Space news for the Vernal Equinox

Today is the Vernal or Spring Equinox.  To mark the occasion, I'm promoting a news item that doesn't move into the featured spot.

University of Massachusetts: UMass Amherst Sunwheel and Sky-Watching Events Mark the Spring Equinox on March 20
March 12, 2014

AMHERST, Mass. – The public is invited to witness sunrise and sunset associated with the spring equinox among the standing stones of the UMass Amherst Sunwheel on Thursday, March 20 at 6:45 a.m. and 6 p.m. These Sunwheel events mark the astronomical change of seasons when days and nights are nearly equal in length.

At the gatherings, which have attracted more than 10,000 visitors over the past 17 years, local Sunwheel enthusiasts Michelle and Andy Morris-Friedman will discuss the astronomical cause of the sun’s changing position during the hour-long gatherings. They will also explain the seasonal positions of Earth, the sun and moon, phases of the moon, building the Sunwheel, and answer questions about astronomy.

The exact time of the vernal equinox this year is 12:57 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time. This ushers in the beginning of spring and is also the day the sun rises into the sky to be visible for six months as seen from the North Pole, and the day it sets for six months as seen from the South Pole.

Happy Equinox!

Follow over the jump for the rest of last week's space news.

Blackfish: unexpected sustainability at Tipsy Bartender

While watching the outtakes for the videos in Holiday leftovers from DNews and Tipsy Bartender, I found an unexpected sustainability moment in Outtakes Nutella Fireball Christmas.


Yes, Inna wished for zoos to be shut down and the animals released.  I can sympathize with her, although I can make a case for the value of zoos as both institutions of both education and conservation.*  What I found even more noteworthy was the Tipsy Bartender's recommendation of "Blackfish," the documentary that expands on the topic of The ethics of orcas as entertainment.  Here's the official trailer for the film.

BLACKFISH tells the story of Tilikum, a notoriously aggressive orca that killed three people while in captivity. Director Gabriela Cowperthwaite uses shocking footage and emotional interviews to present a convincing case against keeping these wild animals for human entertainment.

CNN is one of distributors of the movie and here is their segment promoting the film: "Blackfish" looks at whales in captivity.

The documentary "Blackfish" examines the treatment and well-being of killer whales in captivity.

I recommended this film to my environmental science students yesterday for extra credit.  I also warned them that this will be an uphill battle, as Americans love their entertainment and don't want it messed with.  As my friend Nebris has described my observations about the topic, I have written repeatedly that "Americans will take all manner of social, economic and political abuse, but will rise up with righteous fury when you disturb their Entertainment."  I told my students that, too.

*That written, I told my students that I thought it was a good idea that the Detroit Zoo gave up its elephants.  Unlike most other animals, elephants live shorter lives in captivity than in the wild, so it made no conservation sense to keep them.  Yes, people miss them, but there are animals that can be just as entertaining and educational and will actually benefit from being kept.

Also, one of my resolutions last year was to became a member of the zoo.  I didn't follow through.  I've rolled that over to one of this year's promises.  Here's to keeping it.

Food and drink news from the ancient world

I concluded Food Day on campus with this throwaway program note.

As a parting shot, I might just post another installment of food (and drink) news from the ancient world at midnight.  Stay tuned.

As you can see, I've followed through.  Follow over the jump for food stories from archeology and history from the past three months of Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday on Daily Kos.

The science and math of sports from campuses on the campaign trail

Last month, I kicked off my series of entries featuring research and outreach stories from campuses on the campaign trail with Sports news for a football Saturday.   Today, I continue the series with two more articles about the intersection of sports and academia from Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday (IPCC report released) and Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday (2013 Nobel Prizes).

University of Massachusetts, Lowell: University’s Baseball Research Lab Featured in National Geographic
By Edwin L. Aguirre
09/17/2013

As baseball fans know, nothing beats the sight and sound of a player’s bat solidly hitting the ball, sending it flying off into the bleachers and beyond for a home run.

But do you know what happens to the wooden bat when it strikes the ball?

“A 90-miles-per-hour pitch impacting a bat swinging at 70 miles per hour can exert a force greater than 8,000 pounds,” says Patrick Drane, assistant director of the University’s Baseball Research Center.

“This peak force is exerted for a small fraction of the 1,000th of a second that the ball and bat are in contact,” explains Drane. “When the ball impacts away from the bat’s ‘sweet spot,’ much of the energy goes into vibrating the bat. These vibrations can cause even the strongest of woods to break.”

University of North Carolina at Charlotte: Charlotte Teachers Institute Tackles ‘Sports by the Numbers
Panel to discuss math and sports during 'Exploding Canons' speakers series

CHARLOTTE – Oct. 01, 2013 - Ever calculated the odds behind whether your favorite team should punt or go for it – or who’s really number one? Charlotte Teachers Institute will tackle these and other tough questions related to the intersection of sports and math in its “Exploding Canons” event on Tuesday, Oct. 22.

This next installment of CTI’s flagship speakers series will take place from 5:30 to 8 p.m. at UNC Charlotte’s EPIC Building, next to the new Jerry Richardson Stadium, on the university’s main campus.

In “Exploding Canons: Sports by the Numbers,” faculty from Davidson College, UNC Charlotte and Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools and professional sports statisticians will offer perspectives on how athletes, coaches, teams, economists, teachers and others use numbers and data in sports performance, development, analysis and decision-making. Sponsored by Piedmont Natural Gas Foundation with additional support from the Charlotte Bobcats, the public event is free. All attendees also will receive special ticket offers from the Charlotte Bobcats and the Charlotte Checkers.

Yes, sports can be educational, especially during fall, the season of major league baseball playoffs and football games.

Hot: Biodiversity and climate from historical documents

I found another example of sustainbility in unexpected places among the stories I included in last night's Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday (Atlantic Hurricane Season forecast) on Daily Kos.  Both involved scientists examining unorthodox documentary sources to determine the history of biodiversity in two parts of the world.  First, Virginia Gewin of Nature explained how Ancient art fills in Egypt's ecological history.

Mammal populations shrank during three abrupt climate shifts over the past 6,000 years.

Ancient Egyptian rock inscriptions and cavings on pharaonic tombs chronicle hartebeest and oryx — horned beasts that thrived in the region more than 6,000 years ago. Researchers have now shown that those mammal populations became unstable in concert with significant shifts in Egypt’s climate.

The finding is based on a fresh interpretation of an archaeological and palaeontological record of ancient Egyptian mammals pieced together more than a decade ago by the zoologist Dale Osborn. Thirty-eight large-bodied mammals existed in Egypt roughly six millennia ago, compared to just eight species today.

“There are interesting stories buried in the data — at the congruence of the artistic and written record,” says Justin Yeakel, an ecologist at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, British Columbia, who presented the research this week at the annual meeting of the Ecological Society of America in Minneapolis, Minnesota. For example, the philosopher Aristotle said 2,300 years ago that lions were present, though rare, in Greece; shortly thereafter, the beasts appeared in the local art record for the last time, Yeakel says.

Overlaying records of climate and species occurrences over time, his team found that three dramatic declines in Egypt’s ratio of predators to prey coincided with abrupt climate shifts to more arid conditions. The timing of these aridification events also corresponds to major shifts in human populations at the end of the African Humid Period, about 5,500 years ago; during the Akkadian collapse, about 4,140 years ago in what is now Iraq; and about 3,100 years ago, when the Ugaritic civilization collapsed in what is now Syria.

One of the points I make to my students every semester is that humans plus climate change equal extinctions.  This article supports that point.

The other article examined more recent events on the other side of the planet, as Christopher Joyce of NPR described how Old Hawaiian Menus Tell Story Of Local Fish And Their Demise

In the early to mid-1900s, the islands of Hawaii were a far-away, exotic destination. People who managed to get there often kept mementos of that journey including kitschy menus from Hawaiian fine dining restaurants and hotels like like Trader Vic's and Prince Kuhio's.

Now these old menus are serving a purpose beyond colorful relics from the past.  Kyle Van Houtan, an ecologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, says he's found a scientific purpose for the menus.

Years ago, he traveled to Hawaii to study sea turtles. He wanted to know where they ended up. In a shark's belly? Or as turtle soup?

One day he got one of those lightning-bolt ideas: Maybe turtle would show on old restaurant menus? Over time, he collected 500 menus.

Turtles didn't show up on the menus, which went back as far as 1915.  However, he detected a shift from near-shore fish like snapper, flounder, and grouper before World War II to open-ocean fish like tuna and swordfish, along with lobster flown in from the east coast of the mainland.  His interpretation was that overfishing or pollution was affecting the selection on the menus as much or more than changing tastes of both the islanders and tourists.

Both articles demonstrate that one should look at all available sources of information, even the unexpected ones.  One never knows what will come in handy!

HOUR Detroit displays its green thumb

What was yesterday's prompt?

Wednesday, April 10, 2013
Do you have a green thumb?

I don't think so, not if the best I can do is mow the lawn and grow tomatoes.  Tomatoes are really easy; all I have to do is weed, water, and get out of the way.  Instead of writing about my mediocre attempts at gardening, I'll discuss a local publication's efforts to promote green efforts to improve Detroit.


This month, HOUR Detroit features six articles describing progress Toward a Leaner, Greener Detroit.  The introduction points out two important ideas that appear to contradict themselves, although they complement each other.  First, the article notes that vacant land is simultaneously the city's biggest liability and biggest asset.  It also observes that the efforts to address this paradox come mostly from individuals, businesses, and volunteer groups while city government watches from the sidelines.

While gridlock grips the halls populated by elected officials, progress grinds on largely because of the efforts of neighborhood block clubs, nonprofit organizations, private businesses, and everyday Detroiters laying claim to their own destinies. Thanks to the Detroit Future City plan, this patchwork of doers now has a unified vision to work toward.

Part of the vision relies on turning the land — plagued today by high vacancy and blight — into the asset that it can become with a little imagination and a lot of sweat. Noting the inefficiency of the single-family homes that Detroit is known for, with their expensive, “over-scaled” infrastructures, the framework imagines a city of more diverse housing in “a canvas of green”: open green space, urban woodlands, ponds, streams, and urban farms and gardens. Naturally flowering meadows could eventually give way to forests. The plan envisions productive landscapes that clean the soil and air and help alleviate storm-water runoff, lessening the burden on Detroit’s aging sewer system. “Green buffers” of trees would hug the major highways, decreasing noise and traffic pollution to the surrounding neighborhoods.

Follow over the jump for a guide to the other five articles that detail this vision and the people trying to make it come to life.

Science Crime Scenes 4: Plagiarism, mysteries, and the usual looting and vandalism

It's time for another installment of stories about crimes against science and culture that I originally reported in Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday (Opening of London Olympics edition) on Daily Kos. All of them have official investigations, whether to restore ill-gotten goods, prevent their loss, or simply to find out the truth. Some have the involvement of police, and others should. As with the three previous editions, most of these stories are about archeology, largely because of the amount of looting and vandalism rampant among cultural artifacts. The lead story, however is about academic misconduct at the highest levels of government, and I mean that quite literally.

Nature (UK): Conflicting verdicts on Romanian prime minister's plagiarism
Victor Ponta cleared of misconduct by government ethics board, but charges reaffirmed by university.
Quirin Schiermeier
20 July 2012

Two investigations into the case of alleged plagiarism by Romania’s prime minister, Victor Ponta, have reached opposite conclusions, ramping up the tension in a fierce struggle over political power in Bucharest.

Ponta stands accused of having copied large sections of his 2003 PhD thesis on the International Criminal Court.

On Thursday, Romania’s 11-strong National Ethics Council (NEC) rejected the plagiarism charges against Ponta, first reported by Nature last month (see 'Romanian prime minister accused of plagiarism'). One day later, a 13-member ethics commission set up by the University of Bucharest — which awarded Ponta his PhD — reaffirmed the charges.

As someone who earned a Ph.D., these are serious charges that could result in his degree being revoked. However, the article indicates that isn't likely to happen. Just the same, his degree will be permanently tainted. Good thing for Dr.--for now--Ponta that probably won't prevent him from having a career of some sort, even an academic one, when he retires from politics.

More over the jump.

Science crime scenes 3: Restitution and crime prevention

Time for another installment of stories about crimes against science and culture. All of them have official investigations, whether to restore ill-gotten goods or to prevent their loss. Some even have the involvement of police. As with the two previous editions, these stories are about archeology, largely because of the amount of looting and vandalism rampant among cultural artifacts.

Without any further ado, here are the stories from Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday (Two space anniversaries edition) on Daily Kos that qualified as science crime scenes. Follow over the jump.

Science Crime Scenes 2: Timbuktu

I have two more articles on the story I covered in the first installment of the series, which I used to lead off Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday (Bastille Day edition). Both of the articles are from Agence France Presse by way of Al-Ahram (Egypt) and Google.

Mali Islamists destroy tombs at ancient Timbuktu mosque
Armed with hoes, pick-axes and chisels, the Islamists who control northern Mali are accused of destroying all World Heritage sites in the region after destroying tombs in an ancient mosque
AFP
Tuesday 10 Jul 2012

The Islamists controlling northern Mali on Tuesday destroyed two tombs at the ancient Djingareyber mosque in fabled Timbuktu, vowing to destroy all World Heritage sites in the region.

Armed with hoes, pick-axes and chisels, members of Ansar Dine (Defenders of Faith) hammered away at the two earthen tombs until they were completely destroyed, witnesses told AFP.

"Currently the Islamists are busy destroying two tombs of Timbuktu's great Djingareyber mosque. They are shooting in the air to chase away the crowd, to scare them," one witness said earlier as the rampage began.

"The two mausolea are adjacent to the western wall of the great mosque and the Islamists have hoes, chisels, they are hitting the mausolea which are made out of packed earth," said a source close to the mosque's imam.

"They say they will destroy everything."

Al Qaeda in Mali is making the same mistake that the Taliban did in Afghanistan when they defaced the Buddha statues, except they're doing it to other members of their own faith. That's the sign of kooks: practice your mistakes; you may get them right. Fortunately, saner heads have prevailed.

Agence France Presse: Timbuktu Arabs set up armed watch at ancient tombs
(AFP) – 3 days ago

BAMAKO — Members of Timbuktu's Arab community said Wednesday they have set up an armed brigade to prevent further destruction of the tombs of ancient Muslim saints by Islamists occupying northern Mali.

"Today we have a vigilance brigade so that no one touches the mausolea of Araouane and Gasser-Cheick," said Tahel Ould Sidy, leader of the unit, referring to two tombs in the greater Timbuktu region.

Denise Oliver Velez of Daily Kos also summarized the situation in Desecration and destruction in Timbuktu. In addition to a mosque, tomb, and World Heritage Site, the diary describes the place's history as a university. It also mentions that Timbuktu is also the repository of many valuable manuscripts, which means that preserving the area from looters and vandals is the same as protecting libraries, something I've been keen on from the first post on this blog. I don't like it here in Michigan, and I don't like it on the other side of the planet, either.

Follow over the jump for videos of this story and a bonus crime scene.

Science crime scenes 1

Time for a new series, beginning with the stories from Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday (Higgs boson and heat wave edition) on Daily Kos that already have police investigations or should have them. It should come as no surprise, because of the amount of looting and vandalism, that many of these stories involve archeology. Thus, they qualify as examples of sustainability in unexpected places.

I'll begin with one of those archeology stories.

Voice of America: Mali Islamists Destroy Ancient Timbuktu Sites
Posted Monday, July 2nd, 2012 at 5:45 pm

Islamist militants in Mali's historic city Timbuktu destroyed and damaged ancient sites for a third straight day, defying international threats of prosecution.

Witnesses say the al-Qaida-linked group Ansar Dine targeted the 15th-century Sidi Yahya mosque on Monday, tearing off the entrance door. The door is considered sacred and was to remain closed until the end of the world.

I wonder what the reaction of the Islamists would be if they were told that they were contributing to a pagan end of the world prophesy? They'd probably either laugh or kill the messenger--maybe even both.

This isn't the first time something like this has happened. The Taliban blew up statues of the Buddha in Afghanistan 11 years ago, just before September 11th. Looks like the Islamists aren't any more tolerant of variants of their own faith than they are of other faiths and they aren't kidding around about it, either.

More over the jump.

Travel is broadening, even the reading

I've just finished being on the road for two-and-a-half weeks out of the past four, so I have more travel-related sustainability stories than I could tell in a single blog post. In fact, it would probably take a month's worth of posts scattered over the next year to recount all the notable incidents and information.

That written, each of the two trips yielded fascinating discoveries of articles about sustainability in unexpected places.

My first discovery was in a bookstore in Mexico City's International Airport, where I ran into Monacle, a very high-end magazine that I'd never heard of before. The cover story of the issue on the stands was about the global future of food. Here's the blurb from the issue page.

Opener: The Future of Food - Global
Can "big food" companies help chart a fresh future for food retail? Or are supermarkets always bad?

I loved the article and thought seriously about buying the magazine, but found out that I would have had to pay the peso equivalent of more than $20 instead of the cover price of $10, so I passed. Even so, a great find.

I saw the second while waiting in a hair salon in Plainsboro, New Jersey. Instead of settling for the sports magazines in the waiting room, I searched for something a little more challenging. I found it in an issue of Entrepreneur, which featured a series of articles on local food becoming a major economic sector. Here's the conclusion of Editor's Note: The New Food Chain by Amy Cosper.

Sometimes entire economies need reinventing, which is increasingly apparent as we watch ours take a global pounding. Housing and jobs reports sound as gloomy as a Pink Floyd album. It's time to step back and reimagine the possibilities of what we can be--to stop trying to re-create what we were. It's time to take a decidedly more entrepreneurial approach to how we view our economy.

That means we must avert our gaze from the political proscenium and refocus on possibilities--specifically, possibilities in local economies. This month we look at a sector doing just that. With a solid nod to dirt, soil and manure, we explore local farming, farm-to-table, locavores--trends that are helping define a new local economy.

If you've been reading Crazy Eddie's Motie News for a while, you'll see this is right up my alley, so of course I read the featured articles. Here are the links to them.

How the Farm-to-Table Movement Is Helping Grow the Economy

Two Urban Farmers Test the 'Eat Local' Business

I highly recommend reading both of them.

I was so taken by the articles that I asked the shop owner if I could take the issue home with me. To my pleasant surprise, she said yes. Free magazine! That certainly made up for the overpriced copy of Monocle that I passed up in Mexico City.

Sustainability news for the week ending 10/15/11

Yes, I eventually got around to reinstituting the sustainability news linkspams. With the revival of the series, I've replaced the sustainability spheres logo I was using before with the new one I promised I'd use a long time ago. Note that I've moved technology from the environment section to the economy section, in accordance with the new logo.

Most of the stories below were orginally posted in Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday (Sweetest Day 2011 edition) on Daily Kos.

General Sustainability

Agence France Presse via physorg.com: BP, Transocean, Halliburton cited for violations
October 13, 2011

The US government slapped BP, Transocean and Halliburton with citations for violating oil industry regulations in what is expected to lead to massive fines for the deadly 2010 oil spill.

The decision to also cite BP's subcontractors could strengthen the British energy giant's legal case for recovering some of the multi-billion dollar costs of the spill from Halliburton, which performed the cement job, and drilling rig owner Transocean.

"The issuance today of notices of non-compliance to BP, Transocean and Halliburton makes clear that contractors, like operators, are responsible for properly conducting their deepwater drilling activities and are accountable to the US government and the American public for their conduct," BP said in a statement.

"We continue to encourage other parties, including Transocean and Halliburton, to acknowledge their responsibilities in the accident, make changes to help prevent similar accidents in the future, and step forward to fulfill their obligations to Gulf communities."

This story is really at the intersection of society and economics, but I used it as the headline story on Daily Kos last night, so it gets pride of place here.

Daily Kos: Scientists Revolt
by notdarkyet

Why do Republicans even spend money on scientific studies when they don’t believe in science? Do they have them done just so they can do some creative writing in the name of science, like they did with history? If that was the intention of Texas’ attempt to purge a scientific study on Galveston Bay of the words “climate change”, then they have set in motion the law of unintended consequences. Scientists are revolting at being made climate change denial pawns in disregard to the evidence.

Science, politics, and economics all intersect in this diary, which quotes an article in The Guardian.

Sustainability in unexpected places: archeology 2

In my overnight post on Science and society, I wrote:

There will be a part four, which will be the second in a series that began with Sustainability in unexpected places: archeology 1. Yes, I really did run into that many archeology articles with a sustainability slant in one week.

Without any further ado, it's time for the linkspam.

General Sustainability

Archeology News Network on Blogspot: Ethiopian lake reveals history of African droughts
Posted by TANN 4:49 PM

A new survey of Lake Tana in Ethiopia – the source of the Blue Nile – suggests that drought may have contributed to the demise of the Egyptian Old Kingdom, around 4200 years ago.

A team led by the University of Aberystwyth used seismic surveys and sediment cores to work out how the lake's water levels has varied over the past 17,000 years and linked this to evidence for global climate change.

Understanding how and why rainfall patterns change is particularly important for sub-Saharan Africa, where prolonged droughts have such serious social and economic consequences.

In Chile, superheroes dance against austerity

Video accompanies The Daily Telegraph's article Chile superheroes dance for education reform
Hundreds of caped avengers dance in downtown Santiago, as part of a demonstration for education changes.

After being bummed by Borders going out of business, I could use something like the above to cheer me up. Not only is it a demonstration by young people against austerity (the students want lower tuition and cheaper bus passes), something we've seen from Cairo to London, it's a creative and fun way to attract attention and get the point across. In fact, the students in Chile have been particularly creative, as the BBC video about this story shows, as they also staged a kissing protest. The BBC video, in fact, gives a lot more context than the one above, but I couldn't find an embed code for it, so The Telegraph wins.

As for how the story is being covered in the U.S., I present the lede from NBC 9 News in Colorado.

Wonder Woman, Batman and Superman demonstrated for education reform in Chile Monday night.

I saw more than just those the big three from DC Comics. I also recognized Huntress, Sailor Moon, and Mario from the Mario Brothers video games. It was a true geek riot.

I salute the Chilean students, who are swimming against the stream while flying their geek flag high!

Sustainability video linkspam for the week ending June 25, 2011

I made the following programming note yesterday.

Yes, you get a meal of leftovers tonight, but feeding it to you all clears the way for a fresh linkspam of local news tomorrow, some videos I've been sitting on, and more coverage of stories I've been following, such as the ongoing saga of gas prices and the economy.

As I watch videos pop up on my YouTube subscription list, I save them to my Motie News playlist. Nearly all the videos that I've used on this blog are in it. When I went back to look at the list, it turned out that I had enough for a complete linkspam. Here it is, including some videos on the playlist that I've had in the backlog since May.

General Sustainability

Peak Moment 196: "Petroleum Man is dead. Infinite Growth Man is dead. Post Petroleum Human is alive," announced Michael C. Ruppert on May 22, 2011. Members of this emerging "species" know they must live in balance with the Earth, while remembering the lessons of industrial civilization. The star and subject of the documentary "Collapse", Mike founded CollapseNet.com in 2010 to empower people to connect and relocalize.

Ruppert plays almost as big a role in "The End of Suburbia" as Kunstler. Should my students ask what he's doing these days, seven years after "The End of Suburbia" was filmed, I can show them this clip.

Also, Peak Oil is one of the defining sustainability issues of our time, even more than climate change. Of course, the two are intimately connected, but I'm with Kunstler, Ruppert, and others that Peak Oil and its consequences are more likely to cause collapse than climate change.

Speaking of climate change...

Environment, including science and technology

With rising temperatures, extended fire seasons and foreign plant species threatening some of California's most treasured parks, Jarvis discusses actions underway to respond to the crisis.

As a former national park ranger, and a lifelong fan of national parks, I see the problems of the national parks as a good example of how our natural capital is at risk from climate change.

Kirk Goldsberry, assistant professor in the Department of Geography, talks about creating informational graphics and maps to help convey information.

Pay attention to the maps showing the difference in access to produce in Greater Lansing for people who walk and people who drive. Yes, this is old, but it's worth watching.

Society, including culture and politics

M

Ta Da! Today is the day you've been waiting for! The brand new Weather Girls for May. Watch the Sunday eco-friendly angel Kitty bring you the the weather and words of wisdom.

This video from May 1st kicked off a month of green-themed dancing girls, another example of sustainability in unexpected places.

Now, to make up for the above video, I present the following.

It is a movement against the belief that any aspect of a woman's appearance might explain or excuse rape.

Remember, the social component of sustainability is about promoting a just society. So is the movement described above.

Also, this happened in Grand Rapids? I'll have to search to see if this was the first one in Michigan. I'd be surprised if Grand Rapids beat out Ann Arbor.

Economy

The Nation Institute's Chris Hedges and author of his most recent book, The World As It Is: Dispatches on the Myth of Human Progress says the world as we know it is coming to an end. And what follows won't be pleasant or easy. But that the revolution must start, in America. Hedges joins the show to explain.

I could have posted this video right after the Peak Moment video featuring Ruppert, but there is more of an economic focus in this one. By the way, what Hedges describes is both Kunstler's "Consensus Trance" and Bageant's "The Hologram," both of which are worthy of their own posts.

Speaking of dissident voices on economics from Russia Today, here's Matt Taibbi in a video from about a month ago.

RT's Anastasia Churkina sits down with Matt Taibbi - journalist, author and contributing editor to Rolling Stone magazine.

Why is it that our best muckraking reporting on economics and politics is being published in a music magazine? Think about that one, and tie it into what Hedges says above. I'll get back to you on that one.

Chrysler new paint shop

And now, some good local economic news that ties back to investment in technology, completing the circle.

Time to go to work!

Sustainability in unexpected places: archeology 1

In Sustainability news from Michigan's research universities for the week ending June 25, 2011, I made the following scheduling note.

There will be a bonus part four, sustainability stories from archeology.*
...
*Yes, archeology. I make a point of finding sustainability stories in the strangest places. In the lecture on sustainability I give to my students, I present a list of the usual suspects, such as food, energy, and water, and then include tourism. Trust me, I can find sustainability in almost any issue, including war.

In Sustainability news from midwestern research universities for the week ending June 25, 2011, I changed my mind about the order in which I'd post this entry.

As for what's up next, I think it will be the sustainability in archeology post. I have all the articles I need for that one. Part three proper requires some filling out, just like last week's part three, so it will have to wait.

As for why archeology, other than my wanting to make a point that one can find sustainability angles in almost any subject (one of these days, I'll post about sustainability in reality TV; that should be a hoot, but don't hold your breaths, as it could be more than a year before I get around to it), I have other reasons. First, it's a good way to show that sustainability issues, environmental, social, or economic, have been around a long time. Second, archeology makes for an example of a cultural issue in sustainability in its own right, both in terms of maintaining a rich and diverse culture and in terms of promoting a bearable built environment. Finally, I have a rich source of archeology articles to use. A poster who goes by the name of annetteboardman on Daily Kos has been sending me archeology articles for Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday for more than two years. The convenience alone would explain why I chose to blog about sustainability in archeology first.

If some of these articles look familiar, it's because I included them in Weekly roundup and sustainability news from national commercial sources for the week ending June 11, 2011. The rest were first posted in Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday (Summer Solstice 2011 edition). Hey, I'm an environmentalist. I recycle.