Toward Fruitbody 🍄

It has been three weeks since we attended the mushroom propagation workshop hosted by Gnomestead Hollow Farm and Forage, a three hour event followed by Driftwood Catering’s wild mushroom fungi-to-table dinner, an all-in-all rhizomatic and friendly time, with attendees from neighboring counties and as far away as Tennessee and North Carolina. We stuffed four bags with blends of straw, millet, and sawdust, along with crumbled cultivars (busted up blocks) of a couple of different kinds of mushrooms. They sat in a cooler in the well house for the past three weeks; two of the bags are ready for slitting, but the other two didn’t turn out. One principally straw-based bag molded; another underfilled millet bag held too much moisture and, as such, appeared underdeveloped and questionable.

Figure 1. Two successful (so far) propagation attempts, Italian oyster mushrooms in a millet+straw substrate.

For the two good bags, the slits are set—two per bag, about 1.5 inches each, one set in the shape of an I and the other in the shape of a plus sign, because we’re learning. Each slit now gets a few mists of water 3-4 times per day, and this is supposed to prompt fruiting, what we hope will become yields of enough oyster mushrooms to enjoy for a meal or two. And all of this is precursor to a longer-projected attempt at more routinely propagating mushrooms so these home cultivated varieties can be a regular feature in evening meals.

Sum-Sum-Sum

Figure 1. Bitumen observing “Bitumen on the Run Swing.”

So signals the end of summer “fata morgana” break, 2023, an occasion I mark today with a low grade fever, scratchy throat, and raw-rusted cough crossed between smashberried larynx and tetanus positive muffler. However, I did manage both to get the Virginia vehicle inspection tended to this morning AND double back to the DMV for round two of Virginia driver’s license (round one ending with DMV employee chorus singing “systems are down”), so, yeah, not an entirely unproductive day in the category of administering a life, even if I did lie on the couch for a couple of hours watching old Barker-era Price Is Right episodes, while sipping Vernors and thinking I don’t know how to feel about the fact that many of the people on this program (studio audience, contestants, etc.) have by now ferried across the Styx.

Among the goings-on this summer have been

  1. Emptying the Ypsi condo of its last and not least things, carting them to Virginia—notably 500 miles with a tiny Uhaul trailer on the Fourth of July—and then listing the condo for sale. If all continues to go as planned, it’ll close next week.
  2. With Virginia neighbors, organizing and responding to a proposed rubble landfill that, had it gone through, would have sent thousands of loaded dump trucks rumbling down our too-narrow gravel road over a decade.
  3. Hosting several friends and family for meals and get-togethers, which, while altogether enjoyable, has gradually become more of a chicken de-feces-ing ritual, given that the mixed flock frequents the porch and that each of the six defecates on average (like all chickens) 50 times per day.
  4. Sorting out the critter seal-off in the attic of the upper shed, declaring it hardware clothed at the seams and squirrel free by mid-late July, then moving shelves from the lower shop to the back shed, demo-ing gnarly bird-nested insulation in the lower shop, replacing the insulation and fitting replacement wallboard. Good as new? Hard to say. New was 1987, Sheena Easton. But it’s on track for becoming good as well-used, becoming usable and, eventually, useful again. I also confirmed that the electrical overload issues in the lower shop were from the heat lamps for the chicks in April, which likely overloaded the circuit breaker. Wall plugs are on just a 15 amp breaker, and it breaks irregularly, likely needing to be replaced. But in terms of electrical wiring, the rest of it is all fine bzzt and good zzp.
  5. Adding a 9th tattoo, Bitumen on the Run Swing. Thanks to Janet Nelson, on August 1, I had set in ink the moment when Bitumen was spotted out the window taking a first (and only?) turn on the decorative swing in the chicken run, fiercely leaned in but balanced, pumping her wings for max height, a gathering of that rare intense glee of 1980s recesses when swinging highest was a felt accomplishment and highlight of a school day.
  6. iPad Procreate drawing not as much as I hoped to, but something like seven drawings with a few mock-ups in progress.
  7. Ending a ten year turn as Writing Program Administrator, between EMU and VT. From June 30 through July 20 or so, I put up an out of office response, but then I learned that it probably wasn’t necessary, since I was getting so few emails and anyone reaching out to me by that point likely knew I was WPA emeritus. And this is probably as big of a deal as anything else that happened this summer, though Bitumen’s swinging for outer space is far more tattoo-worthy. It’s a very different feeling not to be sitting in an administrative appointment, and especially not to be suffering the swells of unpredictable and unregulated email influxes. I don’t miss that one bit. The next horizon, though, remains somewhat unclear, but for right now I am working on not leaping too quickly or conclusively into a next-nuther big project nor reaching any grand conclusions about hard-set paths.
  8. Attending a couple of webinars on AI and academic freedom, reading around on AI well enough to form an approach I will be morally satisfied with in my teaching throughout the year ahead, and pacing on review tasks for article manuscripts and P&T letters, though I am possibly overcommitted on these and wishing—again!—that I hadn’t taken on as much. Slow to learn risks becoming “he never learned that lesson.”
  9. And more, always more, forever more: a copperhead the chickens alerted us to the other day but that got away before I could reach it, switching from HughestNet to Starlink so we finally have sufficient internet speeds at home, a few UCW meetings related to elections and expanding the message about how unions chance ensuring that a workplace is good for everyone, mowing, trail cams showing bears and deer and more, grand flushes of chanterelles on turkey slope, two wind-toppled trees chainsaw-chunked and stacked, a mushroom propagation workshop with Gnomestead Hollow, and frequent swims and aquajogs at the aquatic center, especially throughout July.

Goodfine sum, fast sum, blinked twice, blur sum.

Flock of the Pines 🐓

Figure 1. Bagawk Bawk Side of the Moon. I have yet to post this drawing from early May (5/11/2023) because this summer has been more slip-n-slide accelerometer than planned and patterned desk-sits.

Today, like most days in the past week, the Wonder Hollow Six has wandered farther than before from their run and coop. As early in the day as the pin holding the run door gets lifted, without so much as a good-bye flap or side glance, they’re zip…gone. Door busters. And that leaves us, their lookouts and keepers, a tad nervous. We’re committed to their free-ranging. They do seem genuinely contented by the openness of their peck-what-you-will days. But they also seem genuinely naive in that they haven’t had many bona fide predator encounters. Only that one set of raccoon mud prints on the side of their Eglu cube, and when that happened the chances were good they corning and gritting deep in the dreamscape.

They’ve taken to the woods, undoubtedly because it is, for chickens, a cool and shaded carnival with lots of scratchable leafy detritus covering the ground, edged with poison ivy and wine berries, which they’re said to enjoy, and a carpet of soft-bodied wormy assorteds to feast upon. In the woods, no boredom; only food and fun.

We do check on them periodically. Yes, they’re still there, kicking leaves and razing foliage, a hop beyond Moon House and the forsythia stand, in the pines, in the pines, where the sun don’t ever shine. Mid-afternoon, back from a “dump run” to the Montgomery County Waste Site on Pilot Road, I found the six were unexpectedly sunning themselves on the moon house stairs, Bitumen and Lightfoot with their wings extended, doing beached seal imitations, eyes slowly closing before napjerks called them back, and again. Looking closer at them, their crops were distended, more overstuffed than I’d seen before, kind of like when Yoki (who was a puggle) busted into his 40 lb dog food bag and ate so much he nearly split his trousers around, when was that?, 2008.

Our hope is that they are alert in the woods, that they are learning, that whatever they are eating in the woods is more good for them than bad for them. By respecting their free-ranging and by therefore courting the risks associated with being a young, flightless bird in the woods where there are hawks nesting nearby, where a possum and groundhog possibly share a subterranean burrow network, where predators occasionally lurk, I know freshly that feeling of groundlessness and the limits of control. The six have each other in a super-organismic way, and so it’s true, too, that their being more than alone gives these conditions a halo of friendliness, like it’ll be okay, come what will.

Comments in Response

In mid-late June while driving home one day, I noticed a formal, official notice posted on a small plastic sign at the entrance to a neighbor’s driveway. Here’s the sign, in case you want to see it for yourself.

Figure 1. Sign indicating a scheduled public hearing in Montgomery County, Va.

The driveway+sign shown here is approximately six tenths of a mile down the road; I live at the end of the road, approximately two tenths of a mile farther on down the way. We don’t have especially robust internet at home, which of course means the QR code is almost a practical joke 😆, but I did call the number and I talked with someone in the Montgomery County Planning and GIS Office. Above all, I was curious at that time about how other neighbors would be notified about this proposed special use permit, and I was told that by law the hearing must be posted on the property in question, that all adjacent property owners would receive noticed via USPS mail, and that something would be published for two weeks in a local newspaper. I was also told that the Planning and GIS Office had gone a step farther than was required by law to include mailers to secondarily adjacent landowners. The conversation was helpful and constructive; we watched for the mailer to arrive, and we began talking with neighbors about what, if any, concerns and questions they had.

Later, we learned that comments could be made in writing, in person at the July 12 public hearing, or both. Because in-person comments are limited to only three minutes per person, we went ahead with drafting a document meant to organize questions and concerns. This is a new process for us; comments in response to proposed re-zoning and special use permits are not a genre I have any experience with, though I did serve on a grad committee about public hearings, and so I am familiar with these events being a long-established model for Commonwealth governance. What follows, then, are the written comments we prepared and submitted on July 5.


Comments in response to Application for Special Use Permit (SUP – 2023 – 00690)

Montgomery County, Virginia; June 2023

Respectfully submitted by Derek Mueller (dereknmueller@gmail.com) and Amelia Salisbury [■■■■■■■■■■], 2537 Rosemary Road, Christiansburg, VA 24073

We understand the established legal limit for “clean earth fill” disposal on privately owned property is 15,000 CY. We also understand that SUP – 2023 – 00690 seeks approval for depositing 115,000 CY of fill/debris, 7.67 times the established limit, on a privately owned parcel of land that can only be accessed via Franklin/Pilot Road, Craigs Mountain Road, and Rosemary Road. The timeframe for hauling and depositing this volume is 3-10 years. Moving a volume of 115,000 CY will require between approximately 8,000 (if one load equals 14 CY on average) and 11,500 (if one load equals 10 CY on average) dump truck loads over the proposed timeframe. The application for the special use permit identifies EC Pace (https://ecpace.com/), an excavation and road development contractor based in Roanoke, Virginia, as the party responsible for transporting all of the debris/fill. The SUP also specifies that on any given day, during daylight hours only, ~40 dump truck loads may be delivered to Parcel 110882.

We are residents of this community who have lived at 2537 Rosemary Road since 2021. In consideration of the Planning and Use Section 1.3.1, we contend that the standard of “pos[ing] no threat to public health, safety, and welfare” has not been met with regard to the required route along which the fill/debris would be transported. We believe that the project is incompatible with the established roadway, and we are seriously concerned about the inevitable hazards the proposed truck traffic will introduce to this community for up to a decade.

We do, nevertheless, respect the rights of every landowner to make common and legally allowable changes to their property.

Our concerns, however, on behalf of ourselves and all others who rely upon Craigs Mountain Road and Rosemary Road as the only means of accessing their homes, are that the proposed volume of truck traffic will introduce considerable threats to public health, safety, and welfare. We are also concerned that due diligence has not been given to anticipate the possible harms relating to water, air, and noise, nor to address how problems will be addressed and resolved should they arise. The most glaring sticking point is that Rosemary Road is not wide enough for dump trucks and residential vehicles to share the road safely.

  1. Road Maintenance. With regard to Rosemary Road, which extends .8 miles from Oak Grove south to its dead end, the gravel surface is already infrequently grated. Potholes and “chatter bumps” appear regularly and can worsen over many weeks (sometimes months) before routine maintenance repairs irregularities. For several years, Rosemary Road’s basic upkeep has required the efforts of neighborhood volunteers (Morris, Tannahill, and Smith, among them). This SUP would add heavy traffic to Rosemary Road, which would undoubtedly exacerbate these issues, compounding safety hazards.
  2. Insufficient Road Width, and Speed and Maneuverability of Large Load-bearing Trucks. In many locations along Rosemary Road, it is already difficult for residential vehicles to pass oncoming traffic safely. Montgomery County Public School buses do not travel on the road for this reason; school-aged children living on Rosemary Road and Peachtree Hill must be brought to the Oak Grove Church for pickup and dropoff. Along the road itself, frequently one of the two passing vehicles must pull to the side where possible, pull into driveway inlets, or back up to create sufficient space. This is treacherous under even the best of circumstances (broad daylight, good weather, a smooth surface), but it is especially precarious when the road is in bad shape (e.g., disrupted by potholes and run-off trenches), as it often is, or when backing up is necessary near a dead angle/curve with low visibility. The addition of significant dump truck traffic on this road poses a serious and unavoidable safety threat we believe to be incompatible with this community’s well-being. It has not yet been demonstrated that large, heavy-load vehicles can safely maneuver or back up to ensure sufficient space for residential traffic to pass unimpeded. Truck traffic is likely to introduce unpredictable delays that also interfere with residents traveling punctually to and from work, church, school, and scheduled appointments.

    As further evidence documenting this foreseeable hazard, we selected eight locations along Rosemary Road and measured from the outermost soft should on each edge of the road. The eight sampled widths, taken at approximately .1 mile intervals along the roadway were 17-1, 16-1, 15-0, 18-6 (widest), 16-2, 15-0, 16-10, and 13-9 (narrowest; near the end of the road and not in the proposed haul route, but nevertheless within the scope of Commonwealth maintenance). The average width among the sampled locations is 15-11; the range is 16-1. At more than half of the sampled points, a standard dump truck (8-6 wide) and a medium-sized SUV (6-3 wide), allowing a two-foot buffer (six inches on each shoulder and one foot in the center between the vehicles) could not safely pass each other without one of the two vehicles moving out of the way. School buses that are 8-9 wide do not travel on the road. We have included a map, photographs with measurements, and a detailed vehicle width analysis as further evidence of the many bottleneck hazards along the roadway. The detailed analysis accompanying the photos acknowledges, as well, the hazards this introduces for USPS postal carriers, as well as FedEx, UPS, and Amazon delivery drivers whose trucks will not be able to safely navigate a narrow gravel road shared by regular dump truck traffic. We welcome other stakeholders to double-check this study and to measure for themselves the road’s width in consideration of varying vehicle widths. Setting aside all other questions, cautions, and worries, Rosemary Road simply is not wide enough.
  3. EC Pace Safety Record and Responsiveness to Problems. We are aware that EC Pace is a long-established Roanoke-based company whose website says they have been in business since 1927 and who promotes safety and ethics as leading priorities. Among public-facing reviews posted on Google Reviews, however, four (or five, though one appears to be duplicated) express critical concerns about problems alleged to have been caused by EC Pace drivers. Three of the other seven comments were posted by self-identifying employees of the contractor (all three are positive); two comments are positive but do not provide any information about what the review is based upon. While this is not a comprehensive inquiry into the quality of EC Pace and its drivers, it does raise questions about whether there will be any special consideration given to driving on a dangerously narrow road, as well as who will be responsible if and when problems arise, as they have for some in our region (who also include photographic evidence, in three of the four critical reviews).
  4. Dust and Diesel Exhaust. Due to the terrain, as is common throughout rural Appalachia, many of the homes along Rosemary Road are located nearby the road. Increased traffic from large, heavy-load vehicles on Rosemary Road will introduce increased airborne particulate matter, such as dust and diesel fuel exhaust fumes, which are known to impact public health and pose health risks for residents, particularly the immunocompromised and chronically ill. Will the Montgomery County Planning Commission and Board of Supervisors require airborne particle sampling to ensure no negative changes to air quality resulting from this project? We consider increased airborne particulate matter to be an unreasonable risk and one no resident should have to assume for the next 3-10 years. [see Aneja, Isherwood, & Morgan in “Characterization of particulate matter (PM10)” from Atmospheric Environment (July 2012)].
  5. Disruption to Pedestrians. The “Traffic” item under “Additional SUP Requirements” states, “Additionally, this area has no pedestrian traffic.” This statement is factually inaccurate. Residents walk and bike along Rosemary Road, often walking with pets on leashes. Children also ride bikes on the road. The prospective dump truck traffic will render Rosemary Road unsafe for walking and bicycling by local residents.  
  6. Noise. Although the “Comprehensive Plan Justification” states that “[n]oise impacts will be minimum due to the site only operating daylight hours and due to the remoteness of the site,” this stance does not reflect a careful examination of current noise levels, the fact that some residents work irregular shifts or from home, or any evidence-based recognition of the pathways sound travels over irregular terrain in the vicinity of the proposed landfill site. Many residents hear noise (whether from livestock or large vehicles). We do not concur with the premise that “noise impacts will be minimum” (i.e., further evidence to support this assertion is due).
  7. Watershed, Erosion, and Cave Life:  Many properties on Rosemary Road share a common watershed, as well as an unnamed creek that runs the length of the road, and beyond to Elliott Creek.  It is unlikely that between 8,000 to 11,500 dump truck loads, a deposit of 115,000 CY fill/debris (from various unnamed origins), and the named “holding pond,” will not have any effect on the water features present on our properties, and the health of the water on our land and in our wells. How will the watershed be monitored? By whom? And in what ways will the reports be shared with property owners who rely upon this common watershed? We have also learned from neighbors that the landfill site may encompass one or more of the following, “cavern, sinkhole, natural pit, grotto, and rock shelter,” which are afforded protections under the Virginia Cave Protection Act (https://www.dcr.virginia.gov/natural-heritage/vcbprotact). Long-time residents of this community have said caves and caverns may be a part of the parcel proposed for special use, and we would appreciate having this issue addressed. 
  8. Contribution to Local Economy. The “Overview” section of the “Comprehensive Plan Justification” states that “the site area should help contribute to the local economy….” Residents like us have an interest in knowing what, precisely, are the contributions to the local economy in dollars and cents. Put another way, if there are tangible cost savings to Montgomery County or to EC Pace, we wish to have monetary values assigned to the statements about how this is good for the local economy. The fiscal benefits ought to be plainly visible to all parties involved in and affected by the proposal.
  9. Ethical Standard versus Minimum Legal Standard and Community Concerns. We believe that as word has spread about the application for a special use permit, there has been growing concern among residents who live along S Franklin/Pilot Road, Craigs Mountain Road, and Rosemary Road, though not all of these residents have benefitted from timely or direct notification about the public hearing. We respect that the minimum legal standard for posting applies to the fill site itself, not to the route along which the rubble landfill will be hauled. Yet, if we are serious about prioritizing the safety and well-being of the community’s residents, we would ask for a reasonable ethical standard to guide this decision—a standard that takes into consideration route-related impacts, improved communication with the public, and an extended timeframe for analyses and fact gathering, including an environmental impact analysis and a traffic analysis.

We offer these comments constructively, with due respect to the planning commission, the board of supervisors, the planning and GIS staff, and to the public hearing process, and we would also invite all who are responsible for reviewing this matter to visit Rosemary Road, to see for themselves that the assessment of residents is fair, accurate, and dedicated to the health and well-being of ourselves and our neighbors. Simply, the project proposed within this special use permit is incompatible with this community. We maintain that the standard of “pos[ing] no threat to public health, safety, and welfare” has not been met with regard to the required route along which the fill/debris would be transported, and, therefore, we request for this application to be declined until each of these items is satisfactorily addressed.

Included for Review

  1. Map and eight photographs at assorted locations along Rosemary Road annotated with road width measurements (evidence to support our conclusion that the road is not wide enough for safely bearing the proposed dump truck traffic).
  2. Vehicle width analysis relative to sampled Rosemary Road width measurements.

1. Rosemary Road Width Measurements (Map and Eight Photographs of Rosemary Road)

To view these locations with photographs on an interactive Google Map (best viewed in a Chrome web browser), please visit https://tinyurl.com/rosemaryroad or scan the QR code below with a mobile device1The QR code wasn’t necessary for this blog-posted version of the comments. . Tap or click on a marker to see the corresponding photo (photos are also provided on the following pages of this document). The interactive map includes latitude and longitude specifications for each marker/photo. Orange markers indicate locations where Rosemary Road is narrower than 16’9”.

Figure 001. Road width is 17’1”. We have determined that 16’9″ is the minimum allowable width for one vehicle (6’3″ wide), such as a US Post Office Grumman LLV, and one dump truck (8’6″ wide) to pass safely, allowing 6″ on each soft shoulder and 1′ between the vehicles. Note that there is very little secure shoulder on this road, and, therefore, options are limited, especially when it is rainy and muddy.
Figure 002. Road width is 16’1” (hazardous💥🚚💥). We have determined that 16’9″ is the minimum allowable width for one vehicle (6’3″ wide), such as a US Post Office Grumman LLV, and one dump truck (8’6″ wide) to pass safely, allowing 6″ on each soft shoulder and 1′ between the vehicles. Natural obstacles, such as mature trees, and unnatural obstacles, such as mailboxes, appear all along the roadway, limiting pull-over options when vehicles cannot pass.
Figure 003. Road width is 15’0” (hazardous💥🚚💥). We have determined that 16’9″ is the minimum allowable width for one vehicle (6’3″ wide), such as a US Post Office Grumman LLV, and one dump truck (8’6″ wide) to pass safely, allowing 6″ on each soft shoulder and 1′ between the vehicles.
Figure 004. Road width is 18’6” (widest in set). We have determined that 16’9″ is the minimum allowable width for one vehicle (6’3″ wide), such as a US Post Office Grumman LLV, and one dump truck (8’6″ wide) to pass safely, allowing 6″ on each soft shoulder and 1′ between the vehicles.
Figure 005. Road width is 16’2”” (hazardous💥🚚💥). We have determined that 16’9″ is the minimum allowable width for one vehicle (6’3″ wide), such as a US Post Office Grumman LLV, and one dump truck (8’6″ wide) to pass safely, allowing 6″ on each soft shoulder and 1′ between the vehicles. Because the road is cut perpendicular to steep slopes, neither side of the road offers much of an option for pulling over safely.
Figure 006. Road width is 15’0” (hazardous💥🚚💥). We have determined that 16’9″ is the minimum allowable width for one vehicle (6’3″ wide), such as a US Post Office Grumman LLV, and one dump truck (8’6″ wide) to pass safely, allowing 6″ on each soft shoulder and 1′ between the vehicles.
Figure 007. Road width is 16’10”. We have determined that 16’9″ is the minimum allowable width for one vehicle (6’3″ wide), such as a US Post Office Grumman LLV, and one dump truck (8’6″ wide) to pass safely, allowing 6″ on each soft shoulder and 1′ between the vehicles.
Figure 008. Road width is 13’9” (near the end of Rosemary Road; beyond route; within bounds of Commonwealth maintenance). We have determined that 16’9″ is the minimum allowable width for one vehicle (6’3″ wide), such as a US Post Office Grumman LLV, and one dump truck (8’6″ wide) to pass safely, allowing 6″ on each soft shoulder and 1′ between the vehicles.

2. Vehicle Width Analysis Relative to Rosemary Road Sampled Width Measurements

Our analysis of the road widths is based on the following measurements.2We later learned the Virginia Department of Transportation has a schedule for minimum road widths. For two-lane roads, the minimum width is 18′ to include a shoulder of 2 to 6′. When this condition is not met, a specified line of sight is required (i.e., no dead angles), and these conditions, together, confirm that Rosemary Road in its current condition is not wide enough to support dump truck traffic safely. We understand that vehicle and lane widths vary, and that traffic safety corresponds to an allowance of sufficient space for two vehicles to pass one another. We have determined that the minimum width for safe passage is 16’9”.

Standard US Interstate lane width: 12’
Width of a local rural road: varies between 9’ and 12’

Width of a dump truck: 8’6” to 9’

Width of a school bus: 8’9” – Notably school busses do not drive on Rosemary Road.

Width of a common USPS Grumman Long Life Vehicle (LLV) used for mail delivery: 6’3”

Width of a Dodge Ram 1500: 6’10.1”

Width of a BMW Mini Cooper: 5’9”

With these measurements serving as a baseline, we added the width of a dump truck, a Grumman LLV postal delivery vehicle, which will be using the road nearly every day, and a 2’ allowance for 6” on each shoulder and 1’ of space between the vehicles. Together, a dump truck and a postal delivery vehicle would need 16’9” to pass one other with a minimum safety factor. Anything narrower than 16’9” introduces a significant risk. We nevertheless consider this to be a precariously tight fit when we factor in the condition of the road (e.g., soft shoulders, divots and potholes, washouts, and chatter bumps), weather (e.g., precipitation), braking distance (e.g., dependent upon dead angles/visibility, and rates of speed), and driver experience (e.g., inexperienced drivers may have a difficult time safely bringing a vehicle to within 6” of the road’s edge while it has a forward velocity of 20 MPH).

Given this, we foresee that the increased dump truck along Rosemary Road will inevitably compromise the safety of local residents, possibly resulting in an increased rate of accidents, which at its most serious can introduce risks of injury or death, and understood in financial terms can lead to increased insurance rates and impacts on property values.


For now, I simply wanted to get these comments into circulation, and I may add-on later with questions arising, with new information as we receive it, and with a recap of the public hearing on July 12. I’ve learned a lot about the process, about the role of the county’s Planning and GIS office, the oversight roles of the Board of Supervisors and state-level agencies, and I hope to follow-up with more detail, as I think this sort of thing may be of value for others, certainly in this specific situation, but also if and when other similar proposals surface, as they are sure to do in rapidly developing rural communities.

Notes

  • 1
    The QR code wasn’t necessary for this blog-posted version of the comments.
  • 2
    We later learned the Virginia Department of Transportation has a schedule for minimum road widths. For two-lane roads, the minimum width is 18′ to include a shoulder of 2 to 6′. When this condition is not met, a specified line of sight is required (i.e., no dead angles), and these conditions, together, confirm that Rosemary Road in its current condition is not wide enough to support dump truck traffic safely.

Isegoria and Parrēsia 🗣️

Democracy and the new nihilism do not go together. Democracy presupposes truthful speaking. In his last lecture, delivered shortly before his death, Michel Foucault, as if he had senses the coming crisis of truth in which we are losing the will to truth, addressed the ‘courage of the truth’ (parrēsia). With reference to the Greek historian Polybius, Foucault points out that ‘true democracy’ is guided by two principles, isegoria and parrēsia. Isegoria is every citizen’s right to free expression. Parrēsia, speaking the truth, presupposes isegoria but goes further than the constitutional right to speak up. It enables certain individuals to address themselves to others, ‘to tell them what they think, what they think is true, what they truly think is true’. Thus, parrēsia requires individuals who act politically to tell the truth, to care for the community by making ‘use of discourse, but of rational discourse, the discourse of Truth’. Someone who speaks up courageously, despite the risks it entails, practices parrēsia. Parrēsia founds community. It is essential to democracy. Speaking the truth is a genuinely political act. As long as parrēsia is practiced, democracy is alive:

I think…that this parrēsia…is first of all profoundly linked to democracy…we can say that there is a sort of circular relation between democracy and parrēsia…In order for there to be democracy there must be parrēsia. But conversely…parrēsia is one of the characteristic features of democracy. It is one of the internal dimensions of democracy.

Parrēsia, the courage of the truth, of the ‘courageous parrhesiast’, is the political act par excellence. True democracy therefore contains something heroic. It needs those people who dare to speak the truth despite all the risks involved. So-called freedom of expression, by contrast, concerns only isegoria. Only with the freedom of truth does real democracy emerge. Without this freedom, democracy approaches infocracy. (54-56)

—Byung-Chul Han, Infocracy (2022)

I am, I guess, going to leave in place that XXL block quote (which itself contains a blockquote) despite the reigning wisdom that readers don’t read block quotes any more. A blog entry combined with a telescoping passage has doubly little (the halfmuch) going for it. Elsewhere (TDOR, 2020) Han writes that we no longer read poetry, and this assertion too is valid enough to glide by untroubled, block quotes coupled with blog entries coupled with poetry, and I’m sure poetry won’t be the end of things readers quit, style tameness being all the plain language rage.

Even so, I’m struck by so much in this long snippet from Infocracy, struck in part because at no other point have I encountered the diagnostic insight that, as Han provides, moves from the mismatchedness of discourse and information to the interdependence of free expression (isegoria) and the courage free expression requires when enacted (parrēsia). As I read this, I had this dawning of oh yeah, of course, and even uh, duh (the way Joe C. Meriweather always said)—a private and low voltage bolt sent by Captain Obvious. I began to understand that I’d missed something because popularly circulating, even commonplace free speech arguments (and reminders about the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment, which is frequently, if casually, brought up in such arguments) spotlights only free expression (isegoria), implicitly downplaying the courage to express truths (parrēsia). It’s right there in the passage: Han citing Foucault in “The Courage of Truth” keys on the element of risk enveloping a kind of heroism, and that courage-heroism to express is a precondition for democracy.

Yet another strike: where does this other kind of heroism intersect with academia, rooting heartily in shared governance, or else, rotting fallow in pseudo-shared pseudo-governance? Sure, it’s a case by case, situation by situation, sort of question, and one all the more worthy of asking and re-asking at each new gig and each new leadership rotation. How are you at sharing governance, really? And can this sort of question be asked without also leaving impressions of peacocking or chest-puffing; can it be asked earnestly, routinely, matter-of-factly as every faculty member, AAUP member or not, should ask? But this strike is the shorter of the detours I’d been mulling over because while I think I understand how a courageous parrhesiast navigates higher ed with some successes and some setbacks. The CP might earn a reputation as a thoughtful and caring citizen at times, and then, for raising comparable issues!, might be disinvited from meetings for bearing the label ‘troublemaker’ at other times.

One more albeit fainter strike (static-think wool socks on shag carpet in winter months…so not nothing) in this long Infocracy passage is in the splits inflecting the other kinds of heroism. In particular, I’m thinking of mediational and temporal splits. Discourse, for Han, opens call to response. Its rhythms yield to that anticipation, expecting engagement, deliberation, and, if things go well, a response. This takes time, but not too much time and not too little. When this goes well, when discourse works, it also takes material circulation and findability. Old media’s circulatory rhythms may have (I’m hedging…but I think mostly yes) achieved synchrony with common-ish human biorhythms (e.g., contemplative cycles, dailinesses, but also the bigger hum of orbits and rotations). There’s something to this kind of heroism that, without being overly idealistic or naive, is heroic for good faith volleying, entering into a mutually paced temporal attention structure that allows discursive formation its time, that does not quite whir off impatiently nor lapse into indifference. I’m not certain that information, speed, and immediacy are always bad for democracy; but they are, as Han aptly (and smartly) sets up with this outline of infocracy, introducing haywire conditions for discursive deliberation and, by proxy, many of the non-nimble, public-serving institutions associated with functional democracy (investigative presses, schools, courts, and congresses).

For now, for strikes-pondering, that’s it…and enough. ⚡️⚡️⚡️

So Long, Ypsi Brownstone 🏡

An illustrated bear waves farewell as a dotted line of ants surrounds the entire periphery of his form.
Captain Bluebear and the Ant Pack Honey Travelers.

After some hedging and hem-hawing, I’ve decided I’m selling the Ypsi condo. Change happens, and it is time. It’s the place I’ve lived longest in this life, first as a renter from 2009-2012, then as an owner from 2014-2023. Some Gregorian calendar subtraction, carry the one, and the total is 12 years. But then you kind of sort of have to subtract the past five years because I’ve spent much of each year in Virginia since 2018. Seven-ish years at the condo, and then some. Memories and fix-ups. The fix-ups include painting most rooms, new hot water heater, air conditioner, insulation, cedar fence, new toilets, flooring, and so on. A lilac bush in front, sage and lavender in the side yard, and several hosta plants cousin-ed from the next door neighbor’s overgrowth a few seasons ago.

The prospective sale sets in motion several cascades for several people, including Ph., who has lived there for the past three years. Moving can be stressful, and yet, having stepped through quite a few of the care and consideration gestures for everyone affected by the change, onward song hums quietly toward emptying the place by the end of June, having a painter refresh everything in early-mid July, followed by robust cleaning, and finally, the listing. The realtor, too, was an easy selection because I simply went with the person who gained the confidence of my neighbors who’d sold their places in the past couple of years. I’ver never enjoyed the real estate hustle, but this time is different for being slower moving.

A few items of mixed value remain for the round trips I’ll be making to Michigan and back each of the next few months. Whew, is it a lot of driving, but the roads are usually easy, and the northern half of Ohio has in it an antiques and concrete yard decor place I will stop at to stretch my legs and browse the wares on one of the routes. On this most recent return, I carried along a gardening chest loaded with half gallon and quart Masons for fermentation experiments and other Wonder Hollow food storage. I also brought two cloth boxes of old basketball trophies, a yoga mat and ball, two shepherd’s hooks, a set of chimes, two small sponge balls Is. and I used to play catch with in the living room, a few old storage containers holding things like my mom’s cell phone from when she died in 1997, a small stuffed elephant I’m pretty sure belonged to my brother when he was a tot, a 7th grade report I wrote on black bears in agriculture class, a photocopy of the 1992-1993 Park College basketball individual/team statistics, a handheld space invaders game that kept me company on long bus rides around 1982 would be my guess, and a stack of books—a copy of Network Sense, a history of Park College, a few yearbooks, and of course a copy of Moers’ The 13 1/2 Lives of Captain Bluebear, which properly/rightly belongs to Ph., but which Is. said I should take to Virginia. I read it to her as goodnight tuck-ins for the better part of eight months or maybe longer, and so it lasts, an imprint enduring of another moment of major life changes and felt upheaval. It’s an illustrated but mostly textual sojourn, a wandering narrative, more about the paths and ways than about the destinations. Conjuring a multiverse/pluriverse episodist hodology more wandering adrift than a tightly bundled odyssey; how many directions can we go in more or less at once? Book means a lot to me. And to Is. And to Ph., as well. So once he is settled again in his new place, I’ll order him a copy to make sure he has it on the shelf for T., when she’s eight, ready at dusk for trailing nightzillion wonders sleepily and softly into dreamscapes.

At 43 Days 🐥

Six mixed flock chickens gather in a run enclosed by green mesh wire.
The Wonder Hollow Six at 43 days: Bigfoot, Lightfoot, Honey, Cinnabon, Bitumen, and Big Sweetie.

We brought home the six pullets1Or were they technically chicks?…many, many questions without answers. from the Radford Rural King on April 18, which means today marks 43 days at home, variations on heat-lamp-lit brooder box and pine shavings, then daytime hours in the run, then a chilly overnight in the coop maybe two weeks ago, and soon very soon, permanently in the coop and run. A. was generous to send me this photo today, the six in what I’m seeing as a lineup for possibly dried meal worms, possibly a dish of chopped vegetables. I’m not saying they’re spoiled; I’m just saying they’re friends, and what we know about friends is, treat them well.

Notes

  • 1
    Or were they technically chicks?…many, many questions without answers.

The Dataists 👾

Later in Infocracy, Han writes,

To the dataist ear, this passionate commitment to freedom and democracy will sound like a ghostly voice from an already bygone era. From the dataist perspective, the idea of the human being as defined by individual autonomy and freedom, by the ‘will to will’, will eventually appear as merely a short historical interlude. Dataists would agree with Foucault when he invokes the death of the human being in The Order of Things: ‘As the archaeology of our thought easily shows, man is an invention of recent date. And one perhaps nearing its end….then one can certainly wager that man would be erased, like a face drawn in the sand at the edge of the sea.’ The sea whose waves are erasing the face in the sand is today a boundless sea of data, in which the human being dissolves into an insignificant data set. (43)

—Byung-Chul Han, Infocracy (2022)

No outdoor walk this evening because SE Michigan, including Ypsilanti, is observing an Air Quality Alert, which I understand to be a small time toxic airborne event—serious enough to stay indoors and take a pass on the daggered-eyeballs effect, but also just a sign of the dry, dusty, particulate-breezed moment. Ah, springtime. So instead I read another chapter of Infocracy, “Data Rationality,” which according to Han counterposes a discourse-driven “communicative rationality,” where argumentation, claims backed with evidence, and compromise toward consensus-ish assent puts gusto in democracy’s sails. In an era of data rationality, information outstrips deliberative discourse; people no matter how mightily they strive to pay attention and process events are left in the dust, overwhelmed and scattered in the haze of information overload. Bleak1Bleak is my characterization of a mood, which, like all moods, fluctuates. but discerning, Han takes this idea on a brief tour with stops at Habermas, public-sphere hopeful, then dataists Rousseau and Alex Pentland of MIT.

I suppose, based on this, that rhetoricians are now and shall remain as outsiders to rising programs in data science (e.g., Data and Decisions); the data is extra-sensically vast, and the decisions are wrought in human-machine ratios more mechanistic than neuronal, more computational than synaptic, more algorithmic than fleshly. What a grand (and routinely fuckered) time we had while the beach drawing lasted, now-insignificant data set! So, what’re you gonna do now, democracy? What are the suitable responses, and do those responses have any chance of reaching anyone who can listen, engage in dialogue, make any difference? Get it together?! I don’t mean make a difference in an Army Corps of Engineers “protect the beach face” sort of way. Reading this chapter, I’m left puzzling generatively with a sense of no really, what becomes of this? If any juice remained in the democratizing efforts of writing programs, or critical literacies, or rhetorical education, are there variations on beach-drawn faces farther up or down the disappearing coastline? Or are the dataist-guided paths reduced to two: homo economicus (good capitalist progeny go for jobs 🤑) or homo inanis (bear witness to giddyup speed obsolescence 🫥).

Notes

  • 1
    Bleak is my characterization of a mood, which, like all moods, fluctuates.

Dataism 📖

Selfie
Macbook selfie not to be mistaken for iPhone selfie.

The dataism of the information regime has totalitarian characteristics. Its aim is total knowledge, but the total knowledge of dataism is achieved not through ideological narration but through algorithmic operations. The aim of dataism is to compute all there is and all there will be. Big data does not recount. Recounting gives way to algorithmic counting. The information regime replaces all that is narrative with the numerical. However intelligent they may be, algorithms are not as effective as ideological narratives at excluding the possibility of the experience of contingency. (9)

—Byung-Chul Han, Infocracy (2022)

Reading back through the underlines I drew while spending time with Infocracy earlier in the week, this sprang pause because of the better-at and worse-at comparison between “ideological narratives” and “algorithmic counting.” If this holds onto a place on the reading schedule for this fall’s Rhetoric in Digital Environments, we may want to sift around for examples of these narratives and this counting. For this class, the examples should stand apart, distinguishable as oil and water, rather than sending us into the haze of a database-narrative emulsion. Some (if not all) of Infocracy will fill in as what followed from the database-vs-narrative (enemies, according to Manovich; symbionts, according to Hayles) debates of the aughts. While resisting a horse race model to explain numbers and stories quant-qual contention over the past two decades and probably longer, we will puzzle out this suggestion that algorithms “are not as effective,” and are, therefore, more forgiving toward “the possibility of the experience of contingency.” I think this means that ideological narratives seal out contingency with a higher rhetorical thread count, a failsafe weed barrier covering the front beds, a reliable fitted sheet that keeps any-all spilt Sunday morning coffee from seeping through.

Fresh Nectarade 🌺

A small, black hummingbird perches on a red nectar feeder.
Figure 1. A small, black hummingbird perches on a red nectar feeder.

Spotted last evening, April 12, 7:35 p.m. EDT, first of the hummingbirds returns to SE Christiansburg, Va., draws down the free sugar drinks we set out for such guests. Small, dark-throated, likely to have traversed at low altitude many miles. In 2022, the first arrived on April 10. More settled in unsettled, until they were dancing and diving as an all-summer-long electron field, altering Earth House’s surrounding airspace. #picaflores #hummingbirds #flightpaths #wonderhollow