tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-51651185040933459232024-02-02T10:40:45.438-08:00One Finger TypingSteve Masover's ideas, meditations, and rants on culture, technology, books, writing, and politics.Steve Masoverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03387484207819808962noreply@blogger.comBlogger388125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5165118504093345923.post-42277412852415918522017-10-26T09:41:00.000-07:002017-11-07T07:28:08.497-08:00Narrating the Anthropocene: a panel - 19 Nov 2017 - Howard Zinn Book Fair<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The fourth annual <a href="https://howardzinnbookfair.com/" target="_blank">Howard Zinn Book Fair</a> (HZBF) will converge around this year's theme -- <i>The World We Want</i> -- at City College of San Francisco's Mission Campus the Sunday before Thanksgiving, on 19 November 2017.<br />
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I've organized one of the book fair panels, titled "<a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/143520362925984/" target="_blank">Narrating the Anthropocene</a>" and I hope you can make it! We're on from 1:30 - 2:30 pm.<br />
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What's "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropocene" target="_blank">the Anthropocene</a>," you ask? It's a name proposed for the current geological epoch, signifying an era of Earth's evolution that is characterized by human impacts on the planet, including impacts driving climate change and the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/10/earths-sixth-mass-extinction-event-already-underway-scientists-warn" target="_blank">Sixth Extinction</a>, changes in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biogeography" target="_blank">biogeography</a>, accretion of the nuclear fallout and radionuclides produced by thermonuclear weapons tests, etc. The "Anthropocene" designation <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/aug/29/declare-anthropocene-epoch-experts-urge-geological-congress-human-impact-earth" target="_blank">has been formally recommended to the International Geological Congress</a>, but is already in widespread preliminary or informal use among scientists and environmentalists.<br />
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When the call went out from HZBF organizers for panel topics I began thinking about commonalities among the most powerful and gripping accounts of threats we and the co-inhabitants of our biosphere are facing in this third century since the Industrial Revolution began. Whether the accounts are fiction or nonfiction, books or articles, text-centric or illustrated (as in comic books and graphic novels), I would say the most moving and influential go well beyond aggregation of facts, figures, and statistical trends: they're centered and grounded in <i>story</i>.<br />
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Hence, "Narrating the Anthropocene."<br />
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Here's a description of the panel:<br />
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<i>In reaching for the heart and the human in books that grapple with dire threats to our only biosphere, narrative -- the art of storytelling -- is a crucial tool for writers working in all genres. As our world spins further out of equilibrium than ever before in recorded history, writers of fact and fiction are calling all hands to overcome denial and paralysis, and to prepare humankind to survive the catastrophes we fail to avert. Join a panel of authors who are narrating the Anthropocene as journalists, novelists, comic book authors, and scientists as they explore the role storytelling plays in rousing humanity to engage with the crises of our current century.</i></blockquote>
"Narrating the Anthropocene" will include authors with backgrounds as journalists, scientists, and activists, whose work spans fiction, nonfiction, and comic book forms. Here's the lineup:<br />
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<a href="https://earth.stanford.edu/farm/people/liz-carlisle" target="_blank"><b>Liz Carlisle</b></a>, geographer and lecturer in Stanford’s School of Earth, Energy, and Environmental Sciences; and author of <a href="http://lentilunderground.com/thebook/" style="font-style: italic;" target="_blank">Lentil Underground: Renegade Farmers and the Future of Food in America</a>, a work of narrative nonfiction that straddles the border between a case study in building sustainable food systems, and a heroic account of prairieland farmer Dave Oien struggling to sustainably farm his acreage in north-central Montana. </blockquote>
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<a href="http://michaeljfitzgerald.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><b>Michael J. Fitzgerald</b></a>, journalist and novelist, author of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Fracking-War-Michael-J-Fitzgerald/dp/1626527067" target="_blank"><i>The Fracking War</i></a> and <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Fracking-Justice-author-War/dp/1634135555" style="font-style: italic;" target="_blank">Fracking Justice</a>, in which a small town newspaper takes on a fossil fuel behemoth to protect land and communities in upstate New York. </blockquote>
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<a href="http://www.stevemasover.net/" target="_blank"><b>Steve Masover</b></a>, novelist, activist, and author of <i><a href="http://www.stevemasover.net/consequence/" target="_blank">Consequence</a></i>, in which a San Francisco activist loses faith in the impact of non-violent protest and becomes entangled in an eco-saboteur’s desperate conspiracy. </blockquote>
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<a href="https://www.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/ArticleArchives?author=2478949" target="_blank"><b>Jean Tepperman</b></a>, Bay Area journalist, activist, and author of the comic <i><a href="http://www.sunflower-alliance.org/warning-from-my-future-self/" target="_blank">Warning from my Future Self</a></i> about building urban community to collectively cope with the effects of climate change.</blockquote>
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It's been a delicious pleasure getting to know these authors and read their work as we prepare for next month's panel. I hope you'll have a chance to join us; to check out some of <a href="https://howardzinnbookfair.com/line-up-2017/" target="_blank">the other panels and panelists</a> at this year's Howard Zinn Book Fair; and wander among the <a href="https://howardzinnbookfair.com/list-of-exhibitors-2017/" target="_blank">exhibitor tables</a> where you'll find terrific books and opportunities to engage with the authors and publishers who brought them into being.
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Again, "Narrating the Anthropocene" starts at 1:30 pm on 19 November, at the Mission Campus of City College of San Francisco (1125 Valencia St, between 22nd and 23rd, a few blocks from 24th Street BART - <a href="https://www.google.com/search?tbm=lcl&q=CCSF+Mission+Campus+1125+Valencia+Street%2C+San+Francisco%2C+CA&oq=CCSF+Mission+Campus+1125+Valencia+Street%2C+San+Francisco%2C+CA&gs_l=psy-ab.3...20269.23444.0.23659.20.12.0.0.0.0.521.1329.2-2j1j0j1.4.0....0...1.1.64.psy-ab..19.0.0....0.GvMC57wG0Fo#rlfi=hd:;si:;mv:!1m3!1d2965.6094836276243!2d-122.41993931216433!3d37.75360312656851!3m2!1i1034!2i722!4f13.1" target="_blank">map</a>). You can <a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/143520362925984/" target="_blank">RSVP on Facebook</a> if you like ... I hope to see you there in any case!
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<b>Related posts on <i>One Finger Typing</i></b>:<br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2015/10/pre-apocalyptic-fiction-staving-off.html" target="_blank">Pre-apocalyptic fiction: staving off catastrophe</a></i><br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2015/10/activist-fiction-its-about-engagement.html" target="_blank">Activist fiction: it's about engagement, not about The Issue</a></i><br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2015/11/howard-zinn-book-fair-returns-to-san.html" target="_blank">Howard Zinn Book Fair returns to San Francisco on Sunday Nov 15th</a></i><br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2015/11/radical-storytelling-howard-zinn-book.html" target="_blank">Radical Storytelling: Howard Zinn Book Fair photos and video</a></i></div>
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Steve Masoverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03387484207819808962noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5165118504093345923.post-25300332879556030602017-08-19T12:48:00.001-07:002017-08-21T11:31:13.968-07:00City and sea: a couple of weekdays away in the Bay AreaI took a couple days off work this past week, and along with paying less attention (okay, not exactly zero) to incoming office e-mail, I stepped away -- okay, really, I backed up a little bit -- from the relentless news, analysis, prediction, and preparation related to the white supremacist and right-wing militias coming to my hometown next weekend.<br />
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<b>The Sea</b><br />
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On Thursday I headed for the coast, to my favorite spots at Point Reyes National Seashore. I stopped for coffee in Fairfax, and to pick up a sandwich at the deli in Lagunitas, then ate lunch on McClure's Beach under the watchful eye of a disappointed seagull, who had to satisfy himself with a seagull's usual diet of limpets and mussels and crab.<br />
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As I ate, the tide hit its low-point for the day ... not remarkably low, but still:<br />
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After a while I climbed back up to the parking lot, and from there to the Tomales Point Trail. The creek was going strong in the ravine alongside the trail, even in this dry mid-August, draining land soaked by hard rains through the past winter and spring:<br />
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The trail was lined with Oregon gumplant, a yellow flower in the daisy family (<i>Grindelia stricta</i>) that exudes a sticky white gluelike substance at the early stage of blooming. I've never seen such copious quantities of gum on the forming buds before, though I've been out to McClures Beach at this time of year more than a few times. Maybe it was, again, an effect of our very rainy winter and spring following years of drought.<br />
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Spikey thistles on the opposite side of the color wheel also grew like gangbusters beside the trail.<br />
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I wasn't quick enough to get a photo of a majestic red-tailed hawk flying over the old Pearce Point Ranch buildings down to the parking lot at McClures Beach, but a short way down the Tomales Point Trail a vulture riding the wind passed close and slow enough to catch on camera.<br />
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Right behind me at about this point: a birds-eye view of McClures Beach from the ridge.<br />
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I only hiked out as far as Windy Gap, about a mile down the trail. From the gap, there's a clear view into White Gulch and Tomales Bay beyond it. In the gulch there's a spring that often attracts herds of tule elk that live out on the point and throughout the park. Right around this time of year is the start of rutting season, so I knew there was a good chance of catching the bulls bugling at each other as they begin to form harems. I was in luck. A bull and about twenty females were gathered around the spring, and another bull stood looking down on the herd from high above. Even with the wind blowing in from the ocean, I could hear the bugling as I watched through binoculars.<br />
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<b>The City</b><br />
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On Friday Matthew and I hopped on BART and spent the morning at Caffe Trieste in North Beach before heading over to SFMOMA to see the Munch exhibition, <a href="https://www.sfmoma.org/exhibition/edvard-munch-between-clock-and-bed/" target="_blank"><i>Between the Clock and the Bed</i></a>, for a second time. There was just enough time for lunch in the 5th floor cafe before our timed slot to enter the Munch galleries on the floor below.<br />
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Munch was not a happy painter ... to put it mildly. But, sad and jarring as his subjects may be, the paintings are beautifully and emotionally evocative. And Sick Mood at Sunset: Despair, the second painting below, evoked the prior day's far-less despairing view over the Pacific (pictured above).<br />
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But then we came to the real surprises of the afternoon. The first time we'd come to see the Munch show, in early July with some of my oldest friends, the museum was still installing a show on the seventh floor, <i><a href="https://www.sfmoma.org/exhibition/soundtracks/" target="_blank">Soundtracks</a></i>, was still being installed (it opened on 15 July, and runs through the end of the year). I was pretty skeptical ... and, indeed, there are a lot of pieces in the exhibition that are way too cerebral or clever or mechanical to interest me much. But there were also pieces that took my breath away.<br />
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Céleste Boursier-Mougenot's white porcelain bowls floating and tenderly colliding in a turquoise pool of gently circulating water, <i>clinamen v.3</i>, may be the most reverently peaceful installation I've ever seen in an art museum.<br />
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The video I took doesn't do it justice, but I'll include it nonetheless.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/XgfffiNBgNc?rel=0" width="560"></iframe>
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Then there was <i><a href="https://www.sfmoma.org/publication/soundtracks/ragnar-kjartansson/" target="_blank">The Visitors</a></i> (2012), a 64 minute video and audio installation on nine screens and many speakers, by Ragnar Kjartansson. Blew me away. Eight Icelandic musicians play and sing together from separate rooms of an old, sprawling upstate New York mansion (they are connected via earphones): spare orchestration, haunting harmonies, and mantra-like lyrics from a poem <i>Feminine Ways</i> by the artist's former partner, Ásdís Sif Gunnarsdóttir. I didn't stay through the whole 64 minutes (Matthew didn't go into the sort of rapture I did -- perhaps in part because he had visited the piece before, when it was installed in 2015-16 at The Broad in Los Angeles), but I'll be returning to experience the piece from beginning to end at least once while it is on view at SFMOMA. Interestingly, I misheard some of the words in the plain, repeated lyrics -- words that evoke a lifetime's psychologically bottomless trajectory juxtaposed with the unreachable vastness of the physical universe. Finding the words of Gunnarsdóttir's poem from which the lyrics are drawn (thanks Google) only deepened my commitment to returning to experience <i>The Visitors</i> again. Here's a brief segment of the piece, in which the musicians are vocalizing the monastic melody:<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/1nUy29g4VgU?rel=0" width="560"></iframe>
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<i>The Visitors</i> was still playing in my head this morning ... but SFMOMA had one more breathtaking gift for us before we headed home: a lush, newly-exhibited Anselm Kiefer piece at the entrance to the sixth floor galleries: <i>Maria durch den Dornwald ging</i> (When Mary Went through the Thorn Forest):<br />
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I'll be going back to SFMOMA to look at that again too...<br />
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A week from today the nation's political hurricane is expected to make landfall at Crissy Field, not far from San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge. The next day: Berkeley, where I live and work and write. I hope the turmoil to which it aspires will be <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/18/us/demonstration-race-free-speech-boston-charlottesville.html" target="_blank">as overmatched by nonviolent local response as it was today in Boston</a>.<br />
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In any case, I was grateful to gain some distance and perspective, in the city and beside the sea. I hope and trust it will inform a grounded passion I can bring to events next weekend.<br />
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<b>Related posts on <i>One Finger Typing</i></b>:<br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2010/08/meet-fishers.html" target="_blank">Meet the Fishers</a></i><br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2013/01/point-reyes-national-seashore-at-start.html" target="_blank">Point Reyes National Seashore at the start of the year</a></i><br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2014/11/never-mind-election-day-2014-consider.html" target="_blank">Never mind Election Day 2014, consider Fall in Northern California</a></i><br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2016/05/a-day-at-bodega-head.html" target="_blank">A day at Bodega Head</a></i><br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2016/11/from-sierras-to-sea-escape-from.html" target="_blank">From the Sierras to the sea: Escape from Election 2016</a></i><br />
<br />Steve Masoverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03387484207819808962noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5165118504093345923.post-58195050874428368872017-06-24T13:51:00.000-07:002017-06-24T13:51:40.794-07:00Saturday in the neighborhoodIt's been a long while since I posted here ... too many distractions. But this morning, feeling kind of slow and walkabouty, I wandered east and north and west and south again, up to UC Berkeley's Campanile and back home. Here are some of the things I saw:<br />
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Sweet...<br />
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<b>Related posts on <i>One Finger Typing</i></b>:<br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2016/05/a-day-at-bodega-head.html" target="_blank">A day at Bodega Head</a></i><br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2012/09/post-convention-blues-sky-im-sayin.html" target="_blank">Post-convention blues (the sky, I'm sayin')</a></i><br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2012/06/april-showers-brought-may-flowers.html" target="_blank">April showers brought May flowers</a></i><br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2012/04/on-bright-side-iris-in-someones-front.html" target="_blank">On the bright side: an iris in someone's front yard</a></i><br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2011/04/flowery-front-yards-in-berkeley.html" target="_blank">Flowery front yards in Berkeley</a></i><br />
<br />Steve Masoverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03387484207819808962noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5165118504093345923.post-73068391602788179882017-02-13T07:53:00.000-08:002017-02-13T07:53:10.145-08:00Without Consent: Tar Sands "Valve Turners" visit UC Berkeley<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEIM3Igewb30OuDh8NgMMhVaWVDZzwAUn7pUllb5m2CD5bktGkuPEPv0r7U0GeBC420_mYiV_2vIoxeNPX6bzrzh3nTvcaPSj9V65d2O-MdbRMuqvv-GMQSaHgf4fXJjT0WyYvXVLs46F7/s1600/ValveTurners_2017-02-10.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="242" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEIM3Igewb30OuDh8NgMMhVaWVDZzwAUn7pUllb5m2CD5bktGkuPEPv0r7U0GeBC420_mYiV_2vIoxeNPX6bzrzh3nTvcaPSj9V65d2O-MdbRMuqvv-GMQSaHgf4fXJjT0WyYvXVLs46F7/s400/ValveTurners_2017-02-10.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
I spent Friday evening on the UC Berkeley campus, in a lecture hall full of activists and community members gathered for dialog with the Tar Sands Pipeline Valve Turners: five brave activists who could have stepped out of <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20958267-the-monkey-wrench-gang" target="_blank">Edward Abbey's fiction</a>, or <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25604513-your-heart-is-a-muscle-the-size-of-a-fist" target="_blank">Sunil Yapa's</a>, or <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5946.In_the_Skin_of_a_Lion" target="_blank">Michael Ondaatje's</a>, or my own novel, <i><a href="http://www.stevemasover.net/consequence/" target="_blank">Consequence</a></i>. But in <i>real</i> life, these monkey wrenchers collectively stopped the U.S.-bound flow of tar sands crude oil from the so-called "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacrifice_zone" target="_blank">sacrifice zone</a>" in Alberta, Canada (<a href="http://www.wilderutopia.com/environment/post-apocalyptic-destruction-of-the-tar-sands-alberta-from-above/" target="_blank">images</a>), where it is <a href="https://www.nrdc.org/stories/dirty-fight-over-canadian-tar-sands-oil" target="_blank">extracted in a mode that decimates forests, wildlife, and human communities</a>. They did so <a href="http://www.shutitdown.today/shut_it_down" target="_blank">by turning off emergency shutoff valves along the pipeline route</a>, in Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota, and Washington.<br />
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The Valve Turners shut down the flow of tar sands crude on 11 October 2016, <a href="http://www.shutitdown.today/solidarity" target="_blank">in solidarity with a call</a> by indigenous Water Protectors at Standing Rock for <a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/1491838244176656/" target="_blank">International Days of Prayer and Action</a> from 8-11 October. Their action was not announced in advance, but it was performed publicly. In fact the Valve Turners arranged for videographers to record exactly what they did ... and livestreamed the shutdowns in the North Dakota and Montana. Then they waited for sheriffs to show up and arrest them.<br />
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All five Valve Turners -- Michael Foster, Leonard Higgens, Emily Johnston, Annette Klapstein, and Ken Ward -- are facing felony charges. Filmmakers who recorded and livestreamed their action were also arrested and charged; some of those charges have since been dropped. Ken Ward's trial ended in a hung jury the week before last. Ward was not permitted by the trial judge to mount a "necessity defense" but <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/ken-ward-hung-jury-2249998346.html" target="_blank">some jurors figured out what had really happened</a> based on the little context Ward was able to provide in his own testimony; and decided that reasoning, motive, and intention excused his burglary and sabotage charges. He will be retried.<br />
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Annette Klapstein, a Valve Turner who is also a member of Seattle's chapter of <a href="http://raginggrannies.org/" target="_blank">Raging Grannies</a>, explained that it's not hard to shut down an oil pipeline. One can -- as she and her comrades did -- <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRlhRTR1VW8" target="_blank">learn all about shutting down oil pipelines on YouTube</a>. It took the group about five months and twelve or fourteen thousand dollars to prepare for and execute their action.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNeCRyZJph-Zysx9XgfU4B01Xu2d3qmUEKLeBc9mG1uGQF4FXdxn3g-ml2T9HMuWfzZCzTUmMkA-qmOk7zRCIjus4vYiO_Gearu8NBRvMYBZ3Ir2yOHp_E0hx3ZjQIi5HfTQeawsHQuvk2/s1600/800px-Syncrude_mildred_lake_plant.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNeCRyZJph-Zysx9XgfU4B01Xu2d3qmUEKLeBc9mG1uGQF4FXdxn3g-ml2T9HMuWfzZCzTUmMkA-qmOk7zRCIjus4vYiO_Gearu8NBRvMYBZ3Ir2yOHp_E0hx3ZjQIi5HfTQeawsHQuvk2/s320/800px-Syncrude_mildred_lake_plant.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Why this action and not something else? Ken Ward told the crowd in 145 Dwinelle Hall that he was "searching for ways to be effective." That doesn't mean that any of the Valve Turners or their supporters believe that shutting down pipelines carrying the nastiest crude for a few hours or a day is the goal. In fact, as their decision to shut the pipelines down publicly and face legal consequences demonstrates, the opportunity to broadcast their message was the strategic goal of the Valve Turners' shutdown all along. And the core of that message isn't the looming threat of climate change: that information is out there, and anyone listening is aware of it. No, the core of the Valve Turners message is this, articulated in a crisp sound-byte by Emily Johnston:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>"These companies cannot operate without consent."</i></blockquote>
Erica Chenoweth, University of Denver professor and co-author of <i><a href="https://cup.columbia.edu/book/why-civil-resistance-works/9780231156820" target="_blank">Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict</a></i> described what she calls <a href="https://rationalinsurgent.com/2013/11/04/my-talk-at-tedxboulder-civil-resistance-and-the-3-5-rule/" target="_blank">the "3.5% Rule" at TEDxBoulder in 2013</a>. Consider this excerpt:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Researchers used to say that no government could survive if five percent of its population mobilized against it. But our data reveal that the threshold is probably lower. In fact, no campaigns failed once they’d achieved the active and sustained participation of just 3.5% of the population—and lots of them succeeded with far less than that [...]</i> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>The data are clear: When people rely on civil resistance, their size grows. And when large numbers of people withdraw their cooperation from an oppressive system, the odds are ever in their favor.</i></blockquote>
The secret sauce? Annette Klapstein gave it away on Friday evening:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>"You just have to be absolutely relentless, that's how you get it done."</i></blockquote>
There's a lot to get done in the current era, in which authoritarian, oligarchic government is spreading like highly infectious disease. It can't be scoured away unless and until enough people resist, as the Valve Turners have shown is well within the realm of what's possible.<br />
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But you don't have to face felony charges to participate!<br />
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For example, have a look at Friday's <i>Washington Post </i>article, <i><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/swarming-crowds-and-hostile-questions-are-the-new-normal-at-gop-town-halls/2017/02/10/376ddf7c-efcc-11e6-b4ff-ac2cf509efe5_story.html" target="_blank">Swarming crowds and hostile questions are the new normal at GOP town halls</a></i> -- particularly if you live in or near a red state or congressional district. Yup. That could be you...<br />
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It's Valentine's Day tomorrow, and you can show the love you feel for fearless work that each of the Valve Turners has done on behalf of our common and humane future by <a href="http://www.shutitdown.today/" target="_blank">helping to support their legal defense at <i>www.shutitdown.today</i></a>.<br />
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Whether or not you click the <i><a href="http://www.shutitdown.today/donate" target="_blank">Donate</a></i> link, consider inviting a few friends and neighbors over to work out how you will become a part of the 3.5%.<br />
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<i>Thanks to TastyCakes and Jamitzky via <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Syncrude_mildred_lake_plant.jpg" target="_blank">Wikipedia Commons</a> for the public domain image of Syncrude's base mine 25 miles north of Fort McMurray in Alberta, Canada.</i><br />
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<b>Related posts on <i>One Finger Typing</i></b>:<br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2016/11/a-half-dozen-things-to-consider-three.html" target="_blank">A half-dozen things to consider three weeks after electocalypse</a></i><br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2016/07/oakland-coal-ban-real-politics-amid.html" target="_blank">Oakland coal ban: real politics amid the Drumpfoolery</a></i><br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2015/10/sticking-your-neck-out.html" target="_blank">Sticking your neck out</a></i><br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2015/08/pope-francis-environmental-encyclical.html" target="_blank">Pope Francis' environmental encyclical in four core themes</a></i><br />
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<br />Steve Masoverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03387484207819808962noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5165118504093345923.post-33173417811066634792016-11-29T09:31:00.000-08:002016-11-30T08:45:08.725-08:00A half-dozen things to consider three weeks after electocalypseHere’s a 2600 word post in a six-bullet, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TL;DR" target="_blank">tl;dr</a> listicle:<br />
<ul>
<li>We don’t know yet which awful things will happen. Let’s stay focused.</li>
<li>An audit of the vote won’t stop Trump.</li>
<li>There is no mandate. There was no landslide.</li>
<li>Drop “Trumpism”: don’t personalize this government.</li>
<li>The term “alt-right” is a surrender to white supremacist propaganda.</li>
<li>You have two choices: pitch in to resist the Republican program, or help enact that program.</li>
</ul>
<br />
And here’s an opening epigram from the close of <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/23/opinion/no-trump-we-cant-just-get-along.html" target="_blank">Charles Blow’s 23 Nov Op-Ed</a> in the <i>New York Times</i>, addressed to the president-elect:<br />
<blockquote>
<i>For as long as a threat to the state is the head of state, all citizens of good faith and national fidelity … have an absolute obligation to meet you and your agenda with resistance at every turn.</i></blockquote>
Indeed. Details below the cartogram.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFlnQ7JcdD9Y1X9l9_86C2pZUoNnKkKJUZSJ_UToYGwHZ2cE-CEoIt2V_YCwhotJHcDWQTmRmAQvIBAYRzgou0UFd1uM8pq0amXSeH01uZN8QgJwXHrT4GiKtrY_qnLO9AvsYfJFGjRe4T/s1600/2016-presidential-elections_countycartpurple512.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="419" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFlnQ7JcdD9Y1X9l9_86C2pZUoNnKkKJUZSJ_UToYGwHZ2cE-CEoIt2V_YCwhotJHcDWQTmRmAQvIBAYRzgou0UFd1uM8pq0amXSeH01uZN8QgJwXHrT4GiKtrY_qnLO9AvsYfJFGjRe4T/s640/2016-presidential-elections_countycartpurple512.png" width="640" /></a></div>
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<b>We don’t know yet which awful things will happen. Let’s stay focused.</b><br />
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There are portents aplenty in the president-elect’s (often contradictory, or since contradicted or walked-back) <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/i-will-give-you-everything-here-are-282-of-donald-trumps-campaign-promises/2016/11/24/01160678-b0f9-11e6-8616-52b15787add0_story.html" target="_blank">campaign promises</a>, vicious bombast, and contemptible dog-whistling. There’s a lot to read into in his staff and cabinet selections to-date. There’s an appalling body of information being fleshed out about the <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/11/donald-trump-conflicts-of-interests/508382/" target="_blank">conflicts of interest with which Donald Trump as a businessman will stain a Donald Trump presidency</a>, and into how those conflicts have already begun flesh out <a href="http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/11/trumps-kleptocracy-already-feels-like-old-news.html" target="_blank">what U.S. kleptocracy will come to look like</a>, <a href="http://www.salon.com/2016/11/23/donald-trumps-argentinian-tower-suddenly-gets-the-green-light-to-proceed/" target="_blank">in Argentina for example</a> -- with <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/26/us/politics/donald-trump-international-business.html" target="_blank">plenty more</a> waiting in the wings.<br />
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Still. At this point, a forever-seeming three weeks since Election Day, <i>nobody</i> has a clear vision of how a G.O.P. led by the Trump administration will function.<br />
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Nobody knows yet what deals that administration will cut to appease establishment Republicans, who have for decades pursued policies <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/11/trumps-infrastructure-challenge-to-republicans/507656/" target="_blank">in direct conflict with Trump’s stated ambitions</a>; or whether and how a minority Democratic Senate will obstruct predatory, destructive, and inhumane Republican initiatives; or how well-funded advocacy groups (ACLU, SPLC, Sierra Club, et al.) will be able to tie up the G.O.P.'s signature deliverable -- regress -- in court; or what kinds and quantities of sand rank-and-file federal employees, from the National Park Service to the Postal Service to the Air Force, will throw into which governmental gears; or how powerful state and local governments, which are far more influenced by local mores and pressures than the federal government, will act decisively to curb the dismantling of progress and small-d democracy in the U.S. (starting with <a href="http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article114044833.html" target="_blank">California</a> and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/11/13/gov-andrew-cuomo-new-york-a-refuge-for-minorities-immigrants/" target="_blank">New York</a> -- <a href="http://www.sfchronicle.com/science/article/Jerry-Brown-finds-himself-at-forefront-of-10637772.php" target="_blank">regarding climate change, for example</a>).<br />
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What’s called for today is circumspection about predicting the future. That doesn’t mean there’s nothing to do. That doesn’t mean there’s nothing to prepare for. That doesn’t mean there aren’t appointments and nominations to oppose, duplicity to expose, and <a href="http://www.sfchronicle.com/science/article/Jerry-Brown-finds-himself-at-forefront-of-10637772.php" target="_blank">audits to demand</a>. That doesn’t mean there aren’t lines to be drawn to corral the white supremacist deplorables who have been emboldened by the president-elect’s vicious campaign.<br />
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And it absolutely does not mean that anybody ought to stand down because the incoming government is in any way “normal” or because of any misguided fantasy that if we bury our heads in the sand “our institutions” can withstand the incoming government’s intended corrosion.<br />
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What’s called for right now is focus on the threats posed by the incoming government and what we can do about them. That’s different from predicting which are going to come to pass, and when, and in what form. Donald Trump’s narcissistic, bullying behavior is chiefly characterized by unpredictability used to sow dissention and maintain control. So what’s called for right now is attention, agility, responsiveness, and evaluation of long-term, strategic strengths and options.<br />
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Above all: focus. Tweets about a Broadway musical are not among our chief concerns, and paying attention to such twaddle is the antithesis of focus. Baseless twitter-tantrums about fictional voter fraud are not about the election of this month, they’re both <a href="http://boingboing.net/2016/11/27/nyt-publishes-damning-deep-lo.html" target="_blank">a distraction from the evolving bribery-state</a> and part of a long-term, coordinated, Republican Party <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/11/28/trump_s_voter_fraud_tweet_part_of_an_assault_on_voting_rights.html" target="_blank">assault on voting rights</a>, the bedrock of (small-d) democracy.<br />
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Just because Donald Trump never met a squirrel he wouldn’t point at to distract from his own <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/notes/2016/11/a-reflexive-liar-in-command-guidelines-for-the-media/508832/" target="_blank">reflexive lying</a>, cheating, ignorance, and selfishness, doesn’t obligate anyone to follow his misdirection.<br />
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<b>An audit of the vote won’t stop Trump</b><br />
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Audits and recounts won’t stop Trump from assuming the office of President; and neither will the Electoral College or the <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-business-connections-us-constitution-2016-11" target="_blank">emoluments clause</a>. It’s not hard to understand the desire to disclaim him, even to sympathize with that desire ... but Donald Trump is <i>going</i> to be the President of the United States come 20 January.<br />
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The recounts that Jill Stein is initiating will at best <i>and at worst</i> function as a kind of catharsis, and the <a href="https://medium.com/@marceelias/listening-and-responding-to-calls-for-an-audit-and-recount-2a904717ea39" target="_blank">Clinton campaign’s tepid, strictly-formal involvement</a> now that Stein has gotten the ball rolling doesn’t change anything. The election’s outcome will not change. While the popular vote matters a lot (see next section), it has <i>nothing</i> to do with who won the presidency earlier this month: no one is going to <i>retroactively</i> abolish the Electoral College.<br />
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Let’s be clear: no one in despair over the election of a strongman to the U.S. presidency -- for whom more than sixty million U.S. citizens cast their ballots, plus or minus the few tens or hundreds of thousands that any audit might possibly reallocate -- no one in despair over Trump’s election has <i>any</i> reason to be mollified by better bean counting. The U.S. is in deep, deep trouble following the 2016 election. Full stop. U.S. citizens will be struggling with the fallout of this month’s election for many, many years. Even if ...<br />
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Imagine -- for a moment, if you haven’t already -- the inconceivable possibility that some combination of vote audits and recounts and Elector misgivings push enough electoral votes into the Clinton column, and result in her assumption of the presidency in January. What happens then? Riots on the streets and in the statehouses across the South and the Rust Belt? Civil war, waged in Washington? Military uncertainty about which civilian is its commander-in-chief? Worse? It would be a different civil war than the one we face when Trump takes office, sure: but a civil war nonetheless. If, inconceivably, the election results were reversed and Clinton assumed the office of POTUS in January, she would accomplish <i>little to nothing</i> in her presidency beyond fighting opposition to her very occupancy of the office (which might have been the outcome even if she’d won the electoral vote in the first place). And that’s the <i>best</i>-case scenario.<br />
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Bottom line: no functioning crystal ball would dare forecast sweetness and light for 2017.<br />
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Is there a positive spin on audits and recounts? Sure. A conceivable good that <i>might</i> come of this effort is amped-up examination of what fair, (small-d) democratic elections ought to look like, how that differs from current practice in the U.S., and, consequently, the implementation of federal audit requirements on state boards of election (e.g., all votes must produce a paper record). Will Democrats will have to fight for that? I think so. Republicans are well-practiced and quite successful at winning office by gerrymandering and voter suppression: transparent elections would diminish their power, and they know it.<br />
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<b>There is no mandate. There was no landslide.</b><br />
<br />
Any statement to the contrary, by @realDonaldTrump or his minions, is bombastic rhetoric, false on its face. The sixty-some million Americans who voted for Hillary Clinton, a clear and significant majority, need to <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/republicans-cannot-claim-a-mandate-when-hillary-clinton-has-a-two-million-vote-lead/" target="_blank">loudly and firmly ridicule that rhetoric</a>. Third-party voters have a heightened responsibility to join in: they may not have voted for the only candidate who had a prayer of defeating Trump, but they didn’t contribute to a fairy tale “mandate” or “landslide” for the incoming president.<br />
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Donald Trump <i>lost</i> the popular vote. Donald Trump <i>lost</i> the popular vote even among the fraction of eligible voters who (a) bothered, and (b) weren’t denied their right as citizens to cast a ballot (the latter, most frequently, by <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/10/trump-election-rigged/504347/" target="_blank">ongoing, deliberate</a>, and <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/10/trumps-black-voter-dilemma/505586/" target="_blank">acknowledged</a> voter suppression tactics employed by the anti-democratic -- small-d -- Republican party). That Donald Trump <i>lost</i> the popular vote is not going to change, no matter how anyone counts, recounts, or audits the ballots.<br />
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And his electoral victory? 306 to 232? In fractions, that’s 7/12 to 5/12, an arithmetical approximation in which rounding error <i>overstates</i> Trump’s lead.<br />
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Not a landslide. Not a mandate. Not by any stretch of the imagination.<br />
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<b>Drop “Trumpism”: don’t personalize this government</b><br />
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What if we agreed to stop screaming sound bytes about who is or is not our president in some abstract, preferred moral space, and held the entire Republican Party responsible for the <i>actual</i> incoming government’s program, mendacity, and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/an-ethical-double-standard-for-trump--and-the-gop/2016/11/27/40f88624-b344-11e6-8616-52b15787add0_story.html" target="_blank">corruption</a>? How about if we held the Democratic Party as a whole responsible for failure to resist Republican initiatives that threaten safety, health, civil rights, our shared environment, truthful transparency, democracy (small-d), and economic well-being?<br />
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It’s tempting to personify enmity because it lessens the need for difficult thinking about a complex political landscape, hard analysis, and risky strategizing. In doing so, however, personification neuters effective opposition. So let’s not take short cuts. They don’t lead anywhere we desperately need to go.<br />
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The dismantling of President Obama’s achievements will not be quick or easy. Many of the most corrosive promises of the Trump campaign <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/11/21/us/politics/what-trump-wants-to-do-in-his-first-100-days-and-how-difficult-each-will-be.html" target="_blank">will require congressional cooperation</a>. The current POTUS (in <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/11/28/obama-reckons-with-a-trump-presidency" target="_blank">an interview with David Remnick</a> of <i>The New Yorker</i>) has correctly stated: “<i>as a practical matter, what I’ve been saying to people, including my own staff, is that the federal government is an aircraft carrier, it’s not a speedboat.</i>” To effect agendas that Trump, his fellow Republicans, or both have articulated, the elected G.O.P. establishment will have to continue to cooperate with the Trump administration; the Democratic Party would have to abdicate or fail in its responsibility as opposition; a vast network of advocacy organizations would have to abdicate or fail in <i>their</i> responsibility to oppose Republican regress, from the courts to the streets; and countless federal employees would have to go along with the dismantling of the government they are sworn to protect.<br />
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It’s not just Trump.<br />
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Let’s all step up and shine a bright, unforgiving light on those who collaborate with the incoming administration, and hold them irrevocably accountable for their collaboration.<br />
<br />
And let’s oppose -- with vigor and ingenuity commensurate with the truth that our physical, moral, and national lives depend on it -- the attacks the incoming government will wage on the people of the United States, in assaults categorized by novelist <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/23/trump-changed-everything-now-everything-counts" target="_blank">Barbara Kingsolver in <i>The Guardian</i> last week</a>:<br />
<blockquote>
<i>Losses are coming at us in these areas: freedom of speech and the press; women’s reproductive rights; affordable healthcare; security for immigrants and Muslims; racial and LGBTQ civil rights; environmental protection; scientific research and education; international cooperation on limiting climate change; international cooperation on anything; any restraints on who may possess firearms; restraint on the upper-class wealth accumulation that’s gutting our middle class; limits on corporate influence over our laws.</i></blockquote>
And -- special shout-out to my progressive and radical comrades -- not one iota of fighting to retain partial, isolated, and/or incremental gains realized during Obama’s eight years in office and earlier precludes fighting for much, much more. But no magical thinking, please. First things first. You can’t rule the universe when you’re pinned to the ground by monsters holding spears to your windpipe.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>The term “alt-right” gives in to white supremacist propaganda</b><br />
<br />
Don’t let fascists set the boundaries of discourse. Why cave in to white supremacists? Call them what they are: white supremacists, fascists, neo-nazis. If you’re not personally certain what the “alt-right” is, who they are, what they want, how they act, <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/11/richard-spencer-speech-npi/508379/" target="_blank">watch a three minute video</a> and get started judging for yourself.<br />
<br />
Then refuse to call them “alt-right” and refuse to stand by when others do.<br />
<br />
If the newspapers you read or your local TV news station calls white supremacists “alt-right,” write letters and make phone calls to object. Not just once but every time, until the supposedly-credible media tells the truth.<br />
<br />
Matthew Phelan of J<i>acobin Magazine</i>, writing earlier this month on the “alt-right” in a <a href="https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/11/breitbart-news-drudge-alt-right-koch-trump/" target="_blank">history of the “House of Breitbart”</a> concludes that “<i>terrifying as this coalition seems, it bears repeating how niche it really is. [...] The alt-right is quite literally a political sideshow.</i>” Maybe yes, maybe no. In any case, calling scum what it is can only consign it more quickly and more certainly to the dustbin of history, where it belongs.<br />
<br />
Note that this is a specific instance of every responsible person’s <i>two-part</i> duty to (a) amplify only credibly-researched, honest, thoughtful news and commentary; and to, (b) avoid spreading “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fake_news_website" target="_blank">fake news</a>,” which too-frequently pollutes, diminishes, and distracts from longstanding, more-or-less responsible sources of information. In an age of distributed, social-media driven dissemination of information, nobody will fix this for us. Do it yourself, or we’ll all sink together in a swamp of distraction, misinformation, and outright deception.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>You have two choices: pitch in to resist the Republican program, or help enact that program</b><br />
<br />
There’s room for a wide spectrum of tactics, improvisation, and long-game strategies to resisting the corrupt and corrosive program of a Republican party that has selected Donald Trump as its leader.<br />
<br />
Maybe you have an appetite for local, state, or national electoral politics (and yes, to stop the dismantling of our government and society, progressives need to step up and win political offices).<br />
<br />
Maybe you can pitch in to organize the people in your own community: your neighbors, your classroom, the PTA at your kids’ school, your book club, your place of worship, or people who shop at your local grocery store.<br />
<br />
Maybe you can organize your community to make phone calls, or write letters, or participate in marches, or support advocacy organizations in legal and legislative fights, or offer sanctuary to people under attack by the U.S. government or its emboldened vigilante wingnuts, or physically stand in the way of those attacks, or come out for mass demonstrations, or participate in boycotts, or attend city council meetings to advocate for what you believe is right and just.<br />
<br />
Maybe the thing you’re best at -- or willing to get better at -- is talking with people who don’t agree with you about something important … face-to-face, not through the flattening, distorting lens of social media. Maybe you won’t convince anyone the first time you talk with them. So what? There aren’t any switches to instantly flip. By engaging with people who think differently from you, you’ll be laying a foundation for future understanding, empathy, and compromise among the vastly diverse people and interests that are <i>all</i> part of the cities, states, and regions in which each and every one of us shares a national fate.<br />
<br />
All of that, all of the above, is necessary.<br />
<br />
You need not (and you cannot) do it all.<br />
<br />
Neither can you avoid doing some of it. Not if you want to stand tall, and look your kids (or your sibling’s kids, or your neighbors and their kids) in the eye and know you helped to save not just your own world, but theirs.<br />
<br />
Barbara Kingsolver has some sound advice here -- again, from that piece in last week’s <i>Guardian</i>, <i><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/23/trump-changed-everything-now-everything-counts" target="_blank">Trump changed everything. Now everything counts</a></i>:<br />
<blockquote>
<i>We refuse to disappear. We keep our commitments to fairness in front of the legislators who oppose us, lock arms with the ones who are with us, and in the words of Congressman John Lewis, prepare to get ourselves in some good trouble. Every soul willing to do that is part of our team, starting with the massive crowd that shows up in DC in January to show the new president what we stand for, and what we won’t.<br />
<br />
There’s safety in numbers, but only if we count ourselves out loud.</i></blockquote>
<br />
Be counted. Out loud.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<i>Thanks to Professor <a href="http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/" target="_blank">Mark Newman</a> of U. Michigan for the cartogram of 2016 presidential election votes by county (<a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/" target="_blank">Creative Commons license CC BY 2.0</a>); see <a href="http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/2016/" target="_blank">Prof. Newman’s post</a> for details about how the cartogram was constructed, and additional maps.</i><br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Related posts on <i>One Finger Typing</i></b>:<br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2016/11/protest-is-dead-resist-or-be-eaten.html" target="_blank">Protest is dead. Resist, or be eaten.</a></i><br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2016/07/oakland-coal-ban-real-politics-amid.html" target="_blank">Oakland coal ban: real politics amid the Drumpfoolery</a></i><br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2015/10/sticking-your-neck-out.html" target="_blank">Sticking your neck out</a></i><br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2011/12/paying-what-things-cost.html" target="_blank">Paying what things cost</a></i><br />
<i><br /></i>Steve Masoverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03387484207819808962noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5165118504093345923.post-79732436096195298082016-11-09T08:16:00.000-08:002016-11-09T15:19:15.866-08:00Protest is dead. Resist, or be eaten.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqfCz9JlSdGBEvbdGRNFwmBeQZ8fXCqrw4Oo3Br1PCBkC8RnUhi6-Zf6YOq7SPzOIxWElyjiw92cFDxkM_SsBfJ_zJ0q7pgnI0efxZCet4JbVMT9M49l1EE4v4E74DVSxNmkcFxSII1Dh5/s1600/Broken_egg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="303" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqfCz9JlSdGBEvbdGRNFwmBeQZ8fXCqrw4Oo3Br1PCBkC8RnUhi6-Zf6YOq7SPzOIxWElyjiw92cFDxkM_SsBfJ_zJ0q7pgnI0efxZCet4JbVMT9M49l1EE4v4E74DVSxNmkcFxSII1Dh5/s320/Broken_egg.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
The United States of America has demonstrated that Americans choose to live in an ungoverned country. I don’t mean a lawless country. I mean a country in which self-interest trumps [sic] the common good. <a href="https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=ungovernable+define" target="_blank">Ungoverned, according to Merriam-Webster</a>: “<i>not capable of being governed, guided, or restrained</i>.” Id <i>über alles</i>.<br />
<br />
This choice is painted vividly on this morning’s electoral maps, on the front page of every newspaper and every news website. Considering the thin margin of 2016’s popular vote for president of the United States, no matter which candidate comes out a hair’s breadth ahead when the last ballot is counted, this choice is also evident among eligible voters at large, beneath the geographic, population, and demographic distortions of the Electoral College. In my view, the popular vote includes those who were eligible but didn’t vote: it would be foolish to pretend that standing aside has any meaningful effect other than to enable the decisions of that fraction of us who cast ballots.<br />
<br />
One of many things yesterday’s national election implies is that protest is dead.<br />
<br />
Protest is a tactic that presupposes the prospect of a critically-fragmented nation is unthinkable. If an incoherent society is unacceptable, the threat of social disintegration into ungovernability can force a political elite to dial back on issues that polarize and mobilize a significant population, even if that population is a numerical minority.<br />
<br />
That’s what has made protest an effective tactic—not always, but sometimes—over the past century and change, from India to the United States to South Africa to Argentina.<br />
<br />
But this tactic has only worked where and when and because the prospect of an ungovernable society was unthinkable.<br />
<br />
Among Americans—in the aggregate, on 8 November 2016—that wasn’t the case.<br />
<br />
It certainly hasn’t been the case for those Americans who, over the past quarter century, have continued to elect obstructionist legislators into office. It isn’t the case for anyone who cast a vote to send the president-elect—a loathsome, ignorant, narcissistic bully—to the White House come January 2017.<br />
<br />
And it’s not the case for anyone who failed to act positively to prevent yesterday’s disaster at the polls. Individuals who didn’t bother? They could have voted, or voted differently, to put better candidates at the head of the Democratic and Republican tickets; and, having failed in that endeavor, to send that loathsome, ignorant, narcissistic bully selected by the G.O.P. down to reeling defeat.<br />
<br />
Too late, folks.<br />
<br />
Our physical world continues to spin. The planet’s polar ice continues to melt. Earth’s sixth extinction, the one properly called “Anthropocene,” proceeds unabated. Our military industrial complex continues along its poisonous, rent-seeking arc, just as President Eisenhower warned on his way out the White House door nearly fifty-six years ago.<br />
<br />
Yet, come January 2017, there will be no national government in the United States of America against which effective protest can be mounted.<br />
<br />
Either the government of those who refuse to be governed will be deposed, in a future election or otherwise; or the ideals of democracy, equality, and stewardship—to which the United States has long purported to aspire—will have failed.<br />
<br />
Translation: while protest is dead, resistance and opposition are very much alive.<br />
<br />
Robert Reich wrote last night, before the election was called but once it had become pretty clear where the finish was heading:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>It was always going to be a contest between authoritarian populism and progressive populism, eventually. For now, authoritarian populism has won. But if we are united and smart, progressive populism will triumph.</i></blockquote>
In other words: all hands on deck.<br />
<br />
We have failed to elect a national government that might have been influenced—albeit in limited areas, to an insufficient degree—while we continued to organize the conduct of social, political, economic, and environmental business in the United States differently.<br />
<br />
So now? If we fail to neutralize the government we just elected, and fail to decisively trash it at the next electoral opportunity?<br />
<br />
Then it’ll be time to kiss your kids’ futures goodbye.<br />
<br />
Me, I don’t have kids. But I weep for yours.<br />
<br />
<br />
<i><a href="https://medium.com/@stevemasover/protest-is-dead-resist-or-be-eaten-d57253556d63" target="_blank">This blog is cross-posted on Medium.com</a></i><br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Related posts on <i>One Finger Typing</i></b>:<br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2015/12/paris-pleistocene-and-finding-grit-to.html" target="_blank">Paris, the Pleistocene, and finding the grit to grapple with climate change</a></i><br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2015/10/sticking-your-neck-out.html" target="_blank">Sticking your neck out</a></i><br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2015/08/pope-francis-environmental-encyclical.html" target="_blank">Pope Francis' environmental encyclical in four core themes</a></i><br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2012/04/lemming-situation-things-weve-known-for.html" target="_blank">The lemming situation: things we've known for 50 years about environmentalism</a></i><br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2011/12/paying-what-things-cost.html" target="_blank">Paying what things cost</a></i><br />
<br />Steve Masoverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03387484207819808962noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5165118504093345923.post-30523103766883080102016-11-07T07:30:00.000-08:002016-11-07T07:52:12.149-08:00From the Sierras to the sea: Escape from Election 2016I turned in my ballot a few weeks in advance of tomorrow (Election Day) three or four days before kicking off a vacation from work by attending the Bioneers 2016 conference (see <i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2016/10/what-i-learned-at-2016-bioneers.html" target="_blank">What I learned at the 2016 Bioneers Convention</a></i>, posted on 25 October). Voting didn't untether me from the "news" cycle, a hoped-for effect that I didn't actually believe would happen. The Bioneers, a few days in Yosemite National Park later that week, and an afternoon out on Tomales Point (in Point Reyes National Seashore) this past Friday were much more effective distractions.<br />
<br />
I thought I'd share some photos and videos as a contribution to those who aspire to pull their attention out of the gutter of last-minute campaigning and early-voting hyperanalysis.<br />
<br />
<b>Yosemite Valley</b><br />
<br />
Bridal Veil falls was flowing as we entered the valley, a bit wispy but that's it's nature, if long-ago memory serves. We stopped on the side of the road between the falls and El Capitan, and watched through curtains of golden-leaved oak trees, filled with sunlight.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs9DfXDK3wGyGNE0tvG06VcgkJuBwbNBAcvo_XQRFcvAGDBBg-HSlbJAvcuq66ZSfA8rRZRbRwsSwmGfO90Ir-0dszfl9rbp3GoYHFJvrsIq1Kz0w-kEz5H3I7SfDuLboS06Te6jQywajw/s1600/Yosemite-Oct2016_BridalveilFalls.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs9DfXDK3wGyGNE0tvG06VcgkJuBwbNBAcvo_XQRFcvAGDBBg-HSlbJAvcuq66ZSfA8rRZRbRwsSwmGfO90Ir-0dszfl9rbp3GoYHFJvrsIq1Kz0w-kEz5H3I7SfDuLboS06Te6jQywajw/s320/Yosemite-Oct2016_BridalveilFalls.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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The footbridge below Vernal Falls is only about a mile each way from the Park Service's nearest shuttle stop, though I have to admit that it felt like more after being bunched up in the car for four hours (the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moccasin,_Tuolumne_County,_California#Priest_Grade_and_Old_Priest_Grade" target="_blank">New Priest Grade on Hwy 120 above Moccasin</a> had been an extra-special steering wheel gripper). Here are the falls:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikq8P8_T5BlwKqws-MFQbTLSVxf2KnQ6Wi0HzV_dSLlY4NIwLeYrhSMimcvKOY6Ru5lyO0ZkPdpyTrfLGbxpZKBoJLAD5wzBAVde0pGKRie77KtVA5czHvh4HtrJa9oanB3G4mQkGDmOxQ/s1600/Yosemite-Oct2016_VernalFallsFromTheFootbridge.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikq8P8_T5BlwKqws-MFQbTLSVxf2KnQ6Wi0HzV_dSLlY4NIwLeYrhSMimcvKOY6Ru5lyO0ZkPdpyTrfLGbxpZKBoJLAD5wzBAVde0pGKRie77KtVA5czHvh4HtrJa9oanB3G4mQkGDmOxQ/s320/Yosemite-Oct2016_VernalFallsFromTheFootbridge.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>
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And here we are at the footbridge, courtesy of a fellow hiker:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihHK2Um3lK4W_MlSYGqbO0OS0wPeK7spLxdMA-VhSR7n02WGgUvbmPFgpV3pIkDrBEyfdJKJTNtCdrxG-OhJ-JRYNCeFA0xgh5iOPAH-L7F5xp3p1ah8wQrVxoWtsVsjIGN7VvCP8CfGuS/s1600/Yosemite-Oct2016_SteveAndMatthewOnTheFootbridgeBelowVernalFalls.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihHK2Um3lK4W_MlSYGqbO0OS0wPeK7spLxdMA-VhSR7n02WGgUvbmPFgpV3pIkDrBEyfdJKJTNtCdrxG-OhJ-JRYNCeFA0xgh5iOPAH-L7F5xp3p1ah8wQrVxoWtsVsjIGN7VvCP8CfGuS/s320/Yosemite-Oct2016_SteveAndMatthewOnTheFootbridgeBelowVernalFalls.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>
<br />
I hadn't been to Yosemite for about as long as it takes Saturn to circumnavigate the sun, and Matthew hadn't ever been. And it turns out that in all the times I visited the Valley as a kid and a much younger adult I'd never set foot in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahwahnee_Hotel" target="_blank">Ahwahnee Hotel</a> -- which everyone pretends to call the "Majestic Yosemite Hotel" nowadays, at least until a <a href="http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-yosemite-ahwahnee-hotel-20160114-story.html" target="_blank">current (and maddening) trademark dispute is settled</a>. Matthew and I had decided a few weeks beforehand to check it out by having dinner there, and had reserved a table. The (yuuuuuge) dining room was fully booked.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizvbMqg45h6h0C4TpCj3gixkij-ck8cfW-cnL4tCMGy7bSsXb_8Qndy3Inugx7tbUDyAdo7Qbj_awz4xbmI2vEz3e2qWwfxMoqCWjDcmcICNeUF60MEBHHuiPhKNfVe6_uGFIQF564uErG/s1600/Yosemite-Oct2016_DiningRoomAtTheAhwahnee.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizvbMqg45h6h0C4TpCj3gixkij-ck8cfW-cnL4tCMGy7bSsXb_8Qndy3Inugx7tbUDyAdo7Qbj_awz4xbmI2vEz3e2qWwfxMoqCWjDcmcICNeUF60MEBHHuiPhKNfVe6_uGFIQF564uErG/s320/Yosemite-Oct2016_DiningRoomAtTheAhwahnee.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhO0LQ6qCYIvMEshl8aiIUQgTUeNgeUQ0uv8CaOX-RAqok8GhDCkyCpLrPEjXIGYQZQ82N8sK-2CZW8aKQojnzqNNH5gxKSPrU7nVxFegCVinXmUxTaq-T7MKZ3428Emr9jf50tBzSl3IZ5/s1600/Yosemite-Oct2016_DinnerTheAhwahnee_Scallops.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhO0LQ6qCYIvMEshl8aiIUQgTUeNgeUQ0uv8CaOX-RAqok8GhDCkyCpLrPEjXIGYQZQ82N8sK-2CZW8aKQojnzqNNH5gxKSPrU7nVxFegCVinXmUxTaq-T7MKZ3428Emr9jf50tBzSl3IZ5/s320/Yosemite-Oct2016_DinnerTheAhwahnee_Scallops.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxCvc6bkE8QnA6wTZrPdlCxmbfhl2tlxZjnghqAbmGWJYoEjygSDv9utBV8zt-UXcKd4JK3N2iixEsLg_UQk1zMyHuZrdJabpInOQWe5RcDTMa3fPx_uqvW3jSzPJx4zGV_UBj0MXRgWML/s1600/Yosemite-Oct2016_DinnerTheAhwahnee_OnionSoup.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxCvc6bkE8QnA6wTZrPdlCxmbfhl2tlxZjnghqAbmGWJYoEjygSDv9utBV8zt-UXcKd4JK3N2iixEsLg_UQk1zMyHuZrdJabpInOQWe5RcDTMa3fPx_uqvW3jSzPJx4zGV_UBj0MXRgWML/s1600/Yosemite-Oct2016_DinnerTheAhwahnee_OnionSoup.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Yep. It was as good as it looks... That'd be seared scallops with a scallion pancake; onion soup; artichoke and spinach ravioli; and grilled swordfish.<br />
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The next morning we got on the waiting list for the bus to Glacier Point, but just missed getting seats. Instead of driving up ourselves, we decided to spend the day in the valley. Here's Yosemite Falls on Thursday morning; and a young buck foraging among the trees by the river, met on our way back to the road.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRL4CrA67c7sisv-yw9oRLkfJAs3MuYs_3msEyBL6aiNQv91WCVCi_1fMqvIHN0nhB-ox6TCAoT2yI2yw7m7PtGWBj3hPUeh6Xftxw9kqBrJfyFpsfgflNU8t6z_AxL79o1kh_cUIi0W3y/s1600/Yosemite-Oct2016_YosemiteFalls-ThursMorning.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRL4CrA67c7sisv-yw9oRLkfJAs3MuYs_3msEyBL6aiNQv91WCVCi_1fMqvIHN0nhB-ox6TCAoT2yI2yw7m7PtGWBj3hPUeh6Xftxw9kqBrJfyFpsfgflNU8t6z_AxL79o1kh_cUIi0W3y/s320/Yosemite-Oct2016_YosemiteFalls-ThursMorning.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Check out the contrast between the flow of the falls on Thursday and Friday morning in these videos:<br />
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Pretty dramatic difference, eh? Thursday night it rained hard and steadily, then the rain continued intermittently into Friday. Hence the torrent pouring down the cliff on Friday morning. By the time we left the park in mid-afternoon, the Tioga Pass and the road to Glacier Point had been closed due to snowfall.<br />
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Of course, no catalog of a trip to Yosemite Valley would be complete without a dramatic photo of Half Dome, this one on a bright, clear afternoon following our hike up to view Vernal Falls.<br />
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And here's a farewell look back to the valley from Highway 120, through fog and rain:<br />
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I can't really explain what possessed me to wait nearly three decades to return to Yosemite Valley, but I'm glad I didn't wait any longer.<br />
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<b>Point Reyes National Seashore</b><br />
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The week following our return to the Bay Area for the staycation half of my away-from-work program, I was assaulted by way too many furiously angry memes posted to way too much social media, and read many too many news and pseudo-news articles. My bad. I couldn't help it. And, no, I'm not the type that enjoys gawking at trainwrecks. The last days (apocalyptic connotation intended) ticked and tocked away in advance of tomorrow's election, and like pretty much everybody I know, it was driving me nuts.<br />
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I decided to head for the coast to clear my head, despite <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Waves-up-to-20-feet-expected-to-slam-Bay-Area-10591159.php" target="_blank">high surf warnings published in the <i>SF Chronicle</i></a>. I drove out the Tomales Point Road and hiked down a short trail to McClure's Beach for lunch, and to be mesmerized by the pounding breakers. The most aggressive waves were washing up just short of the steep cliffs: the ranger's warning at the visitor center -- not to turn one's back on the water -- turned out to be sound advice.<br />
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The trail to the beach was lovely as ever ...</div>
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Up the hill from McClure's Beach, a herd of tule elk were congregating high on a ridge, where I've often seen them grazing before, protected on the Tomales Bay side of the point from the ocean-side wind.<br />
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But my favorite and least-expected wildlife sighting came during the drive back to Point Reyes Station, as I salivated for an Americano from <a href="http://www.tobysfeedbarn.com/coffee-bar" target="_blank">Toby's</a> in which I expected I'd be able to stand up a spoon. Later that night, friends on Facebook responded to the photo below with stories about coyotes they'd seen lately in urban and semi-urban environments from Orange County to San Francisco to Vancouver ... but in decades of visits to Point Reyes (where I've seen elk, deer, a bobcat, weasels, bazillions of vultures and ravens, countless small birds, harbor seals, elephant seals, whales, and shoals of beached jellyfish) I've never before spotted a coyote.<br />
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This trip I saw two specimens of <i>Canis latrans </i>-- one away up on a hill as I rounded a curve in the road (no chance to snap a photo), and the one in the photo above. The coyote in the snapshot crossed the road about fifty yard ahead of my car, then ducked under a barbed-wire fence before pausing to vogue for a bit while I wrestled my iPhone out of my jeans. None of the shots through the open car window came out very sharp, but this one -- particularly if you click for the enlarged view -- has the virtue of looking a bit like <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elmer_Bischoff" target="_blank">Elmer Bischoff</a> painted it.<br />
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The Americano in Point Reyes Station was perfect, as always. It kept me alert, if perhaps a bit less than serenely patient, during the interminable stop-and-go past San Quentin, approaching the Richmond - San Rafael Bridge.<br />
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So.<br />
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It's Monday.<br />
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And here we are, on the cusp of Election 2016. Perhaps you'll browse this travelogue today. Perhaps by the time you get to it the election results will have been called and ... well, and then the real work can carry on, <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2016/10/27/time-for-leadership/Ik2WyxkFlDOBBH9PtF9sOO/story.html" target="_blank">inside government</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/07/what-happens-after-clinton-trump-win-election-progressive" target="_blank">out</a>, assuming the U.S. sidesteps full-on apocalypse. For now.<br />
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Keep breathing, okay?<br />
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<i>Thanks to <a href="http://www.matthewfelixsun.com/" target="_blank">Matthew Felix Sun</a> for photos of Vernal Falls from the footbridge, dinner at the Ahawahnee Hotel, and Yosemite Falls on Thursday morning.</i><br />
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<b>Related posts on <i>One Finger Typing</i></b>:<br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2016/10/what-i-learned-at-2016-bioneers.html" target="_blank">What I learned at the 2016 Bioneers Convention</a></i><br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2016/05/a-day-at-bodega-head.html" target="_blank">A day at Bodega Head</a></i><br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2014/11/never-mind-election-day-2014-consider.html" target="_blank">Never mind Election Day 2014, consider Fall in Northern California</a></i><br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2013/01/point-reyes-national-seashore-at-start.html" target="_blank">Point Reyes National Seashore at the start of the year</a></i><br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2012/11/amateur-food-porn-from-austria-and-italy.html" target="_blank">Amateur food porn from Austria and Italy</a></i><br />
<br />Steve Masoverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03387484207819808962noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5165118504093345923.post-25918219468537691582016-10-25T08:03:00.000-07:002016-10-25T08:03:04.638-07:00What I learned at the 2016 Bioneers ConventionI went to my first Bioneers conference after watching from afar and reading about the organization's work for quite a few years. This past weekend marked the Bioneers' 27th annual event, organized by founders Kenny Ausubel and Nina Simon. I attended on Saturday, the second of the three-day conference.<br />
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So ... <a href="http://www.bioneers.org/what-is-bioneers/" target="_blank">what are "bioneers"</a>? From the organization's website:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Bioneers are social and scientific innovators from all walks of life and disciplines who have peered deep into the heart of living systems to understand how nature operates, and to mimic "nature's operating instructions" to serve human ends without harming the web of life. Nature's principles—kinship, cooperation, diversity, symbiosis and cycles of continuous creation absent of waste—can also serve as metaphoric guideposts for organizing an equitable, compassionate and democratic society.</i> </blockquote>
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Janine Benyus, author of <i><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/432853.Biomimicry" target="_blank">Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature</a></i> (1997) and co-founder of the <a href="https://biomimicry.org/" target="_blank">Biomimicry Institute</a>, was the speaker I most looked forward to seeing in-person as the convention approached (I read her book earlier this year, better late than never). Crystalizing the ethos and tone of the event on Saturday morning, she pumped up the audience in San Rafael's Veterans' Memorial Auditorium by urging:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Don't ever ask small questions. It's not time -- yet -- to </i>adapt<i> to climate change.</i></blockquote>
Then, after pointing out that 33% of the world's population are "smallholder" farming families, and that 70% of all food eaten is produced by smallholders on farms of five or fewer acres, Benyus posited a key observation made by Bioneers who are looking to examples embodied in evolved systems for practical, achievable solutions to seemingly-intractable problems:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>There's too much carbon in the air, but not enough in the soil.</i></blockquote>
This is not a newsflash. But it points in some important directions. How so?<br />
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Well, later in the day, Rebecca Burgess of <a href="http://www.fibershed.com/" target="_blank">Fibershed</a> spoke, at a panel called <i>Carbon, Climate, Food and Fiber</i>, about five pools of carbon on our planet, through which the element can and does transition through its many mutable forms: atmosphere, biosphere, fossil, ocean, and soil. Burgess told panel attendees that a net 136 gigatons of carbon has been lost from soils since the Rotherham plow was invented in 1750 (tillage of soil contributes significantly to the <a href="http://www.nature.com/news/one-third-of-our-greenhouse-gas-emissions-come-from-agriculture-1.11708" target="_blank">one-third of human greenhouse gas emissions produced by agriculture</a>); but at the same time pointed out that rates of carbon drawdown from the atmosphere that is <i>possible</i> on grassland and farmland "already under human management" could ameliorate the climate-changing levels of carbon that human activity has shifted into the atmospheric pool <i>within five years</i>.<br />
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Achieving that drawdown would require that <i>all</i> grassland and farmland "under human management" be transitioned to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permaculture" target="_blank">permaculture</a> practices, which is hard for this very junior bioneer to imagine ... but doing the arithmetic to describe the possibility as one that we as a species <i>could</i> choose to realize pivots attention away from paralyzed, doom-and-gloom visions of Earth's future -- and shines a bright light on our responsibility as a species to choose well and consequentially at a crucial moment in our biosphere's history.<br />
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Bren Smith, the founder of <a href="http://greenwave.org/" target="_blank">GreenWave</a> spoke during the morning plenary session on Saturday, as well as on a panel that afternoon titled <i>Reshaping Our Relationship to the Ocean</i>. Smith speaks in a genially-calculated voice that puts his working class, Newfoundland fisherman origins front and center: "<i>I'm not an environmentalist</i>," he said to an auditorium full of environmentalists. "<i>Give me a gun and I'll shoot moose from my kitchen ... I grew up on seal hunts.</i>" But the fact that he's doing heroic environmentalist work became clear when he described his "vertical farms," suspended from buoys off the Atlantic coast of North America. GreenWave's farms produce kelp and other seaweeds ("<i>It's embarrassing to grow vegetables...,</i>" Smith moaned with a wink) as well as bivalves including mussels, clams, and oysters with <i>no inputs</i> (fresh water, fertilizer, etc.).<br />
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GreenWave summarizes its accomplishments and mission on the organization's website:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>After 15 years of experimentation, we have developed a new method of ocean farming designed to restore ocean ecosystems, mitigate climate change, and create blue-green jobs for fishermen — while providing healthy, local food for communities.</i></blockquote>
Describing kelp as "the soy of the sea, except it's not evil," Smith spoke of shifting a major fraction of food production from soil-depleting land-farming to sustainable, job-producing ocean-farming that would put bivalves and sea-vegetables "at the center of the plate" and push wild fish to the edge. Would that be a problem for a world population increasingly ravenous for sushi and grilled salmon? "<i>Wild harvesting is not a strategy for the future</i>," Smith asserted during the afternoon <i>Reshaping...</i> panel. To the point of dietary trends, Smith put his challenge simply:<br />
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<i>If chefs can't make what we grow delicious, they should quit their jobs ... it's what they're here on earth to do.</i></blockquote>
As a former professional cook myself, I can get behind that sentiment.<br />
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<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_McKibben" target="_blank">Bill McKibben</a> -- acknowledging himself to be exhausted and depleted by weeks on the road battling to defeat the narcissistic bully and all-around horrorshow currently running as G.O.P. candidate for the presidency -- rallied the conference's attendees by recalling our attention to the successful battle to oppose the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keystone_Pipeline" target="_blank">Keystone XL pipeline</a>:<br />
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"<i>when we started, nobody really thought we would win ... victory is that now </i>everything<i> gets fought ... fossil fuel resistance is everywhere</i>."</blockquote>
Not least, of course, in North Dakota at the <a href="http://www.democracynow.org/topics/dakota_access" target="_blank">Standing Rock protests</a> against construction of the "Dakota Access Pipeline" (DAPL) ongoing today, which weighed heavily on this weekend's conference crowd. Once again, the Bioneers' signature insistence: that <i>we can win this</i>.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHameljpzmDEbWs9oMcuHWAyxIuTkPzdEz6ZjLnDMQlOQj5SRe82Y2gK-NY7oLlKAd6ZifdRHfuUgRhBSS2biqHj4O8KJZeq5jYpvqL58XAvhSlc-fR87RZCqB4R_9CNNF6ddc1AoTm6CB/s1600/Bioneers2016_HeliosSchoolExhibit.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="246" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHameljpzmDEbWs9oMcuHWAyxIuTkPzdEz6ZjLnDMQlOQj5SRe82Y2gK-NY7oLlKAd6ZifdRHfuUgRhBSS2biqHj4O8KJZeq5jYpvqL58XAvhSlc-fR87RZCqB4R_9CNNF6ddc1AoTm6CB/s320/Bioneers2016_HeliosSchoolExhibit.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
I was encouraged in that vein to find (in the conference's Exhibit Hall ) a display put together by fifth graders from the Helios School in Sunnyvale that collected artifacts of environmental campaigns that the students studied in the course of considering work they would need to do as they grow into adult responsibility (that is, responsibility for the screw-ups we adults are bequeathing them). Raphael, one of the fifth graders, was happy to learn that I had participated in the <a href="http://nocoalinoakland.info/" target="_blank">No Coal in Oakland</a> campaign, which was one of the subjects of his class's research. He knew about Mayor Libby Schaaf's role in opposing transport of coal through Oakland, and in the course of our conversation we realized that both of us participated in <a href="http://nocoalinoakland.info/hundreds-rally-in-oakland-to-demand-no-coal-no-compromise/" target="_blank">the rally</a> earlier this year that preceded <a href="http://nocoalinoakland.info/city-council-votes-7-0-to-ban-coal-in-oakland/" target="_blank">the Oakland City Council's vote to ban coal transport through the city and port</a>. What the world needs now is more ten year old environmentalists like Raphael and his classmates!<br />
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My nomination for Saturday's best soundbyte came from Ariel Greenwood, a self-described "feral agrarian," who participated with Rebecca Burgess and two others on the <i>Carbon, Climate, Food and Fiber</i> panel:<br />
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<i>We're all active agents in our environment.</i></blockquote>
That's the core of what Bioneers are about. Active agency, the heart of what it's going to take for humanity to dig its way out of the mess we've made of our biosphere.<br />
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<i>Images (from the top of this post) include: Janine Benyus speaking at the Saturday morning plenary session of the Bioneers 2016 conference; Rebecca Burgess and Ariel Greenwood, with John Roulac and Guido Frosini, on the </i>Carbon, Climate, Food and Fiber<i> panel on Saturday afternoon; and a portion of the Helios School exhibit of artifacts from recent environmental movements and campaigns. This blog was originally posted on <a href="https://medium.com/@stevemasover/what-i-learned-at-the-2016-bioneers-convention-888464fa696c" target="_blank">Medium</a>.</i><br />
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<b>Related posts on <i>One Finger Typing</i></b>:<br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2016/08/should-we-care-how-crops-are-grown.html" target="_blank">Should we care how crops are grown *before* food insecurity spreads?</a></i><br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2016/07/oakland-coal-ban-real-politics-amid.html" target="_blank">Oakland coal ban: real politics amid the Drumpfoolery</a></i><br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2012/07/monoculture-v-complexity-agribusiness.html" target="_blank">Monoculture v complexity; agribusiness and deceit</a></i><br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2011/12/paying-what-things-cost.html" target="_blank">Paying what things cost</a></i><br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2011/10/bioneers-and-occupy-wall-street.html" target="_blank">Bioneers and Occupy Wall Street</a></i><br />
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<br />Steve Masoverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03387484207819808962noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5165118504093345923.post-47967459504282499002016-10-07T09:13:00.003-07:002016-10-07T09:26:47.553-07:00Michael Pollan, food futures, and a dearth of Michael Moore moments<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I was surprised and gratified to see Michael Pollan’s piece in yesterday’s <i>New York Times</i>: <i><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/10/09/magazine/obama-administration-big-food-policy.html" target="_blank">Big Food Strikes Back: Why Did the Obamas Fail to Take On Corporate Agriculture?</a></i><br />
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Why surprised? Because so much of what passes for political reporting in this election season is undermined by boorishness, hypocrisy, dog-whistling, race-baiting, and misogyny; whereas Pollan’s essay is carefully developed, illuminating, and actually useful to those who seek to responsibly understand and influence humankind’s shared-fate future.<br />
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Pollan is playing the long game. Yesterday’s essay follows-up on an open letter of similar length and depth published eight years ago, a month before the election that sent Barack Obama to the White House. The NYT titled the open letter <i><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/magazine/12policy-t.html" target="_blank">Farmer-in-Chief</a></i>, and addressed it to the President-Elect. Yesterday’s essay is a disappointed but clear-eyed assessment of how and why President Obama failed to take Pollan’s 2008 advice nearly far enough. It wasn’t because the President-Elect didn’t get it.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
A few days after the letter was published, Obama the candidate gave <a href="http://swampland.time.com/2008/10/23/the_full_obama_interview/" target="_blank">an interview to Joe Klein</a> for <i>Time</i> magazine in which he concisely summarized my 8,000-word article:<br />
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“I was just reading an article in The New York Times by Michael Pollan about food and the fact that our entire agricultural system is built on cheap oil. As a <b>consequence</b>, our agriculture sector actually is contributing more greenhouse gases than our transportation sector. And in the meantime, it’s creating monocultures that are vulnerable to national security threats, are now vulnerable to sky-high food prices or crashes in food prices, huge swings in commodity prices, and are partly responsible for the explosion in our health care costs because they’re contributing to Type 2 diabetes, stroke and heart disease, obesity.”</blockquote>
(It warms my heart that the POTUS-to-be prefigured the title of <a href="http://www.stevemasover.net/consequence/" target="_blank">my 2015 novel</a> in his 2008 interview. Emphasis added. It’s the little things.)<br />
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I was <a href="https://kpfa.org/episode/music-of-the-world-october-1-2016/" target="_blank">interviewed a few days ago by Joanna Manqueros on her “Music of the World” program on KPFA</a>, a public radio station broadcasting from studios in Berkeley, not far from where I work. Joanna read a passage from <i><a href="http://www.stevemasover.net/consequence/" target="_blank">Consequence</a></i>, and we discussed how the passage she read from addresses the complexity of communicating the essentials of agricultural politics and policy — complexity that led Michael Pollan to write 8,000 words in 2008 on the topic, and nearly 6,000 more yesterday in follow-up and reassessment.<br />
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Here’s a transcription of that part of my interview with Joanna (starting just shy of 16 minutes into her show <a href="https://kpfa.org/episode/music-of-the-world-october-1-2016/" target="_blank">if you want to listen</a>):<br />
<blockquote>
<b>Joanna</b>: Let me read a little bit of what the character sees, and why he starts to get pulled in this direction of doing this radical action. It says:<br />
<blockquote>
<i>Christopher watched out the window as they accelerated onto Highway 101 and sped south, following a steady march of telephone wires strung atop pocked wooden poles. He tried to visualize the surrounding acres as wetland, teeming with wildlife in the centuries before the state was logged, drained, burned, and given over to cattle and monocropping. At least the farms were smaller here, he thought. And a lot more of them grew organic than in the Central Valley. It was a start.</i></blockquote>
What’s going on there?<br />
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<b>Steve</b>: Well, Chris is — letting go of exactly what’s happening in the plot there — Chris is driving through … I guess it would be Sonoma County at that point … and looking at the small farms there. And what he’s observing, if you’d read a little bit further, is that really there’s nothing obvious about these small farms, that they tend more toward organic, and that they tend less toward monocrop — although I suppose you can see that it’s not the same plant for acres and acres and acres on end, as you would see, say, if you drove through, Nebraska, where corn or soy are pretty much your only choices.<br />
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But one of the things he’s reflecting on is how difficult it is to convey in a dramatic way, in a way that penetrates the teleconsciousness of the nation, that penetrates the chatter of the news cycle, to talk about the kind of long term and deep problems that evolve in environments that are monocropped, or where pesticide is leached out of soil into aquifer or into water that feeds cities. You don’t see that right away. There’s not a Michael Moore moment that you can film, or dramatize in a demonstration, in some kind of guerilla theater.<br />
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And so he’s reflecting — Christopher is more than anything else a propagandist. He’s been asked to write a manifesto to justify this vaguely-defined — to him — action that Chagall is going to take. And he’s thinking about how hard it is to vividly explain to people what’s wrong with monocropping, what’s wrong with putting genetically engineered creatures into an evolved biosphere that has taken, literally, hundreds of millions of years to come to its equilibrium.</blockquote>
There might be science, politics, and policy that can still avert the most horrific effects of the accelerated poisoning that humans have inflicted on our biosphere over the last couple of centuries. Pollan lays out some key, deeply intertwined threads of the answers we need to be looking for in his paired essays’ 14,000 words. <i><a href="http://www.stevemasover.net/consequence/" target="_blank">Consequence</a></i> depicts characters engaged across a spectrum of diverse approaches to correcting our species’ broken trajectory, tactics that range from reasoned dissent to all-out disruption or even destruction.<br />
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From where I sit, humankind would do well to wrap our collective minds around the objectives laid out by Pollan, and the paths he suggests toward turning ourselves in constructive directions; and likewise would benefit from explorations of actively-engaged characters, hearts, and moral frameworks that could move us to grapple with the enormity of threats to our common future. I hope that readers find in <i><a href="http://www.stevemasover.net/consequence/" target="_blank">Consequence</a></i> an example of such an exploration — one among many.<br />
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<b>Related posts on <i>One Finger Typing</i></b>:<br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2016/08/should-we-care-how-crops-are-grown.html" target="_blank">Should we care how crops are grown *before* food insecurity spreads?</a></i><br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2015/09/facts-vs-understanding-in-gmo.html" target="_blank">Facts vs understanding in GMO propaganda wars</a></i><br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2015/02/asking-wrong-questions-about-gmos-for.html" target="_blank">Asking the wrong questions about GMOs for disinformation and profit</a></i><br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2012/07/monoculture-v-complexity-agribusiness.html" target="_blank">Monoculture v complexity; agribusiness and deceit</a></i><br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2012/05/mutant-food-agribusiness-vs-everybody.html" target="_blank">Mutant food: agribusiness vs. everybody else</a></i><br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2010/08/broken-food-chains.html" target="_blank">Broken food chains</a></i><br />
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<i>Thanks to Lotus Head from Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa for his image <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=134554" target="_blank">Cornfield in South Africa </a>— sxc.hu, CC BY-SA 3.0 (via Wikimedia). This post was originally published on Medium, under the title <a href="https://medium.com/@stevemasover/michael-pollan-michael-moore-moments-and-humankinds-future-110e347929de" target="_blank">Michael Pollan, Michael Moore Moments, and Humankind’s Future</a>.</i>Steve Masoverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03387484207819808962noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5165118504093345923.post-58349615332563725532016-09-16T07:07:00.000-07:002016-09-17T20:13:25.841-07:00Counterclockwise around the Olympic PeninsulaIn the vicinity of Puget Sound, road trips start with a drive to the ferry dock. Mine began a week ago, on Friday, a few miles from the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmonds%E2%80%93Kingston_ferry" target="_blank">Edmonds-Kingston ferry</a>. From Edmonds we proceeded across Puget Sound, then to Port Gamble, across the Hood Canal Bridge, to Hwy 101 and west then south (and up!) to our first destination: Hurricane Ridge, overlooking the receding glaciers of the Olympic Range.<br />
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I'll describe the route and include photos of some of the spots we visited, then I'll include a few wildlife shots and a sampling of the mushrooms and other fungus that blooms across the well-watered Olympic Peninsula, especially in its rainforests.<br />
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We stayed in Port Angeles on Friday night, in a modest hotel with a million dollar view of the port and the ferries coming from and going to Victoria, BC, across the Strait of Juan de Fuca.<br />
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After dinner, we watched the sun set over the port.<br />
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The next morning we headed west toward Cape Flattery, first stopping for a short hike into Olympic National Park to visit Marymere Falls.<br />
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Then, leaving Hwy 101 at Sappho we turned north toward the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and west once we reached the shores of the Strait, into the Makah Reservation, Neah Bay, and out to the northwesternmost point in the continental U.S. Here's the Cape Flattery Lighthouse, on Tatoosh Island just off the cape:<br />
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The photo of cormorants settled around the mouths of sea caves, among the wildlife photos below, was taken just a few yards back from the observation deck overlooking the lighthouse. After a picnic back at Neah Bay we headed back to 101 and the hotel we'd reserved on the outskirts of Forks.<br />
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Though we stayed there on Saturday night, I have no photos of Forks, the town where Stephanie Meyers set her <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twilight_(novel_series)" target="_blank">Twilight novels</a>. Disclaimer: I saw one of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Twilight_Saga_(film_series)" target="_blank">the movies</a>, couldn't say which; wasn't interested enough to read the books.<br />
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I wasn't charmed by Forks. The hotel we'd booked was functional. Everything on offer at the restaurant recommended by the fellow who checked us in was fried in the same vat of oil. The waffle-fried potatoes tasted like fish, know what I mean? But the signature quality of the meal? Every single one of the waitstaff, all of them young women, looked like they'd dressed to catch a vampire's roving eye, or that of a casting agent: tight skirts; pale, flat makeup; a deadpan affect that shouted, <i>c'mon, bite me in the neck already!</i> It seemed every commercial establishment had a poster from one or another of the Twilight movies prominently displayed. The supermarket's deli showcased wraps named for a vampire or a warewolf. It was sad, really.<br />
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We couldn't get out of Forks fast enough. On Sunday morning we headed for the Hoh Rainforest, which was gorgeous in a spooky kind of way, <i>sans</i> the undead.<br />
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Least-expected wildlife spotted in the Hoh: an owl sleeping on a high, sunny bough. Check out the photo below.<br />
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Ruby Beach was lovely, but it felt a little crowded compared to the sparsely peopled beaches I'm used to visiting on the Northern California coast. I waited for my moment, and snagged a shot of the beach from which only a single fellow-visitor needed to be cropped out:<br />
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From Ruby Beach we headed inland to skirt the Quinault Reservation, then west again to Moclips, where we stayed Sunday night. On the drive to Moclips we passed field after field of clearcut slash. Not so pretty.<br />
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On Monday, looping back to Seattle, we headed down to Grays Harbor, then turned east through Aberdeen, then north along the inside of the Hood Canal -- and soon arrived back at the ferry terminal in Kingston.<br />
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<b>The Wildlife</b><br />
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A caterpillar; cormorants at Cape Flattery; an owl (barred? northern spotted?) napping high up in a tree in the Hoh Rainforest; a doe and fawn, also in the Hoh; and -- look carefully, I wasn't fast enough to zoom out my lens -- a bald eagle overhead, at the edge of the Hood Canal:<br />
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<b>One, two, many fungi</b><br />
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As you can see looking up past that majestic eagle, as well as in other locations on the west side of the Olympic Range, the sky was surprisingly blue for this part of the world (the Hoh Rainforest gets twelve to fourteen <i>feet</i> of rain per year, <a href="https://www.nps.gov/olym/planyourvisit/visiting-the-hoh.htm" target="_blank">according to the National Park Service</a>). And so, blue sky or gray: fungus, and plenty of it. Here's some of what we saw:<br />
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All in all a gorgeous trip around a corner of the Left Coast I'd never visited before...<br />
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<br />
<b>Related posts on <i>One Finger Typing</i></b>:<br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2016/05/a-day-at-bodega-head.html" target="_blank">A day at Bodega Head</a></i><br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2013/01/point-reyes-national-seashore-at-start.html" target="_blank">Point Reyes National Seashore at the start of the year</a></i><br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2014/11/never-mind-election-day-2014-consider.html" target="_blank">Never mind Election Day 2014, consider Fall in Northern California</a></i><br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2012/02/tafoni-at-pebble-beach-on-san-mateo.html" target="_blank">Tafoni at Pebble Beach on the San Mateo County coast</a></i><br />
<br />Steve Masoverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03387484207819808962noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5165118504093345923.post-69676676076588405362016-08-15T07:33:00.001-07:002016-08-15T07:33:56.342-07:00Should we care how crops are grown *before* food insecurity spreads?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifqgV9XqujGpELmuTv2-x7QJKG-G6IK3Rfr8Y0tdmAwl6FNuOeg-M0Asx6fmUcPqmGrV7QIXggiQG-yBOg_Uvgh_Jty2IL-2nye-Ie5wMIZ4xY1yO8lYgG8x6rVy52ldDlouEL2Fs9dZ7_/s1600/VandanaShiva_Berkeley_2016-04-27_1200px.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="248" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifqgV9XqujGpELmuTv2-x7QJKG-G6IK3Rfr8Y0tdmAwl6FNuOeg-M0Asx6fmUcPqmGrV7QIXggiQG-yBOg_Uvgh_Jty2IL-2nye-Ie5wMIZ4xY1yO8lYgG8x6rVy52ldDlouEL2Fs9dZ7_/s320/VandanaShiva_Berkeley_2016-04-27_1200px.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vandana_Shiva" target="_blank">Vandana Shiva</a>, trained as a physicist and known worldwide as an analyst, activist, and advocate for biodiversity, organic farming, and fair trade, added an anthology earlier this year to her long list of published titles: <i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25489276-seed-sovereignty-food-security" target="_blank">Seed Sovereignty, Food Security: Women in the Vanguard of the Fight Against GMOs and Corporate Agriculture</a></i>. The gist of Shiva’s anthology: thirty authors from around the globe describe their respective parts in and perspectives on a worldwide movement in which millions of smallholder farmers are fighting to regain or retain the right to practice seed-saving, as they and their ancestors have done for thousands of years -- since humans began to cultivate food.<br />
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The anthology’s authors describe how the ancient practice of saving seed from one harvest to plant in the next -- a core practice of farming’s evolutionary and adaptive craft -- is threatened in Europe, India, Latin America, Australia, the United States, and Africa. The threat is driven by giant agribusiness conglomerates like Monsanto, DuPont, Bayer, and Syngenta that influence national governments to <i>outlaw</i> these traditional and resilient practices. As Tiphaine Burban of France explains in the European case (mirrored similarly elsewhere around the globe and in Shiva’s anthology):<br />
<blockquote>
<i>In order to protect varietal innovations and to recognize breeders’ work, a system of intellectual protection was created by the Interational Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plans (UPOV), founded in 1961, called the Plant Variety Rights (PVR). [...]<br />
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In the early 1960s, while the PVR was being created, farmers could still preserve their right to sow seeds stemming from their own crops, or farm-saved seeds. A few years later, however, in 1970, a new UPOV convention considered the use of farm seeds as forgery. In theory, it became illegal to save and resow your own seeds. Fortunately, good sense prevailed and farm-saved seeds remained “farmer privilege.” In 1991, the third UPOV convention tried to forbid this [...] Since 1994, according to European legislation, farm-saved seeds are authorized for twenty-one varieties [...] upon payment of a tax. For remaining species, every farmer who planted seeds stemming from past crops could be accused of forgery [...] -- a progressive privation of farmers’ rights.</i></blockquote>
Why did and does this happen? The short answer is profit, by way of insidious influence over supposedly-sovereign governments. But a key, distressing consequence of corporate appropriation and centralization of control over seeds -- and control over farmers, land, and culture that follows -- is the devastation of humankind’s heritage of food crop diversity, cultivated and nurtured over countless generations and on every continent. Tewolde Berhan Gebre Egziabher and Sue Edwards, of Ethiopia, explain:<br />
<blockquote>
<i>A report prepared for the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) states that although about seven thousand species of plants have been used as human food in the past, urbanization and marketing have drastically reduced this number—only 150 crops are now commercially important, and rice, wheat, and maize alone now account for 60 percent of the world’s food supply. The genetic diversity within each crop has also been eroding fast; for example, only nine varieties account for 50 percent of the wheat produced in the United States, and the number of varieties of rice in Sri Lanka has dropped from two thousand to less than a hundred.</i></blockquote>
Sandra Baquedano Jer and Sara Larraín, of Chile, go further, outlining issues beyond the frame “food security” commonly laid out by government regulators and the corporations with which they are allied:<br />
<blockquote>
<i>Food sovereignty in Latin America and the world does not just express a demand associated with nutrition and food production, as might be suggested by the concept of food security coined by national governments and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Rather, it embodies a serious cultural, social, and political dispute for access to the earth, water, seeds, and land and, in turn, to the forests, mountains, and water basins, which allow for the reproduction of life and the sustenance of all living beings, including humans. For this reason, food sovereignty and the movement for the protection of seeds as common goods, and as world heritage, includes the right of peoples to self-determination—to decide how to distribute and manage, from this day on, the water and the land that is sown and harvested and provides food—in other words, how to organize and maintain the food chain, which allows the subsistence of human beings, just as that of other species, but also the maintenance of knowledge, community, identity, and culture.</i></blockquote>
Many of the volume’s essays describe and promote a paradigm shift in people’s relation to power that has been sprouting across the tilled world in opposition to agribusiness-fueled depredation, be it political or corporate power. Frances Moore Lappé (author of the 1971 classic, <i><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/199107.Diet_for_a_Small_Planet" target="_blank">Diet for a Small Planet</a></i>) and her daughter Anne Lappé, in the volume’s leading essay, quote Brazilian economist João Pedro Stédile, a leader of that country’s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landless_Workers%27_Movement" target="_blank">Landless Workers’ Movement</a>:<br />
<blockquote>
<i>The first step is losing naive consciousness, no longer accepting what you see as something that cannot be changed. The second is reaching the awareness that you won’t get anywhere unless you work together. This shift in consciousness, once you get it, is like riding a bike, no one can take it away from you. So you forget how to say “Yes, sir” and learn to say “I think that …” This is when the citizen is born.</i></blockquote>
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One current of the anthology’s essays describe how GMOs -- genetically modified organisms -- further extend a shift toward corporate control of once-independent farmers and once-diverse varieties of food crops. This shift began with seed hybridization, a farming technique in which farmers plant and harvest the vigorous offspring of crossbred lines of a food crop. Importantly, crops grown from the harvested seeds of hybrids decline precipitously in vigor and productivity. This requires farmers who have been beguiled, convinced, or coerced to plant hybrid seed to purchase new breeding stock (seeds) in subsequent years, instead of saving, trading, and/or crossbreeding a portion of harvested crops for future seasons’ planting. Having lost control of a heretofore renewable means of production, these farmers become indentured to suppliers of agribusiness seed, purveyors of inputs required to maximize hybrid yields (generally owned by complementary branches of an agribusiness conglomerate), and banks that extend credit against future harvests.<br />
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GMOs add intellectual property law to the lock corporations have on the means of food production. Vandana Shiva explains:<br />
<blockquote>
<i>The door to patents on seed and patents on life was opened by genetic engineering -- by adding one new gene to the cell of a plant, corporations claimed that they had “invented” and created the seed, that the plant </i>and all future seeds have now become their property<i>.</i></blockquote>
But this power to monopolize has no scientific basis. It’s a power grab. Shiva again, in the introduction to <i>Seed Sovereignty, Food Security</i>:<br />
<blockquote>
<i>Living organisms, including seed, are self-organized complex systems. As Mae-Wan Ho points out in her contribution in this volume, they adapt and evolve, and are “fluid” at the level of the genome. [...]<br />
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The claim to invention is a myth because genetic engineering does not create a plant or an organism; it is merely a tool to transfer genes across species. Living organisms are self-organizing, self-replicating systems. They make themselves. [...] Just as a mover of furniture is not the make or owner of the house to which the furniture is moved, the GMO industry is merely the mover of genes from one organism to another, not the creator or inventor of the organism, including seeds and plants.<br />
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Through the false claim of “invention” and creation, the GMO industry is appropriating millions of years of nature’s evolution, and thousands of years of farmers’ breeding.</i></blockquote>
Shiva’s anthology assembles accounts of struggle to preserve biodiversity that has, over millenia, enabled humankind to produce food in an innumerable variety of climates, soil conditions, terrains, and elevations. Biodiversity could again enable our species to better adapt to the many and diverse changes in local climate and farming conditions already occurring as the Anthropocene era unfolds, to the degree preservation succeeds against long odds and rigged political and economic conditions. Depiction of the range and seriousness of threats to our hard-won food heritage is ameliorated by the creative and resolute commitment of communities on five continents to the struggle to preserve it. Here again are Sandra Baquedano Jer and Sara Larraín, at the conclusion of their contribution to the anthology:<br />
<blockquote>
<i>As an alternative to economic globalization and business integration, social movements and public interest citizen networks have proposed a Hemispheric People’s Integration, based on grassroots cooperation and people’s alternatives, and on seven principles: (1) the promotion and defense of expanded social, environmental, economic, cultural, and political rights, and of collective human rights; (2) the protection and sustainable use of nature and ecosystems as common property for the reproduction of life (water, seeds, energy, land, and biodiversity), and the conservation of immaterial goods of the cultural and historical inheritance of communities and peoples; (3) the integrated management of natural resources and territories by human society, but under the recognition and respect of the complexity of living systems and the interdependence of species; (4) the sovereignty of communities and peoples over territory and common heritage, that is, the right to decide freely and independently how to live, and to the organization, production, and use of natural heritage without the availability of, or access to, said heritage being affected for current or future generations; (5) the reciprocal and complementary nature of relationships and exchange of knowledge, goods, products, and services as an alternative to unequal competition, the ownership of resources, and the accumulation of capital; (6) the independence and self-determination of peoples, freely and from the perspective of their own land and culture, to decide on political orientations, rules, and regulations, and institutions for their coexistence and economy; as well as women’s sovereignty over their own lives and bodies, and the right to live free of violence, oppression, or coercion; (7) living democracy and active participation as an alternative to democracy being restricted to electoral participation, economic administration, and the imposition of “state” priorities over and above people’s rights.</i></blockquote>
An ambitious program, echoed in the programs envisioned by of other contributors to Vandana Shiva’s anthology, whose lives and goals are rooted in a breathtaking diversity of cultures, climates, and nations. It’s worth noting that the visions articulated in <i>Seed Sovereignty, Food Security</i> are no more or less ambitious than Pope Francis’s program laid out in his encyclical on the environment, <i><a href="http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html" target="_blank">Laudato Si': On Care for our Common Home</a></i>, published in May 2015 … and present an equivalent moral imperative to humankind, human society, and human culture.<br />
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Clearly, there’s work to be done.<br />
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<i>Vandana Shiva is pictured at the First Congregational Church in Berkeley, California, on 27 April 2016, delivering a talk about the global food system. Shiva signed copies of her anthology, </i>Seed Sovereignty, Food Security<i>, after the talk.</i><br />
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<b>Related posts on <i>One Finger Typing</i></b>:<br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2016/04/gmo-labeling-and-dearth-of-principled.html" target="_blank">GMO labeling and a dearth of principled discourse</a></i><br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2015/12/paris-pleistocene-and-finding-grit-to.html" target="_blank">Paris, the Pleistocene, and finding the grit to grapple with climate change</a></i><br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2015/09/facts-vs-understanding-in-gmo.html" target="_blank">Facts vs understanding in GMO propaganda wars</a></i><br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2015/02/asking-wrong-questions-about-gmos-for.html" target="_blank">Asking the wrong questions about GMOs for disinformation and profit</a></i><br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2012/07/monoculture-v-complexity-agribusiness.html" target="_blank">Monoculture v complexity; agribusiness and deceit</a></i><br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2012/05/mutant-food-agribusiness-vs-everybody.html" target="_blank">Mutant food: agribusiness vs. everybody else</a></i><br />
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<br />Steve Masoverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03387484207819808962noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5165118504093345923.post-27165854380733119652016-08-05T09:13:00.000-07:002016-08-05T09:13:00.060-07:00Desperate books aren't suited to desperate times<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCwrCv8vUzaEICMWrOLEAn6KAScDaJSZlHgWrw6nwQLo4NpMY83PhyphenhyphenwIzbY5pEL68VTcGMJwx6t4cyJb7BFs6i6C5CfL0-wcvr9xLjXnhC9KwTkpDIba2rk7TaoRdFIGIdIEVqJCkKTSAc/s1600/TheLamentationsOfZeno_cover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCwrCv8vUzaEICMWrOLEAn6KAScDaJSZlHgWrw6nwQLo4NpMY83PhyphenhyphenwIzbY5pEL68VTcGMJwx6t4cyJb7BFs6i6C5CfL0-wcvr9xLjXnhC9KwTkpDIba2rk7TaoRdFIGIdIEVqJCkKTSAc/s320/TheLamentationsOfZeno_cover.jpg" width="212" /></a></div>
There's always been a place for apocalyptic tales in fiction and film ... from the Book of Revelations and <i>Paradise Lost</i>, to <i>Mad Max</i> and <i>The Hunger Games</i>. But an apocalyptic story set in an it-ain't-fantasy present—one that foregoes speculation, magic, and hyperbole—still gives me pause. Are readers really drawn to hopelessness fueled by authentic, looming calamity? What drives a skilled and visionary author to craft a novel in this vein?<br />
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Zeno Hintermeier, the protagonist of Ilija Trojanow’s <i><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25893848-the-lamentations-of-zeno" target="_blank">The Lamentations of Zeno</a></i>, compels questions like these. Zeno is a misanthrope’s misanthrope. Though his despair is no formula for <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Win_Friends_and_Influence_People" target="_blank">winning friends or influencing others</a>, he has come to gruff and despairing misanthropy honestly, by way of a loss that crushes hope of redemption. A German glaciologist, Zeno has lived to witness the death of the alpine glacier to which he devoted his scientific career. He loved “his” glacier. He lived for it, for charting its cold, its depth, its growth, its ablation. Yet the world’s rapid warming, brought on by humankind’s recklessly gluttonous appetites, has killed it.<br />
<blockquote>
<i>I knelt next to one of the remnants, the ice under the sooty-black layer of dust was clean, I ran my fingers across the cold surface, then across my cheek, the way I always did, performing my ritual greeting. In the past I could plunge my arms into the fresh snow and bring up full scoops that made my hands so cold they would revitalize my face. I licked my index finger, it tasted like nothing. Only then did the first trivial thought occur to me: never again would I be able to fill plastic bottles with glacier water to sip so enjoyably at home. My host was standing next to his vehicle, I brusquely signaled for him to leave me alone. Then I lay down on the scree, all balled up, a picture of misery [...]</i></blockquote>
Undone by his loss, Zeno divorces his wife, abandons his university post, and signs onto an Antarctic cruise ship, the <i>Hansen</i>, as an expert guide. Well into his sixties, Zeno flees south to narrate the death of a continent for wealthy seniors who seek cocooned adventure, an edge-of-the-world voyage with a righteous frisson of environmentalist penance ... but no skimping on the creature comforts.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKY0a1HJALafLkg1JtVGJmbKurAcWQHaCaj4Xi_I_l0mJFTx0hS0NJLAnDYZwa_mMvHJAarfocYskH4BDHabvgU8s7gY_G2RcTk6m0pUlEZTzFjuUXufcIXgWWt4mHRgotSaeuASY3tftl/s1600/Trojanow_TheLamentationsOfZeno-MapOfChapterLat-LongCoordinates.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="459" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKY0a1HJALafLkg1JtVGJmbKurAcWQHaCaj4Xi_I_l0mJFTx0hS0NJLAnDYZwa_mMvHJAarfocYskH4BDHabvgU8s7gY_G2RcTk6m0pUlEZTzFjuUXufcIXgWWt4mHRgotSaeuASY3tftl/s640/Trojanow_TheLamentationsOfZeno-MapOfChapterLat-LongCoordinates.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A map of the latitude-longitude coordinates that serve as chapter titles in <i>The Lamentations of Zeno</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The author and his protagonist don’t think much of the <i>Hansen</i>’s passengers. Set off by a section break composed of dot-and-dash Morse Code notation for the international distress signal, each chapter closes with a pile up of conversational shards, as if the reader is eavesdropping on flippant chatter Zeno hears as he passes through the cruise ship’s crowded bar, a dozen fragments of conversation at once. The effect is disorienting. To a reader who has developed even the least empathy for Trojanow’s protagonist, this oblivious refrain is grating or worse.<br />
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And there’s plenty of empathy possible. It’s not as though Zeno lacks reason to despair of humankind. It may not be heroic to throw in the towel, but it’s not so hard to understand either. Here he is, informing one of the <i>Hansen</i>’s passengers of the history of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grytviken" target="_blank">Grytviken</a>, a former whaling station at the eastern edge of the cruise's route:<br />
<blockquote>
<i>“That was the blubber cookery, Mrs. Morgenthau. First they carved the whales up here right where we are standing, then they extracted oil from the blubber in giant cookers.”</i><br />
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<i>“That sounds like hard work.”</i><br />
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<i>“Lucrative work. With high returns. In a good year they cooked away up to forty thousand whales.”</i><br />
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<i>I politely take my leave, otherwise I’d have to explain how first the fur seals were skinned, until there weren’t any fur seals left, after that the elephant seals were killed for their blubber and the try-pots were heated with penguins when the fuel ran out, and when there weren’t any elephant seals left the penguins were rendered into oil. Everything was put to use—humans are always so eager to show Nature more efficient ways to manage her resources. I tramp across a gently sloping soccer field: the crooked goalposts a comforting sight. Slaughter by morning and soccer in the afternoon. Did the goalie’s hands stink? Were the striker’s shins streaked with blood? I leave because I know what they would say, the same thing everyone is always telling me: How come you have to be so negative? Why do you always insist on ruining the mood? [...]</i></blockquote>
Psychologists have been <a href="http://news.berkeley.edu/2010/11/16/globalwarming_messaging/" target="_blank">warning for years</a> that people bombarded with dire descriptions about global warming tend to be repelled, not convinced or engaged. On the other hand, the facts about what climate change has done, is doing, and will do to the only planet we’ve got are … well, they’re dire. As an environmental activist, I identify strongly with Zeno’s despair. Yet Trojanow’s novel, honest and vivid as it is, no matter that it is leavened with richly ironic gallows humor, is not the kind of story that will wake and activate the masses.<br />
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The author seems to know this. Here is Zeno and his shipboard lover, Paulina, as the novel comes to a close:<br />
<blockquote>
<i>“Hell is not a place,” I finally answer. “It’s the sum of all our lapses and failures.”</i><br />
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<i>She looks at me confused, her fingers dig into the back of my hand, she presses her thumb so hard into the flesh below my thumb it hurts.</i><br />
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<i>“The realization, much much too late that you didn’t do anything when you still could, when you still should have, that is hell. And there’s no escape.”</i><br />
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<i>“I see,” she says, “you’re trying to reassure me.” She loosens her grip. “In your own weird way you’re trying to tell me you’re not going to hell.”</i></blockquote>
There aren't many boundaries that art can't cross: a tale of abject despair isn't even close to taboo. In fact, though I'm probably an outlier, I found <i>The Lamentations of Zeno</i> cathartic. Despair happens, and it often happens because life is desperate. Portraying that truth—head on, vividly, without flinching, without collapsing into mawkish, trivializing sentimentality at the end of a harrowing tale—is in itself an artistic achievement. And Zeno’s story <i>is</i> told masterfully. Trojanow’s prose is spare, evocative, pointed, and wry.<br />
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However.<br />
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I’m drawn to fiction that grapples with our damaged 21st century world and our deeply compromised place in it with some measure of grit. When I consider how to rally myself and others to live and act honorably in an era dominated by anthropogenic crises, it's clear that a path forward—determination, at least, if hope would strike too false a note—has to be woven into a narrative I would want to read or write.<br />
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I'm certainly drawn to a different tack than Ilija Trojanow’s. There's despair. And then there's facing the music, grim as it may be. As Samuel Beckett put it, at the end of his novel <i>The Unnamable</i>:<br />
<blockquote>
<i>you must go on, I can't go on, you must go on, I'll go on</i></blockquote>
I'm not prepared to abandon hope, without struggling to right what can still be righted. Not in life, and not in literature.<br />
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<i>This post was originally published on <a href="https://medium.com/@stevemasover/desperate-books-arent-suited-to-desperate-times-76fde17676cf" target="_blank">Medium</a>. Thanks to Google Maps for the rendering of Trojanow's lat-long chapter titles.</i><br />
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<b>Related posts on <i>One Finger Typing</i></b>:<br />
<a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2016/02/grappling-with-climate-change-in-us.html" target="_blank">Grappling with climate change in U.S. cities: a pre-apocalyptic comic book, <i>Warning from my Future Self</i></a><br />
<a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2015/10/pre-apocalyptic-fiction-staving-off.html" target="_blank">Pre-apocalyptic fiction: staving off catastrophe</a><br />
<a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2015/12/paris-pleistocene-and-finding-grit-to.html" target="_blank">Paris, the Pleistocene, and finding the grit to grapple with climate change</a><br />
<a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2015/08/pope-francis-environmental-encyclical.html" target="_blank">Pope Francis' environmental encyclical in four core themes</a><br />
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Steve Masoverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03387484207819808962noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5165118504093345923.post-80146269651043906822016-07-20T09:36:00.000-07:002016-07-20T12:09:15.211-07:00Oakland coal ban: real politics amid the Drumpfoolery<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXdCGOj8G4JibPLGsv2l1t0wvaPkIubioG5kFPelG8FtvxI7hBFgSonIFVMAgfrngzxa1myi8evTw4VwFMmSFxaQ7F2KKCphmLUKI8SyOWJ33N4UgIRtPUcD9vDB4sgNRmWLfJlIKVXn8w/s1600/NCIO-activist-AaronReaven-addresses-Oakland-City-Council_2016-07-19.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXdCGOj8G4JibPLGsv2l1t0wvaPkIubioG5kFPelG8FtvxI7hBFgSonIFVMAgfrngzxa1myi8evTw4VwFMmSFxaQ7F2KKCphmLUKI8SyOWJ33N4UgIRtPUcD9vDB4sgNRmWLfJlIKVXn8w/s320/NCIO-activist-AaronReaven-addresses-Oakland-City-Council_2016-07-19.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Last night the Oakland City Council held its scheduled second reading of <a href="http://nocoalinoakland.info/city-council-votes-7-0-to-ban-coal-in-oakland/" target="_blank">a ban on coal handling and storage that was originally approved in late June</a>. It's worth a mention that on the same night, Alameda County's Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to ban fracking: the fifth county in California to to so. Oh, and more ridiculous sh*t went down in Cleveland.<br />
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The two Oakland measures banning coal were placed on the council’s consent calendar: an ordinance to prohibit storage and handling of coal and coke throughout the city, and a regulation that applies the ordinance specifically to the proposed Oakland Bulk and Oversized Terminal, from which developers were planning to ship coal from Utah and other western states to Asia. The council's single vote on the consent calendar multiple measures was unanimous: 8 ayes, with all council members present. Following more than an hour of citizen and community testimony on a range of issues, the consent calendar was passed in a single vote, no roll call, so quickly that the couple dozen coal activists in the council chambers missed our chance to cheer.<br />
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Unsurprisingly, Oaklanders filling the chambers, overflow rooms, and hallways didn't seem to regret missing the chance to monitor the Republican Party convention's second evening of crashing and burning, live and simultaneously, in Cleveland. There was plenty of actual governance beyond the coal ban on the agenda: the council was taking testimony on a ballot measure to fundamentally strengthen citizen oversight of it's <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/06/20/482808353/mired-in-sex-scandal-oakland-police-department-loses-3-chiefs-in-9-days" target="_blank">much-worse-than-problematic police department</a> (the council will vote on 26 July whether to put the measure on the ballot); and two <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Oakland-council-poised-to-OK-measures-to-limit-8396141.php" target="_blank">proposals to "sharply limit property owners' ability to raise rents"</a> as protection against displacement driven by the the current tech-bubble economy were passed later that night. The meeting ended around 1:20 a.m.<br />
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The scene at City Hall, my own participation in the <i><a href="http://nocoalinoakland.info/" target="_blank">No Coal in Oakland</a></i> work (a campaign more sharply focused on nuts-and-bolts local politics than most of the many forays I've made into other issues and movements over the decades), and a nagging awareness of the ongoing celebration of cesspool-politics in Cleveland, recalled to mind a piece Adam Gopnik penned about the Obama presidency in <i>The New Yorker</i> about two months ago. From <i>Liberal-In-Chief</i>, 23 May 2016:<br />
<blockquote>
<i>His words have been varied, but his purpose has been consistent and his point simple: liberalism isn’t centrism. It isn’t a way of splitting the differences between two sides, and finding an acceptable soft middle. Liberalism of the kind he practices, the President has been saying, is the most truly radical of ideologies, inasmuch as it proposes a change, makes it happen, and then makes it last. Someone proposes a more equitable world—the enfranchisement of working people, or of African-Americans, or of women, or marital rights for homosexuals—and then makes it endure by assuring those who oppose it that, while they may have lost the fight, they haven’t lost their dignity, their autonomy, or their chance to adapt to the change without fearing the loss of all their agency. “The civil-rights movement happened because there was civil disobedience, because people were willing to go to jail, because there were events like Bloody Sunday,” Obama told Stephanopoulos. “But it was also because the leadership of the movement consistently stayed open to the possibility of reconciliation, and sought to understand the views—even views that were appalling to them—of the other side.” Liberalism is a belief in radical change made through practical measures.</i></blockquote>
How does that happen at a local level, in ways that engage hundreds and thousands of unelected citizens in determining the future of their own communities -- in ways that stand a chance of realizing progressive twenty-first century goals, many of which were lent fire and urgency by Bernie Sanders' recent successful run at the presidency (and I <i>mean</i> successful -- <a href="http://robertreich.org/post/147298636320" target="_blank">by any measure other than winning the Democratic Party nomination</a>)?<br />
<br />
Following last night's City Hall victory, Margaret Rossoff, one of <i>No Coal in Oakland</i>'s principal organizers, circulated to NCIO campaign activists a report summarizing how the group won a citywide ban on coal (I am excerpting rather than linking to the whole report, as it has not been made public at this time). She noted:<br />
<blockquote>
<i>NCIO attracted people with long histories of political organizing in a wide variety of contexts, who between them had deep and broad knowledge of Oakland politics, successful campaign strategies, environmental justice struggles, legal analysis, environmental science, and more. The group included members who were vehemently anti-establishment and cynical about the possibility of success with the elected council, along with a couple of people who had served as elected city officials. We included at least one Republican and quite a few socialists working together, deeply religious people alongside atheists, and a few folks with histories of past conflict who focused on our shared goal. Our passionate commitment generated mutual respect within the campaign and widespread appreciation for the campaign.</i></blockquote>
The rails were no-doubt greased for this kind of broad-based coalition building by the Bay Area's general environmentalist tendencies, and the blinding obviousness of damage done to planet and people by digging, transporting, and burning coal. As Rossoff put it:<br />
<blockquote>
<i>Coal already had a terrible reputation. A widely recognized imperative to close existing coal-fired plants, including a national campaign by the Sierra Club, provided context for our local struggle. The local dangers of coal dust escaping from railroad cars and the exacerbating effects of burning coal on climate disruption were intuitively obvious to people we spoke with. Of course, we needed to amass scientific data to justify the ordinance banning coal, but in our community work we were building on a pre-existing narrative.</i></blockquote>
But ... go back and follow that link to <a href="http://robertreich.org/post/147298636320" target="_blank">Robert Reich's post on <i>Bernie's 7 Legacies</i></a> that I snuck in a couple paragraphs up.<br />
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I fully acknowledge the urgency of defeating, on November 8th, the jackbooted buffoon who has now hijacked the Republican Party. But "urgent" doesn't mean "only." There's plenty to be done locally (including but not limited to campaigning for progressive candidates in down-ballot races across the U.S.) as The Donald goes down to his rightful place as World's Loudest Loser. And we <i>can</i> succeed locally -- and, eventually, more broadly -- if we attend steadily to the work at hand, without getting derailed by national media spectacle and the likes of Pokémon Go.<br />
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I'd say that sealing last night's legislative victory keeping coal out of Oakland gave hope to the prospect that we might yet win still bigger contests than a presidential election, so long as we keep our eyes on the prize.<br />
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<br />
<b>Related posts on <i>One Finger Typing</i></b>:<br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2016/06/coal-hazard-protection-fallacies.html" target="_blank">Coal hazard "protection" fallacies exposed by Oakland public health experts</a></i><br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2016/05/oakland-doesnt-need-oil-train-disaster.html" target="_blank">Oakland doesn't need an oil train disaster, thanks but no thanks</a></i><br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2015/08/pope-francis-environmental-encyclical.html" target="_blank">Pope Francis' environmental encyclical in four core themes</a></i><br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2015/07/oil-trains-coal-trains-extractive.html" target="_blank">Oil trains, coal trains: extractive economics vs. people and place</a></i><br />
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<br />Steve Masoverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03387484207819808962noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5165118504093345923.post-43552613075091448902016-06-20T08:38:00.004-07:002016-06-20T08:43:15.048-07:00Coal hazard "protection" fallacies exposed by Oakland public health experts<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq5L8VXmD45vhD6x1crh07KN45vpWDnvTbWiAk6SFzT332NQ5ZeZtVxUh9k8B1P9yYrewSBM817rKIKES8I45OIwFV9XGzf64H61vLkBPVZHalkv6xV6V2ErmusKfykDDALJ887OuNd_Hx/s1600/GrandLakeTheatreMarquee.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq5L8VXmD45vhD6x1crh07KN45vpWDnvTbWiAk6SFzT332NQ5ZeZtVxUh9k8B1P9yYrewSBM817rKIKES8I45OIwFV9XGzf64H61vLkBPVZHalkv6xV6V2ErmusKfykDDALJ887OuNd_Hx/s320/GrandLakeTheatreMarquee.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
The <a href="http://nocoalinoakland.info/event/ban-coal-rally/" target="_blank">City of Oakland will rally on the afternoon of Saturday 25 June outside City Hall</a>, in opposition to the prospect of coal storage and handling in the city. Coal transport proposed by developer Phil Tagami would funnel up to nine million metric tons of coal through the city's proposed Oakland Bulk and Oversize Terminal (OBOT) each year, sending mile-long trains of Utah coal through West Oakland every day for the duration of Tagami's 66-year lease of the OBOT site.<br />
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Immediately upon learning of this threat to the community's health and waterfront, city residents have organized to push elected leaders to take a stand against this misuse of publicly owned space. The City Council will vote on a proposal to ban coal storage and handling at the Oakland Bulk and Oversize Terminal (OBOT) at <a href="http://nocoalinoakland.info/event/rally-and-council-vote-on-coal/" target="_blank">a special meeting on Monday, June 27 at 5 pm (rally at 4)</a>.<br />
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As debate over the terminal unfolded over this past year, coal proponents have advertised they will use new technology to shield port workers and their West Oakland neighbors from the toxic, corrosive, and explosive dangers of transporting coal through the former Oakland Army Base. But fantasies can't protect Oakland's workers and families from coal's frighteningly real threats.<br />
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A <i>Public Health Advisory Panel on Coal in Oakland</i> figures in their report, <i><a href="http://www.humanimpact.org/wp-content/uploads/Assessment_Health_Safety_Coal_Oakland.pdf" target="_blank">An Assessment of the Health and Safety Implications of Coal Transport through Oakland</a></i> , that up to 620 tons of dirty coal dust could be blown into West Oakland every year if the coal terminal proceeds [p. 17].<br />
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And that's just for starters.<br />
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As the Health and Safety report explains, coal isn't easy to transport or to handle [p. 43]:<br />
<ul>
<li>It can spontaneously burst into flame in its solid form (in fact, combustibility is why coal is dug out of the ground in the first place).</li>
<li>It's highly explosive when suspended as dust particles in confined spaces, such as covered railroad cars and enclosed coal terminals.</li>
<li>Coal is toxic to humans, especially when inhaled as dust.</li>
<li>Coal dust is filthy: if coal is shipped through Oakland, 90-620 tons of black, sticky particles will get into and onto everything in its path -- from homes to cars to clothing to playgrounds -- each and every one of the 66 years the Oakland Bulk and Oversize Terminal (OBOT) is leased to coal profiteers.</li>
</ul>
Can these hazards be mitigated by technology? Here's what Oakland is up against:<br />
<blockquote>
<i>Export of coal through Oakland requires that coal be transferred from the mine site to rail cars, transported by rail over many hundreds of miles to the port facility, transferred from rail cars into the port facility, transferred into storage heaps pending shipment, transferred out of the storage heaps to the wharves, loaded into ships, and then shipped out to the destination. Each step creates opportunities for release of dust and for hazards to adjacent workers, residents, businesses, and communities.</i> [p. 43]</blockquote>
Coal proponents claim that technology can protect against potential harms. But the proposed technology is unproven, and in some cases has never been tested in real-world conditions (i.e., has not been field-tested).<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Claims that the coal terminal would be wholly enclosed is not how existing coal terminals are designed or implemented, and these claims run contrary to design documents submitted by coal project advocates. For example, by the developers own admission (in its “Basis of Design” document), the stockpiles of coal will be moved from the domed terminal to be stored outdoors for unspecified lengths of time before being loaded onto ships. [p. 47] In the description of its enclosed conveyor system, the Basis of Design document reveals that different types of conveyors will be used, depending on the phase of coal transfer, and not all of them will be covered. All indicators point to the likelihood that a “wholly enclosed” terminal is at best an untested fantasy, and at worst a bait-and-switch lie.</li>
<li>If coal dust is contained in an enclosed terminal, it will present “potential for suspension of coal dust in the air, which can be explosive and ignited by spark, static electricity, or heat.” [p. 47]</li>
<li>Filtering technology creates potential for fires like one <a href="http://www.kspr.com/content/news/power-plant-fire-382025251.html" target="_blank">reported earlier this month in a dust collection system at the John Twitty Energy Center in Springfield, Missouri</a>. Though filtering and wetting strategies may be used if coal ships through Oakland, “no safety analysis has been conducted for the potential transfer of bulk coal through OBOT” [p. 47-48].</li>
<li>Coal advocates have asserted that no review is necessary for environmental impacts such as air pollution, water pollution, production of solid wastes, noise levels, or safety & traffic hazards, but their claims regarding regulatory compliance appear to be shaky at best. For example, wastewater disposal plans are not specified in OBOT plans, raising concern about the potential for coal processing to significantly poison the San Francisco Bay ecosystem. [p. 48-51]</li>
<li>“The project area has seismic vulnerabilities that could create hazards in the likely event of an earthquake, as the soils are in highest category for liquefaction.” Replacement of soils near the OBOT wharf has been proposed, but this remedy may be insufficient and requires additional review. [p. 51]</li>
</ul>
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The Public Health Advisory Panel on Coal in Oakland report offers 145 well-researched and footnoted pages of reasons to distrust assurances that grievous hazards can be magically neutralized by technology that is unproven, uneconomic, or 'optional' at the discretion of profit-motivated coal proponents.<br />
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There is only one way to protect our workers and communities from coal hazards: banning its transport through Oakland and its OBOT.<br />
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<i>A version of this post was <a href="http://nocoalinoakland.info/public-health-experts-expose-coal-hazard-protection-fallacies/" target="_blank">originally published on the No Coal in Oakland web site</a>. Numbers in square brackets refer to page numbers in the report</i> <i><a href="http://www.humanimpact.org/wp-content/uploads/Assessment_Health_Safety_Coal_Oakland.pdf" target="_blank">An Assessment of the Health and Safety Implications of Coal Transport through Oakland</a>. Thanks to Toni Morozumi for the image of Oakland's Grand Lake Theatre marquee advocating "No Coal in Oakland."</i><br />
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<b>Related posts on <i>One Finger Typing</i></b>:<br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2016/05/oakland-doesnt-need-oil-train-disaster.html" target="_blank">Oakland doesn't need an oil train disaster, thanks but no thanks</a></i><br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2015/08/pope-francis-environmental-encyclical.html" target="_blank">Pope Francis' environmental encyclical in four core themes</a></i><br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2015/07/oil-trains-coal-trains-extractive.html" target="_blank">Oil trains, coal trains: extractive economics vs. people and place</a></i>Steve Masoverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03387484207819808962noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5165118504093345923.post-5463869719684900842016-05-26T09:45:00.000-07:002016-05-26T09:45:43.623-07:00A day at Bodega HeadI took a mid-week day off from work yesterday, and drove out to Bodega Head to see if I could catch a glimpse of any of those whales that so many others have <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/science/article/Humpback-and-blue-whales-feeding-in-record-7938920.php#photo-8232524" target="_blank">spotted this month in and around the San Francisco Bay Area</a>. Humpback and blue whales were seen cavorting around in the bay itself, but off Bodega Head gray whales are more usually visible.<br />
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I arrived early enough to catch a bit of the low tide: sea anemone and mussels were packed like sardines on rock formations still exposed even a couple hours after the lowest tide of the morning (-0.1 according to NOAA). (Packed like sardines. Hmmm. That would be a truly terrible simile, except that the sea anemone do look a bit like rolled anchovy fillets. Alas, no one says "packed like anchovies.")<br />
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Some of the larger anemone were beginning to open again as the surf came in. Click the photo to see its fluorescent tentacles, enlarged -- a little cool, a little creepy...<br />
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Alas, the closest I got to seeing a whale was spotting a crab boat you can (barely) make out offshore in this photo:<br />
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And there was this turkey vulture (among many other birds):<br />
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And the flowers! April showers paid their May dividends this year: poppies, paintbrush, lupine, yarrow, and more:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYOpYELWEhD0_HeMCRKovU7WqO74XdBSyaYeIW8fXgIFD3j2XvZY67eLB8a1gT_K3Cqmyybsi2CCKTCDqoverEFoKp-AAGojj306Y-uUqF5afc6DQGNAYeoyjTAsJjBRs-uKMhR7xqsZEi/s1600/BodegaHead_Yarrow_2016-05-25.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYOpYELWEhD0_HeMCRKovU7WqO74XdBSyaYeIW8fXgIFD3j2XvZY67eLB8a1gT_K3Cqmyybsi2CCKTCDqoverEFoKp-AAGojj306Y-uUqF5afc6DQGNAYeoyjTAsJjBRs-uKMhR7xqsZEi/s320/BodegaHead_Yarrow_2016-05-25.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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When I visit the coast north of the San Francisco Bay I most often go to <a href="https://www.nps.gov/pore/index.htm" target="_blank">Point Reyes National Seashore</a> in Marin County, usually to the north end of the preserve, Tomales Point. Bodega Head (in Sonoma County) is at the north end of Bodega Bay, and Tomales Point is at Bodega Bay's south end. So from where I stood yesterday, I could look south and see the tip of Tomales Point and the opening to Tomales Bay on its inner (east) side. In the photo below, the sharp end of the point is sticking out of the fog across Bodega Bay.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8gnJg0BUif_wHnNZPDjuVq4YcNeQfV47eOtXLBuN9jZZf0dNabuoTvY3i3ptgP2ae6JpXD7NJtk_XGfKGvmb19FABqAJ7jbbAfTXVYWaVcFtSDB9hg8n7CRXAIKIWjnhkjygaDQW5EFh9/s1600/BodegaHead_ViewOfTomalesPoint_2016-05-25.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8gnJg0BUif_wHnNZPDjuVq4YcNeQfV47eOtXLBuN9jZZf0dNabuoTvY3i3ptgP2ae6JpXD7NJtk_XGfKGvmb19FABqAJ7jbbAfTXVYWaVcFtSDB9hg8n7CRXAIKIWjnhkjygaDQW5EFh9/s320/BodegaHead_ViewOfTomalesPoint_2016-05-25.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Even with binoculars, though, I didn't spot any of the elk who live on Tomales Point. I guess it wasn't my day for big mammals ... but a fine day nonetheless.<br />
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<b>Related posts on <i>One Finger Typing</i></b>:<br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2016/01/seasons-blur-as-el-nino-starts-in-on.html" target="_blank">Seasons blur as El Niño starts in on California</a></i><br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2014/11/never-mind-election-day-2014-consider.html" target="_blank">Never mind Election Day 2014, consider Fall in Northern California</a></i><br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2013/01/point-reyes-national-seashore-at-start.html" target="_blank">Point Reyes National Seashore at the start of the year</a></i><br />
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<br />Steve Masoverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03387484207819808962noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5165118504093345923.post-17532381600116095262016-05-17T11:22:00.003-07:002016-05-17T11:24:14.399-07:00Oakland doesn't need an oil train disaster, thanks but no thanksCome 27 June 2016, <a href="http://nocoalinoakland.info/city-council-sets-june-27-date-for-vote-on-coal/" target="_blank">Oakland, California's city council will vote on an ordinance to ban shipment of coal through the city's port</a>.<br />
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The text of the ordinance is not yet drafted, and may not ban coal at all: it may instead require mitigations that are unlikely to be achievable, enforceable, and/or effective in protecting the health of people who live near the proposed bulk terminal that <a href="http://nocoalinoakland.info/utah-gov-signs-bill-to-fund-oakland-coal-terminal/" target="_blank">developers hope to use to ship coal mined in Utah and slated for dirty combustion in Asia</a>. The ordinance may or may not also address a ban on or mitigations for shipping crude oil, fuel oil, and gasoline.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-pPt7ij65QAdbgjUa2Cpwm3MayD1m9dTFXNht_toWiOzboAK7NSCQFpp_psOKg2Brg5vfkrZWgqsbHY38DGSIDJvnfqtY5FomyVHXhyphenhyphenrOq0UBshK0i1O2wg1UShKYQvIvNbM3iz4A1SWk/s1600/Lac_megantic_burning.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-pPt7ij65QAdbgjUa2Cpwm3MayD1m9dTFXNht_toWiOzboAK7NSCQFpp_psOKg2Brg5vfkrZWgqsbHY38DGSIDJvnfqtY5FomyVHXhyphenhyphenrOq0UBshK0i1O2wg1UShKYQvIvNbM3iz4A1SWk/s320/Lac_megantic_burning.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
To call the city's mayor, Libby Schaaf, and the councilmembers' attention to just how crazy-dangerous it would be to permit oil transport through a port surrounded by communities they were elected to protect and serve, <i><a href="http://nocoalinoakland.info/" target="_blank">No Coal in Oakland</a></i> activist Michael Kaufman sent to Oakland's elected officials yesterday afternoon a <i>partial</i> list of tanker car spills and pipeline explosions that have occurred over the past three years.<br />
<br />
Here's what Michael Kaufman wrote to Oakland's Mayor Schaaf, nine councilmembers, and city staffer Heather Klein:<br />
<blockquote>
<i>Dear Ms Klein, Mayor and Council Members</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Please consider [this] list of tanker car spills of fossil fuels and other hazardous commodities that have been endangering our citizens in the last three years.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>These spills, explosions and pollution of neighborhoods and water ways will continue without end, until our elected leaders ban fossil fuels from being loaded or off loaded in our communities.Below is a very incomplete list of just some of the spills and explosions that have occurred in North America during the last three years. Oil pipeline capacity is maxed out in North American. Consequently oil rail car use has expanded forty fold from 2008.<br />
<br />
The prior NTSB chair said that the overwhelming majority of oil train cars are not built to carry the toxic oil now being massively produced. The rules to control this form of oil transportation must be updated quickly; more quickly than is happening on the federal level.<br />
<br />
The current rail cars for fossil fuel, DOT 111 type rail cars, are not crash resistant. This type of car is being banned and replaced in Canada but not in U.S. However some of the crashes and spills are also coming from newly designed, CPC-1232 type cars, which are supposed to be more crash resistant.</i><i><br />
<br />
</i><i>Normal fire departments don't have the capacity to deal with oil rail car spill, explosions and fires.</i><br />
<br />
<i>[...]
</i><br />
<ol>
<li><i><i><a href="https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=rail+car+oil+spill+parkers+prairie&tbm=nws" target="_blank">03/27/13 Parkers Prairie, MN</a>; 30,000 gallons of oil spilled</i></i></li>
<li><i><i><a href="https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#tbm=nws&q=Arkansas+Exxon+Pegasus+Pipeline" target="_blank">03/29/13 Arkansas Exxon Pegasus Pipeline</a> burst, 5,000-7,000 barrels of crude spilled</i></i></li>
<li><i><i><a href="https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#tbm=nws&q=Jansen+Saskatchewan+oil+spill" target="_blank">05/21/13 Jansen Saskatchewan</a>; 24,000 gallons of oil spilled</i></i></li>
<li><i><i><a href="http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/train-jumps-tracks-after-bridge-fails-over-calgarys-swollen-bow-river" target="_blank">06/27/13 Calgary, Alberta; oil train derailed</a> on a bridge over Bow River, emergency crew prevented a spill</i></i></li>
<li><i><i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lac-M%C3%A9gantic_rail_disaster" target="_blank">07/06/13 Lac Magantic, Quebec; Explosions from derailed oil cars killed 47 people</a> and destroyed 30 buildings in town center</i></i></li>
<li><i><i><a href="http://globalnews.ca/news/1846271/train-explosion-evacuee-hopes-derailment-report-leads-to-better-safety/" target="_blank">10/19/13 Gainford Alberta; 4 derailed oil tankers</a>. evacuations were required due to explosions and fire</i></i></li>
<li><i><i><a href="https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#tbm=nws&q=Aliceville%2C+Pickens+County%2C+Alabama+oil+train+derail" target="_blank">11/08/13 Aliceville, Pickens County, Alabama; 90-car derailment</a>, 749,000 gallons spilled. Fire burned for 2 days.</i></i></li>
<li><i><i><a href="https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#tbm=nws&q=Casselton%2C+ND+crude+spill" target="_blank">12/30/13 Casselton, ND; 400,000 gallons of crude spilled</a>, explosion caused evacuations of 2,000 people</i></i></li>
<li><i><i><a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/cn-train-carrying-crude-oil-derailed-on-fire-near-plaster-rock-1.2487977" target="_blank">01/07/14 Plaster Rock, New Brunswick</a>; explosion and fire caused 150-person evacuation for 3 nights</i></i></li>
<li><i><i><a href="http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/Train-Derails-Schuykill-Expressway-Closed-241114931.html" target="_blank">01/20/14 Philadelphia PA; 6 train cars carrying Bakken crude derailed over Schuylkill River</a> near university of PA and major hospitals, no spill</i></i></li>
<li><i><i>02/13/14 Vandergrift PA; 4 tankers spill nearly 3,000 gallons of oil</i></i></li>
<li><i><i>04/30/14 Lynchburg, VA; 17-car derailment, +29,000 gallons of oil spilled into the James River, threatening the Richmond, VA water supply</i></i></li>
<li><i><i>1/13/15 In Mississippi pipeline burst and put out smoke seen by satellites</i></i></li>
<li><i><i>1/17/15 Yellowstone River, Glendive, Montana Oil Spill, 40,000 gallons of oil</i></i></li>
<li><i><i>1/26/15 North Dakota Williston 3 million gallons of brine leaking since 1/6/15. Leak has reached the Missouri River</i></i></li>
<li><i><i>1/27/15 Natural Gas Pipeline explosion in Brooke County, West Virginia from Pennsylvania Fracked Gas moving to Texas</i></i></li>
<li><i><i>2/14/15 Timmons, Ontario 100-car Canadian National train carrying crude oil derailed. 30 cars caught fire. The tankers were the newer, CPC-1232, "safer" kind. The fires burned for days blocking a main rail line for three days.</i></i></li>
<li><i><i>2/16/15 Mt Carbon, West Virginia Bakken Crude 109 car train, 27 tanker cars, the newer CPC 1232 cars, derailed and spilled crude into the Kanawha River. Vapor pressure in tank cars was 13.9, higher than allowed by N Dakota. laws. Tanker cars exploded catching house on fire. 1.5 mile circle of evacuation. Fire crews let fires burn for days.</i></i></li>
<li><i><i>3/4/15 North Dakota Tioga spill 19,000 gallons of brine saltwater chemical petroleum mix</i></i></li>
<li><i><i>3/5/15 Galena Illinois near Dubuque Iowa a unit oil train, 103 tanker cars derailed and exploded along the Galena River. 1 mile evacuation</i></i></li>
<li><i><i>3/7/15 Gogama, Ontario 94 car oil train had 35 CPC-1232 oil tanker cars derail, with 5 falling into the Makami River, explosion and fire.</i></i></li>
<li><i><i>5/6/15 Heimdal, ND another train blew up with 6 tankers carrying 180,000 gallons of Bakken Crude exploding. Heimdal was evacuated. Four separate fire department were dispatched and two Hazmat teams. The EPA is monitoring air quality. It is the fifth explosion in 2015 to date. This one was using the updated tanker cars, CPC-1232.</i></i></li>
<li><i><i>7/1/16 Maryville Tennessee just south of Knoxville, one CSX car derailed, broke an axle and punctured the tanker and sparked a huge fire, which burned for over a day. The car was carrying Acrylonitrile, used in making plastics.</i></i></li>
<li><i><i>When it burns it releases cyanide gas, which can be fatal. Evacuated a 2 mile radius, and 5,000 people. Ten cops were hospitalized due to exposure. 55 were hospitalized with 25 admitted to the hospital.</i></i></li>
<li><i><i>11/7/15 Alma Wisconsin 25 cars derailed and fell into the river with 20,000 gallons of ethanol spilled into the Mississippi River, highways closed, residents evacuated</i></i></li>
<li><i><i>11/8/15 Watertown Wisconsin, near Milwaukee, 110 car oil train, 13 cars derailed, 100s of gallons of crude oil spilled, Homes Evacuated</i></i></li>
</ol>
</blockquote>
[I've added links to news sources for the first ten. You get the idea, and readers can search the intertubes no less effectively than I can.]<br />
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<i>No Coal in Oakland</i> -- whose <a href="http://nocoalinoakland.info/senator-loni-hancock-92-of-constituents-oppose-oakland-coal-export-terminal/" target="_blank">state senator, Loni Hancock, found that 92% of her district's constituents oppose the proposed Oakland coal-export terminal</a> -- is asking city residents to <a href="http://nocoalinoakland.info/event/rally-and-council-vote-on-coal/" target="_blank">stand up and be counted at the 27 June council vote</a> ... and to <a href="http://nocoalinoakland.info/event/city-council-open-forum-may-17th/" target="_blank">turn out for the first half-hour of tonight's City Council meeting</a> to speak to the folly of shipping fossil fuels through the city's port.<br />
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<b>Related posts on <i>One Finger Typing</i></b>:<br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2015/08/pope-francis-environmental-encyclical.html" target="_blank">Pope Francis' environmental encyclical in four core themes</a></i><br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2015/07/oil-trains-coal-trains-extractive.html" target="_blank">Oil trains, coal trains: extractive economics vs. people and place</a></i><br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2015/11/northern-california-mobilizes-for.html" target="_blank">Northern California mobilizes for climate action as Paris talks near</a></i><br />
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<i>Thanks to Sûreté du Québec via Wikimedia Commons for the <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lac_megantic_burning.jpg" target="_blank">image of the Lac-Mégantic oil train derailment disaster</a>.</i>Steve Masoverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03387484207819808962noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5165118504093345923.post-19676780783009139182016-04-28T07:35:00.000-07:002016-04-28T07:35:13.527-07:00The pursuit of boredom<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg9m2FFTgXmq7dBqewv1HODemyg7g6UiYoS9idoVUPa4CZPd4WOS85McUj15z6i4QCOVqI5skQH7AGkxkCgwmk-yPPcty-900byejj-15OwHhTVnHjDJ9DGOnrMcurrlx8UnL7zR07xny_/s1600/SquirrelEatingApple_UCBerkeley_2016-04-02_1200px.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg9m2FFTgXmq7dBqewv1HODemyg7g6UiYoS9idoVUPa4CZPd4WOS85McUj15z6i4QCOVqI5skQH7AGkxkCgwmk-yPPcty-900byejj-15OwHhTVnHjDJ9DGOnrMcurrlx8UnL7zR07xny_/s320/SquirrelEatingApple_UCBerkeley_2016-04-02_1200px.jpg" width="227" /></a>The other day a friend pointed out an article by Sandi Mann in The Guardian. The title was <i><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/apr/24/why-are-we-so-bored" target="_blank">Why are we so bored?</a></i> The author got me wondering: should we think about boredom as a bane or a boon -- a feature or a bug -- in the trajectory of our lives?<br />
<br />
Here’s the gist of <i>Why are we so bored?,</i> datelined 24 April 2016:<br />
<blockquote>
<i>With so much to occupy us these days, boredom should be a relic of a bygone age – an age devoid of the internet, social media, multi-channel TV, 24-hour shopping, multiplex cinemas, game consoles, texting and whatever other myriad possibilities are available these days to entertain us.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Yet despite the plethora of high-intensity entertainment constantly at our disposal, we are still bored. Up to half of us are “often bored” at home or at school, while more than two- thirds of us are chronically bored at work. We are bored by paperwork, by the commute and by dull meetings. TV is boring, as is Facebook and other social media. [...]</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>There are a number of explanations for our ennui. This, in fact, is part of the problem – we are overstimulated. The more entertained we are the more entertainment we need in order to feel satisfied. The more we fill our world with fast-moving, high-intensity, ever-changing stimulation, the more we get used to that and the less tolerant we become of lower levels.</i></blockquote>
This spin on collateral damage -- boredom -- caused by our 21st century distractions, including the device + social media distractions with which many now fill every interstice of otherwise-unclaimed attention, is more interesting to me than the usual gnashing-of-teeth over decreasing attention spans. (Though I do think there’s merit in observations about decreasing attention spans. Oh -- look! Squirrels!)<br />
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Sorry. Back to boredom.<br />
<br />
Here’s what technology observer Jerry Mander wrote about the experience of watching TV, foreshadowing a 21st Century link between distraction and boredom in his 1978 classic, <i><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/228250.Four_Arguments_for_the_Elimination_of_Television" target="_blank">Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television</a></i>:<br />
<blockquote>
<i>You are looking at a face speaking. Just as you are becoming accustomed to it, there’s a cut to another face. (technical event) Then there might be an edit back to the first face. (technical event) Then the camera might slowly draw back to take in some aspect of a wider scene. (technical event) Then the action suddenly shifts outdoors to the street. (technical event) Intercut with these scenes might be some other parallel line of the story. It may be a series of images of someone in a car racing to meet people on that street we have just visited. (technical event) The music rises. (technical event) And so on.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Each technical event -- each alteration of what would be natural imagery -- is intended to keep your attention from waning as it might otherwise. The effect is to lure your attention forward like a mechanical rabbit teasing a greyhound. Every time you are about to relax your attention, another technical event keeps you attached.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>The luring forward never ceases for very long. If it did, you might become aware of the vacuousness of the content that can get through the inherent limitations of the medium [i.e., television]. Then you would be aware of the boredom. [...]</i></blockquote>
Mander drew the same line in 1978 that Sandy Mann did the other day: overstimulation is somehow linked to boredom.<br />
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But here’s another take on the question that I’d like to juxtapose with Mann’s and Mander’s, quoting UC Berkeley Professor of Philosophy Alva Noë from his latest book, <i><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23847921-strange-tools" target="_blank">Strange Tools: Art and Human Nature</a></i>.<br />
<blockquote>
<i>Any adequate account of what art is and of its place in our lives must address the striking fact that art has the power to bore us. [...] And art’s potential to be dull does not contradict the fact that art also moves and thrills and transforms and excites us. Indeed, it is the opposite side of the very same coin. Just as there is no encounter with love without the live risk of heartbreak, so there can be no confrontation with art that does not open up the possibility of getting lulled unconscious and bored to death. Art is valuable only in direct proportion to the degree to which it can, or might, bore us. [...]</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Works of art are strange tools, after all. That is, they are tools we can’t use, they are useless. They are texts with no practical content, or pictures that don’t show us anything in particular. And so they require us to stop doing. To stop acting and to stop demanding application or even pertinence. [...] The pictures in the clothing catalog show you something you can buy; the architect’s model lays out something you can build. But the choreography on the stage? The painting on the wall? [...] They stop you dead in your tracks. That is, if you let them. If you suspend. If you interrupt. If you enter that special space and that altered state that art provides or allows. Art situations have this in common with religious spaces like churches. They are places where so much can happen but only because nothing really happens. They are spaces for self-transformation.</i></blockquote>
So is boredom a condition to be avoided at all costs? Or might it be a state we ought to cultivate??<br />
<br />
Maybe the best answer is ‘neither.’<br />
<br />
It’s no mystery that distraction degrades focus, and completion of directed tasks (which we sometimes think of as “productivity” -- getting stuff we want to do done). Multitasking as a valuable mode of behavior or a ‘skill’ <a href="http://www.npr.org/2013/05/10/182861382/the-myth-of-multitasking" target="_blank">is a myth</a>. But continuous distraction also degrades creativity, synthesis and sharpening of new ideas, and ‘serendipitous’ discovery … because each of these tends to require the kind of mental elbow-room that Alva Noë described in Strange Tools: “<i>They are places where so much can happen but only because nothing really happens.</i>” Noë describes boredom as a state between <i>distraction</i> and <i>engagement with transformation</i>.<br />
<br />
Boredom isn’t the goal. It’s a way station.<br />
<br />
I happen to know Alva Noë: we’re both students of Tai Chi Ch’uan, and study that slow-moving, deeply attentive practice with the same <a href="http://www.taichiberkeley.com/" target="_blank">teacher, in Berkeley, California</a>. Some find a martial art built of slow, steadily-paced movements, repeated over and over and over again through many years of study and practice … well … some find it boring. Others find the state of deep attention to space, precision, movement, breath, and awareness … wait for it … a space for self-transformation.<br />
<br />
When I go to a Tai Chi class, or practice my form on the back porch, or head over to the nearby schoolyard of an early morning to run through my sword form before too many neighbors are out and about -- I leave my electronica behind.<br />
<br />
There’s something to be said for letting distraction go. It doesn’t <i>have</i> to be boring … at least, not in a bad way, and not for long.<br />
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<br />
<i>This post first appeared on <a href="https://medium.com/@stevemasover/the-pursuit-of-boredom-1272cec5bd0" target="_blank">Medium.com</a></i><br />
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<br />
<b>Related posts on <i>One Finger Typing</i></b>:<br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2013/02/should-technology-shape-art.html" target="_blank">Should technology shape art?</a></i><br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2012/07/pimped-by-our-own-devices-electronica.html" target="_blank">Pimped by our own devices: electronica, the cloud, and privacy piracy</a></i><br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2010/10/you-cant-click-your-way-to-social.html" target="_blank">You can't click your way to social change</a></i><br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2010/10/getting-grip-on-attention-span.html" target="_blank">Getting a grip on attention span</a></i><br />
<br />Steve Masoverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03387484207819808962noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5165118504093345923.post-39342285080924089662016-04-12T07:53:00.000-07:002016-04-12T07:53:35.990-07:00GMO labeling and a dearth of principled discourse<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiS3qmxMI5w7tMnsIlqU9BDpLkIbhvAZBh-mu5KsJSqvOFRe0Jklt9dfkG0FArrWcAe_joK5cvKg79iQTBrK8m_FO5OW57vM56NVGgBxNJ46ttbTavqh_WUH5NbhQCpkSev9-_KM8cg7iYN/s1600/Aion_mosaic_Glyptothek_Munich_W504.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="292" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiS3qmxMI5w7tMnsIlqU9BDpLkIbhvAZBh-mu5KsJSqvOFRe0Jklt9dfkG0FArrWcAe_joK5cvKg79iQTBrK8m_FO5OW57vM56NVGgBxNJ46ttbTavqh_WUH5NbhQCpkSev9-_KM8cg7iYN/s320/Aion_mosaic_Glyptothek_Munich_W504.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Does a two-week interregnum between the Wisconsin and New York primaries leave a window to post about something <i>other than</i> elections? I'd like to try. Personally, I find the cacophony around the presidential primaries dispiriting, but there's a thing or two to say now about the feeble level of discourse over another very hotly contested question, one for which a lot of the action is also coming out of the state of Vermont.<br />
<br />
<b>GMO labeling, coming to a supermarket near you</b><br />
<br />
Yep. I'm talking about labeling food that contains GMO ingredients.<br />
<br />
You may already know that beginning on 1 July Vermont's Act 120 will require that GMO ingredients be called out on labels of food sold in that state (the nitty-gritty is delineated in the Vermont Attorney General's <a href="http://www.ago.vermont.gov/assets/files/PressReleases/Consumer/Final%20Rule%20CP%20121.pdf" target="_blank">Consumer Protection Rule 121</a>). The imminent deadline made March a pretty lively month in this particular corner of the struggle between What People Want and What Megacorporations Wish People Wanted.<br />
<br />
You may have already seen, for example, that corporate-backed federal legislation to neuter Vermont's labeling requirements moved to the U.S. Senate's front burner last month. Here's how, way over here on the Left Coast, San Francisco's newspaper reported how that has turned out thus far (<i><a href="http://www.sfgate.com/food/article/GMO-food-labeling-bill-does-not-pass-in-Senate-6893496.php" target="_blank">GMO food labeling bill does not pass in Senate</a></i>, <i>SF Chronicle</i>, 16 Mar 2016):<br />
<blockquote>
<i>Following an emotional debate, the Senate blocked a bill that would prevent states from requiring labeling of genetically modified food Wednesday.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>The Biotechnology Labeling Solutions Act (S2609), authored by Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., which would create a national voluntary labeling standard for genetically engineered foods, did not pass. Roberts had hoped to pass the bill before Vermont’s mandatory labeling law goes into effect July 1.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Despite getting support from Democrats such as Agriculture Committee members Joe Donnelly of Indiana and Heidi Heitcamp of North Dakota, he didn’t get the 60 votes he needed. California Sens. Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein voted against the bill.</i></blockquote>
The game's not over, of course: another bill may yet make it through.<br />
<br />
But with July approaching and clear evidence that <a href="http://www.consumerreports.org/food-safety/consumers-want-mandatory-labeling-for-gmo-foods/" target="_blank">nearly 90% of people in the United States want to see GMO food labeled</a>, a number of key corporate giants appear to be throwing in the towel. General Mills, for example, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Mills" target="_blank">a conglomerate with $17.9bn in 2014 revenue</a>, announced two days after that Senate vote to label its products (see <i><a href="http://www.sfgate.com/food/article/General-Mills-to-add-GMO-labeling-on-its-products-6922250.php" target="_blank">General Mills to add GMO labeling on its products</a></i>, <i>SF Chronicle</i>, 18 Mar 2016):<br />
<blockquote>
<i>In a striking reversal for big food manufacturers, which have spent millions fighting state efforts to require mandatory labeling of genetically engineered food, General Mills announced Friday that it would voluntarily add that information to its labels.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>General Mills’ move is a reaction to a law due to go into effect July 1 in Vermont that will require mandatory labeling of foods with genetically modified organisms. On Wednesday, the Senate blocked efforts by Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., to preempt Vermont’s law by making that labeling voluntary nationwide.</i></blockquote>
<a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/vermont-target-willful-violations-gmo-labeling-law-38272539" target="_blank">Mars, ConAgra, Campbell Soup Co., and Kellogg</a> are also printing new labels to be used nationwide.<br />
<br />
<b>Health effects caused by GMO food: the narrow view</b><br />
<br />
General Mills may be throwing in the towel, but the discourse on genetically engineered crops and animals in mainstream media (MSM) is, generally speaking, narrowly and poorly focused. The sound-byte battle is consistently and most visibly framed around questions of food safety: will humans be adversely affected by consuming food with genetically modified ingredients?<br />
<br />
Some examples of this framing:<br />
<blockquote>
<i>[Kansas Senator Pat Roberts] emphasized that the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Agriculture, and the Food and Drug Administration have all deemed genetically engineered foods safe. “It’s not about safety. It’s not about health. It’s not about nutrition. It’s all about marketing,” he said.</i> (<i><a href="http://www.sfgate.com/food/article/GMO-food-labeling-bill-does-not-pass-in-Senate-6893496.php" target="_blank">GMO food labeling bill does not pass in Senate</a></i>, <i>SF Chronicle</i>, 16 Mar 2016)</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<i>[Executive vice president and chief operating officer for U.S. retail at General Mills Jeff] Harmening also noted that “every major health and safety agency in the world agree(s) that GMOs are not a health or safety concern” — though he acknowledged that some consumers want to know about their presence in food.</i> (<i><a href="http://www.sfgate.com/food/article/General-Mills-to-add-GMO-labeling-on-its-products-6922250.php" target="_blank">General Mills to add GMO labeling on its products</a></i>, <i>SF Chronicle</i>, 18 Mar 2016)</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<i>On the other side of the debate are those who argue that labels would inherently suggest something is wrong with foods containing GMOs, even though major scientific bodies — from the American Association for the Advancement of Science to the World Health Organization to the American Medical Association — insist genetically modified foods are safe to eat.</i> (<i><a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/03/16/470677241/bill-that-would-block-states-from-mandating-gmo-labels-stalls-in-senate" target="_blank">Bill Blocking GMO Labels Stalls In Senate, But Battle Is Far From Over</a></i>, <i>NPR</i>, 16 Mar 2016)</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<i>The Food and Drug Administration says they are safe, and there is little scientific concern about the safety of those GMOs on the market. But advocates for labeling say not enough is known about their risks.</i> (<i><a href="http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2016/03/17/senate-blocks-bill-to-make-gmo-labeling-voluntary/" target="_blank">Senate blocks bill to make GMO labeling voluntary</a></i>, <i>Fox News</i>, 17 March 2016)</blockquote>
Others sometimes emphasize transparency (something that General Mills CEO Jeff Harmening gave a nod to in the second excerpt above). One transparency advocate is NYU Professor Arthur Caplan, who wrote, in an <i>NBC News</i> post of 15 September 2015, <i><a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/why-gmo-foods-should-be-labeled-n423451" target="_blank">GMO Foods Should be Labeled, But Not for Safety: Bioethicist</a></i>:<br />
<blockquote>
<i>The case for labeling is tied up with arguments about safety. Safety concerns would trigger Food and Drug Administration labeling requirements. But, ironically, that is entirely the wrong issue when it comes to labels. The reason GMO food should be voluntarily labeled by the food industry is that it is clear some consumers want to know what they are eating and they have a right to know what is in their food.</i></blockquote>
<b>A more honest discourse</b><br />
<br />
I'm all for transparency. But:<br />
<br />
We'd be having a more honest discourse, less susceptible to <a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2015/02/asking-wrong-questions-about-gmos-for.html" target="_blank">flak sprayed into the debate</a> from all quarters, if journalists ferreted out and responsibly reported on the most serious and consequential questions around GMO agriculture and bioengineered animals.<br />
<br />
What questions are those? For example, quoting myself from <a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2015/09/facts-vs-understanding-in-gmo.html" target="_blank">a post of 9 September 2015</a>:<br />
<blockquote>
<ul>
<li>How does GMO agriculture encourage or discourage monocropping, and what impact does that have on land productivity, herbicide use, and soil sustainability?</li>
<li>How do GMO crops influence use and costs of farming inputs (seeds, fertilizer, energy, machinery, water) and what short- and long-term effects does this have on sustainability of soil, farms, and family farming?</li>
<li>How does GMO farming affect biodiversity and the relationships of plant, insect, and animal species that influence or are influenced by the production of food for human consumption?</li>
<li>How do the economics and legal constraints of using patented seeds affect farming, farmers, and farm communities? </li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
Or, more circumspectly if you prefer, quoting from the website of the <a href="http://www.ucsusa.org/our-work/food-agriculture/our-failing-food-system/genetic-engineering-agriculture" target="_blank">Union of Concerned Scientists:</a><br />
<blockquote>
<i>While the risks of genetic engineering are often exaggerated or misrepresented, GE crops do have the potential to cause a variety of health problems and environmental impacts. For instance, they may spread undesirable traits to weeds and non-GE crops, produce new allergens and toxins, or harm animals that consume them.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>At least one major environmental impact of genetic engineering has already reached critical proportions: overuse of herbicide-tolerant GE crops has spurred an increase in herbicide use and an epidemic of herbicide-resistant "superweeds," which will lead to even more herbicide use.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>How likely are other harmful GE impacts to occur? This is a difficult question to answer. Each crop-gene combination poses its own set of risks. While risk assessments are conducted as part of GE product approval, the data are generally supplied by the company seeking approval, and GE companies use their patent rights to exercise tight control over research on their products.</i></blockquote>
<b>Speaking truth to mainstream media: a steep uphill climb</b><br />
<br />
Contrary to general appearances, it's not impossible to report responsibly in the MSM. <i><a href="http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Super-salmon-or-Frankenfish-Bay-Area-critics-7221202.php" target="_blank">Bio-engineered fish are target of lawsuit</a></i> is another article published at the tail end of last month in the <i>SF Chronicle</i>. The subject is the AquAdvantage Atlantic salmon. Excerpting:<br />
<blockquote>
<i>Government regulators and the manufacturer insist the product is safe. But the notion of genetically altered seafood has created a furor among environmentalists, who have dubbed the species "Frankenfish" and say it could spread mutant genes and circulate diseases in wild salmon if an accident or sabotage ever set it loose.<br /><br />"Our main concern is that the FDA approval was done without any consideration for what these Frankenfish might do if they escape into the wild in places where wild salmon live," said John McManus, the executive director of the Golden Gate Salmon Association, which joined the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations, the Center for Food Safety and eight other environmental organizations in the suit.<br /><br />"What has ended up happening in every place where there are farmed salmon is the nets rip and the fish escape," McManus said.</i></blockquote>
John McManus is on point when he describes a <i>main concern</i> about genetically modified salmon. And he was permitted in this article to express it. Alas, in the mainstream U.S. press, the systemic picture is more often obscured in favor of focus on sound-bytes to do with direct, individual health effects of human consumption of GMO food.<br />
<br />
Why does this happen?<br />
<br />
Lots of reasons, I suppose. But in this post, rather than follow-the-money (that is, the argument that capitalists or corporations own both the government and the press), I'd like to suggest that principal reasons include the fact that direct, individual health effects make for more easily digestible news about complex subjects. Here are three qualities that make this so:<br />
<ol>
<li><b>Individual health effects fit our familiar (U.S.) legal framework</b>, and thus become the focal point of efforts to regulate the Monsantos and Du Ponts of the world. As Dr. Caplan, quoted above, put it, "<i>Safety concerns would trigger Food and Drug Administration labeling requirements.</i>" Individual health effects give individuals and classes of individuals standing to bring lawsuits aimed at constraining (through regulation) or punishing (through economic penalties) those who cause those effects by harming the environment. From <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/standing" target="_blank">Cornell University's Legal Information Institute</a>: "<i>Standing, or locus standi, is capacity of a party to bring suit in court. State laws define standing. At the heart of these statutes is the requirement that plaintiffs have sustained or will sustain direct injury or harm and that this harm is redressable.</i>" American newspaper reporters and readers understand how this works.</li>
<li><b>Individual health effects are a simpler concept to grasp and more concrete than systemic harms</b>. From <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy_in_the_United_States" target="_blank">Wikipedia on literacy in the U.S.</a>: <i>The 15% figure for full literacy, equivalent to a university undergraduate level, is consistent with the notion that the "average" American reads at a 7th or 8th grade level which is also consistent with recommendations, guidelines, and norms of readability for medication directions, product information, and popular fiction.</i></li>
<li><b>Individual health effects directly threaten individuals, which means it's easier to induce people to consider their own personal stake</b> in an issue than it would be if the threat were more abstract, indirect, long-term, or diffuse. Having a personal stake in a story or issue is key to generating interest in it. The MSM, in order to sustain itself, favors publication of stories in which it can generate interest (duh...).</li>
</ol>
It's worth noting that these qualities apply to other environmental issues, not just questions of genetic engineering.<br />
<br />
Opposition to the transport of coal and tar sands oil, for example, are easier to sell (and thus more commonly 'marketed' and argued in regulatory hearings, courtrooms, and environmental activists' appeals to the grassroots) as community health and economic issues (coal dust causes respiratory disease, volatile oil trains threaten cities with massive explosions) than as activity that causes long term harm to our planet's biosphere (leaving fossil fuel "assets" in the ground rather than burning them is necessary to mitigate the massive and lethal effects of human-induced climate change). This is not to say that environmental activists don't see the bigger picture. Of course we do. But <i>effective</i> arguments skew toward harm to individuals and local communities, so those are the arguments most frequently and prominently promoted, especially to regulatory officials and non-activists.<br />
<br />
In California, where I live, advocacy for the health of salmon fisheries and delta smelt quickly devolves in the mainstream press into arguments about harm to people who make their livings in fishing vs. farming sectors of the human economy.<br />
<br />
And so on.<br />
<br />
<b>Does it have to be this way?</b><br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjnn5nJ06UMxrBVEw6zFjCeN_5rWRB-TOx11pXudLEDCRkYj5ixFiJca99__VGAStp0mPjVGztRvGJGYoTXssqXRbzfrxY__Fxy7Af6PqbvFDSW-51bzL_Q3sYNAkXYWkhAfUGqnQv4JX5/s1600/Earth_Western_Hemisphere_transparent_background.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjnn5nJ06UMxrBVEw6zFjCeN_5rWRB-TOx11pXudLEDCRkYj5ixFiJca99__VGAStp0mPjVGztRvGJGYoTXssqXRbzfrxY__Fxy7Af6PqbvFDSW-51bzL_Q3sYNAkXYWkhAfUGqnQv4JX5/s320/Earth_Western_Hemisphere_transparent_background.png" width="320" /></a></div>
So news in mainstream media is reported in simple terms, framed by near-term and close-to-home and legally-effective stakes.<br />
<br />
But a path out of this (literal!) dead end is emerging. Right here in the U.S. of A., even, though the path seems to be <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rights_of_Nature" target="_blank">better paved in the Global South thus far</a>.<br />
<br />
Here, from the Jan/Feb 2008 issue of Orion Magazine, in <i><a href="https://orionmagazine.org/article/if-nature-had-rights/" target="_blank">If Nature Had Rights</a></i> by South African attorney Cormac Cullinan (co-author of <i><a href="https://orionmagazine.org/article/if-nature-had-rights/" target="_blank">Wild Law: A Manifesto for Earth Justice</a></i>):<br />
<blockquote>
<i>On September 19, 2006, the Tamaqua Borough of Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, passed a sewage sludge ordinance that recognizes natural communities and ecosystems within the borough as legal persons for the purposes of enforcing civil rights. It also strips corporations that engage in the land application of sludge of their rights to be treated as "persons" and consequently of their civil rights. One of its effects is that the borough or any of its residents may file a lawsuit on behalf of an ecosystem to recover compensatory and punitive damages for any harm done by the land application of sewage sludge. Damages recovered in this way must be paid to the borough and used to restore those ecosystems and natural communities.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>According to Thomas Linzey, the lawyer from the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund who assisted Tamaqua Borough, this ordinance marks the first time in the history of municipalities in the United States that something like this has happened. Coming after more than 150 years of judicially sanctioned expansion of the legal powers of corporations in the U.S., this ordinance is more than extraordinary — it is revolutionary. In a world where the corporation is king and all forms of life other than humans are objects in the eyes of the law, this is a small community’s Boston tea party.</i></blockquote>
And more recently, from Jason Mark in Spring 2012's <i><a href="http://www.earthisland.org/journal/index.php/eij/article/natural_law/" target="_blank">Earth Island Journal</a></i>:<br />
<blockquote>
<i>[...] even among card-carrying environmentalists the idea of putting humanity on an equal footing with the rest of nature remains a minority conviction. The twenty-first-century environmental movement is focused almost exclusively on “sustainability” – which essentially is the idea that we have to keep Gaia just healthy enough to maintain human civilization. Mostly, we are “saving” the planet for ourselves.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Placed in this context, the new activism demanding legal rights for nature marks an important development for the global environmental movement.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Several factors have spurred the reinvigoration of the idea that we are not the center of the universe. Climate change is an obvious one. As some see it, a new ideology is needed to counter what appears to civilization’s drive to swallow the planet whole. In the US, the push for rights of nature is part of the broader attempt to push back the power of corporations. It’s a way of arguing that the environment should come before corporate earnings.</i></blockquote>
These developments beg the question: what will it take to advance the idea that humans must acknowledge the gravity and responsibility implicit in long-term, complex, systemic effects of human activity -- by appropriately acknowledging and valuing the standing of every thing and being affected by that activity?<br />
<br />
And: how do we embed that responsibility in our legal system, our journalism, and in <i>many</i> more hearts and minds?<br />
<br />
I'm not asking these questions rhetorically. I don't know the answers.<br />
<br />
I do, however, believe that we ought to be thinking, talking, and writing about these big-picture questions.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Related posts on <i>One Finger Typing</i></b>:
<br />
<div>
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2015/09/facts-vs-understanding-in-gmo.html" target="_blank">Facts vs understanding in GMO propaganda wars</a></i></div>
<div>
<div>
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2015/02/asking-wrong-questions-about-gmos-for.html" target="_blank">Asking the wrong questions about GMOs for disinformation and profit</a></i></div>
<div>
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2012/07/monoculture-v-complexity-agribusiness.html" target="_blank">Monoculture v complexity; agribusiness and deceit</a></i></div>
<div>
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2012/05/mutant-food-agribusiness-vs-everybody.html" target="_blank">Mutant food: agribusiness vs. everybody else</a></i></div>
</div>
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<div>
<br />
----<br />
<i>Thanks to Bibi Saint-Pol via <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Aion_mosaic_Glyptothek_Munich_W504.jpg" target="_blank">Wikimedia Commons</a> for the image from a Roman floor mosaic, circa 200-250 C.E.: Aion, the god of eternity, is standing inside a celestial sphere decorated with zodiac signs, in between a green tree and a bare tree (summer and winter, respectively). Sitting in front of him is the mother-earth goddess, Tellus (the Roman counterpart of Gaia) with her four children, who possibly represent the four seasons. Also, thanks to NASA via <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Earth_Western_Hemisphere_transparent_background.png" target="_blank">Wikimedia Commons</a> for the image of our planet, Earth.</i><br />
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Steve Masoverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03387484207819808962noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5165118504093345923.post-48986228546343789292016-03-17T08:16:00.001-07:002016-03-17T08:16:58.165-07:001999’s ‘Battle in Seattle’ set in lyrical prose, overconstructed allegory<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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What if a lyrically talented author gave readers a visceral view into how love and empathy drives activists to take great, disruptive risks?<br />
<br />
Both my thumbs are up.<br />
<br />
Okay. So now this: what if that author painted those activists into a vast and dramatic social landscape, but drew them in such broad and unapproachable strokes that only a very few readers could identify with their stories ... let alone find models, examples, or lessons applicable to readers' real worlds?<br />
<br />
Hmmmm...<br />
<br />
Sunil Yapa’s debut novel, <i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25604513-your-heart-is-a-muscle-the-size-of-a-fist" target="_blank">Your Heart is a Muscle the Size of a Fist</a></i>, is set on the afternoon of Nov 30, 1999, as confrontation peaked at the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_Seattle_WTO_protests" target="_blank">Seattle WTO protests</a>. It’s a gorgeous, stream-of-consciousness tapestry depicting "<i>the whole ugly beautiful thing</i>" of an intricately interwoven globe, countless strands embodied by tens of thousands of demonstrators converging on one world-shaking afternoon at the tail end of the twentieth century.<br />
<br />
The novel's protagonist is Victor, a detached, apolitical, biracial nineteen year old with a shadily-scored stash of weed for sale. Victor has wandered the globe witnessing a web of human hurt since ditching his Seattle home and his enraged adoptive father three years before. As Yapa's tale opens Victor has returned, and sets out to look for customers among the protesters filling Seattle's downtown. Alas, none are interested in pot or even sympathetic to pot dealers. His failure to drum up business leads Victor to King (an erstwhile <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Liberation_Front" target="_blank">Earth Liberation Front</a> arsonist who helped destroy a ski resort in Vail the year before) and John Henry (her lover, a cerebral activist with a Christlike commitment to nonviolence). Though a reader would be hard-pressed to explain why, Victor changes course dramatically, abandoning his retail ambitions and throwing down with the WTO protesters, setting the stage for confrontation with three of the book’s other principals: two beat cops and Seattle’s melancholic, befuddled, yet stubbornly authoritarian police chief.<br />
<br />
Yapa’s novel paints the suffering caused by globalized capitalism’s exploitation across a vast canvas of humanity, and brings vividly to life how witness of "<i>what pain their life caused in the world</i>" crystallizes into empathic activist resolve:<br />
<blockquote>
<i>No way to undo the world where they lived in a shack made of loose boards, a family of six in a shack the size of a car on blocks, and in her life anytime she wanted she could sleep in an apartment where she turned hot water on and off and stepped from the shower and toweled dry thinking about what to eat for breakfast.<br />
<br />
How easy to slip into that life where she had a closet for her clothes and a closet for food and how easy to believe this was somehow normal. That’s what got King. Because where was the logic in the thing?</i></blockquote>
The author lays out his scenes impressionistically; while he succeeds in gestalt, his prose frequently trips over itself, muddying the narrative. The novel’s plot is intricate and sometimes exhilarating, but it is subverted by improbably-coincidental overconstruction, and by voyeuristic immersion in out-of-control police violence. I found it hard to grit my teeth through Yapa's prolonged, cinematically sensual portrayal of police brutality that rivaled the ugliest scenes in <i><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066921/" target="_blank">A Clockwork Orange</a></i>.<br />
<br />
Dr. Charles Wickramsinghe, a seventy year old Sri Lankan Deputy Minister is the novel’s seventh principal. He has flown into Seattle to collect a signature from then-POTUS Bill Clinton that will enable his country to join the WTO. With a diplomat’s calm, and an intricately informed history entwined with neighbors and university colleagues who morphed into the Buddhist mobs that burned, raped, maimed, and murdered their Tamil neighbors as Sri Lanka’s civil war ignited in the 1980s, Charles gives a judicious perspective on the protesters:<br />
<blockquote>
<i>Charles Wickramsinghe was surprised to feel a widening respect. A respect with more than a pinch of regret. Because how wrong had he been? To think they knew nothing. To dismiss them. All these thoughtful young people striding toward the gates of capitalism -- they had taken Gandhi’s hunger strike and arrived at this.</i></blockquote>
And yet.<br />
<br />
In the end I couldn't identify with characters whose experience of and relationship with the world they inhabit is presented in fleeting, fragmented glimpses. I found Victor, King, John Henry, Bishop, Park, Ju, and Charles more credible as allegory than as individuals. It was hard to swallow that their collective history encompassed the Oklahoma City bombing, impoverished young women begging for change in India and Peru, the Rodney King riots, the ELF arson in Vail, farmworkers striking in Watsonville, Shanghai's behind-the-flash backstreets, Seattle's gay pride parade, the Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka, 'zine culture, the writings of Che Guevara and Mumia Abu-Jamal, storefront preaching, Fort Benning's School of the Americas ... pretty much the whole globalized ball of wax. Not that it <i>couldn't</i> be so. But the fictional-fact that these seven characters touched all that history makes for a fistful of narrative conveniences too many.<br />
<br />
Does Sunil Yapa see and render the true, zero-degrees-of-separation relationships between everything and everyone in this interconnected century? He does. A reader stands in awe of his synthetic vision. But even as I tumbled voraciously through his pages I was disappointed to find no credible character with whom to identify, and -- especially for readers unfamiliar with the intricacies of both political economy and mass protest -- little to establish a grounded footing in the world that the novel portrays.<br />
<br />
On the other hand: just because it can't stand alone as a key to understanding the roiling conflicts of our current century does not diminish the insight and value of <i>Your Heart is a Muscle the Size of a Fist</i>. I’m glad to have read it, and look forward to the author's future work.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<i>An earlier version of this post was published in the Spring 2016 issue of <a href="http://www.lagai.org/ultraviolet.htm" target="_blank">UltraViolet</a>, the newsletter of LAGAI - Queer Insurrection.</i><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Related posts on <i>One Finger Typing</i></b>:<br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2015/12/paris-pleistocene-and-finding-grit-to.html" target="_blank">Paris, the Pleistocene, and finding the grit to grapple with climate change</a></i><br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2015/10/activist-fiction-its-about-engagement.html" target="_blank">Activist fiction: it's about engagement, not about The Issue</a></i><br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2015/10/sticking-your-neck-out.html" target="_blank">Sticking your neck out</a></i><br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2013/05/robert-redford-weather-underground-and.html" target="_blank">Robert Redford, the Weather Underground, and why we read books</a></i><br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2012/03/everything-relates-to-everything-else.html" target="_blank">Everything relates to everything else</a></i><br />
<br />Steve Masoverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03387484207819808962noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5165118504093345923.post-69301534109071498112016-02-17T08:19:00.000-08:002016-04-21T21:00:22.474-07:00Grappling with climate change in U.S. cities: a pre-apocalyptic comic book, Warning from my Future SelfJean Tepperman and Alfred Twu's pre-apocalyptic comic book, <i>Warning from my Future Self</i>, casts ten year old Gabe Sanchez of East Oakland in a dream-visit to the future. From fifty years forward, Gabe and his grandfather look back on the life Gabe has yet to live. Gabe's dream is a wake-up call to a future whose outlines are clearly discernible here in 2016's real world, and it points readers at questions that matter most: What is to be done about the rough ride humans are in for, in light of climate change-induced threats exacerbated by brutal gulfs in wealth and power between communities and nations? Should we focus on mitigating the damaging effects of human activity on our common biosphere? Or should we prepare to deal with damage and change we can no longer avert?<br />
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We're all (too?) familiar with dystopian stories set in a near or distant future, in which our planet has weathered one catastrophe or several, and society has devolved to some form of survivalist, tribal, or feudal savagery. Stories like these can be compelling for a number of reasons. For some, they comfort by comparison: our lives aren't so bad as those in the novel, movie, or TV show. For others they may serve as a cathartic release, dampening fears by rendering them as imaginary, letting us duck real-world responsibility for genuinely terrifying circumstances.<br />
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Dystopian stories can also evoke a future we find so unwelcome that, confronted with that future's possibility, we're motivated to engage in the work of making sure something different happens. Perhaps that's the ideal case.<br />
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Tepperman and Twu aim even higher.<br />
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<i>Warning from my Future Self</i>, published late last month, depicts a crisis set in 2046 that's hard to feel good about: "<i>a superstorm that made that Hurricane Sandy in 2012 look like a little shower</i>." The superstorm wreaks its damage thirty years from the present time, and twenty years before Gabe's dream-future. It disrupts transportation and commerce for years. By 2046, California's farmers have already been plowed under by drought, heat-accelerated disease, and weather patterns that interfered with crop lifecycles. Banks were implicated in foreseeing the vulnerability of economically disadvantaged communities situated in coastal flatlands, withdrawing investment in favor of shoring up gated communities on higher, safer, whiter ground. Pollution has been exacerbated by hot weather, so more kids have had a harder time breathing. Every year there was less to buy in Bay Area markets.<br />
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None of these scenarios are hard to imagine thirty years out. All of them are extrapolations from what we're experiencing in the U.S. today, from <a href="http://www.sfchronicle.com/science/article/Study-Drought-could-worsen-fires-feed-insects-6799378.php" target="_blank">drought wrecking forests</a> to <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/12/21/the-siege-of-miami" target="_blank">rising seas overcoming coastal communities</a> to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_Hurricane_Sandy_in_New_York" target="_blank">superstorms</a> to <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/us-michigan-water-idUSKCN0VD2Q3" target="_blank">corrupt politics that sacrifice vulnerable communities</a> -- and it's far worse in the Global South, from <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/19/opinions/potarazu-chennai-flooding/" target="_blank">India</a> to <a href="http://www.smithsonianmag.com/ist/?next=/innovation/is-a-lack-of-water-to-blame-for-the-conflict-in-syria-72513729/" target="_blank">Syria</a> to <a href="http://www.smithsonianmag.com/ist/?next=/innovation/is-a-lack-of-water-to-blame-for-the-conflict-in-syria-72513729/" target="_blank">South Africa</a>. "<i>Even in your day pollution was worse here than in other neighborhoods</i>," Gabe at 60 tells his 10-year-old self. "<i>Back then half the kids around here had asthma. Now they mostly all do.</i>"<br />
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Yet in Gabe Sanchez's future, preparation has equipped communities with resilience to face the crises. By the time he visits his future, the Sanchez family has torn down their house, downsizing into a garage in order to farm more of the parcel of East Oakland they bought at a discount from retreating banks. Gabe uses his mechanical know-how to repair cars when his job as a trucker goes kaput, then when cars begin to disappear he becomes an all-purpose fix-it guy. Local barter replaces a national economy. Life is harder than it used to be, but Gabe-of-the-future is better-equipped to roll with the punches because his grandma taught him to garden when he was young and he picked up mechanical skills, while his future wife studied nursing and can offer care and comfort that a decaying world needs.<br />
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Then there's the kicker:<br />
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Gabe-at-10 will return from his dreamed future to 2016, equipped with a vivid understanding of how hard life will get if people in the here-and-now don't compel government to put a brake on reckless fossil fuel consumption and quickly ramp up transition to clean energy. And a bracingly clear view of how much harder it will be for himself and his family if people don't "<i>organize our community so we can take care of ourselves</i>."<br />
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<i>Warning from my Future Self</i> is a call to action: mitigate what we still can; prepare for what's inevitable. That's what makes it a pre-apocalyptic comic book.<br />
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In a <i>Huffington Post</i> piece of last October, <i><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steve-masover/preapocalyptic-fiction-st_b_8216226.html" target="_blank">Pre-Apocalyptic Fiction: Staving Off Catastrophe</a></i>, I characterized this underreported genre as:<br />
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<i>...stories that aren't so speculative as their darker, world-gone-kaput cousins. Pre-apocalyptic stories take place in the world that exists, not a world that might come to pass. We recognize the world of these stories as our own. Apocalypse -- an existential threat to all humankind, or to all life on Earth -- is not a foregone conclusion, though threat looms large. In a narrator's or protagonist's view, the end might be nigh.</i><br />
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<i>Most importantly, the pre-apocalyptic category is a form of moral fiction. The heroes in these tales are women and men who are doing what they can to turn the apocalyptic tide.</i></blockquote>
<i>Warning from my Future Self</i> presents a history that might come to pass, but does so in the service of painting our world-on-a-cusp in an honest but hopeful light. The resilience it describes is the best we can credibly aim for, and the story focuses its readers on the work we have before us to make that best-possible outcome real.<br />
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Check it out at <a href="http://www.sunflower-alliance.org/warning-from-my-future-self/" target="_blank">the Sunflower Alliance</a>, where where <i><a href="http://www.sunflower-alliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Warning-from-my-future-self-revised.pdf" target="_blank">Warning from my Future Self</a> </i>(PDF) has been made available under a <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/" target="_blank">Creative Commons CC-BY-NC 4.0</a> license. Printed copies are expected to be available this Spring: write to <a href="mailto:oaklandfutureself@gmail.com">oaklandfutureself@gmail.com</a> for information.<br />
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<b>Related posts on <i>One Finger Typing</i></b>:<br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2015/10/pre-apocalyptic-fiction-staving-off.html" target="_blank">Pre-apocalyptic fiction: staving off catastrophe</a></i><br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2015/12/paris-pleistocene-and-finding-grit-to.html" target="_blank">Paris, the Pleistocene, and finding the grit to grapple with climate change</a></i><br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2015/11/northern-california-mobilizes-for.html" target="_blank">Northern California mobilizes for climate action as Paris talks near</a></i><br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2015/04/pre-apocalyptic-fiction-jaguars.html" target="_blank">Pre-apocalyptic fiction: The Jaguar's Children by John Vaillant</a></i><br />
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<br />Steve Masoverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03387484207819808962noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5165118504093345923.post-7695031616811506192016-02-01T09:44:00.000-08:002016-02-01T09:44:07.140-08:00Berkeley has its art museum back again: BAMPFA opens<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The <a href="http://bampfa.org/" target="_blank">Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive</a> (BAMPFA) has opened in its new building, throwing a staged set of parties for donors, members, and the community at large. I visited for the first time on Saturday. Regular hours commence on Wednesday Feb 3rd -- regular hours are Wed-Sun 11am to 9 pm.<br />
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The expansive main gallery and the two film theaters promise a wealth of future visits that might even make up for the disappointment at losing the brutalist and endlessly compelling Mario Ciampi sprawl of BAMPFA's first home, of some 35 years.<br />
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Some bonus news: <a href="http://bampfa.org/visit/cafe" target="_blank">Babette</a>, the café that was itself a destination at the old museum, has made the trek downtown with BAMPFA. It opens for business on Wednesday. At right, a view from the café balcony down into the museum's main gallery space.<br />
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Here's an excerpt of what <i>SF Chronicle</i> architecture critic has to say last week about the building in <i><a href="http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/New-home-elevates-BAMPFA-status-6785403.php" target="_blank">New home elevates BAMPFA status</a></i>:<br />
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<i>The shell of metallic scales is supple and soft, if not as crisply tailored as when first conceived. In morning sun the creased folds glisten; after dark, the trees along Oxford Street cast delicate shadows on the long panels. Rather than the dour tone of the copper-clad De Young Museum in San Francisco (not that there’s anything wrong with that), the streamlined tub has a cordial air.</i><br />
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<i>As for the cantilever above Center Street, the red glow from the interior walls that was played up in renderings is barely discernible. Still, the outward gesture serves as a symbolic marquee above the lone public entry, while the corridor within the tail offers views into the galleries and gathering spaces below.</i><br />
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<i>What you see is an interlocked, easily navigated realm far different from the choreographed ascension that offered one path through the 1970 museum. The corridor has two large entrances into the main gallery, where printing presses once churned beneath a saw-toothed roof that allows light in from the north. But first there’s a casual space dubbed the forum that cascades down, long wood stairs doubling as benches designed with an eye to events but also as a path leading to subterranean galleries.</i><br />
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<i>At the end of the corridor, you face the belly of the beast — the rounded underside of the 232-seat main theater, the silvery metal skin continued inside as smooth gray stucco panels. The void between old and new serves as the theater atrium and is accented by a tall pointed glass wall facing the campus; there’s also glass that allows you to look down at the film archive’s library.</i><br />
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<i>These visual connections are voyeuristic in the best sense. They’re also a nod to the communal air of the original museum, the way that the interior let you be part of something larger, an ever-changing show.</i></blockquote>
Here are three stunning pieces from the museum's inaugural show, "<i><a href="http://www.bampfa.berkeley.edu/program/architecture-life" target="_blank">Architecture of Life</a></i>," curated by museum director Larry Rinder:<br />
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<i>Portrait of My Father</i>, Stephan Kaltenbach</div>
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<i>4 Brushstrokes over Figure, </i>Hyun-Sook Song</div>
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<i>Solitary, semi-social mapping of ESO-510 613 connected with intergalactic dusty by one </i>Nephila clavipes<i> -- one week -- and three </i>Cyrtophora citricola<i> -- three weeks</i>, Tomás Saraceno</div>
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The image of one of four collaborations between <span style="text-align: center;">Tomás Saraceno and some spiders doesn't come close to doing his haunting installation justice. Any one of the three pieces pictured is worth a visit to downtown Berkeley.</span><br />
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<a href="http://bampfa.org/visit" style="text-align: center;" target="_blank">BAMPFA</a><span style="text-align: center;"> is one short block from the Downtown Berkeley BART station. Don't just come for the museum: take a walk on the campus, have dinner, taken in a play or a musical performance, and don't forget to circumnavigate the building in the evening to admire the shadow play on BAMPFA's metallic skin.</span><br />
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<b>Related posts on <i>One Finger Typing</i></b>:<br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2014/12/the-berkeley-art-museum-is-dead-long.html" target="_blank">The Berkeley Art Museum is Dead - Long Live the Berkeley Art Museum!</a></i><br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2012/09/barry-mcgee-mid-career-survey-at-uc.html" target="_blank">Barry McGee mid-career survey at UC Berkeley art museum</a></i><br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2015/12/looking-east-at-sf-asian-art-museum.html" target="_blank">Looking East at the SF Asian Art Museum: cultural appropriation or radical empathy?</a></i><br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2010/08/meet-fishers.html" target="_blank">Meet the Fishers</a></i>Steve Masoverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03387484207819808962noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5165118504093345923.post-8022979395276595922016-01-19T10:38:00.006-08:002016-01-19T11:33:17.037-08:00San Francisco Bay Area bridge blockades in fact and fiction<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Yesterday afternoon, on the day the United States honors the life and legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, and in the name of #ReclaimMLK and #BlackLivesMatter, the Black queer liberation collective <i>Black.Seed</i> blockaded the San Francisco Bay Bridge. <a href="https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1124611184229278.1073741900.609089972448071&type=3" target="_blank">Brooke Anderson's album of photographs on Facebook</a> tells the story eloquently.<br />
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As always in this socially-mediated century, the action's supporters and its naysayers are duking it out online. In my view that's not nearly as interesting as <a href="http://www.antipoliceterrorproject.org/new-blog/2016/1/18/black-queer-liberation-collective-blackseed-shuts-down-bay-bridge" target="_blank">what the Black.Seed Collective has to say in its own words</a>. An excerpt:<br />
<blockquote>
<i>For the second year in a row, the Anti Police-Terror Project (APTP) put out a call for 96 Hours of Direct Action to reclaim Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s radical legacy and take a stand against anti-Black racism and terrorism. In a courageous display of solidarity and the spirit of MLK, Black.Seed, a Black, queer liberation collective, has shut down the Bay Bridge as a show of resistance to a system that continues to oppress Black, Queer, Brown, Indigenous and other marginalized people throughout the Bay Area.</i><br />
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<i>Today, January 18th, Black.Seed has shut down the west-bound span of Bay Bridge. Cars are blocking lanes and individuals are chained across lanes to demand investment in the wellbeing of Black people. [...]</i><br />
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<i>Over the last few years, we have seen San Francisco and Oakland destroyed by police murders, rising housing costs, rapid gentrification, and apathetic city officials. Last year, we saw dozens of police murders throughout the Bay Area; since June of 2015 in Oakland alone there have been eight Black men murdered by police.</i><br />
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<i>Today Black.Seed celebrates and honors the radical legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Historically, our people have had to take drastic and dramatic measures to highlight the systemic abuses that harm our communities. 51 years ago, those who came before us participated in direct action in Selma, Alabama, to speak out against the harms of racism and oppression. It is this very spirit of resistance that flows through our lives and actions, in the Black Out Friday, Black Brunches, and highway shutdowns of today.</i></blockquote>
Powerful.<br />
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The first bridge blockade I participated in myself was the <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/1989-01-31/news/mn-1493_1_golden-gate" target="_blank">Golden Gate Bridge blockade of 31 Jan 1989</a>, organized by <i>Stop AIDS Now Or Else</i> and documented in a shamelessly unapologetic YouTube video created by my longtime friend and comrade Arl Nadel:<br />
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We got the same flavor of pushback that <i>Black.Seed</i> is now parrying (eloquently, IMHO) by motorists "inconvenienced" by stopped traffic. Our friends and comrades were dying of AIDS in 1989, a disease whose existence then-barely-former president <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/openforum/article/Reagan-s-AIDS-Legacy-Silence-equals-death-2751030.php" target="_blank">Ronald Reagan did not even acknowledge publicly until <i>tens of thousands</i> had already died of the disease</a>. For us then, as for <i>Black.Seed</i> who must endure and mourn "<i>police murders, rising housing costs, rapid gentrification, and apathetic city officials</i>," disrupted commutes didn't move the scales much. Does that raises your hackles? I'd like to suggest you watch the video linked above before jumping to conclusions.<br />
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There have been many other bridge protests. For example: <a href="http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1991-01-16/news/1991016035_1_anti-war-demonstrators-rally-against-war-des-moines" target="_blank">the Bay Bridge was blocked in 1991</a>, at the start of the first Gulf war; and the <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Anti-war-rally-ties-up-bridge-Cops-stop-traffic-2818029.php#photo-2215068" target="_blank">Golden Gate Bridge was shut down in 2002</a> at the start of the second. <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Protest-creates-gridlock-on-SF-streets-2627975.php" target="_blank">In 2003, on the one year anniversary of GWB's Iraq war, there were multiple attempts to shut down the Bay Bridge</a> on a day when the whole of San Francisco was gridlocked by protest, but activists were thwarted that time.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbPR9PRm1IUqdXiiPJoWHMgzJ4baJbid_vJsgje_HPsTyYpxYyazbReiZgG2ToPgOT3UwGLY2m3zwxHyR5C728HaBQWUllmVVVXCxKtbtzM9og2mjq6qA7mYdVlpu-anBJ4kawd6SydAOO/s1600/Consequence_1200px.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="167" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbPR9PRm1IUqdXiiPJoWHMgzJ4baJbid_vJsgje_HPsTyYpxYyazbReiZgG2ToPgOT3UwGLY2m3zwxHyR5C728HaBQWUllmVVVXCxKtbtzM9og2mjq6qA7mYdVlpu-anBJ4kawd6SydAOO/s320/Consequence_1200px.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
The bridge blockade in which I immersed myself most deeply is the one that forms a centerpiece of my novel <i><a href="http://www.stevemasover.net/consequence/" target="_blank">Consequence</a></i>. I lived with the planning, choreography, messaging, and dramatic events of that blockade, set in April 2004, for a fair few years (the novel was published this past September). The issue that sparked that fictional blockade -- well, here, I'll quote Doug Peacock, real-life model for Edward Abbey’s George Washington Hayduke in <i>The Monkey Wrench Gang</i>, because he hits the bullseye --<br />
<blockquote>
<i>The villain of <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25895036-consequence" target="_blank">Consequence</a> happens to be genetic engineering but it could have been any current social or environmental issue. The premise, absolutely believable today, is that life on the planet is threatened and that battle waged by this novel’s characters will make a difference. And why not?</i></blockquote>
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And why not, indeed?<br />
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Kudos and more power to the <i>Black.Seed</i> collective and the #BlackLivesMatter movement.<br />
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<b><br /></b>
<b>Related posts on <i>One Finger Typing</i></b>:<br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2012/03/acting-up-fighting-back-aids-activism.html" target="_blank">Acting up, fighting back: AIDS activism in the '80s and '90s</a></i><br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2015/10/sticking-your-neck-out.html" target="_blank">Sticking your neck out</a></i><br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2015/10/activist-fiction-its-about-engagement.html" target="_blank">Activist fiction: it's about engagement, not about The Issue</a></i><br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2013/05/robert-redford-weather-underground-and.html" target="_blank">Robert Redford, the Weather Underground, and why we read books</a></i><br />
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<i>Thanks to <a href="http://www.movementphotographer.com/" target="_blank">Brooke Anderson</a> for permission to include a photograph from <a href="https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1124611184229278.1073741900.609089972448071&type=3" target="_blank">her album of photographs from yesterday's Black.Seed collective protest</a> in this post; and to Arl Nadel, again, for her excellent compilation of footage and images from the 1989 Stop AIDS Now or Else shutdown of the Golden Gate Bridge.</i><br />
<br />Steve Masoverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03387484207819808962noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5165118504093345923.post-28955048089301050232016-01-11T10:49:00.000-08:002016-01-11T10:49:33.559-08:00Seasons blur as El Niño starts in on CaliforniaI live in Berkeley, California, and over the years have posted a lot of photos taken of my neighbors' front yards. Most often I've photographed the yards on Fulton Street, a residential street running north/south between my neighborhood and the southwest corner of the UC Berkeley campus (it's on my "walk to work" and "walk downtown" path).<br />
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Over the last week we've had some drier days and some wetter days as the rains associated with El Niño have begun. The new year, the pewter-gray skies, and the softened light has reawakened my attention to the plant life of local front yards, and to the odd blurring of seasons that January rains after four years of drought have brought on. So I thought I'd share some of what caught my eye this past week or so...<br />
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Here's Fulton Street, looking north. Doesn't seem so remarkable in a wide-angle view, does it?<br />
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Much of the neighborhood does look like winter, or the Bay Area's snow-free version of the season at any rate.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlXckON0RTc83nNYqRjEC2CLw8ERqISWiBB1v4iHP67Qmn3iv_ckozSc3PqzlnErcTla4x9ktWIxRTF6CNVHWV1fRImRik1D2zE2KLb4kc_p5DxsKmZQ0S55bViiZxRw4NiDZr8nzlNR32/s1600/Lichen.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlXckON0RTc83nNYqRjEC2CLw8ERqISWiBB1v4iHP67Qmn3iv_ckozSc3PqzlnErcTla4x9ktWIxRTF6CNVHWV1fRImRik1D2zE2KLb4kc_p5DxsKmZQ0S55bViiZxRw4NiDZr8nzlNR32/s320/Lichen.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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But there are more seasonally ambiguous tableaux as well.<br />
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Blackberries and pears hanging on from summer and fall, respectively:<br />
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And then there are the jarring glimpses of early spring ...<br />
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... none more jarring than the early-blooming magnolia trees.<br />
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Thanks as always to Berkeley's many dedicated front-yard gardeners!<br />
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<b>Related posts on <i>One Finger Typing</i></b>:<br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2015/03/21-reasons-its-not-nearly-so-bad-as-it.html" target="_blank">21 reasons it's not nearly so bad as it could be</a></i><br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2012/06/april-showers-brought-may-flowers.html" target="_blank">April showers brought May flowers</a></i><br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2011/04/flowery-front-yards-in-berkeley.html" target="_blank">Flowery front yards in Berkeley</a></i><br />
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<br />Steve Masoverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03387484207819808962noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5165118504093345923.post-39956807063156920982016-01-06T10:53:00.001-08:002016-01-06T10:53:28.771-08:00Author interview on Eco-fiction site<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I was pleased to be asked (in response to a pitch I made in early October) for an interview with Mary Woodbury, founder and creator of <a href="http://eco-fiction.com/">Eco-Fiction.com</a>, a site that tracks and explores fiction with environmental themes -- with an emphasis on cli-fi (fiction to do with climate change). Mary also founded a Google+ community, <a href="https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/115741961764552168724" target="_blank">Ecology in Literature and the Arts</a>, which is "<i>devoted to the discussion of nature writing, fiction, and arts</i>," and is a rich source of links to articles, interviews, books,and films. The Google+ community is how I first found Eco-fiction.<br />
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Yesterday, my interview with Mary went live on the Eco-fiction site: <i><a href="http://eco-fiction.com/interview-with-steve-masover-author-of-consequence/" target="_blank">Interview with Steve Masover, Author of Consequence</a></i>. I can't say I have a favorite question in the interview -- they're all good ... but here's a question that I was especially glad to answer:<br />
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<i><b>Mary</b>: Your short fiction, prior to Consequence, has been published in various literary magazines and you have helped to write a screenplay. These works appear to contain messages that call for social or environmental justice. Has a reader ever responded with a changed viewpoint, and how do you think fiction is a good conduit for relaying such concerns?</i><br />
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<i><b>Steve</b>: One of the most rewarding responses I’ve had to Consequence so far was from a student with whom I’ve been working on climate change issues at UC Berkeley. He told me that relationships between the activists portrayed in my novel helped him understand the importance of building friendship and support among people engaged in activist work: it’s not just about the issue, it’s also about the community. In the spring semester he wants to translate his insights into a more conscious, sustainable, and effective approach to environmental justice work on our campus. Another deeply appreciated response came from the wife of a fellow writer, who had the idea before reading Consequence that San Francisco activists could be written off as idealistic hippie burn-outs. I was moved–not to mention relieved–to learn that through my novel her attitude changed, having gained a more nuanced understanding of people who engage in progressive activism.</i><br />
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<i>Non-fiction is key to laying out information and argument, which is certainly fundamental to pursuit of social and environmental justice, and to changing people’s views. But information is powerless against an impermeable mind and a closed heart. Honest fiction grounded in the real world is a way to convey information and perspective past barriers people erect against ideas they have dismissed, or ideas they are afraid to consider or feel. Empathy is the bridge past those barriers, and empathy is fiction’s strongest suit.</i></blockquote>
<a href="http://eco-fiction.com/interview-with-steve-masover-author-of-consequence/" target="_blank">Visit the Eco-fiction site if you'd like to check out the full interview</a>. And maybe look around a bit: there's plenty more to catch a reader's eye.<br />
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<b>Related posts on <i>One Finger Typing</i></b>:<br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2015/12/paris-pleistocene-and-finding-grit-to.html" target="_blank">Paris, the Pleistocene, and finding the grit to grapple with climate change</a></i><br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2015/10/pre-apocalyptic-fiction-staving-off.html" target="_blank">Pre-apocalyptic fiction: staving off catastrophe</a></i><br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2015/10/activist-fiction-its-about-engagement.html" target="_blank">Activist fiction: it's about engagement, not about The Issue</a></i><br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2015/10/sticking-your-neck-out.html" target="_blank">Sticking your neck out</a></i>Steve Masoverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03387484207819808962noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5165118504093345923.post-33894233244842312722015-12-26T08:29:00.001-08:002015-12-26T08:29:22.823-08:00Looking East at the SF Asian Art Museum: cultural appropriation or radical empathy?If you're in the San Francisco Bay Area and looking for a great museum visit over the holidays, you won't do better than to visit the Asian Art Museum's current main-floor exhibition: <i><a href="http://www.asianart.org/exhibitions_index/looking-east" target="_blank">Looking East: How Japan Inspired Monet, Van Gogh, and Other Western Artists</a></i>. I visited the weekend before Christmas and found the art beautiful, the influences between East and West thought-provoking, and the curator's notes enlightening without being overbearing.<br />
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Entering the exhibit, the first piece a visitor encounters is a simple and iconic emblem of Japanese painting and culture: a vase blooming with cherry blossoms.<br />
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Looking closer, the piece is even finer that it seems at first glance: the blossoms are not all of one type, in fact they are a veritable botanical catalog, with the names of the different flowers inscribed in fine calligraphy, like delicate, semantically rich insects resting on exemplary petals:<br />
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Perhaps the clearest correspondence laid out by the curators between Japanese influence and European painting was a series of woodblock prints by Utagawa Hiroshige and corresponding copies painted by Vincent Van Gogh. Here's one such pair, the Japanese original on the left:<br />
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Depicting stylistic influence was the real treasure of the show (as opposed to 'mere evidence' of engagement implicit in copied or reworked images). A recurring trope was European works that echoed Japanese wood block styles, such as this woodblock depiction of an eagle by Isoda Koryusai and Otto Eckmann's woodcut of three herons:<br />
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Influence traveled eastward and westward in the work of Yoshida Hiroshi. According to the curator's note on a print depicting El Capitan in California's Yosemite National Park: "<i>Yoshida's composition is somewhat Western in feel, in its suggestion of a straightforward recession in to space through the valley leading to the enormous rock face; but the use of pure colors and the lack of modeling lend the print an equally Japanese sensibility.</i>"<br />
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My favorite piece in the show was a painting by Camille Pissaro, <i>Morning sunlight on the snow</i>, in which (according to the curator's note) "<i>artistic devices and Pissaro's overall sensitivity to seasonal effects may have been informed by his decades-long exposure to Japanese prints.</i>" My less-educated opinion: gorgeous. My crude photograph doesn't begin to do Pissaro justice.<br />
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You can't think long on this show wihtout acknowledging that the influence Japanese art exerted on late-nineteenth century European artists (<i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japonism" target="_blank">Japonisme</a></i>) could be critiqued as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_appropriation" target="_blank">cultural appropriation</a>. Perhaps it's only because I've lived for a long time with the idea that European impressionists developed their aesthetics in light of exposure to Japanese culture and cultural artifacts, but I found it difficult to discern, in the <i>Looking East</i> show, malevolence or disrespect on the part of the European artists represented in the exhibition. To me it looked as though the Europeans were excited and moved by modes of representation that were then new to them.<br />
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I was primed to be thinking of the show I'd just seen at the Asian Art Museum when I attended a literary event two days later -- <a href="http://starhawk.org/" target="_blank">Starhawk</a>'s launch party for her new novel, <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/City-Refuge-Fifth-Sacred-Thing-ebook/dp/B019JK4HE6" target="_blank">City of Refuge</a></i>. In response to a question about how she works out issues of cultural appropriation in the richly imagined, multicultural future of <i>The Fifth Sacred Thing</i> and <i>City of Refuge</i> (its sequel, available starting next week), Starhawk gave an answer I liked a great deal -- though I can only paraphrase it roughly here:<br />
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In populating the California she imagines in her speculatively fictional future, Starhawk was unequivocal in her wish to immerse herself and her readers in a world broader than the categories in which she herself fits (white, Jewish, Wiccan, middle-aged, female). She wanted to write a world with people of color in it, and men, and people of diverse ages and sexualities. That is the world she inhabits today here in the Bay Area, and to narrow it would have rendered her fictional world dull (a goal to which very, very few writers cling). Moreover, Starhawk explained the care she takes when she writes about people who live in categories she doesn't: she shows her work to readers whose actual lives are refracted through her diverse characters, in order to receive early, honest, and corrective feedback should she slip into inappropriately narrow, flat, confining, or stereotypical depiction of those characters.<br />
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The author who asked Starhawk about cultural appropriation the other night was <a href="http://kateraphael.com/" target="_blank">Kate Raphael</a> (whose <i><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25952659-murder-under-the-bridge" target="_blank">Murder Under the Bridge</a></i> was released last month). I corresponded with Kate in early November when she was preparing to post on the topic of writing characters unlike one's self (her resultant piece: <i><a href="https://killzoneblog.com/2015/11/writing-down-cultural-appropriation-and-the-fiction-writers-dilemma.html" target="_blank">Writing Down: Cultural Appropriation and the Fiction Writer's Dilemma</a></i>). What I had to say last month in our correspondence on the topic (a bit of which Kate quoted in her post on the Killzone Blog) was that writing about <i>anyone</i> other than one’s self is <i>an act of radical empathy</i>. I would say that presuming to have a sufficient grasp of <i>anyone else’s</i> inner life to portray it in fiction is wondrously empathetic. How else to explain an author's portrayal of a mind outside her or his own? Yes, people do categorize experience in buckets labeled “sex” and “race” and “nationality” and “religion.” And, yes, those categorizations do hold water to a degree. Nonetheless. The entire edifice of writing, communication, and even relationships is built on a presumption that empathy happens, and can bridge the gulf between one lived experience and another.<br />
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Ideas, metaphor, behavior, language -- and constellations of ideas, metaphor, behavior, and language that we call "culture" -- has never been static. Humans have always evolved in the cradle (sometimes in the crucible) of relationships between individuals and groups. This does not deny the truth that regard of another culture can be shallow (even to the point of kitsch), or that shallow regard of culture can be a demeaning element of an asymmetrical, power-based relationship -- such as a colonial relationship. But to proceed irrevocably from that possibility to the assumption that all intercultural regard and exchange is transactional and oppressive is, at bottom, an argument for solipsism.<br />
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To my way of thinking and seeing, the European painters on display in the exhibition I visited last week, deeply influenced by their Japanese peers in the late 19th century, were not appropriating culture so much as engaging in acts of empathy. Work that emerged from that cross-pollination remains vibrant and exciting well over a century later.<br />
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<i>Looking East</i> is on exhibit at <a href="http://www.asianart.org/" target="_blank">San Francisco's Asian Art Museum</a> until 7 February 2016.<br />
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<b>Related posts on <i>One Finger Typing</i></b>:<br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2014/12/the-berkeley-art-museum-is-dead-long.html" target="_blank">The Berkeley Art Museum is Dead - Long Live the Berkeley Art Museum!</a></i><br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2013/10/teju-coles-open-city-protagonist-as.html" target="_blank">Teju Cole's Open City: protagonist as open book or guarded guide?</a></i><br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2013/07/tinkering-on-bookstore-serendipity-and.html" target="_blank">Tinkering: on bookstore serendipity and novels that show what it is to be alive</a></i><br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2013/04/the-mauritshuis-visits-san-francisco.html" target="_blank">The Mauritshuis visits San Francisco</a></i><br />
<i><a href="http://stevemasover.blogspot.com/2012/12/eureka-boy-led-horse-to-san-franciscos.html" target="_blank">Eureka! Boy led horse to San Francisco's de Young Museum!</a></i><br />
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<br />Steve Masoverhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03387484207819808962noreply@blogger.com0