Pocket Realities

LeVar Burton’s Quest to Succeed Alex Trebek – The New York Times:

Bear in mind that this might be paywalled when you try for it, but I love LeVar Burton too much to skip over it as I’d normally do with sites that are likely to block content.

If the right person catches the right project at the right time, the culture will always hold that person close. Do it three times, as LeVar Burton has done, and our relationship becomes something even deeper. Through his performances as Kunta Kinte in the landmark 1977 television mini-series “Roots,” as Lt. Cmdr. Geordi La Forge on “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” which aired in syndication from 1987 to 1994 and is the greatest of all “Star Trek” iterations (I’ll brook no arguments to the contrary) and as host of the beautifully ambling PBS children’s educational series “Reading Rainbow” during its run from 1983 to 2006, Burton established himself as an icon of grace and humanism, an enduring part of the fabric of American culture. Which might explain why, this past spring, there was an organic social media groundswell to get Burton, who is 64, the shot he wanted at replacing another beloved figure, the late Alex Trebek, as host of “Jeopardy!”

The Chemical Weapon Next Door – Drilled News:

Summer’s teachers closed the doors, secured the windows, and pulled the drapes shut. It was only when she went home that day and spoke to her dad, an environmental safety expert, that she realized she, her classmates, and thousands of other Torrance residents, had had a near miss with a chemical so deadly the Department of Homeland Security lists it as a substance of interest for terrorists.

“I told [my dad] all we did was shut the windows and he explained it wouldn’t have been enough to protect the students,” she recalls.

Spencer’s dad explained if the chemical had been released, “thousands of Torrance residents would have died”.

Anthony Hopkins’ 20 best film performances – ranked! | Anthony Hopkins | The Guardian:

Kyoto Cherry Blossom Full Flower dates | Datagraver:

tl;dr – Earlier and earlier, with fewer outliers. This is a very obvious change and you can really see the timeline.

1. A reminder that some societies have had really good records for a really long time.
2. I’d joke this was chilling data, but this is too serious.

Since the year 812 people in Japan have recorded the first day in the year the Cherry Blossom was in full bloom in Kyoto. Based on this record you can see some of the local climate effects.