Yesterday, The Colorado Public Radio newsletter shared a link to a National Public Radio article about a crystal flute which had been custom made for James Madison – and Lizzo (“[t]he superstar singer, rapper and classically trained flutist and, incidentally, a person who I gather has very few, if any, f***s to give) playing it on a visit to the Library of Congress (and, under heavy security, at a concert.) I had no idea that such a thing existed. It doesn’t sound exactly like (Franklin’s) glass harmonica – but it does sound more like that than any of the normal flutes do which are substituted for it these days. To quote Lizzo – “History is freaking cool, you guys!” Also yesterday, the news broke (it actually happened Wednesday) that Marjorie Taylor Greene’s husband has filed for divorce. Does anyone remember which of them owns the company that supports them? I’m afraid I don’t.
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The 19th – As the EPA introduces environmental justice office, the ‘mother of the movement’ remembers the Black women who led the battle
Quote – When Dollie Burwell, now 74, reflects back on the Warren County protests, she thinks about the Black women who led and supported the protesters…. “That’s what I’ve been reflecting on,” Burwell said. “Those Black women who fed us, who got up early in the morning and came out at the Coley Spring Baptist Church and cooked food to bring to the marches.” It’s what kept Burwell, a mother of two, and other residents marching. Burwell was arrested five times during that period for her activism. Even her 8-year-old daughter was arrested once while participating in the marches. While the community lost the fight against the landfill … the battle helped birth a nationwide movement. Awareness spread around the country that toxic landfills were being placed in predominantly Black and poor communities. Click through for story. By now I’m sure y’all know that I am a name ggek. Well, back when George Washington died, he freed his slaves, but Martha held some in her own right, some of whom were given ot bequestherd to her daughter. That daughter married a man named “Carter Burwell” (same name, but not the same person obviously, as the award-winning composer of music for movies.) Decades later, when all the slaves were freed during and after the Civil War, many, maybe most, slaves, who had never had surnames, took the surnames of their former masters (which seems a bit too “Handmaid’s Tale” to me, but it certainly would have been easy and have some advantages.) I am not prepared to say that Dollie Burwell (or her husband, if it’s his name) is descended from people who worked at Mount Vernon, but it’s certainly a possibility.
HuffPo – How Progressives Can Win The Long-Term Fights They’re Losing
Quote – As Belkin tells the story, a chronic problem for Democrats and their allies has been their focus on winning debates through better rhetoric. They assume public opinion is relatively static, and think the key to victory in any given argument is picking the right words or trying to shift the focus of conversation, so that the debate can take place on more favorable political grounds…. “As long as we emphasize frame over facts,” Belkin said in a recent interview with HuffPost, “we’re going to be playing small ball.” Click through for full article. This was a bit hard for me, because the GOP has been all frame and no facts for at least 40 years and they have been killing us. But when he brought up “storytelling” – which to me is a frame – I paid more attention. Most people learn everything they know from one kind of story or another. What is QAnon but a collection of stories? But it doesn’t have to be used only for evil. It’s a technique which can be powerfully used for good.
Yesterday, the radio opera was “The Pearl Fishers” by Georges Bizet (who is far better known for “Carmen.”) It is a typical triangle story with an exotic setting (maybe Sri Lanke, or maybe not.) It’s an early work and in some ways uneven, but what makes it stand out is the tenor-baritone duet “Au fond du temple saint,” which as an expression of male friendship in opera is perhaps only rivalled by the one in Verdi’s “Don Carlo” – musically, that is. I saw this streamed from the Met and the host during intermission asked the tenor and the baritone whether performing this famous duet in cotext has informed their interpretations. The tenor replied that he had not known until learning the whole opera that in this duet his every word was a lie (in the “Don Carlo” duet both the tenor and the baritone are in deadly earnest.) I think that’s a bit harsh, but certainly the tenor is not being strictly truthful throughout. It’s still gorgeous. This is the first of four programs which were recorded in China, and it’s sung in French, and the four principals appear to be European, by their names, as is the conductor. Besides the production photos, some photos of the National Center for the Performing Arts in Beijing were included in the supplemental materials. It is extremely different from, for instance, the Sydney Opera House, but it appears both architects had the same desire to make people say “Wow!” – inside and out.
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Wonkette – Patagonia Founder Hands Entire Company To The Lorax, For The Trees
Quote – Rather than selling the company or taking it public, Mr. Chouinard, his wife and two adult children have transferred their ownership of Patagonia, valued at about $3 billion, to a specially designed trust and a nonprofit organization. They were created to preserve the company’s independence and ensure that all of its profits — some $100 million a year — are used to combat climate change and protect undeveloped land around the globe…. The company will continue to run as a profit-making bidness under the new arrangement, without direct ownership by the Chouinard family; the family will oversee the “Patagonia Purpose Trust” to make sure the company’s values and commitments are maintained, what with all the social and environmental responsibilities and sustainable manufacturing. Patagonia will also continue its existing practice of donating one percent of its sales to grassroots environmental activists. Click through for story and free NYT link. Good news is always welcome, and this is jawdropping. This is orders of magnitude bigger than a charitable foundation. The closest think I can think of in history to it is Siddhartha Gautama – but he didn’t set up a trust, he simply walked away from the wealth.
HuffPost – GOP Governors Are Escalating Their Use Of Migrants As Political Pawns
Quote – “States like Massachusetts, New York and California will better facilitate the care of these individuals who they have invited into our country by incentivizing illegal immigration through their designation as ‘sanctuary states’ and support for the Biden administration’s open border policies,” the communications director for DeSantis said on Thursday. “We’re sending migrants to her backyard to call on the Biden Administration to do its job & secure the border,” Abbott tweeted. Click through for details. This is so outrageous you have almost certainly read about it by now. But because it’s so outrageous, I didn’t feel I coulf ignore it either.
Yesterday, I observed that the forecast had mover the two seriously cold days this week from today and tomorrow to tomorrow and Friday. If they keep pushing them out, it could make my drive Sunday to see Virgil much more pleasant – assuming he’s still where he is now. I do think he is likely to be. At this point in the week I hoe so, because in the past when they have moved him it has been a few days at least before visiting is allowed at the new location.
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Minnnesota Reformer – Conservative blocs unleash litigation to curb public health powers
Quote – Through a wave of pandemic-related litigation, a trio of small but mighty conservative legal blocs has rolled back public health authority at the local, state and federal levels, recasting America’s future battles against infectious diseases. Galvanized by what they’ve characterized as an overreach of COVID-19-related health orders issued amid the pandemic, lawyers from the three overlapping spheres — conservative and libertarian think tanks, Republican state attorneys general, and religious liberty groups — are aggressively taking on public health mandates and the government agencies charged with protecting community health. Click through for details. The EPA can’t regulate. Now the CDC (and similar agencies at state and local levels) can’t regulate. Can anyone doubt any longer that they are trying to kill us all?
NPR – Decades of ‘good fires’ save Yosemite’s iconic grove of ancient sequoia trees
Quote – But it took more than the hard work of wildland firefighters, luck or a shift in the wind to protect the majestic trees in the Mariposa Grove, many of them 2,000 years old with several including the Grizzly Giant well over 3,000 years. Instead, foresters and ecologists say a half-century of intentional burning or ”prescribed fire” practices in and around the area dramatically reduced forest ”fuel” there, allowing the blaze to pass through the grove with the trees unscathed. Click through for backstory. Nothing, in the end, will prevent forest fires entirely. And vacuum cleaners won’t help. But something else will. I shudder to think what a Republican administration might do to the Forest Service and the Park Service.
Food For Thought – This is from the British version of Vogue. I needed a little uplift and figured others might also.
Experts in autocracies have pointed out that it is, unfortunately, easy to slip into normalizing the tyrant, hence it is important to hang on to outrage. These incidents which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with them will, I hope, help with that. As a reminder, though no one really knows how many there were supposed to be, the three names we have are Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone. These roughly translate as “unceasing,” “grudging,” and “vengeful destruction.”
I can’t imagine there is anyone here who is not concerned about radiation, not only in Ukraine, but about what could happen to the rest of the world. This article is not going to answer every question or address every fear. But, as far as it goes, it is based on sound science, not on propoganda. It can be trusted. And it can be confidently shard.
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Military action in radioactive Chernobyl could be dangerous for people and the environment
The site of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in northern Ukraine has been surrounded for more than three decades by a 1,000-square-mile (2,600-square-kilometer) exclusion zone that keeps people out. On April 26, 1986, Chernobyl’s reactor number four melted down as a result of human error, releasing vast quantities of radioactive particles and gases into the surrounding landscape – 400 times more radioactivity to the environment than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Put in place to contain the radioactive contaminants, the exclusion zone also protects the region from human disturbance.
Apart from a handful of industrial areas, most of the exclusion zone is completely isolated from human activity and appears almost normal. In some areas, where radiation levels have dropped over time, plants and animals have returned in significant numbers.
A fox near the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. T. A. Mousseau, 2019, CC BY-ND
Some scientists have suggested the zone has become an Eden for wildlife, while others are skeptical of that possibility. Looks can be deceiving, at least in areas of high radioactivity, where bird, mammal and insect population sizes and diversity are significantly lower than in the “clean” parts of the exclusion zone.
As of the beginning of March 2022, Russian forces controlled the Chernobyl facility.
Why invade via Chernobyl?
In hindsight, the strategic benefits of basing military operations in the Chernobyl exclusion zone seem obvious. It is a large, unpopulated area connected by a paved highway straight to the Ukrainian capital, with few obstacles or human developments along the way. The Chernobyl zone abuts Belarus and is thus immune from attack from Ukrainian forces from the north. The reactor site’s industrial area is, in effect, a large parking lot suitable for staging an invading army’s thousands of vehicles.
The power plant site also houses the main electrical grid switching network for the entire region. It’s possible to turn the lights off in Kyiv from here, even though the power plant itself has not generated any electricity since 2000, when the last of Chernobyl’s four reactors was shut down. Such control over the power supply likely has strategic importance, although Kyiv’s electrical needs could probably also be supplied via other nodes on the Ukrainian national power grid.
The reactor site likely offers considerable protection from aerial attack, given the improbability that Ukrainian or other forces would risk combat on a site containing more than 5.3 million pounds (2.4 million kilograms) of radioactive spent nuclear fuel. This is the highly radioactive material produced by a nuclear reactor during normal operations. A direct hit on the power plant’s spent fuel pools or dry cask storage facilities could release substantially more radioactive material into the environment than the original meltdown and explosions in 1986 and thus cause an environmental disaster of global proportions.
View of the power plant site from a distance, with the containment shield structure in place over the destroyed reactor. T.A. Mousseau, CC BY-ND
Environmental risks on the ground in Chernobyl
The Chernobyl exclusion zone is among the most radioactively contaminated regions on the planet. Thousands of acres surrounding the reactor site have ambient radiation dose rates exceeding typical background levels by thousands of times. In parts of the so-called Red Forest near the power plant it’s possible to receive a dangerous radiation dose in just a few days of exposure.
Radiation monitoring stations across the Chernobyl zone recorded the first obvious environmental impact of the invasion. Sensors put in place by the Ukrainian Chernobyl EcoCenter in case of accidents or forest fires showed dramatic jumps in radiation levels along major roads and next to the reactor facilities starting after 9 p.m on Feb. 24, 2022. That’s when Russian invaders reached the area from neighboring Belarus.
Because the rise in radiation levels was most obvious in the immediate vicinity of the reactor buildings, there was concern that the containment structures had been damaged, although Russian authorities have denied this possibility. The sensor network abruptly stopped reporting early on Feb. 25 and did not restart until March 1, 2022, so the full magnitude of disturbance to the region from the troop movements is unclear.
If, in fact, it was dust stirred up by vehicles and not damage to any containment facilities that caused the rise in radiation readings, and assuming the increase lasted for just a few hours, it’s not likely to be of long-term concern, as the dust will settle again once troops move through.
Forest fires, like this one in 2020 in the Chernobyl exclusion zone, can release radioactive particles that had been trapped in the burning materials. Volodymyr Shuvayev/AFP via Getty Images
Possible impacts further afield
Perhaps the greater environmental threat to the region stems from the potential release to the atmosphere of radionuclides stored in soil and plants should a forest fire ignite.
Currently the zone is home to massive amounts of dead trees and debris that could act as fuel for a fire. Even in the absence of combat, military activity – like thousands of troops transiting, eating, smoking and building campfires to stay warm – increases the risk of forest fires.
A bird from Chernobyl with a tumor on its head. T. A. Mousseau, 2009, CC BY-ND
There is no “safe” level when it comes to ionizing radiation. The hazards to life are in direct proportion to the level of exposure. Should the ongoing conflict escalate and damage the radiation confinement facilities at Chernobyl, or at any of the 15 nuclear reactors at four other sites across Ukraine, the magnitude of harm to the environment would be catastrophic.
============================================================== Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone, you, being goddesses, are, I trust, immune to the effects of radiation suffered by hmans, animals, and plants. Anything you can think of that will kelp preserve the rest of us will be appreciated. (I doubt that Democritus can help. He is probably still in shock, awe, and disbelief.)
Experts in autocracies have pointed out that it is, unfortunately, easy to slip into normalizing the tyrant, hence it is important to hang on to outrage. These incidents which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with them will, I hope, help with that. As a reminder, though no one really knows how many there were supposed to be, the three names we have are Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone. These roughly translate as “unceasing,” “grudging,” and “vengeful destruction.”
I’ve already said(or implied) that I am too emotionally invested in the Russia-Ukraine confit to wrote about it, and that is still true. This is not so much about the conflict itself as the science behind certain actual and/or possible developments from that conflict. I think this is important, and I’m sure I’ll get agreement on that.
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Military action in radioactive Chernobyl could be dangerous for people and the environment
The site of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in northern Ukraine has been surrounded for more than three decades by a 1,000-square-mile (2,600-square-kilometer) exclusion zone that keeps people out. On April 26, 1986, Chernobyl’s reactor number four melted down as a result of human error, releasing vast quantities of radioactive particles and gases into the surrounding landscape – 400 times more radioactivity to the environment than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Put in place to contain the radioactive contaminants, the exclusion zone also protects the region from human disturbance.
Apart from a handful of industrial areas, most of the exclusion zone is completely isolated from human activity and appears almost normal. In some areas, where radiation levels have dropped over time, plants and animals have returned in significant numbers.
A fox near the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. T. A. Mousseau, 2019, CC BY-ND
Some scientists have suggested the zone has become an Eden for wildlife, while others are skeptical of that possibility. Looks can be deceiving, at least in areas of high radioactivity, where bird, mammal and insect population sizes and diversity are significantly lower than in the “clean” parts of the exclusion zone.
As of the beginning of March 2022, Russian forces controlled the Chernobyl facility.
Why invade via Chernobyl?
In hindsight, the strategic benefits of basing military operations in the Chernobyl exclusion zone seem obvious. It is a large, unpopulated area connected by a paved highway straight to the Ukrainian capital, with few obstacles or human developments along the way. The Chernobyl zone abuts Belarus and is thus immune from attack from Ukrainian forces from the north. The reactor site’s industrial area is, in effect, a large parking lot suitable for staging an invading army’s thousands of vehicles.
The power plant site also houses the main electrical grid switching network for the entire region. It’s possible to turn the lights off in Kyiv from here, even though the power plant itself has not generated any electricity since 2000, when the last of Chernobyl’s four reactors was shut down. Such control over the power supply likely has strategic importance, although Kyiv’s electrical needs could probably also be supplied via other nodes on the Ukrainian national power grid.
The reactor site likely offers considerable protection from aerial attack, given the improbability that Ukrainian or other forces would risk combat on a site containing more than 5.3 million pounds (2.4 million kilograms) of radioactive spent nuclear fuel. This is the highly radioactive material produced by a nuclear reactor during normal operations. A direct hit on the power plant’s spent fuel pools or dry cask storage facilities could release substantially more radioactive material into the environment than the original meltdown and explosions in 1986 and thus cause an environmental disaster of global proportions.
View of the power plant site from a distance, with the containment shield structure in place over the destroyed reactor. T.A. Mousseau, CC BY-ND
Environmental risks on the ground in Chernobyl
The Chernobyl exclusion zone is among the most radioactively contaminated regions on the planet. Thousands of acres surrounding the reactor site have ambient radiation dose rates exceeding typical background levels by thousands of times. In parts of the so-called Red Forest near the power plant it’s possible to receive a dangerous radiation dose in just a few days of exposure.
Radiation monitoring stations across the Chernobyl zone recorded the first obvious environmental impact of the invasion. Sensors put in place by the Ukrainian Chernobyl EcoCenter in case of accidents or forest fires showed dramatic jumps in radiation levels along major roads and next to the reactor facilities starting after 9 p.m on Feb. 24, 2022. That’s when Russian invaders reached the area from neighboring Belarus.
Because the rise in radiation levels was most obvious in the immediate vicinity of the reactor buildings, there was concern that the containment structures had been damaged, although Russian authorities have denied this possibility. The sensor network abruptly stopped reporting early on Feb. 25 and did not restart until March 1, 2022, so the full magnitude of disturbance to the region from the troop movements is unclear.
If, in fact, it was dust stirred up by vehicles and not damage to any containment facilities that caused the rise in radiation readings, and assuming the increase lasted for just a few hours, it’s not likely to be of long-term concern, as the dust will settle again once troops move through.
Forest fires, like this one in 2020 in the Chernobyl exclusion zone, can release radioactive particles that had been trapped in the burning materials. Volodymyr Shuvayev/AFP via Getty Images
Possible impacts further afield
Perhaps the greater environmental threat to the region stems from the potential release to the atmosphere of radionuclides stored in soil and plants should a forest fire ignite.
Currently the zone is home to massive amounts of dead trees and debris that could act as fuel for a fire. Even in the absence of combat, military activity – like thousands of troops transiting, eating, smoking and building campfires to stay warm – increases the risk of forest fires.
A bird from Chernobyl with a tumor on its head. T. A. Mousseau, 2009, CC BY-ND
There is no “safe” level when it comes to ionizing radiation. The hazards to life are in direct proportion to the level of exposure. Should the ongoing conflict escalate and damage the radiation confinement facilities at Chernobyl, or at any of the 15 nuclear reactors at four other sites across Ukraine, the magnitude of harm to the environment would be catastrophic.
============================================================== Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone, some of this could probably have been anticipated by educated people who stay up to date. Other aspects were surprising (who knew that, from Chernobyl, after all this time, it might still be possible to “turn off the lights in Kyiv”?) And there is still so much we don’t know.
Yesterday, I didn’t manage to do much of anything. Somehow I filled that day, though.
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Mother Jones – We Uncovered How Many Georgians Were Disenfranchised by GOP Voting Restrictions. It’s Staggering.
Quote – During municipal elections in November, Georgia voters were 45 times more likely to have their mail ballot applications rejected—and ultimately not vote as a result—than in 2020. If that same rejection rate were extrapolated to the 2020 race, more than 38,000 votes would not have been cast in a presidential contest decided by just over 11,000 votes. Click through for story.I realize this is not news to Freya ot Spy … or maybe anyone anywhere who has been paying attention.
Huff Post – Pittsburgh Bridge Collapses Hours Before Biden Is Set To Talk Infrastructure There
Quote – No one was killed, authorities said, but several people were injured and three were transported to the hospital with injuries that didn’t appear life-threatening. The cause of the collapse was not immediately clear…. “What I didn’t realize, there are literally more bridges in Pittsburgh than any other city in the world,” Biden said, adding, “More than Venice. We’re going to fix them all,” he said. Clickthrough for details. Wonkette also covered this story in its inimitable snary way, and I alsmost used it, but then I thought if a troll came by they might think the headline was serious, so I stuck with HuffPost.
Department of “You can’t make this stuff up” QAnon Virginia Candidate Brawls At Texas Butterfly Center And This Headline Is Wildly Insufficient
Quote – Nonetheless, we’ll admit to being a bit surprised when we saw that the National Butterfly Center, a private nature preserve along the Rio Grande, announced it would be closing this weekend due to “credible threats” against the center and its staff. You see, what with it being on the river that forms the US-Mexico border, the Butterfly Center has been previously targeted by the crazies who wanted to build a private WALL, because darned if the nature preserve wanted the butterfly habitat disturbed. That prompted Brian Kolfage, the now-indicted head of We Build The Wall, to accuse the Butterfly Center and a nearby historic church of “promoting trafficking of children,” and specifically accusing the preserve of running a “rampant sex trade.” Click through. Only in [Trump**’s] America
Glenn Kirschner – NY Subpoenas, GA Special Grand Jury Subpoenas, Congressional Subpoenas: All Subpoenas Are Not Equal
The Guardian – Tonga: new footage shows aftermath of volcano eruption and tsunami
Meidas Touch – A Coup in Plain Sight
The Lincoln Project – What Are They For?
The Ring of Fire – January 6th Committee Targets Social Media Companies With Subpoenas
MSNBC’s Tiffany Cross explains Mitch McConnell –
In this week’s essay, @TiffanyDCross discusses Mitch McConnell’s message to voters of color who were concerned that they wouldn’t be able to vote during this year’s midterm elections #CrossConnectionpic.twitter.com/HKV9Sjtuhy
— The Cross Connection with Tiffany Cross (@CrossConnection) January 22, 2022
Beau – Let’s talk about executive orders, doubt, and machinery….
