E-Waste Blamed for Dolphin Brain Pollution?

The Independent in the UK goes way back in the annals of waste-blaming. The Independent was one of the first to herald the arrest of Joseph "Hurricane" Benson, accepting that the African born technician was somehow making a financial gain by exporting used televisions for dastardly intentions - anything but reuse and repair. I tried corresponding with The Independent's reporter for years. Even when Benson was released, and Interpol's Project Eden closed after multiple researchers found Agbogbloshie's waste to be domestic city of Accra devices, not recent imports, the Independent never followed up.

So today's headline seems uncannily responsive to my last blog about the intelligence of dolphins. Weird.


E-waste found contaminating dolphin brains: ‘This is a wake-up call’  Toxic chemicals in dolphins and porpoises seem to originate mostly from television and computer screens

Vishwam Sankaran

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/pollution-electronic-waste-brain-dolphins-b2928621.html

The genius of the Dolphins

The Genius of all the dolphins is still, clearly, a dolphin.

And so should we remember that we, of all our relative insights contrasting with one another, are still just humans.

The genius does not necessarily impart or impact upon other species.  But one person could do just the opposite. An anti-genius extinction maker of thoughtfulness, just as a non-genius buffalo-extinction export rifleman does (Centennial, James Michener)

That is my MAGA nightmare. Makers of unthoughtfulness, Un-makers of thoughtfulness.

So reader, that is your assignment today.

Can we pause our influence on humans to affect other life forms' existence? Oh, that's a long way of saying environmentalist.

Cloning in a Hiring Freeze: A Deeeeep State Confession

Cloning in a Hiring Freeze

Thirty years ago, one of the staffers I hired at Massachusetts DEP, John Crisley, left for another job. On his way out he told me, “You’ll always be Mr. Recycling to me.”

That wasn’t a brag. Anyone at DEP back then knows that nickname came with baggage.

John was a political hire. And here’s the question that became part of my so-called “legend”: how did I grow my program from six staff to eighteen during a statewide hiring freeze?

Here’s how.

When I first became Recycling Program Manager, my predecessors and supervisors gave me whispered advice:

• “Don’t interview a Vietnam veteran — if you do, you’re saying they’re qualified, and you might be forced to hire them.”

• “Don’t interview a legislator’s nominee.”

• “Don’t interview a minority candidate.”

This advice came from Democrats — good people, progressive people — who believed in creating on-ramps for disadvantaged categories. But they also understood the unintended consequences of the system they’d built. They were warning me about the traps.

Today it feels risky to admit “own goals” from your own team. The other team will weaponize it.

But dialectic, baby. We get stronger by acknowledging our weaknesses — and our wakenesses — instead of pretending we never had any.