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What is patriotism?

Anonymous — Wed, 26 Jun 2024 19:40:18 +0000

What is patriotism? Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 06/26/2024 - 13:40

Iskra Fileva

'Right or wrong, our country' is a popular but flawed expression of patriotism; a morally responsible patriot, on the other hand, tries to protect and improve her country’s moral character

Naval officer Stephen Decatur is said to have once exclaimed, during a toast: “Our country! In her intercourse with foreign nations may she always be in the right; but right or wrong, our country!”

While dinner toasts may fail to capture a speaker’s considered views, “right or wrong, our country!” has been repeated so often that we can safely assume it resonates widely, whether or not it reflects a position Decatur earnestly held. But is a true patriot someone who says, “right or wrong, our country!”? And is that what a patriot should say? These are the questions that interest me here.

Iskra Fileva

There is a view of patriotism, perhaps the dominant view, on which the answer is “yes.” Patriotism on this view involves unquestioning loyalty to one’s country.

This is not to suggest that loyalty is all there is to patriotism. There are varieties of blind allegiance that hardly anyone would recognize as patriotism. Consider the attitude of two soldiers described by Shakespeare in Henry V. At one point in the play, the king, in an attempt to boost the morale of his troops, disguises himself as an ordinary soldier. He approaches two men, Williams and Bates, and says, “Methinks I could not die anywhere so contented as in the King’s company, his cause being just and his quarrel honourable.” Williams replies, “That’s more than we know.” Bates goes further: “Ay, or more than we should seek after. For we know enough if we know we are the King’s subjects. If his cause be wrong, our obedience to the King wipes the crime of it out of us.”

We may have sympathy with the (all too human) tendency to fight for one’s group. Still, to have a weak concern at best for what is right and just objectively speaking is irresponsible, morally so. A person who disregards morality for the sake of one’s own aims is an egoist. A person who disregards it for the sake of one’s nation is a tribalist and a jingoist.

Williams and Bates here see themselves as hitmen for the king, but without a moral burden. They are following the orders of an authority figure. Whether or not one can avoid responsibility by pleading this kind of defense is a question I leave to one side (the strategy didn’t work for Eichmann); more importantly for present purposes, patriots on the view under consideration are advocates for and champions of their country. They do not wash their hands of responsibility, as King Henry’s troops do. Rather, like advocates, they prefer that their country be in the right; but like champions, they are prepared to defend it come what may. They do this, presumably, because they love their country and care about its plight. Blindly carrying out orders, as Bates and Williams do, without consideration of the justice of the cause or a sense of responsibility for the outcome, is not yet patriotism on the view under discussion.

Patriotism thus understood is an improvement over Bates’s and Williams’s attitude, but is it a good thing?

We may have sympathy with the (all too human) tendency to fight for one’s group. Still, to have a weak concern at best for what is right and just objectively speaking is irresponsible, morally so. A person who disregards morality for the sake of one’s own aims is an egoist. A person who disregards it for the sake of one’s nation is a tribalist and a jingoist.

To be sure, it is rare for a properly socialized person to openly flaunt moral imperatives, so a groupish person may be inclined, instead, try to persuade herself that her side always was and always will be in right. But to assert such a thing is irresponsible too, morally speaking, and not too different from maintaining that we, personally, like the biblical Jesus, can do no wrong. The flaw in this type of reasoning is much easier to recognize in the individual case compared to the collective one, but there is a flaw in both cases, and of a similar origin.

Is it morally irresponsible, then, to be a patriot?

Some wish to argue that it is. It has been suggested that patriotism is not a good attitude to have or to teach to our children and that perhaps, many an unjust war would be prevented but for the idea that patriotism is commendable.

Though I, personally, consider myself a cosmopolitan humanist, I think the above conclusion is far too quick. There is a vision of patriotism that’s morally defensible and that may have advantages over my own cosmopolitan leanings. One can argue, and plausibly, that patriots care about their country’s moral standing. They would not want their country to get embroiled in unjust wars or the perpetration of atrocities for which history may judge it harshly, and for which future generations may bear national guilt.

It is something like this second idea of patriotism that general Schurz seems to have had in mind when, in The Policy of Imperialism, he admonishes readers to stick to true patriotism and amends the popular exclamation associated with Decatur’s after-dinner toast to: “Our country—if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right.” The writer G. K. Chesterton, perhaps more poignantly, writes in this regard, “‘My country, right or wrong’” is a thing that no patriot would think of saying except in a desperate case. It is like saying, “My mother, drunk or sober.”

The reason I think that patriotism—in this version—has advantages over my cosmopolitan stance is that in a world of rampant tribalism, patriots of the second kind are well positioned to provide an antidote to blind loyalty of the morally irresponsible variety.

This vision of patriotism, however, is far less popular than the first. Why?

I think it is because we tend to suspect that the person who claims to be concerned with objective morality and impartial justice lacks loyalty; that she doesn’t see herself as “one of us.” Perhaps, she engages in a pseudo-intellectual attempt to demonstrate refined moral sensibilities by rejecting her roots. Maybe, she is even ashamed of the members of her group.

And it is true that one may criticize what one takes to be one’s country’s moral failings due not to a loving and patriotic concern for the nation’s “moral soul,” but for other reasons including not only a serious commitment to moral principles—which no morally serious person can oppose—but less honorable motives. There may well be people who seek to show that they, personally, are not narrow-minded xenophobes by disparaging their own country.

A default assumption to the effect that one’s own nation is in the wrong is not morally sound either, of course. A cause doesn’t become morally just because it is adopted by an adversary any more than it becomes morally right because it is adopted by our group. But the morally responsible patriot knows this and acts accordingly. She is not someone who tries to prove her own ethics credentials by denigrating her country but rather, someone who tries to protect and improve her country’s moral character.

Perhaps, patriotism à la Decatur is popular, because we feel certain that patriots of this kind, particularly among compatriots, have their hearts in the right place, and this is what we care about. Or maybe, we think it is morally permissible, objectively speaking, to side with one’s own group no matter what. Consider the old joke about loyal friends: A good friend, they say, would help you move a couch. A really good friend would help you move a body.

It is unclear that friendship is the analogy relevant here. Family relations may be a better analogy. It may be permissible for us—though why, precisely, is a separate question—to care more about the well-being and reputation of our friends than we do about their moral characters. Family members, on the other hand, bear at least some responsibility for each other, including for each other’s moral failings. Suppose, however, that friendship were the relevant analogy. The second and more important point is that the question is not whether a really good friend would help you move a body but whether she would help you commit murder and other offenses.

It is difficult to see how a true friend would do that. Same for a true patriot.

Iskra Fileva is an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Colorado ��«��Ƶ. This essay appeared originally in the Blog of the American Philosophical Association.

'Right or wrong, our country' is a popular but flawed expression of patriotism; a morally responsible patriot, on the other hand, tries to protect and improve her country’s moral character.

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Ruddy copper butterflies are sexually dimorphic for color and color vision

Anonymous — Thu, 03 Feb 2022 00:00:34 +0000

Ruddy copper butterflies are sexually dimorphic for color and color vision Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 02/02/2022 - 17:00

Jeff Mitton

It seems that reproductive success and sexual dimorphisms for dorsal color and for vision are inexorably interdependent in ruddy copper butterflies

In August it is a joy to revel in fields full of colorful wildflowers. Crested Butte is the undisputed wildflower capital of Colorado, but Colorado has numerous fine places where the wildflowers are rated between mesmerizing and overwhelming.

Meadow Creek Lake is one of these. Near 10,000 feet on the White River Plateau, the lake is surrounded by rolling meadows packed with wildflowers and in summer the abundance of both pollen and nectar attracts healthy populations of bees, beetles and butterflies. During my last visit, ruddy copper butterflies were so focused on the nectar provided by asters that they could be approached and observed closely.

Ruddy copper butterflies, Lycaena rubidus, are sexually dimorphic for color and pattern. On the dorsal sides of their wings, males are brilliant red-orange with black spots, a narrow black band on the wing margins, and minute scales forming a white fringe.

A male ruddy copper above and female below, illustrating the sexual dimorphism for color. Photos by Jeff Mitton

Females, by comparison, are subdued and cryptic. In addition to the black and white at the margins, faint yellow-orange chevrons join to form a wavy line and the dorsal background colors are tan to brown with black spots. The dorsal colors are so different between the genders that, at first, I did not appreciate that they were the same species.

On the underside of the wings, both males and females are a light grey-blue with small black dots on the hindwings and bold black dots on the forewings.

Male and female dorsal color patterns have been shaped by different selective forces. The males are bright to attract females searching for a mate. In sexually dimorphic species in which males are bright and females are cryptic, females often use color intensity to estimate male health and endurance and they choose the most colorful as mates.

Colorful males are more apparent to visually hunting predators, but on the other hand, males that live long lives without mating are abject failures from the perspective of natural selection. All males die, but the most successful are those leaving the greatest number of offspring. Females are cryptically colored to avoid predation—the world is full of males eager to mate, but they need to avoid predation for as long as possible to develop eggs and deposit them in optimal sites.

Wouldn't it be intriguing if ruddy coppers had also evolved sexual dimorphism for vision, given that they search for targets that are so different?

Someone noticed that eye shine was sexually dimorphic in ruddy coppers. Eye shine is a reflection from tissues in the eye—males reflect a predominantly yellow hue from the dorsal portion of the eye, while females reflect a greater range of colors. This was one of the cues that led people to investigate opsins (photosensitive pigments) in ruddy coppers.

The ancestral condition for the eyes of butterflies and moths, and the present condition in sphingid moths, painted ladies and monarchs, is three opsins with maximum sensitivities at wavelengths of 350 mm (UV range), 440 mm (blue) and 530 (blue-green).

Ruddy coppers are in the family Lycaenidae, one of the two most recently evolved butterfly families, containing about 4,000 species. But ruddy copper has not three opsins, but four. Analysis of DNA sequences of the opsin genes revealed that the gene for the blue opsin (440 mm) had duplicated.

This duplication occurred as the family arose, for it is common to most or all species in Lycaenidae but not found in any other butterfly families. After duplication, the original gene evolved to 437 mm (indigo-blue) while the new copy evolved to 500 mm (blue-green). In addition, the long wavelength opsin evolved from 530 mm to 568 mm (green-yellow).

The opsin with maximum sensitivity at 568 mm has a broad curve, so that is has function at 630 mm, which is orange, the hue of male ruddy coppers. Gene duplication and subsequent evolution of the opsins provided much better color vision in the blue range and extended color vision into the orange range.

A study of areas within the eyes where specific opsins were expressed revealed the sexual dimorphism for vision. Both males and females express all four opsins in the ventral (lower) portions of their eyes. A female has all four opsins in the dorsal (upper) portion of the eye, but males have only three.

Females, but not males, express the 568 mm opsin in the dorsal portions of their eyes. Consequently, females are better able to detect the ruddy copper hues of males and to judge which male is most brightly colored.

It seems that reproductive success and sexual dimorphisms for dorsal color and for vision are inexorably interdependent in ruddy copper butterflies.

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Winter solstice dawn from Flagstaff Mountain amphitheater

Anonymous — Thu, 06 Jan 2022 00:52:59 +0000

Winter solstice dawn from Flagstaff Mountain amphitheater Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 01/05/2022 - 17:52

Jeff Mitton

My viewing of winter solstice dawn was quiet, but I had the conviction that this sort of observation reached far back into history, all around the world

From Flagstaff Mountain at 6:40 a.m., a brilliant red ceiling of clouds was visible over the eastern plains, while a few cumulus clouds glowed faintly overhead. The date was Dec. 21, while the occasion was winter solstice, the shortest day of the year.

The stone benches of the amphitheater were in the foreground and beyond them the lights of ��«��Ƶ glowed brightly. Fall would end and winter would begin shortly, at 8:59 a.m. Mountain time. It was a stunning scene and a silent but significant event that could be traced far back into time.

The Earth takes one year to rotate around the sun, and because the earth’s axis is tilted 23.5 degrees with respect to the plane of its orbit, the sun’s azimuth — or apparent position of rising — changes each day, as do the length of the days.

In the Northern Hemisphere, winter solstice is the day when the sun rises and sets farthest to the south, about 30 degrees south of the east-west (90-270 degrees) line, while summer solstice is the longest day because the sun rises and sets about 32 degrees north of the east-west line. Spring and fall (vernal and autumnal) equinoxes are the days when the sun rises in the east at 90 degrees and sets in the west at 270 degrees, so the lengths of day and night are equal.

Three years earlier I had been at Chaco Culture National Historic Park on the Navajo Nation to photograph several of Chaco Canyon’s Great Houses and Fajada Butte. Most of the Great Houses were built between 850 and 1130 A.D., and they are huge and majestic. For example, Pueblo Bonito, the largest of the Great Houses, is a tiered structure four and five stories tall containing 695 rooms and 32 kivas (circular, sunken rooms for communal ceremonies).

At the southern end of Chaco Canyon, Fajada Butte rises 393 feet above the canyon floor. At its summit, three tall boulders cast shadows creating slivers of light that move across the upper surface of the Butte. Chacoans cut two spiral petroglyphs that catch slivers and shafts of light that fall on particular dates."

The major walls of most of the Great Houses are aligned with the cardinal directions (north, south, east, west) or with the solstice axis, which is a line from azimuth of sunrise on the longest day to the azimuth of sunset on the shortest day. Note also that a structure aligned with cardinal directions is also aligned with spring and fall equinoxes.

At the southern end of Chaco Canyon, Fajada Butte rises 393 feet above the canyon floor. At its summit, three tall boulders cast shadows creating slivers of light that move across the upper surface of the Butte. Chacoans cut two spiral petroglyphs that catch slivers and shafts of light that fall on particular dates.

The most famous feature of this light show is the Sun Dagger, a shaft of light that precisely bisects one of the petroglyphs on the summer solstice. Other patterns of light are seen only during winter solstice or the equinoxes.

At the top of the page: At dawn on winter solstice, sunrise is seen from Flagstaff Amphitheater above ��«��Ƶ. Above: The Milky Way above Fajada Butte, Chaco Canyon. Photos by Jeff Mitton

The ceremonial significance of this site and its importance to Chacoans was indicated by the construction of a wooden ramp, 755 feet long and 312 feet high, that allowed all people to access the site. This was long ago, but observances of solstices and equinoxes reach further back in time.

Stonehenge, in Southern England, is an ancient feature that served as a burial site and a center for communal celebrations from 5,500 years ago to the present. The particular site was chosen because it had natural stone ridges aligned with the solstice axis. Two concentric circles were created with immense stones, some 13 feet tall, 7 feet wide and weighing 25 tons. Stones for the inner circle were smaller, but were brought from a site in Wales, 150 miles distant. The erected stones emphasized the natural alignment with the winter solstice.

Stonehenge clearly demonstrated the significance of celestial cycles as far back as 5,500 years, but Stonehenge was not alone. Contemporary sites designed to recognize cardinal directions, lunar and solar cycles and serving as a calendar include the Temple of the Sun at Machu Picchu in Peru, Newgrange in Ireland, Maeshowe in Scotland, the Mnajdra Temple in Malta and the Great Sphinx and Pyramid of Khafre in Egypt. But are these the earliest structures demonstrating awareness and significance attributed to solar and lunar cycles?

A tantalizing and still controversial megalithic structure was discovered in South Africa in 2003. Adam’s Calendar in Mpumalanga, South Africa, is a circle of standing stones almost 100 feet in diameter. It is a functional calendar with a variety of astronomical alignments, notably the cardinal directions and both summer and winter solstices. The age of Adam’s Calendar has been estimated to be at least 75,000 years. It is now protected as part of the Blue Swallow Natural Heritage Site.

Remember that modern humans first appeared in southern Africa 200,000 years ago. If the estimated age and interpretation of Adam’s Calendar are correct, then our ancient ancestors were observing and marking solstices and equinoxes, and building clocks with rocks before they even migrated to the Fertile Crescent and Europe.

My viewing of winter solstice dawn was quiet, but I had the conviction that this sort of observation reached far back into history, all around the world.

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A forensic analysis of a dead ponderosa pine

Anonymous — Mon, 20 Dec 2021 00:33:43 +0000

A forensic analysis of a dead ponderosa pine Anonymous (not verified) Sun, 12/19/2021 - 17:33

Jeff Mitton

High on Flagstaff Mountain, a ponderosa pine had quietly succumbed during the summer of 2020, but its green needles lingered another year to blanch in the fall of 2021. The tree was now conspicuous, for its light tan needles contrasted with the deep greens of the remaining pines. Why did that one tree die?

To assign cause for a ponderosa pine death, a number of factors must be considered. Drought, mistletoe infestation, squirrel herbivory and bark beetle attack come to mind. Although a single one of these factors might kill a tree, the factors interact so that the impact of one factor predisposes the tree to other factors.

The death of this ponderosa reminds us that the beetles are still here, sustained by the occasional compromised tree that allows them to reproduce successfully."

Drought has plagued western forests in recent years, increasing both numbers and magnitudes of forest fires. Drought compromises a pine’s production of monoterpenes and maintenance of resin pressure, the primary defenses against bark beetles.

Southwestern dwarf mistletoe, Arceuthobium vaginatum, is a parasitic plant that sinks its haustoria (analogous to roots) into tree branches to extract water and sugars. During dry conditions losses of water and sugars to a plant parasite make pines more susceptible to bark beetles and Abert’s squirrels, because both beetles and squirrels preferentially utilize trees with low resin pressure.

At the top of the page: Numerous branches had twig beetle galleries beneath the bark—downy woodpeckers removed the bark to get to the twig beetles. Above: The dead ponderosa looks over the ��«��Ƶ Valley. Photos by Jeff Mitton.

Abert’s squirrels, Sciurus aberti, eat the inner bark of branches as their primary source of nutrition during the winter. Their impact on most ponderosa pines is minor, but when they find a poorly defended, highly nutritious ponderosa pine they focus their feeding on that tree. Sustained bark consumption diminishes a tree’s photosynthetic tissues and its ability to produce both carbohydrates for metabolism and the resin and terpenes needed for its defense, making the tree more susceptible to bark beetle attack.

Something had removed bark from many of the smaller branches throughout the crown. Because I have watched Abert’s squirrels near this site on Flagstaff, I suspected that squirrels had focused their feeding on this tree. But squirrels usually feed on small twigs, not branches, and I did not see the tooth scrapings that squirrels would leave on naked wood as they removed bark. What else might have removed the bark?

Careful examination of the branches revealed the stubs of many mistletoes. Many branches had mistletoes, and the upper portions of the canopy had several distorted branches, an indication of a heavy mistletoe infection.

Mountain pine beetles, Dendroctounus ponderosae, attack only live trees, and they must kill the tree by draining resin pressure to zero to create the conditions that allow eggs to hatch and larvae to feed and grow. An attack begins when a female bores into a tree trunk to reach the inner bark, where she will excavate a gallery and lay eggs. She emits an aggregation pheromone that diffuses from the tree, recruiting other females to join in the effort to reduce resin pressure to zero. The bore hole cuts through resin canals, and resin floods the hole and dribbles out of the tree, drying when it reaches the air. These conspicuous pitch tubes mark a tree that has been attacked.

The trunk of the dead ponderosa has pitch tubes on its trunk and round exit holes dug when the next generation of beetles emerged.

Knowing that the tree had died after the mountain pine beetle attack, I thought more critically about the conspicuous herbivory. Inspection of branches with a hand lens revealed that insects had been feeding on the inner bark and excavating pupal chambers. I found tiny round holes where bark was intact — twig beetles were reproducing under the bark.

Twig beetles are tiny, 1.5 to 3.5 mm in length, and are able to become established in the phloem of pine, spruce and fir branches under drought and mistletoe stress. They can damage one or many branches, but rarely kill trees.

As I considered what species might remove bark to eat twig beetles, a downy woodpecker, Dryobates pubescens, tapped in the branches above me. It was working at the edges of raw wood, flaking off more bark. The naked patches had no evidence of scraping by squirrel teeth, but they had tiny punctures made by claws and larger punctures made by a pecking bill. Downy woodpeckers had been foraging for twig beetles beneath the bark.

In conclusion, twig beetles colonized a live tree already stressed by drought and mistletoes. Compromises by drought, mistletoes and twig beetles interacted and combined to make the tree highly susceptible to bark beetles. A bark beetle attack sealed the tree’s fate. After the last bark beetle infestation, which began in 2000 and dwindled in 2015, bark beetle populations diminished to the point that attacked trees were rare, but not absent. The death of this ponderosa reminds us that the beetles are still here, sustained by the occasional compromised tree that allows them to reproduce successfully.

Why did that one tree die? An expert is on the case.

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Cattails are on the move in North America

Anonymous — Tue, 07 Dec 2021 23:20:11 +0000

Cattails are on the move in North America Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 12/07/2021 - 16:20

Jeff Mitton

Invasive propensities of the various species are enhanced and more successful in disturbed environments

Marshes ringed with cattails provide entertaining viewing opportunities in spring, when redwing blackbirds, yellow-headed blackbirds, Canada geese, mallards and many other bird species are nesting among the reeds.

The densely packed, territorial redwing and yellow-headed blackbirds defend their territories valiantly by patrolling and calling from their territorial boundaries. While the bedlam set up by libidinous males naturally attracts attention first, the cattails are also of considerable interest.

Four species of cattails occur in Colorado. All are in the genus Typha, all are tall (six to 12 feet in height}, herbaceous, perennial, rhizomatous species obligately tied to slow water in marshes, pond and streams. They reproduce sexually, releasing numerous plumed seeds distributed by wind, and asexually with spreading rhizomes.

Broadleaf cattail, T. latifolia, is a native species and it seems to be the most common locally. Southern cattail, T. domingensis, is native to the southern United States and Mexico.

Narrowleaf cattail, T. angustifolia, is native to Asia, and was probably introduced to the east coast and is invasive in North America, continually expanding its range. It has spread across the continent but has not yet established in Arizona, Utah or Idaho.

Hybrid cattail, T. x glauca, is a hybrid resulting from a cross between T. latifolia and T. angustifolia. It was originally thought to be sterile, but thorough genetic studies have shown that T. x glauca can mate with other hybrids and with either parent, though it produces fewer seeds than other species. Where broadleaf, narrowleaf and hybrid cattails grow together, hybrid cattails frequently become dominant, suggesting an advantage in asexual reproduction.

Broadleaf cattails can be separated from the other species by the form of their flower stalks. The stalk has both male flowers that release pollen and female flowers that produce seeds. In all species, the male flowers are in the upper portion of the stalk while female flowers are below. Broadleaf flower stalks have male and female flowers tightly abutting, while the other species have a distinct space of two to four centimeters where the stalk is naked.

Cattails in mid and late summer retain only their female flowers, which release seeds lofted by fluffy plumes. Photos by Jeff Mitton.

Male flowers mature first and when the pollen has been shed the upper portion of the flower stalk dries and snaps off in the wind, leaving the densely packed female flowers that suggested the common name "cat tail." This mass of flowers and developing seeds is brown in broadleaf, reddish brown in narrowleaf, bright cinnamon brown in southern and light tan in hybrids.

Hybrid cattails might occur wherever broadleaf and narrow leaf cattails occur together, but they can be absent, rare or even dominant. In a study of flowering time and seed set in a constructed wetland in Ohio, no hybrids were produced in six years.

Hybrid cattails are common in the Midwest, so this result was unexpected and puzzling. A subsequent study of hybrid success discovered that broadleaf cattails can be locally adapted to high salinity, providing them with an advantage over hybrids in saline environments.

Other studies have shown that competitive outcomes also vary with water depth. So, competitive abilities and resulting abundances of the species vary with local adaptation, salinity and water depth. Cattails are currently invasive in the Florida Everglades, around the Great Lakes and the Prairie Pothole Region in the upper Midwest, so biologists would like to predict where they will spread and which species will be involved. But the more we learn about the species and their environments, the more difficult it becomes to predict the outcome of competition and which species will invade.

Two observations of cattails seem robust. Invasive propensities of the various species are enhanced and more successful in eutrophic and disturbed environments. Consequently, both native and introduced cattails are expanding their ranges.

Native Americans were fond of cattails, for they fashioned the leaves into baskets, harvested the fluffy seeds to make pillows, insulation and diapers, and they ate almost every part of the plants. The abundant pollen was added to flour to make pancakes and muffins. When the female flowers were developing, they could be pickled or cooked and eaten with butter. The inner portions of young shoots were eaten raw or cooked. The rhizomes were abundant sources of flour and starch.

We live in different environments than the Native Americans, and consequently cattails can no longer be eaten with impunity. Cattails, particularly broadleaf cattails, extract heavy metals from the water and concentrate them in their tissues, making them useful as bioindicators of pollution by manganese, zinc, cadmium, lead, nickel, copper and cobalt.

Harvesting tasty food from wild plants sounds appealing, but inadvertently eating food liberally seasoned with heavy metals would be regrettable.

Invasive propensities of the various species are enhanced and more successful in disturbed environments. Consequently, both native and introduced cattails are expanding their ranges.

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Late-fall pollination reflects the globally changing climate

Anonymous — Wed, 17 Nov 2021 22:49:25 +0000

Late-fall pollination reflects the globally changing climate Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 11/17/2021 - 15:49

Jeff Mitton

My observation that fall temperatures and pollination seemed to last longer this year is anecdotal, but the anecdote seems to fit into a documented pattern of climate change altering the onsets and durations of the seasons

On Nov. 4, 5 and 6 I went to Rabbit Valley in the McInnis Canyons National Conservation Area in western Colorado to enjoy camping, hiking in canyons, and photographing scenery.

Balmy days and chilly nights were predicted, and I was resigned to find dried flowers and no insects. But I was pleasantly surprised to find butterflies attending persistent flowers.

Driving into Rabbit Valley, I kept scanning the area for yellow leaves, for Fremont's cottonwoods would still be displaying fall foliage, but the yellow that I found first, and most pervasively, was the lacy last blooms on rabbitbrush, Chrysothamnus nauseosus.

Rabbitbrush, also called chamisa, turns lower elevation western valleys yellow in late summer and early fall, but I did not expect to find lingering blooms in November. I walked to a small cluster of these shrubs and was surprised again to find what I think were clouded sulphur butterflies, Colias philodice, (I cannot exclude orange sulphurs, Colias eurytheme) nectaring on the blooms.

I did not expect to see pollination continuing into November.

At the top of the page: Ruby Canyon appears uncharacteristically golden in November. Above: Clouded sulphur pollinating rabbitbrush. Photos by Jeff Mitton.

Clouded sulphurs have an immense range, from Alaska to Nova Scotia and south to Mexico. In the northern portions of their range, they have three generations from May to October, while in southern portions of the range they have four or five generations from March to November. Could it be that the life history typical in southern populations is migrating northward?

The balmy weather I enjoyed in early November was not a freak occurrence, but another part of documented trends in the seasons. A study of temperature records from 1952 to 2011 for locations in the northern hemisphere between 30 and 60 degrees of latitude reported that all four seasons were changing.

The balmy weather I enjoyed in early November was not a freak occurrence, but another part of documented trends in the seasons.'

Summer had lengthened from 78 to 95 days, while spring, fall and winter shrank from 124 to 115, 87 to 82 and 76 to 73 days, respectively. Spring comes earlier and fall comes later than when I was a kid. Analyses of 54 years of data in Korea and Japan found that leaf senescence and leaf fall were occurring later in the majority of plant species examined. Other observations consistent with changes in season lengths follow.

Japan has historically treasured its cherry trees and celebrated cherry blossoms each spring. In 2021, cherry trees in Kyoto bloomed on the earliest date in the 1,209 years that cherry blossom records have been kept.

In spring of 1912, Japan gave America 3,020 cherry trees of 12 different varieties, which were planted around the tidal basin in Washington, D.C. In 2021, cherry blossom peak occurred on the third earliest date in 99 years of blooming in Washington.

Sailboat racing attracts many boats on Lake Mendota in Madison, Wisconsin. Because the sailboats are built for speed, their hulls are fragile, and would be damaged if a boat were to hit a piece of ice.

Consequently, each year, they announce when Lake Mendota is clear of ice and data on ice melt have been kept from 1850 to present. I compared the averages of the first 10 years and the most recent 10 years. Nowadays, ice disappears two weeks earlier than it did in the 1850s.

Following 20 years of temperatures above average and eight years with abnormally low precipitation, 186-mile-long Lake Powell is now at its lowest ebb since the Lake first filled on June 22, 1980. It is now 156 feet below its level when full and contains less than one-third of its full capacity.

Since 1985, wildfires in the west have become more numerous and larger. Prior to 1983, wildfires consumed 3.5 million acres per year but more and larger fires burned 8.5 and 6.5 million acres in 2020 and 2021, respectively. In short term studies of a few years and in long term studies covering thousands of years, fires consume more forest acres in warm, dry years.

My observation that fall temperatures and pollination seemed to last longer this year is anecdotal. But the anecdote seems to fit into a documented pattern of climate change altering the onsets and durations of the seasons.

Why is all of this happening? Atmospheric CO₂ drives climate change, and atmospheric CO₂ started rising during the industrial revolution (1760-1840).

But since my birthday in 1947 the human population has tripled. Furthermore, in my lifetime, the number of vehicles in the United States increased eight-fold and atmospheric CO₂ rose by one-third. Human population growth and human production of CO₂ are driving climate change.

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Humans ignite almost every wildfire that threatens homes

Anonymous — Tue, 22 Sep 2020 16:32:05 +0000

Humans ignite almost every wildfire that threatens homes Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 09/22/2020 - 10:32

Nathan Mietkiewicz , Jennifer Balch

Wildfires are a natural disturbance for these regions, but when combined with climate change and housing growth in the wildland-urban interface, they become larger and more destructive

Summer and fall are wildfire season across the western U.S. In recent years, wildfires have destroyed thousands of homes, forced hundreds of thousands of people to evacuate and exposed tens of millions to harmful smoke.

Wildfires are a natural disturbance for these regions, but when combined with climate change and housing growth in the wildland-urban interface – zones where development has spread into wild areas – they have become larger and more destructive.

To make matters worse, humans are responsible for starting almost all the wildfires in developed areas that threaten U.S. homes. In a newly published study, we show that through activities like debris burning, equipment use and arson, people ignited 97% of home-threatening wildfires in the wildland-urban interface between 1992 and 2015. For comparison, when fires in undeveloped areas are also counted, humans started 84% of all wildfires between 1992 and 2012, with lightning as the main natural cause.

Common and costly

Wildfires in developed areas threatened one million homes across the lower 48 states that sat within their boundaries in the years we reviewed in our study. This figure is five times larger than previous estimates, which did not consider the threat of small fires – those measuring less than 1.5 square miles (4 square kilometers).

Human-started fires in these zones carry a high price tag. Over 15 years, between 2000 and 2014, state and local governments spent US$4.1 billion fighting wildfires near homes. That’s equivalent to one-third of the national wildfire control budget, even though the wildland-urban interface represents only 10% of U.S. land area.

And development in these areas is increasing. Between 1990 and 2015, 32 million new homes were built in the wildland-urban interface – a 145% increase.

Wildfires in developed areas threatened one million homes across the lower 48 states that sat within their boundaries in the years we reviewed in our study."

Since 2000, wildfires have burned 10 of the largest areas since 1970. During these years, average U.S. summertime (June- August) temperatures rose steadily. (Fire data from NIFC, temperature data from NOAA). Nathan Mietkiewicz, CC BY-ND

Climate change is adding to the problem by making much of the U.S. West hotter and drier, and thus more prone to burn. Warming that has already occurred is linked to a doubling of cumulative burned area across Western U.S. forests since 1984.

As warming continues, small fires started by people either accidentally or deliberately in the wildland-urban interface could grow into large fires. Longer fire seasons, increased burning and having more homes to protect pose a potentially insurmountable resource challenge.

But the fact that people start the vast majority of wildfires that threaten homes also means it is possible to remove these wildfires from the equation. The way to do this is by altering common human behaviors that introduce ignitions. Key solutions may include:

– Doing more routine maintenance of infrastructure, such as electric power lines.

– Organizing campaigns to reduce use of fireworks and other explosives.

– Limiting use of motorized equipment for yard work and banning debris burning during hot and dry conditions.

– Conducting more planned burns in high-risk areas like the wildland-urban interface during low-fire risk times of year. This work should target areas in these zones where ignition rates and threats to homes are high. These areas should receive high priority for fuel treatments or prescribed burning as preventative measures.

Current trends suggest that people are not going to stop moving to beautiful but flammable areas. This means that more homes will be vulnerable to wildfires, and more people will be engaging in activities that could start them. We think it’s time for Smokey Bear to move to the suburbs, with a new slogan: “Only you can prevent wildfires that threaten your home.”

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Wildfires are a natural disturbance for these regions, but when combined with climate change and housing growth in the wildland-urban interface, they become larger and more destructive.

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With Kamala Harris, Americans yet again have trouble understanding what multiracial means

Anonymous — Wed, 02 Sep 2020 00:26:58 +0000

With Kamala Harris, Americans yet again have trouble understanding what multiracial means Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 09/01/2020 - 18:26

Jennifer Ho

Anyone confused about Kamala Harris’ multiraciality may recall that the U.S. is a nation that was not built by a single ethnic or racial group

News that Sen. Kamala Harris was Joe Biden’s choice for the 2020 Democratic vice presidential nominee drove speculation and argumentation about her identity. The big question appeared to be, “Is Kamala Harris truly African American?”

There were numerous articles and opinion pieces about whether Harris can legitimately claim to be African American; the authenticity of her Black identity if she has an Indian mother; what it means for her to be biracial; and other articles opining and speculating about her racial, ethnic and even national identity.

Harris, the daughter of immigrant parents from Jamaica and India, identifies as Black/African American while also embracing her Indian heritage. Yet the questions in social media and news outlets swirling around her identities demonstrate a continued misunderstanding of race and mixed-race people.

Where do loyalties lie?

While the debates about Harris’ racial identities may seem new given the recent media attention focused on her, they are similar to the commentary other high-profile mixed-race people have received.

When I did research for my chapter on Tiger Woods in my book “Racial Ambiguity in Asian American Culture,” I found much criticism of Woods’ calling himself “Cablinasian” (a word Woods made up as a teen to account for his Caucasian, Black, American Indian and Asian heritages) and for not solely identifying as Black. Several articles expressed confusion about his multiraciality – the uncertainty over the most accurate racial category to fit him into.

Golfer Tiger Woods has undergone scrutiny similar to Harris about his multiracial identity. Stacy Revere/Getty Images

The discussions of Woods mirror the critiques of Harris.

The competing interpretations of Harris’ identity, like with Woods, seem to be a function of her multiple, intersecting identities (including race, class and gender) as well as the public’s deep discomfort with people who don’t fit into fixed boxes.

For example, some people want to disavow Harris’ Blackness because of her multiple ethnic and racial affiliations. Others claim her as Jamaican or Indian, which serves as evidence of her success as a member of an ethnic group or which celebrates a shared cultural connection with her.

Some see her Jamaican and Indian ethnicities as diminishing her claim to a Black American experience, unlike those who are known as “ADOS,” or American Descendants of Slavery. Because Harris’ ancestors do not include those who were enslaved in the U.S., ADOS’s concern is that neither she nor her family can know the deep historical pain of U.S. anti-Black racism.

Embedded in this concern are echoes of the questions Black Americans face who have passed, who chose whiteness to escape slavery or the Jim Crow South or those who choose multiraciality to flee the social stigma of Blackness. Questioning Harris’ bona fides to being a Black American is questioning where her loyalties lie.

‘100% Black and 100% Japanese’

There are political reasons why some may want to discredit Harris’ claims to Blackness, believing that saying she’s not truly Black means she shouldn’t be relatable to Black voters.

But the desire to see Harris as only Black or worry that she is not truly African American derives from the racist U.S. past of the one-drop rule of racial impurity, which sociologist F. James Wood has described as the idea that “a single drop of ‘black blood’ makes a person a black.” That was an ideology from the majority of U.S. history – from its founding through to the Jim Crow era – when race was firmly believed to be a matter of blood.

Scientists for well over half a century have disproven any link between race and genetics. Scholars have been writing and researching, for decades, about how race is a social construction rather than a biological absolute.

The discussions of Woods mirror the critiques of Harris"

But in public discussion in the U.S., race is treated as an entity that can be measured and labeled. That is why people are questioning the validity of Harris’ African American identity. They believe that her racial affiliation can somehow be quantified and weighed on a scale of authenticity.

Underlying these questions of authenticity are questions of legitimacy. Multiracial people are constantly confronted by those who question their whole selves and their choice to authentically identify with multiple races. For these critics, to qualify for membership in a race or ethnicity means one must be 100% of that group. Anything less means you cannot be a real member of any given culture, ethnicity or race.

Yet the reality and experiences of multiracial people’s lives, like that of Harris, suggest that basic math cannot capture the realities of what it means to embody multiple races and ethnicities. As one subject of multiracial artist Kip Fulbeck’s photo installation of mixed-race Asian Americans in The Hapa Project states, “I am 100% Black and 100% Japanese.”

Evolution of racial categories

Racial identity is not only about external features (eye shape, hair texture, skin color) and ancestral lines. It is about the cultural and social habits and rituals that people participate in as they claim their affiliations with ethnic and racial groups.

The Indian food that Harris consumes speaks volumes about the ethnic influences she embraces, as does the Black sorority she pledged and the historically Black college she attended.

Anyone confused about Kamala Harris’ multiraciality may recall that the U.S. is a nation that was not built by a single ethnic or racial group.

Indeed, U.S. land was taken from various Indigenous nations and built by the enslaved labor of people from multiple African nations and tribes for the benefit of others who hailed from a variety of European nations. And other immigrants from Latin America and the Pacific Rim settled in North America and made the U.S. their home.

Harris, as the U.S.‘s first multiracial, multiethnic female vice presidential candidate, reflects the evolution of racial categories, which coincides with an ever-evolving understanding of race and racism in the 21st century.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Ancient cancel cultures: The defacement of statues in America replicates a tradition going back millennia

Anonymous — Thu, 20 Aug 2020 14:27:39 +0000

Ancient cancel cultures: The defacement of statues in America replicates a tradition going back millennia Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 08/20/2020 - 08:27

Sarah Kurnick

The result of months of protests over racial injustice and monument destruction may seem like a modern form of American political speech. It’s not.

Amid pleas for racial justice, protesters across the United States have mutilated hundreds of monuments. They have decapitated statues of Christopher Columbus, spray-painted graffiti on memorials to Robert E. Lee and mutilated tributes to Jefferson Davis.

At top of page: Intentionally mutilated head of Egyptian Pharaoh Hatshepsut. Elizabeth Ellis, CC BY-SA. Above: Protesters against police violence and racism continue to rally at the Richmond, Virginia monument to Confederate General Robert E. Lee. Zach D Roberts/NurPhoto via Getty Images

As statues tumble, a national conversation has emerged about American monuments. For some, the defacement of monuments, particularly those dedicated to Confederate leaders, helps debunk myths of white supremacy. For others, their destruction equals vigilantism and lawlessness.

Sargon of Akkad. By Hans Ollermann, CC BY

The result of months of protests over racial injustice and monument destruction may seem like a modern form of American political speech. It’s not.

As an anthropology professor and archaeologist who has written about how ancient peoples navigate their pasts, I believe it mirrors an age-old practice long used to discredit once revered people and repudiate once venerated ideas.

Olmec colossal head from San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán, Veracruz, Mexico. Maribel Ponce Ixba, CC BY

Power in the present

In response to the recent defacement of monuments in the U.S., President Donald Trump issued an executive order in June stating that his administration “will not allow violent mobs…to become the arbiters of the aspects of history that can be celebrated in public spaces.” He added that the protesters’ “selection of targets reveals a deep ignorance of history.”

President Trump is partly correct. The recent destruction of monuments is about power in the present. Protesters today, like their ancient counterparts, have challenged the social order by questioning who should and should not be publicly venerated, who should be remembered or forgotten.

But Trump is also mistaken. Those defacing monuments are not oblivious to history.

Power in the past

Since at least the third millennium B.C., economically, socially and politically marginalized people have questioned authority by mutilating public images of rulers. And those in power have destroyed monuments to reinforce their authority and erase the names and accomplishments of their predecessors.

As art historian Erin L. Thompson recently explained, “destruction is the norm and preservation is the rare exception.”

Akkadians, who lived in Mesopotamia between about 2300 and 2150 B.C., created a bronze likeness of one of their living rulers. This portrait probably represents King Sargon of Akkad, known for conquering nearby Sumerian city-states. Although the likeness initially glorified the king, it was later purposefully mutilated. Akkadians cut off its ears, broke its nose and gouged out one of its eyes.

Importantly, Akkadians chose to mar rather than obliterate this monument to Sargon. Their goal was not to erase history but to show in dramatic fashion the downfall and ultimate humiliation of a once powerful leader.

Thousands of years later, Mesoamericans engaged in a similar practice. The Olmec, who lived in the lowlands of the Gulf of Mexico between approximately 1400 B.C. and A.D. 400, purposefully disfigured colossal heads.

These portraits of rulers’ faces were carved from basalt boulders. The largest weighs about 40 tons and measures over 10 feet high. Many have had pieces of their noses or lips broken off. Others have gouges carved into their surfaces or pox marks ground into their faces. Many were also buried.

Scholars have proposed several theories to explain the defacement of Olmec colossal heads. It may be that these monuments were ritually killed to neutralize the powers of rulers after their deaths. Or it may be that incoming rulers defaced the heads of their predecessors to help justify their newfound authority.

Many details about the Olmec colossal heads remain unknown. Elsewhere in Mesoamerica, however, the circumstances are more clear. In some instances, commoners purposefully destroyed and reused portraits of rulers.

Ancestral Chatinos occupied coastal Oaxaca prior to the arrival of the Mixtecs around A.D. 1100. At Río Viejo in Oaxaca, archaeologist Arthur Joyce and colleagues excavated the ruins of an ancestral Chatino residence dating to approximately A.D. 800-1100.

At that residence, Joyce found a piece of a carved stone monument depicting the face of a ruler. In a politically motivated move, the peasants chose to reuse the monument fragment, a powerful symbol of authority, as a metate – a stone for grinding grain and seeds.

In other cases, we know that incoming rulers intentionally defaced monuments dedicated to their predecessors. Ancient Egyptians built numerous statues depicting pharaohs, including Ramesses II and Tutankhamun, or King Tut.

Near the end of Pharaoh Thutmose III’s reign, between about 1479 and 1425 B.C., members of his regime attempted to erase the memory of Hatshepsut, his predecessor, co-regent and mother. Statues of Hatshepsut were smashed, her obelisks covered and her cartouches removed from temple walls. As Egyptologist Joyce Tyldesley told the BBC in 2011, Thutmose III could thereby “incorporate her reign into his own” and claim her accomplishment as his own. He could rewrite history.

Because the decision of whom to remember, humiliate or ignore has always been a political choice, it should not be surprising that, as journalist Jacey Fortin has written, “history is littered with the shattered remains of toppled statues.”

Archaeology shows that the presentation of people, events and ideas through history has always been contentious and tied to contemporary political concerns, including nationalism, racism and xenophobia. Just like American protesters today, ancient Mesopotamians, Mesoamericans and Egyptians altered their political present by changing how they displayed their past.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The result of months of protests over racial injustice and monument destruction may seem like a modern form of American political speech. It’s not.

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Police car moths have conspicuous color patterns and fly during the day

Anonymous — Mon, 17 Aug 2020 22:07:11 +0000

Police car moths have conspicuous color patterns and fly during the day Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 08/17/2020 - 16:07

Jeff Mitton

Wielding all of these defenses, these moths have little to fear from birds or bats and they ignore photographers with impunity

Triangular leaf senecio, Senecio triangularis, is common on the eastern slope of Cimarron Ridge in the San Juan Mountains, from 9,000 to over 10,000 feet. This year they grew to five feet tall, with abundant flowers and their display was greatly enhanced by numerous police car moths, Gnophaela vermiculata. At higher elevations the moths were also on pearly everlasting, Anaphalis margaritacea, and orange sneezeweed, Helenium autumnal. I stood beside one senecio with 16 moths sipping nectar and noticed that the moths were not at all disturbed by a human within four feet.

The first tiger moth to evolve had ancestral defenses--this species is the base of the tiger moth evolutionary tree."

Five species of Gnophaela are members of the tiger moths, day flying moths that have bright colors in both caterpillars and adults, usually with striking patterns. Their ability to fly during the day and to assemble in large numbers while nectaring comes from chemical defenses that they either synthesize or take from their host plants and sequester in specific tissues. Caterpillars add contrasting black barbs that penetrate, dig in, and deliver stinging toxins. Both caterpillars and adults have combinations of brilliant black, white, blue, yellow, orange and red--aposematic color patterns warning predators of toxic defenses.

Police car moths have warning coloration to deter visual predators and ultrasonic signals to deter bats. Photo by Jeff Mitton.

Tiger moths have three classes of chemical defenses: biogenic acids (BA), pyrrolizidine alkaloids (PA) and cardiac glycosides (CG), but not all species have all three defenses. Some tiger moths modify their chemical defenses to be used in courtship displays. In addition, this group of moths is distinctive for its evolution of tymbal organs, or structures on the thorax that make ultrasonic clicks when the structures are flexed. The clicks are emitted in response to bat sonar, to warn bats of chemical defenses and in some cases, to jam the bat's radar. Some tiger moths no longer have functional tymbal organs, but their vestiges remain. Some species of tiger moths have incorporated ultrasonic clicks into courting displays.

To understand the diversity of chemical and ultrasonic defenses and uses of defensive chemical and/or ultrasonic clicks in courtship, an evolutionary tree was inferred from a large study of morphological characters. Fifty species were used to estimate the pattern of evolutionary change among the 1,100 species of tiger moths. Then the uses of BA, PA, CG and ultrasonic clicks was mapped onto the evolutionary tree to understand how the extant diversity of tiger moth defenses and courtships evolved.

The first tiger moth to evolve had ancestral defenses--this species is the base of the tiger moth evolutionary tree, the ancestor of all the extant tiger moths flying today. It synthesized BA, but lacked both PA and CG. It had bright colors, and this species evolved tymbal organs, a synapomorphic character, evolved in the ancestor and passed to all descendant species in the group--a character that distinguishes tiger moths.

Police car moths have warning coloration to deter visual predators and ultrasonic signals to deter bats. Photo by Jeff Mitton.

A new branch of the tree formed when a caterpillar evolved the enzymes and proteins needed to transfer PA from the gut into the cuticle. PA are particularly toxic, so the caterpillars defecate most of them and sequester one third in the cuticle. After modifying PA, they are incorporated into the male pheromone. Police car moths are in this group.

Multiple species switched to male pheromones without PA or added ultrasound clicks to the male courtship ritual."

Yet another branch of the tree was formed as multiple species stopped using host plants that supplied PA. Some species switched to having the adult form, but not the caterpillar, gather and sequester PA. Multiple species switched to male pheromones without PA or added ultrasound clicks to the male courtship ritual.

A last branch of the tree was added when a new species stopped synthesizing BA, and passed that trait down to its descendant species.

Police car moth caterpillars synthesize their own BA and also sequester PA from their host plants in the genus Mertensia. They utilize both tall and dwarf bluebells, consuming leaves with PAs, predominantly lycopsamine, which they modify and sequester as callimorphine. Police car moths use ultrasonic clicks to deter bats but do not employ either ultrasound or PA into courtship. Wielding all of these defenses, these moths have little to fear from birds or bats and they ignore photographers with impunity.

This article is part of Jeff Mitton's ongoing blog, Natural Selections.

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