Fish for Friday

Edited by Morris Dean

[Anonymous selections from recent correspondence]

The Union of Concerned Scientists is teaming with the White House and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for a special national briefing for UCS supporters about efforts to tackle climate change and increase our country's use of clean, renewable energy like wind and solar.
    Briefing from the White House and EPA on Efforts to Address Climate Change
    Date: Monday, November 17
    Time: 5:15 p.m. EST

[This week]'s election was a heartbreaking loss for bears and wildlife. At the end of an incredibly close election, bear hunters and their supporters resorted to scare tactics and outright lies. Even though there hasn't been a single bear attack reported in Maine, they told voters that bears pose a threat to public safety. One of their advertisements even included footage of a woman being attacked by a bear. What the ad failed to disclose was that the incident happened in Florida and had nothing to do with hunting. ["Yes on 1 Question committee calls out false ads and fear mongering, Fair Bear Bunt Blog"]
    Tragically, it worked. Last night, Maine's Bear Hunt Ban initiative was defeated in an incredibly close vote. ["Ballot Initiative Results 2014, Huffington Post"]
    Click here to read about what some of the 2014 election results mean for wildlife protection.

Prepare yourself. [This week]’s election results will put the Senate under new management, and its incoming leader – Senator Mitch McConnell – has made no secret of his pro-polluter, anti-environmental agenda.
    Simply put, come January, both houses of Congress will be run by a faction of climate deniers and friends of the Koch Brothers. A list of the attacks they have threatened to unleash is as long as it is alarming.

The fossil fuel industry knows it's in a fight for its life. After years of seeing our movement grow, the fossil fuel industry fought back fiercer and dirtier than ever, spending hundreds of millions to put more oil-soaked politicians in office than ever. The New York Times recently released secret recordings of an industry consultant advising “endless war” against environmentalists. It’s clear the fossil fuel industry is getting desperate, so it’s on us to make climate action a priority – at the ballot box, in the streets and in our daily lives.

Is this beautiful or what?

Right whales live on the knife's edge of extinction – after being brutally hunted by whalers in the 19th century, their numbers have never recovered. Only 450 are left in the world.
    Today they're one of the most endangered whales in the world -- and with new threats like sonic booms from seismic testing that deafen and kill whales, right whales could be a few accidents away from being wiped out completely. [US Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (2008 October 10). "Endangered Fish and Wildlife; Final Rule To Implement Speed Restrictions to Reduce the Threat of Ship Collisions With North Atlantic Right Whales." Federal Register, Volume 73, Number 198]
    Our government has admitted that right whales need more protections [US Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (2010 October 6). "Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Designating Critical Habitat for the Endangered North Atlantic Right Whale." Federal Register, Volume 75, Number 193], but without public pressure, they've dragged their feet on making any changes.
    It's well beyond time to change that.
    No more lip service about protecting whales. Help us send 50,000 letters to the National Marine Fisheries Service and demand protections for right whales.

Every year, an estimated 100 million sharks are killed for their fins. Their fins are chopped off. Then, the sharks are thrown back into the ocean, alive, where they suffocate or bleed to death.
    It is brutal to imagine. And it is part of the rapid decline of sharks in the Pacific Rim.
    It must be stopped.
    Right now, the United States is meeting with Pacific Rim nations to finalize the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade agreement. If we don’t act, this could mean expanded trade of shark fins.
    Ocean Conservancy and Sierra Club are calling on the United States Trade Representative to put an end to shark finning and the shark fin trade immediately. We need you to add your voice right away — final decisions on this trade pact could be made in the next few weeks.
    Click here to tell the US Trade Representative: Stop shark finning now!

Keystone XL is back on the agenda. Big Oil helped bankroll the takeover of the Senate, and they’re going to want their new friends to pay tribute. Expect all sorts of shenanigans when the new Congress takes session in January – even though the pipeline has no permit in Nebraska or South Dakota. President Obama has all the data he needs to reject the pipeline, and we’ve got the movement to back him up. Keystone XL will determine President Obama’s climate legacy, and he must say no if he wants to be remembered as a climate champion and not a pipeline president.

God has commanded that a marriage relationship be between one man and one woman. That is the standard. However, sometimes, the Lord commands some of His people to practice polygamy. Think of many old testament prophets, for example. The early members of the LDS church did not all practice polygamy, but God called some to do so. Anyone opposing God's will would be damned.
    Only those early members practiced polygamy whom God called to do so. Joseph Smith was one of them. He resisted it for a long time, until the Lord chastised him.
    It really only makes sense to one who believes in God and revelation.

Andy Rooney had the gift of saying so much with so few words:

• Being kind is more important than being right.
• You should never say no to a gift from a child.
• No matter how serious your life requires you to be, everyone needs a friend to act goofy with.
• Sometimes all a person needs is a hand to hold and a heart to understand.

Oh my goodness……..My heart is broken.
    I appreciated Tom. We could discuss topics and never repeat the same subject. He was brilliant. He lives in my heart every day. I have some of his photos on my office wall and people invariably comment on how beautiful they are. His eye for color and form was exceptional I thought.
    My prayer is that Tom finds the peace he so richly deserved. I will never forget you Tom Lowe. May you forever fly with the angels.

Feeling so sad. Tom had such a brilliant mind, and an incredible eye. RIP my dear friend

My heart lays heavy in the great loss of a fellow advocate and friend Tom Lowe, who has taken his sudden spirit journey. He has always been on the frontline of advocating on food security for low-income communities from the time I can remember, over 10 yrs., even in a time when I myself was a client of the local food bank at a time in my life when I was in deep struggle....and yet, Tom was always there to chronicle the many years of my children and myself over the years with the work we did advocating with the food bank with his amazing photography. Sending my thoughts, love n' light to his many friends and to his family

Feeling a lot of losses today. Learned of the death of two of my advocates Tom Lowe and LaTanya Wolf, both of whom gave so much to the cause even as both were in the struggle themselves. More than that, they were family to me. Tom would pepper my inbox with his political articles and goofy cat photos, always making sure to check up on me and refusing anything less than the truth. LaTanya called me her daughter, would coach me on my singing, giggle with me in between testifying and protesting, and gave me gifts even when I told her not to do so. I will carry them forward with me, their stories, their spirit and their smiles. Rest in power, Tom and LaTanya, and I hope to do you both proud as I'm sure we'll continue to raise hell no matter wherever you and I happen to be.

Tom and I had an on-going discussion about Senator Bernie Sanders and a former coworker who is a devout, hard headed, "dyed in the wool" Republican. Her view was that the Senator was a Socialist and that set Tom off! We had great fun with this! I was the go-between. Tom and I had been discussing this and other subjects since 2009. I never realized what a brilliant mind he had until we connected in 2009. Really glad he remembered me as a friend from our school days.
    Tom was quite a nerd, the intelligent kind of nerd I was friends with. I find it difficult to deal with his passing as with anyone's passing. As a curious human I try to imagine what different situations would feel like but that is an impossibility with death. It aggravates me, to no end, that there is a subject that I cannot analyze and imagine the future, where there is no future. Does this make sense to you? I mean, can you understood what I am thinking, feeling?

I was just watching once again the beautiful flower/orchid pictures you took [at the Santa Barbara Orchid Festival in March]. You should have a showing of all those beautiful pictures on your blog, unless, of course you already have and I just forgot! I don't trust my memory any more, but I repeat, you should, if you haven't already. They are so beautiful. See "First Monday with Characters," April 7.

Another stunning road. Tianmen Mountain Road, Hunan, China:

    Tianmen Mountain is a mountain located within Tianmen Mountain National Park, Zhangjiajie, in northwestern Hunan Province, China. A cable car operates from nearby Zhangjiajie railway station to the top of the mountain. It features 98 cars and a total length of 7,455 meters and an ascent of 1,279 meters. The highest gradient is an unusual 37 degrees. There is also an 11 km road with 99 bends that reaches the top of the mountain and takes visitors to Tianmen cave, a natural hole in the mountain at a height of 131.5 meters.

Limerick of the week:

There was an old bugger called God,
who got a young virgin in pod.
    This disgraceful behaviour
    begot Christ our Saviour,
who was nailed to a cross, poor old sod.

That scandalously blasphemous ditty was written (or simply uttered and noted?) by the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas (1914-1953). It is used in the 2014 movie about the final months of Dylan's life, A Poet in New York, which we saw on TV this week. By way of a movie review, it stars Tom Hollander, whose voice is perfect for the role. His recitals of "When All My Five And Country Senses See" and "Do not go gentle into that good night" are as fine as Thomas's were.
    From Wikipedia's entry on the film:

In The Guardian Stuart Jeffries wrote: "Hollander and Essie Davis as Caitlin performed well youthful concupiscence gone sour." Ceri Radford, in The Daily Telegraph said: "[Hollander] made a startlingly good Thomas, while the script came from one of the few writers who could hope to do the poet justice [Andrew Davies]" and "This was tragedy in the Shakespearean sense: a great man undone by one fatal weakness....The production was lush, lyrical, and very, very funny." In Financial Times, Antonia Quirke wrote: "We see so many performances based on real people...actors faced with the gnarled question of whether to impersonate or interpret....Tom Hollander gives a performance finely balanced between the two approaches: terrific mimicry, but unpredictable and subtle."

Copyright © 2014 by Morris Dean