Rich but icy red for Valentine’s Day

 

Here are two more views, one broad and the other close, of fruited yaupon trees (Ilex vomitoria)
from the ice storm that we “welcomed” the month of February into Austin with.

 

  

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Below are some quotations from Andrew Doyle‘s 2022 book The New Puritans.
The guy has a way with words and comes out with some zingers.
(I’ve retained his British spelling and punctuation.)

 

…It has apparently never occurred to anyone involved that the best solution to feeling offended by a particular show is simply not to watch it.

The truest commitment to diversity, of course, involves a recognition of the primacy and sovereignty of the individual.

There are now flags for every conceivable sexual or gender identity. These are not necessarily representative of groups that have been historically persecuted, but rather a hotchpotch of neologisms that can be seemingly selected at will like so many fashion accessories. Flags have been designed for those who identify as pangender, aporagender, agender, bigender, trigender, genderqueer, genderfluid, demigender, demigirl, demiboy, neutrois, polyamorous, non-binary, asexual, omnisexual, poly-sexual, abrosexual, androsexual, gynosexual, skoliosexual, aromantic, gender questioning, gender non-conforming, and many more. Surely it would be far easier to create one giant flag for narcissists and be done with it.

Is this progress? Or it is simply that some of us remain sober while the world gets drunk? The proliferation of what we might call ‘neosexualities’ risks demeaning the struggles of sexual minorities in the past. The persecution of homosexuals over the centuries is well documented, but if there has been any equivalent campaigns against asexuals it has certainly escaped the attention of historians. It is difficult to conceive of a militant evangelist at his pulpit condemning anyone for having a low libido.

Those who oppose Critical Race Theory are so often charged with simply failing to understand it. As with any academic field, there are nuances and details that will escape a layman, but this does not debar him from objecting to some of the central premises. It would be akin to a clergyman claiming that atheists are unqualified to declare their disbelief in God until they have developed a sufficient level of expertise in Thomas Aquinas’s writings on the compatibility of faith and reason.

 

 © 2023 Steven Schwartzman

 

 

 

Holes

 

Here you have two takes on holes from last week’s ice storm. The fruit cluster above was on a yaupon tree, Ilex vomitoria. The second picture raises the question of whether a concavity that doesn’t go all the way through a tree branch counts as hole. That’s a matter philosophers must surely have been debating for thousands of years. What say you, semantically minded readers: is the hole in the branch below truly a hole? The dull yellow and pale green, by the way, came from lichens.

 

  

 

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As a consequence of the winter storm that led to the pretty ice pictures you’ve been seeing here for the past week, we unprettily had no electricity for three days. Although we heat our home with natural gas, the mechanism that regulates the burning of the gas is electric, so our house went cold. Our kitchen stove is all-electric, so we couldn’t cook or even heat up cold food. Our neighbors with natural gas stoves made out a lot better; the heat from cooking also warmed their homes somewhat.

You may have heard that as a panicky consequence of climate catastrophism some political regimes are moving to ban gas stoves. California, of course, is a prime mover.

You can read a February 8th article by Chuck Devore about the unfortunate costs and consequences of banning natural-gas appliances. Here’s an excerpt:

In much of America, natural gas is so inexpensive that gas ranges cost less than half as much to operate as an electric range. In California, ground zero for the ban on gas stoves, the cost to operate a gas range over the past year equals $1.93 per month (assuming the use of 2.34 therms per month at an average gas cost of 82.3 cents per therm). In California, with electricity prices for residential users soaring in the 11 months ending in November 2022 to 26.36 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh) (the highest in the continental U.S. and higher than in every state except Hawaii), the average electric range user would pay $11.14 a month. 

But not to fear, Consumer Reports claims the newer electric magnetic induction stoves are 5-10 percent more efficient than a traditional electric stove. Great, give it 10 percent — now you’re paying $10.03 to cook your food in California versus $1.93 for gas — $97.20 more per year to cook with electricity — assuming California isn’t cutting your power due to worries about fire or shortages due to its reliance on unreliable renewable energy. 

That article linked to one by Michael McKenna in the January 21st Washington Times, “The cautionary tale of gas stoves and letting government make your decisions.” Here’s an excerpt from it:

Unfortunately, the effort to ban all natural gas appliances — stoves, water heaters, furnaces — is very much a real thing. It is a deliberate campaign driven by special interest groups opposed to affordable, reliable fuels, and it routinely uses shady research to allege health effects from the use of natural gas appliances.

In reality, of course, there is broad consensus that natural gas appliances are safe.

For instance, in the largest and most complete analysis examining any potential link between gas appliances and childhood asthma to date, scientists found “no evidence of an association between the use of gas as a cooking fuel and either asthma symptoms or asthma diagnosis.”

Similarly, a study tracked the severity and symptoms of asthma among adults from 2018 through the COVID-19 pandemic and found that despite the increased time spent indoors at home, asthmatics experienced a 40% decrease in their symptoms. Those findings suggest that the home environment was safe and healthy, and it is likely that factors outside the home have an outsized impact on asthma symptoms.

 

© 2023 Steven Schwartzman

 

 

 

Cubism or ice-cube-ism?

 

Metaphorical and literal fruit of the ice storm on our deck on February 2nd.
The fruitful tree was once again a yaupon, Ilex vomitoria.

 

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There are all sorts of ways in which lies gain currency. The hysteria of [the] Salem [witch trials] is just one of the more evocative historical instances of people collectively fabricating a false reality and punishing those who fail to attest to its veracity. We are living through a period in which, much like the days when religious convictions were generally uncontested, articles of faith are peddled as truths by those in positions of power. The new puritans, then, are best understood as a clergy for a godless age, presiding over a dreamscape of their own making, rewriting our language, history and traditions as they go along. Yet, for all their clout, there are still some among us who steadfastly refuse to praise the elegance of the emperor’s new clothes, who would rather point and laugh at the naked man in our midst. Not for the first time in human history, our way out of this madness will depend upon the heretics.

That’s from Andrew Doyle’s 2022 book The New Puritans, which I’ve been reading and which I recommend.

 

© 2023 Steven Schwartzman

 

 

 

Pareidolia in ice-encased yaupon twigs

 

On February 2nd, coincidentally our second day in the cold, I went out into the yard with my “real” camera, a macro lens, and a ring flash to see what I could do with the ice-encased yaupon trees, Ilex vomitoria. On the top image’s right side I see the reflections of the light on the ice as Hebrew writing. Perhaps you give a big thumbs up to that. Or maybe you see something in the picture below. Speak your imaginings if you wish.

 

 

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It’s a familiar predicament. We are living through a frenzy of conformity, in which the opinions of a minority of activists are falsely presented by the media, political and corporate classes as though they reflect an established consensus. The impact is being felt in all walks of life. For instance, after the seismic events of the summer of 2020 following the killing of George Floyd, an actor friend of mine was contacted by her agency because she had not posted anything on social media in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. She was told that she must do so immediately if she wanted casting directors to consider her for any future roles. I have heard many such anecdotes, but invariably they are communicated privately. There is a strong general feeling that to publicly object to the prevailing dogma is to jeopardise one’s career and social standing. I have lost count of the number of emails from academics, artists and media figures who have contacted me to express sympathy for my criticism of the new puritans, but who admit that they could never endorse my sentiments in public for fear of ‘cancellation’. It is a circular problem that can only possibly be resolved if sufficient numbers speak out.

This is the sad reality of most present-day working environments, where to utter a forbidden opinion, to misspeak, or even to fail to show due fealty to received wisdom can be an impediment to future job prospects. As a former teacher, I am still in contact with ex-colleagues who are troubled by the sudden revisions made to curricula and pastoral policies. Many are being forced to undergo ‘unconscious bias’ training, even though there is overwhelming evidence that such schemes are unreliable and ineffective. To raise a complaint is taken as proof of the kind of prejudice that the tests seek to expose. After all, only a witch would deny the existence of witchcraft.

Many teachers are concerned about how such modifications have been rushed through with little consultation with parents or staff. One teacher told me about a school assembly, conducted over the internet in the early days of the first coronavirus lockdown, in which pupils were berated for their ‘white privilege’. The Reverend Dr Bernard Randall, a school chaplain at Trent College in Derbyshire, told me about training sessions in which staff were instructed to chant ‘smash heteronormativity’, and when he delivered a sermon about the importance of respectfully challenging such ideological viewpoints he was reported to Prevent, the government’s anti-terrorism programme. Other private schools have pledged their fealty to Black Lives Matter, despite the fact that this explicitly anti-capitalist movement objects to their existence and would presumably be happy to see these institutions razed to the ground. In a noble effort to be seen to address injustice, these schools are implementing divisive and contentious theories as though they are irrefutable truths.

 

Amen to that, which is from Andrew Doyle’s 2022 book The New Puritans.
You’re welcome to read Noel Yaxley’s good review of it.

 

© 2023 Steven Schwartzman

 

 

 

Austin’s 2023 ice storm

 

During the overnight from January 31st into the morning of February 1st freezing rain descended upon Austin. The weight of the accumulated ice brought down many branches and even whole trees, along with lots of power lines, so that hundreds of thousands of people in Austin lost electricity. In our neighborhood, power (and therefore for us also heat) went out at 4:35 AM on February 1st and didn’t come back till bedtime on February 3rd. In between we dressed in multiple layers of clothing inside the house and slept in sleeping bags with two blankets over them. Despite the ordeal, what nature photographer could pass up the chance for pictures? And this time I needed to go no farther than our yard. These two photographs show yaupon trees (Ilex vomitoria) covered with ice. Above is a good-sized one in the side yard whose branches were bowed from (but not broken by) the weight of the ice. Below is a young yaupon out front near the curb.

 

 

We used a camping stove twice on Wednesday and once on Thursday to make hot food and drinks, but by then our two little propane tanks had run out of fuel. Late Thursday afternoon, using a small chain saw, I managed to clear enough branches from one side of the driveway that we could get the car parked on that side of the garage out and go have supper in a restaurant. If you’d like a purely informational, non-aesthetic picture showing the Ashe juniper tree (Juniperus ashei) that had collapsed across the driveway, you can click the thumbnail below.

 

 

A closeup of that now-gone Ashe juniper’s trunk appeared as the second picture in a 2020 post.

 

More ice storm pictures next time.

 

© 2023 Steven Schwartzman

 

 

 

Dense possumhaw fruit

 

On January 22nd in the little town of Canyon City—in Texas any hamlet can get named a city—this densely fruited possumhaw tree (Ilex decidua) wouldn’t let me keep driving unless I made a portrait of it. I gave in.

 

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In a comment last week our New Zealand friend Amanda made me aware that groups like the World Health Organization have been using the term malnutrition in a non-traditional way. Here’s that group’s definition: “Malnutrition, in all its forms, includes undernutrition (wasting, stunting, underweight), inadequate vitamins or minerals, overweight, obesity, and resulting diet-related noncommunicable diseases.”

Now, Latin mal- means ‘bad’ or ‘badly,’ so etymology could support the World Health Organization’s definition of malnutrition. However, my guess is that most English speakers, perhaps almost all, believe malnutrition refers exclusively to undernutrition or to the insufficient intake of vitamins and minerals. That’s how I’ve always interpreted the term. To see whether I’ve been out of line, I turned to a bunch of dictionaries. Merriam-Webster defines malnutrition as “faulty nutrition due to inadequate or unbalanced intake of nutrients or their impaired assimilation or utilization.” Here’s the Oxford Learner’s Dictionary: “a poor condition of health caused by a lack of food or a lack of the right type of food.” The American Heritage Dictionary’s definition is “Poor nutrition because of an insufficient or poorly balanced diet or faulty digestion or utilization of foods.” The Collins English Dictionary puts it this way: “If someone is suffering from malnutrition, they are physically weak and extremely thin because they have not eaten enough food.”

The closest that any of the dictionaries I consulted came to including obesity or being overweight was: “[Malnutrition] can be caused by not getting enough to eat, or it can be caused by not eating enough healthy foods.” Even so, there’s no mention of being overweight or obese.

I believe an organization that communicates with the public needs to do so clearly. It should not use a word in a way that many people will interpret differently from what the organization intends by the word. Are the World Health Organization and some other groups including obesity and being overweight in the category of malnutrition to increase the number of people the groups can label “malnourished”? In other words, are the groups defying the traditional definitions of malnutrition and malnourished for ideological purposes or to increase funding? I don’t know. I became aware of this only five days ago and I haven’t done any research on it. What I can say is that the conjecture is at least plausible, given how many recent instances I’ve seen of ideologues trying to redefine words away from their longstanding meanings, much as George Orwell presciently described in his novels 1984 and Animal Farm, and in his essay “Politics and the English Language.”

 

© 2023 Steven Schwartzman

 

 

 

They’re here again

On January 11th I spotted my first cedar waxwing (Bombycilla cedrorum) of the season. It was on the trunk of the Ashe juniper tree right outside my window, adjacent to two fruit-laden yaupon trees (Ilex vomitoria). On January 19th I saw several cedar waxwings nibbling a bit of the fruit on the farther tree. Finally on January 20th at least a dozen cedar waxwings kept swooping in and out for a while as they grabbed fruits on the nearer tree. Whenever one of the birds landed in a place not blocked from view by branches I could finally try for pictures, which I did with my telephoto lens zoomed to its maximum 400mm. The dull light and the not-as-clear-as-I’d-have-liked glass in the window led me to spend more time than usual enhancing the image, first in Adobe Camera Raw and Photoshop, then in Topaz Photo AI.

 

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“I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.” ― Galileo Galilei, letter to the Grand Duchess Christina. 

 

© 2023 Steven Schwartzman

 

 

 

An early-in-the-season and early-in-the-year look at fully fruited possumhaw

 

On January 3rd I drove across town to Austin’s main post office to talk with a postal inspector about an unknown packet I received; it turned out to be our federal government spending our tax money to send us yet another round of Covid tests that I hadn’t specifically asked for. Afterwards, a few blocks away from the post office, I noticed a possumhaw tree (Ilex decidua) with a good amount of fruit on it. I also noticed how wispy the clouds were. So began my quest, carried out in at least four places that morning and early afternoon, to match up those two things in photographs.

 

  

I also took dozens of pictures of the clouds in their own right, so right did they look in the sky.

 

 

 

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Check out a four-minute video in which Konstantin Kisin describes a clever psychological experiment that shows how someone’s mindset can distort the person’s perception of reality. In particular, a belief in victimhood can lead a person to perceive victimization where there isn’t any.

 

© 2023 Steven Schwartzman

 

 

 

An early-in-the-season yet late-in-the-year drive along the Possumhaw Trail

 

The stretch of TX 29 between Liberty Hill in Williamson County and Burnet in Burnet County might well be called the Possumhaw Trail for the dozens and dozens of Ilex decidua trees scattered along the route. They become conspicuous from December through February for their bright red fruits (technically drupes, commonly called berries). This picture is from the last day of 2022. The green and tan leaves weren’t from the possumhaw, all of whose leaves had already fallen, but rather from a greenbrier vine, Smilax bona-nox.

 

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Last year and yesterday I mentioned Marva Collins, who for decades worked wonders of education with black children in a poor Chicago neighborhood. I’ve found some online videos about her and her school that you can watch:

Success! The Marva Collins Approach (1981).

60 Minutes: Marva Collins (1995, following up their first story in 1979): Part 1 and Part 2.

After the original 60 Minutes story aired in 1979, Marva Collins “received over 6000 letters from desperate parents.”

You can also read a thorough review of Marva Collins’ Way, the book I cited yesterday.

 

© 2023 Steven Schwartzman

 

 

 

Hot off the press: first pictures from 2023!

 

Two hours ago we went walking in our neighborhood to get some exercise. When several of the things that we came upon saw that I carried my iPhone 14 with me they insisted on having their picture taken. Out of politeness I yielded to their demands. First came a possumhaw tree, Ilex decidua, with plenty of fruit. The portrait above strikes me as having a Chinese or Japanese sensibility.

 

 

Next came a Texas red oak tree, Quercus buckleyi, which told me to get under it and take advantage of backlighting to bring out the saturated red of its leaves. Once again I followed instructions. I’m so deferential.

 

 

Finally, back in front of our house, I gave in to the call of the wispy clouds overhead. Using raw mode and the camera’s primary lens (1x) meant that the original of this picture contained a whopping 48.8 megapixels before I cropped it for a better composition.

 

A good start to the new year, I’d say.

 

© 2023 Steven Schwartzman