ASTRONOMY – Page 2 – Stillness of Heart

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This week: The Democrats’ future / James Webb Telescope / The Internet Archive / Lincoln’s legacy in Mexico / 10 Arab philosophers we need

This week: The Democrats’ future / James Webb Telescope / The Internet Archive / Lincoln’s legacy in Mexico / 10 Arab philosophers we need

Most of these great items come from my social media networks. Follow me on Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, LinkedIn, and Facebook for more fascinating videos, photos, articles, essays, and criticism.

1. Liberal activists, new DNC chief face a Trump-era reckoning
By Bill Barrow | Associated Press | Feb. 26
“Perez has embraced the idea of a more aggressive, populist identity for the party, even if he hasn’t convinced activists he can deliver on it. He said throughout the three-day DNC meeting ahead of the vote that he would work to align party resources with the energy of groups from Black Lives Matter and Swing Left to Indivisible, Resist Trump Tuesdays, Knock Every Door, Rise Stronger and Sister District.”

2. How the baby boomers destroyed everything
By Bruce Cannon Gibney | The Boston Globe | Feb. 26
“In 1971, Alan Shepard was playing golf on the moon. Today, America can’t put a man into orbit (or, allegedly, the Oval Office) without Russian assistance. Something changed, and that something was the boomers and the sociopathic agenda they emplaced.”

3. What will the James Webb Space Telescope reveal about the newly discovered exoplanets?
By Nick Lavars | New Atlas | Feb. 23
“Poised to take the reins from Hubble as NASA’s premier orbiting telescope in 2018, it will boast seven times the light-collecting capacity of its predecessor and will be sensitive enough to spot a single firefly one million kilometers away.”

4. Where to find what’s disappeared online, and a whole lot more: the Internet Archive
By Mary Kay Magistad | Who’s Century Is It? :: PRI | Feb. 23
” Since the Internet Archive started in 1996, its staff — now, about 140 people — have digitized almost 3 million books, and are aiming for 10 million.”

5. When A Woman Deletes A Man’s Comment Online
By Ijeoma Oluo | The Establishment | Feb. 22
“I’m not debating those who show up wedded to bigotry”

6. Could Pluto Regain Its Planethood?
By Mike Wall | Space.com :: Scientific American | Feb. 23
“A proposed new definition for what constitutes a ‘planet’ could reinstate the demoted icy world”

7. Why Abraham Lincoln Was Revered in Mexico
By Jamie Katz | Smithsonian Magazine | Feb. 23
“As a young Congressman and later as the nation’s leader, the first Republican president proved to be a true friend to America’s neighbor to the south”

8. 10 Arabic Philosophers, and Why You Should Know Them
By Scotty Hendricks | Big Think | November 2016
“Of the stars that have proper names in common usage, most of them have the names given to them by Arabic astronomers. We use the numeral system they devised, including the zero. They set the standard for the scientific method for hundreds of years. It is impossible to fully understand western thought without understanding the ideas of these thinkers.”

9. What a Kansas professor learned after interviewing a ‘lost generation’ of journalists
By Deron Lee | Columbia Journalism Review | September 2016
“When Scott Reinardy began studying the state of morale in newspaper newsrooms more than 10 years ago … [he] didn’t know the industry was about to enter a traumatic period of upheaval that would deplete the ranks of journalists around the country and force newspapers to reassess their mission.”

10. The Gang That Always Liked Ike
By Michael Beschloss | HistorySource :: The New York Times | November 2014
“The Gang played bridge, golfed and shot skeet together, ate steaks barbecued by the president, offered advice on politics and the economy and chuckled at his private aphorisms. (He maintained, for example, that the ‘two professions in which amateurs excel’ are ‘prostitution and the military.’)”

Recommended reading / viewing / listening

This week: Presidents and the press / AI and earthquakes / Swooning Ivanka / HIV capital of America / The Batmobile

This week: Presidents and the press / AI and earthquakes / Swooning Ivanka / HIV capital of America / The Batmobile

Most of these great items come from my social media networks. Follow me on Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, LinkedIn, and Facebook for more fascinating videos, photos, articles, essays, and criticism.

1. Remember Nixon? There’s history behind Trump’s press attacks
By Nancy Benac | Associated Press | Feb. 17
“Historians can point to plenty of past presidents who have sparred with the press. But they’re hard-pressed to find anything that approaches the all-out attack on the media that President Donald Trump seems intent on escalating at every turn.”

2. Bigger Than Watergate? 10 Essential Books About Our Future Past
By Emily Temple | LitHub | Feb. 16
“Consider these your own personal set of crystal balls — they may not tell the future precisely, but they’re certainly full of clues. And possibly strategies.”

3. Can Artificial Intelligence Predict Earthquakes?
By Annie Sneed | Scientific American | Feb. 15
“The ability to forecast temblors would be a tectonic shift in seismology. But is it a pipe dream? A seismologist is conducting machine-learning experiments to find out”

4. Vice President Pence’s power grows in Trump’s White House
By Niall Stanage | The Hill | Feb. 16
“Insiders say Pence’s clout has been overlooked in media coverage that has often focused on more flamboyant or enigmatic Trump advisers.”

5. The Story Behind Planet Earth II’s Unbelievable ‘Iguana vs. Snakes’ Chase Scene
By Jesse David Fox | Vulture | Feb. 16
“A camera crew worked from dusk to dawn for weeks filming the exact spot, hoping something would happen, and if it did, that the camera would be in focus. As is often the case with the acclaimed series, they got their shot.”

6. Inside the Nation’s First Bilingual University
By Daniel Blue Tyx | The Texas Observer | Feb. 8
“UT-Rio Grande Valley looks to become the first ‘bilingual, bicultural, biliterate’ campus in the country.”

7. Pictures of ‘swooning’ Ivanka Trump and Justin Trudeau go viral
By Elena Cresci | The Guardian | Feb. 15
“The president’s daughter probably doesn’t fancy Canada’s PM like the rest of the internet — but that didn’t stop the jokes”

8. We cannot allow the anger in this moment to change who we are
By David Greene | Poynter | Dec. 20
“As journalists, we seek the truth. We are not advocates for a particular person or position. We are watchdogs who rigorously report on facts and use the truth to confront power. And we are listeners who foster dialogue and allow people … the freedom to think out loud.”

9. Austin, Indiana: the HIV capital of small-town America
By Jessica Wapner | Mosaic Science | May 2016
“[N]o one could explain what had happened to Austin. But a new theory of public health might yet hold the answer. Known as syndemics, it may also be the one thing that can rescue Austin and its people.”

10. The Batmobile: The Concept Car That Became a Star
By Michael Beschloss | HistorySource :: The New York Times | October 2014
“The Futura concept car was built for about $250,000 — more than $2 million today.”

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This week: Trump’s inaugural lineup / Familiar faces in ‘Rogue One’ / How to cover a terrorist attack / David Bowie’s final year / Christmas and Confederate widows

This week: Trump’s inaugural lineup / Familiar faces in ‘Rogue One’ / How to cover a terrorist attack / David Bowie’s final year / Christmas and Confederate widows

Most of these great items come from my social media networks. Follow me on Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, LinkedIn, and Facebook for more fascinating videos, photos, articles, essays, and criticism.

1. Trump’s inaugural parade lineup announced
By Nolan D. McCaskill | Forty Five :: Politico | Dec. 30
“The Jan. 20 parade will follow the swearing-in ceremony of [President-elect Donald] Trump and Vice President-elect Mike Pence. The committee characterized the list as an ‘initial’ version of groups that have accepted an invitation thus far.”

2. How ‘Rogue One’ Brought Back Familiar Faces
By David Itzkoff | The New York Times | Dec. 27
“Warning: This article contains spoilers about ‘Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.’ ”

3. DC restaurant won’t put Trump in presidential mural
By Nikita Vladimirov | The Briefing Room :: The Hill | Dec. 29
“The mural features the founder of the restaurant, ‘Mama’ Ayesha Abraham, standing alongside 11 presidents, from Dwight D. Eisenhower to Barack Obama.”

4. Covering a potential terrorist attack? Keep these things in mind
By Nausicaa Renner | Columbia Journalism Report | September 2016
“Terrorism relies on the spread of fear, so any publicity — from journalists or otherwise — threatens to play into its aims. The ability of terrorists to disseminate information and recruit has only gotten more powerful with the rise of social media. [T]he Tow Center for Digital Journalism [recently] published three reports on how journalism should cover terrorism.”

5. 5 ways to make the populist-Republican coalition government work
By Richard V. Reeves | The Brookings Institution :: Forbes | Dec. 19
“Trump does not have the same political agenda as the Republican Party in Congress, to the extent, that is, that he has an agenda at all. He won the party’s nomination, but is almost entirely independent of the party’s machine, history and personal networks. Trump didn’t climb up the party floor by floor. He simply took the penthouse suite.”

6. David Bowie’s Final, Imaginative, Awesome Year
By Bruce Handy | The Hollywood Reporter | Dec. 20
“As the anniversary of his death approaches, collaborators on the music icon’s off-Broadway show ‘Lazarus’ share accounts of a cancer-stricken artist productive and engaged until the end.”

7. Syria Will Stain Obama’s Legacy Forever
By David Greenberg | Foreign Policy | Dec. 29
“The arc of history is long, but it won’t ever judge the president’s Syria policy kindly.”

8. A reflection on Barack Obama’s presidency
The Economist | Dec. 24
“From the ruins of Syria to the barricades in Congress and America’s oldest wounds, sometimes nothing has been the best he could do. Sometimes it was all he could do. The possibilities seem shrunken. After its collision with history, so might hope itself.”

9. Christmas Mourning, Confederate Widows, and the Aftermath of the Civil War
By Angela Esco | Muster :: Journal of the Civil War Era | Dec. 20
“Approximately 750,000 men died in the war. We know this number, know that it earns the distinction of being the bloodiest American war, but often we do not think about what this number meant, in terms of families changed, sons killed, women wearing black, buildings draped in crepe.”

10. Harry Truman, Five-Card Stud and the Cold War
By Michael Beschloss | HistorySource :: The New York Times | September 2014
“Harry Truman was the president most publicly identified with poker, which seemed natural for a product of the Kansas City political machine led by the back-room Democratic boss Tom Pendergast.”

Recommended reading / viewing / listening

This week: The history of the new African American Museum / Dirty debate secrets / Lil Wayne in Rikers / Pluto’s deep ocean / Ease off on self-discipline

This week: The history of the new African American Museum / Dirty debate secrets / Lil Wayne in Rikers / Pluto’s deep ocean / Ease off on self-discipline

Most of these great items come from my social media networks. Follow me on Twitter, Tumblr, LinkedIn, and Facebook for more fascinating videos, photos, articles, essays, and criticism.

1. How to Win a Debate with Mind Games and Dirty Tricks
By Zack Stanton | Politico Magazine | Sept. 24
“Presidential debates have a long and often comical history of psych-outs, with candidates trying to intimidate each other and even threatening insulting props.”

2. John Lewis spent 15 years fighting for the museum — now the dream is realized
By John Lewis | Washington Post Magazine | Sept. 15
“I have loved history ever since I was a boy. It started when I was so young. To celebrate Carter G. Woodson’s innovation — then called Negro History Week and now called Black History Month — my teachers would ask us to cut out pictures in magazines and newspapers of famous African Americans, such as Rosa Parks and George Washington Carver.”

3. The artifacts and stories that brought the African American museum to life
By Marcia Davis | Washington Post Magazine | Sept. 15
“Inside the museum are markers of a nation’s racial history and bloodied path to democracy: from the remnants of a slave ship to a slave cabin to a segregation-era train car and shards of glass from the 16th Street Baptist Church of Birmingham, Ala., where four little girls were killed on a September Sunday morning not so long ago.”

4. Larry Sanders, Bernie’s Brother, Is Running for David Cameron’s Seat in Parliament
By Sewell Chan | The New York Times | Sept. 23
“Sanders grew up in New York City. … In 1969, after graduating from Harvard Law School, he moved to Oxford, England, where he has devoted his career to social work and the law and been an advocate in areas like mental health and education.”

5. Lil Wayne describes what life is really like inside Rikers Island
By Tashara Jones | Page Six :: The New York Post | Sept. 23
“Wayne got visits from P. Diddy and Kanye West, all of whom underwent the body searches, but he admitted a low point was when Drake admitted to sleeping with his girlfriend. …”

6. 10 Things Every Man Should Know About Wearing a Suit
By Teo van Den Broeke | Esquire | Sept. 23
“Always ensure that the skirt of your jacket fully covers your backside. Short jackets are not flattering on anyone, even skinny guys. A full length jacket with a nip at the waist will look flattering on pretty much all frames.”

7. Are cats better than dogs?
The New Yorker Festival | November 2014
“A panel of authors, scientists, and New Yorker writers debate which are better: cats or dogs.”

8. Pluto’s Liquid Water Ocean Might be Insanely Deep
By Maddie Stone | Gizmodo | Sept. 23
“[I]t’s thought that the enormous asteroid responsible for creating Sputnik Planum struck somewhere near the north pole, but that over time, Pluto’s heart became heavy and caused the entire planet to tip over.”

9. Self-discipline is overrated, so go easy on yourself
By Oliver Burkeman | The Guardian | Sept. 23
“Too little self-control makes you impulsive and prone to taking dangerous risks, but too much isn’t great either”

10. A Swimmer and Surfer Who Straddled Two Cultures
By Michael Beschloss | HistorySource :: The New York Times | August 2014
“Duke Kahanamoku, who won a total of five swimming medals in Olympics from 1912 to 1924, probably did more than anyone else to bring the sport of surfing from his native Hawaiian islands to the United States mainland. Almost in reverse, he also played a substantial part in the Americanization of old Hawaii.”

Recommended reading / viewing / listening

This week: Tragedy in Roma, Texas / Less NYC gay clubs / Letters of John Adams / Bernie Sanders and Eugene McCarthy / Google doodles

This week: Tragedy in Roma, Texas / Less NYC gay clubs / Letters of John Adams / Bernie Sanders and Eugene McCarthy / Google doodles

Most of these great items come from my social media networks. Follow me on Twitter, Tumblr, LinkedIn, and Facebook for more fascinating videos, photos, articles, essays, and criticism.

1. Gay Dance Clubs on the Wane in the Age of Grindr
By Michael Musto | The New York Times | April 26
“Night life veterans point to a variety of reasons, including cultural shifts, real estate pressures and technology.”

2. Prince’s Paisley Park Home to Become a Museum
By Sebastian Modak | Conde Nast Traveler | April 26
“Sheila E., Prince’s longtime musical collaborator, revealed plans to memorialize His Royal Badness within the walls of his estate on the outskirts of Minneapolis.”

3. ‘West Wing’ Meets White House: Allison Janney Greets Reporters in Press Room
Associated Press :: The Hollywood Reporter | April 29
“She took the podium normally reserved for spokesman Josh Earnest and told reporters she hoped to bring attention to the nation’s opioid epidemic.”

4. Roma, Texas: A Smuggler’s Paradise
By Jay Root | The Texas Tribune | April 21
“Multiple inflatable rafts on the water. Emotionally shaken kids in the back of Border Patrol vans. Dope worth a quarter-million dollars on the street, dumped on the river’s edge. Roadside apprehensions. People running, swimming and shouting obscenities in and alongside a river shared by two countries.”

5. Meet the man behind Google’s doodles
By Elizabeth Garone | BBC Capital | April 26
“His job and others like it says a lot about why art matters more than ever to the binary world of technology”

6. Against American exceptionalism: Gordon S. Wood on John Adams
Library of America | April 19
“Library of America sat down with editor Gordon Wood, Alva O. Way Professor of History Emeritus at Brown University and the Pulitzer Prize?winning author of The Radicalism of the American Revolution, to discuss Adams’s complicated legacy, and the enduring appeal of his writings.”

7. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Islamic State
By Marwan Hisham | Dispatch :: Foreign Policy | April 20
“An accidental tour into the heart of the caliphate’s oil smuggling economy.”

8. NASA has mapped every eclipse that will occur for the next 1,000 years
By Brian Resnick | Vox | April 29
“They even know the exact time, down to the fraction of a second, that the eclipses will occur.”

9. What Bernie Sanders Should Learn From Eugene McCarthy
By Julian E. Zelizer | Politico Magazine | April 21
“In 1968, the Democratic insurgent refused to support the establishment nominee — and it was disastrous”

10. A Style-Setting J.F.K. Appears With a 2014 Congressional Candidate
By Michael Beschloss | HistorySource :: The New York Times | July 2014
“Recoiling from a famous photograph of President Calvin Coolidge in a Sioux headdress, which he considered comical, Kennedy almost always refused to wear unusual hats in public — including on the last morning of his life, when hosts at a Fort Worth breakfast pressed him, without success, to don a Stetson.”

Recommended reading / viewing / listening

This week: Henry Kissinger / George Washington and whiskey / Scorsese’s love for the Rolling Stones / Beyonce’s hot sauce / The drama of gravitational wave detection

This week: Henry Kissinger / George Washington and whiskey / Scorsese’s love for the Rolling Stones / Beyonce’s hot sauce / The drama of gravitational wave detection

Most of these great items come from my social media networks. Follow me on Twitter, Tumblr, LinkedIn, MySpace, and Facebook for more fascinating videos, photos, articles, essays, and criticism.

1. The Dawn of a New Era in Science
By Matthew Francis | The Atlantic | Feb. 11
“By announcing the first detection of gravitational waves, scientists have vindicated Einstein and given humans a new way to look at the universe.”

2. Shut Up and Press Play
By Mary-Louise Parker | Esquire Classic | September 2006
“If you want to rock this girl (or yours), these are the songs you need to know”

3. William Shatner Opens Up About Deathbed Rift With Leonard Nimoy and Their Long Friendship
By Katie Wilson Berg | The Hollywood Reporter | Feb. 12
“Shatner spoke … about his respect for Nimoy as an artist and the mystery of why the man he calls ‘the only friend I ever had’ shut him out in the last years of his life.”

4. A History of Martin Scorsese’s Love Affair with the Rolling Stones
By Dan Reilly | Vulture | Feb. 12
“‘My films,’ the man himself once said, ‘would be unthinkable without them.’ ”

5. We All Need Beyonce’s Hot Sauce
By Goldie Taylor | The Daily Beast | Feb. 8
“It’s a flavorful essence — proud, black, and full of social justice.”

6. InstaTexas: The Stars At Night…
By Jordan Breal | Texas Monthly | Feb. 11
“Are big and bright — and ready for their close-up.”

7. George Washington, the Whiskey Baron of Mount Vernon
By Michael Beschloss | The Upshot :: The New York Times | Feb. 12
“It was not exactly in keeping with Washington’s public image to enter the whiskey trade.”

8. Gravitational Waves Exist: The Inside Story of How Scientists Finally Found Them
By Nicola Twilley | Elements :: The New Yorker | Feb. 11
“It took years to make the most sensitive instrument in history insensitive to everything that is not a gravitational wave. Emptying the tubes of air demanded forty days of pumping. The result was one of the purest vacuums ever created on Earth, a trillionth as dense as the atmosphere at sea level.”

9. Henry Kissinger: Good or Evil?
Politico Magazine | October 2015
“10 historians assess the controversial statesman’s legacy”

10. T.R.’s Son Inspired Him to Help Rescue Football
By Michael Beschloss | HistorySource :: The New York Times | August 2014
“T.R.’s intervention … helped lead to … the enforcement of new rules, which included the forward pass, a neutral zone at the line of scrimmage, another referee on the field and later prohibitions against brutal maneuvers like kneeing and punching opponents by using locked hands.”

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North River Notes

Observations on the Hudson River as it passes through New York City. The section of the Hudson which passes through New York is historically known as the North River, called this by the Dutch to distinguish it from the Delaware River, which they knew as the South River. This stretch of the Hudson is still often referred to as the North River by local mariners today. All photos copyright Daniel Katzive unless otherwise attributed. For more frequent updates, please follow northriverblog on Facebook or Instagram.