CT Scan and Global Warming

Your father passes out. You rush him to the ER. A CT scan reveals an occlusion.

"Did the occlusion cause the fall?" you ask the doctor.

"It may have, but it's a minor occlusion so that possiblity is remote. The fall could have been caused by flu. It could be any number of things."

"So, what caused it, and what caused the occlusion?" you ask.

"Probably no single thing. There are three factors, three influences on your father's health that make something like an occlusion and a fall inevitable. The first is his age, which you can do nothing about. The second is his genetic make-up. Again, you can do nothing about his genes. And the third is his lifestyle. Does he smoke? Does he exercise? Does he eat healthy food? Here you have some control. You can reduce the chances of his having seizures, strokes, etc. if you get him to improve his lifestyle - cut out the drinking, practice yoga or meditation, that sort of thing."

"Well, thank you," you say to the doctor. "You have made my understanding of this quite clear. If I may, I would like to compare my father's occlution and his fall to Climate Change. There are many factors affecting the climate. Most of them are outside human control. But there is one factor we can control: human activity. There we have control. And that factor is burning fossil fuels."

"Do you think, then," asks the doctor, "since you can see this so clearly, that you will reduce your carbon footprint? Do you think you will change your lifestyle to keep the Earth healthy?"

"Of course not," you reply. "For the same reason I would never advise my father to change his lifestyle. My father loves his cocktail in the evening. If I even suggested taking away his cigars, I would be killing him, that is, killing his spirit, killing the person he has been his whole life."

"I understand," said the doctor. "And I would have no disagreement with your position if your father's lifestyle did not affect others. He can kill himself for all I care. But his drinking, combined with his age, is a hazzard when he drives. His smoking produces second-hand smoke that your children breathe."

"Well," you say, "I'll have to think about it, and then confer with an esteemed professor I know."

Debate a Climate Denier

Gary:    I thought that you might enjoy this article.  I checked it on Snopes, and it was published in the Washington Post

      

GLOBAL WARMING The Arctic Ocean is warming up, icebergs are growing scarcer and in some places the seals are finding the water too hot, according to a report to the Commerce Department yesterday from Consulate, at Bergen, Norway. Reports from fishermen, seal hunters and explorers all point to a radical change in climate conditions and hitherto unheard-of temperatures in the Arctic zone. Exploration expeditions report that scarcely any ice has been met as far north as 81 degrees 29 minutes. Soundings to a depth of 3,100 meters showed the gulf stream still very warm.  Great masses of ice have been replaced by moraines of earth and stones, the report continued, while at many points well known glaciers have entirely disappeared. Very few seals and no white fish are found in the eastern Arctic, while vast shoals of herring and smelts which have never before ventured so far north, are being encountered in the old seal fishing grounds. Within a few years it is predicted that due to the ice melt the sea will rise and make most coastal cities uninhabitable. * * * * * * * * *

I must apologize. I neglected to mention that this report was from November 2, 1922, as reported by the AP and published in The Washington Post - 96 years ago.

Me:  Wow. Nearly 100 years. All the while, the retreat of glaciers and loss of species have continued. Even so, many people doubt the evidence.

True, the prediction's timing was off, just as Malthus's predictions of humanity's demise due to over-population were famously premature. But Malthus did not have the luxury of population studies that are available now. Here's one of those studies. A small herd of deer was introduced to St. George's Island in the Bering Sea. There were no predators on the island. Based on the food available, the sceintists predicted that the population would increase, and eventually stabilize between 1200 and 1500 deer. Indeed, popuation did increase just as predicted. But then it continued to grow, to 2,000 (Look, the sceintists are wrong!)  to 3,000 (Oh, those stupid scientists. They know nothing.), to 4,000 (I'm gonna vote for Trump. Overpopulation is a hoax), eventually reaching a population of 5200 (You see. Scientists are idiots.). The deer were thin, weak and highly stressed. Then, a calamitous decline began. Eighteen months later, absent any predators, absent war and social unrest, absent sea rise and global warming, there were only 5 deer stll alive.

Here's another way to look at it: a man who is skeptical of science and scientific evidence jumps off the Empire State Building wearing home-made wings. "He'll crash into the pavement very soon," predict the scientists. As the man plummets past the 10th floor, people could hear him shouting, "Scientists know nothing. Look at me. I'm doing just fine." 

David, Goliath and the Honey Bees

David, Goliath and the Honey Bees

Three thousand years ago, Philistines marched from the coastal plain into the Judaean Hills intending to subdue and enslave the Israelites. Saul massed his defenders on a ridge above the Valley of Elah. The Philistines dug in on an opposite ridge. And there both armies sat, neither willing to disadvantage its troops with an attack from the valley floor.

A giant, fully dressed in the latest and best armor, stepped from the Philistine's ranks and challenged the Israelites to a one-on-one contest. "Choose a man and have him come down to me. If he is able to fight and kill me, we will become your subjects; but if I overcome him and kill him, you will become our subjects and serve us.” (1 Samuel 17)

No Israelite volunteered. For the next 40 days, Goliath taunted the frightened Israelites morning and evening. Still, no hero emerged.

A shepherd bringing food to his brothers in the Israelite army heard of the giant's challenge and said to Saul, "Let no one lose heart on account of this Philistine; your servant (I) will go and fight him.”

Engaging in combat without armor was certain death, so ". . . Saul dressed David in his own tunic. He put a coat of armor on him and a bronze helmet on his head. David fastened on his sword over the tunic . . . “ Now, thought the king, we have our deliverer.

David tried walking around in the armor. “I cannot go in these. I am not used to them,” and took them off. Dressed in only a plain shepherd’s tunic, and carrying only a staff, a sling and five stones, he stepped out of the Israelite camp into the valley, toward the fully-armored Goliath.

The battle was quick. A single stone from David’s sling embedded deep in Goliath’s forehead. Killed or wounded, the giant fell, face down. David cut off his head. And ever since, that story has been retold by western societies to buck up underdogs. It manifests in protean variations: a small but self-confident individual can prevail over a much larger opponent; a individual who possesses an antiquated, yet in some circumstances superior, weapon can beat an opponent fully protected by the latest that technology can produce; and, by extension, a democratic society with the confident support of its free citizens, and with strong, resilient institutions, can gain the upper hand against the high-tech giants that digitally manipulate and exploit the majority, giants that would, if allowed, relegate the government to the role of underdog. These lessons must not be forgotten.

They are of little help, though, in preventing the decline of honey bees and other invertebrates. How do the insect underdogs, even with our help, defeat the giants of human population growth and economic ‘development’? If mosquitoes couldn’t stop the Panama Canal from being built, then lady bugs have no chance against biplanes killing everything in a field except one select crop. What can a dragonfly do to save a wetland?

David was just a boy when he faced Goliath. But he was much more than a skinny shepherd with a lucky arm. Formerly chargd with protecting his father’s flock, he had practiced with his sling, a notoriously inaccurate weapon, until he could hit a moving wolf at 50 yards with a stone flying at 150-miles/hour. How do I know? Because after his victory over Goliath, followed by years of political and military machinations, he became king, conquered Jerusalem and united the disparate tribes of Israel. He was driven. Ambitious. Intelligent. When still a kid, he knew that a shepherd’s frantic shouts, stick-waving and randomly thrown rocks posed no real danger to wolves. Unless a shepherd's rock hit one, and occasionally injured or killed one, the wolves would pick off sheep around the periphery. He could never win.

So, David practiced. He practiced knocking a stone off a boulder. He practiced hitting a knot on a tree. He practices, after years, he was so good that he could step confidently into the valley and challenge Goliath.

David saved his father’s sheep, and he saved the Israelites, but how do we save the invertebrates? What is our weapon? How do we perfect it? Hurling stones at bulldozers is absurd. Shaking fists at crop-dusters - foolish. Throwing lawsuits at developers occasionally works, but more often than not, society aligns with economic interests. Which mean, plants and animals die. The flock shrinks.

Five days ago, a large track-hoe flattened 18 70-foot pine trees on the acre across the street. In less than 45 minutes, forty-year-old trees had been killed. The last raw acre near me will succumb to construction within months. The pale, yellow wildflowers that decorated bees with pollen will never return. The buzz that comforted me last summer as I watched the sun rise, a buzz that just ten years ago was a roar on my raspberries and a reassuring hum rising in sweet waves off my flowering sedums, a buzz that has accompanied me for ¾ of a century, is now barely a whisper. One more acre – right outside my window - gone. The predators decimate the edges of the flock.

My weapon is my hand. My projectile is seeds. I cast them. I cast them again and again, at multiple targets, at drainage ditches, swales, road shoulders and medians. I cast them into empty lots and along river banks. I sow them by the thousands in my front yard - organic, regional, insecticide-free wildflower seeds. The predators may cull the herd across the street, but I expand the herd. The high-tech world may massacre the fringes and poison global habitat, but I need no high-tech armor to hit back ten-fold.

And I will win. Not with a single blow. But gradually. And permanently. Because Life is on my side.

"Nextdoor" Exchange

Denny: There are no magic wildflower seeds. Seeds sown now will begin emerging in the spring. Unless you are a skilled botanist, you will not be able to distinguish from the wildflower sprouts and the spring crop of weeds and invasive plants. If the weeds grow to maturity and spread to your neighbors’ lawns. They or their lawn care service will probably use products that contain herbicides to control the weeds. These toxic products will get into the watershed. Soooo ... wildflowers are lovely but weeding requires some skill and very tiring stoop labor. Don’t grow wildflowers unless you are willing to work hard to control weeds and invasive plants in the beds.

Reply:

There once was a society that said, "Don't have children. They'll just grow up to drink heavily, abuse drugs, commit crimes, pollute the air and water, riot in the streets, start wars and have more kids who wil do the same."

There was once a society that said, "Don't plant wildflowers. They'll just add to diversity and increase the complexities that are essential to Life. They'll provoke the people who hate Life, the people with sprays and powders, with machines and poisons. How much better off society would be if we simply paved the entire town."

Seeds

Lake Oswego’s land area is 10.68 square miles - less than .0000002 of the land area of Earth. A speck at best. A mote. A minor plot. But LO is our plot. It’s our domain. It’s our tiny corner of Eden. And we want future generations to enjoy its fecund health forever.

But, preserving a rich habitat becomes harder every day as, worldwide, Life suffers assaults and Nature retreats. Many of us in Lake Oswego have become absolutely certain that only human intercession can save our tiny bit of Creation from descent into a concrete dead zone. We seize the moment.

When species are threatened with extinction anywhere, we send money, of course. We also plant wildflowers to bring pollinators back to Lake Oswego.

When habitats are targeted by development, we write letters, talk to our representatives and march with signs. Then we go home and sow organic, insecticide-free seeds that will grow into habitats for birds and butterflies.

When neighbors spray their lawns with herbicides, we let dandelions flourish in ours.

When vulnerable creatures fall to poachers in Africa or the Cascades, we ask local plant retailers to remember that insects and other invertebrates are especially vulnerable to neonics. We want honey bee numbers to return to pre-insecticide levels.

And when the City reviews plans for parking lots, driveways, sport courts and swimming pools, we remind Councilors with a bouquet of wildflowers that only life can bring back Life.

This is Earth

Injuries have destroyed much. Strong legs that strode now crawl. Responsible shoulders slump. The head is a mess. Eyes scratched. Ear drums broken. Fingers twitch - an unconscious response to malfunctions from the core to the extremities. Skin blotches, scabs and peels. Only the mouth works, blathering silliness non-stop. The burdened heart wonders, "So much is lost. Should I quit too?"

Giving credit where credit is due

Let's begin by admitting the obvious, that Trump has a deeper understanding of the world and of human nature than anyone else alive today, or perhaps ever. He's an insightful genius, a total realist who in no way suffers from delusions or misperceptions. His god-given instincts to see Reality and to speak Truth pair with uncanny courage to act . . .  and act decisively. Donald Trump is one of a small number of people in the world, and the only president, to address realistically the greatest threat to human survival in 3 million years, which is, the rapid destruction of the natural world by 7.3 billion people who drive, fly, consume, eat and shit every day. Trump grasps the magnitude of this rapidly growing threat, and he takes action. Behind his bills and tweets are policies designed to reduce the world-wide environmental deterioration caused by 7.6 billion people. This is my paean to the great and forever glorious Donald J. Trump.

OK, I admit, he's brash and narcissistic, crude and ill-mannered, fat and ugly, ill-tempered and stupid. All of these make him an unlikely hero. And yet I would accord him even higher status, as a savior. Yes. Seriously. In spite of the fact that he belies all Christian expectations of a Christ-like figure returning to inspire the people and save the world, he alone brought his bloated ineptness to the fore when the call went out. With deep humility and painful reluctance, he took the microphone spoke the Truth. He felt the people's fear. He alone understood their frustrations. And why shouldn't he be the chosen one? He is, after all, of them and from them, a common man from the World Wrestling arena. He understands the nobility of a pre-ordained, rigged fight between two loin-cloth clad Neanderthals. He is both a barbarian and a visionary. Eventually, I believe, the nay-saying doubters will restrain their criticism long enough to see him clearly, and they will declare that he is not only a savior, but the savior.

The first hint that the divine call was for him came during the campaign when he promised that, if elected, he'd construct a border wall. Keep the "drug dealers, criminals, rapists" out! he cried. And we who embraced his candidacy chanted, "Build the wall!" To admirers and detractors alike, his goal seemed obvious: "Keep the brown-skinned people out of our clean, white country. And if some dark people are already established here, well, kick them out too."

Liberals called him a racist. The media said his rhetoric was divisive. Republicans universally lauded his neo-Nazi stance, his white nationalist and misogynistic hatred. Oh, how very wrong all of the were! In spite of his offensive rants, the labels were terribly unfair, because his intent was to draw attention to the greatest problem in the world, which is overpopulation. Trump is no racist. He is not divisive. Quite the contrary. As any astute observer of humankind could see (and I will shortly prove this point), he is extraordinarily even-handed. His solution to the massive numbers of people flooding over the southern border target dark-skinned immigrants only because that's what they are. For all Mr. Trump cares, the attacking mobs coming from the south could be Finns or Australians. His attacks on spics and towel-heads are simply the first step in a long march toward sustainability. Have faith, dear reader. Have faith.

Far into the future, his message must remain the same: job-stealing foreigners are permanently banned because they breed like fucking rabbits. Although our esteemed leader may not actually say these words, there is no doubt in my mind that he thinks them: "Your out-of-control hypersexuality is destroying the planet. You exceed the carrying capacity of your own lands, and now you want to sink our as well. Overcrowded, people are at each other's throats. Gang violence, starvation, brutal oppression. These are endemic to shithole countries like yours, and they are not welcome here in the beautiful, lily-white US of A. You've overrun your own countries. That's your problem; don't try to make it ours. You non-Americans need to remember, your misery is not our fault. And it is certainly not our responsibility. You created the stinking cesspools you live in. America is under no obligation to accept the refuse of your irresponsible breeding. Stew in your own juices!"

Is Trump's wisdom not astounding?! Is his reasoning not spot on?! Unlike most citizens, and unlike all Democrats, liberals, progressives and bleeding-hearts, Trump understands the true burden that growing populations place on the planet and on humanity. In particular, he feels the burden the overpopulation places on the kind-hearted leaders of shithole countries, like Erdogan in Turkey, Duterte in the Philippines and Maduro in Venezuela. They struggle daily to keep the poor, marginalized and underfed masses from rioting. Rioting is bad for business. Protests are expensive to quell. Not to mention the psychological and emotional unease the wealthy feel when the hungry masses burn tires in the streets. Can you imagine how embarrassing a riot is to a country's leader? Each tyrant wants an international reputation of being loved and admired by all of his people. How awful it is when the masses are unruly. How inconsiderate they are of the leaders' feelings. Instead of protesting, they should have the decency to remain silent. "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all."

At least these embattled leaders have someone in their corner. Trump. He empathizes with them. He opens his heart, as well as the immense resources of the US Government because, at its core, social unrest is a result of over-population, and unless you're dealing with the rootcause of a problem, you are simply putting bandaids on broken legs. Therefore, the kind and generous Mr. Trump makes it very easy for foreign leaders to acquire the latest American-made, population-controlling technologies, such as guns, tanks, rockets, bombs, bullets, chemicals and drones. "Use them," he tells his beleagured equals. "Don't be nice. Don't be gentle. Crush the fuckers. Kill them. Bring down population. And if you do that, America will continue to reward you with financial aid."

"But," he also warns, "use any other population control methods or devices, and we will cut off your financial aid forever. Pills. Condoms. IUDs. Abortions. All of these are primitive, brutal methods of controlling population. Anyone who employs them or even espouses them, commits a mortal sin, and therefore deserves no money."

Some people call this policy cruel. Others call it stupid.  But such people are themselves stupid. It results from being compassionate. Their hearts get in the way of their brain. Bleeding-hearts cannot understand that population control, if it is to be effective, must be efficient. And what's more efficient than bullets, bombs and nerve agents? Nothing. When you perforate people with multiple pieces of high-velocity metal, they die. No guessing. No doubts. No malfunctioning birth control pill. And, most importantly, you have solid proof that you've reduced population. You can lay the bodies side by side and count them. You know exactly how much smaller population is. But with family planning and all the rest of those women-only practices, well, the government just never knows for sure whether they work. In addition, counting aborted fetuses is too time consuming. too expensive. Women-only population control devises produce uncertainty, chaos and too many people. It's better to leave population control in the hands of men, of warriors and killers. Let men deal with it as they have dealt with enemies throughout history, by killing a bunch of people. And have no doubts, right now, the enemy is too many people, especially the migrant hoard at our southern border that must be turned back with US military personnel. Oh, how proud and heroic those soldiers must have felt!)

Needless to say, Trump's foreign policy is brilliant. It will, no doubt, bring respect back to America and accolades to him.

Unfortunately, the population-control policies he sells to foreign countries is not easily transferable to America. Here, birth control is usually available and reliable. Here, women can make decisions about their own bodies. This is unbelievably frustrating to Trump and the Republicans. "How," they wonder, "can we ever deal with over-population is a manly way if women won't produce excessive numbers of people for us to shoot? It's unconscionable. It should be illegal." Therefore, the first order of business for Republicans is to make all abortions illegal, and all family planning hard to come by. "We want future targets," the scream. "We want to be the heroes who save the world by slaughtering millions of people."

Until such time as Trump and the Republicans have total control of women's reproductive rights, the Party has devised an interim method of dealing with the unwanted births that result from the existing bans on abortion. First, remember that women are the compassionate half of our species, and second, that compassion makes people stupid. So, if you awaken their compassion, such as by hurting their children, women will become angry. And being both compassionate and angry, they do stupid things, like protest and vote, which Republicans .

To counter this, Republicans have come up with a transitional population control policy that is neither manly nor womanly. In fact, it is totally natural and totally brilliant. The policy evolved in response to the question, "What is the greatest killer of all time?" And the answer of course is plague and influenza. In other words, Nature. "And who," they asked, "does Nature kill?" To which they answered, "why, obviously, the hungry, the sick, the weak and the injured." It was from this essential truth that Trump and the Republicans figured out how to control population in America without shooting people in the streets.

The first step was to set the conditions for what was to follow. Trump, in coordination with hundreds of Republicans, enacted a massive tax cut. Even though it mostly benefitted the rich, they claimed that everybody would win, that everybody' boat would be lifted, that all citizens would be freed from the shackles of poverty and homelessness. That America would be Great Again. The tax plan, dutifully consistent with the time-tested, highly successful theory that underpins Reaganomics, that a rising tide lifts all boats, gave everyone a floatation device. The wealthy received sea-worthy yachts capable of weathering the worst economic storms. Everyone else got plastic water wings and boogie boards.

Once 'tax reform' was enacted, Trump and the Republicans turned their attention to the budget deficit. They did not mention that the extraordinarily large increase in the deficit was the result of the tax cuts. Instead, they blamed the deficit on the poor. "Too much money is being wasted just keeping marginal, unproductive people alive. Food stamps. Social security. Welfare in general. A complete rip-off. Even if we gave the 350,000 homeless people in America $2.00 per day (which is $700,000/day, or $255 million/year), these miserable losers would be no better off. It's money down the rat-hole."

It is politically unpopular to shoot the homeless and the poor, so Trump and company had to come up with a less messy way to reduce their burgeoning numbers. The Republican solution will, in years to come, be considered the greatest and most humanitarian policy toward the poor that has ever ben put forward.

To anyone unfamiliar with the workings of an astoundingly smart brain, like Mr. Trump's, this may sound pretty cruel. But it's not. Quite the opposite. Even a run-of-the-mill genius with a large net worth could see that if workers and veterans are living on the street or in homless shelters, if they are short of food and are inadequately housed, that they will want to escape their grim situation. Who wouldn't? In answer to the question, How can we lift these people out of their misery without it costing us a penny, in fact, how can we make money in the process? they came up with a simple answer. Make the poor pay for their own escape.

This sounds impossible, but to Republicans it's anything but. All you have to do is get the poor out of their hopelessness and misery for just a few hours and they will do anything to escape again. In other words, get the marginalized and the uneducated to try drugs, and to keep escaping until they're hooked. They can fly as high as they want. And if they fly too high and get killed, well, that's one less person that the rich have to keep alive. A total win/win. Republican phamaceutical companies have made money, and the and theaddicts are permenently freed from their addiction.

This was all well and good but for one thing: population reductions were hard to predict. Republicans wanted to be in charge. They wanted solid numbers and good statistics. 

And they wanted to be able to take credit for bringing down population, which they couldn't claim if the poor were killing themselves.

then they are vulnerable and in need of help. Therefore, the right thing to do is propose cuts to food stamps, and demand that, in order to receive welfare, they need to get themselves hired in jobs that don't exist. The wealthy can also see how imprudent it is to extend healthcare to everyone when it is much better for the economy if the majority of them died.

So, Trump and the Republicans followed up with a trio of policies intended to weaken and then kill nearly half the population. First, in every way possible, Republican would reduce access to real, nutricious food. Cut food stamps. Cut welfare. Subsidize corn production. Make unhealthy foods much less expensive than healthy foods. Second, in every way possible, limit their access to healthcare. Since the poor have already been weakend by poor diet, they'll be susceptible to numerous ailments. They should die in droves. Unless, of course, the goddamn libeerals put clinics in the inner city and provided free care, especially pre-natal care.   

These first two were good, bu the outcome was still too uncertain. There may be a lot of poor who are just too ornery to croak, too selfish to kick the bucket. How shameful if they would not surrender to the grim reaper. "Oh, how selfish the brainless masses are," bemoan the haves. "Can the common man not see that, in order to bring down population, in order to save species and habitats, in order to save the planet, people must sacrifice?"

So, here's what the Republicans came up with as a way to improbre the body count. Guns. Make it easy for people to buy guns. Make it easy for people to carry concealed weapons. Make it easy for anyone who shoots a poor person, or a dark-skinned person, make it easy for him to defend himself with laws. that protected only white men who felt afraid for their lives. He could get off entirely so long as the other person was black and dead. Then there was only one side of the story: self-defense.

Meanwhile, behind the scenes, Republicans worked had for their just cause. "What if," they asked, "the people we are trying to kill were able to not only withstand the social policies we've enacted to kill them, but also were able to vote? What if the poor objected to our policies and came after our cushy lifestyles and extravagant wealth?" The result: gerrymandered districts, ID requirements, and closed polling booths. "That should get the greedy little bastards."

Then came the last and really sick policy. If the starving poor still have enough energy to object to their conditions, if they have enough gumption to protest, then they just need to be shot in the streets. Blown away by machine guns. Run down with heavy, bullet-proof vehicles. Since it is illegal in the US to sic the army on civilians, the solution was to give the police military weapons.  "If the poor buggers die in bloody confrontations, well, they asked for it. They should have died quietly in their homes of diseases and drugs without making a fuss."

If these insightful Republican policies don't get the country going in the right direction, nothing will.

God bless America.