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When I began Schwartzreport my purpose was to produce an entirely fact-based daily publication in favor of the earth, the inter-connectedness and interdependence of all life, democracy, equality for all, liberty, and things that are life-affirming. Also, to warn my readers about actions, events, and trends that threaten those values. Our country now stands at a crossroads, indeed, the world stands at a crossroads where those values are very much at risk and it is up to each of us who care about wellbeing to do what we can to defend those principles. I want to thank all of you who have contributed to SR, particularly those of you who have scheduled an ongoing monthly contribution. It makes a big difference and is much appreciated. It is one thing to put in the hours each day and to do the work for free, but another to have to cover the rising out-of-pocket costs. For those of you who haven’t done so, but read SR regularly, I ask that you consider supporting it.
Hannah Natanson and Lauren Tierney, Education Reporter | Senior Graphics Reporter - The Washington Post
Stephan:
This is a tragic report on the effect the Great Schism Trend is having on the education of the young. To me, the main takeaway is that like everything else in this trend, the result is going to be that children in Red states are going be less educated, and less factually knowledgeable than children in Blue states. The long-term implications of this and everything else in The Great Schism Trend will be an inferior quality of wellbeing for those who live in states controlled by the TCP/Republican Party. Frankly, if I had young children, I would move to a Blue state.
Three-fourths of the nation’s school-aged students are now educated under state-level measures that either require more teaching on issues like race, racism, history, sex and gender, or which sharply limit or fully forbid such lessons, according to a sweeping Post review of thousands of state laws, gubernatorial directives and state school board policies. The restrictive laws alone affect almost half of all Americans aged 5 to 19.
Since 2017, 38 states have adopted 114 such laws, rules or orders, The Post found. The majority of policies are restrictive in nature: 66 percent circumscribe or ban lessons and discussions on some of society’s most sensitive topics, while 34 percent require or expand them. In one example, a 2023 Kentucky law forbids lessons on human sexuality before fifth grade and outlaws all instruction “exploring gender identity.” On the other hand, a 2021 Rhode Island law requires that all students learn “African Heritage and History” before high school graduation.
This kind of story gets no coverage except in a few environmental/ecological websites like EcoWatch, but it is a very big deal. It is telling us that our technologies and cultural patterns are destroying earth’s matrix of life. It is long past time we awakened to the realization that all life is interdependent and interconnected and that fostering wellbeing is the only safe road into the future.
New video footage released on April 11, 2024 shows that bleached corals on the southern part of the Great Barrier Reef extend to greater depths than has been reported during the current mass bleaching event. Credit: Australian Marine Conservation Society / Facebook screenshot
The Australian Marine Conservation Society (AMCS) has released video footage showing that the southern portion of the Great Barrier Reef is suffering from deep-sea coral bleaching, reported The Guardian.
The footage shows that the bleaching extends at least as far down as 59.1 feet — the deepest reported during this mass bleaching event, a press release from AMCS said. Some of the corals have begun to die in the face of record marine heat waves.
“I feel devastated. This bleaching event is the worst I have seen. It’s a severe bleaching event,” said Dr. Selina Ward, University of Queensland’s former academic director of the Heron Island Research Station, in the press release.
Ward reported extensive coral bleaching at all 16 southern Great Barrier Reef sites she had visited, saying it […]
Well, today one of criminal Trump’s trials has started. His worshipper’s and Trump himself constantly wail that he is being mistreated and victimized. In fact, as this report spells out in detail no person in American history has had so many special and exceptional treatments. Any other defendant would long ago have been sent to prison. What starts today is going to have an enormous effect on the legal system of the United States — for good or ill.
Criminal Donald Trump appears in court for his first arraignment, on April 4, 2023, in New York. Credit: Steven Hirsch
A firebrand politician named Donald is about to stand trial. Just a few days before jury selection, he goes on TV to slam the charges as baseless and biased.
“The FBI and the Justice Department,” he insists, have “targeted” their political opponents in a burst of partisan persecution.
The rhetoric sounds familiar, but this is not a story about Donald Trump. It’s about a man named Don Hill, a former Dallas City Council member who was facing bribery charges 15 years ago.
The telltale clue that this isn’t about Trump is what happened next: The judge, upset by the attempt to taint the jury pool, slapped the politician-turned-defendant with criminal contempt and ultimately sentenced him to 30 days in jail for violating a gag order.
Today, Trump routinely spouts invective far more inflammatory than anything Hill said. He denigrates prosecutors. He lies about his cases. He vilifies […]
I have become evermore concerned that AI is going to destroy humanity because we are not taking the steps we should to control it. Greed and a lust for power are devouring us. But there is still a chance if we can awaken to making fostering wellbeing our first priority. This is the best article I have read about what is going on, and what needs to be done to save us. Read it carefully.
President Joe Biden hands Vice President Kamala Harris the pen he used to sign a new executive order regarding artificial intelligence during an event in the White House on Oct. 30, 2023. Credit: Chip Somodevilla / Getty
Just over 10 months ago, the U.S. Senate started considering what the nation should do about the rise of artificial intelligence. I was there, testifying in front of the Senate hearing that kicked off months of frenzied AI focus on Capitol Hill, alongside OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and IBM’s Christina Montgomery. We answered question after question on how to regulate AI and what was at stake.
The overwhelming, bipartisan sense of the room was that the United States needed to address AI policy, urgently. Yet so far not one major piece of AI legislation has reached the floor.
At the time, Democrats and Republicans agreed that the Senate had been too slow to act on the explosive rise of social media, and the […]
This is a horrifying study of the state of elementary and high school education in the United States. There is no other developed democracy in the world that is experiencing anything remotely like the gun violence happening in America. It should be a matter of national shame but, instead, the TCP/Republican approach is to arm teachers so they go around in their schools carrying a gun. Really, they are actually proposing that.
Twenty-five years after the mass shooting at Columbine High School in Colorado, a majority of public K-12 teachers (59%) say they are at least somewhat worried about the possibility of a shooting ever happening at their school. This includes 18% who say they’re extremely or very worried, according to a new Pew Research Center survey.
How we did this
Another 31% of teachers say they are not too worried about a shooting occurring at their school. Only 7% of teachers say they are not at all worried.
About a quarter of teachers (23%) say they experienced a lockdown in the 2022-23 school year because of a gun or suspicion of a gun at their school. Some 15% say this happened once during the year, and 8% say this happened more than once.
High school teachers are most likely to report experiencing these lockdowns: 34% say their school went on […]
I have been watching the TCPs/Republicans trying to block the forgiving of student college debt and trying to figure out why they would be doing that, other than that they have no apparent interest in fostering the wellbeing of society. This is so clear that I continue to be stunned that the people who vote for these churls don’t seem to get that the people they are electing don’t give a damn about them. All they care about is status and power as they make clear almost every day. I know this will be taken as a partisan statement but it is not. Look at the social outcome data. TCP/Republican governance always produces inferior social wellbeing.
Credit: MD Duran / Unsplash
This Tuesday, seven states, led by Missouri’s Republican Attorney General, sued the Biden administration to stop his most recent attempt to reduce student debt. In a separate lawsuit, ten other Republican-controlled states filed a separate lawsuit to try to block the same Biden effort.
The week before, somebody slipped this little gem into Maria Cantwell’s must-pass legislation reauthorizing the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) (my inquiry to her press office was never answered):
“The Secretary, the Secretary of the Treasury, or the Attorney General may not take any action to cancel or forgive the outstanding balances, or portion of balances, on any Federal Direct Unsubsidized Stafford Loan, or otherwise modify the terms or conditions of a Federal Direct Unsubsidized Stafford Loan, made to an eligible student, except as authorized by an Act of Congress.”
In other words, it appears, they’re trying to use the force of law to prevent President Biden from forgiving a large category of student loans. As Forbes noted:
This is one of the most interesting stories I have seen about the recent eclipse, and I thought you might also find it interesting.
The April 8 eclipse as seen from Pinnacle Mountain State Park outside Little Rock, Ark. Credit: Lee Hedgepeth / Inside Climate News
Yesterday, all eyes pointed toward the sky as millions of people across parts of the U.S., Canada and Mexico witnessed the moon temporarily shroud the sun.
People traveled from around the country and world into the “path of totality” for this rare celestial event. Analysts projected that spending surrounding the total solar eclipse—such as booking hotels or dining out—could reach as high as as $6 billion. That’s about $300 million more than the Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour brought in for local economies within her path of totality during 2023, reported the Morning Brew.
For others, the eclipse offered a unique opportunity to study the environmental impacts of this temporary darkness—from unusual animal behaviors to solar power disruptions. Today, I wanted to spotlight some of these efforts and what experts have learned so far.
Solar Shrouding: For energy experts, a natural first […]
This article caught my attention, and I bring it to yours because it makes very clear that new technologies designed to cope with climate change are not always the initial successes they are originally thought to be, and it requires further changes in subsequent generations of the technology to get the benefit being sought. All of this takes time and experience, and we are running out of time, and we have a Congress so dysfunctional they’re not even interested.
Leafy vegetables grow indoors at Eden Green Technology in Cleburne, Texas Credit: Nitashia Johnson / The Washington Post
No one would argue that the climate in North Texas is ideal for growing lettuce, a crop that thrives when there’s a chill in the air. But the region’s broiling summers are of no concern to Eddy Badrina, chief executive of Eden Green Technology, a vertical, hydroponic greenhouse company just outside Dallas.
The company, which sells its leafy greens to Walmart, controls every aspect of a plant’s life. At its 82,500-square-foot facility, cool air is pumped in to create the ideal microclimate around each head of baby butterhead and romaine lettuce. Seven miles of pipes deliver nutrient-rich water. Although natural light floods the space — setting it apart from vertical farms that block out the sun in favor of controlled lighting — additional LED lights obey a programmed algorithm directing them to shine just the right amount of light on […]
