Letting Go of the Farm [Casaubon's Book]

Fourteen years ago, on a cold February weekend, our 10 month old son, Eli and I went driving around rural upstate New York, looking for a place to settle. We had actually wanted to stay in Massachusetts, but a combination of high land and real estate prices and Eric’s grandparents’ (who would come to live with us and whose needs for care were a big part of our motivation to move) false European perception that somehow Massachusetts was much colder than upstate NY meant that New York was our best option. We explored, we adventured, we fell in love with the Schoharie Valley and its surrounding hills, and in Cambridge NY, we conceived Simon, our second child. It seemed like a good omen. A month later we came back and saw some houses, and a few weeks after that returned with Eric’s grandparents, and bought our farm.

A few weeks ago we made the decision to sell Gleanings Farm. Our main motivation is that since the arrival of our Gang of Four 21 months ago, we really have had much less time for farming. They had a lot of needs and a lot of those needs include transportation back and forth to urban centers that have support services, medical care, etc…. And we’re spending much more time than I like in the car. The farm has gotten short shrift, and I’d love to see it in hands that would make better use of our land.

There are other motivations that don’t have anything to do with foster care. Simon is entering his high school years and would like to attend a particular program in a school district near us were it possible. We would also be much closer to Eric’s job and our synagogue, and our shul is really a center for our social life. Most of all, I want to get out of the car. I want to be able to be fully shomer Shabbos (ie, no driving on our Sabbath).

There are still more motivations. While Eric and I can do a credible job at raising and growing a lot of things (when we’re not head down in other stuff), neither of us enjoys SELLING our agricultural products. Frankly, we both hate that part. But out where we live, enough people just don’t pass by for us to sell without significant work on our part. The entrepreneurial part of farming turns both of us off, but it is incredibly necessary. So we are both excited about being in a place where more of our focus is on subsistence agriculture and when we do have things to sell, we can simply put a sign up.

Moreover, I’ve been an advocate for years of growing and raising food where people actually live. I’ve tracked and written about urban agriculture more or less constantly. I have several times noted that had I been able to get Eric’s grandparents to agree and known what I know now about urban agriculture, we’d probably have stayed in Lowell, MA where we lived when Eli was born. I’m excited about living in a place where I can make a bigger difference in local food security, backyard agriculture and sustainable culture – and do it in walking distance.

Five of my children are black. My rural area isn’t as white as you might fear, but it is a place where my kids stick out more than I like. I’m looking forward to all my kids living and (for those who do) going to school in a more diverse place. I’m looking forward to all my kids hearing more other languages spoken and talking to more people whose backgrounds are radically different from theirs. I’m excited about community gardens and advocating for more public greenspaces and supporting other gardeners and farmers.

There are things I’m really, really going to miss – the quiet, the space to do so many cool things. Not having to worry about what the neighbors think most of the time. Laid back zoning. Herons flying over my head. Wetlands full of red-winged blackbirds. 59 species of birds that visit or nest here regularly. Walking in our own woods. Tracing the old stone walls. Our creek, and the frogs and salamanders my children know intimately. The night sky. Our neighbors.

You can’t have everything in life, and this is the right choice for us. Our plan is to move to Schenectady, a grubby, impoverished city whose current claim to fame, besides GE’s ever-diminishing presence is that it just got slated to get a casino. You can probably imagine just how thrilled I am about that, but I plan to make the best of it. This is not gentrification, but urban renewal and I get to be part of a thriving, energized community that is already building great co-ops, farmer’s markets etc…

I am truly excited about turning some of the big old houses in the area back into big family homes with children running up and down the stairs, and with backyard gardens, backyard poultry and backyard goats (that’s one of the reasons we want to live in Schenectady, as opposed to other areas, because of its liberal zoning and large community of immigrants who already backyard farm). I can’t wait to begin designing my new site (wherever it is).

All of this hinges on our ability to sell our enormous 7 bedroom 100 year old farmhouse and 27 acres of land. Our old house needs work – even though we’ve done tons of things to make it more sustainable including radiant floor heating, a very tightly insulated in-law suite, woodstoves, new roof, etc… and keeping a house with 9 kids clean enough for showing will be a treat. If we don’t sell, well, we’ll be happy here some more and trust that we will be able to do good things here. But we’re excited about the new venture and hoping it works out. And if you are interested in a large house on good land in the hills right outside of Albany/Schenectady with great neighbors, a rich community and a strong agricultural heritage, well, email me at jewishfarmer@gmail.com

Sharon

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1LUFcSk

Fourteen years ago, on a cold February weekend, our 10 month old son, Eli and I went driving around rural upstate New York, looking for a place to settle. We had actually wanted to stay in Massachusetts, but a combination of high land and real estate prices and Eric’s grandparents’ (who would come to live with us and whose needs for care were a big part of our motivation to move) false European perception that somehow Massachusetts was much colder than upstate NY meant that New York was our best option. We explored, we adventured, we fell in love with the Schoharie Valley and its surrounding hills, and in Cambridge NY, we conceived Simon, our second child. It seemed like a good omen. A month later we came back and saw some houses, and a few weeks after that returned with Eric’s grandparents, and bought our farm.

A few weeks ago we made the decision to sell Gleanings Farm. Our main motivation is that since the arrival of our Gang of Four 21 months ago, we really have had much less time for farming. They had a lot of needs and a lot of those needs include transportation back and forth to urban centers that have support services, medical care, etc…. And we’re spending much more time than I like in the car. The farm has gotten short shrift, and I’d love to see it in hands that would make better use of our land.

There are other motivations that don’t have anything to do with foster care. Simon is entering his high school years and would like to attend a particular program in a school district near us were it possible. We would also be much closer to Eric’s job and our synagogue, and our shul is really a center for our social life. Most of all, I want to get out of the car. I want to be able to be fully shomer Shabbos (ie, no driving on our Sabbath).

There are still more motivations. While Eric and I can do a credible job at raising and growing a lot of things (when we’re not head down in other stuff), neither of us enjoys SELLING our agricultural products. Frankly, we both hate that part. But out where we live, enough people just don’t pass by for us to sell without significant work on our part. The entrepreneurial part of farming turns both of us off, but it is incredibly necessary. So we are both excited about being in a place where more of our focus is on subsistence agriculture and when we do have things to sell, we can simply put a sign up.

Moreover, I’ve been an advocate for years of growing and raising food where people actually live. I’ve tracked and written about urban agriculture more or less constantly. I have several times noted that had I been able to get Eric’s grandparents to agree and known what I know now about urban agriculture, we’d probably have stayed in Lowell, MA where we lived when Eli was born. I’m excited about living in a place where I can make a bigger difference in local food security, backyard agriculture and sustainable culture – and do it in walking distance.

Five of my children are black. My rural area isn’t as white as you might fear, but it is a place where my kids stick out more than I like. I’m looking forward to all my kids living and (for those who do) going to school in a more diverse place. I’m looking forward to all my kids hearing more other languages spoken and talking to more people whose backgrounds are radically different from theirs. I’m excited about community gardens and advocating for more public greenspaces and supporting other gardeners and farmers.

There are things I’m really, really going to miss – the quiet, the space to do so many cool things. Not having to worry about what the neighbors think most of the time. Laid back zoning. Herons flying over my head. Wetlands full of red-winged blackbirds. 59 species of birds that visit or nest here regularly. Walking in our own woods. Tracing the old stone walls. Our creek, and the frogs and salamanders my children know intimately. The night sky. Our neighbors.

You can’t have everything in life, and this is the right choice for us. Our plan is to move to Schenectady, a grubby, impoverished city whose current claim to fame, besides GE’s ever-diminishing presence is that it just got slated to get a casino. You can probably imagine just how thrilled I am about that, but I plan to make the best of it. This is not gentrification, but urban renewal and I get to be part of a thriving, energized community that is already building great co-ops, farmer’s markets etc…

I am truly excited about turning some of the big old houses in the area back into big family homes with children running up and down the stairs, and with backyard gardens, backyard poultry and backyard goats (that’s one of the reasons we want to live in Schenectady, as opposed to other areas, because of its liberal zoning and large community of immigrants who already backyard farm). I can’t wait to begin designing my new site (wherever it is).

All of this hinges on our ability to sell our enormous 7 bedroom 100 year old farmhouse and 27 acres of land. Our old house needs work – even though we’ve done tons of things to make it more sustainable including radiant floor heating, a very tightly insulated in-law suite, woodstoves, new roof, etc… and keeping a house with 9 kids clean enough for showing will be a treat. If we don’t sell, well, we’ll be happy here some more and trust that we will be able to do good things here. But we’re excited about the new venture and hoping it works out. And if you are interested in a large house on good land in the hills right outside of Albany/Schenectady with great neighbors, a rich community and a strong agricultural heritage, well, email me at jewishfarmer@gmail.com

Sharon

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1LUFcSk

When sounding rockets launch into auroras …

A composite shot of all four rockets for the M-TeX and MIST experiments is made up of 30 second exposures. The rocket salvo began at 4:13 a.m. EST, January 26, 2015, from the Poker Flat Research Range, Alaska. Image Credit: NASA/Jamie Adkins

On January 26, 2015 just after midnight, University of Alaska scientists launched four sounding rockets into the northern lights.

A sounding rocket, sometimes called a research rocket, is an instrument-carrying rocket designed to take measurements and perform scientific experiments from about 50 to 1,500 kilometers (31 to 932 mi) above the surface of the Earth, an altitude between weather balloons and satellites.

Auroras – the northern and southern lights – are caused by the interaction of solar winds (variable streams of charged plasma from the sun) and Earth’s atmosphere. Researchers launched the rocket-borne experiments to learn more about how auroras heat the planet’s atmosphere.

All of the rocket-borne experiments were launched from Poker Flats, Alaska, a site often used by NASA for suborbital sounding rocket launches.

Taken by Jason Ahrns on January 26, 2015 at Chatanika, Alaska. Used with permission.

What a cool thing to see, except the temperature at the time was around -43ºF!

Two days later, on January 28, 2015, NASA-funded scientists launched a fifth rocket-borne experiment into the northern lights in order to learn more about how they heat the planet’s atmosphere.

The Auroral Spatial Structures Probe (ASSP) was launched at 5:41 a.m. on January 28 from the Poker Flat Research Range about 50 kilometers (30 miles) north of Fairbanks, Alaska. The research team captured the two time-lapse photos below of the Oriole IV sounding rocket and payload amidst the aurora borealis (top photo) and at the moment of liftoff (bottom photo).

The ASSP carried seven instruments to study the electromagnetic energy that can heat the thermosphere — the second highest layer of Earth’s atmosphere — during auroral events.

Time lapse photo of the NASA Oriole IV sounding rocket with Aural Spatial Structures Probe as an aurora dances over Alaska. All four stages of the rocket are visible in this image.Image credit: NASA/Jamie Adkins

Image credit: Lee Wingfield, NASA

Bottom line: In late January, 2015 researchers launched sounding rockets into the northern lights from Poker Flats, Alaska to learn more about how auroras heat the planet’s atmosphere.

Read more from NASA Earth Observatory

from EarthSky http://ift.tt/1zocFiJ

A composite shot of all four rockets for the M-TeX and MIST experiments is made up of 30 second exposures. The rocket salvo began at 4:13 a.m. EST, January 26, 2015, from the Poker Flat Research Range, Alaska. Image Credit: NASA/Jamie Adkins

On January 26, 2015 just after midnight, University of Alaska scientists launched four sounding rockets into the northern lights.

A sounding rocket, sometimes called a research rocket, is an instrument-carrying rocket designed to take measurements and perform scientific experiments from about 50 to 1,500 kilometers (31 to 932 mi) above the surface of the Earth, an altitude between weather balloons and satellites.

Auroras – the northern and southern lights – are caused by the interaction of solar winds (variable streams of charged plasma from the sun) and Earth’s atmosphere. Researchers launched the rocket-borne experiments to learn more about how auroras heat the planet’s atmosphere.

All of the rocket-borne experiments were launched from Poker Flats, Alaska, a site often used by NASA for suborbital sounding rocket launches.

Taken by Jason Ahrns on January 26, 2015 at Chatanika, Alaska. Used with permission.

What a cool thing to see, except the temperature at the time was around -43ºF!

Two days later, on January 28, 2015, NASA-funded scientists launched a fifth rocket-borne experiment into the northern lights in order to learn more about how they heat the planet’s atmosphere.

The Auroral Spatial Structures Probe (ASSP) was launched at 5:41 a.m. on January 28 from the Poker Flat Research Range about 50 kilometers (30 miles) north of Fairbanks, Alaska. The research team captured the two time-lapse photos below of the Oriole IV sounding rocket and payload amidst the aurora borealis (top photo) and at the moment of liftoff (bottom photo).

The ASSP carried seven instruments to study the electromagnetic energy that can heat the thermosphere — the second highest layer of Earth’s atmosphere — during auroral events.

Time lapse photo of the NASA Oriole IV sounding rocket with Aural Spatial Structures Probe as an aurora dances over Alaska. All four stages of the rocket are visible in this image.Image credit: NASA/Jamie Adkins

Image credit: Lee Wingfield, NASA

Bottom line: In late January, 2015 researchers launched sounding rockets into the northern lights from Poker Flats, Alaska to learn more about how auroras heat the planet’s atmosphere.

Read more from NASA Earth Observatory

from EarthSky http://ift.tt/1zocFiJ

Friday Cephalopod: Yeeee-haaw! [Pharyngula]

Look closely at the eel in this picture. Look up around its head. Do you wonder what that odd little blob is?

Now go see the animation. All will be clear.

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1zWB9Au

Look closely at the eel in this picture. Look up around its head. Do you wonder what that odd little blob is?

Now go see the animation. All will be clear.

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1zWB9Au

Star of the week: Will you see Canopus?

The second-brightest star in all the heavens, as seen from Earth, is Canopus. It’s easily visible from the Southern Hemisphere for much of the year. But it’s so far south on the sky’s dome that observers in the northern U.S. and similar latitudes never see it. Meanwhile, observers at latitudes like those in the southern U.S. do enjoy this star in the evening only during the winter months. If you’re at a latitude like the southern U.S., or farther south on the globe, look for this star tonight! One of the coolest things about this star: in Frank Herbert’s 1965 novel Dune, it’s the home star of Arrakis, the desert world. Follow the links below to learn more.

Are you situated on Earth to be able to see Canopus?

Canopus in science fiction.

History and mythology of Canopus.

Science of Canopus.

Canopus as seen from 35 degrees N. latitude. When a star (or the moon) is seen so low in the sky, it appears reddish. That's because you are looking at it through a greater thickness of atmosphere, in the direction toward the horizon, than when the star is overhead. This image is Canopus seen from Tokyo via Wikimedia Commons

If you're at a southerly latitude in the Northern Hemisphere, you'll find Canopus below Sirius, the sky's brightest star, on winter evenings.

Are you situated on Earth to be able to see Canopus? Will you see it? It depends on how far south you are, and what time of year you’re looking. Canopus never rises above the horizon for locations north of about 37 degrees north latitude. In the United States, that line runs from roughly Richmond, Virginia; westward to Bowling Green, Kentucky; through Trinidad, Colorado; and onward to San Jose, California – just south of San Francisco. You must be south of those place to see Canopus.

If you’re in the southern U.S., you’ll have no trouble finding Canopus on winter evenings. Just look to the south, below brilliant Sirius. February evenings are a perfect time to look, when Canopus is at its highest in the sky around 9 p.m.

Those who can see it from the Northern Hemisphere sometimes ask

What is that bright star below Sirius?

Fair question, because – from latitudes like those of the United States – Canopus appears in the southern sky almost directly south of Sirius, the brightest star of the nighttime sky. When Sirius is at its highest point to the south, Canopus is about 36 degrees below it.

At the end of December, Canopus stands at is highest point to the south after midnight. In January, it reaches that point at about 10 p.m. By the beginning of March, Canopus is due south at about 8 p.m., although the exact timing on all of these dates depends on the observer’s geographic location.

For observers in the Southern Hemisphere it is an entirely different story. From latitudes south of the equator, both Canopus and Sirius – the sky’s two brightest stars – appear high in the sky, and they often appear together. They are like twin beacons crossing the heavens together. The sight of them is enough to make a northern observer envy the southern skies!

Enjoying EarthSky so far? Sign up for our free daily newsletter today!

Artist's conception of Arrakis, the third planet of Canopus in Frank Herbert's science fiction novel Dune. Via Wikipedia's Stars and Planetary Systems in Fiction

Canopus in science fiction. In Frank Herbert’s 1965 novel Dune and other novels in his Dune universe, the fictional planet Arrakis – a vast desert world, home to sandworms and Bedouin-like humans called the Fremen – is the third planet from a real star in our night sky. That star is Canopus – the second-brightest star visible in Earth’s sky – in what we know as the constellation Carina.

In Herbert’s novel, the desert planet Arrakis is the only source of “spice,” the most important and valuable substance in the Dune universe.

It’s possible, according to Wikipedia (which references the famous book Star Names: Their Lore and Meaning by Richard Allen), that Herbert was influenced in his choice of this star as the primary for Arrakis by a common etymological derivation of the name Canopus:

… as a Latinization (through Greek Kanobos) from the Coptic Kahi Nub (“Golden Earth”), which refers to how Canopus would have appeared over the southern desert horizon in ancient Egypt, reddened by atmospheric absorption.

Indeed, from much of the civilized world in ancient times, Canopus would have appeared low in the sky, when it was visible at all. And so, yes, its bright light would be reddened the fact of looking at it through a greater thickness of atmosphere in the direction toward the horizon – just as our sun or moon seen low in the sky looks redder than usual. Golden Earth indeed.

By the way, although Arrakis is fictional, Canopus is not only very real but also much hotter and larger than our sun. See the Science section below.

Drawing from Urania's Mirror, 1825, showing Carina as part of the ancient ship Argo Navis. Via constellationofwords.com

History and mythology of Canopus. Canopus is also called Alpha Carinae, the brightest star in the constellation Carina the Keel. This constellation used to be considered part of Argo Navis, the ship of Jason and his famed Argonauts, as seen in our sky. Canopus originally marked a keel or rudder of this ancient celestial ship. Alas, the great Argo Navis constellation no longer exists. Modern imaginations see it as broken into three parts: the Keel (Carina, of which Canopus is part), sails (Vela) and the poop deck (Puppis).

For those far enough south to see it, Canopus was a star of great importance from ancient times to modern times as a primary navigational star. This is surely due to its brightness.

The origin of the name Canopus is subject to question. By some accounts it is the name of a ship’s captain from the Trojan War. Another theory is that it is from ancient Egyptian meaning Golden Earth, a possible reference to the star’s appearance as seen through atmospheric haze near the horizon from Egyptian latitudes.

Canopus as seen from the International Space Station.

A comparison of our sun to Canopus. Via dunenovels.com

Science of Canopus. According to data obtained by the Hipparcos Space Astrometry Mission, Canopus is about 313 light-years away. Spectroscopically, it is an F0 type star, making it significantly hotter than our sun (roughly 13,600 degrees F at its surface, compared to about 10,000 degrees F for the sun). Canopus also has a luminosity class rating of II, which makes it a “bright giant” star much larger than the sun. (Some classifications make it a type Ia “supergiant”.”)

If they were placed side by side, it would take about 65 suns to fit across Canopus. Although Canopus appears significantly less bright than Sirius, it is really much brighter, blazing with the brilliance of 14,000 suns! With non-visible forms of light energy factored in, it surpasses the sun by more than 15,000 times.

Although its exact age is unknown, Canopus’ great mass dictates that this star must be near the end of its lifetime, and is likely is a few million to a few tens of millions of years old. Compared to our sedate middle-aged five-billion year old sun, Canopus has lived in the stellar fast lane and is destined to die young.

Canopus’s position is RA: 6h 23m 57s, dec: -52° 41′ 45″

from EarthSky http://ift.tt/1BbRRZT

The second-brightest star in all the heavens, as seen from Earth, is Canopus. It’s easily visible from the Southern Hemisphere for much of the year. But it’s so far south on the sky’s dome that observers in the northern U.S. and similar latitudes never see it. Meanwhile, observers at latitudes like those in the southern U.S. do enjoy this star in the evening only during the winter months. If you’re at a latitude like the southern U.S., or farther south on the globe, look for this star tonight! One of the coolest things about this star: in Frank Herbert’s 1965 novel Dune, it’s the home star of Arrakis, the desert world. Follow the links below to learn more.

Are you situated on Earth to be able to see Canopus?

Canopus in science fiction.

History and mythology of Canopus.

Science of Canopus.

Canopus as seen from 35 degrees N. latitude. When a star (or the moon) is seen so low in the sky, it appears reddish. That's because you are looking at it through a greater thickness of atmosphere, in the direction toward the horizon, than when the star is overhead. This image is Canopus seen from Tokyo via Wikimedia Commons

If you're at a southerly latitude in the Northern Hemisphere, you'll find Canopus below Sirius, the sky's brightest star, on winter evenings.

Are you situated on Earth to be able to see Canopus? Will you see it? It depends on how far south you are, and what time of year you’re looking. Canopus never rises above the horizon for locations north of about 37 degrees north latitude. In the United States, that line runs from roughly Richmond, Virginia; westward to Bowling Green, Kentucky; through Trinidad, Colorado; and onward to San Jose, California – just south of San Francisco. You must be south of those place to see Canopus.

If you’re in the southern U.S., you’ll have no trouble finding Canopus on winter evenings. Just look to the south, below brilliant Sirius. February evenings are a perfect time to look, when Canopus is at its highest in the sky around 9 p.m.

Those who can see it from the Northern Hemisphere sometimes ask

What is that bright star below Sirius?

Fair question, because – from latitudes like those of the United States – Canopus appears in the southern sky almost directly south of Sirius, the brightest star of the nighttime sky. When Sirius is at its highest point to the south, Canopus is about 36 degrees below it.

At the end of December, Canopus stands at is highest point to the south after midnight. In January, it reaches that point at about 10 p.m. By the beginning of March, Canopus is due south at about 8 p.m., although the exact timing on all of these dates depends on the observer’s geographic location.

For observers in the Southern Hemisphere it is an entirely different story. From latitudes south of the equator, both Canopus and Sirius – the sky’s two brightest stars – appear high in the sky, and they often appear together. They are like twin beacons crossing the heavens together. The sight of them is enough to make a northern observer envy the southern skies!

Enjoying EarthSky so far? Sign up for our free daily newsletter today!

Artist's conception of Arrakis, the third planet of Canopus in Frank Herbert's science fiction novel Dune. Via Wikipedia's Stars and Planetary Systems in Fiction

Canopus in science fiction. In Frank Herbert’s 1965 novel Dune and other novels in his Dune universe, the fictional planet Arrakis – a vast desert world, home to sandworms and Bedouin-like humans called the Fremen – is the third planet from a real star in our night sky. That star is Canopus – the second-brightest star visible in Earth’s sky – in what we know as the constellation Carina.

In Herbert’s novel, the desert planet Arrakis is the only source of “spice,” the most important and valuable substance in the Dune universe.

It’s possible, according to Wikipedia (which references the famous book Star Names: Their Lore and Meaning by Richard Allen), that Herbert was influenced in his choice of this star as the primary for Arrakis by a common etymological derivation of the name Canopus:

… as a Latinization (through Greek Kanobos) from the Coptic Kahi Nub (“Golden Earth”), which refers to how Canopus would have appeared over the southern desert horizon in ancient Egypt, reddened by atmospheric absorption.

Indeed, from much of the civilized world in ancient times, Canopus would have appeared low in the sky, when it was visible at all. And so, yes, its bright light would be reddened the fact of looking at it through a greater thickness of atmosphere in the direction toward the horizon – just as our sun or moon seen low in the sky looks redder than usual. Golden Earth indeed.

By the way, although Arrakis is fictional, Canopus is not only very real but also much hotter and larger than our sun. See the Science section below.

Drawing from Urania's Mirror, 1825, showing Carina as part of the ancient ship Argo Navis. Via constellationofwords.com

History and mythology of Canopus. Canopus is also called Alpha Carinae, the brightest star in the constellation Carina the Keel. This constellation used to be considered part of Argo Navis, the ship of Jason and his famed Argonauts, as seen in our sky. Canopus originally marked a keel or rudder of this ancient celestial ship. Alas, the great Argo Navis constellation no longer exists. Modern imaginations see it as broken into three parts: the Keel (Carina, of which Canopus is part), sails (Vela) and the poop deck (Puppis).

For those far enough south to see it, Canopus was a star of great importance from ancient times to modern times as a primary navigational star. This is surely due to its brightness.

The origin of the name Canopus is subject to question. By some accounts it is the name of a ship’s captain from the Trojan War. Another theory is that it is from ancient Egyptian meaning Golden Earth, a possible reference to the star’s appearance as seen through atmospheric haze near the horizon from Egyptian latitudes.

Canopus as seen from the International Space Station.

A comparison of our sun to Canopus. Via dunenovels.com

Science of Canopus. According to data obtained by the Hipparcos Space Astrometry Mission, Canopus is about 313 light-years away. Spectroscopically, it is an F0 type star, making it significantly hotter than our sun (roughly 13,600 degrees F at its surface, compared to about 10,000 degrees F for the sun). Canopus also has a luminosity class rating of II, which makes it a “bright giant” star much larger than the sun. (Some classifications make it a type Ia “supergiant”.”)

If they were placed side by side, it would take about 65 suns to fit across Canopus. Although Canopus appears significantly less bright than Sirius, it is really much brighter, blazing with the brilliance of 14,000 suns! With non-visible forms of light energy factored in, it surpasses the sun by more than 15,000 times.

Although its exact age is unknown, Canopus’ great mass dictates that this star must be near the end of its lifetime, and is likely is a few million to a few tens of millions of years old. Compared to our sedate middle-aged five-billion year old sun, Canopus has lived in the stellar fast lane and is destined to die young.

Canopus’s position is RA: 6h 23m 57s, dec: -52° 41′ 45″

from EarthSky http://ift.tt/1BbRRZT

Nobody Resembles Their Internet Caricature [Uncertain Principles]

I’ve seen a bunch of re-shares of this Vox profile of a “Men’s Rights Activist” on various social media channels, with reactions varying from “This is fascinating” to “Boooo-ring.” I thought it was sort of interesting, but not really in the way it was intended to be. The thing I found most striking the way the author, Emmett Rensin, introduces “Max”:

In the popular imagination, Men’s Rights Activists are “neckbeards”: morbidly obese basement-dwellers with a suspect affection for My Little Pony. But Max is remarkably unassuming in appearance, handsome enough and normally tall; equally imaginable in board shorts and a snapback as he is in the sort of graduation suit one wears to a first post-collegiate interview downtown. […]

Max fits in with the crowd at the faux-Mexican bar where we spend several nights in August. Eight-dollar tequila shots; polo shirts tucked in or dress shirts tucked out of pre-faded jeans; groups of guests emitting an oscillating screech from every booth.[…]

Some section of men have always jealously guarded their privilege, but we are for the first time seeing what happens when that same section begins to lose the assumption of its divine right. It isn’t that they’re monsters. Max is this kind of man, and he is not some fountain of malevolence. He is the mildest kind. I spent August with a well-adjusted man in a polo shirt who would never think to hurt someone except in self-defense, but he comes from a pot where new anger is boiling.

I was a little surprised that they would so openly lead with such a blatant caricature. I mean, if somebody wrote “In the popular imagination, feminists are man-hating harpies, but I had dinner with Anita Sarkeesian, and she’s really quite nice…” it would rightly be ridiculed as preposterously regressive. I’m not sure leading off this profile with “neckbeards” is a huge improvement.

Of course, I’m at a disadvantage reading this, because “Max” is anonymized enough that I don’t have any idea what he wrote on social media that prompted this profile. Maybe he was, contrary to what he says, much more of a “fountain of malevolence” in his online persona. But Rensin lets those assertions go by unchallenged, so it’s hard to believe he was a real hard case.

Beyond that, you know, it’s 2015. The Internet has been around for decades, and I’ve been reading pith-helmeted anthropological reporting about how people who hang out online aren’t really the lowest sort of geek stereotype for over twenty years, now. Shouldn’t we be past being amazed that people don’t actually resemble the Internet caricatures of their behavior? Particularly in journalism outlets that exist only on-line, founded by some of those not-actually-a-cartoon-nerd blogger kids from the early 2000s?

(I’m a little sensitive to this, as Kate and I met through a Usenet newsgroup back in the 90’s. So I’ve spent 15-odd years biting back snide replies to people hearing that story and saying “But you guys seem so normal…”)

With the exception of a handful of genuinely mentally disturbed individuals, pretty much everybody you run into on-line is pretty normal in person. Even political activists with over-the-top online personae. I met PZ Myers at a ScienceBlogs thing mumble years ago, and he’s pretty much what you would guess from his day job– a Midwestern college professor. He wasn’t badgering the waitstaff about their religious beliefs, or anything, and I didn’t expect he would be, because I’m not an asshole. (Not that kind of asshole, anyway.)

Don’t get me wrong– “Max” sounds like a bit of a douchebag, and his political views are unappealing when they’re not incoherent. But it’s not remotely surprising that he comes off as “well-adjusted,” or particularly “curious” that he has a girlfriend (a later bit that made me roll my eyes). Rensin’s whole approach to the article, starting with that introduction, is sufficiently condescending that given the choice, I’d probably rather have a beer with “Max” than spend an evening with the guy whose political views are nominally more congenial.

What ought to be interesting in this piece is why an apparently well-adjusted guy would end up thinking and behaving this way, but while there are attempts to get at this, they don’t have much depth, both because “Max” is too anonymous to establish any real tension and because Rensin is too determined to establish his superiority to the people he’s interviewing. The piece ends with a hint that “Max” is maturing somewhat– the last conversation reported suggests that he’s backing away from his earlier actions– and that evolution could’ve been genuinely interesting to explore, but it’s too perfunctory.

So, in the end, not a terrible idea for an article, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired.

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1zWs5eX

I’ve seen a bunch of re-shares of this Vox profile of a “Men’s Rights Activist” on various social media channels, with reactions varying from “This is fascinating” to “Boooo-ring.” I thought it was sort of interesting, but not really in the way it was intended to be. The thing I found most striking the way the author, Emmett Rensin, introduces “Max”:

In the popular imagination, Men’s Rights Activists are “neckbeards”: morbidly obese basement-dwellers with a suspect affection for My Little Pony. But Max is remarkably unassuming in appearance, handsome enough and normally tall; equally imaginable in board shorts and a snapback as he is in the sort of graduation suit one wears to a first post-collegiate interview downtown. […]

Max fits in with the crowd at the faux-Mexican bar where we spend several nights in August. Eight-dollar tequila shots; polo shirts tucked in or dress shirts tucked out of pre-faded jeans; groups of guests emitting an oscillating screech from every booth.[…]

Some section of men have always jealously guarded their privilege, but we are for the first time seeing what happens when that same section begins to lose the assumption of its divine right. It isn’t that they’re monsters. Max is this kind of man, and he is not some fountain of malevolence. He is the mildest kind. I spent August with a well-adjusted man in a polo shirt who would never think to hurt someone except in self-defense, but he comes from a pot where new anger is boiling.

I was a little surprised that they would so openly lead with such a blatant caricature. I mean, if somebody wrote “In the popular imagination, feminists are man-hating harpies, but I had dinner with Anita Sarkeesian, and she’s really quite nice…” it would rightly be ridiculed as preposterously regressive. I’m not sure leading off this profile with “neckbeards” is a huge improvement.

Of course, I’m at a disadvantage reading this, because “Max” is anonymized enough that I don’t have any idea what he wrote on social media that prompted this profile. Maybe he was, contrary to what he says, much more of a “fountain of malevolence” in his online persona. But Rensin lets those assertions go by unchallenged, so it’s hard to believe he was a real hard case.

Beyond that, you know, it’s 2015. The Internet has been around for decades, and I’ve been reading pith-helmeted anthropological reporting about how people who hang out online aren’t really the lowest sort of geek stereotype for over twenty years, now. Shouldn’t we be past being amazed that people don’t actually resemble the Internet caricatures of their behavior? Particularly in journalism outlets that exist only on-line, founded by some of those not-actually-a-cartoon-nerd blogger kids from the early 2000s?

(I’m a little sensitive to this, as Kate and I met through a Usenet newsgroup back in the 90’s. So I’ve spent 15-odd years biting back snide replies to people hearing that story and saying “But you guys seem so normal…”)

With the exception of a handful of genuinely mentally disturbed individuals, pretty much everybody you run into on-line is pretty normal in person. Even political activists with over-the-top online personae. I met PZ Myers at a ScienceBlogs thing mumble years ago, and he’s pretty much what you would guess from his day job– a Midwestern college professor. He wasn’t badgering the waitstaff about their religious beliefs, or anything, and I didn’t expect he would be, because I’m not an asshole. (Not that kind of asshole, anyway.)

Don’t get me wrong– “Max” sounds like a bit of a douchebag, and his political views are unappealing when they’re not incoherent. But it’s not remotely surprising that he comes off as “well-adjusted,” or particularly “curious” that he has a girlfriend (a later bit that made me roll my eyes). Rensin’s whole approach to the article, starting with that introduction, is sufficiently condescending that given the choice, I’d probably rather have a beer with “Max” than spend an evening with the guy whose political views are nominally more congenial.

What ought to be interesting in this piece is why an apparently well-adjusted guy would end up thinking and behaving this way, but while there are attempts to get at this, they don’t have much depth, both because “Max” is too anonymous to establish any real tension and because Rensin is too determined to establish his superiority to the people he’s interviewing. The piece ends with a hint that “Max” is maturing somewhat– the last conversation reported suggests that he’s backing away from his earlier actions– and that evolution could’ve been genuinely interesting to explore, but it’s too perfunctory.

So, in the end, not a terrible idea for an article, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired.

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1zWs5eX

After a quick snowstorm, strong winds cleared the sky

Photo credit: Samuel Markey

Who’s not a sucker for sky-water twilight reflections? Especially with the sky’s brightest planet, Venus, shining in the twilight and Mars nearby.

Samuel Markey took this photo on Friday January 30, 2015 at 18:20 EST and shared it with EarthSky. Thank you Samuel!

See more photos by Samuel Markey

Enjoying EarthSky? Sign up for our free daily newsletter today!

from EarthSky http://ift.tt/1D4HYQW

Photo credit: Samuel Markey

Who’s not a sucker for sky-water twilight reflections? Especially with the sky’s brightest planet, Venus, shining in the twilight and Mars nearby.

Samuel Markey took this photo on Friday January 30, 2015 at 18:20 EST and shared it with EarthSky. Thank you Samuel!

See more photos by Samuel Markey

Enjoying EarthSky? Sign up for our free daily newsletter today!

from EarthSky http://ift.tt/1D4HYQW

Will the Disneyland measles outbreak lead to the end of non-medical exemptions to school vaccine mandates? (It should) [Respectful Insolence]

Well, the ongoing multistate measles outbreak that’s been in the news for the last few weeks continues apace, which means I can’t seem to stay away from the issue for more than a couple of days. For instance, yesterday I learned that five babies at a Chicago-area day care have been diagnosed with the measles. All the babies are under a year old and therefore too young to have received the MMR vaccine yet. At this point, I’m betting that most likely the baby who brought the measles to the KinderCare Day Care with this measles outbreak got it from an older unvaccinated sibling, but time will tell if that’s true. In any case, after all the time advocates of science-based medicine and opponents of the antivaccine movement have been worrying and warning that vaccination rates have fallen perilously low in certain pockets that outbreaks have become possible, it finally seems to be happening, and it’s profoundly disturbing.

On the other hand, if there is a silver lining in this dark stormy cloud it’s that regular people (as opposed to skeptics) are finally starting to pay attention and believe that there’s a problem, so much so that people are starting to show signs of actually wanting to do something about it. More on that in a moment, but first let’s look at the magnitude of the problem, as described yesterday in USA TODAY:

Nearly one in seven public and private schools have measles vaccination rates below 90% — a rate considered inadequate to provide immunity, according to a USA TODAY analysis of immunization data in 13 states.

Hundreds of thousands of students attend schools — ranging from small, private academies in New York City to large public elementary schools outside Boston to Native American reservation schools in Idaho — where vaccination rates have dropped precipitously low, sometimes under 50%. California, Vermont, Rhode Island, Arizona, Minnesota, Florida, Illinois, North Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia also were included in the analysis.

A frequent claim made by antivaccinationists is that there’s no cause for concern because, overall, vaccine uptake is high. However, that’s vaccine uptake averaged out over entire states. As the USA TODAY analysis shows, there are lots of schools in just a 13 state sample with dangerously low MMR uptake, and that’s all that’s needed for outbreaks to begin and be sustained: Populations with MMR uptake too low to maintain herd immunity. Also:

The 13-state sample shows what many experts have long feared: People opposed to vaccinations tend to live near each other, leaving some schools dangerously vulnerable, while other schools are fully protected.

The clusters create hot spots that state immunization rates can mask. In the 32 public elementary schools in Boise, Idaho, for example, vaccination rates for measles in 2013-14 ranged from 84.5% at William Howard Taft Elementary to 100% at Adams Elementary, just 4 miles away.

Some clusters are among people who have philosophical objections to vaccines; other clusters are in poorer neighborhoods, where parents do not stay up to date with their children’s vaccinations.

What was disturbing about this survey went beyond just the finding of low MMR uptake in so many schools and that people opposed to vaccines tend to cluster. USA TODAY reports that a lot of states wouldn’t provide their reporters with school-level data, citing health privacy laws. Of course, one wonders how simply providing school-level vaccine uptake rates would violate health privacy if no student-level information is provided. More disturbing is that several states don’t even keep track of school-level vaccine uptake rates, states such as Maine, Arkansas, Alaska and Colorado. What we also know is that, although the CDC sets a federal goal of 95% of kindergarteners being vaccinated with MMR, in the 2013-2014 school year, 28 states and thousands of schools did not meet that standard.

The finding that vaccine refusers tend to cluster geographically is not a new finding. It’s a finding that has been noted in several studies over the last several years, such as a study from 2008 noting an association between the geographic clustering of nonmedical exemptions and pertussis and a 2013 study with similar findings. Just last month, a study examining children with membership in Kaiser Permanente Northern California involving 154,424 children in 13 counties with continuous membership from birth to 36 months of age also found that underimmunization and vaccine refusal cluster. Wonkblog tried to extend this analysis to all of California and showed a disturbing increase in personal belief exemptions from 2000 to 2013 leading to clusters of undervaccinated children throughout the state.

Although low socioeconomic status is associated with low vaccine uptake due to being medically underserved, by far the largest contributor to pockets of low vaccine uptake appears to be the rise of nonmedical exemptions, exemptions to school vaccine mandates that are based on either religion or “personal belief,” the latter of which, despite being portrayed as some sort of moral or philosophical opposition, basically boils down to parents saying, “I dont’ want to.” Of all the states in the US, only two, Mississippi and West Virginia, do not permit nonmedical exemptions. Twenty states allow philosophical/personal belief exemptions, as I just discussed the other day.

This is a problem that the ongoing measles outbreak might be finally prodding lawmakers to address. For example:

Gov. Jerry Brown, who preserved religious exemptions to state vaccination requirements in 2012, on Wednesday appeared open to legislation that would eliminate all but medical waivers.

The governor’s new flexibility highlighted a growing momentum toward limiting vaccination exemptions partly blamed for the state’s worst outbreak of measles since 2000 and flare-ups of whooping cough and other preventable illnesses.

California Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer urged state officials to reconsider California’s vaccination policies Wednesday in a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Diana Dooley.

Brown’s spokesman, Evan Westrup, said the governor “believes that vaccinations are profoundly important and a major public health benefit, and any bill that reaches his desk will be closely considered.”

Earlier, five lawmakers had said they would introduce legislation that would abolish all religious and other personal-beliefs exemptions for parents who do not want their children vaccinated before starting school.

Gov. Brown, unfortunately, betrayed California children a couple of years ago after the California legislature, in an attempt to make personal belief exemptions a little more difficult to obtain, passed a bill that required parents to have a health care professional (doctors, advanced practice nurses, and, unfortunately, naturopaths) provide them with informed consent about the risks of not vaccinating before signing the exemption form every year. What did Gov. Brown do? Basically, when he signed the bill, he added a signing statement instructing the California Department of Public Health to “allow for a separate religious exemption on the form” so that “people whose religious beliefs preclude vaccinations will not be required to seek a health care practitioner’s signature.” Never mind that Brown’s signing statement did not have the force of law and should have had no power to compel the Department of Public Health to add a religious exemption line to the form. Basically, in one fell swoop, Gov. Brown completely neutered the bill, an action he is still defending in the light of measles outbreaks:

The governor’s office says that since the bill took effect, those exemptions have decreased by nearly 20%, from 3.15% of children in the 2013-14 school year to 2.54% in 2014-15.

Brown was criticized by some health experts, however, for exempting parents with religious objections from meeting with a medical professional.

On Wednesday, Brown’s representatives would not directly address whether the religious exemption should be repealed or maintained, but they noted that those are claimed by only about 0.5% of kindergarten students.

Well, two can play the relative decrease game. That 0.5% of kindergarteners would be nearly one-fifth, or 20% of the remaining exemptions. So basically, Gov. Brown facilitated roughly 20% of exemptions by making it unnecessary for those parents to go through even the minimal hurdle of the law to exempt their children from school vaccine mandates. That’s hardly anything to be proud of. In any case, Gov. Brown could potentially single-handedly drive the nonmedical exemption rate 20% lower by repealing his signing statement and instructing the Department of Public Health to do what it should have been doing all along: Enforcing the law as written and passed by the legislature.

It’s interesting that the same Governor who betrayed California children so egregiously by subverting the intent of a law passed by the legislature is now apparently signaling readiness to sign a bill that would eliminate all nonmedical exemptions in the most populous state in the nation. Meanwhile, the legislature through which this bill had to be pushed, with proponents fighting tooth and nail to keep the antivaccine-sympathetic and libertarian-leaning contingent from blocking it or watering it down is actually considering introducing such a bill.

I hope the legislature, if it considers a bill to ban nonmedical exemptions, starts out strong, because, consistent with recent bleatings from some Republicans, there are libertarian groups lining up to fight it:

Matthew B. McReynolds of the Pacific Justice Institute, a conservative Sacramento-based organization that advocates for parental rights and religious freedoms, said removing the exemptions would be an overreaction and a dismissal of legitimate concerns about vaccines by some parents.

“It’s concerning to me that the measles outbreak seems to have prompted some hysteria,” he said, “and this seems like a pretty sweeping approach to what really is a very limited problem that could be addressed in other ways.”

Really? What “other” ways?

Interestingly, Mississippi, which is one of the two states that don’t allow nonmedical exemptions, recently witnessed an attempt to permit nonmedical exemptions via a bill (HB 130) promoted by a local antivaccine group, Mississippi Parents for Vaccine Rights. It failed, the measure having been stripped from a bill designed to codify vaccine exemption policy, but it still has a pernicious component left, specifically a provision that would prevent the Health Department from denying requests for medical exemptions it doesn’t consider valid. Instead, the law stipulates that the opinion of a child’s pediatrician that certain vaccines are medically contraindicated will be final and that the school must take it. You can see why antivaccine activists want this. They can then find their very own Mississippi Dr. Jay Gordons and Dr. Bob Sears to churn out letters stating that vaccines are medically contraindicated for their children. It also allows doctors in bordering states to provide parents with such letters.

I’m guessing that the Disneyland measles outbreak couldn’t have come at a worse time for antivaccinationists in Mississippi. Here they were, having finally gotten a bill to allow personal belief exemptions seriously considered in the state legislature, and its momentum was stopped dead by a major measles outbreak. Good. Mississippi is an example of a state doing it right, and the measles outbreak elsewhere in the country, as bad as it is, at least has the salutary effect of reminding Mississippi legislators of what they are doing right. For example, in the 2013-2014 school year 99.7% of kindergarteners in Mississippi were vaccinated for measles, and only 17 medical exemptions were approved in the whole state.

It’s become increasingly clear that the time has come for the elimination of nonmedical exemptions altogether. Just getting rid of personal belief exemptions isn’t enough, and it would be unfair because the persistence of religious exemptions would privilege religious belief over nonbelief. Since no compelling interest is served by either personal belief or religious exemptions, it’s time to eliminate them. Failing that, at the very least states should track vaccine uptake and personal belief exemptions at the school level and publicly publish these data, the better to allow pro-vaccine parents to avoid schools where vaccine uptake is too low to maintain herd immunity.

Who’d have imagined that in anything I’d be urging the rest of the US to become more like Mississippi?

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1Dlt4pV

Well, the ongoing multistate measles outbreak that’s been in the news for the last few weeks continues apace, which means I can’t seem to stay away from the issue for more than a couple of days. For instance, yesterday I learned that five babies at a Chicago-area day care have been diagnosed with the measles. All the babies are under a year old and therefore too young to have received the MMR vaccine yet. At this point, I’m betting that most likely the baby who brought the measles to the KinderCare Day Care with this measles outbreak got it from an older unvaccinated sibling, but time will tell if that’s true. In any case, after all the time advocates of science-based medicine and opponents of the antivaccine movement have been worrying and warning that vaccination rates have fallen perilously low in certain pockets that outbreaks have become possible, it finally seems to be happening, and it’s profoundly disturbing.

On the other hand, if there is a silver lining in this dark stormy cloud it’s that regular people (as opposed to skeptics) are finally starting to pay attention and believe that there’s a problem, so much so that people are starting to show signs of actually wanting to do something about it. More on that in a moment, but first let’s look at the magnitude of the problem, as described yesterday in USA TODAY:

Nearly one in seven public and private schools have measles vaccination rates below 90% — a rate considered inadequate to provide immunity, according to a USA TODAY analysis of immunization data in 13 states.

Hundreds of thousands of students attend schools — ranging from small, private academies in New York City to large public elementary schools outside Boston to Native American reservation schools in Idaho — where vaccination rates have dropped precipitously low, sometimes under 50%. California, Vermont, Rhode Island, Arizona, Minnesota, Florida, Illinois, North Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia also were included in the analysis.

A frequent claim made by antivaccinationists is that there’s no cause for concern because, overall, vaccine uptake is high. However, that’s vaccine uptake averaged out over entire states. As the USA TODAY analysis shows, there are lots of schools in just a 13 state sample with dangerously low MMR uptake, and that’s all that’s needed for outbreaks to begin and be sustained: Populations with MMR uptake too low to maintain herd immunity. Also:

The 13-state sample shows what many experts have long feared: People opposed to vaccinations tend to live near each other, leaving some schools dangerously vulnerable, while other schools are fully protected.

The clusters create hot spots that state immunization rates can mask. In the 32 public elementary schools in Boise, Idaho, for example, vaccination rates for measles in 2013-14 ranged from 84.5% at William Howard Taft Elementary to 100% at Adams Elementary, just 4 miles away.

Some clusters are among people who have philosophical objections to vaccines; other clusters are in poorer neighborhoods, where parents do not stay up to date with their children’s vaccinations.

What was disturbing about this survey went beyond just the finding of low MMR uptake in so many schools and that people opposed to vaccines tend to cluster. USA TODAY reports that a lot of states wouldn’t provide their reporters with school-level data, citing health privacy laws. Of course, one wonders how simply providing school-level vaccine uptake rates would violate health privacy if no student-level information is provided. More disturbing is that several states don’t even keep track of school-level vaccine uptake rates, states such as Maine, Arkansas, Alaska and Colorado. What we also know is that, although the CDC sets a federal goal of 95% of kindergarteners being vaccinated with MMR, in the 2013-2014 school year, 28 states and thousands of schools did not meet that standard.

The finding that vaccine refusers tend to cluster geographically is not a new finding. It’s a finding that has been noted in several studies over the last several years, such as a study from 2008 noting an association between the geographic clustering of nonmedical exemptions and pertussis and a 2013 study with similar findings. Just last month, a study examining children with membership in Kaiser Permanente Northern California involving 154,424 children in 13 counties with continuous membership from birth to 36 months of age also found that underimmunization and vaccine refusal cluster. Wonkblog tried to extend this analysis to all of California and showed a disturbing increase in personal belief exemptions from 2000 to 2013 leading to clusters of undervaccinated children throughout the state.

Although low socioeconomic status is associated with low vaccine uptake due to being medically underserved, by far the largest contributor to pockets of low vaccine uptake appears to be the rise of nonmedical exemptions, exemptions to school vaccine mandates that are based on either religion or “personal belief,” the latter of which, despite being portrayed as some sort of moral or philosophical opposition, basically boils down to parents saying, “I dont’ want to.” Of all the states in the US, only two, Mississippi and West Virginia, do not permit nonmedical exemptions. Twenty states allow philosophical/personal belief exemptions, as I just discussed the other day.

This is a problem that the ongoing measles outbreak might be finally prodding lawmakers to address. For example:

Gov. Jerry Brown, who preserved religious exemptions to state vaccination requirements in 2012, on Wednesday appeared open to legislation that would eliminate all but medical waivers.

The governor’s new flexibility highlighted a growing momentum toward limiting vaccination exemptions partly blamed for the state’s worst outbreak of measles since 2000 and flare-ups of whooping cough and other preventable illnesses.

California Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer urged state officials to reconsider California’s vaccination policies Wednesday in a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Diana Dooley.

Brown’s spokesman, Evan Westrup, said the governor “believes that vaccinations are profoundly important and a major public health benefit, and any bill that reaches his desk will be closely considered.”

Earlier, five lawmakers had said they would introduce legislation that would abolish all religious and other personal-beliefs exemptions for parents who do not want their children vaccinated before starting school.

Gov. Brown, unfortunately, betrayed California children a couple of years ago after the California legislature, in an attempt to make personal belief exemptions a little more difficult to obtain, passed a bill that required parents to have a health care professional (doctors, advanced practice nurses, and, unfortunately, naturopaths) provide them with informed consent about the risks of not vaccinating before signing the exemption form every year. What did Gov. Brown do? Basically, when he signed the bill, he added a signing statement instructing the California Department of Public Health to “allow for a separate religious exemption on the form” so that “people whose religious beliefs preclude vaccinations will not be required to seek a health care practitioner’s signature.” Never mind that Brown’s signing statement did not have the force of law and should have had no power to compel the Department of Public Health to add a religious exemption line to the form. Basically, in one fell swoop, Gov. Brown completely neutered the bill, an action he is still defending in the light of measles outbreaks:

The governor’s office says that since the bill took effect, those exemptions have decreased by nearly 20%, from 3.15% of children in the 2013-14 school year to 2.54% in 2014-15.

Brown was criticized by some health experts, however, for exempting parents with religious objections from meeting with a medical professional.

On Wednesday, Brown’s representatives would not directly address whether the religious exemption should be repealed or maintained, but they noted that those are claimed by only about 0.5% of kindergarten students.

Well, two can play the relative decrease game. That 0.5% of kindergarteners would be nearly one-fifth, or 20% of the remaining exemptions. So basically, Gov. Brown facilitated roughly 20% of exemptions by making it unnecessary for those parents to go through even the minimal hurdle of the law to exempt their children from school vaccine mandates. That’s hardly anything to be proud of. In any case, Gov. Brown could potentially single-handedly drive the nonmedical exemption rate 20% lower by repealing his signing statement and instructing the Department of Public Health to do what it should have been doing all along: Enforcing the law as written and passed by the legislature.

It’s interesting that the same Governor who betrayed California children so egregiously by subverting the intent of a law passed by the legislature is now apparently signaling readiness to sign a bill that would eliminate all nonmedical exemptions in the most populous state in the nation. Meanwhile, the legislature through which this bill had to be pushed, with proponents fighting tooth and nail to keep the antivaccine-sympathetic and libertarian-leaning contingent from blocking it or watering it down is actually considering introducing such a bill.

I hope the legislature, if it considers a bill to ban nonmedical exemptions, starts out strong, because, consistent with recent bleatings from some Republicans, there are libertarian groups lining up to fight it:

Matthew B. McReynolds of the Pacific Justice Institute, a conservative Sacramento-based organization that advocates for parental rights and religious freedoms, said removing the exemptions would be an overreaction and a dismissal of legitimate concerns about vaccines by some parents.

“It’s concerning to me that the measles outbreak seems to have prompted some hysteria,” he said, “and this seems like a pretty sweeping approach to what really is a very limited problem that could be addressed in other ways.”

Really? What “other” ways?

Interestingly, Mississippi, which is one of the two states that don’t allow nonmedical exemptions, recently witnessed an attempt to permit nonmedical exemptions via a bill (HB 130) promoted by a local antivaccine group, Mississippi Parents for Vaccine Rights. It failed, the measure having been stripped from a bill designed to codify vaccine exemption policy, but it still has a pernicious component left, specifically a provision that would prevent the Health Department from denying requests for medical exemptions it doesn’t consider valid. Instead, the law stipulates that the opinion of a child’s pediatrician that certain vaccines are medically contraindicated will be final and that the school must take it. You can see why antivaccine activists want this. They can then find their very own Mississippi Dr. Jay Gordons and Dr. Bob Sears to churn out letters stating that vaccines are medically contraindicated for their children. It also allows doctors in bordering states to provide parents with such letters.

I’m guessing that the Disneyland measles outbreak couldn’t have come at a worse time for antivaccinationists in Mississippi. Here they were, having finally gotten a bill to allow personal belief exemptions seriously considered in the state legislature, and its momentum was stopped dead by a major measles outbreak. Good. Mississippi is an example of a state doing it right, and the measles outbreak elsewhere in the country, as bad as it is, at least has the salutary effect of reminding Mississippi legislators of what they are doing right. For example, in the 2013-2014 school year 99.7% of kindergarteners in Mississippi were vaccinated for measles, and only 17 medical exemptions were approved in the whole state.

It’s become increasingly clear that the time has come for the elimination of nonmedical exemptions altogether. Just getting rid of personal belief exemptions isn’t enough, and it would be unfair because the persistence of religious exemptions would privilege religious belief over nonbelief. Since no compelling interest is served by either personal belief or religious exemptions, it’s time to eliminate them. Failing that, at the very least states should track vaccine uptake and personal belief exemptions at the school level and publicly publish these data, the better to allow pro-vaccine parents to avoid schools where vaccine uptake is too low to maintain herd immunity.

Who’d have imagined that in anything I’d be urging the rest of the US to become more like Mississippi?

from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1Dlt4pV