Barge collides with Pelican Island Causeway

Yesterday, a tug pushing two barges lost control of them, sending one into the pillars of the Pelican Island Causeway in Galveston. The barge was carrying petroleum product, some of which was spilled, as the photo right shows. The bridge was structurally damaged. The last I heard, authorities were allowing partial use, so that residents could evacuate. The bridge is the only road to the island.

The Texas ICW and adjoining channels carry quite a bit of barge traffic. Someone making the inside trip from Corpus Christi to Kemah will encounter dozens along the way. Each tug typically pushes two, three, or four barges. A sailor encountering one on a sharp bend needs to pay some attention. (NPR is the only outlet I found that reports there were two barges, and that they were being pushed, not towed. Which I suspect is correct.)

To my recollection, strangely, I never have sailed under this bridge. The inside route to Kemah and near destinations goes north of Pelican Island. The outside route comes up the Houston ship channel, to its east. The causeway crosses the inside channel to Galveston, which I never have visited from the water.

In brighter maritime news, the deep water channel to Baltimore has been re-opened under controlled conditions.

And it was a good sailboat race last night.

Covid deaths, bird flu, and vaccines

Public health researchers at Boston University and University of Pennsylvania did some time-series analysis of unaccounted excess deaths relative to Covid deaths. They found (cite) what past studies have suggested:

Our findings show that many COVID-19 deaths went uncounted during the pandemic. Surprisingly, these undercounts persisted well beyond the initial phase of the pandemic.

The interesting twist is they looked at different census regions of the US separately. That difference was greater in some than in others. What the plot right shows is that there was closer counting in the mid-Atlantic states than in the eastern south central states. Which is what I would have guessed.

Let’s hope we won’t need a bird flu vaccine. I’m glad there is early planning for it, in case that virus makes the zoonotic leap.

The AstraZeneca Covid vaccine did yeoman’s work in the early part of the pandemic, and still would be essential if the mRNA vaccines weren’t better. But they are, so it is neither surprising nor worrisome that it is not in as much demand and is being withdrawn.

Patriots attack the universities

There is a kind of patriotism that is much like religion, instilled into children by ritual and ceremony, later buttressed by thin ideology, then becoming a tool for politicians and preachers who know how to play it. When those come to power, they often want to remake the education system to turn out new patriots. They reform the primary schools to instill that, and gut the universities. History, languages, philosophy, literature, and the other liberal arts are their enemy, because those subjects put that kind of patriotism into context, showing how it relies on a mythologized past and imaginary future, how it works in similar fashion across different cultures and times, how it gets used to prop up authoritarian political programs. So those are put on the chopping block. As we see happening today:

Programs specializing in the liberal arts and sciences are primary targets because they are viewed as breeding grounds for dissent. Major universities have cut the hours spent studying Western governments, human rights and international law, and even the English language. “We were destroyed,” said Denis Skopin, a philosophy professor… “Because the last thing people who run universities need are unreliable actors who do the ‘wrong’ thing, think in a different way, and teach their students to do the same.”

Skopin was a professor in St. Petersburg.

An American reading this might think I’m referring to recent events in Florida. While this story is about a conservative politician’s attack on higher education, it is located further east. Skopin taught at Smolny college, in St. Petersburg, Russia. Which college has been upended by Putin’s program to make sure Russian universities produce loyal Russians:

Higher Education Minister Valery Falkov said Russian universities would undergo significant changes in the next half-decade, overseen by the national program “Priority 2030,” which envisions curriculums that ensure “formation of a patriotic worldview in young people.”

While the liberal arts are a special target, universities broaden students’ outlooks also by recruiting both faculty and students from abroad. Academic competition is global, in most fields. Rubbing shoulders with scholars from other nations naturally exposes the parochialism of each nation’s current outlook. The better universities sponsor exchange programs to further encourage such interaction. Until 2021, Smolny had an exchange program with Bard college in New York:

Like other aspects of Putin’s remastering of Russia — such as patriotic mandates in the arts and the redrawing of the role of women to focus on childbearing — the shift in education started well before the invasion of Ukraine. In 2021, Russia ended a more than 20-year-old exchange program between Smolny College and Bard College in New York state by designating the private American liberal arts school an “undesirable” organization. Jonathan Becker, Bard’s vice president for academic affairs and a professor of political studies, said the demise of Smolny was emblematic of a wider shift in Russia as well as a new intolerance of the West. “A huge number of faculty have been let go, several departments closed, core liberal arts programs which focus on critical thinking have been eliminated,” Becker said. “All of that has happened, and it’s not just happened at Smolny — it has happened elsewhere. But we were doubly problematic because we both represent critical thinking and partnership with the West. And neither of those are acceptable in present-day Russia.”

I wonder if DeSantis and Abbott are taking notes.

Photo shows students in eastern Washington state saluting the flag in 1942.

Manatees, and rare whales

As soon as I post about the visiting manatee, two Rice whales are spotted fifty miles out. I can’t help but wonder if these are the same two spotted last year off Galveston. Some intrepid marine scientist needs to get out there and stick a tracker on them. Alas, all the intrepid marine scientists I know specialize in ecology rather than whales.

Welcome the manatee to the coastal bend

Again, some brave manatee headed west, ducked under the deep south, crossed the Houston ship channel, and arrived here in Corpus Christi.

May it find its fill of sea grass.

A baseline

Mo Husseini has written a list that has garnered attention, 50 Completely True Things, related to the Gaza war. Those who take large issue with the list (hummus excepted) include the most hardcore advocates for both sides of the conflict. Those who mostly agree may differ in what they think should be done, and even the side with which they largely align, yet hold some hope of discussing the issues in somewhat rational fashion.

There is one item that deserves amplification:

No. 37: No one in the Levant is indigenous. Every fucking empire in history has fucked their way through the Levant. There is no pure indigeneity.

The Levant has been occupied for hundreds of thousands of years, likely by Neanderthals as well as by modern humans. The Natufian culture there 14,000 years ago was grinding grain and brewing beer. The Egyptian pyramids, the Phoenician culture, the Hebrew and Aramaic languages, the Jewish religion, would not show up for another ten thousand years, give or take. Those all are recent developments relative to the long, complex mess of human dispersal, settlement, and competition.

The moment anyone tries to justify what any side to a war wants because of history more than a couple centuries past, they should be shut down. It is past. Everyone then involved is long dead. I don’t care who might have been your distant ancestor, what religion they were, or where they lived.

The current round of cease-fire talks seem to have failed. More thousands will be killed because of that. Most or them, innocent. Most of them, Palestinian.

Robert Farley points out that the horror this war has brought the Palestinians serves the benefit of Hamas.

The coup’s aftermath, part 10

Arizona just handed down indictments for the 2021 fake elector scheme there, becoming the fourth state to do so. Beyond the fake electors themselves, the indictments level felony charges at the usual list of Trump’s lawyers and assistants. John Eastman, Rudy Giuliani, and their confederates are facing multiple trials for crimes that might result in decades of prison time.

The Arizona indictment includes Christina Bobb, who currently is serving as the RNC’s senior counsel for election integrity. Watch for the calls from senior Republicans that she should step down from that role.

Wisconsin still is mum on whether it will indict those responsible for the fake elector scheme there.

Painting shows German WW I destroyer run aground.

Of ships and migration

There are articles in the Baltimore Banner andthe  Washington Post about how frequently large ships lose power near US ports.

It doesn’t seem a migration unless we see a painted bunting on our back pond. This year, we’ve seen the usual warblers. Except, we saw a northern water thrush.

Just a short trip to Reynosa

Some poor ocelot failed to make it across Texas Highway 281 three years ago, killed by someone perhaps going down to Reynosa for some shopping.

But, the ocelot wasn’t expected there. Its DNA analysis was just announced, and points out they have expanded more than the wildlife folks knew.

Law and response

I am not surprised that medical abortions managed remotely and abortions overall both rose nationally after the Dobbs decision. But, I am surprised that there has been a significant bump in the rate of tubal ligations. See the blue curve on the graph, right. (Cite.)

An abortion is a transient decision about when and with whom to have a child. Women I know who have had abortions had other children after. In contrast, a tubal ligation or vasectomy is a more permanent decision. Likely, the increase after Dobbs are people who were thinking about such anyway. (Note, though, that the graph shows a jump in rate, not mere count.)

Political winds influence how young people see the future, and what decisions they make partly as a consequence. It’s easy to speculate that the authoritarian turn in the US makes the future less welcoming to the young.

Some of the red states also are making themselves less welcoming to physicians.