Author Archives: Hue White

Having lost two cats this year, we (Deb & I) sooth our sadness with some beautiful blooms.

The play Glensheen is at the History Theatre in St. Paul, and for those of you not familiar with Minnesota, Glensheen, along with being name of an estate in the port city of Duluth, on Lake Superior, is also a code-word for the famous Congdon murders, in which heiress Elizabeth Congdon and her nurse were murdered one night, a crime pinned on her son-in-law and, while not convicted, her adopted daughter.

This play is a musical presentation of the events, more or less in chronological order: introduction to both adopted daughters (the play gives out that the old lady was infertile), the introduction of Marjorie, the “bad” daughter, to her future husband at a meeting for single parents (it’s not mentioned in the play, but at this point Marjorie had seven children and divorced after 20 years of marriage). A whirlwind romance and marriage, followed by a rebuffed request for money to buy a ranch, followed by the actual murder: all put to music by Chan Poling. Such is the first act.

The second act details the blowback: arrests, trials, guilty and not guilty, and more importantly the narcissism of Marjorie, her callous use of her husband, and the later arrests and convictions for other crimes; and the revelation of sociopathy.

In terms of performance, this is well done. The stage is multiple use without requiring actual modification, and does not squeak in protest to movement. However, if you go, avoid seats on the extreme left, as this is also the residence of the orchestra, and we definitely had trouble hearing the lyrics over the admittedly talented instrumentalists. Lighting seemed well done, and I think a more reasonable seating selection would have enabled us to hear the lyrics very clearly.

And the performances were quite sound, from the trust’s board who denies financing to Marjorie to Marjorie and her new husband, Roger, each is a well-drawn, quirky character. But the standout is the actress behind the victim, Elizabeth Congdon, as well as the character loosely based on Ron Meshbesher, who defended Marjorie in the initial murder trial, and one or two others. I suspect this is Ruthie Baker, but the History Theatre is not explicit with the casting. She was inspiring through contrast, starting with the sober little old lady Elizabeth (84 when murdered), which sets us up when she plays the loud, colorful defense attorney, and a couple of others. She’s a treat.

But in terms of the treatment of the subject matter … I’m bothered that a brutal, callous double murder is treated quite so lightly. Perhaps I’m overly sober these days, but it seems a little disrespectful of the victims. I’ll mitigate this remark by saying the murdered nurse, Velma, has one set piece dedicated to her, and it was a very respectful piece, devoid of the humor supporting the other musical numbers.

More importantly, this was an entertainment, not an insight. Its a simple recounting of events, with music and singing and clevernesss, but there is little insight to the murder. So Marjorie is a sociopath – so what? Was the sociopathy a result of her upbringing, or genetic? We have no clue. Roger was easily manipulated – maybe that’s of interest? Yet we’re not even sure of the accuracy of his conviction, as his eventual post-trial confession was motivated by the offer of an immediate release from jail. Why did he commit suicide later? And what of her children, barely noticed in the play – do they have similar behavior patterns, or are they … normal?

I suppose this is best described as a cautionary lesson of some sort: don’t let your children kill you, or your sad deaths may be celebrated in song and dance. Which, in some ways, is not a bad way to be remembered.

Pasted from my FB account:

For the Phans of Phanny, I must deliver the news that our lovely Calico has passed on to her next adventure. In the last 24 hours she had stopped eating and drinking, and became too weak to walk. She was 16+ years old, so she’d had a good life.

As we inherited her from my parents, if there is an afterlife, hopefully she is with her first Mom and Dad now, who so adored her.

She leaves behind her adoptive Mom and Dad (us), her special friends Doug & Denise, our neighbors, who she befriended last year and spent many an hour in conversation with, the other two cats who came to us from my parents, Peeper and Smudge, and Mayhem, our surviving original cat. We’ll all miss her curmudgeonly yet affectionate ways.

Continuing this thread, a friend writes a note which leads to some thoughts. He’s writing in response to the press release from the United States Fencing Association announcing that “… USA Fencing will be supporting the Dallas community by providing a $1,000 donation in honor and memory of the victims of the shootings in Dallas on Thursday evening.”

Don’t disagree with my fencing peeps BUT how about also standing with the individual victims in all the prior shootings in California , Florida , NY, MN, LA etc?!
I’m letting Don [Anthony, USFA President] know about this .

And speaking of MN, what the hell is going on with your police officers there? Like humans in general there are many more good officers than bad and they should be thanked for their service like the military but again?! really ? !!!!

And I agree. As I listened to the demonstrations that occurred just down the street, I thought about how my friend subtly brings an important point to the fore – that we are a society, together. The police do not stand apart, they are simply a subgroup of our community that tries to stabilize society. They often use the slogan, “To Protect, To Serve” the communities from which they come. From the information so far available from Baton Rouge and Falcon Heights, they committed catastrophic errors, and though we don’t know the nature of the mistakes in each case, it should be clear that they failed in their mission. Changes must occur.

But let’s take the communitarian aspect of his point a little further. Over, well, my lifetime, the police have been gradually taking advantage of technology to, overtly, enhance their ability to complete their mission, but, inadvertently, to stand apart from the communities they serve. From the cop who walks his beat transforming into the cop in the prowl car, to the law enforcement agencies equipping themselves with military weaponry in order to take down drug users and defend against terrorism, layers of technology have come between the police and the people he or she is supposed to serve. Until Friday I couldn’t tell you the name of any of the cops serving my municipality of Falcon Heights, MN, and now I know the name of one, Officer Inez, because of this tragedy. A cop car occasionally cruises my street – great. I have no idea who’s behind the wheel – or if it’s even a real cop car and not someone just looking for potential victims.

And that gap between police and communities they serve is not helpful. I know there’s been some discussion of returning to the use of cops walking the beat, men and women pounding the sidewalk, making sure things are OK in a neighborhood. From this Wall Street Journal (March 12, 2015, only a portion may be available unless you subscribe) article concerning New Haven, CT, where cops returned to walking the beat:

“You have somebody walking around, you can talk to them,” says Mr. Walker, 44 years old, who works at a local hospital. “They don’t come in the neighborhood and treat everybody like they’re the enemy.” …

In New Haven, the number of homicides, robberies, motor-vehicle thefts and other types of serious crime has fallen about 30% since the city, best known as the home of Yale University, put a big chunk of its officers on foot-patrol duty in 2012.

And a counter-intuitive suggestion: rather than treat every situation as not only potentially deadly, but even probably deadly, treat them as a friendly situation. Sure, a violation may have occurred, but intimidation such as occurred in the Falcon Heights incident is uncalled for and alienates the community. While it may make sense, short term, to take a paranoid approach to each police situation in terms of safeguarding the lives of police officers, the long-term effect on relations between police and their communities is negative and may be one of the contributing factors to communities no longer trusting their own cops. Yes, it increases risk and may get a few more cops killed – but if it makes the community more trusting overall, is it then so bad? Second, get rid of the military weaponry – let’s be honest, it’s wasteful and dangerous in most municipalities. Instead, let’s reform those laws which have been used to oppress black and other communities. An example: marijuana laws. Beer is legal – why not marijuana? It’s a drug of little intrinsic danger; most of the problem associated with marijuana can be attributed to the fact that it’s illegal.

And, yes, let’s honor those who’ve been shot dead by police for no good reason. Because they, just like the tragically dead Dallas cops, are part of our society. They had hopes, dreams, and loved ones. And their lives came to abrupt, unexpected ends, whether because of catastrophic law enforcement errors, or someone with mental illness gained access to weaponry. Let’s remember and honor them, and in all cases – try to do better.

NewScientist (25 June 2016, paywall) reports on one possible response to the loss of jobs to robots and other forms of automation: UBI. They trace it back to US Founder Thomas Paine:

Universal basic income has a long history. Thomas Paine, a US founding father, believed that natural resources were a common heritage and that landowners sitting on them should be taxed and the income redistributed. While the idea has never fully materialised, neither has it entirely gone away. In a few corners of the world variants are discreetly part of the furniture. In Alaska, for example, an annual dividend from state oil revenues is paid to citizens each year – a windfall of $2072 per person in 2015.

And some preliminary results:

Evelyn Forget at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg recently revisited the [Dauphin, Manitoba, CA] experiment, comparing public records from Dauphin with those from similar small towns. Forget found the only groups that spent less time in work during the trial were teenage boys and new mothers. The boys were staying in school rather than bowing to pressure to take agricultural jobs, and the mothers were nursing. What’s more, Dauphin had noticeably lower hospitalisation rates and fewer depression-related illnesses.

That was just one small-town trial. But in Alaska, experience suggests that a basic income could help reduce the rising inequality that has been hobbling world economies. Economist Scott Goldsmith at the University of Alaska Anchorage points out that the state is the only one in the US in which the income of the poorest 20 per cent grew faster than that of the top 20 per cent between the 1980s and 2000.

An interesting result, although whether the oil dividend contributes substantially is not entirely clear. NS reports the near future of UBI includes an experiment by a private firm investing in startups, Y Combinator. From the Y Combinator blog back in January of 2016:

We’d like to fund a study on basic income—i.e., giving people enough money to live on with no strings attached.  I’ve been intrigued by the idea for a while, and although there’s been a lot of discussion, there’s fairly little data about how it would work. …

So it would be good to answer some of the theoretical questions now.  Do people sit around and play video games, or do they create new things?  Are people happy and fulfilled?  Do people, without the fear of not being able to eat, accomplish far more and benefit society far more?  And do recipients, on the whole, create more economic value than they receive?  (Questions about how a program like this would affect overall cost of living are beyond our scope, but obviously important.)

50 years from now, I think it will seem ridiculous that we used fear of not being able to eat as a way to motivate people.  I also think that it’s impossible to truly have equality of opportunity without some version of guaranteed income.  And I think that, combined with innovation driving down the cost of having a great life, by doing something like this we could eventually make real progress towards eliminating poverty.

In the last day of May they published an update:

We want to run a large, long-term study to answer a few key questions: how people’s happiness, well-being, and financial health are affected by basic income, as well as how people might spend their time.

But before we do that, we’re going to start with a short-term pilot in Oakland. Our goal will be to prepare for the longer-term study by working on our methods–how to pay people, how to collect data, how to randomly choose a sample, etc.

Oakland is a city of great social and economic diversity, and it has both concentrated wealth and considerable inequality. We think these traits make it a very good place to explore how basic income could work for our pilot.

They have hired a Research Director, Elizabeth Rhodes, and are moving ahead. So far they appear to be treating this as a research subject that simply interests them; so far I have not seen any intent that private sector firms should be involved directly in the long term funding of UBI.

Legacy of Blood (1971, aka Blood Legacy) is a John Carradine movie with an intriguing premise, wrecked by technical incompetence. The movie begins with a funeral, that of the patriarch of a small clan of four adult children, followed by the presentation of the will, in this case by reel-to-reel tape. Via the tape, the patriarch, played by Carradine’s voice, announces that his immense fortune will be split between his four children, but they must stay in the family home for a day (or possibly a week, I cannot remember); if any leave or die before the end of the period, their share is then split between the other children. If they should all fail to meet the conditions, then the money goes to the servants; however, the servants, if they agree to stay on in the house, are paid $1 million over the years until the money runs out.

So do the kids love each other?

One brother’s borderline insane, and in fact his episodic emotional problems, in which we’re privileged to share the visuals, are quite unsettling, as Carradine is effective at suggesting the family home was a surrealistic, possibly incestuous hellhole. The balance of the siblings are less distinguished, as another brother is a cheerful lawyer, and the two sisters, despite one bearing a dismaying resemblance, at certain visual angles, to my friend Jeanne, were thematically identical.

The plot lurches from point to point, although it was occasionally entertainingly self-conscious, such as the two consecutive lines, “The phones are out – of course!” “It’s like a bad horror movie.” Sometimes there were moments of glee, such as when the ham is taken out of the refrigerator, or when the identity of the (or perhaps one of?) the murderers is finally revealed. But there are moments of unproductive slackness as well.

The rest of the experience was dismaying. First, the audio was awful. Everyone mumbled their lines to the point that the audio needed to be increased to dizzying levels, and when the commercial interludes suddenly occurred, the blast of sound had its own horrifying effect upon our sense of stability.

Second, the plot lacked consistency. The premise does not imply immunity from law enforcement, so one would expect the various victims to fall to misadventure, but in fact several are incontrovertibly murdered; even law enforcement is assaulted, and worse yet for no logical reason. Losing faith in the internal logic of a movie is a sure formula for disaster.

Third, the special effects ranged from competent to wretched.

Fourth, the acting was mostly awful, although of course Carradine knows his stuff, and the butler, Buck Kartalian, was something of a revelation in the one scene he dominates. But two of the actors seemed to have Elvis-inspired hairdos, another appeared to be a Burt Reynolds (or perhaps Tom Selleck) look-alike, and the rest of the actors, barring perhaps the maid, could not overcome the poor dialog of the script or the unlikely chemistry required of such a dysfunctional family.

In the end, you remember this movie more for what it might have been, than what it ended up being.

And now here’s a flower, to cushion your disappointment.

Today we visited The Museum of Russia Art, which was hosting a “popup exhibition” of Leon Hushcha’s work, only 5 days long. As this is the second to last day, this post is not so much to urge you to visit as to report on what we saw for future reference.

Leon Hushcha (sample portfolio here) is a Minneapolis-based Russian artist who loves bright, yet subtly changing colors, working in paint and collage, often onto wood surfaces which he lightly carves before painting. It gives his work a nuanced 3-D effect. Often they appeared to be covered in a varnish or other surface application, which enhanced the effects. The results are not always immediately obvious, although as a non-artist myself perhaps my observations don’t apply, but I would, under the guidance of my Arts Editor, begin to discern the running horses, or the chain link fence deep in the lake (a personal favorite just because it snuck up on me).

Subject matter ranged from a gorgeous red abstract to, in a repeated theme, women with fish on their heads – a puzzler, to be sure.

In the end, though, it was a fascinating exhibit.

And now from my Arts Editor …

Special mention has to be made of the artist’s use of heavy impasto, pointillism and scratchboard-like effects.  This, along with his use of carved panels with paint or mixed media applied to the surface, gives the artworks a striking dimensionality and immediacy not typical of Russian art.  I also appreciated his eye-searingly bright color palette, turquoise, magenta and sunflower yellow predominant, with a scattering of colored glitter for effect.

Hushcha has been making art for most of his 8070-year lifespan, and it’s interesting to see the consistency of his vision throughout the decades.  I’d highly recommend seeing some of his works, if you get the chance.

Our Cleome Herd is doing nicely…

And pretty nearby lurker…

As we reach out to Jupiter via the Juno probe, the big planet is reaching out to us, as Spaceweather.com reports:

Yesterday, a series of narrow radio beams from Jupiter reached Earth … but they weren’t from NASA’s Juno spacecraft. They came from Jupiter itself. Natural radio lasers in Jupiter’s magnetosphere send shortwave signals into space and occasionally they sweep past Earth. “I picked them up in broad daylight,” says Thomas Ashcraft, who operates an amateur radio telescope in rural New Mexico.

Spaceweather.com includes a link to an audio interpretation of the received beams, which I’m sure is quite significant to those familiar with the standard signal at 22.4 and 22.2 MHz, but doesn’t mean much to me. But I must say, natural radio lasers on Jupiter – very cool.

Source: NASA, ESA, I. de Pater and M. Wong (University of California, Berkeley)

A reader’s interest is piqued by Queen of Blood:

Sounds interesting. Not on Netflix, unfortunately. Plot is a novel idea. But what would be so hard about voluntarily donating blood for her to drink in order to get the first ever (?) alien contact back to earth? Seems worth the effort.

And they use blood plasma, conveniently on board the ship, to keep her alive for a while – but she seems to have a taste for the stuff right from the prey, apparently. Oh, did I mention she burned through her restraint ropes using laser beams from her eyes?

The Wikipedia entry indicates the director, Curtis Harrington, believed the classic Alien drew some inspiration from Queen of Blood. I did not find any corroborating statements from the director of Alien, though.

The title Queen of Blood (1966) might induce the unwary viewer to expect a classic supernatural romp through the countryside – and they’d be wrong. Queen of Blood belongs in the horror-scifi genre. Featuring names John Saxon, Basil Rathbone, and a very young Dennis Hopper, it tells the story of a mission from Earth to save an alien craft from another solar system that has crashed on Mars. Sacrifices are made to finally discover the sole survivor – a green skinned woman who needs to drink blood to survive.  She gradually destroys the crew on the return mission, draining each of them dry. The two remaining survivors finally destroy the green woman with a simple scratch across the back (what?), and deliver her eggs to Mission Control.

The acting was acceptable, the plot was quite restrained and even somewhat logical, although personally I would have chucked the green woman out the airlock after the first casualty. The characters were sketched in, and it was hard to become attached to any of them, an unfortunate problem which may be the most crippling problem in the movie – if you can get beyond some of the special effects.

But the real standout was the title sequence and scenery artwork, which had my Arts Editor commenting several times on its graphic nature and beauty. There’s little of subtlety, but it’s worth a quick watch if you enjoy gaudy scenery.

Apparently the appeals of the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots is not stopping everyone from working on the equivalent of automated war machines, as Popular Science reports:

A pilot A.I. developed by a doctoral graduate from the University of Cincinnati has shown that it can not only beat other A.I.s, but also a professional fighter pilot with decades of experience. In a series of flight combat simulations, the A.I. successfully evaded retired U.S. Air Force Colonel Gene “Geno” Lee, and shot him down every time. In a statement, Lee called it “the most aggressive, responsive, dynamic and credible A.I. I’ve seen to date.”

And “Geno” is no slouch. He’s a former Air Force Battle Manager and adversary tactics instructor. He’s controlled or flown in thousands of air-to-air intercepts as mission commander or pilot. In short, the guy knows what he’s doing. Plus he’s been fighting A.I. opponents in flight simulators for decades.

But he says this one is different. “I was surprised at how aware and reactive it was. It seemed to be aware of my intentions and reacting instantly to my changes in flight and my missile deployment. It knew how to defeat the shot I was taking. It moved instantly between defensive and offensive actions as needed.”

While certainly a milepost, it’s not an inflection point. That comes when the AIs battle each other and begin learning in non-linear fashion – that is, exponentially. Then their background capabilities will begin to sharpen, which may then lead to unpredictable other capabilities and motivations – such as self-preservation.

My wife and Arts Editor posted about yesterday’s shooting of Philando Castile here on UMB as well as on FB. As frustrating and personally upsetting as it is to have another police shooting of a black person in the Twin Cities, I must agree with Governor Dayton’s action of asking the Federal DoJ to investigate. The reported protests are necessary as they emphasize the seriousness of this homicide¹, but they do not of themselves prove anything substantial concerning the incident, only that the community is concerned and requires an immediate and thorough investigation. Once the facts are known, then we can classify this as systemic, a flawed process, an overwrought officer, or even infiltration of the law enforcement community by a racist intent on murder. But without the collection and analysis of facts, the frustration shared by the community and myself must be a catalyst to action – but not direct the action in any specific way. Down that path lies ideologues and more injustice.

Or so says the software engineer in me. At the risk of addressing separate issues, I was a little frustrated with the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement when they loudly disagreed with the County, and later the Federal, prosecutors in the Jamar Clark incident. I watched the video evidence presented at the first press conference with DA Freeman, and I was unable to draw any firm conclusions as to whether the officers should be exonerated or placed on trial. DAs are required to pursue legal action when they believe it’ll be successful, and in this case I can easily understand how Freeman, based on that video, the only neutral record of the incident made public of which I’m aware, could not, in good conscience, move forward with such a case.

I’m aware that BLM protested that certain evidence, consisting of eyewitness accounts, was ignored. But there’s a couple of problems, as I understand it. First, there was some confusion between accounts; indeed, the witness in the ambulance later recanted her on-the-spot remarks, leaving any analysis doubtful. If the accounts had not changed nor clashed, then Freeman might have something to work with.

Secondly, eyewitness accounts are often untrustworthy. Not to impugn any eyewitness anywhere, but it’s a simple matter of poor processing by our brains when they’re stressed. This has been, and continues to be, investigated by psychologists; here’s a source. The point here is that eyewitness accounts must be considered carefully before they are used. A neutral, technological source that has not been compromised is far preferable to eyewitness accounts. In the Castile case, the reported smartphone feed will no doubt be invaluable, although as I understand the matter, it only came online just after the shooting. I do not know if the police had body cameras or not.

Taking those two points together, it seems clear that the eyewitness reports had to be discounted. Why didn’t any more videos surface? That would have been far more useful.

My final thought with respect to the Jamar Clark incident is this:

Suppose Freeman had taken the officers to criminal court.

Suppose the State then lost.

That jurisdiction would now be exhausted. Perhaps the Feds could still prosecute under civil rights laws, but they might be discouraged by the first loss.

And then suppose new evidence came to light.

Mr. Freeman chose not to prosecute – at this time. In terms of likelihood, he and his successors probably never will. But they have the option to do so if something new comes to light.

And that’s important.

¹ A homicide is defined as “occur[ing] when one human being causes the death of another human being.” It does not imply murder, and by using homicide I merely wish to be accurate without casting premature aspersions upon anyone.

Further commentary on the gas line:

Actually, I live way the heck too close to that, now that you tell me where it is! Yikes. Why isn’t that gas line on the national registry? Maybe it’s smaller than that camel’s complexity seems to suggest.

Registry?

Yep. https://www.npms.phmsa.dot.gov

I can’t decide if this is a good or bad idea.

Here we have some flowers that like to live close the ground… so we’ll take you on the ant-view.

Pansies.

A begonia of delicate coloration.

OK, the poppies are tall and proud.

The Manster (1959, aka The Split aka Doktor Satan) builds up an unexpectedly impressive number of positive assets, including the unusual title, before wasting them in a vague climax. Peter Dyneley plays Larry Stanford, a foreign correspondent based in Japan who is faced with his final assignment before returning home to his wife: an interview with a reclusive scientist with unknown research interests. He visits the scientist, a Doctor Suzuki, as his lab on a volcano, and Suzuki drugs Larry and uses him in his latest research experiment: an attempt to split man into his basic good side and bad side (a possible inspiration for a later Star Trek episode?). Larry knows nothing, and is released by the smiling doctor Suzuki as if nothing had happened.

Larry rapidly becomes a grumpy curmudgeon, no longer the cheerful professional looking forward to spending time with his wife, but rather carousing with the scientist’s amoral assistant. Then events take a turn for the worse, bodies begin to pile up, and reluctant suspicion is focused on the foreigner who has frequent temper tantrums. As his transformation begins …

… we acknowledge and admire the general level of acting quality. In particular, one of the failed experiments manages to “chew the scenery” with particularly good effect. The regular people are well-played, and if the wife doesn’t stand out as much as she might, she could have used some better lines as well. And the scientist, whose motivations are never elaborated, is a mysterious character right to the end, pursuing obtuse goals and experiencing regrets of strange character that leaves us wondering if he’s really as different as he seems – or if the scriptwriter imbibed even more than Larry, who seems to live on booze.

The special effects range from the absolutely worst volcanic explosion committed to film to quite creditable makeup jobs on the victims of the experiments. It was actually not hard to buy into the results depicted.

But the story … oh the story … woe is the story. Although it gets off to a good start, showing us enough to hook us without overdoing it, it loses its way as Larry devolves more and more. Logic is lost as it should have shown Larry ingesting all the food he could possibly eat, given what’s happening to him, but instead he indulges in aimless murders. In much the same way, the story runs off into a series of aimless events, along with minor titillation, and finally a dreary chase of the monster Larry which drags on and on. And, predictably (the dread foe of good stories), all the bad and even ambiguous characters meet their fate, while Larry miraculously survives, scrubbed of his sins and united with his wife. A promising beginning is wasted on an inorganic and pat ending, a pity given some of those assets they had constructed.

2 inches of rain in 20 minutes. Heavy winds,  heavy enough that half a tree went down 5 houses down, and our street to the west is impassable. Sirens multitudinous. Probably a lightning strike in St. Paul, just to our south.

A reader asks about my faux-camel sighting:

Where abouts? I’m hoping I live nowhere near that thing

Edina, MN, a block or two east of France and 50th.

A rejoinder from my reader concerning GMOs:

Feeding corn to ruminants (cattle) is dumb. They’re meant to eat grasses and the things growing in a meadow. We end up with unhealthy cattle, and unhealthy meat and dairy products as a result. And we grow way too much corn. It’s a horribly inefficient crop, especially from a water usage stand point. Worse, there’s some evidence that we get more humid days in areas of large corn tillage, so it’s altering the local climate in what I’d call an adverse way.

Which is reminiscent of the mad cow disease that afflicted the UK 20-30 years ago, blamed on quite unnatural feeding processes involving the remains of cows entering the food stream. Not that I mean to suggest the same may occur with corn, but it’s an interesting – if flawed – parallel.

I don’t confuse scientist with their employers, but if billions are spent on developing GMOs and only a couple million are spent on neutral third party testing (if there is any at all), what do you think most of the results are going to say? Scientists are human, too. They have to make a living, they’re subject to all the usual human perception problems, like confirmation bias. So yeah, I pretty much don’t trust Monsanto scientists telling me that their employer’s products are safe. Why should I?

But they’re also scientists, which means they are interested, even fascinated, by the truth. For a counter-example, consider the ozone hole incident, in which the problem was detected by the industry, and who didn’t conceal it, but instead began the investigation that eventually led to the banning of CFCs. But I shan’t make the mistake of generalizing a single incident to a general rule; the tobacco industry symbolizes the worst of the private sector.

So, as you say, third party testing is necessary, agencies with no vested interest – much like Consumer Reports. (I’d also like to point out that taking amounts invested vs amounts spent to test the products are not particularly relevant, although certainly something must be spent on testing!) That may be the best approach, with the Ag firms paying for the testing.

Here we feature some of the odder color combinations so beloved of the Arts Editor, including Amaranth.

Here comes the amaranth, supposedly you can pop their seeds in a skillet…

This one’s still a little disturbing.

The recent independent film release Weiner (2016) allows a glimpse into the peculiar mind of a man, Anthony Weiner, which is fascinating if you are something other than a politician. This fly-on-the-wall documentary of his NYC Mayoral run chronicles his ups – and then big downs – of his  campaign.  He begins the race as front-runner and becomes a victim of his own base urges, as new pictures from his Congressional career-ending sexting scandal emerge and the electorate reacts.

But he’s not a quitter. In the teeth of voter disapproval, Weiner continues his campaign, and we get to see most of that – his frustration and dissatisfaction with himself, his wife’s exhaustion, his attempts to address the issues of the City, rather than letting his private misadventures define his campaign. The film forces you to ask yourself questions: should this man’s private behavior be a factor in evaluating him for public office? Does the fact that his wife has forgiven him have an influence? How much of the voter’srejection of him had to do with his behavior, and how much was related to his marriage to a Muslim (he is Jewish), i.e., racism?

For a man with a lesser public service record, it might be hard to disentangle these questions, but he served 7 terms in the US House of Representatives, and the documentary makes clear that he had a largeimpact in embarrassing the GOP on several occasions.  The debates for his mayoral contest make clear that he has passionately held positions and experience that could have benefited the City. It brings into sharp relief a real question of if, and how, a politician’s private life should influence their public position. An unrelated example of this was seen when recent House Speaker Dennis Hastert’s pedophilic actions came to light.  When does information concerning private matters – and perhaps criminal, in Hastert’s case, although statute of limitations has run out – transition into the public sphere to become part of our evaluation criteria?

And what of the media? Is the invasive and vindictive behavior of at least one NYC publication appropriate for a supposed journalistic institution? Does that sort of crucible produce more honestpoliticians, or just those who are better at covering up? And the woman who came forward the last week of Weiner’s mayoral campaign with damningly explicit pictures – was she manipulated by anti-Weiner forces into destroying his campaign? Or did she really do this all on her own?

And then there’s the final question: Would you vote for him? There’s a certain grudging admiration that builds up during the film, for a flawed man who continues to fight even when the odds are longer than can be measured, a man who can take personal attacks and return them in a substantive manner, such as the incident in which he says, “Yes, it’s your right to say I shouldn’t be running – but it’s NOT your right to take away the opportunity for others to vote for me!”

The documentary surprises not in the mistakes made by Anthony Weiner. We know what these are. The surprise comes in the subtle questions raised to the viewer; questions about forgiveness, questions about when enough public castigation is enough, questions about whether a man’s flaws should be all that defines him.  And questions about whether a person’s good ideas should be discounted because of his bad actions.

The film has a lot going for it.  It’s definitely worth your time to see.

In lieu of typing, which currently hurts, is this wildlife photo collected today.

Evolution has been getting wonky of late.

Some slender breath-stoppers. C’mere, Mr. Bee, just another step closer…

Ignore the less than pristine back porch and just take in … the orange!

Let’s get a closeup of that last one.

A reader doesn’t trust analyses of GMOs so far:

Experts have been frequently, horribly wrong through out history. Now, I do not think for one moment that the ignorant masses’ opinions on scientific facts are as valid as educated scientists. But with GMOs, the story is quite a bit muddier and different. First, there’s not been any valid test of their safety — and by that, I mean at a minimum it has to be a long term test, because effects are likely subtle. And because any error will adversely affect billions of people, unlike say drugs which were withdrawn from the market when it was discovered they were injuring and killing people. Secondly, because large industrial agriculture is built on GMOs and other such marketable “technologies”, there are a bunch of very large, very wealthy companies doing their best to skew the science and common belief about GMOs. So when I read “many scientists believe them to be safe”, I’m skeptical that that’s a valid sample or a valid statement. Monsanto, Bayer, ConAgra, Syngenta, Dupont, Dow Chemical, BASF and Cargill make billions of dollars on the system using GMOs. They are not going to stand by idly while consumers ask for information and safety, if it’s going to slow their profits.

I note a subtle confusion of scientists with their (potential) employers. Do scientists spout the company line? As people devoted to finding the truth, you’d hope not – but no doubt some do, through fear or epistemological confusion.

And absent the direct effects of GMOs on human digestion and health, there’s systemic effects: most GMO drops are GMO precisely to give them herbicide and pesticide resistance or characteristics. And those things have their own harmful effects. For instance, Monsanto’s huge line of “Roundup-ready” GMO crops: corn, beans, etc. Roundup is claimed to be “safe” because one main ingredient, glyphosate, does not interfere with human metabolism. However, it kills plants, which have a different metabolic pathway quite well. And it also kills bacteria, which have that same metabolic pathway as well. Bacteria, like the necessary and helpful bacteria in your gut. You’d die without them. Injuring them cannot be good for your health, but since science is only just beginning to scratch the surface on gut bacteria, we don’t really know what the heck we’re doing to ourselves, with so many chemicals added to our diet, intentionally and accidentally.

So even if GMO corn itself will not harm me — and again, that has not been proven via a multi-decade study — all of that corn has been saturated repeatedly with glyphosate. Any trace amounts remaining are bad for my health.

Just out of curiosity, I decided to see how much of the corn supply goes directly to humans. From Jonathan Foley, the director of the Institute on the Environment at the University of Minnesota, comes this via Scientific American and Ensia.com:

Although U.S. corn is a highly productive crop, with typical yields between 140 and 160 bushels per acre, the resulting delivery of food by the corn system is far lower. Today’s corn crop is mainly used for biofuels (roughly 40 percent of U.S. corn is used for ethanol) and as animal feed (roughly 36 percent of U.S. corn, plus distillers grains left over from ethanol production, is fed to cattle, pigs and chickens). Much of the rest is exported. Only a tiny fraction of the national corn crop is directly used for food for Americans, much of that for high-fructose corn syrup.

Yes, the corn fed to animals does produce valuable food to people, mainly in the form of dairy and meat products, but only after suffering major losses of calories and protein along the way. For corn-fed animals, the efficiency of converting grain to meat and dairy calories ranges from roughly 3 percent to 40 percent, depending on the animal production system in question. What this all means is that little of the corn crop actually ends up feeding American people. It’s just math. The average Iowa cornfield has the potential to deliver more than 15 million calories per acre each year (enough to sustain 14 people per acre, with a 3,000 calorie-per-day diet, if we ate all of the corn ourselves), but with the current allocation of corn to ethanol and animal production, we end up with an estimated 3 million calories of food per acre per year, mainly as dairy and meat products, enough to sustain only three people per acre. That is lower than the average delivery of food calories from farms in Bangladesh, Egypt and Vietnam.

Incidentally, the article is entitled, “It’s Time to Rethink America’s Corn System.” I must finish reading it later today, it’s interesting. Due to a wrist injury, I must curtain my response (not that I had much of one, although the reader raised a host of interesting points). I also wonder if corn is as nutritious as other crops…