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Superdove – Courtney Humphries

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Superdove

How the Pigeon Took Manhattan … And the World

Courtney Humphries

Genre: Nature

Price: $1.99

Publish Date: October 13, 2009

Publisher: HarperCollins e-books

Seller: HARPERCOLLINS PUBLISHERS


Why do we see pigeons as lowly urban pests and how did they become such common city dwellers? Courtney Humphries traces the natural history of the pigeon, recounting how these shy birds that once made their homes on the sparse cliffs of sea coasts came to dominate our urban public spaces. While detailing this evolution, Humphries introduces us to synanthropy: The concept that animals can become dependent on humans without ceasing to be wild; they can adapt to the cityscape as if it were a field or a forest. Superdove simultaneously explores the pigeon's cultural transformation, from its life in the dovecotes of ancient Egypt to its service in the trenches of World War I, to its feats within the pigeon-racing societies of today. While the dove is traditionally recognized as a symbol of peace, the pigeon has long inspired a different sort of fetishistic devotion from breeders, eaters, and artists—and from those who recognized and exploited the pigeon's astounding abilities. Because of their fecundity, pigeons were symbols of fertility associated with Aphrodite, while their keen ability to find their way home made them ideal messengers and even pilots. Their usefulness largely forgotten, today's pigeons have become as ubiquitous and reviled as rats. But Superdove reveals something more surprising: By using pigeons for our own purposes, we humans have changed their evolution. And in doing so, we have helped make pigeons the ideal city dwellers they are today. In the tradition of Rats, the book that made its namesake rodents famous, Superdove is the fascinating story of the pigeon's journey from the wild to the city—the home they'll never leave.

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Superdove – Courtney Humphries

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Team Trump promoted coal at the U.N. climate talks. Young activists busted it up.

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KATOWICE, POLAND – In the middle of the Trump administration’s event to promote fossil fuels at the United Nations climate conference on Monday, the audience erupted into laughter. The laughter was the beginning of a protest, organized by a group of youth and indigenous organizations from the United States, a raucous response to yet another attempt by the Trump administration to tout fossil-fuels.

“Keep it in the ground!” protestors shouted, crowding the stage and blocking the panel — led by Wells Griffith, President Trump’s energy adviser — from view.

“My government has betrayed me,” said Vic Barrett, a 19-year-old protestor who is also one of the plaintiffs in the landmark climate lawsuit against the federal government. “They are perpetuating the global climate crisis.”

While Griffith and the rest of the men on the panel smirked and shifted awkwardly, a succession of young activists gave speeches, then marched out of the room, shouting “Shame on you.”

This was one of numerous protests launched by young activists over the past week. Along with the official delegations from almost 200 countries, young people from all around the globe have converged on Katowice to share strategies and plans for action.

“The reason that we’re out here is to encourage other youth across the world to take action and really care,” said Michael Charles, a member of the Diné tribe and the Navajo Nation.

Their lobbying, cajoling, and colorful, enthusiastic protests are in stark contrast to the painfully slow process of international negotiation. In many rooms of the Katowice’s gigantic Spodek conference center, suited delegates are grappling over hundreds of sometimes minute disagreements in the text of the new Paris “rulebook.”

These heads of state, diplomats, and dignitaries are trying to hash out their differences over what has been called “Paris 2.0.” The rulebook that they develop will guide how governments implement the landmark Paris agreement. The problem is, they rarely agree. They’re divided on questions of who will pay for what and how to measure and track emissions reductions. And they are still trying to address the terrifying gap between rapidly increasing emissions and slowly advancing efforts to curb them.

But the young attendees at COP 24 keep pushing forward and learning from one another. “I come from a country that does not really acknowledge climate change,” a medical student from Egypt told Grist. “It’s not a priority for us. So it’s a very unique experience to see all the negotiations, all the youth activists, and learn about the efforts they are doing in their home countries.”

In Sweden, a teenager named Greta Thunberg is going on strike from school every Friday. In Australia, thousands of students are protesting government inaction on climate change and the construction of a new coal mine in central Queensland.

Here in Katowice, young people have to walk a fine line between either supporting or disrupting the delegations of their home country. Some activists are at COP24 to lobby negotiators on specific policies, like including human rights in the agreement and providing increased adaptation funding for developing countries.

But they’re aware government negotiators may not respond to their lobbying. “They do like to talk to us, and they are very open — but we don’t actually know how much they take our voices into consideration,” said João Henrique Alves Cerqueira, a young activist from Brazil.

Even when government negotiators are open and available, they are restrained by political pressures. “There’s an acknowledgement that what they do is not national policy,” said Eilidh Robb of U.K. Youth Climate Coalition, referring to negotiators from the U.K. “And they negotiate currently in the EU block – so to an extent we’re limited in what we can push, because they’re limited by an entire continent of voices and opinions.”

When working with delegations fails or falls short, young people turn to protest. Loudly. Almost every day in the hallways of Spodek, amid suited politicians and dignitaries, activists sing and chant their way to a better future. Last week, a group of young people presented the People’s Demands for Climate Justice, calling for an end to fossil-fuel extraction and an increase in financial support for developing countries. Other protests have pointed to the health consequences of climate change and criticized the role of big corporations in negotiations.

Poland’s security forces have cracked down on demonstrations, setting special rules banning spontaneous protests during the conference. Activism within the conference center is tightly controlled — some groups were told that even taking a photo with matching shirts was in violation of policy.

On Saturday, when thousands of conference attendees and environmentalists from across Poland and the rest of the continent staged a climate march in Katowice, they were met by heavily armed police officers in full riot gear. “What do we want? Climate justice! When do we want it? Now!” marchers chanted, as the officers paced the sidelines.

Meanwhile, inside the conference center, negotiators fought over whether to  “welcome” or “note” the recent, devastating IPCC report. When the U.S. and Russia (joined by Saudi Arabia and Kuwait) refused to “welcome” the report, the text was dropped entirely.

It felt like two different conferences — one old and one new, a generation with power and a generation struggling to take any action possible. “Wake up! Wake up!” marchers shouted, waving flags and banners. “It’s time to save our home.”

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Team Trump promoted coal at the U.N. climate talks. Young activists busted it up.

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Trump Continues His Love Affair With the Egyptian President

Mother Jones

Have you noticed that everyone is paying less attention to President Trump’s tweets lately? I suppose it’s finally started to sink in that his tweets are just performance art for his fans, not an indication of any actual policy views. Plus, Trump’s tweets have gotten kind of boring. Maybe he lost his appetite for them after his random ejaculation about Obama wiretapping him—which he apparently intended only to distract the press for a day or two—turned into a massive, multi-month debacle for the entire Republican establishment.

Today, though, we got this:

Um, yeah. I’m sure we can count on that great humanitarian Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to respond effectively and prudently:

Late Sunday night, President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi called for a three-month state of emergency….The army chief-turned-president also dispatched elite troops across the country to protect key installations and accused unidentified countries of fueling instability, saying that “Egyptians have foiled plots and efforts by countries and fascist, terrorist organizations that tried to control Egypt.”

As always, we’re left to wonder why Trump loves el-Sisi so much. Is it because Trump is an unusually brutal foreign policy realist? Because he likes anyone that kicks butt on the Muslim Brotherhood? Because Obama didn’t like el-Sisi? Because Netanyahu does? It’s all a mystery.

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Trump Continues His Love Affair With the Egyptian President

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Here Comes The First Suit Challenging Trump’s "Muslim Ban"

Mother Jones

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Within hours of President Donald Trump signing his “Muslim ban” executive order Friday, the Council on American-Islamic Relations announced that it is about to file a lawsuit challenging the ban.

The order, called “Protection of the Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry Into the United States,” denies entry to the US to anyone from Iran, Iraq, Sudan, Syria, Libya, Somalia, and Yemen, according to CNN. The order also freezes refugee admissions for 120 days.

“There is no evidence that refugees—the most thoroughly vetted of all people entering our nation—are a threat to national security,” CAIR national litigation director Lena Masri said in a release. The group says it will announce details of the lawsuit Monday.

Demonstrators have been protesting the order ever since a draft was leaked on Wednesday.

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Here Comes The First Suit Challenging Trump’s "Muslim Ban"

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Elections expert says North Carolina is no longer a democracy.

Andrew Reynolds, an adviser with the Harvard-based Electoral Integrity Project (EIP), has observed elections across the world — from Afghanistan to Burma, Egypt to Sudan.

“If it were a nation state,” Reynolds writes in the Raleigh News & Observer, “North Carolina would rank right in the middle of the global league table – a deeply flawed, partly-free, democracy that is only slightly ahead of the failed democracies that constitute much of the developing world.”

North Carolina scored 58 on EIP’s 100-point scale in its report on the 2016 elections, ranking near Cuba, Indonesia, and Sierra Leone for overall electoral integrity. When it comes to the state’s electoral laws and voter registration, it does even worse, standing alongside Iran and Venezuela. Its score on unfair districting is the worst in the world: a whopping 7 out of 100.

The implications are vast: the GOP-controlled legislature succeeded in a last-minute attempt to limit the incoming Democratic governor’s power. This less-than-stellar democracy has its share of suffering already, ranging from wildfires to floods to toxic coal ash spills and millions lost in state revenue after passing HB2 anti-transgender bathroom bill.

Recently, a federal court ordered the state to redraw it’s notoriously gerrymandered districts earlier this year. Maybe North Carolina will graduate to second-worst government in the world on districting, after that.

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Elections expert says North Carolina is no longer a democracy.

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Worldwide Water Shortages Might Be Worse Than We Thought

Mother Jones

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The world’s water crisis might be much worse than we thought. Four billion people, or two-thirds of the global population, face severe water shortages for at least one month out the year, according to a study published on Friday in Science Advances.

Arjen Hoekstra, a professor at the University of Twente in the Netherlands and the study’s lead author, says better living standards and the expansion of agriculture are among the factors that have increased demand for water and caused resources to dry up across the globe. And during the hot months of the year when water is already scarce, people draw from rivers and groundwater, further threatening water sources and the people who rely on them.

“Direct victims of the over consumption of water resources are the users themselves, who increasingly suffer from water shortages during droughts,” according to the study’s authors, who add that even one month without reliable access to water affects quality of life.

Of the 4 billion people who face severe water scarcity for at least part of the year, 130 million reside in the United States, mostly in Western and Southern states like California, Texas, and Florida, where drought is already a common aspect of life. But those dry spells are made worse by the rising demand for water. In the West, the vast majority of water flowing from the all-important Colorado River goes to agriculture, and federal subsidies actually encourage farmers to plant the thirstiest crops, like cotton. On top of that, state laws push farmers to flood their fields with as much water as they can.

The remaining 3.8 billion people affected by severe water shortages are outside the United States, in places like Africa and the Middle East, where access to water has long been a source of concern. This January marked the fifth year in a row that the World Economic Forum ranked water crises among the top three risks to the world economic stability, alongside climate change and weapons of mass destruction.

Increased water depletion could also create fodder for increased political tensions. Volatile places like Pakistan, Yemen, Egypt, Libya, and Somalia are among the countries where large portions of the population experience severe water scarcity all year-round. A Yemeni newspaper estimated that 70 to 80 percent of conflicts in rural areas of that country were about water. Yemen’s Al Qaeda branch has even exploited the shortage, winning over support by digging wells and providing villages with water.

Hoekstra’s findings paint a much bleaker picture of the global water crisis than most previous estimates. Both the World Wildlife Fund and the United Nations have said it would take until 2025 for two-thirds of the world population to be without access to water, meaning today’s findings put us a decade ahead of schedule.

“We have generally underestimated the risks associated with water scarcity,” Hoekstra told Mother Jones in an email. But, he adds in a press release, there’s a bright spot: “All over the world, it is clear that the risks associated with high water consumption are being increasingly recognized.”

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Worldwide Water Shortages Might Be Worse Than We Thought

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Arabic Social Media Goes Gaga Over Sisi’s Red Carpet

Mother Jones

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Nothing says “I care about poor people” like driving to a new housing project on a red carpet 2.5 miles long. Amirite? But this has a secret subtext: When Egyptian president Abdel-Fatah al-Sisi motored his way to a grand opening ceremony Saturday on a carpet this size, it was apparently a sign that the military is pleased with him. I guess the more they like you, the longer the carpet:

Brig Gen Ehab el-Ahwagy explained on several talk shows on Sunday night that the carpet was not purchased by Sisi’s administration and the same one had been used for more than three years for similar occasions.

“It gives a kind of joy and assurance to the Egyptian citizen that our people and our land and our armed forces are always capable of organising anything in a proper manner,” Ahwagy told the TV talk show host Amr Adeeb. “It is laid out in a way to beautify the general area, so it gives a good impression of the celebration that is being broadcast to the whole world.”

See? No big deal. And certainly no reason to postpone a speech warning that Egypt is in dire financial trouble and will soon have to stop subsidizing water and electricity bills for low-income families.

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Arabic Social Media Goes Gaga Over Sisi’s Red Carpet

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Earth Doesn’t Have Be Doomed Like Atlantis — We Can Change Course

Mother Jones

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This story originally appeared in Slate and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

When it comes to confronting global climate change, we don’t have much experience to draw on. As world leaders prepare to meet in Paris starting on November 30 to hash out a binding international agreement to limit greenhouse gases, it appears that we are in new and frightening territory, without the past as a reliable guide.

History, however, can offer some important lessons. Archaeologists in recent years have discovered that dramatic weather events helped lay the foundations for our very civilization. Climate calamities, in fact, may have sparked the urban revolution that continues to alter the planet.

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Earth Doesn’t Have Be Doomed Like Atlantis — We Can Change Course

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The Latest on Paris Attacks and the Campaign Against ISIS

Mother Jones

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On Tuesday, Russian officials confirmed for the first time that a homemade explosive was found on the downed Metrojet airliner that crashed in Egypt last month, killing all 224 people on board.

Shortly after the confirmation, Russia announced the country was stepping up air strikes in Syria, hoping to work directly with France in the fight against ISIS.

“We will find them anywhere on the planet and punish them,” President Vladimir Putin said in a meeting with Russian security authorities.

Russia’s FSB security service also announced a $50 million reward for anyone who could provide intelligence leading to the arrests of the terrorists responsible for the attack.

The announcement comes amid the ongoing international manhunt for suspects connected to the coordinated terrorist attacks in Paris last Friday. Authorities are said to be specifically targeting Belgian-born, 26-year-old Salah Abdeslam, the suspected eighth terrorist behind Friday’s siege.

On Monday, authorities conducted 128 overnight raids throughout France, searching for people involved with the attacks. Several arrests in Germany have already been made, but officials say they were not “closely”connected” to Friday’s attacks.

On Tuesday, French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian made an official request to the European Union for assistance in the fight against ISIS. The Associated Press reports French President Francois Hollande will meet with President Obama in Washington and President Putin in Moscow next week to discuss the international effort.

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The Latest on Paris Attacks and the Campaign Against ISIS

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Ben Carson Says Honesty Is More Important Than Political Experience

Mother Jones

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Ben Carson’s improbable presidential campaign took a big hit on Friday when Politico reported that a key story Carson has long told—that he was offered a “full scholarship” to the prestigious US Military Academy at West Point after meeting a prominent Army general—was false. It turns out that Carson never sought admission to West Point. There was no offer of any scholarship. (In fact, there are no scholarships to West Point; cadets attend free). Carson’s campaign acknowledged to Politico that his account was inaccurate.

With Carson faring so well in the GOP contest—especially among evangelical Christians who admire his Christian faith, character, and biography—how might this news affect his presidential bid? Perhaps when it comes to evaluating this revelation, his supporters and fans should take their cue from Carson.

In a recent email solicitation—headlined, “I’m not a politician”—Carson, while asking for donations, explained what he believes are the most important qualifications for the job of president. Political experience (of which he has none) was not at the top of the list. Instead, he prioritized the moral fortitude of the candidate. And he claimed that the success of his campaign showed that a large number of Americans were forming a movement demanding strength of character over policy know-how. Here’s how Carson put it:

Many in the political class don’t seem to understand it, but something historic is happening across America. We’ve been told that only politicians can fix our problems, but I believe that traditional “political experience” is much less important than faith, honesty, courage, and an unshakable belief in the principles that made America the greatest nation in the world.

And Carson does tend to depict himself as a teller of truths. In one of his books, he pointed out that he was always advising youngsters to be honest:

When I talk to young people, I urge them, “Tell the truth. If you tell the truth all the time you don’t have to worry threemonths down the line about what you said three months earlier. Truth is always the truth. You won’t have to complicate your life by trying to cover up.”

So what will it mean for Carson that he has been dishonest about an important element in his from-rags-to-riches-via-neursurgery narrative, which is a bedrock of his political appeal? Pundits rushed to Twitter to declare that this would—or could—be a fatal blow for Carson, who recently has been mocked for having once said the pyramids of Egypt were built not to house the remains of the Pharaohs but to store grain. But Carson is no conventional candidate, and the support he has drawn has defied political norms. So there’s no predicting how Carsonites will absorb this news. They might start to question Carson’s character. Then again, they might see him as a victim of persecution waged by the godless liberal media and embrace him even more.

God only knows what they will do if forced to choose between facts and faith.

Here’s the full Carson email:

—–

I’m not running for President to build my resume, and the last thing I want to be is a politician.

I’m doing this for our children and grandchildren. Our Constitution was written for them — to empower them and to ensure that they’d have the opportunity to fulfill their God-given potential.

My jump to first place in the critical early-voting state of Iowa is humbling, and I’m encouraged that so many of my fellow Americans are open to embracing a true outsider.

October has been a month of real momentum, but before it ends I ask you to join me by making a donation to my campaign of any amount.

Better yet, if you donate before midnight on October 30th you’ll be automatically entered for the chance to join me on the campaign trail for a private, one-on-one lunch.

This will be a great opportunity to get to know one another and talk about our shared desire to heal and revive America — and my campaign will be handling all accommodations.

Many in the political class don’t seem to understand it, but something historic is happening across America. We’ve been told that only politicians can fix our problems, but I believe that traditional “political experience” is much less important than faith, honesty, courage, and an unshakable belief in the principles that made America the greatest nation in the world.

Thank you, and I hope I can count on your support before the end of October.

Sincerely,

Ben Carson

Update: Carson’s campaign tells the Daily Caller that “the campaign never admitted to anything” and called the Politico story “an outright lie.”

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Ben Carson Says Honesty Is More Important Than Political Experience

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