Total Pageviews

Monday, January 31, 2022

MEDIA MONDAY / BIG NOISE FROM EARTH’S GALACTIC NEIGHBOR


This image shows the Milky Way as viewed from Earth, and the added star icon marks the location of the unknown object. 

CNN SCIENCE reports unknown space object beaming out radio signals every 18 minutes remains a mystery. 

GUEST BLOG / By CNN’s Space and Science Reporter Ashley Strickland. While mapping radio waves across the universe, astronomers happened upon a celestial object releasing giant bursts of energy -- and it's unlike anything they've ever seen before. 

The spinning space object, spotted in March 2018, beamed out radiation three times per hour. In those moments, it became the brightest source of radio waves viewable from Earth, acting as a celestial lighthouse. Astronomers think it might be a remnant of a collapsed star, either a dense neutron star or a dead white dwarf star, with a strong magnetic field -- or it could be something else entirely. A study on the discovery was published last week in the journal Nature

"This object was appearing and disappearing over a few hours during our observations," said lead study author Natasha Hurley-Walker, an astrophysicist at the Curtin University node of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research, in a statement. "That was completely unexpected. It was kind of spooky for an astronomer because there's nothing known in the sky that does that. And it's really quite close to us -- about 4,000 light-years away. It's in our galactic backyard." 

For the complete story CLICK HERE

SOURCES: Nature journal and CNN


Left: Ashley Strickland, CNN

Sunday, January 30, 2022

SUNDAY REVIEW / DUCHESS HIRES NEW SHERLOCK HOLMES TO FIND HER HUSBAND

GUEST BLOG / BY ASHLEY DUONG, Book Reviewer, The Associated Press--A missing duke, the tomb of Thutmose IV and Sherlock Holmes all converge in “The Return of the Pharaoh,” the newest installment of Nicholas Meyer’s take on the adventures of the world-renowned detective. 

Meyer’s book brings readers to early 20th century Egypt, when Watson and his second wife, Juliet, travel to the arid country to combat her tuberculosis. Through the sanitarium at which Juliet is staying, Meyer creates a reflection of present-day COVID-19 protocols: Not only must patients wear masks and gloves, but they are also required to sit at least 6 feet away from visitors. 

A month into their stay, Watson bumps into none other than Sherlock Holmes, who is posing as a colonel. Holmes soon reveals that the Duchess of Uxbridge has employed his services to find her husband after he suddenly stopped responding to her letters during his stay in Egypt. 

Known to be in great debt, the Duke of Uxbridge appears to have pinned his hopes on “egyptology”’ and unearthing the yet-to-be-discovered, treasure-filled tomb of a pharaoh (expected to be filled with treasures and gold) in order to settle his financial shortcomings. In their efforts to get to the bottom of the case, Watson and Holmes stumble upon a murder, discover a spy, expose an affair and survive a deadly sandstorm. 

Meyer paints a vivid picture of a former and less established Egypt, acknowledging the pillaging of artifacts by Western countries like Britain and France. Written in the style of Arthur Conan Doyle’s original books, Meyer’s take on the Sherlock Holmes adventures blends old with new, giving readers familiar stories with parallels to and hints of more modern takes. 

Friday, January 28, 2022

FRIDAY FREEZE / OF COURSE WE KNOW WHAT A BOMB CYCLONE IS, BUT CAN WE EXPLAIN IT ACCURATELY?


NOW WE CAN ADD BOMBOGENESIS TO OUR SPELL CHECK, WHO KNEW? 

GUEST BLOG / By atmospheric scientist Esther Mullens, University of Florida as first reported in TheConversation.com--A bomb cyclone is a large, intense midlatitude storm that has low pressure at its center, weather fronts and an array of associated weather, from blizzards to severe thunderstorms to heavy precipitation. 

It becomes a bomb when its central pressure decreases very quickly – by at least 24 millibars in 24 hours. 

Two noted meteorologists, Fred Sanders and John Gyakum, gave this pattern its name in a 1980 study. When a cyclone “bombs,” or undergoes bombogenesis, this tells us that it has access to the optimal ingredients for strengthening, such as high amounts of heat, moisture and rising air. Most cyclones don’t intensify rapidly in this way. 

Bombogenesis occurs when Ms. Nebraska hooks up with Mr. Caribbean to create a stormy offspring called a Bomb Cyclone.

Bomb cyclones put forecasters on high alert because they can produce significant harmful impacts. The U.S. Eastern Seaboard is one of the regions where bombogenesis is most common. That’s because storms in the midlatitudes – a temperate zone north of the tropics that includes the entire continental U.S. – draw their energy from large temperature contrasts. 

Along the U.S. East Coast during winter, there’s a naturally potent thermal contrast between the cool land and the warm Gulf Stream current. Over the warmer ocean, heat and moisture are abundant. 

But as cool continental air moves overhead and creates a large difference in temperature, the lower atmosphere becomes unstable and buoyant. Air rises, cools and condenses, forming clouds and precipitation. 

UK meteorologist Alex Deakin explains how unstable air causes cumulus clouds to form. Intense cyclones also require favorable conditions above the surface. Particularly strong upper-level winds, also known as “jet streaks,” and high-amplitude waves embedded within storm tracks can help force air to rise. 

When a strong jet streak overlies a developing low-pressure system, it creates a feedback pattern that makes warm air rise at an increasing rate. This allows the pressure to drop rapidly at the center of the system. 

As the pressure drops, winds strengthen around the storm. Essentially, the atmosphere is trying to even out pressure differences between the center of the system and the area around it. 

Weather forecasters are predicting that the northeastern U.S. will be affected by a potent winter storm on Jan. 28-30, 2022. YIKES, that's TODAY! (how's that for timely blog reporting?). Forecast models are calling for a swath of snow from coastal North Carolina northward to Maine. While precise locations and amounts of snowfall are still uncertain, parts of coastal New England appear most at risk of receiving 8-12 inches or more of heavy accumulating snow. 

Coupled with winds forecast to be over 50 miles per hour along the coast, the storm is likely to produce blizzard conditions, storm surge, coastal flooding, wind damage and beach erosion. Bomb cyclones are sometimes called ‘winter hurricanes,’ but they are a different type of storm. 

Most Bombs begin life offshore from the southeast U.S. as a weak low-pressure system. Just 24 hours later inner storm pressure will drop by 35-50 millibars a critical ingredient for a bomb cyclone, especially when aided by winds blowing at over 150 miles per hour in the upper atmosphere; very warm sea surface temperatures just offshore (2-4 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than average), and a highly unstable atmosphere. 

Bundle up.  Protect yourself from Bombogenesis.

Thursday, January 27, 2022

THE FOODIST / BRIBING BLOOD DONORS WITH TREATS




Krispy Kreme says it will provide a dozen free glazed doughnuts to anyone who can prove they donated blood from now through the end of January. 

The promotion follows an announcement from the Red Cross earlier this month that it is facing its worst blood shortage in more than a decade. 

At Krispy Kreme, people can prove they gave blood by showing their donation sticker or confirmation of donation in the Red Cross blood donor app. All types of blood are needed, especially O positive and O negative, according to the Krispy Kreme announcement. 

Those interested in donating can book an appointment on the Red Cross website

"Our Red Cross teams are working around the clock to meet the needs of hospital patients but can't do it alone," said Paul Sullivan, senior vice president of donor services for the American Red Cross, in a statement. 

"We hope this thank you from Krispy Kreme will help provide a 'dozen more reasons' for eligible individuals to make and keep their donation appointments in the days ahead." 

It's not the first time Krispy Kreme has thrown its hat into the ring – or should we say doughnut – amid a public health crisis. After the Food and Drug administration granted full approval for a COVID-19 vaccine in August, Krispy Kreme offered two free doughnuts to vaccination card holders from Aug. 30 to Sept. 5, 2021. 

The company also offered one free doughnut daily for the rest of the year. Next month, another company will offer "thank you items" to blood donors, according to statement provided to NPR by the Red Cross. In February, those who donate blood, plasma or platelets with the Red Cross will be emailed a $10 Amazon gift card. 

SOURCES: Krispy Kreme, American Red Cross and NPR. 

Wednesday, January 26, 2022

DESIGN OF OUR TIMES / PARKING LOT INTO PARKETTE


The City of San Diego calls the image above a mini-park at 29th & North Park Way. Ribbon cutting for the $5 million, 21,780 sq. ft. parkette occurred last week. The time line from community idea for the mini-park to city led completion was about 20 years. Better late than never. 

To the left of the image is North Park Way, one block south of busy University Avenue. On NP Way were a row of single story office bungalows that had faded into blight. 

Behind the offices was a parking lot for the 1928 era vaudeville and movie house (right). By the new century the offices and the parking lot disappeared into a sharp-looking place for neighbors to hangout. 

On opening day more than 300 stopped by for the speeches and to view purchased pavers with messages for posterity (lower left). The new public space is more like a plaza or square than a traditional park. 

There are tables with built in chess or checker boards; spinning rope tree for the kids; a small stage, which has been used often as an exercise platform. The back wall of the North Park Theatre will serve as a movie screen for outdoor cinema nights. 

 Photo by Mike Shess, PillartoPost.org 

Tuesday, January 25, 2022

AMERICANA / GIRL SCOUTS NEWEST COOKIE

Yes, those cute calorie enablers have been peddling Girl Scout cookies for more than a century. And, for 2022, they’re back with a new awesome cookie called the Adventureful!

This year, cookie-loving consumers across the country can get a great big taste of deliciousness and adventure with new Adventurefuls, the latest addition to the iconic Girl Scout Cookie lineup. 


An binge worthy brownie-inspired cookie with caramel-flavored crème and a hint of sea salt, Adventurefuls take cookie lovers on a delicious taste adventure just like Girl Scouts go on their own amazing adventures all year long. 

Girl Scouts across the United States will offer Adventureful cookies this upcoming cookie season alongside favorites like Thin Mints® and Samoas®/Caramel deLites®. 

CLICK HERE. For a roster of available Girl Scout Cookies. 


Monday, January 24, 2022

MEDIA MONDAY / MORE AWARDS FOR PANAMA PAPERS INVESTIGATIVE REPORTERS


GUEST BLOG / By Hamish Boland-Rudder, Online Editor with International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). 

The Panama Papers has been named the Investigation of the Decade by the British Journalism Awards, media industry publication Press-Gazette announced this week. The 2016 investigation, led by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists in partnership with The Guardian and BBC's Panorama program in the United Kingdom, exposed offshore financial secrets linked to then-Prime Minister David Cameron, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and a cast of politicians, criminals and celebrities from around the globe. 

It was chosen as the Investigation of the Decade from a shortlist made up of previous British Journalism Award winners. The Panama Papers first received top honors at the British Journalism Awards in 2016, when judges applauded the investigative work done by The Guardian and BBC Panorama that "shone a light in some of the darkest corners of international finance." 

"They managed to break down a vast investigation into a series of compelling stories which had global impact," judges said. 

The Panama Papers was based on a trove of 11.5 million secret documents from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca that were leaked to the German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung. ICIJ brought together a team of more than 370 reporters from 100 media outlets for the investigation, which exposed a worldwide web of offshore shell companies that Mossack Fonseca set up for a list of clients including heads of state, business executives and star athletes. 

The investigation sparked the resignation of world leaders and other politicians, including the prime minister of Iceland, and has since become a byword for exposing financial chicanery and political corruption. 

 

Governments around the world have recouped more than $1.36 billion in back taxes and penalties as a direct result of the Panama Papers, and authorities are still investigating allegations of tax dodging and other wrongdoing more than five years after stories were first published. 

ICIJ's subsequent investigations into financial secrecy and corruption, including the Paradise Papers, FinCEN Files and, most recently, the Pandora Papers, have been cited in parliaments, courthouses, public discourse and popular culture and credited with building a global momentum for new laws and substantial reforms to the way money flows around the world. 

In 2021, ICIJ and the Global Alliance for Tax Justice were jointly nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize for the organizations' "success in building global alliances" to increase transparency in the global financial system. 

This latest honor for the Panama Papers was part of a special series marking 10 years of the British Journalism Awards. Press-Gazette subscribers and former award attendees cast their votes for the Investigation of the Decade from a list of previous winners, which also included ICIJ and The Guardian's 2015 Swiss Leaks/HSBC Files investigation. 

In the other award categories, The Times won Scoop of the Decade for a 2018 story on allegations of bullying, harassment and sexual misconduct by Oxfam aid workers in Haiti, and Amelia Gentleman from The Guardian won Journalist of the Decade for her work exposing the widespread mistreatment of immigrants from Caribbean countries in the U.K. 

Sunday, January 23, 2022

SUNDAY REVIEW / EXCERPT “ALICE’S TEA PARTY”


Project Gutenberg'S eBook of Alice’s "Adventures in Wonderland," by Lewis Carroll
 

"A Mad Tea-Party" 

There was a table set out under a tree in front of the house, and the March Hare and the Hatter were having tea at it: a Dormouse was sitting between them, fast asleep, and the other two were using it as a cushion, resting their elbows on it, and talking over its head. 

“Very uncomfortable for the Dormouse,” thought Alice; “only, as it’s asleep, I suppose it doesn’t mind.” 

 The table was a large one, but the three were all crowded together at one corner of it: “No room! No room!” they cried out when they saw Alice coming. 

“There’s plenty of room!” said Alice indignantly, and she sat down in a large arm-chair at one end of the table. “Have some wine,” the March Hare said in an encouraging tone. 

 Alice looked all round the table, but there was nothing on it but tea. “I don’t see any wine,” she remarked. 

 “There isn’t any,” said the March Hare. 

 “Then it wasn’t very civil of you to offer it,” said Alice angrily. 

 “It wasn’t very civil of you to sit down without being invited,” said the March Hare. 

 “I didn’t know it was your table,” said Alice; “it’s laid for a great many more than three.” 


 “Your hair wants cutting,” said the Hatter. He had been looking at Alice for some time with great curiosity, and this was his first speech. 

 “You should learn not to make personal remarks,” Alice said with some severity; “it’s very rude.” 

 The Hatter opened his eyes very wide on hearing this; but all he said was, “Why is a raven like a writing-desk?” 

 “Come, we shall have some fun now!” thought Alice. “I’m glad they’ve begun asking riddles.—I believe I can guess that,” she added aloud. 

 “Do you mean that you think you can find out the answer to it?” said the March Hare. 

 “Exactly so,” said Alice. 

 “Then you should say what you mean,” the March Hare went on. 

 “I do,” Alice hastily replied; “at least—at least I mean what I say—that’s the same thing, you know.” 

 “Not the same thing a bit!” said the Hatter. 

“You might just as well say that ‘I see what I eat’ is the same thing as ‘I eat what I see’!” 

 “You might just as well say,” added the March Hare, “that ‘I like what I get’ is the same thing as ‘I get what I like’!”

 “You might just as well say,” added the Dormouse, who seemed to be talking in his sleep, “that ‘I breathe when I sleep’ is the same thing as ‘I sleep when I breathe’!” 

 “It is the same thing with you,” said the Hatter, and here the conversation dropped, and the party sat silent for a minute, while Alice thought over all she could remember about ravens and writing-desks, which wasn’t much. 

 The Hatter was the first to break the silence. “What day of the month is it?” he said, turning to Alice: he had taken his watch out of his pocket, and was looking at it uneasily, shaking it every now and then, and holding it to his ear. 

 Alice considered a little, and then said “The fourth.” 

 “Two days wrong!” sighed the Hatter. “I told you butter wouldn’t suit the works!” he added looking angrily at the March Hare. 

 “It was the best butter,” the March Hare meekly replied. 

 “Yes, but some crumbs must have got in as well,” the Hatter grumbled: “you shouldn’t have put it in with the bread-knife.” 

 The March Hare took the watch and looked at it gloomily: then he dipped it into his cup of tea, and looked at it again: but he could think of nothing better to say than his first remark, “It was the best butter, you know.” 

 Alice had been looking over his shoulder with some curiosity. “What a funny watch!” she remarked. “It tells the day of the month, and doesn’t tell what o’clock it is!” 

 “Why should it?” muttered the Hatter. “Does your watch tell you what year it is?” 

 “Of course not,” Alice replied very readily: “but that’s because it stays the same year for such a long time together.” 

 “Which is just the case with mine,” said the Hatter. 

 Alice felt dreadfully puzzled. The Hatter’s remark seemed to have no sort of meaning in it, and yet it was certainly English. “I don’t quite understand you,” she said, as politely as she could. 

 “The Dormouse is asleep again,” said the Hatter, and he poured a little hot tea upon its nose. The Dormouse shook its head impatiently, and said, without opening its eyes, “Of course, of course; just what I was going to remark myself.” 

 “Have you guessed the riddle yet?” the Hatter said, turning to Alice again. 

 “No, I give it up,” Alice replied: “what’s the answer?” 

 “I haven’t the slightest idea,” said the Hatter. 

 “Nor I,” said the March Hare. 

 Alice sighed wearily. “I think you might do something better with the time,” she said, “than waste it in asking riddles that have no answers.” 

 “If you knew Time as well as I do,” said the Hatter, “you wouldn’t talk about wasting it. It’s him.” 

 “I don’t know what you mean,” said Alice. 

 “Of course you don’t!” the Hatter said, tossing his head contemptuously. “I dare say you never even spoke to Time!” 

 “Perhaps not,” Alice cautiously replied: “but I know I have to beat time when I learn music.” 

 “Ah! that accounts for it,” said the Hatter. “He won’t stand beating. Now, if you only kept on good terms with him, he’d do almost anything you liked with the clock. For instance, suppose it were nine o’clock in the morning, just time to begin lessons: you’d only have to whisper a hint to Time, and round goes the clock in a twinkling! Half-past one, time for dinner!” 

 (“I only wish it was,” the March Hare said to itself in a whisper.) 

 “That would be grand, certainly,” said Alice thoughtfully: “but then—I shouldn’t be hungry for it, you know.” 

 “Not at first, perhaps,” said the Hatter: “but you could keep it to half-past one as long as you liked.” 

 “Is that the way you manage?” Alice asked. 

 The Hatter shook his head mournfully. “Not I!” he replied. “We quarrelled last March—just before he went mad, you know—” (pointing with his tea spoon at the March Hare,) “—it was at the great concert given by the Queen of Hearts, and I had to sing ‘Twinkle, twinkle, little bat! How I wonder what you’re at!’ You know the song, perhaps?” 

 “I’ve heard something like it,” said Alice. 

 “It goes on, you know,” the Hatter continued, “in this way:— ‘Up above the world you fly, Like a tea-tray in the sky. Twinkle, twinkle—’” 

 Here the Dormouse shook itself, and began singing in its sleep “Twinkle, twinkle, twinkle, twinkle—” and went on so long that they had to pinch it to make it stop. 

 “Well, I’d hardly finished the first verse,” said the Hatter, “when the Queen jumped up and bawled out, ‘He’s murdering the time! Off with his head!’” 

 “How dreadfully savage!” exclaimed Alice. “And ever since that,” the Hatter went on in a mournful tone, “he won’t do a thing I ask! It’s always six o’clock now.” 

 A bright idea came into Alice’s head. “Is that the reason so many tea-things are put out here?” she asked. “Yes, that’s it,” said the Hatter with a sigh: “it’s always tea-time, and we’ve no time to wash the things between whiles.” 

 “Then you keep moving round, I suppose?” said Alice. 

 “Exactly so,” said the Hatter: “as the things get used up.” 

 “But what happens when you come to the beginning again?” Alice ventured to ask. 

 “Suppose we change the subject,” the March Hare interrupted, yawning. “I’m getting tired of this. I vote the young lady tells us a story.” 

 “I’m afraid I don’t know one,” said Alice, rather alarmed at the proposal. 

 “Then the Dormouse shall!” they both cried. “Wake up, Dormouse!” And they pinched it on both sides at once. 

 The Dormouse slowly opened his eyes. “I wasn’t asleep,” he said in a hoarse, feeble voice: “I heard every word you fellows were saying.” 

 “Tell us a story!” said the March Hare. 

 “Yes, please do!” pleaded Alice. “And be quick about it,” added the Hatter, “or you’ll be asleep again before it’s done.” 

 “Once upon a time there were three little sisters,” the Dormouse began in a great hurry; “and their names were Elsie, Lacie, and Tillie; and they lived at the bottom of a well—” 

 “What did they live on?” said Alice, who always took a great interest in questions of eating and drinking. 

 “They lived on treacle,” said the Dormouse, after thinking a minute or two. 

 “They couldn’t have done that, you know,” Alice gently remarked; “they’d have been ill.” 

 “So they were,” said the Dormouse; “very ill.” 

 Alice tried to fancy to herself what such extraordinary ways of living would be like, but it puzzled her too much, so she went on: “But why did they live at the bottom of a well?” 

 “Take some more tea,” the March Hare said to Alice, very earnestly. 

 “I’ve had nothing yet,” Alice replied in an offended tone, “so I can’t take more.” 

 “You mean you can’t take less,” said the Hatter: “it’s very easy to take more than nothing.” 

 “Nobody asked your opinion,” said Alice. 

 “Who’s making personal remarks now?” the Hatter asked triumphantly. 

 Alice did not quite know what to say to this: so she helped herself to some tea and bread-and-butter, and then turned to the Dormouse, and repeated her question. “Why did they live at the bottom of a well?” 

 The Dormouse again took a minute or two to think about it, and then said, “It was a treacle-well.” 

 “There’s no such thing!” Alice was beginning very angrily, but the Hatter and the March Hare went “Sh! sh!” and the Dormouse sulkily remarked, “If you can’t be civil, you’d better finish the story for yourself.” 

 “No, please go on!” Alice said very humbly; “I won’t interrupt again. I dare say there may be one.” 

 “One, indeed!” said the Dormouse indignantly. However, he consented to go on. “And so these three little sisters—they were learning to draw, you know—” 

 “What did they draw?” said Alice, quite forgetting her promise. 

 “Treacle,” said the Dormouse, without considering at all this time. 

 “I want a clean cup,” interrupted the Hatter: “let’s all move one place on.” He moved on as he spoke, and the Dormouse followed him: the March Hare moved into the Dormouse’s place, and Alice rather unwillingly took the place of the March Hare. 

The Hatter was the only one who got any advantage from the change: and Alice was a good deal worse off than before, as the March Hare had just upset the milk-jug into his plate. 

 Alice did not wish to offend the Dormouse again, so she began very cautiously: “But I don’t understand. Where did they draw the treacle from?” 

 “You can draw water out of a water-well,” said the Hatter; “so I should think you could draw treacle out of a treacle-well—eh, stupid?” 

 “But they were in the well,” Alice said to the Dormouse, not choosing to notice this last remark. 

 “Of course they were,” said the Dormouse; “—well in.” 

 This answer so confused poor Alice, that she let the Dormouse go on for some time without interrupting it. 

 “They were learning to draw,” the Dormouse went on, yawning and rubbing its eyes, for it was getting very sleepy; “and they drew all manner of things—everything that begins with an M—” 

 “Why with an M?” said Alice. 

 “Why not?” said the March Hare. 

 Alice was silent. 

 The Dormouse had closed its eyes by this time, and was going off into a doze; but, on being pinched by the Hatter, it woke up again with a little shriek, and went on: “—that begins with an M, such as mouse-traps, and the moon, and memory, and muchness—you know you say things are “much of a muchness”—did you ever see such a thing as a drawing of a muchness?” 

 “Really, now you ask me,” said Alice, very much confused, “I don’t think—” 

 “Then you shouldn’t talk,” said the Hatter. 

 This piece of rudeness was more than Alice could bear: she got up in great disgust, and walked off; the Dormouse fell asleep instantly, and neither of the others took the least notice of her going, though she looked back once or twice, half hoping that they would call after her: the last time she saw them, they were trying to put the Dormouse into the teapot. 

 


“At any rate I’ll never go there again!” said Alice as she picked her way through the wood. “It’s the stupidest tea-party I ever was at in all my life!” Just as she said this, she noticed that one of the trees had a door leading right into it. “That’s very curious!” she thought. “But everything’s curious today. I think I may as well go in at once.” And in she went. 

 Once more she found herself in the long hall, and close to the little glass table. “Now, I’ll manage better this time,” she said to herself, and began by taking the little golden key, and unlocking the door that led into the garden. 

Then she went to work nibbling at the mushroom (she had kept a piece of it in her pocket) till she was about a foot high: then she walked down the little passage: and then—she found herself at last in the beautiful garden, among the bright flower-beds and the cool fountains. 

 FOR MORE: CLICK HERE. 


Friday, January 21, 2022

FISCAL FRIDAY / A WORD ON STOCKS & INFLATION

Courtesy image selected by PillartoPost.org via Internet.

GUEST BLOG / By Angelo Kourkafas, CFA Investment Strategist, Edward Jones Co. 

Editor’s Note: As Edward Jones is the financial advisor of this daily online publication, permission has been granted to pillartopost.org to republish certain data to our readership. 

Prices Are High - What's Priced In?* 

The bumpy ride for financial markets in the early days of 2022 continued last week, with inflation remaining front and center. A multidecade jump in consumer prices was a reminder that inflation is a key driver and risk for the year ahead, impacting Federal Reserve (Fed) policy, consumer spending, bond yields and sector leadership. With prices high, yields rising, and valuation concerns, we examine what's expected and likely priced in by the markets, along with implications for portfolio positioning. 

Price pressures continue to build but are possibly peaking in the coming months 

All eyes were justifiably on inflation last week, with the released data revealing the fastest price increases in decades. 

The consumer price index (CPI) rose 7% in December from a year ago, the fastest pace since 1982 and the eighth straight month in which inflation exceeded 5%. Excluding the volatile categories of food and energy, inflation rose 5.5%, the most since 1991. 

Like last year, goods inflation played a large part in the jump in prices. For example, prices of used cars and trucks soared 37%, and furniture prices rose 14% from a year ago. While pandemic-related supply-and-demand imbalances continue to drive prices for durable goods higher, services inflation is also strengthening but to a lesser extent, rising 3.7% in December. 

As supply chains normalize, energy prices level off, and year-ago comparisons become tougher, we expect inflation pressures to peak in the coming months and start moderating more meaningfully in the second half of the year. However, uncertainty around the timing is high because the omicron variant is worsening the labor and material shortages, at least temporarily. 

Even with prices for goods likely cooling off once bottlenecks begin to ease, services inflation is likely to stay strong, supported by home-price and rent increases and rising wages, which is why we expect overall inflation to stay above the Fed’s 2% target through 2022. 

What's priced in?*

While eye-popping, the December consumer price gains were no worse than feared and, likely because of that, stocks rose and bond yields fell the day of the release. After having been surprised by the upside for most of the past year, the CPI has now been in line with consensus expectations for two months in a row. There are certainly upside inflation risks, but because investors have already recalibrated their expectations higher, we think that markets can stay resilient in the face of high prices in the near term. 

 


Curbing inflation is now a priority for the Fed In the first two weeks of this year the Fed has made another hawkish pivot, with policy now clearly shifting to combat inflation. Fearing that price pressures might become entrenched; a number of Fed officials are now calling for policy rates to rise as early as March. 

As a reminder, it was not that long ago (March 2021 meeting) that policymakers were projecting no interest-rate hikes through 2023. In our view, last week's inflation reading, together with the recent drop in the unemployment rate below 4%, solidify expectations for an earlier start to interest-rate hikes. 

The upcoming start to the Fed's tightening cycle, the sixth over the last 40 years, is a milestone that reflects not only the unexpected inflation overshoot but also the strength of the economic expansion and labor market. 

The pivot from emergency support to dialing back the accommodation, then to tightening, is another datapoint signaling that the cycle is progressing further into the midcycle phase. Equity markets might no longer be in the highly rewarding early-expansion phase, but they are not in the late-cycle phase either, in our view. 

What's priced in? Bond markets are currently pricing in about a 90% probability that the Fed hikes rates four times this year, up from just one hike expected in early October. While it is possible, we think that it will be hard for the Fed to tighten more aggressively than what the market is currently pricing in. 

Possibly, the retreat in the 10-year yield from 1.80% to 1.75% after mid-January's inflation data confirms that a lot of the Fed repricing has already happened. 

Rising bond yields challenge lofty valuations. 

Earnings to the rescue? After three back-to-back years of above-average returns, stock valuations are high relative to their own history. The speed at which bond yields have climbed in response to higher inflation and shifting Fed policy has forced investors to rethink their portfolio allocations. 

One of the most notable recent developments is the rotation away from pricey growth-style investments towards the more reasonably priced value investments. Because technology stocks carry outsized weight in major indexes, valuation concerns have triggered a pullback in U.S. large-cap stocks. 

On a positive note, the valuation gap between equities and bonds remain fairly wide, continuing to support equities and reinforcing the "TINA mantra" (There Is No Alternative to stocks) for now. Even though yields are on the rise, they remain low. And as long as corporate earnings rise at a decent pace, the relative valuation gap can be sustained. 

What’s priced in? Banks kicked off the earnings season last week. Results were generally solid, but the bar was high following the group's outperformance in recent weeks, and the sector pulled back. S&P 500 earnings are forecast to increase 21% in the fourth quarter, marking the fourth straight quarter of earnings growth above 20%. 

For 2022, consensus expectations are for earnings growth to decelerate but still grow a healthy 9%1. We expect valuations to slightly decline, consistent with the historical experience during past Fed-tightening cycles. However, the current earnings estimates appear reasonable to us, with potential for upside if above-trend economic growth materializes as projected. 

 The investment puzzle: Putting the pieces together 

Slowing but still robust economic growth, high inflation, and upcoming rate hikes complicate the investment landscape for the year ahead. We think that this backdrop translates into lower returns and more volatility, but still a continuation of the bull market. 

Even if the Fed hikes rates four times as priced in, we think that policy will be far from restrictive. A policy rate near 1% by year-end would be well below the 5.5% - 6.5% expected nominal GDP growth (3% - 4% after inflation), below the Fed's 2.7% inflation forecast for 2022, and below the pre-pandemic policy rate. 

Stocks have historically experienced some volatility around the first interest-rate hike but generally maintained their upward trajectory six months and a year out. While returns tend to moderate after tightening begins, equities haven't historically run into trouble until the tail end of the cycle when the yield curve inverts. Given our view that the upcoming 2022 Fed hikes won't choke off the economy, we would view any Fed-induced pullbacks or corrections as an opportunity to add quality investments at lower prices

ABOUT THE AUTHOR--Angelo Kourkafas is responsible for analyzing market conditions, assessing economic trends and developing portfolio strategies and recommendations that help investors work toward their long-term financial goals.

He is a contributor to Edward Jones Market Insights and has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, CNBC, Fortune magazine, Marketwatch, US News & World Report, The Observer and the Financial Post.  Angelo graduated magna cum laude with a bachelor's degree in business administration from Athens University of Economics and Business in Greece and received an MBA with concentrations in finance and investments from Minnesota State University.

Angelo Kourkafas


 








*DEFINITION: Priced-in means that the current or upcoming news event / economic release is already reflected in the current prices. 

Thursday, January 20, 2022

AMERICANA / CAN MACHINES CLEAN OUR PLANET'S AIR?

These machines scrub greenhouse gases from the air – an inventor of direct air capture technology shows how it works. One ‘mechanical tree’ is about 1,000 times faster at removing carbon dioxide from air than a natural tree. The first is to start operating in Arizona in 2022. 

GUEST BLOG / By Klaus Lackner, Professor of Engineering and Director of the Center for Negative Carbon Emission, Arizona State University via TheConversation.com
 

From The Conversation: Two centuries of burning fossil fuels has put more carbon dioxide, a powerful greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere than nature can remove. As that CO2 builds up, it traps excess heat near Earth’s surface, causing global warming. There is so much CO2 in the atmosphere now that most scenarios show ending emissions alone won’t be enough to stabilize the climate – humanity will also have to remove CO2 from the air. 

The U.S. Department of Energy has a new goal to scale up direct air capture, a technology that uses chemical reactions to capture CO2 from air. While federal funding for carbon capture often draws criticism because some people see it as an excuse for fossil fuel use to continue, carbon removal in some form will likely still be necessary, IPCC reports show. Technology to remove carbon mechanically is in development and operating at a very small scale, in part because current methods are prohibitively expensive and energy-intensive. 

But new techniques are being tested this year that could help lower the energy demand and cost. We asked Arizona State University Professor Klaus Lackner, a pioneer in direct air capture and carbon storage, about the state of the technology and where it’s headed. 

What is direct carbon removal and why is it considered necessary? 

When I got interested in carbon management in the early 1990s, what drove me was the observation that carbon piles up in the environment. It takes nature thousands of years to remove that CO2, and we’re on a trajectory toward much higher CO2 concentrations, well beyond anything humans have experienced. 

Humanity can’t afford to have increasing amounts of excess carbon floating around in the environment, so we have to get it back out. Not all emissions are from large sources, like power plants or factories, where we can capture CO2 as it comes out. 

So we need to deal with the other half of emissions – from cars, planes, taking a hot shower while your gas furnace is putting out CO2. That means pulling CO2 out of the air. How direct air capture works. 

Since CO2 mixes quickly in the air, it doesn’t matter where in the world the CO2 is removed – the removal has the same impact. So we can place direct air capture technology right where we plan to use or store the CO2. 

The method of storage is also important. Storing CO2 for just 60 years or 100 years isn’t good enough. If 100 years from now all that carbon is back in the environment, all we did was take care of ourselves, and our grandkids have to figure it out again. 

In the meantime, the world’s energy consumption is growing at about 2% per year. One of the complaints about direct air capture, in addition to the cost, is that it’s energy intensive. Can that energy use be reduced? Two large energy uses in direct air capture are running fans to draw in air and then heating to extract the CO2. 

There are ways to reduce energy demand for both. For example, we stumbled into a material that attracts CO2 when it’s dry and releases it when wet. We realized we could expose that material to wind and it would load up with CO2. Then we could make it wet and it would release the CO2 in a way that requires far less energy than other systems. 

Adding heat created from renewable energy raises the CO2 pressure even higher, so we have a CO2 gas mixed with water vapor from which we can collect pure CO2. We can save even more energy if the capture is passive – it isn’t necessary to have fans blowing the air around; the air moves on its own. 

My lab is creating a method to do this, called mechanical trees. They’re tall vertical columns of discs coated with a chemical resin, about 5 feet in diameter, with the discs about 2 inches apart, like a stack of records. 

As the air blows through, the surfaces of the discs absorb CO2. After 20 minutes or so, the discs are full, and they sink into a barrel below. We send in water and steam to release the CO2 into a closed environment, and now we have a low-pressure mixture of water vapor and CO2. We can recover most of the heat that went into heating up the box, so the amount of energy needed for heating is quite small. 

By using moisture, we can avoid about half the energy consumption and use renewable energy for the rest. This does require water and dry air, so it won’t be ideal everywhere, but there are also other methods. 

Klaus Lackner tests direct air capture technologies in his lab. Arizona State University 

Can CO2 be safely stored long term, and is there enough of that type of storage?
I started working on the concept of mineral sequestration in the 1990s, leading a group at Los Alamos. The world can actually put CO2 away permanently by taking advantage of the fact that it’s an acid and certain rocks are base. When CO2 reacts with minerals that are rich in calcium, it forms solid carbonates. 

By mineralizing the CO2 like this, we can store a nearly unlimited amount of carbon permanently. For example, there’s lots of basalt – volcanic rock – in Iceland that reacts with CO2 and turns it into solid carbonates within a few months. Iceland could sell certificates of carbon sequestration to the rest of the world because it puts CO2 away for the rest of the world. 

There are also huge underground reservoirs from oil production in the Permian Basin in Texas. 

There are large saline aquifers. 

In the North Sea, a kilometer below the ocean floor, the energy company Equinor has been capturing CO2 from a gas processing plant and storing a million tons of CO2 a year since 1996, avoiding Norway’s tax on CO2 releases. 

The amount of underground storage where we can do mineral sequestration is far larger than we will ever need for CO2. The question is how much can be converted into proven reserve. We can also use direct air capture to close the carbon loop – meaning CO2 is reused, captured and reused again to avoid producing more. 

Right now, people use carbon from fossil fuels to extract energy. You can convert CO2 to synthetic fuels – gasoline, diesel or kerosene – that have no carbon in them by mixing the CO2 with green hydrogen created with renewable energy. That fuel can easily ship through existing pipelines and be stored for years, so you can produce heat and electricity in Boston on a winter night using energy that was collected as sunshine in West Texas last summer. 

A tankful of “synfuel” doesn’t cost much, and it’s more cost-effective than a battery. The Department of Energy set a new goal to slash the costs of carbon dioxide removal to US$100 per ton and quickly scale it up within a decade. 

What has to happen to make that a reality? 

DOE is scaring me because they make it sound like the technology is already ready. After neglecting the technology for 30 years, we can’t just say there are companies who know how to do it and all we have to do is push it along. We have to assume this is a nascent technology. 

Climeworks is the largest company doing direct capture commercially, and it sells CO2 at around $500 to $1,000 per ton. That’s too expensive. On the other hand, at $50 per ton, the world could do it. I think we can get there. 

The U.S. consumes about 7 million tons of CO2 a year in merchant CO2 – think fizzy drinks, fire extinguishers, grain silos use it to control grain powder, which is an explosion hazard. The average price is $60-$150. 

So below $100 you have a market. What you really need is a regulatory framework that says we demand CO2 is put away, and then the market will move from capturing kilotons of CO2 today to capturing gigatons of CO2. 

Where do you see this technology going in 10 years? 

I see a world that abandons fossil fuels, probably gradually, but has a mandate to capture and store all the CO2 long term. Our recommendation is when carbon comes out of the ground, it should be matched with an equal removal. If you produce 1 ton of carbon associated with coal, oil or gas, you need to put 1 ton away. It doesn’t have to be the same ton, but there has to be a certificate of sequestration that assures it has been put away, and it has to last more than 100 years. 

If all carbon is certified from the moment it comes out of the ground, it’s harder to cheat the system. A big unknown is how hard industry and society will push to become carbon neutral. It’s encouraging to see companies like Microsoft and Stripe buying carbon credits and certificates to remove CO2 and willing to pay fairly high prices. 

New technology can take a decade or two to penetrate, but if the economic pull is there, things can go fast. The first commercial jet was available in 1951. By 1965 they were ubiquitous. 

Wednesday, January 19, 2022

DESIGN OF OUR TIMES /SPIRIT OF MODERNIZATION IN OLDER BUNGALOWS

Asian design influence in 1915 craftsman home in historic North Park neighborhood of San Diego by master builder David Owen Dryden. 

Using Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater icon as inspiration 

COMMENTARY / By Thomas Shess, North Park News, San Diego, CA-- From the mid-1800s to the beginning of World War I, Craftsman Bungalow design was in its heyday. That period is when many of America’s bungalows were individually commissioned by homeowners and hired master craftsmen to construct them. 

San Diego neighborhoods like Coronado, North Park and Mission Hills are examples. On the West Coast other important Craftsman enclaves can be found in Seattle’s Queen Anne Hill, Bay Area Alameda Island and Pasadena, CA. 

By, the mid-1930s, American architect Frank Lloyd Wright championed the prairie style of custom residential design by marrying many of the design tenants of the Craftsman era with the Illinois architect’s contemporary statements. 

Today, Wright’s residential vision has lost little of its futuristic aura despite the passage of time. A prime example of how well Wright’s architecture has bridged Arts & Crafts era and today’s mainstream contemporaryism is a home in the southwest Pennsylvania woods that Pittsburgh department store magnate Edgar Kaufman, Sr. commissioned Wright to create 1933 and complete by 1935. 

What does a Wright design in rural Pennsylvania have to do with modernizing urban bungalows? It’s called building on a theme. Jazz is an example of sometimes taking an established musical piece and reinventing it. Homeowners wishing to modernize a bungalow should do so by staying within the original lines or themes of the Craftsman architectural genre. 

Evolve your modernism don’t destroy it by putting a mini-skirt on grandmother. Wright’s Fallingwater is its own genre. Some call the home built over a tumbling falls pure genius. The American Institute of Architects called it the acme of American architecture. Wright may or may not deserve his genius label, but he does deserve credit for blending established architectural themes from Asia and American/Euro Craftsman design into a newer prairie-style residential art form. 

For example, bungalow owners in North Park can modernize to the max, but by staying within the theme of Craftsman design create your own art form and advance your lifestyle. Again, for example, don’t replaster your bungalow to make it look like a Tuscan suburban estate. 

Instead, keep the look fresh by repairing existing lines and using creative paint colors. Building a home to the extent of the property line is strictly nouveau riche. Building garage in front tract home that flourishes in the suburbs into craftsman territory like San Diego's North Park is pure ignorance. Yes, you have a legal right to do what you wish with your home, but does that make it significant? What does it say about your sensitivity to your neighbors, many of whom have spent decades championing our part of town into a historic district? 

Modernizing kitchens and patios but maintaining the pattern of Craftsman design is what is cool when you live in an architecturally historic community. Keep the exterior, living room, dining room, and parlors as historically pure as possible. 

Modernize within the design genre in the kitchen, bath, bedrooms, family rooms, patios, and rear and side exteriors. Remaking the exterior of your 1915-era bungalow to look like a post-modern palace doesn’t fit in bungalow communities. There is a place for modern, post-modern, contemporary, and mid-century in newer communities. 

Yes, Frank Gehry is a fine American architect. His Disney theatre in Los Angeles and his museum in Bilbao are crowning achievements in Deconstructive Era architecture. He is the Frank Lloyd Wright of his generation. His work blurs the blueprints of all architecture before him. But even Frank Gehry adheres to the architecture of his historic neighborhood home.  He knows where he is welcome.

How do you modernize Arts and Crafts home? 

Here are just a few ways to update your home to accentuate its original features: 

--Refinish original hardwood floors. 

--Build or refinish wood paneling, beams, and built-in cabinets in oak, douglas fir, and or mahogany or teak. 

--Update or expand your porch.  Consider stone walls or repurposed brick.

--Eye on landscaping; add a Ginko tree.

--Choose earthy, natural colors. 

--Reface an original fireplace or add a wood stove. 

--Add modern but with period design interior and exterior lighting.

Thomas Shess is an award-winning architecture and design writer, who until his recent retirement was Creative Director at San Diego Home/Garden Lifestyles magazine. He has received three First Place At Large Reporting Architecture and Design Reporting from the San Diego Press Club. His recent articles have appeared nationally on the cover of Style 1900, Modernism Magazine and in American Bungalow, Old House Interiors and ASID Icon Magazine. 

Tuesday, January 18, 2022

AMERICANA / THOUGHT ABOUT PENNIES, AND QUARTERS AND MAYA ANGELOU


Are U.S. coins in short supply? 

Ask your local panhandler how the perceived coin shortage is impacting his/her income.  "Hey, buddy can you spare a dime?" is a fast fading phrase across the land  as dimes, quarters and other U.S. coins are disappearing!

But for once we can't blame the government.  The culprit is the good old fashioned piggy bank, according to the Federal Reserve.

There is currently an adequate overall amount of coins in the economy. But business and bank closures associated with the COVID-19 pandemic significantly disrupted normal circulation patterns for U.S. coins. 

This slowed pace of circulation reduced available inventories in some areas of the country during 2020. The Federal Reserve continues to work with the U.S. Mint and others in the industry to keep coins circulating. 

As a first step, a temporary cap was imposed in June 2020 on the orders depository institutions place for coins with the Federal Reserve to ensure that the supply was fairly distributed. Because coin circulation patterns have not fully returned to pre-pandemic levels, caps were reinstated in May 2021. 

We continue to closely monitor orders and deposits from depository institutions as well as U.S. Mint production. The U.S. Coin Task Force, which was formed in July 2020 to identify, implement, and promote actions to address disruptions to coin circulation, continues to meet regularly until coin circulation normalizes. 

Since mid-June of 2020, the U.S. Mint has been operating at full production capacity. In 2020, the Mint produced 14.8 billion coins, a 24 percent increase from the 11.9 billion coins produced in 2019. As the economy recovers and businesses reopen, more coins will flow back into retail and banking channels and eventually into the Federal Reserve, which should allow for the further rebuilding of coin inventories available for recirculation. 

The U.S. Mint has inaugurated a series of quarters bearing the likeness of American Heroines.  The shiny coins will be distributed starting this year.

Monday, January 17, 2022

MEDIA MONDAY / DOES IT HELP IN THE LONG RUN TO CALL DRUG & ALCOHOL ADDICTIONS A DISEASE?


GUEST ESSAY /From New York Times Opinion section by Carl Erik Fisher.

 Note: Dr. Fisher is an addiction physician and bioethicist. He’s the author of “The Urge: Our History of Addiction.” 

In 2010, a little more than a year after graduating from medical school, I was admitted to a psychiatric ward at Bellevue Hospital after a drinking and Adderall binge. The first day there, I was finally ready to acknowledge that I had a problem with addiction. 

After a few days alone on the ward, however, I started calling around to friends, trying to get them to sign on to my newly revised opinion that my problem wasn’t that bad after all. Denial is common for people with substance problems. But in my case, my very idea of addiction was working against me. 

Carl Erik Fisher
I thought addiction was an extreme mental illness — a “disease,” as I learned in medical school and later, in rehab. I understood addiction as a damaged condition that neatly divided me from the normal population. 

Addiction as a disease made sense to me initially, but before long, I realized how harmful that view was. Annual U.S. overdose deaths recently topped 100,000, a record for a single year, and that milestone demonstrates the tragic insufficiency of our current “addiction as disease” paradigm. 

Thinking of addiction as a disease might simply imply that medicine can help, but disease language also oversimplifies the story and leads to the view that medical science is the single best framework for understanding addiction. 

Addiction becomes an individual problem, reduced to the level of biology alone. 

This narrows the view of a complex problem that requires community support and healing. Once I was a few years into my recovery, I began studying addiction medicine, in no small part to make sense of what had gone wrong with me and my family — both of my parents were alcoholics. 

I found little help from my own field, which is divided into sometimes clashing schools of thought about how addiction works. As a result, I looked beyond medicine and science to history, philosophy and sociology; addiction is an idea with a long, messy and controversial history, dating back more than half a millennium. 

That history deepened my understanding of addiction and helped me make sense of my own experiences. Around 500 years ago, when the word “addict” entered the English language, it meant something very different: more akin to a “strong devotion.” It was something you did, rather than something that happened to you. 

For example, an early writer counseled his readers to “addict all their doings towards the attainment of life everlasting.” 

My experiences and those of my patients seem more in line with how 16th- and 17th-century writers described addiction: a disordered choice, decisions gone awry. 

Benjamin Rush, a founding father of the United States and one of the most influential physicians in America in the late 18th century, was particularly focused on mental illness. He was famous for describing habitual drunkenness as a chronic and relapsing disease. However, Rush argued medicine could help only in part; he recognized that social and economic policies were central to the problem. 

It was the later temperance movements of the 1820s and 1830s that emphasized a harder language of disease, insisting that people with drinking problems had been damaged by a sort of reductionist biology, that “demon rum” took you over, as in a possession. 

It’s imperative to be careful about these types of deterministic stories. Such reductionistic narratives were repeatedly used as a justification for racist, oppressive crackdowns in the United States, on Chinese opium smoking at the turn of the 20th century and on crack cocaine in the 1980s, which was painted as a problem primarily in Black neighborhoods. 

Today, amid the opioid overdose epidemic, addiction is more likely to be called a disease, but the language of disease has not done away with the misleading notion that drugs hold all the power. Not all drug problems are problems of addiction, and drug problems are strongly influenced by health inequities and injustice, like a lack of access to meaningful work, unstable housing and outright oppression. 

The disease notion, however, obscures those facts and narrows our view to counterproductive criminal responses, like harsh prohibitionist crackdowns. In contrast, today, descriptions of “brain disease” imply that people have no capacity for choice or self-control. 

This strategy is meant to evoke compassion, but it can backfire. Studies have found that biological explanations for mental disorders increase aversion and pessimism toward people with psychological problems, including addiction. What’s needed now more than ever, with overdose deaths on the rise, is not fatalism or dehumanization, but hope. 

I am not saying that addiction is not a real problem, and as a person in addiction recovery, I would never deny that it is a problem of profound challenges with self-control. I know that for some of my peers in recovery and their families, the disease analogy helps them make sense of those struggles and the terrifying breakdown of reason that comes when people cannot seem to change despite their best efforts. 

There are innumerable ways to make sense of addiction and many paths to recovery. But the view of addiction as disease fails to capture much of the experience of addiction, and disease language is not necessary to make the point for humane treatment. 

Today, I am grateful to be in recovery from addiction. I have made peace with the idea that I am the kind of person who should not drink, at least for today. But I do not need to consider it a disease to do this. 

I believe that waking up to addiction is a tremendous gift, because it points us toward universal human struggles with self-control and working with our pain. In that sense, addiction is profoundly ordinary, contiguous with all of human suffering. 

We cannot end it, we certainly cannot cure it, and medicine alone will never save us. But if we drop the idea of disease and open up to a fuller picture of addiction, it will allow for more nuance, care and compassion. 

Sunday, January 16, 2022

SUNDAY REVIEW / THREE CLASSIC BOOKSTORES IN STOCKHOLM & ONE GREAT LIBRARY


1. ANTIKVARIAT AUGUST
 

Where: Drottninggatan 85, 111 60--Located on Drottninggatan, a pedestrian only street in the Stockholm Norrmalm district, Antikvariat August is a used bookstore, where booklovers all over Europe where hard to find fiction and non-fiction of all genres can be found. 




2. THE ENGLISH BOOKSHOP 

Where: Södermannagatan 22, 116 23—The English Bookshop is stocked mainly as the name suggests: books in English. Large selection of genres from kids to crime fiction. 


3. GAMLA STANS BOKHANDEL
 

Where: Stora Nygatan 7, 111 27-- This Stockholm bookstore also has a big stock of English language books. Located in one of the oldest neighborhoods, Gamla Stans Bokhandel is found on Stora Nygatan, one of Stockholm’s oldest streets. 

***


STOCKHOLM PUBLIC LIBRARY 

Where: Sveavagen 73, 113 80--Then, of course, there’s the magnificent Stockholm Public Library (pictured top, lower) that as designed by Modernist Swedish architect Erik Gunnar Asplund. Built between 1918 and 1927, the library has an enormous rotunda and contains more than two million books on three tiers. 



Saturday, January 15, 2022

COFFEE BEANS & BEINGS / ALIVE AND WELL IN WALNUT CREEK


What attracted PillartoPost.org online daily magazine's coffee guru (the honorable Holden DeMayo, esq.) was the fact this operation in East Bay (San Francisco region) roasts its coffee on the premises. 

OK, a lot of folks in the trade do that but Pacific Bay Coffee also offers seasonal beans. For example, Jamaica Blue Mountain from the Clydesdale Estates (not cheap) but available now. And it includes big blue as a 12oz pour over for $10. 

This modern design shop is closed on weekends, which doesn’t do much for the tourist trade, but to each their own operating hours. But it has parking out front, which is a plus in traffic-clogged Bay Area suburbs. 

Cold Coffee Tower

Pacific Bay specializes in syphon pot coffee, Kyoto-style 24-hour cold brew iced coffee in a glass coffee tower (above) and Japanese-style pour-over. Lots of teas, too. Golden Bean North America Roaster’s Competition names Pacific Bay one of the top 30 roasters in North America. 


Where: 1495 Newell Avenue, Walnut Creek, CA Hours: M-F 6:30 am to 2:30 pm Closed Sat. & Sun. https://www.pacificbaycoffee.com/