Mar 102024
 

Yesterday, the radio opera was Verdi’s “La Forza del Destino.” If you ever hear someone claim that opera has far-fetched, hard to believe, plots, this may be the one they are thinking of. It starts with the heroine planning to elope, since her father disapproves of her suitor. The suitor is a bit late, and, unfortunately, the father bursts into her room before they have left. He threatens the suitor, who responds by attempting to prove he is not an enemy by disarming. But the gun goes off (in the script he drops or throws it to the floor, which sets it off; this production is less clear about what happens.) And the unintended bullet kills her father, who, as he dies, curses his daughter. I used to say “And from there it just gets more unlikely.” Today I wouldn’t claim it gets less likely – however, it certainly doesn’t get any more likely either. The opera is not performed all that often, not because it isn’t popular (it is), but because the soprano part is at least as difficult as anything in opera, even Wagner’s operas, and Leontyne Prices just don’t turn up every day. There are excerpts from it which are frequently recorded separately – arias for the soprano and the tenor, a male chorus with soprano obligato, a duet with the tenor and the baritone – all of which are in different ways heartbreakingly beautiful.

Just a little exercise in “compare and conatrast” here:
“Not since President Lincoln and the Civil War have freedom and democracy been under assault at home as they are today…. History is watching. If the United States walks away, it will put Ukraine at risk. Europe is at risk. The free world will be at risk, emboldening others to what they wish to do us harm.” [President Joseph Biden, State of the Union Address, March 7, 2024]
“Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this congress and this administration will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance or insignificance can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation We, even we here, hold the power and bear the responsibility.” [president Abraham Lincoln – Annual Message to Congress, December 1, 1862]

I did not watch or listen to the Republican response (can you blame me?), and, although some of this article has been “translated,” shall we say, it’s probably all we need to know about it.

Well, this is bad news for anyone with allergies who has ambitions of traveling into space! But I’m sure glad they found it out this way and not in use.

But this is good news for just about everyone except TSF.

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Oct 172023
 

Yesterday, I received confirmation for my visit to Virgil. I also learned that, on Monday, a train derailed on I-25 “near Pueblo” and that I-25 is closed indefinitely. I looked deeper and discovered that in this case, “near Pueblo” means at about exit 106, and that, when it derailed, it took a railroad bridge with it, dumping the bridge remnants onto the interstate. I normally use the interstate from Exit 128 to Exit 99, so I expect to need an alternate route. (I suppose I can be grateful the train didn’t explode.) I’ve been looking at road maps, and it’s pretty clear that the safest route which I can depend on it being there is via Cañon City. Virgil was in Cañon City for a few montjhs last year, so I know the route, or most of it, and the part I don’t know is US 50, so it should be well marked. An extra half hour should probably do it. Of course that also means I’ll be home later than usual, so please don’t worry. I’ll do my best to be extra oprganized in advance as much as possible so I don’t have to cut into sleep time.

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Short Takes –

The Daily Beast – Dad of Palestinian Boy Stabbed 26 Times in Chicago Reveals Last Words (hanky alert)
Quote – The Chicago landlord suspected of stabbing a Palestinian-American six-year-old 26 times had a “good” relationship with the boy and her mother before the killing, the child’s father told The Daily Beast on Sunday…. “[Wadea Al-Fayoume, the boy] “He is an angel. Basically a small angel in the form of a person. To this minute, I cannot believe how this could have happened,” the father, Oday El-Fayoume, told The Daily Beast. “My ex-wife and son knew him, and they had a good relationship. It is hard to picture this man holding a knife about to stab my son. I keep thinking that my son was probably running towards him before getting stabbed, trying to give him a hug.”
Click through for story – which you probably have heard, since it is egregious, so it’s all over. I should also provide a barf bag alert, because I can already hear the gun crazies yelling, “See! See! Guns aren’t the problem!”

The 19th – This Latinx geologist and TV show host is disrupting stereotypes of who can be a scientist
Quote – On a sunny day, perched on slanted beige rocks of the San Andreas Fault line, Michelle Barboza-Ramirez is dressed in a white sun hat, with retro sunglasses and dangly flower earrings, discussing how plate tectonics transformed the Los Angeles landscape as the camera rolls. “Take a look behind you. These rocks are tilted. Like hella tilted,” they tell Blake de Pastino, a fellow host of the popular PBS show “Eons.” The camera pans to the background. “If you didn’t know anything about geology, you’d see them and you’d be like, ‘Wow, that’s so weird that these rocks formed sideways.’” This conversational tone makes Barboza-Ramirez, who is a paleontologist and geologist, relatable to viewers.
Click through for article. Don’t get confused that Barboza-Ramirez’s pronouns are they/their. There is actually only one of them. (Not that there shouldn’t be more – Latinx scientists, that is.)

Food For Thought

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Jul 252023
 

Today, had she lived , would have been my mother’s 117th birthday (though that would have been extremely unlikely. ) She was a survivor of childhood abuse, widowhood with a newborn child,  and a melanoma on her nose.  She was not a woman who talked a lot, but one could generally take anything she said to the bank.  When I was in high school and college it was never hard for me to get friends to come over, but sometimes it was hard to tell whether it was her or me for whom they were coming.  At her funeral my last surviving sunt (who had always been known to be the most easily offended person in the family) said, that my Mom had been “the most loving person she had ever known.”  And, both prior to that and to this day, Virgil has raised many eyebrows by saying that he never really knew what love was until he met his wife’s mother.  Of course I miss her.  But I would probably miss her more had she not put so much time and effort into preparing me to be strong and independent.  Happy Birthday, Mom.

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Short Takes –

Democratic Underground (Zorro) – They Checked Out Pride Books in Protest. It Backfired.
Quote – Adrianne Peterson, the manager of the Rancho Peñasquitos branch of the San Diego Public Library, was actually a little embarrassed by the modest size of her Pride Month display in June. Between staff vacations and organizing workshops for graduating high school students, it had fallen through the cracks and fell short of what she had hoped to offer. Yet the kiosk across from the checkout counter, marked by a Progress Pride rainbow flag, was enough to thrust the suburban library onto the front lines of the nation’s culture wars. Ms. Peterson, who has run the library branch since 2012 and highlighted books for Pride Month for the better part of a decade, was taken aback when she read an email last month from two neighborhood residents. They informed her that they had gotten nearly all of the books in the Pride display checked out and would not return them unless the library permanently removed what they considered “inappropriate content.”
Click through for what happened next.This take is so that Colleen can get bragging rights for her city. The original article was in the NY Times, but I don’t have a gift link, and besides, the comments are pretty good.

Good News Network – Stunned Researchers Discover that Metals Can Heal Themselves ‘Without Human Intervention’
Quote – Scientists for the first time have witnessed pieces of metal crack, then fuse back together without any human intervention, overturning fundamental scientific theories in the process. If the newly discovered phenomenon can be harnessed, it could usher in an engineering revolution—one in which self-healing engines, bridges, and airplanes could reverse damage caused by wear and tear, making them safer and longer-lasting. The research team from Sandia National Laboratories and Texas A&M University described their findings today in the journal Nature.
Click through. I found this through CPR. I don’t often do an all good news day, and I didn’t plan this one, but I figured, since it is Mom’s birthday, I’d let it go.

Food For Thought

I made this.  Marthe48 says “Please feel free to share.”

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Jul 082023
 

Yesterday, I received an e-mail with a little video of Jamie Raskin announcing that his cancer is in total remission. Now that’s something to break out a little bubbly for! I also received a note (email) from Pat advising me she has out-of-town family visiting, so will probably not be around this weekend (so don’t worry.) I also received a grocery order.  Most of it was there, But there was one substitution, and it was a bad one (which common sense should have prevented.  So I had to file a refund claim for that.  I got it all in and the shulder was still better after doing so than it was the previous day, so that’s a win.  It’s still a work in progress, but I;m liking the progress.

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Short Takes –

Politico – Biden’s hydrogen bombshell leaves Europe in the dust
Quote – European leaders have devoted tens of billions of dollars toward encouraging production of hydrogen, a clean-burning fuel that advocates say will create jobs and help fight climate change. But now, many of those jobs will be going to the United States instead. The clean energy subsidies that undergird President Joe Biden’s climate agenda have just prompted one Norwegian manufacturer to choose Michigan, not Europe, as the site of a nearly $500 million factory that will produce the equipment needed to extract hydrogen from water. And other European-based companies are being tempted to follow suit, people involved in the continent’s hydrogen efforts say — making the universe’s most abundant substance the latest focus of the transatlantic trade battle on green energy.
Click through for details. I wish no ill to Europe, but I cannot help feeling that this is so cool.

National Public Radio – Researchers found a rare octopus nursery off the coast of Costa Rica
Quote – Scientists working off the coast of Costa Rica say they’ve discovered the world’s third known octopus nursery…. According to a press release, researchers witnessed Muusoctopus eggs hatch. They said it demonstrated that the area, known as the Dorado Outcrop, was hospitable to young octopuses… Scientists said the discovery also indicated that some deep-sea octopus species brood their eggs in low-temperature hydrothermal vents, such as the one where the nursery was discovered, where fluid heated in the Earth’s crust is released on the seafloor — like hot springs.
Click through for story. I cannot bring myself to be surprised that octopuses have discoverd this and made use of it for child care – they are so doggoned smart! But I am charmed by it. The octopuses in this story are neither South Asian nor mimics, but I couldn’t resist the chart below.

Food For Thought

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Everyday Erinyes #368

 Posted by at 4:24 pm  Politics
Apr 302023
 

Experts in autocracies have pointed out that it is, unfortunately, easy to slip into normalizing the tyrant, hence it is important to hang on to outrage. These incidents which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with them will, I hope, help with that. As a reminder, though no one really knows how many there were supposed to be, the three names we have are Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone. These roughly translate as “unceasing,” “grudging,” and “vengeful destruction.”

This week, ProPublica is concerned about lethal injection. And heaven knows that is a problem (not that all capital punishment is not a problem, and ProPublica is well aware of that. But the abuses of lethal injection do cry out to heaven.) And I knew before I saw the title of this article that it would be about lethal injection – because it was the second article in the newsletter, and the first one was obviously about lethal injection. But the title did strike me as having multiple applications, and not least in the area of women’s health. And in other areas, including some that have not occurred to me.

Final scene from Theodora (Handel) as staged by Peter Sellars.
He chose modern time and allusions to Texas to emphasize the barbarity of lethal injection. Photo by Alastair Muir/Shutterstock

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“A Courtroom Is a Really Lousy Place to Decide Science”

by Lauren Gill and Daniel Moritz-Rabson

ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.

In 2017, as lawyers for prisoners in Ohio sought to spare their clients from lethal injection, they challenged one of the state’s key witnesses: Daniel Buffington.

As he had done elsewhere, the Florida-based pharmacist had submitted written testimony saying that prisoners would not feel pain from the three-drug cocktail administered by executioners. But the lawyers for the men on death row argued that Buffington was unqualified to testify in an upcoming hearing, noting that he had not administered general anesthesia or conducted research on midazolam, the key sedative in the execution protocol.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael Merz denied the motion to bar Buffington’s testimony. And when prisoners’ lawyers challenged the pharmacist again in court, the judge stood his ground.

“He’s certainly better able to understand and explain induction of anesthesia than I am,” the judge said of Buffington. “I have no experience of induction of anesthesia except having had anesthesia induced on my own body and watching it with my wife and my son, and that’s far less than this witness has.”

Merz admitted Buffington as an expert witness in that proceeding and considered his testimony.

Legal experts say such exchanges illustrate a critical weakness in the judicial system: While the law relies in part on lawyers to scrutinize experts, judges must also evaluate a host of technical issues for themselves, weighing questions like whether a forensic technique is legitimate science or whether a particular drug will anesthetize a prisoner. And some experts say jurists are not always well equipped to do so.

“It’s very, very hard,” Patrick Schiltz, the chief U.S. district judge for the District Court of Minnesota, said in a telephone interview. Schiltz is also the chair of the advisory committee on evidence rules for the Judicial Conference of the United States, the governing body of the federal court system.

Before 1993, judges had to decide only if the testimony of an expert was consistent with generally accepted methodologies in the field. That year, though, the Supreme Court issued a landmark decision in the case Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals Inc., setting a new standard for federal jurists evaluating scientific testimony. The ruling instructed federal judges to rigorously scrutinize the science directly, considering factors like whether the expert’s theory had undergone peer review. Six years later, in a 1999 ruling, the court strengthened judges’ gatekeeping power by applying the standard to all expert witnesses, not just those giving scientific testimony.

Together, these mandates presented a significant challenge for judges, particularly in the arena of capital punishment and lethal injection, where debates often involve complex and evolving science.

“Sometimes we have really, really hard technical issues,” Schiltz said. “And it is a criticism of Daubert that it asks the judges to do something that judges aren’t particularly well suited to do.”

Jules Epstein, a professor at Temple University’s law school, was more blunt. “A courtroom is a really lousy place to decide science,” he said.

Complicating matters is the fact that a significant portion of the judiciary has inconsistently applied the rules for admitting expert witnesses. Federal judges are supposed to act as gatekeepers that consider whether there’s more than a 50% chance that the expert’s opinion is reliable, a standard known as the preponderance of the evidence. But one recent study of more than 1,000 federal court opinions determining the admissibility of expert testimony in 2020 found that in 13% of cases, the standard for admissibility used was less stringent than the law demands, and judges actually presumed that the expert’s testimony would be admissible.

In bench trials, which take place in front of a judge instead of a jury, judges also can allow experts to testify, then decide later how much weight to give their testimony. This has happened at least twice in method of execution cases where states have hired Buffington.

A judge’s initial decision on an expert witness can have far-reaching consequences. Legal experts told ProPublica and Type Investigations that jurists look to what other judges decided in past cases when they are weighing an expert’s qualifications. “Being admitted once as an expert essentially guarantees acceptance going forward,” Chris Fabricant, the director of strategic litigation at the Innocence Project, wrote in an email.

As ProPublica and Type have reported, seven states have hired Buffington to vouch for their execution protocols since 2015, when he first appeared in a lethal injection case. Judges have allowed him to testify in nearly every instance, with the exception of the Ohio case, where Merz later excluded him. Even then, it was not due to his qualifications but because he did not list his prior expert testimony in a way that complied with federal rules. (Merz declined to comment on the case, saying the court’s practice is not to speak about past decisions. Buffington has said in court that opposing counsel took issue with the formatting of his disclosure form. “That information wasn’t conveyed in time to reformat the form,” Buffington testified in Arkansas in 2019. “We were working on that, but the judge made the decision that there was a time threshold and precluded on that.”)

Buffington declined to be interviewed about the findings of the ProPublica-Type investigation, but a spokesperson for the pharmacist said Buffington has significant training and professional expertise in the areas of his testimony, including pharmacology and toxicology, and has held positions over the years in various medical organizations, including the American Medical Association and the American Pharmacists Association. “Dr. Buffington’s pharmacology training and professional experience make him well qualified to provide expert opinions on medicines and their effects in a wide range of areas,” the spokesperson wrote. “The core training, curriculum and clinical practice experience within the Doctor of Pharmacy degree and practice of pharmacy is centered on the domain of pharmacology.”

The spokesperson also dismissed the criticism by prisoners’ experts. Disagreement between expert witnesses, the spokesperson said, “is a hallmark of the American justice system. It is expected and utterly unremarkable that for every case in which Dr. Buffington served as an expert witness, the opposing side will disagree with his testimony.”

In cases unrelated to lethal injection, however, some judges have also challenged Buffington’s credentials, criticizing him for crafting what they considered to be thinly researched opinions and for attempting to testify beyond the scope of his expertise.

In 2018, for instance, a judge found him unqualified to testify as an expert in a case brought by the widow of a veteran accusing the Department of Veterans Affairs of negligence in her husband’s death. “Dr. Buffington is not competent to testify regarding the standard of care — or breach thereof — by medical doctors, nurses, osteopathic physicians, or physician’s assistants, as these are different professions from that of a pharmacist,” wrote Judge James Randal Hall, chief U.S. District Court judge for Georgia’s Southern District. (Neither Hall’s office nor Buffington responded to requests for comment about the ruling.)

In another case, a judge scoffed at Buffington’s work, which he said lacked sufficient evidence or analysis to back up the pharmacist’s conclusions. “Buffington’s opinion is entirely without any intellectual rigor or any indicia of reliability,” wrote U.S. Magistrate Judge Mark Lane, who in 2017 excluded Buffington’s testimony in a case about regulatory compliance for a medication guide. (A spokesperson for Buffington said Buffington “testified to specific FDA guidelines” and the judge’s statement “contradicted the FDA’s established requirements.”)

The Judicial Conference has recognized a need to clarify the rules for judges. Last year, it proposed amendments to the Federal Rules of Evidence, clarifying language to underscore the responsibility that judges have to be gatekeepers of expert testimony. The amendments will go into effect in December 2023 if the Supreme Court adopts them and Congress does not reject them.

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Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone, the founders of the United States certainly did not have all the scientific knowledge which our scientists have today. And I will not guarantee that everything we have is 199% accurate – I think it’s better described as “the best knowledge we have until new knowledge comes along.” But it still beats the heck out of legal theory when there is a question of fact. And the harm which can come from ignoring science in favor of myth or gut feelings or “sincerely held religious belief” is incalculable.

The Furies and I will be back.

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Mar 032023
 

Glenn Kirschner – w/Eric Swalwell on Lawrence – in lieu of February recap

Ring of Fire – Fox Host Humiliates Himself Trying To Find A Single DeSantis Supporter At Florida Diner

Channel 9 Denver – Colorado’s cold air helped create the perfect conditions for ‘light pillars’ (No, I’ve never seen one, and no, I don’t expect to.)

Patrick Fitzgerald – He’s Always a Moron

Pittie Is Foster Mom To Over 50 Kittens

Beau – Let’s talk about two GOP hurdles for 2024….

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Feb 142023
 

Political Voices Network – Neal Katyal: GOP Scared! Pence Gets an “A” for Loyalty, But Will He Have the Guts to Cross Trump?

The Lincoln Project – This Week in House Committee Hearings

MSNBC – Plaskett: GOP using ‘weaponization’ panel to air conspiracy theories ahead of 2024

Farron Balanced – Trump Goes Nuts After Conservative Group Snubs Him

Shy Rescue Puppy Asks For Pets For The First Time

Beau – Let’s talk about science in Montana….

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Jan 012023
 

Yesterday, the opera wasn’t an opera, but a collection of excerpts from operas previously broadcast, some more or less recently, some way, WAY back. What they had in common was that each was from the Met debut of a singer(/actor/storyteller – plus one conductor) who later became an international star. Kiri Te Kanawa was one, and another was Latonia Moore (you may remember I heard that debut – she stepped in as understudy and I was, like, “Wow!”) Not all, of course, were quite that “A Star Is Born” dramatic – some stars were pretty well established elsewhere before coming to the Met – but some were (Astrid Varnay and Te Kanama). The range was from Moore (2012), the newest, all the way back to Bidu Sayão on February 13, 1937.

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ProPublica – They Called 911 for Help. Police and Prosecutors Used a New Junk Science to Decide They Were Liars.
Quote – Junk science in the justice system is nothing new. But unvarnished correspondence about how prosecutors wield it is hard to come by. It can be next to impossible to see how law enforcement — in league with paid, self-styled “experts” — spreads new, often unproven methods. The system is at its most opaque when prosecutors know evidence is unfit for court but choose to game the rules, hoping judges and juries will believe it and vote to convict.
Click through for details. You thought facial recognition technology was bad? Hold these p[eople’s beer (And I use the term “people” loosely. I questin their humanity.)

National Public Radio – Why scientists dug up the father of genetics, Gregor Mendel, and analyzed his DNA
Quote – Sequencing his DNA revealed genetic variants linked to diabetes, heart problems, and kidney disease. The variant that most intrigued Fairbanks was in a gene that has been associated with epilepsy and neurological issues. “He suffered throughout his life from some sort of a psychological or neurological disorder that caused him to have very severe nervous breakdowns,” says Fairbanks. “That may well have been an inherited condition – and that was a fascinating discovery that these scientists made.”
Click through for story. At first it sounds morbid – but on reflection, I think he would take it in the sirit of homage in which it was done. (He might have even gotten a chuckle out of it.)

Food For Thought

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