There is a growing, concerning movement undermining one of the most well established scientific theories there is: germ theory, the idea that germs—like viruses and bacteria—cause disease.
But it’s subtle.
Outright denial of germ theory is still a fringe idea: very few deny that viruses and bacteria exist. Rather, it’s the effect of germs—whether germs are the true cause of an illness—that is increasingly being called into question.
What germ theory is and isn’t
When germ theory was first proposed in the 1800s, scientists didn’t have the modern scientific tools we have today, and there was genuine debate over how infectious diseases like cholera were transmitted. Some thought it was microscopic germs, while others thought it was “bad vapors” (miasma theory). But that debate has been long settled. Microscopic germs like Vibrio cholerae (the bacteria that causes cholera), measles, influenza, and polio all cause infections that make people sick
Of course, there is more to germs than just disease. Some germs are good for us—like the many germs that make up the microbiome in our gut. And some germs cause disease only some of the time, like the MRSA bacteria that I am almost certainly colonized with as a healthcare worker. And sometimes, other health conditions—like those with diabetes or conditions that weaken the immune system—make people more susceptible to infectious germs.
Germ theory does not say all germs are bad, nor does it say germs are responsible for every disease known to humans, nor does it say that any exposure to a germ is a guarantee of illness. It says that certain germs can cause infections that make people sick. And when that happens, the germ really is to blame.
A new subtle form of germ theory denial
But this idea is starting to be rejected and replaced with a new, inaccurate view of why infections happen and what we should do about them.
This new version of germ theory denial still acknowledges that germs are real, but says they’re not all that much of a threat for a healthy individual, and not the real problem causing disease. Instead, when someone catches an infection, the person’s immune system and lifestyle are blamed—an unhealthy diet, lack of exercise, exposure to “environmental toxins,” or underlying conditions are allegedly the “true” cause of disease because they damaged the immune system. (continued)
Hello Seattle Stand Up for Science Community!We are excited for you to join us at our next rally, Science for All, will be coming soon on Sunday, 5/18, from 9-11am! Our goal is to cover as much ground as possible between the Ferry Terminal and the Sculpture Garden along the Seattle Waterfront.
This event seeks to demonstrate our community’s support for scientists and scientific research, public workers, and public lands. We will bring scientists and the people that benefit from science and research (so, everyone) to the waterfront, creating a line of supporters from the ferry terminal to the sculpture garden. This event will feature several “Ask a Scientist” stations, where you can ask scientists your most pressing (and imaginative!) questions about their work, their field, and why they do what they do! We will also have postcard writing stations for you to contact your representatives, a “passport” that kids (and adults) can get stamped after visiting each theme area, sign-making and costumery, and more! Bring your friends, family, and kids for a morning of fun, action, and advocacy in support of science, scientists, public workers, and research. More details can be found here, but in the meantime, make sure to follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Bluesky. See you there!
From Frank C.: At yesterday’s meeting of the First Hill Improvement Association’s Urban Design& Public Space committee, we received a brief update on the Harborview Hospital renovation project. Without getting into much detail, I think it is fair to say that the new construction and renovations that are planned will have some impact on our neighborhood. It looks as if the process of naming the firm to do the design and construction will be later this year, with a “guestimate” that construction will beginning 2028.
In his last months, Pope Francis blessed an effort to transform the vehicle he used when he visited the West Bank in 2014 into a mobile health clinic to treat Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip.
Pope Francis in his popemobile in Manger Square in the West Bank city of Bethlehem in 2014.Credit…Vincenzo Pinto/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
When Pope Francis visited Bethlehem in the Israeli-occupied West Bank in 2014, he crisscrossed the traditional birthplace of Jesus in a white popemobile manufactured especially for his visit.
Now, the vehicle is being transformed into a mobile health clinic to treat ill and wounded Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip — an initiative that Pope Francis blessed in the months before he died.
While the clinic will serve only a limited number of Palestinians in Gaza, Pope Francis’s personal involvement in the project reflected his commitment to Palestinian civilians caught in the crossfire between Israel and Hamas, particularly children, in more than 18 months of war.
“The papamobile is a very concrete sign that Pope Francis is concerned with all the suffering of children in Gaza, even after his death!” Cardinal Anders Arborelius of Sweden said in an email on Monday.
The idea to recreate the popemobile as a health clinic came from leaders of Caritas, a Catholic organization, and Cardinal Arborelius approached Francis with it. The Swedish cardinal is a contender to become the next pope after Francis.
The popemobile, a converted Mitsubishi, was donated by President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority for Francis’ visit. It was given to the Franciscan order afterward, and then to Caritas after Francis blessed its use in Gaza. (continued on the website)
A photograph of the popemobile at a garage where it will be transformed into a mobile health clinic was made available by Caritas Jerusalem.Credit…Caritas Jerusalem
In November 2024, representatives of Francis said that he welcomed the initiative, according to two letters from senior Vatican officials reviewed by The New York Times.
“I am pleased to convey His Holiness’s approval of the project, together with the assurance of his prayers for all associated with this charitable endeavor,” Archbishop Edgar Peña Parra, a senior aide to Francis, wrote to Cardinal Arborelius.
The popemobile will be staffed with a physician and a nurse and equipped with medical instruments to offer children basic care, including rapid tests for infections, suture kits and syringes, according to Anton Asfar, the secretary general of Caritas Jerusalem. Caritas Jerusalem has around 100 staff members in Gaza providing aid to Palestinians.
Preparing the vehicle for use, including the installation of blastproof windows, will take roughly three weeks, Mr. Asfar said. Caritas Jerusalem, he added, will soon request approval from Israeli authorities to deliver it to Gaza.
COGAT, the Israeli government agency responsible for coordinating the entry of aid into the enclave, did not respond to a request for comment about whether Israel intended to allow the passage of the popemobile. Israeli authorities have enforced a total blockade on humanitarian supplies and commercial goods for the past two months, saying that the ban was meant to pressure Hamas to release more of the hostages they have been holding since the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
Francis was one of the most outspoken prominent supporters of a cease-fire in Gaza and the delivery of humanitarian aid. He also called for the release of hostages, met with their relatives and condemned the Hamas-led attack, which left some 1,200 people dead and about 250 abducted.
“Yesterday, children were bombed,” Francis said in a December 2024 address. “This is cruelty. This is not war.”
The Israeli military has said its bombing campaign has targeted Hamas militants and officials and weapons infrastructure, and has blamed the militant group for exposing civilians to danger by embedding with them.
The popemobile will be carrying a message of hope and solidarity, but it will also be offering needed services, said Peter Brune, the secretary general of Caritas Sweden.
“It’s symbolic,” he said, “but it’s also practical.”
Posted inHealth, Religion, War|Comments Off on A Popemobile Will Ride Again, This Time Into Gaza
Monsignor Benoni “Don Ben” Ambarus, who was the official responsible for managing Francis’ charity and prison pastoral care in Rome, said that before his death, the pope donated €200,000 (or about $226,400 USD) to a juvenile prison in Rome: Casal del Marmo.
Not only was it nearly the last of his personal wealth, but it went to fund a pasta factory — Pastificio Futuro, or “Future Pasta Factory” — that operates in the prison.
“I told him that we have a big mortgage for this pasta factory and if we can reduce it we will lower the price of pasta, sell more and hire more boys,” Ambarus told La Repubblica newspaper.
“He replied, ‘Almost all my money is finished, but I still have something in my account.’ And he gave me €200,000.”
Throughout his time as pope, he was entitled to a papal salary of some €30,000 a month, but Pope Francis refused to collect it. Instead, he deferred it to various organizations, churches, and groups in need.
Casal del Marmo held a particularly special place in the history of Pope Francis. In 2013, he celebrated his first Mass of the Lord’s Supper on Holy Thursday there.
And in 2023, he returned to wash the feet of 12 young inmates.
It was a ritual that recalls the foot-washing Jesus performed on his 12 apostles at their Last Supper before his crucifixion. In this Holy Thursday moment, Pope Francis assured the youth of their dignity, adding that “any of us” can fall into sin.
Pope Francis’ commitment to people in poverty and prison was prominent throughout his papacy, demonstrating his belief that the Catholic Church should help and provide attention to people living on the margins of society.
“In society, we profit from each other … how many injustices [are there], how many people without work, without money to buy what they need? If that’s not me, it’s for the grace of God.”
Ambarus said that even in his tired and frail state, Pope Francis would be remembered as someone who fought for the rights of prisoners.
“He (fought for) them until his last breath,” Ambarus told La Repubblica. “That is why the prisoners saw hope in him. A father died for them.”
Ambarus also condemned the Roman legal system for failing to respond to Pope Francis’s calls for mercy toward inmates.
“[Pope Francis] called for more to be done to restore dignity to people … But there was no direct result of his appeals. Like on the reduction of sentences,” Ambarus added.
“A great sadness enveloped the prisoners when they realised that the institutions had done nothing, not even a small gesture. Small gestures — a letter, a conversation, practical help with shoes or clothing — can reignite the human dignity that prison walls so often extinguish.”
But Pope Francis will be remembered far beyond a gesture. The pasta factory in Casal del Marmo received his blessing years ago, employing inmates to work toward reintegration in society and prevent recidivism.
“It all goes back to March 2013,” Alberto Mochi Onori told El Mundo, when the pope visited the prison for Holy Thursday for the first time.
“At the end of the visit, he delivered a brief homily, proclaiming: ‘Do not let yourselves be robbed of hope!’”
After a prison chaplain spoke with the Pontiff on this visit, Onori said Pope Francis declared: “We have to do something for these kids.” The pope later donated the initial funding to start the pasta factory.
“The profile of those who come here is usually people who don’t have their head in the right place. If they don’t have an alternative, they fall back,” Carmine, a 25-year-old former inmate at the facility, told El Mundo.
“But when the kids come here, they come with one mindset and leave with another. One of wanting to work and get organized. The project works very well. Working gives you hope.”
Posted inUncategorized|Comments Off on In a final act of kindness, Pope Francis donated his entire personal bank account to prisoners right before he died
By Susan Dominus in the NYT Magazine (thanks to my Buddhist friend Howard P.)
Growing up in Maryland, Sonja Lyubomirsky could see that her mother was unhappy. When Sonja was 9, her parents moved the family from Moscow, where her mother taught literature at a high school, to the United States, hoping to offer their children more opportunities. In their new country, Sonja’s mother could no longer teach, so she cleaned houses to help the family get by. She missed her old career; she longed for her home country; she was frequently teary. She was unhappy on a Tolstoyan scale. Sonja understood her nostalgia and frustrations, which were compounded by a miserable marriage, but she still wondered: Were Russians just less happy than Americans? Was her mother destined to be unhappy anywhere, or was this a result of life circumstances? What, if anything, might make someone like her mother happier, if not wholly content?
In 1985, Lyubomirsky left for college at Harvard, where, her adviser reminded her years later, she frequently brought up the topic of happiness, even though his expertise was in the social psychology of the stock market. At the time, the study of happiness was far from the wellness mega-field it has become today. In the ’60s, a researcher making a rare foray into the subject noted that very little progress on the theory of happiness had been made since Aristotle weighed in two millenniums earlier. That paper concluded that youth and modest life aspirations were key components of happiness (findings later called into question).
Many scientists at the time believed that happiness was essentially random: It was not something to cultivate, like a garden, or to reach for, by setting and achieving meaningful goals. It was something that happened to people, by virtue of their genes, their circumstances or both. “It may be that trying to be happier is as futile as trying to be taller and therefore is counterproductive,” the authors of a 1996 study concluded.
When Lyubomirsky arrived at graduate school for social psychology at Stanford in 1989, academic research on happiness was only beginning to gain legitimacy. Ed Diener, a psychologist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign who would eventually be known for his work in the field, waited until he was granted tenure before tackling the subject, despite harboring a longstanding interest in it. Lyubomirsky, too, was wary of choosing happiness as a specialty — she was a woman in science eager to be taken seriously, and anything in the realm of “emotions” was considered somewhat soft. Nonetheless, on her first day of graduate school at Stanford, in 1989, following an energizing conversation with her adviser, she resolved to make happiness her focus.
Lyubomirsky began with the basic question of why some people are happier than others. A few years earlier, Diener published a survey of the existing research, which touched on the kinds of behaviors that happy people seemed inclined to engage in — religious observance, for example, or socializing and exercising. But the studies, which sometimes had conflicting findings, yielded no clear consensus. Lyubomirsky’s own research, over many years, pointed toward the importance of a person’s mind-set: Happy people tended to refrain from comparing themselves with others, had more positive perceptions of others, found ways to be satisfied with a range of choices and did not dwell on the negative.
But Lyubomirsky knew she couldn’t separate cause and effect: Did being happy encourage a healthy mind-set, or did adopting that mind-set make people happier? Were people like her mother doomed to live with whatever their natural level of happiness was — or could they take control of their mood, if they only knew how? Even if you could change your mind-set, that process seemed to take a long time — people spend years in therapy trying (and often failing) to do it — and Lyubomirsky wondered whether there were simpler, easier behaviors they could adopt that would quickly enhance their sense of well-being. She decided to put it to the test.
Lyubomirsky started by studying some of the habits and practices that were commonly believed to be mood boosters: random acts of kindness and expressions of gratitude. Each week for six weeks, she had students perform five acts of kindness — donating blood, for example, or helping another student with a paper — and found that they were happier by the end of that period than the students in her control group. She asked a separate group of students to contemplate, once a week, the things they were grateful for, like “my mom” or “AOL Instant Messenger.” They, too, were happier after doing so than a control group. The changes in well-being weren’t particularly large in either study, but Lyubomirsky found it remarkable that so small and low-cost an intervention could improve the quality of students’ lives. In 2005, she published a paper based on those studies arguing that people did have considerable control over how happy they were. (continued)
Ed note: I’ve not noticed (yet) a tendency of some to infantilize the way they talk to me, but I have overheard such talk to others. Perhaps I’m not frail enough yet. I hope it won’t happen to me or to you. Even if well intended such talk is condescending and limits our humanity.
A prime example of elderspeak: Cindy Smith was visiting with her father in his assisted living apartment in Roseville, Calif. An aide who was trying to induce him to do something — Ms. Smith no longer remembers exactly what — said, “Let me help you, sweetheart.”
“He just gave her The Look — under his bushy eyebrows — and said, ‘What, are we getting married?’” recalled Ms. Smith, who had a good laugh, she said.
Her father was then 92, a retired county planner and a World War II veteran; macular degeneration had reduced the quality of his vision and he used a walker to get around, but he remained cognitively sharp.
“He wouldn’t normally get too frosty with people,” Ms. Smith said. “But he did have the sense that he was a grown up, and he wasn’t always treated like one.”
People understand almost intuitively what “elderspeak” means. “It’s communication to older adults that sounds like baby talk,” said Clarissa Shaw, a dementia care researcher at the University of Iowa College of Nursing and a coauthor of a recent article that helps researchers document its use.
“It arises from an ageist assumption of frailty, incompetence and dependence.”
Its elements include inappropriate endearments. “Elderspeak can be controlling, kind of bossy, so to soften that message there’s ‘honey,’ ‘dearie,’ ‘sweetie,’” said Kristine Williams, a nurse gerontologist at the University of Kansas School of Nursing and another coauthor.
“We have negative stereotypes of older adults, so we change the way we talk.” (continued)
Danny Westneat- Seattle Times columnist (thanks to Mary Lou P.)
Seattle Times columnist Writing this column for two decades, one thing I’ve noticed is that nothing hacks some people off more than good news.
This is especially true of good news about crime. Reports of falling crime are uniquely narrative-upsetting and denial-triggering. People who regularly cite police data when crime is rising simply do not accept this same data when it goes the other way.
It’s odd when these are the police themselves. But this is how I ended up in a Seattle police union video wearing an acorn on my head.
A few weeks ago, I wrote about how crime finally appeared to be dropping this year, according to the police’s own stats. As a result, I said the Seattle Police Officers Guild ought to stop portraying Seattle as a lawless hellhole on its social media feed.
The head of the union didn’t appreciate the suggestion.
“It’s disgraceful,” said Mike Solan, president of the guild, during a segment directed at me on his YouTube show, “Hold the Line.” “It’s not journalism. … It’s sloppy reporting … because crime is through the roof.”
He dubbed me “Danny Westnut,” displaying a photo mashup of me wearing an acorn on my head. Get it? The fifth graders who first called me that back in ’76 would be pleased.
He did make an argument that crime isn’t really down, it only appears to be down due to a drop in calls. People aren’t calling because they don’t think an officer will come.
“Overall 911 calls from the community for public safety services are dropping, and so the conclusion is that, ‘Hey, crime must be dropping,’” Solan said. “Well, that’s completely opposite to what the reality is.”
“The stats are going to be manipulated,” he went on. “But if you drive around, it doesn’t take rocket science to see that public safety is still a major problem in this city. In fact, it’s still at crisis levels.”
Seattle has plenty of problems, it’s true. But is it right that 911 call volume is masking the truth about crime?
Attempting to commit some journalism, I asked a crime data expert, Jeff Asher of AH Datalytics, who has testified before the state Legislature about Washington crime problems. He said it’s possible that call volume could affect rates for some property crimes, which are often not reported. But not for serious or violent crimes.
“Most 911 calls aren’t reporting crimes anyway,” he said.
He suggested focusing on four crimes with the highest report rates. These are homicide (which is reported near 100% of the time, because there’s a body); shootings that cause injury or death; car theft; and robbery.
So, through four months of 2025 in Seattle, homicide is down 25%. Shootings are down 22%, car theft is down 32% and robbery is down 26%, according to police data. Compared to the year Seattle hit a 30-year high for violent crime, 2022, the declines are eye-popping: Homicide is -50%, shootings -41%, car theft -20%, and robbery -36%.
Also: Call volume from the Seattle public is down compared to prepandemic. But it’s actually up through four months this year compared to high-crime 2022, according to the city’s dispatch dashboard.
“We’re seeing enormous drops in crime, pretty much everywhere around the country,” Asher said. “That’s not a reporting issue. Those crimes are actually down.”
“King County just experienced the safest start to a year that we’ve had in five years,” says King County Prosecutor Leesa Manion. She announced a 35% drop in gun violence countywide last Tuesday.
Huge crime swings like these are unusual, and so big they’d be impossible to mask, Asher said.
Why is it happening?
“Nobody really knows,” he said. “We still don’t know why crime fell in the 1990s, and that’s one of the most studied periods in all of crime.”
He cautioned that these comparisons are backward-looking and across short time frames. By the end of the year, we might no longer be talking about 35% improvements, or any improvement at all.
It also doesn’t mean there aren’t going to be events that shock the senses, such as this past week when someone sprayed bullets into a public park in Rainier Beach, grazing a woman and an 8-yearold girl.
I did see, though, that the mayor of Baltimore was tweeting about how they had only five murders in April — the fewest in a single month in that city’s recorded history. The mayor credited the work of the Baltimore Police Department.
Well, Seattle had only one murder in April, back on April 2. That means we went the next 28 days of April with zero. Five makes the national news out of Baltimore, while in Seattle, which has 200,000 more people, one is apparently not news, or not to be believed at all.
Asher said police unions have “an obvious incentive to highlight rising crime” — to push the city to hire more officers. But I’d think there’d also be reason to cheer when crime falls, à la Baltimore. The Seattle cops could be saying, “See, we’re doing a great job.” Rather than what they are saying, which is that the good news is fake.
The narrative that crime only goes up is one of the most potent in politics. This past week, President Donald Trump issued an executive order to “unleash high-impact police forces” in America’s cities. The order alleged there is such an urban crime crisis that “excess military and national security assets” need to be deployed to the cities.
“Millions of Americans live in fear, worried that surging crime will destroy their lives, homes or businesses,” the White House said.
Except crime isn’t surging! Trump could be taking credit for what are record-breaking crime declines. But that doesn’t get the right-wing blood pumping. Nor would it further the continued demonization of left-wing cities like Seattle.
Call me a nut — and they did — but why not be happy that crime has eased, at least for a minute? When Seattle crime soared so much in 2022 and 2023, I wrote 16 columns about it. (I counted.) For that I got called a right-winger by the progressive left. Now that it’s falling, I’m writing about that, and being denounced as an “activist” and “a pretty staunch cop-hater” by the head of the police union.
As for that acorn the cops put on my head, those nuts come from the oak tree. That’s America’s national tree. Oaks are durable, resolute and, above all, live in the real world. So, I’ll take it.
Danny Westneat: dwestneat@seattletimes.com. Danny Westneat takes an opinionated look at the Puget Sound region’s news, people and politics.
Posted inCrime|Comments Off on CALL ME A NUT, BUT WE SHOULD BE GLAD CRIME IS FALLING
I had thought to post a picture tonight and then realized that today was the 151st running of the Kentucky Derby. The event was launched in 1875 as horse racing—with its famous Black jockeys, who won more than half of the first 28 derbies—was gaining an audience in the U.S.
A horse-based event gives me the opportunity to repost a piece my friend Michael S. Green and I wrote together a number of years ago on Ten Famous American Horses. While it has no deep meaning, it does illustrate that there is history all around us, a theme you’ll hear more about from me soon. And it was totally fun to research, too. I spent hours watching Mr. Ed shows and reading entertainment theory, but the insightful detail—and the inclusion of Khartoum—is all Michael. This piece remains one of my favorite things I ever had a hand in writing.
So tonight, let’s take the night off from the craziness of today’s America and recall past eras when horses could make history.
1) Traveller
General Robert E. Lee rode Traveller (spelled with two Ls, in the British style) from February 1862 until the general’s death in 1870. Traveller was a grey American Saddlebred of 16 hands. He had great endurance for long marches, and was generally unflappable in battle, although he once broke both of General Lee’s hands when he shied at enemy movements. Lee brought Traveller with him when he assumed the presidency of Washington and Lee University. Traveller died of tetanus in 1871. He is buried on campus, where the safe ride program still uses his name.
2) Comanche
Comanche was attached to General Custer’s detachment of the 7th Cavalry when it engaged the Lakota in 1876 at the Battle of Little Bighorn. The troops in the detachment were all killed in the engagement, but soldiers found Comanche, badly wounded, two days later. They nursed him back to health, and he became the 7th Cavalry’s mascot. The commanding officer decreed that the horse would never again be ridden and that he would always be paraded, draped in black, in all military ceremonies involving the 7th Cavalry. When Comanche died of colic in 1891, he was given a full military funeral (the only other horse so honored was Black Jack, who served in more than a thousand military funerals in the 1950s and 1960s). Comanche’s taxidermied body is preserved in the Natural History Museum at the University Of Kansas.
3) Beautiful Jim Key
Beautiful Jim Key was a performing horse trained by formerly enslaved veterinarian Dr. William Key. Key demonstrated how Beautiful Jim could read, write, do math, tell time, spell, sort mail, and recite the Bible. Beautiful Jim performed from 1897 to 1906 and became a legend. An estimated ten million Americans saw him perform, and others collected his memorabilia—buttons, photos, and postcards—or danced the Beautiful Jim Key two-step. Dr. Key insisted that he had taught Beautiful Jim using only kindness, and Beautiful Jim Key’s popularity was important in preventing cruelty to animals in America, with more than 2 million children signing the Jim Key Band of Mercy, in which they pledged: “I promise always to be kind to animals.”
4) Man o’ War
Named for his owner, August Belmont, Jr., who was overseas in World War I, Man o’ War is widely regarded as the top Thoroughbred racehorse of all time. He won 20 of his 21 races and almost a quarter of a million dollars in the early twentieth century. His one loss—to Upset—came after a bad start. Man o’ War sired many of America’s famous racehorses, including Hard Tack, which in turn sired Seabiscuit, the small horse that came to symbolize hope during the Great Depression.
5) Trigger
Entertainer Roy Rogers chose the palomino Trigger from five rented horses to be his mount in a Western film in the 1930s, changing his name from Golden Cloud to Trigger because of his quick mind and feet. Rogers rode Trigger in his 1950s television series, making the horse a household name. When Trigger died, Rogers had his skin draped over a Styrofoam mold and displayed it in the Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Museum in California. He also had a 24-foot statue of Trigger made from steel and fiberglass. One other copy of that mold was also made: it is “Bucky the Bronco,” which rears above the Denver Broncos stadium south scoreboard.
6) Sergeant Reckless
American Marines in Korea bought a mare in October 1952 from a Korean stable boy who needed the money to buy an artificial leg for his sister, who had stepped on a land mine. The marines named her Reckless after their unit’s nickname, the Reckless Rifles. They made a pet of her and trained her to carry supplies and to evacuate wounded. She learned to travel supply routes without a guide: on one notable day she made 51 solo trips. Wounded twice, she was given a battlefield rank of corporal in 1953 and promoted to sergeant after the war, when she was also awarded two Purple Hearts and a Marine Corps Good Conduct Medal.
7) Mr. Ed
Mr. Ed was a talking palomino in a 1960s television show by the same name. At a time when Westerns dominated American television, Mr. Ed was the anti-Western, with the main human character a klutzy architect and the hero a horse that was fond of his meals and his comfortable life, and spoke with the voice of Allan “Rocky” Lane, who made dozens of “B” westerns. But the show was a five-year hit as it married the past to the future. Mr. Ed offered a gentle, homely wisdom that enabled him to straighten out the troubles of the humans around him. The startling special effects that made it appear that the horse was talking melded modern technology with the comforting traditional community depicted in the show.
8) Black Jack
Black Jack, named for John J. “Black Jack” Pershing, was the riderless black horse in the funerals of John F. Kennedy, Herbert Hoover, Lyndon Johnson, and Douglas MacArthur, as well as more than a thousand other funerals with full military honors. A riderless horse, with boots reversed in the stirrups, symbolized a fallen leader, while Black Jack’s brands—a U.S. brand and an army serial number—recalled the army’s history. Black Jack himself was buried with full military honors; the only other horse honored with a military funeral was Comanche.
9) Khartoum
Khartoum was the prize stud horse of Jack Woltz, the fictional Hollywood mogul in Mario Puzo’s The Godfather. In one of the film version’s most famous scenes, after Woltz refuses requests from Don Vito Corleone to cast singer Johnny Fontane in a movie, Woltz wakes up to find Khartoum’s head in bed with him…and agrees to use Fontane in the film. In the novel, Fontane wins the Academy Award for his performance. According to old Hollywood rumor, the story referred to real events. The rumor was that mobsters persuaded Columbia Pictures executive Harry Cohn to cast Frank Sinatra in From Here to Eternity. As Maggio, Sinatra revived his sagging film career and won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.
10) Secretariat
Secretariat was an American Thoroughbred that in 1973 became the first U.S. Triple Crown winner in 25 years. His records in the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness Stakes, and the Belmont Stakes still stand. After Secretariat was stricken with a painful infection and euthanized in 1989, an autopsy revealed that he had an unusually big heart. Sportswriter Red Smith once asked his trainer how Secretariat had run one morning; Charlie Hatton replied, “The trees swayed.”
Posted inAnimals, History|Comments Off on Ten Famous American Horses
By David Brooks Opinion Columnist in the NYT – article titled “How to Survive the Trump Years With Your Spirit Intact”
I had forgotten how exhausting it is to live in Donald Trump’s world. He’s not only a political figure. He creates a psychological and social atmosphere that suffuses the whole culture — the airwaves, our conversations, our moods.
If there is one word to define Trump’s atmosphere, it is “pagan.” The pagan values of ancient Rome celebrated power, manliness, conquest, ego, fame, competitiveness and prowess, and it is those values that have always been at the core of Trump’s being — from his real estate grandiosity to his love of pro wrestling to his king-of-the-jungle version of American greatness.
The pagan ethos has always appealed to grandiose male narcissists because it gives them permission to grab whatever they want. This ethos encourages egotists to puff themselves up and boast in a way they find urgently satisfying; self-love is the only form of love they know.
The pagan culture is seductive because it lures you with images of heroism, might and glory. Think of Achilles slaughtering his enemies before the walls of Troy. For a certain sort of perpetual boy, what could be cooler than that? But there is little compassion in this worldview, no concept that humility might be a virtue. There is a callous tolerance of cruelty.
Tom Holland is a historian who wrote several fine books of classical history, like “Persian Fire.” Gradually he became more and more appalled by many of those ancient pagans — those Caesars who could slaughter innocent human beings by the hundreds of thousands while everyone thought this was totally fine.
“This is a really terrifyingly alien world, and the more you look at it, the more you realize that it is built on systematic exploitation,” Holland told the writer Justin Brierley. “In almost every way, this is a world that is unspeakably cruel to our way of thinking. And this worried me more and more.”
The callous tolerance of cruelty is a river that runs through human history. It was dammed up, somewhat, only by millenniums of hard civilizational work. The pagan ethos — ancient or modern — always threatens to unleash brutality once again. The pagan ethos does not believe that every human was made in the image of God, does not believe in human equality, is not concerned about preserving the dignity of the poor. It does not care much about the universal feelings of benevolence, empathy and faithfulness toward one another, which, it turns out, are absolutely required for a democracy to function.
We seem to be entering a pagan century. It’s not only Trump. It’s the whole phalanx of authoritarians, all those greatness-obsessed macho men like Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping. It’s the tech bros. It’s Christian nationalism, which is paganism with worship music. (If you ever doubt the seductive power of paganism, remember it has conquered many of the churches that were explicitly founded to reject it.) — Continued
Yesterday I identified incorrectly the messaging app newly fired national security advisor Michael Waltz was using at a Cabinet meeting on Wednesday as the unsecure Signal app. Joseph Cox of 404 Media identified the app as “an obscure and unofficial version of Signal” from “a company called TeleMessage which makes clones of popular messaging apps but adds an archiving capability to each of them.” As Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo notes, this third-party app introduces even more insecurity into those White House communications.
Today I spent time organizing the many tabs I had opened over the past six weeks. When they were grouped by topics, what emerged was the story of an administration that decided from the start to portray President Donald Trump as a king, creating an alternative social media ecosystem designed, as Drew Harwell and Sarah Ellison of the Washington Post noted in early March, “to sell the country on [Trump’s] expansionist approach to presidential power.”
The team set out not just to confront critics, but to drown them out with a constant barrage of sound bites, interviews with loyalists, memes slamming Democrats, and attack lines. “We’re here. We’re in your face,” said Kaelan Dorr, a deputy assistant to the president who runs the digital team. “It’s irreverent. It’s unapologetic.” Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung said their goal was “FULL SPECTRUM DOMINANCE.”
They are engaged in a marketing campaign to establish Trump’s false version of reality as truth. The White House has also brought into the press pool right-wing influencers, who are asking questions that tee up opportunities for White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt to push administration talking points, which the influencers then amplify on social media.
Trump’s aspirations to authoritarianism are showing today in the announcement that there will be a military parade on Trump’s 79th birthday, June 14, which coincides with the 250th anniversary of the Second Continental Congress’s establishment of the Continental Army in 1775. About 6,600 soldiers, 150 vehicles, and 50 helicopters will proceed from near the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, to the National Mall at a cost of tens of millions of dollars. (continued)
Dear Mary, Late last night, President Trump issued an executive order directing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s board of directors to “cease federal funding for NPR and PBS.” The order would negatively impact the partnership between PBS and local stations that provides emergency alert services and high-quality kids educational programming and local journalism here and in communities throughout the country. While much of our funding comes from members like you, foundations and local businesses, the loss of our federal grant of $3.6M presents a serious challenge.
Here are a few things you can do right now to help: Connect with Protect My Public Media to learn how to contact your Congressional representatives and have your voice heard.Talk to your family and neighbors – there is power in community! You can help spread the word about the need for public media.Follow Cascade PBS on social media to stay up to date on this and other important information.I am so grateful for your continued support and friendship to the organization in these trying times. Warm regards,Robert I. Dunlop President and CEO
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Ed note: I just received the sad but expected message below from the National Peace Corps Office. Please note that this beloved creation of President John F. Kenney has a very modest budget. Peace Corps: ~$430.5 million; Department of State $61.6 billion; Department of Defense $895 billion
“On Monday, April 28, National Peace Corps Association learned that the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has instructed the Peace Corps to identify additional efficiencies in its staffing structure, and the agency is expecting the need for significant restructuring at Peace Corps headquarters in Washington, D.C.
The Peace Corps has informed NPCA that the agency “will continue to recruit, place, and train volunteers, and remain committed to supporting their health, safety and security, and effective service.”
Federal employees at Peace Corps are again being offered a “deferred resignation program” option, for which they may apply by Tuesday, May 6. Similar to other federal agencies, this program would allow staff to be put on paid administrative leave through September 30, 2025, at which time their agency employment would conclude. While Peace Corps Volunteer efforts will continue, NPCA is concerned by any proposal to reduce the support necessary to ensure their quality training, support, and well-being. We remain concerned that an already lean agency will be forced to sacrifice services for current Peace Corps applicants, Volunteers, and alumni.”
By The Editorial Board of the NYT (thanks to Mary Jane F.)
The editorial board is a group of opinion journalists whose views are informed by expertise, research, debate and certain longstanding values. It is separate from the newsroom.
The first 100 days of President Trump’s second term have done more damage to American democracy than anything else since the demise of Reconstruction. Mr. Trump is attempting to create a presidency unconstrained by Congress or the courts, in which he and his appointees can override written law when they want to. It is precisely the autocratic approach that this nation’s founders sought to prevent when writing the Constitution.
Mr. Trump has the potential to do far more harm in the remainder of his term. If he continues down this path and Congress and the courts fail to stop him, it could fundamentally alter the character of American government. Future presidents, seeking to either continue or undo his policies, will be tempted to pursue a similarly unbound approach, in which they use the powers of the federal government to silence critics and reward allies.
It pains us to write these words. Whatever our policy differences with other modern presidents, every one of them fundamentally believed in democracy. They viewed freedom, constitutional checks and balances and respect for political opponents as “the bulwark of our Republic,” as Ronald Reagan said in the opening of his first Inaugural Address, while praising his predecessor Jimmy Carter.
The patriotic response to today’s threat is to oppose Mr. Trump. But it is to do so soberly and strategically, not reflexively or performatively. It is to build a coalition of Americans who disagree about many other subjects — who span conservative and progressive, internationalist and isolationist, religious and secular, business-friendly and labor-friendly, pro-immigration and restrictionist, laissez-faire and pro-government, pro-life and pro-choice — yet who believe that these subjects must be decided through democratic debate and constitutional processes rather than the dictates of a single man.
The building of this coalition should start with an acknowledgment that Mr. Trump is the legitimate president and many of his actions are legal. Some may even prove effective. He won the presidency fairly last year, by a narrow margin in the popular vote and a comfortable margin in the Electoral College. On several key issues, his views were closer to public opinion than those of Democrats. Since taking office, he has largely closed the southern border, and many of his immigration policies are both legal and popular. He has reoriented federal programs to focus less on race, which many voters support. He has pressured Western Europe to stop billing American taxpayers for its defense. Among these policies are many that we strongly oppose — such as pardoning Jan. 6 rioters, cozying up to Vladimir Putin of Russia and undermining Ukraine — but that a president has the authority to enact. Elections have consequences.(continued)
In the hubbub of London’s Camden Town, Oliver Chan thinks a lot about loneliness.
“Loneliness is an important topic for me because my autism can make it harder for me to form connections with other people,” he wrote for Camden Disabled Voices.
“I tend to talk about a specific range of subjects and bring up the same things repeatedly and this can make people not want to interact with me.”
Oliver Chan (middle) chats with two friends on his “happy to talk” bench. Photo courtesy of Oliver Chan
He also struggles with joining in group conversations, with busier places bringing about even more anxiety and loneliness.
“Everyone is rushing around and it seems like no one will notice I’m there,” he continued.
While Chan’s experience with autism might amplify feelings of loneliness, he knows it’s something everyone experiences. (continued)
This morning the Bureau of Economic Analysis released a report showing an abrupt reversal in the U.S. economy. Gross domestic product (GDP), which measures the total market value of goods and services, shrank from a healthy 2.4% in the last quarter of 2024 to -0.3% in the first quarter of 2025. The shift is the first time in three years that the economy has contracted. The slump appears to have been fueled by a surge in buying overseas goods before Trump’s tariffs hit.
The stock market plunged on the news. Although it would recover later in the day, the stock market during President Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office has been the worst since the administration of Richard Nixon. Today Trump posted on his social media site: “This is Biden’s Stock Market, not Trump’s. I didn’t take over until January 20th. Tariffs will soon start kicking in, and companies are starting to move into the USA in record numbers. Our Country will boom, but we have to get rid of the Biden “Overhang.” This will take a while, has NOTHING TO DO WITH TARIFFS, only that he left us with bad numbers, but when the boom begins, it will be like no other. BE PATIENT!!!”
Observers noted that in January 2024, when the stock market was booming under Biden, Trump took credit for it, posting: “THIS IS THE TRUMP STOCK MARKET BECAUSE MY POLLS AGAINST BIDEN ARE SO GOOD THAT INVESTORS ARE PROJECTING THAT I WILL WIN, AND THAT WILL DRIVE THE MARKET UP.”
Trump held a televised two-hour Cabinet meeting today, at which administration officials sat behind red MAGA hats and praised him so extravagantly that right-wing commentator Ann Coulter posted: “Would it be possible to have a cabinet meeting without the Kim Jong il–style tributes?” He blamed Biden for the contracting economy and told reporters that “you could even say” that any downturn in the second quarter is Biden’s fault, too. The White House put out an official statement blaming former president Joe Biden for today’s report of the shrinking GDP and saying the country’s underlying economic numbers remain strong.
In fact, Biden left behind an economy that The Economist called “the envy of the world,” showing on the cover of the October special issue about the U.S. economy a roll of $100 bills blasting off into space. As Simon Rabinovitch and Henry Curr wrote in that issue, the U.S. had “left other rich countries in the dust.” “Expect that to continue,” the headline read. In Biden’s four years, the U.S. had added 16 million jobs, unemployment was at its lowest rate in 50 years, real wages for the bottom 80% of Americans were increasing, and inflation levels had come down almost to the Federal Reserve’s target from their highs during the post-shutdown shocks.
The pain from Trump’s tariffs has already hit agriculture as China has largely stopped buying American products, from pork and soybeans to lumber. Peter Friedmann, executive director of the Agriculture Transportation Coalition, a leading export trade group for farmers, told Lori Ann LaRocco of CNBC that the sector is already in “full-blown crisis” as farmers have sustained “massive” financial losses. (continued)
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Warm regards,Robert I. Dunlop
