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Sumo & Ballet Help Rugby Players

September 2, 2025 by suzannesmom

Photo: Neil Reid at the New Zealand Herald.
Former All Blacks coach Mike Cron integrated techniques from ballet and sumo wrestling into the team’s workouts.

Today, I share an article from New Zealand about using creative techniques in rugby training. Since I personally don’t know the first thing about rugby, please correct me if I use the terminology incorrectly.

Neil Reid has the story at the New Zeland Herald.

“Mike Cron has looked far and wide to make his [rugby] forward packs better – including adopting techniques from slender, tights-wearing ballet dancers and borderline-obese sumo wrestlers. Regarded by many as the rugby world’s leading scrum and forwards coach, the former police detective has never been afraid to look in less traditional places to get the best out of his players – and himself.

“In his upcoming autobiography – Coach – Lessons from an All Blacks Legend – the 70-year-old opens up on his 210-test tenure with the All Blacks, including Rugby World Cup triumphs in 2011 and 2015 – and his current role with the Wallabies.

“He writes about the All Blacks pack benefiting from techniques he observed in dancers at the Royal New Zealand Ballet and at a sumo wrestling gym in Japan.

“Cron spent time with both during a period when a variety of All Blacks – most notably front rowers – were battling a condition dubbed ‘turf toe’ involving pain at the base of the big toe when bent. Jumping, landing or pushing off when running could all exacerbate the sometimes career-ending ligament injury.

“In an interview with the Herald … Cron said his first travels in search of ways to prevent turf toe saw him visit NFL franchise the New York Giants. NFL athletes are susceptible to the condition from hard artificial turf surfaces.

“He was then allowed access to the Royal New Zealand Ballet as it prepared for a performance of The Mikado; including a meeting with the group’s Italian artistic director and talking to the dancers.

“ ‘At the end of training, we were invited up on stage,’ Cron told the Herald. ‘And I had two questions, one was about turf toe.’

“Cron was told ballet dancers were able to limit the risk of turf toe because of their landings. They had ways of landing that put less impact on the big toe. It was something Cron passed on to the All Blacks medical team and their lineout jumpers.

“Cron’s other question was to the Kiwi male lead of The Mikado production after he had watched him … lifting above the head’ of his dance partner.

“Cron likened it to the process of forwards lifting a teammate in the air to snare an opposition kickoff. …

“ ‘He tells me about how you lock out and how you breathe, how you fill your belly up with the air and push your guts out and down, and I go … “same as powerlifters.” ‘ …

“Another nugget of knowledge was learned from spending time observing a sumo wrestling school in Japan. Cron spent several days there before returning to his base in Canterbury still contemplating what he’d seen, and wondering whether any of the lessons could be applied to rugby.

“Three months later, he reviewed video footage, and it clicked. ‘The last thing they do before they explode, these big guys, is with their toes . . . they hold the ground to get power and then release the power through into [their] opponent,’ Cron said.

‘I came back and started teaching that. With the sprigs in our boots, we push into the ground and hold the ground like a parrot in a bird cage.

“ ‘You get far more grip, far more purchase because power comes from the ground through your feet and through your body,’ …

“Cron said while top rugby players, ballet dancers and sumo wrestlers excel in very different arenas, they’re all still athletes who had insights others could learn from.

“ ‘If you go and see Cirque Soleil train, you will pick something up.’ ”

More at the New Zealand Herald, here.

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Thinking of Frances Perkins on Labor Day

September 1, 2025 by suzannesmom

Photo: Frances Perkins Center.
Frances Perkins, President Franklin D Roosevelt’s Secretary of Labor, had more to do with shaping the New Deal than most Americans realize.

A few years ago, someone recommended a book to me, a biography of President Franklin D Roosevelt’s Secretary of Labor. I had heard of Frances Perkins, but until I read that book (see GoodReads, here), I really had no idea what an extraordinary woman she was — and how influential.

For Labor Day this year, I thought I would share what the AFL-CIO has to say about her, while also encouraging you to get a biography out of your library.

“Frances Perkins was secretary of labor for the 12 years of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s presidency and the first woman to hold a Cabinet post. She brought to her office a deep commitment to improving the lives of workers and creating a legitimate role for labor unions in American society, succeeding admirably on both counts. …

“Born in Boston in 1880, Perkins grew up in a comfortable middle-class Republican family descended from a long line of Maine farmers and craftsmen. When Perkins was two, the family moved to Worcester, Mass., where her father opened a profitable stationery business. Her parents were devoted Congregationalists and instilled in Perkins an earnest desire to ‘live for God and do something.’ At Mount Holyoke College … Perkins majored in the natural sciences, but she studied economic history, read How the Other Half Lives, Jacob Riis’s exposé of the New York slums, and attended lectures by labor and social reformers such as Florence Kelley, general secretary of the National Consumers League.

“After graduation from Mount Holyoke in 1902, Perkins accepted a series of teaching positions and volunteered her time at settlement houses, where she learned firsthand the dangerous conditions of factory work and the desperation of workers unable to collect their promised wages or secure medical care for workplace injuries. By 1909, she had given up teaching science and moved to New York to study at Columbia University, where she earned a master’s degree in economics and sociology in 1910. For the next two years, she served as secretary of the New York Consumers League; working closely with Florence Kelley, she successfully lobbied the state legislature for a bill limiting the workweek for women and children to 54 hours. …

“One of the pivotal experiences of her political life occurred in 1911, when she watched helplessly as 146 workers, most of them young women, died in the Triangle Shirtwaist fire.

Many, she remembered, clasped their hands in prayer before leaping to their deaths from the upper-floor windows of a tenement building that lacked fire escapes.

“It was, as Perkins later explained, ‘seared on my mind as well as my heart — a never-to-be-forgotten reminder of why I had to spend my life fighting conditions that could permit such a tragedy.’

“During these years, Perkins also witnessed the widespread labor upheavals among garment and other New York City workers and learned from friends such as labor leader Rose Schneiderman the one-word solution to poverty: organize. …

“In 1918, Perkins accepted Gov. Al Smith’s invitation to join the New York State Industrial Commission, becoming the first female member of the commission. In 1926, she became chairwoman of the commission, and then, in 1929, the new governor, Franklin D. Roosevelt, appointed Perkins industrial commissioner of the state of New York, the chief post in the state labor department. Having earned the cooperation and respect of a wide range of political factions, Perkins, ever the master deal-maker, helped put New York in the forefront of progressive reform. She expanded factory investigations, reduced the workweek for women to 48 hours and championed minimum wage and unemployment insurance laws.

“When Roosevelt tapped her as labor secretary in 1933, Perkins drew on the New York State experience as the model for new federal programs. She put every ounce of her formidable energy into weaving a safety net for a Depression-scarred society, securing a remarkable array of benefits for American workers. … Her vision found concrete expression in such landmark reforms as the Wagner Act, which gave workers the right to organize unions and bargain collectively, and the Fair Labor Standards Act, which established for the first time a minimum wage and a maximum workweek for men and women. Perkins also chaired the Committee on Economic Security, which developed and drafted the legislation that became the Social Security Act in 1935.

“As secretary of labor during the 1930s and early 1940s, Perkins played a crucial role in the outcome of the dramatic labor uprisings that marked the era. She consistently supported the rights of workers to organize unions of their own choosing and to pressure employers through economic action. In one famous incident captured in a widely circulated newspaper photo, an indomitable Perkins strides toward the U.S. post office in Homestead with thousands of steelworkers trailing behind her. Denied a meeting hall by the mayor and steel executives, Perkins found an alternative site where she could inform the workers directly of their collective bargaining rights. It was also the unflappable Perkins who advised President Roosevelt to ignore the pleadings of state and local officials for federal troops to quell the 1934 San Francisco General Strike. The successful resolution of that strike as well as countless others during her tenure as labor secretary laid the foundation for the rebirth of American labor. …

“In 1945, Perkins resigned from her position as labor secretary to head the U.S. delegation to the International Labor Organization conference in Paris. President Truman subsequently appointed her to the Civil Service Commission, a job she held through 1953. In the last years of her life, Perkins assumed a professorship at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations. She died in New York at the age of 85 and was buried in her family’s plot in New Castle, Maine.”

More at the AFL-CIO, here.

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Photographer on a Grand Scale

August 31, 2025 by suzannesmom

Photo: Edward Burtynsky.
“Manufacturing #17, Deda Chicken Processing Plant, Dehui City, Jilin Province” (2005) is one of Burtynsky‘s best-known large-scale photos of China’s industrialization of just about everything.

The International Center of Photography in New York City recently hung an exhibit of Edward Burtynsky, a photographer I’ve admired since I first encountered his massive works in the early 2000s.

Louis Bury at Hyperallergic calls the show “A God’s-Eye-View of Earth’s Destruction.,” which doesn’t sound like fun but is sure to be interesting.

“Edward Burtynsky: The Great Acceleration,” writes Bury, “at the International Center of Photography contains the artist’s largest ever print, which is saying something. Across a celebrated 40-plus-year career, Burtynsky has been renowned for his work’s ambition and scalar play. His fantastic images, often taken from aerial vantages, depict landscapes modified by human industry, from a stepped mine resembling an amphitheater … to a salt pan whose multicolored pond rows evoke a painter’s palette. …

“The large formats and supra-human perspectives render the Earth alien, potentially confronting the viewer not only with our species’ collateral ecological harms but also our estrangement from them. 

“Even by that standard, the exhibition’s 28-by-28-foot mural Pivot Irrigation #8, High Plains, Texas Panhandle, USA (2012) stands out. The distant overhead view and subdued color palette transform farmland into an almost abstract composition, in which the pictorial space is divided into textured, geometric browns on one side and alternating vertical stripes of washed out blues and grays on the other. A teensy farmstead occupies the bottom left corner and the roads running parallel to the edges of the picture plane serve as a clever framing device.

“But the two-story-tall print’s physical size produces its most dramatic effects. It dominates the central gallery, dwarfing visitors in a manner akin to the quarry cliffs that sometimes loom over the ant-like human figures in Burtynsky’s other landscapes, such as the miners digging for cobalt, for a couple dollars a day, in ‘Dry Tailings #1, Kolwezi, Democratic Republic of Congo’ (2024).

“Curator David Campany’s approach encapsulates the ‘bigger is better’ ethos. … The scope of the artist’s environmentalist muckraking matches the scope of the iniquities it portrays; for decades, Burtynsky has pursued research leads around the globe to capture yet more examples of civilization’s terraforming. Early in his career, before the term ‘Anthropocene’ became common in academic and artistic circles, such images offered a prescient vision of large-scale anthropogenic changes that were typically out of sight and out of mind.

“But as others have caught up to and even surpassed that vision … its style has remained mostly the same, god’s-eye-view consciousness raising feels more and more like a pretext for aesthetic dazzle.

“Burtynsky’s dazzle serves a psychological rather than a moral function. It can provoke in viewers the uncomfortable recognition that harmful ecological realities nonetheless appear beguiling. But it can also occlude the human-scaled implications of those realities. On the central gallery’s terrace level, Campany has helpfully included examples of Burtynsky’s lesser known work: early 1980s portraits of food plant laborers; studies of marshlands taken during the COVID-19 lockdown. While these series lack the wow factor of the artist’s panoramic work, they evidence his eye for formal patterns and keen details. …

“[The show] continues at the International Center of Photography (84 Ludlow Street, Lower East Side, Manhattan) through September 28.”

Fantastic photos at Hyperallergic, here. No firewall. See also Photographic Journal, here, and the artist’s site, here.

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The Dangers of ‘Ghost Nets’

August 30, 2025 by suzannesmom

Photo: Danielle Khan Da Silva.
Divers risk their lives to protect whales from “ghost nets” abandoned by fishermen.

Today’s article presents one of those impossible challenges pitting the environment against the need to make a living. In this case, it involves the ocean, specifically marine animals.

Danielle Khan da Silva has the story at the Guardian.

“After a day of scuba diving, Luis Antonio ‘Toño’ Lloreda was exhausted. Then a friend brought urgent news. ‘Toño, man, there’s a whale caught in a net out there.’ Lloreda, 43, had freed other, smaller wildlife from fishing nets but this would be his first marine animal of such size.

“The four- to five-meters-long juvenile humpback, accompanied by its mother, had a net studded with hooks wrapped around its fin and mouth. One wrong move could have been fatal for Lloreda or the whale.

‘To connect with the whale, I used what we call intuitive interspecies communication,’ says Lloreda, explaining that this involves non-verbal, energetic communication.

“ ‘I asked the mother for permission – energetically,’ he says. ‘At first, she didn’t want our help. But when I showed her we meant no harm, she let us in.

“ ‘She positioned herself below us. Then I asked the calf. When the calf became very still, I reached into her mouth and removed the net.’ The mother and calf swam for 50 meters before pausing to rest.

“Lloreda is one of nine Guardianes del Mar (Guardians of the Sea), a grassroots African-Colombian collective from six coastal communities around Colombia’s Gulf of Tribugá, a biodiversity hotspot on the Pacific coast that spans 600,000 hectares of ocean, forest and mangroves. The region, where dense Chocó rainforest meets the ocean, is a Unesco biosphere reserve and is designated a ‘hope spot‘ by the nonprofit organization Mission Blue for its ecological significance.

“Scuba diving is crucial for identifying and removing ghost fishing gear – lost or abandoned commercial nets made mostly of near-indestructible plastics – but it is prohibitively expensive. With sponsorship from Ecomares and Conservation International, Lloreda and his colleagues have trained not only in diving, but in removing fishing gear from coral with quick, precise and safe techniques.

“Many guardians double as coral gardeners and reef surveyors, collecting data for both their communities and scientific partners. Three, including Lloreda, are trained to free marine animals.

“According to WWF, 50,000 tons of fishing gear are lost or abandoned in the oceans globally each year. These ‘ghost nets’ drift across borders, ensnaring coral, turtles, sharks – and whales. In the Gulf of Tribugá alone, Guardianes del Mar estimates that 3-4 humpback whales become entangled each year. …

“Guardianes del Mar is working to certify more local divers so they can have a greater impact. But it faces mounting logistical and financial hurdles.

” ‘We used to send the nets to Buenaventura for recycling, but fuel costs are too high,’ says Benjamin Gonzales, 53, one of the senior guardians. There are no roads – the communities are connected mainly by boat – so any rubbish or recycling must be transported out by boat or plane.

“Today, the nets are repurposed into bracelets and sold in Germany and locally in Nuquí, the main coastal municipality. Lead weights are melted down into new dive weights for the local shop, run by Guardianes del Mar advocate Liliana Arango.

“The spirit of mutual care between people and nature runs deep in Tribugá, where the population numbers about 7,000. African-Colombian communities here are descended from formerly enslaved people who escaped Spanish rule and crossed the jungle to reach the coast. They were welcomed by the Indigenous Emberá, and today co-govern the region through a state-recognized model of local autonomy. …

“Says Camilo Morante, 25, the youngest guardian and the group’s legal representative … ‘Everyone in this community fishes, so we can’t tell anyone to stop using nets. … The most important thing is that we raise consciousness locally so that we understand the consequences of our actions.’ “

More at the Guardian, here.

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A Dementia-Friendly House

August 29, 2025 by suzannesmom

Photo: Jim Stephenson.
The yard of a cottage in Comrie, Scotland. More and more architects are designing for people with dementia — and their families.

People who want to stay in their homes to the end are braver than I am, and they are in the majority. I think the most impressive are those who are determined to care for a disabled loved one until they can’t manage anymore. I have known a few caregivers adapting to life with a dementia victim.

To help them do that, some architects are designing “dementia-friendly” houses. Charlotte Luxford writes at the Guardian about a home like that near Glasgow.

“Glaswegian retirees Jim McConnachie and Frances McChlery had always dreamed of building their own home with a waterside view, and had even toyed with buying a plot on Scotland’s west coast. However, when McChlery’s sister was diagnosed with young-onset dementia, they had to rethink their plans.

“ ‘The prospect and implications of supporting my sister-in-law became a key consideration,’ says McConnachie, ‘and we decided to build a home closer to the facilities of the city so she could live with us and be closer to extended family.’

“McConnachie embarked on a tour of Scotland’s lochs, but after making a pitstop at Comrie in Perthshire on a sunny day he passed a ‘for sale’ sign on the way out of the village that piqued his interest.

“ ‘Looking at the cottage from the street it was tiny and worn, but to the rear was a lovely south-facing garden that backs on to the River Earn,’ says McConnachie. Excited, he brought McChlery and her sister for a viewing. They both saw potential in the property and were charmed by the bustling village with its valley views and thriving community.

“Last used as a dental surgery, the 18th-century cottage didn’t have any insulation and suffered from water damage and structural decay. McConnachie, who trained as an architect, embraced the challenge of transforming it into a warm and adaptable home that could also accommodate extended family. ‘We wanted the house to remain flexible and welcoming as a family hub, while also ensuring Frances’s sister felt safe, independent and engaged,’ he says.

“McConnachie sought guidance from architecture firm Loader Monteith on maximizing the layout, navigating conservation area restrictions and incorporating dementia-friendly design principles. For example, accessible kitchen shelving to allow her sister to navigate the space with some independence and open views through living spaces, so she feels connected but not surveilled.

“[Director] Matt Loader … wanted to respect the ‘honesty’ of the original cottage, so the front two rooms were maintained as cosy living spaces, each with its own fireplace and lime-plastered walls.

“The kitchen is at the heart of the home, with a small courtyard … providing a sheltered spot for morning coffee. ‘The relationship between Frances and her sister is rooted in cooking, baking and gardening, so the kitchen and its connection to the outside spaces was key,’ adds Loader.

“A defining feature is the marble-topped island, crafted from a piece of stone passed down through the family. As both sisters are short, ‘the island was set low to allow Frances’s sister to help with baking and food preparation, which is an important occupational therapy,’ says McConnachie. …

“Seating [nooks] are a recurring theme; upstairs is a thoughtfully positioned window seat surrounded by shelves displaying ‘memory anchors’ Loader says: ‘Housing artefacts that hold historical significance can help those with Alzheimer’s recognize that this is their home, and it’s important to retain that sense of familiarity.’

“McChlrey’s sister’s living quarters have been sensitively designed to cater for her needs without making it feel at odds with the rest of the house. The upstairs landing also includes a small servery, complete with sink and washing machine, that is designed to facilitate social interaction while also aiding practical care. …

“On the ground floor, the front of the cottage is currently a home office on one side and a sitting room on the other, each with full-width sliding doors and sofa beds so they can be transformed into sleeping spaces when family visit or permanently if need be later.

“One of the biggest benefits of the layout, McChlery has discovered, is its ‘intervisibility,’ allowing her to keep an eye on her sister without making her feel she is under supervision.

” ‘The deterioration of people with Alzheimer’s isn’t predictable,’ says McConnachie. ‘The best-laid plans to leave clear space and simple-to-use facilities to allow for independence can be quickly taken over by the continuing onset of the condition, so it’s worth allowing space for supervised sharing tasks.’

“McConnachie ensured they left room for the introduction of fittings such as stair lifts and bathroom aids, as well as planning a simple and level route through the house – you can get from the front door to the garden without a step [up or down].

“ ‘Caring for another adult with dementia is very difficult emotionally and physically – the grief and injustice are always in the back of your mind,’ adds McChlery. ‘Everything about this house helps – it provides a beautiful and safe space that enables us all to be at home for as long as possible.’ “

More at the Guardian, here.

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New Photos, August

August 28, 2025 by suzannesmom

Photo: Nancy’s nephew Andrew.
Beautiful poison. The moon is clothed in smoke from a distant wildfire.

Here are recent photos in no particular order. They cover Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Pennsylvania, where we attended my brother-in-law’s funeral.

I start off below with an ambitious dog on the rail trail. His owner told me firmly, “He’s not taking that one home.” Then I have a photo of the nearby mural depicting our town in the 19th century.

A couple of painted rock offerings come next. (Someone is a fan of the New York City mayoral candidate who won his primary.)

Staghorn sumac, thistle shadows, a blooming August yard, swamp rose mallow, New Shoreham’s Old Harbor, the Assabet River, a swallowtail butterfly holding still for photographer Sandra M Kelly, Casey Farm, Morning glories or bindweed (not sure which), the shop where I got my 100-year-old quilt repaired, the 30th Street Amtrak station in Philadelphia, and gulls on a fishing vessel in Galilee.

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Art Detective Strikes Again

August 27, 2025 by suzannesmom

Photo: Arthur Brand.
A box given to art sleuth Arthur Brand contained records from the Dutch East India Company. They had been stolen a decade ago from the Hague in the Netherlands.

Everyone likes a mystery, especially one that gets solved in a satisfactory way. Of course, “satisfactory” is in the eye of the beholder. I myself like to have the perp brought to justice. Other people prefer something brutally realistic.

France 24 reported recently on a mystery solved by Arthur Brand, the “Indiana Jones of the Art World.” In this case, the perp is long gone.

“A Dutch art sleuth has recovered a priceless trove of stolen documents from the 15th to the 19th century, including several UNESCO-listed archives from the world’s first multinational corporation. Arthur Brand [ said] the latest discovery was among his most significant.

” ‘In my career, I have been able to return fantastic stolen art, from Picassos to a Van Gogh … yet this find is one of the highlights of my career,’ Brand told AFP.

“Many of the documents recount the early days of the Dutch East India Company (VOC), whose globetrotting trading and military operations contributed to the Dutch ‘Golden Age,’ when the Netherlands was a global superpower.

“VOC merchants criss-crossed the globe, catapulting the Netherlands to a world trading power but also exploiting and oppressing the colonies it conquered. The company was key to the slave trade during that period, with generations of enslaved people forced to work on Dutch plantations. …

“The company was also a leading diplomatic power and one document relates a visit in 1700 by top VOC officials to the court of the Mughal emperor in India.

” ‘Since the Netherlands was one of the most powerful players in the world at that time in terms of military, trade, shipping, and colonies, these documents are part of world history,’ said Brand.

UNESCO agrees, designating the VOC archives as part of its ‘Memory of the World’ documentary heritage collection.

” ‘The VOC archives make up the most complete and extensive source on early modern world history anywhere,’ says UNESCO on its website.

“The trove also featured early ships logs from one of the world’s most famous admirals, Michiel de Ruyter, whose exploits are studied in naval academies even today. …

“No less enthralling is the ‘who-dunnit’ of how Brand came by the documents.

“Brand received an email from someone who had stumbled across a box of seemingly ancient manuscripts while clearing out the attic of an incapacitated family member.

“This family member occasionally lent money to a friend, who would leave something as collateral – in this case the box of documents. …

“Brand investigated with Dutch police and concluded the documents had been stolen in 2015 from the vast National Archives in The Hague. The main suspect – an employee at the archives who had indeed left the box as collateral but never picked it up – has since died. …

“The art detective said he spent many an evening sifting through the documents, transported back in time.

” ‘Wars at sea, negotiations at imperial courts, distant journeys to barely explored regions, and knights,’ he told AFP.

” ‘I felt like I had stepped into Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island.’ ” More at France 24, here.

Don’t you love that UNESCO has a category of valuables called “Memory of the World”? Wow, what else belongs to the Memory of the World, and is it being protected for the very reason that we don’t remember it? Is Robert Louis Stevenson in Memory of the World?

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Garden Worms You Really Don’t Want

August 26, 2025 by suzannesmom

Photo: Brittany Schappach/Maine Forest Service.
The dreaded jumping worm.

“Jumping worms” sounds like a circus act, but they are unwelcome garden visitors that have become a menace for parts of the Northeast. I’d be interested to know if you have them where you live and what you can add to today’s report.

Catherine Schneider writes at Providence Eye, “Earthworms are generally seen as improving the structure and fertility of garden soil as they tunnel through the soil, consuming organic matter and leaving behind castings (worm manure) that are rich in nutrients, humus, and microorganisms. 

“Unfortunately, there is a not-so-new worm in town that provides none of these benefits and can actually do great damage to soil structure and fertility:  the so-called Jumping Worm. These worms devour the top layer of soil, leaving behind crumbly soil that dries out quickly, is prone to erosion, and makes poor habitat for many plants and soil dwelling organisms — including bacteria, fungi, and other invertebrates.

“The name jumping worms refers to several similar-looking species of invasives (Amynthas spp.) that originated in East Asia. … They have been in the US since the late 1800s, but pretty much remained underground until recently when their numbers and range have increased dramatically. The reasons for the recent rapid spread are not completely understood, although it may be due to climate change, as well as human activities which unwittingly spread the worms (e.g., gardening, landscaping, fishing, hiking).  They are now found in more than half of US states, including many areas in Providence and Rhode Island.

“Unlike other earthworms that burrow deep into the soil, jumping worms tend to live in the top three to four inches of soil and in leaf litter and mulch. They are voracious eaters and can quickly deplete nutrients found in soil and organic matter. While other earthworms distribute their high nutrient-value castings throughout the soil, jumping worms excrete their castings on the soil surface, where the nutrients are unavailable to plants. The castings are fairly hard, and they frequently erode away in the rain.

“The combination of hard castings and aggressive churning of the soil results in a dry, crumbly soil structure, with large air pockets, which can impact the ability of plants to produce and anchor roots, absorb water, and extract nutrients. …

“Once jumping worms come to inhabit a garden, they rapidly increase in numbers, no mating required, as they reproduce asexually.  Adult worms can have many offspring, and while the adults will die off after the first few hard frosts, the tiny egg cocoons they leave behind (which are virtually impossible to see with the naked eye) will survive the winter, emerging in the spring to start the destructive cycle again.

“Jumping worms can have a profoundly negative effect on forests and woodlands, as well as gardens and crop lands. A thick layer of leaf litter and organic matter (sometimes called the ‘duff’ layer) is essential to healthy forest soil.  Native forest plants and trees have evolved to rely on this duff layer for the successful germination and growth of their seeds. After jumping worms have altered forest soil, native species may start to diminish while invasives move in and outcompete native species. This alteration of the forest floor and decline in forest health also harms wildlife that depend on native plants and trees, like ground nesting birds, amphibians and invertebrates.

“Jumping worms are most easily identified by their behavior.  They move across soil or pavement in a snake-like fashion and when you touch them or pick them up, these worms will thrash around wildly. This behavior has given rise to the names jumping worms, crazy worms and snake worms.

“Adult jumping worms can also be distinguished from other earth worms in Rhode Island by a milky white or pinkish band, called a clitellum, that fully encircles one end of their body (see photo above). … Jumping worms in Rhode Island do not attain adulthood until sometime in July or August. Before then, juvenile jumping worms, which lack the white clitellum, are difficult to identify. Young jumping worms can best be identified by their thrashing behavior when they are touched or handled. …

“If you suspect that you may have jumping worms, you can try this test:  Mix 1/3 cup of dry mustard in a gallon of water and slowly pour this over your soil (it will not harm your plants).  The mustard solution should drive any worms to the surface, where you can inspect and remove them if they appear to be jumping worms. …

“The main step in prevention is to take care with the plants, soil, compost and mulch that you bring on to your property. Purchase soil, compost and mulch from reputable dealers. If you are buying bulk compost or mulch, ask the dealer if the product has been heated to 131 degrees F for at least 15 days, which is the industry standard for killing weed seeds and pathogens and will certainly kill jumping worm cocoons which do not survive temperatures above 104°F.  

“Cocoons can also be present in bagged soil, compost and mulch.  To play it safe with bagged products, you may want to solarize them by placing the bags in the hot sun for three (3) days, with a piece of cardboard or other insulating material underneath them to prevent cooling from the ground below them. If you want to be extra careful, you can use a soil thermometer to ensure that the product has reached a temperature of 104 degrees F.

“When purchasing plants or accepting plants from friends, check for any signs of jumping worms.  Starting from seed or buying bare root plants is safest.  Alternatively, you can carefully wash off all of the soil around any new plants before planting in your garden.”

More advice at Providence Eye, here. No firewall.

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Federal Cuts Hurt Small Farms

August 25, 2025 by suzannesmom

Photo: Mark Stockwell/Boston Globe.
Mohammed Hannan of Hannan Healthy Foods farm in Lincoln, Massachusetts, holds garlic, one of many organic greens grown on his farm.

After the US takes a step forward, it always seems to take two steps back. In today’s story, We learn about federal funds that have been supporting sustainable agriculture. Until now.

Jocelyn Ruggiero reports for the Boston Globe, “It’s dreary, gray, and unseasonably chilly on the first day of Community Supported Agriculture pickups at the Hannan Healthy Foods farm. As CSA members trickle in to collect their bags of produce, they chat with Mohammed Hannan and passersby who’ve stopped to buy green garlic, beets, collards, and various herbs and greens at the farm stand. Hannan’s 11-year-old daughter, Afsheen, sits bundled up at the checkout table, reading a book alongside volunteer and longtime CSA member Tricia Moore. Aside from the weather, the scene looks similar to opening day last summer. But circumstances are vastly different from what they were 12 months ago.

“One person is notably absent. Hannan’s wife, Kaniz Fouzia, died of pancreatic cancer in March. And even as the family grieves, Hannan confronts the practical challenges of running the farm without his primary support.

“He also faces another crisis. Last year, as with every year since it launched, the farm’s biggest buyer was the New Entry Sustainable Farming Project’s Food Hub, which purchased $7,000 in produce, primarily funded by two federal grants: the Local Food Purchase Assistance and Local Food for Schools Cooperative Agreement programs.

“Since 2021, the Food Hub has bought more than $32,000 of produce from Hannan, supported by these food grants, both part of the 2021 American Rescue Plan. These initiatives enable local schools, food banks, and senior centers to purchase produce from the Hub and, by extension, local farmers and producers. They’ve brought close to $20 million to the Massachusetts economy. Both the LFPA and LFS were originally scheduled to run through December 2025, [but the federal] administration abruptly and prematurely terminated funding for both programs. …

“Established in 2005, the Food Hub aggregates and distributes vegetables grown by more than 35 beginning, immigrant, and refugee farmers in the Boston region. It is an initiative of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University, which was founded in 1998 to integrate recent immigrants and refugees with farming backgrounds into Massachusetts agriculture. …

“[The] sudden termination of multiple streams of support disrupted many long-planned efforts and, in some cases, left farmers holding the bill for purchases they had already made based on awards that were withdrawn.

“It’s no coincidence that Hannan is the steward of a successful farm. He’s always had close ties to agriculture. He grew up on his family’s organic farm in Bangladesh, which was both a source of food and income. Hannan went on to earn a master’s degree in wildlife biology, studying the country’s ecologically critical coastal areas. In 2014, he gave up an opportunity to accept a Duke fellowship when his wife received a US Diversity Visa; the family left Bangladesh to settle in Cambridge.

“He eked out a living at multiple minimum-wage jobs — Walgreens, Indian restaurants, and MIT facilities — before landing work in biotech, then as a lab manager at MIT. During the lean years, he yearned for the affordable organic food that was so accessible in Bangladesh. He wondered, ‘How can I change my situation? How can I grow food here?’ …

“Unsure about whether working a full-time job while running a farm would be feasible, Hannan spent the summer of 2017 volunteering mornings, nights, and weekends at White Rabbit Farm in Dracut. … He began the New Entry Sustainable Farming Project farmer training program that winter, leasing a small piece of land through New Entry and growing produce to feed his family. By 2019, he had launched his first 30-member CSA and was selling to the Food Hub. In 2020, he graduated and set his sights on a plot in Lincoln.

“The weeds were chest-high on the 2.5-acre barren plot, and there was no potable water for washing produce. … ‘I came up with a plan: I’ll grow veggies that do not need washing: bottle and bitter gourds, tomatoes, eggplants, peppers.’ As he expanded, Hannan connected with the Lincoln community through an online forum. There, he met Tom Flint, an 11th-generation Lincoln farmer. Flint introduced him to Lincoln Land Conservation Trust trustee Jim Henderson, who let Hannan use his backyard sink and cure garlic in his barn. These were the first of many new friends who welcomed him to Lincoln. …

“During COVID, unsolicited, strangers started contacting Hannan: ‘I had accountants, engineers, doctors. They were helping on the weekends. … We were laughing, harvesting … and eating from the farm. It was really good.’ Town residents later responded to his query on the town’s forum and helped Hannan build a deer fence when he couldn’t afford a contractor. His robust volunteer network has strengthened and extended beyond Lincoln, and today includes such groups as the Boston-based climate justice nonprofit Mothers Out Front. …

“[Today] Hannan’s MIT job subsidizes his farm, and his volunteer community provides supplemental support. However, for many other small farmers affected by funding cuts, the consequences will be existential. As Hannan puts it: ‘Small farmers like me … will definitely choose other options.’ ”

More at the Globe, here.

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Women on Bucking Broncos

August 24, 2025 by suzannesmom

Photo: Jeff McIntosh/Associated Press.
Emma Eastwood stretched before competing in women’s ranch bronc during rodeo action in Alberta.

I’ve mentioned before how interesting it was to me that my husband’s director of manufacturing at the Maple Grove company was a bull rider on the side. We told Craig we’d love to see a Minnesota rodeo, and he sent us off to nearby Buffalo, where we had a wonderful time.

In today’s story, we learn about the rising numbers of women getting a kick out of riding bucking broncos.

The Associated Press (AP) reports, “Sophia Bunney launched the first time she tried ranch bronc riding, landing ‘quite a ways away from the horse.’

“ ‘I’m very stubborn, and I don’t like being defeated,’ said the 18-year-old from Cessford, Alberta.

“In other words, the teenager was hooked on a sport that pits women against bucking horses for eight seconds.

“ ‘I always kind of wanted to hop on a bronc,’ Bunney told the Canadian Press. ‘In Grade 3 … I said I wanted to be a female bronc rider.’

“Unlike saddle bronco riding, a rodeo mainstay, ranch bronc uses a regular western saddle — not a specialized one — and riders hang on with two hands instead of one. A hand is on a rein and the other on a strap wrapped around the saddle horn.

“Pearl Kersey, who won the Canadian women’s ranch bronc title [recently] in Ponoka, Alberta, is president of Women’s Ranch Bronc Canada and teaches it at clinics.

“ ‘I’ve got teenagers, 20-year-olds, 30-year-olds, and this year a woman in her 50s. I was like, “You sure?” ‘ Kersey said. ‘She doesn’t want to compete. She wants to try it before she gets too old. We have bucking machines. She doesn’t necessarily need to get on a horse’. They can go through all the drills and the bucking machine, and if they’re comfortable enough, they can get on a horse.’ …

“It took a while for 19-year-old Blayne Bedard, who grew up cow riding in the Canadian Girls Rodeo Association, to master keeping her feet forward toward the horse’s shoulders.

“ ‘If they come back, I’m like a pendulum and I just go head over teakettle,’ Bedard said. … She’s improved to the point where Bedard has competed in the last two Canadian championships.

“ ‘I like the look of it, too,’ Bedard said. ‘You get cool pictures.’

“One of the lessons Bedard picked up at a Kersey clinic had nothing to do with riding form — and everything to do with what goes inside a boot.

“ ‘I put baby powder in my boots every time before I ride, and I wear my mom’s boots that are a size too big for me, because if you get your foot stuck in a stirrup — which I’ve had a few times — you need your boot to be able to come off so you’re not being dragged by the horse,’ she said. …

“Kersey, 36, has qualified for the world finals July 19-20 in Cheyenne, Wyoming, where she won in 2019 and has twice finished second. Kersey intends to retire from competition after this year, but continue teaching.

“One of her students, Calgary’s Emma Eastwood, picked it up quickly thanks to years of riding horses and a stint as an amateur jockey. She attended Kersey’s clinics last fall and this spring, and won an event in just her third time competing.

“ ‘It is difficult to try and think through your ride and hang on through all that adrenaline,’ said the 27-year-old massage therapist. ‘Things kind of get a little blurry, and it’s hard to process everything going on so quickly.’ …

“Kersey said … ‘Women have come up to me and said, “Thank you for doing what you’re doing.” They might not go into ranch broncs, but it just gave them the power in themselves to go pursue something that they wanted that they didn’t think they could because they were women,’ Kersey said. ‘Other girls tell me, ‘” saw you ride at Ponoka,” and they’re like, “I want to try it.” Sometimes it’s a confidence-booster thing. Sometimes they want to see if they’ll like it and some are like, “Yeah, I’m doing this.” ‘

More at the Associated Press via the Boston Globe, here.

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Authors Fight Back Against AI

August 23, 2025 by suzannesmom

Photo: Steve Johnson.
Real books start with a human, a human with feelings.

Blogger Asakiyume is an activist against AI. And no wonder. She’s an author, and an especially creative one. Believe me, what her brain comes up with, no one else’s brain ever could! AI, however, just copies what has come before.

So right now, as other published authors are uniting against AI robot writers, she’s in good company.

Chloe Veltman reports at National Public Radio, “A group of more than 70 authors including Dennis Lehane, Gregory Maguire and Lauren Groff released an open letter on Friday about the use of AI on the literary website Lit Hub. It asked publishing houses to promise ‘they will never release books that were created by machines.’

“Addressed to the ‘big five’ U.S. publishers — Penguin, Random House, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Hachette Book Group, and Macmillan — as well as ‘other publishers of America,’ the letter elicited more than 1,100 signatures on its accompanying petition in less than 24 hours. Among the well-known signatories after the letter’s release are Jodi Picoult, Olivie Blake and Paul Tremblay.

“The letter contains a list of direct requests to publishers concerning a wide array of ways in which AI may already — or could soon be — used in publishing. It asks them to refrain from publishing books written using AI tools built on copyrighted content without authors’ consent or compensation, to refrain from replacing publishing house employees wholly or partially with AI tools, and to only hire human audiobook narrators — among other requests. …

“The letter states, ‘AI is an enormously powerful tool, here to stay, with the capacity for real societal benefits — but the replacement of art and artists isn’t one of them.’

“Until now, authors have mostly expressed their displeasure with AI’s negative impacts on their work by launching lawsuits against AI companies rather than addressing publishing houses directly. Ta-Nehisi Coates, Michael Chabon, Junot Díaz and the comedian Sarah Silverman are among the biggest names involved in ongoing copyright infringement cases against AI players.

“Some of these cases are already starting to render rulings: Earlier this week, federal judges presiding over two such cases ruled in favor of defendants Anthropic AI and Meta, potentially giving AI companies the legal right under the fair use doctrine to train their large language models on copyrighted works — as long as they obtain copies of those works legally.

“Young adult fiction author Rioghnach Robinson, who goes by the pen name Riley Redgate … said, ‘Without publishers pledging not to generate internally competitive titles, nothing’s stopping publishing houses from AI-generating their authors out of existence. We’re hopeful that publishers will act to protect authors and industry workers from, specifically, the competitive and labor-related threats of AI.’

“The authors said the ‘existential threat’ of AI isn’t just about copyright infringement. Copycat books that appear to have been written by AI and are attached to real authors who didn’t write them have proliferated on Amazon and other platforms in recent years.

“The rise of AI audio production within publishing is another big threat addressed in the letter. Many authors make extra money narrating their own books. And the rise of machine narration and translation is an even greater concern for human voice actors and translators. For example, major audio books publisher Audible recently announced a partnership with publishers to expand AI narration and translation offerings. …

“Audible CEO Bob Carrigan said as part of the announcement, ‘We’ll be able to bring more stories to life — helping creators reach new audiences while ensuring listeners worldwide can access extraordinary books that might otherwise never reach their ears.’

“Robinson acknowledged the steps publishers have taken to help protect writers.

” ‘Many individual contracts now have AI opt-out clauses in an attempt to keep books out of AI training datasets, which is great,’ Robinson noted. But she said publishers should be doing much more to defend their writers against the onslaught of AI.”

More at NPR, here.

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An Enchanted Car Park

August 22, 2025 by suzannesmom

Photo: Connatural Archive.
Surrounded by hills: Colombia’s Parque Prado, no longer abandoned to illegal activity.

What is your first reaction to the words Medellín and Colombia? If you have kept up on the news for a few decades, your associations may include both drug wars and change.

Oliver Wainwright at the Guardian focuses on the change.

“Lilac-flowering creepers engulf an abandoned house on a street corner in Medellín, Colombia, spilling from the roof and smothering most of the upstairs windows. A giant fan palm is visible through one opening, while a knotty tangle of aerial roots cascades down to the pavement from another. Step through the doorway of this overgrown ruin, and you find not a scene of desolation and decay but a sleek steel frame holding up the crumbling facade, which forms an unusual entrance to an enchanting new public park.

“ ‘We behaved more like archaeologists than landscape architects,’ says Edgar Mazo of Connatural, the firm behind the Parque Prado, in the working-class neighborhood of Aranjuez. He leads me through a series of planted terraces; fountain grasses and trumpet trees sprout from where a derelict car park and abandoned homes once stood. ‘You dig up the concrete, water gets into the ground, vegetation grows up, and the people come back,’ he adds, speaking through a translator. ‘That’s natural regeneration.’

“In recent decades, Medellín has been widely celebrated for its astonishing urban transformation. In the 2000s, it went from being one of the most dangerous cities on the planet, riven by murderous drug cartels, to a case study in the miraculous peace-bringing powers of architecture and landscape. Sergio Fajardo, the son of an architect who served as Medellín’s charismatic mayor from 2004 to 2008, was hailed for sprinkling the city’s poorest neighborhoods with dazzling new libraries, stadiums and swimming pools.

“These determinedly ‘iconic’ projects were enthusiastically feted on the pages of glossy design magazines, and their stories recounted in keynotes at international conferences. Impoverished hillsides were connected to a new metro system with an elegant web of cable cars and outdoor escalators, while parks dotted with expressive architect-designed canopies sprang up across the city. The dramatic fall in crime during Fajardo’s term was largely credited to this vision of ‘social urbanism,’ and the increase in the amount of public space per citizen.

“But the Medellín miracle has since lost some of its sparkle. Take the Biblioteca España, one of the flagship projects, designed by Colombian star architect Giancarlo Mazzanti. It stands as a striking cluster of chiseled concrete boulders, rising from the hillside in the formerly no-go barrio of Santo Domingo. But it has been shuttered since 2015, due to structural defects. …

“Mazo’s work takes a markedly different approach from the 00s penchant for spectacle. When he was asked to look at the sloping half-hectare site in Aranjuez, which was home to a rundown car park and six boarded-up houses, abandoned for more than a decade, there was an existing plan to raze everything and replace it with a park traversed by a big zigzagging ramp. It looked like a hangover from the earlier lust for shape-making, something that might photograph well from a helicopter.

“Instead, Mazo and his team decided to keep most of what was already there. Almost 70% of the material on-site remains, albeit in a new form. Walls and floor slabs were chiseled from the two-storey parking structure, and the rubble used to fill the basements of the houses, with soil packed on top. The buildings’ roof timbers were reclaimed and used to make benches, while the landscape was shaped in such a way that rainwater is retained, meaning that no artificial irrigation is needed. The team even collected seeds from the plants that had sprung up on the plot, so they could be scattered around the new park after the project’s construction – allowing the natural colonizers back in.

“The project was built during the pandemic for a cost of just [$1.5m] and the lockdowns allowed time for the plants to establish, without the threat of being trampled by visitors. Five years on, the planting has reached a level of maturity that makes this urban oasis seem like it’s always been there. …

“The former car park’s concrete frame makes for an imposing armature at the centre of the park, supporting a raised steel walkway and framing a series of semi-enclosed spaces beneath it. Reclaimed bricks and stacked roof tiles serve as retaining walls, creating a rugged backdrop to lush clumps of grasses and palms. Gabion cages filled with rocks and rubble line water retention ponds, and provide platforms for seating. A sandy clearing down below makes space for ballgames and events, while park-goers can watch the action from the terraced decks above, and enjoy a grandstand view across the sprawling city and its seven hills.

“ ‘When people first colonized this valley,’ says Mazo, ‘they used to climb up to the top of the hills to communicate with each other. The park now becomes part of that system, giving people an elevated view to connect with others.’ …

“Crucially, there’s a space for everyone here – from elevated walkways, to quiet shrub-lined reading areas, to seating tucked away from prying eyes. The sense of fragmentation, as well as the level changes, allow different social groups to coexist.” 

Read more about this and other pilot projects at the Guardian, here. No paywall, but anything you can donate helps to keep factual news accessible to all.

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The Problem with Goals

August 21, 2025 by suzannesmom

Source: Douai, Bibliothèque municipale, ms. 711, fol. 24r.
Illustration from De natura animalium, ca. 175–235 AD. 

I always had a problem with setting goals. Especially in the workplace. The boss would set “your” goal, which always had to be more challenging than last year’s. But how can you be better than doing the best job you can every year? Not all jobs operate the same as sales jobs.

Today’s featured thinker, David Zahl, director of Mockingbird Ministries and editor-in-chief of Mockingbird, launches into a bit of a tirade about the self-help goals many of us are slave to today. He references the New Testament a lot, but I think people of other faiths will be as amused as I was. See what you think.

Zahl writes, “I spend as much time troubleshooting the various homework programs on my sons’ computers, updating the software, and filling out endless two-factor authentications as I do helping them with their homework. It is a crazy-making experience that leaves everyone frustrated, tired, and not remotely in the mood for learning.

“The experience is emblematic of the tyranny of optimization. Peruse the internet or talk to peers at a party, and you’ll hear a dozen new ways to consolidate your energy, maximize your efficiency, organize your priorities, and make life more manageable. …

“French sociologist Jacques Ellul uses the term technique to describe our obsession with streamlining everything under the sun. In The Technological Society, he defines it as ‘the totality of methods rationally arrived at and having absolute efficiency (for a given stage of development) in every field of human activity.’ Technique aims to bring efficiency to everything in life. …

“There’s nothing wrong with conserving our time and resources or with wanting our lives to run more smoothly. What’s wrong, Ellul argues, is that technique doesn’t accomplish these goals. … Each new technique we adopt for the sake of greater control creates problems for which we instinctively look for another technique to allay, and so on. If you want to view your child’s grade on the homework, you’ll need to set up an account with Drumblekick. … Optimization promises to cure headaches, but then it gives them.

“I have another, deeper reason optimization almost inspires me to polemics. The lingo of optimization sneaks the idea that we are machines into our common language and self-understanding. This should go without saying but it bears repeating: you and I are human beings, not machines. … We risk enshrining productivity as the be all and end all of human existence.

Before long, the same parents fumbling with Kracklezam are reluctant to enroll their kids in any afterschool activities that don’t produce measurable growth in their child’s development.

“Fun, play, friendships, faith – also known as the most important parts of childhood – these things soon take a back seat to activities that promise a quantifiable outcome. …

“ ‘Self-optimization’ has become a go-to euphemism for what used to be known as self-help. The word’s evolution foregrounds the perfectionism that was always inherent in more rigorous forms of self-help while deftly leveraging the therapeutic element of self-care, thereby lending the whole operation a moral sheen.

“According to the school of self-optimization there exists an ideal version of you, and your main assignment in life, as an adult of substance and value, is to enflesh that apparition by whatever means necessary. It is time, in other words, to become the person you were always meant to be. …

“The church of self-optimization imprisons us in our skull-sized kingdoms when what we need most is connection. It advocates a very narrow form of self-care, which is really not care for oneself (or others) at all. Vox reporter Allie Volpe laid out the cycle in vivid terms:

” ‘Companies market skin care products, for example, to prevent the formation of fine lines, supposedly a consequence of a stressful life. … Once the anxiety, the exhaustion, and the insufficiency creeps in again, as it inevitably does, the routine begins anew. … Because buying things does not solve existential dread, we are then flooded with guilt for being unable to adequately tend to our minds and bodies. We just have to self-care harder.’ …

“I find one last damning piece of evidence in my case against self-optimization: the despair it instills in those who internalize its goals most deeply. The entire pursuit of optimization implies that our graphs of personal metrics will slope endlessly upward. Therein lies its cruelest delusion. Every one of our life-logging charts will eventually trail off. Age will rob us of our faculties. No matter how many supplements we chug, retreats we attend, or lifestyle coaches we hire, our bodies will break down. Self-optimization is a law without any possible fulfillment, and therefore a recipe for despair. It pits us in a battle against time that no one can win.”

More at Plough, here.

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Indian Cities Fighting Extreme Heat

August 21, 2025 by suzannesmom

Photo: Niharika Kulkarni/AFP via Getty Images.
People fill up their bottles from a water tank on a hot summer day in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India.

We are all experiencing a new level of heat wave.Where I go in the summer, sea breezes used to be enough to cool us down, but no more. Some places, however, are experiencing the new intensity more than others. Parts of India, for example, were pretty hot in the first place, and global warming has made it worse.

Charlotte Steiner, Sameer Kwatra, and Prima Madan write at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) about new Heat Action Plans (HAPs) in parts of India.

“As India grapples with yet another season of intense heat, the cities of Churu, Rajasthan, and Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, are taking action to strengthen local preparedness and resilience. These cities launched their comprehensive Heat Action Plans (HAPs) in May of this year. Developed in collaboration with city authorities, health experts, and [NRDC] partners — Mahila Housing Trust (MHT) and Indian Institute of Public Health-Gandhinagar (IIPHG) — the Churu Heat Action Plan and Varanasi Heat Action Plan represent a significant milestone. …

“For Varanasi and Churu, building resilience to extreme heat is critical. Varanasi, a city of significant cultural and spiritual importance, gets more than 85 million tourists and pilgrims every year and has been grappling with worsening heat waves, year over year. In 2024, the city recorded a scorching 47.2 degrees Celsius (117 degrees Fahrenheit) — the highest temperature in 140 years. Churu, often referred to as the gateway to the Thar Desert, is not only one of the hottest places in India, but it is also particularly at risk for extreme heat events. …

“Historically, HAPs did not include climate projections to highlight the future increase in temperatures to assess risk. However, without concrete data on future projections, it’s hard for city officials and policy makers to move from planning to long-term action. Including robust climate analysis in HAPs strengthens the scientific credibility of the HAP, as well as helping city officials and urban planners to justify budget allocations for long-term heat resilience. It also builds a case for investment in public health and infrastructure to plan for not just saving lives today but reducing the risk over the long run.

“Both the Churu and Varanasi HAPs include tailored climate analysis in addition to a detailed assessment of historical trends (typically included in HAPs), highlighting rising baseline temperatures during both the day and night. The climate analysis for the two cities revealed that, by 2049, the temperatures in Churu are projected to increase by approximately 3.89 degrees Celsius and in Varanasi, by an additional 3.29 degrees Celsius. This could imply more days above 45 degrees Celsius, longer heat waves, and more nighttime heat stress. These HAPs also incorporate the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Heat Index, which combines air temperature and relative humidity to indicate how hot it actually feels to the human body and thereby highlight the human thermal discomfort more realistically.

“Based on hyperlocal analysis, these HAPs also identify specific hot spot areas or account for localized vulnerabilities; they also include ward-level geographic information system (GIS) spatial vulnerability assessments, offering a detailed view of how extreme heat impacts different parts of each city differently. These assessments will help local authorities target interventions more effectively and equitably as they work on implementing each HAP.  …

“Timely early warnings, joint response protocols, and localized capacity building are essential to reducing heat-related morbidity and mortality and maintaining critical services during peak summer months. Keeping up with this expectation, the Churu and Varanasi plans embed institutional accountability by outlining a detailed stakeholder responsibility matrix. This framework defines clear roles, timelines, and coordination mechanisms across state, district, and municipal levels, ensuring that each actor — from government departments to civil society — knows when and how to act.” More at the nonprofit NRDC, here.

NRDC articles are quite technical and full of data charts, but even I can understand the drift, and I hope you find it interesting. I think every town in the world is going to need a HAP.

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Women Prisoners Aid Rare Butterflies

August 20, 2025 by suzannesmom

Photo: Washington State Department of Corrections.
Last year, scientists working with a team of incarcerated women released more than 67,000 larvae of a beautiful, endangered butterfly.

Today’s story about incarcerated women helping scientists reminds me that you don’t have to be in prison to get satisfaction from working for a cause. These women are gaining confidence, self-esteem, and hope for a better future.

Andrew Buncombe reports at the Guardian, “Trista Egli was standing in a greenhouse, tearing up strips of plantain and preparing to feed them to butterfly larvae.

“Of the many things the team here has tried to tempt larvae of the Taylor’s checkerspot [with], it is the invasive English plantain they seem to love the most.

‘The big thing for me is being part of an effort to save an endangered species,’ says Egli, 36. ‘It is a big thrill.’

“Egli is one of seven women incarcerated at the Mission Creek correctional facility, located a two-hour drive from Seattle, who are part of a year-long program that takes captured butterflies, harvests their eggs, and oversees the growth of the larvae before they are released into the wild where they will turn into adults.

“Last year, scientists working with the team released more than 10,000 larvae. The adult butterflies live for just a handful of fabulous, wing-fluttering days. …

“Many of the women speak of their pride working on a project that feels like it is making a positive contribution to the world.

“Lynn Cheroff, 42, said she had been thrilled to talk about it with her two young children when they come to visit. When she telephones her mother about the work, her mother tells her she is proud. Another woman, Jennifer Teitzel, appreciates the sense of order and discipline the program demands and instills.

“Every detail about the eggs and larvae has to be collated and recorded. It is the women’s responsibility, and nobody else’s, seven days a week.

“[While] the program run by Washington state department of corrections (DOC) is part of an effort to prepare the women for life once their sentences are over and to smooth the path to work or college, there is no sugar-coating their predicament.

“Egli, who has three young children, is serving a nine-year sentence for a 2020 drunken hit and run that left a woman with permanent brain damage.

“ ‘I am paying the price for that every day. I can never go back and undo what happened,’ she says. ‘But I can try to make sure the rest of my life is about making the world a better place.’

“The program at Mission Creek has been operating for 10 years. Kelli Bush, the co-director of Sustainability in Prisons Project, a partnership between the DOC and the Evergreen State College in Olympia, says a crucial component are graduate students who visit to offer educational support.

“Bush says in addition to providing the women something to feel proud about as many deal with shame and guilt, the program also gives them confidence about their own capabilities. …

“She says, ‘It’s routine to hear people say “I didn’t think I was smart and I’m realizing I’m doing science.” … Pretty soon people find themselves reading peer-reviewed scientific journals and saying, “I can do this too.” ‘

“The Taylor’s butterfly’s preferred habitat is open grasslands and prairie. For thousands of years, such landscapes were created and maintained by active burning by Indigenous communities. Without such native stewardship, and with ever-increasing threats from developers and town planners, the amount of grassland has drastically diminished. …

“A favored place is Joint Base Lewis-McChord (JBLM), operated by the US army and situated 10 miles from Tacoma. Training with heavy artillery has long kept the prairie free of unwanted vegetation. Yet when the Taylor’s was added to the US Endangered Species Act list in 2013, it presented military officials with a challenge; how could they continue to make use of the base without harming a species now protected by federal law?

“Dan Calvert, of the Sentinel Landscape Partnership, a coalition of federal and state groups that works with landowners to promote sustainable land use around military installations, says JBLM contains ‘90% of the prairie habitat in western Washington.’ …

“One of the efforts to boost the numbers of Taylor’s checkerspot in locations off-base – and thereby allow the military to work unimpeded at the base – led to funding for the Mission Creek project by the Department of Defense (DoD). …

“The collaboration has helped boost the Taylor’s checkerspot. This year could be a record year for releases of adults. In 2024, the program released about 10,900 larvae.

“However, there’s a dark cloud looming over the program. Mission Creek is set to close in October because of budget cuts. There is a plan to transfer the women and the program to a prison at Gig Harbor, located 25 miles away, but there is some concern among current participants it could simply be cut entirely.

“Egli, who is set to become eligible for a work-release program under which she would serve the last 18 months of her sentence working outside the jail and returning to do what’s known as a DOC re-entry facility every night, says the program changed the person she was.”

More at the Guardian, here. No firewall. Donations support his valued news outlet.

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