The Chinese Seeds Conundrum

Stephen King could have written this mess, and we'd be only at like, Chapter Five, right now. Still from Creepshow, You Lunkhead.

Human beings are primates, I remind myself, or find myself reminded, on a regular basis--and the thing about your monkey brain is--it's curious. Well, your monkey brain, my monkey brain, the point is, we are more curious than we are smart, but we are also fucking dumb. Case in point: The Chinese Seeds Conundrum:

In late July, America was briefly enthralled with “Unsolicited Seeds from China,” which started showing up in mailboxes in all 50 states. These mystery seeds prompted warnings from the USDA, which said people should not plant them, and should instead alert their state agricultural authority and mail them to the USDA or their local officials.

Many Americans heeded this advice. Many more decidedly did not.

You guys, this is how the horror novel starts out. "Many more decidedly did not." That right there is just negligent, but what did the folks do? They were told not to plant them of course, because, like, lets say it's just some random GMO licensing legal fuckery that takes over your lawn--it's just raw naivete to assume there's anything good in that.  Or who even knows what:

Audrey 2 from the brilliant movie "Little Shop of Horrors"

Yeah, I'm not saying it could definitely be alien man-eating plants, but no. It could be--okay what if it were alien man-eating plants and then you had that on your conscience in your suburban picket-fence tract home somewhere that's green Mr. Man? Is that what you want?

California is Burning

(Via ABC7.)

Perhaps because of all the hurricane activity this season, the story of 2017 as one of the worst wildfire seasons has not really received as much coverage as it really should. And as you might expect to hear from me--this is climate change at work. Despite heavy rains in California and snows in the Rockies, a brutally hot summer dried out vegetation, making these fires more likely to start and more likely to spread.

There's the toll to human life--like the 10 souls dead in the wildfire spreading through the Napa and Sonoma region. And there's substantial damage to homes, businesses, crops and livestock.  Maybe I'm just peculiarly sentimental about America's wine barrel, but there's a lot of labor, sweat and tears put into those grapes.

Thankfully, FEMA is coming through with some aid for these fire-ravaged regions. But the potential for further devastation and loss of life from the unfolding fire events as they encroach on residential/farm areas can't be underestimated. My thoughts are with Californians and other fire-affected areas.

Climate Sunday: Climate is a Moral Issue

The Pope visited the US, and particularly my own city this weekend, so I am going to frame this post in light of the Pope's visit, and his urgent message, downplayed to the US Congress, but stated a bit more forcefully to the UN--We have got to do something about this climate change.

Marco Rubio, presidential candidate and Catholic, reminds us that the Pope "is not a politician". Bless his heart.

Jeb Bush, presidential candidate and Catholic, advises us that the Pope "is not a scientist".

The Pope is the head of the state called "Vatican City" (can you say that Marco Rubio?--Knew you could!) and represents a religion whose adherents number over a billion. You tell me that guy isn't any kind of  politician, I will laugh at you for a long damn time. The Pope also is qualified to understand science. Actually, notwithstanding the Galileo stuff, the Catholic Church is pretty reality-based regarding science. Teilhard de Chardin and Gregor Mendel were notable religious who advanced the cause of human scientific knowledge. It's not unheard of for the Church to be ahead of the curve--look at all the educational facilities and hospitals the Church has created. They aren't anti-knowledge (says the Catholic-adjacent militant agnostic).

Not Looking Away

I have to demur from the opinion of Michael Tomasky, whom I agree with regularly--but, well. I just don't think one actually abandons a whole bloc of states and still considers the possibility of having a national party. If the Democrats kiss off Florida and Texas, and don't even try to play their cards in North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia et al, we set up to lose future rounds in those states also, because we don't have party infrastructure, we aren't cultivating voters, and we aren't delivering a meaningful message.

I guess I am pretty much at the "acceptance"  stage of grief where geographical party representation stands as it does because I think that, once we really codified "red" and "blue" states in the past decade or so? Multiple maps only reinforced the idea that red states necessarily concentrate in the South, and many people tend to accept broad generalizations. But I tend to look at what's possible, and I see possibilities.

I don't think it should sit well with people in the south that the fossil fuel industries are paying their employees less to accept more risk to eke out less cost-effective fuels, that spoil the land and way of life in the region for farmers and fishermen. I think there is a real reason for people to want to speak out about systems that protect people who poison water, and punish people who speak out about it. I think there isn't any room for equivocating that we believe there should be a strong border and clear rules about who gets to stay here, but industries have to do their part by hiring US citizens on a preferential basis. I think states need to look to fairer pay structures for a tide that rises all boats, and not continuously look for tax cuts that benefit elites and screw regular people.

I still think there is a number of common interests that truly Democratic politicians could speak to in the South, if they tried. I don't see it as a national party concern, necessarily, but if local politicians build it, I guess the national party should behoove itself to come.  So I think, to put it plainly, there's no benefit in cutting and running from a challenge--no matter how challenging it may seem. I suggested some avenues of opening up a legitimate "refreshed" dialog with southern states for Democratic candidates, but up-and-coming local politicians will probably know better than I what they're about. I just don't see giving up on them.

Save the Polyps--

Very few of our industries are sustainable--when we harm the least of our species on this planet, we stand to do harm to all of our species. We need to avoid overfishing, poor irrigation/fertilization farming methods and reduce CO2 emissions to cut down on ocean acidification, among other things, to preserve an important part of our oceanic ecosystem. Those goals are kind of overarching and remote to regular people, but what it means in little is--take a hard look at fish aquacultures and whether we can sustainably maintain our consumption of them (or whether we need to rely on better farming of land-based protein sources). We need to use land better and that does not mean "better living through chemicals." When I visited my folks in Calabria, I was surprised by the non-bougie use of composting. It was just a regular thing. Although in Pennsylvania I don't have quite the same climate benefit, I have determined yard wastes aren't a bad start for mulch. Seriously--we live in communities where organic material is bagged and landfilled like it somehow wasn't part of the circle of life. Peels and cores and whatnot are still full of minerals that could go back to the soils they came from.

And we need to be more energy-smart. Maybe it means conservation, or alternate fuel sources, or just lowering carbon use by making machines better. But if we can prevent whole ecosystems from dying--what shouldn't we do, really?  Doesn't it make sense to do all we can?