Thursday's postcard, brief notes, and photographic breaths of autumnal air

September 28, 2023

Young mule deer buck at sunrise west of Spokane

Notes on the door…

I’m scheduled to be on an airplane to Denver later today and very much looking forward to having dinner with my son, whom I dearly miss. I’ll be back at my desk middle of next week, so don’t be too concerned by the absence of The Daily Rhubarb in the interim. In the meantime, the full index of TDR is available here, at my Rhubarb Skies website A few content notes:

•In writing yesterday’s piece on climate change, carbon dioxide emissions, and burning witches, I fussed over how much science to inject. I’m used to showing my math, so to speak. But the paradox on this subject is that digging too deeply into the “debate” over the core of the science can foster the misperception there are genuine, good-faith arguments over whether the planet is actually warming and/or whether human activity is the principal cause. You can see the problem—we’ve known for decades, now, that bad faith actors (typically funded by fossil fuel interests) purposefully try to create the appearance of a controversy in order to forestall government actions to reduce CO2 emissions from fossil fuels. In my view, it’s just part of a larger problem in journalism where we journalists get played with “both siderism,” creating a false equivalency that is highly misleading and undermines the public interest. But if you want or need to dig deeper into the science one source I’ll recommend is physicist Lawrence Krauss’s video lecture which I’ll insert at the bottom of today’s post. Of course, you’re always invited to engage me if you think I’ve gotten anything wrong. I’m not perfect, and I’m not trying to bowl people over—just trying to use my best judgment.

• KXLY-TV has picked up on the Spokane International Airport’s attack on the Washington Department of Ecology for naming the airport as a “liable person” under the state’s toxic waste law. Ecology has found that SIA is now responsible for addressing the “forever chemicals” found in groundwater monitoring wells at the airport. I’ll be doing more reporting on this, but the essence of the controversy is contained in my reporting from two weeks ago which you can read here. The new KXLY report includes a lengthy interview with Michele Baca of the West Plains Water Coalition who lives, like many other very concerned county residents, down-gradient from the airport and from Fairchild Air Force Base, both of which are sources for the PFAS contamination at issue. Numerous private wells on the West Plains have already tested positive for PFAS contamination. The rather obvious cause of the groundwater contamination is the presence of PFAS chemicals in fire suppression foam, most of which was dispersed during fire-fighting training exercises.

•Finally, there’s a disheartening and surreal whirlwind in the run-up to next year’s elections and the nightmarish prospect that Donald Trump may return to the White House. And then there’s Cassidy Hutchinson who has a new book out, Enough, about how she experienced the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection as the top aide to then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. She was 24 then, and is now 27.

She is a bright light in the night, so to speak, and her story is as compelling as it gets. I’m old enough to remember Watergate and the day (I was 16 at the time) I learned about Alexander Butterfield’s testimony to the Senate Watergate Committee, in which he revealed the existence of the White House taping system that recorded Richard Nixon’s complicity in the Watergate cover-up. It was an amazing event—the pivot point that turned the tide (Nixon had been immensely popular and had won the 1972 election in a landslide), leading to Nixon’s resignation. And now to learn that Ms. Hutchinson, in the throes of her crisis about whether to come forward and tell the truth about her experience in the Trump White House, found Butterfield’s story and reached out to him. It’s powerful stuff and truly gave me chills. Here’s a sample of it, from her appearance on MSNBC earlier this week.

Be back next week. Happy Autumn…tc

Aspen at the Ancient Lakes trailhead, south of Quincy, WA

Tiny vortices and reflected coulds in the Little Spokane River.

Sage and fall color on the flanks of Steamboat Rock in upper Grand Coulee

Tumwater Canyon, west of Leavenworth, WA

Willow leaves and rushing water at the Sandifur footbridge on the Spokane River

Autumn in the Huckleberry Mountains west of Chewelah, WA

Blooming rabbitbrush on the Walla Walla River near Wallula Gap in southeast Washington