Polk: The Man Who Transformed the Presidency and America by Walter R. Borneman

~ D. J. Moore ~ Leave a comment

James Knox Polk was born in 1795 in a log cabin in North Carolina, within twenty miles of Andrew Jackson, who was 28 years older. His family was Presbyterian, but his grandfather became a deist and Polk himself wasn’t baptized due to his father getting into an argument with the local minister. His family moved to Tennessee in 1806.

Young James was sickly due to urinary stones. In 1812, when he was 17, he survived surgery to remove the stones. He started attending the University of North Carolina when he was 20. At the time, the university was staffed by a single administrator, a single professor, and a few tutors. He graduated in 1818, but was too frail to travel home right away.

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The Far Reaches

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The Far Reaches is a collection of six short stories available for free for Amazon Prime subscribers. All of the stories take place in space. Colonization is a theme in half the stories. We get a wide variety of narrators including an AI, an alien, a human raised by aliens, and a clone. There’s a cozy science fiction story and an engaging murder mystery aboard a space ship. They’re all written by famous science fiction writers. I liked all of them, but my favorites are the stories by Rebecca Roanhorse, Veronica Roth, and James S. A. Corey.

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Good News Friday

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  • Belize certified malaria-free. WHO.
  • How data helped Mexico City reduce high-impact crime by more than 50%. World Economic Forum.
  • Israel reduced the suicide rate in the military by about 30 percent. Think Global Health.
  • Indonesia and Malaysia have cut deforestation in half in last five years. Yale 360.
  • China on course to hit wind and solar power target five years ahead of time. The Guardian.
  • A massive underground deposit of high-grade phosphate has been discovered in Norway, enough to satisfy world demand for fertilizers, solar panels and EV batteries for 100 years. Euractiv.
  • Conservation efforts celebrated as 26 Australian species no longer need threatened listing. The Guardian.
  • A new TB vaccine could save 8.5m lives over the next quarter of a century. The Economist.
  • Day care for less than $10: how Canada is easing the burden for parents. The New York Times.

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

John Tyler: The Accidental President by Edward P. Crapol

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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
  • Kenya has made some big strides in reducing teen pregnancy, with rates falling by more than half in four years. The Standard.
  • Japan has raised the age of consent from 13 to 16 and introduced far stricter laws against sex crimes. BBC.
  • Diversity increased on the nation’s largest companies’ corporate boards by 38% in 2022. NBC News.
  • Deforestation in Brazil fell 68% in April compared with the same month last year. NewScientist.
  • Spain set to generate more than 50% of its power from renewables. Bloomberg.
  • Homicide rate in Scotland falls to lowest level since records began. The National.

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

Good News Friday

~ D. J. Moore ~ Leave a comment
  • More than 1.1 million Moroccans are now connected to reliable, safe water supply. The World Bank.
  • Governor Newsom announces statewide expansion of Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library to provide universal access to free books for young children. Ca.gov.
  • Wind and solar produced more U.S. power than coal during the first five months of this year, as several coal plants closed and gas prices dropped. Scientific American.
  • China’s installed non-fossil fuel electricity capacity exceeds 50% of total two years ahead of schedule. Reuters.
  • For the first time, phosphates have been detected in an alien ocean. Found on Saturn’s moon Enceladus, the discovery raises the possibility that life could exist on the tiny frozen satellite. Science Alert.

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

Good News Friday

~ D. J. Moore ~ Leave a comment
  • Number of confirmed malaria cases in Tanzania declined by 55 per cent from 7.7 million in 2015 to 3.5 million in 2022. Daily News.
  • Over the past two decades, the proportion of Ugandans suffering from hunger has fallen by 58 percent and only one percent still face severe hunger. Reasons to be Cheerful.
  • The age-standardized death rate from cancer declined by 15% since 1990. Our World in Data.
  • Cheap vaccines could prevent millions of deaths from cervical cancer. The Economist.
  • Global inequality at lowest level in nearly 150 years. Axios.
  • Wind and solar overtake fossil generation in the EU in May. Ember.
  • Handheld device could 3D-print tissues and organs in-situ. Engineering and Technology
  • Scientists have developed a super repellent that can stop 99% of mosquitos from biting your skin. Euronews.
  • Lab-grown dairy doesn’t have cholesterol, lactose, growth hormones or antibiotics, doesn’t harm cows, and is good for the environment. And it’s already here. The Washington Post.

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

William Henry Harrison by Gail Collins

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William Henry Harrison grew up in a Virginia mansion (although when he later ran for president, he claimed to have grown up in a log cabin). He was the youngest of seven children. His father was a governor of Virginia and a signer of the Declaration of Independence. His mother was a relative of Martha Washington and also came from a wealthy family.

During the Revolutionary War, the family mansion was sacked (the British took 40 of the family slaves and also stole furniture and livestock) and the overused soil was beginning to produce fewer crops. Harrison therefore didn’t attend William and Mary like his brothers, but rather the less expensive Hampton-Sidney College. He then went to the Medical School of Pennsylvania. His father died when he was 18 and the family couldn’t afford to continue schooling him, so he joined the army.

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Good News Friday

~ D. J. Moore ~ Leave a comment
  • The share of people worldwide who say their area is a good place for gay or lesbian people to live doubled from 25% to 50% over 10 years. Axios.
  • Scientists find way to make energy from air using nearly any material. The Washington Post.
  • 5,000 new species found in the Pacific Ocean. BBC.
  • New airborne radar could revolutionize hurricane forecasting. Axios.
  • An experimental treatment has a 90% success rate at bringing patients with multiple myeloma into remission. The Jerusalem Post.
  • New kind of chicken lays eggs that don’t have allergy protein. Freethink.

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

Martin Van Buren by Ted Widmer

~ D. J. Moore ~ Leave a comment

Martin Van Buren was the first president born in the United States after the Revolutionary War and also the first president from New York. He’s the only president who didn’t speak English as his native language (he grew up speaking Dutch). He’s one of the few presidents who wasn’t Anglo-Saxon, and one of the few who wasn’t either college-educated or a war hero. He was distantly related to Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt.

He was blond, and to compensate for his baldness, he grew ridiculously big sideburns. He was one of the shorter presidents at five feet, six inches. He was an optimist with a sunny disposition and was friends with the famous writer Washington Irving.

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