Beverage alert, as always!
This Week’s Josh Day Set
Beverage alert, as always!
Author: ali redford
I love dogs and people. I want living creatures to thrive. I love to cook, and share the food, but ya gotta get in line in front of the dog.
For Science!
Debris from World Wars now home to thriving wildlife communities
September 29, 2025 Velentina Boulter Velentina Boulter is science journalist based in Melbourne.
Composite image, or orthomosaic, of the wreck of Benzonia lying partially on top of the wreck of Caribou, in the “Ghost Fleet” of World War 1 shipwrecks in Mallows Bay, USA. Credit: Duke Marine Robotics and Remote Sensing Lab
Two recently published studies showcase how underwater human structures can become essential habitats for marine life, with discarded munitions and ships from the World Wars now home to vibrant ecological communities.
The first study found that more marine life lives on World War II munitions on the Baltic Sea floor than on the surrounding sediment. Some of the marine organisms can tolerate the high levels of toxic compounds leaking from the unexploded bombs, as long as there is a hard surface for them to live on.
In a separate study, published in Scientific Data, researchers from Duke University’s Marine Robotics and Remote Sensing lab mapped a “Ghost Fleet” of World War I shipwrecks which have become habitat for a variety of wildlife, such as ospreys.
“For the first time, the composition and structure of epifauna on the surface of marine munitions are described,” write the authors of the first study, which has recently been published in Communications Earth & Environment. Epifauna refers to sea creatures that live on the seafloor.
Unused explosive munitions were often disposed of by dumping them at sea prior to the signing of the 1972 London Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution. The team used a remotely controlled submersible to examine a dumpsite in Lübeck Bay in the Baltic Sea to investigate the impact the munitions have had on marine environments.
Only 2 of the 9 objects examined were intact. The other 7 were in varying stages of degradation, which meant the explosive chemicals were exposed.
They identified the munitions as being from discarded warheads from V-1 flying bombs which were used by Nazi Germany in the late stages of World War II. Concentrations of the explosive compounds, mainly TNT and RDX, were found to vary between 30 nanograms and 2.7 milligrams per litre in the surrounding water.
Despite this, an average of about 43,000 organisms per square metre (m2) were found living on the munitions, with only 8,200 organisms per m2 on natural sediment nearby.
“On the individual objects,” write the authors, “the majority of epifauna was found on metal carcasses, while the exposed explosive was usually free of visible overgrowth.”
These results suggest the advantages of living on the surfaces of munitions outweigh the potential exposure to explosive and toxic chemicals for many marine organisms.
“This suggests that the high measured explosive chemical concentrations are not sustained long-term, or that they, in fact, do not have a major negative effect on nearby organisms,” the authors write.
“Overall, the epifaunal community on the dumped munition in the study area reaches a high density, with the elevated metal structures providing a suitable habitat for benthic organisms.”
While the munitions seem to be an important habitat for this local ecosystem, the researchers suggest replacing them with a safer artificial surface that does not contain explosives to further benefit marine life.
Composite image of the entire “Ghost Fleet” of Mallows Bay, with individual wrecks labelled. Credit: Duke Marine Robotics and Remote Sensing Lab
In the second study, a team of researchers conducted aerial surveys to capture images of 147 abandoned World War I steamships at Mallows Bay on the Potomac River in Maryland, USA. It is the largest known shipwreck in the Western Hemisphere.
“Since their arrival, the ships have become an integral part of the ecology at Mallows Bay,” write the authors.
“However, sea level rise, sediment infill, plant colonisation, and physical deterioration are changing the nature of these shipwrecks over time.”
Like the previous study, the researchers found a variety of creatures have made the shipwreck their home. One of the species includes the endangered Atlantic sturgeon, which uses the ship as its nursery.
The authors are hopeful their map will be an insightful resource for future ecological and archaeological research into the area.
“These data and products will enable researchers to monitor and study the changing terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems,” write the authors.
“The use of unoccupied aircraft systems allows for the creation of detailed orthomosaics and digital surface models, which provide valuable baseline data for archaeological, geological, and ecological assessments.”
Originally published by Cosmos as Debris from World Wars now home to thriving wildlife communities
Some Comics I’m Enjoying With My Tea This Morning
https://www.gocomics.com/darksideofthehorse/2025/09/30
https://www.gocomics.com/closetohome/2025/09/30
https://www.gocomics.com/foxtrotclassics/2025/09/30
(I’ve never seen a show like this, but it could be funny. I have watched “Worst Cooks” on Food Network a couple of times.)
https://www.gocomics.com/freerange/2025/09/30
https://www.gocomics.com/furbabies/2025/09/30
(’tis true; Summer lasts a lifetime every year, but Fall and Winter fly.)
https://www.gocomics.com/phoebe-and-her-unicorn/2025/09/30
https://www.gocomics.com/scarygary/2025/09/30
Unbelievable, But Believe It!
I read this over breakfast, and by 10 AM workout time, had seen it broadcast on 3 different shows.
America Brought to You by Bad Bunny by Charlotte Clymer
Hell of a choice. Read on Substack
(image credit: Apple Music)
What is the biggest American cultural event?
There’s only one rational answer to this question. It’s the Super Bowl. Nothing else comes close. Not in size or grandeur or symbolism or global resonance.
This past February, for the first time, as many Americans watched Super Bowl LIX as those who watched the Apollo moon landing in 1969, long considered the biggest live audience draw in U.S. broadcast television history.
Neil Armstrong walking on the lunar surface was once indisputably the most-watched live event by Americans. This year, it officially had competition for that title. By 2030, it may not even crack the top five.
What will the top five otherwise be by then? All Super Bowl broadcasts. Right now, if you exclude the moon landing, the top ten live American television broadcasts are all Super Bowls, and the top three are all from the past three years.
Maybe you’re not into sportsball. Maybe you can’t stand the NFL. Maybe you have fond memories of watching the live series finales of M*A*S*H or Cheers or Seinfeld or Johnny Carson’s final Tonight Show appearance, and you’ll recall that it felt as though the entire country were watching those, too, at the same time you and your family were glued to the tube.
But those days are long gone. Network television has been cannibalized by satellite and streaming over the years. If a scripted network series draws ten million viewers for any given episode, it’s more than enough to take the crown over its competitors.
The Oscars draws 20 million. The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade does better at 30 million. Trump’s inauguration in January had 25 million viewers, nearly ten million fewer than Pres. Biden’s in 2021.
There is no American cultural event that comes within shouting distance—much less spitting distance—of the Super Bowl. When you walk around today, wherever you are—at work or a café or a park or your kid’s school—keep in mind that, on average, at least a third of the adults around you were all watching the Super Bowl at the same time this year.
Consider the global audience: the Super Bowl is the most-watched live annual television event around the world. The Men’s World Cup Final draws as many as 1.5 billion live viewers, but that’s every four years. The Summer Olympics Opening Ceremony is capable of drawing half that, but it’s also every four years. The Super Bowl draws 200M live viewers globally every year.
No annual live television event in the world is bigger than the Super Bowl, and no other country can lay claim to having a live broadcast of this size that is so inextricably bound with a celebration of its culture.
The Super Bowl is a distillation of all things America: sports and celebrity and military pageantry and unabashed patriotism and unapologetic commercialism all being slammed together, and in terms of annual events, more human beings on this planet watch it live, together, than anything else.
And it’s because of all those elements that most American conservatives perceive it as a showcase of American exceptionalism. It’s not that it’s inherently conservative or that non-conservatives don’t watch it; it’s that the sheer scope of the Super Bowl combined with all the patriotic bits make it a crown jewel in their argument for American cultural hegemony.
That’s why when Apple Music and the NFL announced last night that Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny—Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio—is headlining Super Bowl LX this upcoming February, my jaw dropped.
For those unfamiliar, Bad Bunny is one of the biggest entertainers in the world. Were you to remove Taylor Swift and Beyoncé from the metrics conversation, he’s easily the biggest. He led global streaming charts from 2020-2022, and he’s still among the top three even now. His Un Verano Sin Ti world tour in 2022 dominated that year, and only Taylor Swift has surpassed his touring numbers since.
Based on both merit and marketing, Bad Bunny is an obvious choice to headline the Super Bowl.
But he’s also an outspoken LGBTQ ally, particularly on trans rights. He has been consistently critical of Trump, especially in regards to immigration. Earlier this month, he announced he would not include any U.S. dates for his 2025-2026 Debí Tirar Más Fotos world tour out of fear for his fans given the fascistic crackdown by ICE. He notably endorsed Vice President Harris last year after Puerto Rico was mocked at Trump’s infamous Madison Square Garden campaign rally.
Oh, and he performs solely in Spanish. That’s right: he does not rap or sing in any language other than Spanish. He does speak English, but he’s not a “crossover” Latin artist as an intentional choice. He has made it clear that he wants Spanish-language music to be normalized in the global marketplace, and so, he only produces work in Spanish.
He is an avatar of Latin excellence in a moment when the U.S. government is violently hostile toward Latin people.
The biggest American cultural event—with massive global influence—is about to be headlined by an unapologetically proud Latin trans ally who can’t stand Trump and performs solely in Spanish.
Based on all this, the NFL selecting him to headline the Super Bowl is pretty damn surprising and may indicate no small measure of intended protest by those involved in the process.
What I wouldn’t give to have been a fly on the wall during the discussions that took place between the NFL and Apple and Jay-Z’s company Roc Nation—which advises the league on entertainment—in choosing Bad Bunny for the greatest entertainment gig in the world.
I suppose I’ll have to settle for Bad Bunny’s instantly iconic hint posted on social media just prior to the announcement last night:
“I’ve been thinking about it these days, and after discussing it with my team, I think I’ll do just one date in the United States.”
Goddamn. I love this guy.
Now the questions become: what does Trump do? Is there an online meltdown incoming? Will he attempt to pressure the NFL to cancel Bad Bunny? If he does, how will the NFL respond?
Trump may not want this fight. This may be one of those rare moments he wisely chooses to avoid controversy. His poll numbers are terrible, the Midterms are next year, and his party will need every vote they can get. Alienating young and Latin voters would be a massive, unforced error.
I guess we’ll see. In the meantime, we’re about to be treated to a hell of a show. (snip)
TV Alert:
Josh Johnson is on tonight’s Jimmy Kimmel Live, at whatever time and channel you receive Jimmy Kimmel Live (ABC affiliates.)
That is all.
Chief John Ross Writes U.S. Congress, Wobblies Indicted, Danish Jews Moving To Safety, Constance Baker Motley Passes; In Peace & Justice History for 9/28
| September 28, 1836 Cherokee Chief John Ross wrote a letter to both houses of the U.S. Congress stating that the Treaty of New Echota was not negotiated by any legitimate representatives of his nation. Its terms required the Cherokees to relinquish all lands east of the Mississippi River for a payment of $5 million. Ross was the democratically chosen leader of a nation with its own language, its own newspaper, a bi-cameral legislature and a republican form of government.  Cherokee Chief John Ross The Cherokee Nation celebrated its own arts and sports, and produced a wide variety of agricultural and commercial goods. It had twelve political units ranging from northern Alabama to western North Carolina.Writing from north Georgia, Ross said:“The makers of it [the treaty] sustain no office nor appointment in our Nation, under the designation of Chiefs, Head men, or any other title, by which they hold, or could acquire, authority to assume the reins of Government, and to make bargain and sale of our rights, our possessions, and our common country . . . . “ We are despoiled of our private possessions, the indefeasible property of individuals. We are stripped of every attribute of freedom and eligibility for legal self-defence. Our property may be plundered before our eyes; violence may be committed on our persons; even our lives may be taken away, and there is none to regard our complaints. We are denationalized; we are disfranchised. We are deprived of membership in the human family!” Full text of the letter More on the Treaty and the Cherokee nation |
| September 28, 1917 166 people who were (or had been) active in the I.W.W. (Industrial Workers of the World, whose members were also known as Wobblies) were indicted for protesting World War I.They were accused of trying to “cause insubordination, disloyalty, and refusal of duty in the military and naval forces” in violation of the Espionage Act. One hundred and one defendants were found guilty, and received prison sentences ranging from days to twenty years, with accompanying fines of $10,000-$20,000. This was part of a successful U.S. government campaign to cripple the radical union movement.  The I.W.W. – A Brief History (U.S.) I.W.W. home |
| September 28, 1943 In Denmark, underground anti-Nazi activists began systematic smuggling of Jews to Sweden. In just three weeks, all but 481 of Denmark’s 8000 Jews had been moved to safety.  Kim Malthe-Bruun, a 21-year-old Danish resistance fighter. Unfortunately one of the ones who did not make it.  A Danish Jewish family ready to go Read more about Kim |
| September 28, 2005 The lawyer who wrote the original legal complaint in the case of Brown v. Board of Education, Constance Baker Motley, died in New York City. She had led a remarkable career which began at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF) where she was their first female attorney. The first black woman to argue before the Supreme Court, she was successful in nine of her ten cases. Motley went on to achieve three more firsts as an African American woman: being elected to the New York State Senate and shortly thereafter to the Manhattan Borough presidency. Finally, Pres. Lyndon Johnson appointed her to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in 1966 where she served until her passing. |
https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryseptember.htm#september28
What Think You?
Keynote Address: Unscripted — Introducing Intergender Dynamics and Reframing Gender-Type Prejudice by Richard Hogan, MD, PhD(2), DBA
🇨🇦 Richard Hogan PhD (Mathematics) · MD (Neuroscience) · PhD (Ethics) · DBA (HRD) Architect of IGD & IBT | Rewriting the language of gender justice Essays, theory, and verse from the post-binary frontier
Keynote Address: Unscripted—Introducing Intergender Dynamics and and Reframing Gender-Type Prejudice
Good morning.
It is an honor to stand before you today—not to echo what has already been said, but to challenge what we’ve long accepted. To offer not just a critique, but a new vocabulary. A new lens. A new way forward. I hope you are ‘not toned deaf’.
For decades, we have used the term misogyny to name and confront systemic prejudice against women. It has served us well in many ways. But today, I ask you—academics, legal scholars, educators, and clinicians—to consider this: What if the language we use to fight injustice is now limiting our ability to understand it?
We are living in a post-binary world. Gender is no longer a fixed category—it is a spectrum, a performance, a negotiation. And yet, our frameworks remain tethered to binary logic. Misogyny is one such tether. It is gender-specific. Directionally fixed. It presumes a hierarchy that no longer reflects the lived realities of our students, our patients, our communities.
So today, I introduce a new term: Intergender Dynamics , or IGD .
IGD refers to the patterned, reciprocal, and often asymmetrical interactions between individuals and groups across the gender spectrum. It is not just about identity—it is about relationship . It is about how we perform, police, and punish gender roles in our daily lives. It is about the emotional labor we assign, the authority we grant, the empathy we withhold.
And this is not just a sociological insight—it is a medical one.
Recent research in gender-affirming care has shown that transgender and gender-diverse individuals face significant barriers in accessing health services, often due to systemic bias and relational discomfort within clinical settings. Studies have also revealed that patients with dynamic or evolving gender identities experience distress not only from institutional exclusion, but from interpersonal dynamics—how they are spoken to, validated, or dismissed by providers.
In pediatric and adolescent medicine, clinicians are now trained to recognize how gender-role expectations affect mental health, emotional development, and access to care. The World Professional Association for Transgender Health and The Endocrine Society have emphasized the importance of relational sensitivity—not just diagnostic accuracy—in improving outcomes.
What does this tell us?
It tells us that IGD is not just a theoretical tool—it is a clinical imperative . If we want to reduce disparities, improve mental health, and foster trust in care, we must understand how gender prejudice operates not only in policy, but in conversation. In tone. In silence.
To complement IGD, I also propose Intergender Bias Theory (IBT) —a framework for analyzing the structural architecture of gender-type prejudice. IBT examines how laws, curricula, and institutional norms enforce rigid roles and marginalize deviation. Together, IGD and IBT offer a dual lens: one that captures both the macro-level scaffolding of bias and the micro-level choreography of interaction.
Let me be clear: retiring the term misogyny is not an act of denial. It is an act of evolution. It is a recognition that our language must grow with our understanding. That our frameworks must reflect the complexity of the world we now inhabit.
So I call on you:
- Academics , to revise your syllabi, your research, your theories.
- Legal scholars , to expand your statutes, your protections, your definitions.
- Educators , to teach emotional literacy, role deconstruction, and relational justice.
- Clinicians , to recognize IGD in patient care and to train for relational sensitivity.
Let us move from naming contempt to understanding connection. Let us shift from binary blame to systemic insight. Let us unscript ourselves—and write a new language of liberation.
This is not the end of a conversation. It is the beginning of a movement.
Thank you.
(snip-To read in Latin, French, Spanish, or Arab, click through to the Substack)
In Our Interests
Introducing Medscape.com: Across Disciplines for the Public by Richard Hogan, MD, PhD(2), DBA
Vigilance Across Disciplines for the Public
I am sharing the Medscape resource that follows only because of misinformation arising from via Robert Kennedy and President Donald J. Trump (week of 9/22/2025)
Medscape.com is not merely a medical resource—it is a threshold of discernment for you, a corridor of clinical clarity.
For physicians, yes—but also for advocates, poets, policymakers, and stewards of care.
It offers daily rites of insight: peer-reviewed updates, diagnostic tools, and the pulse of global medicine.
I introduce it not as a site, but as a ceremonial scroll—for those who dignify care across disciplines, and who recognize that health is not confined to hospitals, but lives to support you, policy, poetry, and the architecture of belonging. (snip-graphic and comments on the page)
Bee, Joan Baez, & Nicholle Wallace
“There may be a subset of people pissed off that Kimmel is back on Sinclair’s airwaves, but you can bet even more would be pissed if they couldn’t watch LSU play Ole Miss on Saturday. That would hurt Sinclair’s real primary principle: always maximize profits.”
Sinclair Backs Down, Will Resume Airing ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live’ on Local Stations
The outrage machine has moved on.
By AJ Dellinger Published September 26, 2025
In a classic Friday news dump move, Sinclair announced that it will end its unofficial boycott of Jimmy Kimmel and will once again broadcast the comedian’s late-night show, ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live,’ to its ABC affiliate broadcast stations, ending its completely principled and not at all politically motivated stance to pre-empt the show after all of two days.
“Our objective throughout this process has been to ensure that programming remains accurate and engaging for the widest possible audience,” the company said in a statement. “We take seriously our responsibility as local broadcasters to provide programming that serves the interests of our communities, while also honoring our obligations to air national network programming.”
Sinclair—which operates 30 ABC affiliate stations in 27 markets, including cities like Portland, Baltimore, and Minneapolis—announced last week that it would choose to air “news programming” in place of Kimmel’s show, which returned to the air Tuesday after a brief hiatus. The program, which was briefly suspended by ABC after Kimmel made a frankly pretty innocuous comment about the political ideology of the person who allegedly shot and killed conservative influencer Charlie Kirk in Utah earlier this month.
Sinclair, along with fellow media conglomerate Nexstar, announced they would pull Kimmel’s show from the air following a statement from Federal Communications Commission head Brendan Carr, who warned broadcasters, “We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” and said, “These companies can find ways to change conduct to take action on Kimmel or, you know, there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”
Both companies currently have business in front of the FCC and are pretty motivated to show fealty to the Trump administration to ensure their deals get pushed through—not that they need that much motivation, considering both companies are owned by conservative-aligned media magnates. Sinclair CEO David Smith has been shifting its editorial coverage to the right for years, and Smith reportedly told Trump in 2016, “We are here to deliver your message.” Likewise, Nexstar chairman Perry Sook has repeatedly praised Trump and poured money into the coffers of GOP groups.
Sinclair attempted to get in front of the obvious criticisms that it would face as a result of both its initial decision not to broadcast ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live’ and its latest call to bring him back to the airwaves in Sinclair markets.
“Our decision to preempt this program was independent of any government interaction or influence,” the company said. “Free speech provides broadcasters with the right to exercise judgment as to the content on their local stations. While we understand that not everyone will agree with our decisions about programming, it is simply inconsistent to champion free speech while demanding that broadcasters air specific content.” It apparently took the company a solid week to remember that commitment to free speech, but it got there.
The reality is that Sinclair was going to back down eventually, if only for legal reasons. As a broadcast executive explained to Deadline, local affiliates contractually can only preempt a program so many times before it breaks the contract and loses the ability to broadcast the show entirely. Sinclair’s “principled stance” was destined to last for exactly as long as it didn’t actually cost them anything and likely not a second longer.
Once word started spreading that Disney might threaten to withhold live sports broadcasts from affiliates who pulled Kimmel, it was only a matter of time before Sinclair suddenly found its unwavering belief in “free speech” again. There may be a subset of people pissed off that Kimmel is back on Sinclair’s airwaves, but you can bet even more would be pissed if they couldn’t watch LSU play Ole Miss on Saturday. That would hurt Sinclair’s real primary principle: always maximize profits.
Scottie's Playtime 