Project ideas to help the community

We blew it. That is the queasy feeling I have as I watch borrowing costs surge, housing starts fall, and politicians rush to subsidize fossil-fuel consumption. Americans had a decade-plus in which interest rates were low and millions of workers were unemployed or underemployed. We could have made investments that would have benefited all of us. And we wasted that chance. This period of unusually low interest rates , which lasted from the 2008 global financial crisis until now, was horrible in many ways. Too many people were unemployed for too long, and too many found themselves trapped in dead-end, no-security jobs while the cost of living climbed to astronomical levels. But it was an opportunity too. Borrowing was cheap, and the government  could have built and built and built without crowding out private investment or overheating the economy. Instead, we slogged through the recovery from the Great Recession, needing more fiscal stimulus that never arrived. We wasted $2 … [Read more...] about America Wasted Its Chance to Push the Economy Forward

O n a bright spring afternoon in Glasgow, the blood ran picturesquely down our goalkeeper’s neck. He’d accidentally snagged one of his earrings in the net and torn open his left earlobe. Really he should have gone straight to the hospital, but such was the level of commitment inspired by this football match—Scotland’s Writers versus England’s Writers—that he stayed standing tall between the sticks. We were on Astroturf in a sports complex, being watched by tens and tens of fans or, as they preferred to be known, family members. And though later in the evening both teams would gather together for good-natured readings of Gaelic and Ukrainian poetry and crime fiction and candid essays about our mental health, in this moment nothing mattered more than seeing each other lose. The original idea of the Writers’ League—as conceived in 2005 by the Italian novelist Alessandro Baricco—was to prove that athletes could be intellectuals, and intellectuals athletes. We saw ourselves in a direct … [Read more...] about The Sociopolitical Significance of One Very Clumsy Soccer Match

The group biography has been around for centuries: There was Plutarch’s Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans , written some 1,900 years ago and a staple of classical education ever since; the Bishop Gregory of Tours’ sixth-century biography of the four distasteful sons of the Frankish King Clovis I; a swarm of medieval hagiographies that bind together the lives and miracles of saints. In addition to being foundational to the biographical genre, modern group biographies are excellent sources of historical trivia, ideas, and, happily, gossip. The questions that make these biographies sing—what makes this group of people actually interesting, not just noteworthy? Why, of all the relationships in a life, were these so particularly influential?—take real searching to answer. To read a good group biography is to come out with a different level of appreciation for the ways, trivial and tremendous, that humans influence one another. The canon is overwhelmingly white and Eurocentric, … [Read more...] about Nine Books About Groups That Changed the World

On the heels of their greatest victory, antiabortion activists are eager to capitalize on their momentum by enshrining constitutional abortion bans, pushing Congress to pass a national prohibition, blocking abortion pills, and limiting people's ability to get abortions across state lines. At the National Association of Christian Lawmakers conference in Branson, Mo., on Friday, several dozen state legislators from across the country brainstormed ideas -- all in agreement that their wildly successful movement would not end with Roe v. Wade. "It's not over," said Oklahoma state Rep. Todd Russ, R, who attended the conference. At this point, Russ said, the ideas are like "popcorn in a popcorn popper." "There are all kinds going around." The Supreme Court decision has already transformed America, immediately ending abortion care in eight states, with many more states poised to ban the procedure in the coming weeks and months. By the end of the year, abortion could be outlawed … [Read more...] about Roe’s gone. Now antiabortion lawmakers want more.

Google is taking part in International Women's Day by transforming its home page into a beautiful art display of quotes by inspiring women in the form of art also created by women. The Doodle slideshow featured on the home page Friday was made by women in honor of women and features quotes from 13 pioneering women around the world. The quotes come from architects, astronauts, novelists and more and were transformed into pieces of art by talented women around the globe. "Today's interactive, slideshow Doodle is told by and made by women," said Google. The guest Google artists who helped make the doodle are as unique as the women quoted in it. The doodles are even showcased in the native languages of the women who originally said the quotes. "The process of choosing the 13 quotes was extremely difficult, but we aimed to include a diverse representation of voices on a day which celebrates the past, present, and future community of diverse women around the world," said Google. … [Read more...] about Google Doodle honors women for International Women’s Day

Kim Min-seok The author is an editorial writer and former director of the Institute for Military and Security Affairs at the JoongAng Ilbo. Would Washington risk New York to protect Seoul? In a meeting with U.S. President John F. Kennedy in 1961, French President Charles de Gaulle asked if the United States would be willing to risk New York and Washington to defend Paris. At that time, the United States was trying to dissuade France from developing nuclear weapons by promising to protect it from a Soviet Union nuclear attack with its nuclear umbrella. But de Gaulle rushed to develop nuclear weapons and downgraded membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) due to his suspicions about the nuclear umbrella. The Korean Peninsula is entering a new nuclear era. In an expanded meeting of the Workers’ Party of North Korea from June 8 to 10, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, chairman of the mighty State Affairs Commission, declared a “head-to-head war with enemies” after … [Read more...] about Would United States risk New York to protect Seoul?

IIT Delhi has concluded a ‘Mentorship Program’ launched for schoolgirls to pursue career in science and technology. In a felicitation ceremony, on Sunday the mentees were also awarded certificates by the Institute. The STEM Mentorship Program was launched in December 2021. In the first batch, 10 government school students from Delhi Region were selected and each of them was assigned a faculty mentor. The selected students were mentored and guided by the IIT Delhi faculty members over a period of seven months on varied range of project topics such as artificial photosynthesis, water reuse using nanotechnology, theoretical computer science, artificial intelligence, climate change, brain mapping and neuroscience, optics, vibrations in engineering and engineering of human joint implants. Speaking about the STEM Mentorship Program, Prof. Pritha Chandra, Associate Dean, Academic Outreach and New Initiatives, IIT Delhi, said, “Our primary motivation for starting the STEM program for girl … [Read more...] about IIT Delhi’s Concludes STEM Mentorship Program for High Schoolgirls

India witnessed 18.5 million lightning strikes, between April 2020 and March 2021, recording a significant jump of 34 per cent from 13.8 million strikes in a similar period from the previous year, a study by Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) and Down to Earth found. According to a Hindustan Times report, CSE, an environment think-tank, attempted to find out the link between increased number of strikes, climate change, and unchecked urbanisation As many as 1,697 people were killed after they were struck by lightning between March last year and April this year. Experts think that the rise in lightning strikes could be because of climate change. “There is growing scientific evidence that climate change may be sparking more lightning across the world. Rapid urbanisation and population growth have guaranteed an intensification of human exposure to lightning hazards,” the report quoted Down To Earth managing editor Richard Mahapatra. States such as West Bengal, Jharkhand, … [Read more...] about Lightning Strikes See 34% Jump From Previous Year; Experts Link It To Climate Change

TikTok is full of beauty tips designed to make users' daily lives easier while reducing their beauty budget. While some of them are surprising, others are verging on crazy. Take, for example, the "peanut butter nail", a new and totally unexpected trick that involves finishing false nails with peanut butter. It's the beauty hack you never knew you needed... Beauty and food often go hand in hand when it comes to drawing on nature's bounty to meet the needs of our skin. But TikTokers are taking the idea further, to a point where anything goes. Read more: Is the hot weather giving you a beauty meltdown? These tips may help The social network's users are now using a surprising foodstuff, peanut butter, to achieve the most original of manicures. Here, nail extensions are finished not with polish, but with this popular processed spread – and to surprising effect. The nail artist @ilysmnails, followed by nine million people on the Chinese social network, was among the first … [Read more...] about Weird ‘peanut butter nail’ beauty gimmick draws flak on TikTok

I magine a gallery with a stunning collage displayed on each wall. Two famous figures, wrestling fiercely, come into focus in every mural. You can’t tell who is winning, and you can’t stop staring. Sebastian Smee’s book delivers that experience. The art critic for The Boston Globe had the inspired idea of exploring four fraught friendships that helped fuel eight great painters’ “very modern yearning to be unique, original, inimitable.” His brilliant group biography is one of a kind too. Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon; Édouard Manet and Edgar Degas; Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso; Willem de Kooning and Jackson Pollock—Smee’s cast of characters led lives almost as rule-defying as the canvases they churned out or agonized over. For one in each pair, audacity seemed to come more easily. Impetuous Picasso wasn’t about to be Matisse’s acolyte, but a “pattern … of yielding, twisting, overcoming, and yielding once more” propelled them both. A rival’s influence kept all these painters … [Read more...] about The Fraught Friendships of Eight Great Artists