Sherry Chandler

A friend of mine who is a nuclear physicist – I won’t name him but youse who knows me can probably guess – occasionally forwards me e-mails from What’s New by Bob Parks. Here’s an entry from yesterday’s forward that explains much of what’s been happening to me the last half decade (think about that):

DEPRESSION: CORTISOL LEVELS AND THE NEWS FROM WASHINGTON.
When our Pleistocene ancestors saw movement in the tall grass, their brains released stress hormones, increasing heart rate and respiration, dilating eyes to increase awareness and diverting blood from the digestive tract to arms and legs. The body was preparing to fight, or run very fast in the opposite direction. Carnivores in the tall grass are not a problem today, but there is plenty to fear. It’s a lousy feeling that hits you right in your blood-deprived stomach. If anxiety persists due to war in Iraq, terrorists, bird flu, arctic melting, gas prices, or Rumsfeld, the brain switches to a long-term strategy. The hypothalamus, which controls emotion, tells the adrenal cortex to release cortisol, another stress hormone that raises blood pressure and increases blood glucose levels. New findings from Harvard Medical School links cortisol levels directly to depression for the first time. You’re being manipulated by your hypothalamus. You can try to persuade your brain that there are no tigers, or take antidepressants that boost serotonin, another hormone that constricts blood vessels, countering the cortisol.

Meta-message: in Bush World (otherwise possibly known as Nineteen Eighty-Four), we all have to take antidepressants.

Bob Parks also points the way to a new website that rates health coverage by the print media: Health News and Review. In an era that seems beset by duelling scientific studies, such a site might be helpful.

It’s Earth Day, which seems an appropriate time to point out that ground was broken this week, beginning a process that will devote a considerable amount of green space in Paris (Kentucky) to a new Super Wal-Mart. As you may recall, this development has been a subject of hot local controversy.

According to The Bourbon County Citizen, the 3-year suit to block this development was settled when Wal-Mart made concessions “to design a Supercenter which maintained the cultural identity of Paris and provided a pedestrian friendly environment.” (Apparently, part of this “pedestrian friendly environment” will involve a cross-walk from the Bourbon County high and middle schools to this new Wal-Mart — across a major traffic artery. Impossible to keep the kids away, but I’m sceptical about how safe this affair is going to be.)

Because the development is immediately off Paris Pike, the primary concen was to continue the tree lined design of the nationally recognized road. Other aspects of the development that reflect the local landscape include the curvilinear streets and the tree lined and landscaped plank fenced perimeter.

Since the parking ratio was more than Wal-Mart desired, parking spaces were removed and landscaped islands were added within the parking field of both Wal-Mart and the strip center. The additional landscaping will extend from the parking lot to both the Paris By-pass and the Lexington Road [local name for Paris Pike] along both sides of the interior streets. In addition, the three detention ponds will be landscaped.

Notice those three detention ponds. That little statement assumes some knowledge about this design that I don’t have but I think it probably has something to do with the fact that the area where this Wal-Mart is going had a considerable sink-hole wet-weather pond on it.

All the landscaping, including the shrubbery and trees that extend along the plank fenced perimeter of the property, will have underground irrigation. The majority of the trees will be hardwood, native and deciduous trees.

…

All crosswalks will be stamped asphalt to resemble brick which willnot only be aestethic [but also serve as speed bumps].

…

In order to maintain the cultural identity of the development, aspects of the surrounding neo-Greek Revival and neo-Federal architecture were incorporated into the structure. These aspects included a deep cornice and applied pilasters…The building material will resemble red brick.

A lead headline in this morning’s NYTimes business section declares “Wal-Mart Flirts With Being Green.” Perhaps it is this flirtation that explains Wal-Mart’s willingness to invest so much in pseudo-brick for Paris, Kentucky. While I understand (but consider misguided) the push in Paris to have this Supercenter, I’ve never understood what, except push for total dominance, has motivated Wal-Mart. There are, after all, three or four Supercenters within a 25-mile circle around Paris.

I am skeptical. But maybe I’ll be surprised. I was skeptical about the Paris Pike project too and it has proved better than I had anticipated — though it will be years before those new-planted trees will look anything like the old-growth trees they replaced. And another drought-year like 2005 will reduce their numbers considerably. Apparently no provision was made for maintaining the trees once they’re planted.

So we get a Wal-Mart with a lot of young trees in the parking lot, pseudo-brick all over the place. As the Lexington Herald-Leader said back in December “It’s still a big box, but it will be a prettier big box.” I see the potential for a lot of kitsch. And a lot of harm to local businesses.

But the dozers are moving.

You can measure your ecological footprint here. Richard Taylor has a sobering poem about doing just that in his collection Braintree (Scienter Press, 2004):

Sizing my Ecological Footprint

Lime is how I paint myself, moderately
green, before unearthing a website
that gauges my impact on the planet.

Putting my best foot forward, I cite
recycling sports pages by the bale,
bandoleers of Bud Lites, scalloped

plastic trays of microwave dinners.
If my windows lack double panes,
I compensate with thermowear,

my furnace never topping a summit
of sixty lean degrees. I gloat
when data inform my office mate

that if all of us imitated his sleek
suburban life, we would need
a boost of 9.3 additional earths.

Then I weigh in at 7.2, reminded
of my faulty septic field,
my clunker coughing up its oily spew,

my children three, some guilty shares
of Global Oil, lapsed Sierra dues—
an ecological footprint not so deep as wide,

like say, a tarred Nike with gripper treads,
not hooves that mangle as they strut but blend
in tainted paths with anyone’s, with yours.

Reproduced by permission of the author.

I have watched the trailer for Al Gore’s documentary film An Inconvenient Truth. The trailer alone is terrifying. But I think it’s a film we all should be required to watch. You’ll find the trailer at the link.

Thomas Holley Chivers (1809-1858) was born, raised, and lived a Georgian, but he got a degree in medicine from Transylvania and wrote a play, Conrad and Eudora, about the Kentucky Tragedy, so he counts as a sort of honorary Kentuckian. He published his first poetry collection, The Path of Sorrow; or, The Lament of Youth , while a student at Transy. He never did practice medicine; an inheritance allowed him to devote himself to his writing. He was a Baptist. He was close friends with Edgar Allen Poe. They traded work and influenced each other. But Chivers is usually only remembered today because of a plagiarism dispute between himself and Poe. The poem in question, from Chivers’s collection The Lost Pleiad (1845), is reproduced below. The poem is a lament for his daughter. It may sound familiar to you but nobody knows who copied whom, though I have a strong opinion about whose poem is better.

To Allegra Florence in Heaven

“My life, my joy, my food, my all-the-world!”—Shakspeare.

“I shall go to her, but she shall not return to me.”—Bible.

“But the grave is not deep—it is the shining tread of an Angel that seeks us.”—Jean Paul Richter.

When thy soft round form was lying
On the bed where thou wert sighing,
I could not believe thee dying,
Till thy Angel-soul had fled;
For no sickness gave me warning,
Rosy health thy cheeks adorning—
Till that hope-destroying morning,
When my precious child lay dead!

Now, thy white shroud covers slightly
Thy pale limbs, which were so sprightly,
While thy snow-white arms lie lightly
On thy soul-abandoned breast;
As the dark blood faintly lingers
In thy pale, cold, lily-fingers,
Thou the sweetest of Heaven’s singers!
Just above thy heart at rest!

Yes, thy sprightly form is crowded
In thy coffin, all enshrouded,
Like the young Moon, half enclouded,
On the first night of her birth;
And, as down she sinks when westing,
Of her smiles the Night divesting—
In my fond arms gently resting,
Shall thy beauty to the earth!

Like some snow-white cloud just under
Heaven, some breeze has torn asunder,
Which discloses, to our wonder,
Far beyond, the tranquil skies;
Lay thy pale, cold lids, half closing,
(While, in Death’s cold arms reposing,
Thy dear Seraph-form seemed dozing—)
On thy violet-colored eyes.

For thy soft blue eyes were tender
As an angel’s, full of splendor,
And, like skies to earth, did render
Unto me divine delight;
Like two violets in the morning,
Bathed in sunny dews, adorning
One white lily-bed, while scorning
All the rest, however bright.

As the Earth desires to nourish
Some fair Flower, which loves to flourish
On her breast, while it doth perish,
And will barren look when gone;
So, my soul did joy in giving
Thee what thine was glad receiving
From me, ever more left grieving
In this dark cold world alone!

Holy angels now are bending
To receive thy soul ascending
Up to Heaven to joys unending,
And to bliss which is divine;
While thy pale, cold form is fading
Under death’s dark wings now shading
Thee with gloom which is pervading
This poor, broken heart of mine!

For, as birds of the same feather
On the earth will flock together,
So, around thy Heavenly Father,
They now gather there with thee—
Ever joyful to behold thee—
In their soft arms to enfold thee,
And to whisper words oft told thee
In this trying world by me!

With my bowed head thus reclining
On my hand, my heart repining,
Shall my salt tears, ever shining
On my pale cheeks, flow for thee—
Bitter soul-drops ever stealing
From the fount of holy feeling,
Deepest anguish now revealing,
For thy loss, dear child! to me!

As an egg, when broken, never
Can be mended, but must ever
Be the same crushed egg forever—
So shall this dark heart of mine!
Which, though broken, is still breaking,
And shall never more cease aching
For the sleep which has no waking—
For the sleep which now is thine!

And as God doth lift thy spirit
Up to Heaven, there to inherit
Those rewards which it doth merit,
Such as none have reaped before;
Thy dear father will, to-morrow,
Lay thy body, with deep sorrow,
In the grave which is so narrow—
There to rest for evermore!

– T. H. Chivers, Oaky Grove, Ga., Dec. 12th, 1842.