Gongol.com Archives: June 2020
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June 1, 2020
Peaceably-assembled people were removed with tear gas so that the President could get a photo op. And the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff went with him. There was another choice: He could have said no. It's been done before by leaders in similar circumstances who knew how to keep their military uniforms out of a political stunt.
June 2, 2020
Air Force leadership speaks out
Chief Master Sergeant Kaleth Wright shares an impassioned plea: "What should you be doing? Like me, acknowledge your right to be upset about what's happening to our nation. But you must then find a way to move beyond the rage and do what you think is right for the country, for your community, for your sons, daughters, friends and colleagues...for every Black man in this country who could end up like George Floyd." It's a statement worth reading. ■ The Constitution's call "To form a more perfect union" is a phrase built around a verb. It isn't a destination or an end-state. It's a process and a challenge. It's not just "all hands" for the military -- it's for all of us. But thank goodness for leaders like Chief Master Sergeant Wright.
Florida member of Congress has tweet hidden for violating anti-violence policy
It's a start. Rep. Matt Gaetz asked about "hunt[ing] down" members of Antifa, and it was a needless display of puffery that bordered on incitement to violence. Blood lust is no substitute for courageous resolve. We need more adults in national leadership who can look to a problem and answer it with a summons to duty and an acknowledgment of the inherent challenges of living in a liberal democracy without turning to cheap lines meant to shock.
Will your personality change over time?
It can happen, but the odds are against sweeping changes in anyone's big five characteristics
The names of people who died in police custody are painted on the street in Minneapolis where George Floyd died. This image deserves a very large audience.
DEA vehicles block the road to the Cato Institute
Protests in Washington, DC, and the Federal response thereto create a set of circumstances straight out of a Correspondents' Dinner routine. And yet: There are military vehicles and armed Federal agents blocking the streets of the nation's capital.
An early-season tropical storm could make a giant mess in the Gulf of Mexico
Tropical Storm Cristobal is already causing deadly floods in Central America
Little-known fact: Herbert Hoover opposed regulating Twitter
"Every expansion of government in business means that government, in order to protect itself from the political consequences of its errors and wrongs, is driven irresistibly without peace to greater and greater control of the nation's press and platform."
June 3, 2020
Hong Kong should have become a US state
Generally: Let refugees in. Specifically: Let lots of Hong Kong residents in before the window closes and China refuses to let them out. And broadly: Don't be surprised by a future populated by city-states. But to the question immediately at hand, the United States, the UK, Australia, and other countries of like philosophy ought to open the doors wide to the people of Hong Kong if they want out.
Senator Ben Sasse is right to say it. Whether you're an originalist, a textualist, a living-documentarian, or the ghost of Antonin Scalia himself, "the right of the people peaceably to assemble" doesn't leave a lot of wiggle room.
Who are the people with the weapons?
Scenes from DC include the grave observation that armed "law enforcement" members won't identify themselves. If anyone is purporting to represent Federal law enforcement without identification, then it's time for members of Congress to demand immediate answers. All Federal authority is ultimately accountable to the Article I branch.
Sen. Tom Cotton is at odds with the IRI
He serves as a member of the board at the International Republican Institute. But the Senator is clearly at odds with its honorable mission, particularly with his use of phrases like "no quarter". He should have the character to recalibrate his own words accordingly.
Massive cloud complex visible for hundreds of miles
Over Muscatine, visible from Dubuque, with a plume stretching all the way to Chicagoland
Police shouldn't be all-purpose social workers
Conscientious citizens ought to pursue change on this matter within their own communities. Who would you call if you thought someone needed help not of the 911 variety? Asking police/fire/EMS to be jacks-of-all-trades isn't fair to them, nor to the people in need.
June 4, 2020
(Video) The Frontline episode on Tiananmen Square is worth a re-watching every June 4th. The dignity of the individual is the highest good, and there may be no better illustration in modern history. This year's socially-distanced vigil in Hong Kong must not be the last.
Australian military leaders knew how to step away from rank partisanship last year
News you really can use
Something unholy in the skies over Kansas City
A back-building mesoscale convective system crashed into a forward-propagating one behind it. The radar picture is incredible.
The US just finished paying Civil War pensions
A woman whose father was an 83-year-old veteran when she was born (in 1930) just passed away. Try thinking through the math on that one.
June 5, 2020
"We must reject and hold accountable those in office who would make a mockery of our Constitution"
Retired Defense Secretary James Mattis blasts the President's misbehavior in a letter shared via The Atlantic: "Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people -- does not even pretend to try. Instead he tries to divide us. We are witnessing the consequences of three years of this deliberate effort. We are witnessing the consequences of three years without mature leadership. We can unite without him, drawing on the strengths inherent in our civil society." And as he speaks out, John Kelly joins him. And high-ranking leaders in the Armed Forces are subtly echoing the same things. Fortunately, some vocal acknowledgment is being made that the military doesn't exist to serve an individual politician. ■ On a side note: It's fascinating to watch as The Atlantic has effectively moved in to fill the space previously occupied by the triumvirate of Time, Newsweek, and US News & World Report. It would be good for there to be more such editorial institutions with such a presence again. The publishing world has suffered a great deal in its transition to the realities of digital economics, but institutions still need to occupy a space where they can serve as clearinghouses for ideas and debate. ■ One of the least-reasonable changes that has occurred of late has been the New York Times's retreat from publishing daily editorials. And now, smarting from the reaction to this week's awful op-ed from Sen. Tom Cotton, the Times is considering a reduction in the number of op-eds it publishes. No, no, no: That's not the point. The Times should publish many ideas. Even a few stupid ones. But...maybe not the violently reactionary ones, OK? ■ Smart, opinionated digital publications have emerged -- The Bulwark, The Dispatch, and others. This has happened while others have been closed (The Weekly Standard) or major changes in tone or style (The Examiner and the National Review, for instance). But we need a contest among publications that think of themselves as representing the consensus of American opinion. The Atlantic may, in fact, be somewhere away from that center, but its identity seems more to be built around being where public opinion will be in six to twelve months -- skating, like Gretzky, to where the puck will be. Canada, with just 37 million people, has Maclean's, with its "uniquely Canadian perspective". One would think that the United States, with 330 million, could sustain more than just one publication in The Atlantic's lane -- and that it should.
Strong words from James Mattis may have put steel in some spines
God bless Mattisonian permission structures.
161 American kids were named the 2020 U.S. Presidential Scholars
The program is making some headlines because of two bad appointments to the selection commission, but please don't let the rotten news overshadow the honor of the students. They represent all walks of life and all 50 states (plus PR & DC) and they should be the ones making news and being recognized.
People shouldn't die over minor infractions
A reminder from Federalist Paper No. 62: "It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood..."
June 6, 2020
Iowa is literally on track for a post-tropical depression
Cristobal is forecasted to track up the Mississippi River -- which cannot bode well for the flooding prospects in New Orleans once it has departed
The title of "peace officer" ought to be taken both literally and seriously
The utterly despicable way in which a man was thrown to the ground in Buffalo, New York, is the kind of thing good police ought to denounce far and wide
Real headline: "Cate Blanchett suffers minor head injury in 'chainsaw accident'"
Aren't famous actors well-advised to stay away from outdoor power tools?
June 7, 2020
Newspapers: Pick a (nerd) lane
The Washington Post's "Capital Weather Gang" ought to be a model for every newspaper. It's a deep dive into a very specific topic, and that relentless nerdiness makes it worth following (even if you don't live under DC weather). Every newspaper, big and small, ought to pick one nerd lane and make it a signature feature. Cover a unique topic with a team approach and excessive zeal, and let it become a thing for which the paper can become known outside of the conventional coverage of the local news. Plenty of places have much more interesting weather than Washington, DC -- Chicago, for instance, just among the major cities. But in Chicago, there's WGN television's Dr. Tom Skilling, and then there's everybody else -- it's not really a team thing in the sense of a group literally called the Capital Weather "Gang". ■ It's merely a guess, but a good quarter of the population could probably be categorized as "nerds": People who take an unusual amount of recreational interest in a subject, developing expertise that is either outside their occupation or in excess of what they are paid to know and care about. And a lot of people, though not really nerds themselves, are nerd-adjacent: They like hearing, reading, or watching other people get nerdy about a subject. The enthusiasm is the secret sauce. It's a matter of caring about something entirely out of personal passion, then letting that passion spill over into evangelization of one sort or another. ■ Nerd content may not look like much, but as a tool for institutionally defining a media outlet, it would seem to be an obvious source of potential. As the editorial and content-creation staffs of newspapers and other media outlets shrink, it's becoming ever harder to be the "everything store" for news. But it may be possible to survive in the long term by competently delivering the expected "everything", while specifically becoming the destination for some unique lane of nerd content. People want it -- so it seems wise to satisfy that demand.
June 8, 2020
Where did James Mattis have his letter published this week, and what does it have to do with the Capital Weather Gang?
Anti-bias trainer gets assaulted while trying to keep the peace
Derrick Sanderlin has worked for years trying to help the San Jose (Calif.) police to reduce implicit bias, but he ended up getting hit with rubber bullets fired by police after he tried to de-escalate a situation
Even if a country got to choose its neighbors, it couldn't choose better than Canada.
Reading the stories collected on Twitter under the #blackintheivory hashtag is really a great deal more educational than any dry research paper about a regression analysis on the same subject. Highly recommended browsing. (It's also a helpful source of Twitter accounts worth following.)
Why Army bases shouldn't be named for Confederates
It's time to catch up with reality. Also: Now would be a good time to consider removing Woodrow Wilson's name from things, too.
Iowa makes the forecast track for a tropical depression
That's a new one. The swing from 90 degrees and sunny to a flash flood watch is going to hurt.
June 15, 2020
"When I wear a mask, I protect you. And when you wear a mask, you protect me."
Don't wait for the vaccine; we can break this thing now. It can be done.
If schools remain closed or semi-closed, broadband Internet will be essential
Imagine taking a time machine back to 1995 and explaining that in 25 years, broadband Internet access will become a major factor in public health. Because it is now.
Iowans used absentee voting en masse this primary
79.4% voted by absentee ballot. In the middle of a pandemic, you know what that equates to? A lot of Iowans taking a pragmatic step to not only protect their own health, but to protect the well-being of poll workers. More absentee voting means less exposure at the polls. Nice work, team.
Don't ask us to imagine a world without immigrants
A country should never be ashamed to import all the willing talent it can find.
High-speed rail in places like Italy really is fantastic stuff -- it's just great. But Italy has 9.5 times the population density of a place like Iowa. There's little way to make the economics work at the same scale here as there without the help of some stunning breakthroughs.
June 16, 2020
Literally, in a brawl in the mountains. Several died. Not good news when a conflict between the two most populous nations in the world gains itself a hashtag like "#IndiaChinaFaceoff.
Airlines might start banning passengers who won't wear masks
As they should. It is, quite literally, almost the very least you can be asked to do in service of the general welfare during a time of pandemic.
Police officer comes to rescue of man who drove two daughters off cliff
"'That's probably the most heroic thing I've seen in my 32 years', said San Diego Police Chief David Nisleit". Nothing beats knowing how to do important things and being willing to do them when they're needed.
A silly question: "Has Buffett missed the rally?"
One sure way to know that stock-market-watchers have gone a little daft is that they're rolling out the weather-worn debate over whether Warren Buffett still knows what he's doing. When someone is dedicated to doing things the right way and circumstances fail to reward it (even for a long time), that's no reason for them to abandon the right way. Carry on, Warren Buffett. Carry on. Right will ultimately be rewarded.
What happens if housing affordability becomes a real public priority?
The matter of ensuring an abundant supply of dignified housing at affordable prices is by far one of the most important policy issues out there. While net government spending on it isn't clearly the best measuring stick, the issue deserves a whole lot of thought. Public policy most certainly can make the problem better -- or worse.
A newspaper, after encountering blowback for publishing an editorial cartoon, declares: "We will continue to take responsibility for publishing an offensive cartoon, but after the uproar we caused last week, we have made a decision to suspend the use of editorial cartoons on our Opinion page for the time being." That's missing the point. Don't throw the valuable genre out with the bathwater, folks.
Self-evident truths require some unchanging parts of human nature
Human nature is a powerful thing. Accepting just how powerful it is makes it possible to think clearly (and modestly) about how to use rules, training, and education to overcome its shortcomings.
Severe measures in Beijing to curb Covid-19 resurgence
It's too easy to read that there's an outbreak in Beijing and scale it to the size of an American city, like Baltimore or Denver. Beijing has as many people as the entire state of Florida.
2020 class motto: "We really outdid ourselves with senior skip day"
This year requires a mandatory sense of humor
Should the anonymous be taken seriously in online arguments?
Real debate should take place under your real name, unless there's a meaningful hazard in so doing. That said: Everyone who has a real-name account ought to have a burner, too, where you can let off some steam. And never the twain shall meet.
28 jobs cut at Minnesota Public Radio
Now is the worst possible time for media economics in modern history, and the layoffs are overwhelming in number. Outlets like MPR aren't huge, and to cut 28 employees marks a real loss for the institution. Though, of course, the now-jobless are the ones who are really hurt.
June 18, 2020
Reuters reports: "The risk for severe COVID-19 was 45% higher for people with type A blood than those with other blood types. It appeared to be 35% lower for people with type O." Always take reporting on studies with a grain of salt. Reporters usually try their best, but it's extremely hard to communicate things like confidence intervals or significance tests in a news story written for the general public. Conclusions easily get exaggerated. But if both true and accurate, this is an item of the utmost newsworthiness.
Someone's cyber-attacking Australia
It doesn't take much imagination to fill in the "someone" with "China". We need a Cyber Force far more than we need a Space Force.
Anything involving humans is going to be imperfect. It's the striving towards becoming better that counts. Stories of redemption are more important than idyllic reports of perfection.
The academic priesthood model is a problem
The paradigm within academia that equates certain bona fides (like publications) with worthiness is a gigantic problem. That, in turn, sets up expectations of deference that perpetuate the status quo (including the power structures that make up who is "in charge") that have nothing to do with the positive diffusion of knowledge. ■ Federalist Paper No. 36: "There are strong minds in every walk of life that will rise superior to the disadvantages of situation, and will command the tribute due to their merit, not only from the classes to which they particularly belong, but from the society in general."
June 19, 2020
Well-said by Jamelle Bouie: "Emancipation wasn't a gift bestowed on the slaves; it was something they took for themselves, the culmination of their long struggle for freedom." ■ The people who were held in slavery were just as human -- smart, humane, self-aware, capable -- as ourselves. We have to read history with that in mind, because history has rarely been written to give them that credit.
You have to admit that the Spanish term for "junk bonds" is a lot more phonetically pleasing than the English one
But it's nothing new; Audioboo[m] offered the same service a decade ago. Don't expect this to take off, though. Audio is a magnificent art form, but it just doesn't fit with endless scrolling. Audio requires you to stop and comprehend (if it is to be of any informative value), and without so much as a visual cue (like you might get with video), there's no way to skip ahead or jump around. And people are not patient, on balance.
June 20, 2020
The Miller Center at the University of Virginia hosts a tremendous collection of past Presidential speeches and writings. Well worth reviewing, especially for words from broad-minded leaders like Eisenhower, who never had to worry about crowd sizes.
June 22, 2020
"A 3-year-old boy was shot and killed in Chicago over the weekend"
Those words alone ought to haunt any civilized person. Violence like this is contagious. It has a community impact. And it ought to be preventable with reasonable interventions. Why don't we treat it as a grave public-health problem? There is no single "cure" for violence, but there are lots of different interventions that can help. Homicide is a top-5 cause of death for every age from 1 to 44, but so is suicide between ages 10 and 54. The problem calls for many answers.
We are not angry enough on behalf of our fellow humans
The President of the United States has confessed to turning a blind eye towards China's use of concentration camps against religious minorities, and he says he did it because he was "in the middle of a negotiation" over trade. However angry this might make you, get even angrier. ■ As Calvin Coolidge said, "If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final." Do we believe these things are universally true, or do we not?
They ought to re-make "The West Wing", but with Anna Deavere Smith in the lead role as POTUS. It's the show America needs to see right now.
It's a cruel paradox that the American Psychological Association established a citation format that gives people existential headaches.
June 23, 2020
Why do we even have a government?
James Madison: "[W]e can rejoice in the proofs given that our political institutions, founded in human rights and framed for their preservation, are equal to the severest trials of war as well as adapted to the ordinary periods of repose." ■ Madison framed the Constitution. He was President during the War of 1812, which could have broken the young country, but didn't. We should take him at his word that the very purpose of our government was and is the preservation of human rights.
A sobering and distressing dispatch from Houston
A Texas doctor reports that "in Houston we, the pediatricians at Texas Children's Hospital, will now start seeing adult patients." All because Covid-19 has filled the ICU capacity at adult hospitals.
The artist once formerly known as Prince fighting the former prince while the Queen scraps with Queen.
How the pandemic is changing cities
This article opens with notes on changes to mass transit. One might wonder if small cars (serving, say, 2 to 8 people) could/will be introduced to run on existing rail systems. Still high density, but with greater isolation. The need to efficiently move people at high volumes while minimizing space and energy use remains, but we might need to rethink how we achieve it. Odds seem good that we'll find a way to get Covid-19 under control sometime in the not-so-distant future -- but what if we can't? Or what if something else comes after it? Oughtn't we be prepared for the contingencies?
"Barcelona opera house reopens with performance to 2,292 plants"
Potted plants don't need cough drops to keep quiet for a recording. Plants 1 - People 0.
Even accidental voter suppression is still voter suppression
You can run a polling place with the efficiency of a Swiss train station, but Kentucky's experiment in "only having one polling location in both Louisville and Lexington, the state's two largest cities" didn't enable voters the maximum reach of the franchise, and in fact demonstrably stood in the way of it. Especially during a pandemic, that's un-American.
The English language needs a punctuation mark to denote a cheerful period
For those times when an exclamation mark is too much, but when a simple period is too dry. If we can come up with the interrobang, then we can invent the cheeriod.
June 24, 2020
Only about 10% of American radio listening happens via streams
Broadcasting observers wonder why. There are a few hypotheses to consider: (1.) Too many rival apps with no clear leader. (2.) Too many false starts from ca. 1998 until ca. 2015, during which people never got the chance to become accustomed to a habit of listening. (3.) Garbage preroll ads, awful filler material, and bad synchronization, all of which lead to an inconsistent and sub-par listening experience. (4.) Low broadband speeds (no, really; the United States lags in broadband speeds compared to many other countries, and the problem is worst in remote areas where streaming would do the most good for listeners who don't have as many over-the-air listening options). (5.) An ever-dwindling supply of compelling local content. ■ That last one is a doozy. It's a pipe dream to imagine that anyone would invest the kind of money in content it would take to produce an American analog to BBC's outstanding Radio 4, but there has been a semi-conscious choice by American radio management to chase the lowest common denominator instead of investing in great speech-based content first. Radio 4 gets more than 10% of all listening in the UK, and there's nothing at all like it in the US market. ■ But the technical side of things can't be overlooked, either: The platform-dependency model is just nutty. There's a perfectly rational explanation for how and why it emerged, but making the user go download separate apps for Radio.com, TuneIn, iHeartRadio, and so on is daft. It's like needing separate apps to place calls through to your friends depending on whether they subscribe to Verizon, AT&T, or T-Mobile.
Review of studies on team mascots and psychological perceptions finds, unsurprisingly, that no matter how many times people try to say that using American Indians is somehow an honor, it just plain isn't understood that way. Any team that does it ought to reconsider, particularly the one in the NFL that substitutes a racial epithet for an actual mascot. This really shouldn't be a tough call. Washington's football team needs a new name.
June 25, 2020
Elijah McClain committed no crime, but three people with the authority of the law made choices to treat him like an object. Such disregard for the essential dignity of a human life harms us all.
Any shortage of virtue, competence, or imagination in our government is a choice. America was a country of 4 million people when the Constitution was enacted. We have 330 million today, plus far more experience and education -- not to mention universal civil rights. Any virtue or genius that you detect in the Founders, you ought to see hundreds of times over in America today. In 1790, the total population of Virginia alone was about 750,000 people -- or about the size of one Congressional district today. That small population included Washington, Madison, and Jefferson. By any objective measure, we should easily have 400 George Washingtons, 400 James Madisons, and 400 Thomas Jeffersons living among us today. Probably many more, considering that the only free white men had a say in matters at their time. It's on us.
DMACC and UNI to partner on four-year degree program in Des Moines
UNI has a special mission as the state's comprehensive university, and this is a great alignment with that charter. More of this, please!
June 26, 2020
Election interference didn't stop in 2016
Russia, China, and undoubtedly others haven't been made to stop their efforts to influence and interfere with the US electoral process. ■ To quote Federalist Paper No. 41: "Security against foreign danger is one of the primitive objects of civil society. It is an avowed and essential object of the American Union."
What implicit assumptions are you carrying in your head?
The implicit-association tests offered through Harvard are a worthwhile exercise. Most people of goodwill want to think of ourselves as unbiased, but there's nothing like getting an objective measurement of what's inside our heads. You don't have to tell anyone your results, but it's worthwhile knowing if you're truly approaching people with the open mind you know you should be.
Babies need to sleep -- alone -- on their backs
Polk County health officials note with alarm the local deaths of seven babies in the last three months
The Rosetta@Home project needs more computers to help run computations like the ones that have resulted in experimental drugs now being tested for effectiveness against coronavirus. ■ Ideally, we'll get a vaccine sooner than expected, it will be overwhelmingly effective, 7.6 billion doses will be produced overnight, and everyone will gladly get vaccinated. But those are a lot of preconditions that all have to come together just right to get us out of trouble. So, just in case that doesn't come true, let's find effective therapies ASAP. Everyone's computer can help. So can everyone's mask.
June 27, 2020
(Video) Dr. Anthony Fauci really gets the importance of clear, direct language when communicating scientific information to the public. It's a credit to his professionalism.
June 28, 2020
Podcast: Do I look like a manager to you?
What implicit assumptions are you carrying in your head? How do the faulty ones keep people from being treated with dignity?
June 29, 2020
Why should we still care about NATO?
Even if you think all mutual-aid circumstances are in the past (and they aren't), think of NATO like an alumni association. We may have "graduated" from the Cold War, but it sure doesn't hurt if we wear our team colors, tailgate together, and renew offers to help each other out. Alliances require continuing commitment and renewal, but if they're truly mutualistic, then they don't cost any more than going alone.
A pandemic-capable flu may be emerging in China
If Covid-19 has taught us anything, it's that any problem we think is 6 months away we should treat like it's 6 weeks away. If the worst case were to come true, then what should we be doing about it?
The freedom of Hong Kong may be over
A journalist asks, "Do you remember that feeling of lightness when crossing from the Mainland into Hong Kong"? "Remember", as in: In the past and no longer.
Don't be coy about hiring salaries
It seems not only like a pointless power play for an employer to hide the pay range for a position, but it's well worth noting that the practice has consequences for equity, too. Prospective employees deserve to know up-front whether they will be compensated adequately and fairly, not just according to their self-perceived ability to demand more.
The plans of 1956 still shape our world in 2020
We rarely appreciate just how much the original map of the Eisenhower Interstate System shapes how we think about distance. As the crow flies, it's about the same distance from Des Moines to either St. Louis or St. Paul. But since the Twin Cities are just up I-35, they seem close -- while St. Louis is like another country.
June 30, 2020
China sweeps in to rule Hong Kong by intimidation
Per the New York Times: "Ambiguously worded offenses of separatism, subversion, terrorism and collusion with foreign countries carry maximum penalties of life imprisonment." A prominent activist called it "End of Hong Kong, Beginning of Reign of Terror". ■ The urgency with which the mainland Chinese Communist Party imposed the new rules reveals that the reputation they have for "long-term thinking" is entirely untrue. Enlightened leaders with a true long-term vision would have reconciled the differences between the two systems by liberalizing the mainland instead of constraining Hong Kong. The move is impulsive and abusive. ■ This terrible moment is why good countries need to have liberal asylum policies. Imagine being a visible pro-democracy advocate in Hong Kong right now: You could face closed-door trials, life imprisonment, or expulsion. The people of Hong Kong plainly deserve better than this. Their autonomy is gone, as is really any sense of self-government. ■ China's central government is repulsed by the idea of individual dignity. In the short term, their new rules may keep the powerful in power. But in the long term, they have chosen a self-destructive path that will collapse under its own immorality. Every person is created equal, endowed with certain inalienable rights. The world knows this to be true. Where that self-evident truth is denied, it is only a matter of time -- sometimes, quite a lot of it, but never forever -- before people assert the fundamental truth of their own dignity.
...don't feel like you need to screen-print it with a picture of your face. Nobody needs that.
Woman delivers own baby en route to Omaha hospital
From the Omaha World-Herald: "Danessia said she could feel the baby's head. Staying calm, she leaned the seat back, kicked up her legs on the dashboard and delivered the baby." If she can keep this kind of a cool head, put this woman in charge of anything. (After a well-deserved maternity leave.)
Would social media be better if users were charged by the hour?
On one hand, yes (if it meant people were disincentivized from endless scrolling). On the other hand, the only things worth seeing on Facebook are the ones that take time to write. It might work if you could disable the copy-paste function and eliminate the sharing of all memes.
A fox grows fond of the humans living nearby during Covid-19
Fireworks? Only if the neighborhood agrees.
If you can keep the fire and fury inside the walls of your own home, then go nuts. If you can't, then maybe the neighbors should have some say in the matter. (Note: You can't keep the fire and fury within the walls of your home without a lot of asbestos.)