npr:
From her front porch, Collette Williams can see the lights of U.S. Steel’s Clairton Coke Works, between the houses across the street. She can pick out the different colors of smoke and steam emanating from “the mill.”
“That’s like a white smoke,” she says on an overcast afternoon. “And then over there, like a dark smoke.”
Western Pennsylvania’s steel industry may be a shell of what once was. But the Clairton works, about 20 miles south of Pittsburgh, remains North America’s largest producer of coke, a key component in making steel. Coke is basically pure carbon, made from baking coal at high temperatures, a process that can create a lot of pollution.
On this day the fumes aren’t too bad, owing to rain that has just come through. But on some days the rotten egg odor of sulfur is inescapable, a rich, earthy smell that sticks to the back of the throat. What’s in the air is worse, especially for her son, SaVaughn, 13.
The sixth-grader has persistent asthma. He takes four medications daily, a regimen of inhalers, nebulizers and pills to calm the inflammation that can make it hard for him to catch his breath.
Williams won’t let him play football because if he plays in bad weather, he could catch a cold and have breathing problems for weeks. Instead of walking a few blocks to school in the winter, he gets a bus, to avoid the risk of getting sick. But there’s one trigger that’s hard to avoid: according to the EPA, the air here is some of the dirtiest in the country.
“The pollution in here in Clairton is horrible,” she says. “When the smoke comes up, smoke rises so it comes immediately up here.”
About three years ago SaVaughn’s asthma started flaring up, leading to ER visits, more doctors, and more medication. Around this same time, regulators say, the plant’s air pollution got worse.
It’s impossible to say whether SaVaughn’s problems were linked to the coke works. But one research team has found asthma rates for kids in Clairton are double the countywide rate.
One Town’s Decades Long Struggle For Cleaner Air
Photos: Reid R. Frazier/Allegheny Front
In history, as in traveling, men usually see only what they already had in their own minds; and few learn much from history, who do not bring much with them to its study.
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| — | John Stuart Mill, The Subjection of Women (via philosophybits) |
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Photo by @mikesutherlandphoto Lioness killing a crocodile in Londolozi. #wild #nature #wildlife #lioness #kill #londolozi #crocodile #wildestafrica
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CAMBYSES II:
CAMBYSES II (r. 530-522 BCE) was the second king of the Achaemenid Empire. The Greek historian Herodotus portrays Cambyses as a mad king who committed many acts of sacrilege during his stay in Egypt, including the slaying of the sacred Apis calf. This account, however, appears to have been derived mostly from Egyptian oral tradition and may therefore be biased. Most of the sacrileges attributed to Cambyses are not supported by contemporary sources. At the end of his reign, Cambyses faced a revolt by a man who claimed to be his brother Smerdis, and he died on his way to suppress this revolt.
Cambyses was born to Cyrus the Great and his wife Cassandane, a sister of the Persian nobleman Otanes. Cambyses had a younger brother named Smerdis, from the same mother and the same father. As early as 539 BCE, when Cyrus conquered Babylon, Cambyses held the position of crown prince. He is mentioned on the Cyrus Cylinder, along with his father Cyrus, as receiving blessings from the Babylonian supreme god Marduk. In Babylonian documents dating between April and December 538 BCE, Cambyses is described as ‘king of Babylon’, while Cyrus was given the title ‘king of the lands’. Cambyses may have been appointed king of Babylon in preparation for his succession to the Persian throne.
npr:
‘Vice’ Traces Dick Cheney’s Ascent From Yale Dropout To D.C. Power Player
Former Vice President Dick Cheney was the quintessential behind-the-scenes political power player. “He really has no signature speech — there’s no great Dick Cheney moment where he was in front of a pulpit delivering a great line,” says filmmaker Adam McKay. “He’s always kind of just been in the background.”
McKay aims to bring the powerful former vice president into the foreground in his new film, Vice, a dark comedy starring Christian Bale. The movie combines the work of investigative journalists with some speculation and comedy (McKay also directed Anchorman and The Big Short) to tell the story of Cheney’s ascent from Yale dropout, to West Wing operative under president George W. Bush.
“I think a lot of the ways that people like Cheney have gained power is that they rely on us being bored. They rely on us looking at what they do and assuming that it’s just bureaucracy and who cares?” McKay says. But, “when you really dig into it, it’s very exciting stuff. And it’s major stuff that changes the world.”
Your weekend listen. -Emily
