Jan 272024
 

Yesterday, I didn’t have to prepare for today’s opera – it’s “Carmen” by George Bizet. I’ve heard it a lot of times and seen it several times as well. For one production, I played second violin in the pit orchestra. All the string parts are extremely difficult, mostly because Bizet liked to run very fast scales starting in the basses and running all the way up to the first violins umpteenth position, and then back down again just as fast. I did my best (which wasn’t very good). But even then, I can’t say it was a bad production. There may not be such a thing as a really bad production of Carmen. And today’s radio cast is outstanding. Now, next week will be another story.

This certainly doesn’t surprise me. We have simply got to stop believing everything a Republican presents as fact. They just make things up.

I know there are many Democrats who think that, like Manchin, Jon Tester (D-MT) is useless other than for keeping our Senate majority (which is oretty thin.) I would invite all of those Dems to read at least parts of this article about two Republicans, one of whom will be in the Senate if Tester loses his reelection bid. Sheehy is the crazier of the two, but Rosendale is close behind.

By now everyone will have heard this, because it is, to quote the article’s headline, “a big non-fracking deal.” And it certainly took climate experts by surprise. Bill McKibben said, “[I]f it’s true, and I think it is, this is the biggest thing a U.S. president has ever done to stand up to the fossil fuel industry.”

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Feb 212023
 

Yesterday, I saw that snow for Wednesday the 22nd, which was predicted a week ago and then not predicted for several days, is now back on the agenda. As far as I know, I’m not going anywhere, so that’s fine. And – I learned that President Joe was in Ukraine “to reaffirm our unwavering and unflagging commitment to Ukraine’s democracy, sovereignty, and territorial integrity.” Who besides me is grateful for him? And speaking of Ukraine, the Met Opera is putting on and broadcasting another Concert for Ukraine this Friday. Mozart’s Requiem, Beethoven’s Fifth, and a piece by a contemporary Ukrainian composer, all very accessible (classical term of art for “easy listening.”) My local radio station is broadcasting it at 5:00 p.m. MST Friday. I expect anyone who wants to hear it will be able to find a way to do so.

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Short Takes –

Robert Reich – Jimmy Carter and the end of democratic capitalism
Quote – For years, the rap on President Carter has been that his presidency failed yet his post-presidency was the best in modern history. This is way too simplistic. During Carter’s term of office, the OPEC oil cartel raised oil prices from $13 a barrel to over $34, resulting in double-digit price increases across the economy. Paul Volcker, Carter’s appointee as Fed chair, was determined to “break the back of inflation” by hiking interest rates to nearly 20 percent by 1981, bringing on a deep recession and causing millions of people to lose their jobs — including Carter.
Click through for full argument. It wasn’t just the Federal Reserve – that might have been enough, but we’ll never know, because there was also the Iran hostage crisis, despicably and corruptly used by the GOP. The Reich on the left, as usual, is right, though, to implicate corporate backlash. I don’t know why we haven’t learned to forestall backlash. We’ll need to if we are ever going to make real progress.

The 19th – Mothers of the movement: Black environmental justice activists reflect on the women who have paved the way
Quote – The communities exposed to human-made environmental hazards were and still are largely Black. Race is one of the strongest predictors of the location of hazardous waste sites, which are consistently located near Black and low-income neighborhoods, according to a study by the United Church of Christ. For Black History Month, The 19th spoke with current leaders in the environmental and climate justice movements, including [Leah] Thomas, about the trailblazing Black women in their own lives who have inspired and shaped their work.
Click through for article. Granted that there is no category of humans who are all perfect, and Black women are no exception to that – I still feel that Black women are an underappreciated Nationa Treasure.

Food For Thought

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Oct 042022
 

Yesterday, Joyce Vance posted “The Week Ahead” in her Substack column, “Civil Discourse,” and it is packed. Joyce is to lawyers what Heather Cox Richardson is to historians – you may have seen her as a consultant on mainstream media. She doesn’t post every day, and when she does, she sometimes digresses into silky chickens (which she raises) and knitting; I love both, so that’s fine with me, but I wouldn’t wish it on y’all. This column, however, is jampacked with five sections, each on something current and earthshaking. It’s too much for a short take, but if you have a little time (not necessarily all at once, since it is sectioned) I highly recommeend it.

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Short Takes –

The New Yorker – The Supreme Court’s Big New Term
Quote – If Roberts is still confused, he could, for guidance, look to comments that Justices Sonia Sotomayor and, especially, Elena Kagan have made since the Dobbs ruling. In late September, at Salve Regina University, in Rhode Island, Kagan noted that people are right to worry about “the whole legal system being kind of up for grabs” after a change to the composition of the Court, with decisions that seem driven by ideology and divorced from legal principles. “It just doesn’t look like law when, you know, the new judges appointed by a new President come in and just start tossing out the old stuff,” she said.
Click through for, among other things, examples of cases which are coming up this term and which, even the ones that seem simple, could be incredibly destructive.

CNN – This 100% solar community endured Hurricane Ian with no loss of power and minimal damage
Quote – Babcock Ranch calls itself “America’s first solar-powered town.”… The streets in this meticulously planned neighborhood were designed to flood so houses don’t. Native landscaping along roads helps control storm water. Power and internet lines are buried to avoid wind damage. This is all in addition to being built to Florida’s robust building codes. Some residents, like Grande, installed more solar panels on their roofs and added battery systems as an extra layer of protection from power outages. Many drive electric vehicles, taking full advantage of solar energy in the Sunshine State.
Click through for story – One would think this would be convincing evidenve. Except that Republicans don’t believe in spending money to save money. They only believe in spending money to make the rich righer.

Food For Thought

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Sep 302022
 

Yesterday, The Colorado Public Radio newsletter shared a link to a National Public Radio article about a crystal flute which had been custom made for James Madison – and Lizzo (“[t]he superstar singer, rapper and classically trained flutist and, incidentally, a person who I gather has very few, if any, f***s to give) playing it on a visit to the Library of Congress (and, under heavy security, at a concert.) I had no idea that such a thing existed. It doesn’t sound exactly like (Franklin’s) glass harmonica – but it does sound more like that than any of the normal flutes do which are substituted for it these days. To quote Lizzo – “History is freaking cool, you guys!” Also yesterday, the news broke (it actually happened Wednesday) that Marjorie Taylor Greene’s husband has filed for divorce. Does anyone remember which of them owns the company that supports them? I’m afraid I don’t.

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Short Takes –

The 19th – As the EPA introduces environmental justice office, the ‘mother of the movement’ remembers the Black women who led the battle
Quote – When Dollie Burwell, now 74, reflects back on the Warren County protests, she thinks about the Black women who led and supported the protesters…. “That’s what I’ve been reflecting on,” Burwell said. “Those Black women who fed us, who got up early in the morning and came out at the Coley Spring Baptist Church and cooked food to bring to the marches.” It’s what kept Burwell, a mother of two, and other residents marching. Burwell was arrested five times during that period for her activism. Even her 8-year-old daughter was arrested once while participating in the marches. While the community lost the fight against the landfill … the battle helped birth a nationwide movement. Awareness spread around the country that toxic landfills were being placed in predominantly Black and poor communities.
Click through for story. By now I’m sure y’all know that I am a name ggek. Well, back when George Washington died, he freed his slaves, but Martha held some in her own right, some of whom were given ot bequestherd to her daughter. That daughter married a man named “Carter Burwell” (same name, but not the same person obviously, as the award-winning composer of music for movies.) Decades later, when all the slaves were freed during and after the Civil War, many, maybe most, slaves, who had never had surnames, took the surnames of their former masters (which seems a bit too “Handmaid’s Tale” to me, but it certainly would have been easy and have some advantages.) I am not prepared to say that Dollie Burwell (or her husband, if it’s his name) is descended from people who worked at Mount Vernon, but it’s certainly a possibility.

HuffPo – How Progressives Can Win The Long-Term Fights They’re Losing
Quote – As Belkin tells the story, a chronic problem for Democrats and their allies has been their focus on winning debates through better rhetoric. They assume public opinion is relatively static, and think the key to victory in any given argument is picking the right words or trying to shift the focus of conversation, so that the debate can take place on more favorable political grounds…. “As long as we emphasize frame over facts,” Belkin said in a recent interview with HuffPost, “we’re going to be playing small ball.”
Click through for full article. This was a bit hard for me, because the GOP has been all frame and no facts for at least 40 years and they have been killing us. But when he brought up “storytelling” – which to me is a frame – I paid more attention. Most people learn everything they know from one kind of story or another. What is QAnon but a collection of stories? But it doesn’t have to be used only for evil. It’s a technique which can be powerfully used for good.

Food For Thought

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Sep 182022
 

Yesterday, the radio opera was “The Pearl Fishers” by Georges Bizet (who is far better known for “Carmen.”) It is a typical triangle story with an exotic setting (maybe Sri Lanke, or maybe not.) It’s an early work and in some ways uneven, but what makes it stand out is the tenor-baritone duet “Au fond du temple saint,” which as an expression of male friendship in opera is perhaps only rivalled by the one in Verdi’s “Don Carlo” – musically, that is. I saw this streamed from the Met and the host during intermission asked the tenor and the baritone whether performing this famous duet in cotext has informed their interpretations. The tenor replied that he had not known until learning the whole opera that in this duet his every word was a lie (in the “Don Carlo” duet both the tenor and the baritone are in deadly earnest.) I think that’s a bit harsh, but certainly the tenor is not being strictly truthful throughout. It’s still gorgeous. This is the first of four programs which were recorded in China, and it’s sung in French, and the four principals appear to be European, by their names, as is the conductor. Besides the production photos, some photos of the National Center for the Performing Arts in Beijing were included in the supplemental materials. It is extremely different from, for instance, the Sydney Opera House, but it appears both architects had the same desire to make people say “Wow!” – inside and out.

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Short Takes –

Wonkette – Patagonia Founder Hands Entire Company To The Lorax, For The Trees
Quote – Rather than selling the company or taking it public, Mr. Chouinard, his wife and two adult children have transferred their ownership of Patagonia, valued at about $3 billion, to a specially designed trust and a nonprofit organization. They were created to preserve the company’s independence and ensure that all of its profits — some $100 million a year — are used to combat climate change and protect undeveloped land around the globe…. The company will continue to run as a profit-making bidness under the new arrangement, without direct ownership by the Chouinard family; the family will oversee the “Patagonia Purpose Trust” to make sure the company’s values and commitments are maintained, what with all the social and environmental responsibilities and sustainable manufacturing. Patagonia will also continue its existing practice of donating one percent of its sales to grassroots environmental activists.
Click through for story and free NYT link. Good news is always welcome, and this is jawdropping. This is orders of magnitude bigger than a charitable foundation. The closest think I can think of in history to it is Siddhartha Gautama – but he didn’t set up a trust, he simply walked away from the wealth.

HuffPost – GOP Governors Are Escalating Their Use Of Migrants As Political Pawns
Quote – “States like Massachusetts, New York and California will better facilitate the care of these individuals who they have invited into our country by incentivizing illegal immigration through their designation as ‘sanctuary states’ and support for the Biden administration’s open border policies,” the communications director for DeSantis said on Thursday. “We’re sending migrants to her backyard to call on the Biden Administration to do its job & secure the border,” Abbott tweeted.
Click through for details. This is so outrageous you have almost certainly read about it by now. But because it’s so outrageous, I didn’t feel I coulf ignore it either.

Food For Thought

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Jul 282022
 

Yesterday, I observed that the forecast had mover the two seriously cold days this week from today and tomorrow to tomorrow and Friday. If they keep pushing them out, it could make my drive Sunday to see Virgil much more pleasant – assuming he’s still where he is now. I do think he is likely to be. At this point in the week I hoe so, because in the past when they have moved him it has been a few days at least before visiting is allowed at the new location.

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Short Takes –

Minnnesota Reformer – Conservative blocs unleash litigation to curb public health powers
Quote – Through a wave of pandemic-related litigation, a trio of small but mighty conservative legal blocs has rolled back public health authority at the local, state and federal levels, recasting America’s future battles against infectious diseases. Galvanized by what they’ve characterized as an overreach of COVID-19-related health orders issued amid the pandemic, lawyers from the three overlapping spheres — conservative and libertarian think tanks, Republican state attorneys general, and religious liberty groups — are aggressively taking on public health mandates and the government agencies charged with protecting community health.
Click through for details. The EPA can’t regulate. Now the CDC (and similar agencies at state and local levels) can’t regulate. Can anyone doubt any longer that they are trying to kill us all?

NPR – Decades of ‘good fires’ save Yosemite’s iconic grove of ancient sequoia trees
Quote – But it took more than the hard work of wildland firefighters, luck or a shift in the wind to protect the majestic trees in the Mariposa Grove, many of them 2,000 years old with several including the Grizzly Giant well over 3,000 years. Instead, foresters and ecologists say a half-century of intentional burning or ”prescribed fire” practices in and around the area dramatically reduced forest ”fuel” there, allowing the blaze to pass through the grove with the trees unscathed.
Click through for backstory. Nothing, in the end, will prevent forest fires entirely. And vacuum cleaners won’t help. But something else will. I shudder to think what a Republican administration might do to the Forest Service and the Park Service.

Food For Thought – This is from the British version of Vogue. I needed a little uplift and figured others might also.

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Jun 122022
 

Glenn Kirschner – Preview of J6 committee public hearings: what do we expect to see & what happens after we see it?

Meidas Touch – Texas Paul REACTS to Dr. Oz NOT Being Registered to Vote in Pennsylvania

The Lincoln Project – Think Again

via DAPL – Dakota Water Wars #3 – No Praying without a Permit (Parts 1 and 2 here )

Farron Balanced – MyPillow Guy Hatches New Conspiracy To Stroke Trump’s Ego

Hidden Camera Catches Cat Comforting Anxious Dog While Family’s Away

Beau – Let’s talk about unemployment, Wall Street, and Main Street….

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Everyday Erinyes #309

 Posted by at 2:20 pm  Politics
Mar 132022
 

Experts in autocracies have pointed out that it is, unfortunately, easy to slip into normalizing the tyrant, hence it is important to hang on to outrage. These incidents which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with them will, I hope, help with that. As a reminder, though no one really knows how many there were supposed to be, the three names we have are Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone. These roughly translate as “unceasing,” “grudging,” and “vengeful destruction.”

I can’t imagine there is anyone here who is not concerned about radiation, not only in Ukraine, but about what could happen to the rest of the world. This article is not going to answer every question or address every fear. But, as far as it goes, it is based on sound science, not on propoganda. It can be trusted. And it can be confidently shard.
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Military action in radioactive Chernobyl could be dangerous for people and the environment

Much of the region around Chernobyl has been untouched by people since the nuclear disaster in 1986.
Pavlo Gonchar/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

Timothy A. Mousseau, University of South Carolina

The site of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in northern Ukraine has been surrounded for more than three decades by a 1,000-square-mile (2,600-square-kilometer) exclusion zone that keeps people out. On April 26, 1986, Chernobyl’s reactor number four melted down as a result of human error, releasing vast quantities of radioactive particles and gases into the surrounding landscape – 400 times more radioactivity to the environment than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Put in place to contain the radioactive contaminants, the exclusion zone also protects the region from human disturbance.

Apart from a handful of industrial areas, most of the exclusion zone is completely isolated from human activity and appears almost normal. In some areas, where radiation levels have dropped over time, plants and animals have returned in significant numbers.

fox against grassy background
A fox near the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant.
T. A. Mousseau, 2019, CC BY-ND

Some scientists have suggested the zone has become an Eden for wildlife, while others are skeptical of that possibility. Looks can be deceiving, at least in areas of high radioactivity, where bird, mammal and insect population sizes and diversity are significantly lower than in the “clean” parts of the exclusion zone.

I’ve spent more than 20 years working in Ukraine, as well as in Belarus and Fukushima, Japan, largely focused on the effects of radiation. I have been asked many times over the past days why Russian forces entered northern Ukraine via this atomic wasteland, and what the environmental consequences of military activity in the zone might be.

As of the beginning of March 2022, Russian forces controlled the Chernobyl facility.

Why invade via Chernobyl?

In hindsight, the strategic benefits of basing military operations in the Chernobyl exclusion zone seem obvious. It is a large, unpopulated area connected by a paved highway straight to the Ukrainian capital, with few obstacles or human developments along the way. The Chernobyl zone abuts Belarus and is thus immune from attack from Ukrainian forces from the north. The reactor site’s industrial area is, in effect, a large parking lot suitable for staging an invading army’s thousands of vehicles.

The power plant site also houses the main electrical grid switching network for the entire region. It’s possible to turn the lights off in Kyiv from here, even though the power plant itself has not generated any electricity since 2000, when the last of Chernobyl’s four reactors was shut down. Such control over the power supply likely has strategic importance, although Kyiv’s electrical needs could probably also be supplied via other nodes on the Ukrainian national power grid.

The reactor site likely offers considerable protection from aerial attack, given the improbability that Ukrainian or other forces would risk combat on a site containing more than 5.3 million pounds (2.4 million kilograms) of radioactive spent nuclear fuel. This is the highly radioactive material produced by a nuclear reactor during normal operations. A direct hit on the power plant’s spent fuel pools or dry cask storage facilities could release substantially more radioactive material into the environment than the original meltdown and explosions in 1986 and thus cause an environmental disaster of global proportions.

grassy foreground with industrial buildings in the distance
View of the power plant site from a distance, with the containment shield structure in place over the destroyed reactor.
T.A. Mousseau, CC BY-ND

Environmental risks on the ground in Chernobyl

The Chernobyl exclusion zone is among the most radioactively contaminated regions on the planet. Thousands of acres surrounding the reactor site have ambient radiation dose rates exceeding typical background levels by thousands of times. In parts of the so-called Red Forest near the power plant it’s possible to receive a dangerous radiation dose in just a few days of exposure.

Radiation monitoring stations across the Chernobyl zone recorded the first obvious environmental impact of the invasion. Sensors put in place by the Ukrainian Chernobyl EcoCenter in case of accidents or forest fires showed dramatic jumps in radiation levels along major roads and next to the reactor facilities starting after 9 p.m on Feb. 24, 2022. That’s when Russian invaders reached the area from neighboring Belarus.

Because the rise in radiation levels was most obvious in the immediate vicinity of the reactor buildings, there was concern that the containment structures had been damaged, although Russian authorities have denied this possibility. The sensor network abruptly stopped reporting early on Feb. 25 and did not restart until March 1, 2022, so the full magnitude of disturbance to the region from the troop movements is unclear.

If, in fact, it was dust stirred up by vehicles and not damage to any containment facilities that caused the rise in radiation readings, and assuming the increase lasted for just a few hours, it’s not likely to be of long-term concern, as the dust will settle again once troops move through.

But the Russian soldiers, as well as the Ukrainian power plant workers who have been held hostage, undoubtedly inhaled some of the blowing dust. Researchers know the dirt in the Chernobyl exclusion zone can contain radionuclides including cesium-137, strontium-90, several isotopes of plutonium and uranium, and americium-241. Even at very low levels, they’re all toxic, carcinogenic or both if inhaled.

aerial view of fire burning on wooded landscape
Forest fires, like this one in 2020 in the Chernobyl exclusion zone, can release radioactive particles that had been trapped in the burning materials.
Volodymyr Shuvayev/AFP via Getty Images

Possible impacts further afield

Perhaps the greater environmental threat to the region stems from the potential release to the atmosphere of radionuclides stored in soil and plants should a forest fire ignite.

Such fires have recently increased in frequency, size and intensity, likely because of climate change, and these fires have released radioactive materials back into the air and and dispersed them far and wide. Radioactive fallout from forest fires may well represent the greatest threat from the Chernobyl site to human populations downwind of the region as well as the wildlife within the exclusion zone.

Currently the zone is home to massive amounts of dead trees and debris that could act as fuel for a fire. Even in the absence of combat, military activity – like thousands of troops transiting, eating, smoking and building campfires to stay warm – increases the risk of forest fires.

bird held in hands with tumor visible through feathers
A bird from Chernobyl with a tumor on its head.
T. A. Mousseau, 2009, CC BY-ND

It’s hard to predict the effects of radioactive fallout on people, but the consequences to flora and fauna have been well documented. Chronic exposure to even relatively low levels of radionuclides has been linked to a wide variety of health consequences in wildlife, including genetic mutations, tumors, eye cataracts, sterility and neurological impairment, along with reductions in population sizes and biodiversity in areas of high contamination.

There is no “safe” level when it comes to ionizing radiation. The hazards to life are in direct proportion to the level of exposure. Should the ongoing conflict escalate and damage the radiation confinement facilities at Chernobyl, or at any of the 15 nuclear reactors at four other sites across Ukraine, the magnitude of harm to the environment would be catastrophic.

[Get fascinating science, health and technology news. Sign up for The Conversation’s weekly science newsletter.]The Conversation

Timothy A. Mousseau, Professor of Biological Sciences, University of South Carolina

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone, you, being goddesses, are, I trust, immune to the effects of radiation suffered by hmans, animals, and plants. Anything you can think of that will kelp preserve the rest of us will be appreciated. (I doubt that Democritus can help. He is probably still in shock, awe, and disbelief.)

The Furies and I will be back.

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