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For a lot of Activate America supporters, historian Heather Cox Richardson needs no introduction. In the darkest moments of the Trump era, Heather emerged as a voice in the digital wilderness. She daily chronicled the madness and despair for posterity while calling us to action to resist all the ways Trump was undermining American democracy and fomenting extremism.
With the Republican Party now fully subsumed to Trumpism and with Trump once again on the ballot, her voice is needed now more than ever.
This event is not a fundraiser; we’re asking for something even more valuable: your time. Your commitment to help in the coming months can protect democracy for a generation. Are you in? Sign up TODAY!
Thank you,
Ronnie Cohen Executive Director, Activate America
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Lou Whittaker, a patriarch of the nation’s foremost mountaineering family, who helped to make climbing broadly accessible by building a trusted guide company and creating a tourism industry on Mount Rainier, died on March 24 in Ashford, Wash., a town at the base of that mountain. He was 95.
The cause was congestive heart failure, his son Peter said.
In spite of his many accomplishments in the business, culture and sport of mountaineering, Lou was not the best-known Whittaker. That distinction belongs to Jim, Lou’s identical twin brother, who was the first American to reach the summit of Mount Everest, in 1963, and the longtime chief executive of the outdoor gear company REI. Jim is something of an alpine John Glenn — the doer of a feat of will and skill considered transcendent in the 1960s, a friend of the Kennedy family and the subject of action-shot portraits on the cover of Life magazine.
Lou’s sons, too, have become prominent climbers: Rainier Mountaineering Inc. (RMI), the guiding company that Lou co-founded, is now run by Peter and employs his brother, Win, as a veteran guide.
The originals of the Whittaker line shared not only a height of 6-foot-5 and a shoe size of 13 but also impeccable timing. Lou and Jim rose to prominence and success right as the nation took an interest in mountaineering as a death-defying sport for pros and a pastime for tourists and rich adventurers.
Lou Whittaker, left, his twin brother and fellow mountaineer, Jim, in around 1950. The brothers grew up climbing together and followed similar paths until they grew apart as adults.Credit…via Whittaker Mountaineering
After being confused for each other even by acquaintances into their 30s, the twins led increasingly independent lives. Jim grew to be the reserved hero of a past era: Four decades after reaching Everest’s summit, he described the experience as “the high point of my life” to The Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Lou, conversely, was the toast of the town: an institution-building entrepreneur and voluble drinking buddy known for wearing loud turtlenecks, cracking ribald jokes and eating like a barn animal. (continued)
If you’re reusing glasses from a previous solar eclipse, it’s important to double-check that they are still in good condition. NASA warns against using glasses that have any marks or scratches on them. This damage can diminish the protection they offer.
On April 12, 1951, Lieutenant John W. Hodgkin, age 42, a pilot stationed at McChord Air Force Base, flies his ski-equipped Piper J-3 Cub from Spanaway Air Strip to the top of Mount Rainier (14,410 feet), establishing a new world record for a high-altitude landing. However, when Hodgkin prepares to leave, the engine will not start in the rarefied air and he is forced to spend the night on top of the mountain, huddled in the Cub’s cockpit. The next morning, Hodgkin will push his airplane down the snow-covered face of Nisqually Glacier, glide, without power, to frozen Mowich Lake, at the 5,000-foot level, and land safely on the ice. With the help of a National Park Service ranger and 20 gallons of gasoline, dropped from an Air Force rescue plane, Hodgkin will take off again and return safely to Spanaway. He will be charged in federal court with landing a private aircraft in a national park without permission and be fined $350. Hodgkin, whose escapade captures newspaper headlines for four days, tells reporters he undertook the flight to demonstrate the feasibility and usefulness of using light aircraft for high altitude rescue work and mountain warfare.
Pilot with a Passion
John Wilfred Hodgkin (1909-1989) was a Lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force Reserve, attached to the 14th Troop Carrier Squadron, 61st Troop Carrier Group at McChord Air Force Base in Pierce County. Stationed at Thule Air Base in Greenland during World War II (1941-1945), Hodgkin had been reactivated during the Korean War (1950-1953) to fly Douglas C-54 Skymasters on the polar route to Japan, providing airlift of personnel and supplies for United Nations forces. The 61st Troop Carrier Group also flew combat missions into North Korea, carrying ammunition, supplies, and equipment to besieged UN forces and returning to Japan with wounded personnel and evacuees.
Hodgkin, an experienced mountain climber, glider pilot, and photographer, had a passion for landing his small Piper J-3 Cub at high places. With photographs, he documented numerous landings on slopes in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, including Mount Whitney and Mount Shasta, and wrote an article for national magazine titled “I Land Anywhere.” His goal was to establish the world record for a high-altitude landing and he had been planning a quick trip to the top of Mount Rainier (14,410 feet) for several weeks.
His Piper Cub
The Piper J-3 Cub is a light, single-engine aircraft, manufactured from 1938 to 1947 by the Piper Aircraft Corporation in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania. The fuselage, made of welded tubular steel, and the wing assembly, made of aluminum, are covered with fabric. The small, unpressurized cabin has accommodations for only the pilot and a passenger, sitting in tandem. The Cub uses a tail-dragger configuration with a fixed landing gear. The wheels can be easily removed and replaced with skis for landing on ice and snow, or with pontoons for water landings. Used extensively by the military during World War II for intelligence gathering and artillery spotting, the Cub, designated the L-4 “Grasshopper” by the Army, had the well-deserved reputation for being able to land anywhere the pilot dared to go.
The original Piper J-3 Cub was equipped with an air-cooled Continental 65-horsepower engine, with a service ceiling of 11,500 feet. In order to reach higher altitudes, Hodgkin replaced this with a Continental 85-horsepower engine, giving him a service ceiling of 15,000 feet. The Cub lacked an electric starter-motor, therefore the engine had to be hand-started by spinning the propeller. The plane also lacked a two-way radio. (continued)
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FLORIDA (The Borowitz Report)—With abortion rights on the ballot this fall, the fight to control the state’s 11 million uteri is being helmed by a vocal coalition of men with small peni.
Harland Dorrinson, an organizer of the coalition, said that he formed the group because “men like us are tired of being invisible.”
His group’s volunteers have been fanning out across the state with the goal of recruiting like-penised men, he said.
“The good news is, there is no shortage of men with small peni in Florida,” he said. “We’ve had a lot of luck at gun shows.”
In addition to defeating the abortion rights measure, the tiny-membered men hope to increase turnout for the indicted businessman Donald J. Trump. “He’s one of us,” he said.
By David B. Williams (son of resident Jackie Williams)
Thanks to Mary M.
As maps go, it is not terribly spectacular. No gilt margin, terra incognitum, or fanciful sea monsters. The cartographer has included two ships but they look more like pea pods than anything sea worthy. Drawn in pen on paper, the map depicts less than a square mile, with land making up about half the map, water about a third, and the title, legend, and white space the rest. Thomas Phelps, in service on the navy sloop of war U.S.S. Decatur—one of the pea pods—drew the map to illustrate the events of January 26, 1856, Seattle, Washington Territory.
Original version of Phelps’ map.
Within the dab of habitation, Phelps drew in Henry Yesler’s mill, Seattle’s first startup business, and largest employer. Like many more modern startups, Yesler employed a mix of locals, or Native people, and newcomers, or settlers. Behind the mill, low, flat land was where Yesler’s employee, Dutch Ned, dumped wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow of sawdust from the mill, and where Yesler built a small house. South of the Sawdust the “Neck” connects to the broad side of a lemon-shaped peninsula, where the majority of the town’s buildings stand, including what may be Seattle’s first hen house.
Carefully drawn in the center of the peninsula is a grid of streets, which looks a bit like a pitch for a planned community. A lone building lurks on the southwestern edge of the street grid. Phelps has labeled it as Madam Damnable’s, a reference to a boarding house that he later wrote was run by “a terrible woman, and a terror to our people, who found her tongue more to be dreaded than the entire Indian army recently encamped in our front.” Reputation holds that the building was thronged with women of ill repute. No other buildings on the street merited a name.
L: Best known version of map, updated by Clarence Bagley to include street names. R: Little known version by Robinson and Jackson. (no clue when or why)
I cannot get this singular map out of my head. It shows my hometown in a manner unlike any I know, or even imagined. The map is the first that shows Seattle, not just the land that would become the city, but the layout of the infant village, of what would become the area that modern inhabitants know as Pioneer Square and First, Occidental, and Second Avenues, and Main and Jackson Streets. Like most people, I am used to the modern map of my hometown and its infrastructure. I see the roads that I regularly bike and drive, the home I now live in and the one I grew up in, the bridges that carry me over lakes and canals, and the parks where I run and walk. I see restaurants, theaters, bookstores, and places I have worked. I see where we spread my father’s ashes, where I kissed my first girlfriend, and where my wife and I regularly walk.
Each of these layers forms the map of my home. It is a multidimensional picture made not simply of the visual aspects of the urban infrastructure but also of memories, aromas, sounds, and emotions. I neither see nor can imagine any of this in Phelps’ map. When I look at the scattering of buildings in that tiny dot of Seattle, it makes me think of seeds in a garden. And like a seed, there is no guarantee that it would grow and thrive. We know from writings of the Denny party that they thought it was their destiny to establish a town that would develop into greatness, but how many other specks of urban optimism on large maps had the same aspirations?
In 1856, there would have been little reason to think Seattle would survive. An earlier cartographer had labeled the lands above what would become the settlement “Thickly Timberd.” Dominated by towering conifers, and an impenetrable understory, the timbered land stretched for hundreds of miles to the north, south, and east, making one of the greatest and densest forests in North America. The nearest city of any size, Portland with around 2,500 people, was eight days away by schooner. The one positive aspect was that Seattle was located on the water, with a good harbor for shipping the great timber that engulfed it.
Phelps’s map illustrates another threat to Seattle’s long term survival. What Phelps cannot show but what early Seattleites describe, is that the peninsula where most of them lived periodically became an island. At very high tides, water would cover the Neck and completely isolate the high ground of the peninsula from the mainland. But the settlers’ optimism and drive overcame their topographical and hydrological challenges. They covered up, cut down, and filled in the undesirable, and unprofitable, parts of the city, creating a landscape that would be good for business, and a landscape where the past was little present. In doing, they also started to erase the signs of those who have lived here for millennia and have long held a very different view of the place. To the Native people, the land provided and continues to provide an abundance of food and resources for shelter, as well as good transportation routes.
Seattle’s earliest citizens brought a far different set of expectations and desires. The city they envisioned was one of straight and level streets, large homes filled with non-local luxuries, abundant industries, and trade with a world wide network. All of which would require change. They were so successful that little remains of the landscape illustrated by Phelps.
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In his social media account, our former president, has been railing about this blog. He notes that nearly all residents at Skyline are lefties and really old–so they’re obviously out of it. In blasting social security he notes that the old parasites here are sucking up treasury dollars and trying to bankrupt Medicare treating every ailment as an emergency. Worse yet some of us are foreign born, some are gay and even more worse yet, some are liberal college professors who’ve written books.
“What a joke these people are,” said Trump as he hawks his “God Bless the USA” $59.99 bibles. “These liberal seniors should get out of the way so why not pull the plug and make room for the young Republicans who understand how to create wealth by lowering taxes, electing oligarchs, and buddying up to Putin.”
Finally, Trump is suing to place a gag order on the outlandish content found here.
Ed note: I hope on this April 1st that you will stand up for skyline725.com
God’s welcome of foreigners has inspired our congregation in Indiana to welcome refugees and immigrants in our community.
by Jeff Schultz in USA Today
Social media was buzzing this Holy Week with a video of former president and the Republican Party’s presumptive presidential nominee Donald Trump selling a “God Bless the USA Bible.” For $59.99, Americans can have what I believe, as an evangelical pastor, is the inspired Word of God – but also the texts of the U.S. Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, the Pledge of Allegiance and the chorus to a Lee Greenwood song.
I sincerely hope the former president is not just endorsing the Bible but also reading it – especially as it relates to how God calls us to treat immigrants, because there are important messages there for all of us.
Immigration is a significant theme throughout the Bible. In the Old Testament, the Hebrew word “ger,“ best translated as “immigrant,” appears 92 times. And we’re not just to welcome immigrants but to also love and care for them, as well as seek justice on their behalf.
God calls us to emulate his love for people who are made in his image. The Israelites are repeatedly told to remember their history as mistreated foreigners in Egypt in a way that builds empathy for others. As a people descended almost entirely from immigrants, that is an important message for Americans as well.
Immigrants have important roles in the Bible
Many of the heroes in the Bible were immigrants. Abraham left his homeland on a divine promise then crossed borders again, fleeing famine.
Moses fled Egypt to live in Midian and named his first son Gershom, which means “a foreigner there.”
Ruth, a Moabite immigrant in Israel, became part of the lineage of King David and ultimately, Jesus.
Jesus, of course, was the most important immigrant in history. Carried by Joseph and Mary, he escaped violence in his homeland and found refuge in Egypt – an experience similar to that of more than 35 million refugees around the world today who have fled their homes because of persecution. As Jesus’ followers, we are called to see ourselves as strangers who’ve been welcomed in by God’s kindness.
God’s welcome of foreigners has inspired our congregation in Indiana to welcome refugees and immigrants in our community. But we’re not unique: More than one-third of evangelical Christians say they’ve been involved in immigrant ministry.
That doesn’t mean we all agree on the best public policy solutions.
The Bible never tells us what the ceiling on annual refugee admissions should be. It doesn’t prescribe how to both ensure order and safety and protect the vulnerable from injustice.
Evangelicals say immigration policy should reflect biblical values
But more than 9 in 10 evangelicals agreed in a recent poll by Lifeway Research that U.S. immigration policy should reflect the biblical convictions that immigrants are made with dignity in the image of God (not “animals,” as the former president has labeled some.)
I have reservations about a president profiting from the Bible, especially when the Bible is bundled with foundational national documents in a way that suggests they are equally inspired by God. I’m thankful to live in this country, but if we really want God to bless the USA, we should read the Bible carefully, reflect God’s concern for immigrants and pursue policies consistent with its teachings.
Jeff Schultz is the co-lead pastor of Faith Church in Indianapolis.
Ed Note: Historian HCR reminds us that we were and are a nation of immigrants. All in all it’s a positive story, which unfortunately is being poisoned by distorted rhetoric from the right.
According to some estimates, consumers spend $62 billion a year on “anti-aging” treatments. But while creams, hair dyes and Botox can give the impression of youth, none of them can roll back the hands of time.
Scientists are working to understand the biological causes of aging in the hope of one day being able to offer tools to slow or stop its visible signs and, more important, age-related diseases. These underlying mechanisms are often called “the hallmarks of aging.” Many fall into two broad categories: general wear and tear on a cellular level, and the body’s decreasing ability to remove old or dysfunctional cells and proteins.
“The crucial thing about the hallmarks is that they are things that go wrong during aging, and if you reverse them,” you stand to live longer or be healthier while you age, said Dame Linda Partridge, a professorial research fellow in the division of biosciences at University College London who helped develop the aging hallmarks framework.
So far, the research has primarily been conducted in animals, but experts are gradually expanding into humans. In the meantime, understanding how aging works can help us put advice and information about the latest “breakthrough” into context, said Venki Ramakrishnan, a biochemist and Nobel laureate who wrote about many of the hallmarks of aging in his new book, “Why We Die: The New Science of Aging and the Quest for Immortality.”
We asked experts about the hallmarks of aging, how they can lead to disease and how scientists are attempting to modify them. Not all of the hallmarks are listed here, but two of the main themes are highlighted below.
Wear and Tear
Many age-related changes start with our cells, and even our genes, acquiring damage and acting up as we get older.
Problems with DNA
While we think of our genes as being set from birth, DNA does accumulate changes over the years. Sometimes errors are introduced when a cell divides, a spontaneous typo emerging when the DNA is copied and pasted from one cell into another. Mutations can also occur as a result of environmental exposures, like ultraviolet radiation from the sun.
Our cells have ways to repair these genetic mutations, but they become less efficient with age, which means the mistakes can pile up. Scientists aren’t exactly sure why our DNA repair mechanisms decline. “That’s a $1 billion question,” said Andrew Dillin, a professor of molecular and cell biology at the University of California, Berkeley. “All we know is that the efficiency goes down with age.”
The main consequence of this is that cells stop working properly and get flagged as garbage (more on this later). In the worst-case scenarios, mutations can occur in genes that suppress tumors, leading to the onset of cancer. (continued)
From Paul Offit On February 28, 2024, the CDC issued a press release stating that people 65 years of age or older should now receive an additional dose of the 2023-2024 COVID vaccine. To understand this recommendation, let’s go back to when the CDC first recommended booster doses and why. In December 2020, the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines were administered as a series of two doses separated by 3 or 4 weeks. By the end of 2021, these two-dose vaccines were doing what they were intended to do—keep people out of the hospital, out of the intensive care unit and out of the morgue. Then, in December 2021, the omicron variant, which was immune-evasive, entered the United States. In response, the CDC performed a series of studies showing that a third dose and, to a lesser extent, a fourth dose prevented hospitalizations better than two doses. Not everyone, however, benefited equally. Those who benefited from these booster doses fell into four high-risk groups: 1) those over 75 years of age, 2) those who had medical conditions such as chronic lung, heart, kidney or liver disease, 3) those who were receiving medicines that suppressed the immune system, and 4) those who were pregnant. Why, now, does the CDC recommend two booster doses during the same year for those over 65? To make sense of this recommendation, we need to understand some basic tenets of the immune system; specifically, which aspects of the immune system protect against mild disease and which against severe disease. They aren’t the same. The key determinant for protection against mild illness is the presence of virus-specific antibodies present in the bloodstream at the time of exposure to the virus. The good news is that these antibodies are readily induced by natural infection or vaccination. The bad news is that they don’t last very long—usually 3 to 6 months—before they fade away. Therefore, for diseases like COVID, protection against mild illness afforded by vaccination is always short-lived. Always. Protection against severe illness, on the other hand, isn’t dependent on antibodies present at the time of exposure; it’s dependent on immunological memory cells, like memory B cells, which can be activated to make antibodies, or memory T cells, which can be activated to kill virus-infected cells. The good news about memory cells is that they are long-lived, often for decades. The bad news is that it takes time after exposure to the virus for these memory cells to become activated. For diseases like COVID, which has a short incubation period, memory cells will protect against severe disease but not mild disease. If the goal of the COVID vaccine is to protect against severe disease, and protection against severe disease is mediated by immune memory cells, then the critical question is what groups lack high levels of immune memory cells. The CDC assumed that those over 65 who have been vaccinated or naturally infected might not have high levels of memory cells. So, they benefit from these extra booster doses. But is this true? It’s not hard to figure this out. The CDC, in collaboration with immunologists, should study the level and duration of immune memory cells in the months to years after vaccination to determine who is at greatest risk of severe disease. These studies should be done in 1) healthy children and adults, 2) the elderly, 3) those who are immune compromised for a variety of reasons, and 4) pregnant people. Then and only then will we know who is most likely to benefit from a single booster dose or two booster doses each year. As it stands, the recommendation for those over 65 to receive two booster doses during the year will likely help some high-risk people to avoid hospitalization with COVID. But it remains incumbent upon CDC epidemiologists combined with academic immunologists to define more clearly who among that group really benefits. We await better data.
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