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Articles by Ellen Taylor
Scholarly Publications in an Era of Artificial Intelligence
Introduction Do We Have a Problem? A Circular Crisis Policies for Research Integrity With AI HERD Journal's AI Policy Author Responsibilities Conclusion References PDF/EPUB More Cite Share options Information, rights and permissions Metrics and citations Figures and tables Introduction In May 2026, an online study reported that out of 55,000 randomly selected online articles, 50% were primarily artificial intelligence (AI)-generated, equal to the number written by humans (Druck, 2026).
My Word | We’ve normalized inflicting pain, destroying history
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... I have two prints on my wall, painted by the great Iranian painter, Mahmoud Farschian. The original of one, “The Fifth Day of Creation,” is a giant canvas.
My Word | Where were the pirate costumes?
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Walk - North Coast Journal
I stopped to see the moon Sneaking through the day I watched a file of pelicans Patrol the breakers through the spray I spied a beached sea lion in the sand As two prospecting ravens pecked their prey While from the hills rang antiphonal psalmody Performed by rapt coyote choirs, far away. —Ellen Taylor
Through Mark Larson's Lens 2025
Stand-up from Hoffman, Nanjiani and Chappelle If we’re not laughing, we’re crying, right? Or, more often, both at the same time, in a rictal horror that may never be unmade; it is still 2025 after all. As much as I relish the grand collaboration of the movies, there is something immediate, undiluted and handmade about…
Design innovation for stress reduction
Shell Point Retirement Community’s 200,000-square-foot Larsen Health Center includes a medical center, behavioral health suite, rehabilitation center, pharmacy, dental suite and a 180-bed skilled nursing facility with private rooms. Health care environments are universally recognized as high-pressure settings where stress can impact staff performance, well-being and retention. In senior living and acute care alike, leaders are exploring new ways to address burnout and emotional fatigue.
My Word | Trump’s sense of humor on Project 2025 goals not funny
Putin once brushed off Trump’s accusation that Russia and North Korea were conspiring against him when their leaders met together in Beijing, He remarked that Trump “is not without a sense of humor, we all know it well.” Indeed, Trump is known and admired for his humor. Laughter is a powerful political weapon. It can unify a crowd and dissipate resentment. It can relax an audience. But Trump’s humor is of the “evil clown” sort.
A research primer on literature reviews
One of the most well-known literature reviews in the field of health care design is “A Review of the Research Literature on Evidence-Based Healthcare Design.” Published in 2008, its popularity stems from the summaries about design and outcomes from multiple research studies. Literature reviews, which are their own kind of research, can take the form of a narrative review, a scoping review, a systematic review, a meta-analysis or even an umbrella review — the newest review type.
My Word | KMUD brings international politics to local ears
Our local community-supported radio station, KMUD, headquartered in Redway, is unique for the wide reach and depth of its radio programming: local, state, and national. Its news department is outstanding. Estelle Fennell was a spectacular news director for decades. During the years of Julia Butterfly’s tree sit, she spoke with her practically daily, and faithfully maintained her communication with forest defense and with the world.
Patient and carer priorities for research and clinical care of children with Down syndrome
Objectives Down syndrome, the most common genetic disorder, is caused by the presence of all or part of a third copy of chromosome 21. We identified the top 10 patient and carer research priorities for children with Down syndrome. Design A modified James Lind Alliance method was used. A first online survey generated ideas, which were collated, and a longlist was created. A second online survey prioritised the longlist. This was done for clinicians and patient and carers separately.
My Word | A modern political take on ‘The Devil and Daniel Webster’
Netanyahu looks like the devil. The resemblance is especially apparent in images from his youth. He is handsome and graceful, with a mellifluous voice. Watch him, a worldly man, bending in whispered conversation with the powerful and Presidentially-honored Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson, receiving the information that he will be the one to welcome the Messiah, who will usher in a Jewish kingdom stretching from the Nile to the Euphrates.
My Word | ‘We have to listen to the children’
The children in the Mattole school are busy practicing a song for our graduation ceremony. I’m the piano accompanist, so I get to listen. It’s a tiny school, less than 30 children, from 4-year-olds to high school, but they sing, sometimes, with passion and conviction. The song they’ve chosen is “We Are the World”, the Michael Jackson-Lionel Richie song from the ’80s, written to raise money for a famine in Ethiopia.
My Word | Reflections on Victory Day in Europe in 2025
This May, the 80th anniversary of Germany’s surrender ending World War II was celebrated in Moscow with its customary gravity. Memory of the war is still strong in the minds of contemporary generations of Russians. 27 million of their forebears died in the second world war.
Patient and carer priorities for research and clinical care of children with Down syndrome
Abstract Objectives Down syndrome, the most common genetic disorder, is caused by the presence of all or part of a third copy of chromosome 21. We identified the top 10 patient and carer research priorities for children with Down syndrome. Design A modified James Lind Alliance method was used. A first online survey generated ideas, which were collated, and a longlist was created. A second online survey prioritised the longlist. This was done for clinicians and patient and carers separately.
My Word | Is it time for a new plan in the Middle East?
Saudi Arabia and Israel each have well-developed dreams for the strategically located real estate of Gaza. The Saudis, wanting to depart from their dependence on oil production, have developed plans for a 105-mile-long futuristic city, stretching up the Red Sea coast, then connected by a highway across Israel, to Gaza, where they will produce items like Teslas.
Hallett joins HHYF board
Anderson, IN – Award-winning Jessica Hallett has been recently elected to the Harness Horse Youth Foundation Board of Trustees. “Jessica’s creative, youthful approach is an immediate win for HHYF” said HHYF President Allison Conte.
My Word | US is complicit in crimes in Gaza
A couple of weeks ago a silent procession walked through Eureka streets, dressed in mourning black. They carried a rope, from which dangled and twirled a thousand paper children, representing the many thousands of children put to death in Gaza and Lebanon. The procession stopped at the door of Congressman Huffman, who marches in lockstep with the US complicity in obliteration of Gaza. The spectacle there has become so unbelievably Satanic that it is trite, a caricature.
The October Mourners
Here they come, the mourners Along the streets of Jaroujiji, no stranger to slaughter. They are black and slow, and silent too: No joy through tears, No second line for them, But the gagging, unspeakable Stab of child death, With its thousands of Tiny shrouds, And the women from the hills have made paper children And strung them, souls, on a red rope, stretching for blocks Where they flutter and twist.
To the Olive Sided Flycatcher
This morning , Olive-sides was gone: Bare the fir's thin finger Where he would stand to greet the dawn... Today, no herald singer! Has he been counseled by a star? Or sensed the shrinking day? Recalled the walking trees, afar Along the Mamore? Farewell then, heartiest of birds! Take care with winds and moons! Come, dark, with Sparrow's minor thirds On somber afternoons. Ellen Taylor
The Second Coming?
For an elder (or for anybody, in fact), contemplation of the tableau of US history can become a habitual 4th of July conversation. As commonly told and commemorated on Independence Day, our nation’s story begins glamorously enough, erupting into the world with streaming banners of righteousness and courage.
Re-Writing D-Day
At the end of WWII, it was generally recognized that the Soviet Union and saved Europe.. Russians killed 80% of all German soldiers. The Nazi invasion of Russia, biggest military onslaught in history, happened 3 years before D-Day. During these three years Russia begged the UK and the US to open a western front. However, by the time they responded, Russia had already turned the tide, and was pushing the Nazis steadily to the German border.
An overview of design research in practice
When someone says they did research for a project, what exactly do they mean? In a 2007 editorial in the inaugural issue of the Health Environments Research & Design Journal, founding editor Kirk Hamilton, Ph.D., pointed out that for many practitioners, research may include code reviews, an examination of space requirements and scouring through catalogs and magazines. Others may think of research in terms of the scientific method.
Gaza and Ghosts of the Bronze Age
Alexander the Great razed Gaza to the ground in the 3rd century BC. He was in a towering rage because Gaza, unlike most of the other cities he passed through on his way to Egypt, had been defiant, and had closed its gates. The King was further incensed by the skill of Gazan raiding parties: they sped out of the city gates on their light Arabian horses, across the sand, which encumbered the feet of the heavy Macedonian steeds.
Slouching Towards Bethlehem
Advent, the 25 days leading up to Christmas, is a passage traditionally associated with wreaths, greetings and joy, a succession of purple and pink candles and mounting excitement. This year however it is a dark and dreadful path, followed with heavy tread and mounting dread. The Christmas stories told in churches, in carols, in the art and which permeate our traditions and culture, have been infernally transformed into a hideous reality torn limb from limb on the wheel of the daily news.
Slouching Toward Bethlehem
Advent, the 25 days leading up to Christmas, is a passage traditionally associated with wreaths, greetings and joy, a succession of purple and pink candles and mounting excitement. This year however it is a dark and dreadful path, followed with heavy tread and mounting dread. The Christmas stories told in churches, in carols, in the art and which permeate our traditions and culture, have been infernally transformed into a hideous reality torn limb from limb on the wheel of the daily news.
My Word | Put down guns, let barred owls come to the rescue
As we heard from the Times-Standard a couple of weeks ago, the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) wants to shoot a lot of barred owls — more than 400,000 in fact! … in the belief that this is the only way to rescue the northern spotted owl (NSO) from extinction. It has engaged in the formal approval process and is inviting public comment.
Barred Owl to the Rescue!
As we heard from the Times-Standard a couple of weeks ago, the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) wants to shoot a lot of barred owls – more than 400,000 in fact! … in the belief that this is the only way to rescue the northern spotted owl (NSO) from extinction. It has engaged in the formal approval process, and is inviting public comment.
America and the Drowning of Derna
Two weeks ago cyclone Daniel swept across northern Africa. In Libya, it obliterated two dams above Derna, sweeping away the Libyan city, and drowning unknown thousands of people. The dams were built by Muammar Ghadaffi, who was born a goat-herder, near Derna. Rising through the military, he engineered a successful coup in 1969 against colonially-appointed King Idris. Gaddafi was a socialist. He nationalized oil and kicked out US military bases.
Burning Trees for Energy is Not a Climate Solution
Recently, AI (Artificial Intelligence), with its access to the entire web library, was asked to make a short film creating a probable encounter between humans and the first aliens to cross the universe to visit. In the resulting plot, as humans prepare to receive them, the US and Russia go to war over which will be the first to greet the aliens. Missiles fly.
My Word | What would people from other worlds think of earthlings?
Recently, AI (artificial intelligence), with its access to the entire web library, was asked to make a short film creating a probable encounter between humans and the first aliens to cross the universe to visit. In the resulting plot, as humans prepare to receive them, the U.S. and Russia go to war over which will be the first to greet the aliens. Missiles fly.
Change
The Morning of the Fall, Eve sprang from her sleep And sprinted to the lake. The crescent moon held a spoon of darkness Above the warning dawn. Watching, the woods breathed Orange and wild lilac and she plunged And pulled into the cold depths. Water grasses played on her pendent belly, Stirred the being within, and as she rose The sun rose too.
The impact of China targeting its diaspora
Recently I made a routine phone call to my grandma, Helen Taylor, to ask her to share two things with me: a CBC article she had earlier mentioned that I might be interested in, and her sweet and savoury banana bread recipe. Nothing noteworthy for most Canadians. But for certain diaspora communities these days, this routine phone call and simple act of information-sharing would be considered too dangerous to attempt.
Ceasefire
In May, the Generals made a truce And started shaping words. The trenches stilled. Still, blood flowed red As troops sat, stupid. Overhead They heard the flight of birds. A boy crept out into the sluice Of sleet, and scanned for drones. Midfield, a rush of storks traversed The front, with patterns long rehearsed: In flight to summer zones. The other side, in order loose, Watched, joyous, from the mire.
My Word | Eureka needs to stop persecuting homeless population
I’m reading “The London Hanged,” a book about street life in the London of the 17th century. Hangings at the Tyburn gallows were street theater. The people to be hanged were celebrated, by the poor, on their long, crowded journey to the gallows, and offered drinks and salutes on their way. Their crimes were, overwhelmingly, petty theft, the result of social upheaval and resultant poverty.
Healthcare | Free Full-Text | Evaluating Efficacy of a COVID-19 Alternative Care Site Preparedness Assessment Tool for Catastrophic Healthcare Surge Capacity during Pandemic Response
This is an early access version, the complete PDF, HTML, and XML versions will be available soon.
A Voice of Sanity in the Ukraine War
The Monroe Doctrine has been a No-Trespassing sign nailed to the gate of US foreign policy for almost 300 years. Naval exercises are performed by the US in places like the Yellow and South China Seas. Enacted by other countries off our coasts, however, they would be unthinkable. Take the Cuban missile crisis, for instance, in which the USSR placed missiles in Cuba as a tit-for-tat retort to the US placement of nukes in Turkey. It almost destroyed the planet.
Reflections on EPIC’s annual achievement awards
Humboldt County’s Environmental Protection Information Center (EPIC), founded in 1977, has a modest name. Indeed, information’s uses are modest: the gravest warnings are useless if they do not spark action toward safety. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres exclaimed despairingly upon this recently, as he lifted his eyes from the vast array of environmentally destructive activities taking place around the globe: “The world must end its suicidal war against nature”.
Halloween Poem
All Hallows Eve! The sun, Descending into a pyre of branches, becomes a Jack o'Lantern And, bidden, they spring up on the dark roads Steps, and windows across the dimming land. Look! Inferno is in their eyes. Irony is on their lipless, pillared grins.
My Word | Remember those who speak for the trees
Griff Griffith, Natural and Cultural Resources Interpreter for Humboldt Redwoods State Park, NCJ-elected “Best Activist of the Year,” is a jolly version of Dr. Seuss’s Lorax. He speaks for the trees. As principal host at HRSP’s 101st birthday party last week, he, and other helper-Loraxes, regaled visitors with his reverence for the park, and the story of the woman who saved a large part of it.
Haying on Saturday
A tribute to KMUD and local radio As BBC expounds on nukes, low-yield Our hay truck lurches as we leave the field. A disc can launch them from the NATO ring Encircling our competitor. It's spring. Ill-omened, like the dread two-headed calf Are infants suckled by Globemaster jets. And Service suicides are up by half! The more we hear, the more macabre it gets. We switch to KMUD on the hill. Here's Ed< And Rattlesnake. A flash, and gloom has fled For Sgt.
In Memoriam
In Memoriam Josef and Magda Goebbels’s six children, d. 5/1/1945 Concealed in blowing foam, a tiny seal Scarce escapes my foot. Gaunt gulls guffaw. But, rising swiftly, in a wave of teal A barking mother warns us that she saw. Running cows to Smith’s, my horse’s hoof Grazes a fawn, disguised in tufts of dill. Black legs pass, urged on by tooth and woof: He shuts his eyes.
“I think it is a tragic mistake. There is no reason for this whatsoever. No one was threatening anybody else. I was particularly bothered the references to Russia as a country dying to attack Western Europe. What bothers me is how superficial and ill-informed the whole Senate debate was. Russia’s democracy is as far advanced, if not farther, than any of these countries we’ve just signed up to defend from Russia. But something of the highest importance is at stake here.
War Crimes, From Nuremberg to Ukraine
I was in Nuremberg during the war crimes trials which followed WWII. My father, Brig. Gen. Telford Taylor, was Chief Prosecutor during the second, American phase. The French, Russian and British staffs had gone home to continue trials at home, but the US stayed longer, and scheduled about 400 additional defendants. They were divided into twelve categories: judges, doctors, industrialists, etc. There were 142 convictions and ten death sentences.
Haying on Saturday
A tribute to KMUD and local radio As BBC expounds on nukes, low-yield Our hay truck lurches as we leave the field. A disc can launch them from the NATO ring Encircling our competitor. It’s spring. Ill-omened, like the dread two-headed calf Are infants suckled by Globemaster jets. And Service suicides are up by half! The more we hear, the more macabre it gets. We switch to KMUD on the hill. Here’s Ed And Rattlesnake. A flash, and gloom has fled For Sgt.
Haymarket, and the Last Address of August Spies
Haymarket, and the Last Address of August Spies It is October , 1887, Chicago. Through the courthouse windows August Spies, defendant, watches The great leaves slicing down, down, through the still air And ponders hanging. He is used to making speeches: knows how to drag words over the friction of truth Until it sparks, sweeps him away with a flame of fury, And sets the crowd on fire. Is this now different? Death sits in the Courtroom.
Ukraine as Dostoevsky Novel
Hatred for Russia is surging. A University in Italy even cancelled a course on Dostoevsky, one of Russia’s famous writers of the nineteenth century. Looked at differently however, Ukraine is actually turning turning into a Dostoevsky novel. Here the characters are nations, so they are already larger than life. And they are as passionate, as uncontrollable and as doomed as the people of the Brothers Karamazov. We have Zelensky, personifying the Ukraine who is undone by desire.
PG&E is on the Loose Again
PG&E’s probation, imposed 5 years ago after the fiery and deadly San Bruno gas explosion, ended last week. Judge Alsup’s final remarks were grim, and as tragic as the Prince’s last words in Romeo and Juliet: “All are punish-ed”. What were the terms of probation he had been asked to oversee? In Judge Alsup’s statement, “Rehabilitation of a criminal offender remains the paramount goal of probation. During these five years of criminal probation, we have tried hard to rehabilitate PG&E.
PG&E’s War Against Trees
PG&E’s war against trees isn’t confined to Humboldt County. I’ve received letters from outraged landowners in Shasta and Mendocino Counties, and read about infuriating encounters with PG&E’s frontline troops in the media. People described threats, other harassments. They complained of being watched until they had to go out for something or other, at which point tree-cutters swiftly pounced on their beloved trees.
PG&E's War Against Trees
Photo: Tree Sitters Union, Local 707. PG&E’s war against trees isn’t confined to Humboldt County. I’ve received letters from outraged landowners in Shasta and Mendocino Counties, and read about infuriating encounters with PG&E’s frontline troops in the media. People described threats, other harassments. They complained of being watched until they had to go out for something or other,at which point tree-cutters swiftly pounced on their beloved trees.
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