“Queen to E5!”

The British Museum: Curator’s Corner (Season 2 Episode 9): Irving Finkel and the Chamber of Chessmen. “Curator Irving Finkel recounts a magical adventure with The Lewis Chessmen. Content warning: wizard’s chess.”

André and I visited Lewis (& Harris) during our trip to Scotland this summer and happened upon the place where the Lewis Chessmen were found. I don’t play chess, but loved these figures. Our B&B on Lewis had resin replicas as decorative items on the breakfast tables, and we saw larger replicas carved from stone as doorstop or garden decorations. Unfortunately they were too heavy for our suitcase, or I would have bought one for our own garden.

“Universal health care isn’t a policy conversation. It’s not a political talking point.”

Medium: Why I Believe in Universal Healthcare. By Jenny Nicholson.

“I was a junior in high school when my mother had her first heart attack. She was in her bed, moaning, crying that she couldn’t breathe.

We were too poor to have a phone, so I ran barefoot to the neighbor’s house, 1/4 mile down the road. I’ve never moved so quickly in my life.

It was a 30-minute drive to the hospital and, as we followed the ambulance, I prayed the whole time that my mother wouldn’t die.”

Link via MeFi Projects.

Wahl in Deutschland

Update: If you prefer news about the German election, I recommend this MetaFilter thread: Upset in German federal election.

Die Wahlergebnisse und andere Neuigkeiten zur Wahl kann man ja überall im Web lesen. Hier daher nur eine winzige Auswahl:

n-tv: AfD: Was erwartet den Bundestag? “Die Nazi-Keule ist das Dümmste”.

“Laut den Umfragen könnte die AfD drittstärkste Kraft im Bundestag werden. Und das, obwohl die Partei zwischenzeitlich in den Umfragen abgestürzt war. Was erwartet das Parlament, wenn die Rechtspopulisten mit 50, 60 oder vielleicht 80 Abgeordneten einziehen? Werden die neuen AfD-Abgeordneten konstruktive Arbeit leisten oder weiter provozieren? Im Interview mit n-tv.de gibt Parteienforscher Timo Lochocki einen Ausblick.”

Deutsche Welle: Was hat der Abgang von Frauke Petry zu bedeuten? “Zuletzt war es ruhig um die AfD-Chefin Frauke Petry geworden. Auch am Wahlabend spielte sie nur eine Nebenrolle. Nun, am Tag nach dem Wahlsieg, kündigt sie für sich eine neue Rolle an und überrascht die Partei damit.”

“Die deutschen Rechtspopulisten sind in einem Punkt auf jeden Fall ähnlich den anderen populistischen Parteien in Europa: Sie haben die Tendenz zur Selbstzerstörung durch mörderische Machtkämpfe an der Parteispitze. Beim “Front National” geht das sogar bis zur Ebene der Familie Le Pen. Nun hat die AfD-Co-Chefin, Frauke Petry, in Berlin ein Drama aufgeführt, was in die Annalen der Parteigeschichte eingehen wird.

Als erste Partei am Tag nach der Wahl trat die AfD vor die Presse. Und zwar als Quartett aus den beiden Spitzenkandidaten des Wahlkampfs, Alice Weidel und Alexander Gauland, und den beiden Parteivorsitzenden Jörg Meuthen und Frauke Petry. Doch schon nach zehn Minuten platzte die Bombe.

Frauke Petry tritt aus der eigenen Fraktion aus”

“This callous proposal will needlessly punish local, predominantly rural communities that depend on parks and public lands for outdoor recreation, sustainable jobs and economic growth”

The Washington Post: Interior chief urges shrinking 4 national monuments in West.

“Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke is recommending that four large national monuments in the West be reduced in size, potentially opening up hundreds of thousands of acres of land revered for natural beauty and historical significance to mining, logging and other development.

Zinke’s recommendation, revealed in a leaked memo submitted to the White House, prompted an outcry from environmental groups who promised to take the Trump administration to court to block the moves.

The Interior secretary’s plan would scale back two huge Utah monuments — Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante — along with Nevada’s Gold Butte and Oregon’s Cascade-Siskiyou.”

We’ve been to Grand Staircase Escalante and are/were planning on visiting Bears Ears in the future. There is so much natural beauty and pristine wilderness in Utah. Don’t throw it away please!

“I had a funny feeling in my gut, I didn’t want to make a mistake. I made a decision, and that was it.”

Obituaries

New York Times: Stanislav Petrov, Soviet Officer Who Helped Avert Nuclear War, Is Dead at 77. “After five nerve-racking minutes — electronic maps and screens were flashing as he held a phone in one hand and an intercom in the other, trying to absorb streams of incoming information — Colonel Petrov decided that the launch reports were probably a false alarm.”

The Washington Post: Stanislav Petrov, Soviet officer credited with averting nuclear war, dies at 77. ““I had a funny feeling in my gut,“ Col. Petrov told The Washington Post in 1999. “I didn’t want to make a mistake. I made a decision, and that was it.“ He celebrated with half a liter of vodka, fell into a sleep that lasted 28 hours and went back to work.”

BBC News: Stanislav Petrov, who averted possible nuclear war, dies at 77. “A former Soviet military officer credited with averting a possible nuclear disaster at the peak of the Cold War has died at the age of 77.”