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SFMOMA Is Great, But it Could Be Better

by LenoraSalomons Posted on May 29, 2016

Mother Jones

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Michael O’Hare is delighted with the new San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, but he does have a couple of complaints:

What’s not so great, so far: while it’s free for anyone under 19, standard admission is $25. This is very bad, and a big deal: if you spend that much to get in, you are under pressure to try to see too much and stay too long.

….There is only one open evening a week, otherwise it’s 10-5, which is as silly as a theater programming nothing but matinees. Museums have a disagreeable tradition of being for tourists and the unemployed wives of wealthy businessmen. A museum is the ideal place for a first date, and even to meet new people (no pressure, and lots of stuff to talk about); why make it so difficult to go there after work?

On the second point, this is a good example of my habit of being wary of obvious complaints. I’m certain that every art museum executive in the country is aware of this issue, so it’s pretty unlikely it’s happening out of ignorance or malice. There’s probably a very good reason for it. We’d just have to ask. At a guess, that reason is that it’s been tried by lots of museums before and it’s a steady money loser because nobody comes. I’ll also guess that oldsters like Mike and me might be wrong about kids thinking that SFMOMA would make a dandy first date. Just saying.

The first point is a little different. Sure, high admission prices are also an obvious problem, but I’m surprised museums don’t try a theme park solution that was pioneered by, of all companies, Blockbuster. (Well, that’s the first place I encountered it, anyway.) Keep the price at $25, but make every ticket automatically good for three days. My guess is that this would have a minimal effect on revenue, but for those few who’d like to wander back in a day or two instead of conducting a one-day death march, it would be great. There might be issues with people giving away or selling their tickets after visiting for a day, but I’ll bet there’s a tech solution for that. Silicon Valley is only a few miles away, guys. Maybe every ticket includes a photo. If you don’t want your photo taken, then it reverts to a one-day ticket. This might well be worth giving some more thought to.

And if you’ve made it this far, here’s your reward: San Jose Teen’s Glasses Prank at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Goes Viral. Really, you need to click on this. It’s hilarious. A Sokal hoax for the modern art biz.

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SFMOMA Is Great, But it Could Be Better

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Please resist the urge to take a selfie with this cute seal

by RandolphRagsdale Posted on May 29, 2016

SEALFIE TIME

Please resist the urge to take a selfie with this cute seal

By on May 29, 2016Share

Seals, like the Sirens of Greek myth who perched on rocky shores to lead passerby astray, are trying to lure you — and you must not give in. Their weapon: those photogenic little faces.

Let Atlas Obscura set the scene:

Imagine: it’s the tail end of Memorial Day Weekend. All your friends have been posting pictures of themselves laughing it up in various attractive early summer situations. You, on the other hand, have found yourself at a relatively average New England beach — gritty sand, cloudy sky, some water. There is no Instagram filter that can enhance this. How to set yourself apart?

Look! There, down the beach — a lone seal pup, wriggling in the sand. Do you approach the seal? Do you click that little button that switches to the front-facing camera? Do you put your head near the pup’s head, as though you are pals, and smile?

No. Do not do it, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association said in a recent press release. Do not take a selfie with the seal.

If Mommy Seal, who is probably nearby hunting for food, sees you with Baby Seal, she might abandon her young pup forever. (So much for maternal instincts.) Trust me: You don’t want that kind of guilt on your hands, and you sure don’t want any photos around to verify your disgraceful affront to sealkind.

If that’s not enough to keep you away, NOAA also wants you to know this: “Seals have powerful jaws, and can leave a lasting impression.”

So next time you encounter a cute, squirmy wild animal, keep your cellphone-wielding flippers to yourself and recall the immortal words of NOAA: “There is no selfie stick long enough!”

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Please resist the urge to take a selfie with this cute seal

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Why Is the Murder Rate Increasing?

by AllanTrapp Posted on May 18, 2016

Mother Jones

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Over at Vox, Dara Lind has a longish piece about the “Ferguson Effect,” the notion that homicides are up because police are afraid to do their jobs in an era of viral videos and public backlash against police violence:

Just like there’s been a certain reluctance to admit homicide is rising at all among people who don’t want to blame Black Lives Matter protesters for it, there’s been reluctance to attribute any rise in homicides to changes in policing….But the reality is that changes in policing do affect crime rates. Indeed, “proactive” policing — in forms that have officers walking around neighborhoods and building relationships with their residents — is one of the most effective things a city can do to prevent crime. You just have to look at the correct scale: Police departments are local institutions, and they affect things on a local scale.

“Gun violence is very local,” says crime analyst Jeff Asher. “And changes in gun violence patterns probably have local explanations.” So he doesn’t give much credence to Comey’s version of the Ferguson effect theory — that the hypothetical fear of being the subject of a viral video somewhere is changing how cops around the country do their jobs. “There’s little evidence in the places we can measure it,” he says, “that proactivity in, say, Louisville, went down because of events in St. Louis or Baltimore.”

The problem, of course, is that this kind of thing is difficult to measure, which means the Ferguson Effect is all but impossible to verify. Personally I’m skeptical: homicide rates appear to be up a lot more than overall violent crime rates, and that’s hard to square with any kind of policing theory. And it’s important to get this right: If we choose the wrong theory about why murder rates are up, we have almost no chance of getting them back down. Liberals and conservatives alike need to be willing to go wherever the data leads them.

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Why Is the Murder Rate Increasing?

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Romney on Trump’s Taxes: He’s Hiding Something

by GretaBalfe5743 Posted on May 11, 2016

Mother Jones

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Mitt Romney ripped into Donald Trump on Wednesday afternoon, claiming that Trump is unfit for the presidency if he doesn’t release his tax returns. Romney took to Facebook to share his message, saying that “it is disqualifying for a modern-day presidential nominee to refuse to release tax returns to the voters, especially one who has not been subject to public scrutiny in either military or public service.”

Romney’s attack comes a day after Trump swatted aside suggestions that he should release his tax returns before the election. “There’s nothing to learn from them,” Trump told the Associated Press on Tuesday.

Romney disagreed and played the role of armchair psychologist, speculating about Trump’s true motivations for refusing to make his records public. “There is only one logical explanation for Mr. Trump’s refusal to release his returns: there is a bombshell in them,” Romney wrote. “Given Mr. Trump’s equanimity with other flaws in his history, we can only assume it’s a bombshell of unusual size.”

Romney’s own 2012 presidential campaign was plagued by demands from Democrats that he release his tax returns. He finally caved and put out his 2010 and 2011 records, but not until late in the campaign.

Original article – 

Romney on Trump’s Taxes: He’s Hiding Something

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Donald Trump: Are We Not In The Trust Tree?

by JuliannMacqueen Posted on May 11, 2016

Mother Jones

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HAHAHAHAHAAHA.

He was just brainstorming! There are no bad ideas in a brainstorm!

I can’t stop laughing.

This happened, naturally, on Fox & Friends. I imagine the episode went a bit like this:

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Donald Trump: Are We Not In The Trust Tree?

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Even the world’s largest food company knows the American diet is an environmental catastrophe

by MichellQka Posted on April 30, 2016

Even the world’s largest food company knows the American diet is an environmental catastrophe

By on Apr 30, 2016 7:00 amShare

This story was originally published by Reveal and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

If the rest of the world ate like Americans, the planet would have run out of freshwater 15 years ago, according to the world’s largest food company.

In private, Nestle executives told U.S. officials that the world is on a collision course with doom because Americans eat too much meat, and now, other countries are following suit, according to a secret U.S. report titled “Tour D’Horizon with Nestle: Forget the Global Financial Crisis, the World Is Running Out of Fresh Water.”

Producing a pound of meat requires a tremendous amount of water because farmers use tons of crops such as corn and soy to feed each animal, which require tens of thousands of gallons of water to grow. It is far more efficient when people eat the corn or soy directly.

The planet is a on a “potentially catastrophic” course as billions of people in countries such as India and China begin eating more beef, chicken, and pork like their counterparts in Western countries, according to the 2009 report released by WikiLeaks and first reported by Reveal at The Center for Investigative Reporting in a cache of water-related classified documents. The Chinese now eat about half as much meat as Americans, Australians, and Europeans, a figure that continues to rapidly rise as more Chinese are lifted out of poverty and into the middle class.

And Nestle — which makes Gerber baby food, Nescafe, Hot Pockets, DiGiorno pizza, Lean Cuisine, Stouffer’s, Nestea, Dreyer’s, and Haagen-Dazs ice cream — is deeply concerned.

Here are some of the takeaways, with key quotes from the secret report:

Global water shortages are just around the corner.

“Nestle thinks one-third of the world’s population will be affected by fresh water scarcity by 2025, with the situation only becoming more dire thereafter and potentially catastrophic by 2050.”

Major regions, including in the United States, are being drained of their underground aquifers.

“Problems with be severest in the Middle East, northern India, northern China, and the western United States.”

Excessive meat-eating is driving water depletion.

“Nestle starts by pointing out that a calorie of meat requires 10 times as much water to produce as a calorie of food crops. As the world’s growing middle classes eat more meat, the earth’s water resources will be dangerously squeezed.”

There’s plenty of water to feed everyone a diet that’s not so meatcentric.

“Nestle reckons that the earth’s maximum sustainable freshwater withdrawals are about 12,500 cubic kilometers per year. In 2008, global freshwater withdrawals reached 6,000 cubic kilometers, or almost half of the potentially available supply. This was sufficient to provide an average 2,500 calories per day to the world’s 6.7 billion people, with little per capita meat consumption.”

The American diet is eating the world dry.

“The current U.S. diet provides about 3600 calories per day with substantial meat consumption. If the whole world were to move to this standard, global fresh water resources would be exhausted at a population level of 6 billion, which the world reached in the year 2000.”

This is an even bigger problem now that other countries are eating like America and the global population’s set to grow by 2 billion by 2050.

“There is not nearly enough fresh water available to provide this standard to a global population expected to exceed 9 billion by mid-century.”

So what’s Nestle’s prediction for the future? Think “Mad Max” …

“It is clear that current developed country meat-based diets and patterns of water usage do not provide a blueprint for the planet’s future. Based on present trends, Nestle believes that the world will face a cereals shortfall of as much as 30 percent by 2025. [Nestle] stated it will take a combination of strategies to avert a crisis.”

Why is this the first time you’re hearing this from the world’s largest food company?

“Sensitive to its public image, Nestle has maintained a low profile in discussing solutions and tries not to preach … the firm scrupulously avoids confrontation and polemics, preferring to influence its audience discretely by example.”

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Even the world’s largest food company knows the American diet is an environmental catastrophe

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We just lost another critical climate satellite

by FloydHeady Posted on April 27, 2016

Pour one out

We just lost another critical climate satellite

By on Apr 26, 2016Share

One of climate change’s most important biographers — a 2,700-pound satellite orbiting 450 miles above the surface of the Earth — just recorded its last data point.

Earlier this month, the National Snow and Ice Data Center announced that, after nine years and five months in orbit, the satellite known as F17 had stopped transmitting sea ice measurements. That’s not unusual — satellites in F17’s series, all named sequentially, are normally expected to last about five years, though some make it much longer. But F17’s failure could preempt the end of the series entirely. Walter Meier, a sea ice researcher at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, called the satellite program “one of the longest, most iconic datasets” illustrating climate change, particularly in the Arctic and Antarctic.

Since 1978, the satellites, each equipped with a set of passive microwave sensors, have been recording conditions on Earth, day in and day out. By measuring the amount of radiation given off by the atomic composition and structure of different substances, like ice or seawater, microwave sensing is a useful tool for pilots and military officers tracking weather conditions. Over time, these measurements can also track cumulative changes in sea ice. As early as 1999, scientists saw that sea ice cover was decreasing more quickly than it had in previous decades — and they’ve been observing similar trends ever since.

Until now, there have always been three or four satellites in the series orbiting at a time, as part of one of the country’s oldest satellite programs, the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP). Over time, as new satellites were launched and older models went dark, overlapping data have kept the 40-year sea-ice dataset consistent.

With F17 floating in unresponsive silence, the bulk of the responsibility has been placed on F18, launched in 2009, as the newest of the series still in working condition (a newer satellite, F19, was launched in 2014 but failed last February). It’s not ideal to rely on a 7-year-old satellite, says Meier, but at least it is possible to keep the dataset continuous — for now. If this one were to conk out, too (knock on wood), there are some other options, including a Japanese research satellite launched in 2011. But, Meier says, the sensors vary slightly, and the data simply won’t be as consistent.

“The real problem is that there’s nothing on the horizon,” said Meier. “There’s nothing funded, or planned right now.”

Arctic sea ice extent hit a new low in 2012, compared to the average minimum extent over the previous 30 years.

There is one other option — but it’s sitting in a storage room somewhere on Earth. This satellite, F20, was the last of its series to be built, and was tentatively planned to launch in 2018. That plan fell through last June, when the Senate Appropriations Committee revoked funding for the DMSP, even rescinding $50 million that had been specifically designated for launching F20. Without Congressional approval, F20 is grounded.

“It’s sitting there, ready to be launched,” said Meier. He pointed out that the data from the satellite series is also used to study snow cover on land, ocean currents, temperature change, drought detection, and many other natural cycles. “The benefit is beyond my own work on sea ice.”

That research, he said, has led to critical discoveries. One of the most important was the observation of record-low sea-ice cover in 2007 and in 2012, findings that Meier says went even further than those reported by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

“All of sudden, it was like, ‘Whoa! The ice cover is not as resilient as we thought, and things are moving a lot faster than we expected,’” he said, worrying that if another satellite were to fail, these kinds of observations would be jeopardized. “It would be a real shame if this data gets interrupted.”

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Angered by Arizona’s Botched Election, One Man Decides to Run for Office

by GerardBoatright Posted on April 11, 2016

Mother Jones

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A week after the botched election in Maricopa County, Arizona—when thousands of people waited hours to cast their ballots—the state’s House Elections Committee got an earful from angry voters.

One of them, local criminal defense attorney Adrian Fontes, stepped to the lectern and ripped into the state’s legislature and Helen Purcell, the county’s chief elections official.

“A political culture that worships at the altar of slashing budgets will eventually lead to the complete collapse of our most sacred democratic institutions: the right for Americans to vote,” he said at the hearing on March 28. “You are as responsible for this as anyone else.”

He concluded, to cheers (and an attempt by the committee chair to cut him off), “I do not want Helen Purcell to resign. I want to beat her at the ballot box.”

That’s exactly what he’s trying to do. Outraged by the long lines at the March 22 election, Fontes filed his paperwork the next morning to run for County Recorder. Purcell, a Republican, has been the recorder since 1988 and is currently in her seventh term. Maricopa County has been a Republican stronghold for decades; Mitt Romney carried the county by 10 points in 2012.

Aaron Flannery, a Republican from the Phoenix suburb of Glendale, also plans to run against Purcell.

The election in Maricopa County, where voters made their choices for the Democratic and Republican presidential nominations, made national headlines for its lines that stretched as long as five hours. There were also questions as to why county election officials decided to cut the number of voting places from 200 to 60, and accusations that the distribution of those locations adversely affected minority neighborhoods. The state’s House Elections Committee held a contentious hearing the Monday following the election about the bungled election, and five days later, the US Department of Justice, citing concerns about the wait times and the impact to minority communities, opened an inquiry into the election. Arizona Secretary of State Michelle Reagan will hold several public meetings this week to talk about the matter.

Fontes, 46, tells Mother Jones that he’s been thinking about the state of elections in Marciopa County since he nearly ran for a state House seat in 2014. (He’d filed paperwork to run, but ended up not running after all). Since then, he’s been active in local Democratic Party politics.

“We’ve been watching our right to vote deteriorate for several election cycles,” he said, “and this was the straw that broke the camel’s back.” Fontes, a former US Marine and lawyer with experience in Arizona, Colorado, and in federal courts in California, says he’s not sure the County Recorder should be a partisan position, because it requires a person who will go to bat for all voters.

During his testimony before the House Elections Committee, he said that Arizona’s primary (technically called a “presidential preference” vote) should be modified to let all registered voters participate—not just those registered with one of the major parties—and called for a re-vote to occur on June 7th.

Adrian Fontes Champion PR

“There’s a lot of people out there, from all sides of the political spectrum, who got cheated,” Fontes says. “I’m not saying I think they got cheated. There’s no question that they were cheated. And the fraud that was committed against these voters wasn’t by a political party. The fraud that was committed against these voters was by their very own government.”

Fontes sees the problems as part of a years-long pattern of systemic voter suppression. Until 2013, Arizona was one of 16 states that were covered under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, requiring them to get federal approval for changes to election procedure or law. In 2013, the Supreme Court struck down the underlying formula behind Section 5, so Arizona and the other “pre-clearance” jurisdictions could make any changes they wanted. If Arizona had still been under pre-clearance, the decision to cut polling locations by 70 percent would likely have required federal approval and may not have been carried out.

Fontes says the long lines were a form of “poll tax” and were no accident. “If you’re a working person, you’ve got two or three jobs, you can’t afford five hours out of a working day,” he says. “You just can’t. Not only for those folks, but for the veterans who are disabled, for the non-veterans who are disabled. For the elderly. For single parents with kids. This wasn’t just an inconvenience. This was a deterrent, an intentional deterrent to keep people from voting.”

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Angered by Arizona’s Botched Election, One Man Decides to Run for Office

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8 Of The Best Spring Flowering Shrubs

by EsmeraldaSym Posted on March 21, 2016

Whether youre renovating your garden or just looking for a bit more color, spring is an excellent time to consider adding some new plant material. Spring-flowering shrubs are a great way to liven up a yard. If you choose the right shrub to fit your needs, youll be rewarded with a gorgeous spring display year after year.

1. Forsythia spp.

This may be one of the most flexible options for spring blooming shrubs. Forsythias can grow ten to fifteen feet tall and wide. They naturally have a beautiful, arching form when fully mature.

If you dont have space for a mature specimen, they can be pruned into a smaller, compact shrub, or even used as hedging. Make sure to prune your forsythia after it has bloomed in the spring because it will start to set next years blooms soon after the new growth appears.

They prefer full sun and may benefit from supplemental irrigation in dry areas. Lots of mulch is helpful to provide water retention and nutrients.

Hardy to zone 5.

2. Lilac (Syringa spp.)

Lilacs are very durable shrubs that prefer drier locations, such as on slopes and in well-drained soils. They also require very little feeding. A high phosphorus fertilizer in early spring will promote blooms, whereas too much nitrogen in the soil will actually reduce flowering.

Cutting off the old blossoms once theyre done will promote more flowers the next year. You can also prune lilacs as needed to either control their size or shape. They have a tendency to spread by runner shoots, which you can cut off at ground level.

The most common bloom colors for lilacs are purple and white, with yellow and bicolor varieties also available. The strength of their scent varies with each variety, but all blooms will have the classic heady lilac aroma that can drift throughout your entire yard.

Hardy to zone 3.

3. Daphne spp.

The fragrance of daphnes is what makes these plants stand out. There are many different types, and all of them smell amazing.

The rock daphnes are a group of spreading groundcovers. They grow up to ten inches tall and make attractive mounds similar to heathers. Cultivars of Daphne cneorum are commonly available in garden centers. There are also a few shrub daphnes. Most of these tend to be smaller shrubs, only getting two to four feet tall, like Daphne x burkwoodii. The occasional variety, like Daphne bhoula, can grow up to eight feet tall.

All types of daphne are quite low-maintenance. They rarely need any pruning or shaping. They appreciate moist soils with good organic matter. Daphnes are considered poisonous plants, so take care if you have pets in your yard that like to forage.

The hardiness zone varies depending on which type you choose, anywhere from zone 4 for Daphne burkwoodii, to zone 8 for Daphne bhoula.

Daphne x burkwoodii ‘Carol Mackie’

4. Witch Hazel (Hamamelis spp.)

Witch hazels may be the earliest blooming shrub of all. In many parts of the Northern Hemisphere, witch hazels may start to bloom in January or February.

They have a distinct, hairy-looking blossom that is often fragrant, depending on the variety. The species witch hazels, such as Hamamelis virginiana, tend to smell stronger than modern hybrids, like Hamamelis x intermedia Arnold Promise.

Witch hazels are understory plants in their natural habitats and tend to do better in partial, but not full, shade, and moist soil. Theyre a slow-growing shrub, with an open vase-like form that will not become too dense. They can grow up to twelve feet, although they blend easily into the background once theyre done blooming for the year.

The hardiness zone can range from zone 3 to zone 5.

5. Viburnum spp.

Most viburnums have attractive blossoms, but not all viburnums smell. Whereas the early varieties Viburnum carlesii and Viburnum x bodantense are worth planting for their spring fragrance.

Both with grow up to eight feet tall and wide over time, but can be easily pruned to shape. They prefer full sun and well-drained soil with good organic matter. Both make effective hedging plants or can stand alone as specimens.

Viburnum carlesii is a hardiness zone 4 and Viburnum x bodantense is hardy to zone 5.

Viburnum carlesii

6. Rhododendron spp.

A celebrity of spring-flowering shrubs, rhododendrons can be absolute show-stoppers for a few weeks every year. They are available in countless colors and shades to suit any taste or garden plan.

They have leathery, evergreen leaves and can grow up to twenty feet tall and wide when mature. They can be pruned back to fit into your space as well.

Rhododendrons prefer partial or full shade and a protected location that doesnt get a lot of wind. They do best in moist, acidic soil high in organic matter. A fall application of fertilizer suitable for acid-loving plants will give them an extra boost.

Most varieties of rhododendrons are not very cold tolerant, and will only be hardy to a zone 7 or 8. Although this is slowly changing as plant breeders develop cultivars that are more hardy. If you live in a colder climate, keep an eye out for hardy selections in your local garden center.

7. Flowering Quince (Chaenomeles speciosa)

These shrubs may be overlooked due to the fact they have thorns. But their show of bright white, pink or red flowers early in the spring makes them worthy of a second look. In addition, they will produce quinces in the fall. These are two-inch, round, nutritious fruit that are traditionally used in jams, jellies and baking.

If you have a place in your garden where the thorns wont be an issue, or youre looking for a good natural deer fence, flowering quince could be a great option.

They grow up to eight feet tall and wide. They can handle many different types of growing conditions, are not particular about what type of soil they grow in, and are drought tolerant once established.

Hardy to zone 4.

8. Azalea (Rhododendron spp.)

These are the smaller cousins of rhododendrons. They are often deciduous and lose their leaves in winter, unlike their evergreen relatives.

Azaleas typically grow from two to eight feet tall. If you need to prune them to shape, make sure to do this soon after the blooms have finished for the year. They will start to set flower buds for next year in the spring.

They prefer partially shady locations and can handle a bit more sun than rhododendrons. The soil should be acidic. Mulching with pine or other conifer needles can be a great way to reduce the pH if your soil is too alkaline.

The hardiness zone for azalea varieties can range from 5 to 8.

Related
A Guide to the Worlds Best Botanical Gardens
Selecting the Right Tree For Your Garden
5 Simple Ways To Get Your Garden Ready for Spring

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

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8 Of The Best Spring Flowering Shrubs

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