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TIME TO LEARN FROM THEIR SILENCE

May 23, 2014

I hiked the other day with a group, including a man who had driven to the trailhead with a “Disabled Veteran” license plate on his vehicle.  He was the lead hiker and set a good pace. He was probably my age, give or take a few years, and we started talking, since this was an aerobic hike—fast, but not so fast that we couldn’t talk.

When I mentioned I was a retired physician, he said a corpsman saved his life.  I didn’t have to ask where.  I knew it was Vietnam.  Corpsman=military=my age=Vietnam.  He didn’t say what happened, only that he ended up in Yokosuka, Japan, for 5 weeks before being sent back home.  He is a Marine (note the tense, for Marines consider themselves for the rest of their lives as a Marine), and we talked about ships, sailors, and generalities.

We did not talk about what happened to him.  He mentioned Hue (“Way” is the pronunciation, for this household word in 1968), and I was polite enough not to inquire further.  I had a pretty good idea what happened to the Marines in Hue, and it was ugly, awful, and part of the devastation we inflicted on many of our countrymen and their families plus another country and their people that year.

This man lived; 58,000 Americans died, as well as least three million Vietnamese, probably a lot more. Cambodia and Laos were subsequently sources of many more deaths.  This man wasn’t killed but wounded, and when one starts tallying the wounded, we are in eight figure range—more than ten million.  Americans never trusted the government quite the same again after Vietnam.

The man didn’t talk about the war, and neither did my late brother, who served in Da Nang.  When we start talking about the numbers of people who were indirectly affected by the war, the number is immense.

Only non-combatants like me, who served on a ship that was near Vietnam, but 6 months after “Frequent Wind,” the exodus, talk about our military service.  The guys who were the grunts, the hiker with me called himself one, remain silent.  Almost all of them do.  They don’t brag about their service, and even John Kerry didn’t throw his military record into Bush’s face in 2004, only his medals, about 30 years earlier.  A lot of men who fought in World War II remained silent for years…or forever.  The Republicans at the 2004 convention who wore bandaids, deriding Kerry’s service, were among the most shameful behavior I have ever seen.

This silence should tell everybody how bad war is.  It is so bad that people who have witnessed the tragedies stay silent.  Such is likely is a protective mechanism, but may come with a cost, perhaps PTSD.  The man was a good hiker, and we got up to the top of Spencer Butte and down in about 3 hours, a decent time, although he could have pushed the pace had he wanted.  Four days prior, he and I were part of a group that hiked up Rooster Rock, north of Eugene, 2300 feet vertical, and he was good.  He didn’t mention his military service that day.  It took a second hike with me to mention what he did.

Perhaps the men who start or continue these wars, many of whom have never served in the uniform of this country abroad might think a bit more about the cost.  No, I am not talking about the kept off budget “Emergency Authorizations” during the Bush administration, which were barely challenged by any American, let alone in Congress.  That’s just money; when Republicans spent it, we were patriotic, when the Democrats did it, there was howling about budget deficits.

No, I am talking about the cost to a CIB (combat infantry badge) veteran, disabled, who doesn’t talk about it, and the men who died and will never talk again.  What did they see that kept them silent?  What did they see that their families didn’t even know?  What is this cost?  Well, of course, there is life insurance, but that is a monetary cost.  I’m talking about other costs, something Wall Street, bankers, a good share of politicians, and too many Americans don’t think of and never will, unless it affects them.  To them, unless there is a dollar cost, they aren’t interested.  Health insurance costs money, so many don’t like the country’s spending money on it.  The fact that people feel relieved to have such insurance, and that is a fact, is unknown to them.  Wilderness is board feet of timber, cubic feet of water, a place where they should be able to mine.  The value of what I see, feel, and do in wilderness has no monetary value, so these people ignore it.

Wars are at times necessary, but in my lifetime, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan were all unnecessary, fought under false pretenses, and run by old men. When I hear jingoistic phrases and see flag waving that make war romantic and patriotic, I wonder why almost nobody asks, “Why do veterans not talk about what they saw?”  I am profoundly saddened, puzzled, angry when people discover that war does bad things to people that we try to sanitize, so the public won’t be offended.  Why were only 16% of us against invading Iraq?  I saw what was going to happen, wasn’t it obvious?  It was to me.

I wonder why we still hear men push to go to war with Syria, Iran, and Russia.  I wonder, of course, where the money is going to come from, since the Republican-led Congress, and that includes the Senate, since they are running that for all practical purposes, wants to cut spending.  I wonder why we act surprised when the VA isn’t helping veterans.  This happens with every war.  That costs money we don’t have.  Why didn’t these guys die or go elsewhere?  A significant number are homeless.  They served, then were thrown away, like old furniture.

When we go to war, we are going to change the lives of every individual who serves in harm’s way.  People will die, families will change, and money will be spent.  The first two have incalculable cost.  The third we try to ignore.  If we go to war, we need to have a national discussion on this, without Fox News, Karl Rove and jingoistic “leaders” calling the shots.  We need to discuss what exactly what it is that makes this particular war so necessary., because thought and negotiation must be expended, before lives and treasure.  Lives are treasure that we cannot put a dollar value on, regardless of what the actuaries and the lawyers say.

Nothing short of the survival of the country should be a cause for war.

 

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SITKA SPRUCES

May 15, 2014

It’s only a few hundred yards.  The air feels the same, the elevation barely changes, and the ground feels the same.  To any human hiking west, towards the ocean, the woods and the trees are the same.

But they aren’t.

In this short distance, giant Douglas Firs in the old growth Siuslaw National Forest give way to Sitka Spruce, equally large, so much so that not far north of me is one 550 years old, 15 meters, (50 ft) in diameter, and nearly 50 meters (160 ft) in circumference, 70 meters (230 ft) tall.  A kilometer further inland—maybe only a few hundred meters—there are no Sitkas.

By "Big Tree," 550 years old. The cave underneath once had a log from a fallen tree, that helped this tree grow. It was called a "nurse log."

By “Big Tree,” 550 years old. The cave underneath once had a log from a fallen tree, that helped this tree grow. It was called a “nurse log.”

In this transitional zone, there are slight changes in the atmosphere and the soil sufficient to change the climate of the forest enough, allowing one type of tree to thrive and to displace another.  I don’t notice it, but the trees do.  Like the Redwoods south of here in northern California, Sitka Spruce can live only a few miles from the coast.  Any further inland, and the air, the soil, everything changes so that these trees can’t survive, but others can.

It’s a lesson we need to learn.  We are more like these trees than we think.

 

Douglas Fir, with 1.3 meter (4 foot) walking stick for comparison.

Douglas Fir, with 1.3 meter (4 foot) walking stick for comparison.

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Indeed, when one looks at what the human body can tolerate, our cells, too, live in a microclimate that is just right.  Drop the partial pressure of oxygen in the air suddenly by a third, and we die. Change the sodium concentration in our blood 15%, and we are in trouble.  Change the potassium 30%, we die.  Change the calcium 10%, and we can’t think clearly.  Put 50 cc blood suddenly in our head, outside the dura mater, and we die.  Put a few cc in the medulla, and we die.  Change our body temperature 4 C in either direction, and we die.

We are like Sitka Spruce.  Given the ideal climate, we thrive.  Change that climate too much, and we can’t.

Let’s think about the planet as a whole.  We are dependent not only upon the lower portion of the atmosphere but upon the upper portion of the soil, plant life, and pollinators, most of which we call bees.  I wonder if that is taught in Common Core.  It should be.  We think trees are immobile.  So are we, when we consider our habitable zone not the distance from the ocean, but the Earth itself.  If the planet is destroyed, I am as immobile as a Sitka Spruce.

Change the acidity of the ocean 25%, warm it just 1 C. (1.8 F.), and coral bleaches and dies.  Oh, that has already happened.  The ocean’s pH has fallen by 0.1 unit.  To most, this is meaningless, but do the math, yes, the nerdy math, by taking the negative log [H+], and you will understand I am right.  Increase the average monthly temperature 1 C., only one-third a per cent, and we call it warm.  Is every day 1 C. warmer?  No.  Some days might be even cooler, maybe 5 C.  Increase the change to plus 2 C. and we call it a hot month.  Change it 3 C., and we have record warmth.  One per cent increase in temperature is record warmth.  In Tucson, the annual change since 1980 has been about 1.5 C (2.7 F). I noticed it 25 years ago. People like warm winters, even when it is 90 in February and winter rainfall is a third of what it once was.  I am not a Sitka Spruce.  I moved. The desert plants cannot move.  If they can adapt, they stay; if not, they die.  We’ve seen a lot of death in the Sonoran Desert.

Decrease rain 10%, and it’s a dry year.  Decrease it 20%, and we are in drought.    Decrease it 30%, which has happened in Tucson for the last decade, and you have…..silence.  Nature doesn’t say right or wrong, only allows organisms adaptable to local conditions.  Change the conditions, change the organisms.  The desert is still there but is no longer the same.

Our habitat is a small planet in a perfect orbit around the right star.  We thrive.  Or we used to, before several things happened.  We became too plentiful, and our resource use is unsustainable.  When there are too many people, governing becomes more difficult and less gets done.   We aren’t acting.  The Western Antarctic Ice Sheet is going to melt, and sea rise will eventually increase 3 meters, or 10 feet.  There goes Pacific Islands, Bangladesh….and Florida.

The Chambers of Commerce are going to have a hard time with the last.

Nature isn’t out to kill us.  Nature, biology, physics, and chemistry have no conscience.  They are.  Change the habitat, and Sitka Spruces—or humans—will disappear. The oceans are rising; there is absolutely no doubt about that:  the two causes are glacial melt and expansion of warm water.  No political rhetoric will change that fact, nor will any change the fact that increasing carbon dioxide will acidify the oceans.  It already has.  The Earth will stay in heat balance, regardless what happens in Brussels, Washington, Moscow, or Beijing.  If there is more heat, it will be balanced by storms, for a hurricane is a heat exchanger.  The Tea Party may say it isn’t happening, but they have no evidence.  Nature doesn’t hear “hoax;” changes have consequences.  We know some; we don’t know all.

Sitka Spruces use soil and air.  Eventually, they succumb, to root rot, to wind, and perhaps to excessive rain on certain slopes. They give back during their life, sequestering carbon and producing oxygen.  When they die and fall to the forest floor, they are recycled into new trees.  For thousands of years, they have born, lived, and died, in tune with their environment.  Walk among these giant trees, and you see all parts of the life cycle.  It is a cathedral of life, for from a dead tree springs new life.

It is the way of the world that was set into motion.  It is fair to argue what set the world into motion.  I happen to believe in The Big Bang and evolution.  To me, the evidence is compelling.

It is neither fair nor right to argue that changing the conditions of the world will not affect what life forms will exist.  It will; it has. Denial is short-sighted, stupid, and sad, not just what we have done, but that we never tried to fix it.  We didn’t try and fail.  We didn’t even try.

Nature, however, will not judge.  There will be only consequences.  They are already here.

 

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Nurse log that actually never died. Not only do the trees (the 3 on the right, although the center is did) get their nutrients from the downed tree, they were original branches. I have never seen this before.

Douglas Fir on the right; The Sisters in the distance. Oregon Coastal Range, but 30 straight line miles (50 km) from the ocean.

Douglas Fir on the right; The Sisters in the distance. Oregon Coastal Range, but 30 straight line miles (50 km) from the ocean.

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Another example of the size of a Douglas Fir. Notice the deep grooves in the bark. This tree probably germinated during the reign of Queen Elizabeth of England–the first one (1558-1603).

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HOW ABOUT MISTER SMITH, OR EVEN SIR?

May 12, 2014

“Dr. Smith, lay to the bridge.”

John, my hall mate back aft on the O3 level, cringed, and then let loose with a few epithets.  He and I had the two aft staterooms separated from the rest of “Officer’s Country” by a door.  It was colder there when it was cold, like off Korea in March, and it was hotter there when it was hot, like in the Philippines in June.  But we were mostly left alone, had an exit door aft, with a good view of the ship’s wake, when we weren’t working.

The numbering system for decks started with the Main Deck, then 2,3,4 going below or down.  Going topside or up, it was O1, O2, O3, to the uppermost deck, our bridge on the O4 level.

John cringed, because “lay to the xxx,” was used only to call enlisted personnel. “Your presence is requested to xxx”  was for officers.  Put succinctly, it was a breach of etiquette. The Navy was polite.  As coarse as the day-to-day language was, contributing to my current curse word vocabulary well into three figures, there was politeness.  I had to salute senior officers once a day on board, but only if I were covered, or wore a hat.  At sea, hats were not required, although most of us wore ball caps.  Navy men never salute uncovered.  Covers were not allowed in sick bay; they were required on the bridge.  In port, in uniform, one was always covered outside.  I learned these rules fast; I had to.

Coming aboard, one saluted twice, once aft, where the colors (flag) flew, and once to the officer of the deck, concomitantly saying, “request permission to come aboard.”  The procedure was reversed when one disembarked.  One needed an ID ready, too.  Ashore, one saluted any senior officer, holding it until the salute was returned. We called senior officers “Sir,” but on board, the executive officer was “XO,” the Captain was “Captain,” or plain “Cap’n”.  He didn’t mind.  When the Captain appeared, the first person spotting him said, “Attention on deck,” and we all jumped up.  The Captain would say “at ease,” and we would sit down.  This was formal stuff.  When the XO appeared in Sick Bay, I stood up.  It showed respect.

In correspondence with junior officers or enlisted men, we wrote, “Your attention is directed to xxx.”  To senior officers, we wrote, “Your attention is invited to xxx.” To this day, I take that and three other things with me from the Navy: short hair, my shirt buttons lined up with my pants zipper, and use of the word “Sir.”

I mention all of this, because the other day at the local pharmacy, where I get my medications, I stood inside the privacy line, painted on the floor.  Privacy is a big deal these days, except everybody knows everything about me, so I don’t really believe in it.  I may not see a prescription, but even with bad ears I hear what people are getting.  In any case, I was chided with a “Get back behind the privacy line.”

Gee, sorry that I am old, new in town, and honestly didn’t see the line, since the letters were faded.  I got half my medicines, since one was still not ready, five days after I dropped off the prescription, another problem with today’s “just in time inventory.”   I decided to return the next day.  As I left, I heard , “Thank you, Michael,” and cringed.

I don’t like strangers, especially the young, calling me by my first name, and I don’t like it when people on the phone with whom I speak ask me how I want to be called.  You call people Mr., Mrs., Dr., or Ms.  It is default.  You don’t ask, you do it, and you ought to know that.  I still call the former head of neurology where I trained “Doctor.”  He is in his 80s, and he has always been “Doctor” to me.  The past Executive Director of the Medical Society always called me “Doctor,” although we spoke on a lot of issues as friends.  It’s a sign of respect.

I don’t push the issue, but maybe it’s time to.  If you are too polite, you will be given an honor (yes, it is) to call someone people by his or her first name.  One should not put people in an uncomfortable position of asking how they want to be called, which happened with me with AARP.  How about “Mr. Smith”?  It is always in style, never wrong.

Thirty years ago, I flew over to San Diego to attend my Chief’s retirement.  I stayed in my stateroom one last time. I could have called both the Captain and the XO by their first names, for I was a civilian.  I could have called my chief by his first name, too.  But I didn’t.  I never had.  These people were “Captain,” “XO”, and “Chief”.  They were, and they always would be.

I discovered in civilian life that “Sir” is a powerful word showing respect for the office or age, but properly pronounced may be used to show distaste for the individual or task.  I learned the last to more than one lawyer’s chagrin, when he thought he was dealing with an arrogant doctor: my use of “Sir” with the appropriate tone was devastating.

“Sir, could you please step behind the privacy line?  Thank you.”

“Thank you, Mr. Smith. Good-by.”

“Mr. Smith, may I outline the benefits of our program?”

Notice the “Sir,” “please”, “Thank you,” “Mr.” and “may I”. These seven words exude politeness.

Many gun owners have told me that gun ownership will create a polite society.  I disagree.  I didn’t think the 19th century was so polite, the 20th or especially this one, while gun ownership has increased rapidly.  People must be scared of something.  Congress won’t even fund the CDC to find out why.  If we had 25,000 people dying from a new virus every year, you bet the CDC would get money.

Ironically, one of the most polite places where I worked was one where rifles were locked up, we enforced the Uniform Code of Military Justice with Captain’s Mast (non-judicial) more than courts martial, and fights were almost always with fists, even in liberty ports.   I treated a lot of STDs; I honestly can’t remember treating even a knife wound.

But please, dear reader, bear with me, for my memory is no longer good.  I might be mistaken.  But not about gun violence.

 

 

 

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THE NEW WORLD

May 8, 2014

“640 K of memory ought to be enough for anybody.”  Bill Gates (1990).

“I’m 55, I don’t need to learn about computers.  I’m too old.”  A friend, 2001

I remember Blockbuster, the blue and yellow signs, shopping for videos along the many aisles, the late fees we tried to avoid, the drop boxes. Blockbuster was sold to Viacom in 1994 for $8.3 billion.  It was auctioned off not long ago for $254 million, a 97% decrease, and the last of its several thousand stores disappeared before this year.  In the space of a quarter century, Blockbuster went from nothing to huge, to nothing.  The building we went to for videos now houses “Beyond Bread,” a thriving, great restaurant.

Blockbuster had a good business plan, and only one thing went wrong:  the world changed.  It became possible to get videos streamed over the Internet.  I watched probably my 2000th video in German today, for free.  I can watch them in other languages, too, if I choose to.  I haven’t used Netflix, although I could. Those who plan for the world’s changing will survive.  They may not get super wealthy, unless they guess right, but to do well one needs only to see the changes and learn to adapt to them, not deny their occurrence.

The Haunted Bookshop was a lovely place in Tucson, with old and new books, a store where one could pick up a good hardcover, find a comfortable chair, read a few pages, and perhaps buy it.  It has been gone for decades.  Checkout, however, was slow, because the clerk  painstakingly wrote down the book’s name and the price.  Big chains, like Barnes and Noble and Borders, appeared, with tens of thousands of books; The Haunted Bookshop didn’t have a prayer.  Then came the Kindle, which my 86 year-old neighbor uses every day.  She doesn’t have to go to a bookstore.  Borders, which began in 1971, had its last profit in 2006.  It is long gone.  Barnes and Noble countered with the Nook, but Amazon had the books and soon had almost everything else people wanted.

Last week, I literally ran to the local REI to buy a micro SD chip with topos for Oregon and Washington.  REI was out of them.  No surprise, many stores have slashed inventory so much that they are often out of stock of the item you want, promising to have it to you in “x business days.” I find that annoying.

I walked out of REI, leaned against its wall and with my smartphone ordered the microchip from Amazon in about 2 minutes, $15 less, sent to my house.  That’s how good Amazon is.  If I want something, I often look there first.  The prices are good, I can get used books for a lot less, which is often all I need, and my information is saved, so it is easy to check out.  I want to shop and buy locally, but if retailers are going to continue to use the B-school model of “just in time inventory,” which isn’t just in time, I will take my business elsewhere.  I, like many, can be an impulse buyer.  If I can’t find it quickly, I order it. Now, had REI had a different B-school approach, and ordered it overnight from Amazon, at higher cost to them, but not me, they would have gotten my purchase.  Nobody tracked my disappointment, nobody learned, and that is a non-survivable model in the new world.  Count on it.

The topos  I got were for my Garmin GPS, a much nicer model than I had planned on,   I bought that online through Cabela’s, because all I had to do for a 60% discount was show up at the store 5 days later, when it arrived.  It takes me 35 minutes to walk to Cabela’s.

There is a lot of resistance to solar from some utility companies, blocking it wherever possible.  The oil industry wants to do the same.  I don’t know whether solar will be the new energy or something else.  I can tell you this:  the world will change, and what energy we will use will change.  I’m not sure how much, only that it will.  Movement by horse was once a given.  Building better buggies was a huge industry.  Then came the automobile.  One would have to be foolish to think the automobile and gasoline will stay forever.

Last night, a man told me that tidal power was impossible to generate in Oregon, because of the coastal geography and the storms.  I simply replied, “Perhaps not yet, but I wouldn’t count it out.”  He countered by saying it would be prohibitively expensive.  I’d be cautious about making those statements in the new world.  For a few dollars, I can buy an 8 x10 mm piece of plastic that holds 8 GB of data, including every 1:24,000 topo map in Oregon and Washington.  For a few hundred, we used to buy encyclopedias, which I haven’t seen in years.

While we have far more instantaneous information at our fingertips, we don’t have the ability to separate the wheat from the chaff, truth from conspiracy fiction. The new world will need critical thinkers and those who can teach the difference.

It is not yet clear to me whether online education will work.  Through my work with one university, that had some class time, degrees were obtained with a lot less work and a lot less knowledge.  I was motivated, I was smart, but I don’t think I could learned as well with home schooling or over the Internet.  I needed somebody, a guide—a great teacher once told me—to personally explain things, give me assignments, so I could figure out the answer for myself.

Who will have trouble in the new world?  Those who refuse to adapt to the changes, want to turn back the clock to “the good old days,” which weren’t so good.  Back then, we lynched African-Americans, did nothing about child abuse (“blood was thicker than water” approach) thought getting drunk and smoking were cool and chic, woman and blacks need not apply, cars broke down, planes crashed monthly,  In medicine, “The doctor” could do no wrong, except when he (and it was he) did, it was covered up. I remember those days.

Those who want to turn back the clock would force raped women to carry babies, have unwanted, malnourished, unvaccinated, children, teach them that the Bible (substitute any other Holy Book), is the only truth, when I need just one counterexample, and there are many, called contradictions. The clock cannot be turned back.  The world is changing, and its climate is, too.  What is scary to me is not the change, or even the fact that some don’t want the change and won’t believe in it.

No, what scares me is that those people have become so popular and are damn close to running the show.  The world they want to bring back will fail, and it will take humanity with it.

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ITALICS MINE

May 6, 2014

April 15, 1994, was a memorable day:  The executives of tobacco companies stood before a congressional hearing, under oath (Italics mine), and said these words, among others:

“Cigarettes may cause lung cancer, heart disease and other health problems, but the evidence is not conclusive.”

At one point during the hearing, Rep. (now Sen.) Wyden presented data from medical groups and a 1989 Surgeon General’s report on the health consequences of smoking, asking each executive if he believed that cigarettes were addictive. Each answered no.  I saw that on TV. (Italics mine.)

“What the anti-tobacco industry wants is prohibition,” said one. “We hear about the addiction and the threat. If cigarettes are too dangerous to be sold, then ban them. Some smokers will obey the law, but many will not. People will be selling cigarettes out of the trunks of cars, cigarettes made by who knows who, made of who knows what.”

I know what: carcinogenic and addictive substances, same as now.

Despite earlier denials, a Philip Morris study that suggested that animals could become addicted to nicotine was suppressed in 1983 and 1985.

Wow, if cigarettes are banned, only outlaws will have cigarettes, and as bad as firearm lack of regulation in our society is, the magnitude of deaths is at least 20-fold more in the case of cigarettes. (Italics mine.)

The executives stated that tobacco companies could control the amount of nicotine in cigarettes, using these blends for flavor.

Or to addict people.  Turns out smoking is not a character flaw, but is an addiction, like high fructose corn syrup, but the latter is for another time.

Pressed by the subcommittee’s chairman, Mr. Waxman, and Representatives Wyden and Synar, (all Democrats), the companies agreed to supply many private company papers, including all the research done by the Philip Morris researcher whose scientific paper on addiction was blocked from publication by company executives.  (Italics mine.)

When one executive said that all products, from cola to Twinkies, had risks associated with them, Mr. Waxman replied, “Yes, but the difference between cigarettes and Twinkies is death.”

“How many smokers die each year from cancer?” Mr. Waxman then asked.

“I do not know how many,” was the reply, adding that estimates of death are “generated by computers and are only statistical.”

If computers are banned, then we won’t die, I guess.  (Italics mine.)

Mr. Waxman asked, “Does smoking cause heart disease?”

“It may,” Mr. Johnston said.

“Does it cause lung cancer?”

“It may.”

“Emphysema?

“It may.”

Could the world be flat?

It may.  (Italics mine).

The term “only statistical” underpins science. We stopped the study on the effectiveness of polio vaccination because of statistics proving the vaccine was effective.  I am polio-free today because of that.  I received the Salk vaccine when it was first available; I was in the first cohort who received the Sabin vaccine.  We have confidence intervals stating with high (not complete) confidence that global climate change is occurring.  I have never seen one CI saying that it isn’t.  (Italics mine.)

We didn’t regulate tobacco enough, allowing “market forces” and “getting government out of business” to handle such issues.  The result has been as many deaths from tobacco-related illnesses every year (Italics mine) as the number of Americans who died in World War II.  Stalin said that “One death is a tragedy, one million a statistic.”  Yes, it is a tragedy when it involves a death at 40, or 53, my father-in-law, or my brother.  This should be a national outrage.  Wow, I can make a case for anti-government being in line of Stalinist thinking.  (Italics mine, but reasoning probably faulty.)

The incredibly rich tobacco company executives lied in front of Congress, suppressing evidence that went back decades.

That, Mr. Boehner, and Mr. Cantor, and Mr. Joe Tea Party, is why we need federal regulation.  Without it, people DIE.  (Italics mine.)

We regulate, because left to their own devices, people make a mess of the world.  We learn that early in school when “today, on your break, you will stay quietly in your seats, because a few people abused the privilege by jumping on their desks and screaming.”  You can use whatever you want for what you couldn’t do, but the first seven words in the subordinate clause stay the same throughout our lives. (Italics mine.)

I unsuccessfully tried to regulate medicine.  With no regulations, doctors did piecework and expected to be paid for it.  I remember a few of these doctors.  Those were the “golden days” of medicine, when “Doctor” was “God,” surgeons threw instruments, people cowered, nurses and medical students abused.  I was verbally abused to the point of tears by many doctors and had a retractor slammed on my thumb once.  “The Giants” made mistakes, because they were human.  Their mistakes were covered up, not investigated so we could learn from them. because to rat on a colleague would result in ostracism and no referrals.

My colleagues operated on carotid arteries, with frighteningly bad results, worse than the natural history of the untreated disease.  I counted these and presented the statistics.  I was screamed at and told I had no business to interfere. I was unpopular; however, I did notice that 12 physicians who became my patients never referred their patients to me.  (Italics mine.)  I thought that interesting. We allowed rods and fusion for low back pain, without adequate evidence that they did any good, which with few clear exceptions, they didn’t.

We failed to do what was proven effective to decrease post-operative infections:  inject a specific antibiotic for clean case infections 30-120 minutes before incision.  Easy, right?  In my hospital, we did it 25% of the time, and physicians refused to change.  We couldn’t even mandate the right antibiotic, promoting resistance to stronger antibiotics that some surgeons insisted upon using.  (Italics mine.)

After many years, we finally mandated that only pulmonary physicians, not general internists, could manage ventilators, because the former had better results.  That was strongly resisted, but it was one powerful group against another, not a dweeby neurologist (Italics and individual mine.) trying to change the profession through data and outcomes.

Politically powerful physicians who brought money into the hospital had special treatment.  Facts, outcomes, right or wrong were too often subsidiary.  It had to do with money. (Italics mine.)

My point is simple:.  Every law, every regulation, came because of a reason.  Maybe the law could have been better written, but the fact that there is a law speaks to a reason.  Some person said, “There ought to be a law against…..”

Don’t like regulations?  Neither do I.  Then self-regulated your group, your peers, your city, your country.  Want government out of your life?  Then figure out how 310 million people can each do what he or she wants without upsetting somebody else.  (Italics mine.) Hear that, Mr. Boehner and Mr. Cantor?

I don’t miss second hand smoke.  Nor does my body.  

(Italics mine.)

 

 

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HISSY FIT…..DISSING AN ORGANIZATION IN WHICH I AM A LIFE MEMBER

April 26, 2014

“What sort of person reads SIERRA?”  An editorial suggested four ads, “which would depict you in split screen”:  Take a look; I wrote them verbatim, my comments in italics:

 

  • grinning like a loon while riding your folding bike to work and then giggling on the back of your girlfriend’s tandem as you cycle past wetlands that you helped save from bulldozers.  [loons don’t grin; I’ve seen thousands.  Why the back of the tandem?  Isn’t that sexist?  Women can be stronger than men.  Besides, the best wetlands are nowhere near cycling routes.]
  • hoisting your sweaty self up a 5.10 granite face and then kicking back under a camp lantern reading The Botany of Desire.  [I guess I don’t belong, since I don’t rock climb.  I haven’t read the book, either.  Shameful.]
  • giving a thumbs-up to the crew who put solar panels on your house in the morning and then battering your way through Class V rapids at sunset.  [Oh wow, the average member can plunk down $10,000 for panels, more for a good Kayak and go through Class V rapids, which aren’t exactly everywhere, requiring a lot of training.  Where does the money and the time to train come from?  By the way, “the crew” probably spoke Spanish and don’t own Kayaks, let alone the means to get to Class V rivers, but hey, you are special.]
  • admiring a scarlet macaw in your binoculars and then admiring the way your flip-flops look on the sustainable flooring you installed to protect that rainforest.  [Here, Spanish speakers have an advantage, because unless you live in Central or South America, you didn’t see the Macaw (the national bird of Honduras) and then admired your sustainable flooring.  Additionally, the flooring, like most of ours, is probably on cement, the production of which is a major cause of CO2 emission.]

I’m not about to ditch the Club over this, only diss it.  I wrote the editor “‘I’m obnoxious and outspoken when I read outlandish orations what I ought to be accomplishing every hour.”  No worry, marketers aren’t interested in guys my age.  These ads make the Club sound like it is for world class, superrich, world-saving Yuppies, who don’t have to work the hours most do, and weren’t required to serve in Uncle Sam’s fighting forces.  School and the military took me through my 20s. I was well into my 30s before I had the chance to explore much of the world.

Much as I don’t care for the NRA, “I’m the NRA” is a powerful ad.  Calling guns “rifles” softens the name of the organization.  The National Gun Association would be dead on arrival, and I am amazed nobody has said that.  For people who are highly educated, Sierra Club folks and other liberal thinkers have lost almost every battle on language to those who don’t understand a lot of English grammar, but sure know how to string a few words together well.  John Kerry looked elitist on a kite board; Dukakis may have lost the election when he rode a tank; George W. Bush was a guy you could have a beer with.  Frankly, I want a president who is a hell of a lot smarter than I, but most people don’t think like me.  Let’s see if I can figure out how they do think.

The Club is perceived by many as elitist that says NO to everything. The NGA, and you know whom I mean, also says no, but is not elitist.  That is a huge difference.  Most Americans are not elite, jealous of the elite, feel the elite have too much money, too much everything, and care more about the environment than jobs and people.  They aren’t convinced we can have both jobs and protect the environment.  And they vote.

The four ads portray members as wine sipping yuppies, doing things the average American doesn’t, and to quote my late father, think their shit don’t stink.  I think the NGA stinks, but I’m among the first to admit that a lot more people relate to it than to the Sierra Club.

I’m old; neither pretty nor charismatic, but an ad featuring a guy like me might be understood by more people who want to know what the Club is about.  Put me in split screen, driving into Kearney with a 3 on the floor rusty, old Ford F-150 with “8” or “9” on the Nebraska plates, waving the tip of a finger to oncoming vehicles (those are Hall and Buffalo counties, by the way; everybody in Nebraska knows they are rural), and saying, “I’m Mike Smith, and I’m a Sierra Club member, I have a Duck Stamp, and I’m helping out at one of the great migrations in America.”  Trust me: Having a Duck Stamp matters.  Hunters need one, and it’s a bone of contention to them that non-hunters don’t buy them. I don’t blame hunters for their anger.  I continue, truck bouncing, “A lot of folks think we are anti-hunting.  We aren’t. Hunting gets kids outside. I like that.  America’s special outdoor places are under attack by those who haven’t seen a full Moon rise, mist on a lake full of waterfowl, heard rain on the roof of a tent, or felt the tug of a bass on a line.”

 

The migration of Sandhill Cranes, Nebraska.

The migration of Sandhill Cranes, Nebraska.

Split screen: showing me by my old tent on a clear spot in the wilderness, wearing every bit of clothing I’ve brought.  Then the next night I’m wearing a sweater and hiking boots–show the boots– presenting a small scholarship, in memory of two Minnesotans who died in Iraq, at the Vermilion Community College banquet, to a young woman from the Iron Range studying for a job in wilderness management.  That happened.

Split screen:  I’m paddling out of the Boundary Waters on Fall Lake, grubby, after a few days in the woods, and an hour later, eating a scone at a small town bakery in Ely and looking at a real fishing guide’s picture of a 32 1/2 inch walleye he caught and threw back. This is small town America.  Yeah, that happened last September.  I wrote about it.

Split screen:  My wife lungeing a horse, and the next week, wearing a very different outfit portaging 45 pounds around Pipestone Falls and later hanging food away from bears up on Jackfish Bay on Basswood Lake.

 

Jackfish Bay, Basswood Lake

Jackfish Bay, Basswood Lake

Yeah, it’s a bit corny, but it is better than sustainable flooring.  I use fossil fuels; we all do.  Let’s not kid ourselves.

If the Club wanted to be really green, it would hammer incessantly against overpopulation, which may cause our demise.   Want to be green?  Don’t have children.  Nothing else comes close.  Want to save American wilderness?  Limit immigration, too, since we can’t take in the world, any more than we can defend it or save it.  Wow, my hissy fit has just dissed the Club, pissed off every reader and kissed my reputation goodbye.

I won’t be missed.

 

 

 

 

Spring Creek, Boundary Waters Canoe Area, late April 2013. I camped within 50 yards of the right side of the photograph.

Spring Creek, Boundary Waters Canoe Area, late April 2013. I camped within 50 yards of the right side of the photograph.

The outdoors must be protected for future generations, hunters and non-hunters. That is what the Club is about.

The outdoors must be protected for future generations, hunters and non-hunters. That is what the Club is about.

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THE PLAQUE ON THE BENCH

April 22, 2014

I walked along the west shore of Clear Lake on a beautiful spring day in the foothills of the Oregon Cascades, temperature in the mid-60s, few clouds, a wide open trail before me.  I had a good hike ahead, in a boreal forest, circling Clear Lake, the headwaters of the McKenzie River.  The water here eventually would join with the Willamette near Eugene, reaching the Columbia in Portland, on the way to the Pacific.  This was big tree country, and not far to the east, I saw snow on the Cascades.

Near Clear Lake Lodge, still closed for the season, I stopped by a bench with a plaque remembering a man, “1920-1984”.  I’ve seen many other memorials to those who made a difference to others.  This man deeply touched somebody, probably many somebodies, never seeing his 65th birthday that I saw nearly five months ago. I felt very lucky….but very mortal, too.

I’ve seen memorials to 42 year-olds, 51 year-olds, and of course, the occasional 83 year-old.  The first memorial I remember was one I helped create, to a 17 year-old high school classmate who died unexpectedly right after graduation, during thyroid surgery.  At Rowe Sanctuary, there are two viewing blinds named for donors, people who loved the Sandhill Cranes and made a difference.  The first trip of the year is a memorial to a man whom I met briefly when I was there in 2008.  He died much too soon.  There is a memorial trail at Rowe and a beautiful white rock commemorating a woman, “1945-2005,” too young, “She loved the Sandhill Cranes” is written on the rock.

I read the plaque on the bench and continued walking.  Wow. I am 65, and can still hike, backpack, and canoe.  I would later see mountain bikers, a deep blue spring that would help me understand Crater Lake’s color, and earlier visited two waterfalls.  I was exploring Oregon, late in life, but not clear how late.  Not being clear on how late makes me fortunate.  When one knows how much time is left, there usually is a bad reason.

I hear many say age is a number; all are far younger than I.  Many have never had their bodies betray them.  They think 60 is the new 40; 80 is the new 60.  I suspect eighty is eighty.  I hiked the Brooks Range when I was 63, carrying 75 pounds.  A 71 year-old hiked the Arrigetch Peaks with me in 2007.  I’d like to backpack when I am 71, but I’ll be happy to do two more in Alaska, this year and next.  Last year, I portaged a wooden canoe a mile.  The guy with me, 10 years younger, carried it better, and I was in good shape.  Ten years matters at my age, and it will matter more and more.  My clock is ticking, and I am not so foolish as to think I have all the time I want.  I don’t.  I’ve had more than many, and I am grateful.

Arrigetch Peaks, Alaska. Gates of the Arctic National Park. The two are called "The Maidens"(1700 M), the one in the distant shot is "Elephant's tooth" (1100 M)

Arrigetch Peaks, Alaska. Gates of the Arctic National Park. The two are called “The Maidens”(1700 M), the one in the distant shot is “Elephant’s tooth” (1100 M)

DSC02469

Arrigetch Peaks from “The Knob,” about 5 miles and 2000 feet of climbing through thick brush, rock fields and no trail. This takes a full, difficult day to two. The 8 miles from the Alatna River takes a day and a half. At the time, it was the most difficult hike I had ever done in my life.

 

I also need to touch others in some way, too, difficult, because I like to be alone.  Indeed, when I posted my hike’s pictures on Facebook to the few who follow me, I made the comment, “No, Facebook, I didn’t have anybody with me.  I went alone, and that was the idea.”  I go into the woods because I periodically must.

Perhaps my need to touch others is why next weekend I will volunteer cleaning up trash in Alton Baker Park, well downstream from the McKenzie, along the Willamette.  I need to give back in some way that works for me and helps others.  I’ve been blessed.  I made it to 42, 53, and yes, 64.  I haven’t done what many great people have done, but I have seen many lovely parts of the world…..and years that too many never had the opportunity.  Perhaps as a doctor I helped some see a few more years, or to see the years they had better.  I don’t know; mostly, I helped people spend their last days in dignity, not doing anything for them that they or their family didn’t want.  I certainly succeeded in that regard with my parents.

I occasionally think of whether I would want a memorial, and I don’t know. My father-in-law had part of a hospital named for him while he was alive to appreciate it.  I liked that.  I do know that I need to leave the world behind better, even if only a little better, than it was when I arrived.  My wife and I named a scholarship at Vermilion Community College after ourselves.  A student will receive that scholarship April 24, the 9th year we’ve had it.  We lived to see the joy on a student’s face; some day, the scholarship will be a memorial.

The man for whom the bench was a memorial likely stood where I did today.  In a way, the forest cathedral there is hallowed ground, memorializing him, who loved this special area and was loved by others.  A trail, a rock, a viewing blind, where people come to see a half million Sandhill Cranes is a good way.  The Bob Marshall Wilderness is, too.

Where I first hiked in Tucson, and did so for three decades, I did from what is now the Richard McKee Trailhead, named for an attorney who cared deeply about the environment, and whose last words were “What a beautiful world,” as he died in 1999 from leukemia.  He was 43.

Finger Rock Trail is one of the most challenging and beautiful hikes in southern Arizona.

 

Sahalie Falls

Sahalie Falls

Koosah Falls

Koosah Falls

IMG_0490

The scale on the map, regarding the tree’s height is 1:480.

Clear Lake

Clear Lake

Big Spring

Big Spring

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THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND, THIS LAND IS MY LAND

April 16, 2014

AZ 83 is one of the “people’s roads;” the east side public land.  For a decade, I cleaned litter on 2 miles of it, every piece a violation of state law, cigarette butts causing many wildland fires.  When beer cans were thrown at me by passing drivers, that was frank assault.  I was cleaning public land, not running cattle on it, but no “militia” protected MY rights with guns and threats. Why?  Perhaps it was because I’m not an outspoken, charismatic, handsome cattle rancher, miner, or farmer.  I was an old, white, male veteran, Irish to boot, out trying to clean up part of my state.  Throwing litter is illegal; if you don’t like a law, change it by electing those who will try.  Non-violent illegal acts are punishable by a fine and time. Force against the State is treason, a word I don’t use lightly, but as a veteran, I know damn well what it means.

I was deeply disturbed by the recent fiasco in Nevada, where many said “Give the land back to the people,” and a supporting Congressman, who represents the “hated” government people wanted to fight, used a graph to show how much land in the American West is owned by the government.

Let me be clear:  if land is owned by the government, it is owned by you, me, and ALL of  US, for we ARE the government.  I’m not a great fan of the BLM, but if a guy is grazing cattle where he shouldn’t, not paying for it, he is trespassing on MY LAND.  I’m  vegetarian, and I don’t want cows ON MY LAND.

That is the fundamental reason we need government and laws:  we have to adjudicate differences among people with different viewpoints.  We ARE the government, and we govern by laws.  I am willing to allow those to graze cattle on public land if they pay for the privilege and follow all laws.  Those who choose to violate laws must be prepared to take the consequences.  It happened to war protestors during the Vietnam era.  It did NOT happen to the southern whites who willfully violated federal desegregation laws, called those who came to their states “outside agitators,” and said “the laws are wrong.” I didn’t hear “outside agitators” used during the Nevada crisis.  Nor did I hear “law and order,” which George Wallace spoke, except when he found a law he didn’t like.

I think some laws are dead wrong.  But I write letters, blog, and work to get people elected to change those laws, not take a gun and threaten enforcers, be they local or federal.  I have to wonder how many of the treasonous “militia” ever served in the military.  Only 7% of us have.  Words matter; these people were NOT a militia.  They were rabble rousers, outside agitators, troublemakers, and terrorists with no uniforms, spoiling for a fight and martyrdom (preferably somebody else).

Interestingly, the Congressman didn’t show how many people lived in states with the most public land. Let’s look at facts:  starting from the most densely populated state to the least, California is the highest ranking state west of the Mississippi, 11th.  One has to go to 25th to find the next state–Washington.  Of 15 at the bottom of the list, only one–Maine–is east of the Mississippi.

Why does this matter?  Eighty per cent of all national parks–our crown jewels–are in the sparsely populated West.  Few live there, but they don’t own the land any more than a guy in New Jersey.  If the “people” take over this land, three times as much should go to New Jersey residents than to Nevada ones.  Do I get equal say?  Will we protect the parks, forests, places with beauty that has no price tag, or allow them to be used for mining, timber, and grazing that do have a dollar value?  Who gets a say?  The corporations?  ORV people?  Hunters?  Cattlemen?  Farmers?  Mineral extractors?  Who pays for the upkeep of these lands?  People in the East.  When many of our parks were formed, those who lived in the West had practically sole access to land that was paid for and often never seen by those whose taxes paid for it.

I think I have the right to go into wilderness without seeing mines, cattle, cowpies, off road vehicles, loud noises from drilling, beer drinking yahoos who shoot off guns, guns in general, and test myself–without leaving trace of my passage–and my skills in the outdoors.  Where am I going to do this, if the “people” own the land?

It is ironic is that the “people’s land” sounds a lot like the rallying cry of my generation protesting Vietnam.  I remember my brother’s saying the land should be given to the people.  My late mother replied, “Who gets Wyoming?”, when Wyoming was known only for two national parks and an awful lot of tumbleweed.

Public land?  Who gets the Mexican border?  Who gets the Great Basin, with water shortages, exacerbated by Las Vegas’ tapping into the aquifer?  Who gets the Sandhills in Nebraska, the Badlands in South Dakota, pretty to be sure, but difficult to reach and to eke out a living?  Who gets the land near I-40 in San Bernardino County? Who gets the land near US 95 in California, south of Needles?  I’ve seen these places. I don’t want to live there.  If it were easy to, people would.

More importantly, how do we decide?  Do we take to guns and anarchy to deal with the issue?  Is this the new America?  We get ours, and we will fight anybody to the death over it?  Who gives anybody the right to graze cattle on MY public land (it is as much mine as it is theirs) for a pittance?  WE DO, also allowing mineral extraction, polluting the water, an outdated mining law that helped kill thousands of birds in Montana (but they are only birds), poisoning the groundwater near Barstow with defense-industry perchlorate use.  By the way, the “people’s defense” means that everybody has to serve.  Who organizes the “people’s militia”?  Is anybody honestly thinking about this?

I am calling out everybody who is against and wants to fight “the government.”  We ARE the government.  We are a government OF the PEOPLE, BY the PEOPLE, and FOR the PEOPLE.  The problem is not government; it is the people who vote in people whose decisions are ruining the environment and the country.  I won’t delve into the incipient destruction of public education, vaccination, infrastructure and safety nets.  “People” like me don’t matter.  Have I written “people” too many times? Yes. That is the fundamental problem:  we have too many people with too many opinions, unwilling to yield on anything.  We need fewer people in this country, meaning easily accessible family planning and no tax breaks for large families.  Sadly, the “people” apparently don’t want this, because if they did, we wouldn’t be so overpopulated, acting like animals when their populations reach critical mass.

Is this land made for you and me?

 

(Woody Guthrie)

This land is your land. This land is my land
From California to the New York island;
From the redwood forest to the Gulf Stream waters
This land was made for you and Me.

As I was walking that ribbon of highway,
I saw above me that endless skyway:
I saw below me that golden valley:
This land was made for you and me.

I’ve roamed and rambled and I followed my footsteps
To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts;
And all around me a voice was sounding:
This land was made for you and me.

When the sun came shining, and I was strolling,
And the wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling,
As the fog was lifting a voice was chanting:
This land was made for you and me.

As I went walking I saw a sign there
And on the sign it said “No Trespassing.”
But on the other side it didn’t say nothing,
That side was made for you and me.

In the shadow of the steeple I saw my people,
By the relief office I seen my people;
As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking
Is this land made for you and me?

Nobody living can ever stop me,
As I go walking that freedom highway;
Nobody living can ever make me turn back
This land was made for you and me.

 

 

 

 

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CALIFORNIA: YOU HAVE A COMMON SENSE PROBLEM, NOT A WATER PROBLEM

April 14, 2014

I drove through drought parched Kern County on my way through California, stopping north of Bakersfield to have dinner at a Denny’s.  There had been little snow in the mountains, it hadn’t rained much this year, and last year was the driest on record.

I walked into Denny’s, sat at the counter, and asked only for “a little water.”   I was served a pint of ice cold water.  That wasted 400 cc.  Multiply that by every person who eats at Denny’s in California, and you are dealing with a significant problem.  How many Denny’s are there in California?  About 400. This is one chain.  How many wasted pints in an acre foot?  About 2.6 million.  How many restaurant visitors get served unnecessary water in California every day?  Multiply that by 365, divide by 2.6 million, and you have the number of acre feet wasted.  No, the quotient isn’t a million that California needs, but it is a good start.  Damn, I like math.  It helps me understand the world better.

I next went to the men’s room, where during my two minutes there, I saw a faucet on full, the basin full and draining, while a man brushed his teeth.  Wow, people still do that in the 21st century.  He easily used 4 gallons to brush his teeth, faucet still on full as I left.  I wonder how often that happens in California.  I use about 1/4 pint a day, and most with a Water-Pik.  I muttered “what a waste of water” as I walked out, because much as I wanted to shut off the water and lecture the guy about droughts and water, I didn’t want to get slugged….or shot.  This is America, where people have rights, including the right to waste water and shoot others.  People also have responsibilities, which include paying for resources they use, not wasting them, and not selling weapons to those who can’t prove they can handle them safely.  I’ve given up on guns.  The NRA won.  I’m not yet giving up on water.

After dinner, I drove by signs along CA 99 saying “Pray for Rain”, “Food grows where Water Flows,” and others by the Family Water Alliance.  I was annoyed.  Yes, these people get their livelihood from growing crops that feed America.  Have any of them been to a Denny’s lately?  How long do their showers last?  Are all the leaks in their houses fixed?  Do they know that for a fact?  What do they pay for this resource?  And do they harvest rainwater, like they do pecans?

Pray for rain?  What will that do?  How about doing something useful, like educating people?  Here are my suggestions, so that those who disagree, may, for this is America.  However, I challenge those who disagree to state workable, specific solutions.  “Get big government out of the way” is not specific.  Indeed, in California, the myriad of different entities dealing with water suggests perhaps it might be handled best by one entity.  Here, I am going to be that one.  Wow, fun.  I get to tell the state where I was born what to do.

  1. Immediate state-wide cessation of automatic water serving in restaurants.  This is simple and has been done in other places.
  2. TV ads, at no cost, telling people how to conserve water: first, fix leaks.  If you have a meter, (see 5 below) turn off all water, and if the dial moves in an hour, you have a leak.  No brushing teeth or shaving with the faucet on.  Shorter showers, too, and low flow toilets.  I take Navy showers: water on, get wet, water off, soap up, water on to rinse, soap off.  Learned that in California waters.
  3. These ads must be in restaurants, hotels and all public places.   Options for hand sanitizer and not water should be present.
  4. In hotels, low flow toilets and for people who stay more than one night, no sheet washing, only bed make ups.  You have no choice.  You don’t wash your sheets or towels at home every day; you don’t need them washed in a hotel, either.  Some hotels have given this option for decades. I didn’t see it in California.
  5. Requiring every house owner in Sacramento and state-wide to buy and have a water meter installed.  Suck it up.  Everybody should pay for long showers, brushing of teeth with a faucet’s running, and violation of “if yellow, be mellow, if brown, flush it down.”  Live in the desert, as I have, and this stuff is easy.  We meter gasoline; water is 21st century oil.
  6. Stop irrigating bare ground that has no crops, and give one warning before fining somebody who does.  I saw this in Kern County last fall (date, place on request).  I wonder how much more I missed seeing.
  7. Non-essential water use (golf courses) must pay a high premium.  If you can afford golf, you can pay for water use.  The money goes to build rainwater harvesting barrels, education, or low flow toilets.
  8. A statewide campaign to have plumbers fix leaks and have people look for water wasting.  Are we going to be water cops?  I prefer not, but if a guy is watering his lawn and flooding the street, I think he has given up his right not to be bothered.
  9. Require cities over 100,000 (California has 69) to rainwater harvest a minimum of a square mile of roofs.  A foot of rain a year would generate 44,000 acre feet.  This requires 16,000 houses or fewer houses with large buildings.  I would offer tax credits.  Imagine the savings, if this were state-wide.
  10. Basic water prices for normal use should be cheap, rising rapidly for larger families and larger usage.  In case people haven’t noticed, we have a population problem in California, the country, and the world as a whole.

I’d have the media come out monthly with how much has been accomplished, so that people could see the progress made.  That is important.

A pipeline from the Willamette River, where I live, to Lake Shasta would provide jobs, and spills wouldn’t exactly be toxic.  Two months‘ flow at high levels would be a million acre feet.  But I’m damned if I will support a pipeline if people are going to brush their teeth with the faucet running, grow crops where they shouldn’t be grown, and act like there is no tomorrow.

I’m old and can waste water, but I don’t.  Nor should California.

 

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IRISH LUCK

April 4, 2014

A couple showed up at Rowe Sanctuary to view the cranes as the evening crowd arrived.  They were passing through and thought it might be a good idea.  Smart people.  The migration is a splendid sight.

Unfortunately, all the viewing blinds were booked in advance, as they are in late March, but the couple asked if they could wait to see if anybody didn’t show up.  Greg, who was checking visitors in, decided that while we didn’t have waiting lists, maybe this once he would allow them.  He made what I call a “command decision.”  I liked that, and I like Greg.

“My Irish luck may work,” said the woman to her husband.

I overheard the conversation.  I was going to North Blind, the smallest, requiring a drive through backroads, across the river, followed by a 600 yard walk through an open field.  North was taking 8 per tour this year, and I had 8 booked.  Ten minutes before departure, six had shown up, and I was waiting for the last car.  I wanted to get over to North early, because the cranes often come from more distant fields near the Platte and have a “secondary staging site” in the fields near the river right by North Blind.  Last year, we had ten thousand there one night, and when they took off over us, it was really fun.

From these secondary roosting sites, the cranes will go to the river around dark, although the time varies.  They are cranes, and they don’t tell me their plans.  I observe what happens, noting the various possibilities, and see how the evening will play out .

I happened to tell the Greg I was waiting for two more people, so if they didn’t show up, the other two might be able go.  He thought for a moment, and he said on the spot “this is right, this works, this will help, and the heck with the rules.”

Mind you, command decisions are not reasons to violate rules of safety, hurt individuals, destroy natural scenery, and things like that.  Sometimes, however, there is a sense of justice, rightness, and timing that makes these decisions sensible.  I was on a time schedule, and I could not afford to delay.  The secondary roost for the cranes could be in the field where I was going to be walking.  I have seen it before, and I disturbed a few hundred cranes then, which bothered me, because they were expending calories they might need further north, when they nested in Fairbanks the first week of May, in snow, no food, and living off the fat they were putting on.

Five minutes before I wanted to depart, I looked down the long dirt road that is called Elm Island, and I saw no cars coming.  If somebody were coming to my group, they would be at least five minutes getting here and getting checked in.  This was going to delay me.

“What do you think?” I asked Greg.  He had decision authority.  I was just asking.

“Do you want to take this couple?”  He replied.

“Yeah, let’s do it.”

I told the couple the good news, heard the woman nudge her husband and say something about “Irish luck,” and told them to pay inside, get right back out and where to meet me for the drive.  They were out in a minute, we left on time, and we drove over to North Blind, where there were no cranes in the fields.  That was lucky.  Had there been a few thousand, I would not have gone to the blind.

We walked into North, got settled, waited for the show.  A little while later, the birds staged behind us in a nearby field where we had just been.  We made it in time.  There had to have been a few thousand cranes there.

The Sun set in a glorious blaze of light, the cranes came off the field and landed on the river.  They were out in the middle, where they belonged, and all was right with the world.

Irish luck.

 

Cranes leaving the field behind us, North Blind

Cranes leaving the field behind us, North Blind

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