I’m gonna take a trip down south and see my wits. I’m also gonna see John Harrelson maybe one last time. This obsession with his first and now second death is therapeutic , keeps me from obsessing ‘bout mine.
The other reason is to look up some ol’ physicist buddies of mine. You old time readers of my works know I have been on the Global Warming kick for the past 10 years. It’s time to check the numbers, ‘cause my predictions are coming true.
A few weeks back I predicted a major heat wave, a devastating one. Well, looks like we got the heat, but luckily, 500 miles south of devastation. This year isn’t over yet, but probably we won’t get it this year so that gives us at least a year to prepare…if anyone would listen.
The other “good” news, the folks who monitor arctic ice have changed their predictions by SEVENTY years, now saying the arctic will be ice free by 2030. I’m still betting 2015 if not 2012. The issue is: they admit their computer model is wrong but they are still using it! Any model based on atmospheric chemistry and motion has got to fail. The model for global warming must be based on heat absorption and capacity of water bodies, it’s the only thing that makes sense. Free Water!
Time to go catch the Red Eye to LA…see ya!
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Saturday, August 18, 2007
Elitists Fight Back
Over the course of the last decade tremendous strides have been accomplished in the democratization of art, especially technology based art, like photography. Concurrently and symbiotically the democratization of the distribution of art has followed the exponential growth in the number of available images, or videos, or songs, or poems, or stories.
Two very dramatic and "Smithian" results have occurred. The first due to the magnitudes of increased supply; the currency value of any particular work has decreased by magnitudes. The second and perhaps most important is, creation of art no longer requires a person to accept or even address the philosophy of an art. Here the quality of the art itself is the sole market force. Like an infinite number (or even a very large number given the new developments in language acquisition) of chimps at computers running Word 2007 and connected to the internet can produce the Wikipedia in short order, so does art rise to the surface of the mass of human accomplishment. That is, art or the Wikipedia are both of value to the human spirit regardless of how they may have come to be.
Some argue erroneously that cheapening of art has diminished the quality, that two hundred million bloggers makes writing valueless and inartistic or 12 trillion images does the same, the opposite is true. Of those trillions of words and images, so many more great words and beautiful pieces have emerged than perhaps the species deserves. We are blessed by access to our creative side(s) and by access to the creativity (even accidental or unconscious) of our worldwide neighbors. True there is a lot (ok most is) of self-important prattle and ultimately valueless, but we don't shutdown Walmarts either.
A consequence has been many artist writers, photographers, and others can no longer get adequate compensation for their work. Always undervalued for their contributions to society (unless lucky to have a good agent and market) until they are dead and easily exploited, artists are now desperately in need of good government; societal patronage. Especially in societies like ours and those in the Middle East dominated by religious fundamentalists where a concept is a gift of God, these require state sponsorship not only of priests, but poets as well.
In the mean time a nasty outgrowth of the changing markets is commercial elitism. Whining commercialists like Andrew Keen, face of a corporate patrimony, who are losing market share to better, or obscure or even worse, amateurs , are writing books decrying the loss of culture(while continuing their blogs and websites) others shape gangs like a group of photographers and their media puppeteers to make "rules" of the trade only applicable to non-party members to hold their market from other "charitable" organizations . Keen has no trouble using died penniless Kafka's name to make a buck, while crying about others plagiarism and theft. Those elitist photographers haven't a problem torturing caged animals to stage a scene for a "wildlife" photo, but, if a non-party member would do such a thing it would be evil incarnate: which it is for everybody regardless of affiliation.
Market forces will eventually supplant fascist elitists, sure some will make millions, but eventually most will get their due. And market forces will eventually separate quality art from its neighbors. And narcissism? Well, it takes a tremendous effort to keep up ones blogs and websites, especially if there isn't any feedback. Look for the chaff to blow away in the steady winds and artists to die penniless, like they always have.
© Copyright 2007 Gregory Gusse, All Rights Reserved
Two very dramatic and "Smithian" results have occurred. The first due to the magnitudes of increased supply; the currency value of any particular work has decreased by magnitudes. The second and perhaps most important is, creation of art no longer requires a person to accept or even address the philosophy of an art. Here the quality of the art itself is the sole market force. Like an infinite number (or even a very large number given the new developments in language acquisition) of chimps at computers running Word 2007 and connected to the internet can produce the Wikipedia in short order, so does art rise to the surface of the mass of human accomplishment. That is, art or the Wikipedia are both of value to the human spirit regardless of how they may have come to be.
Some argue erroneously that cheapening of art has diminished the quality, that two hundred million bloggers makes writing valueless and inartistic or 12 trillion images does the same, the opposite is true. Of those trillions of words and images, so many more great words and beautiful pieces have emerged than perhaps the species deserves. We are blessed by access to our creative side(s) and by access to the creativity (even accidental or unconscious) of our worldwide neighbors. True there is a lot (ok most is) of self-important prattle and ultimately valueless, but we don't shutdown Walmarts either.
A consequence has been many artist writers, photographers, and others can no longer get adequate compensation for their work. Always undervalued for their contributions to society (unless lucky to have a good agent and market) until they are dead and easily exploited, artists are now desperately in need of good government; societal patronage. Especially in societies like ours and those in the Middle East dominated by religious fundamentalists where a concept is a gift of God, these require state sponsorship not only of priests, but poets as well.
In the mean time a nasty outgrowth of the changing markets is commercial elitism. Whining commercialists like Andrew Keen, face of a corporate patrimony, who are losing market share to better, or obscure or even worse, amateurs , are writing books decrying the loss of culture(while continuing their blogs and websites) others shape gangs like a group of photographers and their media puppeteers to make "rules" of the trade only applicable to non-party members to hold their market from other "charitable" organizations . Keen has no trouble using died penniless Kafka's name to make a buck, while crying about others plagiarism and theft. Those elitist photographers haven't a problem torturing caged animals to stage a scene for a "wildlife" photo, but, if a non-party member would do such a thing it would be evil incarnate: which it is for everybody regardless of affiliation.
Market forces will eventually supplant fascist elitists, sure some will make millions, but eventually most will get their due. And market forces will eventually separate quality art from its neighbors. And narcissism? Well, it takes a tremendous effort to keep up ones blogs and websites, especially if there isn't any feedback. Look for the chaff to blow away in the steady winds and artists to die penniless, like they always have.
© Copyright 2007 Gregory Gusse, All Rights Reserved
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
John Harrelson's Blues
There are some things I know and understand inherently, as in, genetically or at the very least, prenatal components of my being. Two subjects (and more if you consider the connecting spider webs) I am unable to evade in any thought process; engineering and music.
Now, I am not a musician. There are physical talents, like perfect (or any) pitch and normal size fingers, I simply did not inherit. My mother, and grandfather, grandmother, and all my great-uncles (OK, not Luigi), were outstanding, actually recognized, world class musicians. The sound of perfectly played violins, cellos, violas, organs and pianos surrounded me in the womb and in my formative years. The perfection was a deterrent to me and I gave up my little fiddle by the age of six, after only four years of training. This was also when I stopped attending Mass everyday with my mother who played the organ each morning. The two occurrences probably are related.
But I understand and know music, all music, the primitive drums of the Inupiat and the philharmonic orchestra as well.
Another thing I know about is regularly being apprised of and dealing with my own mortality. Curiously, even though everybody dies, this knowledge is not inherent. It has been gained by experience: a little out of body here, a little white light there.
This brings me to my topic: John Harrelson.
I enjoyed my post-pubescence in Claremont, California. It was noted in those days for its rest homes, banks, colleges, artesian wells and citrus groves. It was also a navel of the music world, some resident like lint, some just passing through. One of those folks is John Harrelson, a great performer and a knowledgeable musician.
I don't know John well, our circles of folks, like set theory class, didn't have a lot of commonality. Though our lives have shared the same time and I woulda gone after Cindy when I was in high school 'cept I thought she was so far above me. But our love of music, especially, The Blues, the real Blues is certainly in harmony and has been most of my life. I've sought out John when ever I have been in his neck of the woods.
I've been reading John's blog. He seems kinda despondent. Apparently his doctors don't give him too long to live. That's a subject I know all about too. 'Course our attitudes are a bit different, I said "so what?", he says "fuck, fuck, fuck".
Here's what I think. I heard he is playing this Saturday at The Press in Claremont (curiously the building is part of my youth story too). I think anybody who wants to hear some great music aught to go on down, and while they're there toast him and celebrate his life, before he dies. Yep, this is a great opportunity, how often can ya tell I dead man you love him before he travels on. I can't make this one…but if there is another show…I'm gonna brave the long flight and see him one mo' time…if I live that long.
Now, I am not a musician. There are physical talents, like perfect (or any) pitch and normal size fingers, I simply did not inherit. My mother, and grandfather, grandmother, and all my great-uncles (OK, not Luigi), were outstanding, actually recognized, world class musicians. The sound of perfectly played violins, cellos, violas, organs and pianos surrounded me in the womb and in my formative years. The perfection was a deterrent to me and I gave up my little fiddle by the age of six, after only four years of training. This was also when I stopped attending Mass everyday with my mother who played the organ each morning. The two occurrences probably are related.
But I understand and know music, all music, the primitive drums of the Inupiat and the philharmonic orchestra as well.
Another thing I know about is regularly being apprised of and dealing with my own mortality. Curiously, even though everybody dies, this knowledge is not inherent. It has been gained by experience: a little out of body here, a little white light there.
This brings me to my topic: John Harrelson.
I enjoyed my post-pubescence in Claremont, California. It was noted in those days for its rest homes, banks, colleges, artesian wells and citrus groves. It was also a navel of the music world, some resident like lint, some just passing through. One of those folks is John Harrelson, a great performer and a knowledgeable musician.
I don't know John well, our circles of folks, like set theory class, didn't have a lot of commonality. Though our lives have shared the same time and I woulda gone after Cindy when I was in high school 'cept I thought she was so far above me. But our love of music, especially, The Blues, the real Blues is certainly in harmony and has been most of my life. I've sought out John when ever I have been in his neck of the woods.
I've been reading John's blog. He seems kinda despondent. Apparently his doctors don't give him too long to live. That's a subject I know all about too. 'Course our attitudes are a bit different, I said "so what?", he says "fuck, fuck, fuck".
Here's what I think. I heard he is playing this Saturday at The Press in Claremont (curiously the building is part of my youth story too). I think anybody who wants to hear some great music aught to go on down, and while they're there toast him and celebrate his life, before he dies. Yep, this is a great opportunity, how often can ya tell I dead man you love him before he travels on. I can't make this one…but if there is another show…I'm gonna brave the long flight and see him one mo' time…if I live that long.
Saturday, August 04, 2007
Long Strange Trip
The last piece on Otis came out of some dreams inspired by my friend David who suggested I should write my “On the Road”. Why it brought back Monterey days I’ve no idea…but then again.
Certainly, I have had a most wondrous life, filled with adventure, some great accomplishment and if I say so myself (as the author would of himself) a love life rivaling the quivering Tropic’s. And despite once sharing a smile and a sunset with Henry, I chose the travelin’ to be a solitary journey.
The Giants are what make Kerouac compelling. Old Jack is a minor character, a chronicler, a journalist, at best an Ishmael in a grand pod of white whales, which he not only knows, but loves intimately. Some would say Jack made many of them whales, but that isn’t true. Those folks breached so very high above the wine red sea.
I, as well, have met many colossal souls on the roads I have walked, in some cases they were like milestones that were noted and passed on by, but seldom did we walk together. And those great hearts like White, Kolp, Hudson-Reade, Rausch, Coupe and David, too, who did bear, the beast. with me: how could my words in the first person do them justice? And dare I ever let them know I hold them above me? It is not that I lack humbleness, I just don’t like it.
I suspect I will write my “book”. There have been several beginnings, actually over one hundred. Perhaps I have stumbled on the solution. A book of beginnings! No end, no middle, just days of conception and conjunction without culmination. That would be like the strange and glorious road I’ve known.
Certainly, I have had a most wondrous life, filled with adventure, some great accomplishment and if I say so myself (as the author would of himself) a love life rivaling the quivering Tropic’s. And despite once sharing a smile and a sunset with Henry, I chose the travelin’ to be a solitary journey.
The Giants are what make Kerouac compelling. Old Jack is a minor character, a chronicler, a journalist, at best an Ishmael in a grand pod of white whales, which he not only knows, but loves intimately. Some would say Jack made many of them whales, but that isn’t true. Those folks breached so very high above the wine red sea.
I, as well, have met many colossal souls on the roads I have walked, in some cases they were like milestones that were noted and passed on by, but seldom did we walk together. And those great hearts like White, Kolp, Hudson-Reade, Rausch, Coupe and David, too, who did bear, the beast. with me: how could my words in the first person do them justice? And dare I ever let them know I hold them above me? It is not that I lack humbleness, I just don’t like it.
I suspect I will write my “book”. There have been several beginnings, actually over one hundred. Perhaps I have stumbled on the solution. A book of beginnings! No end, no middle, just days of conception and conjunction without culmination. That would be like the strange and glorious road I’ve known.
Thursday, August 02, 2007
Where's Otis when you need him?
I attempt to avoid introspection. It seems to me that it is an overly complex process of self-gratification. Not that I am opposed to self-gratification, but I prefer the more physical kind with tangible rewards. Occasionally though, the sub-conscious takes over and I am forced to reflect upon my dreams. Luckily, those are usually reenactments of events that have, or will, occur; giving me a rope to hang on.
Last night the vision of Otis slowly letting go “I’ve been loving you…too long….” echoed over and over, like a wolf’s wail in a deep canyon. Forty years have past since then, but the smell of patchouli and grass mixed with the bass notes of love, youth and hope, foolishly reverberates still. 1967 was an especially configuring year to my world’s fragile psyche.
Only two short years later most of us knew the wheel of change had gone as far as it would turn. Though I sat behind stage at the same venue playing my harp with Taj as he beat his National Steel rhythm and carryed us windward with a sad song, I felt like a cartoon character, like the capstan of that great wheel was spinning backward and hitting me in the head with each spoke driving me deeper into the muck and mire, cartoon stars and all. When Jesse Ed Davis chastised and chided my friend for his barefooted guitar playing I knew it was over.
Of course, it would take ‘till ’76 before everyone had become bought and co-opted and returned to the control of the corporation. They had to get rid of the war and a bunch of crummy 70’s automobiles first. Where’s my Pinto! By then it was even cool to be a rich black man; way cool! The “Me Generation” was not born, it was made. Now I’m not black, though I didn’t know it ‘till I was sixteen…or I should say I didn’t know I was white. Those were distinctions children didn’t make in Cincinnati’s Evanston ghetto in the 50’s. I did live on the white side of the street but my mom made my clothes by hand from my dad’s acid eaten work wear. We kids dealt in class not color. My best friend from across the street and I traded our little cowboy boots for 5 years old and Mighty Mouse was in black AND white. During the ’67 riots he let me know I was white class had become color. In ’68 they killed King and I was made whiter than ever, or, were they made blacker? In either case, they thrust upon us a false premise blurring differences that should have been accentuated and creating divisions that did not exist. It always surprised me that Burn was not a hit, then again I guess it shouldn’t have been a surprise. It was Brando’s best movie. Today I know I’m white and love my whiteness and I know black and love their blackness but a lot of in-between was lost.
I wish the revolution had been televised. I would watch the reruns like Star Trek episodes with Captain Kirk so I would know it had really existed. But there is contrary evidence, people still must work for starvation wages, war has not only NOT been abolished it has become regular fare, even preemptive, war criminals inhabit the White House, the rich are infinitely richer, the poor couldn’t get no poorer but there are so many more of them, poor children still die from lack of medical care as do their parents and grandparents and so will their babies, pollution of our world has become a God given right along with exterminating anything and anyone who gets in the way and the color of one’s skin is still a criteria for first class citizenship.
Oh, Otis you dead guy! I’ve been loving you…too long.
Last night the vision of Otis slowly letting go “I’ve been loving you…too long….” echoed over and over, like a wolf’s wail in a deep canyon. Forty years have past since then, but the smell of patchouli and grass mixed with the bass notes of love, youth and hope, foolishly reverberates still. 1967 was an especially configuring year to my world’s fragile psyche.
Only two short years later most of us knew the wheel of change had gone as far as it would turn. Though I sat behind stage at the same venue playing my harp with Taj as he beat his National Steel rhythm and carryed us windward with a sad song, I felt like a cartoon character, like the capstan of that great wheel was spinning backward and hitting me in the head with each spoke driving me deeper into the muck and mire, cartoon stars and all. When Jesse Ed Davis chastised and chided my friend for his barefooted guitar playing I knew it was over.
Of course, it would take ‘till ’76 before everyone had become bought and co-opted and returned to the control of the corporation. They had to get rid of the war and a bunch of crummy 70’s automobiles first. Where’s my Pinto! By then it was even cool to be a rich black man; way cool! The “Me Generation” was not born, it was made. Now I’m not black, though I didn’t know it ‘till I was sixteen…or I should say I didn’t know I was white. Those were distinctions children didn’t make in Cincinnati’s Evanston ghetto in the 50’s. I did live on the white side of the street but my mom made my clothes by hand from my dad’s acid eaten work wear. We kids dealt in class not color. My best friend from across the street and I traded our little cowboy boots for 5 years old and Mighty Mouse was in black AND white. During the ’67 riots he let me know I was white class had become color. In ’68 they killed King and I was made whiter than ever, or, were they made blacker? In either case, they thrust upon us a false premise blurring differences that should have been accentuated and creating divisions that did not exist. It always surprised me that Burn was not a hit, then again I guess it shouldn’t have been a surprise. It was Brando’s best movie. Today I know I’m white and love my whiteness and I know black and love their blackness but a lot of in-between was lost.
I wish the revolution had been televised. I would watch the reruns like Star Trek episodes with Captain Kirk so I would know it had really existed. But there is contrary evidence, people still must work for starvation wages, war has not only NOT been abolished it has become regular fare, even preemptive, war criminals inhabit the White House, the rich are infinitely richer, the poor couldn’t get no poorer but there are so many more of them, poor children still die from lack of medical care as do their parents and grandparents and so will their babies, pollution of our world has become a God given right along with exterminating anything and anyone who gets in the way and the color of one’s skin is still a criteria for first class citizenship.
Oh, Otis you dead guy! I’ve been loving you…too long.
Saturday, July 28, 2007
Mitigation and Global Warming
It seems that there is some question about what I believe. Frankly, not much. I do have some things I know and some theories that come from what I have seen. I don’t understand faith and hope, they seem like tools of deceit. When it comes to global warming we are asked to believe a lot.
Now, I don’t know how much humans have contributed to global warming, I believe a great deal, but not where folks think or tell us. I also believe that some of the science is faulty, not because of errors in the data, but, errors in the question. This leads to misinterpretation of that data or collection of meaningless data. And I believe that there is no mitigation of a problem that hasn’t had a causal definition. I believe there is no mitigation because my numbers show a run-away train that is gaining speed as it heads down the mountain. In my opinion it is stupid to play the game of “greenness” to enrich the oil companies and banks with things like ethanol (that require more energy to produce than is delivered) or “carbon credits”. I believe it is wise and good to be green and a conservationist, both morally and economically: to stop burning fuels, to insulate, to promote solar and wind power, to promote clean air, soil and water, to allow wildlife to be wild. And though, I am a technologist and an acolyte, if not priest, of technology and consumption, I do not believe technology and industry have increased the value of life. Quite the contrary, I believe industry and technology benefit a very, very, few individuals to the detriment of the majority, especially their spirits and appreciation of, or access to the natural.
I know that at least a regional warming trend exists. I know that sea and glacial ice is retreating. I know that several species are nearing extinction. I know that saddens me, for my grandchildren, especially. I believe it is wrong, though, I know extinction is a natural process, that is, should be a natural process.
I have searched high and low for any science of mitigation of this problem. I have found none, just nebulous hopes or outright lies. The most deceiving is that if we begin (in some distant future) to return to some arbitrary point of emissions (a date also in the future, return to the future?) everything will be just fine. This is strange logic and not mathematically sound but probably meets some political need. Another whacky one is the President's absurd connection of “lessening our dependence on foreign oil” to global warming. Hello? Is our domestic oil less emitting? Of course, we hear the ethanol hype which actually works with hand harvested Brazilian sugar cane, but not with Iowa corn. If my math is right(and it may not be but I believe it is) if every drop of ethanol produced went to fuel the tractors and power the distilleries and farms, you would still need several million barrels of oil to make up for the 20% loss, and not one drop of ethanol would be on the market. Nor has one anyone come up with some massive carbon scrubbers, or maybe orbit changing rockets, or even taken my notion of discharging the heat batteries seriously. Where is the mitigation?
Here’s my prediction. I think in the next year or two, probably towards the end of August, a massive heat wave will center over western Pennsylvania. The area covered by this low pressure system will stretch from Chicago to Maine and Montreal to Washington, D.C. Record breaking temperatures of around 103 degrees will stifle the area, even night time temperature will remain in the mid nineties. Most independent elderly and poor will not have air-conditioning, those that do will refuse to turn them on because of the outrageous costs.
On the third day of this heat wave electric companies will begin disconnecting service to any “questionable accounts”. Bodies will begin to stack up in many metropolitan morgues. But on the fifth day of the unrelenting heat the obsolete and poorly maintained power grid will collapse, service to nearly 200 million people will be cut off. Not only air-conditioning but water pumps, sewage plants, all refrigeration, elevators, lighting, security and communications instantly break to a halt. Riots and looting will break out in every city and town through out the east. Of course, the President, vacationing in Texas, will declare a national emergency. Governors will wish there were National Guard troops in this country as overwhelmed police and emergency crews join the mobs. On the tenth day some abatement of the heat will occur as thunderstorms move in from the mid-west. On the twelfth day some power is restored. Crews in scenes reminiscent of Katrina, Soylent Green and the Plague Years begin collecting bodies from streets and alleys in garbage trucks. More than one hundred thousand die. Three months later most power is restored but bodies are still being found.
Can’t happen? I know all this has happened several times, only the scale will be changed I believe by just a few degrees in temperature.
Now, I don’t know how much humans have contributed to global warming, I believe a great deal, but not where folks think or tell us. I also believe that some of the science is faulty, not because of errors in the data, but, errors in the question. This leads to misinterpretation of that data or collection of meaningless data. And I believe that there is no mitigation of a problem that hasn’t had a causal definition. I believe there is no mitigation because my numbers show a run-away train that is gaining speed as it heads down the mountain. In my opinion it is stupid to play the game of “greenness” to enrich the oil companies and banks with things like ethanol (that require more energy to produce than is delivered) or “carbon credits”. I believe it is wise and good to be green and a conservationist, both morally and economically: to stop burning fuels, to insulate, to promote solar and wind power, to promote clean air, soil and water, to allow wildlife to be wild. And though, I am a technologist and an acolyte, if not priest, of technology and consumption, I do not believe technology and industry have increased the value of life. Quite the contrary, I believe industry and technology benefit a very, very, few individuals to the detriment of the majority, especially their spirits and appreciation of, or access to the natural.
I know that at least a regional warming trend exists. I know that sea and glacial ice is retreating. I know that several species are nearing extinction. I know that saddens me, for my grandchildren, especially. I believe it is wrong, though, I know extinction is a natural process, that is, should be a natural process.
I have searched high and low for any science of mitigation of this problem. I have found none, just nebulous hopes or outright lies. The most deceiving is that if we begin (in some distant future) to return to some arbitrary point of emissions (a date also in the future, return to the future?) everything will be just fine. This is strange logic and not mathematically sound but probably meets some political need. Another whacky one is the President's absurd connection of “lessening our dependence on foreign oil” to global warming. Hello? Is our domestic oil less emitting? Of course, we hear the ethanol hype which actually works with hand harvested Brazilian sugar cane, but not with Iowa corn. If my math is right(and it may not be but I believe it is) if every drop of ethanol produced went to fuel the tractors and power the distilleries and farms, you would still need several million barrels of oil to make up for the 20% loss, and not one drop of ethanol would be on the market. Nor has one anyone come up with some massive carbon scrubbers, or maybe orbit changing rockets, or even taken my notion of discharging the heat batteries seriously. Where is the mitigation?
Here’s my prediction. I think in the next year or two, probably towards the end of August, a massive heat wave will center over western Pennsylvania. The area covered by this low pressure system will stretch from Chicago to Maine and Montreal to Washington, D.C. Record breaking temperatures of around 103 degrees will stifle the area, even night time temperature will remain in the mid nineties. Most independent elderly and poor will not have air-conditioning, those that do will refuse to turn them on because of the outrageous costs.
On the third day of this heat wave electric companies will begin disconnecting service to any “questionable accounts”. Bodies will begin to stack up in many metropolitan morgues. But on the fifth day of the unrelenting heat the obsolete and poorly maintained power grid will collapse, service to nearly 200 million people will be cut off. Not only air-conditioning but water pumps, sewage plants, all refrigeration, elevators, lighting, security and communications instantly break to a halt. Riots and looting will break out in every city and town through out the east. Of course, the President, vacationing in Texas, will declare a national emergency. Governors will wish there were National Guard troops in this country as overwhelmed police and emergency crews join the mobs. On the tenth day some abatement of the heat will occur as thunderstorms move in from the mid-west. On the twelfth day some power is restored. Crews in scenes reminiscent of Katrina, Soylent Green and the Plague Years begin collecting bodies from streets and alleys in garbage trucks. More than one hundred thousand die. Three months later most power is restored but bodies are still being found.
Can’t happen? I know all this has happened several times, only the scale will be changed I believe by just a few degrees in temperature.
Friday, July 27, 2007
Skinny Whales and Global Warming
Even if our own species does not go extinct in the near future, a sad consequence of global warming may be watching our neighbors on this planet die away.
Ice algae and ice bacteria are the seasonal food for both krill larvae and adults: the base of the food chain. It significantly contributes to the annual bloom of life in the cold polar and sub-polar waters and may be the primary reason polar seas are so abundant in life. The spring rain of this nutritional matter to the sea floor may also contribute to the quantity and health of floor dwelling (benthic) crustaceans; the food of gray whales.
The impact and appreciation of ice algae is a relatively new science spearheaded by Lisa Clough of Eastern Carolina University, and is still being quantified. One thing has become apparent though, ice algae is a “higher” quality food source than phytoplankton and is not replaceable on a one to one scale. Furthermore, while most phytoplankton remain dormant in dark winter months, ice algae can uniquely extract energy and multiply in brine channels in sea ice. This allows polar krill species to feed year round and maintain significant populations not to mention the spring break-up fertilization of the sea floor
.
Krill, too, are affected by water temperatures. A massive coccolithophore bloom in the Bering Sea in 1998 resulted in a substantive decline in krill populations. Krill could not feed on the diminutive phytoplankton. Krill are not the direct food source for gray whales as they are for other baleen whales but presumably the benthic crustaceans which feed the grays have a similar relation to ice algae. Krill may be a signal but the Northern Gray whale is probably a threshold species.
Recently, it has been noted that the Northern Gray whale population is suffering a drastic weight loss with the accompanying reproductive difficulties, morbidity and mortality. The populations suffering weight-loss may be diseased or may be stressed by other environmental factors, but, one possible hypothesis is that there simply isn’t enough food for them. As ocean temperatures rise there is less and thinner ice and a shorter “winter” as well, resulting in appreciably less ice algae, especially in the shallow Bering and Chukchi seas, where new data shows 20% reduction in sea ice in just the past few years. Seasonal sea ice in the deeper Arctic Ocean is becoming more common and ice algae may be forming in quantity there, but, this does not mitigate the gray whales problem as both the gray’s primary food and the gray’s ability to harvest seem limited to a depth of less than 300 feet.
An additional problem may include the increased distance of migration. The gray whale is already considered to have the longest migration of any mammalian species at about 22,000 km adding another 2000 km might simply be a sea too far.
Ice algae and ice bacteria are the seasonal food for both krill larvae and adults: the base of the food chain. It significantly contributes to the annual bloom of life in the cold polar and sub-polar waters and may be the primary reason polar seas are so abundant in life. The spring rain of this nutritional matter to the sea floor may also contribute to the quantity and health of floor dwelling (benthic) crustaceans; the food of gray whales.
The impact and appreciation of ice algae is a relatively new science spearheaded by Lisa Clough of Eastern Carolina University, and is still being quantified. One thing has become apparent though, ice algae is a “higher” quality food source than phytoplankton and is not replaceable on a one to one scale. Furthermore, while most phytoplankton remain dormant in dark winter months, ice algae can uniquely extract energy and multiply in brine channels in sea ice. This allows polar krill species to feed year round and maintain significant populations not to mention the spring break-up fertilization of the sea floor
.
Krill, too, are affected by water temperatures. A massive coccolithophore bloom in the Bering Sea in 1998 resulted in a substantive decline in krill populations. Krill could not feed on the diminutive phytoplankton. Krill are not the direct food source for gray whales as they are for other baleen whales but presumably the benthic crustaceans which feed the grays have a similar relation to ice algae. Krill may be a signal but the Northern Gray whale is probably a threshold species.
Recently, it has been noted that the Northern Gray whale population is suffering a drastic weight loss with the accompanying reproductive difficulties, morbidity and mortality. The populations suffering weight-loss may be diseased or may be stressed by other environmental factors, but, one possible hypothesis is that there simply isn’t enough food for them. As ocean temperatures rise there is less and thinner ice and a shorter “winter” as well, resulting in appreciably less ice algae, especially in the shallow Bering and Chukchi seas, where new data shows 20% reduction in sea ice in just the past few years. Seasonal sea ice in the deeper Arctic Ocean is becoming more common and ice algae may be forming in quantity there, but, this does not mitigate the gray whales problem as both the gray’s primary food and the gray’s ability to harvest seem limited to a depth of less than 300 feet.
An additional problem may include the increased distance of migration. The gray whale is already considered to have the longest migration of any mammalian species at about 22,000 km adding another 2000 km might simply be a sea too far.
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Number Five
One’s fifth heart attack may not seem a cause for celebration, but, it is a tremendous affirmation of life. Of course, surviving it leads to greater joy and the ability to join in the festivities more directly than the alternative, but, I would, and was, smiling regardless of the final outcome. And it wasn’t just the morphine, though the nurse at the cardiac unit of the hospital suggested that the transport paramedics had been holding out at 2mls every five minutes and suggested 5mls every two minutes, with a “let’s party” ! I did debate whether dying on Father’s Day is good or bad….I opted for good, in that my sons, who are good young men, don’t dote on me as much as I think they should. This way they would at least remember me one day a year!
Most folk’s simply don’t know they are going to die. Think about it. Unless you have seen the white light or have done the out of body thing, you can try and intellectualize or reason about the inevitable, but, in the end it becomes denial. That is the reality of human nature, that to envision our self as dispirited is impossible and contrary to the generally accepted attitudes and emotions about life. From this two consequences arise. The first is the most basic and reptilian; we can’t understand or reason our own demise, so like all things unknown that affect our physical being, we fear death…some folks with a fear that actually kills them. I would bet that ultimately fear is the true #1 cause of death in most species. The second is more insidious because it allows others to control our lives and seems limited to our species, that is, we invent bizarre scenarios that have us living forever, on earth or elsewhere as the case may be. Add to that the contradiction of folks actually dying around us and next thing you know we need some one to blame and somebody to take responsibility for our misconceptions, oh lord!
Long before this heart attack I garnered a clear understanding of my death. I did the white light and out of body, too. But, mostly I recognized that it certainly didn’t matter a bit if there is or is not a fanciful afterlife, nor did it even matter if I recovered or not. What matters is did I fully appreciate the time I had been given and would I appreciate, as in give greater worth than the initial sum, more time. Within the realities of petulant humanism I could say yes to both those questions. This notion of self worth coupled with relaxed acquiescence, that is accepting how wonderfully blessed I have been, is probably what saved my life, each time. I don’t get frantic, I just laugh and look forward to the ride.
Enough of that!
Some folks have wondered if the pig glands have had something to do with this latest trip. Emphatically, no! In fact, if the tests performed over the last few medical encounters are true, I can say with great certainty that the glands are working quite well. Blood sugars have remained (un-medicated) at near normal levels, around 120-130 fasting glucose, and an ac1 of 6.1. It did spike at 180 during the heart attack which isn’t bad under stress at all. Blood pressure has remained (un-medicated) at 120/75 spiking at 137/92 during the attack. AND a curious and unexpected benefit, my triglycerides, for the first time in my life (whether medicated or in this case un-medicated) are normal!! They have usually (actually always) been so high as to have the lipid test come back un-measurable. My gross cholesterol has always been very good, around 100, except ridiculously low, 18-25 HDL and that hasn’t changed. So! Viva el Puerco!
This is the first MI that I actually had some symptoms, though very minor and easily (not next time!) dismissed. I had a sudden weight gain, nearly 20 lbs in a month. I felt some pain in my left arm, which I presumed was simply muscle pain. Tremendous lethargy and some depression hit me the week before. That was about it.
So what brought this on? Well I’m not sure. The blockage was pretty severe and acute infarction was present in the right ventricle primarily affecting the inferior ventricular wall. Luckily, this was the last unaffected part of my heart. A MI of this magnitude in any of the other three already blotted chambers and it woulda been curtains . Two stents were placed end to end and blood flow was returned to 100%. Another restricted artery was discovered which will require surgery soon but was left while the infarction was dealt with. I suspect the stress of the back injury rupturing a plaque was the culprit. But, I have another possible cause, which will surprise folks.
It might be radiation!
Curiously and with some effectiveness, radiation treatments used to be given for bursitis, some arthritis and other persistent joint and muscle problems even after the advent of steroid usage. It is the same theory of using ionizing radiation to “cook” and breakup cancerous mass. I was going through my bills and I sure was cooked! Three chest x-rays, 2 CT scans of the lower spine, 5 x-rays of the lower spine, in two weeks! That is about 4 or 5 years worth of radiation; if it was all done just right. So just maybe, just maybe, this broke up some plaque that lodged in my little black heart. Or maybe it was the two together stress and radiation. I don’t know. Certainly, all the radiation was directed towards heavily scarred areas with heavy plaque. I know nothing about this I am just surmising.
Anyway, Johnny’s back!
Most folk’s simply don’t know they are going to die. Think about it. Unless you have seen the white light or have done the out of body thing, you can try and intellectualize or reason about the inevitable, but, in the end it becomes denial. That is the reality of human nature, that to envision our self as dispirited is impossible and contrary to the generally accepted attitudes and emotions about life. From this two consequences arise. The first is the most basic and reptilian; we can’t understand or reason our own demise, so like all things unknown that affect our physical being, we fear death…some folks with a fear that actually kills them. I would bet that ultimately fear is the true #1 cause of death in most species. The second is more insidious because it allows others to control our lives and seems limited to our species, that is, we invent bizarre scenarios that have us living forever, on earth or elsewhere as the case may be. Add to that the contradiction of folks actually dying around us and next thing you know we need some one to blame and somebody to take responsibility for our misconceptions, oh lord!
Long before this heart attack I garnered a clear understanding of my death. I did the white light and out of body, too. But, mostly I recognized that it certainly didn’t matter a bit if there is or is not a fanciful afterlife, nor did it even matter if I recovered or not. What matters is did I fully appreciate the time I had been given and would I appreciate, as in give greater worth than the initial sum, more time. Within the realities of petulant humanism I could say yes to both those questions. This notion of self worth coupled with relaxed acquiescence, that is accepting how wonderfully blessed I have been, is probably what saved my life, each time. I don’t get frantic, I just laugh and look forward to the ride.
Enough of that!
Some folks have wondered if the pig glands have had something to do with this latest trip. Emphatically, no! In fact, if the tests performed over the last few medical encounters are true, I can say with great certainty that the glands are working quite well. Blood sugars have remained (un-medicated) at near normal levels, around 120-130 fasting glucose, and an ac1 of 6.1. It did spike at 180 during the heart attack which isn’t bad under stress at all. Blood pressure has remained (un-medicated) at 120/75 spiking at 137/92 during the attack. AND a curious and unexpected benefit, my triglycerides, for the first time in my life (whether medicated or in this case un-medicated) are normal!! They have usually (actually always) been so high as to have the lipid test come back un-measurable. My gross cholesterol has always been very good, around 100, except ridiculously low, 18-25 HDL and that hasn’t changed. So! Viva el Puerco!
This is the first MI that I actually had some symptoms, though very minor and easily (not next time!) dismissed. I had a sudden weight gain, nearly 20 lbs in a month. I felt some pain in my left arm, which I presumed was simply muscle pain. Tremendous lethargy and some depression hit me the week before. That was about it.
So what brought this on? Well I’m not sure. The blockage was pretty severe and acute infarction was present in the right ventricle primarily affecting the inferior ventricular wall. Luckily, this was the last unaffected part of my heart. A MI of this magnitude in any of the other three already blotted chambers and it woulda been curtains . Two stents were placed end to end and blood flow was returned to 100%. Another restricted artery was discovered which will require surgery soon but was left while the infarction was dealt with. I suspect the stress of the back injury rupturing a plaque was the culprit. But, I have another possible cause, which will surprise folks.
It might be radiation!
Curiously and with some effectiveness, radiation treatments used to be given for bursitis, some arthritis and other persistent joint and muscle problems even after the advent of steroid usage. It is the same theory of using ionizing radiation to “cook” and breakup cancerous mass. I was going through my bills and I sure was cooked! Three chest x-rays, 2 CT scans of the lower spine, 5 x-rays of the lower spine, in two weeks! That is about 4 or 5 years worth of radiation; if it was all done just right. So just maybe, just maybe, this broke up some plaque that lodged in my little black heart. Or maybe it was the two together stress and radiation. I don’t know. Certainly, all the radiation was directed towards heavily scarred areas with heavy plaque. I know nothing about this I am just surmising.
Anyway, Johnny’s back!
Friday, May 04, 2007
Ice Free Global Warming
About 7 years ago I proposed that the carbon-dioxide model could not properly predict the effects of global warming. I went around to all the folks I knew and said the sky is falling a lot faster than you think maybe twenty times faster; maybe even faster than that.
Of course, they said I was crazy. How could I know (anything)? I had based my hypothesis on observation, simple math and the notion of a battery for storing energy. No I didn’t use a super computer, just a notebook, the kind you use a pencil with, and a lot of shoe leather, from Key West to Deadhorse, from Baja to Gander.
I’d like to say I’m pleased to be vindicated, and in a way I am, but, I am actually more frightened. I suspect any of you who are concerned about our existence have read the latest on Arctic ice…that based on anecdotal and direct evidence the Arctic ocean will be ice free by 2050…that the computer model was wrong. And it is still wrong. It is the wrong model.
I still would bet that the planet will be basically ice free in about 12 years. Sure there will be a lot of ice in Antarctica and Greenland, and there is some evidence that Siberia will be colder and drier, but, folks won’t be coming to Alaska to see glaciers.
What’s frightening is dogma, scary religious dogma by the very scientists who we need to rely on. We need to find a solution to our problem quickly: a dramatic solution. Or, we can allow the planet to provide a dramatic solution, the one that resembles the raging fever and the dying bacteria.
We need to recognize that there is no “green” in burning. We can not burn our way out of this no matter how “clean” the fuel. We also must release the stored energy in our dammed rivers. We MUST stop consuming for its own gratification, not just the fuel at the pump, but also the goods and products produced by fire, shipped by fire, packaged by fire, even cooled by fire. Then in about 300 years we might see a turn around.
Of course, they said I was crazy. How could I know (anything)? I had based my hypothesis on observation, simple math and the notion of a battery for storing energy. No I didn’t use a super computer, just a notebook, the kind you use a pencil with, and a lot of shoe leather, from Key West to Deadhorse, from Baja to Gander.
I’d like to say I’m pleased to be vindicated, and in a way I am, but, I am actually more frightened. I suspect any of you who are concerned about our existence have read the latest on Arctic ice…that based on anecdotal and direct evidence the Arctic ocean will be ice free by 2050…that the computer model was wrong. And it is still wrong. It is the wrong model.
I still would bet that the planet will be basically ice free in about 12 years. Sure there will be a lot of ice in Antarctica and Greenland, and there is some evidence that Siberia will be colder and drier, but, folks won’t be coming to Alaska to see glaciers.
What’s frightening is dogma, scary religious dogma by the very scientists who we need to rely on. We need to find a solution to our problem quickly: a dramatic solution. Or, we can allow the planet to provide a dramatic solution, the one that resembles the raging fever and the dying bacteria.
We need to recognize that there is no “green” in burning. We can not burn our way out of this no matter how “clean” the fuel. We also must release the stored energy in our dammed rivers. We MUST stop consuming for its own gratification, not just the fuel at the pump, but also the goods and products produced by fire, shipped by fire, packaged by fire, even cooled by fire. Then in about 300 years we might see a turn around.
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
So this is what happened
About the pig glands and why I haven't reported.
I hadn't mentioned that I took a fall on my studio steps just before Christmas. It was a very bad fall that had me shoot out about 4 feet, so, that I landed 6 feet down the stairs; pelvis and sacrum right on the tread edge. Oweee!
My back has been a mess since I blew a disc out in '86. Its now bone on bone at L5-S1 and the fall and the little fractures didn't help at all. But aside from having a really black bruise covering my butt and most of my back it wasn't all that bad. So, when the swelling and bruise subsided in January I went to take my trip to the doctor. Down the Alaska Highway and there I was.
Things went along swimmingly for quite awhile, even got back from Monterrey to Espanola and wrote the little piece about the trip. Then I decided to get some dental work done in Juarez.
Now Juarez is only about 360 miles from Espanola. Shouldn't matter much to someone who has driven 7500 miles in the last two weeks but....
I had the tooth pulled and a temporary bridge put in. Wonderful dentists. A whole team worked on me father, two daughters, and the periodontist. And, they scheduled appointments for two days next week to fit and install the permanent bridge.
I get back to Espanola for a couple of days. Now, nothing ever seems simple with me, including: why did my back go out? Was it the now more than 8000 miles? or?....
I was taking Dalacin C for the bone infection and B12 injections for the pig thing. Anyway, I take my last B12 and a few minutes later it seems every muscle in my body cramps and my joints ache like crazy. About an hour later I'm going down the steps and my pelvis tweaks about 1/2" down and forward on the left, at least thats what shows on the xray. What's ever left of the l5 disk goes crazy and the lowerback muscles go into spasm and within an hour both sciatic nerves are whacked out.
Its pretty late at night so I drive myself to the emergency room. The doctor sends me home with some percacets and valium. She says I need more but since I brought myself over too bad.
So I go back to J.D.'s. The medication doesn't do squat. At 3:00a I wake J.D. and ask him to take me to the hospital. Morphine and Flexerol injections and some peace for an hour or two. This is pretty much the last thing I remember from February 9 'till the 17th. Lucky me in a way, I was in hell.
I know we went back to Juarez and they finished my bridge and I remember a torture chamber and Mexican women with hot oil pounding and kneeding my muscles, I briefly remember seeing the sign for the hospital in Las Cruces. I don't recall Julie coming or the flight to Alaska or even the ride home from the airport.
Fentanyl, 80 times more powerful than morphine does that. It screws up the memory. Its a lipid binder and certainly works for pain but the price....
The thing to expose or mention about all this, despite the xrays, ct scans, 6 hospitals, and 6 doctors (7 if you count my doctor in Alaska), even the chiropractor in Espanola: the only real examination was done by the accupuncturist! That's right, he was the only one to actually look at the problem and diagnose correctly the situation and recommend I get home immediately for treatment. I wish I remembered it.
Back to the pigs.....
Well my blood pressure is stable at 125/80 without medication, not great, but not bad for a 55 year old guy still in pain. My glucose meter broke...but I'm on my way to the P.O. to get the new one...I'll let you know what it says.
So my glucose seems stable at 98...that is not diabetic! Guess them piggies are workin'!
I hadn't mentioned that I took a fall on my studio steps just before Christmas. It was a very bad fall that had me shoot out about 4 feet, so, that I landed 6 feet down the stairs; pelvis and sacrum right on the tread edge. Oweee!
My back has been a mess since I blew a disc out in '86. Its now bone on bone at L5-S1 and the fall and the little fractures didn't help at all. But aside from having a really black bruise covering my butt and most of my back it wasn't all that bad. So, when the swelling and bruise subsided in January I went to take my trip to the doctor. Down the Alaska Highway and there I was.
Things went along swimmingly for quite awhile, even got back from Monterrey to Espanola and wrote the little piece about the trip. Then I decided to get some dental work done in Juarez.
Now Juarez is only about 360 miles from Espanola. Shouldn't matter much to someone who has driven 7500 miles in the last two weeks but....
I had the tooth pulled and a temporary bridge put in. Wonderful dentists. A whole team worked on me father, two daughters, and the periodontist. And, they scheduled appointments for two days next week to fit and install the permanent bridge.
I get back to Espanola for a couple of days. Now, nothing ever seems simple with me, including: why did my back go out? Was it the now more than 8000 miles? or?....
I was taking Dalacin C for the bone infection and B12 injections for the pig thing. Anyway, I take my last B12 and a few minutes later it seems every muscle in my body cramps and my joints ache like crazy. About an hour later I'm going down the steps and my pelvis tweaks about 1/2" down and forward on the left, at least thats what shows on the xray. What's ever left of the l5 disk goes crazy and the lowerback muscles go into spasm and within an hour both sciatic nerves are whacked out.
Its pretty late at night so I drive myself to the emergency room. The doctor sends me home with some percacets and valium. She says I need more but since I brought myself over too bad.
So I go back to J.D.'s. The medication doesn't do squat. At 3:00a I wake J.D. and ask him to take me to the hospital. Morphine and Flexerol injections and some peace for an hour or two. This is pretty much the last thing I remember from February 9 'till the 17th. Lucky me in a way, I was in hell.
I know we went back to Juarez and they finished my bridge and I remember a torture chamber and Mexican women with hot oil pounding and kneeding my muscles, I briefly remember seeing the sign for the hospital in Las Cruces. I don't recall Julie coming or the flight to Alaska or even the ride home from the airport.
Fentanyl, 80 times more powerful than morphine does that. It screws up the memory. Its a lipid binder and certainly works for pain but the price....
The thing to expose or mention about all this, despite the xrays, ct scans, 6 hospitals, and 6 doctors (7 if you count my doctor in Alaska), even the chiropractor in Espanola: the only real examination was done by the accupuncturist! That's right, he was the only one to actually look at the problem and diagnose correctly the situation and recommend I get home immediately for treatment. I wish I remembered it.
Back to the pigs.....
Well my blood pressure is stable at 125/80 without medication, not great, but not bad for a 55 year old guy still in pain. My glucose meter broke...but I'm on my way to the P.O. to get the new one...I'll let you know what it says.
So my glucose seems stable at 98...that is not diabetic! Guess them piggies are workin'!
Friday, February 02, 2007
My Trip to the Doctor: 6000 miles Give or Take
My Trip to the Doctor: 6000 miles Give or Take
It is a long sleep inducing trip from Espanola to Brownsville. Its a bit over a thousand miles of desert plains interrupted briefly by the hill country of San Antonio. Not too much to see; sage, scrub and oil wells, then, flat muddy fields stretching hundreds of miles. It is the cleansing purgatory leading to a Mexican salvation 6000 miles from home.
What I am after might be construed crazy, a “quack” procedure to cure my various endocrinological ills including a diagnoses of diabetes which I am convinced is a symptom and not the disease. So, I am off to a tiny village located near Jimenez, Tamaulipas with my good buddy J.D., where a doctor does this operation. I suspect it is not legal and certainly not approved by the medical association. The doctor was “run out” of Juarez.
It is evident that there is something fishy. I travel miles off the main road, then on to several turning mud streets each with a few hovels and pig pens, then to the “house” which doesn’t really fit the neighborhood, cracked pink stucco and with a second story, except that it appears abandoned. No one is there when we arrive. I feel like I have come to a 1950's abortionist. I’m not frightened but I’m not normal.
It turns out we are early. The doctor’s daughter is off getting the piglets (that is neo-natal pigs) that will be sacrificed for my health. She arrives about an hour later in a broke down Ford pickup with a friend who stays awhile because the truck won’t start up again. The doctor is elsewhere and sends a young assistant who also claims to be a doctor.
The procedure itself is quite simple. The two piglets are slaughtered and their skulls cracked open. Their pituitary and hypothalamus glands which resemble white and pink BB’s are removed and washed. The doctor makes about a half inch long incision and inserts the four “BB’s” sub-dermicly, just beneath the skin but above muscle, in the upper arm. Two stitches, five hundred-fifty dollars and it is done.
So you say it sounds weird; I thought so too. Certainly there was a lot of anecdotal evidence to the procedure being effective. Several folks swore that it had changed their lives, to me though that simply meant that the procedure hadn’t had any negative effects or rejection problems. After all, and I do believe the saying, ‘that there is no greater proponent for the quack than his patients’. So I researched what might be happening if it does work.
The first thing one comes up with is that the preferred medication for thyroid ailments is simply dried and ground, “desiccated”, neo-natal pig glands! And of course synthetic insulin is derived from pigs and several other hormonal treatments, like those for adrenal problems, as well. Could fresh be better?
Another thing one finds is that the procedure is not new, the Chinese have been doing it for sometime now and the Mexicans for about thirty years. There is also some evidence that the Mayo Clinic has also done some experiments with this but I couldn’t find any documentation.
Though, no one would tell me exactly what they thought was going on (and I wouldn’t have understood anyway, my Spanish is non-existent), this is what I think is going on:
The pituitary and hypothalamus are the “system masters” for the whole endocrine system and most hormone creation/secretion. Pig and human glands and hormones at this level are remarkably similar. I think that the inserted glands encapsulate like a cyst between the skin and the muscle and are stimulated by the same hormones that stimulate our own glands and similarly release minuscule quantities of hormones acting like a “booster” to our own endocrine system until they finally dissolve about 5 years later. This is no different than a super long term “patch” that might be administered for birth-control or some of the new insulin administration techniques. It just might work.
It has been a week and frankly I think its working. Actually, the first day I noticed that my eye sight seemed to have cleared. My blood sugars are also near normal though my energy levels (what I had hoped to cure) seem about the same. The doctor said it takes 90 days to become fully effective, maybe I’m rushing it. Though even now it looks like about 6000 dollars a year in medications won’t be needed anymore.
It is a long sleep inducing trip from Espanola to Brownsville. Its a bit over a thousand miles of desert plains interrupted briefly by the hill country of San Antonio. Not too much to see; sage, scrub and oil wells, then, flat muddy fields stretching hundreds of miles. It is the cleansing purgatory leading to a Mexican salvation 6000 miles from home.
What I am after might be construed crazy, a “quack” procedure to cure my various endocrinological ills including a diagnoses of diabetes which I am convinced is a symptom and not the disease. So, I am off to a tiny village located near Jimenez, Tamaulipas with my good buddy J.D., where a doctor does this operation. I suspect it is not legal and certainly not approved by the medical association. The doctor was “run out” of Juarez.
It is evident that there is something fishy. I travel miles off the main road, then on to several turning mud streets each with a few hovels and pig pens, then to the “house” which doesn’t really fit the neighborhood, cracked pink stucco and with a second story, except that it appears abandoned. No one is there when we arrive. I feel like I have come to a 1950's abortionist. I’m not frightened but I’m not normal.
It turns out we are early. The doctor’s daughter is off getting the piglets (that is neo-natal pigs) that will be sacrificed for my health. She arrives about an hour later in a broke down Ford pickup with a friend who stays awhile because the truck won’t start up again. The doctor is elsewhere and sends a young assistant who also claims to be a doctor.
The procedure itself is quite simple. The two piglets are slaughtered and their skulls cracked open. Their pituitary and hypothalamus glands which resemble white and pink BB’s are removed and washed. The doctor makes about a half inch long incision and inserts the four “BB’s” sub-dermicly, just beneath the skin but above muscle, in the upper arm. Two stitches, five hundred-fifty dollars and it is done.
So you say it sounds weird; I thought so too. Certainly there was a lot of anecdotal evidence to the procedure being effective. Several folks swore that it had changed their lives, to me though that simply meant that the procedure hadn’t had any negative effects or rejection problems. After all, and I do believe the saying, ‘that there is no greater proponent for the quack than his patients’. So I researched what might be happening if it does work.
The first thing one comes up with is that the preferred medication for thyroid ailments is simply dried and ground, “desiccated”, neo-natal pig glands! And of course synthetic insulin is derived from pigs and several other hormonal treatments, like those for adrenal problems, as well. Could fresh be better?
Another thing one finds is that the procedure is not new, the Chinese have been doing it for sometime now and the Mexicans for about thirty years. There is also some evidence that the Mayo Clinic has also done some experiments with this but I couldn’t find any documentation.
Though, no one would tell me exactly what they thought was going on (and I wouldn’t have understood anyway, my Spanish is non-existent), this is what I think is going on:
The pituitary and hypothalamus are the “system masters” for the whole endocrine system and most hormone creation/secretion. Pig and human glands and hormones at this level are remarkably similar. I think that the inserted glands encapsulate like a cyst between the skin and the muscle and are stimulated by the same hormones that stimulate our own glands and similarly release minuscule quantities of hormones acting like a “booster” to our own endocrine system until they finally dissolve about 5 years later. This is no different than a super long term “patch” that might be administered for birth-control or some of the new insulin administration techniques. It just might work.
It has been a week and frankly I think its working. Actually, the first day I noticed that my eye sight seemed to have cleared. My blood sugars are also near normal though my energy levels (what I had hoped to cure) seem about the same. The doctor said it takes 90 days to become fully effective, maybe I’m rushing it. Though even now it looks like about 6000 dollars a year in medications won’t be needed anymore.
Thursday, August 17, 2006
Hypothetical 4 -Aspartame Sweet Death?
I’ve never met a person who drank “diet” soda who was loosing weight: in fact, the opposite. Not only does obesity seem to be on a rampage but diabetes as well. The commonality might be aspartame. Anyway, this is the basis for my hypothetical and it would be ironic if proven in that aspartame is considered an element in the treatment of diabetes.
Aspartame has three basic components, phenylalanine, aspartic acid and methanol all three are neurotoxins and appear to cross the brain/blood barrier. This “excitotoxin” concern and resulting cancers and Alzheimer’s is the basis of most study. All three can pass directly through the stomach into the blood stream as well. Phenylalanine is an essential amino acid one of its uses is in the production of peptides in the pancreas. It is similar to and metabolizes to tyrosine with the addition of a hydroxyl tail. Aspartic acid is also one of the 20 essential amino acids and is used by the body in glucose production during gluconeogenesis primarily in the liver, though mitochondrial gluconeogenesis occurs in certain cases including diabetics. Methanol is an indirect toxin which breaks down into formic acid and formaldehyde. In addition to the toxicity, formaldehyde causes proteins to irreversibly bind to and adulterate DNA, a probable cause of cancer in the US and a known cause of cancer to the rest of the world. All three are “natural” ingredients found in most food sources, though methanol is not found naturally without mitigating ethanol present.
Curiously, aspartame, being a series of amino acids and methyl alcohol that are relatively common and of known toxicity (especially toxic overtime), studies are extremely rare and secretive. We do know that the FDA originally did not wish this product approved and much has been written about the flawed process that brought it to market (Talk about conspiracies! You’d almost think Don Rumsfeld pushed it to destroy Cuba’s economy??). The studies that exist appear to concentrate on cancer and brain chemistry. I believe that more studies need to concentrate on gastrointestinal, specifically, pancreas/duodenal effects of aspartame and its by-products. It is this chemical relationship that maybe the issue with the current epidemics.
In general manufacturers of these sweeteners say the quantities and concentrations used are so small as to be inconsequential. To this I would say, first, the sweeteners work, that is you actually think you are consuming six tablespoons of sugar in your sixteen ounce soda, second, when dealing with amino acids and proteins a little goes a long way. New exenatide drugs used to combat diabetes use injections of .02 ml or 1/3 of the .06 ml of aspartame claimed to be in a serving of diet soda. So I would presume the quantity arguments are simply romantic interpretations for the uneducated.
Another issue of safety is the “naturalness” and therefore obvious safety of the products. Most poisons are natural, radiation is natural, nature is far from harmless, though it is totally unaffected. Phenylalanine is an essential amino acid and found in proteins produced by plants. Phenylalanine is not produced by animals but is acquired by ingestion. An argument for the safety of aspartame is that eating any protein food would have a person ingesting hundreds of times the phenylalanine found in the artificially sweetener. I think this is a poor argument; it does not take into account what is required to isolate the phenylalanine from the protein if indeed the protein is metabolized to that degree nor where in the digestive process that isolation occurs, the safe guards present at that point, and the body’s purpose for that isolation. Conversely, we do know that radioactive iodine l-phenylalanine is used in cancer treatment of the pancreas because it enters the blood stream directly and is absorbed immediately by the pancreas. Phenylalanine absorption by the pancreas appears to be part of the glucose cycle, in that, from what I have read phenylalanine enters the blood stream after proteins in the duodenum are broken down. The phenylalanine is then picked up by the pancreas where it is quantified resulting in more or less insulin and prephenate enzymes as the digestive process continues. However, in the case of aspartame the amino acids are already “digested” and bypass the digestive system. In electricity this would be called a short circuit.
While phenylalanine is disrupting the pancreas, in this hypothesis, aspartic acid maybe rampaging at the liver and possibly at the cellular level in the mitochondria. I would propose that the quantities of free aspartic acid may signal starvation, flooding the system with glucose and disregarding normal gastro-intestinal signals, another short-circuit.
For some who have genetic dietary requirements this over excitement of the pancreas and liver might result in Type II diabetes. It may not be so much flawed genetics that presupposes certain flavors of diabetes but simply that the genes can’t stand up to the punishment. Type II diabetes covers a number of ailments but in general it is not insulin production but insulin tolerance that is the problem with glucose levels. The possibility of aspartame poisoning contributing to diabetic conditions certainly seems logical within my very limited understanding of chemistry and experience with pre-diabetes and diet soda.
Aspartame has three basic components, phenylalanine, aspartic acid and methanol all three are neurotoxins and appear to cross the brain/blood barrier. This “excitotoxin” concern and resulting cancers and Alzheimer’s is the basis of most study. All three can pass directly through the stomach into the blood stream as well. Phenylalanine is an essential amino acid one of its uses is in the production of peptides in the pancreas. It is similar to and metabolizes to tyrosine with the addition of a hydroxyl tail. Aspartic acid is also one of the 20 essential amino acids and is used by the body in glucose production during gluconeogenesis primarily in the liver, though mitochondrial gluconeogenesis occurs in certain cases including diabetics. Methanol is an indirect toxin which breaks down into formic acid and formaldehyde. In addition to the toxicity, formaldehyde causes proteins to irreversibly bind to and adulterate DNA, a probable cause of cancer in the US and a known cause of cancer to the rest of the world. All three are “natural” ingredients found in most food sources, though methanol is not found naturally without mitigating ethanol present.
Curiously, aspartame, being a series of amino acids and methyl alcohol that are relatively common and of known toxicity (especially toxic overtime), studies are extremely rare and secretive. We do know that the FDA originally did not wish this product approved and much has been written about the flawed process that brought it to market (Talk about conspiracies! You’d almost think Don Rumsfeld pushed it to destroy Cuba’s economy??). The studies that exist appear to concentrate on cancer and brain chemistry. I believe that more studies need to concentrate on gastrointestinal, specifically, pancreas/duodenal effects of aspartame and its by-products. It is this chemical relationship that maybe the issue with the current epidemics.
In general manufacturers of these sweeteners say the quantities and concentrations used are so small as to be inconsequential. To this I would say, first, the sweeteners work, that is you actually think you are consuming six tablespoons of sugar in your sixteen ounce soda, second, when dealing with amino acids and proteins a little goes a long way. New exenatide drugs used to combat diabetes use injections of .02 ml or 1/3 of the .06 ml of aspartame claimed to be in a serving of diet soda. So I would presume the quantity arguments are simply romantic interpretations for the uneducated.
Another issue of safety is the “naturalness” and therefore obvious safety of the products. Most poisons are natural, radiation is natural, nature is far from harmless, though it is totally unaffected. Phenylalanine is an essential amino acid and found in proteins produced by plants. Phenylalanine is not produced by animals but is acquired by ingestion. An argument for the safety of aspartame is that eating any protein food would have a person ingesting hundreds of times the phenylalanine found in the artificially sweetener. I think this is a poor argument; it does not take into account what is required to isolate the phenylalanine from the protein if indeed the protein is metabolized to that degree nor where in the digestive process that isolation occurs, the safe guards present at that point, and the body’s purpose for that isolation. Conversely, we do know that radioactive iodine l-phenylalanine is used in cancer treatment of the pancreas because it enters the blood stream directly and is absorbed immediately by the pancreas. Phenylalanine absorption by the pancreas appears to be part of the glucose cycle, in that, from what I have read phenylalanine enters the blood stream after proteins in the duodenum are broken down. The phenylalanine is then picked up by the pancreas where it is quantified resulting in more or less insulin and prephenate enzymes as the digestive process continues. However, in the case of aspartame the amino acids are already “digested” and bypass the digestive system. In electricity this would be called a short circuit.
While phenylalanine is disrupting the pancreas, in this hypothesis, aspartic acid maybe rampaging at the liver and possibly at the cellular level in the mitochondria. I would propose that the quantities of free aspartic acid may signal starvation, flooding the system with glucose and disregarding normal gastro-intestinal signals, another short-circuit.
For some who have genetic dietary requirements this over excitement of the pancreas and liver might result in Type II diabetes. It may not be so much flawed genetics that presupposes certain flavors of diabetes but simply that the genes can’t stand up to the punishment. Type II diabetes covers a number of ailments but in general it is not insulin production but insulin tolerance that is the problem with glucose levels. The possibility of aspartame poisoning contributing to diabetic conditions certainly seems logical within my very limited understanding of chemistry and experience with pre-diabetes and diet soda.
Saturday, March 18, 2006
Hypothetical #3 Global Warming, Man and Water
Hypothetical #3 Global Warming, Man and Water
I have no doubt that human activities contribute to global warming. I have personally and anecdotally observed local warming trends from the Keys of Florida to the Northwest Arctic, from Mazatlan to Gander, Australia to Chukotka and from sea level to nearly 14,000 feet. But the numbers are huge and unwieldy and proofs have yet to be seen; not that of warming, but of man’s causal relation to that warming.
I think one of the problems may be that we are looking to the wrong place. Because we burn stuff and create some 9 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide each year and graphs seem to show a correlation between CO2 and warming trends science seems to favor this as the cause. A few years ago it was deforestation of the Amazon basin and lack of winter snow cover. Probably all are contributors.
I was high in the Sierras one summer contemplating water as kinetic and thermal energy storage when the question popped out…Where is the battery for global warming? The difficulty with the CO2 model is that the infra-red reflectivity required for the model to work really requires clouds of dry-ice, like those experiments from 7th grade. It also seems to suffer from some reality problems, in that CO2 quantities are predictive in current atmospheric models as compared to actual quantities in ice core samples. The ice core samples also presume a homogeneous atmosphere rather than the climatic soup we are familiar with. Also, 9 billion tonnes a year from human sources seems like a lot, especially if you think ozone and sulfurous haze over Denver is what science is talking about, but compared to natural sources for CO2 , it is a fractional percentage. When those numbers are compared to the vast increase in biomass in the northern hemisphere, some estimates are close to 10 trillion tonnes of new growth, direct CO2 contributions to global warming seem slight. The atmosphere is also a crummy place for storing energy.
I would be the first to agree that the natural system is so complex and may be so delicate that these changes in atmosphere could indeed create the problems we see but I think there is a more insidious and counter intuitive man-made cause and that is: water works. For several thousand years we have slowly been altering the water-cycle, slowing it down and adding vast amounts of solar energy to it. I believe enough to change the balance of nature.
Today, every major river and most minor rivers and steams have been dammed, channeled and “tamed” producing solar energy “batteries” of trillions and trillions of kilo-calories of solar energy. Curiously, in northern climates these batteries are self-insulating. It is true that the fresh water part of the water cycle is just a drop in the bucket but compared to atmospheric mass it is actually significant.
This warm water has also helped warm the oceans, warmed the atmosphere, and created more “warm” biomass. It has converted “kinetic” water in glaciers, ice caps and mountain snows into more “thermal” water. Irrigation for instance is not benign; it enhances solar thermal absorption through evaporation. Similarly, we also take “kinetic” water in thermally stable aquifers and “heat” it by bringing it to the surface. As a final measure more than 90% of our energy use is involved in heating water, even non-fossil fuel sources like nuclear energy. Did you know that in your car more energy is used in heating water than in producing motion? Thermal maps of our coast show the impact of human induced warming of our oceans.
But it is probably the lakes that are the biggest change. Without a lot of help I can’t provide the numbers but here is a mental picture of just one man- made battery. At one time the Colorado River passed through Boulder Canyon. It was fast moving, a couple hundred yards wide at best and a few feet deep. It probably gave off more energy than it absorbed. Even in the middle of the desert it was really a mountain stream, clear and cold. Today at Lake Mead it is a dark deep energy sink absorbing daily billions and billions of kilo-calories of solar energy. The evaporation from the lake is millions of times greater than the historic river further disrupting the water cycle. When the hot salty remains of the Colorado reach the Sea of Cortez it further heats rather than cools the ocean. Evaporation from the heated ocean is greater as the warmed air can hold more moisture in raised saturation points and the temperatures of the entire cycle are increased. The denser atmosphere does not cycle as readily to higher levels and less energy is released to space.
I believe that human disruption of the “water-cycle” is large enough to create the kind of changes we see. It even contributes to the “greenhouse” effect in that water is a “greenhouse” gas only slightly less reflective than carbon-dioxide. This new cycle would be enhanced by carbon-dioxide in the creation of more biomass. The biomass “frees” more water and the temperatures of the entire cycle are increased.
If I am correct in this assumption the atmospheric temperatures will increase at a substantially faster rate than the CO2 model. I think we are seeing that already. In 1999 when I proposed this idea the CO2 folks model showed global temperatures significantly less than they are today. It is still my contention that substantive change will occur in years not the decades they propose.
The cure is just as hard to swallow, maybe harder because we have always assumed clean and benign with water, as giving up burning. I think results would be quicker, maybe only a generation or two to cool the planet if we blew up all the dams, stopped irrigation and pumping the aquifers.
One benefit might be a whole lot less people running around.
I have no doubt that human activities contribute to global warming. I have personally and anecdotally observed local warming trends from the Keys of Florida to the Northwest Arctic, from Mazatlan to Gander, Australia to Chukotka and from sea level to nearly 14,000 feet. But the numbers are huge and unwieldy and proofs have yet to be seen; not that of warming, but of man’s causal relation to that warming.
I think one of the problems may be that we are looking to the wrong place. Because we burn stuff and create some 9 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide each year and graphs seem to show a correlation between CO2 and warming trends science seems to favor this as the cause. A few years ago it was deforestation of the Amazon basin and lack of winter snow cover. Probably all are contributors.
I was high in the Sierras one summer contemplating water as kinetic and thermal energy storage when the question popped out…Where is the battery for global warming? The difficulty with the CO2 model is that the infra-red reflectivity required for the model to work really requires clouds of dry-ice, like those experiments from 7th grade. It also seems to suffer from some reality problems, in that CO2 quantities are predictive in current atmospheric models as compared to actual quantities in ice core samples. The ice core samples also presume a homogeneous atmosphere rather than the climatic soup we are familiar with. Also, 9 billion tonnes a year from human sources seems like a lot, especially if you think ozone and sulfurous haze over Denver is what science is talking about, but compared to natural sources for CO2 , it is a fractional percentage. When those numbers are compared to the vast increase in biomass in the northern hemisphere, some estimates are close to 10 trillion tonnes of new growth, direct CO2 contributions to global warming seem slight. The atmosphere is also a crummy place for storing energy.
I would be the first to agree that the natural system is so complex and may be so delicate that these changes in atmosphere could indeed create the problems we see but I think there is a more insidious and counter intuitive man-made cause and that is: water works. For several thousand years we have slowly been altering the water-cycle, slowing it down and adding vast amounts of solar energy to it. I believe enough to change the balance of nature.
Today, every major river and most minor rivers and steams have been dammed, channeled and “tamed” producing solar energy “batteries” of trillions and trillions of kilo-calories of solar energy. Curiously, in northern climates these batteries are self-insulating. It is true that the fresh water part of the water cycle is just a drop in the bucket but compared to atmospheric mass it is actually significant.
This warm water has also helped warm the oceans, warmed the atmosphere, and created more “warm” biomass. It has converted “kinetic” water in glaciers, ice caps and mountain snows into more “thermal” water. Irrigation for instance is not benign; it enhances solar thermal absorption through evaporation. Similarly, we also take “kinetic” water in thermally stable aquifers and “heat” it by bringing it to the surface. As a final measure more than 90% of our energy use is involved in heating water, even non-fossil fuel sources like nuclear energy. Did you know that in your car more energy is used in heating water than in producing motion? Thermal maps of our coast show the impact of human induced warming of our oceans.
But it is probably the lakes that are the biggest change. Without a lot of help I can’t provide the numbers but here is a mental picture of just one man- made battery. At one time the Colorado River passed through Boulder Canyon. It was fast moving, a couple hundred yards wide at best and a few feet deep. It probably gave off more energy than it absorbed. Even in the middle of the desert it was really a mountain stream, clear and cold. Today at Lake Mead it is a dark deep energy sink absorbing daily billions and billions of kilo-calories of solar energy. The evaporation from the lake is millions of times greater than the historic river further disrupting the water cycle. When the hot salty remains of the Colorado reach the Sea of Cortez it further heats rather than cools the ocean. Evaporation from the heated ocean is greater as the warmed air can hold more moisture in raised saturation points and the temperatures of the entire cycle are increased. The denser atmosphere does not cycle as readily to higher levels and less energy is released to space.
I believe that human disruption of the “water-cycle” is large enough to create the kind of changes we see. It even contributes to the “greenhouse” effect in that water is a “greenhouse” gas only slightly less reflective than carbon-dioxide. This new cycle would be enhanced by carbon-dioxide in the creation of more biomass. The biomass “frees” more water and the temperatures of the entire cycle are increased.
If I am correct in this assumption the atmospheric temperatures will increase at a substantially faster rate than the CO2 model. I think we are seeing that already. In 1999 when I proposed this idea the CO2 folks model showed global temperatures significantly less than they are today. It is still my contention that substantive change will occur in years not the decades they propose.
The cure is just as hard to swallow, maybe harder because we have always assumed clean and benign with water, as giving up burning. I think results would be quicker, maybe only a generation or two to cool the planet if we blew up all the dams, stopped irrigation and pumping the aquifers.
One benefit might be a whole lot less people running around.
Tuesday, March 07, 2006
Hypothetical #2 Against Mathematical Certainty
Universe, Mathematics and Physics
To even postulate on this subject requires acceptance of the veracity of certain "givens" that I am not certain are true at all.
The first is the presumption that this is a "physical" universe: it may be a meta-physical one.
The second is "universe", what a strange, meaningless term. This term is as anthro-centristic and self limiting as most explanations of existence.
The third is "mathematical certainty" upon which I base my contra contention.
It is my contention that mathematics, that language constructed to describe the physical universe (universe being a mathematical construct) may be hopelessly faulty. It is like most special languages constructed for the perpetuity of various professions and presumes to hold some, or in this case, all innate truths. Each profession holds its own special language and truths, chemistry, engineering, music or even the language of the medical or legal worlds. For mathematics that truth is the constants and laws that it applies to itself and those it applies to the physical universe.
The difficulty with accepting the constant nature of mathematics is that we must observe two things in this universe that are purely alike, or purely different if you chose, not just similar or disimilar. That is, absolutely equal not predictively equal. So far that has not been done. It may be harmful that mathematical descriptions appear to cover gross generalities, equalities, and balances of our existence. It is also a problem that the notions of proof used in mathematics are a somewhat circular argument in that to be valid the prescibed rules of the language must be followed. You can not form a mathematical proof outside of mathematics.
Logically, if the language can not be validated by observing the two purely identical existences necessary to prove the languages own notion of constant or "truth" and proofs must be limited to what may be an erroneous presumption of language; we should presume that mathematics is a faulty tool. It may like a wrench of the wrong size still loosen the bolt but at the same time cause irreparable harm to the construction.
In order to create our destiny we may need to invent a new language. This may be extremely difficult. Those that protect the sanctity of the status quo will try to belittle us or kill us. But we, our species, may die anyway if we continue down this path if we are trying to prove ourselves against the wrong model.
To me the issue is our idea of technology which is based on this mathematical model. This form of technology may actually be our demise rather than our savior, a bright lure in a bubbling stream. We need a new alternative and more precise language than mathematics to test the validity of the mathematical model and assure future generations.
Off Balance
At a time towards the end
but not nearly the end
of the last century
In the way life time is measured
two still excitable
but not quite young men
sat in the bright but dusty Ear Inn
known for its beats and poetry,
It was a Stairway to Heaven certainly,
that filled in between raucous chorus
at the moment my crayons drew
the new altar
and the new god
and, yes,
the scene filled with
acolytes and priests,
such as you and I,
in bright primary colors
and waxy black.
While you could believe,
all I perceived,
was religiosity
not mathematical certainty.
Not willing to fall upon my dagger
but doomed to be defrocked
for failure to recite the mantra.
I suspected mathematics
deals in great generalities
not in precisions and facts
And if the universe
is not meta-physical?
Then the physical has no constant
simply predictive equality
nothing proven Absolutely,
as needs be,
neither you nor I,
not dull colors or white,
not even purest black
To even postulate on this subject requires acceptance of the veracity of certain "givens" that I am not certain are true at all.
The first is the presumption that this is a "physical" universe: it may be a meta-physical one.
The second is "universe", what a strange, meaningless term. This term is as anthro-centristic and self limiting as most explanations of existence.
The third is "mathematical certainty" upon which I base my contra contention.
It is my contention that mathematics, that language constructed to describe the physical universe (universe being a mathematical construct) may be hopelessly faulty. It is like most special languages constructed for the perpetuity of various professions and presumes to hold some, or in this case, all innate truths. Each profession holds its own special language and truths, chemistry, engineering, music or even the language of the medical or legal worlds. For mathematics that truth is the constants and laws that it applies to itself and those it applies to the physical universe.
The difficulty with accepting the constant nature of mathematics is that we must observe two things in this universe that are purely alike, or purely different if you chose, not just similar or disimilar. That is, absolutely equal not predictively equal. So far that has not been done. It may be harmful that mathematical descriptions appear to cover gross generalities, equalities, and balances of our existence. It is also a problem that the notions of proof used in mathematics are a somewhat circular argument in that to be valid the prescibed rules of the language must be followed. You can not form a mathematical proof outside of mathematics.
Logically, if the language can not be validated by observing the two purely identical existences necessary to prove the languages own notion of constant or "truth" and proofs must be limited to what may be an erroneous presumption of language; we should presume that mathematics is a faulty tool. It may like a wrench of the wrong size still loosen the bolt but at the same time cause irreparable harm to the construction.
In order to create our destiny we may need to invent a new language. This may be extremely difficult. Those that protect the sanctity of the status quo will try to belittle us or kill us. But we, our species, may die anyway if we continue down this path if we are trying to prove ourselves against the wrong model.
To me the issue is our idea of technology which is based on this mathematical model. This form of technology may actually be our demise rather than our savior, a bright lure in a bubbling stream. We need a new alternative and more precise language than mathematics to test the validity of the mathematical model and assure future generations.
Off Balance
At a time towards the end
but not nearly the end
of the last century
In the way life time is measured
two still excitable
but not quite young men
sat in the bright but dusty Ear Inn
known for its beats and poetry,
It was a Stairway to Heaven certainly,
that filled in between raucous chorus
at the moment my crayons drew
the new altar
and the new god
and, yes,
the scene filled with
acolytes and priests,
such as you and I,
in bright primary colors
and waxy black.
While you could believe,
all I perceived,
was religiosity
not mathematical certainty.
Not willing to fall upon my dagger
but doomed to be defrocked
for failure to recite the mantra.
I suspected mathematics
deals in great generalities
not in precisions and facts
And if the universe
is not meta-physical?
Then the physical has no constant
simply predictive equality
nothing proven Absolutely,
as needs be,
neither you nor I,
not dull colors or white,
not even purest black
Sunday, March 05, 2006
Are we all idiots?
Whenever I hear our dear president speak I think about Lincoln and his foolin' folks. Now, here is one of the ideas being run around that has got to have the oil companies smilin' and sure has the "greenies" fooled.
First, farming is the most energy intensive of all the industries. Farmers burn and chemically use more oil than anybody else. Oil runs tractors and combines, heats kilns and water, and makes the pestisides and lubricants. Oil fuels the transports that bring food to market and seed and feed back to the farmer. Oil even packages our food and is used these days to make the feed bags.
Now the oil industry wants us to "grow" our fuel? Is this ridiculous? Somebodies perpetual motion machine?
The other weird thing I heard was that somehow these non-fossil fuels were "green". Now don't get me wrong if we have to burn stuff I think burnin' french fry oil from McD's or fish heads from the cannining plant is well and good...but if those that say CO2 is the #1 "greenhouse" gas are correct; you are probably gonna get even more CO2 burnin' less efficient fuels. That is, where there is fire there is smoke, to reverse an old adage.
Stop using burning as the method of generating energy if you want to stop CO2 as a greenhouse gas...from a global stand point Willie and George there isn't anything "green" about "bio-diesel" or ethanol in fact it may be the opposite, except the "green backs" for certain constituents.
First, farming is the most energy intensive of all the industries. Farmers burn and chemically use more oil than anybody else. Oil runs tractors and combines, heats kilns and water, and makes the pestisides and lubricants. Oil fuels the transports that bring food to market and seed and feed back to the farmer. Oil even packages our food and is used these days to make the feed bags.
Now the oil industry wants us to "grow" our fuel? Is this ridiculous? Somebodies perpetual motion machine?
The other weird thing I heard was that somehow these non-fossil fuels were "green". Now don't get me wrong if we have to burn stuff I think burnin' french fry oil from McD's or fish heads from the cannining plant is well and good...but if those that say CO2 is the #1 "greenhouse" gas are correct; you are probably gonna get even more CO2 burnin' less efficient fuels. That is, where there is fire there is smoke, to reverse an old adage.
Stop using burning as the method of generating energy if you want to stop CO2 as a greenhouse gas...from a global stand point Willie and George there isn't anything "green" about "bio-diesel" or ethanol in fact it may be the opposite, except the "green backs" for certain constituents.
Sunday, February 26, 2006
Another try...
It is the six month anniversary of my last rejection for a grant from the Rasmuson Foundation. I am a firm believer that art like gold is where you find it. But I continue to mine this hole regardless.
Anyway...here is my idea for this terms bi-annual rejection...here cruel world:
Title: Barista!
Project Type: photographic essay
The coffee ritual in Alaska has transcended the mundane and become art. It may be because we have longer and shorter days or perhaps more emotional vampires than other locales, but, I believe truth is because the under-class, composed primarily of young single woman who have chosen this profession, have made it “full of art”.
Not so dissimilar to the mythical geisha of Japan, though success is based on raw talent rather than elaborate training and tradition, the Alaskan Barista fills a social and cultural need without which I truly believe Alaskan society would stumble. Obviously, it is not the coffee, a staple available in one’s home, nor the curious and quaint huts and shops, perhaps artistic and worthy of study like the “Doors of San Francisco”, but like those doors, if they could be opened and blossom, would allow the flowing fragrant souls behind them to be seen. We would have a truly valuable insight into the ceremony of daily life. It is the same with the trailers of joe: the enacted sacrament.
We know that the art is no more the java than to a Japanese tea, rather, it is the control and gift of the interaction between patron and patroness. In this project I capture that moment of emotion that our danzarina has tailored for that particular client that leaps across the bar or out the sliding window and fills the brief encounter, much as Mozart fills a measure or Gauguin fills a brush.
As a photographer, my art is indeed secondary, but like grand Henri, to chronicle artistically the artistic interaction (and I have chosen M. de Toulouse Lautrec specifically because the subjects and issues are so related and the faces nearly of the same family!) that a meta-art of intertwining beauty is created.
Anyway...here is my idea for this terms bi-annual rejection...here cruel world:
Title: Barista!
Project Type: photographic essay
The coffee ritual in Alaska has transcended the mundane and become art. It may be because we have longer and shorter days or perhaps more emotional vampires than other locales, but, I believe truth is because the under-class, composed primarily of young single woman who have chosen this profession, have made it “full of art”.
Not so dissimilar to the mythical geisha of Japan, though success is based on raw talent rather than elaborate training and tradition, the Alaskan Barista fills a social and cultural need without which I truly believe Alaskan society would stumble. Obviously, it is not the coffee, a staple available in one’s home, nor the curious and quaint huts and shops, perhaps artistic and worthy of study like the “Doors of San Francisco”, but like those doors, if they could be opened and blossom, would allow the flowing fragrant souls behind them to be seen. We would have a truly valuable insight into the ceremony of daily life. It is the same with the trailers of joe: the enacted sacrament.
We know that the art is no more the java than to a Japanese tea, rather, it is the control and gift of the interaction between patron and patroness. In this project I capture that moment of emotion that our danzarina has tailored for that particular client that leaps across the bar or out the sliding window and fills the brief encounter, much as Mozart fills a measure or Gauguin fills a brush.
As a photographer, my art is indeed secondary, but like grand Henri, to chronicle artistically the artistic interaction (and I have chosen M. de Toulouse Lautrec specifically because the subjects and issues are so related and the faces nearly of the same family!) that a meta-art of intertwining beauty is created.
Saturday, February 25, 2006
Infinity, Chaos, Randomness,and, of course, Ignorance
My first hypothetical, the one that has been driving me crazy since childhood is:
Infinity, Chaos, and Randomness
It is my contention that these do not exist except as markers of ignorance, and, that is their only value. In essence, as understanding increases the bounds of infinity are moved to new borders of superstition. There aren’t an infinite number of grains of sand on the beach at Genoa, nor, an infinite number of stars and, doubtfully, an infinite number of angels on the head of a pin.
To accept any of these concepts as mathematical certainties converts the law of “cause and effect”, to theory. Thus, it should be unacceptable in practice in Newtonian, Einsteinian or quantum physics, to refer to these concepts as other than place holders. Only in certain irrational numbers such as Pi is infinity observable in the natural universe and even here intuition holds that a culminating number exists; since we continue to search for it.
Similarly, chaos and randomness can not be observed in nature, rather systems are invariably proven to be sequential results of cause regardless of size or scale, though we may choose to call them random or chaotic for convenience. This may be a disservice to both current and future inquisitors in that accepting such convenience may preclude or ignore reality delaying truth: as in accepting the will of God precluded finding a cause and therefore a cure for Black Death.
Infinity, Chaos, and Randomness
It is my contention that these do not exist except as markers of ignorance, and, that is their only value. In essence, as understanding increases the bounds of infinity are moved to new borders of superstition. There aren’t an infinite number of grains of sand on the beach at Genoa, nor, an infinite number of stars and, doubtfully, an infinite number of angels on the head of a pin.
To accept any of these concepts as mathematical certainties converts the law of “cause and effect”, to theory. Thus, it should be unacceptable in practice in Newtonian, Einsteinian or quantum physics, to refer to these concepts as other than place holders. Only in certain irrational numbers such as Pi is infinity observable in the natural universe and even here intuition holds that a culminating number exists; since we continue to search for it.
Similarly, chaos and randomness can not be observed in nature, rather systems are invariably proven to be sequential results of cause regardless of size or scale, though we may choose to call them random or chaotic for convenience. This may be a disservice to both current and future inquisitors in that accepting such convenience may preclude or ignore reality delaying truth: as in accepting the will of God precluded finding a cause and therefore a cure for Black Death.
What I am gonna do....
I have wondered how to make use of my “blog” and have come up with the notion of publishing my hypothesis.
Now for those of you who don’t know what a hypotheses is…well it’s an unproven argument based on logic or an observation. It is not a theory but all theories start with a hypothesis to which is added a little bit of proof.
Best, a hypotheses is like magic in that they begin with wonder, or that is, I wonder?
I have a lot of hypothetical questions that rattle around in my mind. I can never answer them. But what, like the alchemist of past days, no one else knows the question exists? With out question the path to discovery never begins.
So I’m going to throw these notions out on the world and hope the Stephen Hawking or some other player with the universal balls of string will answer these arguments. At least come forth and tell me why they are silly so that my brain could be put to more useful purposes like weeding carrots in the Matanuska soil.
Now for those of you who don’t know what a hypotheses is…well it’s an unproven argument based on logic or an observation. It is not a theory but all theories start with a hypothesis to which is added a little bit of proof.
Best, a hypotheses is like magic in that they begin with wonder, or that is, I wonder?
I have a lot of hypothetical questions that rattle around in my mind. I can never answer them. But what, like the alchemist of past days, no one else knows the question exists? With out question the path to discovery never begins.
So I’m going to throw these notions out on the world and hope the Stephen Hawking or some other player with the universal balls of string will answer these arguments. At least come forth and tell me why they are silly so that my brain could be put to more useful purposes like weeding carrots in the Matanuska soil.
Sunday, January 01, 2006
Your New Year
I don't know why but January 1st has never been my New Year. I vacillate between Solstice and St. Stephen's day, depending on my mood, as the beginning of the next year. It is a sign of my Age that I even know what St. Stephen's day is, or my view of the language that it has nothing to do with boxing though a goodly number of English speakers would disagree.
My New Year's greeting for December 22 this year and your New Year this day:
The bent shoulders of sacred Matanuska
seem relieved of trial and tribulation
as they begin to glow
first bloody red
then bolder and golden
in the auspicious first light
of our sun’s northern new year
That moment in the revolution
most filled with promise and prospect
where the expression of time
past, fleeting, and to be
is re-equated in the glory of it all
Hearts beat anticipation
not regarding the eons
that visited the mountain
with new light
And so our friends and loves
…and your friends and loves too
…and most especially those not befriended
and perhaps unaware of love
It is our deepest desire
that the light finds you,
peace and understanding
furthers our kind,
that potentates, prophets, and rulers
bend and bow to love and truth,
disarm their warriors,
refuse evil ways
and trade their unwise power for prosperity and charity
for all the worlds
with new light
Love to all,
My New Year's greeting for December 22 this year and your New Year this day:
The bent shoulders of sacred Matanuska
seem relieved of trial and tribulation
as they begin to glow
first bloody red
then bolder and golden
in the auspicious first light
of our sun’s northern new year
That moment in the revolution
most filled with promise and prospect
where the expression of time
past, fleeting, and to be
is re-equated in the glory of it all
Hearts beat anticipation
not regarding the eons
that visited the mountain
with new light
And so our friends and loves
…and your friends and loves too
…and most especially those not befriended
and perhaps unaware of love
It is our deepest desire
that the light finds you,
peace and understanding
furthers our kind,
that potentates, prophets, and rulers
bend and bow to love and truth,
disarm their warriors,
refuse evil ways
and trade their unwise power for prosperity and charity
for all the worlds
with new light
Love to all,
Monday, October 31, 2005
Truth?
I have lived most of my life in tiny villages. Yes, I was born in a major city and spent 5 years in the heart of Manhattan but most of my time has been in little places like Embudo, New Mexico or Nichols, New York or Cockeysville, Maryland. I have also a few years in larger towns like Kotzebue, Alaska. I only bring this up because of vetting, to let you know I have experienced and may be an expert on the issues I have witnessed.
The concern is, "What is truth?" It is certainly not immutable, at least not where people are involved. It does seem to have something to do with perceived reality, belief, and trust and little to do with proof or knowlege.
The concern is, "What is truth?" It is certainly not immutable, at least not where people are involved. It does seem to have something to do with perceived reality, belief, and trust and little to do with proof or knowlege.
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