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xtruss · 4 years

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Trump Rollback Could Leave Waterways Vulnerable to Pollution

By Ellen Knickmeyer

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration on Thursday ended federal protection for many of the nation’s millions of miles of streams, arroyos and wetlands, a sweeping environmental rollback that could leave the waterways more vulnerable to pollution from development, industry and farms.

The policy change, signed by heads of the Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, narrows the types of waterways that qualify for federal protection under the half-century-old Clean Water Act.

Since his first weeks in office, President Donald Trump has targeted environmental and public health regulations that he says imposed unnecessary burdens on business. Speaking to farmers in Texas on Sunday, Trump repeated his frequent charge that an Obama-era attempt in 2015 to more clearly define what water bodies qualify for federal pollution protection was “one of the most ridiculous regulations of all.””

Thursday’s changes to the clean water rule have long been sought by builders, oil and gas developers, farmers and others. But environmental groups and public-health advocates say the rollback will allow businesses to dump pollutants into newly federally unprotected waterways and fill in some wetlands, threatening public water supplies downstream and harming wildlife and habitat.

EPA head Andrew Wheeler told reporters Thursday that states were still free to step in with state protections of newly vulnerable waterways if they chose.

“Our rule protects the environment and our waterways while respecting the rights of states and property owners,” Wheeler said. The rollback of the clean-water enforcement “strikes the proper balance between Washington, D.C. and the states,” he said.

Brett Hartl, a government affairs director with the Center for Biological Diversity conservation advocacy group, called the changes “a sickening gift to polluters.”

The administration’s action “will allow wetlands, streams and rivers across a vast stretch of America to be obliterated with pollution,” Hartl said, contending the rollback would speed extinction for dozens of endangered species. “People and wildlife need clean water to thrive. Destroying half of our nation’s streams and wetlands will be one of Trump’s ugliest legacies.”

The Trump rule narrows the Obama administration’s 2015 definition of what’s a protected body of water and effectively removes safeguards for some waterways that had been put into place with the 1972 Clean Water Act.

The administration says the changes would allow farmers to plow their fields without fear of unintentionally straying over the banks of a federally protected dry creek, bog or ditch. But the government’s own figures show it is real estate developers and those in other nonfarm business sectors that take out the most permits for impinging on wetlands and waterways, and stand to reap the biggest regulatory and financial relief.

Environmental groups said the draft version of the rule released earlier would have lifted federal protections for roughly half of the nation’s wetlands and one-fifth of the millions of miles of waterways. The administration challenges that estimate and says it is not possible to come up with a solid figure for how much of the nation’s surface water will be affected.

One of the biggest changes applies to so-called ephemeral waters – creeks and rivers that run only after rainfalls or snow melt. Such streams provide a majority of the water for some dry Western states, including New Mexico.

“That’’s a huge rollback from way before Obama, before Reagan,” said Blan Holman, a senior attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center.

New Mexico officials have particular concerns given that the Rio Grande, which provides drinking water and irrigation supplies for millions of people in the Southwest and Mexico, depends largely on the types of intermittent streams, creeks and wetlands that could lose protection under the rule draft released earlier. The Rio Grande is one of North America’s longest rivers.

In a statement, Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham called the new rule “an absolute disaster for the state’‘s water resources.

Another key change removes federal protections for wetlands deemed not directly connected to a major waterway. Geoff Gisler, senior attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center, said it appears millions of acres of the wetlands on the Southeastern coast alone — vital buffers against flooding and climate change — would lose protections, as would so-called prairie pothole wetlands in the middle of the country, and others.

The final rule will be published in the Federal Register in the next few days and become effective 60 days after that.

Environmental groups and some states are promising legal challenges. But Gisler fears developers and others will take Thursday’s announcement as a signal, and move quickly – ‘”get the bulldozers lined up, and day 61 fill in streams amd wetlands,” he said.

In South Dakota, farmer Arlen Foster said Thursday that many farmers believe that wetlands restrictions went too far even before the EPA adopted the 2015 Obama-era rule. And EPA isn’t the only agency that can affect farmers’ use of their land, he said. The U.S. Supreme Court in 2017 rejected his petition challenging an Agriculture Department system that determined a small tract of his land was a wetland. He had argued that repeated snow melt led to standing water.

“These issues illustrate that ... regulations got out of hand and have gone too far,” he said.

___

Associated Press writers Susan Montoya in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Tammy Webber in Chicago contributed to this report.

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pacific-island-pictures · 6 years

Photo

Na Pali Coast, Kauai by Geoff Holman

#Hawaii #nature #travel #Pacific Islands #Oceania

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thematteveritt · 4 years

Video

vimeo

Bomb from Dan Woodliff on Vimeo.

After an explosive family revelation, an amatuer stand-up comedian wrestles with his emotions during his set at a comedy open mic. At the risk of bombing, he attempts to mask truth behind thinly veiled jokes rather than exposing reality.

Writer and Director // Dan Woodliff Producer // Jonathan Melton a film by Dan Woodliff in Association with GRLA Production First Assistant Director // Jonathan Melton Second Assistant Director // Eric Heemstra Production Coordinator // Eric Heemstra Director of Photography // Tyler Grimm First Assistant Camera // Joshua Skinner Second Assistant Camera // Cyowa Merrill Gaffer // Trevor Kok Grip & Electric // Lucas Benjamin Grip & Electric // Jeremiah Bulkowski Grip & Electric // Clay Sturgeon Script Supervisor // Talina Buchanan Production Assistant // Paul Chittenden Production Sound Mixer // Grant Floering Production Designer // Erika Rene Pineiro Art Assistant // Kierstynn Holman Hair and Makeup Artist // Jasmine Elliot Wardrobe Stylist // Erika Rene Pineiro Catering and Craft Services // Lori Melton BTS Photo // Zach Schab BTS Video // Paul Chittenden Camera & Lighting // Gorilla Camera Support // Braincell Camera Additional Grip and Electric // Lowing Light & Grip Post Production Editor // Jason Baker Sound Design and Mix // Grant Floering Original Music // Grant Floering Colorist // Chad Terpstra Credits // Jason Baker

Cast Owen // Carson Coughlin Emcee // Mike Logan Abbey Wallace // Kaira Williams Owen's Sister // Gina Caratelli Owen's Nephew // Brielle Floering Owen's Nephew // Ezra Grimm Bartender // Kalie Hoodhood Bar Audience (alphabetically) Alfield Reeves Angelika Lee Austin Kemp Brad Robinson Cora Barnett Daniel Martinez Geoff Melton Jade Garcia Kayla Morgan Kierstynn Holman Lajanae Smith Mary Councell Matt Van Steenis Nicholas Kuiper Winita Frederick Special Thanks Ross Vande Waa Eric Machiela Eric and Teresa Johnson Scott McCambridge Evan Koons Dave Michael Phelps Tip Top Deluxe Bar & Grill Jen Fong Lori and Bryan Melton Paul Chittenden Dani Dillon The Gorilla Brain Trust Kevin MickorMack Emily Hardy

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lissted · 7 years

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Y Combinator Community’s Top 300 Influencers

On the recommendation of Andrew Smith, I’ve been reading Chaos Monkeys by Antonio Garcia Martinez. It’s a great read about startups, Silicon Valley and in particular, Facebook.

Antonio’s own startup, Adgrok, was backed by Y Combinator. For anyone who doesn’t know, Y Combinator (YC) is a seed accelerator programme, arguably THE seed accelerator programme. YC has been described as “a spawning ground for emerging tech giants”. YC has invested in over 1,000 companies with $bn successes including Airbnb, Dropbox and Stripe.

Its network of alumni and investors therefore includes a significant number of influential members of the tech community. Search in LinkedIn and you will currently find 6,632 results.

So I thought it would be interesting to see who Lissted ranks as influential in relation to this community.

Y Combinator Top Influencers

I suspect the top few results are boringly predictable to anyone who knows YC. If that’s true it also means they must be accurate, and so likely to be immediately of use to someone who doesn’t.

#1 Sam Altman has been Y Combinator’s President since 2014.

#2 Y Combinator’s own account. Obvious you might say, but then I tried searching in a competing tool and it didn’t even appear in the top 40.

#3 Paul Graham, YC’s (probably best known) co-founder.

#4 Justin Kan, founder of Twitch (another YC success story) and partner at Y Combinator.

Influencers with a range of affinity to YC

In the full list of 300 below, accounts shown in blue are rated as having a strong affinity to the Y Combinator community.

These are often YC founders, team members and partners such as Jessica Livingston, Aaron Harris, Paul Buchheit or Kat Manalac and YC alumni including Airbnb’s Brian Chesky, Stripe’s John Collison and Mattermark’s Danielle Morrill. Antonio himself appears in this group.

The other influencers within the community rated as having a lower specific affinity range from celebrities and politicians such as Barack Obama, Donald Trump and the New York Times, technology ViPs including Elon Musk, Tim Cook and Bill Gates, required startup reading like Techcrunch and high profile investors like Chris Sacca, Hunter Walk and Mark Suster.

So, without further ado, here’s the full list. You can view full details on the Google sheet here.

Rank Name Username Community Score Insider Score 1 Sam Altman sama 100 80 2 Y Combinator ycombinator 100 77 3 Paul Graham paulg 96 77 4 justin kan justinkan 96 92 5 Naval Ravikant naval 95 76 6 Chris Dixon cdixon 95 77 7 Elon Musk elonmusk 95 59 8 Garry Tan garrytan 94 95 9 Jessica Livingston jesslivingston 93 95 10 Harjeet Harjeet 93 97 11 Kat Manalac KatManalac 92 95 12 Michael Seibel mwseibel 92 93 13 Yuri Sagalov yuris 91 100 14 Brian Chesky bchesky 91 78 15 Aaron Levie levie 90 67 16 Adora Cheung nolimits 90 95 17 Alexis Ohanian 🗽 alexisohanian 90 84 18 Paul Buchheit paultoo 90 93 19 Reid Hoffman reidhoffman 89 72 20 Josh Elman joshelman 89 78 21 Benedict Evans BenedictEvans 89 68 22 Chris Sacca sacca 89 63 23 Bill Gates BillGates 89 48 24 Ryan Hoover rrhoover 88 74 25 Daniel Gross danielgross 88 95 26 Hunter Walk hunterwalk 88 71 27 Aaron Harris harris 88 96 28 Dalton Caldwell daltonc 88 92 29 TechCrunch TechCrunch 88 48 30 John Collison collision 87 92 31 Gustaf Alströmer gustaf 87 90 32 Barack Obama BarackObama 87 38 33 Alexia Tsotsis alexia 87 71 34 Danielle Morrill DanielleMorrill 87 82 35 Kim-Mai Cutler kimmaicutler 87 80 36 Ilya Sukhar ilyasu 86 91 37 David Lee davidlee 86 80 38 dustin curtis dcurtis 86 77 39 Patrick Collison patrickc 86 90 40 Keith Rabois rabois 85 75 41 Emmett Shear eshear 85 95 42 Drew Houston drewhouston 85 75 43 Tim Cook tim_cook 85 50 44 Dave McClure davemcclure 85 68 45 Edward Snowden Snowden 85 50 46 Mark Suster msuster 85 65 47 Fred Wilson fredwilson 84 76 48 Balaji S. Srinivasan balajis 84 74 49 Max Levchin mlevchin 84 80 50 Tim O'Reilly timoreilly 84 56 51 Geoff Ralston gralston 84 95 52 Whale askwhale 83 72 53 Ali Rowghani ROWGHANI 83 79 54 Anu Hariharan anuhariharan 83 85 55 Michael Arrington arrington 83 69 56 Semil semil 83 70 57 Rick Morrison morrisor 82 96 58 jack jack 82 54 59 Chamath Palihapitiya chamath 82 73 60 Bret Taylor btaylor 82 75 61 Chad Etzel 🎷🚶 jazzychad 82 85 62 Paul Stamatiou 📷 Stammy 82 74 63 megan quinn msquinn 82 75 64 Ben Horowitz bhorowitz 82 76 65 Kevin Hale ilikevests 82 94 66 Ev Williams ev 81 60 67 Parker Thompson pt 81 73 68 Steven Levy StevenLevy 81 73 69 Albert Wenger albertwenger 81 69 70 Alex MacCaw maccaw 81 74 71 Product Hunt ProductHunt 81 55 72 Kathryn Minshew kmin 81 67 73 Joe Gebbia jgebbia 81 84 74 Dropbox Dropbox 81 44 75 DAVE MORIN davemorin 81 59 76 joshua schachter joshu 81 76 77 Eric Ries ericries 81 66 78 John Lilly johnolilly 81 63 79 Hiten Shah hnshah 80 65 80 Jared Friedman snowmaker 80 95 81 Max Roser MaxCRoser 80 61 82 Ivan Kirigin ikirigin 80 84 83 Nate Silver NateSilver538 80 48 84 Dan Primack danprimack 80 71 85 Om Malik om 80 52 86 Joel Spolsky spolsky 80 66 87 Ben Thompson benthompson 80 66 88 Tracy Chou 👩🏻‍💻 triketora 80 70 89 Elad Gil eladgil 80 83 90 Sam Stokes samstokes 80 86 91 Cadran Cowansage cadran_c 80 92 92 immad immad 79 95 93 Ricky Yean rickyyean 79 85 94 The New York Times nytimes 79 27 95 Grace Garey gracegarey 79 84 96 Chase Adam ChaseAdam17 79 84 97 Jason M. Lemkin 🦄 jasonlk 79 67 98 Adam Smith asmith 79 83 99 Robert Scoble: VR/AR Scobleizer 79 57 100 Jason Kincaid jasonkincaid 79 74 101 Dan Siroker dsiroker 79 94 102 Mark Cuban mcuban 79 37 103 Jason Fried jasonfried 79 61 104 Finbarr Taylor finbarr 79 87 105 Matt Cutts mattcutts 79 59 106 ⚔ Siong siong1987 79 87 107 Ron Conway RonConway 79 78 108 Stripe stripe 79 62 109 pm pm pm pm pm 79 77 110 Tikhon Bernstam tikhon 79 84 111 Donald J. Trump realDonaldTrump 79 28 112 Jessica Mah JessicaMah 79 90 113 Eric Florenzano ericflo 78 75 114 Tim Ferriss tferriss 78 50 115 Katelyn Gleason katgleason 78 71 116 AngelList AngelList 78 57 117 John Carmack ID_AA_Carmack 78 54 118 David Rusenko drusenko 78 95 119 Andrew Chen andrewchen 78 77 120 Kara Swisher karaswisher 78 51 121 Bret Victor worrydream 78 71 122 Andrew Mason andrewmason 78 81 123 Nabeel Hyatt nabeel 78 76 124 Trevor Blackwell tlbtlbtlb 78 93 125 Matthew Ocko mattocko 78 74 126 dick costolo dickc 78 50 127 Bijan Sabet bijan 77 64 128 Matt Krisiloff mattkrisiloff 77 91 129 Aston Motes __aston__ 77 81 130 Tracy Young Tracy_Young 77 85 131 Leah  WWDC leahculver 77 67 132 David Tran dtran320 77 82 133 Bill Gurley bgurley 77 66 134 Bored Elon Musk BoredElonMusk 77 47 135 DHH dhh 77 63 136 tylercowen tylercowen 77 62 137 aileenlee aileenlee 76 73 138 Colleen Taylor loyalelectron 76 84 139 Wall Street Journal WSJ 76 29 140 steve blank sgblank 76 64 141 michael_nielsen michael_nielsen 76 67 142 Kevin Lacker lacker 76 78 143 SpaceX SpaceX 76 42 144 Stewart Butterfield stewart 76 75 145 jason Jason 76 59 146 Sequoia sequoia 76 58 147 Ashley Mayer ashleymayer 76 65 148 fred fredbenenson 76 74 149 Darshan Shankar DShankar 76 71 150 a16z a16z 76 65 151 Bryce Roberts bryce 76 66 152 Roelof Botha roelofbotha 76 78 153 Tony Fadell tfadell 76 59 154 Christopher Mims mims 76 58 155 🍪Steven Sinofsky ॐ stevesi 76 66 156 Zach Holman holman 76 66 157 Avi Bryant avibryant 76 75 158 Pierre Omidyar pierre 76 53 159 Josh Constine JoshConstine 76 61 160 Vinod Khosla vkhosla 75 63 161 Roy Bahat roybahat 75 68 162 Siqi Chen blader 75 75 163 ಠ_ಠ MikeIsaac 75 56 164 Michael Dearing mcgd 75 70 165 Charlie Cheever ccheever 75 82 166 Kyle Russell kylebrussell 75 66 167 Parker Conrad parkerconrad 75 79 168 Adam D'Angelo adamdangelo 75 76 169 Patrick McKenzie patio11 75 72 170 John Freddy Vega freddier 75 52 171 travis kalanick travisk 75 67 172 Brian Armstrong brian_armstrong 75 67 173 Josh Kopelman joshk 75 70 174 David Sacks DavidSacks 75 74 175 Kevin Rose ⛩ kevinrose 75 55 176 Solomon Hykes solomonstre 75 70 177 Jennifer 8. Lee jenny8lee 75 68 178 M.G. Siegler mgsiegler 75 67 179 Seth Bannon sethbannon 75 65 180 The Economist TheEconomist 75 29 181 Farhad Manjoo 💰 fmanjoo 75 53 182 🚀 Saku 🚀 sknthla 75 70 183 500 Startups 500Startups 75 48 184 Startup L. Jackson StartupLJackson 74 71 185 Apoorva Mehta apoorva_mehta 74 75 186 John Gruber gruber 74 52 187 Mathilde Collin collinmathilde 74 78 188 Ryan Lawler ryanlawler 74 67 189 Jessica Verrilli jess 74 52 190 Tina Roth Eisenberg swissmiss 74 45 191 marissamayer marissamayer 74 54 192 David Petersen typesfaster 74 82 193 Nick Bilton nickbilton 74 54 194 Werner Vogels Werner 74 56 195 brian pokorny brianp 74 79 196 Hacker News newsycombinator 74 67 197 Sean Parker sparker 74 61 198 Eric Schmidt ericschmidt 74 52 199 tristan walker tristanwalker 74 51 200 John Resig jeresig 74 64 201 Airbnb Airbnb 74 45 202 luke iseman liseman 74 94 203 Marco Arment marcoarment 74 56 204 David Hornik davidhornik 74 66 205 Kulveer Taggar kul 74 84 206 Rahul Vohra rahulvohra 74 81 207 Antonio García Mtez. antoniogm 74 70 208 Anthony Ha anthonyha 74 61 209 Casey Newton CaseyNewton 74 62 210 Dustin Moskovitz moskov 74 67 211 Jonathan Abrams abrams 74 72 212 Ryan Petersen typesfast 74 86 213 Ellen K. Pao ekp 74 65 214 Sriram Krishnan sriramk 74 62 215 Vitalik Buterin VitalikButerin 74 56 216 Nick Szabo NickSzabo4 73 60 217 Ezra Klein ezraklein 73 41 218 How Things Work ThingsWork 73 46 219 Mitch Kapor mkapor 73 67 220 Wade Foster wadefoster 73 73 221 Elizabeth Iorns elizabethiorns 73 84 222 Susan J. Fowler susanthesquark 73 60 223 austin chang angryaustin 73 92 224 Sarah Tavel sarahtavel 73 65 225 Brad Feld bfeld 73 62 226 ACLU National ACLU 73 43 227 Nir Eyal nireyal 73 58 228 Matt Mullenweg photomatt 73 67 229 Ian Hogarth soundboy 73 81 230 Medium Medium 73 50 231 Kyle Vogt kvogt 73 86 232 Ethan Herdrick herdrick 73 92 233 Thomas H. Ptáček tqbf 73 60 234 tom robinson tlrobinson 73 85 235 Bill Clerico billclerico 73 83 236 Craig Cannon CraigCannon 73 73 237 Cyan Banister cyantist 73 61 238 Blake Scholl bscholl 73 78 239 OpenAI OpenAI 73 66 240 zach sims zsims 73 78 241 Sahil Lavingia shl 73 64 242 Mark Linsey mlinsey 72 91 243 Erik Torenberg eriktorenberg 72 63 244 Tomasz Tunguz ttunguz 72 69 245 Richard Branson richardbranson 72 41 246 Danny Dumas dannydoom 72 72 247 Anil Dash anildash 72 45 248 Kevin Carter carterkev 72 84 249 dj patil dpatil 72 58 250 Mike Maples m2jr 72 71 251 💃🏽Arianna Simpson AriannaSimpson 72 69 252 Chris Anderson chr1sa 72 53 253 Ryan Lackey octal 72 81 254 Peter Fenton peterfenton 72 70 255 Chris Messina 🦅 chrismessina 72 57 256 Euwyn euwyn 72 89 257 Susan Hobbs slh 72 81 258 Gabor Cselle gabor 72 79 259 Andrew Levy AndrewMLevy 72 89 260 Tom Preston-Werner mojombo 72 71 261 Caterina Fake Caterina 72 64 262 Ryan Junee ryanjunee 72 83 263 BrendanEich BrendanEich 72 50 264 Savraj Singh savraj 72 85 265 Techmeme Techmeme 71 46 266 Simon Lu simonlu 71 85 267 Jeff Bezos JeffBezos 71 60 268 John Battelle johnbattelle 71 46 269 Gary Vaynerchuk garyvee 71 40 270 The New Yorker NewYorker 71 30 271 SwiftOnSecurity SwiftOnSecurity 71 44 272 Joshua Wilson makanikai 71 88 273 Suhail Suhail 71 75 274 mark pincus markpinc 71 66 275 Niko Bonatsos bonatsos 71 68 276 Guillermo Rauch rauchg 71 59 277 Ray Grieselhuber raygrieselhuber 71 84 278 Arthur Chang art_chang 71 79 279 Aydin Senkut asenkut 71 68 280 Watsi watsi 71 69 281 President Trump POTUS 71 29 282 Bill Clinton billclinton 71 41 283 Laurene Powell laurenepowell 71 63 284 Eric Rosser Eldon eldon 71 73 285 Slava Akhmechet spakhm 71 77 286 Mike Butcher mikebutcher 71 48 287 Des Traynor destraynor 71 58 288 Nick nicholasbs 71 82 289 Mattermark Mattermark 71 59 290 Tim Urban waitbutwhy 71 51 291 Jamie Quint jamiequint 71 83 292 Dan Di Spaltro dispalt 71 87 293 Jeff Jordan jeff_jordan 71 72 294 Arianna Huffington ariannahuff 71 32 295 Neil deGrasse Tyson neiltyson 71 40 296 Liz Wessel lizwessel 70 68 297 Palmer Luckey PalmerLuckey 70 53 298 Jeff Weiner jeffweiner 70 54 299 Greylock Partners GreylockVC 70 49 300 Evan Stites-Clayton the_esc 70 86

Methodology

Lissted selected around 500 Twitter accounts assessed as relevant to Y Combinator from its database of 4.1 million potential influencers. It then analysed their network relationships and recent interactions, applying its own community algorithm, to establish the individuals and organisations that appear to matter most to this group.

#lissted #Twitter #ycombinator

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divertcity · 7 years

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💥MOTIVATION >>> the work will be worth it :: 📷 inspiring image courtesy of Geoff Holman >>> #divertcity #shred… https://t.co/5mpuxSeHRz

💥MOTIVATION >>> the work will be worth it :: 📷 inspiring image courtesy of Geoff Holman >>> #divertcity #shred #mondaymotivation pic.twitter.com/H9JhvyVWE8

— DIVERTcity (@DiVERTcity) March 20, 2017

from Twitter https://twitter.com/DiVERTcity

#action sports #social impact #inspiration #empowerment #at risk #youth #millennial #skateboarding #s

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repwinpril9y0a1 · 7 years

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First Nighter: Tanya Saracho's "Fade," Geoff Sobelle's "The Object Lesson," Robert Holman's "Jonah and Otto"

Two Mexicans walk into a Hollywood movie studio office. No, this isn't the beginning of a hot new joke, even though there's an early Donald J. Trump laugh line. It's the start of Tanya Saracho's Fade, at the Cherry Lane, that, for one thing, takes up within-nationality biases Lucia (Annie Dow), who's written one novel and is blocked on a second, has accepted a writing-team job on a television series. She's moved into her second-tier but still comfortable office where Abel (Eddie Martinez), pronounced Ah-bell, is the handy cleaning man. (Mariana Sanchez is the set designer.) Just about right off the bat, Lucia assumes--correctly--that Eddie is Mexican and, because she is, too, begins addressing him in Spanish. Although he speaks English, he doesn't respond at first. Shortly, however, he points out to her--in English--that her assumption exposes a class distinction she's made about who would be likely to learn a second language and who wouldn't. So their earlier exchanges revolve around Abel wising Lucia up to herself as she grouses about the barely disguised biased treatment she's receiving from her states-born male writing colleagues. In time, Lucia eases up and, as Abel visits her space to empty her wastebasket and show how to open her window, the two become friendlier and even bond with each other against the writing-team's unconscious racist remarks. They're in accord to the extent that Eddie not only opens up to Lucia about his troubles at home but also begins discussing her writing assignments. It's here where Saracho's play--so smart about prejudice often seemingly rampant--goes somewhat off the tracks. Lucia gets Abel relaxed enough to confide something drastic about himself and family. Doing that, Saracho arms the audience with a hearty nudge as to where she's going with her script and makes a playwright's major mistake. She lets the audience get ahead of her. The problem becomes that rather than having patrons follow the Lucia-Abel development, they're drumming their fingers in regard to how long it's going to take for the inevitable to take place. Though that goes some way to vitiate Fade, it doesn't undermine the play completely. Her observations about the complexities of intolerance are astute. The Lucia-Abel relationship and how it grows is amusing as well as enlightening to observe. The playwright is valuably abetted by director Jerry Ruiz, who began his work in an earlier Denver Center Theatre Company production. Dow's never-ending jitters are great fun to watch. Worth watching closely is Martinez's display of sly understanding. He also exhibits a confident workingman's stride, which he probably honed in Denver. ****************** At the New York Theatre Workshop they're happy to reconfigure the commodious space for whatever is lodging there temporarily. With The Object Lesson, they've gone whole hog. When patrons enter past an opaque plastic curtain they've already passed a wall of stacked boxes. Once in, they're encouraged to wander through the hundreds(?) of additional boxes. Some are stacked. Some are not, but are open and contain what look like society's detritus. Some are designated as seats. (Steven Dufala is credited with the scenic installation design.) After the crowd has spent time milling about and then sitting, a willowy fellow named Geoff Sobelle (not that he gives a character's name) starts talking, initially discussing objects he picks out near the chair he's occupied for a few minutes. He rambles on for a while and then makes a call (or was he called?; I don't remember) and begins talking to himself--to his just recorded opening ramble. Sobelle, ostensibly known for award-winning installations, continues spinning sentences that are notable for adding up to nothing much. In response, the audience occasionally laughs. Otherwise, the attendees are polite throughout. For a bit of relief from the attenuated tedium, Sobelle, climbs on a table and, with the ice skates he's wearing, does a dance in which he cuts up lettuce, carrots and a red pepper, thereby producing a salad for a woman, who's said she's Kyoko. The sequence is mildly amusing and constitutes the 90-minute diversion's high point. (David Parker/The Bang Group is credited with the choreography. David Neumann is credited as director, although the extent of his contributions is elusive.) For the final 10 or 15 minutes of a piece originally commissioned by Lincoln Center Theater, Sobelle stands at one end of the room pulling seemingly endless objects from a medium-sized box. Eventually, he runs out of junk, making his perhaps major point that in time civilization comes down to nothing. Early on, Sobelle dubs the undertaking a "bulls**t enterprise." Let's give him that final word on one of the most impoverished theater pieces by which this reviewer has ever been assaulted. ****************** In Robert Holman's Jonah and Otto, twentysomething-thirtysomething Jonah (Rupert Simonian) and sixty-ish Otto (Sean Gormley) don't meet cute on this side of a crumbling stone wall that could, despite the absence of gravestones, be a cemetery. (Ann Beyersdorfer is responsible for the haunted-looking set.) They encounter when Jonah slinks through a wooden door pushing a laden cart. He arrives to menace Otto, who's been rubbing against the wall, ostensibly to extract the heat soaked up during the day. Otto calls Jonah a hoodlum. Jonah claims he isn't. Throughout the ensuing conversation, which stretches into a series of conversations, Jonah and Otto alternately rag each other or declare their concern for one another. Slowly, it becomes obvious that, despite their differently troubled lives, they're forging a friendship. One of the reasons is the sleeping infant daughter whom Jonah takes care of in his cart. Trying to make precise sense of what's transpiring moment to moment may not be worth a ticket buyer's time. The script doesn't bear the weight of too much analysis--certainly not the sequence in which while Otto is apparently sleeping, Jonah strips him of his outer clothes. This piece may be a small lapse in playwright Holman's career. Little known stateside, if known at all, he does include among his works an exquisite one-act produced in 1986 about the also all but unknown writer Denton Welch. It's called Being Friends, and also there's A Thousand Stars Explode in the Sky, co-authored with David Eldridge and Simon Stephens. Would that those two plays would be presented here. The pressing reason to see Jonah and Otto is to watch what Simonian and Gormley do with their meaty roles, as directed by Geraldine Hughes. Swizzlestick-thin Otto switches with speed from scared clergyman (at least a clergyman is what Otto claims to be) to overbearing aggressor. Chunky Simonian--who gets to throw a terrifyingly convincing epileptic fit--slowly instills irresistible humanity into the openly emotional Jonah. Although Holman's play adds up to less than the sum of its parts, the acting amounts to a good deal more.

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