region.

Now, the legacy of the country’s extinct proto lizards will be commemorated by the Royal Mint, on coins depicting three dinosaurs.

“There’s a lot of pressure involved, because this is a big deal,” says Paul Barrett, a paleontologist at London’s Natural History Museum and an adviser to the mint on its new coins. “[T]hey’re producing coins, and these are things that can’t just be changed. They’re real things, made of metal. You can’t just put an eraser to them if something’s wrong.”

_{Each coin is adorned with the name of an affiliated paleontologist. Ancient flora frame the large lizards.}

Millions of years before there was such a thing as “England,” the site was an archipelago surrounded by a shallow tropical sea—a haven for dinosaurs of all shapes and sizes (mainly large). In the early 19th century, a bit of paleontological mania consumed the Brits, from Mary Anning on the Dorset coast to Gideon Mantell in Oxfordshire and Sussex. Mantell’s crowning achievements are two of the dinos included in the mint’s project, over 150 years after the paleontologist-cum-physician-cum-geologist’s death. …

When Georg Wilhelm Rutgers died, medical examiners discovered that he was actually the outer covering for something else

— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) December 21, 2017

_{Ed. More tomorrow? Possibly. Probably. Maybe. Perhaps, maybe.}

_{• • • google suggested • • •}

_{^{• • • some of the things I read while eating breakfast • • •}}

These Japanese assassin’s teacups, known as “murderer’s manners”, contain hidden chambers and porous sides that allow poison to seep into the tea.

— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) January 22, 2019

Early Chinese Trick Photography Sent Chubby Babies Into Space

_{Inside a historian’s collection of endearing, goofy early 20th-century portraits.}

_{The final frontier.}

AT FIRST GLANCE, THE IMAGE seems set in space, or at least the set of a low-budget science fiction movie. A stubby Sputnik hovers in the background, next to a flat moon. A sleek metal rocket, labeled YI FENG 02, hangs in the foreground, but instead of an astronaut, it holds a serious-looking baby who gazes off in the distance, unperturbed by the lack of oxygen, zero air pressure, and freezing temperatures of space.

Fortunately for the baby, the image was taken in a professional photo studio. It’s a prime example of early staged and trick studio photography, which gained popularity in China in the mid-20th century. YI FENG 02’s rocket baby is one of more than 8,000 photos in the personal collection of Chris Steiner, an art historian at Connecticut College. Six years ago, Steiner started collecting examples of this kind of studio photography, on eBay and at special photo shows, to show his undergraduate students. But as his collection ballooned in size, he discovered some intriguing recurring themes. “Airplanes, balloons, people posing as fake cowboys, men posing with fake women,” he says.

Trick photography has been around almost as long as photography itself, long before Photoshop, as early as the 1840s, according to an overview from The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s exhibit on the practice, Faking It. Early methods of manipulation included painting photographic prints and negatives, making double-exposures, and bleaching parts of the photos. But Steiner felt drawn to a less technical kind of illusion that required no manipulation of the negative—only manipulation of the subjects and studio settings. “The photos you’re dealing with are not using double exposure, but instead props and painted backdrops, with some forced perspective and trompe l’oeil to create the ‘trick’ effect,” Christopher Rea, a cultural historian at the University of British Columbia, writes in an email.

_{Maybe not the most comfortable ride.}

These commercial, quasi-trick photos first emerged in the United States in Europe around the 1890s, Steiner says. The most famous backdrop of these studio photographs is the paper moon (Steiner’s instagram is devoted to the subject). The earliest examples in Steiner’s collection depict people posing in fake boats. “Then in 1907, you start to see people posing in fake airplanes, fake balloons, fake trains,” he says. The theme is so prevalent that it makes up one of the largest subsections in Steiner’s collection, which he has accurately labeled: “People posing in fake modes of transport.” …

POINT OF INFORMATION:The United States of Europe is a thing, apparently.

"Squantagh", a long-forgotten dish similar to casserole, was considered an indispensable part of early Thanksgiving dinners. It is not served today for some very good reasons.

— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) November 22, 2018

Suffrage review: epic retelling of US women’s long battle for the vote

_{A century after the 19th amendment, Ellen Carol DuBois makes the familiar new and sheds light on a fight against injustice.}

_{Suffragette Rosalie Jones leads a crowd of protesters up Pennsylvania Avenue after a march from New York in 1913.}

It was a decidedly anticlimactic end to a life-changing campaign. The document was sent by train to Washington in the middle of the night. A government employee met the train and rushed it to the secretary of state, Bainbridge Colby, who signed the Proclamation of Ratification at dawn, three days after Tennessee became the 36th state to vote for women’s suffrage.

There were no photographers to record the moment, no suffragists to bear witness. It was 26 August 1920 and after a grueling 80-year battle, the 19th amendment to the US constitution, granting women the vote, was ratified.

In this centennial year, it seems a miracle the 19th amendment ever became law. The “longest revolution” began in earnest at Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848. It survived the civil war and the first world war and dozens of failed state votes. Suffragists were jailed, their protests mobbed, their arguments mocked in the press, on the floor of the House and Senate and in every state legislature. Decade after decade, suffrage remained a hopeless cause that consumed the lives of brave, persistent and often brilliant women.

Ellen Carol DuBois has written a comprehensive history that deftly tackles intricate political complexities and conflicts and still somehow reads with nail-biting suspense.

With the current feminist movement now in its fourth wave, how many American suffragettes are household names, besides perhaps Susan B Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton? Thanks to DuBois, a UCLA professor and noted suffrage scholar, many more now spring to life. Her colorful cast includes the more prominent leaders – Anthony, Stanton, Sojourner Truth, Ida B Wells, Carrie Chapman Catt, Victoria Woodhull, Alice Paul – but DuBois gives supporting roles to many members of the “petticoat brigade” heretofore largely lost to history. …

How not to steal $1.5 million: Inside an Instagram influencer’s alleged debit card scam

_{STAY KAYGOLDI}

_{Kayla Massa had more than 330,000 followers on Instagram, where she went by “Kayg0ldi.”}

A brazen Instagram scam came to an end this week.

On Thursday (Feb. 13), federal authorities arrested Kayla Massa, an Instagram and YouTube “influencer,” charging her with conspiracy to commit bank and wire fraud. She and her accomplices allegedly recruited victims over Instagram, asking them to hand over emptied-out bank cards, with the accounts then being used to deposit large amounts of stolen money.

A complaint unsealed in New Jersey federal court contains details of an audacious scheme that prosecutors say brought in more than $1.5 million.

Social media platforms are filled with individuals hoping to find an easy mark, and the companies that run them have trouble keeping up with bad actors.

The investigation began in July 2018, when the US Postal Service learned that 53 blank money orders had been stolen from the Berlin, New Jersey post office. Thirty of them had been deposited in various bank accounts, all for either $990 or $995. Investigators saw that the money orders were missing a clerk ID, and the date, zip code, and dollar amounts were all printed in the wrong font.

Postal inspectors identified the bank accounts into which the stolen USPS money orders were deposited. One of them belonged to a Barrington, New Jersey resident identified in court filings only as “J.K.” Two of the money orders had been deposited into J.K.’s two accounts at PNC Bank, both for $995. …

Weird As Hell Realities Of Living In These Major Cities

At a certain level, major cities start to feel the same: congestion, pollution, noise, “Dear, God, what’s that smell?” and the like. We’ve all been there. But for all the similarities, some cities have bizarre problems that are uniquely their own. Look at how …

5. Dhaka Has Killer Sewers

Dhaka is the biggest city you probably don’t think or hear about much. It’s the capital of Bangladesh, and with a population of nearly 9 million packed into 118 square miles, it’s the most densely populated city in the world. This has led to some hellish problems, such as being too crowded for the dead. There’s no room for new burials, so they stack new burials on top of old ones (without telling the deceased’s family) like a morbid version of Jenga. But what really makes life rough is monsoon season.

All of South Asia gets intense monsoons, and with them comes the obvious problem of flooding, but Dhaka also has to deal with having a tiny drainage basin. That might not sound that bad until you think about what kind of water runs beneath a city: sewage.

During the monsoon season, the city basically becomes a flushing toilet bowl, as sewers turn into swirling vortexes of shit that can actually suck people in. In 2008, the city suffered a rough wet season and dispatched seven workers to fix the sewers. Normally they’d use ropes for safety, but this crew was new and inexperienced. The surging water sucked them down, killing four and seriously injuring three. A common sight is people waste-deep in shit-water scooping it out by hand to help the city drain. The situation is so frequent that the main newspaper runs sadly resigned headlines like “Dhaka Underwater Again” and “It’s The Same Old Story.” …

Searching For Mackie

_{Seven years ago, a young woman from Tache, British Columbia, went out for the evening and never came back. Her family won’t stop looking for her, and they deserve answers.}

_{A portrait of Immaculate, “Mackie” Basil in Peter and Vivian Basil’s home in Tache, British Columbia.}

As Peter Basil remembers it, the week leading up to Father’s Day, in June 2013, began like any other; he’s since replayed the events in his mind like a recurring bad dream. Peter recalls standing in the kitchen of his modest split-level home in Tache, a First Nations village that lies deep in the wilderness of northern interior British Columbia. His younger sister Mackie, then in her late 20s, followed him around as he made a pot of coffee.

“Promise me you’ll take care of my baby,” Mackie asked Peter, referring to her 5-year-old son.

“Yup,” he replied.

Mackie trailed Peter to the living room and sat next to him on the L-shaped couch, under high school graduation photos of herself and her sisters.

“Promise me you’ll take care of my baby,” Mackie repeated to Peter.

“Yeah, geez,” he responded. “Should I be worried? Are you coming back?”

“I’ll be back,” Mackie promised.

Although Mackie seemed troubled, Peter didn’t think much of the exchange at the time. A few days later, Mackie, Peter, and Peter’s wife, Vivian, went to a nearby community to buy a cake. THANK YOU DADS, it read, next to an image of an eagle. They picked up a few groceries and stopped to check for mail. Because she had lost her ID, Mackie asked Peter to purchase two bottles of vodka for a party later that night, then they went home.

Mackie showered and sat next to Vivian. She rolled on her gray “stretchies,” Vivian said of Mackie’s leggings, and pulled on a blue T-shirt and a black hoodie with a little maple leaf logo. In photos from the time, she has black hair that fell neatly below her shoulders, a youthful face, and a playful smile.

Mackie, who went nowhere without her music, grabbed her iPod and a bottle of vodka. She promised Vivian she would be back by the next day; she planned to take her son and nephew to the park. She left before dusk and later walked to where locals were having a party. When Mackie came home a few hours later, she took the second bottle of vodka and headed up a trail, next to the house, that led out of town. Peter cracked the front door open and looked out.

“Goodbye, bro. I love you,” Mackie called back to him.

In that moment, now frozen in his memory, Peter watched Mackie walk away. He lingered at the door as she climbed the path. He spotted a man waiting for her farther up the trail. Something was not quite right. Why, Peter asked himself, would Mackie have said goodbye in such a way if she were coming home? Then he wondered if, perhaps, this would be the last time he’d see her. …

Cod wars to food banks: how a Lancashire fishing town is hanging on

_{When I grew up there, Fleetwood was a tough but proud fishing port. It’s taken some knocks in the years since, but not everyone has given up on it.}

_{Fleetwood, Lancashire.}

My parents moved to Fleetwood on the coast of Lancashire in the years when the British fishing industry was beginning its dramatic decline. In 1976 the North Sea trawlers had lost the rights to fish the Icelandic waters where the majority of Fleetwood’s cod was caught. Cod fishing had been vital to the town’s economy, and remains part of its identity: a person from Fleetwood is a “cod head”– a term used as an insult by our neighbours but as an endearment by us. The supporters of Fleetwood Town FC are the Cod Army. The town’s biggest manufacturer is Lofthouse, makers of Fisherman’s Friend lozenges, which were first concocted in Victorian times to relieve the colds that deckhands would catch from working days and nights in the freezing wet.

My parents, originally from Gloucestershire, had moved to Fleetwood for their first teaching jobs when I was two years old. They found it forbidding at first, living at the end of a narrow peninsula surrounded by water on three sides. “It was so empty,” my mother told me. “Walking along the prom when we arrived in November was like looking out at an old painting of a storm. It felt like we were completely cut off.” When I started school, my new friend Mike asked me: “Why do you talk like Prince Charles?” (I had rhymed grass with arse.) At which point I started to speak like a northerner.

I grew up with the sea at one end of my street, with a view across Morecambe Bay towards the mountains of the Lake District. When the tide was in, the sun on the water under a clear horizon, I would feel energised and free – although on an overcast day in winter, with the tide so far out you can’t see it, the landscape can look empty, bleached, abandoned.

There is almost nothing left of Fleetwood’s fishing industry now, and the area, like many northern towns, has high unemployment and voted to leave the EU, driven in part by the promise to “take back control of our waters”. Last year, two wards of Fleetwood featured separately in a list of the 10 most depressing places to live in England, based on GP figures for people being treated for depression. I had left the town a month after I turned 18 to go to university in Birmingham, and stayed away. Even so, I bristled with defensiveness at the idea of my hometown being some kind of hell. I’ve always hated lists of crap towns compiled by people who live in cities, and while this list, published by the House of Commons library as an index of mental health problems, had nobler aims, I wanted to remind myself what living in Fleetwood feels like to the people there, and what life might be like if I had stayed. …

PREPARE TO SPEND A WHILE; it’s The Long Read.

Video Goodnesses
_{and not-so-goodnesses}

“#Crushing: A Success Podcast for Winners,” hosted by Ronny Chieng and featuring Roy Wood, Jr., will supply you with the knowledge, motivation, and vitamin supplements you need to become an epic one-man success machine.

Introducing The Daily Show Podcast Universe, a five-episode miniseries, each episode a parody of a popular podcast or podcast genre. Subscribe here or search for “The Daily Show Podcast Universe” to hear them all: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast…

_{THANKS to Comedy Central and The Daily Show with Trevor Noah for making this program available on YouTube.}

A self-taught artist with a background in physics, David C. Roy has been creating mesmerizing wooden kinetic sculptures for nearly 40 years. Powered solely through mechanical wind-up mechanisms, pieces can run up to 48 hours on a single wind.

To learn more about Roy’s work, visit his website at http://www.woodthatworks.com/

Obama will abandon complex policies on emissions, clean coal and refocus on achievable goals like applying deodorant daily, learning what to say when you burp.

_{Ed. “But we hope to inspire all of America to band together and make our nation a little bit less of an embarassing disgusting shit hole.” And then we somehow got Trumped.}

CAUTION: Some language may not be appropriate for work or children.

I continue taking a fascinating look at the lives of various animals in this special wildlife series.

最新型まるホイホイのご紹介です。The latest Maru Trap.

Newfound evidence suggests that the first Pilgrims were aided not by a tribe but by a transportation cooperative, a commercial entity whose role in Native American society was similar to that of Lyft or Uber today.

— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) November 22, 2018

FINALLY . . .

The History of Race, Performance, and Drag Intersect in a Rare Photo of Thomas Dilward

_{Dilward performed with all-white minstrel troupes that otherwise excluded black people.}

_{A portrait of Thomas Dilward in the Brady-Handy Collection of the Library of Congress, originally taken in the 1850s or 1860s.}

TODAY IN BROOKLYN, NEW YORK, the southwest corner of Court Street and Remsen Street is home to a vitamin store, a law office, and a pizzeria. But in September 1862, during the second year of the Civil War, the corner was home to Christy’s Opera House, a theater that put on minstrel shows in which white men blackened their faces with burnt cork in a racist caricature of African Americans. Christy’s troupe of 16 had one notable exception: a black performer named Thomas Dilward, who used the stage name “Japanese Tommy.”

Dilward was one of the first African-American performers to tour with white minstrels, who typically excluded African-American performers from their shows, John G. Russell, a cultural anthropologist at Gifu University in Japan, writes in an email. Dilward often performed in drag, according to Errol Hill and James V. Hatch’s A History of African American Theatre. He made history as a member of these all-white troupes, even as he inherited the troubling history of a genre built on racist caricatures and exclusion. A rare carte de visite of Dilward wearing a ruffled dress, white gloves, and a bonnet was sold to a private collector by Cowan’s Auctions on February 20. “I have seen this carte de visite a long time ago at the Harvard Theatre Collection,” Krystyn Moon, a historian at the University of Mary Washington, writes in an email.

Dilward (who sometimes appears as Dilverd or Dilworth, among other permutations) was born in Brooklyn, New York, in the late 1830s. He was a little person, standing approximately three feet six inches tall, and first began performing with Christy’s Minstrels in 1853, according to Moon’s book Yellowface: Creating the Chinese in American Popular Music and Performance, 1850s-1920s. The all-white troupe was formed in Buffalo but performed throughout New York City, once running for a seven-year engagement at Mechanics’ Hall on 472 Broadway in Manhattan, which is now a six-story condo.

_{This rare photo of Thomas Dilward in drag, which recently sold to a private collector, was taken in 1866.}

“How and when Dilward got the name ‘Japanese Tommy’ is unclear,” Russell says. “Some suggest he adopted [it] when delegates of the first Japanese Embassy visited the U.S. in 1860, but it appears he was already performing under that name with Christy’s Minstrels as early as 1853.” Commodore Matthew Perry opened Japan to American trade in 1853, leading some scholars to suggest that occasion might be the origin of Dilward’s stage name, Moon says. …

Towards the end of the war, Hitler had become so paranoid that he forced his advisors to stage puppet shows depicting an Axis victory

— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) February 22, 2018

_{Ed. More tomorrow? Possibly. Probably. Maybe. Not? Perhaps, perhaps.}

Be careful what you wish for. I'll make sure you don't get it.

— God (@TheTweetOfGod) February 21, 2020

"Vote for Bernie if you want Trump to win?"

No.

Vote for Bernie if you want Bernie to win.

— God (@TheTweetOfGod) February 23, 2020

I should have left the elephants in charge.

— God (@TheTweetOfGod) February 22, 2020

_{• • • google suggests • • •}

_{^{• • • some of the things I read while eating breakfast • • •}}

If a bartender offers to serve you a Cossack Spirit Bludgeon, it would be wise to decline.

— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) January 23, 2019

How One Man and His Dog Rowed More Than 700 Kākāpōs to Safety

_{In the late 19th century, Richard Henry laid a blueprint for modern conservation in New Zealand.}

_{The chubby, moss-colored, papaya-scented kākāpō.}

IN 1893, IN AUCKLAND, NEW Zealand, 48-year-old Richard Henry was going through a peculiar midlife crisis. It wasn’t for any of the usual reasons, such as a failed marriage (though he had one) or a failed career (though he had been chasing a dream job for several years), but rather it was over his obsession with flightless, moss-colored parrots called kākāpōs. Henry had observed the birds’ steep decline after mustelids, such as ferrets and stoats, were introduced to the country, and had spent much of the previous decade trying to convince scientists that the birds were in real danger of going extinct, write Susanne and John Hill in the biography, Richard Henry of Resolution Island. But Henry, who did not have traditional scientific training, went unheard by scientists. On October 3, a deeply depressed Henry attempted to shoot himself twice. The first shot missed and the second misfired, and Henry checked himself into the hospital, where doctors removed the bullet from his skull.

Several months later, Henry got that dream job: caretaker of Resolution Island, an 80-square-mile, uninhabited hunk of rock off southern New Zealand that he hoped to turn into a predator-free sanctuary for kākāpōs and other native birds. For the next 14 years, he toiled away alone on the island in pursuit of this revolutionary conservation idea. He rowed hundreds native birds from the mainland, across choppy waters, to keep them safe from the snapping jaws of furry little predators.

Despite his pioneering vision, Henry was rarely taken seriously as a conservationist in his lifetime, and after he died, he became a tragic footnote in New Zealand’s archives of conservation. “He was a visionary, a bit of a recluse, and a hermit,” says Andrew Digby, a kākāpō conservation biologist with the New Zealand Department of Conservation. “But he was so far ahead of his time, and had a lot of things right that other people didn’t.”

_{Richard Henry had a vision.}

Henry was the first to understand the kākāpōs’ erratic breeding patterns and behavior, and his scheme for Resolution Island laid the blueprint for one of the country’s major modern conservation initiatives. This year, New Zealand hopes to restart Henry’s long-abandoned project and actually turn Resolution Island into a kākāpō sanctuary. …

This Brazilian museum secretly outfitted four sets of armor with animatronic skeletons designed to terrify intruders.

— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) January 23, 2019

Bernie Sanders’ plans may be expensive but inaction would cost much more

_{Facing existential challenges, we must spend heavily on a Green New Deal, Medicare for All and similar plans.}

_{Bernie Sanders speaks during a rally at Valley high school in Santa Ana, California.}

In Wednesday night’s Democratic debate, the former South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg charged that the Vermont senator Bernie Sanders’ policy proposals would cost $50tn. Holy Indiana.

Larry Summers, formerly chief White House economic adviser for Barack Obama, puts the price tag at $60tn. “We are in a kind of new era of radical proposal,” he told CNN.

Maya MacGuineas, president of the bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, claims Sanders’ agenda would at least double federal spending.

Putting aside the accuracy of these cost estimates, they omit the other side of the equation: what, by comparison, is the cost of doing nothing?

A Green New Deal might be expensive but doing nothing about climate change will almost certainly cost far more. California is already burning, the midwest and south are flooding, New England is eroding, Florida is sinking. If we don’t launch something as bold as a Green New Deal, we’ll spend trillions coping with the consequences of our failure to be bold.

Medicare for All will cost a lot, but the price of doing nothing about America’s increasingly dysfunctional healthcare system will soon be in the stratosphere. The nation already pays more for healthcare per person and has worse health outcomes than any other advanced country. …

Please Don’t Fall for Mike Bloomberg’s Twitter Posts

_{Ignore this man.}

Mike Bloomberg is running for president. It took him awhile to admit it but he finally said it: He wants to be the big cheese. President Mike. The Bloomberg-in-Chief. Could he make it all the way to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue? Only the voters can say. For now, Bloomberg is content to do weird posts online. But why? That’s the million dollar question, or should I say billion? (Because Mike Bloomberg has billions of dollars.)

The most famous Bloomberg weird post is the meatball tweet. If you already know what the meatball tweet is, great. If you don’t, I’m sorry to have to show it to you. Here it is.

Test your political knowledge:
SPOT THE MEATBALL THAT LOOKS LIKE MIKE. pic.twitter.com/CkzdgwpzdI

— Team Bloomberg (@Mike2020) January 15, 2020

Let’s be clear: The meatball that looks like Mike is front and center. Not a difficult challenge, in my opinion. Michael Bloomberg’s team (Team Bloomberg, boring name) tweeted the meatball thing during one of the six bajillion Democratic debates that have happened this season as some sort of counterprogramming. If he wasn’t going to be onstage, he was gonna be in everyone’s feeds.

It’s not the only weird Bloomberg tweet. This week, his team posted video of Trump’s impeachment-acquittal speech overdubbed with the word lie and a dancing gingerbread man from Shrek superimposed on the frame.

Trump was in rare form during his post-acquittal speech. pic.twitter.com/jq8NTTn5yd

— Team Bloomberg (@Mike2020) February 6, 2020

Extremely stupid. There are other silly posts. Like one about Gerald Ford eating a calzone, or him using a stamp that says “OMG NO” to veto bills, or one with the “This is fine” meme. During the State of the Union, Bloomberg’s team was imploring potential voters to check out the new Fast & Furious trailer. …

Uh, You’re Eating More Plastic Than You Realize

When they first burst onto the scene, people thought that plastics were the way of the future. And they weren’t wrong. There’s a plastic version of almost everything, and there’s no denying that it’s highly useful and convenient. Trouble is, plastic is now everywhere. Including inside our bodies.

A recent study determined that humans consume, on average, a credit card’s worth of plastic … every single week. In six months, we eat the equivalent of a cereal bowl full of the stuff. In a lifetime, we ingest an estimated 44 pounds of plastic. That’s more than six Yorkshire Terriers. How on Earth are we able to swallow that much and not know it? Well, one reason our grandparents thought plastic was hot shit is the fact that it doesn’t biodegrade; it just breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces. These “microplastic particles” (anything less than 5 mm in diameter) then make their way into waterways and soil, entering the food chain, and eventually us.

The sad truth is that every piece of plastic ever made still exists. Our bodies today contain bits of our parents’ and grandparents’ toothbrush bristles, plastic bags, and used condoms. Don’t say Nana never gave you anything.

But their waste is a drop in the bucket compared to what we generate today. In 2015, humans produced 420 million tons of plastic, compared to a mere 2 million pounds back in 1950. Worse still, in that span of 65 years, we managed to use and trash 6 billion tons, which is now in landfills or nature, where it’s degrading into nanoparticles. In 2019, scientists determined that even in remote portions of the Pyrenees, microplastic falls from the sky at a rate of 365 particles per square meter, every single day. Even in the furthest corners of the world, it’s literally raining plastic. …

UNRELATED: Panic-Inducing Things You’re Hearing About Coronavirus (That Are Total B.S.)

The coronavirus isn’t even as old as the milk in some people’s fridges, and already it’s among the top three sources of everyday panic on the internet. And predictably, the whole subject was immediately infested with half-truths, disinformation, and 110% bullshit lies. We can’t have nice things, and we can’t have terrible things either. The result is that the media and government have had to spend time disavowing myths that should never have gotten started in the first place. Like how …

Why the lights are going out for fireflies

_{Fireflies face a dim future because of habitat loss and light pollution. How can conservationists help?}

_{Fireflies in a cedar forest in Tamba, Hyogo Prefecture, Japan.}

At dusk, graduate student Sara Lewis was sitting on her back porch in North Carolina with her dog. “We were supposed to be mowing our grass, but we never did, so we had long grass in our yard,” she recalls. “Suddenly this cloud of sparks rose up out of the grass and started flying around me.”

Each spark was a firefly: a beetle that glows in the dark. Hundreds of fireflies had gathered in Lewis’s back yard and were soaring around her. “It was this incredible spectacle,” says Lewis, “and I just sort of gasped.” Then she became fascinated. “I started wondering what the heck was going on here, what were these bugs doing, what were they talking about?” She has spent much of the past three decades studying fireflies.

In recent years Lewis’s work has taken on a new urgency. All around the world, the lights of fireflies are going out. The dazzling beetles are disappearing from long-established habitats. Often it is not clear why, but it seems likely that light pollution and the destruction of habitats are crucial factors. Biologists are racing to understand what is happening to fireflies so we can save them before their lights fade permanently.

_{Different species of firefly on display at the Forest Research Institute in Kuala Lumpur.}

There have been fireflies since the dinosaur era, says evolutionary geneticist Sarah Lower, an assistant professor of biology at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. “The estimates we have currently are that fireflies are over 100m years old,” she says. Early in their history, they split into two groups, one of which spread throughout the Americas while the other colonised Europe and Asia. …

This Is How Kleptocracies Work

_{Trump’s pardons were shocking to some, but to me they were eerily familiar—straight out of the kleptocratic playbook I’ve studied in a dozen other countries.}

Donald Trump’s decision this week to pardon several Americans convicted of fraud or corruption has garnered condemnation from many in the political establishment. The pardons were shocking to some, but to me they were eerily familiar—straight out of the kleptocratic playbook I’ve experienced and studied in a dozen other countries.

I was immediately reminded, for instance, of an episode from August 2010. I had been living and working in Afghanistan for the better part of a decade, and was participating in an effort to push anti-corruption toward the center of the U.S. mission there. A long, carefully designed, and meticulously executed investigation culminated in the arrest of a palace aide on charges of extorting a bribe. But the man did not spend a single night in jail. Afghan President Hamid Karzai made a call; the aide was released; and the case was dropped.

Karzai later bragged about interfering, in terms akin to the “horribles” and “unfairs” we now hear emanating from the White House. He likened the operation to the way people under Soviet rule were wrenched from their homes.

Corruption, I realized with a start, is not simply a matter of individual greed. It is more like a sophisticated operating system, employed by networks whose objective is to maximize their members’ riches. And a bargain holds that system together: Money and favors flow upward (from aides to presidents, for instance) and downward in return. …

Video Goodnesses
_{and not-so-goodnesses}

Are you a failed presidential candidate with nowhere to go? Try Fading Dreams, the candidate reintegration center.

_{THANKS to Comedy Central and The Daily Show with Trevor Noah for making this program available on YouTube.}

With the help of historian Douglas Brinkley, this “Slow Burn” parody unpacks in painstaking detail what it was like to live through Barack Obama’s “Latte Salute,” the greatest scandal in presidential history.

Introducing The Daily Show Podcast Universe, a five-episode miniseries, each episode a parody of a popular podcast or podcast genre. Subscribe here or search for “The Daily Show Podcast Universe” to hear them all: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast…

Deven Green appears as Mrs. Betty Bowers, America’s Best Christian. Betty was created and is written by Andrew Bradley.

CAUTION: Some language may not be appropriate for work or children.

Yeah nah dodgy planet.

Gentleman assassins in 17th-century Paris often used tiny, specially bred vipers to eliminate their targets

— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) January 23, 2018

FINALLY . . .

The Devilishly Difficult Locks of Dindigul

_{These unique handcrafted mechanisms are designed to protect homes, confound cashiers, and outthink thieves.}

_{The mango button lock opens only when you turn the key after pressing a hidden button.}

A.N.S PRADEEP KUMAR PICKS UP a shiny silver key the size of his forearm. He inserts it into a huge lock placed on the counter of his store. Every time he twists the massive key, a ring reverberates throughout the shop.

“This is the bell lock,” he says. “A skilled locksmith in these parts would take two weeks to craft this by hand.”

Surrounded by a sea of shimmering silver and brass, this 42-year-old lock manufacturer and retailer has spent his life and career in Dindigul, a city of two million people in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. For the past 75 years his family has been part of, and privy to, the secrets of an ancient lock-making industry.

_{A.N.S Pradeep Kumar’s family has been involved in the manufacture, wholesale, and retail of Dindigul locks for 75 years.}

Last August, Dindigul locks received a GI (Geographical Indication) tag, given to unique and authentic indigenous Indian products that can be traced to a specific geographical area and are famed for their quality.

In Dindigul’s case, that geography has always been key. “People turned to making locks [here] because there was an abundance of iron in this region, but water for agriculture was scarce,” says Pradeep Kumar. …

This 19th-century pocket watch came with a concealed pistol, a stamp for wax seals, and four poisonous darts

— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) January 23, 2018

_{Ed. More tomorrow? Possibly. Probably. Maybe. Not? Perhaps, perhaps.}

_{• • • google suggested • • •}

_{^{• • • some of the things I read while eating breakfast • • •}}

Lady Buxton-Battersleigh-Croydon, a famous court socialite who was never seen outside her carriage, was actually a hand puppet

— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) January 24, 2018

For One Photographer, Reptiles Rule the Galápagos

_{Lucas Bustamante wants you to fall in love.}

_{A marine iguana basking on Floreana Island.}

IT TOOK A LOT OF EFFORT FOR Ecuadorian photographer Lucas Bustamante to reach one of his models. First he had to get to Wolf Island, a remote and tiny rock in the Galápagos archipelago where tourists aren’t allowed. Then he had to climb a lava-rock cliff to reach the summit of the island, where his subject—the small, delicately speckled, and vunerable wolf leaf-toed gecko—lives. They can only be found on Wolf Island and the even more distant Darwin Island. “I just had a few hours to reach the target,” Bustamante says. “It was a lot of pressure and the climbing was tough but I got it.”

The result of this encounter and many others are featured in Reptiles of the Galápagos, a book co-authored by Bustamante, who has been focused on photographing reptiles for years. The book is the first fully comprehensive field guide of reptiles of the islands. The unique setting there—extremely isolated, at the confluence of three ocean currents, impacted by seismic and volcanic activity—has created an unusual menagerie of plant and animal life, and the reptiles are no exception. Though the islands have been studied for centuries—including Darwin’s famed work there—they still hold secrets. In the last 10 years, five new species of reptiles have been described there, and there are many more just waiting to be named.

Though the beloved giant tortoises are well known, Bustamante believes that the islands’ scaly and slithery creatures deserve even more attention. As cofounder, with Alejandro Areteaga, of Tropical Herping, a research and tourism institution based in Ecuador, Bustamante has traveled around the world with his camera to promote the conservation of hundreds of species of reptiles and amphibians in danger of extinction (even braving countless snakebites in the process). One of his greatest challenges in photographing reptiles, he says, is finding ways to get people to “fall in love with them and raise their willingness to protect them.”

Atlas Obscura spoke with Bustamante about his reptilian obsession, the challenges of the Galápagos, and the joy of sharing his photos.

_{The endangered Andy Sabin’s leaf-toed gecko lives in a habitat fragmented by lava flows.}

Why reptiles?

My inspiration started in paying attention to reptiles, even before photographing them. I remember that since I was a kid, when I fell in love with dinosaurs, there was something in snakes that called to me. When I started traveling and encountering more and more iguanas, caimans, snakes, etc., these became my real-life dinosaurs. Also, this group of vertebrates is not as well studied as others, so you can always find something new, such as any unreported behaviors. …

The deeply unsettling tale of Thomas Edison’s “little devilfishes”, and how they came to redefine corporate espionage

— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) January 24, 2018

My boyfriend’s wedding dress unveiled my own shortcomings over masculinity

_{I’m quick to blame men for their toxic behavior, but in this case, I, the woman, was part of the problem.}

_{Emily Halnon’s boyfriend in his dress: ‘I’ve found the one!’ he proclaimed when he bought it.}

My gaze scanned the colorful racks of clothing and stopped abruptly on something I’d never expected to see: my boyfriend was clutching a wedding dress – that he wanted to buy for himself.

“Emily!” he cried with victorious glee. “I’ve found the one!”

Ian thrust the white garment into the air like a Nascar trophy. Its lace sleeves sashayed from the tapered bodice and fluffy tulle grazed the dirty tiles of the thrift store floor. A smile stretched across Ian’s scruffy face and his blue eyes danced with the giddy excitement of a bride saying, “I do!”

“Oh, wow,” I managed to spit out.

We were at Goodwill searching for dresses to wear during the annual Mother’s Day Climb up Mount St Helens, a decades-long tradition in which everyone scaling the volcano that day sports flowing garments in honor of female mountaineers and mothers everywhere.

I knew Ian would be among the most outrageous on the mountain. My boyfriend is aggressively fun and a flair fanatic, which I find wildly attractive on most occasions – like when he’s scaling technical slopes in jorts and a cat shirt or skiing the steepest lines in the Pacific north-west in space tights.

But I found myself unexpectedly uneasy with his new fondness for feminine frocks – a reaction that challenged the progressive ideals I’d prided myself on for decades. I’d long thought I was contributing to a progressive shift in how we define masculinity, finally allowing men to be emotional and vulnerable, or to ask for help, or to hug their male friends … or to wear dresses. …

‘I want to be brave like you’: A 9-year-old boy asked Pete Buttigieg how to tell people he is gay

_{Democratic presidential candidate former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg greets Zachary Ro, who asked Buttigieg to help him tell others he is gay.}

Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg had an emotional moment on Saturday night with a nine-year old boy who asked him for help to come out as gay.

During a Q&A session where questions were drawn from a fishbowl, the boy, later identified as, Zachary Ro, thanked the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana for his bravery and sought help from Buttigieg on coming out.

“Would you help me tell the world I’m gay, too?” Ro asked the first openly gay presidential candidate, adding, “I want to be brave like you.”

Powerful moment (better audio): 9 year old Zachary Ro of Lone Tree asks @PeteButtigieg how he can be brave and tell people he is gay too pic.twitter.com/1aUbYM8cDM

— Joe St. George (@JoeStGeorge) February 23, 2020

The Democratic hopeful lauded Ro’s emotional strength and cited his own turbulent journey to share the truth with loved ones about his identity.

“I don’t think you need a lot of advice from me on bravery, you seem pretty strong,” Buttigieg responded. “It took me a long time to figure out how to tell even my best friend that I was gay, let alone go out there and tell the world. And to see you willing to come to terms with you who you are in a room full of thousands of people you never met, that’s really something.” …

10 Regular Things We Should All Stop Mistaking For Aliens

We may find evidence of alien life someday. That would be amazing right? It’d be great and exciting and maybe terrifying. But here’s the thing about that: you won’t properly appreciate that evidence if your head is full of Area 51 junk and Roswell nonsense and a ludicrous belief that octopuses come from outer space. So on this week’s episode of The Cracked Podcast, Alex Schmidt is joined by comedians & alien comedy experts David Christopher Bell (Gamefully Unemployed, “Fox Mulder Is A Maniac”) and Moujan Zolfaghari (Mission To Zyxx, ‘At Home With Amy Sedaris’). They’re digging into the most common lazy media tropes, frustrating hoaxes, and generally confusing myths about aliens. So throw on some headphones, increase your media literacy, and be ready to spot the REAL signs of extraterrestrials, if and when we ever get them. …

Can Mike Bloomberg buy his way to the White House?

_{Part two of a Guardian investigation looks at what Bloomberg’s campaign is using millions from his fortune for – and if his spending blitz could guarantee a win.}

_{Mike Bloomberg prepares to speak in Washington DC.
• $45m, 1.6bn views and ‘Crazy Donald’: How Bloomberg bought your Facebook feed}

The road to the White House is paved with dollars and coins. But in 2020, Mike Bloomberg is hoping to seal off that road from the competition with the steepest wall of cash ever spent by one person on an election in US history.

One of the richest people in the world, the media mogul and former New York mayor entered the race late, and with heaps of money, in an attempt to upend the normal campaign model and unseat Donald Trump. He has vowed to spend up to $1bn of his own wealth, though some reports have suggested he could double that.

His fortune has launched a campaign dripping in cash: showering hundreds of millions on adverts, hiring thousands of staffers with astonishing perks and creating a web of political patronage that has won him key endorsements. His money has now propelled him into the top tier of the Democratic race, leapfrogging rivals who have been trudging along on the traditional campaign trail for more than a year.

Bloomberg was assailed by Democratic challengers on the debate stage Wednesday night, but the question remains: can the richest campaign ever launched in the US really buy the White House?

Sarah Bryner, research director at the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, said while wealth has always been a tool in elections, money is doing an outsized amount of work for Bloomberg. “He’s sort of changing the boundaries for what is possible,” she said. …

Woman upset after Boulder Circle K rejects Puerto Rican driver’s license

BOULDER, Colo. — Back on Thursday, Ruth Caraballo went to a Circle K in Boulder to get gas and cigarettes. But the clerk told her she couldn’t purchase the cigarettes because there was a problem with her ID.

“I gave her my ID, and she told me she could not accept a Puerto Rican driver’s license, just US IDs. I explained to her that Puerto Rico is part of the United States. A Puerto Rico driver’s license is a US ID. She told me she could not accept it,” Caraballo said.

Caraballo, who is American, said she is visiting Colorado and currently lives in Puerto Rico.

She said she called police to help facilitate in hopes of clearing it up, and an officer, wearing a body camera, showed up to try to talk to the manager.

“Nobody can dictate what we can and cannot take. No, we don’t take Puerto Rico. We take US ID, US state ID, US passport, US military ID — those are the four things Circle K takes,” a store clerk is heard telling the officer on body camera video. …

Video Goodnesses
_{and not-so-goodnesses}

A bionic revolution is brewing, as recent advancements in bioengineering have brought about scientific breakthroughs in rehabilitation for people with disabilities. The most cutting edge research is happening inside the human brain, where implanted technology allows people to communicate directly with computers, using their thoughts.

VICE’s Wilbert L. Cooper travels to Zurich to see the first-ever bionic Olympics and discovers a host of technologies that are expanding what it means to be human.

_{THANKS to HBO and VICE News for making this program available on YouTube.}

John Oliver talks about India’s Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, why he’s popular, why he’s controversial, and where things are headed for the largest democracy in the world.

_{THANKS to HBO and Last Week Tonight for making this program available on YouTube.}

In this episode, three 9-year-old co-hosts – Jonny, Tommy, and Isabelle – lead the resistance against their authoritarian principal. Features Daily Show correspondent Dulcé Sloan.

Introducing The Daily Show Podcast Universe, a five-episode miniseries, each episode a parody of a popular podcast or podcast genre. Subscribe here or search for “The Daily Show Podcast Universe” to hear them all: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast…

_{THANKS to Comedy Central and The Daily Show with Trevor Noah for making this program available on YouTube.}

Daniel Rozin, Artist and Professor, Interactive Telecommunications Program, NYU, makes mechanical “mirrors” out of uncommon objects that mimic the viewer’s movements and form.

CAUTION: Some language may not be appropriate for work or children.

Me commentary on a daring and cheeky gibbon vs a couple of tigers.

The phenomenon that convinced Arther C Clarke he was being contacted by a higher power was actually caused by warring raccoon tribes

— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) January 16, 2018

FINALLY . . .

Freeway Park

_{The first park built over a freeway is a brutalist masterwork.}

_{Freeway Park, Seattle.}

CONSTRUCTED DURING AMERICA’S BICENTENNIAL celebration, Seattle’s Freeway Park was the first freeway lid—a structure built on top of a sunken freeway—in the nation. The 5.2-acre urban space is a renowned brutalist masterwork, though it’s seen better days.

The park was opened on July 4, 1976 in celebration of the U.S. bicentennial. Its distinct areas, known as the Central Plaza, East Plaza, and West Plaza, are woven together via a cohesive medley of concrete, greenery, and furnishings. Water features, such as an impressive 30-foot concrete canyon built directly over the median strip of Interstate 5, help enhance the landscape and differentiate the moods of each space. A fourth feature, Naramore Fountain by renowned sculptor George Tsutakawa, predates Freeway Park and was incorporated within the park’s design.

Originally intended to help “heal the scar” the interstate highway created through downtown Seattle, Freeway Park eventually wound up causing its own wounds within the city. The brutalist architecture, which uses mainly concrete, gives the park’s features a raw, somewhat unwelcoming feel. Many of the softwood trees planted within it eventually grew dark and died, their soil stuffed with too many roots, their urban air too polluted. …

Sedgwick Morris, 19th-century social reformer, wrote two volumes on the biology of leprechauns, and—towards the end of her life—claimed to actually be one

— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) January 16, 2018

_{Ed. More tomorrow? Possibly. Probably. Maybe. Not? Might happen, perhaps.}

Ahem…

POINT OF INFORMATION: Once you’ve dispensed with Karen, there’s always another Karen waiting to pounch on the opportunity to recreate the chaos.

Fresh AskReddit Stories: What is the most Karen thing a Karen has even done to you, personally?

Sedgwick Morris, 19th-century social reformer, wrote two volumes on the biology of leprechauns, and—towards the end of her life—claimed to actually be one

— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) January 16, 2018

YOU DID SAY THIS, RIGHT?#ImpeachTrumpAgain pic.twitter.com/Ls9brS8PUb

— Beach Girl 4-Ever! (@JoannaP05919657) February 24, 2020

_{• • • google suggested • • •}

_{Ed. The birds are very restless. Miguel the Macaw really enjoyed seeing his cousin.}

_{^{• • • some of the things I read while eating breakfast • • •}}

Hjálmar, the Icelandic space program’s first and only probe, inspired an animated cartoon series in which the anthropomorphized spacecraft dispensed social advice, cooking suggestions, and helpful tips on how to handle madmen.

— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) January 25, 2019

On the Hunt for the Wild Relatives of America’s Favorite Produce

_{Popular crops’ untamed cousins are genetic gold mines, but they’re at risk of disappearing.}

_{Thiago Mendes and Mariela Aponte, of the International Potato Center, study blight-resistant potatoes bred from wild relatives.}

WHEN COLIN KHOURY WAS SIX years old, he committed an act of civil disobedience. It was Southern California in the 1980s, and real estate companies were hungry to turn the remaining farms and wilderness bordering Los Angeles into shiny new developments.

Barely out of kindergarten, Khoury was firmly against the developers. His love for landscape was tactile, childlike; he’d comb the sun-drenched earth around his home for wild plants, popping their juicy leaves into his mouth. His mother regularly found herself calling poison control. So when six-year-old Khoury saw a developer’s banner planted on a plot of land overlooking a craggy depression, he chucked the sign right into the canyon. “I was doing my own activism,” he says with a laugh.

Several decades and degrees later, Khoury no longer stages impromptu acts of eco-vandalism. He still, however, loves wild plants. As a crop-diversity specialist affiliated with the International Center for Tropical Agriculture and the USDA, Khoury works with a network of scientists, land managers, and crop-diversity advocates to map, research, conserve, and cultivate the wild relatives our our favorite supermarket produce. The search for these species has taken Khoury around the world—from Syria to Jamaica and back to the Sonoran Desert—and back in time, to the dawn of human agriculture.

_{Lovely blooms on a wild relative of the potato plant, at a research station in Huancayo, Peru.}

Around 10,000 years ago, humans at several sites across the world began domesticating plants. They selected seeds from plants they had previously foraged, which had large, sweet fruits or convenient growing cycles. Over millennia of breeding, our ancestors turned wispy seeds, bitter fruits, and tiny tubers into the wheat, beans, and potatoes we eat today. …

Andrew Jackson was fired from his job as police officer for committing “aggrievous smuggery”. This is still a crime in seven states

— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) January 25, 2018

This Can’t Be What The Second Amendment Means. Can It?

_{If so, we are in big trouble — although no one wants to talk about it.}

The Second Amendment of the United States Constitution reads:

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

“… well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State…”

I’m no Constitutional scholar by any means, but to me that phrase means that Americans should come together and create a Militia (a citizen army) so they can be outfitted with guns if the government is out of control and passing legislation that threatens our country and our citizens.

So how did we go from a necessary militia to defend our country, to the horror of gun ownership today?

School shootings, workplace shootings, shootings in churches and nightclubs, contract killings, gang-related shooting . . . I am sure the reader understands what I am referring to, so I won’t go into more detail.

I live in Colorado, but temporarily moved to Florida when my 84-year-old aunt fell and broke her ankle. She lives in a small town in central Florida where the most excitement you will find is a trip to Wal-Mart. I left my family in September 2019, and missed Thanksgiving and Christmas with them. I finally came home on January 1st, 2020.

During the four months I lived there, I saw a newspaper article and a news report out of Tampa about guns.

The first one was on the front page of the local newspaper. It didn’t give a lot of background, but apparently there was a bill before the county commissioners to make the county a “gun sanctuary.” …

The Price of a Sanders Nomination

_{Nancy Pelosi’s majority is new, fragile, and dependent on voters who are more conservative than the median Democrat.}

Supporters of Senator Bernie Sanders insist that their guy can eject Donald Trump from the White House. The more insistent question, though, is whether Sanders will cost Democrats the House of Representatives.

Democrats won the House in 2018, riding a surge of anti-Trump voting from a constituency that’s been scared by the Sanders campaign: older, college-educated, conservative-leaning women. Such voters tipped into the Democratic column the congressional seats once held by George H. W. Bush, Newt Gingrich, and Eric Cantor.

In 2018, upmarket districts voted to reprimand the president’s language and behavior. A Sanders nomination invites those districts to vote in 2020 to raise their taxes and replace their health insurance. That may be a tougher sell.

The Democratic House majority is new, fragile, and dependent on voters who are more conservative than the median Democrat.

In 2018, Democrats flipped districts like New Mexico’s Second, which stretches across the bottom tier of the state. Trump carried the district by 10 points in 2016, but Xochitl Torres Small won it by two points in 2018, thanks in part to an ad that showcased her skill with a bird gun. “New Mexicans,” said the ad copy, “don’t care which party gets the credit or the blame. We just want someone to deliver.” …

Facebook Is The Second Coming Of Crappy 1990s AOL

Let us describe for you a tech company. It’s riddled with scandal, facing an antitrust investigation, and widely criticized for everything from its terrible interface to aggressive advertising. But millions of users stick with its service, either out of ignorance or convenience, and it’s poised for further growth. The key to the company’s success is its free services. Sure, it’s probably evil, but its messaging program is just so handy, you know? We are, of course, talking about AOL.

Yes, gather round, children, for today we tell the tale of the old tech titan that presaged the current internet Moloch, Facebook. Their tactics were similar, their goals were similar, even their scandals were similar. And maybe, if the internet gods are willing, their collapse will be similar too.

Unless you’re of a certain age, you only know AOL as a punchline, the source of so many obnoxious free trials CDs that neighborhoods could use them to build a tower to blot out the sun. AOL was estimated to have sent out over a billion CDs, with people accusing them of being a public nuisance and environmental menace, but it worked. When AOL went public in 1992, they had 200,000 subscribers and a market cap of $70 million. By 2000, they had 25 million users and were worth $224 billion.

In 2000, only 52% of American adults were online, and a good chunk of them immediately got malware from using Limewire to download “Creep” by Nirvana. AOL’s strategy was to provide both an internet connection and every service an internet neophyte might need — email, instant messaging, news, maps, shopping, dating. Whenever it looked like interest in their service was flagging, they would add something new, like when they attempted to conquer the travel market. There were dreams of using the newfangled magic of broadband to deliver Time Warner (and only Time Warner) movies, music, and magazines to users. …

Bloody eye sockets, defaced statues: the visual legacy of Chile’s unrest

_{Graffiti, toppled monuments and boarded-up buildings provide enduring reminders of the protests that have rocked the nation.}

_{The bloody eye socket painted on to statues such as this dog in Plaza Victoria, Valparaíso, is a reminder of the more than 220 protesters who have lost an eye to police rubber bullets.}

I arrived in Santiago in December of 2019, two months after the start of mass protests that have rocked the nation’s largest cities. The unexpected burst of anger and violence has left much of the country bitter and uncertain about its identity and future.

Unlike other photographers whose main interest has been crowds of protesters, I have photographed the cumulative effects of the events: the diversity of graphic expressions, damage, makeshift repairs, and the armoring of doors and windows of commercial establishments with steel plates and plywood in the urban centers of the 11 cities and towns that I visited.

The downtowns I documented were chaotic and in disarray. I saw a cathedral’s front covered with tin. Sealed department stores welcomed people to shop by entering though tiny openings surrounded by signs saying “abierto”. Empty pedestals and defaced statues were pervasive.

_{ace of Icarus, Icarus and Daedalus sculpture (1922). Right: Entrance to Family court, Tribunales de Justicia, Concepcion, Chile.}

Monuments such as the statue in Concepción of Pedro de Valdivia, the first royal governor of Chile, have been toppled and are waiting to be repaired or discarded, while many others have been almost completely graffitied over. The protesters are selective, however; statues honoring a voluntary fireman in Valparaíso and Santiago have been spared.

What did this all add up to, I asked myself? I confess to my inability to give a coherent explanation of everything I’ve witnessed, but I do know that these painful, confusing and sometimes witty expressions show the people’s spirit as it responds to unfolding events. …

You’re Likely to Get the Coronavirus

_{Most cases are not life-threatening, which is also what makes the virus a historic challenge to contain.}

In May 1997, a 3-year-old boy developed what at first seemed like the common cold. When his symptoms—sore throat, fever, and cough—persisted for six days, he was taken to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Hong Kong. There his cough worsened, and he began gasping for air. Despite intensive care, the boy died.

Puzzled by his rapid deterioration, doctors sent a sample of the boy’s sputum to China’s Department of Health. But the standard testing protocol couldn’t fully identify the virus that had caused the disease. The chief virologist decided to ship some of the sample to colleagues in other countries.

At the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, the boy’s sputum sat for a month, waiting for its turn in a slow process of antibody-matching analysis. The results eventually confirmed that this was a variant of influenza, the virus that has killed more people than any in history. But this type had never before been seen in humans. It was H5N1, or “avian flu,” discovered two decades prior, but known only to infect birds.

By then, it was August. Scientists sent distress signals around the world. The Chinese government swiftly killed 1.5 million chickens (over the protests of chicken farmers). Further cases were closely monitored and isolated. By the end of the year there were 18 known cases in humans. Six people died.

This was seen as a successful global response, and the virus was not seen again for years. In part, containment was possible because the disease was so severe: Those who got it became manifestly, extremely ill. H5N1 has a fatality rate of around 60 percent—if you get it, you’re likely to die. Yet since 2003, the virus has killed only 455 people. The much “milder” flu viruses, by contrast, kill fewer than 0.1 percent of people they infect, on average, but are responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths every year. …

Video Goodnesses
_{and not-so-goodnesses}

Bernie Sanders wins big in the Nevada caucus, Mike Bloomberg barely survived the latest debate, and Joe Biden is for some reason lying about being arrested in South Africa.

_{THANKS to Comedy Central and The Daily Show with Trevor Noah for making this program available on YouTube.}

In this episode, Desi Lydic, Michael Kosta, and Jaboukie Young-White bring you the ultimate podcast – more ads, more housekeeping, and more plugs for live shows than you ever thought possible.

Introducing The Daily Show Podcast Universe, a five-episode miniseries, each episode a parody of a popular podcast or podcast genre. Subscribe here or search for “The Daily Show Podcast Universe” to hear them all: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast…

President Trump, who began his visit to India with an address to a massive crowd, is expected to have as much trouble with that country’s vegetarian cuisine as he did with pronouncing Indian places and names in his speech.

_{THANKS to CBS and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert for making this program available on YouTube.}

Seth takes a closer look at some pundits and members of the Democratic establishment panicking after Bernie Sanders won the Nevada caucus in a landslide.

_{THANKS to NBC and Late Night with Seth Meyers for making this program available on YouTube.}

CAUTION: Some language may not be appropriate for work or children.

Me bloody aussie critical analysis of elite men’s diving and how it’s possible to score zero and still be a bloody legend. Fair Dealing: parody, satire, review.

猫のトリックアートシールです。The trick art seal of a cat.

The Leachmere Home for the Uninhabited provides support for people without souls

— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) January 25, 2018

FINALLY . . .

What Were 29 Exotic Snakes Doing In a U.K. Trash Bin?

_{Wriggling in pillowcases, trying to stay warm after being illegally abandoned.}

_{Six of the snakes left behind the Farringdon Community Fire Station, in a suburb of Sunderland, England.}

DESPERATE PEOPLE HAVE LONG USED fire and police stations as safe places to leave infants they can’t care for. Unwanted animals more often are either dropped at animal-rescue facilities or, unfortunately, set free outdoors.

But last week, 29 snakes were left at a fire station in the northeast of England—in the trash.

In the wee hours of February 14, a passerby walking behind the Farringdon Community Fire Station, in a quiet suburb of Sunderland, noticed a pair of tied-off pillowcases (one of them with a colorful Toy Story theme), partly full, slumped against the fire station’s trash bin. And the sacks were moving.

Because they were full of snakes.

Thirteen royal pythons (aka ball pythons)—in a variety of colors, each about three feet long—were split between the two bags.

_{A pink pillowcase stuffed with 15 corn snakes.}

The next day, firehouse staff discovered two more wriggling pillowcases—pink ones—left inside the bin. One was stuffed with 15 corn snakes, the other with a male carpet python (the latter can reach nine feet in length, though this particular one was much smaller). …

_{Ed. I’m nearly certain the writer italicized the word inside to give us a sense of comfort knowing that the pillowcased snakes didn’t put themselves into the bin. I’ll rest easier knowing the perpetrator may be punished one day. Or not.}

If you hung a Christmas stocking in 14th-century France, you would have been offering a place for the Devil to warm his hoofs in exchange for payment

— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) December 25, 2017

_{Ed. More tomorrow? Possibly. Probably. Maybe. Not? Tomorrow? I’m not done with today.}

_{• • • google suggests • • •}

_{^{• • • some of the things I read while eating breakfast • • •}}

1960s radicals transformed this abandoned air force base into a monastery, where disciples devote themselves to mentally disabling nuclear weapons.

— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) January 15, 2019

Lake Michigan’s ‘Ice Volcanoes’ Are Extremely Cool, Definitely Not Volcanoes

_{“It sounds like if you got a big Slurpee, and then dumped it on the ground.”}

_{There she blows!}

RECENTLY, ON A STRETCH OF Lake Michigan’s coastline about 35 miles from Grand Rapids, so-called “ice volcanoes” seemed to erupt again and again. The vaguely conical mounds of snow and ice, soaring at least 10 or 15 feet tall, and stretching tens of feet wide, flanked the shore of a place called Oval Beach. But because they have nothing to do with molten rock or subterranean gas, they sound nothing like volcanoes, says Ernie Ostuno, a meteorologist with the Grand Rapids office of the National Weather Service, who has observed them for years. “It sounds like if you got a big Slurpee, and then dumped it on the ground,” he says.

“Ice volcanoes” are common sights along the coast of the lake. “They happen every winter,” Ostuno says, though the timing varies. This year, they formed near the middle of February, about a month later than they typically do, because January lacked a severe cold snap. The key ingredients are bitter temperatures (typically several degrees below freezing, and often lower than 20 degrees Fahrenheit), heavy snow, and significant wave action, Ostuno says.

_{“Ice volcanoes” often have a big slit on one side.}

When snow crystals fall into the cold lake, ice accretes around them and forms slush. With enough cold and gusts of chilly wind, those hefty chunks of floating ice can beach themselves on sandbars. Eventually, like rotund snowballs destined to become snowmen, they get so big that they stay put. As waves splash them, more and more ice builds up in irregular formations, making the mounds. The so-called volcanoes, which Ostuno estimates probably weigh hundreds of tons, essentially sit on the ridges of sand. Geologists at Michigan Technological University who have studied the phenomenon around Lake Superior suggest that there, too, ice volcanoes are especially likely to hug features such as sandbars, shorelines, or rock reefs.

Near Oval Beach, at least, ice volcanoes often aren’t perfect cones: On the side that is struck by the waves, they’re slightly open, and look like cracked fortune cookies. The slit faces a front of open water. When the waves bump that part of the mound, Ostuno says, “You can hear it hit, boom, and then see the water shoot up.” The slushy water spouts pretty regularly, Ostuno adds, sometimes every few seconds, though he’s not sure exactly what governs the intervals. He suspects it has to do with the amplitude or periodicity of the waves. …

These early guided weapons were powered by tiny, suicidal warriors lionized by ancient Chinese manuscripts as “gods of the small death”.

— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) January 15, 2019

Trump Is Going to Cheat

_{How should Democrats fight against a president who has no moral or legal compass?}

Democratic primary voters care deeply about electability. What most want is simple: a candidate who can beat President Donald Trump in November. So they worry about whether former Vice President Joe Biden will inspire young people, and about whether Senator Bernie Sanders will scare away old people. They debate whether a political revolution is necessary to energize the base, or whether the revolution will dissuade independents. Will the historic candidacy of a woman or a gay man take off or implode?

But these concerns about policy and broad cultural appeal are secondary to the true “electability” crisis facing whichever Democrat wins the nomination: He or she will need to run against a president seemingly prepared, and empowered, to lie and cheat his way to reelection.

Factually, Trump’s position is rather weak. A stronger candidate would be flying higher, given the economic recovery that began (and yielded greater success) under President Barack Obama’s watch. While Trump remains an untouchable, vengeful god within the Republican Party and is competitive in crucial battleground states, he is relentlessly divisive. He must win back the suburban voters who handed the House of Representatives to Democrats in 2018—an especially difficult task now that he’s released an Achilles’ heel of a budget that would cut Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, food stamps, and a host of other popular programs.

But—and this must be said out loud—the facts may not matter.

If past is prologue, Trump will say absolutely anything necessary to attract and maintain support, including patent untruths. His pathological lying has been well documented and yet never ceases to stun. By one count, he has told more than 15,000 lies since taking office. A small sampling: After falsely declaring that Hurricane Dorian was headed toward Alabama, he displayed a doctored map to cover his tracks, and his chief of staff made the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration release a statement defending his lie. Trump also recently claimed that he rescued health coverage for people with preexisting conditions—even though he has gutted the Affordable Care Act and is suing to overturn it. One day after tweeting, “We will not be touching your Social Security or Medicare in Fiscal 2021 Budget,” his budget revealed cuts to both. …

Will coronavirus trigger a global recession?

_{World economy’s prospects look bleak owing to Covid-19 outbreak and Donald Trump’s trade policy.}

_{A trader on the floor of the New York stock exchange.}

At the start of this year, things seemed to be looking up for the global economy. True, growth had slowed a bit in 2019: from 2.9% to 2.3% in the US and from 3.6% to 2.9% globally. Still, there had been no recession and as recently as January, the International Monetary Fund projected a global growth rebound in 2020. The new coronavirus, Covid-19, has changed all of that.

Early predictions about Covid-19’s economic impact were reassuring. Similar epidemics – such as the 2003 outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars), another China-born coronavirus – did little damage globally. At the country level, GDP growth took a hit but quickly bounced back, as consumers released pent-up demand and firms rushed to fill back orders and restock inventories.

It is becoming increasingly clear, however, that this new coronavirus is likely to do much more damage than Sars. Not only has Covid-19 already caused more deaths than its predecessor; its economic consequences are likely to be compounded by unfavourable conditions – beginning with China’s increased economic vulnerability.

China’s economy has grown significantly more slowly in the last decade than it did previously. Of course, after decades of double-digit growth, that was to be expected and China has managed to avoid a hard landing. But Chinese banks hold large amounts of non-performing loans – a source of major risks.

As the Covid-19 outbreak disrupts economic activity – owing partly to the unprecedented quarantining of huge subsets of the population – there is reason to expect a sharp slowdown this year, with growth falling significantly below last year’s official rate of 6.1%. …

The 5 Most Garbage Democrats In Congress

A few months ago, we released an abbreviated list of the 250 shittiest Republicans in Congress. Rightfully, some commenters wondered when we’d publish a similar list criticizing the flabbiest of donkey butts in congressional seats. Unfortunately, the truth is that there simply aren’t enough dumb, duplicitous, or downright dirty Democrats to fill such a- just kidding. The Blue Wave has so many turds floating in it that we can’t figure out why the right bothers to make up liberal scandals when it could simply clap its hands and repeat these names …

5. Gregory Meeks Is Cartoonishly Corrupt

Gregory Meeks, representative for New York’s 5th congressional district, isn’t merely a crooked politician. He’s a Disney Channel version of a crooked politician, so blatantly corrupt that even a band of scrappy preteens could figure out his schemes.

Meeks is a badly written Dickensian character, a shameless huckster who hides behind a flimsy veneer of humility. He tries to convince people he’s “a bridge builder” (just like George Parker, before he tried selling them one), and the kind of poor civil servant who only has a few thousand dollars in the bank. The problem is that he says that from behind the half-rolled-down window of the Lexus he’s driving to his million-dollar house — a house he quite innocently bought at a $400,000 discount from a guy who coincidentally contributed to and received money from him in his capacity as a congressperson. And when he’s not at his mansion, Meeks uses his campaign and political action committee funds jet-setting to luxury hotels in places like Monte Carlo and the Virgin Islands — missions he deems vital for his political office as representative of Queens, New York.

But the list is far from complete. He also stands accused of funneling thousands of dollars of campaign money through a company owned by his chief of staff’s wife (literally named Patsy) and “losing” over 95% of the charity money he collected for Hurricane Katrina victims. But the most ballsy of all had to be when he went to Caracas to chat with Hugo Chavez about maybe jailing the enemy of a donor. Meek’s level of grift is so staggering that the head of the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington has put the congressman on their yearly “politicians to watch go to white-collar prison” list, adding: “Given the breadth of his misdeeds, it is surprising Rep. Meeks hasn’t found himself in handcuffs already.”

So why hasn’t he been caught and sent to Scooby-Doo villain jail yet? As you may have noticed over the past six months, it’s real hard to hold federal-level politicians accountable in this country. That’s not going to get easier, since Meeks has become Queens County Democratic Party chairman, making him the head of the “Queens machine,” which rivals the old Tammany Hall in both political favor-trading and thick New York accents. So until the Department of Justice is run by a Democrat who won’t mind teaching middle school civics after their next election, Meeks will be free to continue with his dastardly schemes, which we can only assume will culminate in him dressing up as the damned specter of Mr. Met and haunting an ailing amusement park for insurance money. …

Univision’s new CEO doesn’t speak Spanish

_{EXECUTIVE PRIVILEGE}

_{Univision has a new chief executive.}

When former Viacom chief financial officer Wade Davis agreed to buy a majority stake in Univision Communications Inc. this week, one task moved to the top of his to-do list: Learn Spanish. ASAP.

Davis’s investment firm, ForgeLight, with backing from Searchlight Capital Partners, will acquire 64% of Univision, which has been searching for a buyer since July. (Televisa will retain its 36% stake.) Univision is struggling with all the normal afflictions facing a TV broadcaster in the era of streaming—cord-cutters and increased non-broadcast competition—with the added disadvantage of carrying a hefty debt load.

But Davis has faith. In an interview with Bloomberg on Tuesday, he said Spanish-language programming still has a huge market in the US. “Language is incredibly relevant to them from an identity standpoint, from a cultural standpoint,” Davis said. “And I do think in totality, this audience prefers watching content in Spanish.”

That makes it slightly awkward that Davis doesn’t yet… speak Spanish, though he told Bloomberg—however improbably—that he hopes to learn before the deal closes.

Do outsiders help or hurt?

Davis is far from the first CEO to take the reins with a learning curve or language barrier. For every John “Papa John” Schnatter—a man who loves pizza so much that he claims to consume it daily—there are plenty of C-suite execs whose biggest asset is their ability to run teams of people who are themselves experts, and plenty of examples of CEOs from one company or industry jumping ship to take a leadership role in another. …

Will the Masses Finally See Fox News for What It Is?

_{The unholy union between the president and Rupert Murdoch’s propaganda network is under fresh scrutiny.}

_{Donald Trump (R) speaks to media mogul Rupert Murdoch as they walk out of Trump International Golf Links in Aberdeen, Scotland.}

Less than one week after New Yorker staff writer Jane Mayer published a thoroughly reported exposé about Fox News, its former president resigned suddenly from his top White House job. Bill Shine, President Trump’s communications chief and his deputy chief of staff, will reportedly now put his energy and time into getting the network’s top viewer elected to a second term. One wonders, then, why he isn’t just going back to his old job.

They certainly could use the help. With ratings reportedly suffering since the Democrats housed the GOP in the midterms last November, Mayer’s report broke three key pieces of bad news for fans of Fox: the late network president Roger Ailes allegedly fed Donald Trump questions in August of 2015 before his infamous debate exchange with Megyn Kelly; FoxNews.com allegedly buried the Stormy Daniels story before the 2016 presidential election because the network’s chairman, Rupert Murdoch, wanted Trump to win; and during his presidency, Trump reportedly pressured the Department of Justice to block the AT&T acquisition of Time Warner as a slight to CNN (and a boon to Fox). The first two incidents describe blatant hypocrisies and journalistic improprieties. The third item sounds like an impeachable offense on the part of the president.

In adding detail about the genesis of both Fox News and its symbiosis with Trump, Mayer offers a clear picture of how the network and this White House have exploited American misconceptions and resentments, all of which endanger the fundamental notions of a functional democracy. Through the network’s undue influence on Trump, it perpetuates cruel and harmful policy every day that he stays in the White House. Fox has created a monster, and by working in tandem, both the network and the president whom it sponsors are now significant threats to the overall health of the republic.

Think, for a moment, what Fox News has become. It used to simply be a forum for Republican apologia. It was the dream of Roger Ailes, the former network president and erstwhile Richard Nixon aide to create the television news buffer that his old boss never had during the Watergate scandal. Who knows whether Nixon might have weathered covering up a break-in and provoking a Constitutional crisis, to say nothing of having a criminal for a vice-president, had his administration had a 24/7 television defender. …

Video Goodnesses
_{and not-so-goodnesses}

In The Know: Panelists discuss the complicated issues facing Nigeria or Niger.

A growing number of collectors are cuddling, changing and caring for ‘reborns’ – individually crafted baby dolls that can cost up to $20,000. For some, it’s about rekindling their baby-rearing years. For others, it’s about dealing with their own inability to birth real human babies. Despite the finger-pointing from outsiders, it’s a subculture that’s thriving globally.
Featuring (in order of appearance) Kellie Eldred-Smith, Lucenda Plancarte and Stephanie Ortiz.

Child sex abuse and child pornography have always been society’s darkest secrets. And the internet’s growth has only made things worse. The proliferation of explicit images, live-streaming of sex shows, and online chat rooms have enabled those with salacious intent to destroy the lives of children around the world. The tide of explicit material is overwhelming, but a group of law enforcement agencies and NGOs are fighting back.

VICE embeds with the officers trying to shed light on the dark corners of the web.

_{THANKS to HBO and VICE News for making this program available on YouTube.}

Trevor went LIVE after the 10th Democratic Debate in South Carolina.

_{THANKS to Comedy Central and The Daily Show with Trevor Noah for making this program available on YouTube.}

Jaboukie Young-White talks to LGBTQ voters about how excited they are about the prospect of President Mayor Pete.

Following the raucous Democratic presidential debate in his home town of Charleston, South Carolina, Stephen Colbert took the stage to discuss the night’s winners, losers and most surreal moments.

_{THANKS to CBS and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert for making this program available on YouTube.}

Awful though he was to behold, Ectorious “Pumpkin-Hound” Habakuk’s eerily compelling poetry made a lasting impression on Victorian men of letters.

— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) January 15, 2019

FINALLY . . .

A First Nation, a Fight for Ancestral Lands, And an Unlikely Alliance

_{The Tseshaht people are working with archaeologists to write a new chapter in a fraught history.}

_{According to the origin story of the Tseshaht people, retold by the archaeologist Denis St. Claire, “Kwatyaat was the creator of the world we can see around us. He had a son called Kapkimyis, and in this story Kapkimyis is here with a shaman. Standing here, they cut with a mussel shell knife the thigh of Kapkimyis. The blood was scooped up and blown into. One version says the first woman emerges, the other says the first man…”}

WHEN KEN WATTS WAS A TEENAGER, he spent summers on the ancestral land of his people: a remote island in the Broken Group, off the west coast of Vancouver Island. Getting there was cumbersome—the route included a car, ferry, and boat—but it brought him to the best job he could imagine. Each day, Watts and a few dozen others excavated sites around C̓išaa, a historic village of the Tseshaht people on what is today called Benson Island. By carefully digging and screening every bucketful of earth, they uncovered thousands of pieces of the past.

Watts and his fellow excavators found animal remains, such as clam shells and fish bones and a whale skull with a point embedded in it. They also found human-made artifacts, including a carved comb and an obsidian point. Denis St. Claire, one of the directors of the Tseshaht Archaeological Project, held the dark stone up to the sun. The edge was so thin that the light went right through it. “It was like something in a book or a movie,” Watts says of the experience, which took place in 2000 and 2001. “I was blown away by all those things.”

Everything Watts helped unearth—the shell middens and artifacts and animal bones—had been touched by the hands of his ancestors. Long before the land was seized by Canadian settlers and deemed a part of British Columbia, the village of C̓išaa was the birthplace of the Tseshaht. This field work proved they had lived on the island as long as 5,000 years ago. “There’s very few people in the world who can pinpoint their exact location where the first man and woman were created,” Watts says. “There’s not a lot of other cultures or people that can say, ‘This is where we come from exactly, this island.’” For the first time in his life, Watts could say that about his own ancestors, and could stand on that same ground.

_{The western part of Vancouver Island, in Canada, is home to the Tseshaht people. Some of their ancestral lands are in the Broken Group, a collection of islands in what is now called Barkley Sound.}

Yet for centuries, the island hadn’t been treated as the motherland of a people. As with so many Indigenous groups around North America, the Tseshaht were subjected to foreign diseases, rapacious Western traders and settlers, and, with the entrance of British Columbia into the Canadian Confederation in 1871, federal policies aimed at the destruction of First Nations peoples. …

This abandoned Arkansas post office once hosted secret negotiations between Angela Merkel, Marilyn Manson, and the Pope

— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) January 15, 2018

_{Ed. More tomorrow? Possibly. Probably. Maybe. Not? Might feel like doing it, perhaps.}

Ram and I would both like you to stop killing in our names.
You know why?
Because we're IMAGINARY, you stupid jackasses.#DelhiRiots

— God (@TheTweetOfGod) February 25, 2020

I'm not a lawyer, but doesn't this open up the campaign to the discovery process? https://t.co/Fw5LQ62272

— Shin Inouye (@shin_inouye) February 26, 2020

_{• • • google suggested • • •}

_{^{• • • some of the things I read while eating breakfast • • •}}

English witticist Alfred Honeywell was designated a hostile nation by the Mexican Minister of State after describing a government function as “horrible, except for the merciful periods during which it was merely terrible.”

— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) December 27, 2018

Meet the Iowa Architect Documenting Every Slave House Still Standing

_{Jobie Hill has visited 700 former residences. Many have been abandoned. Some have become storage space. Others are B&Bs.}

_{An African-American family standing in front of former slave quarters at the Hermitage Plantation in Savannah, Georgia.}

THE CURRENT RESIDENTS OF THE historic Mount Zion home in Warren County, Virginia, were rifling through the attic of their garage when they found a yellowed fragment of paper. It was the corner of a larger document, soiled by mold, water, and time. But the snaking cursive writing on it was still legible. It was the bill of sale for an enslaved girl named Chalotte (more likely Charlotte, with the letter “r” long faded away).

The discovery of the bill in the garage was both extraordinary and unsurprising. Because long before the building was a garage, it was the home of enslaved African Americans.

In 2017, the residents shared Charlotte’s bill of sale and one other—denoting an unnamed man who was sold for $650—with Jobie Hill, a preservation architect from Iowa City. Hill had come to Mount Zion to do fieldwork for her project Saving Slave Houses, hoping to document the condition of the Mount Zion garage to see how much of the building’s history has been preserved.

Since 2012, Hill has surveyed hundreds of structures that she believes once served as a home to enslaved African Americans. More often than not, the buildings bear no visible trace of their past; many have been converted into garages, offices, or sometimes—unnervingly—bed-and-breakfasts. In some cases the structures have fallen into ruin or vanished entirely, leaving behind a depression in the ground.

Hill is determined to build a first-of-its-kind database that honors and preserves these spaces in more than memory, and to unite the houses with the stories of people who once inhabited them. As she sees it, such a repository is long overdue. “There has never been a national survey of slave houses, except for the one I’m trying to do,” Hill says. …

“The slave-owners didn’t want these buildings to survive, and the fact that they do is credit to the enslaved people.”

No one knows why this row of perfectly cube-shaped stones outside Oslo moves one centimeter every year.

— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) November 27, 2018

If Bernie Sanders thinks Cuba is worth defending, he should talk to gay dissidents

_{Sanders is no homophobe – he was among the few to vote against Clinton’s Defense of Marriage Act. Still, he is wrong to defend Cuba.}

_{‘As mayor of Burlington, Sanders marched in the city’s gay pride in 1983. But there’s a sense in which his ideals can trip him up.’}

I remember visiting Havana in 2015 and browsing the book stalls around the Plaza de Armas. From a distance they looked inviting – like those you see along the Seine in Paris. But up close it became apparent that we were being duped. The books were standard issue hagiographies of Che Guevara and Fidel Castro, alongside the occasional biography of “Papa” Hemingway. Like going into a bar with a painted bookcase on the wall, it was an illusion of knowledge, a facade of enlightenment. Books are agents of freedom; they teach us to think and question. The book stalls in Havana made a mockery of that.

Among the many Cuban writers notably absent at those state-controlled book stalls was Renaldo Arenas, the gay dissident who catalogued the persecution of gay men under Castro’s regime, including his own arrest and solitary confinement in a one-meter-high cell. Arenas eventually escaped to the United States, part of the famous Mariel boatlift. Julio Capó Jr, an associate professor of history at the University of Massachusetts, has described it as, in part, a “homosexual purge”.

Ravaged by AIDS, Arenas killed himself in 1990, shortly after completing his luminous memoir ” target=”_blank”>Before Night Falls. The book, coincidentally reissued this week in an elegant Penguin Classics edition, is an extraordinary testament to defiance and dispossession. Arenas was a wonderfully fluid writer, and Before Night Falls is brazenly sexy, filled with ribald anecdotes of his many sexual encounters. “We would bring our notebooks and write poems or chapters of our books, and would have sex with armies of young men,” he wrote. “The erotic and literary went hand in hand.”

That kind of thinking and behavior has always been at odds with leftwing revolutionaries. It is too hedonistic, too indulgent. As a student at college in the early 1990s I recall being told that gay rights were a bourgeois affectation. The coming revolution took precedence over identity politics. Gay men, in particular, were seen as silly dilettantes unable to apply themselves to the serious business of changing the world. There was a sense that we were possessed by the spirit of Oscar Wilde, and could only contribute witty bon mots where what was needed were “men” at the barricades. Like the heroic poses of Guevara or Castro on those book jackets in Plaza de Armas, the narrative of revolution was profoundly chauvinistic. …

BEFORE NIGHT FALLS has been adapted into a film of the same name. It’s available to stream on Amazon.

‘Scent of terror’ created in protest against Moscow perfume store

How would you like a perfume that smelt of terror?

A team in Moscow has created the putrid scent, in a protest against plans for a perfume store in a historic building with a terrible past. The former military court saw thousands of people condemned to death during Stalin’s Great Terror in the 1930s.

The business owner proposing the perfumery has not returned the BBC’s request for comment.

_{THANKS to BBC for making this program available to stream.}

^{SOMETHING ABOUT THE BANANA STAND}

Amazon made a bigger camera-spying store—so we tried to steal its fruit

_{It’s like other Amazon Go stores, only bigger. But it’s a meaningful difference.
SAM MACHKOVECH – 2/26/2020, 4:45 AM}

_{Amazon Go Grocery’s first location in the Seattle neighborhood of Capitol Hill.}

For how far and wide Amazon’s digital footprint reaches, the company clearly wants to advance into real-world space as much as possible. And to that end, Amazon runs some of its most ambitious experiments in its headquarters’ city before rolling them out nationwide.

As our staff’s sole Seattle resident, I pull the short straw of testing these by default.

In 2015, I shopped at Amazon’s first stab at a brick-and-mortar bookstore (you know, those old things Amazon has been accused of putting out of business in the first place) before that chain’s eventual nationwide launch. In 2016, I delivered Amazon packages as a gig-economy driver, before this kind of contract employee became a commonplace part of the nationwide Amazon Prime Now network. And in 2018, I picked through the first “cashierless,” camera-filled Amazon Go convenience store before the same concept landed in other major metropolitan centers.

_{The walkable square footage of Amazon Go Grocery is comparable to a “smaller” Trader Joes shop, or double the average 7-11. Otherwise, as you can see here, it’s just like any other grocery store.}

This week, when I got word that the latter concept was expanding into something called Amazon Go Grocery, complete with a much larger selection of items to buy, I knew what I had to do. I had to steal from its newest product line, one that’s much harder to carefully track with a mix of RGB and infrared sensors: produce. Could I pilfer some plums? Wrangle some watermelon? Bag a banana?

Skynet above the stroopwafels

Because Amazon Go Grocery revolves around the same creepy, watch-you-shop system found in smaller Amazon Go shops, I encourage anyone unfamiliar with the concept to rewind to my first look at Amazon Go from early 2018. Functionally, the newest store works identically. You can’t enter the shop without entering your Amazon account credentials—complete with a valid payment method—into the Amazon Go app on either iOS or Android. Which, of course, means you can’t enter the store without an Internet-connected smart device.

Once the app has your Amazon information, it will generate a unique QR code. Tap this onto a gated kiosk’s sensor, and after a pause, a gate will open. During this brief pause, the shop’s cameras capture your likeness and begin tracking your every step and action. …

5 TV Shows That Nailed Sexual Consent Issues (Decades Ago)

Sometimes we act like nobody knew what sexual misconduct was prior to the avalanche of revelations about Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein. When talking about some Hollywood creep’s years of misbehavior, people will say, “Of course, this was all before #MeToo happened.” But it’s hard for that to hold water, considering that sitcom writers were tackling the subject with nuance and realism long before hashtags were even invented. Like how …

5. Mr. Belvedere Busted Myths About Predatory Behavior In 1988

For the uninitiated, which I assume is everyone born after 1990, Mr. Belvedere was a sitcom about a posh British butler working for the all-American Owens family. For six seasons, the show charmed audiences by combining witty humor with warm family values — and in one 1988 episode, a pedophile.

In “The Counselor,” the Owens’ smart-alecky youngest son, Wesley, is inappropriately touched by a counselor during summer camp. Right away, the episode makes a smart choice by depicting the predator as a handsome, trustworthy charmer, as opposed to the stereotypical greasy weirdo. Instead of a fiend in an alley, he’s a trusted professional. In the real world, the most successful predators are the ones who are hardest to spot.

Even though the guy in question only creepily rubs Wesley’s bare shoulders, the episode also illustrates that even seemingly mild unwanted touching is enough to raise the alarm (and that right there is a lesson many people today still have yet to learn). Wesley invents an excuse to slip away and immediately tells his parents, who believe him instantly and report it. The show just drops the comedy for a while and says, “Hey, if this happens, here’s what you do. Don’t worry, we’ll be back next week with an episode in which Mr. Belvedere and Bob Ueucker go to fat camp.”

Bonus fact: This is the only episode of the show not to end with Mr. Belvedere writing in his diary about how his day went. That’s how you knew shit got real. …

Why your brain is not a computer

_{For decades it has been the dominant metaphor in neuroscience. But could this idea have been leading us astray all along?}

We are living through one of the greatest of scientific endeavours – the attempt to understand the most complex object in the universe, the brain. Scientists are accumulating vast amounts of data about structure and function in a huge array of brains, from the tiniest to our own. Tens of thousands of researchers are devoting massive amounts of time and energy to thinking about what brains do, and astonishing new technology is enabling us to both describe and manipulate that activity.

We can now make a mouse remember something about a smell it has never encountered, turn a bad mouse memory into a good one, and even use a surge of electricity to change how people perceive faces. We are drawing up increasingly detailed and complex functional maps of the brain, human and otherwise. In some species, we can change the brain’s very structure at will, altering the animal’s behaviour as a result. Some of the most profound consequences of our growing mastery can be seen in our ability to enable a paralysed person to control a robotic arm with the power of their mind.

Every day, we hear about new discoveries that shed light on how brains work, along with the promise – or threat – of new technology that will enable us to do such far-fetched things as read minds, or detect criminals, or even be uploaded into a computer. Books are repeatedly produced that each claim to explain the brain in different ways.

And yet there is a growing conviction among some neuroscientists that our future path is not clear. It is hard to see where we should be going, apart from simply collecting more data or counting on the latest exciting experimental approach. As the German neuroscientist Olaf Sporns has put it: “Neuroscience still largely lacks organising principles or a theoretical framework for converting brain data into fundamental knowledge and understanding.” Despite the vast number of facts being accumulated, our understanding of the brain appears to be approaching an impasse. …

PREPARE TO SPEND A WHILE; it’s The Long Read.

Where Everyone Goes When the Internet Breaks

_{Downdetector is a simple, ugly utility, which becomes a weird little life raft for displaced communities when their websites crash.}

It can happen at any moment, yet we’re never prepared. When Twitter crashes, how do we tweet about it? We try and try. When Instagram is down, no one can see what we see. When the instant-chat apps of American offices sputter and crash, we go to Twitter and say, “We promise we are still working!” We feel lost, bereft, confused, fidgety, as we are forced to make typing noises with our mouths (“talking”). We hover over our keyboards, moving our hands in ways that don’t make sense, like former nicotine addicts who continue to hold pens as if they are cigarettes.

There is only one place to take all this pain and nervous energy: Downdetector, a simple, boring website founded in 2001 to report outages of all kinds of internet services. It’s the first search result for questions such as “Is Twitter down?” and “Is Facebook down?” and “” and “Is the whole internet out in New York City?” On any given day, if everything is working fine, a graph showing just tiny smatterings of failure reports will be painted a soothing aquamarine. If, as with Facebook’s News Feed this morning, something is starting to go wrong for a greater number of people, the graph will spike and turn red.

On the most basic level, the site is an SEO play, its CEO, Doug Suttles, admits. The technology is not so sophisticated—the outages are determined almost exclusively by user reports—so Downdetector stands out as the internet-outage website mostly because Downdetector has already been, in so many people’s brains, the internet-outage website. It has become the internet’s panic room, suffused with snow-day energy.

During big outages, even Suttles scrambles to the site to watch users solving their own problems. “It’s fun, I can’t deny,” he says. The summer of 2019 was a particularly eventful one because of an outage of Google’s core services in June and another Facebook outage in July bringing in millions of reports. “We have fallen in love with outages,” Suttles says. “There’s always a bit of joking giddiness internally. We all go, Whoa!”

Video Goodnesses
_{and not-so-goodnesses}

Last season, VICE News investigated the complicated lives of trans kids and their families as they navigate decisions over medical transitions and how best to support their children’s identity. A year later, life for transgender Americans has become more uncertain as politicians dismantle key federal and state protections and introduce a slew of anti-LGBT bills.

VICE’s Gianna Toboni returns to Texas to see how the transgender community there is fighting to win acceptance and protection.

_{THANKS to HBO and VICE News for making this program available on YouTube.}

Don’t worry everyone, Trump has the “Caronavirus” under control.

_{THANKS to Comedy Central and The Daily Show with Trevor Noah for making this program available on YouTube.}

Trump appoints Pence the coronavirus czar as the virus spreads from China to Japan, Iran, the Philippines, and Italy.

President Trump, who initially brushed off fears of a Coronavirus pandemic in this country, is now attempting to blame Democrats and the media for inciting panic about the disease.

_{THANKS to CBS and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert for making this program available on YouTube.}

Seth takes a closer look at Democrats screaming over each other in a chaotic debate as President Trump tightens his authoritarian grip on power.

_{THANKS to NBC and Late Night with Seth Meyers for making this program available on YouTube.}

CAUTION: Some language may not be appropriate for work or children.

理由はわからないのですが、迷惑そうなので近くで音を出さないようにします。I don’t know the reason!

FULL TRANSLATION: I don’t know why, but I don’t want to make any sound nearby because it seems to be annoying.

A consortium of logging companies invented #ScarecrowMan to keep hikers, survivalists, and pot growers out of the woods

— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) January 26, 2018

FINALLY . . .

How an Abandoned Modernist Cinema Became a Revolutionary Symbol in Lebanon

_{The Beirut Egg is riddled with bullet holes and covered in graffiti. Protesters recently reclaimed it.}

_{The inside of the Beirut Egg, which was once a grand modernist cinema in the middle of the Lebanese capital. Since 2019, the space has been occupied by protesters.}

A FEW MONTHS AGO, A TRICKLE of protesters converged on downtown Beirut, spurred by a proposed tax on the text-messaging platform WhatsApp. Within a few days, the crowd had swelled, and so had its aims: Demonstrators spoke out against sectarian rule, unemployment, and development that had transformed the area where they were standing into a playground for the rich. Their efforts helped oust the prime minister, but the protests have continued, and they have faced violent crackdowns by security forces.

In recent months, once or twice a week, a guide named Sari Haddad has walked visitors through this evolving story. Leading one group through Martyrs’ Square, which is now partially occupied by tents and art installations, his eyes widen as he recounts the initial protest growing into a movement of millions of people, eventually taking over this once-sterile strip of downtown.

Behind him stands one of the protesters’ greatest prizes: the Egg. The abandoned cinema—a brutalist concrete dome, missing swaths of wall and riddled with bullet holes—looks like it’s from a different universe, next to the enormous Mohammad Al-Amin Mosque and sleek high-rise apartments. On the first day of the protests, the wooden boards surrounding the Egg were torn down, restoring access to one of the city’s strangest sites.

_{Lebanese demonstrators take part in a civilian Independence Day parade in Martyrs’ Square on November 22, 2019.}

During Haddad’s story, a protester approaches the group. He’s one of the many war veterans who have taken to the streets and are now selling trinkets to pedestrians. He offers to sell a single lira coin—a bitter souvenir in a country going through a financial crisis. You would need more than 1,500 of them to make a single U.S. dollar at the official exchange rate, and over 2,000 on the black market. He motions to the Egg and says that this coin was once enough to see a movie there. …

King Oscar's Fire occurs when spores from this rare but deadly invasive species are ignited by lightning.

— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) November 27, 2018

_{Ed. More tomorrow? Possibly. Probably. Maybe. Not? Unlikely likely.}

my plan would involve hollowing out west virginia and using the slag to fill in lake ontario, completing a diagonal chain of now saltwater lakes across turtle island and linking the arctic & atlantic seas. this would benefit no one & cause untold damage. i will take no questions pic.twitter.com/IZfCptgpOE

— alex from online (@leafcrunch) February 25, 2020