NPR’s Tamara Keith and Joshua Johnson join William Brangham to discuss the latest political news, including policy proposals among 2020 Democrats, rumors of an upcoming recession and how a weakening economy could affect President Trump’s reelection and momentum for new gun security measures after El Paso and Dayton massacres.
All posts by She Seeks Serene
Top Museum Exhibits: “Paul Gauguin – The Art Of Invention” At The St. Louis Art Museum (Until Sept. 15)
From an Antiques and the Arts Weekly:
Comprising 55 Gauguin masterworks on loan from Copenhagen’s Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, as well as some 35 objects from the collection of the Saint Louis Art Museum, “Paul Gauguin: The Art of Invention,” now on view in St Louis, offers a superb overview and deep insight into the life, thought and art of this quasi-mythological being whose shadow looms large not only over artistic Modernism but over the very romantic notion of the artist who sacrifices everything for art.
Along with many other artists in every discipline, Gauguin has been reappraised in recent years. His freedom and devotion to art above all came at a steep cost to others: the wife and children he left behind in Europe, the Native child brides he took in the South Seas and the children they bore him and hosts of friends – Van Gogh and Pissarro among them – who felt the sting of his wrathful restlessness.
French art historian Jean Leymarie, in his short, perfect essay on Paul Gauguin, published in the gorgeous dusty columns of the 1962 Encyclopedia of Art, sums up the birth of Modernism: “Painters no longer attempted to represent the external world by creating the illusion of an image, but rather to suggest their interior dreams through allusive symbols and the multiplication of decorative forms; line and color were invested with the role of expressive vehicles and became the abstract equivalents of sensation. This change, amounting to the overthrow of the empirical and optical vision that had come down from the Renaissance, was perhaps the most violent about-face in modern art. The way, from that time, was open, and we know how boldly Gauguin proceeded.”
https://www.antiquesandthearts.com/the-right-to-dare-everything-paul-gauguin-the-art-of-invention/
Top RV Campsites: Jumbo Rocks Campground At Joshua Tree National Park Features Oversized Volcanic Boulders
From Fodor’s online:
The accurately named Jumbo Rocks Campground is woven among the stacked and strewn oversized volcanic boulders unique to Joshua Tree National Park. Several hiking trails begin at Jumbo Rocks, a 126-campsite facility with vault toilets. During Joshua Tree’s peak season, October through May, hikers and rock-scramblers who reserve the campground well in advance are rewarded with views of the boulders whose colors shift throughout the day, from the morning sunrise to the fire’s glow. In the hot, dry summers, Jumbo Rocks is first-come, first-served.
For more information click on following link: https://www.nps.gov/jotr/planyourvisit/jumbo-rocks-campground.htm
Future Of Eating: “Virtual Restaurants” And “Ghost Kitchens” Are Being Fueled By Uber Eats, DoorDash and Grubhub
From a New York Times article by Mike Isaac and David Yaffe-Bellany:
No longer must restaurateurs rent space for a dining room. All they need is a kitchen — or even just part of one. Then they can hang a shingle inside a meal-delivery app and market their food to the app’s customers, without the hassle and expense of hiring waiters or paying for furniture and tablecloths. Diners who order from the apps may have no idea that the restaurant doesn’t physically exist.
The shift has popularized two types of digital culinary establishments. One is “virtual restaurants,” which are attached to real-life restaurants like Mr. Lopez’s Top Round but make different cuisines specifically for the delivery apps. The other is “ghost kitchens,” which have no retail presence and essentially serve as a meal preparation hub for delivery orders.
“Online ordering is not a necessary evil. It’s the most exciting opportunity in the restaurant industry today,” said Alex Canter, who runs Canter’s Deli in Los Angeles and a start-up that helps restaurants streamline delivery app orders onto one device. “If you don’t use delivery apps, you don’t exist.”
To read more click on the following link: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/14/technology/uber-eats-ghost-kitchens.html
Health Studies: Short Sleep Duration And Sleep Disorders Have Adverse Effects On Heart Health
From a Circulation online release:
…these results indicate that sleep may play an important role in health disparities and may represent a modifiable risk factor (along with diet and physical activity) for cardiometabolic risk in general and cardiometabolic health disparities specifically.
Statement Summary
Our review of the epidemiological data on the impact of sleep duration and disorders on cardiovascular health suggests the following:
-
Both short- and long-duration sleep and sleep disorders such as SDB and insomnia are associated with adverse cardiometabolic risk profiles and outcomes.
-
Sleep restriction has a negative impact on energy balance, but it is less clear whether treating sleep disorders has a positive impact on obesity risk.
-
Treating those with sleep disorders may provide clinical benefits, particularly for blood pressure.
Sleep is increasingly recognized as an important lifestyle contributor to health. However, this has not always been the case, and an increasing number of Americans choose to curtail sleep in favor of other social, leisure, or work-related activities. This has resulted in a decline in average sleep duration over time. Sleep duration, mostly short sleep, and sleep disorders have emerged as being related to adverse cardiometabolic risk, including obesity, hypertension, type 2 diabetes mellitus, and cardiovascular disease.
To read more click on the following link: https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/CIR.0000000000000444
Top Road Trips: St. Martins, New Brunswick Is Home To The World’s Highest Tides
From a National Geographic online article:
On the mainland, drive east to St. Martins, gateway to The Fundy Trail, a 6,323-acre coastal wilderness park. Wind along coastal cliffs on the 19-mile Fundy Trail Parkway to watch the tides and access paths to waterfalls, beaches, and a suspension bridge.
In St. Martins, the world’s highest tides create the rare opportunity to explore sea caves on foot and on the water. Check the tide chart to plan a low-tide walk out to the caves, allowing plenty of time to return to shore before the water rises. At high tide, float into the caves on a Red Rock Adventure sea kayaking trip.
Watch a six-hour timelapse of the rising tide that lifts fishing boats 50 up from the tidal bottom:
To read more click on the following link: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/destinations/north-america/canada/partner-content-bay-of-fundy-best-road-trip/
Future Driving: Smart EQ Fortwo Cabrio Electric Drive Is “Fun-Filled, Quirky Open Air Experience”
From a DesignBoom.com online article:
the result of its energetic design, both on the exterior and interior, ensures the smart ‘fortwo cabrio electric drive’ is fun-filled and quirky yet stylishly typical of the brand. at a size of 2.69 meters in length, 1.66m in width and 1.55m in height, the model delivers agile functionality for city mobility, even turning circles in less than 7 meters. however this time, smart has provided all this whilst offering electric economy with accelerating power and a fresh, open-air driving experience.
smart fortwo cabrio electric drive test: from weaving between bustling city streets to winding down swiss country roads, designboom test drove the smart ‘fortwo cabrio electric drive‘ around geneva, switzerland, and the surrounding area. in just 12 seconds ‘the roof opens.. and you can cruise almost silently through the city’, says dr annette winkler, head of smart. the folding soft top becomes a complete convertible with removable roof bars, combining an open-air element to smart’s already notoriously fun driving experience. the openness of the car’s design enables the driver to feel ‘the fantastic acceleration get right under your skin.’
To read more click on following link:
https://www.designboom.com/technology/smart-fortwo-cabrio-electric-drive-test-07-05-2017/
WHO SHAPED THE 1960’S?: CULTURAL CHANGE SWEPT UP THE BOOMERS, IT JUST DIDN’T BEGIN WITH THEM
From a New Yorker article by Louis Menand:
Although the boomers may not have contributed much to the social and cultural changes of the nineteen-sixties, many certainly consumed them, embraced them, and identified with them. Still, the peak year of the boom was 1957, when 4.3 million people were born, and those folks did not go to Woodstock. They were twelve years old. Neither did the rest of the 33.5 million people born between 1957 and 1964. They didn’t start even going to high school until 1971. When the youngest boomer graduated from high school, Ronald Reagan was President and the Vietnam War had been over for seven years.
The boomers get tied to the sixties because they are assumed to have created a culture of liberal permissiveness, and because they were utopians—political idealists, social activists, counterculturalists. In fact, it is almost impossible to name a single person born after 1945 who played any kind of role in the civil-rights movement, Students for a Democratic Society, the New Left, the antiwar movement, or the Black Panthers during the nineteen-sixties. Those movements were all started by older, usually much older, people.
To read more click on the following link: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/the-misconception-about-baby-boomers-and-the-sixties
Health Studies: Silent Or “Covert” Strokes Are Post-Surgery Risks, Increasing Risk Of Cognitive Decline
From a The Telegraph online article:
A new study (in The Lancet, Aug 16, 2019) reveals that pensioners who have an operation have a one in 14 chance of suffering a silent or “covert” stroke – an event that shows no obvious symptoms but can damage the brain.
More than 1,100 patients across the world were given MRI scans nine days after some form of major non-cardiac surgery.
They were then followed up a year later to assess their cognitive abilities.
The researchers found that not only did having a silent stroke double the chances of cognitive decline a year on, it also increased the chances of a full life-threatening stroke.
Suffering a mini-stroke increased the risk of experiencing postoperative delirium as well.
The Lancet Study: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(19)31795-7/fulltext?utm_campaign=clinical19&utm_content=98869259&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&hss_channel=tw-27013292
To read more click on the following link: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2019/08/15/silent-stroke-risk-major-surgery-revealed-new-study/
Top Hikes In Oregon: The 7-Mile Loop Trail To Ramona Falls Features Stunning Views Of Mount Hood
From a Willamette Week online article:
It’s not quite Multnomah Falls in terms of Disneyland wow factor, but it’s up there. Bear in mind that some things are justifiably popular—and Ramona Falls is just such a place. It is one of those natural wonders that must be seen in person. Photos, good as they may be, do the sprawling cascade little justice. Accordingly, the approximately 7-mile loop hike that visits it is a rite of passage for any and all Oregon hikers—including dirt-caked and determined adventurers trudging their way along the Pacific Crest Trail, which joins a portion of this route.
You’ll have to ford the Sandy River or cross on downed logs (a bridge was washed out several years ago), so exercise caution. But the view of Mount Hood from that vantage point is a stunner, so that’s a plus. In addition, the walk beside Ramona Creek looks and feels more like a forested fantasyland than a hiking trail—and if ever there was a place to enjoy a picnic, it is in the large, shaded amphitheater surrounding the cooling mist of the falls.
To read more click on the following link: https://www.wweek.com/culture/2019/08/16/ramona-falls-looks-more-like-a-forested-fantasyland-than-a-hiking-trail/
Boomers Daily 