Potter's Weal

Today it’s coffee at Office Depot, day before yesterday it was a dozen eggs at Walgreens.

Bruce
443-454-9044

. . . . there were so many non-profits, insurance and real estate agents?

[Just kidding — really nice and very much appreciated, and best wishes to all.]

Bruce 443-454-9044

New information to me, from this page in the Weather.com website: <https://weather.com/health/allergy/news/2018-11-08-fall-allergy-cities-2018 >

Go to the URL above to see graphics and the actual list of 50 cities
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Which City Is the Worst for Fall Allergies This Year?
By Tiarra MukherjeeMarch 26, 2021

If you’re sniffling, sneezing, wheezing, itchy-eyed and always the first one sick after Labor Day — you’ve probably got fall allergies. Making matters worse, where you live might affect your symptoms. The good news is, the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America (AAFA) knows your pain and so, to help you get ahead of it, they released their latest list of top 100 fall allergy capitals.

“Unlike earlier years when the fall capitals were mostly northeastern, the cities on this year’s list are concentrated heavily in the south” says Angel Waldron, AAFA Health Resources Advocate. In fact, the top three most challenging cities for people with allergies are all in the south: McAllen, Texas; Louisville, Kentucky; and Jackson, Mississippi. “That region is a prime environment for weeds,” she continues, and two of those weeds — ragweed and pigweed — are the allergens that people struggle with most in the fall.

The AAFA uses three factors to determine its city rankings: use of allergy medication, the availability of nearby allergists, and pollen count per capita.The first two factors have remained primarily constant over the years — pollen count has not.

This year, fall pollen is more regionally widespread and concentrations have intensified. The AAFA says that this is directly correlated to climate change. “This is our 14th year doing this research and the pollen scores have skyrocketed,” says Waldron. “There is nothing else happening other than global warming that is causing it. Increased rainfall and increased temperatures and milder winters all contribute to more greenery, more weeds, and more pollen.”

Texas is of particular note this year, with three cities — McAllen, San Antonio and El Paso — ranking high on the list. These cities also rank much higher than the last time the research was published in 2016, with San Antonio jumping from 16th to fourth place and El Paso jumping from 49th to 11th place.

This is because “the Texas climate is perfect for mold and pollen survival,” explains Waldron, and because the region is home to the Mountain Cedar tree, a tree that releases a lot of pollen into the air. “The [Mountain Cedar tree] pollen travels effortlessly by northerly winds from the hill country,” she says. “This can cause havoc on people with allergic rhinitis [seasonal allergies] in Texas.”

Texas has also always had a problem with ragweed, according to Dr. Hethu Parekh, an allergy specialist at Austin Family Allergy and Asthma. He’s also seen an increase in dust allergies in his patients, the result of late summer dust storms. Plus, he adds, “with more rain as of late, specifically in Central Texas, mold concentrations have gone up and we’re seeing more patients with mold allergies.”

While this might sound like a lot of bad news for allergy sufferers in Texas, don’t start packing your bags just yet. “Pollen spores are so lightweight, they can travel up to 500 miles — so we’re not telling people in Texas to move,” Waldron says. “We really just want folks to become educated about their surroundings, consult a specialist and then find the treatment that’s right for you. There is not one cure for everyone, so it is very important to get individualized treatment.”

Want to see where your hometown ranks on their list? Click through the slideshow above to find out.

This long BBC article begins with the example of John Mussington, in Barbuda.

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20211213-who-will-pay-for-the-damage-caused-by-climate-change?ocid=ww.social.link.email

Bruce Potter443-454-9044

As interviewed and posted in Global Voices <https://globalvoices.org/2021/12/05/post-cop26-a-caribbean-view-on-climate-injustice-and-1-5-to-stay-alive/ > by Emma Lewis

20211206_CoP26_ClimateChange_YvesRenard.pdf

I’m replaying below some of the fascinating responses to my original query (reprinted at the bottom, for what it’s worth).

One of the threads showing the hidden networks we all live in is that some of the strongest endorsements of persisting in support of local journalism were directed at the SEATTLE TIMES, in spite of the exorbitant subscription cost. Coincidentally, a senior editor and later publisher of the Seattle Times was H. Mason Sizemore, a classmate and fellow Flat Hat staff with Pete Crow and me (and our respective partners for that matter) at William and Mary in the mid-1960’s. (W&M doesn’t have a journalism department or major.)

For myself? Well, I’m just about go to the UPS store to send a box of cookies to a friend, and then down to the Post Office to renew my subscription to the Capital. I’ve sort of reached a psychic compromise, based on the previous subscription price, mentioned below as $350/year. So I’m splitting costs of the paper with a friend who is a new Annapolis resident, and whose father REALLY likes the daily and weekly “Puzzle Page” in the Capital.

Best wishes to all

Bruce
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On Sep 10, 2021, at 2:19 AM, carolejoycecrew <carolehcrew> wrote:

I am a Journalism grad from U. of Nevada Reno. I love newspapers and have lived in many cities with great papers. I am fortunate to live now in Seattle where our remaining daily (the Seattle Times) is family-owned and, although significantly thinner, covers local politics and news, likely survives because of sports coverage, and has received several Pulitzers for excellent reporting. They really went after Boeing after the Max disasters. It’s a really good paper, which also has a lot of articles from NYTimes, Washington Post and LATimes. It costs me nearly $100/month. I continue to think it’s worth it.

Carole Crew

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On Tue, Sep 7, 2021 at 5:36 PM Timothy Still <timstill> wrote:

When I joined the board of the Friends of the Pasadena Public LIbrary earlier this year I subscribed to the Pasadena Star-News, which used to be a real newspaper. I thought I would be keeping up on local news and, hopefully, hearing what was going on in the local government. Nada! It’s just a pastiche of wire service stories with an occasional local article. However, it’s only $14/month and there is that occasional bit of useful local information. I’m very tempted to cancel it every time I get the bill.
Then there’s the LA Times, which has been decimated since Covid (advertising disappeared). Nevertheless, it’s still trying to be a real newspaper although it’s unlikely it will ever get back to what it was 2 years. However (again), the Times is approaching $100/month. It’s really tempting to cancel it given all the other sources for information/news that abound. Then I realize that there’s an article from the LA Times in the Apple News a couple of times each week, so guess where the news in some of those sources is coming from?
My father’s career was in journalism and he was the managing editor of a major-ish newspaper for many years. Partly I think I hold onto these print subscriptions largely out of genetic stubborness.

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On Sep 10, 2021, at 2:19 AM, PeterMichaelCrow <@gmail.com> wrote:

the business plan for newspapers started collapsing around 2002 and really newspapers had slowly been declining since the 1960s — i was fortunate the australians bought me out in 2007 and of course they put them all into bankruptsy onl two years later

earlier this year wilford and i taught an adult zoom class for william and mary and i invited the broker who oversaw the sale of my newspaper properties to join us — he was easily the top guy in the field until the utter collapse and he sees small opportunities here and there in tiny markets although not print publications of course, and he has no hope for any of the metros once the joy of owning fades and the current crop of owners tire of subsiding them — i concur

what is happening is an unpleasant but realistic end game often used in business now being applied to the newspaper industry — it is to to cut cut cut and continue to draw money to the day the busness itself goes broke — howard johnsons made money to the day it went broke — my flagship daily has one emplyee down from sixty these days and so, for it, the final night draws near — if there was any way to save the industry someone would have already figured it out — i certainly tried a variety of strategies

the real question is wheter we govern a free country without a vigorous press and informed involved electorate — i’m afraid we cannot and i hope i am wrong

Bruce, thanks for sharing Kincey’s dramatic, first-person account. I remember that you sent it out 20 years ago with a comment like, “one tough lady”. Indeed she was. I’m glad she escaped and that so many others did too.

My own impression of the days following the attacks was that Americans were on the same wavelength and feeling solidarity. Let’s never forget.

Peace, Gary Miller

On Fri, Sep 10, 2021 at 2:17 PM Bruce Potter <bpotter> wrote:

Dear friends —

As anyone knows, tomorrow, 9/11/2021, is the 20th anniversary of the attack on the World Trade Center. As most of the addressees know, in 2001, Kincey Potter was working in tower number two, consulting on a new on-line banking system being developed for Morgan-Stanley. [On the day of the attack, I happened to be working on a project for Island Resources Foundation in St. George’s, Grenada.] About a year before, we had moved from Washington DC to Annapolis Maryland.

In the event, Kincey survived the attack by walking down 64 floors from her office and out of tower two, about 15 minutes before the building collapsed. A few weeks after, Kincey wrote her account of what happened to her that day. Attached is a slightly edited version of that account with some of my added comments. I was surprised to discover that in a strange irony, Kincey and I had reviewed this version of her account on September 4th, 2018, just 13 days before she was taken by the metastatic breast cancer that she had been battling since 2008.

I hope this short paper will remind all of us of the wit, wisdom and pragmatism that Kincey carried, even in very tough times.

Best wishes

Bruce

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Bruce Potter
764 Fairview Avenue
Annapolis, MD 21403

Bruce’s iPhone: 443/454-9044
" Blog: PottersWeal.com
See also: Kincey.org

E-mail: <bpotter>
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