Wealth inequality in the United States has become so exaggerated so outrageous and obscene that I don’t think most Americans can even conceptualize it. While millions of families struggle to have enough to eat and pay their mortgage or rent, there is a small group of men who literally make more every 15 minutes than most Americans will make in their lifetimes. Look at the graph at the head of this report. All of this has occurred because, beginning with the Reagan administration the Republicans, bribed by the rich — thanks to the Citizens United Supreme Court decision that legalized the bribery of politicians — have rigged the tax system so that the rich pay a tiny fraction of their income in taxes.
When the US targeted Russia’s oligarchs after the invasion of Ukraine, the trail of assets kept leading to our own backyard. Not only had our nation become a haven for shady foreign money, but we were also incubating a familiar class of yacht-owning, industry-dominating, resource-extracting billionaires.
For the last 18 months one of the most opulent and unnecessary vessels ever constructed has been floating in a narrow channel next to a jungle gym and a fleet of industrial cranes at the Port of San Diego. Built in Germany, and formerly managed by a firm in Monaco and flagged to the Cayman Islands, the superyacht Amadea is 348 feet long, with a helipad, a swimming pool, two baby grand pianos, and a 5-ton stainless steel art-deco albatross that extends outward from the prow like a bird reenacting Titanic. It can accommodate 16 guests and 36 crew, and costs $1 million a month just to maintain. Who, exactly, has been picking up that tab in the past is a matter of some dispute, tangled up in a web of trusts and LLCs, code names and NDAs, and legal proceedings in two countries. But the ship’s current owner is a bit less […]
The voters of Florida are getting what they voted for, a state government reconstructed by their MAGAt Republican governor and legislature to harm hundreds or thousands of children, the poor, the elderly, females, and the LGBTQ community. Florida is becoming a sad failed state. Oh, I should also mention that the Republicans they voted for are not properly preparing for the effects of climate change which has already made it difficult, if not impossible, to get home insurance. I hope the Republican voters are happy to live in the debacle their Republican leadership has created.
MAGAt Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis Credit: New Civil Rights Movement
A central theme of Ron DeSantis’ reign as Florida’s culture war GOP governor and in his now-defunct presidential campaign has been “parental rights,” a far-right movement that began by empowering right-wing parents’ political and social grievances at the expense of children’s rights to a complete and well-rounded education, while ignoring the rights and needs of children.
Governor DeSantis’ infamous “Don’t Say Gay” law, first launched to include just children up to third grade, then expanded to all public school grades, was just the beginning.
Now, Florida Republicans including Governor DeSantis are moving to take healthcare, food, and workplace protections away from children.
“DeSantis and conservative/Trumpian/MAGA public officials” are “disassembling Florida’s social service safety net,” according to an op-ed by Barrington Salmon at the Florida Phoenix.
They are “refusing to allocate money or enough of it for school lunch programs to feed hungry children; rejecting no-strings-attached federal government dollars to expand Medicaid that would allow the state to enroll 1.4 million people; not prioritizing access […]
This, I think, is an early sign of a trend that is going to radically change societies around the world, and is going to affect literally billions of people. AI and robots are going to change how everything is manufactured, which is going to radically change employment. What are those workers displaced by AI and robots going to do. Few in this dysfunctional school sandbox Congress, I doubt, are even thinking about this.
Atlas is by far the most advanced humanoid robot ever built, capable of explosive athleticism and remarkable agility Credit: Boston Dynamics
It’s a shock video because Atlas is unboxing and racking shocks – sorry about that. But it’s also a shock because Atlas has always been a humanoid robotics research platform, not a commercial product – and this new video has us wondering.
The work of building cars is perfect for robotic automation – large volumes, heavy parts, high potential for human injury, high precision and reliability requirements – and indeed, there are already a ton of job-specific robots involved in the manufacturing and assembly lines.
But there are also still a lot of jobs that look much more random and disorganized – and that’s where humanoid robots seek to step in. Obviously, that’ll be one of the early applications for Tesla’s Optimus robot, and we’ve seen recently that Figure is pursuing a similar path with BMW.
We didn’t expect to see Atlas rolling up its sleeves on this kind of work, and yet here we are:
Spending time in forests and wilderness has been a very big part of my life, for exactly the reasons this article describes. Do yourself a favor. Find some wooded trails in a park and a couple times a week go for a walk in the woods. It will change your perspective and your sense of wellbeing.
Korean scientists have confirmed that walking through forest areas improved older women’s blood pressure, lung capacity and elasticity in their arteries. Walking in an urban park with trees, or an arboretum, or a rural forest reduces blood pressure, improves cardiac-pulmonary parameters, bolsters mental health, reduces negative thoughts, lifts people’s moods, and restores our brain’s ability to focus – all findings of recent studies. Park RX America (PRA), a nonprofit founded in 2017 by the public health pediatrician Dr. Robert Zarr, has established a large network of health care professionals who use nature prescriptions as part of their health care treatment for patients. A sample prescription: “walk along a trail near a pond or in a park with a friend, without earbuds, for ½ hour, twice a week.”
As I began this piece on trees in forests, woods and parks, a friend asked, why in January in New England? Why didn’t I wait until the deciduous trees were a palette of new spring green crowning the stark brown trunks and branches of winter? The next day, January 7, nature provided the answer: a 10” snowstorm. Trees after a winter snowstorm – their upstretched dark deciduous branches shouldered with snow and their downreaching […]
ANDREW S. LEWIS, Contributing Writer - Yale Environment 360
Stephan:
Here is some good news, an early report on a critically important emerging coastal trend. American coastal cities are beginning to learn something the Dutch have long recognized and practiced. What is now called “living with water.” The sea is rising, and it is too late to do much about that. But while many politicians babbled on about climate denial and such nonsense, the Dutch took it seriously and began to build the seawall systems necessary to protect themselves. Now New York City, Norfolk, Virginia and, as this article describes, some other cities and coastal regions — but not all — are literally learning from the Dutch and beginning to do what is necessary for their survival. Not a moment too soon.
Workers complete a floodwall at Stuyvesant Cove Park in 2021 as part of the East Side Coastal Resiliency project. Credit: NYC Department of Design and Construction
On a recent morning in Asser Levy Playground, on Manhattan’s East Side, a group of retirees traded serves on a handball court adjacent to a recently completed 10-foot-high floodwall. Had a sudden storm caused the East River to start overtopping this barrier, a 79-foot-long floodgate would have begun gliding along a track, closing off the playground and keeping the handball players dry. In its small way, this 2.4-acre waterfront park is a major proof of concept for a city at the forefront of flood resilience planning — a city working toward living with, and not against, water.
The Asser Levy renovation, completed in 2022, is part of East Side Coastal Resiliency (ESCR), the largest urban resiliency project currently underway in the United States. Over the next three years, at a total cost of $1.8 billion, ESCR will reshape two-and-a-half miles of Lower Manhattan’s shoreline. But ESCR is just one link […]
