If you can read cursive, the National Archives would like a word.
Or a few million. More than 200 years worth of U.S. documents are in need of transcribing (or at least classifying) and the vast majority of them are handwritten in cursive – requiring people who know the flowing, looped form of penmanship.
“Reading cursive is a superpower,” said Suzanne Issacs, a community manager with the National Archives Catalog in Washington D.C.
She is part of the team that coordinates the more than 5,000 Citizen Archivists helping the Archive read and transcribe some of the more than 300 million digitized objects in its catalog. And they’re looking for volunteers with an increasingly rare skill.
An application for a Revolutionary War Pension by Innit Hollister, written in August of 1832. The National Archives uses Citizen Archivists who volunteer to help transcribe such materials. The ability to read cursive handwriting is helpful but not essential.More
“We create missions where we ask volunteers to help us transcribe or tag records in our catalog,” Issacs said.
To volunteer, all that’s required is to sign up online and then launch in. “There’s no application,” she said. “You just pick a pick a record that hasn’t been done and read the instructions. It’s easy to do for a half hour a day or a week.” (continued)
“Offering a written expression of condolence (from the Latin word condolere, to grieve or to suffer with someone) used to be a staple of polite society. ‘A letter of condolence may be abrupt, badly constructed, ungrammatical — never mind,’ advised the 1960 edition of Emily Post. ‘Grace of expression counts for nothing; sincerity alone is of value.’
“But these days, as Facebooking, Snapchatting or simply ignoring friends has become fashionable, the rules of expressing sympathy have become muddied at best, and concealed in an onslaught of emoji at worst. ‘Sorry about Mom. Sad face, sad face, crying face, heart, heart, unicorn.'”
I used to call families about a month after a death of their loved one in the ICU. Things had become quiet for them and the loneliness had begun to set in. They seemed so happy to talk and often had lingering questions about the care. The human connection in the main thing we need. Words help but don’t suffice. The hand squeeze, the look, the note – it’s all about caring. Click here to read The Art of Condolence.
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At times it’s comforting to realize that, yes, we are still here. Death may loom but we can take moments to remember, to be in the present, and to enjoy the reality knowing loved ones are nearby. Dawn Walk creates that state in our souls as we crunch through the snow at first light.
by Edward Hirsch
Some nights when you’re asleep Deep under the covers, far away, Slowly curling yourself back Into a childhood no one Living will ever remember Now that your parents touch hands Under the ground As they always did upstairs In the master bedroom, only more Distant now, deaf to the nightmares, The small cries that no longer Startle you awake but still Terrify me so that I do get up, some nights, restless And anxious to walk through The first trembling blue light Of dawn in a calm snowfall. It’s soothing to see the houses Asleep in their own large bodies, The dreamless fences, the courtyards Unscarred by human footprints, The huge clock folding its hands In the forehead of the skyscraper Looming downtown. In the park The benches are layered in White, the statue out of history Is an outline of blue snow. Cars, Too, are rimmed and motionless Under a thin blanket smoothed down By the smooth maternal palm Of the wind. So thanks to the Blue morning, to the blue spirit Of winter, to the soothing blue gift Of powdered snow! And soon A few scattered lights come on In the houses, a motor coughs And starts up in the distance, smoke Raises its arms over the chimneys. Soon the trees suck in the darkness And breathe out the light While black drapes open in silence. And as I turn home where I know you are already awake, Wandering slowly through the house Searching for me, I can suddenly Hear my own footsteps crunching the simple astonishing news That we are here, Yes, we are still here.
Ed note: Maybe some day we’ll get answers on dementia. This is one of many intriguing avenues of research. Could the amyloid in Alzheimer’s be a reaction to an infection spreading from the nose. There are some indications that this pathway occurs in mice, but how about humans? It’s nice to know that researchers are looking for all possibilities.
A study published in 2022 revealed a tenuous but plausible link between picking your nose and increasing the risk of developing dementia.
In cases where picking at your nose damages internal tissues, critical species of bacteria have a clearer path to the brain, which responds to their presence in ways that resemble signs of Alzheimer’s disease.
There are plenty of caveats here, not least that so far the supporting research is based on mice rather than humans, but the findings are definitely worth further investigation – and could improve our understanding of how Alzheimer’s gets started, which remains something of a mystery.
A team of researchers led by scientists from Griffith University in Australia ran tests with a bacterium called Chlamydia pneumoniae, which can infect humans and cause pneumonia.
The bacteria has also been discovered in the majority of human brains affected by late-onset dementia.
It was demonstrated that in mice, the bacteria could travel up the olfactory nerve (joining the nasal cavity and the brain). What’s more, when there was damage to the nasal epithelium (the thin tissue along the roof of the nasal cavity), nerve infections got worse.
This led to the mouse brains depositing more of the amyloid-beta protein – a protein which is released in response to infections. Plaques (or clumps) of this protein are also found in significant concentrations in people with Alzheimer’s disease. (continued)
Mr. Carville is a veteran of Democratic presidential campaigns, including Bill Clinton’s in 1992, and a consultant to American Bridge, a Democratic super PAC.
I thought Kamala Harris would win. I was wrong. While I’m sure we Democrats can argue that the loss wasn’t a landslide or take a little solace in our House performance, the most important thing for us now is to face that we were wrong and take action on the prevailing “why.”
I’ve been going over this in my head for the past two months, all the variables, all the what-ifs, all the questions about Joe Biden’s re-election decisions and what kind of Democrat or message might have worked against Donald Trump. I keep coming back to the same thing. We lost for one very simple reason: It was, it is, and it always will be the economy, stupid. We have to begin 2025 with that truth as our political north star and not get distracted by anything else.
Although the U.S. economy remains the strongest in the world, with G.D.P. soaring and inflation subsiding, the American people did not settle for us being better than the rest or take that as good enough. Mr. Trump, for the first time in his political career, decisively won by seizing a swath of middle-class and low-income voters focused on the economy. Democrats have flat-out lost the economic narrative. The only path to electoral salvation is to take it back. Perception is everything in politics, and a lot of Americans perceive us as out to lunch on the economy — not feeling their pain or caring too much about other things instead.
To win back the economic narrative, we must focus on revving up a transformed messaging machine for the new political paradigm we now find ourselves living in. It’s about finding ways to talk to Americans about the economy that are persuasive. Repetitive. Memorable. And entirely focused on the issues that affect Americans’ everyday lives.
This starts with how we form our opposition. First of all, we have got to stop making Mr. Trump himself our main focus; he can’t be elected again. Furthermore, it’s clear many Americans do not give a rat’s tail about Mr. Trump’s indictments — even if they are justified — or about his antidemocratic impulses or about social issues if they cannot provide for themselves or their families.
Mr. Trump won the popular vote by putting the economic anger of Americans front and center. If we focus on anything else, we risk falling farther into the abyss. Our messaging machine must sharply focus on opposing the unpopular Republican economic agenda that will live on past him. Vocally oppose the party, not the person or the extremism of his movement. I don’t always agree with Wall Street, but Jamie Dimon was right when he said that Democrats’ railing against “ultra-MAGA” was insulting and politically tone-deaf. Denouncing other Americans or their leader as miscreants is not going to win elections; focusing on their economic pain will, as will contesting the Republican economic agenda.
There will be plenty to oppose. Our central message must revolve around opposing Republicans’ tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. It is deeply unpopular, and we know they want to do it again. And then we attack the rest. We know Republicans will most likely skyrocket everyday costs with slapstick tariffs; they will almost certainly attempt to slash the Affordable Care Act, raising premiums on the working class; and they will probably do next to nothing to curb the cost of prescription drugs. In a truly stunning display of inhumanity, the speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, has already lacerated health care funding for Sept. 11 emergency workers and survivors. There will be much, much worse to come.
But of course, opposition is only half the coin.
While Democrats have next to no chance of passing a bold, progressive economic agenda in the next four years, what we can do is force Republicans to oppose us. We must be on the offensive with a wildly popular and populist economic agenda they cannot be for.
Let’s start by forcing them to oppose a raise in the minimum wage to $15 an hour. Let’s make Roe v. Wade an economic messaging issue and force them to block our attempts to codify it into law. And let’s take back the immigration issue by making it an economic issue and force the G.O.P. to deny bipartisan reform that expedites entry for high-performing talent and for those who will bring business into our nation. This year the Democratic Party leadership must convene and publish a creative, popular and bold economic agenda and proactively take back our economic turf. Go big, go populist, stick to economic progress and force them to oppose what they cannot be for. In unison.
Finally, Democrats must trudge headfirst with this economic agenda into the new media paradigm we now live in. I am an 80-year-old man and can see clearly that we are barreling toward a nontraditional and decentralized media environment. Podcasts are the new print newspapers and magazines. Social platforms are a social conscience. And influencers are digital stewards of that conscience. Our economic message must be sharp, crisp, clear — and we must take it right to the people. To Democratic presidential hopefuls, your auditions for 2028 should be based on two things: 1) How authentic you are on the economy and 2) how well you deliver it on a podcast.
The road ahead will not be easy, but there are no two roads to choose from. The path forward could not be more certain: We live or die by winning public perception of the economy.
Thus it was, thus it is, and thus it forever shall be.
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Ann Telnaes, Pulitzer-winning cartoonist for the Washington Post since 2008, quit the paper this week after her editor killed her cartoon depicting WaPo owner Jeff Bezos and other craven billionaires debasing themselves before Donald J. Trump.
This act of censorship, of course, isn’t an outlier: anticipatory obedience to fascism has risen ominously in recent months. It began with WaPo and the Los Angeles Times spiking endorsements of Kamala Harris, only to be outdone by Disney, who gifted Trump $15 million instead of fighting his flimsy defamation claim in court. Oh, and let’s not forget Joe and Mika’s humiliating field trip to Mar-a-Lago.
I don’t know Ms. Telnaes but I admire her work, integrity, and courage. I’m publishing the rough draft of her cartoon above in the hopes that you’ll share it. If enough people do, it will reach a larger audience than if her WaPo editor had had the cojones to run it. Actually, given how many subscribers have fled the paper in recent months, reaching a larger audience than the Washington Post isn’t a daunting task.
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Editor’s note: In this excerpt from “Unhinged USA,” his new collection of cartoons from The Seattle Times, editorial cartoonist David Horsey takes a look back at the fraught, four-year period — from COVID-19 to Kamala Harris — that is now coming to an end.
On Nov. 2, 2021, hundreds of Americans gathered at Dealey Plaza in Dallas, the site of John F. Kennedy’s assassination in 1963. They were convinced that, at 12:59 p.m., JFK and his son, JFK Jr. — accompanied, perhaps, by Michael Jackson and Princess Diana — would arrive in a convoy to restore Donald Trump to the presidency and destroy the evil cabal of liberal, pedophilic devil worshippers who control the world.
None of the dead celebrities showed up, but that did little to dampen the fervent belief of those who waited. They kept showing up on other dates — Nov. 22, July 4 — still clinging to a conspiracy theory that made them feel part of a holy contingent of patriots. In interviews, these folks did not seem especially weird or unusual, except for the ideas they spouted. In fact, they looked like the ordinary Americans one would see strolling through a shopping mall or cheering at a Little League Baseball game.
But, boy oh boy, were they unhinged from reality. And that kind of disconnect, which was increasingly common over the last four years, helped inspire my new book, “Unhinged USA.”
No doubt, many Americans — maybe a consistent majority — have always been motivated primarily by simple faith, gut feelings and curious perceptions of how society and the universe work. Throughout history, humans have been transfixed by myths and storytelling and guided by high priests of various dogmas who claim to have a channel to one god or another. Even today, revelations of scientists and well-researched reporting of serious journalists lack the persuasive power to penetrate the minds of millions of people who are perfectly happy believing preposterous things.
Thanks to 21st century technology, we now are all being overwhelmed by an explosion of information, a tsunami of data, a cyclone of chatter. Instead of making us wiser, though, this endless flood gushing from our phones and laptops seems to be making us dumber and even more in thrall to fantasy. Outlandish ideas no longer languish on the fringes of discourse; they often take center stage. And, with most people choosing to segregate themselves in communities of like-minded people and to seek information only from sources that reinforce biases, it is harder than ever for hard facts to cut through the fog of disinformation and ignorance.
Thus, President-elect Donald Trump.
It did not matter to his fans that the 45th and 47th president of the United States was an obvious liar and quite in thrall of outlandish viewshimself. They were entertained by his belligerent, unfiltered rants that expressed in a tiny vocabulary the forbidden things they felt. Obsessed only with aggrandizing himself, Trump ignored inconvenient, if entirely accurate, information and promoted his own dark, improvised version of reality. And his supporters happily accepted him as he was, believing even his craziest claims, while rejecting any hard facts that contradicted his babble.
On Jan. 6, 2021, a horde of these true believers responded to Trump’s urgings by storming the United States Capitol, doing battle with police in an attempt to overturn the results of the election that Trump lost — the most brazen political act since the unrest of the 1860s.
The Capitol insurrection was just the starting point of four off-kilter years. These were the years of Joe Biden’s presidency, but it was not a period dominated by the president. A master of old-school politics, Biden accomplished a great deal against almost impossible odds, yet he disappeared from the news for long stretches of time, failing to understand what it now takes to grab the attention of a seriously distracted public in a diffused and ephemeral communications environment. Only one thing stuck in the incurious minds of most voters by the time the next presidential campaign rolled around: Biden was too old for the job.
The years 2021 through 2024 are bookended by the conclusion of one Trump term in the White House and the opening of another.
It was a norm-breaking period that began with furious arguments about masks, school closures and stay-at-home orders as the nation struggled to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic. Strangely, in a time of shared threat with hundreds of thousands of people dying, half of Americans dutifully sequestered themselves and got vaccinated while the other half refused to comply and acted as if it were all a hoax and an assault on their liberty.
In Silicon Valley and Seattle, high-tech companies rushed to invent artificial intelligence entities that could transform the world in marvelous ways, but might also eclipse the powers of mere humans. Despite the enormous risks — the least of which would be the elimination of millions of working class and artistic jobs, as well as the creation of a vast and deep swamp of bogus images and fake information — the tech titans resisted attempts to regulate their innovations or inhibit the ominous rise of an AI-dominated world.
On college campuses, there were hot debates about pronouns, microaggressions, cultural appropriation and whether it was racist not to use the term Latinx. This academic kerfuffle featured dogmatic students and cowed professors engaging in performative outrage and frantic apology to prove their “wokeness,” an exercise that was easily caricatured by conservative politicians and news media who used the ideological excesses on campus to effectively slander all progressives and liberals.
Wildfires driven by climate change burned throughout the West each summer and filled cities with smoke from Seattle to New York. Mass gun violence spread across the country, too, unchecked by the thoughts and prayers of pious politicians. The conservative majority on the United States Supreme Court repealed Roe v. Wade, opening the way for draconian abortion laws in red states and turning blue states into places of refuge for women desperately seeking medical care for life-threatening pregnancies.
Hamas conducted a vicious attack on innocent Israelis; Israel responded with a remorseless military campaign that decimated Gaza. Seized by visions of a restored Russian empire, Vladimir Putin unleashed a barbaric invasion of Ukraine that he expected would bring that country to its knees within weeks. Instead, like the conflict in the Middle East, the war dragged on and on.
In Washington, D.C., the Jan. 6 Committee convincingly made the case that Trump and his minions had plotted to overthrow a fair and democratic presidential election, yet the committee members’ work was denigrated and ignored by Republicans in Congress, who remained subservient to their master. A once-grand political party nominated for president a man who was convicted of 34 felonies, found liable for sexual abuse and indicted for several serious offenses. And why not? That man managed to win an election against Vice President Kamala Harris, whose own candidacy came about in a manner that, in times past, would have seemed a preposterous plot device in a ridiculous political novel.
Nothing is too preposterous or ridiculous to happen in public life any longer — not in the unhinged USA.
Thanks to Mary Jane F. — From Heather Cox Richardson’s newsletter 1/3/25
… Biden awarded the Presidential Citizens Medal, given to those “who have performed exemplary deeds of service for their country or their fellow citizens,” to twenty Americans including former Representative Liz Cheney (R-WY), who served on the January 6 committee. Today, Trump attacked Cheney and others who investigated the events of January 6, 2021, as “dishonest Thugs.”
Cheney responded: “Donald, this is not the Soviet Union. You can’t change the truth and you cannot silence us. Remember all your lies about the voting machines, the election workers, your countless allegations of fraud that never happened? Many of your lawyers have been sanctioned, disciplined or disbarred, the courts ruled against you, and dozens of your own White House, administration, and campaign aides testified against you. Remember how you sent a mob to our Capitol and then watched the violence on television and refused for hours to instruct the mob to leave? Remember how your former Vice President prevented you from overturning our Republic? We remember. And now, as you take office again, the American people need to reject your latest malicious falsehoods and stand as the guardrails of our Constitutional Republic—to protect the America we love from you.”
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By Sofia Sokolove Sofia is head of Wirecutter’s newsletters.
Last year, a friend (who I am lucky enough to also work with) texted me: “I have something for you, come to the cafeteria.” It wasn’t my birthday or the holidays, just a random dreary spring weekday. One that was immediately brightened by her colorful surprise: a hand-knit case for my Kindle. Given to me for no real reason, as if to say, “I was thinking of you, even when no one—no ad, or Hallmark movie, or holiday window display—was telling me to.”
I’ve always been a big proponent of just-because gifts. Still, I was struck by how moved I felt by my new, imperfectly knit Kindle case. It wasn’t that it fit my e-reader like a glove, or even that my friend had been attentive enough to notice my Kindle precariously floating around in my overflowing work tote—and know (before I did!) that I needed a case. It’s that she made it with her own two hands. For me. Just because.
In our digital world, where being present for our friends often happens instantly and on our screens—sending a check-in text, sharing a funny meme, or gifting delivery-service soup on their sick day—the slow, deliberate, and decidedly offline act of crafting me something stood out. The fact that my friend was regularly putting her phone down in between dashing off texts to the group chat to secretly knit with me in mind felt so much more substantial than any digital touch point.
This year, I’m hoping to follow her example and hand-make a few just-because gifts of my own. Here’s where I’m starting:
I have a lot of friends who would love this crotchet bag, which looks way more chic and modern than what I thought crotchet could ever be. Our experts say it’s for “ambitious beginner crocheters,” which is precisely how I am feeling on January 2: bushy-eyed and full of the gumption a new year brings. For the kids in my life: I’m excited to try my hand at a few more of these “idiot-proof” and incredibly adorable tiny crotchet animals. These beautiful paint-by-numbers kits our gifting experts recommend would be a great place to start if you’re looking to try your hand at painting a gift. Or the kit itself would be a great gift for the person in your life looking for a new hobby—it comes with everything they need to create large, modern still-life paintings. And as a gift for myself, because that counts, too: I’m going to start working on this simple, soft, and squishy merino knit sweater. I’m leaning toward the Sahara Dust color, a quite lovely neutral I can wear into the spring. (continued)
AUSTIN (The Borowitz Report)—Defending the H-1B visa program, Elon Musk said on Monday that working for him “is a job no American would want.”
“There is this myth that workers on H-1B visas will be taking away jobs from Americans,” he said. “The truth is, the only people willing to work for me are foreigners with little to no access to information about me.”
Explaining why foreign workers are uniquely suited for such employment, he added, “If you have to listen to me talk for extended periods, not knowing English is a huge asset.”
Marshaling data to support his argument, Musk said, “People who have worked for me are much like Donald Trump’s wives—67 percent have been foreign.”
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E.B. White received a letter from a man who had given up on the world. The letter below is White’s response.
North Brooklin, Maine,
30 March 1973
Dear Mr. Nadeau:
As long as there is one upright man, as long as there is one compassionate woman, the contagion may spread and the scene is not desolate. Hope is the thing that is left to us, in a bad time. I shall get up Sunday morning and wind the clock, as a contribution to order and steadfastness.
Sailors have an expression about the weather: they say, the weather is a great bluffer. I guess the same is true of our human society — things can look dark, then a break shows in the clouds, and all is changed, sometimes rather suddenly.
It is quite obvious that the human race has made a queer mess of life on this planet. But as a people we probably harbor seeds of goodness that have lain for a long time waiting to sprout when the conditions are right.
Man’s curiosity, his relentlessness, his inventiveness, his ingenuity have led him into deep trouble. We can only hope that these same traits will enable him to claw his way out.
Hang on to your hat. Hang on to your hope. And wind the clock, for tomorrow is another day.
Sincerely,
E. B. White
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Former President Jimmy Carter died today, December 29, 2024, at age 100 after a life characterized by a dedication to human rights. His wife of 77 years, Rosalynn Carter, died on November 19, 2023; she was 96 years old.
James Earl Carter Jr. was born on October 1, 1924, in Plains, in southwestern Georgia, about half an hour from the site of the infamous Andersonville Prison, where United States soldiers died of disease and hunger during the Civil War only sixty years earlier. He was the first U.S. president to be born in a hospital.
Carter’s South was impoverished. He grew up on a dirt road about three miles from Plains, in the tiny, majority-Black village of Archery, where his father owned a farm and the family grew corn, cotton, peanuts, and sugar cane. The young Carters and the children of the village’s Black sharecroppers grew up together as the Depression that crashed down in 1929 drained away what little prosperity there was in Archery.
After undergraduate coursework at Georgia Southwestern College and at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Carter completed his undergraduate degree at the U.S. Naval Academy. In the Navy he rose to the rank of lieutenant, serving on submarines—including early nuclear submarines—in both the Atlantic and Pacific fleets.
In 1946, Carter married Rosalynn Smith, a friend of his sister’s, who grew up in Plains. When his father died in 1953, Carter resigned his naval commission and took his family back to the Carters’ Georgia farm, where he and Rosalynn operated both the farm and a seed and supply company. (continued)
