> > > WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans on Wednesday nominated Rep. Steve Scalise to be the next House speaker and will now try to unite around the conservative in a floor vote to elect him after ousting Rep. Kevin McCarthy from the post. > > > > In private balloting at the Capitol, House Republicans pushed aside Rep. Jim Jordan, the Judiciary Committee chairman, in favor of Scalise, the current majority leader, lawmakers said. The Louisiana lawmaker is seen as a hero to some after surviving a mass shooting on lawmakers at a congressional baseball game practice few years ago. > > > > Republicans who have been stalemated after McCarthy’s removal will seek to assemble their narrow House majority around Scalise in what is certain to be a close vote of the full House. Democrats are set to oppose the Republican nominee. > > > > THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below. > > > > WASHINGTON (AP) — Stalemated over a new House speaker, the Republican majority is meeting behind closed doors Wednesday to try to choose a new leader, but lawmakers warn it could take hours, if not days, to unite behind a nominee after Kevin McCarthy’s ouster. > > > > The two leading contenders, Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana and Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan of Ohio, appear to be splitting the vote among their Republican colleagues. McCarthy, who had openly positioned himself to reclaim the job he just lost, told fellow GOP lawmakers not to nominate him this time. > > > > “I don’t know how the hell you get to 218,” said Rep. Troy Nehls, R-Texas, referring to the majority vote typically needed in the 435-member House to become speaker. “It could be a long week.” > > > > It’s an extraordinary moment of political chaos that has brought the House to a standstill at a time of uncertainty at home and crisis abroad, just 10 months after Republicans swept to power. Aspiring to operate as a team and run government more like a business, the GOP majority has drifted far from that goal with the unprecedented ouster of a speaker. > > > > Americans are watching. One-quarter of Republicans say they approve of the decision by a small group of Republicans to remove McCarthy as speaker. Three in 10 Republicans believe it was a mistake, according to a poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. > > > > The hard-right coalition of lawmakers that ousted McCarthy, R-Calif., has shown what an oversize role a few lawmakers can have in choosing his successor. > > > > “I am not thrilled with either choice right now,” said Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colo., who voted to oust McCarthy. > > > > Both Scalise and Jordan are working furiously to shore up support. Both are easily winning over dozens of supporters and could win a majority of the 221 Republicans. > > > > But it’s unclear whether either Scalise or Jordan can amass the votes that would be needed from almost all Republicans to overcome opposition from Democrats during a floor vote in the narrowly split House. Usually, the majority needed would be 218 votes, but there are currently two vacant seats, dropping the threshold to 217. > > > > Many Republicans want to prevent the spectacle of a messy House floor fight like the grueling January brawl when McCarthy became speaker. > > > > “People are not comfortable going to the floor with a simple majority and then having C-SPAN and the rest of the world watch as we have this fight,” said Rep. Kat Cammack, R-Fla. “We want to have this family fight behind closed doors.” > > > > Some have proposed a rules change that Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., the interim speaker pro tempore, is considering to ensure a majority vote before the nominee is presented for a full floor vote. > > > > McCarthy himself appeared to agree with a consensus approach. “They shouldn’t come out of there until they decide that they have enough votes for whoever they bring to the floor,” McCarthy said. > > > > But short of a rules change, Republican lawmakers would be expected to agree to a majority-wins process — whichever candidate wins the internal private vote would be given the full backing of the Republicans on the floor. > > > > It’s no guarantee. Scalise and Jordan indicated they would support the eventual nominee, lawmakers said. But many lawmakers remained undecided. > > > > While both are conservatives from the right flank, neither Scalise nor Jordan is the heir apparent to McCarthy, who was removed in a push by the far-right flank after the speaker led Congress to approve legislation that averted a government shutdown. > > > > Scalise, as the second-ranking Republican, would be next in line for speaker and is seen as a hero among colleagues for having survived severe injuries from a mass shooting during a congressional baseball practice in 2017. He is now battling blood cancer. > > > > “We’re going to go get this done,” Scalise said as he left a candidate forum Tuesday night. “The House is going to get back to work.” > > > > Jordan is a high-profile political firebrand known for his close alliance with Donald Trump, particularly when the then-president was working to overturn the results of the 2020 election, leading to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. Trump has backed Jordan’s bid for the gavel. > > > > Scalise and Jordan presented similar views at the forum about cutting spending and securing the southern border with Mexico, top Republican priorities. > > > > Several lawmakers, including Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., who engineered McCarthy’s ouster, said they would be willing to support either Scalise or Jordan. > > > > Others though, particularly more centrist conservative Republicans from districts that are narrowly split between the parties, are holding out for another choice. > > > > “Personally, I’m still with McCarthy,” said Rep. David Valadao, a Republican who represents a California district not far from McCarthy’s. > > > > “We’ll see how that plays out, but I do know a large percentage of the membership wants to be there with him as well.” > > > > “I think it’s important whoever takes that job is willing to risk the job for doing what’s right for the American public,” McCarthy said. > > > > For now, McHenry is effectively in charge. He has shown little interest in expanding his power beyond the role he was assigned — an interim leader tasked with ensuring the election of the next speaker. > > > > The role was created in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to ensure the continuity of government. McHenry’s name was at the top of a list submitted by McCarthy when he became speaker in January. > > > > While some Republicans, and Democrats are open to empowering McHenry the longer he holds the temporary position, that seems unlikely as the speaker’s fight drags on. > >

I'll turn you on like a tiger baby Hard body motor city love life I'll take you for a ride down the midway baby Be my little human sacrifice Do my kisses burn? Do they take your breath You've got a lesson to learn now I'm the kiss of death History is written by winner baby So let's make a little of our own tonight If you're thinking that my idea for fun is a drag Then you've never been to paradise

> > > * In the southern Philippines’ Misamis Oriental province, Indigenous Higaonon practice a forest management tradition known as panlaoy. > > > * Panlaoy requires immersion in the forest, with participants observing, documenting and assessing the condition of the ecosystem and any threats to it. > > > * The practice is integral to the protection of an area of recognized customary land encompassing 17,553 hectares (43,374 acres) of forest inhabited by around 10,000 people. > > > * Guided by tribal elders, Higaonon youth volunteers known as basbasonon are trained to be the next generation of cultural bearers and forest vanguards. > > > > > > Michellejean Pinuhan, an Indigenous Higaonon, completed her bachelor’s degree in agriculture entrepreneurship in 2022. Then, instead of working in the city after graduation, she chose to return to her roots in the Mount Sumagaya region, in the southern Philippines. > > > > The 23-year-old is part of a cohort of Indigenous youths known as basbasonon (second-liners): volunteers keeping alive an ancient forest monitoring practice known as panlaoy that helps protect ecosystems on the slopes of this biodiversity-rich mountain in Misamis Oriental province. > > > > Elders prepare the basbasonon to be the next cultural bearers and forest vanguards, and expose them to panlaoy and other cultural traditions. > > > > Panlaoy requires immersion in the forest, where participants observe, document and assess the condition of the ecosystem and any threats to it. It’s preceded by a pagbala (foretelling) ritual that involves predicting the permissibility of panlaoy through a bottle containing oil infused with medicinal herbs. > > > > Pinuhan’s father, Mantundaan Perfecto, is a datu (traditional leader), responsible for performing pagbala to seek their guardian spirits’ consent for the annual conduct of panlaoy. > > > > Pinuhan says she can vividly recall the ceremony her father conducted ahead of her first panlaoy in 2021: The 67-year-old datu tied a string around the bottle’s tip, suspended it in the air, and began questioning the spirits. > > > > “We were watching him performing pagbala in a hut in the middle of an umahan [farmland] at the foothills of Sumagaya,” Pinuhan told Mongabay in a video interview. “It’s surprising to see the bottle swayed in the air every time it was asked, signifying the spirits’ affirmation.” > > > > This, she says, is how participants know when the spirits allow panlaoy and what they want as an offering in exchange for the group’s entry into the forest. The ritual ended with a thanksgiving prayer to the Magbabaya (Supreme Being). > > > > The following day, Pinuhan and her fellow basbasonon gathered at the tribal center. A squealing pig broke their silence as elders slaughtered it as an offering. In keeping with tradition, they all touched its crimson blood for blessings and for protection against dangers in the forest. > > > > The five-day trek involved passing by springs and waterfalls, most of them revered by the tribe as sacred places. They took frequent stops to introduce the basbasonon to culturally important plants and animals they encountered along the cold, misty trail. > > > > Panlaoy has become an informal school for passing on the Higaonon traditional ecological knowledge from one generation to the next. Participants say it also provides an opportunity for youths to internalize traditional forest resource management practices, and to learn about their people’s collective struggle for land and self-determination. > > > > During the panlaoy, Pinuhan says, she learned how Higaonon customary law forbids anyone from uprooting plants, especially those with known medicinal value. When sick, customs allow only for the collection of leaves, bark or roots based on the dosage prescribed by their balyan (tribal healer). > > > > “Through panlaoy, I’ve understood better the importance of our forest to us natives; it’s where we get our daily sustenance, from food to medicine, so without it we won’t exist,” Pinuhan says of her experience. “That’s why panlaoy is crucial because it allows us to monitor our vast forest and its state.” > > > > Indigenous forest stewardship > > > > Philippine Indigenous communities, as elsewhere in the world, have historically been dispossessed of land and resources, but are organizing to get their rights respected. > > > > In 2001, Higaonon communities in this part of Misamis Oriental province formed a group called MAMACILA, an acronym for the four villages where members came from. In 2009, the Philippines’ Indigenous peoples’ commission issued the organization an ancestral domain title covering 17,553 hectares (43,374 acres) of land inhabited by around 10,000 people. > > > > A 2016 Mindanao State University (MSU) study revealed that the area is home to at least 52 floral species belonging to 19 families, many of which are endangered and endemic yet grow in abundance in the area and are economically and socially significant to the tribe. In 2014, four new-to-science species of carnivorous pitcher plant from the genus Nepenthes were described from Mt. Sumagaya and assessed as threatened with extinction. > > > > MSU biology professor Frandel Louis Dagoc, who was part of the plant assessment, says the ancestral domain’s high floral diversity is an indicator of the effective traditional management strategies and sustainable harvesting employed by the Higaonon even before external interventions. > > > > A faunal survey that Dagoc is also a part of revealed the area is home to 22 bird species endemic to the Philippines, notably the critically endangered Philippine eagle (Pithecophaga jefferyi) — the national bird — and a variety of reptiles, mammals and amphibians. > > > > “Their forest protection activities are strongly linked to their IKSP [Indigenous knowledge systems and practices],” Dagoc told Mongabay in an email. “This might be the reason for their strong stewardship and commitment in protecting and conserving their ancestral lands thus exhibiting high floral diversity in their ancestral lands and identified ICCAs [Indigenous and community conserved areas].” > > > > The Higaonon implement a set of resource use, harvesting and hunting policies. In their high-elevation pina, or strict protection zone, which covers 9,940 hectares (24,562 acres), or 57% of their total ancestral domain, all subsistence activities that affect wildlife, burial grounds or heritage and historical sites are customarily prohibited. > > > > The rest of MAMACILA’s land is delineated as bahaw-bahaw (buffer zone), where traditional and low-impact subsistence activities are permitted in accordance with traditional regulatory measures. Hunting, for example, is allowed, but with a closed season during the breeding period to allow wildlife to reproduce. Except for shelter-making purposes, the Higaonon also prohibit the cutting of trees, especially those known to be inhabited by bees that sustain their honey collecting and farming livelihoods. > > > > “We need to conduct panlaoy to ensure whether harvesting and hunting are done sustainably,” Datu Pinuhan tells Mongabay. Violators of customary laws, Higaonon or not, are subjected to the sala justice system, under which they’re punished based on the degree of misconduct. For instance, people caught renting or selling communal lands pay material fines to the organization, with repeat offenders facing banishment from the area. > > > > Recognizing panlaoy’s contribution to forest conservation, the local government has adopted and annually subsidized it since 2011 through a program called bantay kalasan, which enlists the help of some 80 Higaonon to conduct forest patrols and biodiversity monitoring twice a month. > > > > “Their financial support is really a big help to us Higaonons,” MAMACILA chairperson Erlinda Morga tells Mongabay. “Instead of leaving the forest to work for non-natives, we’re compensated while monitoring the environmental conditions of our ancestral domain.” > > > > However, the Higaonon territory is constantly under threat from land clearing and grabbing, issues that endanger their access to their land and resources, and, by extension, the practice of panlaoy and other age-old traditions that help conserve the country’s biodiversity-rich forests. > > > > Land grabbing and other threats > > > > While approaching the buffer and no-touch zones, another basbasonon recalls encountering evidence that tribal prohibitions had been violated. A “no trespassing” sign, placed by non-native encroachers, cordoned off the once-verdant area. > > > > “Although we’re young, we can feel that our land is in danger,” says basbasonon Enrique Pallo Jr., adding he suspects the land was cleared for ecotourism and human settlement. > > > > Pinuhan says one elder tested the youths’ commitment and courage by asking whether they would still continue being panlaoy volunteers despite seeing these threats. “I will not stop because it would otherwise be a waste of time if we just simply quit,” she recalls responding. > > > > “I know that it’s us who will ultimately benefit from this,” she recalls telling herself as the group continued into a forest where ancient native trees were cloaked in moss and shrouded in late afternoon fog. “We may not resolve it this time, but someday we will; it’s like rain that ends as the sun rises.” > > > > New legislation > > > > Higaonon and other Philippine Indigenous communities have placed high hopes in the passage of a proposed bill on Indigenous and community conserved areas that would recognize existing customary and traditional governance of ancestral domains as effective conservation measures. The bill proposes the creation of a national ICCA registry where listed Indigenous territories are prioritized in government-led forest protection initiatives. > > > > “If our area isn’t declared as an ICCA, we fear that the selling and buying of land becomes widespread and covers even our pina,” says MAMACILA’s Morga. “When that happens, outsiders will just encroach, and we’ll lose our herbal medicine, our sacred sites … Our lives and culture rely on the forest; without it, we will vanish.” > > > > Philippine ICCA Consortium president Giovanni Reyes tells Mongabay that the bill supports Indigenous communities’ aspiration to preserve “areas they consider unalterable in terms of land use.” > > > > “ICCAs form the heart of ancestral domain,” Reyes says. “Destroying these through large scale extractives in the name of development is like stabbing a person’s heart to save the person from illness.” > > > > Pointing to cases where he says even policies calling for mandatory free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) are can be used to manipulate and coerce Indigenous communities to endorse projects on their land, Reyes says the proposed bill “serves as an additional layer of protection to this inherent [Indigenous] right to defend territory against land intrusion and land grabbing.” > > > > “The ICCA bill disallows FPIC processes once communities declare these as ICCAs,” Reyes adds. “Meaning, when people say no to a project because it affects a sacred site, then that means there is no community desire to go through a process that gets rigged and manipulated in favor of an applicant private company,” such as an energy or mining company. > > > > While the bill languishes in the Senate, the Higaonon are lobbying for a municipal ordinance declaring their ancestral domain a locally conserved area in hopes of freeing their territory from invasions. “Through panlaoy, we hope to document our wildlife and other natural resources so as to convince the government to recognize it as locally protected,” said Morga. > > > > Climate change makes the weather unpredictable and the trail treacherous on Mt. Sumagaya, but Pallo Jr., now 23, is determined to join again in this year’s panlaoy as a basbasonon. As pandemic restrictions continue to ease, he’s also looking forward to attending a series of community dialogues with non-native land claimants and relevant government agencies to address encroachments on their ancestral domain. > > > > “I draw inspiration from the next generations of Higaonons,” he says. “Where will they go when the forest is gone?” > >

> > > Cities are hot. When you cover the ground with asphalt and concrete, jam millions of cars together on congested streets, and erect thousands of buildings that leak their own heat, you create what experts call an “urban heat island.” Daytime temperatures in these places can be as much as 7 degrees Fahrenheit higher than surrounding rural areas, and things don’t get much cooler at night. > > > > As climate change fuels a succession of historic heat waves, the urban heat island effect in many American cities is pushing the limits of human survivability. That’s the case in desert cities like Phoenix, where temperatures crested 110 degrees F for 30 straight days this summer, and also in cooler climes like Chicago, which has seen a series of scalding triple-digit weeks over the past few months. > > > > Dealing with this type of heat requires more than isolated interventions — reflective roofs here or mist machines there. Rather, the crisis of the past summer has shown that most American urban centers will need to consider a revamp from the ground up. > > > > Drawing on feedback from climate experts, architects, and urban planners, as well as successful technologies pioneered by warm-weather communities around the world, Grist set out to design a city built from scratch to handle extreme heat, all while reducing carbon emissions. The buildings and streets in this cool metropolis incorporate basic design principles such as shade and foliage, but they also include bespoke architectural solutions such as wind-trapping towers and special absorbent polymers. The finished product shows how much work is needed to adapt to the extremes of climate change, but it also shows how much more humane and people-oriented our cities can be. > > > > City Centers > > > > With their tall towers of steel, abundant concrete, and frequent lack of green space, dense downtown areas are known for scorching temperatures that last day and night. But there are many design elements that can help cool these cityscapes, from shaded sidewalks and bus stops to reflective glass. Even the positioning of tall buildings, like those on a street like Manhattan’s 5th Avenue, can create what is known as an “urban canyon,” blocking the sun from reaching the street during the morning and the afternoon. This keeps the pavement cool for most of the day, and reduces the risk of heat stroke and overexposure. > > > > “You can’t generalize and say that density is bad,” said Sara Meerow, an associate professor of urban planning at Arizona State University who studies heat risks. “If you plan your density well, you can build in ways that are not going to increase heat risks.” > > > > Click and drag the 360º panorama below to explore > > > > Florencia Fuertes / Grist > > > > 1. SHADED STRUCTURES: Waiting 20 minutes for the bus in triple-digit weather isn’t just unpleasant — it can be dangerous. Bus stops, train stations, and other outdoor transit facilities are some of the biggest heat pinch points in the urban environment. The easiest way to address this risk is to install shade structures. But urban planners told Grist communities need to make sure these are big enough to fit more than a person or two if they hope to increase ridership: Earlier this year, Los Angeles debuted a prototype called La Sombrita, which was designed to provide shade to people at bus stops in places where the city couldn’t build full shelters. But the structure was so skinny that it couldn’t block out the sun for more than one person at a time. > > > 2. TREES: It might seem simplistic, but planting trees and other vegetation is one of the most effective heat-mitigation strategies available. During the summer time, the area below a tree receives just 10 to 30 percent of the sun’s energy. The transpiration of water through their leaves also has a cooling effect, and combined with shade, it can lower temperatures by 2 to 9 degrees Fahrenheit. What’s more, trees come with other benefits, like improving air quality and reducing runoff. Unfortunately, there is a long history of low-income and minority neighborhoods — communities that were historically redlined and received fewer government resources — lacking greencover. A 2021 analysis found that neighborhoods with majority-people of color had on average 33 percent fewer trees compared to majority-white neighborhoods. To reverse this discrimination, many cities are targeting their tree planting campaigns toward these neighborhoods. > > > 3. MISTERS: Even with shade structures available, bus stops and public plazas can still be overwhelmingly hot. An easy way to reduce the danger in these waiting areas, and provide passersby with a little refreshment as well, is to install misting machines or fountains in the places where the heat is most intense. These misters use a fraction as much water as the average home, so they’re feasible even in desert climes: The city of Phoenix, for instance, installed a mister at a bus shelter in the Uptown neighborhood, an area that doesn’t have many trees. The creators of the popular pilot picked a west-facing bus stop, helping to combat its long afternoon sun exposure. > > > 4. COOL PAVEMENT: Ever walked across a parking lot and felt the heat burn through your shoes? Pavements heat up when they absorb energy from the sun. So-called “cool pavements,” however, are made with materials that reflect more energy than they absorb and porous materials that allow for evaporative cooling. There are a lot of options on the market: Traditional concrete pavements can be modified by using reflective binders instead of asphalt ones. Others use resin from trees as binders. Porous asphalt, rubberized asphalt, and bricks made from clay also increase reflectivity and porosity. And vegetative pavements consist of intricate lattice structures made of plastic, metal, or concrete with space for grass to grow. These pavements are also often painted in light colors that reflect more heat. > > > > > > But cool pavements have one major downside. When the sun is at its highest, heat reflected off its surface can actually be absorbed by the people and structures nearby. “During the midday hours, from about 11 to 1, the cooler pavement does increase the radiant heat burden,” said V. Kelly Turner, an associate professor of Urban Planning and Geography at the University of California, Los Angeles. To counter that, cities should target them for areas that are highly trafficked in the morning and evening hours, she said. > > > > 1. URBAN CANYON EFFECT: While tall buildings are typically associated with exacerbating the urban heat island effect, they can also provide heat relief by providing shade when positioned correctly. High-rise buildings block sunlight and create canyons or passages that are cooler than surrounding areas during the day. In the Middle East, traditional construction practices include aligning buildings with sunlight and wind direction in order to provide shade and increase airflow, which reduces temperatures. These arterial roads, called “sikkak,” are narrow alleyways within blocks and increase walkability in neighborhoods, improve pedestrian safety, and have lower temperatures. They’re commonly found in markets and historic centers in Middle Eastern cities. Urban planners in Abu Dhabi employed sikkak to increase connectivity within larger blocks. > > > 2. REFLECTIVE GLASS: Reflective glass can also prevent buildings from absorbing too much heat as the sun shines through their windows, though engineers warn these installations need to be done carefully. If pointed to the ground, the reflected sunlight and its heat can make conditions worse. The windows on London’s famous Walkie Talkie skyscraper, for example, used to melt metal and plastic at street level until the designers fitted it with a set of louvered sunshades known as a “brise soleil.” > > > 3. GREEN WALLS: Skyscrapers themselves absorb a lot of sun, and keeping them cool can be challenging. One way is to deck out the facade of a building with ivy or another variety of plant: Not only do the leaves and foliage block the sun before it can heat up the surface of the building, they also cool down the surrounding air when they release water through a process known as evapotranspiration. Foliage-covered structures have become prevalent in Middle Eastern cities like Tel Aviv. > > > 4. AIR FLOW: To increase air flow, some designers of supertall buildings in Chinese coastal cities have opened up the base floors of their towers, creating openings that allow cooling sea breezes to pass through. This effect is even more powerful when combined with trees that blunt the sun’s heat. “If you fill that [urban] canyon… with street trees, or you rip out the first floor of a building, then where the people actually are walking around, they’re not going to be exposed to the same level of heat,” said Evan Mallen, a researcher at the Georgia Institute of Technology who studies the relationship between heat and building design. > > > > > > Residential Areas > > > > But most American space is not high-rise. More than half of the U.S. population lives in what they identify as more of a suburban area, peppered with single-family homes and low-rise office buildings in layouts that rely on car travel. Many of the solutions that apply to dense cities, such as shade and trees, can be applied here, but these communities also have different challenges — and solutions. For one, more than half of all the energy used in single-family homes comes from heating and air conditioning. Overall, home cooling accounts for 6 percent of total electricity consumption in the U.S. Building smarter, more heat-resilient homes, particularly with sustainable or natural materials, can lower temperatures and energy bills, and reduce the associated carbon emissions that come with AC use. > > > > “That is the future,” said Turner. “We are a ways off from it, but we need to be coming up with ways to make scalable building homes with [natural] materials. As a general rule of thumb, the more unnatural the material is, the more it becomes like hot pavement.” > > > > Click and drag the 360º panorama below to explore > > > > Florencia Fuertes / Grist > > > > 1. WINDOW FILMS AND AWNINGS: During the summer, more than three-fourths of the sunlight that falls on windows becomes heat. Shade structures like awnings or overhangs and reflective coatings can help keep the heat out. Since these structures also reflect sunlight during winter months, they’re best used in regions of the country with high temperatures year-round. For regions that are warm primarily during the summer months, interior shades such as blinds, shutters, and curtains may be best. To straddle both climes, researchers are also developing thin adhesive films that reflect heat when temperatures are high and remain transparent at lower temperatures. While these smart windows are available on the market, they can be cost prohibitive for most homeowners. > > > 2. COOLING TOWERS: Wind catchers, tall chimney-like towers attached to the sides of homes and buildings, are great passive cooling systems and make use of pressure differences within a building to increase ventilation. These “Barjeel” towers are a common sight in the United Arab Emirates and other Gulf countries. Air entering the building is cooled down through wet cloths; warmer air inside the structure rises and escapes through towers. The wind catchers are typically four-sided, although cylindrical, hexahedral, and tetrahedral towers also exist. A variation of this idea is the solar chimney, which has been around for centuries. A chimney structure made with heat-absorbing materials such as glass or metals is used to heat a specific section of air within a building. As the hot air rises, it creates a natural vertical ventilation flow that circulates cool air. > > > 3. REFLECTIVE SURFACES: Painting roofs, walls, and pavements white is a cheap and effective way to reduce temperatures. From the Cycladic Islands of Greece to cities in Rajasthan, India, those who live in Mediterranean and tropical climates have long harnessed the ability of white paint to reflect heat and keep communities cool. A growing number of cities already have “cool roof” requirements in their building codes. The products available on the market range from a straightforward pot of white paint to a special goo that rolls out on city streets and can reduce surface temperatures anywhere from 8 to 20 degrees Fahrenheit. “The availability of cool roofs is ubiquitous across almost all roof types,” said Kurt Shickman, the director of extreme heat initiatives at Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center. “From a market perspective, it’s a no brainer… More recently, bringing that cool paint technology down to streets and parking lots, that’s something that a lot of cities have been experimenting with.” > > > 4. COVERED PLAYGROUNDS: Playgrounds, with their metal slides, swings, and even the dark asphalt on the ground, are some of the hottest parts of a city. Researchers have found that temperatures of playground equipment can get as high as 189 degrees — hot enough to burn a kid’s skin in less than three seconds. A key culprit is the material used to design them: Rubber play surfaces, metal ladders, handlebars, and railings, artificial turf, and other synthetic materials all retain heat, have a higher conductivity to skin, and cause higher air temperatures. > > > > > > So what’s the solution? Shade. Whether natural or built, shade can dramatically lower temperatures and create a much safer play environment for children. A shaded playground, whether that’s from a large elm tree or tarp or some other structure, can be 30 to 40 degrees cooler. In Jackson, Mississippi, two moms designed canopies that cover 75 percent of a local playground. The shade sails also have an added benefit: protection from ultraviolet rays. “It’s like wearing sunscreen without having to wear it,” one of the moms told a local TV station. > > > > 1. CONSTRUCTION MATERIALS: Designing homes with materials that have insulating properties is one way to reduce the need for air conditioning — and the costs and carbon emissions that come along with it. Materials such as stone, concrete, clay, and mud have an ability to absorb and retain heat as opposed to conducting it through during the day, which keeps inside temperatures low. When these materials are shaped into blocks with air pockets, they’re particularly good at providing thermal insulation. Air is a poor conductor of heat, and air cavities in building materials can prevent heat penetration. These methods stand in stark contrast to the common building typologies in the United States, where more than 90 percent of new homes are made out of wood. > > > > Researchers are also increasingly experimenting with so-called phase change materials, substances that melt at specific temperatures, thereby absorbing heat from the surrounding area and cooling it down. Paraffinic waxes and different types of salt hydrates are some common types of phase change materials. When injected into walls, floors, and roofs, they’ve been found to lower temperatures by up to 7 degrees Fahrenheit. One study in Casablanca, Morocco, found that when the roofs of homes contained a copolymer made of ethylene and paraffin, temperatures indoors declined by 2.7 degrees. While there are a few companies offering construction materials infused with phase change materials on the market, it hasn’t yet found widespread commercial success, and the Department of Energy has several studies underway to assess the effectiveness of the technology. > > > > Commercial Zones > > > > Outside of skyscraper-filled downtowns and leafy suburban neighborhoods, most American cities also contain expanses of factories, shopping, warehouses, and industrial sites — areas that can’t be ignored in the planning for heat-proof cityscapes. Big-box stores and strip malls may blast AC on the inside, but they tend to be barren of trees, congested with heat-emitting cars, and surrounded by asphalt parking lots. The same is true for manufacturing areas, where power plants and factories also leak heat into surrounding streets. > > > > Solving this thermal buildup isn’t as simple as installing a mister or increasing airflow — urban designers need to plan from the ground up with reflective materials and ample shade to reduce the urban heat island effect and make these commercial spaces safe for daily use as temperatures climb. > > > > Click and drag the 360º panorama below to explore > > > > Florencia Fuertes / Grist > > > > 1. WASTE HEAT CAPTURE: In addition to creating a large buffer around industrial facilities, companies can also cut down on waste heat by investing in heat capture technology. A heat exchanger at a big factory can suck up leaking heat and cycle it back into the facility, which also cuts down on energy demand. This capture can make a building more energy efficient by capturing the 20 to 50 percent of energy that gets wasted as heat. One estimate from the Environmental Protection Agency suggests that catching the usable waste heat in the U.S. could generate 7.6 gigawatts of power, enough juice for millions of homes. > > > 2. BUFFER ZONES: Factories run huge generators at all hours of the day, pouring heat onto surrounding streets. Power plants combust natural gas in the heat of summer to power air conditioners across the city. Semi-trucks idle on big trucking routes and depots, burning diesel as they stand still. All of this industrial activity generates what researchers call “waste heat.” Experts say the best way to mitigate this heat is through good urban design. If a city concentrates factories in one neighborhood, it should place a protective buffer around those factories, separating them from residential areas with forests or green space. The same is true for peak-load power plants, which in cities like New York often sit mere feet away from large apartment complexes. > > > 3. PUBLIC TRANSIT:The way we design transportation systems is key to combating high temperatures. A car-choked thoroughfare produces much more waste heat than a tram or bus lane. “Land use and urban development patterns matter,” said Meerow. “We need to be making sure that we’re conserving open spaces…and promoting alternative forms of transit does kind of have a heat benefit.” In addition, these systems need to have reliable service. If buses and trams arrive on time and at short intervals, people can plan their trips so they don’t have to wait for 20 minutes in the heat. > > > 4. SOLAR PANELS ON PARKING: Parking lots can get extremely hot, from the vast dark pavement to the metal cars that soak up heat. But there’s a win-win option available: Cover these lots with solar panels that double as shade structures. Not only do the panels stop cars, pavement, and people from overheating, but the solar energy generated can power the nearby stores, giving businesses a discount on their monthly energy bills. Such setups can be found from the Lincoln Financial Field stadium, home to the Philadelphia Eagles, to France, which passed a law last year requiring solar panels in all large parking lots. > > > 5. GREEN ROOFS AND WALLS: While reflective paint is a quick and easy way to reduce rooftop heat absorption, many cities have also experimented with putting foliage on rooftops and along walls of large-footprint buildings. Even a thin layer of leaves — such as ivy or creepers — can block the intensity of the sun’s rays, which also reduces the need to crank up the air conditioning on the inside. The foliage on these roofs can range from low rows of shrubs to trees, depending on how much water and maintenance a building owner can provide. > > > >

> > > Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is dropping out of the Democratic primary race against Joe Biden to launch an independent campaign for president next year, he said in a speech on Monday. > > > > Speaking to a crowd in front of the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, he cast his decision to leave the party his family has symbolized for decades as in keeping with American values of individualism -- and his own platform, which mixes liberal policy priorities with tougher rhetoric on immigration and controversial claims about public health. > > > > "Something is stirring in us. It says, 'It doesn't have to be this way,'" Kennedy said. "People stop me everywhere, at airports and hotels and malls on the street, and they remind me that this country is ready for a history-making change. ... They are ready to reclaim their freedom, their independence. And that's why I'm here today. I'm here to declare myself an independent candidate … for president of the United States." > > > > "I'm coming here today to declare our independence from the journey of corruption, which robs us of affordable lives, our belief in the future and our respect for each other. But to do that, I must first declare my own independence, independence from the Democratic Party," he said. > > > > An attorney and activist, Kennedy is the scion of one of the country's most famous Democratic families: His father is slain Sen. Robert F. Kennedy Sr. and his uncle is former President John F. Kennedy. > PHOTO: Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. speaks during a campaign event at Independence Mall, Oct. 9, 2023, in Philadelphia. > > > > Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. speaks during a campaign event at Independence Mall, Oct. 9, 2023, in Philadelphia. > > > > Matt Rourke/AP > > > > The younger Kennedy in April launched a long shot bid against Biden for the 2024 Democratic nomination. > > > > Since then, however, Kennedy has attracted relatively little support from Democrats in national polling, according to 538, though he has drawn millions in donations from a base of supporters. > > > > An independent bid is a new twist in next year's election -- at a time when surveys consistently show voters have soured on a potential rematch between Biden and former President Donald Trump -- though it's not yet clear if Kennedy can draw enough voters away from the two-party system. > > > > Teasing his Philadelphia speech last week as one that would create a “sea change in American politics,” Kennedy’s announcement follows mounting speculation about his future in the party after repeatedly sparring with the Democratic National Committee over the rules governing its primary and complaints of an unfair process. > > > > At Monday's event, Kennedy called out some of his relatives for attending in support. Others in the family, however, have been vocally critical. Sister Kerry Kennedy released a statement on social media from her and three of their siblings calling his candidacy "perilous for our country." > > > > Author and speaker Marianne Williamson is now the only notable challenger to Biden in the Democratic primary, though he continues to poll far ahead of her and party officials have said they support his reelection. > > > > Kennedy drew a sharp rebuke from Democrats over the summer after he was recorded citing a false conspiracy theory that COVID-19 was "targeted to" certain ethnicities while Chinese people and Jews of European descent were more immune. In a later appearance before a House committee, he denied that he is racist or antisemitic. > > > > Kennedy said last month that he had not ruled out an independent run to challenge the presumptive Democratic and Republican nominees in the November 2024 election, despite having repeatedly ruled out such a possibility over the summer. > > > > "I'm a Democrat. You know, I'm a traditional Democrat, and … part of my mission here is to summon the Democratic Party back to its traditional ideals," Kennedy told Fox News in August. > > > > But in September, he refused to rule out the possibility of an independent run during a campaign town hall in North Charleston, South Carolina, telling a supporter he was “going to keep all my options open." > > > > At the time, Kennedy’s campaign manager, former Rep. Dennis Kucinich, dismissed the idea of him leaving the Democratic primary. > > > > “Regardless of what's been said, even by the candidate himself, we have not abandoned hope for the Democratic Party," he told ABC News when asked about Kennedy’s apparent openness to an independent run. > > > > Last week, the Kennedy-aligned American Values 2024 political group said that it had been polling him as an independent candidate. > > > > “I can tell you that I think the right move is for him to run as an independent,” Tony Lyons, American Values' co-chair, told ABC News last week. > >

> > > I don't know what the world may need, but I'm sure as hell that it starts with me, and that's a wisdom I have laughed at > > > > I don't know what the world may want > But a good stiff drink it surely don't > So I think I'll go and fix myself a tall one > > > > 'Cause what the world needs now is a new kind of tension > 'Cause the old one just bores me to death > 'Cause what the world needs now is another folk singer > Like I need a hole in my head > > > > I don't know what the world may need > But a V-8 engine's a good start for me > I think I'll drive and find a place to be surly > > > > I don't know what the world may want > But some words of wisdom could comfort us > Think I'll leave that up to someone wiser > > > > 'Cause what the world needs now are some true words of wisdom > Like la la la la la la la la la > 'Cause what the world needs now is another folk singer > Like I need a hole in my head > > > > I don't know what the world may need > And I'll never grasp your complexities > I'd be happy just to get your attention > I don't know what the world may want > But your long sweet body lying next to mine > Could certainly raise my spirits > > > > 'Cause what the world needs now is a new Frank Sinatra > So I can get you in bed > What the world needs now is another folk singer > Like I need a hole in my head > > > > What the world needs now > What the world needs now is another folk singer > Like I need a hole in my head > What the world needs now > What the world needs now is a new Frank Sinatra > So I can get you in bed > What the world needs now > What the world needs now is another folk singer > Like I need a hole in my head > What the world needs now > What the world needs now is another folk singer > Like I need a hole in my head > >

> > > In recent days, Democrats have tried to show our colleagues in the Republican majority a way out of the dysfunction and rancor they have allowed to engulf the House. That path to a better place is still there for the taking. > > > > Over the past several weeks, when it appeared likely that a motion to vacate the office of speaker was forthcoming, House Democrats repeatedly raised the issue of entering into a bipartisan governing coalition with our Republican counterparts, publicly as well as privately. > > > > It was my sincere hope that House Democrats and more traditional Republicans would be able to reach an enlightened arrangement to end the chaos in the House, allowing us to work together to make life better for everyday Americans while protecting national security. > > > > Regrettably, at every turn, House Republicans have categorically rejected making changes to the rules designed to accomplish two objectives: encourage bipartisan governance and undermine the ability of extremists to hold Congress hostage. Indeed, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) publicly declared more than five hours before the motion to vacate was brought up for a vote that he would not work with House Democrats as a bipartisan coalition partner. That declaration mirrored the posture taken by House Republicans in the weeks leading up to the motion-to-vacate vote. It also ended the possibility of changing the House rules to facilitate a bipartisan governance structure. > > > > Things further deteriorated from there. Less than two hours after the speakership was vacated upon a motion brought by a member of the GOP conference, House Republicans ordered Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and former majority leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) to “vacate” their hideaway offices in the Capitol. The decision to strip Speaker Emerita Pelosi and Leader Hoyer of office space was petty, partisan and petulant. > > > > House Republicans have lashed out at historic public servants and tried to shift blame for the failed Republican strategy of appeasement. But what if they pursued a different path and confronted the extremism that has spread unchecked on the Republican side of the aisle? When that step has been taken in good faith, we can proceed together to reform the rules of the House in a manner that permits us to govern in a pragmatic fashion. > > > > The details would be subject to negotiation, though the principles are no secret: The House should be restructured to promote governance by consensus and facilitate up-or-down votes on bills that have strong bipartisan support. Under the current procedural landscape, a small handful of extreme members on the Rules Committee or in the House Republican conference can prevent common-sense legislation from ever seeing the light of day. That must change — perhaps in a manner consistent with bipartisan recommendations from the House Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress. > > > > In short, the rules of the House should reflect the inescapable reality that Republicans are reliant on Democratic support to do the basic work of governing. A small band of extremists should not be capable of obstructing that cooperation. > > > > The need to change course is urgent. Congress is in the midst of a Republican civil war that undermines our ability to make life more affordable for American taxpayers, to keep communities safe and to strengthen democracy. Traditional Republicans need to break with the MAGA extremism that has poisoned the House of Representatives since the violent insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, and its aftermath — when the overwhelming majority of House Republicans continued to promote the “big lie” and voted not to certify the presidential election. > > > > House Democrats remain committed to a bipartisan path forward, as we have repeatedly demonstrated throughout this Congress by providing a majority of the votes to prevent a government shutdown this month and avoid a catastrophic default on America’s debt in June. > > > > At this point, we simply need Republican partners willing to break with MAGA extremism, reform the highly partisan House rules that were adopted at the beginning of this Congress and join us in finding common ground for the people. > > > > Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.) is the Democratic leader of the House of Representatives. > >

> > > The federal judge presiding over Donald Trump's classified documents case on Friday temporarily paused a series of significant pre-trial deadlines pertaining to prosecutors' sharing of sensitive materials that the former president is entitled to while building his defense, The Messenger reports. > > > > U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon authorized a paperless order delaying the deadlines she'd previously set for October 2023 through May 2024, when the trial for Trump and his three co-defendants in the case is scheduled to start in Fort Pierce, Florida. > > > > Though Cannon's order doesn't address the May 20 start date for the trial itself, it does state that all of the scheduled deadlines connected to classified information are on hold "pending consideration and resolution" of a Trump motion proposing a new timeline that was filed last month. > > > > That Sept. 22 filing accused special counsel Jack Smith's team of making "unjust efforts...to foist rushed CIPA litigation on the Court, President Trump, and his co-defendants." > > > > A separate motion filed Wednesday night by Trump's legal team has, however, made the trial schedule a point of contention as the GOP frontrunner has requested a delay of at least six months in the start date of the trial until "in or after mid-November 2024," pushing it past Election Day. > > > > The motion cited ongoing legal litigation over the sensitive evidence alongside scheduling conflicts with Trump's other federal criminal case in Washington, D.C. — of which he filed a motion to dismiss late Thursday — regarding alleged election obstruction. > > > > "The March 4, 2023 trial date in the District of Columbia, and the underlying schedule in that case, currently require President Trump and his lawyers to be in two places at once," Trump's attorneys wrote in the Wednesday filing. > > > > Some legal experts questioned Cannon's Friday order and suggested that it could pave the way for Trump to delay the trial date. > > > > "Judge Cannon puts CIPA deadlines on hold until she rules on Trump’s pending motions," national security lawyer Bradley Moss wrote on X, formerly Twitter. "Now the real question becomes how long it takes her to make a ruling." > > > > "Not a good sign for those who want a trial in May. We haven’t even reached the point in CIPA where the court has truly difficult decisions to make," tweeted Brandon Van Grack, a former Justice Department official who served on special counsel Bob Mueller's team. > > > > Want a daily wrap-up of all the news and commentary Salon has to offer? Subscribe to our morning newsletter, Crash Course. > > > > "Realistically, delays can sometimes be necessary to accommodate issues involving classified discovery, but this seems over much," former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance added. "This is a judge who is happy to see the case move slowly." > > > > "She is going to delay and delay. She has already been an embarrassment and it’s going to get much worse," predicted Georgia State Law professor Eric Segall. > > > > Trump was first federally indicted in June over his alleged illegal retention of national security documents after leaving office. The special counsel brought a superseding indictment against him in late July, adding charges related to alleged obstruction of government efforts to retrieve the materials and bringing the total number of counts against Trump in the case to 40. The former president has pleaded not guilty to all charges. > >

> > > Making your way in the world today > Takes everything you've got > Taking a break from all your worries > Sure would help a lot > Wouldn't you like to get away? > All those nights when you've got no lights > The check is in the mail > And your little angel > Hung the cat up by it's tail > And your third fiance didn't show > Sometimes you wanna go > Where everybody knows your name > And they're always glad you came > You wanna be where you can see (ah-ah) > Our troubles are all the same (ah-ah) > You wanna be where everybody knows your name > Roll out of bed, Mr. Coffee's dead > The morning's looking bright (the morning's looking bright) > And your shrink ran off to Europe > And didn't even write > And your husband wants to be a girl > Be glad there's one place in the world > Where everybody knows your name > And they're always glad you came > You wanna go where people know > People are all the same > You wanna go where everybody knows your name > >

Cheers to everyone who grew up like me, hearing only the first few bars of the song on TV, and never realized how prescient the lyrics were going to be in 2023...

> > > Back Back Forward Punch, looking for my level up. Back Back Forward Punch. Yes I came here to get drunk > Back Back Forward Punch > Pixel cannon laser gun > Back Back Forward Punch > I came came here here to jump > Yo yo yo yo yo > Yo wasuup it's tommy shades > No no no I'm not a figment > Yess next to me is sketch > Playing co-op as my wingman > The mission is impress > With the freshest button combos > A futuristic quest called, > Doing what I want yo > I step step to the bar > Imma get pixlated > Next to a cutie whos booty > It seems has been upgraded > I truely do need to know > What your what your doing later > I think that you and your crew > Need to come and multiplayer > In this Drunk Arcade > You know that we gonna play > In this Drunk Arcade > Drink untill we pixelate > In this Drunk Arcade > You know that we gonna play > In this Drunk Arcade > Drink untill we pixelate > I'm collecting drinks like > They giving me XP > Chilling with some chicks right > Digitaly sexy > I see this little cutie > Tryna catch me with her wizardry > She whispers into my my ear and says > "Fawless Victory" > Woaahh... > Excuse me for a moment > Gotta press pause > Let me let me stare at your > Three dimensional textures > Baby just wait here while I > Do battle with this robot devil > When this stage is clear yes > We can out hang in the bonus level > Cause I'm like > Back Back Forward Punch > Looking for my level up > Back Back Forward Punch > Yes I came here to get drunk > Back Back Forward Punch > Pixel cannon laser gun > Back Back Forward Punch > I came came here here to jump > In this Drunk Arcade > You know that we gonna play > In this Drunk Arcade > Drink untill we pixelate > In this Drunk Arcade > You know that we gonna play > In this Drunk Arcade > Drink untill we pixelate > >

Spoiler alert - Karlach's kink is Ray of Frost, leaving at least one gnome mage with slightly singed lips and stars in his eyes.

\#gaming

> > > Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, a Democrat viewed as a national leader in voting rights, has received 67 death threats and over 900 threats of online abuse within just three weeks, according to a system used by her office that tracks harassment and threats against election workers. > > > > In 2020, Griswold's office launched a "rapid response" election security unit, a team of election security experts tasked with protecting Colorado's elections from cyber-attacks, foreign interference and disinformation campaigns. A year later, her office set up a tracker to monitor the growing number of threats against election workers. > > > > Griswold told Salon that "if anybody understands" what election workers around the country "are going through, it's me." She continued, "Everything that we have done for my security, we have had to fight tooth and nail for. State and federal governments have largely abandoned election workers. I understand what these county clerks are going through and I'll do anything I possibly can to ease their burden and make sure that they feel safe and supported." > > > > Election workers in many states and counties are leaving their jobs in large numbers due to an increase of harassment and threats, the proliferation of conspiracy theories and heightened workloads, according to a new report released this week by Issue One, democracy-focused nonprofit group. > > > > The group's research focused on 11 states in the American West and found that roughly 40% of counties in those states have had a new chief local election official since the 2020 presidential election. In four states, that number exceeds 50%. > > > > These turnover rates, experts say, pose a distinct threat to American democracy, since election administrators with decades of knowledge and experience are leaving their roles and being replaced by individuals with vastly less experience not long before a pivotal presidential election that is likely to see near-record voter turnout. > > > > "Election workers across the country are dedicated to keeping our democratic processes secure, fair and safe," Michael Beckel, research director at Issue One, told Salon. "When experienced election officials leave their positions, they take with them years of institutional knowledge and expertise. Our leaders have an obligation to protect our nation's election workers and make sure they have what they need to keep our elections strong." > > > > According to Griswold, Republicans allied with Donald Trump's MAGA movement are doing everything they can to "destabilize" elections and convince local election officials to quit, up to and including harassing workers and threatening them with violence. > > > > "There is a coordinated national effort to undermine American elections," Griswold said, pointing to the example of Trump supporters showing up to county clerk's offices in 2021 and threatening them if they didn't provide access to voting equipment. > > > > The turnover rate among local election officials since 2020 is far higher than it was previously, particularly in battleground states where local election officials have faced a heightened level of death threats and harassment, the Issue One report found. > > > > Making matters worse, the report found, new election officials are grappling with a shortage of resources to staff other vital roles essential to ensure that elections run smoothly. > > > > More than 160 chief local election officials have departed from their roles since November 2020 within the 11 Western states tracked by Issue One tracked. Those 11 states includes two perennial battleground states and a mix of Democratic-leaning and Republican-leaning states, where elections are typically managed at the county level by a single official. > > > > As these threats have surged and election officials have left their positions in droves, Griswold said, not enough has been done to safeguard the integrity of the electoral process. > > > > "State and federal governments have abandoned our quest to safeguard democracy, to a large extent," Griswold said. "With that said, people in my office — we are very scrappy and dedicated, and we're going to get the job done." > > > > "State and federal governments have abandoned our quest to safeguard democracy, to a large extent," said Jena Griswold. "That said, people in my office are scrappy and dedicated. We're going to get the job done." > > > > Griswold said she has implemented specific measures to address likely issues ahead of next year's elections. She has expanded her team to offer direct support to Colorado's counties and, within the past year, has contracted with former election officials to increase much greater on-the-ground presence. > > > > She has also spearheaded changes in the Colorado state legislature, such as criminalizing retaliation against election workers and providing a process to shield their personal information and to make "doxxing" — or revealing a person's home address and phone number without their consent — a punishable offense. > > > > Colorado has also enacted a law prohibiting the "open carry" of firearms close to drop boxes, voting centers and areas where ballots are being processed, in an effort to ensure that election workers are not intimidated by armed individuals. Her team has also prepared for hypothetical "disaster scenarios," including such potential instances as a "deepfake" video showing Griswold spreading false information. > > > > "We've overcome a lot of challenges with a great outcome," Griswold said, "including armed men filming people at drop boxes to county clerks that breach their own security trying to prove the Big Lie. "There has been massive disinformation, and we continue to have incredibly well-run elections. I think 2024 will be no different." > > > > The Brennan Center released a poll in April that surveyed local election officials and found that 12% of workers were new to their jobs since the 2020 election, and that 11% said they were likely to leave their jobs before the 2024 election. > > > > Nearly one in three election officials have been harassed, abused or threatened because of their jobs, the survey found, and more than one in five are concerned about being physically assaulted on the job during future elections. Nearly half the respondents expressed concern for the safety of other election officials and workers. > > > > Want a daily wrap-up of all the news and commentary Salon has to offer? Subscribe to our morning newsletter, Crash Course. > > > > The Justice Department under Attorney General Merrick Garland has created a task force on election threats, but so far it has been quiet. Just 14 cases have been prosecuted involving threats against election officials and workers, leading to nine convictions, according to an August press release. > > > > For many years, local election officials were relatively anonymous figures, working behind the scenes with little controversy to ensure the integrity of democratic processes. > > > > But the spotlight was turned on many of them unexpectedly during the 2020 presidential election, largely due to a coordinated disinformation campaign led by then-President Donald Trump and his supporters. Most officials say the surge in harassment and threats came as a direct result, prompting numerous officials to retire or resign. > > > > Even in solidly Republican Utah County, "People came out of the woodwork to spout, parrot and share these national election-denying conspiracies." > > > > Josh Daniels is a former county clerk of Utah County, the second-largest county in its namesake state. He says he faced this dilemma personally. He initially joined the county's election team in 2019 as chief deputy after being recruited by a friend who had been elected clerk. > > > > Then the 2020 presidential election happened. > > > > "People came out of the woodwork in our community to spout, parrot and share these sorts of national election-denying conspiracies," Daniels said. "It became quite exhausting," Daniels said. > > > > His office was inundated with phone calls from individuals accusing election officials of being untrustworthy. They were subjected to what he called "Cyber Ninja-style audits," similar to the one conducted in Arizona's Maricopa County. > > > > Daniels was forced to spend many hours in public meetings with "angry" individuals who made baseless allegations drawn from internet conspiracy theories. > > > > Utah County is predominantly white and predominantly Republican. Donald Trump won nearly two-thirds of the vote there in 2020. Nonetheless, Daniels said, the "political dynamic" of the community changed in the wake of that election, thanks to a "loud faction" of the community that spread distrust about how the election had been conducted. > > > > "We didn't get a lot of help from other political leaders in our community," Daniels said. Instead, some "would almost accelerate" the tension, creating "forums for more of these concerns to be shared and create further political chaos." > > > > Daniels decided not to seek re-election in 2022, but he says the conspiracy theories and threats against election workers have continued. > > > > In Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah — the four states with the highest turnover rates among election officials — Issue One's research found that twice as many local election officials had left their positions than had done so in Washington and Idaho. > > > > Among the 161 counties in Western states that have new chief local election officials since November 2020, the report notes a significant decline in the average years of experience held by these officials, going from a previous figure of about eight years to roughly one year. The "brain drain associated with this exodus is real," the report finds, calculating that departing election officials in those counties have taken with them more than 1,800 years of combined experience. > >

> > > Nearly five months after thousands of film and TV writers went on strike over more equitable pay and working conditions in the streaming era, effectively shutting down the entertainment industry, Hollywood studio and streaming executives at long last have reached a tentative deal with the Writers Guild of America, East and West. > > > > In an email to members late Sunday, the union said it had reached “an agreement in principle on all deal points, subject to drafting final contract language.” > > > > The union said it will share details about what the union negotiators and studio executives agreed to once union leadership reviews the final language in the agreement. > > > > “What we have won in this contract—most particularly, everything we have gained since May 2nd—is due to the willingness of this membership to exercise its power, to demonstrate its solidarity, to walk side-by-side, to endure the pain and uncertainty of the past 146 days. It is the leverage generated by your strike, in concert with the extraordinary support of our union siblings, that finally brought the companies back to the table to make a deal,” the email to members continued. “We can say, with great pride, that this deal is exceptional—with meaningful gains and protections for writers in every sector of the membership.” > > > > Once ratified by the union members, the agreement could have huge effects, setting historic precedents on major industry-wide issues. Throughout the strike, writers have framed the fight as an existential one, showing the ways longstanding inequities in the industry have jeopardized the future of writing as a profession and restricted the types of people who can make a living as a writer in Hollywood. The issues that led them to strike include dwindling pay while corporate executives reap profits from writers’ work and the need for guardrails around the use of artificial intelligence. (HuffPost’s unionized staff are also members of the WGA East, but are not involved in the strike.) > > > > The resolution to the strike means writers can soon resume work on film and TV shows, putting an end to a monthslong standstill on virtually all film and TV production. Looming deadlines likely motivated the studio executives, represented by the trade group Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, to finally reach a deal with the writers. Had the strike stretched further into the fall, network shows would not have enough time to put together a partial season of programming. > > > > In the email to members, the union said that the writers are technically still on strike, since the agreement is subject to votes from the union’s negotiating committee and then from leaders of the WGA West and East. Those votes are tentatively scheduled for Tuesday, the WGA said. > > > > Following those votes, union leaders would then authorize a full membership ratification vote on the agreement. During the ratification vote, members would then be allowed to return to work, the union said. > > > > Throughout the strike, writers have had the upper hand in terms of public perception, picketing nearly daily in front of major studios and corporate headquarters in New York and Los Angeles. In addition to laying out the stakes of the strike in no uncertain terms, they were also able to point to the massive corporate greed of Hollywood executives, showing the huge gap between executive salaries and most writers’ relatively meager wages. > > > > It did not help that studio executives continually dug a deeper hole for themselves and added to the public perception of them as cartoon villains — including giving anonymous quotes to Hollywood trade publications asserting the strike was meant to bleed writers dry. For instance, in July, a studio executive anonymously told Deadline: “The endgame is to allow things to drag on until union members start losing their apartments and losing their houses.” > > > > The writers’ ability to wield the power of public protest also got results. Earlier this week, Drew Barrymore reversed plans to resume her talk show without her striking writers, after she faced a week of massive public backlash. Her announcement set off a domino effect: Several more talk shows that had been slated to return while their writers are on strike also reversed their plans. > > > > Since July, actors represented by the Screen Actors Guild have also been on strike over similar issues as the writers. While studio executives will need to reach a separate agreement with SAG-AFTRA, the resolution of the writers strike is an optimistic sign for a similar deal with the actors. > > > > The twin strikes have marked a historic moment for Hollywood labor unions. They also come amid a turning point for the labor movement across the country. Just last week, workers represented by the United Auto Workers launched a series of historic strikes, the first time the union has conducted a simultaneous work stoppage at all three major U.S. automakers. In recent years, accelerated by the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, workers across many industries have unionized, drawing attention to corporate greed, exploitation and inequality between corporations and workers. > >

@jeaton Your profile pic absolutely demanded I send this to you, but that might just be the soup talking.

\#movies

> > > The Afrofuturism movement within sci-fi may be equal to this moment, in part because it grows out of a history of displacement, atrocity, and instability. > > > > One task of science fiction is to knock us off-kilter — to transport us to altered times and places, the better to question our own world. But sci-fi has renewed competition in that department from reality itself. The quickening storm of events in America in the last half-decade, culminating in 2020 in the Covid-19 pandemic and the uprisings against systemic racism, has unmoored us from old norms and expectations with a suddenness that societies witness perhaps once or twice per century. The future is upon us in its full uncontrolled ferocity, and it takes all our resilience just to adapt from week to week and keep steering toward hope. > > > > But at least one movement within sci-fi may be equal to this moment, in part because it grows out of a history of displacement, atrocity, and instability. It’s Afrofuturism, the effort to explore technological and social change from the point of view of people of African descent and members of the African diaspora. > > > > Ytasha L. Womack, a Chicago-based author, filmmaker, scholar, and dance therapist, helped explain and popularize the genre in her widely cited 2013 volume “Afrofuturism: The World of Black Sci Fi & Fantasy Culture.” And she explores and expands it in her own fiction, including the “Rayla Universe” series, about a resistance fighter on a future Earth colony that’s fallen into dictatorship. She is a former reporter for the Chicago Defender, the nation’s oldest Black-owned daily newspaper, and in 2010, she wrote “Post Black,” which celebrated the huge range of African American cultural, social, and political identities overlooked by mainstream media portrayals. > > > > In an email interview in July 2020, featured below, Womack told me she believed that the tumultuous events of that year had finally begun to reawaken white Americans to the ways they consciously or inadvertently contribute to the invented hierarchies that overlook or oppress people of color. In one sense, therefore, the pandemic, the resulting economic upheaval, and the explosion of resistance to violence by the state against private citizens are more material for the kinds of social change that Black people have struggled to promote for centuries. From this larger perspective, Womack says, Afrofuturism is simply one modern manifestation of the age-old “resilience tools” that help Black communities enact and navigate that change. And while we’ve started to gain some distance from the traumatic events of 2020, Womack’s thoughts feel as fresh as ever, given the persistence of the coronavirus and that other very American plague — white supremacy. > > > > Wade Roush: It’s been five months since the coronavirus pandemic exploded in the United States, and two months since police murdered George Floyd in Minneapolis, and I think it’s fair to say these are difficult times. So I wanted to ask first: how have you been coping with 2020? > > > > Ytasha L. Womack: 2020 has been revelatory, insightful, and I found myself thinking on resilience, particularly in the content of Afrofuturism. In December 2019, I had the deep urge to complete the draft of a graphic novel I was writing before March 2020. I had the very strong feeling that spring 2020 would be fluid. I had a lot of speaking engagement requests for that period and some other possible work, and I just felt like I had to finish this first draft of Blak Kube, my story about Egyptian gods and creativity, before March or else. I wasn’t aware that this ethereal nudging was speaking to a greater societal shift. > > > > Nevertheless, the day I finished the draft was the same day I led a live dance and music improvisation experience at the Adler Planetarium to bring the Rayla 2212 utopia to life for “A Night in the Afrofuture.” I coordinated freestyle interplay between DJ/sound healer Shannon Harris; Leon Q, my cousin and a trumpet player; Kenneth “Djedi” Russell, a tap and West African dancer; Discopoet Khari B, a poet and a house music dancer; another conga player; and myself. I was a space dance conductor of sorts and we did these interactive shows utilizing call and response dance with an unsuspecting audience in a 360-degree visual dome usually reserved for sky shows. I led audiences in dance movement with an array of Afrobeat, Chicago house, samba, and South African house music as our music of the new utopia. > > > > The event felt like a vortex of energy. I like using music and dance to create multidimensional spaces as a metaphor for exploring both inner and outer space. African/African diasporic dance at its core has functioned as interdimensional. People were so happy. It felt like the beginning of one thing and the end of something else. > > > > The following morning I flew to Atlanta to speak at Planet Deep South, a conference on Afrofuturism. The conference is designed to highlight southern voices and works in Afrofuturism. The conference took place at the Atlanta University Center, an amalgamation of historically Black colleges. I’m a Clark Atlanta University alumna and my initial experiences with Afrofuturism took place on that campus. The conference was organized by Dr. Rico Wade and Clinton Fluker. I gave a keynote speech on Afrofuturism literally at noon the day after the “Night in the Afrofuture.” Ruha Benjamin spoke that evening on discrimination in computer applications and algorithms. > > > > Dr. Wade gave me a tour of the rampant gentrification in Atlanta. Within two or three days I was in New York City for an event for Kehinde Wiley. As soon as I landed I learned the event was canceled. The next few days, I was in New York going to the Brooklyn Museum for Kehinde’s show with my friend Ravi. Talk of the virus was mounting. Then South by Southwest was canceled and it felt as if a door was shutting and I had to slide through a window of time to get back home. > > > > > “In Afrofuturism, time is treated as nonlinear, so it becomes a healthy way to explore histories, futures, and resilience.” > > > > > > Three days later, I was back home in Chicago buying bags of nonperishable groceries, reading how to survive the apocalypse guides, and hunkering down for the Illinois stay-at-home order that was in effect. Somewhere in those moments before lockdown, I remember being in a health food store with mostly African American patrons. People were stocking up on garlic, ginger, echinacea, and every herb or vitamin people knew of to build their immune systems. People were walking around with lists of supplements and teas that family members gave them to buy. In that moment, I grew angry. > > > > Simultaneously, my stepdad was trying to schedule appointments with his doctor. He believed he had the virus. His physician wouldn’t see him. When he went to [the] emergency [room], he was told he had acid reflux. In order to get a COVID-19 test in the early weeks, one had to have a letter from their physician. We tried to get other physicians to meet with him. None returned calls. By the time we got him to a clinic with a physician who would give him a test, he had to be rushed to the hospital and placed on a ventilator immediately. My mother had to go into self-quarantine. We couldn’t see my stepdad. I was quarantined because I spent time with both in the previous day. For the next two days, I’m reading nothing but news from futurists posting dire scientific information for the world. During the period I’m thinking, outside of the information that’s recommending masks and cleaning processes, where are the tools of resilience? > > > > Where is the inspiration to keep one fed and their soul enriched during tough times? I literally found myself thinking on spirituality, food, family. Who are the people I talk to to keep my consciousness vibrating highly? What music has the ideal lyrics and frequencies to keep me uplifted? What combinations of food are best to enhance my immune system? What candles do I light? What scents and colors keep me feeling vibrant? How do you hold a healing consciousness for others? What dances keep me refreshed? Am I engaging with nature enough? I was so thankful for all the people who wrote books, created music, and made movies in the past that I could engage in during that bizarre period. I was so thankful for deejays like DJ D-Nice, Questlove, and others who claimed the role of the deejay as a musical shaman. > > > > Within two weeks my stepdad was off the ventilator and back home. The experience was a miracle and I had a very transformative experience putting to practice basics around spiritual grounding, food, and consciousness. The following week, at my brother’s urging, I started a weekly Instagram Live called Utopia Talks. > > > > These epiphanies were, literally, my month of March. When the atrocities with George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and later Rayshard Brooks took place I had a conscious awareness of tools to work with around resilience. I had an uncle who was murdered by a police officer in New Orleans in the 1970s before I was born, so my family has created practices of remembrance and healing around such atrocities. I spent a great deal of time in May and June devoted to a daily processing of the politicization of the daily shifts, some of which were in line with incidents of the past, others of which were not. > > > > So many of the core issues go back to our nation’s Civil War and the creation of the Constitution itself. I found myself doing a lot of ad hoc history lessons. I had several conversations with friends about how the Founding Fathers were quite comfortable with the institution of slavery when they were creating the Constitution. There were a number of people quite uncomfortable with its end and not supportive of the protests for civil rights that followed or the BLM [Black Lives Matter] protests today. > > > > Nevertheless, it became overwhelmingly obvious that many Americans in the midst of the BLM protests just didn’t know history. Many were clueless around the history of Africans in the Americas in a way that was shocking. The Iroquois Nation was heavily borrowed from in the creation of the US Constitution but you almost have to be in a graduate-level history course to know that. Unless you’re a history major in a school that values diversity or a life-long reader on a quest, one can completely miss the basics, and become quite defensive about it. Then you have others who present history in this bizarre propagandized fashion that has people ready to fight you when you tell them it’s not true. > > > > For many, pop culture is the lens for understanding history, which means that Black history for much of the populace hinges on the rise of a new music subgenre created by Black people or an unknown moment like [the] Tulsa massacre referenced in a popular television show like Watchmen. Fortunately, the Internet is a great source to get the basics if you can follow the social media bread crumbs that led you there. Many people are looking for references for books, films, and documentaries to get some framing for what’s going on. I started doing history lessons on my Utopia Talks because you can’t talk about futures without knowing histories, which were futures for their predecessors. However, in Afrofuturism, time is treated as nonlinear, so it becomes a healthy way to explore histories, futures, and resilience. > > > > Nevertheless, I’ve had daily conversations around everything from the philosophy behind the politicization of masks to Indigenous frameworks to marketing pivots to mass manipulation to Maroon societies of Africans in the enslaved Americas. In some ways, this period was about processing everything you’d ever learned, reassessing philosophical frameworks, and getting grounded in what’s important. > > > > That said, I’ve become vegan for the season. Between work, Zoom birthday parties, and virtual lectures, I’ve developed quite a few story ideas. I completed my graphic novel Blak Kube for Megascope. I did the edits in June 2020, miraculously. When June was over so much had happened from protests to looting to Juneteenth to virus surges nationwide, I couldn’t believe it all happened in four weeks. I’ve been watching a lot of Korean cinema with my best friend and making an unusual amount of soups with garlic and ginger. I just learned that the current president is sending troops to my city. I prayed about it and I’m fine. > > > > WR: You’re both a practitioner of science fiction and futurism, in the form of works like the Rayla 2212 books and your Bar Star City film project, and a chronicler of the field through your groundbreaking survey Afrofuturism. In your mind, what good can sci-fi and futurism do for readers and audiences in the here and now? And do these forms of expression take on a different importance in times of crisis? > > > > YW: I would like to see more visions that reflect what a healthy society looks like. I would love to see more schools of thought around healthy futures that were created as worlds that people can read [about] in a book or watch in a film. Healthy societies can have issues, conflict, and all the drama required of a story. I’d like to see more that reflects a kind of world we’d like to live in. I’d like to read a sci-fi story and say, “Gee, I’d like to live there. This place seems like it treats people fairly or at least values doing so.” I’d like to see more stories where resilience tools from the past are put to use. Obviously, there’s sci-fi that does this, but I’d like to see more. Perhaps that’s why I write in the genre, as a way of problem-solving futures, or as Toni Morrison said, to write stories you’d like to read. > > > > > “I’d like to read a sci-fi story and say, ‘Gee, I’d like to live there. This place seems like it treats people fairly or at least values doing so.'” > > > > > > I understand that a world moving through or in a dystopia makes the hero’s journey a fundamentally high-stakes one. I think many creators are more inclined use history to frame their dystopias than to frame utopias or protopias. But for many, writing in a dystopia is a form of problem-solving, and for others it’s a release valve. > > > > WR: COVID-19 deaths among African Americans have been two to three times higher than what you would expect based on their share of the US population. It’s not as if the SARS-CoV-2 virus has revealed disparities in healthcare and health outcomes; rather, it’s exploiting this longstanding form of injustice and making it worse. Can sci-fi writers and other artists and creators do anything to help call attention to this nightmare? > > > > YW: I don’t know if they need to call attention to it. The news, the protests, the outrage, and the data are doing a great job of exposure. If someone doesn’t feel a gut reaction to at least say, “I don’t want this in our society,” then it’s not a question of exposure to information, it’s a question of empathy. It’s a question of, well, if you’re not Black, Latino, a front-line worker, living in a nursing home, or a crowded city, why should you care? It’s a question of why should I wear a mask to protect someone else? It’s a question of why are so many in our society quick to otherize people as if we aren’t connected? This is beyond individualism. Is it mass narcissism? In that respect, sci-fi does write about otherism and how it functions using both the alien and cyborg metaphors. I would love to read more sci-fi that demonstrates how we are all connected. I would like more stories on protopias or with idealized societies in the backdrop. We need more visions of the future that aren’t so reliant on technological innovations but also reevaluate human organizing systems and the philosophies that undergird our world. > > > > WR: When you published Afrofuturism back in 2013, part of what made the field so exciting was that, as you wrote, it “combines elements of science fiction, historical fiction, speculative fiction, fantasy, Afrocentricity, and magic realism with non-Western beliefs,” often in the service of a message of self-determination. But 2013 already feels like a different era, when we’d somehow leapt into the future by electing and reelecting an African American president. It turned out we had no idea what challenges were coming, all building up to the traumas of 2020. Do you feel like current events are changing the conditions under which Afrofuturist work gets produced? > > > > YW: Afrofuturism existed long before the term was created and will exist beyond this period. I don’t see the times as dictating its necessity. People of African descent and the African diaspora will have a relationship with the future, space, and time and will pull from culture, experiences, and the resilience tools to navigate it in part because that’s what humans do. > > > > WR: Has it become harder to sustain the genre’s trademark mix of “imagination, technology, the future, and liberation,” as you described it in the book? > > > > YW: Black people don’t have the luxury of abandoning hope and dreams because of shifts in politics. W. E. B Dubois wrote the sci-fi story The Comet in the 1920s, and while there was a literary cultural renaissance afoot, I wouldn’t call that the best of times for Black Americans. Ezekiel’s wheel as a spaceship reference was in Black spirituals during enslavement. People looked to hope because they had to. Sojourner Truth in the early 1880s said she’s “going home like a shooting star.” When François Mackandal led a six-year rebellion of self-emancipated Maroons against plantation owners in Haiti in 1752, nearly forty years before the Haitian Revolution, people claimed that during his capture he turned into an animal and flew away. > > > > Many African cosmologies from the Dagara to the Yoruba are inherently interdimensional, as evident in the symbolism of the art and architecture. The narrative of hope that often threads the tougher times is about moving forward. That said, I think Afrofuturism, the term itself, was popularized during Barack Obama’s presidency in part because it gave some people context for him existing. Shortly before his presidency the idea of a man of African descent being president of the United States for too many felt like some distant utopia or creative science fiction. To paraphrase a quote in Afrofuturism by longtime activist Jesse Jackson, Sr., you can’t move forward with cynicism. That said, there’s a big demand for more stories and works by Afrofuturist creators. > > > > WR: From your standpoint, is it getting any easier over time for people of color and LGBTQ voices to find an audience and make a living in sci-fi? And under sci-fi, let’s count TV, movies, books, comics, music, and all the forms through which the future is explored. Is the publishing and editing establishment in sci-fi becoming any less white and less male? > > > > YW: There’s definitely a greater interest in diverse stories because the audience of sci-fi lovers are demanding it. People want to see stories that provide other insights into the human experience and the realm of the imagination. Independent creators on both the comics and literary side have been self-publishing works with diverse voices consistently to new audiences for the past decade or so. Publishers are responding to that demand. > > > > WR: I’m a Marvel fan, so I have to ask you a question about Black Panther (2018), which had a Black director and a nearly all-Black cast and introduced mainstream audiences to Afrofuturism in spectacular and dazzling fashion. Has Black Panther made it easier to explain what Afrofuturism is? > > > > YW: The success of Black Panther has made life easier for Black sci-fi creators. It was a gamechanger and gave everyone’s work a bump up. All these creators who were viewed as niche or fringe were suddenly at the center of this fascinating conversation around “Afrofuturism.” Creators could make very edgy experimental music, like composers Nicole Mitchell, Moor Mother, or Angel Bat Dawid, and could flourish in new ways because new audiences had a way to frame their work. Visual artists, writers, and theorists suddenly had a larger world to play in with their works. > > > > WR: Do you ever worry that in the hands of a giant media conglomerate like Marvel/Disney, Afrofuturism might become too mainstream and begin to shed its more radical or leftist elements? > > > > YW: We’ll see more mainstream works utilizing Afrofuturist ideas and creatives. There will be more people with a desire to create pulling from ideas in that arena. We’ve seen that in the past two years with both Marvel and DC. Whether people are doing work with large corporations or independently, both scenes ultimately complement one another. Black people will have a relationship to space, time, and the future regardless. Every Afrofuturist story isn’t Black Panther and I don’t think people expect it to be. > > > > \\ WR:\\ Outside the United States, which regions and communities are producing the most notable and exciting science fiction? Are there any international sci-fi authors or books you’re enjoying right now? > > > > YW: Brazil has a robust Afrofuturismo scene of theory and works. There’s a book called Afrofuturismo written in Portuguese that I’ve just ordered. I’ll have to translate it via Google until an English edition comes out. I spoke at a virtual conference of Brazilian Afrofuturists recently and I’m really excited by the depth of their work. Jelani Nias of Toronto, Canada, has a cool book called Where Eagles Crawl and Men Fly. Toronto has a robust scene and is home to the annual art show Black Future Month curated by Danilo McCallum and Quentin Vercetty. It’s also home to A Different Bookstore which has a great Black sci-fi and fantasy selection. > > > > > “Walls, gentrified neighborhoods, and gated communities can’t protect people from a virus. It’s literally our ability to care for other people by wearing a mask that protects us all.” > > > > > > Afro SF: Science Fiction by African Writers edited by Ivor W. Hartmann is a good anthology. The book came out a few years ago and has a wide range of works from authors across the African continent. I also like Cameroonian filmmaker Jean-Pierre Bekolo. I’ve seen some great Afrofuturist short films and features from African creators from Kenya, Nigeria, and Cameroon. I’ve had some great conversations about dance theory as Afrofuturism with dancers from Ivory Coast, Senegal, and Cuba. The ideas in Afrofuturism are fairly understood within the African continent/diaspora, it’s just a question of whether people utilize the term to frame their works or not. In many parts of the world, the United States included, many within the diaspora just see what we’re calling Afrofuturism as life. > > > > WR: Is Afrofuturism a potential template for other culturally inflected futurisms—say, Latinofuturism or Sinofuturism? > > > > YW: I don’t want to say it’s a template. People all over the world have relationships to space, time, and the future with a unique cultural lens. However, the term has created ways to narrow the focus on literary works, music, and more from specific cultures. I think it’s given rise to conversations on the shared aesthetic and philosophical thought within other cultural lenses. It’s pretty exciting. Within African/African diasporic communities, the term “Afrofuturism” helped people to anchor and frame the works they were creating or ideas they were tossing about. I think terms like “Indigenous Futurism” and others are doing the same for Indigenous creators and helping audiences to find them. > > > > WR: George Floyd’s killing became the tipping point in a national movement for police reform and seems to have led to a recognition that in this country, racism and policing are two sides of the same coin. Can Afrofuturism or other forms of sci-fi help us imagine a world where policing isn’t necessary, where mass incarceration is a thing of the past, or where the law is finally enforced equally without regard to skin color? > > > > YW: Yes. > > > > WR: In Afrofuturism, you quote activist Adrienne Maree Brown, who says abandoned urban communities like her home town of Detroit or post-Katrina New Orleans can feel like the post-apocalyptic places we see in sci-fi. But she adds that if you look deeper, you see how communities are rebuilding from within. She writes, “It’s not the end of the world, it’s the beginning of something else.” At the risk of sounding like a Pollyanna—since there’s nothing redeeming about a pandemic, or police killings—I wanted to ask whether you think there’s a prospect that the traumatic events of 2020 will challenge American communities to find creative ways to repair inequality, rebuild the healthcare and public health infrastructures, and end racism once and for all? > > > > YW: To quote goddess practitioner Lettie Sullivan, a veil was broken during this period. Many have awakened to the fact that there are grave disparities and that they could consciously or inadvertently be contributing to [them]. In a very real way, people are thinking on how they are contributing to systems with hierarchies that kill people or complicate their lives. The widespread protests and the demands for more books to give historical framing around how we got here are all a part of that. > > > > One lesson from COVID-19 is that yes, there are racial disparities in treatment and stress. However, walls, gentrified neighborhoods, and gated communities can’t protect people from a virus. It’s literally our ability to care for other people by wearing a mask that protects us all. The same can be said about racism. No one, in the end, benefits. Minneapolis is not a highly diverse city, and this mostly white city was in the midst of protests, fires, looting, and police attacks when people challenged the murder of a Black man by police officers. Who benefits from that? > > > > A white, Midwestern science fiction professor told me once that he prided himself on going to the best schools, reading the best books, and later in his adult years stumbled across Octavia E. Butler. He fell in love with her works and was disgusted that he’d never heard of her before. Why hadn’t he studied her in his classes coming up? Why was she not mentioned as one of the greatest writers of his time in his literature classes? He literally said that all this time he thought he’d been to the best schools and was introduced to the best writers only to discover that there was a whole world of amazing Black creatives alive during his lifetime from the same country he’s come from that he’d never heard of. Were these schools the best? Did he receive a good education? He can’t even call himself well-read due to racism, and this is just the tip of the iceberg. > > > > Frantz Fanon said that racism didn’t benefit the victim, perpetrators, or those who found themselves complicit in it all. Martin Luther King, Jr. said that injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere. Why? Because we’re all human beings living on a shared planet. Yes, this is a moment to create or enhance our systems so that they care about the well-being of people. It’s an opportunity to center humanity and the planet. > > > > Yet, I do see people caring for one another. There’s an abundance of “neighborliness.” I had three neighbors pass away during this period. After one neighbor’s funeral, the procession of cars came to my block. The cars were led by a purple and gold carriage carrying the body. Yes, I wrote that correctly. A carriage. A fairytale Cinderella-style carriage with gold trim. A minister on a remote microphone asked if any neighbors wanted to say a few words. Some said prayers. One guy came to the mike and gave this rousing inspirational prayer for the block, all followed by a balloon launch. Over a hundred balloons were sent into the sky in honor of this man who most in our society would describe as ordinary. Despite this, he made an impact. Here we were, literally two days after the first wave of protests and looting, and we’re doing a balloon launch. People who didn’t even know the guy were participating in this shared respect for life. This moment of humanity was heartwarming. We did this as a celebration of life. We did this as a recognition of a new ancestor. But the collective acknowledgment of life elevated us all. We, as a block, were all uplifted. In that moment, I said, “We’re going to be okay.” > >

Hat tip to @cyberlyra for the article.

> > > DENVER (AP) — The Colorado judge overseeing the first significant lawsuit to bar former President Donald Trump from the state’s 2024 presidential ballot on Friday issued a protective order prohibiting threats and intimidation in the case, saying the safety of those involved — including herself and her staff — was necessary as the groundbreaking litigation moves forward. > > > > “I 100% understand everybody’s concerns for the parties, the lawyers, and frankly myself and my staff based on what we’ve seen in other cases,” District Judge Sarah B. Wallace said as she agreed to the protective order. > > > > The order prohibits parties in the case from making threatening or intimidating statements. Scott Gessler, a former Colorado secretary of state representing Trump in the case, opposed it. He said a protective order was unnecessary because threats and intimidation already are prohibited by law. > > > > It was sought by lawyers for the liberal group Citizens For Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which is seeking to disqualify Trump from the ballot under a rarely used Civil War-era clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. > > > > Gessler said heated rhetoric in this case has come partly from the left. > > > > “We do have robust political debate going on here,” he said. “For better or worse, this case has become a focal point.” > > > > Dozens of lawsuits have been filed around the country seeking to disqualify Trump from the 2024 ballot based on the 14th Amendment clause barring anyone who swore an oath to the Constitution and then “engaged in insurrection” against it from running for office. Their arguments revolve around Trump’s involvement in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol to halt the congressional certification of the 2020 presidential election. > > > > The case in Colorado is the first filed by a group with significant legal resources. The issue is expected to reach the U.S. Supreme Court, which has never ruled on the insurrection provision in section three of the 14th Amendment. > > > > Wallace has set an Oct. 30 hearing to discuss whether Trump needs to be removed under Colorado law prohibiting candidates who don’t meet qualifications for higher office from appearing on ballots. She has said she wants to give the Colorado Supreme Court — and possibly U.S. Supreme Court — as much time as possible to review the decision before the state’s Jan. 5 deadline to set its 2024 presidential primary ballot. > > > > A parallel case in Minnesota filed by another well-financed liberal group is scheduled to be heard by that state’s supreme court on Nov. 2. > > > > Trump’s attorneys are scheduled to file two motions to dismiss the lawsuit later Friday. One will contend the litigation is an attempt to retaliate against Trump’s free speech rights. Wallace has set an Oct. 13 hearing to debate that claim. > > > > Sean Grimsley, an attorney for the plaintiffs in the case, proposed the protective order in court Friday. He cited federal prosecutor Jack Smith last week seeking a gag order against Trump for threats made in his prosecution of the former president for trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election results. > > > > “At least one of the parties has a tendency to tweet — or Truth Social,” Grimsley said, referring to Trump’s own social network where he broadcasts most of his statements, “about witnesses and the courts.” > >

> > > Birdsong is one of the most beautiful sounds on the planet, but did you know that those tweets and calls have a complex 'sentence' struture that could tell us a lot about the evolution of human language? > > > > When composer Emily Doolittle was given the chance to spend time at the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Germany, the birds she heard became her inspiration. > > > > Doolittle wove together the sounds of partridges, geese and wrens in a piece she titled Seven Duos for Birds or Strings, first performed in 2014. > > > > "Many birds use similar timbres, pitch relationships and patterns to human music," she says. "I think there is lots of room for musicians and scientists to work together to better understand animal songs." > > > > Like Doolittle, researchers around the world are increasingly exploring links between birdsong and human sounds. We may be far apart on the evolutionary tree (scientists estimate the last common ancestor of birds and mammals may have lived more than 300 million years ago), but humans nevertheless happen to have a lot in common with birds when it comes to making themselves heard. The musician wren, for example, which features in Doolittle’s work, is native to the Amazon and has inspired music across South America. As Doolittle found, the wren sings using the same intervals found frequently in human music – octaves, perfect fifths and perfect fourths. > Meaning behind the music > > > > But do beautiful birdsong and chirping calls contain more than melody? Is there a deeper complexity that affects the meaning? Toshitaka Suzuki and his colleagues at The Graduate University for Advanced Studies in Japan certainly think so. They’ve found that Japanese tits can arrange the calls they make in order, like words in a sentence, with the arrangement of calls changing the overall meaning – a system known as syntax. The rules of syntax in human language relate to the structure of a sentence, and the order in which we say words. It’s why we would say ‘I’m going to the shops,’ rather than ‘the shops to I’m going,’ for example. > > > > "Tits are known for having these very complicated call systems – a lot of the calls in the Japanese tit repertoire have meanings," explains David Wheatcroft at Uppsala University in Sweden, who also worked on the Japanese study. One call refers to predatory snakes, for instance, and another to the danger of hawks overhead. Parents also have different calls for their chicks, telling them to flee or duck in the face of danger. What is special about Japanese tits is that they seem able to combine at least two of these calls together. > > > > The researchers learnt that there was one particular combination that prompted birds to scan for a predator and then also to approach and harass it. Like human syntax, this combination only worked if the tits’ calls were uttered in a particular order. > > > > "Syntax was considered to have uniquely evolved in humans, but our study demonstrates that it has evolved in a wild bird, too. I think many basic features of language capacity are shared between humans and non-human animals, including birds," says Suzuki. According to Wheatcroft, songbirds such as the Japanese tit may even provide a new model for studying the evolution of syntax. > > > > Linguist Moira Yip at University College London welcomes such exciting new work into animal communication, but points out that tits’ capabilities are limited when compared to what humans can do. > > > > "They have found a system that has two “words”, and one combination, and at the moment that is it," she says. "We, on the other hand, can combine any adjective and any noun to make a new phrase… so from only 10 adjectives and 10 nouns we can create a hundred two-word phrases." > > > > "In evolutionary terms, birds are extremely distant relatives of humans," she adds. Even so, the way birds learn their songs does show some parallels with the way humans acquire language – for example, the way we use syllables and stress certain sounds in a rhythmic way. "Birdsong has internal structure that is reminiscent of the way human speech groups sound," says Yip. > Honeyed tones > > > > However far apart we are from birds in terms of evolution, most of us love birdsong. Bird watchers often learn to imitate their calls, and a few societies have built a dialogue with the birds around them. In parts of Africa, honey gatherers connect with a bird known as the honeyguide, which helps them track down bees’ nests. > > > > "People walk through the bush making special sounds to alert honeyguides. The Yao people of Mozambique make one particular sound in this context," says evolutionary biologist Claire Spottiswoode at the University of Cambridge, who has studied them. It’s like a trill followed by a grunt, she says. > > > > ‘Talking’ to the birds like this doubles the odds that a honeyguide will help search for a bees’ nest. > > > > "It tells the honeyguide you’re their friend," one honey gatherer told her. This system brings many benefits. For the hunter-gatherer Hadza community in Tanzania, as much as a tenth of their calories comes from the honey they collect. In return, the birds feed on the wax after the humans have taken the honey. > > > > "The interaction between humans and honeyguides is likely to be very ancient, probably something in the order of hundreds of thousands of years," adds Spottiswoode. While tame animals often interact with their owners, honeyguides are wild, making this relationship unique. "Their cooperative behaviour has almost certainly evolved through natural selection," she says. > > > > Research such as this highlights that birds aren’t as ‘bird-brained’ as some people had assumed. Indeed, in 2016, European and South American researchers studying two-dozen species found that, while birds’ brains may be relatively tiny, the cells within them can be more densely packed than those of rodents and some primates. Parrots and songbirds have some of the most surprising brains of all. > > > > "We probably underestimated how many species have some communication system," says Moira Yip. "Nevertheless, the gulf between human language and the systems found in birds, cetaceans and even primates remains huge, and how that gulf was crossed as humans evolved remains largely mysterious." > > > > Even so, bird researchers continue to be surprised by the likenesses they see between humans and birds, especially in making a tune. > > > > "There is no common ancestor of birds and humans that had a music-like song," says Doolittle. "But somehow, independently through evolution, birds and humans have ended up fairly similar, both in the way they sound and in the role songs play in their lives." > >

In my long experience working with artists across all media, one of the things that I've found the most rewarding is discovering their inspirations, which often lead to new creative ideas of my own.

So I thought I'd ask Kbin, what inspires you? Is it a piece of music? A novel? A poem? A picture? A philosophy? A spiritual text? What lifts your soul to song? A software? A science? A symphony?

What gets your creative juices flowing?

Full disclosure - I am the mod of @13thFloor, which is dedicated to engaging the creative spirit. Your inspirations and creativity are more than welcome there as well.

In an age of censorship and book burnings, piracy is a morally legitimate and necessary form of historical archival.

\#piracy