Uncategorized | Boreal B[l]og

Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

NASSAU GROUPER

January 16, 2017

In nature there are neither rewards nor punishments; there are consequences. (Robert Green Ingersoll).

I recently went to Newport, Oregon on a Club Trip, planning to see the king tides, walk a lot, sleep in a yurt, and hike the nearby Drift Creek Wilderness. I did all that, but the highlight of the trip came hearing Dr. Scott Heppell talk one evening about real biology—at a brewery no less.

The Nassau Grouper is an interesting fish. Near the top of the food chain, it gets close to divers, not to eat them, but enough in the way where one really wants it to move. That is almost cat-like. Yes, like some cats I know, they won’t eat lion fish, an invasive, unless it is speared. And pointed out. One apparently was over a reef pointing—“bird dog” was the term used—at a lion fish that he wanted speared. Life is remarkable.

The Grouper has an interesting pattern of breeding. They have special areas to breed, the same place, right after the first full Moon after the winter equinox, unless the full Moon is before the 15th of January. Then they wait another cycle. Why? Good question. Somebody needs to answer it.

When they breed, it is an explosion of sperm and eggs in the water, eventually producing fish larvae, and if a hundred thousand fish were involved, it must have been a remarkable sight. I use the past perfect, because this number no longer exists in the Caribbean. Indeed, had it not been for the work of a few people in the Cayman Islands and a few researchers like Dr. Heppell, it would never again occur in the Caribbean.

The Grouper breeds in certain small areas, and it isn’t clear why they do. Unfortunately, when they breed, it is easy for them to be overfished, which has happened. Equally unfortunate, once a breeding place is overfished, it never recovers. This happened first in Bermuda, where they acted early—1970s—and have kept a reasonable population. The US acted in the 1990s and today there is a 1 in 20 probability that somebody diving in the right waters will see one. It was once ten times higher.

There were perhaps 50 known areas in the Caribbean where the fish bred, including several around the Caymans. All have almost completely disappeared, the largest off Little Cayman. I have the GPS coordinates and the time when this will occur. The former area at the other end of the island is gone. About 15 years ago, two men and a boat, just two, pulled 4000 groupers out of the last breeding area in a couple of days’ fishing. Not having enough refrigeration, the fish were dumped and allowed to rot. That galvanized action. It is amazing how often when things finally rot, something changes. It’s better than no change, but it would be nice if somehow we could act sooner.

The Cayman government wished to protect this last area, which had about 1500 fish left. The fishermen objected for three reasons: (1) the fish would replenish themselves from somewhere else, (2) Babies came from somewhere (not stated) and (3) if it were too late, it wouldn’t matter, which I call the end of the world excuse.

The researchers began studying the fish more, and they did exactly what I was thinking while I listened, now with rapt attention, in Rogue Brewery in Newport, Oregon. There is a monthly talk here, a great idea. The researchers first tagged the fish to get an idea of numbers. They marked a certain number of fish, so that when they looked later, once they knew the percentage of fish in the population that were marked, they knew the population. It’s a good way to estimate; furthermore, the error of the estimate was known, error not a bad thing but a way of saying that different estimates would have certain values, and other values were just plain impossible, which eliminates common statements like, “anything can happen.” No, anything cannot happen. The researchers actually implanted chips into the fish to track them. They studied currents at various depths by placing sondes at a specified depth to track currents, learning that during the full Moon, the currents did loops. Why? We don’t know. Why are certain places used for breeding? We don’t know that, either. But we know a lot more.

We know that the fish don’t swim from one Cayman to another, over a trench 6000 feet (1800 m) deep. That fact wasn’t known. We know that because sound buoys at the other Cayman islands didn’t hear these fish. We knew where the fish tended to live, and it was all around Little Cayman. At the time of the proper full Moon, we learned they didn’t all go at once to the breeding area. They went individually, often taking several trips around the island before they arrived. That last piece of information was important. It meant that making the breeding area protected around breeding time was insufficient. The fish were more on the move before and afterwards, and they needed to close the whole island to fishing for four months, where the fish were not so widely dispersed.

As for the comment that fish would be replaced from some other place, that was impossible, for there were no other places left of note in the Caribbean. Overfishing has consequences; sure, it’s fine to have a job, but too many jobs in areas that aren’t sustainable lead to nobody’s having a job. It’s sort of like logging. Somehow in all the “job” talk, nobody mentions “fewer children.” Maybe that’s because we are stuck on “growth,” when “growth” can’t continue forever. Does anybody think China can grow at 8% for the next century?

Spearing fish was banned, along with limiting diving. The fish weren’t coming from anywhere else. Once the fell below a certain population, they stopped breeding. They’re gone. No more job. Once the fish are gone, work is gone. The researchers also learned that the fewer the fish, the more time they spent in the breeding area, and the higher their risk.

There was, however, good news in all of this. The numbers have actually risen the past few years. Mind you, they aren’t great, only about 2500 now in the breeding area, but they aren’t 500, either, and this increase had never been documented previously. We have some understanding of their life cycle and biology, and the Cayman government not only continued the ban until 2019, they have written legislation citing the biology known. The Caymans have become the model for how to manage a fish. It’s a shame it took several thousand rotting fish and overfishing to make this change, but at least it was changed. Whether the fish ever return to the area where they were before is not known. The fish do check out the old site near breeding time, but none has gone back there to breed. If that ever becomes a breeding spot, it would be marvelous.

Doing the right thing has consequences.

Tags:General writing, Outdoor writing, Philosophy
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

A TIDE IN MY AFFAIRS

January 6, 2017

Warning: This post will contain some mathematical formulae and terms, which may scare or otherwise turn off some. I hope such formulae do not detract from the beauty of what will be seen, because indeed, mathematics is beautiful. It answers questions. Is that not beauty? In a week, pictures of the result will be shown.

I’m going over to Newport, Oregon next week to see the King Tides, something I had once never heard of. I am almost a true Oregonian, but when I led a trip to the coast the last week, I forgot to look up the tides. That’s inexcusable. Always know the tides when you are at the ocean.

Tides matter. A lot. In nature, many species thrive at border zones between one ecosystem and another. They allow for organisms to live in varying degrees of wetness, rather than always wet or always dry. They allow for tidal pools to become cut off from the ocean, where periodically they get refilled or organisms shuffled. Without tides, the Earth would be a very different, far less diverse place.

What are tides, anyway? They are common throughout the universe. If one object tugs on another, it can deform the latter due to gravitational attraction, which may cause buckling or movement of the surface of the attracted object. Jupiter’s moon Io gets tugged by massive Jupiter, causing volcanic eruptions on its surface. The first was spotted by a woman, Linda Morabito, who saw a plume on Io, which had been once thought once to be dead, then had volcanism predicted. Io is the most volcanically active place known in the solar system.

Both the Sun and Moon tug on the Earth. While the Moon is much smaller, a mass 1/27,000,000 that of the Sun (mass is the amount of “stuff” something has; weight is the effect of gravity. Diet removes mass; being in zero gravity does not, but it makes you weightless), the Moon exerts a majority (55%) of the tidal activity on the Earth.

For a long time, that 55% bothered me, because gravitation is proportional to the product of the masses but inversely proportional to the square of the distance, the distance between the two centers, or d, and the numbers didn’t work.

F=G m1 m2/d^2.

where G is the gravitational constant, m1 the mass of one body, m2 the mass to the second, and d^2=d*d, the distance between them multiplied by itself. The Moon is smaller, less massive, but it is much closer than the Sun. Still, if one compares the large mass of the Sun with its admittedly larger distance from us (400 times further from the Moon, and the distance varies, which is important), the Sun ought have an effect 170 times greater than the Moon upon us. It doesn’t, and that bothered me. I show this below. Gravity is the reason we circle the Sun and not the Moon; the Moon circles both of us. I did not consider tidal forces, those which work differentially on a body, more on the near side than the far side. These Ah-hah moments are one of the joys of life, when one understands a concept that has been murky for years.

The Moon tugs on the Earth, the oceans are pulled towards the Moon. Tides are maximal in general when the Moon is either overhead or at the opposite side, although that can vary considerably due to other factors and local conditions, which give rise to enormous tides at the Bay of Fundy or tidal bores on Turnagain Arm in Alaska. The tide is greater (spring tides, nothing to do with the season) when the Moon is lined up with the Sun and the Earth, occurring about every 15 days, and lesser (neap tides) when the Moon is not aligned. The square of the distance means that anything decreasing distance increases the tide, so when the Moon is close to us, which happens every 27.5 days, even not well aligned with the Earth and Sun, the tides are significantly affected. The Earth is 3 million miles closer to the Sun in early January compared to early July, and this increases tides as well, because while the Sun’s force is slightly less than the Moon’s, its distance from us is the least for the year. That’s why we’re going to Newport.

In Newport, king tides occur at full Moon in January, near perihelion. The full Moon is opposite the Sun, meaning that it is in the northern part of the celestial sphere, over the northern hemisphere, and therefore is closer to the coastal cities there.

I also didn’t know why the Moon had a greater pull, given the gravity equation. The numbers didn’t work. I thought—incorrectly— it was all gravity.

The tidal force looks at slight changes in the distance between the two bodies; the force is proportional to the cube of the distance between the bodies, d^3, or d*d*d, and a simplified proof is shown below. Cubes are volumes, and the three factors are length, width, and depth. When we compare the gravitational equation using the cube of the distance and twice the mass product, the Sun is responsible for about 45% of the tidal force; the Moon the rest.

Additionally, the lowest tide is not in January, as one would think, but is in the late spring early summer and at New Moon. Why? In May, the Earth is further from the Sun, so the Sun’s pull is less. But at New Moon, which aligns with the Sun, the Moon is over the northern hemisphere. There are issues with the lunar nodes and the tilt of the Earth’s axis at different times of the year. Tides are more complex than I thought, not due to simple gravitational pull but to a differential force that must be accounted for. When I go to Newport, I will be watching a 3 meter high tide and the -0.5 meter low tide, both a full meter higher than normal.

F(S-E)=Gm (S)*m(E)/d(S-E)^2. The Sun-Earth gravitational force is proportional to the product of the masses and inversely proportional to the distance between their centers. The same holds for the Moon-Earth. It also holds between you and your computer, too.

F(M-E)=Gm (M)*m(E)/d(M-E)^2

Let’s take the ratio of the Sun-Moon forces which is dividing the top by the bottom. Stay with me, because G and m(E) will disappear when we divide, because they are part of both.

Ratio=m(S)/d(S-E)^2 divided by m(M)/d(M-E)^2

When we divide, we invert the divisor, which is the value that is “going into” something.

If we divide 1 by 1/3, we invert the 1/3 and have 1 *3/1 or 3. One-third goes into 1 three times.

If we do this math, we invert the denominators and have

Ratio=m(S)*d(M-E)^2 divided by m(E)*d(S-E)^2

We know these ratios. The mass of the Sun is 27,000,000 that of the Moon. The distance to the Moon is about 1/389 the distance to the Sun. Let’s call it 1/400. By the way, in the sky, the Moon is about the same angular size as the Sun, which is why we can just have total solar eclipses. The Sun is about 400 times the diameter of the Moon and is about 400 times further away, so they have about the same size when viewed from the Earth, one of the greatest cosmic coincidences there is.

The ratio of forces is about 27000000/400^2, or 169. But the Sun is actually less powerful as the Moon in producing tides. Tidal forces are differential and work differently on one side of the body versus the other. Tidal forces are not the same as gravitational forces. They work as the inverse cube, not as the inverse square. A cube here is d*d*d or d^3. We measure volume when we know three factors—length, height and depth.

The ratio can be done by subtracting the force of the two objects from the front by the force from the back. Or, and this is why calculus was invented, we can take the derivative of the gravitational force with respect to the distance, because only the distance is changing, not the masses, and derivatives of constants are zero, making life a lot easier. Here, we deal with the change of distance.

The derivative of Gm1m2/d^2 with respect to d is -2Gm1m2/d^3. The bottom line, literally, is a cube, and the differential force for tides is a function of the cube of the distance, not the square. If we look at the above ratio, we get 27,000,000/400^3 and it is 0.42. If we use the average figure of 389 times further away, we get 0.46. Tides are much more complex, but the idea of the inverse cube ratio is why the Moon exerts a greater tidal force on us than the Sun.

A second proof for tidal forces being proportional to the inverse cube of the distance is abbreviated, but goes something like this:

Force of Sun (Fs)= G(SE)/d^2, where G is the gravitational constant and SE is the Sun Earth distance. We could make it the lunar distance if we wanted to.

The distance is slightly different on the other side of the Earth, so we will call that p.

F(SE-near or s1)-F(SE far or s2)=G (SE)/d^2-G(SE)/(d+p)^2

=G(SE){(1/(d+p)^2)-(1/(d^2)}, d is much greater than p or d>>p. We have factored out G(SE), which is common to both.

Look at the parentheses, and using common denominator subtraction,

(d^2+2dp+p^2-d^2)/(d+p)^2d^2

=2dp+p^2/(d^4+2d^3p+d^2p^2)

=2dp/d^4, skipping some steps, since as d gets very large, the denominator approaches d^4,

=2p/d^3

From earthsky.org, which is nowhere near scale but shows where tides come from.

Screenshot 2017-01-06 09.52.28.png

Tags:MATH AND MIKE, Outdoor writing
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

MEDICINE BY SCREEN

December 30, 2016

I had been satisfied with my internist. She once saw me on short notice for a problem, which I really appreciated, but unfortunately left the mega-group to join a smaller local practice. I decided to stay with the mega-group, since my records were there and I was seeing 3 other specialists there as well. A retired internist told me that a lot of doctors came to the mega-group and didn’t stay long.

On the appointed day, I arrived for what I thought was a Medicare Wellness Exam, taken back to the exam room by the medical assistant. I gave her my unclothed weight, so as to avoid the issue I had at cardiology, where they took my weight fully clothed and then used that to compute my BMI to two decimal places. One is plenty; too many feel that adding decimal places improves accuracy. In some circumstances, it does. This wasn’t one.

The medical assistant then took my history. I am a surprised these days how many non-physicians not only have access to my medical information, but take it from me. There was a time when we physicians actually did all this ourselves. We didn’t have scribes, we dictated notes, and some of us even read them before signing. It may have been slower, but all those people have to be paid, too. I called people in from the waiting room myself, because neurologists learned a lot about a patient by watching how they arose from a chair, walked, spoke, shook hands, and sat down. I diagnosed many with Parkinson’s before they ever reached the exam room. I diagnosed myopathies when patients couldn’t get up easily from a chair, foot drops and hemiparesis from their gait. Now, the exam room has become almost an inner sanctum, given by some of the routes I take to get into one.

Anyway, in these days of extremely busy physicians, I figured I better say whatever was on my mind in a hurry so it got into the record. The assistant then recommended a DEXA scan for my bones, which I thought odd, since I don’t have any risk factors I know of for osteoporosis except age. But knowledge changes. She finished and said the doctor would be right in, since the latter was done with the previous patient.

I waited 20 minutes. That’s a lot in the inner sanctum. Yeah, I know. Doctors keep patients waiting. I seldom did.

The physician came in and introduced herself. I stood, as I always do, then sat down. She then placed herself in front of the computer and started reading from the screen, first concern being my diazepam dosage. I told her I took it for a GU condition where it was the only thing that worked (leaving out the story how I had discovered that, nobody else). I told her I had tapered the original low dose more than 60%, but she was still bothered, because of federal regulations about this sort of drug. She barely glanced at me, eyes instead fixed on the computer screen.

Diazepam is quite safe in low doses, yet we allowed Oxycontin to be marketed as a first line drug for musculoskeletal and chronic pain, which anybody with sense knew was a bad idea. My internist, fixated on Diazepam, couldn’t find it in my records who prescribed it for me. I finally said who had, but it wasn’t in the computer, and during this time, she continued to be look more at the screen than at me. This is apparently the new medicine. Everything is electronic, which can be good. I get neatly typed records online, which are helpful, except for BMI to 2 decimal places and no comment about the little things in aging, like hearing, vision, sleep, and moods, affect me, and a diagnosis of Chronic Pelvic Pain, when I had no pain, only discomfort, which is a significant difference, trust me. I almost didn’t get my needed blood work, because she didn’t appreciate that the last I had was in 2015, not this year. At least the DEXA wasn’t necessary. Nobody asked about dental care. It matters now, because we know now that periodontal disease affects health a great deal. The human cost of medicine by screen is failure to look at the patient, from whom much information comes.

Additionally, if something is inputted wrong, it tends to stay there. Imagine if you are my age, not a physician, with a lot of medical problems, and aren’t thinking clearly. What happens to you if something is missing, not noticed, not picked up, not addressed?

At my age, I start answering questions like that with, “You die.”

By now, I felt like a major drug abuser. I stopped mentioning my other concerns, like what she thought about statins. She dismissed my concerns about weight and waist with “do crunches,” which don’t fix the problem. She felt a little edema in my leg, assured me it wasn’t heart failure, which I knew, and said it was probably venous insufficiency, and I should lift my legs up when sitting. I decided that wearing support hose, like I did when I was an intern, was better. She quickly listened to my heart and lungs and I was done. At least I thought I was. I was told to call a week prior to wanting the nasty drug I was taking, because these things took a week to fill. Why? This stuff should be done electronically in seconds. I filled requests the same day when I practiced, and I often called the pharmacy myself.

In her position, I might have moved from the computer to where I was sitting to directly across from the patient, asking about retirement, Medicare, money, meditation, depression, sleep, support systems, what it’s like when your body can’t do what it once did or does what it once didn’t. She would have heard a lot, and that’s the problem, because hearing a lot takes precious minutes that could be used to …. well, do what, pray tell? Help a patient?

A few minutes later, yet another medical assistant came in to hand me the papers that were printed. I certainly get nice notes at the end of my visits, which my patients never did. Indeed, if I had a question about my BMI to 2 decimal places with my clothes on, I could request a change at my next appointment. The problem was I wasn’t given any other appointment. I was told to see her if I needed to. The appointment time to get into see a new internist in Eugene is 11 months. Followups? For GI, 5 months. For Derm, 4 months. For GU 2 months.

Four days later, I got a call telling me that my doctor wanted me to come in in March—only four months’ distant—for a Medicare Wellness Exam. I thought that is what I had had. Did they want it in a new calendar year? Or was there something else I didn’t know about? I’m not sure what to do at the moment.

If I only had that screen, it would tell me.

Tags:A different side of medicine, Philosophy
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

THERE WAS MORE TO BE LEARNED

December 19, 2016

I recently saw a video by the US Forest Service, detailing how six firefighters survived the Pagami Creek fire in the Boundary Waters (BW), their final, fortunately successful stand occurring on Lake Insula, a place my wife and I once knew as well as any person alive.

Lake Insula sunset, 2009

Where the four firefighters were talking, one year almost to the day after this picture was taken. Notice how narrow the channel is. September 2010, Insula.

Cold day on Insula, where four years later the four canoeists would paddle for their lives by this site.

The 2011 fire began by a lightning strike in Pagami Creek, a place where canoeists don’t travel. After being quiescent for a few weeks, being allowed to burn naturally, the fire became more active, and suppression was begun. The fire made a 12 mile run one day, catching everybody by surprise, including six firefighters, four of whom deployed their shelters on a small island and survived; the other two going into the water by their canoe, surviving first the fire and then hypothermia. The lessons learned were: “canoeists in the face of a fire may encounter exceedingly strong winds and may swamp,” “shelters degrade when exposed to fire and water,” and “hypothermia is a potential problem for those escaping a fire by jumping into the water.” Those are all good lessons, but there were far more to be learned.

When the fire became more active, Forest Service personnel in the field were told that the BW would have a “soft closure,” a term that one ranger said she had never heard, meaning, as near as she could tell, people would be asked to leave the woods. Catchy phrases like “soft closure,” and “tweak the system” are ill-defined and potentially dangerous. They must be strictly defined. The woods should be either closed or open. A campfire ban is clear but if people are told they ought to leave but aren’t required to, there is a mixed message. I have a simple solution: if there is a concern that people would be better off out of the woods, make them leave.

Two men went south, east and downwind of the fire, to check a hiking trail. They were told the fire wouldn’t be in that area for a few days, but their senses told them that the lighting up of the nearby sky, even if they couldn’t see the fire, was a bad sign. The wind had changed, and the fire had moved much closer than anybody thought. Indeed, the two had to run back to their canoes to escape it. Lesson: fire can move faster than predicted, and in the absence of knowing exactly where the fire is, one should use caution.

The fact that the men had to go into Horseshoe Lake, unnamed in the video, but clearly the lake referred, in order to help campers close their camp and get back into safer Lake Three, should have been strong evidence to the supervisors that the fire was starting to become far more dangerous. The campsite was burned; the campers barely escaped.

At one point, a telling comment was made when a firefighter called in and spoke to somebody who was not his supervisor. The firefighter said that “they” (he and his partner) were uncomfortable with their current supervisor, so for their purposes, they were going to work with the person with whom they were speaking. Wow. That is a huge red flag for communication problems.

The next day, the firefighters were told to move further into the wilderness, towards Lake Insula, to move any campers there to the north end of the lake, away from the fire. They were told they had a few days to do this, and the winds had shifted to the northwest, pushing the fire southeast, away from populated lakes. I have traveled into Insula over a dozen times. It is a long paddle with seven portages, and there are no options for safety once one leaves Lake Four heading east, until the middle of Insula. I was puzzled why people weren’t flown in to do the warning and then picked up later that day. Again, however, the fire was felt not to be a significant concern. Lesson: Moving canoeists downwind of an active fire should be done only if there are significant escape routes.

Two women, camped at the last campsite on Hudson Lake, the last lake before Insula, took their packs across the 105 rod (525 meter) portage between the two lakes, spending time at the Insula end speaking to their two male counterparts. All were concerned about the fire, and when some noise was heard, the women went back quickly to get their canoe, basically abandoning their campsite. It takes thirty minutes to make two trips across the portage, and it was becoming clear to the four that they needed to get on the lake fast, because the first part of the paddle is channels and small islands, shallow water, and offers no protection against fire. The four were now paddling for their lives, not to close campsites but to get as far east and north as possible.

Two other women moved off Campsite 7 (it was really 8) to escape the fire. They realized the winds were too high to safely paddle and jumped into the water, using their fire shelter, something to my knowledge has never been done before.

Here are the “10 and 18” (italics are the issues that the firefighters had):

Standard Firefighting Orders

1. Keep informed on fire weather conditions and forecasts.

2. Know what your fire is doing at all times.

3 . Base all actions on current and expected behavior of the fire.

4. Identify escape routes and safety zones and make them known.

5. Post lookouts when there is possible danger.

6 . Be alert. Keep calm. Think clearly. Act decisively. (Done right).

7. Maintain prompt communications with your forces, your supervisor, and adjoining forces.

8. Give clear instructions and insure they are understood.

9. Maintain control of your forces at all times.

10. Fight fire aggressively, having provided for safety first.

18 Watchout Situations

1. Fire not scouted and sized up.

2. In country not seen in daylight.

3. Safety zones and escape routes not identified.

4. Unfamiliar with weather and local factors influencing fire behavior.

5. Uninformed on strategy, tactics, and hazards.

6. Instructions and assignments not clear.

7. No communication link with crewmembers/supervisors.

8. Constructing line without safe anchor point.

9. Building fireline downhill with fire below.

10. Attempting frontal assault on fire.

11. Unburned fuel between you and the fire.

12. Cannot see main fire, not in contact with anyone who can.

13. On a hillside where rolling material can ignite fuel below.

14. Weather is getting hotter and drier.

15. Wind increases and/or changes direction.

16. Getting frequent spot fires across line.

17. Terrain and fuels make escape to safety zones difficult.

18. Taking a nap near the fire line.

One of the firefighters said that they were violating nearly all of the 10 and 18. He was not far wrong. The bold in the 10 indicate what they did right. For the record, in Arizona’s 19-fatality Yarnell Fire, #1,2 and 4 in the first and #s 1,3,4,11,15 in the second were violated. Unburned fuel between you and the fire, and cannot see the main fire are big concerns.

The group of four were lucky one of their number had experience on Insula and could navigate the lake, no easy feat. She also had the sense to tape her flashlight to the stern, so the canoe behind her could follow her in the smoke. The fire traveled faster than canoeists can paddle. Had the firefighters been a half hour further, had they not stopped to talk, they would have been at the east end, where they could have moved north directly away from the fire. They of course had no way of knowing that the fire would do what it did.

Other lessons I would offer:

When several things seem to all be going wrong, recognize that you might be on a downward spiral (the words used here), regardless of what you might have been told. In neurology, my field, meningitis was so scary that when I argued with myself or others about whether we needed to do a spinal tap for diagnosis, not a difficult procedure, I did it. Perhaps that analogy could be applied here: when firefighters start arguing pros and cons of shelter deployment, just deploy. When you argue about whether or not to close campsites, just close them. Again, my deepest, deepest respect to these six and for all who put their lives on the line. I loved Insula as it was, but it wasn’t worth putting their lives at risk.

My final lesson here: time is one of the most valuable commodities in the woods. Use it wisely.

Plus

Tags:Canoe Trips, Outdoor writing, Philosophy
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

WEIGHTY TOPIC

December 13, 2016

“Hey Mike, you’ve got a little bulge in your stomach,” I heard, as I reached to the base of the final climb to Larison Rock. At this point, I had climbed 2000’ in 3.5 miles. As hike leader I had bushwhacked around an impassable blowdown, found an alternative route, and made sure everybody got around it without difficulty. I wasn’t even breathing hard on this hike.

Douglas fir blowdown, Larison Rock Trail; November 2016

Sun through trees, top of Larison Rock Trail; November 2015

I knew I had a waist bulge. I have an apple pattern of weight distribution, and while I have never been overweight, and my Body Mass Index (BMI) is about 23 and change, I have a problem. Turns out that waist circumference is an important risk factor for cardiovascular disease, more than weight itself. Indeed, the waist:hip circumference ratio is more important than just being overweight. This is relatively new on the obesity scene, but it wasn’t just discovered yesterday.

The realization bothered me. I looked for all the stats that said I was healthy, and I came up short each time. I started to lose weight, from 170 to 165 at least. I did it the way I have controlled my weight in the past— I looked at my diet and started finding how many calories I could easily remove. In the past, it has been peanut butter, which I love, olive oil, fatty veggie hotdogs, all cookies and cake, and adding low calorie yogurt. It takes a while, but I’ve always lost weight. This time around, it was removing evening cheese, substituting dark chocolate for scones at lunch, again stopping the peanut butter, and changing the decaf white chocolate mochas I was having to decaf sugar free. The last cut out 240 calories right there. My weight started to fall. I was hungry at night; hell, I was hungry a lot. It was the holidays, the worst time to lose weight, but each morning I got on the scale, I liked the numbers.

In 3 weeks, I weighed 165. I don’t know if my waist had changed, because I didn’t measure it originally. My contour looked better, but still not right. But I had reached my first goal, and I planned to go further.

During this time, I had my annual cardiology appointment. I was weighed with my clothes on, and because there was freezing rain, I wore a lot, for I took the bus to the clinic. I weighed 170, which isn’t bad with clothes on, but my BMI was listed as 23.71, which isn’t true. It’s fine for doctors to weigh patients the same way each time, but if they are going to use that weight for BMI calculations, to two decimal places even, they either have to get rid of the clothes or subtract a few pounds. That was only my first issue.

Everything had gone reasonably well this past year. My Afib had recurred, as I knew it would, but I was doing well enough that the doctor didn’t think he needed to see me in a year. I wondered, however, why he called the echocardiogram of my aortic root, 40 mm, “dilated”. First, if it is a problem, I need to be seen annually. Second, many don’t think it is dilated at that figure. Third, if one looks at the recent literature using height, weight, body surface area, and age, I am below what is considered dilated. Fourth, while I agreed we needed a second data point to see if anything has changed, he decided I didn’t need another echocardiogram for a year. Yet, I am labelled as having a dilated aortic root, a big deal if I have a thoracic aortic aneurysm. I don’t think I do, but I don’t like treating myself. Nor do I like having my BMI measured to two decimal places with my clothes on and having to look online to learn about normal aortic root size. What do people do without a medical background?

I was told I was doing everything right. True, I’m active, seldom drink, never smoke, don’t use caffeine, am vegetarian, not diabetic, have good cholesterol, normal weight and BMI (to 2 decimal places), and my systolic blood pressure is 110. But I am concerned. My waist-hip ratio is high, 1:1.035, and it should be less, the reciprocal. My waist-height ratio was 0.538, and it ought to be closer to 0.5, less than at least 0.533. I asked for a dietitian referral and at this point am waiting for a call back. It’s the holidays, and maybe they don’t believe anybody is really serious about losing weight during the holidays. Well, I am.

My weight continued to drop, holding at 165, and I counted all the calories I was consuming daily: I measured the sunflower seeds on my salad, I was eating more carrots, cauliflower, and broccoli, not corn and peas, I ate apples, blueberries, strawberries, and tomatoes, and I watched the croutons I was putting on my salad, although how one measures a crouton using tablespoons is a mystery. They are about 3 cal a pop. I used a teaspoon of olive oil on my salad. I found ways to cut calories I had never found before.

I think the cardiologist missed an opportunity. He was busy. I knew that as soon as he came in the room and stayed standing. Bad form. I always sat when I talked to patients. Sitting conveys a sense of having time. I realized I needed to say what I wanted and be quick about it. The waist issue didn’t bother him. It should have. This stuff should be posted in the cardiology clinic, along with “know your BMI,” “Ready for the ratio test?” “risk factors to try to reduce,” rather than “we care about every mile of your blood vessels.” Dietitians should be available, and frankly Medicare would do well to cover the cost, instead of only for diabetics and those with kidney disease or transplants. Health is health. I now know my Basal Metabolic Rate (1540 calories), how much walking for 3/4 an hour or hiking for an hour burns. I know how to get a decaf sugar free White Chocolate Mocha and a 120 calorie Peppermint mocha at Starbucks. I know how many calories many fruits have and that sunflower seeds have 170 calories per 2 tablespoons. Hell, I should be counseling people.

I’m serious about weight, and it’s important to know what matters and how to count it properly. BMI is almost always a good predictor of being overweight, but it is not a good predictor for wrong fat, fat in a bad place. There are other numbers that address that.

I had showed up early for my appointment, but I knew the time was up. The cardiologist didn’t even have to start walking towards the door. I have become good at reading people’s body language when they don’t want to talk to me. At that point, I quit, because they likely haven’t been listening to me for some time.

This is now the fourth business day and I haven’t heard from the dietitian yet. That worries me, because my original referral with the cardiologist got lost. How difficult is it to pick up the phone and take care of scheduling an appointment? If nothing else, a guy whose numbers most people would love to have thinks he should be even healthier. Wouldn’t that be refreshing to be able to advise him, if you were a dietitian?

Maybe I will have better luck with my internist. I will have to prepare carefully, however, needing to make sure I have all my ducks in a row and get through all my questions. I’d bring a list, but when I was in practice I hated it when patients brought in lists of things to ask.

Then again, I sat down when I talked to patients. I listened without interrupting, too.

BMI calculator:

Waist-hip ratio:

Waist-height ratio, BMR

Tags:A different side of medicine, Philosophy
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

THE WHOLE TRUTH AND NOTHING BUT THE LIES AND COVERUPS

December 9, 2016

The email was forwarded from the Eugene Astronomical Society: “Dr. Smith, I need you to call ASAP about a patient of yours. It is an emergency.”

I left practice 25 years ago.

I had hoped eventually I would be free of my past medical practice, and even being thought about as a doctor, but as late as 2010, I was still ranked as one of the top neurologists in Arizona, 17 years after I last practiced. In 2012, I got an occasional call wanting to be seen at “my office.” I was stunned that data bases had not been updated for so long. I shouldn’t have been surprised. I bet my career after medicine on being a medical statistician, and that bombed. I tried to improve quality in medicine, and instead every member of my family, including me, has suffered from a medical error. I routinely diagnose and treat myself. I shouldn’t, but it’s my reality. It takes too long to get in to see doctors.

I ignored the call. First, the only neurological emergency I dealt with was status epilepticus, or recurring seizures without waking up in between. Second, I don’t respond to the term “emergency” unless it involves a family member. I spent too long in practice treating pseudo-emergencies (“headache, see today”, which was always, and I mean always, tension) and emergency is overused. This letter could only mean trouble, and I wanted to be left alone.

A week later, a call came to the answering machine to call a law firm in Houston about a former patient of mine. They needed me to respond before 7 November, and I ignored that call, too. The last thing I wanted to deal with was a former patient, and the statute of limitations on my care had long ago run out. I wasn’t practicing. Period. Leave me alone.

Two days later, I wasn’t left alone, as I was threatened with a subpoena to appear in court on another voice mail. That I couldn’t ignore. I called the woman—a paralegal—since lawyers are too highly paid to talk to a mere doctor. I let her have it with both barrels about how I didn’t have a practice, I was not seeing patients, and I wanted to be left alone. The paralegal said that my deposition was necessary as part of a class action suit.

I asked the woman whether I needed a lawyer and got an equivocal response: “Some doctors do, some don’t.” “But,” she added, “this is not about you.” I didn’t believe her one bit. That’s like saying it’s not about the money, which means it is about the money. It is not about me means it is about me. I took a wild stab and decided to call my malpractice insurance carrier, for I had paid “tail” coverage, which meant they would represent me regarding future claims, even ones that were decades ago. MICA (Mutual Insurance Company of Arizona) was a well respected, doctor-owned malpractice insurer, and I made sure I bought tail coverage when I left medical practice.

MICA replied immediately, and shortly thereafter the attorney assigned to me and I exchanged e-mails. She told me what she wanted—to pause before answering questions, to allow myself to think and to allow her to object if necessary. She looked at the statute of limitations, which is two years or age 21 years for discovery, depending upon the age of the patient. I was beyond the statute of limitations but still didn’t feel safe. I have been sued and gone to trial. I called it Intellectual Rape, and it was a form of PTSD, for I lost sleep over this upcoming deposition, and I was shorter with people than I normally was. I was unpleasantly surprised but grateful to learn in advance that the defendant’s lawyer might a potential problem; I had thought it would only be the patient’s lawyer.

On deposition day, I put on decent clothes and appeared on time. All three lawyers had flown in, each with some form of an upper respiratory infection. I had a list of notes to remind me: “Stop-Think”, “They are the Enemy, but they are doing their job,” “Don’t volunteer information,” “No small talk,” “I have no independent recollection.” I used similar notes when I was being sued and at trial.

The reason for the class action suit will not be divulged here. This in itself is unfortunate, that we have to keep such things silent from the public, when perhaps it might be useful to learn what happened and why. It was a long day full of questions that were objected to on the basis of form, foundation, lack of evidence, and other reasons. I still had to answer them. It was 5 grueling hours of questions, and I had to be constantly aware of what the lawyer was trying to do. At the end, I finally allowed myself to be frustrated enough to say that the only friend I had in the room were my notes, and I was glad I dictated such complete ones. As my lawyer and I left the room, the other two lawyers said, “We’re your friends. We aren’t trying to get you.” I didn’t answer. Had my lawyer not been there, I might well have brought out additional information that would have made the deposition even longer (with more objections, too).

And that is the problem with our approach to class action suits. In my world, I would be allowed to comment as I saw fit, free from fear of being sued myself, and trying to get to the bottom of when we should have known and what we should have done at the time..

I have no idea whether my former patient will be compensated. In the world I would like to live in, there would be compensation, not for everything, but enough to make life bearable. Instead, it’s a lottery, and if one knows there is a game, one gets a lawyer and hopes to win big. Large law firms have web pages devoted to class actions suits currently in progress or in the pipeline. They advertise for cases. Their lawyers fly around the country doing depositions from people like me, the going rate for payment being $500-$1000 (or more) per hour. This sort of behavior encourages professional witnesses (whom we used to call whores). They do this because of the money: 1/3 or more of the compensation means up to a $2 billion is not going to patients but to lawyers and expenses. It’s a bad system. It is a system that wants the whole truth and nothing but the truth, but the truth is often that we often do not know for sure until there is compelling evidence, and that many harmed never get their day in court.

If we were more interested in counting bad outcomes, in order to learn, instead of to sue or to punish, and if we truly were interested in doing what is best for people, rather than padding pockets and hiding the truth, we would develop a system in place that would recognize that bad outcomes occur, that some deserve compensation, even if they aren’t aware of how to get a lawyer, and sadly, some don’t deserve compensation.

I spent a crappy 5 hours, and I probably will get some virus as a result. But my life is great compared to the plaintiff’s, who in the legal sense probably didn’t have a claim, but in the moral sense ought to be helped, because in the country I served, we help people like that, even if we can’t make them whole.

When I dropped my lawyer off at the hotel, thankful that her presence saved me a pile of grief, she asked what I charged for the deposition. “Not enough after today,” I said. “$100 an hour.”

She was stunned. “Why so little?”

“Because when I heard the going rate, I told the lawyer that was outrageous. There is too much money in the system, and I can help just a little by not asking for so much.” I had a crappy day, and I got paid what most people in the country would give a great deal to make.

Nearly five hours, and I got paid $400. Yeah, the last fifty minutes was free. Told you it was about the money.

Tags:A different side of medicine
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

WHY WE SHOULD CARE FOR EVERY AMERICAN’S BIRTHRIGHT

November 24, 2016

Last May, deep in the Owyhee River Canyon in southeast Oregon, I held an Obsidian spear tip in my hand. Then the guide took it back and placed it high on a tree branch so that the next group of rafters he took down the river would be able to see it. Obsidian and other artifacts in the nearby caves had been looted, and nothing remains. Had the tip been put on the ground, somebody would have picked it up and kept it.

Obsidian point, still down in Owyhee Canyon

A day later, I saw a field of boulders with petroglyphs, wondering as others have wondered, what they meant. In ancient times, some were defaced to rewrite history, but far too many, a few dozen, showed scars from petroglyph vandalism, sold for profit, forever lost from view. The scarring was ugly, detracting from what should have been a sacred site. Instead, somebody profited greatly. Maybe I should be grateful: so far, they haven’t had gang vandalism, often called “tagging,” as if such were a game instead of wanton desecration.

Petroglyphs

Defaced

Rewriting history

Removing history

Allowing one to wonder

I often stood high over the cliffs of the Canyon and marveled at the views, watching out, of course, for cow pies, since it is possible to graze cattle on public land for a pittance, but if I happen to hit one of those cows while driving on a public road, I am liable. Those in rural America often say they know how to care for the land better. I’m not convinced. They know how to use the land, to be sure, especially for profit. The land knows how to care for the land better. And some land should be left alone or visited very seldom, with strict leave no trace rules.

Owyhee River Canyon, about 20 miles north of Rome, Oregon, with lava and sandstone cliffs. It is possible to stand inside some of those spires and see the sky.

Earlier this year, I hiked Fall Creek, a nearby trail along a beautiful creek with many pools. At the turn around point, where there was an old road, there was an abandoned fire ring with a pile of trash in it. This is caring for the land? Going somewhere, getting drunk, tossing your bottles on the ground, and driving home?

Fall Creek trash

Last week, in Umpqua National Forest, I hiked down to the bottom of Picard Falls, a beautiful cataract, and found a Dr. Pepper bottle. Suddenly, the place was less pristine. No, it’s not wilderness, but why can’t people take out what they bring in? I brought out the bottle. I find bringing out trash that somebody left an odious job, but it is one I feel compelled to do. If a place is littered, people tend to litter; if clean, they tend to keep it clean. When I returned to the car, I found a crushed Coors can. The rural folk drink while driving, too.

Picard Falls, Umpqua National Forest, Oregon

On the drive over Patterson Mountain on the way home from the Umpqua, I saw a cubic yard of trash dumped on the side of the road. I will haul out trash, but I have my limits, and so does the trunk of my car. I doubt this was from a homeless man in the South Valley. The individual was almost certainly male, white, and probably between the ages of 25 and 45. They voted Republican, because they don’t believe in regulation, big government, or recycling. They get hurt by Republican policies but still don’t change. A disproportionate number of them died in Iraq and Afghanistan, wars started by Republicans who even they now say were a bad idea. They were devastated by the Great Recession, which also occurred under a Republican administration. The Dow has increased 1.5 fold under Obama. Unemployment fell. Those are facts, not opinions.

Closer to home, I hike up Spencer Butte from Martin Street every week with other Obsidians. It’s part of our responsibility to clean up the trail. Today, I was the hike leader and almost walked by a bagged bit of dog poop. This is not uncommon. I guess people who do that think so long as they bag the poop, they and their dog have completed their collective work. Now, it is somebody else’s job to pick it up. Maybe. Or maybe an animal will rip the bag open. I shudder to think of how much dog waste is in the woods, which infects the water with Giardia.

Spencer Butte, walkable from downtown Eugene, although one saves time by taking the bus, which runs every half hour.

There are orange peels at the top of Spencer Butte, which won’t degrade, beer cans, clothing someone doesn’t want, and an occasional cigarette butt. I am frankly grateful when someone actually leashes their dog, which is the rule, but which is usually not followed, leading to an occasional dog fight or some dog putting his nose in my pants where I don’t want it. I have cats, and I don’t want the smell and the germs of a dog in my house. Mind you, I’m not against dogs, for they are dogs. I even spent the money I earned for being executor of my father’s estate—$23,000—to neuter pit bulls in Tucson. What a waste. No, it is not a dog’s fault to be born a dog. It is the people who breed them, those who buy the puppies (without an apostrophe which is on the road sign) and don’t train their dog properly whose fault it is.

The idea that people will regulate themselves properly is a fantasy of the Ayn Rand cult. They won’t. I don’t care if it is in the woods or doctors; people won’t self-regulate. In a perfect world, I’d leave the Owyhee alone, for those who live in Jordan Valley would ensure that the beautiful canyon remain as it is, that residents would carefully make a living from the land by not destroying the special parts, controlling access to the river from Rome and further upstream, the money going to the land. The community would set its own rules for rafting, such as hauling out all human waste. Actually, however, the rafting company already does that.

In a perfect world, people would take out all the trash they brought in to the woods, and no littering or dumping would occur. Dogs would be leashed and all their waste collected and removed. No dogs would be allowed in the wilderness areas. Campfires would either be at designated spots, or campfire rings would be destroyed after use and the rocks scattered.

For Ayn Rand, it was all about “me.” For those who care about the land, it is all about future generations.

I know that, and I don’t even have children.

Owyhee River Canyon, Oregon

Tags:Outdoor writing, Philosophy
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

THE BUS TO ABILENE

November 18, 2016

(Taken from management guru Jerry Harvey, who said this about 25 years ago at a Physician Executive conference I attended):

On a hot afternoon visiting in Coleman, Texas, the family is comfortably playing dominoes on a porch, until the father-in-law suggests that they take a trip to Abilene [53 miles north] for dinner. The wife says, “Sounds like a great idea.” The husband, despite having reservations because the drive is long and hot, thinks that his preferences must be out-of-step with the group and says, “Sounds good to me. I just hope your mother wants to go.” The mother-in-law then says, “Of course I want to go. I haven’t been to Abilene in a long time.”

The drive is hot, dusty, and long. When they arrive at the cafeteria, the food is as bad as the drive. They arrive back home four hours later, exhausted.

One of them dishonestly says, “It was a great trip, wasn’t it?” The mother-in-law says that, actually, she would rather have stayed home, but went along since the other three were so enthusiastic. The husband says, “I wasn’t delighted to be doing what we were doing. I only went to satisfy the rest of you.” The wife says, “I just went along to keep you happy. I would have had to be crazy to want to go out in the heat like that.” The father-in-law then says that he only suggested it because he thought the others might be bored.

The group sits back, perplexed that they together decided to take a trip which none of them wanted. They each would have preferred to sit comfortably, but did not admit to it when they still had time to enjoy the afternoon.

Back when I was in management, we had a consultant come to help us at the hospital. After she left, the executive team discussed how the meeting went. Everybody was positive and effusive about what the woman had done. I didn’t board the bus and spoke up. “I wasn’t impressed,” I said. “Every time I brought up numbers and measurement, she pooh-poohed me. You’ve got to count certain things in life, if they are important, countable, and the counts matter.”

It was as if I had breached a dam. Virtually everybody then started to say something negative about the meeting. They had gone from Coleman to Abilene and back, saying all was great when in fact nobody thought it was.

My wife had a similar experience when radiology residents were discussed. Everybody said one individual was fine, until my wife said that she had reservations about the person. Suddenly, when the room was polled again, everybody had reservations. How does a group, who has reservations about an individual, decide that the individual is just fine? Nobody wants to rock the boat. Nobody wants to raise an unpleasant possibility that maybe the truth lies elsewhere.

Last week, nine of us were hiking that along the Middle Fork of the Willamette River, near 3000 feet elevation south of Oakridge, Oregon. It was an easy hike, short and would get me back to town in time for me to lead the monthly hike up Mt. Pisgah I lead every full Moon.

Right away, I was concerned about the time. I had called the leader to ask when we would get back and whether I should even be doing the hike. She assured me there should be no problem, that we would be back at 2:30, plenty of time to get ready for a late afternoon hike. Even with that reassurance, I should not have gone. I need to be completely focused on the hike I am on, not thinking about other things.

The trip was to see three separate springs that formed the headwaters of the river. The first was easy, and we then returned to a road, walked south along it, then headed towards the river. The trail went upstream for about a mile before forking. Here, we waited about 20 minutes as two of the group were picking mushrooms. The leader told me she was a little annoyed at this; I could sympathize, having led 76 hikes. The leader expects people along to follow the hiking plan. I once had a woman taking a video of the entire Scott Trail, which put her a half hour behind the group after only three miles. I almost had to abort the hike. It’s rude and unfair to others.

We regrouped at the junction and went further upstream. This soon became a problem, for the trail ended in a mass of blowdowns. Two of us looked for other routes, but there weren’t any. In the meantime, the easy hike, where I could give my sore elbow a rest, suddenly wasn’t. I was climbing up on 24 inch diameter blowdowns, wet and slippery, trying to navigate well above the ground, where sharp branches were plentiful. A slip would have made more than my elbow painful.

A few minutes later, others found a way—no trail, only a way— to the base of a steep muddy grade, leading to the other trail, well above us.

I muttered sotto voce that this was dangerous. I didn’t want to do it, and I was one of the strongest hikers in the group. Others just kept going. So, I went along, too, but reluctantly. I figured I could get up the muddy slope, although if anybody above me fell, I would be going down as well. It was a nasty climb up about 75 meters, and more than once, I found myself in an area where I had to think for some time what I was going to do next. Finally, I took a chance of sorts, where there was a decent probability I would make it, and I did. Everybody else did, too, but just because we all made it safely didn’t make it a safe route. It wasn’t. If we had done this 10 times, somebody would have fallen, and a fall here would have been bad.

I was upset with myself. I should have suggested we turn around and take the other route. I wasn’t the leader, but the leader probably would have agreed. I should have told her later, in private, that we should not have done what we did. Additionally, I should have added that she scout trips before leading them, to know where the trail is and isn’t. That doesn’t rule out a blowdown that occurs before the hike, but the blowdowns we encountered had been there for years. Every trip I lead I have hiked at one time or another, learning in advance about route finding difficulties, significant snow, or a change the map didn’t show.

We never did see the headwaters. Afterwards, everybody in the group, sans me, thought it was a great hike. Nobody, and there were some people on the hike I respect, said anything about the danger. Had we done what I suggested, we would have been safe, we would have had time to get to the spring, and we would not have been pushed to get back to town as quickly as we later did. We made a bad decision, and nobody, including me, spoke up about it. Had we had a hiker who signed up for this “Easy” hike, they would have been far over their ability.

I was annoyed with myself. While the Obsidians do have bus trips, Abilene has never been a planned destination.

The top of the hill. Note the angles of the trees, looking down through dense brush to the bottom.

What passed for the spring that began the Middle Fork.

The road referred to was behind us.

One of the branches of the upper Middle Fork

Tags:Outdoor writing, Philosophy
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

SILVER LINING

November 16, 2016

It’s easy to be depressed, at least for people who share my values, by the election. I’m back in the political wilderness, a time when people I don’t like are going to be running the country, and running it badly. It’s easy to get angry at those who underestimated the opponent, voted for him, were too overconfident, did not see the handwriting on the wall, and other errors of commission or omission. But I’m not going to primarily cast blame here. I am looking instead at the silver linings.

During the campaign, Ms. Clinton received a demand from Black Lives Matter to apologize for slavery and racism. Had she done that, the election would have been over in August. Instead of discussing what they would do about the economy–and they had good ideas– the Democrats were sidetracked by groups whom they help but who do not turn out to vote for them when it matters. Working class whites—their traditional support— will turn out, but they don’t care a whit about bathroom regulation, and nor do I, quite frankly. Considering a significant number of LGBTQ folks voted for the Other, it might be wise to direct the Party’s outreach efforts elsewhere. That’s a silver lining, I hope.

The Democrats are going to learn a lot if they look at the numbers. Secretary Clinton will win by more a million votes nationwide, but she needed about a tenth of those votes distributed into Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Learning can start with Wisconsin, which had almost the same number of Republican votes in 2012, whereas the Democrats got two hundred thousand fewer. Was this due to staying home or switching sides? Maybe the Republican vote would have been a lot less. The Democrats need to be walking through the state and finding answers.

The Democratic Party can now be remade. Clinton is gone. It’s time for a younger generation to remake the Party into something relevant for the American people. I suspect young Democrats will be more inclusive, tolerant of more diversity, hopefully more interested in science and climate change than the politicians today. In any case, they’ve got two years to figure out where the Party is going. Secretary Clinton was going to be investigated during her entire term, had she been elected, and now that is moot. She probably would have had terrible midterms in 2018 and been voted out in 2020. It was unlikely that the Democrats would have 16 consecutive years of the presidency. Twelve would have been a stretch.

Go where the votes are. White voters are still the largest bloc. Listen to them and campaign where they live. That means campaign in all 50 states, because even if the presidential nominee doesn’t win the state, the nominee can help with local elections. The number of Democrats in local and state offices has tanked in the last 8 years. Increasing these numbers should be a major priority, especially before the 2020 redistricting. Every Democratic leader needs to know the numbers of Democrats in office throughout the country. There is now time to fix this problem.

The Republicans now own the government, all three branches. They own it, and if they start taking away safety nets, the Democrats need to remind people who is doing it. Frankly, the party of people who actually understand the English language needs to quit losing the battle of words to those who can barely spell.

Addressing climate change won’t occur, but it was DOA under both candidates. We reached a stage several years ago where people said the climate was changing, but it wasn’t due to man. Now it is simply that it hasn’t changed at all—the snowball on the Senate floor, the record low that occurs, the warm year that is 0.1 degrees cooler than the prior year. We are going backward on climate change. While I deeply regret what is going to happen to the Earth in the next four years, I am optimistic. I’m optimistic that nature, biology, chemistry, and physics will unleash energy that will perhaps be the Magnitude 10 environmental event that might wake us up. In the next eight years, there is a high likelihood that fisheries will crash, stronger storms will occur, hotter days, floods, droughts, and to humans, environmental mayhem. I’m a lot more certain it will be sooner than predicted, since predictions have been shown to be too conservative. To nature, it is just biology, physics, and chemistry following the rules when the ingredients are mixed with the proper temperature and pressure.

The Democrats won’t be responsible for any major terrorist attack, dealing with Russia, Iran, Syria, or North Korea; any one of which could blow any time. Oh, the Democrats will be blamed, I’m sure, but the buck stops with the Republicans. Should we go to war, the debt burden will be squarely upon the Republicans, assuming the Democrats don’t let them off the hook this time with off-budget “emergency authorizations.”

The Democrats won’t be responsible for any oil spill into the Missouri River, the Ogallala Aquifer or anywhere else where pipelines were resisted. Much of the damage will be in red states. We will help clean up the mess, but we will also be sure to remind people who did this to them.

While the Other says there will be a rebuilding of infrastructure, something we need to do, Mr. Ryan, should he still be Speaker, will be wanting to save money. Such conflict should be interesting, and I am looking forward to see if it is infrastructure jobs, which I think an excellent idea, or protecting the national deficit, which while laudable, is second to infrastructure. Should Mr. Ryan prevail, many infrastructure jobs will not occur, and this will not be the salvation of the “jobs, jobs, jobs” group, who should instead be hearing “fewer children, fewer children, fewer children.”

We’ve had a Democrat womanizer in the White House. He got impeached. The Other may behave himself in the White House. That remains to be seen. Suffice it to say that I think there will be far more scandals in his administration. There will be more men in it, more white men, and that is a good recipe for scandals. Newt Gingrich is Exhibit B.

I am worried about public land being transferred to the states. On the other hand, I have been able to spend many happy hours in such land. If there is a transfer, those who had been pushing for such will likely be denied access by those who have the money to buy it and to cut off access. I’m selfish. I enjoyed it greatly. I can read and teach math.

I expect the media to complain vigorously when they are denied access. The media needs to stop treating the Other as a celebrity and hit him hard every time there is a scandal or a mistake. In other words, they need to treat him like a Democrat. There should be no more free passes for the winner. This is not The Apprentice. Or maybe it is, with the nation’s fate in the hands of a rookie, who is greener than the Chicago River on March 17. We need better writers, not better looking celebrities who pass for them. Reporters now asking the Other what he really believes are a bit late.

I look forward to Trickle Down economics being given its full chance. While I am not in the top 1%, I benefit from tax cuts, although I keep voting against my economic self-interest. When we are plunged into a recession, which we will, Trickle Down will finally die its appropriate death, at least for this generation. I doubt it will disappear forever.

I keep hearing “Fight them,” coupled with requests to donate money. Someone else’s turn. Silver lining.

Tags:General writing, Philosophy
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

THE FIFTY STATE CAMPAIGN ROAD TRIP

November 10, 2016

Senator Jeff Merkley, junior senator from Oregon, has made over 300 town hall visits in each of the 36 counties in the state. He calls it his most important responsibility as a senator. Every year, he visits each county in the state. Oregon has some large counties: Harney, in the southeastern part of the state, has an area of 10,226 miles. Were it a state, it would rank 42nd in size. It has only seven thousand people, so their votes don’t make a whit of difference when Merkley stands for election. Or do they?

Merkley goes to each county, because he sees himself as a senator for the whole state, not just the population centers along the I-5 corridor. He learned from his predecessors, and town meetings give him a sense of the pulse of the state, what people are thinking.

It is interesting is where Merkley holds his town meetings. In Lane County, home to Eugene and Springfield, he holds the meeting in the Odd Fellows Hall in nearby Coburg, a small town, not in Eugene. He is making a statement, at least to me, that small town Oregon matters to him. His town halls are in places most don’t know: Scappoose, Mt. Angel, Baker City, Gladstone. Merkley won handily in 2014, and I suspect should he run in 2020, he will win handily again. Yes, he’s a liberal and the only Senator who backed Bernie Sanders, but I would bet he has the respect, if not the votes, of many Oregonians east of the Cascades, where most of the state lies, but few of the people live.

I have often wondered why a presidential nominee has never visited Alaska. Yes, Alaska votes Republican, but the message sent by a Democratic nominee for president would be huge. Yes, she would get no electoral votes, but she would get a lot more by going: respect from Alaskans, shock at being visited, and probably an earful, too. People everywhere like being respected, be they an inner city African-American or a farmer in Nebraska. America is comprised of huge population centers and hundreds of thousands of square miles with few people, and the way people think in both is very, very different. I think Secretary Clinton made a mistake when she cast her campaign on the big cities in the swing states. A lot of support was potentially available in places if had she gone and said, “I’m here to see where you live, what your local issues are, and to show you that I put on my pants one leg at a time, just as you do.”

Sure, many would have laughed. Her handlers wanted her in the swing states, where the electoral votes were that mattered, in the cities, where Democrats live. But people read the newspaper and log online. If they had seen that she were touring red states, for heaven’s sake, they might have been thrown off balance by such strange strategy. They might have thought, “wow, she is seeing where the people live.”

Suppose she had left the DNC convention and with Tim Kaine, her VP Nominee, gotten aboard a train and gone to York, Scranton, Harrisburg, and a stopover at the 9/11 memorial, finishing at Erie. She would then have entered Ohio and done a tour south of Cleveland, maybe as far south as Mansfield, and then north up into Michigan, telling people in Detroit she’d be back, but she would continue to Ann Arbor, Flint and to the Upper Peninsula, where no nominee ever goes. From Escanaba, she could have gone west into Rhinelander, Wisconsin and spent time touring the central part of the state, places that do have Democrats but also have Republicans who would have been surprised. They would have seen a presidential nominee in their small town who spoke differently, saying hi, I’m here to see what your state looks like and what kind of people live here. Can you tell me? Some would have laughed, some would have turned away or flipped her off, and I bet she would have gotten a ration, but come away with a good idea of the pulse of the country. She could have entered Minnesota near Hinckley and gone through the small towns across the state, up to Red Lake, to the reservation, before traveling to Moorhead and Fargo, on the Red River of the North. She could have crossed North Dakota, perhaps making a statement at the standoff, before visiting the oil fields near Dickinson. She also could have paid homage to Theodore Roosevelt by visiting the National Park named for him.

Bison, Theodore Roosevelt NP, October, 2006

Continuing west, she would have seen Glendive, Montana, and ridden along the Yellowstone River to Billings, then west through the Big Sky Country, by Big Timber, Bozeman, Great Falls, Missoula. In eastern Montana, she would have been near coal country, where much as I and others don’t like coal, one train of 100 cars is required daily for one of the eastern power plants for a single day’s use. It gives one perspective to know that the power they take for granted comes from stuff that they think should be kept in the ground. If she had visited a coal mine, trust me, a lot of folks would have taken notice. The miners might have made fun of her, but I think they would have given her grudging respect.

Entering Idaho, she would have seen Craters of the Moon, Snake River Country, places that burn in the summer, have frightful winters, and where Americans live. Past Spokane, Washington, past Moses Lake, and she’d visit Yakima, maybe, Snoqualmie Pass and finally end in Seattle. Because Washington is a blue state, few nominees go there.

But our nominee would then fly to Alaska, visiting Juneau, Anchorage, and Fairbanks, before flying to Hawaii for a day on either Oahu or the Big Island.

It’s a tough trip, but once flying back to San Francisco, she would go east, over Donner Pass, to Reno, Washoe County, and then along the northern tier of Nevada, past Winnemucca, Battle Mountain, and Elko, east to Salt Lake City. She had no chance in Utah, but visiting the Mormon Tabernacle as a tourist, if allowed, would have shown respect. She would then leave and go through Vernal and Grand Junction, by Rifle and Glenwood Springs, all the way to Denver. From there, she might miss Nebraska and the Platte for Kansas, then swinging south into Oklahoma and Texas, ending in Dallas. She would have traveled through a dozen states she wouldn’t win, but the press corps would have loved it. They would all see America as too many people in politics don’t see it, an America that belongs to the Republicans. Not really, of course. It belongs to all of us.

West Texas, from Guadalupe Peak, from Guadalupe Mountains, NP, 2005.

At any point, the nominee could leave for a few days for a rally or for fundraising, but the goal would be to finish, meaning Nebraska and South Dakota, Oregon, Arizona and New Mexico, the Deep South and the “Red Crescent” of Kentucky and West Virginia. Yes, even those states. She would learn a lot from seeing them. Americans are a diverse people, and much of the diversity in thought comes from the land in which they happen to live and work.

Big Bend National Park. This is moist air striking 3000′ cliffs and being forced upward, condensing before me. It is the best example of lifting air’s producing rain (orographic lift) I have ever seen. June, 2007.

Foggy morning, Mammoth Cave, Kentucky, April, 2013

I think every nominee should visit every one of the fifty states. I have. I’ve spent more than 100 nights in 13 of them. I’ve walked across two of them and part of two more. I have seen the diversity of America the land, camped in many states, seen nearly all of its national parks. As a result, I understand the diversity of the people better than I otherwise would. For me, it matters little in the grand scheme of things. For a presidential nominee, it matters immensely. The Democrats would do well to read these words before 2020.

Salmon, Brooks Falls, Katmai, Alaska, 2016.

Tags:General writing, Philosophy
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Boreal B[l]og

Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

NASSAU GROUPER

A TIDE IN MY AFFAIRS

MEDICINE BY SCREEN

THERE WAS MORE TO BE LEARNED

WEIGHTY TOPIC

THE WHOLE TRUTH AND NOTHING BUT THE LIES AND COVERUPS

WHY WE SHOULD CARE FOR EVERY AMERICAN’S BIRTHRIGHT

THE BUS TO ABILENE

SILVER LINING

THE FIFTY STATE CAMPAIGN ROAD TRIP

WHAT’S HERE?

Blog Stats

Blogroll

Recent Posts

Top Posts

Follow Blog via Email

Top Clicks