Extra

Leading Off the Week

Best Lead Sentence of the Week honors go to Mort Rosenblum for his Reader Supported News article "Afghanistan: Why and What Next?"—an analysis of culpability for the "fall" of Afghanistan that begins with this sentence:
"European newscasts have focused for weeks on a violent nation cursed by a pandemic, where armed fundamentalists hostile to Western values want one-party rule, a cowed press and kangaroo courts. And besides America, they also talk about Afghanistan."  

Best Wildfire Headline of the Week 

The San Francisco Chronicle is infamous for posting headlines that contain cringe-worthy puns—like the following prizewinner from the front page of the September 9 edition. The headline topped a report on the successful application of metallic sheaths to protect structures in the urban-wilderness interface from going up in flames. The headline read: "Aluminum blankets help houses foil fire damage." [Emphasis added.] So stock up for fire season with a home-sized stash of Reynolds Wrap. 

GOPsmacked 

Republican quote of the month (if not the era): Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Il):
"I think if we're going to be in charge and pushing conspiracy and pushing division and pushing lies, then the Republican Party should not have the majority." 

DEMonstrative 

Lucas Kunce, a 13-year Marine officer who served in Afghanistan and Iraq, has become the latest of three Democrats hoping to replace Roy Blunt, Missouri's retiring US Republican Senator. Kunce grew up in poverty but managed to win a scholarship to Yale. After his stint in the military, Kunce joined the American Economic Liberties Project, a nonprofit fighting to reduce the power of corporate monopolies. 

The Progressive Change Campaign Committee has vetted this vet and is backing his run. Meanwhile, Kunce continues to weaponize his military experience to serve the cause of fighting poverty and inequity. As he recently stated:
“I see us spending, it turns out to be trillions of dollars building up those other countries, basically for nothing, and me and my buddies risking our lives, to build up places like Fallujah, Habbaniyah or, in Afghanistan, Lashkar Gah, when we should have been spending that money here in towns like Independence,… which has been forgotten by globalization." 

The Smartphone Man 

It was an apocalyptic scene as Afghans surrounded a massive US C-17 cargo plane rolling down the tarmac at Kabul's Hamid Karzai International Airport. Some among the crowd running alongside managed to lift themselves onto the tops of the retractable metal housing over the C-17's landing gear. In the videos of the event, nearly a dozen men appear to be holding on to the side of the moving plane. But, after viewing the footage several times, I noticed something odd. I printed a screenshot to be sure and showed it to several people who confirmed my discovery: One of the men attempting to flee Afghanistan by hitchhiking a ride on a moving plane appears to be hunched over and starring intently at a smartphone cupped in his hands while the plane is preparing for take-off. That's a case of taking texting to the limit. 

Billboard Chalks Up a Victory for Feet Speech 

There appears to be a new space for raw political speech in the agora of downtown Berkeley. The steps and sidewalk in front of the Berkeley Main Post Office have recently served as "greyboards" for chalk-scribbled protests by people POed about the City's seeming lack of concern for protecting Peoples Park and the homeless. 

If you want to send a political message to Berkeley's leaders, this is a perfect location—it's right across the street from City Hall. 

The message on this week's Sidewalk Billboard reads:
"UNMASKEd MAYOR MAKES 'FECES' COMMENT ON TV TO FALSELY DISCREdit UNHOUSEd." 

The Ignobel Peace Prize Goes to … Beards 

On September 9, a panel of judges at MIT's prestigious institute of Improbable Research announced the winners of the 31st Ig Nobel Prize. The group's credo explains their mission simply: "Research that makes people laugh and then think." 

The full slate of 2021's winners (in Biology, Ecology, Chemistry, Economics, Medicine, Physics, Kinetics, Entomology, Transportation and Peace) is now posted online — along with a video of the virtual ceremony. Here are two selections of particular interest. 

• PEACE PRIZE (USA). To Ethan Beseris, Steven Naleway, and David Carrier, for testing the hypothesis that humans evolved beards to protect themselves from punches to the face.
REFERENCE: “Impact Protection Potential of Mammalian Hair: Testing the Pugilism Hypothesis for the Evolution of Human Facial Hair,” Integrative Organismal Biology, vol. 2, no. 1, 2020, obaa005. 

• TRANSPORTATION PRIZE (NAMIBIA, SOUTH AFRICA, TANZANIA, ZIMBABWE, BRAZIL, UK, USA): To Robin Radcliffe, Mark Jago, Peter Morkel, Estelle Morkel, Pierre du Preez, Piet Beytell, Birgit Kotting, Bakker Manuel, Jan Hendrik du Preez, Michele Miller, Julia Felippe, Stephen Parry, and Robin Gleed, for determining by experiment whether it is safer to transport an airborne rhinoceros upside-down.
REFERENCE: “The Pulmonary and Metabolic Effects of Suspension by the Feet Compared with Lateral Recumbency in Immobilized Black Rhinoceroses (Diceros bicornis) Captured by Aerial Darting,” Journal of Wildlife Diseases, vol. 57, no. 2, 2021, 357–367. 

The Write-ins Are Not Right-on 

Weeks after the start of the State Recall Election, Sacramento still had not identified the "qualified write-in" candidates cleared to receive valid votes in the September 14 ballot. According to the Alameda Country Registrar of Voters, that information was supposed to be available at ACVOTE.ORG. But this website remains a useless dead-in. It took a web-search to track down the Qualified Write-in candidates. Here are their names and party affiliations (if any) of the Special Seven:
Roxanne [no last name] (Democrat), Stacy Smith (Democrat), Major Williams (Republican), Thuy E. Hugens (American Independent), Miki Habryn (No Party Preference), Vince Lundgren (No Party Preference), Vivek B. Mohan {No Party Preference). 

Curious about their backgrounds, skills, platforms, financial donors, endorsements, and political goals? Sorry, folks, while they've been certified as approved to govern the state, we aren't privileged to access any essential information about their qualifications or financial conflicts. 

Here's a theoretical question: If "Roxanne" were to win the recall, how many Roxannes might step forward demanding the keys to the Governor's Mansion? 

Check the Appropriate Box 

UC Berkeley's Institute of Governmental Studies recently sent out a political survey to a random group of registered voters to solicit feedback on the upcoming gubernatorial recall. To sweeten the deal, IGS offered participants a chance to win an Amazon gift card worth $200. This seems a bit tacky—offering a financial bribe that enriches one of the wealthiest corporations on Earth. 

But at least the IGS can't be accused of age discrimination. The online form from Berkeley.qualtrics.com invited respondents to indicate their age by clicking on a preset scale that ran from 18 years to the overripe old age of 120. 

Speaking of Aging 

Kaiser Permanente recently invited me down to the Oakland headquarters to take a "treadmill test" to assess my health and stamina. I doffed my shirt and was soon hooked up to so many wires I looked like an abandoned marionette. With the wires hooked into the cardiology equipment, I was left to await the attending physician. The only item of interest was the computer screen, which displayed several lanes of peaking lines quietly marking the beats of my heart. Watch the screen and slowing my breathing to control the pulses, was both mesmerizing and deeply relaxing. If there's one form of meditation that's more relaxing than contemplating one's naval, it may well be contemplating one's aorta. 

The last time I took a treadmill exam was several years ago. The presiding docs told me I was "healthy enough to join the Oakland Fire Department." This time, however, I found myself struggling to run while puffing through a face-mask. No treadmill trophy, this time, but I didn't embarrass myself by collapsing. I was deemed healthy enough to seek work as a crossing guard. 

Another disappointment: I was hoping to meet one of the Third Floor physicians. When I called to make my appointment I offered to spell my full name, Garwood, since "you've probably never seen that name before." The response surprised me: "No surprise. We've got a Garwood here already." Alas, Dr. Garwood Gee wasn't on duty that day. 

Fanciful Fonts that Bring Letters into Focus  

People with dyslexia have difficulty reading print. So Christian Boer designed a special font to fill the need. Boer named his font "Dyslexie." 

Dyslexie is based on a pre-existing open-source font called déjà vu sans—which may be appropriate since the initial font's name can be translated as "without the ability to recognize something you've seen before." 

When viewed by readers with dyslexia, the letters in regular fonts can appear to jitter on the page—to turn, flip, mirror, and swap positions. The solution? A new font that (1) fattens the bottoms of letters, (2) turns "flippable" circles into asymmetrical hoops, and (3) replaces the uniformity of the vertical "sticks" in the alphabet's letters with vertical lines of varying length. There are six other ways the font is tweaked to make it more visually unique. If you want to see what the font looks like, here's a link to the Dyslexie homepage. In the meantime, the other fave fonts for dyslexic readers are Courier, Arial, Verdana and—the leading choice for many—Comic Sans. 

Up and Autumn at the Chavez-Huerta Memorial Sundial 

With the Equinox approaching, fans of the Cesar Chavez-Dolores Huerta Solar Calendar—which sits atop a prominent hill at the Berkeley Marina—are marking their calendars to mark the Calendar. 

After all, where else—and when else—can you stand on a hill halfway between the Golden Gate bridge and the Berkeley Hills and watch the sun set in the West at the same time the moon rises in the East? 

It's a photograph's dream. (One trick is to snap a photo showing the setting sun reflected in a friend's sunglasses as the full moon rises in the background.) 

Guest lecturer David J. Cooper will share lore on the history and functions of calendars in the pre-modern age and ponder some age-old questions: "Did ancient calendars follow the rhythm of the moon or the sun or both?" "What role did pre-modern observatories play in the establishment of today's calendar-time?" 

As is the custom, revelers will align themselves to cast a single shadow while standing between two of the site's signature boulders and will listen to a shofar being blown as the sun sets over the Marin headlands. 

DIRECTIONS: Take University Ave. toward Berkeley Marina, turn right toward DoubleTree Hotel, then left on Spinnaker Way. Park at end of Spinnaker Way. Follow path up to the Memorial Solar Calendar. Time: 30-40 minutes before sunset. 

The Empire Strikes Out 

At the same time Washington is contemplating adding Brazil to its list of NATO allies around the world, some members of the US Imperium are starting to have second thoughts. The collapse of Afghanistan's US-supported puppet government (and it's US-trained-and-equipped puppet army) has shaken the myth of "American Exceptionalism" to the core. Slowly, as the blinding bright light of American Triumphalism has suddenly begun to dim, people inside the US media echo chamber are beginning to blink their eyes and starting to question the whole dark history of America's deadly, costly, illegal, and failed foreign aggressions. 

Case in point: Activists in Australia have just posted a Change.org petition calling for an end to the ANZUS Treaty that binds the US and Australia in a military alliance. 

The petition reads in part: 

"Successive Australian Governments have committed our Defence Forces to follow the US into Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, and Vietnam, culminating in millions of deaths, untold suffering, and environmental devastation. Tens of billions of dollars have been wasted on destructive war machinery while depriving much needed expenditures at home for better schools, hospitals, roads, public housing for the homeless and addressing climate change." 

The Independent and Peaceful Australia Network (IPAN) adds a further critique of the US-Australia military alliance. "For Australia to keep out of these US wars and be independent and live in peace with our neighbors, this alliance with the United States needs to be seriously questioned." 

Let a thousand petitions bloom!