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Good News Friday

~ D. J. Moore ~ Leave a comment
  • The US has finally destroyed all of its chemical weapons. Vox.
  • Explore how much the world has changed since you were born. Human Progress.
  • The plastic-eating bacteria that could change the world. The Guardian.
  • Girl receives UK’s first rejection-free kidney from mum. BBC News.
  • Renewable energy champion Kenya plans Africa’s biggest wind farm. Bloomberg.

For more good news, check out The Progress Network, and Future Crunch.

John Tyler: The Accidental President by Edward P. Crapol

~ D. J. Moore ~ Leave a comment

John Tyler was born into wealth and privilege on a Virginia slave plantation. (Incidentally, he was born just twenty miles from his future running mate William Henry Harrison.) His father Judge John Tyler was Thomas Jefferson’s roommate at William and Mary and was elected governor three times. John Tyler was educated at the prestigious College of William and Mary himself and went on to practice law.

Tall and slender, Tyler was warm and affectionate and had a keen sense of humor. He relished parties and preferred champagne to hard cider (even though hard cider was an integral part of his vice presidential campaign). He liked to dance the Virginia Reel and play the fiddle. He fathered 15 children, the most of any president. He had toddlers underfoot until he was in his early seventies. He was a good public speaker and a prolific writer of letters and political tracts. He loved books and frequently quoted Shakespeare. There were 1,200 books in his library at the time of his death.

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Good News Friday

~ D. J. Moore ~ Leave a comment
  • In Afghanistan, women have been allowed to go back to Kabul University. Twitter.
  • An experimental drug that addresses anhedonia could increase the brain’s capacity to experience pleasure and herald a new era of precision medicine in psychiatry. Neo.Life.
  • Reported crime in Japan hits postwar low for seventh year running. Nippon.
  • A new distribution system is helping African countries ramp up vaccinations. New York Times.
  • How the US women’s soccer team won its battle for equal pay. El Pais.
  • In Uganda, a new approach to ending sexual and gender based violence: training men. Minority Africa.
  • Germany: Traffic deaths fall to lowest point in 60 years. DW.
  • New sickle cell treatment given to first patients in England. BBC News.
  • Guaranteed income program in DC lowered rates of food insecurity, report says. The Hill.

For more good news, check out The Progress Network, and Future Crunch.

Good News Friday

~ D. J. Moore ~ Leave a comment
  • At 1.9%, Nebraska now has the lowest unemployment rate of any state, ever. Wall Street Journal.
  • Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is recovering from life-threatening coral bleaching episodes. NPR.
  • A new stem-cell treatment has cured a man of Type-1 Diabetes. The New York Times.
  • US jobless claims hit 52-year low after seasonal adjustments. AP News.
  • Portugal goes coal-free long before deadline. CNN.

For more good news, check out The Progress Network, Future Crunch, and Reasons to be Cheerful.

Thoughts on COVID-19

~ D. J. Moore ~ Leave a comment

These are crazy times, right? We haven’t had a do a wide-scale quarantine like this since the 1918 Flu. It’s good this sort of thing doesn’t happen more than once every 100 years or so. At least we can learn from the past. Looking at the 1918 Flu, we know social distancing does slow the spread of the disease and saves lives. It might need to last months, but that’s better than ending it early. The most important take-away is we’ve been through this before, we can go through it again. Plus, we have much better medical technology now than we did then, so it likely won’t be as bad as 1918. Continue reading →