Contemplations – 7

I'm incurably curious about many aspects of this journey of ours. Here are a few noteworthy items I've stumbled across that I'm making a note of so I can revisit them from time to time.

Quick links to this page's content ∨ 

Appetizer:

"Be curious!" – Stephen Hawking

2018

Sculptures by Penny Hardy

U.K. sculptor Penny Hardy has created a graceful collection of sculptures from bits and pieces of recycled steel.

Blown Away Series⩘ 

Finally, an internet Bill of Rights proposal

U.S. Representative Ro Khanna has written an internet Bill of Rights that could help shape future—hopefully, near future—legislation protecting internet users.

Years and years overdue, but finally some progress in this important area.

"The internet age and digital revolution have changed Americans' way of life. As our lives and the economy are more tied to the internet, it is essential to provide Americans with basic protections online." – Rep. Khanna

"If the internet is to live up to its potential as a force for good in the world, we need safeguards that ensure fairness, openness and human dignity. This bill of rights provides a set of principles that are about giving users more control of their online lives while creating a healthier internet economy. This is a bipartisan issue with broad public support, giving leaders an opportunity to work together to make the internet work for everyone." – Sir Tim Berners-Lee

Set of Principles for an Internet Bill of Rights: You should have the right:

1. To have access to and knowledge of all collection and uses of personal data by companies;
2. To opt-in consent to the collection of personal data by any party and to the sharing of personal data with a third party;
3. Where context appropriate and with a fair process, to obtain, correct, or delete personal data controlled by any company and to have those requests honored by third parties;
4. To have personal data secured and to be notified in a timely manner when a security breach or unauthorized access of personal data is discovered;
5. To move all personal data from one network to the next;
6. To access and use the internet without internet service providers blocking, throttling, engaging in paid prioritization, or otherwise unfairly favoring content, applications, services, or devices;
7. To internet service without the collection of data that is unnecessary for providing the requested service absent opt-in consent;
8. To have access to multiple viable, affordable internet platforms, services, and providers with clear and transparent pricing;
9. Not to be unfairly discriminated against or exploited based on your personal data; and
10. To have an entity that collects your personal data have reasonable business practices and accountability to protect your privacy.

Rep. Khanna releases "Internet Bill of Rights" principles⩘ 

Ten Years After the Crash, We've Learned Nothing

By Matt Taibbi

I appreciate Taibbi's writing most when he's hitting the insanity called big finance as hard as hell and with scathing sarcasm. In this article, he absolutely shreds the the three most persistent myths about the crash ten years ago:

• Myth #1: The crash was an accident
• Myth #2: The crash was caused by greedy homeowners
• Myth #3: The bailouts were about saving capitalism

It was only after the public elected Donald Trump that Bernanke had an insight. He realized suddenly that "growth is not enough" (translation: the rich getting richer for eight straight years did not please voters).
   Economists, he now said, may actually have a "responsibility" to address inequities in the economy, which he conceded might have been caused by a "proclivity toward top-down, rather than bottom-up, policies."
   Imagine how dense you'd have to be to need 10 years, and the election of Donald Trump, to realize this.

Matt Taibbi. "Ten Years After the Crash, We've Learned Nothing⩘ ." Rolling Stone, Sep 13, 2018.

Why the President Must Be Impeached

By Rebecca Solnit

Whoa! Reading this essay reminded me of listening to an intense free jazz session. As I read, I felt the sense of being totally immersed in waves of words and ideas coming at me fast and in unfamiliar ways, of losing any sense of pacing, of being almost overwhelmed … and of totally appreciating it. Nobody else has so powerfully captured what I've been feeling this past year and a half.

The other evening, when the air quality had become too poor to go outside because my state was burning, sitting in a window facing another of those apocalyptic red suns going down we'd gotten used to here, on the week that the president unleashed more coal on the world and thus more of the climate change driving the trouble that afflicted oceans and upper atmospheres and, while the wildfires burned the lungs of asthmatic children, I turned again to the chaos and destruction emanating from the White House.

The commission of a crime is not normally the coverup for another crime, but if they keep them coming, it's hard to keep your eye on any one or keep track of them all, or so it seemed on that day last week when the president had tweeted out some white supremacist bullshit about South African land expropriation, which maybe distracted people from the fact that about 36 hours earlier his fixer and lawyer had named him as a coconspirator in a felony.…

Naomi Klein predicted what this presidency of shock politics would be like in her book No Is Not Enough⩘  published in early 2017. Now Rebecca Solnit has captured the fact of it with her pitch-perfect riff.

Rebecca Solnit. "Why the President Must Be Impeached⩘ ." Literary Hub, Aug 28, 2018. Related: "The Trump Rules of Life and Leadership⩘ ." Axios, Sep 11, 2018.

One of Those Teachers

Rumble Strip, hosted by Erica Heilman, is one of my favorite podcasts. In this episode, Erica sits in Daphne Kalmar's kitchen and chats with her about her 20 years of teaching. "She was one of those teachers. One of the exciting and inspiring ones you never forget … one of the teachers who sees every kid."

This episode of Rumble Strip highlights what are, in my opinion, Erica's greatest gifts: she understands that her neighbors have wonderful tales to tell, knows how to seed a conversation with just the right questions, is wise enough to sit back like a good neighbor listening to the answers, and then, as the people she's sitting with get immersed in the stories they're weaving, is generous enough to quietly wave the rest of into the kitchen or onto the porch so that we, too, can enjoy the vivid stories that are emerging.

Rumble Strip: One of Those Teachers⩘ . Daphne is now a children's book author and she's just published her first book, A Stitch in Time⩘ .

Bundyville (podcast)

An excellent seven-part podcast the delves deeply into the story of the Bundy family, their fight against the Federal government, and the greater implications for the West and the U.S.

Bundyville⩘ , a joint effort series by OPB and Longreads. Hosted and reported by award-winning freelance journalist Leah Sottile. Produced by Robert Carver and Peter Frick-Wright of 30 Minutes West Productions, and OPB's Ryan Haas. Editing by Anna Griffin and Mike Dang. Fact Checking by Matt Giles, with research help from Kim Frieda. Art Direction by Kjell Reigstad, illustrations by Zoë van Dijk. Featuring original music by Robert Carver. 2018.

Who Milks America's Cows?

This excellent piece of investigative journalism by Jim Cricchi and Alexandra Hall shares a glimpse into the realities of immigrant labor, specifically in the dairy industry. "Nationwide, 51% of dairy workers are immigrants. According to workers, farmers, and industry experts, more than three-fourths of these immigrants are undocumented. As a result, farms with immigrant employees produce the vast majority—79%—of the American milk supply." While there are visas available for farms that employ seasonal labor, there aren't visas available for the year-around workers that dairy farms need.

Among others, the film features interviews with:

• Guillermo Ramos Bravo, who is a farm manager who has been working on a Wisconsin Dairy Farm for 17 years. "Lots of people say that we come to steal jobs from people born here. In 17 years, I've never seen a person who was born here come and say to my boss, 'You know what, I'm looking for a job, I want to milk cows.'"
• John Rosenow, who since he got of college has been running Rosenholm Farm, a family dairy farm in Buffalo County, Wisconsin that was first homesteaded by his great-great grandparents in 1857. "When I was growing up, the people who worked on farms were the sons and daughters of farmers. Now it has become something … and I'm not sure why … now it's something that's the last thing you would do."
• Miguel Hernandez, an assistant herdsman. "I came in 2001 looking for money to help my family down in Mexico. I had to walk for about seven days through the desert … it's really hard. Second time I walked 12 days through the desert. I think we were 24 people and only 12 made it. We are not legally in this country, but we just came to work. We are not bad people; I have been working here for 16 years and have never been in trouble."

At one moment towards the end of the film, self-described law-and-order legislator Representative Bob Gannon says: "Maybe we need to bring dairies closer to the urban centers where we have people that aren't working." I'm hopeful that we can find ways to solve this issue that don't involve fear-mongering and stoking hatred, for example, perhaps a special class of visas could be introduced for farms that require year-round worker. But one thing I'm sure of is that the idea of the wholesale moving of dairy farms closer to urban centers is a particularly stupid one.

Los Lecheros⩘  (Vimeo). Directed, photographed, and edited by Jim Cricchi. Based on a story by Alexandra Hall for Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism and Wisconsin Public Radio.

Related:

• Under Trump, Wisconsin dairies struggle to keep immigrant workers⩘ , Alexandra Hall, Wisconsin Watch, Apr 2017
• America's Dairyland and Trump in the rearview mirror as workers return to Mexico⩘ , Alexandra Hall, Wisconsin Watch, Jun 2017
• Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism, Twelve Letter Films win Regional Murrow Award for film on dairy workers⩘ , Wisconsin Watch, Apr 2018
• US election 2020: The farmer helping Mexican immigrants⩘ , Tamara Gil, BBC, Oct 28, 2020

A better rice farming method

This is one of the best bits of news I've read in a long time.

A method of growing rice, which was developed in Madagascar in 1983, requires a fraction of the seed and much less water per hectare, and is resulting in significantly higher yields. "Reports from China, India, Southeast Asia and Africa suggest that average yield increases of 20 to 50 percent are regularly being achieved by farmers adopting the 'system of rice intensification' (SRI)."

SRI, which has been spreading around the world via a grassroots movement, was initially and unsurprisingly rejected by the global seed industry, but has finally gained the endorsement of the scientific journal, Nature, and the United Nations, and is being studied by the SRI International Network and Resources Center at Cornell University, which estimates that it has been adopted by 10 million farmers in 60 countries.

The method, which "aims to stimulate the root system of plants" … "involves careful spacing of fewer but younger plants, keeping the topsoil around the plants well-aerated by weeding, using manure and avoiding flooding."

This could be especially valuable in the face of the hotter, drier growing seasons that appear to be resulting from climate change.

John Vidal. "A New Farming Technique Using Drastically Less Water Is Catching On⩘ ." Huffington Post, May 15, 2018.

They paved paradise? Screw 'em!

A springtime plant has broken through asphalt laid last autumn. Resist!

Is America on the Verge of a Constitutional Crisis?

"As the Trump presidency approaches a troubling tipping point, it's time to find the right term for what's happening to democracy."

Quinta Jurecic and Benjamin Wittes address a vital question we are facing.

What we are seeing, in other words, is a little more dynamic than [constitutional] rot, a phrase that assumes we know the outcome. It's more like constitutional infection or injury. The wound may indeed lead to a crisis; it may become gangrenous. But to describe the United States today as facing a constitutional crisis misses the frenetic pre-crisis activity of the antibodies fighting the bacteria, alongside the antibiotics the patient is taking.

Quinta Jurecic and Benjamin Wittes. "Is America on the Verge of a Constitutional Crisis?⩘ " The Atlantic, Mar 17, 2018.

A Better Way to Look at Most Every Political Issue

Our civil discourse is in a sorry state these days, and it appears many of our political leaders, especially at the national level, are more focused on exploiting our divisions than leading us torward finding ways to bridge our gaps. At times, I get really discouraged by this and find myself having to resist an urge to simply withdraw, because I'm not quite ready to give up on the possibility that democracy can work to improve our lives. So I continue to try to understand what is wrong and how we might fix it.

Today, I came across an article by Conor Friedersdorf in The Atlantic that left me feeling a sense of optimism, something that unfortunately is all too rare these days. He argues for a shift in the way we view and discuss the issues that divide us in order to make it easier for us to find areas of agreement and to avoid overstating the differences in our viewpoints.

He explains it all much better than I can begin to, so I'm going to quote a few core points he makes so that I can return to them from time to time and work to integrate them more strongly into my way of thinking. However, it's well worth it to read his entire article as he backs up his suggestions by providing clear examples using some of the most contentious issues dividing us today.

   We sometimes think of political issues in binary terms.… But most individuals hold views that are more complicated than a binary can capture.
   An alternative is to describe a given position on a spectrum.…

   Politicians seeking to win votes express their stances either in terms of a binary or as a spot on a spectrum, depending on where they see the greatest advantage. Though their beliefs don't change, how they frame them makes a political difference.
   There's a different set of frames, though, that are as relevant as binaries and spectrums, though they are less familiar and less discussed: equilibriums and limits.…

   On … scores of … political issues, there are people who tend to focus on equilibriums, other people who tend to focus on limits, and still others who vary in their focus. A single question put to the public cannot reveal the majority position of the polity on such issues, because there are at least two different majority coalitions: One forms around the position that a majority holds on the best equilibrium; the other forms around the position a majority holds on the appropriate limit. The winning coalition turns in part on what frame is more prominent at any particular moment.…

   America's two-party system frequently forces binary choices on voters, and locating oneself on a left-right political spectrum can be a useful exercise. But I'd like to see more political analysis that recognizes the difference between equilibriums and limits and examines the coalitions that form around them. Seeing those frameworks more clearly would reveal instances when differences between Americans are not as sharp as they might seem, and enable marginal improvements to policy on issues where slippery slopes are unlikely and the main obstacle holding back reform is the fear of a limit that almost no one wants to cross.

Conor Friedersdorf. "A Better Way to Look at Most Every Political Issue⩘ ." The Atlantic, Feb 11, 2018.

Hywind Scotland: world's first floating wind farm

I had previously read about the Hywind Scotland floating wind farm project, but until I watched their full story video I had no idea how large these wind turbines are. This is an amazing engineering feat. Perhaps there's actually a chance that we'll pull ourselves out of the carbon-based fuel death spiral we're in.

Video: Full story of Hywind Scotland - world's first floating wind farm⩘ 

Principles of Adult Behavior

John Perry Barlow, Oct 3, 1947 - Feb 6, 2018. Founding member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Freedom of the Press Foundation, poet and essayist, cattle rancher, political activist, lyricist for the Grateful Dead.

1. Be patient. No matter what.
2. Don't badmouth: Assign responsibility, not blame. Say nothing of another you wouldn't say to him.
3. Never assume the motives of others are, to them, less noble than yours are to you.
4. Expand your sense of the possible.
5. Don't trouble yourself with matters you truly cannot change.
6. Expect no more of anyone than you can deliver yourself.
7. Tolerate ambiguity.
8. Laugh at yourself frequently.
9. Concern yourself with what is right rather than who is right.
10. Never forget that, no matter how certain, you might be wrong.
11. Give up blood sports.
12. Remember that your life belongs to others as well. Don't risk it frivolously.
13. Never lie to anyone for any reason. (Lies of omission are sometimes exempt.)
14. Learn the needs of those around you and respect them.
15. Avoid the pursuit of happiness. Seek to define your mission and pursue that.
16. Reduce your use of the first personal pronoun.
17. Praise at least as often as you disparage.
18. Admit your errors freely and soon.
19. Become less suspicious of joy.
20. Understand humility.
21. Remember that love forgives everything.
22. Foster dignity.
23. Live memorably.
24. Love yourself.
25. Endure.

From the Electronic Frontier Foundation⩘  :

Barlow's lasting legacy is that he devoted his life to making the Internet into "a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth … a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity."

Cindy Cohn. "John Perry Barlow, Internet Pioneer, 1947-2018⩘ ." By Cindy Cohn, Electronic Frontier Foundation, February 7, 2017.

Don't Panic !

I didn't think I'd actually see something like the spectacular SpaceX Falcon Heavy launch in my lifetime; especially the landing of two of the boosters in tandem. The Falcon Heavy has "the ability to lift into orbit nearly 64 metric tons (141,000 lb)—a mass greater than a 737 jetliner loaded with passengers, crew, luggage and fuel." On top of everything else, they displayed a fantastic sense of humor with their spaceman-toting Tesla displaying "Don't Panic!" on its display.

SpaceX Falcon Heavy⩘ 

Only the Brave

Only the Brave⩘ , a film based on the true story of the Granite Mountain Hotshots of the Prescott Fire Department, touched me very deeply. I knew about the incredible tragedy when nineteen members of the Granite Mountain Hotshots made the ultimate sacrifice while fighting the Yarnell Hill Fire on June 30, 2013, but the film helped me better understand the dedication and personal sacrifice of the firefighters whose incredibly difficult and dangerous work helps keep our communities safe.

Another thing the film helped me better understand and feel is what the families of firefighters must go through, especially when their loved ones are away from home on the front lines of dangerous fires for long stretches of time. There must be moments of utterly unbearable uncertainty.

Granite Mountain Hotshots Memorial State Park⩘  was created to honor the nineteen firefighters who lost their lives fighting the Yarnell Hill Fire.

Andrew Ashcraft
Robert Caldwell
Travis Carter
Dustin Deford
Christopher MacKenzie
Eric Marsh
Grant McKee
Sean Misner
Scott Norris
Wade Parker
John Percin
Anthony Rose
Jesse Steed
Joe Thurston
Travis Turbyfill
William Warneke
Clayton Whitted
Kevin Woyjeck
Garret Zuppiger

The entire memorial is a seven-mile roundtrip hike. The first portion of the hike, called the Hotshots Trail, climbs uphill past individual memorial plaques embedded in large boulders, each honoring one of the fallen, to an overlook above the spot where they perished. The next part of the hike, called the Journey Trail, follows their final journey, ending at the heart of this striking memorial, a circle of nineteen gabions.

May they rest is peace.

Granite Mountain Hotshots Memorial State Park⩘ . Arizona State Parks.
Dedication of Granite Mountain Hotshots Memorial State Park⩘  (video).
Granite Mountain Hotshots Memorial Video [no longer available on YouTube].
Only the Brave⩘  (film site).
"Hotshots tree earns Magnificent 7 honor⩘ ." The Daily Courier, Apr 17, 2015.
"How accurate is 'Only the Brave'? Here's what the movie gets right and wrong⩘ ." AZCentral, Oct 19, 2017.

Using technology versus being used by it

I've enjoyed technology and the internet over the years, and have profited from it, having worked for several technology-related companies. In the late 90s, as I began to understand and appreciate some aspects of the internet's potential, I launched this website, wanting to participate in this blossoming communication medium, as well as to learn hands on the nuts and bolts of creating a website. Motivated by a desire to create something beautiful in a fashion similar to my woodworking, I've found this to be an invigoratingly enjoyable endeavor over the years.

Yet more recently this technology that now permeates our lives has lost much of the luster it once held for me. This results from factors that have been gaining momentum for several years and reached a tipping point last year. Events early this year are only emphasizing this tipped over, screwed up state.

• I'm dismayed that what began as a medium for sharing information and supporting users ¹ has been predominantly transformed into a ruthless commercial environment where customers have little value beyond being a resource to be exploited and sold.
• I despise the devious culture of tracking that has emerged (ultrasonic beacons and canvas fingerprinting are just two recent examples). I want to be able to choose when to share my data with another party and what data to share, not have it snatched from me by some sleight of hand, so I find myself increasingly shifting into a more defensive posture, doing my best to throw up barriers that make this theft at least a little bit more difficult.
• I'm disgusted by the overall shoddy state of the security quality of the hardware and software being released. Nearly every week we hear about some major data breach due to bugs or the carelessness of not patching those bugs in a timely fashion, apps that are found to include malicious components and have been allowed to be downloaded millions of times, ads being served that are infected with cryptocurrency mining malware, or huge gaping flaws with the technology products being used by hundreds of millions of us. It appears that the rush to release products and capture market share far outweighs any sense of responsibility to protect that captured market share (you know … real people). I'm also increasingly upset with how much time we must invest in patching over and over again these products we paid for in attempt to at least achieve some partial degree of security.
• I'm appalled with how carelessly our personal data is being handled. I think it is an ultimate form of disrespect towards their customers that so many companies reaping such huge financial benefits from exploiting this data invest so little in protecting it, especially given the huge harm that results from its theft. I also find it unbelievable—yet at the same time all too believable—how trivial the penalties are for what I consider to be criminal negligence.²
• I can't stand the way companies are purposefully designing products and apps using tactics like intermittent reinforcement and dark patterns (darkpatterns.org⩘ ) to try to manipulate us into spending more time using their products and surrendering more of our personal data to them. As this has caused me to grow ever more leery, I have stopped using many products and apps, and have avoided adopting many new ones. On my devices, I silence or turn off nearly all notifications, view assistants like a medieval plague, and avoid social media platforms except occasionally when I reluctantly use them to visit technical groups.

Because of all of this, using technology and the internet has morphed from an experience I initially found enjoyable to one I now approach with an attitude that is tinged with suspicion and mistrust. Increasingly, I'm focused on how to best reduce my use of, disengage from, or even altogether turn off the technology surrounding us. This isn't easy, but I think it's necessary for a healthy lifestyle.

A small example of this shift is portrayed in the images at the top of this post. I've designed the home screens of my devices to emphasize peaceful scenes and de-emphasize apps and their noisy notifications. I also enable monochrome or grayscale mode most of the time. Doing so tamps down the attempts by devices, apps, and websites to capture my attention through flashy colors, significantly calming the experience of using technology. While I love the luscious colors of the Gaillardia flower that currently graces the home screen of my phone, overall, the benefit I derive from the tranquility of monochrome outweighs the delight of seeing it in color. Better yet, just as I did when I first took that photo, I can turn off my devices altogether and go out for a walk to view the real world in living color.³

[1] When Time Berners-Lee introduced the World Wide Web project on August 20, 1991, he wrote: "This project is experimental and of course comes without any warranty whatsoever. However, it could start a revolution in information access. We are currently using WWW for user support at CERN. We would be very interested in comments from anyone trying WWW, and especially those making other data available, as part of a truly world-wide web."

[2] One glimmer of hope is the new EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) privacy rules that are going into effect in May 2018. According to a Politico article published Feb 2, 2018, "Europe's new data protection rules export privacy standards worldwide⩘ ," the new privacy rules give "EU citizens sweeping new powers over how their data can be collected, used and stored." Because of the power of the EU trading bloc, the GDPR could improve privacy protections for citizens around the world. One can only hope!

[3] A few months later: After using monochrome for a while, I find the experience of flipping back to color—which I do occasionally to view things that benefit from it like graphs or photos of lava flows—jarring. I find it quite interesting that I now find the colors of my screens garish, oversaturated, and unlike the living color of real life. I presume that's another manipulation technique of the technologists.

[4] To find a VPN to use (and to protect against inadvertently picking a VPN that uses and abuses your personal data), a good place to start is That One Privacy Site. I ended up choosing Mullvad.

Monumental trees

I love trees. I appreciate even the most ordinary trees, and at times I'm absolutely awestruck by some of the trees I come across. One of my favorite activities is walking in a forest. If I'm stuck driving around in an urban environment, when I need to stop I always search for a tree to park next to.

So I was delighted when I came across this site about monumental trees as I was wandering around this morning. I think I'll park here now and then!

Monumental trees⩘ 

The Galaxy Next Door – Andromeda

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

What a way to begin the new year!

Came across this photo as I was sleepily browsing around this morning, and instantly felt the day brighten.

"The Galaxy Next Door" is a composite of photos taken by the Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX), an orbiting space telescope observing galaxies in ultraviolet light across 10 billion years of cosmic history.

As a bonus, here's a photo from a few years ago of Centaurus A's supermassive black hole expelling flumes of debris at about half the speed of light. Sometimes I read the daily news and feel overwhelmed by the chaos of our human affairs … and then I see an image like this and realize just how trivial we are!

Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/CfA/R.Kraft et al.; Optical: ESO/WFI;
Submillimeter: MPIfR/ESO/APEX/A.Weiss et al.

Larger versions of these photos >
Andromeda via Galaxy Evolution Explorer website⩘ 
Centaurus A via Chandra X-ray Observatory website⩘ 

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