Monthly Archives: May 2020

The Story Behind "New York, New York," the City’s 7 P.M. Anthem – The New York Times

Posted: May 4, 2020 at 10:53 pm

The old friend shows up every night, big and brawny as ever. Hes on a Brooklyn familys seventh-floor balcony in Windsor Terrace, and above the Portofino Ristorante in Forest Hills, and bellowing out of a truck rolling slowly up and down the empty canyons of Manhattans avenues, right on time to with the crash of a cymbal start spreadin the news.

It is 7 p.m., and the city is already clapping, a nightly outpouring of support for health care workers that has taken place for weeks. And many have added a soundtrack to their applause, as familiar as the skyline. Its as brassy and over the top as ever and yet, playing out across a cooped-up city of crowded apartments and masks and gloves, its bottomless optimism can visibly bring smiles, a short pause to The Pause.

I want to be a part of it New York, New York.

A lot of people stop doing what theyre doing and start cheering, said George Leon, a manager at Portofino with a front-row seat to the nightly performance, when an upstairs neighbor plays it on loudspeakers from his apartment window. Its awesome.

With the city in the grip of the coronavirus, Frank Sinatras Theme from New York, New York, its actual name, has once again stepped up as its anthem, as it did after 9/11 and as it does after Yankee games and police promotion ceremonies. It seems to have always been with us, a staple of the voice instantly recognizable all over the world since his prime in the 1940s and 1950s; but in fact, its a song thats barely reached middle age.

The nightly performances are the latest stop in the unlikely journey of a song that, in more ways than one, almost didnt get made at all.

In 1977, the director Martin Scorsese was making New York, New York, and he needed a title track. The songwriting team of John Kander and Fred Ebb wrote a song and brought it to a meeting with the director and the films stars, Robert De Niro and Liza Minnelli.

We played our songs Scorsese and Liza liked them a lot, Mr. Kander told the Cleveland Plain Dealer in 2015. We were just about to leave, and Bobby, over on the couch, waved his arm, and Scorsese said, Excuse me just a minute, and he went over and talked to him. It was a very animated conversation in terms of arms, but we couldnt hear what they were saying.

The director returned very embarrassed and said Mr. De Niro found the title number lightweight and wanted them to try again, Mr. Kander said.

The two writers, whose credits included Chicago and Cabaret, were annoyed Some actors going to tell us whats a good song and whats not? but returned to Mr. Ebbs apartment. In about 45 minutes, he said, we wrote this song called New York, New York another one. It fared better: They seemed to like it a lot, Mr. Kander said.

As he would tell The New York Times in 2015: De Niro was completely right.

Ms. Minnelli sang the number on the films soundtrack, and the song seemed to belong to her. This would not last.

Elsewhere in the entertainment world, Mr. Sinatra, then in his early 60s, had recently emerged from an early retirement to a vastly changed cultural landscape from the ring-a-ding days of the Rat Pack. He looked around and saw not fellow crooners, but acts like Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd, and he struggled to adapt.

He had fought an ambivalent battle against the new music, sometimes trying to make it his own, almost always with heart-sinking results, wrote James Kaplan in a biography, Sinatra: The Chairman.

Frank was straining for relevance, he wrote.

The singers wife, Barbara Sinatra, suggested he cover New York, New York.

Naw, thats Lizas song, he replied, according to Mrs. Sinatras book, Lady Blue Eyes. But she persuaded him to play it at a 1978 concert at Radio City Music Hall, she wrote, and the number he almost didnt sing brought the house down.

The Sinatra historian and radio personality Jonathan Schwartz was in attendance that night. I suggested to him that he might want to record it, he recalled this week. He said something like, Well see. The music publisher Frank Military, a longtime collaborator, has also been credited with introducing the man to the song.

Mr. Sinatras daughter, Tina, in an interview Wednesday from her home in California, recalled another important voice in his ear. He was reluctant to take it from Liza, she said. She told him, Its OK, Uncle Frank.

The following year, Mr. Sinatra set about making an ambitious triple-album, Trilogy: Past Present Future. Amid a curious collection of covers Billy Joels Just the Way You Are, Neil Diamonds Song Sung Blue and a suite of songs involving space travel, he thought back to the familiar, comfortable fit of those vagabond shoes.

On Sept. 19, 1979, in a studio in Hollywood, he recorded the song at last, with Rob Fentress, a member of Sinatras large circle, among those crowded in the jubilant control room after the final take. They were playing back New York, New York, and Frank was sitting in the engineers chair, and he was just oblivious to all the noise, Mr. Fentress recalled in Mr. Kaplans book. He was just focusing on the song. And you could see how pleased he was. He wasnt laughing; he was just smiling slightly. Id seen that focused look before.

The song would close his concerts for years to come, nudging aside My Way in that spot, and was the last one he performed in public, when he joined an array of stars in 1995 at a tribute for his 80th birthday. He died in 1998.

I think he could thoroughly identify with the song, growing up in Hoboken and looking across the river at the skyline, his daughter Tina said. He wanted to be there. He wanted to be on the other side.

Twenty-four years later, Allison Garber, 45, of Windsor Terrace, one of the countless New Yorkers who grew up with the song showing up like a proud uncle at ballgames and public gatherings, heard a friend say it was blasting nightly at 7 p.m. from an apartment in Manhattan.

I wanted to bring that to my neighborhood, she said. Its undeniable when you hear that last bit, you really have to point out at your city.

She found herself a little uncomfortable with the A-number-one lyrics, not at all about community, and cast about for a replacement. From her balcony facing Prospect Park, she tried Heroes by David Bowie, Wind Beneath My Wings by Bette Midler, and others. Below, people passed by. Only one song seemed to make them stop, so she brought it back.

Maybe New York, New York makes everybody feel like theyre that person? she said. That everyone is king of the hill, top of the heap.

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The Story Behind "New York, New York," the City's 7 P.M. Anthem - The New York Times

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Beloved authors and illustrators create a free ‘Book of Hopes’ for children in lockdown – The National

Posted: at 10:53 pm

In SF Saids first work of childrens literature, Varjak Paw, the eponymous cat ventures out into the big, wide world. By rather appropriate contrast,another feline hero rendered by the author in The Book of Hopes, a collection of short stories published for children in the time of coronavirus, is living in close confinement.

The Naughtiest Cat I Have Ever Known is a 500-word tale by the Beirut-born Said and sits alongside 110 other contributions from leading childrens authors, poets and illustrators to provide words and pictures to comfort, inspire and entertain children in lockdown.

Saids cat in the autobiographical story, named Monamy from the French mon ami meaning my friend, is not under restrictions imposed to contain the spread of Covid-19 but instead lives in the claustrophobic third-floor London flat that was the writers childhood home. Ultimately, Monamy performs a valiant leap that sends a pompous relative of Said packing. Before that feat, however, the cat prances about climbing walls and tearing the place apart.

I was thinking about myself as a child at a time when I felt very isolated in a way that I imagine kids in lockdown will be feeling everywhere, Said tells The National. It was the appearance of this extraordinary, incredibly naughty cat that sent this explosion of activity and hope into my life, he says.

My mum was a single mum. I was an only child. She was quite protective and we lived in not the most salubrious bit of London. She did not really let me go out on my own until I was about 13.

The Book of Hopes has been launched as a free e-book by the National Literacy Trust in the UK, and will eventually be published as a gift book in the autumn by Bloomsbury, in support of NHS Charities Together.

The book is dedicated to: The doctors, nurses, carers, porters, cleaners and everyone currently working in hospitals: you are the stuff that wild, heroic dreams are made of.

The Hope Project was started only a few weeks ago by the award-winning author of The Good Thieves, Katherine Rundell, who emailed some of the childrens writers and artists that she most admires, asking them to write or draw something that might make children laugh or wonder or snort or smile.

The response was magnificent, which should not have surprised me, because childrens writers and illustrators are professional hunters of hope, Ms Rundell says in the foreword.

We seek it out, catching it in our nets, setting it down between the pages of a book and sending it out into the world, she says.

The stories, poems, essays and pictures are not all explicitly about hope but they each aim to create it through plastic-devouring caterpillars, doodles, beautiful prose, space travel, new shoes and dragons or accounts of a cat, like that of Saids Monamy.

Said is only one of the many luminaries who wholeheartedly embraced the project, including Lauren Child, Onjali Rauf, Anthony Horowitz, Michael Morpurgo, Axel Scheffler, Jacqueline Wilson and Sita Brahmachari.

Said, who won the 2003 Smarties Prize for Childrens Literature for Varjak Paw, describes the The Book of Hopes as a wonderful, inspiring idea and is thrilled he was asked to contribute.

I tried to think what I could do, he says. Childrens literature is capable of expressing absolutely anything that any other kind of literature is capable of expressing. But one thing it is uniquely good at expressing is hope as a possibility.

As the world looks for silver linings amid an avalanche of negatives brought about by the coronavirus pandemic, Said hopes that children will discover or reconnect with the joys of reading and also possibly take that pleasure one step further by creating their own written works.

If you love reading as a kid, and that could be reading anything, that is the single best thing you can possibly do, he says. Move from reading to writing for pleasure or drawing for pleasure. It can be anything. Make videos for pleasure, animation. That is enormously powerful.

Before the Covid-19 outbreak, Said would regularly embark on school visits, talking to children about reading, writing and creativity.

The closure of schools has stopped him from turning up in person but he has been using online video chats to reach out to pupils. It might not be exactly the same thing, he says, but the connection is still there.

The fact that I was not in the room did not get in the way of the message being communicated, he says.

I was really getting the sense that what they were getting from it was exactly that the feeling they wanted to go and write their own stories now, and you could do that at any age. One thing I always try and get over to kids is that age is irrelevant to writing. [You] guys can totally be writers right now. Just think about what you love and write something about that.

The message that Said is spreading through his talks and stories has come full circle because it was his own pet, Monamy, when he was a child that provided the inspiration for his own career as a childrens author.

I remember writing stories about him at the time, making comics about him. I used to love drawing him, the author says of his adored childhood cat. Whatever it is that you love a pet, another person, another object, a sport making something about the things you love can be an incredibly hopeful thing to do.

The Book of Hopes begins with a particularly poignant drawing by Child of a little girl framed in the window of a house, all in monochrome, looking out at the vibrantly colourful birds perched in a tree outside.

It serves as a powerful illustration of Saids belief that the book might be a creative momentum to help its young, cooped-up readers find some release, freedom and possibility. Which I think we could all use a bit of now, he says.

Updated: May 4, 2020 12:18 PM

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Lawsuit filed against Marco Island alleges first amendment violation – Marco News

Posted: at 10:52 pm

Local resident Regina Dayton speaks to Marco Island City Council on Jan. 21, 2020.(Photo: Omar Rodrguez Ortiz/Staff)

Tworesidents filed alawsuit against the city of Marco Island and City Council ChairpersonErik Brechnitzalleging their first amendment rightswere violated.

Regina L. Dayton and Ray Seward are requestingthe 20th Judicial Circuit courtenter its judgment compelling a declaratory and injunctive relief, punitive damages against all defendants and award of attorneys' fees to plaintiffs.

On Jan. 21, both residents slammed councilor Larry Honig during a councilmeeting after a Naples Daily News reportrevealed he admitted to betheonly person providing content to marcopolitics.com, awebsite targeting council candidates as well as current and former city councilors.

Brechnitzinterrupted Daytonon several instances during her time at the podium.

"My comments are not meant to be in opposition to a person but in support for what is right," Dayton said. "I once voted for Mr. Honig, and there is no denying his intellect nor the hours he devotes to city issues but this is a different matter."

Brechnitzinterrupted Dayton's prepared speech.

"Mrs. Dayton, if it'snot going to be about a specific councilorplease do not name any councilors," Brechnitz said. "This is about policy issues."

"If this is gonna become an attack on someone "

Chairperson of the Marco Island City Council, Erik Brechnitz, requested a motion to approve the 2019-2020 city budget on Sept. 16, 2019.(Photo: Omar Rodrguez Ortiz/Staff)

More: Marco residents, councilor speak up about Honig during City Council meeting

Dayton did not let Brechnitz finish the sentence.

"Oh no, sir," Dayton said."And I think that if you let me finish you'll see that's my intent too."

Dayton continued.

"Clearly, Mr. Honig in his written response to the FEC now admits that he alone wrote the content of the website marcopolitics, which many Marco Islanders found repulsive after repeatedly denying this."

Brechnitz interrupted Dayton again.

"Mrs. Dayton, this sounds like an attack to me," Brechnitz said.

In response, Dayton said it was not meant as an attack.

"It's what it sounds like," Brechnitz said."I dont want you to attack any personal councilor up here. Lets not make it personal."

Dayton then continued uninterrupted for the rest of her speech.

"I was going to ask [...] that all of you consider a vote of no confidence for Mr. Honig because I wanted you to be the collective consciousness of our community," Dayton said.

After her turn at the podium, Dayton spoke with the Eagle about her exchangewith Brechnitz.

"I never anticipated that response from Brechnitz," Dayton said. "If Mr. Honig's statements were considered freedom of speech, this should have been as well."

Local resident Ray Seward speaks to Marco Island City Council on Jan. 21, 2020.(Photo: Omar Rodrguez Ortiz/Staff)

Sewardalso spoke about Honig that night without specifically saying his name.

"Im not here to attack anyone but I was attacked by one individual on this council," Seward said. "I was slanderedand I was lied to."

"I feel I should have the right to confront that individual in public."

After a back and forth with Brechnitz, Seward said the individual should expect a letter from his attorney. He later told the Eagle that the individual he was referring to was Honig.

Dayton told the Eagle on April 22 she was personally hurt after the incident with Brechnitz.

"Both of us were personally hurt.We were shocked. We were embarrassed, but that wasn't our issue," she said."That's done, there is nothing that can take that away."

"But when citizens in our community want to stand before their elected officials and speak the truth and (are) told to sit down and are censored, that's wrong."

Dayton said the purpose of the lawsuit, filed April 3, is to preventother residentsfrom goingthrough a similar experience.

"What's important to me about filing this lawsuit is to ensure [...] that in the future, when others wish to speak to their elected officials, they are given that opportunity," she said.

Dayton also said the lawsuit could have been avoided.

"The hope was that chair Brechnitz would make an outreach to Ray and I and say 'my intentions were well founded [...] but it was wrong,' and we would have moved forward," Dayton said.

"There wouldn't have been no lawsuit."

Dayton was allowed by Brechnitz to "say nearly everything she wanted to say, except naming me in her baseless personal attacks," according to Honig.

"Bear in mind, this is the same person who constantly files self-serving complaints against city staff and other councilors," Honig wrote April 22. "Taxpayers have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in direct payments as well as legal fees and her complaints are always dismissed as frivolous."

On March 27, 2019, the Federal Election CommissionnotifiedDayton that the complaint she filed against Honigalleging his website violated Florida's election lawswas 'legally insufficient.'

"The redlined editorial contained political analysis, fact-checking, opinion, and name-calling," wrote Tim Vaccaro, the commission'sexecutive director. "However, in my opinion, it did not include anything that would amount to more than free political speech."

"The complaint appears to be based upon hearsay," Vaccaro wrote.

This is not Dayton's first complaint or lawsuit against the city or its councilors.

In 2019, the Florida Bar dismissed Dayton's complaints filed against Councilor Jared Grifoni and City Attorney Alan Gabriel over their conduct in the handling of battery allegations against former City Manager Lee Niblock.

In two separate letters to Dayton, Bar counsel Teresa Goodson wrote that there was insufficient evidence to prove either man had committed any violations of rules governing attorney conduct.

In 2014, the city paid $150,000 to Dayton and her husbandTimothy J. Dayton as part of apair of settlement agreements which concluded their long-standing dispute over the city building departments inspection of the couples home as it was being constructed.

It wasa squabble that found the Daytonsseeking redress through a Collier County Circuit Court lawsuit and multiple administrative complaints filed with the Florida Department of Building and Professional Regulation against the city and its inspectors.

As far as were concerned, this is behind us, said Dayton of the quest she and her husband began in 2007, when they filed the first of their multiple DBPR complaints against Marco and its building officials.

City Manager Mike McNees responded to the Eagle's request for comment but asked that further questions be directed to Alan Gabriel, city attorney.

"I wont have anything to say about the lawsuit while its ongoing, something that would hold true for any such suit," McNees wrote April 22.

Brechnitz did not respond to a request for comment.

Additional reporting by Naples Daily News reporter Devan Patel and correspondent Don Manley.

Omar Rodrguez Ortiz is a community reporter for Naples Daily News and Marco Eagle. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram as@Omar_fromPR, and on Facebook. Support his work by subscribing to Naples Daily News.

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First amendment rights should not be suppressed, even during pandemic The News Journal – The News Journal

Posted: at 10:52 pm

U.S. history is full of instances where people have taken a stand against what they perceive as excess, overreach, inaction, ineptness, or just plain evil on the part of local, state and/or federal government.

Dean Manning is a reporter at the News Journal.

The nation was founded by just such people, and they added provisions in the U.S. Constitution to ensure future generations would have a legal leg to stand on should they feel the need.

The Constitution guarantees the right for people to peacefully assemble and to speak their minds without fear of reprisal from the government.

Since 1791 when the Bill of Rights, including the First Amendment, was ratified, courts have found some limitations.

In 1919, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that false speech, such as the familiar Yelling fire in a crowded theater and causing panic, is not protected, unless there is actually a fire.

The ongoing COVID19 pandemic has resulted in pushback from people across multiple states, including Kentucky, who are demanding governors ease the restrictions.

Gov.Andy Beshear instituted restrictions on what businesses may remain open. Main Street in Corbin is a ghost town, while the budding revitalization of downtown Williamsburg has been stopped in its tracks.

One of the final steps was closing state parks, including Cumberland Falls and banning groups of more than 10 people from congregating.

The governor had also ordered that churches not hold in-person services, using online and drive-in options.

When protestors went to the State Capitol in Frankfort, where thousands have gone in the past to voice their anger, the protestors were called out by their fellow citizens.

Among the suggestions was that Gov. Beshear call in the Kentucky State Police to break up the protest.

Im a liveandletlive type of person.

You want to be a Christian, Jew, Muslim, Buddhist, Wiccan, Hindu, Shinto, Sikh, Pagan, other, or none of the above? Preach it!

You love President Trump, or hate President Trump, and want to march down Main Street in Corbin with a sign proclaiming that, or shout it on your Facebook page? Go for it!

You want to abolish the United States and want to join a one-world government, or just start over with whatever utopia you may dream up? More power to you!

And, yes, if you dont like a particular race, creed, color or sexual orientation and want to voice that, I will defend your right to say that without interference from the government, even though I believe it makes you among the worst people there are.

I understand the governor is trying to keep COVID19 from spreading. But just as he can get on his soapbox every day at 5 p.m. and speak to the masses, so those protestors, and, yes, those who agree with him, have the right to gather and voice that.

With the popular opinion on free speech spiraling further and further toward perceived hate speech being banished, the need to stand for free speech is even greater.

Perception is a pendulum. What is accepted speech today, may be hate speech tomorrow and a citizen who stands by while free speech is eroding could very easily find their own views outlawed in the future.

So, while you may not like what the protestors who stood outside the capitol were saying, voicing support for their right to do so is essential, as you may be part of the next group seeking to exercise that same right.

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Urgent Care Doctor Silenced By Youtube Says His First Amendment Rights Have Been Attacked – Sara A. Carter

Posted: at 10:52 pm

Dr. Dan Erickson, who owns several urgent care facilities throughout California and is a specialist in emergency medicine, warned of the collateral damage resulting from the coronavirus outbreak and the stay at home orders, which, he said, only elongates the curve and decreases immune systems, and isnt a good plan and his early warnings on the issue, he said, were silenced.

Erickson made the comments during a Facebook Live broadcast on Thursday night with House Freedom Caucus Chairman Rep. Andy Biggs, R-AZ, and Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser.

As Im weighing both the collateral damage and the virus, itself damage and saying I think the collateral damage in the state of California far outweighs the actual virus. Californias at about 1,800 deaths today and we have about 40 million people, Dr. Erickson said. Every death is of course terrible, but, again, the influenza also in 2017-2018 had about 60,000 deaths. So some of the early models we saw were predicting 2 million and that didnt exactly occur.

The early decision to keep the country at home, Erickson said, despite not knowing if it was the best decision or not. Initially the rate of diagnosis at his clinic was 6.5 percent, and, after testing 5,213 patients during a two-month period. Erickson then decided to hold a press conference to be transparent after he had tested 50-60 percent of the population in Kern County. The video, which was posted to Youtube, was promptly removed from the platform for what the tech-giant says violates community guidelines.

One model that Erickson said hes been persistently monitoring is in Sweden, where the countrys top epidemiologists, including Anders Tegnell, have taken a different approach to the virus than the U.S. by keeping the economy open and allowing life to stay as normal as possible, which he says is successful and should be looked at as a possible way for our country to reopen. The model, although not initially intended by Swedens epidemiologists, may have also brought about a certain herd immunity to the virus in its population.

The decision to lock down the U.S. was because it was something to do and we were afraid when we watched China, he said. But theres data for handwashing, we have great data for handwashing, but I think we took on a program that didnt have a lot of science to it, I tried it and I toed the line for two months. And then after I had collected all my data, I looked at it, I said, you know, I think theres a better approach.'

Because many states have implemented pauses on elective surgeries, hospitals are being forced to close and/or furlough workers. He also said that the stay at home orders have presented significant tolls on patients mental health. In order to navigate the debate on reopening the country, Erickson advocated for a formation of a physicians COVID alliance for doctors treating patients with the virus on a daily basis to bring what theyre seeing with their own eyes to the publics attention.

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‘ReOpen NC’ Founder Has COVID-19, Says It Is Her First Amendment Right To Infect Others – Wonkette

Posted: at 10:52 pm

Audrey S. Whitlock, one of the founders of "ReOpen NC" and an admin of the ReOpen NC Facebook page, a group agitating to end social distancing measures in North Carolina, recently revealed that she tested positive for COVID-19 and was an asymptomatic carrier for who knows how long.

While most people in Whitlock's position might feel horrible, might be worried about who else they may have infected, might walk back some of the bullshit they've been spreading ... she is doing no such thing. In fact, without a hint of regret, Whitlock took to Facebook to claim that requiring her and others with COVID-19 to quarantine themselves is a violation of both their First Amendment rights and the Americans with Disabilities Act. Which, you know, it's not.

Yes, she's literally mad that she's not allowed to go rally for the right for everyone to spread highly communicable diseases just because she's got a highly communicable disease.

Via The Raleigh News & Observer:

"I have been told not to participate in public or private accommodations as requested by the government, and therefore denied my 1st amendment right of freedom of religion," Whitlock wrote. "If I were an essential employee, I would be denied access to my job by my employer and the government, though compensated, those with other communicable diseases are afforded the right to work. It has been insinuated by others that if I go out, I could be arrested for denying a quarantine order. However, the Americans with Disabilities Act prohibits discrimination by employers, places of public accommodation, and state and local government entities. . Where do we draw the line?"

The line, actually, is very clear. She could Google for the line. Freedom of Religion does not mean the right to attend, in person, a specific church, while one is being quarantined due to having a contagious illness. Whitlock is free to practice her religion at home, by herself, as many are doing right now and as many did even prior to the pandemic.

While the ADA does protect those with communicable diseases, it doesn't cover situations wherein the person with the communicable disease poses a direct threat to other people. In cases like this, people can be quarantined and they can be denied access to certain public accommodations for as long as they are infectious.

Via The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Coverage of Contagious Diseases:

Audrey Whitlock may really want to go to her rallies, she might really want to go to church, but it is perfectly legal to prevent her from doing those things that if she poses a threat to others. Despite what she may have been led to believe, she is not actually the only person in the whole entire world. While she may be asymptomatic, while COVID-19 may not have killed her or put her on a ventilator, other people who also exist might not be so lucky. Ms. Whitlock might not care if those people die or get sick, but they might, and therein lies the rub.

The ReOpen NC group has continued holding protests every Tuesday throughout this, and Whitlock has refused to tell the news media whether or not she has attended these rallies. However, screenshots from the ReOpen NC Facebook group posted in the public group Banned From ReOpen NC suggest that she may have been to and posted video from at least one of them.

Nice!

[The Raleigh News & Observer]

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A tale of two universities and one First Amendment – OneNewsNow

Posted: at 10:52 pm

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education reports that a Florida university has earned the foundation's highest rating for following policies that respect student speech.

To earn a "green light" rating, FIRE's Mary Zoeller says Florida State University revised a vague policy that encouraged students to report on other students, which demonstrated behavior inconsistent with the Seminole creed.

"But now the policy has great First Amendment language, Zoeller reports, that encourages students to express themselves and it states that the university values and embraces free expression."

At the same time, the University of Miami has a "red light" rating for an extremely restrictive IT policy.

"And that 'red light' IT policy bans students from creating language on the social network that is hateful, threatening, vulgar or derogatory, Zoeller says.

That policy is even more relevant now that schools are using online learning and could do so in the fall.

Additionally, the universities of Florida and North Florida previously earned "green light" ratings, according to Zoeller.

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What is Astronomy? Definition & History | Space

Posted: at 10:51 pm

Humans have long gazed toward the heavens, searching to put meaning and order to the universe around them. Although the movement of constellations patterns imprinted on the night sky were the easiest to track, other celestial events such as eclipses and the motion of planets were also charted and predicted.

Definition of astronomy: Astronomy is the study of the sun, moon, stars, planets, comets, gas, galaxies, gas, dust and other non-Earthly bodies and phenomena. In curriculum for K-4 students, NASA defines astronomy as simple "the study of stars, planets and space." Astronomy and astrology were historically associated, but astrology is not a science and is no longer recognized as having anything to do with astronomy. Below we discuss the history of astronomy and related fields of study, including cosmology.

Historically, astronomy has focused on observations of heavenly bodies. It is a close cousin to astrophysics. Succinctly put, astrophysics involves the study of the physics of astronomy and concentrates on the behavior, properties and motion of objects out there. However, modern astronomy includes many elements of the motions and characteristics of these bodies, and the two terms are often used interchangeably today.

Modern astronomers tend to fall into two fields: the theoretical and the observational.

Unlike most other fields of science, astronomers are unable to observe a system entirely from birth to death; the lifetime of worlds, stars, and galaxies span millions to billions of years. Instead, astronomers must rely on snapshots of bodies in various stages of evolution to determine how they formed, evolved and died. Thus, theoretical and observational astronomy tend to blend together, as theoretical scientists use the information actually collected to create simulations, while the observations serve to confirm the models or to indicate the need for tweaking them.

Astronomy is broken down into a number of subfields, allowing scientists to specialize in particular objects and phenomena.

Planetary astronomers (also called planetary scientists) focus on the growth, evolution, and death of planets. While most study the worlds inside the solar system, some use the growing body of evidence about planets around other stars to hypothesize what they might be like. According to the University College London, planetary science "is a cross-discipline field including aspects of astronomy, atmospheric science, geology, space physics, biology and chemistry."

Stellar astronomers turn their eyes to the stars, including the black holes, nebulae, white dwarfs and supernova that survive stellar deaths. The University of California, Los Angeles, says, "The focus of stellar astronomy is on the physical and chemical processes that occur in the universe."

Solar astronomers spend their time analyzing a single star our sun. According to NASA, "The quantity and quality of light from the sun varies on time scales from milli-seconds to billions of years." Understanding those changes can help scientists recognize how Earth is affected. The sun also helps us to understand how other stars work, as it is the only star close enough to reveal details about its surface.

Galactic astronomers study our galaxy, the Milky Way, while extragalactic astronomers peer outside of it to determine how these collections of stars form, change, and die. The University of Wisconsin-Madison says, "Establishing patterns in the distribution, composition, and physical conditions of stars and gas traces the history of our evolving home galaxy."

Cosmologists focus on the universe in its entirety, from its violent birth in the Big Bang to its present evolution, all the way to its eventual death. Astronomy is often (not always) about very concrete, observable things, whereas cosmology typically involves large-scale properties of the universe and esoteric, invisible and sometimes purely theoretical things like string theory, dark matter and dark energy, and the notion of multiple universes.

Astronomical observers rely on different wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum (from radio waves to visible light and on up to X-rays and gamma-rays) to study the wide span of objects in the universe. The first telescopes focused on simple optical studies of what could be seen with the naked eye, and many telescopes continue that today. [Celestial Photos: Hubble Space Telescope's Latest Cosmic Views]

But as light waves become more or less energetic, they move faster or slower. Different telescopes are necessary to study the various wavelengths. More energetic radiation, with shorter wavelengths, appears in the form of ultraviolet, X-ray, and gamma-ray wavelengths, while less energetic objects emit longer-wavelength infrared and radio waves.

Astrometry, the most ancient branch of astronomy, is the measure of the sun, moon and planets. The precise calculations of these motions allows astronomers in other fields to model the birth and evolution of planets and stars, and to predict events such as eclipses meteor showers, and the appearance of comets. According to the Planetary Society, "Astrometry is the oldest method used to detect extrasolar planets," though it remains a difficult process.

Early astronomers noticed patterns in the sky and attempted to organize them in order to track and predict their motion. Known as constellations, these patterns helped people of the past to measure the seasons. The movement of the stars and other heavenly bodies was tracked around the world, but was prevalent in China, Egypt, Greece, Mesopotamia, Central America and India.

The image of an astronomer is a lone soul at a telescope during all hours of the night. In reality, most hard-core astronomy today is done with observations made at remote telescopes on the ground or in space that are controlled by computers, with astronomers studying computer-generated data and images.

Since the advent of photography, and particularly digital photography, astronomers have provided amazing pictures of space that not only inform science but enthrall the public. [All-Time Great Galaxy Photos]

Astronomers and spaceflight programs also contribute to the study of our own planet, when missions primed at looking outward (or travelling to the moon and beyond) look back and snap great pictures of Earth from space.

Follow Nola Taylor Redd at @NolaTRedd, Facebook, or Google+. Follow us at @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+.

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The Sky This Week from May 1 to 8 – Astronomy Magazine

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Tuesday, May 5The Eta Aquariid meteor shower, which has been active since late April, peaks this morning. Although this shower tends to put on a strong show in the Southern Hemisphere, its low radiant in the Northern Hemisphere results in a predicted rate of 10 meteors per hour at its peak. But with good weather and a bit of luck, you may still catch some of the showers meteors this morning.

Mars hangs near the Eta Aquariids radiant, low in the sky around 4 A.M. local time. Although its typically best to concentrate on an area opposite the radiant in the sky, a bright waxing Moon is setting in the west, nixing that plan of attack. Instead, scan the other three quadrants of the sky to catch errant shooting stars. These are the debris left behind by the famous Comet 1/P Halley, which last graced our skies in 1986 and will return in the early 2060s.

Tonight, the Moon will reach perigee the closest point in its orbit to Earth at 11:03 P.M. EDT. It will then sit 223,478 miles (359,653 kilometers) from our planet.

Wednesday, May 6Not to be shown up by its fellow Galilean satellites, Jupiters moon Io and its shadow cross the face of the gas giant this morning. The whole thing starts at 2:59 A.M. EDT, as Ios shadow slips into view on Jupiters eastern limb. At 4:13 A.M. EDT, Io begins to cross in front of the same limb, with its shadow more than halfway across the planets face. An hour later, the moons shadow disappears, with the moon slipping off the planets disk beginning at 5:29 A.M. CDT. (East Coast observers will miss this finale as the Sun rises and interrupts the show.)

Thursday, May 7Full Moon occurs at 6:45 A.M. EDT. Rising as the Sun sets tonight, our satellites bright light will wash out much of the dark sky. But that doesnt mean there arent still tempting targets to observe. The Beehive Cluster (M44) is a large open cluster in the constellation Cancer the Crab. Also known as Praesepe, this cluster is one of the closest to Earth at around 600 light-years away. The entire cluster covers an area nearly three Full Moons in size and contains 1,000 or so stars. On a dark night, its visible to the naked eye; even on this bright, moonlit night, youll be able to catch several of the clusters young stars in binoculars or a telescope. More will pop out as you move to larger apertures.

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Scientists keep debunking ‘monster black hole’ discovery. So, what’s the deal with binary system LB1? – Space.com

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Scientists made waves last year after announcing the discovery of a "monster black hole," unlike anything seen before. But, as researchers continue to weigh in, one thing is clear: there is no "monster."

Solar mass black holes, or black holes that form when a star collapses under the influence of its own gravity, are usually about 20-30 times the mass of our sun. So it was breaking news when, in November 2019, scientists led Jifeng Liu of the National Astronomical Observatory of China (NAOC) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, reported the discovery of a black hole 70 times as massive as our sun.

This would have been the most massive black hole ever discovered (by far) a groundbreaking find that would have drastically changed our perception of these objects. However, following this work, a number of scientists questioned these findings as they seemed improbable. In fact, there were a handful of studies that found evidence that completely disproved the possibility of such a black hole.

Related: The strangest black holes in the universe

In December 2019, Kareem El-Badry, an astronomy doctoral student at the University of California, Berkeley, co-wrote a paper published online in the preprint server arXiv providing evidence that this wasn't a 70 solar mass black hole. (The paper was later published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.)

Around the same time, two additional papers disproving the discovery were published on arXiv: one from a team led by J.J. Eldridge, a theoretical astronomer at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, and another led by Michael Abdul-Masih, a PhD student from the KU Leuven Institute of Astronomy in Belgium.

On Wednesday (April 29), Abdul Masih's paper was published in the journal Nature. In this paper, the team analyzed the system in depth and concluded that there is "no evidence for a massive black hole," they wrote in an accompanying commentary.

That same day, Liu's team responded with their own Nature commentary in which, while they disagree with some points made by other researchers, they do agree that there is no 70 solar mass black hole in the system.

Liu's team originally found the object in question when they discovered the binary, or two-object system LS V +22 25 (or LB-1 for short), which they described in a peer-reviewed study published Nov. 27, 2019 in Nature. They described a system with a 70 solar mass black hole and an 8 solar mass star orbiting each other. The star, because it was bright and obvious, was easy to spot. But the alleged monster black hole? Not so much.

Usually, in systems with stellar-mass black holes, there is a bright, X-ray emission shooting out of the system that scientists can use to identify it. This emission line is created when a black hole accretes, or pulls material from the other object (in this case a star) in the system. But since LB-1's black hole doesn't accrete material from its partner star, it doesn't create an X-ray emission line, Liu's team found. This made it a little trickier to study.

So, to identify the second object in the system the team had to rely on a more subtle signature known as an H-alpha emission line. This is a spectral line, or a dark line in an object's observed light spectrum that can be used to identify which molecules or atoms make up the material it's coming from.

Liu's team presumed that this H-alpha emission line was coming from an accretion disk, or disk of gas and dust that the black hole pulls in from other objects around the black hole. By observing how this emission line seemed to wobble, they determined the orbital motion and the size of the black hole.

But the interpretation of this subtle wobbling signature, this H-alpha emission line which led Liu's team to determine the existence and massive size of a black hole, is the main finding other researchers have a problem with.

The three papers published initially to the preprint server arXiv in 2019 in response to Liu's alleged discovery found that the movement of this faint H-alpha emission line was actually a kind of optical illusion, and that the orbital motion Liu's team calculated to determine the black hole's size was inaccurate.

"Instead of the wobble coming from the black hole, they found it was more likely a consequence of the orbital motion of the subgiant [its star], thus completely reducing the mass of the black hole," Jackie Faherty, a senior scientist at the American Museum of Natural History in New York and a co-host of "StarTalk Radio," who wasn't involved in any of these papers, told Space.com in an email.

In their paper, Abdul-Masih's team used observations they have made using the Flemish Mercator telescope at La Palma in the Canary Islands over the last three months (or since their last paper on this subject) and have "found that that the signal that they use to measure the mass of the black-hole was actually fake," co-author and Hugues Sana, a research associate professor at KU Leuven, told Space.com in an email. Sana added that, in this paper, Abdul-Masih "showed that the same apparent signal is produced by the motion of the spectral line of the visible B-star companion."

So, Sana explained, "once we take into account the motion of the B-type star spectrum, the signal used to calculate the high mass of the (putative) black hole disappears and no indication of a high-mass black hole is left in the data."

To summarize their main finding, "We show that this complicated emission line is contaminated by an absorption line associated to the star, which Liu and his team did not account for," Abdul-Masih told Space.com in an email.

But Abdul-Masih's team didn't just find more evidence to prove that this object isn't a 70 solar mass black hole. They also have a better idea of what may actually be in the LB1 system.

"By analyzing these new high-resolution data, we have come to the conclusion that the LB1 binary system is likely formed by a stripped star and a more massive rapidly rotating Be star," Sana said. (Be stars are types of stars with B-type spectral types and emission lines.) "The strong H-alpha emission is coming from the Be star," Sana said. "The Be star signature was not seen in the original data because the spectral lines are very broad, very shallow, and do not move much (because the Be star is more massive than the stripped B-star)."

"Abdul-Masih's team obtained new high-spectral resolution data which helps with the analysis. Reading the paper, it seems like a sound and robust analysis," Faherty added.

Sana concluded that, while this means that LB1 looks a lot different than Liu's team originally suggested, it's still an extremely interesting system. "Such a stripped star+Be star system is very rare, so we are still very excited about what can be learned from LB1," they said.

Liu's team was quick to respond to Abdul-Masih's new paper, with their own commentary published in Nature on the same day. In their commentary, which is a direct response to Abdul-Masih's team, Liu and his team "re-examine those arguments, in light of more recent spectroscopic observations and further analysis," they wrote in this piece. However, while Liu's team doesn't agree with all aspects of the new analysis of the system, they do agree on a number of points.

They agree that the possibility of a 70 solar mass black hole in LB1 can be completely ruled out. "The response does not disagree with the possibility of the interpretation by the previously noted authors," Faherty said.

"I am very glad that Liu and his team are receptive to our interpretation of the system. This system is indeed very complex and I think that their analysis of the new near-infrared data could be very informative," Abdul-Masih said.

However, unlike Abdul-Masih and the other researchers who have responded to the original paper, Liu's team still asserts that it's possible that the black hole in this system is between 23 and 65 solar masses. "But that comes with all their caveats," Faherty said.

"The most telling statement that they make in the letter is 'We accept that the interpretation of the H-alpha profile is more complex than originally envisaged.'" Faherty said.

She added that while the system is likely what El-Badry and Abdul-Masih's teams described, "as Liu and co-authors state, the jury is still out. More detailed observations are necessary to pin down what this system might include," she said.

Follow Chelsea Gohd on Twitter @chelsea_gohd. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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Scientists keep debunking 'monster black hole' discovery. So, what's the deal with binary system LB1? - Space.com

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