Spring has come to SoCal. No, it is still Dec.but we've had two inches of rain this month and the sun has u-turned and headed back this way and that is all it takes to bring spring back. Sure we have black frosts ahead of us, but the birds are in their "come hither" plumage, the Commorants have returned to Lindo Lake and the surrounding hills have changed from Rocky Road to Mint Chocolate Chip.
The perfume of orange blossums are already floating on the afternoon breeze and the Valencia oranges are ready to pick.
The chinaberry trees are budding through the last clinging leaves of 09 and the roses are gearing up for the first bloom of 2010.
The Mockingbirds are still not here, so we can't say its official, but the horses jump jump jumping around are calling it Spring.
Monday, December 28, 2009
Thursday, December 17, 2009
cow and calf
A long time ago in FFA I heard a factoid that has stuck with me. A cow and a calf need an average of six acres of good pasture to survive without suppliment. Surprised me since you always see cattle in large crowds. Of course you always see them on feed lots.
It resurfaces in my thoughts when ever I see the stress of city living or hear someone argue against the reality of climate change.
In the 70s a book came out called the "Population Bomb". The main thesis of the book was that this planet could only support approximately 3 billion people. Twenty years later I heard an interview with the author who pointed out that all his predictions were coming to be. Even though the world then contained 5 billion people, many of these people were starving or in danger of starving and the stress on the environment was creating deserts and wrecking the oceans. It's the cow and the calf, I thought.
Some 15 years ago Dr. Carl Saegan co-wrote a book called In The Shadow of Ancient Ancestors. Really great read for all you Biology majors out there. In this book he discusses genetic predispositions in mammals. One of these was the typical reaction to overcrowding. In labs they put groups of happy content lab rats in crowded situations and limited the food resourse. Immediatly the rats formed gangs and began attacking weaker rats - babies, females, older rats. There were even 'rat gang rape events'. He said it was like watching any ghetto situation.
Again the six acres for one cow and her calf comes to mind.
So when I watched the movie An Inconvenient Truth I was struck by how the chart of CO2 followed the exponential increase in human population. Seems to me that we might be having the wrong argument. Which came first, over population or climate change?
Look. The Dust Bowl happened. We got photos and everything. So, was it the 10 year drought that caused the event or the poor farming practices? Both right?
Rainforest deforestation is a calamity for our atmosphere, agreed? Yet the hunger that is forcing landless peasants to try and farm the Amazon is also a pressing issue.
Warlords in Africa are creating mayhem, yet it is the desperate grabbing for limited resources that drives them.
Let's pretend that Global Warming isn't an issue. Let's just look at the results of overpopulation and agree that we got too many head of cattle on this tiny ranch. What do we do?
It turns out that the fixes for one problem also repair the other problem. For instance, if we try to address over-population instead of global warming what do we end up with?
Number one - Educate women in the third world and elevate thier social stature to be on equal footing with men. Time and again this has lead to women in the developing nations choosing to wait for the right husband, choosing when to have children and choosing to have fewer children that they can better provide for. It has NEVER failed. Educate a son and you improve the individual, educate a daughter and you improve the village.
Number two - Provide for the folks that are already here. If we are going to feed 6 billion people we have to globally improve farming operations, water conservation, and educate native populations on wise land use ie; not clear cutting rainforest for farming because the soil is too poor to grow crops, instead harvest what the rainforest has to offer.
Number three - Stop turning our back on environmental devistation and imagining it will not harm us if we can't see it. If Jesus came back today, he would have a hard time finding enough fish to feed the masses. Factory ships continue to drag enormous nets across the oceans, essentially plowing the ocean floor, and damaging, killing and consuming all that are caught in the nets. This carelessness has lead to the destruction of breeding grounds for many variety of fish, decimating the populations for generations to come and wrecking a food source for the planet. It's like harvesting a field then spraying the entire area with Roundup. You wont be getting anymore crops out of that piece of land for a long, long time.
All three of these actions will turn around this planets' wild ride to oblivion without having endless debates about whether global climate change is real or not. But it's going to be up to us individuals to make the million tiny decisions that will save us all - conserving resources, boycotting companies that make their money destroying the planet, voting for political candidates that aren't ludites, buying local, supporting public education, all that hippy junk we've been making fun of for the past 20 years. And if someone sneers at you and says "Are you one of those 'global warming nuts'?" Say "Not at all, I'm a 'feed the hungry nut'." or "Im a 'conservation nut'." or whatever kind of nut you wish to be. That way you stimulate thought and discussion instead of kneejerk rancor. Or just tell them about the Cow and the Calf.
It resurfaces in my thoughts when ever I see the stress of city living or hear someone argue against the reality of climate change.
In the 70s a book came out called the "Population Bomb". The main thesis of the book was that this planet could only support approximately 3 billion people. Twenty years later I heard an interview with the author who pointed out that all his predictions were coming to be. Even though the world then contained 5 billion people, many of these people were starving or in danger of starving and the stress on the environment was creating deserts and wrecking the oceans. It's the cow and the calf, I thought.
Some 15 years ago Dr. Carl Saegan co-wrote a book called In The Shadow of Ancient Ancestors. Really great read for all you Biology majors out there. In this book he discusses genetic predispositions in mammals. One of these was the typical reaction to overcrowding. In labs they put groups of happy content lab rats in crowded situations and limited the food resourse. Immediatly the rats formed gangs and began attacking weaker rats - babies, females, older rats. There were even 'rat gang rape events'. He said it was like watching any ghetto situation.
Again the six acres for one cow and her calf comes to mind.
So when I watched the movie An Inconvenient Truth I was struck by how the chart of CO2 followed the exponential increase in human population. Seems to me that we might be having the wrong argument. Which came first, over population or climate change?
Look. The Dust Bowl happened. We got photos and everything. So, was it the 10 year drought that caused the event or the poor farming practices? Both right?
Rainforest deforestation is a calamity for our atmosphere, agreed? Yet the hunger that is forcing landless peasants to try and farm the Amazon is also a pressing issue.
Warlords in Africa are creating mayhem, yet it is the desperate grabbing for limited resources that drives them.
Let's pretend that Global Warming isn't an issue. Let's just look at the results of overpopulation and agree that we got too many head of cattle on this tiny ranch. What do we do?
It turns out that the fixes for one problem also repair the other problem. For instance, if we try to address over-population instead of global warming what do we end up with?
Number one - Educate women in the third world and elevate thier social stature to be on equal footing with men. Time and again this has lead to women in the developing nations choosing to wait for the right husband, choosing when to have children and choosing to have fewer children that they can better provide for. It has NEVER failed. Educate a son and you improve the individual, educate a daughter and you improve the village.
Number two - Provide for the folks that are already here. If we are going to feed 6 billion people we have to globally improve farming operations, water conservation, and educate native populations on wise land use ie; not clear cutting rainforest for farming because the soil is too poor to grow crops, instead harvest what the rainforest has to offer.
Number three - Stop turning our back on environmental devistation and imagining it will not harm us if we can't see it. If Jesus came back today, he would have a hard time finding enough fish to feed the masses. Factory ships continue to drag enormous nets across the oceans, essentially plowing the ocean floor, and damaging, killing and consuming all that are caught in the nets. This carelessness has lead to the destruction of breeding grounds for many variety of fish, decimating the populations for generations to come and wrecking a food source for the planet. It's like harvesting a field then spraying the entire area with Roundup. You wont be getting anymore crops out of that piece of land for a long, long time.
All three of these actions will turn around this planets' wild ride to oblivion without having endless debates about whether global climate change is real or not. But it's going to be up to us individuals to make the million tiny decisions that will save us all - conserving resources, boycotting companies that make their money destroying the planet, voting for political candidates that aren't ludites, buying local, supporting public education, all that hippy junk we've been making fun of for the past 20 years. And if someone sneers at you and says "Are you one of those 'global warming nuts'?" Say "Not at all, I'm a 'feed the hungry nut'." or "Im a 'conservation nut'." or whatever kind of nut you wish to be. That way you stimulate thought and discussion instead of kneejerk rancor. Or just tell them about the Cow and the Calf.
Monday, October 5, 2009
Lincoln Got It Wrong
If they take Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh with them can we all agree the America would be soo much better off if we let the South succeed from the USA.
I often wondered what would have happened if Lincoln had shrugged off the South's temper tantrum and said the 1860's colloquial equivalent of "Don't let the screen door hit ya where the good lord split ya".
Would we still be split, like Korea. Or would the South eventually have consumed itself like the Native American"s snake swallowing its own tale in an orgasm of greed and hunger. Like North Korea, would they have been decimated by their own nightmareish paranoia. Or like Hitler's Germany would they have been led by some demagogue to turn their fear outward and attack their neighbors. In either case, the final destruction of that schizophrenic ante bellum delusion would have been more complete and America would finally be the United States that it claims to be.
I often wondered what would have happened if Lincoln had shrugged off the South's temper tantrum and said the 1860's colloquial equivalent of "Don't let the screen door hit ya where the good lord split ya".
Would we still be split, like Korea. Or would the South eventually have consumed itself like the Native American"s snake swallowing its own tale in an orgasm of greed and hunger. Like North Korea, would they have been decimated by their own nightmareish paranoia. Or like Hitler's Germany would they have been led by some demagogue to turn their fear outward and attack their neighbors. In either case, the final destruction of that schizophrenic ante bellum delusion would have been more complete and America would finally be the United States that it claims to be.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Thought 4 the day
If Gay Marriage had shown us anything about human nature it is that given a choice between a hedonistic lifestyle and a more settled life of spouse and kids we mostly all choose the latter.
Friday, September 25, 2009
California
California
Walking out into the cold early morning, my sneakers soaking up dew from the grass, my mood black with my hurried pre-work routine, I'm stopped in my tracks by a neon pink sunrise blasting over the top of the sleeping black hills to the east. Cotton candy clouds backlit with gold and silver and a sky already kick-started powder blue by a youthful sun lift my dark spirits like a surprise visit from an old friend.
Superimposed over this grandiose scene like an old film photograph double exposed so one image lay ghost like on top of another was a memory of what had compelled me to make California my home.
A photograph of a coast line. It was black and white and the coast was rugged, like in the 60’s television show “Dark Shadows”. Jagged cliffs broke off into a waiting ocean. Black rocks the size of my home waded in the surf.
It hung on the wall overlooking the dining room table at my grandparent’s house. I found it so compelling that I stared at it through every Sunday lunch and Thanksgiving dinner. I imagined myself standing on those cliffs, pushed by the wind and thrilling to the roar of the waves. So different from the flat hot Texas plains just outside the door.
"What is that place again?" I would ask my granddad.
"Big Sur"
"Big Sir?" I would repeat back to him.
"That's right"
I don't know how a place came to be called Big Sir, but it suited it. Any place as majestic as that deserved to be called "Sir".
"Where is it?"
"California."
California. Open those golden gates. Don't make a stranger wait. Hippies and Beach Boys and loud guitars playing Wipe Out. Home to the Beverly Hillbillys and the Barkleys of The Big Valley.
"We got that photo when we went there on vacation," he would inform me.
California was a different world as far away and as alien as France. But long ago, when my dad and his brother and sister were still kids, my grandparents took their young family on a road trip to California. Every couple of years my grandparents would drag out the screen and slide projector and use the livingroom as a movie house.
In the silver light of the projector bouncing off the screen my sisters and I watched our dad and his siblings at play in a fairy tale land of giant trees, thundering surf and green forested mountains.
Here was my Uncle Dean pounding a tent stake in the ground under majestic pines. Here was my Aunt Betty laughing at the camera as ocean waves broke against her back. And here was my Dad - my perpetually sardonic father; the guy who made fun of everyone and everything; the man who found nothing delightful in this world- standing on a tree stump the size of a house. And again, balancing on a boulder on a mountain top, and here, wading through a rushing streams, all with a giant grin on his face. And in every picture his arms were spread wide, like he was trying to hug the whole world at once. I often wondered if this boy was really the same person as the man smoking a cigarette in the kitchen, bored with the slide show, bored with life.
One thing I knew for sure, California didn’t exist anymore. It couldn’t. Because if it did, we would be living there, where people were joyful, instead of Texas, where people plodded through the days of their lives in a kind of zombie numbness.
As I grew older, I came to realize that California did exist, but I saw it through the eyes of my fellow Texans. California was where the crazy people lived. California was earthquakes, riots, smog, crazy hippie cults and Johnny Carson complaining about traffic. No sane person would ever go there. No sir. Not on purpose.
Yet, as luck would have it, that was exactly where the Navy sent me for my first duty station. San Diego, California. I was nervous at first, all my prejudices stood between me and paradise. My guard was up.
In Texas, nature is adversarial. “Man against the Elephants...I mean Elements” my dad used to joke. Heat, cold, humidity, drought, floods, tornados, all were to be withstood, and battled against. A 120 degree summer day was a challenge to be overcome. What didn’t kill you made you stronger. Character was built by standing up to dust storms and mosquitoes the size of wasps. The caress of a tropic breeze made the Texan in me suspicious. It won’t last, it’s a trick to make me drop my guard. Hibiscus bushes bursting with red and yellow flowers the size of saucers, were only a mirage, trying to make me forget the reality of mesquite trees with their lawn dart size thorns that grew everywhere in Texas.
But day after day, the reality of California seeped through my jaundiced eye and worked it’s way into my consciousness. I began to relax. I began to believe.
“Why not?” I would ask myself. “Why not enjoy the cool ocean breeze on a summer night? Why not appreciate the roof high Bird of Paradise plants and exotic palm trees. Why not expect a winter that wouldn’t actually kill you if the heat went out in your house? Or a summer that you could survive just by driving down to the shore.
And that was that. Once you believe in California, it becomes your reality. You stop thinking that nature means to kill you. You stop believing that God wants you to suffer. Maybe God even loves you and made this nice place for you to enjoy. And you come to appreciate that adversity doesn’t always build character, sometimes it creates PTSD.
So this morning, when I was grumpy from short sleep and a long day ahead of me; when my feet were wet from the dewy grass, and I was rushing through my routine to get to work on time; this morning I was greeted by another luscious sun rise. Starlings and finches and sparrows and crows all said welcome. Roosters crowed in the distance and my horses nickered in anticipation of breakfast. This morning, like every morning, California lifted my spirits, and in my minds’ eye I could see my father, arms wide like wings and a grin on his boyish face trying to hug the whole world.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Notes from the Twittersphere
Hi all;
Everyone's heard about twitter, right? It's a social networking site, right. Could be, but like standing around the water cooler it also is a great place to keep your finger on the pulse of public opinion. (So go to twitter.com and get in the game.)
Let me give you the low down on what's going down on twitter today.
First off, check out BadAstronomer's article on Discover on line at
http://is.gd/32DQ4
It's a scree against the boneheads who attacked Obama's school house chat as Marxist indocrination. It also has the text of the speech, in case you wanted to see exactly what he said.
(paulapoundstone says: I think it's beyond great for President Obama to tell our kids to study hard and wash their hands. Let him get blue in the face.)
HalSparks has a great imagined GOP response to the speech on http://FunnyOrDie.com/m/2y6p
The majority of twitterphiles are big on public option for health care. Honestly don't we all know that health insurance companies are like public utilities, providing a necessary service that we can't live without - like water or electricity - only they are privately and for profit run organizations that have us all by the short hairs. The only way to keep competitive pressure on these guys is to provide an option. As my wife says, if you don't have car insurance, you can walk or take the bus, but if you don't have health insurance you're screwed.
Also tweeters are dead against Blackwater, and jeremyscahill is on top of it all. Check out his report at http://bit.ly/1246PQ.
Off to feed the chickens.
Everyone's heard about twitter, right? It's a social networking site, right. Could be, but like standing around the water cooler it also is a great place to keep your finger on the pulse of public opinion. (So go to twitter.com and get in the game.)
Let me give you the low down on what's going down on twitter today.
First off, check out BadAstronomer's article on Discover on line at
http://is.gd/32DQ4
It's a scree against the boneheads who attacked Obama's school house chat as Marxist indocrination. It also has the text of the speech, in case you wanted to see exactly what he said.
(paulapoundstone says: I think it's beyond great for President Obama to tell our kids to study hard and wash their hands. Let him get blue in the face.)
HalSparks has a great imagined GOP response to the speech on http://FunnyOrDie.com/m/2y6p
The majority of twitterphiles are big on public option for health care. Honestly don't we all know that health insurance companies are like public utilities, providing a necessary service that we can't live without - like water or electricity - only they are privately and for profit run organizations that have us all by the short hairs. The only way to keep competitive pressure on these guys is to provide an option. As my wife says, if you don't have car insurance, you can walk or take the bus, but if you don't have health insurance you're screwed.
Also tweeters are dead against Blackwater, and jeremyscahill is on top of it all. Check out his report at http://bit.ly/1246PQ.
Off to feed the chickens.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
San Diego Pride Parade
Those of you who went know that it was one of the best and worst parades in recent history.
Best because they limited the number of vendors marching. (No endless car dealerships.) There were only a couple of real estate companies, Cox Cable, SDG&E and Aetna Insurance (I guess because they have full domestic partnership benefits, at least that is what one of the float riders shouted out as they rolled by).
Worst because after the Dykes on Bikes and the gay guys who ride after them, there was a huge delay. Worse than any delay in the Western Days Parade in Lakeside. At least 20 minutes long. At least in the Western Days Parade you can see the next participant making the turn at Wintergardens and you can see the reason is that it's little kids or an old tractor and top speed is one mile an hour. Yesterday we waited and waited and some people packed up and left and some made jokes about how we were waiting for next years parade. But eventually it started up again, and then it went smoothly.
As an East County person who is well out of Hillcrest politics, it was surprising to see Gavin Newsome marching. He's a damn handsome man, and if looks have anything to do with it he will definitely be our next governor.
I was excited to see a new group call Anonymous who all wore Guy Fawkes masks and carried signs saying Ask Me Why I Protest. Anyone who has seen V For Vendetta remembers how cool and creepy that scene was where all of London showed up in Fawkes masks at the Parliament. I am mos' def' gonna look those cats up.
We took the dogs this time to escape Lakeside's heat and they had a great time and got patted and rubbed by hundreds of people.
All in all a great time, but heck, the worst day at Pride is still the best day of the year.
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