Three Things to Think About
Welcome. And buckle up.
I have three absolutely fascinating stories to share this week, so let’s dive in. And be sure to join us in the comments with your thoughts!
Dioramas, a Thing of the Past?
I’ll admit it, I have a strange affinity for dioramas. The Thorne miniature room exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago is perhaps my favorite thing to see, and I have an equal love for the tiny replicas of ancient Egyptians engaged in the mummification process at the Field Museum. Dioramas needn’t be tiny for me to love them, though — all sizes are welcome.
But now, museums are rethinking the way they present science, especially through dioramas.
The “diorama dilemma,” as it is called, is challenging the way museums show wild animals, and the human impulses behind them. The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles, for example, had a lion diorama that had a paltry number of females — which it has taken steps to rectify. .
Some human biases like sexism and homophobia show through in exhibits like at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles’s lion diorama which only included a sparse number of female lions when it originally debuted, but now includes more.
Are dioramas becoming dusty museum relics? This article in Science News explores the fascinating debate about dioramas in modern life.
The Other Donner Party
For decades, a luxury train shuttled passengers between Chicago and San Francisco. But in order to get there, they needed to travel near Donner Pass, high in the Sierra Nevadas. (Yes, that Donner Pass.)
More than 100 years after the ill-fated Donner expedition was trapped, the City of San Francisco train ran smack-dab into a blizzard that created 25-foot snow drifts. In 1952, 226 people were trapped aboard the train for three days, until an enterprising group of people — including a dog team — came to their rescue. Why hasn’t this been made into a feature film yet? Read the story here.
Did JFK Know?
A newly-released home video, directed by Jackie Kennedy, has revived the theory that, like Abraham Lincoln before him, JFK may have had premonitions of his own death.
The James Bond-inspired movie, filmed two months before Kennedy’s assassination, shows Kennedy, who plays himself, being assassinated at their Hammersmith Farm vacation home.
Jackie told some of JFK’s security detail, “We’re making a movie about the president’s murder.”
Read the story here.
Thanks for being here — I appreciate you! This article is free, so please share it with anyone who might be interested!
Thank you for a brief reprieve from the present! I know some people won’t like it, but I’m sure you needed it as well.
I love dioramas. I’d definitely be sad to see them go, but also understand that as technology and time continues to move forward they become historical artifacts themselves. But I also love that aspect about them.
@Sharon, this is fine but I hope you're preparing something about the ongoing constitutional crisis. The administration has made a number of illegal moves which violate the separation of powers, and while numerous court orders have been passed down to stop them, the administration is thus far ignoring them. If the executive cannot be checked by the legislature or the judiciary, then the Constitution is effectively suspended and we are in a dictatorship. I'm afraid that there is no one to enforce legal limits on this administration, and the possibility that we will simply accept authoritarianism or that any opposition could escalate dangerously. Please discuss this seriously this week. 🙏🏻