This article from Philosophy Now (UK) uses Kanye West to introduce Nietzsche :-).

"On his 2013 album Yeezus, the Chicago rapper Kanye West highlighted something that the world had failed to notice, namely, that he is a god. ... Naturally, West’s deific pretensions incurred accusations of narcissism and blasphemy. The offending song was unambiguously titled ‘I Am a God’, and its message was clear: I, Kanye West, am more than human. ... He is not merely telling us that he’ll survive his self-doubt, that he’ll silence the voice that says 'You do not belong here, you are not good enough'. He’s telling us that he has no such voice, that he exists above and beyond the strictures of doubt and shame. ... West’s implication that there is something deficient about mere humanity places him well in the company of Friedrich Nietzsche. ... [Nietzsche] thought that being human was a state to be overcome; humanity’s finest moment will be the day it becomes something else entirely, something better. The future belongs to this new creature, the Übermensch or ‘overman’ (‘superman’). ... Nietzsche believed that to be human was to belong to a species-wide endeavour to stunt growth, enervate power, deaden vitality, limit strength, and poison joy.... To overcome this eventuality, Nietzsche proposed we overcome humanity. Humanity is not an endpoint, but a transition – a rope between the beasts and the Übermensch. ... The life of the Übermensch is constituted by affirmation. They live bravely, laugh heartily, dancing and singing while they destroy and create, showing us, a scathing herd of envious onlookers, the true complexion of health. ... The Übermensch is both the means and the product of a revaluation of all values: a rejection of all that has been regarded as good – all that derives from reactive vengeful attitudes – such as pity and selflessness; and a fresh adoption of all that has been regarded as evil – all that is active and affirmative – such as lust and selfishness. Nietzsche wants to overturn the dichotomy of the divine and the human by annihilating it completely. To become more than human means ... submerging ourselves in the active processes of life, becoming creatures of power and instinct, creatures of life itself." 
philosophynow.org/issues/137/I_Am_A_God_On_Becoming_More_Than_Human

Every three years, 15-year-olds in 78 countries, including the U.S., take the OECD's PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) exams in math, reading, and science. This map shows how students around the world fared on the most recent PISA exam. (The U.S. was actually slightly above the international average in reading and science, but below the international average in math.) i2.wp.com/factsmaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/pisa-2018.png

You can participate in citizen science in your own backyard with the Great Sunflower Project. Despite the name, you actually don't even need to grow a sunflower because the point of the project is collecting data on pollinators (and any flowering plant -- in a backyard or a public garden -- will do for that). Not only do you have the opportunity to help scientists learn about pollinator populations, you also have the opportunity to learn about different kinds of bees because you can download free bee identification cards! 🐝  www.greatsunflower.org/

At least some of us seem to be spending time during quarantine drinking wine: wine sales though March were up 42% over the same period last year. This topological map shows global wine exports. howmuch.net/articles/world-map-wine-exports-2019

The U.S. is planning on a leading a mission back to the moon by 2024, marking the first time humans will have been to the surface of the moon since 1972. In advance of this, the U.S. is preparing to release a legal framework termed the Artemis Accords intended to govern human activity on the moon. The accords reportedly would allow for the creation of "safety zones" around mining and exploration sites claimed by countries or companies and require public disclosure of what is being done in these zones, among other things. NASA argues the Artemis Accords would "in no way change" the 1967 Outer Space Treaty that prohibits countries from making territorial claims on the moon. But Russia has already voiced its opposition to the plan, arguing that the proposal is tantamount to a U.S. invasion of the moon. "NASA would make signing the accords a requirement for allied countries to participate in its lunar exploration program."
www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/05/15/moon-rules-nasa-artemis/

Was it just your imagination that our response to the coronavirus took on a partisan political tone? According to political scientists at Princeton and Queens College (New York), it was not your imagination. An analysis of Google Mobility Reports collected from Feb. 15 to Apr. 26 allowed researchers to compare patterns of movement before and after the coronavirus state of emergency. Before March 13, patterns of movement in Democratic counties (in which Donald Trump received <20% of the vote in 2016) and Republican counties (in which Donald Trump received >80% of the vote in 2016) were very similar. After March 13, though, movement in Democratic counties fell 14 percentage points more than movement in Republican counties did, even when adjusting for population density, education, age, and race. The gap remained persistent, regardless of rise in COVID-19 cases or governors' orders. "Even when a governor issued a directive to stay home, the pattern remained: Pro-Trump counties with low education [defined by researchers as having at least 5% more high school dropouts than college graduates] were much less likely to change their behavior than others." www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/05/14/where-are-people-less-likely-obey-coronavirus-restrictions-republican-counties/

This map from The New York Times, based on change of address requests filed with the post office, shows where New Yorkers decamped to in March and April to escape the coronavirus. The thicker the arrow, the more popular the destination. (Another map in the article shows that the preponderance of people leaving the city were from Manhattan.) www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/05/16/nyregion/nyc-coronavirus-moving-leaving.html

A patient suffering from intense, chronic pain finds a doctor with a potential cure: cutting-edge peripheral nerve surgery. The hitch? The surgeon would like to use an extremely detailed anatomical atlas with Nazi origins. The surgeon tells the patient he can do the surgery without the atlas, but it would be more difficult. Oh, and the patient is Jewish, and the setting is Jerusalem. This is actually a true story, not a tortured philosophical thought experiment, but it raises a host of interesting ethical issues, including when and if it is ethical to use information with an ugly provenance. www.nytimes.com/2020/05/12/world/middleeast/nazi-medical-text-israel.html

Locking down populations also means locking down migrant workers, including migrant workers essential to agricultural production. This year India has produced its largest-ever wheat crop, primarily in Uttar Pradesh and the states immediately to the south and west (shown in a darker brown on this map). It is looking increasingly likely, though, that some of this record-breaking crop, estimated to be worth more than $26 billion, will rot before it makes it into the food chain: India's labor-intensive wholesale agricultural markets depend on migrant workers from poorer states east of Uttar Pradesh like Bihar and Jharkhand, 90% of whom have not materialized this year. www.mapsofindia.com/top-ten/india-crops/wheat.html

This 35-question quiz asks users to identify a sampling of the world's biggest cities based on a photo and a single clue. I think many of my geography students can ace it :-). Be sure to read the info after the answer to learn a bit more about the city (and watch for a few typos). play.howstuffworks.com/quiz/can-you-name-the-most-populated-cities-in-the-world-from-a-hint

Sweden is the only major country that has taken a different approach to COVID-19, encouraging people to engage in social distancing but leaving schools and most businesses, including restaurants, bars, and gyms, open. This map from The New York Times compares Sweden's mortality rate in March and April to that of other Western European countries: www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/05/15/world/europe/sweden-coronavirus-deaths.html

With Hong Kong's decision to lift some of its coronavirus restrictions, protesters have returned to the streets. But in many other locations, protests are firmly locked down. In Algeria, for example, COVID-19 put an end, for now, to 56 weeks of protests. This article from Geographical (UK) looks at public protests in the coronavirus era, including how what people are protesting is changing and how protests movements are taking advantage of online tools to at least maintain their cohesion while they wait to get back to the streets. geographical.co.uk/geopolitics/item/3685-coronavirus-the-protests-that-can-t-take-place-and-what-that-might-mean

After back-to-back hurricanes Irma and Maria sent as many as 250,000 evacuees into Florida's narrow interior in 2017, managers in Orlando and the surrounding area began thinking about how to prepare for future environmental migrants. "As a starting point, the cities need data, some sense of how many people might arrive. But one of the biggest hitches in planning for the future is that so little is known about where and when people will choose to migrate. ... Taking a holistic look at what drives migration is known as 'migration systems theory.' Using that approach, in a study reported in 2017 in Nature Climate Change, [Florida State University professor Matthew] Hauer identified 10 likely 'climate destination' regions in the United States for the estimated 13.1 million people within the country who are expected to be displaced by rising sea levels by 2100. Based on his simulations, the top destinations include Austin, Orlando and Atlanta. Hauer’s study was the first to attempt to anticipate destination regions for U.S. climate migrants. ... But more accurate simulations of widespread climate migration should consider one more dimension of the decision-making process, [Vivek Shandas of Portland State University] says: how people might decide when it’s time to leave. ... That decision will likely be different depending on the type of climate trigger, Shandas says. A growing field of research called event ecology uses computer models to anticipate how an extreme event, such as a hurricane, might ripple through a community, altering population numbers and infrastructure. Those kinds of events — sudden, short-term and extreme, such as Katrina in 2005 — are called 'pulse events.' Migrations spurred by pulse events are fairly easy to simulate. There’s one point of origin, and scientists can make knowledgeable guesses about where people might go from that point of origin based on proximity to other cities, family connections and job availability. Pulse event migrations also tend to occur shortly after the triggering event. But ongoing climate change can boost the frequency of pulse events. For example, climate change is increasing the risk of deadly and destructive wildfires, such as those that struck California in 2017, 2018 and 2019. Each event may trigger some migration, but over time those who stayed behind may also begin to wonder whether they, too, should move to a safer haven. Such slower, longer-term manifestations of climate change, or 'press events,' can be more challenging when it comes to anticipating both when and where people may choose to move. ... And it’s with these events that people’s different risk tolerances most come into play. ... Many people will face the dire choice between individual migration, community-based movement away from the risk, known as 'managed retreat,' or even deciding to find ways to stay in place. ... And there are many other lingering unknowns when it comes to assessing people’s decisions. 'We know very little about how different age groups would respond to different stimuli,' Hauer says." www.sciencenews.org/article/climate-change-migrants-destination-cities-data-orlando

According to CDC data, more than one-third (35%) of all COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. have been among residents and employees of nursing homes and long-term care centers. This map, from The New York Times, shows known nursing home and long-term care center coronavirus cases by county, but it is important to note that many states, including Texas, Arizona, Mississippi, Wisconsin, Indiana, Missouri, Utah, and several others do not provide facility data (from www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/05/09/us/coronavirus-cases-nursing-homes-us.html).

The online journal The Conversation has been running a series of articles in which an ethicist responds to questions raised by COVID-19. Is it ethical to take a cab or an Uber to the hospital if I'm sick and don't have a car? Who should go to the grocery store? What are the ethical implications of ending state lockdowns? This excerpt is from the latter discussion:

"If we are willing to trade risk to human life for expected economic benefit, it requires us to engage in a sort of analysis employed by utilitarians – moral philosophers who believe in promoting the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number of people – and also to put a price on human health. This may sound shocking, but people do this every day: Insurance actuaries, military strategists and traffic planners routinely face difficult questions on how much a human life will 'cost.' ... If we reopen the economy, will the death toll surge again? Will employees even come back to work? ... If we reopen the economy too soon, we might face both a worse health outcome and further economic downturn. With such uncertainty, how can we possibly know whether the 'cure will be worse than the disease?'

"But there is another ethical consideration here: Precisely whose lives are we talking about? And whose economic benefit?  People may have a choice whether or not to drive. But if forced to go to work every day, they may not be able to avoid the risk of being exposed to a life-threatening illness. And not all work is the same: Does a transit worker face the same risk as a tax planner? Twentieth-century philosopher John Rawls embraced the idea of “justice as fairness” – the idea that judgments about morality are inextricably tied up with questions of equality. Rawls described how a “veil of ignorance” could help guide a person’s moral judgment by asking them what distribution of rights they would choose for an ideal society, without telling them the place they would hold in that society once the veil was lifted. ... In the real world, of course, we know full well whether we will be the one delivering the packages or staying home for a Zoom conference. To risk someone else’s life where you would not risk your own – for your own economic benefit or otherwise – seems deeply immoral."
theconversation.com/everyday-ethics-when-should-we-lift-the-lockdown-137468

In one of the first coronavirus lawsuits to be filed, officials in the ski town of Ischgl, Austria, are being investigated for criminal negligence for waiting more than a week to close the resorts after Icelandic officials notified the Austrian government in early March that people tested positive for coronavirus after returning to Iceland from Ischgl. Ischgl is now believed to have contributed to the direct spread of COVID-19 to at least 45 countries, shown on this map: www.statista.com/chart/21699/coronavirus-outbreak-in-ischgl

Geographical (UK) provides its top picks for board games for budding geographers. Geographical's favorite game -- Conservation Crisis -- does not seem to have been released in board game form in the U.S. yet, but it is available as an app (Android or iOS) for $1.99. geographical.co.uk/people/item/3683-curbing-boredom-geographical-s-top-board-games-for-geographers

The countries shown in red on this map have been engaged in armed conflicts, usually against one or more rebel group, during the first four months of this year. www.statista.com/chart/21652/countries-with-armed-clashes-reported

The U.S. intelligence community has, uncharacteristically, not released this year's Worldwide Threat Assessment and canceled their usual public hearing on the report. Politico Magazine has reviewed previously released government documents and interviewed former national security and intelligence officials, scientists, researchers, and academics to prepare its own best guess of what the missing report would have contained.

"You might feel blindsided by the coronavirus, but warnings about a looming pandemic have been there for decades. Government briefings, science journals and even popular fiction projected the spread of a novel virus and the economic impacts it would bring, complete often with details about the specific challenges the U.S. is now facing. It makes you wonder: What else are we missing? What other catastrophes are coming that we aren’t planning for, but that could disrupt our lives, homes, jobs or our broader society in the next few years or decades? ... What follows is POLITICO Magazine’s “Domestic Threat Assessment”—a list of the most significant events that might impact the United States over the next 30 to 50 years. These are threats that seem rare, but that over a given period are almost guaranteed to occur—events that humans, and therefore political leaders, have a hard time understanding and planning for. ... Here’s what’s coming for us now:"

1. Globalization of White Supremacy
2. Attacks on Trust and Truth: Deepfakes, Manufactured Election Results or Other Data Manipulation Attacks
3. Biosecurity: Terrorists, Mad Scientists, Lab Accidents and Biological Warfare
4. Technological Disruption: Downed Power Grids, GPS Outages and Solar Flares
5. Nukes
6. Climate Change
7. Covid-19’s Next Level Impact
8. Catastrophic Earthquakes: San Andreas Fault, Cascadian Subduction Zone, New Madrid Seismic Zone, Wasatch Fault Zone
9. Unknown Unknowns

The entire article is worth a read: www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/05/07/experts-knew-pandemic-was-coming-what-they-fear-next-238686

Urban life is about going out and mixing, taking in everything the city has to offer. What will happen to America's major cities post-COVID-19? Will people find relatively small and relatively expensive housing worth the trade-off if their favorite shops, restaurants, bars, theaters, and museums have gone out of business? Or if mass transit is ill advised? Or if jobs evaporate, move, or remain remote? This thought-provoking article ties together several of these ideas, along with immigration, the return of manufacturing, and overstretched supply chains. gen.medium.com/the-harsh-future-of-american-cities-7263da52fd1f

The New York Times recently analyzed how many Americans are 30 minutes or more from the nearest hospital with acute care capacity.  On this map, the darkest areas have populations of more than 50,000 people who are at least 30 minutes from the nearest critical care hospital.  (The lightest yellow regions have populations of up to 5K; the populations in the intermediate orange shades range from 5K to 50K.)  tinyurl.com/ycxurtah from  www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/26/us/us-hospital-access-coronavirus.html

This article, written by a bioethicist who has been living in northern Italy since mid-December, not only provides an interesting peek at life under Italy's lockdown, it also tries to tease apart some of the ethical issues that we have largely avoided discussing over the last two months. Are the young being asked to sacrifice for the old? Is using an outcome metric to determine who gets a ventilator any different than using an outcome metric to determine who gets a kidney? (And if someone with a better outcome metric comes into the ICU, should the ventilator be removed from a patient currently intubated?) How do you account for cultural losses?  What are the economic, educational, social, and mental health costs of lockdowns, are they proportional to the harm they are offsetting, and how are those costs shared? aeon.co/essays/a-bioethicist-on-the-hidden-costs-of-lockdown-in-italy

As of this writing, these are the 13 countries with no *reported* cases of COVID-19: North Korea, Turkmenistan, Lesotho, and the Pacific Island nations of Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Palau, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu.

The University of Arizona has created an imaginative (free) web quest to encourage students to learn about the world. Students can take any of five digital journeys to learn about places, languages, cultures, and histories, with a special emphasis on the Middle East and Latin America. las.arizona.edu/road-maps-around-world-adventure

The head of the UN's World Food Programme recently forecast "famines of biblical proportions" in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic, conflict, extreme weather, and, in East Africa, hundreds of billions of locusts. "[O]ur analysis shows that 300,000 people could starve to death every single day over a three-month period," and "This does not include the increase of starvation due to COVID-19." This geo-graphic shows the countries most dependent on food imports as a proportion of all imports, which is just one way of measuring reliance on imported food.
www.statista.com/chart/21535/food-imports-reliance