Tuesdays With Morrie

By Mitch Albom

My thoughts: It is important to connect with others, especially during time like this, when people are separated for extended periods of time. This book emphasizes the importance of human connection in a society that propels us to ignore all else for the sake of getting ahead.

    Morrie Schwartz was Mitch's old professor at Brandeis University. He taught sociology like no one else, and Mitch took every class he taught. During that time, he developed a close friendship with the professor and learned to look at life in a different way. Yet after graduating, he failed on his promise to keep in touch, and only remembered him after an ABC Nightline report on how Morrie had contracted ALS and was dying. The disease was weakening his muscles bit by bit until he could no longer breathe. Already he was mostly confined to his chair.

    By the time Mitch arrives at Morrie's house, he has been meeting with many, many people coming to see him, and he could have just been another visitor. But after all these years, Mitch is still Morrie's favorite student. While he is still alive, he wants to transfer everything he has learned, so that his unique experience and outlook will not be lost. They begin meeting on Tuesdays, just like back in the university days.

1984

By George Orwell

    In a dystopian world where a single party has taken over all of the information in the Oceanic sphere of power, Winston is a low-down Party member who works at the Ministry of Truth. There, contrary to its name, the past and present are continually altered to fit the current reality, such as what country Oceania is at war with, who is a traitor and who is not, etc. In fact, the Party even alters language in and of itself to Newspeak, where unnecessary words and meanings are purged to make the thought of freedom or anything the Party doesn't want impossible. Winston is what is called a thought criminal. He thinks unorthodox thoughts. For instance, he has grown tired of the endless telescreen broadcasts promoting war against either Eastasia or Eurasia and propaganda of Big Brother, the figurehead of the Party. He has bought a diary (a banned substance) and has begun to record his thoughts, his history. Of course, he knows that one day, the Thought Police will catch up to him, but until that point, he shall live in defiance.

    At work, he meets a kindred spirit in Julia. They both do not believe in the party's blatant lies, and get involved in an affair with each other. In the process, they both believe that by pretending to believe the Party and be a faithful member, they will somehow survive. They even meet a member of the fabled Brotherhood, an organization purportedly working against the Party and continually hated by them, who turns out to be a Party official.

CNN 10 3/22/2021 ~ 3/26/2021

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Monday, March 22, 2021

The IOC just announced that the postponed 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo will not have any viewers from outside the country. The Olympics, originally scheduled for last year, are still called the 2020 games, even though they will be held in July of this year. For athletes, this has both been good and bad. For some, it has taken a mental toll as the intense physical and mental training they go through every day has been extended for a full year, while others are grateful for the extra practice. A CNN hero named David Flink who has learning disabilities is helping other children who are like him get through school. His nonprofit, Eye to Eye, has helped many children express themselves through art with college mentors who are just like them and know what they are going through. Though the program has moved online, its efforts to help are still continuing.

Tuesday, March 23, 2021

Last year, Australia suffered from a record-breaking bush fire season. Now, it's being deluged by floods. A series of overlapping storms is dumping feet of rainfall into many areas still recovering from the fires. Spring break travel is hitting levels not seen during pandemic times as college students across the students return home to see family. This comes as many states are beginning to offer COVID vaccines to individuals 16-64 in age. Many secondary schools are reopening as well. In Space, there is a lot of debris from old spacecraft that we don't use anymore. Some of these pieces are big, but others are small. These small pieces moving at fast speeds can have catastrophic impacts on both current satellites and our spacecraft. A company called Astroscale is trying to help solve this problem. Its satellites have magnets, and once it gets close enough to an object, it can use it to attach then return to Earth, burning up in the atmosphere.

Wednesday, March 24, 2021

There is a worldwide shortage of computer chips. This is due largely to the COVID-19 pandemic. The average car uses around 50-150 chips, but when car production stalled, many chip makers redirected production to device makers, leading to a shortage as the world economy reopened. Many of them are now scrambling to reroute wafer fabrication plants once again, but many car manufacturers fear the shortage will end up impacting production, especially for low-demand models. A volcanic eruption in Iceland is attracting lots of sightseers. The eruption is a slow, calm one, so people can get nearby and even cook food on the partially cooled lava.

Thursday, March 25, 2021

The Suez Canal is a canal through Egypt that connects the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea, and it has a traffic jam. A massive transport ship called the Ever Given got stuck diagonally across the narrow canal after heavy winds. The Suez Canal is a key waterway between Europe and Asia, and as many as a hundred ships could be lined up at either end to wait for the canal to be clear again, which could take days. When we order takeout, the environmental cost is high - we throw away all of the plastic utensils, the container, the bag - all contributing to massive amounts of waste. A company called DeliverZero is trying to change that. They partner with restaurants across the New York area to deliver food in reusable containers that can be returned either via a courier or in person, then reused by the restaurant. This eliminates almost all the waste that comes out of delivery, and the ordering process is almost the same as any other service like Doordash.

Friday, March 26, 2021

The Ingenuity helicopter that landed on Mars recently with the Perseverance rover is almost set to fly. It will go through preliminary tests for a couple more weeks before attempting to become the first object to ever fly on another planet. Australia is getting some reprieve after days of heavy rain. Many areas that almost always dry have seen inches of rain. In fact, at the Uluru historic site, waterfalls have formed on the famous monument, a rare occurrence. Parts of Australia are still flooded even as the rain has stopped. Nearly a third of the Earth's land is covered by forest, but that number is steadily decreasing. In recent decades, deforestation has had a devastating impact on forest species, and one of the conservation groups trying to stop that is working in São Paolo, Brazil, where the Atlantic forest is now a series of small fragments. They plan to build corridors leading from each of the fragments to give the animals in them more diversity from other places.

3/15/2021 ~ 3/19/2021

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Monday, March 15, 2021

As spring break nears, many students on college campuses are eager to travel home and see their families. However, many schools are discouraging this and even offering students money to stay on campus. This is because they are afraid that students traveling might increase the number of COVID-19 infections. Still, many people are traveling anyway. TSA said they screened about 1.3 million people in the US yesterday, the highest number of travelers since exactly one year ago. Wesley Hamilton is a CNN Hero who runs a nonprofit called Disabled But Not Really. In 2012, he was injured in an altercation that led to him being paralyzed from the waist down. For years, he struggled with depression and obesity, but his daughter brought him out of this and caused him to change. He lost weight and opened a nonprofit gym that helps all kinds of disabled people stay fit and move on with their lives.

Tuesday, March 16, 2021

The unrest in Myanmar continues. In recent protests, multiple protestors and at least one member of the military have been killed. In addition, a Chinese factory was attacked and several workers there were killed, prompting the Chinese government to speak out against the Burmese military coup and call for a restoration of the civilian government. At the US-Mexico border, there has been a surge of migrants detained as more migrants stream in the hopes that the Biden Administration will allow them to stay. For the time being, they have only allowed children to remain in the US. The backlog has only been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, as tents fill up and the border patrol isn't able to process people fast enough. Finally, smart glass could change office buildings. Smart glass from several different companies is able to change shading in order to optimize the temperature in a room.

Wednesday, March 17, 2021

College enrollment in the US is continuing to stall. A study found that this spring, there was a 2.9% drop in college enrollment overall. On the other hand, there was a 4.3% increase in graduate students, and also an increase in enrollment for traditionally online schools. Traditionally in-person schools saw decreases because many students felt that they were missing out on campus life. In addition, many selective colleges decided not to look at things like the SAT, leading to an increase in applications. Many community colleges saw budgets get tighter and fewer students enrolled, disproportionately affecting poorer communities. It is unclear if this trend will continue into the coming fall semester. Broadway has now been dark for over a year, the first time that this has happened since the American Revolutionary War. The theater industry is a tough one, and many young hopefuls have dropped out. But when Broadway does finally reopen, it will serve as an international signal that the pandemic is coming to an end. Across the Western United States, heavey snowstorms have been hitting many areas. Several cities have seen record snowfall.

Thursday, March 18, 2021

The American Red Cross has been reporting higher rates of people who had yet to be vaccinated but had antibodies to COVID-19. This means that they had previously been infected and developed a resistance to it. Of course, this isn't a random sample of the population, and the CDC estimates that more than a quarter of the population had been infected by the end of 2020. Scientists still do not know whether immunity against the virus is long lasting or goes away like with the yearly cold virus. Yesterday, the National Storm Prediction Center issued its top level warning for tornadoes across the American Midwest, something that hasn't happened in years. This year's La Niña weather pattern could make tornado season worse. This phenomenon in the Pacific Ocean causes cooler air in the north to collide with warmer air from the south, speeding up the jetstream and making perfect conditions for tornadoes to form. More fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls have been found in a cave after nearly a 60 year lull.

Friday, March 19, 2021

Events this week in Atlanta have sparked new outrage against hate crimes, specifically against Asian Americans. A shooter killed 8 people, 6 of whom were Asian. Though the shooter, who is now in custody, says the shooting was not fueled by hate, it does reflect an overall rise in Asian American hate in the US since the COVID-19 outbreak began. Hate crime is difficult to prosecute because hate and hate speech are not crimes - in fact, speech is protected by the 1st amendment. In addition, laws vary from state to state. An asteroid that recently passed by Earth has been determined to be the first-ever interstellar object seen from Earth. It has an oblong shape, unlike any other asteroids from our solar system, and scientists hope it will give clues as to how other solar systems formed. The US 1 Highway leads from the Florida mainland all the way to the end of the Florida Keys. It has a series of scenic stops, beginning with restaurants and even underwater hotels that you have to scuba dive into.