Notes From A Bear's Journey

Refuge    It is difficult to capture current events, especially for something as complicated as the bombings now going on (240 as of yesterday) in both Iraq and Syria, and certainly for something as simple as a blog.  This is difficult even for weekly magazines such as The Week or The New Yorker.   The latter's issue from yesterday reported this : ISIS opens with a sustained artillery bombardment, which can last for days, then sends in waves of suicide bombers.  When the defenses start to crack, its fighters race in on trucks, guns firing.  This was how ISIS conquered the Iraqi cities of Sinjar and Al Qaim, on the Euphrates.  "Without airpower, I think our guys would have had a hard time holding them off," the official said.  He said that ISIS was the result of a brutal process of "combat Darwinism," by which only the strongest, most fanatical fighters survived the American onslaught in 2006 and 2007, when Al Queda in Iraq was nearly destroye...

Looking Up    Tomorrow night, the lineup in the sky will feature two red dots under the moon, one being Mars and the other being Antares.  Dots they are, at least to our eyes, but should Antares (add that name to your list of stars) be placed as close as Mars is from our planet (at 140 million miles away), we would be blinded, the star filling half of our sky and even worse, vaporizing all of our atmosphere and life with it's heat ( Antares is hundreds of times larger than our sun but several thousands of degrees cooler, thus the orange color).    This information all comes from the radio program, Star Date , which broadcasts regularly on public radio and aims to get its listeners to just look up, something it seems we rarely do.  But imagine the  curiosity of early civilizations, their sky stunningly dark and yet dazzling with stars.  Indeed, the Romans gave the name Mars for its god of war and the red blood so shed; the Greeks named the pl...

Following Dreams    We had dinner with some friends last night, a few of them already retired, several about to retire and some still working at their own business or ready to move on.  But for the most part, everyone there was doing what they wanted...one couple is swamped working to get their love for bluegrass into their mix of work and getting their sons off to college (bluegrass is winning), another sharing a deep love for food and translating much of that into cooking for the homeless.  But all of us were older, having had time to share work stories and now comfortable enough to break off and chase what we felt we really wanted, be it helping others or helping the planet or helping make a dent in the couch.    A local monthly, Catalyst, Resources for Creative Living , came out with a story that is becoming more and more common in today's world, that of people doing what they feel they need to do only 30 years sooner.  As one author, Pax Rasm...

Lightening    A storm arrived late last night, the thunder rolling up the canyons around midnight, the dark fog-ridden sky lighting up with bursts of sheet lightning , the comforting sound of rain washing and nourishing the trees and ground, the cold air yet to arrive.  The plants and trees are ready, making their slow progression to close down for the winter.  The bees have begun burrowing into the ground, the hummingbirds apparently already gone (most birds migrate at night so it is difficult to tell when they actually leave).  The summer storms are gasping a last hurrah, a chance to show their might.  As Arizona Highways magazine put it, "When nature thunders, mortals listen. Well they might...a single severe thunderstorm, several miles across, may pack the force of ten nuclear bombs."    Lightning is a curious phenomenon, just one of earth's methods of replenishing fertilizer to the ground (the oxygen and nitrogen in a strike combine to f...

Getting Out    Went for a hike yesterday, a trip to a spot called Albion Basin then up over the ridge to look down on a lake called Catherine, its sides dotted with the golden leaves of aspens, its waters a richer green than the surrounding pines.  At this altitude, the leaves are already changing as if waiting for the signal to fall, ready.  That signal should come within a day or two as the first snows of the season arrive, a bit earlier than usual, at least to our record keeping.     Up there, time was visible. The diagonal striations of the mountains layering bursting out as if the earth were giving birth, the scree from the ridges putting our mines and their tailings to shame.  Here, time took on another dimension, a pace so slow and constant that we could only guess at its passing, at what it must have looked like millions of years before, at what it may look like millions of years hence.    It was renewing, and refreshing to...

Rubber Mulch    Walk by many manicured lawns and you'll likely see perfectly aligned flowers, their beautiful blooms offset by equally colorful mounds of dark black, brown or red mulch.  But look closer at these bags of mulch at the store and on it is a warning to always use gloves when handling these mulches.  Look further and the warning will say to avoid contact with skin.  So it was interesting to see the October/November issue of Mother Earth News ask the question, "Is Rubber Mulch Safe?"    Turns out that rubber mulch leach out many toxic chemicals as it degrades with one USDA researcher, Rufus Chaney, telling Mother Earth News that he strongly "believes that ground rubber should not be used in any compost, potting medium, or agricultural or garden soils because of zinc toxicity."  The article goes on to say the some of the leachates are plasticizers and accelerators "are known to be harmful to human health; effects of exposure range ...

Time...Is It There?    Time...we each seem to view it differently whether it's the rush to work or gazing over the lake during a lake.  The beginning of time, the end of time, does time exist?  To the world of technology, speed is of the essence and we seem to have been swept into its swirl.  Computers now do computations in the quadrillions (did we even use that word 20 years ago?), storage is in petabytes (a quadrillion bytes...in 2009, Bell Labs successfully transmitted 100 petabytes per second ) and fiber optic cables (used for the Bell Labs transmission) now transmit at 99.7% the speed of light, all on a cable that's 1/25 the size of a human hair.    Amazing, eh?  But too often, this accelerating swirl leaves us looking back, at old friends, old goals, sometimes even old dreams...things we can understand.  Yet time can work for us equally well, stretching out indefinitely as in cherishing a new love, or growing up, or simply watchi...

Surprises    This year, at least so far, has been one of surprises.  I was surprised to find that after one month, my computer had cleared over 12,000 cookies (and really, I'm not on my computer all that much...no games, no movie downloads, no Facebook, etc.).  I was surprised to find that 93% of the corn planted is genetically modified (more corn is used for ethanol than for either human or animal consumption).  I was surprised to read that half of all packaged foods now use palm oil (up 500%).  I was surprised to read that the highest wind turbines now running are nearly twice as tall as the Statue of Liberty.  And I was surprised to find that the extremist group ISIS has only 7,000 soldiers.  What??  What was even more shocking was that Iraq has 300,000 armed militia.  So what's going on?    ISIS (officially the I slamic S tate in I raq al S ham, "al Sham" meaning the north, in Arabic and refers to Muslim warriors in t...

Sharks!    Way, way, way back (like about 420 million years before humans even arrived on earth), there were sharks.  In the process of evolution, they developed a heightened sense of smell (some sharks can detect as little blood as one part per million ), a vast electrical detection system (the most sensitive of any animal...some scientists feel that sharks detect the ocean currents reacting with the magnetic field of the Earth and use that for their bearings and to navigate), formed social groups and traveled thousands of miles in migration (one tagged shark was shown to go from Australia to South Africa and back)...and they're headed for extinction.    If all goes as planned, Western Australia will resume culling sharks in November, a controversial decision made by its premier (67% of the population opposes the culling).  In 10 years, Australia has had 15 fatal shark attacks.  In Hawaii and Florida, there were 2 fatal attacks each in the same ...

Not Quite Immortal    It seemed ironic that not long after posting the brief bits on my views of retirement and making one feel older, the October issue of The Atlantic arrived with the cover story The New Science of Old Age by contributing editor, Greg Easterbrook.  His article posed many questions (some on retirement) but basically highlighted data that shows our longevity continuing to climb with the goal of reaching 100 quite likely by the end of the century.  But what I felt was more interesting is that contrary to some of the summations of Jared Diamond's book, Guns, Germs and Steel , such things as natural disasters, plagues and war and geography seem to have little effect on reducing this steady climb. "The life-expectancy elevator has for nearly two centuries risen about three months a year, despite two world wars, the 1918 influenza pandemic, the AIDS epidemic, and the global population growing sevenfold--the latter deceptively important, because crowde...

Part II of Retirement    When you retire, you'll get asked this question a lot, “How do you like retirement?”  And in the early stages, your giddy reply is usually, “What’s not to like?”  But then as my friend reminded me (and both my wife and I are well aware), not everyone retires successfully;  and indeed, things can change quickly.  And what becomes ironic is that you suddenly feel busier than ever.     One of the Catch-22s of it all, however, is the feeling (at least for me) of the clock ticking;  after all, aren’t people old when they retire (or at least older)?  And maybe it is simply that psychological dig that gnaws in the back of my mind.  Are my feet starting to shuffle; am I sleeping more; is that bag of salt really heavier?  Of course, this is also the point of life where you’re either next at bat or getting pretty darn close.  My aunt recently passed away at 94, alert and pretty much exercising unti...

Retirement, Part 1    For those of you youngsters, this subject of retirement will likely have little interest;  after all, even I get tired of the seemingly endless articles saying, "You won't have enough so better let us handle your money."  The warnings are dire...unless you have millions saved, best not to even think about retiring because, well, before long you'll be out on the street...really?  And who exactly is making those millions, the big money...hmmm, well last year, the top 4 hedge fund managers were paid more than the combined salaries of every kindergarten teacher in the U.S.  So what's wrong with this picture?  Number one lesson for those of you heading into retirement, be it 30 years away or 30 weeks away, you future is up to you.  Save, plan, and set goals...tough to do when retirement seems like it'll never happen or everything will be gone by the time you get there.  But that's been said for a hundred years.  So f...

Write and Wrong    What is it that makes some people write?  Is it a need or a desire, a talent or an urge to be heard?  Some go on to write that "great novel," while others give up or never start.  And for some, writing seems to come easily while for others it is a puzzle that seems as difficult as building a house.    For me, I was drawn back to the words of author Heather King, a former alcoholic, addict, cancer-survivor, lawyer, one who gave it all up to become a writer.  Here's how she put:  It is a difficult balance, to be driven --you have to be driven to write-- and patient at the same time, and I was constantly straining to spped up, move faster, think things through...we are so trained to think things should happen quickly, when in fact it does seem to take years for any kind of psychic change, or work that's important to us, to come to fruition, to stay with it long enough for it to come to fruition is a feat.  So when it ...

The Great Divide    The battle of the sexes, Mars and Venus, call it what you will, but men and women have struggled through the centuries to find their places...anywhere.  Work, home, glass ceilings, burqas (also spelled burkhas), each side has tried to set boundaries for the other either through culture, religion, tradition  or simply the home.  Even here in the U.S., the subject is a delicate one, often chuckled at, often frowned at...how dare they, we say.    Some progress came a few months ago when the mainly men's magazine, Esquire , invited a few writers at the primarily women's magazine, Elle , to write a gift guide for men, this being from the viewpoint of women.  If you're a man, you'll likely find what they said refreshing.  Herewith, a brief excerpt:      Women have preferences, see, and we don't make a secret of them. Each of us has a favorite flower, ice-cream flavor, fragrance, cocktail, jewelry designer....

Looking Deeper    Many parts of technology are baffling, even something as ordinary as jet planes landing themselves which was once viewed as futuristic but today is almost commonplace (autonomous self-driving cars are only now entering this phase with Cadillac being the latest car manufacturer to announce its high-end models carrying the feature).  The reason I say baffling is that the numbers are difficult to grasp, hundreds of thousands, or millions (now quadrillions!) computations each second.    Now comes LIDAR ( li ght d etection a nd r adar) which has been scanning ancient sights since 2012.  Able to penetrate openings in the jungle cover and shooting a pulse 200,000 times each second, LIDAR has been revealing worlds we thought we knew but have now discovered we knew little about.  The most recent work in Asia has shown Angkor Wat to be a city about three times the size of Atlanta, complete with water management systems that both captured an...

Have Faith    Admittedly, I'm not much of a church-goer, although I find many religions fascinating and have recently read two books by ordained members of churches.  Perhaps there are simply too many choices and the lines so closely drawn in religious matters that other than broad jumps, say from Buddhist to Islam to Christianity, people search sometimes simply, sometimes at length-- for what suits their needs and makes them feel comfortable.  So it was interesting to suddenly see an article on Pope Benedict appear in The Atlantic and a few months later, an article on Pope Francis appear in Fortune.   Like many, 'I've found the Vatican often shrouded in mystery and controversy, the world's smallest nation still adding ever-increasing millions to its circle.    "The Church is tired," the Jesuit Carlo Maria Martini said in one of his last interviews (in the vote that elected Pope Benedict, Martini was one vote ahead of Pope Francis and later gave a...

Change    Expectations, we all have them.  We expect to finish, we expect our children will do well, we expect that we will live a long and happy life.  But along with our expectations invariably comes change, the old saying, "the best laid plans of mice and men..."  And what's not expected is that change often takes work.    The contrarian, Peter Thiel, told Fortune that we expected "progress to continue. (We) looked forward to a four-day workweek, energy too cheap to meter, and vacations on the moon.  The smartphones that distract us from our surroundings also distract us from the fact that our surroundings are strangely old.  That doesn't mean our parents were wrong to imagine a better future--they were only wrong to expect it as something automatic."    I wrote about this back in June of 1982, about feeling the need for change.  Usually the urge arrives without warning and often without our understanding. We grow no...

Ol' King Coal    Some 300 million years ago, our swampy forests and other vegetation turned to muck and then to peat;  compression from rocks and other forces squeezed out the remaining water and dirt and what emerged was coal...lots of coal.  Some estimates put the figure at 4 TRILLION short tons of coal resting below us;  and when you consider that it takes about 3 to 7 feet of compacted plant matter to make just 1 foot of coal, well, that's one heck of a lot of vegetation.    Here in the U.S., it is estimated that 27% of that coal is beneath us.  Not all of it is recoverable, of course, but generally it enough to last us for nearly 300 years  (Wyoming's Gillette field alone holds an estimated 182 billion short tons of coal).  But our use of coal is steadily dropping...in 2000, coal accounted for 53% of our electrical generation; by last year, that figure had dropped to 39%.    So what to do with all that coal (the coal...