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clairemann

Photos of Snowflakes Like You've Never Seen Them Before - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...es-photos-nathan-myhrvold.html

science research technology education

shared by clairemann on 26 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • Sextillions of snowflakes fell from the sky this winter. That’s billions of trillions of them, now mostly melted away as spring approaches.
  • “How do snowflakes form?” Dr. Libbrecht said during an online talk on Feb. 23 that was hosted by the Bruce Museum in Greenwich, Conn. “And how do these structures appear — and just, as I like to say, literally out of thin air?”
  • The “damn thing” was the camera system for photographing snowflakes. He wanted to use the best digital sensors, ones that captured a million pixels. “The real snowflake is very, very fragile,” he said. “It’s super intricate. So you want high resolution.”
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • Dr. Myhrvold also found a special LED, manufactured by a company in Japan for industrial uses, that would emit bursts of light 1/1,000th as long as a typical camera flash. This minimizes heat emitted from the flash, which might melt the snowflake a bit.
  • Water is a simple molecule consisting of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen. When temperatures drop below 32 degrees Fahrenheit, the molecules start sticking to one another — that is, they freeze.
  • “Because it has this complicated path through the clouds, it gives a complicated shape,” Dr. Libbrecht said. “They’re all following different paths, and so each one looks a little different, depending on the path.”
  • To counter Dr. Myhrvold’s claims, Mr. Komarechka took an image that he says was even higher resolution. Dr. Myhrvold responded with a lengthy rebuttal explaining why his images were, nonetheless, more detailed.
lucieperloff

America's Bald Eagle Population Has Quadrupled - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...bald-eagles-united-states.html

science research animals government

shared by lucieperloff on 26 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • The bald eagle population in the lower 48 states has quadrupled since 2009,
  • There were an estimated 316,700 bald eagles in the lower 48 states during the 2019 breeding season
  • her organization would keep working with state and federal agencies, tribes, private landowners and others to ensure that the bald eagle population continues to increase.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • truly a historic conservation success story.”
  • “When you look across the continent, the continental population is really a mosaic of smaller subpopulations,” Professor Watts said. “And those populations have started their growth phases at different times, and they will ultimately reach saturation at different times.”
  • The numbers are particularly remarkable given that the species was nearly driven to extinction in the last century.
  • The bald eagle population reached its lowest point of 417 known nesting pairs in 1963, researchers said.
  • “I really think that the population has reached a period where we are kind of moving beyond conservations restrictions,”
  • He does not see society reverting to a period where hunting bald eagles would be permitted, he said, adding that bald eagles are the United States’ national symbol. “I think they should be revered, respected and protected,
lucieperloff

In Suez Canal, Stuck Ship Is a Warning About Excessive Globalization - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...ship-suez-canal.html

science research technology covid ships

shared by lucieperloff on 26 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • international commerce confronted a monumental traffic jam with potentially grave consequences.
  • a vital channel linking the factories of Asia to the affluent customers of Europe, as well as a major conduit for oil.
  • companies can depend on the magic of the internet and the global shipping industry to summon what they need as they need it.
  • ...13 more annotations...
  • Capacity has increased 1,500 percent over the last half-century, and has nearly doubled over the last decade alone,
  • a deadly miscalculation.
  • “Masks remain in short supply globally.”
  • No one could predict a ship going aground in the middle of the canal, just like no one predicted where the pandemic would come from. Just like we can’t predict the next cyberattack, or the next financial crisis, but we know it’s going to happen.”
  • Each day the stalemate continues holds up goods worth $9.6 billion,
  • Money not spent filling warehouses with unneeded auto parts is, at least in part, money that can be given to shareholders in the form of dividends.
  • intensified the strains on the shipping industry,
  • the unloading of those containers has been slowed as dockworkers and truck drivers have been struck by Covid-19 or forced to stay home to attend to children who are out of school.
  • Retailers in North America have been frantically restocking depleted inventories, putting a strain on shipping companies in what is normally the slack season on trans-Pacific routes.
  • Even a few days of disruption in the Suez could exacerbate that situation.
  • If the Suez remains clogged for more than a few days, the stakes would rise drastically.
  • Those now en route to the Suez may opt to head south and navigate around Africa, adding weeks to their journeys and burning additional fuel — a cost ultimately borne by consumers.
  • “This could make a really bad crisis even worse,”
lucieperloff

Biden Administration Ramps Up Debt Relief Program to Help Black Farmers - The New York ... - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...debt-relief-black-farmers.html

knowledge education systematic racism government farming

shared by lucieperloff on 26 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • pledging to reverse decades of discriminatory agricultural lending and subsidy policies that have left Black farmers at an economic disadvantage and is racing to deploy $5 billion in aid and debt relief to help them.
  • Now the department is in the middle of a drastic overhaul, both of its personnel and of policies that it acknowledges have perpetuated inequality in rural America for years.
  • root out the vestiges of racism at his agency and to redress “systemic discrimination” that Black farmers had faced.
  • ...12 more annotations...
  • The Agriculture Department has faced sharp criticism from minority farmer groups for lacking diversity and ignoring complaints of bias in its programs.
  • That includes $8 billion that the Agriculture Department will use toward crop purchases, grants to food processors and distributors, and other programs to help farmers struggling with the pandemic.
  • The bill also provides “sums as may be necessary” from the Treasury Department to help minority farmers and ranchers pay off loans granted or guaranteed by the Agriculture Department, providing debt relief and aid for members of minority racial and ethnic groups that have long experienced discrimination at the hands of the government.
  • With the onset of the coronavirus, many farmers were forced to plow under crops or dump their milk, even as grocery store shelves emptied out and many American families went hungry.
  • A driving force behind the provisions for minority farmers was Raphael Warnock, the Democratic senator from Georgia whose election in January helped give Democrats control of the chamber.
  • Those factors led to a substantial loss of land.
  • The bill would provide billions of dollars in rental and utility assistance to people who are struggling and in danger of being evicted from their homes.
  • “If we had the same amount of investment that the other farmers had, a lot of Black farmers would still be farming this date.”
  • Injecting race into the relief effort has stirred backlash and criticism from some Republican lawmakers who have described the program as a kind of “reparations” for discrimination toward Black farmers.
  • “The same people who are complaining and using language to try to vilify this priority for African-American farmers are the same people who didn’t say a peep when tens of billions of dollars went out to the richest farmers in America,”
  • Mr. Vilsack is creating a commission to be a watchdog for racial equity issues at the agency
  • “Black farmers don’t trust the United States Department of Agriculture.”
lucieperloff

Covid-19: How Much Herd Immunity is Enough? - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...mmunity-covid-coronavirus.html

coronavirus immunity science research bias knowledge

shared by lucieperloff on 26 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • Scientists initially estimated that 60 to 70 percent of the population needed to acquire resistance to the coronavirus to banish it. Now Dr. Anthony Fauci and others are quietly shifting that number upward.
  • It gives Americans a sense of when we can hope to breathe freely again.
  • And last week, in an interview with CNBC News, he said “75, 80, 85 percent” and “75 to 80-plus percent.”
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • He is doing so, he said, partly based on new science, and partly on his gut feeling that the country is finally ready to hear what he really thinks.
  • Now that some polls are showing that many more Americans are ready, even eager, for vaccines, he said he felt he could deliver the tough message that the return to normal might take longer than anticipated.
  • We really don’t know what the real number is. I think the real range is somewhere between 70 to 90 percent.
  • not sure there will be enough voluntary acceptance of vaccines to reach that goal.
  • They also came with a warning: All answers are merely “guesstimates.”
  • Humans move around, so studying disease spread among them is far harder.
  • It took about two months to be certain that there were many asymptomatic people who had also spread the virus.
  • The more transmissible a pathogen, the more people must become immune in order to stop it.
  • Dr. Dean noted that to stop transmission in a crowded city like New York, more people would have to achieve immunity than would be necessary in a less crowded place like Montana.
  • If we can vaccinate almost all the people who are most at risk of severe outcomes, then this would become a milder disease.”
katedriscoll

History | TOKTalk.net - 0 views

www.toktalk.net/history

shared by katedriscoll on 25 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • inking the different Areas of Knowledge (AOK) with different Ways of Knowing (WOK) can be quite challenging at times. I now attempted to link History with Language, Logics, Emotion and Sense Perception.
  • Does the way (the language) that certain historical events are presented in history books influence the way that the reader understands these events? What role does loaded language play when talking about historical events? What role do connotation and denotation play when talking about historical events? How can language introduce bias into historical accounts? How does language help or hinder the interpretation of historical facts?
  • recently read an interesting poem by the German poet and playwright Berthold Brecht – a poem which got me thinking. You see, this is one of the TOK illnesses, you start to see TOK everywhere, and also in poetry. Continue reading »
edencottone

Ron DeSantis' Florida boast rings hollow (opinion) - CNN - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

shared by edencottone on 25 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • New cases of Covid-19 in the United States have fallen in the last two months to about 55,000 a day.
  • These numbers are promising, but the ups and downs and ups tell an important lesson about keeping perspective in a pandemic. Today's promising numbers would have been horrific at this time last year and are hardly as good as they need to be.
  • No one knows this more than the country's governors. Since the Trump White House dumped the job of handling the pandemic almost entirely into their laps, they have had to respond on the fly.
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • We are already seeing the first wave of "who won and who lost" sorts of stories pitting various governors' responses against each other in horse-race fashion, as if these were early polls for the 2024 presidential election.
  • Then reality stepped in. A surge of summer cases forced the imposition of some restrictions on Floridians, like local mask mandates imposed by mayors in some cities in South Florida.
  • Now DeSantis is claiming again to be a master of pandemic control, as Florida's beach-tourism-restaurant industry is said to be doing well. Never mind that the state's seven-day infection rate of 143.9 per 100,000 population places it 12th highest of the 50 states.
  • For example, as of March 22, over the last seven days, Florida has had the most Covid-19 cases in the country, according to data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the 12th highest per capita case-rate, the fourth highest number of deaths, and the 17th highest death rate.
  • Once celebrated for his pandemic management, he is now getting poor marks on managing. He has not strutted or had roundtables of fan-doctors to sing his praise. But the fact is California's recent numbers are much better than those of Florida, coming in at about 47th in the country with a case-rate 46.8 per 100,000, according to the CDC's data, and fewer deaths as well.
  • Florida is ignoring the death toll and instead pushing the upbeat metrics the governor would like America to pay attention to: jobs are up! and schools are open! DeSantis stood up to the Covid-19 threat like John Wayne would have done!
  • Rather than wallow in reality, she chose to celebrate an active economy and the joys of hunting season (note: the South Dakota new-infection rate is climbing the charts once again and sits at 105 per 100,000 South Dakotans ).
  • These rate-the-governors perspectives ignore a basic fact: it is no time for trophies.
  • Worse, this obeisance to economic and social factors as measure of success creates a series of disturbing false equivalencies as they compare deaths against the economy.
  • Measuring Covid-19 management on anything other than the number of human lives lost is not only disgraceful, it will also almost certainly lead us to make all the wrong decisions once again and usher in yet another Covid-19 resurgence in the US.
edencottone

Joe Biden to highlight gains and face tough scrutiny in first formal news conference - ... - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

Politics us

shared by edencottone on 25 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • President Joe Biden's first two months in power went remarkably smoothly considering he took office amid a once-in-a-century pandemic, a consequent economic crisis and his predecessor's refusal to recognize his victory.
  • The doubling of the pace of vaccinations in the last two months represents tangible progress on the one issue on which Biden's first year will likely be mostly judged -- the quest to revive a semblance of normal life.
  • "Now is not the time to let down our guard. If we all do our part, after a long, dark year, we can show once again that we are the United States of America. ... We're going to beat this pandemic," Biden said in Ohio on Tuesday, striking the balance between caution and hope that has marked his management of the pandemic, which polls show wins the approval of a majority of Americans.
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • A surge in border crossings by migrant children appeared to catch a White House focused on the pandemic off guard and offered Republicans an opening as they seek to slow his momentum -- and build their 2022 attack lines against Biden's narrow Democratic congressional majority.
  • And with its customary sense of timing, North Korea is testing the new commander-in-chief with missile launches that are ratcheting up tensions in a showdown that no president in the last 70 years has managed to solve.
  • The President has maintained approval ratings above 50% in his early months in office because he arrived with a mandate to tackle the pandemic head on and executed his agenda with a steady approach that was the antithesis of the erratic
  • Unlike the coronavirus crisis that has killed more than half-a-million Americans, the issues that are now at the top of the nightly newscasts have defied bipartisan consensus for decades -- and will provide a severe test of the President's calls for national unity and cooperation between Democrats and Republicans.
  • Two years ago, Democrats excoriated Trump administration officials for its handling of the crisis at the border. Now the problem is squarely within Biden's domain and government resources are once again strained to the brink as more than 600 unaccompanied children cross the Mexico border each day.
  • "We're not seeing any action. Our experience has taught us that now is the time to act. We need Congress to get on board. We need a recognition of the fact that there's a crisis on the Southwest border," Roy Villareal, who served as chief patrol agent in the Tucson sector from 2018 to 2020, told CNN's Priscilla Alvarez.
  • "This is just the first step in a process of providing greater access to the media," Psaki said during a news briefing.
  • "It's a huge problem. I'm not going to pretend that it's not. It's a huge problem," Harris said in remarks that appeared to be somewhat of a do-over of the administration's initial downplaying of the situation.
  • "I asked her, the VP today, because she's the most qualified person to do it, to lead our efforts with Mexico and the Northern Triangle, and the countries that can help, need help in stemming the movement of so many folks, stemming the migration to our southern border," Biden said on Wednesday.
cvanderloo

What public school students are allowed to say on social media may be about to change - 0 views

theconversation.com/-may-be-about-to-change-154894

school speech education bias psychology research technology social media

shared by cvanderloo on 23 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • schools are increasingly faced with the question of whether they can discipline students for remarks made online about school or school officials.
  • In general, student speech in public schools has less protection than speech by adults in the community at large.
  • Tinker v. Des Moines School District decision
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • As a result, speech that may be protected for adults outside of the school environment – like offensive or vulgar language – can be restricted for students inside of the school environment.
  • as long as other requirements are met – the speech is lewd, school-sponsored or involves illegal drug use.
  • Some courts have considered other factors to determine whether there was a sufficient connection between the speech and the school before applying Tinker to off-campus speech.
  • They’ve considered whether the speech threatens the school’s obligation to provide a safe learning environment – for example, online bullying – or whether the speech is “reasonably likely” to reach the school or affect the school environment - for example by being directed at the school, school officials or other students.
  • A few courts have ruled that Tinker does not apply to the off-campus speech at issue in their cases because it did not occur in the school environment
  • That the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case does not provide any indication of how the court may decide the case.
  • Whatever decision the court makes, it will likely provide some guidance to students, parents and school officials about what students can and cannot say on social media.
cvanderloo

3 ways companies could offer more father-friendly policies that will help women - 1 views

theconversation.com/es-that-will-help-women-154155

men women research stigma education brain science

shared by cvanderloo on 23 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • Family-friendly policies such as flextime, telecommuting and a compressed workweek have been seen as supporting women’s traditional roles and hence as more needed for women to take advantage of.
  • some studies show men’s usage has been stigmatized and discouraged – and may even hurt their careers.
  • Companies could overcome these stereotypes and fears by encouraging men to take advantage of these types of family-friendly policies and by proclaiming that there’s no penalty if the reason is to take on more domestic responsibilities.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • Yet research shows that men who take parental leave become equal partners in raising their children, beyond the time they take off before or after a baby is born.
  • In many countries where parental leave is mandated, such as Canada and across Europe, leave can be shared between men and women any way parents like. Data show that mothers typically take the majority of that leave, while fathers take very little.
  • Research shows that in nations that foster a culture that rewards overtime work, men do less housework and women do more.
  • Employers need to encourage men to use them, without fear of repercussions, for the policies to be successful.
lucieperloff

Why Older People Managed to Stay Happier Through the Pandemic - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...id-pandemic-happiness-age.html

covid mental health psychology

shared by lucieperloff on 23 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • that age and emotional well-being tend to increase together, as a rule, even as mental acuity and physical health taper off.
  • that age and emotional well-being tend to increase together, as a rule, even as mental acuity and physical health taper off.
    • lucieperloff
      lucieperloff on 23 Mar 21
       
      this makes sense bc older people have had more experiences to learn how to cope with stress
  • Do people somehow develop better coping skills as they age?
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • Yet their moods remained elevated, on average, compared with those in younger generations, the survey data showed — despite the fact that both groups reported the same stress levels.
  • Older people, especially those with some resources, have more ability than younger adults to soften the edges of a day, by paying for delivery, hiring help, staying comfortably homebound and — crucially — doing so without young children underfoot.
  • when people are young, their goals and motives are focused on gaining skills and taking chances, to prepare for opportunities the future may hold.
  • They have come to accept themselves for who they are, rather than who they’re supposed to become.
Javier E

Why Study History? (1985) | AHA - 0 views

www.historians.org/...why-study-history-(1985)

history study historiography learning teaching education

shared by Javier E on 17 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • Isn't there quite enough to learn about the world today? Why add to the burden by looking at the past
  • Historical knowledge is no more and no less than carefully and critically constructed collective memory. As such it can both make us wiser in our public choices and more richly human in our private lives.
  • Without individual memory, a person literally loses his or her identity, and would not know how to act in encounters with others. Imagine waking up one morning unable to tell total strangers from family and friends!
  • ...37 more annotations...
  • Collective memory is similar, though its loss does not immediately paralyze everyday private activity. But ignorance of history-that is, absent or defective collective memory-does deprive us of the best available guide for public action, especially in encounters with outsider
  • Often it is enough for experts to know about outsiders, if their advice is listened to. But democratic citizenship and effective participation in the determination of public policy require citizens to share a collective memory, organized into historical knowledge and belief
  • This value of historical knowledge obviously justifies teaching and learning about what happened in recent times, for the way things are descends from the way they were yesterday and the day before that
  • in fact, institutions that govern a great deal of our everyday behavior took shape hundreds or even thousands of years ago
  • Only an acquaintance with the entire human adventure on earth allows us to understand these dimensions of contemporary reality.
  • it follows that study of history is essential for every young person.
  • Collective memory is quite the same. Historians are always at work reinterpreting the past, asking new questions, searching new sources and finding new meanings in old documents in order to bring the perspective of new knowledge and experience to bear on the task of understanding the past.
  • what we know and believe about history is always changing. In other words, our collective, codified memory alters with time just as personal memories do, and for the same reasons.
  • skeptics are likely to conclude that history has no right to take student time from other subjects. If what is taught today is not really true, how can it claim space in a crowded school curriculum?
  • what if the world is more complicated and diverse than words can ever tell? What if human minds are incapable of finding' neat pigeon holes into which everything that happens will fit?
  • What if we have to learn to live with uncertainty and probabilities, and act on the basis of the best guesswork we are capable of?
  • Then, surely, the changing perspectives of historical understanding are the very best introduction we can have to the practical problems of real life. Then, surely, a serious effort to understand the interplay of change and continuity in human affairs is the only adequate introduction human beings can have to the confusing flow of events that constitutes the actual, adult world.
  • Memory is not something fixed and forever. As time passes, remembered personal experiences take on new meanings.
  • Systematic sciences are not enough. They discount time, and therefore oversimplify reality, especially human reality.
  • Memory, indeed, makes us human. History, our collective memory, carefully codified and critically revised, makes us social, sharing ideas and ideals with others so as to form all sorts of different human groups
  • The varieties of history are enormous; facts and probabilities about the past are far too numerous for anyone to comprehend them all. Every sort of human group has its own histor
  • Where to start? How bring some sort of order to the enormous variety of things known and believed about the past?
  • Early in this century, teachers and academic administrators pretty well agreed that two sorts of history courses were needed: a survey of the national history of the United States and a survey of European history.
  • This second course was often broadened into a survey of Western civilization in the 1930s and 1940s
  • But by the 1960s and 1970s these courses were becoming outdated, left behind by the rise of new kinds social and quantitative history, especially the history of women, of Blacks, and of other formerly overlooked groups within the borders of the United States, and of peoples emerging from colonial status in the world beyond our borders.
  • much harder to combine old with new to make an inclusive, judiciously balanced (and far less novel) introductory course for high school or college students.
  • But abandoning the effort to present a meaningful portrait of the entire national and civilizational past destroyed the original justification for requiring students to study history
  • Competing subjects abounded, and no one could or would decide what mattered most and should take precedence. As this happened, studying history became only one among many possible ways of spending time in school.
  • The costs of this change are now becoming apparent, and many concerned persons agree that returning to a more structured curriculum, in which history ought to play a prominent part, is imperative.
  • three levels of generality seem likely to have the greatest importance for ordinary people.
  • First is family, local, neighborhood history
  • Second is national history, because that is where political power is concentrated in our time.
  • Last is global history, because intensified communications make encounters with all the other peoples of the earth increasingly important.
  • Other pasts are certainly worth attention, but are better studied in the context of a prior acquaintance with personal-local, national, and global history. That is because these three levels are the ones that affect most powerfully what all other groups and segments of society actually do.
  • National history that leaves out Blacks and women and other minorities is no longer acceptable; but American history that leaves out the Founding Fathers and the Constitution is not acceptable either. What is needed is a vision of the whole, warts and all.
  • the study of history does not lead to exact prediction of future events. Though it fosters practical wisdom, knowledge of the past does not permit anyone to know exactly what is going to happen
  • Consequently, the lessons of history, though supremely valuable when wisely formulated, become grossly misleading when oversimplifiers try to transfer them mechanically from one age to another, or from one place to another.
  • Predictable fixity is simply not the human way of behaving. Probabilities and possibilities-together with a few complete surprises-are what we live with and must learn to expect.
  • Second, as acquaintance with the past expands, delight in knowing more and more can and often does become an end in itself.
  • On the other hand, studying alien religious beliefs, strange customs, diverse family patterns and vanished social structures shows how differently various human groups have tried to cop
  • Broadening our humanity and extending our sensibilities by recognizing sameness and difference throughout the recorded past is therefore an important reason for studying history, and especially the history of peoples far away and long ago
  • For we can only know ourselves by knowing how we resemble and how we differ from others. Acquaintance with the human past is the only way to such self knowledge.
cvanderloo

3 medical innovations fueled by COVID-19 that will outlast the pandemic - 0 views

theconversation.com/ll-outlast-the-pandemic-156464

COVID innovations science health pandemic medicine knowledge research technology

shared by cvanderloo on 17 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • When COVID-19 struck, mRNA vaccines in particular were ready to be put to a real-world test. The 94% efficacy of the mRNA vaccines surpassed health officials’ highest expectations.
  • DNA and mRNA vaccines offer huge advantages over traditional types of vaccines, since they use only genetic code from a pathogen – rather than the entire virus or bacteria.
  • Gene-based vaccines also produce precise and effective immune responses. They stimulate not only antibodies that block an infection, but also a strong T cell response that can clear an infection if one occurs.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • These devices can measure a person’s temperature, heart rate, level of activity and other biometrics. With this information, researchers have been able to track and detect COVID-19 infections even before people notice they have any symptoms.
  • Wearables can detect symptoms of COVID-19 or other illnesses before symptoms are noticeable. While they have proved to be capable of detecting sickness early, the symptoms wearables detect are not unique to COVID-19.
  • So a logical way to look for new drugs to treat a specific disease is to study individual genes and proteins that are directly affected by that disease.
  • But this idea of mapping the protein interactions of diseases to look for novel drug targets doesn’t apply just to the coronavirus. We have now used this approach on other pathogens as well as other diseases including cancer, neurodegenerative and psychiatric disorders.
cvanderloo

When Americans recall their roots, they open up to immigration - 0 views

theconversation.com/-open-up-to-immigration-154685

biden trump USA immigration americans research knowledge bias

shared by cvanderloo on 17 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Vice President Kamala Harris, Attorney General Merrick Garland and Xavier Becerra, nominee for Health and Human Services secretary, have conveyed similar messages about their immigrant roots.
  • Polls suggest 60% of Americans support some of its policies, such as a path to citizenship for immigrants in the country illegally.
  • Yet this history of migration has coexisted with xenophobia: a form of prejudice against people from other countries.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • Migration is a key component of the American story. Successive waves of migrants have reshaped the U.S. socially and politically from the 16th century to the present.
  • public opinion toward immigration has also polarized along partisan lines.
  • Respondents – including both Democrats and Republicans – who were randomly assigned to think about their family history before telling us their immigration preferences expressed more favorable feelings toward immigrants.
  • Negativity toward migrants, stoked by factually inaccurate threat narratives – that migrants steal jobs and overrun schools and hospitals – is the norm in many countries. But reminding people what they share with immigrants can help build support for more inclusive policies.
cvanderloo

Colleges are eliminating sports teams - and runners and golfers are paying more of a pr... - 0 views

theconversation.com/l-or-basketball-players-148965

sports NCAA running XC track football basketball economics college US

shared by cvanderloo on 17 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • Since COVID-19 emerged, dozens of colleges and universities have announced the elimination of different intercollegiate athletics teams.
  • But the majority of closures came at regional and local campuses that participate in the NCAA’s Division II and Division III, or the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics. Also, around 30 teams were eliminated by community colleges.
  • The 78 schools we examined spend around $87 million a year to keep all those teams going.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • Most university administrators don’t expect their athletics programs to make a lot of money. Only about 25 of the 1,100 NCAA member schools’ athletics departments generate a profit.
  • public universities with NCAA Division I football teams received about 6% more in state funding annually than other institutions.
  • Many colleges and universities depend on varsity sports – like rowing, track and swimming – to attract more students to attend.
  • Most students who play college sports – including all of those at Division III and Ivy League programs – are not on an athletic scholarship.
  • Playing sports can also help with the transition into college. An intercollegiate team provides a ready-made social group that can help the new team member adjust to their new school.
  • Research also shows that hiring managers value college sports experience
  • The financial savings for athletics departments are immediate and obvious. But a longer-term impact will be seen on enrollment, campus life and the communities where colleges are located.
cvanderloo

St Patrick's day: why so many US presidents like to say 'I'm Irish' - 0 views

theconversation.com/ts-like-to-say-im-irish-157181

ireland UK USA biden trump kennedy presidents government

shared by cvanderloo on 17 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • Biden is the most strongly identified Irish-American in the White House since John F Kennedy, the only other Catholic president.
  • rish nationalist sentiments run high in the US, especially among its large diaspora. US presidents frequently indulge these views, at least symbolically. But, in practical terms, they have had little impact on the US-UK relationship.
  • More than 30 million people in the US – about one in ten Americans – identify as “Irish”.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • there are over six times as many people in the US who claim to be Irish in the US as those living in the Republic of Ireland itself.
  • If measured by when their last ancestor left Ireland, Joe Biden is no more Irish than Barack Obama
  • Perhaps the most dramatic example of this was shown by Jimmy Carter, who – on St Patrick’s Day 1976 – marched down Fifth Avenue in New York wearing a badge emblazoned with the slogan “England, get out of Ireland”.
  • With Donald Trump being the exception, nearly every president of the last half-century has identified as “Irish”, even when the evidence of such a link has been tenuous.
  • In spite of this, US presidential administrations have sought a more balanced approach. The US considers the UK to be one of its most valuable and important strategic partners. US presidents work closely with British governments, while also offering symbolic affirmation for Ireland.
  • While Biden’s personal affinities are clear, we should expect him to follow his predecessors in placing US security interests before Irish nationalist affections.
cvanderloo

Joe Biden's US$1.9 trillion stimulus won't be enough to reignite world economy on its own - 0 views

theconversation.com/orld-economy-on-its-own-157252

economics biden stimulus covid research

shared by cvanderloo on 17 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • The economic orthodoxy has long been that governments should try to balance their books and leave all the heavy lifting in managing their economies to central banks.
  • The economic orthodoxy has long been that governments should try to balance their books and leave all the heavy lifting in managing their economies to central banks.
    • cvanderloo
      cvanderloo on 17 Mar 21
       
      economic orthodoxy
  • “we are all Keynesians now”
    • cvanderloo
      cvanderloo on 17 Mar 21
       
      Keynes
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • The impact of this fiscal stimulus on the US economy will depend on how consumers and producers respond. Simply, will consumers spend more and not save their extra income, and will producers invest more and not scrap capacity?
  • Other countries will also benefit from the Biden stimulus because of the size of the US economy and its global links.
  • If Americans respond to the opening up of the US economy by spending their income and pent-up savings on consumer services – dining out, trips to the gym, theatre, cinema and so on – then the impact on other countries will be much less, since most of these services are produced locally.
  • But if American consumers buy more imported goods as a result of the stimulus, it will boost other countries’ economies
  • The biggest threat is that a booming US economy could lead to a rising dollar and higher global interest rates. This may stall recovery elsewhere and will be a major burden for emerging economies that have debts denominated in US dollars.
  • Overall, however, the world economy will benefit from the stimulus, and all the more so if other high-income countries spend on the same scale – there is no reason why they cannot do this. B
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