John Brown's Notes and Essays

The Washington Post announces writing style changes for racial and ethnic identifiers The Post to capitalize Black to identify groups that make up the African diaspora. By  WashPostPR July 29, 2020 at 8:59 a.m. EDT https://www.washingtonpost.com/pr/2020/07/29/washington-post-announces-writing-style-changes-racial-ethnic-identifiers/ image (not from article)   https://www.amazon.com/Black-Brown-Region-Francesc-Garrido/dp/B01EGQSJ4M Announcement from Multiplatform Editing Chief Jesse Lewis, Deputy Multiplatform Editor Courtney Rukan and Multiplatform Editor Brian Cleveland: Beginning immediately, The Washington Post will uppercase the B in Black to identify the many groups that make up the African diaspora in America and elsewhere. This decision comes after extensive discussions with members of our own news organization, consultations with editors in other newsrooms nationwide and evaluations of commentary and analyses by numerous thought leaders and organizations of influence ...

Review of: TO START A WAR How the Bush Administration Took America Into Iraq By Robert Draper Donald Rumsfeld visits troops in Singapore, 2004. Credit... Gerald Hebert/Reuters By  Jacob Heilbrunn, The New York Times       Published   July 28, 2020,  Updated July 29, 2020 https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/28/books/review/to-start-a-war-robert-draper.html?action=click&block=more_in_recirc&impression_id=fb686331-d39d-11ea-b496-d5666e0d6bdb&index=1&pgtype=Article&region=footer In April 2003, after he had launched the invasion of Iraq, George W. Bush stood in the Oval Office reception room and watched the televised liberation of Basra, which serves as the country’s main port. Next to him was Secretary of State Colin Powell, who had warned Bush about the dangers of ousting Saddam Hussein from power. Smoke rose from the intelligence service headquarters. The city prison had been opened. Looters were filching desks, chairs and water tanks fro...

After a stumbling start, the country has gone from being a global pariah to a model — however imperfect — of viral containment that holds lessons for its neighbors and for the United States. A market in Naples, Italy, on June 19. Italians are cautiously optimistic that they have the virus in check — even as national health experts warn that complacency remains the jet fuel of the pandemic. Credit... Gianni Cipriano for The New York Times By  Jason Horowitz   July 31, 2020 Updated  10:35 a.m. ET The New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/31/us/politics/trump-russia-nato-bounties.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage Extract: "ROME — When the coronavirus erupted in the West, Italy was   the nightmarish epicenter , a place to avoid at all costs and a shorthand in the United States and much of Europe for uncontrolled contagion. 'You look at what’s going on with Italy,' President Trump told reporters on March 17. 'We don’t want to be in a ...

From The New York Times, July 31, 2010 https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/31/us/politics/trump-russia-nato-bounties.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage    image from zazzle.com "[Trump's] decision was part of presidential pique that Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany was not devoting a big enough portion of the national budget to her nation’s defense —  and that reducing the American military presence  in German  [sic] fulfilled one of Mr. Putin’s greatest dreams."

An owl the size of an eagle, the fish owl seems ‘almost too big and too comical to be a real bird,’ according to one expert. Fewer than 2,000 survive today, many in Russia’s Primorye province, a remote forested region bordering North Korea and China. Image: Jonathan Slaght with a Blakiston’s fish owl. By   Heller McAlpin, The Wall Street Journal July 31, 2020 10:50 am ET https://www.wsj.com/articles/owls-of-the-eastern-ice-review-the-salmon-eaters-11596207020?mod=opinion_major_pos11 Jonathan Slaght’s first encounter with Blakiston’s fish owl, the rare salmon-eating raptor that would become the focus of his doctoral thesis and this book, was accidental. On a hike in 2000, when he was stationed with the Peace Corps in Russia’s Far East, he “unexpectedly flushed an enormous and panicked bird.” His description of the eventual object of his obsession alerts us that this is no ordinary owl, and Mr. Slaght is no ordinary writer: “This disheveled mass of wood-chip brown regarded us warily ...

Projects take longer. Collaboration is harder. And training new workers is a struggle. ‘This is not going to be sustainable.’ By  Chip Cutter  | Photographs by Cayce Clifford for The Wall Street Journal The Wall Street Journal, July 24, 2020 11:10 am ET https://www.wsj.com/articles/companies-start-to-think-remote-work-isnt-so-great-after-all-11595603397?mod=business_major_pos2 Four months ago, employees at many U.S. companies went home and did something incredible: They got their work done, seemingly without missing a beat. Executives were amazed at how well their workers performed remotely, even while juggling child care and the distractions of home.  Twitter  Inc.   TWTR  -0.89%   and  Facebook  Inc., among  others , quickly said they would embrace  remote work long term . Some companies even  vowed  to give up their physical office spaces entirely. Now, as the work-from-home experiment  stretches on , some cracks a...