Minnesota Bat Chats

21 September 2018 Leave a comment

What you need to know and how you can use that information.

Presentation for all ages –citizens, naturalists and scientists – beginners to knowledgeable.

Why should people know about bats?

Bats descend from tree dwelling mammalian neighbors of the dinosaurs and remain intricately involved with our natural world today.

  • Bats represent a unique model of animal evolution over the past 75 million years
  • Bats play an important role in the balance of life and economy in nearly all parts of the world
  • Bats play an important role through insect control in agriculture and residential areas, saving billions of dollars every year
  • Bats and humans can coexist and even benefit mutually. We’re both part of the intricate fabric of life on this planet…the only home we have and share.

Batty About Bats

Kids love all sorts of animals – while they’re still kids. Adults not so much so. We’ve learned and accepted much about the natural world that is misleading, distorted or just plain false. This roughly 45 minute presentation honors kids’ openness and at the same time helps dispel some of the misinformation that actually threaten bats’ survival.

We’ll talk about what bats are found in Minnesota, some basics about how they go about their lives, what threats they may face, what we can do about it and most of all why it matters.

Audience: Family

Tri-colored bat, MerlinTuttle.org

Threats and Actions

Minnesota bats are under extraordinary survival pressures. Bats greatest source of threat comes from human activity, some of which has passed a tipping point and may spell the end for some species. That’s the shameful bad news, but there’s some good news buried in it; human activity could slow, stop, even reverse trends stemming from some of the threats.

We’ll talk about the range of threats and their mechanics, leading to actions we can take to help reverse the trends. 45 min.

Audience: Naturalists, wildlife advocates, farmers and general public

Little brown bat. Bat Conservation International

Amazing Bats: a two part short course

Bats are truly amazing, and their very long participation in the development of the natural world we live in today continues to matter very much.

This two part short course covers bats from the time of the dinosaurs to the present. Presented as two separate 50 min. sessions or over a two hour span with a break, the first part reveals the evolution and distribution of bats, and the mechanics of their flight and echolocation. In the second part, we look at how bat threats have changed and the specific threats now faced, and what we can do to forestall further harm.

Audience: Naturalists, scientists and serious enthusiast

Little brown bat, MerlinTuttle.org

Who Am I?

A retired Minneapolis English teacher and trained Minnesota Master Naturalist Volunteer. I grew up playing in the Delaware woods. My family relocated to Minnesota in 1958. At summer camp, I took an interest in bats as part of a project, but did little until reconnecting with my interest in the natural world after I retired in 2011. My interest in bats was reignited. I quickly discovered how misunderstood were these fascinating and fabulous creatures of the night and of the air.

 

Live presentations are free to not-for-profit events. If an event site is greater than 100 miles from Minneapolis, some travel cost must be arranged.

Contact me as below for more information and availability.

Jay C. Ritterson, jcritterson@gmail.com

 

Filed under Environmental issues

I’m a Yank

11 September 2018 Leave a comment

I’m a Yank, but I don’t feel any pride, any satisfaction in the winning of the Civil war, only the satisfaction that the slaves were freed and the country was reunited.
It was the sorriest time in our history. We went to war with ourselves. Hating and killing our fellow Americans was the bottom. I can’t admire bragging about winning. I can only be proud that we put ourselves back together, not when we were trying to tear ourselves apart. Good goals were accomplished, but many bad things happened. The cost was horrendous, and worsened by the economic devastation of the South following our bloody victory.
I hardly wonder that a Southern would feel outrage at the pulling down of statues, when our Minnesota Capitol and Washington are adorned with Union soldiers. It must look like 150+ years of gloating—the ultimate poor sportsmanship.
This country has some growing up to do. Arrogant winners make sore loser. Defeat on the battlefield is bad enough. It isn’t necessary to take their honor as well. We were better to the Japanese following WWII than we were to the South after the Civil war. Can’t we show the world we’re better than that?
All the memorials of the war should be honored, but put away. Leave the memorials to the reuniting and the freeing of the slaves. Commemorate the good stuff.

Filed under Philosophy, Politics, Social Commentary Tagged with

Dear Commissioners: I need a little help

28 August 2018 Leave a comment

   From top down, I see leadership in this country being interpreted as holding and wielding power rather than working in the service of those being led. This seems a kind of mindless dictatorship, where the most persuasive is put into power, and it defeats true democracy where people choose the leaders who will advance their interests. This dichotomy and its current lopsidedness pervades our institutions and therefore all facets of our lives.

    Since this difference hinges between people’s informed ability to make good decisions for themselves on one side, and their susceptibility to persuasive showmen on the other, the distinction rests on deeply held, early years’ development of individuals’ perception of themselves in their world. I am convinced that the key to restoring any reasonable balance lies in providing good early childhood and family education. Children must learn from early on to be self-directed decision makers not obedient followers. If children are typically told what to do, and seldom told why or how they should do that (e.g., choosing right from wrong, good from bad), they will grow into adults who depend on external direction for their actions, rather than those internally motivated to strive and excel.

   Each generation must understand that it can only build on the previous generation, and each is responsible for passing that understanding along. Only through such building over time will substantial change occur. Consequently we must explore individual’s cultural and familial histories to understand how to support corrective measures in early childhood development, most of which takes place in the family home. I understand that different populations bring different resources and different cultural histories to the situation. Still, I believe the County may have the greatest access to influencing change. The State is too mired in money politics and the schools, beholden as they are to state funding, simply mirror their much more powerful benefactors. I want to help right the ship of reason.

   So to my request: Is there anyone in the county that I could meet with to discuss these ideas, with the possibility of starting a broader discussion? I would hope such a discussion might lead to policies and actions that would begin to understand where people in Hennepin County are “coming from,” and how we might strengthen their efforts to bring their children and their children’s children to a higher level of democratic – not just academic – success. We must get beyond “rearranging the deck chairs” and get about spotting and avoiding icebergs. Yes, it is a Titanic task. It must start, to ever have a hope of finishing.

(Adapted from a recent letter to a county worker of my acquaintance, jcr)

Filed under Community Service, Education Policy, Racial Issues, Social Commentary Tagged with ,

When You Make Your Voting Choice, Consider

4 August 2018 Leave a comment

Many folks will be trying to convince you to vote one way or another. Here are some ideas about what to listen and ask for, and how to react to what you hear. Persuasion works from three platforms, each a little lower than the least accessible, and each more accessible, but subject to misleading claims. Supporters and candidates will drop a mass of statements in your lap about truth, proof, evidence and facts in their attempt to persuade you to vote in their favor. Be ready.

  1. Rational arguments require the voter to have a broader knowledge base and be more willing to follow a line of reasoning. “This is how it would work.” (critical thinking)
  2. The voice of authority will ask the voter to rely on history and reputation as a matter of trust. “Have I ever lied to you?” (limited thinking)
  3. And the agitator will play on your baser feelings, especially those that lead to physical response. “FIRE!” (no thinking)

None of them however represents truth, though each has a relationship to facts. So let’s talk about that relationship first.

Facts are by definition real and present. They are not proven by evidence; they are evidence. Facts are accessible to anyone with functioning senses. Glass is hard. Water at room temperature is a liquid. These are not disputable. Right?

Fact → Evidence

Not all evidence is factual however. If a person’s fingerprint is found on a murder weapon (fact) that indicates that that person held the (otherwise determined) murder weapon (evidence), but that does not make indisputable that that person actually committed the murder; it’s not proof.

Evidence ↛ Fact

A proof is an evidentially sustained conclusion. Proofs are reached by logically arranging factual and circumstantial evidence to a conclusion. Such an arrangement is called a “logic,” and when there are different possible logics, leading to different possible conclusions, any one conclusion cannot be considered an indisputable proof. Furthermore, one might reasonably guess that the more pieces of evidence needed to x_Jay's Oakreach a conclusion would suggest more possible arrangements of that evidence with more possible conclusions. And one would be correct. So does a proof lead to a truth?

Truth is a thorny issue. Is telling “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth” possible? Putting aside Truth, as in the ultimate, divine truth about everything, truth is very simply a belief. If I feel a piece of glass and it feels hard, then I would believe that the hardness of glass is a truth. Of course, if I melt it down and blow it into a vase, I would find that it isn’t always hard. If I mix gelatin into hot water and cool it to room temperature, I might find it is no longer a liquid, but now a colloid. If I can’t count on facts being factual all the time, however will I be able to reach a proof I can accept as truth?

Evidence → Proof

Proof ↛ Truth

Truth is a matter of what I believe it to be. I guess I’ll just have to have faith to get to the truth. Faith is accepting the unprovable as true. My faith and therefore my truth is mine alone.

Belief → Truth

Undertaking actions then, such as voting, based on someone else’s truth is risky. If someone tells you they have the truth, and she or he wants you to accept that truth, you must remember that that “truth” may be believed but it is not provable, whether it’s really true or not. Even when someone tells you what she or he believes, you must still take his or her word for it or not. You can never really know. All evidence of belief and therefore “truth” must be highly circumstantial. The more “evidence,” necessarily circumstantial, that a person provides in support of a truth, the more you need to question that truth. Could such evidence even lead to a reasonable proof? Has that person really accepted that truth himself or herself, or is she or he really just trying to get you to accept it for some other purpose? If more evidence only makes any conclusion more debatable, what effect does more evidence have on the unprovable validity of someone else’s professed belief? How’s your faith in that? Now to the vote.

In choosing who or what to vote for, immediately dismiss any claims involving the word “truth.” Look for factual information that you can see or hear yourself, arranged in a reasonable logic that you can understand, and to a conclusion that weighs well against values and condition you support – Yes, align it with your truth. That’s still not enough.

You have to decide then if the proposition or candidate you “like” can actually get enough support to make that agreeable conclusion a reality. Beside aligning your vote to the most issues of yours that are supported, you must decide if enough of other voters’ issues are supported to have a hope of election. That will require looking more broadly at the whole campaign, all the candidates and issues, and many other societal factors that will impinge on the election.

In a statewide election, issues in one area may not be well supported in other areas. In any election, are their other candidates that support most or the most important of the issues you support? In rank choice voting, you’re asked for your alternative, compromise choices up front. Are there hot topic issues in the public eye that might influence voters? These can often be completely unrelated to the competencies necessary for the role to be played in governing. Such things as ethnicity, race, gender and religion are particularly common “false” factors in voting choices. Is the best outcome

  1. voting for the best candidate,
  2. getting the best alternative candidate elected or
  3. keeping the worst choice from getting elected?

Most of all, avoid the temptation to vote for something or someone because that’s what or whom you were told to vote for. Be wary. If you haven’t been worked up enough to do something constructive, how will it help you to have someone get you all worked up to do something destructive?

And finally, if you want to vote for someone because that candidate is just like you, then write your own name in. You’re probably just as qualified as he or she is.

 

Filed under Critical thinking, Politics, Social Commentary Tagged with ,

What if our government actually listened?

11 June 2018 Leave a comment

A Yale history professor’s powerful, 20-point guide to defending democracy under a Trump presidency

Americans are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism, or communism. Our one advantage is that we might learn from their experience. Now is a good time to do so. Here are twenty lessons from the twentieth century, adapted to the circumstances of today:

1. Do not obey in advance.

Much of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then start to do it without being asked. You’ve already done this, haven’t you? Stop. Anticipatory obedience teaches authorities what is possible and accelerates unfreedom.

2. Defend an institution.

Defend an institution. Follow the courts or the media, or a court or a newspaper. Do not speak of “our institutions” unless you are making them yours by acting on their behalf. Institutions don’t protect themselves. They go down like dominoes unless each is defended from the beginning.

3. Recall professional ethics.

When the leaders of state set a negative example, professional commitments to just practice become much more important. It is hard to break a rule-of-law state without lawyers, and it is hard to have show trials without judges.

4. When listening to politicians, distinguish certain words.

Look out for the expansive use of “terrorism” and “extremism.” Be alive to the fatal notions of “exception” and “emergency.” Be angry about the treacherous use of patriotic vocabulary.

5. Be calm when the unthinkable arrives.

When the terrorist attack comes, remember that all authoritarians at all times either await or plan such events in order to consolidate power. Think of the Reichstag fire. The sudden disaster that requires the end of the balance of power, the end of opposition parties, and so on, is the oldest trick in the Hitlerian book. Don’t fall for it.

6. Be kind to our language.

Avoid pronouncing the phrases everyone else does. Think up your own way of speaking, even if only to convey that thing you think everyone is saying. (Don’t use the internet before bed. Charge your gadgets away from your bedroom, and read.) What to read? Perhaps The Power of the Powerless by Václav Havel, 1984 by George Orwell, The Captive Mind by Czesław Milosz, The Rebel by Albert Camus, The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt, or Nothing is True and Everything is Possible by Peter Pomerantsev.

7. Stand out.

Someone has to. It is easy, in words and deeds, to follow along. It can feel strange to do or say something different. But without that unease, there is no freedom. And the moment you set an example, the spell of the status quo is broken, and others will follow.

8. Believe in truth.

To abandon facts is to abandon freedom. If nothing is true, then no one can criticize power, because there is no basis upon which to do so. If nothing is true, then all is spectacle. The biggest wallet pays for the most blinding lights.

9. Investigate.

Figure things out for yourself. Spend more time with long articles. Subsidize investigative journalism by subscribing to print media. Realize that some of what is on your screen is there to harm you. Bookmark PropOrNot or other sites that investigate foreign propaganda pushes.

10. Practice corporeal politics.

Power wants your body softening in your chair and your emotions dissipating on the screen. Get outside. Put your body in unfamiliar places with unfamiliar people. Make new friends and march with them.

11. Make eye contact and small talk.

This is not just polite. It is a way to stay in touch with your surroundings, break down unnecessary social barriers, and come to understand whom you should and should not trust. If we enter a culture of denunciation, you will want to know the psychological landscape of your daily life.

12. Take responsibility for the face of the world.

Notice the swastikas and the other signs of hate. Do not look away and do not get used to them. Remove them yourself and set an example for others to do so.

13. Hinder the one-party state.

The parties that took over states were once something else. They exploited a historical moment to make political life impossible for their rivals. Vote in local and state elections while you can.

14. Give regularly to good causes, if you can.

Pick a charity and set up autopay. Then you will know that you have made a free choice that is supporting civil society helping others doing something good.

15. Establish a private life.

Nastier rulers will use what they know about you to push you around. Scrub your computer of malware. Remember that email is skywriting. Consider using alternative forms of the internet, or simply using it less. Have personal exchanges in person. For the same reason, resolve any legal trouble. Authoritarianism works as a blackmail state, looking for the hook on which to hang you. Try not to have too many hooks.

16. Learn from others in other countries.

Keep up your friendships abroad, or make new friends abroad. The present difficulties here are an element of a general trend. And no country is going to find a solution by itself. Make sure you and your family have passports.

17. Watch out for the paramilitaries.

When the men with guns who have always claimed to be against the system start wearing uniforms and marching around with torches and pictures of a Leader, the end is nigh. When the pro-Leader paramilitary and the official police and military intermingle, the game is over.

18. Be reflective if you must be armed.

If you carry a weapon in public service, God bless you and keep you. But know that evils of the past involved policemen and soldiers finding themselves, one day, doing irregular things. Be ready to say no. (If you do not know what this means, contact the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and ask about training in professional ethics.)

19. Be as courageous as you can.

If none of us is prepared to die for freedom, then all of us will die in unfreedom.

20. Be a patriot.

The [current] president is not. Set a good example of what America means for the generations to come. They will need it.

This article was originally published as a Facebook post by Timothy Snyder, the Housum Professor of History at Yale University and author of Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning.

Filed under Politics, Social Commentary Tagged with

This Thing We Call Mortality

8 April 2018 Leave a comment

When do we apprehend our mortality?
When we look into the mirror and see the same face we saw yesterday?
When we wake stiff and hurting from a night of frequent tosses and turns?
When we look to the left and then to the right and to the left again and to the right again?
When we forget the names of the flowers in the garden we have silently tended year after year?
No.

When we look into the eyes of a child and see the wonder of what is new,
When we observe the tender expression of restrained passion in the faces of young lovers,
When we look at the straight lines and right angles of buildings mounted on the graves of forests,
When we watch as friends and acquaintances of long standing drift silently by as we sit quietly here,
Then we apprehend our mortality.

April 2018

Filed under Poetry, Reflections Tagged with

Existential Change

26 March 2018 Leave a comment

We generally change in response to what the past has done to the present, but frequently, we then ignore, even deny, what the present will do to the future. One day our past damages will exceed our resource for planned change. Ultimately, the grinding force of universal changes will sweep everything in, but we can’t do much about that. Meanwhile, how we change ourselves is ultimately our responsibility, and a clear definition of who we are.

From star dust to star dust, we are nothing special in the cosmos. There is no specialness, except what we create in the scope of our existence. In the year of a planet’s existence, life is but a millisecond, sentience a nanosecond, and then it’s over. In galactic terms, all sentient populations are effectively alone, incommunicably distant in time and space. The Here and Now is the universe we live in. Humans are all the sentient beings we will encounter and each of us is the only being of any kind we will fully encounter. Each of us lives in her or his own universe in effect. We can live there alone or we can try to merge into other universes, but our knowledge is our existential limit.

The Universe is everything we know; beyond our knowledge is Nothing. Heaven and hell are just our hopes for and fears of the Nothing. The Here and Now is the only thing we have. It is the only thing we can effectively change, and the effect will be the next here and now. Hopes and fears peer into nothingness. Only doing changes our course from one here and now to the next. Only learning grows our universe. We learn from what has been to predict what might be and that allows us to shape a plan.

A plan is a hopeful outcome of a calculated change, a shift in trajectory, an action taken or a stasis maintained. A plan guesses at the shape that will emerge from the nothingness of the future. As the future shapes itself into the here and now and slides into the past, we assess the accuracy of our planning.

Ultimately, each of us manages this process in his or her own universe, individually or in commune with others. Like vehicles on the roads, our plans and our changes will impact others, and others’ plans and changes will impact us. And like the galaxy, the solar system and the planet, the roads offer no support for the hopeful plans of the drivers. For all we can know, the road may end in a great void just over the next rise, or the truck on our left may suddenly swerve to the right. The only laws that truly apply to drivers’ planned changes are the laws of physics. What we see and hear and perhaps feel from the driver’s seat is all we know along with some rules of the road we have been led to believe. It is our known universe. It is our immediate knowledge of the here and now.

Knowledge is all we can have any faith in. Everything else is guess work, and its more courageous brother, belief, each weighting the wager placed on an outcome. Belief is not knowledge. Belief is a shroud to disguise ignorance. If knowledge enlarges our universe and who we are, then ignorance diminishes those.

“This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased. Deny it!” cried the Spirit…”

Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

Gaining knowledge moves our here and now closer to heaven, while ignorance moves us closer to hell. The greater knowledge is on Earth then, the closer we are to heaven on Earth. Humans’ incredible capacity for learning is what most elevates us on the planet; not-learning then is bestial.

Learn to live.

Filed under Philosophy, Social Commentary Tagged with

Listen, Talk, Vote

4 March 2018 Leave a comment

It is an election year for Minnesota. Much is at stake.
Midterm elections don’t usually draw much voter turnout. When the state economy seems to be doing well, voters may think that not voting returns the status quo. These conditions favor the opposition, whose turnouts produce stunning defeats and are followed by dramatic reversals.
Minnesota stands out as a great place to live, for now. The governor’s efforts to hold off the forces of capital side pressure have preserved many gains for Minnesotans. That could come undone in November. There is a fragile and unreliable balance in power.
If the effects of an international trade war sharply depress the equity markets and the economy, pensions and other retirement savings could be similarly depressed and under renewed threat from the investment industry. Losses in farm exports could put further demands on our state’s resources. Meanwhile, prices for consumer goods as well as medical costs and inflation could rise. Social Security and Medicare are already under threat from blossoming Federal debt and the prevailing “everyone for her/himself” attitude in Washington.
We can anticipate debates around gun sentiment and actual education needs upping that piece of the next budget, while the 2017 budget standoff gets revisited attention. The #MeToo movement will rightly demand some actions. Meanwhile, other gender rights agendas lie right beneath the surface. And there will be water quality problems and climate change effects that are unpredictable but seemingly inevitable. Actions taken will have long-lasting outcomes.
Voting in November could not be any more important. Your everyday lives are far more impacted by state controlled factors than any other. Every candidate must be asked about all of the above points, and their answers must be clear and their positions firm. That’s how you must decide your votes.
If you’ve read this far, you were already committed to voting. Now commit to getting family and friends to do likewise. Find out where candidates are on the issues and get yourself and others to the polls in November. Every day you should think about what’s important in your life that the State of Minnesota affects in some way. Listen to what others are saying about these things and talk with them about why you feel as you do. Then every day, tell someone to vote in November.

Filed under Community Service, Politics Tagged with , ,

Never a Truer Word

28 January 2018 Leave a comment

Things are not going well with the world. I have recently pondered the overwhelming, perhaps overshadowing, general sense of dysfunction, this decay of civility we now endure. It blares out of politics, economies, technologies and even organized religions. It erodes our quality of life, our access to necessities, our feelings of safety, our sense of humanity. As is natural, we strike out at the things that threaten us, usually people whom we are predisposed not to like. And we declare our injuries, real and anticipated, demanding justice, yet accepting revenge which is more tangible.

Even when justice and/or revenge is achieved, the sense of impending doom remains and seems to envelope us in a vague fog of unknowing. A place of victimization and powerlessness becomes the abode of tens of millions, even hundreds of millions. Much of what we hear when we listen are the screams of rage and fear. Reality is cracking.

There is a churning cloud of words and images hovering behind, around and over people, a cloud so unstable and so filled with threat, yet so impervious to any efforts to quell it or fend it off, that it can only be called the Darkness. It is as if the Void and the Chaos that were banished in Creation have truly crept back in, not from the starry heavens, offended by arrogant space venturers, but from the inner depths of the very people whom it afflicts.

It is as if malignant insecurity, buried under the nurturing soil of civilization is reaching up from its grave to fuel the chaos of misinformation, accusation, incrimination and virulent conflict that surrounds us. Nothing is as it seems; everything is confuted with evil forces reckoning to destroy each of us, isolated and confused. Yet, it is from within ourselves that this malignancy originates; it is our own internal dysfunctions, made manifest and fed on by parasites of power, that have created the Darkness that threatens us. We feed the turmoil we dread.

Walt Kelly’s words have never been more true, “We have met the enemy, and he is us.” (Pogo, 1971)

Pogo quote

 

Filed under Philosophy, Politics, Social Commentary Tagged with ,

Who Am I to Say?

21 January 2018 Leave a comment

Below a bright, white sun there were clouds
     Scudding across the clear, sharp sky,

First white and puffy, then flattening and smearing,
     And now faded into a grey obscurity.

I know who I am – says the Black girl.
     Yo sé quién yo soy – dice el abuelo.

We know who we are – say the Grange men.
     We are who we have always been – say the Lakota.

I am not who you say I am – says Samira,
     But I know who I am. So who are you to say?

Who are we? And who am I to say,
     If we have faded into grey obscurity?

January 2018

Filed under Poetry, Reflections Tagged with

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