Thursday, March 7, 2019

Thursday Mashup: Ideas Worth Chewing On

"His story is an odd one. It’ll be worth telling one day."--Winesburg, Ohio

Stories of Note for 7 March 2019

On March 5 in 1616, the book De Revolutoinibus Orbium Coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres) was banned by the Catholic Church.

Written by Nicolaus Copernicus in 1543, the book revealed a theory that we now know to be true: that the Earth revolves around the Sun.

Copernicus postulated that the Sun was the center of the universe — a theory that directly challenged the religious philosophy that man was the center of all creation.

(Today, we know that both of these claims are false. Neither the Earth nor the Sun is the center of the universe… but the Earth does revolve around the Sun.)
--The above originally opened a story on The Mission eNewsletter Tuesday

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Arts Sector Contributed $763.6 Billion to U.S. Economy—More Than Agriculture or Transportation, New Data Shows
Most people are unaware of the economic impact of the arts. Isaac Kaplan's article offers up stats that will surprise you.

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The Ad Contrarian Bob Hoffman zeroes in on the deceptive way online advertisers gain support for violating our privacy. The piece is title More Elephant Advertising. He can be pretty scathing at times, but his straightforwardness is refreshing. He does not pull punches.

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This AEON article about Maslow's Hierarchy is interesting. 
It's titled Do you have a self-actualised personality? Maslow revisited

The first paragraph reminds readers of Maslow's "needs hierarchy" and then digs into what contemporary psychology has to say on the matter of self-actualization. Despite being short on actual data for his theories, Maslow was amazingly perceptive.

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My story about clickbait got published in The Writing Cooperative. Read it here:

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Probably the scariest story here today:
Nebraska county owes $28M for wrongful convictions
No DNA tests, covered up testimony, and forced confessions. 
The taxpayers will pay the damages.
Here's the story: Six people were arrested and wrongly convicted for the rape and murder of a Nebraska woman. After serving a combined 75 year behind bars it was learned through DNA evidence that they were innocent and had been railroaded in an effort to get the case resolved. Once proven innocent they sued Gage County and won a settlement of $28 million. The Supreme Court refused to overturn the decision and now the county must pay up.

The lawsuit alleged that law enforcement officials recklessly strove to close the case despite contradictory evidence and coerced false confessions. The three people who gave false confessions all had histories of psychological problems. One of the six, Joseph White, died in a workplace accident in Alabama in 2011.

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Meantime, life goes on... all around you.

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