Category Archives: New Utopia

Edging through the logjam of traffic along Ewingsdale Road, a car horn offers an unlikely reprieve from the tedious hum of engines.

"Welcome to Byron Bay," reads a wooden sign in the distance. "Cheer up, slow down, chill out."

It is, in many ways, an apt reflection of the Byron dichotomy a city both trapped and liberated by its own reputation.

With roots in the counterculture movement, the coastal paradise is renowned as a mecca for backpackers, the rich and famous and everyone in between.

A place, as one Vanity Fair writer offered, where "nomadic broods" come to "find their tribes on life's journey".

But with Byron's visitor numbers eclipsing its permanent population, the local community has found itself at a crossroads, struggling to reconcile this "free-living" ethos with the inexorable costs of tourism.

And as "van lifers" increasingly seep into the suburbs, it is ordinary residents who have suddenly found themselves bearing the brunt of tourism's ugly side: motorhomes lining residential streets, human waste on front lawns, and authorities trying in vain to keep it under control.

"As an area, we're too open to contradiction," muses Alison Drover, who has lived in Byron for 10 years.

"We're known as being free spirited and open to everything, but it doesn't really serve us in some ways.

"We're being sort of trampled on."

At a quaint cafe off Marvell Street, just a stone's throw from the world-renowned Main Beach, Drover gestures across the road.

A row of nondescript vans lines the nature strip bordering a luxury guest house that bills $500 a night.

Tourists are setting up camp in residential areas, she says, "and they're just not paying anything to be here".

"The reason why it's getting worse is because there's no recourse."

Drover is, of course, referring to the "van life" phenomenon: a bohemian social-media movement underpinned by the ideas of minimalism and freedom.

Peruse the nine million-odd posts dedicated to the hashtag on Instagram, and you might come to understand the appeal.

Between images of slick van conversions are shots of nomads opening their back doors to the kinds of views most only dream of waking up to ("Home is where you park it," one post reads).

And increasingly, that home is Byron.

Between December 24 to January 2 alone, a total of 1,454 infringement notices were issued by the local council the majority for illegal camping and parking.

Camping in streets, parks and reserves in Byron Shire is prohibited, and those who flout the law risk on-the-spot fines of between $110 and $2,200.

"It's not pleasant for the guests to wake up anywhere in Byron and see people out the front of their accommodation when they're paying good money to stay there," says Jack, a local gardener who emerges from the guest house.

"It's not just here, it's all of the hotels around here."

On the surface, it could be easy to dismiss the problem as a simple case of the haves vs the have-nots young backpackers trying to pursue an Australian rite of passage in a town marred by a jarring wealth inequality that's hard to ignore ("It's not like anyone can afford to live here anymore anyway," one local quips).

But look a little closer, and it's not hard to understand why the issue is proving so divisive.

"We don't feel safe," says Julia*, a single mother, whose street has become a haven for travellers, many of whom "use the front yard as a toilet". (Julia asked not to be named for fear of reprisal.)

"Especially when there's people out the front in the night-time, you know, [the kids] wake up and they go, 'Mummy, what's that?'

"I get woken up at three o'clock in the morning because [people in vans are] arguing sometimes it's because they're drunk, sometimes they're arguing because they're having a domestic."

For those left grappling with the fallout, these problems have become a sticking point.

It's not that they're anti-tourism. For the most part, the community appears to have embraced its nomadic reputation and the kind of people it inevitably attracts.

But for long-term residents, who are concerned that growing tourist numbers are outpacing infrastructure, it boils down to a simple question: How would you feel if, night after night, a group of strangers called your front lawn home?

"There is some friction between people living here and people free-living, because the respect is different, says local resident Sally Miller, who says she's watched tourists hop out of their cars and urinate in front of children in the street.

"I'd never walk away from the car and leave a plastic bottle of, you know, bodily product."

For Simon Richardson, the mayor of the Byron Shire Council, it's a topic that evokes mixed feelings.

He, too, spent part of his youth as a "van packer" travelling through Europe and America.

"I'd like to think I cared about the community and did the right thing," he offers, "but I was a 19-year-old with his mates, you know I was probably a bit loose."

Like many in the community, Richardson struggles to reconcile Byron's "free-living" ethos with the reality of burgeoning visitor numbers, but says "different locals have different perspectives" on the issue.

That division, he adds, is symptomatic of a much larger tug-of-war taking place.

"At what point do we open ourselves up as that ... relaxed type of atmosphere and community without getting the mickey taken out of us for that?" he says.

"People coming in and free loading, to a certain extent, you know there's an uneasy tension over that."

As the "van life" phenomenon explodes in popularity across the globe, the Byron community has found itself up against a wall.

The local council has, and will continue to, enforce restrictions on illegal camping, says Richardson, who points to the challenges of trying to catch people flouting the law in the act: "If someone's been drinking, for example, we can't get them to drive away and leave," he says.

But in many ways, they are hamstrung. Councils in New South Wales are prohibited from wheel clamping something Richardson believes "could change things tomorrow" if they had the power to do so.

"Our hands are sort of tied, we literally have to have paid staff to go around to write fines ... knowing that a whole chunk of them aren't going to get paid," he says.

"So while that's the case, people take the piss, really, and do what they want and worry about it later.

"There are some things where we're kind of left to our own devices, but without having the powers to actually influence behaviour."

Compounding the issue is the problem of homelessness. Beneath Byron's facade of a sun-drenched utopia lies a social inequality that would be remiss to gloss over.

The median house price in Byron Bay has been reported in excess of $1.8 million, while rental stress across the shire remains above the state average.

When Ilona Harker began looking for a new place to live she expected to spend a few weeks couch surfing but never four years.

And as the nation comes to grips with the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic, locals fear the problem is going to get worse.

"The price explosion and the rental explosion across all these areas is only going to mean more people are going to find themselves [living in their cars], especially when there's no social housing," Richardson says.

It's a complex issue with no easy solution, he adds, and one that locals see "very differently" to the illegal camping debate.

On that point, Drover concurs. Her concern is palpable: she cares about her community, and fears for those who have found themselves dislocated.

But she cautions against "blurring the lines" between the two issues, which she says require separate and targeted responses.

"We need to make sure that the people who are living here are living in safety, and as a council and as a government, we need to be doing something to make sure this doesn't happen," she says.

"But the problem is, if we just don't talk about illegal camping because of [homelessness], it's not helping it either."

Drover is keen to turn the conversation to solutions.

While she believes van hire companies bear some responsibility for regulation she suggests travellers could be required to disclose where they intend on staying she says there are also more practical fixes that could be implemented overnight.

Self-contained carparks, she says, could easily record car registrations as they come and go.

"Down at Main Beach there's a carpark there that could easily be enclosed, then you're using technology like vehicle recognition software, where it's timed and you're charged," she says.

"And the benefits are not only for illegal camping and parking; it means you're getting 100 per cent return on your tourism."

Sitting at her cafe table, she becomes philosophical about the situation.

At face value, it's a story of a community struggling to enforce its way out of a problem that is rearing its head up and down the east coast.

But beneath the surface, it speaks to a growing sense of resentment amongst locals, who feel they are being forced to watch on as their town is used and abused by those who aren't giving back.

"I like to use the analogy of your home: if there was free coffee, milk, and muesli on the table, and the door was open, you would have a stream of people coming in and out," Drover says. "Some of them will be your friends, some of them wouldn't be.

"If you start to close the door, and put the goods away, and you say you have to buy something every week, you'd see a natural attrition of those people coming to your house ... a change in behaviour.

"It might be time to really put our energy into changing the way, or guiding the way, that people interact with us."

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As 'van lifers' flock to Byron Bay, the town is struggling to reconcile its reputation with the costs of tourism - ABC News

After several months in the making, the Utah Infrastructure Agency (UIA) has just completed its latest round of funding that will infuse the UTOPIA/UIA network with $52.5 million for the expansion of its network.

That will help legacy cities like Orem reach a built-out stage earlier than expected.

"It is great to be in a position where the revenues of the system can pay for the buildout of the system," said Steven Downs, Orem's deputy city manager.

UIA is a sister agency to the Utah Telecommunication Open Infrastructure Agency (UTOPIA). Although legally separate entities, UTOPIA and UIA functionally operate as one integrated system and both are marketed as UTOPIA Fiber.

This is the third round of financing UIA has secured recently, attracting $113 million in the last 14 months.

UIA secured the latest round of funding in partnership with Lewis Young Robertson & Burningham, Inc. (financial advisor), KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc. (senior managing underwriter), and Gilmore & Bell (bond and disclosure counsel), according to Kimberly McKinley, chief marketing director.

UTOPIA connectivity has been going on much longer than the pandemic, but the desire for open infrastructure fiber optics is at a high demand as people continue to work and do school from home.

As we come out of the pandemic you wont see people automatically changing, McKinley said. The demand for fiber optics will be more.

McKinley said UTOPIA currently has a list of 20 Utah cities that are contemplating the feasibility of putting fiber optics in the ground.

"The pandemic has accelerated the demand for fiber. People realize the importance of having access to high-speed internet in meeting the needs of their personal lives," Downs said.

"We can't wait to complete this project. Our residents have waited patiently," Downs added.

One of the great things, thanks in part to COVID-19, is the fact that UTOPIA/UIA has the revenue stream to get the final funding to complete the original cities buildout without having to go back to the cities for more money, according to McKinley.

For many years, naysayers have said comparing fiber optics to, say, electricity is not sound. Now, communities see fiber as a utility and as a necessity, McKinley said.

The cities who started this so long ago are considered visionary now, McKinley said.

Since 2011, the majority of UTOPIA Fibers growth has come from its synergistic relationship with UIA, designing, financing, building and operating state-of-the-art ultra-high-speed fiber-broadband networks, firmly securing its position as the largest publicly owned Open Access fiber network in the United States.

What were seeing with this latest round of funding is stronger-than-ever demand for high-speed fiber networks, said Roger Timmerman, UTOPIA Fibers executive director, in an email.

The $52.5 million provides the capital to build out the remaining areas of our original 11 cities and to add customers throughout our coverage area. We continue to have the best partners in the business, who have worked tirelessly to get us to this point, Timmerman added.

UTOPIA Fiber provides fiber-to-the-home services in 15 cities and business services in 50. It serves as operational partner for Idaho Falls Fiber in Idaho and is in talks with additional municipalities to bring the network to their communities.

UTOPIA Fiber is available to 130,000 homes and businesses, offers the fastest internet speeds in the United States (10 Gbps residential and 100 Gbps commercial), and enjoys being ranked as the highest-rated internet option in Utah.

This round of new funding is the largest that UIA has closed on in agency history and the third in the last 14 months. They received $48 million in November 2019 and $13 million in August 2020.

UTOPIA Fibers open access model enables communities to have access to a free and open internet without throttling, paid prioritization, or other provider interference. Participating cities can also benefit from various Smart City applications that are enabled by the UTOPIA Fiber network, including early wildfire detection systems, free public WiFi, smart water and energy management, and air pollution monitoring services.

The pandemic has shown us just how important fast, affordable and reliable broadband service is. We believe publicly owned open access fiber networks are the future of American internet connectivity and are excited to be at the forefront of that movement, Timmerman said.

The public is invited to visit UTOPIAfiber.com for service maps, build-out timelines, and information on how to sign up for UTOPIA Fiber services.

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UTOPIA dials up funding to build out all 11 original cities with fiber optics - Daily Herald

SG Lewis. His latest album, times, made our shortlist of the best new releases out on Feb. 19. Jack Bridgland/Courtesy of the artist hide caption

The U.K. singer and producer SG Lewis is as inspired by the mindset of disco as much as the four-on-the-floor beats. On his debut album, times, he presents a dancefloor utopia where everyone is welcome and completely unbound in their celebration of life, rhythm and sound. We give a listen on this week's show and talk about how the young artist attempts to do more than pay homage to a genre and era he adores.

We've also got the first album in more than 30 years from the electronic artist Pauline Anna Strom, Australian singer Tash Sultana, Mogwai, R&B singer Lava La Rue, the Somali supergroup 4 Mars and more. NPR Music contributor Christina Lee joins Radio Milwaukee's Tarik Moody, WXPN's John Morrison and NPR's Lyndsey McKenna, along with host Robin Hilton, as they share their picks for the best new albums out on Feb. 19.

Other notable releases for Feb. 19: Animal Collective Crestone; Another Michael New Music And Big Pop; David Gray Skellig; Hand Habits Dirt; Indigo Sparke Echo; Katy Kirby Cool, Dry Place; Wild Pink A Billion Little Lights.

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New Music Friday: The Top 8 Albums Out On Feb. 19 : All Songs Considered - NPR

opinion

By Marion Mass| Erie Times-News

The New York Times reports that there is unity of thought in certain circles about how the reach of the Affordable Care Act (ACA, aka Obamacare) should be expanded.

Thats unsurprising. Parasitic, special interests will tend to think alike when it comes to sucking nutrition from a host.

The profiteers of Obamacare for example, gigantic health insurance companies and increasingly monopolistic, regional, health systems never lose sight of their objective of increasing profits or of the need to bend lawmakers in a direction that serves that objective.

When it comes to understanding this perverse feature of Americas healthcare economy, the public is decidedly not woke.

The complexity of the system deters most people from even thinking about where all the money is going.

Consider:

1.) The very design of the ACA, misnamed because of its emphasis on coverage not affordability and not care has produced a windfall for the alpha parasite among the special interests, the insurers represented by AHIP (Americas Health Insurance Plans), a lobbying organization known for the generous donation of its influence among politicians on both sides of the aisle.

2.) Also enjoying big increases in profit after implementation of the ACA were certain hospitals. Curiously enough, hospitals categorized as non-profit did quite well, sometimes at the expense of the indigent patients they claim to serve. By the way, the AHA (the American Hospital Association), is another of Washingtons heavyweight lobbyists.

Note to dozing America: there are CEOs among the nations top non-profit hospitals whose annual income is close to $20 million.

Feeling woke yet?

Most Americans view hospitals and the physicians who staff them as a single entity. Yet in recent years, there is a growing divide between the suits and the scrubs, the executive-administrative class on one hand and those who actually practice medicine on the other. With slightly more than half of Americas physicians now being hospital employees, few speak out against what theyre seeing and the direction in which things are headed. Hospitals like it that way; each year, they net an average of $2.4 million for each doctor they employ.

The AMA (American Medical Association) long ago ceased representing practicing physicians. Less than 15% of them are members, and the dues collected in 2018 were 10% of the AMAs $332 million in revenue. By developing other revenue streams, the AMA has made common cause with the parasitic coalition to survive.

Yes, everyone agrees with the platitude cited by the New York Times in its report: Americans deserve a stable health care market that provides access to high-quality care and affordable coverage for all.

But the ACA did nothing toward that end, nothing to reduce costs or the forces that drive them upward, a fact that is nothing if not monumentally awkward.

Will expanding the ACA change that?

Of course not.

Over the decades, our legislators have woven together legislation that relentlessly favors members of the parasitic coalition. The result? Consumers pay more for less time with a physician, assuming that they can meet with one.

The profiteering special interests that dominate the warped economy of heath care in America are already leaning on the new administration in Washington. Most people want transparency in the pricing of services. The entrenched special interests oppose it. Its their jam.

The same interests pursue consolidation in the direction of near-monopoly power. We shall see how well the new Secretary of Health and Human Services, Xavier Beccera, lives up to his reputation by resisting their efforts and reversing damage that has already been done.

Perhaps Congress can reverse its headlong plunge to the bottom in public opinion polls by listening to different voices physicians who actually care for patients. Absent a change of influence, Congress will reverse that plunge to the bottom when pigs sprout wings.

America, whodo you trust to make the ground rules for a better system of health care a system defined by (1) easy access to medical care at (2) reasonable cost, and (3) relationships between physicians and patients that are unburdened by the sapping effects of an entire class of parasite?

Do you trust the business interests, like the million-dollar CEOs of the parasitic coalition?

Do you trust the politicians who look to the parasitic coalition for the funding to keep their jobs?

Or would you consider hearing what a grassroots movement of fed-up physicians, people who swore an oath to protect you, has to say?

Forget Utopia. Simple sanity will do.

Marion Mass, M.D. is a pediatrician, co-founder of Practicing Physicians of America, and leadership in the Free2Care organization. She's also a member of The Intelligencer/Bucks County Courier Times editorial board.

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Who should lead on the path to 'Utopia' in American healthcare? - GoErie.com

Though she rarely acted on stage after college, Diane Fridley Norman always knew how to put on a show.

Whether she was pitching a new advertising account or trying to bring a touring Guthrie production to a small town, Norman always made sure she left a lasting impression with her audience.

"Diane never went down the middle," said Chuck Kelly, Norman's longtime boss at Kerker Inc., a Minneapolis advertising agency now known as Preston Kelly. "She knew you had to make a statement in a way that was memorable. And Diane could be memorable."

Norman died of a massive cerebral hemorrhage on Feb. 4. She was 71.

One of six children, Norman grew up in Fort Wayne, Ind. Her childhood nickname was "Tooie," after a puppet on Kukla, Fran and Ollie, an early children's television show. She graduated with a bachelor's degree in theater from Purdue University in 1967.

After moving to the Twin Cities, she founded D.F. Norman & Associates in 1979. She worked with some of the most prominent arts organizations in the Twin Cities, including the Guthrie Theater, COMPAS and the Minnesota Dance Theatre.

In the early 1980s, when the Guthrie was trying to expand its touring schedule, Norman was tapped to develop a network of volunteers in three small Midwestern communities to bring "The Rainmaker" to town.

"These folks had never taken on anything of this scale or size, but Diane made it sound as simple as pie," recalled Christine Tschida, who coordinated the Guthrie's touring schedule at the time. "She charmed everyone."

A few years later, Norman joined the board of Artspace, which was then a modest advocacy organization that helped struggling artists find temporary studios. Norman and another board member, Catherine Jordan, persuaded the group to think bigger and plunge into the uncertain world of real estate development. Though its first five grant requests were rejected, Artspace eventually raised $5.2 million for its first artists' cooperative in St. Paul, which opened in 1990. Artspace now owns 52 properties in 24 states, providing homes for more than 2,500 artists.

"Artspace would not be what it is without Diane Norman's vision and drive," said Artspace President Kelley Lindquist, who joined the nonprofit organization in 1987 when he was the sole employee. "It has grown into a huge national organization, but it all started because of her."

In 1987, Norman joined the Kerker agency, where she became known for combining smart strategic thinking with clever theatrics in her client pitches. To win the business of a company that makes fishing lures, Norman assembled eight fishing boats, which she placed in a pond below her firm's sixth-floor window. When the client looked out the window, he saw a fleet of fishermen using his tackle, while assistants held up Burma Shave-style signs that told a short story about why Kerker should win the account.

To get the attention of Italian restaurant chain Buca di Beppo, Norman delivered the firm's pitch in the mouth of a suckling pig, which was hauled to the firm's offices in a little red wagon. "They thought it was fun," Kelly said. "They said, 'These are the kind of people we want to work with. They can express their creativity.'"

Norman loved traveling, including annual trips to New York with daughter Amanda Norman Hundley. Jordan said Norman's last trip involved seeing artist David Byrne in "American Utopia." "She said I can die happy now because I've seen David Byrne live," Jordan said.

In addition to Hundley, Norman is survived by daughter Jenny M.O. Norman and son Zachary W.F. Norman. A celebration of her life will be held this summer.

Jeff Meitrodt 612-673-4132

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Diane Fridley Norman, ad account executive and arts advocate, dies at 71 - Minneapolis Star Tribune

NASA safely landed a new robotic rover on Mars on Thursday, beginning its most ambitious effort in decades to directly study whether there was ever life on the now barren red planet.

While the agency has completed other missions to Mars, the $2.7 billion robotic explorer, named Perseverance, carries scientific tools that will bring advanced capabilities to the search for life beyond Earth. The rover, about the size of a car, can use its sophisticated cameras, lasers that can analyze the chemical makeup of Martian rocks and ground-penetrating radar to identify the chemical signatures of fossilized microbial life that may have thrived on Mars when it was a planet full of flowing water.

Now the fun really starts, Lori Glaze, director of NASAs planetary science division, said during a news conference after the landing.

NASAs earlier missions showed that in the distant past some places were warm, wet and habitable. Now it is time to learn whether there were ever any microscopic inhabitants there.

Its an enormous undertaking thats in front of us, and it has enormous scientific potential to really be transformative, Kenneth Williford, a deputy project scientist on the mission said during a news conference on Wednesday. The question is, Was Mars ever a living planet?

Mars has been the focus of more and more interest from explorers on Earth. The United Arab Emirates and China both began orbiting the planet last month, joining an armada of European and American spacecraft already studying it from space. And private entrepreneurs are looking toward the neighboring world, with some such as Elon Musk imagining that one day perhaps humans could live there.

The rover will set in motion a NASA plan that is to be carried out over the next decade, and it could bring samples from Mars back to Earth, where scientists will have even more capabilities to find something signaling that our planet is not the only place where life has ever been found.

The mission will also try to make a small experimental helicopter, Ingenuity, take flight in the thin Martian atmosphere something never accomplished before. Successful tests of this Marscopter could point the way toward new methods for searching the surface of Mars and other worlds from their skies.

A successful test of the helicopter would be a true extraterrestrial Wright Brothers moment, said Thomas Zurbuchen, NASAs associate administrator for science.

NASA has landed a series of rovers on Mars since the 1990s. Each has revolutionized human understanding of Mars.

The Spirit and Opportunity rovers, which landed in 2004, followed unmistakable signs of water that flowed several billion years ago. The Curiosity rover, which arrived in 2012, quickly discovered that its location, the 96-mile-wide Gale Crater, was once a freshwater lake, an environment that was clearly habitable even though it was not equipped to answer whether microbes once inhabited the lake.

Perseverance, by contrast, has the tools that can search for complex carbon-based molecules that could be the remnants of past microbes.

Were looking for lifelike shapes, and lifelike compositions, Dr. Williford said. Chemical compositions so the elements, the minerals, the molecules, the organic molecules that we know are associated with life were looking for all those things occurring together.

The setting for the missions studies is Jezero, a 30-mile-wide crater that was once a large lake filled by a river delta. The rover will crawl along the ancient delta, poring over its piles of sediments in search of those chemical signals of microbes that were extinguished as Mars turned cold and barren.

But Perseverance will most likely be unable to provide definitive proof of past life. Another part of its mission is to be the first step in a complicated robotic game of pick up sticks that will eventually bring some of the rocks back to Earth for scientists to study up close.

Perseverance will drill rock samples, seal them in tubes and then drop them onto the surface. A later rover, from the European Space Agency, will retrace Perseverances path in order to pick up the tubes and transfer them to a small rocket that will blast off to space. The samples will then be transferred to another spacecraft in orbit around Mars for the trip back to Earth, sometime in the early 2030s.

Perseverance was the third robotic visitor from Earth to arrive at the red planet this month. Last week, two other spacecraft, Hope from the United Arab Emirates and Tianwen-1 from China, entered orbit around Mars.

But NASAs spacecraft did not go into orbit first. Instead it zipped along a direct path to the surface.

At 3:48 p.m. Eastern time, controllers at the mission operations center at NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory near Pasadena, Calif., received word from Perseverance that it had entered the top of the Martian atmosphere at a speed of more than 12,000 miles per hour. The spacecraft was beginning the landing maneuvers that would bring it to a soft stop in just seven anxiety-drenched minutes.

All that anyone on Earth could do was watch and hope that Perseverance performed as designed.

Mars is currently 126 million miles from Earth. Radio signals, traveling at the speed of light, take more than 11 minutes to travel from there to here. That means that when the message announcing the start of the landing sequence reached Earth, the rover had already been on Mars for four minutes. The only uncertainty was whether it had safely arrived in one piece, or had crashed into many pieces, another human-made crater on the surface of Mars.

The atmosphere of NASAs operations center more sparsely filled than previous Mars landings because of precautions required by the coronavirus pandemic was mostly pensively quiet.

At 3:55 p.m. cheers erupted in the control room when Perseverance arrived on the surface.

As designed, the landing system set the rover down on a flat spot a bit more than a mile to the southeast of the river delta the scientists want to explore, near the boundary between two types of rocks, an area that could tell scientists a lot about the geologic history of the area.

This is a great place to be, said Kenneth Farley, the project scientist, said in the news conference after the landing.

Much of the surrounding terrain was more rugged. We found the parking lot and hit it, said Allen Chen, the lead of the engineering team that designed Perseverances landing.

Matt Wallace, deputy project manager on the rover, described the nagging worries of trying to execute the landing.

It consumes you, he said. It becomes part of you. And in some ways, its hard still to believe that we finished it and that were done.

The pandemic had made the task even more complicated as the rovers teams on Earth rushed last year to meet an unmovable launch date in July last when Earth and Mars were close enough. If they had missed that, the rover would have had to stay on Earth for another two years.

The pandemic struck and just about the worst time for this mission, Mr. Wallace said.

Various speakers during the news conference described the difficulties of adapting to the new working conditions, but the team made adjustments, and the mission stayed on schedule.

Plaudits rolled in.

About an hour after landing, I got a phone call from the president of the United States, Steve Jurczyk, the acting administrator of NASA, said. And his first words were, Congratulations, man.

The first few weeks will be spent testing out the equipment, turning on the instruments, making the first few short drives. Then NASA will turn its focus to testing its experimental helicopter.

Over the coming weeks, Perseverance will deploy the four-pound flying machine. If the Ingenuity helicopter works, it will be the first such flight in the atmosphere of another world in the solar system.

Flying on Mars is not a trivial endeavor. There is not much air there to push against to generate lift. At the surface of Mars, the atmosphere is just 1/100th as dense as Earths. The lesser gravity one-third of Earths helps with getting airborne. But taking off from the surface of Mars is like flying through air as thin as that found at an altitude of 100,000 feet on Earth.

Ingenuity is the flying equivalent of Sojourner, NASAs first Martian rover, which landed on the red planet in 1997. Although it was the size of a microwave oven and just a demonstration of the basic technology, scientists could already see the benefits of driving to explore a variety of rocks and surface features, instead of sitting in one place like the earlier Viking landers.

With NASAs rover on the surface, space watchers will soon turn their eyes back toward Chinas Tianwen-1 mission. As it orbits Mars, the spacecraft is preparing for a rover landing of its own. In May or June, the missions lander and unnamed rover will try to set down in a basin called Utopia Planitia. If it succeeds, that explorer will study the ice composition of the region, potentially helping future astronauts understand what resources are available to them should they set off for the red planet.

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NASAs Perseverance Rover Lands on Mars to Renew Search for Extinct Life - The New York Times

In a Sundance Film Festival defined by the coronavirus pandemic, the New Frontier section devoted to experimental projects like virtual reality films and interactive performance art was also radically reimagined. The section is often one of Sundances most intensely physical experiences; in 2020, it included a series of VR films viewed while floating in a swimming pool. In 2021, during an entirely remote festival, it pushed for something different: making our own homes feel otherworldly.

Pared down to 14 projects, this years New Frontier focused on web art and social media alongside virtual and augmented reality experiences. The result was a show that felt intimate and intriguing and set a model for showcasing interactive art online.

Its tough to make a Zoom call feel profound, but Beyond the Breakdown comes close. Like Tinker, the experience involves only a few people, all of whom dial into a web-based video chat. The chat is moderated by a Siri-like voice bot (controlled largely by a human operator), and its devoted to answering a simple question: what should Earth look like in 2050?

My session of Beyond the Breakdown felt like an attempt to figure out the philosophical underpinnings of a better world, rather than predict the most plausible future or imagine the specifics of a utopia. That probably depends in part on the participants, but its helped by gentle prodding from the AI, which asks open-ended questions and chimes in with an occasional request to delve deeper. The whole experience benefits from its film festival context while it might take place on the same screen as all your normal work meetings, its got an unusual sense of playfulness and optimism.

Shopping Malls in Tehran is a tragic love story about the rich kids of Instagram or more specifically, the rich kids of Tehran, a group of wealthy teens and twentysomethings shopping and partying under the shadow of social instability in Iran. Like a social media feed, it plays out in reverse: from two lovers fatal car crash just before dawn, through late-night drives and fights with disappointed parents and a surreal trip into the desert, all told through a combination of live narration and posts on a fictitious Instagram account. Slowly, the story expands from the doomed couple to a history of Iranian politics, the global oil industry, and the eponymous Tehran shopping malls.

The piece was originally intended as an in-person performance, but the pandemic pushed it fully online, with Housely and Alipoor narrating the show alternately on a YouTube channel and in live Instagram broadcasts. The result perfectly channels the distraction of online social interaction as audiences juggle their phones and laptop browser tabs to keep up with the show.

Tinker puts a twist on immersive VR theater, a genre where live actors play characters in virtual reality experiences, like Tender Claws The Under Presents. The Oculus Quest project is about an affable inventor in a cozy late-90s house. A handful of audience members join the scene. Most are invisible spectators, but one plays the mans grandchild who can take Polaroids, assemble toys, draw on walls with crayons, and talk to their grandfather over two decades worth of vignettes.

If youre the participant, the acting is pretty simple; youre not literally pretending to be a toddler or a teenager. But it blends the feeling of having a personal conversation about your family with the understanding that youre playing to an audience and want to make your scene at least a little entertaining. And the setting is a great sandbox of toys that encourage engaging with the environment and actor. Its a worthwhile followup to projects like the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival experience Draw Me Close or the 2020 Sundance installation Scarecrow with no physical contact but a more spontaneous feel.

The physical world is dying. Machines have made human effort obsolete, and the only future is a virtual environment that approximates their old reality. The problem? None of the uploaded souls can agree on what reality was. While musing about their last days on Earth, they argue about whether a river is actually a road, whether an apartments stairs should lead to anything, and whether a tree belongs in the middle of a living room.

To Miss the Ending is a melancholy, unsettling VR experience. Animated in jittering neon voxels that reflect the stories being told in voiceover, it turns a familiar dystopian science fiction conceit into a series of personal and bittersweet reflections on living to see the end of the world.

4 Feet High VR is the bigger, more ambitious followup to another Sundance project from 2018. Its a series of short VR films about Juana, a teenager in Argentina whos navigating sex and romance after showing up at a new school. Juana uses a wheelchair, and the film is shot so were level with her height. But its unique cinematography is just a small part of the appeal. Its a sweetly funny coming-of-age story about being young, awkward, passionate, and relentlessly sure that you can change a hostile world by having fun. The film would still be compelling without VR, but its 360-degree video completely shuts out reality and pushes you into Juanas world something that, during a year without movie theaters, traditional film simply cant do.

Read the original post:

The best of the 2021 Sundance Film Festivals New Frontier - The Verge

Electrical outages affecting some four million Texans over the past week are raising tough questions about the states power system, which operates somewhat like a rogue nation within the U.S. The winter storm that broke the grid may prove to be the event that forces the state to reform its grid management practices to better anticipate extreme weather events and also to end its isolation and connect to other multistate power grids around the country. So says Jim Rossi, a Vanderbilt University legal scholar who studies the structure of energy markets and is an expert on the tension between state and federal powers over U.S. energy utilities.

Texas is rich in fossil fuels, renewable power and political power, so for many decades it has run its own power grid, freeing it from federal oversight. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), a nonprofit corporation, manages the network of electrical suppliers, called the Texas Interconnection, which serves 90 percent of the state. ERCOT and Texas have resisted invitations and outright appeals to connect with the nations two other power grids: the Eastern Connection, which links suppliers and customers east of the Rockies, and the Western Connection, which links power west of the Rockies.

Scientific American spoke with Rossi to learn more about Texass longstanding intransigence and why Texans may soon see fit to start making connections with out-of-state gridsin part because Texas might even profit from the move.

[An edited transcript of the interview follows.]

What do you see as the primary factors behind the failure this week of Texass power grid?

The most obvious factor, of course, is the extreme weather conditions. That said, this was not an unpredictable event. Utilities throughout the country are in a position nowadays where they can foresee and plan for these kinds of events. And utilities have a duty to provide reliable service to their customers, and customers expect this reliability even during a winter storm.

Some analysts say that the actions of ERCOT paved the way for a blackout disaster like this by maintaining the grids isolation from interstate power pools and even the nations two other massive grids. Do you agree?

To a degree, yes. I think another way we might understand it is: What price are Texans willing to pay to keep the Texas Interconnection grid independent? Maybe for some Texans that is more than what theyve gone through already. For others there is going to be a backlash.

There is some truth to the idea that if Texas had a [smooth] connection to the wholesale electricity market, and thus could buy and sell power to utilities outside of Texas, that the impact of extreme weather events would not be as significant. You can look at El Paso and Beaumont, cities [near Texass borders] that are not part of ERCOT and instead have connected their power grid with those in other states. The storms impact on those cities electrical power was relatively minimal. That said, Texas would be connecting to the Southwest Power Pool, which includes some states that also were affected by this storm and experienced rolling brownouts, such as Kansas, Nebraska and the Dakotas.

What factors have enabled isolationist energy policies in Texas to persist over the years?

The state has a longstanding history of political independence, with powerful players such as Lyndon Johnson, Sam Raeburn, George Bush and Rick Perry. The state exerts a significant political influence in the nation. Its our countrys largest energy-producing state. And the state consumes a lot of energy, including a great deal of natural gas. All that allows the state to operate very independently.

Could the power failures in Texas over the past week provoke any significant change in how the state manages its grid in the near future? Could this event represent a turning point?

I think it can and likely will. Were likely to see reform on two fronts. The first one is that its in the interest of Texas to reform ERCOT. It might come in the shape of reforms on governance and accountability. Weve already seen Texas Governor Greg Abbott call for such reforms. And reforms related to reliability of service, winterization of the grid and maintaining reserve margins for power generators.

The second front is related to planning and adaptation to extreme weather. The current power failure in Texas is the snow-and-ice version of a hurricane in the Northeast or Southeast. However, the situation in Texas is somewhat worse. A hurricane does not usually affect an entire state, whereas the power loss in Texas is affecting every county. So, adaptation to extreme weather would involve better preparing the states power system for both winter and summer events.

Oil and gas transmission, power transactions and other aspects of the nations two other grids are regulated by an independent agency called the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). Do you see a role for FERC in the future of Texass power grid?

Its not beyond FERCs power to intervene. And FERC has alluded to its willingness to assert jurisdiction over interstate wholesale sales of energy in some of its previous orders related to the Texas grid. So I think theres an issue of how long can Texas remain isolated?

Why is Texas not subject to FERC regulations?

The Texas Interconnection was started after the Federal Power Act of 1935. The Texas Interconnection was designed to expand and interconnect Texas grid to help with rural electrification. It was bottom-up effort. What came of that was Texas wanted to retain independence from federal jurisdiction over operation of its grid. I think the way that worked out both in terms of history and politics was Texas didnt allow for synchronous flow of energy outside the state. It kept the flow of power intrastate. Its not just a big energy consumption state but also a huge energy production state. Its able then to have more control over the way the grid operates and remain independent from the federal energy market. In the 1970s, ERCOT was created to more formally manage and operate the Texas grid.

In some ways that has let Texas be a really interesting experiment in operation of electricity markets. Some say its a utopia. It controls both wholesale and retail sales of power, without federal regulatory oversight. That has been praised because Texas doesnt have to worry about any tension between federal and state jurisdictions. Some blame that tension for the power system failures in California with its market policies. But in Texas youve got one regulator, one person that you can point finger at. In some ways you can see that as a more effective approach.

Some commentators have suggested that Texass growing share of renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar power, underlies this past weeks grid failure, but others have quickly pointed out that renewables are not the dominant power source in the state. What is your perspective?

I agree that the renewables claim is factually bogus. In the wintertime, renewables comprise about 8 percent of the energy in the ERCOT-managed grid, and thats primarily from wind sources. Its true that some wind turbines are frozen or were frozen. But the failure this week has been primarily a failure in natural gas generation. There are a bunch of reasons. First of all, Texas is heavily dependent on natural gas. Its a big natural gas production state as well as consumption state, but it doesnt need a lot of storage for the natural gas, because production facilities are in-state. In many other states, natural gas is imported from Pennsylvania, Texas or other states and stored in tanks for later use. Most of Texas is very dependent on real-time production of gas. And the gas production infrastructure, as well as the electric power infrastructure, has been hobbled by freezing. Also, the states gas production requires electricity supplied by the states grid for its operations. So when you shut down the grid, you shut down gas production, and it becomes a house of cards. Heavy dependence on natural gas, along with the lack of natural gas storage, has really put the state in a difficult position here.

A big issue that looms after disasters like this is proposals for a national supergrid to connect all the nations grids, including that of Texas, and thus stabilize markets and transmission for buyers and sellers. But theres local resistance among suppliers and others. Does the power disaster in Texas change the outlook for a national supergrid?

Were increasingly going to see more interconnection of the grid. This might be an example of how it becomes necessary. And just thinking about this, Texas may have a lot to gain here, because its a huge state now with the production, not only of gas, but growing with the production of wind. To the extent wind supply in Texas becomes a resource they want to exportwell, you cant just take the wind resource and put it in a pipeline. It has to be transmitted over interstate wires. That creates a political interest group in the state that now might want to see Texas more interconnected with other states. I think thats the direction were going to move in as we see a growth in renewables.

And with the emphasis on infrastructure and the political impetus behind the Green New Deal, were likely to see states wanting to accept federal funding. You may see the federal government holding out carrots in terms of funding, the way it did with interstate highways. Were also more likely to see states cooperating among themselves in terms of regional bottom-up efforts to hopefully try to manage these programs on a regional basis.

Continued here:

Massive Power Failure Could Finally Cause Texas to Connect with the Nation's Power Grids - Scientific American

Todd Rundgren is to release a live recording of his 1973 classic album A Wizard, True Star!. The new version will be released on rainbow swirl coloured vinyl through Cleopatra Records on March 5.

The new live version A Wizard, A True Star... Live! was recorded 2009 in Akron Ohio. The special concert was orriginally released on crystal clear DVD and CD last year and now has been pressed on deluxe rainbow swirl vinyl (which you can see below) and comes in a gorgeous gatefold jacket featuring images from Todd Rundgrens truly epic multi-media concert event - a front-to-back recreation ofA Wizard, A True Star!.

Released in 1973, A Wizard, A True Star! was Rundgren's fourth solo album. Produced, engineered, and almost entirely performed by Rundgren, he envisioned the record as a hallucinogenic-inspired "flight plan" with all the tracks segueing seamlessly into each other.

The album, which mixes prog, psychedelia, bubblegum pop, show tunes and soul music, highlighted a move towards proggier music from Rundgren who was growing increasingly influenced by the likes of Zappa, Yes and the prog fusion of Mahavishnu Orchestra. He would form his progressive rock side project Utopia the same year.

Get A Wizard, A True Star... Live!.

Todd Rundgren: A Wizard, A True Star... Live!

LP1 SIDE A1. International Feel2. Never Never Land3. Tic Tic Tic It Wears Off4. You Need Your Head5. Rock and Roll Pussy6. Dogfight Giggle7. You Don't Have To Camp Around8. Flamingo

LP1 SIDE B1. Zen Archer2. Just Another Onionhead-Da Da Dali3. Sometimes I Don't Know What To Feel4. Does Anybody Love You

LP2 SIDE A1. Medley: I'm So Proud/Ooo Baby Baby/La La Means I Love You/Cool Jerk2. Hungry for Love3. I Don't Want to Tie You Down

LP2 SIDE B1. Is It My Name2. When the Shit Hits the Fan/Sunset Blvd3. Le Feel Internacionale4. Just One Victory

CD

1. International Feel2. Never Never Land3. Tic Tic Tic It Wears Off4. You Need Your Head5. Rock And Roll Pussy6. Dogfight Giggle7. You Don't Have To Camp Around8. Flamingo9. Zen Archer10. Just Another Onionhead - Da Da Dali11. Sometimes I Don't Know What To Feel12. Does Anybody Love You?13. Medley: I'm So Proud, Ooh Baby Baby14. Medley: La La Means I Love You, Cool Jerk15. Hungry For Love16. I Don't Want To Tie You Down17. Is It My Name?18. When The Shit Hits The Fan - Sunset Blvd19. Le Feel Internacionale20. Just One Victory

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Todd Rundgren to release vinyl live version of A Wizard, A True Star! - Louder

I love this game. I love my job. I love sitting in my little basement office watching soccer, thinking and writing about soccer and lets be honest tweeting about soccer (or the six pandemic words I hate) all winter long.

Champions League and Europa League weekdays are nice, especially with more and more Americans and Canadians involved. Coffee and European soccer on weekend mornings is part of my households routine. Its a wonderful life. Its a soccer utopia. Its not enough for me.

I miss Major League Soccer. Transfer rumors, coaching changes and schedule announcements can only keep me going for so long. I need the real thing. I need games. The wait is two months, as of Wednesday. Two months. An eternity in pandemic days. The only consolation is that the Concacaf Champions League chops 10 days off our wait.

While we wait, we dream. We hypothesize. We speculate. We overreact. We assume. We imagine what April 17 and the 2021 season hell, life itself might bring. Anything could happen. Clearly anything. Im choosing to think about anything in a strictly positive way.

Heres something Im looking forward to seeing in 2021 from all 27 teams in MLS, in 50-ish words or less. As a W name, I feel for those who always bring up the back. Reverse alphabetical order, here we go!

NOTE: This column is meant to bring hope to every last one of us, no matter who you support. Our friends, family and neighbors in Texas need more than hope right now. The players of Austin FC, the Houston Dynamo and Dash and FC Dallas are living it, too, and raising money to help people who are without electricity, heat, food and shelter. Consider donating if youre able.

A Designated Player No. 10. Someday, Tommy Scoops (@tombogert) will tweet: Deal is done. Caps have their man. When will that be? No idea. Who will that be? No idea. I do know I want to see Deiber Caicedo and Cristian Dajome running off Lucas Cavallini in front of a Reynoso or Zelarayan type.

First of all, Im looking forward to seeing how Torontos longstanding (and, in parts, aging) roster adapts to Chris Armas desire to press. Just in terms of pure swag, though, I want to see if Richie Laryea has another leap in his game. Let the man cook.

I really want to see if they hit on Remi Walter (d-mid) and Nicolas Isimat-Mirin (center back). Theres a lot riding on that. What I want most, however, is 2,000-plus minutes from Alan Pulido. Hes a double-double, Best XI presence if he can avoid injury (and Tata Martinos gaze) and play enough minutes.

I spend too much time around Anders Aarhus (Extratime producer, Seattle native and Sounders supporter). Thats why I am not writing about life without Jordan Morris (for now), Nico Lodeiros engine at age 31 or the next test for Brian Schmetzer. Two names: Shandon Hopeau and Ethan Dobbelaere. Give the Homegrown wingers a chance, Schmetz!

Another (final?) year of Wondo. Im not sure well every truly appreciate Chris Wondolowski, the player, the person or the soccer story. He is, in my mind, a first-ballot National Soccer Hall of Famer. I know others dont share my thoughts on the HOFs mission. Well have to talk it out when MLSs all-time scorer is eligible.

Bobby Wood in MLS, as reported by The Athletics Sam Stejskal. I just want to see, you know? Weve followed Woods career in Germany and watched him with the national team for a decade now. Hes one of the realest Extratime interviews weve ever done. He got paid by Hamburg, and now its time to play again.

This is going to sound boring two new fullbacks. The Timbers believe 23-year-old Argentine left back Claudio Bravo has the potential to be best-in-class at his position in MLS. Mexican right back Jose Van Rankin has more than 200 games in Liga MX. Apart from that, this is a settled team. Get well, Sebastian.

Who takes Brenden Aaronsons minutes? As I type this, Im watching the Union homegrown buzz around for Salzburg in the Europa League. Will it be Anthony Fontana? He is the obvious depth-chart choice and an instant goal off the bench and in the starting lineup in 2020 (6 G in 509 minutes). Or will Ernst Tanner make a signing?

Can Oscar Pareja top Year 1? My instinct is to say, Yes, of course, but its also hard to replicate (let alone improve upon) what amounted to career years for so many guys. Plus, theres no MLS Is Back tournament to build momentum. But really Pato. Same concept as Wood, but slightly different profile. With Daryl Dike out on loan, there are minutes to be had.

Gerhard Struber. I dont really count the playoff match as a true introduction. It didnt get a ton of hype at the time, but we get to watch the development of one of the games up-and-coming managers in real time. We get to see Red Bulls get back to their pressing roots. Oh, and Caden Clark. Watching him every week is going to be fun while it lasts.

What work gets done between now and the end of the transfer window? Alex Ring is gone, so is Ronald Matarrita. They sold Joe Scally. What happens next will tell us about their ambitions. Are they MLS Cup contenders, working behind the scenes to reload? Or is this it and might a drop to mid-table be coming? Is Extratime making much ado about nothing?

Is playoff Tajon Buchanan the real Tajon Buchanan? I got a kick out of the young Canadian getting under Nanis skin during the Revs playoff win. Id get an even bigger kick out of it if those swashbuckling attacks and cheeky defensive moments carry over to 2021 and become the norm. Overlapping Carles Gil is a good job to have, if he can keep it.

What does second gear look like? For most of the second half of 2020, Nashville insisted they were more than a near-impenetrable wall. They insisted they could control games with possession. They insisted they could create from open play. They started to do it. They nearly knocked out the MLS Cup champions. The test in 2021 is determining whether that leap was a bug or feature.

Djordje Mihailovic. Montreal wanted him, and thats a good start. It never seemed like the Fire placed full faith in their homegrown midfielder. In many ways, thats understandable. One word: injuries. The MLS I want to watch doesnt give up on young players. It finds the right situation for them to shine. Is this the right situation for Mihailovic?

Youd think the rumors around a playoff club/MLS Cup contender without a cut-and-dry starting striker would be stronger. Not so in Minnesota! Yes, Bebelo Reynoso is marvelous, but Kevin Molino is gone and the only pure forward on the roster is Foster Langsdorf. So what am I looking forward to? Seeing who Adrian Heath and Co. decide to sign and roll with in 2021.

Phil Neville, club manager? Gonzalo Higuain, franchise player? Blaise Matuidi, still got it? Matias Pellegrini, bust or slow acclimation process? So many questions, so many unknowns, so much to look forward to as Inter Miami officially become, as I wrote earlier this offseason, David Beckhams team.

Im looking forward to a better, happier, more productive Javier Hernandez. The man admittedly hit rock bottom in 2020. His personal life crumbled, and so did his soccer life. Does Chicharito still have it? Hell have to prove it. He gets a pass for 2020, but its a one-time pass. The Galaxy need him to deliver, and he seems intent on doing it.

A full season of Carlos Vela (with kid gloves). Bob Bradley is going to be careful with Vela, and I appreciate that. LAFC and MLS missed his quality in 2020. His presence alone changes games and the league. Its easy to take that 2019 season for granted, but I am well aware we may not see that sort of consistently blinding brilliance again. Best to appreciate every single moment as long as Vela is capable of delivering.

Ariel Lassiter or Christian Ramirez? What about Maxi Urruti? Fafa Picault? Mateo Bajamich? Tyler Pasher? The Dynamo have Darwin Quintero, on his day as special a player asthere is in MLS, but after that its pretty open when it comes to their attack. Who will win Tab Ramos favor? Can he get enough out of his roster to make the playoffs? Thats his job.

What does Hernan Losada see when he looks at this roster? We dont know Losada yet. We know of him. We know, in general terms, what he did at Beerschot. We know his reputation in Belgium was as a young, passionate, tactically astute manager who got more from his team than could rightfully be expected. Can he do the same with D.C.? How will he decide to go about it? Big questions.

Ricardo Pepi. David Gass is driving the hype train. Im just along for the ride. Pepi scored a playoff goal as a 17-year-old and got a couple more in the regular season as Luchi Gonzalez eased him into the first team. So whats the next step? How much time can he take from Franco Jara? Is 1,500 minutes and 10 starts greedy or just right?

(Id have said Paxton Pomykals return, but lets all agree to stay as silent as possible until he builds up a run of games and form. No need to rush him.)

I kept myself to two stadium openings, which isnt to say the good people of Cincinnati shouldnt be ecstatic, too. Its just that the blue and orange side of soccer in Ohio didnt have to fight for their teams very existence. When Crew fans walk into that shiny new stadium, theyll carry the past on their shoulders, scars included. You cant move concrete, but you can hang championship banners on it.

Incremental progress. Snore, but seriously. The Rapids have been building and improving steadily. Bit by bit, piece by piece the roster is deep and talented. Do they have a Vela, Higuain or [fill-in-the-blank big-name or big-price-tag star]? No, they dont. Incremental progress. In 2020, it was a playoff appearance. In 2021? Why cant they push into the Wests top four?

A fresh slate. Extratime has become a FC Cincinnati podcast. Thats how much news theyve made, both good and not so good. What the club needs most is a fresh slate. They cant escape their baggage from two rough years in MLS, but they can look at the table and see themselves even with everybody else. Add Brenner, maybe Lucho Acosta and a new stadium to the mix, and why cant 2021 be the year they turn it around?

Fewer brain farts. Lets just say that when it came to decision making and make-or-break moments the Fire were gassy. Too much? Fine. Chicago didnt get that much credit for it, but they controlled games in 2020. They just didnt finish them. What could this team, now recruiting from every corner of the globe, do with a little focus?

The first home match at Q2 Stadium. Ive been to a lot of firsts for expansion teams. First games. First home games. Stadium openings. Theyre all special, but theres nothing like walking into the building youll call home for the first time. The Q2 is Austin FCs home. The first look feels like a dream come true.

Can George Bello be the next Reggie Cannon? MLS starter >International success > Europe. I would say Bryan Reynolds, but Reynolds rise and sale was truly meteoric. Meanwhile, Bello quietly became a starter for Atlanta United in 2020 at 19, and in 2021 hes got an opportunity to take an even bigger leap under a manager who knows what it takes to make the jump to Europe.

..

Feel free to drop a dose of positivity in my Twitter (@andrew_wiebe) mentions. Id love to hear what youre excited about in 2021. Stick to MLS and your club, or take it way beyond our little soccer world!

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MLS 2021 season: One thing to look forward to for every club | Andrew Wiebe - MLSsoccer.com