White Sands National Monument, New Mexico

*
RUMI LIVES ON

Come, come, whoever you are.
Wanderer, worshiper, lover
of leaving. It doesn't matter.
Ours is not a caravan of despair.
Come, even if you have broken
your vows a thousand times.
Come, yet again , come , come.

~ Jalal ad-din Rumi

*
~ I first heard the poetry of Molana Rumi when I was a child staring out at the Hudson River from an eighth-floor apartment in New Jersey. My father was reciting a poem about the mastaan—the Lovedrunk—tearing off their chains, or “mind-forg’d manacles” as William Blake would say. The meanings eluded me at the time, but the propulsive, muscular rhythms of the original Persian text left their impression.

My parents were young doctors who had emigrated from Iran to America with one suitcase of clothing and two suitcases of books, among them, a 1936 edition of the Masnavi, Rumi’s vast book of narrative and didactic poetry, handed down from my grandfather. Eventually they would host monthly poetry nights, a Persian tradition called shab e sher. Friends would come over and recite poetry in rounds till the wee hours of the morning. I was one of the children on the fringes, listening in, having no idea that Rumi would become a companion for life.

Looking back, I see the medieval sage and mystic’s verses as a luminous antidote to the bewildering materialism of American life. Looking around at our warring and ecologically devastated world, I hear them as urgent calls to reconsider the ways we treat each other and our world. Always, I hear the beauty, tenderness, exhilaration, and care that suffuse his poetry.

Water is my second volume of translations of Rumi’s poetry, following Gold, and like Gold, it is drawn almost entirely from Rumi’s collection of lyric poetry, the Divan e Shams e Tabriz which contains more than 3,200 ghazals and quatrains. Like Gold as well, Water comprises fifty-four poems. Given the vast body of work there is to choose from, my selection is inevitably partial, in both senses of the word. My choice of material was intuitive, but as I worked on the book, as the book came together, it took on a specific character of its own. Gold highlights Rumi’s rhapsodic, ecstatic side. Water, by contrast, is Gold’s moody cousin. In its pages, Love responds to and is born from the challenges of earthly existence.

Rumi was an ecstatic, but he was also a man of his time and world. As a child, he was exposed to both extreme beauty and brutality. When he was around eleven years of age, he and his family left their home in present-day Afghanistan and began a ten-year journey through what are now Iran, Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey, sometimes traveling with a caravan of up to three hundred people, sometimes fleeing towns ahead of the Mongolian army which was pushing across Asia and wreaking havoc on village after village.

We can imagine Rumi traveling through majestic landscapes of desert, mountain, meadow, and forest, inhaling the scent of wildflowers, gazing at skies brimming with stars, waking to choirs of birds, and wandering through rose gardens, cypress groves, peach orchards, and bazaars of aromatic spices, all of which make their way into his poetry. In one ear, he would have heard folktales, poems, scripture, and the lively banter of the caravan; and in the other, news of the atrocities and panic sweeping the land as Genghis Khan’s armies invaded nearby towns, massacred inhabitants, and left behind smoldering ruins.

The son of an erudite Islamic theologian, Rumi was encouraged to pray, fast, and study scripture as well as mathematics, philosophy, literature, and the languages of Persian, Arabic, and Turkish, all of which shaped his worldview and eventually his poetry. Rumi would follow in his father’s footsteps to become a theologian in Konya, offering sermons to thousands, until around the age of forty when Shams of Tabriz, an itinerant Sufi mystic, drew him from the pulpit into a life of poetry and music.

Religious conservatives of the time were wary of music and sought to delimit its presence in daily life, but Shams embraced it as a portal to the divine. With Shams’s guidance, Rumi became an avid practitioner of sama, as deep listening and whirling dance were called. “Music, the sweetest orator of all, / has climbed into the pulpit,” he affirms in one of his poems. “I’ll sell my tongue now / and buy a thousand ears.” Music awakened Rumi’s muse. During sama gatherings, while whirling to the beat of a drum, he improvised his poems, which friends hurriedly scribbled down.

Rumi brought everything he had learned and everything he had seen of the world to his poetry. He brought his ecstasy and despair, his wonder and frustration. Many of his poems are sung in praise of divine Love. Others describe the beauties and mysteries of the natural world. Others yet confront the tragic dimension of human life. In Water, for instance, we hear Rumi address the warmongers of his own time:

What kind of lightning are you, 

setting farms on fire?

What kind of cloud are you, 

raining down stones?

What kind of hunter?
Caught in your own trap—
a thief stealing from your own house.

Rumi was very much aware of the disfiguring power of what Sufis call nafs eh amaareh—the imperious ego—one aspect of the transmutable nafs, or self. “Enthralled by stuff and status,” prone to greed, a lust for dominion, narcissism, and even brutality, the imperious ego blocks out or, for all its bluster, hides fearfully from the divine. It is, Rumi often says, an “uncooked,” immature aspect of human nature, and perhaps because it is all too fixated on hoarding worldly goods, it is all too tragically evident in worldly life, taking the reins time and again.

A foundational assumption in Sufi philosophy is that the nafs is not a static entity but a work in progress, a malleable entity, compounded of desires and distractions, which needs to be directed into true awareness. If one has an active conscience, a willingness to examine oneself honestly, and a commitment to spiritual practice, Sufis suggest, evolution into a more compassionate, relaxed, loving, and selfless state of existence is possible. And this process, they believe, is life’s most important and fruitful mission. As Shams said, “Souls come to Earth to ripen…to attain the true wealth of maturity…the nafs has to evolve, this is the only way…”

Throughout his poetry, Rumi describes his own transformation and encourages ours while questioning the value system that puts plunderers on pedestals, prioritizes material gain over spiritual connection, and champions control over others rather than mutual fulfillment. In the process he redefines maturity, wealth, success. For Rumi the true king is not an authoritarian, lost in ego, devoid of conscience, wreaking havoc on the world, but Love’s servant, a generous, selfless force, “nourishing as mother’s milk.” “Master,” he says, “I’ll leave you [in the fire] / till you’re cooked, / till you’re no longer a slave to your mind, / till you’re its master.”

In Water, the word “Love” appears 96 times. An intangible force with a very tangible impact, Love takes on many forms in Rumi’s poetry. Most often he speaks of what the Greeks call agape, a boundless, divine Love, and less often of eros or romantic love. Sometimes there is no distinction between the two, and sometimes how we approach one opens the way to the other. In the poem that begins, “Tomorrow I’ll visit Love’s tailor,” Rumi notes the ephemeral nature of romantic love, visiting the tailor in his “robe of melancholy, passion, entanglements, and infatuations.” The tailor “snips at it. / He snips away one lover, / stitches in another. // This seam might hold. / This seam might split. / I give my heart anyway.” Knowing the risk and loving anyway, he comes to know divine union. Whether this or that connection endures or not, a larger Love, a shoreless Ocean of Love, a Oneness continues to beckon and is ours to experience if only we allow ourselves to.

In Rumi’s poetry, this capital-L Love incarnates itself in all sorts of ways. Sometimes Love is aabeh hayat—the water of life, a force that bubbles up from the depths of the soul and flows through us, watering the ground within and between us, ensuring that gardens rather than battlefields emerge. Sometimes Love is a fire burning away egoic narratives and projections that obscure our sense of interconnection and keep us separate.

Love is a stream and a shoreless ocean, wine and bread, a teacher and friend—“its face, a torch, filling the house with light.” It is warmth and civility. It is our ultimate home, “Wherever [we] go, it goes with [us].” Love, challenges us, wakes us from our slumber, “illuminates our blind eyes,” “washing off the weight of days,” “arriving from no side” and standing “on every side.” Love is a 360-degree embrace of creation, a compassionate acceptance of what is, and also a force that drives us to discern and refine, creating more welcoming worlds within and without us. Love is our unobscured essence, at the root of the root of all creation, a force that brings life into existence and sets all particles whirling. Above all, Love is a practice. “Child of flesh and bone, you are a child of soul. / Love is your trade, your mission, your calling. / Why do you busy yourself with so many other tasks?”

Rumi is rooting for us. His poetry is filled with startling leaps of imagery and thought, praise and critique, confessions and invitations, and through it all, his concern for humanity is palpable and his central commitment—human liberation through the cultivation of Love—unwavering. His poems are ravishing and rapturous, knotty and demanding. As I can say from my own experience of many years, they do not let you go. Rumi is a dazzler and he is also a good friend. In the midst of life’s challenges, his lines are lifelines. ~

The fact is that we are all connected by our egos, but through Rumi’s poems, we are reminded that we are not only our egos—our egos make us forget the common source of humanity. Egos tend to divide rather than connect. This is one of the many reasons his poetry has transcended time.

His poetry reminds us of the longing for belonging. In her Ph.D. dissertation, Mansouri (2010) compares six of Rumi’s poems to illustrate the longing for the beloved through the lens of Jung’s individuation or the return to wholeness, which is inherent to life’s essence.

Rumi was born around September 30, 1207, and died December 17, 1273, which, by today’s standards, is a very short life. He was born in what is now called Afghanistan. It’s no surprise that he descended from a long line of judges, theologians, and mystics. His family eventually settled in Konya, now located in south-central Turkey. It is there that Rumi meets his teacher and mentor, Shams. Before becoming a poet, Rumi was a preacher. When he met Shams, a philosopher and free thinker, he became inspired to create poetry.

In his book, Rumi: The Big Red Book (2010), Coleman Barks, who has translated much of Rumi’s poetry, says that over the last 12 years of his life, Rumi wrote or dictated his longest luminous poem called “The Masnavi.” It ended up being 64,000 lines of poetry, divided into six books.

Bridging Psychology and Culture

Rumi was a universalist in that his poetry crossed religious sectors and faiths due to its great wisdom, clarity, and love. Many claim that his poetry deepened their own spiritual practices, in addition to serving as a bridge from religion to culture to psychology.

Those who attended Rumi’s funeral were united from all faiths. One of the inscriptions on Rumi’s tomb says, “Do not look for him here, but rather in the hearts of those who loved him.”

Barks (2010) says that Rumi is one of the greatest souls and spiritual teachers. In so many ways, he has shown us our glory. He wants his readers to be more alive, to wake up and be happy and full of love. “Basically, what Rumi aspired to do is to help us see the beauty in ourselves and in others.”

Words From the Heart

Rumi’s poems are best understood by the heart because they’re written from the heart; reading his poems is also a way to open our hearts. In The Essential Rumi, Barks says, “His poems have never been for me, or most readers, museum curiosities from the 13th century. They are food and drink, nourishment for the part that is hungry for what they give.” (p. xv).

Each generation has its moments of uncertainty, but with six grandchildren in tow, I can’t help but wonder what future generations will find important and what universal truths they will adhere to. I look forward to the day when my grandchildren are old enough for me to share my love for Rumi with them. My hope is that Rumi’s wisdom will then also live in their hearts.
Here is an excerpt from one of his famous poems:

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.

Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,

some momentary awareness comes

as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,

who violently sweep your house

empty of its furniture,

still treat each guest honorably.

He may be clearing you out

for some new delight.

(Source: Rumi: The Big Red Book, by Coleman Barks, translator)

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-empowerment-diary/202406/the-psychology-of-rumis-poetry

Mary:
In times like ours the poetry and philosophy of Rumi can be a source of both comfort and hope. We face so many dire consequences:

~ wars that threaten to erase democracies and extend the grim powers of autocracies, with the loss of basic freedoms and rights so long and hard struggled for, crushed and replaced with the brutality of an oppressive state,

~ the continued destruction of the natural world under the forces of greed and ignorance, increasing poisons in the air and soil, and dangerous contaminants in our bodies,

~ the accelerating rate of climate change, uncorrected, denied, leading to ever more disastrous weather, resource scarcity, wildfire occurrence, life threatening heat, increased extinctions and desertification,

~ and even perhaps the most threatening of all, the decrease in fertility and population that makes us increasingly a population of older persons needing care and support from a dwindling population of young producers, workers and caretakers.

These problems may seem insurmountable.

And yet, Rumi insists we are a work in progress, here to change, grow and evolve into our potential for love and connection, beyond the petty greeds and jealousies, resentments and selfishness of our separate egotistic individualities. There is infinite hope in our potential to grow, to become more, to enter a state of connected wholeness. Each disastrous threat may contain the nugget of a possible solution. There is so much to be gained by an adjustment in perspective. For instance, seeing the "brownlands" left behind by careless industrial pollution as potential areas for the expansion of solar energy installations. Instead of simply abandoning as trash spaces degraded by thoughtless use, finding a way to reintegrate them as vital areas producing green energy.

*
OPERATION VARSITY — LARGEST AIRBORNE OPERATION IN WW2

Paratroopers drinking tea, March 1945

Operation Varsity "was the battle that ended" World War Two in Europe, yet it is largely unknown to all but military history buffs.

British, Canadian and American forces took off mostly from Essex airfields on 24 March 1945, to be dropped directly on top of the German lines at the River Rhine.

Paratroopers and gliders packed with men descended into fierce fighting conditions which resulted in rapid success, but huge loss of life. About six weeks later, Victory in Europe was declared.

Chris Bullock has organized an event at one of the departure airfields, RAF Rivenhall, to remember those who died, saying "it's an untold story."

"When you see a video of the men at Rivenhall with their final brew, giving the thumbs up and the V for victory sign before they get into their gliders and you know some of them didn't come home, within three hours they were dead – it's important to tell that story," he said.

Peter Davies, 102, took off from RAF Woodbridge in Suffolk towed by a Dakota plane and carrying "a 17-pounder gun, towing vehicle and gun detachment of eight personnel.”

Peter Davies rejoined the Army after the war, becoming a Royal Artillery captain. Today he is a classroom assistant "teaching children to read and enjoy reading”

He had volunteered for the Glider Pilot Regiment in 1942 because he thought it would be "more exciting" than his time as an Army private manning a Royal Artillery anti-aircraft unit.

"It's like flying a brick – there's only one way, and it's down," said Mr Davies, from Bollington, Cheshire, describing what it was like once the the glider was loosed.

"There was a hell of a lot of flak, we lost our controls and having lost a great chunk of one wing, we were pulling deeper and deeper into enemy ground.

"When we hit the ground – and I do mean hit – we were very much in the wrong place amongst a load of very angry Germans, and it was total chaos."

One American glider came down within 50m (about 160ft) of him, "and not one man got out alive because the Germans were there as well".

But with co-pilot Bert Bowman, he made it across the battlefield to their intended drop zone and returned to Britain.

Large Hamilcar gliders (right), which were used to transport artillery and even tanks, were let loose once they had been towed to their drop zones by Halifax planes (left)

"The Allies landed directly on top of the Germans and lots of gliders were shot down and lots of paratroopers were shot in the skies – 80 people from RAF Rivenhall alone lost their lives," said Mr Bullock, 56, who served in the 3rd Battalion, Parachute Regiment for 25 years.

Operation Varsity was the largest single airborne operation in history, with more than 16,000 men were dropped into western Germany on the same day.

Its aim was to establish a bridgehead across the River Rhine for the main Allied advance into Germany and push rapidly towards the Russian forces arriving from the east.

The first part was the ground offensive Operation Plunder, "which was the biggest-ever river crossing and was done by British and Canadian forces", Mr Bullock said.

The intention was for the amphibious troops on the western side of the Rhine to join up with the airborne troops dropped to its east.

More than 9,000 US soldiers and 8,000 British and Canadian soldiers "achieved Varsity's objective in three hours, but at massive cost", said Chris Bullock.

Varsity took place just five months after the disastrous Battle of Arnhem, which resulted in 90% casualties to the Glider Pilot Regiment.

RAF pilots such as Brian Latham, who had been sent to Texas to learn to fly fighter planes, were among hundreds who "volunteered" for glider service.

"If we didn't volunteer, we were told we'd never fly again and be made to join the infantry or go down a mine," said Mr Latham, 101, from Llandudno, Conwy, Wales.

However, he soon realized being a gilder pilot was "an elite, like the Commandos."

"We were not toughies and they made us toughies – I became a trained infantry man," he said.

Brian Latham, who rejoined the RAF after the war and stayed until 1964, said it was hard seeing "our troops taken apart in all the fighting" at Varsity

Flying from RAF Gosfield, near Braintree, Essex, Mr Latham carried a mortar section, with a Jeep and trailer, and was dropped into ground smoke and heavy anti-aircraft fire.

"We just dived into the smoke and it was all very exciting and we landed just where we should have done at Hamminkeln," he said.

"We were then by a bridge, held by the Royal Ulster Rifles, which was attacked by German tanks until the British 2nd Army came up [having crossed the Rhine]."

Eventually he was returned to the UK, but was grateful not to go back to his home station of RAF Broadwell in Oxfordshire because "we'd lost too many people."

Of the 890 Glider Pilot Regiment personnel who took part in Varsity, more than 20% of them were killed or wounded.

"It was a fantastic, exciting time. We weren't old enough to be sensible and I don't regret it," said Danny Mason. He added: "War's stupid – I realize that now.”

"We were dropped right in amongst the Germans, which had never been tried before, and we knew it was a suicide drop," said Danny Mason, who had qualified to join the Parachute Regiment aged 19 just a week earlier.

"But it didn't bother us. We were young and keen and thought, 'We'll be all right, we'll be fine'."

"But within four or five hours we had accomplished what we had set out to do," Mr Mason said.
He advanced 600 miles through Germany within a fortnight until he was injured.

"It was the battle that ended the war, yet nobody was interested in it," he said.

"I asked my old commanding officer about it and he said it was because everyone was fed up. It was six years of war and it was such a huge relief when VE Day came."

Units from the British Second Army, pictured on 25 March 1945, crossed the Rhine with the First Canadian Army and the US 9th Army and joined up with Varsity's airborne troops

Mr Bullock provided some additional context.

"Three weeks after Varsity, Belsen concentration camp was liberated. Two weeks after, Hitler killed himself, and a week after that Germany capitulated – it's probably hardly talked about because events overtook themselves."

Now working as an international operations security manager for the BBC, he lives near RAF Rivenhall and began researching its story 10 years ago.

Sixty gliders towed by two RAF squadrons left the airfield at 07:00 GMT on 24 March 1945, carrying part of the 6th Airborne Division.

But some of that history is still lost.

"There are no records left of who flew on which glider and what happened to each man – only the anecdotal evidence and individual stories I've managed to track down," he said.

He has commissioned a memorial to "remember all those who flew from Rivenhall and died on that day".

It was unveiled at an event at the airfield on 23 March and a memorial service was held at 07:00 the next day.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0q1wn9zy3xo

*
SINCE PUTIN CANNOT CONQUER UKRAINE, HE IS READY TO DESTROY IT

This amounts to carrying out shameful bombings on civilians in Kyiv. The goal is to instill a certain terror and to push the Ukrainian people to stop their resistance.

What is astonishing here is that Putin still has not understood that the Ukrainians will continue to resist despite these bombings. He continues to persist out of pure murderous madness, but in the end, the Ukrainians will not give in.

When Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered up to 200,000 soldiers into Ukraine, his aim was to sweep into the capital, Kyiv, in a matter of days.

He wanted to overthrow the pro-Western government and return Ukraine to Russia's sphere of influence.

Putin failed but, more than three years on, a fifth of Ukrainian territory is in Russian hands.

The US — until recently Ukraine's strongest ally — has been talking directly to Russia in a bid to end the war, but other than a 30-hour Russian-declared Easter truce marred by violations, there has been little sign of progress.

The Russian leader has long questioned Ukraine's right to exist, claiming that "modern Ukraine was entirely created by Russia" after the communist revolution in 1917.

In a long-winded 2021 essay he even suggested "Russians and Ukrainians were one people" dating back to the late 9th Century. Last year he told US TV talk show host Tucker Carlson that Ukraine was an "artificial state."

Those comments have led many to believe that the goal of the invasion was in effect to erase the state of Ukraine.

Russia's state-run Ria news agency explained that "denazification is inevitably also de-Ukrainization" — seemingly tying the idea of erasing Ukraine to the stated goal of the invasion.

Ukrainian culture and identity have in fact existed for centuries independently of Russia.

Vladimir Putin has made repeated false allegations of genocide and Nazi taunts against Ukraine

At the start of the 2022 invasion, Putin vowed to protect people in occupied areas of eastern Ukraine from eight years of Ukrainian "bullying and genocide, during the war in the east.

More than 14,000 people died on both sides of the front line between 2014-2022, but Russian claims of Ukrainian Nazis committing genocide in the occupied regions never added up, and no international body has spoken of genocide. Germany's chancellor called the allegation "ridiculous."

Much of Russia's firepower has been turned towards the Donetsk region, as towns and villages are destroyed in a slow and grinding advance.

The war is taking its toll on Russia's economy, with high interest rates and inflation and defense spending this year of at least 33% of the federal budget.

Ukraine has lost a big part of its economic wealth to Russian occupation and destruction in its industrial east. Growth has been hit by attacks on its energy infrastructure.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj0q964851po

*
RUSSIAN DESERTER REVEALS WAR SECRETS OF GUARDING OF GUARDING NUCLEAR BASE

On the day of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Anton says the nuclear weapons base he was serving at was put on full combat alert.

“Before that, we had only exercises. But on the day the war started, the weapons were fully in place,” says the former officer in the Russian nuclear forces. “We were ready to launch the forces into the sea and air and, in theory, carry out a nuclear strike.”

I met Anton in a secret location outside Russia. For his own protection, the BBC will not reveal where. We have also changed his name and are not showing his face.

Anton was an officer at a top-secret nuclear weapons facility in Russia.

He has shown us documents confirming his unit, rank and base.

The BBC is unable to independently verify all the events he described, although they do chime with Russian statements at the time.

Three days after troops poured over Ukraine’s borders, Vladimir Putin announced that Russia’s nuclear deterrence forces had been ordered into a “special mode of combat service”.

Anton says that combat alert was in place on day one of the war and claims his unit was “shut inside the base”.

“All we had was Russian state TV,” says the former officer, “I didn’t really know what it all meant. I automatically carried out my duties. We weren’t fighting in the war, we were just guarding the nuclear weapons.”

The state of alert was cancelled, he adds, after two to three weeks.

Anton’s testimony offers an insight into the top-secret inner workings of the nuclear forces in Russia. It is extremely rare for service members to talk to journalists.

“There is a very strict selection process there. Everyone is a professional soldier – no conscripts,” he explains.

“There are constant checks and lie-detector tests for everyone. The pay is much higher, and the troops aren’t sent to war. They’re there to either repel, or carry out, a nuclear strike.”

The former officer says life was tightly controlled.

“It was my responsibility to ensure the soldiers under me didn’t take any phones on to the nuclear base,” he explains.

“It’s a closed society, there are no strangers there. If you want your parents to visit, you need to submit a request to the FSB Security Service three months in advance.”

Anton was part of the base’s security unit – a rapid-reaction force that guarded the nuclear weapons.

“We had constant training exercises. Our reaction time was two minutes,” he says, with a hint of pride.

Russia has around 4,380 operational nuclear warheads, according to the Federation of American Scientists, but only 1,700 are “deployed” or ready for use. All the NATO member states combined possess a similar number.

There are also concerns about whether Putin could choose to deploy “non-strategic”, often called tactical, nuclear weapons. These are smaller missiles that generally don’t cause widespread radioactive fallout.

Their use would nevertheless lead to a dangerous escalation in the war.

The Kremlin has been doing all it can to test the West’s nerves.

Only last week Putin ratified changes to the nuclear doctrine  the official rules dictating how and when Russia can launch nuclear weapons.

The doctrine now says Russia can launch if it comes under “massive attack” from conventional missiles by a non-nuclear state but “with the participation or support of a nuclear state.”

Russian officials say the updated doctrine "effectively eliminates" the possibility of its defeat on the battlefield.

But is Russia’s nuclear arsenal fully functional?

Some Western experts have suggested its weapons mostly date from the Soviet era, and might not even work.

The former nuclear forces officer rejected that opinion as a “very simplified view from so-called experts”.

“There might be some old-fashioned types of weapons in some areas, but the country has an enormous nuclear arsenal, a huge amount of warheads, including constant combat patrol on land, sea and air.”

Russia’s nuclear weapons were fully operational and battle-ready, he maintained. “The work to maintain the nuclear weapons is carried out constantly, it never stops even for one minute.”

Shortly after the full-scale war began, Anton said he was given what he describes as a “criminal order”: to hold lectures with his troops using very specific written guidelines.

“They said that Ukrainian civilians are combatants and should be destroyed!” he exclaims. “That’s a red line for me — it’s a war crime. I said I won’t spread this propaganda.”

Senior officers reprimanded Anton by transferring him to a regular assault brigade in another part of the country. He was told he would be sent to war.

These units are often sent in to battle as the “first wave” and a number of Russian deserters have told the BBC that “troublemakers” who object to the war have been used as “cannon fodder.”

The Russian embassy in London did not respond to a request for comment.

Before he could be sent to the front line, Anton signed a statement refusing to take part in the war and a criminal case was opened against him. He showed us documents confirming his transfer to the assault brigade and details of the criminal case.

He then decided to flee the country with the help of a volunteer organization for deserters.

“If I had run away from the nuclear forces base, then the local FSB Security Service would’ve reacted decisively and I probably wouldn’t have been able to leave the country,” he said.

But he believes that, because he had been transferred to an ordinary assault brigade, the system of top-level security clearance failed.

Anton said he wanted the world to know that many Russian soldiers were against the war.

The volunteer organization that helps deserters, “Idite Lesom” ['Go by the Forest', in English, or 'Get Lost'] has told the BBC that the number of deserters seeking help has risen to 350 a month.

The risks to those fleeing are growing, too. At least one deserter has been killed after fleeing abroad, and there have been several cases of men being forcibly returned to Russia and put on trial.

Although Anton has left Russia, he says security services are still looking for him there: “I take precautions here, I work off the books and I don’t show up in any official systems.”

He says he has stopped speaking to his friends at the nuclear base because he could put them in danger: “They must take lie-detector tests, and any contact with me could lead to a criminal case.”

But he is under no illusion about the risk he is himself in by helping other soldiers to flee.

“I understand the more I do that, the higher the chances they could try and kill me.”

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9dl2pv0yj0o

*
RUSSIA TOOK THE HIGHEST LOSSES YET IN 2024

Russian conscripts training

Last year was the deadliest for Russian forces since the start of the full-scale war in Ukraine: at least 45,287 people were killed.

This is almost three times more than in the first year of the invasion and significantly exceeds the losses of 2023, when the longest and deadliest battle of the war was taking place in Bakhmut.

At the start of the war, losses happened in waves during battles for key locations, but 2024 saw a month-on-month increase in the death toll as the front line slowly edged forward, enabling us to estimate that Russia lost at least 27 lives for every square kilometer of Ukrainian territory captured.

The BBC Russian Service, in collaboration with independent media outlet Mediazona and a team of volunteers, has processed open source data from Russian cemeteries, military memorials and obituaries.

So far, we have identified the names of 106,745 Russian soldiers killed during the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The true number is clearly much higher. Military experts estimate our number may cover between 45% and 65% of deaths, which would mean 164,223 to 237,211 people.

*

20 February 2024 was the deadliest day for Russian forces that year.

Among the casualties were Aldar Bairov, Igor Babych and Okhunjon Rustamov, who were with the 36th Motorized Rifle Brigade when four Ukrainian long-range HIMARS missiles hit a training ground near the city of Volnovakha in occupied Donetsk.

They had been ordered to line up for a medal ceremony. Sixty-five servicemen were killed, including their commander Col Musaev. Dozens more were wounded.

Bairov, 22 and from Buryatia in eastern Siberia, had studied to be a food sanitation specialist but was drafted for mandatory military service and then signed a contract to become a professional soldier.

In February 2022 he went to fight in Ukraine and was part of the battle for Borodyanka during his brigade's advance towards Kyiv in March 2022. The town was almost completely destroyed. 

Ukrainian sources say Russian soldiers were involved in the execution of civilians.

Aldar Bairov (left), Okhunjon Rustamov (C) and Igor Babych were all killed in a strike on 20 February last year

Okhunjon Rustamov, 31 and from Chita in Siberia, had worked as a welder after serving a mandatory term in special forces. He was mobilized during a partial draft in October 2022.

Unlike Rustamov, Igor Babych, 32, had volunteered to go to war. He had worked with adults and children diagnosed with cerebral palsy, helping them with physical therapy until April 2023.

*

A few hours after the strike on the training ground, then-Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu met Vladimir Putin to bring him news of military success from the front line.

There was no mention of the training ground attack, nor was there any word from the Ministry of Defense in its daily reports.

A relative of Okhunjon Rustamov said she had already buried three close family members over the course of the war. "In December 2022, my husband died. On 10 February 2024, my godfather. And on 20 February my half-brother. From one funeral to the next."

In our analysis, we prioritized exact dates of death for soldiers. If that wasn't available, we used the date of the funeral or the date the death was reported.

In the first two years of the war, 2022 and 2023, Russian losses followed a wave-like pattern: heavy fighting with high casualties alternated with periods of relative calm.

In 2023, for example, most casualties occurred between January and March, when Russian forces attempted to capture the cities of Vuhledar and Bakhmut in Donetsk Oblast.

In the first year of the full-scale invasion, according to our calculations, Russia lost at least 17,890 soldiers. This number does not include losses from Russia's two proxy forces in occupied eastern Ukraine.

In 2023, the number rose to 37,633.

In 2024, there was no period showing a significant fall in casualties. Bloody battles for Avdiivka and Robotyne were followed by intensified assaults towards Pokrovsk and Toretsk.

In August 2024, Russian conscripts were killed when Ukrainian forces stormed over the border into the Kursk region. From August 6 to 13 alone, an estimated 1,226 Russian soldiers died.

However, the heaviest overall losses occurred during a slow Russian advance in the east between September and November 2024, according to leading US military analyst Michael Kofman.

"Tactics emphasized repeated attacks with dispersed assault groups, using small infantry fire teams, which increased overall casualties relative to terrain gained," he explained.

After almost two years of intense fighting, Russian forces seized the logistical hub of Vuhledar in Donetsk on 1 October 2024.

Even then, Ukrainian forces at the front did not collapse.

The cost of this advance was at least 11,678 Russian military deaths.

Actual losses figures are likely higher. We have only accounted for soldiers and officers whose names appeared in publicly available obituaries and whose dates of death or funeral fell within this period.

Overall in 2024, according to ISW, Russia captured 4,168 square kilometers of land.

If we assume that our figure of 45,287 confirmed deaths in 2024 is about 40% of the full number, then the total number would be closer to 112,000 fatalities last year.

This means that for each square kilometer captured, 27 Russian soldiers were killed, and this does not include the wounded.

HOW LOSSES ARE CHANGING RECRUITMENT

Russia has found ways of replenishing its depleted forces.

"Russian recruitment also increased in the second half of 2024 and exceeded Russian casualties, allowing Moscow to generate additional formations," says Michael Kofman.

One-time payments to soldiers signing new contracts were increased in three Russian regions. Combat salaries for volunteer soldiers are five to seven times higher than the average wage in most regions.

We also class as volunteers those who signed up to avoid criminal prosecution, which was allowed by law in 2024.

Volunteers have become the fastest-growing category of casualties in our calculations, making up a quarter of those we have identified.

In 2023-2024, thousands of volunteers who signed contracts with the Ministry of Defense were sent to the front lines only 10–14 days later. Such minimal training will have dramatically reduced their chances of survival, experts say.

One Russian republic, Bashkortostan, has seen the highest numbers of casualties, with 4,836 confirmed deaths. Most were from rural areas and 38% had gone to fight with no military experience.

The one-time payment for signing a Russian army contract in Ufa is 34 times the region's average salary of 67,575 rubles (£600).

Calculating deaths from open source data will always be incomplete.

This is because the bodies of a significant number of soldiers killed in the past months may still be on the battlefield and retrieving them presents a risk to serving soldiers.

Rinat Khusniyarov signed up to fight at the age of 62. He survived less than three months of fighting and was killed on 27 February.

The true death toll for Russian forces increases significantly if you include those who fought against Ukraine as part of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics.

An assessment of obituaries and reports of searches for fighters who have lost contact suggests between 21,000 and 23,500 people may have been killed by September 2024.

That would bring the total number of fatalities to 185,000 to 260,700 military personnel.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5yg4z6v600o

*
TOXIC OLD INDUSTRIAL SITES IN MICHIGAN COULD BECOME A SOLAR GOLD MINE

The coal-fired River Rouge power plant in Michigan was retired in 2021

Michigan has 24,000 known contaminated sites, a legacy of heavy manufacturing where industries carelessly discarded hazardous materials with minimal regulatory oversight. 

Taxpayers are often left to clean up these abandoned locations, known as brownfields, while the sheer volume of toxic sites has overwhelmed state regulators. 

With a little effort, these spaces can be more than a permanent blight on the landscape. Kelly Thayer, senior policy advocate with the state’s Environmental Law & Policy Center, envisions a future where Michigan’s brownfields are transformed into sites for diverse solar energy projects.

The potential for new solar siting in Michigan aligns with growing nationwide support of the technology, according to a survey co-led by the University of Michigan. Among residents living within three miles of solar energy developments, positive opinions about the projects outnumbered negative ones by almost a 3-to-1 ratio.

For the study, a large-scale solar project was defined as a ground-mounted photovoltaic system that generates one megawatt or more of direct current. The majority of respondents lived near new greenfield solar sites—“disturbed” industrial locations or retiring coal plants were strongly preferred for solar development over forests or productive farmland.

Thayer, from Frankfort on the shores of Lake Michigan, said there is already precedent for solar on former industrial land in his home state. A 120-megawatt solar array on a long-vacant mining operation in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, for example, was met by residents with little controversy.

Yet, a Michigan Department of Natural Resources proposal to transition a former oil-and-gas plot in Gaylord to solar energy was met with substantial public backlash in January. Following resident protests against tree and grassland removal for the solar array, the agency extended the public comment period and halted state land leases for solar projects.

This limbo period gives Michigan a chance to readjust its solar siting approach, with an emphasis on distressed lands that would allow the technology to flourish, Thayer said.

“The work now is to chart the near-term future of how Michiganders get their energy,” said Thayer, whose advocacy group focuses on renewable energy and clean transportation solutions for the Midwest. “This can be talked about through the lens of climate or the environment, but the public health ramifications are enormous as well.”

A Vital Asset

Last year, the state of Michigan won a $129 million grant from the EPA for utility-scale renewable energy projects, including those on brownfields. These “orphan” industrial plots—landfills, auto plants and other properties left to molder by private industry—are vital assets for a state seeking to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels, noted Thayer.

Michigan aims to be a national climate action leader, driven by Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s 2050 carbon neutrality goals. Among the tenets of the MI Healthy Climate Plan is streamlining the siting process for wind, solar and battery storage projects. State legislation like Senate Bill 277, meanwhile, includes solar facilities as a permitted use for farmers under the Farmland and Open Space Preservation Act. 

Thayer’s organization, the Environmental Law & Policy Center, also views retiring coal plants as potential solar energy hubs, considering that they are already connected to the energy grid. For instance, the organization helped develop a blueprint for the Dan E. Karn coal plant site, slated as the future home for an 85-megawatt solar energy site expected to be operational in 2026.

“These are flat, highly-disturbed sites that also have a substation in place that’s hard-wired to the grid,” Thayer said. “Having that infrastructure saves millions in development, and saves time because it takes four or five years to add new energy resources to the grid.” 

Some Michigan clean energy projects are hindered by years-long grid connection delays as well as restrictive zoning ordinances that impede their development. In addition, Michigan lacks a comprehensive database of brownfields that detail key characteristics sought by solar developers, said Julie Lowe, brownfield coordinator for the remediation and redevelopment division of the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE).

“Developers will have to use multiple resources to site projects on known sites of contamination,” said Lowe. “They need databases for tree canopy cover, or have to do site reconnaissance to eyeball the slope and see if it fits their needs.”

An Array of Solar Options

EGLE does offer a list of guidelines for anyone asking to purchase a contaminated property for renewable energy development. Prospective buyers must conduct a two-phase Baseline Environmental Assessment before moving ahead with a project. Due diligence may encompass a deep dive into a site’s former use, as well as comprehensive testing of soil or groundwater samples.

“You may have to go back to the 19th century to determine what the property was used for,” Lowe said. “And there might be drilling or radar work needed to see if there’s something in the ground. For brownfields, we see solvents [in the soil] for dry cleaning or auto repair, because those were chemicals used in those activities.”

Various brownfield incentives and programs may subsidize environmental remediation or any additional assessment a site requires, added Lowe. EGLE’s Brownfield Tax Increment Financing utilizes the rise in tax revenue from a revitalized site to reimburse developers for the cleanup and demolition work that generated that increase.

That is not to say developers should always foot the bill, said Thayer. A series of “polluter pay” laws—which force parties responsible for contamination to pay for site cleanup and remediation costs—are currently being proposed by Michigan lawmakers. Thayer also advocates for virtual power plant programs, enabling utilities to pay homeowners with solar and battery storage to contribute stored power during peak demand. 

Community solar, which involves installing arrays on vacant lots or working farmlands, can be another multibillion-dollar boon for Michigan, said Thayer. According to a 2021 study by Michigan State University, community solar could deliver a nearly $1.5 billion boost to the state’s economy over the next 30 years.

For now, Michigan officials should prioritize cleaning up and advancing solar energy projects on the state’s innumerable polluted brownfields, said Sarah Mills, a University of Michigan researcher who directs the Center for EmPowering Communities at the Graham Sustainability Institute.

“I go to meetings about large renewables projects, and it’s mostly for farmland,” said Mills. “People will say, ‘Why here, why not a brownfield?’ From a community acceptance perspective, this is what most people consider a no-brainer.” 

https://www.fastcompany.com/91328671/these-old-industrial-sites-in-michigan-are-toxic-but-they-could-become-a-solar-gold-mine?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us

*
UKRAINE AND THE DRONE  WARFARE

Ukraine is widely considered to the world leader in drone development improvisation and manufacturing.

Ukrainian forces are using an interceptor drone to shoot down Russian and Iranian drones. 

Ukraine’s drones are produced by the Ukrainian company Besomar. 

Drones are being automated to fire machine guns. The Wild Hornets volunteer group has built a drone that fires an AK-74 machine gun while another drone fires 82-millimeter mortar rounds. The Aero Azimuth balloon’s electronic warfare system detects and targets enemy drone operators, which can then be targeted. “Dragon drones” emit molten thermite at 2000 degrees Celsius, high enough to cut through steel and have successfully destroyed tanks (Kyiv Independent, September 3, 4, 5). 

Ukraine produces ground “robot dogs” and larger robots for transporting supplies and evacuating wounded. Other drones use artificial intelligence (AI) to fire unmanned machine guns.

They have been using marine drones since 2023 most recently to launch ground to air missiles to attack Russian aircraft as well as using them autonomously to create diversion tactics.

Ukrainian developers are within an ace of creating Fully autonomous AI drones capable of swarming a target(s) and adapting to changes on the battlefield as they happen. Now that will be real game changer. ~ Dawid Spencer, Quora

*

The black smoke coming from the Russian Defense Ministry’s Main Missile and Artillery Directorate storage facility in Vladimir Oblast on 22 April 2025.

Russian ammo depot, reportedly holding 264,000 tons of munitions, was obliterated near Moscow.

One of Russia’s largest munitions stockpiles erupted in catastrophic secondary explosions that continued for hours.

*
THE QUIET TRAUMA OF THE UPROOTED: CUBAN REFUGEES

Refugees and immigrants use new origin myths to fortify themselves in foreign lands. Flawed, inaccurate, and possibly delusional, the stories they tell themselves are indispensable survival tools.

But in our family, the stories we told ignored the pain of losing family, neighbors, culture, language, identity—our lives, in a sense. There would be a cost for those omissions, but we wouldn’t realize it until well into our Cuban American lives, when the past came calling and demanded a reckoning.

I grew up in a typical multigenerational refugee family. Ours was run by women who’d gotten us the hell out of postrevolutionary Cuba and knew how to spin stories like nobody’s business. Gracias a Dios for that, because the stories my mother, aunt, grandmother, father, and uncle—the viejos (elders)—spun in our early days as Cuban refugees in 1967 New Hampshire saved us.

Until they didn’t. But we wouldn’t know about the weak spots in our family’s new origin story for decades. Just when we thought we were nicely assimilated—and finally used to American food that tasted like it had been washed first—we’d realize that major chapters had been ripped out of our story.

The past had come to collect payment. A reckoning lay ahead for anyone honest enough to face it.

But, in those early years in the US, the viejos’ tales of becoming Cuban American gave us the foothold we needed to build new lives in a sometimes-unwelcoming America. We were Cuban working-class superheroes! Yes, we’d been duped by the 1959 revolution our family of forklift drivers and teachers had once supported. It had landed on our heads and punched us in the heart.

But look at us now! We’d escaped Castro and Castro-communism and landed on our feet, thigh-deep in the snowbanks of the Live Free or Die state. Who could have come up with such an apt state moniker? Another sign of our superhero destiny.

Proof of our luck piled up quickly. A kind landlord let us rent his rickety farmhouse with just a small deposit. He was a foreman at the rubber boot factory and offered the adults jobs on his assembly line. “Wait till you get your first paychecks. Then you can pay me rent.”

And we kids were killing it at the grammar school across the street. We were the only Latinos in sight, a novelty worth examining rather than ostracizing—for most students and teachers. My cousins and I made friends quickly, and the house started filling with them.

Somehow, we were getting good grades despite our English deficiencies. Someone gave us ice skates and, within hours, we were whisking around the rink across the street in our Salvation Army coats.

The viejos soon learned how central heating worked, what a furnace was, how to dress in layers. They kept telling us we’d won. True, we’d never again see our barrio or the four generations of family we’d left behind. That would be hard.

But we could send them care packages every few weeks. We had airmail, letters from the barrio we read so often they were soft as Kleenex in no time. If we saved carefully, we could afford monthly long-distance phone calls that brought us the voices we longed to hear.

The storytellers insisted that Castro wouldn’t last long, not with the mass discontent we’d seen, all those Cubans escaping on rafts, the counterrevolutionaries hiding in the hills, brave Cubans sabotaging what they could to topple the revolutionary government. Maybe our relatives would be able to get out. Maybe one day we’d be able to return, see our grandparents, great grandparents, all the old friends.

In the meantime, our scrappy refugee family could handle anything! The twisted new language full of consonants [that Americans spoke without opening their mouths]. A culture founded on values that Cubans considered suspicious: independence, privacy, minding your own business, speaking softly, dating without chaperones—even sleepovers.

All minor mysteries to consider later on, not now, as we created our Cuban American selves. Ánimo y adelante! Spirit and onward. Let’s go. No victims here!

In Cuba, we were gusanos, worms, the new government’s term for people like us who opposed the revolution. Gusanos couldn’t give away their possessions when they left Cuba. The day the guard had arrived unexpectedly with our exit visas—we’d waited three years by then, not knowing if or when the damned permiso would arrive—he kicked us out of our house and sealed the front door shut with a banner that read: Property of the Revolution.

So what? the myth-builders asked.  We didn’t have much anyway. We were in America now. The gusanos had turned to butterflies.

Our superhero myths fortified us when we faced racism or were shunned as outsiders. Mami, Tía, or Abuela held our hands and turned the bad guys into idiots. They are ignorant seborucos (blockheads). Focus on the good Americanos. There are plenty of them.

When you fell, you got up, the story spinners said. You made yourself brave. Ponte guapa was my mother’s battle cry. Make yourself brave. I still hear it on bad days. Sometimes it works. Because you can make yourself brave.

In our household full of cousins, siblings, visiting americanitos, dogs, cats, and canaries,
I was the oldest girl, quite nosy, and skilled at pretending to be playing while the viejos told each other truer stories. My grandmother was the only elder who failed at pretending everything was fine. She wept often. The viejos consoled her, but the underlying message was, up and at ‘em, ponte guapa, let’s go!

I took to drawing maps of our beloved barrio for Abuela, which always made her smile. I would tell her stories about Pancha, the neighbor with a foul-mouthed parrot, as I drew her house. “You remember that?” Abuela would ask, marveling at how much a child could understand.

My stories could make our sad and tired abuela laugh. Rather than scolding me for mimicking Pancha’s swearing parrot, Abuela would just giggle. We were safe inside a Cuba story. As I drew the streets and the houses of our barrio, I’d name the families. When I was wrong, Abuela corrected me, wrote the right name in the right spot. So I’d remember.

Abuela wove her own stories about the barrio with mine. How Ofelia shared her potatoes with us, even when she had just a few. How Antonio el bodeguero would pick me up when we got to the front of the food line and put me on one of the empty barrels in his bodega. How Nery washed her sons’ clothes in our alley sink, because we had a washboard and her boys’ clothes were always filthy.

The viejos’ stories resurrected the world we’d lost. They tore holes in the present so we could sneak back to the past. We could return home whenever we wanted. These weren’t just words, they were pearls passed from one mouth to another, gifts. I was hooked. Listening to the viejos’ stories was even better than watching the Flintstones.

As the years passed, new stories about who we were entered our house, uninvited. By 1980, during the Mariel Boatlift, Cubans fleeing the same military dictatorship we’d fled became “boat people” in the American media. More than 120,000 Cubans had rushed to the sea when Castro, for the second time since the revolution, announced he would waive exit visas for anyone who wanted to leave the island.

He did it again in 1994, triggering what became known as the Balsero (rafter) Crisis. I was writing about Cuba by then. I noticed that U.S. officials were referring to the fleeing Cubans as “migrants,” not refugees, as they had in the past.

I interviewed a contact at the State Department. How could he call the 35,000 Cubans who were fleeing the military dictatorship migrants, when they had no intention of “migrating” anywhere? They were begging for permanent shelter in the US, escaping one of the only governments in the world that denied citizens the right to emigrate.

“These people aren’t like you, like your parents,” he said, lowering his voice, as if telling me a secret.

“How do you know?” I asked. His reasons—his stories—didn’t convince me.

So who were we really? Cuba’s dictatorship hadn’t changed. Repression and hardship had intensified over the decades. Weren’t we freedom-loving refugees worthy of being sheltered, given a new chance in a free country?

We were refugee warriors, capable of working hard, buying a home within a few years, assimilating but honoring our past, contributing to our new communities, becoming teachers, police officers, office workers, chemists, writers. Had the U.S. forgotten that?

I had not. My personal life was solid, meaningful. I’d graduated from Smith College, started my software career, married my husband, and had two beautiful children. I was a refugee warrior. Capable of tackling anything. The viejos’ origin stories had taught me that.

But when my daughter turned five, a deep depression parked itself in my heart and wouldn’t leave. Natalia was the same age I’d been when we lost our Cuban lives. I worried about her starting kindergarten.

“Why?” a therapist asked me.

“Because life…the world…can be so hard.” I don’t cry easily, so the wave of sobs that burst out of me felt foreign.

When I finally looked up, the shrink handed me a tissue. She wondered if the trauma I’d experienced at Natalia’s age was behind my depression.

“What trauma?” I asked her.

And so began the reckoning. The stories that had saved us had also ignored the fact that being uprooted from one world and crashing into another—within hours—is traumatic after all.

Terrifying, long-buried memories of our first years here slowly returned, demanding explanations. The nightmares. Terror that a fire would break out at night and leave us homeless again. Holding Abuela at night in bed as she sobbed. Finding Mami and Tía crying in their rooms, being told their backs hurt, or they had headaches.

How had all this sadness and pain been buried in our American origin stories? I thought we’d won, that we were invincible, but maybe I’d replaced too many truths with feel-good myths to understand the price we all paid. Now I didn’t know what was real and what was imagined.

I pieced events together, asking the viejos for details that helped me see the whole picture. We were both winners and losers. We had been both brave and terrified.

The new, more truthful stories taught me that refugee-dom never ends, even when you’ve scrubbed away your accent and learned to like mashed potatoes. Immigrants, and especially refugees, come to our new countries with nothing of material wealth.

We don’t get to pass along a grandmother’s tea set, an uncle’s war medal, a mother’s doll to our American children. We get to regale our children with the most powerful heirlooms of all. Our stories.

They teach us who we were, what we cherished, and remind us how we survived.

They are weightless and infinitely portable. They cost nothing but are priceless. And no revolution, no war, no political upheaval or natural disaster can ever take them from us. They are there for the finding. All it takes is time.

https://lithub.com/the-quiet-trauma-of-the-uprooted-confronting-the-origin-myths-of-cuban-refugee-families/

Oriana:
In my experience, only another immigrant can understand the enormous loss involved in leaving your homeland. Those born in the U.S. think only of the gain, not the loss (which Milosz compared to the equivalent of a hundred funerals). Once at the end of the reading, a Polish-speaking woman quickly came up to me and, almost in passing, said, “Don’t kid yourself: they can never understand, never.”

I no longer recall if that reading even included my poem “Homeland,” which has these explicit lines:

In the morning, I had a homeland.
In the evening, I had two suitcases.

*
CAN THE DEPOPULATION TREND BE REVERSED?

A population crisis is unfolding – in my family. My paternal grandparents were born in India and had 10 children. I did my part to keep our lineage going (my wife was also involved) yet over the course of three generations, my family’s ‘fertility rate’ plummeted from 10 to less than 1.

During this same period, India’s population exploded from 350 million to 1.4 billion, in 2023 surpassing China as the most populous country in the world. But my family’s story mirrors India’s demographic transition. In the mid-20th century, when my parents were born, India’s fertility rate was 6. It’s now 2.

India is a striking case, but fertility rates are declining everywhere. Between 1950 and 2021, the global fertility rate fell from 4.8 to 2.2. American women have an average of 1.6 children. Japan’s fertility rate is 1.2, South Korea’s a startling 0.75.

The global population is still growing, for now. But demographers project that humanity’s numbers will peak near the end of this century before beginning a steep decline. I won’t be around by then, but my children will live to see the peak and peer over the precipice.

Is this a crisis?

Some say it’s a blessing. Fewer people means fewer carbon emissions. Not only that, our collective pie could be divided into larger pieces. In theory, we’ll enjoy less competition for resources, more affordable housing, and higher wages due to labor scarcity. From this perspective, population decline isn’t a problem but a solution.

Alas, these hopes are misplaced.

The path forward on climate change is clear: rapid decarbonization. We must transition as fast as possible from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources. If we fail, the future will be disastrous, and population size becomes irrelevant. If we succeed, additional humans won’t impact carbon emissions.

Moreover, the timelines don’t match. Climate change demands solutions within the next few decades; population decline won’t materialize until the next century. Having fewer humans arriving then won’t retroactively cool the planet.

Imagine, however, that population decline accelerates. That would worsen rather than salvage our climate prospects. Young people are more likely to support bold environmental policies, become climate activists, and invent green technologies. A shrinking, aging population means fewer contributors to these efforts.

HOSPITALS WILL BURST AT THE SEAMS WHILE PLAYGROUNDS EMPTY

This points to the fundamental reason that population decline will be a curse rather than a blessing: the loss of young people.

Schools will be converted to elder-care facilities. Hospitals will burst at the seams while playgrounds empty. This demographic skew will reshape every aspect of our world, from economics and innovation to culture and social progress.

Consider social security, often in the US misconceived as a savings account for retirement. In fact, tax contributions from workers are redistributed to retirees – a system of intergenerational cooperation that depends on a balanced age distribution. As the population ages, this system will crumble.

The problems run deeper. Fewer working-age adults entails a shrinking tax base, even as the need for public services swells. Education, healthcare, infrastructure, public safety and welfare will be underfunded. The pie will shrink. And as lifespans grow, the demand for healthcare will increase while the number of healthcare workers decreases. Vulnerable groups – not just the elderly but also those who experience poverty or disability – will suffer most.

To thrive, societies need young people. New generations drive economic growth, pioneer technologies, challenge outdated moral views, create art, and advance social change. They’re more likely to take risks, embrace new ideas, and imagine different futures. When we talk about population decline, what we’re really talking about is the gradual dissipation of this vital social force.

*
Immigration won’t help because population decline is a global problem. When wealthy nations import young workers from poorer nations, they’re effectively exporting their low fertility rate, exacerbating the global problem rather than solving it. Take my parents and their siblings, who emigrated to the West in their early 20s. (At that age, I still had not emigrated from my parents’ basement.) Adopting new homes, they also adopted new family models – none had more than two children. And their children had even fewer.

Even so, economic and health repercussions may be tackled in other ways. Retirement ages could creep upward. Advances in medical technology might reduce age-related illness and disability, enabling longer healthy working lives. Automation of healthcare services might compensate for the dearth of healthcare workers.

More ambitious solutions are possible. Progressive tax reform could boost public revenues, offsetting the shrinking tax base and bolstering social programs. This is a tall order, given that previous attempts have been unsuccessful. But since older people are more likely to vote, perhaps we’ll summon the political will.

These solutions, however, address only the surface. A shrinking, aging population poses even deeper challenges, ones far more resistant to policy solutions.

*
Population growth drives economic growth. More people means more workers, more consumers, and more innovation. When populations expand, economies of scale become possible – efficiency increases and wealth multiplies. Younger generations are more likely to start new businesses, adopt novel technologies, and increase productivity. Historically, even relatively small populations have been economically vigorous so long as they had a high proportion of youth.

As fewer young people are born to replenish society, we’ll face a shrinking workforce, weakening consumer demand, and the unraveling of economies of scale. We’ll also lose the very demographic that drives economic development. Young people don’t just fill jobs; they reimagine how work should be done. They don’t just participate in the economy; they reshape it. Aging societies will experience not just economic stagnation but degrowth.

Some people welcome this prospect, seeing degrowth as an antidote to climate change and capitalist exploitation. But this perspective ignores crucial realities. Economic growth can be decoupled from carbon emissions. More importantly, degrowth would devastate developing nations. Economic growth dramatically reduced global poverty. Reverse that growth, and poverty will resurge.

Some think AI or another emerging technology can stimulate economic productivity. But the effects of population decline extend far beyond markets and material wealth.

When societies are large and interconnected, they’re able to generate new ideas, recombine old ideas in new ways, and forge new divisions of cognitive labor. A smaller population will thus shrink what the evolutionary theorist Joseph Henrich in The Secret of Our Success (2015) calls our ‘collective brain’. 

We’ll forgo not just particular innovations but entire fields of inquiry, impacting everything from basic research to practical applications in engineering and medicine. New technologies could potentially sustain economic productivity, but that will be harder if a shrinking population is technologically less innovative.

Young people aren’t just members of society’s collective brain; they’re its most innovative neurons. Most breakthrough discoveries come from younger researchers and entrepreneurs. Social progress, similarly, depends on young people rejecting prevailing bigotry and replacing older generations. For example, support for same-sex marriage is higher among Gen X and Millennials than in older generations. If the proportion of young people declines, so will our moral and political values.

You think we live in a decaying gerontocracy now? Just wait.

The impact on creative activity will be no less profound. Young people have always been the main source of art, fashion, music, literature and film. As their numbers diminish, the future will become a cultural wasteland. Imagine the 1960s without rock-and-roll, the 1970s without Hollywood auteurs, the 1980s without street art, or the 1990s without hip-hop.

More generally, young people are optimistic, willing to take risks, and open to new experiences. These traits drive cultural progress. An aging society will become risk-averse, focused on preserving wealth rather than creating it, and resistant to necessary change.

*
I find myself in strange company. Right-wing pronatalists want to outlaw abortion, punish childlessness, and force women to marry young and forsake careers outside the home. In other words, they want to make fertility rates great again by restoring the patriarchal order of the early 20th century. Some of these pronatalists are only really worried about white population decline. 

(They’re not worried about my family’s fertility rate.) 

Many observers conclude that population decline isn’t a crisis – it’s a moral panic.

But just because a cure is toxic doesn’t mean the disease isn’t real.

If populations decline, humanity will unravel. Societies will become less productive and poorer, vulnerable people will lose crucial social support, innovation will slow, and values will deteriorate. Given my family’s trajectory, I might not have any descendants by the time the global population crashes, but the world – what’s left of it – will suffer enormously if we do nothing.

To be clear, I don’t much care whether my own family lineage endures. My two children are perfect. That’s what I tell my wife too, but she argues we should have another. Lately, she’s been appealing to my conscience: if population decline is truly dire, shouldn’t I do my part for humanity?

The answer isn’t individual sacrifice. No one has a duty to procreate (conveniently for me). Rather, we have a shared responsibility to create conditions where people want to have children and can have all the children they want. This means grappling with the gendered division of reproductive labor and supporting caregivers. That’s how pronatalism can be a progressive movement.

The first step is to understand the source of the problem.

The global fertility rate held steady around 5 until the 1960s. Today, it has fallen to 2.2. In all developed countries, fertility rates are well below 2.1, the ‘replacement rate’ needed to maintain a stable population.

Why this dramatic decline?

As societies grow wealthier, women gain access to education and careers. They secure reproductive freedom and marry later, if at all, encouraged by reproductive technology to postpone family formation. Teen pregnancy becomes rare. 

People concentrate in cities where housing costs soar and living spaces shrink. Extended families scatter, taking with them crucial support. Meanwhile, parenting itself has become more intensive and expensive but less valued by society. Childrearing also competes with growing access to luxuries such as travel, hobbies and creative pursuits. (Smartphones are more entertaining than kids.)

Much of this fits my family’s story. My grandparents were born in India and died there, their progeny relocating to urban centers across the English-speaking world. None of my grandparents attended university, while nearly all their grandchildren did. One grandmother married at 16 and had her first child a year later. Only one of my cousins had children before 30; some prioritize careers or leisure, choosing not to marry or reproduce.

A great tragedy of our species is that procreation is an oppressive institution. Rising freedom and prosperity have provided women with more attractive options. This explains why fertility rates crashed in East Asia, where marriage and family remain particularly restrictive while economic opportunities for women have blossomed.

It’s hard to make predictions, especially about the future. But the tendency for fertility rates to fall as countries become wealthier and freer is as close as you can get to a law of nature in demography. So, as poor countries continue to become wealthier, their fertility rates are destined to fall below replacement too.

Our central challenge is to increase fertility while preserving and expanding valuable social gains. We need innovative approaches that separate high fertility from its historical causes – poverty, oppression and gender inequality. The solution isn’t to reverse progress but to reimagine family formation in a progressive society.

Sometimes I’m asked (for example, by my wife) why I don’t want a third child. ‘What kind of pronatalist are you?’ My family is the most meaningful part of my life, my children the only real consolation for my own mortality. But other things are meaningful too. I want time to write, travel and connect with my wife and with friends. 

Perhaps I’d want a third child, or even a fourth, if I’d found my partner and settled into a permanent job in my mid-20s instead of my mid-30s.

My story is unique, of course, but I see it reflected in the lives of others. Raising children has become enormously expensive – not just in money, but also in time, career opportunities and personal freedom. Effective solutions must address these costs.

Social norms about family size and parenting prove remarkably resistant to change, persisting even after the conditions that shaped them have shifted. This means we need to couple robust policy interventions with efforts to reshape cultural attitudes about parenthood.

*
Historically, our species has relied on cooperative parenting, as Sarah Blaffer Hrdy writes in Mothers and Others (2011). Fertility rates have declined in part because parenting becomes more difficult when extended families disperse. Many young people want the freedom to pursue careers far from home and escape family control. But new parenting cooperatives are possible, with friends living together or neighbors sharing duties. Such arrangements are already being attempted – for example, in pandemic ‘pods’ – and, if successful, they might catch on.

Changing ingrained cultural patterns won’t be easy. But cultural shifts often follow material incentives. For instance, smart policy could help reshape workplace practices, with governments compensating employers for costs. While we can’t predict exactly how such changes might unfold, we can try to encourage more sustainable and equitable parenting. We should at least think harder about it.

At bottom, progressive pronatalism isn’t just about increasing our numbers – it’s about preserving society’s engine of progress. Every major advance in human history – technological, cultural, moral – has been driven by youth.

Maintaining this vital force will be possible only if population decline doesn’t remain solely a preoccupation of extremists. Too much depends on finding humane solutions. We need approaches that contribute to human flourishing while preserving the advances in freedom and equality that precipitated declining fertility. The future of humanity – and of my unlikely grandchildren – depends on striking this delicate balance.

https://aeon.co/essays/population-decline-will-rob-us-of-vital-social-force-youth?utm_source=Aeon+Newsletter&utm_campaign=c1d9944e5a-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2025_05_09&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-947a0f3c79-838110632

Mary:
Simply ordering or bribing women to have more babies is not going to work. Not when the trade off remains as it is: severely limiting the mother's opportunities because there is no support structure that allows for both children and career with any kind of surety and success. As it is now, mothers cannot expect child care assistance from partners, grandparents, workplaces, or good and affordable childcare centers. And motherhood still seems to preclude career advancement, because childcare arrangements can be unreliable and fail. Kids get sick. There are snow days with schools and centers closed.

To solve the population crisis we will have to rethink parenthood, family and childcare. What are our real priorities and what supports do we need to make those priorities really possible? The edge we find ourselves ready to tip over politically also demands clarification. How can we reverse the slide, which now seems more like an avalanche, into autocracy? 

One step I think necessary is to be always aware of the language of the fascists. It is always the language of division and hate...should be immediately recognizable and always called out. It is language diametrically opposed to the language of Rumi, the language of Christ, the language of love and hope, where the "other" is the stranger deserving kindness and mercy, never the stranger who is  "vermin" deserving eradication.

We must listen. And speak.

Oriana:
Yes, so much politics is about language.

I think the country is becoming more aware of the language of hate vs the language of acceptance and kindness. Interesting, how ideologies change the language. I spoke to an old former German theater actor, and one of the things he said is that the Nazis made the German language so ugly. They introduced cumbersome bureaucratic phrases. This of course reminded me of the Polish press during the Soviet era: the same clichés, the same long abstractions, endlessly repeated. At the same time, both prose and poetry flourished as almost never before, perhaps in reaction to this cheapening of language by the government. You could read The People's Tribune or you could read The Literary Life; you entered different universes.

*
SLAVERY DELAYS TECHNOLOGICAL PROGRESS

The van Loon’s Law states the level of technological progress in any society is inversely proportional to the number of slaves in the said society. The Roman Empire was slavery driven; some 40% of its population were slaves. They toiled on the fields, in the mines, in the manufactures.

The van Loon’s law reflects the observation that slave-owning societies are averse to any technology and labor-saving machines. Already the Roman Emperor Titus executed the man who claimed to have invented a machine which does the work of 100 slaves. It would have disrupted the societal order.

This is also the reason why the Islamic world is the absolute backwaters in the technology and efficiency, and why the Confederacy was so hopelessly backwards in the American Civil War.

Face it, the Roman Empire was technologically primitive compared to China. They could build monumental buildings, but not very much else. What the Romans were good in was they were good lawyers. This is why Latin is the international language of law but not engineering.

So to before any technological advancement will happen, you have to first get rid of slavery. 

The only way to get rid of slavery is to establish a religion which prohibits slavery. Nothing else will do. And in the Western Europe, it was Christianity. It caused slavery to disappear by the Merovingian Era in the Western Europe.

What we call the Dark Ages (476–800) were actually an era of rapid technological advancement. As slavery was abolished, the price of labor rose accordingly, and it became a good idea to invent and adopt labor saving contraptions. It made more sense to replace the primitive Roman ard with a Chinese-style plow, and have oxen or horses pulling it instead of whipping slaves to do it, so it saw the adoption of efficient ox-collar and horse-collar, which both were Chinese inventions. 

The Roman horse-collar was lousy — it basically strangled the horse if overloaded. The Catalan forge replaced the primitive Roman bloomery for ironmaking. The Lateen sail enabled tacking. Overshot waterwheel and efficient windmill now provided way more power than slaves’ muscles.

The Dark Ages (476–800) saw the following inventions:

Heavy wheeled plowshare, which superseded the ard plow
Horsecollar, which enabled use of horses as draft animals
Crop rotation, which saw 300% increase on crops
Overshot waterwheel, which was much more efficient than undershot
Windmills to supersede slaves grinding quern-stones
Lateen sail, which enabled tacking
Catalan forge. Much better than Roman bloomeries.
Horseshoes. Enabled much more efficient use of horses.
Water hammer. Enabled much more efficient manufacturing than merely smiting the iron by hand.
Spurs. Enabled controlling the horse without reins.
Stirrups. Enabled striking downwards with a sword on horseback.
Iron horseshoes. Much better than the leather hipposandal of the Roman era.
Cantled saddle. Prevented lance charge becoming pole vault.
Hourglass. To keep informed of time.
Distillation. To purify and refine things and produce liquors.
Spinning wheel. Much better way to produce yarn than spindle.

All in all, the 325 years of the Dark Ages saw much more technological progress than the preceding 325 years in the Roman Empire.

All slavery-based empires follow the same boom-bust cycle, and they are all basically Raubwirtschaften — plunder economies. They grow as long as they expand and plunder foreign lands. When the expansion ends, so ends the cash flow, and then begins the deflation — which is invariably treated with inflation. And then follows the economic collapse. The Arab Empire followed this exact path 500 years later. Roman Empire was doomed from the start — it had consumed itself after 100 years since Traianus, and it could have collapsed at any time during the Third Century Crisis.

Now this frittering the monies away had impoverished Europe totally, and the Dark Ages climate pessimum and Justinian Plague certainly did not help. Europe was way poorer in the Dark Ages than what it had been before the Roman conquest. But the collapse of the Empire opened way to new powers and new states, which competed with each other — and led into rather rapid technological advancement.

The killer application was again a Chinese one — namely paper. It meant there would never again be Dark Ages. They are named that way because we have very little literary documents from the era 476–800 — there literally was nothing to write on. Papyrus rots in the cold and humid European climate, and parchment was horribly expensive. Paper was an inexpensive and time-immune writing medium. Now literacy spread like wildfire and knowledge could be preserved.

Europe recovered slowly, but by Carolingian Era it had again attained the same wealth as during the Early Imperial era. The Gini index was lower, though — there was no such opulence among the upper classes as in the Roman era, but the proletariat was neither as dirt poor as the Roman proletariat had been, and slavery was no more.

The evolution of technology, once slavery has been abolished, is one with positive feedback. It feeds itself. Innovation leads into improvement, which leads into innovation and so on. This led into scientific advancement and discovery of connection between mathematics, philosophy, science, and technology. But that is another story. ~ Susanna Viljanen, Quora

Charlemagne

*
CAN RUSSIA’S ECONOMY SUSTAIN A WAR OF ATTRITION?

While there is no threat of imminent economic collapse, there is no real prospect for development either. The Russian economy is facing a period of stagnation, with aging infrastructure and equipment and little technological innovation.

Spending on research and development has been little more than 1% of GDP over many years. And Russia is becoming increasingly dependent economically on China, which is now by far its largest trade partner – accounting for 39% of imports in 2024. China is Russia’s main source of many (not always high-quality) industrial and consumer goods.

Russia’s civil aviation fleet is shrinking steadily and degrading under the impact of sanctions, which have made it difficult to obtain spares. It is striving to keep its many Boeings and Airbuses flying, while the promised new fully Russian airliners fail to appear, with few likely until 2027-28.

Russia’s stock of cars is also aging. Customers are having to choose between far-from-modern domestic Ladas, Chinese cars unsuited to Russia’s roads and climate, and imported second-hand vehicles of dubious quality. In 2024, 69% of all cars purchased in Moscow were Chinese – a total of 139,000, compared with 13,000 Ladas.

The mounting problems shows that Russia has a regressing economic order. In time, these pressures could force a Russian president to seek better relations with the west. But that time has not yet arrived.

If Putin does end the war in Ukraine, it will not be because of economic imperatives. It is far more likely to be because doing so may bring recognition by the US that he is the president of a great power who deserves respect. This is something that every leader of the Soviet Union and Russia has always craved.

https://theconversation.com/russias-economy-is-stagnating-but-that-wont-force-it-to-end-thewar251296#:~:text=While%20there%20is%20no%20threat,equipment%20and%20little%20technological%20innovation

*
TEN SMALL HABITS WITH SIGNIFICANT IMPACT ON LIFE

Over the years, I’ve adopted many different “positive” habits. To me, a habit is positive when it improves the quality of my life. A lot has been written about forming habits.

How hard is? How long does it take? What’s the best way to break habits? How do we adopt new habits?

My experience is that everyone can adopt any habit they want. There’s only one condition though: You need a good reason to make a change.

And in 99% of cases, the reason to change comes from personal suffering, sadness, and hurt. At some point, you can’t stand your current behavior anymore.

Don’t worry about how you will change. Focus on what habits you want to form and why.

After one of my friends recently asked me about my current habits, I decided to share them here—with a brief explanation of what the habits are good for.

1. Do a full-body workout with weights 3 times a week

Strength training has several benefits. It protects bone health, muscle mass, keeps you lean, increases energy levels, and prevents injuries.

I’ve been lifting weights since I was 16. It’s the only habit on this list that I’ve been doing for that long. Like many people who lift weights, I started with split routines.

That means you work out different muscles during every session. With most routines, you’re training a specific muscle only one time per week. It turns out that muscles need more stress to become stronger.

Ideally, you want to train all your muscles, 3 times a week. That’s why I’ve been doing full-body workouts. It’s simple, practical, and it works.

2. Set 3-4 daily priorities

This is one of the best productivity strategies there is. We all know that focus is what brings us results.

No focus? No results. So how do you focus? By limiting your options and tasks. Elimination is the key.

Be very clear about what you want to achieve every single day, week, and year. Form the habit of focusing on what matters regularly.

Every day, work on 3-4 essential (and small) tasks that will bring you closer to your weekly and yearly goals.

3. Read 60 minutes a day

I get it, you’re too busy to read. Or maybe you just don’t like to read.

Well, you’re not getting off that easily.

Reading is essential for your cognition. But you already knew that. How about this? Reading will also turn you into a better thinker and writer.

“But I still don’t like to read.” Well, there are many things in life we don’t like, but we still do them. Instead of telling yourself, you don’t like to read, learn to enjoy it by doing it every day.
And like magic, one day, you’ll love to read.

4. Sleep 7-8 hours a night

I never sacrifice my sleep for anything. I recently canceled a meeting in the morning because I slept late. The night before, I was reading a good book that totally consumed me.

After reading, I started taking notes. And before I knew it, it was 2 am. I had to wake up at 7 am to make the meeting.

I canceled the meeting. I’m not going to sleep for 6 hours so I can make a meeting when I know that I’ll be tired the whole day.

Some people can perform well with 5 hours of sleep. But most of us need more. If you’re part of the latter group, make sure you get enough sleep. And be dead serious about it. If you’re not in a position to cancel meetings etc, sleep early.

5. Walk 30 minutes a day

If you can’t MAKE the time to go for a daily walk, you’re not in control of your life. I don’t even walk for the health benefits. Sure, walking keeps the body moving and is good for you.

But I go for a daily walk because it breaks the pattern of our mundane lives. Look, we can’t deny that life is routine. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

But when you walk outside, you’re forced to be one with the world. It heightens your senses. 

You can go alone or with someone else. You can have a good conversation. Or you can simply enjoy the surroundings.

6. Follow the intermittent fasting eating pattern

I don’t eat anything after dinner. And I skip breakfast. That means I “fast” for 15-16 hours every day.

There are some health benefits associated with intermittent fasting. But we have to be careful with making claims.

The reason I like it is that it makes me feel and look better. Plus, I can eat whatever I want during the day without gaining any weight.

I don’t eat junk food. I stick to whole foods with high nutritional value. Also, my first meal contains a lot of unsaturated fat and protein. And finally, make sure you consume the calories your body needs to operate (2000 for women, 2500 for men, on average).

7. Be present

We’re so focused on our goals that we forget to enjoy the present moment. This is one of my biggest pitfalls.

I really need to remind myself EVERY SINGLE day that I should enjoy the now.

We’re always waiting until we achieve something. “I will be happy then.”

Nope, you won’t if you’re always stuck in the future. Find a trigger that brings you back to the present moment.

For example, I recently bought a new watch. During the same time, I was reading a lot about this spiritual stuff. Now, every time I look at my watch, I say, “What time is it? NOW.”

8. Practice kindness & love

We all treat our love like it’s a depletable resource. That’s false. Love is unlimited and never runs out. You can give it away as much as you like.

But your ego stops you from doing that. You always want something in return.

So give this habit a try. Realize that you have an unlimited resource. Give some of your love and kindness away every day. Don’t worry about keeping score. You have enough love anyway.

9. Journal or write 30 minutes a day

I need to get my thoughts in order every day. I do that by writing. That helps me to focus on what matters to me. That’s why I formed the habit of journaling.

Even when I’m not writing articles, I sit down and journal—only for myself. I don’t write in my journal for others. Journaling is also an excellent tool to become a better thinker and person.

10. Save 30% of your income

If you can’t save 30%, save 10%. Saving is not about how much. It’s about how often.

You save by cutting out useless things you do daily or weekly. You don’t need to buy a latte every day. You also don’t need to buy “organic” cashew nuts for $10.

Save on the small things. They will turn into big lumps of cash in time. Especially if you invest that extra cash.

And that is also the secret to these 10 habits. They are all small. And the daily progress you make seems insignificant.

You will only see the return it has on your life over time. You must stick to these habits until your life gets better.

And when that happens, you’ll keep going—not because you have to, but because you want to.

https://dariusforoux.com/habits-with-huge-return-on-life/

*
THE WRITINGS OF ST PAUL AND HIS FORGERS

Paul said he received his gospel directly from Jesus Christ (Galatians 1:12)

However, there are so many interpolations and outright forgeries in the New Testament that it’s difficult to say what Paul taught, versus what people pretending to be Paul said while usurping his authority.

For instance, the vast majority of christians that I know believe in “hell” even though it was never mentioned in the Old Testament by the biblical god or any of his prophets.

When the Hebrew prophets spoke about the resurrection, they were universalists, with no mention of “hell” or any sort of suffering after death.

In Colossians 1:19-20 and 1 Corinthians 15, Paul sounds like a universalist with God being “all in all.”

"For it pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell; And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven." (Colossians 1:19-20)

For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. (1 Corinthians 15:22)
And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all. (1 Corinthians 15:28)

Paul didn’t say “in some of us.”

But of course universal salvation wouldn’t be good for church revenues, would it?
Paul’s gospel was bad for cash flow, so it had to go! ~ Michael Burch, Quora

more from Michael:

No wise or enlightened god would demand blood, like a savage.
Seven Hebrew prophets said god never wanted sacrifices.
Jeremiah said Moses did not ordain sacrifices.
Amos mocked the Israelites for saying god wanted sacrifices.

*
DID JESUS HAVE A BEARD?

Very likely as facial hair is often seen as a symbol of respect and wisdom in Mediterranean cultures . However the earliest surviving depictions of Jesus made by Christian artists do depict him as a youthful shepherd similar to other popular deities of the Hellenic and Latin world such as Apollo, Mercury, Bacchus and Adonis as well taking inspiration from traditional Jewish depictions of king David as a young man. The depiction of Jesus as a mature bearded man only started to become common from the 3rd century onwards as Christianity transformed from a minor Jewish sect to a major young faith directly challenging both the traditional Roman religion and the other mystery cults of the era . 

Many scholars believe this shift occurred because as Christians slowly became the majority in Roman lands Christ transformed from a divine shepherd to a universal king and warrior which is why he begins to look more like Jupiter/ Zeus , Seriapis , Mars/Ares and other bearded gods during this period. ~ Benjamin Siegel 

*
THE CAT-CENTERED LIFESTYLE

In recent years there’s been a humanization of pets—and more of an acceptance of them as people’s “children.” Businesses have leaned into that idea as well. Thanks to a cohort of stylish companies and influencers ready to help you “catify” your life, being a cat person is not only cool but an entire aesthetic.

The idea of “catification”—or making changes to your home to suit you and your cat’s needs—has been precipitated by Hauspanther founder and cat style expert Kate Benjamin, who first became involved in the cat design space because she saw an untapped market in the pet category. But what started with a blog evolved into building a business around modern cat design, and turning it into a lifestyle. Benjamin wanted to not only get rid of the “crazy cat lady” trope, but do away with the idea that cat owners’ homes “must be covered in fur, and it’s gross, and you don’t care about how it looks.” It’s the opposite, Benjamin tells Vogue: “The modern cat person does care.”

Josh Feinkind, founder of modern cat furniture outpost The Refined Feline, has seen more of an awareness that “alternatives to ugly shag-carpeted cat trees do exist,” which he attributes to social media. “The combination of cats and visually appealing designs is ‘catnip’ to users of platforms like Instagram and Pinterest, which in turn, boost awareness further,” he says of the trend.

Jimmy Wu, co-founder of modern cat goods startup Cat Person, believes that what has helped normalize the feline fanatic’s aesthetic is making products for both the cat and their humans. In a survey Cat Person ran last year that quizzed consumers on cat products and furniture, Wu found that “people felt like they had to compromise within the category today,” meaning they couldn’t find a wide selection of cat furniture and they felt cat products were “underrepresented” in cat stores. “

Over half of cat parents said they’ve bought products for their cat that are actually made for a small dog,” says Wu. That gap in the market, he believes, has also contributed to misconceptions about cats: “Cats have been largely ignored, so why they don’t have a great aesthetic today is [because] a lot of products and actually weren’t designed with cats in mind.”

Cats, of course, don’t have an eye for design. But humans do, and they’re willing to spend the money to give their cats’ belongings a high-fashion feel to match their own. That can mean anything from a $400 cat tower to a $900 litter box and credenza. “Cat lovers want an attractive piece that is either cat furniture in disguise or is a work-of-art and center of attention in their room,” says Feinkeind. Of course, it will still be climbed on, clawed and scratched at, but at least it will look chic. 

The Refined Feline has seen its Lotus Cat Tower, with its bent-wood design, remain its bestseller, while its newer product—a modern, bookcase-style tower called the Metropolitan Cat Condo—has recently taken off.

Jordanne Young, co-founder of Particular—a forthcoming slow commerce cat goods site that describes itself as a place for readers of CEREAL Magazine and Apartamento—aims to craft an even more targeted approach to cat furniture for sustainable, modern design lovers. 

“Everything is going to be made-to-order, small-batch, and this is so that there’s minimal-to-no waste, and even the potential to use leftovers to make something,” she says. Young says everything they will sell will be what they believe is essential for cats and cat owners, and they’ve ripped up the playbook for typical cat items, reimagining what they could look like if home decor was top of mind. “[Our products] be a scratching post, litter tray, cat bed, or some form of cat stool where a cat can reside, and then additional things that aren’t necessarily for the cat that are for more for the owner,” says Young. That means room scents, cat-related art prints, and gifts for cat lovers. With Particular, Young wants cat people who care about their home to have more options.

Beyond elevating the image of the cat person, creating a beautiful home with modern cat furniture is simply beneficial to your feline friends. “What I’ve done all along is I’ve tried to show people that the design of objects and environments can actually have a great impact on the health and well-being of your cat, as well as your relationship with the cat,” says Benjamin. “So it goes much further than just sort of looking good.”

But it isn’t just modern cat furniture that has moved the needle for cat aficionados. In recent years celebrities have also helped fix the image problem the feline aficionado has long endured. Taylor Swift hasn’t been shy about sharing her Scottish folds Olivia Benson and Meredith Grey and her newest addition at the time of this writing, a ragdoll named Benjamin Button, with the world. 

Swifties have in turn become fans of her cats over the years, so she’s taken to giving updates on them on social media. The majority of Gabourey Sidibe’s Instagram presence is dedicated to her cats Aaron and Derrell. Ian Somerhalder loves his cats so much he’s done several shoots with them—including one on the cover of People Magazine. Katy Perry’s cat, Kitty Purry, was her longtime mascot, and even made a cameo in her “I Kissed a Girl” video, until she died in 2020. The combination of hot, funny, famous people unabashedly loving their cats so much helped dispel the “uncool” cat person myth.

There are other ways the cat person aesthetic has gotten a high-fashion makeover. The creation of PUSS PUSS Magazine, a luxury cat culture publication founded by Maria Joudina-Robinson, has produced lavish spreads featuring fabulous creatives from Grace Coddington and Chloë Sevigny to Ai Weiwei and Tyler, the Creator—and, of course, cats.

In 2015, photographer BriAnne Wills began building a Humans of New York-type Instagram, but with cats, as a way to “redefine” what being a “cat lady” looked like. By featuring female-identifying creatives and their feline friends, she told the stories that brought them together on Instagram and via her website. She’s since released a stunning coffee table book of select images and profiles of the cat ladies she’s met throughout her journey. Then there’s Leah Goren’s book Catlady, for which the illustrator enlisted 25 women including actor Aidy Bryant, novelist Emma Straub, and designer Justina Blakeney, to create a love letter to cats through essays and artwork.

It’s also fair to say the pandemic was a factor in shifting the perception of cat people. Wu believes that cats are ju havi

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/how-the-cat-lady-aesthetic-became-cool

*
RE-WILDING: BACK TO THE PLEISTOCENE?

YORK, England — In front of me, a man is reading a brochure for something called a “pig brig” — “the most effective way to defend your land and livestock from feral hog damage, period.” Two seats away, a man named Erick Wolf introduces himself as the CEO of a company selling “safe sex for pigeons.” A few minutes before, outside the fluorescent-lit lecture hall at the University of York where we now took our seats, he had urged me to speak to a fellow pest management expert he dubbed New York’s “pope of rats.”

We were all of us waiting with cups of bad coffee and tiny, plastic-wrapped biscuits for the start of the Botstiber Institute’s first European workshop on wildlife fertility control. From across the world, experts in animal biology, pest control, pharmaceutical technology and conservation management had come together for two days to discuss ways to interfere with the reproduction of wild animals.

In her opening remarks, Giovanna Massei, Botstiber’s European director, painted a picture of a world where humanity and nature were increasingly in conflict. “People and wildlife are sharing more and more space,” she said. Pigeons and rats bothering New Yorkers, feral horses troubling ranchers in the American West, elephants breaking free from game reserves across Africa, capybaras running riot in South America’s gated communities.

In places, agricultural losses and property damage are escalating into the billions and countless diseases — Covid and avian flu among them — originate in animals and spread to people when the two populations come into contact. “We are running out of options,” Massei said. “We don’t believe for a second that fertility control is the only way, but certainly, we want people to consider it.”

In an era where humanity’s stain is found in even the most isolated parts of the world, saving the wilderness from ourselves seems increasingly like a fantasy of the distant past. If preserving nature and vulnerable species means policing nonhuman life, from the purity of DNA to the timing of reproductive cycles, very important questions arise: Does saving the world’s “wild” places mean controlling them entirely? And if so, how?

*

In the Book of Genesis, God brings all the animals of creation one by one before Adam, and “whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.” In the Christian West, it is perhaps the clearest blueprint for humanity’s domineering attitude to nature: Since the beginning, the essence of the wild was forever fixed in relation to us.

The Judeo-Christian God may have given Man dominion over the animals, but in many parts of the world the premodern experience of the wilderness was one defined primarily by fear and antagonism. Simply speaking the name of a bear or a wolf could call one into existence. To the extent that the ancients respected untamed nature, it was as the place of dangerous creatures, uncultured barbarians and dark forces, often in league with one another.

Medieval Europeans were no different. Most often, it was man who had to be protected from an untrustworthy, mysterious and dangerous wild world rather than the reverse: perching settlements atop mountains, channeling floods and draining swamps, culling predators to boost hunting stocks in royal game reserves. 

Clearing a forest and converting it to productive agriculture was no less pleasing to God than converting a savage pagan to Christianity. The creatures of the wood, therefore, were parallel for Satan; rapacious wolves and stubborn bears became symbols of sin, of ignorance, luxury and greed.

This pessimistic view of wild nature endured as late as the 18th century. While Jean-Jacques Rousseau was extolling the virtues of France’s settled countryside, British colonists in India paid dearly to clear “savage” jungles of their “vermin” and remove their people to newly cleared lands for agriculture. 

In America, too, early settlers viewed the wilderness through their own Puritan lens as the devil’s dominion, densely populated by unchristian “savages” and voracious wild beasts.  

But any idea of nature that involves a notion of purity involves aesthetic considerations — preferences for a certain type of nature that cannot help but center human desires.

It’s not a new thought, but one that always bears repeating: If we cannot help but wall ourselves off from wilderness or imagine it as an imperfect mirror for our desires, we may find ourselves forever enemies with the nature that sustains us — losers on the wrong side of a long and brutal war. In the end, we will be not gods but exiles again, yearning for our own time as a better kind of Eden.

https://www.noemamag.com/lords-of-the-untamed-wild/

*
GROUNDBREAKING TECHNOLOGY CONVERTS CANCER CELLS INTO NORMAL CELLS

Despite the development of numerous cancer treatment technologies, the common goal of current cancer therapies is to eliminate cancer cells. This approach, however, faces fundamental limitations, including cancer cells developing resistance and returning, as well as severe side effects from the destruction of healthy cells.

KAIST (represented by President Kwang Hyung Lee) announced on the 20th of December that a research team led by Professor Kwang-Hyun Cho from the Department of Bio and Brain Engineering has developed a groundbreaking technology that can treat colon cancer by converting cancer cells into a state resembling normal colon cells without killing them, thus avoiding side effects.

The research team focused on the observation that during the oncogenesis process, normal cells regress along their differentiation trajectory. Building on this insight, they developed a technology to create a digital twin of the gene network associated with the differentiation trajectory of normal cells.

Through simulation analysis, the team systematically identified master molecular switches that induce normal cell differentiation. When these switches were applied to colon cancer cells, the cancer cells reverted to a normal-like state, a result confirmed through molecular and cellular experiments as well as animal studies.

This research demonstrates that cancer cell reversion can be systematically achieved by analyzing and utilizing the digital twin of the cancer cell gene network, rather than relying on serendipitous discoveries. The findings hold significant promise for developing reversible cancer therapies that can be applied to various types of cancer.

He further emphasized, "This research introduces the novel concept of reversible cancer therapy by reverting cancer cells to normal cells. It also develops foundational technology for identifying targets for cancer reversion through the systematic analysis of normal cell differentiation trajectories."

The study was supported by the Ministry of Science and ICT and the National Research Foundation of Korea through the Mid-Career Researcher Program and Basic Research Laboratory Program. The research findings have been transferred to BioRevert Inc., where they will be used for the development of practical cancer reversion therapies.

https://www.news-medical.net/news/20241223/Groundbreaking-technology-converts-cancer-cells-into-normal-cells.aspx

*
A BANANA A DAY HELPS KEEP BLOOD PRESSURE NORMAL

University of Waterloo researchers reveal potassium-to-sodium ratio is key to managing hypertension.

A new study tackled a pervasive problem worldwide: high blood pressure. The remedy? Bananas.

New research from the University of Waterloo found that increasing daily potassium intake and minimizing salt can help lower blood pressure.

“Early humans ate lots of fruits and vegetables, and as a result, our body’s regulatory system may have evolved to work best with a high potassium, low sodium diet,” said Melissa Stat, lead author of the study.

Western diets tend to be higher in sodium and lower in potassium, which is why this affects industrialized societies the most. Previous research on the subject identified that potassium successfully regulates blood pressure. However, researchers from Waterloo perfected the idea.

They developed “a mathematical model that successfully identifies how the ratio of potassium to sodium impacts the body.” Both play essential bodily functions, including muscle contraction and water regulation, so they studied the balance between the two electrolytes.

Men and women regulate blood pressure differently

Conscientious eaters know that reducing salt has many health benefits. Blood pressure is one of them. High blood pressure affects over 30% of adults globally. It’s the leading cause of coronary disease and stroke and may also lead to other health problems such as chronic kidney disease, heart failure, irregular heartbeats, and dementia.

The underlying mechanisms behind potassium and sodium’s effect on blood pressure involve “complex interactions among renal function, fluid volume, fluid-regulatory hormones, vasculature, cardiac function, and the autonomic nervous system.”

Furthermore, sex modulates these mechanisms. Researchers traced these differences “to organ and tissue levels, given that kidney function, intrarenal renin-angiotensin system components, renal sympatric nervous activity, and nitric oxide bioavailability.”

However, men and women don’t regulate their blood pressure similarly. Waterloo University researchers develop a sex-specific model to guide men and women in practicing preventative care.

The complex way bodies regulate electrolytes

The model factors in interactions across the renal, cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, endocrine, and renal sympathetic nervous systems. Together, this complex holistic set of mechanisms maintains electrolyte and fluid homeostasis, regulates blood pressure, and responds to perturbations.

Using a large system of coupled nonlinear algebraic differential equations, the model can describe the actions and interactions of several physiological systems,” say study authors.
Potassium homeostasis involves an intricate balance between intracellular and extracellular fluid and other mechanisms. Kidneys primarily regulate long-term potassium and sodium homeostasis by controlling the excretion of electrolytes through urine.

Men were more susceptible to developing high blood pressure than pre-menopausal women, but they responded positively to an increase of potassium to sodium more so than women. Men might want to consider adding more bananas to their diet, while women should lower sodium.

Nevertheless, the new research suggests “that adding more potassium-rich foods to your diet, such as bananas or broccoli, might have a greater positive impact on your blood pressure than just cutting sodium.” With the prevalence of hypertension on the rise, the new research couldn’t be more perfectly timed.

A variety of foods are packed with potassium, such as apricots, dried fruit, avocados, apples, oranges, spinach, kale, tomatoes, cucumbers, sweet potatoes, coconut water, and bananas.

The study was published in Renal Physiology.

https://interestingengineering.com/health/banana-keeps-blood-pressure-in-check

 Oriana: BEYOND BANANAS

Avocado is one of the richest sources of potassium — without the load of fructose you get from bananas. Bananas are nature's candy. On the other hand, no one is likely to overdo avocados.

But we are speaking of fully ripe, very sweet bananas. If you can manage to switch to not fully ripe, still slightly green bananas, you get not only potassium, but also great nutrition for your gut microbiome — the beneficial bacteria that protect against disease.

Potatoes are a little-appreciated source of potassium. Sweet potatoes (related to yams, not potatoes, which belong to the nightshade family; sweet potatoes belong to the morning-glory family) also provide a lot of potassium. Beets and most vegetable are also good sources. Tomato juice and tomato sauce likewise deserve special mention (and provide another important micronutrient: lycopene).

So does salmon and clams. And dairy. I favor goat milk, but if that’s too far out for you, there is always plain, unsweetened yogurt (add your own fresh fruit). Yogurt is way ahead of cottage cheese as a source of potassium.

Last but not least, the easiest way to obtain more potassium is to replace ordinary salt (sodium chloride) with the so-called “salt substitute,” which is potassium chloride. As with sodium chloride, moderation is key.

*
CAN WEIGHT TRAINING PROTECT YOUR BRAIN FROM DEMENTIA?

As of 2021, researchers estimate that about 57 million people globally were living with dementia — a neurological condition that impacts a person’s memory and thinking skills.

Past studies show there are a number of modifiable lifestyle factors that may help reduce a person’s risk of developing dementia, such as regular exercise both earlier in life and at an older age.

“Dementia affects millions of people worldwide and has a major impact not only on individuals, but also on families and healthcare systems,” Isadora Ribeiro, PhD, a São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) doctoral fellowship recipient at the School of Medical Sciences (FCM) at the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP) in Brazil told Medical News Today
For this study, researchers recruited 44 adults ages 55 or older with a diagnosis of mild cognitive impairment.

Study participants were divided into two groups. The weight training group participated in a resistance exercise program with moderate to high intensity sessions twice a week, with progressive loads, meaning weight or sets were increased as participants’ muscles strengthened. The control group did not exercise for the duration of the study.

“We chose to study resistance training because its primary goal is to increase muscle strength, which is especially important in older adults,” Ribeiro explained.

“Research has shown that greater muscle strength is associated with a lower risk of dementia and better cognitive function. Therefore, investigating the impact of resistance training on the brain anatomy of older adults at risk for dementia is a promising and relevant approach,” she told MNT.

Conversely, the control group’s participants showed signs of worsening brain parameters.

“This is an interesting finding because it suggests that weight training may not only help to increase cognition, but also prevent the development of atrophy in regions related to Alzheimer’s disease — potentially delaying progression or even preventing the onset of dementia,” Ribeiro details.

REVERSING MILD COGNITIVE IMPAIRMENT

Scientists also discovered that five participants in the weight training group no longer had a diagnosis of mild cognitive impairment when they reached the end of the study.

“This suggests that weight training may alter the clinical trajectory of individuals with mild cognitive impairment, shifting them from an increased risk of dementia to preserved cognition by the end of the study,” Ribeiro said.

“Even in a small sample, the fact that several participants showed improved cognitive health after the intervention is a hopeful indication of the potential protective effects of this type of exercise,” she said.

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/can-weight-training-protect-brain-dementia-cognitive-decline#Strength-training-offers-even-more-benefits-to-older-adults

*
DIABETIC DRUGS LIKE OZEMPIC MAY SLASH ALZHEIMER’S RISK

A new study, published in JAMA NEUROLOGY, finds that people with type 2 diabetes who take two common anti-diabetes medications had a reduced risk of Alzheimer’s and associated dementias.

The drugs in question were glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1RAs), like Ozempic and Wegovy, and sodium-glucose cotransporter-2 inhibitors (SGLT2is), like Jardiance.

Specifically, GLP-1RA (Ozempic and Wegovy) was linked to a 33% lower risk of dementia, and SGLT2i (Jardiance) was linked to a 43% lower risk. Other diabetes medications, however, were not associated with a change in risk.

How are dementia and diabetes linked?

As the average age of the population steadily rises, the number of dementia cases rises in step. Despite decades of intensive research, a cure remains elusive. Although some treatments can slow progress, we are far from a breakthrough.

Adding to these challenges, if an effective drug were found, it would take many years to build up a sufficient evidence base and millions of dollars to bring it to market.

For these reasons, some researchers are focusing on existing drugs. If they can identify a drug that is already widely used and helps lower the risk of dementia, it would be a much shorter road to wider availability.

Some recent research has suggested that type 2 diabetes and dementia may share some physiological similarities, including inflammation and impaired insulin signaling in the brain. People with diabetes also have a higher risk of developing dementia.

This raises an interesting question: If a drug reduces the impact of type 2 diabetes, might it also reduce the risk of dementia? Scientists have now investigated this question, and some evidence does suggest that diabetes medication may reduce dementia risk.

However, as the authors of the latest study explain, we need more evidence. To build the clearest picture to date, they used “a more rigorous methodological approach and robust adjustment for confounding factors.”

Drugs like Ozempic linked to 33% lower dementia risk

To investigate, the scientists accessed data from Florida, Georgia, and Alabama. In total, this amounted to 92,160 people aged 50 or older with type 2 diabetes.

Participants were followed until they died or developed dementia, including Alzheimer’s, vascular dementia, frontotemporal dementia, and Lewy body dementia.

They focused on three comparisons:

GLP-1RA versus other second-line glucose-lowering drugs
SGLT2i versus other second-line glucose-lowering drugs
GLP-1RA versus SGLT2i.

The scientists concluded that GLP-1RAs and SGLT2is were associated with a reduced risk of developing dementias compared with second-line diabetes drugs.

“GLP-1RA use was associated with a 33% lower risk of [dementia], while SGLT2i use was associated with a 43% lower risk compared with other [glucose-lowering drugs],” the authors write.

SGLT2i drugs, or Sodium-Glucose Cotransporter 2 inhibitors, are a class of medications used to treat Type 2 diabetes by lowering blood sugar. They work by helping the kidneys remove excess glucose (sugar) and sodium from the body through urine. Common SGLT2i drugs include canagliflozin (Invokana), dapagliflozin (Farxiga), empagliflozin (Jardiance), and ertugliflozin (Steglatro).

Both types of drugs are associated with improved metabolic and vascular health, both of which may support healthy brain function.

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/diabetes-drugs-like-ozempic-or-jardiance-may-slash-alzheimers-risk#Drugs-like-Ozempic-linked-to-33-lower-dementia-risk

Oriana:
These drugs are all expensive, and I mean VERY expensive. Fortunately there are easy and inexpensive ways of lowering blood sugar: the supplement berberine and any low-carb diet (because excess protein is turned into carbs, it's best to keep one's protein intake moderate).

*
A WORKOUT FOR YOUR BRAIN

Everything you do—walking to your yoga class, making your favorite latte order, talking to your bestie, and just getting through the workday—happens thanks to your brain. Your brain is the control center for your entire body—it’s how you get shit done. So how can you take care of such a beautifully complex and integral part of your body and keep it in great shape for as long as possible?

Lara V. Marcuse, MD, a board-certified neurologist and codirector of the Mount Sinai Epilepsy Program at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, shares the one thing she does every day (or almost every day, because life gets busy, folks!) to keep her brain healthy. As a bonus? It’s fun.

Pick up a difficult new skill, even if you suck at it.

“I started playing piano in my mid-40s,” Dr. Marcuse tells SELF. It all started by chance when her son began taking lessons: “I took his lesson book on the sly one night before bed, and I was totally enthralled by it,” she says, though she admits she found the songs themselves hard to get into at first. “I’m a 1980s New York City club kid. I grew up on a steady diet of house music, and I never liked classical.” It’s been seven years since she first gave playing a Chopin piece a shot, and she hasn’t looked back since. “[Playing piano] helps me get into [the] nooks and crannies of myself—and into my spirit,” she says.

Taking up a hobby that’s unfamiliar and even difficult forces your brain to exercise new or rarely used neural pathways, and that can help prevent cognitive decline and even protect your brain against Alzheimer’s disease, a type of dementia that leads to memory loss and an inability to complete daily tasks. Keeping your brain active makes neural pathways strong—and the opposite is true if you’re not finding ways to engage your mind.

Playing an instrument, in particular, engages every facet of your brain. If you’ve ever looked at a sheet of music, it’s basically like reading a different language. Your brain goes through a bunch of hoops to figure it out. (Anecdotally speaking, as a former cello player, I can attest to the fact that reading music is no joke; I recall spending hours trying to understand a simple string of notes.) When you sit down to play the keys or strum a guitar, your brain is hard at work trying to tell your hands what to do.

Musical activities trigger the auditory cortex (a.k.a. the part of your brain that helps you hear) and areas of your brain that are involved in memory function. According to a 2021 review published in Frontiers in Neuroscience, performing music is rewarding and makes you want to continue your musical training practice. It also improves brain plasticity, which refers to ways your brain changes in response to external or internal factors, like a stroke or another traumatic brain injury, and how the brain adapts afterward. Learning how to play might result in structural and functional changes in your brain over time, exactly because it takes a while to learn.

Your brain-bolstering activity of choice doesn’t have to be music-based, Dr. Marcuse says, as long as you’re interested in whatever you’re doing enough to want to commit to it. You can paint, try tai chi, or learn how to interpret tarot cards.

The other key piece of this is making sure that your new hobby involves some amount of challenge. “It has to be something a little new that’s a little hard,” Dr. Marcuse says. Passively watching the latest episode of The Bachelor won’t cut it, because you need your brain to be active, take in new information, digest it, and then put it back out there.

While you might feel that learning a new skill feels daunting, that’s the point! According to Dr. Marcuse, you don’t have to be good at the activity to protect your brain: “I never took music lessons as a kid. I’m not really good at it. I never will be,” she says.

And despite not being the next Mozart, she says that playing the piano adds some color and levity to her days, in addition to protecting her brain. “I really need that in my life—I have a very stressful job,” she says. “It makes me feel that the world is sort of full of beauty and hope.”
You don’t have to do the activity every single day, or even for a very long time. “Just try to do it frequently, and don’t do it for very long,” Dr. Marcuse says. Sometimes all she has time for is a few bars or a couple of scales—do whatever works for you, as long as you stay somewhat in the swing of a routine.

A 2020 research study found that increasing the frequency with which you engage in your hobby (like doing crossword puzzles, playing board games—or an instrument—or reading the newspaper) decreases cognitive impairment and depressive symptoms in older populations. In other words, doing your hobby more often will be better for your overall well-being. Practice not only increases the speed at which you can perform a task, but it also improves your accuracy. Research theorizes that when you attempt an activity for the first time, specific brain regions are activated to help you complete the task; this creates new neural pathways as your brain stores all this new information in your memory as you continue practicing your skill over time. 

Consistently training your brain will help boost your cognitive processes over time, because the myelin sheath—the layer of protein that coats your nerves—thickens. A plumper myelin sheath helps your brain transmit and process information more efficiently. (An added bonus of practicing: Even though the word routine sounds dull as all get-out, maintaining one can reduce your stress levels and make you happier in general.)

Whether you decide to take a cooking class or learn Spanish, try a new hobby that really speaks to you. “Everything you do to protect your brain is going to make your life better,” Dr. Marcuse says. Bearing that in mind: I think it’s time to pull out the ol’ cello that’s been collecting dust in my closet.

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/i-m-a-neurologist-here-s-the-one-thing-i-do-every-day-for-my-long-term-brain-health?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us

*
HOW LONG DO YOU NEED TO HOLD A PLANK TO SEE BENEFITS



When I heard the record for a woman holding an abdominal plank was measured in hours and not minutes (a whopping 4 hours 19 minutes and 55 seconds), I honestly couldn't believe it. I get the full-body shakes around a minute and collapse soon after feeling accomplished.

That got me thinking: How long do you need to hold a plank to get results? There's good news for anyone like me who feels the burn early in the pose. Holding a plank for hours is truly extreme, and the average plank time to strengthen the abs is much more reasonable. The average plank time is 90 seconds for women and just under 2 minutes for men, according to research with college-age participants from Linfield College.

It's true, there are many benefits of performing planks for mere minutes. Ahead, all the details on optimizing your plank routine (spoiler: there are a few factors to consider) and why you should strengthen your core with the staple move in the first place.

How Long To Hold A Plank

The answer is not as simple as you think. Albert Matheny, R.D., CSCS, co-founder of SoHo Strength Lab and advisor to Promix Nutrition, says you can plank daily, but the length of time you should hold a plank for can vary from 10 seconds to a minute. Here’s why: Your form matters most. “Keeping perfect form is the goal—only do it as long as you can keep this,” Matheny says.

As a general guideline, Doug Sklar, a certified personal trainer and founder of PhilanthroFIT in New York City, recommends striving to do three sets of up to 60 seconds. “It’s OK to start with shorter sets and work up to 60 seconds,” he says.

Plus, shorter planks can still give you a solid workout, Sklar says. He suggests holding a plank for 10 seconds, relaxing for five to 10 seconds, then re-engaging for 10 seconds, and repeating for three to six sets. “You receive very similar strengthening benefits because you are engaging your muscles for the same amount of total time as if you just held the plank for 30 to 60 seconds without stopping,” he says.

That being said, a minute tends to be an ideal time frame for getting the most from a plank. “Longer time under tension is more of a challenge,” Matheny says. But, he adds, if you can easily plank for a minute, you increase the difficulty by contracting your abs more, and squeezing your glutes and quads more.

Again, don’t push yourself to hold a plank for even longer if you’re not ready. “Forcing yourself to hold a plank for an excessive amount of time can put a lot of strain on your lower back,” Sklar says. “As fatigue sets in, the lower back may start to arch. This is where you put yourself at risk for injury.” (That’s where the 60-second reco comes into play!)

So, plank when you can and do it as long as you can hold good form, for up to a minute. You should see great results.

Why Core Strength Is Key

According to the American Council on Exercise (ACE), the core muscles include the erector spinae (or your back extensors), internal and external obliques (responsible for rotating your trunk), obliques (these help you bend to the side), transverse abdominis (this is the muscle being used when your bootcamp instructor enthusiastically belts out “draw your belly button into your spine!”), rectus abdominis (commonly referred to as your "six-pack" muscles), and the multifidi (which keeps your spine stable).

And keeping those core muscles strong is essential to helping your body function properly, according to Annie Mulgrew, founding instructor for CITYROW in New York City and NASM-certified personal trainer.

“Core strength provides stability, as well as balance, improves overall strength, and enhances a person’s ability to do everyday tasks,” she explains. “[When your core is strong], you move better, breathe better, and function at a higher level.”

Eight weeks of core training helped to improve runners' endurance and balance, a 2019 PLOS ONE study, which focused on college-age endurance athletes, found. Meanwhile, other studies have noted that regular core strengthening was a factor in reducing chronic back pain. 

Mulgrew adds: “The stronger your core, the less strain on [your] lower back, knees, and shoulders.”

How To Perform A Perfect Plank

Ready to get started? Here’s how to tap into all those core-tastic strengthening and balancing benefits by executing the perfect plank:

Start on the floor on hands and knees.
Place hands directly under shoulders.
Step feet back, one at a time. For more stability, bring feet wider than hip-distance apart, and bring them closer for more of a challenge.
Maintain a straight line from heels through the top of head, looking down at the floor, with your gaze slightly in front of you.
Now, tighten abs, quads, glutes, and hold.

“Planking is a total-body exercise, so it should feel that way!”

Here are some additional form tips from Mulgrew:

Arms and legs should be perfectly extended.
Protract shoulders, or imagine tucking them into your back pockets to open up more space between your shoulder blades.
Reach tailbone toward inner heels.
Fully engage abdominals, as well as glutes and hips throughout.

The Benefits Of Planks

Whether you do planks, sit-ups, crunches, or some other move really comes down to whichever form of core-strengthening you like best (or, rather, can withstand!), according to Mulgrew. Still, planks are her favorite for a single, overarching reason: You get the most bang for your buck.

“Planking is a more total-body exercise than a crunch, which focuses mostly on the rectus abdominis,” she explains. “Planking engages the arms, hips, glutes, legs, and upper back. It works those deep stabilizing muscles as it is an isometric exercise.” Sit-ups, on the other hand, engage corresponding muscles (hips, lower back) a bit more than crunches, but not as much as a plank would.

Plus, if you have a previously existing lower back or neck injury, crunches and sit-ups can cause even more damage, whereas a plank can help strengthen those muscles without causing any extra strain.

But, as Mulgrew reiterates, there is room for all types of abdominal-focused exercises. She adds that you’d compare a crunch or sit-up to a biceps curl (an isolated exercise) versus a plank to a squat or deadlift (a compound exercise).

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/this-is-how-long-you-need-to-hold-a-plank-to-see-real-results?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us

ending on beauty:

My soul is from elsewhere, I'm sure of that,
and I intend to end up there.
This drunkenness began in some other tavern.
When I get back around to that place,
I'll be completely sober. Meanwhile,
I'm like a bird from another continent,
sitting in this aviary.
The day is coming when I fly off,
but who is it now in my ear who hears my voice?
Who says words with my mouth?
Who looks out with my eyes? What is the soul?
I cannot stop asking.
If I could taste one sip of an answer,
I could break out of this prison for drunks.
I didn't come here of my own accord,
and I can't leave that way.
Whoever brought me here will have to take me home.

~ Rumi