You should read this for 1/13/2018:
Art and Film
Some amazing photos from DownEast Magazine’s 2018 Reader Photo Contest. These are not professional photographers, but they took pictures as if they were.
January from the Da Dosta Hours, work of Simon Bening c. 1515. This medieval illuminated and beautiful book of hours is in the collections of The Morgan Library
Emily Asher-Perrin on Wow, People Are Really Mad at Poe Dameron Smart, well-written, but spoilers galore. See also her equally smart and perceptive Luke Skywalker Isn’t Supposed to Be “Nice”. Also SPOILERS.
Books, Writing, and Language
Michael Wolff Did What Every Other White House Reporter Is Too Cowardly to Do You really should read this; here’s why: Wolff got it on tape. And
Wolff has spent this week thoroughly exploiting Trump and his minions the same way they’ve exploited the cluelessness of others. And he pulled it off because, at long last, there was a reporter out there willing to toss decorum aside and burn bridges the same way Trump does.
The Top Ten Most Important And Historically Lost Ancient Documents There’s a familiar theme with regards to the reasons for these lost (destroyed) books. We seem to be perpetually destroying books for the same stupid reasons.
Streaming from BBC Radio: Neil Gaiman’s Anansi Boys A new, six-part adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s mythical fantasy about the trickster god Anansi and his unsuspecting son Charlie. Starring Jacob Anderson and Lenny Henry.
Regarding the Em Dash
Women Writing About the Wild: 25 Essential Authors Some really wonderful and under-read writers here; women who wrote about nature. Some of these have been ruthlessly “borrowed” from by male writers, often, without credit. And sometimes, when credited by the male writer, they were silently uncredited by later writers, who attributed their words to someman else.
History and Archaeology
Bronze Age Children’s Toys Found In Southern Siberia
Indian researchers say carvings found in Kashmir may be the oldest depiction of a dying star ever discovered Ordinarily, I’d say meh, constellation identification and naming is culturally driven, but with Orion and Taurus, there are handful of IE early languages that identify them as a hunter and a bull, so this strikes me as plausible. It also reminds me of Van Gogh’s Starry Starry Night.
Viking centre discovered in Cork city predates Waterford settlement
Pay It Forward and Make It Better
“I spent my career trying to change the nursing home industry,” he said. “But I’ve come to realize it’s not really going to change. So now what I’ve got to do is make it so people don’t need nursing homes in the first place. That what this is about.”
Czech Republic Inaugurates a Tax-Deductible Book Allowance for Employees This helps writers, designers, publishers and their employees, and it helps the readers.
Science and Technology
How to Fix Facebook—Before It Fixes Us An early investor explains why the social media platform’s business model is such a threat—and what to do about it.
Genetic Clues Link Depression and Alcohol Dependence
Extraterrestrial Hypatia Stone Rattles Solar System Status Quo
In 2013, researchers announced that a pebble found in south-west Egypt, was definitely not from Earth. By 2015, other research teams had announced that the ‘Hypatia’ stone was not part of any known types of meteorite or comet, based on noble gas and nuclear probe analyses.
I’m not sure what this means, either, but it’s intriguing. And it makes me recall the meteor Oumuamua in 2017 that was not from this solar system. And the “alien” minerals found in a meter fragment on the island of Skye. There are more things in Heaven and Earth . . .
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=7038 “Researchers using NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) have found eight sites where thick deposits of ice beneath Mars’ surface are exposed in faces of eroding slopes.”
Society
First here’s the Washington Post regarding < href=”https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2018/01/09/its-not-a-fabrication-six-times-the-company-behind-the-trump-russia-dossier-contradicted-trump/”>the testimony of the CEO of research firm Fusion GPS to Congress about the Trump dossier his firm produced during the presidential campaign. “It’s not made up. It wasn’t politically motivated. And it did not set out with the intention to smear Donald Trump.” And see this thorough point-by-point response to the testimony from ElizabethCMcLaughlin, a lawyer, CEO and former a securities fraud and human rights litigator. She has citations and analysis.
President Obama explains ‘what the Russians exploited’ in new interview with Letterman
Women’s Work
Female professors get more grief from students, study finds ‘Students wouldn’t take no as an answer … I always suspected that gender could play a role
Research from Eastern Washington University has found that women working in education are more often requested to give extensions, boost grades and be more lenient when it comes to classroom policy.
💩🔥💰 Trumpery 💩🔥💰
How Trump fulfilled a 30-year fantasy of becoming president, with a little help from the Kremlin
