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CHINAUS AFRICAASIA 中文双语Français
Opinion\Op-Ed Contributors
Region needs FTA for smoother trade
By Yang Danzhi | China Daily | Updated: 2017-11-10 07:51
President Xi Jinping will attend the 25th APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting at Da Nang, Vietnam on Nov 10 and 11, and pay state visits to Vietnam and Laos from Nov 12 to 14. High hopes have been placed on his first participation in a major multilateral meeting after the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China last month where, Xi, also general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, emphasized Beijing's determination to build a community of shared future for all humanity.
Since 1993 Chinese leaders have attended every Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting, and sought to accelerate economic integration in the Asia-Pacific region with "Chinese proposals", including the Shanghai Accord adopted in 2001 and the Beijing Declaration issued at the 2014 APEC informal leaders' meeting.
A year after he proposed the Asia-Pacific community of shared destiny at Bali, Indonesia, in 2013, Xi talked about the "Asia-Pacific dream" at the APEC meeting in Beijing, shaped the "Beijing Agenda" for a Asia-Pacific free trade area with other leaders to pursue integration, innovation and interconnectivity.
The APEC meeting in Lima, Peru, last year saw Beijing offering more detailed plans to expedite negotiations on the proposed Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific, which focuses on economic integration, improved connectivity, institutional reform and deepened partnership. At home, Beijing has helped establish a series of institutes such as the APEC E-commerce Business Alliance to draw the attention of other APEC economies to the advantages of China's development path.
APEC is not without its problems, though. Since its establishment in 1989, the multilateral body has advocated the principle of negotiation and independence, meaning no member is to be left behind no matter its level of its economic development. But like many other multilateral organizations, it compromises its efficiency at times by paying too much attention to making every member "comfortable".
In other words, certain revisions could be made in the way the forum functions. In particular, developed and developing APEC economies need to reach a consensus on global trade restrictions to which the latter are more often subject to.
The proposed FTAAP is still far from being realized as existing multilateral trade deals are not necessarily in harmony with bilateral free trade agreements. The absence of a uniform mechanism covering trade, finance and social governance means not all members have high expectations of an FTAAP and thus are less motivated to pitch in.
How to deal with political and security issues under the APEC framework is also an open question. Over the past few years more regional security issues such as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea nuclear issue have appeared on the APEC agenda. Which risks politicizing (even dismantling) the grouping designed to enhance economic cooperation and playing up the differences between members for no good reason. Rather than touching upon non-economic issues, the APEC members should work closely to combat nontraditional security threats, from cross-border terrorism and financial crisis to natural disasters and epidemics.
Arguably the world's busiest region in terms of trade and economy, the Asia-Pacific is full of opportunities for inclusive growth, economic cooperation and people-to-people exchanges. China, with its flagship cooperative arrangements such as the Belt and Road Initiative and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, could well play a bigger role in building the FTAAP.
The author is a researcher at the National Institute of International Strategy, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
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Wild Wolf's has a dedicated team of teachers who are supportive, friendly and super welcoming. This studio has an inclusive community feeling - fairy lights, complementary herbal teas, and you might even get to meet Rufus, the studio dog!
Wild Wolf's runs a variety of daily yoga classes. The signature Wild Flow Yoga, inspired by yin and yang yoga, features regularly alongside Power Yoga, Ashtanga, Restorative Yoga, Yin, Yoga for Pregnancy and fitness and dance.
Yoga and fitness classes run throughout the day at times to suit you. They open as early as 6.45am with Rising Warrior morning classes., Power Up Your Lunch Hour offers a variety of 45 minute classes. Changing facilities and showers are to hand so you can get back to work or head into the city with ease! Twilight Hour starts at 6.15pm. Watch out for special workshops and events.
Wild Wolf's provides mats and all the props you might need.
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Lovely studio and brilliant teacher. A great balance of hard work and relaxation.
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Great teacher, lovely venue and tea!!
A perfect class for slowing down at the end of the week. Loz's anatomical knowledge and methodical approach on how to release and how to breathe makes a perfect steady class, ideal to quiet and calm the mind and body.
This class more than anything else has helped me to learn to relax and stretch. I really miss it if I can't go - the perfect end to one week and recharge for the next!
The teachers, the venue, the atmosphere.. It's great!
Beautiful venue, lovely and friendly staff.
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Beautiful peaceful studio, right in the city centre. Great teachers + great classes.
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Wild Wolfs is an incredible venue with such a community feel. Jess's classes are very special, she seamlessly blends several tangents of wisdom into every class in an accessible and magical way!
The studio is beautiful, warm and calm, Lawrence is a great teacher and the content of the class is perfect for an early morning session.
Rachel is friendly and welcoming and the studio is beautiful.
Wild wolf yoga is a lovely space located near to St Nicholas market. It overlooks the roofs of nearby buildings bringing you into a wooden room filled with amazing light and great scent. My baby loves coming here and this yoga has been by far one of the best activities I've done since he was born. I would recommend it to any new mother in Bristol!
Julia is a brilliant, fun, inclusive teacher and the venue is lovely.
Kitty's yin is a nourishing in depth experience into the body! The venue is amazing and I felt so relaxed and in good hands.
It was a great workout. I was challenged and my technique improved. My only critisism was the teacher didnt always check ability to give reasonable adjustments and support with tricky moves.
beautiful studio, amazing teachers, fun atmosphere, attentive and supportive, just fab!
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It's an incredibly relaxing class (brilliant for a Sunday late afternoon) and yet you do feel you've worked your body. I love the venue too and the teacher was really welcoming and supportive.


April 2: Marge Piercy's "Seven Horses"
From The Crooked Inheritance, Marge Piercy's seventeenth collection of poetry, a fresh turn on girls and horses.
North Wind and Red Roses.
I never mooned over horses.
charged at us in demonstrations.
I'd sooner ride a cow.
any map I had ever seen.


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Charities Call on Christians to Work Together to End Cycle of Hunger and Poverty
Pravmir.com team | 29 May 2021
The Hunger Project
Priest Feeds the Homeless in Ishimbay
Compassionate 12-Year-Old Feeds 9,000 Homeless People
Hunger Crisis in Greece: Church Charity to feed 1,000 families for 10 months
On World Hunger Day, there are renewed calls for Christians around the globe to work towards breaking the cycle of hunger and poverty, reports Premier.
The UN World Food Programme's Executive Director, David Beasley, says that as well as dealing with the covid 19 pandemic, the world is also on the brink of a hunger pandemic. As well as Coronavirus, he says factors such as climate change and economic turbulence are affecting millions of people on the cusp of food insecurity because of price hikes or breaks in the food supply chain.
According to The Hunger Project, 690 million people worldwide are living in chronic hunger, while 130 million more may be pushed into chronic hunger by the covid-19 pandemic. The charity also says that 60 per cent of the world's hungry are women. It is calling for the world to come together with a shared goal of realising healthy, fulfilling lives of self-reliance and dignity for all people.
On World Hunger Day, there are renewed calls for Christians around the globe to work towards breaking the cycle of hunger and poverty, reports Premier. The UN World Food Programme's Executive Director, David Beasley, says that as well as dealing with the covid 19 pandemic, the world is also ...

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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hortsci
What is Horticulture?
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Temperature-induced Glucosinolate Accumulation Is Associated with Expression of BrMYB Transcription Factors
in HortScience
Authors: Veronica L. Justen 1 and Vincent A. Fritz 2
1 Department of Plant and Earth Sciences, University of Wisconsin–River Falls, 324 Agriculture Science, River Falls, WI 54022
2 Southern Research and Outreach Center, University of Minnesota, 35838 120th Street, Waseca, MN 56093; and the Department of Horticultural Science, University of Minnesota, 1970 Folwell Avenue, St. Paul, MN 55108
https://doi.org/10.21273/HORTSCI.48.1.47
Turnips (Brassica rapa. subsp. rapa L.) produce glucosinolates (GSLs), thioglucosides whose hydrolyzed derivatives have been shown to provide chemopreventive benefits. Two cultivars of turnips ['Just Right' (JR) and 'Scarlet Queen' (SQ)] were grown under three different temperature regimes to assess the role of temperature on GSL production in roots and shoots. When compared with low-temperature treatments, high-temperature treatments increased total and individual GSLs in a tissue- and genotype-specific manner. When compared with low-temperature treatments, total GSLs were ≈70% and 130% higher in JR shoots and roots, respectively, grown at high-temperature treatments. High temperatures also increased total GSLs in SQ shoots and roots by ≈80% and 85%, respectively, when compared with low temperatures. Gluconasturtiin (GNS, 2-phenylethyl GSL) concentration was inversely correlated with temperature with high-temperature treatments resulting in 20% and 48% less GNS than low-temperature treatments in JR and SQ roots, respectively. The indolic GSL, 1-methoxyglucobrassicin (1MGB; 1-methoxy-3-ylmethyl GSL), was the root GSL most elevated by increased temperature resulting in a 1000% increase on average in both cultivars between the low- and high-temperature treatments. These results show promise for the use of temperature to enhance the health-promoting properties of turnip because 1MGB has potent chemopreventive effects. Gene expression analysis suggests that some BrMYB transcription factor expression levels are associated with temperature-dependent changes in GSL accumulation; however, this association varies between cultivar and tissue type.
Keywords: Brassica rapa; chemoprevention; isothiocyanates; quantitative PCR; turnip; thioglucosides
Glucosinolates are thioglucosides found in Brassica vegetables that when hydrolyzed at the S-glucose bond create a suite of products involved in plant defense, flavor, and human health. Consumption of vegetables containing glucosinolates has been correlated with cancer and disease prevention (Hecht, 2000; Talalay and Fahey, 2001) Glucosinolates and their hydrolyzed derivatives, mainly isothiocyanates, have been shown to serve as chemopreventive agents by stimulating both protection from and excretion of carcinogens and by inhibiting tumor growth (Hecht, 2000; Neave et al., 2005). Identifying vegetable production systems that enhance GSL concentrations could have a significant impact on human health, particularly cancer prevention.
GSL concentration is highly influenced by genotype and environmental factors including soil fertility, temperature, and light (Antonious et al., 1996; Charron and Sams, 2004; Engelen-Eigles et al., 2006; Rosen et al., 2005). We found strong correlations between GSL concentrations and temperature in field experiments using colored plastic mulches (Justen et al., 2011). Our previous research using colored plastic mulches in a field setting demonstrated that plastic mulches both alter the light reflected into the canopy of turnip plants and also appreciably change soil temperature (Justen et al., 2011). Depending on the planting date and type of mulch, average soil temperatures under mulches during the turnip growing season can be up to 5 °C above and 4 °C below bare soil temperatures (Justen et al., 2011). Temperature can have a significant impact on both shoot and root GSL concentration in a controlled environment. Charron and colleagues found that the concentration of the aliphatic glucosinolate gluconapin (GNP; 3-butenyl GSL) doubled in leaves and stems of B. oleracea plants grown at 32 °C and the indolic glucosinolate 1MGB (neoglucobrassicin; 1-methoxy-3-ylmethyl GSL) increased 3-fold in roots grown at 32 °C compared with those grown at 12 °C (Charron and Sams, 2004). Engelen-Eigles and colleagues (2006) found that the concentration of the aromatic glucosinolate gluconasturtiin was increased in Nasturtium officinale grown at 10 and 15 °C as compared with that grown at 20 or 25 °C.
Both aliphatic and indolic GSL biosynthesis are regulated by various genetic components. In Arabidopsis, such regulatory elements can repress GSL production such as SLIM1 (Sulfur Limitation1; Maruyama-Nakashita et al., 2006), promote GSL production such as AtDof1.1 (DNA-binding-with-one finger; Skirycz et al., 2006) and subgroup 12 R2-R3 MYB transcription factors (Gigolashvili et al., 2009), or both positively and negatively regulate GSL production such as the nuclear-localized calmodulin-binding protein IQD1 (Levy et al., 2005). Two distinct clades of subgroup 12 R2-R3 MYB transcription factors regulate GSL biosynthesis and accumulation. Clade 1 members MYB34, MYB51, and MYB122 regulate indolic GSL biosynthesis, whereas clade 2 members MYB28, MYB29, and MYB76 regulate aliphatic GSL biosynthesis (Gigolashvili et al., 2009). Members within each clade appear to have distinct but overlapping roles. It has been suggested that MYB34, MYB122, and MYB 51 positively regulate glucobrassicin, but only MYB51 positively regulates other GSLs such as methoxylated indolic glucosinolates (Gigolashvili et al., 2007). However, Malitsky and colleagues (2008) did not observe this trend and found that both MYB34 and MYB51 overexpression resulted in increases in 1-methoxyglucobrassicin.
MYB28 regulates both long- (6 to 8 carbon length) and short-chain (3 to 5 carbon length) aliphatic GSL biosynthesis and its overexpression can result in increased accumulation of indolic GSLs (Hirai et al., 2007). MYB29 and MYB76 also regulate GSL biosynthesis to a lesser degree, but only short-chain aliphatic GSL biosynthesis (Gigolashvili et al., 2008; Sønderby et al., 2007). MYB transcription factors may also regulate GSL biosynthesis in a tissue-specific manner with MYB34 and MYB122 being preferentially expressed in root tissues and MYB51 being preferentially expressed in leaf tissue (Gigolashvili et al., 2009). MYB28, MYB29, and MYB76 appear to be expressed to some degree in all tissues (Gigolashvili et al., 2009). In most cases, the expression pattern of MYB transcription factors correlates with expression of other GSL biosynthetic genes (Gigolashvili et al., 2009). No MYB transcription factors have been identified that specifically regulate aromatic GSL biosynthesis.
Using a comparative genomics approach, Zang and colleagues (2009) identified GSL biosynthetic and regulatory orthologs in Brassica rapa (Br) with high sequence identity (72% to 94%) to Arabidopsis thaliana GSL biosynthetic genes. In most cases, multiple copies of these genes were found in B. rapa (Zang et al., 2009). Two MYB transcription factor orthologs, MYB76 and MYB122, were absent or non-functional in B. rapa. BrMYB122-1 was found to be non-functional as a result of a deletion that resulted in a premature stop codon, whereas MYB76 was absent in B. rapa (Zang et al., 2009). The absence of MYB76 in B. rapa is interesting because MYB76 positively regulates methylsulfinylated short-chained aliphatic GLSs in Arabidopsis (Sønderby et al., 2010) and these GLSs are absent or in low concentrations in turnip (Carlson et al., 1987; Li et al., 2007; Smetanska et al., 2007). Although GSL-associated MYB orthologs from Arabipdopsis have been identified in B. rapa through comparative genomics (Zang et al., 2009), there is little data on the influence of these MYBs on GSL accumulation in B. rapa. It is possible that tissue-dependent changes in BrMYB transcription may result in tissue-dependent changes in GSL accumulation observed in turnips grown at different temperatures.
Genotype can be a major factor in determining baseline GSL concentration in plant tissues. Rosen and colleagues (2005) found that red cabbage had inherently higher GSL content than green cabbage. We previously found that roots of the red-skinned turnip cultivar Scarlet Queen have inherently higher GSL levels than purple-crown and white-skinned turnip roots (Justen et al., 2011) Genotypes can also vary in terms of GSL enhancement by environmental factors (Fritz et al., 2010; Justen et al., 2011; Rosen et al., 2005). The objective of this experiment was to quantify shoot and root tissue GSL concentrations of two turnip cultivars, Just Right and Scarlet Queen, under three different temperature regimes representing the range of soil temperatures present in our previous plastic mulch experiment. We also sought to examine the relationship between temperature and GSL biosynthesis regulation by quantifying transcript levels of BrMYB orthologs in turnips grown at different temperatures. These MYB orthologs have been shown to regulate GSL biosynthesis in Arabidopsis.
Growth chamber conditions and plant materials.
Turnip seeds (cv. Just Right; Jordan's Seed, Woodbury, MN, and cv. Scarlet Queen; Johnny's Seeds, Winslow, ME) were grown in a soilless media (Sunshine Grow Mix LC-8; Sun Gro Horticulture, Bellevue, WA) in 10-cm pots. The plants were grown for 42 d under three different air temperature treatments (Table 1) with a relative humidity of 75%. The photoperiod was 14 h with a constant photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) of ≈475 μmol·m−2·s−1 and a red:far-red ratio of 2.1. Plants were grown in a model GCW-15 growth chamber (Environmental Growth Chambers, Chagrin Falls, OH) fitted with metal halide bulbs. Plantlets were thinned to one plant per pot 1 week after seedling emergence. Plants were watered daily and fertilized weekly with 200 ppm nitrogen using 20–10–20 Peat-lite Water Soluble Fertilizer (Scotts Miracle-Gro Company, Marysville, OH).
Temperature conditions used in growth chamber experiments.z
All sampling was carried out between 0900 and 1100 hr. The experiment was replicated twice over time. JR and SQ plants were arranged in a completely randomized design of four replications within each growth chamber. Turnip plants were harvested 6 weeks after seeding and fresh weights were recorded after separation of shoots and roots. Turnip roots were 5 to 8 cm in diameter at the time of harvest. All samples were stored at 4 °C before processing for GSL quantification and were processed within 6 h after harvest.
Turnips used for gene expression analysis were seeded in a low- and high-temperature regime according as outlined in Table 1. The light level was ≈500 μmol·m−2·s−1. JR and SQ were seeded in three biological replications at 10-d intervals. Samples from 6-week-old plants were harvested for gene expression analysis and immediately flash-frozen and stored at –80 °C until RNA extraction. A subsample of this plant material was also used for GSL quantification according to the method that follows.
Glucosinolate quantification.
Extraction and GSL quantification was performed as per Hecht et al. (2004) using modifications from Rosen et al. (2005) Briefly, a 50-g leaf sample or 100-g root sample was incubated boiled in 300 mL of boiling water for 5 min to deactivate endogenous myrosinases. Boiled samples were macerated in a blender for 2 min. A 40-mL aliquot of blended sample was homogenized using a BioSpec M133 Homogenizer (BioSpec Products, Inc., Bartlesville, OK) set at 12,000 rpm for 2 min and then centrifuged for 10 min at 5000 gn, 4 °C.
Desulfoglucosinolate (ds-GSL) extraction was performed using conditioned solid phase strong anion exchange (SAX) columns (Sigma-Aldrich, St. Louis, MO). Sinigrin (2-propenyl GSL; Sigma-Aldrich) was added to the conditioned SAX columns as an internal standard. To desulfate, samples were incubated with two units (0.2 mg·mL−1) of sulfatase (aryl-sulfate sulfohydrolase; electrical conductivity 3.1.6.1; Sigma-Aldrich) on SAX columns for ≈15 h at room temperature (≈21 °C) then eluted with 3 mL water and the collected volume was determined by weight. Further washing of the columns yielded no additional ds-GSLs confirming complete elution. Eluent was stored at –20 °C until high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) analysis.
HPLC analysis was performed on an Agilent 1200 Series Quaternary system (Agilent Technologies, Inc., Santa Clara, CA) monitoring absorbance at λ = 229 nm and using a Luna C18, 5-μm, 250 × 4.6-mm column (Phenomenex, Torrance, CA) held at 30 °C. A 50-μL aliquot of the eluent was separated on the system with a flow rate of 1.0 mL·min−1 using the following gradient: solvent A = water and B = acetonitrile; 0 to 2 min, 95% A, 5% B; 2 to 20 min, 85% A, 15% B; 20 to 23 min, 53% A, 47% B; 23 to 30 min, 0% A, 100% B; and 30 to 33 min, 95% A, 5% B. Peaks were integrated using ChemStation for LC 3D Systems, Rev. B.04.01 software (Agilent Technologies, Inc.). GSL peak identities were confirmed by retention time and, as additional conformation, eluted compounds were analyzed using an Acquity Ultra Performance Liquid Chromatography–Mass Spectrometer (Waters Corporation, Milford, MA) using a C18 column, a water:acetontirile gradient, and negative electrospray ionization. ds-GSL concentrations were calculated using relative quantification with an internal standard (sinigrin) and previously published response factors (EU, 1990). ds-GSL concentrations are reported on a μmol/100 g fresh weight basis.
Quantitative polymerase chain reaction analysis.
Frozen turnip leaf and root tissues were ground in liquid nitrogen and then immediately used for RNA extraction with RNeasy Mini Kits and on-column DNAse digestion to remove genomic DNA contamination (Qiagen, Inc., Valencia, CA). Total RNA was quantified using a Qubit™ fluorometer (Invitrogen Corp., Carlsbad, CA). Total RNA was reverse-transcribed into cDNA using the Super-Script III reverse transcriptase kit (Invitrogen Corp.). Quantitative polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and transcript analyses were performed using a Bio-Rad CFX96™ Real-Time PCR detection system (Bio-Rad Laboratories, Hercules, CA).
PCR reactions contained 10 μL iQ™ SYBR Green Supermix (Bio-Rad Laboratories), 1 μL each of 10 mm forward and reverse primer, 1 μL cDNA template, and nuclease-free water to a final volume of 20 μL. A negative control (nuclease-free water) was included in each run. PCR primers were designed to amplify paralogs of a given gene family for BrMYB28, BrMYB29, BrMYB34, and BrMYB51 genes and BrActin1 using a combination of Primerblast and MEGA sequence alignment tool (Version 4.1; Biodesign Institute, A240, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ). Primers amplified a region containing at least one exon/intron split. Primer sequences are listed in Table S1. Sequence alignments between the sequenced PCR products for a given primer set and the intended gene to amplify are presented in Figure S1.
The PCR reaction was initiated with a denaturation step for 5 min at 94 °C followed by 40 cycles of denaturation (94 °C for 30 s), annealing (depending on primer set, 50 to 54 °C for 30 s), and extension (72 °C for 30 s). Fluorescence was measured at the end of each extension step. The PCR reaction was ended with a final extension step for 7 min at 72 °C and then subjected to a melting curve analysis. The data were analyzed with CFX Manager software (Bio-Rad Laboratories). Transcript levels were normalized to Brassica rapa Actin 1 (BrACT1, Genbank accession number FJ969844). BrACT1 threshold cycle (Ct) values ranged between 19.1 and 22.6 across temperature treatments, tissues, and cultivars. A standard curve was generated for each primer set using a cDNA serial dilution to calculate PCR efficiencies used for relative transcript level analysis. Error bars shown represent the means ± se of three biological samples and three technical replicates (Fig. 1).
Transcript levels of turnip glucosinolate regulatory genes determined by real-time polymerase chain reaction. Ratio values are the fold difference between the normalized transcript levels (relative to actin) in 'Just Right' and 'Scarlet Queen' turnip tissues grown in high- and low-temperature regimes. Error bars are se. **,* represent ratios significantly less than 1 or greater than 1, respectively, at P < 0.07.
Citation: HortScience horts 48, 1; 10.21273/HORTSCI.48.1.47
Data were analyzed with R 2.9.1 (R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria). The significance of differences among treatments, cultivar, and experiments was assessed by a fixed-factor analysis of variance. Data are expressed as means. Mean values were considered significantly different at P < 0.05 as determined by Tukey's honestly significant difference. Student's t test was used to determine significant differences in transcript accumulation between samples.
Light measurements.
PAR was measured with an Apogee Quantum Meter, Model QMSW-SS (Apogee Instruments, Inc., Logan, UT), and red:far-red ratios were measured with a Skye red–far-red meter (Skye Instruments, Ltd., Powys, U.K.).
Fresh weight.
Cultivar-by-temperature interactions and temperature-by-experiment interactions were significant for fresh weight and several individual GSL concentrations; therefore, data will be presented separately for experiments, cultivars, and tissue types (Tables 2 and 3). Temperature was a significant factor influencing root and shoot fresh weight in both JR and SQ (Table 2). In shoots, there was a significant reduction in shoot fresh weight in low- and medium-temperature treatments when compared with the high-temperature treatments in Expt. 2 but not Expt. 1 (Table 2). The opposite was observed in roots, in which substantial decreases in root biomass occurred in high-temperature treatments when compared with low- and medium-temperature treatments (Table 2). The influence of temperature on root yield is important because biomass accumulation has been inversely correlated with GSL concentration (Antonious et al., 1996; Radovich et al., 2005; Rosen et al., 2005). Thus, increasing temperatures may result in higher GSL concentration yet lead to less GSL yield per plant. Despite the differences in fresh weight observed in our experiment, GSL concentrations per root were still ≈30% and 15% higher in JR and SQ roots, respectively, grown at the high temperature than at the low temperature (Table 3).
Fresh weight of 'Just Right' and 'Scarlet Queen' turnip shoots and roots across experiments and temperature treatments.
Glucosinolate profiles of 'Just Right' and 'Scarlet Queen' turnip shoots and roots for both experiments and all temperature treatments.
Glucosinolate concentration.
Temperature had a significant effect on total GSL concentration (TTL) in shoot and root tissue of both JR and SQ (Table 3). In all cases, shoot and root TTL were always significantly lower in the low- and medium-temperature treatments than the high temperature (Table 3). This temperature-induced increase in GSLs resulted in an ≈180% increase in TTL concentration in roots and shoots grown in the high-temperature treatment when compared with the low-temperature treatment. Although high temperatures significantly reduced root yield, the high-temperature treatment still resulted in increased TTL per plant when compared with the low-temperature treatment (356 vs. 256 μmol/root for JR and 428 vs. 369 μmol/root for SQ) suggesting that the increase in GSL concentrations resulting from high temperatures was not strictly the result of a dilution effect.
Cultivars and tissues varied in individual glucosinolate concentrations and profiles. In shoot tissue, two GSLs, GNP (3-butenyl GSL) and glucobrassicanapin (GBN; 4-pentenyl GSL), comprised ≈95% of the total glucosinolate concentration. In root tissue, five GSLs, progoitrin (PRO; 2-hydroxy-3-butenyl GSL), GNP, GBN, 1-MGB, and GNS, comprised ≈90% of the total glucosinolate concentration. Therefore, the effect of temperature on individual GSLs is discussed in detail only for these five GSLs. In JR root tissue, GNP was the dominant GSL, comprising ≈50% of TTL across temperature treatments (Table 3). In SQ roots, the dominant GSL was dependent on the temperature treatment with GNS being the predominant GSL (36% of TTL) in low temperatures and PRO being the dominant GSL (32% of TTL) in high temperature. GSL profiles for JR and SQ are similar to those observed in our colored plastic mulch experiments; however, absolute GSL concentrations were much lower in the field experiments (Justen et al., 2011) than the growth chamber experiments (≈35% and ≈60% less for shoots and roots, respectively). Our results for SQ roots are also consistent with previous data establishing GNS and PRO to be the primary GSLs in turnip root tissue (Zhang et al., 2008) and GNP to be the primary GSL in turnip shoot tissue (Carlson et al., 1987; Smetanska et al., 2007).
The effect of temperature on individual GSLs varied depending on the cultivar, tissue type, and experiment (Table 3). Differences in GSL concentrations between experiments could be the result of the dynamic nature of GSLs as has been observed in previous studies (Justen et al., 2011; Rosen et al., 2005). In JR shoots, GNP was the GSL most influenced by temperature treatment with the high-temperature treatment increasing GNP by 182% (266 μmol/100 g fresh weight) and 140% (165 μmol/100 g fresh weight) when compared with low and medium treatments, respectively. A similar trend was observed in JR roots and SQ shoots but not SQ roots. This increase in GNP is similar to that found by Charron and colleagues who saw GNP double in leaves and stems of B. oleracea plants grown at elevated temperatures (Charron and Sams, 2004). In JR shoots, GBN also increased a similar percentage as GNP with temperature; however, because GBN is lower in JR shoots, the absolute increases were not as large (54 and 29 μmol/100 g fresh weight increase when compared with low- and medium-temperature treatments, respectively). PRO was consistently increased in SQ shoots in high-temperature treatments but not in JR shoots. GNS concentration decreased with increased temperature in JR and SQ shoots. High temperature-grown JR shoots had 75% less GNS than those grown at low temperature; however, GNS is present at inherently low concentrations in turnip shoot tissues; thus, these decreases had minimal effects on the profile. Shoot 1MGB concentration was not significantly altered by temperature in most instances.
Root tissue GSLs were also significantly impacted by temperature (Table 3). Although the high treatment resulted in dramatic changes in GSL content, the medium treatment led to minimal changes in most GSLs when compared with the low-temperature treatment. In the high treatment, 1MGB increased by 30 μmol in JR roots and 82 μmol/100 g fresh weight in SQ roots, respectively. This amounts to an 1100% and 850% increase in 1MGB for JR and SQ, respectively. This temperature-dependent increase in 1MGB in root tissue was also demonstrated by Charron and Sams (2004) who reported a 3-fold increase in 1MGB in B. oleracea roots grown at 32 °C compared with those grown at 12 °C. The fact that 1MGB can be manipulated so drastically with environmental conditions speaks greatly to the role of cultural practices in yielding vegetables with great nutraceutical potential. The bioactive hydrolysis product of 1MGB (N-methoxyindole-3-carbinol) has been shown to have chemopreventive properties exceeding that of indole-3-carbinol, the bioactive hydrolysis product of glucobrassicin (Neave et al., 2005). Temperature-dependent increases in GNP, GBN, and PRO were also observed in root tissues, but these varied with cultivar. In JR roots, GNP and GBN values were increased by 265% (145 μmol/100 g fresh weight) and 195% (18 μmol/100 g fresh weight), respectively, between the high-temperature treatment and the low-temperature treatment. In SQ roots, temperature did not have a significant effect on GNP and GBN concentrations. However, PRO in JR and SQ roots was increased by 600% (43 μmol/100 g fresh weight) and 398% (128 μmol/100 g fresh weight), respectively, between the high-temperature treatment and the low-temperature treatment.
In root tissues, GNS concentration decreased in the high-temperature treatment. The extent of temperature-dependent GNS changes varied with cultivar and experiment. In JR roots, GNS concentrations were significantly decreased in the low-temperature treatment in Expt. 1 but not Expt. 2. In SQ roots, GNS concentrations were consistently reduced in high-temperature treatments. This decrease in GNS is consistent with previous data showing an inverse relationship between growth temperature and GNS content in watercress (Engelen-Eigles et al., 2006). The variability in temperature-induced GNS concentrations between cultivars is consistent with previous work on cabbage varieties in which GSL enhancement from varying fertility levels and jasmonic acid applications has been cultivar-dependent (Fritz et al., 2010; Rosen et al., 2005). It is possible that the glucosinolate profiles of some genotypes are more influenced by environmental treatments than others.
Glucosinolate regulatory gene transcript levels.
One possible reason for the increases we observed in GSL accumulation at increased temperature may be the result of changes in GSL biosynthesis. Previous research in Arabidopsis has shown that MYB transcription factors play a significant role in regulating GSL biosynthesis (Gigolashvili et al., 2009; Hirai et al., 2007). Using primers based on B. rapa GSL MYB orthologs, we performed quantitative PCR to examine the relationship between GSL regulatory gene transcript levels and temperature and to determine if these transcript levels are associated with the GSL phenotype we observed with different temperature treatments.
We examined the regulatory genes BrMYB28, BrMYB29, BrMYB34, and BrMYB51 in root and shoot tissues of two turnip cultivars grown at a high- and low-temperature treatment. Our results indicate that GSL MYB transcript levels are influenced by temperature and are associated with changes in GSL accumulation in some cultivars and tissues (Fig. 1). In Arabidopsis, MYB28 and MBY29, members of a distinct clade of subgroup 12 R2R3 MYB transcription factors, have been shown to positively regulate aliphatic GSL production with MYB28 having the stronger regulatory effect of the two MYBs (Hirai et al., 2007). Normalized BrMYB28 transcript levels were higher in high temperature than low temperature-treated plants (ratio greater than 1) in all tissues but SQ roots. BrMYB28 transcript levels agree with GSL concentration data because there was a significant increase in the aliphatic GSLs, GNP, and GBN in all tissues grown in the high-temperature treatment except SQ roots (Table 3). In SQ roots, GNP or GBN were not elevated with temperature treatment (Table 3) and BrMYB28 transcript levels in SQ root tissue did not increase with temperature (Fig. 1). Normalized BrMYB29 transcripts levels followed a similar pattern as BrMYB28 across the tissues and cultivars with the ratio being highest in JR roots and lowest in SQ roots. Unlike BrMYB28, BrMYB29 levels appeared to be repressed by high temperatures as indicated by the ratio less than 1 for all samples except JR roots; thus, there does not appear to be a consistent association between aliphatic GSL accumulation and BrMYB29 transcript levels. A similar discrepancy between MYB29 expression and GSL content was also observed in Arabidopsis in which MYB29 gene knockdown did not result in apparent changes in GSL content (Hirai et al., 2007). It is interesting that the aliphatic GSL, PRO, was significantly elevated at high temperatures in SQ root tissues, but neither BrMYB28 nor BrMYB29 transcript levels were increased in these tissues in the high-temperature treatment. These results suggest that PRO may be under different regulatory control than GNP and GBN.
Indolic GSL accumulation has been shown to be under the control of coordinated activities of MYB34 and MYB51 (Gigolashvili et al., 2009). These two transcription factors belong to a separate clade of subfamily 12 R2R3-MYB transcription factors than MYB28 and MYB29. In our study, there was not a clear relationship between indolic GSL concentration and BrMYB34 transcript levels. This may be because turnips only accumulate 1MGB, a methoxylated indolic GSL. Previous investigations have shown an inconsistent relationship between methoxylated indolic GSL concentration and BrMYB34 transcript levels (Gigolashvili et al., 2007; Malitsky et al., 2008). Similar to BrMYB28, BrMYB34 transcript levels were significantly elevated with temperature treatments in all tissues except SQ roots. These results suggest a positive association between TTL concentration in JR roots and shoots and SQ shoots and BrMYB34 transcript levels. The similarity of transcript level patterns between BrMYB28 and BrMYB34, but not between BrMYB34 and BrMYB51, supports previous research that suggests a positive correlation between expression levels of MYB34 and members of the MYB28 clade but a negative relationship between MYB34 and MYB51 expression in Arabidopsis (Malitsky et al., 2008). MYB51 has been suggested to positively regulate methoxlyated indolic GSL biosynthesis in Arabidopsis (Gigolashvili et al., 2007). Although we did observe a significant increase in 1MGB with the high-temperature treatment in roots but not shoots (Table 3), these GSL data were not associated with BrMYB51 transcript levels because there was no significant change in BrMYB51 transcript levels in roots between the two temperature treatments (Fig. 1).
Previous investigations have suggested that crosstalk occurs between the two clades of GSL MYBs so that relative changes in expression of ATR1-like clade members (MYB34 and MYB51) are inversely correlated with relative changes in expression of MYB28-like clade members (MYB28 and MYB29) in Arabidopsis (Gigolashvili et al., 2009; Malitsky et al., 2008). Our results partially support this claim because increases in relative transcript levels of BrMYB34, a member of the ATR1-like clade, corresponded in most cases with decreases in relative transcript levels of BrMYB29, a member of the MYB28-like clade.
Temperature significantly impacted GSL accumulation with increases in temperature resulting in increased TTL, aliphatic and indolic GSL concentrations, and decreased GNS concentrations. GSL regulatory gene expression was differentially influenced by temperature treatment depending on the tissue type and cultivar with some positive associations existing between temperature and GSL regulatory transcript levels. These results further emphasize the importance of temperature on GSL accumulation. The fact that some BrMYB transcript levels were both positively associated with temperature and GSL concentrations in some turnip tissues suggests that temperature may play a role in regulating GSL biosynthesis in B. rapa.
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Fig. S1.
Clustal W alignments between published Brassica rapa gene sequences and sequenced polymerase chain reaction products of turnip tissues amplified by primers listed in Table S1.
Table S1.
Forward and reverse primers used in real-time polymerase chain reaction analyses.
We thank Dr. Adrian Hegeman for the use of his UPLC-MS and Doug Brinkman for technical support.
1 To whom reprint requests should be addressed; e-mail vafritz@umn.edu.
Volume 48 (2013): Issue 1 (Jan 2013)
© American Society for Horticultural Science 2013
Brassica rapa; chemoprevention; isothiocyanates; quantitative PCR; turnip; thioglucosides
Article by Veronica L. Justen
Article by Vincent A. Fritz
© 2019-2020 American Society for Horticultural Science
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Archive for the 'CoPhilosophy' Category
Lachs, Locke, "Lost," & lawn
Another very fine round of final report presentations on Tuesday: Chloe on food, Trevor on technology, Dave on morality, Celecita on the Wizard of Oz, Matthew on House, Jade on Camus, and (for sentimental reasons) my favorite: Khalid's testimonial to John Lachs.
What an unexpected (yet ideal) illustration of Stoic Pragmatism Khalid came up with, using Lost's "John Locke" first to show us how to chill like a Stoic and then act decisively like a Pragmatist.
But the most memorable image from the last day of April was my colleague and his class, out on the lawn:
In the age of MOOCs, it's important to remember how special it is to sit with your class in the open air in the Spring. "Brick & mortar," grass & sunshine… it's still real. You can't do this online, and you don't want to.
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Nice mix of conventional and quirky, in yesterday's CoPhi reports. Jessica on Rawls, Andrew on Sandel, Jake on Buddhism, Regan on Meditation, and Logan on a crazy, humble "goofball" climber who "knows" he can't fail or fall (though most of his mentors have).
Alex is an atheist, Logan told us, a YOLO guy who says live.
That's one of my mottos too, but in my case it keeps me literally off the wall.
One of my others: it takes all kinds.
Tags:Alan Watts, Alex Honnold, Buddhism, John Rawls, meditation, Michael Sandel
Cottingham, Law, Ward, Grayling
We finish Philosophy Bites today in CoPhi with John Cottingham on the meaning of life, Stephen Law on the problem of suffering, Keith Ward on eastern idealism, and A.C. Grayling on atheism.
There's a sequel, Philosophy Bites Back. I've already put in the order for next year. (And for Carlin Romano's America the Philosophical, to complement the Little History.)
"What is the meaning of life? Does it, perhaps, have no meaning at all?" It may have no fixed, final, universal, or intrinsic meaning, but for an emergent and pluralistic species that's no barrier to emergent meanings, in the plural. Why settle for just one, or even forty-two? [MoL @dawn] But that's not to say we can entirely "create our own values," a la Friedrich Nietzsche. "We have to find value within a given cosmos, a world that is not of our making." Humility is called for, not arrogant "will to power."
Cottingham on "Happiness, God, and the Meaning of Life":
I do continue to think the Pythons pretty well nailed the answer to the meaning of life, if we take the question as asking how practically we should live:
Try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations.
I can confirm Cottingham's statement about "meaning" in the largest sense being an embarrassing or illicit question amongst many professional academic philosophers. When I found the MoL course in Vandy's catalog a few years ago it was dusty and moldering. I dusted it off and had a great semester with it.
Last thing we read, as I recall, was Viktor Frankl on Man's Search for Meaning. He rediscovered the wisdom of the Stoics, in the death camps. "When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves." Is there a more profoundly human philosophical problem than how to live well, when life itself is tough and tenuous? And when is it not?
Evil or suffering is an existential problem for us all, but it's a philosophical problem (or a logical one) for those who wish to assert the reconciliation of an omni-propertied God with the facts on the ground. [PoE/suffering@dawn]
But let's not get carried away in the opposite direction. "There's just too much good stuff in the world"– like rainbows, laughter, sunshine, ice cream, Groucho Marx, Willie Mays, the Jupiter Symphony, Louis Armstrong– "for this to be plausibly the creation of a supremely powerful, supremely evil being." Flipped too far either way, towards good OR evil, the idea of a Supreme Being becomes a joke. So "we should probably do without any gods at all."
Speaking of "flip," Bertrand Russell often was. But his rhetorical question about intelligent design is still devastating nonetheless, for the problem of evil and suffering: "Do you think that, if you were granted omnipotence and omniscience and millions of years in which to perfect your world, you could produce nothing better than the Ku Klux Klan or the Fascists?" An unanswerable question.
And Simon Blackburn's dorm analogy still hits close to home, even though they've leveled this one to make room for our new Science Building.
Law's "evil god challenge," and on Believing Bullshit: How Not to Get Sucked Into an Intellectual Black Hole:
"Is the ultimate nature of reality non-physical?" If kicking a stone won't settle that question, it's not clear why it should matter (pun partially intended) to most of us any more than it did to Dr. Johnson. But we might be more interested, today, in Keith Ward's comments on atheists and why he's not one anymore:
"Is belief in the existence of a God or gods the equivalent of believing that there are fairies at the bottom of the garden? Or can it be defended on the basis of reason or evidence?" Anthony Grayling says "the best and deepest thinking about ethics has come from non-religious traditions" that value reason and evidence over faith and fairies.
[atheism/Grayling @dawn… Meditations for the Humanist: Ethics for a Secular Age… The Good Book: A Humanist Bible… Grayling's Latest God Argument… Grayling & Hitch at the Goethe Institute in '06 on the morality of Allied air attacks on civilians during WWII]
Can't resist adding a plug for the course I teach every other Spring, coming again next year: Atheism & Philosophy, or (stenographically) just A&P.
PHIL 3310 – Atheism and Philosophy. This course examines various perspectives on atheism, understood as the belief that no transcendent creator deity exists, and that there are no supernatural causes of natural events. The course compares this belief with familiar alternatives (including theism, agnosticism, and humanism), considers the spiritual significance of atheism, and explores implications for ethics and religion.
There's always a nice mix of belief of various kinds, running the spectrum from atheism to Atheism Plus to pluralism, naturalism, humanism, agnosticism, skepticism, non-theistic 'isms, alt-religious 'isms & non-'isms, paganism, Islamism, Sufism, Buddhism, and (yes, of course) Judeo-Christian theism. The conversations are always civil, often enlightening, and we almost always demonstrate the pedagogical value (not to mention sheer pleasure) of actually listening to one another and having our horizons expanded. Nobody proselytizes, nobody gets mad, nobody impugns anybody's character or integrity. No name-calling or soul-damning, just lots of good mind-bending discussion. I'm getting excited just thinking about it. You should register as soon as you can, January 2014 will be here sooner than you think.
First, though, Happiness in the Fall. And before that, starting almost immediately (maybe even today?): final report presentations in CoPhi. It's the most wonderful time of the year… (Sorry, Spring makes me hyperthymic.)
de Botton, Smith, Neill, Cupitt
We're all doing Philosophy Bites today in CoPhi: Alain de Botton on architecture, Barry Smith on wine, Alex Neill on tragedy, and Don Cupitt on God. Connecting the dots will be interesting. Or impossible. But that's how the world generally hangs together, isn't it? Loosely, at best?
This lineup's just a bit on the esoteric side. I do like Alain de Botton's thoughts on the art and beauty of great architecture, and how we're better people when we live in beautiful surroundings. But, to draw a connection with something we spoke of last semester in Environmental Ethics & Activism, functionality and efficiency are beautiful too. Windmills and solar panels are far more beautiful to me than internal combustion engines, and "earthships" more than ranch houses. The art of sustainability is beautiful.
The philosophy of wine? In vino veritas? Well, Barry Smith's focus is even tighter. (Is "tight"still a euphemism for inebriation, btw? Along with things like pissed, sloshed, blitzed, plastered, etc.?) But he's not interested, as William James was, in biochemically altered states of consciousness as vehicles of experience whose pursuit may be both mind-expanding and soul-destroying (and thus "tragic").
No, Smith's concerned with connoisseurship, the refined aesthetic splitting of hairs as to the fine phenomenological differences that can be bottled and capped and sold for outrageous sums to ostentatious self-congratulatory tipplers. What would Peter Singer say?
But ultimately, Smith's obsession with spirits (like de Botton's with architecture) is about the pursuit of happiness. I think Nigel's right to wonder "what's special about wine"? Smith's reply does not go out of its way to recognize the mutual inner significance of such devotions as his. How does he know someone couldn't get as romantic and rhapsodic about orange juice as he does about his Cabernet? Our respective delights must be known at first hand to be appreciated.
Next, Alex Neill wonders how tragedy can be so pleasurable, how the painful feelings generated by the suffering of a dramatic character on stage or screen can be experienced as art. Beyond that, why do some of us enjoy horror, murder mysteries, roller coasters? Takes all kinds, is all. Or not all, but that's about the extent of my own interest in this question. Others may differ. Bottom line is still, again, what makes you happy. That may be enough to redeem the paradoxical experience of tragedy.
Don Cupitt's "God," no omnipotent hegemonic universe-maker, is an anthropomorphic Jungian symbolic projection of love, perfection, bliss. He/It is an archetypal reflection of recurrent mortal human hopes and fears, and "doesn't exist apart from from our faith in him." That's not what they taught me in Sunday School, but I do recall forming an early impression of a "very large human being, probably of the male sex." Only later would I encounter New Age/New Thought notions of the omni-gendered "Father-Mother God(dess)."
For his part, Cupitt says "commitment to co-humanity has become my religion." He's a humanist, like (he says) Jesus. [Manifestos] And, I'll bet, like the job applicant who says "straight edge punk is my religion" or the other one who was ready to make the sacred case for baseball. We all have our projections to bear.
Turing, Searle, Singer
The events of the world are so often dreadful, the history of philosophy almost seems to offer an escape. But it won't do to pretend. Yesterday's terror in Boston reminds us that our national gun obsession is part of a larger violence problem in America. In the world.
[A runner in the Boston Marathon wearing a camera got footage of the first explosion: http://thebea.st/10Z17Pb ]
It was the last sort of news a parent wants to hear, after packing his child off to the nation's capitol. (And where were the kids yesterday afternoon, while the news from Boston was breaking? At the national holocaust museum, and then Ford's theater. I do hope today's itinerary takes them to the sunnier side of human possibility.)
Imagine running for four hours, finally arriving at your finish line and what should be your triumphal moment of earned ecstatic rest, in a horrible flash to find the legs literally cut off beneath you. Now try not to imagine it.
To the 78 year old who was felled by the blast wave but got up and finished: thank you. Such splendid examples of courage and perseverance are too rare.
To the parents of children who fell in Boston: no words. We simply must act.
We're to the end of Little History of Philosophy today, with Alan Turing [PhilDic], John Searle, and "the best known living moral philosopher" Peter Singer (who also turns up in Philosophy Bites).
"How should we treat animals?" Respectfully, of course. But does that mean we can eat them or not? Singer says no. Michael Pollan, among others, says maybe. I say I wish they'd build a better Boca Burger. But more on this later.
My mind this morning is on Alan Turing, a strange, heroic, and tragic figure who contributed more to preserving the world we had (by cracking the Nazis' codes) and shaping the digitized world we live in now (by contributing to the creation of the computer). Turing's Cathedral… The Enigma
Turing's test for artificial intelligence is said by some to imply that if something functions intelligently, it is intelligent; and if its functionality resembles human personality in superficial ways, we may then speak of it as possessing human-grade intelligence.
And who knows? If you're prepared to entertain that proposal, maybe you can also envision a mainframe host in your personal future. Maybe there will be a way to "map the billions of functional connections" of your brain onto a machine capable of replicating and preserving your intelligence and memories. Welcome to the brave new afterlife.
Seems pretty far-fetched, and it's unclear that one's hopes and dreams and delights– the stuff of embodied personhood– can be replicated in any meaningful sense. Never mind whether they should be. Planet's pretty crowded as it is, and maybe one time around the wheel is only our fair share.
And anyway, as John Searle says, tests like Turing's may not be any more conclusive about real intelligence than his Chinese Room thought experiment.
Advances in AI don't seem to have come as quickly as some have speculated they might. But it's still fun to ponder the possibilities, as Richard Powers did in his wonderfully informed and entertaining Galatea 2.2.
But, what a moment we find ourselves in! Ray Kurzweil calls this the Age of Spiritual Machines. If you can just live long enough– until the year 2040 or so, last I heard– you can live forever. He means you, kids. And he's popping enough vitamins to delude himself into thinking that maybe he means himself as well. Good luck. I'm not holding my breath. I confess, I used to have a Sleeper fantasy like Woody's. But Ted Williams kinda ruined it for me.
The best form of immortality may be the same as it ever was: a legacy rippling across time, impacting lives far beyond one's own. Alan Turing didn't live long enough to get himself fully digitized, but the digital world he set in motion has already secured a legacy likely to outlive us all. It dwarfs the primitive world of reflexive sexual bigotry he had to suffer in his brief lifetime.
To those who have a hard time fathoming how machines might ever acquire self-awareness, intentionality, and thought, ask yourself: how did we?
Instead of trying to produce a programme to simulate the adult mind, why not rather try to produce one which simulates the child's? If this were then subjected to an appropriate course of education one would obtain the adult brain.
ALAN TURING, "Computing Machinery and Intelligence"
Singer's challenge.
Peter Singer challenges the way we live in the relatively prosperous western world ("western" here is less a geographic designation than a state of mind and material comfort) on many fronts, including how we eat, how much we luxuriate, how much we earmark for our own offspring, and how much we give away to strangers. He sets the bar of selfless generosity much higher than our culture of consumption rewards. But the rewards of consumption don't begin to match those of humane compassion.
"If it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, we ought, morally, to do it."
"If possessing a higher degree of intelligence does not entitle one human to use another for his or her own ends, how can it entitle humans to exploit non-humans?"
"The Hebrew word for "charity" tzedakah, simply means "justice" and as this suggests, for Jews, giving to the poor is no optional extra but an essential part of living a just life."
"Just as we have progressed beyond the blatantly racist ethic of the era of slavery and colonialism, so we must now progress beyond the speciesist ethic of the era of factory farming, of the use of animals as mere research tools, of whaling, seal hunting, kangaroo slaughter, and the destruction of wilderness. We must take the final step in expanding the circle of ethics."
"To give preference to the life of a being simply because that being is a member of our species would put us in the same position as racists who give preference to those who are members of their race."
"Philosophy ought to question the basic assumptions of the age. Thinking through, critically and carefully, what most of us take for granted is, I believe, the chief task of philosophy, and the task that makes philosophy a worthwhile activity."
Singer's website… Practical Ethics… The Life You Can Save… Animal Liberation… "The Singer Solution"… "Unspeakable Conversations"
John Lachs and the mystique of teaching
John Lachs was charming as always, and as spontaneous, mirthful, elegant-&– earthy…
Above all he was fully present with us, for three solid classroom hours on either side of lunch yesterday. And still, he apologized for having to leave for an alumni meeting back at Vandy before our last class.
Refused his honorarium too, insisting on picking up the lunch tab himself. Add generous to the "as always" list.
So many memorable moments of wisdom and insight, discussing consciousness, rectitude, stoicism, pragmatism, music, writing, "progress," happiness, life and death. "All of life is an experiment." And, "I'm not a libertarian but I am a friend of liberty." In the spirit of James, he counsels a "hands off" attitude towards every soul's birthright and privilege, to be left alone, each to discover their own bliss in their own ways. "One of the great joys of my life is to think…"
The whole scene just really epitomized for me the magic and mystery (and mystique) of my profession, bringing together the wisest and the freshest, spanning seasoned experience and youthful possibility across the generations in potentially life-altering philosophical dialogue. The man who witnessed horrible carnage in the streets of his Hungarian childhood and grew up to become an affirming philosopher of liberty and light, offering his own story to millennial children of the 'nineties who must learn the lessons of history to avoid repeating its atrocities.
John Dewey's "continuous human community" was right there on full display in my classrooms yesterday, asking and answering and wondering across the years. The opportunity for such occasions is why we do what we do, we teachers who know ourselves and our charges as links in a chain of indeterminate (but possibly glorious) portent.
On days like yesterday the question is not Why study philosophy?, it's Why doesn't everyone?
And for me, personally, it was very special to profess in public the hold on my heart of that wonderful little book with its dual inscriptions: one penned by my late father in the twilight of his days, the other by my forever-young father figure. This morning I'm inspired and renewed, all over again.
Tags:John Lachs, MTSU
Posted in American Philosophy, CoPhilosophy | Leave a Comment »
A stoic pragmatist
It's an exciting week in CoPhi: John Lachs, my old mentor at Vandy, will put in a virtual appearance to kick off our reading of his new book Stoic Pragmatism. And on Thursday he'll be here for real. [works by JL…wiki…JL@dawn/DS]
Dr. L's main message: "Stoic pragmatists are committed to making life better…" We can't save life on earth all by ourselves, but we can do a lot more than we've done to make life in our small corner of it better. There's a lot we can do to exemplify more humane and sustainable forms of life.
Leading by example is what John Lachs is all about.
That's the public Berry Lecture Lachs delivered at Vanderbilt last February, drawn from chapter three and described in this space as characteristically crisp, elegant, and insightful. "The limits of human capacity and the vagueness of the ideal make attainment of perfection impossible, yet its lure ruins our satisfaction with what is clearly excellent and therefore good enough."
He's not calling for mediocrity or laziness, but he is calling us to pursue our happiness and our ideals with a measure of stoically-informed common sense. Our standards of excellence must be ours, and thus must be imperfect. Plato would object, but he was of course an unrealistic metaphysician.
Perfection was always an illusion, in Forms and Gods alike. ["An Imperfect God," nyt] Some Christian fundamentalists even imagine God will wreck our economy, for our own good. Or (as Van Jones tweets) that the "end times" are nigh "and we'll all be forced to become Muslims." That's definintely not good enough, I'd say.
I first met Lachs as a "green" (in this context meaning inexperienced, not environmentally attuned) grad student back when we both were young. Long story short: his interest in the American pragmatists James and Dewey, like his general joie de vivre, was infectious. I committed to working under his tutelage on a Dewey-centered dissertation that ultimately transmuted into a celebration of James's philosophy (with just a side of Dewey). I gave up on my project more than once. He never did. He's a prince, a model, an inspiration, and a continuing fount of wisdom. That's what somebody says at amazon, anyway.
Lachs writes:
Age clarifies… the arrival of self-recognition warrants celebration… only recently [have] I managed to characterize my attitude to life as that of a stoic pragmatist… The great question we face again and again is how long to pursue our goals with all our energy and when to pack it in… pragmatists are unlikely ever to give up, while stoics may acquiesce too soon.
I'm really glad I caught Lachs in a pragmatic mood, back in grad school. I was an accidental stoic before my time, when I really needed to be engaged with discovering what I could still do, not complacently settling for what I'd already done. Thanks to his strong shot of pragmatic encouragement– I fondly recall his cheerleading emails, as I labored over the final lines of my final chapter, imploring me to "go go go!!!"– I'm where I am today, not looking to pack anything in just yet, looking for others to encourage in turn.
And like my teacher I'm happy, in all my delighted finitude, to be here.
Posted in American Philosophy, CoPhilosophy | 1 Comment »
Foot, Thomson, Rawls, Matravers
It's Thought Experiment day in CoPhi (TX-Phi?)with Philippa Foot's runaway trolley, Judith Thomson's unwanted violinist (as discussed recently in Bioethics), John Rawls' Veil of Ignorance in LH, and Derek Matravers on art in PB.
What's the point of thought experiments? To "trigger our awareness of conflicts between judgments that we previously held in combination" and "open up new conversations." And they're fun.
[Philosophy Experiments… What is a thought experiment?… Nozick's Experience Machine… Top Ten… PhilSciXphi]
John Rawls' veil. Rawls was committed to the idea of selfless mutual self-interest as the precondition of justice and fairness. Justice is fairness, he said.
What principles of social justice would be chosen by parties thoroughly knowledgeable about human affairs in general but wholly deprived—by the "veil of ignorance"—of information about the particular person or persons they represent? Rawls thought they'd pick these two: (1) fundamental individual equality, allowing (2) only those inequalities that can be presumed to work out to everyone's advantage.
An amusing (if not especially animated) rendition of Rawls:
We were discussing a sporting example recently (the Baseball Conference is tomorrow, btw): a Rawlsian social contract won't entirely level our playing fields, won't be purely egalitarian. Behind the veil we'd probably want to design a society in which those who excel at a game others might enjoy watching, for instance, will have sufficient incentive to actually play. The basketball fan does not begrudge Michael Jordan's fortune, if he thinks it contributes to his own delight at courtside. It's to his "advantage," too, for Michael to have more money and notoriety.
But whatever the deliberators decide, behind that veil, Rawls wanted to give them a procedural opportunity to agree on the basis of relevant considerations. We've instead been auctioning public office and social influence to the highest, loudest bidders, not the coolest reasoners. There's nothing fair or just about that. The "law of peoples" can do better.
Michael Sandel is a semi-Rawlsian, with his talk of restoring respectful forms of democratic argument.
Robert Remini was a Rawlsian too. Biographer of Jackson and Clay, Remini just left us. He bemoaned the lost art of political compromise. ("Clay," btw, is a family namesake: my Dad was James Clay, his Dad was Clay, and back it went deep into the 19th century. A source of my pragmatic attraction to anti-ideology, perhaps?) [Remini on NPR]
And Lawrence Lessig makes a point I think of as Rawlsian, too: "There is a corruption at the heart of American politics, caused by the dependence of Congressional candidates on funding from the tiniest percentage of citizens."
A good argument, after all, really isn't just interrupting and saying no it isn't/-yes it is/no it isn't. With the rude and acrimonious election season we've recently come through, we should give serious thought to how we can elevate our political discourse. The 2014 campaign season will be opening any second now.
I don't claim to know what art is, or if Marcel Duchamp's "fountain" should count. But like most of us, I know what I like: I like John Dewey's approach in Art as Experience.
Dewey's antipathy for spectator theories of knowledge did not block his acute perception of "the sources of art in human experience [that] will be learned by him who sees how the tense grace of the ball-player infects the onlooking crowd."
The crowd at the fountain had best be careful not to be infected by something less delightful.
Wittgenstein, Arendt, Popper & Kuhn, Williamson
Today in CoPhi it's Wittgenstein [W@dawn], Arendt, Popper & Kuhn in LH, and Tim Williamson on vagueness in PB.
First, let's be clear about vagueness:
Frankly, I don't much care how many grains of sand make a heap, or how many hairs I'm short of baldness. Sorites Paradoxes are logically important, if you're into that sort of thing (as was Lewis Carroll, btw-beware the rabbit hole of logical obsession), but I think my old friend Bill Gavin wrote the more interesting book on why vagueness matters.
Gavin argues that William James' plea for the 'reinstatement of the vague' to its proper place in our experience should be regarded as a seminal metaphor for thought in general. The concept of vagueness applies to areas of human experience not captured by facts that can be scientifically determined nor by ideas that can be formulated in words. In areas as seemingly diverse as psychology, religion, language, and metaphysics, James continually highlights the importance of the ambiguous, the contextual, the pluralistic, or the uncertain over the foundational. Indeed, only in a vague, unfinished world can the human self, fragile as it is, have the possibility of making a difference or exercising the will to believe.
But if you'd rather split hairs and play in the Fuzzy Logic sandbox or talk to computers, feel free.
Hannah Arendt didn't bog down in logic or hair-splitting. She was concerned with big questions about birth and death, good and evil, and our vital stake in the "common world":
The common world is made up of all institutions, all cities, nations, and other communities, and all works of fabrication, art, thought, and science, and it survives the death of every individual. It encompasses not only the present but all past and future generations. "The common world is what we enter when we are born and what we leave behind when we die," Hannah Arendt writes. "It transcends our life-span into past and future alike; it was there before we came and will outlast our brief sojourn in it…"
The foundation of a common world is an exclusively human achievement, and to live in a common world–to speak and listen to one another, to read, to write, to know about the past and look ahead to the future, to receive the achievements of past generations, and to pass them on, together with achievements of our own, to future generations, and otherwise to participate in human enterprises that outlast any individual life–is part of what it means to be human…" -Jonathan Schell, Fate of the Earth
She also said, more pithily:
The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil.
Education is the point at which we decide whether we love the world enough to assume responsibility for it…
Forgiveness is the only way to reverse the irreversible flow of history.
Arendt was briefly Heidegger's lover (talk about "banality of evil"!), but is still widely regarded as a philosopher of integrity who was quite right to notice that "natality" has been too long neglected. The symmetry of death and birth is obvious. Who will write The Book of Newborn Philosophers? Alison Gopnik's Philosophical Baby is a start. [Evil of Banality]
Verify, insisted the logical positivists (especially Freddie Ayer). Falsify, Karl Popper rejoindered. And with that, an infamous and potentially violent little confrontation was drawn. Wittgenstein's Poker gives the odd escapade more ink than it's due, but on the other hand it's good (if also a bit preposterous) to see philosophers being so passionate about their ideas. Best Popper quote:
True ignorance is not the absence of knowledge, but the refusal to acquire it.
"Paradigm shift" is one of those catch-phrases everybody thinks they have a handle on, but almost nobody knows in its original incarnation. That would be Thomas Kuhn, in his 1962 Structure of Scientific Revolutions. His view was that big new theories bring change, but not necessarily "progress"… depending, as always, on how we define our terms.
I do not doubt, for example, that Newton's mechanics improves on Aristotle's and that Einstein's improves on Newton's as instruments for puzzle-solving. But I can see in their succession no coherent direction of ontological development. On the contrary, in some important respects, though by no means in all, Einstein's general theory of relativity is closer to Aristotle's than either of them is to Newton's.
Well, "ontological development" or not, greater insight into how our theories actually reorganize intellectual life is still a kind of progress. Whether Kuhn's own theories shed such light is still being debated, but there's little doubt as to his fundamental claim: shift happens.
More Wittgenstein. He said "I don't know why we're here, but I'm pretty sure it's not to enjoy ourselves." Was he responding to Santayana ("no cure for birth and death, save to enjoy the interval") or just being his own morose self? I'll bet he never took or offered a Happiness class.
But I always try to accentuate the positive, when introducing philosophers. Wittgenstein, for instance, laudably walked away from the academic profession of philosophy when he thought he'd said everything wherof he could meaningfully speak. Changed his mind later, of course, just in time for the posthumous publication of Philosophical Investigations. But good for him.
On the other hand, Freeman Dyson reports, he was not really a very nice man. As a young student at Cambridge in 1950 he tried to compliment the philosopher and asked if (as is now widely acknowledged) he'd changed his views in the nearly three decades since the publication of his Tractatus in 1922. Wittgenstein asked what paper he worked for. When Dyson said he was a student, not a reporter, Wittgenstein simply walked away.
Wittgenstein's response to me was humiliating, and his response to female students who tried to attend his lectures was even worse. If a woman appeared in the audience, he would remain standing silent until she left the room. I decided that he was a charlatan using outrageous behavior to attract attention. I hated him for his rudeness.
A "fresh seed"? Sounds more like a nipped bud.
Later in life Dyson, a scientist who "recognize[s] other sources of human wisdom going beyond science" (he names literature, art, history, religion, and philosophy), found himself respecting the permanently-silenced Wittgenstein's legacy of eloquent inarticulation. He now blames contemporary philosophy's marginalized place in the larger culture on its dearth of "mystics" like Wittgenstein. He evidently hasn't read James on vagueness. "It would be an awful universe if everything could be converted into words, words, words." Consider the conceptual shotgun.
Philosophy lives in words, but truth and fact well up into our lives in ways that exceed verbal formulation. There is in the living act of perception always something that glimmers and twinkles and will not be caught, and for which reflection comes too late. No one knows this as well as the philosopher. He must fire his volley of new vocables out of his conceptual shotgun, for his profession condemns him to this industry; but he secretly knows the hollowness and irrelevancy.
A "dumb region of the heart" may well be, as James said, our deepest organ of communication with the nature of things."
Ludwig Wittgenstein agreed: there's much we ought to shut up about. Or at least restrict ourselves to pointing at. Show, don't say. Stop wasting time trying to eff the ineffable.
But also try to be respectful of the points of view and the feelings of other people, and don't be rude.
Well, at least Wittgenstein wasn't a Nazi. Nor did he sleep with one, or hold his tongue in face of horrific evil.
But was he finally right, there at the end of the Tractatus? Must we maintain a studied silence, in the face of the unspeakable? I think I prefer wise young Kacey Musgraves' counsel to "make some noise." Eternal silence comes soon enough.
Rising in freedom
It's an exam day, so I'm free to think and talk about whatever I please this morning. In fact, my family's on Spring Break this week (half of them at the beach), so I've been free to alter daily routines in all kinds of ways. Coulda slept in an hour this morning. But I and my dawn habit chose otherwise.
Free. The Existentialists warn us against the "bad faith" of supposing our freedom merely occasional and intermittent. Like Phil Connors, we're always free to pound the alarm into submission.
(Thanks for the .gif of endless repetition, Quinlan.) We don't have to get up, go to work or school, give or take that "miserable" exam James said good students should care less about, the night before.
Then again, freedom really does become dreadfully burdensome when it drives us to subvert our own larger goals and aspirations. Sleeping in and skipping out might feel free today, but how will it feel in six weeks when you get that disappointing course grade? Or in six years, when you still don't have that degree?
No, when my alarm rings I find it far more constructive to side with the pragmatic defenders of habit, routine, repetition, and the illusion of personal compulsion. I do "have to" get up, because I've already made the choice to live well and be at least as happy as Sisyphus. Existence precedes essence, sure. But who wants only to exist? We want to flourish.
And also, of course, because body clocks are harder to pound into submission than digital alarms.
Tags:existentialism, freedom, Groundhog Day
Posted in CoPhilosophy, morning | Leave a Comment »


Today is my last full day on my trip home to Brooklyn. I have really enjoyed seeing my friends and the places I love to see so much. The feeling of knowing some things have not changed is simply wonderful. I am not ready to say "Goodbye," but I rarely am.
The first night here, I had an unplanned Art Night with Liz and her friend James. We became quiet and focused on our own art. I was reminded of how much I miss these nights. Liz and I created so many fun projects when I lived here and I loved being brought back to the memories.
Above is the drawing I finished at the apartment.


text:
Nancy Pelosi & Rodney Davis
Compare the voting records of Nancy Pelosi and Rodney Davis in 2017-18.
Represented California's 12th Congressional District. This was her 15th term in the House.
Represented Illinois's 13th Congressional District. This was his 3rd term in the House.
Nancy Pelosi and Rodney Davis are from different parties and disagreed on 64 percent of votes in the 115th Congress (2017-18).
But they didn't always disagree. Out of 1037 votes in the 115th Congress, they agreed on 369 votes, including 10 major votes.
On Motion to Concur in the Senate Adt to the House Adt to the Senate Adt
Sept. 8, 2017 — Reinforcing Education Accountability in Development Act
July 14, 2017 — National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2018
On Motion to Concur in Senate Amendments Nos. 2 and 3, and in No. 1 with Amendment
May 3, 2017 — HIRE Vets Act
Dec. 21, 2018 — National Flood Insurance Program Extention Act
Dec. 21, 2018 — Correct Enrollment to S. 3628
Dec. 21, 2018 — Women's Entrepreneurship and Economic and Empowerment Act
Dec. 21, 2018 — Tropical Forest Conservation Reauthorization Act
July 23, 2018 — Precision Agriculture Connectivity Act
July 23, 2018 — National Suicide Hotline Improvement Act
July 18, 2018 — McHenry of North Carolina Amendment No. 87
July 18, 2018 — Jody B. Hice of Georgia Amendment No. 69
July 18, 2018 — Grothman of Wisconsin Amendment No. 39, as Modified
July 18, 2018 — Biggs of Arizona Amendment No. 1
July 18, 2018 — To authorize the National Emergency Medical Services Memorial Foundation to establish a commemorative work in the District of Columbia and its environs, and for other purposes
On Motion to Instruct Conferees
July 18, 2018 — Agriculture and Nutrition Act of 2018
July 10, 2018 — Options Markets Stability Act
July 10, 2018 — Housing Choice Voucher Mobility Demonstration Act
June 26, 2018 — Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act
June 14, 2018 — Securing the International Mail Against Opioids Act
June 7, 2018 — Blackburn of Tennessee Part B Amendment No. 34
June 5, 2018 — Camp Nelson Heritage National Monument Act
June 5, 2018 — Susquehanna National Heritage Area Act
June 5, 2018 — To direct the Secretary of the Interior to conduct a special resource study to determine the suitability and feasibility of establishing the birthplace of James Weldon Johnson in Jacksonville, Florida, as a unit of the National Park System
May 24, 2018 — National Defense Authorization Act FY 2019
May 23, 2018 — Aguilar of California Amendment No. 4
May 23, 2018 — Nolan of Minnesota Amendment No. 2
May 17, 2018 — Biggs of Arizona Amendment No. 16
May 17, 2018 — Foxx of North Carolina Amendment No. 1
May 16, 2018 — Protect and Serve Act of 2018
April 27, 2018 — McClintock of California Part A Amendment No. 112
April 16, 2018 — To designate a National Memorial to Fallen Educators at the National Teachers Hall of Fame in Emporia, Kansas
April 16, 2018 — Eastern Band of Cherokee Historic Lands Reacquisition Act
March 14, 2018 — Student, Teachers, and Officers Preventing School Violence Act of 2018
March 13, 2018 — Endangered Fish Recovery Programs Extension Act of 2017
Feb. 14, 2018 — Calling on the Department of Defense, other elements of the Federal Government, and foreign governments to intensify efforts to investigate, recover, and identify all missing and unaccounted-for personnel of the United States
Feb. 14, 2018 — Hamas Human Shields Prevention Act
Feb. 13, 2018 — To extend the Generalized System of Preferences and to make technical changes to the competitive need limitations provision of the program
Feb. 13, 2018 — Lexington VA Health Care System
Jan. 29, 2018 — To establish requirements for use of a driver's license or personal identification card by certain financial institutions for opening an account or obtaining a financial product or service, and for other purposes
Jan. 29, 2018 — Protecting Young Victims from Sexual Abuse and Safe Sport Authorization Act
On Motion to Table
Jan. 19, 2018 — Impeaching Donald John Trump, President of the United States, of high misdemeanors
Jan. 16, 2018 — Alex Diekmann Peak Designation Act of 2017
Jan. 16, 2018 — Miscellaneous Tariff Bill Act of 2018
Jan. 11, 2018 — Rapid DNA Act of 2017
Jan. 10, 2018 — To amend the White Mountain Apache Tribe Water Rights Quantification Act of 2010 to clarify the use of amounts in the WMAT Settlement Fund
Dec. 21, 2017 — No Human Trafficking on Our Roads Act
Dec. 18, 2017 — Keep America's Refuges Operational Act
Dec. 11, 2017 — Protecting Religiously Affiliated Institutions Act of 2017
Dec. 11, 2017 — Financial Institution Customer Protection Act of 2017
Dec. 7, 2017 — Venezuela Humanitarian Assistance and Defense of Democratic Governance Act
Passed by a margin of 7 votes.
Nov. 28, 2017 — Superior National Forest Land Exchange Act
Oct. 24, 2017 — Otto Warmbier North Korea Nuclear Sanctions Act
Oct. 24, 2017 — International Narcotics Trafficking Emergency Response by Detecting Incoming Contraband with Technology Act
Oct. 23, 2017 — Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Business Travel Cards Act
Oct. 23, 2017 — C-TPAT Reauthorization Act
Sept. 13, 2017 — Blackburn of Tennessee Amendment No. 174
Sept. 13, 2017 — Grothman of Wisconsin Amendment No. 170
Sept. 13, 2017 — Ben Ray Lujan of New Mexico Amendment No. 160
Agreed to by a margin of 8 votes.
Sept. 13, 2017 — Clark of Massachusetts Amendment No. 154
Sept. 13, 2017 — Kildee of Michigan Amendment No. 145
Sept. 13, 2017 — Meng of New York Amendment No. 138
Sept. 13, 2017 — Flores of Texas Amendment No. 124
Sept. 13, 2017 — Norman of South Carolina Amendment No. 77
Sept. 8, 2017 — Palmer of Alabama Amendment No. 56
Sept. 8, 2017 — Blackburn of Tennessee Amendment No. 55
Sept. 7, 2017 — Ben Ray Lujan of New Mexico Amendment No. 31
Sept. 7, 2017 — Biggs of Arizona Amendment No. 29
Sept. 7, 2017 — Grothman of Wisconsin Part B of Amendment No. 99
Sept. 7, 2017 — Rothfus of Pennsylvania Part B Amendment No. 91
Sept. 6, 2017 — Babin of Texas Part B Amendment No. 58
Sept. 6, 2017 — Grothman of Wisconsin Part B Amendment No. 54
Sept. 6, 2017 — Brooks of Alabama Part B Amendment No. 33
Sept. 6, 2017 — Budd of North Carolina Part B Amendment No. 32
Sept. 6, 2017 — McClintock of California Part B Amendment No. 25
Sept. 6, 2017 — Carter of Georgia Part B Amendment No. 17
July 28, 2017 — Department of Veterans Affairs Bonus Transparency Act
July 27, 2017 — Cartwright of Pennsylvania Part B Amendment No. 43
July 27, 2017 — Suozzi of New York Part B Amendment No. 10
July 27, 2017 — Perry of Pennsylvania Amendment No. 63
July 26, 2017 — Griffith of Virginia Amendment No. 5
July 26, 2017 — Perry of Pennsylvania Amendment No. 4
July 24, 2017 — Harry W. Colmery Veterans Educational Assistance Act
July 20, 2017 — DHS Authorization Act
June 6, 2017 — Condemning the violence against peaceful protesters outside the Turkish Ambassador's residence on May 16, 2017, and calling for the perpetrators to be brought to justice and measures to be taken to prevent similar incidents in the future
May 25, 2017 — Protecting Against Child Exploitation Act of 2017
May 22, 2017 — Strengthening Children's Safety Act of 2017
May 22, 2017 — Global Child Protection Act of 2017
April 4, 2017 — Encouraging Employee Ownership Act
March 27, 2017 — Pacific Northwest Earthquake Preparedness Act
March 22, 2017 — Securing our Agriculture and Food Act
Feb. 27, 2017 — To facilitate the addition of park administration at the Coltsville National Historical Park, and for other purposes
Feb. 27, 2017 — Mount Hood Cooper Spur Land Exchange Clarification Act
Feb. 15, 2017 — Disapproving the rule submitted by the Department of Labor relating to savings arrangements established by States for non-governmental employees.
Feb. 6, 2017 — Black Hills National Cemetery Boundary Expansion Act
Jan. 11, 2017 — Tested Ability to Leverage Exceptional National Talent Act