Thursday Poem

Poem

and greenhouse and topsoil and basil greens
and cowshit and snowfall and spinach knife
and woodsmoke and watering can and common thistle

and potato digger and peach trees
and poison parsnip and romaine hearts
and rockpiles and spring trilliums and ramp circles

what song of grassblade
what creak of dark rustle tree
and blueblack wind from the north

this vetch this grapevine
this waterhose this mosspatch

sunflower gardens in the lowland
dog graves between the apple trees

this fistfull of onion tops
this garlic laid silent in the barn
this green this green this green

sweet cucumber leaf
sweet yellow bean

and all this I try to make a human shape
the darkness regenerating a shadow of a limb

my tongue embraces the snap pea
and so it is sweet

how does the rusted golfcart in the chickweed
inform my daily breath

I’m sorry I want to say
to the unhearing spaces
between the dogwood trees

for my tiny little life
I have pressed into
your bruising green skin

by Lucy Walker
from Pank Magazine

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Wednesday, August 20, 2025

America has only one real city

Noah Smith at Noahpinion:

Americans who go to Tokyo or Paris or Seoul or London are often wowed by the efficient train systems, dense housing, and walkable city streets lined with shops and restaurants. And yet in these countries, many secondary cities also have these attractive features. Go to Nagoya or Fukuoka, and the trains will be almost as convenient, the houses almost as dense, and the streets almost as attractive as in Tokyo.

The U.S. is very different. We have New York City, and that’s about it. People from Chicago or Boston may protest that their own cities are also walkable, but transit use statistics show just how big the gap is between NYC and everybody else…

More here.

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The Best Popular Science Books of 2025: The Royal Society Book Prize

Cal Flyn interviews Sandra Knapp at Five Books:

You chaired the judging panel for the 2025 Royal Society Book Prize. What were you and your fellow judges looking for when you selected the best new popular science books?

There are so many good science books that it was really, really difficult. We were looking for books with interesting, solid, well-researched science, but which were also incredibly readable. You want a book that a reader will come away from having learned something new about science, but also that they had a good time reading that book. So it’s about learning and pleasure being mixed into one, and the product being something that you perhaps want to read again.

It does seem that there are different flavours of intelligence. One being what it takes to make a brilliant scientist, and another being able to communicate clearly those complex ideas.

Yes. Not all of the books on our shortlist are actually written by scientists; some are by science writers or journalists. But whichever side of that spectrum you sit on, you need to be able to put yourself in another person’s shoes to be able to tell a story in a compelling way.

More here.

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The Case for Pragmatic Progress

Michela Massimi in the Los Angeles Review of Books:

The hard statistics underlying poverty and social mobility opportunities for children and other marginalized individuals might seem like an unlikely entry point for a philosophy book. Yet they are the impetus for philosopher of science Philip Kitcher’s latest project: The Rich and the Poor (2025). The book’s cover sets the tone. Featuring side-by-side portraits of rich individuals enjoying cocktails by an infinity pool and a woman with children kicking home canisters filled with water collected at a nearby water aid station, it is meant to be—and is—uncanny.

Kitcher is not new to book projects that engage with ethical problems and wider policy questions. From Science, Truth, and Democracy (2001) to The Ethical Project (2011), from The Seasons Alter: How to Save Our Planet in Six Acts (co-authored with Evelyn Fox Keller, 2017) to Moral Progress (2021), he has pioneered a method of philosophy and thinking about science that is both sensitive to socioeconomic realities and responsive to ethical challenges. The Rich and the Poor continues this intellectual trajectory while also bringing in autobiographical details: Kitcher himself benefited from an improbable combination of “progressive politicians, a sensitive boy king, and an unusually thoughtful and kind schoolmaster.”

More here.

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Miłosz’s Engagement with History

Peter Dale Scott at Church Life Journal:

This poem reads like a precursor to the decision to act (like Einstein) in the second “fragment” of “To Albert Einstein.” The poet, as if in a New Year’s resolution, has now decided that it is better to speak out dangerously than to be silent. But he has not yet settled on what he will say (i.e., make a clean break with the post-war Polish state for which he was still working).

It could even be that by writing the first “fragment” Milosz contemplated his enforced muteness, and recognized that he must correct it. His silence was a feature above all of his status as a diplomat. But this was precisely when his U.S. post was ending; and he was obsessed with the decision whether or not to defect and start a new life. But to defect would prolong indefinitely his separation from his Polish-speaking audience behind the Iron Curtain, a second and deeper reason why any cries from him could not be heard.

more here.

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Mexican Philosophy for the 21st Century

Juan Carlos González at Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews:

Carlos Sánchez has dedicated a lot of thought and ink to two questions: (1) Is there such a thing as “Mexican philosophy”? and (2) If there is such a thing, does it matter? Throughout his career, Sánchez has consistently answered the first question affirmatively. In response to the second, Sánchez has shared that this tradition matters to him for personal reasons. Mexican philosophy has enriched his life, providing resources not only for deep philosophical speculation but also for coming to grips with his identity as a Mexican American. Yet, with respect to the question of why this tradition should matter to everyone regardless of their background, he at one point confessed, “There is, of course, a well-developed and highly nuanced answer to the question as to why one should study Mexican philosophy ‘at all’. But I haven’t found it yet” (2019).

Mexican Philosophy for the 21st Century delivers a well-developed, highly nuanced, and compelling answer to the question of why one should study Mexican philosophy “at all.” Sánchez’s central task is to “normalize” Mexican philosophy outside Mexico, or to demonstrate to the broader world of academic philosophy (especially in the United States) that Mexican philosophy has an original, rich, and overlooked set of tools for addressing human crises.

more here.

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Wednesday Poem

Tao of Duck

I sit on a high rock over a lake watching
a duck swim. Sun warm, rock cold, not yet summer.
Friends about, but not near, lake maybe half
a mile wide, duck a third of the way across,
making steady progress. I wait for it to grow
bored with paddling, to unfurl its wings, kick
its feet free, and erupt into air. My mind’s eye
sees beneath the surface one wide webby foot
pushing back while the other, momentarily
narrow, pulls forward – again and again, legs
alternating, chug chugging like a two stroke engine.
I grow annoyed, If you want to get to the other
side, fly, my reasonable self thinks at the bird,
but it sails on, little feathered boat on a large sea,
a stubborn captain in the bridge above the bill,
eye on the far shore, calling into the speaker tube,
Full Foot Ahead. He will not push the fly button.
Strange and aggravating, this duck’s way,
as aggravating as a saint’s.

by Nils Peterson


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The Pleasure of Patterns in Art

Samuel Keyser in The MIT Press Reader:

Made at the high point of Kline, de Kooning, and PollockAndy Warhol’s “Campbell’s Soup Cans” was a poke in the eye of abstract expressionism. Not only was it blatantly mimetic, but it was being blatantly mimetic with a mundane commercial product found in every supermarket and corner grocery store in America. When people think of repetition in painting, they probably think first of these iconic soup cans.

But not all repetition is as in-your-face or as disruptive as “Campbell’s Soup Cans.” One painting from the Impressionist period is particularly pertinent. I am thinking of “Paris Street; Rainy Day” by Gustave Caillebotte. Currently housed in the Art Institute of Chicago, it was originally exhibited at the Third Impressionist Exhibition in Paris in 1877. It is probably Caillebotte’s best-known work. I consider it a masterpiece and regret that I have never seen the real thing. Even so, it never ceases to bowl me over. Discussions of it typically focus on the incredible verisimilitude of the painting, the sense that it is photographic in its vivid capture of an ordinary moment.

More here.

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Brain-Computer Interface Lets Users Communicate Using Thoughts

Sahana Sitaraman in The Scientist:

There’s a voice inside most people’s minds that comes alive when they listen, read, or prepare to speak. This “internal monologue” is thought to support complex cognitive processes like working memory, logical reasoning, and motivation.1 In fact, inner speech continues to thrive in many individuals who are unable to speak owing to injury or disease.2 More than half a century ago, Jacques Vidal, a computer scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles, proposed the idea for brain-computer interfaces (BCIs); systems that could use electrical signals in the brain to control prosthetic devices.3

Since then, scientists have designed and developed BCIs that have enabled people with quadriplegia to control a computer cursor, a robotic arm, and even move their own limb. Recently, a person with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)—a neurodegenerative disease—who had severe difficulties speaking, was able to carry out a freeform conversation with the help of a speech BCI.4 The neuroprosthesis accurately translated brain activity into coherent sentences while the person tried to speak to the best of their ability. However, the reliance on attempted speech can fatigue the user and limit communication speed.

More here.

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Tuesday, August 19, 2025

K-pop culture inspires innocence, joy and belonging

A. Stefanie Ruiz, Femida Handy, and Sunwoo Park in The Conversation:

“Born with voices that could drive back the darkness,” the character Celine, a former K-pop idol, narrates at the start of Netflix’s new release “KPop Demon Hunters.” “Our music ignites the soul and brings people together.”

The breakout success of “KPop Demon Hunters,” Netflix’s most-watched original animated film, highlights how “hallyu,” or the Korean Wave, keeps expanding its pop cultural reach. The movie, which follows a fictional K-pop girl group whose members moonlight as demon slayers, amassed over 26 million views globally in a single week and topped streaming charts in at least 33 countries.

From K-pop and K-dramas to beauty products and e-sports, hallyu – which refers to the global popularity of South Korean culture – has drawn in millions of fans worldwide. But beyond entertainment, many young people describe how their engagement with Korean culture supports their mental health and sense of belonging.

More here.

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The Future of Climate Change Is on Mauritius

Ariel Saramandi at The Dial:

My husband and I married in September 2018. We planned our wedding a year in advance. We didn’t even think about the sea, its surges, its rhythms. It was a feat of stupidity, for two people who grew up on an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean.

Two days after our wedding we watched the butter-hued moon rise above the water. A hiss as the waves drew back from the coast then thrashed against the shore, gaining ground by the minute. If we’d chosen to get married 48 hours later we wouldn’t have had a venue.

We were married on a stretch of basalt rock leading out to sea, an elevated slice of shore covered in sand, garnered with thatched huts, wooden tables and a structure that served as our secular altar. Now they were all soused in brine. We walked along a stretch of coast owned by a hotel group, examining the damage. The sea stripped the plump beach of sand, laying bare the fat canvas bags underneath; the waves exposed the roots of coconut trees, gnarled, purple-black like gum disease.

More here.

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Salt and Paper in Bureaucratic Jerusalem

Thayer Hastings at Sapiens:

A typical scene goes something like this: A Palestinian family registered as living in the city of Jerusalem is in the process of renewing their residency status. At their last appointment, the Israeli Ministry of Interior staff told them that inspectors would visit them at home. They received phone calls from the ministry checking on them: micro interrogations. One day, a pair of inspectors arrives at their door. On this occasion, one of the first questions they ask is: “Where do you keep the salt and spices?”

The stakes of answering such mundane questions correctly couldn’t be higher. Unlike Israeli citizens, if Palestinians from Jerusalem (Jerusalemites) fail to provide sufficient evidence that they live in the city, authorities may revoke their residency status—threatening their access to Jerusalem and their homeland, Palestine, altogether.

More here.

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Ozempic Shaves Three Years Off People’s Biological Age in Study

Edd Gent in Singularity Hub:

Ozempic has been called a wonder drug for the wide range of ailments it seems able to treat. Now, researchers have found solid evidence it could even slow aging. Originally designed to treat Type 2 diabetes, Ozempic is the brand name for a molecule called semaglutide. It’s part of a family of drugs known as GLP-1 agonists that also includes Wegovy and Mounjaro. These drugs work by mimicking the natural hormone GLP-1.

GLP-1 has a variety of roles including the regulation of blood sugar by promoting insulin production and inhibiting the release of a hormone called glucagon that increases blood sugar levels. It also helps slows down stomach emptying, which can make you feel full for longer, and activates neurons in the brain that make you feel satiated. The latter effects are why these drugs are emerging as powerful weight-loss tools. However, there’s growing evidence Ozempic’s potential goes further, with studies showing it could help treat cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer’s, and even substance abuse. Most tantalizing, however, is the possibility it could act as a broad anti-aging medication. Now, a clinical trial has found the strongest evidence yet that this could be viable. Researchers administered Ozempic to people with a condition that causes accelerated aging. After a 32-week course, those who received the drug were biologically younger by as much as 3.1 years, on average, according to a preprint paper.

“Semaglutide may not only slow the rate of aging, but in some individuals partially reverse it,” Varun Dwaraka, director of research at diagnostics company TruDiagnostic who worked on the trial, told New Scientist.

More here.

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Tuesday Poem

Echo Chambers

Everyone wants peace, but votes for hawks.
A senator holds forth to an empty chamber.
No one listens. Everybody talks

conspiracies and outrage. Voting blocs
preserve their seamless fronts, and by November,
everyone wants peace, but votes for hawks.

I shoot off my mouth, and you shoot your Glocks.
Statesmen make deals they later can’t remember.
No one listens. Everybody talks

in slogans on T-shirts. Hackers doxx
judge’s moral codes are less than limber.
Everyone wants peace, but votes for hawks.

Act your rage, they tell you. Ragnarok’s
coming your way to light you like timber.
No one listens. Everybody talks

as midnight ticks closer on the clocks.
We’re parties of one, and one’s a lonely number.
Everyone wants peace, but votes for hawks.
No one listens. Everybody talks.

by Susan McLean
from Rattle Magazine

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Hiroshima at Eighty

Ed Simon at Lit Hub:

Even if the singular moment in which apocalyptic fire was first grasped by human hands occurred at the evocatively-named Trinity Test Site in Alamogordo, New Mexio three weeks before August 6, it wasn’t until Hiroshima and the second bombing at Nagasaki three days later that the world was introduced the Manhattan Project’s implications. The construction of the bomb is itself a great American tragedy, this assortment of brilliant physicists gathered in the desert primeval to unlock the mysteries of creation in the furtherance of destroying part of that creation. That most were working on the project for objectively noble reasons in a war against authoritarianism only compounds the tragedy. A figure like J. Robert Oppenheimer, director of the project, becomes as mythic as if he were Prometheus and Pandora, Frankenstein and Faustus. Just as the heat of Trinity forged sand into glass, that same device (and all after it) transubstantiated myth into reality. Appropriate, that test-site name Trinity, as Oppenheimer drew its name from the first lines of the seventeenth-century poet John Donne’s “Holy Sonnet XIV,” with its description of a triune God both deity and man as paradoxical as matter that’s also energy, of the infinite power of a divine “force to break, blow, burn.”

more here.

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