DEATH BY ENVIRONMENTAL IGNORANCE

Pacem, Libertatem, Justitiam
September 20, 2020
Volume 12 Number 49

Reader-Supported  Please go here. Thank you very much.

Inside: Death By Environmental Ignorance; For the Integrity of All Involved; Beyond the Pale; Good News & Awesome Examples; News We Would Rather Not Read But Need To Know Anyway; Community, Culture & Lifestyle; Economics; History; Health, Home, Garden & Kitchen; Covid-19; Northstar Interactive; Our World and Beyond; Earth; Climate & Climate Change; Ecology; Space; Technology; Funzone: Travel; Best of the Net; Movie of the Week; Masha & the Bear, All Creatures Great & Small; Strange But True; About Us

Rusty Miller, Editor

Hi again, from the shores of the Salish Sea.  If there was any doubt that we are ~ despite our diverse demographics ~ one world on one planet, the wildfire smoke from the American west coast states of California, Oregon and Washington which last week darkened the skies over the British Isles and western Europe should have pretty much dispelled it.

We are also marking the passing of one of the world’s finest jurists, citizens and human beings, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who crossed over last week at the age of 87.  As long as our species continues to produce individuals of this caliber, we will not, as Dylan Thomas wrote, “go gently into that good night.”

Now that the rains have returned and the skies are clearing, I hope we are doing something with this new normal besides reacting to old fears.  Reincarnation is a theme of several cultures and the cornerstone of one in particular.  There is also the legend of a creature which rose to life from its own ashes.

I hope we learn from those who came before us.  Native Americans, for instance, knew the weather and the impact it had on their environment.  They did not erect cities on flood plains, perpetually arid canyons, gullies and dry washes, on the slopes of volcanoes, on the shores of tidal flats or in forest clearings surrounded by trees weeded annually by fires.  And while “the first Americans” may have died just as tragically or as foolishly as their white conquerors, very damned few of them succumbed to environmental ignorance.

Stay safe, all, and have a great week.

Rusty

Northstar editor Merritt Scott “Rusty” Miller is a journalist, author, editor and photographer living in Seattle, Washington.  For comments, please go here

FOR THE INTEGRITY OF ALL INVOLVED

Olya Bereza, Associate Editor

Hi Rusty:

This time I would like to share my enthusiasm for Netflix’s new documentary, The Social Dilemma. In an age of manipulation, fake news and disinformation, this film explains how humanity reached this point in history.  Watching it is a breath of fresh air, especially for a psychological therapist who needs to discern the root of the problem before any relief can be brought.

In the documentary, representatives of famous platforms like Twitter Former Executive Jeff Seibert or Pinterest Former President Tim Kendall are interviewed for their attitudes and views of the influence social media plays in our lives.

They expressed their concern that some of the ideas that were initially designed to make lives easier and the world a better place were implemented in a way that actually did the exact opposite, and revealed what can happen with the “monetization of content.”  Many of the those interviewed said they do not allow their children access to what they have created.  As a parent myself especially, this makes me wonder just how much more alarming a confession like that could be.

The film explained the impact of social media on the psyche, especially those of children, and revealed the phenomenon of the polarization of perspective which seems such a hallmark of social media now.  In an attempt to provide their user with not only what they want but what the social media experts believe they should have or would purchase, perspective seems the first casualty.

What too often happens is a stream of useful information of limited perspective.  In politics, for instance, that means receiving only information that supports their views.  When all sides do that, you have, for the purposes of truth, honesty and realism, a total non-happening event.  And when people cannot or do not find that they have anything in common, they often magnify the differences to the point of demonization.  When asked where this could ultimately lead, one of those interviewed was blunt.  “Civil war.”

There is also the emotional cost we pay when we limit or seek to control the information flow.  From my own perspective of history, every country and nation has its own “pain body” caused by such events, for instance, as the early protests of the end 2013 in Ukraine and the emotional rollercoaster among other things fueled also by social media.

I remember how people were divided by those who supported the government and police and the other side, which supported protesters.  This was dramatically evident when Britain left the European Union and persists in every trade deal the EU has attempted to negotiate since.

I do not, however, share the New York Times opinion that ignoring this problem and not giving it energy will make it go away.  “The Social Dilemma” Review: Unplug and Run.  This is a human problem, not one of algorithms run amok.  We need to look this square in the eye, remembering, in our search for truth and the right path, that we are humans first – members of one family – and that everything else, including religion, political affiliation, lifestyle, is what we “wear”.  They do not define us.  And we cannot continue to let our social media tell us otherwise.

One of those interviewed won my admiration.  According to his mini-bio, Tristan Harris, Google’s former design ethicist, Atlantic magazine calls him the “closest thing Silicon Valley has to a conscience. He spent three years as a Google design ethicist developing a framework for how technology should “ethically” steer the thoughts and actions of billions of people. He is now co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology, whose mission is to reverse ‘human downgrading’ and re-align technology with humanity”.

I absolutely support what Tristan Harris said about the moral responsibility of social platforms in their mission.  The regulations are definitely needed to make platforms safe for their users.

And for the integrity of all involved.

Olya

Northstar columnist and associate editor Olya Bereza was born in the former Soviet Union and now lives in Ukraine.  Fluent in Russian, Ukrainian, and English, she is a degreed psychologist with a background in international marketing and personnel management.  For comments, please go here.

BEYOND THE PALE

New York Times Australian News

Barbados To Remove Queen Elizabeth As Head Of State

Fire Survivors Help Each Other And Find Healing In The Process

Israel Signs Pacts With UAE And Bahrain At The White House

West Coast Wildfire Smoke Reported As Far East As The Netherlands

Yoshihide Suga Named Japan’s Prime Minister, Succeeding Abe

GOOD NEWS AND AWESOME EXAMPLES

After Beirut Blast, A Young Lebanese Surgeon Finds New Sense Of Duty

5 People Whose Extreme Compassion Changed The World

Extinction Is Not Inevitable. These Species Were Saved.

‘Hi, It’s Navalny’: Kremlin Critic Says He Can Breathe Unaided In First Statement After Poisoning

Ocean Farmers Trying To Save The World With Seaweed

Why This Thai Billionaire Is Risking It All To Back Governmental Reform

NEWS WE WOULD RATHER NOT READ BUT NEED TO KNOW ANYWAY

COVID-19 Is Still Devastating Nursing Homes. The Trump Administration Isn’t Doing Much To Stop It

Champion Wrestler Executed Despite Evidence Of Torture And Innocence

How College Administrators Ignored Models Showing Severe COVID-19 Impact On Campus

New Report Details Impacts Of Covid-19 Pandemic On Global Health

COMMUNITY, CULTURE & LIFESTYLE

Communities Keep Neighbors Safe From Extreme Heat And Covid-19

Cyberbullying: What Is It And How To Stop It

Daylight Saving Time Should Be Permanent. The Pandemic Shows Us Why

How To Remake Streets For Kids During Pandemic

Louisville To Pay $12 Million In Breonna Taylor’s Wrongful Death Lawsuit

Muslims Confront A Complicated Relationship With Policing And Anti-Blackness

Seattle Family Moves To Canada So Kids Can Attend School In-Person

Why Robert Pirsig’s ‘Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance’ Still Resonates Today

ECONOMICS

Number Of Americans Filing For Jobless Aid Dips

America’s 1% Has Taken $50 Trillion From The Bottom 90%

HISTORY — NATURAL & HUMAN

Fidel Castro Stayed In Harlem 60 Years Ago To Highlight Racial Injustice In The U.S.

The Little-Known Story Of World War Ii’s ‘Last Million’ Displaced People

My Settler Ancestors Set Us Up For Massive Wildfires

How Native Americans Were Long Left Out Of The Mayflower Story

Crypts, Tunnel Discovered Beneath Knights Templar Chapel In Poland

Drone Imaging Reveals Pre-Hispanic ‘Great Settlement’ Beneath Kansas Ranch

Nero, History’s Most Despised Emperor, Gets A Makeover

Sweeping DNA Survey Highlights Vikings’ Surprising Genetic Diversity

This Anglo-Saxon Cemetery Is Filled With Corpses’ Ghostly Silhouettes

Fingerprint Analysis Reveals New Insights On Prehistoric Rock Art’s Creators

Is This Ancient Map Of The Cosmos Younger Than Previously Thought?

Ice Age Cave Bear Found Preserved In Permafrost On Siberian Island

Why Birds Survived, And Dinosaurs Went Extinct, After An Asteroid Hit Earth

HEALTH

Can Anxiety Cause High Blood Pressure? Here’s What The Research Says

How Exercising Into Old Age Can Keep Your Immune System Young

How To Become A Morning Person

Is Being Cold Good For You?

Online Therapy, Booming During The Coronavirus Pandemic, May Be Here To Stay

The Germiest Place In Your Bathroom Isn’t Your Toilet

Want To Prevent The Deadliest Diseases? Eat More Fiber

What’s In Wildfire Smoke And Why It’s So Bad For Your Lungs

Working Out At Home? Here’s The Smartest Exercise Gear You Can Use

HOME, GARDEN & KITCHEN

Not Just China, Indonesia Loves US Soybeans Too As Tempeh Popularity Booms

Reflections On Ratatouille

How To Prepare Houseplants For Fall

Neba-Neba Soba (Buckwheat Noodles With Natto, Okra And Mountain Yam)

Doenjang Chigae (Korean Bean Paste Stew)

Kabocha And Miso Soup

COVID-19

62% Of Americans Worry Trump Is Rushing A COVID-19 Vaccine

Israel Marks Jewish New Year With Second Lockdown

South Africa Eases Strict Lockdown As Cases Drop

Who Says Europe Is Headed Into Another Potential Pandemic Crisis

NORTHSTAR INTERACTIVE

What’s It Like To Find A Piece Of A One-Of-A-Kind Dinosaur?

What It’s Like Taking Remote College Classes

The World’s First Entirely Virtual Art Museum Is Open For Visitors

OUR WORLD AND BEYOND

View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Across a wide swath of the U.S. now, the sky looks hazy, and the sun looks redder than usual, due to the wildfires in the U.S. West. Nancy Ricigliano on Long Island, New York, caught this image on September 16 and wrote: “This is a result from the smoke from the wildfires that have reached so many places, including New York. This photo was taken at Jones Beach, Pier 10. Normally at this time, you can’t even take a picture of the sun without a filter.”

This, to me, is a little scary.  How Algorithms Discern Our Mood From What We Write Online

Can We Capture Energy From A Hurricane?  Or from politicians campaigning for re-election

Northern Hemisphere Breaks Record For Hottest Ever Summer  No kidding.  I live here.

EARTH

Mapping Technology Reveals Channels Of Warm Water Under Florida-Sized Glacier

National Geographic’s Antarctica

New Section Of Petrified Forest Uncovered On Wales Beach After Storm

Red Cedar: The Amazing Giving Tree

Siberia Landscape Scarred By Climate Change

Western Wildfires: An ‘Unprecedented,’ Climate Change-Fueled Event, Experts Say

CLIMATE & CLIMATE CHANGE

5 Ways Communities Are Coping With Climate Anxiety

China Is Willing To Contribute More: Beijing Signals Carbon Neutrality Intent

Encouraged By Bolsonaro, Land Grabbers Advance On Amazon Indigenous Territory

Energy Companies Keep Right To Sue States In Private Courts, As Treaty Reforms Blocked

EU Faces Internal Battle As It Prepares To Increase 2030 Climate Target

How Climate Change Is Fueling Fires, Heat And Smog

How Climate Migration Will Reshape America

IMF Endorses EU Plan To Put A Carbon Price On Imports

Inverse OPEC: Kamala Harris Plan To Wind Down Oil Production Awaits Its Moment

Kamala Harris Is Right To Propose A Managed Decline Of Fossil Fuel Production 

New Climate Maps Show A Transformed United States

South Africa Aims To Reach Net Zero Emissions In 2050 – While Still Burning Coal

Trees Are Growing Fast And Dying Young Due To Climate Change

Vietnam Brings Cement Sector Into New Climate Submission To The UN

We Need To Learn To Love All Kinds Of Weather

What’s Causing Climate Change, In 10 Charts

Why We No Longer Use The Phrase ‘Brown Finance’ 

Will The West’s Giant Fires Spark A Climate Awakening?

ECOLOGY

Can Ranching Help Sustain Florida’s Biodiversity?

Green Seattle:  Equity In Urban Forestry

Hakai Magazine:  Seaweed, Salmon & Solar Farms

How Farms Can Share Wild Bees

How Native And White Communities Make Alliances To Protect The Earth

Oil Demand Has Collapsed, And It Won’t Come Back Any Time Soon

Trump’s Fossil Fuel Agenda Gets Pushback From Federal Judges

SPACE

A New Solar Cycle Promises Calm Space Weather

Astronomers Find Potential Sign Of Life In Venus’ Atmosphere

NASA Has Figured Out A New Way To Safely Land On The Moon

New Video Shows Inside Of NASA Contractor’s Proposed Lunar Lander

Scientists: We Could Build Mars Shelters Out Of Insect Polymers And Martian Soil

The ISS Is About To Get Its First Commercial Airlock

NASA Earth Observatory Latest Images

TECHNOLOGY

A New System For Cooling Down Computers Could Revolutionize The Pace Of Innovation

Oracle Wins Tiktok Over Microsoft In Trump-Urged Bid

Stores In Japan Are Stocking Shelves With Remote-Controlled Robots

Trump Admin To Shut Down Tiktok App Downloads On Sunday

BEST OF THE NET

Artist Captures Beauty Of Australia’s Wildlife

Who Thought Flying Squirrels Would Make Good Pets?

Photographs From The Last Quiet Places On Earth

TRAVEL

Amsterdam’s Most Unusual Canal Tour

8 Unreal Treehouse Escapes

Europe’s Tiny City Of 168 Countries

Seattle University District’s Neptune Theatre. Photo by MS(R)M

MOVIE OF THE WEEK: THE TRAIN  – The Train is a 1964 American French war film directed by John Frankenheimer.^[1] Its screenplay—written by Franklin Coen, Frank Davis, and Walter Bernstein—is loosely based on the non-fiction book Le front de l’art by Rose Valland, who documented the works of art placed in storage that had been looted by the Germans from museums and private art collections. The film stars Burt Lancaster, Paul Scofield and Jeanne Moreau. Set in August 1944, it sets French Resistance-member Paul Labiche (Lancaster) against German Colonel Franz von Waldheim (Scofield), who is attempting to move stolen art masterpieces by train to Germany. Inspiration for the scenes of the train’s interception came from the real-life events surrounding train No. 40,044 as it was seized and examined by Lt. Alexandre Rosenberg of the Free French forces outside Paris. (Our thanks to Wikipedia for this description)

ALL CREATURES GREAT & SMALL

Be glad they don’t know where you live, eh?  Study Finds Ten Species Of Fish That May Have A Secret Talent For Walking On Land

If they must be caged at all.  Ueno Zoo Has Opened A New Panda Enclosure That Resembles The Bear’s Habitat

Amazing.  Humpback Whales Enter Crocodile River ‘In Australian First’

SHORTS

Hong Kong’s Dolphins Make Pandemic Comeback

Another Reason National Parks are Vital for Endangered Species

Innovative New Whale Detection System Aims To Prevent Ships From Striking Animals

STRANGE BUT TRUE

These Sea Anemones Grow Limbs When They Eat

New Campaign Tells Tourists How To Behave Around Elephants

How Shipwrecks Help Marine Predators

Japan Battles Wild Monkeys At Site Of Nuclear Meltdown

FRIENDS 

BOOKS FOR SALE

A super power no longer, a resource hungry and repressive America faces a Latin American armada rampaging its west coast and a strong, silent and powerful Canada manning the North Wall. The fires of rebellion burn in the Pacific Northwest and it is into this crucible and forge that the cybernetic patrol boat Testament and her crew of three men and three women are thrust. Individuals of duty and conscience both, when they join the other side, all Hell breaks loose. A rollicking adventure for anyone who loves the sea, a good yarn and characters who spring to life even as Testament herself leaps the waves. For a $4.00 Kindle Book adventure you will remember for a lifetime, please go here.

Associate editor Olya Bereza is also the children’s novelist Holley Dovetail. This is one of several of short novels for the young and the young at heart. To preview and/or purchase on amazon.com, please go here.

This little fairy-tale short story dedicated to a pet-friend gone chasing the rainbow. For kids their first lost and challenge in life is letting go of their pet friends that once became part of their world. This little story will help in times they have to say good-bye without falling into despair.  Yep, go here.

OUR THANKS THIS WEEK TO:

American Heritage Magazine

Associated Press

BBC

CBS News

Crosscut Magazine

Earth Sky News:  Updates On Your Cosmos And World

KQED Science

Modern Farmer

Moscow Times:  Independent News From Russia

Mother Nature Network

National Geographic

National Public Radio

Newsweek

Rainforest Site

Sightline Institute

Smithsonian Magazine

South China Morning Post – This Week In Asia

Time Magazine

UBS Nobel Perspectives

WNYC Studios

ABOUT US

The Northstar Journal is a general interest online weekly magazine serving the international community since 2007.  We are on FaceBook and Nextdoor.com. If you enjoyed this edition and would like to contribute to the next, please go here.  To contact us directly, minstrel312@aol.com

CALIFORNIA IS BURNING

Pacem, Libertatem, Justitiam
September 13, 2020
Volume 12 Number 48

Reader-Supported  Please go here. Thank you very much.

Inside: California Is Burning; Riding Ukraine Trains; Beyond the Pale; Good News & Awesome Examples; News We Would Rather Not Read But Need To Know Anyway; Community, Culture & Lifestyle; Economics; History; Health, Home, Garden & Kitchen; Covid-19; Northstar Interactive; Our World and Beyond; Earth; Climate Change; Ecology; Space; Technology; Funzone: Travel; Best of the Net; Movie of the Week; Masha & the Bear, All Creatures Great & Small; Strange But True; About Us

Photo courtesy of http://www.thegreenmarketoracle.com/2018/08/california-is-burning-again.html

Rusty Miller, Editor

Hi again, from the shores of the Salish Sea.  As smoke from wildfires in eastern Washington haze the heavens from Seattle, to Sooke, on the windward side of Canada’s westernmost Vancouver Island, I am watching “vegetation” fires torching much of a state I once called home and I am having survivor guilt.  I was raised in Northern California.

For the first 18 years of my life, between Sacramento and Redding, life was good and much like the film American Graffiti.  After my military service, which included San Diego and Long Beach, and college and the start of a professional writing career, I returned to Northern California and after a year in San Francisco, settled into Sacramento, where I worked for the telephone company and published an offline monthly similar to the weekly you are now reading.

It was Camelot in California back then and my memories are rich ones.  The magazine took off and we were doing good work for the various movements, individuals and causes we supported.  It turned out we were doing too good a job.  I started receiving harassing messages on my answering machine (no cell phones back then) and hate mail.  I started sleeping with a loaded .357 magnum under my pillow.

Then came the night I was clipped from behind coming down my front steps and awoke several hours later in the locked trunk of my own car.  I left town two weeks later, ostensibly on vacation, and didn’t stop driving until I reached friends in Blaine, Washington.  I returned to California several years later, briefly, to run a newspaper in one of the worst polluted places on the planet.  That was in 1984 and I have had better sense than to try the state again.

My life in California, for various reasons including a very respectable but privately dysfunctional family was more rough of the cob than the corn.  It was that way for most of those I loved because those I loved were, just like those left, quintessentially gentle people with good hearts and a realistic sense of community.  Intelligent but not complex, they were the stuff of Steinbeck and Saroyan, neither of whom exaggerated in the least.  And like for the people in their books, there were places of defeat, loss and grief.

In the last several years, wildfires have destroyed all of those places and forced the good and the bad alike off land many of them should never have colonized in the first place.  Wildfires are natural but they are only disasters when they involve human beings.  So are floods and California has flood plains several hundred miles long.  So watch for those kinds of natural “disasters” every year as well.

I am sorry California is burning.  I have, however, no more tears for Eureka.  I hope my prayers can be heard above the howling winds of those infernos.

Rusty

Northstar editor Merritt Scott “Rusty” Miller is a journalist, author, editor and photographer living in Seattle, Washington.  For comments, please go here

A picture of my coupe. It contains two sleeping seats and a little table with window for an outside view.

RIDING UKRAINE TRAINS

Olya Bereza, Associate Editor

Hi Rusty:

As you know, traveling is a big part of my life. Due to personal circumstances, quite often I whiz around to and fro, east and west, center and south of Ukraine. The country is the largest in Europe so, usually, I take night trains to sleep away most of a journey. Depending on the destination, it could be even up to 24 hours in train, but usual night trains, 12-18 hours.

We do have sitting fast day trains too, about five to seven hours to the center of Ukraine, Kyiv, from the east, west and south.  They are a bit more sociable as have they have Internet, TV screens, a cafe-carriage and usually you are surrounded by people. If I ride one of them, I then try to take a seat with a little table so can work on my laptop.

I am from those “luckies” who get car sick, so traveling by train is really my rescue. I can take a bus in very rare circumstances, as I did during Ukraine’s lockdown, when trains were not allowed.. Actually, it was fun to be on the road again even by bus. Stopping at all those food and hospitality places and watching the ever-changing views out the window is always reassuring, a reminder that the journey goes on, no matter what.

But still, there is nothing better than train going in summer night with opened window and me listening to chirping cicadas and breathing the fresh air being in the middle of nowhere. No settlements, no wifi noise, just star gazing and neverending fields with their aroma of wildflowers.

Here I prefer to have my own coupe, as it’s easier to work and enjoy the serenity that quite often gives inspiration. Often I read books or magazines that, during routine days, I not have time for.

There are also times when I have traveled with other people either, in coupe or so-called “open carriages,” when it’s about 50 sleeping seats. Sometimes during journey, I have met someone with whom to talk and make the trip shorter. I have a few stories written based on such acquaintances. As they say, be careful with authors as you never know when will appear in their writings.

But last time, it was the opposite. I was reading a great translation of my acquaintance, Scott Blackwell Boyce, of the adventures of Archangelsk Baron Munhgausen aka Senya Malina. The amusing stories are collected and written by Russian author Stepan Pisakov. You can enjoy them too Senya Malina – Which Is Safer Heard Than Read

So, Mishka, that is what it is like on trains in Ukraine.  Stay safe, cousin mine.

Olya

Northstar columnist and associate editor Olya Bereza was born in the former Soviet Union and now lives in Ukraine.  Fluent in Russian, Ukrainian, and English, she is a degreed psychologist with a background in international marketing and personnel management.  For comments, please go here.

BEYOND THE PALE

Australia Notebook

Belarus Protests: Kolesnikova ‘Resists Expulsion’ On Ukraine Border

US Wildfires Leave Small Towns Almost Destroyed In California And Washington

US-China Tensions: Korean War Was A Miscalculation. It Could Happen Again With Taiwan

Caught In US-China Crossfire, Should HSBC Split Its Global Businesses?

For China And Indonesia, A Delicate Balancing Act For Better Ties

China, Others To Be Part Of Joint Military Drills In Russia

Moria Migrants: Greek Ships To Help Shelter 13,000 After Fire

Moria Migrants: European Countries Agree To Take Minors After Fire

New Rising Sun: Can Post-Abe Japan Leave China’s Shadow To Lead Asia?

Navalny Comes Out Of Coma, Hospital Says

Saudi Court Issues Final Verdicts In Khashoggi Killing Amid Criticism

Donbas Update: Ukrainian Military Fighting Wildfires, Two Troops Gone Missing

Prince Harry Repays Taxpayer Money For UK Home Renovation

GOOD NEWS AND AWESOME EXAMPLES

New Orleans Zoo Welcomes A Critically Endangered Gorilla Baby, Its First Gorilla Birth In 24 Years

Space Mice Return To Earth, Mighty As Ever

Wildlife In ‘Catastrophic Decline’ Due To Human Destruction, Scientists Warn

‘World’s Loneliest Elephant’ OK’d To Quit Zoo For New Life

NEWS WE WOULD RATHER NOT READ BUT NEED TO KNOW ANYWAY

Belarus Jails Opposition Figure Kolesnikova As Nobel Winner Intimidated

Depression Has Skyrocketed During The COVID-19 Pandemic, Study Says

New Research: Quality Of Life Is Slipping Backwards In The US

On Hot Days, Asphalt Can Release As Much Air Pollution As Cars

Trump Admitted On Tape That He Knew COVID-19 Was Deadly

Urgent Call For International Show Of Solidarity To #Freenasrin As Lawyer Begins Fifth Week Of Hunger Strike

COMMUNITY, CULTURE & LIFESTYLE

A Few Ideas For Safe And Fair Public Schooling

Artists Transform Vacant, Blighted Building In Ballard With Murals

After Wildfires, Community Gatherings Offer Emotional Support

As Colleges Open During A Pandemic, Student Life Remains Closed

How The Lebanese Diaspora Is Mobilizing Against Food Shortages

Mexico Earth Day School Contest Draws Hundreds Of Innovative Projects

On And Off The Trans-Siberian Train: The Dropouts

Street Art Campaign Global Halt Takes Root In Iran

Where Navalny’s Poisoning Is Taking Russia, At Home And Abroad

ECONOMICS

Goodfair Shows How Thrift Shopping Can Go Online

Number Of Americans Seeking Unemployment Aid Is Rising

UK Signs First Major Post-Brexit Trade Deal With Japan

HISTORY — NATURAL & HUMAN

Wreck Of German Warship Sunk In 1940 Found Off Norwegian Coast

Born Enslaved, Patrick Francis Healy ‘Passed’ His Way To Lead Georgetown University

Lost Pieces Of 19th-Century Steamboat Wreck Found In Vermont

Traces Of 2,000-Year-Old Roman Roundhouse Found In Northern England

Why Were This Ancient Scottish Tomb’s Chambers Built Upside Down?

HEALTH

14 Reasons You’re Tired All The Time

A Story In Data: We’re All Under More Serious Mental Distress

Climate Change Isn’t Just A Global Threat—It’s A Public Health Emergency

Exercise Snacking: How To Make 1 Minute Of Exercise Work Like 30 Minutes

Research Links Blackout Drinking To Doubled Dementia Risk

This Spice Is Insanely Good For You

Which Cooking Oil Is The Healthiest?

Why Instagram Is The Worst Social Media For Mental Health

HOME, GARDEN & KITCHEN

5 Unkillable Houseplants For The Lazy Gardener

Why Do French And Italian Tomatoes Taste So Damn Good?

Is Organic Food Worth The Cost?

For A Sustainable Food System, Look To Seeds

Weekday Vegetarian: Easy Tomato Canning Recipe

Wonton Soup

Soy Sauce Prawns

Poached Beef And Bean Sprouts

COVID-19

COVID-19 Is Transmitted Through Aerosols. We Have Enough Evidence, Now It Is Time To Act

NORTHSTAR INTERACTIVE

Are you looking to volunteer?  Go here and type in the same of your city.

Stuck At Home, Volunteers Help Scientists Track Nature

OUR WORLD AND BEYOND

Artist’s concept of Earth in space – with the Pacific Ocean visible – and outsized radio telescopes listening for signs of intelligence from the stars. The Gaia satellite is also pictured. Elements of this image furnished by NASA. Artwork via University of Manchester.

EARTH

After The Explosions, How Will A Jewel Of The World Rebuild?

Does This River Hold The Key To Life On Mars?

Explosion Opens New ‘Pit To Hell’ Crater In Russian Arctic

Your Great Barrier Reef Questions Answered

CLIMATE CHANGE

A Garden Empowers Those Most Impacted By Climate Change

African Ministers Call For Investment In Great Green Wall To Aid Covid-19 Recovery

Asian Multilateral Bank Promises To End Coal-Related Financing

Climate Change, Water Woes, And Conflict Concerns In The Middle East: A Toxic Mix

Federal Report Warns Of Financial Havoc From Climate Change

Fracking Company Sues Slovenia Over ‘Unreasonable’ Environmental Protections

France Seeks German Collaboration On Hydrogen In EU Green Recovery

Japan Blocks Green Reform Of Major Energy Investment Treaty

Listen: Why Solving The Housing Crisis Helps The Climate

Much Of The American West Is On Fire, Illustrating The Dangers Of A Climate Of Extremes

UK Climate Assembly Calls For Frequent Flyer Levy, Private Jet Ban

Wildfires One Sign Of The ‘New Washington’ Created By Climate Change

World Misses 2020 Biodiversity Goals: Leaked UN Draft Report

ECOLOGY

Earth Day Network Africa Ambassador Raising Awareness To Ban Single Use Plastics

From Beer to Bread: How One Innovative Company Is Repurposing Spent Grain

How Turning Vacant Lots Into Green Spaces Can Improve Mental Health

World’s Largest Rooftop Greenhouse Opens In Quebec

A Managed Decline For Oil-Dependent Regions

SPACE

A Breakthrough In The Search For Extraterrestrial Intelligence

A Rare Planet Might Be Hiding In This Oddly Shaped, Triple-Star System

China Is Building A Floating Spaceport To Launch Rockets

It’s Time To Start Watching Mars

Japanese Spacecraft Will Shoot Martian Moons In 8K Resolution

Outside Our Solar System Lies A Region Of Chaotic, Frothing Activity

Scientists Search 10 Million Stars, See No Signs Of Alien Civilization

Why Is The Moon Covered In Rust? Even Scientists Are Stumped By This Metal Mystery

NASA Earth Observatory Latest Images

TECHNOLOGY

Colleges Are Mailing Brains To Students To Dissect At Home

Engineers Test Jetliner Where You Ride In The Wings

Humans Are Not The Only Species That Can Use And Understand Numbers

New Military Drone Fits In Backpack, Can Carry Lasers, Radio Jammers, Weapons

SpaceX’s Satellite ISP Now Boasts Download Speeds Of More Than 100 Mbps

US Approves First Small-Scale Nuclear Reactors

BEST OF THE NET

America Medley – Lauryn Evans

Dolphin Mom Adopts Baby Whale And Takes Care Of It For Three Years

“Super Mom” Mother Duck Caught On Video With 76 Ducklings In Tow

TRAVEL

5 Surreal Weekend Escapes That Are Less Than 3 Hours From L.A.

National Geographic’s China

Seattle’s Museum Of Flight Reopens To The Public

London’s Largest Cache Of Bronze Age Objects Is On View For The First Time

Seattle University District’s Neptune Theatre. Photo by MS(R)M

MOVIE OF THE WEEK: LOONEY TUNES BIGGEST COMPILATION: Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and more!

ALL CREATURES GREAT & SMALL

Photo courtesy of KIRO 7.com https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/southern-resident-orca-tahlequah-gives-birth-calf

Congratulations and “go, new mom.”  Southern Resident Orca Tahlequah Gives Birth To Calf

Outstanding.  Scientists Save Rare Giant Turtle Species From Extinction

Only in Oregon.  I love it!  Turtle Returned Home Safe Thanks To Corvallis Police

SHORTS

Berlin Zoo’s Twin Panda Cubs Celebrate 1st Birthday

Old Male Elephants Are Key To Their Societies

Harpy Eagle Is So Big That People Think It’s A Human Dressed Up As A Bird

Hummingbird Builds A Nest With A Tiny Roof Overhead

Dirty Feeders Are Killing Hummingbirds

Hummingbirds In The Andes Go To Chilly Extremes For A Good Night’s Sleep

Fostering Puppies During The Pandemic

Mysterious Singing Dogs Emerge From Extinction After 50 Years

What The Rhythm Of A Maned Wolf’s Heart Reveals

STRANGE BUT TRUE

Gene-Hacked “Bodybuilder” Mice Stayed Ripped On Space Station

Well-Preserved Atlantic Sturgeon Found In 15th-Century Danish Shipwreck

Japan Battles Wild Monkeys At Site Of Nuclear Meltdown

FRIENDS OF THE NORTHSTAR JOURNAL, BOOKS FOR SALE, ABOUT US

A superpower no longer, a resource hungry and repressive America faces a Latin American armada rampaging its west coast and a strong, silent and powerful Canada manning the North Wall. The fires of rebellion burn in the Pacific Northwest and it is into this crucible and forge that the cybernetic patrol boat Testament and her crew of three men and three women are thrust. Individuals of duty and conscience both, when they join the other side, all Hell breaks loose. A rollicking adventure for anyone who loves the sea, a good yarn and characters who spring to life even as Testament herself leaps the waves. For a $4.00 Kindle Book adventure you will remember for a lifetime, please go here.

Associate editor Olya Bereza is also the children’s novelist Holley Dovetail. This is one of several of short novels for the young and the young at heart. To preview and/or purchase on amazon.com, please go here.

This little fairy-tale short story dedicated to a pet-friend gone chasing the rainbow. For kids their first lost and challenge in life is letting go of their pet friends that once became part of their world. This little story will help in times they have to say good-bye without falling into despair.  Yep, go here.

OUR THANKS THIS WEEK TO:

American Heritage Magazine

BBC

CBS News

Crosscut Magazine

Earth Sky News:  Updates On Your Cosmos And World

Effective Altruism

High Country News

KQED Science

Modern Farmer

Moscow Times:  Independent News From Russia

Mother Nature Network

National Geographic

National Public Radio

Newsweek

Rainforest Site

Sightline Institute

Smithsonian Magazine

South China Morning Post – This Week In Asia

Time Magazine

Tree Hugger News

UBS Nobel Perspectives

WNYC Studios

ABOUT US:  The Northstar Journal is a general interest international online weekly magazine physically located at 5351 S. Wallace Street, Seattle, WA 98178.  We are also on FaceBook and Nextdoor.com. If you enjoyed this edition and would like to contribute to the next, please go here.  To contact us directly, minstrel312@aol.com

REALITY TOO IS IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER

Pacem, Libertatem, Justitiam
September 6, 2020
Volume 12 Number 47

Reader-Supported  Please go here. Thank you very much.

Inside: Reality Too Is In The Eye of The Beholder; Tying Up Loose Ends; Beyond the Pale; Good News & Awesome Examples; News We Would Rather Not Read But Need To Know Anyway; Community, Culture & Lifestyle; Economics; History; Health, Home, Garden & Kitchen; Covid-19; Northstar Interactive; Our World and Beyond; Earth; Climate Change; Ecology; Space; Technology; Funzone: Travel; Best of the Net; Movie of the Week; Masha & the Bear, All Creatures Great & Small; Strange But True; About Us

A neighbor walking his dog (or vice versa) taken while resting against the trunk of a Douglas fir tree. Photo by MS(R)M

Rusty Miller, Editor

Hi again, from the shores of the Salish Sea.  If you’re safe and well, God’s been listening.  If not, we need to pray harder.

This week I want to address something else which can ultimately kill as surely as a broken heart and that is being so overwhelmed by bad news that it robs your life of all joy, all hope and ultimately, of all meaning.

Most bad news is not our bad news.  The daily media must provide ‘news’ whether something of any note is really happening or whether they are simply providing an update or additional perspective.  It is still information and it is still being consumed.  And we are still reacting to it, which is fine if it’s happening where you live.  But the further away it is, the less it really matters.

Does that mean that if you live in Brooklyn Heights you should not care about what happens in Bangkok?  Of course not.  The heart doesn’t respond to that kind of controlling.  It simply means that you don’t need to go into systemic overload over things about which you have little or no control, influence or involvement.  Yep, prioritize by personal impact

Don’t be a media junkie.  Balance your personal programming.  I do that with old movies I find on YouTube or shorter videos from the talent shows, domestic and international, to which I have been personally addicted since childhood.

The old movies especially work for me because they are emotionally cathartic.  If the film is good enough, it absorbs me totally and when I dream after watching one, I might very well be on the bridge of the USS Iowa with Admiral Victor “Pug” Henry in War and Remembrance.

Most importantly, I remember that like beauty, reality too is in the eye of the beholder.

Have a good week ahead, gang, and yep, stay safe.

Rusty

Northstar editor Merritt Scott “Rusty” Miller is a journalist, author, editor and photographer living in Seattle, Washington.  For comments, please go here

TYING UP LOOSE ENDS

In April, I wrote a column entitled A NEW BREED OF FIRST RESPONDERS.  One of them is my favourite checker at the Rainier Beach Safeway here in Seattle where I grocery shop.  I’m withholding his last name by both request and protocol.  His ID badge reads Seth. Even in the worst of times, men and women like him stand on their feet hour after hour, behind a mask and screen, to make sure the rest of us have what we need to survive.  In my opinion, it simply does not get any better than that.  Thank you, Seth, from me and Olya and all the readers of The Northstar Journal.

FROM OLYA: Olya is on the first holiday she has taken in several years and will return next edition.  Rusty

BEYOND THE PALE

Australia Newsletter – New York Times

Children Across Europe Are Going Back To School. Here’s How 3 Countries Are Managing It

India Pulls Out Of Russian Military Drills With China, Pakistan 

Khmer Rouge’s Chief Jailer, Guilty Of War Crimes, Dies At 77

Fighting For Free-Range Reindeer In Norway’s Far North

Putin’s Approval Rating Returns To Pre-Coronavirus Levels – Poll

Belarus Leader Replaces Security Chiefs As Russian Prime Minister Visits

Germany Says Kremlin Critic Navalny Was Poisoned With Novichok

Thailand Protests: Celebrities Defy Risks To Back Pro-Democracy Movement

GOOD NEWS AND AWESOME EXAMPLES

Coalition Of People Working To Protect Orcas

Deputy, Off-Duty Police Officer Save 11-Year-Old From Fiery Crash

Food Network’s Guy Fieri Feeds Local Firefighters Helping Battle California Wildfires

In Washington, D.C., Towering Candles Shine As A Beacon Of Hope In Dark Times

Jane Fonda Calls For Civil Disobedience In The Fight Against Climate Change

Sadaf Khadem – First Iranian Women To Compete In An Official Boxing Match.

This Modern Farmer Grows Flowers In Chicago’s Vacant Lots

What It’s Like To Be A Teacher During The Coronavirus Pandemic

Young Israelis And Emiratis Meet Online After Peace Deal

NEWS WE WOULD RATHER NOT READ BUT NEED TO KNOW ANYWAY

Key Coronavirus Forecast Predicts Over 410,000 Total U.S. Deaths By Jan. 1: ‘The Worst Is Yet To Come’

AP Fact Check: Trump Misstates What Happened In Kenosha

Climate Change Will Make Some Californian Crops Untenable

Family Settles $5.9 Million Lawsuit Over Layleen Polanco’s Death In Solitary Confinement At Rikers

Inside The Dangerous Mission To Understand What Makes Extremists Tick

Pandemic Brings Hard Times For Farmers, Worsening Hunger

Police Brutality Videos Are Giving Teens PTSD Symptoms

Trump Tweets Distort Truth On National Guard

Trump Disparaged US War Dead As ‘Losers,’ ‘Suckers’

Video Footage Captures Fatal Shooting Of Black Man Stopped For Traffic Violation While Cycling

Victim In Crash Involving Deputy Identified As Immigrant Rights Activist

COMMUNITY, CULTURE & LIFESTYLE

Back To School 2020 Recommendations For Safe Routes To School Programming  

Migrants Cross Treacherous Atlantic To Spain. 

Racism Has Shaped Public Transit, And It’s Riddled With Inequities  

Survivors And Descendants Of The 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre File Lawsuit Seeking Reparations

There’s A New Federal Freeze On Evictions. Here’s How To Claim Protection

Why ‘Friendship Books’ Were The 17th-Century Version Of Facebook

ECONOMICS

American Unemployment Rate Falls Below 10% For First Time Since March

Amazon Gets Permission To Start Making Drone Deliveries

Can The Philippines’ Shopping Centres Survive In A Post-Coronavirus World?

Guaranteed Income In Seattle? It’s Been Done Before

We Need A ‘New Normal’ When It Comes To Consumption

We Raided Our Emergency Fund To Become Debt-Free. Then The Pandemic Hit

Your Refinance Is Getting More Expensive. Here’s Why

HISTORY — NATURAL & HUMAN

The Tragic Mid-Air Plane Crash That Changed The American Aviation Industry Forever

The Paralyzed World War Ii Veterans Who Invented Wheelchair Basketball

Nazi-Occupied Norway Offers A Glimpse Of What Hitler Wanted For The Entire World

Hitler’s Quest For Power Was Nearly Derailed Multiple Times. But The System Enabled His Rise

When Tuberculosis Struck The World, Schools Went Outside

Study Reveals Deep Shortcomings With How Schools Teach America’s History Of Slavery

Renovations Reveal 19th-Century Mayor’s Heart Entombed In Belgian Fountain

The Earthquake That Brought Enlightenment

Britain’s Oldest Example Of Christian Graffiti Found Near Hadrian’s Wall

Severe Cyclones May Have Played A Role In The Maya Collapse

Bronze Age Britons Crafted Instruments, Decorations Out Of Relatives’ Bones

HEALTH

Best States To Work In During The COVID-19 Pandemic

5 Ways Science Says To Handle Difficult Emotional Situations

ADA And Other Programs To Protect Vulnerable Groups Benefit Everyone

Does Washing My Clothes Kill All The Germs?

Is There Any Safe Way To Socialize During The Coronavirus Pandemic?

Slowly Losing Your Mind In Lockdown? 5 Apps To Boost Your Mental Health

The Sublime Sensation Of The Swimming Hole

Veterans Are Taking A Psychedelic Plant To Fight PTSD

When A Daily Walk Becomes An Act Of Radical Self-Care—And An Honoring Of Black History

Why Blood Clots Are A Major Problem In Severe Covid-19

Why Walking To Work May Be Better For You Than A Casual Stroll

Your All-Day Guide To Better Sleep

HOME, GARDEN & KITCHEN

From Spent Grain To Fresh Bread

Grow Food, Not Grass, To Fight Climate Change

How To Make Clothing Dye With Your Excess Harvest

Balinese Chicken Salad 

Chicken Satay With Pressed Rice

Gado Gado

Is Honey Healthy? Here’s What Experts Say

Nasi Goreng With Salted Fish

What The Science Really Says About Grilled Meat And Cancer Risk

Working From Home Makes More Sense Than Ever

COVID-19

Affordable Steroids Could Reduce Some COVID-19 Deaths By One-Third, Says WHO

Depression Has Skyrocketed During The COVID-19 Pandemic, Study Says

New Zealand’s Largest City Exits Lockdown After Bringing Mystery Covid-19 Surge Under Control

Scientists Create 3D Map Of Entire Coronavirus Genetic Structure

The Pope And The Pandemic:

University Of Arizona Stops A Covid-19 Outbreak By Following The Feces

Which Countries Have Signed Up For Russia’s Coronavirus Vaccine?

Why Coronavirus Is Surging In The U.S. Midwest Right Now

NORTHSTAR INTERACTIVE

Listen To Woodlands Around The World With This Forest Soundmap

Want To Support Wildlife Conservation In Africa? Start By Going On A Virtual Safari

OUR WORLD AND BEYOND

NASA – National Aeronautics And Space Administration 11h  · ISRO Vs. NASA

Anthony Fauci And Alan Alda Talk Science And 26 Other Smithsonian Programs Streaming In September

Astronomers Claim To Have Spotted The Most Massive Black Hole Merger Ever

We’re At A Tipping Point—Toward Healing The Climate

EARTH

New Research Will Improve Early Warning Of Devastating Megastorms 

The Deep Ocean’s Free Real Estate

World’s Deepest Freshwater Cave Is Twice As Deep As Previously Thought

CLIMATE CHANGE

Centre For Women-Led Climate Adaptation Breaks Ground In Uganda 

Horticultural Lighting Is A Healthy Ingredient For Sustainable Food Production

China Among Nations Likely To Miss 2020 Deadline For Climate Plans

Insurance Increasingly Unaffordable As Climate Change Brings More Disasters

Six Portuguese Youth File ‘Unprecedented’ Climate Lawsuit Against 33 Countries

The Majority Of Gen Z Thinks Climate Change Is Inevitable

What A 1,000-Year-Old Seal Skull Can Tell Us About Climate Change

ECOLOGY

Countries Promise Green Recovery At Japanese Virtual Summit, Keep Quiet On Fossil Bailouts

Ørsted Backs Danish Offshore Wind-Powered Hydrogen Project 

Hotel Made Of Recycled Materials Floats In Copenhagen Harbor

Plastics Are Messing With Fish Physiology

Scientists Find More Green In A Child’s Life Can Make Them Smarter

Solar Lights The Way Towards Sustainability 

Unilever To Cut Fossil Fuels From Cleaning Brands

What COVID-19 Means For Coastal Cleanups

SPACE

China Just Launched A Mysterious “Reusable Test Spacecraft”

NASA-Funded Scientist Claims New Thruster Could Approach Light Speed

NASA Tests Rocket So Huge It Lights Entire Hillside On Fire

Repeating Fast Radio Burst Woke Up Again On Schedule. Now What?

Scientists Say Life Could Survive Inside Stars

There’s A Limit To The Comfort Level Of NASA Space Suits

NASA Earth Observatory Latest Images

TECHNOLOGY

Battery-Free Game Boy Powered By Force Of Mashing Buttons

How This Technology Is Saving The Lions

How Passive House Can Help Keep The Smoke Out

BEST OF THE NET

Couple Travels Full-Time With Off-Grid School Bus Tiny Home

Ancient Israeli Cave Transformed Into Art Gallery

See 12 Stunning Portraits Of World War II Veterans

TRAVEL

How Clean Is Air On Planes?

National Geographic – London

Micromobility Trips Explode 60 Percent In One Year

Seattle University District’s Neptune Theatre. Photo by MS(R)MMOVIE OF THE WEEK: JACK AND THE BEANSTALK – From perhaps the most talented comedy team in American history, Abbott & Costello bring you this venerable fairytale in a way never quite told before.  This is a Northstar Journal Five Star Romp.

ALL CREATURES GREAT & SMALL

This is from a FaceBook friend in Canada.  Pam Spasenic — Picture perfect Vancouver Island.  My friend caught a Black Market deal going down in a neighbors back yard. In Port Hardy BC

And if they can make it…Tiny Elephant Shrew Species Rediscovered After 50 Years

Incredible.  WATCH: Remarkable Video Shows Beluga Whale Calf Birth At Shedd

Ah, but do any of them sing like “Old Blue Eyes?”  Thought To Be Extinct, New Guinea’s Singing Dogs Found Alive In The Wild

SHORTS

10 Peeks At Nature From The Wildlife Photographer Of The Year Contest

Big Fish Stories From Afield

Once Seen As Loners, Male Elephants Shown To Follow Elders

STRANGE BUT TRUE

Chinese Entrepreneurs Develop Facial Recognition Software For Livestock

Hibernation May Be A 250-Million-Year-Old Survival Trick

A Mini Version Of Britain’s Royal Hedge Maze Is No Match For Amoebas

FRIENDS OF THE NORTHSTAR JOURNAL, BOOKS FOR SALE, ABOUT US

A superpower no longer, a resource hungry and repressive America faces a Latin American armada rampaging its west coast and a strong, silent and powerful Canada manning the North Wall. The fires of rebellion burn in the Pacific Northwest and it is into this crucible and forge that the cybernetic patrol boat Testament and her crew of three men and three women are thrust. Individuals of duty and conscience both, when they join the other side, all Hell breaks loose. A rollicking adventure for anyone who loves the sea, a good yarn and characters who spring to life even as Testament herself leaps the waves. For a $4.00 Kindle Book adventure you will remember for a lifetime, please go here.

Associate editor Olya Bereza is also the children’s novelist Holley Dovetail. This is one of several of short novels for the young and the young at heart. To preview and/or purchase on amazon.com, please go here.

This little fairy-tale short story dedicated to a pet-friend gone chasing the rainbow. For kids their first lost and challenge in life is letting go of their pet friends that once became part of their world. This little story will help in times they have to say good-bye without falling into despair.  Yep, go here.

OUR THANKS THIS WEEK TO:

American Heritage Magazine

BBC

CBS News

Crosscut Magazine

Earth Sky News:  Updates On Your Cosmos And World

Effective Altruism

High Country News

KQED Science

Modern Farmer

Moscow Times:  Independent News From Russia

Mother Nature Network

National Geographic

National Public Radio

Newsweek

Rainforest Site

Sightline Institute

Smithsonian Magazine

South China Morning Post – This Week In Asia

Time Magazine

Tree Hugger News

UBS Nobel Perspectives

WNYC Studios

ABOUT US:  The Northstar Journal is a general interest international online weekly magazine physically located at 5351 S. Wallace Street, Seattle, WA 98178.  We are also on FaceBook and Nextdoor.com. If you enjoyed this edition and would like to contribute to the next, please go here.  To contact us directly, minstrel312@aol.com

BELARUS MUST FORGE ITS OWN FUTURE

Pacem, Libertatem, Justitiam
August 30, 2020
Volume 12 Number 47

Reader-Supported  Please go here. Thank you very much.

Inside: Belarus Must Forge Its Own Future; Another Interesting Week; Beyond the Pale; Good News & Awesome Examples; News We Would Rather Not Read But Need To Know Anyway; Community, Culture & Lifestyle; Economics; History; Health, Home, Garden & Kitchen; Covid-19; Northstar Interactive; Our World and Beyond; Earth; Climate Change; Ecology; Space; Technology; Funzone: Travel; Best of the Net; Movie of the Week; Masha & the Bear, All Creatures Great & Small; Strange But True; About Us

Belarus. Photo by Olya Bereza

Olya Bereza, Associate Editor

Hi Rusty:

Recently a friend asked if the situation with protests in Belarus in any way affects Ukrainians. At the moment, the impact so far is very minor.

Since last September, travel between Belarus and Ukraine on an international passport ended.s was ceased between our two countries.  How this will be resolved is not yet clear. Our Ministry of Foreign Affair suggested not visiting Belarus at the moment. Obviously, it is a closing opportunity for travel. As I mentioned before Belarus during the world coronavirus lockdown was the only window of opportunity to travel for those in need as didn’t close the air for international flights.

Of course, we are all praying the situation in the neighboring country won’t go on a violent spin scenario.

The country is highly dependant economically on cooperation with the Russian Federation which supported their social benefits as the standard of living in Belarus, in general, is higher than in other post-Soviet countries. Also, they are a part of Union State consisted of Russian Federation and Belarus so in case of the “coup,” Russia is authorized to offer military help. Putin Forms Law Enforcement ‘Reserve’ on Standby for Belarus

In the “swing of the pendulum” way, the protests can potentially play for the bigger role of Russia in the partnership with Belarus as previously, President of Belarus president Alexander Lukashenko tried to balance and develop multi-vector foreign policy and improve relations with the West. But now he seems to have only one ally.

In my opinion, one cannot really bring democracy from outside.  It can only be born within a society if that society is ready to change in a peaceful way. I, hypothetically, the East and West interfere in a military way, such intervention will likely rip Belarus apart.  We’ve seen that scenario so many times before and it is not one anyone would wish for a neighbor. It is so difficult a dilemma the Belarussian people face now but it is only they who can solve them and build the future they want.

Also one potentially universally dangerous thing I would mention here is the new “invention” of this revolution, that is why in social media some people call those protests a “telegram” revolution. The protesters take their information from an anonymous telegram channel run allegedly by Belarussians from Warsaw. This where the danger of misinformation and manipulation can begin. Who will take responsibility for the information given in an emotional way that could potentially lead to acts of violence?  Also, I don’t see how using hate speech and demonizing policemen could lead to anything else than to escalating violence on both sides.

I know that Belarussians had many restrictions before, like one on travel to the Czech Republic.  I saw the advertisement in a bank about restrictions of using services for Belarus citizens. That attitude surprised me because I know the Belarus people as hardworking, very law obeying and who never cause any problems.  It reminded me that there is sometimes a dramatic difference between the government’s way of dealing with its citizens and the nature of those citizens themselves.

That having been said, the reason for them being in a way so isolated from the rest of Europe is not the only fault of Lukashenko. That old article I’m sure will explain more How the EU and Lukashenka Keep Belarusians Out of Europe So however the situation will unfold in the country, hopefully, the possible sanctions of the EU will not be affecting the ordinary people.

Belarussians never played big politics before and never interfered in the internal affairs of other countries, so perhaps we should return the favor by giving them the chance to lead their own way.

Belarus is a beautiful country with good people so as you, Rusty, mentioned before, “It is people and as you know so well, Czars may perish; empires crumble.  But the people go on.”  Cheers to them whoever sides they support i’m sure they find the peaceful way 

Olya

Northstar columnist and associate editor Olya Bereza was born in the former Soviet Union and now lives in Ukraine.  Fluent in Russian, Ukrainian, and English, she is a degreed psychologist with a background in international marketing and personnel management.  For comments, please go here.

ANOTHER INTERESTING WEEK

Rusty Miller, Editor

Hi again, from the shores of the Salish Sea.  It’s been a very interesting week, has it not?

Courtesy of CBS News, I watched Friday’s March on Washington, which was wreathed in other stories about racial violence and police misconduct.  I’ve made my feelings about these subjects plain enough and often enough.  I am an “all lives matter” person and I do not believe in misconduct of any kind.  So I have no issues with the sentiments involved.

What does bother me to the point of personal exclusion is that we don’t seem capable of doing things anymore without a crowd of allies, cronies or fellow soldiers who might very well not come to praise us but, infected with C-19, to kill us instead.

I’m also getting a little tired of reading about things like this in my town.  It’s become a nightly fixture on Capitol Hill.  And I don’t get it.  When did it become okay to attack a police station and do this?  SPD: Rioters Tried To Trap Officers Inside Burning Precinct Using Rebar And Concrete   These are not rioters.  They are, at the very least, cop haters whose agenda is clear.  Cop blood in the street.

Nope, not in my town and certainly not on my watch.  These law enforcement men and women are members of the community, ironically enough entitled to the same protection under the law that the rest of us are.  If we do not give them what they need to protect themselves, they cannot protect us.

And from our (e)mail bag, is it okay to be rude to people who don’t mask or social distance?  Would you rather let them get away with it and end up either infecting a loved one or dying from it yourself?

Some choices are not that tough, are they?

Rusty

Northstar editor Merritt Scott “Rusty” Miller is a journalist, author, editor and photographer living in Seattle, Washington.  For comments, please go here

BEYOND THE PALE

Afghanistan: Deadly Flash Floods Kill Dozens, Damage Homes

Amazon & Reliance Square Off As India’s Online Pharmacy Sector Booms During Coronavirus Pandemic

Australian Newsletter – New York Times

Europe Is Going Back To School Despite Recent Virus Surge

Virus Lockdown Brings New Misery To Long-Suffering Gaza

Japan PM Shinzo Abe Says He’s Resigning For Health Reasons

New Zealand Mosque Gunman Sentenced To Life Without Parole

South China Sea: Asian States Set Course For Beijing’s Red Line

Taiwan Had Its First 10,000-Person Concert Since The Pandemic Began. Here’s What It Was Like

GOOD NEWS AND AWESOME EXAMPLES

Don’t Reconnect Mailing Machines, Postal Service Tells Plants. Tacoma Does It Anyway

How The Police Killing Of A Black Brazilian Teen Sparked A Movement

Movies Return To The Big Screen: Regal, Cinemax Reopen In Thurston County

Stanford University Students Flock To A Virtual Campus

The World Health Organization Declares Africa Polio-Free

NEWS WE WOULD RATHER NOT READ BUT NEED TO KNOW ANYWAY

Astronomers Slam SpaceX’s Growing Starlink Satellite Constellation

FBI Foils Russian Hack At Tesla Factory

Panorama Investigation: The Detainees Held ‘Hostage’ In Iran

Pesticides And Industrial Pollutants Found In Snow Atop Arctic Glaciers

Russia Declassifies Video From 1961 Of Largest Hydrogen Bomb Ever Detonated

Scientists Saw Space Debris During The Day For The First Time

SPD: Rioters Tried To Trap Officers Inside Burning Precinct Using Rebar And Concrete

Tiktok Officially Sues The Trump Administration Over Ban In US

COMMUNITY, CULTURE & LIFESTYLE

Athletes Shut Down Sports To Protest Police Brutality

Empowering Communities To Feed Themselves

How Can I Support My Kid’s Teachers? How Can They Support Me?

How Can We Ensure That Black Lives Really Matter?

How Native Americans Bring Depth Of Understanding To The Nation’s National Parks

New York Times Australian Newsletter

What To Do With The View From Your Climate Window

Why We Need Tiny House Communities

Who’s Your New Roommate?

The Police

Rev. Al Sharpton Urges Action On Police Reform: ‘The Time Has Come For Us To Go Back To Washington’

SPD: Rioters Tried To Trap Officers Inside Burning Precinct Using Rebar And Concrete

ECONOMICS

Small Businesses In US College Towns Struggle Without Students

HISTORY — NATURAL & HUMAN

A History Of El Greco’s Masterful—And Often Litigious—Artistic Career

Lost Medieval Sacristy, Burial Grounds Unearthed At Westminster Abbey

Israeli Teens Discover Trove Of 1,100-Year-Old Gold Coins

The Little-Known Role Of Slavery In Viking Society

Fallen Boulder At The Grand Canyon Reveals Prehistoric Reptile Footprints

College Students Unearth Massive Triceratops Skull

Scientists Project Precisely How Cold The Last Ice Age Was

HEALTH, HOME, GARDEN & KITCHEN

Should You Get The Flu Shot Now?

Online Therapy, Booming During The Coronavirus Pandemic, May Be Here To Stay

Regenerative Travel Has Arrived

10 Epidemiologists And Infectious Disease Experts On Sending Their Kids Back To School

This Energy Boost Hack Is More Effective Than Caffeine

How Growing Food Can Change Your Life, According To Gardener Ron Finley

KFC Drops Finger Lickin’ Good Slogan Amid Coronavirus

Banh Xeo (Vietnamese Rice Flour Crepes With Pork, Shrimp And Beansprouts)

Grilled Scallops With Pork Crackling

Salt And Pepper Squid

COVID-19

A Single Event Caused 40% Of COVID Cases In Boston

Colorado Urges Residents To Hide Inside Air Filtrated “Safe Rooms”

FDA Authorizes Use Of Plasma From Recovered Patients To Treat COVID-19

For $5 And In 15 Minutes You Can Learn If You Have COVID-19

France Covid-19: Paris Compulsory Face-Mask Rule Comes Into Force

How The COVID-19 Pandemic Has Changed Cancer Care, In 4 Charts

How Coronavirus Has Spread Across The United States: Track The ‘Eye Of The Epidemic’

Is A 6-Foot Separation Enough To Stop The Spread Of Covid-19?

Revved By Sturgis Rally, COVID-19 Infections Move Fast, Far

NORTHSTAR INTERACTIVE

Send A Birthday Greeting To The United States’ Oldest Living WWII Veteran

Remote Worker? These Nations Want You

OUR WORLD AND BEYOND

View larger. | In May 2019, SpaceX launched its first batch of 60 Starlink communication satellites, designed to provide global internet access. Ultimately, SpaceX hopes to launch some 12,000 of these satellites, and possibly more. These satellite constellations have surprised astronomers and laypeople with their brightness in the night sky. Now, astronomers have accumulated enough observations to assess the Starlink satellites’ likely impact on astronomy. A new report by experts representing the global astronomical community concludes that large constellations of bright satellites in low-Earth orbit will fundamentally change ground-based astronomy, not to mention the appearance of the night sky for stargazers around the world. Read more. Artist’s concept via NOIRLab/ NSF/ AURA/ P. Marenfeld. Magnetic Rivers Feed Star Birth

Astronomers Issue Report On The Effect Of ‘Satellite Constellations’ On Astronomy

Scientists Discover Exposed Bacteria Can Survive In Space For Years

How Three New Tools Will Revolutionize Our Understanding Of The Sun

EARTH

Flooding Endangers World’s Largest Buddha Statue

How Trees Talk To Each Other And Share Gifts

Melbourne Storm: Three Killed As Winds Cause Widespread Damage

Ozone Levels Have Been Rising Over Northern Hemisphere

What’s Behind The Hurricanes And Wildfires?

Why We Believe Planting 1 Trillion Trees Can Save The Planet

Wildfire Burns California’s Oldest State Park—But Most Redwoods Should Recover Soon

CLIMATE CHANGE

EU Can Help Africa Become The ‘Greenest Continent’: German Minister

Extra UN Climate Talks Mooted For 2021 To Help Negotiators Catch Up

Guterres Tells India Coal Business ‘Going Up In Smoke’ As Investors Back Clean Tech

Prospect Of Snap Election Reanimates Canada’s Carbon Tax Battle

ECOLOGY

California Fires Threaten Endangered Joshua Trees

Citizen Scientists Track How Plastic Pollution Impacts Birds

How To Raise An Environmentalist

How To Save The Sea: Lessons From Italy

SPACE

NASA’s Guide To Near Light Speed Space Travel: Have fun with this new video from NASA

Is It Possible To Hear Meteors?:  Here’s how it happens.

Astronomers: There’s Still A Chance ‘Oumuamua Is Alien Tech

An AI Just Confirmed The Existence Of 50 Planets By Digging Through NASA Data

Hubble Snapshots Reveal That Comet Neowise Survived Its Trip Around The Sun

NASA Earth Observatory Latest Images

TECHNOLOGY

Artificial Intelligence Is Here To Calm Your Road Rage

How Algorithms Keep Workers In The Dark

How Should Apartment Design Change Post-Pandemic?

How To Build In Fire Zones: Learning From Australia

Jacques Cousteau’s Grandson Wants To Build The International Space Station Of The Sea

Japanese Company Tests A Flying Car — With A Human On Board

Researchers Use Algae To Make Biodegradable Flip-Flops

Waugh Thistleton Project Is A Textbook Of Modern Low-Carbon Design

BEST OF THE NET

Eleven Times When Americans Have Marched In Protest On Washington

YOLA: Tiny Desk (Home) Concert

Take A Deep Dive Into This Awesome Example Of 1970s Photorealism

Hakai Magazine – The Past, Present, And Future Of Aquaculture

TRAVEL

America’s 10 Best National Parks

Coronavirus: Bali Closed To Foreign Tourists Until End Of 2020

Nearly 1,000 Years Ago, French Lords Designed An Elaborate Pandemic Hideout

Seattle University District’s Neptune Theatre. Photo by MS(R)M

MOVIE OF THE WEEK: WAR & REMEMBRANCE: The sequel to Winds of War and every bit as enthralling.

This is great news.  Wolverines Return To Mount Rainier National Park After 100-Plus Years

Another Hakai magazine special, amazing as always.  It’s Here: Our Special Editorial Package On Aquaculture

Fascinating.  High-Tech Tracking Reveals ‘Whole New Secret World Of Birds’

STRANGE BUT TRUE

Physicists: Wormholes Large Enough To Travel Through Are Possible

Scientists: Unfortunately, Bacteria Scream When They Die

Uganda Lightning Strike Kills 10 Children Playing Football In Arua

FRIENDS OF THE NORTHSTAR JOURNAL, BOOKS FOR SALE, ABOUT US

A superpower no longer, a resource hungry and repressive America faces a Latin American armada rampaging its west coast and a strong, silent and powerful Canada manning the North Wall. The fires of rebellion burn in the Pacific Northwest and it is into this crucible and forge that the cybernetic patrol boat Testament and her crew of three men and three women are thrust. Individuals of duty and conscience both, when they join the other side, all Hell breaks loose. A rollicking adventure for anyone who loves the sea, a good yarn and characters who spring to life even as Testament herself leaps the waves. For a $4.00 Kindle Book adventure you will remember for a lifetime, please go here.

Associate editor Olya Bereza is also the children’s novelist Holley Dovetail. This is one of several of short novels for the young and the young at heart. To preview and/or purchase on amazon.com, please go here.

This little fairy-tale short story dedicated to a pet-friend gone chasing the rainbow. For kids their first lost and challenge in life is letting go of their pet friends that once became part of their world. This little story will help in times they have to say good-bye without falling into despair.  Yep, go here.

OUR THANKS THIS WEEK TO:

American Heritage Magazine

BBC

CBS News

Crosscut Magazine

Earth Sky News:  Updates On Your Cosmos And World

Effective Altruism

High Country News

KQED Science

Modern Farmer

Moscow Times:  Independent News From Russia

Mother Nature Network

National Geographic

National Public Radio

Newsweek

Rainforest Site

Sightline Institute

Smithsonian Magazine

South China Morning Post – This Week In Asia

Time Magazine

Tree Hugger News

UBS Nobel Perspectives

WNYC Studios

ABOUT US:  The Northstar Journal is a general interest international online weekly magazine physically located at 5351 S. Wallace Street, Seattle, WA 98178.  We are also on FaceBook and Nextdoor.com. If you enjoyed this edition and would like to contribute to the next, please go here.  To contact us directly, minstrel312@aol.com

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY, UKRAINE

Pacem, Libertatem, Justitiam
August 23, 2020
Volume 12 Number 46

Reader-Supported  Please go here. Thank you very much.

Inside: Happy Independence Day, Ukraine; Sometimes It Really Is All In A Name; Beyond the Pale; Good News & Awesome Examples; News We Would Rather Not Read But Need To Know Anyway; Community, Culture & Lifestyle; Economics; History; Health & Wellbeing; Home, Garden & Kitchen; Covid-19; Northstar Interactive; Our World and Beyond; Earth; Climate Change; Ecology; Space; Technology; Funzone: Travel; Best of the Net; Movie of the Week; Masha & the Bear, All Creatures Great & Small; Strange But True; About Us

Photo courtesy of Olya Bereza

Olya Bereza, Associate Editor

Hi Rusty:

This time, I’m writing with the soft lullaby of a train in the background as we leave Kyiv.

I did miss this rhythmic sound of wheels during the lockdown. It’s already dark outside and the only a chaplet of lights somewhere on horizon reminds me of us, of human beings. So the expression being in the middle of nowhere seems to fit in several ways.. Now, when I am no longer distracted by the Internet and all the world chatter, it’s nice to be back to the world of own thoughts. This is where the source of creativity begins.

As you know, Ukraine is the largest country located entirely in Europe, so to come from East to West or vice versa does take two night trains with a break in the center of country (i.e. Kyiv) to lighten the journey.

This extended weekend, we are celebrating Independence Day so it’s a cheerful atmosphere in the capital.  Rusty, it is so nice that the city is returning to normal after years of uncertainty. There is nothing better than a peaceful city where even walking its streets, admiring architecture and smiling people is enjoyable. Here is a great video of song dedicated to occasion called “Flower of Ukraine” showing the beauty of our land.

As you know, the last few days have been a bit hectic for me with traveling and when I’m busy it means I simply don’t have time even to open a laptop to check the news. And it seems it’s where freedom begins.  By being disconnected from the Net, somehow I find myself more connected to the present moment. And in this present moment, it’s late August, the end of summer in this part of the world when people try to enjoy it to the full and feel their chest with that deep breath of it. Just to catch the Summer for a moment that soon is to move on.

Kyiv is great this time of the year. Warm but not too hot, friendly as everyone is still a bit laid back after the holiday season and smiley with fountains sparks. Even masks that before seemed a bit distractive became just an accessory. Some people who can be bothered about style do really incorporate them into their outfits. Others just wear it when necessary in shops and public places. Interesting, how in any times creativity finds its ways.

In one of the coffeeshops, earlier today I found myself singing along “Would you be my little quarantine?”. If the masks are now new normal, then songs like that do definitely reflect New Romance.

Olya

Northstar columnist and associate editor Olya Bereza was born in the former Soviet Union and now lives in Ukraine.  Fluent in Russian, Ukrainian, and English, she is a degreed psychologist with a background in international marketing and personnel management.  For comments, please go here.

Photo courtesy of https://alliedegen.wordpress.com/2013/02/25/2/

SOMETIMES IT REALLY IS ALL IN A NAME

Rusty Miller, Editor

Hi again, from the shores of the Salish Sea.  Thank you for some interesting mail, including one from a friend of adolescence who reminded me of Mark Twain type things we did before a war and service to country.  In acknowledgement of the individuals we have both become, he called me “Rusty,” which I’ve by gone by now most of my life, rather than the “Scott” of days long gone.

I like the idea some American First Nations have of giving a child a name at birth and then about 13, the emerging adolescent goes on a vision quest or some other similar ritual, and gets to name themselves.

I’ve also learned from Olya that some names do not translate well.  Crazy Horse was certainly not insane.  Red Cloud was not ephemeral.  Sitting Bull didn’t do a lot of sitting around, as Custer learned to his profound regret.

Rusty is in tribute to someone very close to me who thought my singing voice sounded like scraping leavings out of a rusty bucket.  The only time I let loose with the vocal cords was in the shower and we lived in a building where the plumbing was not state of the art.

The shower had a singing voice of its own and if you don’t believe showers have them, ask your plumber.  They know.  When I sang, the shower joined in and together, we drove the love of my life nuts.

Under threat of things only a Boston Sicilian-American woman with family could threaten a man, I stopped singing and we moved to a better building.  She kept the nickname as a reminder and with all of my survival instinct on the line, I have as well.

Consider it my contribution to a better world.

Rusty

Northstar editor Merritt Scott “Rusty” Miller is a journalist, author, editor and photographer living in Seattle, Washington.  For comments, please go here

BEYOND THE PALE

Belarus Opens Criminal Case Into Opposition Bids To ‘Seize Power’

Chinese In India Are Terrified: An SOS To Canada As Border Stand-Off Raises Spectre Of 1962 War

Arrest Of “Goddess Of Democracy” May Complicate Japan-China Ties

Water Already Dwindling, Egypt’s Farmers Fear Impact Of Dam

Mali Coup: President Quits After Soldiers Mutiny

North Korea Sets Rare Party Meeting After Economic Struggles

Alexei Navalny: Russian Opposition Leader ‘Poisoned’

GOOD NEWS AND AWESOME EXAMPLES

How Artists And Neighbors Turned A Bomb Site Into A Medicine Garden

Meet The Modern Farmer Who Grows Food To Heal Herself

Russia Sends Coronavirus Aid To 46 Countries – Analysis

States Can Protect Vote-By-Mail Ballots From USPS Slowdowns

These Neighbors Built Their Own Money-Free Economy

Two Women, Their Lives Connected By American Slavery, Tackle Their Shared History

Why Our Work-From-Home Future Could Make It Easier For Some People To Find Jobs

Women Senators Reflect On The 100th Anniversary Of Suffrage

NEWS WE WOULD RATHER NOT READ BUT NEED TO KNOW ANYWAY

Despite Covid-19, It’s The Season Of Arguably Earth’s Deadliest Creature, the Mosquito

Former White House Advisor Steve Bannon Arrested In Connection To Fraud Scheme

In California, More Acres Have Burned In The 2020 Fire Season Than In All Of 2019

Mail Machines Removed From Washington State Post Offices. Workers Worry About Nov. Ballots

These Black Lives Matter Protesters Had No Idea How One Arrest Could Alter Their Lives

Turkey’s Hidden Domestic Abuse: A Survivor’s Story

US Approves Oil, Gas Leasing Plan For Alaska Wildlife Refuge

COMMUNITY, CULTURE & LIFESTYLE

A Brief History Of The United States Postal Service

Florida Is Releasing Almost A Billion Gene-Hacked Mosquitoes

Joe Biden Accepts Presidential Nomination, Promises To “Overcome Season Of Darkness” In U.S.

U.N. Secretary-General Warns U.S.-China Tensions Risk Dividing World Into ‘2 Blocs’

US conventions: What happens? And what’s different in 2020?

The Police

America’s Policing System Is Broken. It’s Time To Radically Rethink Public Safety

Police Shootings Continue Unabated Despite Covid-19 Shutdowns

Here’s What Defunding The Police Would Look Like In Your City

Georgia Police Officer Under Investigation After Tasing Black Woman During Aggressive Arrest

ECONOMICS

New American Jobless Claims Rose As Mass Layoffs Continue

A Market Where People Can Take What They Need

It’s Time To Ditch The Crashing US Dollar And Buy Groceries With Gold. Here’s How

Small Tourist Town Say Their Economy Is Actually Doing Better Than Ever

Under US Pressure, China Is Planning An Economy That Can Survive A Protracted War

UK Retail Sales Climb Back To Pre-Pandemic Levels

HISTORY — NATURAL & HUMAN

In 1872, Susan B. Anthony Was Arrested For Voting ‘Unlawfully’

How Women Got The Vote Is A Far More Complex Story Than The History Textbooks Reveal

How Did Amelia Earhart Raise The Money For Her Flights?

5 Myths About The 19th Amendment And Women’s Suffrage, Debunked

Archaeologists Locate The South Carolina Battlefield Where Patriot John Laurens Died

Thousands Of Rare Artifacts Discovered Beneath Tudor Manor’s Attic Floorboards

Traces Of 2,000-Year-Old Banana Farm Found In Australia

Why Sudan’s Remarkable Ancient Civilization Has Been Overlooked By History

Archaeologists Find 1,200-Year-Old Soap Factory In Israel

Engraved Stones Found To Be The Earliest Known Human Art In The British Isles

200,000-Year-Old Bedding Found In South Africa May Be World’s Oldest

HEALTH

3 Most Effective Exercise Moves That Don’t Require Equipment

A Japanese Concept Of Happiness To Help You Live A More Meaningful Life

As COVID-19 Spreads, Don’t Forget About The World’s Deadliest Animal

Dr. Fauci Just Released A World Map Of Ongoing Disease Outbreaks

Getting Back Pain While Working From Home? An Ergonomics Expert Offers Advice

Terrified Of Climate Change? You Might Have Eco-Anxiety

New Organic Certification Will Help Shoppers Choose Sustainable Products

HOME, GARDEN & KITCHEN

4 Reasons To Repair Instead Of Recycling Or Replacing

Quick Fix: 10 Things You Can Repair In Under 10 Minutes

Why Flowering Meadows Are Better Than Lawns

How To Turn Dirt Into Soil

Gai Pad Krapow (Minced Chicken With Basil)

How To Cook Rice: In Asia, It’s No Laughing Matter

Pad Thai

Pomelo Salad With Shrimp

The Scientific Secrets Behind Making Great Sourdough Bread

Why Modern-Day Foragers Want You To Eat Weeds For Dinner

COVID-19

Breakthrough: Study Of Seattle-Based Fishing Crew Suggests Antibodies Stop Infection

COVID-19 Is Prompting Wealthy People To Move Out Of Cities. The Plague Had The Same Effect Hundreds Of Years Ago

If Someone Is Violating Social Distancing Rules, What Do You Do?

Introducing Time’s One-Stop Coronavirus Dashboard

Lack Of Leadership Worsened The Pandemic, Not Young People

Sixteen Snapshots Of Life In New York City Under Quarantine

What To Know About COVID-19 Tests, From PCR To Antigen To Antibody

NORTHSTAR INTERACTIVE

Earth Day Network’s End Plastic Pollution Campaign

Play The Smithsonian Magazine Crossword: September 2020 Issue

Read Thousands Of Abraham Lincoln’s Newly Transcribed Letters Online

What 100 Years Of Women’s Suffrage Looks Like Through The Eyes Of 100 Women Artists

YES Magazine’s Crossword:  Plane, Train & Automobile

OUR WORLD AND BEYOND

View at EarthSky Community Photos. |  Stephen Hummel captured this fleeting lightning sprite – aka a red sprite – at McDonald Observatory in Texas. The observatory, which is spearheading a Dark Skies Initiative in its remote West Texas region, is a good place to capture lightning sprites because, as Stephen commented, “Dark skies help you see faint objects like sprites.” Thank you, Stephen!

What Are Lightning Sprites?

Scientists: Exploding Star Likely Caused Mass Extinction On Earth

Agriculture Emits More Sulfur Than Any Other Man-Made Source: Study

EARTH

Because Of Climate Change, Canada’s Rocky Mountain Forests Are On The Move

China Floods: World’s Biggest Dam Nears Capacity

Desert Moss Beats Heat By Growing Under Quartz Crystals

Hottest Temperature On Earth’As Death Valley, US Hits 54.4C

In A New Record, 11 Named Storms Have Already Formed In The Atlantic

The 70 Million-Year-Old History Of The Mississippi River

Why Some Rain Falls So Hard

CLIMATE CHANGE

Big Oil Need Not Apply: UK Raises The Bar For UN Climate Summit Sponsorship

Forest Destruction Spiked In Indonesia During Coronavirus Lockdown

How The Climate Crisis Harms The US

UN Fund Pays Indonesia For Forest Protection As Deforestation Rises

Unprecedented Ice Loss As Greenland Breaks Record

ECOLOGY

This Boot Camp Trains Young People To Fight Plastic Pollution

Coal Is In Spectacular US Decline Despite Trump Orders

TECHNOLOGY

AI Fighter Jet Obliterates Human Air Force Pilot In Simulated Dogfight

Design With Nature Now

E-Bike Adoption Could Cut Emissions 12 Percent

SPACE

Amazing Photos In Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Celebration

Blue Origin Engineers Deliver Full-Scale Prototype Moon Lander To NASA

Hayabusa2 Re-Entry Capsule Approved To Land In Australia

NASA Facility Will Beam Messages To Space Through Lasers

SpaceX Just Reused A Single Booster For The 6th Time

TESS Completes Its Primary Mission

Truck-Sized Asteroid Swept Within 2,000 Miles Last Sunday

What If We Built Cities On The Moon?

NASA Earth Observatory Latest Images

TECHNOLOGY

Microsoft Flight Simulator: The Entire World In A Game

The Pentalobe Screw, And Apple’s War Against Self-Repair

Is The Robot Future Now?

Will New Technology Make Travel Safer?

BEST OF THE NET

What If Halley’s Comet Crashed Into The Moon?

World’s Most Endangered Zebras Born At Florida Wildlife Refuge

O, America – Celtic Woman

BON Perennial:  Hakai Magazine – The World Is Changing Before Our Eyes

TRAVEL

First Mediterranean Cruise Sets Sail From Italy After Months-Long Coronavirus Hiatus

National Geographic’s New Zealand

You Might Not Catch Coronavirus On An Airplane. But Air Travel Is Still Probably Spreading COVID-19

Travel The World In A Day At Kew Gardens

Seattle University District’s Neptune Theatre. Photo by MS(R)M

MOVIE OF THE WEEK:  THE WINDS OF WAR  The Winds of War is a 1983 miniseries, directed and produced by Dan Curtis, that follows the 1971 book of the same name written by Herman Wouk. Just as in the book, in addition to the lives of the Henry and Jastrow families, much time in the miniseries is devoted to the major global events of the early years of World War II. Adolf Hitler and the German General Staff, with the fictitious general Armin von Roon as a major character, is a prominent subplot of the miniseries. The Winds of War also includes segments of documentary footage, narrated by William Woodson, to explain major events and important characters.

It was followed by a sequel, War and Remembrance, in 1988, also based on a novel written by Wouk and also directed and produced by Curtis.^[1]With 140 million viewers of part or all of Winds of War, it was the most-watched miniseries at that time. Cast Includes:  Robert Mitchum as Victor Henry (“Pug”); Ali MacGraw as Natalie Jastrow; Jan-Michael Vincent as Byron Henry (“Briny”); John Houseman as Aaron Jastrow; Polly Bergen as Rhoda Henry; Lisa Eilbacher as Madeline Henry; David Dukes as Leslie Slote; Topol as Berel Jastrow; Ben Murphy as Warren Henry; Deborah Winters as Janice Lacouture Henry; Peter Graves as Palmer Kirby (“Fred”); Jeremy Kemp as Brig. Gen. Armin von Roon; Ralph Bellamy as President Franklin Delano Roosevelt; Victoria Tennant as Pamela Tudsbury; Günter Meisner as Adolf Hitler; Howard Lang as Winston Churchill;

ALL CREATURES GREAT & SMALL

This reminds me of how some people I know relate to one another.  Grey Reef Sharks Hunt With The Same Group For Years—But Don’t Call Them Friends

Actually, we did know this.  Bumblebees Are Larger In Cities, Study Finds

Congratulations!  Giant Panda Mama Welcomes Baby Cub At National Zoo Friday Evening

SHORTS

11 Things You Might Not Know About Giraffes

Wild Horses In A Not-So-Wild West

Racism And Redlining Hurt Local Wildlife, Too

STRANGE BUT TRUE

Malfunction At Lindt Factory Leaves Swiss Town Dusted In Chocolate Snow

How A Chemical Weapons Disaster In WWII Led To A U.S. Cover-Up—And A New Cancer Treatment

Matriarch Of Northwest Apple Industry Passes Away At Age 194. Not A Misprint

FRIENDS OF THE NORTHSTAR JOURNAL, BOOKS FOR SALE, ABOUT US

A superpower no longer, a resource hungry and repressive America faces a Latin American armada rampaging its west coast and a strong, silent and powerful Canada manning the North Wall. The fires of rebellion burn in the Pacific Northwest and it is into this crucible and forge that the cybernetic patrol boat Testament and her crew of three men and three women are thrust. Individuals of duty and conscience both, when they join the other side, all Hell breaks loose. A rollicking adventure for anyone who loves the sea, a good yarn and characters who spring to life even as Testament herself leaps the waves. For a $4.00 Kindle Book adventure you will remember for a lifetime, please go here.

Associate editor Olya Bereza is also the children’s novelist Holley Dovetail. This is one of several of short novels for the young and the young at heart. To preview and/or purchase on amazon.com, please go here.

This little fairy-tale short story dedicated to a pet-friend gone chasing the rainbow. For kids their first lost and challenge in life is letting go of their pet friends that once became part of their world. This little story will help in times they have to say good-bye without falling into despair.  Yep, go here.

OUR THANKS THIS WEEK TO:

American Heritage Magazine

BBC

CBS News

Crosscut Magazine

Earth Sky News:  Updates On Your Cosmos And World

Effective Altruism

High Country News

KQED Science

Modern Farmer

Moscow Times:  Independent News From Russia

Mother Nature Network

National Geographic

National Public Radio

Newsweek

Rainforest Site

Sightline Institute

Smithsonian Magazine

South China Morning Post – This Week In Asia

Time Magazine

Tree Hugger News

UBS Nobel Perspectives

WNYC Studios

ABOUT US:  The Northstar Journal is a general interest international online weekly magazine physically located at 5351 S. Wallace Street, Seattle, WA 98178.  We are also on FaceBook and Nextdoor.com. If you enjoyed this edition and would like to contribute to the next, please go here.  To contact us directly, minstrel312@aol.com

A VACCINE FOR HATE

Pacem, Libertatem, Justitiam
August 16, 2020
Volume 12 Number 45

Reader-Supported  Please go here. Thank you very much.

Inside: A Vaccine For Hate; Another Interesting Week In Review; Beyond the Pale; Good News & Awesome Examples; News We Would Rather Not Read But Need To Know Anyway; Community, Culture & Lifestyle; Economics; History; Health & Wellbeing; The Kitchen; Covid-19; Northstar Interactive; Our World and Beyond; Earth; Climate Change; Ecology; Space; Technology; Funzone: Travel; Best of the Net; Movie of the Week; Masha & the Bear, All Creatures Great & Small; Strange But True; Friends of the Northstar Journal, Books For Sale And About Us

Olya Bereza, Associate Editor

Hi Rusty:

That cover of French Liberation magazine made me smile as I imagined the president of Russia, must be now, portrayed in the media as Ian Fleming’s “Bond, James Bond,” who – in this case – managed to present the world with the vaccination for corona-virus before any other country.  Coronavirus: Putin says vaccine has been approved for use

It even reminded me of the space race between America and the Soviet Union. It’s not about the moon those days but it seems the stakes are no less high, despite some doubts over vaccine Coronavirus: Russia calls international concern over vaccine ‘groundless’

If somebody asked me what I think, I would tell them that as long as vaccination is voluntary, let them do it.  Do I believe the Russians have accomplished what they claim?  Yes. I believe the answer is yes.  And they have done it before, just like they did when America  licensed own Ebola vaccine in 2019 

They still got quite a lot of fatal cases of COVID statistically per million compared to neighbouring Belarus but I think the explanation is that Russia ~ unlike its neighbor – shattered its first line medical response with doubtful reforms while their secondary scientific line remained on a very high level. One could rightfully criticize a lot about the former Soviet system but Russia inherited the USSR’s medical system, which is among the world’s best.

As I have mentioned before, “Alice, The Girl From The Future” by Kir Bulychev, was one of my favorite books in childhood.  Set in 2084, it is about an open world without war and humans realized that science, exploration, and living in peace with one another is simply more fun.

That was a really inspiring book and eventually a film to study hard and become interested in science. That is what happened to the main actress who performed the role of Alice. She did become a scientist, biochemist and production manager of immunobiological preparations. She also worked in the Research Center of Epidemiology and Microbiology named after Gamalei that developed this corona-vaccine. This is I see as the power of creativity, inspiring young people by books like that to become light to this world.

In one of the sequences in the film Alice (called “Purple Ball”); her heroine saves the world from the virus of hate. That just makes me think 2084 is so far away, could we somehow make it to that future of non hostility, non-competition and more quickly?

Olya

Northstar columnist and associate editor Olya Bereza was born in the former Soviet Union and now lives in Ukraine.  Fluent in Russian, Ukrainian, and English, she is a degreed psychologist with a background in international marketing and personnel management.  For comments, please go here.

Image courtesy of wnynewsnow.com

ANOTHER INTERESTING WEEK IN REVIEW

Rusty Miller, Editor

Hi again, from the shores of the Salish Sea.  One of you recently asked me if I read every story we curate (select) for you.  No and we do not expect you to either.  I don’t know of anyone who reads any publication “cover to cover,” as it were.  We basically pick out stuff we think we empower and enhance all of our life experiences.  Here’s a sample of what I do read and why.

Seattle’s chief of police is resigning.  ‘You Were A True Leader!’ Meet The SPD Recruit Behind The Letter Chief Best Read Through Tears  Like most of the 700,000 or so who live here, I’m a fan of Carmen Best.  I grew up in a law enforcement household and I’ve covered the police beat as a reporter.  Chief Best is a cop’s cop and that woman does not walk the talk.  She IS the talk.

Joe Biden Chooses Pamela Harris.  Joe Biden Makes History With Kamala Harris Vice Presidential Pick  Quite frankly, I’m not nearly as impressed by the historical significance of this as I am the sincere belief that she can do the job.  Like her, I’m Northern Californian and accustomed to women the caliber of Ms Harris, Nancy Pelosi, former State Supreme Court Justice Rose Elizabeth Bird.  Now America is going to get a chance to see why I feel that way.

Beirut explosion: Children dealing with the trauma of the explosion  These kids are victims of an accident for which I am certain criminal liability will be assigned.  That does not ~ in my heart and mind ~ make it murder.  I don’t imagine anyone in all of Lebanon feels very good about this.  I am certain none of them intend for this kind of thing to happen again.  What point is there is asking more than even of Allah?

Sara Bareilles & J.J. Abrams On The Power Of Storytelling In A Socially Distanced World  While our species is not the only one with an oral tradition, I suspect we’re the only one which has so far raised it to an art form.  As perhaps an ultimately merciful pandemic slows us down and keeps us closer to home, we have media devoted to good storytelling.  This magazine is an example and since people who read it sometimes donate, the more who appreciate what we do, the better for us.  And I have a great novel for sale on amazon.com that is certainly good storytelling.

That’s it for now.  Enjoy the rest of the magazine.  And stay safe.  Please.

Rusty

Northstar editor Merritt Scott “Rusty” Miller is a journalist, author, editor and photographer living in Seattle, Washington.  For comments, please go here

BEYOND THE PALE

Australian Newsletter – TIME Magazine

Belarusian Challenger Flees To Lithuania Amid Protests

Ganges River Flows With History And Prophecy For India

Israel And UAE Strike Historic Deal To Normalise Relations

Jimmy Lai: Hong Kong Media Tycoon Arrested Under Security Law

National Security Law: For Hong Kong Scholars, A Fear Of The Unknown

Russia On Tuesday Became The First Country To Officially Register A Coronavirus Vaccine And Declare It Ready For Use,

South Africa’s Poor Scramble For Anti-Hiv Drugs Amid Virus

UK Officially In Recession For First Time In 11 Years

GOOD NEWS AND AWESOME EXAMPLES

‘World’s First’ Coronavirus Vaccine: What We Know So Far About Russian Injection

Kamala Harris And The Legacy Of Black Women Running For President

8-Year-Old Artist Raises Money For Ppe

The Activist Risking Her Life To Free Iran’s Political Prisoners

How This Tribe Got Their Coastal California Lands Returned

Insect Apocalypse? Not So Fast, At Least In North America

Judge Invalidates Trump Rollback Of Law Protecting Birds

An Important And Timely Message From America’s National Park Foundation

How A Washington Town Decreased Crime And Suspension Rates

Our Ladies Of Perpetual Activism: Nuns For Social Justice

The High School Where Farming Is A Graduation Requirement

The Restaurant Where Grandmas Share Their Culture Through Food

Unemployed Line Cooks Are Now Gardening, Thanks To Kitchen Farming Project

NEWS WE WOULD RATHER NOT READ BUT NEED TO KNOW ANYWAY

History Shows How Easily Nuclear War Could Happen By Accident

Kenya Is Trying To End Child Marriage. But Climate Change Is Putting More Young Girls At Risk

She Worked Hard All Her Life. How Did She End Up Homeless During A Pandemic?

COMMUNITY, CULTURE & LIFESTYLE

Abandoned By State After Explosion, Lebanese Help Each Other

Berry Farmers Break Free From Big Agriculture

Here Are Five Takeaways On The New Biden-Harris Pairing. 

Interest In Homeschooling Has ‘Exploded’ Amid Pandemic

Record 76% Of Americans Can Vote By Mail In 2020

Ten Curious Cases Of Getting Lost In The Wilderness

Watch How The Navajo Nation Rallies To Support Its Community In The Face Of COVID-19

The Police

Seattle Police Chief To Resign Following Department Cuts

Who Is Taking Over For Carmen Best? Here’s What We Know About Interim Chief Adrian Diaz

Carmen Best And The Big Picture: Not ‘Just A Story About A Police Chief Resigning’

Police Violence Meets Spiritual Resistance In The Struggle Over DAPL

Where I Live

From the Skyway neighborhood looking north across Lake Washington to Mercer Island. Photo by MS(R)M

Seattle’s Waterfront Park Closes Permanently After Inching Out To Sea

‘You Were A True Leader!’ Meet The SPD Recruit Behind The Letter Chief Best Read Through Tears

ECONOMICS

American Jobless Claims Fall Below 1 Million For The First Time Since March

HISTORY – NATURAL & HUMAN

The History Of Ponzi Schemes Goes Deeper Than The Man Who Gave Them His Name

Looking Back On V-J Day 75 Years Later

1000s Of Korean Laborers Still Lost After WWII, Cold War End

The Top Ten Political Conventions That Mattered The Most

How The American West Led The Way For Women In Politics

How America Became Obsessed With Horses

These Hidden Figures Helped Save America’s Parks

How PT Boats Helped General Macarthur Escape Capture

How Women Used Their Domestic Power To Influence The American Revolution

Archaeologists Unearth Remnants Of 18th-Century Pub In Slovakia

Peer Into The Past With Photorealistic Portraits Of Roman Emperors

Europe’s Oldest Bone Tools Hint At Early Hominin Sophistication

Amber Fossil Shows ‘Hell Ant’ Was Unlike Anything Alive Today

Study Reveals This Mysterious, Super Long-Necked Triassic Reptile Was A Marine Hunter

30-Foot ‘Terror Crocodile’ Ambushed Dinosaurs At Water’s Edge

HEALTH & WELL BEING

How Being A Workaholic Affects Your Brain And Strains Relationships

The Secret Behind New Insect Repellent’s Potent Punch Is Found In Grapefruit

TIME For Health:  TIME Magazine’s New Health Magazine

What Is Barbershop Therapy?

THE GARDEN

How To Make Your Own Hydroponic Garden

THE KITCHEN

9 Reasons To Eat A Lot Of Beans

Fried Chicken With Sichuan Peppercorns, Black Beans And Bell Peppers

How 12 Female Cookbook Authors Changed The Way We Eat

May Chow’s Yuzu Fried Chicken Rice Bowl

Mom’s Soy Sauce Chicken Wings

The Fight Over Raw Butter

COVID-19

Scientists Think They Found The Coronavirus’ Weak Spot

14 Least And Most Effective Kinds Of Masks: Ranked! By Scientists!

America Can Only Defeat Covid-19 Through Global Solidarity

America’s Most Productive Farmland Is Now One Of Its Worst COVID-19 Hotspots

How To Curtail The Risk Of Future Pandemics

New Zealand Extends Auckland Lockdown As Virus Cluster Grows

North Korea Lifts Lockdown In City, Rejects Flood, Virus Aid

Schools Mull Outdoor Classes Amid Virus, Ventilation Worries

What Scientists Know About Airborne Transmission Of The New Coronavirus

NORTHSTAR INTERACTIVE

Celebrate The Smithsonian’s 174th Birthday With A Look At Its First Collections

National Park Foundation’s Ways To Make A Difference

Tools For The Free-Range Child

OUR WORLD AND BEYOND

This composite image – from John Ashley at Glacier National Park in Montana, in 2016 – perfectly captures the feeling of standing outside as dawn is approaching, after a peak night of Perseid meteor-watching. As viewed from anywhere in the Northern Hemisphere, the Perseids’ radiant point is highest at dawn, and so the meteors rain down from overhead. Read more.

EARTH

Deep-Sea Microbes Exert The Least Amount Of Energy Possible To Survive

Eye Opener: Massive Fire Prompts Evacuations In California

‘Firenado’ Rages Through Angeles National Forest

By Reconnecting With Soil, We Heal The Planet And Ourselves

Stonehenge-Like ‘Timber Circles’ Found In Portugal

This Canadian Lake Hides An Underwater Ghost Town

CLIMATE CHANGE

Architects Climate Action Network Calls For Radical Change In Design Education

Climate Change, Not Hunting, May Have Doomed The Woolly Rhinoceros

Climate Change: China Must Seize The Day On Coal, Or A Toxic Cocktail Of Winter Smog And Coronavirus Awaits

ECOLOGY

Study Shows How E-Bikes Can Significantly Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions

SPACE

Astronomers Puzzled By Ancient Milky Way-Like Galaxy 12 Billion Light-Years Away

How Will Amazon’s Planned Satellite Megaconstellation Impact The Night Sky?

Scientists Use Moon As Mirror In Hunt For Extraterrestrial Life

NASA Earth Observatory Latest Images

TECHNOLOGY

“Motherload” Documentary Shows How Families Are Embracing Cargo Bikes

This Beast Of A Hydrogen-Powered Hypercar Has A 1,000 Mile Range

DAILY 10 QUESTION TRIVIA QUIZ:  This one is from Daily Email Trivia and delivered to me in mine.  There is also an opportunity, the site, to take more quizzes on a wide range of subjects and to engage interactively and competitively.

BEST OF THE NET

And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda (Gallipoli version) – Australian Lancer Band

Record-Breaking 60,000 Flamingos Flock To Southern France

How Do Dogs Understand Us?

BON Perennial:  Hakai Magazine – Environmental Activism In Russia

TRAVEL

Denmark’s 300-Year-Old Homes Of The Future

National Geographic’s New York City

Ten American Towns That Feel Like Europe

Neptune Theatre, Seattle – Photo by MS(R)M

MOVIE OF THE WEEK:  PRAY FOR RAIN (2017):  The title can be taken literally as this authentic filmed-on-location thriller rolls across California’s parched Central Valley, in the grips of a drought which may, in fact, be caused by human manipulation of the Great Aqueduct and other water systems.  One intrepid reporter returns to her home town and launches an investigation which ultimately reveals a conspiracy of epic proportions.  If you are ~ as I am ~ a Jane Seymour fan, this is perhaps her most authentic performance since and including both Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, and Steinbeck’s cold-hearted Kathy in Steinbeck’s East of Eden.  She is superbly supported by Annabelle Stephenson as Emma Gardner, the journalist; Nicholas Gonzalez as Nico Reynoso; James Morrison as Patrick Waring; Paul Rodriguez as Francisco Reynoso; Ali Afshar as Scorpion; John Ducey as Adam Campbell; Tyler Jacob Moore as Crash Murphy;John Heard as Markus Gardner  I grew up in the northern end of that valley and this was a painfully realistic trip down…well…you know.

ALL CREATURES GREAT & SMALL

Maybe the dolphins were trying to tell these whale watchers something?  Dolphin Stampede Wows Whale Watchers

This, to me, is nothing short of incredible.  Satellites Discover New Penguin Colonies From Space

This would not at all surprise me.  Monkeys’ Attraction to Burned Grasslands May Offer Clues to Human Ancestors’ Mastery of Fire

SHORTS

8 Amazing Facts About Albatrosses

8 Fast Facts You Didn’t Know About Cheetahs

9 Creatures That Conveniently Grow Back Body Parts

Orca Network Holds Virtual Event To Honor Orca

STRANGE BUT TRUE

Stunning ‘Reverse Waterfall’ Filmed Near Sydney

Sole-Searching, Shoe-Swiping Fox Caught In Germany

Whiskey Salvaged From 79-Year-Old Scottish Shipwreck Is Up For Sale

FRIENDS OF THE NORTHSTAR JOURNAL, BOOKS FOR SALE, ABOUT US

A superpower no longer, a resource hungry and repressive America faces a Latin American armada rampaging its west coast and a strong, silent and powerful Canada manning the North Wall. The fires of rebellion burn in the Pacific Northwest and it is into this crucible and forge that the cybernetic patrol boat Testament and her crew of three men and three women are thrust. Individuals of duty and conscience both, when they join the other side, all Hell breaks loose. A rollicking adventure for anyone who loves the sea, a good yarn and characters who spring to life even as Testament herself leaps the waves. For a $4.00 Kindle Book adventure you will remember for a lifetime, please go here.

Associate editor Olya Bereza is also the children’s novelist Holley Dovetail. This is one of several of short novels for the young and the young at heart. To preview and/or purchase on amazon.com, please go here.

This little fairy-tale short story dedicated to a pet-friend gone chasing the rainbow. For kids their first lost and challenge in life is letting go of their pet friends that once became part of their world. This little story will help in times they have to say good-bye without falling into despair.  Yep, go here.

OUR THANKS THIS WEEK TO:

American Heritage Magazine

BBC

CBS News

Crosscut Magazine

Earth Sky News:  Updates On Your Cosmos And World

Effective Altruism

High Country News

KQED Science

Modern Farmer

Moscow Times:  Independent News From Russia

Mother Nature Network

National Geographic

National Public Radio

Newsweek

Rainforest Site

Sightline Institute

Smithsonian Magazine

South China Morning Post – This Week In Asia

Time Magazine

Tree Hugger News

UBS Nobel Perspectives

WNYC Studios

ABOUT US:  The Northstar Journal is a general interest international online weekly magazine physically located at 5351 S. Wallace Street, Seattle, WA 98178.  We are also on FaceBook and Nextdoor.com. If you enjoyed this edition and would like to contribute to the next, please go here.  To contact us directly, minstrel312@aol.com

REMEMBERING SADAKO SASAKI

Pacem, Libertatem, Justitiam
August 9, 2020
Volume 12 Number 44

Reader-Supported  Please go here. Thank you very much.

Inside: Remembering Sadako Sasaki; Our Prayers Are With Beirut; Beyond the Pale; Good News & Awesome Examples; News We Would Rather Not Read But Need To Know Anyway; Community, Culture & Lifestyle; Economics; History; Health & Wellbeing; The Kitchen; Covid-19; Our World and Beyond; Earth; Climate Change; Ecology; Space; Technology; Funzone: Travel; Northstar Interactive; Best of the Net; Movie of the Week; Masha & the Bear, All Creatures Great & Small; Strange But True; About Us

Seattle statue of Sadako Sasaki: (January 7, 1943 – October 25, 1955) was a Japanese girl who became a victim of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima when she was two years old. Though severely irradiated, she survived for another ten years, becoming one of the most widely known hibakusha – a Japanese term meaning “bomb-affected person”. She is remembered through the story of the one thousand origami cranes she folded before her death, and is to this day a symbol of the innocent victims of nuclear warfare.  Our thanks to Wikipedia for the description.  Photo by Merritt Scott (Rusty) Miller

Rusty Miller, Editor

Hi again, from the shores of the Salish Sea.  As the world commemorates the 75^th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  I am remembering the 25^th year after those tragic events because I was in Japan then.

No, it was not August.  And I was not there as a journalist or a tourist.  I was a United States Navy sailor stationed aboard a WW-II vintage destroyer (the ones that look like a battleship shrunk in the wash) operating in the western Pacific Ocean as part of America’s Seventh Fleet.  We made frequent ports of call (visits) to two Japanese cities.  One was a mountain railway ride from Nagasaki, a trip four of us took for the express purpose of visiting that city’s Ground Zero.

The train ride was interesting.  We naively assumed none of the passengers spoke English so when a dozen or so school girls boarded at a small town station using their hands to speak, we assumed it was local custom.  We were informed very politely and in flawless English by another passenger that these deaf-mute children were second-generation survivors of the bombing whose Ground Zero we were embarked upon to see.

It was a somber trip and we were hungry by the time we arrived at our destination.  We found a restaurant that had wax models of their menu in the window for those of us who did not speak the language.  It was a mom and pop place and just like in America, some of the best places to eat are family-owned and operated restaurants.

This proved no exception.  I’m not familiar enough with Oriental interior design or architecture to describe the place but it favored red and blue and has some fantastic paintings on the walls.  Our waitress was the first daughter, a student at a local university who enjoyed the opportunity to practice her English.  When we told her of our plans, she offered to guide us and act as translator, in return for a slight remuneration.

We eagerly accepted but unbeknownst to us, an American nuclear aircraft carrier paid its first port call on Japan’s capital and was anchored at Tokyo Bay, with liberty (visitation) for all of the several thousand crewmen.

It was peaceful enough at first but the closer we got to Ground Zero, the more people were turning out in the streets to protest.  Curiosity overrode our good sense and we waited too long to do the prudent thing.

We were spotted by the crowd and pursued.  They began throwing things at us and the crash of glass punctuated the afternoon.  The four of us outran them but our guide did not.  The last we saw of her, she was beneath the crowd, being trammeled to death.

Sometimes the price of a new age is not measured in the thousands of lives but in one life.

Rusty

Northstar editor Merritt Scott “Rusty” Miller is a journalist, author, editor and photographer living in Seattle, Washington.  For comments, please go here

Photo credit: https://noznewz.com/in-pictures-chaos-and-destruction-in-beirut-after-blast/

OUR PRAYERS ARE WITH BEIRUT

Olya Bereza, Associate Editor

Hi Rusty:

When I first saw on the Internet a terrible blast in the Lebanese town of Beirut, I first thought it was a small nuclear bomb.  Like the rest of the world, I am horrified.

“The governor of Beirut compared Tuesday’s horrific explosion to the atomic bombs that devastated the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II,” as it stated in this article The deadly explosion that devastated Beirut appears to have been far more powerful than the ‘Mother of All Bombs’ Beirut explosion: What we know so far

But no, it is not the start of a war.  Instead, was something more terrifying.  It was an accident that could and did happen in peace time through what appears at this stage of the investigation to be simple (if not criminal) neglect..

The blast was caused by the detonation on 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate that had been stored unsafely at a warehouse in the port as it stated here: Beirut explosion: What we know so far

That can make anyone on the planet anxious, thinking about how many catastrophes are man-made and is there really a way to avoid them. And why we, as humans, are so reckless with the toys we make.

That is a beautiful very touching song about Beirut  The song  Fairuz – Le Beirut. Here you find the translation to English

You know in Ukraine we had our price o pay for a human error when Chernobyl  happened just because there was a shortage of electricity in Kyiv and authorities pressed the stuff of the atomic station to violate safety instruction during the ongoing testing of the system to give the capital the electricity.

I guess a few hours without electricity was not that big deal compared to the aftermath of what happened.  The cost of such errors of seeing only short-term benefits or just being not bothered about negligence consequences is just too huge.

It’s another time we could recall a concept of Bentoism, “a decision-making framework first introduced in a book called This Could Be Our Future: A Manifesto for a More Generous World” by Yancey Strickler. The framework extends how people should define “self-interest” and argues that instead of relying solely on current desires and needs, people should also consider their future selves, their dependents, and the next generations.”

This is why it is important to never forget the impact of our choices for creating the future. I believe the future is not set in stone as something linear but the deeds of humans define what the possible scenario will unfold.

Olya

Northstar columnist and associate editor Olya Bereza was born in the former Soviet Union and now lives in Ukraine.  Fluent in Russian, Ukrainian, and English, she is a degreed psychologist with a background in international marketing and personnel management.  For comments, please go here.

BEYOND THE PALE

Smile, Australia. Look At What’s Flourishing Despite The Pandemic.

Tropical Storm Isaias Spawned Tornadoes And Dumped Rain During An Inland March Up The U.S. East Coast.

Beirut Was Already Suffering. Then Came A Deadly Explosion

Kim Visits North Korea Flood Zone, Orders Shelter, Food Aid

Seoul’s Mayor Championed Women’s Rights. #Metoo Allegations Against Him Have Bitterly Divided Korea

GOOD NEWS AND AWESOME EXAMPLES

Asians In Europe Are No Longer Afraid To Talk About Racism

Boys’ Lemonade Stand Raises Thousands For Yemen Crisis

How Cities Are Keeping People In Their Homes

In Detroit, A New Type Of Agricultural Neighborhood

India’s Narendra Modi Is Breaking Ground For A Controversial Temple Of Ram. Here’s Why It Matters

James Lovelock: Gaia Theory Creator On Coronavirus And Turning 101

Oregon Governor Creates Racial Justice Council

They Risk Their Lives To Save Elephants

NEWS WE WOULD RATHER NOT READ BUT NEED TO KNOW ANYWAY

AFM, A Biennial Polio-Like Viral Illness, Is Expected To Hit The U.S. In 2020

Hiroshima Survivors Worry That World Will Forget

Kylie Moore-Gilbert: Australia Says Lecturer Jailed In Iran ‘Is Well’

20th-Century Slavery In A California Sweatshop Was Hiding In Plain Sight

The American Bison Was Driven To The Brink Of Extinction

As Schools Reopen, Georgia Students Suspended For Blowing The Whistle On Crowded Hallways

COMMUNITY, CULTURE & LIFESTYLE

Americans In Africa: Why We Left America To Live In Africa

AP Analysis: Will Beirut Blast Be Catalyst For Change? 

Are You Sharing Too Much Online?

Black Girl Magic: How Tarot Helps Women Of Color Connect

Dublin’s First Ethnic-Chinese Mayor On Racism, Her Parents’ Work Ethic, And Teaching Poor Children In China

The Long-Forgotten Word That Got Danes Through The Pandemic

New York AG Seeks To Shut Down NRA In Suit Alleging Financial Crimes

Protesters Rally In Portland As Mayor Decries Violence

‘Fundamental Shift Is Occurring’ As People Flock To Tiny Homes

Visible Mending Is An Act Of Rebellion Against The Fashion Industry

Where I Live

Despite the sometimes mind-numbing noise these winged giants can make, it is somehow very reassuring seeing them from my backyard. Yep, photo’s mine.

Commercial Flights Take Off Again From Paine Field

Protesters Sue Seattle, Claim They Need ‘Expensive’ Protective Gear To Safely Protest

ECONOMICS

Trump Bans Dealings With Chinese Owners Of Tiktok, Wechat

WH Trade Adviser On Struggling Economy

HISTORY

The Air Force’s First Female Fighter Pilot

History In Context: The Impact Of MLK’s Assassination

Nine Harrowing Eyewitness Accounts Of The Bombings Of Hiroshima And Nagasaki

Did Truman Need To Drop The Bomb?,

“A Straight Path Through Hell”,

“We Knew That If We Succeeded, We Could At One Blow Destroy A City”

The Biggest Decision: Why We Had To Drop The Atomic Bomb

How A Fashion Show In Harlem Kick-Started A Movement That Still Inspires Today

In 1920, Native Women Sought The Vote. Here’s What’s Next.

Wreck Of U-Boat Sunk Off English Coast During WWI Explored For The First Time

Ancient Artisans In Arabia, The Americas Invented Same Technology Independently

Archaeologists Pinpoint Origins Of Stonehenge’s Mysterious Megaliths

Ancient Rome’s Finest Glass Was Actually Made In Egypt

This Marsupial Sabertooth Was No Killer Cat

HEALTH & WELL BEING

‘A Rinsing Of The Brain.’ New Research Shows How Sleep Could Ward Off Alzheimer’s Disease

3 Ways Creativity Can Help Mental Health, From The Musician Jewel

How To Stay Physically And Mentally Healthy While COVID-19 Has You Stuck At Home

Will Humans Keep Getting Smarter?

THE GARDEN

10 Ways To Make Your Garden More Green: No Chemicals Required.

THE KITCHEN

13 Best Tips For Making Perfect Fresh Corn

How To Beat The Heat In The Kitchen This Summer

It’s August, Time For The Best Tomato Pasta Ever

Okra With Sambal Belacan

Sardine Curry Puffs

Singapore-Style Pineapple Tarts

COVID-19

COVID-19 Risk In Schools: What You Should Know

Europe Is Near The Brink Of A Second Wave Of COVID-19. Will Its New Containment Strategy Work?

Is The Coronavirus Crisis A Chance To Reset The World?

Israeli Iot Firm Detects COVID-19 Outbreaks By Monitoring City Sewers

Machine Detects COVID-19 In 90 Minutes

National Geographic’s Two Steps To Defeat Covid-19

OUR WORLD AND BEYOND

EARTH

Forecasters Bump Up Hurricane Predictions For 2020

Is It Time To Reassess Our Relationship With Nature?

The Trees That Survived The Bombing Of Hiroshima

Why This Year Is Our Last, Best Chance For Saving The Oceans

CLIMATE CHANGE

‘Worst-Case’ Global Warming Scenario Still Best Guide Until 2050, Study Says

Bangladesh Considers Scrapping 90% Of Its Coal Power Pipeline

Climate Change Could Cause More Annual Deaths Than Infectious Disease By 2100

Do Mountain Forests Hold The Answers For Climate Science?

Fighting Climate Change = Saving 4.5 Million Lives

How Climate Science Moved Online

India’s Solar Boom Is Threatened By Anti-China Trade Tariffs

It’s Time For American Leaders To Wake Up To The Threat Of Climate Change

Major Ship Emissions Study Flags A Bigger Role For Governments

South Africa Tightens Restrictions For New Coal Power In ‘Landmark’ Ruling

ECOLOGY

Which States Are Making The Most Progress On Emissions?

SPACE

Earthsky’s Guide To The Bright Planets In August

More Than A Dozen Private Boats Came Out To Greet SpaceX Astronauts After Splashdown

NASA SpaceX Crew Return: Dragon Capsule Splashes Down

NASA’s Mars Helicopter Could Revolutionize Off-Planet Exploration

Watch Spacex’s Epic Starship Test Flight From Inside The Giant Rocket

NASA Earth Observatory Latest Images

TECHNOLOGY

Bicycle Camper Could Be A Micro RV For Your E-Bike

FAA Identifies Design Changes Needed To Return 737 MAX To Service

This Drone Made The First Home Delivery In The United States

AAA Tests Driver Assistance Systems

How Tiktok Found Itself In The Middle Of A U.S.-China Tech War

OrCam Rolls Out Voice-Activated ‘Smart Reading’ Tech For Visually Impaired

DAILY 10 QUESTION TRIVIA QUIZ:  This one is from Daily Email Trivia and delivered to me in mine.  There is also an opportunity, the site, to take more quizzes on a wide range of subjects and to engage interactively and competitively.

BEST OF THE NET

Beirut Explosion: Pianist’s Homage To The Victims

Hiroshima Survivor On “The Path To Peace,” 75 Years After Bombing

Will Rogers Was One Of A Kind

BON Perennial:  Hakai Magazine – Toward Resiliency

NORTHSTAR INTERACTIVE

How To Identify Rocks And Other Questions From Our Readers

Turn Your Garden Into A Certified Wildlife Habitat

YES Magazine’s Interactive Crossword Puzzle

TRAVEL

Bike Touring May Be The Perfect Way To Travel This Summer

Genoa Bridge ‘Like A White Vessel Crossing The Valley’

It’s One Of The Last Wild Places Left In Britain

What You Need To Know About Camping Now

Seattle University District’s Neptune Theatre. Photo by MS(R)M

MOVIE OF THE WEEK:MOVIE OF THE WEEK:  ON THE BEACH –  is a 1959 American post-apocalypticscience fictiondrama film from United Artists, produced and directed by Stanley Kramer, starring Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, Fred Astaire, and Anthony Perkins.^[2] It is based on Nevil Shute‘s 1957 novel of the same name depicting the aftermath of a nuclear war.^[3] Unlike in the novel, no one is assigned blame for starting the war; the film hints that global annihilation may have arisen from an accident or misjudgment

ALL CREATURES GREAT & SMALL

North American River Otter (Lontra canadensis) at Pelican Island National Wildlife Refuge in Florida. (Credit: Keenan Adams, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service)

I had a pair of these as neighbors and they are, indeed, a trip.  River Otters Take ‘Party Pooping’ To A New Level

Intriguing question, I thought.  Ask Smithsonian: When Did People Start Keeping Pets?

Considering that without them, we would not be here, this is not surprising.  Wild Bees Are Worth $1.5 Billion For Six U.S. Crops

STRANGE BUT TRUE

What A Crowdsourced Study Taught Us About How Dogs Learn

How ‘Lockdown Birdwatching’ Is Helping Australia’s Bushfire Recovery

Cheeky Boar Leaves Nudist Grunting In Laptop Chase

A superpower no longer, a resource hungry and repressive America faces a Latin American armada rampaging its west coast and a strong, silent and powerful Canada manning the North Wall. The fires of rebellion burn in the Pacific Northwest and it is into this crucible and forge that the cybernetic patrol boat Testament and her crew of three men and three women are thrust. Individuals of duty and conscience both, when they join the other side, all Hell breaks loose. A rollicking adventure for anyone who loves the sea, a good yarn and characters who spring to life even as Testament herself leaps the waves. For a $4.00 Kindle Book adventure you will remember for a lifetime, please go here.

Associate editor Olya Bereza is also the children’s novelist Holley Dovetail. This is one of several of short novels for the young and the young at heart. To preview and/or purchase on amazon.com, please go here.

This little fairy-tale short story dedicated to a pet-friend gone chasing the rainbow. For kids their first lost and challenge in life is letting go of their pet friends that once became part of their world. This little story will help in times they have to say good-bye without falling into despair.  Yep, go here.

OUR THANKS THIS WEEK TO:

American Heritage Magazine

BBC

CBS News

Crosscut Magazine

Earth Sky News:  Updates On Your Cosmos And World

Effective Altruism

High Country News

KQED Science

Modern Farmer

Moscow Times:  Independent News From Russia

Mother Nature Network

National Geographic

National Public Radio

Newsweek

Rainforest Site

Sightline Institute

Smithsonian Magazine

South China Morning Post – This Week In Asia

Time Magazine

Tree Hugger News

UBS Nobel Perspectives

WNYC Studios

ABOUT US:  The Northstar Journal is a general interest international online weekly magazine physically located at 5351 S. Wallace Street, Seattle, WA 98178.  We are also on FaceBook and Nextdoor.com. If you enjoyed this edition and would like to contribute to the next, please go here.  To contact us directly, minstrel312@aol.com

GOOD-BYES WASTED ON EARS WHICH CAN NO LONGER HEAR THEM

Pacem, Libertatem, Justitiam
August 2, 2020
Volume 12 Number 42

Reader-Supported  Please go here. Thank you very much.

Inside: Good-Byes Wasted On Ears Which Can No Longer Hear Them; God Save The Queen and What Her Subjects Eat; Bertrand Bucktooth Was Not Your Ordinary Mountain Beaver; Beyond the Pale; Good News & Awesome Examples; News We Would Rather Not Read But Need To Know Anyway; Community, Culture & Lifestyle; Economics; History; Northstar Interactive; Health & Wellbeing; The Kitchen; Covid-19; Our World and Beyond; Earth; Climate Change; Ecology; Space; Technology; Funzone: Masha & the Bear; Trivia Quiz; Best of the Net; Travel; Movie of the Week; All Creatures Great & Small; Strange But True; Advertising; About Us

GOOD-BYES WASTED ON EARS WHICH CAN NO LONGER HEAR

Merritt Scott “Rusty” Miller, Editor

Hi again, from the shores of the Salish Sea. Occasionally I am asked for information about the magazine and its contributors — including me — that, in the previous century, would have been considered rude and intrusive.  This is not that century, however, and this online magazine is interactive.  But just for the record?  I hate talking about myself.

No, I am not as nice in person as apparently I am in print.  I tend to make “public appearances” appropriately and then retire to a ship’s cabin style room with two aloe plants I’ve raised since they were in 4” pots.  Yesterday, one of them tried to eat a housecat who should not have been down here in the first place.  My workstation resembles the bridge of a ship and I can reach everything I need just by swiveling the office chair in which I park for about 12 hours a day, all told.

As far as a social life, after having lost two people I loved more than myself – one to a drunk driver and the other to ovarian cancer – I do not allow myself to get close enough to anyone to grieve again like I did – and sometimes still do – for those two.  I am polite unless pushed.  But that does not mean I like someone.  It just means I was raised by two human parents and not by a human one and one who barks.  I am more concerned with the rules of engagement and if they are not genteel, I do not engage.  As far as my politics are concerned, in my country, it’s a secret ballot which means I don’t even have to tell God who I vote for.  And if I was going to tell anyone, it would be Her.

Am I religious?  No.  Khalil Gibran contended that all religions are as fingers of the same kind and I agree.  I respect all of them.  Genetics claim several.  My beliefs are more naturalistic.  I believe in the earth as Gaia, a sentient being.  I believe in reincarnation and choices in the next worlds.  I believe in Unidentified Flying Objects.  I believe that our species reached the point of perfection several times before this and was felled by a pandemic such as this when it tried to assume dominion of its own “mother”.  I believe the dolphins remember it all and will one day share it with us.

I do not believe there was a beginning and I do not believe there will be an end.  I believe in a Deity with a Divine sense of humor and way too much patience for the deliberately dysfunctional among us.  We are mostly occupied with our own destiny.  Gaia has a much larger family, one which seems to function remarkably well even in our appropriate absence.  To ants, we are as big as mighty redwood trees.  There is no doubt in my mind which species has had a more dramatic impact on existence, human or otherwise.

I believe ultimately, in the power of positive choices.  And what it is like to feel like the only one I know who still does.  I’ve long realized that some people get used up faster than some other people and are essentially just waiting for the coffin to close.  Very recently, I have seen the lights go out in two of those closest to me.  When there is nothing left to say, the best way to say it is silently.  Good-byes are wasted on ears which no longer hear.

Merritt Scott “Rusty” Miller  To respond, please go here

Photo courtesy of: https://www.smh.com.au/world/the-queen-at-80-20060421-gdnehe.html

GOD SAVE THE QUEEN AND WHAT HER SUBJECTS EAT

Olya Bereza, Associate Editor

Hi Rusty:

As few years ago I was writing an article for NorthStar Journal called “A nation is also what it eats,” this week I was very glad to hear news from the United Kingdom that Britons are really starting to pay attention to their nation’s diet. Even if it was a coronavirus which induced that special attitude still, we can always philosophically conclude “every cloud has a silver lining”.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson Says Brits Must Lose Weight to Fight Coronavirus

Boris Johnson, who recovered from the virus earlier this year, claims he was “a way overweight”. Now, after spending a lot of time building up his fitness and walking his pet, he looks very good and hopes the same will help many of his fellow citizens. Not only additional kilograms enhance the risk of complications of coronavirus, but it is a well-known fact that it is the cause of a range of other diseases.

It was particularly good to hear about steps to ban on advertising junk food on TV and online before 9 pm. We know how the younger generation is falling under the influence of such advertisements.

Restrictions on fizzy drinks also makes sense. They are very insidious in a way that often misleads our youth by offering them something to drink when they feel thirsty but instead give them a load of sugar. Like it said in this article The Poison Billions Of Us Drink Everyday” an average human adult should not ingest more than 25 grams or (6 teaspoonfuls) of sugar a day. One can of Coca-Cola has been shown to exceed that limit.”

So yes we can only cheer such attempts by the government to take nation’s health to a better level. “A human being’s health is the health of the nation” – a slogan once quite common in my part of the world – has been somehow undeservedly forgotten.

It is good to hear someone noticed that important link.

Olya

Northstar columnist and associate editor Olya Bereza was born in the former Soviet Union and now lives in Ukraine.  Fluent in Russian, Ukrainian, and English, she is a degreed psychologist with a background in international marketing and personnel management.  For comments, please go here.

BERTRAND BUCKTOOTH WAS NOT YOUR ORDINARY MOUNTAIN BEAVER

Rusty Miller

Hi again, from the shores of the Salish Sea. Sometimes our species really needs to back off the hammer and learn from those others with whom they share the planet.  We are providing you with that opportunity.

Bertrand Bucktooth was not your ordinary mountain beaver.  First of all, his namesake industriousness was not something he took particularly personally.  He preferred, instead, to reflect at some length before initiating anything more provocative than a small yawn.

Second, being just a tad claustrophobic, he was not fond of lodges as a habitat.  He incorporated, instead, an old miner’s cabin on Beavers Creek, at the high end of the canyon by the same name.

And finally, while the other beavers lived on a diet of mostly fish and small rodents, Bertrand was inclined toward roots, berries and woodland herbs.  He also wrote poetry, but that’s a story for another time.

Well, beavers being the tight community they are, you can imagine how Bertrand’s lifestyle went over.  Yuppers.  He was thought to be everything from bewildered to a Bolshevik and by the time he reached adulthood, he was pretty much on his own.

At first, Bertrand liked it that way.  It was hard to feel like an outsider with no one around to remind him.  But as the seasons passed, like autumn leaves in the lowers, he began to miss his own kind, for you see, beavers are no more meant to be hermits than most human beings.

So, his heart grew heavier and his pride leaned out some.  Finally, he found he could no longer bear to be alone and started out one winter morning along the banks of gurgling Beaver Creek, down to his former home.

That afternoon, a blizzard struck Beaver Canyon and sheeted everything so thick it sealed the top of the bucktooth lodges, froze the pond to a depth of ten feet out of fifteen, and plugged up the creek at both ends.  Bertrand’s family and neighbours were trapped with a dwindling supply of air.

Bertrand, who’d found an abandoned wolverine’s den to hole up in for the night, awoke at first light and through the ear-shattering stillness, ‘heard’ the cries of his family and community.  Launching himself like a one-person bobsled down the icy, twisting frozen channel Beaver Creek had become, he slid, ricocheted, crashed and careened clear to the bottom, where, of course, he landed in a heap.

It took him a bit, but he finally got the frozen white stuff dusted out of his eyes, and then he surveyed the pond with a seeming lazy gaze.  His dark shiny orbs came to rest on a very old evergreen, an ice cloak of its own, already bending over the pond near the lodges.

Gathering himself up behind a slightly provocative yawn, Bertrand slid down the bank, landed in a heap (of course), took a bit getting his webbed and clawed footing, then ambled on across the frozen pond, fell back on his tail a couple of times trying to climb out, then made his way to that big old leaning evergreen and sat down to rest from his travels.

Off and on for most of the rest of the day, that glacial stillness was interrupted by bursts of a bucktooth chainsaw.  And the crackling of slivers of ice.  There was no rhythm to it.  Nothing you could set your watch by.  It just kept happening.  Sporadically.  But consistently.  Throughout an endless primordial winter day.

And as the blue chill of night begin creeping into the frozen mountains and all life began to twinkle and fade, that venerable evergreen finally toppled.  It shattered the ice in the pond on the first bounce and the noise it made broke the dome of the lodges on the second.  On the third, it got the creeks running again.

After they gathered on the far bank, the other beavers went looking for Bertrand and found him snoring softly against the up-mountain side of what remained of that ancient evergreen.  That evening, his family joined him, kept him warm and fed him fish and small rodents in his sleep.

The next morning, the sun was shining.  And Bertrand Bucktooth wasn’t lonely any more.

Except when he recited poetry which, of course and as you know, is a story for another time, then, eh?

Have a good week, gang, and stay safe.

Merritt Scott “Rusty” Miller  To respond, please go here

BEYOND THE PALE

Around The World With The Associated Press:

Israel’s Young Protesters: 

Monsoon Floods Swamp Large Parts Of India’s Densely Populated Bihar State

Russian Mercenaries In Belarus: All You Need To Know

Thailand Protests: How Hong Kong And The Hunger Games Inspired Revolution Of Thais

Yemen Conflict: Southern Separatists Give Up On Self-Rule

GOOD NEWS AND AWESOME EXAMPLES

Microsoft’s Astonishing Climate Change Goals

NASA Blasts Off Most Sophisticated Mars Mission In Human History

From Exhilaration To Fatigue, Home Cooks Assess New Normal

Meet The “Covid Hunter” Of Houston

Miracle Pill Found For Fighting Covid-19: The Bicycle

‘We Will Share Our Vaccine With The World.’ Inside The Chinese Biotech Firm Leading The Fight Against Covid-19

NEWS WE WOULD RATHER NOT READ BUT NEED TO KNOW ANYWAY

National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien Tests Positive For COVID-19Former Nazi Concentration Camp Guard Convicted As Accessory In 5,230 Murders

SPD Releases Bodycam Video Of Improvised Explosive Devices Thrown At Officers In Saturday’s Protests

Prominent Activist Sentenced To Four Years In Prison For Protesting Downing Of Ukrainian Passenger Plane

Kylie Moore-Gilbert: Lecturer Jailed In Iran Moved To Remote Prison

Why Parents Detained With Their Kids In ICE Facilities Now Face A ‘Sophie’s Choice’

With International Travel Heavily Restricted, Progress In Reviving Tourism Has Been At Best Anemic And Usually Perilous.

COMMUNITY, CULTURE & LIFESTYLE

Australia Hopes To Steer More Students Towards Cheaper ‘Job-Ready’ Courses

Both Sides Of A Fence:

Changes Community Leaders Say Are Needed Amid Surging Inner-City Gun Violence

Confederate Monuments Have Come Down Across America. What Should Take Their Place?

People Are Flocking To British Rivers And Lakes To Swim

Six Questions To Help You Reach Any Goal

What Happens When Old And Young People Connect

Year One: You Don’t Have To Farm On Your Own

Young Israelis Play Leading Role In New Protests.

The Police

SPD Releases Bodycam Video Of Improvised Explosive Devices Thrown At Officers In Saturday’s Protests

ACLU Claims Police Violated Court Order With Crowd Control Methods

Tacoma PD Lieutenant Under Investigation For Allegedly Falsifying Payroll

Where I Live

Looking west from my backyard to the Seattle-Tacoma (SEATAC) Airport Tower. Photo by MS(R)M

COVID-19 And Wildfire Smoke Are A Deadly Combo For Seattle

VIDEO: Police Seize Weapons And Van Linked To Riot

Redmond Company Aerojet Rocketdyne Plays Critical Role In Mars Perseverance Mission

ECONOMICS

The Economy Of The 19-Country Eurozone Shrank 

Many Companies Won’t Survive The Pandemic. Amazon Will Emerge Stronger Than Ever

How Asian Development Banks Help The Poor Face Coronavirus While The Rich Fall Short

HISTORY

What The First Women Voters Experienced When Registering For The 1920 Election

Pre-Colonial Communities’ History Of Gender Fluidity

Earliest Evidence For Humans In The Americas

Ct Scans Reveal Miniature Mummies’ Surprising Contents

New Evidence Suggests Ancient Crocodiles Swam From Africa To America

Woolly Mammoth Skeleton With Intact Ligaments Found In Siberian Lake

NORTHSTAR INTERACTIVE

How To Build A Sandcastle

Yes! Magazine’s Interactive Crossword: Serenity Now

HEALTH & WELL BEING

Air Quality Disparities Persist Despite Overall Gains

How Modern, Minimalist Design (And Washing Your Hands) Can Fight Disease

How To Dance Your Way To Wellness

People Are Eating Less Meat And Doing More Home Cooking

Reef-Safe And Biodegradable Sunscreen: What You Should Know

The 7 Best Foods For Fighting Inflammation

What Is The Safest Way To Move Around Now?

Why Hiking Is The Perfect Mind-Body Workout

Why Wasps Attack And How To Avoid Them

THE GARDEN

A Guide To Homemade Mulch

THE KITCHEN

Bicol Express (Pork Belly Braised With Coconut Milk)

Flower Crabs With Lemongrass And Coconut Milk

 A Superfood To ‘Keep Death Away’

Delicious And Almond Pesto Pasta!

Healthiest Way To Cook Vegetables?

How To Freeze Summer Vegetables

The Real Heat In India-China Ties: Desi Chinese Food, From Sichuan Dosas To Chicken Manchurian

COVID-19

190 Countries, 650,000 Deaths: Mapping The Spread Of COVID-19 Across The World

America Needs To Radically Rethink Its COVID-19 Testing Approach

Doctors Without Borders Update

Fauci Says Coronavirus Can Infect You Through Your Eyeballs

Here’s What The Science Actually Says About Kids And COVID-19

In Social Insects, Researchers Find Clues For Battling Pandemics

Introducing Time’s One-Stop Coronavirus Dashboard

Spain Is Facing A Second Wave Of Coronavirus Outbreaks. Here’s What To Know

These Scientists Are Testing An Experimental COVID Vaccine On Themselves

OUR WORLD AND BEYOND

The beautiful Pillars of Creation

We’ve visited this before, sadly. Lack Of Bees, Pollination Limiting Crop Yields Across US, BC

This, to me, is nothing short of incredible, if not totally amazing.  Scientists Revive 100-Million-Year-Old Lifeforms

In Rural Colorado, The Kids Of Coal Miners Learn To Install Solar Panels  Ironic, isn’t it?

EARTH

Climate Change: Coastal Erosion ‘To Threaten More Australian Homes’

Earth’s Seismic Activity Was Reduced By 50% During Lockdown

Earth Is Warning Us We Must Change. Will We Listen?

Gulf Of Mexico Dead Zone: Summer 2020 Forecast

How Hurricanes Have Shaped The Course Of U.S. History

Puerto Rico, Other Islands Brace For Likely Tropical Storm

CLIMATE CHANGE

Air Travel To Bounce Back Faster In Domestic Markets, Industry Forecasts

Amazon Land Grabbers Are Destroying Brazil Nut Groves For Cattle Pasture

Covid-Hit Hajj Guts Saudi Plans To Reduce Reliance On Oil Revenues

European Battery Gigafactories Boom Despite Covid Slowdown

For All Its Green Talk, The IEA Still Gives Comfort To Oil And Gas Producers

How To Bring About Catastrophic Climate Success

Ireland Forced To Strengthen Climate Plan, In Supreme Court Win For Campaigners

Russia Warns EU Against Carbon Border Tax Plan, Citing WTO Rules

These Women Built A Dam And Saved Their Families From ‘Man-Made Starvation’

ECOLOGY

41 States Have Reduced Their Emissions While Growing Their Economies

A Northeast Law Limited Carbon Emissions. It Also Helped Kids Breathe

Apple Promises To Be Carbon Neutral By 2030

Public Opinion Is Moving Against Natural Gas And Fracking

The Hidden Power Of Mushrooms To Clean Up Toxic Mess

What’s The Difference Between Frugality And Minimalism?

SPACE

America Really Does Have A Space Force. We Went Inside To See What It Does

It’s Going To Take Perseverance, But Here Are Three Things The New Rover Will Do When It Gets To Mars

NASA Announces Crew For Upcoming SpaceX Mission

NASA Venus Rover Designed For “Exploring Hell”

The Awesome Beauty Of The Eagle Nebula

NASA Earth Observatory Latest Images

TECHNOLOGY

Battery Powered Trains Will Be 35% Cheaper Than Hydrogen, Study Concludes

Israeli Researchers Make Alcohol For Hand Sanitizer From Waste

Tech Giants FaceBook, Google, Apple And Amazon To Face Congress

To Make Oxygen On Mars, NASA’s Perseverance Rover Needs MOXIE

The Battery That Could Last 1,000 Years

DAILY 10 QUESTION TRIVIA QUIZ:  This one is from Daily Email Trivia and delivered to me in mine.  There is also an opportunity, the site, to take more quizzes on a wide range of subjects and to engage interactively and competitively.

BEST OF THE NET

O, America – Celtic Woman

Slow Down – Sissel Kyrkjebo

Wyoming’s ‘Bird Lady’ Offers A Haven For Injured Birds

BON Perennial:  Hakai Magazine – The Past, Recalled

TRAVEL

National Geographic’s Greece

Intrepid Travel Wants The Tourism Industry To Rebuild Itself Responsibly

Delta CEO Ed Bastian On Flying Safely During COVID-19

The Caucasus’ Surreal Soviet Outpost

Seattle University District’s Neptune Theatre. Photo by MS(R)M

MOVIE OF THE WEEK: IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT — In the Heat of the Night is a 1967 American mystery drama film directed by Norman Jewison. It is based on John Ball‘s 1965 novel of the same name and tells the story of Virgil Tibbs, a black police detective from Philadelphia, who becomes involved in a murder investigation in a small town in Mississippi. It stars Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger, and was produced by Walter Mirisch. The screenplay was by Stirling Silliphant. The film won five Academy Awards, including the 1967 awards for Best Picture and Rod Steiger for Best Actor.

ALL CREATURES GREAT & SMALL

Orca Who Carried Dead Calf For More Than 17 Days, 1,000 Miles Pregnant Again What these noble and gentle creatures can teach us about love should bring us to our knees in humility.

I don’t imagine this is particularly good news to the fowl involved.  Researchers Find Chickens Fed A Green Diet Are Just As Tasty

Another profoundly “Kodak Moment”.  Daisy Was Tired. So A Rescue Team Hefted The 121-Pound St. Bernard Dog Down A Mountain

SHORTS

18 Things You May Not Know About Squirrels

California’s Only Known Wolf Pack Produces New Litter Of Pups

Reef Sharks Are In Serious Danger Of Extinction

Scientists Crack The Mathematical Mystery Of Stingless Bees’ Spiral Honeycombs

Trained Dogs Can Smell Coronavirus

STRANGE BUT TRUE

Extreme ‘Space Butterfly’ Captured By ESO Telescope

Visions Of The Unexplained

Everyone In This French Town Just Got A Free Electric Car

A superpower no longer, a resource hungry and repressive America faces a Latin American armada rampaging its west coast and a strong, silent and powerful Canada manning the North Wall. The fires of rebellion burn in the Pacific Northwest and it is into this crucible and forge that the cybernetic patrol boat Testament and her crew of three men and three women are thrust. Individuals of duty and conscience both, when they join the other side, all Hell breaks loose. A rollicking adventure for anyone who loves the sea, a good yarn and characters who spring to life even as Testament herself leaps the waves. For a $4.00 Kindle Book adventure you will remember for a lifetime, please go here.

Associate editor Olya Bereza is also the children’s novelist Holley Dovetail. This is one of several of short novels for the young and the young at heart. To preview and/or purchase on amazon.com, please go here.

This little fairy-tale short story dedicated to a pet-friend gone chasing the rainbow. For kids their first lost and challenge in life is letting go of their pet friends that once became part of their world. This little story will help in times they have to say good-bye without falling into despair.  Yep, go here.

OUR THANKS THIS WEEK TO:

American Heritage Magazine

BBC

CBS News

Crosscut Magazine

Earth Sky News:  Updates On Your Cosmos And World

Effective Altruism

High Country News

KQED Science

Modern Farmer

Moscow Times:  Independent News From Russia

Mother Nature Network

National Geographic

National Public Radio

Newsweek

Rainforest Site

Sightline Institute

Smithsonian Magazine

South China Morning Post – This Week In Asia

Time Magazine

Tree Hugger News

UBS Nobel Perspectives

WNYC Studios

ABOUT US:  The Northstar Journal is a general interest international online weekly magazine physically located at 5351 S. Wallace Street, Seattle, WA 98178.  We are also on FaceBook and Nextdoor.com. If you enjoyed this edition and would like to contribute to the next, please go here.  To contact us directly, minstrel312@aol.com

Pacem, Libertatem, Justitiam
August 2, 2020
Volume 12 Number 42

THE NAME OF ICE CREAM FLAVORS

Pacem, Libertatem, Justitiam
January 26, 2020 Volume 12 Number 41

Reader-Supported  Please go here. Thank you very much.

Inside: The Name of Ice Cream Flavors; The Real Pandemic; Beyond the Pale; Good News & Awesome Examples; News We Would Rather Not Read But Need To Know Anyway; Community, Culture & Lifestyle; Economics; History; Northstar Interactive; Health & Wellbeing; The Kitchen; Covid-19; Our World and Beyond; Earth; Climate Change; Ecology; Space; Technology; Funzone: Masha & the Bear; Trivia Quiz; Best of the Net; Travel; Movie of the Week; All Creatures Great & Small; Strange But True; Advertising; About Us

Photo courtesy of https://www.carmagazine.co.uk/features/car-culture/crashed-ice-the-best-ever-car-ice-sculptures/

Rusty Miller, Editor

Hi again, from the shores of the Salish Sea. One of the men I respect most in the world agrees that the 10 United States Army bases named after Confederate heroes should be re-christened.  With all due respect, General Powell, I disagree.

Sir, it’s going to be an expensive operation with inflammatory implications at a time in US History when we seem obsessed with writing an account which squares with all of our evolving values except the one upon which all of them are founded.

The Confederate States of America existed for several years.  Predominantly an agriculture economy in the adolescence of the Industrial Age, it permitted a custom as old as prehistoric humans themselves but since which most of our species has agreed is inappropriate.  No one has the right to own or be the possession of another human being or collection of same.

I wonder how I would feel if these bases were named for NAZIs prominent in the Holocaust.  What if, instead of Fort Hood, it was Fort Adolf Hitler; instead of Ft. Fort Polk, Ft. Heinrich Himmler; Ft. Gordon, Ft. Theodor Eicke, etc?

What if I was Native American?  How would I feel about military installations named for, among others, Generals Crook and Custer?  Or if I was a woman, those whose personal lives were a travesty of family values?  What about basing them on religious considerations?  Gender preference?  Political party?

It’s probably just me but it sure looks like almost any name is going to offend some group.  In my vision of a more perfect world, there would be no war and therefore, no need for military installations or heroes, for that matter.

However, being Rusty the Reluctant Realist, why don’t we name them after nearby geography and in the case of duplicates, add the two-letter zip code state designation?  We do that where I live, like with Naval Air Station Whidbey Island or Naval Base Kitsap.  Joint Base Lewis-McChord is a lot bigger but you can see Mt. Rainier from it…so…Right?

And if that offends the gods, we better hope the name of ice cream flavors does not or we are totally out of flipping luck.

Rusty

Northstar editor Merritt Scott “Rusty” Miller is a journalist, author, editor and photographer living in Seattle, Washington.  For comments, please go here

THE REAL PANDEMIC

Olya Bereza, Associate Editor

Hi Rusty:

As we recently talked about the importance of a healthy lifestyle, here is something interesting I came across the other day. It’s called Fast Facts By Centers Of Disease Control and prevention 

It said, “Worldwide, tobacco use causes more than seven million deaths per year. If the pattern of smoking all over the globe does not change, more than eight million people a year will die from diseases related to tobacco use by 2030”.

Compare those shocking numbers to about half a million COVID victims.  We are prepared to shut down civilization over a pandemic of unknown origin or proportion but our governments do little to stop a youngster from grabbing that first cigarette and embarking down a path which will very likely end their life painfully and prematurely.  And that’s not to mention the grief that person’s second hand smoke will cause innocent bystanders, whether they abuse or not.

I was amazed at the sum stated there “$9.06 billion was spent on advertising and promotion of cigarettes and smokeless tobacco combined—about $25-million every day, and more than $1-million every sixty minutes. That means that if a person starts smoking, it would not be totally their personal decision but the more subliminal effect of advertising.

With lockdown coming to an end to many parts of the world, the streets are filling with people and, as a consequence, tobacco smoke. The trendy hookah-bars are open again offering their services, without much caring much of the overall health of the population.

In particular, it is sad to see some brands banned in other countries trying to invade the Ukrainian market. With about 30% of the population smoking, obviously for them it is a desirable place to be .Juul E-Cigarette Peddler Exposed In Attempts To Influence Lawmakers In Ukraine and that their advertisements appear everywhere suggests they are succeeding.

It is great to have my favorite transportation i.e. trains back. What is not great is that even though most of the carriages now are shiny and new on the outside, inside people who smoke still do not respect rights of people for non-polluted air. Despite the fact that there is a pandemic and we should still be masking and despite the fact that there is a fine for smoking in carriages, both not masking and smoking persist.

Sometimes I wonder if not caring about other people is the real pandemic

Olya

Northstar columnist and associate editor Olya Bereza was born in the former Soviet Union and now lives in Ukraine.  Fluent in Russian, Ukrainian, and English, she is a degreed psychologist with a background in international marketing and personnel management.  For comments, please go here.

BEYOND THE PALE

Beijing Orders The Closure Of The U.S. Consulate In Chengdu

Why Hong Kong’s National Security Law Is Having Such A Chilling Effect

Coronavirus: EU Leaders Reach Recovery Deal After Marathon Summit

GOOD NEWS AND AWESOME EXAMPLES

A Plan To Prevent The Next Pandemic (While Also Saving Nature)

Amid Social Upheaval And COVID-19, Black Women Create Their Own Health Care Support Networks

Artist Bisa Butler Stitches Together The African American Experience

Black Farmers Look To Regain Their Land

Hagia Sophia: Former Istanbul Museum Welcomes Muslim Worshippers

Honoring The Long Tradition Of Religious Leaders In The Civil Rights Movement

John Lewis’ Fight For Equality Was Never Limited To Just The United States

New London Tube Map Will Highlight Women And Nonbinary People

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrats Condemn Sexist Culture In D.C. On House Floor

The Pandemic Has Upended Routines For The Elderly. This Music Therapist Is Getting Creative

NEWS WE WOULD RATHER NOT READ BUT NEED TO KNOW ANYWAY

Charts: The Job Loss Epidemic

Columbus Statues Removed From Chicago Parks After Protesters Clash With Police

30 Boaters Harassed A Pod Of Orcas ‘Because They’re Getting Their Dumb Facebook Video’

These Maps Show How Drastically Covid-19 Risk Varies By Neighborhood

Trump’s Plans For Portland Show Republicans Have Lost Their Way On States’ Rights

COMMUNITY, CULTURE & LIFESTYLE

6 Steps To Keep Voters And Elections Safe In 2020

Effective Altruism (2013)

Recent Research On Improving The Welfare Of Refugees

For Donors Seeking Long-Term Improvements To The Lives Of The Global Poor

Aim High, Even If You Fall Short (2014)

Effective Altruism Is A Question, Not An Ideology (2014)

Giving Now Vs. Later (2013)

How One Small Town In Ohio Is Experiencing America’s Crises

Is This Europe’s Most Liveable City?

Liberating Cities From Cars

Portland Mayor Tear Gassed At Protests, Accuses Federal Officers Of Engaging In ‘Urban Warfare’

Russian Media’s #Metoo Moment

Thriving Communities Are Built On A Foundation Of Optimism

What If All US Treaties With Natives Were Honored?

Will The Next US Federal Aid Package Rescue Renters?

The Police

How Can ‘Hundreds’ Of Federal Officers Transform A City With 13,000 Police?

There’s Already An Alternative To Calling The Police

Where I Live

All lives matter in my neighborhood. Photo by Merritt Scott (Rusty) Miller

The Legend, The History And The Science Behind Seattle’s New Hockey Team Name

Judge Upholds Seattle Ban On Crowd-Control Weapons

Seattle, Several Other School Districts Will Start School Year With Remote Learning

Seattle City Council Votes To Direct New Tax Funds To Housing, Economic Recovery, And Green New Deal

ECONOMICS

Us Jobless Claims Up For First Time In Months As Covid-19 Spreads

Shopify; The Canadian Tech Champion Taking On Amazon

China’s Inward Shift Has Profound Implications For The World Economy

HISTORY

The ADA Was A Monumental Achievement 30 Years Ago, But The Fight For Equal Rights Continues

Sierra Club Grapples With Founder John Muir’s Racism

The Notorious ‘Yellow House’ That Made Washington, D.C. A Slavery Capital

What Made The Viking Longship So Terrifyingly Effective

See Archaeological Treasures Unearthed By U.K. Residents During Lockdown

Centuries-Old Gardening Hoes Made Of Bison Bone Found In Canada

Evidence Of Enormous Temples Found At Northern Ireland’s Navan Fort

Did The Ancient Greeks Design Temples With Accessibility In Mind?

These Ancient Crocodiles Walked On 2 Legs Like Dinosaurs

NORTHSTAR INTERACTIVE

Can You Help Identify This Museum’s Mystery Artifacts?

HEALTH & WELL BEING

How To Adjust If EA Seems Overwhelming (2015)

New Dutch Wellness Trend Taking The World By Storm

Nostalgia Can Cheer You Up

Surprising Health Benefits Of Listening To Music

THE KITCHEN

Centuries-Old Paintings Help Researchers Track Food Evolution

Delicious Experiences: Israeli Online Platform Brings International Cuisine To Your Home

Korean Soft Bean Curd Stew (Soondubu Chigae)

Mung Bean Pancakes With Mung Bean Sprouts And Kimchi (Bindaetteok)

Raw Fish And Fish Roe Bibimbap

This Locavore Lover’s Paradise Could Be The Planet’s Next Great Food Destination

COVID-19

The Coronavirus Uses A “Camouflage” Enzyme To Merc Your Cells

Home Depot Reverses Mask Policy; Will Now Have Enforcement ‘Captains’ In Stores

Coronavirus: Masks Mandatory In France Amid Fresh Outbreaks

What The U.S. Can Learn From Other Countries About Reopening Schools In A Pandemic

What Scientists Know About How Children Spread Covid-19

OUR WORLD AND BEYOND

Earth’s magnetic field extends from our planet’s interior into space. It’s like an invisible force field, protecting earthly life from harmful solar radiation. This field is continuously changing. Earth’s history includes numerous global magnetic reversals, where north and south magnetic poles swap places. Image via NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.

Are The Earth’s Magnetic Poles About To Swap Places?

Why Bigfoot And The ‘Abominable Snowman’ Loom Large In The Human Imagination

EARTH

A Powerful 7.8-Magnitude Quake Struck Alaska Last Week

How Dinosaurs Raised Their Young

Thanks To COVID, The Earth’s Surface Is Shaking 50 Percent Less

CLIMATE CHANGE

Guterres Confronts China Over Coal Boom, Urging A Green Recovery

How ‘Green’ The EU Recovery Is Depends On Member States

Poland Bails Out Coal, Yet Wins Access To EU Climate Funds

Renewables Overtake Fossil Fuels In EU Electricity Generation

Seven Countries Back Africa’s Biggest Investment, A $20 Billion Gas Project

Vulnerable States Urge EU To Link Recovery Funds To Tougher 2030 Climate Target

World Bank Policy Advice Boosts Oil And Gas, Undermining Climate Goals

ECOLOGY

Cute Summer Shoes Made From Recycled Materials

Here’s Why Oil Train Derailments And Pipeline Spills Keep Happening

New Green Standard: Zero Carbon Without A Net

Rich Americans’ Homes Have 25% Larger Carbon Footprints Than Low-Income Households

Rock Dust Could Be Farming’s Next Climate Solution

Rush To Permit Pipelines Backfires As Opponents Win In Court

Why The Planet Needs You To Repair Your Broken Stuff

World Methane Emissions Hit New High

SPACE

Astronomers Release Largest Map Of The Universe In History

China Just Launched A Mission To Hunt For Life On Mars

NASA’s New Rover Has Something New: A Microphone

NASA Wants To Watch Newborn Stars From A Ginormous, Stadium-Sized Balloon

NASA Earth Observatory Latest Images

TECHNOLOGY

Check Out This Amazing Design For An Underwater “Space Station”

Has The Video-Call Boom Changed Dating For Good?

Meet The Scientist Studying How Cell Phones Change Societies

The Stanford Encyclopedia Of Philosophy Has A New Entry On AI Safety

The Tiny House Is Finding A Home

This Frank Lloyd Wright Home Was A Trailblazing Example Of Accessible Design

Watch A 3D Printer Spit Out An Entire Two-Story House

DAILY 10 QUESTION TRIVIA QUIZ:  This one is from Daily Email Trivia and delivered to me in mine.  There is also an opportunity, the site, to take more quizzes on a wide range of subjects and to engage interactively and competitively.

BEST OF THE NET

And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda – The Lancer Band (Australian Army) – Youtube

Israeli Photographer Wins 2020 Iphone Photo Award For Stunning New Zealand Shot

Archaeology Student Finds Viking Trading Post In Norway

BON Perennial:  Hakai Magazine – Anticipating Disasters And Following Their Wake

TRAVEL

National Geographic’s Columbia

Twelve Must-Sees When The Smithsonian Reopens Udvar-Hazy Center July 24

The National Zoo Opened To The Public On July 24

Will Travel Improve After The Virus Subsides?

Riding The Rails During The Pandemic: Watch Video +

Seattle’s Neptune Theatre, for years a landmark of the University District. Photo by Merritt Scott Miller

MOVIE OF THE WEEK: KHUMBA: Rejected by his superstitious herd, a half-striped zebra embarks on a daring quest to earn his stripes, and finds the courage and self-acceptance to save all the animals of the Great Karoo. Featuring the voices of Liam Neeson, AnnaSophia Robb, Steve Buscemi and Laurence Fishburne

ALL CREATURES GREAT & SMALL

9 Wooly Facts About Darling Babydoll Sheep

Whales Get A Break As Pandemic Creates Quieter Oceans

The Andean Condor Can Soar 100 Miles Without Flapping

Protections For Grizzlies In The Greater Yellowstone Area Upheld In Court

World’s Polar Bears Face Extinction

Elusive, Ultra-Black Fish Are Cloaked To Survive In The Deep Ocean

60-Year-Old Nooksack Dam Is Being Blasted To Pieces To Let Fish Swim Free

Will Koalas And Kangaroos Bounce Back?

STRANGE BUT TRUE

The Same Company 3D Printing KFC’s Meat Nuggets Is Printing Human Tissue In Space As Well

This British Castle Still Has A Functioning Flour Mill

Woman Takes Selfie As Wild Bear Sniffs Her Hair

A superpower no longer, a resource hungry and repressive America faces a Latin American armada rampaging its west coast and a strong, silent and powerful Canada manning the North Wall. The fires of rebellion burn in the Pacific Northwest and it is into this crucible and forge that the cybernetic patrol boat Testament and her crew of three men and three women are thrust. Individuals of duty and conscience both, when they join the other side, all Hell breaks loose. A rollicking adventure for anyone who loves the sea, a good yarn and characters who spring to life even as Testament herself leaps the waves. For a $4.00 Kindle Book adventure you will remember for a lifetime, please go here.

Associate editor Olya Bereza is also the children’s novelist Holley Dovetail. This is one of several of short novels for the young and the young at heart. To preview and/or purchase on amazon.com, please go here.

This little fairy-tale short story dedicated to a pet-friend gone chasing the rainbow. For kids their first lost and challenge in life is letting go of their pet friends that once became part of their world. This little story will help in times they have to say good-bye without falling into despair.  Yep, go here.

OUR THANKS THIS WEEK TO:

American Heritage Magazine

BBC

CBS News

Crosscut Magazine

Earth Sky News:  Updates On Your Cosmos And World

Effective Altruism

High Country News

KQED Science

Modern Farmer

Moscow Times:  Independent News From Russia

Mother Nature Network

National Geographic

National Public Radio

Newsweek

Rainforest Site

Sightline Institute

Smithsonian Magazine

South China Morning Post – This Week In Asia

Time Magazine

UBS Nobel Perspectives

WNYC Studios

ABOUT US:  The Northstar Journal is a general interest international online weekly magazine physically located at 5351 S. Wallace Street, Seattle, WA 98178.  We are also on FaceBook and Nextdoor.com. If you enjoyed this edition and would like to contribute to the next, please go here.  To contact us directly, minstrel312@aol.com

 

AND THE ORCAS THRIVE

Pacem, Libertatem, Justitiam
January 19, 2020 Volume 12 Number 40

Reader-Supported  Please go here. Thank you very much.

Inside: And The Orcas Thrive; ; Beyond the Pale; Good News & Awesome Examples; News We Would Rather Not Read But Need To Know Anyway; Community, Culture & Lifestyle; Economics; History; Northstar Interactive; Health & Wellbeing; The Kitchen; Covid-19; Our World and Beyond; Earth; Climate Change; Ecology; Space; Technology; Funzone: Masha & the Bear; Trivia Quiz; Best of the Net; Travel; Movie of the Week; All Creatures Great & Small; Strange But True; Advertising; About Us

A southern resident orca from J pod, seen in inland waters on Aug. 15, 2019, near Lime Kiln Point off San Juan Island. (Image taken under authority of NMFS permit No. 22141) credit: KUOW photo/Megan Farmer

Rusty Miller, Editor

Hi again, from the shores of the Salish Sea.  It’s nice to have something uplifting to report and here’s the headline for this one.  Good News From Salish Sea: J Pod Is Back In Its Summer Haunt

People have accused “native Northwesterners” from the First People to very recent arrivals like yours truly, of an almost mystical relationship with these neighbors of ours bordering on the obsessive and sometimes crossing into the extremely realistic.  Like at first asking the Navy to turn the solar testing volume down because it was adversely affecting our orca population, and then helping close down the testing range itself.

Like the fish population on which they feed, orcas and dolphins and porpoises are indicators of the health of the environment we share with them.  We’ve known this for a very long time and we’ve made counterproductive decisions in spite of it all.

The Industrial Age, as convenient as it might have been for the human consumer, savagely destroyed the quality of life, even for said end users and those producing the goods and services of “an enlightened age”.  That material standard of living we’ve sought for centuries has eluded us for a very simple reason.

It is not possible, even for those deluded enough to believe that billions in whatever denomination means nothing when there is no one to spend it and no one to spend it on.  And as a pandemic that is certainly the planet’s immune system at work closes consumer economics down, she becomes healthier.

And the orcas thrive.

Rusty

Northstar editor Merritt Scott “Rusty” Miller is a journalist, author, editor and photographer living in Seattle, Washington.  For comments, please go here

Black Sea dolphins. Photo courtesy of: https://animals.desktopnexus.com/wallpaper/920028/

BLACK SEA DOLPHINS ARE BACK

Olya Bereza, Associate Editor

Hi Rusty:

Exciting news from Odessa and the shores of the Black Sea.  The dolphins are back!

It was such a surprise to see their unmistakable dorsal fins during a walk along the sea front here.  The locals said such sightings are rare and that, in fact, these creatures are listed in the Ukrainian Red Book of Endangered Species.

So to see them means a lot.  It means the water became clearer as they can’t live in polluted environments and it means there is plenty of fish for them.

Probably it was a lockdown effect, as it appears to be in so many other countries where human commerce is paralyzed by the pandemic and nature is making a comeback. This reminds us of true happiness that is living in harmony with nature.

Did you know that dolphins use about 14,000 different sounds for communication and call each other by names which are unique sounds compilation? Another fun fact I have been told by local naturalists is that dolphins — when trying to impress their ladies — give them flowers from algae and shells.

And the most exciting of all is that dolphins still do enjoy communication with people. Maybe these beautiful intelligent creatures want to tell us how to learn to hear again the voice of nature and understand that we are one with it.

Olya

Northstar columnist and associate editor Olya Bereza was born in the former Soviet Union and now lives in Ukraine.  Fluent in Russian, Ukrainian, and English, she is a degreed psychologist with a background in international marketing and personnel management.  For comments, please go here.

BEYOND THE PALE

Coronavirus Is Surging All Over Asia And The Pacific. Here’s What The Rest Of The World Can Learn

New South Wales Erosion: Huge Swells Leave Homes At Risk Of Collapse

British Airways Retires Entire 747 Fleet After Travel Downturn

EU’s ‘Moment Of Truth’ As Leaders Seek Covid Funding Deal

Can India Keep Pace With China In Africa, Or Is It Running On A Different Track?

Russia Military Says Virus Vaccine Is Tested And Safe – The Moscow Times

Russia To Keep Mass Surveillance After Coronavirus, Activists Say – The Moscow Times

Can I Travel To Russia Now That Quarantine Is Over?

Six Women Making Their Mark In Singapore’s Politics

Why US And China Are Both Stalked By Concerns About The Cultural Revolution

GOOD NEWS AND AWESOME EXAMPLES

Chris Evans Sent A Captain America Shield To A Young Hero For The Most Heartfelt Reason

Disabled Do-It-Yourselfers Lead Way To Tech Gains

Five Scientific Achievements That Happened During Coronavirus Lockdown

Hawaii’s Post-COVID Recovery Plan Puts Women First

Man Treks 1,000 Miles From Alabama To Minnesota For ‘Change, Justice And Equality’

Shamima Begum Can Return To UK To Fight For Citizenship, Court Of Appeal Rules

She’s An Authority On Earth’s Past. Now, Her Focus Is The Planet’s Future.

Swiss Ambassador Heads A Multi-National Philanthropic Rescue Operation For Russian Children With Cancer.

U.S. Must Honor 1866 Muscogee Land Treaty, Says Supreme Court

NEWS WE WOULD RATHER NOT READ BUT NEED TO KNOW ANYWAY

Experts Say China Hid Spyware In Mandatory Tax Software

Home Depot Isn’t Following Washington State’s Mask Mandate. Says It’s Risky For Staff

NASA Warns Of ‘Active’ Atlantic Hurricane And Amazon Fire Seasons

North Atlantic Right Whales Now Listed As ‘Critically Endangered’

Researchers Say Earth Is Headed For “Jaw-Dropping” Population Decline

Ruth Bader Ginsburg Says She’s Being Treated For Cancer Recurrence

Texas, Florida And South Carolina Are Reporting Record Death Tolls,

Three Weeks After Trump’s Tulsa Rally, Oklahoma Reports Record High Covid-19 Numbers

Trump Weakens NEPA To Speed Construction Permits

COMMUNITY, CULTURE & LIFESTYLE

5 Ways Immigrants Are Leading The Way In The U.S.

A Memory Of Standing Rock: The White Horse And The Humvees 

Alaska Is All In On Vote By Mail

Back To The Land

Could A Detroit Experiment Unleash The Power Of Urban Soil?

Federal Judge Blocks Georgia’s Controversial Law Banning Most Abortions After 6 Weeks

Love, Justice, And Common Humanity: A Student’s Perspective On Finding Hope

Politics Vs The Pandemic: Are Anti-Maskers Like Anti-Vaxxers?

Reclaiming Neighborhood Power

Rudolfo Anaya Defined The American West Like No One Else

The Struggle For The Urban Soundscape

Trump Admin. Rescinds Rule Requiring Foreign Students Leave Over Online Classes

The Police

Community Honors Fallen Bothell Police Officer

‘Defund The Police’ Is About Reimagining Public Safety

Where I Live

The City of Seattle normally keeps the ubiquitous blackberry vines at bay. This is another sign of the (Covid-19) times. Photo by Merritt Scott (Rusty) Miller

Bobcat Kitten Rescued From Garage In City Of Snohomish

‘Defund SPD’ Now Supported By Seattle Council Majority, But Not The Mayor

Journalist Arrested At The CHOP Protest Tells His Story

Washington State’s Eviction Ban Leaves Renters In Limbo

ECONOMICS

How The Philippines’ Best Brands Took Over The World

Sisters Producing Award-Winning Wines In … Thailand

South China Morning Post’s China Internet Report 2020 Finds That Covid-19 Has Accelerated Digitization Of Economy

HISTORY

How Navy Blimps Beat Back German U-Boats During The Battle Of The Atlantic

The Coal Strike That Defined Theodore Roosevelt’s Presidency

Aztec Palace And House Built By Hernán Cortés Unearthed In Mexico City

Millennia-Old Rock Art In Israel Offers Window Into Lost Culture

A Roman Settlement At The Bottom Of The Sea

New Research Reveals Surprising Origins Of Egypt’s Hyksos Dynasty

Do These 10,000-Year-Old Flint Artifacts Depict Human Figures?

1.4-Million-Year-Old Ax Made of Hippo Bone Found in Ethiopia

NORTHSTAR INTERACTIVE

American Heritage Magazine’s July/August 2020 Issue Is Now Available Here

Help Transcribe Field Notes Penned By S. Ann Dunham, A Pioneering Anthropologist And Barack Obama’s Mother

The Yes! Interactive Crossword

This Website Highlights Views Outside Windows Across The World

You Could Help Curate This Ambitious Timeline Of Food History

HEALTH & WELL BEING

5 Ways To Get The Most From Your Sleep

Australian Explorer Robyn Davidson On The Value Of Solitude In The Pandemic Era

Blood Iron Levels Strongly Correlated With Long Lifespan

Is Oatmeal Healthy? Here’s What The Experts Say

Mask-Shaming Won’t Work. Try These 5 Things Instead

THE GARDEN

Thinning 101: How To Tackle Overcrowded Seedlings

THE KITCHEN

FDR’s Favorite Dish: “Country Captain”

Shrimp And Corn Fritters (Ten Cha)

Gyoza

Seared Beef With Sea Urchin

COVID-19

Coronavirus: California Reimposes Sweeping Restrictions Amid Virus Spike

COVID-19 Slams Washington’s Apple And Sweet Cherry Pickers

Early Covid-19 Vaccine Results Look ‘Really Encouraging,’ Says NIH Boss

Fact Vs. Fiction On COVID-19

Is There Any Safe Way To Socialize During The Coronavirus Pandemic?

Walmart Will Require Customers To Wear Face Masks At All Stores, The Largest Retailer To Do So

With Covid Tests Flooding In, Us Healthcare Systems Are Breaking Down

OUR WORLD AND BEYOND

Artist’s concept of Veritas spacecraft orbiting Venus, using its radar to peer through the planet’s dense clouds and produce high-resolution maps of its surface. Image via NASA/ JPL-Caltech

A Proposed New Mission To Venus

For The First Time, Scientists Grow Human Sperm Stem Cells In Lab

One Of The Last Living Manhattan Project Scientists Looks Back At The Atomic Bomb Tests

Physicists Accidentally Make Breakthrough On Light

EARTH

Geologists Say A New Ocean Is Opening Up In Africa

Giant A-68 Iceberg 3 Years On

New Data Shows An ‘Extraordinary’ Rise In U.S. Coastal Flooding

Physicists Say They’ve Found A ‘Tetraquark’

Record-Shattering Siberian Heat And Wildfires

Scientists Discover “Vantablack” Deep-Sea Creatures

CLIMATE CHANGE

3 Unexpected Ways A US Climate Plan Could Work

Biden Support For US Cleantech Innovation ‘Will Raise The Bar’ Internationally

Climate Change Clues Hidden In Art History

Climate Laws Correlate With Lower Emissions Per GDP

Don’t Try To Change The Minds Of Climate Change-Denying Politicians. Vote Them Out

Not All Biomass Is Carbon Neutral, Industry Admits As EU Reviews Policy

Plunge In Mass Transit Ridership A ‘Huge Concern’ For The Climate

Portugal Ends Coal Burning Two Years Ahead Of Schedule

Saudi Arabia Censors Fossil Fuel Subsidy Discussion As G20 Host

There Are Climate Change Policies That Rural Americans—Even Republicans—Support

ECOLOGY

Colorado Passes Limits On Dangerous ‘Forever’ Chemicals

Greta Thunberg’s Travel Diary: Six Months On A Planet In Crisis

How To Get Off Fossil Fuels Quickly—And Fairly

The Mayors Calling For Car-Free Streets

Methane Levels Have Hit A Record High

Public Resistance And High Costs Are Canceling Pipelines Across The Country

Why Prairie Dogs Are Ecological Heroes

SPACE

Here Are The Most Amazing Shots Of The NEOWISE Comet

Scientists Found Something Surprising In Closest-Ever Photos Of The Sun

SpaceX Is Launching A Fleet Of Pirate-Hunting Satellites

NASA Earth Observatory Latest Images

TECHNOLOGY

German Court: Tesla’s “Autopilot” Is False Advertising

Israel Tech Exits Drop To $5.8b In H1 2020, Lowest In 6 Years

Israeli-UK Startup Sets A New Standard For EV Rechargeable Batteries

New AI Predicts Which Planets Are Going To Smash Into Each Other

Noise Canceling Window Gadget Can “Mute” Street Sounds

Scientists Build Tiny Camera For Beetles To Carry Around

Tech Startup Colu Helps Cities Cope With Pandemic Through Civic Engagement

Why The Two-Wheel Chariot Was So Effective In Ancient Battles

DAILY 10 QUESTION TRIVIA QUIZ:  This one is from Daily Email Trivia and delivered to me in mine.  There is also an opportunity, the site, to take more quizzes on a wide range of subjects and to engage interactively and competitively.

BEST OF THE NET

We Interrupt This Gloom…To Offer Hope

We Are Australian – Pictorial Video – The Seekers

The Bilbies ‘Thriving’ After A 100-Year Absence In New South Wales

BON Perennial:  Hakai Magazine – Dammed Rivers, Drug Smuggling, And Solo Dolphins

TRAVEL

A Long Weekend In Lipetsk

How To Travel At Home: Finding New Routes Through Our Daily Lives

National Geographic’s France

Pico Iyer On The Secret Of Immersive Travel

Seattle University District’s Neptune Theatre. Photo by MS(R)M

MOVIE OF THE WEEK:  RACE OF GIANTS:  Legends speak of Giants that once walked the earth. In America alone there have been over 1,500 newspaper accounts, including 3,781 skeletons of a race of blond-haired giants discovered and exhumed. Where did the evidence go? Did the Smithsonian Institution cover it up?

ALL CREATURES GREAT & SMALL

This beluga whale was spotted off the coast of San Diego, California in late June. The sighting was the farthest south the normally polar species has ever been seen. (Domenic Biagini / Gone Whale Watching)

In a Rare Sighting, Wayward Beluga Spotted Off San Diego.  Thank you, God and Gaia.

This is awesome.  See Birds Dive, Splash And Play In These Prize-Winning Photos

Outstanding.  Wild Bison To Roam Britain For First Time In Thousands Of Years

SHORTS

BC To Provide $1.1 Million To Restore Caribou Habitat

Images Offer A Rare Glimpse Of Cross River Gorillas With Their Babies

Trump Rejection Of Grizzly Plan Won’t Deter Bear Advocates

Whatcom County, Washington To Remove Dam For Salmon Restoration

Why Hummingbirds Don’t Like Flying In Rainy Conditions

STRANGE BUT TRUE

Researchers Warn Of ‘Larger-Than-Ever’ Jellyfish Off Haifa Coast

The DNA Of The Viper Reveals An Ancient Map Of South America

This Ancient Egyptian Tomb Was Used For Two Different Burials

 

A superpower no longer, a resource hungry and repressive America faces a Latin American armada rampaging its west coast and a strong, silent and powerful Canada manning the North Wall. The fires of rebellion burn in the Pacific Northwest and it is into this crucible and forge that the cybernetic patrol boat Testament and her crew of three men and three women are thrust. Individuals of duty and conscience both, when they join the other side, all Hell breaks loose. A rollicking adventure for anyone who loves the sea, a good yarn and characters who spring to life even as Testament herself leaps the waves. For a $4.00 Kindle Book adventure you will remember for a lifetime, please go here.

Associate editor Olya Bereza is also the children’s novelist Holley Dovetail. This is one of several of short novels for the young and the young at heart. To preview and/or purchase on amazon.com, please go here.

This little fairy-tale short story dedicated to a pet-friend gone chasing the rainbow. For kids their first lost and challenge in life is letting go of their pet friends that once became part of their world. This little story will help in times they have to say good-bye without falling into despair.  Yep, go here.

OUR THANKS THIS WEEK TO:

American Heritage Magazine

BBC

CBS News

Crosscut Magazine

Earth Sky News:  Updates On Your Cosmos And World

Effective Altruism

High Country News

KQED Science

Modern Farmer

Moscow Times:  Independent News From Russia

Mother Nature Network

National Geographic

National Public Radio

Newsweek

Rainforest Site

Sightline Institute

Smithsonian Magazine

South China Morning Post – This Week In Asia

Time Magazine

UBS Nobel Perspectives

WNYC Studios

ABOUT US:  The Northstar Journal is a general interest international online weekly magazine physically located at 5351 S. Wallace Street, Seattle, WA 98178.  We are also on FaceBook and Nextdoor.com. If you enjoyed this edition and would like to contribute to the next, please go here.  To contact us directly, minstrel312@aol.com