PICKS are stories from many sources, selected by our editors or recommended by our readers because they are important, surprising, troubling, enlightening, inspiring, or amusing. They appear on our site and in our daily newsletter. Please send suggested articles, videos, podcasts, etc. to picks@whowhatwhy.org.
More Than 150 Companies Urge US Congress to Pass Lewis Voting Rights Act (Maria)
The author writes, “More than 150 companies — including Apple, Best Buy, and PepsiCo — urged US lawmakers to introduce and pass a voting reform act in a letter signed on Wednesday, as other efforts have stalled in Congress. The companies called on lawmakers to reintroduce the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, an amendment to the Voting Rights Act of 1965 named after US Representative John Lewis, who died nearly a year ago. The act would help prevent voting discrimination and set up an improved system for states to report changes in election law.”
COVID-19 Vaccines for Children: Hypothetical Benefits to Adults Do Not Outweigh Risks to Children (Bethany)
The author writes, “As the majority of adults in multiple rich western countries have now received at least one dose of a covid-19 vaccine, the focus is turning to children. While there is wide recognition that children’s risk of severe covid-19 is low, many believe that mass vaccination of children may not just protect children from severe covid-19, but also prevent onward transmission, indirectly protecting vulnerable adults and helping end the pandemic. However, there are multiple assumptions that need to be examined when judging calls to vaccinate children against covid-19.”
‘Scary’: Fuel Shortage Could Ground Firefighting Aircraft (Reader Steve)
The author writes, “Airport officials facing jet fuel shortages are concerned they’ll have to wave off planes and helicopters that drop fire retardants during what could be a ferocious wildfire season, potentially endangering surrounding communities. Sporadic shortages at some tanker bases in Oregon and Utah have already been reported. The worry is that multiple bases go dry simultaneously during what is shaping up to be a very busy wildfire season in the U.S. West. Tanker bases in Arizona, where many large fires are burning, have also had jet fuel supply issues in the last month.”
The Uyghur Chronicles: Escaping the Genocide in Xinjiang (Russ)
The author writes, “The Chinese government’s mass internment of Uyghurs was in full swing. This campaign had begun in Kashgar, Khotan, and other predominantly Uyghur parts of southern Xinjiang. Now it had reached Urumqi, the regional capital, where our acquaintances were regularly disappearing. Every day, hundreds of Uyghurs who had moved here over the decades—finding work, starting families, buying houses, coming to consider themselves locals — had been shipped out to concentration camps known as ‘study centers.’ Nearly everyone I knew from the labor camp where I’d been imprisoned two decades earlier had already been rearrested. My turn would clearly come soon.”
The Many Myths of the Term ‘Anglo-Saxon’ (Mili)
From Smithsonian Magazine: “Today, the term ‘Anglo-Saxon’ is little used in mainstream American circles, perhaps as a chiding WASP label directed toward northeastern elites. But as news from earlier this year has shown, it still exists as a supremacist dog whistle. Its association with whiteness has saturated our lexicon to the point that it’s often misused in political discourse and weaponized to promote far-right ideology. In April 2021, the U.S. House of Representatives’ America First Caucus published a seven-page policy platform claiming that the country’s borders and culture are ‘strengthened by a common respect for uniquely Anglo-Saxon political traditions.’ On social media, jokes about a return to trial by combat, swordfights, thatched roofs, and other seemingly Anglo-Saxon practices quickly gained traction.”
Man in China Reunited With Kidnapped Son After Searching for Him for 24 Years (Dana)
From the South China Morning Post: “A Chinese man who spent 24 years riding a motorcycle across the country searching for his missing son has finally found him. Guo Gangtang’s experience is what the 2015 road movie Lost and Love, in which Hong Kong actor Andy Lau starred for free, is based on. The two people accused of abducting Guo’s son in 1997 have been arrested, said the Ministry of Public Security on Tuesday.”
Did a Cuttlefish Write This? (Dan)
From The New York Times: “Captive cuttlefish require entertainment when they eat. Dinner and a show — if they can’t get live prey, then they need some dancing from a dead shrimp on a stick in their tank. When the food looks alive, the little cephalopods, which look like iridescent footballs with eight short arms and two tentacles, are more likely to eat it. Because a person standing before them has to jiggle it, the animals start to recognize that mealtime and a looming human-shaped outline go together. As soon as a person walks into the room, ‘they all swim to the front of the tank saying, give me food!’ said Trevor Wardill, a biologist at the University of Minnesota who studies cuttlefish vision.”
