Illustration showing a proton (red) confined by magnetic-field lines (green) running down the centre of a Penning trap (yellow). (Courtesy: G Schneider, University of Mainz)
The most precise measurement ever of the proton's magnetic moment has been made by an international group of physicists. The new result – combined with a similar measurement planned for the proton's doppelganger, the antiproton – could help explain one of the deepest mysteries of physics – why the universe's matter seems to vastly outweigh its antimatter.
Every fundamental particle has a nearly identical antiparticle with opposite electric charge. Physicists' leading theories indicate that particles and their antiparticles were created in equal amounts during the Big Bang and should have annihilated each other long ago. But the universe is full of matter and lacks antimatter, suggesting that an undetected difference might exist between the two.
Scientific American: see link "Casimir-like interactions" in Abstract
Abstract:
We show that it is possible to use a massless field in the vacuum to communicate in such a way that the signal travels slower than the speed of light and such that no energy is transmitted from the sender to the receiver. Instead, the receiver has to supply a signal-dependent amount of work to switch his detector on and off. This type of signalling is related to Casimir-like interactions and it is made possible by dimension ---and curvature--- dependent subtleties of Huygens' principle.
Physics arXiv: Quantum Collect Calling Robert H. Jonsson, Eduardo Martin-Martinez, Achim Kempf
On Monday (today) the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is expected to unveil proposed regulations that could be the biggest step the U.S. has taken yet toward dealing with climate change. The regulations would limit emissions from power plants, which currently account for 40 percent of all carbon dioxide emissions in the United States, by far the biggest source.
“There’s a good chance that when history is written, this will be seen as the moment when the U.S. fully committed to combating climate change,” says Michael Greenstone, professor of environmental economics at MIT. “It’s a tremendous step forward.”
My hope at now a few years beyond half a century, that I've been a good example to you. Above all, I hope you know me as "Pop" and never encounter the man I was before I met your mother. Oh, he could write a military communications-electronics plan, he witnessed the rise of DARPANET to its commercial evolution the Internet; he knew engineering, physics and advanced mathematics; he was as much the Trekkie you enjoyed as we watched "The Next Generation," "Deep Space Nine" and "Voyager." He was also at that time shallow, self-centered and quite useless to the human species. He mistook conquest for intimacy.
That man was eager to be a part of the crowd; ran with the dogs of the porch; became a "player" because - before your mother - I apparently could not let on to the Ferrell military wolf pack at that time I was in an actual "relationship" with any woman; influenced easily by others that were themselves not as cock-sure and confident of their swagger as they had led on. Many of them are now the "old-men-at-the-bar": buying drinks on the fantasy someone still wants to see their wrinkled, sagging-without-pants butt-ugly-naked bodies; or interestingly ministers, I assume to atone for our previous promiscuous sins.
I've been reading the trend on Twitter: #YesAllWomen. It would be far too easy to distance myself from the massacre that occurred in Isla Vista at UC Santa Barbara, or the attacks resulting in greater than 200 girls kidnapped by Boka Haram. They are related, reflected in the same dark mirror as the hash tag that has over a million hits world wide from the continent of Africa, Europe, Pakistan and the Americas.
It was not your video games that created this; it was not hip-hop music; it was not a "lack of family values." Those are merely symptoms of misogyny.
It was us: men and the culture of entitlement we've created for ourselves.
It has been imbibed deeply in the stories we've told ourselves: Eve and the apple; "once upon a time." Always, it is the "Prince Charming" that rides to the rescue and slays the evil dragon, never the woman who saves herself. Always, it is Cyrano and Christian contesting and collaborating for the possession of Roxanne, even if by proxy for Cyrano. The feelings of the female and to whom she would like to couple - Adam, Charming, Cyrano or Christian - is seen as an afterthought, irrelevant, a non-issue. Roxanne would have gladly chosen Cyrano (which, is kind of creepy as they were cousins) had he only "asked" rather than worship her from the shadows and treat her like fragile china, a possession: a THING, a brass ring; a prize to be won. The most pious chronicles, the most fantastic, fantasy-based stories; the most "romantic" narratives of all time objectify women as second-class human beings, and not full, equal participants in society. It even extends to the sciences, sadly:
I am writing this to you to disabuse yourselves from such notions. Even at the height of my youth, I could easily walk up to a table of young ladies at any bar in Austin, Texas and ask all (say five) to dance - all five could turn me down. My feelings would be hurt, but I'm not so injured that I'm homicidal. Being "shot-down"/rejected is a part of the agreed "game." If successful at this game, I was guilty of the violence of the lie ("love" is a four-letter-word); the cheat (the ambition to fill a black book and impress the aforementioned "pack"); the steal (as in wasting their precious time); the killing of hope (see previously "lie") and the baggage these women inevitably took into their relationships beyond me. These women: daughters, sisters, cousins, mothers, friends, lovers - humans, deserved better.
Your grandfather gave me some advice that I later put in a haiku:
Father's wisdom: a
Man has caught a woman when
She embraces him.
Meaning: if you don't say or do anything too stupid, you probably - with some manners and patience have a good chance at a relationship, which may only be a friendship, and that is quite fine. The choices of sharing her life and/or her body are hers, and not your entitlement. We need more friendships between the sexes, and less of the following:
Women are not "goals": notches on your belt or proof of your masculinity. Women are not property as slaves, goldfish or Labrador retrievers. Numbers do not prove your virility, they would instead prove your shallowness, and increase the possibility of an STD. There are other greater things you could be known for that could help others; solve an intractable problem; advance the human species and show the positivism of your background, culture and inner natures. No simply means no, which as another human being they have a right to say. I speak this life into you at 50+ so you can glean from my own sad mistakes. My quote:
"Experience isn't the best teacher: other people's experiences is the best teacher."
1 in 3 American women, 42 million women, plus 28 million children, either live in poverty or are right on the brink of it. (The report defines the “brink of poverty” as making $47,000 a year for a family of four.)
Nearly two-thirds of minimum wage workers are women, and these workers often get zero paid sick days.
Two-thirds of American women are either the primary or co-breadwinners of their families.
The average woman is paid 77 cents for every dollar a man makes, and that figure is much lower for black and Latina women; African American women earn only 64 cents and Hispanic women only 55 cents for every dollar made by a white man. More at: TIME.com.
The above comprises US data, the world is similarly worse. It would appear that the path to world peace is not in the bombs we make, but in the way we treat our women.
Because of this misogynistic culture - underpaid professional cheerleaders, exploited hip-hop video vixens, over-sexual game avatars and reality TV show stars, there are some women that will support their own exploitation unawares. It is a form of Stockholm syndrome; insidious mental conditioning through consumer marketing. You can only help to an extent, but my advice would be to wish them well, move on to someone whom you can both love and respect. Rage or the enactment of violence should never be a part of your interactions. The women you encounter are daughters, sisters, cousins, mothers, friends, lovers: humans!
It is the same way you would like to see me (or any man) treat your own mother.
As men, we need to clear this dark mirror, atone and try again, mightily. Love always, Pop
Do tragedies force us to expand our views on controversial topics such as gun control? Unfortunately not, say Web researchers who have studied surfing habits during America’s worst school shooting.
TECHNOLOGY REVIEW: On December 14, 2012, Adam Lanza shot and killed his mother, then drove to Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut and gunned down 20 children and six adult staff members before killing himself.
The incident was the deadliest shooting at a school in U.S. history and triggered an intense debate about gun control. That debate continues today.
One problem is that there is growing evidence online that people tend to seek out views that agree with their own and rarely encounter alternative points of view.
“This so-called ‘filter bubble’ phenomenon has been called out as especially detrimental when it comes to dialogue among people on controversial, emotionally charged topics, such as the labeling of genetically modified food, the right to bear arms, the death penalty, and online privacy,” say Danai Koutra at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh and a couple of Microsoft researchers, Paul Bennett and Eric Horvitz.
One of the unsung heroes of 20th century science is the mathematician and electronics engineer, Claude Shannon, who worked at the famous Bell laboratories during the 1940s, 50s and 60s. Shannon’s greatest work is the theory of information which he published in 1948 and has since had a profound influence on our world.
This theory is the basis for all digital communication. So mobile phones, digital television and radio, computers and the Internet all depend on Shannon’s theory of information. For that reason, it’s possible to argue that Shannon has had a bigger influence on 21st century technology than anybody in history.
But there’s a problem his theory of information which has stumped physicists and mathematicians in recent years. This is that it only applies to classical information, the kind of 0s and 1s that make up ordinary digital code.
But physicists have become increasingly interested in quantum information and its potential in cryptography and in quantum computing. Quantum information can be both a 1 and 0 at the same time. This among other exotic properties is what allows quantum computers to be so powerful and quantum cryptography to be perfectly secure.
But Shannon’s ideas break down in the quantum regime so various research groups have been searching for an alternative formulation that will give quantum information the same theoretical footing that Shannon gave to its classical cousin.
That goal may now be a step closer thanks to the work of David Deutsch and Chiara Marletto at the University of Oxford in the UK. These guys have come up with a way to link classical and quantum information using a single theory that acts as a foundation for both.
Their new idea is called constructor theory and it is both simpler and deeper than quantum mechanics, or indeed any other laws of physics. In fact, Deutsch claims that constructor theory forms a kind of bedrock of reality from which all the laws of physics emerge.
More than 40 years after a Soviet nuclear physicist proposed an outlandish theory that trios of particles can arrange themselves in an infinite nesting-doll configuration, experimentalists have reported strong evidence that this bizarre state of matter is real.
In 1970, Vitaly Efimov was manipulating the equations of quantum mechanics in an attempt to calculate the behavior of sets of three particles, such as the protons and neutrons that populate atomic nuclei, when he discovered a law that pertained not only to nuclear ingredients but also, under the right conditions, to any trio of particles in nature.
While most forces act between pairs, such as the north and south poles of a magnet or a planet and its sun, Efimov identified an effect that requires three components to spring into action. Together, the components form a state of matter similar to Borromean rings, an ancient symbol of three interconnected circles in which no two are directly linked. The so-called Efimov “trimer” could consist of a trio of protons, a triatomic molecule or any other set of three particles, as long as their properties were tuned to the right values. And in a surprising flourish, this hypothetical state of matter exhibited an unheard-of feature: the ability to range in size from practically infinitesimal to infinite.
“It’s a pretty wild idea,” said Randy Hulet, a physics professor at Rice University in Houston. “You get this infinite series of molecules.”
The electronics world has been dreaming for half a century of the day you can roll a TV up in a tube. Last year, Samsung even unveiled a smartphone with a curved screen—but it was solid, not flexible; the technology just hasn’t caught up yet.
But scientists got one step closer last month when researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory reported the creation of the world’s thinnest flexible, see-through 2-D thin film transistors.
These transistors are just 10 atomic layers thick—that’s about how much your fingernails grow per second.
Transistors are the basis of nearly all electronics. Their two settings—on or off—dictate the 1s and 0s of computer binary language. Thin film transistors are a particular subset of these that are typically used in screens and displays. Virtually all flat-screen TVs and smartphones are made up of thin film transistors today; they form the basis of both LEDs and LCDs (liquid crystal displays).
“This could make a transparent, nearly invisible screen,” said Andreas Roelofs, a coauthor on the paper and interim director of Argonne’s Center for Nanoscale Materials. “Imagine a normal window that doubles as a screen whenever you turn it on, for example.”
Round 2 on the way! Don't worry: we'll hit 'em with "intelligent design." They'll never see it coming...
Russia is developing a national program of manned space explorations which will replace the International Space Station (ISS) program after 2020, the Russian Federal Space Agency, Roscosmos, said Thursday.
"The development of the national strategy of manned spaceflight is underway now. Along with the Russian Academy of Sciences and the industrial sector we are preparing a certain concept beyond the ISS," Roscosmos Deputy Chief Sergei Savelyev told reporters at the 18th St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. 1
VOSTOCHNY COSMODROME, Russia (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin told astronauts in orbit on Friday that Russia will send up the first manned flights from its own soil in 2018, using a new launch pad he said will help the once-pioneering space power explore deep space and the moon.
Speaking by video link with the International Space Station's crew from the building site, Putin said it will be open to use by the United States and Europe - playing up cooperation on the anniversary of cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin's 1961 flight, which set off the Cold War space race. 2
If other countries followed our lead, the number one reason for conflict - resources - would be reduced significantly. We'd have to resort to actually solving real-world problems via cooperation, and might just make a buck and a life in the process.
A small US-based company called Solar Roadways are developing a solar road surface that, if installed nationwide, has the potential to produce more renewable energy than the entire country uses. In fact, they’ve actually already developed a working prototype that’s been installed in a parking lot, and they’re now crowdsourcing funds in order to tweak the design and move towards production.
Solar Roadways, which was started by Scott and Julie Brusaw in 2006, designed and developed hexagonal glass solar panels studded with LED lights that could be installed on a variety of surfaces such as roads, pavements and playgrounds. These panels would more than pay for themselves and would benefit both businesses and homeowners as the energy generated from driveways and parking lots could be used to power buildings, and any excess can be sold back to the grid.
The panels also contain heating elements to melt ice and snow so are ideal in winter conditions, and LEDs to make road lines and signs which have been previously shown to reduce night time accidents. The surface could also be used to charge electric vehicles as oppose to fossil fuels, and future technology could even allow for charging whilst driving via mutual induction panels. Amazingly, the team also found that car headlights can produce energy in the panels, so cars driving around at night would be producing some electricity.
"Federal funding cuts, and the insidious damage caused just since March by federal budget sequestration, have forced nearly one in five U.S. scientists to consider moving overseas to continue their research.
"While that immediate threat of a brain drain is alarming enough, it’s the long-term effects of sagging federal research funding that pose the greatest threat to our very survival. The cause-and-effect is simple: If Congress continues to refuse to fund the future, the decline of America’s much-touted “innovation economy” will accelerate fatally." 1
***
“This is a new kind of storm associated with climate change,” Tom LaPorte, spokesman for the Chicago Department of Water Management, told Medill Reports on day two of the April flood. Extreme flooding is part of a pattern that has emerged in the last two decades, according to Illinois State climatologist Jim Angel.
"Now a major insurance company is suing Chicago-area municipal governments saying they knew of the risks posed by climate change and should have been better prepared. The class-action lawsuits raise the question of who is liable for the costs of global warming.
"Filed by Farmers Insurance Co. on behalf of itself, other insurance companies and customers whose property was damaged by the surge of storm water and sewage overflow, the lawsuits allege the governments of Chicago-area municipalities knew their drainage systems were inadequate and failed to take reasonable action to prevent flooding of insured properties." 2
***
"South Carolina’s state beverage is milk. Its insect is the praying mantis. There’s a designated dance—the shag—as well a sanctioned tartan, game bird, dog, flower, gem and snack food (boiled peanuts). But what Olivia McConnell noticed was missing from among her home’s 50 official symbols was a fossil. So last year, the eight-year-old science enthusiast wrote to the governor and her representatives to nominate the Columbian mammoth. “Fossils tell us about our past,” the Grade 2 student wrote.
"And, as it turns out, the present, too. The bill that Olivia inspired has become the subject of considerable angst at the legislature in the state capital of Columbia. First, an objecting state senator attached three verses from Genesis to the act, outlining God’s creation of all living creatures. Then, after other lawmakers spiked the amendment as out of order for its introduction of the divinity, he took another crack, specifying that the Columbian mammoth “was created on the sixth day with the other beasts of the field.
"If ignorance is contagious, it’s high time to put the United States in quarantine." 3
I repeat: the republic - a "political system with elected representatives: a political system or form of government in which people elect representatives to exercise power for them" - is dying.
From the Citizen's United [4] ruling to government-by-reality-TV, we're cashing in on our limited, self-delusional mythologies, "shining city on a hill" we tell ourselves. Intelligent Design rammed down the throats of school districts will turn us into the laughing stock of the globe if not the universe, if ET bothers to pay attention. Our legislators chase chimera Sharia Laws, while in Orwellian doublespeak attempt to enact them. The Exodus will be first the scientists, then engineers will follow industries as they spring up on other nations' shores. Those "good-paying-jobs" will most likely, not come back.
Suddenly, people will start seeing it: frequent disastrous storms pooh-poohed by the numb skull Neanderthals in front of talk radio microphones with all opinion and no degree; the crumbling infrastructure of our cities and bridges reported on a weekly basis; our academic standing K-12 and post secondary sliding into the abyss of non-competitiveness; the newest technological discoveries coming at staccato pace from Europe and Asia; an American Nobel Laureate oxymoron and decades in our past; food-born pathogens prevalent as they will no longer be regulated; smog climbing as killer in the US (similar to conditions now in China); already public and school shootings are becoming the new, sadistic "normal," and the so-called patriots, pointing their numerous weapons at the dark, evil government-black helicopters-Illuminati will realize their prejudices and stoked xenophobic fears were used against them by manipulative demagogues with no skills other than shouting fire in crowded buildings - out to make a fast buck, and careerist politicians striving to do as little legislative duties as possible. They will realize they were being played by provocateurs that never had the public good in mind. They were instead (especially those in government) enriching themselves, giving themselves annual raises and denying it to the population; representing more special interests and fundraising corporations and individual billionaires, thus "corporations are [the only] people" other than the Koch Brothers, Sheldon Adelson and a network of dark money organizations they're interested in caring about: the rest of the carbon-based life forms they herd with speeches, slogans, sermons, Jingoism and talking points. Until, as the Sanskrit, the air breathers become Bodhi - "awakened," and heaven help us all when their arsenals are brought to bear.
I say "us," the regulars, the people that played by the rules, never wanted to be super-rich, just comfortable; wanted to at least pay for college for our kids without both of us going to debtors prison; wanted life to be better than what we lived through. The Charlatans tend to live in exclusive, well-guarded enclaves, secured and well-armed from those they've deceived, the rest of "us" will be canon fodder for the rage that's coming. The Charlatans that will have caused this pending disaster [5] of Dystopian proportions will have the will - as psychopaths are above all, self-preserving - and the means to leave this approaching ruin of their own making: from shining city to dung heap. That I observe, also tends to be the self-preserving natural habits and modus operandi...of locusts.
At top of this image a, sodium fills in layers of the crystal, represented by one bright yellow dot followed by three darker ones; at bottom, the layers’ magnetic ordering is shown as green and purple dots representing magnesium at two different charge states, with the green-in-purple dots representing a mixture of the two charge states. Artwork generated from a scanning tunneling microscope image. Credit: NIST
Analysis of a manganese-based crystal by scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has produced the first clear picture of its molecular structure. The findings could help explain the magnetic and electronic behavior of the whole family of crystals, many of which have potential for use in batteries.
The family of crystals it belongs to has no formal name, but it has three branches, each of which is built around manganese, cobalt or iron—transition metals that can have different magnetic and charge properties. But regardless of family branch, its members share a common characteristic: They all store chemical energy in the form of sodium, atoms of which can easily flow into and out of the layers of the crystal when electric current is applied, a talent potentially useful in rechargeable batteries.
Other members of this family can do a lot of things in addition to energy storage that interest manufacturers: Some are low-temperature superconductors, while others can convert heat into electricity. The trouble is that all of them are, on the molecular level, messy. Their structures are so convoluted that scientists can't easily figure out why they do what they do, making it hard for a manufacturer to improve their performance.
“Do you want us to charge your phone?” George Holmes asks. Normally, that would be an odd question. But Holmes is the vice president of sales and marketing for Energous, a company that is developing technology called WattUp that will allow you to charge smartphones, tablets, and other small gadgets from across a room without wires.
Energous hopes other companies will license this technology and build it into all kinds of products and places, so you can easily power your iPad while sitting on the couch browsing Instagram, or top off your phone while buying a coffee or playing Candy Crush in an airport. It will face competition, however, from a startup called Witricity that uses a different method, and already has the backing of some major electronics companies.
For now, WattUp’s technology is still in the demo stage, which means it’s not very good-looking. But it works, and during a visit to my San Francisco office, Holmes wants to show it off.
Bio: Claude Cohen-Tannoudji is a French physicist and Nobel Laureate. He shared the 1997 Nobel Prize in Physics with Steven Chu and William Daniel Phillips for research in methods of laser cooling and trapping atoms. He is still an active researcher, working at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris.
If you’re over 50, you probably remember the Big Bang—indeed, it would be hard to forget it. One moment you’re part of an infinitely tiny, infinitely dense point that contains the entirety of the universe, and the next moment you’re accelerating outward faster than the speed of light, expanding along with space-time itself. That’s a remember-when day if ever there was one.
You might argue that the Big Bang occurred a bit earlier than 50 years ago—13.8 billion years earlier, in fact—and most people might agree with you. What actually happened 50 years ago was that Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson of Bell Labs made measurements of the cosmic background radiation that provided the first solid evidence of the Big Bang’s existence. Still, that didn’t stop Bell Labs itself from noting the event with a recent e-mail blast inviting recipients to “Celebrate the 50th Anniv. of the Big Bang.” In light of a just-released AP poll showing that a stunning 51% of Americans say they are “not at all confident” or “not too confident” that the Big Bang even occurred, the last thing we need is more confusion on the point. 1
It was 50 years ago May 20 that two scientists in the famous Bell Labs in New Jersey, while experimenting with an antenna, discovered the first evidence of the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe.
The discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation eventually brought Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson the Nobel Prize for Physics and gave more credence to Bell Labs as a premiere research institution in the United States. 2
Conclusion of the interview with Miles O'Brien last Wednesday. Makes you think on what we as an electorate (voting public) should be asking our elected officials to have training in, and not memorized talking points/sermon pieces from donors. One is responsible governance: the other is short-sighted profit motives that could threaten our very survival. You can't spend it, and your heirs can inherit it if the planet's screwed...
In the conclusion of Neil’s interview with veteran science journalist Miles O’Brien, the two discuss the inherent conflict between the goals of true journalism and corporate America. You’ll hear how Miles was finally able to convince CNN that the climate change debate was over, or at least, that both sides were not equivalent from a scientific point of view. He describes going to Spaceflightnow.com after CNN fired its entire science and technology division, because “after all, what do we know about the Kardashians.” Learn about the rise of “boutique journalism” in opposition to “Wal-Mart” journalism, and how journalistic integrity is most often found not on network or cable TV, but in family-owned newspapers and non-profits like PBS. Miles also recounts how the use of technology in journalism has evolved over the years, while in the studio, comic co-host Chuck Nice and Neil rip on the overuse of some of that technology, like 3-D holographic reporters in the 2-D medium of TV. Source: StarTalkRadio.net
Do you feel nervous when you make a credit-card transaction using your mobile phone? Your worries could soon be a thing of the past, thanks to a low-cost device that could bring powerful cryptography to portable devices. That's the aim of Bruno Sanguinetti and colleagues at the University of Geneva in Switzerland, who have created a quantum random-number generator (QRNG) that uses low-cost electronic components including a mobile-phone camera.
Modern cryptographic protocols require the rapid generation of sequences of truly random numbers. These are used to create the "keys" that allow individuals to encrypt and decrypt sensitive information such as passwords and bank details. Coming up with these numbers is a significant technological challenge because computers are completely deterministic and are therefore not capable of creating truly random numbers. Cryptography systems tend to rely on "pseudo random-number" generators that output sequences of numbers that are nearly random. While some of these generators are very good, a cryptography system based on pseudo random numbers is easier to hack than a system that uses random numbers.
Truly random numbers can be generated by making measurements on physical systems that are inherently random – such as the radioactive decay of nuclei or noise in an electronic circuit. However, existing measurement techniques tend to be either very expensive or too slow to be of practical use. Securing your mobile phone, for example, needs a generation rate of about 1 kbit/s.
Particle Fever follows the inside story of six brilliant scientists seeking to unravel the mysteries of the universe, documenting the successes and setbacks in the planet’s most significant and inspiring scientific breakthrough.
Short Synopsis
Imagine being able to watch as Edison turned on the first light bulb, or as Franklin received his first jolt of electricity.
As they seek to unravel the mysteries of the universe, 10,000 scientists from over 100 countries joined forces in pursuit of a single goal: to recreate conditions that existed just moments after the Big Bang and find the Higgs boson, potentially explaining the origin of all matter. But our heroes confront an even bigger challenge: have we reached our limit in understanding why we exist?
Directed by Mark Levinson, a physicist turned filmmaker, from the inspiration and initiative of producer David Kaplan and masterfully edited by Walter Murch (Apocalypse Now, The English Patient, The Godfather trilogy), Particle Fever is a celebration of discovery, revealing the very human stories behind this epic machine.
"It's Deja Vu, all over again."Yogi Berra I was born in Winston-Salem, NC at Kate Bitting Reynolds Hospital (named after tobacco magnate R.J. Reynolds' sister-in-law) in 1962, one of about a dozen African American hospitals at the time in the US. I emerged in a segregated south eight years in the wake of Brown vs. Board of Education in Topeka, Kansas. Kate Bitting was also my mother's employer - she was an LVN. My father - a US Navy vet of WWII - was a line worker for the local textile mill, a vanishing industry in today's America, among contemporary others. They, like my older sister, who worked as a payroll analyst at R.J. Reynolds - earned retirements for their efforts and fidelity.
East of US 52 in Winston-Salem, NC, a neighborhood was established on Cleveland Avenue - the result of American Apartheid/Jim Crow - along with restrictive covenants preventing my parents from considering the purchase of a home in any other, more desirable location (or, ANY African Americans being in covenant-covered suburban hamlets after sundown).
I knew the Teflon kingpin "Po Charlie," and all his drug houses - I avoided entering them out of a respect for, and healthy fear of my parents. He brazenly announced when "5-0" was coming for a raid, knowing due to his paid informants in the department in those days, they'd find nothing. A switchblade pulled on my best friend and I by a young lady's brother - she had been the sad victim of a rape apparently, unbeknownst to me - generated a forked sprint by myself and my best friend: he up 19th street, I up 21st! (We joked about it over the phone later: he'd gotten to his home first.) I saw Charlie's minions and prostitutes plying their trades as I walked to school. My heroes were segregated along with me: teachers, doctors, dentists, and clergy - the closest I'd ever get to Martin Luther King before or after his demise; listening to his fellow baptist ministers thunder jeremiads on the wrongs of society every Sunday morning. Education became important to me at its evident denial under "separate but equal": books decades out-of-date; written/crayoned in or pages missing. Our teachers at the time, pooled their own funds and stencil-copied (pre-Xerox tech) lessons to supplement the anvil-weighted chains southern gentility clanked tightly about our ankles. Our angels were determined we would not be denied. My older sister - a student at Winston-Salem State Teachers College (now Winston-Salem State University) did like a lot of other young people, and put her life on the line numerous times (more than I care to remember) for the world we have today - some now myopically taking for granted, it's diversity and expanded freedoms have always been "here." Others now, descendant of this hierarchical privilege, fretting the universal constant - change - regretting and pining over a nostalgic utopia that on our side of town, never existed. "With all deliberate speed" meandered into North Carolina via forced busing when I left Fairview Elementary for Rural Hall finally in '71 - a former restricted covenant utopia. Looking at news reels of the high schools at the time: chains, baseball bats and fights; riots, teargas and protests - the older set-in-their-ways had more tumultuous adjustments to make, from those that had no problem with the established southern "order" to shackle us in place; simultaneously without thought or shame calling us "lazy." The world over, from Ireland, England and Nigeria with Boko Haram: extreme poverty, isolation, xenophobia, oppressive sexism, religious extremism and encouraged ignorance eventually breed gangs and violence.
"Welfare queen" entered the lexicon vis-a-vis "the gipper": cool conservatism was born in the B-movie actor-president, and the poster child of young conservative cool played by Michael J. Fox on "Family Ties." Due to that fictional example, it possibly contributed to Reagan/Bush Sr. taking more of the youth vote in their landslide victory against Walter Mondale and Geraldine Ferraro. It was "morning in America"; bigotry was "in" and Lee Atwater's "Southern Strategy" was modernized to be so attractive, coded, subtle in subterfuge and effective enough to attract black conservatives not discerning (or ignoring) his political Jujitsu. "What's past is prologue."William Shakespeare No soon after a section of the voting rights act was gutted by the "Supreme Court" in the 21st century, southern states in the old confederacy enacted voting hurdles reflecting back to restrictive covenants in real estate, estimating soap bubbles and poll taxes. Sadly, so did my home state of North Carolina enact the most draconian ID laws on theflimsiestmisappropriation of mathematics.
The problem is, we're no longer in the past. The Soviet Union fell in 1991 (though Vladimir is staging a nostalgic, oligarchic comeback). We are two years away from being second in the world to our banker, yet we're fighting openly and online, an uncivil war, that in the magical thinking of reestablishing "tradition"; "the-good-old-days" will funnel us all very quickly - strained through that filter of libertarian utopia example: Somalia - down the drain of history...as a failed state.
ProPublica's Nikole Hannah-Jones details in her latest report how gerrymandering of school attendance zones and, surprisingly, support from a small pocket of black elites has transformed Tuscaloosa’s education system into a remnant of its former glory. Central High School today doesn’t have the same caliber of teachers or curriculum as its integrated sister school, Northridge. Central is also on a state watch list and has been plagued with low graduation rates -- all problems associated with segregated schools, which the Supreme Court thought it had addressed 60 years ago.
