All posts by She Seeks Serene

My Journey of Reimagining Life, Love and Education

Alaska Tours: Wrangell – St. Elias National Park

Sitting on the edge of Alaska, an 8-hour drive from Anchorage, are the 13.2 million acres that make up Wrangell-St. Elias National Park. The park contains an active volcano, nine of the 16 highest peaks in America and countless glaciers, as well as the last community inside a national park. Jeff Glor reports.

Wrangell-St. Elias is a vast national park that rises from the ocean all the way up to 18,008 ft. At 13.2 million acres, the park is the same size as Yellowstone National Park, Yosemite National Park, and Switzerland combined! Within this wild landscape, people continue to live off the land as they have done for centuries. This rugged, beautiful land is filled with opportunities for adventure.

Financial Review: Barron’s Magazine – Dec 26, 2022

Magazine - Latest Issue - Barron's

Barron’s Magazine – December 26, 2022 issue:

Robots Are Replacing Workers Lost in the Pandemic. They’re Here to Stay.

Robots are moving up in the world. Labor shortages and rising wage costs are breathing life into a new generation that can handle a growing number of tasks.

Brace for Recession Next Year. But the Outlook Isn’t All Doom and Gloom.

Brace for Recession Next Year. But the Outlook Isn’t All Doom and Gloom.

The Fed will keep fighting inflation, and the unemployment rate will rise. But there are positive trends on the horizon.

How to Invest in Robots and Automation

How to Invest in Robots and Automation

Technology investments are out of favor, and the market has been especially tough on companies in the more speculative areas like robotics.

Bill Miller Is Still Bullish on Bitcoin—and a Lot More

As the famed value investor heads for retirement, he isn’t giving up on crypto. Why he likes Amazon.com, Delta Air Lines, and small-caps, too.

Politics: Zelensky U.S. Trip, Jan. 6 Committee Report

PBS NewsHour – New York Times columnist David Brooks and Washington Post associate editor Jonathan Capehart join Judy Woodruff to discuss the week in politics, including Ukrainian President Zelenskyy’s trip to Washington, the Jan. 6 committee report and if Congress should consider barring Trump from holding office again.

Front Page: The New York Times – December 24, 2022

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With Detailed Evidence and a Call for Accountability, Jan. 6 Panel Seeks a Legacy

The final report of the committee provides many new details on former President Donald J. Trump’s actions and a record for history. But Republicans will soon begin a campaign to discredit it.

George Santos’s Early Life: Odd Jobs, Bad Debts and Lawsuits

Representative-elect George Santos, who is under scrutiny over potentially misrepresenting key parts of his campaign biography, had other undisclosed troubles in his early career.

BlackRock’s Pitch for Socially Conscious Investing Antagonizes All Sides

Right-wing officials are attacking BlackRock for overstepping. Those on the left say the world’s biggest asset manager is not doing enough.

Like a Walk-In Freezer: Pre-Holiday Storm Pummels the Nation

Roughly two-thirds of the U.S. population — more than 200 million people — were under winter warnings or advisories at one point on Friday.

Foreign Affairs Magazine: The Best Articles Of 2022

Foreign Affairs (December 23, 2022) – Editors’ Top Picks from print and the web:

The Sources of Russian Misconduct

A Diplomat Defects From the Kremlin

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2022

Revenge of the Patriarchs

Why Autocrats Fear Women

MARCH/APRIL 2022

Nobody Wants the Current World Order

How All the Major Powers—Even the United States—Became Revisionists

AUGUST 3, 2022

READ MORE

Books: ‘Drawing Thought’ Andrea Kantrowitz (2022)

The MIT Press – Drawing is a way of constructing ideas and observations as much as it is a means of expressing them. When we are not ready or able to put our thoughts into words, we can sometimes put them down in arrangements of lines and marks. Artists, designers, architects, and others draw to generate, explore, and test perceptions and mental models.

In Drawing Thought, artist-educator Andrea Kantrowitz invites readers to use drawing to extend and reflect on their own thought processes. She interweaves illuminating hand-drawn images with text, integrating recent findings in cognitive psychology and neuroscience with accounts of her own artistic and teaching practices.

The practice of drawing, with paper and pencil or whatever else is at hand, is a simple and accessible means to become more mindful and aware of our inner and outer worlds. Time slows down when we start drawing. Our attention shifts. Setting aside our worries and fears about the future, we can draw ourselves into stillness. Drawing provides an active way to engage deeply with the present moment, locating our thoughts, perceptions, and feelings, in time and space.

Utah Mountain Views: The Patmos Ridge Ranch (2022)

Hall and Hall – Located about 140 miles southeast of Salt Lake City near Price, Utah, Patmos Ridge Ranch lies among the eastern Book Cliffs Mountain Range, with views of Bruin Point and the entire Castle Valley. The rugged terrain creates a thriving natural habitat for big game and upland birds, as well as multiple recreational opportunities.

German Villages: Seiffen – Home Of The Nutcracker

FRANCE 24 English – For centuries, this small German town has been making these Christmas traditions by hand.

Seiffen is a charming “Toy Story” village in eastern Germany’s wooded Erzgebirge (known in English as the Ore Mountains). Located off the beaten tourist path, minutes from the Czech Republic border, it’s the 19th-century birthplace of nutcrackers, the whimsical wooden figures that are a traditional symbol of Christmas in many cultures.

Architecture & Nature: 2022 Remodel Of The Year

Suspended between two beautiful California hills, this remodel spans a creek and boasts a waterfall in the back yard.

Suspension House / Fougeron Architecture - Exterior Photography, Windows, Forest
© Joe Fletcher

To build such a house anew is no longer allowed in California, but following strict guidelines, we reconceived an existing structure, transforming the relationships between home, water and land. A steel frame inserted beneath the original floors anchors the home to the rocky hillsides, thus allowing us to remove supporting columns from within the creek bed.

Suspension House / Fougeron Architecture - Exterior Photography, Facade, Handrail

A human-made object in nature may exist in harmony or disparity. Our goal was to deepen this home’s connection to the environment, creating a place where our clients can live immersed within an exceptional landscape. Taking care to protect and restore the land, we suspended the renovated house between two wooded hills, where it overlooks a rushing waterfall and spans the creek below.

Suspension House / Fougeron Architecture - Interior Photography, Chair, Garden, Patio

A third floor addition strikes a more slender profile facing east, to engage the breadth of the site. The experience is one of being in nature and also humbled by it.

Suspension House / Fougeron Architecture - Exterior Photography, Windows, Forest

The goal with this unique site was to enhance the relationship of the structure to the nearby bodies of water and the rock face.  Rather than bearing down and disturbing the creek below, the new structural system has been anchored to the bedrock within the flanks of the hill, suspending the home

2022 In Review: The Biggest News Stories Of The Year

What happened in 2022?: Monocle’s head of radio, Tom Edwards, examines 2022’s biggest news stories with Isabel Hilton and Marie Le Conte including the invasion of Ukraine, the elections that grabbed the headlines, protests around the world and the obituaries that shaped the year.