“Cloud Forest Beauty”

Peace & Justice History for 1/4

January 4, 1961
The longest recorded labor strike ended after 33 years: Danish barbers’ assistants had begun their strike in 1938 in Copenhagen.
January 4, 1965
The Free Speech Movement held its first legal rally in Sproul Plaza of the University of California at Berkeley.
January 4, 1974
President Richard Nixon refused to release tape recordings of Oval Office discussions and other documents subpoenaed by the Senate Watergate Committee investigating illegal activities of the president’s re-election committee.

Nixon’s attempted suppression didn’t work.


Listen to the “smoking gun”

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryjanuary.htm#january4

Nancy Mace’s Capitol Hill Bathroom Ban Missing from House Rules Package

https://www.yahoo.com/news/nancy-mace-capitol-hill-bathroom-174534337.html

Remember that Mace doesn’t believe in her rhetoric, she just wants the media attention.  She wants the adoration she thinks that having people paying attention to her gives to her.  She is a child desperately acting out to get the adults to pay attention to her.   She is the child who never accepted she was at fault or mistaken but wants to blame everyone else including those pretend causes in her head alone.  She was for trans rights, a big supporter of LGBTQ+ equality and inclusion when she felt it gained her media attention.   Then when she saw the attention the Libs of TikTok and other haters on social media get, she waited for the opportunity to create enough spectacle for the spotlight to land on her.  She tweeted over 500 times in 2 days on the bird site trying to milk the situation for views and clicks, often forgetting to switch to her burner accounts to praise her own stance.  But now the drama has died down and no one is looking so she doesn’t care.  She has to find the new outrage to pounce on.  Maybe she will again throw a fit, and try to get some of the attention she got the first time, but she knows she has to wait, as it would be overwhelmed by current events.  No if she still wants it, she will wait until about a couple of months in then claim she couldn’t use a bathroom because it is full of trans women.   Hugs

———————————————————————————————————

Josh Fiallo
 
Nancy Mace crosses her arms.
Evelyn Hockstein / REUTERS
 

Nancy Mace’s hopes of banning transgender women from sharing a bathroom with her on Capitol Hill appear dashed for now.

The South Carolina Republican’s controversial bathroom ban was not included in the GOP’s House rules package unveiled this week—a surprise omission less than two months after Speaker Mike Johnson reportedly assured Mace it would be included.

The resolution was all the rage in November, with Mace pulling out different theatrics to drum up support for the ban. That included her using a bullhorn to read Miranda rights to sit-in protesters and using anti-transgender slurs to reference them.

Mace admitted her ban was to target the newly-elected Rep. Sarah McBride, a transgender Democrat from Delaware. Mace’s office did not respond to questions texted by the Daily Beast on Friday.

Johnson announced on Nov. 20 that “all single-sex facilities in the Capitol and House Office Buildings […] are reserved for individuals of that biological sex.” This suggested he backed Mace’s proposal even if he was not as fervent in his public comments, but it is unclear why the ban didn’t make into the latest rules package.

“We welcome all new members with open arms who are duly elected representatives of the people,” Johnson said the day prior. “I believe it’s a command that we treat all persons with dignity and respect.”

Mace doesn’t appear to have any bad blood over the omission. She posted Friday morning that Johnson still had her vote to remain House Speaker.

“A vote for @SpeakerJohnson is a vote for President Trump’s America First agenda,” she wrote. “After the last few days of chaos we’ve seen in these tumultuous times, we need steady leadership and continuity. We need to stick together and get to work. We don’t have any time to waste.”

Rep. Sarah McBride, a Democrat from Delaware, is the first openly transgender member of Congress. / Bill Clark/Getty Images
Rep. Sarah McBride, a Democrat from Delaware, is the first openly transgender member of Congress. / Bill Clark/Getty Images

While McBride was the resolution’s target, the ban would have applied to any trans person in the Capitol, including staffers and visitors

McBride, the first openly-trans member of Congress, has not commented on the ban’s omission. Back in November, she did not try to go toe-to-toe with Mace on the matter—instead asserting that she would follow whatever the House rules were.

“I’m not here to fight about bathrooms,” she wrote in a statement. “I will follow the rules as outlined by Speaker Johnson, even if I disagree with them.”

Gay couple brought to tears as Japanese court rules marriage equality ban unconstitutional

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2024/12/gay-couple-brought-to-tears-as-japanese-court-rules-marriage-equality-ban-unconstitutional/

As other countries with much smaller fundamentalist Christian influence over the government are working steadily towards equality and full legal rights of the LGBTQ+ communities the US is falling backwards in a regressive retreat of minority rights.  Again for some reason driven by fundamentalist Christian religious groups who create problems that never existed and use lies to promote disinformation creating hate towards the minorities they target.  You ask why the republicans have partnered with these fundamentalist Christians?  Because both groups seen the lost of group power over society they banded together to force society back to a time and culture when they did have majority power.   It comes down to power over others, and control of society.   I did not think that Christians believed in that.   At least I know Rev. Ed Trevors doesn’t.   But for far too many tradition, what was done by my grandparents, done by my parents, should be done by me also.  That is wrong because time, cultures, and the understandings change.   Hugs.

=============================================================

2017 MAY 08. TOKYO JAPAN. LGBT rainbow flag covered on back of a man
2017 MAY 08. TOKYO JAPAN. LGBT rainbow flag covered on back of a man

The Fukuoka High Court of Japan has become the third of Japan’s eight high courts to rule that the government’s policy against same-sex marriage is unconstitutional. However, the court upheld a lower court ruling that dismissed three same-sex couples who had sought 1 million yen ($6,540) each for being denied their constitutional rights to gender and legal equality, individual dignity, and the pursuit of happiness.

The couples, who live in the southwestern cities of Fukuoka and Kumamoto, had their damage claims dismissed by the Fukuoka District Court in 2023 after the court ruled that the government wasn’t obliged to compensate them or legalize marriage equality legislation despite being in “state of unconstitutionality,” The Mainichi reported.

High Court Judge Takeshi Okada ruled that civil laws forbidding same-sex marriages violate the nation’s constitution, saying, “There is no longer any reason to not legally recognize marriage between same-sex couples.” However, he noted that any change in national marriage laws must be decided by Japan’s legislature, known as the National Diet.

As the judge read his ruling, a 35-year-old plaintiff identified in the media as Kosuke couldn’t stop crying. Despite this, his 37-year-old partner Masahiro said “[the judge] understood our suffering, and I felt very reassured.”

 

 

 

Opponents of marriage equality in Japan have noted that Article 24 of the Japanese constitution specifically states, “Marriage shall be based only on the mutual consent of both sexes and it shall be maintained through mutual cooperation with the equal rights of husband and wife as a basis.”

However, marriage equality advocates have also pointed out that the constitution’s other articles state, “The people shall not be prevented from enjoying any of the fundamental human rights,” and, “All of the people are equal under the law and there shall be no discrimination in political, economic or social relations because of race, creed, sex, social status or family origin.”

 

Regardless, in October the Tokyo High Court ruled similarly, echoing another one made by the Sapporo High Court in March, which said that limiting marriage to couples of the opposite sex is “unconstitutional” and “discriminatory.” Despite the rulings, the country’s judiciary doesn’t have the power to overturn existing civil marriage codes.

Marriage equality has divided the country’s court system in opposing rulings over several years. Meanwhile, Japan’s conservative government lags behind increasingly supportive public opinion. Seventy percent of the Japanese public supports marriage equality, but it faces opposition from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.

The party lost its parliamentary majority in last Sunday’s election and will likely have to compromise on more liberal policies pushed by the opposition parties, like marriage equality, the aforementioned publication noted.

 

Right now, Japan doesn’t offer national LGBTQ+ non-discrimination protections or same-sex marriage. As a result, LGBTQ+ people in Japan often face inequities in employment, housing, education, and health care.

More than 200 Japanese municipalities offer some form of recognition for same-sex couples. Such recognition can help same-sex couples rent apartments together, visit each other in city hospitals, and receive other services that married heterosexual couples enjoy.

Though several jurisdictions offer “partnership certificates,” they’re entirely symbolic and don’t offer federal benefits given to married heterosexual couples.

 

LGBTQ+ advocacy groups have pushed for a national bill that would enshrine equal civil rights and non-discrimination protections into law. However, the conservative party of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida helped defeat the effort in the lead-up to the 2021 Olympic Summer Games.

Japan remains the only country in the G7, a political and economic forum of seven of the world’s most advanced economies, that has not legalized marriage equality. Currently, the only Asian countries that have legalized same-sex marriage are Taiwan, Nepal, and Thailand.

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Young LGBTQ+ people advise each other on how to survive challenging times

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2024/12/young-lgbtq-people-advise-each-other-on-how-to-survive-challenging-times/

Group of young cheerful friends strolling together on day of gay pride parade in city. People LGBT community pose hugging looking smiling at camera outdoor. Generation z and sexual liberation.

With a record number of social and political stressors facing young LGBTQ+ people, the Trevor Project has released a collection of advice given by young queers to their peers.

The responses were taken from the organization’s 2024 U.S. National Survey on the Mental Health of LGBTQ+ Young People which made the following open-ended request to respondents (who were between the ages of 13 and 24): “We would love for you to share a message of advice or encouragement to other young people in the LGBTQ community.”

One respondent wrote, “Finding a sense of community helps so much, whether it’s online or in person. Just find a place where you can ask questions and read about other people’s experiences.”

Another stressed the importance of envisioning a better future and doing what one can to cultivate community support now.

“Find your group and work towards where you wanna be in life and you’ll make it there,” one wrote, as other offered encouraging words like, “Keep pushing,” “Keep going for another day,” “Just keep going, please,” and “Please keep strong.”

Another urged resilience and perseverance. “Be yourself always,” they wrote. “You may lose connections along the way but trust, there’s someone out there who will love you.” Another respondent agreed, writing, “Just look for the people who love you no matter what.”

Others urged self-compassion and patience as young people figure out their identities. One such message said, “Don’t rush finding your identity. Take your time to explore, and don’t be afraid to take up labels if they feel right at the time.”

 

Some respondents suggested repeating self-affirmations like the following:

  • I love you.
  • I believe in you.
  • You got this.
  • You are so strong and you are deserving of love always.

“Wake up everyday, and tell yourself you love yourself — until, one day, you believe it,” one young person wrote.

Other respondents acknowledged the adversity faced by young LGBTQ+ people, whether in politics or unaccepting homes.

“[It’s] very easy to think that the entire world [despises] you for who you are when your home environment conveys that,” one wrote. “You might not feel safe and happy now,” another wrote, “but hopefully, there will come a day when you find your home.”

 

“Don’t let the people around you tell you that you can’t love who you want and feel what you want to feel,” one respondent wrote. 

Another added, “I know things look down right now and it’s hard to see past the hate that’s being spread but it always helps to remember that most people don’t hate us and that there are tons of us out there that are willing to help.”

“We’ve always been here. And we always will be,” another wrote. “They cannot erase us.”

Other respondents advised doing things to lessen negativity.

“Ignore the Idiots and cut people off if [you] have too [sic]. Life is too short to care what people think about you and they don’t even have to live your life and experience the things you do.”

 

In the same vein, another respondent replied, “Don’t let the people around you tell you that you can’t love who you want and feel what you want to feel.”

“Peer support is associated with lower levels of emotional and behavioral distress among LGBTQ+ young people,” the Trevor Project wrote. “However, not all LGBTQ+ young people have consistent access to peer support, especially LGBTQ+ young people who hold multiple marginalized identities.”

As such “hearing words of encouragement and advice from fellow LGBTQ+ young people has never been more needed,” the group added.

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This government just took a major step towards banning anti-LGBTQ+ hate speech

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2024/12/this-government-just-took-a-major-step-towards-banning-anti-lgbtq-hate-speech/

We in the US need to have the same hope and constant drive as the LGBTQ+ in Poland.  See their government is anti-LGBTQ+ and the leader calls them “evil”.  But they did not give up and kept working to change the hearts and minds of the people.   And it is working.  We need to do the same.  Hugs.

————————————————————————————————————–

June 10, 2018: Warsaw's LGBTQ pride equality march
June 10, 2018: Warsaw’s LGBTQ pride equality march

Poland made a landmark move for LGBTQ+ rights after it banned hate speech against sexual orientation and gender in a new set of regulations.

Currently, the country’s laws prohibit hate speech on the basis of race, religion, and ethnicity. “These provisions do not provide sufficient protection for all minority groups who are particularly vulnerable to discrimination, prejudice and violence,” the national justice ministry said.

“The new regulations aim to more fully implement the constitutional prohibition of discrimination and to meet international recommendations on standards of protection against hate speech and hate crimes,” the ministry added.

The United Nations Human Rights Council has previously criticized the country’s lack of hate crime protections for LGBTQ+ individuals.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk approved the new legislation. It now moves on to Parliament. If Parliament passes it, President Andrzej Duda will have the option to sign it into law or pass it. He has previously stated that he believes LGBTQ+ individuals are “evil.”

However, Duda’s final presidential term ends next year, and the ruling party hopes they can get someone to replace him in time to sign the legislation into law.

Bart Straszewski, an LGBTQ+ activist in Poland, told PinkNews, “I felt like a second-category citizen, and we were treated like second-category citizens. The government is telling you that you don’t deserve equal rights, that you are not creating families, and that you are an agent of the West trying to fight family values or tradition.

 

“The atmosphere was hostile. We felt that they didn’t want us here, but we still were here, we still were fighting for our country because we are part of it,” Straszewski added.

Poland previously has not been friendly to LGBTQ+ rights. During the Law and Justice (PiS) party’s time in power, the country became one of the most viciously anti-LGBTQ+ countries in Europe. Cities designated themselves “LGBT-free” zones and government-run media outlets regularly demonized and spread lies about the queer community. Gay reporters were fired from publications as part of the national purge.

However, advocates have been working tirelessly to grant protections for LGBTQ+ individuals. A TV anchor apologized this year for his past anti-LGBTQ+ statements and came out in support of the community. Activists also rejoiced when the Polish Supreme Court ruled that same-sex marriage is not illegal, per Poland’s Constitution.

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Closure of northern Minnesota camp is ‘the greatest story.’ Here’s why.

https://www.startribune.com/closure-of-northern-minnesota-camp-is-the-greatest-story-heres-why/601199362

I know I posted a link to the story via email as I was reading on my phone at the time.   But here I am reposting the story in full as it is a grand reason while the camp is being closed.  I am so happy for the reason.   Hugs.

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Willow River, Minn., camp One Heartland is for sale after serving kids there for nearly three decades.

By Jana Hollingsworth

The Minnesota Star Tribune
December 27, 2024 at 7:00AM
Campers paddle on a Willow River lake at One Heartland, a camp for kids affected by HIV/AIDS. (Submitted by One Heartland)
 

The ashes of 12-year-old Chris Edwards are buried on the grounds of a Pine County camp, where his mother insisted his memorial service be held after his HIV-related death in 1999.

It’s one of the reasons former campers are saddened by the news that One Heartland in Willow River, Minn., about 40 minutes southwest of Duluth, is for sale. The 80-acre site is home to a camp that has served kids living with or affected by HIV/AIDS for more than 30 years. But the number of babies contracting the virus through their mothers has declined to the point where such a camp no longer needs to exist.

“It’s a heartbreaker,” said Chris’ brother, Dylan Edwards, who attended the camp with Chris for years.

“But the purpose of the camp was for sick kids,” he said, and if there are so few that a camp isn’t feasible, “it’s hard to feel bad about that.”

In the United States, the perinatal HIV transmission rate, or the rate of a mother passing the virus on to a child through pregnancy, birth or breastfeeding, is now less than 1% thanks to antiretroviral medications, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The World Health Organization says that globally, new HIV infections among children up to age 14 have declined by 38% since 2015 and AIDS-related deaths have fallen by 43%.

As a Wisconsin college student, founder Neil Willenson read about a 5-year-old boy in the Milwaukee area living with HIV who faced isolationism and discrimination at his school. Willenson reached out to the family and got to know them, learning the virus’s deep effects on each member.

He founded One Heartland in 1993 when he was 22, intending it to be a short project. Now 53, he often marvels at how quickly his college-age dreams of working in Hollywood as an actor and producer diverged to running a nonprofit.

“The impact was so transformative the first summer in 1993 that during the week the children were already saying ‘When can we come back?’ ” Willenson said.

 
 

They rented camps around the country the first few summers. Because knowledge of the virus was still minimal at the time, at least one camp didn’t want kids with HIV swimming in its pool, said Edwards, who attended the camp its first year. One Heartland was forced to go elsewhere the next year.

Willenson bought the Willow River property from an Optimist Club in 1997. Former Minnesota Twins player and manager Paul Molitor donated money for the purchase and was a spokesman for the camp for several years.

“We wanted to create a safe haven where children affected by the disease, perhaps for the first time in their young lives, could speak openly about it and be in an environment of unconditional love and acceptance,” said Willenson, who is the president of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Metro Milwaukee, as well as a public speaker and founder of other camps. He stepped away from One Heartland leadership in 2010.

With referrals from the National Institutes of Health, children were flown to Minnesota from around the country at no cost to their families; expenses were paid by donors.

Nile Sandeen was the boy who inspired the camp. Now 38, he is a married pastor and doctoral student living in South Carolina. His mother, a nurse who died from the virus in 2010, had tried to provide AIDS education to parents and others concerned about Sandeen attending school. He recalled one student backing off and throwing his hands in the air when he got near him, and one friendship a boy kept a secret from fearful parents.

Sandeen attended camp for several years and traveled the country with the nonprofit, speaking at schools. One Heartland was an outsized presence in his life, giving him a place to “let go and be a kid” and be among others feeling the same isolation, sorrow and pain, he said. It fostered a community created among kids living “radically different” lives than most.

 
 

“It was a level of camaraderie and commiseration that is hard to put into words,” Sandeen said.

Chris Edwards was Sandeen’s first close camp friend, and Sandeen reeled from his death, recognizing his own mortality at age 13. Campers and staff members united during those dark periods, a support system Sandeen continues to feel.

For more news about Duluth/Superior, the North Shore and the Iron Range, sign up for the free North Report newsletter.

The camp “is still part of the tide pushing you forward in life,” he said. “And so many people had that.”

The Edwards brothers are from the Atlanta area and had never had a northwoods experience, Edwards said. The volunteers and medical staff there helped quell some of the cynicism campers had from living with HIV or AIDS, he said, and when kids wanted to talk about death, they led those conversations with grace. The Edwardses lost their father to the virus when they were small children. Their mother died from it when Dylan was 20.

During the first several years of One Heartland’s existence, death was common. Now, many of the thousands who swam and hiked and made crafts at the camp have married and had children, Willenson said. He noted a documentary is being filmed about the camp, which eventually broadened its reach to serve different campers, including those with diabetes and LGBTQ youth. It was largely serving the latter group last summer. The nonprofit hopes to sell the camp to another group that will serve kids.

 
 

That there’s no longer a need for the camp’s original purpose “is the greatest story that I ever could have imagined,” Willenson said. “It’s something I never could have predicted.”

“Unprecedented” decline in teen drug use continues, surprising experts

https://arstechnica.com/health/2024/12/the-kids-are-maybe-alright-teen-drug-use-hits-new-lows-in-ongoing-decline/

Kids who were in 8th grade at pandemic’s start have ushered in an era of abstaining.

Beth Mole – |
 
 
Rear view of a multiracial group of students walking in school corridor Credit: Getty | Rafa Fernandez Torres
 

Teen drug use continued to fall in 2024, extending a dramatic decline spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic that experts expected would reverse now that the acute phase of the global crisis is well over.

But, according to data released Tuesday, the number of eighth, 10th, and 12th graders who collectively abstained from the use of alcohol, marijuana, or nicotine hit a new high this year. Use of illicit drugs also fell on the whole and use of non-heroin narcotics (Vicodin, OxyContin, Percocet) hit an all-time low.

“Many experts in the field had anticipated that drug use would resurge as the pandemic receded and social distancing restrictions were lifted,” Richard Miech, team lead of the Monitoring the Future survey at the University of Michigan, said in a statement. “As it turns out, the declines have not only lasted but have dropped further.”

The Monitoring the Future study—which has been running for 50 years and is funded by the National Institutes of Health—surveys a nationally representative group of teens each year on their involvement with the ever-evolving drug landscape. This year, the survey collected data from over 24,000 students at more than 270 public and private schools.

 

The initial drop in drug use between 2020 and 2021 was among the largest ever recorded. And researchers like Miech expected the rates would bounce back, at least partially. But now, the data suggests the pandemic has started a wave of abstention that is still rippling through grade levels.

A new era

“Kids who were in eighth grade at the start of the pandemic will be graduating from high school this year, and this unique cohort has ushered in the lowest rates of substance use we’ve seen in decades,” Miech noted.

For alcohol, use in the past 12 months among eighth graders was at 12.9 percent in 2024, similar to 2023 levels, which are all-time lows. For 10th graders, the rate dropped significantly from 30.6 percent in 2023 to 26.1 percent, and for 12th graders, from 45.7 percent to 41.7 percent—both record lows.

For nicotine vaping, rates fell for 10th graders (from 17.5 percent to 15.4 percent) and remained at low levels for eighth and 12th graders. For marijuana, use remained low for eighth and 10th graders and fell significantly for 12th graders (from 29 percent to 25.8 percent). All three grades are at lows not seen since 1990.

For abstainers from alcohol, marijuana, and nicotine in the prior 30 days, the rate among eighth graders hit 90 percent, up from 87 percent in 2017, when it was first measured. The rate was 80 percent among 10th graders, up from 69 percent in 2017, and 67 percent for 12th graders, up from 53 percent in 2017.

“This trend in the reduction of substance use among teenagers is unprecedented,” Nora Volkow, director of NIH’s National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), said. “We must continue to investigate factors that have contributed to this lowered risk of substance use to tailor interventions to support the continuation of this trend.”

 
Photo of Beth Mole
Beth is Ars Technica’s Senior Health Reporter. Beth has a Ph.D. in microbiology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and attended the Science Communication program at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She specializes in covering infectious diseases, public health, and microbes.
 

I Would Not Have Thought To Measure This-

(It’s been decades since I’ve lived in a place with public transit; when I read the title, I thought they meant human jerks. I was pleasantly educated.)

The device that measures jerks on public buses

December 11, 2024 Ellen Phiddian

A jerking, lurching bus ride can be enough to put someone off their lunch – or even dissuade them from using public transport.

But just how much do public buses jostle passengers?

Measuring this, according to one team of researchers, might help to make the vehicles more comfortable.

The researchers, from University of Technology Sydney, have published a recent study in Scientific Reports.

According to co-author Dr Anna Lidfors Lindqvist, bumpy bus rides aren’t just annoying. They can carry health risks.

“Passengers, especially if they’re a little bit elderly or if have a pre-existing injury, those sorts of sudden changes can actually make it worse,” she tells Cosmos.

“If that’s a blocker for elderly people to take public transport, that’s a great area to further look at.”

In addition, studies on frequent or professional drivers and passengers have suggested that long-term exposure to engine vibrations could be linked to chronic pain conditions like lower back pain.

The team set out to measure the speed and direction of vibrations and sudden movements on public buses, to give them a baseline for improving bus bumpiness.

One of the researchers – Md Imam Hossain – took rides on 30 public buses driving different routes around Sydney, carrying an inertial measurement unit (IMU).

“An IMU can gather the acceleration in vertical and longitudinal as they’re ported backwards, side to side, and up and down, as well as then being able to measure the rate of change in those directions,” says Lidfors Lindqvist.

They were particularly keen to measure “jerks” – jolts caused by sudden acceleration or braking – which are a strong indicator of bus ride discomfort.

They found that, on average, passengers experience 0.12 times the force of gravity in acceleration, with peaks at 0.44 times.

They’ve got several different ideas for reducing jerks.

“There’s a lot of different sorts of suspension – like where they use air suspension, rather than pneumatic suspension, that’s usually a softer ride,” says Lidfors Lindqvist.

Softer seats – like those used in coach buses or for truck and bus drivers – are also more comfortable.

“Cushioning a seat is enough for it to be a softer ride in terms of the overall vibration from the seat. Whereas, the jerk itself is a little bit more difficult to have a mechanical solution because your body will still move the same.”

Lidfors Lidqvist says that the transition to electric buses is a mixed bag – they don’t vibrate like diesel engines, but they can accelerate much faster.

“This is really another open question: does that then introduce another sort of jerk?”

But buses don’t need to be wholly redesigned for more comfort. The team thinks that driver training can also help.

“Bus driver behaviour is also a factor, and so is the traffic environment that they’re exposed to. Peak hour traffic looks very different than if it’s off peak,” says Lidfors Lindqvist.

In this study, Hossain sat at the same seat on the bus each time for consistency. But there are more and less comfortable zones on a bus, according to Lidfors Lindqvist.

“Other research, will tell you that you’ll find that the ride is often a little bit softer if you sit on top of the wheel axis, for example,” she says.

“But that jerk movement, when you move back and forth when the bus takes off or stops – that will remain pretty much the same, because it’s just your body in relation to the vehicle itself.”

The team is now interested in looking at the connection between buses and human injuries, as well as optimising bus comfort with efficiency of the ride, and greenhouse gas emissions.

Originally published by Cosmos as The device that measures jerks on public buses

Judge in Trump’s hush money case expected to sentence him to ‘unconditional discharge’

https://abcnews.go.com/US/judge-trumps-hush-money-case-expected-sentence-unconditional/story?id=116706931

Best Wishes and Hugs,
Scottie