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The Organic Return Home: The New Trend in Feminism? The Newest Trend in Conservatism?

So you really have to hand it to The Atlantic. It’s the magazine that’s “thinking outside the box” (I actually hate that phrase; anyone who uses it can be found way inside some trendy box; I’m using it with some irony and am therefore an exception.
Emily Matcher reports that “progressive” (meaning being all about Sixties’ social reform) and “conservative” (meaning being for traditions and against promiscuous liberation) movements are converging. I’ve already reported to you—with the example of Rod Dreher—that one name for this new trend is “crunchy” (meaning, of course, Granola-y) conservatism. Emily’s calls this trend “all-natural domesticity.” Actually, the two names don’t refer to exactly the same trend (Dreher adds a heaping helping of orthodox religion to his), but close enough for now.
Emily reports that “progressives are embracing home and hearth with new vigor under the guise of environmental sustainability, anti-consumerism, and better health.” The so-called progressives are hiding the fact that they just want to be all about being at home with the kids. They’re also hiding the fact that it’s the women—more than the men—who want to be liberated from unnatural and unsustainable individualistic conventions to make a home.
The progressive conservatives are at war “with the very idea of convenience” in its various manifestations—such as “laziness in the kitchen.” What’s wrong with feminism? It “killed home cooking.” What’s wrong with Michelle Obama as role model? Well, “she doesn’t like to cook.”
One of the features of this new and more totally organic parenting is “co-sleeping.” That means the parents and the kids in the same bed. I first heard about this from a very organic and very conservative Catholic whose really smart wife stays home and does all kinds of organic stuff with their large number of children. What about the other big pleasure of being married? It becomes tricky and has a lot less to do with the bed.
This having the whole family in one big bed calls to mind the travails of frontier life or living in immigrant urban squalor. But these educated and at least somewhat prosperous parents are choosing it!
Lots of unnatural progressives and libertarians and feminists and such are complaining that all-natural domesticity is “turning progressive women into unwitting gatekeepers of conservative gender norms.” That seems to me unfair; these women are hardly “unwitting.” They know what they’re doing as well as almost all of us. Ms. Matcher “talked to dozens of women who cheerfully say that their new domestic endeavors are much more fulfilling than their old jobs.” They even regard going home as “a feminist act”—a liberation to be creative and fulfilling and really engaged in the art of living.
It might actually be true that “the return to nature” is more equivalent to “a return to fundamental values” than lots of liberated sophisticates like to think. It’s also more libertarian than we like to think. The effort really to make the home a home again is based, in part, in distrust of public institutions from the EPA to the public schools. Home schooling is on the rise—both to make the home more self-sufficient and to save the kids from the bureaucratic inanities that have trivialized public education.
There’s a lot more I can say. I want to admit, so that nobody misunderstands, that I’m a lot more about convenience than these progressive, crunchy conservatives. I’m somewhat repulsed by co-sleeping, like to eat in restaurants, am so lazy that I’m rarely in the kitchen, have only one kid (who was born in a hospital and wasn’t homeschooled). I don’t offer my life as a role model for anyone.
But I do think that the main negative trend in the country is a kind of thoughtlessly creeping (and sometimes creepy) lifestyle libertarianism. There are many ways of countering that trend. And the one described here has a lot of instructive (and maybe a few ridiculous) features. People, to repeat, are choosing it with clear eyes and full hearts.
'Space Hurricane' confirmed to have formed above Earth
This storm rained electrons, shifted energy from the sun's rays to the magnetosphere, and went unnoticed for a long time.
- An international team of scientists has confirmed the existence of a "space hurricane" seven years ago.
- The storm formed in the magnetosphere above the North magnetic pole.
- The storm posed to risk to life on Earth, though it might have interfered with some electronics.
What do you call that kind of storm when it forms over the Arctic ocean?
<iframe width="730" height="430" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/8GqnzBJkWcw" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe><p> Many objects in space, like Earth, the Sun, most of the planets, and even some large moons, have magnetic fields. The area around these objects which is affected by these fields is known as the magnetosphere.</p><p>For us Earthlings, the magnetosphere is what protects us from the most intense cosmic radiation and keeps the solar wind from affecting our atmosphere. When charged particles interact with it, we see the aurora. Its fluctuations lead to changes in what is known as "space weather," which can impact electronics. </p><p>This "space hurricane," as the scientists are calling it, was formed by the interactions between Earth's magnetosphere and the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interplanetary_magnetic_field" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">interplanetary magnetic field,</a> the part of the sun's magnetosphere that goes out into the solar system. It took on the familiar shape of a cyclone as it followed magnetic fields. For example, the study's authors note that the numerous arms traced out the "footprints of the reconnected magnetic field lines." It rotated counter-clockwise with a speed of nearly 7,000 feet per second. The eye, of course, was still and <a href="https://www.sciencealert.com/for-the-first-time-a-plasma-hurricane-has-been-detected-in-space" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">calm</a>.</p><p>The storm, which was invisible to the naked eye, rained electrons and shifted energy from space into the ionosphere. It seems as though such a thing can only form under calm situations when large amounts of energy are moving between the solar wind and the upper <a href="https://www.reading.ac.uk/news-and-events/releases/PR854520.aspx" target="_blank">atmosphere</a>. These conditions were modeled by the scientists using 3-D <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-21459-y#Sec10" target="_blank">imaging</a>.<br><br>Co-author Larry Lyons of UCLA explained the process of putting the data together to form the models to <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/space-hurricane-rained-electrons-observed-first-time-rcna328" target="_blank">NBC</a>:<br><br>"We had various instruments measuring various things at different times, so it wasn't like we took a big picture and could see it. The really fun thing about this type of work is that we had to piece together bits of information and put together the whole picture."<br><br>He further mentioned that these findings were completely unexpected and that nobody that even theorized a thing like this could exist. <br></p><p>While this storm wasn't a threat to any life on Earth, a storm like this could have noticeable effects on space weather. This study suggests that this could have several effects, including "increased satellite drag, disturbances in High Frequency (HF) radio communications, and increased errors in over-the-horizon radar location, satellite navigation, and communication systems."</p><p>The authors <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-21459-y#Sec8" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">speculate</a> that these "space hurricanes" could also exist in the magnetospheres of other planets.</p><p>Lead author Professor Qing-He Zhang of Shandong University discussed how these findings will influence our understanding of the magnetosphere and its changes with <a href="https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2021-03/uor-sho030221.php" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">EurekaAlert</a>:</p><p>"This study suggests that there are still existing local intense geomagnetic disturbance and energy depositions which is comparable to that during super storms. This will update our understanding of the solar wind-magnetosphere-ionosphere coupling process under extremely quiet geomagnetic conditions."</p>Surprising new feature of human evolution discovered
Research reveals a new evolutionary feature that separates humans from other primates.
Human evolution.
- Researchers find a new feature of human evolution.
- Humans have evolved to use less water per day than other primates.
- The nose is one of the factors that allows humans to be water efficient.
A model of water turnover for humans and chimpanzees who have similar fat free mass and body water pools.
Credit: Current Biology
Skepticism: Why critical thinking makes you smarter
Being skeptical isn't just about being contrarian. It's about asking the right questions of ourselves and others to gain understanding.
- It's not always easy to tell the difference between objective truth and what we believe to be true. Separating facts from opinions, according to skeptic Michael Shermer, theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss, and others, requires research, self-reflection, and time.
- Recognizing your own biases and those of others, avoiding echo chambers, actively seeking out opposing voices, and asking smart, testable questions are a few of the ways that skepticism can be a useful tool for learning and growth.
- As Derren Brown points out, being "skeptical of skepticism" can also lead to interesting revelations and teach us new things about ourselves and our psychology.
New study suggests placebo might be as powerful as psychedelics
New study suggests the placebo effect can be as powerful as microdosing LSD.
