Fish for Friday

Edited by Morris Dean

[Anonymous selections from recent correspondence]

An impossible road? Guoliang Tunnel Road, China, perhaps.
    The Guoliang Tunnel is carved along the side of and through a mountain in China. The tunnel is located in the Taihang Mountains which are situated in the Henan Province of China. If you want to get there, you should start your trip in Xinxiang. Leave the city by driving north on Huanyu Avenue (the S229). After 13 miles you’ll enter the town of Huixian. Stay on the S229 for 15 miles more until you reach the junction with the S228. Turn left here and keep following the S229. After eight miles you reach the village of Nanzhaizen. Turn left again and follow directions to Guoliang, eight miles further.

"Beware the narrow lanes of some Southland freeways" [2003]. Excerpt:

On a recent afternoon, I inspected the log book and found scores and scores of road segments on the Santa Monica, Pasadena and San Diego freeways, among others, that have narrower than 12-foot-wide lanes. I asked Caltrans about just one example, a segment of the Long Beach Freeway near the Washington Avenue exit where the log book states three lanes occupy 28 feet, or an average of 9.3 feet per lane.
    As drivers of the Long Beach Freeway know, this segment is usually jammed with big freight trucks making the run from the ports to the railroad yards in East Los Angeles. If there is anyplace where you don't want lanes less than 10 feet wide, it is precisely here.
    After a couple of days, Caltrans said the log book was in error and the Long Beach Freeway's lanes were actually 12 feet wide. I considered going out with a tape measure to check but decided not to risk my life. I doubt that out of the millions of entries in the log book, I found the only example of Caltrans' messed-up records.

"Report Says Fewer Bees Perished Over the Winter, but the Reason Is a Mystery." Excerpt:

The collapse of bee populations around the country in recent years has led to warnings of a crisis in foods grown with the help of pollination. Over the past eight years, beekeepers have reported winter losses of nearly 30 percent of their bees on average....
    A prominent environmental group found “an urgent need for action” in the new report. Lisa Archer, director the food and technology program for the organization Friends of the Earth, said, “These dire honey bee numbers add to a consistent pattern of unsustainable bee losses in recent years.”....

Global warming is melting Antarctic glaciers so fast they're now dumping a Mount Everest's worth of ice into the sea every two years. ["West Antarctic Melt Rate Has Tripled," American Geophysical Union, December 2, 2014]
    This could be the terrifying point where climate change tips toward catastrophe, with sea levels rising faster along our coasts, marine life dying as our oceans acidify, and storms growing ever more powerful and destructive. ["Warming Seas Drive Rapid Acceleration of Melting Antarctic Ice," National Geographic. December 4, 2014]
    If there's such a thing as a do-or-die moment on global warming, 2015 could be it.

"10 stories the mainstream media doesn't want you to read." Four of them:

1. Ocean acidification. Our oceans are acidifying – even if the nightly news hasn't told you yet....
    2. Top 10 U.S. aid recipients practice torture. Sexual abuse, children kept in cages, extra-judicial murder. While these sound like horrors the United States would stand against, the reverse is true: This country is funding these practices....
    5. Bankers remain on Wall Street despite major crimes. Bankers responsible for rigging municipal bonds and bilking billions of dollars from American cities have largely escaped criminal charges. Every day in the U.S., low-level drug dealers get more prison time than these scheming bankers who, while working for GE Capital, allegedly skimmed money from public schools, hospitals, libraries and nursing homes, according to Rolling Stone....
    8. Ignoring extreme weather connection to global warming. In what can only be responded to with a resounding "duh," news analyses have found mainstream media frequently report on severe weather changes without referring to global warming as the context or cause, even as a question....

"Trans-Pacific Trade Talks Resume With Almost No Media Coverage." The secret Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations resumed this week, this time in Washington. TPP is a massive agreement that sets up new rules for over 40 percent of the global economy. It will have profound effects on our jobs, our standard of living now and in the future and our ability to make a living as a country. Oddly, though, as of Monday morning you have to read about it in Japan Times because few-to-no U.S. media outlets are covering it.

"Meet the Press explains why Congress is broken: 'All you need to know. Half of them are millionaires'."

"The Guardian view on the US torture report: America’s shame and disgrace." Opening two paragraphs:

President Ronald Reagan signed the United Nations convention against torture in 1988 and the United States ratified it six years later in 1994. Seven years after that, in 2001, the US nevertheless started to use torture on a systematic basis. That use continued for several years. In 2009 the practice was banned by President Obama. On Tuesday, the full story of America’s shame and disgrace was at last laid bare. It is one of the darkest episodes in the history of a nation that sees itself, not unreasonably in many respects and in some eras, as a beacon to the world.
    The Senate intelligence committee’s report is a landmark in accountability. Yet it also shows how much remains to be done to tighten the rule of law over the necessary secret agencies of the state, and not only in America. The report provides devastating evidence of the CIA’s consistent and deliberate recourse to torture, with the blessing of the Bush administration, following the 9/11 attack, and in pursuit of the so-called war on terror. It pulls few punches as it details the conscious and repeated subversion of law and justice by a state that is justly proud to be rooted in those very ideals. It is one of the most shocking documents ever produced by any modern democracy about its own abuses of its own highest principles....

"19 key points from the torture report." First two points:

    #1: The CIA's use of its enhanced interrogation techniques was not an effective means of acquiring intelligence or gaining cooperation from detainees....
    #2: The CIA's justification for the use of its enhanced interrogation techniques rested on inaccurate claims of their effectiveness.

Every EU member country submitted their own preference for the color of the EU's flag. As you can see, there are tremendous differences portending future big clashes.

Two friends sharing a Vivaldi moment.

"Conservative demonization of Obama allowed racists to crawl out from under their rocks." Opening paragraph & final three paragraphs:

Even before Barack Obama took the stage in celebration in Chicago's Grant Park on election night in 2008, the ugly racists in conservative leadership had already spent months stirring racial resentment and fear based on Obama's "otherness." References to the Reverend Wright sermon, the claimed Michelle Obama "whitey tape," the birth certificate, the coded racism of Sarah Palin, and the non-stop, breathless, racist fear-pandering by anyone and everyone associated with Fox News set the stage for what was to come: nearly seven years of unending racist attacks, both overt and subtle....
    Reports of Republican Party officials making openly racist or subtly racist comments are now so common that we are nonplussed when we read the latest crazed utterances. Over the course of Obama's tenure, the "freedom" to express such thoughts has expanded greatly, and attempts to call out these comments are often met with 1) a denial of racism, and 2) shouts of "Freedom of speech!" and "First Amendment!"
    Racism never went away, but thanks to the hard work of dedicated people, including many who gave their lives for the cause, racists and racism were forced into the shadows, limiting racists' ability to openly proselytize their perverse beliefs. Our world was a better place. We have gone backwards as a nation.
    Conservatives have fostered this retreat to gain power. It's a cynical strategy laced with abhorrent consequences for us all. It may take a long time to put that genie back in the bottle.

Rainy day priorities:

Andy Rooney:

• One should keep his words both soft and tender, because tomorrow he may have to eat them.
• A smile is an inexpensive way to improve your looks.
• When your newly born grandchild holds your little finger in his little fist, that you're hooked for life.
• Everyone wants to live on top of the mountain, but all the happiness and growth occurs while you're climbing it.
• The less time I have to work with, the more things I get done.

In the early 18th century, when the lute was riding high, Sylvius Leopold Weiss was regarded as the finest lutenist of the day. A contemporary writes that "because the Weissian method of playing the lute is considered the best, most sound, galant, and perfect of all, many have striven to attain his new method, just as the Argonauts sought the Golden Fleece."

Though I’ve barely had time to look up from my computer screen – I’ve been immersed in working on a new book, due for publication in the spring – I can hardly believe another year has come and gone. Little things tell me it’s true, though. My son is growing tall like the giraffes from his favorite story, "The Lion King." I’m wrapping up teaching another semester at Harvard. A dear friend recently said to me that “even the sharpest knives need to be sharped on occasion” and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed sparring with the brilliant minds that have been a part of the discussion course I led this year.

This had to have been written between 2001-2004, because I was in California, and my husband went for a drive by himself and ended up in Ione, Washington:

I'm alone in Ione, the fault I disown
The true cause be known.
California called her you see.
Lots of talking and shopping,
Tales big and whopping
Pulled her away from me.
So she up and went, my regards being sent
To all who are there, arguing recall and pulling their hair!
Life may be short, but I duly report
It surely is long when your Lassie is gone.

"If Archaeologists Uncovered Today’s Society, It Might Look Like This":

Wow! What a First Baptist Church Houston has! Let's rock!


From the Los Angeles Times (2014-12-11):

A North Hollywood man was charged with animal cruelty and criminal threats after eating his former girlfriend's pet rabbit and threatening to do the same to her. He killed, skinned and cooked the pet. He then ate half of it while texting his ex-girlfriend pictures of the act.

    Whatever you think is impossible, outrageous...there is always more.

Clay Aiken didn't author the song "Mary, did you know?" It was originally written by a Christian comedian, Mark Lowry. The musical score was written by Buddy Greene. It has been recorded by several people. Clay Aiken's version is good, as you can understand the words well. Kenny Rogers & Wynonna Judd's version​ is another good one.

Leonard Pitts Jr.: "The meaning of ‘white privilege’." Excerpt:

What follows is for the benefit of one William James O’Reilly Jr. — “Bill” to his fans.
    Last summer, O’Reilly, a pundit for Fox News, spent time talking about white privilege and his contention that no such thing exists....
    O’Reilly and his ilk can now educate themselves for the price of a couple of mouse clicks.
    With the first click, they should play video of Joseph Houseman, a 63-year-old white man who, back in May, stood with a rifle on a street in Kalamazoo, Mich. When police arrived, he refused to identify himself, grabbed his crotch, flipped them the bird and cursed. They talked him down in an encounter that lasted 40 minutes. Houseman was not arrested. The next day, he got his gun back.
    With the second click, O’Reilly should play video of Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old black boy who, last month, was playing with a realistic-looking toy gun in a Cleveland park. When police arrived, an officer jumped out of the car and shot him at point-blank range. There was no talking him down. Indeed, the entire encounter, from arrival to mortal wounds, took about two seconds....
    Privilege, you see, is not about being born with a silver spoon in one hand and a scholarship in the other. One can be poorer than dirt and a sixth-grade dropout and still enjoy white privilege. Because privilege is about the instant assumptions people make about you — your worth, your honesty, your intelligence — based on color of skin.

Limerick-inspired verse of the week:

Privileged white people tell themselves lies:
we more deserve than Blacks to win the prize;
    Obama may be a resident,
    but he isn't our President.
There'll be no more attempts to ebonize.

Copyright © 2014 by Morris Dean