environment Politics: assholes denialists idiots Republican obstructionism
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Year 2, Month 7, Day 21: Yecchh.
US News and World Report’s Jessica Rettig notes on July 5 that when it comes to the planet’s climate, the American political climate is, um, not so good:
Still shunned as fringe ideologues, or worse, by Democrats and much of the formal scientific community, skeptics of global warming were nonetheless celebratory as they gathered in Washington last week for the conservative Heartland Institute’s annual climate change conference. And for good reason. Climate change legislation has been on the back burner since 2009 and an increasing number of Republican lawmakers now call themselves skeptics as well. Indeed, the tide of the debate—at least politically—has turned in their favor.
Political experts say that with the economy at the forefront of the nation’s focus, concerns over global warming won’t carry much weight in the 2012 election. At most, climate change will be just another place for candidates, especially those in the GOP, to distinguish themselves from their opponents, if they dare. “[Climate change is] part of an undercurrent. The race is going to be about the economy and the fiscal crisis. So to the degree that one or several of the candidates can work the story line that some of these concerns are having an impact on the economy, that will be a marginal help,” says pollster Scott Rasmussen. “But it’s not a central issue by any stretch of the imagination.”
Sociopaths is what they are. Sent July 5:
The politicizing of science has never been as egregious as it is today, with essentially the entire GOP rejecting expert evidence based on nothing more than a set of ideological preconceptions. Do the facts show a clear pattern of steadily increasing global temperatures? Impugn the scientists. Do the physical principles underpinning the greenhouse effect run counter to conservative shibboleths? Glorify ignorance. Is the worldwide scientific consensus on climate change essentially universal? A few oil-funded contrarians can give the impression that “the science isn’t settled.” Eventually, of course, the laws of physics and chemistry will decide, and unless we stop treating climate science as a political football, the verdict will not come down in humanity’s favor. The Republican party has long had a history of ignoring inconvenient facts, but when it comes to climate change, they have gleefully replaced a reality-based science policy with the ugliest sort of petulant, destructive, nihilism.
Warren Senders
India Indian music music: 78 rpm discs genius sitar
by Warren
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78 rpm Records of Indian Music: Ustad Vilayat Khan
These sides feature Vilayat Khan at the early height of his powers. Listening through the surface noise and distortion is worth it; he plays with intensity, concentration and emotional clarity in a way that has never been duplicated.
This is not the cover of the record you are listening to.
Wiki:
Vilayat Khan was born in Gauripur, British India to Enayat Khan, a sitar maestro. His family of musicians trace their pedigree back to the court musicians of the Mughals. His father, recognised as a leading sitar and surbahar (bass sitar) player of his time, as had been the grandfather, Imdad Khan, before him. He was taught in the family style, known as the Imdadkhani Gharana or Etawah Gharana, after a village outside Agra where Imdad Khan lived.
However, Enayat Khan died when Vilayat was only nine, so much of his education came from the rest of his family: his uncle, sitar and surbahar maestro Wahid Khan, his maternal grandfather, singer Bande Hassan Khan, and his mother, Bashiran Begum, who had studied the practice procedure of his forefathers. Vilayat’s uncle Zinde Hassan looked after his riyaz (practice). As a boy, Vilayat wanted to be a singer; but his mother, herself from a family of vocalists, felt he had a strong responsibility to bear the family torch as a sitar maestro.
Raga Shyam Kalyan
Raga Bhairavi:
Vilayat Khan taught or otherwise influenced many of of today’s prominent musicians. These include Vilayat Khan’s two sons Ustad Shujaat Khan, and Hidyat Khan, as well as Pdt. Arvind Parikh. Even Vilayat Khan’s younger brother, Ustad Imrat Khan (sitar and surbahar) was taught by him in his younger days. It should also be noted that Vilayat Khan’s nephew Rais Khan is also a famous sitarist.
Vilayat Khan died of lung cancer at the Jaslok Hospital in Mumbai on March 13th, 2004. He was 75 years of age.
environment: coal intuitions sulfur pollution
by Warren
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Year 2, Month 7, Day 20: For Every Complex Problem, There’s A Simple Answer. And It’s Wrong.
The July 4 Albany Times-Union notes that since China burned a whole shitload of coal over the past decade, and it’s been really dirty coal, it’s emitted a lot of sulfur. Which has, apparently, slowed down our planetary rush to the rotisserie:
WASHINGTON (AP) — Scientists have come up with a possible explanation for why the rise in Earth’s temperature paused for a bit during the 2000s, one of the hottest decades on record.
The answer seems counterintuitive. It’s all that sulfur pollution in the air from China’s massive coal-burning, according to a new study.
Sulfur particles in the air deflect the sun’s rays and can temporarily cool things down a bit. That can happen even as coal-burning produces the carbon dioxide that contributes to global warming.
I’m not surprised by this. How about you? Sent July 4:
The phenomena of climate change frequently seem to defy common sense. The notion that a relatively small increase in carbon dioxide emission can trigger such disastrous effects, for example, is almost unbelievable. Similarly, since humans are notoriously poor at planning for the long term, the thought that what we do today will affect our descendants in the centuries to come is all but impossible to comprehend. The fact that Chinese sulfur emissions could slow down the planetary warming trend for a while is likewise counterintuitive, running contrary to the ingrained knowledge of the world which our species has honed over countless millennia. For thousands of years, our “common sense” has told us that the Earth was an unlimited and infinitely resilient resource, ripe for our exploitation. If we and our civilization are to survive in the long term, we must transform both our wasteful behavior and our incorrect, hubristic intuitions.
Warren Senders
India Indian music music: 78 rpm discs vichitra veena
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78 rpm Records of Indian Music: Ahmed Raza – Vichitra Veena
More virtuoso performances on the Hindustani equivalent of the lap slide guitar, this time from Ahmed Raza Beenkar, with Ghulam Ahmed accompanying on tabla.
Any information about Ahmed Raza will be heartily welcomed.
Raga Maru Bihag:
Thumri:
environment Politics: Berlin Conference corporate irresponsibility denialists United Nations
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Year 2, Month 7, Day 19: Meet The Old Boss, Same As The New Boss
A bland set of paragraphs in the Belfast Telegraph announcing the opening of the Berlin climate talks, on July 3:
Representatives from 35 countries have met in Germany to discuss how to overcome disputes over reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
The informal two-day gathering in Berlin is designed to lay the groundwork for an international climate conference in Durban, South Africa, in November.
I used it as the hook for an anti-corporatist screed. Sent July 3:
One wonders what it will take to get the world to stop treating the extreme dangers of runaway climate change as the occasion for political posturing. For example, as the American presidential election approaches, one entire political party has commited itself to an anti-science, anti-reality posture on what is arguably the biggest threat humanity has ever faced. Similar political equations are found throughout the developed world. Perhaps we need to face another horrifying fact that has emerged over the past several decades: many of the world’s governments are essentially owned lock, stock and barrel by multinationals which aren’t going to relinquish any profit whatsoever. Persuading the world’s governments of the urgency of the climate crisis will mean little unless and until the planet’s largest corporations come to their senses and recognize that putting their customers (us) through what biologists euphemistically call an “evolutionary bottleneck” is an awfully stupid business plan.
Warren Senders
environment Politics: algae denialists idiots James Inhofe
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Year 2, Month 7, Day 19: A Thick Protective Coating
More hilarity on Jim Inhofe’s swimming adventure, this time from the Joplin, MO Globe. They used the same AP feed, so there’s nothing more to add but my letter, sent July 2:
The report on Grand Lake’s algal blooms omitted an important fact: according to an April 4 paper published in the journal Science, the conditions that give rise to the proliferation of the toxic scum are consequences of climate change. BGA loves unstable weather, record high heat, and excess atmospheric CO2 — all of which are results of global warming. This, of course, renders James Inhofe’s ill-fated swim more than a little ironic. The Senate’s top climate-change denier — a man who revels in his “enemy of the environment” status — finally experiences the impact of the greenhouse effect personally. But it will probably take more than exposure to poisonous algae to change Mr. Inhofe’s mind. He’s protected by another sort of green scum: the oil industry money financing his public campaigns against sensible action to deal with the looming climate crisis.
Warren Senders
India Indian music music: genius sitar surbahar
by Warren
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78 rpm Records of Indian Music: Ustad Enayet Khan
Ustad Enayet Khan is one of the most important names in Hindustani instrumental tradition, both for his own genius and for his illustrious ancestry and descendants.
Wiki:
Enayat Khan (Urdu: عنایت خان ) was one of India’s most influential sitar and surbahar players in the first decades of the 20th Century. He was the father of Vilayat Khan, one of the topmost sitariyas of the postwar period.Enayat Khan was born in Uttar Pradesh into a family of musicians.[1] His father was sitar great Imdad Khan, who taught him the sitar and surbahar (bass sitar) in the family style, known as the Imdadkhani Gharana or Etawah Gharana (school), after a village outside Agra where Imdad once lived. He married Basiran Bibi, daughter of khyal singer Bande Hussain, and settled with his family in Calcutta, where, though he only lived to 43, he did much pioneering work on the sitar. For example, he standardised its physical dimensions and added the upper resonator gourd, which is very popular with today’s players (though his own descendants have not kept using it). In a place rapidly developing into an important North Indian centre of the arts, at a time where interest in national culture was strong fuelled by the struggle for independence, he brought sitar music out from its narrow connoisseur circles to new mass audiences. Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore was a musical collaborator and personal friend. Some of Enayat Khan’s recordings have been released on CD, on the Great Gharanas: Imdadkhani compilation in RPG/EMI’s Chairman’s Choice series.
Enayat died young, with four children. His two sons, Vilayat and Imrat, were trained in the Imdadkhani style by other members of his extended family. Vilayat learned the sitar and Imrat the surbahar; both were to become very famous classical musicians.
Surbahar alap: Raga Purbi
Sitar Gat in Raga Bihari
environment Politics: algae assholes denialists idiots irony James Inhofe
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Year 2, Month 7, Day 18: Look Before You Leap!
James Inhofe is still an idiot. Witness, for example, this AP article printed in the Greenfield Reporter (IN):
TULSA, Okla. — Sen. James Inhofe says he believes a swim earlier this week in algae-laden Grand Lake made him ill.
Inhofe told the Tulsa World that he took a routine dive into the lake Monday morning and that night he was “deathly sick.”
Oklahoma authorities warned people Friday against swimming in the lake, saying potentially toxic blue-green algae had been detected. They’ve also advised against water skiing and other activities that would bring people or pets in contact with the water.
The algae would undoubtedly do a better job as Senator. Sent July 2:
James Inhofe’s excellent adventure — diving into Oklahoma’s Grand Lake — wound up making him seriously ill. No wonder: the surface of the water was covered with a blue-green scum which the senator had never before seen, despite decades of living on the lake shore. It’s unsurprising that Mr. Inhofe didn’t look before leaping, since the senator has made a successful political career out of a public contempt for facts, prediction, and analysis. If he’d bothered to investigate the algae, he would have learned it was exceptionally poisonous — up to 18 times more toxic than the warning level used by the World Health Organization. If he uses his convalescence to do some more research, he might learn that according to an April 4 paper in the journal Science, the cyanobacteria that laid him low thrive and flourish in the weather extremes that are a consequence of (you guessed it!) global warming.
Warren Senders
India Indian music music vocalists: 78 rpm discs genius violin
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78 rpm Records of Indian Music: Gajananrao Joshi’s Violin Virtuosity
The great Gajananrao Joshi. Both a violinist and a vocalist, he was one of the most competent and intelligent musicians of the century:
Wiki:
Joshi was a highly skilled violin player by the age of 20. His students include vocalist and violinist Madhukar Joshi, Vikas Kashalkar, Ulhas Kashalkar, Padma Talwalkar, and violinist Shridhar Parsekar. He also taught vocalists Kaushalya Manjeshwar, Shubhada Paradkar, Veena Sahasrabuddhe and Jayashree Patnekar. His daughter Malini, sons Manohar, Madhukar and Narayan are also trained musicians. His sons variously took to singing, violin, and tabla.
His grasp was so quick that it is said that Kesarbai Kerkar did not like to have him attend her concerts because he could quickly incorporate her strengths in his own singing. His gurus—father Anant Manohar Joshi of Gwalior, He was also a disciple of the late Pandit Balkrishnabau Vaze of the Gwalior Gharana Vilayat Hussein Khan of Agra and Bhurji Khan of Jaipur—spanned the three gharanas whose blend is exhibited in his art.
As the guru of my own guru, Pt. Devasthali, Gajananrao Joshi has a special place in my personal musical pantheon. Mohan Nadkarni’s biographical article on Gajananbua is well worth a read.
These two sides showcase his violin artistry, which was of a piece with his singing: intelligent, uncompromising, beautiful.
Listen and enjoy!
Raga Todi
Raga Kafi
environment Politics: Arctic ice melt endangered species polar bears
by Warren
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Year 2, Month 7, Day 17: And In The Left Corner, In Yellow Trunks…
The L.A. Times reports on the recent (July 1) ruling that the Polar Bear is going to be allowed to keep its status on the Endangered Species list.
A U.S. District Court on Thursday upheld a Bush-era decision that polar bears are a threatened species, despite challenges by the state of Alaska and others seeking to strip the bear of its protection.
Judge Emmet Sullivan ruled that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s decision to protect the bear because of the melting of the Arctic sea ice was well supported and that opponents failed to demonstrate that the listing was irrational.
“Plaintiffs’ challenges amount to nothing more than competing views about policy and science,” Judge Emmet Sullivan wrote.
Them pesky liberal judges.
Personally, I’d like to watch a polar bear and James Inhofe battle it out.
Sent July 1:
As one of the most recognizable of the world’s charismatic megafauna, the polar bear’s become a symbol of wildlife endangered by climate change. While Judge Sullivan’s ruling on the threatened Arctic predator’s status is welcome news, we need to recognize that it’s not just the big, furry and picturesque that need our protection. All over the planet, creatures great and small are coming under attack from a faceless enemy — but the ultimate victims are not the animals and plants themselves, but the living networks of interdependency of which they are a part. The world’s ecosystems are in grave danger; as they lose their resilience, we’ll see ever-greater numbers of inarticulate climate refugees searching for new habitats. It’s unfortunate that there is no category for Endangered Environments, for it’s not just the polar bear, but its entire support system, that is under assault from the greenhouse effect and its consequences.
Warren Senders