The place I go to for car maintenance has great service, but they need to work on their spelling.
Meteorologist Chris Gloninger quit his job reporting the weather on Des Moines TV news because he’d been receiving death threats for talking about climate change during his weather reporting. This is yet another concerning data point in the general anti-science, anti-media trend being fomented by an aggrieved sector of America continuing its cult-like turn.
In spite of the evidence all around us, from a century’s worth of temperature tables to the increase in the number and size of forest fires, rising sea levels, and more days when it’s too hot for planes to take off, too many people see the world through a warped ideological lens and choose to defend that view with threats and violence. To quote the AP article Harassment of TV meteorologists reflects broader anti-science, anti-media trends:
Gloninger’s experience is all too common among meteorologists across the country who are encountering reactions from viewers as they tie climate change to extreme temperatures, blizzards, tornadoes and floods in their local weather reports. For on-air meteorologists, the anti-science trend that has emerged in recent years compounds a deepening skepticism of the news media.
Many meteorologists say it’s a reflection of a more hostile political landscape that has also affected workers in a variety of jobs previously seen as nonpartisan, including librarians, school board officials and election workers.
For several years now, Gloninger said, “beliefs are amplified more than truth and evidence-based science. And that is not a good situation to be in as a nation.”
For more, see this MSNBC piece, Meteorologist on receiving death threats over his climate crisis reports:
But go ahead, caption this photo. I dare ya.
And in case you need context, this is about the Trump indictment.
There’s this “Bill Gates at a restaurant” meme that’s been making the rounds again among acquaintances of mine who are a little too deep into “hustle culture,” and I’m here to tell you that the story it tells is 100% fake.
The story changes slightly with each retelling, but it generally goes like this:
BILL GATES in a restaurant.
After eating, he gave $5 to the waiter as a tip. The waiter had a strange look on his face after the tip, Gates realized, and asked the waiter what had happened.
The waiter replied, “I’m just amazed because on the same table your son gave a tip of $500, but you, his father, the richest man in the world, only gave me $5.”
Gates smiled and replied with meaningful words: “He is Son of the world’s richest man, but I am the son of a wood cutter…”
(Never Forget Your Past. It’s Your Best Teacher)
The problem with this story is that Bill Gates’ tale isn’t one of rags to riches, but of riches to even more riches. After all, Bill’s foray into tech was greatly assisted by the fact that in 1968, he was at an expensive prep school — one of the few that had a computer:
at Lakeside Prep School.
As for Bill’s dad, William Henry Gates II, he was not a wood cutter, but a founding partner of the law firm Shidler McBroom & Gates, which would grow to become K&L Gates, which boasts over 1,000 employees. It’s no Microsoft, but neither is it small potatoes.
I suspect that the meme’s popularity with my “hustle bro” acquaintances is that it justifies their tendency to underpay people to fatten their own wallets, a fact that many of them often boast about (along with other shady behavior). That’s one of the reasons they’re acquaintances, not friends.
And what better way to mark the start of both Pride Month and National Accordion Awareness Month than with a rainbow accordion?
Weltmeister makes a couple of rainbow accordions — the 30-key, 72-bass, 5-register Juwel (US$3,000), and the slightly larger 34-key, 72-bass, 5-register Achat (US$3,300). Accordions aren’t cheap!
Happy Pride Month and happy National Accordion Awareness Month, everybody!
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I’m calling it THIS from now on
