Another midsummer, another Father’s Day. (Yes – it’s on Sunday, quick there’s still time).
I must confess to being a bit of a cynic about these annual “days”. There seems more downside than upside. As a son, to forget would generate far more ill will than the goodwill generated by remembering. As a father, the best you can hope for is 10 minutes of peace and quiet and a badly wrapped hoe.
But this is year is different. One of the silver linings of lockdown is that millions more kids will have seen a lot more of their dads.
In the developed world, fathers are still far more likely than mothers to work full time, to see little of their children during the week, to parent in absentia.
But the dynamic has changed dramatically in the past three months, in the UK at least, according to national statistics that show childcare undertaken by men has soared. And with working from home expected to feature as part of the new normal, the hope has to be that millions of men will play a bigger role in the lives of their children than before.
There has to be Upside in that.
Other bursts of optimistic journalism this week included:
• The man who rescued a counter-protester in London protests. Two-minute read
• Dining together: London to go alfresco. Two-minute starter
• Learning together: refugees reinvent themselves as Skype language teachers. Two-minute read
• Singing together: the power of the online choir. Three-minute singalong
• The world’s biggest liquid air battery. 90-second recharge
• An important US supreme court ruling. Two-minute read
Lucky numbers
Germany has 30,000 wind turbines. In the first three months of 2020, they provided about 35% of its electricity – a record.
Wind power becomes #Germany's most important power source for first time ever, delivering nearly 35% of all electricity in Q1 2020, statistical office @destatis says on #GlobalWindDay. See CLEW factsheet on the country's #windpower industry for background:https://t.co/mVco6VMz8B https://t.co/ZU9Mp5zV39
— Clean Energy Wire (@cleanenergywire) June 15, 2020
Meanwhile, in the UK, new Covid-19 cases and deaths are finally starting to abate, and the alert level has been lowered from 4 to 3.
What we liked
Wow! News is like a restless kid brother to the Upside, and this week we loved their piece on the pre-teen who came up with a pain-free coronavirus test. Go Axel!
We also admired this article in Sweden’s The Local on a new law that has driven a surge in rape convictions, and this piece in the Atlantic that examined what it takes to be a good teacher to black students.
What we heard
Richie Meneses wrote from San Diego about his own experiences of lockdown:
I’m completely focused on being a virtual volunteer for someone with Alzheimer’s who we’ll call ‘Norm’. I’ve been having wonderful conversations about his former work as an electrical engineer, his projects on ham radio, his love for camping, and how his work led to unexpected places. My last few meetings with him have taken unexpected but wonderful directions and I’m getting great feedback from his wife and caretaker.
This is what I’ve done since I’ve graduated from college. I’m glad I have focused all of my time and energy on this position and it is worth ignoring the distractions that are getting in my way.
Maarten Kossmann took us back to marvellous foreign words that are hard to render in English:
In Dutch, ‘horizonvervuiling’ (horizon pollution) means that there is a big object faraway that makes the horizon look not entirely like a flat line. In practice it refers mainly to modern man-made objects (so modern windmills are horizon pollution, old windmills aren’t; and I haven’t heard any complaints yet about the Swiss Alps), but I think the term (and ‘problem’) can only emerge in a culture set in a landscape with no relief whatsoever.
Where was the Upside?
Back with football/soccer, which not only gave us something to watch this week, but someone to cheer as well.
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