Turning points (Continuación)

Catherine Hurlin of the American Ballet Theatre at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York in June 2019. Credit Bryan Derballa for The New York Times

“The Life Unlived” is a poem, or a dramatic sketch, that revolves around a new era. It focuses on what is happening inside those who populate the text and inside us readers as we watch the ballet the poem describes. Perhaps we’re longing to do something real. Perhaps we’re longing for our own lives.

In the poem, Isaac and Ishmael meet again. I imagine that these brothers have spent a long time missing each other. I’ve been thinking about them for years. They speak of doves and death, the mighty condor, all while watching the ballet.

I want to believe that this text is an embodied response to the question of what’s possible, even in a year like 2020.…  Seguir leyendo »

2020 Through the Eyes of Dogs

Even I, who pay almost no attention to anything, can see that this year has been a nightmare. While thinking about the state of the world, I came across two old photos of mine, 20-by-24-inch Polaroids made in 2005.

The model in both photos is Mazzy, a blue Weimaraner who belonged to my assistant, Marlo Kovach. I have never met a dog who liked being photographed more than Mazzy, and I worked with her often. She was addicted to bright light, to the blast of illumination from the strobes that surrounded her on the set.

The first photo, “Splitting Image,” is a foreboding picture of a dark dog with luminous eyes set in a gloomy interior, looking out over a cut out, miniature version of itself.…  Seguir leyendo »

Why My Father Fled Seoul´s Lockdown

Turning Point: In February, Daegu, South Korea, became the site of the first major coronavirus outbreak outside China.

My father felt marooned.

He had done manual labor his whole life, working in construction. At 70, he became a security guard. Then, when he was too old to work, he passed the time at a city-run senior center. He played janggi with other men, read at the public library and took walks in a neighborhood park. But with the outbreak of Covid-19, facilities closed in unison, taking with them every avenue of socialization. My father was forced to spend the winter confined to the small room he’d been living in for 20 years in his son and daughter-in-law’s home in Seoul, reduced to few words and fewer square feet.…  Seguir leyendo »

What Comfort Food Looks Like to People Around the World

As the coronavirus pandemic thrust us into the unknown and confined us to our homes, the time many of us spent in the kitchen grew exponentially. We baked sourdough and banana breads, tested the capabilities of our Dutch ovens and concocted elaborate meals, all in search of distraction, solace and a sense of normality. Our actions were the manifestation of a simple truth: Food can nourish our souls as much as our bodies. After all, who hasn’t turned to cake in a time of sadness, or felt the joy a favorite dish can bring?

We asked six people who know plenty about the power of food to tell us about the flavors dear to their hearts.…  Seguir leyendo »

President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. addressing the nation from Wilmington, Del., on Nov. 7. “It’s time to put away the harsh rhetoric, lower the temperature, see each other again, listen to each other again,” he said. Credit Angela Weiss/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

President Trump is not yet gone, but he’s muted, marginalized and moribund. American democracy was challenged by Mr. Trump at its very heart — respect for truth — and resisted. Joe Biden will take office in January as the 46th president of the United States. Decency will return to the White House, a fundamental moral shift. Dictators the world over will no longer have carte blanche to do their worst unchallenged.

Mr. Biden, with 306 Electoral College votes — the same number that Mr. Trump won in 2016 when he called his victory a “massive landslide” — won with a little room to spare.…  Seguir leyendo »

Personas en Bangalore celebran la decisión de la Corte Suprema de derogar una prohibición de la era colonial al sexo homosexual, la cual había sido usada para extorsionar, acosar y atacar sexualmente a indios de la comunidad LGBT. Credit Manjunath Kiran/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

1) Se lanza por primera vez una nave espacial de la NASA cuyo nombre honra en vida a un científico.

La Sonda Solar Parker, la primera nave espacial de la NASA nombrada en honor a una persona que todavía vive, se lanzó en agosto. La nave tiene el nombre del astrofísico Eugene Parker, quien fue el primero en describir el viento solar en 1958. Esta sonda, que también se espera que establezca un récord como la nave espacial más veloz, es el objeto hecho por el hombre que ha estado más cerca del Sol.

2) Una pintura alcanza un precio histórico para un artista afroestadounidense vivo.…  Seguir leyendo »

La gran ciberestafa

Punto de inflexión: Cambridge Analytica, una firma de análisis de datos políticos, recolectó información privada de más de 87 millones de perfiles de Facebook sin que la red social alertara a sus usuarios.

Desde hace tiempo, hemos aceptado que para participar en las redes sociales, debemos renunciar a nuestra privacidad. Sacrificamos partes fundamentales de nuestra información personal para poder amplificar nuestra voz, acariciar nuestro ego y conectarnos con una tribu virtual. Puntos de Inflexión pidió a la escritora Maggie Shen King que explorara una distopía en torno a la información, y ella respondió con un relato de ficción.

Sofie no podía comprender por qué hace una semana se habían detenido las ofertas.…  Seguir leyendo »

Fans seek autographs after a match between Venus Williams and her sister Serena Williams during the 2018 U.S. Open. Credit Adam Hunger/Associated Press

Turning Point: Researchers survey almost 2,000 American girls and find that girls’ confidence levels fall about 30 percent between the ages of 8 and 14. A similar drop is not observed for boys.

In a video that made the rounds on social media in 2018, a 14-year-old Venus Williams tells John McKenzie, an ABC News reporter who is interviewing her, about how confident she is that she can defeat an opponent on the tennis court.

“I know I can beat her,” a smiling Ms. Williams tells Mr. McKenzie. “I’m very confident.”

Mr. McKenzie seems surprised at her answer. “You say it so easily,” he tells her.…  Seguir leyendo »

Monkeys stare into a camera in the Pra Prang Sam Yot temple in Thailand’s Lopburi province. An annual festival celebrates the monkeys for bringing tourism to the city. Credit Sukree Sukplang/Reuters

Planning your calendar for 2019? Here are a few events to look out for.

January

NEPAL, January: Nepal’s first professional midwives are born as part of the country’s effort to reduce maternal and neonatal mortality rates. Twenty-nine students are expected to graduate from bachelor of midwifery programs at the National Academy of Medical Science and Kathmandu University.

ANTARCTICA, January-February: Scientists, pack your parkas. The Weddell Sea off the coast of the Antarctic Peninsula — one of the coldest, most remote and unexplored parts of the planet — hosts researchers from Cambridge University’s Scott Polar Research Institute. The research team plans to sample the seafloor underneath the ice to gather data on marine life, while looking for the wreck of the Endurance, the sunken ship of the polar explorer Ernest Shackleton.…  Seguir leyendo »

Menores esperan en una sala de procesamiento en las instalaciones de Aduanas y Protección Fronteriza de Estados Unidos durante una visita de Melania Trump, la primera dama de Estados Unidos, en junio. Credit Doug Mills/The New York Times

Punto de inflexión: La política migratoria de tolerancia cero del gobierno de Donald Trump, la cual exige que cualquier persona que cruce la frontera ilegalmente sea procesada, provoca la separación de miles de niños de sus familias.

El audio fue hecho público a las 15:51 del 18 de junio de 2018.

La grabación captó a diez niños centroamericanos que lloraban y suplicaban a agentes y trabajadores consulares en unas instalaciones de Aduanas y Protección Fronteriza de Estados Unidos. El material fue obtenido de una fuente que se arriesgó a ser despedida por darlo a conocer y publicado por ProPublica, la organización de periodismo de investigación sin fines de lucro.…  Seguir leyendo »

For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction, taught Newton, and if what is true for physics is also true for life, then 2019 may be the year that the onslaught of populist demagogues runs up against a reaction of cooperation, tolerance, honesty and simple human decency.

In the end, decency is at the core of good governance and an equitable society, and 2018 has seen evidence of a swelling reaction against the cynicism, lies and hypocrisy of leaders who have systematically fanned fears, prejudice and hatreds to amass power.

The revulsion at dividing refugee families; the #MeToo movement’s reckoning over sexual misconduct; the mounting pressure on tech giants to safeguard personal data and cleanse their social networks of propaganda, hatred and fake news; the midterm elections in the United States; these and other events and trends raised a glimmer of hope that the decent majority — and it is the majority — is trying to pull the world back from the slough of despond into which it seemed to be sinking.…  Seguir leyendo »

Workers remove prosthetic limbs from a replica of the Venus de Milo at the Louvre-Rivoli metro station in Paris. Credit Christophe Archambault/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

As modern life moves forward, has our society left something important behind? Can it, or should it, be retrieved? We asked the thinkers, artists and opinion leaders below for their thoughts.

Society has forgotten an idea that had accompanied humanity from time immemorial: utopia. The notion that there is a new and better world to strive for and dream about has largely disappeared from our all too skeptical, one might even say cynical, society.

There are plenty of dystopias to give us nightmares, but a world without a utopia may be a world not worth living in; utopia is to our notion of history as the speed of light is to the cosmos.…  Seguir leyendo »

How to Save the Web

Turning Point: By 2019, 50 percent of the global population will be online.

In recent years, it has become clear that the web is not living up to the high hopes we had for it. Built as an open tool for collaboration and empowerment, the web has been hijacked by crooks and trolls who have used it to manipulate people all over the world.

To preserve a web that serves all of humanity, not just the privileged and the powerful, we will have to fight for it. That’s why I’m asking governments, companies and citizens across the globe to commit to a set of core principles for the web.…  Seguir leyendo »

Idania del Río, propietaria de Clandestina en La Habana. Los empresarios cubanos han prosperado desde que Raúl Castro legalizó la empresa privada en 2016. Credit Yamil Lage/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Punto de inflexión: Raúl Castro renuncia a la presidencia de Cuba.

“Era tuyo”, dijo mi madre mientras sostenía un uniforme escolar de niña de color azul.

Ya tiene 82 años y todavía me sorprende con objetos que trajo de Cuba, pero que han estado guardados desde la década de los sesenta.

Tenía una estrella cosida al frente y un dobladillo amplio, para poderlo ajustar conforme creciera.

“¿No te acuerdas?”. Negué con la cabeza.

“Lo usaste cuando tenías 4 años. Ibas a la misma escuela judía a la que yo fui en La Habana. Impartían las clases en español y en yidis.…  Seguir leyendo »

The Big Phish

Turning Point: Cambridge Analytica, a political data firm, harvested private information from more than 50 million Facebook profiles without the social network alerting users.

We have long ago come to terms with the trade-off that to participate in social media, we must first give up our privacy. We sacrifice vital parts of our personal data so that we may amplify our voice, stroke our ego and connect with a virtual tribe. Turning Points asked the writer Maggie Shen King to explore a data-driven dystopia, and she responded with a piece of flash fiction.

Sofie could not understand why the bidding stopped a week ago.…  Seguir leyendo »

Shrimp farms run by the World Wildlife Fund on the outskirts of Hong Kong. Credit Billy H.C. Kwok for The New York Times

Turning Point: A World Bank report concludes that more than 143 million people will become “climate migrants” escaping crop failure, water scarcity and sea-level rise.

When culture and recreation come together communities emerge.
When communities become societies a settlement is formed.
In those realities we inhabit our aspirations of togetherness.

Sustainable cities are like a forest: ever-growing and diverse. In a forest, each branch, each trunk, each tree is unique, blossoming in its own way. Yet everything is connected. Everything in the forest has its role in a cosmic symphony. The city is no different.

The city, too, is an organism, both stable and fluid, static and constantly transforming.…  Seguir leyendo »

Dana Schutz’s “Open Casket,” seen here on display at the 2017 Whitney Biennial. Credit Benjamin Norman for The New York Times

Turning Point: In a recent wave of protests against art, a prominent art fair in Madrid removed artwork featuring jailed Catalan politicians, stirring debate over artistic liberty.

As far back as one can trace, political art has been problematic but ultimately necessary, as it forces art outside of its comfort zones and connects artists with the world.

As an artist living in exile, I have often found myself crossing the art world’s thin red line, not deliberately but because political reality is what has defined my life. But it isn’t only artists in exile who must deal with this borderline — it exists wherever there is an intersection between art and profit, whenever artists are pulled in opposite directions, balancing high aesthetics and politically charged and relevant subjects.…  Seguir leyendo »

Israeli border police chase a Palestinian youth during a clash with protesters in the Old City of Jerusalem. Credit Uriel Sinai for The New York Times

Turning Point: In Gaza’s deadliest day since 2014, the Israeli military killed dozens of Palestinians and injured thousands more.

When the Second World War ended in 1945 there were 51 member states in the United Nations. Today there are 193. Many of the new states emerged out of struggle and conflict as old empires crumbled.

That cycle of political struggle continues today. The Brexit crisis may cause huge economic damage to Ireland’s economies and may even threaten the Good Friday Agreement. In Catalonia and the Basque Country, both of which seek independence from Spain, in Hong Kong and Palestine, people fight or have fought for the right to self-govern.…  Seguir leyendo »

Technology Has Destroyed Reality

Turning Point: Facebook and Twitter removed or suspended millions of pages, groups and accounts in an effort to combat bots and trolls.

On June 20, 2017, the BBC evening news opener broke down. For four minutes, a breaking-news animation alternated random still pictures with tracking shots of a presenter who sat stoically in silence. The elements of the familiar sequence were jumbled, messed up and nonsensical.

The scene was the result of a technical glitch — a system crash. But it also served as an image of automation run amok, of decades of breaking news finally resulting in broken news.

The message still resonates: In this new age of artificial stupidity, technological disruption has turned destructive.…  Seguir leyendo »