Free Speech

 

I just learned that there are women out there who will troll my wife because of things I write here.  

Hurray for (their) free speech.

You going to eat that?

 

A number of years ago I was listening to a program on the radio broadcast by our local NPR station from James Madison University.  The program consisted of a live interview of an academic conducting research into inter-species gene transfer from humans to swine.  Specifically, they were trying to perfect the transfer of a healthy human gene, for the production of insulin, into pigs for the purpose of inexpensive high volume insulin production and a significant reduction of cost. 

Years ago, I had worked for the USDA plant Research Facility in Beltsville, MD.  While there I worked on a great number of experiments into various treatments for fungal plant diseases of crop plants.  Most of the time the plants, treatments, and fungal infections were conducted in petri dishes and on seeds, but sometimes the experiments resulted in fully mature field grown crops that yielded harvestable quantities of “home grown veggies”.  When the tests were over, we often took the resultant food home and ate it. I got a lot of free string beans that way, and no one there turned their noses up at free the food.

This experience prompted me to call into the NPR program and ask: “How many human genes can you put into a pig before you don’t want to eat it?”   The radio went ominously silent for a long time, radio “dead air” of several long seconds.  Somewhat flustered, the folks on the program assured me that nobody would ever be eating the experimental pigs.  I, of course knew better.  Human nature being what it is, if the process they were proposing were ever to become commonplace; there would be some pigs eaten by humans.  What this means, I’m sure I don’t know.

Just recently, I listened to another NPR program where researchers were successfully translating “pig language”, the grunts and groans and squeals, into messages in human language.  The hope was that pig farmers would be able to better understand and respond to the pigs wants, complaints, and needs.  Presumably, the farmers might also be able to communicate back to the pigs with their wants, complaints, and needs.  The obvious question then becomes:

“How many people want to eat pigs that you can talk to?”

It’s convenience that wastes our efforts to achieve a sustainable planet.

 

I’ve written about the problems with solid waste in our society and I’ve recently seen discussions about our “waste” problems.  I said “solid waste” because we are also wasting our time and efforts if we don’t recognize something:  All the strategies to confront the problem are piecemeal reactions to the symptom (the waste) and not the overall cause:  Convenience itself.

We’ve all heard about indigenous people who can live in harmony with natural processes, but population density is the enemy of sustainability.  Because of it, it just isn’t convenient to deal with our waste stream in a sustainable manner.  

You can’t have composing in the city or even in the suburbs (if your neighbors are finicky).  Other products come in convenient packaging with multiple types of plastic, most of which gets contaminated with food waste.  Convenient “pop top” tin cans leave lots of food waste inside unless one inconveniently spends a lot of time getting the food out of them.  Meat products come with cosmetic diapers and multiple layers of plastic that a day after use, stink, forcing you to get rid of them fast.  They can’t be recycled and serve almost no purpose other than removing our consciousness from the fact that we’re dealing with the inside of a formerly living animal.  It all has to go to the landfill, and it has to go there quickly.

In rural areas we can grow our own food and compost all organic matter.  If the packaging of the things we still have to buy from the grocery were to be better, (do we really need six kinds of plastic containers?  I’ve seen individually wrapped apples!) our landfill needs would minimal, and the landfills would have a better quality of waste.

Online shopping is convenient.  The multiple boxing of the products is waste.  The two-and-a-half-ton truck that delivers a package of eyedrops or a pair of shoes wastes a lot of fuel for a few ounces, sometimes, most of the ounces are packaging. 

Marvin Harris in Cannibals and Kings, The origin of cultures, wrote that the invention of agriculture lead to most individuals actually needing more hours of work per day just to feed themselves.  The fact that it may have also led to civilization as we know it because it allowed for specialization is great; but it failed to lead to a component of our communities that specializes in waste reduction and disposal. 

It just wasn’t convenient.

Why is it so dark? when does the sun come back?

 Wait!   Dec. 5 is the earliest sunset; the shortest day and longest night is on December 21 (sometimes dec. 20 or 22) and the latest sunrise isn’t until Jan. 6?  How can that be?

My friend, Bill has suggested the twin holidays of “Quitzel” for December 5 and “Startzel” for January 6.  I call the time between these dates “the Pit”, it is our time with the most depressing days of darkness.  But the apparently random dates and disconnect from our clock time?  Have you ever seen the asymmetrical figure eight on a globe?  That’s the analemma.  You can make one by marking the tip of the shadow from a short pole at 12:00 noon every few days for a year (here’s a link to Wikipedia:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analemma).  So, the length of daylight changes throughout the year, and 12 noon isn’t even in the middle of that day!

Our orbit isn’t a perfect circle, and the sun isn’t in the middle of it.  The reason for the asymmetry in daylength around 12:00 noon and the date of the solstice is the asymmetry of earth’s orbit and the acceleration of our planet as it approaches its nearest to the sun at perihelion on Dec. 20, 21, 22 (date dependent on where we are among non-leap years and leap year).  Remember, our 12:00 noon is a construct defined by our steadily running clocks, and a year is 365.24 days long.  The length of daylight from the sun isn’t steady.  Our orbit adds (or subtracts? I think) one whole day/night cycle during our year.  How much lighttime each day is changed depending on where we are in our orbit.

The velocity of Earth is at its maximum at the point of perihelion, therefore the approximately (average) 12 hours of light in a day due to Earth's rotation gets changed by the greater fraction of that extra day and Earth's progress in its orbit during that 24-hour period of clock time (more gets done on the orbit per "clockday".  Of course, this is complicated by the fact that the actual "sun day" is also changed because the angle toward the sun is changing rapidly as 12:00 noon rolls around...  “Straight up at the sun at noon is changing, we’re moving perpendicular to that direction.  It is further complicated because it is the point in time in which Earth's acceleration (angular momentum) is greatest which brings relativistic time dilation into its maximum.  Even time itself isn't symmetrical throughout the year! 

The 23.5-degree tilt of Earth’s axis makes all the numbers different dependent on how far you are from the equator… but that’s another problem. 

 Do do do do do, up ahead! there's a signpost... you're in the Twilight Time Zone.

HELOISE!

 

Heloise!  I commiserate.  You, and I , and Miss Manners keep getting the same questions no matter how many times we give the correct answers:  Do you tell if… “I’ve got spinach in my teeth?”  A little harder: “Do I have bad breath?”  And the ultimate, “Do these pants make me look fat?”

 

Anyway, there a few questions that sometimes need to be asked and answered over and over again, and today as I split a couple of cords of firewood, I thought of  us.  Well, everybody thinks that a powerful log splitter makes everything super easy, well, they might not be experienced… or they aren’t pushing 80 (like you and I are).   Anyway, as I worked through a pile of 24, 26, 28, and 30 inch diameter 18 inch long oak rounds, I thought of you.

 

Even if you don’t often respond to my notes to you, I know that you and I are kindred spirits.  WE know that “easy splitting” isn’t always the norm, even with a powerful splitter (and we know and insist that it be a vertical set-up).  So, as I encountered a few of those rounds that have a fork, or a large branch, or a hidden knot, I thought: “Let’s remind folks of the right way to attack this situation.”

 

AND, since we’re trying to deal with 100 pound logs (as we sit on a log and don’t bend and abuse our backs) we do so as safely and efficiently as possible.  Sometimes you should flip that sucker upside down, even if that’s hard to do.

 

SO, “split from the bottom up” is the almost perfect rule.  I mean, if the fork looks like it was when it was on the tree, flip that round upside down and split from the root end.  This works almost 100% of the time, way better than the other way around.  Splitting from the top down can result in a situation where the damn thing just won’t split… the hydraulics are straining, or worse; an explosive “success” and a split that throws stuff at you.  I always hate it when that happens.

 

By the way, don’t you just love the smell of freshly split oak “of a certain age” as you expose its inner being?  I’d tell you what some old carpenters told me what that smell reminded them of… but this is a family column

Washington Post Saturday "Errata" The readers corrections

 

The Washington Post's Saturday "Free for All" is my favorite part of the paper.  I enjoy reading the comments of the Post readers as they cogently point out and correct the errors made by the Post writers and editors.  The criticisms (if ever acknowledged) will make the paper better.

In the past, I have made a few suggestions to them.  Unfortunately, when they call my home to confirm my submission; they never identify themselves.  I screen my calls for scammers and we rarely make contact.  

I suggest:  1). Hire a Headline editor.  Many headlines are “shortcuts of language to nowhere”, and are often profoundly misinforming.  2). Please add a few more dates to the abscissas of the graphs (the Covid graph has only three dates in almost two years).  I also question if the "running seven day average" is accurate. They might also consider tracking the number of orphans created by Covid deaths.  3). Add maiden names to the women in the obits.  Looking for old girl friends is impossible. 

I've been complaining for a long time about the decline of journalism in general.  I like to use the hash tag #BatBoyJournalism on Twitter.  I am referring to the old

Globe and Enquirer photos of "Hillary Clinton's ' love child ' ".  

So far I haven't been able to get that to trend.

Open letter to Every single Commonwealth of Virginia Senator

 

As a former DEQ employee, I believe that I have a valid perspective on environmental issues in Virginia.  I must urge that Andrew Wheeler not be confirmed as Natural Resources Secretary of Virginia.  I cannot imagine a worse choice for this position.  I wonder whether you are aware of his record at the federal EPA:

 

• Replaced the Clean Power Plan, President Obama’s signature plan to reduce fossil fuel emissions, with a weaker rule that underestimated public health impacts and would likely  increase air pollution;
• Gutted core protections of the Clean Water Act by redefining which waterways were protected under federal law, eliminating protection for 18% of streams and 51% of freshwater wetlands nationwide.
• Rolled back the Mercury and Air Toxics standards, despite scientists’ warnings that mercury harms children’s health and bi-partisan support in Congress;
• Eliminated the EPA’s Office of the Science Advisor position, which gave scientific counsel on health and environmental standards to the EPA;
• Weakened requirements and extended cleanup deadlines for coal ash ponds in favor of industry, despite the human health risk of cancer, neurological disease, and cardiovascular disease linked to leaking coal ponds contaminating communities’ drinking water;
• Ruled the amount of dangerous contaminants, PFAS (poly- and perfluoroalkyl substances), allowed in our water to be at a level 7–10x higher than the level deemed safe by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry;
• Froze fuel efficiency standards for cars;
• Delayed a formaldehyde report, which concluded that the chemical causes leukemia, nose cancer, and throat cancer, in favor of industry interest;
• Weakened methane rules meant to curb waste and prevent hundreds of thousands of tons of greenhouse gas from leaking into the atmosphere;
• Disbanded the 20- person Particle Matter Review Panel, a group tasked with determining what levels of air pollutants are safe to breathe;
• Silenced climate science on the agency website, which scrubbed all references of human-caused climate change.
• Sought to slash the Chesapeake Bay Program’s budget by 90%, gutting federal support for the Bay Cleanup effort.

You may wish to poll the level of interest in our environment held by the majority of Virginia voters before you confirm Mr. Wheeler as requested by Governor Youngkin.

Link to VA Senators:  https://apps.senate.virginia.gov/Senator/districtdesclist.php