incipit vita nova

Breaking Waves Benefits the Gulf

Book View Café has launched their benefit anthology, BREAKING WAVES. All proceeds from the sale of this book will go to the Gulf Coast Oil Spill Relief Fund of the Greater New Orleans Foundation.

The collection features over thirty stories by a wide range of best-selling and award-winning authors, including a previously-unpublished poem from Nebula and Hugo award-winner Ursula K. Le Guin, as well as a chapter from Rachel Carson’s groundbreaking book The Sea Around Us. Authors contributing stories of environmental rescue and recovery include Vonda N. McIntyre, Judith Tarr, Deborah Ross, Sarah Monette, David D. Levine, David Gessner, and Lyda Morehouse among others. Tiffany Trent and Phyllis Irene Radford edited the collection.

The book is available in epub, pdf, mobi, and prc formats for $4.99 in the Book View Café bookstore and will be coming to the Kindle store soon.

I don't have a story in this volume, because nothing I had seemed "right" for this very important cause.  All the proceeds will benefit the Gulf Recovery fund, and I was glad to hear, especially for cleanup and environmental efforts, and saving the wildlife!

Oil Spill Burns Harming Sea Turtles

News has come out that some of the "controlled burns" that BP has conducted in the Gulf of Mexico to alleviate the oil spill have harmed sea turtles.  All five U.S. sea turtle species are officially endangered.  Most-injured in this terrible situation are the beloved Kemp's Ridley sea turtles, one of earth's rarest, most beloved species.

Animal welfare groups have filed a lawsuit to prevent the controlled burns from being conducted before an attempt to rescue turtles is made.  This isn't "wild and crazy" environmentalist overreaction.  We all knew this terrible oil spill would harm wildlife.  In the act of trying to eliminate some of the oil, at least 400 turtles have been burned to death.  This story comes from Discovery and is confirmed by friends who are in the Gulf area.

I'd like to say I know what people should do - but I don't.  Let's not let this one ride and "forget about it" because much of the oil, fortunately, appears to have dispersed into the gulf.  We do not know if it has settled in unknown seabed areas and it is foolish to think that no harm has been done.

Why Do You Want to Climb the Mountain?

"Because it's there," is the famous and very real answer made by legendary British climber George Mallory.  I made a very fortunate choice and saw The Wildest Dream: Conquest of Everest (2009) this evening at a special screening in Hollywood with Conrad Anker and Jennifer Lowe-Anker.  Their story is legendary among climbing and outdoor enthusiasts.  One of their joint efforts is the Khumbu Climbing School, which both mentioned after the film was shown.  The Khumbu Climbing School trains Nepali high altitude workers in climbing techniques to improve their safety and proficiency.  Others may know these Nepalis as "Sherpas." The Khumbu school is a project of the Alex Lowe charitable foundation.  Alex was a legendary climber as well, and was Jennifer's first husband and Conrad's best friend.  He was killed in a climbing accident in 1999, which Conrad survived.  Over time after Alex's death, Jennifer and Conrad fell in love, and Conrad has since adopted her and Alex's children.  It's probably one of the greatest love stories ever.

I had known of the famous story of pioneering British mountain climber George Mallory for years, and studied the equipment and clothing that he was found with on Mt. Everest in 1999, after 75 years alone and frozen on the mountain.  However, I was not completely aware until this evening that it was Conrad Anker who discovered his body in a serendipitous manner in 1999 - searching far below the area that Mallory and his climbing partner Sandy Irvine were presumed to have died in their 1924 attempt to climb Everest.

The Wildest Dream tells George Mallory and Sandy Irvine's story at the same time as it also follows Conrad Anker and amazing young British climber Leo Houlding in their 2009 ascent.  Conrad and Leo sought to recreate Mallory's ascent of Everest's ultra-challenging North Face (that's where the name of The North Face company comes from . . . get it?).

George Mallory's story has fascinated climbers and outdoor enthusiasts for years.  You can still find information from before Conrad discovered his body in 1999 online, such as this 1999 PBS Nova show report and interview with famous climber and filmmaker David Breashears.

Conrad chose British rock climber Leo Houlding to accompany him on his more recent ascent of Everest's North Face.  Although Leo hadn't climbed in high altitude before their ascent of Everest, he had exceptional athletic ability.  The age difference between Leo and Conrad was also similar to the difference between George Mallory and his climbing partner Sandy Irvine - who was only 21 at the time of their 1924 climb of the mountain.

As part of the film, Conrad and Leo wore clothing and boots that replicated the items that Mallory and Irvine wore.  When I first read about the discovery of George Mallory's body, I was as amazed as Leo was that Mallory and the others would have attempted an ascent of Everest in lightweight gabardine coats, wrapped gaiters of leggings, wool scarves and leather, hobnailed boots.  After testing the clothing several times, Conrad concluded that the climbers could have stayed warm if they stayed moving.  As soon as they stopped, Conrad thought, conditions would rapidly worsen and they would quickly freeze.  During Conrad and Leo's ascent, temperatures quickly dropped to -20 F and they rapidly experienced hypothermia.

Other factors of Mallory's climb that were new to me were the precise nature of his oxygen tanks, and Sandy Irvine's value as an engineer and mechanical genius who constantly worked on their oxygen tanks making them lighter, stronger, and more useful during the climb.

People refer to the "death zone" on Everest, by which they mean anything above 26,000 feet.  In this area, oxygen is too thin, barometric pressure is too low, and temperatures and weather are completely hostile to human life.  In the film, Conrad said that not only were human beings not constituted for survival in the "death zone," the zone itself brought on necrosis or tissue death, and that people climbing about that altitude were actually dying bit by bit.

Many people may also be unfamiliar with another strange, awe-inspiring aspect of Everest's "death zone" as well.  More than 200 people are known to have died on the mountain, and all that died at extreme high altitude in the "death zone" are right where they died.  No one can carry or portage a dead, frozen person from such a high altitude.  Many might think helicopter rescues are easy, but most helicopters cannot fly above 8,000 feet.  A US Air Force Chinook specially adapted high altitude helicopter has been used for climber rescue on Mt. McKinley (Denali).  An unmanned Everest rescue helicopter has undergone testing and reportedly can fly up to 30,000 feet. French pilot Didier Lasalle reportedly landed a modified Eurocopter on the summit in 2005.

But today's technology only makes me feel more awestruck by the achievements of George Mallory and Sandy Irvine.

This is a colorized photo of the 1924 Everest climbing team.  In the back row on the far left is Sandy Irvine, and standing next to him in the lightweight suit with hands in pockets and rumpled hair is George Mallory.

Conrad and Leo also climbed the infamous "Second Step" without the aid of a ladder placed by Chinese climbers in the 1970's.  Part of Conrad's motivation was that he had nearly climbed the Second Step unaided in 1999, but that he had slightly touched the ladder, thus invalidating the "unaided" claim.  After climbing, Leo estimated that the Second Step had a climbing difficulty of 5.9, and both he and Conrad believed that Mallory and Irvine could have made it over this tremendous obstacle to summit Everest.

Everest is not only a storied mountain all over the world, it has religious significance for the Nepali people.  The lama of the monastery near Mallory's original basecamp, and the site of numerous climbing camps of the present day reportedly warned Mallory of a terrifying vision that demons from the mountain would disembowel and destroy Western climbers.  Mallory went ahead anyway, and so did Irvine.

It is still a source of tremendous speculation as to whether or not Mallory and Irvine made the summit of Everest before beginning their descent and losing their lives.  Many different forms of speculation have been made, but The Wildest Dream doesn't really speculate.  It merely states that it was possible for the two to have made it to the top.

The Wildest Dream is a gorgeous meditation on courage, persistence, vision and love.  It tells the story of two very courageous men living in different times -- Conrad Anker and George Mallory.  Both share their love for their families and deep desire to conquer the world's highest peak.  They say that the sky is a deeper blue on the summit of Everest, and courage and the human capacity to dream and love is deeper as well.

Things to do in Denver When You're Dead

I'm heading home from Denver tonight, and it has been a great trip.  But I noticed something.

Compared to Denver, Los Angeles looks like Calcutta.  For all I know, Calcutta offers a better quality of life than LA right now.  It definitely has a fighting chance.

There is no measure that I can think of except, possibly, weather - and that doesn't count in the San Fernando Valley - where Los Angeles does not totally suck rocks compared to Denver.  I'm sure this will be the case in nearly every other urban area outside Southern California - I used to always find things to "like" about LA.  There's nothing to like any more.  We can thank two decades of "Democrat" rule for that.  People are as irrational as hell in LA and will accept just about anything that fits their preconceived "liberal" sensibilities.  Yes, I except our friends in the Valley. 

LA has its awesome, $ multi-billion nonfunctioning "mass transit" system that few people use, of which its most recent highlight is, as John & Ken put it - the "Goat Train" - or the Metro Gold line running from downtown TO Boyle Heights.  Despite the fairly obvious outflux of many "undocumented" individuals that is currently providing slight freeway relief, traffic in areas that lacked heavy "undocumented" populations is as bad as ever or worse.  Despite the hard work of the wonderful people who are revitalizing Downtown, Downtown LA is still slightly suckier than downtown . . . pretty much ANY downtown area in any reasonably-sized city I've ever been in.  You can't bring people in to an artificial situation such as LA Live and expect it to "thrive."  Not when one block away, transvestite prostitutes are running from garbage trucks making their collection runs 2 and 3 days late.

Or, to put it a different way, you can't have a vibrant urban area where the single largest employer is the government.  You can't have a vibrant urban area where middle-class (there ARE no middle class people in the LA Basin any longer - again, thank the Democrat rule for that - chasing every possible small- to mid-sized business out) people don't exist, and where the crappiest imaginable housing starts at $800 a month.  I'm sure there are horrible, crumbling apartments out there in Denver, but I found nice apartments starting at $500 a month (yeah, 2 bedroom).  Which, you can like, be a young couple with normal jobs and handle - right?  I mean so you can save money, afford a few amenities, save for a home, etc.  Right?  Well in LA right now, a young, average couple gets to start out paying around $1,800 a month if they want a two bedroom (think: room with a crib) if they want to live in any remotely decent area.  So that is nearly 4 times the amount of money that people could get by with safely and decently in Denver - which is not a poor, depressed area - not by a long shot.

There aren't any businesses closed here, or very few.  Furniture stores appear to be doing good business, and there are lots of them - lots of active home improvement stores, too.  People do not have the fanciest cars - more American makes and models - obviously more outdoors-capable SUV's, etc.  It looks to be one Beemer per 50 to 60 cars, and maybe one Mercedes to every 100.  I haven't yet seen a Bentley - well there's two at my apartment complex back home RIGHT NOW. 

I don't have to be Stephen Levitt to do a little math to see that overall, Colorado has a less-intrusive government, less taxes, and fewer laws (there doesn't seem to be a helmet law for motorcyclists).  They care about their environment here, and do what is important to ensure continued quality of life.  There's no lack of "open space."  There are plenty of cycling, walking and running, and horseback trails.  There is a well-designed transit system that people use - it goes from where people are to where they want to and need to go.  There are park-and-ride lots far-flung, on all incoming freeways.  There's a vibrant restaurant and food community (more vibrant than LA - or if you think chain steakhouses and Wolfgang Puck clones are great . . .), a music community, an art community, and extremely well-funded - PRIMARILY PRIVATELY FUNDED - I might add - museums and cultural institutions.  The two Universities in Denver are so well-integrated into the community that one almost doesn't know where they end and private residences and businesses begin.

Where I noticed this so strongly was the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.  This museum is slightly smaller than the California Science Center, but not by much.

First - let me share that the food choice at the California Science Center, where busloads of schoolchildren arrive daily - is McDonalds, and sub-McDonalds-level cafeteria food.  At the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, their own cafe is situated in a pleasant atrium area, with nutritious kid-friendly choices including an extremely fresh, high quality salad bar, and a make-your-own sandwich bar.  The entire area is very well-designed for families with children.  At the California Science Center, the equivalent area accommodates fewer diners, and, located at the lowest level of the museum, is somewhat reminiscent of Dr. G, Medical Examiner's digs (yes, a morgue).

Is this all about food?  NO.  It's about priorities and care for others.  It should go without saying that Denver is clean.  I've heard for years from European friends how shockingly filthy California is.  American-born nature enthusiasts are not hurling soiled diapers into the foliage 2 miles out on hiking trails along with dumping used Clamato cans . . . this dump in Arizona's Huachaca Mountains makes anything I've seen look like nothing - it's mind-bogglingly huge.  American students and volunteers take "vacation breaks" to try to clean up the devastation. 

As to the rest of the Denver Science and Nature Museum, it has Body Worlds, and the IMAX Hubble film, which the California Science Center also has.  And there, the similarity ends.  The Denver Science and Nature Museum has an enormous, fully-interactive space exhibit.  A brief examination of their donor walls shows much greater numbers and higher levels of individual and corporate philanthropic support.  People have to have something to GIVE TO, you see.  And the California Science Center is nearly worthless as far as that's concerned.  The only interesting exhibits they have are the traveling ones.  The rudimentary nature of their children's interactive areas should be obvious to any, especially repeat, visitors. 

Denver's evolutionary or "building up to the Dinosaurs" exhibit is not only complete and accurate, it isn't presented at a 3rd-grade level.  A person conversant with natural history would find joy and delight in seeing real fossils, presented in their true context, not missing entire periods of prehistory.  The space exhibit is simply amazing.  It's been there quite a while and has recently been updated, but let's put it this way - although not extremely large, it presents the space program up to the present day.  It presents a broad range of missions, and actual, up to date astrophysics.    

Now, the California Science Center has a new exhibit on "ecosystems" and it looks pretty cool.  I don't need to visit to know that every single section will end with "proof" of "GLOBAL WARMING."  Scientifically, this isn't "cutting edge."  They have a big exhibit to show all those busloads of school kids how to be scared of "global warming" and accept the greatly-reduced standards and quality of life that the "global warming" advocates want.  If I look back at the 1950's (when I admittedly was not around), they seemed to be obsessed with nuclear destruction or the horrible effects of nuclear radiation. Today, it's "global warming." What happened to real science?  Real learning?  It's the "Marching Morons" - I've hung out in LA and sat there while the entire city has turned into Marching Morons, over which a few rich elites preside.  And not "Hollywood Elite," either.  Mel Gibson's getting out of Dodge - and for a 5th generation resident, I never thought I'd say this, but so am I.  I'm sure Mayor Reconquista won't mind.  But I don't get how it's fun to go to a ballgame where the stadium's crumbling around you.  I don't get it at all.

Rocky Mountains . . .

I'm really happy this weekend because Meredith and I are in Colorado for my cousin Sarah's daughter Kara's wedding.  I took the opportunity to see some more of the awesome sights around Denver, and fortunately was able to convince Meredith that we should go to Rocky Mountain National Park yesterday.  This makes #3 or 4 of the big national parks I've visited as an adult.  (Not counting national forest or wilderness areas).  

I will always love Yosemite, but I am so glad we took this trip, and hope to go back Sunday before we leave.  Here are just a couple of the numerous pictures we took.

This is off Trail Ridge Road, the highest continuously paved road in the U.S., peaking at 12,100 feet above sea level.  Everyone drives this road and they are doing construction.  I felt a little bad getting out and walking around on the tundra.  This is a delicate environment, and I had no idea that the tiny plants that grow in the harsh tundra environment may be dozens, and even hundreds, of years old.

Picture #2 is higher up - with some more spectacular views of peaks that are about 13,000 feet high - not even the real "Fourteeners".

I really wanted to capture the extreme blueness of the sky.  It is a little hazy around Denver and very hot, but up in the mountains, the air is very pure and the sky extremely blue.

Most of the high part of Trail Ridge road is above the level of the ski lift at Mammoth, and way above the other high Sierra areas I've been in.

I was a little concerned I might have some altitude effects, but it didn't happen, and I was jumping around out there to see if anything would happen.

As to the forest in the backcountry, it is extremely thickly-forested, but unfortunately at the lower elevations, the bark beetle is devastating the forest as it already has done in California.  The Rockies are totally amazing from the giant scale to the tiniest details.

These are the little tundra plants.  The pine trees are natural bonsai, growing level with the ground due to the harsh winds and weather.  Now, during summer, all of the tiny plants bloom and grow.  Some of their roots extend yards into the rock, while others are beautiful daisy-like flowers that live for a hundred years, saving up their energy to bloom once, set seed, and die.  

To Build A Fire

I'm sure we've all heard of the "Seven Basic Conflicts" in literature:

• man vs. self
• man vs. man
• man vs. society
• man vs. God
• man vs. machine
• man vs. environment
• man vs. supernatural

And . . . Man vs. Nature.  By the way, the above online compendium invites readers to contribute a story conflict that doesn't fit into the above 7 categories.  Taking the terms literally, I can think of one right off the top of my head:  man vs. woman.

OK OK . . . that was a "joke" - this is about the classic plot conflict of man and woman and child vs. nature.

Implicit in these stories is the approach and assumptions of the author.  Is "nature" an adversary with a motive and goals?  The classic story that is taught as an example of this plot is Jack London's story "To Build A Fire."  This story contains numerous accurate details of extreme sub-zero weather.  The unnamed protagonist, "man," (some feel that the dog, who survives the ordeal, is a better hero - I tend to agree) experiences many events that would strike terror and set off survival alarms in the heads of more experienced or less hubris-filled artic circle travelers.

I've advised people who are creating hostile (or maybe just different) science-fictional worlds to read "To Build A Fire" and pay careful attention to the use of language that indicates not just "mood," but sets mood as it also communicates environmental facts that menace the protagonist from the beginning of his journey to its fateful end.

For example, right in the first paragraph:  "There was no sun or hint of sun, though there was not a cloud in the sky. It was a clear day, and yet there seemed an intangible pall over the face of things, a subtle gloom that made the day dark, and that was due to the absence of sun."

A "literary" explication would refer to darkness, gloom, lack of the life-giving sun, and use of words like "pall" as in "pall-bearer," a bringer of death.  The use of the word "clear" could indicate that the true situation is there for the protagonist to recognize, if he can just put his preconceived hubris and/or foolhardy plans aside and perceive the situation for what it is:  deadly danger.

However, readers lacking environmental knowledge don't need to use literary allusion to figure out what Jack London is getting at, because as the protagonist sets out on his foolish journey, London describes the exact temperature:  50 degrees Fahrenheit below zero, with a wind chill of 80 degrees below.  I know from my own experience that small frozen pools of water look like plastic and are immutable, instantly refreezing at 10 to 11 degrees F above zero if anything briefly melts them.  It's obvious that weather that's even that cold requires special precautions and respect.  The protagonist of "To Build A Fire" shouldn't have been traveling anywhere by himself, with or without a dog, on this day.  He sealed his fate the moment he set out in this story and the rest of the story is actually an explication of a series of encounters with the extreme, hostile, ultra-cold environment that to this day, the great majority of readers don't always fully apprehend, despite the story's careful, highly-accurate descriptions of the effects of extreme sub-zero Arctic weather.

Which is to say that I am starting to think along the lines that in construction of alien worlds, or in setting stories in space, the research into as many cause-and-effect relationships as we can possibly determine is essential.  This goes far beyond the usual "explosions in space are silent" and will also differ from earthbound combustion because space offers zero oxygen.  Many SF stories take a path through their imagined words of a similar nature to "the man's" in "To Build A Fire." 

They fail to heed the basic lesson that Jack London taught in this classic story, that human beings, no matter what they believe in safe circumstances, live in a world that is beyond their control.  Because it's true, and it's a part of what it is to be human, it's hard to think that this lesson wouldn't apply even more strongly regarding characters in stories set outside of the familiar Earthbound environment. 

Consulting Experts

I was stunned this a.m. to see video of AP reporter Rich Matthews diving into the Gulf to see the underwater effects of the Gulf oil spill.  His article noted that the other divers wouldn't go in without their hazmat suits, but that he wanted to go in to see for himself.  Approximately 40 miles offshore, the water that Rich dove into was filled with oil, completely hazy, with huge blobs of oil floating around.  The surface was covered with the thick brown sludge we've seen on so many of the suffering animals and birds.

This Gulf oil spill is about a lot of things.  First, BP, which has and had some good things going for it, has been incompetent and abusive, and hasn't contained the oil.  The degree of helplessness and apathy all around is scary, because more and more information comes out that people wanting to help have been turned away or ignored despite repeated pleas.  Three weeks ago, Kevin Costner's oil cleanup machines were ready to go.  I just heard his sad, regretful testimony to Congress yesterday, describing how he had tried to get somebody - anybody - interested in using the machines to clean up the spill.  A month ago, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal went public with his frustration that his state's sand berm proposal to try to keep some of the oil off coastal wetland areas, protecting wildlife and fisheries, was ignored for two solid weeks by Federal authorities.  It got ignored for 2-3 more weeks, and apparently there's one berm under construction and the Administration made sure to say in the President's initial, unfocused and weird "speech" a few weeks ago that they had taken over from Gov. Jindal - just about stating that "they knew best." Yesterday, President Obama admitted on national television that, nearly two months after the initial leak, he hadn't yet spoken to BP's CEO directly.

And three days ago, I couldn't help but see the now-infamous Matt Lauer interview with the President where he "articulately" stated he was consulting experts about the spill "in order to find out whose ass to kick." 

That did drop my jaw.  If we were to play, let's say, National Disaster Mad Libs, what would our sentence completion options be?  Here's the quote:

"I don't sit around just talking to experts because this is a college seminar. We talk to these folks because they, potentially, have the best answers so

A) We can know how to clean up the spill.

B) We can stop the spill.

C) We can prevent more damage from happening.

D) We can help the people and environment in the Gulf.

Well, in this case, the President chose E)  I know whose ass to kick.

It's not hard to know how to react in that case.  I was expecting him to refer to A), B), C) or D) and when I heard E), my first reaction was another profanity, which I didn't say out loud.  First, my jaw fell, and then I thought, "What the f***?"  Then I thought, he can't even talk about helping the people and animals?  What is wrong with him?

So by all means, feel very, very free to call me a racist like "political commenter" Mark Halperin did on Bill O'Reilly's show.  I mean seriously - fat people thought I was against them, so why not call me a racist?  At this point, I have a couple of simple theories as to what is wrong with President Obama, and they boil down to:

A) He literally has no idea what to do, and doing something about anything is NOT what he signed on for. He signed on for TV interviews, awards, living in a cool White House and getting ovations and cool prizes.

B) No matter what the Halperins of the world say, I don't think he's going to get it together and do anything constructive - about anything. 

That's not because he's black, that's because he is who he is.  America elected yet another do-nothing politician whose 100% interest is his own self - the daily attention he is paid, the opportunities to be on TV and media, his "prizes" (Nobel, etc.).  Dorothy Rabinowitz wrote in the Wall Street Journal yesterday that the President is an "alien" in the White House.  She referred to his choices of administrative personnel, and his refusal, and theirs, to refer to Islamic terrorists as that - apparently they are all unwilling to say the terror attacks on US soil over the past year are related to Islamic terrorism.  That's apparently because they care more about what Islamic terrorists think of them, and miscellaneous "foreign" others (i.e. I guess, the Nobel Prize committee) than about the victims of these attacks, which in the case of Ft. Hood, are tragic and severe.  Since most Americans don't read international news, even though it's easy via the internet, apparently commenters like Mark Halperin think that worldwide, our "world leader" is totally popular and beloved, and only "ignorant, racist, redneck Americans" think he's not doing a very good job.  That's because people like Mark Halperin ignore international media, which is all over the President - and not favorably.  It began with the economic meltdown and "Stimulus," during which French President Sarkozy and German Prime Minister Angela Merkel told the President - DON'T DO THAT.  WE DID THAT AND WE ARE STILL TRYING TO FIX IT.  The current headline of English-language Pravda, which is a publication meant to subvert and demoralize Americans and EU members, is "America Sinks Into Marxism" and also "Obama and Elites Party While America Crumbles."

However, the President's new foreign policy plan, which was barely covered in the US (and features the "no Islamic terrorists" doctrine), did receive favorable mentions in Arab News and even Al Jazeera.  He got good coverage there for yesterday's special visit with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, too.

People aren't afraid of President Obama and don't think he's "menacing" because he chose the mindboggling choice "E" when referring to consulting experts about the oil spill.  I'm pretty sure if showed that video independently, 90% or more of people watching it would just be flabbergasted as I was.  They would wonder what was wrong with the President, that he didn't include choices A-D.  And he didn't.

I always liked Kevin Costner.  I am pretty sure he's been fighting a huge uphill battle to get his oil machines in use, and already stated that he'd warned oil companies seven years ago that this type of horrible spill could occur.  I would much, much rather have him as President.  I know a lot of people think he is a "dumb" movie star.  But at least he could choose A-D.  Even with the big egos of many performers, and I'm pretty sure Kevin has a fairly large ego, he seems to want to clean up the oil.  He is focused on stopping the disaster.  There will be plenty of time for attorneys to "kick BP's ass later."  In fact, they have ordered several of Kevin's oil-cleanup machines.  So if they are put out of business prior to that, how will these machines be constructed and used?

Nothing that any commenter like Mark Halperin or others can say is going to change the fact that the President does not care, and it is brutally obvious.  It's even more obvious that he has so little clue about what real people think and how they go about their lives that he can't even choose reasonable choice A-D, not because he genuinely "cares" but because he understands like a good politician that doing that will preserve his own reputation and maybe even get him another prize.  He actually thinks that threatening BP before the oil is stopped or cleanup begins, is preferable to stopping the oil, or cleaning up.  For real.  And nothing will move him off that position.  That's because he's a selfish, self-interested and completely clueless politician.  And there's lots of those, of all races, shapes and sizes.

To Face the Wild

I grew up outdoors, and had a pretty adventurous life as a kid, with a few close calls.  As an adult, I've had two life-threatening experiences, one of which was a total shock, and the other of which, I only realized later how close I had come to losing my life.  As to extreme experiences in nature, I have never been on a canoe trip, and I have never climbed a peak over 10,000 feet.

My fascination for real-life adventure and survival is endless.  One of the best books about survival and family that I've read in recent years is Crazy for the Storm by Norman Ollestad, about which I have previously written.

What I thought was a similar book, but which turned out to be a very different animal, is Death on the Barrens by George James Grinnell. I believe it was originally published in 2006, but as you can see, a new paperback has been released by small press North Atlantic Books.

What I can say is marvelous about the book is the first three-quarters of it, all of the gorgeous watercolors, and the poetry throughout.

At the end, author Grinnell tells of how many years he worked on this book (most of his life) and the many publisher rejections he had.  The current book is the product of encouragement by George Luste, who writes the introduction.  It is a part of the tradition of northern canoeing lore, a tradition I knew little of - and still know very little.

This interview with George Grinnell seems a bit more honest than the latter portion of Death on the Barrens.

And that's the problem I have with the book.  At first, I was enthralled, and felt it was a great piece of nature writing.  The longer I read, however, the more it seemed that Grinnell was holding back.  I can only conclude that he feels so sad and guilt-ridden about the tragedy of his canoe trip in the Canadian Barren lands that he can't write accurately about it.  Death on the Barrens tells the story of an ill-fated canoe trip in 1953 led by Art Moffatt, who lost his life on the trip.  George Grinnell, the author, was one of five young men who were led by Moffatt into the wilderness.

Having no idea of what the Canadian Barren lands were, really, I found this website showing pictures of a shorter, much happier trip.  This snowmobile journey traversed the area for a scientific survey in 2007, ending at Baker Lake, which was also the Moffatt group's eventual destination.  The area around the Thelon River, which is the last river the ill-fated Moffatt group traversed prior to arriving at the Hudson Bay Company station at Baker Lake, is also one of the ice road areas featured in Ice Road Truckers on the History Channel.

The Moffatt party set out with far more food than Chris McCandless' bag of rice.  While Grinnell describes extreme hunger from the calorie deficit that built up for each man daily, the men weren't completely bereft of food.  Moffatt had provisioned the expedition, and done a bit better than the Franklin Expedition had.  Grinnell also describes catching, cleaning and eating fish, and three Caribou.

There's no question that Grinnell and the others experienced a harrowing journey.  The trip was made more harrowing by the fact that their leader, Art Moffatt, was peripatetic at best.  One of the other young men, Peter Franck, was scheduled to start Harvard in early September, and they had been progressing so slowly that not only was this date missed, the group was still traveling long after they should have reached Baker Lake. 

I'm not really sure how to categorize Death on the Barrens.  Although it's clearly a wilderness adventure story, Grinnell is or was so conflicted about Art Moffatt's tragic demise and the role that Grinnell himself played, or failed to play, that it is a less than satisfying story.  Although many feel that Christopher McCandless was a fool who caused his own demise, I don't agree with that - I think Chris was the victim of a cruel, ironic fate.  As to the Moffatt party, the young men were woefully unprepared mentally for their long canoe and portage trip in some of nature's most unforgiving lands.  The book covers nearly every meal, and most of their food preparation, sharing and storage practices.  It is Moffatt's peripatetic non-leadership that seems to have led them to their final disaster of a failed run on rapids in freezing weather. 

And I am becoming more aware that, just as Jon Krakauer covered young men with a taste for adventure and risking life and limb in Into the Wild, there is a slightly different breed of British, American and Canadian madman who drops out of society and seeks solace and enlightenment in the wild - but who sometimes find death.  Their graves are all over these frigid northern areas - one of the most famous is the collapsed cabin and gravesites of the ill-fated John Hornby expedition along the Thelon River.  I am not sure there is much enlightenment to be found in ill-prepared men wandering into the wild to starve and die.  And not much enlightenment in Death on the Barrens.

I Love My Geico Cavemen

Humans now appear to officially have been able to a) have "relations" with Neanderthals; and b) have "issue" from those relations.  Science Magazine is to be praised for offering the full study to the public for free.

Some of the articles about the landmark study sequencing the Neanderthal genome are biased and ridiculous.  After briefly discussing study methods, that article discusses the author's belief of how the study will "disturb" people who believe that the earth is less than 10,000 years old for religious reasons.  I don't know - there's a little bit more evidence than this out there, isn't there?

What do I see in this news, other than the interesting confirmation of what many people suspected or believed based on other evidence, is that people are no more or less "special" than any other living creature.  So much scientific endeavor and thought has been tied up into preserving pre-conceived notions.  Maybe it's a little bit like exploring a cave, looking for diamonds, and ignoring gorgeous cave animals and large veins of gold because you "weren't looking for them."

A lot of information about genetic "leaps" that can influence evolution and survivability was revealed by the study.  The Neanderthal DNA was obtained from three 40,000 year-old female Neanderthal skeletons found in a Croatian cave, but both human and Neanderthal DNA was sequenced, compared and studied.  According to the Business Week report, "The scientists identified 212 regions with these types of variations including 20 where the evidence was strongest. Among them are three genes that, when mutated, affect cognitive development and have been linked to autism, schizophrenia and Down syndrome, the team reported." 

This indicates some validity for my basic sense that what many call "negative" genetic traits do have some positive benefit.  We may not be fully-aware of that benefit, just as we may have been very rigid in our previous views of Neanderthals as "primitive" and even genetically incompatible with humans.  The 1 to 4 percent "Neanderthal" DNA match found in Asian and Caucasian humans does not mean that people with the match are "1 to 4 percent" Neanderthal.  It means that approximately 45,000 years ago, there was interbreeding between homo sapiens coming out of Africa and Neanderthals in the Middle East, where Neanderthals had previously emigrated from Africa, a much longer time ago. Today, this DNA remains as evidence of the interbreeding in the ancestry of these people. 

And that's my cousin "Bob" above.

The Sessile Eye of the Isopod

Ever since I saw the picture of the giant isopod brought up the the submarine crew last week, I was fascinated by this creature, which amounts to a deep water-dwelling pillbug.  Some people think it looks like a giant, animated lobster tail.

 This thing is like . . . ALIENNNNN!!!

That alien face - it supposely has a "sessile" compound eye, by which it is meant - not on a stalk.

If you like it, you can learn more about it here.

Its scientific name is apparently bathynomus gigantius and it lives at depths of 2,000 feet or below.  It mainly navigates by its long feelers, and is a carnivorous scavenger.  It's so large, in comparison to its land-dwelling relative, the familiar and even slightly cute pillbug or sowbug, because of the phenomenon of deep sea gigantism, which also gives rise to the giant squid.

I want to say there's a story in this, but I'm not sure it's a very good one.  (Look at that face!!!).

It advances slowly on its clattering chitinous legs, ravenous, implacable, its pincers snapping . . . 

And on a slightly different note, another lovely dinner at Akasha this evening.  Service great and food very nice as always.  Meredith and I shared three small cupcakes for dessert.  Two of them had tiny little marshmallow rabbits on top.  I ate mine, biting off his head first.  Then I mushed his body with some frosting and ate it too.