TOP OF THE NEWS:
- Don’t Despair: Big Ideas Can Still Change The World (Wired) "When reality clashes with our deepest convictions, we’d rather recalibrate reality than amend our worldview. Not only that, we become even more rigid in our beliefs than before. ...it’s when our political, ideological, or religious ideas are at stake that we get the most stubborn. Researchers at Yale University have shown that educated people are more unshakable in their convictions than anybody. Intelligent people are highly practiced in finding arguments, experts, and studies that underpin their preexisting beliefs, and the Internet has made it easier than ever to be consumers of our own opinions, with another piece of evidence always just a mouseclick away. Smart people, concludes the journalist Ezra Klein, don’t use their intellect to obtain the correct answer; they use it to obtain what they want to be the answer."
- What Google and Facebook must do about one of their biggest problems (WaPo) "The platforms that have come to dominate our experience of the Internet, Google and Facebook, are for-profit companies, not democratic institutions. As they become the face of journalism and public information, they must be held accountable for their effects. It [social media platforms] has created echo chambers in which people with similar views reinforce their ignorance and bias. The bigger issue is that we need to develop political literacy in our educational and social systems. This entails viewing no piece of information, whether presented on social media or through a traditional news outlet as infallible, but instead learning to scrutinize that story’s framing, the agenda it serves, and the integrity and transparency of its sources. In other words, as a society, we need to up our own game."
ARTS/ENTERTAINMENT:
- The New Art Mediums (Ozy) "Today,eye-popping technology is redefining this oldest of human endeavors in strange, new ways. Artistic works are created by people weaving through laser beams or from data gathered on air pollution. The main concern, though, is that the artist may lose the fundamentals — line, texture, color, shape, form..."
BUSINESS:
- Will the Sharing Economy End Capitalism as We Know It? (Ozy) "'Crowd-based capitalism' will usurp the corporation now at the center of the economy. But problems arise when casual side hustles turn into full-time gigs. We have 'painstakingly' built a system of worker protections, minimum wages, regulations and pension schemes that 'transformed full-time employment from something that was pretty reprehensible 100 years ago to something that looks pretty good in many countries today,' says Sundararajan."
- Tech companies are pushing the FCC to preserve its net neutrality rules (WaPo) "In a meeting with FCC Chairman Ajit Pai on Tuesday, the Internet Association — which represents companies such as Google, Amazon and Netflix — said it maintains 'vigorous support' for the agency's net neutrality policy, which moved to regulate broadband companies, such as Comcast and Charter, like their predecessors in the legacy telephone business. Those rules ban the blocking or slowing of websites, and also prohibited Internet service providers from charging websites special fees for displaying them on consumers' devices. Democrats are unwilling to come to the negotiating table unless they receive assurances that the bill would allow the FCC to continue writing rules for Internet providers in the future. Republican opposition to the net neutrality rules revolves around this issue; conservatives fear that the agency could use its powers to directly regulate the price of broadband or suppress investment in high-speed networks, analysts have said."
CLIMATE CHANGE:
- Scott Pruitt Faces Anger From Right Over E.P.A. Finding He Won’t Fight (NYT) "His actions and statements have galvanized protests from environmentalists and others on the left. ...now a growing chorus of critics on the other end of the political spectrum say Mr. Pruitt has not gone far enough — in particular, they are angry that the E.P.A. chief has refused to challenge a landmark agency determination known as the 'endangerment finding' that provides the legal basis for Mr. Obama’s Clean Power Plan and other global warming policies. The 2009 legal finding is at the heart of a debate within the Trump administration over how to permanently reverse Mr. Obama’s climate change rules. The finding concludes that carbon dioxide emissions endanger public health and welfare by warming the planet, which led to a legal requirement that the E.P.A. regulate smokestacks and tailpipes that spew planet-warming pollution. Mr. Pruitt has told the White House and Congress that he will not try to reverse the finding, saying that such a move would almost certainly be overturned by the courts. Legal experts outside the Trump White House say that while Mr. Pruitt may face political fire on his right flank for the move, it is nonetheless pragmatic legally, since the finding has already been challenged and upheld by federal courts."
- Some Other Scientific Theories the GOP Should Debate (Wired) "Scientists have known since the 1890s that carbon dioxide traps heat, and have been accumulating evidence since the 1950s that atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide could cause the entire planet to warm. This is physics and chemistry applied planetwide, and as such, there’s room for debate. But if Congress were truly interested in resolving these disputes, you might expect that they would advocate for more funding to climate and Earth science (rather than do the exact opposite). After all, it’s the one science that’s solely focused on Earth’s capacity to sustain life. But maybe it’s a stretch to hope that even that could earn bipartisan support."
MEDIA:
- Hiring Anti-Trump Conservative Is Part Of New York Times' Effort To Expand Opinion (Huff Post) "...tradition of hiring conservative op-ed writers such as the late William Safire, a former Nixon speechwriter; and Bill Kristol, the founding editor of The Weekly Standard. The paper’s current right-leaning columnists, David Brooks and Ross Douthat, are seen as representing a high-brow strain of conservatism, hailing from elite schools and magazines like The Weekly Standard and The Atlantic, respectively. And they share their more liberal colleagues’ rejection of the bomb-throwers in the talk-radio world and unsavory aspects of Trumpian conservatism."
NEWS:
- Must Supporters Let Trump Be Trump? (National Review) "The problem is that Trumpism is real, but it’s not an ideology. It’s a state of mind. Or, to be more accurate, it’s a constantly changing state of mind. Trump himself admits as much, saying that he won’t be bound by ideology or doctrine, preferring 'flexibility' not just on means, but on ends. When conservatives said 'Let Reagan be Reagan,' they were referring to a core philosophy that Reagan had developed over decades of study and political combat. When people said 'Let Trump be Trump,' they meant let Trump’s id run free. The former was about staying true to an ideology, the latter about giving free rein to a glandular style that refused to be locked into a doctrine or even notions of consistency. That’s why saying 'Let Trump be Trump' is almost literally the opposite of saying 'Let Reagan be Reagan.'"
- The Coming Incompetence Crisis (NYT) "So far, we’ve lived in a golden age of malfunction. Every major Trump initiative has been blocked or has collapsed, relationships with Congress are disastrous, the president’s approval ratings are at cataclysmic lows."
- When Jared Wins (National Review) "Trump’s jaw-dropping public distancing from Bannon is the latest twist in a struggle that is astonishing even by the standards of a White House... No one can know for sure how this ends. Perhaps it’s all papered over, or maybe Bannon keeps his head down to fight another day. But it’s hard to see how Kushner doesn’t prevail in one form or other..."
- The Inside Story of the Kushner-Bannon Civil War (Vanity Fair) "You’ll hear White House veterans say that working in the West Wing is like being on a submarine, sealed off from the rest of the world. What sustains you...are the stated principles of the president and the dedication of the people working with him to pursue that vision. But now, in full view of the country and the world, we are watching what happens when a president is elected on the basis of an incoherent and crowd-sourced agenda, one that pandered to white nationalists and stoked economic anxiety. Trump’s West Wing is beginning to resemble the family real-estate business Trump grew up in... What seems clear is that each member of the staff operates with the knowledge that there will always be someone who seems about to fall next, and that that person may well be him or her. ...Trump’s management style has long been to pit top aides against one another, and almost any senior aide can just wander into the Oval Office. What is unusual about this presidency is that Trump himself is not a stable center of gravity and may be incapable of becoming one. He knows little, believes in little, and shows signs of regretting what has happened to him. Governing requires saying no to one’s strongest supporters and yes to one’s fiercest opponents. To have that presence of mind requires a clear and unified vision from the president."
- For Trump, a Steep Learning Curve Leads to Policy Reversals (NYT) "For any new occupant of the White House, the early months are like a graduate seminar in policy crammed into every half-hour meeting. What made sense on the campaign trail may have little bearing on reality in the Oval Office, and the education of a president can be rocky even for former governors or senators. For Mr. Trump, the first president in American history never to have served in government or the military, the learning curve is especially steep."
- If Humble People Make the Best Leaders, Why Do We Fall for Charismatic Narcissists? (Harvard Business Review) "One study suggests that despite being perceived as arrogant, narcissistic individuals radiate 'an image of a prototypically effective leader.' Narcissistic leaders know how to draw attention toward themselves. They enjoy the visibility. It takes time for people to see that these early signals of competence are not later realized, and that a leader’s narcissism reduces the exchange of information among team members and often negatively affects group performance. The problem is that we select negative charismatic leaders much more frequently than in the limited situations where the risk they represent might pay off. Despite their grandiose view of themselves, low empathy, dominant orientation toward others, and strong sense of entitlement, their charisma proves irresistible. Followers of superheroes are enthralled by their showmanship: through their sheer magnetism, narcissistic leaders transform their environments into a competitive game in which their followers also become more self-centered, giving rise to organizational narcissism, as one study shows."
SCIENCE:
- This device pulls drinking water straight out of the air — and it runs entirely on the sun’s energy (WaPo) "According to a description of the new design, published Thursday in the journal Science, a single tissue box-sized device can harvest up to..about three quarts of water in one day at low humidity — that’s a bit more than the half gallon of water experts recommend a person drink over the course of a day. The new design is essentially a form of dewing... The key is a special type of compound known as a metal organic framework, or MOF, a crystalline material involving metal ions linked with organic molecules. The MOF has a porous structure that makes it ideal for holding water, similar to a sponge."
SPORTS:
- The Cocaine Kings of the Pittsburgh Pirates (Narrative) "Nothing said opening day like the sound of Pirates organist Vince Lascheid banging out a few notes of 'Let’s Go Bucs,' the smell of hot dogs wafting through the stadium, or the prospect of an eight ball of cocaine to take it all up a notch."
- The gentrification of college hoops (The Undefeated) "...most athletic scholarships are going to middle-class kids with college-educated parents, not to kids from poor families who need a scholarship to get anywhere close to a university campus. But here’s the stark, myth-busting truth: Fewer than 1 in 5 students playing Division 1 hoops, and 1 in 7 in all Division 1 sports, come from families in which neither parent went to college. And their numbers are declining. Educators call such students 'first gens,' or members of the first generation of their family to attend college. First gens are typically from poor and working-class families that have difficulty paying for college without scholarships. Indeed, the data suggests that athletes awarded scholarships in big-time college sports are more likely to come from advantaged backgrounds than the wider student body." and LaVar Ball: UCLA was too slow to win title with 'three white guys' "'Realistically you can't win no championship with three white guys because the foot speed is too slow,' LaVar Ball told the Southern California News Group, presumably talking about Bruins starters TJ Leaf, Bryce Alford and Thomas Welsh."
- Emmett Ashford, first black umpire in the majors, makes his debut (The Undefeated) "'Ashford did not become the first [African-American] umpire in the major leagues merely because he was fast on his feet,' wrote New York Times columnist George Vecsey. 'He survived the near-race wars of the minor leagues because he could talk better and think faster than the lugs in uniform and the louts in the grandstand. He overwhelmed people with his endurance and his charm.'"
TECNOLOGY:
- New Tools Needed to Track Technology’s Impact on Jobs, Panel Says (NYT) "The panel’s recommendations include the development of an A.I. index, analogous to the Consumer Price Index, to track the pace and spread of artificial intelligence technology. That technical assessment, they said, could then be combined with detailed data on skills and tasks involved in various occupations to guide education and job-training programs."
- How Driverless Cars Will Take Over America's Heartland (Ozy) "Similar to crafting an engine, building self-driving cars and the infrastructure to support them will mean piecing together multiple parts — and each DOT site is designed to test a specific component. In an era that glorifies disruption, few technological advances have the potential to be as radically transformative as AVs — and change is coming at racecar velocity."
BOTTOM OF THE NEWS:
- Hey Hey, My My: Aging Rock Fans Still Hold Their Lighters High (NYT) "Concerts aimed at old guys are big business."
TODAY'S SONG:
- Vaporize (Amos Lee)
- What Google and Facebook must do about one of their biggest problems (WaPo) "The platforms that have come to dominate our experience of the Internet, Google and Facebook, are for-profit companies, not democratic institutions. As they become the face of journalism and public information, they must be held accountable for their effects. It [social media platforms] has created echo chambers in which people with similar views reinforce their ignorance and bias. The bigger issue is that we need to develop political literacy in our educational and social systems. This entails viewing no piece of information, whether presented on social media or through a traditional news outlet as infallible, but instead learning to scrutinize that story’s framing, the agenda it serves, and the integrity and transparency of its sources. In other words, as a society, we need to up our own game."
ARTS/ENTERTAINMENT:
- The New Art Mediums (Ozy) "Today,eye-popping technology is redefining this oldest of human endeavors in strange, new ways. Artistic works are created by people weaving through laser beams or from data gathered on air pollution. The main concern, though, is that the artist may lose the fundamentals — line, texture, color, shape, form..."
BUSINESS:
- Will the Sharing Economy End Capitalism as We Know It? (Ozy) "'Crowd-based capitalism' will usurp the corporation now at the center of the economy. But problems arise when casual side hustles turn into full-time gigs. We have 'painstakingly' built a system of worker protections, minimum wages, regulations and pension schemes that 'transformed full-time employment from something that was pretty reprehensible 100 years ago to something that looks pretty good in many countries today,' says Sundararajan."
- Tech companies are pushing the FCC to preserve its net neutrality rules (WaPo) "In a meeting with FCC Chairman Ajit Pai on Tuesday, the Internet Association — which represents companies such as Google, Amazon and Netflix — said it maintains 'vigorous support' for the agency's net neutrality policy, which moved to regulate broadband companies, such as Comcast and Charter, like their predecessors in the legacy telephone business. Those rules ban the blocking or slowing of websites, and also prohibited Internet service providers from charging websites special fees for displaying them on consumers' devices. Democrats are unwilling to come to the negotiating table unless they receive assurances that the bill would allow the FCC to continue writing rules for Internet providers in the future. Republican opposition to the net neutrality rules revolves around this issue; conservatives fear that the agency could use its powers to directly regulate the price of broadband or suppress investment in high-speed networks, analysts have said."
CLIMATE CHANGE:
- Scott Pruitt Faces Anger From Right Over E.P.A. Finding He Won’t Fight (NYT) "His actions and statements have galvanized protests from environmentalists and others on the left. ...now a growing chorus of critics on the other end of the political spectrum say Mr. Pruitt has not gone far enough — in particular, they are angry that the E.P.A. chief has refused to challenge a landmark agency determination known as the 'endangerment finding' that provides the legal basis for Mr. Obama’s Clean Power Plan and other global warming policies. The 2009 legal finding is at the heart of a debate within the Trump administration over how to permanently reverse Mr. Obama’s climate change rules. The finding concludes that carbon dioxide emissions endanger public health and welfare by warming the planet, which led to a legal requirement that the E.P.A. regulate smokestacks and tailpipes that spew planet-warming pollution. Mr. Pruitt has told the White House and Congress that he will not try to reverse the finding, saying that such a move would almost certainly be overturned by the courts. Legal experts outside the Trump White House say that while Mr. Pruitt may face political fire on his right flank for the move, it is nonetheless pragmatic legally, since the finding has already been challenged and upheld by federal courts."
- Some Other Scientific Theories the GOP Should Debate (Wired) "Scientists have known since the 1890s that carbon dioxide traps heat, and have been accumulating evidence since the 1950s that atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide could cause the entire planet to warm. This is physics and chemistry applied planetwide, and as such, there’s room for debate. But if Congress were truly interested in resolving these disputes, you might expect that they would advocate for more funding to climate and Earth science (rather than do the exact opposite). After all, it’s the one science that’s solely focused on Earth’s capacity to sustain life. But maybe it’s a stretch to hope that even that could earn bipartisan support."
MEDIA:
- Hiring Anti-Trump Conservative Is Part Of New York Times' Effort To Expand Opinion (Huff Post) "...tradition of hiring conservative op-ed writers such as the late William Safire, a former Nixon speechwriter; and Bill Kristol, the founding editor of The Weekly Standard. The paper’s current right-leaning columnists, David Brooks and Ross Douthat, are seen as representing a high-brow strain of conservatism, hailing from elite schools and magazines like The Weekly Standard and The Atlantic, respectively. And they share their more liberal colleagues’ rejection of the bomb-throwers in the talk-radio world and unsavory aspects of Trumpian conservatism."
NEWS:
- Must Supporters Let Trump Be Trump? (National Review) "The problem is that Trumpism is real, but it’s not an ideology. It’s a state of mind. Or, to be more accurate, it’s a constantly changing state of mind. Trump himself admits as much, saying that he won’t be bound by ideology or doctrine, preferring 'flexibility' not just on means, but on ends. When conservatives said 'Let Reagan be Reagan,' they were referring to a core philosophy that Reagan had developed over decades of study and political combat. When people said 'Let Trump be Trump,' they meant let Trump’s id run free. The former was about staying true to an ideology, the latter about giving free rein to a glandular style that refused to be locked into a doctrine or even notions of consistency. That’s why saying 'Let Trump be Trump' is almost literally the opposite of saying 'Let Reagan be Reagan.'"
- The Coming Incompetence Crisis (NYT) "So far, we’ve lived in a golden age of malfunction. Every major Trump initiative has been blocked or has collapsed, relationships with Congress are disastrous, the president’s approval ratings are at cataclysmic lows."
- When Jared Wins (National Review) "Trump’s jaw-dropping public distancing from Bannon is the latest twist in a struggle that is astonishing even by the standards of a White House... No one can know for sure how this ends. Perhaps it’s all papered over, or maybe Bannon keeps his head down to fight another day. But it’s hard to see how Kushner doesn’t prevail in one form or other..."
- The Inside Story of the Kushner-Bannon Civil War (Vanity Fair) "You’ll hear White House veterans say that working in the West Wing is like being on a submarine, sealed off from the rest of the world. What sustains you...are the stated principles of the president and the dedication of the people working with him to pursue that vision. But now, in full view of the country and the world, we are watching what happens when a president is elected on the basis of an incoherent and crowd-sourced agenda, one that pandered to white nationalists and stoked economic anxiety. Trump’s West Wing is beginning to resemble the family real-estate business Trump grew up in... What seems clear is that each member of the staff operates with the knowledge that there will always be someone who seems about to fall next, and that that person may well be him or her. ...Trump’s management style has long been to pit top aides against one another, and almost any senior aide can just wander into the Oval Office. What is unusual about this presidency is that Trump himself is not a stable center of gravity and may be incapable of becoming one. He knows little, believes in little, and shows signs of regretting what has happened to him. Governing requires saying no to one’s strongest supporters and yes to one’s fiercest opponents. To have that presence of mind requires a clear and unified vision from the president."
- For Trump, a Steep Learning Curve Leads to Policy Reversals (NYT) "For any new occupant of the White House, the early months are like a graduate seminar in policy crammed into every half-hour meeting. What made sense on the campaign trail may have little bearing on reality in the Oval Office, and the education of a president can be rocky even for former governors or senators. For Mr. Trump, the first president in American history never to have served in government or the military, the learning curve is especially steep."
- If Humble People Make the Best Leaders, Why Do We Fall for Charismatic Narcissists? (Harvard Business Review) "One study suggests that despite being perceived as arrogant, narcissistic individuals radiate 'an image of a prototypically effective leader.' Narcissistic leaders know how to draw attention toward themselves. They enjoy the visibility. It takes time for people to see that these early signals of competence are not later realized, and that a leader’s narcissism reduces the exchange of information among team members and often negatively affects group performance. The problem is that we select negative charismatic leaders much more frequently than in the limited situations where the risk they represent might pay off. Despite their grandiose view of themselves, low empathy, dominant orientation toward others, and strong sense of entitlement, their charisma proves irresistible. Followers of superheroes are enthralled by their showmanship: through their sheer magnetism, narcissistic leaders transform their environments into a competitive game in which their followers also become more self-centered, giving rise to organizational narcissism, as one study shows."
SCIENCE:
- This device pulls drinking water straight out of the air — and it runs entirely on the sun’s energy (WaPo) "According to a description of the new design, published Thursday in the journal Science, a single tissue box-sized device can harvest up to..about three quarts of water in one day at low humidity — that’s a bit more than the half gallon of water experts recommend a person drink over the course of a day. The new design is essentially a form of dewing... The key is a special type of compound known as a metal organic framework, or MOF, a crystalline material involving metal ions linked with organic molecules. The MOF has a porous structure that makes it ideal for holding water, similar to a sponge."
SPORTS:
- The Cocaine Kings of the Pittsburgh Pirates (Narrative) "Nothing said opening day like the sound of Pirates organist Vince Lascheid banging out a few notes of 'Let’s Go Bucs,' the smell of hot dogs wafting through the stadium, or the prospect of an eight ball of cocaine to take it all up a notch."
- The gentrification of college hoops (The Undefeated) "...most athletic scholarships are going to middle-class kids with college-educated parents, not to kids from poor families who need a scholarship to get anywhere close to a university campus. But here’s the stark, myth-busting truth: Fewer than 1 in 5 students playing Division 1 hoops, and 1 in 7 in all Division 1 sports, come from families in which neither parent went to college. And their numbers are declining. Educators call such students 'first gens,' or members of the first generation of their family to attend college. First gens are typically from poor and working-class families that have difficulty paying for college without scholarships. Indeed, the data suggests that athletes awarded scholarships in big-time college sports are more likely to come from advantaged backgrounds than the wider student body." and LaVar Ball: UCLA was too slow to win title with 'three white guys' "'Realistically you can't win no championship with three white guys because the foot speed is too slow,' LaVar Ball told the Southern California News Group, presumably talking about Bruins starters TJ Leaf, Bryce Alford and Thomas Welsh."
- Emmett Ashford, first black umpire in the majors, makes his debut (The Undefeated) "'Ashford did not become the first [African-American] umpire in the major leagues merely because he was fast on his feet,' wrote New York Times columnist George Vecsey. 'He survived the near-race wars of the minor leagues because he could talk better and think faster than the lugs in uniform and the louts in the grandstand. He overwhelmed people with his endurance and his charm.'"
TECNOLOGY:
- New Tools Needed to Track Technology’s Impact on Jobs, Panel Says (NYT) "The panel’s recommendations include the development of an A.I. index, analogous to the Consumer Price Index, to track the pace and spread of artificial intelligence technology. That technical assessment, they said, could then be combined with detailed data on skills and tasks involved in various occupations to guide education and job-training programs."
- How Driverless Cars Will Take Over America's Heartland (Ozy) "Similar to crafting an engine, building self-driving cars and the infrastructure to support them will mean piecing together multiple parts — and each DOT site is designed to test a specific component. In an era that glorifies disruption, few technological advances have the potential to be as radically transformative as AVs — and change is coming at racecar velocity."
BOTTOM OF THE NEWS:
- Hey Hey, My My: Aging Rock Fans Still Hold Their Lighters High (NYT) "Concerts aimed at old guys are big business."
TODAY'S SONG:
- Vaporize (Amos Lee)
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