If a politician says the earth is flat …

Haven’t done an absurdity roundup in a while so here goes.
The first one is a little complicated, so bear with me for a while, it does get absurd, I promise.

There is a population of beluga whales in Cook Inlet. They are the small white toothed whales. In the past few years the Inlet group has been discovered to be a genetically distinct population different enough from other belugas so as to be treated almost as a different species. In the ‘70s there were as many as 1,500 in the Inlet, but now they are down to fewer than 300 animals. Hunting was stopped in the ‘90s but the whales have shown no sign of recovery.

Because of the decline and lack of recovery and allowed by the distinct population discovery, the federal government has attempted to have portions of the Inlet designated as critical habitat. From what I understand that doesn’t remove the areas from commercial uses but it does add more steps to the process in order to try to help the whales.

At any rate the wonderful state government of Alaska and the congressional delegation decided on their own without the benefit of any scientific input that the Cook Inlet belugas were a) not threatened but indeed a healthy population saying the scientists had counted wrong and b) are not a distinct population but are just like belugas everywhere. This is now state policy, which is where the absurdity comes in.

Through the National Marine Fisheries Service a federal board was established to study the beluga situation and come up with a solution. Under that board was a scientific panel. That panel included two state of Alaska biologists. The past tense is correct in this instance because they are no longer on the panel.

It seems an executive order defining state policy says scientists doing work outside their state jobs as in participating in studies of beluga whales by the federal government have to adhere strictly to state policy and not to the scientific fact of a specific situation.

When the board discovered our biologists were required to represent state policy rather than the science of the matter, the two were removed. So, now it seems Alaska biologists take their research results from what politicians say is right, not something based in scientific integrity. And, Alaskans have removed themselves from the table and the table loses valuable insight from people who work with the whales. Driving home last night I couldn't help thinking about the belugas swimming around in the Inlet less than a mile to my left, oblivious to what humans are doing because of them.

It is also state policy that Arctic ice is not melting and therefore polar bears are not endangered either. Of course, this has nothing to do with the assault on the Arctic Ocean by oil companies, who can now operate because the ice is melting.

Now, if an Alaska politician says the earth is flat....? Don’t laugh there are tea baggers who probably think it is and some of them are in Congress.

Which brings up tea baggers. By now anyone who cares knows the Governor Interrupted made another Palinism the other day flubbing the facts around the famous ride of Paul Revere. Later she even argued on television she was correct despite tons of evidence to the contrary. That’s to be expected; how dare anyone tell Palinzilla she is wrong. However today comes a new absurdity. It seems her believers (yeah. lord) have attacked the Wikipedia entry about Paul Revere attempting to change it to the Sarah’s version of history. This takes revisionist history to exciting new levels. She actually said he rode to warn the British that Americans had guns and were going to defend Second Amendment rights. Among other things there was no Second amendment as the Constitution had not been written at the time, let alone amended. Wikipedia has never been something to trust totally in research but now with tea baggers rewriting American history it is even more suspect.

This last one is so bad, I kind of hesitate to put in a column of things I am making fun of, but something needs to be said.

A high school cheerleader in Texas was raped by a star on the school’s basketball team. Eventually he was convicted of a lesser assault charge, but it being Texas and it was basketball season he never went to prison for it.

Back at school the victim refused to participate in a cheer that specifically named her assailant. She was actually supposed to yell in support of “Rakheem” every time he went to shoot a foul shot. Given his history it can be expected he was fouled a lot. When she refused she was kicked off the cheerleading team. Not only that she was advised not to eat in the cafeteria, not participate in other school activities and to avoid the prom. This is the victim we are talking about.

Her parents sued the school district. They lost and now are obliged to pay the district $35,000 in court costs.

A reminder again that this is the victim of a rape. That goes beyond absurdity.

Could a fiction writer in his wildest imagination make any of this up? It all kind of makes me want to fly out of here and join the flash mob on Wall Street tonight.

Why do I feel like an endangered species with only a politician between me and extinction?

Finally

Winter machines put away. Summer ones ready to rumble.

Garden is planted, such as it is.

Wild roses and forget-me-nots are blooming,

Yard fairly well cleaned up.

Time to man up. Expotition to the East Pole next weekend, god willing, lack of rapture and the creeks don’t rise (which is the most likely). All that Bush gear in the closet has been tempting me for weeks now. Time to use it.

Catching up on the natural world

The spring porcupine explosion has finally occurred. They are on the road every night and every one I saw alive was still alive after I passed.

More moose these days, particularly in the Knik River brackish marshes. One thing you don’t want to see is two moose obviously agitated and staring frantically at the road running back and forth as if something farther back in the dark is chasing them.

No swans on the pond this year, and I hope the fellow who shot those two last year is sitting in a cell somewhere. Just as well though, no candidates this year either.

The garden is in but with the usual bare spots so maybe off to the store again today. I still like the idea of having fewer plants so I have a more personal relationship with each one. The petunias are challenging that connection though.

I’ve been told no more peas and petunias but I don’t care; there may be film later in the day.

Oh yeah, wild roses blooming in the yard.

Waking up

How many times have you read some sophisticated writer calling a town sleepy? Having lived in a couple of places somebody called a sleepy little town I have to wonder who decides that. Why is one town sleepy and one isn’t? Literally, anyway, what actually defines a sleepy little town? Are the residents always asleep? Do they take siestas? Do they walk around with droopy eyelids? Or, is it that the infinitely wise writer hasn’t taken any time at all to know a place before he writes about it? Just about every writer who goes there calls Cordova, Alaska, a sleepy little town. That is not the Cordova I know. Maybe those writers should wander into a bar on the waterfront some night during the commercial salmon fishing season and see if he can fall asleep. Or better yet tell the partying fishermen they live in a sleepy little town. It is arrogance; it is ignorance; it is cliche. And in the end, the phrase holds no meaning whatsoever.

So, what brought that on? Catching up with my peeps after waking up this morning I came across this video, It seems Newsweek magazine called Grand Rapids, Michigan, a dying town. That didn’t go over well in Grand Rapids. In response they produced a dirge for themselves defying Newsweek’s assessment. It now has more hits on YouTube than Newsweek has subscribers and the magazine is for sale. It doesn’t look like Grand Rapids is. That could lead into what is happening to print media in general but who is calling whom dying, anyway, I have never liked that arrogant bunch of supposed journalists ever since they plagiarized my book without credit, lifting whole quotes from it and when I called them on it they said they could take their information from wherever they wanted and I as a minor regional author could just suffer their superiority.

So now they went and told a town it was dying. Maybe it is only sleepy. Have to wonder if a sleepy little Newsweek writer could tell the difference.

A teachable moment

With little else on my mind earlier in the day I began poking around Facebook with no particular purpose in mind. I noticed someone had been friended by a familiar name and I followed that name to another and another until I came across a woman whom I had known when she was a teenager working as crew on the tour boat I drove. That would have been in the late 80s and she was in her last two years of high school. I haven’t seen or talked with her since, though here and there I learned smatterings about her life.

She has a new last name now and is, of course quite a bit older, but the minute her page came up on the screen I recognized the singular beauty in her eyes burning off the screen mesmerizing me the same way she had done every time I saw her in that previous incarnation. A wonderful group of kids worked on those boats and even so she stood out among them. I remember she took the good-hearted teasing that went on constantly on the boat and gave back as equally as she received. Gruff old boat captains and surly engineers could not intimidate her. She was an athlete, starring on a volleyball team that went to the state championships though I can’t remember if i ever even knew how they did.

Later in the day as I drove to work memories of that time kept coming up and one was very distinct. Early one season we pulled up to the fuel dock and the tie offs there were to 3-inch diameter horizontal bars rather than the cleats where the crew was used to securing the boat. Once alongside and tied off, I stepped off and noticed her standing by the stern. Reasonably sure she was not used to this kind of mooring, I told her the boat should be tied to that bar using a clove hitch, fully expecting to see some kind of Gordian knot. I was preparing myself to show her how to tie the knot, maybe even looking forward to it. I can't remember if she put her hands on her hips or not but it would have fit the situation. With a hint of superior disdain she smiled aloofly at me and with just a hint of outrage, said, "I tied a clove hitch." I looked and sure enough she had. All I could do was laugh. But I am sure my eyes were showing embarrassment and apology, or at least I was hoping they were.

Now, who would you guess learned a lesson from that particular encounter?