Category Archives: GMO

Hot Air

GMO Dialogue

Just got some great new links from former Indiana University research biologist and faculty member Martha Crouch.

Crouch at Franklin

Marti Crouch Lectures At Franklin College, Fall 2013

If you’ve been following this communications colossus the last couple of weeks, you know that I happened to meet Crouch at the Book Corner and immediately leaned on her to convince me that GMOs are icky. My stance on genetic engineering can be found in various posts in these precincts (see links below).

I hate to be wedded to any particular train of thought, by and large, because there’s always something new I can learn and it just might contradict that which I’ve previously believed. Bertrand Russell’s old line — I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong — fits quite nicely, thank you.

Russell

Russell

Anyway, Marti, as she’s known to friends and acquaintances, has graciously agreed to set me straight. She wondered why I might be interested in the GMO thang these days and so she wrote in an email she sent me yesterday:

I realize I don’t really know why you are interested in genetically engineered crops.  Health reasons?  Environmental concerns? Philosophical musings about the relationships between humans and other organisms?  And I also don’t know why you are looking for arguments against GMOs.  Are you unhappy for some reason with your current position “in favor” (I assume)?

Fair enough. Here’s my response to her, in toto:

M:

Thanks for asking. You might check some of my previous writings on the GMO controversy in the Electron Pencil. In fact, here’s a link to that category.
My overriding motive is to get at some kind of reasonable, informed understanding of genetic engineering. I want to do so because I love science and knowledge, pure and simple. My secondary motive is to try to get people to stop thinking as a group. It’s always been one of my goals as a writer to upend groupthink, to hold the line against hysteria, and to point out that opinions are meaningless unless they’re built upon strong intellectual foundations.
You’ll note, if you delve deeper into my blog, that I poke fun at Bloomington’s food culture a lot. I came here from Chicago in 2009 (after a two-year sidetrack to Louisville) and was amused by how seriously B-towners take their food. It seems everyone’s got some diet or regimen that will ensure fabulous health and happiness for the rest of their lives. It also seems everyone here is certain corporate America is trying to poison us to death simply for the fun of it.
Now I don’t doubt that corporate America doesn’t give a good goddamn about my health or yours, as long as its shareholders are happy at the end of the year, but I also don’t think that scientists employed by the big agribusiness firms are sitting around a conference table and planning to wipe out a percentage of the population.
As I’ve written, for example, Monsanto is a bad guy — we can all agree on that — but that doesn’t mean the company is doing everything in its power to destroy the planet.
I speak in hyperbole here because 1) that’s part of my style and voice and 2) because I feel as though the food fetishists (as I describe them) do so themselves. By shopping at Kroger, I’m not going to die any earlier than I would were I to shop at Bloomingfoods. The argument often is couched in those life and death terms.
I might also point out that I spent five years teaching the public and my fellow employees about natural and organic foods as a member of the Whole Foods Market education department. I learned and taught that individuals’ health and that of the planet can be enhanced by striving for a natural way of eating. I also learned that a huge number of folks within the natural foods community hold apocalyptic views that have little to do with reality.
For all the wonders of natural and organic ways of eating and food production that WFM’s customer base subscribes to, I’ve never seen a more ailment-wracked bunch of people in my life. People who shop at other natural grocers, both national chain and local, in my experience, also have been equally Camille-like. Are they canaries in a coal mine or are they simply obsessed with themselves? Perhaps the truth lies somewhere in between.
In any case, I want the goods on GMOs, which are today’s bête noire among the natural foods crowd. I’ve been told you’re the real thing when it comes to that topic so that’s why I want to tap your knowledge. I’ll either buy your arguments or I won’t but if I don’t I’ll be able to say I heard all you have to say. Whichever way I go, my opinion will be based on a strong intellectual foundation.
Thanks,
Big Mike
Marti recommends I read the book, The GMO Deception, a compendium of articles and essays edited by Sheldon Krimsky and Jeremy Gruber and issued in June by Skyhorse Publishing. She says some of her trusted colleagues have essays in the book. That’ll take some time so I’ll report back on that later this summer. She also sent along a copy of one of her seminal works on biotech, a chapter she’d contributed to the 2001 book, Redesigning Life?, edited by Brian Tokar. Her piece is titled “From Golden Rice to Terminator Technology: Agricultural Biotechnology Will Not Feed the World or Save the Environment.”
Book Cover

Can’t get a much clearer position than that. I’m eager to delve into the chapter. Again, it’ll take time but I’ll give you my impressions as soon as I can.

Looks like the dialogue is in full swing. Stay tuned.

Dialogue (Part I & II)

Fitting, no?

 

Hot Air

More On GMOs

So, I know an evolutionary biologist who is working tirelessly on her PhD. This morning at The Pencil back office (AKA Soma Coffee) I leaned close to her and cooed the words, “What’s your take on GMOs? And can you say it in one sentence?”

Her response: “People are afraid of the wrong thing.”

[Just to clarify, she doesn’t mean the gen. pub. should be afraid of a nuclear exchange rather than GMOs, for instance, or the bogeyman. She means people’s knee-jerk GMO repulsion is based on a basic misunderstanding of the process.]

From "The Creature from the Black Lagoon"

Scarier Than GMOs?

Which is what I’ve been saying all along!

Bullets Vs. Kid Gloves

Just wondering: Why do cops kill unarmed black kids for everything up to and including jay-walking but when an armed, white gun nut goes on a deranged quest to ambush police and fire fighters (employing live fire and bombs) in order to overturn our purported tyrannical gov’t, the greatest care is taken to insure his safety before he’s apprehended?

Leguin

Douglas Lee Leguin: Still Alive Despite Firing At Cops And Detonating Bombs

Kid Stuff

Personal to police depts. all over this holy land: Stop playing GI Joe; you’re adults now (links here, here, and here).

Ferguson, MO

Law Enforcement?

Negotiable Justice

Justin Wykoff’s att’y sez his client’s case will go to a jury.

Wykoff, of course, was the well-liked, well-respected Bloomington Department of Public Works project manager who got cracked for allegedly scamming a quarter of a mill USD* in a kickback scheme with a Bedford contractor (*of a total of $800,00 bilked). Folks in and out of local gov’t were shocked when news of Wykoff’s bust emerged. Nevertheless, the feds seem to have a strong case against him.

Wykoff

Likable

Usually, guys accused of fraud and embezzlement in federal district courts don’t go to trial because they strike plea agreements with prosecutors. Wykoff’s lawyer, John Boren of Martinsville, acc’d’g to today’s Herald Times, is ready to go all the way to fight the charges. Boren told the H-T he’ll call for a jury trial.

Kinky public employees rarely want to go before a jury because if there’s one thing a panel of peers doesn’t cotton to, it’s stealing their tax dollars. Still, Wykoff and Boren want to take their chances before a dozen registered voters.

My guess is they’re betting Wykoff’s likability will be a big asset in their case. In fact, Borden just may be negotiating a plea agreement even as we speak with Wykoff singing about his co-conspirators in exchange for a slap on the wrist. By threatening to go to a jury, Boren may effectively be saying, Hey, you willing to risk your whole case? Gimme the best you’ve got and I’ll sign my guy up for voice lessons.

Kyle Killing Minors Moundsmen

Kyle Schwarber, late of the Indiana University Hoosiers baseball nine, still is battering minor league pitchers as he enters his third month of professional baseballing.

Schwarber pounded college hurlers on his way to becoming the Chicago Cubs’ top choice in June amateur draft (No. 4 overall). He’s kept up the onslaught even against superior competition in the for-pay game.

Schwarber

Schwarber, The Night He Was Drafted By The Cubs

The kid known as The Hulk has settled in as a left fielder for the Daytona Cubs, a High A minors outfit. Schwarber played catcher for the Hoosiers but isn’t considered an adequate potential major league backstop. By playing the outfield, his path to the bigs just may be shorter. Again, expect to see him swinging the bat in Wrigley Field either in September 2015 or right out of the gate after spring training 2016.

And, again, stay tuned here for all the Kyle Schwarber news you can ask for.

Hot Air

Just The Facts, Ma’am

Loyal Pencillistas know I’m a defender of Genetically Modified Organisms, AKA GMOs. That puts me in a distinct minority in this food fetishist town. People here know me as a liberal-bordering-on-radical and so are aghast when they discover I don’t see GMOs as the tools of the devil.

They say: But what about Monsanto? To which I reply: Sure, Monsanto’s about as evil as, say, Halliburton or Academi (the former Blackwater.) Monsanto makes tons of dough on its patented GMO seeds and uses the most bullying tactics possible to make certain every farmer, every gardener, hell, every kid who plays in the dirt buys its product. Plus, Monsanto actively squashes competition, infringes on free speech, impedes investigations, harasses critics, and literally writes laws that legislators on its payroll can then obediently introduce and pass.

Monsanto is, in short, a bad guy.

Newcomb/Reuters

A Monsanto Corn Sprout [photo by Peter Newcomb/Reuters]

The ways Monsanto is forcing GMOs upon the world may be despicable but that that doesn’t mean their new species per se necessarily spell the end of civilization. That’s my position.

That said, it was my good fortune to meet Dr. Martha Crouch, better known as Marti, at the Book Corner Monday. “Hey,” I nearly shouted as I read the name on her credit card, “you’re you!”

“Indeed I am,” she replied, smartly.

Crouch

Marti Crouch, Surrounded By Green, Naturally

I explained how I’ve heard about her through countless folks who’ve taken me to task for defending GMOs. I then asked her to educate me. “I’d be more than happy,” I said, “to change my mind if you’d take the trouble to persuade me — and I buy your argument.”

Marti Crouch is the “real thing” — so sez Pencillista Nancy Hiller. She’s earned herself a national rep. Here, for instance, is a description from a short piece about her appearing in Mother Jones magazine back in 2000:

Martha Crouch, a biology professor at Indiana University in Bloomington and once a pioneering biotechnologist, studied her entire life to reach the pinnacle of her profession. She earned a Ph.D. in developmental biology at Yale before landing at Indiana University, where she teaches and once ran a lab dedicated to cutting edge plant research. In 1990, her lab made the cover of The Plant Cell, the leading journal in the field of plant molecular biology. Instead of launching Crouch into professional nirvana, however, the article marked the end of her research career.

Crouch had tenure and was well-known in her field. But she had awakened one day to the realization that her research was being co-opted by corporations which hoped to apply the science for profit. Further, the manner in which those firms used her discoveries was destroying the natural processes that attracted Crouch to the study of biology in the first place.

In the piece, Crouch is quoted as saying, “You are basically treating the agricultural environment as if it was a factory where you are making televisions or VCRs.”

She’s no longer teaching science because she stopped doing research (IU looked askance at her public denigration of the commercial exploitation of her research.) If anyone can sway me, she’ll be the one.

Marti Crouch has sent me the first of what promises to be a long series of info-packed articles and tracts. It’s an excellent introduction to GMOs from the Union of Concerned Scientists. Consider it GMOs 101. Here it is.

UCS

Click Image For Full Article

Even if you think you know all you need to know about GMOs, you should read these pieces. Hey, you may learn something! I know I’m hoping to.

Let the conversation begin.

White Fright

h/t to both Chuck Rogers and Jerry Boyle for this one:

From ValleyWag/Gawker

Click Image For Full Story

Need I even tell you how much this disgusts me?

Wahoo, Drew & Cool Kat

Congrats to Drew Daudelin, the new news reader/producer over at WFIU.

Teller/Daudelin

Daudelin (r) With Teller of Penn & Teller

I met Drew at WFHB where he volunteered five days a week to edit each Daily Local News script. The kid was good, I’m telling’ ya. He brought the writing level up dramatically while he was there.

Now, apparently, he’s making real dough. Good for him.

You may also have caught Kat Carlton reading the news during local breaks on Morning Edition the last few months as well. She, too, prepped at WFHB, in fact writing up news stories right next to me on several occasions. Just watching the way she carried herself, I could tell she was going places.

Carlton/IPM

Carlton

That Alycin Bektesh, WFHB’s redoubtable News Director, she’s got a nose for talent, no? A thought: Maybe WFIU should become a major contributor to WFHB, considering the latter is now the talent pool for the former.

Criminally Cynical

Remember the teenaged girl in Texas who survived the massacre of her family a few weeks ago? The one who gave a heartfelt speech at her family’s memorial? The latest poster child for gun sanity?

Stay Funeral

Cassidy Stay (center) At Her Family’s Funeral

Her name was (and is) Cassidy Stay. The shooter, if you don’t recall, was searching for his ex-wife and held her sister’s family hostage until they told him where she was. They refused to and as a result were executed, Nazi-style, with bullets to the backs of their heads. Cassidy survived the carnage.

At the memorial Cassidy (who played dead during the gunman’s rampage) said:

I really like Harry Potter. In “The Prisoner of Azkaban,” Dumbledore says, “Happiness can be found even in the darkest of times.” I know that my mom, dad, Bryan, Emily, Becca and Zach are in a much better place and that I’ll be able to see them again one day. Thank you all for coming and for showing support for me and my family. Stay strong.

Gun control advocates, naturally, lauded Cassidy to the skies and asked, for the zillionth time, why we have to endure yet another firearms atrocity.

Just as naturally, gun nuts on the far end of that particular spectrum didn’t look as kindly upon the teen girl and those who hero-ized her. In fact, a certain number of people believe Cassidy never was shot at all and that her family was killed in that old reliable trick of the jack-booted gov’t, the false flag job. Not only that, the gun control crowd, acc’d’g to this train of “thought,” works hand in hand with purported “victims” of gun crimes merely to make money. Want detail? Check this vid out. It just may be the most cynical thing you’ve ever seen or heard:

A reminder, kids: There aren’t two sides to every question.

Hot Air

Scandal! Impeachment!

No, it’s not and no, they won’t.

The they, of course, are the House of Representatives Republicans who’ve been tumescent over impeaching Barack Obama and, for that matter, prob. lynching him as well ever since he false-birth-certificated his way into the White House. The it is Benghazi which, if you listen to the most hysterical of the Republicans enough, you’ll come away convinced was a terrorist operation conceived of and coordinated by the Phony Prez himself.

Two reports on the September, 2012, attack on the US Embassy in Benghazi, Libya, have been released by Congressional panels recently. Each destroys the Tea Party-led GOP move to make hay out of the tragedy. Neither really has gotten much press play, natch.

London Evening Post

Barack Obama Poses For A Photo During The Benghazi Attack

The online arm of the San Francisco Chronicle, sfgate.com, Friday revealed that the House Intelligence Committee has completed its inquiry into the mob violence around the embassy that resulted in the deaths of four Americans, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens, and it will soon release its report. Mike Thompson, a Dem member of the Intel Committee from California, told the Chronicle the report “confirms that no one was deliberately misled, no military assets were withheld and no stand-down order (to U.S. forces) was given.”

All three charges had been leveled against the Obama White House by Republicans who’ve been dying to nail BHO on something, anything. Republican Mike Rogers of Alabama chairs the Committee.

An earlier report was issued by the House Armed Services Committee in February of this year. It said no one at the White House issued any stand down orders to military units in the region which many in the far end of the sanity spectrum of the GOP believe Obama himself did because, naturally, he wants the US to be toppled. The Armed Services Committee report did, though, criticize the readiness of everyone from the State Dept. to the Army in regard to the attack. That makes sense. Nothing else charged does.

So, y’got nuffin’, kids. Personal to the wingnutty branch of the Republican Party: Chill out. BHO’ll be gone by January, 2017. Be patient. And start sharpening tour knives now for Prez Hillary.

My Newfound Spirituality

I don’t believe in god but I may be inclined to believe in the Devil.

That’s because Satan may walk among us. His name is Donald Trump. And he says (oops, Tweets) things like this:

Trump Tweet

Those dopes, helping people in strange, dark lands. They must suffer the consequences!

Open-Minded Me

I just met noted anti-GMO biologist Marti Crouch this morning.

I told her I’d be delighted to change my mind on GMOs (I don’t see the problem with them as yet) if she’ll take the trouble to convince me. (And if I buy her arguments.) So, she took my card and promised to send me material she’s written on the topic.

Fair enough.

Hot Air

Help Wanted

So, the city’s hiring a bean counter to handle the 2015 upcoming budget. Acc’d’g to today’s Herald Times [paywall], Mayor Mark Kruzan et al have tabbed the Crowe Horvath accounting firm to slap a quick dough doc together in time for the City Council to review it in August.

Just to bring you abreast of the situ., City Controller Sue West took a powder in June after only a year and and half on the job. The Mayor characterized her leaving as a “life decision.” He said at the time that her absence wouldn’t affect the ongoing budget process because Deputy Controller Donna Slater, a CPA, was on hand and, per the M., “she doesn’t have that much less experience with budget preparation. We’re very fortunate to have Donna.”

Slater less than a week later threw her hands in the air and resigned as well. Eek.

CH Lanyard

Now Crowe Horvath senior manager Angie Steeno will draw up the draft budget. Slater (who’s staying on the job through Aug.) and city staffers already have been hard at work on it but the remaining work entails more than just dotting the i‘s. Crowe Horvath is a well-respected accounting firm with offices in 26 cities around the country. The outfit was started in 1942 by biz math geeks Fred P. Crowe Sr. and Cletus F. Chizek. By 1995, Crowe’d become one of the top 10 accounting firms, in terms of billing, in the US. After the usual series of  mergers and buyouts, Crowe Chizek became Crowe Horvath in 2008.

Steeno has previous experience with Bloomington: she handled some capital development issues for the Utilities Dept. back in 2011.

I dunno if it’s me, but ever since I arrived in this town in 2009, people entrusted with both the city and county’s cash have been dropping like flies. After learning about Amy Gertstein and Rhonda Foster’s alleged misuse of county credit cards and Justin Wykoff allegedly cutting himself sweetheart deals with Public Works contractors, I get the feeling local governmental finances are no more safe than if all B-town and Monroe County cash was simply parked on shelves in some photocopier room.

Cash

What with the potential for criminal charges, firings, and unexpected resignations, landing a job as a local pecuniary official might not be cause for celebration of late.

The mayor and the County Council promise us things are getting better. We’ll see.

Tyson Talks Tough

So, I’ve been saying this for years but who wants to listen to me? Tons o’folks listen to Neil deGrasse Tyson, though, especially those usually on my side of the fence who believe in climate science and evolution etc. Mother Jones has published a vid wherein the King of All Science tells the anti-GMO crowd, essentially, to take a Xanax. He explains:

I’m amazed how much rejection genetically modified foods are receiving from the public. It smacks of the fear factor that exists at every new, emergent science…. What most people don’t know — and they should — is that practically every food you buy in a store for consumption by humans is genetically modified food. There are no wild, seedless watermelons. There’s no wild cows…. You list all the fruit, and all the vegetables, and ask yourself, is there a wild counterpart to this? If there is, it’s not as large, it’s not as sweet, it’s not as juicy, and it has way more seeds in it. We have systematically genetically modified all the foods, the vegetables and animals, that we have eaten ever since we cultivated them. It’s called artificial selection. That’s how we genetically modify things. So now we can do it in a lab, all of a sudden you’re gonna complain? …We are creating and modifying the biology of the world to serve our needs. I don’t have a problem with that because we’ve been doing that for tens of thousands of years. So chill out.

deGrasse Tyson

Fallen Idol?

Sorry, NdGT, there won’t be any chillin‘; the foodies who’ve seen this vid are having nervous breakdowns at this very moment trying to figure out what to think about you now.

Cuban Wisdom

Indiana University alum and billionaire Mark Cuban doesn’t like the way corporations are trying to get out of paying US taxes now. Big outfits like Walgreen’s are moving their HQs to foreign countries these days so’s they can dodge their responsibilities to help keep this holy land running. Cuban sez:

If I own stock in your company and you move offshore for tax reasons, I’m selling your stock.

When companies move offshore to save on taxes, you and I make up the tax shortfall elsewhere.

Looks like he learned a thing or two at the Kelley School.

Cuban

Cuban

Hot Air

A Law Supreme

I’m very, very lucky I didn’t have internet access yesterday.

If I had, it’s a sure bet I would have written something that would have gotten me into the hottest of water with the FBI, the Secret Service, the NSA, Academi (nee Blackwater), Control, Sgt. Friday, TJ Hooker, Dirty Harry and any other law enforcement cartoon characters you can imagine. I’m hot. And if you’re not, well then, you and I have wildly divergent views on what this free society should look like.

The US Supreme Court Monday not only ruled in favor of Hobby Lobby refusing to pay for slut pills, it also further chipped away at organized labor in this holy land. Some thoughts:

  • Not only are corporations people, acc’d’g to this Court, but they are religious.
  • Justice Antonin Scalia has positioned himself as a strict constructionist ever since he came on the national scene. He’s not; he is a theocrat.
  • The five justices who voted in favor of Hobby Lobby are, natch, white men. They also were nominated by Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush. Anybody, therefore, who bleats that there’s no diff. between the Democrats and the Republicans is an idiot.

Conservative Justices

Boys Club

  • Clearly, the five Republican-nominated justices cherish the right to believe in a mythical creation figure who has issued a laundry list of dos and don’ts for humanity over the right of women to control their uteri. Kids, that’s just bizarre.
  • Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote the dissent for the minority. She is becoming a superstar on the interwebs now, with people posting pull quotes from her angry denunciation of the decision all over social media.
  • The Supreme Court also ruled that gov’t employees who don’t want to be members of unions don’t have to pay dues. That means those workers can benefit from collective bargaining w/o sharing the cost. And the Republicans say they’re four-square against freeloaders!
  • Justice Samuel Alito wrote that public employee unions are “lobbyists.” These Reagan/Bush/Bush dudes, my friends, are awfully confused.

In other Supreme Court news last week, the Nine ruled unanimously that municipalities cannot bar anti-abortion protestors from verbally assaulting or otherwise violating the personal space of abortion clinic clients on public sidewalks. As you know, any number of cities had instituted buffer zones to keep “pro-life” zealots away from women trying to enter the clinics. (Read Sara Benincasa’s remembrance of being so assaulted when she went to an abortion clinic some years ago.) I get the reasoning behind the decision, even if I don’t like it. So I was wondering, can atheists now stand outside churches and temples and shout “Suckers!” at worshipers trying to enter therein?

Overall, the importance of the November mid-term elections cannot be overstated. If the Senate goes GOP, we’re going to move even further toward the Radical Right than we have already..

Choose Your Friends Carefully

In other news of late, the influx of undocumented Central American kids in this holy land has resulted in heart-wrenching pix of and stories about the young ‘uns being warehoused in cold, dirty, concrete-floor holding centers. But the self-idolators and tinfoil cap wearers who run the crunchy, conspiracy-theory laden website Natural News have gleaned an even more insidious bit of fallout from this sad state of affairs.

Mike Adams, who’s the “brain” behind Nat. News, wrote that all these dirty immigrant kids are going to pollute our population with all their yucky germs.

Here’s Adams’ headline:

Unloading disease-carrying immigrants in large US cities a ‘perfect storm’ for pandemic disease outbreak

In the body of the piece, Adams writes that one of the reasons we should fear the kids is that they haven’t been vaccinated. A practice, BTW, that Natural News has opinionated time and again is horribly dangerous to our Aryan American citizenry.

I’ve always felt the zealot natural food and anti-chemical crowd has a bit of a Perfect Race streak in it. As in, sure, the Green Revolution has fed hundreds of millions of starving souls in Africa and Asia but, golly gee, are all those saved lives worth it if we get a trace of synthetic fertilizer in our organic cookies? There are trade-offs in every decision, as any adult would acknowledge, but the hyper-natural gang is convinced that American food must be pure, pure, pure even at the cost of a potential mass starvation in India.

Immigrant Detention

Not Perfect

Adams adds:

If infectious disease isn’t bad enough, this immigration wave also consists of “sex offenders, murder suspects and gang members….”

Old Joey Goebbels would have been proud.

BTW: Adams feels the Obama Admin. is way cool with this wave of undesirables because, “[a]fter all, these are future Democratic voters!”

Lots of natural food, sustainable agriculture, anti-Monsanto-ites seem to dig Mike Adams — who calls himself the “Health Ranger” — because, well, he and his peeps are four-square against GMOs and such.

That’s scant reason to hitch one’s wagon to a bunch of crypto-Nazis. It’d be like the vegetarians of America plastering bumper stickers of A. Hitler on their cars simply because he, too, refused to eat meat.

 

The Pencil Today:

HotAirLogoFinal Sunday II

THE QUOTE

“Never follow the crowd.” — Bernard Baruch

Baruch

DIG THE NIGHT SKY IN 2013

This, from the Science Lama:

13 Must See Stargazing Events for 2013

[EP ED: Events and explanations reproduced verbatim unless otherwise noted.]

1) January 21 — Very Close Moon/Jupiter Conjunction

A waxing gibbous moon (78% illuminated) will pass within less than a degree to the south of Jupiter high in the evening sky. Your closed fist held out at arms length covers 10 degrees. These two won’t get that close again until 2026.

2) February 2-23 — Best Evening View of Mercury

The planet Mercury will be far enough away from the glare of the Sun to be visible in the Western sky after sunset. It will be at its brightest on the 16th and dim quickly afterwards. On the 8th it will skim by the much dimmer planet Mars by about 0.4 degrees.

3) March 10-24 — Comet PANSTARRS at its best

First discovered in 2011, this comet should be coming back around for about 2 weeks. It will be visible low in the northwest sky after sunset. Here are some sources predicting what the comets may look like in the sky.

Image through Faulkes Telescope South

Comet PANSTARRS, Observed August 9, 2012

4) April 25 — Partial Lunar Eclipse

[Not visible here in the Midwest, so forget it.]

5) May 9 — Annular Eclipse of the Sun (“Ring of Fire” Eclipse)

[See above.]

6) May 24-30 — Dance of the Planets

Mercury, Venus and Jupiter will seemingly dance between each other in the twilight sky just after sunset as they will change their positions from one evening to the next. Venus will be the brightest of all, six times brighter than Jupiter.

7) June 23 — Biggest Full Moon of 2013

It will be the biggest full moon because the moon will be the closest to the Earth at this time making it a ‘supermoon’ and the tides will be affected as well creating exceptionally high and low tides for the next few days.

"Supermoon," March 19, 2011

The Supermoon Will Eat The Earth!

8) August 12 — Perseid Meteor Shower

One of the best and most reliable meteor showers of the year producing upwards of 90 meteors per hour provided the sky is dark. This year the moon won’t be in the way as much as it will set during the evening leaving the rest of the night dark. Here is a useful dark-sky finder tool. – http://bit.ly/UdcDUY

9) October 18 — Penumbral Eclipse of the Moon

[See comments for items 4 & 5.]

10) November 3 — Hybrid Eclipse of the Sun

[See above.]

11) Mid-November through December — Comet ISON

The second comet this year, ISON, could potentially be visible in broad daylight as it reaches its closest point to the Sun. It will reach that point on November 28 and it is close enough to the Sun to be categorized as a ‘Sungrazer’. Afterwards it will travel towards Earth (passing by within 40 million miles) a month later.

12) All of December — Dazzling Venus

The brightest planet of them all will shine a few hours after sundown in the Southwestern sky and for about 1.5 hours approaching New Years Eve. Around December 5th, a crescent moon will pass above the planet and the next night Venus will be at its brightest and won’t be again until 2021.

Moon & Venus

The Crescent Moon & Venus

13) December 13-14 — Geminid Meteor Shower

This is another great (if not the best) annual meteor shower. This year put on a show at about 120 meteors per hour and in 2013 it won’t be much different so expect another fantastic show. However, the moon – as it is a few days before full phase – will be in the way for most of the night obscuring some of the fainter meteors. You might have to stay up in the early morning hours (4am) to catch the all the meteors it has to offer.

SCIENCE VS. FEAR

I’m gonna make enemies here again.

No, no, I don’t mean the right-wing-nuts whom I skewer on a regular basis. As far as I know, none of them visit this communications colossus anyway. (BTW: That doesn’t mean there are no Republicans among our loyal readership — there’s a world of diff between good, solid GOP-ers and the too numerous loons who have been trying to hijack the party in the last half century.)

Scene from "Hogan's Heroes"

“We Must Take Over The Party.”

I suppose I mean — Gulp! Dare I say it? — the left-wing-nuts.

Yes, I admit it, there are those among my brethren and sisteren who are just as paranoiac, just as reactionary, and just as full of crap as those on the dark side of the political spectrum.

Matt Taibbi has a great account of the lunacies on both sides of the aisle in his 2008 book, “The Great Derangement.” In it, he compares and contrasts the right-wing whack-jobs of the evangelical/charismatic Rev. John Hagee’s ovine congregation and the left-wing subculture of 9/11 “Truthers” who live on the interwebs and in their own delusional world.

One group staunchly believes, in the face of virtually all expert, scientific evidence, that someone — probably Dick Cheney in overalls and a disguise — somehow planted bombs within the various buildings that collapsed following the 9/11 attacks.

The other group — again, at odds with the scientific community — is certain that climate change is a worldwide hoax.

Taibbi concludes that there’s next to nothing to distinguish between the two, save for their haircuts, god-loyalties, and eating habits.

Now, I’ve harped on this before and here I am, at it again. But a certain phenomenon seems to be growing bigger by the day. The anti-GMO movement, especially here in Bloomington, one of the capitals of Foodfetishstan, is gaining currency and popularity.

To hear some folks talk about it, one might think even looking at a food product containing a genetically modified organism is more dangerous than having a ton of Tarot cards fall on your head.

At first glance, their argument is seductive. Monsanto Company is the acknowledged worldwide leader in GMO research and development. Nobody’s ever mistaken Monsanto for for a corporate teddy bear. The company has attempted to corner patents on common livestock breeding techniques. It has persecuted farmers for seed-saving. It exploits the legal justice system to bully critics and competitors.

Pig

Monsanto Wants You To Know: It Invented The Pig

It is the bête noire of the agribusiness universe.

Ergo, if Monsanto does it, it is by definition vile.

Which sounds to me like the commonest logical fallacy employed by the right.

I’ve argued in these precincts in the past that the preponderance of expert, scientific opinion holds that there is little evidence that GMOs are dangerous. This is not to say we might discover some unintended consequences of the proliferation of the little mutants in years to come.

Hell, who in 1910 would have foreseen that the automobile would actually change the planet’s weather?

If we outlaw everything that just might be problematic at some time in the fuzzy future, the only legal option left would be for us to sit cross-legged in a field and hope nutrients enter our bodies through the pores in our skin.

Every invention poses risk. In the 1930s and ’40s, the technogeeks of the day saw television as the greatest tool for mass education ever conceived. Who knew TV would have given us the Kardashians? But even before TV became a fixture in every living room, people like George Orwell imagined it as a hammer in the fists of tyrants.

And, I suppose, some modern-day novelist might pen a bestseller entitled “Twenty Eighty Four” in which GMO monsters seize the White House.

That doesn’t mean it’ll actually happen.

That said, all we can go on is the consensus opinion of scientists. I mean, that’s the criterion we’re using to try to convince the ostriches of the right that Homo Sapiens sapiens has caused climate change, isn’t it?

That’s why a recent speech by one of Europe’s top anti-GMO activists, Mark Lynas, is big news.

As far back as the mid-1990s, Lynas was leading the charge against test-tube agriculture and Frankenfoods. Many European nations are in the vanguard of the GMO=disaster school of thought, some banning their use in food outright, thanks in large part to Lynas’ efforts.

Lynas spoke at the Oxford Farming Conference three days ago and made a starling admission.

“As an environmentalist, and someone who believes that everyone in this world has a right to a healthy and nutritious diet of their choosing, I could not have chosen a more counter-productive path. I now regret it completely,” he said.

He had been, he says, dead wrong about GMOs.

He explained to the conference how this metamorphosis took place. “…[T]he answer is very simple: I discovered science, and in the process I hope I became a better environmentalist.”

Lynas admitted to having sabotaged clinical trials of experimental GMO crops. He confessed, “… I had done no academic research on the topic, and had a pretty limited understanding. I don’t think I ever read a peer-reviewed paper on biotechnology or plant science….”

Now, Lynas says, the growth of the Earth’s population makes it imperative we utilize biotechnology to produce more food. He believes the current rage for “natural” agriculture and micro-farms, if unchecked, could lead to starvation for millions.

In other words, he had been a member of  a crowd that some two decades ago began to convince itself that GMOs are evil. And now he is quitting.

There’s a madness, Scottish journalist and author Charles Mackay once opined, in crowds.

The Pencil Today:

THE QUOTE

“A liberal is a man too broadminded to take his own side in a quarrel.” — Robert Frost

LOOKING FOR THAT SILVER LINING

Reading “The Age of Reagan” by Sean Wilentz right now.

You know, we think we live in such a divisive time but today’s “culture wars” are next to nothing compared to the strife of 30 and 40 years ago.

Think back to 1977 when Anita Bryant temporarily re-emerged from a well-deserved anonymity by anointing herself the spokesnag for the anti-gay movement. How would we react now if some d-lister started bleating lines like this: “As a mother, I know that homosexuals cannot biologically reproduce children; therefore, they must recruit our children”?

Or equated  gay rights with rights for people who like to sleep with St. Bernards.

Anybody reckless enough to say such stupid things would feel compelled to backstep and and issue mea culpas for weeks afterward.

But 35 years ago, Bryant’s barking helped galvanize and energize a far-right movement that eventually took over many of this holy land’s legislative bodies and largely dominates public discourse. The Rev. Jerry Falwell, a previously marginalized segregationist preacher, threw his lot in with her and the next thing we all knew, his Moral Majority was instrumental in getting Ronald Reagan elected president.

At about the same time, the Constitutional amendment calling for equal rights for women was going down to defeat, thanks to those usual suspects, professional gargoyle Phyllis Schlafly, and others.

Phyllis Schlafly

Can you imagine anyone stepping up to a podium and announcing that women do not deserve the full protection of the United States Constitution today?

At least the Tories and antediluvians of our time have the good sense to speak in codes or couch their regressive ideas in moralistic platitudes.

I suppose that’s progress.

ARGUMENTUM AD VERECUNDIAM

I’m a proud and outspoken liberal and progressive, although I’m not a fanatic about things.

For instance, those on my side of the fence, by and large, are up in arms over GMOs.

Genetically Modified Organisms are understood to be new strains of flora and fauna that have been cooked up in laboratories. Chief among the GMO peddlers of the world is Monsanto Company, the reviled St. Louis-based multinational agri-business monolith.

Since Monsanto is Satan incarnate to most of my philosophical brethren and sisteren, anything that outfit puts out must be evil, evil, evil.

Ergo, GMOs are poisons more harmful than arsenic — which, by the way, can be found naturally in trace amounts in pretty much any soil sample gathered on this Earth.

Anyway, humans have been jiggering with genes in their crops ever since the first person threw a seed in the dirt and discovered a plant would result. Take the organic corn you bought this summer at Bloomingfoods or Whole Foods Market. The big old ears that we take for granted in this 21st Century never existed before humans began cross-breeding maize species — in other words, creating primitive GMOs.

Frankenfood!

I bring this up because it occurred to me the other day that the argument my side uses for global warming — a concept I fully subscribe to — is that the vast majority of the world’s climatologists say human-caused climate change is real. In other words, scientists say it’s so. Fair enough.

But when it comes to GMOs, the vast majority of the world’s agricultural biotech scientists seem to agree they’re safe.

In fact, the two ratios are pretty much the same.

So, expert consensus is good enough to buy into global warming but to hell with it when it comes to GMOs. Sometimes my side can be as dopey as the other side. Well, almost.

The only events listings you need in Bloomington.


Sunday, October 28th, 2012

CLASS ◗ Dagom Gaden Tensung Ling MonasteryIntroductory course on Buddhism; 10-11am

STUDIO TOUR ◗ Brown County, various locationsThe Backroads of Brown County Studio Tour, free, self-guided tour of 16 local artists’ & craftspersons’ studios; 10am-5pm, through October

HALLOWE’EN ◗ Lake Monroe, Paynetown SRAGhostly Gathering, party, campsite decorating contest, trick or treat, costume contest, “ghost” hunt; Saturday through Sunday at 5pm

FEST ◗ Bloomington Community OrchardCider Fest; 11am

MUSIC ◗ Cafe DjangoBrunch Show: Sam Hoffman; 11pm

HALLOWE’EN ◗ Haunted Hayride and StablesFriendly hayrides; 1-7pm

MUSIC IU Musical Arts Center, Recital HallStudent Recital: Mark Davies, baritone; 1pm

FEST ◗ IU Mathers Museum of World CulturesHalloween Family Fun Fest: Day of the Dead; 2-4pm

MUSIC ◗ IU Auer Hall — Master’s Recital: JunYi Chow, composition; 2pm

MUSIC ◗ IU Auer HallSundays in Auer Hall Series: Faculty/Student Chamber Music Recital, Pacifica & Kuttner Quartets, Atar Varad on viola, Jacob Wunsch on cello, Evelyen Brancart on piano; 4pm

MUSIC ◗ Muddy Boots Cafe, NashvilleDavid Sisson; 5-7pm

MUSIC ◗ St. Thomas Lutheran ChurchIU Organ Department Pipes Spooktacular; 6-7:30pm

MUSIC ◗ Max’s PlaceMisty Stevens, Old Truck Revival, Avacado Chic, Homebrew Holler; 6-8pm

MUSIC ◗ IU Auer HallMaster’s Recital: Christine Buras, soprano; 6pm

MUSIC ◗ The Player’s PubAndra Faye & Scott Ballantine; 6pm

FILM ◗ IU Cinema — “Anjos do Sol (Angels of the Sun)“; 6:30pm

BENEFIT ◗ Buskirk Chumley TheaterEarthquake Relief Concert For Tabriz Region of Iran, Presented by North American Humanitarian Relief Project & Trained Eye Arts; 7pm

MUSIC ◗ The BishopHusband & Wife, Jared Bartman, Dastardly; 7pm

PERFORMANCE ◗ Rachael’s CafeThe Projection, Don’t Call It a Comeback, Lawnmower; 7:30-10pmpm

MUSIC ◗ First United Methodist ChurchIU Voice Faculty Cabaret; 7:30pm

POLITICS & COMEDY ◗ IU AuditoriumBill Maher; 8pm

ONGOING:

ART ◗ IU Art MuseumExhibits:

  • “New Acquisitions,” David Hockney; through October 21st
  • “Paragons of Filial Piety,” by Utagawa Kuniyoshi; through December 31st
  • “Intimate Models: Photographs of Husbands, Wives, and Lovers,” by Julia Margaret, Cameron, Edward Weston, & Harry Callahan; through December 31st
  • French Printmaking in the Seventeenth Century;” through December 31st
  • Celebration of Cuban Art & Film: Pop-art by Joe Tilson; through December 31st
  • Threads of Love: Baby Carriers from China’s Minority Nationalities“; through December 23rd
  • Workers of the World, Unite!” through December 31st
  • Embracing Nature,” by Barry Gealt; through December 23rd
  • Pioneers & Exiles: German Expressionism,” through December 23rd

ART ◗ Ivy Tech Waldron CenterExhibits:

  • Ab-Fab — Extreme Quilting,” by Sandy Hill; October 5th through October 27th
  • Street View — Bloomington Scenes,” by Tom Rhea; October 5th through October 27th
  • From the Heartwoods,” by James Alexander Thom; October 5th through October 27th
  • The Spaces in Between,” by Ellen Starr Lyon; October 5th through October 27th

ART ◗ IU SoFA Grunwald GalleryExhibit:

  • Buzz Spector: Off the Shelf; through November 16th
  • Small Is Big; Through November 16th

ART ◗ IU Kinsey Institute GalleryExhibits:

  • A Place Aside: Artists and Their Partners;” through December 20th
  • Gender Expressions;” through December 20th

PHOTOGRAPHY ◗ IU Mathers Museum of World CulturesExhibit:

  • “CUBAmistad” photos

ART ◗ IU Mathers Museum of World CulturesExhibits:

  • “¡Cuba Si! Posters from the Revolution: 1960s and 1970s”
  • “From the Big Bang to the World Wide Web: The Origins of Everything”
  • “Thoughts, Things, and Theories… What Is Culture?”
  • “Picturing Archaeology”
  • “Personal Accents: Accessories from Around the World”
  • “Blended Harmonies: Music and Religion in Nepal”
  • “The Day in Its Color: A Hoosier Photographer’s Journey through Mid-century America”
  • “TOYing with Ideas”
  • “Living Heritage: Performing Arts of Southeast Asia”
  • “On a Wing and a Prayer”

BOOKS ◗ IU Lilly LibraryExhibit:

  • Outsiders and Others: Arkham House, Weird Fiction, and the Legacy of HP Lovecraft;” through November 1st
  • A World of Puzzles,” selections from the Slocum Puzzle Collection

PHOTOGRAPHY ◗ Soup’s OnExhibit:

  • Celebration of Cuban Art & Culture: “CUBAmistad photos; through October

PHOTOGRAPHY ◗ Monroe County History CenterExhibit:

  • Bloomington: Then and Now,” presented by Bloomington Fading; through October 27th

ARTIFACTS ◗ Monroe County History CenterExhibits:

  • Doctors & Dentists: A Look into the Monroe County Medical Professions
  • What Is Your Quilting Story?
  • Garden Glamour: Floral Fashion Frenzy
  • Bloomington Then & Now
  • World War II Uniforms
  • Limestone Industry in Monroe County

The Ryder & The Electron Pencil. All Bloomington. All the time.

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