A Treat this Morning.

The air is cool and dry with a slight hint of smoke. The window next to me is open as I sit and think of the day ahead. Suddenly a swooping buzzing sound, then two then three sound just outside the screen. The culprits? Three young ruby throated hummingbirds, all trying for a snack at the 4-flower feeder. They chase and swoop, occasionally dipping in for a quick slurp then off on the chase again. All at once the three of them settle the dispute and each take a perch and have a long and hopefully satisfying feed. Then off again, chasing.
It reminds me of kids at a park or beach, chasing each other is a seemingly random game, not of tag, just of chase. Well, after all, these birds are kids after all. I suspect that their “games” are not so much for fun as for strengthening little wings for the long migration just ahead, and testing out the idea of territory control. They seem to waste so much energy in the pursuit of each other I wonder how they ever store enough fat for the flight to Central America. All but the latest hatchlings do store enough fat for the trip, and those late arrivals try to tough it out on the gulf coast until spring. In cold winters they usually don’t make it.
Hopefully these youngsters are old enough to go south, really south, and will be back next year, swooping and buzzing around my windows once again. Bon Voyage guys. Watch you backs.
Image: http://lancaster.unl.edu/images/GuessIt/september/sept11_big.jpg

Troy Davis: Innocent or Guilty?

Troy Davis (1): Is he innocent or guilty?
Well folks, I surely don’t know. There is a bunch of crappy evidence and several witnesses who have recanted their statements. Davis has maintained his innocence from day one. Charges of police coercion are also involved here. In about a week he is scheduled to die, in Georgia, after having been on death row since 1991.
This case is one more example of why the death penalty should not be used. There is conflicting evidence and testimony. He may be innocent or guilty. If he is guilty, why not life without parole? If he is innocent why not freedom? The bottom line is this: If the State of Georgia kills him, and if he is innocent, he is the victim of State Murder. If he is guilty, he is the victim of State Execution. You want the Bible? How about Romans 12:19? Or how about the sixth commandment? On the other hand, Deuteronomy 13:13-19 clearly indicates that killing of innocents is OK with God.
So I guess Troy is, as we used to say in New York, Screwed, Blued and Tattooed (2).
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troy_Davis_case
2.http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=screwed%2C%20blued%20and%20tattooed (second definition)
Image: http://change-production.s3.amazonaws.com/photos/4/ty/ax/WaTyaxwFSFyxUxQ-250.jpg?1315681376

The Best Ever Salmon

I thought the other day about grilling a piece of fresh, wild caught salmon. That brought me back to the signature event in salmon cooking.
Years ago an old friend, then a part-time salmon fisher in Sitka, brought a big King Salmon with him from Alaska. In a styro cooler. A big-ass cooler. This was a beautiful fresh fish.
Sal and I were living at Rainbow Farm and the house and gardens had not yet been much renovated. The barbecue was a squarish construction of piled bricks on an old concrete pad left over from the DC generator from the ‘20s. It had a grill found somewhere for a cooking surface. It was fine for steaks and chickens, but way too small for the fish, so Bob and I enlarged it with more bricks, making it longer. We put the fish on a piece of heavy duty foil, fueled the fire with wood and some charcoal and cooked it, in the open sometimes, sometimes tented with foil.
After several beers and more or less continuous checking it was just done.
We struggled it off the grill and into the house, where many people feasted on the perfectly cooked flesh. Never was there a better fish.
I never grill a piece of salmon without thinking of that King. And the friends we shared it with. If there were ever “good old days” that was surely one of them.

Image: The guy doesn't look much like Bob, but the fish is the right size. http://fishwithjd.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/Bodega-Bay-king-Salmon.jpg

Please, Smell the Roses.

“Life is too short to miss the sunsets, love and good wine.”
I just sent that thought out to a friend, and immediately got to wonder if all of us, me included, have spent too much time with noses to grindstones when young and energetic to stop to enjoy the world. In my case the answer is probably no. I balanced my academic career with lots of side jaunts into nature, relaxing evenings with my love and great times with my students.
These days we have to look pretty hard to find time or motivation to get around all the bad news and cut loose for a few days, or a lifetime. Still, cut loose we must, or suffer the inevitable spiral of downward expectations and maybe even depression. Yes, the world looks bad and getting worse. But there are pockets of really good things going around all of us. Even from the unspeakable events of 9/11 there are heroic and awesome stories of lives changed forever, and some for the better.
Last night Tallahassee Community College dedicated a new health education center to educate the next few generations of health professionals like nurses and first responders. A very positive and forward-looking event. The Center for Biological Diversity spends it’s days and resources trying to fight off the destruction of species and habitat so animal and plant diversity will go forward into the next generations. An uphill struggle, but one that should be undertaken.
But at the bottom of all this is a simple observation: if you don’t take the time to see the sunset, and love, and enjoy life, then there is no point what-so-ever in all the rest. So go forth and plan, save the world and all in it, but please, don’t forget to smell the roses.
(These thoughts are dedicated to Miss T. Thanks for caring)
Image:http://30.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l1lv3igDQC1qbb5axo1_500.jpg

Neanderthals: To Screw or Not to Screw?

Ever since anthropologists accepted the Neanderthal as functionally human the controversy continues. By “functionally human” I mean genetically compatible and similar enough in body form and “look” that anyone would conclude that they are human. This specifically leaves out the qualities sometimes associated as human such as religion and art. The question is this: if modern-type humans and Neanderthals mated would they produce reproductively capable offspring? The answer across the range of research is “yes”.
So, did we or didn’t we? Cellular DNA says “yes” in a study and mitochondrial DNA says “no” in a study. I think human nature can answer this question much easier than biochemistry, and here is a scenario to ponder: A band of human hunters attacks a band of Neanderthals, kills the males and older females and takes a few younger females for slaves. The hunters are pumped up and horney. The females are different from the girls back home, but not as ugly as aunt Dolly. Do they screw them or not?
There is an entire branch of psychiatric study involving Zoophilia, the practice of having sex with animals of all kinds. Farm animals, dogs, cats, fish, deer etc. You get the point. If it has an orifice, somebody will use it for sex. There are men and women walking around in Wal-Mart that make the reconstructed Neanderthals pretty by comparison. Uglyphilia is prevalent in the human realm.
Back to the hunters: they have a young female Neanderthal who is better looking than aunt Dolly and the ratty dog they own. What do YOU think these hunters would do? I vote for Neanderphilia. Besides, I know a few people who so obviously carry Neanderthal traits that I don’t need DNA evidence. I bet you know a few too.
Image: http://www.amren.com/ar/2011/02/04b-NatGeo-neanderthal-woman.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoophilia

It’s TAR sand, DUMMY!!

You know the stuff that the black top roads are made of? That is Bitumen. Hard as a rock, heat and weather resistant, right? That is the stuff in TAR sand. Not oil. Bitumen. That stuff must be heated, melted and hydrogenated to make oil, which then can be heated and cracked into various fuels and other products. The processing of TAR sand uses a lot of energy that oil processing does not, and produces huge amounts of carbon dioxide that oil production does not.
Interesting that the Oil Industry, Exxon-Mobile in particular, the Pipeline Industry and the Republicans are trying to rebrand TAR sand as OIL sand. Why is that do you suppose? Hmmm?
I don’t know about you, but where I come from, pig shit is pig shit, even if you call it pate`.
USA Today: Hundreds arrested during pipeline protest at White House
http://usat.ly/rmqklB

James Hansen: tar sands would be "game over" for climate
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2011/20110603_SilenceIsDeadly.pdf
McKibben: tar sands are "the great American carbon bomb"
http://www.tomdispatch.com/archive/175417/
Image: http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTAvGCaYBPYavcs6tmVNLOPOJ9rsFV-sS36rdSoZQ5ABrVwNpXYcSwLsmo
Imge: http://www.digitaljournal.com/img/8/7/8/i/3/9/5/o/800px-EVOSWEB_013_oiled_bird3.jpg

On-line science? Why Bother?

I just finished teaching 4 Anatomy and Physiology labs, 2 Wednesday and 2 today (Thursday). The students were a delight to be around. Eagar, smart and ready to get into a health profession. We will do lots of stuff this term. Tallahassee Community College A&P labs use mostly high quality models and little real material. We have some human specimens, heart, brains, some reproductive parts and others. Look and touch only, no cutting. I wish we used more fresh material but, alas, we don’t.

The joy of these labs is not the models, it’s the students as they struggle to learn. It’s the one-on-one moments where I teach them how to learn something. It’s the light in their faces when they get it. It’s the interaction with people they don’t know. It’s sooo much more. And all this is lost in an on-line lab. Sure, you can look at high quality photos of models and dissected human legs, but if you can’t understand what you are looking at because the only living thing you have ever seen up close and dead was KFC, then the abstractions are a real impediment. There certainly is a place for on-line education for some people. But not nearly all.

Look. Go back 50k years. I wanted to learn how to make a spear point. You sat down with me and showed me. I practiced while you watched. Or I had to learn to pick non-poisonous plants to eat. I followed you around and watched you, you showed and talked to me, I tried it, got it wrong, and finally learned what to touch and what not to touch. I learned EVERYTHING that way. Humans and their antecedents have been learning the same way for millions of years. Either one-on-one or in small face-to-face groups. It must be good because here we are. So why would anyone think that putting people in a small dim room with a computer and a box of “labs” would be a better way to teach and learn? Beats the hell out of me.

Image: http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/univ/newsletter/2002/dec-jan/images/p5.jpeg

How to Become a Nonbeliever

A friend and I were talking and I mentioned that I was once headed for seminary. She knows I am an atheist, or minimally an agnostic, and asked "- -why a young man headed for seminary then decides there's no God." Good question. The story begins in my teens. I went to University and persued the dual pastimes of raising hell and being religious. There I had a conversation with my mentor/priest in which I said I had a problem, and that was I was becoming convinced there was no God. He said something like "Hmmm. That could be a problem. Maybe you should take some time to reconsider your options." I did, and stand here now not a priest. Why, though? That is difficult. I was raised in the Church (Episcopal, the other Church), and did all the things you do. Lessons, confirmation, first communion, Sunday school, choir, poems about Jesus. The whole nine yards. But somewhere in the late days of high school and the early days of college I just changed. First I came to understand that the trinity was a fabrication of men, that Jesus,if he existed at all was a good man hard put upon, and finally that the God needed man more than man needed God. From there it was not a long step to atheist.

Lately, though, I have seen developing a biological explanation. This centers around the tendency to be a "believer" or a "non-believer". In any population and in every time we have records of there is always a subset of people that eschew the concept of the Divine. Period. The majority believe in some Divine, and 10% or so do not. And cannot. I am in that 10%.

I don't need any supernatural constructs. I don't rely on some absent landlord to look after me. I follow my own understanding of the rules to live by and live by them. They are much like the Golden Rule, and from that all others devolve. I don't believe that the 10 commandments are at all Divine, and some, like honor your mother and father, are nonsense. I honor those that deserve and earn it, not some accident of birth. Should a child molested by her father honor him? Pure nonsense. And not killing? Ha! People have always and will always kill. Any serious god would either forget that commandment or enforce it.

So there you have it. An early recognition that God isn't necessary for anything besides the control of churches, and nature has all the answers anyone needs. I do agree, however, that the 90% of you who are believers are comforted by your beliefs. I just don't understand how you can be so blind as to not see the truth as I see it. Of course, the converse is also true. And when I die, I will be dead. Period. Or to borrow a line from Flanders and Swann "- - and out went all the lights." (1)

Image:http://www.centerforinquiry.net/uploads/attachments/LWR_Image.JPG

1.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyeMFSzPgGc

To Kill Manuel Valle

Thirty three years ago he killed a policeman during a traffic stop. No argument. The crime took place in 1978 and the conviction in 1981. And that is the problem I have.
I was for the death penalty before I was against it. I am still against it. But here is my dilemma: I have no moral objection to killing someone who has purposely and brutally killed someone else. Ted Bundy? Kill him. Charles Manson? Kill him. But do it promptly. Where no doubt, not reasonable doubt, is present, after conviction just take them behind the courthouse and kill them.
My objection is found in the dozens of wrong convictions, the dozens of 30 year waits on death row, the system tainted by racism, the uneven application of penalty by state, and probably more. So now I am against the death penalty because it has not and apparently cannot be applied fairly and justly. I think we should cancel all death penalties in every state, commute the sentences to life, and let the innocent prove themselves.
Besides, it cost too much to execute someone. Far cheaper to keep them in prison for life. We demean ourselves before the world for killing innocent people in the name of justice. We have already lost the moral high ground in many ways so why not take a bit back?
Manuel Valle? Thirty years ago he should have been taken out behind the courthouse and shot. Today he should be left to die a slow and lonely death on death row. Let him spend the rest of his miserable life thinking about the life he could have had, and the life he took.
Image: http://www.dc.state.fl.us/InmatePhotos/8/853220.jpg
Manuel Valle: http://www.postonpolitics.com/2011/08/manuel-valle-execution-set-for-sept-6/

The Gods are Waiting for You

I was driving this morning listening to a PRI program on Science and Spirituality and was held in rapt attention by Diana Beresford-Kroeger (1). She is a botanist and medicinal biochemist among other things. She describes herself as the last of an ancient line of Druidic people, taught many of their secrets by her grandmothers. In keeping with the theme of the series, she described the interactions between people and trees, and explained that it is possible to commune with them, and feel their communications. The sounds they make cannot be perceived by the human ear, but can be felt in the air-filled chambers of the chest. You can hear her interview at the first link and read about her at the second (2)
I was taken back at once to an experience Sal and I had in an ancient Douglas Fir forest on the Olympic Peninsula. We had followed a forest road for several miles when we spotted a trail and parking area cut from the roadside. The forest was quiet and cool and was clearly second growth. We walked the trail for a mile or so, found a creek and followed it a bit, and then turned uphill into a green paradise. Moss and ferns covered almost everything on the floor of the forest, and giant old growth firs towered above. As soon as we entered we felt as if we were in the presence of spirits of immensely old times. And of course we were. We sat for a while, quiet, just soaking up the sense of peace and ancient love, and gave what we had in return. It was as close to magic as you will ever find, and defines God in a way that needs no supreme being, no creator. If there ever were gods, these ancient ones qualify.
We have found the same sense of peace and harmony in other ancient places, some even treeless planes with only standing stones. The gods are out there waiting for you. All you have to do is go and be open.

1. http://ttbook.org/book/diana-beresford-kroeger-power-trees
2. http://www.recreatingeden.com/index.php?pid=8&season=05&episode=60
Image: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPI8MIY0Sju7724TApLyX69_ircqy6P-95Cg5z5KLzMG0I7Rz7MZM8dhRzaayDczivQu8mxemjSqjlrQ4whhBnbRjvy-MOa7k6Jmcz4k6wkQ6Gl6LGVw3cxB-elLN9Fr6HsusID6nBlIw/s320/Old+Growth+Tree+Climb+Salmon+River+july+09+004.jpg