Some nickel knowledge: flood vents. NPR seems to miss the point on a former colleague's criticism. Like weeds popping in Spring, the legislature's newest enterprise.
Easing back into things with something interesting I shared with one of my classes: Flood Vents
I am teaching a new (well, new to me as a teacher) class this term on environmental disasters and we recently wrapped a unit on floods.
I live in a floodplain and have the (expensive) insurance to prove it. I also have been researching as I go so I can be a, you know, effective teacher. I came across something you may know about but I wanted to share.
My crawlspace has air vents in it, but I didn't realize that there were also such things as flood vents or dampers. The next natural question after "what are they?" is "why?"
The answer is all about pressure.
I found a website (linked first below) for a company that makes such things. I do not know the company, nor endorse it, but I did like the animation they had about a third of the way down the page.
So why would you want to let water in when there's a flood? As I say above, it's all about the pressure, in this case water pressure.
Pressure on its own is not a problem. At sea level every square inch of your body's surface area has 14 pounds on it. You can imagine with how much surface area you have how big a force this would equate to.
The thing is that this pressure is balanced everywhere, for every up there's a down, every left a right, etc. So you don't feel it, and it doesn't impede your movement. Often the amount of pressure itself doesn't really matter so much as whether it's balanced or not.
Water is no different. In the case of a flood, there is significant water pressure that can build up outside your home. If the pressure is mainly on one side of your foundation wall, that's a problem. Pressure on one side and not another can collapse foundations, shift them, cause all sorts of problems.
It's not water pressure, but a video I frequently share with students in my physics classes is of a rail tanker implosion (linked second below). This train car collapses because the vacuum truck pulls air out of the tanker and the unbalanced pressure squeezes the giant rail car like an empty pop can.
The vents in the animation above allow water in when flood levels rise (water which carries floating trash) and, as water recedes, allows it to flow right back out (with, one hopes, the trash still mostly suspended). This balances the water pressure and helps to keep your foundation from shifting or getting horribly damaged.
Kind of almost like judo where you roll with your opponent instead of trying to brute force stop them.
https://www.floodproofing.com/flood-vents
I think that NPR (and you can likely say the same for many reporters both here in Colorado and across the nation) are missing the point entirely.
The first link below is an essay by a senior NPR news editor and the second below is a response by NPR (in an article under their banner).
There's not a huge amount new here, not at least if you've read this page for a while. The themes will be familiar. To wit, consider the following quote from the essay:
"Today [in comparison to 25 years ago, the time periods the author starts off contrasting], those who listen to NPR or read its coverage online find something different: the distilled worldview of a very small segment of the U.S. population."
I'll leave it to you to read up both the essay and NPR's response, but I did want to highlight something I thought worth considering. It comes from near to the bottom of NPR's response.
Quoting again:
"In recent years, NPR has greatly enhanced the percentage of people of color in its workforce and its executive ranks. Four out of 10 staffers are people of color; nearly half of NPR's leadership team identifies as Black, Asian or Latino. 'The philosophy is: Do you want to serve all of America and make sure it sounds like all of America, or not?' Lansing [NPR's former CEO, John Lansing], who stepped down last month, says in response to Berliner's [the essay author's] piece. 'I'd welcome the argument against that.' 'On radio, we were really lagging in our representation of an audience that makes us look like what America looks like today,' Lansing says. The U.S. looks and sounds a lot different than it did in 1971, when NPR's first show was broadcast, Lansing says."
There seems to be a blindness here (and I've seen this in corresponding with reporters here in Colorado), or at least a misunderstanding.
Diversity is a fine thing. I'm fine with having anyone and everyone who is qualified and good at their job working anywhere no matter what they look like or their sexuality or what have you.
But the criticism lobbed here in the essay relates to viewpoint diversity. It relates to whose voices are heard, what stories are covered (and which aren't), and where the spotlight that NPR has shines. All the diversity of race and etc. do not and cannot necessarily ensure that there will be geographic diversity or ideological diversity.
I have heard it argued by some in media that increased diversity leads to viewpoint diversity, but I would disagree. The reason being that reporters are not picked randomly from the population. They choose to be reporters, they choose to apply to NPR.
This self-selection problem, combined with pressures to satisfy their increasingly stratified and polarized audience leads precisely to what NPR is producing nowadays (with the same dynamic happening at Fox).
This essay is valid criticism and it applies not only to NPR but to similar outlets here in Colorado. Would that those at NPR could hear it. Would that places like the Colorado Sun, The Denver Post, and CPR could hear it.
Hear it and, if nothing else, acknowledge what it means. Hear it and reflect on their choices along with how those choices line up (or not) with their view of themselves.
https://www.npr.org/2024/04/09/1243755769/npr-journalist-uri-berliner-trust-diversity
Another enterprise, this time for EV's.
The bill linked below is up for its first committee hearing today and the open email below the bill link was sent in over the weekend. I signed up to testify against this bill and hope to speak against it at its hearing today.
The bill would create another state enterprise funded with fees on electric vehicles and would fund things related to EV chargers and etc.
I don't own an EV. I have no plans to get one in the near future.
Still, I am opposed to this bill because it, like every other enterprise in the growing list of enterprises put in or sought in the last few years is a cute little workaround for politicians to evade TABOR.
Whether I have to pay or no, it doesn't matter.
My email (and proposed testimony) follow the bill link.
https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/sb24-208
An open email re. SB24-208 Colorado Department of Labor and Employment Regulate Electricity for Electric Vehicles
Hello,
My name is Cory Gaines and I am a lifelong resident of Colorado, currently living in Logan County.
I do not own an EV.
I know there are generous subsidies available thanks to taxpayer money, but even at that they remain out of my price range; I doubt I'm alone here, I think so far what we as a state and a nation are doing is taking money from people like me to give to those with more resources to help them get a discount.
I also know that right now, technology is such that replacing my current small Geo with an EV would not be a one to one swap. I cannot get the same performance from an EV as I can with my 1997 car.
I say all this to point out that not much in this bill applies to me. Not much, except for one thing and that's why I am here to testify against it.
Whether I have to pay a fee or not, I am against any measure that further grows our government and creates yet another enterprise.
It is unfortunate that so many in our legislature, especially in the last few years, have embraced the cute little constitutional workaround allowed them by our Supreme Court.I don't know that it could be any simpler.
If you want to take more of our money, you should ask. Whether it would come from me or from someone else, it doesn't matter. You should ask.
Thank you.
C
Really good piece today