A very satisfying week in American democracy

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about a day when you could move away from the news with a smile on your face. This was a whole week of that despite the sadness of the funerals for nine people gunned down in that church in Charleston, South Carolina.

At the beginning of the week it at least appeared that symbol of slavery, the Confederate flag was coming down from the capitals of the South. While it's about time, I thought the effort was a nice bait and switch on the part of the NRA to shuttle the outrage away from gun control and toward taking down a flag. Did anyone else notice the NRA officials pretty quiet about the flag issue, probably happy the issue shifted that way. Nonetheless, probably all right to see that symbol discarded. Did you know that design was never used during the Civil War? It became popular during the civil rights era, used by the Ku Klux Klan. So much for Confederate pride.

Then came Thursday and the Supreme Court decision on the Affordable Care Act. It's legal and constitutional. And those six million people who use state exchanges won't lose their health insurance. Big win for President Obama and his administration and the millions of people who previously could not afford an acceptable level of health insurance.

But the Supremes weren't finished yet. Friday came the decision making same-sex marriage the law of the land. The best thing I saw written about that came out of Hillary Clinton's campaign, saying after years of state-by-state, court-by-court progress it turned out the answer was there in the Constitution all the time. From now on it will be just simply "marriage."

Those two decisions tend to renew a person's faith in the American system. How much do you remember from your high school history class? I don't know why, but this one thing (among others) stuck with me all these years. I remember an American history teacher telling us the authors of the Constitution had made appointments to the Supreme Court a lifetime proposition. That was to assure, because it would be the last job they held, the justices might be immune to pressures and political influences and give them the opportunity to think and judge objectively. For the most part over the years it has worked except maybe for the pressure and conflict of interest Clarence Thomas seems to enjoy from his public relations wife.

I had to laugh at the clueless Republicans after those decisions. Mike Huckabee says he doesn't accept the decision. I think that means he cannot honestly take the oath of office if he were elected president as that oath pledges upholding the Constitution. Ted Cruze called for a way to recall or vote justices off the court. That's exactly why the framers made the appointments lifetime so some ding-dong politician cannot influence the justices. It goes on. There's a minister who said he would set himself on fire if gay marriage was allowed. So far he has remained cool.  Several others have threatened to move to Canada. Good luck with that; same sex marriage has been legal north of the border for ten years.

Over all it has been one hell of a week for the overall health of our democracy and our citizenry. The capper came Friday when the President of the United States delivered the eulogy for a minister slain in that church in Charleston. At the end of his speech, a man in the office that anoints him leader of the free world, unhesitatingly launched in the traditional funereal song "Amazing Grace" and was soon joined by the huge audience who stood as one and sang with the president. It was a moving moment and one that may stand along with his speech for a long time in the history of the country.

Overall it had to be a satisfying week for those who cheer as American democracy advances toward the lofty ideals it was founded upon and one to renew the faith in the process of that democracy to persevere.



President Barack Obama leads the congregation in "Amazing Grace."

President Obama's complete eulogy

Seasons change and so do I

Alaska lore preaches that when the fireweed blossoms reach the top of the stalk there's only six more weeks until winter.

My friend Tom Walker who lives farther north noticed some flowers pretty high on the stalk near his house yesterday. So today I looked around the yard and found this one.

Higher on the stalk earlier than either of us has seen it before this year. This could put the start of winter in mid August.

Maybe it isn't just a random coincidence that today, two days after the solstice marking the start of summer, I got the urge to clean up around the wood pile in anticipation of new firewood.

Of course that solstice also marks when days start getting shorter, another reminder of the long decline into winter. I wonder if the unusually hot spring didn't fool the fireweed into thinking summer is farther along than it is supposed to be.

One simple fact Sea World cannot refute

Killer whales belong in the open ocean.

Ever since CNN broadcast the documentary Blackfish,  Sea World's public relations department has inundated social media and television advertising with a campaign defending itself.  The onslaught comes in waves, peaking just before the network repeats the program.

The campaign is most obvious on Twitter where the company posts comments often several times a day, defending its practice in the care and display of killer whales or highlighting some incident where Sea World did some good in the world like participating in the rescue of a stranded or injured sea creature.

Almost every one of their posts, at least the ones involving whales, attracts a wave of comments from the folks who want to set those whales free or at least stop Sea World from holding them.  It's like the lines from the Buffalo Springfield song "For What It's Worth" "… singing songs and carrying signs,  mostly say hooray for our side …"

Sea World also responds to every criticism the company receives pointing to the positives but in the process often shading the truth and even lying outright; The back and forth into sometimes minute detail tends to bury the underlying problem in a quagmire of claims and counter claims. The public relations department writes about what the whales are fed, how they respond to sunlight and to noise; Sea World says it doesn't separate mothers from offspring yet proof exists that they do. For every criticism there is a response and for every response there is a new criticism.

My favorite by far is this one defending the enclosures:

"SeaWorld ‏‪@SeaWorld‬ Apr 9

Please read this information on how our killer whale habitats are some of the largest in the world: ‪http://bit.ly/1GiI0I3 ."

Consider the word "habitat" for a moment.  Natural killer whale habitat covers all oceans and how Sea World can say any of their "habitats" compares with that is simply ludicrous. Of course, they are referring to habitats for captives, but that's what is wrong, and that's where the basis for Sea World criticism lies.

The company can attack its critics in excruciating detail and the critics can respond in kind but nothing anybody says can change the fact that Sea World confines huge whales in what amounts to swimming pools. No matter what they feed, no matter how good the care is, no matter how healthy they are, the whales, who normally range over thousands of miles and swim in depths measured in fathoms instead of feet, live their lives in what comparatively amounts to a human's back-yard pool.

That is the simple truth of what is wrong with Sea World and nothing the company does or says is ever going to justify that tragic practice.

Whale watching. Who's watching whom?

The singing whales of Alaska's Prince William Sound

Blackfish
More posts about whales

What a difference a day makes

Squash Day 2

Squash Day 1

Yesterday I put up some garden photos showing the growth in the raised boxes so far. Under the picture of the one showing the box with all squash plants I mentioned while they had blossoms on them, the plants in general have always looked a little sickly. In the picture the ground looks very dry, but sticking a finger in the earth would show that there was moisture less than a fingernail deep.

However a friend, commented that they looked very dry and suggested a little more water. I have been watering the same way I always have, really soaking the ground in the evening once the sun is off the plants, but that's all. This is a different year. Two weeks now of temperatures in the 70s and 80s with bright sunlight probably make a difference.

So, on my friend's advice, I did a little extra watering. I went out there in mid afternoon and watered, keeping the flow aimed low so as not to create lenses on the leaves and gave it a good soak. Later after the sun moved off, I went out and watered again. Then, early today I gave it another watering and then another in late afternoon.

What a difference in just 24 hours.  From now on I do not intend to let the ground go dry again. This also helped some sickly looking onions and green bean plants, which now have good color and more blossoms.

My gardens have always been experimental with a little guidance from knowledgeable friends, many of whom over the years have said the biggest mistake many people make is overwatering. As far as the experimental blundering, as my old friend Gary used to say, "What's the fun of doing something if you know how?" Well, part of my not knowing how was finding the happy medium between underwatering and overwatering. I've probably gone too far in the "over" category, but seeing such improvement in one day tells me I am going in the right direction.

Onions, these look better today too.

Lettuce and spinach

The spruce cones are from something I learned on the internet one day. Someone was suggesting recycling materials to use in the garden and suggested pine cones for mulch. They seem to work.

Squash blossom.

Potatoes.

So, thank you Sharon. And, too, thank you Jerrianne; I will thin the lettuce as soon as I can think of a good place to take the produce.

Taped? Filmed? Really?

Here's a little word exercise and anyone who has an idea, comments are welcomed.

How many times a day do we read or hear that something is "on tape" or "taped" or "film" or "filmed?" How many of those are actually taped on tape or filmed on film. Probably none of them. So that begs the question about accuracy and literal definition.

Almost all of what we see these days is digitally recorded with the exception, I understand, for commercial movies.

To my mind the language has to change, or at least the syntax. I've thought of some possibilities but it seems to me an all-encompassing word is still out there somewhere. "Video" serves as a noun but appears clumsy as a verb. "Recording" as noun or verb works, but it leads the mind to music rather than video.

So that's where it stands. Many writers can't seem to get past "taped" and "filmed" and maybe they can be considered to have spread their meaning to digital recording, but they seem archaic in 2015. And while we're on the subject, what does "footage" mean any more?

Suggestions?

There's a fire in the neighborhood

Photo by Stefan Hinman//Matanuska-Susitna Borough​

The #sockeyefire near Willow, Alaska, the evening of 6/14/15.

UPDATE: A little scare last night  6/16 when lightening set off a couple of fires much closer to the East Pole. Washington state Hotshot team had them controlled by morning.  Still waiting and watching but the big fire hasn't grown much in the past two days.

There's a fire going on out there. It grew to 6,500 acres in a single day and still burning hotly the second day. As many as 50 structures have burned and more than 200 people evacuated.  It is near the roadside settlement of Willow, 70 miles from Anchorage by road, and is in an area with a large number of dog mushers. As matter of fact, Vern Halter, a musher in the area and a borough assemblyman, told a press conference volunteers had moved between 400 and 500 sled dogs away from the path of the fire in a short period of time the first day.

There are a lot of people with very serious problems. Mine is very minor compared with them but this fire could threaten the cabin at the East Pole. For now I am going through a thought process here. That fire started well south of the pole, pushed by a northerly wind, but apparently the wind shifted to come more from the south which aims it right at my cabin. Parks Highway, the major route between Anchorage and Fairbanks, now closed at Mile 87. Crow flies, that's about 30 plus miles from the cabin. Yesterday the fire was burning at about half a mile per hour. Mentally now going through packing for a quick trip in there to get what I can. Trailer is hooked up and the four-wheeler and that trailer loaded aboard. Chain saw fueled and ready (to get past downed trees) Other than that and a rifle I think all I need is basic trail gear, tools, survival stuff in small backpack and hit it.

In my favor is that fire will have to jump a power line right-of-way that is about 100 feet wide. Also from the direction it is coming it would have to burn downhill to get the cabin, but not so parts of the trail. If I can get past the highway closure I can be in and out in about 3 hours. If I get caught I can probably make it to the Talkeetna River. Also going through an inventory of what's there that I really need and it's mostly things I really WANT, which is different. Most of my stuff that I would want is photos, some books, memories, that kind of stuff. Can only think of one thing I really need. So I will watch the fire and keep weighing things against each other, but in the meantime will be packed and ready so I can just jump in the Jeep and go.

About all I really need is that 16-pound solid steel Sotz wedge splitting maul that can't be replaced. Of course it is the one thing most likely to survive a fire.

A major contributing factor is that we have been hot, dry and windy for the past week with at least another week of it coming. To give a little perspective, Alaska is about 2/3 the size of the Lower 48 states combined.  About 2/3 of that area is under a fire watch now, more than 300,000 square miles. Meanwhile, I watch every source of information to check the progress of the fire in case I have to take off in a hurry. Updated Tuesday morning, the forecast predicted northeast winds  Tuesday and Wednesday turning easterly Thursday with some clouds showing up. That saves the East Pole for now, but not so good for the folks in Willow. Thinking I will save this list I made of what I wanted to rescue and bring that stuff back next time I go out there.

Just a thought watching the fire. There isn't much I can do from here without being in the way. But, I am sure proud to be an Alaskan today watching how people are helping people.

I have been posting information about the fire all day on Facebook, maps, warnings, updates and not going to repeat them here, but this is a link to my page which is open to the public.

Also here is a photo gallery from the Alaska Dispatch News

Charisma, recalling a horse that had it

If American Pharoah raced Secretariat.
 This is the link to The Wall Street Journal. video

There's a posting going around the Internet the past couple of days in which The Wall Street Journal. combined videos of two Triple Crown winners side by side to show how they would have raced against each other.

Secretariat beat this year's winner, American Pharoah, by just about the same 31 lengths as his lead in the1973 Belmont Stakes.

That's no surprise. To be honest, I don't follow or care much about horse racing, but I do usually watch the Triple Crown races as much for the pageant as for the horses. I mean, who can resist looking at all those outrageous hats at the Kentucky Derby.

But that year, 1973, just about everyone became a fan as Secretariat ran the three races and the outlandish lead in the Belmont, well, amazing. What was different that year was I actually saw Secretariat in person, even stood next to him in the paddock before a race at Arlington Park near Chicago.

What I came away with, was wondering how a horse could be charismatic  Secretariat had it coming off him as an essence that felt almost tangible. I remember standing near him almost in awe of such an animal. He was huge, and the one physical characteristic that has stuck with me over the  years was the size and muscularity of his haunches and how all the muscles in that body narrowed to a waist that looked like your could close your hands around it. The horse was raw power refined, yet calm and stately in demeanor. He was royalty. You felt as much as saw his presence.

Later we hiked out to where we could stand next to the rail in the third and fourth turns. There we watched Secretariat thunder past (I could swear the earth shook) on his way to winning another race against horses that were mere mortals. Somewhere in all the boxes that hold my history there are three or four black-and-white negatives and perhaps a print or two of him running by us as he usually ran, alone and out in front, and in one of them all four hooves are off the  ground, like that famous set of originals the first time a photograph proved a running horse had all four feet off the ground at the same time.

When American Pharoah won this year's Belmont the other day, it had been more than 30 years since any horse had won all three races. Most likely it will be a whole lot longer than that before another horse like Secretariat comes along.

Sailing in the wake of a personal hero

Photo from Alaska.org

The statue of Captain Cook overlooking Knik Arm, Resolution Park, Anchorage.

Bear with me on my rambling thought train today. Last night I fried my microwave. I thought I was
setting the timer and I hit the cook button instead and it ran for 20 minutes with nothing in it. A look at the book today informed me that more than a couple of minutes like that and it will shorten the unit's life.  I can confirm that now.

So, naturally the microwave was in mind today, especially as I went shopping for a new one. As might be deduced, I am not totally familiar with them. Years ago a friend and fellow sailor said he couldn't understand how Captain Cook got all the way around the world without a microwave. Now I understand.

It's a long drive to the store with plenty of time to think and I went with Captain Cook. While I don't claim to be a Cook historian, I did a lot of studying of him when I was working up a spiel for the tour boat I drove for six years. Cook and I had navigated the same waters and in fact he and some of his crew, including William Bligh and George Vancouver, who returned later named many of the geographical features that I pointed out to the tourists.

Prince William Sound where we operated (Cook named it Sandwich Sound after the earl who helped finance his expeditions) is noted for its relatively calm waters. There was only one spot on our trip that could storm up into any kind of rough. Leaving the Columbia Glacier we had to cross the southern end of Valdez Arm which is one of the few places in the Sound open to ocean waves.  At times we could hit five or six footers in there and as they were on the beam, it made the passengers very uncomfortable.

I had a scheme there. If it was calm I gave a short talk about Cook's explorations in the Sound. But if it was rough, I had a talk about Cook that could go on for an hour. I would give it in a low monotone thinking one of two things would happen.  Either people would listen intently taking their minds off the rough water, or it would put them to sleep.  Either way they could make the passage with the least discomfort. It usually worked.

I would go so far as to tell them the story of the sauerkraut where after learning from German sailors, Cook forced his officers to eat the foul stuff and forced them to like it in order to get the common sailors to eat it. This was part of the reason Cook or his crew made three circumnavigations losing only one person to scurvy, and that fellow likely already had it when he was impressed off another ship in the Indian Ocean.

With all of Cook's accomplishments, that little expanded vignette should give you an idea of how long and how dull that talk could be. Despite purposely making his story dull, I greatly admired all  that Cook managed to do over his lifetime, from guiding the British Navy up the St. Lawrence to attack Quebec to being the first to figure accurate longitude and to chart many parts of the world unknown at the time. Today Cook's charts still hold up for their accuracy. Mind you this was in the late 1700s.

I thought so much of him that when I attempted or raise the money for a boat I could single-hand on the big ocean I planned to name it the Captain James Cook. To me it sounded like a grand name to use on the radio when entering some harbor where he had been. In time I had to reduce my dream to a smaller boat which I intended to call Just Jimmy.

There is a statue of the Great Navigator hard by the shore of Knik Arm in Anchorage looking out over the water, sextant in hand, the way he must have stood on the deck of his ships exploring Alaska's coast so many years ago. One amazing man. But how he did it all without a microwave, well, who knows. Can you cook sauerkraut in a microwave?

This is my favorite biography of Cook: The Life of Captain James Cook by J.C. Beaglehole

Hail to the chief

Photo from Politicususa

During the 2014 election I thought the Democrats made a huge mistake running away from President Obama and acting as if what the Republicans were saying about the president was true and damaging. Even at that time it was becoming very obvious that despite the ignorant racist obstructions put up against him Obama was having himself a very successful presidency. I thought those chickenshit Democrats should have embraced Obama and his policies, gotten the word out and jammed his successes down those smug Republican throats. If you could have watched the Senate campaign in Alaska you would have thought both candidates were in the same party.

The deficit was down, stock market way up, unemployment was way down and the GNP was rising. People found affordable health insurance and jobs were opening up. Those are just a few of the positives accomplished by the present administration. Take a look at how many others there have been by following the link at the bottom of this post. Hundreds.  All that and we still have our guns and we haven't been geo-tagged.

I thought it during the campaign, I felt the election confirmed the mistake when Americans voted against their own interests because they believed lies that no one was refuting when they should have and they hated having an African American in the White House. So many people pussyfoot around that issue but I won't. Racism is at the base of the most vitriolic hatred aimed at the president. That was all too obvious the day he joined Twitter as POTUS. The absolutely vile comments directed at him shortly after he signed on even made me cringe and I might be the original sailor with the salty language. It is racism pure and simple, hatred for a man because of the color of his skin.

Now we are more than a year past those elections and the Republicans have yet to accomplish anything in Congress despite their majorities. As a matter of fact they are so busy calling each other names while it seems half of them are running for president and so busy trying to criticize Obama for all the new things he is accomplishing that they have rendered themselves all but irrelevant. Still the criticism goes on, still the hatred and racism and denigration.

Well I for one am sick of it. I think it's time those of us who can see what a great job he is doing despite the obstructions have to stand up, be counted and answer back. Point out the advances and accomplishments, cheer for the victories, and most of all recognize that the United States is in incredibly better shape than it was the day he took office.

In the past couple of days I have shared two items on Facebook in that regard. One showing that for the seventh year in a row President Obama came out as the most admired man in the world in an annual Gallup Poll. Seven years in a row. Pay attention people.

The other one lists more than 100 accomplishments of his administration. There's a link to that list at the bottom of this post. Read down it if you have time. Many of them have hardly been noticed yet they have gone a long way to make life in America more bearable.

I have received some negative comments on those posts including from my own family. One of them even raised the spectre of my dead father who was so conservative he was one step short of a monarchy and saw communists behind every bush and doorway.  He even advocated putting the president in a uniform so he would command more respect overseas. If he were alive today he would have been one of the middle class victims of trickle-down economics and probably would have lost the pension that sustained him through the last years of his life. Still one of my relatives thinks he would be rolling over in his grave at the thought that a black man was succeeding in the White House. Rest in peace Dad.

I have let those criticisms ride for a couple of days, but I am gong to dump them from the posts and in their place put this little message up:  "If you've come to check on your ignorant racist response to this post, it's not here.  I will not abide one-sentence rebuttals to five years of good work. If you want to disagree go down that list of accomplishments and refute each one, with proof of what you say and then I might listen. The First Amendment guarantees free speech for sure, but it does not guarantee you a place to make your speech, nor does it protect you from consequences. If you want to keep that sort of crap going, get your own page and put your ignorance out there for everyone to see. I am not going to give you the opportunity here."

Meanwhile I am going to continue to post the positive messages of Obama's presidency whenever I can and I hope others will too. It's about time we stopped accepting the lies and started letting the truth out into the sunshine.

Here's the link to the list of President Obama's accomplishments