Dams may help against climate change, but harm fish, freshwater ecosystems


Conservation groups are pushing for four dams on Maine's Kennebec River, including the Lockwood Dam in Waterville, to be removed to make way for spawning salmon and other migratory fish. Photo by J.Monkman/NRCM

BANGOR, Maine, Nov. 18 (UPI) -- The debate over what hydroelectric dams contribute to the environment -- either as useful tools in the fight against climate change or an impediment to migratory fish and freshwater ecosystem health -- is heating up in Maine as officials decide the future of one power-generating embankment.

The proposed relicensing of a major dam on Maine's Kennebec River has officials and fishers, among others, once again wrestling with difficult questions about the environment and the future of the region's natural resources.

To remain in good legal standing, Brookfield Renewable Partners needs new state and federal licenses for its Shawmut Dam in Farfield.

Earlier this year, the company withdrew its relicensing applications with Maine's Department of Environmental Protection and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission after state regulators warned Brookfield that its water quality certificate was going to be denied.

According to Maine regulators, the dam, as it is being operated, is not sufficiently salmon friendly.

Federal protections for the iconic fish, which first was listed as endangered in 2000, stipulate that 96% of salmon that approach each dam on the lower Kennebec must pass safely upstream within 48 hours, but state regulators told Brookfield they'll accept no less than a 99% success rate.

With the hawmut Dam's licenses in jeopardy, conservationists and environmental groups have seized the opportunity to push for the removal of four dams on the Lower Kennebec River, which they claim are keeping Atlantic salmon from reaching spawning grounds farther upstream.

"If they do get it relicensed, that means that you have to wait another 30, 40, 50 years before trying to take the dams out again, and by then it might be too late," Greg LaBonte, an avid fly fisher and founder of Maine Fly Guys, told UPI.

LaBonte, who said he typically is a strong supporter of all types of fish conservation efforts, remains unconvinced by the dam removal plans, but appreciates the urgency of advocacy groups like Trout Unlimited and the Atlantic Salmon Federation.

"It's now or wait half a century, and I get that," he said. "It's a tough call."

Small salmon migrations

Atlantic salmon once were plentiful in all of Maine's major rivers, from the Saco to the St. Croix, returning by the thousands each year to spawn.

From 1912 to 1990, the first Atlantic Salmon caught in Maine's Penobscot River each season was delivered to the president of the United States.

The Penobscot still welcomes a few hundred returning salmon each year, but elsewhere on Maine's waterways, salmon runs rarely exceed a half-dozen fish. Most of those that return are not wild fish, but instead hatchery raised fish released into Maine rivers as juveniles, or smolts.

Environmental groups insist those numbers would be higher if not for the human-built barriers that prevent the natural movement of water, nutrients and fish.

It's not just the height of the dams that thwart salmon, which typically are powerful swimmers and adept leapers. Its also the nature of the water that accumulates above and below.

"The impoundments are really bad, too, because they're often filled with invasive species and are difficult to navigate because they don't have any obvious flows or riffles to guide the fish upstream," Landis Hudson, executive director of the nonprofit Maine Rivers, told UPI.

Impoundments also are one of the reasons why Hudson doesn't think Brookfield's dams, which generate hydroelectricity, should be viewed as a green energy solution. Impoundments on the Kennebec, which flows into the rapidly warming Gulf of Maine, elevate water temperatures.

"Main stem dams like we see on the Kennebec speed up the negative ecological impacts of climate change," Hudson said.

Some dams, including the Lockwood Dam in Waterville, are equipped with fish ladders that allow fish to bypass the dam, but finding the narrow passages isn't always easy.

Last spring, several fish had to be rescued after they became stranded in pools below the dam. Researchers suspect many spawning fish languish for weeks searching for a detour.

"If these fertile female salmon are hanging out below Lockwood so long that by the time they move past it, they are about to keel over, how can we expect these fish to recover, ladder or not?" Hudson asked rhetorically.

Ambivalence toward removal

As of November, only 15 salmon made it to Lockwood Dam's fish ladder, according to the Maine Department of Natural Resources.

It's those modest numbers that inspire LaBonte's ambivalence toward the dam removal plans.

Like others, he worries that the dam's removal would imperil Sappi North America, a paper mill in Skowhegan that relies on water withdrawal from the impoundment behind Shawmut.

If the dam were removed, Brookfield claims the mill would have to curtail operations, putting the livelihoods of several hundred Mainers in jeopardy.

"I could live with that if there was a guarantee that when you take the dams out, the anadromous fish were going to really bounce back," LaBonte said. But he's skeptical.

Salmon aren't the only species dams are impeding, however. They're just the most iconic.

"People rally around salmon for the same reasons they rally around a polar bear or moose," LaBonte said. "These are species that people get intrigue from for no other reason than being curious or romantic about the animal."

That's important for groups that may cultivate a more sophisticated appreciation for ecological health, but that rely on casual nature lovers for funding.

"When you're trying to fundraise or get social backing, it's hard to get that when you're talking about things that aren't well understood or covered in the media," LaBonte said. "If they were to say river herring or shad, people aren't going to get as excited about that because they don't have any relationship with those species."

Much more than salmon

Those less romantic species are where the benefits of dam removal shine through -- and evidence can be found just a few dozen miles downstream from Lockwood Dam.

"The Lower Kennebec and its tributaries, including the Sebasticook River, is probably one of the largest success stories for migratory fish on the Atlantic seaboard, with the return of a run of both alewives and shad -- previously stopped by the Edwards Dam in August that came out in 1999 -- in the millions," Jeff Reardon, Maine Brook Trout Project director at Trout Unlimited and a veteran of dam removal projects, told UPI.

In addition to alewives and shad, eels and herring all now return to the Kennebec in great numbers each year. The recovery quickly garnered the attention of riparian predators.

"The Sebasticook now hosts one of the largest concentrations of eagles on the East Coast," Reardon said. "Every tree on the river bank has one or more eagles in it for miles and miles."

Most of Maine's rivers are quite nutrient poor, so the influx of biomass and nutrients from the ocean are a boon for not just eagles, but also for ospreys, ducks and more.

With the removal of the four dams, beginning with Lockwood, Reardon and others estimate that success will spread upstream.

LaBonte said it might also allow pike, an invasive species and voracious predator, to travel farther upstream and access the salmon nurseries in the Sandy River.

But Reardon, whose organization occasionally supports dams and other barriers to stem the movement of invasive species, says pike prefer slower water -- the found above and below dams.

With the dams gone, fewer stretches of the Kennebec where pike can proliferate will exist. Besides, Reardon said, pike already are present in lakes connected to the Sandy River and Upper Kennebec.

"The explosion of pike that we've seen elsewhere, we wouldn't expect to see in this situation," Reardon said.

A plethora of problems

Reardon and Hudson acknowledged that all dam removal efforts warrant problem solving, whether it's mitigating invasive species, updating wastewater management systems or accommodating businesses that rely on impoundments.

"There have been several other large, complicated dam removal projects in Maine, and each of those projects involved changes to infrastructure that were complicated and in some cases expensive, but people did come together to figure out how to fix them," Hudson said.

Reardon said he has been involved directly in efforts to design and build new water intake infrastructure for mills affected by dam removals.

"That's a problem that's solvable, it's just a question of engineering," he said.

The threat of losing even a modest economic engine in Central Maine moved the state's governor, Democrat Janet Mills, to publicly guarantee the protection of the Sappi mill. Mills has floated the idea of a "nature-like fishway," a newer technology more conducive to fish migration than traditional ladders.

LaBonte also suspects a compromise somewhere short of total dam removal is the most logical solution. He said it also might be time to abandon the dreams of salmon returning to the Kennebec in great numbers.

LaBonte cites a former mentor, Rory Saunders, Downeast Coastal Salmon Recovery Coordinator with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, who said, "Salmon aren't dying from any one cause. They're dying from a death by a thousand cuts."

"Dams are just one part of the problem. Salmon have many, many more, mostly out in the ocean," LaBonte said. "If you took just a small portion of the salmon recovery funding and used it for habitat restoration for striped bass and brook trout, we might be better off."

REST IN POWER

Robert Bly, Poet Who Gave Rise to a Men’s Movement, Dies at 94

His most famous, and most controversial, work was “Iron John: A Book About Men,” which made a case that American men had grown soft and feminized. It made him a cultural phenomenon.


Robert Bly, the best-selling poet, author and translator, in 1996.Credit...Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times


By Robert D. McFadden
Nov. 22, 2021

Robert Bly, the Minnesota poet, author and translator who articulated the solitude of landscapes, galvanized protests against the Vietnam War and started a controversial men’s movement with a best seller that called for a restoration of primal male audacity, died on Sunday at his home in Minneapolis. He was 94.

The death was confirmed by his wife, Ruth Bly.

From the sheer volume of his output — more than 50 books of poetry, translations of European and Latin American writers, and nonfiction commentaries on literature, gender roles and social ills, as well as poetry magazines he edited for decades — one might imagine a recluse holed up in a North Woods cabin. And Mr. Bly did live for many years in a small town in Minnesota, immersing himself in the poetry of silent fields and snowy woodlands.

But from relative obscurity he roared into national consciousness in the 1960s, with antiwar free verse that attacked President Lyndon B. Johnson, Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara and Gen. William C. Westmoreland, the commander in Vietnam. His pen also took on the American war machine:

Massive engines lift beautifully from the deck,
Wings appear over the trees, wings with eight hundred rivets,
Engines burning a thousand gallons of gasoline a minute sweep over the huts with dirt floors.

In 1966, Mr. Bly co-founded American Writers Against the Vietnam War and toured the country, rallying the opposition with poetry “read-ins” on campuses and in town halls. He won the National Book Award for poetry for “The Light Around the Body” (1967), and donated his $1,000 prize to the draft resistance.



Mr. Bly’s book on men was on The New York Times’s best-seller list for 62 weeks, including 10 weeks as No. 1, and was translated into many languages.

Taking another abrupt turn in 1990, he published what was to become his most famous work, “Iron John: A Book About Men,” which drew on myths, legends, poetry and science of a sort to make a case that American men had grown soft and feminized and needed to rediscover their primitive virtues of ferocity and audacity and thus regain the self-confidence to be nurturing fathers and mentors.

The book touched a nerve. It was on The New York Times’s best-seller list for 62 weeks, including 10 weeks as No. 1, and was translated into many languages.

Mr. Bly was profiled in newspapers, magazines and a 90-minute PBS special by Bill Moyers, who called him “the most influential poet writing today.” He became a cultural phenomenon, a father figure to millions. He held men-only seminars and weekend retreats, gatherings often in the woods with men around campfires thumping drums, making masks, hugging, dancing and reading poetry aloud.

He said his “mythopoetic men’s movement” was not intended to turn men against women. But many women called it a put-down, an atavistic reaction to the feminist movement. Cartoonists and talk-show hosts ridiculed it, dismissing it as tree-hugging self-indulgence by middle-class baby boomers. Mr. Bly, a shambling white-haired guru who strummed a bouzouki and wore colorful vests, was easily mocked as Iron John himself, a hairy wild man who, in the German myth, helped aimless princes in their quests.

Undismayed, he continued his workshops for years with a more down-to-earth focus. He gave up the drums, but still used myths and poetry and invited women and men to discuss an array of topics, including parenting and racism.

And he continued to write rivers of poetry, to edit magazines and to translate works from Swedish, Norwegian, German and Spanish, and to churn out jeremiads. In “The Sibling Society” (1996), Mr. Bly called for mentoring a generation of children growing up without fathers, who were being shaped instead by rock music, violent movies, television and computers into what he called a state of perpetual adolescence.

But he saw hope.

“The biggest influence we’ve had,” he told The Times in 1996, “is in younger men who are determined to be better fathers than their own fathers were.”

Robert Elwood Bly was born in Lac qui Parle County in western Minnesota on Dec. 23, 1926, to Norwegian farmers, Jacob and Alice (Aws) Bly. He graduated from high school in Madison, Minn., (pop. 600) in 1944, served two years in the Navy and studied for a year at St. Olaf College, in Northfield, Minn. He then transferred to Harvard.

“One day while studying a Yeats poem I decided to write poetry the rest of my life,” he recalled in a 1984 essay for The Times. “I recognized that a single short poem has room for history, music, psychology, religious thought, mood, occult speculation, character and events of one’s own life.”

After graduation in 1950, he spent several years in New York immersing himself in poetry.

In 1955, he married Carol McLean, a writer. They had four children, Bridget, Mary, Micah and Noah, and were divorced in 1979. In 1980, he married Ruth Ray, a Jungian therapist. In addition to her, Mr. Bly is survived by his children; a stepdaughter, Wesley Dutta; and nine grandchildren. A stepson, Samuel Ray, died in 1984.

Mr. Bly earned a master’s degree at the Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa in 1956, then returned to Madison. On a fellowship, he lived in Norway in 1956-57. In 1958, he founded a poetry magazine, The Fifties, which survived to become The Sixties, The Seventies and The Eighties. It published works by Federico García Lorca, Pablo Neruda and many others.

In the 1970s, he wrote 11 books of poetry, essays and translations, delving into myths, meditations and Indian ecstatic verse. In the ’80s and ’90s, he produced 27 books, including “The Man in the Black Coat Turns” (1981), “Loving a Woman in Two Worlds” (1985) and “Selected Poems” (1986).

Mr. Bly, who had homes in Minneapolis and Moose Lake, Minn., was the recipient of many awards and the subject of many books and essays.

In recent years, he traveled widely, lecturing, reading poems and joining discussion panels, and in 2008 he was named Minnesota’s first poet laureate by Gov. Tim Pawlenty. In 2004, he published “The Insanity of Empire: A Book of Poems Against the War in Iraq,” and in an introduction noted wryly that little had changed since Vietnam.

“We are still in a blindfold,” he wrote, “still being led by the wise of this world.”

Robert D. McFadden is a senior writer on the Obituaries desk and the winner of the 1996 Pulitzer Prize for spot news reporting. He joined The Times in May 1961 and is also the co-author of two books.

ONTARIO

'Poor is more': Pot shop chain says low-income areas good for sales

Jeff Lagerquist

For Ontario cannabis stores, the well-worn real estate mantra of "location, location, location" can mean setting up shop in lower-income neighbourhoods, close to where booze is sold, according to some major pot retail operators in the province.

With competition heating up in Ontario, pot shop operators are acknowledging potentially uncomfortable sales trends. (Steve Russell/Toronto Star via Getty Images)

"I have a bit of a saying. It's probably not a very popular saying. But sometimes, poor is more," Steven Fry, president and co-founder of Sessions Cannabis, told an audience at the Lift&Co. Expo last week. "You see in certain demographics, especially in lower socio-demographic areas, cannabis sales are generally higher."

His comments come amid rising competition in Canada's most populous province, where the number of pot shops has exploded throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Many have opened in retail spaces vacated by businesses unable to weather the economic downturn.

According to real estate brokerage Colliers International, the number of pot shops in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) grew from 13 in January 2020 to 336 in March 2021, a 2,485 per cent increase. The Ontario Cannabis Store (OCS), the government-owned monopoly wholesaler to retail pot shops, said in August that the province has surpassed 1,000 locations.

Fry, whose company operates 44 locations in Ontario, according to its website, highlights another potentially uncomfortable reality of selling cannabis - an uptick in sales on days when government benefits hit his customers' bank accounts.

"I look at baby bonus day, cheque day, pension day. [They're] the biggest days, by a lot," he said, noting the sales increase can be up to 30 per cent, compared to average daily sales.

For Chris Jones, founder of CANNABIS XPRESS, a chain of small-format pot stores based in Ontario, choosing the right location involves mapping out nearby Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO) and Beer Store locations.

"Usually those types of people that have high alcohol and tobacco consumption are also cannabis users," he told Lift&Co. Expo attendees during a panel discussion.

Fry agrees.

"We look for things that would be complementary, whether it be restaurants or grocery stores. We love liquor stores and beer stores, specifically in Ontario," he said. "Any store we've had that's in or near an LCBO plaza outperforms other stores."

Nova Cannabis (NOVC) chief operating officer Marcie Kiziak says grocery stores don't always spell stronger sales due to restrictions on who can set foot inside.

"You can't bring children into a cannabis store like you can into a liquor store. So if you want to pick up your cannabis, you can't if you have children," she told the Lift&Co. audience.

Nova has more than 70 locations across Ontario, Alberta, and Saskatchewan under its Value Buds and Nova Cannabis banners.

Kiziak also notes that her company's core customers were not who she initially expected.

"Originally, we thought there was going to be this kind of . . . call them the white wine crowd. That's the best descriptor I've got," she said.

"That's not who our customer is turning out to be. Our customer is turning out to be the big bag consumer," she added, referring to the large format, lower-margin products aimed at disrupting the illegal market.

George Smitherman, president and CEO of the Canadian Cannabis Council, told Yahoo Finance Canada that he has seen no evidence to back up a correlation between strong cannabis sales and low-income consumers, or alcohol.

"I don't like the sound of it, to be honest with you," he said in an interview. "Maybe it speaks to the fact that successful retail needs to be everywhere, because our customers are everywhere."
Pot shop pain expected in 2022

Canadian spending on recreational cannabis grew to $354.6 million in September, according to Statistics Canada. Ontario accounted for nearly 40 per cent of that monthly figure.

The province initially saw a slow roll-out of brick-and-mortar stores, much to the frustration of licensed producers, who blamed the situation for lacklustre financial results. Now, analysts are sounding the alarm over the high number of stores, predicting some will not survive through 2022.

"We are worried that 2022 could be a year of retail closures in Ontario," BMO Capital Markets analyst Tamy Chen wrote in a note to clients earlier this month.

Distribution of pot shops has been uneven across the province, with major municipalities like Mississauga, Vaughan, and Richmond Hill opting out of allowing stores to open.

"Unless more municipalities opt in for cannabis stores, this could lead to a (year-over-year) decline in industry sales," Chen added.

Jeff Lagerquist is a senior reporter at Yahoo Finance Canada. Follow him on Twitter @jefflagerquist.

EXCLUSIVE-Uber takes new trip with cannabis orders in Ontario

The partnership will help Canadian adults purchase safe, legal cannabis, helping combat the underground illegal market which still accounts for over 40% of all non-medical cannabis sales nationally, Uber said on Monday. Customers will be able to order cannabis from the Uber Eats app and pick it up at their nearest Tokyo Smoke store.

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Reuters | Updated: 22-11-2021 

Representative Image Image Credit: Twitter (@Reuters)

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Uber's delivery and the takeout unit has partnered with cannabis retailer Tokyo Smoke to allow online cannabis orders through Uber Eats in Ontario, Canada, marking the ride-hailing company's foray into the business, a company spokesperson said on Monday. Uber, which already delivers liquor through its Eats unit, has had its sights set on the burgeoning cannabis market for some time now. Its CEO Dara Khosrowshahi told media in April the company will consider delivering cannabis when the legal coast is clear in the U.S.

With more than three years into Canada's legalization of recreational cannabis, the country is trying to fix its ailing pot market, where illegal producers still control a large share of total annual sales. The partnership will help Canadian adults purchase safe, legal cannabis, helping combat the underground illegal market which still accounts for over 40% of all non-medical cannabis sales nationally, Uber said on Monday.

Customers will be able to order cannabis from the Uber Eats app and pick it up at their nearest Tokyo Smoke store. Asked about the possibility of expansion into other Canadian provinces, or in the United States, an Uber spokesperson said there is "nothing more to share at this time".

"We will continue to watch regulations and opportunities closely market by market. And as local and federal laws evolve, we will explore opportunities with merchants who operate in other regions," the Uber spokesperson told Reuters. The Tokyo Smoke storefronts will be live on the Uber Eats app starting Monday at 9 a.m. ET.

Last year's pandemic-induced stricter mandates and lockdowns spurred demand for cannabis-related products from customers who were stuck at home with limited entertainment options.

I Live in Arkansas, Not Tel Aviv. Why Is My State Telling Me Not to Boycott Israel?

Credit...Matt Chase

Nov. 22, 2021

By Alan Leveritt

OPINION
GUEST ESSAY

NYT

Mr. Leveritt is the founder and publisher of The Arkansas Times. His lawsuit against Arkansas’s anti-boycott law is being reviewed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.


At The Arkansas Times, a publication I founded 47 years ago, our pages focus on small-scale local issues, like protecting Medicaid expansion from the predations of our state legislature and other elements of Arkansas politics, history and culture. So I was surprised 

when in 2018 I received an ultimatum from the University of Arkansas’s Pulaski Technical College, a longtime advertiser: To continue receiving its ad dollars, we would have to certify in writing that our company was not engaged in a boycott of Israel. It was puzzling. Our paper focuses on the virtues of Sims Bar-B-Que down on Broadway — why would we be required to sign a pledge regarding a country in the Middle East?

I understood the context of that email. In 2017, Arkansas pledged to enforce support for Israel by mandating that public agencies not do business with contractors unless those contractors affirm that they do not boycott Israel. The idea behind the bill goes back 16 years. In 2005, Palestinian civil society launched a campaign calling for “boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel until it complies with international law and universal principles of human rights.” Around the world, Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, or B.D.S., as it became known, gained momentum. In response, Israel and lobbyists have used multiple strategies to quash the movement. In the United States, one such strategy took the form of anti-B.D.S. bills. Currently, more than 30 states have provisions on the books similar to Arkansas’s.

It soon became clear that The Arkansas Times had to answer our advertiser. Though boycotting Israel could not have been further from our minds and though state funding is a significant source of our income, our answer was no. We don’t take political positions in return for advertising. If we signed the pledge, I believe, we’d be signing away our right to freedom of conscience. And as journalists, we would be unworthy of the protections granted us under the First Amendment.

And so, instead of signing, we sued to overturn the law, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, on the grounds that it violates the First and 14th Amendments. We are still fighting it.

The Arkansas legislature is dominated by conservative evangelicals, such as the former Senate majority leader, Bart Hester. He is featured in the new documentary film “Boycott,” directed by Julia Bacha and produced by the group Just Vision. “Boycott” follows three plaintiffs, including me, challenging their states’ anti-boycott laws. In the film, Senator Hester explains that his religious belief motivates everything he does as a government official, including writing Arkansas’s anti-boycott law. He also explains his eschatological beliefs: “There is going to be certain things that happen in Israel before Christ returns. There will be famines and disease and war. And the Jewish people are going to go back to their homeland. At that point Jesus Christ will come back to the earth.” He added, “Anybody, Jewish or not Jewish, that doesn’t accept Christ, in my opinion, will end up going to hell.” Senator Hester and his coreligionists may see the anti-boycott law as a way to support Israel, whose return to its biblical borders, according to their reading of scripture, is one of the precursors to the Second Coming and Armageddon.

In other words, Senator Hester and other supporters of the law entwine religion and public life in a manner that we believe intrudes on our First Amendment rights.

These types of laws are not restricted to states in which fundamentalist Christians hold sway. In 2016, California passed a law requiring large contractors working with a state agency to certify that they will not discriminate against Israel, and Andrew Cuomo, as governor of New York, signed an executive order that compels state entities to divest money and assets from a list of organizations regarded by the state as participating in the boycott. Senator Chuck Schumer of New York proposed national anti-boycott legislation.

Let’s be clear, states are trading their citizens’ First Amendment rights for what looks like unconditional support for a foreign government.

When our case reached the Federal District Court in 2019, the state argued that boycotting was not political speech but rather an economic exercise and therefore subject to state regulation. We found that argument absurd. After all, our nation’s founding mythology includes the boycott of tea. Since then, boycotts have repeatedly been used as a tool of political speech and protest, from the Montgomery bus boycott to end segregation to the Delano grape strike protesting exploitation of farmworkers. University students throughout the country engaged in anti-apartheid boycotts of and divestment from South Africa. In 1982, the right to boycott as a method of collective political speech was upheld by a unanimous Supreme Court ruling in N.A.A.C.P. v. Claiborne Hardware Company.

And yet U.S. District Judge Brian Miller ruled against us. We appealed to the Eighth Circuit — and won — before a three-judge panel in February. But on June 10, a rehearing by the full Eighth Circuit Court was ordered. That hearing occurred on Sept. 21, and a decision is expected very soon. Frankly, we’re concerned it won’t go our way.

If we lose in the Eighth Circuit, our last hope is the Supreme Court. Ours isn’t the only case out there. In 2018 and 2019, federal courts in Texas, Arizona and Kansas ruled against their states’ anti-B.D.S. laws. If the Supreme Court rules against us, the other favorable rulings could be in jeopardy. Also concerning is that these states have since amended their anti-boycott laws, narrowing their scope so they apply only to companies with a large number of contractors and to public contracts that are more than $100,000 but without addressing what we see as the laws’ fundamental unconstitutionality.

Although the Arkansas press has covered the case, there has been little editorial support for or comment on our fight beyond that. The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette signed the pledge — as did Arkansas Business, our business journal. And yet freedom of expression is a sacred American value and foundational to our democratic ideals.

If these anti-boycott laws are allowed to stand, get ready for a slew of copycat legislation. Texas passed two laws that went into effect on Sept. 1 — one prohibiting state agencies from conducting business with contractors that boycott fossil fuels and another preventing agencies from contracting with businesses that boycott firearm companies or trade associations.

What the outcome of The Arkansas Times’s lawsuit will be is unclear. One thing, however, remains crystal clear: These anti-boycott laws, allowing government to use money to punish dissent, will encourage the creation of ever more repressive laws that risk strangling free speech for years to come.

Alan Leveritt is the founder and publisher of The Arkansas Times. His lawsuit against Arkansas’s anti-boycott law is the subject of Just Vision’s upcoming documentary “Boycott.”

Mysterious Modern Dinosaur-Like Skeleton Found in Turkey

Paul Seaburn 

November 22, 2021

Workers digging on the property of an old spinning factory in Turkey in an area that had not been used in over 30 years found a mysterious intact skeleton of a strange looking creature with long hind legs, short front ones, pointy nails instead of feet and extremely sharp teeth. Better yet (for investigators, at least), the skeleton had some flesh still intact. Dinosaur? Mutant? Or should we start the countdown … 3-2-1 … is this the first known skeleton of a Chupacabra (ignoring the fact that it was found in Turkey, not Texas or Puerto Rico)?


“We especially noticed that its hind legs are long. We informed the authorities that it might be an interesting species, since its feet are not hooves but nails and have sharp teeth. Controls will be carried out, we are also curious. I hope something interesting will come out and be useful to science.”

Sharp teeth did you say?


Yusuf Kıtay, the operating officer of the excavation, said the workers found the animal skeleton while they were working in an area that has not been used for the last 30-40 years outside a factory in Iğdır, a far eastern near the border with Armenia. The long-tailed skeleton was of a creature that would have stood about one meter (3.3 feet) tall and appears to have died recently. While the long hind legs might suggest it was a kangaroo, the head is the wrong shape entirely for it to be an Australian marsupial. Kitay did the right thing – he had the workers carefully remove the skeleton intact from the site and, after photographing it (a series of photos can be seen here), delivered the remains to the Iğdır University’s Biodiversity Application and Research Center.

It’s not THAT big

“Then we will ensure that this skeleton is preserved in a museum.”

So this is not just a deformed stray animal but something that is museum quality? That sounds strange. Which museum? Archeology World reports that Belkıs Muca Yiğit, a lecturer at Iğdır University, told Anadolu Agency (AA) that researchers there would attempt to identify the species of the animal and then donate it to a museum. That’s curious … it it’s an out-of-place animal like an escaped pet, why donate it to a museum? If it’s indeed the most well-preserved dinosaur skeleton complete with DNA-filled flesh, why not study it more? If it’s cryptid (note: there were no telltale dead livestock reported), why not announce the unique discovery in a three-part miniseries on some cable channel? And why have there been no further updates besides the initial report over a week ago? Is this the victim of some sort of radiation leak or worse – a strange experiment?

This could just be a misshapen common animal or an escaped pet. The secrecy makes it questionable. Let’s hope we get an update soon.

Mysterious Modern Dinosaur-Like Skeleton Found in Turkey | Mysterious Universe

NO SUCH THING

GOP embraces natural immunity as substitute for vaccines

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks to supporters and members of the media before a bill signing Thursday, Nov. 18, 2021, in Brandon, Fla. DeSantis signed a bill that protects employees and their families from coronavirus vaccine and mask mandates. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Republicans fighting President Joe Biden’s coronavirus vaccine mandates are wielding a new weapon against the White House rules: natural immunity.

They contend that people who have recovered from the virus have enough immunity and antibodies to not need COVID-19 vaccines, and the concept has been invoked by Republicans as a sort of stand-in for vaccines.

Florida wrote natural immunity into state law this week as GOP lawmakers elsewhere are pushing similar measures to sidestep vaccine mandates. Lawsuits over the mandates have also begun leaning on the idea. Conservative federal lawmakers have implored regulators to consider it when formulating mandates.

Scientists acknowledge that people previously infected with COVID-19 have some level of immunity but that vaccines offer a more consistent level of protection. Natural immunity is also far from a one-size-fits-all scenario, making it complicated to enact sweeping exemptions to vaccines.

That’s because how much immunity COVID-19 survivors have depends on how long ago they were infected, how sick they were, and if the virus variant they had is different from mutants circulating now. For example, a person who had a minor case one year ago is much different than a person who had a severe case over the summer when the delta variant was raging through the country. It’s also difficult to reliably test whether someone is protected from future infections.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in August that COVID-19 survivors who ignored advice to get vaccinated were more than twice as likely to get infected again. A more recent study from the CDC, looking at data from nearly 190 hospitals in nine states, determined that unvaccinated people who had been infected months earlier were five times more likely to get COVID-19 than fully vaccinated people who didn’t have a prior infection.

“Infection with this virus, if you survive, you do have some level of protection against getting infected in the future and particularly against getting serious infection in the future,” said Dr. David Dowdy of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “It’s important to note though that even those who have been infected in the past get additional protection from being vaccinated.”

Studies also show that COVID-19 survivors who get vaccinated develop extra-strong protection, what’s called “hybrid immunity.” When previously infected person gets a coronavirus vaccine, the shot acts like a booster and revs virus-fighting antibodies to high levels. The combination also strengthens another defensive layer of the immune system, helping create new antibodies that are more likely to withstand future variants.

The immunity debate comes as the country is experiencing another surge in infections and hospitalizations and 60 million people remain unvaccinated in a pandemic that has killed more than 770,000 Americans. Biden is hoping more people will get vaccinated because of workplace mandates set to take effect early next year but which face many challenges in the courts.

And many Republicans eager to buck Biden have embraced the argument that immunity from earlier infections should be enough to earn an exemption from the mandates.

“We recognize, unlike what you see going on with the federal proposed mandates and other states, we’re actually doing a science-based approach. For example, we recognize people that have natural immunity,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican who has been a chief critic of virus rules, said at a signing ceremony for sweeping legislation to hobble vaccine mandates this week.

The new Florida law forces private businesses to let workers opt out of COVID-19 mandates if they can prove immunity through a prior infection, as well as exemptions based on medical reasons, religious beliefs, regular testing or an agreement to wear protective gear. The state health department, which is led by Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo, who opposes mandates and has drawn national attention over a refusal to wear a face mask during a meeting, will have authority to define exemption standards.

The Republican-led New Hampshire Legislature plans to take up a similar measure when it meets in January. Lawmakers in Idaho and Wyoming, both statehouses under GOP-control, recently debated similar measures but did not pass them. In Utah, a newly signed law creating exemptions from Biden’s vaccine mandates for private employers allows people to duck the requirement if they have already had COVID.

And the debate is not unique to the U.S. Russia has seen huge numbers of people seeking out antibody tests to prove they had an earlier infection and therefore don’t need vaccines.

Some politicians use the science behind natural immunity to advance narratives suggesting vaccines aren’t the best way to end the pandemic.

“The shot is not by any means the only or proven way out of the pandemic. I’m not willing to give blind faith to the pharmaceutical narrative,” said Idaho Republican Rep. Greg Ferch.

U.S. Sen. Roger Marshall, a Kansas Republican and physician, along with 14 other GOP doctors, dentists and pharmacists in Congress, sent a letter in late September to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, urging the agency, when setting vaccination policies, to consider natural immunity.

The White House has recently unveiled a host of vaccine mandates, sparking a flurry of lawsuits from GOP states, setting the stage for pitched legal battles. Among the rules are vaccine requirements for federal contractors, businesses with more than 100 employees and health care workers.

In separate lawsuits, others are challenging local vaccine rules using an immunity defense.

A 19-year-old student who refuses to be tested but claims he contracted and quickly recovered from COVID-19 is suing the University of Nevada, Reno, the governor and others over the state’s requirement that everyone, with few exceptions, show proof of vaccination in order to register for classes in the upcoming spring semester. The case alleges that “COVID-19 vaccination mandates are an unconstitutional intrusion on normal immunity and bodily integrity.”

Another case, filed by workers of Los Alamos National Laboratory, challenges their workplace vaccine mandate for civil rights and constitutional violations, arguing the lab has refused requests for medical accommodations for those workers who have fully recovered from COVID-19.

A similar lawsuit from Chicago firefighters and other city employees hit a bump last month when a judge said their case lacked scientific evidence to support the contention that the natural immunity for people who have had the virus is superior to the protection from the vaccine.

___

Associated Press Medical Writer Lauran Neergaard contributed to this report.

Tunisian trial shines light on use of military courts

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Yassine Ayari reacts during an interview in Tunis, Tuesday, Oct.12, 2021. Ayari, a 40-year-old Tunisian computer engineer turned corruption fighter, will stand trial again in a military court Monday Sept. 22. He is accused of insulting the presidency and defaming the army. It is the latest in a series of trials that shine a light on Tunisia’s use of military courts to push through convictions against civilians.(AP Photo/Hassene Dridi)

TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) — A few days after Tunisia’s president froze parliament and took on sweeping powers in July, a dozen men in unmarked vehicles and civilian clothes barged into politician Yassine Ayari’s family home overnight and took him away in his pajamas.

“These men weren’t wearing uniforms and they didn’t have a warrant,” Ayari told The Associated Press. “It was violent. My 4-year-old son still has nightmares about it.”

A 40-year-old computer engineer-turned-corruption fighter, Ayari will stand trial again in a military court on Monday, accused of insulting the presidency and defaming the army. It is the latest in a series of trials that shine a light on Tunisia’s use of military courts to push through convictions against civilians. Rights groups say the practice has accelerated since President Kais Saied’s seizure of power in July, and warn that its use further threatens hard-won freedoms amid Tunisia’s democratic backsliding.

The charges Ayari faces relate to Facebook posts in which he criticized Saied, calling him a “pharaoh” and his measures a “military coup.” Ayari intends to remain silent in court to protest the whole judicial process, according to his lawyer, Malek Ben Amor.

Amnesty International is warning of an “alarming increase” in Tunisian military courts targeting civilians: In the past three months, it says, 10 civilians have been investigated or prosecuted by military tribunals, while four civilians are facing trial for criticizing the president.

That’s especially worrying because Tunisia was long considered the only democratic success story to emerge from the Arab Spring uprisings a decade ago, and was long seen as a model for the region.

Most countries in the Middle East are now ruled by authoritarian governments, where military courts — ostensibly tasked with targeting threats to stability — are a tool for crushing dissent. Jordan and Egypt are among countries with a military court system, while Israel has established a separate military court system for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

An independent member of parliament, Ayari is known for criticizing Tunisia’s army and government and for his corruption investigations. One led to the resignation of former Prime Minister Elyes Fakhfakh in 2020 after Ayari published documents proving the leader had a conflict of interest.

Ayari says he has been tried by a military tribunal nine times, leading to three sentences.

“There is no law in military courts, no independence,” he said.

He is among the Tunisian legislators whose employment status was suspended after Saied dismissed the government and froze parliament on July 25.

“I have to figure out how I’m going to pay my bills. Now I’m asking my wife for 10 dinars ($3.50) to even go out and buy a pack of cigarettes,” Ayari said.

The Tunisian president’s surprise measures followed nationwide anti-government protests and rising frustrations with the North African nation’s political elite, who are widely perceived as corrupt and inefficient in the face of Tunisia’s growing coronavirus crisis and its economic and political woes.

Saied also revoked the immunity of lawmakers like Ayari, who was swiftly arrested. He was jailed in July for a 2018 charge of defaming the army in a Facebook post and sentenced to two months in prison.

Habib Bourguiba, Tunisia’s leader after independence from French rule, established a military justice code that gave military courts the right to try civilians for crimes that included insulting “the flag or the army.” Efforts to reform the military justice code since the 2011 revolution have stalled.

“Military courts are still under the undue control of the executive branch, as the president of the republic has exclusive control over the appointment of judges and prosecutors in these courts,” read a recent Amnesty report.

Saied’s critics say the army has become a political tool since July, noting that troops secured parliament when the government was dismissed, drawing comparisons with Egypt’s military coup in 2013. Tunisia’s army enjoys a high level of popularity and has traditionally played an apolitical role in the nation’s affairs.

The president ordered the army to take charge of the nation’s COVID-19 vaccination campaign, using their “image of strength and efficiency” to bolster his standing, political analyst Sharan Grewal said.

Saied is also “trying to get quick wins by using the military courts, which are in theory more reliable in the prosecution of certain members of parliament,” he said.

In September, Saied partially suspended the country’s 2014 constitution, giving himself the power to rule by decree. Saied has also taken aim at the country’s judiciary, whose ranks he claims are filled with corrupt judges who must “be cleansed.” Observers have called Tunisia’s political crisis a step back in the country’s democratic transition.

During his recent sentence, Ayari says he was filmed with video cameras in his cell and denied access to correspondence. Despite acute stomach ulcers, guards gave him cold food — contrary to medical advice. In protest, Ayari went on a two-week hunger strike.

Representatives of Tunisia’s National Body for the Prevention of Torture shared a report with the AP that corroborates some of Ayari’s claims, including rights violations and evidence of “humiliating and degrading” treatment that posed a risk to his health.

The Ministry of Justice didn’t respond to the AP’s requests for comment.

Ayari is now preparing for a possible new stint behind bars.

“I’m trying to eat as much as possible and sleep, because those two things are difficult to do in prison,” Ayari says. “This whole thing is not easy for my children. It is bad for their education: How are they supposed to tell the difference between right and wrong, justice and injustice, when they see their father get taken to prison?”

Amazon India target of police probe into marijuana smuggling

Police in central India allege Amazon India has been used for marijuana smuggling. Courtesy Jon Russell/flickr

Nov. 20 (UPI) -- Police in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh say they've brought charges against executives of Amazon India for allegedly using the company's e-commerce market to smuggle marijuana.

The charges are the latest in an ongoing investigation by the Madhya Pradesh police into the alleged smuggling that's resulted in multiple arrests, reports The Times of India. Police have found inconsistencies in the response from Amazon India and officials have complained the company has been uncooperative with the investigation.

"The company is earning hugely from this country and they have a social responsibility towards citizens," Manoj Singh, a local police official told the paper. "We had sent our team to their offices but nothing much happened. They are shifting the onus. We have emailed notices to the authorities concerned."

Police last week arrested two men alleged to have used Amazon India to smuggle 44 pounds of marijuana, reports TechCrunch. However, police haven't said how many executives have been arrested.

A spokesperson for the company told TechCrunch that the company complies with all applicable laws and doesn't allow illegal products to be listed.

"However, in case sellers list such products, as an intermediary, we take strict action as may be required under the law, when the same is highlighted to us," the company said in a statement. "The issue was notified to us and we are currently investigating it. We assure full co-operation and support required to Investigating Authorities and Law Enforcement agencies with ongoing investigations and ensure full compliance to applicable laws."

NASA taking aim at asteroid is first step toward planetary defense

By Paul Brinkmann

An illustration depicts NASA's DART spacecraft moments before crashing into the Dimorphos asteroid. Image courtesy of NASA


Nov. 21 (UPI) -- NASA's plan to whack an asteroid with a spacecraft to be launched late Tuesday from California is intended to provide insight into how humanity might prevent a collision with a planet-killing space rock, space agency officials said.

For the first time, a spacecraft will attempt next fall to smash into an asteroid as an experiment to show how such a space body could be deflected if it were headed toward Earth, Lori Glaze, NASA's director of planetary science, said Sunday in a press conference.

"I feel that once we've completed this test, we are going to learn an incredible amount and be so much more prepared in the future if, indeed, a potential asteroid could pose a threat," Glaze said.

But NASA doesn't know if it will learn everything it needs to know to defend Earth against such a deadly strike, officials said.

An image depicts the DART spacecraft nearing collision with the asteroid Dimorphos with the LICIACube small satellite, at left, observing. Image courtesy of Steve Gribben/Johns Hopkins University

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SpaceX plans to launch NASA's DART mission, which stands for Double Asteroid Redirection Test, at 10:20 p.m. PST Tuesday from Vandenberg Space Force Base.

The Falcon 9 rocket will lift off at that time or wait for another launch window over a period of 84 days.

Many facts still are unknown about the outcome of the test, because NASA has little knowledge of the composition of the target asteroid -- Dimorphos, which is the size of a football stadium -- said Tom Statler, NASA's DART program scientist.

An illustration depicts the DART spacecraft nearing a planned collision with the asteroid Dimophos. Image courtesy of NASA

RELATED NASA plans crashing spacecraft into asteroid to study Earth-impact defense

"The issue of how prepared do we actually want to be -- that's a much broader discussion to be had across governments and the nations," Statler said. "In addition to being able to deflect an asteroid, we still need to study the sky and look for them."

The $330 million mission will fly to the Didymos asteroid system, which actually are twin bodies that circle each other.

The target asteroid, Dimorphos, is a satellite of Didymos. The DART spacecraft will fly into Dimorphos at 15,000 mph, after which Earth-based telescopes will monitor if and how the impact changes its path

.

RELATED Arecibo telescope collapse may complicate NASA asteroid mission

"It's so important that we track and monitor these small objects, as well as develop new techniques that can help us in the future to ensure that one of them and our planet Earth don't find themselves in the same place at the same time," Glaze said.

"This is a key test that NASA and other agencies want to perform before we have an actual need," she 

NASA chose the Didymos system of two asteroids because it offers a unique chance to obtain precise measurements from a small impact.

The DART spacecraft itself will be completely destroyed and throw out a cloud of debris, according to NASA, which also will help the agency measure the impact.

Target says it will be closed on US Thanksgiving Day -- from now on

IS IT A PAID DAY OFF FOR STAFF?


"What started as a temporary measure driven by the pandemic is now our new standard -- one that recognizes our ability to deliver on our guests' holiday wishes," Target's CEO said in a note to employees. File Photo by Mohammad Kheirkhah/UPI | License Photo

Nov. 22 (UPI) -- Big box retailer Target says it will keep all U.S. stores closed on Thanksgiving Day, which is something it did last year due to COVID-19, and will now do permanently.

The retail chain was effectively forced to close a year ago to keep away crowds and keep the virus from spreading.

Sales figures last year were better than expected, and Target now feels that online discounts and other opportunities can allow all employees to take Thanksgiving off.

Target CEO Brian Cornell said the chain is confident in its strategies to emphasize other days during the holiday shopping season, rather than any one day in particular.

The company said both store sales and digital sales grew in the third quarter by about 10% and 29%.

"What started as a temporary measure driven by the pandemic is now our new standard -- one that recognizes our ability to deliver on our guests' holiday wishes both within and well beyond store hours," Cornell wrote in a note to Target employees, according to MarketWatch.

Walmart, Target's chief rival, has also said that it will be closed on Thanksgiving Day.