Cleveland Orchestra fires two prominent members

I blogged recently about two prominent members of the Cleveland Orchestra, concertmaster William Preucil and principal trombonist Massimo La Rosa, who had been placed on leave pending investigations into sexual harassment and misconduct. Today, after an outside investigation delivered its report, the two were fired. People outside Cleveland and the orchestra world may not realize what a powerful figure Preucil was in the classical music circles, so this is not an insignificant event. It will have wide repercussions and I hope it will deter such behavior in the future.
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People who remember every day of their lives

I have long been curious about the way memory works and as time has gone by become more convinced that we rarely remember things as they happen but instead we reconstruct memories each time we recall an event, adding some details and eliminating others, and the new story becomes recorded as the memory. Hence I am always wary of relying too much on my own or other people’s memories, especially of things that happened a long time ago, and usually look for some corroborating evidence.
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China builds world’s longest bridge across the sea

Yesterday China opened the world’s longest bridge across the sea, connecting Hong Kong with Macau on the mainland. It is 55km (34 miles) long. It required the construction of two artificial islands so that the bridge can go underwater at places to allow for shipping traffic. It is not the longest bridge overall, just the sixth longest but the five longer ones are also in China. The bridge does not allow private vehicles to use it, just buses, trucks, government vehicles, and other vehicles with special permits, so traffic should be light.
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An offer I can and will refuse

I just got an offer of a complimentary copy of a book if I would be willing to review it. I get these offers from time to time but what was unusual this time was in the choice of me as a potential reviewer. The book is about the Rapture, the supposed end of the world that some Christians believe is imminent and will signal the beginning of a massive, long, and bloody fight between the forces of Jesus and the forces of Satan as represented on Earth in human form by the Anti-Christ, whom some think is Barack Obama.
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Nature can always surprise us

An iceberg has been observed that is in the shape of a square about a mile along a side.

It turns out that this kind of geometrically symmetric icebergs is not unprecedented.

Such objects are not unknown, however, and even have a name – tabular icebergs.

These are flat and long and form by splitting away from the edges of ice shelves.

Kelly Brunt, a glaciologist with Nasa and the University of Maryland, said the process of formation was a bit like a fingernail growing too long and cracking off at the end.

They were often geometrically-shaped as a result, she said.

“What makes this one a bit unusual is that it looks almost like a square,” she added.

These scientists are missing the most obvious explanation, that this is a monolith sent to us by highly advanced extra-terrestrial beings, like in 2001: A Space Odyssey to make us more intelligent about the need to take action to save the planet.

Erdoğan’s speech and the UAE connection to Saudi Arabia

The speech today by Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan turned out to be somewhat underwhelming. It had been expected that he would provide at least some of the evidence that Turkish investigators have accumulated on the murder of Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. But he did not do so, choosing instead to reject the Saudi account of the killing and pointing the finger at the ‘highest ranks’ of the Saudi government.
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Why voting matters

Election day in the US is on November 6 this year. Although many places allow early voting and voting by mail, I like to do it in person. Writer and comedian Demi Adejuyigbe explains how to vote and why it is important to do so, despite all the well-known problems with democracy in the US. The greatest fear of the oligarchy is if large numbers of people vote, which is why voter suppression efforts are so commonplace in the US. The wealthy and powerful control pretty much everything and voting is really the only time when ordinary people get to exercise any power at all. For that reason alone, it is important to not squander that opportunity.

Australian political turmoil continues

Australia has seen a huge turnover in its political leadership with five prime ministers in as many years, with most of the changes occurring not due to national elections but because of political backstabbing and intrigue within parties that have unseated party leaders. (In the parliamentary system, the prime minister is not directly elected but is the person who commands the majority of party members in parliament.)
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