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“One death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic.”
The quote comes from Stalin. The policy comes from Donald Trump.
Trump famously changed his policy on Syria after seeing photographs of a couple Syrian children killed by a chemical attack. It didn’t matter that the Syrian government had already killed thousands of children. In targeting the Assad regime, Trump was moved by the tragedy, not the statistic.
When it comes to world hunger, Trump’s resistance to statistics is even more appalling. There are now 1.4 million children at risk of dying from famine. No one apparently has shown Donald Trump, or his daughter Ivanka, any photos of these at-risk children. So, the U.S. president is comfortably ignoring this statistic.
Because of a combination of weather conditions and military conflict — the two horsemen of the 21st century apocalypse — 20 million people are on the verge of starvation in four countries: Yemen, Somalia, South Sudan, and Nigeria. It’s the worst humanitarian crisis since World War II, according to a senior UN official. In response, the UN put out a request for $4.4 billion in emergency assistance to avert catastrophe.
As of the middle of April, it hadn’t even received a billion.
At first glance, the United States comes out looking pretty good in terms of contributions. It tops the list of donors at $407 million (followed by various EU countries, Canada, Japan, and even $60 million in private pledges).
It turns out, however, that all the money that Washington has contributed this year comes from an allocation made during the Obama administration. Last year, in fact, the United States provided 28 percent of the assistance to the four countries.
This year, USAID hasn’t added anything to meet the emergency famine relief appeal, which is no surprise. In Trump’s budget request, USAID stands to lose 37 percent of its funding. After all, Donald Trump has declared foreign assistance a zero-sum game: What doesn’t go to them can go to us. “America First” means that we protect our own first.
Except that Trump isn’t giving to the most needy at home. Our billionaire president is also threatening to take away the health care of millions of Americans. His proposed federal budget would dramatically reduce programs for the working poor like affordable housing.
The Trump doctrine, such that it is, is really all about taking from the poor and giving to the rich.
Trump’s America First approach, then, is a shortsighted, cruel, and ultimately self-defeating shell game. Unless Donald Trump reverses his opposition to foreign aid, he will go down in history not just as the Absentee Golfer President or the Insane Clown President.
He’ll be forever known as the Hunger President.
Full-Spectrum Famine
Yemen has been in a precarious state for some time. It’s a desperately dry place where as many as 4,000 people a year were dying in disputes over land and water even before the outbreak of the current hostilities.
In 2014, a Shia religious-political movement known as the Houthis threw their lot in with ousted leader Ali Abdullah Saleh, a corrupt politician who’d ruled for three decades before losing his position during the Arab Spring protests that swept through Yemen in 2011. Together, they took over the capital and surged southward to expel the government of former military commander Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi, who had holed up in the port city of Aden.
That’s when Saudi Arabia intervened on the side of Hadi and against the Houthis. The United States has been assisting the Saudis from the beginning by sending weapons and providing intelligence. The United States has also been helping to refuel bombers that have increasingly targeted civilian sites such as schools and hospitals.
It’s all part of a larger struggle in the region between the Saudis and their Sunni allies on one side and Iran and its Shia allies on the other, though Iran denies that it has much to do with the Houthi struggle. The Trump administration has only upped the ante by restoring the arms sales to Saudi Arabia suspended by the Obama administration and aligning itself even more closely to Riyadh’s war effort.
The war has pushed Yemen over the brink. The areas where the most fighting has taken place — Taiz and Hodeidah — are, not surprisingly, where the risk of famine is greatest. Both sides are to blame, says Mark Kaye of Save the Children in Yemen:
This crisis is happening because food and supplies can’t get into the country. Yemen was completely dependent on imports of food, medicine, and fuel prior to this crisis. You have one party delaying and significantly preventing food from getting into the country, and another on the ground detaining aid workers or preventing aid and food from getting to areas they don’t want it to go to.
Of course, it doesn’t make much sense to send in food and water to people only to make them into better-fed casualties in the ongoing conflict. And the conflict shows no sign of abating, with the Houthis governing in the capital and the Saudi-backed supporters of Hadi only in tenuous control of areas in the south. The geographic and sectarian divisions that make the conflict more complicated than just Houthi vs. Hadi also make a peace deal that much more elusive.
Of the four countries at risk of famine, Yemen is the place where the United States has perhaps the greatest chance of making a difference. It can stop supporting the Saudi war effort. It can begin to scale back its own drone attacks in Yemen. It can support the UN peace process.
Even just stepping back from the conflict — something that Donald Trump seemed to favor during the campaign as a general approach to any conflict not involving the Islamic State — would deprive the ongoing war in Yemen of some of the oxygen that keeps it going.
Climate Change and Famine
The Pentagon long ago figured out that climate change was becoming a chief driver of conflict worldwide. If anyone can persuade Donald Trump that climate change is real, it’s not going to be environmentalists. It’s going to be people with a lot of medals on their chest, people who know better than anyone that you can’t bomb a famine to make it go away.
The generals could begin a climate-change discussion with Trump by talking about what’s currently going on in Africa. The three African countries on the famine alert – South Sudan, Somalia, and Nigeria — are all dealing with endemic military conflict. They’ve all been vulnerable to famine in the past. And climate change has been pushing them ever closer to the edge.
Take the example of Somalia, which last experienced a famine in 2011. Somalis depend on agriculture and livestock. Even the most modest increase in temperature throws the ecosystem out of equilibrium.
“Awareness is growing among Somalis themselves about climate change: Communities across the country have noticed marked changes in temperature and rainfall, although most attribute it to divine retribution for the failings of humankind,” writes Halae Fuller in a Stimson Center brief from 2011. “African farmers and herders have adapted to changing environmental conditions with remarkable resilience. But where individual ingenuity fails, Somalia lacks the institutions and government structure needed to protect its population against increased food insecurity.”
A growing population and a shrinking resource base are a recipe for disaster under any circumstance. Throw in two dry spells in 2016, and now nearly half the Somali population needs emergency food relief.
The failure of the international community — and particularly the United States — to help those in desperate need in Somalia, South Sudan, and Nigeria could become a powerful recruitment tool for anti-Western terrorist organizations. At the very least, the increased competition for limited resources will sharpen already-existing political and sectarian divisions.
The Trump administration could continue to avert its eyes from famine. It could continue to deny the real-world impact of climate change. And it could insist that drone attacks from above are the only way of dealing with terrorists on the ground. But it won’t be able to pretend for long that these problems won’t ultimately affect the United States. The growing number of refugees pouring out of those countries and the growing anger of those who perceive that they’ve been abandoned by the West will necessarily have a blowback effect on the last superpower standing.
On this narrower issue of famine relief, the Trump administration can still change its position. Right now, it’s living off the political capital and budget allocations of the Obama administration. That will run out very soon.
If humanitarianism fails to persuade Trump, perhaps naked geopolitics could do the trick.
Significantly, on that list of donors answering the UN famine appeal, one country is conspicuously absent: China. In the Trump era, China has been very vocal about its desire to be a more prominent player on the world stage. But here’s a reminder: It’s pay to play. If China wants to shoulder global responsibilities, it must start by paying attention to the world’s most vulnerable people.
In the meantime, while China considers the costs of global leadership, the United States still has a chance, by making a splashy and significant contribution to famine relief, to regain some portion of its status as a global leader in an arena that actually means something for the lives of millions of people.
If it doesn’t, Trump will have more than just a couple tragedies on his hands. He’ll face some very damning statistics indeed.
Crossposted with Foreign Policy In Focus.
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One thousand five hundred Palestinian prisoners have been on a hunger strike for almost a week now. They are refusing sustenance in an effort to improve the deplorable conditions faced by the nearly 6,500 Palestinians who are currently imprisoned in Israel.
On the day before the strike began, the action’s leader, Marwan Barghouti, published an op-ed in the “International New York Times.” It was an elegantly-written piece in which Barghouti laid out the conditions in Israel’s prisons and the demands of the strikers. These demands include: more regular family visits, better health care, an end to solitary confinement, and end to administrative detention (a practice in which Israel jails Palestinians for prolonged periods without charges or trial—there are currently 500 such detainees), and installing public telephones enabling prisoners to have monitored calls with their families.
Barghouti began his article noting that he has been in prison for 15 years during which time “I have been both a witness to and a victim of Israel’s illegal system of mass arrests and the ill-treatment of Palestinian prisoners”. He concluded his opening paragraph saying “After exhausting all other options, I decided there was no other choice but to resist these abuses by going on a hunger strike”.
As one of the co-founders of the Palestine Human Rights Campaign, I have long been acquainted with Israel’s “justice system”. Since most Palestinians have been convicted based on confessions obtained under duress, international human rights organizations have condemned Israel’s violations of international law and the lack of due process afforded to prisoners. Over 80% of all arrested Palestinians have been refused the right to legal counsel until after they have been subjected to prolonged and often abusive interrogation. In his article, Barghouti describes these abuses that he and other prisoners have been forced to endure, noting that the equivalent of 40% of Palestine’s male population have been jailed by Israel.
The Israeli government’s response to the article and to the strike, itself, have been revealingly characteristic of their modus operandi.
Because the Times initially described Barghouti as a Member of the Palestinian Parliament and a leader, Israel launched a campaign forcing the editors to change their description to note that Barghouti had been convicted of murder and membership in a terrorist organization.
What Israel did not mention was the fact that Barghouti’s arrest, trial, and conviction were denounced by the Swiss-based Inter-Parliamentary Union as being “a violation of international law” and having “failed to meet fair-trial standards”. The IPU concluded that “Barghouti’s guilt has not been established”.
But when Israel is on the war-path in an effort to discredit criticism, facts don’t matter. Instead they make do with bullying threats to force their target into submission. They called the op-ed “journalist terrorism”; accused the Times of “media terrorism”; called Barghouti’s piece “fake news” that was “full of lies”. Former Israeli Ambassador to the US, Michael Oren, called for an investigation to see who at the Times was responsible for getting and publishing the article. One Knesset Member went so far as to suggest that Israel might close the Times’ Israel bureau.
Israel also ratcheted up the rhetoric against Barghouti and the other strikers. Despite the fact that most of Palestinians are being held on political charges (and many are detainees who haven’t been charged with any crimes)—all were hysterically denounced as “loathsome murderers” and “dangerous terrorists”.
In the end, the Times relented and changed their description of Barghouti to meet Israel’s demands.
Reflecting on this Israeli bullying campaign, Haaretz’s insightful columnist, Chemi Salev termed the entire effort a “ritual of diversion and denial”. By focusing on the description of Barghouti and not the content of his piece, Israel was able to “accentuate the insignificant at the expense of the essence”. “First”, he wrote, “you manufacture righteous indignation over a minor fault…then you assault the newspaper…and cast doubt on its motives…In this way the Israeli public is absolved of the need to actually contend with the gist of the article…In this way, anyone who wants to address Barghouti’s claims…is seen as collaborating with a terrorist and enabling terror”.
As for the strikers, Israel promised a harsh response and no negotiations. Barghouti and other “ring leaders” have been placed under solitary confinement. One Israeli minister said that Barghouti should have been “executed”, while another said that Israel should treat their prisoners the way Hamas treats its captives. And while a law is being advanced to allow the government to force-feed prisoners, Foreign Minister Lieberman said that the government should be firm even if it means letting prisoners die. At the same time, a not so subtle media campaign has been launched to discredit Barghouti as a political opportunist who is only doing this to advance his political career and to sabotage the “peace process” (as if one actually exists).
What Israel will not acknowledge and is attempting to obfuscate is that their treatment of Palestinians is deplorable. Their 50 year long illegal occupation has driven a captive people to resist their systematic oppressive violence. In the process, Israel terms every Palestinian response “terrorism”. Whether throwing rocks at checkpoints, boycotting Israeli products or writing op-eds and going on a hunger strike—all become “terrorist” acts.
There are, to be sure, horrific acts of real terror that have been committed by Palestinians and these must be condemned and punished. But even here Israel is not blameless. Doesn’t bombing civilian targets and killing scores of civilians or systematically starving Gaza into submission qualify as terror? And doesn’t confiscating land, demolishing homes, and centuries-old olive orchards also fit the definition of terrorism?
At the root of all the violence is the persistence of an inhumane occupation and the evil that results from it.
What should be noted, however, is that like the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, a mass prisoners’ strike is an inherently non-violent protest. This, Israel refuses to accept. Because it can admit no wrong-doing and because of its obsessive need to control all aspects of Palestinian life, any resistance becomes a threat and, therefore, an “act of terror” that must be punished and snuffed out. It is this behavior that breeds resistance. And this deadly and tragic cycle will continue until Israel recognizes that its victims are real people who will not submit but will continue to assert their rights.
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Throughout the ninth season of “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” Huffington Post Queer Voices will interview each departing queen on the Saturday following the air date of their elimination episode. Check HuffPost Queer Voices weekly to read about these queens’ reflections on their time on the show, as well as their legacies as queer artists and performers. Check out the previous interview with Jaymes Mansfield, Kimora Blac and Charlie Hides.
Friday night’s episode of “RuPaul’s Drag Race” brought yet another unexpected twist to the ninth season ― and a first for the franchise that fans certainly did not see coming.
Instead of one of the episode’s bottom two queens being sent packing by Ru, it was season stand-out Eureka O’Hara that got the boot ― but not because of the her performance. After injuring herself during the cheerleading competition, doctors told Eureka that she needed immediate surgery for her torn ACL. As a result, Ru decided to release her from the competition but offered an invite to come back and compete on the tenth season of “Drag Race” as a parting gift.
This marks the first time a queen has been sent home while simultaneously receiving a guaranteed chance to compete again at a later date ― arguably an incredibly desirable situation for a queen to find herself in and one which could help her continue to build her brand and relevancy as an entertainer.
In this interview with The Huffington Post, O’Hara reflects on her time on season nine, who she hopes will take the crown and what she’s doing to prepare for season ten.
The Huffington Post: This was quite a surprise for fans, as well as you I’m guessing. How did you feel at that exact moment when you found out you were being eliminated? What was going through your head?
Eureka O’Hara: You know, I think I was just shocked but I also kind of understood. The doctor advised us that I had to have immediate surgery. I had torn my ACL in my left knee completely. You know, the ACL and the MCL keep your knee from sliding back and forth and left to right so I could actually have further injured myself if I didn’t get assistance. When a doctor orders you to do something you don’t really have an option ― it’s about self-respect. It was extremely terrifying, it was intimidating, it was depressing. Only because I felt like my body failed me for a moment and it took me a minute to get past that ― but God gave me a path and I’ve got to walk down it. And it’s going to make me an ultimately stronger person and maybe make this experience even better because of it.
If you look at it from another perspective, it’s also a major opportunity since you’re going to be back next season. What do you want to work on and accomplish between now and when you film again this summer?
I will admit that I have a leg up on the competition because I’ve already experienced it. And I think that I would be disrespectful to that opportunity and to my viewers if I did not learn something from this season ― and I’ve learned so much. I got to see myself in HD so I got to aesthetically see things to change. I was able to see how I was perceived in certain situations, maybe ways to handle different situations. Obviously aesthetically I have an opportunity to work on that wardrobe and have some of the most sickening clothes hopefully on the runway – to really wow and shock the crowd. I want to make a statement ― I want to show my fight and I’ll get that opportunity.
Amazing. I’m looking forward to it. I’d like to revisit that powerful conversation from this week’s episode surrounding eating disorders. There were three other girls who got the space to talk about their own struggles, but you didn’t necessarily get the same opportunity. Was there any more that you wanted to say about that moment?
Yeah, I think honestly there are two sides to that situation. I respect Sasha and her support for my sister, Valentina. I think that the tensions were high and I was trying to soften the drama a little with something a little funny. And sometimes people don’t want to hear what’s amusing and maybe I find it funny and they don’t. But eating disorders are two different directions. There’s eating disorders where you do eat and eating disorders where you don’t and there’s eating disorders where you get yourself sick – there’s a variety of eating disorders.
I have suffered from an eating disorder myself almost my whole life ― a binge eating disorder ― until recently. And it’s something I’ve suffered with, many people have, and I think it’s just sad that sometimes that isn’t taken into consideration too and I hate that she perceived me as being negative and malicious when I was really just trying to be funny. But that’s the thing with humor – you never know if it’s going to be offensive. It’s always a risk.
What was the biggest thing that you learned during your time on season nine?
I think just being authentically me ― it works very well for me. I told myself the first day, “let’s just go in here and be you and see how it works out.” I’ve been perceived many different directions but ultimately I’m happy with the fact that everything I am on the show is exactly who I am. It’s what you’re going to be paying for when I come and work at your venue, it’s what you’ll be getting if you come watch a show. And I’m very blessed that people are able to get to know who I am without meeting me.
Do you see any important political implications with “Drag Race” being on such a mainstream network at this specific moment in time?
I think that right now the atmosphere and tension is so high on so many different crises and political situations. I do feel like that if we continue to build bigger, there’s always going to be someone that doesn’t like seeing our community grow and be successful. So no matter how long we’re living on this planet we will always have people that fight against us – everyone always has a negative opinion against something that people live or strive for. It’s just the way the world works. It’s the balance of good and evil – I hope that it doesn’t affect us and luckily we have the branding and the power at this point that I think it won’t.
It’s going to be challenging – it’s already challenging because it’s different and we’re trying to merge over to something so mainstream and so different. So I think that the LGBT community and this show went through many transitions and this is one of the biggest transitions but it’s come at a time where we get to distract the public and entertain the masses so it’s the perfect time.
Is there a particular queen that you’ve worked with or come up with that you would like to see on a future season of “Drag Race”?
Yeah, I think there’s a couple girls but one specifically that’s really close to my heart is my daughter Anna Tomical. She actually loves the show more than I ever did and has auditioned every year just like me, and for whatever reason I got on the show. I know that she knows the ins and outs of “Drag Race” and would just slay.
Of the girls left in the competition, who would you like to see win the crown?
I think I have a three-way probably… maybe four. My four favorites right now that are left would be Farrah Moan, Nina Bonina Brown, Sasha Velour and Peppermint. I think all four of them have a certain kind of talent and they’re a very diverse four and any direction would be a good representation because of who they are specifically.
What do you want people to understand about who Eureka O’Hara is going forward?
I feel like I know what people are going to know about Eureka. One, she’s big and loud and two, she’s a fighter and she doesn’t give up and she’s always authentically her big, loud, crazy, too much, animated-smile ass. And just to love yourself, hopefully – that’s the message I want to portray ― and live body positive.
“RuPaul’s Drag Race” airs on Friday nights at 8 PM ET/PT on VH1. Check out “Untucked” below. Missed last week’s interview with Charlie Hides? Head here.
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Thousands of people gathered in hundreds of cities Saturday to show their support for science and demand evidence-based policy in the wake of President Donald Trump’s anti-science agenda.
The March for Science, a series of rallies around the world, took place on Earth Day to highlight the need to fight the devastation that Trump’s environmental policies would inflict on the planet.
And of course, all those science lovers came with pretty great signs. Here are some of the best, cleverest and most poignant signs we’ve seen so far.
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WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump has long perpetuated the debunked theory that vaccines cause autism. In January, while still president-elect, he went as far as to request that Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a fellow vaccine skeptic, lead a commission to investigate vaccine safety.
This disregard for science is among the reasons Sabrina Solouki, a second-year Ph.D. student in immunology and infectious disease at Cornell University, made a pilgrimage to Washington, D.C., on Saturday for the March for Science, a mass protest to rally scientists against what they see as Trump’s backward policies.
“The administration, by forming this safety commission, isn’t really doing a good job of listening to science — of science-informed policy,” she told The Huffington Post.
Solouki also wants to unite the scientific community, to push for it to do a better job of engaging with the public at large, and to send a clear message that scientists are against Trump’s proposed cuts to science.
“Scientists, in general, need to come out and support the march so that people understand that we’re here and we really want to better society,” she said.
As president of Cornell’s Advancing Science And Policy group, Solouki helped organize for more than 100 Cornell graduate and Ph.D. science students to travel to Washington, D.C., for the event, which falls on Earth Day, the 47th anniversary of the birth of the modern environmental movement. Cornell’s group arrived Friday on three buses.
“If people don’t trust or accept science and scientists, we won’t be able to translate our work in labs, fields, etc. to the people who can benefit from what we find,” said Morgan Carter, a Ph.D. candidate in plant pathology at Cornell.
Under the current climate, aspiring scientists may be discouraged by competition for a shrinking pool of federal research funding, she said.
Since taking office, Trump has shaken the field of science, both with his proposal for sweeping cuts at the Environmental Protection Agency and other vehicles for research funding. His “skinny” budget, released in mid-March, proposed axing at least 31 percent of the EPA’s funding, eliminating the federal monies for the National Academy of Science and gutting underwriting for research at a bevy of executive agencies. Vox called it “everything scientists have been fearing.” Science, the magazine published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, said the budget “squeeze civilian science agencies.” The Washington Post noted that scientists were “conspicuously missing from Trump’s government.”
People do science because we’re interested in solving problems that no one else wants to solve. As a consequence, society moves forward.
Adrian Rivera-Reyes, cancer biology PhD student at UPenn
Trump’s hard-line immigration policies rattled science academia even more. The White House’s executive order temporarily blocking travelers from a handful of Muslim majority countries ― a move high-level Trump surrogates admitted would be a first step to establishing the so-called Muslim ban he touted during his campaign ― shook a field filled with graduates of schools across the Middle East.
“People are scrambling right now in the scientific community to figure out all the ways it plays out and what it means for grad students, innovation and the private sector,” Wendy Naus, executive director of the Consortium of Social Science Associations, told HuffPost in January. “If it is a glitch or a blip, and the outrage is heard and things go back, the damage isn’t done. But if it is the new normal, then, yeah, we are risking our competitive advantage. These are fundamentally things we’ve never confronted before.”
Even in his own administration, Trump has failed to hire to fill science positions. The president has yet to hire top advisers on technology of science, according to The New York Times, and has so far only named Michael Kratsios, the former chief of staff to Silicon Valley investor and campaign backer Peter Thiel, as deputy technology officer.
“We are all sitting on the edge of our seats hoping nothing catastrophic happens in the world,” Phil Larson, a former senior science and technology adviser to the Obama administration, told the Times. “But if it does, who is going to be advising him?”
Even among those students who don’t fear losing employment opportunities under the Trump administration, that attitude and outlook on science has bred dismay.
Nikhil Krishnaswamy, a fourth-year Ph.D. candidate in computer science at Brandeis University, isn’t concerned for his employment after he finishes school in June. But he said he planned to march in Boston, Massachusetts, on Saturday to show solidarity with other scientists.
“I’m in a field that’s probably less likely to be affected by the political considerations taken by the Trump administration,” the 30-year-old told HuffPost by phone on Friday. “But I do feel like there is a possibility for all of us to stand together and stand up for a worldview that’s based in truth and facts.”
His work focuses on helping computers interpret language semantics by decoding large data sets ― essentially improving the way humans talk to computers. Krishnaswamy said he hopes marching will remind him of the potential political ramifications of his work.
“What I do with technology is going to shape how we interact with each other, how we interact with our leaders and how we interact with technology in the future,” he said. “I have to make sure the technology I build will not have an ill effect on the freedoms we enjoy as Americans, and aren’t going to infringe on our rights or allow the government to do so either.”
Adrian Rivera-Reyes, 24, bristles when conservative pundits attack scientists as hungry for glory, fame or grant money.
“No one ever comes to mind who says specifically, ‘I want to do this because I want to be famous,’ or ‘I want to be well-known or famous or considered an intellectual,’” the third-year Ph.D. student in cancer biology at the University of Pennsylvania told HuffPost by phone on Friday. “People do science because we’re interested in solving problems that no one else wants to solve. As a consequence, society moves forward.”
The Puerto Rico native plans to march with a group of Latino scientists and students on Saturday. Trump’s proposed budget cuts risk eliminating funding for future work when he graduates, he said.
“It’s very worrying that I will graduate and President Trump will still be president,” he said. “I’m thinking, well, what am I going to do? Will there be jobs for me? It feels very real, more real than it used to be.”
The Trump administration’s hostility toward Muslim immigrants and travelers, including the ban on visitors from a handful of majority Muslim countries, jeopardize the future of his scientific research, Rivera-Reyes said.
“In science, that hurts,” he said. “We are definitely a very large and diverse group of people, and just singling out people for their religious beliefs like that is wrong.”
Carter echoed that sentiment.
“[S]cience doesn’t stop at country borders, because scientists collaborate with other scientists in government, industry, and academia all over the world,” she told HuffPost. “And science issues aren’t limited to individual countries. A disease that is in one country doesn’t wait for a visa to go into another country and we have to work together to tackle common problems.”
It’s for this reason, she added, that the scientific community has been so outraged by Trump’s travel bans and anti-immigration rhetoric.
“Science is a very international community and movement limitations can prevent collaborations or communication, like conferences,” Carter said.
Sean Terry, a Ph.D. student in astrophysics at Catholic University and a research assistant at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, said that Trump’s signing of a bill last month to authorize $19.5 billion in funding for the agency in the 2018 budget year has given him and others in the field of space science a certain level of comfort. It’s his environmental colleagues, in particular at the EPA, that Terry said he’s “more scared” about.
Although Terry expected the March for Science would draw a smaller crowd than the Women’s March back in January, he considers the message equally as important. And his hope is that at least some people denying or trying to weaken the importance of science will change their tone.
“I’m marching just to show my commitment to science and science literacy, and improving science literacy in younger individuals,” he said.
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American Gods is a giant tome of a book, with huge chunks removed or left out once Neil Gaiman realized how long his tale was getting. So when Bryan Fuller and Michael Green turned the book into a show, they had to move things around, change characters, and create a natural season end. And so the ending we’re going to…
LONDON— Governments may govern nationally, but scientists must work globally by requirement, as the folks who establish human truths based on evidence. So while scientists took to the streets in Washington D.C. today, marches in 600 cities globally joined them.
Succulents shipped to your door, $100 BeatsX headphones, and vinyl turntables lead off Saturday’s best deals from around the web.
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