Clearing The Air

A wind from the north shouldering its way around corners and through trees still laden with leaves, but bringing cool air clear as bells, and blowing away the pollution still lingering from Trump’s performance at last night’s “debate.”

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Great fun bike riding along trails, with the wind at my back, wheels crushing through windrows of the early deciduous.

Eating close to home tonight with local tomato soup, chicken, potatoes, and chard (though I’m not sure the chard is really edible).

Big Cooldown…

…with just a little rain.

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Could it be time to think about getting the storm windows out of the basement?

So What Do We Do About the Court?

For the sake of sanity let’s assume Biden wins and the Senate is flipped. What should we do then to redress the Trump/McConnell depredation of the Supreme Court?

1. Increase the number of justices.

A. Great idea

B. Okay

C. Nah

D. Bad idea

2. Move aggressively to get statehood status for Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia.

A. Great idea

B. Okay

C. Nah

D. Bad idea

3. Establish term limits for justices.

A. Great idea

B. Okay

C. Nah

D. Bad idea

4. Establish a program in which justices rotate on and off the court.

A. Great idea

B. Okay

C. Nah

D. Bad idea

5. Implement a “strategic retirement” plan for liberal (fair minded) justices.

A. Great idea

B. Okay

C. Nah

D. Bad idea

6. Follow racist, sexist, corporatist, or totalitarian court decisions with new legislation reestablishing justice (such as a new voting rights act).

A. Great idea

B. Okay

C. Nah

D. Bad idea

7. Simply ignore racist, sexist, corporatist, or totalitarian court decisions (as Lincoln did after Dred Scott.)

A. Great idea

B. Okay

C. Nah

D. Bad idea

8. Vow to keep the White House in Democratic hands and to keep a majority in the Senate.

` A. Great idea

B. Okay

C. Nah

D. Bad idea

Nuts

Shagbark hickory nuts, to be precise.

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A pretty good haul. In hickory country a few weeks earlier than usual this year, which means I’m moderately competitive with the squirrels. A couple of windy days have also helped by shaking some nuts loose before the rodents got to them. It also seems to be a low year for the weevil population—only one of all I’ve collected so far has exhibited a drilled hole.

Plan is to let these seeds stratify in the garage over the winter, and then plant them (squirrel proof) come spring. With luck I’ll have seedlings available in a couple of years.

Hither and Yon

Out and about. Not much time to think bloggish thoughts.

Do you recognize this gnarly person.?

Do you recognize this gnarly person.?

The Whitewater Urban Forest Committee seems to be moving forward with my push to have an arboretum in Starin Park. Here are my suggestions for a Mission Statement and a List of Benefits:

The Arboretum at Starin Park
Mission Statement

The Arboretum at Starin Park exists to provide a beautiful, welcoming sanctuary for humans, trees shrubs, and wildlife. It is a place where people of all ages can come to connect to nature, learn about the environment, and study and practice stewardship. The Arboretum at Starin Park is dedicated to helping create a greener, healthier, and more beautiful world.

Benefits
The Arboretum at Starin Park will:

1. Facilitate restoration of the beauty, health, and diversity of the woodland at Starin Park, enhancing its role as a vital natural sanctuary.

2. Provide Whitewater(and the larger surrounding community) with an outdoor classroom and a related curriculum that connects kids to nature and teaches the fundamentals of ecology and stewardship.

3. Provide Whitewater(and the larger surrounding community) with a haven for adult environmental connection, learning and stewardship.

4. Provide ecosystem services—oxygen, shade, pollution reduction, urban cooling, wildlife shelter, etc.

5. Provide nature-related outdoor social and volunteer opportunities for adults.

6. Help, in a small way, with climate mitigation.

7. Serve as a museum of native Wisconsin trees and shrubs.

8. Provide a laboratory for arboreal research (and a potential nursery).

9. Bring visitors to Whitewater to experience a special natural area and to participate in programs and learning opportunities.

10. Bring recognition to Whitewater as the site of an internationally certified Arboretum, thus enhancing the city’s profile as a good place to live.

Votar Aqui

Time to vote. Ballots are here. We are about to fill them out carefully, sign them carefully (although Wisconsin does not do signature matching), have them witnessed carefully (by each other, and signed by the witness), seal them up in the official envelope, and then place them, carefully, in the election drop box at city hall.

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Next step— make sure everyone in the known universe (with at least half a brain) does the same. It’s a simple choice between representative democracy and totalitarian dictatorship.

Here’s my latest “You Make The Call:”

Electoral College

Pop Quiz

(Do your best, but don’t worry, your answers might not count anyway.)

1. The Electoral College was thought up at the Constitutional Convention to appease the big eastern states.

A. True

B. False

C. Not sure

2. How many Electoral College votes does it take to win the presidential election?

A. 250

B. 270

C. 295

D. 300

3. How many candidates have lost the majority of the popular vote but still ended up being president?

A. 3

B. 4

C. 5

D. 6

(Extra credit if you can name them. Send in your answer to get a chance at winning
a secret decoder ring—no boxtops necessary.)

4. The Electoral College favors voters in small and rural states.

A. True

B. False

C. Not sure

5. Wyoming gets one Electoral College vote for roughly every 160,000 residents. California gets one Electoral College vote for roughly every ______________ residents.

A. 560,000

B. 625,000

C. 715,000

6. Wisconsin gets  ________  Electoral College votes.

A. 6

B. 8

C. 10

D. 12

7. The Electoral College is racist in that it dilutes the votes of African-Americans, Latinos, and Asian Americans (who tend to live in cities and more populous states).

A. Agree

B. Disagree

C. Not sure

8. Trump could lose the popular vote by three to four percentage points and still have a chance of winning reelection.

A. True

B. False

C. Not sure

9. A presidential election decided by the popular vote might help to improve our rancid politics. 

A. Agree

B. Disagree

C. Not sure

10. Theoretically, a ­Republican Party with the incentive to compete for votes in California and New York because of a national popular vote, might be less tempted by white nationalism.

A. Agree

B. Disagree

C. Not sure

11. A majority of Americans favor dumping the Electoral College.

A. Yes

B. No

C. Not sure

12. In 1969, the House of Representatives passed a constitutional amendment to establish a national popular vote for the White House. Nixon called it “a thoroughly acceptable reform,” but a filibuster backed by segregationist Southerners in the Senate killed it.

A. True

B. False

C. Not sure

13. A way to bypass the Electoral College and render it meaningless is something called the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. 

A. True

B. False

C. Not sure

14. Fifteen states and the District of Columbia have passed bills pledging to support the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. 

A. True

B. False

C. Not sure

15. On April 25, 2019, the National Popular Vote bill was introduced in Wisconsin but because of Republican opposition it has not passed.

A. True

B. False

C. Not sure 

Transplanting Sweetgrass

My carefully nurtured, started-from-seed, sweetgrass was moved from the pot, where it could not survive the winter, to the earth, where it might. The pot was a tangled mass of roots, but, wielding Excalibur, I sliced segments out and interred them in the homeland. Here’s hoping the effort begun almost a year ago will carry over into the year to come, and that over time, sweetgrass will be readily available to anyone who might want some.

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Yesterday, about this time, the wave of anguish rolling around the world washed over here. Not only was RBG a marvelous human, but her passing added to the long list calamities our star-crossed country is experiencing right now. If I were a religious person I’d pray that the USA can make it out of this nightmare alive.

A Nip In The Air

Frost? No, not quite, but a low in the upper 30s.

Tom’s last painting for the Tig book

Tom’s last painting for the Tig book

Too soon for Indian summer. Typical first frost in about 3 weeks. Still, the air is what might be called bracing, and is much appreciated. Over to Dem HQ to pick up a few signs this afternoon. The place was crowded, in spite of efforts to social distance. People are taking this election seriously; we are activated.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

On The Birthday Of The World
Marge Piercy

On the birthday of the world
I begin to contemplate
what I have done and left
undone, but this year
not so much rebuilding

of my perennially damaged
psyche, shoring up eroding
friendships, digging out
stumps of old resentments
that refuse to rot on their own.

No, this year I want to call
myself to task for what
I have done and not done
for peace. How much have
I dared in opposition?

How much have I put
on the line for freedom?
For mine and others?
As these freedoms are pared,
sliced and diced, where

have I spoken out? Who
have I tried to move? In
this holy season, I stand
self-convicted of sloth
in a time when lies choke

the mind and rhetoric
bends reason to slithering
choking pythons. Here
I stand before the gates
opening, the fire dazzling

my eyes, and as I approach
what judges me, I judge
myself. Give me weapons
of minute destruction. Let
my words turn into sparks.

Smoke Signal

Cloudless, but pale sky, caused by high altitude smoke.

The old shag bark hickory

The old shag bark hickory

South wind, warm and strong, though the upper level winds are coming from the west.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Here’s a clip from the NY Times:

HOW CLIMATE MIGRATION WILL RESHAPE AMERICA

Millions will be displaced. Where will they go?

By Abrahm Lustgarten
The millions of people moving north will mostly head to the cities of the Northeast and Northwest, which will see their populations grow by roughly 10 percent, according to one model. Once-chilly places like Minnesota and Michigan and Vermont will become more temperate, verdant and inviting. Vast regions will prosper; just as Hsiang’s research forecast that Southern counties could see a tenth of their economy dry up, he projects that others as far as North Dakota and Minnesota will enjoy a corresponding expansion. Cities like Detroit, Rochester, Buffalo and Milwaukee will see a renaissance, with their excess capacity in infrastructure, water supplies and highways once again put to good use. One day, it’s possible that a high-speed rail line could race across the Dakotas, through Idaho’s up-and-coming wine country and the country’s new breadbasket along the Canadian border, to the megalopolis of Seattle, which by then has nearly merged with Vancouver to its north.