John Thomason
Verified
As seen in:
Grist,
Time Out Miami,
Atlas Obscura,
Phys.org,
Seeking Alpha,
The Intercept,
The Nation,
Los Angeles Review of Books,
Florida Weekly,
Oxford American,
The Point
and
features editor @grist
Is this you? As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.
Claim your profile
Articles by John Thomason
Is accepting the end of humanity the key to climate action? This scholar thinks so.
There’s a part at the end of “Don’t Look Up,” last year’s wildly popular Netflix film about a comet hurtling toward Earth, when a group of people have dinner together on the eve of the planet’s destruction.
Olúfémi O. Táíwò's theory of everything
On an overcast spring day in Washington, D.C., Georgetown University professor Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò paced the length of a triptych blackboard, telling his students a story: In the 18th century, European men published iconoclastic arguments declaring that all individuals were born free and equal. “These are not merely abstract philosophical questions,” Táíwò lectured.
Paradise Waiting
Over Labor Day weekend last year I called a distant cousin, Mitch Cundiff, to ask if he could take me to Paradise. The old town is just a few miles from his home in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky, where my grandmother grew up. He told me he was happy to, but there was nothing there to see. “It’s like the John Prine song says,” he explained.
Helping Endangered Sea Turtles, One Emergency Surgery at a Time
This story was originally published on The Conversation and appears here under a Creative Commons license. “Help! I’m fishing and just caught a huge sea turtle. She’s completely swallowed my hook.” We are two veterinarians, Debra Moore, who specializes in sea turtles, and John Thomason, who specializes in internal medicine. This is a call we get a lot in our work with the Sea Turtle Stranding and Salvage Network.
Helping endangered sea turtles, one emergency surgery at a time
"Help! I'm fishing and just caught a huge sea turtle. She's completely swallowed my hook." We are two veterinarians, Debra Moore, who specializes in sea turtles, and John Thomason, who specializes in internal medicine. This is a call we get a lot in our work with the Sea Turtle Stranding and Salvage Network.
Inside the Prison Where California’s Coronavirus Outbreak Exploded
Donald O’Brien was excited when he got the news that his transfer had been cleared — as excited as any incarcerated person can be about staying in prison, he might clarify. Late last year he learned that he’d be moving from a maximum security facility near the U.S.-Mexico border to the California Institution for Men, a primarily minimum security prison about 40 miles east of Los Angeles. He hoped it would be his last stop before freedom.
The Ghosts of Georgetown County
T he shoreline was nearly empty. My father and I had passed the last houses and were approaching the point where the dunes end at the southern inlet. It’s a walk we still take frequently each summer, when we reunite with our family for a week at South Carolina’s Litchfield Beach. I remember this particular time, five years ago now, because I had been thinking of someone I loved who had recently left me—left me in a way that was courteous and banal but no less painful for being so ordinary.
Guaranteed Income
One could be forgiven for thinking that guaranteed income, the direct provision of government cash for everyone’s basic living expenses, is a new idea.1 A slew of tech moguls, including Tesla’s Elon Musk, Y Combinator’s Sam Altman and Facebook founder (and rumored future presidential candidate) Mark Zuckerberg, have recently endorsed some version of the policy. And they have an audience at the highest levels of the Democratic Party.
Different STROKES
A look at the work of George W. Bush, the painter (and former president) Lieutenant Colonel Kent Graham Solheim, U.S. Army, 1994 Back in 2013, amid a comparatively glacial news cycle, the media stopped what it was doing to gaze at George W. Bush in the shower. A pair of the ex-president’s bathroom self-portraits leaked to the press, one of them capturing his back to the spectator and his face rather niftily reflected in a mirror attached to the showerhead.
Welcome to 'A Doll's House,' 15 years later
“A Doll’s House Part 2.” JASON NUTTLE / COURTESY PHOTO Henrik Ibsen’s 1879 masterpiece “A Doll’s House” ends with closure of the most literal kind. Nora Helmer, the once-obedient wife and mother of three in an archetypal Norwegian household, upsets her status quo — and legions of theatergoers worldwide —by abandoning everything with the unequivocal slam of the front door.
Trevor Noah | Hard Rock Live | Comedy in Miami
Time Out says In an ascent of Horatio Alger proportions, Noah has worked his way up from corruption and poverty in his native South Africa to the most plum job in American progressive comedy, as host of The Daily Show. The hardworking talent continues to build his standup alongside his nightly gig, bringing his “Loud & Clear Tour 2019” to South Florida. Details Dates And Times Users say
Black Mountain Music
G ERMANS TO TEACH ART NEAR HERE, read the banner headline in the Asheville Citizen on December 5, 1933. In the accompanying photograph, the two émigrés in question look formal and tentative, their hands crossed at their waists, their bodies not quite willing to turn completely away from each other and toward the camera. Anni and Josef Albers could be forgiven for their apparent reticence.
From Athens to North Carolina, Filmmaker Astra Taylor Asks: “What Is Democracy?”
Plato believed that a city ruled by the rich could not last. The rich would rule according to their interest in enlarging their wealth, impoverishing everyone else in the process. The poor would not tolerate their raw deal, and they would revolt. Something like this happened in the city where I grew up. In 2014, a group of leading economists released a report showing that Charlotte, North Carolina, ranked dead last among major U.S. cities when it came to the upward mobility of its poorest residents.
É mais fácil imaginar o fim do mundo do que o fim da internet?
SERÁ QUE ALGUÉM no Facebook tem a intenção, ou mesmo a capacidade, de controlar o Facebook? É essa a questão de fundo da investigação conduzida pelo New Tork Times na semana passada sobre o gigante das mídias sociais.
Palm Beach Florida Weekly
The opening of Palm Beach Dramaworks’ world premiere of Lyle Kessler’s “House on Fire” could easily have been the grim preamble to a Faulkner story. Two brothers look down on the apparent corpse of their father, resting motionless on a sofa in his living room. Dale (Taylor Anthony Miller), a meek fantasist who lives with the Old Man — that’s his official name in the script — says he died two days ago.
MLPs In IRAs Revisited
My contributions to Seeking Alpha are mostly limited to situations where I feel I have some useful information to share based on my personal experiences as an investor. A combination of events occurring in 2017 in one of my IRAs plus my own growth as a tax practitioner have motivated me to write this article, which I believe sheds some light on this much-debated topic. Background Back in December 2011, I authored my first Seeking Alpha article, Should Investors Hold MLPs In Retirement Accounts?
Is It Easier to Imagine the End of the World Than the End of the Internet?
Does anyone at Facebook have the will, or even the ability, to control Facebook? That’s the question underlying last week’s New York Times investigation of the social media giant.
Black Mountain Music
G ERMANS TO TEACH ART NEAR HERE, read the banner headline in the Asheville Citizen on December 5, 1933. In the accompanying photograph, the two émigrés in question look formal and tentative, their hands crossed at their waists, their bodies not quite willing to turn completely away from each other and toward the camera. Anni and Josef Albers could be forgiven for their apparent reticence.
SHADOWS and LIGHT
Actor and playwright Noel Coward, 1932. Both images: George Eastman Museum, bequest of Edward Steichen under the direction of Joanna T. Steichen. © 2018 The Estate of Edward Steichen / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. IN EDWARD STEICHEN’S 1927 PORTRAIT of Fred Astaire, we see an essence crystallized. The hoofer stands in profile, in all his beanpole elegance, leaning forward in black tie and top hat, one knee at a slight crook, immaculate pocket square juxtaposed against his dark suit.
Tax Cuts & Jobs Act - Impact On Investors
The Tax Cuts & Jobs Act (TC&JA) signed into law at the end of 2017 is the most significant tax legislation since the Reagan tax cuts of the 1980s. That being said, the major provisions affect individuals and businesses much more than investors per se. The 2008 legislation, which introduced new cost-basis reporting requirements for both brokerages and individuals regarding securities, for example, was much more impactful for investors than this new law.
New CDC Report Downplays Role of Guns in Rising U.S. Suicide Rates
A new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that suicide rates have increased dramatically across the United States. From 1999 to 2016, 49 states saw suicides increase by 5 percent or more, and 25 of those states saw increases of a staggering 30 percent or higher. By 2016, almost 45,000 Americans were taking their own lives every year.
A North Carolina Sheriff Doubled Down on Cooperation with ICE - So Voters Gave Him the Boot
voters handed a decisive loss to the incumbent sheriff of North Carolina’s largest county, which includes Charlotte, garnering a win for grass-roots efforts to oppose hard-line immigration policies. The central issue that emerged in the Mecklenburg County race was Sheriff Irwin Carmichael’s cooperation with the Trump administration’s deportation policy.
“I Know Thee Not, Old Man”: Orson Welles and the New Queer Cinema
NOVEMBER 23, 2015 TEN YEARS after the massive success of Brokeback Mountain, Hollywood films centering on gay characters and themes have become unremarkable. This fall, the release of the gay dramas Stonewall, Freeheld, The Danish Girl, and Carol, all within roughly two months of each other, has aroused barely any comment.
Guaranteed Income
One could be forgiven for thinking that guaranteed income, the direct provision of government cash for everyone’s basic living expenses, is a new idea.[1] A slew of tech moguls, including Tesla’s Elon Musk, Y Combinator’s Sam Altman and Facebook founder (and rumored future presidential candidate) Mark Zuckerberg, have recently endorsed some version of the policy. And they have an audience at the highest levels of the Democratic Party.
Paradise Waiting
Over Labor Day weekend last year I called a distant cousin, Mitch Cundiff, to ask if he could take me to Paradise. The old town is just a few miles from his home in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky, where my grandmother grew up. He told me he was happy to, but there was nothing there to see. “It’s like the John Prine song says,” he explained.
Paradise Waiting
Over Labor Day weekend last year I called a distant cousin, Mitch Cundiff, to ask if he could take me to Paradise. The old town is just a few miles from his home in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky, where my grandmother grew up. He told me he was happy to, but there was nothing there to see. “It’s like the John Prine song says,” he explained.
Trump quer vender AR-15, fuzil preferido de atiradores em massa, para o mundo
Devin Patrick Kelley, de 26 anos, entrou na Primeira Igreja Batista em Sutherland Springs, no Texas, ele portava uma versão daquele que a National Rifle Association (Associação Nacional do Rifle, NRA) chama com orgulho de “fuzil da América”. Kelley usou seu Ruger AR-556, uma variação do popular AR-15, para matar mais de vinte fiéis da congregação. Variações do AR-15 são favoritas de longa data dos criminosos que praticam os famigerados massacres com armas de fogo.
Mass Shooters Love AR-15 Assault Rifles. Now Trump Wants to Sell These Weapons to the World.
On Sunday, when 26-year-old Devin Patrick Kelley entered the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, he carried a version of what the National Rifle Association has proudly called “America’s rifle.” Kelley used his Ruger AR-556, a variant on the enormously popular AR-15, to kill more than two dozen churchgoers. AR-15 variants are perennial favorites for those who perpetrate America’s notorious mass shootings.
The Ritual of Silence in an Age of Mass Shootings
Stephen Paddock barricaded himself in his Las Vegas hotel room with two dozen guns and opened fire on a country music festival some 30 floors below, killing more than 50 people and wounding hundreds of others. The term of art for this type of rampage, a “mass shooting,” has no universal definition. As a result, formal tallies have concluded that these events occur anywhere from a few dozen times a year to once every single day.
Yield, Value, Safety: Available With Closed-End Funds?
Closed-end funds [CEFs] have been in existence for more than 100 years, according to CEFA, the Closed-End Fund Association. The modern version of investment companies stems from the Investment Company Act of 1940 (1940 Act), which defines responsibilities and limitations of all investment companies, including CEFs, and provides for their regulation by the SEC.
Hope Deferred | The Point Magazine
Shortly after Barack Obama was first elected, a young man from Texas drove a thousand miles to the president’s former sanctuary, the Trinity United Church of Christ (UCC) in Chicago. He felt its teachings were evil, and that he had to do something about it. During the service he had a change of heart. Afterwards, he approached the pastor. “I came here to hate you,” he confessed tearfully.
The Crisis of Liberalism, Part II: All Policy, No Power
This is Part Two of a series on the crisis of liberalism. Part One can be found here. LIBERALISM IN THE UNITED STATES faces a giant contradiction. President Obama’s approval rating is higher in late 2016 than it has been anytime since he was inaugurated. But Democrats have since lost more than 1,030 seats in Congress, state legislatures, and governor’s mansions, and they control both the legislative and executive branches in only six states.
Michael Lewis and the Narrative Nonfiction Formula
FROM AGES SEVEN TO 14, Michael Lewis engaged in what he calls a “constant,” “excellent” war with his mother. “My mother is the most sweetly strong-willed person I’ve ever met, and we butted heads for seven years,” Lewis tells me, from his home in Berkeley, California.
ETFs And Taxes - A Primer
The securities investment universe available to individuals has expanded far beyond just stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and for the adventurous, options. Individuals can now trade just about anything utilizing ETFs/ETNs, as the offerings available have exploded in recent years. With ETFs, individuals are now able to invest in markets that once were the sole domain of institutions or sophisticated investors/traders.
What We Know and Don’t Know About Mass Shootings and Gun Deaths
theaters, schools, grocery stores — the images in Speaking Is Difficult, the new film by Field of Vision co-creator AJ Schnack, are ordinary but serene. Wherever we live, these are the places where we routinely expose ourselves to the wider world. The film punctures this calm familiarity with grainy audio documenting past traumas. The details we can ascertain from these 911 recordings are sparse — a white male shooter, an unknown number wounded — but we all know how to fill in the blanks.
Publicly Traded Partnerships - U.S. Taxation For Limited Partners
Publicly Traded Partnerships have been popular with income-oriented investors for many years, yet few holders have an understanding of how to report these entities on an income tax return. The purpose of this article is to present enough information on the topic to allow an individual investor who is not a tax practitioner to gain a conceptual understanding of the topic. Note that this article is only focused on partnership interests held in non-retirement accounts.
Can a ‘Homeless Bill of Rights’ End the Criminalization of LA’s Most Vulnerable Residents? | The Nation
“We are human beings who live here,” Silvia Hernández says emphatically. She is speaking of Los Angeles’s notorious Skid Row, though she no longer lives there herself. Hernández doesn’t look back fondly on the year she spent nights alternating between streets and shelters, but she appreciates what she believes is a strong sense of community among neighborhood residents.
Show More
loading
Actions
Get in touch with John
Contact John, search articles and posts on X, monitor coverage, and track replies from one place.
Learn more about Muck Rack