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Of all the places to buy Inuit art in the Canadian Arctic, one of the most unusual is the minimum-security jail in Iqaluit, capital of the territory of Nunavut. The jail isn’t on the maps handed out to tourists. It sits between downtown and the airport, and taxi drivers know it simply as “new jail.” On Federal Road, below a small Department of Justice Crest, a sign shows photos of a drum-dancer sculpture and traditional fur boots, with the words “Makigiarvik Clothing and Carving Sales” in English and Inuktitut.
In the Inuktitut language, “Makigiarvik” means “to go through hard times and start over.” This men’s jail, Makigiavrik Correctional Centre, was named in consultation with Inuit elders. Every Friday, from 1:30 to 4:30 p.m., it hosts a sale of everything from soapstone carvings to crocheted hats to animal bone jewelry. “Typically, we sell out every week,” says Jean-Pierre Deroy, Nunavut’s Director of Corrections. “Word of mouth in this town goes very quickly.” Sometimes, there are crafts and carvings from the nearby women’s jail.
Makigiarvik is a territorial jail for men who are awaiting trial for a range of alleged crimes, or who are serving sentences of less than two years. (Longer sentences are typically served in federal prisons.) Locals tend to know when a renowned carver has been arrested—and they know that carvings here are priced to sell quickly, so the artists can help support their families.
Tall fences surround the jail. Once inside, visitors will find a reception area that features a large glass cabinet filled with carvings. Most visitors don’t get to meet the carvers, who work on weekdays for three hours in the morning and three hours in the afternoon. But on a dark December day, I arrive at 3 p.m. with special permission to interview some. I’m warned not to photograph any doors, for security reasons. In a fenced-in, outdoor area, two carvers are working with grinders and files, wearing winter overalls, steel-toed boots, safety goggles, and ear protectors.
Elijah Jonah, a marine engineer from Iqaluit, is making a black soapstone raven and a green owl that he expects to price at around $230 in U.S. dollars. Usually, he sells his carvings at the local museum or restaurants—not the local galleries, “because they’re the ones making the profits.” He says the carving program gives him “something to do outdoors, something I like to do, and get paid for it.” He has experimented with roses, hunters, drum dancers, and even a Guy Fawkes mask.
Toonoo Sharkey, a full-time artist from Cape Dorset, works on an abstract bird. He’s been carving since he was 10, so his work is more elaborate, priced from $610 to $1,500. He sells his creations through the West Baffin Eskimo Co-operative, or a shop owner who wholesales to southern Canada. He sends money from jail sales to his family for food and clothes.
David Ross Pugh, a cook who is working on a loon, says that carving in jail “is like going to see a psychiatrist. You’ve got a piece of stone. You’ve got a file. All your anger, all your stress, all your effort goes into that piece of stone.” Otherwise, he adds, he’d dwell on his mistakes.
Here in Nunavut, temperatures stay well below freezing for most of the year, and the average yearly snowfall would have to be measured in feet, not inches. Around 38,000 people live in 25 remote, fly-in communities that aren’t connected by roads. About 85 percent are Inuit whose ancestors have lived for centuries in what is now Northern Canada, Alaska, and Greenland, and whose way of life traditionally revolved around the land, family, hunting, and fishing.
Indigenous people—Inuit, First Nations and Métis—have long been overrepresented in the Canadian criminal justice system. A recent federal report found that around 30 percent of the people incarcerated in provincial, territorial, and federal facilities are Indigenous, even though they make up just four percent of the adult population. They tend to be jailed younger, denied bail more often, and granted parole less often. These are some of the devastating impacts of colonialism, residential schools, intergenerational trauma, racism, and socioeconomic inequity.
To case workers at the jail, the carving program is about therapy and helping families. They buy soapstone, sell it to the men at cost, and the carvers keep 80 percent from each sale. They can use it at the canteen, for stuff like snacks and toiletries, or send it home. The other 20 percent goes to the system, which says it spends the money on communal carving supplies, coffee machines, treadmills, and PlayStations.
Ryan Farrell, one of the case workers, says he sees “a lot of anticipation” during Friday sales at the jail. Musicians, actors, the prime minister’s security team, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police have all been customers. I first visited in 2017, and bought two pieces. Though it’s not Friday when I visit for the second time, I’m given permission to buy Pugh’s $65 Spirit Loon and two polar bear sculptures by Eegeesiak Shoo. (Sharkey’s mesmerizing sculptures are out of my price range, and Jonah’s rare raven isn’t finished.)
Inuit artists have long created stone carvings, fur clothing, and ivory tools, and historically traded them with settlers for things like guns, ammunition, sugar, and tea. Art sales really started in 1949 at an exhibit in Montreal, according to Darlene Coward Wight, curator of Inuit art at the Winnipeg Art Gallery since 1986. The gallery’s historic Inuit Art Centre is slated to open later this year in Winnipeg, Manitoba, to showcase the world’s largest collection of Inuit art, culture, and history.
Wight hasn’t been to the Friday jail sales, and rarely stops in Iqaluit when she travels north to meet Inuit artists and do research in smaller communities. (Those communities don’t typically have museums, jail sales, or informal restaurant sales; some don’t even have restaurants.) But she likes the idea. “The practice by the jail in Iqaluit of allowing inmates to create carvings to support their families is a good one,” says Wight. “That income is welcome as the largely male population is not able to hunt or otherwise provide for their families while incarcerated. It allows established carvers to maintain or improve their level of skill.”
Wight adds that most Canadians and visiting collectors buy Inuit art from galleries in the south, and never visit Nunavut or the artists who live there. Carvings Nunavut, a local Inuit-owned company, will send carvings around the world.
Nunavut is only a three-hour flight from Ottawa, but the most affordable flights cost at least as much as a transatlantic flight, and few tourists make the journey. Hotels and meals are expensive. Outside of Iqaluit, communities such as Pangnirtung, known for its crocheted hats and tapestries made at the Uqqurmiut Centre for Arts & Crafts, have only one hotel. Some communities do get occasional batches of visitors, though: Cape Dorset, renowned for its limited-edition prints, attracts cruise ships that allow artists to make cash sales on the street or in a local community hall.
There are, of course, other ways to buy art in Iqaluit—namely, going to a restaurant or bar and waiting for artists to come by with carvings, prints, sealskin bracelets, and tiny sealskin owls on strings, which double as Christmas tree ornaments. It’s a northern thing—elsewhere in Canada, everything is sold in stores. The Nunavut Arts and Crafts Association tags all Inuit art with the artist’s name and home community, along with the artwork title, material, price, and date it was created.
In a community where food prices are many times the prices in large Canadian cities, haggling is frowned upon, whether in public places or at the jail. “Many artists live by art only,” says Eva Aariak, the former premier of Nunavut and owner of a boutique called Malikkaat, which specializes in sealskin clothing, carvings, and jewelry. “Don’t worry about getting ripped off,” an old- timer tells me at the Royal Canadian Legion. “If you like it, buy it.”
The gift shop of a local nonprofit, Nunatta Sunakkutaangit Museum, is said to have great deals. Jessica Kotierk, a manager and curator, add a 40 percent mark-up on the art she purchases. But she pays up front in cash, and believes artists undervalue their work, so she sometimes offers more.
On a dark and blustery December afternoon, when Iqaluit only gets a few hours of daylight each day, Lucassie Kilabuk wanders in with seal-claw earrings and a necklace pendant. “Wow—those are so cool,” Kotierk says. “How much?” He asks for $30 each, and Kotierk quickly agrees. Then she sells one to me for $42.
The museum organizes its gift shop by artist, instead of theme, to show the scope of each person’s work. On a shelf full of polar bear, walrus, and inuksuit carvings, one of the names jumps out at me: Eegeesiak Shoo, whom I met in Makigiarvik jail while he was finishing up a walrus.
Shoo appreciates the ability to carve in jail, because it allows him to send several hundred dollars to his family each week and make purchases in the canteen. He lives in Iqaluit and prefers to sell to the museum, “because they give me the price I want.” On the outside, he also makes the rounds of the bars and restaurants. Sometimes, he says, people just drive up to his home in the nearby community of Apex, where he carves outside when he’s not doing his day job as a maintenance worker. “I’m a carver,” he says. “When I’m not working, I’m carving.”
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Within a two-hour drive from Atlanta, an adventurous yet relaxing retreat awaits along the beautiful shores of Georgia’s Lake Country. With a combined 35,000 acres of glistening waters, Georgia’s Lake Country beckons sunshine lovers to explore two expansive lakes and four picture-perfect small towns. From stunning sunset cruises to world-class fishing to idyllic shopping and dining destinations, Lakes Oconee and Sinclair offer the promise of living the best version of your lake life dreams.
The Lakes
Once you make it to Lake Country, there’s only one thing left to do: get out on the water. Go for a swim, ride a jet ski, or maybe even do some water skiing. Bring your rod and reel for world-class fishing on Lake Sinclair, or rent a pontoon for hours of family cannonball competitions from one of the many local outfitters on Lake Oconee.
Golf
If working on your swing is more your speed, Georgia’s Lake Country is home to 11 golf courses, each one offering a unique experience to the golf enthusiast. GOLF magazine continues to rank two of the Reynolds Lake Oconee courses in America’s Top 100 and four in the top 10 in Georgia. Offering an integration of superior equipment technology with golf instruction, Reynolds Kingdom of Golf presented by TaylorMade is one of only two such facilities in the country, providing an exclusive retreat for full-game improvement.
Adventure
Spend the day exploring miles of walking and biking trails, shooting clays, riding dirt bikes, and taking in the great outdoors. Durhamtown Off Road Resort offers over 150 miles of trails open to bikes, ATVs, and SXS. Hike along 30 miles of trails and wetlands that surround old cemeteries, home sites, quarries and lead to an ancient effigy at Rock Hawk. The recreation possibilities are endless.
Oconee River
The Oconee River is to thank for the creation of both Lakes Oconee and Sinclair, but more than just a source for the reservoirs, the river is a destination of its own. South of the Sinclair Dam, the river flows unobstructed. Local outfitter rentals and boat ramps at the Oconee River Greenway make it an easy float by kayak or canoe for everyone in the family to enjoy.
Spas
If your destination is relaxation, whether you’re a health novice or an experienced spa goer, Georgia’s Lake Country offers relaxing and pampering treatments. The only goal for each guest at The Spa at The James Madison Inn is to enjoy a personalized and relaxing experience of body treatments, facials, and soothing massages. Drawing inspiration from its surroundings, The Spa at The Ritz-Carlton Reynolds, Lake Oconee offers a menu infused with native Georgia ingredients, water-themed therapies, and a lodge-like space with windows overlooking Lake Oconee.
Unique Lodging
Rocking on a front porch with an ice cold sweet tea in hand isn’t just a daydream, it is a way of life in Georgia’s Lake Country. Southern hospitality flourishes among the historic antebellum era B&Bs and luxury resorts. Charming amenities, complimentary bicycles, wine and cheese hours, and full gourmet breakfasts await you. If you enjoy sitting around the campfire roasting marshmallows and waking to the sunrise over the water, various lakeside campgrounds are the perfect option.
Downtown Milledgeville
Founded in 1803, Milledgeville served as the capital of Georgia during the Civil War and was recently named one of the coolest small towns in America. This charming southern town boasts a hip college vibe that has an eclectic mix of locally owned shops and dining options. A popular tourist tour destination, Georgia’s Old Governor’s Mansion was home to Georgia’s governors from 1839 to 1868 and was occupied by General Sherman at one point. Showcasing the beautiful Greek Revival architecture style, the Mansion is open for guided tours daily. The best way to take in the town of Milledgeville is aboard their Historic Trolley Tour, offered Wednesdays-Saturdays.
Downtown Madison
Discover picturesque antebellum homes while shopping boutiques and antiques to find one-of-a-kind treasures to take home. Madison is the town Sherman refused to burn on his infamous March to the Sea and its National Register Historic District is one of the state’s largest collections of 19th century architecture. Tour Heritage Hall for a classically Southern experience, as this Greek Revival home was built in 1811 and was a private residence until 1977. Madison also features one of the South’s few authentic dude ranches, Southern Cross Guest Ranch. Home to well over 150 quality Paint and Quarter horses, the Ranch is known for its exceptional 17-room inn, hands-on horseback riding programs, and unguided riding opportunities.
Downtown Greensboro
Lake Oconee’s hometown was around long before the lake was created. Greensboro was founded in 1786 and offers vibrant shopping, dining, and entertainment. Grab a local beer at Oconee Brewing Company, a craft brewery housed downtown in a renovated cotton warehouse. Located directly behind the Greene County Courthouse, the Old Gaol (jail) housed Greensboro’s prisoners well into the 1890s. Today (by appointment), visitors can touch the two foot granite walls, look down over the gallows, and stand in an actual cell to imagine what life was like for the accused.
Downtown Eatonton
Nestled between the lakes and the Oconee National Forest lies the historic antebellum town of Eatonton. Heritage is deeply rooted in this community and its people understand the value of preserving the past, which you can see just by taking a stroll through downtown, lined with antebellum, Gothic, and Victorian-style homes. Find out more about the man behind the famous Uncle Remus stories, his life, and the surroundings that influenced one of America’s greatest writers at The Uncle Remus Museum. Take a scenic drive through the countryside along the Alice Walker Driving Tour. Walker, author of the award-winning novel The Color Purple, was born in Eatonton and the driving tour takes you past several important places in Walker’s life.
The worst-kept secret in the automotive world is finally out in the open — the 2021 Porsche 911 Turbo S coupe and cabriolet are on display in all their rear-engined...
Ali Shokri is an Iranian landscape and nature photographer who has become known for his black-and-white photos of trees. The Passion of Trees is a collection of photos he has captured over the years in Iran and Azerbaijan.
Ali says his work is a reminder that we need to take care of our natural world. As deforestation and the development of roads and dams ate away at the beauty of forests he has loved since childhood, Shokri began using his camera to try and make a difference.
“To me, each tree, like a human being, has a tale to tell,” Shokri says. “When a tree dies, a whole story is interrupted, a destiny is altered for the worse. I feel as if the trees, bundled at the back of trucks, are cursing us with their broken hands, wounded faces, and severed roots.
“Perhaps this is how we are led towards damnation, little by little stripped of our humanity, when man’s ‘abounding foliage moistened with the dew’ is reduced to ash and smoke.”
“I know I can’t save our trees with my photographs,” Shokri says. “I can’t restore Nature to her imperious verdure, yet I try to capture the lonesomeness and exile of the trees and encourage the viewers to look at nature with a different gaze, to remember that in the absence of trees the birds are homeless and there’s no air to breathe, to remember that if there are no trees humanity has already vanished…”
In late February 2020, an Imgur user shared a popular post on a popular topic (“tax brackets explained”), urging others to “help educate others” on how taxation supposedly works:
Alongside images of several “pockets” of money (which supposedly represented tax brackets), text made up the bulk of the images’ claims:
Let’s say you are an individual earning $84,000 a year.
How much do you owe in federal income tax?
We can find out by looking at the 2019 tax brackets.
A common mistake is to think you find your bracket and then pay that rate on all of your income. So you’d owe 22 percent, or $18,480.
That’s not right. Here’s how it actually works.
Your money is divided into the brackets.
(I like to think of them as pockets.)
Only $9,700 can fit in the first pocket. So you pay 10 percent on that money.
Then the income you earn past $9,700 goes into the next pocket. And you owe 12 percent on that money.
Then you need the next pocket once you earn more than $39,475. And you owe 22 percent on money in that pocket.
And so on.
But what if you get a raise and earn another $1,000? Do you get bumped into the next “bracket”?
Remember, we need to think of the brackets like pockets. So getting a raise doesn’t mean you all of a sudden pay more in taxes.
Rather, it means only the money that doesn’t fit in the previous pockets gets pushed to the 24 percent pocket. In this case, only $800 would get pushed to the next pocket.
So when Ocasio-Cortez says the top tax rate should be 70 percent, she is saying that after we’ve filled all the previous pockets, income should be taxed at 70 percent. (She hasn’t said much about what the threshold should be or how many brackets there should be.)
That Imgur gallery post consisted of five images; normally we’d embed that many, but based on their design elements, the screengrabs appeared to come from a Vox.com post.
On January 18 2019, Vox published a piece (“How tax brackets actually work,” with the subhead, “Show this video to politicians who say Democrats want to take away 70 percent of your income) which referenced a slightly earlier Vox article; the subsequent coverage involved a follow-up video. (The images in the Imgur post did not appear in the later article.)
A linked January 7 2019 article, headlined “How marginal tax rates actually work, explained with a cartoon,” included the images and text. The item’s first paragraph provided context about Vox’s creation of the images, which was around a debate over comments about a 70 percent marginal tax rate proposed by Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York):
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) proposed a top tax rate of 70 percent to finance a Green New Deal — an array of programs to sharply cut down America’s carbon emissions — in a 60 Minutes interview [in January 2019]. Conservative critics, including prominent Republican leaders, immediately tried to paint her proposal as an effort to take away 70 percent of Americans’ income.
That’s a common misunderstanding of how tax brackets work. Rather, Ocasio-Cortez’s informal proposal would take away 70 percent of your income over a certain threshold.
Vox’s follow-up article, linked first above, cited several examples of commentary from critics about that specific proposal. Vox’s quotations showed lawmakers and pundits — Steve Scalise, Grover Norquist, and Fox News’ Ashley Earhardt among them — claiming, falsely, that Ocasio-Cortez proposed a 70 percent tax on all income. Vox maintained that claim was often a purposeful misinterpretation of a 70 percent marginal tax rate:
To be clear, Ocasio-Cortez floated the idea of a 70 percent top tax rate on the superwealthy, which is a pretty popular position.
Now, one could argue that a top rate of 70 percent is too high, even for high earners. But that’s not what these conservatives are saying. Rather, they’re saying that raising the top tax rate will actually take money away from “Americans,” or “you.”
This is just not how tax brackets work in America; these political actors are entrenching a common misunderstanding about taxes to further an ideological agenda.
Vox’s infographic and appended coverage claimed that pundits and opposing lawmakers were misrepresenting Ocasio-Cortez’s statements; those excerpted criticisms contained claims (again, falsely) that a 70 percent marginal tax rate was equivalent to a 70 percent tax rate across the board. And, Vox maintained, a 70 percent marginal tax rate was not at all equivalent to a 70 percent rate of tax.
According to the Peter G. Peterson Foundation (an organization focused on fiscal matters, rated highly unbiased and factual on Media Bias/Fact Check) in March 2019, Vox’s claim about “pockets” of income taxed at varying rates is accurate. An initial question about how income is taxed in the United States contained an answer which, in part, explained the “standard deduction” available to taxpayers depending on filing status:
Some income is not subject to taxation. For example, 87 percent of taxpayers take the standard deduction, which allows them to reduce their income by a fixed amount — currently $12,000 for single taxpayers and $24,000 for married couples. The remaining 13 percent of taxpayers itemize their deductions, which means that their taxable income is adjusted based on specific financial activities such as charitable contributions and mortgage interest payments.
The next question’s answer defined tax brackets as “ranges of taxable income that are subject to tax at a specified rate,” explaining:
For example, in 2018, taxable income from $9,525 to $38,700 was taxed at a marginal rate of 12 percent for single individuals. A single individual with taxable income of $39,000 would pay 10 percent on the first $9,525, 12 percent on the next $29,175, and 22 percent on the last $300 (see table).
So far, we have the standard deduction in play — $12,000 for single filers, and $24,000 for married filers. If a single person earns $35,000, their taxable income would be $23,000 — $35,000 minus $12,000. That person would then pay 10 percent tax on the first $9,525, accounting for $21,535 of their total income of $35,000.
From there, $35,000 minus $21,535 is $13,465, and that amount would be taxable at a rate of 12 percent. So the $35,000 income earner would not, under a marginal tax rate of 70 percent, be paying 70 percent of $35,000 in tax. The first $12,000 is tax-free for every taxpayer — which is why it is also known as the standard deduction. They would pay 10 percent tax on the next $9,535; we don’t need a calculator to move the decimal and figure out $953.50 is the amount of tax paid in the first “bucket” or “pocket.”
Our $35,000 wage earner — who we are assuming for the sake of this thought experiment is neither married nor has dependents — has an additional $13,465 of taxable income, taxed at a rate of 12 percent. Of $13,465, 12 percent is $1,615.80.
Our putative taxpayer earns a neat $35,000 a year. They pay no tax on the standard deduction of $12,000, ten percent tax on $9,535 ($953.50), and 12 percent tax on $13,465 ($1,615.80). So their total tax liability in this respect is $953.50 plus $1,615.80 — $2569.30. And of $35,000, $2,569.30 is 7.34 percent — not 70 percent.
In the same article, the foundation included a chart of tax brackets and marginal income rates — one each for single, head of household, married (filing jointly), and married (filing separately):
Note that the top tax rate of 37 percent was far lower than 70 percent. However, it kicked in at earning rates as low as $300,000 for married (filing separately) taxpayers. Myriad outlets reporting on the controversial proposal noted that the 70 percent marginal tax rate would apply to people making over $10 million a year, not families earning $500 or $600,000.
A popular Imgur post called “Tax brackets explained. Help educate others!” claimed that marginal tax rates and tax brackets were misunderstood, and that people believed a “top marginal tax rate” meant average wage earners would be taxed at X high percentage rate on all their income. This was correctly represented in the Imgur post and the Vox article from which it drew — income between $12,000 and $24,000 (the standard deduction) is not taxed. From there, the next $9,000 and change is taxed at ten percent, and then up to between $38,700 and $77,400 is taxed at 12 percent. Proposed higher marginal tax rates of 70 percent would not even apply to a person earning $10 million — that rate would kick in only for income over $10 million. Conversely, if you earned $10,000,050, only $50 would be taxed at that 70 percent rate.
Don’t leave your gun, your money, OR your phone lying around where anyone can reach them. From my old friend Rich Grassi, gun expert and retired street cop: Several men are in the locker room of a golf club. A … Read more
This rubber rocket doesn’t provide as much pressure as Dust-Off, but it exhales a forceful-enough blast for dusting photo/electronic gear, and standing upright on its base sidelines as playful desk dressing/stress-relief toy. I squeeze the oblong bladder (the rocket’s body) and a burst of air entering through a hole at the bottom exits the narrow hard plastic red nozzle. I can’t compare their relative dusting power, but unlike the ReAir Duster, the Rocket Blaster doesn’t require refilling. Mine’s been in regular use in the office and on location for a couple of years without any noticeable wear.
The general consensus is that products like Dust-Off should be kept away from digital camera sensors, either because the pressure can be too high around delicate internal mechanisms or the potential for harmful residue. Giottos Rocket Blaster is the best alternative I’ve seen — an inexpensive low-tech tool for maintaining expensive high-tech tools.
Daniel Kahneman is Eugene Higgins Professor of Psychology Emeritus at Princeton University and Professor of Psychology and Public Affairs Emeritus at Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. He received the 2002 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for his pioneering work with Amos Tversky on decision-making. Here are four pieces of advice from his book, Thinking, Fast and Slow.
Take notice whenever you surprise yourself
“You are more likely to learn something by finding surprises in your own behavior than by hearing surprising facts about people in general.”
Increase your happiness by controlling your time
“The easiest way to increase happiness is to control your use of time. Can you find more time to do the things you enjoy doing?”
Choose your news
“People tend to assess the relative importance of issues by the ease with which they are retrieved from memory—and this is largely determined by the extent of coverage in the media. Frequently mentioned topics populate the mind even as others slip away from awareness. In turn, what the media choose to report corresponds to their view of what is currently on the public’s mind. It is no accident that authoritarian regimes exert substantial pressure on independent media. Because public interest is most easily aroused by dramatic events and by celebrities, media feeding frenzies are common.”
Know when to jump to conclusions
“Jumping to conclusions is efficient if the conclusions are likely to be correct and the costs of an occasional mistake acceptable. Jumping to conclusions is risky when the situation is unfamiliar, the stakes are high and there is no time to collect more information.”
Quotes:
“I brought a measuring tool because I think that’s the most important thing in any shop or to start any project. And this one, Shinwa is the company, they make these their framing squares made in Japan. They have both the inches and centimeters on it for depending on where you’re from. And they do some very unusual things compared to American framing squares.”
“When you’re doing framing work – especially on post and beam — to be able to lay it over and have it complete the line accurately, but build a bend because the pieces might be a little different of an angle, is wonderful.”
“It is hardened stainless steel. And then a very unusual aspect of this is that it thickens in the corner there. So this allows me to go into tight spots. I can go into a window well and kind of bend it into place. This always stays square and straight and allows it to bend, but it never bends the other way because of the construction of the design.”
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Atul Gawande is a MacArthur Fellow, a general surgeon at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, a staff writer for The New Yorker, and an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health.
Decide on the kind of checklist you need
“You must decide whether you want a DO-CONFIRM checklist or a READ-DO checklist. With a DO-CONFIRM checklist, he said, team members perform their jobs from memory and experience, often separately. But then they stop. They pause to run the checklist and confirm that everything that was supposed to be done was done. With a READ-DO checklist, on the other hand, people carry out the tasks as they check them off—it’s more like a recipe. So for any new checklist created from scratch, you have to pick the type that makes the most sense for the situation.”
Use checklists to check for competence
“Listening to the radio, I heard the story behind rocker David Lee Roth’s notorious insistence that Van Halen’s contracts with concert promoters contain a clause specifying that a bowl of M&M’s has to be provided backstage, but with every single brown candy removed, upon pain of forfeiture of the show, with full compensation to the band. And at least once, Van Halen followed through, peremptorily canceling a show in Colorado when Roth found some brown M&M’s in his dressing room. This turned out to be, however, not another example of the insane demands of power-mad celebrities but an ingenious ruse. As Roth explained in his memoir, Crazy from the Heat, “Van Halen was the first band to take huge productions into tertiary, third-level markets. We’d pull up with nine eighteen-wheeler trucks, full of gear, where the standard was three trucks, max. And there were many, many technical errors—whether it was the girders couldn’t support the weight, or the flooring would sink in, or the doors weren’t big enough to move the gear through. The contract rider read like a version of the Chinese Yellow Pages because there was so much equipment, and so many human beings to make it function.” So just as a little test, buried somewhere in the middle of the rider, would be article 126, the no-brown-M&M’s clause. “When I would walk backstage, if I saw a brown M&M in that bowl,” he wrote, “well, we’d line-check the entire production. Guaranteed you’re going to arrive at a technical error.… Guaranteed you’d run into a problem.” These weren’t trifles, the radio story pointed out. The mistakes could be life-threatening. In Colorado, the band found the local promoters had failed to read the weight requirements and the staging would have fallen through the arena floor.”
Use checklists to enhance your expertise
“Under conditions of complexity, not only are checklists a help, they are required for success. There must always be room for judgment, but judgment aided—and even enhanced—by procedure.”
Use checklists to ensure completeness “Faulty memory and distraction are a particular danger in what engineers call all-or-none processes: whether running to the store to buy ingredients for a cake, preparing an airplane for takeoff, or evaluating a sick person in the hospital, if you miss just one key thing, you might as well not have made the effort at all.”
The best celebrity interviewers have the ability to show us how the stars are not like us at all—not only because of the entourages, wardrobes, and bank accounts, but because of the talent for which we revere them —and also how they’re kind of just like us after all: sharing the same insecurities, fears, doubts, forgetfulness, confusion, etc. They are, that is to say, real human beings.
Like no other interviewer on network television before or since, Dick Cavett could draw all of this out of his guests: both their creativity and vulnerability. What seemed like silly chit chat was a disarming camouflage for incisive questions he let casually slip through the banter.
“Cavett’s prime-time show famously featured a who’s who of rock stars that both performed and sat for loose, freeform conversations,” writes Jambase, “which brought the ethos of the hippie generation to the homes of millions.” Amongst his many rock star guests, he developed a special bond with Janis Joplin who sat down with him on August 3, 1970 for her appearance on his show and what would turn out to be her final televised performance and interview.
Joplin belts out “My Baby” and “Half Moon,” which you can see in her full appearance above, with an introduction by Cavett. Then after both songs, she walks over the couch to hang out with the host, who greets with her warmly with, “Very nice to see you, my little songbird.” Cavett poked fun at his guests, but he didn't talk down or kiss up. Most everyone who sat down with him found his dry wit and candor refreshing.
Joplin, who admits she doesn’t like doing interviews, “seems totally at ease during this conversation,” Ultimate Classic Rock points out, “a wide-ranging but informal chat that touches on everything from her feelings regarding concert riots to whether or not she ever waterskis.” She is poised throughout and throws Cavett off-guard with her deadpan humor.
They play off each other in a charming exchange that doesn’t go nearly as deep as her final interview with the Village Voice’s Howard Smith four days before her death that October, but which captures Joplin’s thoughtful, easygoing personality beautifully. Cavett later credited Joplin for sending so many other major rock stars his way after her first appearance on his show in 1968.
“She had done other television she didn’t like very much,” he remembered in 2016 on PBS’s American Masters. "She told people, ‘it’s okay to do his show, he’s not a dreary figure.’” Neither, despite her tragic story, was Janis Joplin. “At once insecure yet full of conviction, opinionated yet concerned about offending, fierce yet tenderhearted,” writes Maria Popova at Brain Pickings; she was, as millions of Cavett’s viewers were delighted to discover, a “complex person brimming with the sort of inner contradictions that make us human.”
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Running across a DeLorean on the road is like spotting a rare bird in the wild: The brushed stainless-steel exterior, the gullwing doors that open toward the sky. It’s the souped-up sports car that needed 1.21 gigawatts of electricity to take Michael J. Fox back to the future. You can’t help but stare.
It’s a strange vehicle with an even stranger automotive history.
Heralded as revolutionary upon its release in 1981, the car sold poorly and was plagued by mechanical problems. It didn’t help when its charismatic creator, John DeLorean, got mixed-up in a $24m cocaine bust.
While the products of most failed companies fade into oblivion, the DeLorean has held onto its head-turning allure nearly four decades after its debut. It’s a debacle that spawned a legend.
And if Stephen Wynne, a Texas entrepreneur, gets his way, you will soon be able to buy a brand new DeLorean — one that makes up for the shortcomings of the original and picks up where its namesake left off.
A legend is born
Before he named a car after himself, John DeLorean was a bright young engineer at General Motors who aggressively pushed the automotive giant to appeal to younger, hipper customers.
In the 1960s, DeLorean moved the company’s Pontiac division away from the boxy behemoths it had been producing and pioneered sexy numbers like the Tempest, the GTO, and the Firebird. At 40, he became the youngest division head in GM’s history.
Along the way, he also acquired a reputation for being brash, not listening to higher-ups, and working every angle to get his way. After an unedited version of a speech he made criticizing GM execs leaked to the press, he was out of a job.
So, DeLorean decided to start his own car company.
John DeLorean poses with an early DeLorean car in San Francisco in the early 1980s (photo: Roger Ressmeyer/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images)
Launched in 1975, the DeLorean Motor Company sought to build a sports car unlike anything else on the road.
With his resume, DeLorean was able to secure $200m in funding ($950m in 2019 dollars), with backing from the British government and celebrities like Johnny Carson and Sammy Davis, Jr. He constructed a 660k-square-foot manufacturing plant in Northern Ireland and, by 1981, was rolling cars off the line.
The DeLorean was initially met with great hype — but its then-pricey $25k price tag, coupled with a myriad of mechanical issues, resulted in less-than-stellar sales.
When the company ran dangerously short of funding and his investors refused to cough up more cash, DeLorean turned to drastic measures.
In 1982, a man DeLorean knew casually approached him about getting involved in a $24m cocaine deal; determined to keep his company afloat, he took the bait. That man turned out to be an FBI informant, and the supposed cocaine deal turned out to be a set-up. DeLorean’s lawyers argued that the government had entrapped him and, after a trial that played out on evening news broadcasts and in the tabloids, he was acquitted.
But by then, the damage was done: The DeLorean Motor Company went bankrupt, and its disgraced founder withdrew from the spotlight.
Then, along came Stephen Wynne
Growing up in Liverpool, England, Stephen Wynne was obsessed with the cars he saw in American magazines. With the DeLorean, it was love at first sight.
“It was a drop-dead design,” he says. “And it was at a time when the automotive industry was very boring and this was a game-changer.”
Stephen Wynne (photo: Fascinating Nouns / Daniel J. Glenn)
Wynne emigrated to the United States, where he opened a repair shop in Southern California specializing in British and French cars. In the early 1980s, customers started showing up with DeLoreans, which had been rushed to market and were saddled with a bunch of nagging issues. Those iconic doors, for instance, sometimes failed to open, trapping occupants inside.
In due time, Wynne became the go-to DeLorean mechanic country-wide.
After the auto company went belly-up, he bought a warehouse filled with leftover DeLorean parts and had the ridiculously massive haul shipped from Ohio, to Texas, an almost military-level logistical operation that required more than 80 semis.
In the wake of the DeLorean Motor Company’s bankruptcy, Wynne also acquired the rights to the firm’s name and intellectual property, made himself the CEO, and decided to resurrect the beloved but beleaguered car.
Over the years, Wynne has watched as the reputation of the DeLorean has cycled through ups and downs.
”The first decade was dealing with the shame of a bankruptcy and drug dealing,” he says. “The second decade was dealing with people thinking that it was a movie prop, that it was just a time machine. Now that we’ve got over that and the values are coming up, people are treating it like a real car.”
Wynne built his headquarters in Humble, Texas, just outside of Houston.
When you drive by, you might see a parking lot filled with DeLoreans. At any one time, he has 40 or so DeLoreans on the premises, and most days some dazzled passer-by will wander into the shop and start asking questions (“I unfortunately don’t have a tour guide on staff,” he says).
Inside you’ll find floor-to-ceiling shelving units filled with the 2,650 parts needed to construct a DeLorean from scratch; Wynne estimates he still has somewhere around 4m original parts in stock, from filters and flanges to engines and steering wheels. He also has DeLorean’s blueprints, so they can manufacture whatever parts they need.
It’s more like a mini-factory than a fix-it shop.
DeLorean cars fill the shop floor in Humble, Texas, and thousands of parts line the shelves (photos: DMC Facebook page)
While Wynne’s business is servicing the older cars, what he really wants is to crank out an upgraded model and take the DeLorean to the next level.
He’s not going to replace the doors or the exterior with something more practical. Nor is he going to tweak the car’s iconic silhouette. After getting to know pretty much every serious DeLorean aficionado (including Ernest Cline, the author of Ready Player One), Wynne knows what makes the car beloved.
What he does want to do is improve on all the ways the original fell short.
When the DeLorean first rolled off the assembly line, its engine was pitifully underpowered. It looked like a rocketship but puttered like a sedan, which didn’t exactly help sales. An otherwise positive review from Car and Driver pointed to manufacturing defects, complaining that “switches popped loose” and “windows fell out of their tracks.”
Wynne plans to more than double the horsepower. He’ll also jazz up the spartan interior and iron out all the other kinks that DeLorean and his engineers never got around to.
“After working on the car for nearly 38 years, we know what needs to be done,” he says. “It’s a wonderful opportunity to make a car they never got to make.”
Right now, though, that opportunity is in limbo
There are plenty of customers who want nothing more than to drive a new DeLorean off the lot. Several thousand of them, in fact.
They tend to be more geeks than gear-heads — guys who wanted to buy a DeLorean when they first came out, but couldn’t afford the $25k price tag. Other would-be buyers were born long after the company’s collapse but still dig that futuristic throwback vibe. The waiting list has grown beyond what Wynne will ever be likely to fulfill.
A row of DeLoreans sit outside the DeLorean Motor Company in 2013 (photo: Paul Bersebach/Digital First Media/Orange County Register via Getty Images)
But the glacial pace of the federal bureaucracy has tempered Wynne’s ability to act on this demand.
In December 2015, President Obama signed the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act (FAST), which, among other things, allows small manufacturers like DeLorean to produce a limited number of cars each year. Under the act, DeLoreans would be classified as “replicas” and wouldn’t have to meet the full list of modern safety regulations governing new cars.
Here’s the snag: Before the cars can be built or delivered, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has to tell Wynne and other manufacturers precisely what they can and can’t do. Those guidelines were due way back in 2016. Somehow it still hasn’t happened, and Wynne is understandably frustrated.
“We’ve been on hold and we keep saying ‘It’s coming, it’s coming,’” he says. “We’re starting to lose the faith of a lot of potential vendors and partners. They’re starting to think that we’re full of crap.”
Recently, there has been some movement in the right direction. A lawsuit helped prompt the NHTSA to issue a set of draft regulations, which must be discussed and revised. If all goes well, it could be a matter of months before the new DeLoreans get the greenlight.
Wynne’s trying not to get his hopes up.
“I spent over $1m four years ago and then had to put everything on hold. It cost me a lot of capital in goodwill as well as money and I’m just gun-shy,” he says. “I don’t want to get too excited.”
The call of the DeLorean
What is it about this particular car that captures Wynne’s imagination?
“It goes back to the original concept, which was an ethical sports car. And that part of it they got absolutely right,” he says. “They wanted the cars to last beyond the traditional 5- to 10-year cycle. That’s what’s behind the stainless-steel body. It has absolutely stood the test of time.”
The saga of the car has always been tightly bound up with the rise and fall of its creator. For years, DeLorean, who died in 2005, didn’t have much to do with the community of fans that grew up around his car. Perhaps it was a reminder of all that had gone wrong in his personal and professional life.
Stockpiled DeLorean cars at the DeLorean motor plant in Belfast in the early 1980s (photo: PA Images via Getty Images)
But with the encouragement of his daughter, DeLorean started showing up at meetings of DeLorean enthusiasts, shaking hands, taking photos, autographing the car he created.
“At the conventions, he was an absolute hero. He was totally mobbed. He was a god,” says Wynne, who met DeLorean several times. “I think it was nice for him to have seen and experienced that.”
Two recent biopics (“Driven” and “Framing John DeLorean”) grappled with DeLorean’s legacy, shedding light on the fine line between visionary and egomaniac.
Like plenty of worldbeaters today with a clever app and an elevator pitch, DeLorean was determined to disrupt a slow-moving industry. He mocked the naysayers and traded on his considerable charm. He married a supermodel, Cristina Ferrare, and posed shirtless for magazines. He also burned through ~$175m at a jaw-dropping clip.
Wynne’s own view of the man is complicated. The story of DeLorean, as it’s usually told, is of an entrepreneur so determined to realize his dream that he fell in with an unsavory crowd. Another version is of a guy whose recklessness helped torpedo a company that might otherwise have thrived.
“I am a huge fan of the DeLorean brand. I’m a huge fan of the DeLorean company,” he says. “But I am not a huge fan of John DeLorean.”
That may be why Wynne hasn’t bothered to watch the two new movies about DeLorean. He was invited to one of the premieres but didn’t go. He’s not interested in reliving the drug trial or plumbing the depths of John DeLorean’s troubled soul.
“For me,” Wynne says, “it’s always been about the car.”
Ok, so you didn’t knock it out of the park with your Valentine’s Day gift. It happens. But it could always be worse… or, at least, weirder.
Take a moment to enjoy some of the strangest Valentine’s gifts we stumbled across this week:
Selfie toaster, $85. If your partner is the kind of person who likes to look at their own face on a piece of toast, then this product is a must-buy.
Underwear featuring your face, $19.95 – $29.95. Available for him or for her, these customized undies keep you close to your partner all day long.
50 Shades of Chicken, $12.79. Some people love romance novels. Other people love chicken. This cookbook is for the latter.
A customized bobblehead, $59.95. If your partner has been begging to see a tiny version of you bobbing at them all day… then look no further than this tiny clay figurine.
Jerky Heart, $34.99. What’s more romantic than slabs of seasoned beef arranged in the shape of a heart? Nothing, that’s what.
If you’re planning a trip for business or pleasure, you likely have a budget. And with the prices of airfare alone, it can cost a bundle just to fly one state over. If you can save a few bucks on your next getaway, wouldn’t you do it?
Google Flights is one way to make affordable travel plans. You can find flights and hotels at reasonable prices. Plus, the site offers price alerts, ways to discover new locations, lists of activates in your destination, and much more.
Here are some helpful ways to plan your trip and save some cash with Google Flights.
1. Look at Google Flights Packages
If there’s one thing that can help make planning a trip that much easier, it’s a travel package. These handy combo deals give you one price that includes airfare and hotel accommodations. So not only can you get a decent discount on both but plan them together without searching for them separately.
The Google Flights Packages section shows the top destinations from your location. Alternatively, if you have a certain spot in mind, you can pop the destination, travel dates, and the number of people who will travel with you at the top.
Pick Your Hotel
Once you receive your package results, you’ll get details on hotels first. You can browse through the list that displays the star rating and a brief description or refer to the map for accommodations based on price and location. You’ll see costs for the entire package, per person, and in total.
Click to select an option and you’ll be directed to more package information on Google.com. This is where you can see full details for the hotel and find the right flight.
Find the Right Flight
You might see a Cheaper Dates area which is ideal if you have flexible travel dates. And you can use the Compare Rates section to find affordable airfare and convenient flight times for your budget and schedule.
Once you choose your departing and returning flights, you’ll select your hotel room preferences, and continue to book your package.
2. Browse Inexpensive Hotel Options
Maybe you don’t need a package deal for your trip. You might already have transportation and just need a reasonably priced hotel.
Click the Hotels button on the left of the Google Flights page and you’re on your way to affordable accommodations.
You’ll see popular destinations with some great hotel rates. But if you have a particular city in mind, enter it at the top with your travel dates and number of guests.
When you land on the results page, you can adjust filters at the top for guest ratings, amenities, and brands. You’ll also see that handy map again on the right side with hotels plotted by price.
Select a hotel for full details including available rooms and rates along with booking sites and their prices.
These Google Flights hotel searching features make finding accommodations within your budget a breeze.
3. Scout for Affordable Airfare
If what you need for your next trip isn’t the accommodations and only the airfare, then Google Flights is an excellent resource.
Click Flights on the left and enter your departing and returning airports with your travel dates. You can also include the number of passengers and the requested class if you like.
You’ll see results for your departing flights first with prices, stops, and travel times. You’ll also see a nifty section that shows you if prices are low for your trip and you can click View price history for details on the rate changes.
This gives you a nice way to see if it’s a good time to buy those airline tickets or if you should wait. Plus, you can enable the toggle toward the top for Track prices. This will set up Google Flight alerts so when the rates change, up or down, you’ll get an email.
If you decide to book your flight, click to pick the departing and then the returning flight. You can easily continue through to booking. But if you simply want to keep track of price changes for the exact flights you pick, use the Google Flight price tracker we just mentioned.
By enabling Track prices for flights you’ve already chosen, you can keep an eye on airfare changes via email without having to check yourself.
4. Check Out Google Flights Explore
If we still haven’t hit the nail on the head for what you need for your next trip, Google Flights can still help. Maybe what you have is the budget, but just aren’t sure where to spend it. The Google Flights Explore area of the website is the perfect place to find a fun destination.
Click the Explore button on the left side and discover a new spot. You’ll see some suggestions like New York, Walt Disney World Resort, and the Florida Keys. You can check out one of these options or pop some possible thoughts into the search box.
Click Travel Guide at the top and find out the types of activities there are, scan hotel and airfare rates, and see the best months to visit.
Say you’ve been thinking of a trip to Chicago but aren’t sure if there’s enough for your family to enjoy or if you can even afford it. Enter “Chicago” into the search box and you’ll get all of these details and more.
You’ll see photos, things to do, suggested day plans, prices for packages, flights, and hotels, when to visit, travel videos, and nearby places to explore.
The Google Flights Explore section helps you find the ideal location for your trip as well as one that you can afford.
5. View Potential Trips on Google Flights
One more helpful spot on the Google Flights site is Trips. This area is convenient for pulling in travel confirmation emails you receive to your Gmail account. But you can also use this section for planning.
Based on your activity on Google Flights, you’ll see Potential Trips with an option to continue planning any one of them. If you click that Continue Planning link, you’ll get a nice summary of the options you viewed or picked for that trip.
So if you’re deciding between two different locations, with a simple click of each one, you can find out if the airfare has gone up or down. Then, view those flight options once more and continue exploring things to do while you’re there.
Let Google Flights Help Plan Your Trip
Hopefully, these Google Flights tips for planning your trip and saving money doing it will come in handy. And remember, Google also has real-time flight data to help you keep track of your own flights or those for people visiting you.
While we sometimes use modem and router interchangeably when talking about our home internet hardware, these two devices are not the same thing. In fact, their roles are very different.
So what is a modem? What’s a router? And what is the difference between a modem and a router? Here’s what you need to know about these two devices.
What Is a Modem?
A modem converts the incoming and outgoing signals between an ISP and a user’s home or workplace. The modem’s job involves converting these signals to compatible formats, which enables the transmission of data required to connect to the internet.
An ISP sends data using a variety of signals (radio, electric, satellite, fiber-optic, etc), while computers and electronic devices use digital signals. This means that the modem is needed to essentially translate and convert the signals. This allows these two endpoints to communicate.
The conversion process involves the modulation and demodulation of signals—hence the name of the device: a portmanteau of the term “modulator-demodulator”.
Depending on your internet connection type, the type of modem you need varies. For example, for cable internet, you need a cable modem. Meanwhile, LTE internet requires an LTE modem and DSL internet requires a DSL modem.
Regardless of the type of modem, however, the core purpose remains the same.
Without a modem, your computer or phone would not be able to send and receive the data needed to connect to your internet service. The hardware establishes and maintains your internet connection.
However, a standalone modem can only connect one device to the internet at a time. That’s where a router comes in…
What Is a Router?
A router creates a local network of devices, allowing these devices to send data to your modem and each other. A router technically wouldn’t be required if you wanted to only connect one device to the internet. However, the majority of modern homes have multiple devices that use the internet, such as smartphones, tablets, and multiple PCs.
For these devices to seamlessly transmit data in your local network, you need a router. It routes data and traffic between devices (hence its name).
Your router does this by assigning local IP addresses to each device, so that the data ends up in the right place. Otherwise, the same data would go to every device on the network.
Modern routers include a built-in switch and hub, providing the ports needed for each of your devices to have an uninterrupted connection to the web. Hubs and switches are also available as standalone devices—but this is usually for the workplace where many more users or devices need to connect to the network.
Routers can technically also function without the internet if you only want to share files between your local devices. This means you can use a router without a modem to share files from your PC to your printer, or to send files between two computers on the same local network. However, your router needs to connect to your modem to provide internet access.
The essential difference between a modem and router is their role when it comes to connecting you to the internet. While the modem is the bridge between your home and the internet, the router is responsible for creating your local network within the home.
You could imagine the router as a traffic guard. It helps vehicles (your devices) gain access to the bridge (modem) that leads to the internet. The router makes sure that every device stays in its lane and doesn’t interrupt the connection of other devices or intercept their data.
Another difference between a modem and router is that a modem has a single, public IP address. However, a router assigns a variety of local IP addresses for communication within the network.
Then, there’s there the necessity that each device plays when it comes to connecting to the internet. No matter what, a modem is necessary to connect to the internet. That’s why small modems are built into devices like smartphones, to translate the internet connection provided by your mobile service provider.
Without a router, a modem can still connect to the internet. The same is not true the other way around. Furthermore, a modem is used solely for connecting to the internet, whereas a router can technically be used without the internet to create a home network between devices.
Modem/Router Combinations
Image Credit: Misha Feshchak/Unsplash
The line between modems and routers has become so blurred in the minds of consumers for a reason. After all, many manufacturers sell modem/router combination devices. These come with both a modem and a router built into a single piece of hardware.
As technology advances, these combined devices have become increasingly common. Many modern households use a combined modem and router. Meanwhile, small mobile or portable modems also combine both technologies into one device.
However, it’s important to understand the distinction between modems and routers since they are still often sold as standalone devices. You don’t want to buy one when you actually need the other. Furthermore, it can be cheaper to buy them as standalone devices when it comes to upgrading specific aspects of your home internet network or replacing old modems and routers.
What About 5G Routers and Modems?
With the hype around 5G, more people are wondering whether they’ll need special modems and routers to connect to this internet technology.
Like with any other type of internet connection, you will need a compatible modem to connect to 5G internet. 5G-enabled smartphones and tablets have these modems built into them. But those who want to use a 5G connection for their home will need a 5G modem. These are already available, along with 5G modem-router combinations, from 5G ISPs and certain retailers.
Some companies also offer 5G CPEs (customer-premises equipment) with a built-in modem and router to connect customers to 5G networks.
Older routers should still work with 5G modems. But you may want to upgrade your router to take advantage of the full speed of 5G. Slower single-band routers may create a bottleneck for a fast 5G internet connection.
However, this will largely depend on your internet plan and how fast your 5G connection actually is. Don’t go upgrading your devices just yet until you know that 5G is available in your area, the details of your plan, and which devices are compatible.
Understanding Your Internet Wi-Fi
Now that you understand the roles of modems and routers better, you may still be wondering about other aspects of your home internet network. For example, where does Wi-Fi come in?
To find out more about Wi-Fi standards, and how they play a role in your connection to the internet, read our guide on understanding Wi-Fi.
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