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.
The Shipping Giant Banking on a Greener Fuel (Maria)
The author writes, “Right now, there are around 50,000 merchant vessels out at sea, or docked at a quay somewhere. Ordinarily, their work keeps the entire global economy moving, but it’s been a very turbulent few days for the shipping market. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is causing major disruptions for the industry. … Nevertheless, [shipping giant] Maersk has made the decision to order 12 ocean-going ships which run on methanol. Each costs $175m (£130m) and is capable of carrying 16,000 containers. Jacob Sterling, Maersk’s head of decarbonization innovation and business development. hopes those vessels will kick-start the market for shipping powered by methanol, which is potentially a greener source of fuel for the industry.”
Ukraine: Watching the War on Russian TV — A Whole Different Story (DonkeyHotey)
The authors write, “Never was there a better illustration of the alternative reality presented by Russian state media than at 17:00 GMT on Tuesday. As BBC World TV opened its bulletin with reports of a Russian attack on a TV tower in the capital Kyiv, Russian TV was announcing that Ukraine was responsible for strikes on its own cities. So what are Russian TV viewers seeing of the war? What messages are they hearing over the airwaves? Below is a snapshot of what ordinary Russians would have picked up, on Tuesday 1 March, while channel-hopping across the country’s key TV stations, which are controlled by the Kremlin and its corporate allies.”
In Pro-Putin Managua, Tyrannical History Is Repeating Itself — This Time as Tragedy (Russ)
From The Washington Post: “In December 1974, Hugo Torres helped lead a squad of Nicaraguan guerrillas in a dramatic hostage-taking that succeeded in winning the release of a key member of the Sandinista National Liberation Front then held in prison by the dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza. Last month, Mr. Torres died — as a 73-year-old political prisoner of Nicaragua’s new dictatorship. In one of the awful symmetries that characterize this Central American country’s history, the Sandinista whom Mr. Torres helped liberate in 1974 grew into the dictator in whose custody he died: Daniel Ortega.”
Poem: We Lived Happily During the War (Bethany)
From The New York Times: “Ilya Kaminsky is a Ukrainian American poet whose work includes Deaf Republic (Graywolf Press, 2019), from which this poem is taken.”
Art From a Nation Under Attack (Dana)
From The New Stateman: “Whether sketching in bomb shelters or escaping the capital with unruly pets, Ukrainian illustrators and artists bear witness to the fear, heroism and solidarity of their countrymen — and issue an urgent call for international support.”
Top Official at Massachusetts’s Soldiers’ Homes Was Fired Days After Bringing Safety Concerns to State Inspector General (Reader Steve)
From The Boston Globe: “The longtime public health official chosen to oversee the Holyoke Soldiers’ Home after a catastrophic COVID outbreak in 2020 said he was terminated for raising concerns that dangerous disease prevention practices persisted even after the deaths of 76 veterans that spring. Eric Sheehan, who was tapped to identify and fix problems at state-run veterans’ homes in Holyoke and Chelsea after the Holyoke tragedy, alleged in a whistle-blower claim that staff continued to place COVID-infected veterans too close to uninfected veterans, a practice that allegedly fueled the original outbreak. Sheehan said he became so worried about safety issues that he went to Inspector General Glenn Cunha.”
The Quiet Way Advertisers Are Tracking Your Browsing (Sean)
The author writes, “Creepy cookies that track all your online activity are (slowly) being eradicated. In recent years major web browsers, including Safari and Firefox, have restricted the practice. Even Chrome has realized that cookies present a privacy nightmare. But stopping them ends only one kind of online tracking — others are arguably worse. Fingerprinting, which involves gathering detailed information about your browser’s or your phone’s settings, falls into this category. The tracking method is largely hidden, there’s not much you can do to stop it, and regulators have done little to limit how companies use it to follow you around the internet.”
Archaeologist Identifies a Lost Timekeeping System in the Stones of Stonehenge (Mili)
The author writes, “We stick calendars on the wall or load them up on our phones, but the people of the third millennium BCE used giant rocks, new research suggests. A new study explains how Stonehenge may have originally been used to keep track of a solar year (aka tropical year) of 365 and a quarter days, which has long been suggested by researchers, but never fully understood. The new findings are based on a careful analysis of the number and the positioning of the stones that make up the site, as well as comparisons with other ancient calendar systems that might have influenced the builders of Stonehenge.”
