environment Politics: corporate irresponsibility denialists EPA Fred Upton
by Warren
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Year 2, Month 7, Day 14: Sustainable Exploitation Is The Way To Go!
The June 28 Times-Record (ME) has a good editorial, titled “What About High Cost Of Unhealthy Air?”
Yeah? What about it?
Actually, it isn’t “we, the people” who get stuck on the cost of keeping our air clean and healthy. Polls consistently show strong public support for the Environmental Protection Agency’s efforts to impose and enforce strict limits on air pollution. A new nationwide bipartisan survey, released on June 16 by the American Lung Association, includes these findings:
— 75 percent of voters support EPA setting stricter limits on smog.
— 65 percent said stricter limits on air pollution will not damage our economic recovery; in fact, 54 percent believe upgraded standards will create more, not fewer, jobs.
— 66 percent said the EPA should set pollution standards, not Congress.
And not only that, but:
In the House, Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, successfully pushed through H.R. 910, the Energy Tax Prevention Act, in a 255-172 vote. Opponents renamed it the “Dirty Air Act,” which seems fair enough considering the bill would:
— Block EPA from cutting carbon dioxide and other pollutants from coal-fired power plants, oil refineries and other industries. Opponents rightly point out that coal-fired plants are the largest single-source of global warming pollution in the U.S.
— Override the determination by EPA scientists that global warming pollution poses threats to public health and welfare. Opponents rightly challenge the notion that members of Congress are better informed about climate science than the EPA’s climate scientists.
— Block both the EPA and states from issuing new standards for cleaner vehicles after 2017. Opponents point out that these standards, as well as the 2012-2016 standards, help reduce our reliance on foreign oil and save motorists money at the gas pump.
In the Senate, Upton’s bill fell 10 votes shy of the 60 needed to overcome a filibuster, but many of its provisions turned up in four amendments to an unrelated small business bill (S.493).
It’s a good piece, and triggered these rather testy words, sent June 28:
The ongoing struggle against environmental regulation by giant corporations and their captive politicians is positively surreal in its disregard for the best interests of America and the world. Representative Upton’s attempt to hobble the EPA is based on specious rationalizations, poor science, and a mindset that exalts maximum immediate return on investment and nothing else. But a healthy environment cannot be exploited endlessly; Earth is large, but finite, and the waste products of our industrialized culture have begun to overwhelm the planet’s handling capacity. “The Environment” is not a fictional construct respected only by hippies and scientists; it’s where all of us live. All of us, that is, except multinational corporations, which explains why they find environmental regulations so annoying. It’s not their air that’s unbreathable, or their water that’s increasingly befouled; it’s ours. And other than as a source of short-term profits, what use have they for us?
Warren Senders
environment: climate refugees oceanic acidification oceans plankton whales
by Warren
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Year 2, Month 7, Day 13: May You Live In Interesting Times…
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands — When a 43-foot gray whale was spotted off the Israeli town of Herzliya last year, scientists came to a startling conclusion: It must have wandered across the normally icebound route above Canada, where warm weather briefly opened a clear channel three years earlier.
On a microscopic level, scientists also have found plankton in the North Atlantic where it had not existed for at least 800,000 years.
This will not end well.
Sent June 27:
As strategic thinkers confront the looming reality of global climate change, they are sounding a warning call to all of us: the planet’s atmosphere is warming, and we’re going to face a growing tide of people whose homes and countries have been rendered unlivable. In the aftermath of the torrential rains, parching droughts, catastrophic wildfires, devastating floods and other extreme weather events long predicted by climatologists as consequences of the greenhouse effect, the world’s poor and unlucky will be uprooted, left with little hope and fewer resources. It seems that among those climate refugees are some of Earth’s largest and smallest creatures — like the gray whale spotted off the coast of Israel, and the unexpected plankton discovered by scientists in the Atlantic. Individually, these reports are just mildly interesting anomalies; seen as part of a larger pattern, they indicate that our strategists have grossly underestimated the dangers we’re facing.
Warren Senders
India Indian music music: 78 rpm discs Hindi films
by Warren
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78 rpm Records of Indian Music: Master Ibrahim (clarinet)
Once a good song came out in a popular movie, instrumental versions soon followed, often featuring the same orchestration that had been used in the original, with a clarinet, violin, harmonica, or piano substituted for the voice. One highly regarded “version tune” player was the clarinetist Master Ibrahim. Here he renders two songs from the 1943 film Poonji, both originally featuring the vocalist Shamshad Begum.
Ab koi tute hue dil ka sahara:
Gadiwale dupatta udaa jayaare:
Ruskin Bond was a fan of Master Ibrahim’s playing:
I was also fond of the clarinet (turj) playing of an Indian musician, Master Ibrahim, and I had some of his recordings which transported me back to the streets and bazaars of small-town India. Light, lilting and tuneful, I preferred this sort of flute music to the warblings of the more popular songsters.
India Indian music music vocalists: Quawwali Urdu
by Warren
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78 rpm Records of Indian Music: Wahidanbai of Agra
In Quawwali performances, a song in praise of the Prophet Mohammed is known as a naat. Wahidanbai of Agra was also heard in Hindi film around this time; unless I’ve got the wrong artist, she was sometimes known as Wahidan Wasti.
Regardless, I enjoy these two naats for her fervent delivery and clear voice production. You will, too.
Ya Mohammed Ya Mohammed:
Khwaajaji tera mela:
The “Young India” record label was an attempt at indigenous music production:
During 1930-35, the British and German record manufacturing companies were well established and had a major share of disc manufacturing in India. The ‘Young India’ record label was an ‘indigenous’ effort at record production. The company issued over 10,000 songs on different subjects such as film music, classical music, folk music, publicity and educational material. Mainly amateur and upcoming artists have recorded on this label. The company ceased to function in 1955 so these recordings have never been reissued on audio tapes and CDs. Hence, it is important and relevant to preserve these invaluable recordings and the associated documents.
During 1935-55, the company produced over 10,000 titles on 78-rpm, 10 inch diameter shellac discs with two songs per disc. Each side could be played for over 3/3.5 minutes on spring wound gramophone machines. The recordings of film, popular, classical and folk music were issued. The repertoire covered music from different regions of India and sung in many different languages. During the long tenure of over twenty years, Indian citizens witnessed several important events such as the movement and struggle for freedom, Indian Independence in 1947, World War II and the beginning of the romantic period of independent India. This was also reflected in the records produced. Thus, there are speeches of great leaders, ballads, skits and dialogues on a number of subjects depicting changing social and political situations.
“Young India” records released many recordings of hortatory patriotic speeches. I wish I had a few of them in my collection, but these items are extremely rare.
environment: climate refugees IPSO media irresponsibility oceanic acidification oceans
by Warren
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Year 2, Month 7, Day 12: Where Is The Sub-Mariner When You Really Need Him?
The ocean is changing, much faster than anyone expected. The SkyValley Chronicle (WA) brings the news:
(NATIONAL) — What does a large gray whale found in the water off an the Israeli town last year have to do with microscopic plankton found recently in the North Atlantic where it had not existed for at least 800,000 years?
Everything, say scientists who now think the whale and the plankton are linked harbingers of a massive migration of species through the Northwest Passage, and a clear and troubling signal of how global warming is affecting animals and plants in the oceans as well as on land.
A new report in MSNBC quotes a scientist in Great Britain as saying the implications of this migration are “enormous,” because a threshold has been crossed — and that alone is an indication of the speed of change that is taking place across the planet because of climate change.
I had no idea it was going to happen this fast.
Sent June 26:
Seen in isolation, each one of these reports seems almost inconsequential. One whale more or less; a few billion plankton where they have no business being — it’s hardly enough to attract our attention, distracted as we are by the latest celebrities du jour. Perhaps that’s a good thing for our short-term mental health; watching the catastrophic breakdown of planetary ecosystems is going to be very stressful. And the most important thing our media can do is to keep us free from any but the most transitory stresses, right?
Ecologies hundreds of thousands of years old are destroyed in a geological eye-blink by the encroachments of our civilization and its waste. Those anomalous whales and plankton are climate refugees, desperately seeking survival in an ocean whose condition is daily more parlous. And they are harbingers of humanity’s future, unless we find the will and the wit to change our ways.
Warren Senders
India Indian music music vocalists: 78 rpm discs Indian folk music kutchi
by Warren
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78 rpm Records of Indian Music: Kutchi Songs by Cassum Ranji
Many songs in Indian regional languages were recorded and released on 78 during the first half of the 20th century. Here’s a disc on the Zonophone label of a singer named Cassum Ranji, performing two songs in the Kutchi language. This means that even if I could figure out a single word from the recording, I wouldn’t have a clue. Appropriately enough, the labels, especially that of the B side, are almost unreadable.
“Dartro”:
Comic Song:
India Indian music music vocalists: 78 rpm discs bhajan falsetto genius
by Warren
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78 rpm Records of Indian Music: Pyare Saheb — India’s Countertenor
Pyare Saheb was one of the most esteemed voices of turn-of-the-century Hindustani tradition. Singing always in a high falsetto, he recorded literally hundreds of 78 rpm discs and enjoyed high esteem amongst rasikas, especially for his sensitive handling of thumris. His music, alas, is now almost completely forgotten. Here are two samples of his singing — a popular devotional song (with some fabulous extemporized ornamental passages) and a beautiful rendition of the rarely heard raga Sorath.
Bhajan: He Govind He Gopal
Raga Sorath: Dekhori na mane Shyam
Year 2, Month 7, Day 11: Put A Cork In It.
The Woodland, California Daily Democrat for June 25 notes that wine-makers in California’s Napa Valley are now forced to take climate change into effect in their planning for future years:
A Napa Valley winemaker last week traversed a steep hillside to reach a 12-foot white weather station that towers above rows of cabernet sauvignon vines absorbing the midmorning sun.
Curiosity drove him to install the relatively inexpensive device in 1995, said Christopher Howell, general manager and winemaker at Cain Vineyard and Winery in the valley’s Spring Mountain region in St. Helena.
But in the years since, its wirelessly relayed data — along with those of 100 like it now operating in the valley — has become crucial as Napa Valley vintners uneasily brace for a changing climate that they’re sure will come.
The region’s wine growers had long heard of melting glaciers and Arctic ice sheets breaking apart in rising global temperatures. During the 20th century, global temperature increased by about 1.33 degrees Fahrenheit, and a U.N. climate panel estimates that, depending upon carbon dioxide emissions, temperatures will rise an additional 2 to 11.5 F by 2100.
“But we shockingly hadn’t connected the dots and said, ‘Oh my, our world is going to change, too,'” Howell said. “We are as anxious about this as we are about the arrival of any new pest or disease.”
How long will it take?
Sent June 25:
For too long our politicians and media have ignored, belittled or mocked the painstaking research of scientific specialists on the world’s climate. By treating the greenhouse effect as a political issue, they’ve polarized the question, making it impossible to discuss the science without ideological interference. The basic facts of global warming have never been in dispute, despite what our televisions would have us believe, and they have been part of climate science for decades; Arctic ice melt as a consequence of increased atmospheric CO2 was predicted in Popular Mechanics magazine — in 1953! Now the window of opportunity is rapidly closing; denialists have squandered forty years and are still intent on making meaningful action on climate all but impossible. Their radical refusal to take responsibility for our civilization’s greenhouse emissions is now bearing fruit, and as the Napa Valley is coming to realize, it’s going to be a bitter vintage indeed.
Warren Senders
India Indian music music vocalists: islam naat Quawwali
by Warren
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78 rpm Records of Indian Music: Abdul Raheman Kanchwala & Sufi Quawal (of Patiala)
Some terrific quawwali singing from Abdul Raheman Kanchwala (who appears to have continued a performance career into the relative present, judging from the results of a little googling) and the anonymous Sufi Quawal (of Patiala). Both of these recordings were part of the collection purchased in Udaipur in 2000.
Abdul Raheman Kanchwala: Jawoonga Khwaaja dard-e-dil sunane ke
Abdul Raheman Kanchwala: Aa jaa o halima ki nigahen ke sitare
Sufi Quawal (of Patiala): Aa mota dilaka khatkaa
Sufi Quawal (of Patiala): Ab to mera bimahi bhi
India Indian music music vocalists: 78 rpm discs musical theater
by Warren
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78 rpm Records of Indian Music: “Khaki Putla” — featuring Mianbhai and Mahomed
I can’t offer much beyond inferences about these two sides on the Zonophone label. My guess is that “Khaki Putla” was the name of a drama, and these two songs are part of the complete “soundtrack.” Mahomed, the singer on “Tap karna aaya,” has very nice technique.
Mianbhai: Aay maula arabhi
Mahomed: Tap karna aaya