Veepstakes 2020: The choice is imminent they say. I am hoping for Elizabeth Warren, but politically, the selection seems kind of marginal for Biden. No matter who he selects, half the critics will say she is disqualifying, the other half will rail that the person they wanted him to pick was clearly a better choice. This will all be very loud and will feel very important. But in the end, electorally at least, it is not. Presidential Elections come and go, but one truth seems to always remain: No one votes for Vice President.

A few years ago a book I was reading piqued my interest in the origins of the elements (nucleosynthesis). I was floored by the idea that the ‘Big Bang’ produced Hydrogen and Helium (and some Lithium I guess) but that the rest of the elements–all those forms of matter represented on the periodic table, Oxygen, Gold, Uranium, etc.–were built later from those basic elements (mostly Hydrogen and Helium). The deep time and mind-boggling forces behind each element that we see under foot or in our environment fascinated me immensely. I bought a periodic chart, assembled it, hung it on my office wall so I could continue referencing atomic numbers easily as I read various titles on stellar evolution or astronomy as they discussed elemental outcomes arising from the interplay between gravity and stellar fusion. I wanted to remember the process that created each element, but perhaps not enough to do the maintenance to keep it all in working memory.

Enter Jennifer Johnson. A professor at Ohio State University who has created the Periodic Table of the Elements I always wanted — a nucleosythetic version providing the origins of each element!

This chart is simple enough to glance at, but really does quite a bit of work and is the first easy compendium I’ve ever encountered on nucleosynthesis. She really has done an amazing thing with this, imho.

“To abolish child labour you first have to make it visible”

GMB Akash is a photographer and photojournalist who does seriously good work. The image above is from a series he did exploring child labor practices in Bangladesh. He tends to captures the dignity of people who find themselves in fairly dire plights amid a system of inequality that spans the globe as he turns up in Greece, Indonesia, Myanmar and elsewhere.

If you had some time to quietly sit with a photo essay or two, I recommend his work.

Ed Yong has been doing the lord’s work in The Atlantic as of late. How the Pandemic Defeated America is a standout piece of writing that offers a clear eyed assessment of how the US has failed as a nation. He compiles mistakes and missed opportunities, squandered advantages, failures of policy, and ultimately, a failure of leadership. He also writes among the most damning appraisals of Presidential leadership I have ever seen:

No one should be shocked that a liar who has made almost 20,000 false or misleading claims during his presidency would lie about whether the U.S. had the pandemic under control; that a racist who gave birth to birtherism would do little to stop a virus that was disproportionately killing Black people; that a xenophobe who presided over the creation of new immigrant-detention centers would order meatpacking plants with a substantial immigrant workforce to remain open; that a cruel man devoid of empathy would fail to calm fearful citizens; that a narcissist who cannot stand to be upstaged would refuse to tap the deep well of experts at his disposal; that a scion of nepotism would hand control of a shadow coronavirus task force to his unqualified son-in-law; that an armchair polymath would claim to have a “natural ability” at medicine and display it by wondering out loud about the curative potential of injecting disinfectant; that an egotist incapable of admitting failure would try to distract from his greatest one by blaming China, defunding the WHO, and promoting miracle drugs; or that a president who has been shielded by his party from any shred of accountability would say, when asked about the lack of testing, “I don’t take any responsibility at all.”

He follows with:

Trump is a comorbidity of the COVID‑19 pandemic.

In other news:

A good idea in life is to simply start with the facts. And as it so happens in this criminal complaint against licensed securities broker and financial representative Michael Carter, the facts begin on Page 4.

Financial advisor broke the law with some clients. Stole some money, probably going to jail. Sounds boring, right? Srsly… check it out. It is astonishing.

Again… the facts start on page 4.

What a tangled web… 

Finally, about twenty five years ago I heard a live version of a jazz/ragtime/big band ensemble belting out Some of These Days and fell in love with the song. The source must have been the radio, because it sent me down a rabbit hole searching for THAT version again – a quest I’m not sure I ever successfully completed. It was perhaps the first song I ever made a sustained and considered effort to hear from as many sources as possible (although it is possible that ‘Round Midnight might have come first for me). Recently, after not hearing this song in many years–perhaps a decade or more–a version crossed my path that was so well done and unique that I feel compelled to share. It is just so good, so pure. Please enjoy:

currently reading: Capital and Ideology, Thomas Piketty
last full listen: Obscured by Clouds, Pink Floyd

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my July Playlist is now public.

“[like] a hospital that invests mightily in palliative care while elimating the oncology department.”  –The Economist, describing the US approach to economic stimulus in this pandemic

Following Congressional approval, on March 6th, 2020 $8.3 Billion in emergency funding was authorized for federal agencies to respond to the pandemic.

Twelve days later, $192 Billion in ‘Phase II relief’ was authorized for paid sick leave, tax credits, and free COVID-19 testing, and more.

Seven days later, March 25th: $2.2 Trillion was authorized through the CARES Act.

Congress is now discussing the next round of stimulus and the public discussion will be focused on the terms of that debate going forward, but I did want to formulate some thoughts on the topic.

All of April, May and June have passed since the CARES Act was signed into law. There is a week left in July, and we still have no national plan, just “guidance to the governors” from a hodge-podge of agencies coordinated enough to produce material on the subject of the Coronavirus. Some 13% of GDP has been spent (so far this year) on economic stimulus alone. While many disagree on what the funding above should have looked like, there is consensus that funding was necessary in March to prevent the further contraction or collapse of US economic activity. No serious person believes there won’t be additional stimulus to come.

Back in early March polling data pointed to increasing polarization around issues related to COVID-19. It seemed clear the body politic was not going to take a conservative appproach to the new virus that had emerged but wanted to maintain the status quo as much as possible. I honestly did not expect the polarization to have as much staying power as it did though–even after some folks started to valorize the idea of at least expressing a willingness to die for the economy later in the month. I estimated that once the cases reached a certain prevalance–frankly, once enough people, in enough places, had either died or had their health irreversably impaired–the risk of death and permanent loss of health would be taken seriously, and the competing narratives would align. Doing what it took to minimize cases would be seen as the best approach to sustainably reinvigorate economic activity after all the “if you build open it, they will come” attempts failed.

By April 15th, 25,668 deaths in the US had been attributed to COVID-19; the polarization did not abate, it intensified. By May 15th, when over 84,000 Americans had died, the largest predictor of an individual’s views on the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic was party identification.

Today, almost 150,000 Americans have died from COVID-19. Economic activity is still hindered, not just here, but abroad; the E.U. just authorized a €1.8 Trillion plan to address the impacts of the pandemic four days ago. But as I think back, I largely expected that $2.2 Trillion we spent at the end of March, to do most of the heavy lifting.  I suspected some additional funding might be in order to tidy things up after America had bent the curve, overcome logistical issues or met its manufacturing challenges. But I largely expected America to do better than it did.

H.R. 6800, The HEROES Act currently proposed by the House is reported to provide $3 Trillion in COVID-19 response. It is almost impossible to argue that people don’t need help. But it occurs to me–in a way that it did not the last time we were here–that unless there is leadership of the sort that can unify the country in an effective course of action stopping the spread, this is just another stop gap measure. In other words, more of the same in terms of public health policy, will yield more of the same in terms of mortality and economic decline. The lesson since March is that there is no inevitable moment of truth where the body politic faces reality.

In the absence of leadership, this money buys us nothing – it only rents economic activity at a negotiated level until the next round rents more. All while people continue facing reduced employment options, many of which increase the risks to the health of themselves and their families and more people continue to die.

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“Aren’t you worried? Going alone?”

I don’t get into the wilderness nearly as much as I would prefer, but from time to time I do. And in the days leading up to these excursions, I usually just can’t shut up about it either. Other folks (usually co-workers) inquire on the danger or risk levels involved with being alone and distant in the Mountains and the question that is asked most often is “aren’t you scared?” I usually explain that this isn’t my first trip, that I have a fair amount of experience, or rattle off equipment that reduces the liklihood of truly dire outcomes, and basically just minimize any risks associated with being in remote nature, alone, unsupported.

The truth of the matter though is that fear is a part of the experience, and yes — of course I worry; of course I have some fear.

On my latest trip, a planned 6-day trip surveying the Emigrant, Yosemite and Hoover wildernesses of California’s Sierra Mountains I spent a lot of time in the lead-up thinking negative thoughts about the entire thing. First, I was worried about the mosquitoes – and particularly worried about my committment to the mileage in the face of undeterred swarms. How would I react if they simply did not let up and my repellent wasn’t doing the trick at the height of mosquito season? I was worried about the possibility of spraining an ankle or breaking a bone, alone, 25 trail-miles and 2 days away from a car. I was worried about car problems getting there or back, critical gear failures deep into the wilderness, Mountain Lion encounters that might completely re-route my path in country with not a lot of options. Probably most significantly, I worried about wasting six days of possibility–days which I could devote to anything–but invested in a project that I might actually discover wasn’t so important to me after all. I was afraid I’d get a few miles or a day and a half into it, by myself, and think “meh – I’ve done this before, elsewhere, but I think I’d rather just go home.”

The solitude of backpacking solo makes it a radically different experience than ‘normal backpacking’ (with others) in my estimation, particularly the deeper one goes into remote spaces. Years ago, on a planned 4 day trip, I drove five and a half hours at night to get to a particular trailhead by morning, then hiked all day to get to a certain spot. I set up camp in late afternoon, only to realize by nightfall that, having been in that drainage before, there was no sense of exploration or excitement motivating me to stay. I was in a spot, again, only this time, I had no one to talk to or share the experience with. I hiked out the next morning. When you are alone, there is no consensus to acheive; you can quit any time, just turn around.

For all my negative thoughts on this most recent trip however — negativity which increased in both frequency and intensity, the closer I got to the trailhead in time and distance — by the time I was fifteen minutes into the woods, it was all gone. The roughest period of doubt, in fact, was during the handful of miles from the Highway 108 turnoff to the trailhead itself. I was honestly considering just turning around and driving three hours back. And then, once on the trail, suddenly, they just melted away. I remember contemplating that evaporation for about a mile at least and then returning to it periodically over the days that followed. Whether there is a lesson there for other parts of one’s experiene I won’t bother arguing here, but I simply wanted to follow up on a decision I made while out there, that I would come back and at least be open about that fear and how it impacts me and argue for it being normal, reasonable and common.

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Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway co-authored a book, published in 2010 under the title The Merchants of Doubt. The book outlines the use of disinformation–in the guise of honest skepticism–and details instances of bad-faith argumentation and action from industries facing regulation. In 2014, a filmmaker named Robert Kenner, inspired by the book, released a film of the same name. Ms. Oreskes continues to do research in this arena and published a book at the end of 2019 (which I can’t read) titled, Why Trust Science.

Her claim, “scientific knowledge is the intellectual and social consensus of affiliated experts based on the weight of available empircal evidence evaluated according to diverse but time-tested methodologies” speaks not to science as a method, but as consensus, arrived at through evidence. I like this.

In any event, the lecture she gives below is about fifty minutes in length, informative, and entertaining. Other videos are available online, including a recent discussion on how the anti-vaccination, climate-denial, and other movements seem to have prepared us for such a dismal pandemic response.

How to Talk to Coronavirus Skeptics is also a video that might be of use in some circles, perhaps. Ultimately, she has a lot to say about the discourse around and among those acting either in bad faith or with a surplus of motivated reasoning. Of particular revelation to me tonight was the idea of ‘implicatory denial‘ – an ideological distortion arising from the clash between evidence so contrary to one’s ideology, that accepatance of the evidence would render a deeply held principle (or principles) untenable. For those unable to part with the ideology, denial of the evidence is the only option to avoid its necessary implications. Her lectures are littered with gems and insights along this line, and if these are topics anyone is interested in, I would recommend searching her name and spending time with the results.

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As advertised, only more so is how I would describe John Dickerson’s latest, The Hardest Job in the World: The American Presidency. For anyone who happens to be unfamiliar with the former Face the Nation host, Dickerson is a journalist and commentator, currently assigned as a 60 Minutes correspondent and a political analyst for CBS News. He is also a presence in the podcasting world as a frequent guest on many shows, one of three co-hosts of Slate’s (weekly) Political Gabfest, and the host of his own podcast, Whistlestop (which is also the title of a previous book on the history of presidential campaigns).

Dickerson has been looking at the Presidency for a while; what he delivers in this book is a phenomenal survey of the office. If one wanted to understand the history and evolution of the American Presidency and gain insight into how the duties and challenges of the Presidency have been met since the founding, this book is a great place to start.

Dickerson seems to do his level best to keep opinion out of the text, which I imagine is no small feat. This is not a book of Good Presidents and Bad Presidents; this is a book about the Executive. He writes a book about characters that have such wild differences in character that even the juxtaposition of two individuals can come across as a swipe at the one who may be viewed less favorably by one reader or another. Could you contrast someone like Eisenhower or George Washington to Lyndon Johnson for example, and not make Johnson appear like the surly, self-interested, S.O.B. he surely was in many respects? Dickerson can–and does. (LBJ is on the cover as it happens) Chapter 29 may be the most gracious and well-articulated Case for Trump {from the view of his supporters} that I have ever read. But many reader reviews seem to reflect a reflexive disdain for any presentation of facts unfavorable to ‘their guy’ and claim the author is clearly biased  – an inaccurate charge in my estimation. The book is focused on the roles and powers of the office – how those have changed relative to Congress and the Courts – and the approaches and decisions Presidents have taken – how they have worked politically or practically for a given President and how all of this has served to shape the office over time. Dickerson does this fairly and with great insight, but if a bad word or two about any President will cause offense, then this is ceratinly not the book for you.

There are a great many anecdotes and narrative threads in the book (although not 45 – this survey is not complete or chronological) and the writing is superb. Dickerson does not sacrifice the narrative to make a point or make any sharp pivots to force peculiar insights into the text. Instead, he has simply written a page-turner. He has told a great story. One that happens to be true, and is about the American Presidency.

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Donald McNeil, my favorite The Daily guest, has a new article in the NYTimes.

It had this picture and I wanted to share, after disclosing that in March, before the pandemic hit NYC, the annual death rate was about 6 in 1,000 people there:

“At first glance, it looks innocuous, like the ups and downs of the Dow Jones index. But the longer you stare at the fine print, the more horrified you become.”

The article is not arguing “this is fine” due to this not being Scarlet Fever and 1830; rather he makes the case for the science and the public commitment to it that enabled Public Health policy to overcome ‘libertarian resistance’ to put it delicately.

#ARTICLEWORTHREADING (3 minute read)

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As it happens, tomorrow is the 75th anniversary of TRINITY. On July 16, 1945, at a minute shy of 5:30am, the Manhattan Project conducted a test that was code-named Trinity, where the United States detonated the first atomic explosion in the history of the world. In doing so, scientists and engineers proved they could release the destructive energy equivalent to 44 million pounds of TNT in a single explosion. The explosion created temperatures so high that they had never occurred on the planet in the history of The Earth itself.

Leading up to the test, many equations predicted that these temperatures would be so high that a runaway chain-reaction could:

Ignite. The. Atmosphere.

and thus: End. Life. On. Earth.

These days, we know that didn’t happen, but a fair bit of math, once upon a time, seemed to suggest that lighting that fuse wasn’t so smart. But we lit it anyway. And in doing so, a single nation’s govenrment, covertly and without any public debate–took mankind into a new era — one where humanity itself became its own source of Existential Risk.

Prior to Trinity, threats to human extinction were generally of the super-volcano/meteor impact variety. Since Trinity, extensive biotech research into biologics like viruses, has resulted in the establishment of super-secure research facilities (“BSL-4” or “P4” sites)  containing and experimenting on pathogens that–if released–would pose a threat to the survival of the human race. Of concern as well are changes to the climate as a result of our continued use of fossil fuels and the release of methane into the atmosphere, and the continued diminishment of the environment writ large as a result of human expansion and the diminishment of the wild across the globe. And then there is A.I.

Humanity has existed for about 200,000 years. Toby Ord’s latest book, The Precipice, asks us to consider those 200,000 years of history as well as the countless millennia that humanity might yet endure — particularly, as he argues, if we can just make it through this problematic era where for the first time in our history we have the means to destroy ourselves, in so many ways, and for so many reasons, that we have become our own greatest extinction risk. “How we react to that risk is up to us” he writes. (never really discussing the idea of power asymmetry)

This is not a bad book. But it is not a good book, either. It is frankly too long, too laborious in parts and not at all succinct, even if it is only 241 pages (with 209 pages of appendices, endnotes and bibliographies). But the ideas it reckons with are important – hell, they’re existential. The threats discussed, both natural and anthropogenic, are presented fairly as best as I can tell. In fact, the author probably strived too hard to show his math on the topics to be honest; stipulating the figures and just rolling with the general ideas is likely the only way most readers pressed for time in any way will interact with the arguments.

TL;DR: seems legit tho.

I suspect many considering reading the book might not have hopes for humanity beyond what their own experiences of it has proved itself to be, but Toby Ord does a good job of expanding the idea of the potential of what humanity could become. The stakes. That which could be lost. And he is convincing; in a thousand or more generations almost anything is possible — so long as the generations before did not destroy that potential (or set into motion a cascade that would inevitably destroy it). The work is well argued, exceedingly well–reasoned.

I can’t imagine this book being for everyone; which is a bit of a disappointment, as there is no one alive who the topic isn’t suitable for. But this book would be recommended for anyone interested in surveying current risks to either civilization or to humanity itself. The hypotheticals are worth it; the narratives of real-world pathogen escape events from BSL-4 facilities, and points in our recent history when nuclear exchanges were inarguably a very real possibility–if not a likelihood–are also worth it. Or the book might be equally great for anyone interested in a few well-reasoned ideas of what the future could look like if humanity really got it together. Alternatively, the book may also be of use for individuals interested in ethics, particularly intergenerational ethics.

If you read the book, I would be very interested to hear what your thoughts were.

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The latest title from Masha Gessen might reasonably be found in any stack of recent books speaking to the deficiencies of the current administration. There is no shortage of titles on that topic, but Surviving Autocracy stands apart with distinction due to both the depth and the precision of its analysis of American politics, processes and institutions during this moment. While many recent books provide details of previously unreported events, Ms. Gessen speaks primarily to what has always been in plain view since the beginning of Trump’s foray into civic life, and does so in a way that provides both insight and tools to more effectively understand, and thus evaluate, the changes occuring in the political culture of the United States.

She draws on the scholarship of many countries in the former Soviet-bloc which saw instances of political realignment towards autocracy during/after the decline/collapse of the Soviet Union. She also clearly draws on her close observations of her native Russia. Most notably though, she draws on an incredibly keen analytical skillset to evaluate and explain events, stripping away what might generously be understood as lazy language or indequate terms and metaphors which are generally (or have been generally) used to describe various circumstances or events. On this latter point alone, I would recommend the book; the rigor of rational analysis contained is a fine example to behold and in my estimation would be a useful touchstone to have for almost anyone’s analysis of topics they find meaningful.

The claim is not made that the United States is an Autocracy, only that what has been happening in front of us over these last three years should be understood as an ‘autocratic attempt‘ — an attempt to consolidate political power with a single individual. Even if one assumes that this attempt will fail, her argument proceeds, if there is a belief that Democracy winning the day is inevitable, the extents to which the autocratic attempt has been successful to date should serve as a dire warning, demanding re-evaluation of the assumed resilience of our institutions and political culture to sustain a Democracy.

Many reader-reviews of this book seemed to focus on a lack of steps or actions provided by Masha Gessen to “survive autocracy.” The frequency of this notion did make me skeptical of the fidelity to the topic implied by the book’s title (the bait and switch from title to text is an ongoing annoyance of mine) however, the criticism (such as it is) seems absolutely unwarranted. A fair amount of insight and utility is there for any individual who is less interested in what to think and more in terms of how one might think more critically. But beyond that, the book as a whole seems more properly understood–in terms of its title at least–as applying to the project of Democracy itself… how it, through us, resists the forces currently pulling the nation toward an Autocratic government. This resistance requires clearness of thought, precision of expression, resistance to the politics of humiliation, an adherence to the importance of moral leadership and ethical conduct in civic life, and a refusal to allow xenophobic impulses to diminish the scope of who is “we” and who ‘us’ defines in this common project.

I recommend this book.

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Spotify playlist for June is public: 

• Xavi Bou is a fellow from Spain who grew up fascinated by the movements of birds, most often captured by photographers in single shots of murmurings, but Xavi has found a way to do something a little more interesting. His portfolio Ornitographies is proof that it’s not the camera, it is the imagination with which you use it.

• The NYTimes reports that 239 scientists from 39 countries are publishing an open letter to the W.H.O. this week outlining the evidence for airborne transmission of SARS-CoV-2in ‘a scientific journal.’ (a) the name of the journal would have been nice as part of the story and (b) I am eager to read this. I am highly susceptible to confirmation bias on this topic, but would like to sit with the evidence they present.
• In two weeks and one day, this thing will launch to Mars:

The Perseverence Rover will be looking for geologic clues to the past on Mars, including signs of water, and if present, should have the tools to detect signs of microbial life in the fossil record. I almost expect it to find incontrovertible proof of life; the current moment seems almost too much for society to bear, so as such I expect reality to pile on with perspective-anihiliating discoveries to boot.

This weltanschauung will self-destruct.

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