Monday, February 12, 2024

Are you seeing news reports of voting problems? 4 essential reads on election disinformation

Published in The Conversation
A voter emerges from a voting booth in New Hampshire in January 2024. AP Photo/David Goldman
Jeff Inglis, The Conversation

In certain circles, the 2020 presidential election isn’t over – and that seems to be at least a little bit true. In recent weeks, official reviews of election records and processes from the 2020 presidential election have reported findings that might be used to spread rumors about voting integrity.

For instance, election officials in Virginia’s Prince William County announced on Jan. 11, 2024, that 4,000 votes from the 2020 presidential election had been miscounted. None of them changed the results. Those miscounts gave Donald Trump 2,327 more votes than he actually got, and Joe Biden 1,648 votes fewer. Errors in counting turned up in other races, too, with both parties’ candidates for U.S. Senate being given fewer votes than they actually received, and a Republican who won a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives actually won by a slightly larger margin than previously reported.

An audit of South Carolina’s 2020 voting records released in mid-January found no fraud and no indication any election results could have been different with the errors that were identified. But the report did recommend election officials cross-check lists of registered voters with other state lists more frequently than they have done in the past. Death reports and prison inmate rolls can help them determine who should remain eligible to voter and who should be removed from voting lists, the report said.

The Conversation U.S. has published several articles about the systems protecting election integrity. Here are four examples from our archives.

A Trump campaign poll watcher films the counting of ballots at the Allegheny County, Pa., elections warehouse
A Trump campaign poll watcher films the counting of ballots at the Allegheny County, Penn., elections warehouse in 2020 in Pittsburgh. Jeff Swensen/Getty Images

1. Changing numbers are evidence of transparency, not fraud

The news reports of election audits came, originally, from election officials themselves, who specified they were below the small margins that would have triggered recounts. The reports also offered explanations for what had happened and how to fix it in the future – and included statements that at least some of the problems had already been fixed for upcoming elections.

That’s an example of what Kristin Kanthak, a political scientist at the University of Pittsburgh, was talking about when she explained that election results that change over time aren’t inherently a problem:

(T)his doesn’t mean the system is ‘rigged.’ Actually, it means the system is transparent to a fault,” she wrote.

2. Easier voting is not a threat to election integrity

Erecting obstacles to voting will not prevent the problems that do exist in the election system, for the simple reason that the flaws are not a result of easier voting methods, such as early voting and voting by mail.

Grinnell College political scientist Douglas R. Hess observed that the COVID-19 pandemic was a massive test of whether a secure election could be held with a lot of accommodations that made voting easier, and safer from the spread of disease.

As he wrote,

“(E)arly voting and voting by mail are targeted for restrictions in many states, even though both reforms are popular with the public, worked securely in 2020 and have been expanded in many states for years without increases in fraud. Likewise, the collection of absentee ballots – a necessity for some voters – can be implemented securely.”

3. It’s possible for election workers to be both partisan and fair-minded

For many years, elections have been run by people who were members of one political party or the other but behaved in good faith to run fair elections, wrote Thom Reilly, a scholar at Arizona State University’s School of Public Affairs.

But both the facts and the rhetoric have changed, he explained, noting that a significant share of the electorate is not a member of either party – so the people who supervise elections, who are typically party members, are “an increasingly partisan set of officials.”

Even so, many of them work hard to conduct fair elections. Yet, he wrote,

(W)idespread misinformation and disinformation on election administration is hobbling the ability of election officials to do their job and has created fertile ground for mistrust.”

A woman with gray hair helps a man with gray hair cast a ballot at a voting machine.
A poll worker helps a voter cast a ballot in the Kansas primary election at Merriam Christian Church on Aug. 2, 2022, in Merriam, Kan. Kyle Rivas/Getty Images

4. Beware those who aim to confuse or mislead

Political disinformation efforts are particularly intense around elections, warn scholars of information warfare Kate Starbird and Jevin West at the University of Washington and Renee DiResta at Stanford University.

Situations to watch out for are those in which “lack of understanding and certainty can fuel doubt, fan misinformation and provide opportunities for those seeking to delegitimize the results,” they wrote.

Specifically, look out for:

Politically motivated individuals (who) are likely to cherry-pick and assemble these pieces of digital "evidence” to fit narratives that seek to undermine trust in the results. Much of this evidence is likely to be derived from real events, though taken out of context and exaggerated.“

They provide a reminder to keep your wits about you and be sure to double-check any claims before believing or sharing them.

This story is a roundup of articles from The Conversation’s archives.The Conversation

Jeff Inglis, Politics + Society Editor, The Conversation

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Monday, November 13, 2023

25 photos that changed the course of history

Collage of 9 iconic photographs.
John T. Daniels; Charles Levy Arthur; Tsang Hin Wah; NASA; Lewis Hine; Joe Rosenthal; John Dominis;Sam Shere // Getty Images
Read the original, including images:

25 photos that changed the course of history

In an era where any novice with a smartphone can take professional-quality photographs, suffice it to say people are taking a lot of pictures. By one estimate, nearly 2 trillion photographs are captured each year—and more than 55,000 every second around the world. Although photographs have become ubiquitous in an age of selfies and social media, they still possess their timeless power to transport us to faraway places, introduce us to compelling people, and—in many instances—even alter the course of history.

Stacker collected 25 examples of images that changed the course of history, whether by advancing technical abilities of photography that enabled more people to engage in it, or by recording moments, items, people, and events that were made more significant because there were images for people to share.

Prior to its widespread use, photography was a technological puzzle. The effort involved chemistry, physics, metallurgy, and all manner of optical devices. Over the years, the equipment got smaller, lighter, and easier to use. By the late 1970s, tens of millions of cameras were sold around the world every year. Since then, the advent of digital photography and the spread of the aforementioned camera-equipped smartphones have put cameras into the hands of more than two of every three people on the planet, according to an industry analysis by Statista.

Photographs and the people who make them have helped billions of people better understand our world and what lies beyond it. Keep reading to discover 25 images that helped shape human perception and understanding of the last 200 years.

View from the Window at Le Gras - Joseph Nicéphore Niépce (c. 1827)

The oldest surviving photograph ever taken took eight hours to expose and shows a view of buildings and trees from a window on the photographer Joseph Nicéphore Niépce's estate.

It marked the beginning of a technological and chemical revolution that led to several other methods of registering images based on chemical reactions that occurred when light hit a specially prepared surface.

Boulevard Du Temple, Paris - Louis-Jacques-Mande Daguerre (1838)

Made by Louis-Jacques-Mande Daguerre, this daguerreotype—an image printed on a silvered copper plate—is believed to be the first photographic image including a living person. Because of the long exposure time required, what would have been a bustling street appears empty except for a person standing still in the lower left, getting his shoes shined by a crouching figure.

Lower Falls, Yellowstone National Park - William Henry Jackson (1871)

William Henry Jackson captured this striking image of the Lower Falls while on an expedition to explore northwestern Wyoming. Reports of what Jackson's group found—geysers, waterfalls, and other geologic wonders—were so incredible the public didn't believe them until photographic proof was made available.

Jackson's photographs of the Lower Falls and other natural wonders in the region helped persuade Americans and Congress to create Yellowstone National Park, the world's first national park.

The Horse in Motion - Eadweard James Muybridge (1877)

This set of photographic images truly paved the way for the film industry.

Eadweard James Muybridge's photos froze time in increments of 1/500th of a second. The photographer achieved this feat by capturing a series of images triggered on separate cameras by tiny threads broken by a moving animal or clockwork system. In addition to settling a controversy of the time—whether a horse ever lifted all its legs off the ground when galloping—Muybridge's work showed people the value of viewing sequences of images taken at short intervals.

Lodgers in Bayard Street Tenement, Five Cents a Spot - Jacob August Riis (1889)

Jacob Riis was an early investigative photojournalist whose 1890 book "How the Other Half Lives" documented the lives of people who lived in the slums of New York City. The book exposed the squalor of the city's tenement dwellings, including this room less than 13 feet long that was home to 12 men and women. The image sparked an investigation into housing conditions and is widely credited with sparking significant social reforms. Riis' legacy is that of being among the first to energize a social movement using photography.

The Wright Brothers First Flight - John T. Daniels (Dec. 17, 1903)

The Wright Brothers were the first to invent a flying vehicle. But to be believed, they needed proof—and proof, less than a century after the earliest recorded photograph, meant snapshots. The brothers set up cameras for all their tests and experiments, but timing was everything. Sometimes they got just a shot of the sky. This time—their first flight, at 10:35 a.m. on Dec. 17, 1903—the timing was perfect, capturing the first flight that was powered, sustained, and controlled.

Sadie Pfeifer, Cotton Mill Spinner - Lewis Wickes Hine (1908)

Inspired by Jacob Riis, Lewis Hine was another photographer who worked for social justice. Hine visited farms, mills, and factories around the country during his work for the National Child Labor Committee, a group that sought to protect children from dangerous working conditions. He photographed children performing tasks they did every day, including Sadie Pfeifer. Pfeifer was 4 feet tall and likely around 9 years old when she was photographed in front of rows of spools in a cotton mill.

Riis' images helped lead to the passage of the country's first laws protecting child workers.

Migrant Mother - Dorothea Lange (March 9, 1936)

One of many iconic photographs made by Depression-era documentary photographer Dorothea Lange, "Migrant Mother" perfectly captures the impact of economic catastrophe on real people's lives. While working for the Farm Security Administration, Lange employed classical artistic principles to draw people's attention to her subjects and their meaning. Her techniques are on full display in this image of destitute pea-picker Florence Owens Thompson, a 32-year-old mother of seven at the time of the photograph.

The image ran in the San Francisco News within days of Lange creating it and quickly became synonymous with Depression-area destitution. Following the photo's publication, the U.S. government sent 20,000 pounds of food to the pea-pickers camp (where Thompson was living) in Nipomo, California.

The Hindenburg Disaster - Sam Shere (May 6, 1937)

The explosion of the Hindenburg in Lakehurst, New Jersey, on May 6, 1937, spelled the end of passenger travel by Zeppelin-style airships. That might not have been the case but for this image, as well as video taken of the tragedy.

Terrifying in its magnitude, and the presumed deaths of many aboard, the image was among the first to show a real failure of advanced technology, highlighting the dangers of the future's promise.

Raising The Flag On Iwo Jima - Joe Rosenthal (Feb. 25, 1945)

Millions saw this famous photograph in newspapers and magazines around the world at the time but also memorialized in bronze at the Marine Corps War Memorial in Washington D.C. It symbolized American fighting strength during the grueling Pacific campaign of World War II and a premature declaration of U.S. triumph over Japanese forces.

Among all the Pacific islands where the U.S. fought Japan, Iwo Jima was the first ruled directly by the Japanese government. Initially, this was seen as a harbinger of victories to come, but the war dragged on for bloody, deadly month after bloody, deadly month.

Historians reflected that the photo made the American public impatient for victory, and therefore more likely to support the terrible destruction of the nuclear attacks on Japan.

Liberation of concentration camps (1945)

As American troops rolled west across Germany in 1945, they encountered prison camps. The camps held horrors so shocking that Gen. Dwight Eisenhower, then the supreme commander of all Allied forces in Europe, insisted on bringing top military brass, journalists, photographers, American political figures, and others—including local residents—to see for themselves what had happened.

The goal for such documentation was to bear public witness, at the time and for all of history, to the horrors of the Nazi regime and the Holocaust.

Mushroom Cloud over Nagasaki - Lieutenant Charles Levy (Aug. 6, 1945)

Only a few people prior to Aug. 6, 1945, had ever seen a nuclear explosion. On that day, when the U.S. dropped the first-ever nuclear attack on Hiroshima, Japan, vast numbers of those who witnessed it died. Three days later, when the U.S. dropped its second bomb on Nagasaki, a member of the flight crew of a plane accompanying the one that dropped the bomb used his personal camera to reveal the massive power of the new weapons. His photograph recorded the 45,000-foot-high mushroom cloud rising over a city where as many as 80,000 people had just died—and many more would die in the coming years from the aftereffects of radiation exposure.

Many other photos of the attacks were censored, but Lt. Charles Levy's image spread worldwide and introduced the mushroom cloud concept.

Emmett Till Funeral - David Jackson (Sept. 15, 1955)

This photo shows Emmett Till just months before white supremacists brutally murdered him in August 1955; at age 14, Till was killed by people who claimed he may have whistled at a white woman in a Mississippi town while on vacation from his home in Chicago.

His lynching and funeral became a key moment in the Civil Rights Movement, in part because his mother insisted on having an open-casket funeral so everyone could see what had been done to the teenager.  David Jackson's horrific image of Till's body, first published in Jet magazine and subsequently more widely distributed, shocked the nation into a deeper awareness of the brutality of racism. An all-white, all-male jury acquitted two white men of his murder in September 1955, but calls for justice continued for decades. The FBI closed the case in 2021—66 years after Till's death—upon concluding it could not prove the woman who had reported Till's alleged whistling had lied.

Guerrillero Heroico - Korda (March 5, 1960)

Cuban photographer Alberto Diaz Gutierrez, better known as Alberto Korda or simply Korda, is pictured here with a print of his iconic portrait of Ernesto "Che" Guevara, an Argentinian Marxist who fought alongside Fidel Casto in the Cuban Revolution. The image did not become famous until Guevara died in 1967, at which point it spread around the world on banners, T-shirts, college dorm posters, stickers, and many other printed materials. In many ways, the portrait is one of the earliest viral images, appearing in all manner of places and uses, peering ferociously into an uncertain future.

Burning Monk - Malcome Browne (June 11, 1963)

The Vietnam War gave rise to many protests, including this act of self-immolation by Buddhist monk Thich Quang Duc in Saigon in June 1963 in protest against the division of Vietnam into north and south. The image—and the act it depicted—shocked the world and reportedly prompted President John F. Kennedy to re-examine the U.S. role in Vietnam, which had until that point been relatively small and advisory. Within a few months, the U.S. backed a coup to overthrow the South Vietnamese government; by the end of 1964, Congress authorized President Lyndon B. Johnson to expand the U.S. military's role in the fighting.

Vietnam Execution - Eddie Adams (Feb. 1, 1968)

Eddie Adams won the 1969 Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography for his image of South Vietnamese Gen. Nguyen Ngoc Loan summarily executing Viet Cong fighter Nguyen Van Lem in Saigon on Feb. 1, 1968. Military analysts later determined that Adams had pressed the shutter on his camera when Loan pulled the trigger. The image, which Adams was conflicted about for the rest of his life, became a symbol of the war's brutality and was used by antiwar protesters in the U.S. to garner more support for ending the war.

Olympics Black Power Salute - John Dominis (October 16, 1968)

Athletes have long used their platforms to make social-issue stances. When U.S. sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos won gold and bronze, respectively, for the 200-meter race in the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, they raised their black-gloved fists on the medal stand during the playing of the "Star-Spangled Banner" to show solidarity with the plight of Black people in the United States.

The silver medal winner, Peter Norman of Australia, did not raise his fist but supported their gesture. For the medal ceremony, he not only recommended they each wear just one glove—they only had one pair with them—but also a button saying "Olympic Project for Civil Rights" given to him by Smith and Carlos. All three found themselves banned from their nations' Olympic teams, just one consequence of their stands for equality.

Earth Rise - Bill Anders (Dec. 24, 1968)

When the astronauts aboard Apollo 8 orbited the Moon on Christmas Eve 1968, they were surprised and moved by a view of the partially illuminated Earth emerging above the lunar landscape. They scrambled to grab a camera containing color film before the angle changed too much.

Bill Anders got the shot of a fragile world in a sea of space, which sparked a massive environmental movement and is credited with inspiring the first Earth Day in 1970. It has been followed by other views from space to give perspective to those on Earth, including the "Pale Blue Dot" image taken from Voyager 1 in 1990, which was one part of the "family portrait" of six of the solar system's planets.

Man on the Moon - Neil Armstrong (July 20, 1969)

Neil Armstrong, the first person to walk on the Moon, took this picture and also appears in it, reflected in the visor of Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin during the first lunar landing. Also reflected in Aldrin's visor are the "Eagle" landing module, where astronaut Michael Collins remained while the other two men walked on the Moon's surface, the U.S. flag they planted there, and even Earth itself as a little blue dot in the lunar sky.

Kent State Shooting - Howard Ruffner (May 4, 1970)

John Filo's iconic image of 14-year-old Mary Ann Vecchio screaming over the body of Jeffrey Miller, one of four people shot dead by the Ohio National Guard during protests against the Vietnam War at Kent State University, gave Americans a sense of the horror and tragedy clearly felt by witnesses, photographed here by Howard Ruffner.

Filo and Ruffner, like Miller, were students at Kent State. Vecchio was visiting the campus.

Napalm Girl - Nick Ut (June 7, 1972)

Known formally as "The Terror of War," a Huynh Cong "Nick" Ut photo of Phan Thi Kim Phuc and other children fleeing from a U.S. attack on their village in Vietnam drove home—again—the human cost of the Vietnam War.

Phan Thi, then 9 years old, was badly burned by napalm. Ut won the 1973 Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography for the image, which he credits with drawing enough publicity to save Pan Thi's life. The little girl spent 14 months in hospitals and was used by Vietnam's communist leaders as an antiwar propaganda figure. In 1992, she was granted asylum by Canada and began a foundation to aid children who are victims of war. This image is of her speaking to an audience in Japan, with the famous image of her projected behind.

Princess Diana with AIDS patient - Anwar Hussein (April 9, 1987)

Among her many humanitarian efforts during her tragically short life, Princess Diana advocated for people with HIV and AIDS. In the 1980s, the virus and the disease were frightening, leading to ostracism of patients, in part because many people did not understand how the disease was transmitted. Health care workers were advised to take so-called "universal precautions" including gloves, masks, and even goggles while working with HIV/AIDS patients.

Diana's simple act of shaking hands with a patient with HIV/AIDS—sitting near him and personally touching him, without gloves—made a clear statement that despite their illness, people with these conditions were safe to be around and interact with. Her striking act of deep humanity helped shift public sentiment away from fear and toward compassion for people with HIV/AIDS.

 

Tank Man - Multiple photographers (June 5, 1989)

Student protests in the spring of 1989 grew across China, demanding the country's communist government provide greater political freedoms and higher standards of living to its people. Protestors' presence in Tiananmen Square, in the heart of Beijing—along with their pro-democratic activities and the sheer length of time they occupied a key civic and cultural landmark—sparked a military response in early June. As tanks rolled in—ultimately killing hundreds, at least—a lone figure carrying a couple of shopping bags, stepped in front of a line of tanks and just stood there. The tank tried to move around him, with the person moving to remain in front of it until two people, presumably police officers, took him away.

Four photographers captured similar versions of the scene: Eddie Cole, Stuart Franklin, Jeff Widener, and Arthur Tsang Hin Wah. No one has ever definitively identified the man who defied an armored column of troops, nor his fate.

Alan Kurdi - Nilüfer Demir (Sept. 2, 2015)

As the multi-year Syrian civil war dragged on into 2015, millions of people were driven from their homes by fighting.

Many escaped to Turkey, ultimately hoping to make it to Europe or North America. In overcrowded boats, the desperate refugees tried to cross the Mediterranean Sea to Greece. Many did not make it.

The body of 3-year-old Alan Kurdi, a Syrian Kurd, washed up on a Turkish beach after the small boat he and his family were in capsized. The photograph put a name and a child's face on what had been a faceless crisis far away from the U.S. and even many Europeans. It galvanized public attention on the Syrian refugee crisis and sparked donations and international political engagement in helping the refugees.

Black Hole - Event Horizon Telescope Project (2019)

Until 2017, nobody had ever seen a black hole. Albert Einstein predicted a black hole to be a collapsed star so extremely dense and with a gravitational field so strong that even light could not escape.

In 2017, an international collaboration of Earth-based telescopes focused its collective attention on the center of M87, a galaxy about 54 million light-years from Earth but large and bright enough that it can be seen through a small telescope on the ground. Putting all their data together formed an image released to the public in 2019 showing a ring of light emitted by matter moving around in an intense gravitational field, with a dark central area.

The perimeter of the black hole can be seen where the light stops and the darkness begins. It is confirmation of more of Einstein's work, a massive breakthrough in humanity's technical and conceptual abilities to explore the universe, and a reminder of how much more there is for people to explore and understand.

Monday, October 30, 2023

25 historic images of Route 66 in its early days

“Historic Route 66” Motel sign at dusk.
Nik Wheeler // Corbis via Getty Images
Read the original, including images:

25 historic images of Route 66 in its early days

With cars rapidly gaining popularity in the early 20th century, an American businessman in Tulsa, Oklahoma, had a vision of a network of highways connecting the whole country.

Starting small in 1901 as a businessman and county commissioner, Cyrus Avery was nominated in 1925 to the newly formed Joint Board on Interstate Highways, a federal agency tasked with coordinating, organizing, and numbering the country's road system.

Officially commissioned on Nov. 11, 1926, and first marked with roadside signs in 1927, Route 66—officially U.S. Highway 66—connected Chicago and Los Angeles, not coincidentally passing through Avery's adopted hometown of Tulsa, Oklahoma. Just 800 of its 2,500 miles were paved in the new route's first year.

Ahead of Route 66's 97th birthday, Stacker curated a slideshow highlighting the construction and early years of the iconic American road.

In Tulsa, highway supporters—including Avery—in 1927 formed the U.S. 66 Highway Association, an advocacy group to promote the new highway to drivers and tourists, as well as to policymakers who could approve funds for paving. The highway became nationally famous and earned the moniker "the Main Street of America."

A major boost to the road's popularity came from John Steinbeck's 1939 book "The Grapes of Wrath," in which the author nicknamed Route 66 "the Mother Road" and chronicled the fictional Joad family's trip along the highway from Dust Bowl Oklahoma to the fruit fields of California. In the economic boom following the Great Depression and World War II, families—lured by history, popular culture, and countless tourist attractions—piled into their vehicles and set out to explore Route 66.

The Interstate Highway Act of 1956 heralded the road's decline, as the smaller U.S. routes were supplanted by massive, multilane interstates. But nostalgia kept the myth alive and even resulted in a resurgence of attention. Much of the original Route 66 received a National Scenic Byway designation, with many stretches featuring tourist attractions, lodging, and food aimed at road-trippers exploring one of America's most iconic roads.

Keep reading to discover more history of the iconic Route 66.

Chicago's bronze lions

Historic Illinois transportation maps show that one end of Route 66 abutted the Michigan Avenue entrance of the Art Institute of Chicago. At the stairs leading up to the institute, a massive pair of bronze lions stare out. Sculpted by 19th-century American artist Edward Kemeys, they mark the historic start of the Mother Road.

Facing another day of the 'Bunion Derby'

In early 1928, in part as a publicity stunt to promote the new highway, Illinois businessman and promoter Charles C. Pyle announced a coast-to-coast footrace from Los Angeles to New York City running the length of Route 66 before shifting to other highways to get farther east. Nicknamed the "Bunion Derby" for the damage it was expected to cause its contestants' feet, the race began on March 4, 1928, and finished on May 26. It was won by Andy Payne of Claremore, Oklahoma, after 573 hours, 4 minutes, and 34 seconds of running, wearing through five pairs of running shoes over more than 3,400 miles.

A Santa Fe street scene

The La Fonda Hotel in Santa Fe, New Mexico, is on the city's central plaza and claims to occupy the site of a hotel dating back to 1607. A luxurious hotel when its current building was built in 1922, generations of Route 66 travelers passed by with some almost certainly staying the night.

'Okies' arrive in California

Traveling "the Mother Road" like the Joads in Steinbeck's novel, Depression- and Dust Bowl-era refugees from Oklahoma sought new opportunities in California. This famous image by iconic photographer Dorothea Lange is described in its Library of Congress record as "Depression refugee family from Tulsa, Oklahoma. Arrived in California June 1936. Mother and three half-grown children; no father."

The original western terminus

When Route 66 was first opened, its western end was at Seventh and Broadway in the heart of downtown Los Angeles. By 1947, when this image was taken, the route had been extended about 15 miles west to central Santa Monica. An unofficial "End of the Trail" marker was erected in 2009 on the Santa Monica Pier.

Outdoor basket-weaving

Route 66 connected many sections of rural America. Especially in the early days of the highway, travelers regularly passed by scenes of everyday life, like these basket-makers weaving white oak strips near Rolla, Missouri, in 1940.

First stop west of Texas

Seen here in 1956, downtown Tucumcari, New Mexico, was a key stopping point for travelers leaving West Texas. Today, the town is home to the New Mexico Route 66 Museum and thoroughly embraces its Route 66 heritage with public art and neon signs.

A desert rest stop

Service stations along Route 66 were essential stop points for motorists in need of fuel or food—particularly along western stretches through the desert in states such as Arizona. These businesses, along with others that sprung up to attract passersby, became key elements of the nation's growing car culture.

Overnight in Victorville?

About 100 miles east of the end of Route 66 was Victorville, with a downtown hotel and shops on the corner of D and 7th. That neighborhood is the subject of a yearslong revitalization effort to reclaim some of its former glory.

Maybe don't follow Bugs Bunny?

Halfway from Albuquerque to the Arizona state line is Grants, New Mexico, seen here in September 1950. Drivers who—like Bugs Bunny in several cartoon episodes—missed a tricky left turn in Albuquerque might have needed help getting back on the right road before reaching Grants. Today, the town is home to an art museum with Route 66 memorabilia as well as exhibits of more modern local art.

The wide-open road

Some of America's love affair with cars and the open road might be due to vistas like this one from New Mexico in 1940: No traffic in sight, a clear sky, mountains in the distance, and a lovely smooth strip of pavement just waiting to be driven.

Iceberg in the desert

Mac's Iceberg Cafe and Gas Station, found on East Central Avenue in Albuquerque, was a classic only-in-America, only-on-Route-66 roadside attraction designed to make a spectacle—and a must-stop destination—for tourists. Of course, ice cream and gas were major attractions of their own for weary travelers.

Heading east

During the early 1940s, the war effort brought people from all over the U.S. to California factories and shipyards. After the war, people headed back to where they came from—including the family pictured here, pulling a trailer behind their vehicle on their way from California to Minnesota less than two weeks after Japan surrendered.

Making connections

Finished in 1965, the Gateway Arch in St. Louis reflected the nation's urge for westward expansion. It was visible to anyone driving on Route 66 across the Mississippi River.

A namesake of the highway

Will Rogers, an Oklahoma native, was an early multimedia star known for performances in vaudeville and Broadway shows, movies, and radio spots, and for writing humorous and sharp political commentary in newspaper columns around the country. A member of the Cherokee Nation, he became known as the "Cowboy Philosopher" for his witty insights and clever sayings. The New York and Hollywood star drew attention around the world, which he traveled extensively before being killed in a 1935 plane crash in Alaska. Rogers was memorialized with a statue and museum in Claremore, Oklahoma, along Route 66.

Check out the Gila monster

The Tomahawk Trading Post outside Albuquerque offered many enticements to draw tourists in, including a live Gila monster. It was not nearly as large as the painted sign might have suggested.

A commercial thoroughfare

Though wildly popular with tourists, Route 66 was originally envisioned as a boost to commerce. Trucks like this one photographed in 1968 carried freight all along it for decades until wider, faster interstate highways were built.

Passing through the Duke City

The road was wide and busy as Route 66 travelers drove through Albuquerque in 1969. Gas stations, hotels, and fast food were all eager to attract customers on the Mother Road.

Souvenirs and novelties

The Jack Rabbit Trading Post near Joseph City, Arizona, was one of many roadside attractions along Route 66. It's still there, but sometime since this 1958 photo a different statue of a jackrabbit has been installed out front. Souvenirs like the one the child is wearing here often echoed stereotypes of the time period and highlighted the fact that the road passed through Indigenous lands.

On a corner in Winslow, Arizona

Native Americans found opportunity along Route 66—and still do—with an online tour guide to American Indians and Route 66 produced by the American Indian Alaska Native Tourism Association. In this photo from 1979 in Winslow, Arizona, a roadside stop displays and sells local Native American arts and crafts.

Through a harsh landscape

As Route 66 passes through the Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona, vistas open in front of the windshield and the true expanse of the American West becomes apparent.

The Boss loved it

Just along Route 66 in Amarillo, Texas, is the Cadillac Ranch, where 10 old Cadillacs are partially buried, hoods down, as monuments to car culture—and, as Bruce Springsteen had it in his 1980 song—a metaphor for how what once was valuable often becomes disposable. It's still there drawing tourists today.

Save a horse?

The Cowboy Motel in Amarillo, Texas, seen here in 1977, was one of many roadside lodgings that traded on kitsch and stereotypical Western themes to draw customers.

The Wigwam Village Motel

The Wigwam Village Motel in Holbrook, Arizona, pictured here in 1979, still offers travelers a chance to sleep in structures inspired by traditional Native American teepees—intentionally misnamed "wigwams" by the non-Indigenous architect who designed them. The motel is on the National Register of Historic Places because of its significance to Route 66 heritage.

The end of the road

From the late 1930s, Route 66 officially ended at the corner of Lincoln and Olympic boulevards in Santa Monica. But that wasn't a very dramatic location, so the unofficial end became the entrance to the Santa Monica Pier.

Story editing by Nicole Caldwell. Copy editing by Tim Bruns.

Thursday, July 27, 2023

Giuliani claims the First Amendment lets him lie – 3 essential reads

Rudy Giuliani admits to lying but says the Constitution protects him. AP Photo/Patrick Semansky
Jeff Inglis, The Conversation

In his response to a lawsuit filed by two Georgia election workers who said Rudy Giuliani harmed them by falsely alleging they mishandled ballots in the 2020 presidential election, Giuliani has admitted lying. But he says the women suffered no harm – and claims that his lies are protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

The Conversation U.S. has published several articles by scholars explaining what the First Amendment – which, broadly speaking, protects freedom of speech and the press – does and doesn’t say. That includes how it can and can’t be used to protect speech about political controversies, and whether speech that harms or threatens to harm another person is protected. Here is a selection from among those articles.

A group of people stand nearby while a U.S. flag burns.
It may be upsetting to see – but that’s part of the point of burning a flag, and a key reason it’s protected by the First Amendment. Michael Ciaglo/Getty Images

1. Not all speech is protected

The First Amendment’s protections are not absolute, wrote Lynn Greenky, a communications scholar at Syracuse University.

“When the rights and liberties of others are in serious jeopardy, speakers who provoke others into violence, wrongfully and recklessly injure reputations or incite others to engage in illegal activity may be silenced or punished,” she wrote.

“People whose words cause actual harm to others can be held liable for that damage,” she noted. That’s what the Georgia election workers are claiming in their lawsuit.

Lying about people and bullying them can have consequences despite free-speech protections, Greenky explained: “Right-wing commentator Alex Jones found that out when courts ordered him to pay more than US$1 billion in damages for his statements about, and treatment of, parents of children who were killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut.”

2. Defaming someone can be costly

Jones is not the only defamation defendant who has found lying costly. Dominion Voting Systems sued Fox News for spreading lies about its voting machines in the wake of the 2020 presidential election. Rather than go to trial, Fox settled for $787 million.

But communication scholar Nicole Kraft at The Ohio State University warned that if the case had gone to trial, proving defamation might have been difficult.

To be considered defamation, information or claims must be presented as fact and disseminated so others read or see it and must identify the person or business and offer the information with a reckless disregard for the truth,” she wrote.

Another key question, she observed, is the amount of damage the statements do. “Defamation happens when someone publishes or publicly broadcasts falsehoods about a person or a corporation in a way that harms their reputation to the point of damage,” she wrote.

In his recent court filing, Giuliani appears to be saying the election workers weren’t harmed by his statements.

But they are claiming they were harmed, including that they received threats and hateful and racist messages from people in the wake of Giuliani’s allegations.

A large, columned white building at the top of a grand, white set of stairs.
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that some false statements are ‘inevitable if there is to be open and vigorous expression of views.’ AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta, File

3. The case could be easier

It’s not clear whether Giuliani has claimed to have been a politician at the time he made the false statements about the Georgia election workers. But he was functioning as a personal attorney and representative of Donald Trump, who is definitely a politician.

Allowing politicians to lie with impunity can be dangerous for democracy, warned Drake University constitutional scholar Miguel Schor:

The First Amendment was written in an era when government censorship was the principal danger to self-government,” he wrote. “Today, politicians and ordinary citizens can harness new information technologies to spread misinformation and deepen polarization. A weakened news media will fail to police those assertions, or a partisan news media will amplify them.”

Schor found a potential solution in a 2012 opinion by Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, which said laws and courts should be able to penalize not just the harms caused by speech but also “false statements about easily verifiable facts.”

Editor’s note: This story is a roundup of articles from The Conversation’s archives.The Conversation

Jeff Inglis, Freelance Editor, The Conversation

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Thursday, July 20, 2023

Black and Latino pedestrians face a higher risk of death while walking

Published in The Emancipator (a joint venture between the Boston Globe and the Boston University Center for Antiracist Research); co-written with Alex LaSalvia


Gallivan Boulevard is a four-lane, arterial road that cuts right through a largely residential community in Boston’s Dorchester neighborhood. At the intersection of Gallivan and Dorchester Avenue, pedestrians heading to school, work, or a neighbor’s house have to cross a slip lane for right turns without a walking signal.

Then they wait up to two minutes on the pedestrian island before crossing four lanes of traffic on a worn-out crosswalk in 25 seconds or less.

“The highway department … wanted to speed everything up. This is a neighborhood, it shouldn’t have speedy roads, it should have things that are going to slow them down a little bit,” said Nancy Thornton, a longtime Dorchester resident who lives at the intersection with Dorchester Avenue.

That intersection was the site of the tragic death of 53-year-old Torrance Hodges, who was struck by a van while crossing the street in April.

“We watched the whole thing from our second floor,” Thornton said. “It was very, very sad.”

It’s not just chance that a road like Gallivan Boulevard runs through one of Boston’s most racially diverse neighborhoods. For decades, highways and roadways were constructed with little regard for increased traffic in Black communities. Sometimes they were intentionally built to divide and isolate those communities.

Across the U.S., Black and Latino pedestrians are more likely than White pedestrians to be struck and killed by cars when walking around their communities.

That’s the conclusion from The Emancipator’s analysis of national and city-level pedestrian fatality data from 2016 through 2020, which compared the locations of those deaths with neighborhood-level race and ethnicity data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2020 census. The analysis includes neighborhoods of the five largest U.S. cities — New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston and Phoenix — as well as Boston.

The following maps breakdown racial disparities of pedestrian deaths in those cities. The analysis includes interactive and searchable maps.

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Overall, there were more pedestrian fatalities in neighborhoods with greater racial and ethnic diversity — and, specifically, communities with lower proportions of White residents. This was true when analyzing data by census tract — a relatively small neighborhood-like area, an area that was usually home to between 2,500 and 8,000 people — or by county, or even by city-defined community regions like the Hollywood Hills in Los Angeles or Boston’s South End.

There were many census tracts that saw no pedestrian fatalities from 2016 through 2020. But they were disproportionately inhabited by White people, 77% of whom lived in a fatality-free census tract.

Black people are 12.1% of the U.S. population, according to 2020 Census estimates, but 19.1% of the pedestrians killed; Latinos are 18.7% of the population and 19.2% of the pedestrian fatalities. By comparison, White people who are not Latino make up 57.8% of the U.S. population but 45% of the pedestrian fatalities from 2016 through 2020.

Asian Americans and people with multiracial backgrounds are less likely to be killed while walking than their prevalence in the nation’s population would suggest.

Even if the large percentage of pedestrian fatalities whose races were unknown or unreported were reclassified according to national proportions, Black and Latino people would still be disproportionately more likely to be killed while walking.



Dangerous roads put pedestrian lives at risk for the comfort of driving

People of color, those with fewer economic resources, and people with mobility limitations – such as those who need wheelchairs, walkers or other help getting around – are all at risk of being killed while walking, said Rebecca Sanders, founder of Safe Streets Research and Consulting and lead author of a study published last year that examines racial disparities and other related factors of pedestrian deaths.

“They don’t like feeling unsafe, but they don’t have another option,” she said.

The racial disparity in U.S. pedestrian deaths doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Cities and towns have been built to give cars priority, Sanders said. Even places touted for prioritizing pedestrians block pedestrian routes with major arterial roads — high-capacity roads that aren’t freeways but often have two lanes in each direction. Many of those arterial roads are state highways that cut through cities at the expense of pedestrian safety, Sanders said.

“If you want to go for a walk to a restaurant or a grocery store, you have to cross a major arterial to get there,” Sanders said.

Those wide roads with fast-moving traffic are where most pedestrian deaths occur, said Mike McGinn, a former mayor of Seattle who is now executive director of America Walks, a pedestrian-advocacy non-profit. Those arterial roads have fewer crosswalks spaced farther apart, and higher speed traffic than smaller, narrower neighborhood roads.

“Guess where those multi-lane arterials are found most often?” he asked. “It’s part of the deeper racial and ethnic inequalities in America.”

Freeways and arterials have long been pushed through Black neighborhoods, particularly during the highway boom of the 1950s and 1960s. Developers built apartment buildings along those roads, putting large numbers of people right in front of heavy, fast-moving traffic, McGinn said.

“Many times these wide arterials have no sidewalks at all. You’ll see a dirt path by the side of the road,” he said. But the dirt path, which emerges from persistent foot traffic, is important evidence: “We know people are there.”

Poles and signs found alongside roads are also indicators of risks of fast-moving traffic. They’re built to reduce the danger to errant drivers. “We design the poles to be breakaway poles because we know cars will leave the roadway and hit them,” McGinn said. “And then we tell people to walk right there.”

“We subsidize the driving comfort of some with the risk of death and injury or health issues for others,” he said.

Structural inequity makes pedestrian danger a race and class issue

Pam Jiner wants to “be able to walk to a practical destination, do what you need and make it back home safely.” But that simple goal is hard to reach.

Jiner is a community leader in Montbello, a neighborhood in the northeast section of Denver, that was built in the mid-1960s. The community had no sidewalks on key roads leading to a major intersection until 2020, Jiner said.

Montbello, home to almost 40,000 people, was once majority Black but is now 77% Latino.

And while Jiner has encouraged everyone in her community to get outside into nature, exercise, and see neighbors, she added, “we get out there and see all the obstacles that are in our way.”

To Jiner, the solutions are so simple it’s sad she has to point them out: “When you build a school, build crosswalks. When you build a park, build stop signs and crosswalks. Senior living facilities all deserve bus stops with shelters, covers over them.”

Instead, she saw roads where “pedestrians are putting themselves in danger” when they attempted to cross or while on sidewalks. Sometimes she would go for walks with local officials, where she would show off a new sidewalk, but they gasped in horror at how dangerous the environment remains for pedestrians. They would tell her, “you have sidewalks but it’s still not safe,” she said.

Jiner drew a parallel to the Black Lives Matter movement, saying public policies that put pedestrians of color at risk are further evidence of systemic racism.

She’s not the only one.

Jonathon Stalls, a self-described “walking artist” who walked across the U.S. over eight and a half months in 2010, and wrote a book about it, agreed. He said he saw what his friend and fellow Denver resident Jiner mentioned — structural racism tied to pedestrian safety —as “a consistent thing across the country.”

In his efforts to encourage people to walk or “move the way we’re made to,” Stalls paid close attention to the cars on the roads he walks along as well as other pedestrians.

He spoke of seeing older adults on their own and parents clenching the hands of young children, navigating multi-lane arterial roads or standing on the three-foot-wide cement platforms dividing the lanes of traffic. “The way that they’re standing and shaking and huddling is really loud to me,” he said. “They’re surrounded by hundreds of cars flying in all directions.”

Stalls said he’s fortunate not to have been hit by a car in all of his walking, but he’s had “a lot of close calls.” And on his nation-crossing walk, he saw roadside memorials to pedestrians killed “all the time.”

Stalls chronicled various walking experiences through PedestrianDignity, his TikTok account. Some of his videos might be comical if they weren’t so scary.

In one video, Stalls narrated his attempt to walk from a bus stop to a grocery store just blocks away. He showcased a beautiful, wide, smooth sidewalk perfect for pedestrians, including people using wheelchairs or walkers. But then he got to the property line, and the sidewalk stopped. A fence ran across the route, forcing him into the road alongside heavy vehicle traffic.

Timing his move carefully, and making clear he does not recommend anyone follow his example, Stalls ran past heavy underbrush and foliage that had overgrown the curb, spending eight seconds in the actual roadway before reaching relative safety: a stretch where the brush had been cleared, revealing a dirt path just inches wide. At least it was beyond the curb.

‘Make noise and get attention’ to spur progress for pedestrians

People aren’t powerless when it comes to pushing for improved conditions for pedestrians.

Guerrilla traffic cone placementroad blockades, and street art are just some of the methods people are using to reclaim the streets in their neighborhoods. Countless pedestrian safety groups have sprung up nationwide — there’s probably one in your neighborhood, and if not, there are resources for you to start one.

Change comes when communities make noise and create “a little bit of inconvenience,” said Ed Parillon, a bike and pedestrian safety advocate and member of Safe Street Rebel in San Francisco. Safe Street Rebel is an advocacy organization focused on direct action such as organizing people to stand in bike lanes to create barriers between cars and cyclists. The group has elevated issues like public transport investment and protected bike lanes.

“We still have a long way to go,” Parillon said, but protected bike lanes weren’t “even part of the conversation when I moved to San Francisco in 2008.”

In San Francisco, the difference in pedestrian safety in Black and Brown neighborhoods versus White affluent neighborhoods can be stark. Parillon lives in the Mission District, which doesn’t have the same walkability as the wealthier, whiter neighborhood of Noe Valley.

“It was really striking when I was walking around with my kids there versus in the Mission,” Parillon said. “You feel the safety on the street, you feel the lower stress levels when you’re walking places.”

Parillon credited spaces like Streetsblog, a news site advocating for the end of car dependence since 2006, for sparking his interest in advocating for safer pedestrian conditions. He recommended getting involved with local organizations focused on street safety.

“If you are someone from a minority community and you want to point out some of the street conditions that are dangerous in your neighborhood, I do think that there’s a lot of focus on that now,” Parillon said. “Get out there and make noise and get attention, because that’s the only way that this stuff makes progress.”


Methodology

The Emancipator analyzed data from New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Phoenix and Boston.

Fatal crash locations were compared with city limits, and assigned to census blocks, which were in turn assigned to community subdivisions, as defined by city officials. Three cities — LA, Chicago and Boston — called the community subdivisions “neighborhoods,” but they were called “community districts” in New York, “super neighborhoods” in Houston, and “villages” in Phoenix.

There were 33,375 records in the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration’s database of pedestrian fatalities from 2016 through 2020. Of those, 2,058 — 6% — were injuries and not fatalities. It was not possible to know where deaths occurred based on 167 of the records, 0.5%, because the latitude and longitude information was “unknown,” “not reported” or “not available.” When matched with census tracts, three had no census tract to match to, leaving 31,147 pedestrian fatalities from 2016 through 2020 to analyze.

When calculating pedestrian fatality rates by census tract, some tracts had very low populations, or even zero. So the analysis excluded tracts with fewer than 1,895 people — 5% of the maximum tract population of 37,892.

In the analysis within cities, the potential errors were very small: Phoenix’s share of crashes with unknown or unreported locations, 4.6%, was the highest among the six cities. And small proportions of each city’s reported crashes were non-fatal. Overall, just 9.6% of all the crashes reported in these six cities were excluded from the analysis.