Good evening, 919 Gang. I told Mary
the movie “Dark Waters” is the reason I NEVER drink water. It’s not true, of
course, but that excuse will do until I come up with a better one.
MIRIAM
RAFTERY
writes:
“Dark Waters” is excellent. Watching
it, one detail rang a bell with me regarding PFOA, the long-chain chemical that
was poisoning the town in the movie. I recalled seeing this on a list of fire
retardant ingredients.
After the movie I went straight to a restaurant
nearby with a fellow journalist. We starting searching on Google. Sure enough,
it turns out this stuff has contaminated many military bases in California that
used a firefighting foam with the toxin that never breaks down. It’s used to
fight fires started by flammable liquids. It’s also contaminated water in some
towns around military bases and God knows where else. As far as I can tell,
it’s not in fire retardant sprayed to combat forest or brush fires, though the
makers are secretive about that – they say it’s a “fertilizer” based product
that’s supposedly nontoxic used to fight forest and brush fires, though it has
some secret chemical ingredients not disclosed, so who really knows.
The Teflon chemical is found IN the
blood of 99% of the world’s population, if the movie is correct. There are a
few variations on the name, all of them equally harmful. I wonder how many
places besides military bases have used that firefighting foam? We’re sending records
requests out to local fire agencies to find out. How many other places are
contaminated?
What else are PFOA chemical compounds
in? Just about anything that is water repellant, from rain slickers to
waterproof mascara and even some makeup applied directly to the skin.
Horrifying that our government is protecting the corporate poisoners over the
public health – still, with some of these products still on the market.
REBER: I have done some reading on this. I suggest you do your own. It is
not unusual to find differing opinions on these matters.
“PFOA is used in the creation of Teflon, but it
burns off and is not in Teflon.
“In 2006, the EPA asked eight major U.S.
companies that made and used PFOA to stop making the chemical by 2015, which
they did. The EPA requires firms that manufacture or import substances like
PFOA to alert the agency 90 days before they create new uses for these
chemicals.
“Your local government can lower levels of PFOA
in water with various treatments.
“The efforts are working: PFOA levels in people
are lower -- at least in the U.S. Researchers have seen a 40% decrease in PFOA
in blood tested between 2000 and 2010.”
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REBER: Last
night Lisa Petrillo recommended a
Washington Post article on machine learning. The link didn’t work out, so here’s a
repeat:
LISA
PETRILLO
writes:
This is a great WaPo video about using machine
learning -- a data science tool -- to do stories. They talk about how they got
the idea, suspected there was some danger to people especially teens and
preteens, and researched using machine learning. This allowed them to sort
through huge caches of data, have it automatically feed into a searchable
spreadsheet, then set the computer to search for them.. A cyber bloodhound. So
happy to see journalism embrace new tools to fulfill its essential role in
society. Go team!
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DAVID
FARMER writes:
Roni
Breite, you're right, of course, on Linda vs. Lynda. I forgot to copy-edit
myself.
But
this gives me a chance to tell my Linda Ronstadt story. One year when Jerry
Brown was running for president, he held a fundraiser in a Mexican restaurant
called Lucy's El Adobe, just across the street from the Paramount studio. It's
a movie industry watering hole.
Linda
was dating Jerry at the time, and she provided the entertainment. She swirled
through the dining room in a Mexican* dress, passing within a couple of feet of
where my wife and I were slugging down margaritas. It was the closest I've ever
been to a world-class performer in the process of performing. This is what she
looked like:
Here's
Linda with Jerry on a formal occasion:
I
think they broke up when he lost his hair. He now more closely resembles a
light bulb (kidding.)
*She's
of Mexican heritage, and had a big hit in 1987 with her album "Canciones
de Mi Padre" (Songs of My Father.)
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CARL
LARSEN
writes:
The New York Times breaks a fascinating story
about the Epstein case involving a mysterious whistleblower and two prominent
attorneys who wanted to involve the newspaper in a scheme that would have
collided with justice for the Epstein victims.
P.O.
Box 2239
Ramona,
CA 92065-0938
United
States
