2. CNPS Santa Clara Valley 37th Annual Wildflower Show April 26
3. Alternatives to avoid planting problem pests
4. UC Botanical Garden Spring Plant Sale April 25
5. San Francisco International Film Festival programs on the environment
6. Contributions from readers: seed balls, lawn substitutes, water: charge for it?
7. More water
8. How to ensure the environment is properly accounted for?
9. The Public Lands Service Corps Act, H.R. 1612
10. Feedback: Charge for SF Botanical Garden?/chemical companies v the Obama garden
11. Donate towards Charlie Wms 545-mile AIDS LifeCycle
12. Brisbane City Council needs information on managing wetlands
13. Obama derangement syndrome: How do we tackle long-range problems?
14. The Lonely American: Drifting Apart in the Twenty-first Century
15. How big is a trillion? How many days since AD 1?
16. The most efficient life form on earth
17. Every human problem, every human need, will be solved by the market
18. April 23 is the birthday of the great satirist, Art Hoppe. Oh how we need him in these dark times
1.
Sunday Streets 2009
April 26, 2009, *9 a.m.-1 p.m.
Route: AT & T Park (4th and King Streets) to Aquatic Park (Jefferson and Hyde) along The Embarcadero
Web site: www.SundayStreetsSF.com
Sunday Streets is an initiative dedicated to bringing safe, fun, car-free places for people to get out and get active in San Francisco neighborhoods on Sunday mornings.
*Fisherman's Wharf Community Benefit District Health, Fitness & Safety Fair at Aquatic Park, presented in conjunction with Sunday Streets from 10- 4 p.m. Sunday Streets Concert at PIER 39 from 12-3 p.m.
Sunday, May 10: 10 a.m.-2 p.m.
Route: Waterfront Route in the Southeast Sector, highlighting the San Francisco Bay Trail, which is celebrating its 20th Anniversary in May. From AT&T Park to the Bayview Opera House, along the Bay.
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2.
37th Annual Wildflower Show
Saturday & Sunday, April 25 & 26 - 10am to 4pm.
Mission College, Hospitality Management Building, 3000 Mission College Boulevard, Santa Clara.
This two-day expo showcases the plant biodiversity of Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties. The region's premier botanical/horticultural event displays over 400 species of wildflowers and native plants, each accurately labeled, many suitable for the home garden. Free classes on native plant identification and gardening with native plants. On sale: native plants, books, posters, seeds, and note cards. Children's activities table. Parking free in Lot C only. Sponsored by California Native Plant Society, Santa Clara Valley Chapter, and the Mission College Biological Sciences Department. For more information, visit www.cnps-scv.org,email cnps_scv@yahoo.com, or call 650-941-1068.
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3. Alternatives to avoid planting problem pests, by Joe Eaton and Ron Sullivan
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2009/04/12/HO6B166O1P.DTL
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4.
UC Botanical Garden Spring Plant Sale
Saturday 25 April - 9 am - 2 pm
http://botanicalgarden.berkeley.edu
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5.
San Francisco International Film Festival
April 23 to May 7, 2009
The San Francisco International Film Festival brings the best of world cinema to the Bay Area and will present several films on the environment, including A Sea Change, featuring stunning underwater footage in its discovery of the consequences of global warming on undersea life.
For tickets and information, visit sffs.org
A Sea Change
USA 2009
Dir. Barbara Ettinger
Grandfather Sven Huseby embarks on a quest to learn about the dire consequences of global warming on undersea life. Using stunning underwater footage and stark interviews, this documentary sounds the alarm about ocean acidification but conveys hope for the future.
The film screens on April 25 at 3:45PM, on April 27 at 6:15PM, and on April 30 at 1:30PM
at the Sundance Kabuki Cinemas.
For more information on Sea Change visit http://fest09.sffs.org/films/film_details.php?id=79
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6. Contributions from readers
Robert Hall:
If you have time, check out this article on seed bombing empty lots. All Things Considered, April 15:
Environmentalists Adopt New Weapon: Seed Ball
Thanks, Robert. I heard the broadcast, and it made me a tad nervous. Not that there was anything wrong with what is described in this story. But it is a simplistic approach, and the world is very complicated. If the activity is confined to an urban situation where natural ecosystems are absent, there is no harm. But most cities--including Chicago and San Francisco (the third densest city in the U.S.)--have fragments of the original landscape with denizens of that original landscape, and these areas are without price. Scattering seed there may have unknown or unintended consequences, and may upset an existing natural balance. Conservationists should be conservative.
It may make people feel good, even "in control of their lives". It gives the media a story, but I wonder if there are lasting effects, and if those effects are positive or negative.
Amy Dawson:
FYI, I was out birdwatching from the Emeryville spit towards the approach to the Bay Bridge, and ended up talking to some of the firemen at the firehouse about the shorebirds and the molten metal from the Judson Steel factory. One firefighter happened to mention that last weekend the leopard sharks were in the area - he said over five thousand come in to mate right in that area between the firehouse and the bridge! Do you know anything about this?
On Apr 14, 2009, at 12:55 AM, Adah Bakalinsky wrote:
Jake, do you know of any company or institute that is doing research on a ‘grass’substitute that needs neither water nor fertilizer; looks green and inviting to sit upon. Adah B/
Oh, Adah, you're confusing this life with the afterlife. Wait until you die and go to heaven; there are none of these problems there. Google Elysian Fields.
In the 1950s, when I started my occupation as a gardener, Sunset magazine was promoting the No Mow Lawn: dichondra. That fad didn't last long, although it was big business while it lasted. Landscape companies made lots of money tearing up lawns, installing dichondra, selling fertilizer and fungicides to apply to it. So they were happy. The customers were less so: The dichondra stained clothing, and shortly developed fungus problems from all that unaccustomed fertilizer and water. Then the landscapers made lots more money ripping up the dichondra and reinstalling lawns. It's the American Way; that's how we got rich.
I hope you don't mind my having a little fun at your expense. Truth is, the gods couldn't care less about us humans and our wants. We want control, but the gods have made it clear that we're not going to get it. First off, this is California, a mediterranean-type climate with long, dry summers--and it's hot away from the coast. So maintaining a green lawn takes lots of doing, as you're fighting nature--a formidable foe, as any gardener can tell you.
Some people have made compromises that they are able to live with by planting some drought-tolerant native bunchgrasses, such as red fescue. These lawns are primarily dependent on rainfall, although they are usually given a small assist by light watering into late spring, and resuming watering in the autumn. They can tolerate a modicum of traffic, but not heavy use. If they are not going to walk or sit on them, people also introduce a few native wildflowers, including bulbs, such as blue dicks, Ithuriel's spear, and mariposa lily. I am talking only conceptually here, and this is not a recipe to be followed, as there are devils in the details.
As for gods and other worlds I have a story. I like to listen to conversations while I walk. A few weeks ago, I heard someone walking behind me on Pine St. so I slowed down feeling she (her heels were clicking,) wanted to talk. Well, she did. And complained about too much rain, too much wind, too cold.
Then she stopped talking for a few seconds. Suddenly, she pronounced, “ Well, you can’t blame god for what Mother Nature does.!”
And she turned the corner at Polk. In one brilliant stroke she got god off the hook. So now, I always write and speak Mother Nature in capitals. adah b
A final word: the SF Dept of Environment sponsors a panel The Lawn Goodbye at the main library on June 24. Fred Bove and I will discuss this subject. I'll send a notice as we get nearer the event.
Sue Hubbard:
Jake: In your 4/16 newsletter in Awash with Waste you quote the Economist as saying water would be used more efficiently if it was charged for. I am not at all sure this is true – paying a monthly water bill does not mean water is used wisely. It also leads to situations like on the Monterey Peninsula where homeowners almost never get water rights to build an extra bathroom but there always seems to be water rights available for hotels and other large developments. In addition the statement does not say who will do the charging. It says politicians can not do this so it would seem to suggest corporations should be the ones. Corporations are eager to profit by charging to supply us with water. However, attempts to privatize city water supplies have often not been successful with higher prices and less service. When Bechtel took over the city water supply in Cochabamba, Bolivia price increases led to riots which only ended when the city kicked Bechtel out. I am not opposed to paying for water but I do think decisions about local water should be made locally and not in some far off corporate headquarters. I also think, we as a society have to ensure that water is available to everyone – even those who cannot pay.
Thanks for the newsletter – I really enjoy the variety of topics you cover.
I am in total agreement with you (I think). I am very aware of the Cochabama fiasco. I was appalled when they first privatized it and delighted when the people took matters into their own hands. The Economist acknowledged serious problems in this kind of arrangement. I don't know just where they stand on privatizing. But I thought the article pointed up questions and problems that need to be considered--and will have to be considered as population burgeons and water problems multiply. In the Central Valley cheap water has allowed the growing of water-guzzling crops like cotton, rice, alfalfa. The acreage devoted to some of these crops has decreased about one-third now that the price of water has tripled because of water scarcity. Market-priced water is introducing a little sanity.
In San Francisco, where not that long ago the more water you consumed the lower the rate for additional units. We changed that so that the rate escalates when consumption increases, an acknowledgment that everyone needs a certain basic amount. The Economist is biased toward free enterprise v. govt. However, to my knowledge it has not advocated privatizing water, merely devising a system that recognizes its scarcity and its worth. Correct me if I'm wrong.
“When the well’s dry, we’ll know the value of water." Benjamin Franklin
This is a complex subject which we are not paying sufficient attention to, just as we ignore the problem of population--and the two are intimately related. Take a glance at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5269296.stm
“Twenty percent more water than is now available will be needed to feed the additional three billion people who will be alive by 2025.” World Commission on Water for the 21st Century
“Because of population growth, California will be chronically short of water by 2010.” (Association of California Water Agencies)
A river is water in its loveliest form; rivers have life and sound and movement and infinity of variation, rivers are veins of the earth through which the life blood flows to the heart. RODERICK HAIG-BROWN
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7. Water: from Jeffrey Caldwell
Over the weekend I watched Flow: For the Love of Water (2008) - http://www.flowthefilm.com/, a documentary I rented from Netflix.
I saw all the DVD "extras" as well ... and considered every one worthwhile. (It was tough for them to distill over 300 hours of footage into an 84 minute film!)
Flow: For the Love of Water is an overview of water developments and possiblities, ominious and hopeful, especially the provision of water and the control of water, worldwide ... how these developments and possibilities are all linked, what is happening there (wherever) also has relevance here (wherever) ...None of it I'd have wanted to miss, though to pick and choose among the extras I'm especially glad to have seen:
Deleted Scenes: River Linkage in India;
Expanded Interviews: Jean Luc Touly, former accountant, Vivendi/Veolia Corp., and Oscar Olivera, Bolivian Activist, Leader of the 2000 Cochabamba "Water Wars";
Call to Resistance: Sunita Narain: Fighting the Drink Companies;
Additional Clips: "City Water Supply, 1941", an old educational short explaining New York City's early water infrastructure development.
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8. Environmental values
How to ensure the environment is properly accounted for
ANY attempt to put an economic value on fresh air, clean water or tropical rainforests can offend the delicate sensibilities of those who argue that the conservation of nature is a moral duty. Yet although the best things in life appear to be free, that does not mean they are without financial value. It simply means that nobody asks you to pay when, for example, you watch a beautiful sunset over the hills.
Putting a financial value on the environment, however, may be the most important thing that people can do to help nature conservation. When governments allocate money, they do so according to where it will bring benefit. If a government is unaware of the value of a landscape to its tourism, or of a swamp to its fishing industry—and thus its foreign-exchange income—then it will invest too little in managing these resources. Worse, if the true value of a forest or swamp is hidden, governments may destroy it by subsidising the conversion of the land to agriculture. The costs are unknown for now, but may appear eventually as the price of building a filtration plant to remove the sediment from the water that the forest once took care of, or the price of importing food when fish vanish.
Shutterstock
Some estimates of the annual contribution of coastal and marine ecosystems to the global economy exceed $20 trillion, over a third of the total gross national product (GNP) of all the countries of the world. Even so, says Katherine Sierra of the World Bank, such ecosystems are typically much undervalued when governments made decisions about development.
Glenn-Marie Lange, also of the World Bank, attended a meeting in Washington DC organised by her employer to launch its report “Environment Matters” on April 6th. She told participants that one of the reasons why ecosystems become degraded is that their value to local people is often small. As a result, these people do not have much reason to manage their resources carefully. She estimates, for example, that only 36% of the income generated by the coastal and marine environments in Zanzibar goes to locals. Most of this comes from fishing; only a tiny fraction of the money from tourism ends up local hands.
More broadly, Dr Lange wants the value of the environment to be integrated into national and local accounting. She argues that governments should identify the contributions that marine ecosystems make to their countries’ GNPs and foreign-exchange earnings. She also wants them to examine whether or not they are running down their countries’ “natural capital”.
Emily Cooper of the World Resources Institute, an environmental think-tank, put some figures on the value of tourism, recreation, fisheries and shoreline protection in Belize. It was an impressive $395m to $559m. The entire economy was worth about $1.3 billion in 2007. These figures, she thinks, have allowed environmentalists to protect Belize’s threatened mangrove forests better.
For too long, an absence of proper green accounting has allowed people to privatise the gains from the environment but socialise the costs, to paraphrase Carl Safina, an American scientist and environmentalist at the meeting. As Dr Safina puts it, “conservation is not a trade-off between the economy and the environment. It is a trade off between the short and long term.”
The Economist, 13 April 2009
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9. The Public Lands Service Corps Act (H.R. 1612) will expand service opportunities for national parks and other public lands through important expansions to the existing Public Lands Corps. Take action: http://act.npca.org/campaign/servicecorpscosponsor?rk=e73cnV1qX7bBE
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10. Feedback
Kathy Schrenk:
That letter to Michelle Obama is hilarious! The scary thing is, people like my right-wing relatives in the midwest support the chemical companies. Last time I talked to my mother-in-law about such things she started spouting some tripe about Monsanto "feeding the world"!?!? They really do think organic foods hurt farmers. Oops, all the small farmers got replaced by Monsanto-fed farms!
This is going in my blog...
Christine Colasurdo:
Hello Jake, I am very interested in the proposal of charging a fee to enter Strybing Arboretum. I used to explore and enjoy the garden several times a month when I lived in San Francisco. I appreciated it very much that is was free. But if I had had to join as a member and enter as a member, I would have done that too, gladly. I think users should indeed help support something they use and enjoy. I don't think that's commercialization necessarily. Strybing is not a true "commons" because it's not a city park; it's a private nonprofit organization inside of GG Park.
Up here in Portland we have Hoyt Arboretum (part of Portland Parks) and the Japanese Garden, which is a lot like Strybing (a well-maintained private garden inside of a larger publicly-owned city park). Hoyt Arboretum is free; the Japanese Garden charges admission but is free to members. I think Strybing would be wise to follow the Japanese Garden model. The organization thrives on membership dues and yet is not too expensive for occasional visitors/tourists. So if you're a member, it's free, and you can visit all you want.
The Japanese Garden does not have a cafe. Nor does it allow visitors to even eat a bag lunch in the garden. But it does have member events with food. I don't think Strybing needs a cafe. There are several cafes within a stone's throw of its entrance.
Allan Ridley:
After reading the exchange between you and Dennis Antenore, I checked with Michael McKechnie about any Cafe plans for the SFBG.
As you may know, the SFBG has been involved in quite a back & forth with the Sierra Club about the new greenhouse proposal. They currently plan to oppose the SFBG plan at every step possible despite the need, logic of placement, ultra-green technology (living roof, reclaimed water sys., short flat road to existing gate on South Drive, etc.) I simply can not fathom their reasoning on this issue....BUT they use every little argument they can think up and exaggerate, to raise public suspicion and concern about what is happening in the Garden.
My point is that this cafe issue is another such diversion. The real discussion - as you suggest in your comments - needs to focus on the SFBG as a "museum of plants" a world class collection of plants - some of which especially from the collections of Dennis Breedlove in the Mexican Cloud forest, may actually no longer exist in the wild. This is a special place not just another pleasant, easily accessible greensword in GGP (albeit free of DOGs, bikes, skateboards and balls) A benefit of admission fees would be increased security, tighter entry control (the presence bikes and dogs both seem to be increasing in my recent experience) and funds to get the Garden fully staffed with knowledgeable gardners, the new plant prop. facility etc. The SFBG are a special place.
Enough of my rant, here'ds what Michael McKechnie had to say in response to my question about the "cafe".:
There are no current plans for a cafe and no money to develop it. There is a future planned small cafe and visitor center tucked into the east end of the Gallery in the County Fair Building in the Master Plan. This would serve any visitor and would definitely be in the main gate area that includes the library, bookstore and County Fair Building. The visitor center and cafe would not add additional built footprint to the Garden but would use existing built space reconfigured for these purposes.
Thanks very much for the clarification, Allan. I can't keep up with all the detail and the research needed for some of my posted stories, so I depend on readers to provide facts and perspective. I suspected that any future cafe would have to be in the current County Fair Bldg, as I couldn't see any possibility of an added structure in the park, which would encounter overwhelming opposition.
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11. From Charlie Williams:
Thanks so much to everyone who has sent me messages of support and/or made donations towards my participation in the AIDS LifeCycle this year. I understand that we are in a recession so I really appreciate your contributions - every little bit counts. Thanks to your support I have been able to get to one-third of the way to my goal - I am at $1700.00 so far!
AIDS LifeCycle is a 545 mile bike ride over 7 days from San Francisco to Los Angeles to raise funds that make a world of difference for people living with HIV and AIDS (http://www.aidslifecycle.org/). This year it will take place between May 31 and June 6th. The ride is a huge physical challenge--I did it last year--that I am ready to tackle - I have put in a lot of miles on my bike so far in preparation and will continue to do so right up until the ride.
I still need to reach my goal of $3000 in order to participate this year by May 28th. Fund raising has been tough so I am planning some additional fund raising events and widening my donor pool search to help close the gap. I could use your help and am asking those of you who are able to support me through a donation, of any amount, to visit my personal page and make a tax deductible donation at http://www.tofighthiv.org/goto/Charlie.Williams. As I said, I am aware that we are in a recession and understand if you are not able to make a financial contribution at this time - just having your moral support will be added motivation to get up those hills on the way to LA.
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12. From Dana Dillworth:
Dear Wetlands Advocate,
On April 13th the City of Brisbane's Open Space Consultant Mr. Peter Dangermond made a presentation to receive comment on the progress of defining Open Space for the Brisbane Baylands. If you would like to add to the public record, send comments to cityhall@ci.brisbane.ca.us
While it is closer than ever to the important things necessary for maintaining vital wetlands out there, there were a few omissions. One issue is CA Fish and Game's no-net loss of wetlands policy and the way that the consultant has re-arranged the wetlands, substituting saltwater marsh along the lagoon for freshwater marsh that we have been watching, helping, and documenting for years.
The second issue being that the Public Open Space areas chosen are the most toxic. While wetlands are an important function in cleansing toxic areas...there hasn't been a study as to the extent of wetlands needed to do the job.
One member of the public noticed that no wetlands are proposed for the east side of the tunnel near the tank farm. This is an area with a small vernal pool and lots of frog habitat. The proposal from our Parks and Recreation Committee is for soccer fields and a charter high school.
The good things this plan shows is a better connection of the Levinson Marsh to the Baylands showing up as "Detention Pond" west of the Round House which shows up as "Civic-Cultural Envelope." It is still a meager, bottlenecked habitat with roads to contend with.
You have to be aware that council members were talking about how wetlands stink and they do nothing half of the year. PLEASE EDUCATE MY CITY COUNCIL. My response was that it still is providing habitat and that it is a reflection of poor management (pesticides and flushing the lagoon,) not an evil to be eliminated or marginalized.
Additional info:
Proposed map: http://www.ci.brisbane.ca.us/Upload/Document/D240003541/Map.pdf
or contact Dana Dillworth at earthhelp@earthlink.net
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13. Obama derangement syndrome
The president is driving some people mad. That may be to his advantage in the short term
...It is hard to judge so early in the game what the rise of anti-Obama sentiment means for the Obama presidency. Bush-hatred eventually spread from a molten core of leftists to set the cultural tone of the country. But Obama-hatred could just as easily do the opposite and brand all conservatives as a bunch of Obama-hating cranks.
What is clear is that the rapid replacement of Bush-hatred with Obama-hatred is not healthy for American politics, particularly given the president’s dual role as leader of his party and head of state. A majority of Republicans (56%) approved of Jimmy Carter’s job performance in late March 1977. A majority of Democrats (55%) approved of Richard Nixon’s job performance at a comparable point in his first term. But today polarisation is almost instant, thanks in part to the growing role of non-negotiable issues such as abortion in American politics, in part to the rise of a media industry based on outrage, and in part to a cycle of tit-for-tat demonisation. This is not only poisoning American political life. It is making it ever harder to solve problems that require cross-party collaboration such as reforming America’s health-care system or its pensions. Unfortunately, the Glenn Becks of this world are more than just a joke.
Excerpt from Lexington in The Economist
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14.
The Lonely American: Drifting Apart in the Twenty-first Century
Jacqueline Olds MD, Richard S. Schwartz MD
The personal and societal effects of the unheralded epidemic of social isolation in America
In today's world, it is more acceptable to be depressed than to be lonely--yet loneliness appears to be the inevitable byproduct of our frenetic contemporary lifestyle. According to the 2004 General Social Survey, one out of four Americans talked to no one about something of importance to them during the last six months. Another remarkable fact emerged from the 2000 U.S. Census: more people are living alone today than at any point in the country's history-fully 25 percent of households consist of one person only. In this crucial look at one of America's few remaining taboo subjects--loneliness--Drs. Jacqueline Olds and Richard S. Schwartz set out to understand the cultural imperatives, psychological dynamics, and physical mechanisms underlying social isolation.
In The Lonely American, cutting-edge research on the physiological and cognitive effects of social exclusion and emerging work in the neurobiology of attachment uncover startling, sobering ripple effects of loneliness in areas as varied as physical health, children's emotional problems, substance abuse, and even global warming. Surprising new studies tell a grim truth about social isolation: being disconnected diminishes happiness, health, and longevity; increases aggression; and correlates with increasing rates of violent crime. Loneliness doesn't apply simply to single people, either-today's busy parents "cocoon" themselves by devoting most of their non-work hours to children, leaving little time for friends, and other forms of social contact, and unhealthily relying on the marriage to fulfill all social needs.
As a core population of socially isolated individuals and families continues to balloon in size, it is more important than ever to understand the effects of a culture that idealizes busyness and self-reliance. It's time to bring loneliness-a very real and little-discussed social epidemic with frightening consequences-out into the open, and find a way to navigate the tension between freedom and connection in our lives.
From Cambridge Forum
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15. LTE, Guardian Weekly
Sir: I was intrigued by Marcus du Sautoy's article in which he encourages comprehension of how big a trillion is. I have always sensed it by the fact that since the beginning of AD 1 we have not yet, in 2009, experienced a million days in total; by my calculation the millionth day will occur sometime towards the end of 2739AD.
Neil H Turnbull, West Hobart, Tasmania, Australia
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16. The most efficient life form on earth
Ants have been architects, farmers and skilled specialists for over 150m years. Their collegiate lives make perfect research models, says Alok Jha
…Ants eat the same resources as solitary insects but they have been far more successful. Why? “that’s easy”, says (E.O. Wilson. “they live in groups.” Ant colonies range from a dozen to millions of insects, mostly sterile females in specific jobs as workers, soldiers or caretakers, with one or sometimes a few reproductive females presiding over the entire brood. Any males are usually temporary, drones kept long enough to inseminate the queen, then driven out of the nest or killed. A queen can store the sperm from a male for a decade or more, using it over time to fertilise millions of eggs. This system has worked well for them. “They really did, through the powers of evolution, discover the major principles in industrial revolution – but their revolution came tens of millions of years before ours,” says (a researcher studying social insects).
…Their work rate is astonishing. A nest of Atta ants can defoliate a citrus tree in a day and, in the South American rainforest, they typically harvest about a fifth of the annual growth – more vegetation than any other animal. In a single lifetime, a leaftcutter colony turns over and aerates 40 tonnes of soil. The farms can include livestock, too. Many ant colonies keep aphids, tranquillising them with drugs to keep them docile and “milking” them* with their antennae for sugary honeydew.
…What makes ants far more than a scientific curiosity is that this collective behaviour from chemical-sensing automatons hints at similar systems in humans too. Neurons are individually dumb but, with billions of them working together in our brains reacting to levels of neurotransmitter chemicals, something creative and remarkable emerges. “Maybe our own brains are using these thresholds,” says (a researcher). “When you model ants and when you model the brain, there are some great similarities.
…The sophisticated genetic blueprint hidden within ants that led Wilson and Hoelldobler to propose a new class of life: the superorganism. “A superorganism is a closely knit group that divides labour among its members altruistically,” says Wilson. “There are individuals who reproduce in the group and are promoted to be reproducers, and those that do not reproduce and are workers. This allows the group to function as a giant organism.”
That’s a neat description of an ant colony; think of a superorganism as a creature that can stretch out limbs to be in many places at once, going out to forage for food and then withdrawing into the nest. In their recent book, Superorganism, Wilson and Hoelldobler describe their idea by comparing each ant in a colony with a cell in the human body, specialized for a task and working (to its own probably death) for the good of the organism as a whole.
…The next big step in biology, according to Wilson, is to find out how groups of social creatures organize themselves into superorganiss. “We live in a world of ants,” he says, “and it’s time we woke up to our little six-legged neighbours.”
Excerpted from Guardian Weekly 20.03.09
* (Sounds just like human society.)
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LTE, Guardian Weekly
...Alok Jha's article, 'The most efficient life form on earth' refers to the impact of 14,000-plus species of ants being minimal compared to the impact of humans. The major difference between them is that ants have been around for 140m years and Homo sapiens for only perhaps 150,000 years. The human race is probably now on the road to extinction, whereas the ant is very likely to be around for another 150m years or more. Surely that is wonderful! Clare Owen, Lusaka, Zambia
[The water, the population, the climate crises bring to mind that wonderful Tom Toles cartoon of two cockroaches talking (from memory, not verbatim): "When they said there would be only one species left, they thought it would be them." (In the little picture in the bottom corner): "Too bad we're too primitive to appreciate the irony."]
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17. I shop, therefore I am.
“Their god is the market—every human problem, every human need, will be solved by the market. Their dogma is the literal reading of the creation story in Genesis where humans are to have “dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the Earth, and over every creeping thing...” The administration has married that conservative dogma of the religious right to the corporate ethos of the profits at any price. And the result is the politics of exploitation with a religious impulse. Meanwhile, over a bilion people have no safe drinking water. We’re dumping 500 million tons of hazardous waste into the Earth every year. In the last hundred years alone we’ve lost over 2 billion hectares of forest, our fisheries are collapsing, our coral reefs are dying because of human activity. These are facts. So what is the administration and Congress doing? They’re attacking the very cornerstones of environmental law: The Clea Air Act, the Clean Water Act, NEPA (the National Environmental Policy Act). They are allowing 17,000 power plants to create more pollution. They are opening public lands to exploitation...The Interior Department is the biggest scandal of all. Current Secretary Gale Norton and her number two man, J. Steven Griles, head a fifth column that is trying to sabotage environmental protection at every level. Griles has more conflicts of interest than a dog has fleas. The giveaway of public resources at Interior is the biggest scandal of its kind since the Teapot Dome corruption. You have to go all the way back to the crony capitalism of the Harding administration to find a president who invited such open and crass exploitation of the common wealth.”
---Bill Moyers, winner of 30 Emmy Awards for broadcast journalism, in an interview with Grist Magazine (I lost the date; the interview was several years ago)
Corporation, n. – An ingenious device for securing individual profit without individual responsibility.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary
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18. A special person from my personal pantheon: Art Hoppe: 23 April 1925 - 3 February 2000
(April 23 is also the birthday of a less-well-known author, William Shakespeare)
You can find much more information from this delightful writer and human being on the internet. The following are disjointed lines cobbled together from the San Francisco Chronicle obituary and other sources:
His satire is as wickedly funny as ever, his straight columns can be unflinchingly bold and righteous, but he remains the nicest, most unassuming, most unfailingly gracious person in the office.
Somehow all of those qualities come through in his column, which helps explain his legion of loyal fans. It also keeps his political detractors thoroughly flustered.
In keeping with his smile-and-a-wink demeanor, Hoppe has a favorite response to letters from his more intemperate critics. "I'm sorry, if you continue to complain, I will have to cancel your subscription."
It is safe to assume that few ever took him up on the challenge. Hoppe's column has a habit-forming quality.
Hoppe's son, Nick, said that (his father's) book's Having a Wonderful Time -- My First Half Century as a Newspaperman) modest sales were a source of amusement to their author. "Dad always said," he recalled, "that some people collect rare books and that he writes them."
Self-deprecating remarks were a specialty. The best thing about being a columnist, he once wrote, is being "able to say exactly what I think . . . I've always claimed that I enjoy the utmost in freedom of the press because the publisher doesn't read my output."
But the publisher did read Hoppe's column, and so did the rest of Hoppe's colleagues, with admiration and awe.
Hoppe gave birth in his column to a cast of whimsical characters -- confused redneck Joe Sikspak, lowly Private Oliver Drab, an earnestly unelectable Harvard-educated gorilla, the all-knowing expert Homer T. Pettibone, the celestial Heavenly Landlord and a presidential candidate named Nobody -- who assisted their creator in his self-described lifelong campaign of tilting at windmills.
His columns spanned the presidencies of Just Plain Jack; Elbie Jay; Nick Dixon; the Scoutmaster, Jiminy Beaver; Sir Ronald of Holyrude; Mr. Lifestyles of the Rich and Humble; and Billy Boomer, Boy President.
Like many humorists, he was grateful for the 1968 election of such handy subjects as Nixon and his Vice President Spiro Agnew, whose photographs he kept on his office wall and whose resignations, he often moped, robbed him of years of additional copy.
"I had always thought, and still do, that Mr. Nixon's basic problem over the years was his, forgive the word, insecurity . . . He always seemed ill at ease. His suits -- he never wore anything else -- didn't fit quite right; his sense of humor was nonexistent; he had no capacity whatsoever for small talk. He was the boy you let play only if it was his ball. . ."
Hoppe made fun of presidents using a variety of scenarios. In satire, he said, it is important to like your subject so you don’t “bludgeon them to death.” And to the end, he said that he liked a number of presidents, including Richard Nixon.
His coverage of the Kennedy administration bordered on soap opera parody with “Just Plain Jack,” the story of a lovable Irish family fond of cocktail parties, the bigger the better. To cover the Lyndon B. Johnson administration, he created a combination of “Bonanza” and “The Beverly Hillbillies.”
Bill Clinton was one of Hoppe’s least favorite presidents, apparently losing the columnist during the “I didn’t inhale” episode. “He’s the first person I ever heard of who smoked pot for the flavor,” Hoppe noted. But Hoppe also could be serious as well. In August 1998, he wrote a column urging Clinton to resign over the Monica Lewinsky scandal. In March 1971, he wrote eloquently of his private struggle as he changed his position about the war in Southeast Asia. “The radio this morning said the Allied invasion of Laos had bogged down,” Hoppe wrote. “Without thinking, I nodded and said, ‘Good.’ And having said it, I realized the bitter truth: Now I root against my own country.”
“This is how far we have come in this hated and endless war. This is the nadir I have reached in this winter of my discontent. This is how close I border on treason.”
He was little impressed with his longevity at the Chronicle. In a column last July, he poked fun at making the half-century mark: http://articles.latimes.com/2000/feb/03/news/mn-60515
(JS: I miss this guy more than any other journalist. His column appeared three days a week, and in between I felt a little hole in my life. Reading him was far more than entertainment; I learned from him, and I felt shifts in my opinions on various subjects. What impressed me--and what made him so effective--was the lack of anger. [Or at least it never showed. The same trait is one of the things I value in Garrison Keillor, a very different talent. It occasionally shows in Keillor.] It was a lesson to me: anger alienates; gentleness and humor attracts. He makes a gentle jibe which you think is gentle, but shortly after you realize it was devastating, and you find the recipient bleeding to death.
He made the most graceful exit from life of anyone I've ever heard of, save Socrates.)
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