Journalism – Make it Up, Get Paid

In an all too familiar case of journalistic malpractice, “Claas Relotius, a reporter and editor, [for Der Spiegel] falsified his articles on a grand scale and even invented characters, deceiving both readers and his colleagues,” wrote Germany’s Der Spiegel in 2018.

Claas Relotius, who won numerous awards for his work with Der Spiegel, falsified significant portions of articles for the news magazine. CNN reported that he admitted to ‘partial fabrications … [t]hat included making up dialogue and quotes and creating composite characters.’

This type of journalistic behavior seems to occur frequently, and it is likely more commonplace than consumers of news are led to believe. Layers and layers of fact checkers and editors never stop the flood tide of false narratives and fake news.

Source: ‘Germany’s Der Spiegel says star reporter Claas Relotius wrote fake stories…’ by Sherisse Pham, 2018, CNN. Graphic: Fake News, AI Generated.

Mycelium RoboDogs’ Psychedelic Dreams

With apologies to Philip K. Dick, Cornell researchers have developed a novel way to control their ‘biohybrid’ robots by utilizing mycelia’s natural electrical signals.

Rob Shepherd, head of Cornell’s Organic Robotics Lab says, ‘By growing mycelium into the electronics of a robot, we were able to allow the biohybrid machine to sense and respond to the environment.’

Choose your hallucination, ‘Blade Runner’ or ‘The Matrix’.

Source: Science Daily and Cornell University, September 2024. Graphic: Shrooms and Robodogs. DALL E 3

Hamlet Plays Conan

Prince Amleth, ‘The Northman’, losing his royal inheritance with the murder of his father the king, vows vengeance against his uncle, killer of his father, and kidnapper of his mother.

The Northman’ is loosely based on the Norse legend of Amleth, son of King Horwendil and his wife Gerutha. Horwendil was murdered by the king’s brother Feng, who then married Gerutha. Amleth feigned madness to retain his head and to plot his vengeance upon his uncle for murdering his father.

Amleth was Shakespeare’s inspiration for Hamlet in his most famous tragedy ‘Hamlet, Prince of Denmark’. Hamlet is the son of the late king of Denmark and the king’s wife Gertrude. He is also the nephew of the present king, Claudius who killed his father and took Hamlet’s mother as his wife. Hamlet is told by his father’s ghost that Claudius murdered him and that he must exact revenge for his death. The play climaxes where Hamlet, Gertrude, and Claudius all meet a tragic end.

Genre:  Action—Adventure—Fantasy—Historical—Mythological–Tragedy

Directed by: Robert Eggers

Screenplay by: Sjon, Robert Eggers

Music by:  Robin Carolan, Sebastian Gainsborough

Cast: Alexander Skarsgard, Nicole Kidman, Anya Taylor-Joy

Film Locations:  Ireland and Iceland

Els: 7.5/10

IMDb:  7.0/10

Rotten Tomatoes Critics:  90

Rotten Tomatoes Audience:  64

Metacritic Metascore: 82

Metacritic User Score:  7.2/10

Theaters: 22 April 2022

Runtime: 136 minutes

Budget:  $70-90 million

Worldwide Box Office:  $69.6 million

Source: IMDb. Rotten Tomatoes. Metacritic. Viking.Style. Shakespear’s Tragedies, 1980. Graphic: Movie Poster, Focus Features.

J. Lohr Seven Oaks Cabernet Sauvignon 2021

Cabernet Sauvignon from Paso Robles, Central Coast, California.

79% Cabernet Sauvignon, 12% Petite Sirah, 4% Petite Verdot, 3% Merlot, and 2% Malbec

Purchase Price: $17.99

James Suckling 91, Tasting Panel 91, ElsBob 90.

ABV 14%

Deep ruby trending purple in color, blackberries oak and vanilla aromas, full-bodied, dry, full tannins. An excellent wine to serve with beef cuts or just sipping it to unwind at the end of the workday.

A fine California wine under $20. A 90-point wine generally sells at a mean (average) price of $40.

9 Lives

Koe Wetzel, a modern country outlaw not exactly in the mold of Waylon but possibly closer to the man he is named after, David Allen Coe, released his 6th studio album, ‘9 Lives’ in July of this year.  It’s an energetic, genre bending, fun album that refuses to follow any forged paths from his last effort: ‘Hell Paso’.

Discussing his new album with Apple Music he wants his listeners to critique the 13th tracks in their entirety. Hearing what he is as a musician and an artist, stating, ‘So, if they come away from listening to the entire record…be like, OK now we get it a little bit more. Maybe he is a decent artist, a decent musician.

Decent artist, decent musician and yes, an outlaw. Affirmation (attempting confirmation?) from the chorus of the 13 track on ‘9 Lives’:

The last outlaw alive
The last of my kind
The last one who survived
I can’t believe I’m the last outlaw alive

Source: Apple Music. Graphic: Album cover copyright Columbia Music.

The Hand of God

Guillaume de Laubier and Jacques Bosser in their book ‘Sacred Spaces: The Awe-Inspiring Architecture of Churches and Cathedrals’ capture the artistic wonderment and engineering marvels that sprang from the last two millennia of Christian faith. From St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome to St. Paul’s Cathedral in London and back to Barcelona’s Basilica de la Sagrada Familia, the authors showcase the magnificent architectural monuments to Christ that are unsurpassed in our contemporary world of concrete and steel. The beauty presented in these ‘Sacred Spaces’ were constructed with flesh and blood but only God could have provided the inspiration and the will to create them.

The photo is the baldachin, or canopy, which hangs in the Barcelona Sagrada Familia. It represents the Holy Spirit covering the cross of Christ and hangs below the representation of the Father (not shown), which taken together represent the Holy Trinity of Christian faith.

Source: Sacred Spaces: The Awe-Inspiring Architecture of Churches and Cathedrals by Jacques Bosser and Guillaume de Laubier, 2018. Graphic: The Baldachin: Representation of the Holy Spirit at the Sagrada Familia by Blog Sagrada Familia, 2018.

Journalism — Juan Thompson 2016

Juan Thompson, working for ‘The Intercept’, was another all-too-common serial fabricator passing himself off as a reporter.  He made up quotes of people he did not speak to or people who likely did not even exist. Thompson went to great lengths to hide his mendacity, such as creating email accounts to help prove the existence of his non-existent sources.

Betsy Reed, his editor at ‘The Intercept’, fired him in February 2016 after ‘a pattern of deception’ became all too apparent to ignore.

In March 2017 Thompson was arrested by the FBI for making bomb threats to Jewish community centers in the U.S. and cyberstalking his ex-girlfriend. In December 2017 he was sentenced to 5 years in prison and 3 years of supervised release.

Source: Disgraced Former Journalist…, ABC News, 2017.  Graphic: Juan Thompson, Warren County Sheriff’s Department via AP Photo.

WIMPs

Weakly Interacting Massive Particles or WIMPs are hypothetical dark matter particles that supposedly make up 26-27% of the universe. They are only detectable through their gravitational effects.

In a recent ScienceNews article LUX-ZEPLIN researchers monitoring 10 metric tons of liquid xenon almost a mile below the surface in Lead, South Dakota have reduced the cross-sectional area that WIMPs can interact with normal matter by about 80%.

This reduced area of interaction implies that the particles are even weaker than previously thought. This would make them even harder to detect.  

Triva time: A cube that could hold 10 metric tons of xenon would need to be about 1.5 meters on a side.

Source: The Possibilities for Dark Matter…by Emily Conover, 2024, Science News. Graphic: WIMPs by University of California Berkley, 2013.

Zip It — Zip it Good

Today in 1893 Whitcomb Judson received approval for two patents on his ‘clasp-locker’ invention. An improved version was renamed the ‘zipper’ by B.F. Goodrich in 1923.

Zippers primary use early on was to close boots and tobacco pouches. A few years later they began to show up on jackets and by the late 1930s they replaced buttons on men’s pants.

Graphic: By Dominique Toussaint, 2006, Wikimedia Commons.

Mucho Mas Red Blend

Tempranillo, Grenache, Syrah/Shiraz from Spain.

Purchase Price: $14.99

Vivino 92, ElsBob 84

ABV 13.5 %

Cherry red in color, dark fruit aromas, medium body, and with rather difficult tannins. Serve with very spicy food.

The wine is a blend of different grape varieties possible from different regions and maybe different years. Vinification is only for a week or so then put into oak barrels for 3-4 months. After this very short malolactic fermentation the wine is blended and bottled. A wine before its time.

A good table wine but overpriced for the quality. You probably shouldn’t purchase this wine unless you can find it for under $8.