Sunday, July 18, 2021

The Right Chemistry: John Dee mixed science and the occult

The enigmatic polymath who had once been the toast of the court of Queen Elizabeth I died in poverty.

Author of the article:Joe Schwarcz • Special to the Montreal Gazette
Publishing date:Jul 16, 2021 • 
A detail from John Dee performing an experiment before Queen Elizabeth I, a painting by Henry Gillard Glindon. A recent X-ray analysis of the 19th-century work shows that originally Dee was surrounded by a circle of skulls, Joe Schwarcz writes. Wellcome Library via Wikimedia Commons

Amazing staging! Trygaeus climbs onto a giant mechanical beetle and flies up to the palace of the gods. That scene from Aristophanes’s play Peace would be spectacular on the Broadway stage today, but what is truly amazing, is that it was orchestrated in 1547 at Trinity College, Cambridge. The brains behind the spectacle was John Dee, a young faculty member who instantly developed a reputation as a sorcerer because the audience could not believe that such a spectacular effect could be produced by normal means

Dee would go on to forge a career as mathematician, astronomer, navigational expert, cartographer, book collector and alchemist. He would certainly qualify as a scientist if the description ended there. But it doesn’t. While the Cambridge beetle had nothing to do with sorcery, Dee later would go on to live up to the reputation it had fostered by dabbling in astrology, exploring contacts with the spirit world and engaging in fortune-telling, a curious melange of science and the occult.

In 1558, Dee cemented his status as a seer by advising young Princess Elizabeth not to despair, because “as the gods have indicated to me, you shall become queen in another four months.” Indeed, exactly four months later, Mary Tudor died, allowing Elizabeth to ascend to the throne. Out of gratitude, the queen appointed Dee as her personal astrologer and advisor.

Before long, John Dee proved to be so useful that he was then given the task of gathering intelligence about foreign rulers and reporting directly to the queen. A secret agent as it were! These reports were not signed with his name, but rather with a symbol of two circles flanked with a horizontal and a vertical line that can be interpreted as the number seven. Supposedly the circles represent eyes, meaning the report was only for Her Majesty’s eyes. The seven was there because it was the alchemists’ lucky number. And there we have the first secret agent, code name 007! Is this where Ian Fleming got the idea for 007? Was John Dee the inspiration for James Bond? We will never know because Fleming is no longer with us. An alternate theory is that Fleming’s research into spy activities revealed that one of the great British successes during the First World War was the cracking of a German code that the British referred to as 0070. The author just shortened this to 007. I prefer the association with Dee, because he was into chemistry.

This is documented in a famous 19th-century painting by Henry Gillard Glindoni depicting Queen Elizabeth and her courtiers watching Dee performing a chemical experiment. “The Queen’s conjurer” is clearly seen pouring some substance from a vial into a flaming brazier. Looks like a demonstration we commonly carry out in chemistry lectures, sprinkling a little lycopodium powder into a flame. Dee documents other chemical experiments in his writings, including the making of silver chloride. Although not completely clear, it seems he reacted silver with nitric acid to form silver nitrate, which then yields silver chloride on reaction with salt, sodium chloride.

Dee’s interest in chemical matters is further demonstrated by his association with the infamous occultist, self-declared spirit medium and alchemist Edward Kelley. Having once been convicted of forgery, Kelley had had his ears cropped as punishment, and we see him in Glindoni’s painting with a hat that covers the disfigurement. Upon hearing of Dee’s efforts to foretell the future by gazing into a mirror, Kelley had sought Dee out in 1582, offering his help as a medium. Indeed, Dee was into “scrying” with a mirror made of obsidian, a volcanic rock. Kelley claimed that he had the ability to contact angels who would help him interpret the visions Dee saw in the mirror.

The mirror that John Dee is supposed to have used is on display in the British Museum, along with his crystal ball. Such obsidian mirrors were introduced into Europe by Spanish explorers who had found Indigenous people in Mexico using such mirrors for divination. The required shine was imparted to the rock by rubbing with, get this, bat droppings! Since bats only digest insects they eat partially, residues of the bugs’ skeletons show up in the feces, making this a functional abrasive to polish the volcanic rock. Also on display in the British Museum is a clay tablet with all sorts of occult symbols that Kelley used in his communications with angels. He would interpret the messages for Dee, including the famous one about the need to share all earthly possessions, including wives. And yes, that meant Dee and Kelley came to engage in wife swapping! One of Dee’s children may actually have been fathered by Kelley.

Dee and Kelley travelled through Europe with Dee telling fortunes and demonstrating scientific phenomena, while Kelley attempted to mutate metals into gold with a magic powder he claimed to have discovered. In Bohemia, he was even imprisoned for a while after he failed to produce the metal as promised. Dee eventually fell out of favour when Elizabeth was succeeded by James I, who abhorred divination and anything to do with the occult. The enigmatic polymath who had once been the toast of the royal court died in poverty.

A recent X-ray analysis of the Glindoni painting shows that originally Dee was surrounded by a circle of skulls, which the painter may have intended to portray that while Dee pursued science, he also had a foot in the occult. Perhaps the patron who commissioned the painting did not like this association and asked the artist to modify the work. He painted over the skulls, and, perhaps piqued, retained the occult connection by replacing a globe in the original with Kelley. I just wish he would have sneaked the 007 in there somewhere.

joe.schwarcz@mcgill.ca

Joe Schwarcz is director of McGill University’s Office for Science & Society (mcgill.ca/oss). He hosts The Dr. Joe Show on CJAD Radio 800 AM every Sunday from 3 to 4 p.m.
The Problem Is the Other CRT (Conservative Race Theory)

Denying systemic racism means blaming black people for their status in America — and that’s far more offensive


July 16, 2021 by Tim Wise 


To hear conservatives tell it, Critical Race Theory — their newfound buzz phrase for virtually any anti-racist analysis or argument — is fundamentally un-American, and even racist itself. By suggesting that the country is systemically unjust, they argue, CRT is rooted in a rejection of the United States as a “good and great” nation. And by insisting upon the existence of white privilege as a social and economic reality, CRT is, they say, racist against white people.

But amid the uproar over anti-racist scholarship, equity trainings, and the movement for Black lives, one important thing has been overlooked. Namely, the alternative to the analysis offered by Critical Race Theory is far more troubling, offensive and racist than anything being forwarded by the Crits themselves.


After all, if disparities in labor markets, education, housing, and the justice system are not the result of deeply embedded systemic racism — meaning the sedimentation of unequal opportunities resulting from a history of white racial domination and ongoing discrimination today — what’s left to explain them?

Frankly, there is only one possible answer: if the problem isn’t America, then it must be Black people.

But to suggest that there is something wrong with Black people as a group, something dysfunctional and pathological, is to forward a racist proposition by definition. So how exactly can the critics of CRT say it’s racist to suggest whites have privilege but acceptable to say Blacks are defective? The former, after all, is a sociological assessment, while the latter is a characterological one. Situating white people within a sociological context of power and relative position is not a judgment upon them as human beings. But placing Black people in a basket marked “inferior” in some way — whether biologically, as in the arguments of The Bell Curve (a book rejected by few conservatives and written by a very prominent one), or culturally — casts precisely such a judgment.

So why is this not being screamed from the rooftops in response to the recent anti-anti-racist backlash? First, because we’ve been bogged down trying to demonstrate how the things being critiqued aren’t really Critical Race Theory or insisting that CRT isn’t really being taught in middle and high schools.

While true, this is a losing strategy of value to no one but scholars and academics. As Christopher Rufo — the researcher who initiated much of the anti-CRT push — said recently in a televised interview, he “doesn’t give a shit” about the specific minutiae of CRT. He knows, as does the entirety of the right, the label’s value as a memetic device. The word critical, to the masses, means being critical of them and the country they love (how dare we!). At the same time, theory triggers images of academics who get paid to ponder intellectual and philosophical issues while “real Americans” have to work for a living. It’s tailor-made for resentment and backlash.

So while we argue the finer points of Derrick Bell’s parables in the book And We Are Not Saved or Kimberle Crenshaw’s theories on intersectionality, the other side is looking to invalidate all anti-racist thought in the hopes that any challenge to the existing racial hierarchy can be resisted.

Meanwhile, no one is holding them accountable for what their rejection of the systemic racism thesis requires of them; namely, an alternate explanation for ongoing racial disparities in American society. And in practice, that explanation — what we can call conservative race theory, or the other CRT — is one that intrinsically necessitates a racist assessment of Black people.

Rather than arguing detailed academic theory, we must answer the right-wing assault on anti-racism by demonstrating the real motives of those who have launched the attack on it. And in this case, their motives are to cast aspersions upon the victims of racial injustice, to pathologize Blackness. For 400 years, it has been their chief project: the very project about which they would keep our children ignorant, even as they continue to further its aims.

Anti-Blackness was at the heart of the nation’s founding. First, it came in the guise of spiritual supremacy, as in, these heathens are cut off from the salvific balm of God, cursed by Ham, meant to be slaves, and instructed, as such, to serve their masters.

Then it morphed from the religious to the scientific, as Blackness came to be seen as a lesser form of human evolution. And so there was phrenology, and the measuring of the facial slope, and later the giving of IQ tests. Black folks were, on this account, inferior not because of God but because of nature. Lesser opportunity, segregation away from whites, and second-class citizenship were appropriate, to hear the nation’s leaders tell it, for Black people were incapable of higher development and accomplishment.

After the Second World War, which was fought in part to smash the notion of racial science, the idea of Blackness as a biological pollutant became a harder sell. Oh sure, there were still true believers and others who might not have gone full-tilt Hitler but nonetheless continued to endorse the idea of biological superiority for whites, alongside definitive inferiority for Blacks. But for most, a new school of analysis was needed.

Enter the idea of cultural pathology. Beginning in the 1970s, in an attempt to fashion a kinder, gentler anti-Blackness, conservatives turned to a critique of Black communities, family structure, and Black culture more broadly. Black folks, on this accounting, didn’t sufficiently value hard work, education, or marrying before childbirth, valorized and glamorized criminal behavior, and generally preferred reliance on the government and various welfare programs to steady employment. Far from proving systemic injustice or inequality of opportunity, racial gaps in educational outcomes, employment, poverty, and crime rates — according to cultural critics — reflected deep-seated pathologies within Black America as a whole.

Although some versions of this argument allow that these cultural tendencies were adaptations (or maladaptations) to past oppression — aversion to work stemmed from past exploitation, and devaluing schooling stemmed from having been denied access to it — others were less ecumenical. Dinesh D’Souza, for instance, argued in his book The End of Racism that Blacks under enslavement had been treated “pretty well,” and that only when they decided to close the “civilization gap” with whites and Asians would the problem of inequity disappear. To this way of thinking, Black people are a deviant sub-group of lazy, fecund brutes, criminals, and welfare parasites, fully deserving of scorn from the rest of us.

But remember, CRT is the racist worldview.


Never mind that the vast majority of Black people do not receive so-called welfare benefits, or that out-of-wedlock birthrates in the Black community have plummeted (contrary to popular misconception), or that Black crime rates are far lower today than 30 years ago, or that Black educational attainment is at an all-time high. Never mind, in short, facts. The proponents of the anti-Black cultural critique know what they know — and more importantly, they know that a white public fed a steady diet of this kind of racism for generations will believe it.

And now is the time for them to push it. In the past year, the defenders of white hegemony have been confronted with a mass movement, led by Black folks, but to which millions of previously unmobilized white persons attached themselves. Even though white enthusiasm for the uprising has waned from its high-water mark a year ago, ongoing support for racial equity (especially among the young) has left many of the old guard nervous. What better way to stem the tide than by launching an assault on anti-racism, not only with police in the streets but also against teachers in the schools?

The latest freakout is part and parcel of what Carol Anderson documents in her book White Rage. Every step forward on the road to Black liberation — and surely the uptick in support for racial justice in the past year would constitute that, at least symbolically, to the right — has been met with pushback by white America. Combined with a shifting popular culture and demographic changes that will soon render whites a plurality of the country rather than the majority, the ingredients for a white existential meltdown have been duly gathered.

Into that breach have stepped political Trumpism — itself a movement marinated in nostalgia for a fictive time of national glory and greatness — and anti-wokeness. While the latter is a reaction, in part, to the admittedly clumsy machinations of a racial justice movement finding its legs, it has been weaponized by those who disagree with more than just the specific narrative chosen by the left or with its particular tactics. Anti-wokeness is firmly attached to a political project that seeks to stifle police reform, derail policy changes to better equalize economic resources, and commit memoricide — the extermination of truth and memory — within the halls of academia.

We must do more than merely argue arcane theoretical points with those who attack the racial justice movement. Debating those who seek to reinforce systemic white supremacy by denying it exists is a fool’s errand. Better to expose them for what they are and what their politic portends. Better to make them explain their theory for racial inequities in America. Make them defend scientific or cultural racism. In short, better to out them as the racists they are and have always been.

Because the problem is either with America or with Black people.

And if you believe it’s the latter, the problem is also with you.


Anti-racism educator and author of 9 books, including White Like Me and, most recently, Dispatches from the Race War (City Lights, December 2020)



This post was previously published on Medium.


***
Migrant 'encounters' top 1 million in past year, but 1/3 are repeat crossers of U.S.-Mx border

Number of individuals picked up by CBP has declined from 2019, but number of bodies found in desert is increasing




Posted Jul 16, 2021, 
Paul IngramTucsonSentinel.com
More by Paul Ingram

Driven by multiple attempts to cross the U.S.-Mexico border, the overall number of "encounters" tracked by U.S. Customs and Border Protection has risen to more than 1.1 million this fiscal year, even as the number of individual people crossing this year has declined from 2019.

Many people have attempted to cross more than once this year, and CBP officials said 34 percent of encounters in June were people who had at least one prior encounter over the last 12 months.

Some people picked up by Border Patrol agents have crossed three or more times in the past year, and have quickly tried to come to the United States again after being immediately deported under policies instituted by the Trump administration.

Between the end of March 2020 and the beginning of February 2021, 38 percent of all encounters involved recidivism, said CBP's acting head. That pattern, which sometimes turns fatal, has continued in recent months.

The increase in encounters comes despite brutal weather across the southwestern United States, and officials continued to highlight life-saving efforts along the border, even as Homeland Security officials have repeatedly warned people not to try and cross the desert.

Humane Borders and the Pima County Medical Examiner's Office reported finding the remains of 127 migrants in the first half of 2021. Last year, the group recorded 96 deaths during the same time period.

The number of migrant deaths recorded in the Arizona desert so far this year is on pace to break the record set just last year, as migrants attempt the crossing in the face of a record-breaking heat wave.

Data released Friday show that migrants were encountered 188,829 times across the southwestern border in June. The majority were single adults who were immediately expelled from the United States under Title 42 — a policy ostensibly supported by the CDC that allows the agency to rapidly deport those who crossed into the U.S. after they traveled through a country with COVID-19 infections.

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This policy, which relies on a 1944 public health law, was used by the Trump administration beginning in March 2020 to push migrants out of the United States, including thousands of asylum seekers who remained marooned in northern Mexico. That policy has remained in place under President Joe Biden, even as other Trump border policy bulwarks, including the Migrant Protection Protocols, have been shut down.

"The large number of expulsions during the pandemic has contributed to a larger-than-usual number of migrants making multiple border crossing attempts, which means that total encounters somewhat overstate the number of unique individuals arriving at the border," said Troy Miller, acting commissioner for CBP.

Woman died in desert after crossing 3 times

One case in Arizona highlights the realities of the issue. On June 13, agents assigned to the Wellton station found the remains of a woman underneath a tree in the desert southeast of Yuma, Arizona. After tracking down her information, agents discovered that she had attempted to enter the U.S. twice before, once on June 9 and against on June 11.

Agents working with the Mexican consulate found a phone number in her belongings and were able to tell her family that she had died in the desert, after attempting to cross into the U.S. three times.

More than half of the people encountered in June at the border by either U.S. Border Patrol or the Office of Field Operations—which guards the nation's ports—were immediately returned to Mexico under Title 42. Nearly 114,000 people were single adults, while CBP officials also encountered a total of 50,015 people traveling as families, and another 15,000 were unaccompanied children traveling to the U.S. without parents or guardians.

Late last year, the ACLU successfully blocked the deportation of unaccompanied children under Title 42 after a federal judge ruled against the practice, and the group has said that it will likely move forward and challenge the program entirely. And, the Biden administration has hinted that it could shut-down the program, prompting Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey to weigh-in with a letter that argues that ended the controversial program would cause "nothing short of a catastrophic surge of both illegal immigration and COVID-19 disease along our southern border."

In his letter Friday, Ducey referred to the rise of encounters at the border as a "man-made crisis," and said that the end of Title 42 would "threaten the health and safety of not only Arizonans, but all Americans" because variants of COVID-19 could enter the U.S. Ducey's concerns about the variants comes just weeks after the governor rescinded emergency orders, and signed a law that blocks schools from mandating masks and vaccinations.
Fewer people crossing into Tucson, Yuma sectors

In the Tucson Sector, which covers the Arizona-Mexico border from the Yuma County line east to the border of New Mexico, agents encountered 18,385 people in June, a decline of around 7 percent.

The adjacent Yuma Sector, which straddles the Colorado River, saw a less significant decline — dropping nearly 2 percent from May to June.

This is the second month that apprehensions in Arizona have declined since April's high when agents encountered 20,281 people in the Tucson Sector and 13,725 in Yuma.

Miller said that single adults "continue to make up the majority of these encounters," however, the number of single adults declined 3 percent from May to June. However, the number of unaccompanied children increased by 8 percent, he said, rising from around 14,100 children in May to more than 15,200 in June. At the same time, the number of families increased 25 percent from nearly 45,000 in May to nearly 56,000 in June.

However, the number of families is "well below the peak" of 88,587 people traveling as families who arrived during the Trump administration in May 2019. "In 2021, family unit encounters have consistently tracked below 2019 encounters for each month of the year," Miller wrote.

Miller said that the number of children in CBP custody had fallen from 5,767 at its peak on March 29 to 832 on June 30, and the average daily number of children in CBP custody was just under 800. Citing what he called "sustained progress," Miller said that the average number of hours that children spent in CBP custody fell from 133 hours—or more than 5 days—to 28 hours on June 30.

As part of this effort, CBP officials have established two "tent-like" facilities to hold unaccompanied children in Arizona, one in Yuma and the other in Tucson.

"This sustained progress is a result of the steps DHS took to reengineer processes and mobilize personnel Department-wide, including designating FEMA to lead a whole of government effort to assist the Department of Health and Human Services," Miller said. "This support has included establishing temporary facilities that provide safe, sanitary, and secure environments for unaccompanied children as well as continued support from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services officers to efficiently and effectively verify claimed sponsors to support the reunification process."

However, even as the agency touted its progress, this follows a whistleblower complaint which cited "gross mismanagement," at a facility in Fort Bliss, Texas.

"We are in the hottest part of the summer, and we are seeing a high number of distress calls to CBP from migrants abandoned in treacherous terrain by smugglers with no regard for human life," Miller said. "Although CBP does everything it can to locate and rescue individuals who are lost or distressed, the bottom line is this: the terrain along the border is extreme, the summer heat is severe, and the miles of desert migrants must hike after crossing the border in many areas are unforgiving."

On Friday, the head of the Border Patrol's Tucson Sector, John R. Modlin, tweeted a video showing agents rescuing a Guatemalan woman from "treacherous terrain" and "scorching heat," by flying her out of the area with help from a helicopter from the Arizona Department of Public Safety. Just a day earlier, Modlin tweeted a photo of around 70 migrants who surrendered to Border Patrol agents near San Miguel, Ariz., about 64 miles southwest of Tucson.

Miller said that smuggling organizations are "abandoning" migrants in remote and dangerous areas, leading to a "dramatic rise in the number of rescues" by Border Patrol agents. So far this fiscal year, agents have conducted 9,500 rescues nationwide.

Even as encounters between Border Patrol agents and migrants have declined in some sectors, overall apprehension numbers have instead plateaued after significant month-to-month increases under the Biden administration. Republican politicians, including Ducey and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott have declared a "crisis" on the border and declared emergencies in their states. In April, Ducey accused the Biden administration of having its "head in the sand," and later deployed about 250 National Guard troops to conduct administrative duties for the Republican sheriffs of Yuma and Cochise County.

Meanwhile, as Biden administration officials have begun untangling Trump-era policies, Vice President Kamala Harris went to Guatemala and Mexico. Following her meeting with Guatemala's President Alejandro Giammattei, Harris said that the Biden administration wants to "help Guatemalans find hope at home."

"Do not come," Harris said. Later, she added that she wanted to be clear to people "thinking about making that dangerous trek" to the southwestern border. "Do not come," she said. "Do not come."

"The United States will continue to enforce our laws and secure our border," Harris said.

As part of his statement, Miller also highlighted the end of the Migrant Protection Protocols, which required asylum seekers to stay in Mexico while their case moved forward.

Implemented in February 2019, MPP meant that about 68,000 people were sent back to Mexico to wait for their asylum claims, many of them from Honduras and Guatemala. However, MPP this also includes people from Cuba, El Salvador, and Venezuela, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a non-partisan project based at Syracuse University. At its peak, around 12,500 people were sent back in August 2019 as the program expanded along the southwestern border.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas formally terminated MPP on June 1.

While MPP has ended, DHS will continue to process eligible MPP enrollees, and as "part of a continued effort to restore safe and orderly processing of individuals seeking to enter the United States," DHS has expanded "the pool" of people who can be processed into the United States, including MPP enrollees "who had their cases terminated or were ordered removed in absentia," Miller said.

Since that announcement to the end of June, DHS processed more than 12,000 people who had been returned to Mexico under MPP, Miller said.


- 30 -
Branson made it to space, and Bezos will follow suit. But honestly, no one really cares

The space race appears to be more about ego than scientific advancement. Look at how Branson 'preponed' his trip before Bezos.
13 July, 2021
Richard Branson on board VSS Unity | Twitter | @richardbranson

On 11 July, founder of the Virgin Group, Richard Branson completed a trip to the boundary of outer space on his Virgin Galactic’s VSS Unity, dawning a new era of making space “more accessible to all”. Meanwhile, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is also scheduled to lift off on his suborbital space vehicle ‘New Shepard’ on 20 July.

The privatisation of space travel is hardly a new phenomenon and neither is the desire to look beyond this planet to new avenues, be it over a genuine curiosity about the universe or over ambitions of colonisation. We aren’t that far removed from Donald Trump’s Space Force dreams either.

The face of astronomy in popular culture, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, perfectly stated the positive side of having a “cosmic perspective”.

“The day we cease the exploration of the cosmos is the day we threaten the continuance of our species,” Tyson said, as part of a spoken word performance released in 2016.

 

Sadly, such a well-intentioned, albeit idealistic, position is nowhere to be found in the high-budget, ill-advised vanity projects that make up the billionaires’ space race today. The space race now appears to be more about ego than scientific advancement as evidenced by how Branson ‘preponed’ his space flight to outdo Bezos.


Also Read: Indian-origin American Sirisha Bandla to take off with boss, Richard Branson, into space


The Bezos vs Branson ‘coincidence’

In an interview with The Washington Post, Branson attempted to quell any notions of a rivalry with Bezos, stating that it was a mere “coincidence” that he and Bezos will be embarking on space travel in the same month.

But it is too little, too late. The hype trailers are out on social media and the narratives around ‘Bezos vs Branson’ have long since been manufactured. SpaceX owner Elon Musk also weighed in, wishing Branson luck ahead of the launch, as did Bezos.


Not everyone among the public appears to be particularly invested or impressed in seeing how their trips play out. To be honest, much on social media was about the Wimbledon or the Euros rather than Branson bicycling to his launchpad. But we did see criticism and memes directed at these billionaires.


Political commentator Francesca Florentini’s post is particularly strong, citing Branson’s history of false promises over the past two decades on the issue of climate change. This apathy towards the planet’s crumbling environment is far from the only issue surrounding this billionaires’ space race though.

The New Republic’s Jacob Silverman writes: “The best argument against the billionaire space race is how little impact it will have on the lives of most of Earth’s inhabitants. It will inaugurate a new era of ultra-expensive stunt tourism, perhaps, but it will do nothing for the common good.”

Science writer Shannon Stirone also commented in The Atlantic, “Leaving Earth right now isn’t just bad optics; it’s almost a scene out of a twisted B-list thriller: The world is drowning and scorching, and two of the wealthiest men decide to … race in their private rocket ships to see who can get to space a few days before the other. If this were a movie, these men would be Gordon Gekko and Hal 9000—both venerated and hated.”

Also Read: If Elon Musk wrote this, the headline would be a meme & Dogecoin fortunes would’ve changed

Harsh realities of what goes into making a space trip

What the social media marketing posts from Branson and Bezos conveniently omit the most is the challenges that make up the preparation of any expedition beyond Earth’s atmosphere.

In Branson’s case, the teething problems and previously fatal test flight faced by the VSS Unity spacecraft have been well-documented over Virgin Galactic’s 17-year history. As a result, Branson’s effort to gain a first-mover advantage in the race by moving the scheduled date feels hasty and doesn’t inspire confidence that everything will run smoothly.

Jeff Bezos has also encountered several issues, including not getting insurance, petitions to stop him from returning to Earth, among others.

But even if you put aside specific issues with the spacecraft, there’s a myriad of variables affecting the cosmic aspirations of all the billionaires in this race.


As detailed perfectly by journalist Sim Kern, the realities of space travel are a far cry from the glamorous, Hollywood-inspired “champagne-sipping” vacations that Branson or Bezos would have you believe.

The entire itinerary is intensely micromanaged amid equipment that needs to be constantly monitored for maintenance. Be it exercise, food, sleep or going to the bathroom, every aspect of time spent in the spacecraft is akin to being in a zero-gravity cage with no means of escape.

Despite this glamourised propaganda that has surrounded this space race, it will be truly amazing to see the level of spin that Branson or Bezos will use about their experiences. Branson has already announced a sweepstakes contest where the winners will get two tickets to go to space with all the proceeds going to a ‘space tourism charity’ called “Space for Humanity.” Branson claimed that his experience was the first step towards making space accessible to those who cannot afford it.

“If you ever had a dream, now is the time to make it come true. I’d like to end by saying welcome to the dawn of a new space age,” he said.

Bring on the vanity project, the memes are already in drafts.


Views are personal.
(Edited by Srinjoy Dey)

Saturday, July 17, 2021

Bolsonaro, facing impeachment, cries wolf

Jair Bolsonaro on June 19. He has expressed nostalgia for the dictatorship established after a 1964 coup, even commemorating the date. Photo: Wagner Meier/Getty Images

Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro has begun sowing distrust in next year’s elections, alarming lawmakers and the courts alike.

Details: In speeches, Bolsonaro, a former military captain, has been questioning the integrity of an electronic ballot system that’s been in place since 1996 and suggesting he might not even allow elections to happen.

  • Former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is currently the runaway favorite heading into the October 2022 contest.

Driving the news: The Supreme Court opened an investigation into the Bolsonaro government’s handling of vaccine contracts, and the Senate is holding hearings, which could lead to impeachment — something a majority of Brazilians support.

  • "Bolsonaro is facing an uphill battle, but it remains far too early to rule him out of contention," journalist Gustavo Ribeiro told Axios World.

The latest: Bolsonaro was taken to the hospital Wednesday with abdominal pains and hiccups, and will be under medical observation until Saturday.

Go deeper: Amid vaccine scandal, Bolsonaro threatens to reject election results

THEY CAN STILL LIE TO ADULTS
Illinois becomes first state to ban police from lying to minors during interrogations



By Chris Boyette, Veronica Stracqualursi and Harmeet Kaur, CNN
Updated 3:02 PM ET, Sat July 17, 2021

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker speaks during a news conference in Springfield, Illinois, on June 1, 2021.


(CNN)Illinois this week became the first state in the nation to ban law enforcement from using deceptive tactics when interrogating minors.

Under the law, confessions made by juvenile suspects who were deceived by law enforcement officers during the interrogation process will be deemed "inadmissible as evidence." Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed the legislation on Thursday, and it is set to go into effect in January.

The Illinois Legislature had passed the bill, Senate Bill 2122, in May with bipartisan support.

Pritzker signed the bill into law along with three other criminal justice reform bills promoting restorative justice practices, allowing the state's attorneys to request resentencing "if the original sentence no longer advances the interests of justice," and creating a resentencing taskforce to study ways to reduce the state's prison population.


In a speech during a bill signing ceremony Thursday, Pritzker said the four bills "advance the rights of some of our most vulnerable in our justice system and they put Illinois at the forefront of the work to bring true reform."
"False confessions have played a role in far too many wrongful convictions, leading to painful and often life-altering consequences," he said. "That rings true for the youth who are vulnerable to these tactics."
Advocates have long argued minors are especially vulnerable to making false confessions.
Tactics such as making false promises of leniency or false claims about the existence of incriminating evidence have significantly increased the risk of false confessions, according to the nonprofit organization the Innocence Project.
The Illinois Innocence Project's legal director, Lauren Kaeseberg, called the governor's signing of the bill a "critical step in changing the trajectory of false confessions and the subsequent wrongful convictions that we have seen as a result of deceptive interrogation tactics."
According to Kaeseberg, Illinois has long been known as the "false confession capital of the country," and there have been 100 wrongful convictions predicated on false confessions, including 31 involving people under the age of 18.
Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx said in a statement that the "history of false confessions in Illinois can never be erased, but this law is a critical step to ensuring that history is never repeated."
On Thursday, Pritzker said he hopes Illinois sets the example for other states to pass similar laws.
Oregon passed a similar bill that awaits the governor's action. Democratic lawmakers in New York have also proposed legislation that would bar law enforcement from lying during interrogations and would require data collection of recorded interrogations.

 

Cubans in Spain live through historic protests between "anguish" and optimism

Protesters against the Cuban Government last Monday in Madrid
EFE/ MARISCAL

The nearly 11,000 Cuban immigrants in our country receive little information about the situation on the island because of Internet cuts

"There is one thing that has always prevented us from being free and that is fear," says one of the opposition leaders in Spain.

Cuba is breathing a tense calm. Dissidents and demonstrators are seeking to reorganize to keep alive protests that have already left their first fatality, in addition to dozens of arrests. From a distance, the nearly 11,000 Cubans living in Spain follow with great uncertainty and little information what is happening on the island, where internet and communications are constantly cut off.

Elianne Martinez has been living in Spain for twenty years. Here she is the coordinator of the Cuban Civic Embassies, a network of dissidents made up of emigrants in more than 40 countries. According to him, the protests stem from a "social explosion that had been brewing for some time because the situation is unsustainable".

In addition to the difficult economic situation, which he says has reached the point of "famine", there is the arrival of the pandemic and the lack of resources: "It is a brutal health situation and there is not even a single aspirin".

There is one thing that has always prevented us from being free and that is fear.

For Martinez, like so many other compatriots, it has been difficult to contact his family and friends, as "the connections are cut". He confesses that he feels "fear" for them, but believes that his compatriots have begun to lose it as a result of these protests.

"There is one thing that has always prevented us from being free and that is fear. I suffer from it because of everything that has been happening, but now we are seeing an opportunity and we have taken to the streets like crazy," he says.

In Madrid, Barcelona and other cities, dozens of Cubans have rallied in recent days in solidarity with the demonstrators on the island, protests that have also joined Spanish parties such as Vox and PP.

No official data on injuries or arrests

There is no official data on those detained in the protests, but the organization estimates that there are 500 disappeared, "people who have been taken away by state security and who are no longer known about. He also claims that there are "200 political prisoners" even before the start of the demonstrations.

During the day on Monday, dozens of people approached many police stations to ask about the whereabouts of their relatives. Many of them, they said, were mistreated and injured by the police. Martínez defends that the protests are absolutely peaceful and that the repression is disproportionate.

Javier Larrondo, president of the human rights NGO Prisoners Defenders, assures RTVE.es that they have counted "with names and surnames" a hundred detainees and missing persons, while those wounded by bullets could be up to 2,000, according to the information they receive from the island.

According to Human Rights Watch (HRW), the number of detainees in the protests in Cuba "exceeds 150". In addition, the whereabouts of many of them are unknown, said the organization's director for the Americas.

Discontent, economic blockade and social media campaigns

Yunier Córdova arrived in Spain from his native Cuba in 1997. The country was coming from one of its toughest economic crises and the massive protests of the "maleconazo" of 1994. Now, he assures RTVE.es that he lives with "a lot of anguish" the new demonstrations. He believes that it is "difficult to have a clear idea of what is happening because of the disinformation" and because of the internet cuts that the island has been suffering since the demonstrations began last Sunday.

"There is a delicate economic situation, there are blackouts," he recounts, and blames most of the responsibility on the economic blockade imposed by the United States, which during the administration of Donald Trump hardened and further complicated the livelihood of thousands of Cubans, who depend on remittances sent by their relatives abroad.

Although he recognizes the complicated situation the country is going through and the existence of "many dissatisfied people who have taken to the streets", he believes that behind the organization of the demonstrations is "a campaign orchestrated with a lot of money behind it". Córdova, a digital analyst, says there are "many automated bots" that spread messages against the Cuban regime on social networks.

"We need to keep those protests going."

The protests, after their peak last Sunday, have slowed down during Monday and Tuesday, although Martinez and Larrondo point out that many demonstrators are still taking to the streets. "We need to keep those protests going," says the opposition leader, who is calling for more explicit support from other countries and even "military intervention". He recognizes that it is "complicated" for the protests to continue over time because of the "brutal repression" they suffer.

"I'm afraid because it's been three days and they don't have weapons," he says. Yunier points out that repression exists, but "it's not as violent as people say. He remains in daily contact with his mother, who lives in a town, Baracoa, where the mobilizations have not reached.

"I think the protests are not a large majority. Although they have taken to the streets more than ever, there is not enough of a majority to create a movement to defeat the government," he predicts.

ÁLVARO CABALLERO
RTE
Infectious disease expert agrees with Biden that platforms like Facebook are ‘killing people’ with Covid misinformation

PUBLISHED FRI, JUL 16 2021
Emily DeCiccio@EMILYDECICCIO
CNBC

KEY POINTS

President Joe Biden on Friday said platforms like Facebook are killing people by allowing Covid-19 vaccine misinformation on their services.

“I think social media is playing a big role in amplifying misinformation, which is leading to people not taking the vaccine, which is killing them,” said Dr. Nahid Bhadelia, the founding director of the Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases at Boston University.

After declining for weeks, seven-day average daily Covid deaths have increased by 26% to 211 per day.


Dr. Nahid Bhadelia, founding director of the Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases at Boston University, told CNBC, that, medically, she agrees with President Joe Biden’s assertion that platforms like Facebook are killing people by allowing Covid-19 vaccine misinformation on their services.

“I think social media is playing a big role in amplifying misinformation, which is leading to people not taking the vaccine, which is killing them,” Bhadelia said. “It’s the honest truth. Covid, right now, is a vaccine-preventable disease.”

Bhadelia cited findings by the Kaiser Family Fund survey that found 54% of Americans either believe in or cannot distinguish whether a common Covid vaccine myth is fact or fiction.

The U.S. is grappling with a lagging vaccination rate and a rise in infections. All 50 states have reported a jump in Covid cases over the past week, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. The U.S. is seeing an average of more than 26,000 new cases a day, and that’s the highest number in two months, according to Johns Hopkins.

Bhadelia told CNBC’s “The News with Shepard Smith” she believes social media companies can do a lot more to stop disseminating disinformation.

“They need to invest a lot more resources, and better enhance their balance of taking that information down more quickly, invest more resources in changing their matrix, because, right now, what gets on top of your page is not what’s correct, it’s what’s popular,” said Bhadelia, an NBC News medical contributor.

She also suggested that social media companies form more partnerships with public health bodies in order to get the right information to people.

Facebook spoke out against the claims made by the White House.

“We will not be distracted by accusations which aren’t supported by the facts,” a spokesperson said. “The fact is that more than 2 billion people have viewed authoritative information about COVID-19 and vaccines on Facebook, which is more than any other place on the internet. More than 3.3 million Americans have also used our vaccine finder tool to find out where and how to get a vaccine. The facts show that Facebook is helping save lives. Period.”