1. Greenpeace Executives As Characters From "The Godfather" - "The Godfather" is the seminal American movie about an Italian mafia family. It is said that MAFIA is an acronym for Morte Alle Francia Italia Anela, basically 'the death of France is the song of Italy' - but Greenpeace loves France, it's science and the bulk of humanity that don't cave into their demands they want to kill off.
A good mob boss knows you never get your hands dirty directly, you create a neighborhood appearance of being beneficial and whack anyone who deviates from your orders. So the problem with Greenpeace is not the army of earnest young people on the streets of major cities, it is the corruption at the very top - they are the ones giving orders to hack the websites of anyone who does not cave into extortion and manipulating poor people in developing nations with fear and doubt about food.
Red and white sangria, blue lemonade. Credit: Tavern on the Green, Manhattan.
2. Today is Independence Day. On this day 240 years ago, a group of smart people decided that rather that sit around the pub talking about how they could create a better system, they would go ahead and do it. Today, 107 Nobel laureates will write a letter criticizing Greenpeace for blocking food science, but in 1776 the most scientific minds in policy had a much bigger target in mind - the British Empire.(1) Check it out in Like Freedom? Thank A Scientist - How Science Made America Possible.
3. If history bores you, we can get right to something more applied: How to Make Fireworks.
NOTES:
(1) It was not, as smug political elites now like to claim, simply a group of rich, white guys who simply did not want to pay taxes. They were men of means and well educated, which means they had nothing to gain and a lot to lose. These British citizens signed the Declaration of Independence knowing full well that the penalty for treason against the Crown could be death if they were captured. And they were; 5 signers were captured by the British, who regarded them not as prisoners of war but rather as traitors, 12 had their homes ransacked and burned, 2 lost their sons in the Revolutionary Army, another had 2 sons captured. 9 of the 56 fought and died from wounds or from hardship related to the Revolutionary War.
It's become a popular trope to claim that World War II had the Greatest Generation, but those boys in both 1776 (and 1861) were made of strong stuff.
