The Nation grovels to the mob, abasing itself by apologizing for a poem it published

August 1, 2018 • 10:00 am

On July 5, The Nation published a poem called “How-To” by Anders Carlson-Wee, a young white man.  It describes how panhandlers, the homeless, and others asking for money should behave. That behavior, as you can see in the poem, involves using tactics designed to pry money out of people who are reluctant to give some spare change. The argot used by the poet is that of some black people, although others say simply “Southerners.” Read it for yourself (click on screenshots to go to the poem and apology page):

 

The Torrington Register Citizen in Connecticut notes :

The poem offers advice to presumably homeless panhandlers on the best way to pry cash from passersby, including this line: “If you’re crippled don’t /
flaunt it. Let em think they’re good enough / Christians to notice.”

Throughout the poem, the narrator also adopts an ungrammatical vernacular that many readers found equally troubling: “Don’t say homeless, they know / you is.”

Those on social media actually found two problems with the poem. First is its “ableism”, which doesn’t bother me so much as it’s about homeless and disabled people asking for money, and that’s simply a fact of life. The other parts, about how to get more money out of passersby, may be imagined, but there are surely tactics that panhandlers and the disabled use that have brought them more money. Having a nearby animal as your pet helps, as does displaying one’s handicap and so on. And surely some of these tactics have been passed among the disabled and homeless. I have no issue with this, though I’m not sure “How-To” constitutes “poetry” in my book, as it lacks meter, imaginative images or interesting language. That’s a matter of taste. Nevertheless, The Nation considered it poetry and published it.

The second issue is the use of language: black argot like “You hardly even there” or “they know you is”, which, I suppose would be okay if the poet was black but was deemed cultural appropriation because he was white. That could seem a bit more problematic, but then there are people who speak this way, and the use of other people’s English has been part of literature for a long time, including in “Huckleberry Finn” and “A Passage to India.” On balance, I don’t find the poem problematic.

But many people did, and let The Nation know on social media, considering the poem not only ableist but racist. A few examples:

After I wrote the above, I asked Grania for her take on the poem, and she gave me permission to quote her view:

From what I can see the poem is about how to claw back some semblance of power while in a position of submission or powerlessness, which is an interesting concept. The narrative voice is describing their fictional self and their own actions and acting. It’s got nothing to do with “othering” or “belittling” communities, and anyone claiming to be hurt or injured after reading the poem needs a big sign tattooed backwards on their forehead so that every time they look in the mirror they can read the words:
IT’S NOT ALWAYS ABOUT YOU

I suppose the editors should have been prepared by this kind of social media pushback, but instead of defending their right to publish what they wanted, they issued an apology almost unparalleled in its groveling.  Their admission, for example, that the poem is “ableist” is not supportable: the poem is about being disabled and having to ask for money. As for having caused “harm to several communities”, the harm is only to feelings (n.b. “the pain we have caused to the many communities affected by this poem.”). But the poem will damage no minority group. And the editors now feel that they have to earn the readers’ trust back, when in fact some readers defended the poem’s publication and criticized this apology.

This kind of groveling and truckling to the mob is, to me, absolutely contemptible:

The poem had its defenders, and the Nation its critics for apologizing:

https://twitter.com/jonkay/status/1024144201439694848

and from philosopher Jeremy Stangroom:

There’s a good case to be made that The Nation should have followed Stangroom’s advice.

Nevertheless, the poet apologized on Twitter:

https://twitter.com/AndersWeePoet/status/1021794320435699712

According to Page Six, the poet’s apology didn’t still the critics, who piled on even more, calling Carlson-Wee’s use of the phrase “eye-opening” ableist as well. And according to the tweeter below, the apology didn’t go far enough (Carlson-Wee donated his fee to charity). There is nothing he can do now, for he has been cast into the pit of perdition, and this will follow Carlson-Wee forever. As a poet, he’s toast.

This is now what’s happening in America (and Canada and the UK): the thought police, screaming on social media, are baying for people’s jobs and reputations because their words don’t conform to what critics see as the ideologically correct position. Literature is especially vulnerable since it’s imaginative and doesn’t always deal with the writer’s sex, ethnicity, or race.

If those who oppose the thought police remain silent, the Pecksniffs will win by default, so it’s up to us to criticize this kind of censorship and apologetics whenever we can.

h/t: cesar

Readers’ wildlife photos

August 1, 2018 • 7:45 am

We have a nice batch of insect and spider photos from reader Mark Sturtevant, whose notes are indented. And be sure to send in your good wildlife photos.

There are numerous species of damselflies that are known as ‘bluets’, so-named because for most species the males and sometimes females are blue in color. The first picture is of a male familiar bluet (Enallagma civile), and the second picture is a mating pair of skimming bluets (Enallagma geminatum).

Continuing with damselflies, the next three pictures are of one of our spreadwing damselflies, which are damselflies that sit with their wings slightly open. The ones shown are slender spreadwings (Lestes rectangularis). The first is a female, and the others are males. The shy male damselfly shown in the third picture is one of my favorite pictures from last summer.

The next two pictures are of tree crickets in the genus Oecanthus. These can be hard to identify to species, and many are identifiable only by song and geographic region. I don’t know about their songs, but based on the geographic location I favor these to be O. forbesi. The first cricket is a female, and the second is an especially dapper looking male.

Finally, we return to the Magic Field for a Spider of Unusual Size. Here and there on the ground are burrows made by some arthropod or other. Some of these have a low turret of plant matter that is loosely woven together with silk. These are the burrows of burrowing wolf spiders (likely genus Geolycosa). I would often use an LED light from my phone to peer into one of the holes, and I could generally see glittering eyes staring back. The first picture is one of the spiders  sitting at the entrance to her lair.

I very much wanted to catch one for pictures, but the only approach that worked was to simply dig one out. So I dug a vertical pit alongside a burrow, and after going down about a foot I then dug a horizontal connection to the spider burrow and pushed her out from below. She emerged only reluctantly.

I think the species is G. missouriensis. She is easily the biggest wolf spider that I have seen. The shiny knobs under her face are parts of the joint condyles for her chelicerae, and these give the impression that she can bite pretty hard. After a few pictures she was returned to her burrow and the adjacent pit was filled in.

Wednesday: Hili dialogue

August 1, 2018 • 6:45 am

Well, we made it to August, as today is Wednesday, August 1, 2018. It’s also National Raspberry Cream Pie Day, celebrating a dessert I’ve never tasted. In England it’s Yorkshire Day, so I’m compelled by the laws of physics to show this classic Python clip:

News tweet from Grania re Trump and his most recent outrageous pronouncement. I am still amazed that this man is the leader of our nation. History will not, to put it mildly, judge him kindly.

And the response from a professor of political science at Pusan National University in Korea:

Today’s Google Doodle celebrates the 108th birthday of Gerda Taro (1 August 1910 – 26 July 1937), a German photographer famous for covering the Spanish Civil War. Her photo is below the Doodle. She died at only 26, killed in a tank/car collision in that war.

Taro:

A photograrph Taro took in 1937 of two Republican soldiers next to a wall covered with Nationalist slogans. Read more about her at the BBC article about her life.


On this day in 527, Justinian I became the sole ruler of the Byzantine Empire. On August 1, 1774, the chemist Joseph Priestly (re)discovered oxygen gas, which had already been discovered by the German-Swedish chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele. On this day in 1800, the “Acts of Union 1800” were passed, merging the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland into the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Big trouble ensued.  But 34 years later to the day, slavery was abolished in the British Empire, three decades before it happened in the United States.  On August 1, 1893, Henry Perky patented shredded wheat. Here’s a Nestlé ad featuring the inventor. (By the way, try frying shredded wheat according to this video. Has anybody had that?)

On August 1, 1936, “Hitler’s Olympics” opened in Berlin. Eight years later, the Warsaw Uprising against the German occupation broke out in Poland. It failed miserably and thousands of Poles were killed, though the uprising—the biggest civilian rebellion against the Nazis—might have succeeded had the approaching Russians helped the resisters. Some historians think that Stalin held back the Red Army so that that Polish Resistance would be destroyed.  On August 1, 1966, Charles Whitman, firing a rifle from a tower at the University of Texas, killed 16 people before he was killed by police On this day in 1971, the Concert for Bangladesh, organized by George Harrison, took place at Madison Square Garden in New York City. There were actually two concerts on that day, both featuring Harrison, Ringo Starr, Eric Clapton, and Bob Dylan, as well as other rock luminaries. Exactly ten years later, MTV broadcast its first program in the U.S. Its first video? “Video Killed the Radio Star” by The Buggles. Finally, this was the day in 2008 that 11 mountaineers died on K2 (the world’s second highest mountain)

Notables born on this day include biologist Jean-Baptiste de Larmarck (1744), now famous for his discredited theory of heredity but who had many other accomplishments. This tweet (h/t Matthew) celebrates his birthday.

Others born on this day include William Clark (1770; of Lewis and Clark fame), Francis Scott Key (1779), Herman Melville (1819, call him “Hermie”), mountaineer Eric Shipton (1907), Ramblin’ Jack Elliott (1931; still with us), zoologist W. D. Hamilton (1936, no longer with us), Yves Saint Laurent (1936), and Jerry Garcia (1942). Those who died on August 1 include Calamity Jane (1903), Theodore Roethke (1963), Tommy Makem (2007) and Cilla Black (2015).

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is making sport of Cyrus as they return from walkies, for Cyrus can’t get through the gate unless it’s opened by Andrzej:

Hili: We don’t have to wait for him. Let’s go home.
Cyrus: Don’t be such a smarty pants.
In Polish:
Hili: Nie musimy na niego czekać, chodź, idziemy do domu.
Cyrus: Nie bądź taka mądra.
A tweet from Grania about yesterday’s National Orgasm Day in the U.S., U.K., and Australia:

Tweets from Matthew, the first showing beetles opening their elytra (wing cases) to fly:

This fact might surprise you. I am cutting back on my consumption of all meat, but I’m still a bit of a hypocrite. I do my best.

Read the heartwarming thread about the rescue of these two baby birds:

https://twitter.com/LiamWelton/status/1023846301547601920

Kitty makes purring text:

If you want to see what this is a photograph of, click on the original tweet and then read the thread:

A lovely picture with a cryptic moth. I’m sure you can spot it, but it’s not bloody obvious:

A brave and tenacious beetle (read the thread after the tweet).

Tweets from Heather Hastie showing the New Zealand Department of Conservation’s new uniforms. Her cousin Lucy Ferguson, who works for the organization, is the first woman in the video.

I love orchid bees, which are obligatory pollinators of many orchid species. Look at the tongue on this bee, and at its colors!

An animated view of migration in four North American bird species.

A new method of firefighting. Maybe it can be used to somehow rescue those trapped in high-rises:

Have a butchers at this playful tiger!

https://twitter.com/DAILYKlTTEN/status/1023598341672718339

 

Tuesday: Duck report

July 31, 2018 • 1:00 pm

Well, we’re down to four ducklings now, as one apparently flew the coop (or rather the pond) last night. So we now have on hand (or rather on wing) Honey, who is temporarily flightless because of her molt, and four of the eight ducklings, including the small one who is bullied, Phoebe.

But first let’s hand it to Honey for having now fledged eight ducklings in the last year. With luck it will be an even dozen.

My best feathered girl

The good news is that Phoebe appears to be coming out of her cowering state a bit, and looks pretty good. While the other ducks don’t let her join them, she is swimming about and I was able to give her a good meal this morning. This is in contrast to yesterday, when most of the time she was cowering on the duck island, alone. She’s still emitting heartbreaking quacks from time to time, but I’m hopeful that soon she’ll join the others in the Big Egress. Here she was yesterday.

Phoebe, the bullied duck

Here’s Honey exercising her wings yesterday. You can see they’re strong, but she lacks flight feathers. Note as well the distinctive mottling of her beak, including the trianglular black mark at the junction of her left upper bill and head: her diagnostic feature.

After feeding time yesterday, a remarkable thing happened. First all the ducklings went to the water inlet and reveled and dabbled in the rushing water:

And then they all went nuts, making runs through the pond, diving underwater and swimming a long way (they simply disappeared and reappeared on the other side of the pond. . .

And then they FLEW! They flew all around the pond but didn’t leave it, making long hops, short hops, and skidding into the water as a landing. All of the flying, racing, and diving went on for about five minutes. It was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen: Duck Crazy Hour, a carnival of flight and fun. I wish the video on my camera had been working so you could see it. I was both amazed and elated at the same time.

Unlike some species of ducks, mallards don’t need a “run” on the water to take off: they can fly up nearly vertically. That’s what this one is doing in the photo below. Their wings must be quite powerful to lift them off this way.

I’m not sure whether they’re testing their wings, practicing flight, or simply having fun. They didn’t leave the pond, but they clearly can, and they flew with great ease.

I immediately called Anna to come see the spectacle, but when she arrived nearly ten minutes later the fun was over, and the ducks were grooming, preening, and bathing:

You can see that Honey (foreground) simply lacks flight feathers; compare her to her duckling in the rear, whose wing feathers extend out behind its butt. (It also has a lovely blue-violet speculum.)

Honey is still being maternal, standing on the cement rings and supervising her brood, even though they’re now pretty independent. I wonder if she has any emotions about their departure?

And we mustn’t forget our turtle friends, who are appearing en masse to enjoy the temperate weather and warm sun. Here’s one red-ear climbing atop another one to get the maximum solar exposure.

Anna was the last person to see the whole brood together. When she returned from vacation on Sunday evening, she immediately went to the duck pond and reports that they were all there at that time. The next morning three were gone, so they must have flown away on Sunday night (I’ve heard that ducks navigate at night). I photographed Anna yesterday with the remaining crew:

 

It’s bittersweet to see the ducklings leave one by one (I thought they’d all leave together), but it was inevitable, and I’m really happy that, after the demise of two babies late in May, the rest of them have all survived and thrived (knock on wood for Phoebe!). And I’m happy that Anna and I played a small role in ensuring that they got enough food to give them a good start in life.  Finally, I know Honey will be here for a while, and I’ll make sure she’s amply rewarded for her hard work in raising a brood of eight in a small pond. Long may they fly!

North Korea still building long range missiles

July 31, 2018 • 11:49 am

Once again Trump has misunderstood North Korea’s intentions. As I predicted earlier (and here I’ll pat myself on the back, though this isn’t rocket science), North Korea has no intention of suspending either its nuclear program or its development of long-range missiles that can deliver weapons to the U.S. The DPRK’s raison d’etre is to be able to counter the imminent attack by America that all residents of the DPRK are warned about. That means that there’s a snowball’s chance in hell that they’ll stop developing weapons and delivery systems.

Read the new Washington Post article by clicking on the screenshot below:

An excerpt:

U.S. spy agencies are seeing signs that North Korea is constructing new missiles at a factory that produced the country’s first intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reaching the United States, according to officials familiar with the intelligence.

Newly obtained evidence, including satellite photos taken in recent weeks, indicates that work is underway on at least one and possibly two liquid-fueled ICBMs at a large research facility in Sanumdong, on the outskirts of Pyongyang, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe classified intelligence.

The findings are the latest to show ongoing activity inside North Korea’s nuclear and missile facilities at a time when the country’s leaders are engaged in arms talks with the United States. The new intelligence does not suggest an expansion of North Korea’s capabilities but shows that work on advanced weapons is continuing weeks after President Trump declared in a Twitter posting that Pyongyang was “no longer a Nuclear Threat.”

Trump is a moron. They’ll always be a nuclear threat and nothing will stop that save mutually assured annihilation and deterrence.

. . . some independent analysts think the Trump administration has misread Kim’s intentions, interpreting his commitment to eventual denuclearization as a promise to immediately surrender the country’s nuclear arsenal and dismantle its weapons factories.

“We have this backward. North Korea is not negotiating to give up their nuclear weapons,” Lewis* said. “They are negotiating for recognition of their nuclear weapons. They’re willing to put up with certain limits, like no nuclear testing and no ICBM testing. What they’re offering is: They keep the bomb, but they stop talking about it.”

That’s pretty much the way I see it.

*Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies.