Leettaschmidt

The Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work.

The big idea

Performance-based funding – a policy in which states fund public colleges based on certain student outcomes, such as how many students graduate – hasn’t benefited all students equally in Tennessee and Ohio. That’s according to a study in which we analyze U.S. Department of Education data on public colleges and universities in these states between 2004-2015.

We compared institutions in Ohio and Tennessee to institutions in states that did not have performance-based funding policies during the same time frame. In some cases, Black, Hispanic, Native American and Alaska Native students did in fact earn more certificates as well as associate and bachelor’s degrees. However, the gap between them and white and Asian students grew even wider for bachelor’s degrees in Ohio and for certificates in Tennessee.

Performance-based funding is different from other college finance models. Historically, public colleges have been often funded based on how many students they enroll, not how many they graduate.

Tennessee and Ohio are two ideal states to examine the effects of performance-based funding. Both have implemented the system for many years and tie nearly all state funding to performance. They also award additional funds for credentials awarded to students from groups that historically have been underrepresented in college, such as adult students and low-income students, who are more likely to come from racial or ethnic minority groups. In Ohio, additional funds are also explicitly provided for credentials awarded to students from racial and ethnic minority groups. However, by 2015 – five and six years after the performance-based funding that we studied began in Tennessee and Ohio, respectively – we found that racial gaps in credential attainment either stayed the same or got worse in both states.

The gaps we studied are between white and Asian students in comparison to their Black, Hispanic, Native American and Alaska Native counterparts in both states.

The gap in associate degrees awarded did not measurably change in either state. However, in Tennessee, the policy increased the associate degrees awarded to white and Asian students but had no impact on Black, Hispanic, Native American and Alaskan Native students. Similarly, in Ohio, the policy had no impact on associate degrees awarded to white and Asian students, but had a negative impact on degrees awarded to Black, Hispanic, Native American and Alaska Native students. We found no evidence that performance-based funding narrowed any of the racial gaps in college completion across either state.

Why it matters

Performance-based funding is a popular policy. In 2020, 32 states had some form of it.

Despite the notion that performance-based funding should be an incentive for colleges and universities to eliminate educational inequity, our findings show that it can make outcome gaps worse. In other words, the policy is doing the opposite of what it’s supposed to do.

While performance-based funding raises the stakes to improve performance, it does not always equip institutions with the resources to accomplish that goal. It may even worsen funding inequities across institutions by leading to funding declines for minority-serving institutions and other institutions that are traditionally less well-funded than flagship and public research universities.

What’s next

Getting colleges to graduate more students from underrepresented groups could be difficult unless colleges get more money to do it. And even then, it may not be enough.

Our research shows the continued need to assess performance-based funding policies. It’s critical to see if these policies are achieving what they are meant to achieve – or making things worse.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

A listeria outbreak responsible for killing one person and hospitalizing 22 others is linked to Sarasota-based ice cream brand Big Olaf, as per the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s food safety alert on July 8.

Given the threat listeria poses to our community, there is a need to strengthen public health campaigns and to ensure food safety agencies’ prompt actions for greater caution on food hygiene to protect consumers. A proper understanding of listeria would improve food hygiene in the U.S.

Listeria is a bacteria which can survive and grow resistant to refrigeration. It is often transmitted to people through contaminated food, according to the Food and Drug Administration.

Consumers are most likely contaminated when eating uncooked food with a long shelf-life under refrigeration, such as cured meat and sausages or soft cheeses, according to the World Health Organization.

Pregnant women, the elderly and those with weakened immune systems are most susceptible to this bacteria.

CDC estimates that 48 million people get sick and 3,000 die from foodborne diseases each year in the U.S. In terms of listeria, there are around 1,600 cases annually, resulting in nearly 300 deaths. Listeria causes about 10% of foodborne disease deaths in the U.S. each year, proving the need for tightened food hygiene regulations.

Companies responsible for causing health risks to the community — like Big Olaf ice cream — should be put under heavier penalties and prosecution to minimize mishaps. Product quality must be more strictly inspected at every stage of the supply chain, including sourcing, processing and customer distribution.

Foodborne illnesses are a recurring struggle for the U.S., with outbreaks stemming from a wide variety of food like packaged salads, deli meat and dairy products.

In 2016, 19 people across nine states were infected with listeria by Dole packaged salads processed in Ohio, resulting in one death. This incident repeated itself in April 2022 when 18 people were hospitalized, out of which three died, from another outbreak associated with Dole packaged salads, as per the CDC timeline.

Food safety agencies haven’t acted promptly enough to avoid further contamination. CDC sent out its first alert regarding Big Olaf ice cream on July 1, ABC7 investigators found it remained on shelves for business the next day, as per a July 5 article.

“For now, it is only speculation as it is an ongoing investigation, our brand has not been confirmed to be linked to these cases,” the company said in a Facebook post to explain its appearance in retail locations after the outbreak. 

Government agencies must ensure prompt actions and stricter law enforcement to ensure food processing companies act in the best interests of our community’s health.

On a more personal level, it is necessary that consumers equip themselves with proper food safety practices and be more selective in their food choices.

Refrigerators, cutting boards and countertops need to be washed and cleaned regularly, as per FDA’s food safety tips. Cross-contamination between raw and ready-to-eat foods has to be avoided at all cost, which comes from caution in preparing and storing foods separately.

Foodborne illnesses remain an ongoing fight for government agencies and consumers. Food hygiene is not only important, but vital, to public health, and should be treated with the attention it deserves.

Whenever I stop and appreciate that most people my age in the 1960s would have owned a home with at least four kids, I feel a little embarrassed. Sure, they may have had access to a more robust dollar and a thriving post-war economy- arguably the greatest in human history- but it still makes me feel incredibly immature by comparison. — Read the rest

Rick Anderson revisits a 2020 post: One way or another, the #scholcomm community is going to choose either a diversity of publishing models or a monoculture, because it can't have both. How will this choice be made, and by whom?

The post Revisiting: Will the Future of Scholarly Communication Be Pluralistic and Democratic, or Monocultural and Authoritarian? appeared first on The Scholarly Kitchen.

Opponents and proponents of abortion rights often frame their positions in terms of two fundamental values: “life” or “choice.”

However, many defenders of “life” are comfortable with taking human life in situations such as war or capital punishment. Many on the side of “choice” advocate for government regulation of guns or mandates on masking and vaccines.

As I see it, “life” and “choice” are not, in and of themselves, really the issue. The central question is what – or who – constitutes a person.

This question has long preoccupied anthropologists, particularly those like me who specialize in the study of non-European religions. Some ideas usually taken for granted in the United States and Europe about what it means to be a person are, quite simply, not shared with followers of other religious traditions and cultures.

Ideas about personhood in U.S. culture are largely a product of Christianity, in which personhood is inextricably tied to the notion of the soul. Only a being who possesses a soul is a person, and personhood is treated as a black-and-white matter: Either a being has a soul or it does not.

As a specialist of religion in Africa, I have become aware of religious traditions that treat personhood in very different and more nuanced ways. The majority of people in Africa identify as Muslim or Christian, but indigenous religions remain widespread, and many view personhood as a process rather than a once-and-for-all phenomenon.

Gradual personhood

This is well illustrated by beliefs about babies in the Beng culture of Côte d’Ivoire, which anthropologist Alma Gottlieb details in her remarkable 2004 ethnography, “The Afterlife Is Where We Come From.”

For Beng, all babies are reincarnations of people who recently died. They emerge from a place called “wrugbe,” which is simultaneously the afterlife and a sort of before-life.

The idea that babies are reincarnations, especially of ancestors, is hardly specific to the Beng – or to African religions, for that matter. Indeed, a newborn has not really left “wrugbe” until her cut umbilical cord has dried out and fallen off. Only then is the infant considered in any sense a person. If she dies beforehand, she does not receive any sort of funeral. Even afterward, until children are several years old, people believe they remain poised between “wrugbe” and the world of ordinary humans.

For Beng and many other peoples, rituals mark the development of personhood. Some cultures believe children do not fully have a gender until they have undergone initiation. The process of initiation itself is a symbolic death and rebirth, as though the initiate becomes a new person. In some societies – for example Tallensi of northern Ghana – if an individual ever achieves full personhood, it is only after death, when they become an ancestor, fully involved in the lives of their descendants.

Not just humans

“Persons” are not even necessarily human. In Mande cultures in West Africa, such as the Dyula communities where I have done research, every clan is associated with a “ntana,” a large and dangerous wild animal species: lions, leopards, elephants, crocodiles or pythons, for example. Members of the species are considered persons, but only for individuals in the associated clan.

Each one has a story about the origins of their relationship with their ntana – typically of how the ancestor of the species rescued the ancestor of the clan, such as by pulling him out of a pit into which he had fallen. Members of the clan must not kill or eat their ntana, and contact with or even sight of the remains of the dead animal is considered dangerous.

Two aspects of personhood stand out in particular when we compare how paradigms vary from culture to culture.

First, personhood is sometimes viewed as a process, not a steady state, and is not something each individual automatically possessed. Second, personhood is not a purely individual phenomenon, but intrinsically caught up in social relationships – especially between parents, siblings and children; between spouses and in-laws; and between the living and the dead. Christianity, on the other hand, emphasizes the soul and individual salvation: A being either possesses a soul or doesn’t, and this soul’s salvation or damnation is the individual’s responsibility.

In Christian-majority societies, it may not always be apparent to what extent our taken-for-granted notions of personhood derive from a Christian foundation, until they’re compared with other religious traditions. From my perspective, to embed these ideas into law – notably by banning abortion or even allowing its prohibition – is to embed theology into legal principle.

Robert Launay does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Through the COVID-19 pandemic, it has become clear that an effective response to an emergency of this nature goes beyond the health system. While strengthening health infrastructure such as surveillance, testing and hospitals is key, we’ve also seen the use of non-pharmaceutical interventions like face masks, school closures and lockdowns. Some of the most important public health interventions, such as income protection schemes, have not come from the health sector at all.

So to prepare for and respond to pandemics, countries must be able to strengthen collaboration and investment across the whole of government, and engage all sections of society.

To better understand the role of governance in pandemic response, we designed a study to investigate the link between the strength of democratic governance and excess death rates across countries. We found that, generally, countries with stronger democratic governance have seen fewer excess deaths during the pandemic.

Read more: Coronavirus: do governments ever truly listen to 'the science'?

More than 6 million COVID deaths have been recorded globally since the pandemic began. But this figure underestimates the full impact of the pandemic.

One metric that can help us assess the true impact of COVID is excess mortality. This takes the total number of deaths since the pandemic began and compares it against pre-pandemic levels, capturing the wider effects of the pandemic and government responses.

For example, in some countries, deaths due to road traffic accidents fell as a result of restrictions on mobility. In other countries, disruption to healthcare services coupled with people’s reluctance to attend hospitals led to an increase in deaths from heart attacks.

Measuring excess deaths is also useful because a significant number of COVID deaths go unrecorded in some countries due to a lack of access to healthcare and testing. Further, determining a cause of death is not always clear-cut, so what might be considered a COVID death in one country might not in another.

What we did

We used open-access sources to gather country-level data on excess deaths from January 2020 to September 2021, alongside national democratic governance scores from just before the pandemic. For the latter we used the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) index, which looks at how well-embedded democratic principles are within countries, based on assessments from experts on the ground.

We also collected data on several factors that could explain differences in excess death rates across countries. These included socioeconomic factors (like inequality and wealth), vaccination rates, the occurrence of other diseases, and health system performance. We then built regression models, which use data to look at how one variable affects another, to understand whether democratic governance was associated with excess deaths.

Excess deaths and democracy scores around the world

We found that Norway, for example, had both a high democratic governance score and a low excess mortality rate. Conversely, Belarus had a low democratic governance score and a high excess mortality rate. Although not every country fit this trend, on average across the 78 countries we included, a one-point increase in the V-Dem score was associated with 2.18 fewer excess deaths per 100,000 people.

This was after we accounted for age, gender, national wealth and access to healthcare. And the association was only partially accounted for by vaccination rates.

What’s more, the relationship remained strong even after we added other variables and looked at slightly different data. For example, when we used a different index to measure democratic governance.

Deliberative governance, where inclusive decisions are made for the common good, was a specific feature of democracy significantly associated with fewer excess deaths. A political system in which decisions are reached through community engagement, stakeholder consultation, reasoned justification and respect for counterarguments would score highly on this scale.

Limitations

There were some limitations in our analysis. First, we weren’t able to include all countries due to a lack of available data. Second, we didn’t follow countries over time, so it’s not possible to confirm a causal relationship between strength of governance and excess deaths.

Third, we measured democratic governance before COVID. Although this likely reflects governance during the pandemic, there may have been some differences that we weren’t able to capture.

Researchers have previously observed that as countries become more democratic, they see reductions in deaths. One study found that a one-point increase in democratic scores reduced deaths by roughly 2% from tuberculosis, transport injuries and non-communicable diseases combined.

There could be various reasons for this, including government accountability, the dispersion of power, community participation, media freedoms, and the use of evidence in public policy. Democracy, through public participation, should also focus attention on social, economic and health inequalities. Many of these factors, although not unique to democracies, are features of democratic governance that have been important during COVID.

Read more: What we learned from tracking every COVID policy in the world

At the global level, recommendations on pandemic response have centred on compliance with the World Health Organization’s International Health Regulations. This legally binding instrument focuses on strengthening public health systems in a narrow sense.

Our findings show that the way societies are governed is important for public health. For pandemic preparedness, the public must be able to trust authorities and institutions. The machinery of the state must coalesce around communities to consider trade-offs and make evidence-based decisions.

It has taken a pandemic to reveal the many social and political vulnerabilities facing countries. Much work remains to better understand and address these.

Vageesh Jain does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Fox isn't even pretending to be "News" anymore, deleting a key point in one of Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre's responses to reporter Peter Doocy in order to mislead viewers.

When asked by Doocy if President Biden thought it was appropriate for protestors to intimidate Supreme Court justices while they are eating in a restaurant (referring to a crowd of protestors outside of Morton's Steakhouse in D.C. — Read the rest

New York City has an office of emergency management, which today offers a nuclear war PSA. Is this the first old-time Duck and Cover-style film of the new millennium?

From the chirpy "So! There's been a nuclear attack" opening to the "Home Design 1996 CD-ROM" graphics, the whole thing is perfect. — Read the rest

We have done many, many posts explaining how, unfortunately, it seems the idea of a person owning the things they’ve bought has become rather passe. While in the age of antiquity, which existed entire tens of years ago, you used to be able to own things, these days you merely license them under Ts and Cs that are either largely ignored and clicked through or that are indecipherable, written in the otherwise lost language known as “Lawyer-ese”. The end result is a public that buys things, thinks they retain ownership over them, only to find out that the provider of the things alters them, limits their use, or simply erases them from being.

Take anyone who bought a movie distributed by StudioCanal in Germany and Austria through Sony’s Playstation store, for instance. Sony previously had a deal to make those movie titles available in its store, but declined to continue offering movies and shows in 2021, stating that streaming services had made the deal un-competitive.

Sony’s PlayStation group stopped offering movie and TV show purchases and rentals, as of Aug. 31, 2021, citing the rise of streaming-video services. At the time, Sony assured customers that they “can still access movie and TV content they have purchased through PlayStation Store for on-demand playback on their PS4, PS5 and mobile devices.

And when Sony said that, it apparently forgot to add two very important words to its statement: “for now.” Instead, Sony decided to drop the bomb with yet another statement regarding StudioCanal content in Germany and Austria. It essentially amounts to: hey fuckers, that shit you bought is about to disappear, mmkay bye.

“As of August 31, 2022, due to our evolving licensing agreements with content providers, you will no longer be able to view your previously purchased Studio Canal content and it will be removed from your video library,” the notices read. “We greatly appreciate your continued support.”

Poof, it’s gone! That remark about appreciating the public’s “continued support” seems more like begging than acknowledging reality. Especially once you start asking the questions that immediately leap to mind.

For example: will customers get a refund for the movies that they bought and now can’t access? As per the source article “it’s unclear”, which likely means “hahahahaha nope.” How many movies were delisted? Literally hundreds. Are these just small-time movies? Nope, they include AAA titles like The Hunger Games and John Wick.

And so a whole bunch of people are going to find out that they didn’t buy anything, they rented some movies for a previously indefinite period of time that just became definite, long after the purchase was made. It’s hard to imagine something more anti-consumer than that.

A trash skimming boat, Litter Skimmer, is now cleaning up the waters around the city of Tampa. We appreciate you, Litter Skimmer, and you’re now the real MVP of Champa Bay. The City of Tampa unveiled the new trash collecting boat during a press event on July 9. Other cities have used these types of boats/trash wheels to clean their waters. Baltimore’s Mr. Trash Wheel has grown into an Insta-famous tool for environmental protection.

“Litter Skimmer” by the City of Tampa’s Solid Waste Department will operate eight hours a day, four days per week, picking up floating trash along the Hillsborough River, Davis Islands, and the Bay. According to the Ocean Conservancy, the top contributor to marine debris is single-use, or disposable, plastic products, including container caps and lids, beverage bottles, plastic bags, food wrappers, cups, plates, cutlery, and drinking straws. Single-use plastic utensils and containers threaten marine environments because they do not fully break down or decompose.

Litter Skimmer keeps Tampa Bay beautiful

When littered or caught by the wind, these items get washed into stormwater drains that empty into streams, rivers, bays, and other waterways. Over 168,000 pounds of aquatic trash was recovered from the Hillsborough River in 2019. The city continues to implement measures to keep the waters, and parks of Tampa clean. This includes the Bead Free Bay initiative for Gasparilla.

The best way to reduce environmental impacts when it comes to waste is to prevent making it in the first place. Practicing waste reduction leads us to divert less materials to regular disposal methods like waste-to-energy or landfills. Not only does it lead to less items going to disposal but it also reduces litter, saves resources, and saves money. This will require some new habits of refusing disposable items, repairing what can be fixed, and reducing our food waste.

Tampa officials have gathered a list of resources and mechanisms for folks to reduce waste at home, at work, and elsewhere — and you can view their entire advisement on Tampa’s official website.

What to read next:

• Virgin Atlantic announces new flights from TPA to London
• The pizza skiff delivers pizzas to boaters and beachgoers in Tampa Bay
• Paul Bettany, star of WandaVision, will be in attendance at Tampa Bay Comic Convention
• Tampa to celebrate 135th birthday with huge party at WaterWorks Park
• Geo’s, a champagne lounge, is opening in Ybor City

The post Tampa launches “Litter Skimmer” boat to clean local waterways appeared first on That's So Tampa.

With the summer months upon us, many students are preparing for the next phase of their academic journey. Whether that is going to university, starting grad school or simply entering high school, it’s a time of change in academia.

However many of those students are unprepared or at least under prepared for the standards they will be held to. Confusion about plagiarism is rampant, and it is only getting worse.

That confusion is often mixed with fear. This is especially true as schools push forward zero tolerance policies on plagiarism and hand down dire warnings of expulsions and suspensions over plagiarism issues.

So, if you’re a student entering a new phase of your academic career, there are a few points about plagiarism that you need to be clear on. Fortunately, none of them are that complicated, but failure to grasp these things can harm your academic career easily.

To that end, here are five things that every new student should know about plagiarism before starting school.

1: It’s Not Just About Text

Plagiarism detection software is really just copy detection software. Though the tools are getting more advanced at detecting authorship, not just copying and pasting, a lot of the focus in matters of plagiarism is on the text itself.

However, your work is more than just a collection of words. It’s a series of facts, ideas and theories. If those come from outside sources (beyond facts that are considered common knowledge), they needed to be cited as well.

While this may not be as severe as copying an essay off the internet or using an essay mill, failure to cite facts and ideas can definitely lower your grade and, if severe enough, result in disciplinary action.

2: How to Write in a Cleanroom

Far too many students believe that the way you create “original” text is by copying and pasting from outside sources and then editing it to make it “their own.” 

That, to be clear, doesn’t work and is not how paraphrasing or writing works. 

The only way to ensure that your work is plagiarism-free is to use the cleanroom writing method. With this, outside materials never mixes with your original writing. Everything that is brought in, including facts and ideas, are cited immediately. 

The goal here is to have no outside text in your work, and ensure that everything that requires a citation gets one. Trying to go back and add citations later just opens the door to mistakes and potentially difficult conversations about plagiarism.

3: Your Teachers Are Your Friends

With all the fear and tough language surrounding plagiarism, it can be difficult to even ask questions. However, teachers are almost universally happy to help you with citation if you have questions.

Unsure if something is common knowledge? Unclear on how to cite something? Need help writing a passage in your own voice? Ask your teacher. 

Failing that, most schools have student help centers that can be a resource in times of need. 

Coming forward with questions, either in class or privately as appropriate, doesn’t make you look like someone trying to get away with cheating. Instead, it makes you seem like someone who is putting in extra effort to not plagiarize. 

This can help a great deal if an issue is discovered down the road.

4:  Most Cases of Academic Plagiarism Don’t End in Expulsion

Most schools do reserve the right to take strong punishments against plagiarists. This can include a failing grade in the class, suspension or even expulsions.

However, the harshest punishments are typically only reserved for the most extreme cases. It’s very rare for first time offenders to be treated anywhere nearly that harshly.

According to one survey, teachers rarely even report the first incident of infringement that they detect and simply handle the matter in class, either giving a failing grade on the assignment, forcing the student to repeat it or forcing the student to take some other disciplinary action.

While buying a term paper online or copying your entire work from Wikipedia may still bring the hammer down, it is very unlikely that an unintentional plagiarism issue will have too big of an impact on your academic career. This is especially true if you seek help before the issue arises.

So, while you should still be very vigilant about how you incorporate outside sources into your writing, you shouldn’t worry that a single mistake is going to end your college career.

5: Not Everyone is Doing It

Finally, it’s easy to believe that everyone is committing plagiarism, that is incredibly common and the majority of students are not doing it.

Before the pandemic, only about a third of students admitted to committing any kind of plagiarism over the course of their academic career. Most of these students are not buying papers off the internet or turning in works of wholesale plagiarism. Instead, many likely only plagiarized a few sentences that weren’t properly cited.

When you look at students that report taking those drastic steps, only 7% admitted to doing anything on that scale and only 3% admitted to obtaining a paper from an essay mill. 

By all accounts, the number of students who committed any level of plagiarism went up drastically during the pandemic, to around 45%. However, even under the most difficult circumstances, more than half of all students didn’t commit any amount of plagiarism in their work.

To be clear, educators are rightfully alarmed by these numbers, but students should not move forward with plagiarism simply because “everyone else is doing it”. The simple truth is that most of your classmates are not, even during the most difficult of times.

Bottom Line

To be clear, this list could be much longer. Someday, it may even be wise to do a sequel.

However, these are five key takeaways that every new student should know about plagiarism right now.

In the end, perhaps the most important thing for a student to know is that they should pay attention to their school’s policies, ask questions when they have them and learn how to write in a cleanroom environment. 

If you do those three things, you shouldn’t have any issues with plagiarism over the course of your academic career. 

The reality is that avoiding plagiarism isn’t that difficult, even if it can be intimidating to think about the subject when writing. 

The post 5 Things New Students Need to Know About Plagiarism appeared first on Plagiarism Today.

I discovered Oakland Public Library's "Found in a Library Book" project quite by accident but, wow, am I glad I did! Their librarians have catalogued found art, notes, photos and other things left behind in their books, or in the library itself. — Read the rest

The city of Tampa is turning 135, and to celebrate they’re spotlighting archives awareness week, a concept that will bring Tampa’s vibrant history to life through walking tours, lectures, archival footage and more. Tampa Bay History Center is a waterfront gem that offers multiple floors of Tampa, Florida, and world History. Larger than life ships, old cabins, cute citrus shops and more are housed inside the facility along the Tampa Riverwalk. It’s also home to a Columbia Restaurant, whose original location in Ybor City is one of the oldest continuously operating restaurants in the U.S.

On July 14, at 11am, the Tampa Bay History Center will host “100 Years of SoHo.” Howard Avenue was originally the dividing line between the City of Tampa and Hillsborough County and has been home to a vibrant commercial district for over a century. From culinary icons like Bern’s, the Old Meeting House, and Alessi’s to nightlife joints like Tiny Tap and the Chatterbox, SOHO has long been a hot spot for Tampeños.

Visitors are invited to explore archives from The Tampa Tribune, the Burgert Brothers Collection, and the Touchton Map Library to learn about over a hundred years of history along Howard Avenue.  The event is presented by Dr. Cameron Hunt McNabb, a fourth-generation Tampa native, who was a long-time resident on South Howard. She is an Associate Professor of Humanities at Southeastern University.

On Friday, July 15, The Tampa Bay History Center will host a Historic Ybor City Walking Tour at 10am. Visit Tampa’s only National Historic Landmark District and learn about early Ybor City people, social life and work culture. Stroll past mutual aid societies, the Ybor Cigar Factory and other key landmarks. Join the tour at the Cuban Club to hear the stories behind one of Florida’s oldest immigrant communities. Those interested in attending can register online.

What to read next:

• Virgin Atlantic announces new flights from TPA to London
• The pizza skiff delivers pizzas to boaters and beachgoers in Tampa Bay
• Paul Bettany, star of WandaVision, will be in attendance at Tampa Bay Comic Convention
• Tampa to celebrate 135th birthday with huge party at WaterWorks Park
• Geo’s, a champagne lounge, is opening in Ybor City

The post 100 years of Howard Avenue: Bern’s Steakhouse to The Chatterbox appeared first on That's So Tampa.

For those who need Florida Strawberries, there’s no better spot to visit this time of year than Plant City, a pretty quick drive from downtown Tampa. If you visit just one spot for your strawberry fix this summer we highly recommend you pull up to The Strawberry Hut, a little roadside spot that’s been serving tasty Cuban sandwiches and beautiful strawberry shakes since 1993.

Local have voted Strawberry Hut for best Cuban for more than a decade straight. The team behind the counter has even crafted a 3-foot-long Cuban sandwich. It’s no surprise that the cute hut’s menu include sensational strawberry shortcake. A most clutch beverage during the hot summer months is The Hurricane. These drinks pack a maelstrom of sweetness, are made with real fruit and candy including peanut butter cup, Oreo, Butterfinger, M&M, strawberry, pineapple, and banana.

Indulge in foot-long Cubans at their adorable picnic tables, sample the Spanish bean soup, a family recipe, and just enjoy a business that has served the community for nearly 30 years. The Strawberry Hut operates tw locations:

• 743 E Memorial Blvd, Lakeland
• 1505 N Wheeler St, Plant City

If you know you’re headed out that way you can always order in advance online. Owners Troy and Betty Wilson made the decision to expand the Strawberry Hut back in 2014.

What to read next:

• Virgin Atlantic announces new flights from TPA to London
• The pizza skiff delivers pizzas to boaters and beachgoers in Tampa Bay
• Paul Bettany, star of WandaVision, will be in attendance at Tampa Bay Comic Convention
• Tampa to celebrate 135th birthday with huge party at WaterWorks Park
• Geo’s, a champagne lounge, is opening in Ybor City

The post The Strawberry Hut is the sweetest roadside stop in Florida appeared first on That's So Tampa.

Governor DeSantis has announced dates for the 2022 Python Challenge. The challenge is an effort to reduce invasive python populations. This damaging species of snake has been wrecking the Florida ecosystem since the 1980s. The Python Challenge involves local hunters to help take part in the conservation of Florida’s everglade ecosystems. 

2022 Florida Python Challenge

Registration for the 2022 Florida Python Challenge is now open. The annual 10-day event will be from August 5 to 14, and is open to the public for participation. Upon completion of an online safety and training course, participants can enter to win prizes of up to $2,500 for the most and largest Burmese pythons caught in the everglades. The competition is open to both professional and novice participants. 

Burmese pythons are an invasive species to the Everglades, as are iguanas and other exotic reptiles. People often buy them as pets and they can either escape or people release them into the Everglades. Here they cause problems for the native wildlife. However, the state department and Florida Fish and Wildlife Service are making an active effort to reduce python populations and restore the Everglades to its natural harmony. 

The Freedom First budget makes a record investment of up to $3 million for python removal efforts. This includes supporting research and development of innovative technologies that detect and remove invasive pythons.

History of the challenge

The Florida Python Challenge was created in order to help reduce python populations and to involve Florida residents in the preservation of their state’s beautiful wildlife. Participants in the 2021 event removed 223 invasive Burmese pythons from the Everglades. This is more than double the number removed in 2020. Over 600 people from 25 states registered to take part in the 10-day competition in 2021. 

Related: Florida Aquarium Raises and Relocates Corals

“The Florida Python Challenge provides an opportunity for people to actively participate in Everglades conservation by removing the Burmese python, an invasive species that is actively damaging our native wildlife populations,” said Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) Executive Director Eric Sutton. “We are grateful for the leadership of Governor Ron DeSantis, who continually demonstrates his commitment to combating invasive species which is a critical component of conserving our native species.” 

Click here to register for this year’s challenge.

The post 2022 Florida Python Challenge Set To Begin in August appeared first on ModernGlobe.

Five young people whose resolve was hardened by floods and wildfires recently took their governments to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). Their claim concerns each country’s membership of an obscure treaty they argue makes climate action impossible by protecting fossil fuel investors.

The energy charter treaty has 52 signatory countries which are mostly EU states but include the UK and Japan. The claimants are suing 12 of them including France, Germany and the UK – all countries in which energy companies are using the treaty to sue governments over policies that interfere with fossil fuel extraction. For example, the German company RWE is suing the Netherlands for €1.4 billion (£1.2 billion) because it plans to phase out coal.

The claimants aim to force their countries to exit the treaty and are supported by the Global Legal Action Network, a campaign group with an ongoing case against 33 European countries they accuse of delaying action on climate change. The prospects for the current application going to a hearing at the ECHR look good. But how simple is it to prise countries from the influence of this treaty?

The energy charter treaty started as an EU agreement in 1991 which guaranteed legal safeguards for companies invested in energy projects such as offshore oil rigs. Under Article 10 (1) of the treaty, these investments must “enjoy the most constant protection and security”. If government policies change in order to curtail these projects, such as Italy’s 2019 decision to ban drilling for oil and gas within 12 miles of its coast, the government is obliged to compensate the relevant company for its lost future earnings.

The legal mechanism which allows this is known as an investor-state dispute settlement. A letter to EU leaders signed by 76 climate scientists argues this could keep coal power plants open or force governments into paying punishing fees for shutting them down, at a time when deep and rapid cuts to emissions are desperately needed.

Money spent compensating fossil fuel investors will deprive investment in renewable energy and other things vital to the green transition, such as public transport. While withdrawing from the energy charter treaty is possible for any country to do, losing the benefits of membership – such as fewer duties and taxes on imports of oil and gas – will make it a difficult decision.

Furthermore, the obligations of countries that have been signatories to the treaty are not nullified upon exiting it, but instead linger for 20 years thereafter. Investors can still bring disputes against former members and, if successful, must be compensated by the state in question. Russia and Italy withdrew from the energy charter treaty in 2009 and 2016 respectively, and continue to face multiple claims.

Leaving the treaty

Meanwhile, the European Commission is poised to expand the influence of the energy charter treaty into countries in Africa and Latin America, potentially embroiling these states in the same investor-state dispute settlements that have hindered climate action in Europe.

The political declaration for a new international energy charter, based on the principles of the original European treaty, was signed by 87 countries in 2015. Negotiations continue, but the 25-point list setting out the priorities of the signatories only includes one reference to “sustainable development”.

An update on negotiations mentioned that existing fossil fuel investments are due to be protected until 2033, meaning governments will be liable for compensation if they close a coal plant prematurely. The UK and EU reached a deal to exempt new fossil fuel projects from protection as of mid-August 2023.

Drastic action is urgently needed to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement and reduce greenhouse gas emissions in line with limiting warming to 1.5°C at best and 2°C at worst. Countries will need to regulate and close emission sources – yet at the same time, fossil fuel investors, including oil and companies and energy utilities, are asking for more time and money in order to adapt to the transition.

The claim filed by RWE against the Dutch government in February 2021 argued the latter had failed to give enough time for the company to transition from coal to biomass. But this is something the Dutch government cannot afford to do – it was found to be acting unlawfully by its own supreme court in 2019 in taking too long to implement emissions cuts.

One way to address this problem is for parties contracted to the energy charter treaty to withdraw from it en masse, and so escape the sunset clause which holds them liable two decades after leaving. These countries could also enter into a separate agreement to exclude investor-state dispute cases against each other.

Sustained public pressure – and a favourable ruling in the ECHR for the five claimants – could encourage enough governments to act decisively, fatally weakening the treaty and its grip on international climate action.

Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?
Get a weekly roundup in your inbox instead. Every Wednesday, The Conversation’s environment editor writes Imagine, a short email that goes a little deeper into just one climate issue. Join the 10,000+ readers who’ve subscribed so far.

Chamu Kuppuswamy is affiliated with the European Society of International Law.

For a few weeks I’ve been in Kyiv, partly as a visiting fellow at leading Ukrainian thinktank the Transatlantic Dialogue Center. Kyiv is an astonishingly elegant and beautiful city; a premier league European capital. The regular air raid warnings delivered on your phone, as well as by the baleful second world war-style sirens, are largely ignored now – despite the occasional missile strike.

Cafes and restaurants are open and largely busy. It was in one of the latter that I met a senior Ukrainian government official who had contacted me, expressing approval for something I had said in the international media.

“You know, don’t you, that this time next year, a Russian soldier could be sitting right where you are,” he said after a brusque introduction. “We are losing this war.”

He is right. There were the great victories at Kyiv, Chernihiv and Kharkhiv. But with setbacks in Donetsk and Luhansk, the appalling realisation is sinking in that this is likely to be a very bloody war, lasting years. The country’s coastline is in the invaders’ hands and its ports are blockaded. A serious economic crisis is looming both in Ukraine and more widely. While Ukraine is not winning, it is losing.

Last week’s Nato summit stated that it would assist member states “adequately” in providing support to Ukraine, while recognising each member’s “specific situation” – presumably the specific situation of some countries being unwilling to contribute usefully to the defence of Ukraine.

Assistance in the form of weaponry is still carefully enumerated, itemised and counted – doing Russian intelligence officers’ jobs for them, by giving them often precise information as to the numbers and capabilities of the weapons provided by donors.

All that notwithstanding, western weapons have helped Ukraine hold the line, and are likely to continue to do so. They will, however, be unable to impose strategically meaningful costs on Russia’s leaders.

Between 20,000 and 30,000 soldiers killed and one-third of Russia’s tank force turned into scrap are meaningless irrelevancies to Vladimir Putin. Generals fired or killed? Plenty more where they came from. The original Russian objective of neutralising Ukraine as a viable state is being achieved.

Strategic objectives

For Ukraine, as for Russia, the key strategic front is in the south. Retaking Kherson – the ancient city on the Black Sea coast that Russia seems to be planning to annex as part of its scheme to “return Russian land” – would be a real blow to the Kremlin. Ukrainian forces entering Crimea, a short tank ride from Kherson, would send the message: “This is what strategic defeat looks like.”

So to attempt this would make sense both militarily and politically. But Ukraine’s problem, as matters stand, is that it lacks the combat power to be certain of success. The trend of weapons supply is nowhere near what will be required to ensure the recovery of Ukrainian lands and a consequent end to this war – by negotiation, or decision of arms.

Some weeks ago, the US stated as its aim that Russia is “weakened to the degree it can’t do the kind of things it has done in invading Ukraine”. That is all very well, but the problem is the means by which the west has chosen to achieve this – long-term attrition, rather than decisive defeat.

Wanted: greater firepower

What the west calls its “arsenal of democracy” is open – but barely. Serious doubt hangs over whether the US is serious about its war aims. The question is: does the US want Ukrainians to win, or does it want them to bleed for years?

If the former, arrangements need to be made very soon to release the thousands of M1 Abrams tanks, Bradley armoured fighting vehicles, artillery, attack helicopters and other systems – much of which are currently in storage rather than in service.

No units of the US armed forces need to be depleted. All of this equipment was, by the way, specifically designed to destroy the equipment the Russians now deploy. Biden’s pledge to “stick with Ukraine as long as it takes” has something of a double-edged feel. Without a step change in the delivery of weapons, “as long as it takes” – a phrase we’ve heard before from western leaders concerning Iraq and Afghanistan – might indicate a very long time indeed. There is of course, sadly, the possibility of western boredom with a long war setting in first.

Preparations must begin for a move from drip-feeding weapon systems in single figures towards numbers in the hundreds. Ukraine also requires an extensive and systematic regime to form and train brigades capable of imposing that really heavy strategic cost upon Putin. No such system of mass “training-and-equipping” seems to be planned.

Back in Kyiv, a colleague’s partner Sergiy (until February in product design) was deployed to the Donetsk region two weeks ago. He now lives in a bunker near the frontline. His group is armed with ancient Soviet gear, and ammunition for their weapons is running out

Since deployment, two of Sergiy’s unit have been killed. As matters stand, at best he will be doing these deployments for years as the rest of the world becomes bored, Nato bolsters its borders, and the west provides a trickle of weapons.

In 1941, Nazi officers enjoyed their leave passes in Paris – but not London – as Winston Churchill spoke the words: “Give us the tools and we’ll finish the job.” Like those Germans, Russian officers could yet enjoy Ukraine’s beautiful capital. All that is stopping them are Ukrainian soldiers and their still mostly outdated tools.

Frank Ledwidge is affiliated with. The Transatlantic Dialogue Center, Kyiv.(visiting fellow (non-stipendiary)

Justice Samuel Alito appears spellbound by the 19th century.

In Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the decision Alito wrote overruling 50 years of constitutional protection for women’s right to get an abortion, he deploys arguments that are based on several historical precedents. He uses the phrase “history and tradition” regularly.

But for Alito, the 19th century looks like the true golden age: “In 1803, the British Parliament made abortion a crime at all stages of pregnancy and authorized the imposition of severe punishment.”

He goes on and on: “In this country during the 19th century, the vast majority of the States enacted statutes criminalizing abortion at all stages of pregnancy.”

“By 1868, the year when the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified,” Alito concludes, “three-quarters of the States, 28 out of 37, had enacted statutes making abortion a crime.”

But in his rather selective forays into history, Alito doesn’t ask what to me, as a historian, constitutes a set of fundamental questions: Why was abortion eventually criminalized during that time? What was the broad cultural and intellectual context of that period? And, more important, is there something peculiar about the 19th century?

As far as women’s bodies and abortion are concerned, the 19th century saw a decrease in the trust in, and power of, women themselves.

18th-century woman: Active and in control

To begin with, 17th- and 18th-century legal authorities Edward Coke, Matthew Hale and William Blackstone had all advocated for or condoned abortion. They fretted only when the procedure was carried out after “quickening,” the moment when the mother realizes that the fetus moves in her womb, approximately the fourth month of pregnancy.

As a medical procedure, abortion was widespread in Colonial and 18th-century America. By using more or less safe techniques, midwives and medical practitioners performed many types of operations on their patients. The woman could easily die, of course; but when she sought an abortion, no social, legal or religious force would have blocked her.

Also, a woman could choose from many available remedies rather than have an operation. Derived from juniper bushes, “savin,” or Juniperus sabina, was one of the most popular abortifacients. Other herbs and concoctions were similarly taken: pennyroyal, tansy, ergot, Seneca snakeroot or cotton root bark.

Benjamin Franklin inserted an abortion recipe in a popular textbook he republished in Philadelphia in 1748. He didn’t prompt any scandal.

The truth is that America’s founders, together with their contemporaries, had a rather democratic understanding of the female body. They believed that women, physiologically speaking, weren’t qualitatively different from men; the two sexes were equal and complementary.

Men’s and women’s composition, medical doctors argued, was identical in essence – the only difference was anatomical, in that male sexual organs were more externally distended than female organs.

Just like the male, the female was thought of as fully in control of the workings of her physiology, including her sexuality. It was believed that both the man and the woman had to reach orgasm, better if simultaneously, for pregnancy to ensue.

This made 18th-century men attentive to the satisfaction of their female partners, though for utilitarian reasons.

Especially when sex was aimed at procreation, the woman had to be as active as the male partner. The 18th-century woman was active and in control. She trusted her bodily feelings, including her pleasures.

And crucially, only she could detect whether quickening had taken place in her womb. Consequently, she could immediately tell whether terminating a pregnancy at a given time was acceptable. Or if it was a crime.

19th-century woman: Weak and chaste

The 19th century changed all that. The understanding of physiology and the mechanisms of the female body underwent a deep transformation. European and American doctors, now, saw women as essentially different from men: From a “one body” model, the medical discourse shifted toward a “two body” model.

Women’s level of self-determination decreased accordingly. Suddenly, they were not only weaker or softer than men, but inherently passive, too. Instead of being encouraged to take part in sex, actively and with vigor, 19th-century women were expected to be withdrawn.

They were thus recast as pure, chaste and modest. Commendable women were virgins, wives, mothers. Or else they were prostitutes, nearly criminals, which reflects the Victorian dualistic mindset. Instead of being urged to trust the quickening and other physiological events happening in her womb or her vagina, the honest woman had to trust her doctor.

Anti-abortion campaigns began in earnest in the mid-19th century. They were waged mostly by the American Medical Association, founded in 1847, and were fundamentally anti-feminist. They chastised women for shunning the Victorian “self-sacrifice” expected of mothers.

Anti-abortion campaigns were targeted against midwives and tried to discredit women’s firsthand experience of pregnancy. Male doctors claimed pregnancy as a medical terrain - a realm that belonged to them exclusively.

Based on women’s own bodily sensations – not on medical diagnosis – quickening was denigrated. Quickening, of course, made doctors dependent on women’s self-diagnosis and judgment. Dr. Horatio R. Storer, the leader of the medical campaigns against abortion, described quickening as “in fact but a sensation.” In such a context, it could no longer be framed as the basis from where all moral, social and legal standards emerged.

In the Dobbs decision, Alito says: “The Court finds that the right to abortion is not deeply rooted in the Nation’s history and tradition.” This is a historical fact: Protection of the right to abortion wasn’t around in America before Roe.

But it is also an incomplete picture of the full story. The criminalization of abortion, plus the decentralization of the woman’s experience, plus the medicalization of her feelings that led to that decision, are facets that belong to the long-gone 19th century.

No American lives in that century any more - not even Justice Alito.

Maurizio Valsania does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Elvis Presley is the perfect subject matter for Australian film director Baz Luhrmann. Not just because the opulence of Presley’s showmanship and Lurhmann’s trademark visual style are perfect bedfellows, but because the “Presleyverse” itself is not about Elvis Presley. It’s about the idea of Elvis, the great myth of Elvis – and Luhrmann trades in great myths.

What this particular myth is about is the inspirational story of a white man and how he changed everything – what it’s never about is the black women singers and musicians who forged the way.

We can summarise the conundrum by comparing two quotes. In Luhrmann’s screenplay, Elvis acknowledges: “Rock'n’roll is basically gospel and rhythm and blues”. Off-screen, the “godmother of rock‘n’roll” Sister Rosetta Tharpe spoke wearily from the flip-side of that truth:

These kids and their rock‘n roll is just sped up rhythm and blues. I’ve been doing that forever.

And indeed she had. Born in Arkansas in 1915 to a family of sharecroppers, Tharpe spent her formative years immersed in the musical world of the Church of God in Christ, a Pentecostal denomination with a largely African-American congregational base.

Pentecostal churches generally were at the heart of the development of gospel music in the United States, most famously in black communities but no less so among white Pentecostals, actively encouraging the passion and fervour that music could arouse in a congregation.

It was in this context that young Rosetta learned to play guitar and inspire people through music. Tharpe swiftly earned a musical reputation among the religious community in Chicago, and at the age of 19 she moved to New York City, where her performances broadened out into the popular sphere. Throughout her career, she moved seamlessly between the sacred and secular musical worlds, enjoying high-level success in both.

Tharpe’s vocal performances dance the line between speech and song, clearly drawing from a lifetime of listening to charismatic preachers. It is exactly the vocal choreography on which rock‘n’roll was built. Her guitar performances pioneered distortion and string-bending techniques on newly emerging amplified instruments whose very use was championed in its earliest years by another woman, Memphis Minnie.

In Tharpe’s groundbreaking technique, we can hear the direct sonic ancestors of the canonical guitar players of popular music history, players whose lineage is far more commonly credited to male guitarists such as Muddy Waters, Chuck Berry, or BB King.

The sidelining of women from musical history is nothing new. Bach, Mozart, Schumann, Mendelssohn and Mahler could testify to that – Anna Magdalena, Marianne, Clara, Fanny, and Alma – the wives or sisters of the more famous male classical composers, I mean. In the sciences, there’s even a name for the specific phenomenon to which Memphis Minnie and Sister Rosetta have been subject: the “Matilda Effect.

First described in 1870 by Matilda Joslyn Gage, it describes the tendency to attribute discoveries solely to the male colleagues of women working on particular projects. Consider, for instance, Rosalind Franklin, whose work was central to the discovery of DNA’s double helix structure, but whose name has long been overshadowed by those of Francis Crick and James Watson.

In music, it might be harder to point to specific moments of "discovery”, because identifying an exactly “new” thing is not always so straightforward. But still, we could talk of a “Rosetta Effect,” wherein a woman’s musical contributions are eclipsed by those of the men nearby.

Talented women

In 20th-century popular music, there is admittedly something of a canon of great women. Even a cursory interaction with pop history 101 would yield names like Aretha Franklin, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Dinah Washington, Mahalia Jackson. But these women are primarily remembered for their voices, not their musical innovations or instrumental technique.

In the grand narratives of popular music history, women have been carefully contained in particular roles and sidelined from others. Even Nina Simone, a classically trained pianist, is known as the voice of Civil Rights-era America, not its piano accompanist.

And even acknowledging that Simone’s exceptional piano playing is part of the overall brand, the instrument itself is notable. Female singer-pianists are easy enough to find: in addition to Simone, there’s Tori Amos, Regina Spektor, Alicia Keys, Norah Jones, and Carole King. But Karen Carpenter was encouraged out from behind the drums, Delia Derbyshire’s technological wizardry on the Doctor Who theme was hidden behind the anonymity of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, and Memphis Minnie’s name is nowhere near as well-known as that of her contemporary Muddy Waters.

Long overdue stories

The history of women in popular music is not as hard to trace as it may be for their classical counterparts, but the story (and indeed the reality) boxes them in to particular functions. Timeless, iconic voice is one of those functions – trailblazing musical innovator is not.

Luhrmann’s film faces head-on the musical debt that Presley – and by extension rock‘n’roll – owed to African American musical culture. It does so sympathetically to Presley, setting up black gospel music and the Beale Street music scene as his creative homes, sound worlds he shared with white America because he had been steeped in them since his childhood.

It’s not without its problems as a representation. Presley also sits in a long and complicated history of white artists’ relationship to culture outside of the white mainstream. This includes capitalising on musical styles with black origins (including Eminem in rap, or Amy Winehouse in jazz), making popular covers of songs by black artists (The Beatles’ Please Mr. Postman or Eric Clapton’s I Shot the Sheriff), or simply straight-up cultural appropriation (think Iggy Azalea’s Bounce or Justin Bieber’s dreadlocks).

Read more: Rosalía: raising reggaeton’s global cachet or robbing it of its roots?

The question of authenticity hangs heavy over Presley’s musical legacy, and it’s not a simple one to answer. The history of rock‘n’roll is inextricably linked to the long, grim history of racial politics in America, and telling it requires great care and sensitivity.

We may, though, be long overdue for an equivalent story on the subject of women like Sister Rosetta Tharpe in popular music history.

Freya Jarman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

When it came out in 2005, one of the most contentious topics presented in the book Freakonomics was Steven Levitt & John Donohue's hypothesis on the link between unwanted pregnancies, legalized abortion, and crime.  For the uninitiated, Levitt & Donohue published their paper, "The Impact of Legalized Abortion on Crime" in 2001, stating that "Legalized abortion appears to account for as much as 50 percent of the recent drop in crime." — Read the rest

The goalposts of wealth are always shifting due to inflation and other factors. For example, someone with a net worth of $1 million several decades ago would have been considered very wealthy. According to recent survey results, however, $1 million is only enough to feel “financially comfortable” today. In this infographic, we’ve visualized several money milestones to give you a better idea of what it really takes to be wealthy in America.

Net Worth Milestones

This table lists the data used in the above infographic.

It covers data on what it takes to get into the top one percent for wealth in key states, along with broader survey results about what net worth thresholds must be crossed in order to be considered “comfortable financially” or even “wealthy”.

According to Charles Schwab’s Modern Wealth Survey, a net worth of $774,000 is needed to feel “financially comfortable”, while $2.2 million is needed to be considered “wealthy”.

Both of these milestones are far greater than the average (median) American’s wealth, which according to the Federal Reserve, was $122,000 in 2019.

Related: How Much Health Insurers Pay for Almost Everything Is About to Go Public

Joining the One Percent

Research by Knight Frank determined that in order to be a member of America’s one percent, one would need a net worth of $4.4 million. This is very high compared to other developed countries such as Japan ($1.5 million), the UK ($1.8 million), and Australia ($2.8 million).

The difference is partly due to America’s large population of ultra high net worth individuals, which includes the country’s 724 billionaires. See below for a list of the top five countries by number of billionaires.

Focusing again on the U.S., we can also see large discrepancies at the individual state level. Entry into California’s one percent requires a net worth of $6.8 million, which is 62% higher than the national average.

California is famously home to many of the world’s richest people, including Google co-founder Larry Page, and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

Being a one percenter in Mississippi, on the other hand, requires $766,000. That’s 83% lower than the national average, and just a tad lower than the amount needed to be “financially comfortable” by the average American. This is partially due to Mississippi’s poverty rate of 19.6%, which according to the U.S. Census Bureau, is the highest in the country.

Story attributed to Visual Capitalist.

The post What Does It Take To Be Wealthy in America? appeared first on ModernGlobe.

Streaming movies may be the preferred method of entertainment at the moment, but in Tampa one historic movie palace still has a special place in movie-lovers’ hearts. Almost 100-years-old, the Tampa Theatre is a gorgeous piece of Tampa entertainment history. The theater shows everything from silent films to the latest blockbuster. Find out how the theater has stayed open for so long and become an important landmark for Tampa residents.

A product of the studio system

The Tampa Theatre opened on October 15, 1926. It was built by Paramount Studios. Back then, movies studios took part in vertical integration where they owned every part of the movie-making process, — the stars, the directors, the movies and even the theaters the movies were shown in. This system eventually became a monopoly, which the United States Supreme Court put an end to in 1948 with the case United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc.

But in the mid-1920s, lavish movie theaters were being built all around the country. For 25 cents you could be ushered in to an air-conditioned palace and watch the latest “talkie” in plush velvet seats. Tampa Theatre was designed by John Eberson, a Chicago-based architect who wintered in Florida and was inspired by the multi-ethnic opulence he associated with the state:

I was impressed with the colorful scenes that greeted me at Miami, Palm Beach and Tampa. Visions of Italian gardens, Spanish patios, Persian shrines and French formal gardens flashed through my mind, and at once I directed my energies to carrying out these ideas.

John Eberson, Tampa Tribune, October 15, 1926

And the style of the Tampa Theatre is certainly unique. The lobby is made to resemble a Mediterranean courtyard with columns, cascading flowers, gargoyles and Spanish tile. The actual theater, which can sit over 1,000 people, has an artificial nighttime sky complete with twinkling lights.

Making history

With the rise of television in the 1950s, movie theaters fell in popularity. Ticket prices increasing combined with the fall of the studio system, led to many historic movie theaters being demolished. In fact, in 1973, the Tampa Theatre was headed in that direction. But enough citizens and local community leaders saw the value of keeping the Tampa Theatre around and the Tampa City Council purchased the theater. It was reopened in 1977, named in the National Register of Historic Places in 1978, and became a Tampa City Landmark in 1988.

Preservation even saved the Theatre’s organ. Known as “The Mighty Wurlitzer Theatre Organ,” it was installed in the Theatre’s early history to accompany silent films. “Talkies” eventually dominated the movie market in the 1930s, so the 1,400-pipe organ was sold to a local church. However, in the 1980s volunteers from The Central Florida Theatre Organ Society (CFTOS) reacquired and reinstalled The Mighty Wurlitzer. Organ music is still played before movies and whenever the Theatre hosts a concert or shows a silent film.

Talk of the town

Nowadays, the Tampa Theatre is a big part of the Tampa Bay social scene. The Tampa Theatre hosts over 700 events every year, including:

• Movies
• Live concerts
• Stand-up shows
• Educational programs
• Summer camps for kids

You can also just have a tour of the magnificent movie palace. So if you’re looking to beat the summer heat, head down to Franklin Street to check out a piece of Tampa history.

More Hidden Histories

• Gas Plant District
• Mutual Aid Societies
• Sunken Gardens
• Armature Works
• Tampa Street Car
• Sulphur Springs

The post Hidden History: The Tampa Theatre appeared first on ModernGlobe.

In a report released last week, the Copyright Office advised against adopting additional rights for press publishers. Specifically:

Comment

Status of the investigation for alleged abuse of dominance: in progress

Indeed, the Impact Assessment accompanying the Commission’s proposal for a DSM Directive referred specifically to the German and Spanish experiences, and acknowledged that these had been “ineffective”. It linked such ineffectiveness to “the lack of scale of national solutions” This, in turn, served to justify legislative intervention on an EU-wide scale.

"Fractal wood burning" refers to using hacked microwave power supplies to char Lichtenberg figures into wood. It is extraordinarily dangerous, and dozens of people have been killed following instructions contained in viral videos. Ann Reardon recently posted a thorough debunking of the method, which quickly became popular in its own right—a timely and essential remedy to a lethal problem that social media companies are under no obligation to deal with themselves. — Read the rest

A few Giant African Snails have been popping up in Pasco County. The first sighting was confirmed on June 23. They are invasive, posing a threat to vegetation as well as potentially spreading rat lungworm. Luckily, you are unlikely to see one and if you do; they are easy to spot. However, they do breed rapidly, so if you happen upon a Giant African snail, here’s what you need to know.

What do Giant African Snails look like?

The adult snail is around 7 cm (2.8 in) in diameter and 20 cm (7.9 in) or more in length. The shell is cone shaped and brown.

Where do they come from?

The Giant African Snail is native to East Africa, predominantly in Kenya and Tanzania. However, they are highly invasive as they are highly adaptable to new environments. Releasing them into the wild is illegal the species can now be found in many humid, subtropical climates — including Florida.

Currently in Pasco County, a quarantine is in place, starting at the northwest corner of U.S. Highway 19 and Ridge Road. Proceed east on Ridge Road, south on Little Road, west on Trouble Creek Road, north on U.S. Highway 19. This is near where the last snail was seen.

What do they do?

The Giant African Snail is an herbivore that eats a wide variety of plant material including fruit, vegetables, lichens and fungi. However, they have also been known to eat paper, cardboard, sand and even small pebbles. Sometimes they will eat stucco in buildings as a source for calcium.

In terms of reproduction, they lay shelled eggs numbering at about 200 eggs per clutch, 5 to 6 clutches per year. So when they reproduce — it’s a lot. They can also live for up to 10 years.

What to do if you see a Giant African snail

In Pasco County, the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services has begun to survey the area. They started treatment for the snail on June 29, 2022. FDACS will treat properties with a metaldehyde-based molluscicide (snail bait). The treatment is labeled by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for residential use.  

If you see a snail in your yard, call 1-888-397-1517 or email DPIHelpline@FDACS.gov

The post Giant African Snail — What You Need To Know appeared first on ModernGlobe.

Consumers, employers, and just about everyone else interested in health care prices will soon get an unprecedented look at what insurers pay for care. This might help answer the question: Are we getting the best deal we can?

As of July 1, health insurers and self-insured employers must post on websites just about every price they’ve negotiated with providers for health care services, item by item. About the only thing excluded are the prices paid for prescription drugs, except those administered in hospitals or doctors’ offices.

The federally required data release could affect future prices or even how employers contract for health care. Many will see for the first time how well their insurers are doing compared with others.

Related: More States Allowing Students To Take Mental Health Days Off

The new rules are far broader than those that went into effect last year requiring hospitals to post their negotiated rates for the public to see. Now insurers must post the amounts paid for “every physician in network, every hospital, every surgery center, every nursing facility,” said Jeffrey Leibach, a partner at the consulting firm Guidehouse.

“When you start doing the math, you’re talking trillions of records,” he said. The fines the federal government could impose for noncompliance are also heftier than the penalties that hospitals face.

Federal officials learned from the hospital experience and gave insurers more direction on what was expected, said Leibach. Insurers or self-insured employers could be fined as much as $100 a day for each violation, for each affected enrollee if they fail to provide the data.

“Get your calculator out: All of a sudden you are in the millions pretty fast,” Leibach said.

Determined consumers, especially those with high-deductible health plans, may try to dig in right away. They can use the data to compare what they will pay at different hospitals, clinics, or doctor offices for services.

But each database’s enormous size may mean that most people “will find it very hard to use the data in a nuanced way,” said Katherine Baicker, dean of the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy.

At least at first.

Entrepreneurs are expected to quickly translate the information into more user-friendly formats. Then it can be incorporated into new or existing services that estimate costs for patients. And starting Jan. 1, the rules require insurers to provide online tools that will help people get upfront cost estimates for about 500 so-called “shoppable” services. This means medical care they can schedule ahead of time.

Once those things happen, “you’ll at least have the options in front of you,” said Chris Severn, CEO of Turquoise Health, an online company that has posted price information made available under the rules for hospitals, although many hospitals have yet to comply.

With the addition of the insurers’ data, sites like his will be able to drill down further into cost variation.

“If you’re going to get an X-ray, you will be able to see that you can do it for $250 at this hospital, $75 at the imaging center down the road, or your specialist can do it in office for $25,” he said.

Everyone will know everyone else’s business. For example, how much insurers Aetna and Humana pay the same surgery center for a knee replacement?

The requirements stem from the Affordable Care Act and a 2019 executive order by then-President Donald Trump.

Related: Adventurous play outdoors leads to stronger mental health for kids

“These plans are supposed to be acting on behalf of employers in negotiating good rates, and the little insight we have on that shows it has not happened,” said Elizabeth Mitchell, president and CEO of the Purchaser Business Group on Health, an affiliation of employers who offer job-based health benefits to workers. “I do believe the dynamics are going to change.”

Other observers are more circumspect.

“Maybe at best this will reduce the wide variance of prices out there,” said Zack Cooper, director of health policy at the Yale University Institution for Social and Policy Studies. “But it won’t be unleashing a consumer revolution.”

Still, the biggest value of the July data release may well be to shed light on how successful insurers have been at negotiating prices. It comes on the heels of research that has shown tremendous variation in what is paid for health care. A recent study by the Rand Corp., for example, shows that employers that offer job-based insurance plans paid, on average, 224% more than Medicare for the same services.

Tens of thousands of employers who buy insurance coverage for their workers will get this more-complete pricing picture. And may not like what they see.

“What we’re learning from the hospital data is that insurers are really bad at negotiating,” said Gerard Anderson, a professor in the department of health policy at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, citing research that found that negotiated rates for hospital care can be higher than what the facilities accept from patients who are not using insurance and are paying cash.

That could add to the frustration that Mitchell and others say employers have with the current health insurance system. More might try to contract with providers directly, only using insurance companies for claims processing.

Other employers may bring their insurers back to the bargaining table.

“For the first time, an employer will be able to go to an insurance company and say, ‘You have not negotiated a good-enough deal, and we know that because we can see the same provider has negotiated a better deal with another company,’” said James Gelfand, president of the ERISA Industry Committee, a trade group of self-insured employers.

If that happens, he added, “patients will be able to save money.”

That’s not necessarily a given, however.

This kind of public release of pricing data hasn’t been tried widely in health care before. So how it will affect future spending remains uncertain. If insurers are pushed back to the bargaining table or providers see where they stand relative to their peers, prices could drop. However, some providers could raise their prices if they see they are charging less than their peers.

“Downward pressure may not be a given,” said Kelley Schultz, vice president of commercial policy for AHIP, the industry’s trade lobby.

Baicker, of the University of Chicago, said that even after the data is out, rates will continue to be heavily influenced by local conditions, such as the size of an insurer or employer — providers often give bigger discounts, for example, to the insurers or self-insured employers that can send them the most patients. The number of hospitals in a region also matters. If an area has only one, for instance, that usually means the facility can demand higher rates.

Another unknown: Will insurers meet the deadline and provide usable data?

Schultz, at AHIP, said the industry is well on the way, partly because the original deadline was extended by six months. She expects insurers to do better than the hospital industry. “We saw a lot of hospitals that just decided not to post files or make them difficult to find,” she said.

So far, more than 300 noncompliant hospitals received warning letters from the government. But they could face $300-a-day fines for failing to comply, which is less than what insurers potentially face, although the federal government has recently upped the ante to up to $5,500 a day for the largest facilities.

Even after the pricing data is public, “I don’t think things will change overnight,” said Leibach. “Patients are still going to make care decisions based on their doctors and referrals, a lot of reasons other than price.”

Story from Kaiser Health News.

The post How Much Health Insurers Pay for Almost Everything Is About to Go Public appeared first on ModernGlobe.

The Genealogy Guys take a stand

George Morgan and Drew Smith are The Genealogy Guys — educators, writers, speakers, and producers of the popular podcast by the same name.

They have long been counted among The Legal Genealogist‘s friends.

And never have I been prouder of that fact — prouder of them, and their courage — than I am today.

You can see from the banner of their website that, yesterday, they listed five sponsors: MyHeritage, RootsMagic, Vivid-Pix, Newspapers.com and Find A Grave.

As of this morning, they have three sponsors.

At midnight last night, George and Drew terminated their sponsorship by Find A Grave and its sister Ancestry site Newspapers.com over the failure — indeed, the refusal — of Ancestry to take meaningful steps even in the wake of the Uvalde shooting tragedy to enforce genealogical ethics on its Find A Grave site.¹

Their reasons are clearly stated in their blog this morning. Speaking for their corporate entity, Aha! Seminars, Inc., they wrote:

The genealogical community has repeatedly requested that Ancestry.com, the parent company of Find a Grave, establish ethical policies and processes for controlling the addition of memorial records at its site. These include, but are not limited to, preventing “volunteers” from creating memorials indiscriminately for anyone they choose, especially for the recently deceased to whom they have no connection. Ancestry.com has incentivized such activity by publishing the number of memorials created by individuals. Ancestry.com has further encouraged competition by publishing announcements on Facebook and elsewhere naming “Volunteer of the Month’ for the number of new records created.

Within hours of the identification of victims of the recent massacre at the public school in Uvalde, Texas, “volunteers” added memorial pages for Find a Grave for the victims. These “volunteers” were not family members and did not have complete or correct personal information for the victims. These people usurped the rights of families. The genealogical community has been outraged that Ancestry.com has not implemented ethical and respectful policies that prevent this egregious activity by non-family members and impose a respectful delay on when and by whom memorials for recent deaths can be created.

Aha! Seminars, Inc., contacted an Ancestry.com representative to appeal for changes and received boilerplate responses that neither acknowledged the problems nor indicated that any changes were forthcoming. Those boilerplate responses were apparently sent to all persons who contacted Ancestry.com to complain.

Inasmuch as Ancestry.com has continually failed to address the problems and develop responsible, ethical, and respectable policies, especially after the Uvalde massacre, Aha! Seminars, Inc., no longer wishes to have Ancestry.com’s subsidiaries, Find a Grave and Newspapers.com as sponsors of our podcast. We invoked cancellation clauses in the sponsorship contracts and effected the discontinuation of the sponsorships effective June 30, 2022.²

Folks, it takes a special kind of courage to take this kind of action. Many many members of the genealogical community have pleaded with Ancestry to act in a meaningful way. We’ve spoken out out directly and as powerfully as we can. But George and Drew have done so in a way that affects them in their pocketbook. They have literally put their money where their mouth is. They have shown, in the most direct way possible, the courage of their convictions.

In their blog post, The Genealogy Guys concluded: “We hope that Ancestry.com will take action on this long-standing problem.”³

So do we all, my friends.

So do we all.

Ancestry… are you listening?

Cite/link to this post: Judy G. Russell, “The courage of their convictions,” The Legal Genealogist (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog : posted 1 July 2022).

SOURCES

One of the hallmarks of democratic society is a healthy, free-flowing media ecosystem.

In times past, that media ecosystem would include various mass media outlets, from newspapers to cable TV networks. Today, the internet and social media platforms have greatly expanded the scope and reach of communication within society.

Of course, journalism plays a key role within that ecosystem. High quality journalism and the unprecedented transparency of social media keeps power structures in check—and sometimes, these forces can drive genuine societal change. Reporters bring us news from the front lines of conflict, and uncover hard truths through investigative journalism.

More from Modern Globe: Who’s Still Buying Fossil Fuels From Russia?

That said, these positive impacts are sometimes overshadowed by harmful practices and negative externalities occurring in the media ecosystem.

The graphic above is an attempt to catalog problems within the media ecosystem as a basis for discussion. Many of the problems are easy to understand once they’re identified. However, in some cases, there is an interplay between these issues that is worth digging into. Below are a few of those instances.

Explicit Bias vs. Implicit Bias

Broadly speaking, bias in media breaks down into two types: explicit and implicit.

Publishers with explicit biases will overtly dictate the types of stories that are covered in their publications and control the framing of those stories. They usually have a political or ideological leaning, and these outlets will use narrative fallacies or false balance in an effort to push their own agenda.

Unintentional filtering or skewing of information is referred to as implicit bias, and this can manifest in a few different ways. For example, a publication may turn a blind eye to a topic or issue because it would paint an advertiser in a bad light. These are called no fly zones, and given the financial struggles of the news industry, these no fly zones are becoming increasingly treacherous territory.

Misinformation vs. Disinformation

Both of these terms imply that information being shared is not factually sound. The key difference is that misinformation is unintentional, and disinformation is deliberately created to deceive people.

Fake news stories, and concepts like deepfakes, fall into the latter category. We broke down the entire spectrum of fake news and how to spot it, in a previous infographic.

Simplify, Simplify

Mass media and social feeds are the ultimate Darwinistic scenario for ideas.

Through social media, stories are shared widely by many participants, and the most compelling framing usually wins out. More often than not, it’s the pithy, provocative posts that spread the furthest. This process strips context away from an idea, potentially warping its meaning.

Video clips shared on social platforms are a prime example of context stripping in action. An (often shocking) event occurs, and it generates a massive amount of discussion despite the complete lack of context.

This unintentionally encourages viewers to stereotype the persons in the video and bring our own preconceived ideas to the table to help fill in the gaps.

Members of the media are also looking for punchy story angles to capture attention and prove the point they’re making in an article. This can lead to cherrypicking facts and ideas. Cherrypicking is especially problematic because the facts are often correct, so they make sense at face value, however, they lack important context.

Simplified models of the world make for compelling narratives, like good-vs-evil, but situations are often far more complex than what meets the eye.

The News Media Squeeze

It’s no secret that journalism is facing lean times. Newsrooms are operating with much smaller teams and budgets, and one result is ‘churnalism’. This term refers to the practice of publishing articles directly from wire services and public relations releases.

Churnalism not only replaces more rigorous forms of reporting—but also acts as an avenue for advertising and propaganda that is harder to distinguish from the news.

The increased sense of urgency to drive revenue is causing other problems as well. High-quality content is increasingly being hidden behind paywalls.

More on Modern Globe: Study Finds ‘Nordic Diet’ Could Prevent Childhood Obesity

The end result is a two-tiered system, with subscribers receiving thoughtful, high-quality news, and everyone else accessing shallow or sensationalized content. That everyone else isn’t just people with lower incomes, it also largely includes younger people. The average age of today’s paid news subscriber is 50 years old, raising questions about the future of the subscription business model.

For outlets that rely on advertising, desperate times have called for desperate measures. User experience has taken a backseat to ad impressions, with ad clutter (e.g. auto-play videos, pop-ups, and prompts) interrupting content at every turn. Meanwhile, in the background, third-party trackers are still watching your every digital move, despite all the privacy opt-in prompts.

How Can We Fix the Problems with Media?

With great influence comes great responsibility. There is no easy fix to the issues that plague news and social media. But the first step is identifying these issues, and talking about them.

The more media literate we collectively become, the better equipped we will be to reform these broken systems, and push for accuracy and transparency in the communication channels that bind society together.

Story attributed to Visual Capitalist.

The post 33 Problems With Media in One Chart appeared first on ModernGlobe.

On day one of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, February 24, Russian troops seized Snake Island, a tiny rocky outcrop south-west of Odesa which – before the war – played host to a marine research station and a lighthouse. Resistance to the Russian assault became a propaganda coup for Ukrainians. The defenders gave a Russian warship the finger and sent the message: “go fuck yourself” – something that became shorthand for the defiant Ukrainian resistance. It is now reported that the Russians have been forced to withdraw, a serious strategic and propaganda coup for Ukraine.

I mention this because, in last week’s Recap, we featured a story from Basil Germond, a maritime power expert from the University of Lancaster, who pointed to the strategic importance of the island and predicted that Russia’s increasing impotence in terms of naval power is likely to become its undoing. It looks as if we may be seeing this theory playing out in real-time. More about this in next week’s newsletter.

While Russia’s grind through the Donbas region continues, leaving grieving relatives and homeless families in its wake, most of the headlines this week have concerned the diplomatic front, where some important decisions taken by world leaders at summits of the EU, the G7 and Nato will reorder global security in response to Russia’s aggression and China’s increasingly assertive economic and military posturing.

Writing before the summit, meanwhile, the University of Birmingham’s Mark Webber, observed that most of the biggest contributions Nato could make to the cause of Ukrainian self-defence would be off the table: the idea of a no-fly zone was ruled out early on, while a naval operation to break the blockade is also unlikely. And the idea of fast-tracking Ukraine into the alliance is also a non-starter. For now, writes Webber, Nato remains an alliance committed to defending the territory of its member nations.

Read more: Ukraine war: Nato summit to meet in a world reordered by Russian aggression and Chinese ambition

This is our weekly recap of expert analysis of the Ukraine conflict. The Conversation, a not-for-profit news group, works with a wide range of academics across its global network to produce evidence-based analysis. Get these recaps in your inbox every Thursday. Subscribe here.

Webber’s Birmingham colleague Stefan Wolff sees the main takeaways from the Nato summit and the G7 meeting which immediately preceded it as the limit to western-dominated global governance in the face of forces the west cannot control. Russia’s war on Ukraine and its associated food blockade, on the one hand, and China’s COVID clampdown on the other are creating a shortage of food and fuel and disrupting supply chains, forcing up prices across the board.

Meanwhile, the decision to admit Finland and Sweden to Nato will merely ratchet up the temperature another notch, while inviting Australia, Japan, Korea and New Zealand as “key partners” hints at the intention of creating an equivalent alliance in the Asia-Pacific, although this is something that Nato’s secretary general Jens Stoltenberg has denied.

Read more: G7 and Nato summits lay bare deep and hostile divide between Russia and China and the west

The Nato and G7 summits followed a meeting of the EU at which Ukraine and Moldova were accepted as candidate members. But, writes Stephen Hall – an expert in international politics at the University of Bath, whose focus is the post-Soviet space – this is where the hard work will really begin for both countries. Some candidate members – Turkey and various Balkan countries spring to mind – have been made to wait many years.

Read more: Ukraine and Moldova gain EU candidate status but face a long road to full membership

So, at present, international support for Ukraine is limited to the supply of advanced weaponry and the application of ever more stringent sanctions on Russia and various prominent Russians. Our colleagues from France have published this excellent piece from a team of economists at the French research network CEPII, which highlights that the deeper the sanctions, the more blowback on the countries doing the sanctioning. And after six separate packages, these sanctions are huge.

Read more: Sanctions against Russia: taking stock four months after the start of the war

The propaganda war

We have consistently pointed out that the battle for hearts and minds is as crucial as the military operation. That remains as true for Russia as for Ukraine, truer perhaps – after all, Putin needs to continue to motivate the Russian people to send their sons and daughters into harm’s way as well as endure the privations brought on by the above-mentioned western sanctions. So far the Kremlin’s propaganda machine appears to be succeeding in maintaining support for the Russian president and the war (in April, 83% of Russians said they supported their president and most also backed the war).

Julia Khrebtan-Hörhager, from Colorado State University, and Evgeniya Pyatovskaya, from the University of South Florida, explain that much of Putin’s message is rooted in his understanding of history: the hankering after empire and restoration of the national pride that had been so damaged by the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the years of turmoil and hardship that followed.

Read more: Putin’s propaganda is rooted in Russian history – and that's why it works

But Putin’s knowledge of history appears to be rather coloured by his own self-image. Earlier this month he gave a talk to a group of young entrepreneurs and scientists during which he compared himself to Peter the Great, whose 1721 conquest of lands formerly controlled by Sweden enabled him to transform Russia from a tsardom to a Eurasian empire. “Putin the Great” has a certain ring to it, one imagines him thinking.

But, as Oxford historian Olivia Durand points out, Peter the Great, one of whose greatest achievements was to build St Petersburg, Russia’s “window on the west” (and Putin’s birthplace), actually had very little in common with the Russian president. Durand runs through a few Russian rulers who might make a more apposite comparison, including Ivan the Terrible.

Read more: Ukraine invasion suggests Putin is more Vladimir the Reactionary than Peter the Great

Ukraine Recap is available as a weekly email newsletter. Click here to get our recaps directly in your inbox.