2012 was not a good year

The year of our Lord 2012 had moments of joy and moments of despair. Blogging was fun and often an intellectual challenge but the worst part of the year was having to talk about pets and family who have gone before us. The Bible tells us that they are preparing the way for us when our turn comes to join them and while I have no idea of the truth behind that statement but it does give solace to a grieving soul and eases the sorrow that comes when we lose a beloved family member.

Le Conteur lost her stepfather at age 102 this month and we had the misfortune to lose 2 cats and 2 dogs within a short period. What made it especially hard is that 4 of those 5 deaths occurred in a 6 week period and that's an emotional overload I wouldn't wish on any one.

2013 has got to be better.

New Year's will be bittersweet for us. Separated by disaster deployment Le Conteur and I will share the celebration over the phone, talk sadly about our losses, view the political future with alarm but cherish the memories of family that have gone before us. The new year always offers hope and we will accept that hope as an opportunity.

Christmas as a continuing philosophy

Being on deployment with FEMA brings with it long work days, no days off, motel rooms and on the fly dining. My secret for keeping my sanity while dealing with the stresses of being away from home for extended periods and not eating a good diet is to organize my life as much as possible and to keep to a schedule, bearing in mind that I’ll take advantage of any free time that presents.

Christmas day was one of our non-working days so I had free time, I decided to start the day by catching up with laundry chores and briefcase consolidation…just the thing to do on a holiday. So at 5 AM I took a load of laundry and went down to the hotel facility before there was a rush on the limited number of washers and driers. As I passed through the lobby I saw a young couple sleeping on one of the couches (and the floor). Apparently the innkeeper had allowed them to crash for the night and they both looked like they needed the comfort of a warm and protected place to lay their heads. In addition when they arose a short while later I saw that the young lady was pregnant and obviously due within a matter of days.

I’m not sure if the innkeeper was aware of the symbolism of giving cover to a weary family on a day we celebrate when another innkeeper two thousand years ago allowed a travel worn couple to occupy his available space. But she followed a long religious tradition and gave shelter to a couple in need.

Here was proof that kindness is eternal and an affirmation that the story of Christmas is one that can always be repeated.

The difficult question

Every time a deranged individual shoots up the enemies of his imagination there is great hue and cry that guns are the problem and that guns must be banned. Of course there is always the counter argument that guns are necessary for defense against those who would do an otherwise defenseless group great and grievous harm.

Both arguments miss the point that in all recent cases of mass murder that the actor was an asocial, reclusive individual who was considered by his peers to be “strange” and who culminated his moment of fame by killing himself. The media should be ashamed of itself for the depth and scope of attention it pays to evil entities. Their moment of glory style of reporting encourages other sad souls to emulate the event so that they too can be known and feared. The media feasts on such events and seems to knowingly encourage alienated individuals to do the same since the media lives and dies on such events.

                

Nobody seems to be willing to point out that the root cause of horrific crimes by troubled individuals is that we have too few treatment centers for those who should be in treatment. Forty years ago a loose consortium of mental health practitioners and lawyers persuaded state legislators that it is wrong to institutionalize those who have difficulties coping with society. They proposed that mental hospitals be closed so that the inmates could be placed back in society so they could learn how to cope. This argument neatly sidesteps the issue that it was the individual’s inability to cope that is the cause of their problem.

Politicians loved the argument for closing mental health facilities since it empowered them to close expensive programs and threw the cost back on local communities who, in turn, were unable or unwilling to fund local outpatient treatment centers that are necessary if we no longer have mental health hospitals available. The end result is that we as a society have alienated people wandering the streets, sleeping on grates and doing embarrassing things in public. The police have become the de facto care givers for the mentally handicapped and in the county I live in the Sheriff estimates that more than a third of his jail population should be in active and controlled treatment regimes that he is unable to provide.

                                

Let me be clear on one point. There is no way we can identify the small number of potential violent individuals from the mass of people who have friends and neighbors that call them “strange”. As a society we need to recognize that society is a collection of opinions and personalities that together make the whole and that as individuals we must honor the truth that other opinions are as valid as our own. The problem occurs when we fail to recognize that the other opinion might also be injurious to society as a whole. Identification and treatment of potential offenders is a slippery slope and the libertarian in me sees great danger in identifying “potential” asocial behavior. That is a giant first step to totalitarian authority and I want no part of that. I’m trying to decide in my own mind how we as a society can deal with this problem and the only thing I know is that any decision has got to be made by the social group and not by politicians and vested interested parties.

Life in the trenches

Many of you know that in addition to my regular job I’m a reservist with FEMA and can be deployed on short notice to disasters anywhere in the country.  It should not come as a surprise to learn that I’m assisting in the recovery effort after “Super Storm Sandy”. It was (and is) a natural disaster that effected many people and wiped out more than a few. Since I’m working in the heart of the damaged area of New York I’ve been able to observe how people react in the heart of democratic liberalism, it is a people watchers holy grail with lots of stories. As I drive down the road leading to my work I can easily identify flooded houses by the height of the mud line on the walls of the buildings and also identify the social philosophy of the residents by the status of the contents of the house that are thrown into a ragged pile in front of the house.

Without knowing the people who are living in the house I do know that if I don’t see anything in front of the house and the sidewalk is swept that the resident is probably physically fit and takes pride in the house. The drowned contents of the house have been disposed of and the family is busy rebuilding their lives. But if the contents of the damaged house are piled on the street without any attempt to remove them I know that the residents believe that the function of society is to clean up after them and to take care of their needs as soon as they are expressed. I see lots of those houses here in New York.

There is a subset of these houses where the ruined artifacts of personal life have been bagged and while the pile is untidy it is at least contained and not blowing across the roadway in the wind. In my experience the residents of this house are older and have enough life experience to try to present a clean face to the public while they wait for the community to pick up their trash. I know my observations are generalities, but they are often affirmed when I meet with clients on a face to face basis.

The tidy homeowners show me pictures of their house and the neatness of their sidewalk is repeated by the efficiency of interior demolition and repair. They are most often over age fifty but a percentage of them are in their early twenties. As they talk with me I hear terms such as “I can do it myself” and “I’m better off than so many others” and I know that these are self-reliant people who will endure what nature and government has done to them and that they will prevail. They represent the past and, hopefully, our future.

I find it sad however; those when they want to express an opinion that might be negative or political they generally look around, lean forward and softly express themselves as if afraid to be overheard by those who might not agree with them. They have learned by experience that those who disagree with them do not hesitate to express their disagreement ferociously.

In contrast to those who help themselves I talked recently with a person of the male gender who demanded that I tell him why the local government was not informing him personally of local air quality. After all, he is a tax payer and he has children and he needs to know because of the children. When I pointed him towards local health and environmental agencies he scoffed and told me that air quality should be a federal concern and why didn’t FEMA keep him informed! I have to admit that I was irritated by his obnoxious attitude, supercilious behavior and total unconcern with anything other than his issue. So when I asked him about the air quality in the house he wanted to store his kids I was heatedly informed that it was the government’s job to clean and repair his house and why weren’t we doing our job. I could only imagine the condition of his house is in when it is about six weeks after being flooded and without any effort being made to man up and do the job men are supposed to do without expecting others to do it for them.

This particular “gentleman” was not the least bit hesitant in expressing his thoughts and opinions about everything except his own responsibilities. A year from, when the reality of this administration’s economic, social and political decisions are apparent I wonder what he will have to say then. 

The work I'm doing

What you are looking at is an oil tanker, small and designed to move oil along the coast and up the canals and rivers that line the east coast. The oil that escaped when Sandy drove this ship onshore is minuscule compared to the thousands of residential oil tanks that were flooded, upset or floated away when Sandy came to visit.

When there is a flood a little bit of oil goes a very long way. Just a gallon can cover almost an acre and the the stain and odor are almost impossible to remove. There are areas in the county I'm working in where the odor of oil has forced people out of their homes. Since the average household oil tank holds about 300 gallons and if the statisticians are correct most of the tanks were within 50 gallons of being full, the amount of oil released is staggering.

In addition to helping people cope with the sheer destruction of their property I also have to talk to them on how to cope with a hazmat situation and sympathize with them while telling them that it's a very expensive process to contain and mitigate an oil spill and that their town (which is usually broke) has to initiate and coordinate the effort.

It is a simple matter to tie down a fuel tank and minimize the potential of any disaster creating a far worse situation. Go to www.fema.gov and read the literature that describes many ways you can protect you home from the ravages of violent nature. Who knows...you might not have to talk with me if disaster hits your area.

L'Envoi Again

Just last week I wrote about a beloved cat that had died and left us to join friends in the Elysian Fields. Over the years Le Contour and I have hosted many pets, primarily cats and at one time we had 7 cats that kept us honest and on our best behavior.

With the loss of Shiloh we were down to one cat…an opinionated termagant of a Maine Coon Cat that came to us some 18 years ago as a homeless and feral kitten living behind a Thai restaurant and living on scraps and crickets. We managed to capture her and after much discussion she agreed to allow us to fed, house and love her. In time she grew comfortable with the way her life had changed and even moved with us from Washington State to Kansas when the job called and we relocated to fly over country.

Tamarin was a unique lady; opinionated, stubborn and talkative; but when she accepted you, she was up in your face affectionate. All too soon her early life caught up with her and her kidneys started to fail. This morning Le Contour was told it was time to help Tamarin cross the Rainbow Bridge. She has to face this task alone since I’m a thousand miles away on a FEMA deployment and I’m not there to grieve with My Lady

A solitary Scotch will be consumed tonight to honor a special friend:

                   Tamarin    1996   2012

L'Envoi

On a warm spring day in 1990 a lady came into our lives. Born behind a bar in Louisiana and suffering from a septal heart defect a palm sized kitten allowed us to take her in care and because she was herself decided that she could easily bend us to her needs. Shiloh as never a big cat, the most she ever weighed was four pounds, and most of that was heart. If you were stressed she knew just how to apply purr therapy and if you were bad, discipline was sure to follow. Even the humans were subject to her decisions and she never played favorites.

If there is such a thing as continuity of life our tiny warrior queen has to have been an Irish cop patrolling the streets of Old New York. She knew what was right and didn't hesitate to tell you when you didn't abide by her code of conduct. She was an Iron Lady in a cat's coat.

When a new pet came into our house it was Shiloh who would take them in charge, show them where the litter box was located, decide where they would eat and remind them that even though she was the smallest of cats our house was her house and that her rules were to be followed. Period.

When we brought dogs into the family Shiloh would sigh, shrug and take on the task of training them and molding them into the Shiloh way of household management. Except for litter box training of the dogs she was always successful and was a Lilliputian queen in a Brodbignian house.

A few days ago she decided that 23 years was sufficient and it was time to cross the Rainbow Bridge. She was our companion and friend and we miss her terribly.

In Defense

The media, and the blog, has been full of finger pointing, handwringing and trenchant commentary concerning the “failure” of FEMA to save the people of New York and New Jersey when Sandy came to visit. The commentators all complain that the feds didn’t plan for this response, failed to respond in a timely fashion, took too long to get on scene, couldn’t keep the water out and didn’t get the electricity turned back on in a timely fashion.

Although I realize FEMA has many shortcomings I have to stand in defense of an agency that I work for on a part time basis. Yes, I said part time since about 85% of the people on the FEMA rolls are Reservists who commit to being available on little or no notice when disaster strikes. They have myriad skills and bring lots talent to the table, but it takes time to gather several thousand people from around the country, provide them with physical space to work from at a multitude of locations scattered around the disaster area. And FEMA has to do this while working around the failures and mistakes  caused by local politicians who ignored their constituents and their emergency planners who pointed out the dangers of failure to plan for disaster.

Just as the New Orleans flooding was initiated by the failure of a local levee whose repair had been urged for decades and whose repair was ignored by the local politicians who had “more important places to spend their money”. The tidal surge flooding caused by Sandy was made worse by the failure of politicians to heed warnings by professional staff, both local and federal, that extreme weather conditions would cause flooding. Sea walls were not raised, people were not urged to get flood insurance and infrastructure was not protected. FEMA doesn’t operate the electrical grid or run the subway and while it can tell the operators of those things the public depends on of steps necessary to protect the system it does not have the power to force people and institutions to provide for their own protection.

FEMA is there to help you plan for disaster, but only if you want their help, they are also charged with providing assistance to those who have been injured by the disaster. The can not make you whole, they can only help you get back to the position you were in the day before the disaster.  But they can’t respond until requested by the authorities at local and state level and that takes time before FEMA can legally enter the scene, those reservists don’t appear out of nowhere, they have to be found by skill set and directed to travel to the disaster site. FEMA can "lean forward" but util the signal is given they can't be there in full force.

So whose fault is it that “FEMA was slow to respond”, it’s all our fault. It’s the fault of residents for depending on someone else to think and plan and to protect them from their own failure to consider their environment and plan for survival. It’s the failure of local utilities for keep their assets resilient and protected. It’s the failure of politicians at all levels of government to ignore potential disaster and to short change and defund the very people they blame when things go wrong. And it’s your and my fault for letting it happen.

Forgotten

On 11 September 2012 Chris Stevens, a career diplomat and American Ambassador was killed in the line of duty. He died while doing his job and defending American interests in a very dangerous place.

Since then there has been a lot of talk concerning the action, or better said the inaction of the administration, and the public has been told nothing of substance as to why Mr. Stevens died. Usually when an ambassador dies the administration honors the individual with a formal funeral and (often) a medal honoring their service. But as a career State Department Officer he apparently didn't rate any recognition. Since he was not a mega donor to the party and not a political appointee he was a non person to the Secretary of State and the administration, and nobody saw fit to honor an honorable man.

There has been no public recognition other than a private memorial service in San Francisco last month and an equally private service in DC at a time yet to be determined. In fact there has been no public recognition and even his burial was shunned by the administration.

They should be ashamed of themselves but I suspect they have no shame and no sense of honor.

Consequences

It’s a basic law of physics that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction and it affects each and every one of us when we do anything that requires the expenditure of energy. Of equal importance is a basic law of social interaction that is usually described as “The Law of Unintended Consequences”. Pass a law, promulgate a regulation and you usually find that some of the results are not what you wanted them to be. In the name of public protection a series of privacy laws were enacted over the past few years by social progressives who believe we, as individuals are incapable of providing for our own well being and are unable to comprehend the business of individual responsibility.

We run a business, and have financial accounts that reflect the activity and solvency of the business and let us know how effective our labor is. They also provide information that we use to keep the tax authorities happy when they come to collect their portion of the gains we accrued from our labor.

Recently we were asked by a niece and nephew who are relocating to another state to keep a general oversight on their local house which they intend to keep for income generation. Property Management is a new game for us, but they are family and family should be there to help as necessary. So we set up an account for the new endeavor and immediately fell into the trap created when politicians try their hand at social engineering. The account has to be electronically available to us for management purposes and to the niece and nephew for oversight and occasional transaction processing. And that is why we have a situation caused by misguided legislation.

Creating the account was easy, bank procedures are direct and it is in their best interest to handle our account in a business manner. But when we come to transferring monies between accounts we are told that the family, who now live several states away have to provide valid address information (Is a water bill valid identification?) and must provide that in person and only at the financial site where we established the account.  In addition the regulations are unclear if the valid address is the old address, the new address or our business address.

Until such time as the bank regulators decide what information they want and how they want it presented we are unable to move funds electronically but instead must travel to our branch bank and manually move our money between our accounts. The extra effort and frustration of having to move our own money makes a mockery of the theory of efficiency in government and making  life easier for the masses.

I eagerly anticipate the fun times when the government centralizes and automates the national health care system.

Growing old with the children

Several months ago we lost a service dog that had been with us for most of his 22 years. He was an expert in reading people, identifying their emotional issue and letting the person know that help was there for them and that all problems are solvable. We had to replace him in our lives, but we knew that any replacement would bring their own personality to the job. Our search for a replacement service animal ended with two replacement dogs that joined with two other dogs in our household. All our household companions are rescued animals and training them is an interesting process that focuses on persuading them that they want to do the job they are being considered for.

Our oldest service animal is now retired, sleeping a lot and keeping the food bowls clean for the other guys. The working senior is an 8 year old Papillion who will culminate her training by becoming a cadaver search dog. What to train the two new dogs for has been a challenge since small dogs fill a special working niche that bigger animals sometimes don’t do well at.  Right now it looks like the older of the pair, a 6 year old Papillion will need lots of work before certifying as a Search and Rescue animal and the baby of the family is a 4 month old Long hair Chihuahua who already has told us she wants to be an emotional support animal for disaster responders.

As working animals we depend on them to be responsive to our commands, but able to reason and perform on their own. Sometimes this backfires and we learn that small animals can cause big concerns.

Yesterday we let them run the yard and they managed to find perhaps the one unsecured area in the fence that allowed them to run free and cause their humans a few moments of deep concern (or should that be “terror”?). It started with a phone call from a motorist who had seen two of the dogs running through a school yard, managed to corral one and get our contact information off her harness. The second dog ran away, but as we saw him looking very lost and scared and when he saw us his attitude seemed to be “where did you go to? I’m lost and I’m glad you found me.

The last member of the escape party was nowhere to be found and we were concerned about the survivability of a two pound Chihuahua in a land populated with coyotes. Fortunately I decided to walk a small drainage area and found the culprit in short order, and had to endure a complete face wash and a complaint that we had gone away and left her alone in the wilderness.

Needless to say, all the miscreants are presently on short leash probation and remedial training on close to home and the humans has started. The humans have also improved the dog proofing of the yard and are considering locater collars.

A mediators dream

The art of being a mediator was brought home to me recently when I coached a class of mediator trainees through the process of going from dispute to resolution. As a mediator you have to be able to see both sides of the issue, visualize where a solution to the issue might be found and guide the parties towards that goal. In the end they will believe that they have come up with the solution and are usually eager to settle the dispute.

It's fun work most of the time...but it does require that you present yourself as a neutral and be willing to listen to both sides with out taking sides.

But, back to my trainees. Many of them were practicing attorneys and their hardest job is to forget that as an attorney they are advocates and are trained to view events in as negative a light as possible. They are also unfamiliar with dealing with two (or more parties) representing differing viewpoints, with them in the middle. Almost every one of them found that it was hard work to accomplish the goal of resolving a dispute without taking sides, and I noticed the younger attorneys were able to make the transition easier than the attorneys with long time experience as a advocate, but they were willing to try!.

Too bad we couldn't require any one running for public office to be trained as a mediator before they can assume office. It might make for a better political process and it would certainly provide for a happier electorate.

The system and its players

Old NFO (see the sidebar for a link) wrote a blog entry about a conversation he overheard while on a flight back to DC. The lady seated behind him was bragging about the ways she is scamming the system to the tune of about $4,000 a month. He describes the conversation much better than I can and just thinking about what the lady is doing makes me angry.

I know more than a few people who have been on welfare of one form or another and in fact I have collected unemployment after losing a job because I was too old for my boss to tolerate. From experience I know there are people who will game the system just because it’s there but I also know that there are lots more people who believe in the system and try to live up to the rules and regulations. Unfortunately, just as there is 47% of the population that pays no income tax at all I think that much of that population is also abusing the welfare system.

From my perspective the system is broken because the welfare industry and the politicians who enable them want a significant part (if not a majority) of the population to be dependant on the government and who are a dependable pool of tame voters…at least for as long as the politicians maintain a political system that lets people vote the political class into office.

Perhaps indicative of the “state of the system” is a comment I read recently where the writer was approached as he walked towards a supermarket and asked if he wanted to buy $50 worth of food stamps for $30 and was told when he declined and tried to give the young lady $5 that “That isn’t anywhere near enough”. The implication of that public (and illegal) act and the public perception that cheating the system is ok disturbs me, and short of creating forced labor pools from the ranks of welfare recipients I can see no solution to the problem of welfare cheating.

Helping members of society that have hit a rough spot in life is a critical and essential part of our social heritage but I think the time has come for us to reevaluated the current welfare model and require those in receipt of benefits to not only contribute back to the labor pool but also pay (however little) taxes on the benefits received and income earned. Zero income; pay no taxes…anything more than that and you owe taxes.

Additional Thoughts

I have no doubt in my mind that a religion that makes possession of a Christian Bible or the act of talking to others about Christianity (or any other religion) a capitol offense is not for me. I also believe that half the world's population has merit and worth and I cannot agree with a religion that treats its women as chattel has anything to persuade me of its value.
In short I stand by the thoughts I expressed in my last post. Islam is a chancre on the world and I want nothing to do with it. But at the same time I know that there are many people who try to live the core values of Islam. That peace and fellowship is a goal that all can reach were it not for the extremists. Fortunately some of them are willing to stand up and tell their coreligionists how they feel. I appreciate what they are doing and say "thank you for trying to bring sense to this crazy time"

Eleven Years

The thought expressed in the picture above might be harsh, but I can't forget the events of that day were caused by the followers of a radical Islamic cult that claims to represent mainstream Muslim thought. In the 11 years that have passed I have yet to hear any mainstream or moderate follower of that 6th century religion stand up and condemn the architect and actors of that terrible day. By their failure to protest they have admitted that the actions of some have earned the approval of the majority.

Instead of action to assure that America helps the enemy reap the results of their evil act I see this administration ink a deal for the sale of 125 American Main Battle Tanks with the government of Egypt, a government that condemns the very existence of Israel and who will most likely use those tanks to attack their neighbor country just because they don't approve of their religion!

I'm not cynical...I'm disappointed in our country and its present leaders!

Enthusiasm

Last month we added two new dogs to our family with a plan to train both of them as service animals. Based on individual personality it’s our hope that one of them will become a disaster recovery dog who will assist first responders dealing with their emotions during both rescue and recovery phases of disaster. It’s a tough job for a dog…being squeezed, cried over and listening to terrible secrets whispered in its ear by strangers but the dog we think will do the job is following in the footsteps (pawsteps?) of a brilliant and mostly self trained dog who left us earlier this year.

Our volunteer for this job is a mixed long hair dachshund, Papillion female who loves to be around people and thinks her job is to be part of your life. Amber is less than three months old so we have a lot of training to do, but like most dogs of that mix of breeds she is a fast learner and also eager to teach us what she thinks we need to do to make her life more fun. She is a three pound bottle of enthusiasm that fizzes up and bubbles over at odd moments and thinks all things are there for her to play with.

Sometimes her targets don’t want to play. Last night for example we heard our oldest dog (who is blind and is in liver failure) whining because the pup had her by the hind leg and was pulling her into the other room so they could play without interference by the humans. All Abbie wanted to do was take a well deserved nap and she really wanted us to rescue her from this small, bouncing energy source that was making life difficult.  Because she is blind she didn’t know where to bite so she had to call on her humans to rescue her.

A training moment followed and much discussion ensued on ways to channel this energy without modifying the enthusiasm we need Amber to bring to the job.

I see many stories in the future.

New Dog

Every household needs a new dog occasionally. I know that there are lots of people who wouldn't consider having a pet and there are some who think only cats are appropriate pets. But for me the only criteria in having a pet is that you treat them as rational thinking four legged friends. Not as dumb animals who can be ignored or mistreated at will...do that and you will be no friend of mine.

But I have to admit that having a new puppy sometimes makes me wonder if it's worth the extra work. Shortly after we acquired a 6 year old Papillion we had a chance to be adopted by an 8 week old Long Hair Chihuahua / Papillion mix and rapidly found we were being maneuvered by a 3 pound bundle of energy who knows that the best way to get her way is to jump in your lap and flash her eyes until you melt.

But Amber makes up for her manipulate skills with her self training skills. She watched us working with the other dogs and without any urging from us she now understands the simple commands of come and stop and appears more than willing to learn all service dog commands and skills we want to teach her.

Like all rescued dogs she also seems to know that she has lucked out and now has a home for life, with warm beds, good food and lots of opportunity to train her humans. Having a new dog, with all its responsibilities is also keeping us young and active...to the extent I'm feeling positively middle aged again.

Dogs Best Friend

A while back we lost our alpha male dog at the tender age of 22. Jean Luc was a Service Dog who specialized in helping first responders deal with the tensions and issues that come to those who deal with disaster. He had a special skill in recognizing people who were trying to deal with stress and not having a very easy time of it. He would walk up to an individual and tell them that they needed to give him a hug and tell him what was bothering them and they would always pick him up and talk with him until they felt able to once more to go back out to the field with renewed confidence in their ability to help others.

After losing our friend we have been looking for a replacement service animal knowing full well that whoever tried to fill Jean Luc's paws had a serious goal in mind. We searched a lot of sources, looked at and rejected a number of candidates for a lot of reasons and within a week's period found two dogs that might become the support service dog we have in mind.

JL was a mixed Papillon  and Long Hair Chihuahua so we were looking for someone in that breed range. What we found was a pure Papillon who is active, intelligent, eager to learn and protective of his selected handler (who just happens to be My Lady). A few days later we were selected by a Heinz 27 cog who is mostly Long Hair Chihuahua with something else that has resulted in a young lady who is eager, thoughtful, empathetic and eager to be your special friend.

It's early times so we don't know how they are going to turn out, but we have high hopes and grand goals. Between these two dogs and a slightly older dog who currently allows us to feed and honor her we hope to to gain a service support dog who will be available to work with first responders at disasters and (if the training takes) a cadaver dog we can use in support of law enforcement and for search and rescue.

Stayed tuned for I think we are in for interesting times and fascinating stories as we try to create special additions to our family.

It's a nice dream

I was in Pennsylvania last year when the sex scandal at the University became public knowledge and I had a chance to read the indictment laying out the State’s case. I was appalled by the actions of the assistant football coach (who’s name I don’t want to mention) but more disturbed by the inaction of the University when the case was brought to their attention several years previously. As bad as the criminal acts were the fact that the school chose to ignore the event, hoping that it would “just go away” is what made me truly angry. In addition, the actions and comments of the school’s supporters were disturbing when they defended the accused and the school, usually with a claim that no lasting harm had been done. For that I call BS because there are more than a few damaged children now having to live with the results of the actions that were perpetrated on them.

Today I’m equally offended by the NCAA sanctions that many claim to be “too harsh”. In my opinion the school should be outlawed and forbidden to engage in any inter-collegiate sport equal to the period of time the pedophile was allowed to operate within its walls without being halted by informed and knowledgeable school officials who chose instead to sweep the scandal under the rug. From trial testimony that appear to be a time span of 14 years.  The school officials who decided to allow a culture of pedophilia to flourish should be removed and, at best lose their livelihood and their pensions.

Who knows…maybe if that were done the school’s costs would go down, tuition could be lowered and the students could concentrate on the academics that brought them to the school in the first place. I know it won’t happen, but it’s a nice dream.

To Protect the innocent, names have been changed

Le Conteur and I have been sitting pets the past few days while close friends are off visiting her family. For at least a few days James will be able to have some time for himself…for he is the full time caregiver for his long time friend and wife. She has a long term debilitating disease that has a negative impact on their lives, but despite the disease that is wracking her body and mind. Peggy is a lovely lady who unfortunately needs 24 hour care and attention and James loves his wife with enduring passion and is more than willing to give of himself so that he can be there for his lady when she needs him. Le Conteur and I both marvel at his dedication and look within ourselves for strength that equals James.

Both James and Peggy love their pets, two large doges and three dependant cats, and my story is about one of the dogs. Shadow is an elderly Lab who has severe arthritis and finds it difficult to walk, because of Peggy’s issues (which take up most of James’s time) Shadow doesn’t get out often and has taken to falling when she tries to move around. So one of the things we do each day is to take her for a short walk when we go over to visit the pets several times each day. And the results have been amazing…Shadow, after only a few opportunities to explore the outside world is now walking without stumbling and wants to take a walk before anything else. She is alert and active and her inner puppy is expressing itself.

We don’t know what the long term will be for the dog, but it has proven to us that even a little bit of change and exercise is good for both body and soul.

Small Town 4th

There are 105 counties in Kansas with a 2011 population of 3,993.000 and the county I live in has 552,991 of those people. It is an "urban county" by any definition but if you look hard enough in this up scale, slightly yuppified county you can still find pockets of rural life that struggle on and, without shame, live by the ethics and culture that are the foundation of this singular republic.
As many socially responsible citizens do I volunteer with our Sheriff's department since I'm getting just a little too old for the fire and rescue game. As a volunteer I'm given the opportunity to support the police in doing their job, and yesterday I spent part of the day directing traffic for a 4th of July parade in an unincorporated area of the county that is working hard to keep its rural character.


Instead of fancy floats and marching bands I was privileged to watch 4H clubs marching several miles in the plus 100 degree heat, farm tractors pulling trailer loads of white haired service clubs and very vocal high school football teams. There were service trucks from local business advertising their availability and (of course) the obligate local politicians eager to get your vote. Kids riding on hay bales and adults riding quarter horses made for a fun time for everyone. Sspectators and participants were all having a grand time and it was a taste of small town Americana that I don't often get a chance to see any more and I feel the better for watching people come together to enjoy themselves, wave the flag and socialize with friends and neighbors.
My faith in the future of our society was made stronger by the opportunity to go back in time to a period that wasn't ashamed to admit its love of country.

Health Care and the People

I am supposed to be a neutral and un-biased participant, engaged in helping others resolve whatever issues brought them to me. If truth be told I don’t believe that any one can be “neutral”, we always have an opinion, but I can be fair and impartial when I’m working as a mediator.

One of the tricks of mediation I use is never to jump to a conclusion, think about the issues, consider the arguments advanced by the parties, contemplate options, visualize end points and only then start to guide the conversation towards a solution. The important thing is to be deliberate in the process and never rush to a decision. It doesn’t work every time, I am after all subject to human emotions and have been known to make mistakes. But slow and steady is usually a good way to go. And when it comes to the governments “Affordable Health Care Act” also known as Obama-care, it pays not to hurry to a conclusion.

The decision of the Supreme Court that the legislation is essentially constitutional energized some and enraged others. Very few people don’t have an opinion, and it's usually a strongly held opinion. But after thinking about the decision and doing some research I’ve reached the conclusion that the Supreme Court decision was a brilliant step that is designed to encourage the parties to further dialog and an eventual resolution that will allow the parties to be content with their decision.

There are key elements in the Courts decision that I see as essential to the future of this Republic. The administration pushed the legislation under the 14^th Amendment (known as the Commerce Clause) but this argument was set aside in the majority opinion that stated that a mandated penalty levied on individuals who declined health insurance was not appropriate but that it was within the power of Congress to levy a tax on people who declined to purchase health insurance. So it seems that it’s no longer possible for Congress to pass legislation based on 14^th Amendment arguments. It must now pass any future legislation that establishes penalties solely on its ability to tax…and that’s a much higher and more complex bar to surmount when Congress establishes ways to fund the laws it passes.

Personally Le Conteur and I pay a monthly premium of about $800 for a very good comprehensive family health care plan. Under Obama-care it was mandated that the penalty for the uninsured should be $95 per year. Having to fund the program via taxation will certainly change that figure to something closer to what we now pay for our insurance and I shudder to think what will happen to my taxes when the costs for the half of the population that doesn’t pay any taxes are lumped into our annual tax bill. I think the conversation on the health care bill has really just started and that the administration will be hard pressed to defend the program when the true costs are calculated and become public knowledge.

In addition the decision stated that it is not constitutional to penalize states who decline to participate in the program by cutting off the funding for other federally supported programs. In effect, the tiger is now toothless since 25 states were party to the suit that came before the Supreme Court. There are also interesting ramifications such as if a state were to decide that it is ok for its citizens to drink at age 18 it could no longer be penalized by the loss of all highway funds…I think we will be hearing some interesting and long winded Congressional debates in the future.

In effect the court tossed the problem back to the administration and Congress saying “Here are the problems and now you have to fix it” So for those who have issues with the Supreme Court decision I will merely say that ultimately it will be seen as a brilliant maneuver to get Congress to do the job as set forth in the Constitution.

My own opinion is, to paraphrase a long dead Roman:

                           Obama-care delinde est.

EPA and those who don't listen

The Environmental Protection Agency apparently has a regulation on the books that requires refiners to add cellulosic ethanol to the fuel they produce. But the refiners are not adding the chemical because they say the product doesn’t exist in commercial quantities. In other words it’s a laboratory creation and is too expensive to make in large quantities. EPA press releases say that they expected cellulosic ethanol to be available at the time the regulation went into effect, but that didn’t happen and the agency is refusing to reevaluate its position. It must be nice to require an unavailable product and then hold producers accountable when the product isn’t unavailable!

I did a short internet search and found that cellulosic ethanol is not made from corn, but instead uses grasses such as switch grass, hemp, assorted plant waste and/or wood chips to produce alcohol. These are all non food products and it certainly makes sense to convert them to a fuel additive but it seems to be an expensive process because the conversion requires sugar and these items don’t have a lot of convertible sugar within their cellular structure. There is a research outfit that has been trying since 2001 to develop an enzyme that will cheapen the process but to date they have been unsuccessful. Since they have been doing this under a contract with EPA it boggles the mind that EPA didn’t pay attention. An agency that doesn’t pay attention to the real world is not something we need to listen to in these times.

Silent Spring

My Lady wanted to paint the sun room and in order to get a good match with the existing paint we drove to a neighborhood paint store to buy a gallon of the right color paint. It was a sobering moment when we paid over $50 for a can of water, colorant and a bit of chemical designed to make the paint effective yet able to meet the standards inflicted by officialdom. We talked about the exorbitant price and after some discussion settled on the fact that 30 years ago the same paint sold for about $6 to $10 dollars a gallon.  Out side inflation (which would have brought the price to a $15 to $25 range) The reason for the steep increase in price is, to us obvious. It’s the cost of doing business while be hectored, lectured and regulated out of business by the Environmental Protection Administration.

The EPA and other environmental watchdog and big brother agencies such as the Consumer Product Safety Commission have been taken over by extreme environmentalists who profess to know better than we do and insist that we follow their prescription for a “better world”. While there are many industrial practices that have been improved by regulation in truth the programs and edicts of these people have probably killed more people in the past century than the environment ever thought of.

Fifty years ago a book by Rachel Carson was published, it came at a time the knowledgeable world was becoming aware of the complex interaction of the globe we inhabit and was starting to respond to that wisedom. “Silent Spring” has been given credit with empowering the environmental movement and its unfounded fear of any and all pesticides, especially DDT.

Paul Muller, the inventor of DDT received a Nobel Prize in 1948 in recognition of the role the pesticide played in saving hundreds of thousands of lives of troops fighting the Axis Powers in World War II. It killed the insects that spread Typhus and other diseases and it did so without any evidence supporting the unproven threat of cancer that Carson advanced through her book. When “Silent Spring” was published DDT was already famous for protecting human health along with a whole range of agricultural chemicals that protected crops against the depredation of insects, rodents and weeds. Some of the problems associated with pesticides had already been identified and science was working on ways to resolve those problems but as a result of political pressure from “progressives” in 1972 the United States banned the sale and use of DDT based solely on the claims of undue risk that Carson put forward in her book. Despite warnings from public health officials in the US, the World Health Organization and the Pan American Health Organization the ban went into effect and the result has been the death of literally millions of human lives.

Carson opened  “Silent Spring”, with a chapter titled “A Fable for Tomorrow”, she invented a town so poisoned by insecticide that no birds could live, nest or sing there, I remember reading the book when it first came out and I admit to being horrified by her description of a dying town. But her story is pure fiction. Subsequent studies have demonstrated that the die-off she described has never happened. Years of bird counts have not pointed to any mass die off of birds or any other life forms other than the pest the insecticide targets. In the US the first agricultural pesticides were initially regulated by Congress in 1910 and generations of scientists and farmers took care to avoid contaminating crops for obvious reasons.

Fifty years after the book’s publication we are experiencing a coast-to-coast plague of bedbugs that has occurred in the past decade and continues today. The problem could have been eliminated if DDT was still in use. The media, which has covered the “bedbug problem” extensively, has never mentioned this salient fact, or the fact that the EPA has just one pesticide registered for use against bedbugs and routinely refuses to allow licensed pest control professionals to use it.

Malaria, once on the brink of being eliminated, has made a dramatic resurgence since the ban of DDT.

These events, and others that could be mentioned are Rachel Carson’s true and lethal legacy.

“Silent Spring” is the base document for the programs that so much of the environmental movement advocates. Ranging from the United Nations to non-governmental-organizations like Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth, the World Wildlife Fund, and dozens of others their programs always seems to end up killing people in the name of saving the Earth.

Throughout history there have been a few books that doomed millions to death. “Das Capital” by Karl Marx kicked off the worst economic system of the modern era, claiming the lives of millions of Russians and Chinese, along with others in the process.

Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” mobilized Nazi Germany, led to World War Two in Europe, and was responsible for the deliberate killing of over 11 million Jews and Christians in its concentration camps, not counting the millions more in war dead.

I think it interesting that the Nazi leaders were ardent environmentalists, and wonder if we are not seeing a resurgence of their philosophy of wanting to  kill off all those who do not agree with the progressive vision for the future.

Oh the Horror!

Those of you who know me are aware that I occasionally enjoy a wee dram of single malt. After a difficult mediation, be it a couple fighting over the dog, someone complaining about a noisy neighbor or two businesses disputing a contract, I frequently relax over a glass of Scotch after enjoying one of Le Contours gourmet meals. It’s a fine way to end a day…a memorable meal, a peaty malt libation, a good book and My Lady in my life.

But the pleasant routine of days end has been threatened by the closure of one of Scotland’s distilleries by the threat of Legionnaires disease. The bacterium that causes this severe form of pneumonia was found in the cooling tower at the North British Distillery in Edinburgh and the plant has been shut down. To a dedicated drinker of Scotland’s finest export the news of the plant closure and the implication that other distilleries might be contaminated is akin to being told the end of the world is approaching.

The disease is usually transmitted by inhaling the bacteria and the practice of dedicated drinkers of Scotch to inhale the fragrance of the product before enjoying its taste makes enjoying what should be a pleasant end of day ritual a potentially dangerous practice.

Fortunately for me the output of this particular distillery is sold to other companies and is used for blending purposes. So if you enjoy such blends The Famous Grouse, J&B Rare, Johnnie Walker,  Black Label and Cutty Sark you might want to enjoy your drink without inhaling its bouquet for at least the near future, say 12 to 20 years!

As for me, I’m still enjoying my single malts, made by small distillers in a tightly controlled environment and worth every penny of the cost, but I might just sniff my glass gently rather than inhaling.

Applied Science

My companion for life, who blogs as Le Conteur has a poor history of living with mosquitoes. The histamine that they release when feeding is toxic to her and she has ended up in the hospital after being bitten. I don’t have that particular problem, but I do try to stay alert and protective of My Lady and often read up on research concerning the flying phlebotomist that causes her so much grief, and I find that one of the mysteries of science has been resolved: The latest challenge to be conquered is how can mosquitoes successfully fly through the rain when a raindrop weighs 50 times more than the 'skeeter?  Now I ask you, how many times have you tossed and turned during the night, unable to sleep while pondering this deep question?

Fear not however, a team of researchers at Georgia Tech have solved this overlooked problem.

They concluded the mosquito's low body mass and strong exoskeleton render it impervious to falling raindrops which makes it possible for mosquitoes to endure low impact forces from raindrops because the mass of mosquitoes causes raindrops to lose little momentum upon impact. What was observed was that the mosquito goes with the flow and rides the water drop for as long as 20 body lengths  before using its long legs and wings to establish aerodynamic drag that rotates the mosquito off the point of contact before the raindrop impacts the ground.

A lot of people might ask what the benefit of that bit of information is and why are we wasting money on frivolous research. But the survival of mosquitoes in rain wasn’t the subject of the research. The project description states that the study was undertaken to improve the design of micro-airborne vehicles, the drones that are being increasingly used by the military and law enforcement for surveillance and other operations.

While I don’t think highly of automated animalcule keeping tabs on me or My Lady I have to say that I am impressed by the capability of micro engineering to build small things and the depth of the research that makes these incredible devices possible.

Memorial Day 2012

A great man, 149 years ago said it better than I can.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

~ Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, November 19, 1863

H/T to Sondrakistan for the picture

Coal is not as dirty as politics

The American electrical grid is built and managed by separate companies that contract to supply power to a consortium of local power companies. Each year they hold a capacity auction in order to determine how much power the companies they contract with will require in the future and to set the price that the companies will pay for the electric needs they anticipate.

The transmission company that services the 13 Mid Atlantic states recently held an auction to determine the 2015 needs and prices, and the results are upsetting. For 2015 the market price will be $136 per megawatt. In 2012 the price has been $16 per megawatt…that’s an 850% increase in cost to the user.

The reason for such a startling increase over such a short period of time is defined by one word, Regulations. New regulations have been issued that are the result of Obama’s war on coal and other energy producers. The EPA has mandated that by 2015 all coal plants must install “Maximum Achievable Control Technology”, a vague term and an equally vague set of goals. This requirement, because of aging power plants that are difficult to upgrade will remove an estimated 14,000 megawatts of coal generated power from the national grid. In addition the administration has announced that will not issue permits for any future coal powered electrical plants.

The bottom line is that the cost of everything that uses or is produced using electrical power will in 3 years time be increased by a factor of 8.  Everything we buy or use will cost more and there will not be an increase in magnitude in your take home pay. In short this is much more than a “tax the rich” scheme, it’s a stick it to the masses program that will beggar our economy.

The local paper is bunk

With a tip of the hat to Mr. Ford and his comment about history "Newspapers are bunk"

This Sunday morning I bought, as I usually do, a copy of the local bird cage liner. A paper called the Kansas City Star. Since we moved here I’ve grown accustomed to having each page of the paper be at least two thirds ads and what news that the paper sees fit to print are either one inch snippets of words that never give you any information because there is not enough space in one column inch or the obituary section that usually runs about three and a half pages. Today’s front page was taken up with a puff piece concerning the travails of a county coroner after a tornado struck his town. The piece rambled on for some four pages all the time avoiding the simple fact that the coroner was doing the job he hired on to do and doing it with compassion and competency. Certainly newsworthy, but maybe worth about eight column inches in the Metro Secion (which the Star no longer prints)

With Europe dissolving into economic anarchy and the euro fast disappearing as a viable instrument there was not one mention of that fact in the paper and nothing was said that the G-8 leaders were all in DC trying to persuade our government to bail them out just as we did our financial institutions a couple of years ago. And of course no one mentions how well that exercise turned out for the average American. Chaos is here, looking us in the eye and the local media doesn’t even see it!

The editorial section usually complains about pot holes and students without school provided breakfasts and other than the opinion pieces  never discusses national events. They do have the obligatory conservative writer but they normally assure that his thoughts do not conflict with the paper’s biases. And that’s what passes for new and information in this region.

In a refreshing change of news and information we last week  spent a few days in Washington DC and took the opportunity to read their paper of record because, to our satisfied surprise the Washington Post still contains news and information. Each day we could read several sections of the paper, and each section contained pages of news that informed us of events in the nation and around the world. It was so refreshing that we are considering ordering the paper for delivery by mail. Despite the Post’s political slant it does print actual news and we are starved for news while living in the information desert of Kansas City.

At least by getting a real newspaper I'll be able to read, learn about and comment on real events in the world we occupy rather than on the price wars the ads seem to focus on.

Keeping out of Mischief

This coming week will be a busy one. This evening I've got a group mediation concerning a Boy Scout Troop, scouts being threatened and concerned parents who can't agree on which scouting summer camp the kids should go to. It should be an interesting end to what is shaping up to be a long day.

The really busy time will come later in the week when My Lady and I travel to Northern Virginia for the wedding of our youngest son. At long last his lady has persuaded him to tie the knot. Scott in in his 40's so it's about time.

Travelling to Virginia by air will expose us (pun intended!) to the TSA and their idea of transportation security. And with the way airlines schedule their routes these days to go from the center of the country to Dulles airport we will first have to travel to Dalles TX in order to get our flight to DC. In other words we will fly about 2,000 miles in order to effectively travel about half that distance.

But the wedding is worth the hassle and this is the first time in several years we have been able to go somewhere and do something together. I'm looking forward to spending personal time with my lady.

Foreign Travel 101

What can you expect when you send a bunch of young Americans to a foreign location?

Be they  Law Enforcement, military troops, political staff or even private citizens I don't think we can expect choirboy behavior when their work day is done.

The politicians and the media are all atwitter because an advance party of Secret Service and military support troops managed to make the news when one of them tried to cheat a young lady out of the negotiated price for her services. In Columbia being a prostitute is not illegal (there are apparently no laws against it) so what the politicians and the media are talking about was a business arrangement between two consenting adults. It was an agreement somewhat similar to the relationship between President Clinton and an upward striving intern, or as they say in the gaming industry “Pay for Play”. But if you are not "important" than correct behavior is demanded. I’m not the least surprised by a young footloose male doing what that SS agent did, but I am disappointed that he tried to renege on the deal. For that, and that alone he should have been fired, we don't want to develop an Ugly American reputation.

I guess the best way to prevent any future reoccurrence of good guys making wrong decisions (good luck with that idea) is that all future advance parties will be staffed only by married agents.

And their wives will accompany them.

Pub Onions and Tower Bells

Aging and our response to daily issues brings an appreciation not only for the finer things in life but also those things that make life comforting and enjoyable. Both Le Conteur and I enjoy good eating, fine cooking, and respectable wine and zesty condiments to perk up the tongue. On our trips abroad we discovered English Pub Onions with their distinctive crisp crunch, malty flavor and dark vinegar pickling tang and since really good pickled onions are hard to find in the center of the country we are always alert to new sources of pub onions and other flavorful additions to our meals.

Last week Le Conteur discovered that the last of our imported Pub Onions were fast disappearing and commenced searching the web to find a local source. It came as no surprise to find that there is an English store in nearby Leavenworth. After all Fort Leavenworth is host to hundreds of foreign military students each year at the Command and General Staff College and other advanced schools located at what is the oldest military post west of the Mississippi. It was an easy drive to find the store, buy out their stock and order a case of condiment goodies for future consumption.

After we had dented the exchequer we decided to wander the streets of Leavenworth, which proudly proclaims itself to be the oldest city in Kansas and has lots of specialty and antique stores to prove it. We did found one likely looking store that had a French writing desk in the window. We are not search of a desk, but the store looked interesting so we wandered through their stock. To our surprise (and subsequent impact on the wallet) we found a not quite antique Westminster Chime Mantel Clock hidden behind some other furniture. The price was acceptable the clock is in great shape and we now can hear church bells chiming the hours. The sounds of the older chiming clocks reminds us of slower, friendlier times and of family who are no longer here but who listened with us as our younger selves grew to appreciate what earlier generations have passed on to us.

This has been a week of remembrance and loss (an earlier blog note talks about losing a pet) and too soon we will find ourselves responding to demands on our time. So our search for zesty condiments turned into a long term opportunity for the enjoyment of music that measures time and helps us cope with the pressures of daily living by reminding us to slow down and enjoy the day.

The Earth Abides

A long, long time ago I read a book about what the world would be like after a great human die off. The title of the book was "The Earth Abides" and it got me thinking about the transient nature of life and the permanent nature of the world we inhabit. It gives me a bit of peace to know that each of us lives on despite bad things happening.

Fifty thousand years ago man and dog found that they could live together and together both would benefit from that arrangement. Besides their skills that benefit man what dogs brought to the relationship were love, devotion and a belief that humans were special and that dog was privileged to share their time with man.

In our household of dog, cat and human we know that each of the pets is special and that they are here to bring comfort and admiration to the humans who give love, comfort and companionship to the pet. But on a brilliant Easter morning one of those special dogs who allowed us to be with them needed to cross the Rainbow Bridge to join with other companions who had gone before him.

Jean Luc, a mixed Papillion and Chihuahua friend who is one of the smartest dogs we know was 22 years old, had only three legs and was, in his mind, still a vibrant eager service dog. Trained to recognize the need for the compassionate touch he reached out and comforted First Responders at disasters. At this moment we need him to offer his special service to us but he can only do so in our memory.

Easter is a day of resurrection, not a day for sorrow, but when it’s time to cross the Rainbow Bridge or transit the River Styx we must comply. We also know that this day of resurrection applies to us and that the Elysian Field will bring humans and pets together again.  But we miss our friend while knowing he will always be a part of our lives, makes the parting a little easier. But it will be long time before the rip in our hearts is healed.

                                    Jean Luc

                                    1990 – 2012

                                    Companion and Friend

Words of our fathers

Some of the most impressive art that we know of is the rock art produced by ancient man and found in caves scattered across France and Spain. More than 200 caves have been found, studied and admired for their scope of subjects and brilliance of effort all leading to a conclusion that our ancestors, while living simply (by our standards) had a full and complex culture.

Humans take pride in knowing they are different from other animals, and one of the reasons is that we use a large, complicated vocabulary to communicate our thoughts. While it’s understood that verbal communication is perhaps the earliest form of information transfer it’s also commonly felt that the act of writing down the sounds of speech didn’t happen until about 13,000 years ago.

But that date might be in question if the theory of some researchers in paleoanthropology are correct. Genevieve von Petzinger from the University of Victoria in British Columbia has written a paper on a study she did using rock art as her source. Included in the art are signs and symbols whose meaning is unknown. She, and her associates have created a data base of some 26 visual forms, called hectiforms, that are found in cave art all across Europe that were created across some 20,000 years. The hectiforms seem to transcend time different cultures and could mean that humankind had developed a form of proto-communication at long ago as 35,000 years.  

The hectiform addition to ancient art work appears to be also found in some cave art found in Africa which could extend the theory that viable communication goes even further back in our history. My feeling is that mankind is a lot smarter than some of scientist’s believe and that our ancestral heritage was produced by people just like you or me.  

His lips were moving

             As a mediator I have to listen to people make all sorts of claims concerning why they did what they did. Most of the time what they have to say is either correct or it’s patently wrong and we resolve the issue and go on from there until we ultimately reach a solution. So I’ve learned to listen, and to assure myself that the claim made is at least reasonably correct…the only trouble with developing this skill is that I now find myself applying it to general conversation and to the utterances of politicians. (Can you see where this is going?)

           

            Last week the President gave a major energy policy speech at Prince George’s Community College in Maryland, whoever wrote the speech for him didn’t waste time by checking facts and the President compounded the errors contained in his speech by some of his responses to questions. The one answer that struck me the most was his claim that he had quadrupled the number of drilling rigs in operation during his administration. 

Other reports I’ve seen contradict that assertion so it was an easy web search to find that there is a on line reporting service that tracks well and drilling sites. (If you are interested it’s the Baker-Hughes Rig Report) There are just shy of 2,000 drilling rigs in operation in the country so for him to have increased the number of rigs fourfold in the past four years there had to have only 500 at some point since 2008.

            The last time there were 500 rigs in operation was in the mid 1990’s and in fact the report shows that not only have the number of rigs been declining the only new ones are located on private land, not on any area controlled by the government. It's one thing for a politician to speak untruthfully it a much worse thing for him to do so while giving a "major policy speach".