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Ornaments of Good News, Rounded Up and hung on a Tree

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              Good Thursday Morning, Newsies !!  Welcome one and all the Gnuville Breakfast Brunch and Religious Symbol Overload Room. Make yourself cozy, comfortable and contented around the Christmas Tree, a star, a manger, the Hanukkah Menorah, the giant, inflatable dreidel, and the Kwanzaa Nguzo Saba Plaque…..with candles absolutely everywhere! Yes, yes, there are last minute things to do and places to be, but as you dash from here to there and back again across the Internet Intertubes, among garlands of Pixels and wreaths of JPEGs, and even leave the house IRL, well, if you catch some Good News, feel free to add it in the comments for everyone else. As a wise pastor once said in a children’s sermon, “What is the difference between happiness and joy? You can be happy by yourself, but if you share it and give it away to someone else, it turns into joy.”

                 Now, since we started a(n) (included, embedded, emshowered, em-breakfasted and mimosa-ed in today’s Round Up if you look closely) History Corner rendition of the 12 Days of Christmas 3 days ago, TODAY is feathered and tweeted and chirping with 4 Calling Birds of Good News, both current and historic.

A Calling Bird of Science, Invention and Medicine 

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             The Atomic Age began in the 1940s as physicists learned how to use atomic particles to split heavy atoms (like Uranium) into lighter elements, meanwhile releasing an enormous burst of energy. (See Nuclear Power Plants and other Nuclear stuff.) But the process is costly, dangerous and messy (see radioactivity.) 

           For years the dream has been NOT to split atoms (FISSION) but to combine light-weight atoms (like hydrogen) while FUSING them together (in this case to produce helium.) Its the process how stars work, but until now, what little results have come out of the process has still USED more energy than it has produced. 

Now comes A STORY that maybe….maybe…..the physicists and engineers have struck gold (or at least precious stones): 2.1 megajoules of energy IN, resulting in 2.5 megajoules of energy OUT (net gain!) Still being verified as everyone looks over the data, but if so, not only will we be able to take great big (mega) jewels like rubies and emeralds and turn them into honkin’ big (mega) sapphires (jewels ….. right? ……... What do you mean, “spelling counts?”) but the future of ultra clean and virtually limitless energy is just ahead.

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               Continuing the theme of really teeny tiny things (like hydrogen atoms) at the (slightly larger) molecular level we have all learned at least how to pronounce DNA and know it is important for all life. Now sometimes life goes haywire, like living cancer cells destroying other living cells. My cousin’s wife has just finished a course of chemo and has now started in on radiation, which have been the 2 major tools medicine uses to attack cancers. The side effects are awful and both instruments are rather blunt, but they work, as tens of thousands of ex-patients can attest.

               But what about if we could somehow program the bodies OWN IMMUNE SYSTEM to recognize cancer cells as NOT US and attack them where ever they are hiding? Now comes THIS BBC REPORT about “base editing”: arranging for human DNA to do just this…...and with success! Definitely Good News.

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         Finally and continuing in the All Things Green vein, there is news out of Sweden that a factory there is now managing to produce STEEL by NOT USING fossil fuels. The process has already picked up the nickname “Green Steel” and YouTube already has a 7 minute report on it.

               Of course various scientists, engineers, tinkerers, and very clever people have been coming up with scientific stuff and ideas for centuries. On this day we remember earlier December 15ths of science, engineering and just general improvement of things in life.

          1593  Spanish Netherlands   The Province of Holland grants the first patent on a windmill with a crankshaft that shows wind-powered promise in pumping water out of low places (like the whole country.) A convenient marker for the beginning of a Dutch national icon.  

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       1654   Tuscany, Italy  Somebody should keep track of these things! Was it cold? Hot? How much snow did we get? Did it hail? How many days long was that drought? On this day a meteorological office was established to begin recording daily temperature readings. Now celebrated as the the 368th birthday and beginning of the Weather Channel.

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                                                                                                                                                                                   1854  Philadelphia     Like every large city in this horse-drawn age, crossing the street (especially in summer) is an exercise careful stepping, nose holding and avoiding the rear end of all that horsepower clopping down the pavement. Pheewww!  Prisoners at the local jail serving small sentences for minor crimes are often issued shovels and led out by constables to do their best to take care of the worst. The city of Philadelphia today makes a valiant attempt to deal with the worst of “things” in a different way; today they use the 1st mechanical, street-cleaning machine in US…..which of course is, um, horse-drawn. But still, a net gain, and the beginning of street sweepers…..

           1939   Seaford, Delaware    At the DuPont factory works (THE major employer in the state) the company put its newly received patent into production: the 1st commercial manufacture of nylon yarn. Light, strong and sheer, the product took off as a replacement for silk. The women’s hosiery industry was transformed. As World War II ignited and America began war production, civilian uses for nylon were restricted. The military ordered parachutes by the thousands for its airmen, first for the RAF and then US forces and other Allies. (To this day , though, among fliers, if they have to bail out, their phrase recalls nylon’s predecessor: a pilot “hits the silk” to ride his or her parachute to the ground.)  

A Calling Bird of Politics

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             Gnusies and regular readers of DailyKos look at a US map that shows election results between Democrats and GQPs and have learned to filter the initial image. Land, acres, square miles, vistas do NOT vote, people do. But still, there is always a bit of jolt to look at a map and see all that “red”, and all too easy to mentally or even activist-ly write off, ignore or dismiss those “Red areas/counties/states.”(Lately of course, those maps have had a more-than-annoying shade of red that shouts MAGA, which makes it even easier to dismiss such areas.)

                 Now comes THIS AXIOS PIECE with the heartening news that in the midterms just concluded that moderates, Democrats, even progressives, made inroads, narrowed margins, built up and heartened “our”voters in rural areas and counties. Yes, the results are scattered and close to that 50/50 line but still; if there are gains to be made, at the inflection point (50/50) by definition the margins will be close, or small---now. 10 years from now? Well, different county, same inflection point, while today’s district or seat is increasingly reliable. 

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                Every intelligence service around the world knows electronics and documents are really helpful in figuring out what the “bad guys” are up to. Still, there is a place for face to face spying, going undercover, being a mole. HERE IS A CAGEY ARTICLE from a Swedish source (in English) that recounts the insights and adventures of a guy who went underground for a YEAR in the alt-right movements in both Great Britain and in the U.S.(I’m thinking the Aryan Idiots figured a blond Swede couldn’t possibly be an agent; “He HAS to be one of US. Its in his blood, right?”)

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              Of course, things political have been happening on December 15ths for a long time, like these items: (although the second one is only accidentally political; the guy didn’t WANT to become political, he wanted to IGNORE politics, but the world had other plans. Also a very personal reason to me you are reading this today,)

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         1791  Philadelphia On this day the University of Pennsylvania opens the first United States School of Law for the training of lawyers and jurists. (Since the Constitution was only two years old, and there hadn’t been much time for more than a few federal laws to be passed or court tested, the course on ‘Federal Law and Precedents’ likely was covered in just three afternoons in a local tavern.) 

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99 Years Ago TODAY…...

                  1923  Tartu, Estonia   In this ancient university town a couple got married at the end of World War I and on this day  have their first born, a son, Pere WineRev. After two younger sisters are born the family moves to the capital of Tallinn where GrandPere WineRev is a grocery store manager. Pere WineRev gets through most of high school before World War II erupts. In 1939 the Red Army stationed troops here, in 1940 they overthrew the government and in 1941 they retreated like whipped scum. From 1941 to 1944 Pere WineRev and other skilled engineering classmates were forced to repair Luftwaffe planes. In 1944 the Red Army comes back, and the Germans take skilled forced laborers (and their families) with them on retreat. The rest of the family goes to a refugee camp in Augsburg but Pere WineRev is back to fixing planes in Berlin. In 1945 Red Army is arriving AGAIN and the Luftwaffe is out of planes, out of pilots, and soon, out of mechanics (against orders.)       

              Pere WineRev “obtains” civilian clothes and “obtains” a bicycle (the verb he always used) and started pedaling west. He was 2 days and about 20 km west of the Elbe River when word came that the Russian tanks had pulled up on the east bank of the Elbe and stopped, as decided at Yalta. After the war, Dad meets Mom in one of the Displaced Persons camp for Estonians in Augsburg, Germany. They get married here in the US and produce WineRev (who eventually starts writing books and History Corners) and Sis-of-WineRev.

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                  Dad spent 40 years as a structural engineer before he and Mom retired to Florida. There, 5 miles from the beach, he painted, they traveled, and just after his 84th birthday we said goodbye the last time. Miss you, Dad, and thanks!

             (PS.  Dad had a dry sense of humor but I came across a joke recently he would have loved: The pessimist sees the glass as half empty. The optimist sees the glass as half full. The engineer sees the glass twice as large as it needs to be for the volume of liquid. 😊)                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

                  1964   Ottawa, Canada   Canada’s flag lately has been a mostly red banner with some devices on it showing its historic connection to England. On this day Canada's House of Commons votes 163 to 78 to approve a new national banner, the red Maple Leaf Flag.

A Calling Bird of Arts and Music

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               This time of year gets so busy that artists and performers are booked solid and often don’t have time to be creative and inspiring.

Nonetheless, December 15ths have some claims to art fame, although one has not aged all that well, even if it was a technical wonder in its day.

             1657 Paris, France    Birth of Michel-Richard Delalande, organist, composer. Delalande held perhaps the cushiest musician’s job of the 17th century, Royal composer for Louis XIV. (Also was music teacher to various princesses and princes.) Since the King liked big, vocal pieces with lots of grandeur and pomp, Delalande delivered: he is remembered for his Grand Motets and Petit Motets, superb examples of the form. Oddly enough, while he was praised everywhere for his talent on the organ, nothing is from his pen. The prime example of the French form of the Baroque period, and since stuff in palaces tends to have a longer shelf life, we have scores of his scores we can listen to.

                 1939   Atlanta    While most Hollywood movie premieres in this era were in New York or Los Angeles, today was an exception. Atlanta hosts the world premiere of “Gone with the Wind”, Margaret Mitchell’s slanted book brought to an over-saturated, Technicolor, feature film epic. (One of the few films built with an intermission.) Named Best Picture at the 1940 Academy Awards and a career film for stars Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable.Has not aged well as its racist tropes have offended more and more younger generations but is still a marker for where race relations stood in the US at the end of the 1930s.

A Calling Bird of World Stuff

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In an earth-shaking event, perhaps the strongest recorded earthquake to strike the US occurred…….in Missouri!

               1811   New Madrid, Missouri   It was only 22 years since the Constitution went into effect and settlements west of the Appalachians were thin and few. Up the Ohio, Cincinnati was establishing itself as a river port. There was an old settlement at St. Louis dating back to French days (as did New Orleans, much further south.)  But it was a good thing there were so few people around. On this day a major, 7.3 Richter Scale earthquake struck along a fault line under the village of New Madrid. Hundreds of square miles of trees were knocked down. The Mississippi River reversed coursefor several hours, flowing NORTH, causing enormous flooding in present day Missouri, Kentucky and Illinois that took over a week to drain away. Aftershocks kept everyone on tenterhooks all night and all the next day. Perhaps the strongest quake in American history but with remarkably little damage and light loss of life.

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           I just came across this quote from Karl Popper. He was a 20th century “philosopher of science” and also an outspoken defender of liberal democracy.

                Now there are times when it seems being understand and open and accepting gets you clobbered. More darkly (as demonstrated by Mussolini, other fascists and various coup leaders and even religious leaders) in political circles there is a sort of bind: if some authoritarian is opposed by a patriot, the dictator wannabe can always claim/lament/charge/complain that “your famed tolerance is intolerant of my POV” and that “democracy stinks and should be replaced (by me.) You are a hypocrite!” I confess I have wrestled with this myself, so I was delighted to come across this reply by Popper:

In 1945, philosopher Karl Popper attributed the paradox to Plato's defense of "benevolent despotism" and defined it in The Open Society and Its Enemies.[1]

               Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.—In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise.

                   But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols.

                 We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal.

AAAA---Men   Brother Popper!!!                               What He Said……………..

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            Alright then, fellow Gnusies! The Round Up is open for your comments, replies, extensions, refutations, recantings, recountings, recoupings, links, pix, thoughts, dreams, feelings, recipes, and toasts!

I leave it to you with one last example of “4 …….calling…….. birds.”  

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  Be of Good Cheer, everyone!

May all your News be Good, comforting, and inspiring.

Shalom.

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