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Out Walking | Dec 2025: Brass Light
6 minutes read time.
December turns civic and domestic life into lanterns.
Snow and red berries.
A gas globe transforms into snowmen.
The path by the lake and the moon.
Steam blowing becomes the moon at night.
A starry blanket on a snowman.
Nipples in the snow.
A fire engine.
Bill’s birthday.
Fall Creek Brass Band.
Bill dances with hands making antlers.
Deer graze in town.
A car goes by and disappears.
The gas globe again.
A DJ spins. Peer Bode and Carrier Band, followed by the devil.
A patch panel on the Bode vocoder turns into birds by the lake.
Wind in the trees. The cat sleeps in a chair.
Chloe the dog sleeps on the rug. Ethereal lights.
Hanukkah latkes — golden brown.
Pumpkin soup with cranberries.
Walking.
Ice contained.
Interfaced windows. Peer preps a show at VOW — with Nilsson Carrol, Rebekkah Plan, and Tara Miranda Nelson.
The record store in Rochester.
Marvel and Mark’s flip books animating in the window of Talking Leaves bookstore in Ithaca.
Santa looks up. A Christmas tree on the Commons at night.
Teens spinning dreidels at the Wolf house Hanukkah party.
Bikers go by, wishing me a happy solstice.
A broken light. A menorah at my house.
A Christmas tree at Megan and Ray’s.
Ducks spinning into the sky.
An iron organ covered by snow.
Blue sky and puffy clouds.
A shaft of light on the frozen inlet.
The bridge and its metal.
Dead flowers, purple.
December gathers snow, moon, gas globe, holidays, animals, and lights into one field of attention. What is civic and what is domestic begin to trade places. A fire engine, a brass band, a record store, a bookstore window, the Commons, and passing bikers belong to the same weather as latkes, pumpkin soup, a menorah, a Christmas tree, Chloe sleeping on the rug, and the cat asleep in a chair.
In the realtime source, these are quick winter encounters. In the slowed version, they become lanterns — glowing forms of winter attention. The gas globe becomes snowmen. Steam becomes the moon. A patch panel becomes birds by the lake. Holiday lights, brass light, snow light, and household light all begin speaking to one another.
December does not only observe winter. It warms it from within.
I sign my name at the end with golden triangles.
If the moon looks larger here than in Europe, probably the sun looks larger also. If the heavens of America appear infinitely higher, and the stars brighter, I trust that these facts are symbolical of the height to which the philosophy and poetry and religion of her inhabitants may one day soar.
Henry David Thoreau. Walking. As published in Atlantic Monthly, 1862.
Official Story / Public Reckoning
December 2025
EPA / Lee Zeldin
EPA frames December as practical governance at year’s end: protecting water systems from cyber threats, supporting AI and data-center development, confirming chemical-safety and enforcement leadership, reducing food waste, and moving to regulate phthalates after risk evaluations.
Emphasis
- Clean Air Act resources for data centers and AI facilities
- Cooperative federalism and faster infrastructure development
- Chemical-safety leadership and pesticide oversight
- Enforcement and compliance framed through clarity and efficiency
- Food-waste reduction as health, family, and community policy
- Phthalate regulation framed as workplace and environmental protection
- Cybersecurity threats to public water systems
Key rhetoric
- “Transparency”
- “AI capital of the world”
- “Cooperative federalism”
- “Power the Great American Comeback”
- “Common sense”
- “Make America Healthy Again”
Foregrounded
EPA foregrounds implementation: guidance, appointments, enforcement capacity, risk evaluation, infrastructure readiness, food recovery, and the claim that environmental protection can be aligned with economic growth, technological expansion, and regulatory clarity.
Minimized or absent
The climate and energy demands of AI infrastructure, the political economy of chemical regulation, the health costs of weakened pesticide and PFAS oversight, and the possibility that “clarity” and “efficiency” may also serve regulated industries seeking faster approvals.
Guardian / Dharna Noor
Guardian reporting in December, led by Dharna Noor with Tom Perkins and Oliver Milman where relevant, frames the month through public accountability: chemical-policy backlash inside the MAHA coalition, corporate lobbying against environmental rules, youth climate lawsuits, fossil-fuel expansion, and resource extraction as an organizing logic of climate politics.
Emphasis
- MAHA criticism of Zeldin’s chemical and pesticide policies
- Corporate mobilization of workers to oppose environmental rules
- Youth climate litigation and constitutional accountability
- Federal science and disaster-capacity dissent
- Fossil-fuel investment as a public-policy choice
- Oil, minerals, and “resource imperialism” as climate geopolitics
Key rhetoric
- Expose
- Lobby
- Petition
- Litigate
- Extract
- Warn
Foregrounded
Guardian coverage foregrounds consequences: children’s health, toxic chemicals, corporate influence, workers used as political instruments, climate harms in court, and the way fossil-fuel policy extends from domestic regulation into international resource claims.
Minimized or absent
The official vocabulary of efficiency, innovation, AI readiness, and regulatory certainty is treated as incomplete unless measured against health, climate, worker pressure, public participation, and the long-term costs of extraction.
The deeper contrast
EPA presents December as a month of practical administration: publish guidance, appoint leaders, secure water systems, reduce food waste, and regulate specific chemicals through risk evaluations. The Guardian frames the same period as a month of pressure from below and outside: public health advocates challenging Zeldin, workers drawn into corporate lobbying, young people returning to court, and fossil-fuel power appearing not only in domestic regulation but in the language of global resource control.
Key verbs
EPA verbs: unveil, confirm, protect, regulate, reduce, support, clarify
Guardian verbs: expose, petition, lobby, sue, resist, extract, warn
Sources
- EPA. Foreign National Indicted and Extradited to the United States for Role in Two Russia-Linked Cyber Hacking Groups. 9 Dec 2025. EPA.
- EPA. EPA Unveils Clean Air Act-Related Resource to Provide Transparency for Data Center Developers, Local Communities, Tribes. 11 Dec 2025. EPA.
- EPA. Senate Confirms Douglas Troutman as Assistant Administrator for EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention. 18 Dec 2025. EPA.
- EPA. Senate Confirms Jeffrey Hall as Assistant Administrator for EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance. 18 Dec 2025. EPA.
- EPA. ICYMI: Administrator Zeldin in The Hill: EPA Highlights How Reducing Food Waste Matters for All Americans. 29 Dec 2025. EPA.
- EPA. EPA Announces Intent to Regulate Dozens of Uses of Five Phthalate Chemicals to Protect Workers and Environment. 31 Dec 2025. EPA.
- Dharna Noor. Trump administration puts Fema workers back on administrative leave. 2 Dec 2025. The Guardian.
- Tom Perkins. Maha v Maga: feud grows as Trump EPA rolls back rules on toxic chemicals. 7 Dec 2025. The Guardian.
- Dharna Noor. As the US invests in fossil fuels, young climate activists push back in the courts. 19 Dec 2025. The Guardian.
- Dharna Noor. Revealed: how Toyota uses retro-style games and prizes to urge US workers to lobby politicians. 19 Dec 2025. The Guardian.
- Dharna Noor and Oliver Milman. Trump’s claims to Venezuelan oil are part of broader ‘resource imperialism’, experts say. 24 Dec 2025. The Guardian.
See also: NPR. Climate Week.
See also: Mallika Singhal. Our Power News – Love for our climate movement. 350.org.
See: Anger grows across the world at the real price of ‘frontier oil’
See: Longtime landowner advocate reflects on decades of activism
See: Civil Disobedience
See: Welcome to Mr. Rogers Neighborhood
See: Birth of EPA
See: The Deeper Listening Series
See: Neil’s Mellow Pad
