Notes From A Bear's Journey

Getting It Out    Yesterday I met with a producer of music, trying to get a demo made locally instead of sending it off to Nashville or LA.  As a background, I should tell you that I write songs, have a publisher (in Los Angeles) and have been fortunate enough to have had some of my music appear in the background of television.  So it was interesting to hear this local producer offer a different perspective.     First off, the idea of a demo was out (at least to this producer).  He wanted me to put down the vocals, no accompaniment, no instruments, just me singing.  And my voice, at least to me, is not that good (in other words, I am not a singer).  But he said that what was important was clearing out the inventory in my head, to put down the songs as I was hearing them.  The rest, he said, is basic add-ons, stuff that can all be "easily" (his words) added later.  But I'm not the one to be singing, I told him, for that wasn't how I was hearing the songs.  I'm

GM Crops, Part II Update:   Since last posting this, Monsanto has been called into question as to whether they used their influence to stop USDA inspectors from releasing their research results, many of which criticized some of the pesticides Monsanto sells to countries and farmers.  You can read part of that report, released by the US Right to Know group, here . In addition, another new report cites the possibly misleading information about the GM crop, Golden Rice.  You can read that summary here .   If you happened to miss the last post, it introduced the battle over GM (genetically modified) crops, everything from cotton to foods that we consume.  I mentioned Monsanto in that posting because as part of the group that fights against the labeling of which of your foods contain GM crops (that group spent over $500 million last year in lobbying Congress to prevent such labeling), the egg appears to be cracking a bit as more and more people become to question just why such compani

GMOnsanto    So what's with all the suicides by farmers, not so much here in the U.S. (although the number of farmer suicides is still quite high) but rather in India where the numbers continue to climb; right now, about 12 farmers kill themselves each day in just one region alone (India has one of the highest suicide rates in the world ) with farmers accounting for as many as 10% of the suicides, according to an article in Bloomberg Businessweek .  And so what does all or any of this have to do with Monsanto?    First off, we have to back off a bit and say that blaming one or several companies, especially such large agribusiness companies such as Monsanto or Dupont or Archer Daniels Midland is difficult at best, despite appearances.  Monsanto in particular has gone to court often and has won in a majority of cases, often to the chagrin of organic or small farmers whose crops got pollinated by Monsanto's GMO plants, the GMO pollen from a farmer's field across the road b

Come Together    Some friends arrived the other night, and in a break with our traditional policy, some political discussions emerged.  But it turned out to be a nice blend of different views, mixed with a lot of puzzlement at trying to understand the "other" side.  One friend talked of being more or less trapped on a flight, sitting next to someone who's views were radically different than his own; but rather than tune him out with a set of ear buds or plowing into a book, he decided to listen to what he had to say.  Three hours later, it turned out that his seat-mate had quite a bit to say, and ironically, had little interest in my friend's views.  For my friend, it was an eye-opener at just how polarized some of our population has become.    Some of my other friends were simply questioning how these changes occur, how becoming financially secure or socially comfortable seems to be sending some people into a sort of cocoon, insulating themselves and almost ready

Texting II Sexting    First off, don't.  Sext me, that is.  I'm happily married, older, and quite frankly would find a sext message puzzling, embarrassing, perhaps disturbing and maybe even a bit guilt-inducing.  But that's me.  No, what the heading was meant to do (in addition to piggybacking off of the earlier post) was to highlight this month's issue of Wired , its bright yellow cover quietly unveiling it cover story, Sex in the Digital Age .    For folks like me, those trying to keep up with the times but getting ever father behind, the articles are quite eye-opening for times appear to have indeed changed.  To see if you've kept up, see how many of these terms you recognize?  Heteroromantic demisexual.  Gray-asexual (also termed Gray Aces).  Grindr.  VR.  Redbook (the app, not the magazine).  Jimmyjane.  Hmm, how many did you get?  For me, the total was zero, but the education of the article was quite interesting.  Dumped into the dating world of today, I&#

Text Me    It's a common phrase, one that is almost replacing the phrase "call me."  And if you're even close to agreeing with that, then you're showing your age.  In an article by Alice Gregory in The New Yorker , she writes that "the average adolescent sends almost two thousand text messages a month.  They contact their friends more by text than by phone or e-mail or instant messaging or even face-to-face conversations."    People who spent their high-school years chatting with friends on landlines are often dismissive of texting, as if it might be a phase one outgrows, but the form is unparalleled in its ability to relay information concisely.  The act of writing, even if the product consists of only a hundred and forty characters composed with one’s thumbs, forces a kind of real-time distillation of emotional chaos.  A substantial body of research confirms the efficacy of writing as a therapeutic intervention, and although tapping out a te

Unlearning    Someone mentioned to me that she was so puzzled at the amount of what seemed to be, hatred, going on in the world.  From college campuses to distant lands, it seemed that race and color and religion were again stirring emotions, almost to the point of justifying whatever vocal and physical actions they were doing.  But as mentioned earlier, much of this is learned; and indeed, un-learning is sometimes more difficult that learning, even (or perhaps especially) socially.    For the first time in three decades or more, I decided to take a swim lesson.  I have been quite active at my local recreation center, dutifully joining other older gents (many of them were actually competitive swimmers when they were much younger) in the pool early in the morning (and while I tend to be in one of the pools by 6:30 in the morning, many of those men and women are finished and already leaving the rec center, which opens at 5:00 AM).  But even with as much as I swim, I couldn't help

Antibiotics II    Scratchy throat?  Take some antibiotics.  While you might hear that answer from your doctor (see the previous post), it might not be the accurate one since antibiotics will work on a bacterial strep infection but not a sore throat from a flu bug or some other viral infection.  For that, you'll have likely been better off with a flu vaccine, "genetic material packaged in an envelope of proteins and fats, studded with yet more proteins --antigens-- that push the body's immune system into action," as described in a recent issue of Wired.   But that's a whole different issue, that of vaccines (think measles and Ebola) which work on your body developing and building a response to fight the introduced virus.  And there you are, the big difference...viruses vs. bacteria.    Since we're on the subject of antibiotics (which work on bacterial infections and not viruses), this fight to ward off bacterial infections goes not that far back to the dis

Updates Continued (Antibiotics)    One final note from the last posting (since some additional paragraphs were added the next day to the posting), the new climate talks and pledges will be held in Paris this coming December.  In addition, Alan Rusbridger, the retiring editor of English newspaper, The Guardian , announced that he had few regrets of his time there, save one...not putting climate change on the front pages.  His article is an interesting piece and worth reading .    Okay onward to that (can be) deadly subject of antibiotics and what changes have arrived in that world since I last wrote about it.  Antibiotics have been in the news a lot recently, what with the measles outbreak, Ebola, the flu, anti-bacterial soap and...wait a minute, it's getting pretty confusing because aren't some of those actually viruses and thus not affected by antibiotics, which work only on bacterial infections?  And isn't some of our bacteria actually good for us and in fact quite

Updates Continued (Climate)    A recent article in The Atlantic continued on the difficult and divisive talk of climate change, one simply titled, How to Talk About Climate Change So People Will Listen .  Written by science writer, Charles C. Mann, he wrote what many of us were (or are) thinking: How is one supposed to respond to this kind of news?  On the one hand, the transformation of the Antarctic seems like an unfathomable disaster.  On the other hand, the disaster will never affect me or anyone I know; nor, very probably, will it trouble my grandchildren....Americans don’t even save for their own retirement!  How can we worry about such distant, hypothetical beings?...Worse, confronting climate change requires swearing off something that has been an extraordinary boon to humankind: cheap energy from fossil fuels.  In our ergonomic chairs and acoustical-panel cubicles, we sit cozy as kings atop 300 years of flaming carbon.    Even the scientist Sanjayan (he currently ho

A Few Updates    Some recent developments and studies have been released which may become previews of what's happening overall in our world, and what might happen should we not change our path.  The climate is always in the news, these warm years making history as glaciers give way and we near an apparent tipping point of sorts.  Meanwhile, our population continues to grow and the demands we are making on our planet to keep us sustained might prove taxing in the next decade.  From food to water, our earth seems to be giving and giving and giving...and may be reaching the point of giving up.    One interesting report came from the U.S. Geological Survey which has a new winner for the title of which state has the most earthquakes, a title that once was reserved for California.  The new leader is Oklahoma whose earthquakes jumped nearly 300% for those earthquakes measuring over 3.0 on the Richter scale.  According to a brief article in National Geographic , "Scientists can