Meet Donnel Baird, Time Magazine's first-ever Dreamer of the Year

I'm postponing blogging about Time Magazine's Icon and Athlete of the Year because Time uploaded Meet the First-Ever Dreamer of the Year yesterday.

Meet the First-Ever Dreamer of the Year: Donnel Baird, CEO of BlocPower. Donnel's story demonstrates how the pursuit of one dream can empower the dreams of thousands. His company BlocPower, a clean energy tech company generating climate resilience and community wealth, is changing lives one building at a time.

Hey, look, another Crazy Eddie! I approve!

While this video is the first time I've heard of Donnel Baird, it isn't his first time being covered by the media. The Weather Channel told his story in Faces of Change: Donnel Baird almost two years ago.

Learn about Donnel Baird's tech start-up, which replaces old, wasteful heating systems with modern, green technology.

I appreciate showing both the graphic of how much of global carbon dioxide emissions come from heating buildings and the heat pump installed at St. Bartholomew's Episcopal Church. Numbers, technology, and solutions — yay!

Time covered Baird earlier this year as one of the guests in Sara Menker and Donnel Baird: Climate Change Is a Crisis, But It's Solvable.

The world is facing a climate crisis, and parts of the U.S. energy system are collapsing at this very moment, ecopreneurs Sara Menker and Donnel Baird warned the audience at the TIME 100 Summit during a panel discussion moderated by Simon Mulcahy, the President of Sustainability at TIME.

Ecopreneur — now that's a word that I should not only read more often, but use more often. Thanks, Time, for expanding my vocabulary.

I'm looking forward to seeing future Dreamers of the Year. In the meantime, stay tuned for Time Magazine's Icon of the Year. Speaking of Time, it's time to grade final exams. See you tomorrow!

PBS NewsHour and CNN report on nuclear fusion breakthrough

I mentioned that "nuclear fusion passed an important milestone" and "I plan on writing more about that in the near future." Watch PBS NewsHour report on the achievement in Breakthrough in nuclear fusion technology could dramatically alter clean energy landscape.

For the first time, scientists have produced a fusion reaction that created more energy than was expended, a breakthrough to tap into the same kind of energy that powers the sun and stars. It could have huge implications for potentially creating clean and limitless energy. Science Correspondent Miles O’Brien joined Judy Woodruff to discuss what was achieved and what still needs to happen.

Miles O'Brian saying that nuclear fusion has been twenty years away for as long as he's been following the topic is more optimistic than the thirty to thirty-five years I cited a decade ago.* However, I think that optimism is actually warranted now. Also, while the U.S. can claim this milestone, we are not alone, as Stephen Dean pointed out. Researchers from other countries could beat us to making nuclear fusion a practical source of energy. While that doesn't bother me as a scientist, it worries me as an American.

Bill Nye echoed those concerns on CNN in Bill Nye explains why nuclear fusion breakthrough is a big deal.

For the first time in history, US scientists at the National Ignition Facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California successfully produced a nuclear fusion reaction resulting in a net energy gain. Science educator Bill Nye explains why this is such a big breakthrough.

Everything you say, Bill, I agree.

Stephen Colbert's monologue Tuesday night prompted me to write this, so it's only appropriate I return to his show for There Were Many Attempts To Achieve A Fusion Reaction Before The Breakthrough.

Considering nearly 200 lasers were used, someone could have probably seen this coming.

Meow. BOOM!

I probably will include this advancement in a planned 2022 year in science post. Until then, stay tuned for Time Magazine's Icon and Athlete of the Year.

*The couple who sold my ex-wife and I our first house in Ann Arbor worked for a company working on fusion power that went under. That was thirty-one years ago. I wonder what they think of this announcement.

Colbert begins his monologue covering Biden signing the Respect For Marriage Act

I haven't blogged much, if at all, about marriage equality since I posted Good news from the Supreme Court this week more than seven years ago. However, the overturning of Roe v. Wade put marriage equality and even interracial marriage in jeopardy. I can stop worrying, as Stephen Colbert called yesterday A Great Day For Love! Biden Signs Respect For Marriage Act | GOP Traitors Wanted “Marshall Law”.

Drag queens were in attendance at The White House today to celebrate the signing of the Respect For Marriage Act, and leaked messages reveal 34 GOP members of Congress texted Mark Meadows about plans to overturn the 2020 election.

Not only is the Respect For Marriage Act now law, but nuclear fusion passed an important milestone. I plan on writing more about that in the near future. In the meantime, I'm celebrating with Professor Farnsworth.


Good news, everyone!

Blackpink is Time's Entertainer of the Year for 2022

Finally, after all the promising, I'm following through on blogging about Time Magazine's Entertainer of the Year. Watch Blackpink: TIME Entertainer of the Year 2022.

Normal as they may be, their 2022 has been anything but. They appeared at the VMAs in August, performing their hit single “Pink Venom,” and onstage during their latest blockbuster world tour, which kicked off in October and will hit 27 cities over nine months. Shows sold out in minutes and were attended by tens of thousands of fans, including celebrities like Selena Gomez and Usher. The foursome released its highly anticipated second studio album, Born Pink, in September, which notched a record as the best-selling album by a Korean girl group, with over 2 million album sales. It continues to dominate on YouTube, where Blackpink is the biggest musical act with over 83 million subscribers.

Congratulations to Blackpink for this honor. Not only are they Entertainers of the Year, their video is the most viewed, beating Volodymyr Zelenskyy's for Person of the Year. Once again, Americans and others priorities are on display. That's the good news. The bad news is that, unlike Olivia Rodrigo, 2021's Entertainer of the Year, Blackpink has no Grammy nominations. They did have two People's Choice Award nominations for The Group of 2022 and The Music Video of 2022, but they lost the first to BTS — at least another K-Pop group won — and the second to "Anti-Hero" by Taylor Swift. Both of the winners have Grammy nominations. Maybe next year.

As consolation, I'm sharing the nominated video, BLACKPINK - ‘Pink Venom’ M/V.


I plan on blogging about the actual Grammy nominees later. In the meantime, stay tuned for the Icon and Athlete of the Year to close out this series.

I leave my readers with Blackpink's Time cover.

Twenty-one years of gingerbread houses from Haunted Mansion Holiday for Gingerbread House Day 2022

Happy Gingerbread House Day! I celebrated the day three years ago in Walt Disney World's gingerbread houses for National Gingerbread House Day. This year, I'm traveling from Florida to California with Fastpass Facts' The Evolution of Haunted Mansion Gingerbread Houses.

Because you asked for it, today we'll be revisiting the Evolution of the Haunted Mansion Holiday's Gingerbread Houses, adding the ones that we were missing since 2019!

Welcome to the "scary Christmas house," the perfect place to celebrate Creepmas (hat/tip to Infidel753 for introducing me to the concept).


I will return with more holiday posts after I fulfill my promise to blog about Time Magazine's Entertainer of the Year. Stay tuned.

SNL's 'Weekend Update' recaps the news from the first full week of December 2022

I know, I promised I would cover Entertainer of the Year as the Sunday entertainment feature three times, but I couldn't resist last night's episode of "Saturday Night Live." Besides, looking back at the year meant I was ignoring last week's news after Raphael Warnock won re-election in Georgia and there was a lot of news to cover. Watch Weekend Update: Trump Claims Constitution Should Be Terminated, Brittney Griner Freed - SNL.

Weekend Update anchors Colin Jost and Michael Che tackle the week's biggest news, like Kyrsten Sinema leaving the Democratic party.

I was going to blog about Colbert, Meyers, and Kimmel ridiculing The Former Guy calling for the termination of the Constitution so he could be re-instated, but I wasn't feeling it, so I posted MSNBC's Steve Kornacki examines today's Senate runoff election in Georgia instead. I guess I couldn't avoid the topic any more.

Speaking of avoiding things, Kyrsten Sinema becoming an independent means she will avoid a Democratic primary that she was likely to lose. It also means I will have to create a new version of the following image and write new commentary about the first independent female U.S. Senator.

By the way, Manchin and Sinema are the two most moderate/conservative Democratic U.S. Senators as the above chart from Voteview shows. The blue dots to the left of their names shows their ideological positions according to DW-Nominate, the same source I used to rank Democratic presidential candidates from left to center. Just to emphasize the point, Manchin's page calls him "the most conservative Democrat of the 117th Senate" and Sinema's page describes her as "more conservative than 97% of Democrats in the 117th Senate." Sinema was also the most conservative Democrat in the 115th Congress when she left the House of Representatives in 2018. Neither were ever true liberals, despite Sinema being a member of the Green Party.

From now on, Voteview will plot Double-Doctor Sinema's ideological position with a black dot, just as it does for Angus King of Maine and Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Also, the second most conservative/moderate Democratic Senator is now Mark Kelly, the other Senator from Arizona. At least that distinction hasn't left the Grand Canyon state.

Enough of that aside. Here's the second segment of Weekend Update, Chris Christie’s Niece Attacks Latino Family, France Gives Out Free Condoms.


Weekend Update anchors Colin Jost and Michael Che tackle the week's biggest news, like a woman leaving 3 buckets of human waste at a police station.

I haven't mentioned Chris Christie on my blog for more than two years, so leave it to his relatives to get me to do that. Also, the R. Kelly story is enough to qualify this as an entertainment update. Finally, apologies to my French readers about the deodorant joke. I want you to keep reading.

Last night's episode had lots of Christmas content and I expect next week's episode will as well. I plan on compiling them into a holiday post like I did for Halloween content in David Pumpkins returns as 'Saturday Night Live' celebrates Halloween 2022. I will also post Time Magazine's Entertainer of the Year after I blog about Gingerbread House Day tomorrow. Stay tuned.

Time introduces the 2022 Nobel Prize winners plus the Innovator of the Year for Nobel Prize Day

As I promised twice, I'm covering the Innovator of the Year for Nobel Prize Day today, but I'm saving that for after I feature the this year's prize winners themselves. Watch Meet the 2022 Nobel Prize Winners from Time Magazine.

The Peace Prize is one of six awards established by Swedish chemist (and inventor of dynamite) Alfred Nobel in 1895. The prize is considered the most expansive in its recognition, given that it awards people “who have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind.”

As I wrote last year, "The Peace Prize recipients generally piss people off and I'm O.K. with that as long they piss off the right people. I think this year's prize qualifies." So does this year's and I'm O.K. with that.

If one counted the categories carefully in the first video, one would have noticed Time Magazine only covered five, the ones actually created by Alfred Nobel himself. The sixth prize recognizes economics; it was created decades later by the Bank of Sweden, named in honor of Nobel, and is administered by the Nobel Foundation.* The Economic Times reported on the announcement in Former Fed Chair Ben Bernanke along with two academics awarded the 2022 Nobel Prize in Economics.

Douglas W. Diamond, economist at the University of Chicago, and Philip H. Dybvig at Washington University in St. Louis won the prize alongside Mr Bernanke for the role banks play during financial turmoil.

While I had fun with Bernanke when he was Chairman of the Federal Reserve, calling him Helicopter Ben, I have the same opinion of his winning this award that I did when Robert Shiller won the economics prize in 2013 — he deserves it and it's about time.

Speaking of time, pun intended, here is the recognition I've been telegraphing for two days: The James Webb Telescope Team: TIME Innovator of the Year 2022, which might contribute to future Nobel prizes.

The James Webb telescope has come to represent something larger and grander than all of us. The long effort to get the spacecraft built, the mission it was assigned—searching for clues to the very origins of the universe—have worked a certain transcendent good. From the hands of a team of thousands of researchers, engineers, and factory-line workers came a ship that, if it doesn’t exactly kick open the doors to the secrets of the cosmos, at least parts the curtain. “This beautiful machine,” says senior project scientist John Mather, “has worked in every way that it was supposed to work.”

Consider this a down payment on the entry about the James Webb Space Telescope I promised in 2021 in space from NASA, ESA, and Reuters. I expect to write the rest of it when I recap the year in space for 2022. In the meantime, congratulations to all the winners and stay tuned for the Entertainers of the Year as the Sunday entertainment feature.

*A more literal translation of Sveriges Riksbank is Swedish Royal Bank, but the official translation is Bank of Sweden, so I'm going with that.

The Women of Iran are Time's Heroes of the Year for 2022

After recognizing Volodymyr Zelenskyy named Time's Person of the Year for 2022 yesterday, it's time, pun intended, to acknowledge the Women of Iran: TIME Heroes of the Year 2022.

Younger women are now in the streets. The movement they’re leading is educated, liberal, secular, raised on higher expectations, and desperate for normality: college and foreign travel, decent jobs, rule of law, access to the Apple Store, a meaningful role in politics, the freedom to say and wear whatever. They are quite unlike those who came before them; sometimes they feel more like transnational Gen Z than Iranians: they are vegans, they de-Islamicize their names, they don’t want children. I’ve often wondered what has made them so rebellious, because their ferocious character was evident well before 22-year-old Mahsa (Jina) Amini, arrested at a metro station by the morality police who enforce the dress code, died after being held in their custody on Sept. 16, setting off the most sustained uprising in the 43-year history of the Islamic Republic. The average age of arrested protesters is notably low—Iranian officials estimate as young as 15. I can only conclude that when a generation’s aspirations for freedom appear tantalizingly within reach, the more humiliating the remaining restrictions seem, and the less daunting the final stretch of resistance feels.

Just like Vaccine scientists being named Time Magazine's Heroes of the Year, the women of Iran were being considered for Persons of the Year, but earned this recognition instead. I think it makes for an apt and fitting consolation prize.

Time Magazine uploaded a second video about this honor, Angelina Jolie Interviews Activist Roya Piraei.

TIME Contributing Editor Angelina Jolie interviews activist Roya Piraei, whose mother, Minoo Majidi, was was killed in Iran in September. Thousands continue to protest the repressive regime there. The protests began in September, when 22-year-old Mahsa (Jina) Amini died in police custody, after being arrested for not wearing her hijab properly.

The Women of Iran are TIME's 2022 Heroes of the Year.

I found that moving and personalized the movement well. Also, I didn't know that Angelina Jolie is a contributing editor for Time. It's always a good day when I learn something new.

I plan to return tomorrow with the Innovator of the Year for Nobel Prize Day tomorrow and Entertainers of the Year as the Sunday entertainment feature. Stay tuned. In the meantime, here is the Time Magazine cover image for Heroes of the Year.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy named Time's Person of the Year for 2022

It's time, pun intended, to begin my look back at the year about to end with the Today Show's reveal that Volodymyr Zelenskyy Is Time's Person Of The Year For 2022.*

Edward Felsenthal, editor-in-chief of Time, exclusively reveals on TODAY the magazine’s pick for its 2022 Person of the Year: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the spirit of Ukraine.

I'll get to the Women of Iran as Heroes of the Year tomorrow. In the meantime, watch Time Magazine's own video, Volodymyr Zelensky and the Spirit of Ukraine: TIME Person of the Year 2022.

Zelensky’s success as a wartime leader has relied on the fact that courage is contagious. It spread through Ukraine’s political leadership in the first days of the invasion, as everyone realized the President had stuck around. If that seems like a natural thing for a leader to do in a crisis, consider historical precedent. Only six months earlier, the President of Afghanistan, Ashraf Ghani—a far more experienced leader than Zelensky—fled his capital as Taliban forces approached. In 2014, one of Zelensky’s predecessors, Viktor Yanukovych, ran away from Kyiv as protesters closed in on his residence; he still lives in Russia today. Early in the Second World War, the leaders of Albania, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Greece, Poland, the Netherlands, Norway, and Yugoslavia, among others, fled the advance of the German Wehrmacht and lived out the war in exile.

There wasn’t much in Zelensky’s biography to predict his willingness to stand and fight. He had never served in the military or shown much interest in its affairs. He had only been President since April 2019. His professional instincts derived from a lifetime as an actor on the stage, a specialist in improv comedy, and a producer in the movie business.

That experience turned out to have its advantages. Zelensky was adaptable, trained not to lose his nerve under pressure. He knew how to read a crowd and react to its moods and expectations. Now his audience was the world. He was determined not to let them down.

I think Zelenskyy is an excellent choice and I hope this honor ages better than Elon Musk as Time Magazine's Person of the Year for 2021. That's not looking as good now as it did then. On the other hand, Lizzo as Time's 2019 Entertainer of the Year still holds up well three years later.

Speaking of Entertainer of the Year, I'll get to them for the Sunday entertainment feature after I write about the Women of Iran as Heroes of the Year tomorrow and the Innovator of the Year on Saturday for Nobel Prize Day. Stay tuned.

*I'll be frank; I selected this video and placed it first as much for its preview image as for its content. I'm not above such petty considerations in my blogging.

MSNBC reporting on Warnock winning the Georgia Senate runoff

I closed MSNBC's Steve Kornacki examines today's Senate runoff election in Georgia by telling my readers "'Trevor Noah asked 'Who Is Herschel Walker?' The answer may turn out to be someone enough Georgia Republicans won't vote for that Raphael Warnock gets re-elected. Here's to that happening tonight. Stay tuned." It happened. Watch BREAKING: Warnock Defeats Walker In Georgia Senate Runoff, NBC News Projects.

Jason Johnson, politics professor at Morgan State University reports live amid a jubilant crows of Warnock supporters explaining, "The feeling here isn't just elation, they think they just saved the country."

Wow! That's quite the sentiment, but I feel they may be right, at least for now.

Listen to the winner speak and his audience respond in Warnock Celebrates Win: 'The People Have Spoken'.

Sen. Raphael Warnock thanks supporters and reflected on his mother's history in a speech after his projected win the in Georgia Senate runoff race.

That is one happy crowd!

I conclude with an analysis of Warnock's win in Steve Kornacki: Changing Demographics In Atlanta Area Helped Warnock's Campaign.

Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock defeated Republican football star Herschel Walker on Tuesday in Georgia’s Senate runoff election, NBC News projects, handing President Joe Biden and his party a key win. Warnock’s victory will give Democrats an outright majority in the Senate after two years under a 50-50 divide, with Vice President Kamala Harris casting tie-breaking votes. Steve Kornacki discusses Warnock's win.

As I usually write about awards shows, electorates matter and the electorate in Georgia is changing to favor Democrats over Republicans, although it only helped determine the winner in this particular contest this year. That's not to take anything away from Senator Warnock and his campaign. Congratulations to Senator Warnock and his campaign staff and volunteers!