a distant birdcall; the hush of rain

Over fifty years of data show a peak in PFAS (also known as "forever chemicals") content in seabird eggs in the 90s, followed by a decrease as regulations went into effect. The most recent findings show a 70% decrease of most common PFAS.

We are making genuine progress! Producers are dramatically altering how much they use PFAS and how much gets released in effluent, but also there's a lot better understanding of how to remove PFAS from the environment!

divine right of choice

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Fictional small town in the middle of nowhere in real country: par for the course in any genre

Fictional major city in real country: standard fair, but it's usually clearly based on a real city

Fictional suburb of real major city in real country: strange but I can see the application

The Fence has published an exposé on Stuart Semple (of Anish Kapoor 'feud' notoriety) which they have been working on for six months.

investigation reveals Semple / his studio / his partner Emily Mann (who's described as acting as his 'enforcer' in his business) :

mishandled £400k grant of public money intended for a public gallery, allowing the money to flow freely between the public project, his own personal studio and personal projects such as Culture Hustle (his online business selling paint etc)

underpaid or failed to pay many of his assistants to the tune of several thousand pounds each.

former assistants have taken him to court and he simply hasn't bothered to show up and he's threatened to sue former assistants who asked for their back pay

repeatedly funds ambitious projects that never see release eg Abode, an 'Adobe-rivalling' suite of creative software (he claims he still intends to release this)

encouraged a cult-like atmosphere at his studio in Bournemouth

was frequently in debt and having to negotiate with bailiffs etc for his debts while at the same time crowdfunding various projects

ran fake social media accounts boosting Semple and his work

The portrait that emerges is one of decades-long scam artistry tbh and someone who's juvenile, manipulative, narcissistic.

The Fence btw is a decent fairly small-circulation quarterly magazine from the UK which specialises in satire, investigative journalism, culture, and fiction. You can read the piece in its entirety if you register (which is free).

a few links:

The Fence's newsletter from April discusses this article & how Semple has tried to muddy the SEO waters

Semple threatened to sue The Fence for publishing this story - many of you are American so here's the relevant UK law on defamation.

The first thig that put up a solid red flag was the shipping material. It's cool that he has custom boxes for his studio, it looked really neat. Then I opened it and sae things like "Not for bean boy" printed all over the inside of the box.

Between Mirror, hyper pigments, and black 2.0, none of them were as extremely out there as the videos on his site made them seem. The colors are vibrant, the black is dark, and the mirror is shiny. But the level the videos showed them at are not levels I can recreate.

So like, he exaggerated as an advertising scheme. Alright, shame on him.

A little bit for Monica, she's my wife

A little bit for Erica, for her strife

My books all go to Rita, cause she reads

My greenhouse goes to Tina, she plants trees

The furniture is Sandra's, on my lawn

Jewelry for Mary, she can pawn

Ashes go to Jessica, that's my plan