Via Mark Frauenfelder here is a video of a someone who, after hitting another car because he had his hood popped open, continues to drive with his view blocked until the inevitable happens. (Language advisory)
Bill and Hillary Clinton are going on a 13 city joint tour of the US and Canada titled “An Evening with President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton” where they will supposedly engage with the audience in a conversation.
Each event promises to “feature joint on stage conversations with the two leaders sharing stories and inspiring anecdotes that shaped their historic careers in public service, while also discussing issues of the day and looking towards the future,” Live Nation said in a statement.
The death of people one is close to, either family and friends, inevitably triggers feelings of grief and sadness that will vary with the individual. In this article, Brian D. Earp says that how the Stoics mourned may have some lessons for us.
How should we grieve when someone close to us dies? Should we wail and gnash our teeth? Should we swallow our pain? Some would say there is no right answer. You feel whatever you feel, and heal however you heal, and that’s okay. But according to the ancient Stoics – those Greco-Roman philosophers making a comeback as preachers of practical wisdom in a self-help world – there is a correct answer to the question of how we should grieve. And the answer is that we shouldn’t. What’s done is done. There is nothing you can do to change the situation – so move on.
I don’t like snakes. There is something about the way they look and move that gives me the creeps, even when I know they are members of a harmless variety. Apparently fear of snakes (and spiders) is a primeval instinct shared by many species that may have never encountered a snake before and yet recoil when they see one for the first time. On the other hand, I have no fear of spiders, though I know people who are terrified of them, so I am not a total coward.
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The latest report issued by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says that we have a window of just 12 years to take meaningful steps to curb global warming. The IPCC report says that the situation is even worse than was feared and that we could adjust to an average global temperature increase of 1.5oC but no more.
When they reach a certain age, singers often take up songs that reflect back on life. Some songs betray boastful arrogance and self-satisfaction, such as Frank Sinatra and My Way, while others convey a jaded, world-weary, disenchanted sensibility like Peggy Lee singing Is that all there is?. To my mind, one of the best such songs is by Charles Aznavour, who died last week at the age of 94.
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The Cleveland Orchestra has the reputation of being one of the best in the world. The city points proudly to it as one of its cultural crown jewels. But it too has been rocked by allegations of sexual abuse. Three women have accused the long-time concertmaster William Preucil of sexually abusive behavior. (In an orchestra, the concertmaster is a major figure, the leader of the first violin section and second in command of the orchestra after the conductor.) One allegation was made back in July by Zeneba Bowers about what happened to her in 1998 and two more women came forward just yesterday. (Massimo La Rosa, the principal trombonist of the orchestra, has also been suspended because of sexual abuse allegations.)
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The controversy surrounding Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the US Supreme Court opened the curtain on the life of the children of the affluent and what it revealed was not pretty. It seemed like those who attended these expensive private prep schools grew up with a sense of entitlement that, in the case of the boys, extended to feeling entitled to force themselves on women. The fact that his prep school had its own nine-hole golf course on the campus should tell you all that you need to know about what kind of money the parents who send their children there must have and what kind of person graduates from it.
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Today is a Sunday in the fall season in the US and many millions of people will gather round TVs to watch professional football. It used to be the case that Sundays were the only days when they were shown but now you can also see games on Mondays and Thursdays while college games are shown on Saturdays and when their season ends in December, professional football takes those slots too. So basically, football fans can indulge their passions most days of the week.
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The Nobel prizes in Chemistry were awarded last week for discoveries that enabled scientists to speed up the process of evolution and thus produce treatments for various diseases.
For thousands of years, humans have been selectively breeding crops and animals to tinker with the genetic makeup of their future generations in humankind’s favor. The three new laureates have used modern molecular-based methods to re-create this process in the laboratory and therefore speed the process up considerably.
“This year’s prize in chemistry rewards a revolution based on evolution. Our laureates have applied the principles of Darwin in test tubes and used this approach to develop new types of chemicals for the greatest benefit of humankind,” said Claes Gustafsson, chairman of the Nobel committee for chemistry 2018 and a professor at the University of Gothenburg, in Sweden.
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