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A Bernie-turned-Hillary-supporting friend on Facebook, over “Women accuse Morgan Freeman of inappropriate behavior, harassment” (CNN):

Sigh. The good news is that these people are being outed for their abhorrent behavior. Harvey Weinstein has been arrested and charged with rape. The bad news is that we will now be waking up to years of ‘you know that guy who you used to respect, even admire? Turns out he’s another harassing asshole’ 🙁 The unbearably horrific news is that they’ve already harassed so many women out of jobs, careers, sometimes even life itself. Let’s make sure we use this moment to teach our sons to behave.

Part of my campaign to be defriended by everyone:

Me: you’re expecting your sons, once they are old enough to receive Medicare benefits, to have the same access to attractive young women that Harvey Weinstein and Morgan Freeman had?”

Him: harassment can be inflicted by anyone on anyone, be they old, young, ugly, pretty, rich, poor, powerful or powerless. So no, I was not expressing expectations of access, but rather aspirations for behavior

Me: most people don’t have the opportunity to behave the way that Roman Emperors, billionaires, and movie stars are reported to have behaved.

Him: True, but harm is done even at much lower levels of misbehavior than that…

Me: why not use an example from an ordinary person? If you are trying to teach basic manners do you cite infamous mass murderers as examples of people who fail to follow Emily Post?

Him: the famous person made himself into an example, I did not choose him … It’s exactly this behavior of publicly narrowing the scope of a woman’s value to her sexual attractiveness that is the problem in his case, and ALL heterosexual men are capable of such behavior. What needs to be taught to our sons is that it is not acceptable to carry on this way, no matter what your station in life. A famous person being taken down for behaving this way is a perfect teaching moment, because it gets people’s attention.

Me: why wouldn’t people instead learn from the Morgan Freeman example that women do not object to the behavior you decry when it is coming from someone who is middle aged, rich, and famous? But the same behavior becomes unwelcome from a man in his 15th year of Medicare? … See “20 women slept with me to get promotion” (The Sun) for example. The 31-year-old supermarket manager engages in behavior that presumably wouldn’t have worked for a differently situated man (e.g., older or no longer a manager).

Readers: Let’s assume that Morgan Freeman hasn’t changed his behavior all that much over the last 20-30 years. Suddenly, however, the behavior is publicly condemned. Is that most likely due to a change in our society’s standards of behavior or a difference between the 50-year-old Morgan Freeman’s and the 80-year-old Morgan Freeman’s ability to advance the career of women who interviewed and/or worked with him?

Related:

• The Nurture Assumption, regarding the likely success of a parent molding a son’s personality
• Considering a bold denunciation of Harvey Weinstein (taking the personal risk of attacking a celebrity whose star has faded: “Despite the risk to my career as a helicopter instructor, only slightly reduced by the fact that Mr. Weinstein likely exceeds the 300 lb. per-seat limitation of a Robinson R44, I am now thinking about going on record to express my disapproval of this unemployed guy.”)

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Surveying our pizza delivery options on a recent miserable day, we found that the Just Crust had closed. “Just Crust Pizzeria Set to Close” (Harvard Crimson) explains:

Citing rising rents, Harvard Square pizzeria The Just Crust will officially close…

“With the high rent in Harvard Square that would be going up higher, we decided not to renew the lease and closed the location,” Liss-Riordan wrote. “We have enjoyed operating The Just Crust and greatly appreciate all the support the Cambridge community has given us over these past four years.”

Other local businesses have faced similar problems with high rents—assessed property values in Harvard Square have nearly doubled over the last five years.

Liss-Riordan, who is also a graduate of Harvard Law School, decided to open The Just Crust after she represented employees of the restaurant’s predecessor, Upper Crust Pizzeria, in a labor abuse case.

The Just Crust was partially employee-owned, which Liss-Riordan said at the time was a change she wanted to make after being involved in Upper Crust’s legal battle. Her new restaurant’s name and logo—of an aproned worker—stood in “poetic juxtaposition” to the Upper Crust’s logo of a “dandy man in a top hat riding a bicycle,” according to The Just Crust’s website. The Just Crust also emphasized its “

“With the high rent in Harvard Square that would be going up higher, we decided not to renew the lease and closed the location,” Liss-Riordan wrote. “We have enjoyed operating The Just Crust and greatly appreciate all the support the Cambridge community has given us over these past four years.”

Other local businesses have faced similar problems with high rents—assessed property values in Harvard Square have nearly doubled over the last five years.

Liss-Riordan, who is also a graduate of Harvard Law School, decided to open The Just Crust after she represented employees of the restaurant’s predecessor, Upper Crust Pizzeria, in a labor abuse case.

The Just Crust was partially employee-owned, which Liss-Riordan said at the time was a change she wanted to make after being involved in Upper Crust’s legal battle. Her new restaurant’s name and logo—of an aproned worker—stood in “poetic juxtaposition” to the Upper Crust’s logo of a “dandy man in a top hat riding a bicycle,” according to The Just Crust’s website. The Just Crust also emphasized its “progressive business model” where employees received shares of the profits and ingredients were sourced from regional farmers and producers.

Is pizza-with-delivery no longer a viable business in expensive cities such as Boston/Cambridge? We still have a Domino’s, but the rest of the bunch seems to have outsourced delivery to grubhub and similar (not sure that can work given that they don’t have the fancy insulated bags of a Domino’s).

Related:

• Economic injustice is profitable? (“fair-wage pizza shop” closes)
• “Uno Leaves Pizza-Sized Hole in Harvard Square” (we lost Uno in 2016)

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From this weblog in November,”Where can Harvey Weinstein go for a peaceful retirement?“:

Why would a 65-year-old with money want to stick around to spend the remaining years of his life as a defendant? As a thought-experiment, if Harvey doesn’t want to stick around, where can he go?

From the Washington Post today, “Harvey Weinstein charged with rape and other abuse charges in sexual assault cases”:

Harvey Weinstein was arrested … Weinstein, 66, was charged with rape, criminal sex act, sexual abuse and sexual misconduct for cases involving two women, according to the New York Police Department. … “for forcible sexual acts against two women in 2013 and 2004, respectively,”

Readers: Given that this turn of events seemed predictable, why did he stick around? Why did he not wire his money out and stuff himself into a Gulfstream G650 back in 2017? There are a lot of great things about the U.S., but being a civil and criminal lawsut defendant and, ultimately, one of our 2+ million prisoners, does not seem like a compelling reason to prefer the U.S. to other possible places to call home.

Related:

• “Morgan Freeman Is Accused of Sexual Harassment by Several Women” (nytimes, regarding the 80-year-old best known to my friends as a type-rated Citation Jet pilot (see the FAA Airmen Registry))

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A Facebook friend posted “Why open plan offices are like a nudist beach” (Washington Post):

In the #MeToo era, an open-office environment might seem like the perfect solution for fixing the sexual harassment that can take place behind closed office doors. If there are glass walls everywhere, and no one has doors or even plastic partitions to reserve any sense of privacy, groping and sexual advances might be harder to get away with.

But that hardly means it’s an office arrangement women love. Research has already shown that women tend to be more sensitive than men to the noise generated in open-plan offices, and take more long sick leaves when they work in them. Now a recently published study of a British government office showed that open-plan offices may be tougher for women in different ways — leaving them feeling more scrutinized for their appearance, subject to staring by male peers and more self-conscious about their status in the organization.

Silicon Valley women express their unhappiness:

“A couple jobs ago, I was basically a zoo animal. Incessant staring and comments on my clothes, makeup, jewelry, conversations, personal habits, food, facial expressions, everything. One guy would even stare between the monitors all day and comment while I worked.”

(Why was she wearing makeup and jewelry if she wanted to keep the lowest possible profile?)

Another reader, named only Veronica G., wrote Fast Company to say “my own office was a glass box and my desk did not have a facade – which meant, because I always wear skirts or dresses instead of pants, I had to sit with my knees together all the time to look ‘proper’ because I was visible from all angles.”

(Why not get some pants at Costco for $20? Or shop for rompers? (I learned recently from a 3rd grader that “rompers” look like a dress on top, but are divided into pants on the bottom))

What was interesting about this was the ensuing discussion:

Married-with-kids male engineer (“mengineer”?): Journalism in 2018: Pick a situation or practice. Say that women (or minorities) are disproportionately affected. Collect thunderous applause.

Male-named college undergraduate: Man, isn’t exposing the rampant sexism/racism in America just the worst? what a drag.

Engineer: In America, in the midst of rampant sexism and racism. I just spent two days in an open office environment. These women stared at me constantly and just JUDGED. I could feel it.

Undergrad: I’m confused, are you claiming to be a victim of sexism?

Engineer: I certainly am. Why not? Are you questioning a victim’s testimony?

Wag: You are not a “victim”; You are a “survivor”

Undergrad (to Wag): way to trivialize the various traumas that sexual assault survivors endure on a regular basis. It’s like you playing a game of paintball and calling yourself a war veteran afterwards.

Undergrad: Not at all, I’m sure you felt judged. But let’s take a survey. Who are your coworkers? are you in a male dominated field? you certainly were at MIT. Is your boss male? what about their boss? and, Since we know you live in the US, where the power structure (both in government and on local social levels) is incredibly male dominated, you did not experience sexism. This isn’t to say that the women in your work place made you feel uncomfortable, but while you still exist in a society that favors men over women (which is, again, certainly the case in STEM careers), sexism really ain’t your problem

Engineer: I won’t allow myself to be reduced to a data point to be compared to other data points in a heartless statistical argument. My experience and feelings are valid and incredibly important in and of themselves and it is the society’s full responsibility to ensure that I and men like me don’t ever feel judged again.

Undergrad: Yes, agreed, we should do all we can do ensure we have a safe and comfortable for all. But while you’re getting “judged” which, again, must be rough, Women are being paid less, harassed, and assaulted, all on top of being judged. But until some of these numbers are evened out, I’d say its appropriate to focus on women. NPR article with harassment data: “A New Survey Finds 81 Percent Of Women Have Experienced Sexual Harassment”

I pointed out that the article betrayed cisgender-normative prejudice by the journalists at the Post. The article was published on May 16 and a May 7 Twitter entry from Tracy Chou was cited along with a comment from “Hayley Anderson” about makeup and jewelry. Although Hayley never says “I identify as a woman,” or refers to him/herself with a female pronoun, Hayley is described as “a woman”. Why assume that someone who wears makeup and jewelry identifies as a “woman”? And even if Hayley identified as a woman on May 7, how do the folks at the Post know that she continued to identify as a woman through May 16?

I also pointed out that the “nudist beach” analogy in the headline was questionable given that a typical nude beach in the U.S., at least, is all-male. I asked “wouldn’t it be a better analogy to compare the open office to South Beach in Miami, for example, where fashionable swimwear is often displayed?”

Here are some ideas for correcting the injustice:

Should women in tech companies all be given private offices while the herd of male nerds is left to toil in an open pit? If it is tough to pay women more, for whatever reason, companies could get them closer to their fair market compensation (higher than a similarly skilled and productive man) by giving them a more comfortable working environment.

Or maybe there could be a separate parking lot, entrance, and floor for employees identifying as female?

(my favorite, due to requirement for advanced tech!) Or workers identifying as female could work in the open office, but workers identifying as male would wear special electronic glasses that turned opaque as soon as a female-identifying employee was in the field of view? If a woman spoke to a man, however, the glasses could (at her option) temporarily go transparent or translucent.

Readers: What do you think?

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“Of course US birth rates are falling – this is a harsh place to have a family” (Guardian, Amy Westervelt):

The reality is, for all its pro-family rhetoric, the US is a remarkably harsh place for families, and particularly for mothers. It’s a well-known fact, but one that bears repeating in this context, that the US is one of only four countries in the world with no government-subsidized maternity leave

Have we really built a “harsh place … for mothers”? A mother who has never worked can get a free apartment in San Francisco, Manhattan, Boston, or Cambridge, free health care for herself and her children, free food (SNAP), and a free phone. This could be regarded as a “government-subsidized maternity leave” of at least 18 years and, in most cases, a lifetime (since the entitlement to public housing doesn’t go away once the kids are grown up). See Book Review: The Redistribution Recession for how eagerly Americans have adjustd their behavior to qualify for this government offer.

I think what Ms. Westervelt means is that the U.S. is a harsh place for mothers who work at middle-income jobs. The definition of “harsh” is that their incomes may yield a spending power and lifestyle that is actually inferior to what welfare mothers obtain (see Table 4 in The Work Versus Welfare Trade-Off for a calculation by state; here in Massachusetts welfare pays 118 percent of the median salary, whereas in New York it is 110 percent and in California only 96.5 percent).

(Americans who choose their sex partners and sex location carefully can do a lot better than what the government provides. See “Child Support Litigation without a Marriage” for the cash flow that can result from having sex with higher-than-median earners. Also the Massachusetts chapter for the example of a custody and child support plaintiff with an Ivy League degree who out-earns Penn classmates by 3.2X via providing part-time care for one child.)

A friend’s wife is the author of “Paying Nannies Under the Table Is the Norm” (Slate):

After I interviewed over 60 potential nannies, and despite my offering paid benefits and overtime, a surprising number declined because being paid ‘over the table’ would affect their ability to qualify for government subsidies.

(i.e., she is surprised that in a country running a $1 trillion welfare state, some people want to keep receiving welfare benefits.)

Tax supports to help families pay for this child care are woefully inadequate, and caregivers’ pay seldom reflects their vital role in our economy. Yet the costs of child care, housing, and healthcare have risen sharply for both parties.

We need to recognize and cultivate talented professional caregivers, by transforming care into a financially viable, long-term career option for the millions of women who choose it.

“We have both devalued work that is historically associated with women, and continue to devalue the lives of the women of color who do the work. Until we as a society value care work, and make sure that all workers are protected by our laws, we will continue to see inequities and crises in the industry as a whole,” said Poo.

The husband proudly posted this article as a Facebook status. Some responses:

Me: What would be awesome is if every childless American would work 90 hours/week to subsidize those of us who have chosen to have kids, but don’t want to take care of them personally.

The author: Women are sole, primary or co-breadwinners in 2/3 of American households. The overwhelming majority of our workforce, that fuels and drives our economy that benefits all who live here, have the need for childcare to be able to work. It’s an economic imperative to make childcare affordable and accessible. … And 80% of women have children.

The author: There’s another side to this argument, it’s not just about the working families but the caregivers that are currently relying on subsidies in many cases to afford basic life-support (housing, healthcare, etc.) Those subsidies come from tax dollars. Nearly half of the domestic workers are immigrants, and working under the table perpetuates the generational cycle of poverty. When domestic workers age and don’t have enough savings in their elder years nor have they amassed social security benefits (despite how small that is) to qualify for social security offsets to medicare plans, their adult children (whether or not they have children of their own) and/or other social safety nets (i.e. welfare) pick up the tab to support their need to live.

Me: I am sure that you are right, but if people with children overall pay less for something, doesn’t that mean people without children will be the ones who have to subsidize them? Where else does money come from ?

The author: … As a whole, our society needs high rates of employment to function. High rates of employment are threatened when the population can’t afford childcare which enables them to work – or if caregivers can’t afford to be caregivers if that makes sense. This disproportionately affects women’s ability to succeed and ascend in the workforce and also on the caregiver side disproportionately affects women and minorities. …

Deplorable: [gently suggests that maybe the real problem is that not working in Massachusetts can pay up to $100,000 per year, tax-free]

The author: Although I understand your point, I don’t believe that the government is doing a ‘good job’ of subsidizing the needy. And frankly, people who work demanding full-time jobs plus overtime hours, should be able to afford to live in or near the cities they work in. The market rates for childcare givers, like jobs in almost every other industry, haven’t moved up to address inflation. Many of us (myself included) make salaries that haven’t changed much while the cost of living has gone up dramatically. This makes the availability of a subsidy not just attractive for some but essential (especially if they have themselves or a family member with a serious illness/requiring heavy health care needs.) It’s complicated, messy & really not serving anyone (or society for that matter) the way it exists today.

The part that I put into bold face ties into the recent Seattle homeless housing plan posting. As the U.S. heads for a population of 400 million and does not build any new cities where people want to live, there has to be a lot of competition for apartments located in walkable pleasant neighborhoods. If government central planners fill up one third of these apartments with people who don’t work then the remaining supply is going to be out of reach for workers like the journalist (since those apartments will be snapped up by people who work in more lucrative fields, such as health care and finance).

The Europeans have dealt with this by limiting housing subsidies for welfare recipients. The result is that they can afford apartments only in undesirable suburbs. Anyone who wants to live in a prime center-city neighborhood in Europe has to work or be married to someone who works (the UK is an exception; a brief marriage or having sex with a high-income partner can lead to child support and/or divorce profits that will enable a non-working citizen to enjoy central London; see this chapter on International family law).

I’m wondering if this drumbeat of articles about how working mothers don’t get enough government cash is an example of how the middle-class portion of the U.S. economy needs to be centrally planned as well. The focus seems to be on “mothers” rather than “women”. This would make sense if the above hypothesis is true because it is “mothers” who can most easily benefit from welfare programs. For example, a woman with no children who applies for a free government-provided house may be placed on a 10-year waiting list.

So if we accept the following assumptions:

• a woman, regardless of income, wealth, or any other factors, should be able to have as many children as she desires
• no child should live in poverty
• every child should live with his or her mother
• people on welfare as equally entitled to live in America’s most sought-after neighborhoods

then a woman will derive essentially no economic benefit from working at a medium-income job. All that she will do is suffer a loss of leisure time. Therefore, though she would likely never phrase it this way, she will demand to have a spending power and quality of life that exceeds what her non-working welfare counterpart enjoys. Because she is competing with the government to buy or rent an apartment in a desirable neighborhood, the only way that “fairness” can be restored is if the government somehow gives her extra cash. Because it is primarily women with children who can get welfare, the extra government cash should somehow be tied to her status as having custody of children.

Readers: What do you think? Is this a middle-class anti-welfare rebellion in disguise? Instead of the expected revolt against paying higher taxes to fund more lavish welfare, though, what we’re seeing is middle-class Americans saying “I also want to be on welfare”?

[Separately, maybe the observed decline in birth rate is due to the higher population density of the U.S.? “Population Density Key Factor in Declining Human Fertility” says “we find a consistent and significant negative relationship between human fertility and population density. Moreover, we find that individual fertility preferences also decline with population density”]

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Gulled by Rotten Tomatoes, I recently watched a movie that started with teenagers using the Internet to turn their bodies into cash that ultimately ending up in violence (see Teenage Cocktail movie proves that “and they’re gay” is to plots as “in bed” is to fortunes?).

“Girl, 15, shoots would-be Beaverton sugar daddy, authorities say” (The Oregonian) is almost the same story, minus the same-sex romance:

A Vancouver teen is suspected of shooting a Beaverton man she targeted on a dating website where “sugar daddies” lavish young love interests with cash and other gifts in exchange for companionship, according to Washington County authorities.

Raelyn Domingo, 15, faces first-degree assault and robbery charges after investigators say she arrived at Thomas Licata’s suburban home last week, got high with her host and then fired a single bullet into his belly.

Licata, a married 56-year-old, said he recently met the teen on the Seeking Arrangement website, which boasts its “Sugar Babies and Sugar Daddies … both get what they want, when they want it,” according to a probable cause affidavit.

What if the 15-year-old had gotten pregnant with a high-income user of SeekingArrangement.com?

• Oregon family law (total child support revenue of more than $1.6 million is difficult to obtain)
• Washington State family law (child support potentially capped at only about $450,000)
• California family law (unlimited child support profits available)

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We were asked for opinions regarding a friend of a friend’s situation.

Background on the friend of friend and his wife:

• 40ish (both)
• fancy degrees (both)
• married with kids
• wife earns more than 2X what the husband earns
• living under California family law (so if one sues the other the likely result is a 50 percent parenting time schedule for the kids plus child support and alimony profits for the man (with his Ivy League professional degree and way-above-median-income he will be the “dependent spouse”))

The husband was incompetently managing some home renovations and cost the family unit a little less than a week of after-tax (don’t forgot those 50 percent total tax rates in California!) income.

From the friend (edited to remove, um, some color):

His punishment will be two weeks of no sex. Apparently his wife uses that as means of control. I was wondering how common is the witholding as a training approach. For me this is so non-negotiable that I didn’t even know about it until like 10 years ago when my buddies began to get married.

A married-with-kids female’s answer:

He shouldn’t do anything. That would escalate the situation. He might end up divorced and that would be bad for the kids.

A married-for-decades man’s answer:

He should divorce her. If she doesn’t want to have sex, she’s a friend without benefits, not a wife.

I pointed out that she wasn’t refusing to have sex ever again and therefore the divorce lawsuit wouldn’t be proportional. Wouldn’t a proportional reponse be the following: move into a nearby hotel room in a fun neighborhood for two weeks and enjoy a bachelor’s carefree existence (perhaps punctuated with some kid sports events)? He eventually agreed that this would be a reasonable alternative.

I tested this independently with another married-for-decades man:

He should divorce her immediately. It is only going to get worse if this is the kind of thing that she does.

What if she just lost interest in sex for two weeks?

That’s different. That wouldn’t be an affirmative policy decision by the wife.

A divorced female physician:

You know it isn’t really about the money. This sounds like good material for counseling, but nobody ever goes until it is too late.

(I.e., consistent with her peers in medicine, she was curious to find out how the situation had developed, but had no actionable advice.)

We tested the physician’s it-is-all-about-the-feelings hypothesis by asking if the husband would object to the no-sex-with-wife plan if he could be sleeping with a friendly 22-year-old to whom he had no serious intellectual or emotional connection. Based on the friend’s discussions with the husband, the answer turned out to be “no objection in that case.”

Readers: What do you think?

Related:

• The sexless marriage as viewed from the other woman’s point of view
• The sexless marriage
• a perspective from “an unapologetic feminist”

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Consumer Reports has tested the Tesla 3 and the results sound pretty bad at first:

The Tesla’s stopping distance of 152 feet from 60 mph was far worse than any contemporary car we’ve tested and about 7 feet longer than the stopping distance of a Ford F-150 full-sized pickup.

Another major factor that compromised the Model 3’s road-test score was its controls. This car places almost all its controls and displays on a center touch screen, with no gauges on the dash, and few buttons inside the car.

This layout forces drivers to take multiple steps to accomplish simple tasks. Our testers found that everything from adjusting the mirrors to changing the direction of the airflow from the air-conditioning vents required using the touch screen.

The Model 3’s stiff ride, unsupportive rear seat and excessive wind noise at highway speeds also hurt its road-test score. In the compact luxury sedan class, most competitors deliver a more comfortable ride and rear seat.

Let’s think about Tesla’s home in the Bay Area, though. Population and accompanying traffic congestion have grown to the point where exceeding a speed of 20 mph is usually only a dream for Silicon Valley or Bay Bridge commuters. Why over-build the brakes to sports sedan standards when the car will usually be driven so slowly that the driver could simply drag a sneaker on the ground to stop?

Related:

• Honda Clarity versus Accord test drive (the painful annoyance of one missing knob)
• Business Insider piece comparing Tesla with the Reslas: “The four old-school companies I follow closely — General Motors, Ford, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, and Ferrari — are awash in cash and profits and have been raking it in for literally years. One salient statistic: GM and Tesla staged initial public offerings in 2010, but since then Tesla has never posted an annual profit, while GM has made over $70 billion.” (what a beautiful thing it is to have taxpayers fund all prior pension commitments!)

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Some excerpts from the AOPA coverage of AERO, the big European aviation event:

Magnus Aircraft eFusion: This is a joint effort between Hungarian airframer Magnus Aircraft Corp. and Germany’s industrial giant Siemens, which provides its SSP-55D, 75-horsepower electric motor. The eFusion’s lithium-ion battery can power the airplane for 40 minutes of flight and needs an hour to fully recharge. This experimental, 110-knot two-seat design—which made its first public flight at AERO—is but one offering on display.

ΦNIX: This Czech-built motorglider uses a 60-kilowatt/80-hp electric motor for self-launches as well as other phases of flight, and under power can cruise at 108 knots and fly as long as 2.5 hours on a single charge of its lithium-ion battery. Maximum glide ratio is 1:32. It can be ordered with wingspans of 11 or 15 meters.

Antares E2: This is not a true general aviation airplane, but its features are noteworthy. Built by Germany’s Lange Research GmbH, this six-motor design has a 75-foot wingspan, can cruise at 135 knots, and has a 40-hour endurance. Intended for use in surveillance roles, the E2 uses six methanol-powered fuel cells and dual batteries in a hybrid propulsion setup that generates enough power to provide ice protection of leading edges and enough energy to drive radars and other high-end surveillance gear. It has a 3,638-lb max takeoff weight, can hold 660 pounds of methanol in two underwing pods, and carry a payload of 440 pounds.

(The last one would be an awesome replacement for the Predator; see “The Predator drone is not an ambi-turner” for how the lack of anti-icing was one reason that the U.S. military abandoned the machine.)

Of course the least exciting news is always about aircraft that are real and flying:

Pipistrel Alpha Electro: This two-seat trainer is powered by a 60 kW/80-hp electric motor and can fly for an hour on a single charge of its lithium ion battery. Six airplanes have recently been exported to the United States. Four of these will serve as trainers under the CALSTART program for disadvantaged and unemployed youth at the Mendota and Reedley, California airports, and the other two are owned by Tomorrow’s Aeronautical Museum in Los Angeles. … these Alpha Electros have been signed off to legally fly, even though the FAA’s light sport airplane (LSA) rules don’t quite yet endorse electrically powered flight. “Procedural changes to LSA rules allowing electrically powered aircraft have already been made internally by the FAA,” Coates said. “And now the new rules are on the way to being published.” Coates says 50 percent of the cost of the CALSTART airplanes is being funded by pollution penalties paid to the California government by Volkswagen. The terms of a Volkswagen illegal-emissions settlement require that more than $1 billion be invested in a California “green fund” to benefit environmentally friendly projects. Price of the Alpha Electro is $118,000, which includes a charger. Six more are on the way to California customers.

The students flying these world’s-most-advanced training aircraft are currently “unemployed.” In other words, they are young Americans who can’t get organized, in one of the tightest labor markets in U.S. history, to walk down to McDonald’s at 3 pm and start an evening shift. The California officials, however, have decided to train them for a job that requires getting up at 4:30 am.

Another interesting bit of news is that Piper will be making a diesel-powered version of its venerable Seminole twin trainer. These will be powered by an engine design that started life as a Mercedes car engine and was adapted for aviation by Thielert, which was bought out of bankruptcy by Continental. It is an obviously great idea that has never made any money. Keep this in mind (and your checkbook closed) if you ever hear an aviation business idea pitch!

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“Do You Know Where Your Healing Crystals Come From?” (New Republic):

After three record-breaking hurricanes hammered America last year, the influential spiritual healer Heather Askinosie wrote a blog post for the Earth. “The recent barrage of megastorms we’ve witnessed has inspired some sobering reflections on the effects we are having on our planet,” she wrote on Mindbodygreen.com, a lifestyle site with millions of followers. “So what can we do to show our love and appreciation for the role that Earth plays in our lives?”

The answer, she wrote, can be found in healing crystals.

Askinosie cited three naturally occurring minerals to help readers “connect to the Earth you’re fighting to protect.” Jasper can “help you gain a broader awareness of your personal impact.” Clear quartz is a “perfect crystal for plotting out new beginnings.” And bloodstone—which is a dark green with red splatters—“helps you to see how essential the fate of the earth is, and take your intention seriously.”

I tried to track down the sources of crystals sold on popular websites. I found that some were mined in countries with notoriously lax labor and environmental regulations, and some came from large-scale U.S. mines that have contaminated ecosystems and drinking water.

Crystal sellers don’t want to talk about where their products come from. Goop, actress Gwyneth Paltrow’s lifestyle company, didn’t respond to requests for comment about the eight small healing crystals in its $85 “medicine bag” or its $84 water bottle containing “an obelisk-like amethyst crystal to infuse water with positive energy.”

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, for example, children as young as seven work the mines, and cobalt and copper mines in the country’s Katanga region are rich in minerals like tourmaline, amethyst, citrine, blue and smoky quartz—all coveted by healing crystal sellers.

Related:

• Sarah Silverman talks about the jewel that she wants, which requires “deboning Ethiopian babies”

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