Citizen Cartwright

In challenging times, expanding our perspective

We humans behaving humanly can lead to some distressing news headlines.

 

But let’s put our experience in a broader context.

 

"We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star,” Stephen Hawking said.

 

Maria Popova, writer of the blog Marginalia (formerly Brain Pickings), said at her Universe in Verse 2022 event:

"The reason I love thinking about the evolutionary time scale is it reminds us that we’re actually a very young species in the scheme of things. We’re barely reaching our adolescence. 

"So suddenly there’s a way of shifting the self-blame and kind of self-flagellation with which we regard ourselves for the damage we’ve done to our house. 

"Shifting it from not being a malevolent grownup villain but just a kind of young creature, not knowing its strength, not knowing its limits, moving through its environment trying to make sense [of it]. 

"And that means there’s a realistic hope that as a young creature matures, so our species could mature to be a more conscious and conscientious inhabitant of home.”

 

Here are some pictures that put our planetary home in a universal context, from Big Think.

Also in the news

EU leaders agree to ban 90 percent of Russian oil by the end of 2022

 

China falls short on big Pacific deal but gets smaller wins

 

Justice Department to review law enforcement response to Texas school shooting

 

Some Democrats voting in Republican primaries to block Trump picks

 

Cleta Mitchell, lawyer who plotted to overturn Trump loss, is recruiting election deniers to watch over the vote

 

Austin, Texas, making first push by a major city in a red state to try to circumvent state abortion policy

 

Judge throws out Trump’s lawsuit seeking to stop New York attorney general’s probe of his business dealings

 

NYTimes tech writer Brian Chen: 'I tried Apple’s self-repair program with my iPhone' and 'broke my phone'

 

What gun violence does to our collective mental health

Note to readers

Because of the Memorial Day holiday, I’ll see you next on Tuesday, May 31.

Bipartisan group of senators is trying again on guns

The 10 senators, led by Chris Murphy of Connecticut — where 20 children and six educators were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012 — hopes to have legislation ready for a vote when lawmakers return from their Memorial Day recess.

 

"Leaders in both parties signaled tentative support for the effort, even as they sounded heavy notes of skepticism after years of failed attempts by Congress to address gun violence — each of them following the same cycle of outrage and optimism for a deal giving way to partisan division and, finally, defeat,” says The New York Times.

 

Under consideration are:

 

— Incentivizing states to pass red flag laws that take firearms away from people who may harm themselves or others

 

— Expanded background checks for all commercial gun sales, including at gun shows and over the internet. Background checks now are required only when guns are bought from federally licensed dealers.

 

— "Hardening" schools, providing money for resources, law enforcement officers or even arming teachers

 

On Thursday, Republicans blocked consideration of a domestic terrorism bill that had cleared the House quickly last week after mass shootings at a grocery store in Buffalo, N.Y., and a church in Southern California targeting people of color. 

 

On Wednesday and Thursday, the Times reached out to all 50 Senate Republicans to find out whether they'd support two House-passed measures to strengthen background checks for gun buyers. Here are the responses so far.

Also in the news

China, Russia veto more U.N. sanctions on North Korea, in first public Security Council split on the issue since 2006

Analysis: Fissures emerge over what constitutes victory in Ukraine

Supreme Court won’t block Biden policy on ‘social cost of carbon’

How an organized GOP effort is punishing companies for climate action

As CEO pay gets even bigger, so does its complexity

Boeing 'crew taxi' returns to Earth from International Space Station, in repeat test flight before NASA astronauts’ use

Prepare for sticker shock if you're traveling this summer, although 'Europe is the best travel bargain out there'

KHN: Betting on ‘golden age’ of colonoscopies, private equity invests in gastroenterology doctors' practices

First federally backed test-to-treat coronavirus site opens, giving patients immediate access to Paxlovid after positive test

How other countries have dealt with mass shootings

"Politicians and media around the world have reacted with horror, incomprehension and weary resignation to news that an 18-year-old gunman had murdered 19 children and two teachers in America’s 27th school shooting so far this year,” says Britain’s Guardian newspaper.

 

"The world over, mass shootings are frequently met with a common response,” says The New York Times. "Officials impose new restrictions on gun ownership. Mass shootings become rarer. Homicides and suicides tend to decrease, too.”

 

"Only the United States, whose rate and severity of mass shootings is without parallel outside of conflict zones, has so consistently refused to answer those events with tightened gun laws,” says the Times.

 

Britain, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Norway all had a culture of gun ownership, and they all tightened restrictions anyway, says the Times. Their violence statistics now diverge sharply from America's.

 

In Britain, for example, there are about five guns per 100 people (except in Northern Ireland, where this number is higher), one of the lowest rates in the developed world.

 

The United States has an estimated 120 firearms per 100 people, according to a BBC News article on U.S. gun data.

Also in the news

AP: China wants 10 small Pacific nations to endorse sweeping cooperation agreement

 

Biden signs executive order to improve accountability in policing on anniversary of George Floyd’s death

 

Senate Democrats plan votes on House-passed bills to expand criminal background checks before gun purchases

 

Oklahoma governor signs law making the state the first in the nation to effectively end availability of abortion

 

Scientists develop a way to make plastic more degradable under ultraviolet light

 

VA offering $3 million prize for ideas to stop veteran suicides

Tuesday’s Georgia primary and Trump’s hold on GOP voters

The former president's crusade for vengeance suffered two “devastating" blows after Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger won their primaries Tuesday despite rejecting Trump’s entreaties to reverse his 2020 election loss, says The Associated Press.

 

Yes, says The New York Times. But it would be a mistake to interpret these results as a wholesale rejection of Trump himself. 

 

"His gravitational pull on Republican voters warped every one of Tuesday’s primaries, shaping candidates’ positions and priorities as they beat a path to Mar-a-Lago,” the Times says.

 

Trump’s poor showing in state capitals — his endorsed candidates for governor have now lost as many races as they’ve won this year — can partly be blamed on the degree of difficulty, says a separate Times article. Successful campaigns for governor often need to be precisely tailored to address nuanced regional and local issues. House and Senate bids — where Trump’s endorsement record as yet is nearly unblemished — can more easily harness national political winds.

 

Trump’s "refusal to take a more cautious approach and protect his political capital ahead of a likely 2024 presidential campaign has resulted in unforced errors,” says the Times.

 

In Georgia, Republicans have worried about the unnecessary political damage Trump has inflicted on Kemp, who will face a rematch in November with Stacey Abrams, the Democratic nominee who lost their 2018 contest by 54,700 votes, less than one-half of one percentage point.

 

Here is full AP coverage of Tuesday’s primary results in Georgia, Alabama, Arkansas, Texas and Minnesota.

Also in the news

U.S. to close off Russia’s last way to pay international investors

 

At Davos, John Kerry, top U.S. official on climate change, cites progress on China-U.S. climate group

 

Biden says ‘we have to act’ on guns after school shooting in Texas

Congressional commission recommends new names for Army bases named after Confederate officers

 

Linda Greenhouse in NYTimes: Abortion questions for Alito and his Supreme Court allies

 

Coronavirus can 'rebound' after treatment with Paxlovid, CDC says

 

Watch the superbug webinar sponsored by Pew and hosted by The Hill here 

Analysis: Putin shouldn’t be offered a face-saving off-ramp on Ukraine

"Although saying so is considered undiplomatic, the American administration clearly knows that the defeat, sidelining, or removal of Putin is the only outcome that offers any long-term stability in Ukraine and the rest of Europe,” says Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Anne Applebaum in The Atlantic.

 

“Putin cannot remain in power,” President Biden said in March. In April, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said he hoped “to see Russia weakened to the degree it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine.” 

 

Both of these statements were treated as gaffes or policy mistakes, Applebaum says. 

 

But "In truth, they were half-articulated acknowledgments of an ugly reality that no one wants to confront: Any cease-fire that allows Putin to experience any kind of victory will be inherently unstable, because it will encourage him to try again.

 

"I understand those who fear that, confronted with an impending loss, Putin will seek to use chemical or nuclear weapons; I worried the same at the start of the war,” Applebaum says.

 

"But the retreats from Kyiv and Kharkiv indicate that Putin is not irrational after all. He understands perfectly well that NATO is a defensive alliance, because he has accepted the Swedish and Finnish applications without quibbling. His generals make calculations and weigh costs. They were perfectly capable of understanding that the price of Russia’s early advances was too high. The price of using tactical nuclear weapons would be far higher: They would achieve no military impact but would destroy all of Russia’s remaining relationships with India, China, and the rest of the world. There is no indication right now that the nuclear threats so frequently mentioned by Russian propagandists, going back many years, are real.

 

"Military loss could create a real opening for national self-examination or for a major change, as it so often has done in Russia’s past,” says Applebaum.

 

"Only failure can persuade the Russians themselves to question the sense and purpose of a colonial ideology that has repeatedly impoverished and ruined their own economy and society, as well as those of their neighbors, for decades. Yet another frozen conflict, yet another temporary holding pattern, yet another face-saving compromise will not end the pattern of Russian aggression or bring permanent peace.”