New data shows that "the confidence, intelligence and extroversion that have long propelled ambitious workers into the executive suite are not enough online because they simply don't translate into virtual leadership," writes Arianna Cohen via the BBC. "Instead, workers who are organized, dependable and productive take the reins of virtual teams." From the report: The study, published in the Journal of Business and Psychology, tracked 220 US-based teams to see which team members emerged as leaders across in-person, virtual and hybrid groups. The researchers conducted a series of in-lab experiments with 86 four-person teams, and also traced the communications and experiences of 134 teams doing a semester-long project in a university class (students are commonly used as proxy for workers in leadership research). The study was carried out pre-pandemic, focusing on emergent leaders: those perceived as leaders, and whose influence is willingly accepted.
As expected, the face-to-face teams chose leaders with the same confident, magnetic, smart-seeming extroverted traits that we often see in organizational leaders. But those chosen as remote leaders were doers, who tended towards planning, connecting teammates with help and resources, keeping an eye on upcoming tasks and, most importantly, getting things done. These leaders were goal-focused, productive, dependable and helpful. In other words, virtually, the emphasis shifts from saying to doing. This discovery is timely, as most of our workplace in-person teams are now all or partially digital operations in the wake of the pandemic.
Winston Churchill’s speech in response to Germany’s invasion of Britain
Today I learned that Winston Churchill had his speeches typed up in what looks like free verse (or “Psalm form,” as his office called it) so that he could plan and rehearse the rhythm and the pauses. (More here.)
Churchill wrote every word of his many speeches — he said he spent an hour working on every minute of a speech he made. At the Morgan Library are several drafts of a single speech from February 1941, when England stood alone against the Nazi onslaught and Churchill appealed to President Roosevelt for aid. The first draft looks like a normal typescript; the final draft, says Kiely, “looks like a draft of a poem.”
Here’s a draft of Churchill’s “Finest Hour” speech, compared with the final “Psalm form”:
Another thing I learned about Churchill: he took up painting at the age of 40 to battle his depression and wrote a book about it called, Painting as a Pastime:
Just to paint is great fun. The colours are lovely to look at and delicious to squeeze out. Matching them, however crudely, with what you see is fascinating and absolutely absorbing. Try it if you have not done so – before you die.
“Although I am typically a loner in daily life, my consciousness of belonging to the invisible community of those whose strive for truth, beauty and justice has preserved me from feeling isolated.”
— Albert Einstein
I feel this quote so much. The pandemic has made me find my introvert and helped me deeply embrace alone time.
The "bespoke development" site Evrone.com (an IT outsourcing company) interviewed Ruby on Rails creator David Heinemeier Hansson (who is also co-founder and CTO of Basecamp -- and a racecar driver) shortly before he spoke at RubyRussia, Evrone's annual Moscow programming conference.
And they asked him an interesting question. As a man who's seen lots of Ruby code, "what makes code good or shitty? Anything that is obvious for you at first glance?"
David Heinemeier Hansson: If the code is poorly written, usually it smells before you even examine the logic. Indentation is off, styles are mixed, care is simply not shown. Beyond that, learning how to write great code, is a life long pursuit. As I said in my RailsConf 2014 keynote, we're not software engineers, we're software writers. "Writing" is a much more suitable metaphor for what we do most of the time than "engineering" is. Writing is about clarity and presenting information in a clear-to-follow manner so that anybody can understand it.
There's no list of principles and practices that somebody can be taught and then they will automatically produce clear writing every time. If you want to be a good writer, it's not enough just to memorize the dictionary. Just knowing the words available to you, knowing the patterns of development is not going to make you a good developer. You have to develop an eye. You have to decide that the most important thing for your system is clarity. When you do decide that, you can start developing an eye.
The only way to become a good programmer, where, by definition, I define good programmers as somebody who writes software with clarity, is to read a lot of software and write a lot of software.
In 2016, David Heinemeier Hansson answered questions from Slashdot readers.
In his new music video, My Vote Dont Count, rapper YelloPain provides an excellent 4-minute summary in the sprit of Schoolhouse Rock of the importance of voting, particularly in midterm elections and with a focus on Congress and state legislatures.
So you know how back in ‘08, when we all voted for Obama? We was all supposed to go back in 2010 and vote for the Congress. Cause they the ones that make child support laws. They the ones choose if your kids at school get to eat steak or corn dogs. The state house makes the courthouse. So if the country fail you can’t say it’s them, it’s your fault, cause ya ain’t know to vote for Congress members that was for y’all. And they don’t gotta leave after four years; we just let ‘em sit. See, they don’t want to tell you this, they just want you to focus on the President.
The video was co-produced by Desiree Tims, a Democrat who is running for the House in Dayton, YelloPain’s home town. Tims appears in the closing seconds of the video to deliver this message:
Every time you stay home, someone is making a decision about you. Making decisions about the air you breath, the water you drink, the food your kids eat, and how much money you bring home every two weeks. So every time you sit out an election, every time you don’t show up because you think it doesn’t matter, someone else is happy that you didn’t show up, so they can make that decision for you. Vote!
Even though it’s not explicitly labeled as such, this might be one of the best political advertisements I’ve ever seen. It’s entertaining, informative, and authentic.
In a keynote address to the Anti-Defamation League, entertainer Sacha Baron Cohen calls the platforms created by Facebook, Google, Twitter, and other companies “the greatest propaganda machine in history” and blasts them for allowing hate, bigotry, and anti-Semitism to flourish on these services.
Think about it. Facebook, YouTube and Google, Twitter and others — they reach billions of people. The algorithms these platforms depend on deliberately amplify the type of content that keeps users engaged — stories that appeal to our baser instincts and that trigger outrage and fear. It’s why YouTube recommended videos by the conspiracist Alex Jones billions of times. It’s why fake news outperforms real news, because studies show that lies spread faster than truth. And it’s no surprise that the greatest propaganda machine in history has spread the oldest conspiracy theory in history- — the lie that Jews are somehow dangerous. As one headline put it, “Just Think What Goebbels Could Have Done with Facebook.”
On the internet, everything can appear equally legitimate. Breitbart resembles the BBC. The fictitious Protocols of the Elders of Zion look as valid as an ADL report. And the rantings of a lunatic seem as credible as the findings of a Nobel Prize winner. We have lost, it seems, a shared sense of the basic facts upon which democracy depends.
When I, as the wanna-be-gansta Ali G, asked the astronaut Buzz Aldrin “what woz it like to walk on de sun?” the joke worked, because we, the audience, shared the same facts. If you believe the moon landing was a hoax, the joke was not funny.
When Borat got that bar in Arizona to agree that “Jews control everybody’s money and never give it back,” the joke worked because the audience shared the fact that the depiction of Jews as miserly is a conspiracy theory originating in the Middle Ages.
But when, thanks to social media, conspiracies take hold, it’s easier for hate groups to recruit, easier for foreign intelligence agencies to interfere in our elections, and easier for a country like Myanmar to commit genocide against the Rohingya.
In particular, he singles out Mark Zuckerberg and a speech he gave last month.
First, Zuckerberg tried to portray this whole issue as “choices…around free expression.” That is ludicrous. This is not about limiting anyone’s free speech. This is about giving people, including some of the most reprehensible people on earth, the biggest platform in history to reach a third of the planet. Freedom of speech is not freedom of reach. Sadly, there will always be racists, misogynists, anti-Semites and child abusers. But I think we could all agree that we should not be giving bigots and pedophiles a free platform to amplify their views and target their victims.
Second, Zuckerberg claimed that new limits on what’s posted on social media would be to “pull back on free expression.” This is utter nonsense. The First Amendment says that “Congress shall make no law” abridging freedom of speech, however, this does not apply to private businesses like Facebook. We’re not asking these companies to determine the boundaries of free speech across society. We just want them to be responsible on their platforms.
If a neo-Nazi comes goose-stepping into a restaurant and starts threatening other customers and saying he wants kill Jews, would the owner of the restaurant be required to serve him an elegant eight-course meal? Of course not! The restaurant owner has every legal right and a moral obligation to kick the Nazi out, and so do these internet companies.
"They survived!" reports a local CBS news station, revisiting nearly two dozen students at Adelphi University who went a full week without their cell phones.
schwit1 shares their report:
It was part of a college course intended to break the powerful addiction of smartphones... an Adelphi University course called "Life Unplugged" where students did the unthinkable one week ago -- handed over their smartphones. "I'm freaking out, I could probably cry right now," one student said. It was a bold experiment to recognize today's compulsive relationships with ever present devices. Seven days later, "who's excited they're getting their phones back today?" Professor Donna Freitas asked.
Gone were the nerves and the shakes. "Everything is perfect right now. I'm having a lot better relationships... it's a stress free environment no pressure about social media," Jacob Dannenberg said.
"I think it's really refreshing and relaxing... I was able to fall asleep a lot easier," student Adrianna Cigliano.
They managed to find their way, even without GPS for a week. "I just had to take the same route everywhere," one student joked. They were also more productive. "Doing homework was 100 percent easier. I got it done faster, I was in the zone," Cigliano said.
Prof. Freitas says it's important for everyone to assess their addiction. "Are the conveniences worth it because the drawback are pretty significant," Freitas said. "The face that no one can focus, that my students can't sleep... They feel bad about themselves because of social media, the list goes on and on."
Their reunions with the phones "went sour quickly as endless notifications piled up," the article notes. "Oh my God this is so bad...!" they quote one student as saying.
"I just want to shut it off now....!"
In the early days of life on Earth, biological organisms were exceedingly simple. They were microscopic unicellular creatures with little to no ability to coordinate. Yet billions of years of evolution through competition and natural selection led to the complex life forms we have today -- as well as complex human intelligence. Researchers at OpenAI, the San-Francisco-based for-profit AI research lab, are now testing a hypothesis: if you could mimic that kind of competition in a virtual world, would it also give rise to much more sophisticated artificial intelligence? From a report: The experiment builds on two existing ideas in the field: multi-agent learning, the idea of placing multiple algorithms in competition or coordination to provoke emergent behaviors, and reinforcement learning, the specific machine-learning technique that learns to achieve a goal through trial and error. In a new paper released today, OpenAI has now revealed its initial results. Through playing a simple game of hide and seek hundreds of millions of times, two opposing teams of AI agents developed complex hiding and seeking strategies that involved tool use and collaboration. The research also offers insight into OpenAI's dominant research strategy: to dramatically scale existing AI techniques to see what properties emerge.
I used to take my ’97 Honda Accord to Sam Bell at the Lusty Wrench in Cleveland Heights, Ohio. He recently closed up his shop after 40 years, and this is what he had to say about cars:
Let’s get something out of the way up front: Ray Magliozzi hates cars. And not in a my-car-is-a-pain-in-the-ass-and-it’s-always-breaking kind of way (though there is some of that too), but in a they’re-killing-the-planet kind of way. “How could you not?” Ray told me earlier this year. “They’re ruining the fabric of our lives.”
It was kind of odd that we did the show together for so many years, but he hated the idea of cars consuming our lives, our money, clogging up the streets, polluting the air, all the things that you hate, too…. My brother hated cars. And yet he—for years and years, I tried to convince him that if he didn’t live in Cambridge and wasn’t able to get around with public transportation or by walking, he’d have to have a car that was reliable…. But he was against cars because of all the things they do to our lives and to our world. And I agree on all of those points.
That was, of course, part of the genius of Car Talk: You didn’t have to even like cars to enjoy listening to it. (Or making it, obviously.)
Ross’s expanding circle of viewers are, for the most part, not even painting, nor do they have any plans to start. They watch because ”The Joy of Painting” is the most relaxing show on television….
“It’s funny to talk to these people,” said Joan Kowalski, the media director of Bob Ross Inc. and Walt’s daughter. “Because they think they’re the only ones who watch to take a nap. Bob knew about this. People would come up to him and say, `I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but you’ve been putting me to sleep for 10 years.’ He’d love it.”
“There are people who just like to hear him talk,” one station manager said. “We even get letters from blind people who say they tune in because he gives them hope.”
1) Tell your story TO someone. Pick one person you love or admire or want to connect with, and write the whole thing directly to them —like you’re writing a letter. This will bring forth your natural voice. Whatever you do, do NOT write to a demographic. Ugh.
2) Start at the beginning of the story, write what happened, and keep going until you get to the end.
3) Use radically simple sentences.
4) Don’t worry if it’s good; just finish it. Whether or not your project is good, you’ll be a different person at the end of it, and that’s always worth doing.
5) Don’t write with the aim of changing anybody’s life. That will lead to heavy, irritating prose. Just share what delights or enrages or fascinates you. If somebody’s life is changed by it, that’s a bonus.
6) Whenever you can, tell stories instead of explaining stuff. Humans love stories, and we hate having stuff explained to us. Use Jesus as an example: He spoke almost exclusively in parables, and allowed everybody to draw their own lessons from his great storytelling. And he did very well.
7) Your work doesn’t have to be any particular length, or written for any particular market. It doesn’t have to even be seen by another human being. How and if to publish your work is a problem for another day. For today, just write.
8) Remember that you’ve been doing research your whole life, merely by existing. You are the only expert in your own experience. Embrace this as your supreme qualification.
9) Every writer starts in the same place on Day One: Super excited, and ready for greatness. On Day Two, every writer looks at what she wrote on Day One and hates herself. What separates working writers from non-working writers is that working writers return to their task on Day Three. What gets you there is not pride but mercy. Show yourself forgiveness, for not being good enough. Then keep going.
10) Be willing to let it be easy. You might be surprised.
Typeface foundry Vocal Type honors the contributions of black Americans like Martin Luther King Jr., Bayard Rustin, and W.E.B. Du Bois.
Protests have long been an important part of American history, from the civil rights movement in the 1960s to the Women’s March. The images and symbols of these demonstrations are rightly seared into the national memory. Now, they’re also available in typeface form.
Late last week, the ESPN host Dan Le Batard veered outside the sports network’s hard-line stance on avoiding politics on the air. He unloaded on President Donald Trump for attacking four congresswomen of color. Just as notably, he criticized his own network’s no-politics policy as “cowardly,” putting ESPN—where I used to work—in the crosshairs of contention once again.
Le Batard abruptly disappeared from his radio slot on Monday, and then reappeared the following day. When I reached out to ESPN to ask about his situation, a network spokesperson declined to comment. Le Batard met with ESPN President Jimmy Pitaro earlier today. A source close to the situation, speaking under the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the discussions, told me Le Batard hasn't been formally suspended for his statements last week, and he won’t be. Whether this ordeal will make Le Batard more cautious in his commentary remains to be seen.
I left ESPN in an awkward way last September, after a nearly identical controversy. Even so, I feel no vindication in seeing the cable sports giant, where I worked for 12 years, react clumsily once again when a high-profile commentator responds viscerally to something ugly that the current president said or did.
I’ll be candid: The policy that Le Batard criticized was instituted in part because of the drama that ensued after I called Trump a white supremacist on Twitter in 2017. But Le Batard’s situation only crystallized how unreasonable—and ultimately untenable—the network’s position is. A personality like Le Batard, who has spent his career assessing the messy intersections among sports, politics, race, and gender, can never just ignore the racism and bigotry flowing out of the White House.
ESPN, like any major network, hires commentators who have big personalities and bold opinions. And yet the executives often seem more concerned with placating some white fans than respecting the fact that so many men and women of color are profoundly appalled by the Trump administration’s policies and the president’s hurtful rhetoric. Besides, while ESPN isn’t a purely journalistic operation—it’s partly in the entertainment business too—it does practice journalism. And that means there are times when the audience has to be challenged to think critically, rather than appeased.
A no-politics-unless-it’s-sports-related policy seems especially naive and tricky to navigate when the president of the United States not only makes overtly racist comments, but also lays into women’s-soccer players, NBA owners, and other sports figures who disagree with him. ESPN’s policy also backs the network itself into a corner, and asks TV and radio commentators to do something impossible: ignore anything and everything happening outside the four corners of the playing field, no matter how much it offends their basic sense of humanity.
Not surprisingly, some commentators just aren’t able to abide by such a mandate.
Consider how challenging it is for someone with Le Batard’s background to separate sports from everything else happening in this country. He is the son of immigrants. Both of his parents fled Cuba when they were teenagers. Le Batard has written passionately many times about the sacrifices his parents made to provide for their children and to be accepted in this country.
Trump is pushing the dangerous narrative that only certain people in this country are fully American. His repeated attacks on Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, and Rashida Tlaib are just the latest example. At a North Carolina rally last week, Trump escalated the controversy by singling out Omar, after which the crowd began to chant, “Send her back.” Trump later claimed he disagreed with the chant—even though the video clearly shows Trump standing silently for several seconds and making no attempt to discourage the crowd.
Le Batard was unwilling to let these events slide. On his radio show last Thursday, he took aim at Trump—and his own network’s wariness about confronting him. “If you’re not calling it abhorrent, obviously racist, dangerous rhetoric, then you’re complicit,” Le Batard said on his show. “This is deeply offensive to me as somebody whose parents made all the sacrifices to get to this country. Send her back? How are you any more American than her? You’re more privileged? You’re whiter?”
Anyone who listens to Le Batard’s radio show or watches his daily ESPN television show, Highly Questionable, knows that Le Batard is not a strictly-sports kind of personality. He never has been. The last time I appeared on his radio show, we spent much of the time doing live play-by-play of Aretha Franklin’s funeral. One of his regular radio-show contributors is a wildlife expert who comes on the air to answer his audience’s bizarre questions about animals, and to do play-by-play of weird animal videos. The appeal of Le Batard is that he is the anti-sports sports analyst, and a big reason he’s become one of the most respected voices in sports media is that he is unafraid to tackle race and gender, whether sports are involved or not.
Now ESPN has chosen a side, which is no side at all. Since becoming head of the network 18 months ago, Pitaro has made it clear publicly and internally that it’s bad business for any of its personalities to spew their political views, based on the feedback received from sports fans.
Pitaro no doubt believes that he is just executing sound business strategy, but polls can’t properly contextualize the broad subject of politics. I’m willing to bet that many of those same sports fans who said they don’t want to see politics on ESPN also admire Muhammad Ali, who was revered for refusing to fight in the Vietnam War. I’d also bet these same fans have no problem with ESPN’s heavy involvement in the Warrior Games, where hundreds of injured veterans representing the branches of the armed services compete against one another in Olympic-style events. The Department of Defense runs the games. ESPN airs profiles of the athletes on its many platforms and has broadcast SportsCenter live from the competition.
ESPN cherry-picks its involvement in politics, but wants people like Le Batard to remain silent when they feel ostracized, unwanted, and marginalized by their own government. Le Batard personally has heard too many variations of “send her back.” His heritage is a frequent topic on his radio show, and he has had to confront bigots on the air for ridiculing his father.
“People have to remember that Dan is literally connected to this issue, so this is not an abstract, political statement that he’s making,” Jim Miller, a co-author of the best-selling ESPN oral history These Guys Have All the Fun, told me. “He comes from immigrants. This is a very personal issue for him. This is not him just opining on issues of the day. One of the things that made his comments so palpable, so connected with people, is because they understood it was coming from that place. Therefore, that places the company in somewhat of a delicate situation. I also feel like this is the first major blip on the social-media issue since Jimmy Pitaro took over. If nothing else, he’s realized that it’s a lot trickier when you’re going through it than an abstract thought or an abstract statement.”
I understand why sports fans don’t want their favorite personalities breaking down the pros and cons of universal health care or tackling immigration reform on SportsCenter.
But is condemning racism—even if it means also condemning a political figure—really a political issue? Racism is an issue of morality—and it’s something commentators can be trusted to see with their own eyes. That Le Batard denounced a racist sentiment shouldn’t be upsetting.
ESPN clearly believes in the notion that sports should be a refuge for fans. But unfortunately, sports don’t take place in some alternate universe where real problems can’t interfere. The only people who comfortably pretend sports is just an escape are those who don’t have to worry about being told to go back to where they came from.
This article has been updated to include new information, and to clarify the timing of Dan Le Batard’s meeting with ESPN President Jimmy Pitaro.
Former Special Counsel Robert Mueller yesterday turned up the pressure on House Democrats.
Mueller emphasized and underlined that there is strong evidence that Trump obstructed justice, and that only Congress can constitutionally decide what to do about that evidence.
Over to you, Nancy Pelosi.
Pelosi, of course, has resisted the push for impeachment hearings. But more and more national Democrats are calling for them, and after yesterday’s Mueller statement, that flow may rush into a flood. They are upholding the case advanced by Yoni Appelbaum in The Atlantic: “Only by authorizing a dedicated impeachment inquiry can the House begin to assemble disparate allegations into a coherent picture, forcing lawmakers to consider both whether specific charges are true and whether the president’s abuses of his power justify his removal.”
Yet this very coherence could—and under present conditions likely will—undo itself. Right now Trump is fighting on many fronts to suppress many investigations of many different forms of alleged wrongdoing. He must plug more holes in the dike than he has fingers. But submerge all those many stories into one big question—“remove or don’t”—and the impeachers will have to focus their energy on the most salient allegations. The battlefront will narrow, and as it narrows, the unity of the executive branch will confer a tactical advantage on even a weak presidential defense over the fissiparous offense in the House of Representatives.
Impeachment at this point is all but certain to end in Trump’s acquittal in the Senate, which is controlled by a Republican majority. The votes of two-thirds of the senators who are present are required to remove a president from office, and 67 is a number not within the present political reality. That may change, but it won’t change for reasons internalto the impeachment process. It will change only if new real-world facts materialize—either legal facts (evidence of other crimes) or political facts (a collapse in Trump’s support in the country).
A Trump facing impeachment will rally reluctant Republicans to him, with the argument, so effective for Bill Clinton in the 1990s, Even if he did something wrong, it does not merit removal from office.
And an acquitted Trump will be an immunized Trump. Is it vexing to hear Trump’s team misrepresent Robert Mueller’s report as an “exoneration”? Imagine what they will say and do if they defeat impeachment on a party-line Senate vote. It was all fake news, a plot by the Deep State. As false and wrong as those claims will be, how will Democrats sustain the momentum to hold Trump to account after a trial and acquittal? Won’t they then have to submit to the jeers of Trump henchpersons: This issue was litigated, and it’s time to move on?
Impeachment now threatens to turn the 2020 election into a referendum on the Democrats’ methods in Congress, not Trump’s wrongdoing in the presidency, in the campaign, and in private life.
Trump accountability is not an all-or-nothing choice. It’s not now or never. The House can investigate every Trump misdeed, exposing to the light of day everything from allegations of money laundering and bank fraud to the abuse of undocumented-immigrant laborers at Trump-owned properties. It can investigate the Trump-Russia file, not as a case of criminal conspiracy, but as a national-security threat. It can fight the battle for proper Trump financial disclosure in the courts—and summon the national-security professionals who were overruled by Trump when they denied Jared Kushner a security clearance to testify before committees.
By focusing on many different issues at once rather than the singular issue of impeachment, Democrats have the chance to do three things:
They focus on the discovery of facts rather than arguments over consequences: “What wrongs did Trump do?” rather than “Is removal the right remedy for these wrongs?”
They liberate their presidential candidates to campaign on the bread-and-butter issues that will mobilize and motivate less-committed voters, rather than obliging them to opine on the big existential question of impeachment and removal.
They reserve the impeachment remedy for the very genuine possibility of a Trump second term, by which time the Senate will likely have shifted more in the Democrats’ direction.
Trump outrages the sense of justice. It is understandable that many yearn for urgent and decisive action to cleanse the American system. But wise action is better than urgent action, and the best decision is one that leads to success.
During the 2016 campaign, Hillary Clinton often warned that Donald Trump would do to the United States what he had done to his businesses.
She was thinking of his record of debt, failure, and bankruptcy—about which The New York Timesoffered grim new details this week.
But there is an even more disturbing way that Clinton’s warnings are being fulfilled. North Korea has resumed missile testing, disregarding both Trump’s wooing and his threats of “fire and fury.” It has taken the U.S. president’s measure—and found him weak and empty.
The Times story of the tax returns showed how stock markets did just the same thing in the 1980s. From 1986 to 1989, Trump earned $67.3 million from short-term stock speculation. His method? He would acquire a substantial position in a company, then boast of his takeover intentions. Trump’s words would drive the stock price up. He would then sell at a profit.
The trick worked as long as Trump’s credibility lasted. Which was not long.
In September 1989, Trump tried that familiar trick once too often. He bought a large stake in American Airlines, talked takeover—and was jeered:
“I’m very skeptical of everything this man does,” Andrew Geller, then an airline analyst at Provident National Bank in Philadelphia, told The Associated Press.
Mr. Trump was rebuffed, and the stock price fell sharply. Though at the time his losses were reported to be modest, the new tax return figures show that in 1990, the year he sold his American Airlines stake, Mr. Trump lost $34.9 million on short-term trades, wiping out half his gains from the previous four years.
In the 1980s, Trump was burning through his own money. As president, he’s playing with the wealth and lives of nations. That greater responsibility has not in any way improved his behavior. Greater power has also only temporarily restored his credit. The North Koreans see through him on missile testing. Now the Chinese seem to be doing the same on his trade threats. Trump’s current round of trade threats is failing to elicit trade concessions.
U.S. stock markets slumped Tuesday. Markets had been expecting a trade agreement this week, and were taken by surprise by a suddenly harder Chinese line. A new round of U.S. tariffs is scheduled to go into effect Friday unless a deal is reached. China balked at U.S. proposals, and Trump returned to Twitter for another round of threats. But those threats also revealed Trump’s fears. He wanted to score a domestic political point off his freer-trade Democratic rivals. But he showed international leaders how worried he is that trade disputes might cost him reelection:
The reason for the China pullback & attempted renegotiation of the Trade Deal is the sincere HOPE that they will be able to “negotiate” with Joe Biden or one of the very weak Democrats, and thereby continue to ripoff the United States (($500 Billion a year)) for years to come ….
The big question in a trade dispute is which side can stand more pain. At the same time as Trump has threatened China, he has pleaded with the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates. The Chinese have noted the juxtaposition. The Wall Street Journalquoted an analyst at a Chinese government-backed think tank: “Why would you be constantly asking the Fed to lower rates if your economy is not turning weak?”
The world is absorbing the lesson that Wall Street learned in the 1980s. Trump has only one negotiating move: Take an aggressive position, try to deceive others and maybe yourself about your own strength, issue threats you cannot fulfill, and then retreat amid losses if the bluff is called.
But whereas once those losses were denominated in the millions, today they rise to the hundreds of billions. Where once he troubled only those investors credulous enough to take seriously his tycoon image, today he troubles the peace of the world.
Even the smallest contributions can counter a global challenge
On Wednesday, April 22, people from around the world will celebrate Earth Day. The day marks the 50th anniversary of the birth of the modern environmental movement in April 1970, when 20 million Americans took to the streets to demand a healthy, sustainable environment.
In today’s social-distanced world, Earth Day 2020 is going digital. Despite the novel coronavirus, it’s still possible to join the fight against climate change—even if you have to start at home.
The challenges can’t be understated. Since 2015, the United States has left the Paris accord and reports from around the world show that countries are not moving fast enough to hit those targets. The situation may seem bleak, but there’s still hope. More than ever before, individual actions—including mobilizing for political transformation—can make a difference.
Curbed searched communities across the country and around the world, consulted experts and advocates, and pulled from our voluminous coverage on sustainable cities to create a go-to guide for climate action. Our goal is to provide practical, implementable advice on an individual level, as well as to illustrate the power of collective commitments. Think of it as your must-do action plan for this year, and every other year.
1. Add solar panels to your house. With the plunging price of solar power, and an increasingly diverse group of companies such as Tesla and Forward Labs offering new products, the toughest decision may not be whether to install, but which style and color panels to place on your roof. The Energy Department has a good resource guide for homeowners, while Google’s Project Sunroof helps calculate the potential benefits of home installation.
Lo3
Milton Ross added solar panels atop his home as part of the Brooklyn Microgrid project.
2. Get a home energy audit. A simple home energy audit can show how much energy your home consumes and give you tips on changes that can make things more efficient. Most assessments help homeowners save between 5 to 30 percent on their energy bills, and audits can significantly reduce a home’s carbon footprint.
3. Change lightbulbs to LEDs. Quality LED lightbulbs can last 25 times longer, are more durable, and use at least 75 percent less energy than other bulbs. In the United States, widespread use of LEDs over the next 10 years could save the equivalent annual electrical output of 44 large power plants (about 348 TWh).
4. Ask your utility company about buying clean electricity. You may not know exactly how much of your electricity is coming from renewable energy, so now is the time to find out. Contact your utility company, find out the sources of the electricity they supply, and see if you can opt in for “green pricing” in order to pay slightly more in exchange for electricity generated from clean, renewable power.
5. Clean or replace HVAC filters every three months. A dirty filter on your air conditioner or heater will make the system work harder and waste energy.
6. Use a programmable thermostat. Instead of keeping your house a constant 70 degrees, invest in an automatic thermostat, which can cost as little $25. Higher-end smart thermostats like the Nest or Ecobee can customize your temperatures so you’re not blasting the air conditioning when no one is home or using too much heat when everyone is tucked in bed.
7. Wash clothes in cold water. Most Americans still wash their laundry in warm water, which costs more money and takes a toll on the environment. Approximately 75 percent of the total energy use and greenhouse-gas emissions produced by a single load of laundry come from warming the water itself. That’s unnecessary, especially because studies have shown that washing in cold water is just as effective as using warm.
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Outdoor furniture made out of recycled wooden pallets. For more ideas, head over here.
8. Upcycle your furniture. From shopping cart couches to chairs from old skis, upcycled furniture can be innovative and environmentally smart. Consider using recycled materials—like pallets—or repurposing the furniture you already have instead of buying new.
10. Buy new appliances with the Energy Star label. When you need to replace a refrigerator or dishwasher, choose an appliance that’s Energy Star certified. Energy Star products are more efficient, meaning they can help lower your energy costs and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
11. Design your workspace around natural light. Now that many people are working from home full-time due to the pandemic, reconsider your workspace: Do you need to have a light on all day? Is there an alternative spot that might get better natural light? Turning a few lights off helps you reduce electricity usage and extend the life of your lightbulbs.
12. Unplug electronic devices when they aren't in use. Just because a device or appliance appears to be off doesn’t mean it’s not drawing power. About a quarter of all residential energy consumption is used on devices in idle power mode, which means “sleep mode” is costing upward of $19 billion in electricity bills. Things like your cable box, laptop, and even your speakers may be using almost as much power when they are off but plugged in as when they are on. Group appliances on power strips so you can turn them off at the same time, especially if you’re going on vacation.
13. Obsess over every drop of water. Water management not only helps cities become more resilient in the faces of storms, droughts, and natural disasters, but also saves energy. Rain barrels and rain gardens help capture and purify water, putting less stress on municipal systems and replenishing underground aquifers.
14. Build a downspout planter box. If you live in an apartment building, you can still capture your rainwater to save water and cool streets. Philadelphia offers free training for homeowners on stormwater management. Afterward, attendees receive a free downspout planter box for their home. Check out more tips from Curbed Philly.
16. Downsize. Does saving the planet “spark joy?” Then follow Marie Kondo’s lead and try to be mindful of what you do and don’t need. A more measured approach to consumption can also eliminate unneeded purchases that contribute to global emissions.
17. Hack your thermostat. Simply adjust your thermostat to run 2 degrees cooler in the winter and 2 degrees warmer in the summer. You likely won’t notice much of a difference in your house, but the energy savings can be dramatic.
18. Remove your lawn. That “little” patch of green in front of your home is the U.S.’s most widely grown crop—there are 42 million acres of grass nationwide, more than the total acreage of corn. Lawns require extra water, gas-powered equipment, and fertilizer that pollutes waterways (and homeowners pollute much worse than farmers, since they aren’t versed in professional landscaping). Less grass equals less gas.
19. Buy furniture made with sustainably harvested wood. Deforestation is a serious problem, but buying sustainably sourced wood—look for the Forest Stewardship Council logo—ensures that your wood is coming from 380 million acres of FSC-certified forest and not an old-growth forest.
20. Don’t buy a new home; renovate an old one. Preservationists often say that the greenest home is the one that’s already built. That’s definitely true, but often, older housing stock is less energy efficient, so those seeking to lovingly restore and rehabilitate an old gem end up paying higher heating and cooling costs. The true green home, however, is an old house brought up to speed with 21st-century sustainability solutions. A new project by Harvard’s Center for Green Buildings and Cities seeks to transform an old stick-built home into a model for energy efficiency with an affordable retrofit. Inefficient existing buildings are one of the world’s biggest energy problems; the best place to start making a difference is at home.
21. Xeriscape your yard. Huge lawns use a lot of water to maintain, so consider adding drought-tolerant plants in order to reduce your water consumption by 50 to 75 percent.
22. Hang-dry your clothes instead of using the dryer. There are more than 90 million clothes dryers in the United States, and if all Americans line-dried for just half a year, it would save 3.3 percent of the country’s total residential output of carbon dioxide.
23. Recycle. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, in 2013 Americans generated about 254 million tons of trash and recycled and composted about 87 million tons of this material, equivalent to a 34.3 percent recycling rate. We need to do better.
24. Plant a community garden. Rolling up your sleeves and digging in the soil offers a great way to meet neighbors and collaboratively add something to your neighborhood. To get you started, the American Community Gardening Association offers a set of resources and recommendations on how to manage and maintain a public patch.
25. Start or support an urban farm. Talk about locally sourced: Supporting urban agriculture that’s not just in your region, but also down the block, can help cut carbon emissions and provide local employment while offering more chances to enjoy that just-picked freshness. From warehouse rooftops to urban orchards to innovative vertical farms, new ways to raise crops are taking root.
26. Eat less meat. Going local for food matters, but not as much as methane. Raising cattle and sheep creates vast amounts of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas. Cutting out meat, or even reducing consumption and favoring fish and chicken, can seriously save carbon. Studies at Carnegie Mellon suggest merely swapping red meat and dairy for a more balanced diet with fish, eggs, and fowl makes a big difference.
27. Reduce food waste. Whether it’s left on your plate or rotting in your fridge, wasted food is a big problem in the U.S.—to the tune of 38 million tons a year, according to the EPA. Luckily, small changes to your routine can make a big difference. Here’s a great list of ideas for saving food, including ways to be thrifty and smarter about storage and preservation.
28. Don't drink bottled water. Landfills already contain more than 2 million tons of plastic bottles. And 1.5 million barrels of oil are used to manufacture water bottle every year. And those bottles take more than 1,000 years to biodegrade. Yeah, that reusable water bottle does sound like a good idea.
29. Plant your own vegetable garden. It doesn’t get more local than fresh tomatoes from your backyard.
30. Join a CSA. Community-Supported Agriculture connects consumers with seasonal food sold directly from nearby farmers. You’ll help support farmers while also eating local—a proven way to reduce your carbon footprint.
31. Start composting. Transforming food scraps and lawn clippings into fresh, nutrient-rich soil gives home gardens a boost (and if done right, doesn’t create an olfactory offense). Roughly 20 to 30 percent of what we normally throw out can be composted. And the process offers huge benefits at the city level, too. New York City’s composting program creates “black gold” in the form of rich soil, saves money on shipping organic waste to landfills, and even generates energy from methane.
33. Work from home one day each week. Studies show that 45 percent of the U.S. workforce has a job that’s suitable for full-time or part-time telecommuting. Working a few days from home each month means one less commuter on the road contributing to greenhouse gases.
34. Make sure your tires are properly inflated. The U.S. Department of Energy reports that under-inflated tires have a negative effect on fuel economy. You can improve your gas mileage by 0.6 percent on average—up to 3 percent in some cases—by keeping your tires inflated to the proper pressure. Better gas mileage means fewer trips to the pump and a reduction in carbon-dioxide emissions.
36. Check your gas cap. A loose, cracked, or damaged gas cap wreaks havoc on the environment, allowing gas to escape from your tank as vapor. It also wastes fuel and your hard-earned gas money. Turn the gas cap until it clicks a few times and consider a replacement if it has logged more than 50,000 miles.
37. Map a two-mile circle around your house and walk everywhere within it. You’ll not only realize how many places are an easy half-hour walk away, but you’ll also be able to eliminate unnecessary vehicle trips that make emissions and congestion worse. Check out more tips from Curbed LA.
38. Only wash your car in a self-serve car wash. It may seem better to wash your car at home, but it’s worse for the environment. Washing your car in the driveway causes polluted water to run into sewers, and you’ll likely keep the hose running too long. The best way to wash a car is at a self-serve station where customers use a coin-operated spray device; these stations use around 12 to 18 gallons of water per vehicle, compared to up to 100 gallons at home.
39. Take public transit. Sure, public transportation helps reduce gridlock and carbon emissions. But many city dwellers incorrectly assume that buses and trains take longer. So give transit a try—it may just exceed your expectations.
40. Download a transit app. Transportation planning apps like Citymapper and Transit not only offer detailed trip-planning services and real-time arrival information, but also help local transit agencies improve service. To create more efficient routes, give your city the data it needs.
41. Buy carbon offsets when you fly. Limiting your flights, or giving up flying altogether, would be best. The average American’s annual carbon footprint is 19 metric tons, yet one round-trip flight between New York and San Francisco contributes an outsized 2 million more. Buying offsets—which are offered by many carriers—does make a difference, and experts say it’s a valid way to even out. Even downsizing from business class to coach cuts down your carbon usage, if you can make do without the legroom.
42. Bring your own shopping bags.Plastic bags are incredibly destructive to the environment: They take hundreds of years to break down, contaminate soil and waterways, and cause widespread marine animal deaths. To combat the problem, cities and states around the country have enacted plastic-bag bans or fees on single-use bags. Switch to reusable bags and use them consistently.
Local Motors
Olli, a 3D-printed autonomous bus that’s looking to revolutionize transit.
43. Ride the bus. Transit ridership is down in almost every major U.S. city, which could be detrimental to your city’s ability to combat climate change. Boost your city’s transportation future across the board by riding the bus, and be on the lookout for self-driving technology that just might save the bus.
44. Pick up trash. Bring two small bags when you're out walking the dog or taking the kiddos to school. Pick up the trash you find on your way—dividing it into recyclables and trash destined for the landfill—and help keep debris from harming animals and ending up in our streams and waterways.
45. Turn off your engine. If you’re stopped for more than 10 seconds (unless you’re in traffic), don’t idle. Idling is bad for your car, uses fuel, and contributes to air pollution.
Russell Ingram, courtesy of Chicago Loop Alliance
Cyclist in downtown Chicago, which has recently installed a new series of protected bike lanes
47. Just ride a bike. Yes, riding a bike really can save the world. According to a 2015 study by the University of California at Davis, shifting more urban trips to bicycling, and cutting car use accordingly, could reduce urban transportation CO2 emissions by 50 percent worldwide by 2050. That seems especially feasible when you consider that half of all urban trips are a bikeable six miles or less.
48. Start a carpool. In 2014, over 76 percent of commuters in the United States drove to work alone, most often in their own personal vehicle. Carpools save money on gas, reduce your carbon footprint, let you work during the drive, and get you access to specially designated carpool lanes that are reserved for high-occupancy vehicles.
50. Opt for a cargo bike. Want to ride your bike more but don’t know how to haul the kids, the groceries, and (figuratively) the kitchen sink? With many different styles and price points, a cargo bike can get the whole crew where you need to be without the soul-crushing battle of putting a 2-year-old in a car seat.
51. Use car sharing. New services like Car2go and Zipcar give you the convenience of having a car without the added costs—and negative environmental impacts—of car ownership. Users can pay to drive cars when they need them by the minute, hour, or day. Studies have shown that access to shared cars takes vehicles off of roads, eases parking congestion, and can have a ripple effect of reducing carbon-dioxide emissions and gas use.
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An electric vehicle charging station.
52. Replace your current car with an electric vehicle. Peak car—the point where car ownership starts to drop in the U.S.—could happen as soon as 2020. Get ahead of the trend by switching to an EV, which will not only reduce your emissions but will also save you money in the long run. Going electric also means you’re investing in the future of a clean grid.
53. Sign up for an autonomous-vehicle pilot program. Okay, there’s really only one that we know of—Waymo’s program in Phoenix—but shared, driverless cars are the future of sustainable, low-emission transportation. Become an advocate for AVs to help move this technology forward.
54. Turn a parking space into a park. Bustling streets can do much more than handle automobile traffic. That’s the idea behind Park(ing) Day, a worldwide event that encourages artists and designers to turn metered parking spots into temporary community installations. The concept has even become city policy; the Pavement to Park program allows sponsors in San Francisco to test similar projects and turn some into permanent public spaces, as does the People Street initiative in LA.
55. Plant a tree. Shade, serenity, sustainability—trees add so much to the urban landscape and ask so little. Many cities, such as Philadelphia, give away free trees, have planting services, or require tree planting permits, so check your local rules before you start digging.
56. Shop local. It’s simple, straightforward, and an easy addition to your routine that supports local businesses, provides community jobs, and reduces transportation costs and carbon emissions.
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The Post plaza—a car-free area in the city center—in Ghent, Belgium.
58. Help track and measure green performance in your building. “Do you track your health? Do you know if you’re doing the right things to stay fit? You can do the same thing with buildings and know for sure how your building is fighting climate change. Buildings are a large contributor to climate change and small improvements are simple and can make a big difference. Set a goal, then track your building’s performance and improve it.” — Scot Horst, United States Green Building Council
59. Get inspired by a similar city. The best solutions for climate change are the ones that are already being tested on the ground. Download Climate Reality’s 100 ideas from 60 cities worldwide and borrow the ones that fit your community best.
60. Green your parkway. Okay, there’s gonna be a ton of regional slang to fight through here: You know that little sliver of property between the sidewalk and the curb? Whatever you call it, replace whatever’s there with a stormwater garden that allows water to naturally percolate into the ground. It will not only alleviate flooding on your street, but will also filter and clean the water on its way back underground.
61. Buy vintage.Sustainable can be stylish. Our sister site Racked has a guide to buying vintage denim and highlights the best vintage stores to follow on Instagram.
62. Put books about climate change in your nearest little free library. Walk down any neighborhood street in cities like Denver, Colorado, and you’re likely to see a small wooden box full of free books. These Little Free Libraries are the perfect place to donate books on climate change.
63. Support your local river clean-up. From Los Angeles to Boston, cities across the U.S. are working to make their rivers cleaner and more enjoyable. There’s even a movement to create a designated swim park in Boston’s Charles River and to install a floating pool in New York City’s East River. Check out American Rivers for information on how to support a river clean-up near you.
Courtesy of Summit Sky Ranch
An example of a newly built home in Summit Sky Ranch, a planned dark-sky community in Colorado, which enforces quality outdoor lighting and cuts energy usage.
65. Preserve the night sky. Approximately 99 percent of people living in the United States and Europe live under light-polluted skies, and unnecessary lighting wastes energy and money. Reduce light waste by illuminating only the places that need it, putting shields on lights so they point down, and turning off unnecessary lights. You could also join over a dozen towns and cities that are official Dark Sky Communities.
Green Ribbon CommissionA map showing potential sea level rise in Boston, Massachusetts by 2100.
67. Advocate for better building codes, energy efficiency, and transparency. Buildings are responsible for nearly half the energy consumption in the United States, making the built world—and those who design and maintain it—key to solving the climate crisis. Architects and planners can advocate for building codes and zoning regulations that favor more energy efficiency. Everyone can push for better energy efficiency and rating in housing and offices and move to make this information easily accessible.
69. Tell your city to go car-free. What sounds like an impossible dream could be achieved by cities like Oslo in a few years. Want an example that’s closer to home? Get inspired by the way Vancouver has reduced reliance on cars by half.
70. Support transit-oriented development. Cities such as Chicago have codified the concept of transit-oriented development, which allows for larger buildings with smaller parking minimums if they’re near transit lines. It’s a conservation two-for-one, adding denser housing downtown with less need for private automobile trips.
71. Say yes to transportation initiatives. Improving transit costs money, so the next time there is a transit-focused ballot measure in your city, vote yes. You’ll be in good company: In the November 2016 elections, cities voted yes on billions of dollars worth of transportation improvements.
74. Push your city to support 100 percent clean energy. Switching to 100 percent renewable power may seem like a lofty goal, but it’s not as far off as you think. Many cities have started pledging to switch to renewables, joining the Sierra Club’s Ready for 100 Campaign. By making the commitment, mayors and city leaders have started to change transportation, planning, and energy policies, embarking on the long road to cleaner air. And, as many who have signed on have discovered, renewables will save significant money in the long run.
75. Come together to combat climate change. Villagers in the rural English town of Ashton Hayes didn’t need government help, special technology, or extra funding to fight climate change. Over the last decade, neighbors there have achieved a 24 percent reduction in emissions by collaborating and changing everyday behaviors, sharing tips on weatherproofing, and reducing energy usage. The grassroots, no-drama effort even earned the town a place in the media spotlight.
76. Listen to the best climate podcast. Warm Regards features a big-picture, science-focused look at climate change, from glaciology to green energy, hosted by paleoecologist Jacquelyn Gill and ProPublica journalist Andy Revkin.
sciondriver: Flickr/Creative Commons
A biker on the 8-mile, $62.5 million Indianapolis Cultural Trail that has linked neighborhoods and inspired development.
79. Support a carbon tax. A carbon tax is a fee imposed on the burning of carbon-based fuels, like coal, oil, and gas. It’s a way for users of carbon fuels to pay for the climate damage caused by releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and an incentive that motivates companies to switch to noncarbon fuels and energy efficiency.
Kevin P. Coughlin/Office of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo
The new span of New York’s Kosciuszko Bridge lights up green in response to the Trump administration’s announcement to withdraw from the Paris climate accord.
83. Map local air pollution. The Environmental Defense Fund teamed up with Google to build a remote sensing tool that can help map air pollution in cities. Neighborhoods can use the data to reduce emissions and target communities most at risk for health issues.
84. Support corporate sustainability initiatives, or start one at your office. If your company has one, find ways to get involved. If not, talk to your colleagues about starting one. A recent eight-year study by MIT Sloan Management Review and the Boston Consulting Group, which offers plenty of advice and actionable goals, is a good place to start.
86. Back a scientist running for office. Only five people in Congress identify as scientists, which many science-minded advocates say is part of the problem when it comes to climate legislation. Find a scientist running near you or, better yet, if you’ve got a science background, here’s how to run yourself.
Pixar
87. Watch a cartoon.Wall-E is the tale of a robot left alone to clean up Earth after humans trashed the place and escaped to outer space. Vox calls it one of the finest environmental films of the past decade, a riveting picture of society’s insatiable need to consume and what happens when private industry’s drive for profit overtakes the public good. This is the movie we need right now.
88. Offset your carbon emissions. If you want to approach the gold standard of environmental responsibility, take steps to completely neutralize your carbon footprint and invest in carbon offsets, which fund programs that help absorb the carbon generated by your everyday activities, such as reforestation. Groups such as Carbon Neutral and My Climate can help businesses and individuals get started.
90. Join a climate action event. Organizations across the country like the Sunrise Movement are hosting events to bring attention to climate action. Find an event near you, or organize your own.
The fight for a #GreenNewDeal won't be won in closed door meetings in Washington, DC—it'll be won when millions of us mobilize across America to demand the future we deserve #Road2GND tour kicks off in just over a week-- get your tickets now at https://t.co/3qx6b4Cd3m! pic.twitter.com/fFkhGnc8t0
91. Become a “planetary futurist.”Alex Steffen is arguably one of the smartest voices for climate action. His latest project, The Nearly Now, is a newsletter that promises to not only change the way you see the future, but also to give you the tools and necessary optimism to affect its outcome.
95. Discuss, and advocate, for the environment in more concrete terms. “The environment is an abstract concept, and until you put a human face to the problem you will not inspire people to act. The Slow Space Movement puts people first—their experience, their health, and their rights. It goes beyond sustainability and checklists and connects with people on an emotional level by telling the stories of how their lives are affected by the built environment.” —Mette Aamodt, co-founder and CEO of Aamodt/Plumb Architects
96. Disinvest from carbon-heavy industries and investments. Making sure your financial portfolio matches your beliefs is a sound investment in our collective future. Many mutual funds and retirement accounts offer clean energy and carbon-free options, and groups such as Carbon Tracker have helped demonstrate the risk of carbon-heavy investments in light of a worldwide shift toward cleaner energy.
97. Endorse the Paris agreement. You can show your support for the global climate accord by personally agreeing to uphold its values.
98. Build towers (and eventually skyscrapers) with wood. “Building with Cross-Laminated Timber (CLT) and other emerging wood technologies allows us to ‘grow’ future cities with a renewable resource that sequesters carbon and connects urban growth to rural economic development.” — Thomas Robinson, founding principal of Lever Architecture
99. Work on a community solar project. Solar panels can be a stretch for many homeowners, and an impossibility for renters. But that doesn’t mean you can’t invest in a sun-powered future. More than 25 states allow for community solar projects, which let a group of residents team up to fund a centralized, shared solar installation. Others are attempting to take it one step further: In New York City, the Brooklyn Microgrid project wants to create a viable market to sell local energy between neighbors.
More than any wife, more than any party, more than any opinion, President Donald Trump has remained fiercely loyal to golf. But I’ve played golf my entire life. Years ago, I even played with Trump once. Whatever sport he’s playing, it isn’t golf.
He cheats. He lies. He kicks. And not just his ball—yours, too. He props up a 2.8 handicap that’s faker than WrestleMania 35. He wins tournaments he never even played in. He wins tournaments that weren’t even held.
He does all of this because he has to win. A loss is to Donald Trump what a shower is to the Wicked Witch of the West. He has to win no matter how much cheating, lying, and pencil erasing it takes. He has to win whether you’ve caught him or not. Maybe it was his father beating into his kid brain, Win, win, win. Be a winner, over and over. Maybe it was where he learned the game—Cobbs Creek, a scruffy public course in Philadelphia full of hustlers and con men who taught him to cheat your opponent before he cheats you.
And it’s not just the cheating. It’s the way he plays the game—with all the golf etiquette of an elephant on Red Bull. Trump promised to Make America Great Again. He’s definitely Made Golf Gross Again.
He drives his golf cart on greens. He drives it on tee boxes. He never, ever walks, even on the courses he owns that have banned carts (Trump Turnberry.)
He always hits first, never mind who won the last hole, and then jumps in his Super Mario Kart with his caddy and peels off before you’ve even hit, the better to be 150 yards ahead of you so the two of them can foozle, fudge, and foot-wedge in private.
He plays only at clubs with his name on them and only with caddies who love his $200-a-round tips.
He plays only in those awful two-sizes-too-small cotton Dockers with the 1995 pleats. (Does he own golf shirts in any other color than white?) He plays only with rich people, and almost entirely with men, and not one Democratic member of Congress yet.
It stinks because we were finally getting somewhere with golf. It used to be an elitist game, until the 1960s, when a public-school hunk named Arnold Palmer brought it to the mailmen and the manicurists. Then an Army vet’s kid named Tiger Woods brought it to people of color all over the world. We had ultracool golfers like Woods, Rickie Fowler, and Rory McIlroy, and pants that don’t look like somebody shot your couch, and we’d gotten the average round of golf down to $35, according to the National Golf Foundation.
We were finally making the game cool and healthy and welcoming, and along comes Trump, elbowing his way into the front of every camera and hurling my sport backwards 50 years to its snobby roots.
That’s not just talk. That’s what Trump wants. “I’d like to see golf be an aspirational sport,” Trump told Golf Digest once, “where you aspire to join a club someday, you want to play, you go out and become successful.”
Hey, middle class, your president doesn’t think you deserve golf. Care to try pickleball?
My book is called Commander in Cheat: How Golf Explains Trump. So how does golf explain Trump’s presidency? Well …
If Trump will cheat to win $20 from his friends, is it that much further to believe he’d cheat to lower his taxes, win an election, sway an investigation?
If Trump will lie and say one of his courses is worth $50 million while at the same time suing the local tax board for valuing it at more than $2 million—we feel you, Ossining, New York—is it that much further to think he might lie about his taxes, his fixer, his affairs?
I used to have a coach who said, “How you do one thing is how you do everything.” It’s true.
Golf: Trump says he’s won 20 club championships. (He hasn’t.) The truth is, he played a lot of those “championships” by himself, the first day his latest course opened, and declared himself the champ. How do I know? He told me the day we played together in the early 2000s.
Golf: Except in Ireland, where his lawyers petitioned to have a 2,000-foot sea wall to fight the “rising sea levels” caused “by climate change.” How do we know? Those exact words are in the petition.
Politics: Trump won’t release his taxes.
Golf: If the House ever gets his returns, they should start with his golf write-offs. For instance, did you know Trump keeps eight goats in a pen on his Trump Bedminster course to get an $80,000 farm tax credit?
Donald Trump does not represent the world of golf; he repels it. Most American golfers (about 90 percent) play on public courses, not country clubs, according to the National Golf Foundation. Every golfer I know plays by the rules (aside from a first-tee mulligan), except him. Every golfer I know finishes his round and—even before his beer—immediately posts his score in the GHIN computer, so everybody knows a bet with him will be fair, except him. In 2018, Trump played an estimated 60-plus times. He posted one score.
While writing my new book about Trump’s cheating, I left calls, emails and even FedEx letters for him and his people and got no replies. Meanwhile, he’s still telling America he’s this champion golfer, and he isn’t. How do I know? Whenever he’s played in front of cameras (Pebble Beach Pro-Am, Tahoe Celebrity), he’s not once made a cut or finished in the top half among the celebs.
I’m just a sportswriter. I’m not an expert on politics, immigration, or the Mueller report. But I can tell you one thing. When it comes to golf fraud, President Trump is not exonerated.
It’s a big — temporary — win for Democratic Gov. Tony Evers.
Wisconsin’s newly elected Democratic Gov. Tony Evers is getting his power back — at least, for now.
Evers and Attorney General Josh Kaul were handed a huge, albeit temporary, win in the court this week, when a judge blocked Republicans’ lame-duck power grab aimed at limiting Democrats’ newfound power in the state.
State Republicans passed a slate of bills in December curbing Evers’s ability to change policies around welfare, health care, and economic development, as well as limiting the attorney general’s powers, while former Republican Gov. Scott Walker was still in office. Among other provisions, the laws blocked Evers’s power to expand Medicaid coverage, stopped Kaul from withdrawing the state from a lawsuit against the Affordable Care Act, and stripped Evers’s authority over key executive branch appointments.
Dane County Circuit Court Judge Richard Niess ruled these laws unconstitutional Thursday, because they were passed in an “executive session” of the legislature “not convened in accord with the Wisconsin Constitution.”
Republican state leaders have already promised to appeal the ruling, which would send it to a conservative-majority court — a step that could possibly reinstate the laws.
For now, Evers and Kaul are making the most of their restored powers. Kaul has already moved to withdraw Wisconsin from the federal court case Texas v. United States, whichthreatens to overturn Obamacare’s ban on preexisting conditions.
This is the second time this year that a court has deemed Republicans’ lame-duck push unconstitutional. In January, a federal judge struck down Wisconsin Republicans’ law restricting early voting, another key component of the bills Walkers signed in his last days in office.
Republicans’ intentions have always been clear: After devastating losses in the 2018 midterm elections, the state’s Republican-controlled legislature wants to protect conservative legacies.
“We are going to have a very liberal governor who is going to enact policies that are in direct contrast to what many of us believe in,” Republican Speaker of the Wisconsin state Assembly Robin Vos said last year.
But liberal groups in the state vowed to take Republicans to court — and for now it seems they have some wins under their belt.
This is a photo taken in Germany in 1914 by August Sander:
It’s called Young Farmers and it depicts three young men on their way to a dance in rural Germany. But as John Green explains in this video, there is so much more going on with this photo.
From The Tate, which has a print of Young Farmers in its collection:
The Marxist art critic John Berger famously analysed the photograph in his influential essay ‘The Suit and the Photograph’ (1980) writing: ‘The date is 1914. The three young men belong, at the very most, to the second generation who ever wore such suits in the European countryside. Twenty or 30 years earlier, such clothes did not exist at a price which peasants could afford.’ (Berger 1980, p.30.) Berger suggests that these mass market suits, emulating the higher quality attire of the bourgeois urban class, draws attention to, rather than disguises, their ‘social caste’, and not in a particularly flattering sense. In his essay, Berger considers that the three young men are of a social group not beyond the reach of aspirational advertising campaigns and travelling salesmen, and in a state of awkward transition, succumbing to a new ‘cultural hegemony’. The posturing of these three rural ‘lads’, perhaps on their way to a dance, confounds and subverts expectations of the peasant ‘type’, especially in that they smoke cigarettes. Peasants were traditionally depicted smoking a pipe handcrafted from wood, and which like the wooden canes that appear frequently in Sander’s volume of photographs devoted to peasants and farmers, including this one, connoted an organic connection to the native soil as well as a certain time-honoured wisdom. By contrast, the mass-manufactured cigarette was often seen at the time as an urban symbol of social dissolution.
However, Green also cautions that there’s only so much you can infer about people from a photograph (given, for example, that the three men weren’t actually farmers).
This video is from a new-to-me channel called The Art Assignment, which is about art and art history. Subscribed!
“I was never falling-down drunk. I was never belligerent. I always got my work done. I was never unkempt. I was always clean, I was always shaved, I always performed at work. I was always kind and gracious in the dining room. But I lived in hell.”
A team of Canadian scientists has developed a fascinating new experimental drug that is purported to result in rapid improvements to both mood and memory following extensive animal testing. It's hoped the drug will move to human trials within the next two years. New Atlas reports: Gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) is a key neurotransmitter, and when altered it can play a role in the development of everything from psychiatric conditions to cognitive degeneration. Benzodiazepines, such as Xanax or Valium, are a class of drugs well known to function by modulating the brain's GABA systems. This new research describes the development of several new molecules that are structurally based on benzodiazepines, but with small tweaks to enhance their ability to specifically target certain brain areas. The goal was to create a new therapeutic agent that can effectively combat age-related mood and memory alterations caused by disruptions in the GABA systems.
In animal tests the drug has been found to be remarkably effective, with old mice displaying rapid improvements in memory tests within an hour of administration, resulting in performance similar to that of young mice. Daily administration of the drug over two months was also seen to result in an actual structural regrowth of brain cells, returning their brains to a state that resembles a young animal. The new study was published in the journal Molecular Neuropsychiatry.
Last night, as you have no doubt already heard, President Trump welcomed members of the Clemson University football team to the White House to celebrate their victory over the University of Alabama’s Crimson Tide in the national championship. The team and Clemson staff were greeted with a massive feast comprised...More »
In The Number Ones, I'm reviewing every single #1 single in the history of the Billboard Hot 100, starting with the chart's beginning, in 1958, and working my way up into the present. More »
“The plain fact is that the planet does not need more successful people. But it does desperately need more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers, and lovers of every kind. It needs people who live well in their places. It needs people of moral courage willing to join the fight to make the world habitable and humane. And these qualities have little to do with success as we have defined it.”
– David W. Orr
Going back to your roots can be either good or bad—you never know just what will happen. With the 1971 K5 Chevy Blazer SUV, Ringbrothers proved that looking back at where you came from is a good thing. The old-school blazer is a far sight […]
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In The Number Ones, I'm reviewing every single #1 single in the history of the Billboard Hot 100, starting with the chart's beginning, in 1958, and working my way up into the present. More »
