Saturday Lazy Reading

This blog will change soon.    I have made the mistake of reading some of my earlier "stuff" and got discouraged for some reason.   The last few days, I have been trying to decide on a path to change my blog to something better (different); starting with a new name.    My plan, at this point, is to end this blog completely and start with a new completely different approach.    This will happen in the next few days with a separate blog with no imports from this blog except my reading lists and "blogs that I follow" links and perhaps a couple of my earlier posts.   Then, at some point this blog will be deleted without warning or  wake or funeral service.

This morning, I want to draw attention to one of the blogs that I read from time to time:  BazzFazz and this post in particular titled; "Educated Far Beyond Their Capacity To Undertake Analytical Thought".    A very interesting post..   take a moment and go read it.  

And, have a good day..

Update

Instead of hiding this as an update at the end of my previous post:

Cancer Group, Reversing Course, Says It Will Maintain Planned Parenthood Funding

Susan G. Komen for the Cure said on Friday it was retreating from a decision to cut funding to Planned Parenthood, which provides abortion and birth control services, and apologized for a move that thrust the breast cancer charity into a deeply politicized controversy.

Read More:
http://www.nytimes.com/?emc=na

It seems more and more of public outcry is paid attention to, everywhere, even in the US...

Morality and More Siege on Planned Parenthood

I clicked on my link to Southern Beale this morning to find a post titled; "Take Your Pink Ribbon And Shove It" which was the first I had read or heard of this news.   For further reading click here.    It seems that the excuse is that they (The Komen Foundation) cannot fund a group that is being investigated.   It seems that a republican is investigating Planned Parenthood..   Hmm..  So, maybe, we should investigate all of the groups or organizations that receive funds from Komen; just to see how they hold to their policy.   I know, hurtful and vindictive but still, it would be interesting.   I did enjoy Southern Beale's rant and the comments to that post were interesting, too.   I want to include one short one here:

John Weiss

February 1, 2012 at 12:51 am

I love women. Why do these fuckers hate them? Everyone came out of a woman. I do not understand.

(I hope that SB and John Weiss don't mind the quote here)

I would recommend, for further study of John's question, a book titled; "Cows, Pigs, Wars and Witches" by Marvin Harris.   This book has some very interesting insights into cultures around the world and how women have been treated and why, or, at least some theories about it.     I seem to recall some city that recently tried or maybe succeeded in removing domestic violence as a crime...   must look that up, later.

We live in dangerous times, when "moral values" of a few control our government.    What's next?    I thought of this verse:    Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, [and] to keep himself unspotted from the world.  (James 1: 27).    Things get out of hand when the ignorant, superstitious and "religious" impose their will on all of us.    They all need to study their Bibles more, especially 1 Cor. 13.    

I can't think of his name..  but, he looks like he is smarter than a lot of us...

Climate Change and Messing With Mother Nature

I mentioned that I was in the Fresno area for work recently and also complained a little about the air quality.   It was one of the first things I noticed when I arrived while being led to the job site which was on up an amazing road that wound up the side of a very beautiful mountain with some spectacular views.   I wanted photos of the views and never really got a good opportunity, but it was the view that also revealed just how much pollution was in the air.   Sometimes, I could barely make out the outline of the mountains and hills around me and I could almost taste the smoke or smog in the air (imagination?).     Then one day on the news I heard that Fresno has some of the highest asthma rates in the country and some of the worst air quality.    I would marvel at the beauty and also the think; what a shame..

We continue to be the worlds leader in oil consumption while demanding even more oil and refineries, so we can continue to have access to cheap fuel and other products and we seem to ignore the air around us.   At the same time, we are oblivious to the affect we are having on other countries, especially China, which is polluting the air to produce those products we demand.    We seem convinced that more wells will solve our problems, you know, "drill, baby, drill!", but don't care to consider the reality of how much oil an entire oil platform produces in relation to how much we use or how many years it takes to finally produce oil from a platform and don't talk about the environmental impacts of that platform.    Don't regulate the companies out there drilling, but don't talk about how much money governments kick in to get the wells to production phase.   As an example of the time and expense; you can look into just one relatively successful Canadian oil platform; Hibernia.     And, Hibernia, as far as I can see, has pumped half of its known, provable reserves.   Do we understand how fast we are drinking oil in the US?   Does it matter where the oxidized fuel, we are producing, goes?

One very controversial theory about air pollution has been climate change.    Many over the years have rigidly denied that man can have any affect on the world's climate and others have religiously promoted the theory that man is changing our planet's climate and as a result places like Greenland are melting.   I have been on the believer side of this debate over the years, but I also realize that many things could contribute to our global warming and that much of the data could be wrong or exaggerated, too.    There are those who profit from proving it and those who profit from denying it or convincing the public that it is a false religion.   And, there are those doomsday folks living for the end of the world..   strange, but true.

When looking into climate science many years ago, I learned that volcanoes had a very large impact on climate, of course the more volcanoes; the more impact.   So, this headline:

Study Finds 50-Year Burst of Tropical Eruptions Spawned Enduring ‘Little Ice Age’

got my attention...    But, this link and the video imbedded there, gave me some entertainment (humor).   (Mostly because of where the video or interview is from.)   It seemed to me that those who most ardently deny man caused climate change will be the ones hoping to find some way for man to intervene and cool our planet down..   yes, this is funny and sad and...  scary.   Here is the interview:

I would like to return to the article linked to in the above headline with this reminder:

The driver of the larger-scale shifts was the impact of increased flows of Arctic sea ice on the North Atlantic Ocean, as a news release from the American Geophysical Union, which publishes the journal, describes:

Since sea ice contains almost no salt, when it melted the surface water became less dense, preventing it from mixing with deeper North Atlantic water. Without mixing taking place, the water that flowed back to the Arctic was colder, helping sustain large areas of sea ice and creating a self-sustaining feedback loop long after the effects of the volcanic aerosols subsided…. [Read the rest.]  

(I bolded for emphasis)

Do we really want to add to our mistakes by playing around with our world's climate?     We know that the way out of a penalty for cheating is to cheat some more..

Some Photos

I finally was able to get to some of my photos.   These aren't especially great pictures because I was on the road or working and had to use my cell phone.   I guess that puts them in a different category and, in some ways, more interesting..   or not.

 My little camper and old Ford ready to move out of CA..

I was on this machine a little, but never felt comfortable on it and dented it a little one day in the live oaks that we maneuvered through..    I wondered if I might be fired for a little moment..

This is a view of Millerton Lake, but this photo doesn't show how big the lake is..  

This is near Challis ID

These grow quite well in CA..  pretty, but stinky plants.   We had to dig through a lot of them one day which gave me a pretty nice little head ache.

Sunrise from my camp site in CA.
and not sure when or where....   sorry

Traveling for Work

I mentioned that I have been working away from home.   I have most recently been in the Fresno, California area up in the hills, in a little town called Auberry.    This is a very pretty area, but the air is very hazy with smog.    The people are very friendly and seem to be very honest and generous..   I liked everything about the place except the air and the Poison Oak.    Yes, I was exposed to this sneaky little plant, twice, in fact, even though I was on the look out for it.    I tried all kinds of things, even a trip to the doctor, and spent a lot of time concerned about it and a lot of money trying to cure, or, at least, relieve the itch and pain.   I am still afflicted some, but it is going away.      Tecnu, something I learned about at James Fallows' blog was some relief and I still have it in the shower.   Poison Oak added to my desire to be moved to a different area for work, and made life in a travel trailer even more challenging.

California wasn't my favorite assignment, but it wasn't any worse than any other place when one is not at home and away from family.    I was in several states last year:  Wyoming, Utah, Washington, Idaho and California and all of these places were fun and challenging, at times, in their own way, and I learned a lot at every town that I stayed in.   I made discoveries that floored me, like oil wells in Los Angeles..  right in the middle of businesses and parks; there are oil wells pumping oil!   I was amazed.   And, the huge number of wind powered generators in almost every state..   I so wanted a picture of the ones just out of Bakersfield, CA, but couldn't stop to get one.   And, there are hundreds of them lined up in Wyoming  and more and more in Idaho.    We seem to have an unbelievable need for electricity and fuel in this country and more and more of both being generated or pumped out of the ground.   This takes a lot of energy in itself.    Working for extended periods of time in an area, gives one a different perspective than just vacationing or sight seeing.    I think I actually became a part of things for a time..  sort of.    You know, people in the stores start to recognize you.

Another amazing thing; there are a lot of people working away from home in order to earn a decent living or have work at all.  I wonder why this is.    It seems silly to be in an area, with high unemployment, doing a job that local people should be able to do.   Why can a contractor get a job in a place hundreds of miles from his main office and make money on the job with added travel expenses and the local contractors cannot get these jobs?   How does this work?   Why can't someone like me get decent  pay working where I live?   It seems that we are geared to moving things and people around in this country, like shipping oranges from California to Florida or french fries from Florida to Idaho; crazy.

I want to share some pictures, if I can find them  and some more stories of traveling (I wanted to do this when I started out traveling, and "working out of town"), but for now I will leave this post with a link to this NYT's story and this paragraph from that story:

Throughout American history there has almost always been at least one central economic narrative that gave the ambitious or unsatisfied reason to pack up and seek their fortune elsewhere. For the first 300 or so years of European settlement, the story was about moving outward: getting immigrants to the continent and then to the frontier to clear the prairies, drain the swamps and build new cities.

Internet and Freedom

I have been in a lot of places working in the last few months and a lot of time didn't have very reliable internet.   That is not why I have not posted in some time, but the lack of internet did add to my lack of input.   (I have hoped for more from others if I "stayed out of it" for a while.)    An amazing thing about life these days;  the internet is a very important and almost indispensable part of our lives.    It has become my only source for news, at times while traveling, and my only source of entertainment at other times.   The internet is the vehicle that has made possible the uprisings in many countries that have toppled long standing regimes of tyranny and many of our world's governments fear it enough that they try to suppress content or block access to it.    Even many leaders in the United States have attempted to limit our internet.   This is out of a need to protect "free enterprise" or the government itself.    There are those who believe that people need protection from freedom or maybe,  free and informed people are dangerous to those in power.     There has never been so much access to information to so many people or access to instant communication to all parts of the world; such a powerful tool accessible to the masses...   no wonder the leaders are fearing for their lives or livelihoods..

The internet has changed or added to the ways we communicate and stay in touch with the world around us, so it is no surprise to learn that blog writing has replaced the term paper in some classrooms ("the times, they are a changin").    While I am not sure about completely abandoning the term paper; I can see the need to learn blog writing, especially those chasing a career in writing.    But, for some of us, it should be illegal to have a blog (especially me).    Blogs give us a picture of what others are thinking and what they believe and they give us a chance to discuss or debate issues with each other.   We just wouldn't have this without the internet connecting us and perhaps would never have any social setting where this could be done.   Many people still congregate at coffee shops or other public places and talk, but many in this country just don't have this sort of opportunity.   We all need this social interaction in one form or another.    We need close friends and perhaps we also need these opportunities to express our thoughts and opinions in a less intimate situation.    I think we need to express these thoughts in order to come to a clearer understanding of what we believe and to see how it lines up with others and perhaps come to a better more refined understanding of the reality of our world, or, find others with the same delusional views.

I want to leave this post with this link to a story that is also in the NYT's from today's paper about a documentary about the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei.     I have read about him before and enjoy his work.   Read the article if you haven't already and even some of the comments are enlightening.     From the article:

I have always believed that the story of the dissident artist Ai Weiwei is not about how censorship stifles creativity, but rather how one artist is able to work around such obstacles.  It’s not about the system crushing individual expression, but about the power of an individual in the face of forces greater than himself. One thing is clear — Ai Weiwei’s story could not be possible without the Internet. We cannot imagine an Ai Weiwei without the megaphone of blogs and Twitter, without the ability to communicate instantaneously and connect to like-minded netizens around China and the globe.

Ai Weiwei told me recently that he thinks the government’s decision to detain him for 81 days last year and keep him under strict bail conditions ever since is completely related to his effective use of the Internet to communicate his views and exchange ideas with others.

He told me: “If not for my use of the Internet, I would just be an artist trying to put up a canvas in a gallery or a museum, which has almost no influence for the majority of society. It’s only because I acted on the Internet that the pressure comes.  It made a lot of people feel scared, because they can never really stop my influence on the netizens.”