The John Batchelor Show

Friday 24 February 2017

Air Date: 
February 24, 2017

Photo, left: 
 
JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
 
Hour One
Friday  24 February 2017 / Hour 1, Block A: Liz Peek, Fiscal Times and Fox News, in re:  DHS guidelines and plans; border security.  Increasing number of judges an end to capture and release (400,000-plus cases currently pending in Immigration courts).
Friday  24 February 2017 / Hour 1, Block B:  Dan Henninger, WSJ editorial board and Wonder Land, in re: Trump, the perpetual campaigner.
Friday  24 February 2017 / Hour 1, Block C:  Richard Fontaine, Center for a New American Security (CNAS)  president; in re: The challenge of the Middle East to the United States. Ottoman Empire; Sykes-Picot. Russia.  China. 
Friday  24 February 2017 / Hour 1, Block D: Francis Rose, NationalDefenseWeek.com (WMAL) and francisrose.com, and now Channel 7 in Washington; and Channel 8 daily: "Government matters";  in re:  in re: Cocaine at the VA!
 
Hour Two
Friday  24 February 2017 / Hour 2, Block A:  Michael E Vlahos, Global Security Studies, Johns Hopkins University; Strategy and Policy Department, US Naval War College, in re: The Anglosphere (1 of 2)
A Future of the English-Speaking Peoples.  Lie Back and Think of the Anglosphere.  By Edoardo Campanella and Marta Dassù   https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/world/2017-02-21/future-english-speaking-peoples  /  . . . The idea of the Anglosphere dates back to the collapse of the British Empire. In his voluminous History of the English-Speaking Peoples, former Prime Minister Winston Churchill weaved through 2,000 years of history a thread of Anglophonism that then inspired the Euroskeptics who opposed the entry of the United Kingdom into the European Economic Area in 1973. In their view, London should have rather focused on the Commonwealth, integrating with what Churchill once called its true “kith and kin.” More recently, nostalgic nationalism, including nostalgia for the Commonwealth, dominated the Leave campaign, with Boris Johnson, now foreign minister, stating that when London joined the Common Market, it betrayed “our relationships with Commonwealth countries such as Australia and New Zealand.”
But the dream of creating an Anglosphere has stimulated the imaginations of non-Brits too. Despite their growing activism in the Indo-Pacific region, both Australia and New Zealand have always been attached to the Anglo-Saxon world. In his 2009 memoir, Battlelines, Tony Abbott, the former Australian prime minister, enthusiastically praised Canberra’s alliance with Washington and its ties with London. Canada, given its French cultural heritage, has been more ambivalent about its commitment to the Anglosphere. But Erin O’Toole, a candidate for the Canadian Conservative Party leadership, has made one of the key planks of his campaign his determination to “pursue a Canada, UK, Australia, New Zealand trade and security pact.”  In short, the Anglosphere’s time may have arrived.  . . .
Friday  24 February 2017 / Hour 2, Block B:   Michael E Vlahos, Global Security Studies, Johns Hopkins University; Strategy and Policy Department, US Naval War College, in re: The Anglosphere (2 of 2)
Friday  24 February 2017 / Hour 2, Block C: Peter Kujawinski, New York Times,  in re:  Great Bear Lake in the Canadian Northwestern Territories at the edge of the Arctic Circle, and Indigenous peoples who live there.  “At the end of the world, people from the South will come up to Great Bear Lake and their boats will cover much of the lake; one of the last places on Earth where humanity can survive.” https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/07/travel/great-bear-lake-arctic-unesco-biosphere-canada.html?_r=0  (1 of 2)
Friday  24 February 2017 / Hour 2, Block D: Peter Kujawinski, New York Times,  in re: First Nation languages: slavey (also Slave, Slavé) is an Athabaskan language (connected to Dine, Navajo) spoken among the Slavey First Nations of Canada in the Northwest Territories where it also has official status. The language is written using Canadian Aboriginal syllabics or the Latin script. North Slavey is spoken by only a few hundred people in Delanie . . . .  The US gathered uranium on the eastern part of the lake from what earlier was a silver mine. Indigenous people were inducted to transport the uranium for the Manhattan Project, much to the damage of their health: they died early of cancer, always uninformed by authorities. To the group’s distress and horror, they found that they had contributed to the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  The widows assembled a delegation that visited Japan and apologized.  This is still very much in the people’s memory. Grey Goose Lodge.
Great Bear Lake in the Canadian Northwestern Territories at the edge of the Arctic Circle, and Indigenous peoples who live there.  “At the end of the world, people from the South will come up to Great Bear Lake and their boats will cover much of the lake; one of the last places on Earth where humanity can survive.” https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/07/travel/great-bear-lake-arctic-unesco-biosphere-canada.html?_r=0  (1 of 2)
 
Hour Three
Friday  24 February 2017 / Hour 3, Block A:  Amy Harmon, NYT, in re:  Beyond ‘Hidden Figures’: Nurturing New Black and Latino Math Whizzes .  One afternoon last summer at BEAM 6, an experimental program in downtown Manhattan for youths with a high aptitude for math, a swarm of 11- and 12-year-olds jockeyed for a better view of a poster labeled “Week One Challenge Problem.”
Is there a 10-digit number where the first digit is equal to how many 0’s are in the number, the second digit is equal to how many 1’s are in the number, the third digit is equal to how many 2’s are in the number, all the way up to the last digit, which is equal to how many 9’s are in the number?
Within the scrum was a trio of friends-in-formation: “Can we work on this during Open Math Time?” one asked. The second, wearing red-and-black glasses and dogged by the fear that he did not belong — “I’m really not that good at math,” he had told me earlier — lingered at the snack cart. “Leave some for the rest of us, J. J.,’’ demanded the third, gently elbowing him aside.  To Mira Bernstein, a BEAM instructor and a leading figure in the extracurricular math ecosystem that incubates many of the nation’s scientists and engineers, the scene was unremarkable, except for one striking feature: None of the children was wealthy, and few were white or Asian. (1 of 2)
Friday  24 February 2017 / Hour 3, Block B:  Amy Harmon, NYT, in re:  Beyond ‘Hidden Figures’: Nurturing New Black and Latino Math Whizzes .  One afternoon last summer at BEAM 6, an experimental program in downtown Manhattan for youths with a high aptitude for math, a swarm of 11- and 12-year-olds jockeyed for a better view of a poster labeled “Week One Challenge Problem.”
Is there a 10-digit number where the first digit is equal to how many 0’s are in the number, the second digit is equal to how many 1’s are in the number, the third digit is equal to how many 2’s are in the number, all the way up to the last digit, which is equal to how many 9’s are in the number?
Within the scrum was a trio of friends-in-formation: “Can we work on this during Open Math Time?” one asked. The second, wearing red-and-black glasses and dogged by the fear that he did not belong — “I’m really not that good at math,” he had told me earlier — lingered at the snack cart. “Leave some for the rest of us, J. J.,’’ demanded the third, gently elbowing him aside.  To Mira Bernstein, a BEAM instructor and a leading figure in the extracurricular math ecosystem that incubates many of the nation’s scientists and engineers, the scene was unremarkable, except for one striking feature: None of the children was wealthy, and few were white or Asian. . . .  (1 of 2)
Friday  24 February 2017 / Hour 3, Block C:  Michael Balter,  Scientific American and author, The Goddess and the Bull, which explores the excavation of one of the world's earliest and largest villages, Çatalhöyük in Turkey; in re: Chaco Canyon DNA discoveries: Ancient DNA Yields Unprecedented Insights into Mysterious Chaco Civilization The results suggest that a maternal “dynasty” ruled the society’s greatest mansion for more than 300 years, but concerns over research ethics cast a shadow on the technical achievement.  (1 of 2) https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ancient-dna-yields-unpreceden...
Friday  24 February 2017 / Hour 3, Block D:   Michael Balter,  Scientific American and author, The Goddess and the Bull, which explores the excavation of one of the world's earliest and largest villages, Çatalhöyük in Turkey; in re: Chaco Canyon DNA discoveries: Ancient DNA Yields Unprecedented Insights into Mysterious Chaco Civilization The results suggest that a maternal “dynasty” ruled the society’s greatest mansion for more than 300 years, but concerns over research ethics cast a shadow on the technical achievement. (2 of 2) https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ancient-dna-yields-unpreceden...
 
Hour Four
Friday  24 February 2017 / Hour 4, Block A:   Josh Rogin, columnist for the Global Opinions section of The Washington Post, in re: Washington leaks.
Friday  24 February 2017 / Hour 4, Block B:  Carl Zimmer,  NYT, in re:  sea grasses.  Disappearing Seagrass Protects Against Pathogens, Even Climate Change, Scientists Find  Every continent save Antarctica is ringed by vast stretches of seagrass, underwater prairies that together cover an area roughly equal to California.  Seagrass meadows, among the most endangered ecosystems on Earth, play an outsize role in the health of the oceans. They shelter important fish species, filter pollutants from seawater, and lock up huge amounts of atmosphere-warming carbon. The plants also fight disease, it turns out. A team of scientists reported on Thursday that seagrasses can purge pathogens from the ocean that threaten humans and coral reefs alike. (The first hint came when the scientists were struck with dysentery after diving to coral reefs without neighboring seagrass.)
But the meadows are vanishing at a rate of a football field every 30 minutes. Joleah B. Lamb, a postdoctoral researcher at Cornell University and the lead author of the new study, said she hoped it would help draw attention to their plight. . . . https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/16/science/seagrass-coral-reefs-pathogen...
Friday  24 February 2017 / Hour 4, Block C: Joshua Partlow, Kingdom of their Own. (Part IV of IV) Segment 1 of 2
Friday  24 February 2017 / Hour 4, Block D: Joshua Partlow, Kingdom of their Own. (Part IV of IV) Segment 2 of 2
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