SeniorJunior

Whoa! As you know (better than I, a rank amateur) Blogspot has a “next blog” link in the upper right hand corner. Probably some of the other blog hosting sites have something similar. Anyway… I was “next-ing” through the random order the link provides. There is a lot of weird, and a lot of impressive stuff out there among the 40 million blogs (where did I get that number?). One that stopped me cold, and made me write this little bit, was a narrative of the last days of life and then the death of a loved one. Then a start of the coping. Try this if you want a measure of reality: http://jacksroadtorecovery.blogspot.com/ Hang in there, Becci.

The Great New Mexico Drought is cracked. Not broken, mind you, just cracked. Here in this marvelous little microclimate called “The East Mountains” (the east side of the mountains east of Albuquerque; actually the Sandias, Manzanitos and Manzanos), and especially in this valley between Raven Road, Kuhn Road, Skyland Boulevard and the Isleta Reservation, the rains have come and come and come. In the last three weeks, more than six inches of rain (and hail and sleet!) have fallen. The crunchy grasses and crackling pine needles have grown soft. Green of every shade has sprung from the plants and the ground itself, and all things with roots are rejoicing. I’m not sure how long it takes to rehydrate the cores of thick ponderosa trunks (they were only 25% of what they should have been in interior moisture – Roman candles awaiting ignition), but they have got to be on their way. Most of this water has soaked into the ground very quickly after each rain, bathing their roots. Only in the

Darn it! Ethanol, whether from corn, switchgrass or sugar beets/cane, really isn’t the magic bullet that will slay the dragon of our petroleum addiction. Neither is biomass fuel the magic wand that will poof! away our dependence on fossil and atomic fuels electrical generation. (Check out the wonderful dialogue of the learned in the “Letters” section of the 23 June ’06 Science Magazine. www.sciencemag.org [subscription’]) Of course there are no magic bullets/wands lying around these days anyway, except among Harry Potter and his ilk. The thing is, we shouldn’t get discouraged when our latest magic gets debunked. Ethanol, biomass, wind power, photovoltaics, geothermal, wave power, etc. have all had their moments in the “magic” circle. The genuine wizards recognize that the potent magic will come from the agglomerated minor miracles of the various “alternative” energy techniques. We (my learned wife and I) are on the verge of trying one of these minor alter

Many British journalists still say “2000 millions” rather than “two billion.” Something about the first way really sticks it to you that a billion is a lot more than a million. Yet one of the most common mistakes I hear from broadcast journalists is (mumble)-illions. My suspicion is that they are just not sure. My certainty is that the listener can’t possibly be sure from what they hear. I asked a bright young employee once “how many millions are there in a billion?” Answer? “Ten… NO, a hundred million in billion.” When I stated that there is a thousand million in a billion, the employee was incredulous, clearly thinking I had slipped a cog. Back to newscasters, you can frequently hear that sometimes they are more impressed with “87 million” than with “3.2 billion.” Perhaps if every newscaster reported that we are spending “$3192 millions” every week in Iraq*, the actual dollar cost might be more widely appreciated. *more or less

On the Monday, June 26 th Rush Limbaugh program, guest host Paul W. Smith was interviewing someone (name escapes me) on how foolish the “Libs” are to worry about global warming. If there are any real problems they are a half a millennium away. In last week’s Science Magazine (June 16, 2006) there is a modest article titled “Permafrost and the Global Carbon Budget.” The sub-head is “ Climate warming will thaw permafrost, releasing trapped carbon from this high-latitude reservoir and further exacerbating global warming.” This is new information, best I can tell. Check it out at www.sciencemag.org . (subscription; or at the library) It seems that most of the global warming models haven’t included much about the CO 2 and methane that will be released by thawing permafrost. There are such vast quantities of permafrost that it can contribute big time to a sudden acceleration of climate warming. The current warming trend driven by human-generated greenhouse g

The “net neutrality” debate is a big deal. It probably affects all of our lives, especially if we are shareholders in certain companies, either telecom, cable or net companies. And maybe if we are just every day users of the Net. Since it’s clearly a GIANT vs. GIANT debate, I have some trouble taking it too seriously. So stand by for a completely trivial observation. Tonight on The News Hour , PBS’s big nameplate, the spokesman for the Google, Yahoo, “big net” side was PAUL MISENER, Vice President for Global Public Policy, Amazon.com, Here’s the news. Mr. Misener is a dead ringer for Max Headroom ! He’s a good talker and a smart guy, holding up his side’s side really well. But he looks like MAX HEADROOM . What can I say? Is this perfect? Based on this and this alone, I am on the side of the mega-web sites in this argument. Max Headroom Am I right? Is this Kismet? How can anyone still be on the side of the telcos and cablecos? Misener can be seen at: http

In the last couple of years the folks who denied global warming was even happening have come around and are saying, “Oh, OK, so maybe it’s happening.” Grudgingly, but at long darn last they are acknowledging the data. Many of the same folks have assumed a new position, one just as protective of the fossil fuel industry and the right to gush vast quantities of greenhouse gasses into the air. This position is, simply: “Not Our Fault.” We puny humans can’t possibly be influencing such a vast system as the Earth’s atmosphere. Humankind is clearly capable of having some humongous impacts on our planet. It’s obvious we can: Denude the Amazon Basin; Over-fish the oceans; Dredge channels in mighty rivers and create dead zones where they drain into the oceans; Dam those rivers and make huge lakes; Hole the ozone, Drain the swamps; Cut down and replant whole forests; Pave over farmland; Empty ancient aquifers; Kill off creatures large and small to the point of extinctio

[I've been on the road, visiting an extraordinarily large number of relatives. Perhaps I'll philosophize on that and them in the context of "we are all getting older." But west Texas and Oklahoma just scream drought , so this first.] --------_-- There is a great drought settling on the land. “We are looking at conditions that rival the dust bowl … earlier this year we were even drier than during the Dust Bowl.” That said by Jack Carson, spokesperson for the Oklahoma Agriculture, Food and Forestry Department. Oklahoma. Okies, get it? Leaving their lifeless farms for California during the greatest drought in recent U.S. history. Oklahomans should know a drought when they see one. This quote was from a front-page story on the front page of the June 15, 2006 “The Oklahoman.” Even with such important placement, something about the headline just didn’t have the feel the sort of “big” story we have grown used to. It was, “ Residents told to cut water use .” So is this really

I admit it. I entered a contest. So did another 20,000 or so folks, it turns out. Now Hillary Clinton has taken one of the entries and fashioned a bill based on it and put it to the Senate for consideration. What? Never mind. Just go to the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) web site www.sinceslicedbread.com and check it out. It’s a big “wow!” believe me. Since I didn’t win the $100,000 grand prize or one of the $50,000 runner-up prizes, the least you can do is read my entry. The contest was for ideas that might pep up our economy and be good for us “common folk.” Here was my over-the-top idea. - - - - - - - - - - - The problem: our damaging cycle of droughts and floods. The issue: the opportunity this presents. Face it, it’s a government project. This idea is for a huge national endeavor – the size of the Interstate Highway System. Flood-prone rivers would be equipped with controllable water diversion structures. Before a river floods, these are opened and the exc

Journalism – the J word – comes under a lot of fire these days. I’d argue “not deservedly so” if I thought everyone who criticizes it was talking about real journalism. Of course they are not. The critics of J (big or little) are mostly critical of “news” they disagree with. To dangle a … oh, never mind. That brings me to this, here on my cruise-control across the South - Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee and Mississippi. Today I read a neat column in the Sunday 6.11.06 Arkansas Democrat Gazette, Little Rock’s mighty daily, in Section J, of all places. The left-hand column on the front page of the “Perspective” section is written by a fellow named Paul Greenberg. The headline “Unedited” drew me in. I figgered (Southern talk) it must be about journalism. Mr. Greenberg is a good writer as one would hope considering his placement in the paper. His subject was news editing, and he writes with both clarity and passion, two of my favorite writing virtues. The column was a riff on another journalist

The Cynical Reflex Upon hearing of the three self-hangings at Guantanamo Bay (with ropes made of bedsheets and clothing strips) and our government's first spin on the story, I had these thoughts in this sequence: -Poor devils. Incarcerated without charges or counsel for nearly four years... just gave up the ghost. - Oh, the "official" response is that they were really, really bad guys. Terrorists, of course, and one of them a "high Al Quaida operative." - How will we or the world ever know if that's so? No official charges, no public trials with evidence, no proof for anyone to look at. They could have been wrong-place-wrong-time guys who were pruning fig trees when captured for all we will ever know (the first of the "cynical reflexes" I experienced. Big PR problem for the government). - Then "These were not acts of desperation, but acts of war against the U.S." sayeth the government. Hmmm. The second cynical reflex kicks in. Strange wa

Ok, call me slow to catch on. What's happening on the right wing side of the great American divide is scary. There is something going on that is so much like rabid racism that I am at a loss to give it a proper name. This name needs to be one with the emotional impact of "racism," or perhaps worse. More on that later. Let's harken back to "all Irish have lice." Or "lazy, shiftless Nigras." Or "Theivin,' scheming Kikes." You get my drift. Gross generalizations about some ethnic group or another that demonized them. Sort of humankind at its worst, whipping up hatred and mindless prejudice toward them among the unthinking mob. That unthinking mob might include any of us. You, maybe, unless you are really determined to be a thinking person. Which of course you are. Of course. What's happening in certain quarters of the Right has a direct bloodline relationship to this kind of repugnant activity. I've been hearing