Leettaschmidt

On March 2, 2023, Tennessee became the first state to enact a law restricting drag performances.

This law is part of a larger push by Republican lawmakers in numerous states to restrict or eliminate events like drag shows and drag story hours.

These legislative efforts have been accompanied by inflammatory rhetoric – not grounded in fact – about the need to protect children from “grooming” and sexually explicit performances.

Such rhetoric reveals that those seeking to restrict drag performances sometimes don’t understand what drag is or seeks to do.

Drag is an art form in which performers play with gender norms. Drag shows often include dancing, singing, lip-synching or comedy. Some common forms of drag include cisgender male and transgender female performers dressed in stereotypically feminine ways and cigender female and transgender male performers dressed in stereotypically masculine ways.

Drag artists also participate in many other kinds of events. For example, drag queens host family-friendly story hours at local libraries where they read age-appropriate books to children.

Current Supreme Court decisions suggest that laws like the one just passed in Tennessee probably violate the First Amendment’s protection of free speech. This is, in part, because many drag performances are protected by the First Amendment, which safeguards not only spoken, written, and signed speech but also many other actions meant to convey messages.

Republican legislators appear to have written the law to try to avoid running afoul of the First Amendment by treating drag shows as if they meet the legal definition of obscenity. Speech, including expressive conduct, that meets the Supreme Court’s criteria for obscenity is not covered by First Amendment protection.

I’m a scholar who studies U.S. free speech law. Looking at the text of Tennessee’s new law, I see several ways in which this anti-drag law appears susceptible to significant First Amendment challenges.

Tennessee’s new law

The law amends what Tennessee considers “adult cabaret entertainment” and bans “male or female impersonators” from performing on public property or in any other location where the performance “could be viewed by a person who is not an adult,” when such performances are “harmful to minors” as that phrase is defined by Tennessee law.

This law thus regulates not only public spaces but also privately owned locations like bars and performance venues. A first violation is a misdemeanor. Subsequent violations are felonies.

Because the law is limited to drag performances that are “harmful to minors,” in theory, most drag shows should be unaffected.

But various Republican legislators in Tennessee have recently fought to prevent even vetted family-friendly drag shows with no lewd or sexual content from being held in public.

Given this, drag performers and other artists have reasonable grounds for suspecting that Tennessee officials may seek to interpret the new law broadly to include many kinds of drag performances and other shows that play with gender norms.

Given the popularity of drag shows, this new law could stifle a lot of expression and damage the ability of full-time drag performers to make their living.

But even if Tennessee officials interpret the new law narrowly, the law still appears likely to run afoul of the First Amendment.

Drag is protected ‘expressive conduct’

The First Amendment protects more than just written, oral or signed speech. It also protects many other actions designed to convey ideas. The legal terms for these actions are “expressive conduct” or “symbolic speech.”

Some activities courts have recognized as expressive conduct include making and displaying art and music, picketing, marching in parades, desecrating a U.S. flag, burning a draft card, dancing and other forms of live entertainment.

Drag shows typically consist of various forms of protected speech – such as telling jokes and introducing performers – and protected expressive conduct such as lip-synching and dancing. Thus, drag shows are usually covered by the First Amendment.

But Tennessee’s new law insinuates that drag performances might be part of a category of speech exempt from the First Amendment protection: legally defined obscenity. If this were so, then Tennessee’s law likely would pass constitutional muster. But the law seems to target more than merely legally obscene material.

However, Tennessee lawmakers have not provided viable examples of obscene drag performances in Tennessee. And current Supreme Court precedent makes it highly unlikely that all the expressive conduct Tennessee seeks to regulate falls into the narrow legal category of obscenity.

Defining obscenity

In considering whether something is legally obscene, the Supreme Court requires courts to consider whether (1) the average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to prurient interest; (2) the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct defined by the applicable state law, and (3) the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.

In the relevant part of its criminal code, Tennessee law states that:

“Harmful to minors means that quality of any description or representation, in whatever form, of nudity, sexual excitement, sexual conduct, excess violence or sadomasochistic abuse when the matter or performance (a) Would be found by the average person applying contemporary community standards to appeal predominantly to the prurient, shameful or morbid interests of minors; (b) Is patently offensive to prevailing standards in the adult community as a whole with respect to what is suitable for minors; and (c) Taken as whole lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific values for minors.”

Given the similarities between Tennessee’s description of “harmful to minors” and the Supreme Court’s definition of “obscenity,” Tennessee appears to be trying to avoid First Amendment scrutiny for its new law.

But there are some important differences between Tennessee law and the Supreme Court’s description of obscenity.

Perhaps most importantly, the Supreme Court limits obscenity to speech that lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value full stop; not just work that lacks such serious value specifically for minors.

As is widely recognized, drag is artistic and political. Drag performers use drag to push artistic boundaries and to discuss pressing political issues.

There is no First Amendment requirement to determine when or whether the value of speech applies “for minors.” Adults living in a democratic society need to be able to discuss a wide range of issues, not all of which will have value for children. Supreme Court free speech precedent recognizes this.

Thus, Tennessee probably cannot rely on a claim that it is criminalizing only legally obscene expressive conduct. Instead, it must regulate drag performances in accordance with the First Amendment’s free speech protections.

Discriminatory and overly broad

Freedom of speech, like all rights, is not absolute.

The Supreme Court has allowed states to put some limits on protected speech. For example, states may impose restrictions on the time, place and manner in which speech occurs, so long as such limitations are content-neutral.

Examples include requiring permits to hold parades on city streets and not allowing loud music between midnight and 6 a.m. on public sidewalks.

However, Tennessee’s law goes far beyond these kinds of limited regulations of protected speech in at least two ways.

First, it legislates more than mere time, place and manner restrictions. Instead, the law bars, at all times, “male or female impersonation” that it deems “harmful to children” from any public property and from many private venues, too. This is a wholesale ban on such speech in all public forums and in many private spaces. Courts will likely find this too broad.

Second, by singling out “male and female impersonators,” Tennessee’s law fails to be content-neutral. It instead discriminates on the basis of the expressive conduct’s content.

Tennessee’s new law bolsters the case that anti-drag laws are antidemocratic, discriminatory and unconstitutional.

This story has been corrected to describe the amended version of Tennessee’s SB3, which was signed into law on March 2, 2023, and to remove reference to a Kentucky state legislator.

Mark Satta does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is preparing to release a draft regulation limiting two fluorinated chemicals, known by the abbreviations PFOA and PFOS, in drinking water. These chemicals are two types of PFAS, a broad class of substances often referred to as “forever chemicals” because they are very persistent in the environment.

PFAS are widely used in hundreds of products, from nonstick cookware coatings to food packaging, stain- and water-resistant clothing and firefighting foams. Studies show that high levels of PFAS exposure may lead to health effects that include reduced immune system function, increased cholesterol levels and elevated risk of kidney or testicular cancer.

Population-based screenings over the past 20 years show that most Americans have been exposed to PFAS and have detectable levels in their blood. The new regulation is designed to protect public health by setting an enforceable maximum standard limiting how much of the two target chemicals can be present in drinking water – one of the main human exposure pathways.

These three articles from The Conversation’s archives explain growing concerns about the health effects of exposure to PFAS and why many experts support national regulation of these chemicals.

1. Ubiquitous and persistent

PFAS are useful in many types of products because they provide resistance to water, grease and stains, and protect against fire. Studies have found that most products labeled stain- or water-resistant contained PFAS – even if those products are labeled as “nontoxic” or “green.”

“Once people are exposed to PFAS, the chemicals remain in their bodies for a long time – months to years, depending on the specific compound – and they can accumulate over time,” wrote Middlebury College environmental health scholar Kathryn Crawford. A 2021 review of PFAS toxicity studies in humans “concluded with a high degree of certainty that PFAS contribute to thyroid disease, elevated cholesterol, liver damage and kidney and testicular cancer.”

The review also found strong evidence that in utero PFAS exposure increases the chances that babies will be born at low birth weights and have reduced immune responses to vaccines. Other possible effects yet to be confirmed include “inflammatory bowel disease, reduced fertility, breast cancer and an increased likelihood of miscarriage and developing high blood pressure and preeclampsia during pregnancy.”

“Collectively, this is a formidable list of diseases and disorders,” Crawford observed.

Read more: What are PFAS? An environmental health scientist explains

2. Why national regulations are needed

Under the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Environmental Protection Agency has the authority to set enforceable national regulations for drinking water contaminants. It also can require state, local and tribal governments, which manage drinking water supplies, to monitor public water systems for the presence of contaminants.

Until now, however, the agency has not set binding standards limiting PFAS exposure, although it has issued nonbinding advisory guidelines. In 2009 the agency established a health advisory level for PFOA in drinking water of 400 parts per trillion. In 2016, it lowered this recommendation to 70 parts per trillion, and in 2022 it reduced this threshold to near-zero.

But many scientists have found fault with this approach. EPA’s one-at-a-time approach to assessing potentially harmful chemicals “isn’t working for PFAS, given the sheer number of them and the fact that manufacturers commonly replace toxic substances with ‘regrettable substitutes – similar, lesser-known chemicals that also threaten human health and the environment,” wrote North Carolina State University biologist Carol Kwiatkowski.

In 2020 Kwiatkowski and other scientists urged the EPA to manage the entire class of PFAS chemicals as a group, instead of one by one. “We also support an 'essential uses’ approach that would restrict their production and use only to products that are critical for health and proper functioning of society, such as medical devices and safety equipment. And we have recommended developing safer non-PFAS alternatives,” she wrote.

Read more: PFAS 'forever chemicals' are widespread and threaten human health – here's a strategy for protecting the public

3. Breaking down PFAS

PFAS chemicals are widely present in water, air, soil and fish around the world. Unlike with some other types of pollutants, there is no natural process that breaks down PFAS once they get into water or soil. Many scientists are working to develop ways of capturing these chemicals from the environment and breaking them down into harmless components.

There are ways to filter PFAS out of water, but that’s just the start. “Once PFAS is captured, then you have to dispose of PFAS-loaded activated carbons, and PFAS still moves around. If you bury contaminated materials in a landfill or elsewhere, PFAS will eventually leach out. That’s why finding ways to destroy it are essential,” wrote Michigan State University chemists A. Daniel Jones and Hui Li.

Incineration is the most common technique, they explained, but that typically requires heating the materials to around 1,500 degrees Celsius (2,730 degrees Fahrenheit), which is expensive and requires special incinerators. Various chemical processes offer alternatives, but the approaches that have been developed so far are hard to scale up. And converting PFAS into toxic byproducts is a significant concern.

“If there’s a lesson to be learned, it’s that we need to think through the full life cycle of products. How long do we really need chemicals to last?” Jones and Li wrote.

Read more: How to destroy a 'forever chemical' – scientists are discovering ways to eliminate PFAS, but this growing global health problem isn't going away soon

Editor’s note: This story is a roundup of articles from The Conversation’s archives.

The leading U.S. medical journal, read regularly by doctors of all specialties, systematically ignores an equally reputable and rigorous body of medical research that focuses on Black Americans’ health.

The American Medical Association created a segregated “whites only” environment more than 100 years ago to prohibit Black physicians from joining their ranks. This exclusionary and racist policy prompted the creation in 1895 of the National Medical Association, a professional membership group that supported African American physicians and the patients they served. Today, the NMA represents more than 30,000 medical professionals.

In 2008, the AMA publicly apologized and pledged to right the wrongs that were done through decades of racism within its organization. Yet our research shows that despite that public reckoning 15 years ago, the opinion column of the AMA’s leading medical journal does not reflect the research and editorial contributions by NMA members.

Invisibility in the opinion column of one of the most prominent medical journals in the U.S. is another form of subtle racism that continues to lessen the importance of equitable medical care and health issues for Black and underserved communities.

As rhetoricians and researchers who study scientific communication, we look at the ways scientific writing perpetuates or addresses racial inequity. Our recent study traced how research is referenced by medical professionals and colleagues, known as citations, of flagship journals of the NMA and AMA: the Journal of the National American Association and the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Invisible research

Our research began with a question: Has the AMA’s 2008 apology had any effect on the frequency with which JAMA opinion writers draw on insights and research of JNMA scholars and authors?

We studied opinion columns, also referred to as editorials, precisely because they are useful indicators of current and future research as well as priorities and agendas. The purpose of editorials is to critically analyze and sift through various opinions and evidence. Effective editorials in scientific journals are especially rich forums for debate within the medical community.

Medical publications like JNMA and JAMA do not simply convey knowledge. They also establish professional community values through the topics that are studied and who is credited for ideas related to research. When writers choose to reference or cite another scholar, they are acknowledging and highlighting that expertise.

As such, citations play an important role in the visibility of research. Articles and authors with more citations are more likely to have a greater effect on the scientific community and patient care. Opinion pieces can shape the broader conversation among medical professionals, and citations can widen that circle of communication.

Invisible racism

We traced how frequently JAMA and JNMA opinion writers referenced one another from 2008 to 2021 by reviewing the 117 opinion pieces published in JNMA and 1,425 published in JAMA during this 13-year period. We found that JAMA opinion columns have continued to, in effect, uphold racial bias and segregation by ignoring JNMA findings.

Even when focusing on race, racism and health disparities, topics that JNMA has explored in great detail, JAMA opinion columns did not reference JNMA colleagues or research. Only two JNMA articles were credited and referenced in the 1,425 JAMA opinion pieces that we reviewed.

Editors at JAMA did not respond to our requests for their comments on our analysis.

Racial equity in medicine

The story of the AMA and NMA is not only a reminder of the racist history of medicine. It demonstrates how the expertise of Black professionals and researchers continues to be ignored today. The lack of JNMA citations in JAMA research undercuts the AMA’s own work on racial equity and potentially compromises the quality of medical knowledge published in its journals.

For example, a recent study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that scientists from underrepresented groups innovate, or contribute novel scientific findings, at a higher rate than those from majority groups.

An article published in the weekly medical journal of the Public Library of Science noted that diverse research teams are often more successful in developing new knowledge to help treat women and underrepresented patients with greater precision.

Dissolving systemic bias

One way to intentionally tackle racial bias and segregation in medical knowledge is by deliberately referencing Black researchers and their work. To change this dynamic of racial bias, medical journals must pay attention to how much and how often the Black medical establishment is referenced. Health issues in underserved communities would likely become more visible and achieve greater quality of care in keeping with the AMA’s commitment to social justice.

Journal editors could tell writers and editorial staff to prioritize citation practices. Individual authors might conduct research and evaluate their reading habits to intentionally include research from the Black medical community.

However, this work must go beyond individuals. Undoing decades of collective habits and embedded racism requires collaborations that work across systems, institutions and disciplines.

For example, libraries, databases, and search engines that help researchers find and evaluate medical publications might review today’s research tools. It is hard to contribute to a research conversation if your work is invisible or can’t be found.

Many tools, like impact factors, rank research according to how influential it is. If research begins in a category of less importance, it can be harder for the technology to rank it equitably. JNMA’s work was already marginalized when the tools that rank research were developed.

Thus, search results can hinder efforts of individual authors to work toward equitable citation practices. Black researchers and their research of Black health were excluded from the beginning, and existing systems of sharing knowledge and drawing attention to important studies incorporate that structural racism.

The AMA apology in 2008 and its recent progress on addressing racism in its publication process are promising steps. Influential medical journals serve to inform and shape health care. Who is referenced in these journals matters to the medical establishment, research funders and, ultimately, to the patients that are served by innovations in medicine.

Attention to citation can help reduce systemic bias in medical knowledge to achieve greater fairness in health care and, in the long run, help increase attention and resources that will help solve health issues in underserved communities.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

"Whiskey Fungus" sounds like a great name for the absolute worst jam band I can imagine. But apparently it's a real thing that plagues the counties surrounding the Jack Daniels distillery. From The New York Times:

The ethanol-fueled fungus known as whiskey fungus has thrived for centuries around distilleries and bakeries.

From outlawing any classes, curriculum, programs, or any mention of diversity, inclusion, and equity to targeting Transpeople and monitoring menstrual cycles, and most recently, a bill proposing that "any bloggers who write about the governor and legislators to register with the state," politicians are transforming Florida into a "laboratory for fascism."  — Read the rest

In her forthcoming book, “The Impact of College Diversity: Struggles and Successes at Age 30,” Amherst College psychology professor Elizabeth Aries discovered a disturbing dual reality for Black students going to the small, private liberal arts college where she teaches. On the one hand, interacting with students from different backgrounds better prepared them for the world of higher education and work. But Black students also felt pressured to sacrifice their cultural identities in favor of “whiteness” in order to succeed. In the following Q&A, Aries elaborates on her findings and what they mean as the Supreme Court decides whether to restrict or outlaw the use of race in college admissions.

1. What prompted you to do this research?

In 2003, Amherst College began to more actively recruit and enroll students of color and individuals from low-income backgrounds. The idea was to promote equity and social mobility. But the effort was also driven by the belief that students benefit educationally when they interact daily with classmates whose experiences and views are different from their own.

I wanted to understand how living in a diverse community would affect students. To do that, I interviewed Black and white students, both affluent and lower-income, three times over a period of 12 years. The interviews were conducted during their first year of college, at the end of their senior year and at age 30.

I chronicled the nature and extent of what students learned about race and class from engagement with racially and socioeconomically diverse classmates. I also examined the challenges students faced on campus because of their race and class. I believe my findings have great relevance at a time when the U.S. Supreme Court is about to again consider the legality of the use of race in admission decisions.

2. What is the main takeaway from your book?

At age 30, the vast majority of Black and white Amherst graduates I interviewed – 81% – told me they gained insight from interacting regularly with classmates of different races. For instance, over their four years of college, the white graduates gained a deeper understanding of the harm of racial stereotypes, prejudice and discrimination, and of their own racial privilege. Black graduates acquired coping strategies to deal with racial prejudice. They also learned to be “bicultural,” enabling success in predominantly white settings.

Through cross-class interactions, lower-income students gained higher aspirations to seek graduate and professional degrees. They also accessed social networks that connected them to desired internships, graduate programs and jobs. They reported greater social mobility as a result of the skills they learned from living and learning in such a diverse environment.

Almost all strongly agreed that a diverse student body is essential to teaching skills to succeed and lead in the work environment.

3. Why do Black students benefit from learning to be ‘bicultural’?

Black graduates enter the professional work world where positions of power are largely held by white people, and racial biases are present. At age 30, 77% of the Black graduates I interviewed reported facing racial bias at work, and 47% felt they faced a career ceiling because of their race. They reported learning during college how to be bicultural – to adjust their presentation and behavior and be Black in “the right way” to facilitate their success. This required being attentive to self-presentation in speech, dress, hair and demeanor so that it came closer to whiteness, making it more acceptable to the middle-class white people around them.

While Black graduates benefited from learning to be bicultural, they reported this performance came at a cost. Fitting in to standards of whiteness entailed the stress of hiding parts of themselves and thus made it difficult to feel fully true to themselves.

That said, engagement with diverse peers during college can help lead to the creation of more equitable workplaces. Research has found interaction among people from different racial backgrounds leads to a decrease in racial prejudice and increases knowledge and acceptance of different races or cultures and openness to diversity. Further, when students participate in interracial dialogues, after college they are more likely to commit and take action to redress inequality.

A third of the white graduates in my study said they were actively addressing systemic inequalities in their work lives. Further, 52% aspired to teach their future children to be aware of the internalization of racial stereotypes and of the prejudice and discrimination faced by people of color.

4. Did Amherst need affirmative action to achieve diversity?

The use of race-conscious admissions undoubtedly enabled Amherst to build a richly diverse community. Today 49% of U.S. Amherst College students self-identify as students of color.

Amherst has for many years reviewed applicants holistically and by using a wide range of factors. This includes, of course, the standard measures on applications, such as the student’s academic program and record, intellectual talent and creativity, nonacademic achievement and leadership. Also factored into Amherst’s admissions process, though, are such aspects as diversity of socioeconomics, family education, background, life experiences and geography. And, yes, race is also one factor of many in such a holistic consideration.

5. What happens if affirmative action is banned?

A decision by the Supreme Court to end race-conscious admissions would severely impede colleges’ ability to attain the kind of diversity needed to achieve their educational goals.

Where states have banned the consideration of race in admission, the proportion of students from underrepresented groups fell precipitously. California, which banned consideration of race in admissions in 1996, saw 50% declines for African American and Latino students at the most selective campuses between 1995 and 1998.

Many students from underrepresented backgrounds - who previously would have been accepted at flagship schools – went to less selective public and private universities. At these less selective schools, degree attainment declined, leading to lower wages, thereby increasing socioeconomic inequities.

The use of race-neutral admissions policies after Michigan passed a ballot initiative in 2006 to ban the use of race in college admissions was as catastrophic: It resulted in a 44% drop in the enrollment of Black students from 2006 to 2021. Meanwhile, the enrollment of Native American students dropped nearly 90% despite considerable efforts using race-neutral alternatives.

Elizabeth Aries does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Buc-ee’s is a huge travel center with an iconic beaver mascot and a cult following. The Texas-based company has slowly begun debuting spots in Florida. They currently operate one in St. Augustine, and another in Daytona Beach. A third Sunshine State location is on the way as the company has revealed they plan to open a massive new travel center in Ocala, east of Interstate 75 near W. Hwy 326.. The news was first reported by WFTV in Orlando.

The new Central Florida Buc-ee’s facility will have an 80,000-foot building, 120 gas pumps, 28 EV parking spaces, 750 general parking spaces, and a 125-foot tall pole with a sign on it. What makes Buc-ee’s such a phenomenon?

For starters, their iconic and super sweet beaver nuggets (caramel popcorn). The travel station also serves up Texas-style brisket sandwiches, tons of fresh jerky and drinks. Buc-ee’s also has a deep collection of t-shirts, hats, blankets, and mugs all featuring the iconic mascot. The shop also includes sweets such as sugared nuts, dippin’ dots, and fudge.

Howstuffworks breaks down the early days of the travel center empire. “Buc-ee’s is the brainchild of Arch Aplin III. He and his business partner Don Wasek opened the first location in 1982 in Clute, Texas,” writes Lauren David. “It was about 3,000 square feet (278 square meters). Three years later, they opened the second Buc-ee’s — this one was 6,000 square feet (557 square meters). And things just kept growing from there (in size and numbers).”

The state of Florida is no stranger to top tier bathrooms. Our own Tampa International Airport is said to have the best public restroom in America. Buc-ee’s, in turn, has been said to have some of the cleanest bathrooms in America. Lauren David writes that according to Texas Monthly “the 56,000-square-foot (5,202-square-meter) Bastrop, Texas, location has 71 toilets and urinals and a team whose only job is to clean them 24 hours a day.”

A full construction timeline and opening date is still TBA.

What to read next:

• Tampa fish market makes the best crabs on the planet
• Inside Bouzy, a new champagne bar in Tampa
• Gasparilla Festival of the Arts takes over Julian B Lane Park
• The Best Chicken Wing spots in Tampa, according to our readers

The post Buc-ee’s, the famous travel station and superstore, opening in Central Florida appeared first on That's So Tampa.

March is setting up to be a major month for the city of Tampa and the entire Tampa Bay region. The Gasparilla Festival of the Arts will take over Julian B Lane Riverfront Park March 4 and 5, and that same weekend the Firestone Grand Prix will take place in St. Petersburg. Gasparilla Festival of the Arts alone is anticipated to have an attendance of 75,000, according to PredictHQ. That same company calculates that a swath of events occurring in March will generate $144.1 million for area businesses.

PredictHQ is a demand intelligence company. The organization aggregates events from 350+ sources and verifies, enriches, and ranks them by predicted impact so companies can proactively discover catalysts that will impact demand.

March events have a huge economic impact on Tampa

A recent report speculates that the forthcoming Innings Festival in the parking lot of Raymond James Stadium will have an attendance of 75,000. The Florida Strawberry Festival in neighboring Plant City has an anticipated attendance of 500,000 attendees. Down the line, the Gasparilla International Film Festival, set for the end of March across multiple days, is expected to draw 100,000 attendees to the city. This number includes directors, producers, and actors appearing for their respective film screenings.

Our 30th Annual Hyde Park Village Fine Art Fair is set for March 25 and 26, PredictHQ’s algorithm anticipates an attendance of 90,000 people throughout the weekend.

Overall, Tampa is calculated to be the 4th busiest city in America in March. Add to it the bustle of our annual Tampa Bay Beer Week the will bring more than 80 representatives from Breweries across the state and you have a formula for a huge month. Green takes on multiple meanings in Tampa as Mayor Jane Castor’s River O’ Green Festival returns March 18.

Busch Gardens Tampa, other venues draw visitors to city

A consistent draw in Tampa remains Busch Gardens Tampa Bay. The park just debuted a brand new ride, and soon will host its celebrated multi-week Food and Wine Festival.

You can get a full view of the report on PredictHQ’s website. The surge won’t end there. Make sure you have Tampa Riverfest on your radar. Check out a full guide of recurring farmers, vintage, and art markets in Tampa here.

What to read next:

• Tampa fish market makes the best crabs on the planet
• Pete’s opens all day cafe in Ybor City
• Inside Bouzy, a new champagne bar in Tampa
• Gasparilla Festival of the Arts takes over Julian B Lane Park
• The Best Chicken Wing spots in Tampa, according to our readers

The post Major March events will generate $144.1 million for local Tampa businesses appeared first on That's So Tampa.

A University of South Florida associate professor is attempting to break a world record by living underwater for 100 days. Joseph Dituri is studying how the human body responds to long-term exposure to extreme pressure–all while teaching his biomedical engineering class online.

Living beneath the sea

Dituri will live 30 feet below the surface in a 100-square-foot habitat located at Jules’ Undersea Lodge in Key Largo. A medical team will document the 55-year-old’s health by routinely diving to his habitat to run a series of tests. Before, during and after the project, Dituri will complete a series of psychosocial, psychological and medical tests, including blood panels, ultrasounds and electrocardiograms, as well as stem cell tests.

A psychologist and psychiatrist will also document the mental effects of being in an isolated, confined environment for an extended period. The experience is similar to space travel. 

“The human body has never been underwater that long, so I will be monitored closely,” Dituri said. “This study will examine every way this journey impacts my body. But my null hypothesis is that there will be improvements to my health due to the increased pressure.”

Related: Why Don’t Hurricanes Directly Hit Tampa Bay?

Dituri is advancing conclusions found in a study, where cells exposed to increased pressure doubled within five days. This suggests the increased pressure has the potential to allow humans to increase their longevity. As well as prevent diseases associated with aging.

“So, we suspect I am going to come out super-human!” Dituri said.

More about Joseph Dituri

Dituri found his passion for science while serving in the U.S. Navy for 28 years as a saturation diving officer. After retiring in 2012 as a commander, Dituri enrolled at USF to earn his doctoral degree to learn more about traumatic brain injuries. 

“Many of my brothers and sisters in the military suffered traumatic brain injuries. And I wanted to learn how to help them,” Dituri said. “I knew well that hyperbaric pressure could increase cerebral blood flow and hypothesized it could be used to treat traumatic brain injuries. I hypothesize that applying the known mechanisms of action for hyperbaric medicine could be used to treat a broad spectrum of diseases.”

The 100-day mission includes several other projects. Dituri also will test new technologies. This includes an artificial intelligence tool that can screen a human body for illness and determine a person needs medication.

Other scientists will join him underwater for discussions on ways to preserve, protect and rejuvenate the marine environment. This will all be streamed on Dituri’s YouTube channel.

You can visit yourself!

Dituri plans to use this project as a platform for STEM outreach by welcoming adults and children with chaperones to join him for 24 hours at a time. This will give them an opportunity to explore the ocean and learn the research process. He hopes it will inspire the next generation of researchers.

“Everything we need to survive is here on the planet,” he said. “I suspect the cure to many diseases can be found in undiscovered organisms in the ocean. To find out, we need more researchers.”

The current world record for living underwater is 73 days. Two Tennessee professors set this record in 2014. They also stayed at Jules’ Undersea Lodge.  

Story attributed to USF News.

The post USF Professor Attempts to Break World Record for Living Underwater appeared first on ModernGlobe.

The story of Graham Jackson is a timeless tale of American ingenuity, hard work and the cream rising to the top.

It’s also a tale of economic inequality, overt racism and America’s Jim Crow caste system.

As one of the first Black musicians to play on national radio, Jackson is best known for the April 13, 1945, photograph of him that was published by Life magazine, one of the leading publications of its day.

In that image, Jackson, dressed in his U.S. Navy uniform, is seen playing the song “Going Home” on an accordion as the train carrying the body of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt leaves the station in Warm Springs, Georgia, for his burial in Hyde Park, New York.

Jackson’s tear-filled face mourning the death of the nation’s longest-serving president became a symbol of the nation’s grief.

But under legislation that’s been proposed in North Dakota, I am not sure if I can tell the full story of Jackson in one of my college courses without breaking the law.

Officially titled Senate Bill 2247, the measure would criminalize discussing factual history by prohibiting discussions at state universities that involve “divisive concepts.”

The bill defines “divisive concepts” as including white privilege, white guilt, Black resentment or America’s being “fundamentally or irredeemably racist or sexist.”

If passed, the measure would ban any classroom discussions that “an individual, by virtue of the individual’s race or sex, is inherently privileged, racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or subconsciously.”

It would also ban courses that would make an individual “feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or another form of psychological distress solely because of the individual’s race or sex.”

As I detail in my biography of Jackson, the story of Graham Jackson involves all of these things.

An orphan with a musical gift

I spent five years researching Jackson’s life, read hundreds of documents and interviewed people who knew him. Through that research, I was able to factually document the racial realities that Jackson and other Black Americans faced throughout the 20th century.

The grandson of enslaved people, Jackson was born into poverty in 1903 and became an orphan. In a twist worthy of Charles Dickens, his mother was committed to Central State Hospital in Virginia after a failed suicide attempt. His father, who had recently lost an arm in a hunting accident, disappeared from his life. He was raised by his aunt.

As an adult, Jackson used his talents as a musician to make a name for himself entertaining. When he moved to Atlanta in 1924, he became the house organist at Bailey’s “81” Theater.

The owner of this theater, Charles Bailey, was a tight-fisted white manager.

Some Black artists saw Bailey as a “cracker from the back woods of Georgia” and accused him of assaulting Blues singer Bessie Smith and having her hauled off to jail.

Jobs like this at Bailey’s were some of the few a young Black artist could find in the 1920s.

Jackson also recorded jazz songs, and while these were popular, they were sold and labeled as race records to separate them from the work of white artists whose songs were labeled “old-time” records.

Still, he found acclaim in white newspapers, which described him pejoratively as a “darktown jazzologist.”

‘The Plantation Revue’

Jackson became the favorite of many wealthy and influential white people in the 1930s, including President Roosevelt.

Jackson spent time with Roosevelt, but only as an entertainer, not as a confidante or friend. Jackson and his “Plantation Revue” singers once performed for FDR in full slave garb, singing traditional spirituals.

In 1939, Atlanta experienced the mania associated with the premiere of “Gone With the Wind.”

City officials planned lavish Confederate-themed balls and events, and an estimated 300,000 people attended a parade featuring most of the movie’s cast.

Jackson and his “Plantation Revue” were hired to perform at one of the balls, in front of a facade of the fictional plantation named Tara, and in full slave regalia.

Several Black church choirs also performed in slave garb with Jackson. Among the singers was a 10-year-old Martin Luther King Jr.

Jackson’s lost cause

Jackson volunteered to join the Navy in 1942 to both raise money through performing while enlisted and also to recruit Black men to join the newly desegregated Navy, which had just removed some barriers for service.

In 1950, Jackson was invited to perform at the graduation ceremony at a white high school in South Georgia. Within days the invitation was withdrawn because of violent threats by the Ku Klux Klan.

Though Jackson did see some success in the 1950s appearing on “The Ed Sullivan Show” and “The Today Show,” by the 1960s he could find steady employment only at several Confederate-themed restaurants in Atlanta.

Jackson produced two albums of Confederate songs, and his most popular request was the Confederate battle song “Dixie.”

In 1969, Georgia Gov. Lester Maddox appointed Jackson to the State Board of Corrections. The appointment by Maddox, the last known segregationist to serve in Georgia, was a milestone, because Jackson became the first Black person to serve on a statewide board.

But for Jackson, as I learned during my research, the appointment was largely dismissed by many young Black leaders who viewed him as an irrelevant “Uncle Tom.”

Challenges to academic freedom

Florida’s “anti-woke” legislation and the state’s recent rejection of the AP African American studies curriculum are well-known examples of a disturbing trend that attempts to criminalize exploring the stories of Black people such as Graham Jackson.

But Florida is not the only state walking down this dark path. Some 44 states have proposed legislation in the vein of the Florida law. Some states target K-12 education. Others target state universities.

Beyond the subjectivity of many of these prohibitions lies the more serious issue of academic freedom in a democratic society.

Challenges to those freedoms have been around for centuries.

Galileo was famously placed under house arrest in 1633 for the heresy of theorizing that the sun was the center of our solar system.

In 1907, Charles W. Elliot, President of Harvard University, wrote, “My subject is academic freedom, a difficult subject, not as yet very well understood in this country, but likely to be of increasing interest and importance throughout the coming century.”

“In all fields,” Elliot continued, “democracy needs to develop leaders of high inventive capacity, strong initiative, and genius for cooperative government, who will put forth their utmost powers, not for pecuniary reward, or for the love of domination, but for the joy of achievement and the continuous, mounting satisfaction of rendering good service.”

One of the primary functions of a higher education is to empower critical thinking, challenge long-held assumptions and promote intellectual honesty and integrity.

In my view, the promise of higher education means access to stories like the one of Graham Jackson’s.

Before he died on Jan. 15, 1983, he overcame many barriers caused by systemic racism. In all, Jackson performed for six American presidents and was named the official musician for the state of Georgia by then-Gov. Jimmy Carter.

But in my view, Jackson remained a prop of sorts for wealthy white patrons who did not see him as fully human but enjoyed his performances of Confederate songs.

Under the proposed legislation North Dakota, I can say his name but I can’t tell his story without arousing a sense of guilt and resentment – and, ultimately, shame – for a nation still unable to see people, as Martin Luther King Jr. famously said, “for the content of their character and not the color of their skin.”

David Cason does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Ron DeSantis, Florida’s Republican governor and likely future presidential contender, has opened up a new front in his party’s war on “woke capitalism”. He is proposing to change the rules around how public bodies within Florida borrow from the markets by issuing bonds.

The proposal is that they would no longer be able to work with ratings agencies that value the bonds using the ESG (environmental, social and governance) sustainability criteria that have become commonplace in the world of finance in the past few years. Public bodies and companies with lower ESG scores can see this reflected in their borrowing costs, and some politicians on the right object to this “interference” with market valuations.

DeSantis already pledged in December to pull US$2 billion (£1.7 billion) of the state’s investment from BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager and a key player in the ESG movement. This was after 19 Republican state attorneys-general told the asset manager in a letter: “Our states will not idly stand for our pensioners’ retirements to be sacrificed for BlackRock’s climate agenda.”

Eighteen states have also either proposed or adopted legislation over the past two years restricting state business with financial institutions that use ESG criteria to limit funding to industries like fossil fuels.

According to Republican senator Kevin Cramer from North Dakota, banks and asset managers “should ignore calls for ESG and woke capitalism and stick to what they do best”. Former vice president Mike Pence wants the the next Republican congress to work to “end the use of ESG principles nationwide”.

What they get wrong

Newly in charge of a Congressional branch, Republicans are taking their quest to Washington, DC. Andy Barr, the new chair of the House financial services subcommittee responsible for financial institutions, claimed America’s financial system had been “co-opted by the intolerant left that is intolerant of diversity”. For the US to be economically competitive, he said “we need our financial system to provide equal access to capital to all kinds of businesses”.

This revealed either a remarkable ignorance about financial markets and the financial risks posed by environmental and social challenges – or he was being cynically misleading to score political points.

The notion of equal access to capital flies in the face of one of the central tenets of capitalism. The ability of different organisations to borrow and the price they pay is never equal. It depends on the risk of the investment and how many investors will take that risk.

Consider mining. It inherently impacts the environment and surrounding communities. Communities can tie owners up in lawsuits or even block mining access if their concerns go unaddressed. This can affect the mine’s profitability.

Researchers have shown how two gold mines with the same volumes of gold and extraction costs can be valued radically differently depending on local support. ESG ratings seek to capture such factors to enable investors to make better informed decisions.

For asset managers like BlackRock, it’s also about customer demand. If investments that mitigate ESG risks offer a better risk-adjusted return and investors are increasingly shunning certain companies – be it gun manufacturers or fossil fuel producers – it will affect where money flows.

BlackRock’s CEO, Larry Fink, recently said that his company lost about US$4 billion in assets from Republican-led states withdrawing money in 2022, but added US$400 billion overall. Nothing nefarious or political here, just capitalism at work.

Owners of dirty assets can still raise capital. It’s just that the price may be higher. Look at the divergent coal strategies of mining giants Rio Tinto, Anglo American and Glencore.

Rio Tinto entirely exited coal in 2018. Anglo American has created a separate entity for these assets called Thungela, while Glencore still has coal in its portfolio and proposes to run it down responsibly over time. (Full disclosure: I hold the Rio Tinto Chair in Stakeholder Engagement at IMD, but the company has no influence over my research.)

Investors can choose between these strategies. At any moment, these companies’ borrowing costs will reflect the consensus assessment of the underlying risk, including from ESG factors.

Glencore has not been cut off from capital markets and is doing quite well – reporting record 2022 profits fuelled largely by coal. Yet its share price has not outperformed its peers, reflecting investor concerns about the long-term strategy.

Mining share prices 2018-23

Woke capitalism?

David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker magazine, recently said that for “conservatives now, wokeness is the root cause of everything negative”. He interviewed linguist Tony Thorne, who traced the term to a 1971 Black liberationist play in which the main character says “I must stay woke”.

Thorne explained that for today’s progressives, particularly following Black Lives Matter, “woke” became synonymous with “socially aware” or “empathetic”. But conservatives, he said, made this vague term a proxy for leftist self-righteousness, and so “anti-woke” became the rallying cry for any social change they oppose – just like “political correctness” a generation ago.

While US conservatives are particularly fixated on anti-wokeness – “Florida is where woke goes to die,” intoned Governor DeSantis in his November victory speech – it is not just an American phenomenon. For instance, the Atlantic magazine’s Thomas Chatterton Williams recently observed: “The French are in a panic about Le Wokisme.” Europe’s debate has not yet spilled into financial markets, though it may only be a matter of time.

By labelling ESG “woke”, conservatives imply that large parts of the US$100 trillion global asset management industry have been hijacked by leftists. Having spent time with lots of asset managers, it’s nonsense.

Of course, not all is well in ESG land. Greenwashing is rampant, and rating agencies and asset managers get criticised for insufficiently scrutinising firms’ actual ESG performances.

Most dramatically in May 2022, German prosecutors raided the offices of DWS, Deutsche Bank’s asset management unit, following allegations that it had vastly overstated its ESG investments. Lawsuits are ongoing, and DWS denies it misled investors.

Yet the idea that a firm would dress up “normal” assets as ESG simply demonstrates the investor demand for these products. Equally, greenwashing is pilloried because it makes it harder for investors to assess the underlying risks to a firm’s future profitability. These problems highlight the need for better standards and regulation, which is to be expected in a nascent field like this.

Despite conservative opposition, analysts expect ESG investment to almost double over the next three years to nearly US$34 trillion, representing one in every five dollars invested worldwide. This is not an aberration of free-market principles but a reflection of them. That US Republicans are puzzled by this says more about them and the echo chambers in which they have been moving than about the state of ESG.

David Bach does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Speculation over US President Joe Biden’s intention to run for office again is reaching fever pitch. Biden is, reportedly, on the verge of announcing he will indeed seek reelection. Opinion pieces are being churned out at a rapid clip. Polls are being commissioned with a feverish intensity.

Much of the focus is on one apparently simple question: is the 80-year-old Biden too old to run for reelection in 2024? He would be 82 at the start of a second term, and 86 by the time he left office.

Nikki Haley, the former UN ambassador and South Carolina governor, sought to fire up the Republican Party’s base after announcing her presidential campaign earlier this month, making the not-so-subtle proposal that politicians aged over 75 submit to mandatory cognitive testing.

The president’s age is, clearly, a matter of concern. But the intensity of the questioning over this issue is striking. It would be easy to believe this is the most pressing question for American politics right now.

Meanwhile, only last week, the dangerously influential Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor-Greene tweeted the United States needed a “national divorce” between red and blue states.

Just over two years ago, Donald Trump, the former president, incited an insurrection that very nearly succeeded. Today, his followers are openly invoking the spectre of secession.

Is Biden’s age really the dominant question?

The relentless focus on Biden’s age is indicative of an uncomfortable reality. The vast bulk of the American media establishment is incapable of grasping the true significance and dangers of the current political moment.

As Biden contemplates a re-election campaign, he is grappling with a potentially catastrophic breakdown in democracy facilitated by a group of fanatical and influential Republicans that explicitly believe in minority authoritarian government based on racist disenfranchisement.

At the same time, the United States is experiencing an uneven social, economic and environmental fracturing caused by decades of destructive deregulation. The country now appears grounded in policy inertia from an increasingly gridlocked Congress.

And internationally, Biden inherited the legacy of a failed imperial project in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, which the policy establishment in the US remains unable and unwilling to think beyond.

Some observers have described this as a state of “polycrisis”, a series of disparate but interacting systemic shocks that are upending assumptions and challenging old certainties.

The most pertinent question is not Biden’s age. It is whether Biden is capable of negotiating the extraordinary ruptures in American politics. And if he is not, who is?

Biden’s place in history

In his first term, Biden has demonstrated his grasp of the pressing needs of the moment. And he has quietly established himself to be the most consequential president of our times.

The office of the US presidency personalises power to such an extent that it is often presumed it is presidents and their individual traits (such as age) that determine the course of events. But the truth is, whatever power a president has at their disposal, they remain constrained by the circumstances inherited from their predecessor and current economic and political realities. Presidencies will forever be bound by events beyond their control.

Fundamentally, what defines a presidential tenure is not the particular personality or priorities of a president, but whether they rise to the needs of the moment.

In another era, Abraham Lincoln may have been too colloquial or cerebral for national office (he was a paradoxical man). Outside the specific circumstances of the Great Depression and the second world war, Franklin Roosevelt’s patrician air may have grated too harshly on the electorate to claim a place in history. Jimmy Carter could have been lauded for his moral presidency across two terms.

The current state of the American republic means that what this president does, and what he is able to achieve, is quite simply more consequential than any other post-war president.

Viewed against the broad sweep of American history, Biden’s self-appointed task is not to win reelection. It is not to win partisan points against his opponents. In a strict sense, it is not even to accumulate a record of legislative accomplishment.

The task he has been set by this moment is the rescue and repair of American democracy.

Read more: Biden's first 100 days show a president in a hurry and willing to be bold

Biden demonstrates an awareness of this position that is rare among presidents. He has already expended considerable effort in consulting with leading historians to place his administration in the context of American history – particularly his efforts to enact large-scale reform amid crisis.

The effect of this is evident in his administration’s legislative record. Through the climate-focused Inflation Reduction Act (the largest piece of climate spending in US history), to protecting marriage equality and providing student debt relief, the Biden administration has sought to make meaningful reform without risking further instability.

Whether he succeeds in this approach – and that remains an open question – Biden is already presiding over tectonic shifts in American history. And he is all too aware of the consequences of failure.

It is within this context that Biden must determine if he will run.

A reminder of better times

There is a simple and uncomfortable reality for Democrats: no one else has as effectively demonstrated their awareness of the needs of the moment as Biden – and they are unlikely to get the chance to do so in the immediate term.

Biden has a singular capacity to communicate the seriousness of the threat to US democracy to swathes of the American public that might otherwise be disengaged or feel disenfranchised. And he does it from behind the presidential seal.

Biden may be returning lacklustre opinion poll results, but the one time the resonance of his message was put to the test was at the midterm elections. Then, Biden demonstrated a grasp of the national mood that most pundits and political professionals missed. It turns out many Americans continue to care deeply about the state of their democracy and the maintenance of institutional protections for basic rights.

Read more: Midterm election results reflect the hodgepodge of US voters, not the endorsement or repudiation of a candidate’s or party’s agenda

Biden can seem like a relic from a different age. He ambles, and he is visibly frailer than he used to be. He reminisces a lot about the good old days. He is easy to dismiss.

But he also represents something more. He represents tradition, a form of politics that is not trapped in constant, partisan trench warfare on every issue. He reminds people of a time when things got done. From a distance, we can dismiss this as misguided nostalgia. But there is nothing nostalgic in millions of Americans wishing for a government that actually governs.

Biden may be from a different time. But against the odds, the president may have found his moment.

Emma Shortis is a member of the Independent and Peaceful Australia Network.

Liam Byrne does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

CFP: Practical Academic Librarianship

Journal Home Page: https://pal-ojs-tamu.tdl.org/pal/

Interested in sharing your research? Want to get more involved in your professional community? Consider submitting your work to Practical Academic Librarianship!

One of two peer-reviewed journals published by the Special Libraries Association Academic & Education Community, Practical Academic Librarianship (PAL) is an open access, double blind peer-reviewed journal focused on innovative writing from new and established academic librarians and information professionals serving academic departments or affiliated institutions including centers, institutes, specialized collections, and special units within or related to academic units. Well-written manuscripts that are of interest to these communities will be considered, including:

• implementation of new initiatives and best practices;
• original and significant research findings with practical applications;
• analysis of issues and trends;
• descriptive narratives of successful and unsuccessful ventures;
• examination of the role of libraries in meeting specialized client needs.

Articles: We accept articles reporting on empirical research, professional practice, case studies, and other studies focused on practical applications to academic library work. Submissions should be include a literature review, methods section, results, conclusions, and bibliography, and should be accompanied by an abstract up to 300 words. Article length will vary depending on topic, but should not be more than 25 manuscript pages, single spaced.

Think Pieces: These articles are intended to spur discussion and are not subject to double-blind peer review; however, they are screened by the Co-Editors. The pieces should aim to ask provocative questions for future research and debate, rather than provide definitive answers. Think pieces should run approximately 3-15 manuscript pages, single-spaced, 1000-6000 words total. The use of visual aids such as images, video clips, or links is encouraged.

Membership in SLA is not required for publication. Practical Academic Librarianship publishes items as soon as they are ready by adding articles to the current volume’s Table of Contents. The journal publishes two issues a year: the first issue runs January 1 - June 30 and the second issue runs July 1 - December 31.

For more information about Practical Academic Librarianship, including author guidelines, visit the PAL journal page. We look forward to hearing from you!

Fiesta Day in Ybor City is a time for food, fun, and relaxation. In the 1800s, it started as a day of rest for Ybor City cigar workers. Now it has become an overall celebration of ethnic diversity. Ybor City will have its 76th Fiesta Day on Saturday, February 25.

The history of Fiesta Day in Ybor City

By the late 1800s, Ybor City was already the “Cigar Capital of the World.” Primarily an immigrant district, Ybor City was full of Spanish, Italian, Cuban, and German immigrants and African Americans. Fiesta Day was always held in the winter and had two distinct parts. First was the Promenade of Flags. This is a parade where participants proudly hold their flag up high as they march from Nebraska to 10th Avenue. The other part was the Heritage Trail. This featured people dressing in different outfits representing their unique culture.

Fiesta Day was also seen as Ybor City’s alternative to Gasparilla. During this event, most of 7th Avenue shut down as vendors set up tents to sell souvenirs and food. One of the most popular dishes was Spanish Bean Soup. This dish was similar to the cigar workers’ food in the early days of Ybor.

Fiesta Day now

Fiesta Day still attracts thousands of people each year. Tons of local vendors line the streets of 7th Avenue to sell crafts, food, art, and more. There’s live music and performances by local artists. This year will include opera singers, Columbia flamenco dancers, Nita Laca and Friends, and much more.

Historic clubs like the L’Unione Italiana and the Circulo Cubano take part and celebrate the different cultures that make up Ybor. The Ybor City Chamber of Commerce hosts the events and works hard to ensure Fiesta Day highlights everything Ybor City has to offer. The event is on February, 25 from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. on 7th Avenue.

Here’s the schedule for the main entertainment this Fiesta Day

The post Fiesta Day Celebrates Ybor’s Immigrant Culture appeared first on ModernGlobe.

Audubon Florida is concerned by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s imminent proposal to remove the Wood Stork from Endangered Species Act protection. The Everglades were once this species’ heartland, supporting massive colonies of this iconic wading bird. Today, the region’s megacolonies are a distant memory and in many seasons, chicks starve in their nests for lack of food due to loss and degradation of wetland habitat.

What is a Wood Stork?

Storks are found in wetlands, marshes, and swamps in the southeastern United States. This includes Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina, as well as in parts of Central and South America.

Wood Storks have a distinctive appearance. They have a bald head and long, thick, down-curved bill that they use to catch fish, frogs, and other aquatic prey. They have a dark, featherless head and neck, and their body is mostly white with black flight feathers. Quite tall, they stand about 3 to 4 feet tall and have a wingspan of 5 to 6 feet.

Don’t call it a comeback

While storks have recently spread northward, it’s unclear whether these outposts can survive long-term, especially with the loss of habitat protections that would accompany delisting and the uncertainties posed by climate change.

Audubon Florida is going to vet the findings cited in the proposal. They also plant to provide additional resources that document the significance and vulnerability of this species. South Florida’s Wood Storks were the anchor of the U.S. population for a very long time and could be crucial to the species if the gains of recent years prove short-lived. Audubon Florida has grave concerns for the future of the Wood Stork. Especially if it is left without the protections afforded under the Endangered Species Act.

The post Audubon Florida Questions USFWS Proposed Removal of Wood Stork appeared first on ModernGlobe.

You might have seen the news fans of singer Lewis Capaldi helped him finish a song at a concert this week, after symptoms of his Tourette syndrome suddenly flared up and temporarily prevented him from performing.

So, what is Tourette syndrome and how is it managed?

Here’s what you need to know.

Read more: Billie Eilish and Tourette's: our new study reveals what it's really like to live with the condition

What is Tourette syndrome?

Named after 19th century researcher Gilles de la Tourette, Tourette syndrome is a neurological or neurodevelopmental condition.

It’s characterised by tics, which are involuntary movements or vocalisations.

Many people have simple tics, especially children. But the official definition of Tourette syndrome is motor and vocal tics nearly every day over more than 12 months.

There are two types of tics: motor tics and vocal tics.

Common motor tics often involve the head and neck. They can include things like:

• eye blinking

• facial grimacing

• jerking the head and neck

• mouth movements

• shoulder jerks or jerking other parts of the body.

Vocal tics can include:

• throat clearing sounds

• humming sounds

• huffing or grunting

• sniffing

• high pitched squeals

• part of a word or syllable

• sometimes whole words or phrases.

Sometimes in more severe cases of Tourette syndrome, people might have more complex tics and more orchestrated sequences of movements. This can include, for example, turning in a certain direction or tapping something a certain number of times. Often it’s a sequence that feels right for that person, which they have to complete to relieve tension.

Initially there is what we call a “premonitory urge”. It’s like an itch or the feeling you get before you sneeze. There’s a build-up up of tension and it’s relieved by the expression of the tic.

People are often able to recognise this feeling prior to the tic and that’s an important part of tic management.

Tics usually have onset in childhood, typically in the early primary school years, but occasionally later in life.

Read more: Why is my eye twitching?

Tourette syndrome often runs a frustratingly waxing and waning course. There may be periods where it’s not noticed for weeks or even months and then it comes back.

Sometimes tics get worse in response to stress, like the start of a new school term or moving house. Sometimes they get worse for no reason at all.

There can be an element of suggestibility; talking about a tic can bring on that tic.

There’s also a degree of suppressibility. People with tics can either subconsciously or consciously suppress them. Kids often don’t have many tics at school because they know they might get teased, but after school the parent often sees a lot of tics come flowing out.

People can often camouflage tics. For example, if they have an urge to jerk their arm, they may scratch their chin and transform it into something else. That’s often a part of treatment or a method their team may work with them on.

How is it treated?

Often we don’t need to do anything about Tourette syndrome because it’s not causing problems in terms of a person’s self-esteem or their broader life. They can still hold a pen or a spoon and it’s not affecting their day-to-day function.

Most cases are not severe and the tics don’t need any intervention.

But many kids with Tourette syndrome also have other conditions such as ADHD, OCD and anxiety. So if the Tourette syndrome isn’t causing harm the paediatrician may be more concerned about treating those issues first.

The marker for Tourette syndrome needing treatment is whether it’s bothering the child.

If it is, we consider what we can do about the tics themselves. They are quite hard to treat.

A psychologist will usually work on general anxiety management strategies, as anxiety can be a significant driver of tics.

There is also a treatment strategy known as comprehensive behavioural intervention for tics, which is a dedicated program to help people manage their tics. But it can be difficult to access due to availability.

There are medications for severe cases but they’re not very effective at reducing tics and can cause side effects.

Read more: Tourette syndrome: Finally, something to shout about

Why do some people get Tourette syndrome?

We think Tourette is largely genetic.

It’s nothing to do with anything the parents have done or the child has done, and it’s not caused by anything that happened during pregnancy.

It’s not one gene that causes it but rather a combination.

Reducing stigma is key

Tourette syndrome is, by nature, a highly stigmatising condition because at the severe end people can do very unusual things and draw attention to themselves, through no fault of their own, which can cause embarrassment.

One thing we can do for kids, if they are able to, is suggest they go to their school with the support of a carer or parent and talk to classmates about their Tourette. They explain what it is and why they can’t help it. Often that can lead to more acceptance from other kids.

Most people with Tourette syndrome can live normal lives.

Education is key to reducing stigma. The Tourette Syndrome Association of Australia has some great information and resources.

Daryl Efron does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

This week, Ukrainian writer Maria Tumarkin announced her withdrawal from Adelaide Writers’ Week, along with fellow Ukrainians Olesya Khromeychuk and Kateryna Babkina. (Tumarkin writes that she doesn’t support calls for resignations, cancellations, or boycotts of the event.)

A statement posted on Tumarkin’s website quotes from letters the three Ukranian writers wrote to Writers’ Week director Louise Adler about the festival’s inclusion of Palestinian author Susan Abulhawa, who has shared a tweet from Putin: “DeNazify Ukraine”, and stated:

Zelenskyy would rather drag the world into the inferno of World War III, instead of giving up NATO ambitions. He would rather pull us all into slaughter than allow Ukraine to prosper as a neutral nation.

According to Denis Muller, writing on The Conversation last week, arguments against Abulhawa’s language are “fundamentally political”.

Tumarkin’s statement takes issue with this perspective:

Statements in which Zelensky (who’s Jewish) is called a Nazi, fascist, someone responsible for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and/or WWIII are not anti-Zelensky and/or pro-Putin. They are forms of genocide cheering (a step up from genocide apology). They do not exist in the space of discourse only and do not represent something that can be classified as merely a contentious political opinion.

Read more: Are calls to cancel two Palestinian writers from Adelaide Writers' Week justified?

Anti-war can mean pro-genocide

Tumarkin’s response is a small masterpiece of tone control, fluency and incisiveness. Anyone committed to the importance of writing in a complex and dangerous world should study it.

As author of a multi-award-winning book, Axiomatic, Tumarkin is concerned about the resort to supposedly self-evident truths in the face of traumatic experience. Her alertness to ready-made phrases and automatic thinking is evident as she deftly sidesteps the ways she may be positioned by them.

“I feel rage and no outrage,” she says. She won’t be lectured on developing a higher tolerance for “confronting ideas”, although when it comes to confronting ideas, she has a few of her own to share. In the past year she’s learned a lot, she says, and “perhaps the most salient lesson is that anti-war can mean pro-genocide”.

It means pro-genocide in Ukraine now, she writes, while:

Russian troops are killing, raping, torturing and kidnapping civilians across Ukraine, and so long as Russian missiles are destroying hospitals, schools and residential highrises with sleeping families inside them daily and nightly. Ukraine by now is the most mined country in the world. They mine dead mothers with still-alive babies tied to them.

Read more: A year on, Russia's war on Ukraine threatens to redraw the map of world politics – and 2023 will be crucial

Not about ‘cancel culture’

Adler has described objections to her programming as “cancel culture”. In her letter to Adler, Tumarkin rejects the term as “caked in so much ideology and used so self-servingly” that it is not remotely useful.

Adler says if we “cannot with care and considered approach engage with complex and contentious issues, then we have a problem in civil society”.

But how useful are our notions of free speech when some of the participants in those conversations are from active war zones, and their lives and loved ones are being affected in real time? The language used by Adler presumes a certain level of civility between participants, and in the wider milieu. For Tumarkin, the situation has another level of gravity. She writes:

Literary festivals, as they operate in Australia, are not robust enough structures to hold space for writers with irreconcilable views and politics when these concern ongoing wars or genocidal violence, ie. life and death. Irreconcilability.

Tolerance, difference of opinion, dialogue, openness, civic discourse – even if we generously think of these as principles not self-serving slogans, they’re useless in the face of dehumanisation and violence which such irreconcilability creates overtly and covertly.

Festivals’ insistence that it is possible and advisable to inhabit a realm of ideas when the living struggle to keep up with burying their dead make things worse. This insistence works to empty conversations (ostensibly about books) of actual politics and fills them instead with over-determined ideology. On all sides.

She urges us to read the work of the two other Ukranian writers who now won’t be appearing at Writers’ Week, Olesya Khromeychuk and Kateryna Babkina. “Both of them are astounding, by the way.”

Read more: Is cancel culture silencing open debate? There are risks to shutting down opinions we disagree with

Olesya Khromeychuk’s ‘drive to explain’

Khromeychuk is an historian specialising in East-Central Europe, and director of the Ukrainian Institute in London. Born in Lviv, she left Ukraine at the age of 16 when her parents chose to escape the environment of rampant corruption that prevailed at the time.

“I grew up in a building, city and region filled with untold stories,” she says, and as a migrant Ukrainian living in London, it was always a struggle to have her voice heard. In a recent interview for BBC HardTalk, she comes across as someone with a drive to explain what is happening in a country poorly understood in Western Europe.

It is a drive that preceded the current Russian invasion. Her brother was killed fighting in eastern Ukraine in 2017, during the Russian occupation of the Crimea. He had urged her to go to the front line because, he said, only those who were there could see what was going on.

Not wanting to be a liability as an unarmed observer, she instead chose to bear witness by recording the testimony of others. “We were already aware of the concentration camp in Donetsk,” she says. But people at a distance found it very difficult to separate the Russian propaganda from reports of reality on the ground.“

They still do. "Donetsk” is a trigger word in the propaganda environment, attracting clusters of people with fierce opinions about what happened there and why, but little or no knowledge. She chose to write about it by telling her brother’s story, “a universal story of grief”, in the hopes it might be a way to explain what was at stake to a wider public that had chosen to turn a blind eye to the Russian incursion.

Her book The Death of a Soldier Told by his Sister, published in 2022, has been updated with new chapters responding to the full invasion that began last year.

Kateryna Babkina: can only write about war

Babkina, a poet and currently International Writer in E-Residence at McMaster, is also living in exile after fleeing her home in Kyiv with her mother and young daughter in March last year.

She spoke at the Ukrainian Institute in London in November, telling her story as someone who grew up in Western Ukraine in a Soviet, Russian-speaking family. Her grandfather was a Russian army commander. They were, she says “totally brainwashed”.

Her adolescence was a process of gradually discovering the freedoms of Ukrainian culture, and waking up to the paradox that, though her family needed to defend their right to speak their mother tongue, that in itself was an historic imposition on Ukrainian citizens, under regimes that punished Ukrainian speakers and imprisoned their teachers.

A drive to write took over in adulthood, but

I discovered that I can’t really write about anything except for war, feeling of loss, feeling of fear […] Two, three generations have lost our basic feeling of safety for ever, because this is not something that is coming back. Never ever are we going to be confident in our tomorrow.

Read more: Friday essay: Svetlana Alexeviech didn't make it to the Royal Commission

Rage born of grief and loss

They’ve been through a lot, these three women who will not be appearing at Writers Week. If they have some rage to express, it is rage born of grief and loss, and a fierce sense of justice. There is such a thing as legitimate political rage: against the violent invasion of cities and homes, atrocities committed against civilians.

What is lost for us here is some important public intelligence and human insight about war and invasion.

“I am not interested in being part of the discourse,” writes Maria Tumarkin in what is intended to present her final word on the matter. There will be no interviews. “If you still feel agitated, please donate to Ukraine, Turkey, Syria or Iran.”

Jane Goodall does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Following an on-campus protest he led against Gov. Ron DeSantis’ gender-affirming care investigation on Feb. 1, junior economics and philosophy major Ben Braver said himself and other USF community members felt compelled to create a larger platform for underrepresented students and faculty. 

“We are here to celebrate diversity in thought and freedom in education,” he said. “We are doing walkouts across the state of every single public college campus in the state, in many of the private campuses and in many of the high schools to celebrate what makes our education amazing because we, as students, love our education… we want to show Ron DeSantis that we care about our freedom in education.”

In the wake of DeSantis’ Jan. 31 announcement of his plans to eliminate funding for diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs and critical race theory on Florida’s public college campuses, defending the rights of students and educators to continue studying the histories of marginalized communities seemed like nothing other than a necessary endeavor, according to Braver. 

Braver worked alongside leadership from a group of community organizations and USF clubs  – including Dream Defenders, Stand for Freedom (SFF), the Trans+ Student Union (TSU) and College Democrats – to coordinate a statewide walkout in protest of DeSantis’ recent proposals and investigations for students and faculty on Thursday between noon and 1 p.m. 

Over 500 students, community members and faculty gathered on the Marshall Student Center lawn to listen to a series of guest speakers, professor-led teach-ins and speeches from club leaders. The floor was also open to any others who wished to speak.

Attendees held cardboards, protest signs and posed with pride flags during the walkout. 

As speakers began to touch on the importance of DEI and diversity as a whole, the audience shouted in support – at one point chanting “Racist, sexist, anti-gay, Ron DeSantis go away.” 

While coordinating simultaneous walkouts across many of Florida’s public universities – including FAMU, FSU, UNF and UCF – was challenging for himself and the leadership team of SFF, the organization coordinating the protests, Braver said he appreciated students and faculty being able to come together as a collective regardless of campus. 

TSU president Charlie Suor opened the floor of the walk-out by speaking on the impact of DeSantis’ investigations on LGBTQ students, their rights and the future of LGBTQ education. 

Citing his personal experiences with struggling to find education on transgender history prior to attending USF, Suor said barring students from learning about LGBTQ people will cast a shadow on narratives that have historically been understudied. 

“When I found out about queer history, I was in high school and I had to teach it all to myself. So when I got to college, I was like ‘Finally, there are queer classes, I can learn about it.’ When we talk about queer history, we just talked about the Stonewall riots, but there’s so much more before that and there’s so much more that came after that,” he said. 

“I think the best way that we can change [a lack of knowledge] is by teaching ourselves about trans history, finding places that you can learn about trans culture. And one of the best places to do that is at universities because it’s where we’re allowed to be these things.” 

Rallied up by Tampa Bay Students for a Democratic Society speaker Lauren Pineiro, students and faculty alike repeated “Stand up, fight back.” Pineiro said only a strong student movement, such as the fight to increase black enrollment in universities that has been around since the 1960s, can “save” diversity programs. 

Sophomore English major Andy Nipper, who attended the walkout, said as a transgender student himself, he initially felt scared for his physical safety prior to attending the protest. However, he said it gradually became a concern that the protest may receive negative backlash from DeSantis.

“Before I came here, I was kind of nervous about violence happening, because we are in Florida and there’s some fears I have with the gun laws and everything. I hope the only negative thing that comes out of this is just going to be a general right wing backlash like ‘Oh, the students are gathering on campus,’ I really hope [DeSantis’] response is just words and that it doesn’t get worse,” he said. 

Members of USF faculty, such as associate integrative biology professor Christina Richards and philosophy professor Lee Braver, were also able to join the conversation by performing a teach-in. 

Despite fearing negative repercussions for speaking out at the protest given his position as a tenured professor, Lee said he felt the responsibility to join his son, Ben Braver, and use the protections of his tenure to bring students together and remind them of their ability to create political change. 

“I hope [today] gets more students involved. I hope it registers more students to vote. Voting is the ultimate place where the rubber hits the road. A lot of students can come and talk a lot and yell and get excited, but if they don’t vote, then at the end of the day people still get elected that they’re going to disagree with,” he said. 

Getting the students involved is the best way to fight back, according to Richards. Though many faculty members stand in opposition to DeSantis’ proposals, Richards said faculty feel as though they have no power and are afraid to risk their livelihoods. Students, however, find themselves in a different position, she said. 

“Once we get the students to understand what’s going on, then the students will engage and then we’ll have the power of the voice of a group of people who actually really care about this,” Richards said. “That’s gonna drown out the voices of those who don’t want to support DEI or who want to cancel it.”

As event organizer Jonathon Chavez read SFF’s mission statement, the crowd roared in support. SFF demanded Gov. DeSantis take back proposals eliminating DEI and to work towards improvements as well as to support both academic independence and tenure. Chavez called for state senators and house representatives to vote against any blanket DEI ban that undermines academic freedom. 

SFF will be holding another protest at New College Feb. 28, according to Braver. Given their list of demands, Chavez said the purpose of Thursday’s protest, along with future events, is to raise awareness to the idea that students, not legislatures, should be able to control their own education. 

“It is insulting each and every one of us that the governor would make it so clear that he does not respect the will of the people and their capacity to make choices and to better themselves and to educate themselves,” Chavez said. 

“We want to ensure that all students have continuity, have access to the resources at their universities which provide them assistance or improve their university experience. We want to give a platform to empower the voices of elected leaders who have already taken strong stances of supporting higher education and the content.”

Fear engulfed everyone during the pandemic. Yet when a vaccine became available, it was met with fierce resistance. Anti-vaccination crowds formed, and some of these groups argued this vaccine was against their religious beliefs.

Many didn’t trust the scientists and their explanation for how they said the disease spread. A lot of people didn’t believe the vaccine worked as well as governments claimed, or they felt mandatory vaccinations violated their personal freedom.

Misinformation also proliferated, sowing doubt about the safety of vaccines and accusing governments and scientists of sinister motives.

You may think I am referring to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, I am not. This eerily familiar scenario played out in the 19th century when smallpox was still raging across Europe.

Anti-vaccination groups, as well as other anti-science movements, are not new phenomena, nor are the nature of their objections. Unfortunately, because history is usually ignored when dealing with current scientific issues, people fail to acknowledge that most anti-science arguments have been around for centuries.

The fact that we live in a misinformation era shows these anti-science movements are also quite effective. And they have had a deadly impact on our society. For example, researchers found that between January 2021 and April 2022, vaccinations could have prevented at least 318,000 COVID-19 deaths in the US.

Questioning the experts

A good example of how history is being overlooked is the notion that people’s rejection of expertise is a new phenomenon. Yet, in 1925, a Tennessee high school teacher, John Scopes, went on trial for teaching the theory of evolution to his students, which (due to the recent Butler Act) was considered illegal.

What became known as the Scopes monkey trial started as a publicity stunt by the American Civil Liberties Union, which was itching to challenge the Tennessee state’s Butler Act. But it quickly turned into a face-off between an anti-evolutionist prosecutor and a defence team eager to debunk fundamentalist Christianity.

The trial ended with Scopes pleading guilty and handed a small fine. He is, however, still seen by many as a defender of science, likely because of the 1960 movie based on Scopes’ story.

The trial is important to science communication because of the rejection of expert witnesses. Seven out of eight experts were blocked from speaking (their testimonies were deemed irrelevant).

We saw a repeat of such rejection of expertise nearly a century later with COVID-19. Dr Anthony Fauci, the most prominent US government public health spokesperson during the pandemic, was often met with distrust by many members of the public, and was criticised by Donald Trump when he was president. Trump had paved the way for this by pronouncing that “experts are terrible” during his 2016 presidential campaign.)

Fauci was even falsely accused of funding research to develop the virus and of conspiring with Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and the pharmaceutical industry to become rich from COVID vaccines. All this is likely to have affected how some people responded to Fauci’s crucial information during the pandemic.

Expertise, trustworthiness, and objectivity are the components that make up someone’s credibility. So when scientists are portrayed as biased, the effectiveness of their communication plummets.

Treating sceptics with disrespect achieves nothing

Most scientists get little (if any) communication training, which can leave them unprepared for online showdowns over contested science. Take the immunologist Roberto Burioni as an example. In 2016, he caused a row when he deleted all comments relating to a Facebook discussion about vaccination. Burioni added a highly insensitive post that read:

“Here only those who have studied can comment, not the common citizen. Science is not democratic.”

This post did attract some likes but also many death threats and alienated countless people.

Of course, the scale of the misinformation problem can feel overwhelming. And partly since some research suggests countering falsehoods can end up reinforcing them), experts often avoid these types of debates.

However, a growing body of work suggests correcting misinformation can be worthwhile and effective. The information needs to be tailored to the audience, though, because a standard explanation may not fit everyone.

A fork in the road

Many scientists have an aptitude for engaging the public. MIT-engineer and Emmy-nominated science TV host Emily Calandrelli and blow-gun-wielding neurobiologist Robert Sapolsky have captured the imaginations of millions of people with no background in science.

The late neurologist Oliver Sacks was known as the “poet laureate of medicine” for his work writing about poorly understood conditions such as Tourette’s syndrome and autism. There are science YouTube channels with tens of millions of subscribers and blogs that attract millions of views.

But the smallpox protests and the Scopes trial are not isolated historical events. History can help scientists reevaluate how they communicate, stop repeating mistakes, and form better relationships with the public.

Katrine K. Donois does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

In January 2023, Hamline University opted not to renew the contract of an art professor who showed a 14th-century depiction of the Prophet Muhammad in class. Hamline labeled the incident “Islamophobic” and released a statement, co-signed by the university’s president, saying that respect for “Muslim students … should have superseded academic freedom.”

After widespread backlash, the university walked back that statement. However, the lecturer was still not rehired.

Concerns about academic freedom are nothing new. Rather than being a product of recent “cancel culture,” tension has long existed over the ability of professors to freely teach and write about controversial topics without fear of retribution.

More than 80 years ago, an English professor named Samuel Steward was dismissed from his teaching position after publishing what his college’s president deemed a “racy” novel.

As an archivist and scholar studying publishing in the American West, I’ve located published and unpublished archival sources detailing the controversy surrounding Steward after he published his first novel, which ultimately cost him his job.

A book met with backlash

A native of the Midwest, Steward earned his Ph.D. in English in 1934 from Ohio State University. The following year, Washington State College – now Washington State University – hired Steward to teach classes on a one-year contract.

An aspiring writer, Steward drafted his first novel while still a graduate student. He worked to find a publisher and contacted a small firm in rural Idaho. After an editorial review, Caxton Printers agreed to publish Steward’s novel, “Angels on the Bough,” which told the story of a small group of characters and their intertwined lives in a college town.

Founded in 1907, Caxton Printers has earned national attention for its fierce defense of freedom of expression and unique publishing philosophy. Caxton’s founder, James H. Gipson, understood the transformative power of books and sought to give a voice to deserving writers when other firms rejected them. Profit was not a motivator. As Gipson explained to Steward, “We are interested not in making money out of any author for whom we may publish, but in helping him.”

Caxton published “Angels on the Bough” in May 1936.

The book immediately received reviews, almost entirely positive, in dozens of newspapers across the country. The New York Times wrote favorably about the novel, describing Steward as possessing “a very distinct gift above the usual.”

And Gertrude Stein, the American writer and expatriate who lived most of her life in France, lauded “Angels on the Bough” in a letter she penned to Steward.

“I like it I like it a lot, you have really created a piece of something,” Stein wrote. “It quite definitely did something to me.”

Steward loses his job

Despite the favorable reception, the book started causing trouble for Steward before it was even published. Review copies reached campus in early May 1936. Steward soon began hearing rumors that college administrators found his book distasteful for its sympathetic portrayal of a prostitute, one of the main characters.

Yet, as Steward noted in an interview during the 1970s, the book was “very tame – reading like ‘Little Women’ by today’s standards.”

Steward sent an urgent telegram to Gipson asking him to stop selling the book on campus: “A young poor man with only one job asks that you withdraw his novel … because his departmental head and dean hint at his discharge.”

Caxton had advertised the book as “not appeal[ing] to the less liberal mind.” This “alarmed several people,” according to Steward. The head of the English department told Steward his book contained “unsavory material” and that Steward’s position “would undoubtedly prove very embarrassing” to the college.

Despite this, Steward still planned to return to teach classes the following autumn. Earlier that spring, he had been verbally assured that he would receive another one-year contract. Three weeks later, however – and just hours before he left campus for the summer – Washington State’s president, Ernest O. Holland, summoned Steward to a meeting.

Holland informed Steward his contract would not be renewed. He accused Steward of writing a “racy” novel and of being sympathetic with a student strike a month earlier.

Angered, Steward immediately dashed off a telegram to Gipson: “Discharged by God Holland for writing a racy novel … I have no regrets whatsoever despite the fact his methods were those of Hitler but think I will take up stenography.”

Steward and Gipson both set to work to widely publicize Steward’s dismissal. Steward appealed to the Association of American University Professors for assistance. Founded in 1915, the association’s primary purpose is “to advance academic freedom.” The organization still regularly investigates violations of academic freedom, including what happened at Hamline University.

After months of investigation, the AAUP published its report. It determined that Steward had been unjustly let go and concluded that “President Holland’s handling of the Steward case has been most ill-judged, and indicates … improper restriction of literary freedom.”

From teaching to tattooing

After leaving Washington State, Steward promptly found a position at Loyola, a Catholic university in Chicago. Before hiring him, Loyola’s dean read Steward’s book and apparently had no objections. An AAUP member noted the irony: “Apparently our Catholic brethren are much more tolerant than a state institution in Washington.”

Outside of teaching, Steward, who was gay, published gay erotica under the pseudonym Phil Andros and took up tattooing. By 1956, Steward permanently left academia to ply his trade as a tattoo artist full time on Chicago’s South State Street under another alias, Philip Sparrow.

In the 1960s, he moved to California and opened up a tattoo parlor in Oakland, where he became the “official” tattoo artist for the Hells Angels motorcycle club.

After retiring from tattooing, Steward lived a quiet life in Berkeley. He still wrote frequently, producing a handful of fiction and nonfiction books. Steward died in California in 1993 at the age of 84.

Despite his prolific and varied career, Steward’s legacy as a “remarkable figure in gay literary history” was not widely known until the publication of Justin Spring’s meticulously researched 2010 book, “Secret Historian.”

Interest in Steward continues. Performance artist John Kelly recently staged a show, “Underneath the Skin,” in December 2022 that examined Steward’s life.

It is impossible, of course, to know the trajectory of Samuel Steward’s career if he had been reappointed to Washington State for another year. But a prescient comment Steward made just before his dismissal suggests that he sensed he couldn’t stay in academia forever: “I am afraid I will have to get out of the teaching profession in order to be able to write the way I want to.”

Academic freedom is related to free speech. A long-standing tradition afforded to college faculty, it shields professors from retribution – from both internal and external sources – for teaching controversial topics within their area of expertise. According to the AAUP, academic freedom is based on the premise that higher education promotes “the common good (which) depends upon the free search for truth and its free exposition.”

This protection covers both classroom lectures and publications.

With debates about academic freedom lately making headlines – from outside interests influencing appointments, to administrators kowtowing to vocal students, to politicians changing oversight of public universities – Steward’s plight some 87 years ago is a reminder that this freedom requires constant defense.

Alessandro Meregaglia does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Birds have mesmerized and inspired artists for centuries. Etched Feathers examines the works and artistic processes of John Costin and other bird artists and devotees, whose creations capture the essence of winged beauty. See this incredible exhibit from March 4-Oct 15 in the Wayne Thomas Gallery at the Tampa Bay History Center.

The state of Florida is a birders paradise. Pelicans, spoonbills, herons, hawks, screech owls, parrots, and other stunning avian species make the Sunshine State an even more lush and lovely place to call home. Artist John Costin, and other infatuated creatives have used dynamic processes to capture the majesty of these creatures. Both their works, and their processes will soon be on full display at the Tampa Bay History Center, just a quick walk from the Tampa Riverwalk.

John Costin has utilized the transfixing art of etching for more than 40 years. All of his etchings are of magnificent Florida birds. The intense detail of each piece is remarkable. Costin’s etchings start with shades of white, gray and black. He then keeps adding color until the birds he’s representing seem to animate and soar off the paper.

Etching is a rare art form today, but back in the 1800s the Audubon Society made hundreds of them. Costin, an ardent birder, has collected dozens of these old etchings. He uses these antiques as inspiration for his work.

“The process is challenging and I like that,” writes Costin in his artist statement. “1-5 copper plates are individually hand wiped with various colors of ink to create an image on paper; then each piece is meticulously hand colored.” 

The plates take months to create and many weeks of proofing are done before an acceptable piece is created. The etching process is a combination of drawing, sculpture and painting, and it is the oldest printing process in the world.

“One thing we want to express to our audience is that these were beautiful birds, but they also served an educational purpose,” said Brad Massey, a curator at Tampa Bay History Center, in an interview with Fox 13.

Etched Feathers: A History of the Printed Bird arrives at the Tampa Bay History Center on March 4. For more information on the exhibition, or to see upcoming events at the museum, visit TBHC’s website. Follow the Tampa Bay History Center on Facebook and Instagram for more cultural teasers. Visit John Costin’s website to see more of the artist’s work.

Tampa Bay History Center, 801 Water Street

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The post Etched Feathers brings the oldest printing process in the world to Tampa Bay History Center appeared first on That's So Tampa.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has now lasted for one year. As overwhelming victory for either side looks unlikely, many are now calling for a negotiated settlement to the war. For instance, China is promising details of a peace plan imminently.

A critical question underlying any negotiated settlement is: how can the demands on both sides be balanced to achieve a stable, durable peace?

The answer to this question often ignores an indispensable player, the Ukrainian people. For both legal and political reasons, Ukraine’s constitutional democracy requires any peace deal to be ratified by its people. If they are ignored, a stable peace deal is far less likely.

Negotiations hinging on Russia’s annexations

As we enter the second year of the war, bilateral negotiations are hopelessly deadlocked over the control of territory that lies within Ukraine’s internationally recognised borders.

On September 30, 2022, Russia illegally annexed four occupied territories in eastern and southern Ukraine.

Read more: Should the West negotiate with Russia? The pros and cons of high-level talks

In December, Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky proposed a 10-point peace plan that called for Russia to restore Ukraine’s territorial integrity and withdraw all of its armed forces from the country. Zelensky said this was “not up to negotiations”.

Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested he might be willing to negotiate, but the Kremlin later added Ukraine must recognise its annexation of the four Ukrainian regions.

In response, an increasing chorus of both “realist” and anti-war voices have argued that US President Joe Biden or the west more broadly must seek to broker a deal between Ukraine and Russia and stop the violence. This includes encouraging Ukraine to be “flexible” in its negotiations.

China is also putting forward a peace plan to encourage negotiations and end the war. It will reportedly focus on the need to uphold the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity, but take into account Russia’s security concerns.

This has led many into a moral debate about whether Ukraine should be pushed to negotiate over the status of its sovereign territory.

The forgotten role of the Ukrainian people

The discussion so far misses a critical reality. A stable peace deal cannot just be a diplomatic pact between Ukraine, Russia, China and the west. It also requires the support of the Ukrainian people for both legal and political reasons.

Legally, Ukraine is a constitutional democracy. This means any formal cession of Ukraine’s sovereign territory (including Crimea) would require constitutional change and, therefore, a referendum. In fact, article 156 of Ukraine’s Constitution requires such fundamental changes to be put to an all-Ukrainian referendum.

Read more: How can Russia's invasion of Ukraine end? Here's how peace negotiations have worked in past wars

Politically, any stable peace deal must have broad public support or it will be abandoned by a future leader.

Zelensky knows this. In March 2022, he was willing to promise Russia that Ukraine would never join NATO in return for other security guarantees from the US and Europe. But he said ultimately this decision was not his to make – it had to be ratified by the people.

This makes political sense: an unpopular set of concessions in a peace deal with Russia would end Zelensky’s political career and would likely be overturned by a future president.

The legal and political role of the Ukrainian people should come as no surprise. They were largely ignored in the Minsk agreements drawn up by diplomats in Ukraine, Russia and Europe to try to resolve the conflict that broke out after Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the Russian-backed insurgency in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region.

Most notably, article 11 of the Minsk II agreement required amendments to Ukraine’s Constitution decentralising control over the two regions in Donbas.

This agreement failed, in part, because of a lack of support from the Ukrainian people. The decentralisation reforms were highly controversial, triggering violent protests that ended any chance of reform.

Furthermore, in a 2019 referendum, the Ukrainian people inserted a commitment to “full-fledged membership” in NATO into Ukraine’s Constitution. This further undermined the implementation of the Minsk agreements.

Read more: Russia says peace in Ukraine will be ‘on our terms’ – but what can the West accept and at what cost?

Vast majority of Ukrainians reject giving land to Russia

Those wanting a peace deal, therefore, must accept the reality that a peace deal cannot simply be the result of clever diplomatic bargaining and negotiation. It must also take into account the realities of Ukrainian democracy and the important role the people play in Ukrainian politics.

Ignoring the role of the people would be a significant mistake. In fact, there is strong evidence showing the war is deepening hostility to Russia among the Ukrainian people. Consequently, it is increasingly unlikely that Ukrainians would endorse any Russian annexation of Ukraine’s sovereign territory (even Russia’s 2014 absorption of Crimea).

In fact, polling shows as many as 84% of Ukrainians now reject any territorial concessions to Russia.

Ukrainian popular opinion can certainly change over time, particularly if a peace deal is crafted in a way that will garner support from the Ukrainian people. But the need for popular support will undoubtedly constrain the number of concessions that Ukraine can make and shape the details of any peace deal.

However, if these popular constraints are ignored, it is hard to avoid an even more sobering conclusion: short of major change in the war – such as overwhelming victory for either side or new leadership in Russia – it will be increasingly difficult to get a stable peace deal at all.

William Partlett does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

One of the year’s most anticipated podcasts, The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling, has just launched. Only two episodes of the audio documentary are currently available, with more to follow in the coming weeks.

Rowling is arguably the world’s most successful fiction author. She reigns over the multibillion-dollar Harry Potter industry, which includes books, theme parks, films and computer games.

But it is the controversy over Rowling’s statements on gender and trans rights that have fuelled the wider public interest in the podcast. These are not the focus of the early episodes, which nevertheless provide some revealing contextualising information about her stance.

What’s all the fuss about?

Even before 2020, when Rowling tweeted her frustration about an article that referred to “people who menstruate”, questions about her stance on trans issues had been building.

In 2019, Rowling came out in support of Maya Forstater, who lost her job for tweets disputing whether transgender women can change their sex. Forstater claimed her employer had unfairly discriminated against her. Last year, an employment tribunal agreed.

There was an immediate groundswell of protest against Rowling’s tweets, with many people – including lifelong Harry Potter fans – calling out her claims as “transphobic”. Several actors in the Harry Potter films distanced themselves from Rowling with strong messages of support for trans people. Stephen King, an idol of Rowling’s, was blocked by her on Twitter after he tweeted: “Trans women are women”.

Rowling then published an essay, explaining that while she sympathised with many trans people’s need for safety, she had concerns about the contemporary trans movement. These included the explosion of young women wishing to transition into men, the safety of women’s spaces being compromised if they were opened to biological males, and the climate of fear that many experience when discussing these issues publicly.

Rowling discussed how her view was shaped by her own challenges with sexuality as a young woman, and being a domestic abuse and sexual assault survivor.

The essay was the subject of immediate controversy. Many asserted it was dangerous and transphobic. Rowling was castigated as a “TERF”: a Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist. (Many of Rowling’s supporters prefer the term “gender critical”.) Commentators penned detailed arguments that Rowling’s claims were flawed and baseless.

The wider context

One relevant context of Rowling’s position concerns the status, safety and legal protections available to trans people. Another is the state of free speech, the polarisation of public debate, and the implications of disagreement in the contemporary world.

Less than a month after her Twitter controversy, Rowling was a signatory to an open letter published in Harper’s magazine, claiming that “open debate and toleration of differences” were under attack. Rowling’s signature sat alongside those of many other famous authors and scholars, including Margaret Atwood, Gloria Steinem and Noam Chomsky.

Spearheaded and drafted by US author and cultural critic Thomas Chatterton Williams, the letter argued there was increasing censoriousness characterised by:

an intolerance of opposing views, a vogue for public shaming and ostracism, and the tendency to dissolve complex policy issues in a blinding moral certainty.

The Open Letter created its own controversy, with other luminaries speaking out against it.

Almost three years on, the culture wars continue on this issue. What some see as necessary measures to prevent harms and respond to systemic inequality, others see as “cancel culture” – the practice of responding to disagreeable views with efforts to deplatform, disinvite, suppress or punish the speaker. As a culture, we seem to have lost the capacity to disagree constructively.

There is little sign such views are abating. Indeed, a 2022 survey of UK university students showed a hardening of positions against free expression, with a third of those polled thinking academics should be fired if they teach material that heavily offends some students.

What now?

The podcast aims to explore this larger context. As the host, Megan Phelps-Roper, explains:

The longer I watched the current controversy unfold, the more I wanted to understand: how did the people in these conflicts view what was happening? How did Rowling understand herself and her critics, past and present – and vice versa? Why had she chosen this hill to die on? And how had the conversation devolved so fully that it didn’t seem possible to have a productive conversation at all?

Behind the documentary is The Free Press, a new media company that is no stranger to reporting on trans issues. It recently published a whistleblower’s harrowing account of practices in a US paediatric gender clinic.

Phelps-Roper has her own intriguing backstory, having been born into the infamous Westboro Baptist Church. In her teens, she protested at funerals of US soldiers, whose deaths the Church saw as punishment for America’s tolerance of homosexuality. When she was put in charge of the Church’s Twitter account, she encountered many angry responses, but also genuine dialogue. When people pointed out contradictions in the Church’s positions, her previously unshakeable faith was shaken.

Ultimately, Phelps-Roper left the Church and married the man who had, via Twitter, helped to change her mind. She remains a believer in the power of conversation.

Read more: Hogwarts Legacy's game mechanics reflect the gender essentialism at the heart of Harry Potter

Plotted in Darkness

The first episode, Plotted in Darkness, explores the dark place that was Rowling’s life as a young woman.

It opens with Rowling being asked why she thinks stories about magic are so appealing. She reflects that magic provides agency. It is a secret power, seductive to those who lack control over their lives. Children in particular have little agency, she observes.

Rowling speaks from personal experience. Power over one’s destiny is a thread that weaves in complicated ways through her life story. In her own voice, she describes her life in her late twenties. We hear of the death of her mother, her abusive marriage, the poverty and insecurity she experienced as a single parent on welfare, and her struggles with mental health.

And yet all the while she was working, plotting out and writing the manuscript that would one day be her ticket to financial security and popular acclaim. Rowling’s abusive and controlling husband, we learn, literally held the pages of the Harry Potter manuscript hostage to control her and prevent her from fleeing his violence.

It will be a hard-hearted listener who remains unmoved by Rowling’s extraordinary rags-to-riches life story.

Burn the Witch

Episode two, Burn the Witch, reminds us that the current controversy is not the first time Rowling has been subjected to outraged calls that her work be suppressed.

In the 1990s, those calls came from a very different political standpoint. When Harry Potter became an unprecedented publishing and cultural phenomenon, and the spiritual practice of Wicca began having its own cultural moment, evangelical Christians in the US became alarmed about a children’s book depicting witchcraft positively.

The Harry Potter books were widely available in school libraries and often read aloud in class. Driven in part by a pre-existing sense of persecution, Christian parents on school boards demanded Rowling’s books be banned. The matter wound up in court.

The documentary’s sympathetic interviews with the lawyers on both sides explain the concerns of Christian parents and the broader civil liberties at play. Ultimately, First Amendment arguments prevailed. The court decided children had a right to access age-appropriate books, even when their parents disagreed with the works on religious grounds.

Seen from the present moment, there are rich ironies in these histories. Rowling has twice faced the ire of large movements, although from political positions that could hardly be more opposed. Both times, concerns for the safety of children were invoked as a reason for banning, boycotting or burning her work.

Intriguingly, the very US law cases deciding whether Rowling’s book could be banned by school boards are now precedents helping protect LGBQT literature from contemporary religious efforts to ban it.

The podcast records another irony. The first episode notes that the pen name J.K. Rowling is an invention – Joanne Rowling has no middle name. Worried that boys would not read a book by a female author, her publishers opted for an author name that was gender-neutral.

Read more: Harry Potter and the legacy of the world's most famous boy wizard

The voice of conscience?

As Plotted in Darkness moves to its close, the documentary provides the first hints as to why Rowling might have taken the stance that has generated the contemporary controversy.

The Harry Potter books have a curious quality. There is no question they are a classic tale of good triumphing over evil. But at the same time, the characters are flawed and complex. First impressions are often misleading. Nowhere is this truer than with Dumbledore and Snape, who ultimately defy easy categorisation.

When Phelps-Roper asks Rowling about her views on the nature of morality and conscience, Rowling responds that in Harry Potter there is no black and white. Evil-doers are as likely as anyone to be sure of their righteousness.

For Rowling, the voice of conscience is not a loud rush of adrenaline that provides certainty. Rather, it is a quiet voice that urges us to mistrust our initial reactions and to enquire further, to push back against the world that tells us (as the Dursleys’ demand of Harry) to stop asking questions.

Ethical questions

There are a host of ethical questions we can ask about Rowling’s stance on trans issues and the controversy it has generated. Most obviously, we can ask whether we think Rowling is right, or partly right, or entirely wrong, in her views on trans rights. At time of writing, the documentary has not delved into these controversies.

But there is a further set of ethical questions that have been broached by the first two episodes. These concern how Rowling should be treated if she is in the wrong. Does she have the right to speak wrongly? The issue here is ethical, not legal. Just because some speech might be legally protected does not mean it is morally right.

If we think Rowling is wrong, there are several moral judgements we might make. We might decide she is incorrect in her claims, but not morally wrong in voicing them. It is possible to be incorrect without being immoral.

Or we might regard Rowling’s speech as morally wrong. However, we can’t suppress every wrongful speaker. Her act is (we might say) wrong but tolerable.

Or we might decide that Rowling’s speech is morally wrong and she should be (non-violently) punished, socially castigated, and silenced.

Wrong but tolerable?

The view that Rowling’s claims are wrong but should be tolerated might come from thinking about the interpersonal ethics of argument and disagreement. Ethical respect for others requires us to accept that others are entitled to form their own views, free from threat and coercion.

This view might also come from a political perspective that says that, in a democracy, everyone’s views and issues must be in principle open for discussion. Open deliberation is no less necessary than elections in creating genuinely democratic outcomes.

Rowling’s discussion of the quiet voice of conscience, the need for questioning, and her pushback against simplistic black-and-white moralities provides her own argument for the tolerance of opposing views and flawed people. These themes and ideas from her books support her current concerns about free discussion and the climate of fear currently surrounding the discourse on fraught social issues such as trans rights.

In so doing, Rowling positions herself in opposition to those who – as she sees it – picture the world in increasingly black-and-white terms, and who righteously demand that some topics may not be discussed.

At the same time, Rowling has her own “tribe” whom she supports, and who support her. Gender-critical views themselves can seem worryingly black-and-white, and can be held with furious righteousness. Perhaps we can hope future episodes will explore how Rowling stands up for toleration and nuance against her allies as much as her foes (to recall another worthy Harry Potter theme).

Read more: Harry Potter and the surprisingly poignant literary theme

Wrong and intolerable?

Why then might somebody hold the view that Rowling’s views are both wrong and intolerable?

They may think that a person who is immoral and transphobic simply deserves punishment. But often the view will be that – even if some views might be wrong-but-tolerable – Rowling’s are intolerable because they are dangerous and harmful.

Rowling’s critics stress high suicide rates among trans people, and the damaging abuse they suffer. In the effect they have had on vulnerable trans people and aggressive anti-trans people, Rowling’s words might be argued to be literally killing people. The documentary has not yet relayed the voices of trans activists and allies raising these concerns, for which we must await the coming episodes.

Yet there is reason for wariness about making allegations of harm against speakers. (I term such claims “meta-argument allegations”.) The belief that what one’s opponents say is not merely wrong but harmful is not new. It is ancient, perhaps as old as censorship itself. Indeed, it is baked into human psychology. Simply hearing evidence that opposes deeply held beliefs can trigger feelings of being insulted and threatened.

Allegations of harm are easy to make. There are many ways speech might be dangerous. Such allegations are inevitably contested, but the ease of making claims of harm leads to a problem of moral consistency.

Suppose Rowling is responsible for the threats and abuse levelled at trans people, and the subsequent fear they might have about sharing their views, in the wake of her comments? If so, then aren’t activists calling Rowling a transphobe responsible for the threats and misogynist abuse levelled at her and those she supports, and the subsequent fear they might have about sharing their views?

These worries only go so far. Surely at least some harmful speech – such as hate speech or incitement to violence – should be subject to social censure, if not legal constraint.

Rowling’s special status

A final ethical question is whether Rowling specifically shouldn’t be taking an anti-trans position. Countless fans forged a special connection with her work. Young trans readers found deep parallels with their transition and Harry Potter’s journey. Do authors acquire a special responsibility not to betray the fans they have profoundly touched?

Many of us will await the later episodes to make our final judgements on many of the issues Rowling’s books and words have raised. But perhaps on this issue we have heard Rowling’s central line of defence, and it is a powerful one.

In the podcast’s trailer, Rowling observes with some suspicion the pedestal on which she had been placed. To fans who argue she has betrayed her legacy, she says: “You could not have misunderstood me more profoundly.”

The heroes in Rowling’s books are not flawless. They are not worthy of our blind adoration or tribal allegiance. They are at their best when they are listening, searching and doubting, acknowledging the complexity and diversity of the world around them.

Perhaps Rowling could have remained silent, and remained beloved. But, for wrong or right, that is not what her heroes do.

Hugh Breakey does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

As tractors became more sophisticated over the past two decades, the big manufacturers allowed farmers fewer options for repairs. Rather than hiring independent repair shops, farmers have increasingly had to wait for company-authorized dealers to arrive. Getting repairs could take days, often leading to lost time and high costs.

A new memorandum of understanding between the country’s largest farm equipment maker, John Deere Corp., and the American Farm Bureau Federation is now raising hopes that U.S. farmers will finally regain the right to repair more of their own equipment.

However, supporters of right-to-repair laws suspect a more sinister purpose: to slow the momentum of efforts to secure right-to-repair laws around the country.

Under the agreement, John Deere promises to give farmers and independent repair shops access to manuals, diagnostics and parts. But there’s a catch – the agreement isn’t legally binding, and, as part of the deal, the influential Farm Bureau promised not to support any federal or state right-to-repair legislation.

You can listen to more articles from The Conversation narrated by Noa.

The right-to-repair movement has become the leading edge of a pushback against growing corporate power. Intellectual property protections, whether patents on farm equipment, crops, computers or cellphones, have become more intense in recent decades and cover more territory, giving companies more control over what farmers and other consumers can do with the products they buy.

For farmers, few examples of those corporate constraints are more frustrating than repair restrictions and patent rights that prevent them from saving seeds from their own crops for future planting.

How a few companies became so powerful

The United States’ market economy requires competition to function properly, which is why U.S. antitrust policies were strictly enforced in the post-World War II era.

During the 1970s and 1980s, however, political leaders began following the advice of a group of economists at the University of Chicago and relaxed enforcement of federal antitrust policies. That led to a concentration of economic power in many sectors.

This concentration has become especially pronounced in agriculture, with a few companies consolidating market share in numerous areas, including seeds, pesticides and machinery, as well as commodity processing and meatpacking. One study in 2014 estimated that Monsanto, now owned by Bayer, was responsible for approximately 80% of the corn and 90% of the soybeans grown in the U.S. In farm machinery, John Deere and Kubota account for about a third of the market.

Market power often translates into political power, which means that those large companies can influence regulatory oversight, legal decisions, and legislation that furthers their economic interests – including securing more expansive and stricter intellectual property policies.

The right-to-repair movement

At its most basic level, right-to-repair legislation seeks to protect the end users of a product from anti-competitive activities by large companies. New York passed the first broad right-to-repair law, in 2022, and nearly two dozen states have active legislation – about half of them targeting farm equipment.

Whether the product is an automobile, smartphone or seed, companies can extract more profits if they can force consumers to purchase the company’s replacement parts or use the company’s exclusive dealership to repair the product.

One of the first cases that challenged the right to repair equipment was in 1939, when a company that was reselling refurbished spark plugs was sued by the Champion Spark Plug Co. for violating its patent rights. The Supreme Court agreed that Champion’s trademark had been violated, but it allowed resale of the refurbished spark plugs if “used” or “repaired” was stamped on the product.

Although courts have often sided with the end users in right-to-repair cases, large companies have vast legal and lobbying resources to argue for stricter patent protections. Consumer advocates contend that these protections prevent people from repairing and modifying the products they rightfully purchased.

The ostensible justification for patents, whether for equipment or seeds, is that they provide an incentive for companies to invest time and money in developing products because they know that they will have exclusive rights to sell their inventions once patented.

However, some scholars claim that recent legal and legislative changes to patents are instead limiting innovation and social benefits.

The problem with seed patents

The extension of utility patents to agricultural seeds illustrates how intellectual property policies have expanded and become more restrictive.

Patents have been around since the founding of the U.S., but agricultural crops were initially considered natural processes that couldn’t be patented. That changed in 1980 with the U.S. Supreme Court decision Diamond v. Chakrabarty. The case involved genetically engineered bacteria that could break down crude oil. The court’s ruling allowed inventors to secure patents on living organisms.

Half a decade later, the U.S. Patent Office extended patents to agricultural crops generated through transgenic breeding techniques, which inserts a gene from one species into the genome of another. One prominent example is the insertion of a gene into corn and cotton that enables the plant to produce its own pesticide. In 2001, the Supreme Court included conventionally bred crops in the category eligible for patenting.

Historically, farmers would save seeds that their crops generated and replant them the following season. They could also sell those seeds to other farmers. They lost the right to sell their seeds in 1970, when Congress passed the Plant Variety Protection Act. Utility patents, which grant an inventor exclusive right to produce a new or improved product, are even more restrictive.

Under a utility patent, farmers can no longer save seed for replanting on their own farms. University scientists even face restrictions on the kind of research they can perform on patented crops.

Because of the clear changes in intellectual property protections on agricultural crops over the years, researchers are able to evaluate whether those changes correlate with crop innovations – the primary justification used for patents. The short answer is that they do not.

One study revealed that companies have used intellectual property to enhance their market power more than to enhance innovations. In fact, some vegetable crops with few patent protections had more varietal innovations than crops with more patent protections.

How much does this cost farmers?

It can be difficult to estimate how much patented crops cost farmers. For example, farmers might pay more for the seeds but save money on pesticides or labor, and they might have higher yields. If market prices for the crop are high one year, the farmer might come out ahead, but if prices are low, the farmer might lose money. Crop breeders, meanwhile, envision substantial profits.

Similarly, it is difficult to calculate the costs farmers face from not having a right to repair their machinery. A machine breakdown that takes weeks to repair during harvest time could be catastrophic.

The nonprofit U.S. Public Interest Research Group calculated that U.S. consumers could save US$40 billion per year if they could repair electronics and appliances – about $330 per family.

The memorandum of understanding between John Deere and the Farm Bureau may be a step in the right direction, but it is not a substitute for right-to-repair legislation or the enforcement of antitrust policies.

Leland Glenna ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.

This is such a lovely service. Knitters Jennifer Simonic and Masey Kaplan, the founders of Loose Ends, act as matchmakers, connecting volunteers to complete unfinished blankets, sweaters, and other craft projects left behind by deceased, disabled, or ill loved ones. — Read the rest

Horse paste has struck out again: even at high doses, ivermectin is "futile" as a treatment for Covid 19, according to a large double-blind trial published in JAMA.

The median time to sustained recovery was 11 days in both the ivermectin and placebo groups (hazard ratio [HR], 1.02).

Florida homeowners, landscapers and municipalities now have an easy-to-use, research-based tool to improve growing conditions for lawns and landscapes. UF/IFAS now has their own branded Florida Soil Test Kit Powered by SoilKit. Each kit includes a prepaid shipping label, soil bag, instruction video and a customer care card.

What is a soil test kit?

A soil test kit is a device or set of tools that allows you to measure various properties of soil. This includes things such as pH level, nutrient content, and composition. Gardeners, farmers, and other individuals who need to assess the quality of soil for growing plants or crops commonly used soil test kits. Using a soil test kit can help you optimize your soil’s health and fertility. It can also lead to more successful and productive gardening or farming.

Related: Help the Community — Volunteer with Hillsborough Parks

“The results users receive are not just tailored to their exact landscape, but it also takes into account their broader location, so that information like local fertilizer ban periods are accounted for,” said Bryan Unruh. He’s a UF/IFAS turfgrass scientist and Extension specialist. “We want Florida’s lawns and landscapes to thrive in a way that also protects our waterways and environment.”

The UF/IFAS Soil Test Kit Powered by SoilKit

Using the test kit is simple. Users first register their kits at SoilKit.com. This helps target location-based requirements in addition to allowing the user to provide the needed contact information for receiving the results. The next step is to collect the soil sample in the provided bag before sending it to the testing laboratory for analysis. After the lab receives the sample, results are returned via email within one to two business days.

Here’s a video explaining how to use the soil test kit

“It is important that AgriTech partner with Florida scientists who specialize in the unique growing conditions of Florida,” said Christina Woerner McInnis. She’s CEO of AgriTech Corp. “UF/IFAS Extension already reaches every corner of the state. And now we’re able to bring SoilKit and appropriate plant nutrition to the people who want to best care for their lawns and landscapes.”

Portions of the kit’s proceeds are allocated to the UF/IFAS Turfgrass Science Program and the Florida-Friendly Landscaping Program. This supports graduate student education and in-service training of county Extension agents and program assistants.

In addition to the SoilKits available at local UF/IFAS Extension offices and the SoilKit website, the kits will soon be available at additional retailers.

The post Florida Soil Test Kits Can Improve Yards and Landscapes appeared first on ModernGlobe.

I learned a ton of kitchen skills when I was a prep cook at a from-scratch restaurant in Providence, Rhode Island. Before entering a commercial kitchen, I’d never broken down a chicken in my life; after my time there, I relished the act (yes, I realize that's a little weird, but it was so satisfying!). Other techniques I learned included how to whip up mayonnaise with an immersion blender, ferment pickles, make hot sauce, and sous vide carrot strips in carrot juice—the works. 

But one thing that really struck me was the restaurant's frequent use of a big, boxy dehydrator. While at home most food scraps were destined for the compost bin, at the restaurant, a good bit of what I had always considered future dirt was saved and dehydrated. The sous chef, Benjamin Stroud, would dehydrate leek tops and even mushroom stems, and once they got nice and papery, we’d blitz them in a powerful Vitamix blender to make powders for seasoning all kinds of dishes.

“When I was working as sous chef at Bayberry Beer Hall in Providence, I was tasked with building a pantry for the kitchen to use, and a dehydrator was one of my primary tools for that,” says Stroud, who currently works as the prep cook (and unofficial pastry chef) at the Eddy bar in Providence. “We dehydrated so many things that our spice shelf was overflowing with powders of different colors. Leek tops became a great substitute for onion powder when you wanted something a little more herbaceous. Fennel fronds became a beautiful dust that could go on a plate as a colorful base for steak tartare or be folded into pasta dough. Woody and otherwise unappetizing mushroom stems, instead of going in the compost, became something we could use to up the umami in a dish.” 

It was the ultimate form of reducing food waste—and it’s also something you can do at home.

What Is a Food Dehydrator, and How Does It Work?

A dehydrator works by blowing warm, dry air over foods, slowly removing moisture and drying them out. 

“A dehydrator is a great tool for any cook, as long as you have some space to dedicate and a little patience,” Stroud says. “Dehydrators can run at temperatures much lower than your oven is able to, and with a constant fan they can dry things without ‘cooking’ them, allowing you to preserve color and flavor.” 

They are often made up of multiple trays you can layer with foods and then stack or slide together before you start the machine. 

“Dehydrators are typically very easy to use: load the trays with whatever you’re drying, set the temperature, and wait,” Stroud says. For best results, he recommends only dehydrating one type of thing at a time, since different ingredients require varying temperatures (e.g., herbs are better dried at lower temperatures, while meats need higher temperatures for food-safety purposes). 

Another reason to separate your leek tops from your potato peels is that, as Stroud explains, “aromas tend to marry.” You don’t want your chives tasting like mushrooms (or maybe, you do). 

He also recommends spacing things out on your trays, since cramming them together will impede airflow, and “things might get gross instead of dried.”

How Can A Food Dehydrator Help Me Reduce Food Waste at Home?

While it might seem like a fancy restaurant thing to dehydrate, say, smoked onions to season pastrami carrots (which Stroud has done), dehydrating has its practical, waste-saving (and space-saving) applications at home, too. 

“Waste minimization has always been a big part of my cooking career, and dehydrators can help not only reduce waste but also space,” Stroud says. “How often have you bought a bunch of parsley or dill for a recipe and then ended up throwing out the rest? Some people save vegetable scraps in the freezer to throw into stocks, but there are only so many scraps or so much stock a person can store unless you have a massive amount of freezer space.”

So instead of freezing bags upon bags of frozen leek tops, Stroud says to consider the dehydrator.  

“You can toss some of those veggie scraps in the dehydrator and then grind them into a powder. The veggie powder can be used to fortify stocks, season meats, add flavor to sauces or dips...the list goes on and on. Best of all, powders take up a fraction of the space in your pantry, freeing up your freezer space for better things (ice cream).” 

Have some tomatoes that are looking a bit sad? Save them from the compost bin by creating your very own “sun-dried” tomatoes—minus the sun. 

“The best way to do this is to cut them in half and lay them cut side up on the trays, that way you don’t lose any of the juices, and they all get concentrated back into the tomato,” Stroud says. “Keep in mind some tomatoes definitely work better than others; pastier ones like Roma, San Marzano, or, my personal favorite, Canestrino tomatoes, have a lower moisture content so they dry really well.” 

What Else Can I Do with a Food Dehydrator? 

In addition to helping you reduce food waste, there are a variety of other uses for a dehydrator in a home kitchen—which also, admittedly, reduce waste(!). 

“It isn't all just powders,” says Stroud. “You can make your own fruit roll-ups or beef jerky; there's a range of different applications and textures you can achieve. And while not everything is a winner (sometimes you try something and you just get dry trash), sometimes you get something really fun and interesting. For example, dill, garlic, and bay leaves left over from fermenting dill pickles make a funky, herbaceous, and bold spice that you can use on popcorn, potato chips, or you could use to make dill pickle ranch dressing.” 

In short, with a dehydrator, the options are truly endless. 

Which Food Dehydrator Should You Buy?

In our testing of food dehydrators, our favorites were the Samson "Silent" Dehydrator, and the larger-capacity Excalibur 9-Tray Electric Food Dehydrator, which is the brand Stroud used in the restaurant to make his many powders. You can read more about how we tested food dehydrators and how we picked our winners in our review.

FAQs

How do you clean a food dehydrator?

Many food dehydrators have dishwasher-safe trays—but it’s best to check your user manual before you put anything in the dishwasher. If you find out the trays are not dishwasher-safe, the best course of action is to wash them with warm, soapy water, spray them down (if your sink has a spray nozzle), and make sure they are thoroughly dried before using. 

What is a food dehydrator good for?

As we mentioned, a food dehydrator is a great way to mitigate food waste. You can use it to dehydrate all manner of food scraps—leek tops, potato peels, mushroom bottoms, parsley stems—to create seasoning powders for amping up the flavor of your cooking. You can also use a food dehydrator to preserve ingredients that are on their way out (for example, you can make sundried tomatoes) or to make snacks like fruit leather or jerky. 

Can you dehydrate food in an air fryer?

Yes, you can dehydrate food in an air fryer. To do so, just set it on the lowest setting (some air fryers also have a dehydrate function) and let it run for a few hours. However, while you can use an air fryer to dehydrate, the results might not be as good as those from a dedicated dehydrator.

USF mass communications professors and students expressed concerns over the future of the media industry following a proposal by Gov. Ron DeSantis to have TikTok banned on college campuses. 

DeSantis said that he would push for state congress members to block access to the social media app on public school and state university internet networks by creating a “digital bill of rights,” according to a Feb. 15 press conference. The proposal might not be limited to just Tiktok, but also other apps from “foreign countries of concern,” according to a news release from DeSantis’ administration.

Among protecting Floridians’ privacy, the governor’s proposal would protect minors from online harm and would eliminate unfair censorship, according to the news release. 

Similar restrictions have already been put in place on state-owned equipment by the governor’s administration. 

Florida’s legislature is targeting any “China-linked apps” in fear of them tracking data of Floridians through their phones, according to DeSantis during a Feb. 15 press conference. He said the digital bill of rights is supposed to prevent devices or apps from “listening” to conversations and creating an algorithm or specific feed for that person that could potentially only show them one side of the story.

The governor also told the legislature on Feb. 9 that he wants them to implement a measure that would make it easier to sue the press for defamation, according to the Florida Government website. 

Mass communications professor Wayne Garcia said that any form of media censorship and what is being proposed by the governor is dangerous. He said the press has long been protected by Times v. Sullivan, a 1964 Supreme Court case that ruled the right to publish all statements under a newspaper publication.

However, if the protections provided under Times v. Sullivan get revisited and changed by DeSantis, Garcia said then what gets shown through media will be controlled. 

“It’s a really important fight for people to understand that no matter what you think about political bias or the mission or the role, it’s really indispensable to our democracy. Everything breaks down without information for people to base their decisions on as communities, as states and as a nation,” he said.

Sophomore mass communications major Olivia Driedman said TikTok stands as a popular platform for college-aged students. In fact, nearly 40% of college-aged students, or those composing Generation Z, opt to use TikTok to search for information over other media sites, according to a 2022 Google study. 

She said that given its popularity and the ease of navigating alternative wifi sources to connect to TikTok, she doesn’t see how banning it on college campuses will make a change.  

“Students can still access the app when they go home if they live off campus, and if they live on campus, they can use a VPN or just their phone data to use the app,” she said.

Other institutions including Auburn University, University of Georgia and the University of Texas have blocked TikTok on school-owned devices, campus networks or both, according to Bloomberg.

Earlier this year in January, the University of Florida sent out a universitywide email discouraging students from using TikTok and suggesting they remove it from their phones, according to the Tampa Bay Times. The university cited security concerns such as the possibility of data collection by foreign governments in the email.

Beginning Reporting professor Vidisha Priyanka said the proposal doesn’t make much sense, because it is already easy to sue the press, and anyone can do it already if they believe there is defamation or if confidential information was released.

“This is a huge infringement on the First Amendment rights of the people. A free press is extremely important; a free and courageous press,” Priyanka said. 

Priyanka said she believes the approach the state government is taking is very traditional, not keeping in mind that Florida has lots of young people that want to move forward.

If the bill were to pass in the upcoming legislative session beginning March, Garcia said the community should not only fear its impact on college campuses, but the state of internet freedom nationwide. 

“I think this is our canary in the coal mine. If the press goes down, democracy will not be far behind,” Garcia said. 

Tampa’s annual River O’Green Festival will return to Curtis Hixon Park on Friday, March 17 from 4pm-8pm. This fun St. Patrick’s Day celebration includes dying the Hillsborough River a brilliant emerald green. The River O’Green Fest is put on by Tampa’s Downtown Partnership with the City of Tampa and takes place along our award winning Riverwalk.

The event was originally scheduled for Saturday, March 18, but the Tampa Downtown Partnership opted to move the event a day early due to inclement weather.

“The safety of all our guests and vendors is of the utmost importance,” said Tampa Downtown Partnership President and CEO Lynda Remund. “With storms in the forecast on Saturday, we decided it was in everyone’s best interest to reschedule. The blessing in disguise is now we get to host the River O’ Green Fest on St. Paddy’s Day! We haven’t had the event on the actual holiday since 2018. It’ll be a great way for families to kick off the weekend and wrap up spring break.” 

The Hillsborough River provides a perfect backdrop to the celebration which includes live entertainment, games, kids activities, food trucks, and of course, beer.

“We’re so excited to work with the city and Grow Financial again to bring this Irish-themed celebration to our residents and visitors,” said Tampa Downtown Partnership President and CEO Lynda Remund. “I love seeing the hundreds of people who come downtown, decked out in green gear, for a day full of food and fun. It’s a great way to support our local businesses and bask in the beauty of this incredible city.” 

Hillsborough River turns green this March

While there is plenty to enjoy for adults, the River O’Green Fest is totally family-friendly, and your four-legged friends are more than welcome to attend.

“Seeing our Hillsborough River turn emerald green in celebration of St. Patrick’s Day is a great reminder of the excitement and fun that Tampa has to offer,” added Mayor Jane Castor. “I know how much I look forward to this annual tradition and the opportunity it brings to come together and celebrate all that makes our city great.” 

For those worried about the river, organizers have assured that the dye used is completely safe. The dye used is safe for the environment, non-toxic, biodegradable, meets all EPA standards and is certified for use by NSF Std 60. In fact, it’s the same dye often used in water systems to trace the flow of drinking water.

Visit the official River O Green Festival event page for more details. After River O’ Green Fest, residents can prepare for the huge Riverfest event arriving in May.

What to read next:

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• PHOTO Inside Small Giant, a new cocktail and pizza destination in Water Street
• Inaugural Food & Wine Fest announced for Tampa

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