You should read this for 7/26/2021:
Art, Music, and Film
‘Boundless invention’: British Museum to show more than 100 unseen Hokusai works
At some point, possibly in the 1840s when he would have been in his 80s, Hokusai decided to embark on a project titled The Great Picture Book of Everything for which he let his imagination run wild. His idea was to present vignettes from Buddhist India, ancient China and the natural world.
It was never published so the drawings were instead put in a box and have not been seen publicly since.
Books, Libraries, Writing, and Language
Good golly Mollie: why I rode 1,000 miles around Ireland on a Connemara pony
Climate Change | Climate Repair
The Amazon is now a net carbon producer, but there’s still time to reverse the damage
The region, home to abundant and highly diverse species and ecosystems, houses more than 390bn trees. These have an exceptional capacity to recycle water by pumping it from the soil back up into the atmosphere, but also play a crucial role in storing carbon: the Amazon forest stores an amount of carbon equivalent to two to three times all the CO2 emitted by the UK since 1750. When trees die, either by natural causes or deforestation, this carbon can return to the atmosphere.
. . .
To restore the net carbon emissions of the Amazon forest to its balance and avoid other portions of the region’s forest reaching a tipping point where massive mortality further affects resilience, we must reduce forest loss by deforestation and fires, and invest in massive landscape restoration. Unfortunately, Brazil is taking a different route in relation to these major sources of carbon emissions. The country, which is the sixth largest greenhouse gas emitter in the world, has 44% of its emissions directly associated with land use change, mainly the conversion of forests to agriculture and pasture fields.
Coronavirus | COVID-19
Johnson & Johnson Vaccine Is Linked To Neurological Disorder In Extremely Rare Cases
The Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine has been linked to an extremely rare neurological disorder, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Of the more than 12 million vaccine doses administered in the U.S., there have been around 100 reports of people developing Guillain-Barré syndrome.
COVID Cases In Parts Of Missouri And Arkansas Surge To Levels Not Seen Since Winter
The outbreak of COVID-19 in southwest Missouri and northern Arkansas has become the nation’s largest and is mostly driven by the highly contagious delta variant. Officials warn it could continue to grow unchecked if vaccination rates stay low.
“We are truly in a very dangerous predicament,” Springfield Mayor Ken McClure said Monday at a press conference. “While we are one of the unfortunate few early hot spots of the delta variant, we are not giving up. It is not too late. We need to stay the course.”
In Missouri, the seven-day average of new cases is near 1,400 new positive cases each day, up more than 150% from a month ago. In Arkansas, that number is up 287%.
Education
Letter to my teacher: creatives including Kate Mosse, Ben Bailey Smith and Sathnam Sanghera say thanks
Modern Porn Education Is Totally Unprepared for Modern Porn
Cornel West says in resignation letter over tenure dispute that Harvard is in ‘decline and decay’
The news first came to light in the spring when West, in announcing he was leaving, said the university had turned down a recommendation by a faculty committee that would have made his untenured position a tenured one. When that tenure fight became public, he told the Boycott Times, a nonprofit outlet, in March that Harvard had made strides in diversity but that the “pettiness” of the talks about his status made him feel “disrespected and devalued.”
Message about Nikole Hannah-Jones from University Librarian Elaine L. Westbrooks
Nikole Hannah-Jones would have been an outstanding teacher and an excellent colleague. Her expertise and perspective would have enriched our campus. If you have not read Ms. Hannah-Jones’s statement about her experience with Carolina, I encourage you to do so.
I am also deeply concerned about the subjugation of academic freedom and faculty governance that this episode reveals. When racism fuels the exercise of political power to stifle inquiry and academic freedom, we should all be concerned, and libraries especially so. As library workers, we are professionally committed to the open exchange of ideas and to the mission of academia to ask uncomfortable questions, train critical thinkers, and serve as a platform for growth and discovery. These efforts are our own.
Food and Drink
History and Archaeology
New Photographs Reveal Colors of 2,400-Year-Old Sculpture
MADRID, SPAIN—El País reports that Teresa Chapa Brunet and Pedro Saura of Complutense University of Madrid and their colleagues used photographic filters to eliminate nearly 100 percent of reflected light in new digital images of the so-called Lady of Baza, a 2,400-year-old painted sculpture of a seated woman unearthed in southern Spain in the 1970s, along with weapons and other burial goods. The statue is thought to be a portrait of an actual wealthy Bastetani woman.
Politics and Society
We quit! The Great Resignation era has begun – at a boiling hot branch of Burger King
A global survey of 30,000 workers by Microsoft found that 41% were considering quitting or changing professions this year. Another study in the UK and Ireland showed 38% planned to quit. In the US, more than four million quit their jobs in April alone. Some economists are talking about the “Great Resignation”.
And it’s because? Because of Covid, basically. For some it’s about a resulting re-evaluation, or a change in priorities – time to do the thing you always meant to do. But for many it’s simply because of the way they have been treated by their employers during the pandemic.
Science and Nature
The 2021 Audubon Photographs Some stunning photos here.
Video: Cockatoos are figuring out how to open bins by copying each other
A few curious cockatoos learned how to open residential waste bins in Australia, and now other birds have started copying them, with incidences of bin-looting spreading across eastern Australia in easily traceable waves.
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Technology
Google engineer who criticized company in viral comics on why he finally quit “Former Google engineer Manu Cornet describes his time at Google in two phases. First, there were ‘glitches in wonderland.’ Then, there was ‘disillusionment’.”
Private Israeli spyware used to hack cellphones of journalists, activists worldwide
Military-grade spyware licensed by an Israeli firm to governments for tracking terrorists and criminals was used in attempted and successful hacks of 37 smartphones belonging to journalists, human rights activists, business executives and two women close to murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, according to an investigation by The Washington Post and 16 media partners.
Via John Gruber: Weather Strip
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Women’s Work
As A Child, She Fled The Afghan War. As An Officer, She Returned — And Found Herself
💩🔥💰 Trumpery 💩🔥💰
A Report Clears Federal Officials Who Were Suspended By A Trump Appointee Over VOA
The reports suggest a circle of Trump loyalists went searching through the top echelons of the agency’s career staff for figures they deemed disloyal. Then they would knock down these employees, even going so far as to use unproven rumors of jeopardizing national security to get them stripped of the security clearances needed for their jobs. Pack also personally hired a high-profile Richmond, Va. law firm to investigate the officials, at a cost to taxpayers of well over $1 million.
The FBI’s ‘investigation’ of Kavanaugh was laughable
Pay It Forward and Make It Better
@BKLYNBeeyotch: My older sister and I grew up in a small, fairly conservative town in one of the “collar counties” near Chicago. I was a pretty average, mostly happy kid, but Sis was always a little different. Off-the-charts smart, beautiful, very quiet and shy. Not many friends. (1/16)
Something Wonderful
H/T @ Pensplaining. VICTORIAN Snake Bracelet with Telescoping Pencil
