ARACHNOPHILES ONLY

Meet the ‘megaspider’: Fangs so powerful, it can bite through fingernails


A brave person holding the megaspider that was anonymously submitted to The Australian Reptile Park. (The Australian Reptile Park)

Isabella O'Malley, M.Env.Sc
Fri, November 26, 2021, 1:32 PM·2 min read

Meet the ‘megaspider’: Fangs so powerful, it can bite through fingernails

Once again a terrifying insect from Australia is making international headlines. This time it’s a ‘megaspider’ that can bite through human fingernails.

In early November, The Australian Reptile Park was conducting its weekly specimen collection from various cities in New South Whales when they acquired an unlabelled Tupperware container.

Shockingly, it contained a venomous female funnel web spider that has since been dubbed ‘MEGASPIDER’ and has stirred much excitement amongst the staff.

The spider’s fangs are nearly 2 cm in length and the spider is 8 cm long, which is comparable to the size of a tarantula.

“Having MEGASPIDER handed into the venom program is so amazing, in my 30+ years at the Park, I have never seen a funnel web spider this big! She is unusually large and if we can get the public to hand in more spiders like her, it will only result in more lives being saved due to the huge amount of venom they can produce. We are really keen to find out where she came from in hopes to find more MASSIVE spiders like her,” said Michael Tate, Education Officer of the Australian Reptile Park, in a press release

.

Jake Meney (Spider Keeper) with MEGASPIDER

Jake Meney, a Spider Keeper at The Australian Reptile Park, with the megaspider. (The Australian Reptile Park)

The Australian Reptile Park collects donations from the public to maintain their venom supplies that are used to create antivenom, which can be lifesaving to victims that have been bitten.

“Spiders that have been handed in participate in the vital lifesaving milking program. The venom milked by staff is turned into antivenom which saves up to 300 lives per year. The Australian Reptile Park is the only facility in Australia that milks funnel web spiders for their raw venom to be made into lifesaving antivenom,” the press release states.

The Park estimates that its venom program has saved over 25,000 lives since its inception in the 1950s.

Thumbnail credit: The Australian Reptile Park

Some states dropping 'dehumanizing' terms for immigrants

Rosalidia Dardon, 54, looks at a picture of her daughter in El Salvador as she sits in a refugee house in Texas, awaiting asylum or a protected immigration status on Nov. 4, 2021. At least seven statehouses have considered or left pending legislation this year to replace the term “illegal,” “alien,” or both from state laws referencing immigrants. Dardon knows from personal experience why the language surrounding immigration is so important. 

Acacia Coronado/Report for America via AP

 Colorado State Sen. Julie Gonzales speaks during a news conference on Oct. 15, 2020, in Denver. According to an analysis by The Associated Press, at least 18 states refer to immigrants as "alien" or "illegal" in state laws. In a March 2021 legislative committee hearing in Colorado, Gonzales, who co-sponsored a bill that has since become law, said terms like "illegal" were "dehumanizing and derogatory." 

(AP Photo/David Zalubowski, File)

ACACIA CORONADO
Sat, November 27, 2021

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Luz Rivas remembers seeing the word on her mother’s residency card as a child: “alien.”

In the stark terms of the government, it signaled her mother was not yet a citizen of the U.S. But to her young daughter, the word had a more personal meaning. Even though they were going through the naturalization process, it meant the family did not belong.

“I want other children of immigrants, like me, to not feel the same way I did, that my family did, when we saw the word ‘alien’,” said Rivas, now an assemblywoman in the California Legislature.


The Democratic lawmaker sought to retire the term and this year authored a bill — since signed into law — that replaces the use of “alien” in state statutes with other terms such as “noncitizen” or “immigrant.” Her effort was inspired by a similar shift earlier this year by the Biden administration.

Immigrants and immigrant-rights groups say the term, especially when combined with “illegal,” is dehumanizing and can have a harmful effect on immigration policy.

The word became a focal point of debate in several states earlier this year as the number of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border swelled and led to fierce backlash against Biden administration policies by Republican governors and lawmakers.

Lawmakers in at least seven states considered eliminating use of “alien” and “illegal” in state statutes this year and replacing them with descriptions such as “undocumented” and “noncitizen,” according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Only two states, California and Colorado, actually made the change.

“I want all Californians that are contributing to our society, that are small business owners, that work hard, to feel that they are part of California communities,” Rivas said of the reason behind her legislation.

State Sen. Julie Gonzales, who co-sponsored the new Colorado law, said during a legislative committee hearing that words such as “illegal” were “dehumanizing and derogatory” when applied to immigrants. Gonzales said the legislation aimed to remove the only place in Colorado statute where “illegal alien” was used to describe people living in the U.S. illegally.

“That language has been offensive for many people,” she said. “And some of the rationale behind that is really rooted in this idea that a person can certainly commit an illegal act, but no human being themselves is illegal.”

Using “alien” to describe those who are not U.S. citizens has a long history, dating to the nation's first naturalization law, passed while George Washington was president. Fearing a war with France, Congress also passed the Alien and Sedition Acts in 1798, which sought to suppress political subversion.

Changing the long-standing government terminology around immigration is not universally accepted as necessary or desirable.

Sage Naumann, spokesperson for the Colorado Senate Republicans, said the Democratic-controlled Legislature should be spending its time on matters of deeper importance to residents, such as taking steps to fight inflation, tackle crime and improve education.

Naumann said he doubted that “the average Coloradan — or American — cares about what semi-controversial words are buried in their state statutes.”

The Biden administration also received some pushback after its change in policy.

In April, U.S. Customs and Border Protection ordered employees to avoid using the word “alien” in internal documents and public communications and instead use “noncitizen” or “migrant.” “Illegal alien” also was out, to be replaced by descriptions such as “undocumented noncitizen.”

“We enforce our nation’s laws while also maintaining the dignity of every individual with whom we interact,” Troy Miller, acting commissioner, wrote to employees of the largest U.S. law enforcement agency, which includes the Border Patrol. “The words we use matter and will serve to further confer that dignity to those in our custody.”

Border Patrol Chief Rodney Scott objected, writing to others in the agency that the edict contradicted language in criminal statutes — although Miller made an exception for legal documents — and plunged the agency into a partisan debate. Scott, a Trump-era appointee, refused to sign off on the order and believes his outspokenness on that and other issues contributed to him being forced out of his position in June.

“To change the law is fine, but until then you’re really politicizing the mission,” Scott said in an interview.

An analysis by The Associated Press (which doesn't refer to people as "aliens” except in direct quotes) found that more than a dozen states still use the terms “alien” or “illegal” in statutes referring to immigrants. Among them is Texas, where a legislative attempt to transition to different terminology advanced out of committee with bipartisan backing this year but failed to get a hearing before the full Texas House.

State Rep. Art Fierro, a Democrat, said he expected “kickback” when he originally proposed the change. But following committee discussions, he said that to his surprise the change was seen by both parties as an effort to use more “dignified, respectful” terms. He said he suggested the change because he felt the original terms were belittling to those seeking to work through the immigration process.

Fierro said he plans to introduce another bill to replace the terms during the state’s next regular legislative session, in 2023.

“We are just trying to treat people humanely,” he said.

Rosalidia Dardon knows from personal experience why the language surrounding immigration is so important.

After fleeing violence in El Salvador, she spent roughly 16 months in an immigration detention center in California before arriving at a refugee home in Texas in 2016. She was determined to find a job while she sought asylum but had lost her work visa after her protected status expired.

Dardon, 54, blames the ankle monitor she was required to wear and the description of immigrants with terms such as “illegal” for a job search marked by rejection after rejection.

One specific moment remains frozen in her memory.

“I won’t give you a job because you are a criminal,” Dardon told the AP in Spanish, repeating what a hiring manager in Texas said to her.

"I would ask myself and God why I was given an ankle monitor if my only sin was to go to a country that was not my own,” said Dardon, whose immigration case remains pending. “Without Latinos, this country would spiral downwards. That’s why we should be treated better.”

___

Associated Press writers Patty Nieberg in Denver and Elliot Spagat in San Diego contributed to this report. Coronado is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

A QAnon leader in Canada told her 70,000

followers to 'shoot to kill' doctors 

vaccinating kids against COVID-19

Thomas Colson

Fri, November 26, 2021

• Romana Didulo, a QAnon figure, told followers to "shoot to kill" people administering vaccines.

• She amassed a large following after promising violent recriminations for doctors and teachers.

• She later changed the "shoot to kill" instruction to "arrest," Vice News reported.

A QAnon leader in Canada told her followers to "shoot to kill" anyone administering the COVID-19 vaccine to people under the age of 19.

Romana Didulo is prominent QAnon figure, whose followers believe she is the true head of state in Canada, Vice News reported.

She has spent months promising the execution of people involved in the response to the COVID-19 pandemic, including doctors, politicians, and teachers, according to the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, an NGO.

She has amassed more than 70,000 followers on the encrypted messaging app Telegram, where in one recent message she demanded the arrests of people vaccinating children.

The messages were also published by the Canadian Anti-Hate Network.

In a significantly stronger message sent over the weekend, Didulo instructed her "military" to "shoot to kill anyone who tries to inject children under the age of 19 years old with Coronavirus19 vaccines / bioweapons or any other vaccines."

She also told her US followers to enter Canada and then arrest or kill people involved in the administration of COVID-19 vaccines to children, including doctors and teachers, the Canadian Anti-Hate Network reported.

There is no indication that anybody did as she asked.

She named Monday 22 November as the day "hunting season" would begin against her perceived opponents, and wrote: "Please, use airports, hospitals, schools, stadiums, and other public venues to hold and detain all traitors. They will stay there until Military Tribunal is held for each one of them until the day they are executed via firing squad or hanging."

A subsequent post on Tuesday changed the phrase "shoot to kill" to arrest, Vice News reported.

While Didulo's delusional claims may appear farcical, she has previously shown some ability to mobilize her large following to action.

In June this year, she persuaded her followers to send hundreds of "cease-and-desist" letters to businesses and government agencies involved in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, Vice News reported.

Didulo reportedly claimed that those who did not comply with the cease-and-desist letters would be executed.

Conspicuous Consumption 

Black Friday Update – California Flash Mob Robbers Won’t Be Stopped, Will Spread, Says Ex-Chief


Bruce Haring
Sat, November 27, 2021, 9:30 AM·2 min read


A former Philadelphia police commissioner predicted Friday that mass robbery crews would spread out across the country, given their success in a recent spate of California attacks on retailers. His prediction proved correct on Black Friday.

Charles Ramsey, the ex-Philadelphia commissioner, said there’s “no question” that the trend will occur elsewhere.

“This is something now that I really unfortunately think is going to spread,” Ramsey told CNN on Thursday. “Right now it’s in California, but it will spread, there’s no question about it.”

UPDATE: The rising tide of flash mob thieves hit the Bottega Veneta store in the Beverly Grove shopping district on Black Friday at 5:21 PM. LAPD reports that one robber pepper-sprayed a victim as his teammates grabbed merchandise.

Elsewhere, a Home Depot in Lakewood, Calif. was hit at 7:55 PM. An estimated eight people stole sledgehammers, wrenches and assorted hammers, fleeing in 10 getaway cars.

In Minnesota, an estimated 30 people robbed a Best Buy store in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul area. They entered the Burnsville, Minnesota store shortly after 8 PM and made off with electronics gear.

Chicago saw three stores in the Wicker Park neighborhood robbed within one hour on Black Friday.

California’s Bay Area and Los Angeles have been particularly hard hit by the flash mob attacks in the last week. Six smash-and-grab robberies took place in the Fairfax District, Beverly Grove and Hancock Park on Friday.

Last Wednesday, another robbery happened at a Los Angeles-area Nordstrom. The store at the Westfield Topanga & The Village shopping center in Canoga Park was hit at about 7 p.m.

A group of at least five men, one wearing an orange wig, entered the store and stole seven or eight purses before fleeing the scene and jumping into a newer model gray Ford Mustang that sped away from the scene, according to reports from ABC7 and KCAL9. They stole an estimated $20,000 in merchandise.

Earlier in the San Francisco area, a crowd estimated at 80 people attacked another outlet in Walnut Creek.

Newsweek reported that a Burberry and Yves Saint Laurent outlet were also robbed last Friday.

Ramsey said that Philadelphia saw something similar a few years ago. “It was really, really difficult to get a handle on it,” said Ramsey. “What we found was, one, it was being organized through social media. So one of the things we started doing is paying close attention to social media.”

Flash mob smash-and-grabs continue at high-end stores in Los Angeles

Doug Smith
Thu, November 25, 2021

A security guard patrols the entrance of Nordstrom at the Grove mall on Tuesday.

 (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

A rash of flash mob thefts continued in Los Angeles as organized groups grabbed expensive merchandise in pre-Thanksgiving raids on stores in the Beverly Center and a Nordstrom in Canoga Park.

A security guard was attacked with bear spray as several people entered the Nordstrom at the Westfield Topanga & The Village shopping center in Canoga Park on Wednesday night, the Los Angeles Police Department said in a news release.

In interviews with local TV stations, LAPD Deputy Chief Alan Hamilton said the burglars made off with several high-end purses.

Hamilton told CBS Los Angeles that extra officers had been deployed to the shopping center but the burglars were able to avoid them.

The LAPD was also investigating a similar incident in which groups entered several stores in the Beverly Center on Wednesday, grabbed merchandise and ran out.

Officers were pursuing leads to catch those involved, the news release said.

The break-ins came two days after an organized group broke into a Nordstrom at the Grove mall by smashing a window and stole thousands of dollars of merchandise.

Los Angeles police arrested three suspects in connection with that incident. Officers recovered several items of clothing, at least one cash register and gloves from the suspects' vehicle.

On Tuesday, LAPD Chief Michel Moore told the Police Commission that the department would be stepping up patrols and dedicating resources to some higher-end locations to deter the wave of mob thefts.

In another burglary Monday, six people entered a CVS pharmacy on the 5800 block of South Vermont Avenue in South Los Angeles and stole three cash registers, taking about $8,500 in cash, police said.

On Sunday, burglars used a sledgehammer to try to smash storefront windows at Louis Vuitton and Saks Fifth Avenue stores in Beverly Hills.

They were unable to get into the stores, and nothing was taken, according to police.

In Contra Costa County, Dist. Atty. Diana Becton announced Wednesday that three people have been arrested and charged in a burglary in which about 90 people stormed a Nordstrom in Walnut Creek on Nov. 20, using three separate entrances.

Parking 25 cars in front of the store, the group stole more than $100,000 in about a minute, a criminal complaint said.

One Nordstrom employee was pepper-sprayed, another assaulted with a knife and two struck or punched, the complaint said.

Dana Dawson, 30, Joshua Underwood, 32, and Rodney Robinson, 19, were arrested by the Walnut Creek Police Department and charged with conspiracy, burglary, robbery and organized retail theft.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

The Theory Of The Leisure Class : Thorstein Veblen : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Here’s the Best Way to Stop the Future Food Crisis Looming Over American Cities

Andy Hirschfeld
Thu, November 25, 2021,

Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Photos Getty

When I first met Katie Seawell, she was draped head to toe with PPE. A full body suit, rubber gloves, shoe covers—the works. You’d think she was preparing to walk into a COVID unit for patients, but we were about as far away from a health-care facility as you can get, in a building located within a drab-looking office park under a bridge in Kearny, New Jersey. From the outside, it didn’t seem like there could be anything worthwhile going on here.

Inside, however, were rows and rows of fruits and vegetables on top of each other in what looked like skyscrapers of produce. I saw lettuce, radishes, mustard greens, and a whole host of other crops easily found in a local grocery store. It was what the future of food is supposed to look like—or, at least, one version of it called vertical farming. For Bowery Farms, the company that runs this project, this is a critical part of the fight to keep people fed during tumultuous changes caused by climate change and supply chain challenges. The company’s leaders see their role as growing increasingly pivotal as these issues worsen over time.

“We build farms close to the communities we are serving in and that cuts down on food miles,” Seawell, the chief commercial officer for Bowery Farms, told The Daily Beast.


One of those communities is the New York metro area, which has become a case study for what the impact of vertical farming can be and a model for how to address the elements of climate change fueled by the agricultural business.

“Bowery’s journey started by answering the questions of how do you provide fresh food for an urban environment and how do that in a way that is more efficient and much more sustainable,” said Irving Fain, the company’s CEO and founder.

Bowery Farms, the largest vertical farm company in the United States, is a testament to the interest around revamping the food industry to meet sustainability goals. The company reportedly grows 80,000 pounds of produce a week, and is expanding. It recently opened a facility in Baltimore and will open another in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

Right now Bowery grows an array of delectable and otherwise unforgettable fruits and vegetables, including a mustard green which has a strong horseradish bite to it and sorrel that tastes exactly like an apple. It is set to introduce other new crops to the market including strawberries.

Inside Aerofarms' vertical farm facilities in New Jersey.
Andy Hirschfeld

Bowery is far from alone. Down the road from its Kearny facility is Aerofarms, nestled on a side street blocks away from Newark Liberty International Airport. Aerofarms grows more than 500 different types of fruits and vegetables in its facilities, from arugula to baby bok choy.

Competitor Square Root is also expanding its operations but its products are more scalable since its farms use recycled shipping containers that can easily be deployed just about anywhere. They also still operate larger facilities in Michigan and around New York.

None of these companies has been slowed by the current supply chain disruptions afflicting many industries in the U.S. Vertical farming isn’t limited by the trucker, pesticide, or cardboard box shortages that hit the rest of the farming industry.

“We do seeding, growing, processing, and stage for delivery all on the farm,” Seawell says.
Super Saver

For industry experts, the appeal to vertical farming isn’t at all hard to grasp, especially as our resources dwindle over time.

Take water conservation, for instance. Conventional irrigated agriculture uses a whopping 42 percent of the country’s fresh water supply. According to Produce News, an industry trade publication, vertical farming uses 95 percent less water than conventional farming methods.

On top of that, much of this country’s mass production of fruits and vegetables comes from a handful of regions, many of which are already dealing with the impact of climate change, especially in California. Produce production accounts for up to a staggering 90 percent of water consumption in the state, but more than 80 percent of California is experiencing “extreme” or “exceptional” drought conditions. The Salinas Valley, otherwise known as America’s salad bowl—which runs through much of the state—produces half of the country’s lettuce. The region has been mired in a major drought since at least May, causing lettuce prices to rise to their highest point in 10 years.

Then there is Texas, which is suffering under seemingly opposite conditions. Earlier this year the Lone Star State was ravaged by a freak freeze and snowstorm. Farmers from every corner of the state lost their crops. It will take years for many of them to bounce back if at all.

Within vertical farms, however, crops are sheltered from extreme weather. “We are immune from this because we are able to fully control our climate,” Aerofarms co-founder Marc Oshima told The Daily Beast.

Another plus of vertical farming is that pesticides aren’t even in the equation. The extremely tight control these companies exert in the farm facilities means there are few concerns about contamination and illness caused by toxic chemicals, bugs, invasive species or vermin. Regardless, as Seawell demonstrated, these companies are not taking any chances: staff and visitors are still required to wear a full body suit with shoe covers, rubber gloves and a hairnet to limit any foreign contaminants.

Vertical farming also makes it possible for communities to have almost immediate access to produce. Facilities can be built and operated close to or even with dense urban neighborhoods. Vegetables and fruits don’t need to traverse thousands of miles from farm to grocery store and risk spoiling (food waste during transit is a contributor to the 40 percent of all food in the U.S. that ends up in landfills). Even when produce survives the journey, it can lose significant nutritional value; spinach, for instance, can lose up to 90 percent of its vitamin C nutrients within a day of harvest.

A worker at Bowery Farms shows off the lettuce beds.
Andy Hirschfeld

It’s part of the reason New York City has become such a hotbed for innovation in this space. It’s the most populated area of the U.S. but it's also located so far away from the produce hubs of the Midwest, California and Texas. The rise of frequent superstorms like Ida and Sandy have ravaged more nearby farmlands along the East Coast. Only months ago, floods from Hurricane Ida tore through Connecticut and destroyed state crops ranging from lettuce to pumpkins. Almost 10 years ago, Hurricane Sandy flooded roughly 10 percent of New York City’s community gardens, which are a huge source for consumers looking to establish more sustainable sources of produce. Vertical farming operations simply don’t have to worry about these issues.

New York City is quickly becoming a bastion of vertical farming. Mayor-elect Eric Adams has specifically called for scaling up vertical farming operations within the city by expanding more public private partnerships with organizations to “leverage unused real estate” He also plans to update zoning laws to support further development within the city limits. In 2018, a New York City school turned a chemistry lab into a vertical farm. It produced a staggering 25,000 pounds of produce in a year, enough to feed more than 6,000 people.

New York City might be the most high profile example of how vertical farming is growing, but it’s far from the only U.S. city. Vertical farming startup Planted has found success in Detroit, and its products are sold at grocers and at restaurants around the greater Detroit metro. Plenty, based in San Francisco and with additional operations in Wyoming and in Washington as well, claims to use millions of gallons of less water every week than traditional farms.
High Bars to Clear

While these vertical farming efforts can help keep people fed while the climate gets worse, the product comes at a premium price tag that millions of Americans just cannot afford. That’s a challenge for companies like Aerofarms in particular whose products are classified as organics.

“Organics have a 20 percent premium over non-organics,” said Aerofarms’ Oshima. “Transparently, we do need that 20 percent premium to make money but our ambition is to lower prices.”

Supply chain disruptions, which have shot the price of everything from milk to beef, have only amplified this disparity.

“These methods are great alternatives to be able to grow food but right now it does not feel like they’re particularly targeted towards low income communities,” Luciano Contreras, manager of community food retail RiseBoro Community Partnerships, a non-profit that offers support services to low income families in Brooklyn, told The Daily Beast.

Contreras’s sentiment is echoed by a study run out of Cambridge University, which found that urban farming practices like vertical farming are more prevalent in a city’s wealthier communities than its poorer ones.

Vertical farms are proving capable of producing most kinds of popular produce. Here, Aerofarms shows off its strawberries.
Andy HirschfeldMore

And in the context of the global market, vertical farming’s disruptions have the potential to exacerbate disparities in the developing world as well.

One example is Aerofarms’ partnership with Cargill Cocoa in Europe, to address the water-intensive cocoa production process at a time when potable drinking water is particularly scarce. On the surface that seems like a good thing, but basing these operations in Europe will cut the need for imports to the West from Africa, where upwards of 70 percent of the world’s cocoa is grown. Aerofarms countered that its research and development relationship with Cargill will help supplement cocoa production on the Ivory Coast, which is increasingly limited and facing the effects of climate change. But that remains to be seen.

Fortunately it does look like the vertical farming footprint is expanding beyond just supplying the Whole Foods of the world. Bowery Farms is available at grocery stores across the mid-Atlantic and Northeast that include Giant Food, Walmart and Albertsons among others. Recently AeroFarms announced a new distribution partnership with Stop & Shop. InFarms, based in Germany, is working on supplying produce to Kroger stores across the U.S.

While imperfect, it does seem that vertical farming is at least part of the future of agriculture, even if it’s unexpectedly localized ​“in an otherwise unsuspecting office-park,” as Seawell described during my visit to Bowery Farms. Maybe it’s not as surprising as we might think. As cities begin to swell with larger populations and we start to build taller and taller buildings to accommodate everyone, it’s only natural our farms start to reach for the sky as well.

There's an easy way to tax billionaires that would actually work


Emil Skandul
Sat, November 27, 2021

Elon Musk recently sold some of his Tesla shares after discussing wealth taxation on Twitter.

Picture Alliance/Getty Images


The ultra-wealthy avoid paying taxes by using stock as collateral for loans and deferring the sale of assets.


Fair and effective tax policy would treat large personal loans for the wealthy similar to realized income.


Tax policy should target consumption and the "buy, borrow, die" tax avoidance schemes of the wealthy.


Emil Skandul is an opinion writer on economic policy and is the founder of a digital innovation firm, Capitol Foundry.


This is an opinion column. The thoughts expressed are those of the author.

With the infrastructure bill now having passed Congress, the debate about the different tax policies to fund the infrastructure bill over the past several months has come to a temporary quietus. The bill is without a direct increase on taxes, and the ultra-wealthy remain unscathed — at least for now.

Still, pressure has mounted on billionaires so much that Elon Musk has attempted to address the issue head on. "Much is made lately of unrealized gains being a means of tax avoidance, so I propose selling 10% of my Tesla stock," he tweeted earlier this month. The decision was ultimately made by polling his followers — around 4% of his holdings have now been liquidated.

For the many impractical tax schemes introduced by economists and members of Congress, none have addressed how the wealthiest Americans avoid paying taxes to begin with: They take out loans to live on using their stock as collateral. In fact, the likely motivation for Musk to sell off some of his Tesla shares was to pay off these loans.

So if low-interest loans are used by wealthy individuals to avoid selling shares and paying capital gains taxes, the solution should be obvious: Directly tax the underlying loans that are treated as personal income.

A slew of bad tax policy

Wealth taxes are a policy debate that has grown ferociously louder over the years, and it has fixed the affluent in the crosshairs of legislators and the public. In recent years, it has become a central theme in campaigns, political messaging, and news stories about growing income inequality.

Much of America's understanding of why income inequality is inevitable and how it has reached the highest levels since the Gilded Age can be attributed to the French economist Thomas Piketty's "Capital in The Twenty-First Century," which laid the groundwork for the arguments for increasing taxes on the wealthy. There is a greater return on capital than on labor, and the bigger a fortune, the faster it will grow. Fortunes of the top 1% are consistently less diversified, and often accumulate exclusively in one or two firms.

The numbers speak for themselves. The top 1% of Americans today have accumulated 27% of total wealth. Even more glaringly, since the start of the pandemic, more than half a trillion dollars has been added to the net worth of billionaires, whose numbers have increased by 13.4%. While net worth has increased over the past decade, this value remains locked up in the companies owned by these individuals, unless shares are sold or borrowed against. From taxing unrealized gains to implementing an annual wealth tax, a number of haphazard proposals have attempted to simultaneously fund public investments and capture these unrealized gains in wealth.

Senator Elizabeth Warren's 2% annual wealth tax for those individuals with a net worth above $50 million was one tax response. However, when this policy was implemented in France, it led to 10,000 French nationals leaving the country in order to avoid being taxed. The economists behind the plan, Gabriel Zucman and Emmanuel Saez, argue that mobility and expatriation taxes are different in the US than in Europe — so the same scenario would be unlikely. But in a highly globalized and mobile world, there would undoubtedly be some attrition. The loss of even a fraction of the US's most ambitious and entrepreneurial minds along with their capital would be bad for the US economy and isn't worth the downsides of a tax experiment that has been tried before.

Even more recently, a proposal by Senate Finance Chair Ron Wyden included a plan to tax unrealized gains. Billionaires are able to avoid long-term capital gains taxes of 23.8% by never selling shares in the firms they own if the expectation is that the shares will increase in value. This strategy has allowed the wealthy to take out loans, which are later refinanced as a stock's value increases in order to pay back previous loans. This can be done ad infinitum as a stock's value increases, meaning the borrower never has to sell shares to pay back the loans.

However, taxing an unrealized gain leads to a never-ending series of questions regarding fairness and implementation. When exactly do you execute the tax if someone's net worth is fluctuating because of a volatile stock price? If a stock is worth $3 today and $1 tomorrow, and no stock sale has occurred, is it fair to effectively collect the remaining amount because it was worth $3 yesterday?

Additionally, there is the problem with liquidity as Musk's recent sale has shown. Selling any large number of shares in a company will mean there will have to be buyers for those shares, and if not, then a large sale will significantly reduce the price of the stock as it did for Tesla, the price of which initially fell 15.4% to recover 7%. Likewise, for other illiquid assets, such as real estate and art, how do you collect on the appreciation in value?

Treat large loans as realized income

The equation for wealth preservation may be best summed up as: "buy, borrow, die." In spite of this, tax policy has placed "borrowing" in a blind spot — a loan is viewed as a debt, not an asset.

Ownership of a company or a stock only has value if it can generate cash flow or has resale value to others. But when stocks are used as collateral to draw a line of credit and avoid a taxable event, it creates immediate value for the owner. Fair and effective tax policy would treat large personal loans similar to realized income, because the value from the stock is being extracted, even if impermanently, by the owner.

By placing a tax of 10% on large loans that are drawn against existing assets, the knock-on effect may also require high net-worth individuals to voluntarily sell their assets to cover the costs of the principal and interest, thereby triggering a larger capital gains tax. This tax policy would effectively reduce this popular tax avoidance scheme used by the wealthy around the world. It would ensure that the value that is captured by borrowing against assets is taxed — a value that grows larger every year. According to some estimates, the wealthiest Americans avoid paying $163 billion in taxes every year, and debt is the primary tool used to escape tax burdens.

Indirectly taxing consumption — the wealth derived from personal loans — and inheritances is an approach to the problem of hyper-wealth accumulation that Musk, surprisingly, would agree with. Combined with other prudent tax policies including targeting trusts and foundations as well as loopholes in estate taxes, an uncomplicated tax framework emerges that taxes individuals after selling, borrowing, and dying. It's this path of least resistance to making sure taxes are collected that will require targeting the schemes like asset-based lending that have enabled the ultra-wealthy to eschew paying taxes.

Amid riots, France to consider some autonomy for Guadeloupe





Virus Outbreak France Guadeloupe ProtestsDebris left by demonstrators block a street of Le Gosier, Guadeloupe island, Sunday, Nov.21, 2021. French authorities sent police special forces to the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe, an overseas territory of France, as protests over COVID-19 restrictions erupted into rioting and looting for the third day in a row. On Sunday, many road blockades by protesters made traveling across the island nearly impossible. (AP Photo/Elodie Soupama)More

ELODIE SOUPAMA and ANGELA CHARLTON
Sat, November 27, 2021, 

LE GOSIER, Guadeloupe (AP) — France’s government is offering to discuss some autonomy for the French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe, which has been wracked by virus-related rioting and strikes that reflect long-running frustrations over inequality with the French mainland.

The overnight offer by the government minister for overseas affairs, Sebastien Lecornu, drew sharp criticism Saturday from conservative and far right candidates for France’s April presidential election.

Guadeloupe uses the euro currency and has close political ties with the mainland. But high unemployment in Guadeloupe and nearby Martinique, high costs of living and lingering anger over historical abuses have prompted some local officials to demand change. Both Guadeloupe and Martinique are overseas departments of France.

“Some officials have asked the question of autonomy,” Lecornu said in a televised address Friday night to Guadeloupe residents. “According to them, Guadeloupe could manage itself better” than it is managed from Paris, and they notably want more autonomy to manage health-related issues locally, he said. “The government is ready to talk about it.”

He denounced rioters whose pillaging is hurting local merchants and workers, and whose road barricades are preventing some patients from getting medical treatment and forced schools to close. But he also acknowledged “structural issues” behind the anger, and called for a “collective" response.

The recent tensions in Guadeloupe and Martinique started because of France's obligatory vaccinations for health care workers, and nationwide health pass to get into restaurants and other venues. To get the pass, people need to be vaccinated or show proof of a negative test or recent recovery from the virus.

Most medical personnel in Guadeloupe — 85% — have had at least one dose. But uptake in the broader population remains limited, at 46% of the adult population compared to 89% on the mainland.

Anger and resentment over the government's handling of a toxic pesticide called chlordecone — used for years in the French Caribbean after it was banned on the mainland and in the U.S. — have fueled mistrust in the government's COVID-19 vaccine polices and the central government in general.

Chlordecone, used mainly in banana fields, is blamed for record levels of breast and prostate cancers in the region, and experts say it will remain in polluted soils for the next 700 years.

Misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines shared on WhatsApp or Telegram groups has also fed skepticism in Guadeloupe and Martinique.

For the four months since the mandatory vaccine for health workers and health pass rules were announced, demonstrations have multiplied by several trade unions. They want the government to abandon the measures, or at least adapt them for overseas territories.

Feeling they hadn't been heard, unions launched a general, indefinite strike Nov. 15 — the deadline for health workers to get vaccinated or risk suspension without pay. Anger erupted into rioting 10 days ago, and in Pointe-a-Pitre, the island’s largest urban area, clashes left three people injured, including a 80-year-old woman hit by a bullet while on her balcony.

The French government on Friday decided to delay mandatory vaccinations for health care workers in the region until Dec. 31.

Meanwhile, the protesters' demands have spread to include higher salaries and jobless benefits and the hiring of more teachers.

A third of the Guadeloupe population lives below the poverty line, and the unemployment rate is 17%. The cost of living, meanwhile, is higher than the mainland because the island relies heavily on imports, yet salaries are lower.

Water supplies have been a major problem in recent years because of obsolete pipes, that leaves some residents without water for hours at a time — or even up to a week.



Reporters work by charred shop and building in a s street of Pointe-a-Pitre, Guadeloupe island, Sunday, Nov.21, 2021. French authorities are sending police special forces to the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe, an overseas territory of France, as protests over COVID-19 restrictions erupted into rioting. In Pointe-a-Pitre, the island's largest urban area, clashes left three people injured, including a 80-year-old woman who was hit by a bullet while on her balcony. A firefighter and a police officer were also injured and several shops were looted there and in other towns. (AP Photo/Elodie Soupama)

Angela Charlton reported from Paris.

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Follow AP’s pandemic coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic

Show-Me-a-saurus! Skeleton of a new type of dinosaur unearthed in Missouri


Mike Snider, USA TODAY
Sat, November 27, 2021

Scientists have identified not only the bones of a new dinosaur in southern Missouri, but also may have found a dinosaur hotbed.

The newly identified duck-billed dinosaur, named Parrosaurus missouriensis, grew to about 35 feet in length as an adult. Various dinosaur bones have been found at the dig site over the last eight decades, but now enough have been collected to make certain that a new genus and species had been discovered.

Just more than a month ago, researchers removed the dinosaur's body. "It was enormous, almost the size of a Volkswagen," said Guy Darrough, curator of the Sainte Genevieve Museum Learning Center in Ste. Genevieve, Missouri.

The discovery is like "hitting King Tut's tomb," said Darrough, who first began working at the site four decades ago. "I can't think of another discovery that would be bigger than dinosaurs in Missouri."

The finding also adds to scientists' knowledge of the ecology of the Western Interior Seaway, a body of water that divided North America more than 70 million years ago. While the majority of dinosaur finds have been in western states, this site in southern Missouri – it would have been on the seaway's eastern shore – has been yielding finds for decades.

A full-sized model of the Missouri dinosaur Parrosaurus missouriensis.

About 80 years ago at the site, scientists found the first dinosaur bones there; they were suspected to be the remains of a large sauropod, a plant-eating dinosaur, Darrough said. Charles Gilmore, a paleontologist at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, looked at the bones and, along with Dan Stewart of the Missouri Geological Survey, wrote a paper on the dinosaur, which became known as Parrorsaurus missouriensis, according to the Bollinger County (Mo.) Museum of Natural History.

Another cache of bones – a skeleton of what they learned was a juvenile dinosaur and a dinosaur jaw with teeth – was found in the 1980s, after geologist Bruce Stinchcomb bought the property. Those bones suggested the dinosaur was not a sauropod but actually a hadrosaur, or duck-billed dinosaur.

Hadrosaurs have long been considered herbivores, but some findings in recent years suggest they might have eaten crustaceans, either opportunistically or accidentally.

Scientists had thought the dinosaur looked like the brontosaurus used in the Sinclair Oil advertising, "but it turns out it's a totally different type of dinosaur," Darrough said.

A fossil collector, Darrough asked if he could set up a greenhouse to dig there at the site and successfully found some dinosaur bones. Also found: the tooth of a dinosaur that is a relative to Tyrannosaurus rex.

Darrough contacted Peter Makovicky, a paleontologist who then was curator of dinosaurs at The Field Museum in Chicago. He traveled to Missouri in 2016 and soon had a dig team sent to the site.

"Most people thought we were finding mastodons and mammoths," Darrough said. "Those big animals are like, you know, 10,000 years old. But dinosaurs are like 70 million (years o). I knew they were dinosaur bones, but I just kept quiet."

Darrough was "a very serious fossil collector and actually knew his stuff," Makovicky said, but admitted to being "guarded, but very intrigued" about the find prior to arriving.

Peter Makovicky, at left, and Guy Darrough, examining the clay that may contain more bones of the Missouri dinosaur.

The site was "at the bottom of a glen in the Ozarks" and looked "like a frog pond," Makovicky said. "This didn't look like a dinosaur site. There was no exposed bedrock."

But they began finding bones including the tail, two arms and skull of a dinosaur that would have been around 35 feet long, Darrough said. And a little more than a month ago, they removed the body of that dinosaur. "It was enormous, almost the size of a Volkswagen," he said.

"It weighed over 2,000 pounds," said Makovicky, now a professor of earth and environmental sciences at the University of Minnesota.

Images from the dig site in southern Missouri where a new type of dinosaur, Parrosaurus missouriensis has been found. Team members Akiko Shinya (left) and MInyoung Son (right) are tunneling through the clay under the jacket to loosen it so it can be flipped and the underside wrapped with plaster bandages.

For perspective, the Tyrannosaurus rex was thought to be about 40 feet long and 12 feet tall, while the Supersaurus dinosaur, revealed earlier this month, is thought to be the longest dinosaur at between 128 and 137 feet.

Based on the findings of the skull, arms and tail section, Makovicky concluded the bones were those of a duck-billed dinosaur and, since the original dinosaur name applied to the site, has been christened Parrorsaurus missouriensis. The dinosaur had already been named the state dinosaur of the state of Missouri, based on the previous findings.

There site will likely yield remains of at least four different Parrosaurus missouriensis dinosaurs, Makovicky said.

"Potentially there's a lot more here," he said. "We're actually looking at something that might be a mass death occurrence, like an entire herd that perished and washed into this waterhole or lagoon."

Speaking of death at the dig site, continuing research resulted in the finding of the "bony armor from a giant crocodile," a crocodilian, said Darrough, whose Lost World Studios creates life-sized dinosaur models for museums and botanical gardens.

Vern Bauman directing removal of the massive plaster jacket containing part of the skeleton of the Missouri dinosaur, Parrosaurus missouriensis in 2021.

"These things are like 50 feet long and they're big enough to take down a dinosaur. So when the Parrosaurus herds would be coming down to take a drink, these guys could snag them around the neck and pull them into the water and drown them. When you get a crocodile big enough to take down a dinosaur that is a big crocodile."

Regardless of what else is found, the Missouri dig has been a great example of scientific collaboration between paleontologists and "dedicated and generous local volunteers, who essentially started this project over 30 years ago," Makovicky said.

And it has helped expand the knowledge of dinosaurs in the U.S. east of the Western Interior Seaway, which at one point spread to the Appalachian Mountains.

"Most of the dinosaurs that every 6-year-old is familiar with, Tyrannosaurs, your various horned dinosaurs and duck-bills, and so on, were living west of the Seaway," Makovicky said. "From the eastern seaboard and the Midwestern states, we have far, far less knowledge of dinosaurs. So when you actually find a site where you have not just scraps, but multiple skeletons together, that's a real windfall."

Follow Mike Snider on Twitter: @mikesnider.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Dinosaur bones in Missouri unearthed, reveal new duck-billed species

Ancient DNA is revealing the genetic landscape of people who first settled East Asia


Melinda A. Yang, Assistant Professor of Biology, University of Richmond
Sat, November 27, 2021

Pulverized ancient bone can provide DNA to scientists for analysis. Xin Xu Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, CC BY-ND

The very first human beings originally emerged in Africa before spreading across Eurasia about 60,000 years ago. After that, the story of humankind heads down many different paths, some more well-studied than others.

Eastern regions of Eurasia are home to approximately 2.3 billion people today – roughly 30% of the world’s population. Archaeologists know from fossils and artifacts that modern humans have occupied Southeast Asia for 60,000 years and East Asia for 40,000 years.

But there’s a lot left to untangle. Who were the people who first came to these regions and eventually developed agriculture? Where did different populations come from? Which groups ended up predominant and which died out?

Ancient DNA is helping to answer some of these questions. By sequencing the genomes of people who lived many millennia ago, scientists like me are starting to fill in the picture of how Asia was populated.

Ancient skull without bottom jaw

Analyzing ancient genomes

In 2016, I joined Dr. Qiaomei Fu’s Molecular Paleontology Lab at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing. Our challenge: Resolve the history of humans in East Asia, with the help of collaborators who were long dead – ancient humans who lived up to tens of thousands of years ago in the region.

Members of the lab extracted and sequenced ancient DNA using human remains from archaeological sites. Then Dr. Fu and I used computational genomic tools to assess how their DNA related to that of previously sequenced ancient and present-day humans.

map where aDNA samples were excavated in Asia

One of our sequences came from ancient DNA extracted from the leg bones of the Tianyuan Man, a 40,000-year-old individual discovered near a famous paleoanthropological site in western Beijing. One of the earliest modern humans found in East Asia, his genetic sequence marks him as an early ancestor of today’s Asians and Native Americans. That he lived where China’s current capital stands indicates that the ancestors of today’s Asians began placing roots in East Asia as early as 40,000 years ago.

Farther south, two 8,000- to 4,000-year-old Southeast Asian hunter-gatherers from Laos and Malaysia associated with the Hòabìnhian culture have DNA that, like the Tianyuan Man, shows they’re early ancestors of Asians and Native Americans. These two came from a completely different lineage than the Tianyuan Man, which suggested that many genetically distinct populations occupied Asia in the past.

But no humans today share the same genetic makeup as either Hòabìnhians or the Tianyuan Man, in both East and Southeast Asia. Why did ancestries that persisted for so long vanish from the gene pool of people alive now? Ancient farmers carry the key to that answer.

DNA carries marks of ancient migrations

Based on plant remains found at archaeological sites, scientists know that people domesticated millet in northern China’s Yellow River region about 10,000 years ago. Around the same time, people in southern China’s Yangtze River region domesticated rice.

Unlike in Europe, plant domestication began locally and was not introduced from elsewhere. The process took thousands of years, and societies in East Asia grew increasingly complex, with the rise of the first dynasties around 4,000 years ago.

map showing migration of ancient people north from Yellow River area and south from Yangtze River area

That’s also when rice cultivation appears to have spread from its origins to areas farther south, including lands that are today’s Southeast Asian countries. DNA helps tell the story. When rice farmers from southern China expanded southward, they introduced not only their farming technology but also their genetics to local populations of Southeast Asian hunter-gatherers.

The overpowering influx of their DNA ended up swamping the local gene pool. Today, little trace of hunter-gatherer ancestry remains in the genes of people who live in Southeast Asia.

Excavation of human skeleton

Farther north, a similar story played out. Ancient Siberian hunter-gatherers show little relationship with East Asians today, but later Siberian farmers are closely related to today’s East Asians. Farmers from northern China moved northward into Siberia bringing their DNA with them, leading to a sharp decrease in prevalence of the previous local hunter-gatherer ancestry.

Scientist in protective gear pipetting under a hood

Past populations were more diverse than today’s

Genetically speaking, today’s East Asians are not very different from each other. A lot of DNA is needed to start genetically distinguishing between people with different cultural histories.

Folded up ancient skeleton being excavated

What surprised Dr. Fu and me was how different the DNA of various ancient populations were in China. We and others found shared DNA across the Yellow River region, a place important to the development of Chinese civilization. This shared DNA represents a northern East Asian ancestry, distinct from a southern East Asian ancestry we found in coastal southern China.

When we analyzed the DNA of people who lived in coastal southern China 9,000-8,500 years ago, we realized that already by then much of China shared a common heritage. Because their archaeology and morphology was different from that of the Yellow River farmers, we had thought these coastal people might come from a lineage not closely related to those first agricultural East Asians. Maybe this group’s ancestry would be similar to the Tianyuan Man or Hòabìnhians.

map showing different ancestral populations in Asia based on aDNA

But instead, every person we sampled was closely related to present-day East Asians. That means that by 9,000 years ago, DNA common to all present-day East Asians was widespread across China.

Today’s northern and southern Chinese populations share more in common with ancient Yellow River populations than with ancient coastal southern Chinese. Thus, early Yellow River farmers migrated both north and south, contributing to the gene pool of humans across East and Southeast Asia.

The coastal southern Chinese ancestry did not vanish, though. It persisted in small amounts and did increase in northern China’s Yellow River region over time. The influence of ancient southern East Asians is low on the mainland, but they had a huge impact elsewhere. On islands spanning from the Taiwan Strait to Polynesia live the Austronesians, best known for their seafaring. They possess the highest amount of southern East Asian ancestry today, highlighting their ancestry’s roots in coastal southern China.

Other emerging genetic patterns show connections between Tibetans and ancient individuals from Mongolia and northern China, raising questions about the peopling of the Tibetan Plateau.

Ancient DNA reveals rapid shifts in ancestry over the last 10,000 years across Asia, likely due to migration and cultural exchange. Until more ancient human DNA is retrieved, scientists can only speculate as to exactly who, genetically speaking, lived in East Asia prior to that.

[Understand new developments in science, health and technology, each week. Subscribe to The Conversation’s science newsletter.]

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. It was written by: Melinda A. Yang, University of Richmond.

Read more:

Angkor Wat archaeological digs yield new clues to its civilization’s decline

Ancient DNA is a powerful tool for studying the past – when archaeologists and geneticists work together

Humans domesticated horses – new tech could help archaeologists figure out where and when

Melinda A. Yang does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Hitler at home: How the Nazi PR machine remade the Führer's domestic image and duped the world

Despina Stratigakos, Vice Provost for Inclusive Excellence and Professor of Architecture, University at Buffalo

Sat, November 27, 2021,

On March 16, 1941 – with European cities ablaze and Jews being herded into ghettos – The New York Times Magazine featured an illustrated story on Adolf Hitler’s retreat in the Berchtesgaden Alps.

Adopting a neutral tone, correspondent C Brooks Peters noted that historians of the future would do well to look at the importance of “the Führer’s private and personal domain,” where discussions about the war front were interspersed with “strolls with his three sheep dogs along majestic mountain trails.”

For more than 70 years, we have ignored Peters’s call to take Hitler’s domestic spaces seriously. When we think of the stage sets of Hitler’s political power, we are more apt to envision the Nuremberg Rally Grounds than his living room.

Yet it was through the architecture, design and media depictions of his homes that the Nazi regime fostered a myth of the private Hitler as peaceable homebody and good neighbor.

In the years leading up to World War II, this image was used strategically and effectively, both within Germany and abroad, to distance the dictator from his violent and cruel policies. Even after the war began, the favorable impression of the off-duty Führer playing with dogs and children did not immediately fade.

A radical makeover

Nazi mythologies about Hitler’s origins emphasized his poverty and homelessness as a young man, as well as his disdain for creature comforts.

But once Hitler became chancellor – and particularly after the royalties from Mein Kampf made him a wealthy man – he focused considerable energies on the redesign and furnishing of his residences: the Old Chancellery in Berlin; his Munich apartment; and the Berghof, his mountain home on the Obersalzberg.

The timing of these renovations in the mid-1930s coincided with Hitler’s public makeover as a statesman and diplomat, a transformation also promoted by Leni Riefenstahl’s Nazi propaganda films.

The rough edges of the extreme anti-Semite and agitator of the masses were sanded away through the creation of a new, sophisticated persona that emerged in carefully crafted domestic surroundings. With silk curtains and porcelain vases, Hitler’s designers suggested an internal world that was both cultivated and peaceful.

Gerdy Troost, Hitler’s interior decorator, played an important role in conveying an image of her client as a man of taste and culture. Inspired by British design reform movements, she emphasized quality of materials and craftsmanship over showy display.

Hitler was an engaged client, and he admired her taste, although they sometimes clashed over his tendency toward the grandiose. A woman both respected and feared in Nazi Germany, Troost has been overlooked in histories written about the period. However new archival sources reveal the surprising extent of her influence over Hitler and her prominence within Nazi elite circles.

Hitler’s chalet

With views of Germany on one side of the mountain and Austria on the other, the Berghof was the most public of Hitler’s private homes, and it exerted a powerful hold on the Nazi imagination of empire.

Hitler and his publicists drew on mountain imagery from Germany’s literary and artistic movements (particularly Romanticism) to mythologize the Führer as a mystic leader who immersed himself in – and embodied – the terrible and magnificent forces of nature.

At the same time, the mountain served as a means to humanize Germany’s leader through his contact with animals as well as with children. In officially produced postcards, magazines and books, Germans consumed fantasies about an ideal domestic life rooted in the natural landscape.

In the expansive Lebensraum and pure mountain air, where the sun shone and blond children frolicked, the Nazis encouraged Germans to envision a blissful future in exchange for sacrifices to their pocketbooks and freedoms.
To the foreign press, a Bavarian gentleman

The rise of celebrity culture in the 1920s and 1930s created a voracious appetite for information about the daily lives of the rich and famous. Hitler’s team was quick to realize and exploit the public’s hunger, pioneering PR strategies that are commonplace today.

Journalists writing for the English-language press gobbled up the propaganda, fueling a false image of Hitler by publishing glowing stories of the Führer, even in the face of disturbing counter-realities.

On May 30, 1937 – a month after German planes bombed Guernica, Spain – The New York Times Magazine published a front-page article on Adolf Hitler’s idyllic mountain retreat.

In this admiring piece, penned by foreign correspondent Otto Tolischus, the skies were depicted not as a means of delivering destruction, but as a rarified topos of meditation, beauty and the simple life.

The article described how, surrounded by Alpine peaks, Germany’s leader communed with nature, contemplated the Reich and indulged his sweet tooth for chocolate. Hitler’s attack on Guernica and the suffering of its victims, later memorialized by Pablo Picasso, went unmentioned.

In November 1938, shortly after the annexation of Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland – and the same month as the Night of Broken Glass – Homes and Gardens published a feature titled Hitler’s Mountain Home, which credited Hitler with the design of the Berghof. Applauding his taste, the article depicted his private life as one of refinement, gentle repasts and congenial friendships.

And days before the signing of the Nazi-Soviet Pact in August 1939, The New York Times Magazine published another enthusiastic article about the residence, one that again chronicled the Führer’s wholesome domestic life, unpretentious hospitality and love of sweets.

Life, Vogue and other widely circulated publications similarly offered readers the chance to pore over glossy photo essays of Hitler’s rooms.

But stories in the British press admiring Hitler’s gentlemanly tastes and pursuits evaporated with the start of hostilities. With German war planes bombarding the nation’s cities and towns, the Brits quickly lost interest in how Herr Hitler took his tea.

American audiences, on the other hand, were slower to admit they had been conned, which reflects the country’s broader ambivalence about involvement in another war.

During the final weeks of the war in Europe, the Berghof was bombed by the Allied Air forces and set aflame by Hitler’s departing SS troops. What survived was looted by local residents and American and French soldiers.

By 1947, the ruins had become a destination for throngs of curious tourists. Authorities were more troubled by Hitler’s loyalists, who made pilgrimages to the site to pay homage to their fallen leader. With approval from the American military, which occupied the Obersalzberg, the Bavarian government demolished what remained of the Berghof; the area was subsequently replanted with trees.

It was only in 2008 that an official sign was posted that identifies the former location of Hitler’s house. In English and German, it gives a brief history of the residence, one that shatters the widely propagated, simplistic view of its domestic function:

Hitler spent more than a third of his time in power here. Important political discussions and negotiations were conducted here and incisive decisions were made, which led to the catastrophes of the Second World War and the Holocaust, causing the death of millions.

Hitler’s successful domestic makeover – engineered by his designers and publicists – underscores the need to be far more critical of the industries that focus on home or lifestyle news, which can have enormous influence.

In recent years, Western media have fawned over Asma al-Assad, Syria’s First Lady, depicting her as a refining, domestic influence on her husband. While some of these outlets, including Vogue, have attempted to scrub online traces, the stories remain proudly posted on President Bashar al-Assad’s website.

When it comes to someone’s home, there’s often more than meets the eye.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts.

Read more:

Why aren’t American museums doing more to return Nazi-looted art?

How World War II spurred vaccine innovation

The future of Mein Kampf in a meme world

Despina Stratigakos does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.