Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Bee-Friendly Germany

June 25, 2021 by suzannesmom

Photo: Christian Jungeblodt/The Guardian.
City wildflower meadow with central Berlin’s skyline in the background. It’s all about love for pollinators.

The other day, Asakiyume pointed me to a charming thread on Twitter about volunteers in San Francisco who move bee swarms to safer places.

@Annaleen tweeted, “I have an amazing and wholesome story about a wayward swarm of bees who decided to take up residence on a lamp post in the middle of a residential neighborhood in San Francisco. … love that my city has a volunteer bee swarm emergency hotline! The dispatcher said that exterminators generally call them when they find a swarm. This city is very ‘pro life’ for bees, he told us. When I imagine a better world, this is the kind of experience I think of.”

Meanwhile, in Germany …

Philip Oltermann has this report at the Guardian. “To escape the Berlin bustle on a summer afternoon, all that Derek O’Doyle and his dog Frida have to do is lap the noisy building site outside their inner-city apartment, weave their way through the queue in front of the ice-cream van, and squeeze between two gridlocked lorries to cross over Baerwaldstrasse.

“Bordered by a one-way traffic system lies a bucolic 1,720 sq metre haven as colourful as a Monet landscape: blue cornflowers, red poppies, white cow parsley and purple field scabious dot a sea of nettles and wild grass as armies of insects buzz through the air. Two endangered carpenter bees, larger than their honey bee cousins and with pitch-black abdomens, gorge themselves on a bush of yellow gorse.

“The mini-wilderness on Baerwaldstrasse is one of more than 100 wildflower meadows that have been planted in Germany’s largest cities over the past three years and are coming into full bloom this summer to transform urban landscapes.

“Berlin has set aside [$1.79 million] to seed and nurture more than 50 wild gardens over a five-year period, while Munich has set up about 30 meadows since 2018. There are similar initiatives in Stuttgart, Leipzig and Braunschweig. Hamburg, which started the trend in 2015, this month unveiled the first of a series of bee-friendly flower beds atop bus shelters.

“Juliana Schlaberg of Germany’s Nature and Biodiversity Conservation Union (NABU) said her NGO was receiving more and more requests from city residents who either wanted to grow their own wildflower patches or pressure their council to stop cutting green spaces into manicured lawns. …

“The rain-heavy start to this year’s German summer has created a bloom so spectacular that many a doubter has been swayed. The organisers behind the scheme deliberately mixed in endangered flowers that take two years to come into their prime with populist Akzeptanzpflanzen (‘acceptance plants’) like poppies and cornflowers, which blossom after only a year. Three years on, the full floral array is on display.

” ‘I’ve changed my mind,’ said O’Doyle. ‘It’s become an incredibly attractive addition to our neighbourhood. You experience the seasons in a whole new way.’ Yet aesthetics are a mere bonus for a scheme with serious purpose: the protection of Germany’s population of wild bees.

The country is home to about 580 species of wild bee, of which an estimated 300 can be found in Berlin. More than half are endangered or on the verge of extinction.

“A 2017 study by the Entomological Society of Krefeld showed a 75% decline in total flying insect biomass in protected areas in Germany since 1989, with the use of insecticides, exposure to toxic exhaust fumes and above all a loss of diverse habitats cited as reasons for the drastic decline.

“The findings inspired a 2019 ‘save the bees’ petition in Bavaria that became the most successful in the southern state’s history, nudging politicians to pass into law its demands without putting them to a referendum first. A similar petition will be handed over to the parliament of the large state of North-Rhine Westphalia in July.

“Christian Schmid-Egger, who coordinates Berlin’s wildflower meadows on behalf of the German Wildlife Foundation, said any conservation effort would ultimate require broader changes in agricultural practices: ‘If we are going to save the bees, we won’t be doing it in cities.”’ …

“Unlike the hive-building honey bee, wild bees are solitary creatures always on the look out for new temporary accommodation. … Others have picky dietary requirements: one Berlin species of mason bee, osmia adunca, only collects pollen off viper’s bugloss, a type of plant that only grows in dry grasslands and waste spaces.” More at the Guardian, here.

Asakiyume understood that Annalee’s final statement in the Twitter thread on bee swarms is more or less my philosophy: “Sometimes, if you’re lucky, you get to glimpse a better world in the present. It’s like looking through a pinhole at something huge and distant and almost imperceptible. But you can see just enough of it that you know it’s possible, one day.”

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments »

A Scholarly Monk’s Dangerous Path

June 24, 2021 by suzannesmom

Photo: Hill Museum & Manuscript Library.
A 1600s Armenian Gospel, with a depiction of the evangelist Mark, has been digitized by Benedictine monk Columba Stewart’s project.

I love learning about the many unusual careers and pursuits out there. In today’s story, a monk who was working on preserving old manuscripts by digitizing them, accidentally became a sleuth in dangerous regions.

Joshua Hammer writes at the Smithsonian, “When Columba Stewart, a 63-year-old Benedictine monkbased in Minnesota, arrived at the Kaiser Library, a government-affiliated archive in Kathmandu, Nepal, he stared up at the three-story building — wobbly, riven by cracks, too unsafe to use.

“It was three years after the massive Nepalese earthquake of 2015 that had killed 9,000 and laid flat much of the Kathmandu Valley. Rain leaked through holes in the roof, inundating broken masonry and congealing into gray mud on the floor. Many of the library’s manuscripts, some dating to the ninth century and written in Devanagari script (an ancient orthography system still used across the Indian subcontinent) on birch bark and palm leaves rolled up and held by clay seals, had been moved downstairs. The scrolls were stacked in bags and shoved into old glass cabinets on the ground floor. Exposed to the dust of an ongoing construction project to shore up the building’s weakened structure, as well as occasional seismic vibrations, the works were at risk of rapid disintegration.

“Stewart had flown to the Himalayas at the behest of Bidur Bhattarai, a Nepalese scholar at the Centre for the Studies of Manuscript Cultures at the University of Hamburg, who had traveled to his homeland after the quake to assess the damage. Library employees recounted their panic as books crashed to the floor and chunks of bricks and rocks came hurtling down: For months they had been forced to work outside under a tarp. …

“Stewart made three trips to Nepal in 2018 and 2019 (a spring 2020 visit was called off at the start of the Covid-19 worldwide lockdown), continuing discussions to begin digitizing the Kaiser Library’s collection, while initiating a pilot project at a nearby private institution: the Asha Archives. Its collection of 7,000 richly ornamented manuscripts on bound paper and rolled palm leaves was built up by Prem Bahadur Kansakar, and named after his father, Asha Man Singh Kansakar, a prominent early 20th-century social activist and writer from the Newari ethnic group — the historical inhabitants of the Kathmandu Valley and the dominating force in Nepali politics and culture — and donated to the public in 1987. …

“Working remotely from his stateside base, Stewart supported Bhattarai in training a team of four Nepalese staffers to begin digitizing 1,000 manuscripts newly donated to the archives. Almost all were written on traditional Nepalese paper by Newari scribes. The works treat subjects including Buddhist and Hindu philosophy, religious rituals, Ayurvedic medicine (a holistic approach based on ancient Hindu writings) and grammar, along with poetry, written in Sanskrit, Newari and Nepali and dating to the 15th through early 20th centuries. Most had been wrapped in red- or yellow-dyed cotton for centuries, and recently have been rewrapped in undyed muslin or locally produced paper for conservation. …

” ‘Everybody knows Nepal because of Tibetan Buddhist monasteries,’ Stewart says, ‘but there’s also strong Hindu presence. The manuscript tradition witnesses that mix, in a variety of languages. Nepal is a meeting place; that’s what makes it so interesting.’

“Stewart lives and works at St. John’s Abbey in Collegeville, Minnesota, where he is a professor of theology at the affiliated St. John’s University and the executive director of the Hill Museum and Manuscript Library (HMML). …

Over the past 20 years his work has taken him from the Balkans to the Himalayas, from the Sahel region of Africa to the Middle East, injecting him into the heart of conflict zones and resulting in several narrow escapes from rebel movements and religious extremists. …

“ ‘Sometimes I feel like a war correspondent. Other times I’m cast in a religious role. In northern Iraq, I’ll be in my habit at Mass with 1,500 worshipers chanting in Aramaic. Then I’ll be going around in a tank.’ …

“Stewart has built up an extensive rare-book collection for the library. On a virtual tour using his iPad, he takes me down to the basement, and removes from a shelf one of his favorite recent additions: a four-volume Old and New Testament, bound in oak, and printed in Nuremberg in 1480, twenty-five years after the Gutenberg Bible rolled off the world’s first printing press. … ‘The paper looks like it was made yesterday,’ he tells me. ‘The ink is black as can be, mixed with linseed oil to take the bite out of the type,’ he says. ‘Every piece of type was set by hand, backwards. They had to do that for every single page. That’s an extraordinary achievement in the service of knowledge.’ …

“Stewart’s work represents a high-tech evolution of the Benedictine mission. He conducted his first digitization project in 2003, in Lebanon, and went on to the rest of the Middle East and the Balkans, where Christian minorities have grown increasingly vulnerable, their cultural patrimony put at risk. Word of his deeds spread. Malian librarians who had rescued 250,000 Islamic and secular manuscripts from Al Qaeda in Timbuktu by smuggling them to Bamako enlisted his aid. Muslim communities in India, threatened by the Hindu extremist rhetoric of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, have turned to him for help digitizing their archives.”

Stewart’s life path emerged accidentally after he “joined the St. John’s faculty. He was prepared, he said, for a life of teaching and religious devotion. That bucolic vision was disrupted when the university president, aware of Stewart’s knowledge of early Christian sites in the Middle East, asked him to take on a manuscript preservation project for the Orthodox Christian church in northern Lebanon.”

At the Smithsonian, here, you can read what happened next.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | 10 Comments »

Using E Coli Against Land Mines

June 23, 2021 by suzannesmom

Photo: Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
In Israel, research with genetically modified bacteria is creating a new way to detect hidden land mines.

Giving credit where it’s due, I first learned at PRI’s The World that e coli is being used to detect forgotten land mines. You can listen to the radio broadcast here.

Then I went online and found a variety of articles on the research. This one is from the New York Times. Elizabeth Landau writes, “Land mines left over from bygone conflicts — or those still being fought — pose silent threats to millions of people around the world. With the help of bacteria that glow in their presence, these hidden hazards may one day be found and safely removed or destroyed.

“Researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have spent a decade developing living land mine sensors using E. coli bacteria. In recent studies, they describe their latest progress. By using genetic engineering, they can turn each bacterium into ‘a miniature firefly’ in the presence of a chemical associated with the explosives, said Shimshon Belkin, the Hebrew University microbiologist leading the research.

“In 2019, more than 5,500 people were killed or injured by land mines and explosive remnants of war, and 80 percent of them were civilians, according to the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. Anti-personnel land mines, which can be only a few inches across and easily concealed, are especially dangerous. Estimates vary for the worldwide count of buried land mines, but they are as high as 110 million.

“Many strategies have been tried to locate land mines, such as using metal detectors and training detection animals, including an award-winning rat that helped locate 71 land mines before it retired. Each method balances benefits with risks and costs.

“The idea of rewiring bacteria to sense land mines originated with Robert Burlage, then at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee.

In the mid-1990s, Dr. Burlage worked on getting bacteria to light up in response to organic waste and mercury. Looking for a new application for this technique, he got the idea to try targeting land mine chemicals.

“Although Dr. Burlage conducted a few small field tests, he was unable to secure more funding and moved on. ‘My tale of woe,’ said Dr. Burlage, now a professor at Concordia University Wisconsin. …

“Bacteria are cheap and expendable and can be spread over a lot of ground. And they are relatively quick at reporting back — within hours, or up to a day, they either glow or they don’t.

“In studies published in the past year in Current Research in Biotechnology and Microbial Biotechnology, Dr. Belkin and his team describe tinkering with two key components of the E. coli genetic code: pieces of DNA called ‘promoters’ that act as on/off switches for genes, and ‘reporters’ that prompt light-emitting reactions. To produce this effect, researchers borrowed genes from marine bacteria that naturally emit light in the ocean.

“Scientists attuned the bacteria to a chemical called [DNT]. DNT vapor seeps into soil surrounding a land mine, and the bacteria can sniff it out. …

“One key challenge the group is working to overcome is safely locating the bioluminescent bacteria in a real minefield. When they detect land mines, their glow is so faint that light from the moon, stars or nearby cities could drown it out. …

“Aharon J. Agranat, a bioengineer at Hebrew University, and other researchers reported in April in the journal Biosensors and Bioelectronics that they had developed a device that shields the bacteria and detects their glow. This sensor system can then report its findings to a nearby computer, but it hasn’t been tested outside a laboratory setting. The researchers have also recently conducted field tests in Israel, collaborating with the Israeli army to ensure the safety of the experiments, as well as an Israeli defense company. The results of these tests have not been published, but Dr. Belkin called them ‘generally very successful.’ ” More here.

I know a little about the scourge of land mines from reading Laos-based mysteries by artist, educator, and activist Colin Cotterill. If you like fiction about foreign countries that not only introduces you to new geographies but also addresses the challenges to be found there, you will probably love Dr. Siri of The Coroner’s Lunch.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments »

Replacing a Bridge of String

June 22, 2021 by suzannesmom

Photo: Qoriankatours.
Q’eswachaka, the last Inca bridge in use and also part of the extensive road network or Qapac Ñan, has been recognized by UNESCO as a Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

On Father’s Day, John’s family tried out an aerial adventure park that included a high bridge made of ropes and slats. I told my grandson I thought his picture looked scary, but that was before I knew about the Peruvian rope bridge in today’s article. It may be a UNESCO heritage site, but it looks unbelievably scary to me.

The Guardian via Reuters-Lima explains that local artisans are constantly reweaving the bridge over the river to keep it in good repair.

“Peruvians from the Huinchiri community in Cusco region are rebuilding a 500-year-old Incan hanging bridge, made using traditional weaving techniques to string a crossing together spanning the Apurimac river far below.

The Q’eswachaka bridge has been used for over 500 years to connect communities divided by the river. But during the Covid pandemic it fell into disrepair and collapsed in March.

“Members of the affected communities, such as the Huinchiri, decided to rebuild the 30-meter (98.43 ft) long bridge in the traditional Incan style: by weaving it.

“Teams of workers, starting from both sides of the ravine and balancing on giant main ropes that had been stretched over the river, worked towards the centre, putting in place smaller ropes as barriers between the handrail ropes and the walkway’s floor.

“ ‘Last year because of the pandemic, it wasn’t strengthened … That is why at the beginning of this year the bridge fell,’ said Cusco Regional Governor Jean Paul Benavente. …

“In 2013, Unesco recognized the skills and traditions associated to the reconstruction of the Q’eswachaka bridge as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

” ‘This is history. More than 500 years of a paradox in time. The Q’eswachaka, this Incan living bridge, is really an expression and cultural manifestation,’ added Benavente.

“ ‘This is community, in this particular case, the Huinchiri community from the Quehue district is currently working to string up this bridge that connects villages, but that also connects traditions and connects culture.’ ”

For additional scary pictures, check out the Guardian, here. If you plan to visit, Qorianka Tours here, is one option.

By the way, you can see fascinating examples of UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity designations, here. They include such curiosities as Al Aflaj, “traditional irrigation network system in the UAE, oral traditions, knowledge and skills of construction, maintenance and equitable water distribution” in the United Arab Emirates and tree beekeeping in Poland and Belarus.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | 5 Comments »

Roadsides as Habitat

June 21, 2021 by suzannesmom

Photo: National Wildlife Federation.
More people are realizing that the 17 million acres of US roadsides are vital sanctuaries for pollinators and other wildlife.

Back in the day, when my mother was active in the Rockland County Conservation Association, I learned more about preventing soil erosion using Crown vetch along the new Thruway than any normal kid should be expected to know. Today the plant is considered invasive and the vision for highway landscaping has evolved.

A recent report from the radio show Living on Earth offers the latest thinking.

“Some 17 million acres of green space line US highways and byways, and it’s vital habitat for pollinators, as well as small voles and mice and birds. Bonnie Harper-Lore, a restoration ecologist formerly with the Federal Highway Administration, tells host Steve Curwood about the value they offer to wildlife and how President Lyndon Johnson’s wife, Lady Bird, helped uplift this elongated haven for creatures and wildflowers.

“CURWOOD: Clover is a crucial source of nectar for many pollinators, especially bees. And as national pollinator week is coming up on June 21, it’s a good time to think about the many ways we can help our endangered pollinators, starting with our highways. It turns out that medians and roadsides offer miles and miles of vital habitats for many pollinators, including bees and butterflies. Bonnie Harper-Lore was a restoration ecologist for the Federal Highway Administration, and is a member of the Commission on Minnesota Resources. Welcome to Living on Earth, Bonnie. … We’re talking about those strips of vegetation along the highways. There’s often commercial or residential property right behind them. So, nationwide, just how much of this habitat is there?

“HARPER-LORE: Well, I think the listeners will be surprised to find out that the area between the pavement and the right of way fence on county, state, and interstate highways adds up to a total of 17 million acres, possibly millions of acres of conservation opportunity. … I always saw roadsides from the beginning of my career 30 years ago as an opportunity to benefit wildlife, small wildlife, small birds, small mammals, and migrating birds also use these same corridors. So if they have places to find food and cover, they are all going to do better and their populations will continue to hold where we need them to hold.

“CURWOOD: By the way, I also understand that this roadside habitat has some of the most endangered habitat in various areas – like there are parts of the original prairie that are protected alongside roads, sort of by accident. You can sometimes find real old-growth trees. I mean, how much of a treasure trove is this territory?

“HARPER-LORE: Well that’s just it: We don’t have a complete inventory of all of our roadside vegetation.

I would indeed like to see [an inventory] because I think we would be surprised at how many remnants of these old forests, old prairies, old wetlands even do exist.

“We began doing a bit of that inventory in 1993 in California – found 19 remnants within a very short time and began protecting them, managing differently, not mowing and spraying as they had in the past. So there are some of these. I mean, it’s surprising that they do exist. I know Florida has also some endangered, I believe, pitcher plants that are growing in their rights of ways and they are now watching over them differently than they have in the past. So if we know they’re there we can do differently.

“CURWOOD: So, give us the big picture as to who are the partners in these pollinator conservation efforts.

“HARPER-LORE: Well, first of all, before President Obama visited Mexico and talked to President Nieto and Prime Minister Harper from Canada and they agreed to work together to protect Monarchs – before that point, there were actually a few states that were doing pollinator-focused efforts. Wisconsin comes to mind in that the Karner Blue butterfly is an endangered species, and they actually put together, I believe, a 20-member partnership quite a few years ago to protect the Karner Blue. [That] partnership was mostly private sector, but some state and county agencies, too. … Every state Department of Transportation basically does its own thing, makes its own priorities, but now that there’s been … a reauthorization act that actually supports pollinators, all of the states will start moving in that direction, especially if they know the public is interested. So public support needs to be there.

“CURWOOD: Tell me about the multistate project known as the I-35 corridor, and what’s been done in terms of Monarch protection there? …

“HARPER-LORE: Back in 1993, a group of six states asked the Federal Highway Administration, where I worked at the time, to work together and get some funding to support their effort to actually restore prairie along the I-35 corridor and to protect any remnants that already existed there. … It runs from Minnesota through Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas, therefore connecting Mexico to the edge of Canada and of course that’s where the Monarchs fly.

“CURWOOD: What other wildlife uses this roadside habitat? …

“HARPER-LORE: I’ve watched hawks, all kinds of raptors, sitting on the light standards along highways and signposts just waiting for lunch to materialize down there in the vegetation on the roadside. Yes, they do well there because there are lots of mice and voles, other small things possible, plus one that actually motivated reduced mowing here in the Midwest, pheasants and other waterfowl, different kinds of ducks will nest in these rights of ways. …

“It’s because of Lady Bird Johnson that my job even existed with the Federal Highway Administration. I was working for the Minnesota Department of Transportation establishing their wildflower program back in the 1980s when I got an invitation from Mrs. Johnson to come visit with four other states who were also interested in planting wildflowers and we sat and talked with her for two days, and the thing we didn’t know she would do — because she asked us what did we need to be able to do more — within that same year, she saw to it that there was an amendment to the transportation bill that requires all states to use certain percent, not a large enough percent, but a certain percent of their budgets on native wildflowers.”

More at Living on Earth, here.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | 6 Comments »

Papa Seahorse

June 20, 2021 by suzannesmom

Photo: Seacoast Science Center.
The male seahorse carries from 5 to 2,000 babies in his pouch, depending on the species.

More and more dads take on nurturing roles these days, a great benefit to kids — and moms, too. That got me thinking about perhaps the top nurturing dad of the animal kingdom, the seahorse. So I was pleased to find a blog post about papa seahorses at the Seacoast Science Center at Odiorne Point State Park in Rye, New Hampshire.

Intern Ashley Breault, who in 2016 was an Ocean Studies and Communications student at the University of New England, wrote, “Father’s Day is a great time to thank all the dads out there who step up their game for life’s most important job! Inarguably, the most notable dad in the animal kingdom, the seahorse has some pretty unique traits that qualify them for the #1 dad in-the-sea award!

“There are more than 50 different seahorse species … all of which do something that gives them the title of best dad: they are one of the only species in which the male carries and delivers its babies. …

“After hours of a courtship ‘dance’ that includes synchronized tail movements and twirling, a male and female seahorse will mate. The female seahorse makes the eggs, and during this mating process, transfers the unfertilized eggs to the male seahorse. The male seahorse fertilizes the eggs and is now a proud father, carrying anywhere from 5-2,000 babies in his pouch, depending on the species.

“In here, these offspring will get all the food and oxygen they need to develop. Anywhere from 14 days to 4 weeks later, all these little seahorses will be born.

“Baby seahorses are called fry and once they are born, they are completely independent. Mom and dad leave them to find food and shelter all on their own. Unfortunately, only a few of the thousands born will make it to adulthood. …

“Here at the Seacoast Science Center, you can find seahorses in our Eelgrass exhibit tank. The seahorses at the Center are called White’s seahorses, Hippocampus whitei, and are actually native to Australia, where they are a very common along the coast. These seahorses are typically very small, growing no longer than 20 cm. Our seahorses are fed mysid shrimp 4 times a day and get all the love and care they need. Because they are so small, they can only eat small amounts of food at a time, which is why they get fed so often.

“One seahorse species that you might be able to find in our local waters are Lined seahorses, Hippocampus erectus, which can live as far north as Nova Scotia and as far south as Venezuela.” More here.

You might want to check out Seacoast Science Center’s other blog entries, here, especially the post called “One Ocean,” which has a holistic take on the interconnectedness of all the oceans on planet Earth. “The idea of One World Ocean is a relatively new way of thinking about the saltwater basins we all learned about in elementary school. … Over 70% of Earth’s surface is ocean, and understanding its enormous influence on our planet and our lives on land is the first step to understanding the urgency to preserve and protect this life-giving resource.”

The Seacoast Science Center is open Wednesdays to Sundays, 10 am to 4 pm. They encourage people to buy advance tickets and, if unvaccinated and over age 3, to wear a mask.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments »

Developer Includes Art in Projects

June 19, 2021 by suzannesmom

Photo: Leong Leong.
Leong Leong’s Ray Fishtown in Philadelphia is meant to surround residents with art. A Russian philanthropist is collaborating on the project.

I thought this article about including original art and artists’ studios in residential buildings was interesting. I confess, however, that the extreme wealth of the young Russian woman who is behind the concept makes me uncomfortable. She’s the daughter of an oligarch, and it’s hard for me to believe anyone makes a fortune in Russia without workers suffering. Of course, we also have guys like that.

As Taylor Dafoe reported at Artnet News, “Russian collector Dasha Zhukova, who founded Moscow’s Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, has launched a new real-estate venture with the aim of bringing residential apartments, art studios, and exhibition spaces together under one roof.

“Ray, as Zhukova’s new business is called, already has two major developments underway, in Manhattan and Philadelphia. Its website describes them as ‘vertical villages’ and notes that prices will be ‘accessible.’ …

“Mexico City-based architect Frida Escobedo, who in 2018 became the youngest architect ever commissioned to build London’s Serpentine Pavilion, will lead the design of the 21-story development Ray Harlem.

“The building’s first four floors will serve as the new home of Harlem’s historic National Black Theatre, founded in 1968 by Barbara Ann Teer, and will include spaces for performance, events, and retail. The rest of the building will feature 222 apartments, artist studios, co-working spaces, as well as communal kitchens and libraries. …

“Ray Fishtown, a 110-unit building in Philadelphia designed by the architecture firm Leong Leong, is under construction now and boasts a similar slate of amenities, including a half-dozen street-level artist studios. New York artist Rashid Johnson will create a living greenhouse in the building’s lobby while Philadelphia-based artist Michelle Lopez will add a text-based intervention on the split brick facade. Lopez will also work out of a studio at the development and become its inaugural artist in residence when it opens. …

“Designer Suzanne Demisch, who’s been recruited by Ray to work on the upcoming projects, tells Artnet News that the firm will look to work with ’emerging and established artists, designers, and architects’ who are ‘local’ and ‘forward-thinking.’

“Demisch, who’s worked with Zhukova on various projects for a decade, says the philanthropist first articulated her vision for Ray five or six years ago. … ‘She asked me if I would join her in defying the traditional boundaries of architecture and design in the residential field and [creating] more equitable access to the built spaces of the future.’  

“Zhukova seems to have taken some inspiration for Ray from the Garage Museum building, which was designed by Rem Koolhaas and has proved to be as big a draw as the programming inside, Zhukova told the Wall Street Journal. … 

“ ‘Even if [visitors] had seen all the shows that we had on, they would just stay and hang out in our lobby,’ she said. ‘They would hang out in our cafe for hours on end—just come back day after day because they wanted to be in that environment.’ 

“Each of Ray’s developments will offer its future inhabitants a grip of perks calibrated to the creative culture of their respective cities and neighborhoods, including workshops with local artists and live events sponsored by nearby arts organizations.”

More at Artnet, here, and at Ray Fishtown, here. The pandemic undoubtedly slowed the Ray timeline, but I’m going to keep an eye on it and see how it turns out. I’m especially curious how they plan to deliver the “equitable” aspect as I feel sure they’ll be able to get high-paying buyers with a concept like that.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments »

A Restaurant’s Pandemic Pivot

June 18, 2021 by suzannesmom

Photo: Yenvy Pham.
The owners of a Seattle Vietnamese restaurant, Phở Bắc, came up with the idea of a “Pho Now” cup and a “Pho Later” meal kit during the pandemic. “Survival mode is in our blood,” says Yenvy Pham.

I like to have a pipeline of possible articles in case I draw a blank some morning. But after Covid changed so much, it seemed like a good idea to check whether last year’s stories were still relevant. So I did a search on the restaurant in today’s article and found that the Covid innovations described here really worked.

In June 2020, Ashley Nguyen wrote at the Lily that Seattle’s Phở Bắc pivoted fast. “On March 13, Yenvy Pham went to New York City to celebrate the grand opening of her friend’s new Vietnamese restaurant, Saigon Social. But as the coronavirus spread, Helen Nguyen — Saigon Social’s chef and owner — decided to cancel.

“By the time Pham flew home to Seattle on March 16, Washington Gov. Jay [Inslee] had ordered restaurants and bars to cease in-person dining. Pham and her siblings, who own and operate several restaurants called Phở Bắc in Seattle, saw sales plummet. … They instituted new safety precautions, made sure their employees had masks and gloves and started pivoting.

“Phở Bắc’s namesake dish is not something people typically order to-go, Pham said. To appeal to their customers, the Pham siblings introduced a ‘Pho Now’ cup that people could eat while sitting on a nearby curb, on their walk home, or in the car. They also began selling a ‘Pho Later’ meal kit, complete with broth, separately wrapped ingredients and assembly instructions. The restaurant started delivering orders using an old parking enforcement vehicle dubbed the ‘Pho Mobile.’

“As it became clear that the pandemic wasn’t going to end anytime soon, Pham and her siblings had to start making tough decisions. They closed two of their four Phở Bắc locations, and they were forced to reduce staff. … But if any of Phở Bắc’s current or former employees need something, the restaurant owners try to help: ‘My restaurant dynamic is very Vietnamese,’ Pham said. ‘It’s very practical. If [workers] need money, help [or] loans, we just kind of do what we can.’

“Operating multiple restaurants during a pandemic isn’t easy, but ‘survival mode is in our blood,’ Pham explained. Her parents, Theresa Cat Vu and Augustine Nien Pham, opened the first Phở Bắc location in 1982, a year after they came to the United States. Ultimately, Theresa and Augustine created a nourishing landmark in Seattle’s Little Saigon: The restaurant takes the shape of a red boat.

“Yenvy Pham and her Phở Bắc partners, siblings Khoa and Quynh-Vy, are dedicated to supporting fellow business owners in Little Saigon as economic fallout from the pandemic persists.

‘It’s my neighborhood, my Little Saigon,’ Pham said. ‘For me, business comes and goes, but the vibe of the neighborhood is so important, and so are the characters here. You’ve got to take care of your own people.’

“They recently donated $5,000 in proceeds from the Pho Mobile to the International Community Health Services clinic, where their sister works as a primary care doctor, and a small business relief fund for business owners in the Chinatown International District. …

“The siblings are also collaborating with other business owners. They added Hood Famous Bakeshop’s mini Filipino-flavored cheesecakes to their menu. Pham let Mangosteen — a traveling Texas-style barbecue joint from chef Thai Ha — take over one of their closed locations to sell brisket and wings with specialty sauces for pickup.

“The pandemic has given people more time to take stock of what’s important, Pham said in late April.

“ ‘I like the world stopping for a second to reassess our morality and get us out of this state of complacency,’ she said. ‘We’re doing powerful thinking about each other, ourselves, about the world. … We’re being more creative too and helping each other out,’ Pham added. …

“Despite the unknowns, Pham is confident that everything will work out. In her family, ‘we either fix it, we take care of it, we accept it, or we move onto something else.’ ”

More at the Lily, here.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments »

Bike Shop Aids Community

June 17, 2021 by suzannesmom

Photo: Ann Hermes/CSM.
Najari Smith, who founded the bike shop co-op and nonprofit Rich City Rides, stands in front of a mural depicting him on April 9, 2021, in Richmond, California, a town across the bay from San Francisco.

There’s something liberating about riding a bike, as my youngest grandchild learned after taking an REI class in Cranston. She used to be afraid of falling. Now she’s a biking dervish. Today’s post is about another biking enthusiast, who’s been liberating a poor city and making it rich.

Erika Page writes at the Christian Science Monitor, “Najari Smith was down in the dumps the night he first heard the bicycles below his window. He was new to California, lonely, and felt he lacked purpose. On the street below, a costumed parade of cyclists rolled by blasting music. By the time Mr. Smith rushed downstairs to join the party, they were gone.

“Mr. Smith’s journey, though, was just beginning. After that night in 2010, he began riding his bike everywhere and joined every community biking event around. Slowly, his spirits lifted.

‘Shoot, bicycles kind of saved my life,’ he says. He became part of the Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee of Richmond, California, which improves bicycle infrastructure in the city. During a routine committee meeting, he got his big idea.

“ ‘I thought to myself, “We’re building this infrastructure, but, you know, who are we building it for? Who’s going to use it?” ‘ he recalls. How would he get his community – the Black community – excited about using the bike lanes he was advocating for? And how would he break down the stereotype that Black people don’t bike? He started small – fixing up bikes at the park with local mechanics and giving them out to anyone who wanted one.

“Today, Mr. Smith runs Rich City Rides: a worker-owned cooperative bike shop as well as a bicycle advocacy nonprofit. These two spokes of the organization are distinct, but both serve Mr. Smith’s vision of using bicycles to ‘bring people together for healthy civic change’ in Richmond. Just like the bikes he fixes at the shop, Mr. Smith believes that no one, no matter what they’ve been through, is ever broken beyond repair.

“ ‘He’s the type of leader that seeks out the strength that an individual may have, rather than identifying their weaknesses. … He’ll sit down with folks and try to figure out how to get them involved, no matter what,’ says Robin D. López, who volunteers as a photographer for Rich City Rides and thinks of Richmond as ‘a community of untapped potential.’

“Roshni McGee, the program manager at Rich City Rides and co-founder of the bike shop, agrees. ‘He always tries to, you know, put a little bit of extra pressure on people and make them really be that diamond in the rough,’ he says.

“Rich City Rides is situated on a busy corner of Macdonald Avenue in a neighborhood that locals call the Iron Triangle, notorious for high crime rates and gun violence. Even though they live just across the bay from tony gentrified neighborhoods of San Francisco, many residents struggle to make ends meet. …

“ ‘He leads with love. … He shows that this is what we can do as Black people. We can revitalize our downtown, and we don’t have to be afraid of each other,’ says Jovanka Beckles, a mental health specialist who served on Richmond’s City Council from 2010 to 2018. She says Rich City Rides’ success has inspired other small businesses to open too, helping put the neighborhood on a long-awaited upswing. …

“[The nonprofit arm] plans social and wellness rides, youth programs, and community outreach. Since the nonprofit began in 2012, it has given away more than 1,000 bikes, led hundreds of social bike rides with thousands of participants, and conducted countless youth bicycle workshops. And during the pandemic, Rich City Rides has been distributing grab-and-go meals to families in need – an idea suggested by one of the high schoolers who works at the shop.

“In fact, Mr. Smith says other members of the team, and especially young people, make most of the important decisions. ‘I’m just a connector,’ he says.

“Cameren Howard-Simons is one of those young people who has found purpose through the organization. When he first met the crew at Rich City Rides, he was in middle school, and his mother didn’t want him hanging out in the area because of its reputation.

“Now Cam, a junior in high school, spends most of his free time working at the shop. ‘It’s hard to keep me away from people like this,’ he says with a wide smile, as he tries to get a derailleur to behave on the pink bike that’s hanging from his repair stand. Rich City Rides has kept him out of trouble, he says, adding that it’s one of the few places where kids can be completely themselves, without judgment.

“ ‘You’re wheelieing next to somebody, and they’re clapping, they’re recording you [on their phones], and they’re showing you love – showing you that they actually care about what you do,’ he says. …

“The notion that Richmond is not poor – but rich – guides Rich City Rides. ‘We’re a community that’s really rich in creativity and capacity and ingenuity,’ says Mr. Smith.”

More at the Monitor, here.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | 7 Comments »

Whale Takes a Taste of “Jonah”

June 16, 2021 by suzannesmom

Photo: Opération cétacés.
Humpback whale breaching.

In case you couldn’t get behind the New York Times firewall to read about the whale that tried to swallow a lobster fisherman, here’s the gist of it. It’s a great reminder that all our ancient, impossible-seeming stories, from the Bible’s Jonah to Pinocchio and Geppetto, generally have a basis in fact.

Maria Cramer reported, “It was sunny and clear on Friday morning and the water was calm off the coast of Provincetown, Mass., where Michael Packard was diving for lobsters. His longtime fishing partner, Josiah Mayo, was following him in their fishing vessel, the J&J, tracking him through the bubbles that rose from Mr. Packard’s breathing gear to the surface of the water. The men had already caught 100 pounds of lobster, and Mr. Packard was about 40 feet underwater, looking for more.

“Suddenly, the bubbles stopped, Mr. Mayo said. Then, the water began to churn violently. A creature breached the surface and for an agonizing split second, Mr. Mayo thought it was a white shark.

‘I immediately thought it was the shark encounter that we’d unfortunately been preparing for for years,’ he said in an interview on Saturday.

“Then, he saw the fluke and the head of a whale. Moments later, he saw Mr. Packard fly out of the water.

“ ‘ “It tried to eat me,” ’ Mr. Packard sputtered, according to Mr. Mayo. The whale, a humpback, swam away as Mr. Mayo and another fisherman helped Mr. Packard back into the boat.

“Such terrifying encounters are virtually unheard-of, according to Charles Mayo, Josiah Mayo’s father and a senior scientist at the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown, a town of about 3,000 people on the tip of Cape Cod. …

“ ‘I’ve never heard of that ever happening,’ Dr. Mayo said of Mr. Packard’s ordeal. Still, the encounter is explainable, he said.

“The whale, possibly a 32- to 35-foot juvenile that had previously been seen swimming in the area, was most likely diving for food when it inadvertently caught Mr. Packard in its enormous mouth.

“Humpback whales spend much of their time in that part of New England, searching for and engulfing small schooling fish, said Jooke Robbins, director of the humpback whale studies program at the Center for Coastal Studies. They lunge fast, open their mouths and use baleen plates to ‘filter’ the water out before swallowing the fish, Dr. Robbins said in a statement.

“When the whale realized it had caught something that was not its typical prey — in this case, an unsuspecting lobsterman — it responded the way a human who accidentally ingested a fly would, Dr. Mayo said. …

“Mr. Packard told reporters that he was on his second dive, going toward the bottom of sea when he felt ‘this truck hit me.’ His first thought was that a white shark had attacked him, but when he did not feel teeth piercing into him, he realized he was inside a whale.

“ ‘I was completely inside; it was completely black,’ Mr. Packard told The Cape Cod Times. ‘I thought to myself: There’s no way I’m getting out of here — I’m done, I’m dead. All I could think of was my boys — they’re 12 and 15 years old.’ …

“He said he struggled against the mouth of the whale and could feel its powerful muscles squeezing against him. Then, he saw light and felt the whale’s head shaking and his body being thrown into the water. …

“Mr. Packard, who was released from the hospital on Friday, had extensive bruises, but no broken bones.”

More at the Times, here.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | 10 Comments »

Sister Mary Corita, Artist

June 15, 2021 by suzannesmom

Photo: Corita Art Center, Immaculate Heart Community.
Corita Kent, then known as Sister Mary Corita, with students. “By the 1960s,” notes the Corita Art Center, “her vibrant serigraphs were drawing international acclaim. Corita’s work reflected her concerns about poverty, racism, and war.”

Talent will out. That was certainly the case with Sister Mary Corita, or Corita Kent, who became a force in the Pop Art scene of the 1960s with her focus on social justice.

At the Los Angeles Times, Carolina A. Miranda recently wrote, that 35 years after her death, the L.A. City Council approved historic-cultural monument status for her former studio — “a humble storefront on Franklin Avenue, near Western Avenue that in recent years had been inhabited by a dry cleaner.”

Miranda continues, “If you drew a Venn diagram that brought together Charles Eames, Pop Art, commercial printing, social justice movements, the Second Vatican Council and 1960s Los Angeles, only one person could inhabit the space where those areas intersect: Corita Kent.

“A nun in the order of the Immaculate Heart of Mary for more than three decades, Sister Mary Corita was a well-known educator and artist dubbed the ‘Pop Art nun’ by the press. … In her classroom at Immaculate Heart College, Kent taught the art of silkscreen printing — a commercial form that she adapted to the era of Pop. In the wake of the Second Vatican Council in 1962, which called for a liberalization and modernization of the Catholic liturgy to the realities of 20th century life, she delved into creating work that echoed calls for social justice — be it antiwar efforts, labor campaigns or Black and Chicano civil rights.

“Her work at its most innovative took vernacular culture — commercial logos and graphics, bits of corporate slogans, images from mass media — and reconfigured them into fine art. Art that not only advanced the ways in which these elements were used formally, but that grounded Pop. … As independent curator Michael Duncan wrote of her work in a 2013 catalog: ‘She addressed consumers not of products but of life.’ …

“The [historic-cultural] designation is important not just because Kent was an artist whose work was a critical part of the artistic dialogues Los Angeles was having in the 1960s, but also because she represents the rare woman to be honored in the city’s landscape.

“As the Los Angeles Conservancy noted in its advocacy for preserving Kent’s studio building, only 3% of the city’s more than 1,200 historic-cultural monuments are associated with women’s heritage. … The designation is reflective of a shift in preservationists’ thinking about how we acknowledge history — thinking that is less preoccupied with the pristine historical details of a site than in making sure a wide range of histories are acknowledged in a city’s landscape. Late last year, the 1970 protest route of the Chicano Moratorium was listed in the National Register of Historic Places; early this year, the Church of the Epiphany in Lincoln Heights — a key site of Chicano activism — was added to the list. …

“The storefront that Kent inhabited, where she taught and collaborated with students and created some of her most memorable work, no longer bears traces of her presence. …

“Kent left the space — and Los Angeles — after she withdrew from the Immaculate Heart of Mary order in favor of a secular life in the late 1960s. Part of her departure may have been due to pressures related to her increasingly high profile: At one point, she was featured on the cover of Newsweek. It may have also stemmed from simmering tensions between the liberal Immaculate Heart order and the staunchly conservative Archbishop James Francis McIntyre, who once complained that that the work produced by Kent and the college’s art department was ‘an affront to me and a scandal to the archdiocese.’ In 1970, Immaculate Heart split from the church and is today an independent ecumenical community.

“The studio storefront, which is currently unoccupied, sits on a small corner of a 1.7-acre parcel that also contains a shuttered Rite-Aid. Recently, the plot was acquired by a pair of real estate development companies who intend to turn the site into a Lazy Acres natural foods market. Part of their original plan had been to tear down the studio to make way for additional parking. (Yes, parking.) That plan has since been amended to leave the old studio building intact.

“This comes thanks to the work of many L.A. preservationists, among them the staff at the Corita Art Center, which is located just across the street in a complex of buildings still inhabited by the Immaculate Heart Community.

“ ‘The big question is what’s next,’ says the center’s director Nellie Scott. It’s too soon to say what the developers will do with the property — whether they would sell it or lease it for the purpose of an arts center. ‘We know that there are a thousand more conversations to happen.’ ”

So interesting that a nun used her natural gift in this way. I’m reminded of the French legend about the Juggler of Notre Dame, who was ridiculed for having nothing to give Mary but his juggling. In the story, her statue accepts the gift with a miraculous bow.

More at the Los Angeles Times, here.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments »

June 14 Is Flag Day

June 14, 2021 by suzannesmom

Photo: Library of Congress.
140th U.S. Flag Day poster. 1777-1917. The birthday of the stars and stripes, June 14th, 1917.

Did you know that today is Flag Day? For me, the US flag belongs to everyone who resides here and not to any small ideological group. (Does it happen in other countries that a rabid coterie usurps “ownership” of the national flag?)

I decided to write about the history of this day so you’ll know what’s going on if you see a lot of flags around town today.

Wikipedia says, “In the United States, Flag Day is celebrated on June 14. It commemorates the adoption of the flag of the United States on June 14, 1777, by resolution of the Second Continental Congress, [which] stated: ‘Resolved, That the flag of the thirteen United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation.’ …

“In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson issued a proclamation that officially established June 14 as Flag Day; on August 3, 1949, National Flag Day was established by an Act of Congress. Flag Day is not an official federal holiday. … However, it is at the president’s discretion to officially proclaim the observance. On June 14, 1937, Pennsylvania became the first U.S. State to celebrate Flag Day as a state holiday, beginning in the town of Rennerdale. New York Statutes designate the second Sunday in June as Flag Day, a state holiday.

“Perhaps the oldest continuing Flag Day parade is in Fairfield, Washington. Beginning in 1909 or 1910, Fairfield has held a parade every year since, with the possible exception of 1918, and celebrated the ‘Centennial’ parade in 2010, along with some other commemorative events. Appleton, Wisconsin, claims to be the oldest National Flag Day parade in the nation, held annually since 1950.

“Quincy, Massachusetts, has had an annual Flag Day parade since 1952 and claims it ‘is the longest-running parade of its kind’ in the U.S.,” but it didn’t happen in the pandemic.

The Patriot Ledger of May 5, 2021, wrote, “The city’s annual Flag Day celebration is back on for this year, with a few minor adjustments. 

“Quincy Mayor Thomas Koch said the much-loved parade will take place once again this June, but the annual flag raising ceremony has been canceled and fireworks have been moved to Quincy Bay. The parade will follow its usual route starting at 7 p.m. Saturday, June 12 and Koch said all of its usual participants have been asked to join in on the fun.

” ‘It may not be as robust as years past based on if our usual groups are ready, but I do expect we will have a decent parade,’ Koch said. ‘And by putting the fireworks in the bay, it spreads everybody out. At Black’s Creek, it’s hard to see them if you aren’t right there.’ 

“The city was forced to cancel its annual Flag Day parade in what would have been its 69th year due to the coronavirus pandemic. The tradition did not completely fall to the wayside, and the Flag Day Committee planned a ‘drive under the flag’ event that gave the city an opportunity to make use of its 30-by-50-foot American flag. The giant flag was hoisted by two Quincy Fire Department ladder trucks on Merrymount Parkway near Veterans Memorial Stadium, and residents drove under it with decorated vehicles cars, vans, small trucks and bikes.

“Koch said parade viewers this year will be encouraged to wear masks when they can’t socially distance.”

A WW II veteran I knew and generally admired once spoke of “fighting for the flag” as literally fighting for the flag. People died for the flag, he said. He did not understand about the literary term metonymy, in which an object is used to represent a concept, like referring to the British monarch as “the Crown.” I tried to say that a country’s flag represents the country and is not literally what people die for. He didn’t see it that way.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | 5 Comments »

Restaurateurs’ Free Meals

June 13, 2021 by suzannesmom

Photo: Zack’s Cafe via ABC3340.
At Zack’s Cafe in Miami, Oklahoma, receipts for pre-paid meals hang on the wall. Zack’s Cafe is among several local restaurants that enabled neighbors to help one another out during the pandemic.

Often in the past there has been restaurant outreach to hungry people who can’t afford a restaurant. I’ve covered a few instances at this blog. But there’s nothing like a pandemic to enable such efforts to really take off. An Oklahoma town, for example, found there was no shortage of customers who would donate meals so others less fortunate could eat.

Last month, Cathy Free wrote at the Washington Post, “In a growing number of restaurants in Oklahoma, the walls are decorated with hanging receipts. Anyone can walk in, pull down a receipt and order a meal free of charge. The receipts are put there by customers who prepay for food and tack them to the wall, leaving them on offer for anyone who is hungry.

“Since early February, restaurants in the northeastern corner of Oklahoma — in towns like Miami, Grove and Vinita — encourage people who are short on cash to pick up a prepaid meal receipt and enjoy everything from three-egg omelets to chicken-fried steak, no tips expected, no questions asked.

‘Maybe if we can show people what it’s like to take care of your neighbor during a time of need, it will spread throughout the United States,’ said Bless Parker, 51, the volunteer mayor of Miami (pronounced my-am-uh). ‘We want to bring back the old hometown values that I saw when I was growing up here as a kid.’

“During the historic Arctic blast earlier this year, Parker helped homeless people get into church shelters, and around that time he and others decided they needed to do something to help people who were having a tough time during the coronavirus pandemic in Miami, a former mining town with a population of about 13,000.

“Sandye Williams, an assistant manager at the Miami Walmart, said she remembered a story she had seen in 2019 about a restaurant in Arkansas where customers had bought meals in advance for those in need and posted the receipts on the wall for anyone to pick up.

“On Feb. 3, Williams tagged Dawg House restaurant owner Jennifer White in a post about the story, saying, ‘Look at this. I would pay for a meal once a week.’ …

“ ‘I loved the idea and thought I’d give it a try,’ said White, 28. ‘I want people in my community to be fed whether they have money for a meal or not.’

“When White posted a sign near the entrance inviting her customers to buy $10 meal receipts and post them on the cafe’s giving wall, word spread quickly in Miami, she said. …

“Hours after Parker’s receipt went up the wall, another local restaurant, Zack’s Cafe, decided to get on board with the idea. And a few days later, Montana Mike’s Steakhouse joined in. …

“The giving wall concept soon spread to surrounding towns, including Vinita, which has a population of 5,423, where Beth Hilburn runs the Hi-Way Cafe on historic Route 66.

“Hilburn, 52, said she invited her customers to buy something extra from the menu such as a slice of pie or a cheeseburger, then post their contribution beneath a sign she printed: ‘If you are hungry or know someone who is … these tickets have been paid for in advance by previous customers. Please grab a ticket and eat!’ …

“The restaurants’ Facebook pages have been flooded with comments about the giving walls from local customers and out-of-towners alike. ‘One of the main reasons I love our small town!’ a Miami resident commented on the Zack’s Cafe page. …

“Some of the free meal recipients have returned to put a meal ticket on the wall to help somebody else once they’re able to, Perry said. She estimates that more than 300 free meals have been ordered at Zack’s. …

“At Montana Mike’s, general manager Jennifer Highton said she recently took a phone call from a man in Chicago who wanted to purchase several meals and add them to the wall.

“ ‘He’s never been here and doesn’t know anything about us, but he loved the idea and wanted to be a part of it,’ said Highton.”

More at the Washington Post.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | 5 Comments »

Protecting the Nile from Plastic

June 12, 2021 by suzannesmom

Photo: Reuters.
An Egyptian nonprofit has enlisted fishermen from Al-Qursaya, an island near central Cairo, to collect plastics that have been reducing the catch.

At the Center for Biological Diversity, I recently learned about the enormity of the plastics problem in waters where people fish. The website states: “Plastic accumulating in our oceans and on our beaches has become a global crisis. Billions of pounds of plastic can be found in swirling convergences that make up about 40 percent of the world’s ocean surfaces. At current rates, plastic is expected to outweigh all the fish in the sea by 2050.” Yikes!

New efforts large and small are needed to reverse what’s happening. On Twitter, the World Economic Forum is promoting one of the small efforts, which is how I learned about it.

Reuters reports, “For 17 years, Mohamed Nasar has supported his family of five by fishing in the Nile River near the banks of the tiny island of Al-Qursaya close to central Cairo.

“But the 58-year-old says fishermen like himself catch fewer fish every year as the Nile has become clogged with plastic bottles, bags and other waste.

‘The fish get caught in the bottles, and they die,’ said Nasar.

“A local environmental group named ‘VeryNile‘ has asked the island’s fishermen to use their boats to collect plastic bottles from the river. VeryNile says it buys the bottles at a higher price than the general market price on offer from traders or recycling plants.

“The initiative provides a sustainable solution for helping to clean up the Nile, while providing an additional source of income for fisherman like Nasar.

” ‘This job helped us a bit. We come and collect about 10 to 15 kilos (of plastic bottles), we get about 12 Egyptian pounds ($0.7682) for each,’ Nasar said as he sat in his boat collecting bottles. …

“Another fisherman, Saeed Hassanein, said cleaner Nile water would mean more fish.

” ‘On the one hand, the Nile is cleaner, and on the other hand the fisherman now has more than one source of income,’ he said.

“With the help of more than 40 fishermen, VeryNile has over the past year collected around 18 tons of plastic bottles, most of which were sold to recyclers.” More at Reuters, here.

The World Economic Forum, which defines itself as the “international organization for public-private cooperation,” is increasingly focused on addressing the consequences of global warming, and I hope it is serious about that. It’s easy to feel cynical about the forum’s annual conference for the world’s rich and powerful — called Davos because it takes place in Davos, Switzerland — but I have to believe it’s helping to make both the problems and the possible solutions more widely accepted. Besides, I know there are many altruistic people on the staff, like my friend Kai, who was one of them several years ago.

In a recent podcast, Radio Davos discusses initiatives tackling climate change, calling the current decade “the decade of ocean science, and one in which we must get on track for net-zero by 2050.”

So there’s that. Meanwhile, in Egypt, impoverished fishermen are pulling out plastic that corporations, cruise ships, and too many individuals keep dumping.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | 9 Comments »

Animals as Social Influencers

June 11, 2021 by suzannesmom

Photo: Chimfunshi Wildlife Orphanage.
Above is a chimpanzee in the Chimfunshi wildlife sanctuary in Zambia, where an influencer chimp began a tradition of wearing a blade of grass in the ear, a style that continued after her death.

I’ve been thinking about social influencers and whether I can identify contemporary influences that have affected what I do. I know that if someone describes a book in a way that makes it sound like my kind of thing, I go immediately to my library’s website and reserve it. In another example, my behavior is hugely influenced by articles on the latest Covid research. And I’m always joining boycotts to help a worthy cause someone is promoting.

So I thought it was interesting to learn how creatures other than humans do influencing — from silly behaviors to life-and-death behaviors.

Natalie Angier at the New York Times begins with a chimpanzee. “Julia, her friends and family agreed, had style. When, out of the blue, the 18-year-old chimpanzee began inserting long, stiff blades of grass into one or both ears and then went about her day with her new statement accessories clearly visible to the world, the other chimpanzees at the Chimfunshi wildlife sanctuary in Zambia were dazzled.

“Pretty soon, they were trying it, too: first her son, then her two closest female friends, then a male friend, out to eight of the 10 chimps in the group, all of them struggling, in front of Julia the Influencer — and hidden video cameras — to get the grass-in-the-ear routine just right.

” ‘It was quite funny to see,’ said Edwin van Leeuwen of the University of Antwerp, who studies animal culture. ‘They tried again and again without success. They shivered through their whole bodies.’ …

“Julia died more than two years ago, yet her grassy-ear routine — a tradition that arose spontaneously, spread through social networks and skirts uncomfortably close to a human meme or fad — lives on among her followers in the sanctuary. The behavior is just one of many surprising examples of animal culture that researchers have lately divulged, as a vivid summary makes clear in a recent issue of Science. …

“ ‘If you define culture as a set of behaviors shared by a group and transmitted through the group by social learning, then you find that it’s widespread in the animal kingdom,’ said Andrew Whiten, a psychologist and neuroscientist at the University of St. Andrews, in Scotland, and the author of the Science review. ‘You see it from primates and cetaceans, to birds and fish, and now we even find it in insects.’

“Culture ‘is another inheritance mechanism, like genes,’ Hal Whitehead of Dalhousie University, who studies culture in whales, said. ‘It’s another way that information can flow through a population.’ … Genes lumber, but culture soars. In 1980, for example, an observant humpback whale discovered that by smacking its tail hard against the water, the tiny fish on which it preyed were prompted to ball up into tidy packages fit for comparatively easy capture and consumption. The enhanced hunting technique, called lobtail feeding, quickly spread along known lines of humpback social groups, aided, researchers suspect, by the cetacean talent for acrobatic mimicry among members of a pod. Today, more than 600 humpbacks are lobtail feeders. …

“Sperm whales likewise used crowdsourcing to outwit Ahab. In a new study examining whaling logs from the 19th century, Dr. Whitehead and his colleagues determined that when New England whalers first started hunting a naïve population of sperm whales in the north Pacific, they were essentially harpooning fish in a barrel, harvesting untold gallons of the fine spermaceti oil contained in the whale’s distinctive top hat of an acoustical organ. In just three to five years, however, long before the whalers had made a dent in the whale population, their hunting success rate had plunged by nearly 60 percent. …

“Some differences between animal tribes make sense only if viewed through a cultural lens. Liran Samuni, a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard, and her colleagues have been following two neighboring groups of bonobos in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The home ranges of the chimpanzee-like apes overlap considerably … but there is a salient distinction between them. Once or twice a month, bonobos supplement their vegetarian diet with meat, and when these two troops turn carnivorous, they seek out different prey. One group goes after anomalures, which resemble flying squirrels, while the other hunts small antelopes called duikers. ‘No matter where they are, even when the group is together, they maintain the preference,’ Dr. Samuni said. …

“Peter Richerson of the University of California at Davis, who studies the coevolution of genes and culture in humans … is particularly impressed by recent research showing that animal migrations, long considered the essence of mindless instinct in motion, are, in fact, culturally determined. ‘Mountain sheep have to learn their migrations from other sheep,’ he said. Whooping cranes are long-distance migrators, and when their numbers declined so precipitously that there were no adult birds to teach young birds the route, conservationists stepped in and used ultralight airplanes as whooping crane tutors. Even farm animals can be repositories of cultural wisdom, as ranchers discover when they precipitously sell off their entire herd.”

More at the Times, here.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »