Oil-y, the consumer and civic society with petroleum products

One of 50 pumps across the former gravel pit, now Kent County park. 4/2020

The smell of ancient plant and animal life drawn up to the surface from a pool some depth underground is rich and dark, like the raw petroleum itself that accumulates in a tank farm some distance away. Probably an expert of smells could name a dozen or more olfactory elements that contribute to the complex inhalable cloud of prehistoric earth.

Many of the oil wells scattered discretely around the large county park (Millennium Park) west of the city of Grand Rapids are idle now with the world oil commodity price adversely affected by gamesmanship between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Russian Federation. With a barrel of crude oil selling for $20 or less, the cost to pump, store, and transport it is more than the oil itself is worth now. But this particular well was still running on Thursday, April 16, 2020.

Since early March many of the states around the USA have issued orders for "stay home; stay safe" (self-quarantining) to minimize the travel of people and therefore the transmission of Covid-19. By forcing people all around the world to break their routines of movement and consumption and production, there is time to reflect on status quo Free Trade and Capitalism for the wealthy. But until renewable sources of electrical power take over from the fossil fuel used to make steam to spin the generator turbines, then pumping oil (above) will continue to take place.

Hopefully, the C-19 "stay at home" shock will cause more people to face the impending disaster of sustained extreme weather events, coastal destruction, and the man-made sources of ecosystem loss. Thank goodness for the persuasive reporting, region by region of USA about the expected effects of sustained extreme weather, in the 2014 PDF from Hank Paulson (former US Treasury Secretary) and Michael Bloomberg (former NYC mayor), https://riskybusiness.org/site/assets/uploads/2015/09/RiskyBusiness_Report_WEB_09_08_14.pdf

Covid-19 pandemic, new waste streams

latex glove near city street in Grand Rapids, April 13, 2020

Five months after the Wuhan outbreak of coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 and four weeks after the State of Michigan lockdown of all private enterprise, except food and medicine and car fueling, there are a few signs of the pandemic here in west Michigan's biggest city. Confirmed cases of Covid-19 now in Michigan top 24,000, but many more are contagious and showing few or no symptoms. That same number happens to be the nation-wide death count so far. Half of the known cases in Michigan are Detroit and surrounding counties. So far 1400 people in the state have died from c-19 complications.

Here are some signs of the pandemic. Schools are closed, along with all non-essential business operations. People sometimes park at stores by leaving an interval from the next nearest car. Maybe 1/3 or 1/2 of customers don masks of some kind (commercially produced or homemade or jerry-rigged scarfs, etc) to trap their own breath (inhaling others' water droplets is reduced, too; but one's own expelled droplets are trapped most of all). Recommendations for social distancing at 6 feet apart are expanded for runners and bikers, who create a slipstream of water droplets when they exhale. The above photo shows the wide-spread use of vinyl or latex disposable gloves to use when selecting purchases at retail store, or when grabbing the handle to fill one's gas tank. With so many people unemployed or working from home, few cars fill the streets and highways; wildlife has been observed venturing out more widely than before, too. Those who walk their dogs or exercise do seem to follow the social distancing guidance, having to leave the sidewalk to create distance from oncoming people. Families, friends, book clubs, churches and their small groups, as well as businesses have been using some of the video meeting services to communicate by way of home Internet connections or using cellphone data services. Zoom Meetings have been particularly used a lot for their "one click" ease of use: 40 minute session free, or one person can pay the monthly $15 to obtain "host" credentials (up to 100 simultaneous users and 24 hours of uninterrupted connection per session). Food stores and perhaps other retail operations have installed plexiglass barriers to separate the breath of cashier from customer. Curbside pick-up of recycling and yard trimmings (official yard-waste bags) has been suspended, too.

Imagining the steps leading to more and more restrictions eventually going the other way, loosening up as Covid cases decline, it is hard to know precisely how all these precautions will carefully be dismantled. One radio commentator summarizes the "3 T's" as (1) testing, (2) tracing any flare-ups, (3) treatment that is effective and proven. Only when that infrastructure is in place can the free movement of people and their exhaled water droplets resume; not just in the orbit of the local economy, but also to go longer distances and between countries, too. The whole thing in the aggregate will be uneven, since hotspots differ from the areas most lightly affected. That is true within a particular nation-state, but also globally, with some societies better organized and supplied and informed than others. So long as the virus has a reservoir to reproduce, the risk of pandemic will always be on the horizon. The disruption to the status quo of transporting capital, ideas, people, raw resources and value-added products could lead to new ways of regionalizing or evaluating the things capable of conveying viruses. Recession or sustained recession that results in shrinking the economic pie (depression) may be another multi-faceted legacy of these months now.

Anthropological lens - looking closer at the metaphor

Sometimes the expression, "anthropological lens" or "lens of anthropology," is offered when describing, interpreting, or analyzing a subject by using some of the hallmarks of an anthropological approach: first-person point of view, usually small or interpersonal scale, longitudinal span of time, lots of room for context of language, culture, material culture, environmental particulars, and some attention to the observer's own limitations in the matter.

anthropologists use lenses to document, study, and present; but also figuratively

Perhaps there is is something to see when extending the "lens" metaphor when it comes to engaging in the world as an anthropologist. The most common intention or meaning for mentioning "the anthropological lens" is to alert the reader that now the discussion will dwell on things that anthropologists see when they approach a situation or subject matter (context, point of view, effects of physical, social, linguistic, and symbolic/ideological elements in the person's experience). But extending the idea of a lens, there are wide-angle, normal (human visual experience), and telephoto focal length lenses, each with differing angle of view.

Lenses are built according to the camera's dimension, including its film (or digital sensor) size for recording the image. So for the 35mm film camera a 55mm lens might produce an image that resembles normal human visual experience, neither compressing the distance (magnifying the far away subject) nor shrinking the subject into a wider context. But fitting that same 55mm lens onto a digital camera with a sensor that is only 2/3 the surface area of an individual frame of 35mm roll film means that the lens is producing proportionately more magnification than it does on the film. Therefore the sensor "crops" the middle of that circle of light focused by the lens. In this case the 55mm is perceived by the smaller digital sensor as the equivalent of 85 or 90mm (slightly telephoto magnification).

Even for the same sort of camera there may be several varieties of lens to choose from, newer ones built with the aid of computer calculations and computer assisted polishing and glare-reducing treatments to produce a clearer and brighter result than the older glass. Taking the 55mm lens example for a 35mm film camera (or its equivalent in the world of digital cameras) there could be a newly configured one, the older and maybe heavier one, another specifically meant for macro (close-up) pictures, and one designed for low-light or artful (bokeh) blurring of background. Some have a built-in gyroscope to reduce motion-blur by the photographer's jiggling (image stabilization). A perculiar sort of sense first developed for movie cameras and later sometimes adapted for still photography is the anamorphic lens (recorded 1.33x the width of a scene in 1.0x the available space of the recording film or sensor to be played back or reconstituted for normal perception). Other ways to extend the characteristics of the lens itself include screw-on filters designed to reduce glare, minimize atmospheric haze, correct for specific types of light source (bluish light can be correct to something resembling daylight colors), or reduce the amount of light that reaches the film or sensor. Doing so forces a slower shutter speed, thus capturing some blur of movement; or else attains the correct light exposure instead by making the aperture wider than otherwise would be if not for the neutral density filter (thus narrowing the in-focus depth; its depth of field).

Another distinction among lenses is the different functionality of interchangeable lenses versus fixed lens (permanent mount), and the difference between a lens that has just one measurement (focal length, such as 55mm 'normal' or 20mm wide-angle, expressed relative to 35mm film cameras) and a zoom lens. The optical magnification is expressed by comparing the smaller number to the larger one; for instance, a zoom lens of 100mm to 200mm doubles (200mm is 2x the 100mm, base number). By comparison 25mm to 125mm is a magnification of 5x. In addition to the zoom lens magnification, there is the range of focal lengths that are included: if 55mm is 'normal' then a zoom lens of 25mm to 100mm ranges from wide to moderate telephoto, but a zoom lens of 85mm to 200mm starts at slightly telephoto to full telephoto. By looking at 'normal' the magnification can be understood: 200mm is about 4x the 55mm reference number.

Still another consideration is monocular (camera lens) versus binocular (dual lenses offset to produce stereoscopic imagery). The decades around 1900 saw a wide interest in stereo-photography (stereography). Home subscription to one of the purveyors would bring a monthly selection of scenes from faraway lands, strange events, and news of the day. The twin images would set in a viewing frame for the person's brain to take in the left image and right image and reconstitute the three dimensional subject with full depth perception enjoyed. Modern cinema-goers sometimes watch feature films produced for viewing in 3-D when seen wearing specially filtered "sunglasses" (one eye in blue filter, one eye in red filter).

In summary, when extending the lens metaphor used for looking at a situation like an anthropological social analyst or documentarian does, then there are several dimensions to lenses: size suited to a particular camera body, filtering accessories affecting the image that the lens focuses, magnification (wide, normal, telephoto, specialty), and the effects of aperture on how much of the scene is sharply seen or is blurred incidentally or with artistic intentionality. Closely related to the optics of the lens itself is the matter of composition: what is foregrounded, what is included and excluded in the frame (how wide or narrow the frame is), point of main focus (sharpest part of the image), and exposure decision (producing blurs by accident or on purpose, exposing so the shadow detail is shown even at the expense of bright areas overexposed; or the reverse - careful to record the bright parts of the subject, even at the expense of losing the things shadowed).

In conclusion, "the anthropological lens" is a figure of speech to signal that a long vision and wide but personalized viewpoint particular to anthropology is being invoked by the author. The several attributes of lenses can be explored alone and when coupled to cameras to compose pictures for study, record-keeping, or presentation to others by publication in print or online. Extending the "lens of anthropology" by way of these several attributes shines a light on the variability (not monolithic) of anthropologists' accounts: sure they are recording social observations, but some filter differently to others. Some use a wider angle of view than others. Certain lenses are fixed and applied to all subjects, while others freely change lenses from wide to telephoto, according to the scene. Special situations call for long-exposures that layer movement of several subjects; or time-lapse (compressing long periods into speeded up presentation) or the reverse by slow-motion (moving pictures at high speed to capture the subject in the briefest fraction of a second).

The result is that any two social scientists trained in the traditions of anthropology (Anglophone, Francophone, or any of the many other scholarly communities for anthropology; see World Council of Anthropology Associations) could have congruent or could have very different representation of a particular moment and subject. That does not make one more valuable than the other; indeed, having two visual channels contributes to a compound (stereophonic, stereoscopic) rendering of the subject, whereas a single view from a single fieldwork season and from a single publishing language will give a less vivid account. So, in the same way that lenses affect the compositions produced by them, the same is true of the anthropologist's training and professional path of experiences. Each practitioner's anthropological lens is capable of producing well composed and well focused imagery. No single lens will capture a given subject fully, but being aware of the several attributes that distinguish one lens from another illuminates the ways in which the image presented to the public comes to be shaped.

Cars parked: you can have any color... as long as it's black

Attributed to the father of factory production of horseless carriages, automobiles, this joke pointed to the original mass production decision to mimic fine hand-built buggies and carriages in sleek black paint or lacquer. Most paints, other than black, performed poorly in the powerful light from the sun. In the generations before Henry Ford a great deal of (adult) clothing was in dark colors, including black, too. But 100 years later the technology to paint personal automobiles has advanced and there are many choices of standard color when placing a new car order; in principle a person could place a customized color order, too. Therefore, it is reasonable to expect that whoever purchases a new car is expressing an opinion about color preference. Or at least the reverse may be true: the colors that do not sell well communicate to the maker how to revise the number of cars in each color to produce in the future. The interesting point is that predominance of colors varies in each society; possibly within a single country differing by region, as well. What might contribute to this state of affairs?

So many cars in black or white, so few in other colors - what could it mean?

In the life cycle of cars there are the new car buyers who can exercise their desire for particular added features, choice of tire, color and so on. Later the person trades in the car to a dealer, or sells to family or others. The cycle of buying and selling continues until the car is too old or too unreliable (requiring too much care and repair) to attract a buyer, even at low price. Then it could end up in trade in ("we accept cars in trade, functioning or not") or donation to a charity that derives a few dollars in scrap or cannibalized for used parts.

With regard to colors on view in any particular parking lot, the demographic segment that shops there or works there is represented. If most vehicles there are 1-3 years old (new and new'ish), then the color probably was a deliberate factor in the buying decision because part of that transaction was to accept or reject the car present in the showroom or dealer lot, or shown in the database for delivery. And if the vehicles in a parking lot are a mix of new and used, then the choice of color originated upstream at the point of original buyer. Subsequent buyers of the used car will have found the color acceptable to their tastes or needs or requirements, thus indirectly expressing selectivity in color.

This photo comes from the north side of Grand Rapids, Michigan, where cars predominantly can be seen on the road or in parking lots in white or black. There are other colors, of course, and this picture is an extreme case of *no* other colors. But still the predominance of black or white is noticeable. Having spent 1995-2015 in middle Michigan, a rural and suburban town, where a wider range of dark colors and light colors was normal, this predominance of white (too easily shows the dust on country roads and the road grit on city streets; invisible in snow storms) and black (too somber and old-timey) stood out as a minor culture shock.

In the half-dozen years lived in rural Japan since 1984, it is white cars that predominated until around 2012 or so: as much as half or more of personal and fleet cars there came in white. Occasional visits to the UK presented a different mix. Red, white, or blue predominate; occasionally black or some other color (burgundy, silver, dark gray or green) is what buyers select. Thanks to online satellite views, it should be possible to zoom in and record screenshots of parking lots in big cities and small towns for a range of countries where personal automobiles are commonly owned and operated. Surely the mix will not be uniform. But what meaning or meanings might color preference signify? And supposing that clear patterns or at least trends seem to emerge, why could that be relevant or consequential when trying to understand the society and its members?

Back in the 1980s as a college student at the University of Michigan the fall football season brought a wide range of sports fans to the surrounding parking areas nearest to the stadium. The expensive seats (and parking locations) seemed to be filled with fancy cars in dark colors like navy blue and charcoal gray, among others. The rest of the parking spaces had a wider variety of colors and generally older cars, but perhaps there was a slight pattern in that colors were lighter overall (beige, light blue, brown, red). So a working hypothesis at that time was about SES (socio-economic status): managerial class presented themselves in more formal and expensive cars, relative to the others (probably middle-class and maybe alumni/college educated sports fans).

Why all the Japanese owners in Japan driving white cars? A working hypothesis for the 1980s-2010 could be related to the proverbial wisdom of the folk, "出る杭は打たれる" (deru kui wa utareru; variation, deru kugi wa utareru); the nail that sticks out will be pounded back down. In other words, the advice of the generations is not to draw attention to yourself, but instead opt for the standard, normal, unmarked presentation of self. These hypotheses are interesting speculations, but to return to the question: what could patterns of car color reveal about the people (and community) there?

The above photo illustrates the predominance of black or white cars (one neighbor had 4 or 5 white cars and a white truck recently) in the city of Grand Rapids (population 200,000). This city is the biggest on the west side of the state's lower peninsula and historically has welcomed immigrants and resettled refugees sponsored by the many active church communities in the area. The initial waves of immigrants were conservative Dutch rural people in the 1840s-1900. Even 6 or 7 generations later this part of the state is generally socially conservative, too. Perhaps the "black or white" expression of car color is consonant with that worldview and self-concepts or upbringing identities. Religiously affiliated precollege (and college) education is widely supported in the area and church attendance is relatively vigorous in spite of national trends of fewer participants. So as a working hypothesis as of 2020 perhaps there are ways to test (interview, observation and documenting) the following idea:

Suppose that drivers of black cars shun any other color because of a desire to present a serious (or at least someone to be taken seriously and be respected), mature, grown-up, or responsible-member-of-society value (a public-facing person). And by contrast, suppose that drivers of white cars wish to avoid conflict, avoid standing out, avoid attracting attention but instead cling to a private, undisclosed standpoint - like a blank sheet of paper that potentially can carry the Gettysburg Address, a love note, or a shopping list. White can stand for any number of meanings: pure, morally untainted or possibly superior, inoffensive to others, infinite potential to take.just about any form. All this supposition is wildly abstract and unmoored from individual lives and buying decisions. But nonetheless the predominance of white cars and black cars persists. It is not random chance, but the aggregate display of so many individual decisions that comprise a visible result.