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A Sheep Uses Her Head to Drive

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , on November 3, 2025| 2 Comments »

Photo: A nonprofit called Don’t Forget Us, Pet Us.
Kiki on her cart, which she moves around on her own.

Today’s article is from that section of the Washington Post that focuses on cheery stories, often about animals. We learn about a rescued sheep with a talent for learning new tricks.

Sydney Page writes at the Washington Post, “A sheep named Kiki zips around the yard of an animal sanctuary in a motorized wheelchair. She navigates on her own, tilting a joystick with her head to move forward and back, left and right.

“ ‘She’s like a crazy teenager; she wants to go very fast,’ said Deb Devlin, president of the Don’t Forget Us, Pet Us sanctuary in North Dartmouth, Massachusetts.

“Kiki was born with limited mobility and cannot walk. … At birth, Kiki’s mother rejected her and refused to feed her, which is not uncommon when a lamb is sick or disabled. The farm where Kiki was born didn’t have the resources to look after her and contacted Don’t Forget Us, Pet Us to see if they could help. Devlin went right away, in December 2021, to see the 11-day-old lamb.

“ ‘When I first saw her, I felt so sad for her,’ said Devlin, who co-founded the nonprofit sanctuary in 2016. ‘She was on this gentleman’s lap, she was wrapped in a blanket, and she was shivering.’

“Kiki can feel sensations from her neck down, though she is unable to move herself. During Kiki’s first months at the sanctuary, Devlin and other volunteers tried physical therapy, chiropractic treatments, laser therapy and even tendon release surgery. None of it worked.

“[So] Devlin began focusing on what Kiki could already do. She decided to experiment with toys as enrichment. … She got interactive, press-and-play children’s toys and quickly noticed that Kiki was able to operate them using her head.

“ ‘When she got the hang of the toy, she would press through the buttons until she got to her favorite song, “Twinkle, Twinkle,” ‘ Devlin said. ‘She would stop and put her head on it and gaze up, listening to the music.’

“Then Kiki began to dance. … Seeing how easily Kiki controlled the toys, Devlin suspected she might also be able to use a joystick to navigate. …

“Devlin and her team of five volunteers experimented with trying to adapt Kiki’s stroller into something she could maneuver herself, but they struggled to come up with a design. …

“After joining e-bike groups on social media for advice, Devlin tried a motorized wheelchair. She reached out to Mobility Equipment Recyclers of New England — a wheelchair store in North Kingston, Rhode Island — and secured a motorized chair for Kiki with the help of donations.

“Devlin then zip-tied a cargo stroller body to the wheelchair base and repositioned the joystick so Kiki could reach it with her head. The result was a cart Kiki could move on her own. …

“When Kiki took control of the wheelchair for the first time, everyone was stunned.

“ ‘It took seconds for her to start driving it,’ Devlin said [adding] it was clear Kiki knew what she was doing.

“ ‘She knows the cause and effect of that joy stick and that she is moving herself,’ she said. …

“A video the sanctuary shared on social media of Kiki driving around the yard went viral, drawing thousands of comments.

“Everybody online finds her so inspirational,” Devlin said. “The only thing we were really lacking with Kiki was independent mobility, and now she has it.”

Of the more than 7,000 comments on a Facebook post of the video, Devlin said, the majority are positive. … Still, some commenters questioned her quality of life.

“ ‘For me, those reactions were very hard,’ Devlin said, explaining that Kiki gets regular wellness checks to ensure she isn’t in pain or discomfort. …

“Kiki eats and drinks, grazes, sunbathes, makes music with a chime set, watches Disney shows, listens to Taylor Swift and even kayaks. She dances and visits schools and meets with children who have disabilities, helping them feel less alone. …

“Now that Kiki can drive on her own, volunteers said she’s developed a sassy side.

“ ‘You tell her it’s time to stop and she’ll look at you and drive away,’ said volunteer Jess Bullock. … Bullock said despite her mobility challenges, Kiki seems like a very happy girl. …

“Devlin said Kiki’s story is one of resilience and hope. ‘She has had such an impact on so many,’ she said. ‘Everyone is just so taken by Kiki and her journey.’ ”

More at the Post, here. I guess I’m guilty of speciesism, but I admit that the thing I like best about Kiki is that her success cheers human children who have disabilities. What is your take?

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Valued Slave Art Returned

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , on November 2, 2025| 4 Comments »

Photo: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Descendants of potter David Drake, seen at the Museum of Fine Arts with one of the artist’s works. 

If we are in a hurry for the many evils we see to be defeated, we’re likely be disappointed. But in time, even a foundering ship can right itself. The growth of initiatives to return artifacts stolen in the past is an example.

Jori Finkel writes at CNN that in a “likely precedent-setting agreement, the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) Boston has agreed to return two works from 1857 by the Black potter David Drake, who made his ambitious jars while enslaved, to his present-day descendants.

“By the terms of the contract, one of those vessels will remain on loan to the museum for at least two years, according to the lawyer George Fatheree, who is representing Drake’s descendants. The other vessel — a masterpiece known as the ‘Poem Jar’ — has been purchased back by the museum from the heirs for an undisclosed sum. Now the work comes with ‘a certificate of ethical ownership.’

“ ‘In achieving this resolution, the MFA recognizes that Drake was deprived of his creations involuntarily and without compensation,’ a museum spokesperson said in a statement. ‘This marks the first time that the museum has resolved an ownership claim for works of art that were wrongfully taken under the conditions of slavery in the 19th-century US.’ …

‘Ethan Lasser, chair of the art of Americas at the MFA, said the museum has learned from its work restituting Nazi-looted art. ‘We’ve become very expert in Holocaust restitution. We’re dealing with (repatriation) issues in our African collections and Native American collections,’ he said over the phone. …

“He considers Drake’s work an example of ‘stolen property,’ too, ‘since the artist is always the first owner of his work and he never got to make the call about where it went or what he was paid for it.’

“Born enslaved around 1800 in Edgefield, South Carolina, a region known for its rich clay, Drake (who was also known as Dave the Potter) was one of relatively few African American potters to sign his work. He also dared — despite punitive anti-literacy laws for enslaved people in the state — to etch short sayings or poems on the jars, making them powerful acts of resistance. Some inscriptions boast of the jar’s intended contents or enormous capacity; others remark more poignantly on his own life or working conditions.

“The ‘Poem Jar,’ which the MFA originally bought in 1997 from a dealer in South Carolina, features a couplet that hints at Drake’s financial exploitation. The inscription reads: ‘I made this Jar = for cash/Though its called Lucre trash.’ Currently in a gallery for self-taught and outsider art at the museum, it will assume a more prominent spot at the entrance of the Art of Americas wing once renovated in June 2026. …

“Another jar made the same year, 1857, has a particularly wrenching inscription in light of Drake’s forced separation from a woman believed to be his wife and her two sons. That vessel, at the Greenville County Museum of Art in South Carolina, reads: ‘I wonder where is all my relation.’

“One of Drake’s great-great-great-great grandsons, the children’s book author and producer Yaba Baker, said he feels the restitution process offers one answer to that question. ‘It’s been exciting, overwhelming and feels full circle,’ he said in a video call. He praised the MFA for ‘showing integrity and leadership’ in ‘allowing us to connect to Dave’s legacy,’ noting that ‘to go from being slaves to having a family of engineers and doctors and people in executive positions is a testament to Dave’s legacy in a different way.’

‘These descendants began talking about getting involved in Drake’s legacy in 2022, upon the opening of ‘Hear Me Now: The Black Potters of Old Edgefield, South Carolina,’ an exhibition jointly organized by the MFA and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The family soon hired Fatheree, fresh from his win in the Bruce’s Beach land reparation case. Earlier this year they established the David Drake Legacy Trust, governed by five of the oldest heirs.

“So far there are about 15 family members involved, according to Fatheree, but they have created a website so that other descendants of Drake can be identified and join the efforts — what Fatheree calls ‘a big tent approach.’ …

“There are thought to be around 250 pots by Drake still in existence, and over the past five years the market for his work has exploded, driven mainly by American museums competing for pieces in the hopes of telling a more complex story about the history of slavery in the US. Several have paid six figures for his work, and in 2021 the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Arkansas paid a record-setting $1.56 million for a 25-gallon stoneware jar at auction.

“Other museums that own Drake’s work include the Met, the Philadelphia Art Museum, the De Young Museum in San Francisco, the Art Institute of Chicago, Harvard Art Museums, the St Louis Art Museum and the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC, as well as smaller venues in the American South.

“Fatheree confirmed he has begun to reach out to some of these other art institutions on behalf of the family. ‘Our approach has been one of collaboration and invitation. I am not a litigator; we did not go to the museum and file a lawsuit (or) threaten to sue them. But our hope and frankly our expectation is that other institutions’ — and private collectors of Drake’s work, he added — ‘will follow the Boston museum’s lead here.’ ”

More at CNN, here.

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The Billion-Butterfly Weatherman

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on November 1, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Photo: Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post.
Until Jagadish Shukla, meteorologists generally believed that predicting the weather beyond 10 days was a hopeless pursuit. He wanted to help farmers anticipate monsoons.

Did you ever read Erik Larson’s Isaac’s Storm, a book about a devastating hurricane in Texas before there was good weather prediction? That was the first time I heard about the “butterfly effect,” tiny changes in weather conditions with powerful results.

A researcher interested in chaos theory asked himself what could happen with more butterflies than one.

Anusha Mathur writes at the Washington Post, “Standing in his home office in Rockville, Maryland, meteorologist Jagadish Shukla gestured at the high-resolution satellite map of India hung on the wall. It shows every groove of his home country’s geological landscape in vivid detail. …

“ ‘The trick is how to find predictable components in a chaotic system,’ Shukla told me. …

“He’s come a long way from his childhood village in northern India, where he spent his summers playing outside and praying for rain.

“The most anticipated season of each year was the annual monsoon, he writes in his memoir, A Billion Butterflies: A Life in Climate and Chaos Theory. Monsoons follow India’s hottest period and last for months, providing both relief from the sun and fertility for the land.

“But the monsoon also can be a source of suffering. Some years the rain brings intense flooding, while in others there’s too little for a good harvest — or worst of all, drought and famine. …

In 1970, 26-year-old Shukla arrived in Boston to pursue a doctorate at MIT.  “His goal: find a way to predict the Indian monsoon’s seasonal impact.

“At the time, weather forecasters relied heavily on ‘initial conditions’ — how volatile factors such as temperature, pressure, wind or jet stream today might affect the weather tomorrow. As a result, meteorologists generally believed that predicting the weather beyond 10 days was a hopeless pursuit.

“Soon after arriving at MIT, Shukla learned about the ‘butterfly effect,’ coined by renowned meteorologist Edward Lorenz. Lorenz observed that even the tiniest changes in initial weather conditions — something as small as a butterfly flapping its wings — could make an entire system chaotic over time.

” ‘The idea is that if you change just one decimal point in your initial condition, you will get a different forecast after 10 days,’ Shukla said.

“Lorenz’s work made many scientists skeptical about whether seasonal predictability was worth focusing time [on]. But Shukla’s felt sure that — at least for the monsoon — there was knowledge to be gleaned from the chaos. …

“Then came the breakthrough. While daily weather is driven by volatile initial conditions, seasonal averages are shaped by something else, ‘boundary conditions’ such as ocean temperature, soil moisture, snow cover and vegetation. And these boundary conditions are a source of predictability. …

“Said David Straus, a climate dynamics professor at George Mason University who worked with Shukla, ‘Shukla had a really outsize role in saying, ‘Look, all these little pieces of evidence in the past are there, we can use them together.” ‘ …

“Shukla’s team ran simulations in which they dramatically changed the initial conditions — the metaphoric flutter of billions of Lorenz’s butterflies — while keeping the boundary conditions fixed. Despite the day-to-day instability, the seasonal outcomes remained consistent. It was the origin of the phrase ‘predictability in the midst of chaos,’ which became the title of Shukla’s bellwether paper, published in the journal Science in 1998. …

“As Shukla deepened his work on dynamic seasonal prediction, a new scientific field was emerging: climate change. Throughout the 1970s and ’80s, Shukla’s colleagues repeatedly asked if he would turn his attention to global warming. …

“He ‘wasn’t convinced yet’ about global warming. He worried the claim of human-induced climate change was too bold, too early.

“Finally, in 2004, he accepted an invitation to serve on the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to work on its fourth comprehensive assessment of the climate. …

“In the bombshell IPCC report, published in 2007, Shukla and his fellow scientists declared that the ‘warming of the climate system is unequivocal’ and identified ‘discernible human influences.’ That year, the panel received the Nobel Peace Prize for its work, along with former vice president Al Gore, with Shukla sharing in the honor.

“ ‘I cannot accept something simply on faith and belief,’ Shukla said. ‘The reason 2007 got the Peace Prize was because it was the first time our model said, “Oh, it’s now beyond the uncertainty.” ‘ “

Read at the Washington Post, here, how climate-denying members of the US House put Shukla under an intense and vicious investigation in 2015. Despite the misery of that period, he says, “It’s a small price to pay to defend the integrity of climate science. … If we don’t defend it, who will?”

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Boo!

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on October 31, 2025| 2 Comments »

Photos: Suzanne and John’s Mom.
A playful resident at our retirement place decorated the woods with little ghosts.

Do you like Halloween? I know some people don’t: they turn out their lights, lock up, and go away for the night. But I have always liked Halloween. I looked forward to it when I was a kid and was planning my costume for weeks, and also as a grownup handing out treats to trick-or-treaters. I especially love seeing the excited little ones in their costumes.

For some years, John has been master of ceremonies for the cutest little costume fashion show in the park near his house, and it’s all about the youngest children.

Neighbors everywhere stock up on goodies and hope for a day that’s not too cold or wet. Even come folks in my retirement place put on wigs and costumes, but for me, it’s only Halloween if there are little kids around. My Jack-o-lantern tried its best, but its flashing light didn’t show up in our bright hallway.

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How to Create a Ghost Onstage

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on October 30, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Photo: CBS.
Topper was a television series based on the 1937 film Topper, which was based on two novels by Thorne Smith. Topper’s house was haunted by the ghosts of the former occupants.

At least as early as Ancient Greek playwrights, thespians have had to find ways to create ghosts onstage — and later, in film. Today’s story for Halloween explains how it can be accomplished.

Margaret Hall writes at Playbill, “Theater has always been good at making the unreal feel like it is in reach. Whether it be transporting an audience across time, space, or even dimension, the suspension of disbelief that theatre inspires is a rife playground for the imagination. Audiences eat up the opportunity to believe in the impossible. …

“That impossible belief has, for centuries, included a glimpse into the afterlife. Be it Hamlet’s ghostly father or the hallucinatory son in Next to Normal, theatermakers love to explore what may be just outside the realm of our awareness. Over the centuries, a whole host of techniques have been developed to demonstrate the concept of ‘spirit’ onstage. …

“Perhaps the most important technical advancement in the art of stage spirits is Pepper’s Ghost, an illusion that has been so successful that it has changed our very conception of what a ghost is supposed to look like.

“Before Pepper’s Ghost, spirits were most commonly portrayed as quasi-corporeal, walking the same floorboards as the living and obeying many of the same rules of physics that govern flesh and blood. After all, how is a ghost supposed to make the haunting sounds of footsteps if their feet never touch the ground?

“Pepper’s Ghost changed all of that. Named for the English scientist John Henry Pepper, who popularized the illusion in the 1800s, the technique is an early example of projection work onstage. … While the Ancient Greeks had to rely on body doubling and shadows to project different forms, Pepper’s Ghost harnessed light. Using a specially arranged room out of view of the audience, a plate of glass would be placed at an angle to reflect the interior of the hidden room out toward the audience.

“While the glass would remain hidden for much of a performance, at key moments the stage lighting would be angled to catch the reflection of a brightly lit actor in the hidden room. The audience would then perceive the hazy projection as a ghostly figure located among the actors on the main stage. Due to the necessary angles needed to make the glass undetectable, it was functionally impossible to make the projected actor appear as though they were standing on the same floor as the actors on the main stage. Instead, a floating ghost was popularized, as was the idea of a ghost fading in and out of visibility (such levels of solid-ness could be adjusted by dimming or brightening the light shone on the hidden actor).

“Pepper’s Ghost immediately became a sensation. Imagine how it must have felt to watch Macbeth swing to strike the ghost of Banquo for the first time, only for his sword to pass through him! … While the technique is now nearly 200 years old, it is still employed across the globe. …

“The principles of Pepper’s Ghost serve as the foundation from which many more digitally based techniques have since developed. The use of reflection, light, and spatial projection are practically the cornerstones for modern stage illusions.

“It’s no secret that projections and LED screens are all the rage on stage these days. Their ability to transform a space with very little transition time is prized, bringing elements of the filmmaker’s toolkit into the theatermaker’s arsenal. While some shows now rely on digital projections (remember Dear Evan Hansen?), many have found a middle ground, blending the digital and the practical to great effect.

“Consider McNeal. … While the dead remain six feet under in the new play, the show does deal with a modern kind of poltergeist: Artificial Intelligence and its impact on the art-making process. McNeal incorporates a number of cutting-edge digital techniques, including deep-fake technology (which digitally alters images and videos of real people), and generative artificial intelligence (which creates images out of written requests).

“At various points in the play, star Robert Downey Jr. is transformed on screens built into the set using deepfakes, appearing at various points to be Ronald Reagan, Winston Churchill, Barry Goldwater, and more. … In McNeal’s climax, director Bartlett Sher strips away the technology, going even further back in theatre illusion history than Pepper’s Ghost to call upon one of the simplest analog tricks: body doubling. After an hour of high concept digital effects, the switch back to practicality is shockingly effective.

“Though digital effects have become more common in recent years, for many ghostly shows, practicality is becoming the hot new trend. After all, when you can’t trust anything you see on a screen, it is easy to yearn for the simplicity of something happening right in front of your eyes. In Les Misérables, the ghostly personages of Fantine and Eponine in the finale are simply played by the original actors draped in white, as are the ghosts of Our Town. …

“While it is important to explore the options new technology can open, it is also key to remember that sometimes, the simplest answer is the smartest.”

More at Playbill, here. Is anyone old enough to remember the ghostly couple (and their ghostly St Bernard) from the 1950s TV show Topper?

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Taking a Horse to the Polls

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on October 29, 2025| 2 Comments »

Photo: Larry Price/The Guardian.
Diné voters ride on horseback through the Navajo Nation to the polls in 2020. Allie Young, a Diné grassroots organizer, started the Ride to the Polls campaign.

Elections never stop being important, and next Tuesday, Nov. 4, will be a critical one in many parts of the country as we struggle to shore up democracy. Today we learn about how hard indigenous people sometimes work to get to the polls.

Melissa Hellmann wrote at the Guardian last year about Navajo people’s understanding of voting as an important way to protect the environment.

“In Diné, or Navajo, culture, the horse symbolizes strength and resilience, as well as a connection to the earth. Cowboy culture is so relevant to Native communities, that horseback trail rides are used to draw awareness to issues within the community including suicide prevention, and alcohol and drug use, said Allie Young, a 34-year-old Diné grassroots organizer. This fall, Young has harnessed the trail ride to engage Diné voters for the presidential election: her group’s voter-registration events will culminate with 100 Indigenous voters riding on horseback to a polling station in Arizona on election day. …

“Young, founder of the Indigenous-led civic engagement program Protect the Sacred, told the Guardian. ‘[When] we’re connected with the horse, we’re then reconnected to Mother Earth and reminded of our cultural values and what we’re fighting for, what we’re protecting.’ …

“Political representation that brings needed resources into Native communities is particularly important on tribal lands, where 75% of roads remain unpaved. …

“Young said she hopes that the success of the Ride to the Polls campaign in 2020 and 2022 will encourage ‘the greatest Native turnout ever’ in the upcoming election. This year, the campaign has extended its reach with events such as skateboarding and bull-riding competitions, heavy metal and country music concerts.

“ ‘We’re trying to communicate to our community that we need to protect our tribal sovereignty,’ said Young, ‘and with that, protect our sacred sites, protect our lands, our cultures, our languages, our traditions.’

“Young launched the Ride to the Polls campaign in 2020 in response to the rapid spread of Covid-19 infections in the Navajo Nation, where some counties saw the highest death rates per capita in the nation. She wanted to ensure that her community filled out the US census to receive the funding they deserved and to elect politicians who prioritize the concerns of Native communities.

“ ‘Our nation and many tribal nations across the country were devastated by the onset of Covid-19 because our system is being chronically underfunded,’ said Young, ‘which revealed to the rest of the world what we already know: that the government is not honoring our treaty, which says that we are to receive good healthcare and education.’ She began creating culturally relevant initiatives so that young Diné citizens who felt disenfranchised would see voting as a tool to ‘rebuild our power as a community.’ …

“So far, they have registered 200 new voters and checked or updated the registrations of about 400 people.

“On 12 October, the actor Mark Ruffalo will join Ride to the Polls to help mobilize Native voters and to mark the 100th anniversary of Native Americans being granted the right to vote. …

“ ‘Indigenous people have only been able to fight for their future at the ballot box for 76 years,’ Ruffalo said in a statement. ‘Now we’re seeing a massive movement of young Indigenous folk exercise their power at the polls.’ …

“All Native Americans were finally granted the right to vote under the federal voting rights act of 1965. Still, barriers have remained that make it difficult for Diné to register to vote and cast ballots, including a lack of residential addresses since many people on the Navajo Nation use post office boxes. It also can take up to an hour to drive to a polling location, said Young. And this summer, the US Supreme Court ruled that Arizona can enforce a state law requiring prospective voters to include proof of US citizenship in registration forms, which Young said was a ‘slap in the face to Native Americans, who are the first peoples of this land, to be asked to prove their citizenship.’

“To help address some of those hurdles, Protect the Sacred is partnering with the Indigenous-led voter-engagement non-profit Arizona Native Vote. Indigenous organizers register voters and help residents find their addresses by locating their houses on Google Maps. ‘A key talking point when we talk to voters is letting them know that voting and registering to vote should not be this hard,’ Jaynie Parrish, executive director of Arizona Native Vote, said. …

“During a six-stop trail ride to register Diné citizens throughout the Navajo Nation in mid-September [2024] indigenous organizers discussed with voters the importance of casting ballots in every election. They served citizens stew and frybread while explaining to them that county elections can determine how local government operations are funded. Young said: ‘I believe that we started a movement around the power of the Native vote.’ ”

And so, they voted. We know what happened in 2024, and we know what has been happening to environmental protection since then. But every election counts in moving the needle back toward the people. So, please vote on Tuesday and at every election in the future.

More at the Guardian, here.

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Traditional Syrian Seamstresses Reemerge

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , on October 28, 2025| 2 Comments »

Photo: Walaa Buaidani.
Mona Araghili showcases aghabani embroidery at the Threads of Hope exhibition in Damascus, Syria. Post-Assad, she sees an opportunity for serious investment in traditional crafts.

“Threads of Hope” is a phrase that seems to cover a lot of what is going on in the world. Hopes may be hanging by threads, but every day they can strengthen. In today’s article from the Christian Science Monitor, the words are applied to the reemergence of traditional Syrian embroidery after the fall of the Assad regime.

Dominique Soguel writes, “By the time Ameera al-Hammouri was 10, her hands were dancing across the taut fabric beneath her grandmother’s aghabani embroidery machine. She was too short to sit, so she stood, working the foot pedal to coax floral patterns from metallic thread and her own memory.

“Decades later, in a rundown apartment building on the outskirts of Damascus, her machine now runs on an erratic supply of electricity. The building’s elevator no longer works and many of its windows are broken, but inside the sanctity of Ms. Hammouri’s spotless home, the artistry lives on. ‘Working on the embroidery machine for me is like drawing on paper,’ she says. … ‘Whatever I imagine, I bring to life with my hands.’

“Aghabani embroidery originated in Damascus more than 150 years ago, blending Ottoman, Arabic, and Persian design influences. Traditionally, patterns were hand-printed in Damascus onto fabrics that were then sent to Douma, about 8 miles from the capital, where women embroidered them at home. Their work, displayed on tablecloths and other household items, became a hallmark of Syrian hospitality.

“Today, the survival – indeed, the revival – of this craft tradition rests in the hands of women from Douma, a city synonymous with both resistance and ruin. The women behind these works are not only artisans. They are mothers, widows, and survivors of siege, displacement, and economic collapse.

“Ms. Hammouri herself endured all of it. Her husband and eldest son were arrested in 2012 and never returned. Douma was subjected to a five-year siege, when government forces surrounded the city, cutting it off from food, medicine, and fuel. Ms. Hammouri’s house was destroyed. As the bombs fell, she moved her children from house to house, basement to basement.

“The siege ended in 2018. With no income and no husband, Ms. Hammouri turned to the one thing that had always grounded her: her original aghabani machine, bought in 1988 with money she scraped together by selling her wedding gold and other treasures. It still stands in a corner of her bedroom, alongside a newer model.

“ ‘I talk to this machine,’ confides Ms. Hammouri, who is known in the community as Umm Meriee. ‘It holds my secrets. I’ve cried over it.’

“At first, she worked quietly from home, taking orders from traders who remembered her family’s reputation and bought pieces for export. Over time, she began training other women.

“If Syria’s current political opening brings more trade and tourism, she says, crafts like aghabani could once again become a source of stable income rather than just a means of survival.

“Now, twice a week, her apartment fills with the chatter and laughter of industrious women. … This gathering of women is not a formal enterprise. There is no signboard or registration, no website to market their work. But family reputations endure in a country where word of mouth is the norm.

“ ‘They know my name in the market,’ says Umm Meriee, recalling how she revived ties with shopkeepers in the Al-Hariqa market, in Damascus’ old city, because her aunts and grandmother had put the family name on the map. …

“For Mona al-Masri, a Tuesday regular, embroidery is her identity. … While her colorful pieces earn heartfelt ‘wows’ from her daughters, it is next to impossible to eke a living from this craft. In a good week, working three hours a day in between bouts of housework, Ms. Masri earns just over $6. … Despite the skill and time aghabani requires – a single detailed motif can take hours, and a full tablecloth might take a week or more to complete – handmade aghabani cannot compete with cheaper, machine-made imitations that dominate the local market, such as those imported from China.

“ ‘Right now, aghabani has no future,’ says Ms. Masri. But with government support, she feels that future could ‘be a very bright one.’

“Mona Araghili shares that optimism. … More than a decade ago, Ms. Araghili set up Threads of Hope – Aghabani with little more than a social media page and materials she borrowed from friends. With her college friend Basheera Baghdadi, who had grown up in Douma, she smuggled fabric and thread into the besieged city, using tunnels and roundabout routes through the countryside. …

“Ms. Araghili never shut down her group’s Facebook page, she says. ‘I always hoped that we could restart someday.’ ”

More at the Monitor, here.

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The Rebirth of New Orleans

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on October 27, 2025| 2 Comments »

Photo: Melanie Stetson Freeman/CSM.
One Man Swamp Band street musician Brian Belknap performing in the French Quarter of New Orleans in April.

Here’s a story of resilience, 20 years after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Patrik Jonsson writes at the Christian Science Monitor, “When Hurricane Katrina careened into Mississippi and Louisiana 20 years ago this week … the overtopping of New Orleans’ levees caught local, state, and federal officials flat-footed in the days after the storm’s Aug. 29, 2005, landfall just east of New Orleans, near the Pearl River. …

“As I head back to New Orleans ahead of the 20th anniversary of that historic storm, looking to chronicle the growth that has taken place since that disaster threatened to wash away the soul of this vibrant city, I’m following some of the paths I took when covering the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, remembering that time, those scenes.

“Twenty years after that catastrophe, New Orleans’ larger recovery has been a complicated story of progress, ongoing challenges, and missed opportunities.

“It was still a lawless city when I arrived in 2005. As dark descended and I settled into my van for the night, so did fear. Rumors abounded – most outrageous, but some not far from the truth about the human toll. About 1,800 people are believed to have perished during Katrina and its aftermath, most from the storm surge in Mississippi and catastrophic flooding in New Orleans. The most expensive natural disaster in United States history, it caused over $200 billion in damage. …

“Communities reemerge, but they reemerge differently. People search for what once was – a piece of flatware, a boat transom, a bent-up old .22 rifle. Or an old guitar. They drag the past from the wreckage and use it to imagine the future.

This year, I’ve brought my Guild A-20 dreadnought guitar, my road companion. I’m realizing that this reporting trip is also to build a connection across the decades – maybe one as rickety and rusty as that old Huey Long – and to see the effects on communities and people, including myself, and how they recover. …

“This time I am staying in a rental, a shotgun-style short-term place near the Tremé, the city’s iconic music district.

“I go to a nearby coffeehouse the next morning, where schoolkids in uniforms are already plinking away standards on a well-tuned upright piano. Wrens are cajoling amid the Magnolia grandiflora. I sip chicory-infused coffee and chat with the shop owner about a day that’s dawning with surprising coolness.

“Afterward, I find a great, steep stoop from where I can less watch but rather consider the city. I grab my Guild and sit down, strum some cowboy chords in B major, and noodle some lines from my reporter’s notebook: ‘She’s an angel, even when she’s falling down / She’s an angel, in the wrong part of town.’ …

“Brian Belknap traded a guitar for a life in New Orleans.

“The Chicago native arrived a decade ago, well after the ravages of Katrina. Like so many before him, he fell for the languid city’s slow charms. With little money, he lived on the streets for a while, busking for change. But then he traded his 1942 Martin D-18 for a battered shotgun shack in St. Roch. …

“Every day, Mr. Belknap walks into the French Quarter in the early, cooler parts of the day, setting up the instruments that now make up his One Man Swamp Band on Royal Street.

“ ‘There’s still desperation here,’ Mr. Belknap says. ‘But out here it’s an intimate experience. The people are close. The music is everywhere. Even in hard times, the sense of joy is unmistakable.’

“To punctuate that point, he grabs an accordion, gives a kick on a high hat pedal, and rolls into an original song about folks stomping the varnish off a dance floor.

“Though he’s not a native, in some ways Mr. Belknap’s presence here is a small part of New Orleans’ recovery. The city lost a third of its population after the hurricane. But it has been bouncing back – though not to what it was before Katrina.

“There’s a new $15 billion system of levees, floodgates, and drainage canals built to better withstand storms like Katrina. The public school system, among the worst in the country before 2005, has been revamped. Today, graduation rates have risen significantly, and more New Orleans high schoolers are going straight to college than before.

“But the city continues to grapple with the lasting impacts of the initial federally funded rebuilding plan, called Road Home. Over $9 billion in federal funds was allocated for residents to rebuild – but within a tangle of Byzantine application procedures. Disbursements, too, were based on property values before Katrina struck. This left mostly Black, low-income residents with far less to rebuild, and long-standing racial disparities continue today.

“ ‘Katrina in many ways reshaped the way we think about vulnerability in disasters,’ says Jeannette Sutton, a sociologist who studies emergency preparedness at the State University of New York at Albany. Road Home and other programs, she says, have proved that ‘If you were poor before a disaster, the [disaster response] is not going to improve your well-being’. If you were barely getting by before, you’re not going to be better off with the funding in the aftermath. But those who could ‘afford’ a disaster are probably going to recover pretty well.’ …

“Gentrification has also changed the flavor of New Orleans in many ways. The city continues to debate limiting short-term and highly profitable tourist rentals – like the one I’m staying in – which create a demand for housing and cause other rents to rise. The checkerboard of empty lots in the hard-hit Lower Ninth Ward, too, still defines many of the failures of the federal rebuilding plan. …

“Liz LeFrere was 8 years old, living in New Orleans East, when Katrina struck. She thought she’d miss a day or two of school. Four months later, the family returned to live in the broken city, since her father was a police officer.

“Ten years ago, when she was a student at Tulane, the campus flooded on Aug. 29 – the Katrina anniversary. Ms. LeFrere broke down in uncontrollable tears. ‘It came out of nowhere,’ she says. ‘It’s definitely part of a communal trauma.’

“Yet the storm’s indelible impact also created a new life for her. Today, Ms. LeFrere is part of an artist collective dedicated to understanding Katrina and its aftermath through art – including massive portrait murals that now dot and define the city.

“Artists like Ms. LeFrere are committed to telling a tangibly redemptive story. ‘The art is where expression can be a catalyst for change,’ she says. The murals ‘help create a sense of people seeing themselves reflected in the face of the city. The narrative of New Orleans expanded.’ ”

There’s a lot more at the Monitor, here. Impressive photos. No paywall, but subscriptions keep responsible news coming. Reasonable prices.

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Light Pollution Confuses Birds

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on October 26, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Photo: Suerob/Getty Images/iStockphoto.
The European goldfinch, above, was one of the species most affected by the growing amount of light-polluted areas. 

I am not a scientific kind of birdwatcher, but I love trying to identifying the birds around here, sometimes by their song. I’ve learned that one “song” of the red-bellied woodpecker, for instance, sounds a lot like a metal windup toy.

Citizen scientists the world over are contributing to what scientists know about birds. Consider how a recent study was able to use a bird lovers’ website to take our knowledge of avian behavior a step farther.

Hannah Devlin, science correspondent at the Guardian, reports that “urban birds stay up significantly later than their rural counterparts, according to research that highlights the impact of light pollution on wildlife.

“The study, based on recordings submitted by bird enthusiasts to a popular species identification and mapping website, showed that light pollution caused birds to sing for an average of 50 minutes longer each day, with some species waking up an hour earlier and settling down for the evening an hour later.

“ ‘We were shocked by our findings,’ said Dr Brent Pease, an assistant professor of biodiversity conservation at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. ‘Under the brightest night skies, a bird’s day is extended by nearly an hour.’

“Light pollution now affects 23% of Earth’s surface and is rapidly growing in extent and intensity, data suggests. There is already evidence for detrimental effects on human health and concerns that many species are affected, with negative consequences including die-offs of insects and the disruption of migration patterns in bats and sea turtles.

“The latest study used bird recordings submitted to BirdWeather, a citizen science project that allows users to submit recordings from birds in their local area to produce a global live library of birdsong and which uses AI to allow users to identify birds in their gardens. In total the scientists analyzed 2.6m observations of onset (morning) bird vocalization and 1.8m observations of cessation (evening) bird calls, for hundreds of species. This data was combined with global satellite imagery measurements of light pollution. …

“The analysis found that for birds in light-polluted areas, the waking day was extended by 50 minutes on average.

Species with large eyes, relative to their body size, had the strongest response to artificial light.

“ ‘The American robin, Northern mockingbird and European goldfinch all extended their day by more than average,’ said Pease. …

“The impact of a longer day for birds was not yet clear, the researchers said. ‘We know that sleep loss is not great for humans, but birds are different,’ said Pease. ‘They have developed interesting strategies to cope with loss of sleep during migratory periods.’

“A disturbance of natural behavior patterns was of concern, Pease added, although there is evidence, in some species, that artificial lighting may increase foraging and mating time and improve the survival rate of fledglings.

“The findings are published in the journal Science.”

Sounds like this is a case of “more research is needed.” More at the Guardian, here.

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Contest Helps Depopulated City

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on October 25, 2025| 2 Comments »

Photo: Christian Jungeblodt/The Guardian.
Eisenhüttenstadt, Germany, was built in Soviet-controlled east Germany shortly after the second world war. It has not been considered a desirable place to live in recent years, but it is not giving up.  

This idea to bring more residents to a city that has lost population was new to me. There are probably lots of other places that could try the same approach.

Deborah Cole writes at the Guardian, “An innovative contest by a city in formerly communist east Germany to curb depopulation by offering a fortnight of free housing has stunned local officials with its success.

“The competition drew more than 1,700 applications from around the world to try living in Eisenhüttenstadt, a Soviet-style planned city on the Polish border, near Berlin, which was built around a steel plant in the aftermath of the second world war.

“ ‘We ourselves were very surprised by the reach our Probewohnen (trial living) project has had,’ Julia Basan, the municipal economic development officer spearheading the campaign, told reporters on Thursday.

“She said those who had thrown their hat into the ring since May had ‘the most wide-ranging motives’ including one foreign man who simply said he ‘wanted to marry a German woman.’ But the majority were ‘very realistic applications,’ Basan said.

“The two winners, both German professionals, will move into spacious furnished flats in the city centre in September and be treated to a red-carpet orientation program.

“Melanie Henniger, a 49-year-old IT consultant and self-described ’empty nester’ living in the north-western city of Bremen, said she had grown up in nearby Frankfurt an der Oder and was interested in returning to her eastern roots.

” ‘This is a great chance to get to know the region again, because otherwise I wouldn’t have any opportunities at all as I don’t know anyone there any more,’ she said. ‘In the best case scenario, I can put down new roots there again.’

“The other successful applicant, 39-year-old Jonas Brander, is a Berlin-based film-maker working on a documentary about Eisenhüttenstadt.

“ ‘I’m very interested in the city and its people and I want to get very close to life in my work,’ Brander said, adding that he was drawn to its ‘living history.’

“Eisenhüttenstadt, which is celebrating its 75th anniversary, was the first city to be founded – in east or west Germany – after the Nazi period. It was built according to a socialist model designed to blend work and family life for the good of all.

“But the years since national reunification in 1990 have been hard on the town, which has fewer than half the 53,000 residents it counted before the fall of the Berlin Wall.

“The shrinking and aging population has compounded a skilled labor shortage for local industry, in what economists say can easily turn into a death spiral. …

“Basan said the program had allowed Eisenhüttenstadt to put its best foot forward, touting its renovated and affordable neoclassical housing, verdant surroundings perfect for swimming and cycling, and plentiful childcare and work opportunities.

“ ‘We even had one family, from another European country, who heard about us via the Probewohnen program and are moving here on their own steam. They’ve already signed a work contract with a local company,’ she said.

“ ‘They did it all themselves and we’re just thrilled.’ ”

More at the Guardian, here.

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Minnesota’s Somali Dance Troupe

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , on October 24, 2025| 2 Comments »

Photo: Haley Friesen.
The Somali Museum Dance Troupe practiced at the Tapestry Folk Dance Center in Minneapolis a few years ago.

It has not been an easy adjustment for Somali refugees who were settled in Minnesota years ago. It’s been especially hard for new generations to find their way. So I’m happy to read about the positive things.

Amina Isir Musa reports at Sahan Journal that “the Somali Museum Dance Troupe’s TikTok presence has helped popularize traditional dances among U.S.-born Somalis.”

She says, “In the basement of the Midtown Global Market in Minneapolis you might find yourself transported to a different land. As you walk toward the Somali Museum of Minnesota, you might hear the joyful sounds of the jaandheer, a traditional dance from the Sanaag region of the Somali peninsula. To many listeners, particularly those from the Northern Somali region, the music says, Welcome home.

“On a recent day, a group of young Somali Minnesotans practiced the dance as their instructor replayed the past 30 seconds of music over and over until they got it right. The instructor, Abdurahman Muhumed, a young man with braided hair, had recently performed with the Somali Museum Dance Troupe  at the ‘Star of Unity’ concert at the Ordway Theatre in St. Paul. As a more experienced dancer, he was training the others as part of the troupe’s leadership training component. 

“A few days later, several members of the 20-member Somali Museum Dance Troupe –- Bashir Ismail, Ayan Furreh, Harun Mohammed and their coach, Mohamoud Osman Mohamed, who is also artistic director of the Somali Museum, talked about their work and their passion for celebrating Somali culture through dance. 

“Mohamoud helped found the Somali Museum Dance Troupe nearly 10 years ago to share his love of that culture and to elevate its artistic expression. His father, Osman Ali, had told him about the importance Somali performing arts held before that country’s long-raging civil war, and the two of them combined efforts to create the Somali Museum Dance Troupe. 

“In its early years, the troupe consisted of young recent immigrants who knew a lot of dances from back home and wanted to share those same dance styles,” and it has since grown to include many enthusiastic young people who have never known Somalia. For more about the dance troupe, click here.

The Sahan Journal has also covered what’s going on with a community leader my husband and I got to know when we lived in Minneapolis, Mohamed Wardere. Having once worked in community outreach for a US Senator, he is now “executive director of Hiddo Soor, a Somali nonprofit that hosts cultural events.” He said that “Somali business owners around the state, who sponsor the festivals, requested events in their towns so that their neighbors could understand their culture. 

“Wardere said when he began hosting cultural festivals, most attendees were members of the Somali community, but in recent years the wider community has participated in the festivities. Last year, about 4,000 people attended the festival in Plymouth, he said. 

“Wardere said he is excited that more people are learning about Somali history and gaining respect for his culture.” Mohamed was always good at sharing understanding of Somali culture.

Read the article by Yvette Higgins on the celebration of Somali independence, its “street festival in Minneapolis, a multiday soccer tournament, a concert at the Ordway, and festivals in Plymouth, Rochester, Owatonna and St. Cloud.” That story is here.

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St. Rat Is Not a Real Saint

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on October 23, 2025| 1 Comment »

Photo: FoxyDonuts.
Seattle is making a game of loving rats.

Gotta love the kooky things people come up with. Today’s story is about people in the state of Washington who’ve decided there is a patron saint of rats. They call him St. Rat.

Nathalie Graham writes at the Stranger, “Heat waves shimmer along Pine Street. A rancid, somehow warm fishy smell wafts from Momiji’s dumpster, which is baking in the hot sun on 12th Avenue. The crumb rubber in Bobby Morris Playfield’s astroturf emits its own corona of heat, absorbing the sun’s rays. …

“Nearby, genderqueer youths balance on the concrete lip of the Cal Anderson Gatehouse scrubbing Hot Rat Summer, a pseudo-famous, pseudo-religious guerrilla mosaic of a rat with a halo. …

“Hot Rat Summer features St. Rat, a kind of patron saint for those at the bottom of the societal heap. … They leave offerings of doodles, flowers, and snacks at St. Rat’s feet. They protect the art and the saint within it.

“Last month, City Hall decided to protect Hot Rat Summer from bureaucracy, but that has not kept it safe from taggers, who’ve consistently spraypainted it. Ten days ago, it was a wash of black. …

“The taggers may not see the value of St. Rat, but the art and theology professors at Seattle University who spoke to the Stranger certainly did. They gave a few hot takes on this venerable rat.  

“Ken Allen, an associate professor of Art History at Seattle University, strolled over to Hot Rat Summer to analyze it in person. For the scholar of West Coast art in the mid-20th century, the rat’s saintly halo evoked the Beatnik era and artist Joan Brown, part of a loose, bohemian artist collective in the mid-50s called the Rat Bastard Protective Association. 

“These bastards ‘often used urban detritus in their assemblage and collage work,’ Allan wrote in an email. Brown, herself, often featured animals, including rats, ‘in a similarly dignified if not quite saintly way as in the Rat Summer piece.’ Take her various portraits of weird cats or The Bride, a painting of a beautiful cat in a wedding dress with a leashed pet rat (the groom?). Or the less sanctified Fur Rat, a rat sculpture made with chicken-wire and a raccoon fur coat.  

“ ‘They would have admired the underground spirit of the anonymous artist of Rat Summer, no doubt,’ he continued. 

“As would Beatnik writers like Jack Kerouac, who ‘idealized the poor and oppressed.’ …

“Dr. Kristin Doll, adjunct professor in Seattle University’s Department of Theology and Religious Studies, meditated quite a bit on the ‘Saint Rat’ figure central to Hot Rat Summer. 

“Doll wrote in an email that she couldn’t attribute any intentional religious metaphors to the artist(s) because she did not know them, but says the work is full of symbols with a clear religious history that make for a ‘clever twist on tradition.’ She loved it. 

“ ‘The creators of Hot Rat Summer are certainly creative, humorous, and they have injected a serious topic (protection of trans people and their rights) with tongue-in-cheek versions of traditional religious themes,’ she wrote. …

“Mosaics are common in religious art, Doll wrote, especially in the Eastern Orthodox tradition and in the Byzantine empire, which popularized the style. …

“St. Rat is not a saint. Cannonization is a lengthy, posthumous process analyzing a saint’s life for piety and holiness, plus a series of documented miracles. We don’t know if St. Rat is based on a real rat, if that real rat is dead or living. … This makes analyzing holiness hard. 

“And, Doll points out, the Vatican formalized the process in the 12th century to prevent situations exactly like Saint Rat, or, as she explained, ‘the rise of a popular cult based on a figure that may not meet the Church’s standards of holiness.’ Worshippers of Saint Guinefort, a greyhound who became a folk saint in 13th century France, know what she’s talking about.  

“Anyone who has been to Cal Anderson has seen the dog worshippers. Rats are not so well loved. We’re quicker to associate rats with garbage, plague, and excellent French cooking than we are to associate them with holiness. ‘A rat is a subversive image that challenges traditional notions of sanctity,’ Doll wrote.”

More at the Stranger, here, and on Instagram. Fun pictures at both sites.

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Volunteer Uncovers Wiki Self-Promoter

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on October 22, 2025| 2 Comments »

Photo: Steven Wright/Unsplash.

Anyone can post on Wikipedia. I even tried it once myself. But volunteer editors are always checking that you obey the rules. My post on the neglected artist Lucille Corcos was removed because at that time, citations from online links were not allowed.

Today’s story shows what can happen if your Wikipedia entries are mainly another no-no: self-promotion. There’s a lot of self-promotion on Wikipedia, but this guy was especially sneaky.

Nate Anderson writes at Ars Technica, “Quick — what are the top entries in the category ‘Wikipedia articles written in the greatest number of languages‘?

“The answer is countries. Turkey tops the list with Wikipedia entries in 332 different languages, while the US is second with 327 and Japan is third with 324. Other common words make their appearance as one looks down the list. ‘Dog’ (275 languages) tops ‘cat’ (273). Jesus (274) beats ‘Adolf Hitler’ (242). …

“A couple months back, something would have been different. Turkey, the US, and Japan were still in the same order near the top of the leaderboard, but the number one slot was occupied by an unlikely contender: David Woodard, who had Wikipedia entries in 335 different languages. …

“Woodard is a composer who infamously wrote a ‘prequiem’ — that is, a ‘pre requiem’ — in 2001 for Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, who had murdered 168 people with a truck bomb. The piece was to be performed at a church near McVeigh’s execution site in Terre Haute, Indiana, then recorded and played on the radio so that McVeigh would have a chance to hear it.

“According to the LA Times, which spoke to the composer, ‘Woodard’s hope in performing the 12-minute piece, he said, is to “cause the soul of Timothy McVeigh to go to heaven.” ‘ …

“Woodard also had a scheme to help save Nueva Germania, an 1880s colony in Paraguay that was designed to let German culture flourish away from the influence of European Jews. … ‘As an artist who is fed up with much of the pretentious nonsense that has come to define Western culture,’ Woodard told SF Gate, ‘I am drawn to the idea of an Aryan vacuum in the middle of the jungle.’

“So what was a guy like this doing with articles in 335 different languages? Inquiring minds want to know, which is why people have posted questions to sites like Reddit over the last year asking about the Woodard situation. …

“A Wikipedia editor who goes by ‘Grnrchst’ recently decided to find out, diving deep into the articles about Woodard and into any edits that placed his name in other articles. The results of this lengthy and tedious investigation were written up in the August 9 edition of the Signpost, a volunteer-run online newspaper about Wikipedia.

“Grnrchst’s conclusion was direct: ‘I discovered what I think might have been the single largest self-promotion operation in Wikipedia’s history, spanning over a decade and covering as many as 200 accounts and even more proxy IP addresses.’

“A network of accounts with an unusual interest in Woodard was identified, and its activities over the last decade were mapped. Starting in 2015, these accounts inserted Woodard’s name ‘into no fewer than 93 articles (including “Pliers,” “Brown pelican,” and “Bundesautobahn”), often referencing self-published sources by Woodard himself.’ And that was just in the English version of Wikipedia.

“From 2017 to 2019, the accounts ‘created articles about David Woodard in at least 92 different languages, creating a new article every six days on average .… They started off with Latin-script European languages, but quickly branched out into other families and scripts from all corners of the globe, even writing articles in constructed languages; they also went from writing full-length article translations, to low-effort stub articles, which would go on to make up the vast majority of all translations (easily 90 percent or more).’ …

“After a reduction in activity, things ramped up again in 2021, as IP addresses from around the world started creating Woodard references and articles once more. For instance, ‘addresses from Canada, Germany, Indonesia, the UK and other places added some trivia about Woodard to all 15 Wikipedia articles about the calea ternifolia.’

“Then things got ‘more sophisticated.’ From December 2021 through June 2025, 183 articles were created about Woodard, each in a different language’s Wikipedia and each by a unique account. These accounts followed a pattern of behavior: They were ‘created, often with a fairly generic name, and made a user page with a single image on it. They then made dozens of minor edits to unrelated articles, before creating an article about David Woodard, then making a dozen or so more minor edits before disappearing off the platform.’

“Grnrchst believes that all the activity was meant to ‘create as many articles about Woodard as possible, and to spread photos of and information on Woodard to as many articles as possible, while hiding that activity as much as possible. … I came to believe that David Woodard himself, or someone close to him, had been operating this network of accounts and IP addresses for the purposes of cynical self-promotion.’

“After the Grnrchst report, Wikipedia’s global stewards removed 235 articles on Woodard from Wikipedia instances with few users or administrators. Larger Wikipedias were free to make their own community decisions, and they removed another 80 articles and banned numerous accounts. …

“In the end, just 20 articles about Woodard remain, such as this one in English, which does not mention the controversy.”

More here.

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Asheville’s Arts Slowly Coming Back

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , on October 21, 2025| 2 Comments »

Photo: Erin Brethauer.
Marquee hosted more than 300 artists and small business owners in Asheville, North Carolina, before Hurricane Helene, a devastating storm in 2024.

When Hurricane Helene washed through Asheville, North Carolina, last year, my childhood friend Ursula was one of the many who lost out. Her basement washed out, not only forcing her to stay at a neighbor’s but damaging many of her father’s artworks and the materials for her own weaving. At the same time, Asheville lost its whole arts district.

Now Ursula is rebuilding, and so is Asheville.

Jonathan Abrams writes at the new York Times, “Jeffrey Burroughs strolled among crooked trees and clumsily leaning chain-link fences on a recent Thursday afternoon in Asheville’s lower River Arts District. Nearby, heaps of flood-damaged antiques dotted the ground outside gaptoothed buildings that had previously housed hundreds of working artists.

“ ‘It’s nice that at least it’s green,’ Burroughs, president of the River Arts District Artists, said of the bent trees. ‘It was really depressing through the winter and the fall.’

“Burroughs, who uses they/them pronouns, is not joking when they say they have taken just two days off in the more than 10 months since Hurricane Helene, the deadliest hurricane to strike the mainland United States since Katrina in 2005, ravaged wide swaths of the Southeast, leaving at least 250 people dead.

“The storm overwhelmed Asheville’s French Broad River, submerging much of the once robust River Arts District in as much of 24 feet of water, caking it in layers of mud and destroying the life’s work and financial pipeline of hundreds of artists. …

“ ‘People were prepared because this area has flooded’ in the past, Burroughs said. ‘They moved everything up. Nobody anticipated second floors would flood. That’s not something you even conceive.

‘All of a sudden, it was like a lake opened in the middle of our town.’ …

“Over the past few decades, the River Arts District blossomed into that sprawling artistic epicenter as antiquated buildings transformed into bustling studios, classrooms, galleries and showrooms. The district’s recovery is seen as a crucial step in regaining a steadiness of income and the sense of normalcy for the many who lost so much in the storm.

“ ‘The business owners in the River Arts District have been working their tails off to rebuild since Hurricane Helene struck and I am making sure the state works with that same urgency to support their recovery,’ said Gov. Josh [Stein] who recently toured the district on a bike.

“The River Arts District housed nearly 750 artists before the hurricane. ‘You’re just immersed in art,’ said Davis Perrott, a woodworker who recalled waking up from the storm to a sound like someone forcefully slamming themselves against his window. ‘I’m sure there are other areas like it, but I haven’t seen it.’

“The upper portion of the district, which houses Burroughs’s jewelry store, returned fully in January. A few spaces have reopened in the lower portion of the district, which is closer to the river and suffered the most flooding.

“About 350 of the displaced artists are working again in the district. Some are actively involved in the continuing recovery process, waiting to return to the home that welcomed them.

“Others have decided not to return. For them, the risk of another storm outweighed anything else.

“Riverview Station was a major hub in the district, once hosting hundreds of artists, including the 14,000-square-foot ceramics space, the Village Potters Clay Center. That was before ’26 feet of water went through and wiped us out,’ said Sarah Wells Rolland, its founder. …

“The center was home to studios, showrooms, a gallery and classrooms where workshops were held. Wells Rolland said that $500,000 worth of equipment was lost in the flooding.

“ ‘I never even entertained going back,’ she said. … ‘I believe it’ll all wash away again.’

“Instead, Wells Rolland opened a new center near the arts district. While her business has returned, she is still searching for her creative spark.

“ ‘I’ve lost a lot of people. … Just numb is what I felt. I didn’t have any ideas. Still, almost a year out, I’m a highly creative person, but I still don’t feel like I have that creative energy yet.’

“As the district returns in fits and bursts, it could provide a blueprint for how other communities ravaged by increasingly destructive natural disasters can recuperate their livelihoods. Those affected have been depending much more on smaller networks of supporters and volunteers than on any government channels. …

“Marquee, an art gallery that hosted more than 300 artists, [anticipated] a September reopening, with other businesses in the lower district.

“ ‘We’re able to tweak the things that we wished we’d have done the first time before we opened and now we’re getting to get it all right,’ said Robert Nicholas, the building’s owner.

“Despite the devastation it caused, the storm reinforced what had drawn many to the district in the first place, heightening their sense of community.” More at the Times, here.

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Using Legos for Advocacy

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on October 20, 2025| 6 Comments »

Photo: Colleen Cronin/ecoRI News.
Lego artist Andrew Grover stands with his creation and the schoolhouse its modeled after in Burrillville, Rhode Island.

Today’s story about preserving an old schoolhouse reminds me of a teacher I used to work with. She received her training in what was called a normal school. It was a long time ago. Like the schoolhouse in the article, her first school was heated by a wood stove. She had to arrive very early to start the fire and get the little school heated up enough for students.

In Burrillville, Rhode Island, there’s a little schoolhouse like that on a lovely piece of land, and local preservation advocates are using a conservation easement to protect it in perpetuity. To promote the idea of conservation easements in general, they have enlisted the help of a locally renowned Lego builder.

“Bright red doors, low-pitched roofs, masterful craftsmanship all describe two local houses,” Cronin reports. “Neither have bathrooms or full-time occupants, but they share a simple elegance and a story.

“One is the work of Pascoag masons nearly 200 years ago, and the other is the creation of Rhode Island Lego artist Andrew Grover this spring.

“Grover built a model of the former, what was once known as the Eagle Peak Schoolhouse, for the Burrillville Land Trust. The artwork is a part of an effort to bring awareness to a land conservation mechanism known as a conservation easement — a deed restriction that was placed on the old schoolhouse property by its owners to keep the building and the 25 or so acres surrounding it preserved in perpetuity.

“The conservation easement ‘is something that will ride with the land forever,’ Burrillville Land Trust president Paul Roselli told ecoRI News.

“Unlike selling or donating the land to a trust, municipality or the state, the owners still own the property when they place it in a conservation easement. They can sell it, pass it on to relatives or donate it, but based on the condition of the easement, they and any future owners must maintain the historic structure on the property and cannot further develop the land.

“The role of the Lego model, which was funded by the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts, is to get a conversation going about the property and how it is being saved for future generations. …

“Grover, known for his Lego models of some of Rhode Island’s most grandiose architecture, said the schoolhouse is the smallest structure he has recreated. The small size actually made his job a little harder than usual, because he had to make sure it’s simple beauty translated in the Lego medium and avoided making the model look like a box.

“He added texture to the mock stone façade to create depth and built a partial stone wall around the building. Grover said the construction was done over the course of several weeks, and consists of more than 1,000 pieces. …

“Grover got involved with the project and the land trust through his love of hiking. To the lifelong Rhode Islander, Burrillville is one of those rare parts of the state that still has rural charm, and hiking through it frequently, he started to realize how much of the town isn’t protected against development.

“ ‘There’s so much development pressure in the state that when you find an area like that it has to be treated like a gem,’ Grover said. …

“Carol Murphy and Roberta Lacey, the married couple who bought and rehabbed the schoolhouse, agree that the natural world needs protection, which was why they purchased the property in the first place. …

“Although they have made a few updates, including replacing the knob and tube electrical work that is a fire hazard and insurance nuisance, the couple has tried their best to return the building that once hosted the children of 19th-century quarry workers and farmers to its old glory.

“A wood stove sits at the center of the room, in front of one of the desks from the 1800s that belonged to the space when it was a classroom. The original blackboard sits in the little kitchen, which doesn’t have any appliances besides a sink.

“It was built in 1824 and its original use isn’t clear, according to Lacey, who is a member of the land trust. In the 1850s, it was donated for use as a school and operated as one until the Bridgeton School opened in the 1890s. …

“ ‘It’s a land that’s so precious to us,’ said Murphy, noting that every time she visits the old schoolhouse it takes her breath away.

“There are only a few outlets in the house and an outhouse in the back, so Lacey and Murphy don’t live there but enjoy it for recreational purposes. The Conservation Commission and Burrillville Land Trust have also held a few meetings there.

“Lacey said, ‘It’s like the honor of my life actually to be able to do this and try to preserve this property.’ ”

In New Shoreham, Rhode Island, an old house called Smilin’ Through (in remembrance of a song written there) has similar protection, but people can live in it. In my opinion, it’s a little dark inside for comfortable living, but the land around it is breathtaking.

More at ecoRI News, here.

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