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Esperanto Lives On

September 22, 2026 by suzannesmom

Photo: Ziko/Wikimedia Commons.
Esperanto flags displaying the green star, verda stelo, in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, 2008.

Decades ago, when I was still active in local Esperanto meetings, a group of Esperantists came to the Boston area, and a bunch of us rode around with them on a beat-up green bus called the Green Tortoise, or verda testudo.

Today I no longer remember what the guests’ main goal for the visit was. To tour Boston’s historic sights with other Esperantists? Maybe just to find an inexpensive way to visit the US. Several people from Poland seemed to just melt away. They had friends or family in the country.

Although I don’t do much with Esperanto anymore, I know that the idea of a nonpolitical international second language is a good idea, one that despite ups and downs, never dies out completely. It’s too useful.

Katie Thornton wrote a long article about its uses at Harper’s magazine, and the Guardian reprinted it.

“One day, as a 16-year-old in the late 2000s,” she wrote, “I received an AOL instant message from my friend Kenyon. He wanted to know whether I had heard of Esperanto, the universal language. Kenyon was several years older than me, and something of a mentor. Like me, he was a musician – he engineered my teenage band’s first record – but unlike me, he had a head full of trivia that made him the confidently nerdy star of any Saturday-night gathering of outcasts.

“His pitch: Esperanto was invented in the late 19th century by a Polish-Jewish ophthalmologist named LL Zamenhof, who aimed to create a language so irresistibly easy to learn that it would be adopted as a shared second tongue by people the world over. From a position of mutual understanding, world peace would surely follow. Yes, the language had been around for well over 100 years and, yes, universal fellowship had yet to be achieved. But the internet had inaugurated a new era of global connectivity, and users could learn through an abundance of online classes. Perhaps we were on the verge of an Esperanto renaissance. Kenyon had been practising for a few years and was practically flua.

“As a typical adolescent, I was in the midst of my own social awakening. I had begun to travel the US playing music, relying on nothing but the hospitality of friends of friends of friends. I was finding communion and what felt like boundless possibility in mass bike rides and sweaty dance parties in derelict churches. I was also dabbling in the world of hitchhiking and freight-train-hopping. … Goods needed to move, and I could move with them, thanks to the kindness of those who showed me the ropes just because I wanted to learn. Esperanto seemed comparable: another disparate social club with a baked-in rejection of the forces, writ large and ill-defined, that sought to divide us. But even then, its goals felt redundant: the internet had already given me new tools to communicate across distance and difference. Simple as it might be to learn the language, why bother?

“Eventually, the collective optimism of the early internet dissipated, and I forgot about Esperanto. Then, a few years ago, I acquired a shortwave radio, capable of picking up analogue broadcasts from around the world. Browsing the schedules of international programs – which, to this day, are transmitted by national governments and large missionary organizations – I learned that both the state-run China Radio International and, until recently, the Vatican ran regular shortwave broadcasts in Esperanto. …

“I decided to join the estimated million-plus people who have taken to Duolingo to try it out since Esperanto debuted on the platform a decade ago. Soon I was climbing the ranks of the app’s prestigious leaderboard, reading aloud what sounded like a dream-warped version of Spanish. Egged on by the company’s signature green owl, I translated sentence after sentence that seemed pulled from the index of a modern-day Little Red Songbook (‘Who is that worker?’, ‘Is the thief guilty?’, ‘Do the police help us?’), lofty one-liners reflecting peacenik aspirations (‘There are too many wars in the world’), and sentiments betraying a delusional sense of the language’s reach (‘Learn Esperanto to talk to the world’).

“For a satirist or a cynic, Esperantists are easy fodder. Many of its enthusiasts are undeniably eccentric … but Esperanto was once a force in global politics. Before facing heavy persecution during the second world war, it gained serious traction in international labor, anticolonial and anarchist movements. And most of today’s Esperanto adherents are neither naive nor even particularly batty. They include European social democrats and elder anarchists, Chinese communists, central African youth pacifists and Ukrainian-independence advocates. There are Esperantist gay-rights advocates, Bible translators, lawyers and Go players. Why, against all evidence to the contrary, would this motley group – many of whom are no strangers to global conflict – still believe that the widespread adoption of a century-and-a-half-old invented language may yet overpower the world’s divisions, particularly as the global order, by any reasonable account, appears to be rapidly disintegrating?”

The article at the Guardian is very long, and I’m not sure it answers that question. But it’s interesting, and like all Guardian articles, it’s free. Read it here. Subsequent letters to the editor are here.

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Coloring Ballet Shoes Is a Real Job

September 21, 2026 by suzannesmom

Photo: Vincent Tullo for the New York Times.
Tim Foster is a shoe colorist for New York City Ballet. “It’s a responsibility I take very seriously,” he says.

Someone I worked wth at the Fed had a daughter who took a lot of ballet. He was a good sport with her Nutcracker events, assuming the part of Mother Ginger, the character with the huge skirt that children run out of.

You ask what little ballerinas grow up to be if they don’t become big ballerinas? That little one became a ballet writer, reporting here for one of the big guys.

Margaret Fuhrer writes at the New York Times, “If you take the elevator at the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center as high as it will go, then climb another flight of stairs and walk down a cinder-block hallway, you will reach a small space that looks like a cross between an artist’s studio and a chemistry lab. This is where Tim Foster paints ballet shoes.

“To be a shoe colorist for New York City Ballet, as Foster has been for 15 years, is to occupy a small yet important niche. Most pointe shoes and ballet slippers are manufactured in a pale pink. But the company’s repertoire requires a rainbow of hues, like canary yellow for the ensemble of Marzipan Shepherdesses in The Nutcracker, or powdery blue for the Butterfly soloist in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

“In his tiny aerie, Foster — the company’s first full-time shoe colorist — sprays and daubs hundreds of shoes each season. It is a delicate art. He must match costume colors exactly, so that the footwear doesn’t break the continuous line of the leg. And paint must be applied sparingly, painstakingly, so as not to change the feel of the shoe on the foot.

“As a former professional dancer, Foster, 73, understands the stakes. ‘When they give you their pointe shoes to mist or to dye, that is a responsibility I take very seriously,’ he said in a video interview. ‘It has to be right, because it’s their sacred tool. It’s their violin. It’s their oboe.’

“For years, almost nobody outside City Ballet knew that Foster or his job existed. Then the documentary filmmaker Joshua Charow, who often profiles unsung heroes, stumbled across a City Ballet blog post that mentioned Foster’s work. ‘Right away, I was fascinated,’ Charow said in a video interview. ‘But I couldn’t find any other information about him.’

“Earlier this year, Charow connected with Foster and filmed him discussing his past as a dancer and his work with City Ballet. Charow was delighted to discover that Foster had also quietly been making visual artwork. His shoe-painting station is lined with white paper that becomes spattered with different colors over time. He uses pieces of that paper to create fanciful, Chagall-esque scenes, incorporating the residual splotches of shoe paint.

“ ‘I just start sketching over the top of the paper that kept all the splatters and marks,’ Foster says in Charow’s documentary, Shoes for Tim, which came out in July. ‘I lose myself in it.’

“Foster’s job has become busier recently. Pink shoes, meant to approximate skin color, used to be a ballet costume default. But a few years ago, City Ballet became one of several ballet troupes to rethink ‘ballet pink,‘ adopting truly flesh-toned footwear instead. Today, each company member has a shoe shade custom-matched to their skin. That requires a lot of painting.

“Naomi Corti, a City Ballet soloist, said in a video interview that she now visits Foster before nearly every show — to get her shoes touched up, yes, but also just to talk. Gentle and thoughtful, Foster has a knack for soothing preperformance jitters.

“ ‘He always knows what to say because he’s one of us, a dancer,’ she said. ‘It’s this very calming presence. He’s like the heartbeat of the theater.’ ”

Lots more detail at the Times, here.

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Advice from an Expert on Falling

September 20, 2026 by suzannesmom

Photo: Nathalie van der Velde.
Nathalie Van der Velde recommends that everyone, regardless of age, start thinking about fall risk.

Somewhere along the line, medical appointments suddenly featured a new opening question: “Have you had any falls?” It took me by surprise. But now that I’ve seen what can happen to people who fall, I understand.

At the Washington Post, Gretchen Reynolds interviews Nathalie van der Velde, a leading expert on aging about why staying staying active is key for preventing falls at any age.

“A single fall can define how we’ll age,” says Reynolds, “representing a key ‘inflection point in later life,’ according to a study of 2,454 men and women ages 65 or older, published this month in the Journal of the American Medical Directors Association.

“About 20 percent of the people in the study experienced a first fall within two years of joining the study. For many, that fall’s effects lingered for months or years, nearly tripling their chances of needing ongoing care, either at home or in a facility, and making future falls more likely to cause fractures and lead to emergency room visits.

“That inaugural fall often initiated a persistent downward ‘domino effect’ on older people’s health. …

“Which is why Nathalie van der Velde, one of the study’s authors, is so intent on lessening the impacts — literal and figurative — of falls among older people. A professor of geriatric medicine and falls prevention at the Amsterdam University Medical Center in the Netherlands, she studies and works with older people at risk of falling. …

“I caught up with van der Velde to talk about how older people can make their homes safer, when to do a medication audit, at what age fall risks rise — spoiler: decades before 65 — and why, having turned 51 this year, she stands on one foot while brushing her teeth and avoids bifocals outside. …

Gretchen Reynolds
“Do you advise [your parents] about fall prevention?

Nathalie van der Velde
“[Yes.] Some years ago, my mother had problems with dizziness and even losing consciousness and falling. Her cardiologist was giving her medication and was really, really happy with her low blood pressure. But what happened was that sometimes, especially at night, it was so low when she got up that she would fall or faint. … It took some time and discussion with the cardiologist to find the right doses and types of medications for my mom, but in the end, we did. And that really changed everything. …

Reynolds
“Are there lessons in that experience for the rest of us?

Van der Velde
“For sure. One is that, at least once a year for an older person, there should be a medication assessment review. Maybe the physician can look at alternatives or different dosages. Another is to be honest. … People often won’t say anything because they’re afraid they’ll be put in a care home. …

Reynolds
“When should most of us start thinking about our fall risk?

Van der Velde
“Probably now. … By the age of 50, we know the risk of falling starts to go up, especially for those who are sedentary or taking many medications.

“For a healthy young person without any disabilities, it takes a major disturbance to trip and fall and land hard. But in older people, much smaller disturbances end in falls and injuries. Medications make them dizzy or arthritis makes their mobility worse or they’re wearing inappropriate footwear or they have poor vision. A fall in an older person could also be a symptom of an underlying condition, such as cardiovascular disease, which should be evaluated. …

“Don’t have unnecessary hazards. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has checklists online for what to do around the house. Use nonslip footwear. Check the lighting. Drink enough fluids. Avoid alcohol. Don’t stand up too quickly. Get your vision corrected if needed. Cataracts influence fall risk. But be careful with bifocals. If you wear them outside and need to climb stairs or step onto or off a curb, you usually look through the reading part of the lenses and don’t have good depth perception. We know people who use regular glasses outside instead of bifocals fall less.

“Mobility is the most important treatable fall risk factor, and exercise is the best way to stay mobile. Work on your strength, work on your balance, and keep a good general level of fitness. Go for walks. …

Reynolds
“How can the rest of us exercise to prevent falls? What do you do? …

Van der Velde
“Before, I mostly did strength exercises, like push-ups, but now I also do balance training in my morning routine. There are many ways to incorporate balance training into your day. Stand on one leg when you’re brushing your teeth. I do that. It’s a good one. Also practice getting up from the floor. Which is hard, by the way. …

Reynolds
“What about wearables? I have a smartwatch that can alert someone if I fall. Is that a good idea?

Van der Velde
“Absolutely. If you’re alone and fall, that’s a way to get help. But we also know that after a first fall, especially with an injury, some people get really fearful about another, which can limit their social activities. … A wearable can be a way to feel more secure about going out and doing things. It’s also a way for carers to be less frightened. Because if I can give one piece of advice to carers, it’s don’t stop your loved one from moving about and doing things. The worst thing you can do is get them in that circle of inactivity, losing muscle strength, losing balance. … Whatever your age, the key to avoiding falls is to stay active.”

More at the Post, here.

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Uruguay’s Co-ops Relieve Housing Crunch

September 19, 2026 by suzannesmom

Photo: Constance Malleret.
Sandra Cáceres sitting on her balcony in Montevideo, Uruguay, last April. She helped found the Covicivi I cooperative, which renovated an abandoned bakery in Montevideo’s Old Town. It now houses 34 apartments.

Uruguay’s co-op-housing model is an exercise in getting along with strangers and compromising. But it can build a sense of community, and it definitely keeps housing costs down.

Constance Malleret wrote about it recently at the Christian Science Monitor.

“As a young couple with three children in the 1970s, Teresita Palomeque and her husband thought buying a house was an unattainable dream.

“So, when they were invited to join a housing cooperative – an emerging model at the time – they scrimped to pay the entry fee alongside colleagues from the bank where they worked. 

“Construction lasted four years, and in 1975, the family of five moved into a compact three-bedroom apartment in a development of redbrick tower blocks on one of Montevideo’s main avenues. Ms. Palomeque still lives there to this day with a thousand other co-op residents. …

“Cooperatives, and community-centered housing more generally, are part of a ‘tool kit of solutions’ to the global housing shortage, estimated at 288 million homes, [says Elkin Velásquez, regional director for Latin America and the Caribbean at UN-Habitat, the United Nations agency for urbanization]. It’s top of mind for people around the world, as concerns around affordability grow. The United States Congress passed a housing bill to boost supply, signed into law in early July. The 21st Century Road to Housing Act was one of the rare pieces of legislation to win bipartisan support in recent years.

“It was under similar conditions that the Uruguayan model was thought up in the 1960s, when the country was gripped by an economic crisis and a group of architects saw in co-op-owned residences a solution to the housing deficit. The idea drew on Uruguay’s strong culture of organizing through cooperatives and a working-class tradition of self-building homes, says Alina del Castillo, a professor at the University of the Republic’s Faculty of Architecture, Design, and Urbanism. 

“There are now over 70,000 co-op-owned homes in Uruguay – 5.1% of the country’s total housing stock, according to the 2023 census. Some were built from scratch, sometimes by the residents themselves, while others repurposed existing buildings, all with state loans and technical support from a government-vetted group of experts.

“Uruguay’s law, which viewed an individual’s ability to work as a form of capital, was ‘very pioneering,’ says Dr. Del Castillo.

“Sandra Cáceres has a before-and-after photo of an abandoned bakery in Montevideo’s Old Town hanging by her front door. She put in 30 hours a week for eight years to restore the once crumbling structure in the 1990s. Today it’s a residential building with 34 apartments, one of which is hers.

“ ‘The ovens were made of very long, large stones. The stones had to be removed; it was a huge amount of work,’ she says. ‘It was tiring, but was it worth it? Of course it was.’

“The building’s transformation helped revitalize the rundown neighborhood and ward off real estate speculation. It also created a new sense of community. 

“The societal ‘norm is for you to not know anything about who lives next door, above, below,’ says Matías Paparamborda, who grew up in the same housing complex as Ms. Palomeque, Complejo Bulevar, and returned in 2021 after starting his own family. ‘Here, everyone knows who you are.’ …

“Mr. Paparamborda is a writer and filmmaker and puts his social mobility – his father was an electrician and his mother a schoolteacher – down to the diversity of people he knew growing up in the co-op.

“But he says collective living has its challenges, too. ‘In general, the decisions that are taken during the assemblies are not what I would do,’ he says. ‘But I’ve learned to embrace this, because one of the most important things that you learn with community living is that life is not about doing what you want.’

“Ms. Cáceres compares it to a marriage, where a couple must learn to compromise and cohabit. …

“More than 60 years on from the national housing law, Dr. Del Castillo believes the system’s current rigidity may be holding it back. Rules around government funding for housing means that new cooperatives can no longer build commercial areas, or leisure spaces such as a soccer pitch, as part of a residential complex.

“ ‘Regulations have become very restrictive. Projects are evaluated according to a checklist … there’s no case-by-case study,’ she says. ‘The law contains incredible values and for its time it was very innovative,’ she says. But to meet the needs of a modern, growing society it may be time for the system ‘to be revised.’

“There’s no need to ‘copy-paste’ the Uruguayan experience, Mr. Velásquez says. But if adapted to the specific conditions of each country, it can serve as an inspiration for other nations trying to navigate affordable, quality housing.”

More at the Monitor, here.

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China Hunts for Greener Car Batteries

September 18, 2026 by suzannesmom

Photo: IAA Mobility.
China’s Changan Nevo A06 features a sodium-ion pack, delivering a range of about 250 miles. Researchers in China continue to hunt even greener solutions and have recently announced a sodium-metal battery that can fully charge in four minutes.

Like most of us, I’m dependent on my phone. But I know that makes me complicit in the damage that the mining of phone-necessary lithium is doing to communities and the environment. So although I don’t always read science articles, I really want to learn about possible substitutes for lithium.

Today I test just how much I can understand about scientific innovations. It helps when science reporters write for a general audience, as Rory Bathgate does in this Live Science article.

Bathgate notes, “Researchers in China have announced a radical sodium metal battery (SMB) design that can fully charge in just four minutes and will retain its capacity for years of use.

“SMBs are a form of ultrafast-charging, stable batteries that scientists say could one day be a cheap alternative to today’s lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries, which rely on geographically concentrated metals and easily catch fire. SMBs also differ from sodium-ion (Na-ion) batteries in that they use a metallic sodium anode rather than a graphite or hard carbon anode.

“However, SMBs remain largely theoretical because they are prone to a type of degradation known as dendrite formation. This is when the sodium ions passing through the electrode deposit onto the highly reactive, pure-metal sodium anode in spiky, stalagmite-like structures. Over time, this forms a bridge between the cathode and the anode, short-circuiting the battery. …

“Now, researchers say they have solved this issue by using a tough, quasi-solid gel electrolyte … which strengthens the battery against punctures and provides a semisolid internal structure that prevents dendrites from forming. They outlined their findings in a study published May 21 in the journal Nano-Micro Letters.

“To confirm the longevity of this approach, the scientists charged and discharged the battery for over 6,000 hours without dendrites short-circuiting the battery. They also noted that when they charged the battery from zero to 100% capacity in just four minutes, it retained electrical charge. …

“When charged at a slightly slower rate of zero to 100% in 20 minutes, the battery retained 90% of its charge capacity over 2,000 cycles — matching the theoretical limits for Lithium-ion batteries, the scientists said in the study. This slower speed lowered the cost and improved the safety. …

“This is relevant because charging speed remains a sticking point for battery deployment in electric vehicles (EVs). …

“Indeed, most batteries used for modern technologies, such as smartphones and EVs, are Li-ion. However, Li-ion batteries are expensive to produce because they contain the hard-to-obtain metals lithium and cobalt, and they are prone to catching fire.

“Increasingly, battery manufacturers are looking to bring sodium-ion batteries to commercial scale because they are cheaper and safer. However, they are heavier and larger than Li-on batteries.

“SMBs are the focus of intense research because they theoretically combine the best of both types of batteries. “

More at Live Science, here.

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Needs Must. Rickshaws in Cuba

September 17, 2026 by suzannesmom

Photo: Joris Visser via Unsplash.
With the cost of fossil fuel in their country out of sight, creative Cubans use bicycles, rickshaws, and whatever they can find to get around.

When I think of rickshaws in unexpected places, I think of a terrifying ride my husband and I took in New York on a bicycle taxi, weaving in and out of rush-hour traffic. By the time we met up with blog reader Stuga4 and her husband, I, a nondrinker, was ready for a drink!

But in Cuba, apparently a country of practical people, all kinds of rickshaws are taking over travel needs in the absence of fuel. You do what you have to do.

Sam Sifton reports at the New York Times, “Jack Nicas, who covers the Caribbean, Central America and Mexico for the Times, recently traveled to Cuba to report on the state of the island. …

“As our journalists discovered, even amid Cuba’s worst ever energy crisis, with mass blackouts plaguing the electrical grid, the Cuban government — and the Cuban people — are still standing. ‘After a week on the ground,’ they write, ‘we found that while Cubans are clearly suffering, they are also doing what perhaps they do best: adapting.’

“[What’s out]: those gas-guzzling Chevys they’ve kept running since the Communist revolution. In: electric rickshaws from China. Cubans are importing big lithium batteries to run appliances during blackouts and installing solar panels on roofs to charge them. Amateur mechanics all over the country are jury-rigging generators to run on more accessible natural gas.

“One farmer even devised a tiny backyard refinery to make gasoline out of shredded plastic, fuel for his motorcycle and cook stove. ‘Cubans thrive amid crisis,’ he told Jack.

“Yesterday, I reached out to Jack to ask him a couple of questions about his reporting and the team’s experience on the ground. Stories and videos from their trip to Cuba appear on our website today [July 28], and tomorrow and Thursday as well.

Sam
“I want to ask you about that farmer you met, the one making his own gasoline. Did you see a lot of that kind of ingenuity in Cuba?

Jack
“One of the most important words in the Cuban lexicon is ‘resolver.’ It literally means ‘to solve,’ but in Cuba, after decades of a U.S. trade embargo, it really means ‘to figure things out by any means necessary.’

“It explains how Cubans put Soviet engines into 1950s American cars to keep them running or ate breaded grapefruit rinds to imitate meat during their economic crisis following the fall of the Soviet Union.

“And now they’re resolviendo again. We saw a lot of creativity during our trip across Cuba. People drilled solar panels to the tops of electric rickshaws. They are using lithium batteries to power concerts. There are even stories of people powering their cars with charcoal and cooking oil.

“As a result, the country is still functioning, despite the hardship.

Sam
“What was your reception in the country like? It’s been a long time since the Cuban government has allowed Times journalists to report there.

Jack
“Everywhere we turned there were stories, and the Cuban people were eager to tell them. We spoke to dozens of people in Havana and beyond who wanted to express their frustration and exhaustion with the status quo. It was a mixed bag on whom they blamed. Some saw the Cuban government at fault for failed economic policies and political repression, while others believed Trump was making them suffer for his own personal gain. Many blamed both.

Sam:
“How hard was it to get your visa? Did government minders follow you around?

Jack
“It took a lot of convincing to get. I met with top Cuban diplomats in Mexico City, Havana, Washington and New York over six months, and sent many letters, to persuade them that we would tell this story fairly. Once we got to Havana to report, we met with Cuban officials a few times, but they otherwise didn’t bother us. We traveled around freely, decided our story targets and chose whom we interviewed.

“Read the team’s first dispatch here.”

More at the Times, here. I often wonder if I could be resourceful like that in a disaster. I’m impressed with the people in this story and the way they cope. But I hope they get relief before much longer. It makes no sense to me why we keep near neighbors is this state of anxiety. How about you?

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For the Love of an Owl

September 16, 2026 by suzannesmom

Photo: Benny Polatseck/Sandbox Films.
“There are certain places in New York City that will forever be changed for me by his existence in those places” … a still from Wild Inside. 

This story shows the many good things that happened because an owl escaped a New York zoo, including the camaraderie of fans from different backgrounds, the scientific revelations, and the new law about rat control.

But read on. Do you think this owl would have been better off if he stayed in the zoo?

Vivian Ho writes at the Guardian, “Flaco the Eurasian eagle-owl gained a cult following after leaving his life in captivity at the Central Park zoo in 2023 and surviving, against all odds, for more than a year as a free bird in Manhattan.

“Birdwatchers tracked his every move, capturing his vast wingspan and luminous orange eyes with their cameras. His fans got tattoos in his honor. And now [there’s a movie] Wild Inside, a new documentary chronicling Flaco’s year about town. …

“Penny Lane, who directed the documentary, said she felt compelled to tell the story of Flaco because, like so many other New Yorkers, she too found herself swept up in his magic. ‘Owls are uniquely magical creatures,” she said. “They’re associated with other worlds, these mystical realms. So the appearance of a creature like that in New York City … it feels like kind of a fairytale.”

“Flaco escaped from the zoo in February 2023, after someone deliberately cut the mesh of the enclosure where he lived for 13 years. Zoo staff and birdwatchers alike feared for his wellbeing. Flaco did not know how to hunt on his own. Observers noticed he had trouble flying. Attempts to lure him back with live lab rats were unsuccessful.

“But eventually, he figured it out. Local birders documented him successfully hunting and eating some of the city’s many rats. And after two weeks, zoo officials suspended their efforts to recapture him. Flaco had done the impossible: he had learned to be wild again. …

“Lane sought to capture Flaco’s wild fairytale magic in the film, interspersing interviews with awestruck New Yorkers celebrating each Flaco sighting with whimsical background music and dreamy visuals. She spoke to New Yorkers from all walks of life who projected their own experiences on to the owl that triumphed, calling him a survivor and hailing him as another immigrant success story (Eurasian eagle-owls are a non-native species). …

“’We love an underdog,’ Lane laughed. But for the local birding community, Flaco’s story went beyond that. ‘We were watching a zoo animal transform into a wild animal before our eyes,’ Lane said. Flaco’s ability to revert back to instincts he never had to use in his life were raising questions over the true nature of wildness – and if it exists within all of us like it did for Flaco.

“ ‘He was born in captivity. His parents were born in captivity. His grandparents were born in captivity. As far back as I could trace, he was as close to a domesticated wild animal you could get in the sense that he was of a captive lineage,’ Lane said. ‘But he showed pretty quickly that he was not a domesticated animal.’ …

“Just over a year after his escape, Flaco crashed into a building on West 89th Street and died from the impact. A necropsy conducted on his body found that he had been weakened by pigeon herpes virus, which he caught from eating the pigeons that he hunted, as well as four kinds of anticoagulants that are common in the rodenticide used to kill rats – a common cause of death and illness for all wild birds that hunt rats in New York City.

” ‘I was devastated,’ Lane said. She had planned to film Flaco for the entirety of his life, thinking it would be for at least 10 more years. The birdwatchers and naturalists interviewed in the film grappled with questions of if Flaco would have been better off if he had never escaped the zoo at all – no longer free, but alive and safe. ‘You can’t help but feel guilty and implicated,’ Lane said. ‘You loved seeing him so much, but you knew in the back of your mind all the while that this was not a safe place for him.’

“A few months after his death, the city council approved ‘Flaco’s law,’ an initiative that established a pilot schemes to deploy rat contraceptives rather than poison in an effort to curb the population.”

More at the Guardian, here.

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Held in Customs 23 Years

September 15, 2026 by suzannesmom

Photo: Besançon Museum of Fine Arts.
“The Acrobat with the Violin,” Marc Chagall, 1924.

I wonder how a painting by a famous artist could languish in customs in France for decades. Didn’t anybody wonder where it was? At any rate, the snafu turned out to be lucky for a town on the French-Spanish border. Customs has given the local museum a present.

Min Chen writes at Artnet, “Twenty years after being detained at the Franco-Swiss border, a Marc Chagall artwork has finally reemerged from customs.

“The etching, ‘L’Acrobate Au Violon’ (1924), arrived in 2005 at the roadside border as one of a truckload of artworks bound for Switzerland. French officials found two of the works—the Chagall and a 1959 drawing by Russian sculptor Ossip Zadkine—were not authorized to leave the country, customs authorities said. They arrested the two Swiss nationals transporting the art, charging them with hiding cultural goods, according to the London Times.

“The perpetrators were fined, and the two artworks were confiscated and stored at a customs warehouse in eastern France. There, they languished, forgotten until their rediscovery two years ago. …

“The Chagall has been gifted to the Museum of Fine Arts and Archaeology of Besançon, France. Following the official handover on Monday, the Chagall etching will go on view at the institution in September.

“ ‘The customs service has really honored us,’ Besançon‘s mayor Ludovic Fagaut told the Times. ‘It’s the first Marc Chagall to enter the museum.’

“Granted, it’s not a major Chagall. Paintings by the Russian-born French artist regularly fetch millions at auction (his record stands at $28.4 million for a lush canvas from 1928). Still, L’Acrobate au Violon is quintessential Chagall, with its titular acrobat balancing atop a violin — a recurring motif in the artist’s work — while appearing to juggle a chicken and another acrobat.

“ ‘You can easily recognize Chagall with this somewhat dreamlike style,’ Maël Vandewalle, the museum’s curator, told Besançon Ici. ‘It’s this dream world so detached from reality.’

“Chagall’s most famous etchings emerge from his decades-long partnership with French dealer Ambroise Vollard, who commissioned the artist for illustrated books such as Nikolai Gogol‘s Dead Souls (1948) and The Fables of La Fontaine (1952). L’Acrobate originated from another Vollard commission focused on painters who had become engravers, and was issued in an edition of 150.” More at Artnet, here.

Are you familiar with Chagall’s floating people? The chickens? The violins?

This is from wikipedia: “Marc Chagall (born Moishe Shaga) … was a Russian and French artist of Jewish ancestry. An early modernist, he was associated with the École de Paris, as well as several major artistic styles and created works in a wide range of artistic formats, including painting, drawings, book illustrations, stained glass, stage sets, ceramics, tapestries and fine art prints.

“Chagall was born in 1887, into a Jewish family near Vitebsk, today in Belarus, but at that time in the Pale of Settlement of the Russian Empire. Before World War I, he travelled between Saint Petersburg, Paris, and Berlin. During that period, he created his own mixture and style of modern art, based on his ideas of Eastern European and Jewish folklore. He spent the wartime years in Vitebsk and Petrograd, becoming one of the Russia’s most distinguished artists and a member of the modernist avant-garde, founding the Vitebsk Museum of Modern Art and People’s Art School. He later worked in and near Moscow in difficult conditions during hard times in Russia following the Bolshevik Revolution, before leaving again for Paris in 1923. During World War II, he escaped occupied France to the United States, where he lived in New York City for seven years before returning to France in 1948.” More at wikipedia, here. (I removed wikipedia’s footnotes.)

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Saving Fish from the Heat Wave

September 14, 2026 by suzannesmom

Photo: Sebastien Salom-Gomis/Sipa/Shutterstock.
A branch of the Loire in Loireauxence in western France. 

We all know how humans suffer in extreme heat and what happens to our towns and dwellings when heat waves lead to fires. In France, where heat broke records this summer, there’s is understandably a focus on helping people, livestock, and pets.

But a small group of fisherman is intent on rescuing fish in the country’s dried-up rivers. Fish matter, too.

Kim Willsher wrote at the Guardian July 25, “Along the Odet River in Brittany, fisher Mathieu Le Bouter and a dozen volunteers are catching hundreds of trout and young salmon – not for sport but to save them.

“They are only a few miles from the source of the river, which springs from the Black Mountains in Finistère and runs for about 40 miles (65km) into the Atlantic Ocean, but the water is barely up to their knees.

“ ‘The situation is catastrophic, far worse than we thought,’ said Le Bouter, of the Finistère fishing federation. Once they catch the fish, he and his team transfer them to tanks of oxygenated water then release them 10 or 12 miles downstream where the rivers are joined by tributaries, raising the water level. …

“ ‘What’s really scaring us is that the 10-day forecast suggests there won’t be any rain, and temperatures will generally be high. The fish, particularly trout and young salmon, need water with a current and oxygen, so these conditions become lethal for them.’ …

“The Loire, France’s longest river, is at a historical low, with the flow of some branches, including through the city of Orléans, reduced to a trickle between sandbanks. Two weeks ago, 16% of French rivers were reported to have dried up. A quarter of small streams were stagnant or had disappeared altogether, according to the national low water observatory. There has been little rain since. …

“The Seine, which divides Paris and supplies drinking water to the city, is now ‘on life support,’ declared Le Monde, with half of the river’s flow being drawn from reservoir lakes upstream and its tributaries in Champagne and Burgundy, a measure that would not normally be needed for another month. In Vernon, Normandy, the flow of the Seine has dropped from an average of 200 cubic metres [~ 7,000 cubic feet] per second in July last year to 110. …

“In France, 99 out of the country’s 101 departments are under water restrictions, and a state of emergency has been declared in 58 of them. In a statement, the ministry for ecological transition said almost a third of river monitoring stations had recorded the lowest levels in 20 years and a quarter of smaller waterways had dried up. It noted a rise ‘in the death of fish linked to the rise in water temperature.’ …

“An emergency agriculture bill … which facilitates the construction of water storage tanks for crop irrigation and livestock farms, has raised concerns over the equitable sharing of water resources and fears that farmers are being prioritized.

“Claude Roustan, the president of the national fishing federation, said rivers were suffering not just from the drought and climate change but ‘excessive extraction’ of water to irrigate scorched crops. …

“The agriculture bill, he added, ran counter to conservation efforts. …

“The drop in river levels causes a rise in water temperature, which kills the aquatic vegetation. Other plants grow back, particularly filamentous algae, further reducing oxygen levels for the fish. …

“Le Bouter says he and his volunteers will keep wading through the Odet and Isole for as long as necessary.

“ ‘We seem to be the only ones who are concerned about the fish. Unlike birds, deer and foxes, which are more visible, they tend to get forgotten.’ “

More at the Guardian, here.

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Chilean Mural Rescued

September 13, 2026 by suzannesmom

Photo: Chile’s National Monuments Council.
Chilean artist Julio Escámez finished “Beginning and End” in 1972. Dictator Pinochet ordered it destroyed, but it was recently discovered to have been only painted over.

Today’s story reminds me of the Power of One. It’s not the only example of a person (or persons) being be ordered to destroy a work of art and finding a way to hide it instead, but it was new to me. Probably Rebecca at the Fake Flamenco blog knows all about it.

Min Chen writes about the discovery at Artnet.

“Long thought lost, a historic mural by Chilean artist Julio Escámez that was erased by Augusto Pinochet’s military regime in 1973 is finally reemerging in Chile’s city hall.

“A team from the Heritage Unit of the Municipality of Chillán (UPA) is currently in its third phase of uncovering and restoring the celebrated mural in the Salon de Honor. Begun in 2021, the project involves the millimeter-by-millimeter removal of 12 layers of white paint, which were slathered over the original composition decades ago. The restoration is slated to be completed in December 2027.

“ ‘We will be working in grids, carrying out manual stripping daily,’ Elvira Fuchslocher, head of the restoration team, said in a statement. …

“The work by Escámez was commissioned in 1969 by Mayor Eduardo Contreras Mella on the eve of Salvador Allende‘s presidential election victory. Escámez spent two years creating the mural, which, when completed, spanned some 452 square feet across a wall of the Salon de Honor. Titled Beginning and End, it depicted the triumph of people over oppression. …

“In 1972, the mural was unveiled by Mella’s successor, Ricardo Lagos Reyes, before Allende visited the work himself months later. Nobel laureate Pablo Neruda described it as containing ‘the most extraordinary essences of creation have been recognized, essences that possess the stillness of depth, of truth.’

“The ardently right-wing Pinochet, however, saw the artwork differently, linked as it is to a democratic socialist project. After his military junta overthrew Allende, the dictator ordered the mural destroyed. Escámez was forced into exile in Costa Rica, wounded by the erasure of his work. …

“Nearly five decades on, Chile’s current mayor, Camilo Benavente, spearheaded the effort to recover Escámez’s mural. But the chances were slim that the work still survived. Over the years, reports had circulated about how the artwork was destroyed: It was demolished with bayonets, it was covered with tar, or, in the artist’s own account, chipped away with ‘chisel and hammer.’

“But in 2021, an initial analysis of the wall in the Salon de Honor by the University of the Arts found the first trace of Beginning and End. ‘We locked ourselves in the council chamber, and in a small window that opened [by removing the white paint], the orange color appeared, which is prominent in the mural and corresponds to the flame,’ Karin Cárdenas, a historian who worked on this first analysis, told El Pais. ‘We stopped and said, “There might be something here.” ‘

“Turns out, the mural had not been tarred or slashed with bayonets — it had simply been painted over. But as the UPA continued to uncover more of the artwork over the years, the team learned that its original height was reduced to make room for a second story, with a window cut directly through it.

“They also discovered that the mural was larger than previously believed. In fact, the city now suspects the artwork’s title, Beginning and End, might refer to two artworks, likely Beginning and End. Where the first part portrays the dramatic class struggle, the second reveals a serene group of women peering through a telescope, reflecting ‘calm and contemplation,’ said Cárdenas.”

What an emotional moment — that might-be-something-here moment! How I long to experience a moment like that for values that have been trashed! More at Artnet, here.

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Forging Connections in the Lonely City

September 12, 2026 by suzannesmom

Image: 3QuarksDaily.

I saved this image from 3QuarksDaily for a long time until I could find an article that deserved it. It says so much without a single word. What word sums it up for you?

Winnie Hu at the New York Times had a word for it: isolation.

“Thousands of New Yorkers come through the doors of this Jewish community center in the East Village of Manhattan for its gym, classes and plays, but many don’t stick around. So the center embarked on a big effort to get them to do just that.

“The Sol Goldman YM-YWHA, which is known as the 14th Street Y, has spent tens of thousands of dollars to make itself into a social gathering place in order to build a closer community in the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic, which curtailed activities and isolated so many.

“In 2024, the 14th Street Y transformed its underused lobby into an inviting cafe and art gallery with $1 cups of coffee, comfortable seats and lush plants. Though it already offered paid classes in mahjong and painting, it recruited local community members to lead clubs that would be free and open to everyone.

“Since then, the ‘Downtown Together’ clubs have hosted more than 420 people to connect over shared interests and passions, like cooking, knitting and movies. …

“Maribel Gomez, 66, a retired social worker who has occasionally used the gym, has now become a regular at the salsa club. ‘If I wasn’t here, I’d be home watching Netflix the whole day so it gets me out of the house — it gets me to meet people,’ she said.

“But this exercise in community building has also been a learning experience for the 14th Street Y. Several clubs, like the Mixtape Listening Party, never attracted much interest. A Spanish club faded away after no one stepped up to keep it going. … Other clubs brought people into the same room, but they have not fostered many close friendships outside of those meetings, at least not yet.

“On a Sunday afternoon in April, Ms. Gomez joined 30 other people who stepped and turned as salsa music filled a dance studio at the community center. … Ms. Gomez, who has bad knees, could not keep up and later sat down against a wall. She was soon joined by other dancers. Ms. Gomez, a Cuban immigrant, spoke Spanish to a woman, Florina Chuy, who she had met the month before. Ms. Chuy is also from Cuba and they were still talking when the music stopped.

“ ‘We closed down the joint,’ Ms. Gomez said as they walked out together.

“The 14th Street Y is part of the Educational Alliance, a nonprofit that sees community-building ‘in the DNA of the organization,’ said Rich Baum, its chief executive officer.

“The alliance was founded in 1889 to create a settlement house on the Lower East Side to provide social services to impoverished Jewish immigrants. In the mid-1990s, it took over the 14th Street Y, which traced its roots to another settlement house from 1905.

“The alliance spent about $50,000 to remodel the 14th Street Y’s lobby into a ‘third space’ where people could gather outside of their home, work or school. ‘They’re just coming in and out when they could stop, sit down for a minute, have a cup of coffee or hang out before they go for a swim,’ Mr. Baum said.

“But just sharing space was not enough, Mr. Baum said, pointing out that people can sit together on a bench, or shop in a grocery aisle, without ever saying a word. ‘If you look at New York City, it is a place where people, a lot of people, live side by side,’ he said. ‘But they don’t really live together.’

“So the next step was to give people something to connect over. Alexis Offen, the 14th Street Y’s executive director, and Julie Gayer Kris, its senior director of adult and wellness programs, emailed a list of ideas for clubs to thousands of local residents, asking them to check off the ones they were interested in, or to suggest their own. One woman lobbied for a bridge club and agreed to lead it.

“They whittled down the ideas and introduced a half-dozen clubs, including bridge, at an open house in October 2024.

“The 14th Street Y’s clubs have become part of the city’s ‘social infrastructure,’ like libraries, parks and playgrounds that can foster connections and strengthen communities, said Eric Klinenberg, a New York University sociology professor and author of Palaces for the People.

“ ‘When we do things we enjoy together, regularly, with the same set of people, we start to develop friendships and a feeling of belonging and a sense of trust,’ he said.”

More at the Times, here.

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Fighting Back with Art

September 11, 2026 by suzannesmom

Photo: Leah Pattem.
Nani, a resident of Tribulete 7, protests against the investment fund that purchased her home in Madrid in 2024. 

What do you do when the people with the power are against you?

Join with other victims, and don’t give up.

Leah Pattem, who made a movie about a tenant rebellion in Spain, offers this opinion at the Guardian.

“Spain’s housing crisis finally came for the tenants of Madrid’s Calle Tribulete 7 when their block was sold to an investment fund. Feeling pressured to leave by rent increases and aggressive construction works that flooded some apartments, they did everything they were supposed to do: organize meetings, contact the tenants’ union and find a lawyer. They also protested, spoke to journalists and created an Instagram account to spread the word. But they also did something I’d never seen before.

“They opened up their homes to the public and invited musicians to play inside, in the very flats and shops that were suddenly at risk. A month later they flipped this concept on its head and took their furniture out on to the street. There the tenants cooked, knitted, played chess in their dressing gowns, worked from home and bobbed in their armchairs to a local band playing a brass version of Freed from Desire. It was a spectacular theatrical performance of everyday existence, but also a fight for their lives.

“In the years after the 2008 global financial crisis, and the Spanish housing disaster that followed, the country’s campaigners have slowly changed tack. Back then, banks and their reckless mortgage loans were the main problem, and defining the frontline was the Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca (PAH), the organization that launched Ada Colau to fame and the Barcelona mayoralty, and helped stop countless evictions. Though the PAH is still relevant today, the Spanish housing crisis of the 2020s involves the buying up of entire residential buildings – some of which have a hundred tenants inside – by domestic and foreign investment funds such as Blackstone.

“The media framing of Spain’s housing crisis has evolved, too. For decades, photographers such as Olmo Calvo and Alberto Astudillo have documented the most brutal cases: armed police battering down doors, personal belongings piled on to pavements, grieving parents doing their best to shield their traumatized children. But a new style of coverage is emerging – one that celebrates the community under threat, in the hope that the act of celebration can inspire citizens to mobilize to protect the right to a decent home.

“This is exactly what myself and fellow documentary film-maker Elisa González have been involved in for two years in our own neighborhood of Lavapiés in central Madrid. From that first day of living-room concerts, we realized we weren’t simply documenting Spain’s housing crisis, but witnessing the emergence of a new social movement. …

“Nani, who lives on the second floor of Tribulete 7, runs El Elemento, a DJ collective for people with disabilities. One of her star performers, DJ Jessy, played at the residents’ first musical protest, inside the now-closed shoe shop in the building. DJ Jessy’s popularity also brought her to the biggest stage of the Madrid neighborhood fiestas, organized by Madrid city council. But Nani is fearful for the group’s future if they are forced out of the neighborhood. The council is happy to champion local culture, but takes little interest in addressing the housing crisis that will ultimately destroy that very cultural fabric. …

“For the residents of Tribulete 7, the battle rages on. After years of campaigning against their new landlord, the residents and their prolific lawyer, Alejandra Jacinto Uranga, filed what could become Spain’s first successful lawsuit against an investment fund for alleged real estate harassment – the building’s owners reject this and are fighting the case. Beyond the groundbreaking legal fight, the protests and the viral concerts, the tenants of Tribulete 7 are tapping into something even more important: community care.”

More at the Guardian, here.

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School Libraries and Book Bans

September 10, 2026 by suzannesmom

Photo: Oleg/Unsplash.

These are challenging times for all libraries — perhaps especially school libraries. Funding is seeping away from public schools, and people seem to put a lower value on libraries and the knowledge of librarians than they used to. Also, when people are angry at government in general, it’s easier to act out anger in school budgets. Today’s story presents Ohio as an example.

Susan Tebben writes at Ohio Capital, “Public school librarians in Ohio are raising alarms about book bans and funding cuts. …

“Proposed legislation to filter the reading choices students can make has brought concern, and budget reductions make some worry about the future of public school librarians as a mainstay in schools.

“ ‘Right now, a lot of administrators and school boards look at having school librarians as a luxury,’ said Gayle Schmuhl, president of the Ohio Educational Library Media Association. … Schmuhl said many members of the association were wondering about the future of their jobs with cuts to public school funding in Ohio and debate over property taxes that go to education.

“Cuts to state public education has been talked about for decades, especially after multiple Ohio Supreme Court decisions that said the state was not paying its constitutional fair share. …

“While the most recent state operating budget included a $226 million increase in school funding, [Ohio’s] Fair School Funding Plan model needed at least triple that amount to maintain its initial calculations and keep up with inflation. Lawmakers, however, increased private school voucher funding into the billions. …

“Part of the job of the modern school librarian is discussing material with parents that they may find objectionable enough to demand it be taken off the shelves.

“Sharon Hawkes, a retired librarian who is also part of the group Right to Read Ohio, decided to survey school librarians, with the help of the Ohio Educational Library Media Association’s member list.

“Of those who participated in Hawkes’ study 56% ‘experienced censorship incidents’ between 2021 and 2025.

“While she only received responses from 32 school librarians, about 10% of the total school librarians in the state, she said the experiences were still indicative of a challenge in Ohio.

” ‘We’re getting some clues about what’s going on,’ Hawkes said, noting that because there’s no standard survey system in each state to study censorship in libraries, the count made by organizations like the American Library Association may be less than the actual amount happening across the country.

“The American Library Association reported 98 attempts to censor 355 books in Ohio from 2021 to 2024, and last year, there were seven attempts to censor 129 books. …

“Schmuhl agreed that the study was representative of the experience she’d heard of in the state. …

 “Hawkes’ study, of the 16 censorship requests in Ohio between 2021 and 2024, eleven were ‘challenges without removals,’ while eight resulted in a book ban of some kind, and three involved ‘relocations of books or other materials.’

“According to the researcher, librarians use ‘objective criteria’ in decisions about what materials are age-appropriate and relevant for the school libraries. Their training qualifies them to decide on the inventory, and to deal with challenges from parents, where the majority of material challenges came from in the study.

“The majority of school librarians who responded to Hawkes’ survey had between 11 and 15 years of experience as the director or manager of their current library, and more than 62% had a Master’s degree in Library Science.

“ ‘More than anything, I wanted people to understand that parents do have the right to guide what their children read and when they read it … they can approach their librarians about it,’ Hawkes said. ‘What they can’t do is ban books for other people’s children.’ …

“The legislature approved one measure to compel public libraries to relocate ‘inappropriate’ materials out of the sight of minors, but Gov. Mike DeWine vetoed it as ‘not workable.’

“Another bill still in consideration by the legislature would order vendors of online educational resources that go to public libraries and schools to create protections to prevent ‘inappropriate’ content from making it to kids’ eyes.

“Opponents of the materials have said the bill could have unintended consequences, removing materials that are educational as well.”

More at Ohio Capital, here.

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Teens Develop AI Rules

September 9, 2026 by suzannesmom

Photo: Kieran Kesner for NPR.
Student senators representing (from left to right) Colorado, Arkansas, North Carolina, New Mexico and Connecticut meet in their assigned subcommittee to debate the AI bill’s student-focused provisions.

For those of us who worry about students using artificial intelligence to do their homework, here’s a National Public Radio story about students who are worried, too. And they’re doing something about it.

Cory Turner reports, “Over the course of one frantic, late-July weekend, 98 teens representing all 50 states put their busy lives on hold to try to do something remarkable.

“The students, most of them high school juniors and seniors, gathered in a precise replica of the U.S. Senate chamber and attempted what the real, adult Congress has largely failed to do: draft and pass ‘legislation’ to help the nation’s K-12 schools navigate the questions and chaos created by artificial intelligence.

“Should students be allowed to use AI on assignments? What about on tests? Is it schools’ job to teach the nation’s children what AI is and how to use it? There is no national policy for AI use in schools, meaning states and school districts have had to scramble to craft their own.

” ‘This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for us to actually help and try to change the country for the better,’ said student Gabriel Sutphin, representing South Carolina, speaking from the chamber floor at the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate.

“To these teens, the stakes for getting ahead of AI are clear. They pointed out how adult leaders were slow to protect students from the risks of other tech developments.

” ‘We missed the mark with social media and phones,’ said Hunter Wurzel, a high school senior representing Ohio. ‘That’s been a huge talking point already’ …

“Wurzel and his 97 colleagues were handpicked by their school leaders and hosted by a handful of education- and tech-focused groups, including the Edward M. Kennedy Institute, AASA (The School Superintendents Association), and Day of AI, a nonprofit launched out of MIT’s RAISE AI literacy initiative.

“At times during the weekend, where NPR was able to watch the events unfold, the bill seemed doomed, only to be revived by a flurry of student-led negotiation, old-fashioned compromises and some spirited speeches.

” ‘[This bill] is about who gets a seat at the table. Today, students have that seat,’ Bena Mejia Romero of Connecticut told her fellow senators before the final vote.

“Ultimately, their Students First Act passed overwhelmingly, 82-16.

“Among the bill’s requirements: States should provide AI literacy as soon as students get access to classroom devices; AI use should be banned on all graded tests; and teachers can require an oral defense of any project from a student suspected of using AI inappropriately. …

” ‘The adults themselves haven’t been able to come to consensus on this, right? And so now it falls to the kids. Let them lead the way,’ said Jeffrey Riley, the executive director of Day of AI and former education commissioner of Massachusetts.

“While the Students First Act isn’t actually law, any more than the teens are actually senators, AASA plans to send the text to its members: 10,000 school leaders across the country, many of whom are right now crafting their own AI rules in the absence of regulation.”

This AI issue has affected me in my volunteering work — 10 years assisting Teacher Allissa at Dorcas International in Rhode Island. For about five of those years, Allissa has had me work online with students to improve their writing. If we were in person, it might work, but online, many of them plug their first-language sentences into a translator or AI and present the result as if they had written it themselves. Too frustrating. I have to get a different assignment this fall or move on.

Read the rest of the NPR story here.

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Hiking the Appalachian Trail, Age 91

September 8, 2026 by suzannesmom

Photo: Robert F Bukaty/AP.
Appalachian Trail hiker Dale Sanders wades across Big Wilson Stream on the 100-Mile Wilderness north of Monson, Maine, on 29 July 2026. 

I have started using two sticks for walks. My daughter-in-law gave them to me for my birthday this past summer, and I think they’re great. But would I try doing what this 91-year-old just did with his sticks? Not on your life! We all have different ambitions.

Lucy Campbell (and various new agencies) have the story at the Guardian.

“A 91-year-old hiker has reclaimed his record as the oldest person to complete the more than 2,000-mile Appalachian Trail.

“By his count, Dale Sanders, of Tennessee, fell 71 times during the feat, six of which he said were hard falls and one which required a brief hospitalization and another just 200 yards from the end. The 2,193-mile trail runs between Springer Mountain in Georgia and Mount Katahdin in Maine.

“The Appalachian Trail Conservancy defines a thru-hike as completing all of the trail’s sections in any order within a year, allowing for pauses. Sanders began his hike on 6 September 2025 in West Virginia and, allowing for some brief breaks, he completed his journey on [31 August 2026] atop Maine’s highest peak, where he paused to pray at the sign marking the summit.

“ ‘I had to thank God, and I had to thank my support team and everybody that got me here,’ Sanders, whose trail name is Grey Beard, told the Associated Press.

“Also pushing him to keep going were his thousands of followers on social media. ‘I wanna get [my record] back, but right now, that’s secondary,’ he told the AP. ‘Right now, what’s the most important thing – and it’s one of the things that surprised me – is that people are motivated and given encouragement by my efforts.’

Read about his other accomplishments at the Guardian, here. No paywall. Also, a July article at the New York Times, here, had more background, if you’re interested.

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