№ 708. Holy Places

№ 707. 2024 Philippine Holidays & Long Weekends

 

Guide to the Philippines

№ 706. Peter Pan Cup

 

№ 705. 14 Entrepreneurs Who Built Food Empires

 

№ 704. Best Children's Books of 2023

Here are the year’s most notable picture, chapter and middle grade books, selected by our children’s books editor:

• “An American Story,” by Kwame Alexander. Illustrated by Dare Coulter.
• “Big,” by Vashti Harrison
• “Do You Remember?,” by Sydney Smith
• “Kozo the Sparrow,” by Allen Say
• “There Was a Party for Langston: King O’ Letters,” by Jason Reynolds. Illustrated by Jerome and Jarrett Pumphrey.
• “A Walk in the Woods,” by Nikki Grimes. Illustrated by Jerry Pinkney and Brian Pinkney.
• “What If One Day…,” by Bruce Handy. Illustrated by Ashleigh Corrin.
• “The Skull,” by Jon Klassen
• “Who Will Make the Snow?” by Taras and Marjana Prokhasko. Translated by Boris Dralyuk and Jennifer Croft.
• “Alebrijes,” by Donna Barba Higuera. Illustrated by David Álvarez.
• “Big Tree,” by Brian Selznick
• “The Eyes & the Impossible,” by Dave Eggers. Illustrated by Shawn Harris.
• “Glowrushes,” by Roberto Piumini. Translated by Leah Janeczko.
• “Mexikid,” by Pedro Martín
• “Remember Us,” by Jacqueline Woodson

№ 703. Dear Reader

№ 702. Six Feet Under

The pandemic and its disruptions are finally beginning to recede in the United States, but the vast scale of collective loss the country endured — and that some areas continue to endure — is hard to fathom. “Dying and grieving and losing and surviving are all experiences that we as a culture, as a people, as humanity, are grappling with in such an unrelenting way right now,” Robin said. “It feels like that aspect of the show, while always relevant, has become even more universally so.”

We have been shaken by the presence of death, but life still beckons to us, asking us to find a way to carry on. Ball sees the show as communicating a simple but profound message that remains as relevant now as ever. “The thing is, we die!” he said. “So deal with it, and live your life.”

“Don’t hold yourself back from fear,” he added. “Because you’re going to die anyway.”

№ 701. Advent

The Sermon of Saint John the Baptist (Bruegel)

Each year, in our Advent prayer, we give voice to our longing for the coming realm of the messiah when our present world's pains — war, poverty, hunger, climate change, violence, inequalities — will be no more. Even if we say we realize that our longing can never be fulfilled in this life, it still arises, again and again, from a deep and persistent place in our human hearts. In fact, I believe that many of the fissures in today’s society stem from groups of people who mistakenly think that joining this or that movement, following this or that leader, or destroying this or that enemy will bring about the perfect world. And the more the world's ills increase, the more people are tempted to join these groups.

How to break the cycle? One way, obviously, is to work to lessen the ills that feed it. We can feed the hungry, give water to the thirsty, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless, live sustainably, and fight racism, sexism and all the other -isms. But that will never be enough; there will always be more that needs to be done. Sometimes it seems that, as with Alice in Lewis Carrol's Through the Looking Glass, we need to run as hard as we can to stay in the same place. To get anywhere, as the Red Queen said, we would need to run twice as fast.

The second way, paradoxically, may be to embrace our human world as Jesus embraced it — not to stop feeding the hungry or healing the sick, but to realize that it is precisely in this world of the poor, the sick, the hungry, the displaced and homeless where God is to be found. Maybe if we actually managed to create a perfect world — or, in the terms of science fiction, to discover a perfect universe somewhere else in the multiverse — God wouldn't be there. In fact, I sometimes wonder if maybe even Heaven isn't "painless." Maybe, as St. Thérèse of Lisieux said, we are supposed to be spending Heaven "doing good on earth" — still sharing in and helping to ameliorate the pains that bedevil earth's people even after we have left it. For me personally, the thought of an eternity of perfect peacefulness is sometimes a little frightening. I would want to "help God" in some way. I need to pray about this.

№ 700. Vacations

 

№ 699. A Marriage Problem That Can’t Be Solved

Modern Love

№ 698. Music Lessons

 

№ 697. Boo!

 

№ 696. Taurine & Aging

 

Taurine deficiency as a driver of aging.

Taurine concentration in blood declines with aging (top left). A reversal of this drop through taurine supplementation increased healthy life span in mice and worms but not in yeast (bottom left and top middle). Taurine supplementation affected several hallmarks of aging (middle). In humans, lower taurine concentrations were associated with multiple diseases (top right). A randomized controlled clinical trial in humans is warranted to assess the antiaging effects of taurine (bottom right). BMI, body mass index.

A deficiency of taurine—a nutrient produced in the body and found in many foods—is a driver of aging in animals, according to a new study led by Columbia researchers and involving dozens of aging researchers around the world.

The same study also found that taurine supplements can slow down the aging process in worms, mice, and monkeys and can even extend the healthy lifespans of middle-aged mice by up to 12%.

The study was published June 8 in Science.

“For the last 25 years, scientists have been trying to find factors that not only let us live longer, but also increase healthspan, the time we remain healthy in our old age,” says the study’s leader, Vijay Yadav, PhD, assistant professor of genetics & development at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons.

“This study suggests that taurine COULD be an elixir of life within us that helps us live longer and healthier lives.”

 

№ 695. Movies Killed the Radio Star

 

 

    The movies are, once again, not dead. Art forms are more like viruses than animal species: They don’t become extinct; they mutate, recombine, go dormant and spread out again in new, sometimes unrecognizable ways, which carry memories of older selves encoded in their DNA. 

№ 694. Science v. The 2020 Pandemic

NPR

 

Dr. Karikó, the 13th woman to win the prize, languished for many long years without funding or a permanent academic position, keeping her research afloat only by latching on to more senior scientists at the University of Pennsylvania who let her work with them. Unable to get a grant, she said she was told she was “not faculty quality” and was forced to retire from the university a decade ago. She remains only an adjunct professor there while she pursues plans to start a company with her daughter, Susan Francia, who has an M.B.A. and was a two-time Olympic gold medalist in rowing.

The mRNA work was especially frustrating, she said, because it was met with indifference and a lack of funds. She said she was motivated by more than not being called a quitter; as the work progressed, she saw small signs that her project could lead to better vaccines. “You don’t persevere and repeat and repeat just to say, ‘I am not giving up,’” she said.

№ 693. Trivial Pursuits

Saveur

My habit of treating toothpaste as a souvenir is about celebrating rather than elevating the trivial — I’m not chasing quality, authenticity or meaning, those most overrepresented pursuits among world travelers. So I pick whatever seems fun, interesting or tame, depending on my mood. It’s a low-stakes exercise with just one rule: My selection must comply with the 100-milliliter limit for packing in my carry-on.

The effect of this habit is Proustian but its origin is not. About a decade ago, I chose to ignore some advice I was given before moving to Japan for a study-abroad program. Japanese toothpaste, I was told, might not be to my liking, so I should pack a few tubes of my favorite brand to take with me to Tokyo. Shunning even the most inconsequential new experience seemed to me a bad way of approaching a new life in a new country. I was 32 and had learned to wring all that I could from my days as a working stiff. Why shouldn’t I do the same as a slightly-too-old university student in Japan? I stretched my student loans and scholarship money so I could quench my thirst for novelty by drinking from the well of everyday experience — which, in Tokyo, runs deep with small consumer delights.

Among these delights, buying toothpaste I would never find in an American drugstore proved to be a reliable way of enlivening an otherwise unremarkable daily activity — one that we often treat as routine but that I try to embrace as a ritual for chasing the fog of sleep from my waking hours. Each new and unfamiliar flavor recalls a time and a place, but also serves as a gentle tap on the shoulder — a reminder to look at myself, not through myself, in the bathroom mirror and to appreciate even those moments spent brushing away the seeds of inevitable decay.

 

№ 692. Trust in the Process

Cracked

“You can have flaws, be anxious and even be angry, but just remember that your life is the world’s biggest enterprise. Only you can stop it from failing. You are appreciated, admired, and loved by so many. 

 

Remember that happiness is not having a sky without storms, a road without accidents, a job without effort, a relationship without disappointments.

 

№ 691. How long will you live?

Performance Excellence Network

 

By Susan Ople

The average life span of a cockroach is one year. But, a cockroach does not know this. It does not scurry into safety at the sight of a giant shoe looming overhead, waiting for the perfect moment to squash it to extinction.

You and I differ from a cockroach. We are born knowing that eventually we will die. Like bread crumbs to pudding, our ashes will comingle with the Earth, thus offering nutrients to earthworms. An earthworm is far luckier than a cockroach. Its life span varies widely, from six to nine years, with the luckier species able to survive for at least 20 years.

That we, humans, are gifted with the knowledge that our umbilical cords come with an expiration date appear to be lost on people who live aimless lives. To wake up each morning and feel that this day is no different than the other is such a grievous error in judgment. Every sunrise is an opportunity to live a day better and more productive than the previous one.

№ 690. Kindness

 

№ 689. Lonely Planets & Happy Feet

We’re most transported when we’re least distracted. And we’re most at peace – ready to be transformed, in fact – when most deeply absorbed. I’d much rather converse with one sight for 60 minutes than 60 places for one minute each. When I travel with the Dalai Lama – as I’ve done for 10 recent Novembers across Japan – I’m convinced that the wide-awake responsiveness he brings to every last convenience store and passing toddler is partly the result of the three hours he spends at the beginning of every day in meditation. Destinations can only be as rich as what we bring to them.

During this new season of the virus, I’ve been spending many happy hours on the tiny sunlit terrace outside my apartment in Nara, Japan, with the poet laureate of lockdowns, Marcel Proust. I think of him also as the patron saint of travellers, precisely because he was confined by severe asthma to spending three years alone in his cork-lined bedroom. What allowed him to read with such acuity the small print of every crowded soiree? To recall with such fresh immediacy a long-ago gaggle of young beauties on a beach? To record with wakeful precision the sight of a loved one asleep? That time in solitary, I suspect. It was Proust, I never forget, who reminded us that the point of every trip is not new sights but new eyes. Once we have those, even the old sights are reborn.

 

№ 688. Miroirs / Mirrors

Gibet Gaspard-Nuit

 

For some, that sense of containment makes Ravel easier to appreciate than to love. Yet he inspires adoration as well as admiration. Why? I think the containment is key. From the outside, Ravel appears small, self-contained, even buttoned-up. But anyone who has a heart can see that he is bigger on the inside. There is anguish within the Passacaille of the Piano Trio, mystery in the Miroirs, endless tenderness in the adagio of the second Piano Concerto, with its “mile upon silver mile” of melody. There is vivacity in the Violin Sonata, innocent wonder in Mother Goose. Nature is writ large in Daphnis and Chloe; in Histoires naturelles, human nature is writ small. These are intimations of the ineffable, not expressions of it. You don’t need to look behind the mask to feel them; look at it.

 

№ 687. 8 Habits for Longer Lives

Want to live up to an additional 24 years? Just add eight healthy lifestyle choices to your life at age 40 and that could happen, according to a new unpublished study analyzing data on US veterans. 

• No. 1: First on the list was exercise, which many experts say is one of the most important behaviors anyone can do to improve their health.

• No. 2: Not becoming addicted to opioids was the second most important contributor to a longer life, reducing the risk of early death by 38%, the study found.

• No. 3: Never using tobacco reduced risk of death by 29%, the study found.

• No. 4: Managing stress was next, reducing early death by 22%, the study found. Stress is rampant in the US today, with devastating consequences for health, experts say. And there are ways to revamp your outlook and turn bad stress into good stress.

• No. 5: Eating a plant-based diet would raise your chances of living a longer life by 21%, the study found. But that doesn’t mean you have to be a vegetarian or vegan, Nguyen said. Following a healthy plant-based plan such as the Mediterranean diet full of whole grains and leafy green vegetables was key.

• No. 6: Avoiding binge drinking — which is having more than four alcoholic beverages a day — was another healthy lifestyle habit, reducing the risk of death by 19%.

• No. 7: Getting a good night’s sleep — defined as at least seven to nine hours a night with no insomnia — reduced early death from any cause by 18%, Nguyen said. Dozens of studies have linked poor sleep to all sorts of poor health outcomes, including premature mortality.

• No. 8: Being surrounded by positive social relationships helped longevity by 5%, the study found. However, loneliness and isolation, especially among older adults, is becoming more widespread and worrisome, experts say.

№ 686. Doubt

№ 685. NATO

NATO

№ 684. Mont Saint Michel

Flickr.com

 

№ 683. Pulubi - Rio Alma

Rio Alma

№ 682. Knockin' On Heavens Door

№ 681. The Magicians of Thinking

When I was 20 a professor of philosophical logic informed me that “philosophy teaches you how to think.” Of course, I thought that was ridiculous; taking her class was proof enough that I already knew how to think. But she was right. Philosophy, the kind that actually matters, teaches us how to think about the world in genuinely novel ways, to see it with fresh eyes, especially at moments when it is tempting to either look away or assume that everything has already been seen clearly.

 

Listen Notes

 

“Time of the Magicians,” Wolfram Eilenberger’s group biography, smoothly translated by Shaun Whiteside, focuses on a decade of crisis in Europe — the interwar period between 1919 and 1929 — and argues compellingly that a small cadre of thinkers responded to their turbulent times by reinventing philosophy, an intellectual task that effectively conjured a new world. Philosophy is born not of leisure (as Thomas Hobbes once suggested) but of struggle — a spontaneous generation in the midst of personal, political, economic and natural disaster. When it arises, according to Eilenberger, it does so suddenly, originally — as if by magic.

Eilenberger explains that philosophers in 1920 faced a common task: to “draw up a plan for one’s own life and generation, which moves beyond the determining ‘structure’ of ‘fate and character’ … to break away from the old frameworks (family, religion, nation, capitalism) … finding a model of existence that made it possible to process the intensity of the experience of war, transferring it to the realm of thought and everyday existence.”

№ 680. Waking Up to Binary Dreams 6

№ 680. Waking Up to Binary Dreams 5

1949er.org

 

№ 679. Chaos v. Clarity

 

№ 678. Laughing with a Big Bang

CHUCK LORE PRODUCTIONS, #540

Big Bang Theory

"You can laugh at the human predicament. You can laugh at yourself. You can laugh because the alternative is crying. You can laugh because a truism has been exposed. You can laugh at the weakness, stupidity and failures of others. You can laugh because you identify. You can laugh to be polite. You can laugh from surprise. You can laugh from nervousness. You can laugh at the futility of it all. You can laugh at the antics of animals. You can laugh because it hurts. You can laugh because others are laughing. You can laugh at tragedy if enough time has passed. You can laugh at the statement, "This is no laughing matter." I could go on, but clearly there are many reasons to laugh. As a fun homework assignment, I encourage you to look for others, write them down and don't send them to me."

№ 677. Faith Inspiring Science

 

Ohio State University

All three work or worked in the Specola Vaticana, or Vatican Observatory, just off the papal gardens at Castel Gandolfo, a short drive from Rome. The observatory is a descendant of centuries of Vatican-sponsored research into the stars, and it is the only Vatican body that carries out scientific study.

The history of the observatory, which has been staffed by Jesuits since the 1930s, is a rebuttal to the notion that the Roman Catholic Church has always sought to stand in the way of scientific advancement, an idea perpetuated by high-profile cases like those of Galileo and Giordano Bruno at the hands of the Inquisition during the Renaissance.

 

№ 676. Zero Food Waste 2

Jennifer Savage was scrambling to pull something together for dinner. Deep in the back of her fridge, she found a container of stuffed peppers. Very old stuffed peppers. She groaned, then did what millions of Americans do every day, without a second thought: She scraped the rotten food into the garbage.

Sitting nearby, her daughter, Riley, burst into tears.

Riley, then a fourth grader, had learned at school about people who don’t have enough food to eat. She’d also learned about the impact of food waste on the planet: When food rots in landfills, it generates methane, a greenhouse gas far more potent than carbon dioxide. Seeing her mother toss one of her favorite meals in the trash brought these messages home.

The family resolved to do better. Riley began asking for smaller portions, knowing she could always go back for more. Her father started packing leftovers for lunch. Ms. Savage searched for recipes everybody would devour.

 

№ 675. Zero Waste Cooking

Reddit

 

№ 674. December 10, 1898

Treaty of Peace Between the United States and Spain

Article III.

        Spain cedes to the United States the archipelago known as the Philippine Islands, and comprehending the islands lying within the following line:

        A line running from west to east along or near the twentieth parallel of north latitude, and through the middle of the navigable channel of Bachi, from the one hundred and eighteenth (118th) to the one hundred and twenty-seventh (127th) degree meridian of longitude east of Greenwich, thence along the one hundred and twenty seventh (127th) degree meridian of longitude east of Greenwich to the parallel of four degrees and forty five minutes (4 [degree symbol] 45']) north latitude, thence along the parallel of four degrees and forty five minutes (4 [degree symbol] 45') north latitude to its intersection with the meridian of longitude one hundred and nineteen degrees and thirty five minutes (119 [degree symbol] 35') east of Greenwich, thence along the meridian of longitude one hundred and nineteen degrees and thirty five minutes (119 [degree symbol] 35') east of Greenwich to the parallel of latitude seven degrees and forty minutes (7 [degree symbol] 40') north, thence along the parallel of latitude of seven degrees and forty minutes (7 [degree symbol] 40') north to its intersection with the one hundred and sixteenth (116th) degree meridian of longitude east of Greenwich, thence by a direct line to the intersection of the tenth (10th) degree parallel of north latitude with the one hundred and eighteenth (118th) degree meridian of longitude east of Greenwich, and thence along the one hundred and eighteenth (118th) degree meridian of longitude east of Greenwich to the point of beginning.

        The United States will pay to Spain the sum of twenty million dollars ($20,000,000) within three months after the exchange of the ratifications of the present treaty.
Article I

№ 673. Space Invaders

 

Space Invaders - Ravenna, Italy

Space Invaders - Perth, Australia

№ 672. Earthquakes

Tolentino cited a study by the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (Jica), which noted that many structures in the National Capital Region and nearby provinces would not able to withstand a 7.2-magnitude earthquake that experts believe can originate from the Marikina Valley Fault System, particularly the West Valley fault line. Based on the damage estimate by the 2004 Earthquake Impact Reduction Study for Metropolitan Manila, the potential rupture of the West Valley Fault will affect as many as 40 percent of residential buildings within Metro Manila: 170,000 residential houses will collapse while another 340,000 will be partly damaged, and 34,000 persons will die while 114,000 will be injured.

№ 671. John Kuhn Glass

 

№ 670. Waking Up to Binary Dreams 2023

Max Siedentopf

 

There are many challenges that ChatGPT will bring, particularly when it comes to education, plagiarism, and professional and academic integrity, Altman acknowledged.

“I get why educators feel the way they feel about this, and probably this is just a preview of what we're going to see in a lot of other areas,” Altman said.

OpenAI is already exploring ways in which it can help teachers detect the output of any generative AI like ChatGPT, such as watermarking technologies, but only because “it is important for the transition,” he said.

He added that generative AI is something we just need to adapt to.

№ 669. Green School, Ubud, Bali

Green School 2

 

Located in the lush forests of Ubud in Bali is the Green School, an international school and community known around the world for its holistic approach to education. The academy is strongly focused on sustainability – naturally it is built to be eco-friendly too. Its unique buildings are made predominantly from bamboo, mud and grass, and the campus runs entirely on renewable energy; even food waste is converted into compost.

“We believe that education needs to change. It needs to adapt to the future,” said Sal Gordon, head of teaching and learning at Green School Bali, who has been at the school for nearly a decade. “Our students learn to make the world sustainable, and we believe the purpose of education should be to make the world a better place.”

№ 668. War Games: The Lethal Dance of Three Lovers

What was once unthinkable—direct conflict between the United States and China—has now become a commonplace discussion in the national security community. Although Chinese plans are unclear, a military invasion is not out of the question and would constitute China’s most dangerous solution to its “Taiwan problem.”

№ 667. The Map You Make Yourself

Medium

 

 

The Map You Make Yourself

By Jan Richardson

 

You have looked
at so many doors with longing,
wondering if your life lay on the other
side.

For today, choose the door that opens
to the inside.

Travel the most ancient way of all:
the path that leads you
to the center of your life.

№ 666. Friendships 2

Preview

 

From the Friendship Files: Milton and Mike

Every Saturday morning for decades, Milton Ehrlich and his best friend, Mike, scoured garage sales near their homes in New Jersey, searching for books, records and antique bottles. But when Mike was in his 70s, he started losing his memory. Once, he wandered off from a garage sale and got lost. The police had to find him.

 

Determined not to lose their weekly date, Milton, who is now 91, began to call his friend every Saturday instead, playing for him their favorite music from the 1940s, including Duke Ellington and Sarah Vaughn. “Even though, by that time, Mike was having a hard time remembering what happened yesterday, the music always transported him,” Milton said. “He could sing along with lyrics and remember melodies from music that was 75 years old.”

The calls buoyed them both. When Milton’s wife passed away in 2021, after 67 years of “happy marriage,” the weekly ritual with Mike “became one of the last close personal connections in my life,” he said. His brothers died long ago, as did most of his friends. Milton and Mike exchanged only a few words between songs. For the most part, they just listened.

“It was a way of remaining tethered to my old buddy,” Milton said. “We would sit there, our houses about a mile apart in a small suburban town, each of us in our rocking chairs, staying connected to each other through the music of our teenage years.”

Mike died in October and, with him, a library of stories — about the best places to eat in Little Italy, about the clarinetist Mezz Mezzrow and the cornetist Bix Beiderbecke and about the things you could buy for a nickel at Coney Island, Milton said. He was 90 years old. — Catherine Pearson

№ 665. Friendships

12 Ideas to Boost Your Happiness

 

Amy Pechukas met her friend Al in 2018 when she rented the apartment under his in Northampton, Mass. They didn’t connect immediately. Amy, now 42, worked four jobs and thought Al, 76, was a curmudgeon with questionable boundaries. He helped look after their two-family home and would frequently enter her apartment to check on her two cats and two dogs.

But Al’s peculiar brand of kindness grew on her. “He often pops in for a conversation spontaneously, at times when I need a lift, and we end up talking for hours,” she said. “We go for evening walks and argue about the route.”

Covid brought them even closer. During lockdown, they would meet in the driveway to talk about the virus or politics. Amy made a Thanksgiving meal, which they ate outside on their porch with electric blankets on their laps. They have celebrated the holiday together ever since.

Al can still be overbearing. He has firm ideas about the way things should be done around the home, like the “right” way to rake the leaves. Every summer, he frets that Amy’s elderly cat, who grows lazy in the heat, is on the verge of death.

But Amy feels deep gratitude for their unexpected friendship, and for the constant, unselfish care Al has shown her and her pets. “When my dog got very sick a year ago and needed me to do round-the-clock care for her, I would come home on occasion to find Al in my kitchen doing my dishes,” she recalled. “‘You can’t do everything, Amy,’ he’d say. ‘You’re doing a great job.’”

Though Al does not say it outright, Amy knows he worries she might move out. She recently interviewed for a position out of state, and Al told her several times that it sounded terrible — reminding her that there were other jobs closer by.

“We just have a lot of fun,” she said. “We like to quote movie lines endlessly, we’ll do that for, like, two hours straight. Last winter we went ice skating in the cemetery because it was flooded. Al’s just a good person.” — Catherine Pearson