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Retron Library Recombineering
Scientists Have Created A New Gene-Editing Tool That Could Outperform CRISPR - "It is faster and simpler than CRISPR, enabling millions of genetic experiments to be performed simultaneously." [more inside]
50 Years of Blue
On the fiftieth anniversary of the release of Joni Mitchell's Blue, the NYT talks to 25 musicians about the work countless critics have pointed to as a definitive masterpiece of the confessional singer-songwriter album. [more inside]
I’ve never run for office before. My father wasn’t governor.
Chris Jones is a physicist and a nuclear engineer. He’s also just announced he’s running for Governor of Arkansas. This is his campaign ad: It’s about time.
Journeys of the Heart
"World Journey of My Memory or Journey of the Heart (世界わが心の旅 , Sekai Waga Kokoro no Tabi) was a travel program that was broadcast on NHK BS2 Television from 1993 to 2003. The series featured celebrities from various fields visiting places that shaped who they are as individuals. [...] [Two episodes] featured Studio Ghibli cofounders Isao Takahata and Hayao Miyazaki. In the first program, Miyazaki visits France and the Sahara Desert to follow the footsteps of the famous early French aviator, poet, and author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. The second episode centers around Takahata's visit to Canada to meet the late Frédéric Back, the Oscar award winning animation film maker of The Man Who Planted Trees." [more inside]
Why didn't bullet journalling work for me?
"At the beginning of a traditional planner, there’s usually an overview of the current year, and sometimes there’s an overview of the next. Looking at these grids, seeing today in the context of many days, I am soothed; looking at the future log of a bullet journal, in which all but the most important dates are unrepresented, I am at sea. Bullet journals work when you don’t feel the need to construct a clear vision of what’s ahead." [more inside]
Structural Parity at Montpelier
In what is hoped to become a model for other historic sites, the descendants of enslaved persons at James Madison's estate, Montpelier, will be co-equals in sharing governing power and responsibility for the site.
From The Current Events File
June 21, 2021 -- Carl Nassib Is The First Active NFL Player To Come Out As Gay [NPR] Page includes embedded Instagram video which is playable in-window, and has arrows that point to text. Congrats Carl! Thank you, and nothing but the best on this new chapter of your journey! [more inside]
On the 10 year anniversary of the Joplin Tornado
Usually when a tornado comes through, the path of destruction is more haphazard. It can sometimes look like the vortex drops down and picks up one house but leaves the neighbor’s untouched, or will tear a roof off here but not there. This wasn’t like that. Everything around as far as the eye could see to the east and to the west, was flattened. Flatter than hammered shit. [more inside]
The End Of The NCAA
In a unanimous ruling, the Supreme Court has upheld the the Ninth Circuit's ruling that the NCAA's restrictions on paid educational benefits violate antitrust law. [more inside]
Mekka Lekka Hi, Mekka Hiney Ho.
John Paragon, best known for his role as Jambi the Genie on the television series “Pee-wee’s Playhouse,” has died. He was 66. Paragon was a member of the Groundlings improv troupe in LA where he worked alongside other future stars such as Paul Reubens (Pee-wee Herman), Phil Hartman, and Cassandra Peterson (Elvira). Pee-wee and Elvira posted farewells to John recently after learning the news.
The Abstract Representation of Things
Combinators and the Story of Computation - "The idea of representing things in a formal, symbolic way has a long history... But was there perhaps some more general and fundamental infrastructure: some kind of abstract system that could ultimately model or represent anything? Today we understand that's what computation is. And it's becoming clear that the modern conception of computation is one of the single most powerful ideas in all of intellectual history—whose implications are only just beginning to unfold. But how did we finally get to it? Combinators had an important role to play, woven into a complex tapestry of ideas stretching across more than a century." (also btw The Nature of Computation previously) [more inside]
Can the American Recovery Plan's Child Tax Credit be made permanent?
Something really good is happening next month. A celebration of the expanded Child Tax Credit in the American Recovery Plan, and a plea to make it permanent. "Children cost money, but a market economy does not magically allocate extra money to the parents of children relative to non-parents. In fact, it is somewhat more challenging to earn money when you have a kid because they impose logistical barriers to working. As a result, unless the government provides parents with extra money, the living standards of families with young children will be systematically lower than those of the childless. That’s one important reason why the poverty rate for children is so much higher than the poverty rate for adults." [more inside]
Vintage photos of Juneteenth
“'There is no nationally recognized moment where this country takes a pause and says, you know what, this country enslaved people, broke up families, in perpetuity for generations. Juneteenth is becoming a time when the country can do that,' [Dr. Brian] Purnell told BuzzFeed News." But before it was signed into law as a federal holiday, Black communities in different parts of the country have been recognizing Juneteenth since 1866: Photos Of How People Celebrated Juneteenth 100 Years Ago.
From The Archives
There were no politicians or corporate sponsors when the first Pride parade rolled through San Francisco on June 25, 1972. Spirit Of 1972: Photos from the first S.F. Pride parade [San Francisco Chronicle]
What Is Going On At Yale Law School?
The prestigious institution has tied itself in knots over a dispute involving one of its most popular—and controversial—professors, Amy Chua. The question has arisen, in online comments sections and on Twitter, why anyone is even talking about Amy Chua. Who cares about a parenting memoirist’s removal from a law-school teaching roster? The answer is, in part, because this story manages to touch on seemingly every single cultural flashpoint of the past few years. Chua’s critics see a story about #MeToo—because of her husband, but also because Chua supported the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, even after he was accused of sexual assault. Meanwhile, Chua’s defenders see a morality tale about liberal cancel culture. “What they’ve done to you is SOP”—standard operating procedure—“for conservative allies but chills me to the bone nonetheless,” a supporter tweeted at her, earlier this month. Megyn Kelly weighed in, tweeting, “Make no mistake: this is retribution for her support of Brett Kavanaugh, & it is disgusting.” Chua’s allies have also suggested that anti-Asian bias is involved. “The woke academy reserves a special vitriol for minority faculty who don’t toe the line politically,” Niall Ferguson, a historian, tweeted.
Aw’ nuts!
Cars 3 + Cars 2, Still Bringing Up the Rear
Elections in Iran, USA censure
Hardliner Ebrahim Raisi elected Iran’s new president. Who is him?
In continuity with Trump policies, after 6 rounds of talks the US refused to remove Iran sanctions. US government also seized the .com domain of Iran’s Press TV and two other media outlets. Internet users can still visit Press TV using the Iranian domain.
In continuity with Trump policies, after 6 rounds of talks the US refused to remove Iran sanctions. US government also seized the .com domain of Iran’s Press TV and two other media outlets. Internet users can still visit Press TV using the Iranian domain.
Joni Mitchell A Life Story: Woman of Heart and Mind
One of the great talents of her or anyone else's generation gets the royal treatment with this superb documentary. It's all here (via interviews, including conversations past and present with Mitchell herself, photos, generous helpings of concert footage, and more): her Saskatchewan childhood, her lovers, her painting, her reunion with the daughter she had left behind at age 19... and, of course, her music, the songs, recordings, and performances, so intensely personal yet so universally accessible, that comprise one of the most extraordinarily original and significant (if not always wildly popular) bodies of work any artist has ever produced. Even true fanatics are likely to find revelations here; the rest of us can simply rejoice in the life and artistry of Joni Mitchell. --Sam Graham
Biographies of early medieval English women
Florence H R Scott (@FlorenceHRS, 06/13/2021): "My aim with my newsletter is to eventually have written a biography of every single woman we know existed in England between roughly 500 and 1100" [ThreadReader; "Some clarification ..." and ThreadReader for it too]. The newsletter: Ælfgif-who? Issues to date: Cynethryth: Mercia's Forgotten Queen?; Breguswith: Portents and Pendants; Godgifu: The Bare Truth Behind the Lady Godiva Legend; The North Elmham and Fairford Women: Two Black Women in Tenth-Century England; Judith: The First Crowned and Anointed Queen of Wessex... At Twelve Years Old; Æthelflaed and Ælfwyn: The Women who Ruled Mercia in the Viking Age; Hugeburc: The Earliest English Woman Writer, Who Hid her Identity in a Secret Code; and Hild of Whitby: Politician, Religious Leader, Teacher, Saint.