Welcome!
Greetings to all you Gnusies, Gnewbies, occasional drop-ins, lurkers, and first-timers! Come inside our virtual salon/saloon to find and share messages of hope and to celebrate all the ways good people are triumphing over the evil-doers in power. Today, I want to highlight the opportunity we now see in front of us to use the effects of the pandemic to change the status quo and create a more just society. As always, this roundup is a pot-luck, so please share your own contribution in the comments, which we consider to be The Best Comment Section on the Internet™.
The Pandemic is a Portal
The title of today’s Good News Roundup is taken from an article by Indian novelist Arundhati Roy. Here is how she ends it:
What is this thing that has happened to us? It’s a virus, yes. In and of itself it holds no moral brief. But it is definitely more than a virus. Some believe it’s God’s way of bringing us to our senses. Others that it’s a Chinese conspiracy to take over the world.
Whatever it is, coronavirus has made the mighty kneel and brought the world to a halt like nothing else could. Our minds are still racing back and forth, longing for a return to “normality”, trying to stitch our future to our past and refusing to acknowledge the rupture. But the rupture exists. And in the midst of this terrible despair, it offers us a chance to rethink the doomsday machine we have built for ourselves. Nothing could be worse than a return to normality.
Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next.
We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky skies behind us. Or we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world. And ready to fight for it.
Arundhati Roy – The Pandemic is a Portal
I think this is the best description yet of where we are now. We are standing uncomfortably between the way life used to be – familiar but rife with problems – and the as-yet-unknown ways our lives will change because of the pandemic. It is up to us as individuals and as a nation to decide whether our post-pandemic lives will be an improvement over our old lives.
Here are a few thoughts on this, starting with a list of what we should be learning as we live in isolation. This was written by Kim Stafford, a poet and teacher:
Home School Thoughts for All of Us
From a FB post, passed along to me by a friend:
Home School Thoughts for All of Us – In the pandemic, what should we all be learning?
by Kim Stafford
Self reliance
How to cook a meal. How to clean a house, a porch, a yard.
How to plant a garden. How to use tools How to fix
broken things: sew a button, mend a hole, do laundry,
wash dishes like a pro.
Buoyancy
How to be sad and get over it. How to find the music
that restores you. How to walk so your troubles fall from
your shoulders. How to write your troubles to make them
visible, then manageable, then smaller, and finally funny.
Friendship
How to know a true friend. How to let go old friends
who make you feel bad about yourself. How to give
generously to a friend by listening, asking, wondering.
How to feed a friendship so it roots, deepens, grows.
Thought
How to think something through. How to question
your fears, interrogate them, talk back to them. How to remember something so precious you are less afraid. How to make clear what most calls to you, what you love, what you will do to sustain it.
Dreams
How to have a dream, toward a life worth planning for, saving for, working for. How to design ways to make steady progress toward a worthy goal. How to identify a dream that is so important, you will let go lesser things to achieve it.
Thrift
How to know what you don’t need. How to know what you do need. How to pare away things you don’t need—objects, habits, false wishes, propaganda coming at you that is foreign to who you are—so you can give your energy to what you really want.
Love
How does it feel in your body when love is real—love for a person, for a place, for a feeling about who you really are, a longing for what you most want to do with this life? This is your compass, your inner landmark, your truth principle. Only you can know.
Maintenance
Health. Rest. Calm. Breath. Patience. Affection. Humor. Active hope.
Speaking of active hope, there is certainly no more hopeful step anyone can take than deciding to bring a baby into the world. Ezra Levin and Leah Greenberg, the founders of Indivisible, revealed in their May newsletter this week that Leah is pregnant with their first child, a boy. I love how Ezra announced it:
We delayed having this kid so that we could see through the fight with Indivisible, and in no small part , it’s Indivisible that gives us the gumption to bring new life into this world now. Our little boy will be born during the end of the Trump era, but he’ll grow up in the world we make together.
At the very least, we’ll have one more small GOTV companion come November. And we can’t wait to teach him his representative’s phone number.
As we await the end of isolation and think about what the future might look like, there are already significant changes happening. Among the ones I see are:
- A lot more respect for teachers. There’s nothing like having to teach your own kids at home to show you what an invaluable – and highly skilled – job teachers do.
- Also more respect for child care workers, and a growing demand for affordable child care.
- And also a lot more respect for service workers who have had to risk their lives as essential workers during the pandemic.
- A very clear and painful realization that our health care system is fatally broken and needs to be replaced. Hospitals acquiring vital PPE on a “just in time” basis has been shown to be especially insane, as is tying health insurance to one’s job.
- A lot of office workers realizing that they can work successfully from home. If your office work is all done on a computer and a phone, you can arguably do the same work distantly. Here’s a good historical deep dive on the subject, with both pro and con views of offices: Death of the Office
- A rediscovery of the pleasures of preparing food in your own kitchen. Not everyone will continue cooking and baking after we’re all free to eat out, but I think many will.
I could natter on with more observations and random predictions, but I’d rather hear what you all have to say, so please share your thoughts in the Comments section.
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Music to inspire us as we plan the future
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Useful news
This has prompted me to make a couple of new masks:
Making your own mask? Researchers say some fabrics can filter nearly as well as an N95
From the Boston Globe:
Fabric from a cotton sheet combined with material from a prom dress, an old tie, or a pair of pajamas could be used to make a mask with a filter that’s nearly as good as the N95 mask, according to new research.
A new study from researchers at the University of Chicago says that a combination of cotton with silk, chiffon, or flannel can create a well-functioning filter.
However, the researchers and other experts say there’s a big caveat: If your mask leaks around the edges, unlike the tightly fitted N95, your homemade filter will lose its effectiveness.
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...the best overall filtration was provided by a sandwich consisting of one layer of the tighter-woven cotton plus two layers of silk, or two layers of chiffon, or one layer of flannel — because of the electrostatic filter created by the non-cotton layers.
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Now on to the news!
Good news from Portland
Oregon researchers build 3-D printable ventilator for coronavirus, hope to deploy free worldwide
From the Oregonian:
Amid the coronavirus pandemic, researchers at Oregon Health & Science University have developed a ventilator that can be made with a 3-D printer, does not require electricity and can be produced for less than $10 in materials, university officials said Friday.
The university filed for emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration on Friday [April 24] to release the design to the public.
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The design can produce a workable ventilator in three to eight hours, according to the university, and functions using only a common oxygen tank and springs that are available in most hardware stores.
Homeless services tax measure on May ballot
From Metro [Portland area regional government entity] website:
Proposed supportive housing services measure
Voters across greater Portland will be asked in May 2020 to consider a proposed regional supportive housing services measure, developed with community members and leaders from around the Portland region, which, if passed, would fund services for people experiencing homelessness to find and stay in housing.
The proposed measure would provide housing services for approximately 5,000 people with disabilities experiencing homelessness, and would fund housing support for approximately 10,000 households experiencing homelessness or who could become homeless.
If passed, the measure would assess a 1% tax on taxable income above $200,000 for households, or $125,000 for single filers. If passed, the measure would also assess a 1% tax on business profits for businesses with annual gross receipts over $5 million.
If the measure passes, Clackamas, Multnomah and Washington counties would receive funding for the following services:
- case management
- mental health care
- addiction and recovery treatment
- job training
- housing assistance
- culturally-specific services
Polling is looking good for passage of Measure 26-210. According to Oregon Public Broadcasting in a story on April 30,
out of 600 likely May voters, nearly 60% said they would vote “yes” on the measure, according to the poll, which had a 4% margin of error.
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Good news from Oregon
Gov. Kate Brown Lays Out COVID-19 Testing And Contact Tracing As Keys To Reopening Oregon
From Oregon Public Broadcasting:
Gov. Kate Brown said on Friday [May 1] a new study with 100,000 randomly selected Oregonians could shed light on how far the coronavirus has spread throughout the state and will help guide the state’s decisions to reopen the economy.
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At a press conference, Brown unveiled new details on how the state plans to expand COVID-19 testing and trace people who have been exposed to the coronavirus. Both measures are crucial to reopening the economy, which the governor said could start happening in some regions of the state as soon as May 15.
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An OHSU research team will randomly select Oregonians to voluntarily participate in the study...The research team will track the temperatures and other COVID-19 symptoms of the participants. Those invited to participate will receive a letter and would agree to be tracked for up to one year.
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“We are all in this together,” the governor said. “Make no mistake, physical distancing will remain part of our daily lives until we have security of a vaccine or a treatment for the disease,” Brown said.
Oregon Shakespeare Festival will stream performances online with new platform ‘O!’
The Oregon Shakespeare Festival is one of the oldest and largest professional non-profit theatres in the nation. Hearing that they’re working proactively to survive the pandemic is definitely good news!
From the Oregonian:
The Oregon Shakespeare Festival is taking a new step into the digital world, hoping to connect with the millions of Oregonians stuck at home during the coronavirus pandemic.
The southern Oregon theater company launched its new digital platform, O!, on Wednesday, where it expects to begin streaming previously staged performances as well as documentaries, behind-the-scenes footage, interviews and educational videos.
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...the organization has launched a $5 million fundraising campaign, encouraging donors to form “teams” to raise money...there have been no new layoffs since March and...the festival still plans to run a truncated season from Sept. 8 to Nov. 1, if possible.
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Good news from around the nation
If this case proceeds successfully, it may halt at least some of the confirmations of RWNJ judges:
Court Vacancy Is Under Scrutiny Ahead of Contested Confirmation Hearing
From the New York Times (if you’re blocked by the paywall, you can read a summary on Raw Story):
Just days before a high-profile Senate confirmation hearing to fill a vacancy on the prestigious U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, the court’s chief judge has opened the door to an inquiry into whether ethical improprieties occurred in the creation of the coveted opening.
In an order dated May 1, Judge Sri Srinivasan asked Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. to assign another circuit to look into a complaint filed by the progressive advocacy group Demand Justice, which questioned the timing and circumstances of Judge Thomas B. Griffith’s retirement announcement in early March.
The advocacy group acted in March after disclosures that Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader who has focused intently on conservative judicial confirmations the past three years, had been contacting appeals court judges nominated by Republican presidents to encourage them to retire.
Another absurd voter suppression law bites the dust!
Oklahoma Supreme Court strikes down law that would have required tens of thousands of notaries for mail voting
From Raw Story:
On Monday, the Supreme Court of Oklahoma struck down a requirement that absentee ballots be notarized, making it substantially easier to vote by mail ahead of an election threatened by fears of the coronavirus pandemic.
The decision, which follows a lawsuit by the League of Women Voters, is a victory for voting rights activists.
The controversy centered on a voting law passed in 2002. The League of Women Voters asserted this law only required a signed affidavit under penalty of perjury, rather than requiring the ballot to be notarized by a third party, and contended that in the current environment, this restriction would substantially reduce turnout.
The law also required each notary to approve a maximum of 20 ballots. According to Democratic voting rights attorney Marc Elias, this means if only half of Oklahoma’s 2 million registered voters requested an absentee ballot, the state would need 50,000 notaries just to process them all.
Trump and his tax returns at the SCOTUS
An excellent informative read from VCLib on DKos. It doesn’t lend itself to summarizing, so do click the link:
Next week the Supreme Court will hear oral argument in a trio of cases dealing with Trump’s efforts to thwart committees of the House of Representatives and the Manhattan District Attorney, Cryus R. Vance Jr., from obtaining his financial records. The cases are Trump v Mazars USA, LLP, Trump v Deutsche AG, and Trump v Vance. The two cases regarding the House have been combined for oral argument, followed by the Vance case, all of which have been scheduled for May 12, 2020.
Activists: Boycott Meat to Protect Plant Workers From Coronavirus
From Daily Beast:
A coalition of Iowa groups is calling for a consumer boycott of meat this month to demand better working conditions for employees in crowded factories that have become incubators for the coronavirus. Thousands of meat-packing workers and their families have been sickened by outbreaks—and advocates say the companies have not done enough to protect those who remain on the job. Earlier this week, President Trump signed an executive order to force meat plants to stay open. On Friday afternoon, the League of United Latin American Citizens will announce details of its Meatless May campaign in Iowa—where 90 percent of the COVID-19 infections in one county are linked to a Tyson plant.
Judge issues scathing ruling against Trump administration — and cancels hundreds of oil leases on public land
From Raw Story:
The Trump administration suffered a major setback in its efforts to open more public lands to oil and gas drilling.
“A federal judge on Friday canceled nearly 300 oil and gas leases in Montana because government officials failed to properly study the risks of all that drilling to the environment and water supply,” the Associated Press reported Friday.
The ruling impacts 287 leases covering approximately 227 square miles.
U.S. District Judge Brian Morris blasted the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in his decision.
“The Court does not fault BLM for providing a faulty analysis of cumulative impacts or impacts to groundwater, it largely faults BLM for failing to provide any analysis,” Morris wrote.
ICANN blocks controversial sale of .org domain to a private equity firm
This is wonderful news for nonprofits, for whom their .org websites are a lifeline to donations. Sale to a private equity firm would have resulted in much higher fees to keep their websites going.
From Ars Technica:
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, the non-profit organization that oversees the Internet's domain name system, has rejected a controversial proposal to sell the .org domain to a private equity group for more than $1 billion. It's a serious—quite possibly fatal—blow to a proposal that had few supporters besides the organizations that proposed it.
Currently, the .org domain registry is run by the Public Interest Registry, a non-profit subsidiary of another non-profit called the Internet Society. PIR was created in 2002 to run the .org domain and has been doing so ever since. But last fall, the Internet Society stunned the non-profit world by announcing it would sell the PIR—and, effectively, ownership of the .org domain—to a new and secretive private equity firm called Ethos Capital for more than $1 billion.
The announcement created a swift and powerful backlash. In its resolution formally rejecting the transaction, ICANN says it received its first letter opposing the deal just two days after it was announced. The group would eventually receive letters from at least 30 groups opposing the deal, as well as numerous negative comments during public hearings. Meanwhile, ICANN says, the deal has received "virtually no counterbalancing support except from the parties involved in the transaction and their advisors."
ICANN didn't have unlimited discretion to block the deal. ICANN's contract with the PIR required PIR to seek ICANN's approval for a change in control of the registry, but it stated that ICANN's "approval will not be unreasonably withheld." The big legal question, then, was whether it was reasonable for ICANN to withhold its approval. On Thursday, ICANN's board concluded that it was.
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Good news from around the world
Italians Turn Old Tradition of Charitable Giving into Modern COVID Response With ‘Suspended Shopping’
From Good News Network:
Caffe sospeso—an Italian term which means ‘suspended coffee’—is what someone says in a Naples café when they’re feeling generous and want to pay it forward to someone less fortunate.
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Now, in their COVID-conscious culture, a more generous version of the tradition is sweeping Italy with ‘suspended shopping’ (la spesa sospesa).
COVID-19 has done more damage in Italy than almost anywhere else, and because of the extreme difficulties, people are going into shops and paying the grocery tabs for strangers who might be out of work.
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Now with the internet on their side, modern-day Italians have more opportunities to support local businesses. One Italian foodie website, Puntarella Rossa, recently launched il calice sospeso “the suspended wine glass,” where readers can buy vouchers worth 1 glass, or 1 bottle of wine from a local bar—redeemable after the lockdown orders are lifted.
But wine, coffee, and groceries aren’t the only things being “suspended.” From sustainable clothing brand Re-Bello comes a crowd-funding campaign called One-for-One Mask.
An Italian news network described it as ‘La Mascherina Sospesa’—you guessed it, the suspended mask. A person can buy one washable, antibacterial mask, and the profits go to providing a second mask for a refugee in Cyprus through a European aid organization Refugee Support Europe.
We Might Have Just Found the Next Great Lighting Material
From Popular Mechanics:
Researchers in Switzerland have found a new organic light emitting diode (OLED) material that could scale the technology up to inexpensively light entire rooms and homes for the first time. The results come from a new arrangement of copper electrons, CuPCP, that replaces more costly precious metal diodes (PHOLEDs).
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The secret to the Swiss team’s new material is a behavior called thermally activated delayed fluorescence, or TADF. Like a supercooled superconductor or a hot nuclear reactor, these TADF OLEDs must get to a certain temperature before they can operate as designed, and they use a supply of outside energy to get to that temperature.
Several years ago, researchers began to make these diodes using copper in a similar excited state to the way precious metals work in PHOLEDs. The results were phenomenal: “A remarkable photoluminescence quantum yield [greater than] 99 [percent] was recently achieved for such materials,” the researchers say.
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The scientists hope others will be able to find and fine-tune even more versions of this copper TADF, with an eye on applications and even more reduction in cost. And when it comes to your TV or home lighting future, this new look could be just years away.
Global Greenhouse Gas Emissions Estimated to Fall by 8% in 2020—the Largest Recorded Drop in History
The sentence in bold is the one that really jumped out at me:
From Good News Network:
The COVID-19 pandemic represents the biggest shock to the global economy in more than seven decades, but new research says that the outbreaks are likely to result in a record-breaking 8% annual decline in carbon emissions—the largest decrease in history.
A new report released this week by the International Energy Agency (IEA) provides an almost real-time view of the COVID-19 pandemic’s extraordinary impact across all major fuels. Based on an analysis of more than 100 days of real data so far this year, the IEA’s Global Energy Review includes estimates for how energy consumption and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions trends are likely to evolve over the rest of 2020.
“Only renewables are holding up during the previously unheard-of slump in electricity use,” said Dr. Fatih Birol, the IEA Executive Director. “It is still too early to determine the longer-term impacts, but the energy industry that emerges from this crisis will be significantly different from the one that came before.”
The Global Energy Review’s projections of energy demand and energy-related emissions for 2020 are based on assumptions that the lockdowns implemented around the world in response to the pandemic are progressively eased in most countries in the coming months, accompanied by a gradual economic recovery.
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Musical break
A friend sent me this parody of “Nessun Dorma” rewritten for the pandemic. It’s really well executed and actually winds up being quite inspiring despite being a parody.
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ICYMI
This has been making the rounds for at least a couple of weeks, but I’m including it just in case any of you missed it. It’s truly brilliant, and the refrain would be a great marching song!
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A little humor
I’ve gotten pretty hooked on the Holderness family YouTube vlogs. They’re really clever and well-produced. This one made me LOL for real, especially the “No fix! Listen!!” exchange and the presentation of the medal:
More great responses to the Getty Museum Challenge
Here are a few more amazing and witty recreations of museum masterpieces using household items. I really can’t get enough of this!
Lady 1-Ply, Keeper of Non-Perishables and Protector of the Soap.
Frida Kahlo with Parrots Cleaning Products
And dogs!
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An amazing video
Someone (BeeD? WineRev?) posted a quick link to this in an extendo a couple of weeks ago, but it’s too wondrous not to highlight. This is a perfect marriage of beauty and ingenuity, a combination which the Japanese are especially adept at:
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Hot lynx
www.dailykos.com/… Best News I Read Today: There Will be Criminal Prosecutions
www.rawstory.com/… The biggest political story of the year isn’t what you think
www.huffpost.com/… NBC News Chairman Andy Lack Stepping Down: Lack has come under fire for his handling of sexual misconduct at the network. Good riddance!
explore.org/… Aurora borealis live cam!
betterworldbooks.com...Better World Books sells donated books, donates a book to someone in need each time they sell a book, and uses proceeds above operating expenses to support literacy around the world.
www.nationalgeographic.com/...The Hairless Mexican Dog Has a Storied, Ancient Past
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In closing, some transcendent music
On Saturday, April 25, the Metropolitan Opera held an “At-Home Gala,” which sadly I didn’t know about until a week later. The reviews of the at-home performances, by so many of the world’s greatest singers, were ecstatic. Fortunately, they did allow the highlight of the evening, the chorus “Va, pensiero” (“Go, my thoughts”) from Verdi’s Nabucco, to be published on YouTube. The opera is about the struggle of the Jews against the Babylonians, and this chorus, also known as “The Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves,” is their lament for the homeland they have been exiled from. It’s one of opera’s most beautiful and most moving choral passages.
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Thanks to each and every Gnusie for your smarts, your hearts, and your faithful attendance at our daily Gathering of the Herd.
❤️💙 RESIST, PERSIST, REBUILD, REJOICE!💙❤️