The Waiting Room Blog
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What it means to be inspirational
This profile did so much to me internally. It's a profile of family doctor Dr. Greg Gulbransen who practices in Oyster Bay, Long Island. It is probably one of the best things I've read all year. Dr. Gulbransen shows what it means to live outwardly, to channel energy towards doing good. This is true even if it comes from a personal place. From New Yorker.
Good people are often puzzles to those of us who wish we were better. We try to understand what they do, and how, and why. Many base their goodness in principle, or faith, or some vision of how the world ought to be, and we sometimes suspect that, if we could only adopt one of their systems, we might do good, too. But Gulbransen’s goodness wasn’t part of any system; it was personal, even arbitrary. There were, I learned, many Reds and Maliks—many people with whom he’d forged one-to-one relationships of care. Some were in the Bronx, others farther from or closer to home. He’d begun making these connections after Cameron’s death, and, over time, they had become a way of life. In the Old Testament, when Job laments his fate, a friend tells him that “man is born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward.” We all suffer, as inevitably as a fire throws off pieces of itself. But Gulbransen had built something from his sparks.
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U.S.A.I.D cuts threaten Vietnam's ability to bury their long dead
U.S.A.I.D cuts threaten Vietnam's ability to bury their long dead
Shutting down U.S.A.I.D has been one of the worse things that has happened since Trump took office — one of the many things on the list of bad things, in my view. A special program in Vietnam is among the many programs threatening to lose funding because of U.S.A.I.D's shutdown.
It's a program that dates back to 2014 with partners like the U.S. military and the International Commission on Missing Persons, in The Hague. In recent years, Vietnam has used funding from the U.S. to fund expensive machines using DNA from bones long buried in the soil to identify family members. In recent months, the program has had tremendous success with a breakthrough in identifying bones that have been in the tropical soil for a 70 years.
The main breakthrough occurred a few months before Mr. Trump’s inauguration with 23 Vietnamese bone samples degraded by age and tropical conditions. Using chemical solutions and high-tech analysis, scientists from the international commission found that 70 percent of the samples generated DNA profiles capable of being matched to a parent or child.
What's at stake is putting the dead to rest. A belief in Vietnam is that if an individual isn't identifiably buried, their soul will be hungry and without a home. The remains of at least 300,000 fighters for North Vietnam have been found but not identified. This program could benefit Americans too, with over 2,600 U.S. solder's bodies still missing.
A program like this is an example of generating good in the world: healing old, destructive, horrid conflicts. Bringing peace to families. Developing technology that could do good beyond Vietnam: identify people's bodies lost in future wars, and natural disasters.
Wars end, but the scars remain — cutting this program will make it that much harder to live with those scars.
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Renowned art critic Jerry Saltz's advice for being an art critic
Renowned art critic Jerry Saltz's advice for being an art critic
See his full post in NY Mag's Night School
Also, if you lack a subscription, see HERE.
- The voice has to be alive. Otherwise, it’s just description. Accept that some sentences will be embarrassing. That’s usually where the magic is. Write how you talk.
- Write for the reader. My goal is simple: that the reader finishes the piece.
- Don’t write like an insider. I live and breathe art from the belly of the beast. But I try never to speak in code. Jargon is the enemy. If a word is complicated, explain it. Cut through the fog.
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Wisconsin Supreme Court keeps elective abortions legal
Wisconsin Supreme Court keeps elective abortions legal
Good news from the Wisconsin Supreme Court: A pre-Civil War era law that would have banned abortions illegal in Wisconsin, was denied in a ruling.
This case spawned from the Dobbs decision, which brought the pre-Civil War law into play, and made abortion in Wisconsin a question mark. This paused abortions across the state. Later, in 2023, though, a Dane county ruling opened the door that allowed some clinics to continue abortion care, including Planned Parenthood in Madison.
The question of abortion also set off the nationally spotlighted Wisconsin Supreme Court races both in 2022 and 2025. Abortion, linked to healthcare, and economic security, and human rights, was a true engine for the more liberal judges being elected — and creating a Musk-infused opposition in 2025.
Abortion advocates, and those who care about reproductive care, bodily autonomy, and healthcare more broadly, can all breath a bit easier.
Wisconsin’s 19-century abortion ban is no longer in effect, the state Supreme Court ruled Wednesday.
The 4-3 high court ruling cements the effects of a lower court ruling, which previously invalidated a ban on most abortions in Wisconsin.
As a result of the lower court ruling and Wednesday’s Wisconsin Supreme Court decision, elective abortions remain legal in Wisconsin up to 20 weeks of pregnancy.
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My first produced show in Madison is about the largest digital camera in the world
My first produced show in Madison is about the largest digital camera in the world
Since moving to Madison, I've started to volunteer at 88.9 WORT FM community radio. I work with Brian Standing, the long time host of the Monday 8 O' Clock Buzz. For the moment, I am producing the show and helping Brian put together a show every week.
For my first action of producing for WORT, we talked with the physicist, Keith Bechtol based out of University of Wisconsin. Bechtol works with the the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, which is home of the largest digital camera in the world built to study the universe and cosmos, and went live this month. As his bio states Bechtol studies "dark energy, dark matter, neutrinos, and multimessenger astrophysics."
Vox writer Bryan Walsh points out the details of the Observatory of the observatory:
Perched 8,660 feet up Cerro Pachón in the Chilean Andes, where the crystal-clear nights provide an exceptionally clear window into space, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory began construction in 2015 with funding from the US National Science Foundation (NSF) and the US Department of Energy. Named for the pioneering astronomer Vera Rubin, whose work on galaxy rotation helped prove the existence of dark matter, the observatory was built to run a single, audacious experiment: the 10-year Legacy Survey of Space and Time.
The observatory is a global collection of super nerds separated into collaborative groups. Each group will analyze their respected data over 10 years to help answer some of our biggest universe questions: What is the galaxy made up of? What is the full scope of the Milky Way? How does Dark Energy work?
The images are breathtaking — millions of galaxies in each frame, thousands of asteroids; my neurons fully submerged in vibrating wonder. See the official website..
Photo Credit: NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory
Here's the story I helped produce. First of many with WORT.