May 21, 2020

National Parks Are Slowly Reopening. Here's The Status Of All Of Them.

Our greatest outdoor treasures are starting to open their gates.

https://www.thrillist.com/travel/nation/national-parks-reopening-covid-19-updates



When COVID-19 took hold of the world, the news of closures came fast. But the idea of a global pandemic shutting down our biggest, often extremely isolated natural spaces seemed unfathomable. It turns out that when the world's health is at risk, even Smoky the Bear has to do his part to flatten the curve. Now, with Memorial Day poised to kick off a summer that will almost certainly be full of scenic drives, some national parks are opening their gates for the first time in months.

To help you track what's open, we're keeping tabs the 60 parks in all 50 states (American Samoa and the Virgin Islands are under stricter travel restrictions, but if you're already there you're probably up to speed). We'll keep you posted on what's open (hint: not many), what services are available (if amenities are marked "limited," chances are it's got toilets but no visitors center), and what you're allowed to do once inside. Which, in most cases, is hike and drive. But we'll take what we can get. Hopefully, this list will change quickly as more and more of these national treasures open up to responsible, respectful, and safe use. The list is current as of May 19, 2020. We'll be updating each and every one of them things progress.


Acadia National Park
Maine
Status: Closed
The crown jewel of East Coast national parks remains closed for the time being. Maybe read the new Stephen King novel instead.

Arches National Park
Utah
Status: Closed
For the moment, the closest you can get to Balanced Rock, Devil's Garden, and the other glorious spires is via Google Earth. Phased re-opening begins May 29.

Badlands National Park
South Dakota
Status: Open
Camping: Yes
Amenities: Limited
The visitors centers, entrance fee stations, and South Unit of the park are currently closed. But other than that, this badass South Dakota icon and its rugged geologic beauty is mostly open for business as usual.

Big Bend National Park
Texas
Status: Closed
This kayaker paradise along the Rio Grande is hoping to begin phased reopening in June, so chances are you'll be able to explore its waters right around the time temps hit 900 degrees in the Lone Star State.

Biscayne National Park
Florida
Status: Open
Camping: No
Amenities: No
There are no tours available at the moment, and most land activities are suspended, but most of Biscayne is underwater anyway.

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all the rest at the link above

May 21, 2020

America's Patchwork Pandemic Is Fraying Even Further

The coronavirus is coursing through different parts of the U.S. in different ways, making the crisis harder to predict, control, or understand.

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/05/patchwork-pandemic-states-reopening-inequalities/611866/



There was supposed to be a peak. But the stark turning point, when the number of daily COVID-19 cases in the U.S. finally crested and began descending sharply, never happened. Instead, America spent much of April on a disquieting plateau, with every day bringing about 30,000 new cases and about 2,000 new deaths. The graphs were more mesa than Matterhorn—flat-topped, not sharp-peaked. Only this month has the slope started gently heading downward. This pattern exists because different states have experienced the coronavirus pandemic in very different ways.

In the most severely pummeled places, like New York and New Jersey, COVID-19 is waning. In Texas and North Carolina, it is still taking off. In Oregon and South Carolina, it is holding steady. These trends average into a national plateau, but each state’s pattern is distinct. Currently, Hawaii’s looks like a child’s drawing of a mountain. Minnesota’s looks like the tip of a hockey stick. Maine’s looks like a (two-humped) camel. The U.S. is dealing with a patchwork pandemic. The patchwork is not static. Next month’s hot spots will not be the same as last month’s. The SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus is already moving from the big coastal cities where it first made its mark into rural heartland areas that had previously gone unscathed. People who only heard about the disease secondhand through the news will start hearing about it firsthand from their family. “Nothing makes me think the suburbs will be spared—it’ll just get there more slowly,” says Ashish Jha, a public-health expert at Harvard.

Meanwhile, most states have begun lifting the social-distancing restrictions that had temporarily slowed the pace of the pandemic, creating more opportunities for the virus to spread. Its potential hosts are still plentiful: Even in the biggest hot spots, most people were not infected and remain susceptible. Further outbreaks are likely, although they might not happen immediately. The virus isn’t lying in a bush, waiting to pounce on those who reemerge from their house. It is, instead, lying within people. Its ability to jump between hosts depends on proximity, density, and mobility, and on people once again meeting, gathering, and moving. And people are: In the first week of May, 25 million more Americans ventured out of their home on any given day than over the prior six weeks.

I spoke with two dozen experts who agreed that in the absence of a vaccine, the patchwork will continue. Cities that thought the worst had passed may be hit anew. States that had lucky escapes may find themselves less lucky. The future is uncertain, but Americans should expect neither a swift return to normalcy nor a unified national experience, with an initial spring wave, a summer lull, and a fall resurgence. “The talk of a second wave as if we’ve exited the first doesn’t capture what’s really happening,” says Caitlin Rivers, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. What’s happening is not one crisis, but many interconnected ones. As we shall see, it will be harder to come to terms with such a crisis. It will be harder to bring it to heel. And it will be harder to grapple with the historical legacies that have shaped today’s patchwork.

I. The Patchwork Experience..........

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May 21, 2020

A Hong Kong Creamery Is Making 'Tear Gas' Ice Cream to Support Protesters

The gelato is made using roasted black peppercorns to imitate the experience of being sprayed in the face with a chemical weapon.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/n7wvwm/a-hong-kong-creamery-is-making-tear-gas-ice-cream-to-support-protesters



The pro-democracy demonstrations that filled the streets of Hong Kong last year have decreased in both number and intensity, because even the "shared anger" of the protests was temporarily quelled by stay-at-home orders and the spread of coronavirus. Last week, though, demonstrators again filled a luxury shopping mall after 15 high-profile activists were arrested and accused of coordinating three massive protests last fall. Although the city isn't echoing with the sound of defiance right now, the owner of one ice cream shop is doing his part to ensure that Hong Kongers don't forget what they spent months fighting for. The 31-year-old shop owner—who has chosen not to be identified because he fears he could face consequences from the pro-Beijing government—is currently selling scoops of ice cream that taste like tear gas.

"We would like to make a flavor that reminds people that they still have to persist in the protest movement and don't lose their passion," he told the Associated Press. The secret to a dessert that doubles as an irritant is whole black peppercorns that are roasted and then made into a creamy gelato. The owner said that he experimented with wasabi and mustard, but black pepper came the closest to recreating the experience of being sprayed in the face with a chemical weapon. "It tastes like tear gas. It feels difficult to breathe at first, and it’s really pungent and irritating. It makes me want to drink a lot of water immediately,” Anita Wong, who both took part in the protests and was tear gassed by the cops, said. “I think it’s a flashback that reminds me of how painful I felt in the movement, and that I shouldn’t forget.”

That's exactly the takeaway that the shop is trying to sell with each scoop, which costs the equivalent of $5. Before the pandemic and social distancing requirements started to affect his sales, the owner said that he sold between 20 and 30 scoops every day. In an interview with the New York Times earlier this year, the owner said that he added the tear gas gelato to the menu when he started making his limited-edition holiday flavors. (The other ice creams were more traditional: chocolate and rum, gingersnap, and Christmas pudding). At the time, he vowed to continue serving "tear gas" by the scoop for as long as the police kept firing tear gas at protesters.

Although the shop itself is innocuously tucked in a New Territories shopping mall, it has provided support and safety to demonstrators—as well as free ice cream. The walls are covered with pastel Post-It notes that bear handwritten pro-democracy messages, and a giant stuffed Winnie the Pooh is prominently displayed as a shorthand way of mocking Chinese president Xi Jinping. The owner has even previously considered giving away gas masks with his ice cream cones. "I have a license to sell and I can attach free gifts if I want," he said. "I'm not breaking any laws." For now, though, he seems content with reminding pro-democracy activists not to give up, one painful, peppery scoop at a time.

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May 21, 2020

How Street Culture Shaped Asian-American Identity

To commemorate Asian-Pacific Heritage Month, this week’s FRONTPAGE finds our indelible editorial director Jian DeLeon reflecting on the extent to which streetwear and street culture has provided a means of expression and identity for the Asian-American community.

https://www.highsnobiety.com/p/asian-americans-in-street-culture/



The term “Asian-American” is a recent construct. It’s a preferable alternative to “Oriental,” first used in 1968 by the Asian American Political Alliance, a short-lived organization that participated in the Third World Liberation Front’s student strikes of 1968 in California. Before Fred Hampton’s Rainbow Coalition, this multiracial group protested a Eurocentric curriculum and a lack of diversity on campus, leading to the establishment of ethnic studies programs at San Francisco State University and Berkeley, and an increase in faculty members of color. Over 50 years later, Asian-Americans are still trying to find ourselves in the diaspora. Much of what it actually means to be “Asian-American” is still up in the air. For me, it boils down to moments that feel like Spider-Man pointing at himself when you see someone who looks like you killing it in a world you had no idea you were even allowed in. It’s how I felt when I first saw a jegging-clad Rufio leading the Lost Boys in Hook, Willy Santos as a playable character in Grind Session, and Chad Hugo next to Pharrell on the cover of The Neptunes Present… Clones.

Jeff Ng — better known as Jeff Staple — had one of those moments when he first met John C. Jay, a former Wieden+Kennedy ad exec who oversaw some of Nike’s best campaigns (like the “City Attack” spots) that continue to influence how the Swoosh thinks about cultural marketing. Jay is currently the president of global creative at Uniqlo. Staple recalls being at the Wieden+Kennedy headquarters in Portland, watching a breakdance exhibition by the Rocksteady Crew, when an older Asian guy sat next to him and the two began talking. When they sussed out their respective identities, they reacted with an incredulous: “But you’re Chinese!” “It’s so telling because there would not be the assumption that each of us would’ve been Asian,” says Staple. “The assumption is that if they’re in that position… they have to be white.”

https://www.instagram.com/p/BpvSRGfBy1t




There’s a high density of Asian faces in the area where sneakers, streetwear, and cult fashion brands meet in the middle. It’s not hard to see that on the consumer side, as any shoppable city in the US is host to a number of well-heeled Asian tourists and Asian-Americans in neck-breaking jawns. You could chalk it up to our spending power (estimated to reach $1.3 trillion by 2023, according to the Nielsen Company), or a median age of 35.4, (still young enough to adroitly pull off anything from ACRONYM to Supreme to Human Made). But more importantly, Asian-Americans have an inherently social purchase path — a Nielsen study points out 29% of Asian-Americans “prefer to buy things my friends and neighbors would approve of” (the average US consumer answered 15%), and 32% share their opinions by posting reviews and ratings online (sup, Yelp gang and Disqus). So categorically, it’s a demographic of flexers and early adopters of everything from buzzy restaurants, first-gen smartphones, and yes — hyped brands.

It could be enough to explain how Neek Lurk went from lurking on forums like NikeTalk to running Stüssy’s social media and becoming a millionaire off his self-aware streetwear brand Anti Social Social Club. According to Kyle Ng, founder of Brain Dead, ASSC is probably the most Asian-American streetwear brand around — but not just in the way Neek includes South Korea and Filipino flags on his gear, or flips stereotypes like import car culture and the kawaii Bratz-meets-Homies characters that were commonplace on fledgling internet communities like AsianAvenue. “He speaks to the Asian condition,” he says. “You’re anti-social social! It’s those kids on message boards wearing Supreme, but they’re also very quiet and shy. How many nerdy Asian kids have you seen that rock the craziest fits?”

https://www.instagram.com/p/B-N0sfunEg




Like the fashion industry, street culture has welcomed Asian-American creatives and entrepreneurs for a while. There’s been a decent amount of representation ranging from skateboarding (Shogo Kubo, Christian Hosoi, and Daewon Song), streetwear (Mighty Healthy’s Ray Mate, Stüssy/Maiden Noir designer Nin Truong, Cactus Plant Flea Market’s Cynthia Lu), retail (Commonwealth’s Omar Quiambao, Extra Butter’s Bernie Gross, and Eric Peng Cheng, the OG behind pickyourshoes.com, BAIT, and Undefeated), and sneakers (Nike exec David Creech, basketball design director Leo Chang, Jordan Brand energy guru Gemo Wong, ASICS brand manager Marc Marquez, and Reebok’s collaboration king Leo Gamboa). The best part is there’s always room for more.

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May 21, 2020

We may have spotted a parallel universe going backwards in time

Strange particles observed by an experiment in Antarctica could be evidence of an alternative reality where everything is upside down

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24532770-400-we-may-have-spotted-a-parallel-universe-going-backwards-in-time/



IN THE Antarctic, things happen at a glacial pace. Just ask Peter Gorham. For a month at a time, he and his colleagues would watch a giant balloon carrying a collection of antennas float high above the ice, scanning over a million square kilometres of the frozen landscape for evidence of high-energy particles arriving from space.

When the experiment returned to the ground after its first flight, it had nothing to show for itself, bar the odd flash of background noise. It was the same story after the second flight more than a year later.

While the balloon was in the sky for the third time, the researchers decided to go over the past data again, particularly those signals dismissed as noise. It was lucky they did. Examined more carefully, one signal seemed to be the signature of a high-energy particle. But it wasn’t what they were looking for. Moreover, it seemed impossible. Rather than bearing down from above, this particle was exploding out of the ground.

That strange finding was made in 2016. Since then, all sorts of suggestions rooted in known physics have been put forward to account for the perplexing signal, and all have been ruled out. What’s left is shocking in its implications. Explaining this signal requires the existence of a topsy-turvy universe created in the same big bang as our own and existing in parallel with it. In this mirror world, positive is negative, left is right and time runs backwards. It is perhaps the most mind-melting idea ever to have emerged from the Antarctic ice ­­– but it might just be true. …

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May 21, 2020

Antarctic penguins release an extreme amount of laughing gas in their feces, it turns out

Laughing gas isn't just something they give you at the dentist. It also comes out of penguin poop.

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/19/world/king-penguins-laughing-gas-scn-trnd/index.html



How do we know this, you're surely wondering? Well, a new study says just that.

Published in the journal "Science of the Total Environment," the study examined the effects of a King Penguin colony's activity on soil greenhouse gas fluxes in South Georgia -- a sub-Antarctic island just north of Antarctica. One finding in particular was notably unique -- penguin poop, also known as "guano," produces extremely high levels of nitrous oxide. It's the chemical known to most as laughing gas.

"It is truly intense," said Bo Elberling, an author of the study. He noted it's not an insignificant amount, either -- the emissions measure about 100 times more than a recently fertilized Danish field. There was enough emitted nitrous, in fact, that one researcher went "completely cuckoo," while "nosing about in guano for several hours," Elberling said.

"The small nitrous oxide cylinders that you see lying in and floating around Copenhagen are no match for this heavy dose, which results from a combination of nitrous oxide with hydrogen sulphide and other gases," he added, referring to the containers designed for whipped cream but often used as a recreational drug.

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May 21, 2020

Krispy Kreme is giving away free donuts to graduating seniors dressed in their caps and gowns

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/19/business/krispy-kreme-graduation-trnd/index.html



(CNN)That cap and gown may not go to waste after all. Krispy Kreme is making sure the outfits are put to good use, even with many graduation ceremonies canceled due to the closure of schools from the spread of coronavirus.

On Tuesday, Krispy Kreme will give its "Graduate Dozen" boxes to high school or college seniors who visit any Krispy Kreme dressed in their graduation caps and gowns or "Class of 2020" shirts or gear. The box spells out 2020 in three rows, and it comes with chocolate-iced kreme-filled, strawberry-iced kreme-filled, cake batter-filled and yellow-iced original glazed doughnuts.

"We feel for all of the high school and college seniors," Krispy Kreme chief marketing officer Dave Skena said in a statement. "We wish they had that moment of walking across the stage and getting their diploma. We can't replace that ... but we thought we could help them safely have a little fun and enjoy a special 'Graduate Dozen' on us."

The "Graduate Dozen" boxes can also be purchased from May 18-24 via drive-thru by ordering through Krispy Kreme's website or app.

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May 21, 2020

'Panic' as Hungarian parliament bans trans people from changing gender on IDs

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hungary-law-lgbt/panic-as-hungarian-parliament-bans-trans-people-from-changing-gender-on-ids-idUSKBN22V2NG

LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Hungary’s parliament voted Tuesday to ban transgender people from changing their gender on identity documents, in a move that LGBT+ advocates said was creating panic among trans people who feared an increase in discrimination and attacks. The legislature voted 133 to 57 to replace the Hungarian word “nem”, meaning sex or gender, with “sex at birth” on birth, marriage and death certificates, which could expose trans people to harassment if their documents do not match their appearance.

“The state’s decision ... to register children’s biological sex in their birth certificates does not affect men’s and women’s right to freely experience and exercise their identities as they wish,” the government’s communications office said. “In no way does the relevant section of the bill that some people criticise prevent any person from exercising their fundamental rights arising from their human dignity or from living according their identity,” it said in emailed comments.

Hungary’s right-wing Prime Minister Viktor Orban, in power since 2010, was re-elected in 2018 and promised to “build a new era” with major cultural changes in the ex-communist country. Parliament’s speaker has equated gay adoption with paedophilia. It is possible to legally change gender in all European Union countries bar Cyprus, advocacy group Transgender Europe says, despite growing criticism of trans rights as an attack on traditional gender roles by far-right and religious groups.

Trans people in Hungary have been effectively unable to change the sex on their identity documents since 2018, according to LGBT+ rights advocates, who said there were already multiple court cases underway challenging that. “We have no words to describe what we feel,” Tina Korlos Orban, vice president of advocacy group Transvanilla Transgender Association, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “People who haven’t had suicidal thoughts for decades now are having them. People are in panic, people want to escape from Hungary to somewhere else where they can get their gender recognised.”

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May 20, 2020

Trump Supporters Almost Assaulted My 12-year-Old Autistic Son Because He Was Wearing a Mask

This is Trump's America.

https://thebanter.substack.com/p/trump-supporters-almost-assaulted



My wife regularly gets annoyed with me because I do two things that get on her nerves on a fairly consistent basis: 1. I know what she’s thinking way more often than she’s comfortable with, and 2. Things I tell her are going to happen do, more frequently than not. You would think the first thing would be awesome. After all, a common complaint among women is that their significant other doesn’t understand them. But after 23 years together, I’m way better at reading her than she is at reading me and it vexes her to no end. Also, when I’m really on the ball, she feels like I’m reading her mind and the feeling of exposure is aggravating. The second is a little more complicated. Once I started paying very close attention to politics, it became very easy to predict certain things that would affect us. Recurring government shutdowns? Yeah, we knew that was coming and we prepared for them as best we could, learning with each shutdown. Remember, Debbie is the primary breadwinner and a government worker. We never know if a particular shutdown is going to affect her but we always prepare like it will. Even so, the long one at the beginning of 2019 was difficult.

I can’t even imagine what people who were blindsided went through. Another example of my not-so-amazing divination skills was back in 2016. I told Debbie that antisemitism was going to, you’ll forgive the expression, spread like a plague when Trump was elected. Within a year, Nazis marched in Charlottesville, a woman was murdered, and a notorious neo-Nazi had moved into our small city to be closer to the centers of power in Washington DC. I also told her that Covid-19 was going to be the kind of disease you see in the movies and that we needed to stock up before people panicked and stripped the stores bare. Each time, I was met with skepticism and then mounting irritation as my prediction came to pass. You would think she would be more trusting by now but I think she simply doesn’t want to acknowledge how fucking awful people can be. Which is why she didn’t really believe me when I told her a few weeks ago that Trump humpers were going to start harassing people for wearing masks.

“I Hate When You Are Right”

Most days, Debbie takes the kids down to the creek behind our apartment for 20 minutes or so. It gets them outside for fresh air and gives me a few minutes of much-needed solitude. While I’m adjusting well to being a full-time stay-at-home parent again, I’m struggling a bit with being around people 24/7. After several years of spending most of the day alone, this has been an abrupt change and a few minutes of peace and quiet are very welcome. On this particular day, though, I was out food shopping with Claudia while Debbie took Jordan, Anastasia, and Dominic (the kid across the hall whom we’ve been watching while his parents work) down for some exercise. I was on my way home when I received a text from Debbie: “I hate when you are right.” I get those texts from time to time and I knew she would explain it to me when I got back. These conversations are usually funny as I fake try not to be fake smug. But this was not one of those conversations. Turns out that when she and the kids were down on the trail next to the creek, two teens and an adult were coming down the path at the same time.

The two teens decided to take offense at Jordan wearing a mask and walked right up to him, demanding to know why he had one on. Now, autism comes in a lot of different flavors. For some, it’s super obvious at a glance that they’re on the spectrum. But for most, you have to spend some time with them to notice that they’re not neurotypical. Even moderately impacted kids like Jordan don’t immediately present as autistic, especially if you don’t know what you’re looking for. One of the ways Jordan’s autism manifests itself is that he does not respond to people unless they call him by name. And by “respond,” I mean he does not acknowledge your existence. Not in a mean, dismissive way (that would require Jordan to have a single mean bone in his body, which he does not), but in an almost literal sense. If he does not know you, you’re more or less invisible to him unless you say his name. That’s when he “sees” you and you enter into his world. So these two little shits were in his face trying to bully him and Jordan didn’t acknowledge them in any way whatsoever. One of them was insulted by this and said, “Do you speak English?!” Jordan continued to not respond and the two teens realized that Jordan was not exactly ignoring them so much as not responding at all. Presumably, it occurred to them that it wouldn’t be any fun if they couldn’t provoke a reaction and they left.

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May 20, 2020

NYT : Pete Buttigieg Just Wants to Be Useful

The former presidential candidate’s new political action committee is supporting some Democrats you’ve probably never heard of.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/20/us/politics/pete-buttigieg-interview.html

For a presidential candidate, a campaign is a state of continuous motion, a blur of rallies, interviews, strategy sessions and fund-raisers. Meals happen in cars and buses — if they happen at all. Exercise is a luxury. And sleep? Well, sometimes. Over the course of three weeks, Pete Buttigieg went from the nonstop pace of his nearly 15-month presidential bid to a dead halt, after he quit the Democratic race and Indiana shut down to stop the spread of the coronavirus. It wasn’t the post-campaign period that Mr. Buttigieg, or anyone really, had planned. That Mr. Buttigieg, who entered the race at age 37 and was the second-youngest presidential candidate in modern American history, has a political future ahead of him seems clear.

The question is, What will it look like? (For all you trivia lovers, former Gov. Jerry Brown of California was a few months younger than Mr. Buttigieg when he ran in the 1976 Democratic primary race.) Mr. Buttigieg has begun dropping a few clues from his quarantine in South Bend. Last week, he released the first slate of endorsements from his new political action committee, Win the Era. He’s been doing some virtual events for Joe Biden. His husband, Chasten, is writing a memoir. We talked to Mr. Buttigieg about campaign regrets, how he’s spending his days and what he might do next. (As usual, our conversation has been edited and condensed.)

Hi. Thanks so much for speaking with me. I can’t imagine getting off the high-speed train that is a presidential campaign and then coming into quarantine.

They talk about going from 60 miles an hour to zero, but we really went to zero in terms of physical motion. But one of the things we’re learning is there really are lots of ways to do things and be involved. You just have to be imaginative about how to do them while you’re in the four walls of your house.

Where are you quarantining?

I’m at home in South Bend. I’ve probably spent more time in this house in the last two months than I have since I bought it a decade ago. We definitely set an all-time record for the most meals we’ve cooked and eaten at the dining room table, which is great, because for the last year and a half most of my meals were in vehicles.

I have to say, I picture you being irritatingly productive during this time at home, like learning Greek or taking up the viola.......

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