Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
Hillary Rettig wrote for Balloon juice for about a year from 2016-17.
…and then eat him. (Puffball!)
Also found: my first-ever foraged Hen of the Woods a.k.a. maitake (about 7 pounds):
I will dehydrate them and then eat them too!
We had a megaton of rain over the weekend and that with the unseasonable warmth has produced an extended season and a bumper crop. Thank you, rain!
Open thread for all things mushroomy and otherwise.
Some fantastic news, last week, from TripAdvisor:
TripAdvisor, the world’s largest travel site, today announced its commitment to launch a set of industry-leading actions, including changes to its policy on selling tickets to animal attractions, and the launch of a new education portal to help inform travelers about the standards of care for wild, captive, and endangered species in tourism and their interactions with tourists, and their impact on wildlife conservation.
TripAdvisor and its Viator brand will discontinue selling tickets for specific tourism experiences where travelers come into physical contact with captive wild animals or endangered species, including but not limited to elephant rides, petting tigers, and swim with dolphin attractions.
While some attractions will cease booking through TripAdvisor immediately, the company plans to have both the educational portal and booking policy changes fully-launched and implemented by early 2017.
TripAdvisor is also committing to the development and launch of an education portal linked to every animal attraction listing on TripAdvisor. The portal will provide links and information on animal welfare practices, helping travelers to write more informed reviews about their experience, and to be aware of opinions that exist on the conservation implications and benefits of some tourism attractions. In turn, TripAdvisor believes that better reviews will enable travelers to make more informed booking decisions and improve the standards of animal care in tourism worldwide….
This is truly wonderful news for at least three reasons:
1) Some of the cruel and callous “attractions” will probably go out of business. (Including, hopefully, the scammy Thai “tiger monastery.” ) This, in turn, will lead to…
2) Less animal trafficking, with all its attendant unspeakable ills (brutal kidnappings, families broken up, collateral deaths during shipping, etc.).
And last but definitely not least:
3) It’s a huge step in the ongoing mainstreaming of animal welfare concerns.
I use TripAdvisor a lot to plan our trips, but in the past have always done the actual booking on the hotel and attraction sites. From now on, I’ll book right on the TripAdvisor site so they get their commission, and if this news delights you as much as it delights me, I urge you to do the same.
Related: Katherine Applegate’s Newbery Medal-winning young adult novel The One and Only Ivan is a sensitive and compassionate fictionalization of the story of Ivan, a gorilla who was kept in the cage in a mall for nearly 30 years. It’s a bit early to think of holiday gift giving, but this would be a great one for any animal-loving kid or adult on your list.
Faunasphere: Thank you TripAdvisor! EditionPost + Comments (22)
Like many of you, perhaps, I have been literally appalled at the GOP for decades. And every time I reach a kind of equilibrium, they appall me worse and I have to readjust.
But this business of repealing the 19th Amendment? That’s on a whole new dark and disturbing level. I can barely find the words to express my new level of appalledness, but fortunately someone else did: Margaret Atwood. From one of the most chilling sections of her chilling book, The Handmaid’s Tale:
It was after the catastrophe, when they shot the president and machine-gunned the Congress and the army declared a state of emergency. They blamed it on the Islamic fanatics at the time.
Keep calm, they said on television. Everything is under control.
I was stunned. Everyone was, I know that. It was hard to believe. The entire government, gone like that. How did they get in, how did it happen?
That was when they suspended the Constitution.
She then goes on to describe in chilling (that word again!) detail the rapid, systematic disempowerment of women: barred from working outside the home, barred from owning property, etc.–all the way to becoming property themselves.
The scary thing is how plausible it all sounds.
A couple of years ago, Atwood visited West Point:
After her opening remarks, the questions posed by the cadets — who identified themselves by name and rank before asking — referred to everything from Islamism to Descartes, whom Atwood paraphrases at one point in “The Handmaid’s Tale.” Yes, if she were writing the novel now she might have borrowed some of the oppressive tactics of Muslim fundamentalists, but, 30 years on, contemporary American politics — such as conservatives’ references to “real rape” in the run-up to the 2014 elections and the bizarre belief held by Rep. Todd Akin, R-Mo., that a woman’s body reflexively disables conception in the event of “legitimate rape” — still offers ample inspiration. When those stories broke, she said, the hashtag “#handmaidstale” began to appear all over social media. The book has been filmed, made into an opera and is currently being adapted as a graphic novel.
Surprisingly, none of the questions referred to the ostensibly Christian nature of the Gilead regime. In 2012, a cadet named Blake Page resigned from West Point, complaining that the excessive religiosity of the culture at the academy “willfully disregards the Constitution of the United States of America” and fosters “open disrespect of non-religious new cadets.” (Among the practices Page objected to were mandatory events that routinely included prayers.)
Perhaps most striking, given Mercer’s hopes for a new vocabulary, was that all of the questioners were male, and none of them asked about the status of women in Gilead.
A certain apocryphal “Chinese curse” comes to mind.
BUT, being an optimistic sort, I’ll also point out that The World Values Survey has for years been documenting a global shift away from “survival” (authoritarian / sexist / xenophobic / etc.) values to “self-expression” (equality / tolerance / etc.) ones. I was taught that privilege fights hardest at the end, and so there’s plenty of reason for hope, especially given digital technology’s wondrous capacity to decentralize information and power.
Not that the Far Right is going to disappear, but they’ll just get more and more marginalized.
You can call me a gullible fool–and I’m sure someone will!–but in the words of the immortal Joel, I have been a fool for lesser things. Also, I like the company I’m keeping, out here in the ranks of the foolish optimists.
Also, too:
The Handmaid’s Tale was published in 1985! Talk about a Lady Oracle!
Hulu’s doing a movie!
Ms. Atwood is a long-time animal rights proponent.
I’m just gonna leave these here:
1) Here’s a Democracy Now discussion of how TV networks promote climate change denial by routinely omitting mention of climate change when covering extreme weather events like Hurricane Matthew, despite the fact that climate change is widely regarded as causing / exacerbating said events. (Also, by not asking a single friggin’ question about climate change during either of the presidential debates, or the vice presidential one.)
2) Haiti’s death toll: 1,000+. (“Cholera rampant.”) Many more to come, not just due to disease, but probable widespread starvation due to crop destruction. (Also, 17 reported deaths in the U.S.) Also undoubtedly lost were countless farmed animals, companion animals, and wild animals.
3) Colombia: unexpected defeat of landmark peace initiative due in part to depressed voter turnout due to Hurricane Matthew makes continued violence probable. (Also, Haiti’s presidential election indefinitely postponed.)
Climate change silence = death. If we don’t talk about it, we’re probably not going to act on it, and more people and animals will die. Unfortunately, many people get their climate-related news primarily from TV meteorologists, many of whom, due to ignorance [this too], arrogance [the first link again], and careerism, have abdicated their professional responsibilities and let us all down.
Every newscast should have a segment on climate change (and obviously not a denier one), and also every report on extreme weather conditions. And climate change should also be discussed in the context of agriculture, tourism, sports, and other weather-dependent activities. And OF COURSE it should be discussed by every political candidate, and not just in passing.
All with the goal of increasing everyone’s awareness and understanding of the problem, and motivation to address it.
The meteorologists’ abdication just increases the burden for the rest of us. So please: do your bit to help get the word out. Telling your local news station you want more climate change coverage would be a great start.
Some links:
*To help Haiti do NOT donate to the Red Cross, which was revealed to be grossly ineffective at best in this ProPublica report entitled, “How the Red Cross Raised Half a Billion Dollars for Haiti and Built Six Homes.” Instead, donate to Partners in Health (Dr. Paul Farmer’s org), which gets high marks from GiveWell and other charity monitors.
And donate to the Humane Society to help Haiti’s animals.
Please list other vetted suggestions for donations in the comments.
*For more info on climate change politics and economics, read Naomi Klein’s brilliant This Changes Everything.
*Oxford scientists say veggie diets could save up to 8 million lives by 2050 due to climate and public health gains. (Not including the animal lives!) “It could also avoid climate-related damages of $1.5 trillion (US).”
And, finally,
*Support climate activists, with funds, kind words, letters to the editor, etc. Here are some that are kicking ass.
EDIT: Cermet points out: “AGW is also at the heart of the terrible drought that has devastated Syria (major cause of its civil war) and much of that area of the world – see Iran’s eight year drought.”
And per Brachiator: “Also recommend Three Angels. The spouse of a local radio personality works for this organization and flew back home just ahead of the hurricane. They do good work, and are close to the ground. They employ local people instead of dropping down as “the experts” on local conditions.”
Good news from USA Today, of all places: “Support grows for Indigenous Peoples Day amid Columbus Day criticism.”
Perhaps as for many of you, it was Howard Zinn’s wonderful and essential A People’s History of the United States that opened my eyes to the atrocities committed by Columbus and his sailors. From the relevant chapter:
They went from island to island in the Caribbean, taking Indians as captives. But as word spread of the Europeans’ intent they found more and more empty villages. On Haiti, they found that the sailors left behind at Fort Navidad had been killed in a battle with the Indians, after they had roamed the island in gangs looking for gold, taking women and children as slaves for sex and labor.
Now, from his base on Haiti, Columbus sent expedition after expedition into the interior. They found no gold fields, but had to fill up the ships returning to Spain with some kind of dividend. In the year 1495, they went on a great slave raid, rounded up fifteen hundred Arawak men, women, and children, put them in pens guarded by Spaniards and dogs, then picked the five hundred best specimens to load onto ships. Of those five hundred, two hundred died en route.
In the province of Cicao on Haiti, where he and his men imagined huge gold fields to exist, they ordered all persons fourteen years or older to collect a certain quantity of gold every three months. When they brought it, they were given copper tokens to hang around their necks. Indians found without a copper token had their hands cut off and bled to death.
The Indians had been given an impossible task. The only gold around was bits of dust garnered from the streams. So they fled, were hunted down with dogs, and were killed.
Trying to put together an army of resistance, the Arawaks faced Spaniards who had armor, muskets, swords, horses. When the Spaniards took prisoners they hanged them or burned them to death. Among the Arawaks, mass suicides began, with cassava poison. Infants were killed to save them from the Spaniards. In two years, through murder, mutilation, or suicide, half of the 250,000 Indians on Haiti were dead.
When it became clear that there was no gold left, the Indians were taken as slave labor on huge estates, known later as encomiendas. They were worked at a ferocious pace, and died by the thousands. By the year 1515, there were perhaps fifty thousand Indians left. By 1550, there were five hundred. A report of the year 1650 shows none of the original Arawaks or their descendants left on the island….
Las Casas tells how the Spaniards “grew more conceited every day” and after a while refused to walk any distance. They “rode the backs of Indians if they were in a hurry” or were carried on hammocks by Indians running in relays. “In this case they also had Indians carry large leaves to shade them from the sun and others to fan them with goose wings.”
Total control led to total cruelty. The Spaniards “thought nothing of knifing Indians by tens and twenties and of cutting slices off them to test the sharpness of their blades.” Las Casas tells how “two of these so-called Christians met two Indian boys one day, each carrying a parrot; they took the parrots and for fun beheaded the boys.”
So…although wishing someone a “happy” Indigenous Peoples Day may seem incongruous after reading all that, IPD is a necessary corrective, and acknowledging it is a small act of social justice. So happy Indigenous Peoples Day to everyone!
In the last thread Mel gave some great advice re our furred, feathered, and other family members:
It helps to have a kitty carrier in an easily accessible spot, and to have supplies in your emergency kit for your furry family members, as well. Single use cans of a favorite, familiar pet food (easy to carry /keep safe and fresh in case of evac), a week’s worth of any pet maintenance medicines packed in the kit, and extra bottled water with a lightweight, unbreakable, easy to pack and carry dish are essential.
The Humane Society of the U.S. has a big page of emergency/disaster prep suggestions. The very first one is “ID your pet,” and that’s exactly right. I volunteered down in New Orleans with the HSUS post-Katrina, and one of the first things I learned is that animals with IDs were highly likely to be reunited with their families, whereas animals without IDs were highly UNlikely to be so. It was heartbreaking to see animals that you just knew someone cherished and was desperately missing, but have no way of reuniting them. My dogs have always worn a collar and tag 100% of the time–even when home watching TV, because, you know, stuff happens–but since that experience I’m nuts about making sure everyone else’s dogs, cats, etc., do as well.
Loads of other great information on that page, including lists of companion animal-friendly lodgings, how to plan for helping feral cats, and advice on how to prep for when you’re stuck somewhere and can’t get back home.
Commenter Shell mentioned in the previous thread that many emergency shelters are now pet-friendly, noting how, “In the past a lot of people refused to evacuate cause they didn’t want to leave their pets behind.” Absolutely right and, as is often the case in the good ol’ U.S., there’s a shitty class aspect to this: during Katrina, wealthier people’s animal companions were often welcomed at hotels, whereas poorer people’s weren’t allowed in shelters. This was all epitomized in the famous incident where the nine-year-old boy was devastated because he couldn’t take his little dog Snowball with him on the evacuation bus. Anyhow, this all led to the Pet Evacuation and Transportation Standards Act, which mandates that states receiving federal disaster aid incorporate animal companions and service animals in their disaster planning. More info, including a list of animal-friendly shelters in each state, at this link.
Again, your ideas and suggestions welcome in the thread.
Emergency Preparations for Companion AnimalsPost + Comments (43)
This seems like a good time to recommend Amanda Ripley’s excellent book The Unthinkable, which examines why (and how) some people survive catastrophes and others don’t. She examines 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, a hotel fire, a stampede at Mecca, and the Virginia Tech mass shooting, among other incidents. It’s a fascinating book, and also hugely practical.
Katrina seems most relevant now, with Hurricane Matthew bearing down on us. Ripley reports that, although a lot of the press coverage of the victims focused on poverty: “The victims of Katrina were not disproportionately poor; they were disproportionately old. Three-quarters of the dead were over sixty, according to the Knight Ridder analysis. Half were over seventy-five.”
She then launches into a discussion of how bad most of us are at risk assessment. You know: how we dread sharks and terrorist attacks when we really should be dreading car crashes and household accidents. She also talks about the perils of arrogance (“about 90 percent of drivers think they are safer than the average driver”) and overconfidence:
When it comes to old-fashioned risks like weather, we often overestimate ourselves. Of the fifty-two people who died during Hurricane Floyd in 1999, for example, 70 percent drowned. And most of them drowned in their cars, which had become trapped in floodwaters. This is a recurring problems in hurricanes. People are overconfident about driving through water, even though they are bombarded with official warnings not to. (This tendency varies, of course, depending on the individual. One study out of the University of Pittsburgh showed that men are much more likely to try to drive through high water than women—and thus more likely to die in the process.)”
Also:
Hurricanes are especially tricky because we have to respond to them before things get ugly. We have to evacuate when the skis are clear and blue….It’s hard to image the violence to come. Without any tangible cues, denial comes easily.
In general, she reports, elderly people don’t like to evacuate: “In 1989 1979, after the accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania, retirees and people over age seventy were least likely to evacuate—regardless of how close they were to the reactor.”
Also, elderly people are at particularly risk for over-valuing past experiences (relative to current conditions) in their decision-making. This appears to be a particular trap in highly complex and variable events like hurricanes. Ripley reports on an elderly Katrina victim who, when his kids urged him to evacuate, quite reasonably pointed out that his house had survived thirty years of hurricanes and so should also survive Katrina. But what he—and pretty much everyone else—hadn’t counted on was that decades of technohubris-fueled, under-regulated development and “starve-the-government” GOP policies had decimated the wetlands and levees that had previously protected the city from big hurricanes. And so, like so many others, he drowned.
Best to all Juicers who are in Matthew’s path. Please evacuate EARLY and check in as best you can throughout the weekend. And here’s a thread for sharing everyone’s hurricane-related experiences and suggestions and good wishes. (After Matthew has piddled out, I’ll post another thread with some of Ripley’s more general survival tips – plus my own experience with an earthquake in Japan.)
Surviving Hurricanes and Other UnthinkablesPost + Comments (156)