7.28.2022 – irrepressible

irrepressible
never-ending appetite
for cheap energy

When I read the following paragraph, I wanted to stand up and applaud.

Please note, the writer, Mr. David Wallace-Wells, in this opinion piece in the New York Times, Hardly Anyone Talks About How Fracking Was an Extraordinary Boondoggle, starts off the paragraph saying, At the risk of oversimplifying!

Mr. Wallace-Wells writes:

At the risk of oversimplifying the never-ending complexities of energy, there is a climate lesson here — a clear contrast to draw. Fracking was nothing less than a genuine energy transition, enacted quite rapidly and at enormous upfront expense with only speculative paths to real profit, requiring large-scale infrastructure build-outs against some cultural and political resistance and yet celebrated all the while as a product of irrepressible capitalism, the almost inevitable result of the never-ending appetite Americans have for cheap energy. And yet for a decade, as fracking boomed, Americans were told again and again — and not just by climate deniers — that rushing a green transition would be too expensive, imposing a huge burden on taxpayers, who would be footing the bill to subsidize and support a renewable build-out that couldn’t possibly be justified in terms of market logic or demand. For those exact same years, though middlemen profited off fracking, sector-wide losses mounted.

WOW – I love this even though I am only pretty sure what side of the argument Mr. Wallace-Wells is on.

I had to paste this in Word and grade for readability.

Word will give you the Flesch Reading Ease score ranges from 0 to 100 and it suggests that anyone aim for a 60+ score minimum. Note that web pages are typically “scanned” more than read, and the higher score a page has, the more easily scanned it is. Scores can most easily be improved by shortening sentences, and using words with less syllables.

This paragraph scored 15.3.

Still have to love the rhythm and the cadence of all these syllables marching together towards a common point.

7.27.2022 – leaving unimpaired

leaving unimpaired
though doing nothing really
is doing something

In an article in the New York Times, At Yosemite, a Preservation Plan That Calls for Chain Saws, by Thomas Fuller and Livia Albeck-Ripka, July 27, 2022, the words in this paragraph caught my eye.

And what about leaving the park “unimpaired” for future generations?

“It’s a tricky word,” she said. In the early years of the park service, Ms. Muldoon said, unimpaired would have meant “leave it exactly as it is out there, don’t touch anything.”

“But if we’ve learned anything it’s that we have been touching these lands forever — humanity has — and doing nothing is really doing something.”

It struck me how that while the article was about the National Forest Service almost any of the problems of today, inflation, covid, social media, gun control, can be addressed saying doing nothing is doing something.

Don’t just do something, STAND THERE!

Doing nothing and working hard at it.

I voted today by not voting.

Participatory democracy without participation.

Good to remember that you get what you pay for.

Garrett Dickman, a forest ecologist at the park, is leading an effort to restore the area to what it looked like more than a century ago, when it was sculpted by native burning practices. Credit…Nic Coury for The New York Times

7.26.2022 – women in black who

women in black who
went forth in pairs with quota
of six calls a day

During the Great War, the French Government realizing that sending a telegram to inform a family of the death of soldier was costing too much, they hired the Women in Black.

As recounted in the book, The Last Time I Saw Paris by Eliot Paul, 1942, Random House, Inc.:

So the gouvernement français, which had its soft as well as inept moments, in late 1916 hired tactful well-bred women who had friends in high office and needed a job to break the news in person to the nearest relatives in case a soldier was killed in action. These harbingers of sorrow were carefully chosen, and the qualifications were severe. They must present a dignified appearance, and neither be attractive enough to take men’s thoughts away from grief or ugly enough to scare the stricken children. They must have a smattering of practical nursing, in case the recipients of their tidings collapsed, and must be reasonably agile in cases of folie furieuse, or fits of grief-inspired madness. These women dressed in heavy mourning, spoke softly and always went forth in pairs.

Thus, trudging from house to house, making a quota of six calls a day.

This little story just struck me.

I was reminded of the story told by Doris Kearns Godwin in her book, No Ordinary Time.

Ms. Godwin wrote, “Two weeks after the battle at Kasserine Pass, a telegram addressed to Mrs. Mae Stifle on Corning Street arrived at the Western Union Station in the small town of Red Oak, Iowa, population six thousand. “The Secretary of War desires me to express his deep regret that your son Daniel Stifle … is missing in action.” Fifteen minutes later, a second telegram arrived, telling Mrs. Stifle that her second son, Frank, was also missing in action. A few minutes later, Mrs. Stifle’s daughter, Marie, received word that she had lost her husband, Daniel Wolfe. As the evening wore on, the telegrams kept coming until there were twenty-seven.”

And the war in Ukraine goes on.

7.25.2022 – gone were the ketchup

gone were the ketchup
reds and mustard yellows that
screamed attention

the fat fonts, image of
a turtle that was somehow
also a sandwich

Adapted from a photo essay in the New York Times titled:

The Ephemeral Art of Mexico City’s Food Stalls
In the heart of Mexico’s capital, the colorful signs that have come to define the urban landscape of the city are being erased.
Photographs by Jordi Ruiz Cirera

Text by Natalie Kitroeff

The text reads: White paint blanketed the food stalls of Cuauhtémoc, the borough Ms. Cuevas had been elected to represent last year, encompassing the city’s historic center. Others were scrubbed bare, down to their metallic walls.

Gone were the ketchup reds and mustard yellows that screamed for attention, the fat fonts, the image of a turtle that was somehow also a sandwich.

The text was just too good to ignore and it turned into a double haiku which is and isn’t against the rules of haiku.

It mostly isn’t as there aren’t really too many rules.

So by my rules, it is okay.

7.24.2022 – inflation rising

inflation rising
everything, pizza, rent, nightlife
is taking a hit

From the line “Inflation has been rising at the fastest rate in nearly four decades, affecting the prices of almost everything, from pizza to rent. Amid the surge, nightlife is taking a hit.” as it appears in the story, Nightlife Inflation: The Cost of Going Out Is Going Up, by Anna P. Kambhampaty, in the Feb. 28, 2022 NYT.