"Let There Be Light(?)"

From today's delanceyplace.com

Today's selection -- from An Immense World by Ed Yong. The plight of light pollution and the added impact on birds:

"In 2001, when astronomer Pierantonio Cinzano and his colleagues created the first global atlas of light pollution, they calculated that two-thirds of the world's population lived in light-polluted areas, where the nights were at least 10 percent brighter than natural dark­ness. Around 40 percent of humankind is permanently bathed in the equivalent of perpetual moonlight, and around 25 percent constantly experiences an artificial twilight that exceeds the full moon. '"Night" never really comes for them,' the researchers wrote.

"In 2016, when the team updated their atlas, they found that the problem was even worse. By then, around 83 percent of people -- and more than 99 percent of Americans and Europeans --  were living under light-polluted skies. Every year, the proportion of the planet covered by artificial light gets 2 percent bigger and 2 percent brighter. A luminous fog now smothers a quarter of Earth's surface and is thick enough in many places to blot out the stars. Over a third of humanity, and almost 80 percent of North Americans, can no longer see the Milky Way. 'The thought of light traveling billions of years from distant galaxies only to be washed out in the last billionth of a second by the glow from the nearest strip mall depresses me no end,' vision scientist Sonke Johnsen once wrote.

"At Colter Bay, Cole flips the lights back to white, and I wince. The extra illumination feels harsh and unpleasant. The Milky Way seems fainter now, and consequently, the world feels smaller. Sensory pollu­tion is the pollution of disconnection. It detaches us from the cosmos. It drowns out the stimuli that link animals to their surroundings and to each other. In making the planet brighter and louder, we have also fragmented it. While razing rainforests and bleaching coral reefs, we have also endangered sensory environments. That must now change. We have to save the quiet, and preserve the dark.

"Every year, on September 11, the sky above New York City is pierced by two columns of intense blue light. This annual art installa­tion, known as Tribute in Light, commemorates the terrorist attacks of 2001, with the ascending beams standing in for the fallen Twin Towers. Each is produced by 44 xenon bulbs with 7,000-watt intensities. Their light can be seen from 60 miles away. From closer up, onlookers often notice small flecks, dancing amid the beams like gentle flurries of snow. Those flecks are birds. Thousands of them.

"This annual ritual unfortunately occurs within the autumn migra­tory season, when billions of small songbirds undergo long flights through North American skies. Navigating under cover of darkness, they fly in such large numbers that they show up on radar. And by analyzing radar images, Benjamin van Doren showed that the Tribute in Light, across seven nights of operation, waylaid around 1.1 million birds. The beams reach so high that even at altitudes of several miles, passing birds are drawn into them. Warblers and other small species congregate within the light at densities up to 150 times their normal levels. They circle slowly, as if trapped within an incorporeal cage. They call frequently and intensely. They occasionally crash into nearby buildings.

"Migrations are grueling affairs that push small birds to their physi­ological limit. Even a nightlong detour could prematurely sap their energy reserves to fatal effect. So whenever a thousand birds or more are caught within the Tribute in Light, the bulbs are turned off for 20 minutes to let them regain their bearing. But that's just one source of light among many, and though intense and vertical, it only shines once a year. At other times, light pours out of sports stadia and tourist at­tractions, oil rigs and office buildings. It pushes back the dark and pulls in migrating birds. In 1886, shortly after Edison commercialized the electric lightbulb, nearly 1,000 birds died after colliding with an elec­trically illuminated tower in Decatur, Illinois. Over a century later, environmental scientist Travis Longcore and his colleagues calculated that almost 7 million birds a year die in the United States and Canada after flying into communication towers. The red lights of those tow­ers are meant to warn aircraft pilots, but they also disrupt the orienta­tion of nocturnal avian fliers, which then veer into wires or each other. Many of these deaths could be avoided simply by replacing steady lights with blinking ones."

We have, from time to time, talked about whether or not to increase the nighttime light in the Park.  For those on a "security" bent, it's probably worth noting that burglars most commonly invade houses during the day.  They have more confidence no one is home, and they can see better.

"You Break It, You Buy It."

‘Dilbert’ Comic Strip Dropped by Newspapers Over Scott Adams ‘Racist Rant’ (msn.com)

So, Scott Adams is racist.  He hates, or has no patience for, African-Americans.  He's not alone.  There are plenty of prejudiced (racist, sexist, antisemitic, or whatever) people in the world.  And Adams' advice to people who are not African-Americans is to keep a distance from African-Americans.  He calls African-Americans a "hate group."  Presumably, he means he thinks they're filled with hate.  Like it's just part of who and what they are.  It's part of their "DNA."

What he's overlooking, in his assessment of African-Americans as hate-filled, is what they're so angry about.  He seems to imply, without saying it, that it's African-Americans who are prejudiced and innately hateful people.  He seems to portray himself, and other Caucasians, as simply reacting to the presumably unprovoked antipathy some Caucasians say they experience from African-Americans.  They're just protecting themselves from the evil that is his view of African-Americans.  Or at least he advises Caucasians that they should protect themselves.

Adams seems to overlook the horrible mistreatment African-Americans have received from Caucasians in this country, for centuries.  And it continues to this very day.  If he had to think about that, maybe he would have to conclude that whatever he doesn't like about African-Americans is the fault of Caucasians.  Maybe he would have to conclude that American Caucasians caused the problem, whatever he thinks it is, about which he now complains.

Adams doesn't want to hear about this, or to have to acknowledge it and know it, any more than does Ron DeSantis.  Because, as heirs of the Caucasians who began this mistreatment, and as people who continue it now, and are beneficiaries of it, it would make them feel bad?  Or self-conscious?  Or guilty?  Or as if they owed anything, including better treatment, to African-Americans?  Yeah, so?  "Those who fail to study history..." so to speak.

Has Adams, or DeSantis, or any of the rest of them, never apologized to anyone for anything?  Have they somehow convinced themselves they never did anything for which they should apologize?  And in a less personal way, do they not recognize things that were done, which should not have been done, and for which an apology is owed, even though they think or tell themselves they did not personally do it?  That's a pretty breathtaking lack of awareness, and self-awareness.

It's not particularly uncommon to hear an African-American person say they have to work twice as hard to be credited with half as much.  Do people like Adams not believe this, or they just don't want to hear it, and have to think about it?

One of the many foolish pop psych suggestions is that people should refuse to feel guilty.  In my opinion, this is both idiotic and antisocial.  Guilt is one of the things that connects people, and makes them accountable to each other.  It's not toxic or destructive.  It springs from empathy.  If I were to take Adams' advice, and want to "get the fuck away" from anyone, I'd want to get the fuck away from Adams.  So, apparently, do many of the newspapers that have carried, and paid Adams for, his "Dilbert" cartoons.

What a waste of humanity that boy is.

To the extent that "we" caused the problem of which Adams and others complain, "we" have a responsibility to fix it.  One of the suggestions that is not uncommonly made is to pay reparations to African-American people, as tenuous as that categorization is for some people.  (Barack Obama is generally thought of as "black," and he calls himself "black."  He is precisely as "white" as he is "black,")  Personally, I don't agree.  For one thing, considering the extent of the damage done, and the length of time it was done, I don't think there's enough money in the world to compensate African-Americans.  If we made a reasonable effort -- if there was a reasonable effort -- to pay some remotely seemingly compensatory amount, many recipients would only lose it anyway.  We see this happen with lottery winners and people like professional athletes (can you believe that Dan Marino declared bankruptcy, and John Elway was either in deep financial straits, or also declared bankruptcy?  Johhny Unitas was a mess due to gambling debts.).  They don't have a comfortable and stable system for handling sudden infusions of large amounts of money.  They can't think straight about it, and they give it away foolishly, buy homes and other things they shouldn't buy, for too many people, fall for losing investments (scams), etc.

What we ought to do first is stop treating African-Americans the way we (still) do, and second, address and reverse the undermining of their reasonable places in society.  Some do well, and even extraordinarily well.  They're more than capable, given a fair chance.  (We generally don't give them a fair chance.)  We spent centuries destroying any sense they might have had as members of families, and then we complain that they're not stably family-oriented.  Duh.  Many of them need encouragement and help from us.  When we penalize them for almost anything they do, no matter how appropriate and fully legal, whom do we blame for the fact that they give up, and decide that if they're going to lose anyway, then they might as well benefit themselves on the way down and out?  All of that needs to be acknowledged and restructured.

People like Scott Adams don't help the cause.  They don't help anything.  I sort of wonder what kind of upbringing Adams had.  To use a colloquialism, I don't think it included breast-feeding.

What the F'n F?! OK, We're Going to Talk About the "Second Amendment."

Three days. 10 mass shootings. More than 50 victims. US sees worst weekend of 2023. (msn.com)

I'm going to try to condense an 8300 word, 16 page paper I wrote into a blog post.

The "Second Amendment" is the commonest excuse gun-toters use as what they believe is the basis of their right to tote guns.

"A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

The gun-toters think this is about guns.  It is not.  Guns are never mentioned.  It's about security (of the states against over-reach by the federal government, and of the Union against outside intrusion), and the mechanism of that security is militias.  Further, the background regarding militias and their intended purpose(s) is contained in Federalist Paper #29, which addresses who can join a militia (Caucasian men between 18 and 45), how they are to obtain the "Arms" in question (the federal government is to supply them), how they are to be trained (by the federal government), how often (twice a year), and who will be their direct officers (appointed by the states).  It is also noted repeatedly that militia members are people from the locality, and they know and trust each other, and everyone else knows and trusts them.

In the late 18th C, "Arms" meant muskets.  Today, for the purpose of resisting over-reach by the federal government, or to join the Union in its efforts to confront outside invaders, "Arms" means whatever the "enemy" has.  That means grenades, bazookas, flame-throwers, tanks, fighter jets, surface-to-air missiles, aircraft carriers, submarines, and nuclear weapons.  But since every one of those is illegal for civilians to have, even if they claim they'll just hang on to them until they have to join a militia, then there is no "Second Amendment."  It hasn't been formally repealed, but it no longer has any practical meaning.  It's been gutted and made a useless anachronism.

And as for who can join a militia, apart from the race, gender, and age, we're talking about each other, not about loners, misfits, criminals, and people with what are loosely called "mental problems."  But that's who commits all these mass murders.

If you haven't seen the old (at this point) Michael Moore movie, "Bowling for Columbine," you should.  Near the end Moore is interviewing Charlton Heston, who was then either president or celebrity spokesperson for the NRA.  Moore points out to Heston that the rate of gun ownership is about the same in Canada as it is in the USA, but the rate of gun crime is much higher in this country.  He asks Heston ("they'll have to pry my guns out of my cold, dead hands") why that is.  Or, to put it more bluntly, WTF is wrong with us?  Heston had no answer.  Well, something is wrong with us.  And it has been for a really long time.  "Bowling for Columbine" was released in 2002, and it was already a well-established fact back then.

And since the orange man told everyone it was right, proper, and "god" damn patriotic to honor your rage, and go out and do something about it, the rate of various crimes -- many or most of them with guns -- has exploded.

Nobody needs his or her own personal gun.  They're dangerous.  That's their one and only purpose.  We regulate and restrict ownership of much less dangerous, and much more generally useful, things, like cars, more than we regulate guns.  And that's because legislators are bought and owned by the NRA.  Do you know that Marco Rubio gets vastly more money from the NRA than he gets from his salary (which comes from our tax dollars)?  Who do you think his constituents are?

So, what?  Guns are fun?  They make you feel secure?  When was the last time you used a gun to protect yourself, or to protect anyone else?  And your possession of it is at the risk that someone in your house gets mad at someone else in your house, or someone gets depressed, or your house gets burgled, and your gun(s) get(s) stolen.  It's really not worth the fun, or the story you tell yourself about how big and tough you are now.

When my father died at the end of 2016, we found out he had a handgun.  I brought it to the BP police, and asked them to destroy it.  Please get rid of your gun(s).  Once someone steals it/them, from a home invasion, or because you left it in your unlocked car (you think I'm kidding, right), it/they become everyone's problem.  You don't have the right to do that to everyone else.  Nothing -- not the "Second Amendment" or anything else -- gives you that right.

The Best Movies I Own? The Best Movies There Are?

Lately, I've had time at night, and I've been watching selections from my library.  The crazy thing is how often I watch one, and decide it might be the best movie ever made.  Until I watch the next one, and think maybe that one is.  I've seen them all many times.

It seems the recent string of those might, or might not, have started with "Big Fish."  Sprinkled in there are movies like "Dogma," "The Sting," and "Chinatown."  But I thought "Big Fish" was it, until I rewatched "Farinelli."  Then, I wasn't entirely sure about "Big Fish."  Tonight, it was "Moliere," which maybe shouldn't be in the running, because it's French with subtitles, but it's too magnificent not to be in the running.

And of course, there's always "The Brand New Testament."  Also in French with subtitles, but 100%, or more, worth it.  Everyone in it is fabulous, as is the story.  Yolande Moreau is always perfect.  I'm reminded of a conversation I had a couple of months or so ago with someone who referred to some young woman as "pretty."  I said young women are pretty.  Older women are beautiful.  Catherine Deneuve is beautiful.

"Two For the Road" could be close.  Maybe "The Dancer Upstairs" is even closer.

Two nights ago, Nancy Davis reminded me of some Japanese movies I loaned her, so that brings in "The Eel" and the jaw-dropping "Departures."  (Congrats, by the way, to Mac Kennedy and Dan Schneiger.)

And when I cite "Dogma," I'm leaving aside the other Kevin Smith movies (all great, but "Dogma" is the best), and the Chris Guest movies (it's hard not to add "Best in Show" to the list, although as great as it is, it's not "Moliere").

As much as I love them, the Sherlock Holmes movies are not the best ever made.  They're pretty great, though.  And the same goes for "Inside Man," which has a ton going for it.

Recently re-watched, there was also "A Price Above Rubies."  Yeah, OK, Renee Zellweger can be annoying to watch, but it was a magnificent movie.  And what about "The Rose?"  It's not a happy story to watch, but what's imperfect about it?

Even "Philomena" and "Mrs Henderson Presents" are noteworthy.  I don't have a complaint about either of them.  It's not just Judi Dench, either.  Or Bob Hoskins, whose performance in "Mrs Henderson Presents" was even better than he usually is.  It's everyone, and the writing, and the directing.

And of course, there's that sleepy sleeper, "Sling Blade."  You can say what you like about Billy Bob Thornton, but show me an imperfection in that movie.  He wrote it, directed it, and starred in it.

Then, you have the ones no one would say are the best movies ever, but it's not clear why not.  The top of that list includes "Household Saints."  Then, you have "Death to Smoochy," "Countryman," "The Sandlot," and you can take your pick of any of the Terry Gilliam movies.  "If I Were King" is very dated, but it's so captivating that it gets a noteworthy boost.

It was my children many years ago who put me onto "The Sandlot" (my daughter always used to say "you're killing me, Smalls"), and maybe it's best appreciated by pre-adolescent boys -- that's the subject -- but what a movie.

If there's anything imperfect about "Chocolat," you can tell me what it is.

Yeah, I know about "The Wizard of Oz," "Citizen Kane," "Gone With the Wind," and many others that are said to be the best movies ever.  They don't do it for me the way these others do.  Although "The Music Man..."  You know...?

I Wonder If I Was Wrong About Donald Trump.

For a collection of reasons, I do not follow sports.  I especially don't follow professional sports.  I don't even make an exception for about three hours, meaning the Super Bowl.

Of course I know when the Super Bowl is, like I know when Christmas and New Year's are, and on a day like today, it is impossible to avoid finding out the outcome of the game.  (Actually, I didn't fully know who was playing.  I was pretty sure it was Kansas City against someone.  It was, and they beat Philadelphia with less than two minutes to play, and the critical play was a penalty against Philadelphia.  The Philadelphia player called for the penalty said the call was a good one -- sporting and honest of him -- and he thought what he did wrong was relatively minor and might be overlooked.  But he admitted the call was right, and considering where Kansas City was on the field at that point, it's most likely they would have won anyway.  But really, who cares about that, and it's not what I wanted to discuss.)

People say a lot of terrible things about Donald Trump, and among them are that he's racist and sexist.  He is caricaturishly sexist, but the question I've considered is if he's really racist.  His flagrant sexism didn't get in the way of his other "functioning," and he was able to appoint or nominate people like Sarah Sanders, Nikki Haley, and Amy Barrett.  He also promoted his older daughter to a high position in his administration, but since he also implied he wanted to have sex with her, it's unclear whether or not that promotion was sexist.  And if he is racist, that didn't prevent him from nominating someone like Ben Carson.

The fact is, Trump doesn't really care about anyone or anything, except himself.  So I thought there was no evidence that he was racist, at least per se.  But today, I'm wondering.

The second most talked about feature of any Super Bowl (second to the game) is the halftime show.  There have been 57 Super Bowls, so the halftime shows have become increasingly dramatic and technological, and probably always with big stars, who sing and dance and have loud music and entourages of assistant performers.  Yesterday's featured star was a woman named Rihanna.  I've heard of her, but I've never seen nor heard her perform.  I read today that she's pregnant, which is a little weird (that they'd choose someone who's pregnant, although she might not have been when they first contracted with her, and that she'd agree to do her show while she was pregnant).  I watched part of her show on youtube -- the halftime show is of no more interest to me than is the game, so I couldn't be bothered to watch the whole thing -- and I'd guess, from what I could see, that she's probably about six, maybe slightly less, months pregnant.  She didn't do a lot of dance moves, but she and the other performers were on suspended and moving platforms (not small enough that she could easily fall off), but if she were my wife, I'd plead with her not to do it.

Here's the video: Rihanna’s FULL Apple Music Super Bowl LVII Halftime Show - YouTube

So, Donald Trump, who doesn't care about anyone or anything, except himself, and always insults anyone who's not himself (or close and protected, even if temporarily, family members and associates) said he thought this was the worst halftime show ever.  Of course it's true that Donald Trump is always calling anything the best or the worst ever, and it's unclear what he really means by this, except it allows him to continue to run his mouth, which is his main activity.  (Most of it is output, but it's clear that there's noteworthy intake, too.)

But the question is this: if it was possible, which it probably isn't, to assume Donald Trump ever meant anything he said, and if it could be imagined he meant what he said about yesterday's Super Bowl halftime show, what made him think it was the worst one ever?  Having seen part of that one on youtube, and parts of other ones over the years, I can tell you that yesterday's was not the worst or the best ever.  It was fairly typical for Super Bowl halftime shows these days.  Rihanna's not a magnificent singer.  But she's not awful.  These shows are extravaganzas.  That's what they're supposed to be.  This one was an extravaganza, too, in its way.  But if we could make the very tenuous assumption that Donald Trump truly (I know, "Donald Trump" and "truly" should never appear in the same sentence) especially disliked yesterday's Super Bowl halftime show, why did he especially dislike it?  There are glaringly interfering dynamics, like Trump's 100% fixation on himself, and his preference for hyperbole (the best, the worst), but does this crack -- everything out of Trump's mouth is a crack -- mean that Trump is, somehow, in fact racist?  This raises questions like whether or not he can be bothered to be racist, given where 100% of his attention goes, but it could, in theory at least, make you wonder.

Perhaps as an aside, or perhaps to provide even a little bit more insight about this matter, among the many articles and columns about the Super Bowl yesterday, there's this one: Super Bowl 57 is the Blackest, most woke Super Bowl ever. Sorry haters! | Opinion (msn.com).  This is a magnificent column, and I could not stop laughing through the whole thing.  Enjoy.

Abortion, Just to Take an Example.

This is a huge topic and debate, right?  It's a national battle.  At its worst, some of the anti-abortion contingent attack and even kill people, including doctors, who contribute to the availability of abortion, and perform them.

It's unimaginable that anyone doesn't know that Reps/cons are the primary drivers of the anti-abortion crusade.  It's probably worth noting that Reps/cons prefer not to describe themselves as anti-abortion.  We'll come back to this, but they prefer to describe themselves as "pro-life."

There are in theory two reasons to oppose abortion.  One is being broadly "pro-life" (favoring life over death), and the other is a specific reason to be "pro-life," which is that someone's personally held religious beliefs are interpreted as meaning that a pregnancy should not be ended, and a fetus, let's say, should not be killed.

If someone is "pro-life," which they could be for any reason, then they oppose ending lives.  This is theoretically straightforward.  And it could be acceptable, and something to which to give serious consideration, by any or all of us, if it were, in fact, straightforward.  But Reps/cons are not consistently and reliably "pro-life."  The Catholic church (which has very considerable blood on its hands) tends to oppose capital punishment today, but most Reps/cons don't.  They don't mind one bit executing convicts.  It satisfies them.  It appears more or less to please them.  If a convict has, let's say, killed someone, we're not getting the victim back.  All we can do is kill someone else.

Likewise, Reps/cons are very reliably opposed to legislation that would limit guns (the availability of them, the types of them that are available, or even having to register them).  Guns really only have one value: they can be used to kill someone or something, and they increasingly commonly are.  The last statistic I heard was that there were 40 "mass shootings" in January, 2023.  That's more than one (1.3) a day, for a whole month, and mass shooting is defined either by the deaths of three or more people per shooting, or at least four people shot, and either killed or injured.  That's a lot of lives Reps/cons, who prefer to call themselves "pro-life," are militant about sacrificing.  Thinking of Reps/cons as "pro-life" is like "herding cats."  It just doesn't work.  It can't be done.

Of course, for Reps/cons, it doesn't have to work.  It's out of their hands.  They cite the "Second Amendment," which they tell themselves gives them an "uninfringed" right to have guns.  The "Second Amendment" has nothing to do with guns.  It never mentions them.  The "Second Amendment" is about national security (keeping the Union secure from outside aggression, and keeping the states secure from over-reach by the federal government), and the way this security is operationalized, according to the words of the "Second Amendment," is by facilitating militias.  In that interest, "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms [could] not be infringed."  "Arms" in the late 18th C meant muskets.  "Arms," for the purpose of satisfying the "Second Amendment" today, includes grenades, bazookas, flame-throwers, tanks, fighter jets, aircraft carriers, surface-to-air missiles, submarines, and nuclear weapons.  That's what we would need to be effective members of a militia (the one and only stated purpose of the "Second Amendment") today.  Except every one of those armaments is illegal for civilians to possess today, and no one, including Reps/cons, argues that they should be legal for civilian possession.  Reps/cons, and everyone else, agree that the "Second Amendment" has no modern meaning, but they constantly cite it anyway, as a theoretical support for whatever they want.  (And in case you might be interested, but the cost of weaponry like that is prohibitive for you, not to worry.  Federalist Paper #29 says the federal government should give you those "Arms.")

But what about the other argument: that being anti-abortion (the whole "pro-life" thing is a scam and a joke) is a reflection of personal understanding and interpretation of religious tenets?  There are two problems here.  One is that the Pilgrims came to the New World to escape religious persecution, and the US Constitution guarantees separation of church and state.  So you can personally believe what you want (you think there's such a thing as "god," you think Jesus was the son of "god" and the messiah, you think Mohammed was the prophet of "god/allah," you think Haile Selassi was the "second coming," or whatever), but that's your personal belief, and the Pilgrims, and the US Constitution, will tell you that's not to be imposed on anyone else.  When I was in college (not lately), you would occasionally see a bumper sticker that said "If You Don't Believe in Abortion, Don't Have One."  And if you're a Rep/con, many of whom tell themselves they're "originalists," you would adhere to that philosophy.  But they don't.  They want "small government" until they want a government massive and oppressive enough to control everyone else's life, to make other people behave as they themselves wish to behave.  The other problem is that there are (at least) several religions, and more interpretations and styles of observance than there are religions, and it's really not possible over a broad population to say that "religion" wants anything that people -- even its own adherents -- are willing to give.  There are plenty of people who would say they think there's such a thing as "god," and they generally adhere to some religion, but they experienced an unwanted pregnancy, against which they thought they had protected themselves, and they get abortions.  The whole religious reason for being anti-abortion can fall apart really fast.

So I know I'm provocative when I say that Reps/cons are hypocrites, dishonest, or both.  I'm completely sure that kind of rhetoric from me is experienced as very insulting.  But I'm still waiting for someone to tell me I'm wrong, and to show me where I'm wrong.