Riffing on a byōbu folding screen of the Battle of Sekigahara painted in the 1700s, Yusuke Shigeta made a pixel animated version for a recent exhibition. The video above is a tantalizingly short preview of the work — I could have watched these tiny pixel vignettes all day.
Emmett till was killed early on the morning of August 28, 1955, one month and three days after his 14th birthday. His mother’s decision to show his body in an open casket, to allow Jet magazine to publish photos—“Let the world see what I’ve seen,” she said—became a call to action. Three months after his murder, Rosa Parks kept her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama, bus, and she later told Mamie Till that she’d been thinking of Emmett when she refused to move. Almost 60 years later, after Trayvon Martin was killed, Oprah Winfrey channeled the thoughts of many Americans in evoking the memory and the warning of Emmett Till.
But the pandemic is once again entering a new phase that feels more dangerous and more in flux, even for the people lucky enough to have received their lifesaving shots. A more transmissible variant—one that can discombobulate vaccine-trained antibodies—has flooded the world. It’s wreaking havoc among the uninoculated, a group that still includes almost half of Americans and most of the global population. After a prolonged lull, the pandemic’s outlook is grimmer than it’s been in months. I am, for the foreseeable future, back to wearing masks in indoor public places, and there are four big reasons why.
I personally haven’t felt like I could stop with masks in public… Despite being vaccinated, one of my two kids can’t be for a while… So when the vacicnation rate among eligible people basically stopped with less than half done, I have felt like we can’t change behaviors as if the threat was resolved…
Actually building an EV is still a little more carbon-intensive than building a traditional vehicle. Recycling EV batteries could eventually bring that carbon intensity down. But for now, EV drivers start to reap the climate benefits after driving their car for a year or so, according to Bieker. That’s when the car passes the threshold when the emissions that it saves by running on cleaner electricity make it a better option for the climate than a traditional car.
Dr. Brytney Cobia said Monday that all but one of her COVID
patients in Alabama did not receive the vaccine. The vaccinated
patient, she said, just needed a little oxygen and is expected to
fully recover. Some of the others are dying.
“I’m admitting young healthy people to the hospital with very
serious COVID infections,” wrote Cobia, a hospitalist at Grandview
Medical Center in Birmingham, in an emotional Facebook post
Sunday. “One of the last things they do before they’re
intubated is beg me for the vaccine. I hold their hand and tell
them that I’m sorry, but it’s too late.”
Good link to spread. Fox News should put this doctor on the air in prime time. (Via Dave Winer.)
Swimmer Becca Meyers says she's skipping the Tokyo Paralympics because she wouldn't be able to have a personal care assistant with her. The 2016 gold medalist is seen here at an event in 2017.
Nicholas Hunt/Getty Images for Women's Sports Foundation
Becca Meyers, a swimmer seen as a favorite to bring gold home from Tokyo, has canceled plans to compete in the Paralympics after being told she can't bring a personal care assistant to Japan. Meyers is deaf and blind. U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee (USOPC) officials say they don't have space for her to bring an aide because of coronavirus restrictions on athletic delegations.
"I've had to make the gut-wrenching decision to withdraw from the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics," Meyers said Tuesday in a statement posted on her Facebook page. "I'm angry, I'm disappointed, but most of all, I'm sad to not be representing my country."
Meyers, 26, says officials have not taken her and other athletes' needs into account. She won three gold medals at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Paralympics — but the experience also left her deeply shaken. In strange new surroundings, she struggled to accomplish essential tasks on her own, such as finding the athletes' dining hall.
Since then, her mother, Maria, has accompanied her at competitions as a personal care assistant. But after being told her mother can't join her in Tokyo, Meyers opted out.
"I would love to go to Tokyo," Meyers told The Washington Post, which first reported her withdrawal. "Swimming has given me my identity as a person. I've always been Becca the Swimmer Girl. I haven't taken this lightly. This has been very difficult for me. [But] I need to say something to effect change, because this can't go on any longer."
All signs had been pointing to Meyers turning in a special performance in Tokyo. She has set new world records in recent years. Last month, she was celebrating dominance at the Paralympic trials, where she secured a spot on Team USA. Tokyo was set to be her third Paralympics.
Meyers, who was born with Usher syndrome, has thrived at sport's elite level. Because of the genetic disorder, she is deaf (and is aided by cochlear implants). She often relies on lip-reading, but her eyesight continues to deteriorate — and because everyone in Tokyo will be wearing masks, her ability to understand others would be hampered.
Rick Adams, the USOPC's chief of sport performance and national governing body services, has told the Meyerses that while he empathizes with them, Tokyo organizers have limited delegations to athletes and essential staff.
The USOPC told Meyers that the 34 athletes on the Paralympic swim team would be supported by one dedicated personal care assistant (PCA), along with six coaches. Nearly a third of the swimmers are visually impaired, according to Meyers.
The Meyers family says the situation is untenable and must change. They also believe the USOPC has held firm on its position to avoid a rush of athletes attempting to add their own PCAs to the delegation.
Meyers, who lives in a suburb between Baltimore and Washington, D.C., has been training with the Nation's Capital Swim Club, which launched the Olympic careers of stars such as Katie Ledecky and Tom Dolan. There, Meyers has trained under famed coach Bruce Gemmell.
"Your heart just breaks for her," Gemmell told the Post. "It seems to me if our focus is athletes first, which it should be but which it isn't always — if athletes first is what we're doing, then we as a USOPC, we need to do better. We must do better."
The Tokyo Paralympics will start on Aug. 24 and run through Sept. 5.
In other words, “How can I make sure my kids don’t turn into selfish boors?” In her new book How to Raise Kids Who Aren’t Assholes (G. P. Putnam’s Sons), coming out on July 20, Moyer probes the research on how to encourage kids to be generous, honest, helpful and kind. She reviews studies on how to instill egalitarian beliefs and make sure kids know how to stand up against racism and sexism. And she talks to scientists about perennial parental struggles such as sibling rivalry, teaching safe sex and moderating screen time. Scientific American spoke to Moyer about science-based strategies for raising good citizens.
