The Weekend File - April 17, 2021
/Weekend Notes
We Are All Connected
I came across an article this week discussing Darwin's writings and a new book called "The Nation of Plants" by plant neurobiologist Stefano Mancuso. I have not read the book but it sounds like a fascinating read. In part, the book highlights the interconnectivity of all living things in our world through a discussion of what would at first seem like an unlikely pairing -- cats and bumble bees.
In the third chapter of Darwin's On the Origin of Species, dedicated to the famous “struggle for existence” that is the dominant motif of the whole book, Darwin tells a marvelous story of relationships. This story is essential for understanding both the bonds between living beings and how difficult it is to imagine the consequences of intervening in those relationships.
Darwin writes: what animals could you imagine to be more distant from one another than a cat and a bumblebee? Yet the ties that bind these two animals, though at first glance nonexistent, are on the contrary so strict that were they to be modified, the consequences would be so numerous and profound as to be unimaginable. Mice, argues Darwin, are among the principal enemies of bumblebees. They eat their larvae and destroy their nests. On the other hand, as everyone knows, mice are the favorite prey of cats. One consequence of this is that, in proximity to those villages with the most cats, one finds fewer mice and more bumblebees. So far so clear? Good, let’s go on.
Bumblebees are the primary pollinators of many vegetable species, and it is common knowledge that the greater the amount and the quality of pollination the greater the number of seeds produced by the plants. The number and the quality of seeds determines the greater or lesser presence of insects, which, as is well known, are the principal nutriment of numerous bird populations. We could go on like this, adding one group of living species to another, for hours on end: bacteria, fungi, cereals, reptiles, orchids, would succeed one another without pause, one by one, until we ran out of breath, like in those nursery rhymes that connect one event to another without interruption. The ecological relationships that Darwin brings to our attention tell us of a world of bonds much more complex and ungraspable than had ever previously been supposed. Relationships so complex as to connect everything to everything in a single network of the living.
Legal & Business Reads
The U.S. Department of Labor (“DOL”) plans to rescind a Trump-era regulation on joint employment and stop an impending regulation on independent contractor use.
In our new #BetterAskChris video segment we discuss the problem of bully bosses. When does workplace harassment cross the line into illegal conduct?
Tax and Employee Benefits Provisions in the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021
The headlines from the American Rescue Plan Act are all about the $1400 recovery rebate credits.
But employers and employees need to pay attention to the tax & benefit issues that are contained within ARPA. One item of particular note is the new COBRA subsidy in place for the next 5 months.
Weekend Reads
Boba shortage: The U.S. may soon have no bubbles for tea
This story will greatly distress my daughter. The popular drink’s main ingredient, tapioca pearls, could soon be in short supply because of delays in unloading cargo ships from Asia.
Passing English of the Victorian era, a dictionary of heterodox English, slang and phrase
Compiled by James Redding Ware, the pseudonym of Andrew Forrester, the British writer who created one of the first female detectives in literary history in his book The Female Detective (1863). In this posthumously published volume Forrester turns his attention to the world of Victorian slang, in particular that found in the city of London.
A sixth-generation Texan returns to a beloved landscape to endear her husband to her home state
“Hundreds of workers at a Tampa lead smelter have been exposed to dangerous levels of the neurotoxin. The consequences have been profound.”
