Never been on this block!
Winding our way through the interstitial spaces between neighborhoods
Well, it’s been another week! That’s how time works, I guess.
Last weekend E and I ran 18 miles—to Central Park, around the reservoir, and back. (At just shy of 4 hours, this was also E’s longest run ever, by time.) This appears to be the threshold distance physically impossible for me to complete without bursting into tears at the end. Even with walk breaks and attempts to adhere to the two-minute rule (running each mile two minutes slower than you could), I was completely busted by the end. Maybe I should be going even slower, or take more walk breaks, but it’s so hard in the cold and wind…
I’m still loving exploring the city on foot this way, winding our way through the interstitial spaces between neighborhoods we’ve never had an occasion to visit before. “Never been on this block,” is our semi-regular refrain. Also, it’s kind of fun to be the only people running through a particular neighborhood (those unfamiliar streets of East Williamsburg). Already cautiously looking forward to the long run next weekend (20 miles) when we can fit in a complete loop of the park.
Reading list
Good
A tremendous and empathetic profile of the people who call Golden Gate Park home—and the woman working against serious headwinds, bureaucratic and otherwise, to move them into safe and stable housing. [Susan Freinkel for the San Francisco Standard]
Mixed bag
After learning that Trump had axed the National Nature Assessment, a massive new report with contributions from more than 150 scientists and other experts, slated to be finished in less than a month, the director of the project messaged the team from his private email: “This work is too important to die.” Now they’re trying to figure out how to publish some other way. [Catrin Einhorn for the New York Times]
Seems pretty bad
A Connecticut-based real estate investment firm called Darkhorse Tactical Investments is snapping up plots of land—100 acres so far—within Joshua Tree National Park, raising concerns that future development projects could threaten the sensitive desert ecosystem. [Alex Wigglesworth and Lila Seidman for the Los Angeles Times]
Ugh I just can’t even
Yesterday the Trump administration fired at least 2,300 federal workers at the Department of the Interior, including 1,000 National Park Service employees, 800 Bureau of Land Management employees and 400 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service employees, representing 4 percent of the agency’s entire workforce. These employees were mostly new hires still in a probationary period and so have limited recourse. This follows the dismissal of 3,400 Forest Service employees on Thursday. [The Center for Biological Diversity]
“All probationary employees at NASA Ames will be sent email termination notices next Tuesday, 18 February 2025.” [Keith Cowing for NASA Watch]
“We are likely to lose a generation of American scientists or more, depending how long this goes on.” [Adam Sobel for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists]
Hurricane Katrina wiped out 200,000 trees in New Orleans. Tree cover as a whole in the city has decreased 30 percent over the past two decades. The Trump administration just cut off funding to the group working on replanting and restoring that canopy, putting the future of the endeavor in serious jeopardy. [Tristan Baurick for Verite News]
I am not the world’s biggest fans of lawns, but paving over the grass in the White House Rose Garden to make a patio is so tacky. I cringe. [Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan for the New York Times]
Can you say more about why you burst into tears at the end of these long runs? That is quite an impressive distance!
“Well, it’s been another week! That’s how time works, I guess.” 👈 thank you for this, it made me laugh/sigh because each week I find myself asking the same thing. Four years feels like eternity. 🌀