The Press in Action

I've been critical of the press recently, and I think with good reason. This story only points up one of the major problems:

Democratic Vice Presidential nominee Kamala Harris didn’t hold back when confronted by a CBS News reporter asking if she’s pushing a socialist agenda. She laughed out loud at the reporter’s suggestion.

“What I will do, and I promise you this, this is what Joe wants me to do,” the California Senator, speaking about her running mate, told “60 Minutes” correspondent Norah O’Donnell.

“This was part of our deal. I will always share with him my lived experience as it relates to any issue that we confront. And I promised Joe that I will give him that perspective and always be honest with him.”

O’Donnell’s response, which was panned on social media, forced Senator Harris to laugh in her face.

“And is that a socialist or progressive perspective?” O’Donnell asked.

I don't know much about O'Donnell, but from this it's obvious she shouldn't be left unattended near a microphone. This is a prime example of our "free, independent press" buying into pre-fab memes, provided by the right wing, without question. It also looks as though O'Donnell is trying to put words into Harris' mouth. Fortunately, Harris is too smart for her:

“No,” Harris replied, breaking out in laughter suggesting she thought the question was absurd.

“It is the perspective of a woman who grew up a Black child in America, who was also a prosecutor, who also has a mother who arrived here at the age of 19 from India, who also like hip-hop,” Harris continued, still laughing. “What do you want to know?”

You have to love it.

Saturday Science: Earth: A Biography: A Sidebar: Autumn Color

Those of us who live in the north temperate zone are treated every fall to autumn color, when the leaves on the trees turn from green to red, orange, yellow, and everything in between. This is because the chlorophyll in the leaves, which gives them their green color, breaks down, exposing other pigments that have been hiding under the surface.

Chlorophyll is one of a class of photoshymthetic pigments that first made their appearance roughly three billion years ago. There are others -- look at any number of decorative plants and shrubs, which show red, yellow, orange and various combinations of color. And they all enable photosynthesis, which not only allows plants (and some bacteria) to make their own food, but produces as a byproduct the oxygen in the air we breathe.

No one is quite sure how some bacteria -- known officially as "cyanobacteria" -- first made use of photosynthetic pigments, but they did. One of the immediate results was oceans full of rust, which sank to the bottom and created what are nown as "banded iron formations" -- the source of mose of our iron ore. Once that was accomplaished, the oxygen that these bacteria were producing escaped into the atmosphere -- which at that point was composed of nitrogen, carbon dioxide, and water vapoor - and created the ozone layer, which proved to be of great significance: the ozone layer filters out most of the harmful radition from the sun and enabled life to move from the oceans to the land.

Scientists believe that land plants are descended from green algae, mostly because they contain the same kind of chlorophyll. It actually makes a lot of sense -- who has not seen a clump of algae on a shore, periodically left high and dry as the tide goes out. And the first land plants were mosses and selaginellas, which require a moist environment.

But back to fall color: What we're seeing after the chlorophyll breaks down is the other pigments, which will last until the leaves fall. There's even an order in which this all happens, at least as far as the trees themselves are concenred: here in Chicago, the firt to turn are the locusts and ashes, followed by maples and basswoods. Mixed in there are birches, ginkos, and the various others that get planted in the city. Oaks are notable for having prsisent leaves -- they turn color and die, but they don't fall. That's probably why squirrels pefer them for nest-building: the leaves hold to the twigs so you bedroom isn't constantly falling apart.

So that's all I have to say for now about fall color and how it fits in which the scheme of things.

The Pope Puts His Foot in It

I'm doing a little catching up on this one (it's been one of those weeks). You may have run across a story on the Pope's comments on legalizing civil unions for same-sex couples:

Pope Francis is calling for same-sex couples to be “legally” protected by civil union laws.

“Homosexuals have a right to be a part of the family,” the Pope says in a new documentary, Catholic News Agency reports. “They’re children of God and have a right to a family. Nobody should be thrown out, or be made miserable because of it.”

Later, Pope Francis defended his remarks in the film, saying, “What we have to create is a civil union law. That way they are legally covered.”

As you might imagine, the reaction has been less than positive among the "faithful".

Franklin Graham's response (not that anyone asked him to respond) is noteworthy for its lack of -- well, call it Christian compassoin:

Graham sees the Catholic Church’s new regard for supporting LGBTQ people in law – not religion – as so dangerous to the Christian faith he says it would mean Jesus died for nothing.

“For Pope Francis to attempt to normalize homosexuality is to say that Holy Scriptures are false, that our sins really don’t matter, and that we can continue living in them,” Graham told his nine million Facebook followers. “If that were true, then Jesus Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection wouldn’t have been needed. The cross would have been for nothing.”

Apparently, in Graham's eyes the whole point of Jesus' life was to deny gays and lesbians the right to live with dignity and self-respect -- to be treated like normal human beings.

The response from the Catholic hierarchy is no less scathing. Here's Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano:

Bergoglio is a candidate for ‘pontiff’ of a new religion, with new commandments, new morals, and new liturgies. He distances himself from the Catholic religion and from Christ, and consequently from the Hierarchy and the faithful, disavowing them and leaving them at the mercy of the globalist dictatorship. Those who do not adapt to this new code will therefore be ostracized by society and by this new ‘church’ as a foreign body.

Vigano doesn't seem to have twigged to the fact that the "faithful" are already being ostracized. (And as Joe notes in his comment, Vigano uses the Pope's birth name, not "Pope Francis" or any of the honorifics normally used to refer to the pontiff.

This one's choice. From Bishop Thomas Tobin:

“The Holy Father’s apparent support for the recognition of civil unions for same-sex couples needs to be clarified.

“The Pope’s statement clearly contradicts what has been the long-standing teaching of the Church about same-sex unions.

“The Church cannot support the acceptance of objectively immoral relationships. Individuals with same-sex attraction are beloved children of God and must have their personal human rights and civil rights recognized and protected by law.

“However, the legalization of their civil unions, which seek to simulate holy matrimony, is not admissible.”

The part about "objectively immoral" relationships is, as far as I'm concerned, a real howler. Given that the basic moral dictum is "take care of each other", all these arbitrary rules cherry-picked from the tribal taboos of Bronze Age Middle-Eastern nomads can hardly claim to be any sort of standard for moral behavior. (In that vein, Tobin is credibly accused of ignoring child sexual abuse complaints when he was auxiliary bishop of Pittsburgh.)

There are other resonses, of course. What's most noteworthy of the lot is that their reference is to Catholic dogma and not to the teaching of Christ -- who had nothing at all to say about homosexuality or same-sex relationships.

Burn-Out

I've gotten to the point where, skimming the headlines in the morning, if they mention Trump, the latest polls, the election, etc., I skip the story. I'm not wishing for it to be November 4 -- that won't be the end of it. I'm wishing for it to be January 21, 2021, when President Biden is safely installed in office and the current resident is trying to find some dictator to take him in.

What's New at Green Man Review

Finally! Our second biweekly edition, and it's all about Halloween -- well, some of it is.

It’s Late October So Some Halloween Matters and Not So Halloweenish Matters as Well

So click on over and hunker down -- there's a lot there.

I'm Going to Say This Once

Amy Coney Barrett is a nightmare. I keep seeing headlines about how this Democratic senator called her out on something, while that one backed her into a corner, and yet another asked questions she couldn't -- or wouldn't -- answer.

It does matter. The Republican majority will vote to confirm her, she will be sworn in at the earliest opportunity, and with a majority of neo-fascists on the Court, you can kiss civil rights for anyonbe who's not a white, cis-gendered, Christian, heterosexual male good-bye.

The Season Turns

We went from a week or two of summer in late September/early October, to autumn over the past few days, and it seems as though overnight, the leaves started turning. It's mostly locusts and ashes*, which are the first to turn. There are whole stretches of streets lines with bright yellow locust trees, although, typically, there are places where they are still green.

The maple across the alley is bright flaming red-orange, although the maple next to it is still green. Ditto a pair of basswoods at one of my regular bus stops -- one is mostly that dark bronze-red that basswoods turn in the fall; the one next to it is still green. I haven't figured out the mechanism here -- it's got to be a combination of day length and exposure: it seems that trees in more sheltered locations turn later -- not always, but then nothing in nature is 100%.

At any rate, fall is here. Nice to look at, but I'm not as cold-proof as I used to be, so it's a mixed bag.

* Those ashes that are left. The emerald ash borer, which somehow got here from Asia, has wreaked havoc on the native ash trees. I can't find a count on the number of trees destroyed, but it's in the tens of millions.

Birds of a Feather

And so forth. Actually, I think this is pretty funny:

President Trump's reelection bid received a vote of support Friday from an entity most in his party would reject: the Taliban. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told CBS News in a phone interview, "We hope he will win the election and wind up U.S. military presence in Afghanistan." The militant group expressed some concern about Mr. Trump's bout with the coronavirus. "When we heard about Trump being COVID-19 positive, we got worried for his health, but seems he is getting better," another Taliban senior leader told CBS News.

The Trump camp's reaction is about what you'd expect:

Trump campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh said Saturday that they "reject" the Taliban support. "The Taliban should know that the president will always protect American interests by any means necessary," Murtaugh said.

"American interests" in this context being Trump's bank account. And don't forget -- he only likes white terrorists.

Via Joe.My.God.

Critter Chronicles: A Symbiote

I've decided that, for the purposes of this blog, "critter" includes anything alive -- animals, plants, and those that are somewhere in between.

While waiting for buses yesterday, I was noticing the lichenbs growing on trees by the bust stops. One in particular, a locust, had three different types of lichens growing on it, one green, one gray, and a couple of small patches of golden orange.

And what, exactly, is lichen? you may ask. From the U.S. Forest Service:

Lichens are a complex life form that is a symbiotic partnership of two separate organisms, a fungus and an alga. The dominant partner is the fungus, which gives the lichen the majority of its characteristics, from its thallus shape to its fruiting bodies. The alga can be either a green alga or a blue-green alga, otherwise known as cyanobacteria. Many lichens will have both types of algae.

There are about 3,600 species of lichen, and they take various forms -- low-growing, crusty-looking habits, branching, filamentous, you name it. The Field Museum a while back, had a small exhibition on lichens that was very interesting. One of the examples was the door from an old pickup truck that was covered in lichen. They'll grow pretty much anywhere -- I've seen them on trees, on rocks, on old scrap metal that's been lying outside -- all sorts of places.

Fascinating critters.

At Last! Green Man Review for October 4, 2020

In case I didn't mention it before, Green Man Review has gone to a biweekly publication schedule. That means you won't see us as often, but when you do, there's lots and lots of stuff to enjoy.

Diverse Music including Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, Warren Ellis Goes Graphic, Spider-Mans, Peanut Butter and Chocolate, A Cherryh’s Alliance-Union Universe novel and Other Pleasant Diversions

So, you can click on over and spend some time with your favorite subjects.

Yeah, I Know

I haven't been posting. The main reason is that the news is just mind-numbing. Now we're down to blaring headlines about who in the Trump regime is the latest to test positive for COVID-19. I guess next we'll be getting breathless "breaking news" updates about who's taking a dump.

Apparently our free, independent media thinks nothing else is going on in the world.

Antidote

This one speaks for itself"

Is there anything cuter than this ‘animal preschool?’ Zookeepers at the Australian Reptile Park had their hands full with baby Tasmanian devils, kangaroos, koalas, and more 🍼🦘🐨 pic.twitter.com/PKV6vScqtJ

— NowThis (@nowthisnews) September 28, 2020

Via Digby.