History-making NASA Parker Solar Probe plunged into the sun and broke stunning records

 

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe passing through the sun’s outer atmosphere, or corona. Credit: NASA

Dear Commons Community,

Early on Christmas Eve, the  NASA Parker Solar Probe craft swooped at blazing speed through the sun’s atmosphere.

The probe, equipped with a robust heat shield, made the closest-ever approach to our dynamic star, coming some 3.8 million miles (6.1 million kilometers) from the stellar surface. That’s seven times closer than any other probe. The mission is designed to fly into the sun’s corona, or outer atmosphere, which spawns many of the powerful solar storms and weather that impact Earth. As reported byMashable and CNN.

To understand our star’s behavior, a craft had to go where no craft had gone before.

“It’s really exciting,” Nour Raouafi, an astrophysicist at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory and project scientist for the mission, told Mashable. “The sun is like a laboratory to us.”

Though NASA announced the craft made the historic flyby on Christmas Eve, the probe will be in position to send a beacon tone to Earth tomorrow, which will confirm its safety.

To make this record-breaking pass, the nearly 10-foot-long probe has made 22 orbits around the sun, allowing it to swoop ever deeper into the corona. And while doing so, the spacecraft has been continually picking up speed. When you repeatedly swing by such a massive and gravitationally powerful object — the sun is a sphere of hot gas 333,000 times as massive as our planet — you accrue lots of speed. Out in space, there’s nothing to stop this motion.

On this close flyby, the probe reached some 430,000 miles per hour (692,000 kilometers per hour).

“It’s the fastest human-made object ever.”

“That’s like going from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C. in one second,” marveled Raouafi. “It’s fascinating. It’s the fastest human-made object ever.”

The spacecraft can survive such an extreme plunge into the corona because it’s fitted with a robust heat shield designed to withstand intense solar radiation. The shield itself, which is eight feet (2.4 meters) in diameter and 4.5 inches (nearly 12 centimeters) thick, heats up to some 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit, but just a couple of feet behind the shield, the environs are surprisingly pleasant. The instruments operate at around room temperature.

Why Parker Solar Probe swooped into the sun

In 2022, the probe flew into “one of the most powerful coronal mass ejections (CMEs) ever recorded,” NASA explained. A CME is the eruption of a mass of super hot gas (plasma) into space.

Raouafi hopes it happens again. (The sun is at its peak activity, called solar maximum, so the odds are about as good as they get.)

When the sun unleashes an explosion of energy and particles, the corona accelerates these particles. Such solar storms have huge implications for our energy grids and communications systems on Earth, as well as for astronauts in space — particularly as NASA prepares to return astronauts to the moon, and eventually, beyond.

“That’s why we want to fly through regions where these particles are accelerated,” Raouafi said. “We want to understand how the acceleration is done.”

The Parker Solar Probe’s researchers expect the spacecraft, fitted with instruments to measure and image the solar wind (a constant stream of charged particles emanating from the corona), will enable us to better forecast when and where a potent CME or solar flare may hit.

For example, when a CME erupts from the sun’s surface, it must travel over 92 million miles to reach Earth. Along the way, this hot gas will “pile up” the solar wind ahead of it.

“That will affect its arrival time to Earth,” Raouafi explained. Knowledge about these space dynamics is critical: A good space weather forecast would allow power utilities to temporarily shut off power to avoid conducting a power surge from a CME, and potentially blowing out power to millions.

Infamously, in 1989, a potent solar flare-associated CME knocked out power to millions in Québec, Canada. The CME hit Earth’s magnetic field on March 12 of that year, and then, wrote NASA astronomer Sten Odenwald, “Just after 2:44 a.m. on March 13, the currents found a weakness in the electrical power grid of Quebec. In less than two minutes, the entire Quebec power grid lost power. During the 12-hour blackout that followed, millions of people suddenly found themselves in dark office buildings and underground pedestrian tunnels, and in stalled elevators.” The same solar event fried a $10 million transformer at Salem Nuclear Power Plant in New Jersey.

Following this Christmas Eve journey through the corona, the probe has two more planned passes in March and June 2025 that will bring it a similar distance to the sun. This is true exploration into uncharted territory, a place where scientists seek the unexpected.

“Hopefully we’ll see something that surprises us quite a bit,” Raouafi said.

Tony

 

 

Associated Press Featured Article on AI and Education – “a game changer for students with disabilities

Dear Commons Community,

The Associated Press had a featured article this morning entitled,  “AI is a game changer for students with disabilities. Schools are still learning to harness it.” Here is an excerpt.

For Makenzie Gilkison, spelling is such a struggle that a word like rhinoceros might come out as “rineanswsaurs” or sarcastic as “srkastik.”

The 14-year-old from suburban Indianapolis can sound out words, but her dyslexia makes the process so draining that she often struggles with comprehension. “I just assumed I was stupid,” she recalled of her early grade school years.

But assistive technology powered by artificial intelligence has helped her keep up with classmates. Last year, Makenzie was named to the National Junior Honor Society. She credits a customized AI-powered chatbot, a word prediction program and other tools that can read for her.

“I would have just probably given up if I didn’t have them,” she said.

Artificial intelligence holds the promise of helping countless other students with a range of visual, speech, language and hearing impairments to execute tasks that come easily to others. Schools everywhere have been wrestling with how and where to incorporate AI, but many are fast-tracking applications for students with disabilities.

Getting the latest technology into the hands of students with disabilities is a priority for the U.S. Education Department, which has told schools they must consider whether students need tools like text-to-speech and alternative communication devices. New rules from the Department of Justice also will require schools and other government entities to make apps and online content accessible to those with disabilities.

There is concern about how to ensure students using it — including those with disabilities — are still learning.

Students can use artificial intelligence to summarize jumbled thoughts into an outline, summarize complicated passages, or even translate Shakespeare into common English. And computer-generated voices that can read passages for visually impaired and dyslexic students are becoming less robotic and more natural.

“I’m seeing that a lot of students are kind of exploring on their own, almost feeling like they’ve found a cheat code in a video game,” said Alexis Reid, an educational therapist in the Boston area who works with students with learning disabilities. But in her view, it is far from cheating: “We’re meeting students where they are.”

Ben Snyder, a 14-year-old freshman from Larchmont, New York, who was recently diagnosed with a learning disability, has been increasingly using AI to help with homework.

“Sometimes in math, my teachers will explain a problem to me, but it just makes absolutely no sense,” he said. “So if I plug that problem into AI, it’ll give me multiple different ways of explaining how to do that.”

He likes a program called Question AI. Earlier in the day, he asked the program to help him write an outline for a book report — a task he completed in 15 minutes that otherwise would have taken him an hour and a half because of his struggles with writing and organization. But he does think using AI to write the whole report crosses a line.

“That’s just cheating,” Ben said.

Schools have been trying to balance the technology’s benefits against the risk that it will do too much. If a special education plan sets reading growth as a goal, the student needs to improve that skill. AI can’t do it for them, said Mary Lawson, general counsel at the Council of the Great City Schools.

I have had graduate teacher education students in my classes evaluate generative AI  to determine its applicability in their own classes.  A number of them have mentioned that it might be beneficial for their primary and secondary school students with special needs and language issues. 

Tony

Elon Musk “Concerned” that Jeff Bezos’ Ex-Wife MacKenzie Scott Has Given $19 Billion to Charity!

Mackensie Scott

Dear Commons Community,

Tesla Inc. CEO Elon Musk has raised concerns about MacKenzie Scott‘s charitable donations, highlighting growing tensions over billionaire philanthropy and its societal impact.

Responding to a social media post about Scott’s donations to liberal nonprofits, Musk offered a one-word critique: “Concerning.” The comment came after author John LeFevre highlighted Scott’s contributions to organizations focused on racial equity, social justice, and LGBTQ+ rights.

Scott, who received Amazon.com Inc. shares worth billions in her 2019 divorce from Jeff Bezos, has emerged as one of America’s most prolific philanthropists. Through her Yield Giving organization, she has donated over $19 billion to more than 2,450 nonprofits since 2019, while maintaining a net worth above $30 billion due to Amazon’s stock performance.  As reported by Benzinga.

This marks Musk’s latest criticism of Scott’s giving. In March, he suggested in a now-deleted post that “super rich ex-wives who hate their former spouse” could contribute to the decline of Western civilization. Shortly after his comment, Scott announced an additional $640 million in donations to 361 organizations.

The debate over billionaire philanthropy has drawn in other prominent voices, including Melinda French Gates, who has publicly supported Scott’s rapid-giving approach while criticizing other tech billionaires, including Musk, for prioritizing public influence over charitable giving.

In a recent New York Times interview, French Gates questioned whether certain tech leaders should even be called philanthropists, suggesting they use their platforms primarily to shape public opinion rather than contribute meaningfully to charitable causes.

Her giving strategy contrasts sharply with other tech billionaires, including Musk, who has focused his recent attention on political causes, including substantial support for President-elect Donald Trump‘s campaign.

Scott’s donations for 2024 include significant support for economic security initiatives and repeat grants to organizations like CAMFED, which supports girls’ education in Africa, demonstrating her continued commitment to addressing systemic inequalities despite criticism from fellow billionaires.

Could it be that Musk is envious of Scott putting the needs of  poor and disenfranchised people above all else in her giving and has become a model for other billionaires.

Tony

Ex-Trump Attorney General Pick, Matt Gaetz, Paid Thousands For Drugs And Sex, Bipartisan House Ethics Report Shows!

Dear Commons Community,

Former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R) of Florida and Trump nominee for attorney general, was found by a Bipartisan House Ethics Committee probe to have paid a 17-year-old for sex and consumed illegal drugs while in office.

Gaetz, the sex-scandal-plagued Republican who recently dropped out as President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for attorney general, violated several state laws relating to sexual misconduct while in office, according to the committee’s report published Monday.

Details of the report’s final draft were published earlier in the day by CBS News and CNN. As reported by various news media.

The investigators found “substantial evidence” that Gaetz violated House rules and other standards of conduct “prohibiting prostitution, statutory rape, illicit drug use, impermissible gifts, special favors or privileges, and obstruction of Congress.”

The panel listed over $90,000 in payments to 12 women — including a 17-year-old — that the committee “determined were likely in connection with sexual activity and/or drug use.”

The report found that Gaetz allegedly twice had sex with the 17-year-old, described as “Victim A,” at a 2017 party. She had just completed her junior year in high school.

“Victim A” recalled receiving $400 on the night in question “which she understood to be payment for sex,” the report found. “Victim A said that she did not inform Representative Gaetz that she was under 18 at the time, nor did he ask her age,” the committee wrote.

The report states that it is a felony for someone aged 24 or older to engage in sexual activity with a 16- or 17-year-old under Florida’s statutory rape law.

The committee noted that all the women who gave evidence said the sexual encounters with Gaetz were consensual. But one woman told investigators, “When I look back on certain moments, I feel violated.”

The panel wrote that it did not find Gaetz violated federal sex trafficking laws, writing that “although Representative Gaetz did cause the transportation of women across state lines for purposes of commercial sex, the Committee did not find evidence that any of those women were under 18 at the time of travel, nor did the Committee find sufficient evidence to conclude that the commercial sex acts were induced by force, fraud, or coercion.”

The committee claimed to have seen texts in which Gaetz made references to drugs as “party favors,” “vitamins,” or “rolls,” and the report also accused him of setting up a fake email account from his Capitol Hill office “for the purpose of purchasing marijuana.”

Details of the report come days after media stories emerged that the committee held a secret vote to reverse course and make its report public on the accusations of sex trafficking, illicit drug use and other misconduct by Gaetz, who denies all the allegations. Earlier this month, a full House vote on whether to make the report public failed, largely along party lines.

In a statement Gaetz released last week the committee voted to release the report, he emphasized how he has never been charged over the alleged crimes.

“In my single days, I often sent funds to women I dated — even some I never dated but who asked. I dated several of these women for years,” Gaetz said. “It’s embarrassing, though not criminal, that I probably partied, womanized, drank and smoked more than I should have earlier in life. I live a different life now.”

The committee said Gaetz refused to participate in sworn testimony, but he did submit written answers to some of their questions, including denying having sex with a minor.

On Monday, Gaetz submitted a restraining order in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in a failed bid to halt the congressional committee releasing its findings.

Trump’s choice of Gaetz upended the Republican’s career as he knew it. When he accepted the nomination last month, he resigned his House seat, for which he’d just won reelection, saying it would allow Florida to name his replacement in time for the next Congress. Notably, giving up his seat also meant the House committee could no longer continue its ethics investigation into him.

But his plans began to unravel almost immediately as Republicans began openly questioning his eligibility for the job leading the Department of Justice. Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) offered perhaps the most blunt answer when HuffPost asked for his initial reaction to the Gaetz nomination: “Are you shittin’ me?”

Just over a week after Trump announced him as his attorney general pick, when it became clear that senators were increasingly unlikely to confirm someone dogged by so many accusations, Gaetz rescinded his acceptance of the nomination. His upcoming confirmation process, he claimed, was “unfairly becoming a distraction” to the Trump transition team’s work.

The next day, Gaetz said he wouldn’t be returning to Congress.

By then, reports had emerged that the House committee’s investigation had wrapped up and that it had been days away from voting on whether to release a report on its findings when he dropped out. Top members of the Senate quickly called on the committee  to release the results of its investigation anyway.

What a guy and just think he could have been the U.S.  Attorney General in a Trump administration!

Tony

David Bloomfield: NYC teachers are told to foster ‘politically neutral’ classrooms. How should they talk about Trump?

Photo:  Sarah Hofius Hall.  WVIA News.

 

Dear Commons Community,

My colleague, David Bloomfield, had a guest essay yesterday in Chalk Beat, entitled,  “NYC teachers are told to foster ‘politically neutral’ classrooms. How should they talk about Trump?” The piece is his advice about how teachers should broached a Trump discussion in their classes. The entire piece is below and contains excellent information on what teachers can say about political and social issues in their classrooms.

Well-worth a read!

Thank you, David!

Tony

———————————————————————–

A few weeks after Election Day, a former student of mine, now a New York City public school teacher, reached out by email. She had just hosted a group of teacher friends at her apartment to think about and discuss “where we go from here as educators. One thing that kept coming up is the insistence from the city and their administrators alike that teachers remain “neutral” when talking to students about the election results and the upcoming Trump administration.”

She called the instructional guidance presented on a slide at her school “murky,” because, referencing city policy, it advised:

“Schools have an obligation to create a politically neutral learning environment. While presidential elections are a time to help teach and foster civic engagement, NYCPS employees must refrain from advocating for their preferred candidates or political parties, including refraining from wearing any items advocating for a candidate or political party.”

She went on to tell me that “warnings that our school administrations have issued make it feel as if no speech related to Trump’s policies or the impact that they may have on our school communities is permissible.” Her colleagues, she said, were “fearful about speaking truth,” lest it be labeled political speech.

Despite the guidance’s vague reference to a “politically neutral learning environment,” the rest of the text refers to partisan campaigning and not generic political issues.

Classroom teachers are, in fact, obligated to address political issues under New York State law and the state’s Civic Readiness Initiative. A city regulation, meanwhile, states that the expectation of neutrality “does not preclude school personnel from discussing or distributing information about election issues in connection with legitimate instructional programs and activities.” Post-election, New York City Public Schools updated its ”civics for all” resources for this purpose.

Within that framework, teachers are not only encouraged but also required to teach post-election matters in a factual manner within the context of the curriculum. These lessons can take place in social studies but also in science, math, English language arts, and arts — whenever they are relevant. Even if the city’s neutrality guidance is interpreted to go beyond partisan electioneering, the word used is “neutral,” not “neutered.” Teachers should take strength from that difference and meet the moment accordingly.

This is not Florida, and even there, a recent settlement over “Don’t Say Gay” legislation makes clear that discussion of so-called banned topics, such as sexual orientation and gender identity, is permissible, even if those topics cannot be part of the formal curriculum in certain grades.

In New York, marginalized individuals and groups are protected and may have full representation in the curriculum, as do hot-button issues, such as climate, trans rights, gun violence, and immigration. Educators must present this material responsibly and without demeaning individual students or those with differing views, but those considerations should enrich classroom discussions, not silence them.

I’d add that when planned, intentions to teach controversial topics might be brought to the attention of parents and school leadership, not for a veto but for possible discussion, and so those involved are prepared for any student or community response. Similarly, after-the-fact notification of unplanned classroom conversations may be advisable.

New York State law and curriculum standards — along with the ethical obligation to help students understand their world and build critical thinking skills — obligate teachers to resist perceived pressures to avoid controversial topics in context. This takes skill, and school leaders should provide professional development to help teachers navigate these hard conversations.

But to answer the question posed by my former student turned elementary school science teacher: There is a need for educators to present “speech related to Trump’s policies or the impact that they may have on our school communities” despite warnings from administrators. It’s probably unhelpful — though hard to resist — to say, “Here’s what I think,” but it’s constructive to discuss differing opinions supported by facts and ethical considerations.

David C. Bloomfield is Professor of Education Leadership, Law and Policy at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center. A former elementary and middle school teacher, he was General Counsel to the New York City Board of Education.

 

 

When 2025 arrives, so will the end of the amateur athlete in college sports!

Caleb Williams, Angel Reese, and Shedeur Sanders cashed in on their NIL.   Photo: MarketWatch photo illustration/Getty Images, iStockphoto

Dear Commons Community,

When the page turns on 2024, it will be time to say goodbye to the amateur athlete in college sports.

In theory, the concept held on stubbornly via the quaint and now all-but-dead notion that student-athletes played only for pride, a scholarship and some meal money.

In practice, the amateurs have been disappearing for years, washed away by the steady millions, now billions, that have flowed into college athletics, mostly through football and basketball both through legitimate and illicit means.  As reported by The Associated Press.

In the coming year, the last vestiges of amateur college sports are expected to officially sputter out — the final step of a journey that has felt inevitable since 2021. That’s when the Supreme Court laid the foundation for paying college players in exchange for promotions — on social media, TV, video games, you name it — featuring their name, image or likeness (NIL).

The changes have come in spasms so far, not always well thought out, not always fair and not regulated by any single entity like the NCAA or federal government, but rather by a collection of state laws, along with rules at individual schools and the leagues in which they play.

But on April 7, the day final approval is expected for the landmark, $2.8 billion lawsuit settlement that lays the foundation for players to receive money directly from their schools, what was once considered anathema to the entire concept of college sports will become the norm.

David Schnase, the NCAA’s vice president for academic and membership affairs, acknowledges that maintaining the unique essence of college sports is a challenge in the shifting landscape.

“You can use the word ‘pro,’ you can use the word ‘amateur,’ you can attach whatever moniker you want to it, but those are just labels,” Schnase said. “It’s much less about labels and more about experiences and circumstances. Circumstances are different today than they were last year and they are likely going to be different in the foreseeable future.”

Do athletes get rich off these new deals?

Few would argue that college athletes should get something back for the billions they help produce in TV and ticket revenue, merchandise sales and the like.

But is everyone going to cash in? Are college players really getting rich?

Recent headlines suggest top quarterback recruit Bryce Underwood was lured to Michigan thanks to funding from billionaire Oracle founder Larry Ellison, and that a top basketball recruit, A.J. Dybantsa, is heading to BYU — not a hoops powerhouse — for the reported price of $7 million.

For every Underwood or Dybantsa, though, there are even more Matthew Slukas and Beau Pribulas.

Sluka’s agent says his son agreed to play quarterback at UNLV after a promise of receiving $100,000 and quit three games into the season after the checks never came.

Pribula was the backup quarterback at Penn State who abruptly entered the transfer portal earlier this month, choosing the college version of free agency over a chance to play with the Nittany Lions in the College Football Playoff. He’s not the only one hitting the portal in hopes of getting rich before new regulations related to the NCAA settlement take effect.

“We’ve got problems in college football,” Penn State coach James Franklin said.

The settlement will overhaul the current system. Currently, players receive money via third-party collectives that are booster-funded groups affiliated with individual schools. Coming up fast: the schools paying the athletes directly — the term often used here is “revenue sharing” — with collectives still an option, but not the only one.

“It’s going to be more transparent,” said Jeff Kessler, the plaintiffs’ attorney and antitrust veteran who helped shape the settlement. “If anything, having the schools handling all the payments is only going to improve the system.”

The NCAA has started collecting data about NIL payments, which date to July 2021. Its first set of numbers, which includes data from more than 140 schools across more than 40 sports in 2024, show a bracing disconnect between have and have-nots.

For instance, average earnings for football and men’s and women’s basketball players is nearly $38,000. But the median earning — the middle number among all the data points on the list — is only $1,328, a sign of how much the biggest contracts skew the average.

Women make vastly less than men

The statistics also show a vast difference in earnings between men and women, an issue that could impact schools’ ability to comply with Title IX. That 1972 law requires schools to provide equal athletic scholarships and financial aid but not necessarily that they spend the same dollar amount on men and women. Heading into 2025, there is no clarity on how this issue will play out.

Regardless, the numbers are jarring. The NCAA data set shows the average earnings for women in 16 sports was $8,624, compared with $33,321 for men in 11 sports. Men,’s basketball players averaged $56,000 compared with $11,500 for women.

Paying players could cost some and benefit others

The biggest losers from this move toward a professional model could be all the swimmers and wrestlers and field hockey players — the athletes in the so-called non-revenue sports whose programs also happen to serve as the backbone of the U.S. Olympic team.

Only a tiny percentage of those athletes are getting rich, and now that universities have to use revenue to pay the most sought-after players in their athletic programs, there could be cuts to the smaller sports.

Also, someone’s going to have backfill the revenue that will now go to the players. Well-heeled donors like Ellison are not around for every school, nor have private equity firms started sending money.

The average fan will have to pony up, and the last six months have seen dozens if not hundreds of athletic directors begging alumni for money and warning them of changes ahead. Already there are schools placing surcharges on tickets or concessions.

How will fans respond to a more transactional model of college sports?

“I don’t know that fans have this really great love for the idea of 100% pure amateurism,” said Nels Popp, a University of North Carolina sports business professor. “I think what they care about is the colors and the logos and the brand. I don’t know that it matters to them if the players are making a little bit of money or a lot of money. They’ve been making money for the last couple years, and I don’t know that that’s making fans really back off.”

Money, Money, Money!

Tony

 

Joe Manchin torches Democrats and Republicans on the way out the door!

Joe Manchin

Dear Commons Community,

As Joe Manchin prepares to leave Congress after nearly 15 years, the West Virginia senator — who left the Democratic Party and registered as an independent earlier this year — is further distancing himself from his former party, calling the Democratic brand “toxic.”

“The D-brand has been so maligned from the standpoint of, it’s just, it’s toxic,” Manchin told CNN’s Manu Raju in an interview that aired yesterday, citing the shift as the reason why he left the party.

Adding that he no longer considers himself a Democrat “in the form of what Democratic Party has turned itself into,” Manchin — who has long been a pivotal swing vote in the Senate — said the party’s brand has become about telling people what they can and can’t do, blaming progressives for the change.

“They have basically expanded upon thinking, ‘Well, we want to protect you there, but we’re going to tell you how you should live your life from that far on,’” Manchin added.

Manchin cast progressives — a small number of lawmakers within the party who he claims have an outsize influence — as being out of touch with the majority of Americans.

“This country is not going left,” he said.

The former West Virginia governor-turned-senator shared that he was a lifelong Democrat because the party used to focus on kitchen-table issues such as “good job, a good pay,” but claimed Democrats are now too worried about sensitive social issues, such as transgender rights, while taking “no responsibility at all” for the federal budget during the election.

But Manchin said Republicans don’t take responsibility for the national debt either, criticizing them further for lacking common sense on the issue of guns.

“They’re too extreme, it’s just common sense,” Manchin said. “I’m not going to ban you from buying it, but you’re going to have to show some responsibility.”

“So the Democrats go too far, want to ban. The Republican says, ‘Oh, let the good times roll. Let anybody have anything they want,’” Manchin added. “Just some commonsense things there.”

When asked about incoming House Progressive Caucus Chair Greg Casar’s remarks that Democrats would have won the election if the party was more like outgoing caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal and less like Manchin, the senator told Raju: “For someone to say that, they’ve got to be completely insane.”

“The people in America voted,” Manchin said. “They had that opportunity, you know, to vote with Kamala Harris and with Donald Trump. Donald Trump, there’s not much hasn’t been said. You know exactly what you’re getting. He hasn’t made any bones about it.”

He added: “You might say, ‘That’s too far right.’ OK. If that’s the case, then why did they go too far right when Kamala was trying to come back to the middle a little bit?”

Instead, Manchin blamed Vice President Harris’ loss on her inability to cast herself as a moderate candidate after championing progressive issues during her first presidential run in 2019.

“If you try to be somebody you’re not, it’s hard,” Manchin said. He declined to endorse the vice president ahead of the election.

Good luck to Mr. Manchin!

Tony

New York Times Guest Essay:  There Is Faith In Humor By Pope Francis

Dear Commons Community,

Pope Francis had a guest essay in yesterday’s New York Times entitled, “There Is Faith In Humor” in which he provides commentary on the important role of humor in our lives.  He uses several stories that will surely give the  reader a chuckle or two.  Below is the entire essay.

Enjoy a laugh!

Tony 

———————————————————–

The New York Times

There Is Faith in Humor

Dec. 17, 2024

By Pope Francis

Life inevitably has its sadnesses, which are part of every path of hope and every path toward conversion. But it is important to avoid wallowing in melancholy at all costs, not to let it embitter the heart.

These are temptations from which not even clerics are immune. And sometimes we unfortunately come across as bitter, sad priests who are more authoritarian than authoritative, more like old bachelors than wedded to the church, more like officials than pastors, more supercilious than joyful, and this, too, is certainly not good. But generally, we priests tend to enjoy humor and even have a fair stock of jokes and amusing stories, which we are often quite good at telling, as well as being the object of them.

Popes, too. John XXIII, who was well known for his humor, during one discourse said, more or less: “It often happens at night that I start thinking about a number of serious problems. I then make a brave and determined decision to go in the morning to speak with the pope. Then I wake up all in a sweat … and remember that the pope is me.”

How well I understand him. And John Paul II was much the same. In the preliminary sessions of a conclave, when he was still Cardinal Wojtyła, an older and rather severe cardinal went to rebuke him because he skied, climbed mountains, and went cycling and swimming. The story goes something like this: “I don’t think these are activities fitting to your role,” the cardinal said. To which the future pope replied, “But do you know that in Poland these are activities practiced by at least 50 percent of cardinals?” In Poland at the time, there were only two cardinals.

Irony is a medicine, not only to lift and brighten others, but also ourselves, because self-mockery is a powerful instrument in overcoming the temptation toward narcissism. Narcissists are continually looking into the mirror, painting themselves, gazing at themselves, but the best advice in front of a mirror is to laugh at ourselves. It is good for us. It will prove the truth of the proverb that there are only two kinds of perfect people: the dead, and those yet to be born.

Sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter  Get expert analysis of the news and a guide to the big ideas shaping the world every weekday morning. Get it sent to your inbox.

Jokes about and told by Jesuits are in a class of their own, comparable maybe only to those about the carabinieri in Italy, or about Jewish mothers in Yiddish humor.

As for the danger of narcissism, to be avoided with appropriate doses of self-irony, I remember the one about the rather vain Jesuit who had a heart problem and had to be treated in a hospital. Before going into the operating room, he asks God, “Lord, has my hour come?”

“No, you will live at least another 40 years,” God says. After the operation, he decides to make the most of it and has a hair transplant, a face-lift, liposuction, eyebrows, teeth … in short, he comes out a changed man. Right outside the hospital, he is knocked down by a car and dies. As soon as he appears in the presence of God, he protests, “Lord, but you told me I would live for another 40 years!” “Oops, sorry!” God replies. “I didn’t recognize you.”

And I’ve been told one that concerns me directly, the one about Pope Francis in America. It goes something like this: As soon as he arrives at the airport in New York for his apostolic journey in the United States, Pope Francis finds an enormous limousine waiting for him. He is rather embarrassed by that magnificent splendor, but then thinks that it has been ages since he last drove, and never a vehicle of that kind, and he thinks to himself: OK, when will I get another chance? He looks at the limousine and says to the driver, “You couldn’t let me try it out, could you?” “Look, I’m really sorry, Your Holiness,” replies the driver, “but I really can’t, you know, there are rules and regulations.”

But you know what they say, how the pope is when he gets something into his head — in short, he insists and insists, until the driver gives in. So Pope Francis gets behind the steering wheel, on one of those enormous highways, and he begins to enjoy it, presses down on the accelerator, going 50 miles per hour, 80, 120 … until he hears a siren, and a police car pulls up beside him and stops him. A young policeman comes up to the darkened window. The pope rather nervously lowers it and the policeman turns white. “Excuse me a moment,” he says, and goes back to his vehicle to call headquarters. “Boss, I think I have a problem.”

“What problem?” asks the chief.

“Well, I’ve stopped a car for speeding, but there’s a guy in there who’s really important.”

“How important? Is he the mayor?”

“No, no, boss … more than the mayor.”

“And more than the mayor, who is there? The governor?”

“No, no, more.”

“But he can’t be the president?”

“More, I reckon.”

“And who can be more important than the president?”

“Look, boss, I don’t know exactly who he is, all I can tell you is that it’s the pope who is driving him!”

The Gospel, which urges us to become like little children for our own salvation (Matthew 18:3), reminds us to regain their ability to smile.

Today, nothing cheers me as much as meeting children. When I was a child, I had those who taught me to smile, but now that I am old, children are often my mentors. The meetings with them are the ones that thrill me the most, that make me feel best.

And then those meetings with old people: Those elderly who bless life, who put aside all resentment, who take pleasure in the wine that has turned out well over the years, are irresistible. They have the gift of laughter and tears, like children. When I take children in my arms during the audiences in St. Peter’s Square, they mostly smile; but others, when they see me dressed all in white, think I’m the doctor who has come to give them a shot, and then they cry.

They are examples of spontaneity, of humanity, and they remind us that those who give up their own humanity give up everything, and that when it becomes hard to cry seriously or to laugh passionately, then we really are on the downhill slope. We become anesthetized, and anesthetized adults do nothing good for themselves, nor for society, nor for the church.

Bison Dying Off on Catalina Island!

 

Bison were first shipped to Catalina Island in 1924. GC Images

Dear Commons Community,

California’s bison were brought out west 100 years ago by Hollywood producers filming westerns — but now on Catalina Island they’re dying off.

What began as a herd of 14 bison, shipped in for 1925’s “The Vanishing American,” their numbers soon exploded. At one time, thousands of them roamed the island off the coast of Southern California, reports SFGate.

And they were also a boon to the island’s tourism.

As of the early 2000s, bus and Jeep tours of the interior parts of Catalina brought in more than $4.2 million in annual ticket sales, according to a report.

But the bison are also an invasive species, not native to the Golden State.

The mammals’ very existence threatens Catalina Island’s entire ecosystem, scientists said.

The bison — designated the official national mammal in 2006 — have stopped reproducing, however, and their numbers have shrunk fast.

Efforts began back in the 1970s to reduce the bison population on Catalina Island, with the many of the animals being removed to the mainland.

More aggressive tactics have been taken in recent years to reduce the herd to a more manageable size, including birth control vaccines administered to the females in an effort to stabilize the population at about 150 of them.

It was thought the vaccine effects would reverse over time — but that hasn’t happened, SFGate reported.

The last bison was born on Catalina Island in 2013. Today, about 80 remain.

Scientists don’t expect the last bison on Catalina Island to die off for another 30 years.

I somehow knew there were bison on Catalina Island but I never knew their origin. And soon they will be gone!

Tony