CHRISTMAS 2018

Two things I love most in this world

While Linda was alive she goaded me into writing fairly elaborate Christmas newsletters, but now that she is gone I have let the practice slip.  I have received so many welcome communications this season, however, that I want to toss off a note of my own.  I will post it on my Frivolities blog, and also email it to family and close friends.  So, anyway: Merry Christmas & a Happy New-Year!    

I guess I am doing pretty well, in view of the fact that I am 85 years old.  My brain seems to be holding up fairly well, but my body is rapidly succumbing to entropy, lapsing into a state of disorganized, non-functional ruin.  I want to avoid darkening your day, so suffice it to say that I use a walker most of the timer, swallow five prescription pills daily (his does not Include pain pills), and am on a first-name basis with half the medicos in town.  Nevertheless, . . . .

I spent a few weeks in Borrego Springs last winter, traveled to Wisconsin to visit Linda and Paul Kelly and to Cordova to see the bulk of my family.  Carolyn, Linda’s sister, and her son and family, visited during the summer, and we had a good time exploring San Juan Island.  Late summer Karen, Carolyn and I took a great trip on the St. Lawrence River, from Quebec to Kingston, Ontario.   And I continued to play golf pretty much weekly, although the way I “play” golf these days involves nothing you could call real exercise!  Of course, my Friday happy hour with the gang goes on.

During 2018 I have kept my blogs fairly active.  My serious blog has captured the attention of internet trolling ventures located in several unlikely countries, thereby bloating my “hits” count to a preposterous 56,000.  I take pleasure in the fact that 30,000 of them are from places that actually speak English.  My Frivolities blog accumulates far fewer hits, but most of them are genuine.

So I guess that’s it.  To end as usual: my monkey puzzle tree is ever more magnificent, my ginkgo is prospering, and my cat is happy.

I hope you have a wonderful 2019.

MY "FAVORITE" GRANDSON

sigh!

“Hi, Grampa, it’s me, your favorite grandson!”  I have answered the phone twice recently and been greeted in this way.  The problem is: I have three lovely granddaughters – but no grandson.  This, it seems, is a particularly clumsy, and truly ugly, scam.  Have you had a similar experience?

Both times I simple said something foul and hung up.  Next time I am going to try to string the bastard along, find out what he wants (money, surely) and, if possible, get some clue as to how to nail him.

 I am old, but my brain still operates at a near-normal level.  However there are lots of old people – with grand kids – that might bite.  It is particularly reprehensible to pick on us old folks, don’t you think?  Sure you do.

On average, we humans are not a particularly admirable species.  Most of us are okay, and a few of us are downright admirable - but there are way too many  shitheads mixed in.

DEATH OF AN ANCIENT

Linda, pretending to like Lonesome George

If you have waited until now to visit the Galapagos Islands and Lonesome George, you have waited too long.  The islands still exist, of course, but George – after at least a century in captivity – has finally gone to be with his ancestors.  George was the last of his species; continuous efforts to induce him to mate with a female of a slightly different species came to naught.  But in death Lonesome George is proving a boon to science.  There is a sub-set of geneticists that specialize in longevity, and they are studying the DNA of George, as well as of similar huge tortoises from around the world, trying to deduce the secret of their longevity.  They are making significant progress, if this article is to believed.  I see no direct application to us Homos, though.  And, anyway, would you want to spend 250 years crawling around on your belly and eating grass?

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/08/science/lonesome-george-tortoise.html

GEORGE. GEORGE MUSTOE. NOW LISTEN UP!

Okay, George, this is your old professor speaking.  Your photographs are too valuable just to toss them out there like corn kernels in a hen coop.  Your assignment is to use them to illustrate multiple narratives.  Sample narrative titles:  Why I took up climbing instead of drag racing.  How I learned to love my ice ax.  The THIRD time I almost got killed in the mountains.  How I got Gregg Petrie to the top of Mt. Shuksan.

For an example of what I am suggesting, see my Gundelberg Cycle:

https://frivilousessays.blogspot.com/2017/07/jeremiah-gundelberg-index.html

I, for one, would be delighted if you did so.  I am sure many others will agree.

Myrl Beck

LET'S HONOR A MOST IMPORTANT WOMAN

Rosalind Franklin at Work

You all know who Rosalind Franklin was, right?  Well, the Bank of England is about to issue a new 50 pound note, and it is running a contest to determine who goes on it, and I want you to vote for Rosalind.  Whoever is honored in this way must be/have been (a), real (Not David Copperfield, for instance), (b) dead (no, you can’t nominate Michelle Obama), and (c) have done something good for humanity (thus excluding Hitler and Stalin, for example).  I suggest that you go here

https://www.refinery29.com/en-gb/2018/11/217677/rosalind-franklin-50-pound-note

and nominate Franklin.

Rosalind Franklin took the X-ray photographs that tipped off Watson and Crick as to the structure of DNA.  She is mentioned in a dismissive way by Watson as “Rosy” in Watson’s snotty – but engrossing – little book “The Double Helix”.  Most people assume that she would have shared in the Nobel Prize but for the fact that she died, of ovarian cancer, before it was awarded.  However, given the sexist attitude of the day, that is by no means certain.

ARCTIC CRIME WAVE

BANKS BEWARE!

              The notorious Cordova mob trains its new get-away driver!

WE BELONG TO A DISGUSTING SPECIES

Little kids, as they ought to be

Some wise and respected biologist whose name I have forgotten, once said something more or less like “nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.”  I wholeheartedly agree. The more I learn about biological processes, the more I am convinced that they are so needlessly complicated and imperfect that they must be the result of random chance operating on a substrate itself constructed of a long chain of random chances.  We (and all life, I guess) are Rube Goldberg contrivances, not the result of expert engineering.  (And, if you don’t know who Rube Goldberg is, look him up.)

So, I take it as axiomatic that species change and sometimes become new species by processes of natural selection.  At this particular juncture natural selection has spewed up Homo sapiens as the dominate species world-wide.  Not only that, but it has (tragically) imbued us with the power to exterminate thousands of other species – something no other dominate species has ever been able to do.  More even than that, it has made us capable of exterminating ourselves, and with climate change, wars, WMDs, over-population, irrational and murderous hatreds between group – and indomitable stupidity – we promise to do just that, and perhaps very soon!

        

Can you tell that I am in a foul mood this morning?

What has put me in this mood is the war in Yemen, specifically images of little children dying of malnutrition.  Little children ought to be happy and healthy, like my great grandchildren (above).  None should ever have to lie on a cot, ribs and arm-bones scarcely covered by skin, a glaze of misery and incomprehension in their eyes – sucking their thumb!  They are innocent, for Christ's sake!  Whatever the economic and geopolitical consequences of this war may be, they cannot, ever, justify torturing little children to death!  I am sure that you agree.

A big part of my problem here is that I don’t know what to do about it – and neither, if you will be honest with yourself. do you.  Yemen’s misery is only one aspect of the frightful mess the Middle East has become.  We (the U.S.) tolerate Saudi Arabia solely because of its huge oil reserves.  If the deserts of Arabia were just barren sand and camel dung we would have nothing but contempt for the Saudis.  Also, the Iranians hate us (for reasons that can be substantially justified historically), and the Saudis hate the Iranians, so we cuddle up to this corrupt, medieval band of Arabian thieves ever more tightly.

For my part I don’t give two hoots in hell about whether the Middle East is all Shia, all Sunni, or half in half, so long as they don’t fight about it.  Also, I would like the Saudis to blow their oil out of a part of their anatomy not designed for that purpose; we can frack our way to petroleum independence, and moreover ought to phase the stuff out, anyway.  And as for Israel, let them fend for themselves - they have shown repeatedly that they can do it, in spades.

And I don’t know what to do about nuclear proliferation.  Maybe MAD will take care of it.  

So, maybe evolution has blundered humanity into a spot where our next step is to render ourselves extinct.  I wouldn't be surprised.  We certainly deserve it.

I am not going to watch TV news tonight.

OUR MURINE FRIENDS

Is there no limit to man’s cruelty to mice?

https://directorsblog.nih.gov/2018/10/25/halloween-fly-through-of-a-mouse-skull/

Actually, this is a useful anatomy lesson, sort of.

EYESIGHT

Damn, does this getting-old business ever suck!  Insofar as I do anything  useful these days, I do it on my computer.  Despite the best efforts of Fairhaven Vision, it has become next to impossible for me to read text off my ASUS desktop; only by sitting, Bob Cratchet-style*, on a high stool, near the screen – and using the close-up part of my bifocals, can I make out any part of the printed word.  I have had “computer glasses” made numerous times, but they never quite do the trick.  Now I am increasingly resorting to the Microsoft Word gambit – highlight and save that part of the text that you think might be interesting, transfer it to a Word document, enlarge the hell out of it, and print.  Many trees are dying needlessly in the process.  Pity.

DOES ANYONE KNOW HOW I CAN PERSUADE MY COMPUTER TO USE BIGGER CHARACTERS?

*

THE SPANISH FLU

Be very glad you weren't a soldier in 1918

About 100 years ago an influenza mutated to initiate what now is called N1H1 flu virus.  In about three years H1N1 managed to kill about 50 million people world-wide, or approximately three times as many as died in WW1, which was going on at the same time.  H1N1 probably was born somewhere in central Kansas, although alternative theories exist.  What became known (erroneously) as the Spanish Flu spread  like lightening throughout the world largely because of the war; large masses of men crowded together under less than sanitary conditions provide an ideal field of battle for an ill-intentioned virus.  Almost every community in the United States was affected, with up to 10% moralities.  In the early 20^th century the only defense against a pandemic was quarantine.  Lake City. Colorado escaped entirely by the somewhat brutal expedient of placing guys with shotguns at all entrances to the town.

Well, anyway, The Economist magazine contains an interesting article on the Spanish Flu.  Here it is:

https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2018/09/29/the-centenary-of-the-20th-centurys-worst-catastrophe

By coincidence, I have just finished reading a book on the same subject: The Great Influenza, by John M. Barry.  You can buy it for next to nothing at Abebooks.  It is mildly absorbing and will teach you a lot about viruses and pandemics, but in general I don’t recommend it.  For me, its over-arching theme is the invincible stupidity of the U.S. federal bureaucracy. I sure hope things are better now.

ON THE AGING BRAIN AND THE DEATH OF BRAIN CELLS

For a very long time I have been distressingly prone to leaving my credit card behind after a transaction.  I can’t count the number of restaurants I have had to phone:  “Ah, I had dinner at your place last night, and I think I left my credit card behind.  Would you look, please?  The name is Beck”.  I have been told many times, by my wife, my sister in law,  my three daughters, and even total strangers to “Put your credit card away BEFORE you sign the slip.”  I have become pretty good at doing just that; I haven’t left a credit card on the table in several years.  Now, however, I seem to have developed an even more  pernicious  habit – I dutifully put my credit card in my wallet – and then leave the WALLET behind on the table!  I have done that several times in the past few months.  I did it again this morning, meaning that Karen will have to take ME to dinner, rather than the other way around!  (Not really:  I have cash stashed in the sock drawer.)

I need a full time caretaker.

A PLAGUE OF - FRUIT FLIES!

Nearly two years ago the Lord visited upon me a plague of houseflies:

http://frivilousessays.blogspot.com/2016/12/my-room-mates.html

Well, I must have sinned again, because He has seen fit to do it again, this time with fruit flies.  An alternative explanation is that on their recent visit my fruit-deprived Alaskan relatives bought carloads of fresh fruit, but didn’t get it all consumed.  Some has been lingering on the kitchen counter for days.

Anyway, I have stumbled on an effective weapon against fruit flies – the Greyhound.  A Greyhound is a drink consisting of one part ice, one part vodka, and two parts grapefruit juice.  I have one or two most nights.

Well, it turns out that fruit flies are avid little alcoholics.  Invariably I leave my Greyhound glass sitting around somewhere, with a tiny bit of fluid at the bottom.  And, the next morning, I find the glass black with dead and dying fruit flies!  I have made serious progress fighting the fruit fly menace, using dirt-cheap vodka.  Getting rid of the rotting fruit helped.

WHO IN HECK ARE YOU?

Dear Portuguese Person:

Almost every time I check I find that someone from Portugal has read one or other of my blogs.  I am pleased, of course, but also curious.  Who are you, and what attracts you to my blogs?  I visualize you as an earnest student practicing reading frothy, Americanized English.  If so, I hope you prosper thereby.

Or, just maybe, you are the Hailwoods, sitting on your veranda in the Azores, watching the sun go down – with a cocktail in one hand and a laptop in the other.  If so, I envy you.

You can reveal yourself with a Comment to this blog.

PROOF OF LIFE ON DISTANT PLANETS

Google keeps track of the countries from which my “hits” originate.  So far the total is 95 – out of 196 sovereign nations on this earth.  Most lacking are hits from Central America and West Africa.  By far the majority are from the U.S., of course, but Russia, Italy and Spain rack up enough to convince me that they are trolling the blogosphere, searching for – what?  Hilary’s emails?  A way to blot out the Donald’s Tweets?  When the stock market will collapse?  Will the Dem Progressives manage to abolish capitalism?  I sure don't have a clue.

 ‘Tis a puzzlement!

But I have just been notified of a hit from an intriguing source.  Google characterizes it as “Unknown Region”.  Doubtless Google knows every tiny earthly nick and cranny – so this Unknown Region must, logically, be outer space.  I have arrived:

E.T. is reading my blogs!

HOW TO FEED A BABY

Well, I’m a little out of my element here, but I will blunder on regardless.  According to all experts, including my granddaughter Amanda,, breastfeeding offers multitudinous benefits to both mother and baby, compared to even the best artificial formula.  Moreover, it’s free.  However, the U.S. apparently has torpedoed a World Health Organization urging poor countries to favor breast milk over stuff you buy in the local market.  Why did we do it?  Why, to protect American business, of course.  Makes you proud to be a capitalist!

https://www.ewg.org/childrenshealth/22146/why-you-should-still-breastfeed-even-though-us-delegates-blocked-who#.W3HIKc5KiUk

I’d fill in the details for you, but the damned capitalist NYTimes won’t let me.

Trump responds:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-44772686?intlink_from_url=https://www.bbc.com/news/topics/c008ql15140t/breastfeeding&link_location=live-reporting-story

 

DOWNS SYNDROME

Dr. Collins at the NDSS award breakfast

Okay, so this guy Francis Collins is having too much impact on my life.  Here is a picture of him after having received an award from NDSS, which stands for National Downs Syndrome Society. The lady on his right is the head of NDSS.  The lady on his left, who obviously suffers from Downs Syndrome, is employed by NDSS as a community outreach associate.  Her name is Charlotte Woodward.  Charlotte recently GRADUATED from George Mason University, in Fairfax, VA!

That makes my paltry little PhD feel like a booby prize.

And to think we once thought of them as being, somehow,  “Mongoloid”!

https://directorsblog.nih.gov/2018/07/25/honored-to-receive-impact-award/

A GENETIC ANOMALY

Grand daughter Olivia, great grandson Finnegan

Olivia is a nurse, and has just given Finn a shot

This picture is making a hash out of my writing career!  I have it as a screen saver, and every time I sit down to write something, this picture stops me in my tracks!  The question always arises: how could such beautiful people be related to ME?  Several “friends” have commented on this supposed genetic anomaly.  Damned if I buy them any more beer.

KOREAN WAR

Me, in 1981

Got kind of choked up tonight, watching TV footage of the remains of our soldiers from the Korean War being returned to the United States.  Those guys were my contemporaries, I may have played football against some of them.  I missed that war because I was affluent, well connected, and smart.  I'm glad I did, but I wonder now about the morality of it all.  Why wasn't I in one of those little boxes, and one of them sitting here?  The older you get, the less you really understand.

I SURPASS TOLSTOY!

LEO

Google tells me that my next posting to www.ljb.quiltcutie.blogspot.com (Myrl’sBlog) will be # 600.  I estimate that the average entry contains about 300 words.  Thus, I will have written 600 X 300 = 180,000 words over these past six years.  Tolstoy is said to have written War and Peace in the same amount of time; however, War and Peace consists of 587,284 words.  Thus, Tolstoy out-wrote me by more than three to one!   But, as is well known, one picture is worth a thousand words – and all of my blog entries feature a picture!  That adds 600,000 words to my total – and leaves Tolstoy floundering in the dust.

And that doesn’t even count this (www.frivilousessays.blogspot.com) blog.

Nobel people, please take note!

MORE FUN WITH BIOLOGY

A cholera bacterium morphing into something else

Evolution requires genetic divergence – progeny that are not the exact duplicate of a parent.  Mammals acquire this diversity through sex – building the genome of the progeny out of bits and pieces of two different genomes, mom and pop.  Mutations also play an important role.  However, bacteria also evolve (witness all the antibiotics on the market), but don’t enjoy anything you might call sex.  In part they evolve – change – by capturing bits of DNA floating around in the blood stream.  Here is neat video of a cholera bacterium literally reaching out and capturing DNA blobs, then “eating” them.  It reminds me, and Dr. Francis Collins, of Spiderman snatching a weapon out of the grasp of a bad guy.  Pretty cool!

https://directorsblog.nih.gov/2018/07/19/a-bacterium-reaches-out-and-grabs-some-new-dna/

HEROES

This is the sort of thing that's important

Everyone needs heroes. 

To settle on a hero demands that you first determine what is important.  Then a hero can help you to stick to the right path.

Currently I have two heroes.  One is John McCain.  The other is Maya Tisdale.  They are about as different, superficially, as it is possible to be.  What they have in common is, foremost,  courage, They also seem to share a healthy, positive view of life.  Sadly, one’s clock is winding down.  The other’s has barely begun to tick.  I thank them both for reminding me of what is truly important.

http://frivilousessays.blogspot.com/2017/09/an-open-letter-to-john-mccain.html

http://frivilousessays.blogspot.com/2018/07/mighty-miss-maya.html

MIGHTY MISS MAYA

WHAT CAN I SAY?

We all know that life has its distinct stages:  young  adulthood, where life is your personal oyster;  middle-age, when you , realize it’s a clam, certainly not an oyster; maturity, when you can afford oysters, but the doctors won’t let you eat them; old age, when you can’t remember why you liked them in the first place.  Well, whatever stage I am in right now, it fosters penitence, extreme lachrymose behavior, and inquisitiveness.

As to penitence: I have done some bad stuff in my day, but I have been trying hard  to make amends. 

My inquisitiveness lately has mainly involved religion.  All my life I have called myself an agnostic.  As I see it now, there are two kinds of agnostic:  (1) the kind that says “I don’t know” simply because he/she regards themselves as just too damned busy to worry about it; (2) the type that realizes it is an important question, has mulled it over thoroughly,  and simply can't be sure.  Up until the last year or so I definitely was a type 1 agnostic, but now I am beginning to qualify as type 2.

Lachrymose behavior is harder to explain.  Until recently, when confronted with sad stories I would shrug, mutter something like “bummer”, and turn the page.  Now, however, I am more likely to weep.  Especially if little children are involved.  Which brings me to why I wrote this blog in the first place.

Be sure to click on this web address.  You may have to endure an ad at first, but persevere; it is worth it.  If you can watch this clip and not cry, you are a hard-ass indeed.

https://abcnews.go.com/Health/year-cerebral-palsy-celebrates-taking-independent-steps/story?id=56370753

So, I ask myself, if there is a loving and benevolent God, why do awful things happen to innocent people?  I know this is a childish sort of question to those few (those very few) of you who are well-grounded in religious philosophy, but to me it’s profound.  Some of you doubtless will reply: “God’s plan is not our plan”.  My rejoinder would be “Well, if He is so benevolent, why did He equip me with this feeble little intellect, one that allows me to witness pain and to some extent participate in it, but not understand why it is necessary?

I think my inquisitiveness has a long way to go.

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!

An atrocity

Okay, enough is enough!

There are plenty of things political, social, even philosophical, that we can legitimately disagree on.  Immigration policy.  Taxes.  Tariffs..  Disarmament.  Even the usefulness of a stupid border wall.  But there can be no disagreement where wanton cruelty is concerned.  It is wrong, always, even if perpetrated with the best of intentions.  Wanton cruelty directed against innocent children is even worse; it is an unimaginable, unforgivable sin.  As a great grandfather, the thought of deliberate cruelty directed against toddlers fills me with  boiling anger (can you tell?) and disgust.

The Trump administration’s policy of separating  children from their parents is immoral, provokes contempt for America around the world – and, ultimately, will prove ineffective.  America's status as a just, humanitarian society will be in tatters because of it,  for decades. .... (I have sat here for ten minutes trying to think of a rousing climactic-sentence for this paragraph that is neither libelous nor profane.  I can't.  Supply your own.).  

I searched Dante’ Inferno this morning to find the proper Circle of Hell for Donald Trump.  I couldn’t find one.  So, how about I propose a Tenth Circle, to be the final “resting” place of persons  given over to pointless, wanton  cruelty, compounded by groundless egotism, and seasoned with a dash of stupidity?  If you belong there even the Pope couldn’t  get you off.  Not that he’d want to.

POST GUNDELBERG MOUNTAIN ADVENTURES, 2

Catching Dinner

The miracle of the vanishing cave.

Have I effectively alerted you,  politely, to the fact that my early Wind River hiking companion, Bob/JG was – how can I say this? – strongly opposed to spending money.  In fact, let’s face it, he was a tightwad.  In those days (1970s, 1980s) quality, REI-type tents tended to be massive, heavy affairs, mainly suitable for car camping; not something one would choose to lug over 50 miles of trail.  So, if you planned to stay out one or more nights you: (1) bit the bullet and lugged a big tent; (2) carried a tarp and strung it up so as to shed rain; (3) carried a hatchet, cut dozens of small bushes, and made a lean-to; (4) trusted to a benevolent Providence and went without any shelter at all; (5) relied on being able to find a cave.  

Well, all but (1) begged the question of what to do about buzzing insects, and several ignored the fact that at high Wind River elevations there may be no bushes to cut, nor trees to use to anchor a tarp.  And it rained, not all the time, but frequently.  And hard.

And who in heck knew where to find caves?

So, anyway, one year we carried a big, awkward tent.  We stayed dry, but we didn’t get very far, and had very little fun.

Well, Keller researched solutions to the shelter problem all that next year.  He found specialty, hand crafted light tents – but they all cost way too much.  Finally, he discovered somebody selling tiny, light, one piece plastic tents – for something like $19.95.  Just the thing.  So, next summer we toted one along. 

Well, we got to Middle Fork Lake, set it up and, while Bob contemplated dinner, I went fishing.  That night we ate a nice dinner, spread out our sleeping gear, and crawled into our cozy little red plastic prison.

And it rained hard, all night.  The next morning everything we owned was soaked through, and we were on the edge of hypothermia!  The damned tent leaked like it was made of 1 in. chicken wire!

We were up that well known creek.  Although the sun quickly warmed and dried things, we were faced with either running like hell for the trailhead (maybe 25 miles), or finding a cave.  So, we attempted the latter.

Well, after a long search, we found one.  It was a miserable little slot in the rocks, barely wide enough for two humans’ side-by-side.  Moreover, it sloped downwards towards the entrance, thus assuring that you would gradually slide out during the night.  But that was all Providence provided, so that was where we camped, for seven days.  (During the day we would explore out in all directions, but we returned to that miserable cave every night.)

And, you know what?  It never rained again!

Well, we learned quite a lot from that experience.  The next year we had a much better tent.  And, of course, we carried more rum.

The funny thing is, I went back to Middle Fork Lake several times, with Thor Hansen, and I searched for hours for that cave.  It simply wasn’t there.

So, I know it was there once.  Did Providence place it there out of mercy, and then retract it when its job was done?  Seems unlikely – but the ways of Providence are indeed mysterious!.

POST GUNDELBERG MOUNTAIN ADVENTURES, 1

Middle Fork Lake, where we often camped

After the Gundelberg phase of my life I continued to backpack and scramble easy peaks for another several decades.  Much of that was done in the Wind River Range of Wyoming, first with JG/Bob, and later with Thor Hansen.  Today (6/10/18) I began to survey and sort my ancient mountaineering literature; this promises to be a slow process, not least because everything I find I read and reminisce over.  Well, I just found a ratty little guidebook from the Winds.  In it was a note to myself, dated 1988.  It was a list of stuff not to bother to bring on the next trip - mostly clothing, soap, toothpaste - stuff like that.  At the bottom of the list I had written, in heavy lettering: BRING MORE RUM!

Even in 1988 I had my priorities straight.

MY COUSIN CHARLENE

The (very) extended Bebee-Stalcup tribe

That's Charlene in the front row, center

Her sister Lynda Berendson is in her left

My sister Susannah Johnson is on her right

Being old sucks.  In addition to everything else, being old entails watching your contemporaries die.  One of my contemporaries, a particularly important one to me, just died, and it would make me feel better to write a few words about her.

Her name was Charlene (Bebee) Stalcup.  She was my cousin, who lived across the street from me all the years I was growing up.  She was two years my junior.  Charlene was bright, happy, talented, and beautiful.  She had dozens of friends – some of whom I dated in high school, and one of whom I married.  I used to torment her unmercifully – and she would pay me back, in spades.  I owe her lots, not least (with my other girl cousin, Ginger) instrumenting my election as King of the Senior Prom!

Charlene married Ed Stalcup after they met at Redlands University.  Ed was big, handsome, self-confident – a talented athlete.  He could throw a football an unbelievable distance, and he played golf like a pro.

Together Charlene and Ed brought five admirable children into this world.  Curiously, all five were given names beginning with the letter “K”.  (Charlene once remarked that if there had been a sixth one his/her name would have been “Kaboose”).  The Stalcups spent most of their lives in Big Bear, California, where Ed taught English, football, and skiing.  Charlene, in addition to taking care of a large family, established and operated a pre-school for many decades; she is well known and greatly admired for her efforts throughout the community.

Ed died a few years ago, and Charlene had been in poor health for some time.  Nevertheless, she continued to be active in her pre-school until just recently.  She is survived by a huge family (see photo) and a community that grieves at her passing.  She was 83.

Charlene, I’m sorry I punched you so hard with my new pillow boxing glove, all those years ago.  But, of course, then I had to run for my life!

THE PLASTICS PROBLEM

Our friends

Yin and yang.  For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.  No good deed goes unpunished.  You can’t win for losing.

Folk sayings and philosophies have forever warned that what may appear to be unalloyed good inevitably conceals at least a little evil.  The blooming rose shelters the stinging insect.  Gun control fosters unemployment in the munitions industry.  And so it goes.

Enough of this crap.  The Economist presents an article it might amuse you to read:

https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2018/05/26/another-way-to-recycle-plastic

One of the major fast-encroaching problems of modern life is the proliferation of plastic waste.  Huge swatches of open ocean are littered with floating plastic garbage.  On personal observation, there are beaches in untouristed northern Greek islands so thick with plastic litter that you must resort to kicking the stuff aside to create space to spread your towel.  The desert sands between the pyramids are mantled by several centimeters of crushed plastic water bottles. 

And so it goes.  If we don’t act soon we will find ourselves smothering in the stuff.  Well, out of Stanford comes a glimmering of hope.

It turns out that the gut bacteria of the mealworm – the larval stage of an ugly black beetle, Tenebrio molitor, probably the stink bug of your youth – have a thing for various plastics.  They eat the stuff, and at a not-inconsiderable rate.  So maybe the solution to the plastics problem is to create huge mounds of unwanted plastic, add tons of stinkbugs, and let nature take its course.  Disgusting, maybe, but still rather neat, don’t you think?

But, inevitable, there is a bee in the blossom.  

Consider metabolism in general.  When creatures eat stuff they convert part of it to growth, energy, etc., but there always is some residual material that must be disposed of.  And what does the mealworm excrete upon digesting plastic?  Why, carbon dioxide, of course.  So, combat the plastic scourge – and contribute to global warming.

You just can’t win for losing.

As an aside, did you know that people actually EAT mealworms?  They are said to be best roasted or pan fried but, and I can hardly believe this, some people actually eat them raw, and alive!

PRECOCIOUS SCHOLAR

A dogged search for knowledge

My favorite great grand daughter, at least for now.  Certainly the oldest.

MARINE BIOLOGISTS

Who, me?  I ain't gonna be no freaking marine biologist --

I gonna be a MOVIE STAR!

                                           My great grandsons, in their natural habitat.

A NOT ENTIRELY SERIOUS SUGGESTION

Not how it's done these days

Now even the NYTimes is stealing my ideas!  The article featured below describes “carbon-farming”, which is a new paradigm in agriculture aimed at combating global warming by farming in such a way as to store atmospheric carbon in the earth – while still managing to feed humanity.  A good idea, really.

But it all began with my idea, which I called “coalification”.

Trees, as you all know, grow by sucking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and building “complex carbohydrates” (sugars).  So while they are alive they are carbon sinks.  However, when they die they usually either rot, or burn, thus returning carbon to the air.  So, on balance, trees are a wash.

But sometimes they get turned into coal – a grand and efficient storage container for carbon.

Coal forms when vegetation dies but neither rots nor burns.  This usually happens in swamps or marshes – places where the dead stuff can waste away out of contact with the earth’s surface.  After thousands of years, pressure from the weight of overlying sediment, and maybe a little heating, the original organic material, cleansed of all extraneous admixtures, becomes COAL –  ready to heat our homes, generate our electricity, and do a nasty number on our environment.

So the antidote to global warming is obvious: grow trees, cut them down when they are mature – and bury them.  Make more coal, but never dig it up!

Of course, this might require producing the entire world’s food on a tiny scrap of land, and turning all the remaining farm land into forest.  Hello GMO and inorganic farming!  Better buy Monsanto.

I publicly elucidated this policy years ago.  Of course, it was over beer at the Chuckanut.  I never get no credit!

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/18/magazine/dirt-save-earth-carbon-farming-climate-change.html

COFFEE A CARCINOGEN? Gimme a break!

Coffee in the morning to get me going

Alcohol in the evening to slow me down

Well, I should have seen it coming, but I didn’t. 

As aid in my cancer blogging I subscribe to many news sources, including Google alerts (about ovarian cancer), the NCI and NIH newsletters, Cancer Currents, Lancet – and a whole bunch more.  I also receive (free) the NYTimes Science Newsletter.  It was through the latter that I finally broke down and subscribed to the Times itself (digital version, much limited in content).  That was the straw (log, rather) that finally broke the poor camel’s back.

This is by way of revealing that my Gmail inbox has become so cluttered that entire items, once read, can disappear.  This is what happened with a report on coffee.  I would like to cite it accurately, but you will have to make do with my general impressions.

It seems that some judge in California (where else?) has ruled that coffee must come labeled with a cancer warning.  It appears that coffee-bean roasting produces a chemical known to cause cancer in rats; in what quantity not stated.  Ergo, to be safe – every coffee container must be adorned with a warning.  Are you serious?

First of all, coffee consumption has been shown to be beneficial in the case of prostate cancer.  Secondly, I know of no clinical trial that links moderate – or even heavy – coffee consumption to cancer risk.  Thirdly, I am convinced (on the basis of no evidence) that massive consumption of ANYTHING is bad for your health.  Nuts to you, judge, you can’t scare me!

So they take away red meat, sugar, alcohol, and most everything else that gives life a little kick.  I serve notice that I will not stand for it.  A life sustained by broccoli, cauliflower and celery is not worth living!

And, there, I just finished my nasty, dark cup of Starbucks Frence Roast.

23andMe

Senator Elizabeth Warren

You’ve all heard of Senator Elizabeth Warren, a front runner for the Democratic presidential nomination and an unswattable black fly inside Donald Trump’s shorts.  Trump refers to her as Pocahontas, because she once claimed Native American heritage to qualify for some political/academic/financial advantage.  All goes to show that even Progressive icons can have feet of clay; if Senator Warren is part Native American than I am a full-blooded Maori.  Maybe a Mohawk chief once kissed her great aunt on the forehead, but that’s as far as it goes.

I bring this up because the FDA has just approved 23andMe as a reliable source of genetic testing for BRCA mutations.  The cost seems to be a bit less than $200, but as the web article (below) indicates their analysis may not be of much use.  Other sources of genetic information are described.  Your best bet: a genetics counselor. 

   

Oh, why Elizabeth Warren?  Well, it is being suggested that she take a genetics test to verify her Native American heritage.  She refuses.

https://www.acsh.org/news/2018/03/12/fda-approves-23andme-cancer-test-brca-genes-12686

'Tis a Puzzlement

Okay, now, all you young and aggressively liberal folks, no yelling at me, or even indulging in private tut tutting and shaking of heads.  This is just a FOF confronting the modern world – and getting a chuckle out of it.’

Two days ago I had reason to seek assistance from the local (Borrego Springs) medical clinic.  Oblivious to the fact that they have dealt with me every year for at least 12 years, they required me to fill out new-patient forms, which ran on for five pages.  I was particularly taken by two questions.

Gender: My choices were Male, Female, Male to female transgender, Female to male transgender, Male trans man, Female trans woman (these last two I don’t understand), Genderqueer, and Other (please specify)

Sexual orientation: Straight, Lesbian, Gay or homosexual, bisexual, Refused to reply, Unknown, and, of course, Other (please specify).

All I can say is that the world is a much more complicated place today than when I was a kid.

Genderqueer?

ALL HAIL THOSE THIN, DOUR, SERIOUS NORWEGIANS!

I know you have been waiting for my Winter Olympics analysis.  Well, here it is (top five, only.)

                Total medals: Norway (39); Germany (31); Canada (29); U.S.A. (23); Netherlands (20)

When you weight the medals – 3 for gold, 2 for silver, 1 for bronze – the ranking is identical, BUT

If you consider populations and calculate total points per million residence the table looks like this:

                Norway (15.48); Switzerland (3.70); Sweden (3.43); Austria (3.09); Netherlands

The U.S.?  Somewhere south of Japan.  We have too many people.  But we can beat most of ‘em in surfing!

So all hail Norway: Lots of mountains, lots of snow, and a tiny population!

By the way:  I am in the process of moving here in Roadrunner, so the avalanche of blogs will be interrupted.

THE ARC OF HUMAN EXISTENCE

This is not me

The arc of human existence, as exemplified by our means of locomotion:

                Baby carriage

                Tricycle

                Bicycle

                Automobile

                Motorcycle

                Automobile

                Bicycle

                Adult tricycle

                Wheelchair

                Ambulance

                And we will let it go at that.

This to inform you that I am shopping for an adult tricycle right now.