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  • From: Rebecca Joyce <rcj22003@yahoo.com>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] racism 101 for white american permies
  • Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2008 09:25:06 -0800 (PST)

Sorry, but I don't believe this topic is related to permaculture...





"rafter@liberationecology.org" <rafter@liberationecology.org> wrote:
Thanks to Ben for calling that one.

Briefly:

Y'all know how there is a cutting edge, a sort of global best-
practices conversation, about ecological design? And we are all
pretty excited about it, and how it's called permaculture? And how
it's not homogenous at all, but how even with all the differences of
opinion that run though it, it's still identifiable and coherent and
more-or-less the best thing going in terms of ecological design?

Well, that sort of conversation exists for issues besides ecological
design. There is also, for example, a conversation just like that,
but about racial and ethnic relationships. This one is called anti-
racism (though you might hear it called critical race theory, in
certain circles, or some other variant.)

In this conversation, racism is defined as "power plus prejudice." So
it's not just about your attitudes, conscious or not, or even your
actions - it's also defined by social context of those attitudes and
actions.

If this seems like an exciting, or confusing, or infuriating, idea, a
great entry point to understand it better is the short,
conversational, funny book by Tim Wise called "White Like Me."

So, just a few short principles that come out of the anti-racism
conversation:

* No one is "colorblind," even if that were an appropriate response
to a racially divided caste society - which it ain't.
* Unconscious prejudice affects our experience of the world, all of
us - and it is measurable:
see for yourself at https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/
* Explaining one's racially charged remarks as reason, logic, or
common sense doesn't make you not racist.
* Having non-white genes in your heritage doesn't make you not racist
- particularly if you are "read" as white in your public life.
* Having non-white friends *definitely* doesn't make you not racist.
* If you think you are racist, you're almost certainly right.
* If you are white, and think you aren't racist, you are almost
certainly wrong.
* None of these things make white people not racist, or disprove the
existence of white supremacy:
* Listening to music by non-white artists
* Getting pulled over by a non-white cop
* Making white-people jokes
* Seeking out spiritual guidance from non-white people
* Claiming "logical self-interest" or variations on that theme
* Being progressive, bohemian, radical, green, anti-authoritarian, etc.
* Being poor, being a woman, being LGBTQ, being disabled, etc.

Permaculture, as a movement, as a community that is trying hard to
help save this big complex world we live in, will grow more effective
and more powerful as we learn to learn from this other best-practices
community.

rafter t. sass
The Liberation Ecology Project
liberationecology.org
518-567-7407
skype: raughter



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Subject: [permaculture] BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Tiny tags track brainy
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<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7258822.stm>
Last Updated: Wednesday, 27 February 2008, 09:22 GMT
Tiny tags track brainy bumblebees
By Rebecca Morelle
Science reporter, BBC News

Bumblebee (Cheryl Power/SPL)

How to attach a radio tag to a buzzing bumblebee

In a laboratory in the heart of the east end of London, an unmistakeable buzz
fills the air.

The small room is packed with bumblebees - hundreds upon hundreds of them
going about their business in small wooden hives.

Despite their scientific setting, the insects look just the same as
bumblebees found in the wild, apart from one small -
really small - difference.


"Bumblebees have a relatively small brain... but they can achieve rather
impressive feats of learning and memory
Dr Nigel Raine
Most are adorned with minuscule silver tags, so tiny that at first they are
hard to see. But every so often, as they
catch the laboratory lights, they glint and sparkle, standing out from the
bees' fuzzy bodies.

These tiny accessories are Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags - the
same technology used to track stock in
warehouses or supermarkets or employed for transport systems such as the
Oyster Card payment scheme used on the London
Underground.

They have been fitted to the bees by scientists at Queen Mary, University of
London (QMUL), who want to keep track of
the animals' whereabouts so as to better understand these brainy bugs.

Tagged bee (Ralph Stelzer)
The tiny RFID tag can be just seen above the bee's wings
Biologist Nigel Raine said: "Bumblebees have a relatively small brain - they
have about 950,000 brain cells, humans have
100 billion - but they can achieve rather impressive feats of learning and
memory given what they have got."

Recent research has revealed that bees are able to recognise individual human
faces, which, according to Dr Raine, is
not that surprising given the daily challenges they face whilst foraging.

He explained: "When you think about your average park or meadow there might
be dozens of species of flowers which are
all different in terms of colour and shape and scent, and they are all
differing in the rewards they are providing.

"Ultimately, the bees' job is to go and find the best rewards from these
flowers and they have to be flexible and learn
and remember information, all the while making and breaking associations.
This is all really quite complicated."

Their navigational skills are impressive, too.

"These tiny animals leave their nests, fly back and forth between flowers,
then they are somehow able to add all of
these vectors together and fly back to their nest in a straight line," said
Dr Raine.

Artificial flowers

The QMUL team, led by Professor Lars Chittka, is now using RFID tags to
better explore these feats of memory.

Bumblebees
The lab is abuzz with bees
"These tags allow us to collect data from the bees without disturbing them
and they help us to monitor a lot of bees
simultaneously," Dr Raine told the BBC News website.

"Before we had them, we would have to stop the bee, record which bee it was,
weigh it, then put it back to continue its
business."

The RFID devices, which are incredibly small so they do not affect behaviour,
store information about the individual
bees (the researchers are studying Bombus terrestris, one of 16 species of
true bumblebee).

Bee being tagged
The tags are attached to enable the team to monitor bee foraging
Each time the bees pass by an RFID reader, the reader records and saves
information about the individual bee, where it
is and when it is there.

The scientist said: "As well as placing readers at the entrances of the hives
to see who is going in and out of them, we
are starting to use the RFID readers on artificial flowers - feeding stations
that function like a flower - so we can
measure who is visiting them and when."

Aiding conservation

In the wild, bees will often visit flowers in a sequence that they repeat
time and time again.

"This makes sense biologically," explained Dr Raine. "If you take the nectar
out of the flowers, they will begin to
refill, so you do not want to visit that flower again until it is as full up
as possible."

But what is really clever, he adds, is that the bees will work out shortcuts
so that they can create the shortest, most
efficient journey possible.

"We are really interested to see how they form these routes - we call them
"traplines" - and we are using RFID
technology to help us to understand how the bees are performing these feats
of spatial learning."

Bumblebees (Cheryl Power/SPL)
Bees solve complex problems while foraging
The results of the study could lead to some unusual future applications.

Dr Raine said: "There are a number of problems in computer science,
logistical problems to do with how you move through
networks and how you go the shortest distance between various points.

"We are hoping the RFID tags will help us to find out how bees, with their
small brains, can find optimal or near
optimal solutions to finding the shortest routes between flowers.

"And by finding out how they are doing this, we are hoping it could lead to
some simple rules of thumb to solving
similar network problems in computing."

But computer science is not the only application of the RFID work.

Bees around Europe have suffered a huge drop in numbers in recent years:
three species in the UK have recently become
extinct; another eight are in serious decline.

Scientists believe that habitat degradation around their nesting and foraging
sites could be to blame.

Dr Raine said: "In terms of biodiversity, bumblebees are hugely important
pollinators, yet most species are becoming
increasingly rare.

"Understanding the differences in how they actually forage is very important
for aiding conservation."

SEE ALSO
Gardens 'vital' for UK bumblebees
22 Jul 07 | Science/Nature
Bid to halt bumblebee decline
16 Apr 07 | Tayside and Central
Bees get a buzz from warm flowers
03 Aug 06 | Science/Nature
Homing instinct of bees surprises
26 Jul 06 | Science/Nature

RELATED INTERNET LINKS
QMUL
Bumblebee Conservation Trust


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