Notes From A Bear's Journey

Nowhere to Go    The refugee crisis is something I've also written about earlier in the posts Refuge and later, Disappearing .  But as with the earlier pieces on vitamins and hunger, this is another continuing crisis that seems to remain, and fester, and be something that for most of the world, we thought was taken care of.  But the situation is far from over, leading Time to write a piece called The Nowhere People , by Hannah Beech.    This time, the refugees were from Burma, and here's how the story began: The creaking vessel’s hold was retrofitted by human smugglers to carry more than 400 people packed so tightly together, they often sat with their arms cradling their bent knees.  Twice-daily meals were limited to a handful of gruel and a few gulps of water.  A couple of months into the trip, the captain and other gun-wielding traffickers abandoned ship, leaving the passengers to their fates.  Food–even grains of uncooked rice–ran out...Then began what one Intern

Hunger    After the post on vitamins and nutrition, it only seemed logical to follow with the related subject of yet another field that we assume is no longer a problem, that of hunger.  Yes, it still persists in much of the world, this despite massive agriculture advances in both the growing of crops and their subsequent distribution; today's farmers produce nearly 3,000 calories worth of crops, per person.  But for over 800 million people, none of that matters.  For while world hunger has indeed dropped some 40% in the past 20 years, that many people, those 800 million, are still going hungry and often still suffering from malnutrition.    Some of this came to mind when I recently read about the United Nations accusing the Australian government of bribing smugglers mid-ocean, to turn their boatloads of refugees around and head back, in this case, to Indonesia.  The Sydney Morning Herald said in an editorial : Indonesian authorities are investigating the claims from the pas

Take Your Vitamins    It's a phrase we've likely heard countless times, our parents telling us to be sure to take our vitamins.  And quite likely, that;s how we think of vitamins...as a pill.  Buy the multi, buy the B-complex, buy the D, all carefully packaged and for the most part, all 85,000 different vitamins and dietary supplements remain unregulated, untested and for the most part, all coming from China (there are no longer any vitamin manufacturing plants in the U.S.).   But beyond the politics of the manufacturing, vitamins are in themselves quite controversial, and quite complicated (and difficult to produce artificially), and have become the fascinating subject of a new book by Catherine Price, Vitamania.    Here's how the author opens her book:  ... until recently, I thought I understood vitamins.  I could tell you that they are essential substances that we need to get from our diets, and like anyone who paid attention in fifth grade, I was aware that sailors

Killers    They've been in the news a lot, these killers.  Captured, confined, often depressed, they are forced into submission, some even giving birth; but all are now far removed from the environment they once knew...and there's a growing movement to set them free.    Orcas (often termed Killer whales) are the largest members of the dolphin family, and the more they are studied, the more their intelligence appears to be equal to or surpassed that of the common dolphin.  With a fifteen-pound brain, orcas are the great whites of the oceans, moving thousands of miles and nesting comfortably among the top predators of the seas, traveling in family pods, highly social, and living well into their 80s.  But once captured, they dorsal fin drops, their all-important sound communication bounces off walls, their travel is limited to several small concrete tanks, and occasionally, they kill one another (or a trainer), something that doesn't appear to happen in the wild.    This

A Long, Long Time Ago (Updated 7/22/15)    Or so it seems.  It's been awhile since my last posting, the time disappearing as I spent time with my mother as she came out of rehabilitation therapy.  As mentioned earlier in my post on hospitalization , she had suffered a fall, was hospitalized and placed into a short-term rehab facility.  Now, back at home, she winces with pain as she walks, each jolt possibly a reminder that she was both lucky (that there was no nerve damage) and that the next fall could be much worse.  So I was there at her home (no internet), building railings and safety bars and making and cancelling her appointments, cooking some meals and watching some television with her...all in all, a grand prelude to her upcoming 90th birthday.    Much of what she is going through in those facilities is being covered by her insurance (her bill for her 2-day visit to the hospital, one day to the emergency room and then the next day to the admitting ward for observation, w

Pets    It's an odd term at times, something meant to describe something so loving and so close and yet something just one letter away from describing the opposite (pests).  Still, the term has been used with affection and devotion, and sometimes with degradation, especially toward women.  But overall, we are a world of pets, watching their eyes for signs of what they want and need, their vocal silence (or at least sounds we are unable to understand) turning their eyes into previews of what windows of the soul might be.  Scientists don't give much credit to pets' (or animal) emotions, often saying they don't have feelings or don't feel pain (thus somewhat justifying their usage for experimentation); but anyone who has ever "owned", or still has a pet, knows otherwise.  Once they are gone, an invisible but very real hole appears in our hearts, the realization that something magical and penetrating has left our lives and that this life lesson may be one of

The Fourth    The word conjures up many immediate thoughts...King Henry IV, the fourth dimension, and of course (at least here in the U.S. and until recently, the Philippines), The Fourth of July.  Yes, the day of celebration is over, the fireworks popping up only now and then as the late-night boom that is as uneventful and unnoticeable as the car alarm going off in the parking lot.  The irony of history, is that the actual date of independence (when the resolution was declared) was July 2nd, a date John Adams (one of the few original signers of the Declaration of Independence who was not extremely wealthy or an owner of slaves) wrote to his wife, Abigail: The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized wit

Recycling    Out with old, in with the new.  Seems logical, this time-tested adage; and part of that cycle seems to be something that we give little thought to these days, that of recycling.  In many parts of Europe, recycling is not only second nature, but mandatory.  Sorting plastics and paper and metal, and even garbage, is usually done conscientiously for living spaces and land disposal sites are small and the view is that recycling benefits the earth anyway.  But in the consumer-hungry United States, recycling has been a bit slower to catch on.  Sorting at first proved too difficult --this plastic type and not that plastic type, no glass, no magazines only newsprint, etc.-- so recycling took time to catch on;  in the beginning, it just seemed easier to throw everything into the trash, all of which went into the landfills (which were plentiful).  Here's how Wikipedia described one of the aptly titled landfills in New York, Fresh Kills:  At the peak of its operation, the conte

The Longest, The Last    Nearly a decade will have passed...ten years!  And in a little less than two weeks, the longest U.S. reconnaissance satellite journey will start its main transmission.  The download, travelling at the speed of light, will take nearly five hours to reach earth; and there's a lot of it, so much data that it will take 16 months to complete it's transmission.  As the excited NASA scientists wait, the report from the satellite is that it is on schedule, on course and full of fuel (even after almost ten years of travel)...and it's apparently the last time NASA will ever send this type of mission.    The satellite is called New Horizons and the destination is Pluto, a "planet" according to the planetary scientists, but not one according to astronomers (their reasoning is that Pluto does not have the necessary criteria to qualify as a planet).  But what is making the planetary scientists excited is that beneath this ice-cold planet is the