Time Magazine cover, October 14, 2018, featuring an image of Dr. Christine Blase Ford composed of words from her testimony to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. Cover by Jon Mavroudis.
Cover art used to be absolutely necessary to sell magazines at the newsstand.
But who buys anything at a newsstand today?
The surge in great cover art over the past decade pleases me partly because it’s almost pointless, in the old sense. Great covers rarely increase circulation of print publications any more.
So why the surge?
A memorable cover still builds the reputation of a publication, and art is useful online, too.
Time Magazine is a skinny version of its old self, these days, no longer the foundation of the powerful Time/Life/Fortune/Money empire built by Henry Luce. Heck, are those four magazines even owned by the same company any more, even apart from Life having ceased publication decades ago?
The covers continue, and occasionally them come in an animated form. They still set expectations for news, and provide a visual shorthand for material on the inside, material the publishers hope we’ll read.
What is Time trying to tell us this week, with Dr. Christine Blasey Ford on the cover? (Look at this animated version; wish I could figure out how to embed it short of the Tweet.)
Perhaps more important, how will this cover, this moment in time captured there, affect politics in the future, say on November 6, or in 2020? Has the testimony of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford pushed America in any different direction on any issue?
The fin de siècle newspaper proprietor / F. Opper, 1894, Puck. Summary: Print shows a newspaper owner, possibly meant to be Joseph Pulitzer, sitting in a chair in his office next to an open safe where “Profits” are spilling out onto the floor; outside this scene are many newspaper reporters for the “Daily Splurge” rushing to the office to toss their stories onto the printing press, such stories as “A Week as a Tramp!! Wild and Exciting Experiences of a Daily Splurge Reporter”, “A Reporter of the Daily Splurge Spends a Thrilling Week in an Asylum!”, “An Organ Grinder’s Life”, “Life in Sing Sing – a Splurge Reporter in Disguise”, “Divorce Court Details”, “Private Scandal”, “a Night Around Town” by a woman reporter “in Men’s Attire”, life on the streets “As a Flower Girl”, “Thrilling Exposé”, “How beggars are treated on 5th Ave. by Fanny Fake”, and “High Spiced Sensation”. A notice hanging on the wall of the office states “The Motto of the Daily Splurge – Morality and a High Sense of Duty.” Library of Congress image
You’ve been watching news on TV all your life (you should have been reading your local daily newspaper, too . . . but I digress), and you hate to admit you’re having a tough time telling when Trump lies to you, or someone lies about Trump.
There is help available, for thinking people.
EdTechAdvocate features technology the editors consider useful for teachers and students in schools.
Occasionally school overlaps with real life.
Here are eight apps the publication recommends for teachers and students, to help them use their critical faculties to determine what news is accurate, and what news isn’t. From an article by Micheal Lynch.
No reason we shouldn’t use these tools for everyone, even people out of school for decades.
The recommendations, and links to the eight tools:
As fake news, biased media, and internet hoaxes abound, students need to be taught digital literacy from the time they start using computers. Fortunately, there are resources available for students to check their facts.
This site provides balanced news from all perspectives, so students can sort through facts and distinguish between differences in opinions easily. The site also offers a specialized search option where you filter results. Additionally, it offers a school toolbox with a variety of useful resources and lesson plans.
Teaching students how to evaluate websites and information is a necessary skill. The CRAAP Test designed by Meriam Library, California State University, Chico is helpful in guiding students through evaluating the currency, relevance, authority, accuracy, and purpose of information.
This website is a non-profit, nonpartisan site which is a Project of The Annenberg Public Policy Center allows students to ask questions and search. Additionally, it also allows students to ask science questions on public policy issues.
This website focuses on debunking hoaxes or urban legends, as well as email hoaxes and internet scams. It also provides information on how to protect your email and computer.
One of the original fact-checking websites, Snopes is a popular site for identifying misinformation and debunking internet rumors. Students can search with keywords or by plugging in a URL.
The Ted-Ed video, “How to Choose Your News” by Dan Brown is designed for students. Using imagery and explanations they will understand, Dan Brown explains how to be a critical thinker and savvy evaluator when it comes to reading (or watching) the news.
Another website that focuses on debunking internet rumors, e-mail hoaxes, and questionable images where students can search information as well.
Teachers need to explain how media biases work and change facts to fit their needs. By teaching students to use fact checking tools, teachers are strengthening their digital literacy skills.
Detail from “Fin de seicle newspaper proprietor,” by F. Opper, 1894, Puck Magazine. Library of Congress image via Wikipedia
What are your favorite sources of solid information, and what are your methods of determining who is pulling your leg, and who is not?
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
NASA photo of Dr. Carl Sagan with a model of the Mars Viking Lander, in Death Valley, California. Or was it taken on Mars? How could we tell, if we lacked sharpened and practiced critical thinking practices?
Are we already too late?
In The Demon-Haunted World in 1995, astronomer and thinker Carl Sagan worried about the directions America was heading, intellectually, and what it could mean for the future. He wrote:
Science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking. I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time—when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness. The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30-second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance.
Sagan had hope. His book’s full title is The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a candle in the dark.
Should we hold that hope today? Elections in 2016 demonstrated that false news does sway the electorate, superstition can overcome knowledge. Worse, too many Americans cannot tell the difference. In a time when millions of Americans profess to work to find “the way,” we confront those same people wandering aimlessly through American culture, apparently with little clue as to how far off the path of reality they are, or any real understanding of what “the way” would even look like. Their compasses operate on faith, not magnetism; their compass needles point whichever way they want them to point, with no fixed power to guide them.
Sagan didn’t write that long ago. A child born in 1995 just voted in her first national election — we hope. Perhaps she didn’t bother to register, and did not vote. What causes our national lack of motivation to even vote, to push our government in the directions we think it should go?
How do we remove the barriers to that motivation? is a more important question.
Was Sagan right? Are we doomed?
We have cause to worry, I think.
58% of Americans eligible to vote, voted in 2016. While that’s near a recent high-water mark, it’s a paltry percentage compared to other democracies in the world. Apathy was highest in key states Donald Trump carried; Hillary Clinton won the popular vote, but trailed President Barack Obama’s 2012 totals by 2 million votes, in those key states. 2016’s election was decided by people who did not vote.
Anti-vaccine movement. Chem-trails fearfuls. Climate change dissenters. Creationists. Moon-landing deniers. Racists. So-called non-racists who oppose immigration completely. Republican senators who imagined a tax cut for the wealthy would help working and poor Americans have better health. DDT advocates. “Libertarians” and so-called conservatives who fear “socialism” of the economics of John Maynard Keynes, one of the foremost capitalism defenders in economics.
Cuts to education. As a barometer, consider Texas, where 25 years ago the state provided 67% of funding for public schools. After decades of cuts, the state provides only 38% of public school funding in the 2017-2019 budget. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick touts the total as an increase.
Cuts to science. Trump administration proposals slash all science research dramatically, as if we already have cures for cancer and the common cold, and Alzheimer’s disease.
To be sure, we can find pockets of hope. Girl Scouts demonstrate great success with new programs to attract girls to careers in science, with special camps for Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM). Boy Scouts have their own initiative. But the Texas legislature cut back on math, science and geography requirements for graduation. For every hopeful sign, there’s another sinister sign.
How can we tell civilization, and humanity, gain ground?
Pollsters for the New York Times asked 1,746 Americans to locate North Korea on a map. 36% could do it; many of the guesses are troubling, if not downright shocking. In the map above, from the New York Times, correct answers are marked in red, incorrect in blue.
“Science as a candle in the dark” is a good image.
How can we provide light in the darkness, if we don’t have a candle, and we can’t find matches?
Serena Williams portrait in the New York Times Magazine. Credit Christopher Griffith for The New York Times. Stylist: Sarah Schussheim. Hair: Johnnie Sapong. Makeup: Fiona Stiles
Tough to track down the original screen capture — genius in recognizing it, whoever did it first — but it’s clear that Serena Williams is one of the better things to come out of America, and to some, America’s only hope in a time of Trump.
Headlines make it appear Serena Williams has a more effective foreign policy and military deterrent than the U.S. under Trump’s regime.
Two copy editors in different departments write headlines, and they get mashed up by a third editor or some robot. Hope results. Not vain hope, we hope.
Didn’t know it was an old screen cap — hadn’t seen it before. It’s timely again, and I needed the laugh.
If I see someone retweet that stupid Serena Williams CNN thing from a year ago again today I'm going to lose my mind 🙄🙄🙄
It’s a prize-winning photograph by “Scout Tufankjian, an independent photographer whose portfolio includes a book of photographs from Obama’s first run for the White House.”
Barack and Michelle Obama in Booth No. 3 at Lagomarcino’s in the Village of East Davenport, Iowa, during the 2012 election campaign
Photographs sometimes reveal truths, and sometimes those truths are wonderful, and smile-making.
THE QUIETUDE of the soda fountain booth was a marked difference from a rousing Obama appearance a half-hour earlier at a curb-to-curb outdoor rally.
After the speech, the Obamas adjourned to the cool of Lago’s. Tom had prepared for them to be seated in Booth No. 3.
“The Obamas were shaking so many hands before coming into our soda shop that I had to make three different chocolate sundaes for them.” Tom says. “They kept melting.”
Lots of chatter around the internet today on the discovery that the Federal Aviation Agency posted a notice making the area over the oil spill in Arkansas off limits to aircraft.
Some people claimed they were certain that it was because Exxon-Mobil paid to get a special favor; others wondered why the government would be complicit in such a deal. Several of the comments linked to aerial photos of the spill, and said ‘obviously’ Exxon Mobil doesn’t want photos of the severity of the spill to get out. Bill McKibben’s tweet alerted me to the controversy (take a look at that video, too).
Pilots banned from flying over Arkansas spill, they don't want another video like this one going viral http://t.co/UeK1QJbY4v
Actually, it’s common procedure to make sport flying and other unnecessary flying over disasters, off limits — FAA has a special set of regulations for that. Rescuers and disaster fighters, and relief workers, don’t want sight-seers on visual flight rules posing hazards to flights necessary to work on disaster relief or clean up of a spill of a toxic or hazardous substance.
But this doesn’t mean that news organizations cannot fly — in fact, there is a special regulation to ALLOW news aircraft over the zone, for photography and other reports.
FAA notification, NOTAMs notice of Mayflower, Arkansas, temporary flight restrictions; screen grab April 3, 2013.
Most announcements of restrictions of any public activity by a federal agency contain a notice of from where the agency draws that authority; I didn’t include it in the screen grab, but FAA notes the authority flows fromTitle 14 CFR section 91.137(a)(2). That’s the Code of Federal Regulations, the set of volumes that list all the regulations the federal government has. This was also published in the Federal Register — and I suspect the NOTAMs is also published there — but CFR is the more permanent set of books for finding government rules.
In the interests of open government, of course the FAA makes these rules available online. They are available at several sites. Here’s the meat of the regulation:
This section prescribes guidelines and procedures regarding the management of aircraft operations in the vicinity of disaster/hazard areas in accordance with 14 CFR Section 91.137. TFRs issued under this section are for disaster/hazard situations that warrant regulatory measures to restrict flight operations for a specified amount of airspace, on a temporary basis, in order to provide protection of persons or property in the air or on the ground.
19-2-2. RATIONALE
TFRs in accordance with 14 CFR Section 91.137 are issued when necessary to:
a. 14 CFR 91.137(a)(1) – Protect persons and property on the surface or in the air from an existing or imminent hazard associated with an incident on the surface when the presence of low flying aircraft would magnify, alter, spread, or compound that hazard.
b. 14 CFR 91.137(a)(2) – Provide a safe environment for the operation of disaster relief aircraft.
c. 14 CFR 91.137(a)(3) – Prevent an unsafe congestion of sightseeing and other aircraft above an incident or event that may generate a high degree of public interest.
NOTE-
This provision applies only to disaster/hazard incidents of limited duration that would attract an unsafe congestion of sightseeing aircraft.
Specific rules of restrictions, who in the FAA declares them, who can grant waivers, and to who the restrictions apply, get spelled out following that part.
Notice that, generally, these restrictions apply only to flights below 1,000 feet. A good camera in a television station’s helicopter can get a lot of great shots from 1,000 feet out (three football fields) — this is a distance often seen in the videos of police car chases. So it’s not a complete ban.
Savvy news organizations will know how to get news photos using the specific exemption for news aircraft, with procedures spelled out so the FAA knows it’s a news gathering operation; I’ve put the critical clauses in red:
c. Section 91.137(a)(3). Restrictions issued in accordance with this section prohibit all aircraft from operating in the designated area unless at least one of the following conditions is met:
1. The operation is conducted directly to or from an airport within the area, or is necessitated by the impracticability of VFR flight above or around the area due to weather or terrain, and the operation is not conducted for the purpose of observing the incident or event. Notification must be given to the ATC facility that was specified in the NOTAM for coordination with the official in charge of the activity.
2. The aircraft is operating under an ATC approved IFR flight plan.
3. The aircraft is carrying incident or event personnel, or law enforcement officials.
4. The aircraft is carrying properly accredited news representatives and, prior to entering that area, a flight plan is filed with FSS or the ATC facility specified in the NOTAM. Flight plans must include aircraft identification, type, and color; radio frequencies to be used; proposed times of entry to and exit from the TFR area; the name of news media or organization and purpose of flight.
Well-run news organizations already know this; in an age when more and more news rooms operate on a shoe string, it may be that this information about how to cover disasters is not passed along in the newsroom, though. So I’m reposting it here, so you’ll know, so news organizations now, so environmental reporters can get a copy of the regulations to carry with them when they head out to cover spills, fires, floods, and other disasters.
I’m waiting, too. It’s only a matter of time until somebody figures out a local kid has a good radio control helicopter, and it can carry a GoPro camera; or until a local news station invests in a news-gathering drone. Here in Texas, we’ve already had one environmental disaster uncovered by a drone operated by a guy just checking on real estate.
If you see some footage of the disaster filmed on or after April 3, would you let us know, in comments?
Bret Corum calls our attention to another Fox News remaking of the map of the world:
Misreporting the news is bad enough — but changing the map? Nations go to war over such things . . .
It appears that, in the Fox News view of the world, Missouri conquered Arkansas, and Alabama and Mississippi either swapped spouses and houses, or are in the middle of some geographic square dance, and the satellite caught them in the middle of a do-si-do into each other’s old territory.
Look on the bright side — so far they only screwed up 8% of the United States with their mapping errors. On the other hand, they named nine states, and made four errors — 55% correct. That’s probably not a passing score even under No Child Left Behind rules.
One gets the sinking feeling that such sloppiness with the facts infects everything Fox does, though.
I wonder what kinds of errors and screw-ups one could find, if one seriously paid attention to what Fox claims.
More:
Why Fox News – yet again – needs a copy editor (apple.copydesk.org) (Charles Apple’s column on news design is always a good read — but this piece lists several, maybe a hundred, other instances of copy editor-less screw-ups on the news and other places. God bless copy editors, and let’s hope these errors were all caused by a lack of one.)
Tip of the old scrub brush to the ever-vigilant, accuracy stickler Bret Corum.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
I miss his broadcasts, still, and they were gone a good 20 years earlier.
Here’s an earlier post on Cronkite:
Walter Cronkite at his office typewriter:
Walter Cronkite at his typewriter, in his office – from The Typewriter blog
Pipe rack to his left, on the shelf above; full set of the Encyclopedia Britannica to his right (probably a 1960s set); A lot of books, some dealing with space exploration, among his favorite topics; models of the X-15 and early versions of the Space Shuttle; award from the Boy Scouts to his right, where he can see it easily.
When was this photo taken? 1970s? Earlier? Maybe someone who follows Dixie Cups could date the cup to Cronkite’s left.
This is probably the same office, redecorated, and stripped down to move – and with a different typewriter (a Smith-Corona electric?):
Caption from the San Francisco Chronicle website: “In this March 6, 1981 file photo, Walter Cronkite talks on the phone at his office, prior to his final newscast as CBS anchorman in New York City. Behind him is a framed Mickey Mouse cartoon and his Emmy award. Famed CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite, known as the ‘most trusted man in America’ has died, Friday, July 17, 2009. He was 92.”
Romanian Prime Minister Emil Boc - Image via Wikipedia
Eric Koenig wondered, and wrote:
On December 17, 1989, Romanian security forces fired into a crowd in the city of Timişoara. Scarcely a week later, the Romanian revolution was over and Nicolae Ceaușescu and his wife had been toppled and tried and summarily executed. Now thousands of people are protesting in Romania and calling for the ouster of their President (who has been in some political hot water himself, being “suspended” briefly and narrowly escaping impeachment in 2007, during his first term) and many of the protests started in the same city.
The story isn’t being followed by many US newspapers. Yet.
I think it’s not quite so simple, nor a repeat of 22 years ago. Romanians protest austerity cuts to their government-paid health plans, according to BBC:
Romanian Prime Minister Emil Boc has called for dialogue and an end to violence after four days of protests against austerity cuts.
Dozens of people were hurt on Sunday, as demonstrators and riot police clashed for a second day running in the capital Bucharest.
The rallies began in support of an official who quit in protest against health care reforms.
But they have grown into a broader hostility towards government policies.
The alliance of opposition parties has called for early elections.
I think the economic grievances are not of the same kind as those in Africa and Arabia, nor are they so deep as the extreme discontent with Ceaușescu’s communist government 22 years ago.
Government change poses astonishing opportunities in the past year, especially these home-grown, nationalist liberation movements. New resources, cut back from a century ago, leave us without eyes and ears on the ground in too many foreign capitals.
Bucharest grave of former Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu - Image via Wikipedia
Why aren’t we hearing more about the Romanian crisis in U.S. news media? Well, there’s the war in Afghanistan, the ending war in Iraq, and trouble in Nigeria. Then there is the South Carolina circus. For all I know, American Idol is in the news today, too.
It’s not like either you are, or I am, Marie, the Queen of Roumania, right? What could go wrong that might affect us?
Watch. U.S. papers will pick up the story in small snippets over the next week or so.
Could you find Romania on an unlabeled map?
Map of Romania, from GreenwichMeanTime.com
Location map of Romania, GreenwhichMeanTime.com
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
BusinessWeek cover, April 18-24, 2011 - Don't play chicken with debt ceiling; chicken image by Jan Hamus/Alamy
Not every one of the Bloomberg Businessweek covers has been a hit, but a lot of them are — vastly more entertaining since Bloomberg took over the old workhorse magazine.
This one packs a political punch along with visual excitement.
And it’s right. Do any Republicans pay attention to the finance and business worlds anymore?
The military helicopter’s black shadow dances on an engorged Missouri River as the aircraft slowly loops the flood-encircled Fort Calhoun Nuclear Station — the same left-leaning turns the pilot navigated two days prior.
Warrant Officer Boe Searight, 32, with the Nebraska Air National Guard wants the infrared camera mounted under the chopper to record similar flood scenes for levee experts on the ground to compare.
He and his colleague Chief Warrant Officer 2 Eric Schriner also are looking for new signs of trouble for the flooded plant.
“Keep daily eyes on it and see if anything changes,” says Schriner, 31.
Far below, on mosquito-infested riverbanks, two-person crews with the Nebraska National Guard and Iowa National Guard patrol the Omaha and Council Bluffs levees in mud-caked boots.
Members of the Guard are the front-line levee watchers in an operation that clearly has high stakes: Levees protect about 40,000 people from homelessness in the neighboring river cities — as well as the region’s key airport.
The levee watchers are out there right now — three shifts a day, all week, searching for gopher holes, chasing away sightseers who could fall from the levees, and checking for signs of water seepage.
More than 130 men and women with the Nebraska Army and Air National Guard work each day for flood duty, along with 120 from the Iowa Army and Air National Guard.
The idea is to spot trouble early. Levees don’t always give notice before they rupture, but more often than not they do.
If trouble is spotted, steps can be taken to shore up or boost a weakened levee.
Good to know. Still no nuclear incident along the lines of the hoax report from the Pakistani outlet alleged to be based on a report from a Russian agency — which is also good news — but no cause for abatement of overall concern.
Sometimes safety preparations work. Kudos to the Air National Guards, to the Nuclear Regulatory Agency, and to the companies who own the power plants. May their work continue to pay off in no nuclear incidents.
The flooding situation in Nebraska has been the subject of bizarre conspiracy theories originating in Russia and Pakistan alleging that a meltdown has occurred at Ft. Calhoun and that the government is covering it up.
One U.S. web site, Business Insider, ran with the story as legitimate and set off a huge round of copy cat reports on the Internet.
Reports of a U.S. news blackout are also part of the conspiracy theory even though Nebraska papers such as the Omaha World-Herald and the New York Times have run major stories on measures by the two reactor sites to prevent the flood waters from reaching important infrastructure such as switch yards
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
This is more evidence that the whole flap is a hoax.
True to form, several birther and other conspiracy paranoiac sites claim that these plants in Nebraska are gone, in flames, or leaking water that nearly glows.
Can’t Sarah Palin point her bus to Nebraska and let her press entourage get the real story?
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
A shocking report prepared by Russia’s Federal Atomic Energy Agency (FAAE) on information provided to them by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) states that the Obama regime has ordered a “total and complete” news blackout relating to any information regarding the near catastrophic meltdown of the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Power Plant located in Nebraska.
According to this report, the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Plant suffered a “catastrophic loss of cooling” to one of its idle spent fuel rod pools on 7 June after this plant was deluged with water caused by the historic flooding of the Missouri River which resulted in a fire causing the Federal Aviation Agency (FAA) to issue a “no-fly ban” over the area.
Located about 20 minutes outside downtown Omaha, the largest city in Nebraska, the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Plant is owned by Omaha Public Power District (OPPD) who on their website denies their plant is at a “Level 4” emergency by stating: “This terminology is not accurate, and is not how emergencies at nuclear power plants are classified.”
So, we have some questions to deal with:
Is there a serious incident at the Fort Calhoun facility?
Has anyone ordered a news blackout, and if so, why?
Is it likely that a Pakistani newspaper relying on Russian sources can better report on a nuclear power plant in Nebraska than, say, the local Omaha newspaper?
As much as we might like to give The Nation a chance at being accurate, how likely is it that a U.S. president could order a complete revocation of emergency safety plans for a nuclear facility, when, by law and regulation, those plans are designed to protect the public? The story smells bad from the start, just on government processes in the U.S.
This is the photograph used by The Nation to illustrate its online article claiming a meltdown at the Fort Calhoun nuclear power station in Nebraska. It shows a flooded nuclear power station, Fort Calhoun we might assume. Is it? Does the photograph show any problem besides the flooding?
The Russian report is too strong, probably. First, there’s no news blackout, as evidenced by local reporting. Second, our American “be-too-conservative-by-a-factor-of-ten” safety standards make piffles sound like major problems. The story’s being filtered through a Pakistani newspaper should give us further pause in taking things at face value.
Cooper Nuclear Station near Brownville, Neb., declared a “Notification of Unusual Event” about 4 a.m. Sunday when the Missouri River there reached a height of 42.5 feet.
The declaration, which has been anticipated by the power plant’s operators, was made as part of safety and emergency preparedness plan the station follows when flooding conditions are in effect.
The plan’s procedures dictate when the Missouri River’s water level reaches 42.5 feet, or greater than 899 feet above sea level, a notification of unusual event is declared. If the river’s level increases to 45.5 feet or 902 feet above sea level, plant operators are instructed take the station offline as a safety measure.
FORT CALHOUN, Neb. — Despite the stunning sight of the Fort Calhoun nuclear reactor surrounded by water and the weeks of flooding that lie ahead, the plant is in a safe cold shutdown and can remain so indefinitely, the reactor’s owners and federal regulators say.
“We think they’ve taken adequate steps to protect the plant and to assure continued safety,” Victor Dricks, spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said Thursday.
Tim Burke, vice president at Omaha Public Power District, said the plant’s flood barriers are being built to a level that will protect against rain and the release of record amounts of water from upstream dams on the Missouri River.
“We don’t see any concerns around the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Station,” Burke said at a briefing in Omaha Mayor Jim Suttle’s office.
The nuclear plant, 20 miles north of Omaha, was shut down April 9 for refueling. It has not been restarted because of the imminent flooding.
Who do we believe, a Russian report issued more than 6,000 miles from Nebraska, reported in a newspaper in Pakistan, or the local reporters on the beat?
Photo caption from the Omaha World-Herald: "The Fort Calhoun Nuclear Station from the air Thursday. OPPD was putting the finishing touches on federally ordered flood-defense improvements before flooding began. MATT MILLER/THE WORLD-HERALD"
Current Reactor Status page from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) (This page is updated daily, and includes the power output from each nuclear power generating station in the United States; as of June 20, 2011, it’s showing zero output from Fort Calhoun, and 100% from Cooper (see Region 4 listing))
Idaho Samizdat: Nuke Notes provides more coverage from a well-informed view (the writer purports to be a former nuclear industry worker and insider), for example: “Also, there are concerns because the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued a ‘no fly‘ zone over the reactor. (Complete FAA NOTAM image)(large) What the FAA did is remind pilots of the ban which has been in place for all nuclear reactor sites since 2001.” [Dan Yurman is the author — see his comment, below.]
UPDATE, June 20, 2011: Let’s call it a hoax
I don’t think I’m going too far out on a limb to call the claims of a serious accident, emergency and potential disaster at the Fort Calhoun site, a hoax. The Russian report — if it exists — may not have been intended as a hoax, but coupled with filtering through the credulous and gullible foreign press (we’re looking at you, Pakistan’s The Nation), it has risen to hoax level, to be debunked. Sure, you should be concerned about safety and security at Fort Calhoun and Cooper — but you should be concerned about safety and security at every nuclear power plant around the world, all the time. This may be a good time for you to reread John McPhee’s brilliant Curve of Binding Energy. It’s dated — Ted Taylor died October 28, 2004 (was his autobiography ever published?) — but still accurate and informative, plus, any excuse to read any work of McPhee is a great one.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
3:30 p.m. Central Daylight Time. In Barcelona, Spain, London’s Wembley Stadium, Manchester United and Barcelona(Spain) tangle for the Champions’ League trophy.
BBC News? This is the order of the stories:
In Afghanistan, the national police chief was murdered by a suicide bomber
In Egypt, Hosni Mubarak was fined $90 million for interfering with business by cutting phones and internet
Yemen’s got trouble
Palestinian independence got support from the Arab League, meeting in Doha, Qatr
U.S. President Obama ended his tour of Europe in Poland, with a pledge of friendship
In Moscow, Russian, gay rights demonstrators were attacked by a mob led by people who said they are members of the Russian Orthodox Church
Barcelona leads Manchester, 3 to 1, with minutes to play
I’m not usually one to complain, but doesn’t it appear BBC News has its priorities wrong in this order of stories?
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
BusinessWeek cover, April 18-24, 2011 - Don't play chicken with debt ceiling; chicken image by Jan Hamus/Alamy
Not every one of the Bloomberg Businessweek covers has been a hit, but a lot of them are — vastly more entertaining since Bloomberg took over the old workhorse magazine.
This one packs a political punch along with visual excitement.
And it’s right. Do any Republicans pay attention to the finance and business worlds anymore?
Or, until that account is unsuspended by the forces supporting Donald Trump: Follow @FillmoreWhite, the account of the Millard Fillmore White House Library
Error: Please make sure the Twitter account is public.
Dead Link?
We've been soaking in the Bathtub for several months, long enough that some of the links we've used have gone to the Great Internet in the Sky.
If you find a dead link, please leave a comment to that post, and tell us what link has expired.
Thanks!
Retired teacher of law, economics, history, AP government, psychology and science. Former speechwriter, press guy and legislative aide in U.S. Senate. Former Department of Education. Former airline real estate, telecom towers, Big 6 (that old!) consultant. Lab and field research in air pollution control.
My blog, Millard Fillmore's Bathtub, is a continuing experiment to test how to use blogs to improve and speed up learning processes for students, perhaps by making some of the courses actually interesting. It is a blog for teachers, to see if we can use blogs. It is for people interested in social studies and social studies education, to see if we can learn to get it right. It's a blog for science fans, to promote good science and good science policy. It's a blog for people interested in good government and how to achieve it.
BS in Mass Communication, University of Utah
Graduate study in Rhetoric and Speech Communication, University of Arizona
JD from the National Law Center, George Washington University
Posted by Ed Darrell 
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 