Remember @CongressEdits, the tweetbot that alerts whenever a Wikipedia article is edited from a government IP address? There’s a Russian version now, and it just uncovered some pretty drastic edits to a Wikipedia article that mentions Flight MH17 , originating from a Russian government IP address.
Sure, opera isn’t exactly mainstream and is often times pretty atonal and cacophonous, but when written by Swedish pop duo The Knife, it can wield a more alluring sound.
If your average work day feels like an un-choreographed dance of chaos, perhaps this graceful wall clock will bring some peace of mind while you wait for five o’clock to roll around. The Dancing Wall Clock’s hands have been replaced with segments of a ballerina, resulting in an endless series of poses and pirouettes while they rotate about its face.
If you’ve been on Twitter long enough, chances are that you’ve sent at least one or two direct messages (DMs) that you’d rather not see again. Deleting any regretful conversations in one fell swoop should you use the service across multiple devices…
On this day in 1969, Apollo 11 landed on the moon. Roughly the time we print this article, the “Eagle” touched down near the Sea of Tranquility, a massive basin that make up the “Man in the Moon”. In honor of such a monumental achievement, NASA has compiled 3D footage of the lunar landing site. Images taken by the Lunar … Continue reading
Some of life’s most profound changes start as existential crises. In 2013, my husband and I were having a whopper of one. Approaching middle age and facing financial challenges, we were increasingly disenchanted with commercialism and its implicit message that happiness is something that can be bought… if you can afford it.
We live in New York City, surrounded by wealth and the pressure to have and become more. As a native New Yorker, I’ve been swimming with sharks in this ocean of competition since birth. The struggle was beginning to wear both of us down, and we worried about our 3-year-old son’s world view.
After several whiskey-fueled late night talks, we decided what we needed was perspective — about life, about how others in the world live, and about how much we really need in order to feel… happy.
***
Hoping it might be the antidote, we chose to escape to Bhutan, a tiny Buddhist country nestled in the Himalayan Mountains between the decidedly less tiny and humble countries of India and China. If Westerners have heard of Bhutan, they’ve likely heard it called “the happiest place on Earth.” This is in part because its government has decided that the happiness and well-being of all of its citizens should be its #1 objective.
Let that sink in.
Not the “right to pursue” happiness… Not happiness if you can afford it… but egalitarian happiness.
In fact, Bhutan idealistically measures its worth according to GNH, or Gross National Happiness, rather than Gross Domestic Product (GDP), holistically considering much more than economics when assessing value.
I consider this focus the opposite of American ideals of capitalism and competition. And so we left for Bhutan, in February of 2013, in search of happiness.
***
Every visitor to Bhutan pays a daily stipend for which they’re given transportation, a driver, a guide, and all lodging and meals.
Sonam, our driver, was all you could hope for. Calm, with steady nerves, nice to have around, and in possession of an extra thumb on one hand. The more fingers on the wheel the better, I reasoned, in this mountainous country full of cliffside, switchback roads.
Our guide Kunzang, a perennially smiling and high-spirited fellow, taught us to sing traditional Bhutanese children’s songs at the top of our lungs during long drives.
But in this land of happiness, where contented people seem the norm, it wasn’t long before heavier issues of life and death confronted us. Learning how to be happy was going to be more complicated than we’d thought.
***
The subject of death seems to permeate this rural, Buddhist country. People work with the land and animals. They believe in the importance of the cycle of life and don’t recoil from the concept of its natural end.
One consistent reminder of mortality is that the landscape is peppered with clusters of prayer flags — 15 to 30 feet tall each — made from thin trees and bright white fabric which flaps impressively in the breeze. Kunzang explained that these flags are lovingly crafted, for each person who dies, by their family and friends, planted in clusters of 108, and left to naturally erode back into the land. It was on a precarious mountainside road that our son Harper suddenly asked, “What is death?”
I’m an agnostic who has no religion with which to comfort and quell fears about separation and loss, and I harbor many of the burdens of the Western attitude towards death. My atheist husband virtually craves discussions about the subject, believing that people’s aversion to facing mortality is at the core of what makes us unhappy and fearful collectively.
Although I can’t recall exactly how we answered Harper, the gist was this: Everything dies. Everyone and everything will someday stop being here, and we don’t know what, if anything, happens after that. Everything that’s here now goes back into the earth and becomes a part of other things, and because of that, everything and everyone are connected.
And then we waited for it… The POP of his childhood bubble of innocence that would be irreparable and entirely our fault.
Harper’s first reaction was disbelief, followed by fear.
“I don’t want to die! I don’t want YOU to die!” he asserted.
Had we made a horrible mistake?
“Nobody really wants to die, “I continued, “and we aren’t going to die for a VERY long time [something I decided you really must tell a child, although you have no idea] and you won’t die for even longer! The most important thing we can do is to think about the life we’re living now and how to live it every day the best we can.”
I said that knowing it’s a goal I fall short of daily, but one worth striving for. Rather than waiting for rewards on “the other side” or living in constant fear, denying the inevitability of death, we hoped that instilling this thought might be empowering for him. Essentially, “this is what you can do about something you can do nothing about. You can try to capitalize on your living, breathing moments.”
Over the next few days, Harper expressed sadness a few times about the idea of losing us, and then… he seemed to accept it. Not in a sad or resigned way. He would occasionally mention death, as in “I saw a dead bird today” or “when you and daddy are dead, a LONG time from now…,” but there wasn’t horror or alarm in his voice. It seemed to become another piece of the enormous puzzle of life that he is putting together.
***
It was a crisp, clear day when we happened upon a platoon of soldiers* planting prayer flags. A couple of men gathered tall, reedy trees from the surrounding forest. Each sapling was propped up, one end on the ground and the other on a raised board, and its bark sheared away with machetes. Other soldiers carefully fastened long, thin white flags to each tree with a length of rope. The finished flag was carried to a spot within a growing forest of flagpoles and planted amongst the others. All of this happened in silence.
Only with the encouragement of Kunzang did we delicately approach this scene.
After speaking with the man in charge, Kunzang reported back. “It’s for the mother of one of the soldiers. She died yesterday. They have gathered here to support him and to honor her.”
I turned to look back in awe at this kind act and found myself face to face with the man in charge. He was small, but emanated experience and strength. Across his cheek ran a long, deep scar.
I was holding Harper. “Come baby!” He gestured to us, “Come baby!” My head swirled, trying to determine whether we’d made a horrible mistake by stopping. Was I about to become the world’s worst mother, encouraging my 3-year-old to follow a soldier about whom the only thing I knew was that he was rather handy with a machete? Or would I play the part of the ugly American and retreat to the car, hyperventilating and clutching my child to my bosom?
Trusting a surprising sense of well-being in my gut, my husband, Harper and I followed our new acquaintance into the cluster of tree flags where this man, with the scar on his face, dropped to his knees, and he and Harper planted one of those 108 flags together.
Few words were exchanged. Only “OK baby,” “Good baby.” Harper beamed with pride. He knew he’d been invited to do something very special. He had helped honor a stranger who had gone… somewhere; back into the earth. A woman who had raised a son who loved her. On a remote mountaintop in a country far away, he became a part of something larger than himself. He became a global citizen.
***
People will tell you it’s a pointless pain to travel with small children. I don’t agree. There are many mornings in New York when Harper will say, “Mommy, it’s nighttime in Bhutan and everyone is going to sleep.” He knows there’s a country on the other side of the world where there are sky-scraping mountains rather than sky-scraping buildings, and the people there live lives that are very different from ours.
During our two-week stay, we were treated kindly by people who have much less than we do, and warmth and connectivity seemed to accumulate in us.
As for happiness, for me it comes from embracing the unknown, having faith that things will be all right, and gaining perspective, all alongside the people I love the most.
***
Many thanks to “Bridge To Bhutan,” our incredible hosts on this journey.
*One might wonder why “The Happiest Place on Earth” would need a standing army. The Bhutanese Army is more akin to the American National Guard — a group that performs civic duties but can be called upon for battle if necessary.
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Tampa Bay’s most-beloved manatee becomes more adorable with each passing year. As Snooty approaches his 66th birthday, he’s showing a few signs of aging. His skin has turned lighter grey and he has a little extra waddle under his chin.
Snooty was born on July 21, 1948 in Miami and now lives at the South Florida Museum in Bradenton. He was the first manatee born in captivity. Snooty sets records every day for how long we know manatees can live, according to the museum.
Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick (D) detailed Friday his plan to temporarily provide shelter to undocumented children who have illegally entered the United States.
Patrick is working to help the federal government identify a site in Massachusetts to temporarily shelter up to 1,000 children while they await deportation or are reconnected with family members within the U.S. Possible locations have ranged from military bases to unused shopping malls. Costs would be shouldered by the federal government, and the shelters would be under federal control.
“The facility would be secure. It would have spaces for children to eat, sleep, play and go to school,” Patrick explained during a press conference, saying the average expected stay would be 35 days for each child.
Patrick appealed to listeners’ humanity and drew on personal convictions, noting that “it bears remembering that these are children alone in a foreign land.”
He later got emotional, explaining how his faith informed his decision. “I believe that one day we will have to answer for our actions and our inactions. My faith teaches that ‘if a stranger dwells with you in your land, you shall not mistreat him,’ but rather ‘love him as yourself; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt,'” Patrick said.
Watch Patrick’s full remarks above.
For those of us grounded in end-of-life care and choice, the earth shook this week. Did you feel it? The shaking hasn’t stopped, but the religious foundation from which aid-in-dying opponents build their strength cracked.
Tomorrow, Britain’s House of Lords will debate a bill to authorize assisted dying as a legitimate medical practice. Last week former archbishop of Canterbury, Lord George Carey, recanted his position of opposition and declared his full support. A few days later Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, perhaps the most visible symbol of moral authority in the world, voiced his own strong support for choice in dying.
The bill in Parliament is modeled on Oregon’s 20-year-old law, the Death With Dignity Act. A group of about 10 Oregonians worked for months preparing that document for the 1994 Oregon ballot. As one of those co-authors, I say in all humility that I am bursting with pride to see it put to use in Britain. Like Oregon’s law, the bill would allow a terminally ill, mentally competent adult to request life-ending medication to ensure a peaceful death. They can keep it on hand in case suffering in their dying process becomes unbearable, and they may self-administer it at a time of their own choosing. This bill differs from the Oregon model in that it would also authorize a physician to administer the medication.
The British have been looking at the Oregon model since 2006, when Lord Joel Joffe first introduced such a bill in the House of Lords. I watched from the gallery and saw an entire wall of men in clerical garb (the bishops who sit and vote as Lords) demonstrate the barriers to passage were insurmountable. The church’s opposition was adamant, and it was uniform.
That was before Lord Carey broke rank. Writing in The [London] Guardian, he says he has been moved by his life experiences: “The fact is that I have changed my mind. The old philosophical certainties have collapsed in the face of the reality of needless suffering.”
While this news was still fresh, came the even more momentous revelation that Archbishop Desmond Tutu, close ally of Nelson Mandela through the dark days of apartheid, friend of the Dalai Lama and conscience of a nation, also decided the time had come to speak out in The Guardian. “I have been fortunate to spend my life working for dignity for the living. Now I wish to apply my mind to the issue of dignity for the dying. I revere the sanctity of life — but not at any cost.”
Knowledgeable people expect the British bill to go to the full committee of the House of Lords, which means it will be spared the devastation of a “wrecking amendment” and move along in the legislative process. The committee will study it. The current archbishop of Canterbury has said the church should study it as well. Study of the Oregon experience, real study, free of biased assumptions and unfounded accusations, can only lead to the conclusion that aid in dying comforts many as they prepare to die, assists a few in crossing that threshold in peace and dignity, and harms no one. Governments have no legitimate reason to forbid this basic human freedom.
Desmond Tutu: a dignified death is our right – I am in favour of assisted dying
Guardian, July 16, 2014
Former archbishop lends his support to campaign to legalise right to die
Guardian, July 11, 2014
As of this week, a single violation of prohibitions on watering your lawn in California can cost $500. I recently picked up a tourist brochure for Sierra County California which cautioned me that a medical emergency in the mountainous, rural county was likely to require air evacuation, that my insurance probably wouldn’t cover it, and that the bill would begin at $15,000. I’ve also read that the rescue price tag for a climber who needs evacuation by air from Yosemite’s cliff’s can easily run $85,000. But that’s fair — we ought to pay for the costs we create.
So how much did the Occupational Safety and Health Administration fine Freedom Industries, the company whose sloppy handling of the toxic chemical MCHM caused 10,000 gallons to spill into the Elk River, poisoning the water supply of hundreds of thousands of Charleston, West Virginia residents? Pathetically, a measly $11,000, less than the cost of a single burst appendix helicopter ambulanced in Sierra County. This when 300,000 people had to find alternative water supplies for ten days.
Clearly Freedom Industries isn’t even beginning to pay the cost of what they created. In fact, this fine is probably smaller than what it would have cost them to run their facility correctly and avoid the spill in the first place, since one of the problems that OSHA fined them for was a leaky wall that needed to be replaced.
Freedom Industries is not alone in facing regulatory incentives that make short-cuts and safety violations economically attractive. Even giant BP, after running its refinery in Texas City for six years with repeated releases of lethal gasses, and then knowingly running for 40 days with its pollution control system out of operation and no notification of pollution control officials or the neighbors, got away with a $50 million fine, $22,000/day, that almost certainly made running the refinery and releasing hundreds of thousands of pounds of toxic air pollutant the profitable decision.
It’s not like we don’t know how to encourage most people to play by the rules without intrusive inspections or a police state. Many bus and tram systems in Europe don’t check your ticket – except once every ten rides. But the fine for riding without a ticket is, say, 25 times the fare – so even passengers who might be inclined to cheat quickly see that it doesn’t pay – and buy a ticket. But if a bus system checked every ten rides, and the fine was five times the fare – well, do that math. You get a different answer. Lots of free riders.
But we seem to lose track of what we know about human behavior when it comes to those artificial human beings we call corporations. It’s almost as if we take what we know would be an appropriate penalty to make sure you didn’t damage your neighbors and divide it by the size of the corporation – the bigger the company, the weaker the incentive we create for following the rules.
Statute after statute sets penalty limits too small to make compliance the right call for profits. The maximum fine for an auto company that fails to report a safety defect and implement a required recall is only $35 million – that might have gotten Freedom Industries to repair its wall, but it is a tiny fraction of what a timely recall would have cost GM in its current lethal ignition switch scandal. (And remember, many of the vehicles with the defect are no longer on the road, so the current recall is actually costing GM less than a timely one would have.)
And if low penalties aren’t enough, business allies in Congress are busily making it harder to collect penalties once levied – the House Appropriations Committee just voted to block EPA from garnishing wages to collect fines from recalcitrant violators.
Do we have some reason to believe that corporations are somehow MORE virtuous than individuals? Not really. Indeed, many of our most prominent business voices argue that a corporation’s only duty is to make money. How does this play out when it comes to following the rules? Early in my work as an environmentalist, I was slipped an internal oil company memo, discussing whether to inform the federal government that a portion of one of its natural fields in the Gulf of Mexico was in federal waters and subject to federal price controls. The memo boasted a complex decision tree complete with % estimates of how likely the feds were to discover the liability on their own, what the oil company’s chances of winning in court were (less than half) and finally what were the odds of jail terms for company employees. Each of these had a dollar value attached, and the final conclusion was – don’t report. I shared the leaked document with federal energy regulators. The oil company observed the price controls.
No company executives went to jail, and at least on the public record, no fine was paid.
Some companies, it seem, are just too big to punish.
A veteran leader in the environmental movement, Carl Pope spent the last 18 years of his career at the Sierra Club as CEO and chairman. He’s now the principal advisor at Inside Straight Strategies, looking for the underlying economics that link sustainability and economic development. Mr. Pope is co-author — along with Paul Rauber –of Strategic Ignorance: Why the Bush Administration Is Recklessly Destroying a Century of Environmental Progress, which the New York Review of Books called “a splendidly fierce book.”
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
