Chytrid is an introduced fungus that has driven over 90 species of frog to extinction and decimated hundreds more. It’s not often that we hear good news in the fight against chytrid, but today is one of those days.
After disappearing from mainstream science for almost 30 years and thought to perhaps be lost to chytrid, the so-called “starry night” toad has been “rediscovered” by a team of scientists.
I say lost to mainstream science, because I feel it’s very important to acknowledge that the indigenous Arhuaco people who live in and manage the forest never lost track of this species. It was only after years of negotiation with the Arhuaco that scientists were allowed to enter their land and document the toads’ continued existence.
Harlequin toads, of which the “starry night” toad is one, have been particularly badly hit by anthropogenic factors like chytrid fungus, climate change, and habitat loss. Of the 96 known harlequin toad species, a full 80 are either critically endangered or extinct.
The “starry night” toad is still considered critically endangered, but that it exists at all (and exists within land protected and managed by the Arhuaco) is a huge dose of good news.
In Seattle, Washington, confrontations with protesters in a gentrified part of the city known as Capitol Hill led to law enforcement’s retreat from their office. Organizers and community members advanced on the area and transformed this eight-block segment of the neighborhood into a collective space, which they soon called the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ).
The CHAZ has become the focus of right-wing rage, from the media to the president, as they intimate that this is a terrorist operation controlled by brutal anarchist cells. Photos, videos, testimonies from the inside the CHAZ paint a very different picture, communicating something closer to other occupations (Occupy movement?) where people moved from simple protests to experimenting in living differently.
Hundreds of people are putting in the labor to keep things like a medical clinic, a café, concerts and speakers, a community garden, and other resources into a stable infrastructure of mutual aid. They have done so with the support of local organizations and even businesses. Now the CHAZ is hitting a point where they are building for the future, discussing differences in direction and priorities, and how they are going to navigate the negotiation between immediate reforms and more revolutionary aims.
I spoke with two organizers of the CHAZ about what drew them there, how it has been working, and where they hope to go with the project. Both are using pseudonyms, one going by Officer CHAZ (OCHAZ) and the other going by Frank Ascaso (FA), who also organizes with the Black Rose / Rosa Negra Anarchist Federation. These organizers were interviewed separately from one another and were combined here into one conversation.
On this day, 17 June 2015, the Charleston church massacre took place in South Carolina when a white supremacist murdered nine African-American people at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. The racist entered the church during a Bible study group. After the session, the parishioners held hands in a prayer circle, at which point he pulled out a gun and began killing as many people as possible. Amongst the victims were Clementa C. Pinckney, 41; Cynthia Graham Hurd, 54; Susie J. Jackson, 87; Ethel Lee Lance, 70; DePayne Middleton-Doctor, 49; Tywanza Sanders, 26; Daniel L Simmons Sr., 74; Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, 45, and Myra Thompson, 59.
Many people were angered by police double standards upon seeing the killer being peacefully apprehended by police, who then gave him a bullet-proof jacket and bought him a meal from Burger King. Whereas there had been a rash of police killings of unarmed African-Americans apprehended for much less serious alleged crimes, like Walter Scott who was shot to death after being spotted with a broken brake light. https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/1453748501476962/?type=3
