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Archive for February, 2022

Accidentally Buying Family History

Posted in Uncategorized on February 28, 2022| 10 Comments »

Photo: John R Crane/Lee Newspapers.
Sharswood, a 10-acre property in Gretna, Virginia, was the heart of a pre-Civil War plantation. When Frederick Miller bought the property in 2020, had no idea that his ancestors were once enslaved there.

Life can present some surprising twists. Frederick Miller, who spent his childhood in Gretna, Virginia, was naturally excited to buy a beautiful property there after he grew up and returned to the area. But a mysterious force must have also been at work.

As Joe Helm reported at the Washington Post last month, “There was so much Fredrick Miller didn’t know about the handsome house here on Riceville Road.

“He grew up just a half-mile away and rode past it on his school bus every day. It was hard to miss. The home’s Gothic revival gables, six chimneys, diamond-paned windows and sweeping lawn were as distinctive a sight as was to be seen in this rural southern Virginia community. But Miller, 56, an Air Force veteran who now lives in California, didn’t give it much thought. …

“Two years ago, when his sister called to say the estate was for sale, he jumped on it. He’d been looking, pulled home to the place he left at 18. His roots were deep in this part of Pittsylvania County, and he wanted a place where his vast extended family, many of whom still live nearby, could gather.

“The handsome house set on a rise had a name, it turned out. Sharswood. And Sharswood had a history. And its history had everything to do with Miller.

“Slavery wasn’t something people talked much about in this part of Virginia when Miller was growing up in the 1970s and 1980s. And other than a few brief mentions in school, it wasn’t taught much, either.

“The only time he remembers the subject coming up was when Alex Haley’s miniseries, ‘Roots,’ was broadcast in 1977. …

“Miller assumed his ancestors had been enslaved. But where and when and by whom were questions that were left unasked and unanswered.

“ ‘People didn’t want to talk about this stuff because it was too painful,’ said Dexter Miller, 60, a cousin of Fredrick’s who lives in Java. … Another cousin, Marian Keyes, who taught first in segregated schools and later in integrated schools from 1959 to 1990, said that for a long time there was little teaching about slavery in Pittsylvania County.

“ ‘We weren’t really allowed to even talk about it back then,’ said Keyes, who turns 90 this year and lives in Chatham. ‘We weren’t even allowed to do much about the Civil War and all of that kind of stuff, really.’

“Even outside of school, when she was growing up, Keyes said, the subject of slavery was avoided. ‘I just thought everything was normal,’ she said, ‘because that was the way of life.’ …

“It wasn’t until after Fredrick Miller bought Sharswood in May 2020 that its past started coming into focus. That’s when his sister, Karen Dixon-Rexroth and their cousins Sonya Womack-Miranda and Dexter Miller doubled down on researching their family history.

“What neither Fredrick Miller nor his sister knew at the time was that the property had once been a 2,000-acre plantation, whose owners before and during the Civil War were Charles Edwin Miller and Nathaniel Crenshaw Miller.

“Miller.

“Fredrick Miller and so many members of his extended family were born and grew up in the shadow of Sharswood — and perhaps it was a clue to a deeper connection. It wasn’t uncommon after emancipation for formerly enslaved people to take the last names of their enslavers. But establishing the link required more research. …

“They pored over court and real estate records, examined census data and revisited family tales passed down over generations. As the puzzle pieces connected, a clearer picture emerged. Sarah Miller, great-grandmother to Fredrick, Karen and Dexter, and great-great-grandmother to Sonya, died in 1949 at 81. From her death certificate, they learned that Sarah’s parents were Violet and David Miller.

“The 1860 Census does not list enslaved people by name, only by gender and age. In the 1870 Census, however, Violet and David Miller lived just a short distance from Sharswood. Between the many documents that the descendants of Sarah Miller have obtained, the fragments of family oral history they’ve sewn together and the proximity of the family to the plantation, they are certain that Violet and David Miller were among those enslaved at Sharswood.

“More clues continue to emerge. An entry in the Virginia Slave Births Index uncovered this month by [Karice Luck-Brimmer, who works in community outreach with Virginia Humanities in Pittsylvania County] shows that a boy named Samuel was born to Violet in Pittsylvania County on May 9, 1864. N.C. Miller is listed as the enslaver. In the 1870 Census record for Violet and David Miller, Samuel, age 5, is listed as a member of the household. Sarah, his youngest sister, also is listed as a member of the household. She would have been 2, although no age is given for her in the record.

“The newly discovered document ‘hands-down places them on the plantation,’ Womack-Miranda said after seeing the entry. …

“For Fredrick Miller, the 10.5-acre-estate he’d purchased for $225,000 ended up not being just a future gathering spot for the family, but also its first traceable point in the United States — an astonishing revelation for him. It also left him thinking about family history and the absence of that history for many people like him.

“ ‘You’ve got to know where you come from,’ he said in a phone interview from his California home. ‘You’ve got to know where you come from. It’s unfortunate that a lot of us don’t.’

“In an undated photo of Sarah that family members have shared with one another, the mother of seven wears wire-rimmed glasses and faces the camera with a somber expression. When he looks at the photo of his great-grandmother, Fredrick Miller sees sadness in her face. But, he hopes, maybe this purchase has brought some redemption.

“With Sharswood in his hands, her family is reclaiming its past.

“ ‘I just hope that somehow she’s looking down from heaven and finally cracking a beautiful smile,’ he said.”

More at the Post, here.

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Renovating the City. Gently.

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on February 27, 2022| 11 Comments »

Photo: City of San Antonio.

There are so many beautiful pieces of buildings that end up in the dump when individuals or municipalities choose demolition: “wavy” glass from old homes, priceless woods, marble, stained glass, historical artifacts, and more. Fortunately, in the spirit of Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, a different approach is being tested around the country.

Aarian Marshall writes at Wired, “Emily Christensen knows this sounds a little West Coast, but when she enters the old houses her company has been hired to take apart, she senses an energy. ‘It’s intense,’ she says. ‘These houses have seen decades of human drama.’

“Christensen and her partner, David Greenhill, started their firm, Good Wood, in 2016. Portland, Oregon, where they live, had just become the nation’s first city to require houses of a certain age to be deconstructed rather than demolished. That means that, instead of using an excavator and backhoe to crush an old building, anyone scrapping an older structure in the city must hire a deconstruction crew, which takes it apart delicately — almost surgically — by hand. Rather than a jumble of smashed wood, plaster, fixtures, insulation, concrete, and dust, deconstruction firms can extract cabinetry, masonry, windows, marble, brick, and beautiful old-growth lumber. The idea is that these materials can be sold and eventually reused locally. …

“Using old materials to make new things feels meaningful. It helps, too, that reclaimed wood tends to be very pretty. But a growing number of US cities think the idea makes good policy too. In the past five years, cities as disparate as Baltimore, Cleveland, Boise, and San Jose and Palo Alto in California have adopted their own deconstruction policies; San Antonio has been working on one for four years.

“Deconstruction, city officials say, is a green alternative to demolition, sending up to 85 percent less material to landfills. Building materials and construction account for just under 10 percent of the world’s energy-related global carbon emissions, according to the Rocky Mountain Institute.

Using salvaged materials eliminates emissions associated with making and transporting new building materials. Plus, it’s not as noisy as knocking down a house, and doesn’t spew dust or toxic materials, such as asbestos, into the air.

“Backers say it creates jobs even for those without high-tech skills, while highlighting the importance of sustainability. As the climate warms, ‘the circular economy is one promising alternative,’ says Felix Heisel, an architect, assistant professor, and director of the Circular Construction Lab at Cornell University.

“Good Wood illustrates Portland’s success. Over the past four years, the city has deconstructed more than 420 single-family and duplex homes that were registered as historic places or built before 1940. Good Wood has taken apart 160 of them. Today, 19 contractors are licensed to deconstruct in the city, thanks in part to a city-sponsored training. …

“But all that manual labor comes at a cost. Deconstructing a building can be more than 80 percent more expensive than demolishing it, according to a report from Portland State University, though selling some of the recovered material can offset part of the cost.

“And sometimes the labor isn’t available. In 2018, Milwaukee required many of the city’s older structures to be deconstructed instead of demolished. But the rule is still on ice, through at least 2023, as officials still struggle to find local contractors who can take apart homes by hand.

“The delay ‘is in hopes of building a bigger pool of potential contractors,’ says Chris Kraco, supervisor of the condemnation section at the city’s Department of Neighborhood Services. Kraco and his colleagues continue to hold training sessions. … Many places also need to update their local building codes to allow contractors to build with salvaged materials.

“The complexity has prompted some cities to tackle deconstruction slowly. Pittsburgh just launched a year-long pilot project, in partnership with a local nonprofit construction materials and appliances business, to see whether taking apart old, condemned structures on city land makes financial sense there. …

“San Antonio’s Office of Historic Preservation, which has spearheaded the city’s deconstruction efforts, plans to propose an ordinance to city council later this year. In the meantime, it’s helping with demonstration projects, including one on a 1930s homestead that uncovered a basement full of moonshine bottles — something that might have otherwise been crushed in a demolition. …

“Most cities, Portland included, have targeted old buildings for deconstruction. It’s partly because limiting the pool of homes required to use the technique gives local deconstruction economies time to develop. But also, starting in the 1970s, builders tended to use materials that haven’t held their value, like second- or third-growth lumber, or particle board. Construction also used more glue, spray foam sealant, and other adhesives, which make it harder to take apart new buildings by hand.” More at Wired, here.

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Banned Books

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on February 26, 2022| 7 Comments »

The Master and Margarita is a novel by Russian writer Mikhail Bulgakov, written in the Soviet Union during Stalin‘s regime. A censored version was published in Moscow magazine in 1966–1967, after the writer’s death.

John has worked with optical engineers in Ukraine for decades now. Some years ago, when one of the engineers was in the US to talk to clients, we got to share a meal and a chat. I remember it was a sweltering hot day. We had no air conditioning in our dining room, and we were all sweating.

At the time, I must have been reading Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita, a fantastical satire on the USSR, written in the time of Stalin. We began to talk about it, and John’s colleague described what one had to do to read the book’s loose unpublished pages before Ukraine gained its freedom. Under the table in the library with a flashlight.

That memory came to mind in the last few days as I watched the Soviet Union try to return from the dead in Ukraine. My train of thought took me to current headlines about banned books in the US and an article in the New York Times that gave students a chance to opine on that trend.

The Times staff explains, “In the article ‘Book Ban Efforts Spread Across the U.S.,’ Elizabeth A. Harris and Alexandra Alter write about the growing trend of parents, political activists, school board officials and lawmakers arguing that some books do not belong in school libraries.

“As we regularly do when The Times reports on an issue that touches the lives of teenagers, we used our daily Student Opinion forum to ask teenagers to share their perspectives. The overwhelming majority of students were opposed to book bans in any form, although their reasons and opinions were varied and nuanced. They argued that young people have the right to read unsanitized versions of history, that diverse books expose them to a variety of experiences and perspectives, that controversial literature helps them to think critically about the world, and that, in the age of the internet, book bans just aren’t that effective. … Thank you to all those from around the world who joined the conversation this week, including teenagers from Japan; Julia R. Masterman School in Philadelphia; and Patino High School in Fresno, Calif.

” ‘I think the idea of people trying to censor speech is absolutely abhorrent. Right to freedom of speech, religion, peaceful assembly, petition, and press is our 1st amendment and one that we take for granted …

” ‘As a teenager I am still trying to find my way in this world; I want to know as many other viewpoints as possible so that I know my thoughts are my own and not just a product of a limited amount of information. Even if these books are not required reading they should be allowed in libraries. Families can decide what books are allowed in their homes but trying to force a community to get rid of a book is a way of forcing one’s beliefs on an entire community. Removing books about issues faced by marginalized groups is a way to ignore them, a way to minimize the issues faced by those groups and allow the banners to not have their opinions challenged. This is a democracy that should be open to discussion and if it is then people will find others who agree and disagree with them.’ [Jason, Maine] …

” ‘Maybe a student has past trauma that they may struggle to deal with, a book that has a topic based on their past may comfort them and bring them closure. These books also inform students on what really happens within the mind and life of someone else. Banning books is an overall loss for a school or library, it only limits human growth.’ [Alex, Michigan]

” ‘Reading the article and these comments just makes me think, ”Jeez, the fact these books are being challenged shows how much some people need education on the subjects of them.” These books may have hard topics but they essentially are a needed part of education. They might be brutal and hard to swallow, but they are the best examples of real-world problems and history. They provide a good sense of realism and give kids somewhat of an idea of what goes on and has gone on in the world.

” ‘Challenging these books is like trying to protect someone from the world. Then instead shoving them in front of something that makes them think, “Everything will always work out,” And, “These things will never happen again.” It makes them think the world has no struggle or insanely big problems. When in reality it definitely does and they will be directly affected by these problems.’ [Jordan, Massachusetts]

“While it’s reasonable to be concerned about the material your children are reading, as some material might not be age appropriate, there is almost never — honestly, never at all — justification for banning a book. …

“Books are the primary way to tell stories, to learn right from the mouths of people who have witnessed things we need to learn and grow from. Our society depends on the idea of future generations learning and progressing, and with the banning of books all we are doing is going backwards, not forwards.” [Meghan, Illinois]

Read more at the Times, here.

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Kenyans Harvest the Sun Twice

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on February 25, 2022| 3 Comments »

Photo: Christine Lamanna/Icraf.
The Guardian reports, “A research collaboration between the University of Sheffield and the Latia Agripreneurship Institute in Kenya’s semi-arid Kajiado county had promising results.”

A recent article in the Guardian got me interested in learning a bit more about a technical college in Kenya called Latia Agripreneurship Institute.

The website says, “Latia Agribusiness Solutions (LAS), is a business support services provider to the Agribusinesses in all sectors. It facilitates Agribusinesses (farm and firm), to access markets, farm products, technology, financial services and workforce solutions. It delivers these services through an agribusiness ecosystem consisting of local and international companies who have come together to address the needs of Agribusiness in Africa.”

The school is casting a very wide net for prospective students: “LAI uses an industry led, market driven and competency based approach to deliver a broad training program referred to as ‘Apprenticeship.’

The program targets anyone who can read and write and the core criterion for selection is the passion for agribusiness, the ability and readiness to either invest in own farm, or gain meaningful employment in the industry.

Geoffrey Kamadi reports at the Guardian on a collaboration between joining LAI and the UK’s University of Sheffield.

“Solar panels are not a new way of providing cheap power across much of the African continent, where there is rarely a shortage of sunshine. But growing crops underneath the panels is, and the process has had such promising trials in Kenya that it will be deployed this week in open-field farms.

“Known as agrivoltaics, the technique harvests solar energy twice: where panels have traditionally been used to harness the sun’s rays to generate energy, they are also utilized to provide shade for growing crops, helping to retain moisture in the soil and boosting growth.

“An initial year-long research collaboration between the University of Sheffield, World Agroforestry and the Kajiado-based Latia Agripreneurship Institute has shown promising results in the semi-arid Kajiado county, a 90-minute drive from the Kenyan capital of Nairobi and this week the full project will be officially launched.

“For example, cabbages grown under the 180, 345-watt solar panels have been a third bigger, and healthier, than those grown in control plots with the same amount of fertilizer and water.

“Other crops such as aubergine [eggplant] and lettuce have shown similar results. Maize [corn] grown under the panels was taller and healthier, according to Judy Wairimu, an agronomist at the institute. …

“According to Dr Richard Randle-Boggis, a researcher at the University of Sheffield’s Harvesting the Sun Twice project, the trial initiative will determine the potential of agrivoltaic systems in east Africa.

“ ‘We needed to build a test system to see if this technology will be suitable for the region,’ Randle-Boggis said, reiterating that, unlike conventional solar mini-grid systems, agrivoltaics have the additional benefits of improving food and water security, while strengthening people’s resilience against the climate crisis, as well as providing low-carbon electricity. …

” ‘Agrivoltaics can have a notable impact on household income in remote locations such as Kajiado. ‘Women here can spend up to 300 Kenyan shillings [$2.68] on a bodaboda (motorcycle taxi) fare to the market just to buy vegetables worth 100 Kenyan shillings,’ said Anne Macharia, head of training at Latia Agripreneurship Institute.

“The solar panels can be placed three metres [about 10 feet] from the ground, providing ample room for a farmer to work below, or higher in bigger systems to allow access for agricultural machinery. … In other countries, including France, the US and Germany, the technology has been employed successfully.” More at the Guardian, here.

I have posted numerous stories about innovations in Kenya over the last decade. Search this blog on the word “Kenya” for more.

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Restoring the Forest Primeval

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on February 24, 2022| 4 Comments »

Photo: Community Forests International.
The Wabanaki-Acadian Forest, made up of 32 species of hardwood and coniferous trees.

“This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,
“Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight,
“Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic.”

Who remembers the Longfellow poem “Evangeline” from school? The sad, Druidlike pines and hemlocks could never have prophesized what humanity would do to the forest that once covered this continent.

Today’s story, by Moira Donovan at the Christian Science Monitor, is about people who are taking a page from indigenous wisdom and working to preserve what’s left.

“On a sloping patch of forest in the eastern Canadian province of New Brunswick, Mike Hickey is on the hunt for red oak. They’re not overly difficult to find on his 156-acre woodlot, even though it’s something of a scavenger hunt: The number of mature oak on this thickly wooded expanse can be counted on one hand. …

“He walks down a road past a pile of logs cut from red spruce and other species, many of which were harvested from trees blown down during storms. He uses them to produce his own lumber. … Finally, he arrives at a slope where a slender tree is still hanging on to its auburn leaves despite the winter chill. ‘One of them is up there,’ he says, pointing to a red oak. ‘One of my projects.’

“For the past 10 years, Mr. Hickey has been attempting to restore this woodlot – which has been in his wife’s family for a century – clearing space for long-lived native hardwoods like this oak tree. He’s done this by cutting away competitors, and planting other climate change-tolerant species such as white pine,

to restore this land to the forest that would have existed prior to colonization.

“In doing so, he’s part of a coalition of woodlot owners, Indigenous groups, and community organizations in the Canadian Maritimes that is attempting to protect a globally rare forest ecosystem from disappearing. 

“It’s a long-term vision, to be sure. In his woodlot, for instance, Mr. Hickey estimates it will be decades before the younger red oaks he’s shepherding even begin reproducing, part of a centurieslong rehabilitation timeline that he’s hoping to cut down by a couple hundred years.

“But there’s urgency here, too. Spurred by concerns about the impact of climate change and a rising tide of discontent around forest practices in the region, an increasing number of organizations and individuals are enacting measures they hope will not only restore the ecosystem, but help build bridges between the communities who depend on it. …

“ ‘People are obviously this huge force of change on the planet now, but we can be regenerative and restorative, and there’s actually thousands of years of precedent for that before colonialism,’ says Daimen Hardie, executive director of Community Forests International, a group working on the restoration of the Wabanaki-Acadian Forest. …

“It’s a place where the hardwood forests of the United States meet their boreal counterparts farther north. The result is a rare blend of hardwoods, such as red oak, sugar maple, and yellow birch, and coniferous species such as red spruce, white pine, and eastern hemlock – 32 varieties in all. It’s one of the most diverse temperate forests in the world.

“ ‘Any time in nature when you have two different ecosystems colliding, that overlap and that edge is particularly vibrant,’ says Mr. Hardie. ‘So we get the full diversity of both of those forests combining in this mixed wood, and that mix doesn’t happen anywhere else on the planet.’

“Unlike in Western or boreal forests, the Wabanaki-Acadian Forest’s composition makes it naturally resistant to destruction from forces such as wildfires. … But calamities have come for this forest, nonetheless. Less than 1% remains of the pre-settlement ecosystem that once covered much of the three Maritime Provinces, as well as the easternmost edge of Quebec and part of Maine. 

“When European settlers arrived in eastern North America, they found a forest that had evolved since the retreat of the glaciers, 12,000 years ago, and had been stewarded by Indigenous people for thousands of years. Colonists displaced Indigenous people and quickly denuded much of the land. For a time, most of the pine used by the British Navy came from New Brunswick, and North America’s first sawmill was built in Nova Scotia. In the 20th century, the trend accelerated, and since the 1980s, 40% of the remaining mature forest in the Maritimes has been lost. …

“Some hope that another unique feature of this landscape can be harnessed to help pull it back from the brink. Unlike forests in the rest of Canada, which are largely on government or Indigenous lands, nearly half of the forested acreage in the Maritimes is owned by small woodlot holders, of which there are approximately 80,000 in the region. …

“Says Mr. Hardie. ‘There’s this big opportunity for a more citizen-based, citizen-led change in forestry.’ …

“Research on woodlot owners in the Maritimes shows that most appreciate their forests for more than the timber they generate, says Andy Kekacs, executive director of the Nova Scotia Woodlot Owners and Operators Association and spokesperson for the Family Forest Network. People value their land for the biodiversity it hosts, the intergenerational responsibility it represents, and the recreation or solitude it provides – values that run counter to turning a quick profit from clear-cutting.

“But despite these virtues, clear-cutting continues even on private land. … This is why, in 2021, the Family Forest Network launched a five-year pilot project of 200 ecological harvests across Nova Scotia. It aims to show woodlot owners and forest contractors that restoring the ecosystem and mimicking the disturbance pattern of the pre-settlement forest – while supporting economic activity – are possible. 

“ ‘We want to say that, “for those of you who think that the only way you can profitably manage a forest is by clear-cutting, there are other things that you can consider and you can feel good about,” ‘ says Mr. Kekacs.”

More at the Monitor, here. No firewall. Nice pictures.

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A Black and White American Family

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on February 23, 2022| 5 Comments »

Photo: Ed Meek/ Ole Miss News.
Civil Rights icon James Meredith and his immediate family have welcomed into their lives the white relatives descended from their slave-owner ancestor.

My friend Suzanne Lowe, who is white, was doing genealogical research back in the early 2000s when someone gave her a publication written by the man who broke the color barrier at the University of Mississippi. In a flash, she realized she and civil rights icon James Meredith shared the same white ancestor.

Eager to reach out but full of trepidation about what Meredith might say to her, she searched the web for his phone number and called him, explaining who she was. There was a long pause, she says, and as she waited with increasing anxiety, her heart pounded. Then she heard Meredith say, “I’ve been waiting for this call for 50 years.”

Last Sunday, I had the privilege of listening in on a Coming to the Table episode describing how my friend’s white family got to know Meredith’s black family. I can hardly describe how uplifting it was. One of Meredith’s close relatives presented the history of Mississippi slaveholder J.A.P. Campbell and his role in writing the laws of white supremacy. So it was a serious occasion. But we also savored the joy of Campbell’s black descendants at finally being seen and the joy of the white family members who were thrilled to connect.

It is true, as my friend reported when asked in the chat questions, that her outreach to other white Campbell descendants did not meet with universal acceptance. A few were nasty and unbelieving — as if the country hadn’t been through all that with the descendants of Thomas Jefferson and slave Sally Hemings. But others were fascinated and delighted. As Meredith’s son John said, his side of the family always knew they had white relatives. In fact, he said, many black families know they have white relatives. Seeing the white side of the family enjoy their new consciousness had been a big part of the pleasure he experienced.

I learned new things about the disastrous effects of laws preserving white supremacy, at the same time as I got the feeling that the two families were focused on how happy they were to be united. I got no sense that Meredith’s side wanted their new cousins to bear the brunt of national reparations. (I myself believe federal reparations are due — like those that President Ronald Reagan authorized for Americans of Japanese descent after their WW II internment in US concentration camps.)

Everyone was just enjoying having a large, interesting family and new kinds of connectedness.

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The Disappearing Squid

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on February 22, 2022| 11 Comments »

Photo: Bulletin of the US Fish Commission.
The massive Humboldt squid has adapted to climate change. But that’s a challenge for fishing communities who depended on it.

Climate change is forcing the creatures of the Earth to adapt or perish. This is the story of one creature that adapted but, in doing so, forced a more painful adaptation on some human creatures.

Michael Fox reports at PRI’s the World, “On a late afternoon in Kino Bay, Mexico, Gerardo Hernandez is repairing his fishing nets. He strings them out in front of his home, made from old pieces of plywood and corrugated tin. 

“He lives along the Gulf of California, the body of water that separates most of Mexico from the Baja California peninsula. Hernandez, a seasoned fisherman now in his 60s, can still remember the time of the giant Humboldt squid — a massive invertebrate that used to grow up to 6-feet long. Their abundance made for a robust squid industry fueled by 2,000 fishing boats — the vast majority being small pangas like Hernandez’s.

‘There were always a ton of squid,’ Hernandez said. ‘You would go out, and you’d see them on the surface of the water. The more squid you took, the more there were.’

“The days of the giant jumbo squid are over now. About 13 years ago, after a hurricane and an abnormally warm El Niño year, the squid disappeared from the Gulf. Eventually, they returned. But by 2015, they were gone again. Scientists attribute the shift to animal adaptation amid a rapidly changing climate. 

“Hernandez’s kids say they want him to retire now. But he still goes out fishing every night with other members of his small fishing cooperative, and they mostly catch Pacific Sierra fish and crab. He said he brings home enough — but not nearly as much as he did in the days of the Humboldt squid. 

“ ‘They’ve left,’ Hernandez said. ‘They’ve emigrated. Only God knows where they’ve gone.’

“But scientists think they have an idea. They say they haven’t actually disappeared. Instead, the Humboldt Squid that live in the Gulf have shrunk from about 6-feet long to less than a foot, and they’re sticking to deeper depths and cooler waters offshore. 

“Stanford University biologist William Gilly said the squid seem to have developed this strategy long ago to deal with fluctuating water temperatures that come with El Niño cycles. … It’s a species that seems evolved to adapt to the warming waters brought on by climate change. At least, that’s the theory.

“ ‘There’s a lot we don’t know,’ said Rufino Morales, a fisheries biologist and the coordinator of the Producto Calamar subcommittee, a Mexican group that researches and supports squid fishers. ‘We assume that the shift is due to climate change, or global warming, or because it coincides with El Niño, but these are scientific theories. We haven’t been able to prove them yet.’

“The squid seem to be adapting.  The fishing communities they used to support are trying to as well.

“On a warm afternoon in La Manga, a fishing village about an hour west of the port city of Guaymas, a handful of residents gutted a stack of manta rays, whitefish and parrotfish caught that morning. …

“ ‘When the squid was abundant, this was another Guaymas,’ said Maria Collins, a member of the Francisco Flores small fishing cooperative in town. ‘We lived well.’ When the squid left, a lot of people lost their jobs. …

“Many fisherfolk now work in factories off the highway on the northern side of town. Others are doing construction, gardening or plumbing. 

“Some boats began to hunt for jellyfish, which they sell to Asian markets. But the season is short. Locals up and down the coast say none of the catches are doing well. They blame the large sardine ships for overfishing and depleting stocks. 

“ ‘We are fishermen in danger of extinction,’ said Hernandez as he repaired his fishing net. ‘I think everything that’s happening in the ocean is our fault. Like, we aren’t taking care of it. Or, we don’t care for it, and there’s the proof.’ ”

More at PRI’s the World, here.

Fondly remembered fantasy squid.

This is just pretend, you know.

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15th C Handheld Pipe Organ

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on February 21, 2022| 9 Comments »

Photo: Early Music America.
Catalina Vicens often performs on an organetto replica built in 2013 by Stefan and Annette Kepler, who run the Wolkenstayn Gothic Organ company in southern Germany.

For something a little different today, let’s look at a forgotten medieval instrument that a few enthusiasts have brought back to the world’s attention: a handheld pipe organ.

Kyle MacMillan reports at Early Music America last week, “Attend a few organ recitals in a church or concert hall and you’ll know that the instruments can vary widely in size — from behemoths with several thousand pipes to moveable, chamber models with just a handful of stops.

“Almost completely forgotten, though, is that an even smaller kind of pipe organ once existed. Called an organetto, it was typically played perpendicularly on a performer’s lap and was one of the most popular instruments in the 13th and the 14th centuries.

“A contemporary reproduction of this tiny organ will be front and center this week when the Chicago-based Newberry Consort presents Music Fit for the Medicis, featuring works that would have been heard at the powerful family’s court. Showcased will be 14th-century songs and dances taken from manuscripts found in the library of Lorenzo de’ Medici (1449-1492). …

“Featured as the Newberry’s organetto soloist will be Chilean-born Catalina Vicens, an internationally known historical keyboard performer and teacher who lives in Basel, Switzerland, and Bologna, Italy. She is artistic director of the Museo San Colombano, housed in a former monastery in Bologna, which dates to the Seventh Century. She also serves as curator of the Tagliavini Collection, the museum’s prize holding and one of the largest historical keyboard collections in Europe. …

“The organetto fell out of fashion by the 16th century. ‘They weren’t use in anymore, as far as we know, and they didn’t survive,’ Vicens told me.

What experts know today about the organetto comes from its depiction in hundreds of medieval paintings, illuminated manuscripts, and stained-glass windows, and well as the literature of the period.

“The instrument is mentioned, for example, in the Roman de la Rose, a famous medieval poem written in Old French, and the organetto playing of Francesco Landini, a famed 14th-century Italian composer and organist, is described in a novella by Giovanni da Prato.

“Today’s organettos, which are based on this historical imagery and documentation and technical knowledge drawn from larger extant medieval organs, typically have 28 pipes in two rows spanning just beyond two musical octaves.

” ‘From iconography, we see mostly instruments with fewer pipes,’ Vicens said. But balancing historically informed instrument building with modern performance needs, she points out that, ‘for us, it is very convenient to take those models with more pipes, because we want to be able to play more notes.’

“Air is produced by a bellows operated with the left hand while the right plays the instrument’s keys. … Because no original organetto exists, it is impossible to know exactly how the medieval instruments sounded. The aural qualities of today’s organettos vary depending on the builder and are affected by the pipes, which can be made of such materials as copper, wood, or a tin-lead alloy.

“ ‘It does sound like a small organ,’ Vicens said of the instrument, ‘but to the ears of many, also suggested by how it looks, it sounds more like a bagpipe. Or I’ve even gotten people who think it sounds like an accordion.’

“Vicens often performs on an organetto built in 2013 by Stefan and Annette Kepler, who run the Wolkenstayn Gothic Organ company in southern Germany, with pipes in a high-leaded alloy made by Winold van der Putten in the Netherlands. ‘I have sort of a custom instrument by different builders,’ she said. …

“While a student of harpsichord performance at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, Vicens became fascinated with the instrument’s sound and how it was produced. That curiosity led her to study the harpsichord’s origins, including how instruments from several centuries ago were constructed and what early repertoire was written for them. Her interest in turn motivated her to learn about other historical instruments like the organ and fortepianos. Drawing on this background in historical performance and her knowledge of the organ and harpsichord, Vicens taught herself to play the organetto in 2009 and 2010 and soon got regular requests to perform on the instrument across Europe and beyond.

“The organetto poses two main hurdles for performers, starting with playing the keyboard with just one hand, which makes it difficult to convey different musical voices at the same time. The larger challenge is manipulating the instrument’s single bellows. ‘I have to breathe like a singer,’ Vicens said, ‘because with one bellow, you need to fill it every time you run out of air.’ “

More at Early Music America, here. Hat tip: Arts Journal.

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Architect as Teacher

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on February 20, 2022| 2 Comments »

Photo: IHISADC.
Participants in the 2021 Indiana High School Architectural Design Competition.

It makes a difference when professionals offer their expertise to school students. In today’s story we see what happened when an architect returned to his old high school to teach in its STEM [Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math] program.

Victoria St. Martin reports at the Washington Post, “It can happen in an instant: that moment when you go from not knowing what you want to do for the rest of your life, to having absolute certainty about it. For Tarik El-Naggar, it happened in 1970, when he was in the seventh grade working on a project for English class.

“The assignment? Construct a reproduction of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre out of everyday objects. He built a 2-foot-diameter cardboard model — and an architect was born. … Says El-Naggar, who’s now 63 and co-owner of an architecture and interior design firm, ‘I don’t know what it was about the building. It had all the seating, the stage and the open roof — it was just awesome. It was a lightbulb moment.’

“El-Naggar’s life came full circle when he added ‘high school teacher’ to his résumé nine years ago — building a STEM curriculum with members of the administration at his former school in northwest Indiana. Inside his Valparaiso High School classroom, students have their own lightbulb moments by creating projects using ping-pong balls, cardboard, computers and 3-D printers. ‘Instead of just teaching the basics of architecture, I’m actually really teaching them design theory,’ says El-Naggar, whose class is similar to what he taught at a nearby college.

“And he’s gotten results: [In 2021] his Valparaiso students swept the Indiana High School Architectural Design Competition, winning all nine awards out of 72 entries from eight schools. …

“Valparaiso, a middle-class community about 55 miles southeast of Chicago, began incorporating more STEM courses into its curriculum about six years ago. A school official said the district wanted to place more emphasis on skills such as critical thinking, communication, creativity and problem-solving, and secured several grants from the county redevelopment commission to bolster tools across K-12 classrooms. The high school roughly ranks in the top 10 percent in Indiana, and its standardized test scores in reading and math significantly outpace the rest of the state.

‘There are schools around the country that have great basketball programs. So, what do parents do? You move there because you want your son or daughter to go there,’ says El-Naggar. ‘I want people to look at what we’re doing here and say, “My kids are going to be engineers, architects. They need to be here.” ‘

“For high-schoolers who want to pursue architecture as a career, taking classes with El-Naggar is paying off: In the past three years, all five of the students who applied to university-level architectural programs have been accepted. ‘People were really impressed that I had already had this experience,’ says Henry Youngren, now a freshman at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. … ‘It’s really guided me on how I want to live the rest of my life.’

“Brandon Farley, an architect who is the chair of the high school design competition, says he has some records that date back to the 1970s and he’s ‘never seen anything where one school won all the awards.’ It’s rare that judges see high school teachers with formal architectural training, he adds. With Valparaiso High School’s entries, he says, ‘you can see it immediately in the way the students address the problems and their solutions, and in the way that they talk about their designs. It really raised the bar on the competition.’

“Seventeen-year-old Olivia Lozano received one of the awards. ‘It kind of got the ball rolling for me,’ she says of the contest, for which she created a reading room filled with glass windows that opened to the outdoors. ‘Then it turns into a vortex and you’re down in El-Naggar’s classroom like four hours a day, and then you’re here after school, and then you’re here on the weekends and over spring break.’

“El-Naggar says the lightbulb moment for his students today really happens when they first see a 3-D view of their building. ‘The ones that go, “Oh, my gosh,” and they start “walking” through it and they’re telling other people, “Look at this.” ‘ …

“When the University of Notre Dame, near South Bend, Ind., asked him to critique student projects, he met a fellow architect and professor who would help him get his first teaching gig, at Andrews University in Michigan. Once he started, he knew he’d discovered a second passion. Several years later, he was asked to fill in and teach architecture in his hometown at the high school. He welcomed the opportunity to teach five minutes from his home.

“Now his fervor for teaching is gaining more attention, earning him a teacher of the year award from a national project-based-learning group this past fall. ‘We consider ourselves very blessed to have a teacher like him in the classroom,’ says Nick Allison, the school district’s assistant superintendent for secondary education.”

More at the Post, here.

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A Local Paper Goes Nonprofit

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on February 19, 2022| 2 Comments »

Photo: Capital Canvas Prints.
Salt Lake City, Utah.

Our local paper is owned by a national chain, Gannett, that cares nothing about our town. It prints generic articles from national outlets like USA Today or towns in other parts of New England and doesn’t get around to printing the library’s schedule or candidate letters until the events are over. Once in a while, it covers a controversial meeting or interviews a school coach — exceptions that prove the rule.

So I was not surprised to learn that a group of prominent citizens, including an experienced journalist, is working to establish a nonprofit competitor here. This is not unheard of. Today’s article from NiemanLab describes one successful effort to save local journalism, only in this case, the nonprofit board built on an established newspaper.

As Sarah Scire wrote last November, “The Salt Lake Tribune has plenty to celebrate in 2021. The first (and so far only) major newspaper to become a nonprofit is financially sustainable and, after years of layoffs and cuts, is growing its newsroom. Executive editor Lauren Gustus announced the news in a note to readers in which the relief of escaping hedge fund ownership was palpable.

“ ‘We celebrate 150 years this year and we are healthy,’ Gustus wrote. ‘We are sustainable in 2021, and we have no plans to return to a previously precarious position.’

“It’s been quite the turnaround. Utah’s largest newspaper escaped the clutches of the hedge fund Alden Global Capital in 2016 only to see its local owner, Paul Huntsman, lay off a third of staff two years later in the face of plunging ad revenue. In 2019, the Tribune made history as the first daily newspaper to become a nonprofit. And then amid the height of the pandemic last year, the Tribune ended a 149-year run of printing a daily newspaper and a 68-year-old joint partnership with the Deseret News. …

Gustus pointed out that hundreds of American newspapers are owned by financial institutions with a well-deserved reputation for making every newspaper they touch worse by gutting newsrooms, selling off assets, and jacking up subscription prices for readers.

“Gustus herself joined the Tribune from McClatchy (owned by a hedge fund) and spent years at Gannett (once managed by one hedge fund, and now deeply in debt to a different one). …

“The Salt Lake Tribune’s transition to nonprofit status has been closely watched in the news industry. Does that put additional pressure on Gustus and the rest of the Tribune team? ‘The opportunity for us to prove that this can work is significant and so is the responsibility,’ she said.

“The Tribune grew its newsroom 23% in the last year and will add new reporting roles focused on education, business, solutions journalism, food, and culture in 2022. Gustus also expects to follow the Utah News Collaborative (launched in April to make the Tribune’s reporting available to any news organization in the state) with more multi-newsroom projects centered on saving the Great Salt Lake and the centenary of the Colorado River Compact.

“Other changes include introducing six weeks of paid parental leave and a 401(k) match for employees. In response to readers who said they missed the ‘daily drumbeat‘ amid the weekend edition’s in-depth reporting, the newsroom will publish an e-edition to accompany the Sunday paper. They’re also introducing a second printed edition — delivered by mail, rather than carriers — on Wednesdays at no additional cost to subscribers.

“The Salt Lake Tribune draws revenue chiefly from subscriptions, donations, and advertising. … Subscribers pay for a digital subscription ($80/year), while ‘supporting subscribers’ ($150/year) add a donation on top. In the donations category, members of The First Amendment Society pledge to donate at least $1,000/year for three years while major donors provide one-off gifts and grants.

“The Tribune has about 6,500 supporting subscribers, more than 50 members of its First Amendment Society, and dozens of major donors. (In a bid for transparency, The Tribune forbids donations over $5,000 to be anonymous. You can see the full list here.) Gustus stressed that consistency of support is invaluable.

“ ‘We are so grateful to them [supporting subscribers] because it enables us to plan.’ …

“Gustus says that being ‘relatively lean’ — the newsroom currently stands around 33 reporters, with a handful of open positions — sometimes lends itself to some unusual experiments. The Salt Lake Tribune’s NBA beat writer, Andy Larsen, told his sizable Twitter following he wanted to get 500 new subscribers for the Tribune by the end of the year.

“Larsen had to clarify that this was his own idea and not something his bosses were making him do. … Roughly 24 hours after his first tweet, the thread had earned the Tribune 82 new subscribers. In November, roughly halfway through the self-assigned challenge, Larsen said that number had grown to 294 new subscribers.

“ ‘Andy is a gift to Utah,’ Gustus said, noting that Larsen wrote a popular column that dug into Covid data in the state when professional basketball ground to a halt. ‘He has really taken his curiosity and run with it.’

“Looking ahead to 2022, Gustus was brimming with ideas for the newly-enlarged newsroom. The Tribune will continue to investigate the dark history of Indigenous boarding schools in the state, start a conversation about the long-term impacts of children being educated during the pandemic, address water resource issues, and make sure readers have the information they need to vote in November elections.

“Gustus says The Salt Lake Tribune will also be wrestling with what it means to be a nonprofit news organization, beyond its official 501(c)(3) tax status.

“ ‘2021 has been all about finding stability for the Tribune,’ Gustus said. ‘We are so happy to say we’ve arrived in that spot and we don’t want to go back to where we were.’ “

More at NiemanLab, here, and at the newspaper’s website, here.

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Mixed-Age Housing

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on February 18, 2022| 7 Comments »

Photo: Mi Casa.
At Genesis , an intergenerational community in Washington, DC, older adults provide care and social support to individuals and families facing vulnerabilities, who in turn, promote the well-being of the elders as they age.”

Because we don’t know the future, we need to make a plan. Catch-22: we can’t make a plan because we don’t know the future.

If we will always be able to handle the usual things that grown-ups handle, we may want to stay in our homes. For couples, if only one of us needs extra care, we may want to be where two lifestyles are possible. If we want to take interesting walks, we need to be where there are interesting walks. If we can’t walk or operate a wheelchair, a walkable neighborhood may not be as important as, say, being around good conversationalists or having easy access to books.

And what about being able to interact with people of other generations?

As Matt Fuchs reported at the Washington Post in September, “Research has shown that older and younger adults need one another: Mixed-age interactions make seniors feel more purposeful, and young people benefit from their elders’ guidance and problem-solving skills. ‘They fit together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle,’ said Marc Freedman, chief executive of encore.org, a nonprofit group dedicated to uniting the generations.

“But in practice, such closeness can be hard to come by. Many young adults flock to cities, while older people often isolate within the walls of 55-and-over communities. Parts of the country are as segregated by age as race, fewer people are having children, and people live by themselves in record numbers, including 27 percent of adults over 60. …

“One solution is establishing residential communities that are designed to nurture these bonds.

“ ‘There’s a trend toward intergenerational living,’ said Elin Zurbrigg, deputy director of Mi Casa, a D.C. nonprofit that provides mixed-age housing through its Genesis program, in collaboration with city officials. Demand may be rising because of the pandemic, which has exposed loneliness as a serious health issue and has prompted many Americans to move for fresh starts. …

“[Here are some ways] mixed-age communities benefit their residents.

“[First] they cultivate purpose. A shared purpose with neighbors is what Estelle Winicki, a 78-year-old retiree, always envisioned for herself, but finding that wasn’t easy. In Boulder, Colo., she rarely crossed paths with neighbors. … Her therapist suggested Bridge Meadows, which operates two complexes of townhouses in Oregon that bring together seniors, former foster-care children and their adoptive parents. Residents are encouraged to spend time with their age opposites.

“Winicki, who lives at Bridge Meadows in Portland, doesn’t need persuasion. She starts many of her days helping her neighbors’ children get ready for school. ‘It gives me such pleasure to see these kids grow with a strong foundation,’ she said. ‘They know they can rely on me, and I like helping.’

“[Second] they provide mental health support. ‘The first thing you see among all the generations [at Bridge Meadows] is the sense of “I belong” and “I matter,” ’ said Derenda Schubert, Bridge Meadows’ founder and a clinical psychologist. Such an environment allows mixed-age communities such as Bridge Meadows to provide safety nets that protect residents’ mental health. …

“[Third] they offer professional advantages. In other communities, the generational glue is professional. PacArts, a mixed-age building in the San Pedro area of Los Angeles, provides affordable housing to artists. Luis Sanchez, a 53-year-old painter, said he can count on his neighbors whether he’s having a rough patch with health — he’s had two kidney transplants — or his work. An older neighbor has hired him repeatedly to assist with large painting projects. ‘I’ve learned a tremendous amount,’ Sanchez said. ‘She knows techniques and materials I would’ve never used.’

“Eva Kochikyan is a musicologist and teacher residing at Ace 121, a similar building in Los Angeles County. … She grew up in Armenia, where residents socialized regardless of age, but after relocating to Los Angeles, she barely saw her neighbors. In moving to Ace 121, the 41-year-old re-created the experience of a big extended family. …

“Kochikyan recalled her 4-year-old wandering into the building’s communal art studio, sitting right next to an accomplished painter in his 70s and picking up a brush. ‘No lecturing, just working together,’ she said. ‘These connections happen naturally.’

“[Fourth] they may keep older people active. Seniors may get more movement when inspired by the vigor of youth. … Kochikyan thought of a neighbor as an ‘old grandma’ after watching her frown during a solo workout. Since then, though, the baby boomer has befriended a group of children who enjoy kicking her yoga ball with her. During these sessions, her intensity picks up and her face lights up, Kochikyan said, ‘like she drops 20 years off her age.’ ”

Read about other potential benefits and check the most recent research at the Post, here.

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Three Faiths Join to Aid Afghans

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on February 17, 2022| 2 Comments »

Photo: NBC4 Washington.
In Potomac, Maryland, Har Shalom rabbi Adam Raskin has pulled together faith leaders help support Afghan refugees.

When leaders of differing faiths recognize they are all called to do the same kinds of good works, great things can happen. Today’s example is from Potomac, Maryland.

Sydney Page writes at the Washington Post, “Adam Raskin, a rabbi at Congregation Har Shalom in Potomac, Md., knew how difficult the situation was for Afghan refugees in the Washington region.

“Since the historic airlift out of Kabul last year, more than 3,700 Afghan evacuees have been resettled in the District [of Columbia, DC], Maryland and Virginia, overwhelming social service agencies and leaving some refugee families waiting for housing and in limbo.

“Raskin and his congregants decided to help by sponsoring a refugee family.

‘We thought it was very much in line with our values,’ Raskin said. ‘For Jews, many of whom were refugees from places of persecution, there is a special sensitivity for this issue.’

“As members of the congregation began researching the resettlement process, they quickly learned how complicated it can be, and how many resources are required.

“ ‘We could do this on our own,’ Raskin recalled thinking to himself, ‘but wouldn’t it be amazing to collaborate with a Christian and Muslim congregation? … This is a country where religions don’t have to be at odds with each other, but actually where religious communities collaborate and find common ground,’ Raskin said.

“He contacted St. Francis Episcopal Church and the Islamic Community Center of Potomac to gauge their interest in an interfaith initiative, and both congregations were enthusiastically on board.

“ ‘We definitely wanted to get involved,’ said Sultan Chowdhury, who was one of the founding members of the Islamic center, and currently serves as its trustee. ‘God gave us an opportunity to truly learn about each other. It is wonderful to see how close we are.’

“Kathy Herrmann, the parish life coordinator at St. Francis, agreed.

“ ‘I have felt such a kinship with them and such a warmth and love emanating from the other two,’ she said. ‘We all have the same goal to help this family become acclimated and feel the love that we have for them.’ …

“The congregations have recruited volunteers to collaborate, including Stew Remer, who has been a member of Congregation Har Shalom since 1982 and has spearheaded the effort.

“ ‘We created an informal partnership where we are working together to provide support for the family,’ Remer said. ‘It’s amazing that we’re doing this with other organizations.’

“He started by contacting various resettlement agencies to learn more about how to sponsor an Afghan family. He got in touch with the Immigration and Refugee Outreach Center, which connected him with the [Wahdat family — a 36-year-old father, a 30-year-old mother and their 19-month-old daughter].

“For the past month, the congregations have divvied up responsibilities to support the newcomers. The church has taken on a health-care advocacy role, identifying doctors and dentists willing to provide pro bono services for the family. The mosque, meanwhile, has been helping with translation services and assisting with cultural needs, such as providing traditional Afghan clothing. The synagogue has been organizing transportation, legal and financial support, as well as helping the family to apply for food stamps and Medicaid. …

“Christianity, Islam and Judaism are all considered Abrahamic religions that view Abraham, a prophet, as the patriarch of their faith. The Bible highlights Abraham’s hospitality and his willingness to welcome strangers. …

“ ‘We have enjoyed the privilege of being together, trying to understand each other better and propagate peace,’ Chowdhury said. ‘It’s eye opening for all of us, and it’s a blessing.’

“ ‘This isn’t a short-term project. We are in it for the long haul,’ said Herrmann.”

Check out the Post, here. It has details on the State Department’s sponsor program, which guides those who want to help resettle the Afghan families. Americans owe them.

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Art Stymies Illegal Fishing

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on February 16, 2022| 8 Comments »

Photo: Casa Dei Pesci.
A sculpture named ‘Acqua’ by Giorgio Butini is one of 39 underwater sculptures helping to deter illegal fishing off the coast of an Italian port.  

Here’s a creative idea to thwart illegal activity: attract enough sightseers to make it too public to pursue. Today’s story shows how environmentalists, artists, and a fishing community in Italy are collaborating on shared goals.

Veronique Mistiaen writes at National Geographic, ” ‘The stone is asking me to give it the right face: it is thoughtful, quiet,’ says British stone sculptor Emily Young. She carves boldly, clad in a thick jacket, leather hat, sturdy boots, face mask and ear plugs, but no gloves because ‘you need to feel what’s happening with the stone through the tool.’ …

“Young, who has been called ‘Britain’s greatest living stone sculptor,’ has work exhibited and collected around the world, but it is the first time that one of her creations reposes at the bottom of the sea.

“Young’s 18-tonne Weeping Guardian and two other colossal faces (The Gentle Guardian and the Young Guardian), which she carved in Carrara marble with the help of two associates over five days, were lowered down on the sea bed off the coast of Tuscany at Talamone, a town between Florence and Rome, in 2015. There, her massive stone guardians are protecting marine life against gangs trawling illegally at night. …

“Young’s unusual work is part of an on-going project by local fisherman Paolo Fanciulli and his non-profit Casa dei Pesci to try to protect the sea in a creative way. There are now 39 underwater sculptures and marble blocks at Talamone, placed in 2015 and 2020, and another 12 are ready to join them as soon as necessary funds can be raised.

“Bottom trawlers drag their heavy-weighted nets multiple times over the sea floor, scraping it bare and destroying the Posidonia (Posidonia oceanica), known as Neptune grass, a flowering seagrass endemic to the Mediterranean, which forms large underwater meadows and acts as a nursery and sanctuary for all marine life.

The Posidonia also soaks up 15 times more carbon dioxide annually than a similar sized piece of the Amazon rainforest.

“For these reasons, the Posidonia is a protected species included in the EU’s Habitats Directive and the Marine Strategy Framework Directive, and bottom trawling is illegal within three nautical miles from the coast in Italy. But because it is very profitable, and impossible to police the 8000km of Italian coastline, boats carry on at night regardless. 

“Now in his 60s, Fanciulli has been fishing around Talamone since he was a teenager.  In the 1980s, he started noticing the devastation caused by bottom trawlers and the impact it had on his and other local fishermen’s catch and livelihood. He has been trying to fight them ever since.

“In 2006, he joined force with the municipality of Talamone and a few environmental organizations to drop big concrete bollards on the bottom of the Mediterranean to ‘serve as secret agents under the sea.’ The action received media attention and he became a national hero – but it wasn’t enough to deter the trawlers. The local mafia also retaliated by making sure he couldn’t sell his fish at the market, and threatening him.

“He needed to find another way. ‘He thought: “This is Italy. We do art. If we could put art and conservation together, we might have more impact,” ‘ explains Ippolito Turco, a friend of Fanciulli and president of the non-profit Casa dei Pesci, which they created together for that purpose with the support of several cultural and environmental associations.

“They asked nearby Carrara quarries if they could donate a few stones. Franco Barattini, the president of one of Carrara’s best-known quarries – Michelangelo cave, the very place where the eponymous artist came at the turn of the 16th century to select stones for his iconic David and Pietà statues – promised to donate not a few, but 100 huge blocks of marble.

“Young, along with Italian artists Giorgio Butini and Massimo Lippi, and other artists from four countries, was asked to carve the marble blocks. ‘We all donated our time. I thought it was a brilliant project: it would attract more attention to the problem,’ says Young. …

“The sculptures were placed in a circle, four metres apart around a central obelisk, carved by Massimo Catalani, another Italian artist. A bit further sleeps a mermaid, a collaboration by sculptor Lea Monetti and young artist Aurora Vantaggiato, and a reclining figure by Butini, among other works.

“The marble sculptures create both a physical barrier for the trawlers’ nets and a unique underwater museum, open to anyone either through arranged scuba diving tours or their own dive. “It’s really beautiful and it’s amazing to see how easy it is for nature to recover. …

“The scheme has completely stopped illegal trawling within three miles off shore in front of Talamone as far south as the mouth of the Ombrone river, Turco says. ‘But now the pirate boats have moved north of the Ombrone. Casa dei Pesci plans to protect this stretch of sea as well.’ “

More at the Geographic, here. Needless to say, the photos are wonderful. No firewall.

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Listening to the Other Side

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on February 15, 2022| 2 Comments »

Photo: AEI.
Frederick Hess and Pedro Noguera turned their correspondence into a book, “A Search for Common Ground: Conversations About the Toughest Questions in K-12 Education,” published by Teachers College Press.

Back in the days before Covid, my friend Nancy bravely participated in a political discussion group organized by the town’s Council on Aging. The idea was to bring together people on different sides of the divide to listen respectfully and express their views calmly. She found it fascinating, but the respectful and calm aspect ultimately disintegrated and the group is no more. The lesson, I think, is that it can be hard work to do this and everyone needs to remember that an opponent is still a human being.

Chelsea Sheasley has a story at the Christian Science Monitor about two educators who managed the challenge well enough to publish a book on it.

“Rancor over COVID-19 policies, diversity and equity initiatives, and school choice,” she writes, “has divided communities and supercharged school board meetings. Is there any way to find common ground about education amid such divisions?  Some people say yes. 

“Frederick Hess and Pedro Noguera, two education policy leaders, published a book [in 2021] – A Search for Common Ground: Conversations About the Toughest Questions in K-12 Education – made up of in-depth emails they shared over seven months to better understand each other’s beliefs and unearth hidden agreement. They currently host a podcast, Common Ground, with recent episodes tackling the role of parents in education and anti-racist education. 

“The authors describe themselves in the book’s preface as having ‘spent much of the past few decades on opposing sides of important educational debates, with Pedro generally on the Left and Rick mostly on the Right.’ Dr. Hess is director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative Washington think tank, and Dr. Noguera is dean of the Rossier School of Education at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.

The goal of their exchange, the two write in the book, is to offer a model for those who ‘desire to disagree with grace and explore differences without rancor.’ …

“Fred Campos, from Bedford, Texas, is an elected school board member of the Hurst-Euless-Bedford Independent School District. He was assigned to read the book for a leadership training program he’s participating in with the Texas Association of School Boards (TASB).

“Mr. Campos listened to the audio version of the book twice and says he ‘loves the premise that we should not go to the extremes.’ As a second-term board member, he’s adjusting to a ‘new era’ of more polarization and increased attendance after a fairly quiet first term. The book helped him better understand why some in his community wanted a mask-optional policy – which differed from his position in favor of mask mandates. 

“ ‘One thing I think both authors did well is they were complimentary of one another, respectful, and that modeling is huge, whether you’re dealing with parents, other board members, or staff,’ Mr. Campos says. …

“One November night in 2019, Dr. Hess says he was sitting in his office, staring into space, and pondering how to actually model a different style of conversation. He started thinking about who was someone who disagreed with him on major issues and might be willing to engage in a civil dialogue. 

“ ‘Education is supposed to be about teaching kids how to wrestle with things, how to look past our differences, and it felt like rather than leaning on this, we’ve been as bad as anyone,’ he says in a phone interview. ‘So I finally said, “I’m a big fan of ‘light a candle rather than curse darkness,’ ” … so I picked up the phone and called Pedro, and he was great about it.’  

” ‘I immediately said yes because I appreciated the need for dialogue on these issues, and like him, I was frustrated by the tenor of the debate and the kind of paralysis that I would say characterize the field,’ says Dr. Noguera. 

“The two wrote emails to each other from January through July 2020, on 11 hot-button education topics such as school choice, the achievement gap, testing and accountability, diversity and equity, and teacher pay. They also addressed major events that hit while they were writing, such as COVID-19, the shuttering of schools, and the murder of George Floyd. 

“Both men say they were provoked at various times by each other’s viewpoints. Because they were communicating in writing, they had time to reflect before responding and gather evidence to back their points. The two found areas of common ground on nearly every topic, especially on teacher pay and testing, after airing their differences.  

“In a joint Zoom interview with the Monitor, the pair easily banter with each other, but say it took time to develop rapport. They’re often asked for advice on how to start difficult conversations. Dr. Hess says he thinks anyone can do it, but it takes certain skills.

‘It takes an interest in listening to one another. It takes the habit of pausing on your first “that’s wrong” in order to listen, hear them, and ask a question instead of pushing back,’ he says. …

“Kay Douglas is a former school board member, a senior consultant at TASB, and the instructor who assigned Common Ground to the leadership cohort that Mr. Campos is a part of. She says the book offers a valuable example of intentionally trying to understand and work with others. 

“ ‘Otherwise, we are going to self-destruct. People are so stressed and the stress level keeps going up,’ she says.

“For Dr. Noguera, learning how to debate respectfully was something he learned around his kitchen table. When he was growing up, his dad, an immigrant from Trinidad, was a police officer in New York City. He would sometimes bring home friends with conservative views on crime.

“ ‘I was a kid and I’d listen to these conversations and get angry, but because they were adults and I was a kid and I wanted to engage, I had to figure out how to do that respectfully because my parents insisted on respect,’ he says. 

“As a professor, Dr. Noguera has invited people who disagree with him on policy to debate him in his classes, because he thinks it makes his ideas stronger and shows that people can disagree ‘without attacking an individual’s personhood.’ Conjuring up the worst intentions about other people, he says, is unproductive and unhealthy for democracy.”

More at the Monitor, here. Although it is not mentioned here, perhaps because the book is based on emails, I’m thinking that tone of voice matters a lot, too.

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Tunisia’s Old City in Peril

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on February 14, 2022| 3 Comments »

Photo: Taylor Luck.
The near-empty Souk Chaouachine, or traditional chachiya hat market, one of many historic souks facing closure from a pandemic-induced recession in the Medina in Tunisia.

The list of pandemic effects just keeps growing. Today’s story addresses what happened after Covid kept tourists from the colorful small shops in Tunis. Just like workers in the US that have decided they need to join unions, Tunisian businesses are realizing there’s strength in numbers.

Taylor Luck reports at the Christian Science Monitor, “It takes one glance to tell all is not well in the Medina. The walled, historic old city of the Tunisian capital – once marked by bustling markets and streams of people hustling between the shops, homes, and government offices along its narrow streets and hidden passageways – is nearly empty. …

‘We are waiting for nothing,’ a chachiya hatmaker says as he shuffles boxed hats from one wall of his shop to the other. ‘We just show up for a few hours out of habit. No one is coming.’

“The Medina’s shuttered shops serve as a stern warning that the pandemic and a recession are threatening to undo the old city’s rich tapestry of families and artisans who have made it their home for centuries. But not, it appears, without a fight.

“Banding together for the first time, Medina business owners and families are trying to reintroduce the UNESCO World Heritage Site to Tunisians and the world, sharing its secrets and inviting people to take part in its history – and save its identity in the process.

“M’dinti, or ‘My Medina,’ the brainchild of Leila Ben Gacem, a social entrepreneur and advocate for Tunisia’s artisans, is an initiative that has united two dozen boutique hoteliers, artisans, and restaurant owners into an economic lobby to advocate for the old city and search for new ways of resilience.

“ ‘By ourselves, we cannot survive the pandemic’s effects,’ says Ms. Ben Gacem, who is also a Medina hotelier. ‘But together we can make changes to improve the Medina.’ …

“For seven centuries, hatmakers, cobblers, silver and goldsmiths, and tailors have occupied craft-specific streets – separate ecosystems within the maze-like Medina. But with no business, unable to afford monthly rent … many of these artisans are now packing it up. … In their place are popping up cafes, cigarette stands, betting outlets, and fast-food joints – their chrome and blue plastic storefronts incongruous with the World Heritage Site’s cobblestone streets and wrought-iron windows. …

“Silversmith Mohammed Sidomou, whose family’s shop has stood on the narrow street of the birket al-fidhah (pool of silver) market for a century, [describes] the pandemic as the ‘greatest challenge’ the Medina has seen in his four decades in business.

“ ‘We have been hit by a revolution, terrorism, instability, but there was always some economic activity to keep us going. With the pandemic, everyone is affected. … It breaks my heart to see the Medina turned into shuttered storefronts. It’s as if the Medina is losing its soul.’

“Compounding troubles are the pandemic-induced jump in international shipping costs, inflation, and the devaluation of the Tunisian dinar, making it logistically difficult or financially prohibitive for artisans to get the raw materials they crafted, pounded, and molded into Tunisian heritage crafts for centuries. …

“The economic downturn is also fraying a unique community of 20,000 people who live in the Medina, including working- and middle-class families and transplants from rural villages.

“Before, residents say, families, shop owners, and artisans supported one another during lean months and years. … Neighbors would loan a few dinars, share groceries, and cook for each other’s weddings. Shop owners and artisans whose businesses were flush would divert customers to other craftsmen they knew were facing a rough patch. …

“Says Mohamed Ali Dweiri, a 26-year-old Medina resident and hotel worker, ‘People have become more selfish; no one is helping each other. This is the biggest change to the Medina I have seen in my lifetime, and it’s sad.’

“Enter M’dinti.

“With no foreign tourism, the joint initiative’s first priority was finding ways to attract Tunisians to the Medina. …

“Since October 2021, M’dinti has hosted weekend activities for families, inviting Tunisians into the district’s historic homes and businesses for culinary classes and workshops with artisans – such as carpenters or cobblers – offering a glimpse into the centuries of knowledge of the maalam, or craft master. …

“ ‘Each activity is bringing 100 guests to the Medina. They are learning there are days’ worth of sights to see, they are appreciating the traditional crafts we fight to keep alive,’ says Mr. Ghorghor, the perfumer. ‘Word-of-mouth is our best hope.’ ”

More at the Monitor, here.

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