I’m back ….

Last week was a great reminder that we all need some time to decompress and come back ready to hit the ground running. I’m back from vacation. Let’s get into some of the things that happened while I was gone.

Twice the speed of light … While scientists have found a limited number of things that can travel faster than the speed of light, that doesn’t include a small spaceship. That’s what makes this headline published last week from Newsweek, so funny. Reporting on a test flight of the Virgin Galactic space plane, Newsweek’s headline read, “Virgin Galactic space plane travels twice the speed of light, commercial flights next?” Here’s the archived copy of the web-page, which has since changed the headline to match the story.

This one’s more a blooper than a bit of actual fake news, but it caught my eye while I was gone, and had me laughing.

Small errors lead to big ones … Not to harp on Newsweek, but there’s something amiss in its editorial department. A Newsweek story published today about the move by the City of Austin to explore a name change due to its namesake’s support of slavery, got a lot wrong. Here’s what the Newsweek summary of The Statesman article linked above says:

The city of Austin, Texas has suggested in a preliminary report, that highlighted historical connections to a former Confederate leader, Stephen F. Austin, otherwise known as the “Father of Texas", that it might consider changing its name.

In addition to identifying several neighborhoods and towns linked to the Confederacy, the report, released by Texas’ Equity Office also suggested name changes for city streets honoring the Confederacy or Confederate leaders, including slave owner William Barton, The Austin American Statesman reported Friday.

Austin, who founded the city in 1839, was notable for his staunch disapproval of an effort to ban slavery in the Tejas province following the Texas Revolution.

As Twitter user @CaryChesireTX notes, Austin died in 1836. That’s decades before the start of the Civil War, and three years before the author stated Austin “founded the city” named in his honor.