The looming Chinese "demographic crisis"

The recent NY Times reporting on Chinese population and population policy is appallingly bad. Birth rates are falling rapidly around the globe, so much so that population will begin to decline in many countries, and many countries will increasingly face the challenges associated with an aging population. China is hardly unique in this regard; even if the draconian one-child policy accelerated the process, China's fertility rate is not far from what one would expect given its per-capita income. Visit your friend Gapminder if you need the evidence. The chart below plots total fertility rate (children ever born per woman) against per-capita income (log scale), by country, with circle size proportional to population. China is the big red circle toward the right. If you eyeball a curve through the dots, you might conclude that China is a bit below what you'd predict, but on a trajectory similar to such countries as Brazil, Iran, Thailand, Italy, and Japan. 

Does catastrophe loom? Japan fell below replacement fertility in the mid-1970s. Sure, there are sad stories of lonely old folks, but it's hardly a crisis. Ongoing productivity improvements coupled with appropriate social policies can easily accommodate the changing age structure. And let's not forget that world population has already pushed up against the earth's carrying capacity. I am not one to argue that overpopulation is the main source of the climate crisis, but reducing greenhouse gas emissions can only be easier with fewer people around to burn fossil fuel.

May the women of China continue to question pro-fertility norms and prove to be an example for people around the world!

15 percent of Americans say they think that the levers of power are controlled by a cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles...

OK, but I believe that human beings emerged from a dynamic process of random genetic mutations coupled with natural selection of the fittest over many millennia. So we all have our strange notions. Then again, many of the Q-Anons also seem to hold the view that "American patriots may have to resort to violence” to depose the pedophiles, whereas I hold the completely self-defeating view that guns should largely be banned. Which makes me wonder who is the fittest to survive, after all.

I am Groot

Toward summer dormancy

By mid-May of a dry year, the trailside maiden hair ferns that were lush emerald green a month ago are on their way to being leaf litter. But still catching the eye with their delicate fan-shaped leaves and ebony stems.

The crazy reproductive life of gall-inducing wasps

"Cynipid wasps are responsible for the most extreme galls in color and shape. Galls that look like miniature stars, sea urchins, golf balls, cups, saucers, clubs, teardrops, goblets, and bow ties are among the fascinating shapes that stir the imagination.... 

"Cynipids typically exhibit an ALTERNATION OF GENERATIONS, called HETEROGONY, with a spring sexual generation emerging from a different gall (often from a different plant organ) than the summer-fall generation of unisexual females (agamic generation). The latter females overwinter in diapause as prepupae (usually in the galls) and then pupate and emerge in spring, timed in harmony with the development of the preferred plant organs. Eggs produced and deposited by these females result in larvae and galls of the spring sexual generation. This alternation of generations is rather rare in the animal kingdom but also known in aphids and rotifers. This interesting alternation of reproductive modes confused early entomologists, as the alternating generations of the same species induced galls with different morphologies. This led researchers to believe the different galls belonged to separate species or even other genera."

Ronald A. Russo, Plant Galls of the Western United States, p. 48

The Morning of the Poem

I have been working my way through James Schuyler's Collected Poems, and not everything he wrote stands the test of time, but much of it does. Weighing in at just over 40 pages, "The Morning of the Poem" is his masterpiece. Stream of consciousness, in long, free lines, its music is reminiscent of Whitman's, but where Whitman sought to write the universe, Schuyler zeroes in on the particulars, naming names– of friends, lovers, flowers, shopping lists, bodily functions, food, Fauré. It begins and ends with that most mundane sensation: having to piss, and holding it in (quite literally, in his case). The forces of life, love, and beauty keeping death and despair at bay. Do read it.

NYRB roundup

Three works of fiction from NYRB. 

Fat City
Leonard Gardner

Set in gritty working-class Stockton in the 1950s, Fat City tells the tale of two boxers– one past his prime, the other aspiring– who are not quite good enough to make a living at it, but without any better options. Written in a hard-boiled poetic style, the depictions of the boxing matches are violent and vivid, but many of the best scenes are on the street, in a bar, car, or apartment, or out in the fields, where the protagonist Billy Tully occasionally puts in a grueling day of hoeing or picking to make ends meet.

To say the novel is a depiction of toxic, self-destructive masculinity would not do it justice, because both of the men want nothing more than love, and their relationships with the women in their lives are sometimes tender, if also confused, bitter, and ultimately failed or failing. A sad and beautiful little book.

Alfred and Guinevere
James Schuyler

"It may be I'll grow up more of a sportswoman type and wear tweeds a lot with matching saddle leather accessories. In that case I wouldn't wear jewels except a short string of pearls now and then and just lipstick. Don't you love tall pale women who walk very fast?"

"I think it's better to be more feminine and not look hard. What's your ambition?" 

"I'm not sure yet. It's important to give it a lot of thought and not make any serious mistake, don't you think?" 

"Oh very. Have you found out your aptitudes though? They're a good clue. Mine are for dancing and managerial. My first ambition is interpretive dancing—gypsy and light-classical—and my second is hotel management." 

That's Guinevere talking with her friend Betty. Alfred is Guinevere's younger brother. Schuyler never had children of his own, but this charming and funny 1958 novella– the poet's first book– captures their voices, inner life, and undercurrent of anxiety about what's up with Mother and Daddy. Lovely.

The Rider on the White Horse
Theodor Storm

I ordered this one because it was translated from the German by James Wright, the wonderful poet. The title novella is a kind of a ghost story, but mostly a tale about small-town politics, envy, and the very specialized business of dikes and dikemasters. Worth reading if you are into that sort of thing.