Green Grocer

The question is whether having your groceries delivered is good for the environment and the answer is yes--and if you allow for the deliverer to pick the time of delivery, then it is a huge savings.  There are a number of services available on-line to have groceries delivered--Amazon and Google are just two, with grocery stores getting into the act as well.  This doesn't have to be a luxury--it can be a reduction of our carbon footprint.

This falls into the 'have your cake and eat it too' category.  Researchers Anne Goodchild and Erika Wygonik in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Washington published their findings in the Journal of the Transportation Research Forum.  They
 compiled data in Seattle and the outlying areas (urban and rural households) and assumed that every household was a possible delivery-service customer. Then, they randomly drew a portion of those households from that data to identify customers and assign them to their closest grocery store. This allowed them to reach across the entire city, without bias toward factors such as demographics and income level.

They used an Environmental Protection Agency modeling tool to calculate emissions at a much more detailed level than previous studies have done. Using factors such as vehicle type, speed and roadway type, they calculated the carbon dioxide produced for every mile for every vehicle.
Emissions reductions were seen across both the densest parts and more suburban areas of Seattle. This suggests that grocery delivery in rural areas could lower carbon dioxide production quite dramatically.

“We tend to think of grocery delivery services as benefiting urban areas, but they have really significant potential to offset the environmental impacts of personal shopping in rural areas as well,” Wygonik said.

Work commuters are offered a number of incentives to reduce traffic on the roads through discounted transit fares, vanpools and carpooling options. Given the emissions reductions possible through grocery delivery services, the research raises the question of whether government or industry leaders should consider incentives for consumers to order their groceries online and save on trips to the store.

Jason Collins: Tall, Smart, Handsome, and Gay

The inevitable has happened.  A working professional athlete in America has announced that he is gay.  Phew.   As a country we are barreling along the path towards civil rights for gay Americans, with marriage equality rapidly gaining acceptance over the past several years, and a more open dialogue about civil rights and sexual orientation.  It was time.

Jason Collins interview with Sports Illustrated is sort of understated when all is said and done.  He wasn't about to be reluctantly outed, though he had a fear of that.  He is just tired of not being himself, of being alone.  He wants to openly date, have friends who know that he is gay, and to have relationships.  Wow.  Kind of underwhelming, but in a really nice way.  He is just a normal person, who plays rough and tumble professional basketball and makes millions.  At 34 he is ready to start having men in his life that he is attracted to and who are attracted to him.  Not really all that novel. I so hope that this goes well--Kobe Bryant and President Clinton have already tweeted their support, and I hope that as a free agent his sexual orientation is a non-issue.  Just weeks after the Rutgers coach was fired for shoving his players and calling them 'faggots', I hope that the NBA is ready for this--because remember, Rutgers wasn't going to fire him for that behavior until a YouTube video of it went viral and they were pressured to get rid of him.  All eyes are upon you, Mr. Collins, and I wish you the very best of tolerance.  Bold move.

Boston Bombers--Let's Talk Guns Not Immigration

Unfortunately, Congress gets easily sidetracked.  It appears to have the attention span of a four year old.

The Boston Marathon bombers appear to have been apprehended--one of them was shoot and then run over by his brother in an attempt to escape, and the other was shot and discovered by a man who had not been out in his driveway all day because of a city wide lock down.  Once that was lifted, he ventured outside and found that the boat in his driveway had blood smeared on it, and the second brother was found.  They appear to have acted alone, an assumption that is born out by the bombs that they made, a search of their premises, and a tracking of their recent purchases.

Regrettably, they are both immigrants and Islamic.  Their motivation, as described by the younger brother in testimony (as reported by the media) and through internet social media sites, appears to have been religiously motivated.

I say regrettably because antipathy towards Islam in general and violent Islamist groups has gotten no better since 9/11. More senseless violence in visible public settings with no military implications is just further proof to those who need very little evidence to support their preconceptions is just unfortunate.

It is also regrettable because it derails the talks about immigration, which are talks that are largely aimed at a Hispanic, usually Catholic population of people, many of whom already live in the United States, albeit without the benefit of a visa or a path to legal citizenship.  Pointing at these two men and painting all immigrants with the same brush muddies the picture that needs desperately to get much clearer very quickly.  So I am unhappy about that.

But the thing that I am out and out angry about is that this has done nothing to increase the resolve of Congress to increase the level of scrutiny that gun buyers are subjected to.  These men were armed and dangerous--they had guns and they most likely obtained them easily.  They did not undergo background checks.  They did not license their weapons, and they discharged over 80 rounds, killed one police officer and seriously injured another person.  I have not heard one person who is against gun legislation talk about the dangers related to poor restriction of guns related to this case.  Once again, there appears to be a lot more posturing and trying to please the gun ;lobby than there is protection of the average American.

To Live by Yu Hua (1993)

My youngest son read this for his World Literature class, and since I am in the habit of reading the books that my offspring read when it is assigned by a professor (it is all in the interest of making up for the fact that it has been a very long time since I have been on the receiving end of formal education), I read it too.

It wasn't until I was about halfway through the book that I realized that the story was familiar because I had seen the movie of the same name.  The director was banned from making movies in China for a couple of years after the film came out and it was banned in China at that time because of perceived disrespect for the government.

There is no love lost between the main character and the powers that be in the story--but those powers change over the years between the Japanese occupation of China during WWII, the Civil War, the Cultural Revolution, and beyond.  One thing does not change.  Fugui had a very long life filled with sadness, hardship, poverty, guilt, and survival.  The story is told to a stranger at the end of Fugui's life, so we are getting it delivered with 20-20 hindsight.  He starts off the story by frittering away his family fortune and almost losing his wife, Jiaxhen, and his family as a result.  Jiazhen comes back to him, which is a turning point for Fugui.  He has something to live for and live he does.  Throughout the whole sorrowful tale he decides to do something for someone dear to him, and it often ends up in disaster.  He goes off to get medicine for his mother and is conscripted in the army.  He scrapes and saves to send his son to school and that ends in disaster.  He finds his daughter a wonderful husband and that ends badly in both their cases.  All the while Fugui works and works and works.  He does not fight those who govern him, but he has thoughts about their methods.  He sees those who rise up above him get knocked down again. He is a Chinese Job, and Fugui's story offers the same lessons to be learned from the Biblical version.

Wreck It Ralph (2012)

This concludes my viewing of the 2012 Academy Award nominations for Best Feature Length Animation Film (I must say, it was a lot easier to go through the shorts, and they were thoroughly enjoyable to do, so if you missed doing that, I highly recommned it).

Here are my preferences, in order:

1. Pirates!  Band of Misfits
2. Frakenweenie (this is really a tie with my third choice, and rose to second only because of my long time admiration for tim Burton and his particulatly romantic brand of the macabre)
3. Wreck It Ralph
4. Brave
5. ParaNorman

So, you can see that I am completely out of step with people who decide these awards.

Wreck It Ralph is a classic story of a guy who is the bad guy, and is more or less completely satisfied with his bad guy role until one day he just isn't.  He wants to be admired for the qualities that he has that are good.  Or at least be admitted to the party.  The story is told within the framework of arcade video games, where the lines between good and bad are pretty sharply drawn.

Since he cannot be a good guy in his game, he travels to another game, successfully accomplishes what needs to be done, and gets a medal for his work.  But it isn't that easy--of course not!  The rest of the story is about good overcoming evil, a small love story, a good friendship thrown in, as well as the value of being different from the rest.  Classic animated story material, but very enjoyably done.

Doing the Right Thing

More reflections on the impact of the Boston Marathon bombings.  It often happens that as the initial adrenaline after a catastrophic event wears off that there are people who think they should have done more--or they have no thoughts related to their behavior, but  they think that others could have done more.  My rule of thumb in these matters, whether they be big or small issues, is to do what I would publically want to defend having done.  If my grandmother were to see it on YouTube, how would she feel about it?

It is sometimes hard to know what the right thing to do is--when there is injustice being done, speak out about it--that is not hard to figure out.  But the world is rarely as straight forward as that. 

One of the inspirational things about what happened in Boston a week ago was that in the aftermath of bombs exploding a lot of people surged forward to help those who had been injured instead of running for the hills.  On the one hand, the swift rescue of those with blast injuries is critical to their survival, and you really have no idea where the next blast could go off--it could just as easily be where you would run to as where you are.  On the other, protecting oneself is instinctual and hard to fight off.

There were a lot of first responders on hand because of the marathon itself--there were medically trained personnel to aid runners at the end of the race and police officers to provide security.  First responders have the advantage that they have been trained in how to respond.  They do not have to figure out what to do, they automatically start to do it, and may have had the experience of having done it before.  That does not diminish their bravery at the scene, far from it.  They were inspirational.  But it helps explains why they could act without thinking.

Those who haven't been doing disaster drills since 9/11 may not be so well trained, but many bystanders were lending a hand quickly and with good effect--all the bomb blast victims who reached the hospital alive, which was the vast majority of them, look to be on track to survie.  That is largely due to an exceptional response of medical staff once they reached the hospital, but it took getting them alive for the hospital to be able to work it's magic.  I don't know what it is that makes people surge forward into danger--is it that they are brave?  That they aren't thinking exactly but are compelled to act?  Whatever it is, it was inspirational to watch in the  moment and to think about as there has been time to reflect. 

MIT Police Officer Sean Collier

I would like to take a moment and thank Sean Collier for his service as a police officer. He was killed on Thursday evening a week ago as a direct result of the FBI's decision to release the videotape of the 2 men suspected of perpetrating the bombings at the Boston Marathon and his funeral was yesterday. There was a sea of fellow officers who came to pay their last respects, which was very nice to see.

There are so many potential risks that first responders in general and police officers in particular face each and every day they are on the job. Officer Collier undoubtedly had a lot more experience with things like drunk and disorderly and students hacking into buildings than he did with bomb makers and automatic weapons. His young life and his short career were unfairly ended this past week. As we will undoubtedly be reminded by a 24/7 media what the terrorists look like, what their names are, where they are from, and what they did and did not like and do, I plead the case of the heroes, the people who take on the role of protecting us, and ask that if only for a moment that we make the same effort to remember them.

Officer Collier was gunned down. Gun violence is a major American problem. Terrorism by foreign nationals is a miniscule problem compared to the legacy of gun violence--today, this week, this year, this decade, this half century. No matter the time frame, gun violence wins. By a landslide. It is desperately sad and ultimately humiliating that our elected officials are beholden to the arms industry rather than to us. The most elementary of laws to begin a path towards sparing people's lives was defeated in the Senate last week. Money talks, and we lose. Officer Collier loses too. So let's go back to majority rules--both in the Senate and in the nation. We can be so much better than this.

Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012)

This is a movie about how the other half lives.  I mena that literally.  This is a story about the people whose stories we really never hear about.  These people are almost invisible to the people who live outside the southern United States.  There are almost no stories about them. They live largely off the grid, in the mangroves.  They live off the land.  So even during the aftermath of Katrina, these are not the people whose plight we saw.

Here is how the story goes.  Six-year old Hushpuppy, played with a surprisingly raw sort of fierceness by Quvenzhané Wallis, is a wild child of the American South. She lives with her father, Wink, played by Dwight Henry in dilapidated trailers--one for him and one for her.  They don't have much.  Nothing is secure--they catch their food.  They have no clothes, running water, no adult supervision to speak of.  WInk is dying and Hushpuppy will soon be on her own.  As if that wasn't bad enough, they live in low lands that are at risk of going completely under as icebergs melt and waters rise and storms become more intense.  It is part fairy tale, part cautionary tale, and part why we absolutely need a social safety net as we sail into the inevitable world we have created with global climate change.  It is primative and wise at the same time.

Respecting the Dead

There are no words for how despicable those are who condemn others in the name of God--who are they to say they know what is in the heart of God?  Thomas Paine has a lot of wisdom that can come to bear on the Westboro Baptist Church.  Arguing with them is pointless.  Calling them a religious institution is not accurate either.  I think the move towards considering their actions potential hate crimes is a much better and more accurate route to go.  It is sometimes hard to figure out that hate is at the root of something when it is cloaked in religious rhetoric, but that is the truth in this case.

This is the group that has been picketing of funerals of those who have been killed in mass murders with signs that state that they (the murdered) and we (the country) deserve it because of our tolerance of gay people and gay culture.  Only they use much more offensive language, language that does not reflect the language of the Bible and I would be embarrassed to attribute to God.  Surely God would be more articulate than "Fags Doom Nations" or "No Tears for Queers".  Some protesters can't even spell, and judging from some of their equations on signs, they aren't very good at math either.

My brother last week instructed me and all his Facebook friends to try to find inspiration rather than cynicism in the world, even when faced with tragedy, and I think there is merit in that.  In that search, I think that it is really great to see other people pushing back against that which is unforgivable with passion and in great numbers.  First it was just relatively unorganized people who wanted to counter rally at funerals.  Then it became quite organized--unions got involved with organizing their members to have a voluminous response to the protesters.  They were not so much counter protesting as they were forming a human wall to protect the mourners at each funeral.  The first time I really noticed it getting media coverage  was Newtown, but it happened in Aurora after those shootings as well (and probably more often than I know).  That is very nice to see.


I quote the wise Mr. Paine once more in closing.  He was a product of the Age of Enlightenment, so much of what he said was a product of his time, but he was a master at articulating the principles of the era during which our independent nation was born.  He said, "Belief in a cruel god makes a cruel man."  May the members of the Westboro Baptist Church reap what they sow.

Earth Day 2013

So shall we come to look at the world with new eyes.  It shall answer the endless inquiry of the intellect, — What is truth? and of the affections, — What is good? by yielding itself passive to the educated Will.  Build, therefore, your own world. As fast as you conform your life to the pure idea in your mind, that will unfold its great proportions. A correspondent revolution in things will attend the influx of the spirit.       ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

In the face of all the mayhem of the past month, maybe it is a good time to listen to the Romantics and take a look at life through different glasses.  There is a lot repair in the world, both things natural and things man made.

Since Earth Day 2012 we have had a lot of reminders that the we do not control the planet, the planet controls us.  Hurricane Sandy was the greatest reminder of that this past 12 months, but we did have over 8" of rain in one continuous storm last week in Iowa.  The most in a day for almost a 100 years.  That slow moving storm was enormous, spanning from Canada to Mexico, and as it crawled it's way over the Midwest, leaving flash flooding  in it's wake, I thought of what a fellow traveler had said to me on a recent trip.

He said that our grandchildren or our great grandchildren will say "Did you know they used to fly places?  Everyone could fly--in the air.  The weather was different then, and they used oil to fly planes--can you believe it?  They didn't stop, even after scientists told them what the effects of it were.  Now, of course, it is just too dangerous and unpredictable to do that."  And we will tell stories about when it was possible to use the skies for transportation.  Several hundred flights going through Chicago's O'Hare airport this week were cancelled, which I have no doubt left several thousand people stranded in various places.  All this going on while Boston coped with a bombing at the Boston Marathon and the subsequent man hunt.  We had man-made disasters and man-influenced climate to contend with.  Given our lack of a functional Congress, the influence that corporate money has on their decision making capacity, and the fact that in the face of escalating gun violence the Senate cannot even pass the simplest of regulations on gun ownership nor, in the wake of the Exxon oil spill in Arkansas, can they acknowledge that additional pipelines to carry oil might not be as important as funding alternative sources of energy.  One Congressman was quoted this month as saying he suspected that wind turbines had motors on them so we would all be fooled that they worked--that is the level of ignorance that we are dealing with in our elected officials.  We are bound to keep on living with the consequences--or not, in the case of the victims of gun violence--because we can't seem to manage to overcome the ignorance of the people we have charged with keeping our national infrastructure sound.

So from this Earth Day forward to the next, I am writing a little bit more to Congressmen, talking a little bit more about how I feel about this regardless of if I lose friends over it, and giving a little bit more money to the causes I support.  I am not convinced it will fix the problem, and I don't want to be optimistic about change given the lack of evidence for it,  but doing nothing certainly won't help.