Six random thoughts (9/27/2019)

It has been an interesting few days here in Virginia, or here in the US. I will try to go through some of them point by point, more to chronicle what is going on and what is on my mind. Most of it should probably not be new to many of you, but so be it.

1. We are in a drought here in eastern Virginia and we have a heat wave. Temperatures are still around the high 80s (or above 30°C). Normal temperatures should be somewhere in the low 70s (20°C). Our trees are wilting, the leaves are shriveling up and I actually have to water with city water. It seems that the hot, dry weather is not going to break for another week or so.
2. On the other hand, we had 40" or 100 cm of rain in coastal Texas, again.
3. Guess this is all a sign of global warming, the dreaded climate change. We had a huge conference at the U.N., which culminated in a weird standoff between the current occupant of the Whitehouse and the young climate activist Greta Thunberg (watch her speech <here>).
4. The climate week ended with a worldwide strike and we participated! (See the photograph below). I found it very important to join the youth and our Unitarian church members in standing up for the future of the world. I wanted to show my solidarity. As I often write in my blog, I think climate change is the most important issue facing humanity.
5. We are intensively training for a 60 mile bike ride in two weeks. This has raised my metabolism so much that in the past month I lost 5 lbs and it seems I am always hungry. The issue now is going to be adjusting after the bike ride. I would love to keep losing, but winter is supposed to come and that seems to curtail my biking. Climate change seems to impact spring and autumn more than the extremes: summer and winter, or the extreme hot and cold spells.
6. Finally, I have been glued to the news about the news about the possible impeachment of the current occupant of the Whitehouse. It seems that he runs the place like a mafia boss but with less class. What a surprise. It seems to be far worse than what Nixon did.

I tend not to post pictures of my ugly face but here is one of me during the Climate Strike on September 20th, 2019.  It is kind of a shame that the news of the corrupt occupant of the Whitehouse overshadowed all this and the conference on climate change at the U.N.   

Some six random points that I want to make sure that are recorded in my blog and on the Internet for posterity. Not that I expect that the climate conference and the revelations in Washington are not going to be etched in the psyche of this nation, the internet, or even this world.  However, I want to make my small contribution to it, just like me previous post, where I revisited 9/11.

September 11, a quick look back (9/11/2019)

This will be a very quick post, but looking back at all my "million" posts over the past years, I never really wrote about that day in history (or what we call here: 9/11).

Famous picture Stolen from Wikipedia

9/11 was a day has changed this country, we will never be the same again. We came together as a people for a few days and then plunged ourselves into wars that we are still in.  Soldiers fighting in Afghanistan or still serving in Iraq might not have been born on 9/11/2001.  Since that time we created new enemies and we still have old ones.  We have leaders who don't understand it or don't give a crap about it all.  In addition now they want to nuke hurricanes or send them astray with a sharpie pen.

Most of us know where we were when the towers came down.  I was conducting a vegetation study at the Lakehurst Naval Station (in NJ) on 9/11, when the MP (Military Police) came to check with us and told us a plane had hit the first twin tower.  At that time nobody understood yet that is was a terrorist attack.  It could have been an accident.  

We continued with our work.  However, a half hour (or 45 minutes) or so later, they came back and we were told that the second tower was hit and we were escorted off the base. When we got back to our motel we were stunned watching the news for a while, after which we got in the truck and drove back to Newport News, figuring out that we were probably not going to be allowed back on base for a while.

It was a solemn/stunned six hour drive back, listening to the radio.

Today, I am remembering that day, but doing fine.

Fall is in the air (9/4/2019)

It is September.  Fall is definitively in the air.  A little early maybr, but our two chrysanthemums (or mums) that we have overwintered for years now, are about to bloom.  So are the goldenrod in our back yard.  I am sure that the bees are looking forward to it and to other fall flowers.  Our first major hurricane (Dorian) has devastated the Bahamas and is on its way up the eastern seaboard.  My wife and I are training intensively for another century (bicycle) ride.  We took a long bike ride last evening and it was wonderful to chase our own shadows down the road and to look over the fields in the national park behind our home while the sun was starting to set.  It was gorgeous.  Wow, the rites of fall (not of spring).

This picture was taken recently during one of our training rides.  This is in the Colonial National Park in York County.

At work it is time to plan for next year's workshops, while preparing one more full day class and working on at least two more webinars.  Crazy as it may sound, every time I step in front of a class I have to fend of questions like: "Hey Jan, when are you retiring?" or remarks like "Hope you are not retiring soon!"  Guess I am starting to look old and acting my age.

Honestly, I do have retirement on the brain.  It would be nice hang it up and relax, work on my trees, sail, travel, hike, and just hobby.  However, it would also involve admitting that I am getting old and that the decline is setting in.  I wrote about that in a somewhat rambling post <here>.   But I do enjoy teaching and working with these folks.  I am still hoping that my love and interest for the environment will rub off on some of them and that they will follow in my footsteps and help to protect the environment or at least understand the need and the urgency to do so. 

We ask the folks that attend the workshops to do a review of the class and these are just two of the latest reviews I got in August.  I took a photos because they made a comment specifically about my teaching.

Another point for not retiring is financial.  The stock market did not fair well in August and with the political uncertainty it is difficult to rely on the savings right now.  The stock market rises or declines one or two percent with every tweet or twist and turn by the current occupant of the White House.  It feels like he is just doing it for kicks; just because he can!  There is talk about a recession.  In other words, I am not sure if this is the right time to call it quits, or just to hold on until we finally get rid of him and things stabilize.  That is, if things will ever be the same, or stable, again.  Oh god, here we go again, into my favorite subject of late, politics.  Stop it!

I really like fall or autumn as some call it, except for the annoyances of the storms (which according to statistics are getting more severe thanks to global warming).  It is getting cooler, the air gets crisp, the leaves are coloring and the shadows are getting longer.  I have written about my love of autumn every year except last year (check the keyword or label: fall colors).  

Animals, plants and yes, we people are all preparing for the coming cold season.  The squirrel are digging in my bonsai pots and I think they are hiding oak acorns in them.  All the moss has been dug up and thrown out of the pots, and next spring it will be weeding time.  Of course, they are hiding acorns elsewhere in the yard, as well.  Plants are translocating nutrients to the roots and trunks in anticipation of the winter.  I teach my students that this is the time that weed control may work best.  Even we humans are preparing for winter.  Some of us fatten up in fall, for the cold winter.  We have stored our firewood and are ready to light the stove when it gets cold at night.  Bring it on!

Hippies unite (8/20/2019)

This past week it was the 50th anniversary of Woodstock. Sirius XM celebrated this with broadcasting the old restored archived recorded music from the concert. It seems that 99% of the music was recorded, and only part of it made it on the record or the movie. While I did not attend the concert, I was 16 and I had just recently move to the Netherlands from an island in the Caribbean, it was the music from my youth and fun to listen to all that familiar music.

It was good to reminisce about the time that music was evolving, flower power, peace, love and ideals. Yes, we protested against the war, Joan Baez’s husband was in jail at that time for draft dodging and Country Joe McDonald sang his “Fixing to Die Rag”: give me an F, give me a U, …. (you can fill in the rest). One of my favorite tunes from that era is “I’d Love to Change the World” by Ten Years After, although I do not think they played that at Woodstock. They did play one of the best rock and roll tunes that weekend (I’m Going Home).

I wonder what has happened to all this idealism of those days. It seemed to all have gone out of the window with the election of Ronald Regan. We probably should not blame Regan; however, the hippies, the idealist, flower people of those days; grew up, got married and started raising families. They became middle-class. I have a friend or two who never changed; more power to them! 

Thinking back on my last post, where I mentioned existentialism, another friend asked during that same meeting where we discussed the spider what existentialism really meant. One of my answer was that the hippies of those days, the flower children, were considered the ultimate existentialists. In essence, it seems that most religions and philosophies have this belief that human life as some higher or deeper meaning (heaven, hell and other things). Existentialists do not agree, they say that there is no meaning to human life, unless we give meaning to it ourselves. Jean Paul Sartre, one of the fathers of modern existentialism wrote: “We are condemned to be free.” That was what the folks at Woodstock did, they were free and decided to adopt peace, love and happiness. 

The classic existentialist dilemma!

It seems that the hippie culture was a reaction the consumerism of the 50s and 60s and the pursuit of the “American Dream.” But, people started rebelling against it and they echoed Jean-Paul Sartre who said “You might think that there’s some authority you could look to for answers, but all of the authorities you can think of are fake.”

Fifty years later here we are again; we are living in a country which is going to hell. This country has a fake president who was elected by a minority of the population, who mismanaged his own fortune and was bailed out by his daddy and now explodes this country’s deficit and his daddy cannot bail him out any longer. He is a president who cuddles up to dictators wanting to be one himself, definitely not someone to look to for answers; he lies when it suits him.  It seems that we really are condemned to be free and to repeat the same mistakes. When Sartre mentioned that, he meant that you could not complain about getting lung cancer when you smoke, since you it was you free decision, choice or will to do so. Little did he know at the time that the tobacco companies stacked the deck against the smokers, but so be it. However, what Sartre is saying that if we just sit on our hands and do not do anything about what is going on around us, that is our choice; we should not complain. 

The old hippies tried to do something about it and spread love, peace, and happiness; they fought against the war in Viet-Nam. I am not sure if it worked; however, we need to become existentialists again! We “new hippies” of today need to spread love, peace and happiness as well, but also spread tolerance of other cultures, other races, different sexual orientations, a woman's right to choose, fight against global warming, work for the environment and save this world for future generations.

I wrote part of this blog with the help of this web page: https://owlcation.com/humanities/Existentialism-Explained

Symbols, symbols everywhere (8/9/2019) (somewhat r-rated)

In the natural world there are only a few species that fight each other to death or what we could call intraspecific killing (that is the same species killing each other usually for food or territory).  Different species kill each other regularly for food or other reasons (that is called interspecific killing). However, within the same species we have crimes of passion as we see in spiders, where in some of the species the female will devour the male, but at least when that happens, the male has accomplished something: the male is either still actively breeding or he has just spread his DNA in the form of sperm and eventually offspring when he (the daddy) is being eaten by his wife. As a friend of mine called it, an existentialist's dream, going out in flames, sometimes mid-ejaculation. 

The Australian Red Back Spider, is known for eating it's mate.  The males have two copulating organs and once the second one is inserted into the female he is in a convenient position for the female to start chewing on him and devouring him while he is ejaculating.

This reminds me of the story another friend of mine told about the time he served in the coroner's office of a major city. A city council member had died of a heart attack while having sex with his mistress. What a way to go! His mistress was testifying in court and crying, telling the judge: "Here I thought he was coming … <sob> … but … <sob> … actually, your honor … <sob> … he was going … <sob>." The city council guy went out in flames! But, can you imagine being the dead man's wife in the front row of that courtroom?

Wow, the symbolism behind these stories! It was probably not the existentialist’s dream, definitely not for the mistress or wife. For him, I don’t know, kicking the bucket this way; maybe it was?

These deaths are very different than those that resulted from the mass killings that we are seeing lately. This past weekend we had two intraspecific mass killings: one in El Paso, a city I used to frequent and love, and the other in Dayton, another city I visited quite often. Both killings were pure evil, no existential dreaming here, unless you are thinking about a nightmare. As of this writing, the El Paso massacre is the result of the racist hate speech being spread by the current occupant of the oval office and the refusal of his party to call him out on it.

We currently live in a time where symbolism is being used and abused by some folks like others use underwear, or at least I do. I change mine at least daily, and some throw symbols around like there is no end to it. What I am referring to are a lot of our politicians. I am so tired of all this political posturing in our country. We have gone through almost three years, where we have a president who is trying to undo everything that the previous president did. That is also all about symbols isn’t it? Just trying to make sure there is nothing of a legacy left; destroying everything, a scorched earth program. It is not going to work, people are smarter than that, so be it.

The first two years of the regime there was nothing the opposition party could do, and now there still is a Senate that can stonewall things. Now, this past nine months, the House can try to pass things, which they do, but it does not even hit the press or get published because the Senate (or let’s use our own symbols: Moscow Mitch) just ignores it. So it has gotten down to the only thing the House seem to be able to get noticed by is by doing its oversight and investigations; somewhat symbolic, as well.

However, for Republicans it seems to be all about symbolism:

• They are against abortion and protect the unborn child (the one you can't easily see and touch), but once the child is born, they don't want anything to do with it, to hell with the kid, ignore it, no health care, education or other protection for the child. Hey, we even endorse separating them from their parents and locking them up in cages.
• On morality, they were incensed when Clinton got his oral job from an intern, but now it is 18 or more and counting with their leader, we can even talk publicly about grabbing them by the genitals or rape them in a dressing room and they don't care.
• They were allowed to criticize the president and the country under Obama, but when the opposition does it, they call them non-patriotic, haul racial slurs at them and we need to “send them back” to their country.
• They call themselves “the Party of Lincoln;” however, they dogwistle to their white male voters and white supremacists at every turn and do not object or even say anything when the current occupant of the oval office makes either racist statements or obviously support racists or racist causes. Please, don’t even think that this isn’t the cause of, or catalyst for the El Paso shooting.
• They allow their leader to call countries “shit holes” and now we are in to calling our local cities rat infested and places no one wants to live. This is again used as a racial slur and to attack minority congressmen.
• They are pro-constitution when it comes to the second amendment, but freedom of expression or the press; the first amendment? It seems they have serious doubts about that. If you don’t agree with you, then you are the fake media. And, let’s forget the voting rights act.
• The deficit was purely self interest anyway and future generations were also just symbolism. Remember, they used to worry about the deficit but that has also gone out the window with the current occupant of the White-house.
• Finally, they seem to worry about their children and grandchildren but then don't pay any attention to climate change, a.k.a. global warming.

I will stop here, but as you can see they are so darn good at using symbolism when it is or was working in their advantage, and as long as the do not have to do anything for the regular folks. They are just looking out for their own self interest, the rich, their interest group. It just blows me away.

Our politics and politicians are for sale to the highest bidders.
Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash

Where will this end, I have no idea. One thing is for sure, we need to fight more, for a livable country and then a livable world. I am an old, angry, white guy, but for a good cause. I am a liberal, I am against the racism that is rearing its ugly head. I am not a socialist or a communist, but I do believe in a fair distribution of wealth. I have written about a lot of these issues in my blogs: for the environment and against a lot of what is going on in this country. I will continue to do so.

So be it.