In the News

Here is some stuff in the news today...

[Content Note: Earthquake; death; images of death and destruction at link] A major earthquake hit Nepal over the weekend, which has caused widespread destruction, injury, and death—and is now "stretching medical services in the impoverished and unprepared Himalayan nation to breaking point." The primary quake was followed by an aftershock "stronger than many earthquakes hit Nepal, collapsing more buildings and triggering new panic in a country trying to recover from the most powerful quake to hit it in 80 years." Nearly 4,000 are known to have died, and rescue and recovery operations continue. An international aid effort is being organized to help Nepal.

As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to drop into comments suggestions for how we may help individually. I will, as always, recommend donating to Doctors Without Borders, who are already sending teams to help.

[CN: Police brutality; racism] Hundreds of people gathered for Freddie Gray's funeral in Baltimore: "Many of the hundreds of mourners who came to the church Monday morning said they did not know Gray personally, but felt compelled to attend the funeral to demonstrate their outrage about the circumstances surrounding his death. 'I don't understand how these things keep happening,' said Ken Carolina, 54, a retired corrections officer, after viewing Gray's body. 'It's another life gone.'"

[CN: Transphobic violence] On Friday night, ABC aired its much-anticipated and/or dreaded interview with Bruce Jenner about hir transition. ABC has made available their full coverage, including video of the episode. We watched the entire thing, and there were parts of it that were just infuriating, mostly along the lines of the stupidity of some of the questions which treated fear and loathing of trans* people as a given, but overall it was not as bad as I'd feared it would be. Jenner was very patient and indulgent and, despite saying zie's not a spokesperson for the trans* community, highlighted many important issues, including the number of trans* women of color who are murdered. (Hir kids seem pretty amazing, too.)

[CN: Transphobia; racism; violence] That said, this piece is definitely recommended reading: "What trans people of color fear after the Bruce Jenner media circus."

[CN: Climate change; wildfires] Fuck: "'Explosive' Wildfires Are Already out of Control Months Before Fire Season: 'Wildfire season' seems to be a thing of the past for drought-stricken California, with fires now raging throughout the year. There have already been nearly 850 wildfires this year—70 percent above the average, according to CAL FIRE data. High temperatures and low precipitation, both related to climate change, have dried out forests and scrublands across the western United States, allowing fires to spread faster and farther than usual, any time during the year."

Something something Brian Williams has probably lied a lot.

[CN: War on agency] This piece by Imani Gandy on the mendacity of anti-choicers is a must-read: "When Does an Error Become a Lie? The Case of the Missing Decimal Point."

[CN: Homophobia] Care of Ari Ezra Waldman, here's what you can expect during oral arguments at the Supreme Court this week on one marriage equality case.

OMG!!! "NASA May Have Accidentally Created a Warp Field: Meanwhile, in the lab, NASA and other space programs were working on prototypes of the EmDrive or RF resonant cavity thruster invented by British aerospace engineer Roger J. Shawyer. This propulsion device uses a magnetron to produce microwaves for thrust, has no moving parts and needs no reaction mass for fuel. In 2014, Johnson Space Center claimed to have developed its own low-power EmDrive. ...When lasers were fired through the EmDrive's resonance chamber, it measured significant variances and, more importantly, found that some of the beams appeared to travel faster than the speed of light. If that's true, it would mean that the EmDrive is producing a warp field or bubble."

Meanwhile: "At first glance, there is not the slightest doubt: to us, the universe looks three dimensional. But one of the most fruitful theories of theoretical physics in the last two decades is challenging this assumption. The 'holographic principle' asserts that a mathematical description of the universe actually requires one fewer dimension than it seems. What we perceive as three dimensional may just be the image of two dimensional processes on a huge cosmic horizon."

And finally! Dogs and cats hiding in plain sight. Aww lol!