Good morning, CivMixers. The middle of the week has arrived.
On this day in 1928, Mickey Mouse made his screen debut in a short film called “Steamboat Willie.” It is, perhaps, not one of his best known appearances, and also almost didn’t occur at all.
Though Mickey is today THE iconic figure associated with Disney, he very nearly didn’t exist. He was created merely to replace Walt Disney’s first successful creation, Oswald the Rabbit, (you remember him, right?) who was made by the Disney studio for Charles Mintz, a film producer and distributer through Universal Studios.
Mintz was asked by Disney to increase the studio’s budget, and he, in turn, told Disney to take a 20 percent pay cut. Disney refused and ended up decamping to strike out on his own.
He didn’t, however, have the rights to Oswald, and so was inspired to create Mickey – first known as “Mortimer Mouse” until Disney’s wife, Lillian, convinced him to change it, thankfully – based on a tamed mouse at his desk at Laugh-O-Gram Studio in Kansas City, Missouri.
Though Mickey is a big star today, his first two on-screen appearances were flops.
“Steamboat Willy”, first released in New York (!), was co-directed by Disney and Ub Iwerks. It was intended to be a parody of Buster Keaton’s “Steamboat Bill, Jr.”, and was the third Mickey film produced, but the first to find a distributor.
Happy Birthday, Mouse! You’ve come a very long way.
Of course, Disney is about a lot more than Mickey these days, and their theme parks have really taken a hit as a result of the pandemic. Its streaming platform, Disney Plus, has just celebrated its one-year anniversary (or Plusiversary, as Disney likes to call it), and that is doing quite well. So don’t shed any years for Mickey & Co. They’re doing just fine.
I happen to be rather directionally challenged. OK, to be perfectly honest, I am frequently lost – both metaphorically and literally. So it was with considerable interest that I discovered today is GIS Day, which celebrates the scientific framework for gathering, analyzing, and visualizing geographic data to help us make better decisions.
This turns out to be kind of a big deal, and something that is widely observed around the globe, though I confess I had never heard of it before. Perhaps that explains a lot?
In case you’re curious, common geoprocessing operations include geographic feature overlay, feature selection and analysis, topology processing, raster processing, and data conversion.
The first application of the concept occurred in 1832, but GIS history views Roger Tomlinson as its pioneer. Its first iteration was designed to store, collate, and analyze data about land usage in Canada.
If you’re planning on heading outside today, make sure you bundle up. It’s going to be downright cold, with temperatures in the low 30s. It will be sunny, though, so that’s something.
Also, I read this yesterday and was immediately very concerned. I am choosing, however, to willfully ignore it. Because I only have so much bandwidth for worry, and it’s pretty much full these days. Like, chock full.
In other news…
President Donald Trump fired the Department of Homeland Security official who had rejected Trump’s claims of widespread voter fraud: Chris Krebs, the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
Trump made it quite clear that Kerbs’ dismissal was a result of his statement that there “is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.” (Though abrupt, this was not a complete surprise).
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court threw out one of the Trump campaign’s longest-running post-election complaints yesterday, ruling that officials in Philadelphia did not violate state law by maintaining at least 15 feet of separation between observers and the workers counting ballots.
Michigan’s largest county has reversed course and unanimously certified its presidential election results after Republicans first blocked the move in a party-line vote that threatened to temporarily stall official approval of Democrat Joe Biden’s win in the state.
Arizona’s state Republican Party has filed a lawsuit asking a judge to stop officials in Maricopa County, the most populous area of the state, from certifying its election results while legal challenges to the results are ongoing.
As Trump’s legal efforts challenging the election results continue to hit dead ends, his campaign and legal teams have reportedly descended into chaos behind the scenes as many brace for the end of the post-election fight.
Michael Conway, former counsel, U.S. House Judiciary Committee, argues: “If (Biden) hopes to fulfill his pledge to unify the nation, he should do the unthinkable and pardon Donald Trump.”
U.S. Senate Republicans failed to secure enough votes to advance the confirmation of Judy Shelton to a seat on the Federal Reserve’s board of governors as two GOP senators were absent because of coronavirus-related health precautions.
The White House’s latest holiday guidance is to bring older family members to your Thanksgiving celebrations if you think it’s the last one they will be alive to enjoy. (This directly contradicts what many other experts – like the CDC – and elected officials are saying).
Dr. Scott Atlas, a neuroradiologist with no experience in public health, said: “For many people this is their final Thanksgiving, believe it or not. We have to have a policy…which is a whole person policy. It’s not just about stopping cases of Covid.”
The president and the first lady will be spending Thanksgiving at the White House instead of attending the annual dinner at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida.
Biden, meanwhile, said he and his family are planning a scaled-down Thanksgiving get-together of no more than 10 people, per health guidelines, while all will be wearing masks, socially distanced and tested beforehand.
Cops in New York City won’t be busting up your family’s Thanksgiving dinner if you flout the state’s 10-person cap on parties and gatherings, Mayor Bill de Blasio said.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s order limiting gatherings in homes to 10 people was met with a backlash from law enforcement, particularly in Republican areas.
From California to Pennsylvania, governors and mayors across the U.S. are ratcheting up COVID-19 restrictions amid the resurgence of the COVID-19 virus that could affect holiday travel and family gatherings over Thanksgiving.
Biden has privately told advisers that he doesn’t want his presidency to be consumed by investigations of his predecessor, despite pressure from some Democrats who want inquiries into Trump, his policies and members of his administration.
A plurality of voters say Trump should concede the presidential race to Biden, according to a new Politico/Morning Consult poll.
Biden continues to fill top positions in his cabinet, even though Trump still hasn’t conceded and the transition continues to be impeded as a result.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said that the U.S. will have an “orderly” transfer of power in January amid Trump’s attempts to fight the 2020 election results in court and to spread allegations of widespread voter fraud.
Rep. Tom Reed was the only Republican in New York’s current congressional delegation who confirmed with The Times that he recognized Biden as the president-elect.
Biden said there should be “immediate” congressional action on student loans, after Democrats suggested he should sign an executive order to forgive student debt.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi is on track to keep her post, but with a slim majority that leaves little room for defections, party divisions could prove disastrous. Republicans can’t wait to exploit them.
Democratic Colorado Rep. Ed Perlmutter announced that he’s tested positive for COVID-19, becoming the latest House lawmaker to be diagnosed with the virus.
Republican Iowa Sen. Charles E. Grassley, 87, the oldest member of the chamber and the president pro tempore of the Senate, which makes him the third in line of succession to the presidency, revealed that he has contracted the coronavirus.
What is threatening to become a mini-outbreak on Capitol Hill has already disrupted the business of Congress.
Indiana Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb and first lady Janet Holcomb are quarantining after several members of his security detail tested positive for COVID-19, his office announced.
The Food and Drug Administration has approved the first rapid at-home COVID-19 test.
How long might immunity to the coronavirus last? Years, maybe even decades, according to a new study.
Seven people combined to steal $16 million in coronavirus relief funds and spent some of it on fancy cars, including a Lamborghini Gallardo and a Porsche, the Justice Department said.
A surge of new coronavirus cases in the U.S. is sending people back to stores to stockpile again, leaving shelves bare and forcing retailers to put limits on purchases.
U.S. retail sales rose in October at their slowest pace since the spring, another sign the nation’s economic recovery is losing steam as coronavirus cases surge across the country.
Walmart’s quarterly sales rose at a slower pace than earlier in the coronavirus pandemic even as shoppers continued to buy up food and cleaning supplies and the retailer pushed early holiday deals.
The chief executives of Facebook and Twitter told federal lawmakers they did better in fending off election interference in 2020, while acknowledging mistakes and signaling an openness to more regulation.
Twitter is launching a new feature that will allow users to post text, audio and video that disappears after 24 hours, one of a number of steps the company is taking to increase engagement and compete with similar offerings on other platforms.
Hit hard by job losses and the pandemic’s effect on schooling and child care, American women face short-term difficulties and long-term repercussions.
Parades will be prohibited at New Orleans’ Mardi Gras celebration in 2021 to limit the spread of the coronavirus, Mayor LaToya Cantrell’s office said.
North Dakota’s coronavirus mortality rate is the highest of any U.S. state or country, according to an analysis of data from last week conducted by the Federation of American Scientists.
More than 2,000 New Yorkers are hospitalized as a result of the coronavirus in New York state for the first time since the summer — and that rate has been steadily increasing for weeks, data shows.
Massachusetts is reporting more than 2,000 new cases of the coronavirus. State health officials say 29 of those new cases are in Berkshire County.
Doctors who have been treating coronavirus patients from the pandemic’s earliest days in the U.S. said they are now better equipped to face a new rise in hospitalizations.
The strong early results for two leading Covid-19 vaccines have implications that go far beyond the current pandemic: They suggest the time has come for a gene-based technology that could provide new treatments for cancer, heart disease and other infectious diseases.
Dolly Parton donated $1 million to fund research for a coronavirus vaccine. After a promising announcement from a major drugmaker, fans are crediting her with helping to save the world from the virus.
Cuomo said the speedy process by which coronavirus vaccine trials are being rolled out are being driven both by Trump’s ego and the profit motivation of the drug companies manufacturing the vaccines.
If a state panel he created corroborates vaccine data, Cuomo said he’d work to promote trust in it and would probably be the first person to take it.
People are so hellbent on getting a COVID-19 vaccine that Walgreens locations across the nation, including in New York, were forced to put up signs saying the booster is not yet on the market.
More than one in three New Jersey residents said they wouldn’t be vaccinated for Covid-19 when a safe vaccine is available, according to a survey, despite a second surge of new cases in the state.
While Broadway remains closed because of the coronavirus pandemic, theater professionals expressed hope during a recent three-day virtual conference that the industry can rebound sooner rather than later, particularly with vaccines in the works.
Multiple mouthwashes containing certain active ingredients “eradicated” the coronavirus in lab tests conducted on synthetic saliva, British scientists claim in a new study shared online this week.
Despite the governor’s privacy concerns about federal vaccine plans, he has yet to act on a bill passed unanimously by state lawmakers nearly four months ago that would block police and immigration authorities from accessing the personal data gathered by contact tracers.
Cuomo will be getting a $25,000 pay raise in January 2021, as the state faces a massive $63 billion budget deficit owed to revenue losses tied to the coronavirus pandemic, but judges and state lawmakers won’t get their scheduled salary bumps.
Cuomo’s top aide, Melissa DeRosa, turned the tables on a failed-journalist ex-con from Brooklyn who became obsessed and started threatening her.
A federal court in Buffalo has weighed in on the side of music venues and musicians who oppose Cuomo’s coronavirus-related restrictions on live music.
Weekday subway service could be nearly chopped in half and over 9,000 transit workers could lose their jobs under an MTA budget proposal being presented to the agency’s board today.
The potential cuts could be mitigated if the transit agency receives a hefty $12 billion from the federal government as part of a new COVID-19 relief package.
MTA Chairman Pat Foye called Biden’s White House win “a positive” — but warned that the agency’s chances of getting a $12 billion federal bailout still rest with control of the U.S. Senate.
Shootings in New York City have nearly doubled this year, New York Police Department officials said, while arrests for major crimes have plummeted.
The Big Apple’s heavily touted coronavirus tracing program is having trouble tracking down sources of at least 80 percent of the COVID-19 infections in New York City, de Blasio acknowledged.
New York City parents again breathed a sigh of relief yesterday after de Blasio said public schools would remain open another day because the city’s rate of new Covid-19 cases continued to stay below the threshold for stopping in-person instruction.
Landlords will now be required to retrofit some buildings with rent-stabilized apartments under a bill signed into law by de Blasio on Tuesday, which expands on the city’s “Green New Deal” legislation passed last year.
New York City’s biggest police union, PBA, sent a message to state Senate Deputy Majority Leader Mike Gianaris, warning that he should watch his back. Gianaris called the move “threatening.”
Two weeks after Election Day, 11 races for the U.S. House of Representatives do not have a clear or projected winner. Seven of those races are in New York.
As absentee ballots continue to be counted, races across the state are tipping in Democrats’ favor, and they might yet pick up a supermajority in the state Senate.
Embattled Brooklyn Assemblywoman Mathylde Frontus has pulled ahead of her Republican rival — an apparent supporter of the QAnon conspiracy theory — after mail-in votes were counted in her district.
A prominent Brooklyn couple was sued by the city for allegedly trying to kick tenants out of their building in spite of a pause on evictions during the pandemic.
At a meeting of New York’s ethics enforcement agency, commissioners appointed by Cuomo killed a measure that would have required more scrutiny of state officials’ requests to earn outside income, which arose out of questions around his new COVID book.
As indoor dining is curbed due to the ongoing pandemics, food trucks are doing a brisk business.
Co-founders of Feed Albany, the not-for-profit organization that since the coronavirus pandemic started has provided 150,000 meals for individuals who are at risk or in need, have launched another relief effort, this one for restaurant employees.
As COVID-19 cases continue to rise sharply in the Capital Region, thousands of local college students are preparing to leave town next week for the Thanksgiving holiday, followed by a prolonged winter break.
Teachers being quarantined due to their contact with coronavirus-infected individuals has forced some Capital Region school districts to switch to remote instruction to curb the spread of the disease.
The tradition in recent years of fireworks being shot off the night before Thanksgiving will continue in Bethlehem this year despite the coronavirus pandemic — but the location will change.
Union College has cancelled its 2020-2021 ice hockey season due to the pandemic – one day after RPI did the same thing.
After three people in the Albany school district were diagnosed with COVID-19, a total of 55 students or staff at seven Albany elementary and middle schools are now quarantining or isolating at home, district officials said.
Disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein, 68, has come down with a fever while behind bars and is being tested for the coronavirus.
Star instructors at SoulCycle allegedly made racist and homophobic comments on the job, had sex with clients, and fat shamed co-workers, according to a new investigative report.
A theater at Jacob’s Pillow, a destination for dance performance in Becket, Mass., was destroyed yesterday in an early morning fire.
Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan flipped the switch yesterday for the 24th annual Price Chopper/Market 32 Capital Holiday Lights in the Park.
A collection of 350 backstage passes amassed by the Times Union Center’s General Manager Bob Belber are being auctioned off to raise money for the arena’s furloughed staff. He hopes it sells for $100,000, but thus far bidding is at $24,000.
Actor Michael B. Jordan has been crowned as 2020’s Sexiest Man Alive by People magazine.
Barry the barred owl is Central Park’s new celebrity bird.
