Uses and needs / Form follows function

Herewith a continuation of this blog's recurring commentary on John Dos Passos's epic trilogy, U.S.A. (1930-36). (Previous entries: prologue to U.S.A., "The body of an American.") Among the biographical vignettes interspersed throughout U.S.A., perhaps none captures the spirit of Jurisdynamics as vividly as dos Passos's portrait of Frank Lloyd Wright:

Near and Far are beaten (to imagine the new city you must blot out every ingrained habit of the past, build a nation from the ground up with the new tools). For the architect there are only uses:

the incredible multiplication of functions, strength and tension in metal,

the dynamo, the electric coil, radio, the photoelectric cell, the internalcombustion motor,

glass

concrete;

and needs. (Tell us, doctors of philosophy, what are the needs of a man. At least a man needs to be notjailed notafraid nothungry notcold not without love, not a worker for a power he has never seen

that cares nothing for the uses and needs of a man or a woman or a child.)

Building a building is building the lives of the workers and dwellers in the building.

The buildings determine civilization as the cells in the honeycomb the functions of bees.

Form follows function. Wright learned well from his first boss, Louis Sullivan. Herewith Sullivan's full statement of his signature principle:

It is the pervading law of all things organic and inorganic,
Of all things physical and metaphysical,
Of all things human and all things super-human,
Of all true manifestations of the head,
Of the heart, of the soul,
That the life is recognizable in its expression,
That form ever follows function. This is the law.

These days in an open book

Even in the academy, the books we write aren't the only chronicles of our lives. Herewith Nanci Griffith's variation on this theme:

Nanci Griffith, "These Days in an Open Book," on Flyer (1994)

Shut it down and call this road a day
And put this silence in my heart in a better place
I have traveled with your ghost now so many years
That I see you in the shadows
In hotel rooms and headlights
You're coming up beside me
Whether it's day or night

Chorus:
These days my life is an open book
Missing pages I cannot seem to find
These days your face
In my memory
Is in a folded hand of grace against these times

No one's ever come between your memory and me
I have driven this weary vessel here alone
Will you still find me if I leave you here beside this road
Because I need someone who can touch me
Who'll put no one above me
Someone who needs me
Like the air he breathes

Repeat chorus

I can't remember where this toll road goes
Maybe it's Fort Worth, maybe it's a heart of gold
The price of love is such a heavy toll
That I've lived my life in the backroads
With your love in my pocket
If I spend the love you gave me
Tell me where will it go?

Repeat chorus

These days your face
In my memory
Is in a folded hand of grace
Folded hand of grace
Folded hand of grace
Against these times

Literary Warrant [23]

• Andrew M. Cuomo, Attorney General, New York State, et al., Attorney General Cuomo Sues EPA for Denying the Public Access to Information on Toxic Chemicals in Their Neighborhoods (Press release) (November 28, 2007)
  
  "The EPA will allow thousands of companies to avoid disclosing information to the public about the toxic chemicals they use, store, and release into the environment by rolling back chemical reporting requirements. The suit seeks to overturn the weakened reporting requirements and provide the public with the access they had in the past."


• Earthjustice, States, Cities and Environmental Groups Urge EPA to Reduce Global Warming Pollution from Aircraft (Press release) (December 5, 2007)
  

  "A coalition of environmental groups, states and regional governments filed petitions with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today urging the agency to address the effects of vast amounts of global warming pollution from the world's aircraft fleet. The petitions are the first step in a process that requires the EPA to evaluate the current impacts of aircraft emissions, seek public comment and develop rules to reduce aircraft emissions or explain why it will not act. Earthjustice filed the environmental groups' petition on behalf of Friends of the Earth, Oceana and the Center for Biological Diversity.

  "Also filing petitions today are the States of California, Connecticut, New Jersey and New Mexico and the District of Columbia through their Attorneys General, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania through its Department of Environmental Protection, the City of New York through its Corporation Counsel, and the South Coast Air Quality Management District through its District Counsel."
  

• EnviroStats!, The Scherer Power Plant in Juliette, Georgia, Was the Top CO2 Emitting Power Plant in the US in 2006 at 25,300,000 tons of CO2 (20th Highest in the World), with Other Plants in US Top 100 list (November 30, 2007)
  
  The EnviroStats! blog posts identified in this beSpacific post refer to CARMA: Carbon Monitoring for Action as the source of data for its findings.


• European Environment Agency (EEA), Greenhouse Gas Emission Trends and Projections in Europe 2007: Tracking Progress Towards Kyoto Targets (EEA Report No 5/2007) (November 27, 2007)
  
  "The latest projections from pre-2004 EU Member States (EU-15) show that the EU-15 can meet, and may even overachieve, its 2008–2012 Kyoto target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 8% below 1990 levels if Member States implement now all additional policies being planned. Based on Member States projections, existing domestic policies and measures will reduce EU-15 greenhouse gas emissions by a net effect of 4.0% below base-year levels. When additional domestic policies and measures (i.e. those planned but not yet implemented) are taken into account, the EU-15 could reduce emissions by an additional 3.9%. The projected use of Kyoto mechanisms by ten of the EU-15 Member States will reduce emissions by a further 2.5%. These governments have set aside EUR 2.9 billion to pay for this. The use of carbon sinks, such as planting forests to remove CO2, will reduce emissions by an additional 0.9%. As a result, the EU-15 could achieve an 11.4% reduction. All new Member States with a target expect to meet their target. The EU Emissions Trading Scheme will bring significant emission reductions between 2008 and 2012. It is expected to contribute a reduction of at least 3.4%, part of which is already reflected in some Member States projections. This would represent a further reduction of at least 1.3% to the total of 11.4% from base-year emissions in the EU-15."


• Federal Trade Commission (FTC), FTC Reviews Environmental Marketing Guides, Announces Public Meetings (Press release) (November 26, 2007)
  
  "The Federal Trade Commission is beginning a regulatory review of its environmental marketing guidelines, also known as the Green Guides. The guides outline general principles for all environmental marketing claims and provide specifics about certain green claims, such as degradabilty, compostability, recyclability, recycled content, and ozone safety. In a Federal Register Notice, the Commission is requesting comments on the guides, including standard questions about costs, benefits, and effectiveness of the guides, and questions on specific topics, including 'sustainable' and 'renewable' claims. While the review was scheduled to begin in 2009, because of the current increase in green advertising claims, the Commission is reviewing the guides at this time to ensure they reflect today’s marketplace. The guides were last updated in 1998."


• Global Business Network (GBN), Energy Strategy for the Road Ahead: Scenario Thinking for Business Executives and Corporate Boards (2007)
  
  "In the last year, energy and climate change issues have moved from the sidelines to center stage. Once a topic 'owned' by the environmentalists, it is increasingly one that is ranked as urgent by senior executives from just about every industry. There has been a wholesale shift in business attitudes in the U.S. around climate change and energy in the last year, coinciding with the course of this project. Companies are beginning to see the true costs of carbon-centric energy consumption patterns exemplified by recent natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina, combined with volatility in energy markets, geopolitical turmoil, changes in the regulatory climate, surging energy demands from emerging economies, and changes in the attitudes of customers. This congruence of concerns around cost, supply reliability, and environmental impacts of the energy needed to sustain our economies and very way of life are increasingly influencing business decisions at the highest level. In short, our relationship to the energy that drives our economies and societies is in the throes of a fundamental transformation."


• Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), An HSUS Report: The Impact of Animal Agriculture on Global Warming and Climate Change (2007)
  
  "Animal agriculture’s greatest environmental influence may be its contributions to global warming and climate change. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, the animal agriculture sector is responsible for 18 percent, or nearly one-fifth, of human-induced greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, greater than the share contributed by the transportation sector. At every step of meat, egg, and dairy production, climate changing gases are released into the atmosphere, disrupting weather, temperature, and ecosystem health. Mitigating—and preventing—these serious problems requires immediate and far-reaching changes in current animal agriculture practices and consumption patterns."—Abstract.


• Insurance Information Institute, Catastrophes: Insurance Issues, Issues Updates (December 2007)
  

  "The term 'catastrophe' in the property insurance industry denotes a natural or man-made disaster that is unusually severe and affects many people. An event is designated a catastrophe by the industry when claims are expected to reach a certain dollar threshold, currently set at $25 million, and more than a certain number of policyholders and insurance companies are affected.

  "Catastrophe losses in 2005 totaled $61.2 billion from 24 disasters. The final tally for Hurricane Katrina losses is $41.1 billion stemming from 1.75 million claims. By contrast, losses for 2006, a year of little hurricane activity in the U.S., were $9.2 billion."
  

• InterAcademy Council (IAC), Lighting the Way: Toward a Sustainable Energy Future (October 2007)
  
  "Commissioned by the governments of Brazil and China, this report identifies a scientific consensus framework for directing global energy development. It lays out the science, technology and policy roadmap for developing energy resources to drive economic growth in both industrialized and developing countries while also securing climate protection and global development goals. The report was produced by a study panel of 15 world-renowned energy experts, co-chaired by Nobel Laureate Steven Chu, Director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab in the United States, and José Goldemberg, former Secretary of State for the Environment for the State of São Paulo, Brazil."


• Marine Fish Conservation Network, Taking Stock: The Chronic Overfishing of America’s Oceans (2007)
  

  "In numerous cases around our coasts, no amount of warning—economic or ecological—has deterred continued overfishing. Too often fishing pressure is intense enough to reduce fish populations below the minimum needed to sustain themselves, or to prevent recovery to sustainable levels. Examples abound, including the collapse of the Pacific sardine fishery in the 1960s, the halving of the Atlantic swordfish population since the 1970s, the depletion of red drum during the blackened red fish craze of the 1980s, and the epic New England fishery disaster of the early 1990s....

  "The findings of this report indicate that there has been very limited improvement in reducing overfishing since 1998, when NMFS issued its first report on the status of U.S. fish stocks. The most recent report to Congress on the status of stocks (for 2006) actually showed an increase in the number of stocks experiencing overfishing, for the first time in eight years. Moreover, the findings of this report indicate that overfishing is still a chronic problem in many U.S. fisheries, primarily in regions where managers have failed to employ science-based catch limits and to close fisheries when the catch reaches those limits."—Summary and Findings.
  

• new economics foundation (nef) & International Institute for Environment and Development(IIED), Up in Smoke? Asia and the Pacific: The Threat from Climate Change to Human Development and the Environment (The Fifth Report from the Working Group on Climate Change and Development) (November 2007)
  
  "The human drama of climate change will largely be played out in Asia, where over 60 per cent of the world’s population, around four billion people, live. Over half of those live near the coast, making them directly vulnerable to sea-level rise. Disruption to the region’s water cycle caused by climate change also threatens the security and productivity of the food systems upon which they depend. In acknowledgement, both of the key meetings in 2007 and 2008 to secure a global climate agreement will be in Asia."—Executive Summary.


• Peter Orszag, Issues in Climate Change (Presentation for the CBO Director's Conference on Climate Change) (November 16, 2007)
  
  "Policymakers would have several key decisions to make in designing a cap-and-trade program. One such decision would be whether to sell emission allowances or give them away. Policymakers’ decisions about how to allocate the allowances could have significant effects on the overall economic cost of achieving a given cap on CO2 emissions, as well as on the distribution of gains and losses among U.S. households. Another key decision for policymakers is determining the appropriate level at which to set the cap. More stringent caps would lead to lower emissions, which in turn would reduce future risks but raise near-term costs. The choice of stringency is further complicated by the fact that the benefits (reductions in future damage) and costs of alternative levels of stringency are both uncertain."


• Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), Cash Starved Forest Service Spends $600,000 to Buy Tasers (News release) (December 4, 2007)
  
  "The U.S. Forest Service has bought $600,000 worth of 'Electronic Control Devices' without any training program, rules for use or even a written explanation as to why the devices are needed, according to agency records posted today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). The devices, known as Tasers, are sitting in storage and cannot be issued because the agency has yet to develop a training course."


• Elizabeth A. Stanton & Frank Ackerman, Tufts University, Global Development and Environmental Institute, Florida and Climate Change: The Costs of Inaction (November 2007)
  

  "This report examines the potential costs to Florida if greenhouse gas emissions continue unchecked. To do so, we compare an optimistic scenario and a pessimistic one. Under the optimistic scenario—called 'rapid stabilization'—the world begins taking action in the very near future and greatly reduces emissions by mid-century with additional decreases through the end of the century. Under the pessimistic scenario—called 'business-as-usual—greenhouse gas emissions continue to skyrocket throughout the 21st century. The business-as-usual scenario is based largely on the 2007 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a panel of more than 2,000 scientists whose consensus findings are approved by all participating governments, including the United States.

  "The cost of inaction—the difference between these two scenarios—is the human, economic, and environmental damage that may be avoidable with vigorous, timely actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Many of these costs do not have dollar-and-cents price tags; increased deaths due to more intense hurricanes, or the destruction of irreplaceable ecosystems by sea-level rise or temperature increases, transcend monetary calculation. Lives, and ways of life, are at stake; the most important damages are priceless."—Executive Summary.
  

• United Nations, International Year of Sanitation 2008 (UN Pulse) (November 23, 2007)
  
  "The International Year of Sanitation (IYS) was officially launched on Wednesday, 21 November at the UN Headquarters to accelerate progress for the 2.6 billion people worldwide who are without proper sanitation facilities. Every year inadequate water, sanitation and hygiene contribute to the deaths of 1.5 million children. The goal of the International Year is to raise awareness and accelerate progress towards the Millennium Development Goal target to reduce by half the proportion of people without access to basic sanitation by 2015."


• United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), Forest Service, Interim Update of the 2000 Renewable Resources Planning Act Assessment (FS-874) (April 2007)
  
  "A recent Forest Service determination finds climate change could affect the distribution and diversity of plants and animals in the United States. In an update of the 2000 Renewable Resources Planning Act (RPA) Assessment (US Forest Service 2001) conducted by the Forest Service, 15 key findings have emerged since the publication of the original assessment. on the status and trends of natural resources of U.S. forests and rangelands."—Press release (No. 0725) (December 4, 2007)


• United States Department of Energy, Office of Integrated Analysis and Forecasting, Energy Information Administration, Emissions of Greenhouse Gases in the United States 2006 (DOE/EIA-0573(2006)) (November 2007)
  
  "Total U.S. greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions were 7,075.6 million metric tons carbon dioxide equivalent (MMTCO2e) in 2006, a decrease of 1.5 percent from the 2005 level according to Emissions of Greenhouse Gases in the United States 2006, a report released today by the Energy Information Administration (EIA). Since 1990, U.S. GHG emissions have grown at an average annual rate of 0.9 percent. The 2006 emissions decrease is only the third decline in annual emissions since 1990."—Press release (November 28, 2007)


• United States Senate, Budget Committee, Senate Budget Committee Releases Updated Tally of Hurricane-Related Spending (Press release) (November 30, 2007)
  
  "Following the enactment of the 2007 emergency supplemental appropriations bill, which included $6.527 billion in additional hurricane recovery spending on Hurricanes Katrina and Rita of 2005, the Senate Budget Committee today issued an updated tally of congressional legislation related to the 2005 hurricanes. Enacted hurricane-related relief is now more than $129 billion."


• David D. Zhang et al., Global Climate Change, War, and Population Decline in Recent Human History Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States (PNAS), v.104, no.49, pp.19214-19 (December 4, 2007)
  
  "Although scientists have warned of possible social perils resulting from climate change, the impacts of long-term climate change on social unrest and population collapse have not been quantitatively investigated. In this study, high-resolution paleo-climatic data have been used to explore at a macroscale the effects of climate change on the outbreak of war and population decline in the preindustrial era. We show that long-term fluctuations of war frequency and population changes followed the cycles of temperature change. Further analyses show that cooling impeded agricultural production, which brought about a series of serious social problems, including price inflation, then successively war outbreak, famine, and population decline successively. The findings suggest that worldwide and synchronistic war–peace, population, and price cycles in recent centuries have been driven mainly by long-term climate change. The findings also imply that social mechanisms that might mitigate the impact of climate change were not significantly effective during the study period. Climate change may thus have played a more important role and imposed a wider ranging effect on human civilization than has so far been suggested. Findings of this research may lend an additional dimension to the classic concepts of Malthusianism and Darwinism."—Abstract.

Inmaculada

Among the staples of western mythological art, the Immaculate Conception is at once the most theoretically difficult and the most practically achievable. La Inmaculada lies beyond contemplation if the painter dwells even slightly on his challenge. How do you paint female perfection? The utterly flawless, ever virgin mother of salvation? Just how do you depict the triumph of the Mother of God over the Fall of Woman, the miracle by which Mary, conceived free of sin, makes straight the path for redeeming Eve and her daughters?

By the same token, every painter sees his Inmaculada, not in his mind's eye, but in the same eye that surveys the streets, the stalls, and the shadows that stretch before him. The butcher's daughter, the music teacher, the weaver of women's shawls and maker of men's awe — the painter seeking a model for the Virgin will find her while strolling not two hundred paces from his doorstep. And those steps have echoed time and again in the ears of the artist: the clack of pumps against asphalt, the slide of sandals on sand, the painful crinkle of unshielded soles on pebbles lining the path between home and the village well. So often has the artist walked past María-in-waiting that he can conjure multiple living images, not perfect but near enough, merely by blinking.

The most thoroughly Christian project of painting La Inmaculada resembles nothing so much as the pagan ritual originally perfected by Pygmalion, albeit in reverse. For Pygmalion so loved his graven Galatea that the gods took pity and gave her life, that Pygmalion might not die alone, but know mortal joy. For his part, the painter of any Inmaculada synthesizes his worldly love, or perhaps even his quiet lust, into a glimpse of perfection in the eye of God the Father. Pity by immortals helps Pygmalion draw profane passion from stone. Contemplation of the infinite helps the pious painter translate personal desire into divine perfection. Inmaculada mía.

---

You cannot seek a vision the Virgin, says the Church. Apparitions of Mary — and, for that matter, of her son — come to the believer, almost invariably during the youth of the witness, and never through pursuit. I went hunting all the same, in Spain.

Few lands, after all, are as spiritually contested as Spain. Five centuries later, Spain remains la España de la Reconquista, the successful military object of los reyes católicos. Trace la ruta de la califata, I said to myself, and surely la Virgen will reveal herself. In the sere extremes of Andalucía I sensed the faded presence of skeptical Moors. But Mary herself proved elusive.

In the Prado I at last glimpsed the Virgin. She came not as an apparition, for age had already begun to creep on me, and I had far more mortal desire than belief or purity of heart. Instead, I saw her as oil on cloth, a more faithful rendering than the believing eye can muster. I cannot recall the name of the painter. Tiepolo or perhaps Murillo, I have been told, by true connoisseurs of religious art.

And as quickly as I perceived my Inmaculada, she vanished. Now as then, I ask in vain, ¿Donde está la Inmaculada más bonita, María con la corona de estrellas? Ahí, ahí.

Bit by bit, la Inmaculada reveals herself to me again. I see her, though darkly, reassembled in my mind's eye, as my eyes survey the shadows that stretch before me. Each step from my door brings her into sharper focus; I shall find her not by way of military Reconquista, but rather through personal reclamation and reconstruction. And now face to face: María llena eres de gracia. Blessed are you among women, and though I am not worthy to see you, only say the word, and I shall be healed. For yours is the power, and the glory, and above all love made flesh.

A kiss is just a kiss

. . . except when it isn't. Jack Burden learns the laws of love, gravity, and path dependence in chapter 7 of Robert Penn Warren, All the King's Men (1946):

Jack Burden kisses Anne Stanton

"Aren't you happy?" she asked, leaning.

"Sure," I said, and was as happy, I suppose, as I deserved to be. But the thing was there all the time, breathing back there in the dark of my mind and waiting to pounce. Even though I forgot it was there. Then, the next night when she didn't kiss me in the new way, I felt the thing stir. And the next night. Because she didn't kiss that new way I was even angrier than I had been when she had. So I kissed her the way that man in Maine had done. She drew back from me immediately and said, quite quietly, "I know why you did that."

"You liked it well enough up in Maine," I said.

"Oh, Jackie," she said, "there isn't any place called Maine and never was, there just isn't anything but you and you are all forty-eight states together and I loved you all the time. Now will you be good? And kiss me our way?"

So I did that, but the world is a great snowball rolling downhill and it never rolls uphill to unwind itself back to nothing at all and nonhappening.

Cats versus birds

Jurisdynamics Network correspondent Dan Kowalski has directed my attention to this New York Times Magazine feature: Kill the Cat That Kills the Bird?:

[There is a] strange Sylvester-and-Tweety feud between birders and cat fanciers . . . . For more than 20 years, the two sides have exchanged accusations and insults over the issue of cats killing birds. Depending on whom you talk to, cats are either rhinestone-collared mass murderers or victims of a smear campaign waged by lowdown cat haters. The National Audubon Society has declared that “worldwide, cats may have been involved in the extinction of more bird species than any other cause, except habitat destruction.” The American Bird Conservancy, a smaller, feistier group, runs a campaign to persuade cat owners to lock up their pets.

Cat defenders respond: They’re cats! They chase birds.

Humorous update

	In this battle between ailurophiles and orinthophiles, some partisans have gotten carried away. How sad.