Wednesday, September 30, 2020
Close Up Photographer of the Year
His night-time shot of an eel larva won CUPOTY, and was chosen from more than 6,000 entries from 52 countries.
Trump ensures first presidential debate is national humiliation
Donald Trump ensured Tuesday’s first US presidential debate was the worst in American history, a national humiliation. The rest of the world – and future historians – will presumably look at it and weep.
More likely than not, according to opinion polls, his opponent Joe Biden will win the November election and bring the republic back from the brink. If Trump is re-elected, however, this dark, horrifying, unwatchable fever dream will surely be the first line of America’s obituary.
Tuesday, September 29, 2020
When Things Fall Apart
“The only time we really know what’s really going on is when the rug’s been pulled out from underneath us and we can’t find anywhere to land.
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Things falling apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing. We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don’t really get solved.
They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It’s just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.
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We never know if we’re going to fall flat or sit up tall. When there’s a big disappointment, we don’t know if that’s the end of the story or the beginning of a great adventure.”
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—Pema Chödrön, When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times
The chilling experiment which created the first vaccine
He had trained in London under one of the foremost surgeons of the day. Jenner’s interest in curing smallpox is thought to be influenced by his childhood experience of smallpox inoculation.
It’s said that Jenner was psychologically scarred by that experience, some of his motivation was just how horrific he'd found it,” says Owen Gower, manager of Dr Jenner’s House Museum. “He was thinking, ‘I want to find an alternative, something that's safer, that's less terrifying’.”
In 1796, after gathering some circumstantial evidence from farmers and milkmaids, Jenner decided to try an experiment. A potentially fatal experiment. On a child.
He took some pus from cowpox lesions on the hands of a young milkmaid, Sarah Nelms, and scratched it into the skin of eight-year old James Phipps. After a few days of mild illness, James recovered sufficiently for Jenner to inoculate the boy with matter from a smallpox blister. James did not develop smallpox, nor did any of the people he came into close contact with.
Although the experiment worked, by today’s standards it was ethically problematic.
Monday, September 28, 2020
Yoshitoshi Kanemaki’s sculptures
Yoshitoshi Kanemaki’s mindbending wooden sculptures carry cerebral and haunting vibes, each evolving in tone as the viewer observes from different perspectives.
Queen Elizabeth and Donald
Last Friday, Vincent Namatjira became the first Indigenous artist to win Australia’s prestigious Archibald prize.
New York Times publishes Donald Trump's tax returns in election bombshell
Donald Trump, a self-proclaimed billionaire, paid only $750 in federal income taxes in the year he was elected US president, according to a stunning New York Times investigation that could shake up the presidential election.
The president “paid $750 in federal income taxes the year he won the presidency”, the paper reported, adding that “in his first year in the White House, he paid another $750.
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