Silent spread

I changed after reading some of The Blue Zones Kitchens by Dan Buettner, about what long-lived people eat.  There is always the ongoing argument about eating meat versus not eating meat.  Then, you can expand to include other animal products such as milk and its products and eggs.  That book changed my long-standing aim for day-to-day variety in what I eat.  There is a breakfast cereal, Heritage Flakes, that I like.  It is a mixture (variety again) of several grains, it is tasty and it holds up well in milk.  

Recently, I visited the Marshfield, WI Wastewater Facility.  One of the things they told us was that they have a robot that can crawl through their pipes and show them how they look and what if anything is blocking the flow.  As I pour milk into my morning bowl of cereal, I am impressed at how intelligently the milk finds and fills every nook and angle and cranny and tunnel and tunnelette the flakes, the banana slices and the blueberries have formed.  I wonder if there is a market for a small electronic robot that can crawl through the nooks and tunnels and transmit to my monitor a live image of how the flow of milk looks as it quietly takes over the little landscape.

Thanks, covid

I think anything that affects many people is going to have mixed positives and negatives. From the standpoint of an elderly man with limited knowledge, an aspect of American life in general that distorts US views of reality is general "push" and "gung-ho-ness".  A high school or college football game, a street demonstration, the upcoming election - many issues and activities exemplify efforts to cheer, inspire, create enthusiasm.  There is nothing wrong with cheer and enthusiasm but careful thinking is a good tool, also.  It seems that nearly every aspect of life can be viewed as an opportunity to try harder, apply one's self more completely, etc.  

Along comes a tiny virus and it causes trouble for people.  We have physicians, specialists and scientists who know about such little things and they advise us that an infected human can transmit by breathing and uninfected humans can get infected by breathing.  We can't give up breathing for 15 minutes, most of us can't give it up for 5 minutes.  So, a natural solution is to stop congregating.  Sports, theaters, restaurants, and most work places are natural congregating places.  But we have computers, internet, digital banking, and phones and tablets that allow for all sorts of activities.  We have delivery trucks and no-contact business conducted in many ways.  

Suddenly, attendance is an option, not a requirement.  True, we have social drives and we enjoy a beer in the company of friends.  But covid has given us a pause.  We have a moment to think about our typical routine critically and sometimes, we find we are in the mood to try something different.  We do like seeing each other.  We like having the chance to make a few comments in a side conversation while a speaker makes a presentation. But we have a chance, almost a requirement, to look at what we are doing and consider it carefully.

Secrets and unknowns

At my age, as much as secrets and unknowns matter, there is also the matter of forgottens.  I am interested in how often the matter of secrets comes up.  It seems that individuals, groups, governments, bosses, employees, husbands, wives, teens are forever trying to keep certain things secret.  Since knowledge, understandings and opinions are constantly changing, what was a secret worth keeping hidden can become out-of-date, obsolete, unimportant and no longer correct or relevant.

To make things more complicated, what is relevant depends on the subject in question, one's focus.  Way deep down, many things are related, connected in some way.  It might seem that my shoe size is not relevant to the question of what Shakespeare did and did not actually compose.  However, in today's world, it is not just lawyers and philosophers who discuss, re-cast, toss around questions and subjects.  We have large groups of students from high school through college and on into graduate school that are required to probe and experiment, argue and wonder, 

test and conclude all sorts of questions and mysteries, from very old (thousands of years) to very new (the riots in Iran and the proposals and counter-proposals in legislatures and halls of debate everywhere).

I am interested in the matter of secrets people want to keep and how they work at keeping them.  I am also interested in the armies of probers, thinkers, experimenters and evidence catalogers that we have at work today as opposed to the number of such there were active, say, 200 or 300 years ago.  It is not just people and motivations, either.  There are tools that change things today that did not exist a few decades back.  Don't forget the amateur and professional writers and inquirers, the group we can roughly call "the media."  As seekers of advanced degrees are, members of 'the media' also want to reveal, sensationalize, provoke and manipulate us to the right, to the left, to the center, etc.

Want a piece of my mind?

Many days, it takes longer and more effort to decide on a topic for a blog post than to write something.  I don't want to be too repetitive or too lecturing.  I usually jot down five prompts during the hours between 6 AM and about 2 PM.  Some days, something comes to mind that really grabs me and I have a strong sense that that something would be good for the day's post.  But some days, there are many possibilities but nothing stands out strongly.  

I read the local paper's headlines and the comics each day.  Some days nothing seemed funny but today several did.  I admire the imagination that shows in the paper's comics and in the weekly New Yorker cartoons.  Today, Mr. Dithers, Dagwood's boss, offered to call a mechanic and "give him a piece of my mind."  Dagwood thanked his boss but declined the offer.  Mr. Dithers walked off disappointed.  "That's a shame.  I am really in the mood to give someone a piece of my mind."

I am a student and a fan of mind control, my mind.  I haven't tried weed or lots of alcohol but I like to use questioning, consideration and alternative mental postures regarding my mood, my mind and my life.  I like the idea that some days, older men are rather loaded to unload, often for deep reasons and from deep motivations that are not apparent to them.  I am a practitioner of meditation and self-interrogation and I like the idea that some days self-examination is especially needed. 

Diddling well

A small pack of lady knitters descended on our house today and took my wife away for a few days.  The whole operation was cleverly planned and executed.  I am hoping to get her back.  

So far, I have kept occupied by filling out forms for a required health care change.  I needed advice and got some from a friend.  Then, I called into the government office involved.  First and second times, I just got a busy signal.  Today is the first day of the allowed change period.  Later, I tried again.  Got a recorded offer to put my name and number on a list for calling back.  Took the offer.  About an hour later, got a call back.  Great!  But, while waiting for an actual advisor, the cordless phone battery died.  Tried again.  Made it.  What better way to keep productive?

Emerging times and themes

Heather Cox Richardson is a professor of history at Boston College.  A friend mentioned her as a valuable source of ideas and comments.  She writes a free newsletter each day that focuses on the news and the date of the previous day.  She sees and thinks things I know little about and I find that every once in a while, I am glad I took the time to read her statements.

Because of climate change, greater understanding of human psychology and communication between different groups with different backgrounds and goals and just because of the passage of time, the world is constantly changing.  I thought Richardson's quote of a recent statement by the president of Kazakhstan, a large Asian country, seemed to be an indicator of the slow and steady unification of all humanity.  I realize we have a long way to go.

From Sept. 20, 2022  Letters from an American, Heather Cox Richardson, Boston College historian:

As Russia staggers, countries that were formerly in its orbit are realigning with the movement toward liberal democracy. Today the president of Kazakhstan, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, wrote an op-ed declaring, "There is simply no viable alternative to globalization, interdependence and the international rules-based order." So, he said, "we are doubling down on the liberal, international, open policies that have driven such a dramatic increase in standards of living around the world." He promised to decentralize and distribute power throughout Kazakhstan, strengthen parliament and local authorities, encourage political parties, and limit presidential terms, all to "move toward a new…model of a presidential republic with a stronger parliament and a more accountable government."

Several decades

When I comment that college is important because a person can find a good mate there, professors often disagree.  The professors of dance tend to feel that studying dance is very important and the professors of physics tend to feel that way about learning physics.  But my experience was of an all-male public high school (founded in 1839) followed by four years at a public teacher's college.  I checked into attending that college when my mother suggested I look into that college after my homeroom high school teacher and my guidance counselor advised me to attend college.  Nobody mentioned mates and marriage but every day of my life since meeting my wife in my junior year has been affected by her intelligence, personality and imagination.  I think my science, math, English, history, geography and other professors did a fine job but I don't see their influence the intense way I see the effect of having been married to her for 62 years.  

I am lucky to have snagged her when I had plenty of competition for her from a large number of other suitors.  She had competition also but that can rather be assumed with a college where 80% of the students were women.  There are plenty of people who aren't even 62 years old, and we, like others in our culture, didn't marry until we were of marriageable age, young adults.  So, it has been a long, good time and it isn't over yet.  

Colleges often have trained staff members that students can consult if they have problems selecting a major.  I imagine counselors on a campus hear plenty about dating and related problems.  I read many psychology and related books in high school and since and somewhere I read that one of the most important decisions a person can make is the selection of a marriage partner.  I suspect that trying rigorously to be supportive matters as much as who the two people are.  I found that working steadily to repair torn relations matters as much as anything else.  Also, I am surprised at how little I considered cooking abilities and how lucky I have been in the department as well as many others.

Clean water

I signed up to attend a discussion and tour of the Marshfield Wastewater Treatment Plant today.  It was organized by the campus organization called "L.I.F.E.", Learning Is ForEver and is listed as a learning in retirement organization.  I have learned that many colleges and universities have learning in retirement organizations.  

I recently saw an article about the Bronte sisters who died young.  The idea was that the water they all drank was part of a drainage pattern that included water that flowed through a graveyard and the graves in it.  The idea of drinking water that ran through a decaying body is not an appealing one.  

I very much enjoyed "The Demon Under the Microscope" by Thomas Hager, the story of the development of antibiotics.  Specific illnesses were successfully held in check by medicines well before unknown and complicated mixtures of infectious agents could be halted.  Hager says a big turning point was the attack on Pearl Harbor.  Science had found sulfa drugs and by then, penicillin.

I usually hear about washing hands and basic sanitation being responsible for longer, healthier lives.  The book "How We Got to Now" by Steven Johnson, and the PBS tv show of the same name, make clear that it is modern health practices of sanitation that matter as much or more than complex medical procedures. 

Our presenter today made it clear that the effluent produced by our wastewater and toilets can be handled but it helps the process to abide by the motto "No wipes in the pipes".  Our presenter, Joel Goham, showed us the difference between toilet paper in water (which dissolves quickly and conveniently) and ordinary tissue/facial paper which does not.  He emphasized that most paper products that are labeled "flushable" are a bother and an expense and should not be in the wastewater system.

Zooming

I appeared on Zoom this morning as a backup source for a talk about the Monte Hall problem.  The story involves a quiz show where a person has a chance to win a car.  It is behind one of three doors.  A participant picks one of three doors.  The MC shows the participant that the car is not behind one of the other doors and asks if the contestant wants to switch his choice from the original selection to the remaining door.  Many experts feel that a careful analysis shows it is always to the benefit of the contestant to switch to the other door.  But many people feel there cannot be an advantage in switching.  The best analysis of the math and conditions indicates that switching to the other door doubles one's chances of winning the prize.

It is a rather constrained, specialized problem but it can be an interesting one to work through.

After lunch, my book club discussed Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens, a popular novel about a young girl who grows up alone in a swamp in South Carolina.  I was tired and fell asleep during the discussion.  I did read the book aloud to Lynn but I have forgotten the details and asked Lynn to remind me of the story.  She remembered the story well and brought me up to speed. 

Haka

A few weeks ago, my yoga teacher invited us to assemble by the river on a grassy lawn and do some yoga.  We did and in the midst of it, I was reminded of the New Zealand Maori and their practice of haka.The New Zealand rugby team "All Blacks" is famous for performing haka in front of the fans before a match.  Google tells me there are several kinds of haka but the one I know about is a modification of a war dance.

The performances feature two moves that seem characteristic: standing in a slight squat with thighs spread apart and tongue thrust out in an aggressive and utterly dismissive posture.  Having a group of very sturdy-looking men yelling, thrusting their tongues out and looking quite fierce is done to be intimidating and it works.

If you have not seen a performance of haka, I recommend you use Google to find a video and watch.  It doesn't take long, maybe five or ten minutes.  It is worth seeing.

The equinox is coming

I was surprised when I looked up the fall equinox again that several items mentioned the beginning of spring.  Oh, that's right - all the lands south of the equator experience the beginning of spring when Wisconsin loses daylight and heat, when our deciduous trees turn colors and drop their leaves.  I taught a social studies unit in the 5th grade about industrialized countries of the world being in the north temperate zone of the earth.  But the concept of October and November being spring months is difficult to really face. Google says that 90% of humans live north of the equator.  

I have memorized the idea that seasons change on the 21 of the month, despite the fact that the change moment moves around, I guess from both astronomical effects as well as other causes of slight change.  The fall equinox actual moment is 8:03 PM Central Daylight Time on Thursday, September 22.  Google reports that despite my memorization, the fall equinox has not occurred on the 21 "for several millennia"!  I better re-memorize. 

Examining my life

I hear from friends who are too busy, too burdened.  They report being harried.  I want to say to experiment and to note what's up.  Some notes about how busy, how much fun something is, what comes to mind as a good alternative, can help.  Some people are just now moving into assisted living and they may face the prospect of having too few activities.

I hear woes expressed about being busy but I rarely hear complaints about not being sufficiently busy.  I suspect for most people, it is socially ok to express burdens from duties  and schedules but maybe less so to say "I have too little to do."  I find that meditation, just sitting still for 5 or 10 minutes, helps much to put things into perspective. I need to do certain basic things to stay alive and reasonably happy but I do find it helpful to consider myself the designer of my days and my lists of tasks.  I consider the content of the days and the tasks both my responsibility and my choice.

I realize I don't have unlimited choice but I don't need unlimited choice either.  

We watched a few minutes of Cranford on PBS.  It includes Judi Dench and seems to be about an English village in about 1850.  I get the impression that what is ok to say and ok to think and ok to believe is rather completely specified for that time and place.  I guess if the place and the person fit together nicely, that's ok.  However, if they don't fit, if limitations and customs chafe, I say look around.  There are alternatives. 

Good streaming

Sunday! A special day of the week.  Makes me think of CNN's Photos of the Week.  Some weeks they are great but some they over-emphasize natural disasters and sports.  I think both offer facial and emotional expressions that are captivating.  I looked them over today and found a few too many photos of marking the death of Elizabeth II.  She matters to me, even though I am American, but I can get enough.  

I found out something that you may already know: every man, woman and child on the planet came from a woman's body!  Isn't that amazing!  I learned when I was little that men are big and strong and that women are small and weak and in need of the protection and guidance of men.  Now, I am finding that that isn't right.  All the people, ALL of them, came from mothers.   Men can't have children!  They don't have the right equipment.  Not only that, but even with the right equipment, it takes a long time.  Try it: carry a baby in the belly, all the while it's getting bigger and heavier.  You try it - I can't.  

Lately, two streaming programs have been giving me plenty of pleasure.  "Extraordinary Attorney Woo" about a young Korean woman who is a brilliant lawyer but is weird enough to set the others's teeth on edge.  She is autistic.  She is imaginative and brilliant and has a memory that won't quit.  If you meet her, strike up a conversation about whales.  Then, step back!  She knows plenty about whales and sea creatures.  

Another program that gets me over and over is "Call the Midwife".  Set in post-WW II London, the nuns and the midwives of Nonnatus House care for pregnant women in the Poplar district of London.  Many births and I have learned that when babies are born, they are often outraged at what they have just been put through.  They aren't happy and they let the world know that.  It is the sound of that outrage that is so welcome.

If you want an additional program, try "Jane, the Virgin".  All three are on Netflix. 

A couple of unusual events

Today was Art in the Park, an exhibition in display tents, of painting, jewelry, pottery and arts and crafts in our town's riverfront park.  Plenty of people turned out.  Lynn saw some friends but we didn't buy anything.  

We like dark chocolate sea salt caramels.  We went to Aldi's but they were out of the candy.  So, we went to the main food store in town.   As we entered, we were told that no cashier registers in the store were working and no credit card machines either.  I tried to just give a ten dollar bill to a clerk but she said she could lose her job taking cash for the store's products with no way to get the money to the store itself.  She said," I'm a single mother.  I can't do anything that would get me fired."  As we passed a bank of self-checking machines that had not been working, the young man who tended them tried once again to scan an item.  It worked!  Immediately, a line formed at that machine.  We got our caramels.  We have no idea what was wrong or why one self-check machine worked.

My friend asked me to be his back-up guy when he makes a presentation about the Monte Hall problem.  It is a famous probability puzzler that stumped many people including probability specialists.  I have a couple of blog posts about the problem which he will discuss on Thursday.  If you are interested, Google the underlined words. 

Must read!

I got a few pages from AARP that say "Must Read". I didn't notice the label at first, but I just wasn't interested.  I take a limited approach to telling people what to do.  I take a very limited approach to telling them what they must do.  In college and grad school teaching, I assume that the students want an education and I want to do my part in providing some of it.  My experience is that very rarely is something actually essential.  Sure, for most cases, reading a particular document will normally be of assistance.  But if the instructions are set too high and make too tense an expectation, they can lessen the degree of comprehension and retention the document produces. 

In the case of a student who is already expert in a given matter, it can be better to leave things to the student's judgment as to whether a particular source is a help or not.   

I have seen rising levels of threat and requirement before.  In fact, just in the case of citing books that have mattered to a person over a lifetime, you can see related phenomena.  "Book X is my favorite novel but Book Y is an ever better book."  It can help to get away from more strident language and simply say that books X and Y have been wonderful and helpful. A person trying to convey just how wonderful a book (was for them, at that point in their life) can be almost visibly trembling with the tremendously high quality of that book.  You can feel their attraction to command format: "You MUST read that book!" Sometimes, I feel their need and read the durned book.  I didn't like it.

Complexity: mine and yours

It is all very well for Socrates to advise us to know ourselves but he is asking an impossible task.  We are too complex to know ourselves.  We can remember the importance of taking ourselves into consideration.  Our background, our tastes, our awareness - all matter.  We can keep in mind that who is driving matters.  Our age, our health, our education - all the personal matters that affect us and who we are, they all enter into our every experience.  So, being aware of our own fingers in the pie, who is driving us - that is a good idea.  

Another aspect of his advice is "knowing".  Those books I am always nattering on about, "Incognito" by Eagleman and "Seven and a Half Lessons about Your Brain", make clear that our conscious minds, the parts of us that are aware of our achievements and our regrets, are just the tip of what goes on.  

You gleefully say, "I just thought of something!", when in fact your brain performed an enormous amount of work before your moment of genius struck. When an idea is served up from behind the scenes, your neural circuitry has been working on it for hours or days or years, consolidating information and trying out new combinations. But you take credit without further wonderment at the vast, hidden machinery behind the scenes.

Far too much goes on in us, even in just our minds, for us to be aware of.  So, as we age and mislead and misread each other, let's be gentle and respectful of the complexity of the whole operation.

Scholars at work

Anne is the assistant director of Continuing Education and Outreach.  She is very energetic and imaginative and has held a wide variety of other jobs.  Among them, she led groups of children, college students and retired people to many destinations around the globe.  I asked her to spend some time explaining some of the bigger challenges and headaches she has faced.  She did, today.  

She started by asking each attender to her Zoom session where they liked traveling.  Lynn and I have traveled to Europe, central America, the Pacific. Probably the trip that comes to mind first was the one we planned for ourselves after ending the leading of 40 college students on a semester in Britain. I was entrusted with the lives and safety of vital, energetic students.  I had no experience or special training.  

There I was, glancing out the window of our 4th floor Innsbruck hotel room at one of our beloved charges hanging by his fingertips from his room directly across the paved parking lot from me.  I strongly encouraged him to climb into his room and stay there.  But that was on the first trip we led, way before I matured and had experience.  That 2nd time, we were 20 years older, calmer, grandparents.  We used The Lonely Planet guides and bought train tickets to travel through southern France and Spain, aiming for Munich and our flight home. By phone, we secured a room for two in Avignon, the city in France where the French tried to secure the Vatican in their county and succeeded for a while.  We felt ever so worldly and sophisticated and to a little extent, we were.

Also, the Dutch train car doors slamming shut:

Semester in Britain 1974 Memories

Finding genuine joy more often

Experiencing covid includes many moments that are uncomfortable, fearful, maybe a bit painful.  What an appropriate time to produce some joy! Two people come to mind as instructors and cheerleaders for producing joy: Chade Meng-Tan and Lisa Feldman Barrett.  Barrett is a professor of psychology at Cornell University in upstate New York.  Meng-Tan used to be a Google software engineer but I don't know what he is doing now.

Both can be found with Google search and both have ebooks that can be instantly downloaded to a phone, tablet or computer.  Both have talks and presentations on YouTube.  Both people emphasize that we can learn to control our emotions and feel the way we want to feel.

Here is a link to a page of the highlights I marked in Chade's book, "Joy on Demand": https://read.amazon.com/notebook?ref_=kcr_notebook_lib&language=en-US

If you are like me, you have some doubts that a person can select the mood they wish to be in.  That is a normal, modern reaction but as Chade says, anyone with a mind can do it.  Besides, it isn't that hard.

Doubts can gnaw

Every now and then, I hear or see someone that strikes me as having strong natural intelligence.  In this country today, there are many tools, groups and tendencies to promote and feed a mind that seeks knowledge on every side.  I think it happens naturally that as a person ages, questioning naturally appears.  Often educators talk about "critical thinking" but in America today, it is possible to get the idea that advanced thinking is about the same as immediately doubting everything.  If I am male, I may go through stages of development that seek contest and competition, as a type of sport and a seeking after championship and praise.  

Longtime assurances, basic creeds and fundamental convictions can be examined carefully.  Sometimes, they don't emerge from careful examination looking as good and shiny as they always did in one's past.  A basic examination can take place explicitly but one can also develop more or less underground, as it were.  If examination causes fundamental questions of ideas or convictions or loyalties that have always served as foundational, the result can feel threatening and disorienting.  If it seems that basic pillars of one's life are threatening to collapse or change in a fundamental way, the situation is sometimes described as an existential crisis.

If I look up existential crisis in Google, I find 35 million results in about half a second.  Developing deep doubts about a question, an issue or a conviction can be handled better if the person experiencing it, realizes the experience as something that happens to many good, strong, healthy minds in today's world.  There are many ways to go about helping one's self including writing questions and subjects of interest down. 

Covid bothers

Lynn was just reciting the unpleasant and unwanted changes that the husband in the family has created by testing positive for Covid.  One of us tested positive but the other didn't.  Of course, not testing positive when your partner does, creates an expectation that the person who squeaked by will eventually catch the durned virus. The physician's assistant said yesterday that the home test does sometimes produce false negatives.  If the test says you have it, you probably do.  But if the test says you don't have it, you may still have it.  That is the false negative. The test says you are ok but that may be false.

In addition there are other variables: how much of the virus did you pick up.  How quickly does your dose affect you? So, you have the strength of the infection, your system of resistance, how efficient your partner is at transmitting the problem to you.  

A couple of times today, Lynn has lamented the damage to our plans and calendar.   She wanted to attend an open-air art show, but no.  We wanted to take a ferry across Lake Michigan, but no.  She didn't even want to sit beside me in a Zoom session with a friend.  

I guess if we coordinated our exposures better, we would shorten our overall bothered time.  This way, I am an obstacle and a danger, and then later, she may be.

I don't seem to be suffering all that much and if she gets it, I hope she doesn't either.

Testing positive for Covid

We both did home Covid tests this morning..  I turned out positive and she turned out negative.  I have been feeling worse lately.  A physician's assistant told me that home Covid tests show false negatives often.  She said if the test shows you have the problem, you do but, if it shows you are ok, you may not actually be.

Lynn told me about medicine that our daughter and son-in-law took for Covid and I went to two pharmacies in search of the medicine.  I was told that the medicine in question is called Pavlovid.  Both pharmacies said that I needed to see a doctor and get a prescription.  The physician's assistant in the ER of the local hospital looked up my medicines record.  I take Eliquis, a blood thinner and the PA said being on that med is a no-no for Pavlovid.

So basically, I am sleeping often and drinking water continuously.  Lynn has worked today to undo our travel and lodging reservations for a trip that was to run from Tuesday to Sunday.

Fell!

Lynn does pottery.  Leftover scraps and rejected projects get reclaimed, put in water softened up and "unshaped" for another plan.  That water has clay dissolved in it and we don't want that clay in our pipes.  We have buckets of the stuff that needs to be hauled up and out of the basement.  We take a bucket out, swirled it a bit and toss the clay-ridden water on the ground.

Today, she asked me to haul a bucket of clay water up and out.  I was almost done with the steps but I stubbed my toe on the last step.  I got knocked down and the clay water splashed over me, the carpeted steps  and the walls.  She has lots of towels handy and we wiped and wiped.  I didn't get hurt but I did make a big, wet mess.

While hurrying to me with towels, she tripped over a pile of framed artwork.  Nothing got broked.  We are thankful for that.  I plan to lift my feet a little higher when going up steps.

Several things today

Quite a day!  Queen Elizabeth died today at age 96, ending the longest British reign.  To me personally, that is moving and important news.  

I have heard that many businesses and projects and group efforts are being affected both by covid illnesses and by reconsiderations of how and where people want to work.  We got our first mail delivery in several days  a few minutes ago. Our regular mailman explained a week or so ago the difficulties local mail was having staffing all the routes.

We are reading The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah about the Depression and the Dust Bowl and she gives us a thorough taste of misery and fear and despair from the event:

How many Okies moved to California?

From 1935 to 1940 California received more than 250,000 migrants from the Southwest. A plurality of the impoverished ones came from Oklahoma. Supposedly, the Dust Bowl forced "Okies" off their land, but far more migrants left southeastern Oklahoma than the Dust Bowl region of northwestern Oklahoma and the Panhandle.

Okie Migrations | The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture

https://www.okhistory.org › publications › enc › entry

Search for: How many Okies moved to California?

Where did most Dust Bowl migrants go?

The press called them Dust Bowl refugees, although actually few came from the area devastated by dust storms. Instead they came from a broad area encompassing four southern plains states: Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, and Missouri. More than half a million left the region in the 1930s, mostly heading for California.

Dust Bowl migration - University of Washington

https://depts.washington.edu › moving1 › dustbowl_mi…

Among other displacements and changes, I contribute to the problem of Amazon.com.  I have read that the company has modified American business and led others into online shopping.  I regularly buy my favorite cereal, almond nut-thin crackers, dates and sugared ginger in bulk from Amazon.  I get a good price and fast service but this morning, I read of a new problem in Numlock News:

Tired

Motor vehicle tires are made out of a bunch of petrochemicals these days, and they basically spend their existence gradually shedding microplastics every time a car moves or brakes. This isn't great, and adds up: One study estimated that per capita Americans are responsible for about 4.7 kilograms (10 pounds) of tire-related microplastic emissions per year. Electric vehicles aren't going to help this, either; they're heavy and so they actually will make this specific type of pollution a little worse, in fact. A gas car sheds 73 milligrams per kilometer from four new tires compared to an EV, which will shed 88 milligrams per kilometer. Until there's a technical or materials component, the best way to mitigate these emissions is the same way you'd reduce normal tire wear: drive gently.

Ira Boudway, Bloomberg

Our dangerous planet of death

We are watching Michael Wyesession in his Great Course called "The World's Greatest Geological Wonders: 36 Spectacular Sites".  We have watched six of the 36 lectures.  Lynn looked over a Great Courses catalog

https://www.thegreatcourses.com/

and chose some that appealed to her.  Her first choice was this geological course. It certainly didn't appeal to me.  I mean rocks and cliffs and stuff.  But when your wife of decades likes something, it can be very worthwhile to go along with it, whether it is gin and tonic, or the Quaker Society of Friends, or The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah.  I have found that if you go along in a reasonably accepting manner, you get experiences you love that you would not even consider without using her brain and choices.  

A few lectures back, Prof. Wyesession described the earth burping a large dense mass of carbon dioxide gas that suffocated about 2000 people.  That happened in 1986 in the African country of Cameroon.  That comment got me thinking that geological events might happen in my neighborhood unexpectedly and unpleasantly.  

Last night, Wyesession discussed fossils.  They have been important for human understanding of the history of this planet and its life.  Wyesessiion said that often the longest lasting evidence of an animal is its teeth.  He said that I am living on a planet of death and that death leads to new life.  

I am not too worried.  In fact, I am sort of a hero as are you and others who live in precarious circumstances amidst dangers.  I have heard of volcanic eruptions and tsunamis but I am learning there are other possible things to get me.

It's all over! It's all over!

The title of this post is a quote from the movie The Russians Are Coming!  The Russians Are Coming!.  You may remember that the 1966 comedy starts when a Russian sub gets caught on a sandbar off the New England coast.  The captain had always wanted to get a glimpse of the USA and unwisely ordered the crew to steer too close to land.  The skipper knows he is in trouble and orders a party of men to see if they can find and "borrow" a motorboat powerful enough to pull the sub free.  

The US and Russia consider themselves enemies or at least, competitors.  The shore party is partially sighted here and there and instant rumors and surmises and inferences shoot around the island.  A civilian finds they have opened up the bar and enters.  A few minutes later, having heard scuttlebutt, he comes out in a panic, explaining that "it is all over".  

This is a case of need for philosophical and psychological questioning.  What is "it" that is all over?  Life?  The US?  I am interested in intuitions and predictions of end times, of me, of my country, of my planet.  I see many places where the US flag is flying upside down.   The inverted flag has been used as a symbol of distress but it may help us all not to jump to feelings of distress on a hunch or a rumor.

Art, for a change

We got some family together and we wanted to play a game.  We each got six small pieces of paper.  The first piece was to contain a short description of a scene.  Maybe an old man sitting beneath a cactus, crying over the body of his beloved burro.  The description got passed to the person on your left who read the description and created a drawing that matches the description.  I am inexperienced and poor at drawing.  Bette Midler came to mind, as she might for you in such circumstances.  

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwiKzISarP75AhWoRDABHdkzAooQwqsBegQIGRAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DlN4AcFzxtdE&usg=AOvVaw1j-PP2Gx_kerjX_AXzpUd9

Her song explains that "From a Distance", the earth looks

From A Distance

Bette Midler

From a distance, the world looks blue and green

And the snow-capped mountains white

From a distance, the ocean meets the stream

And the eagle takes to flight

From a distance, there is harmony

And it echoes through the land

It's the voice of hope

It's the voice of peace

It's the voice of every man

Copying some techniques I have seen, I can draw that:

See?  That's the scene!  Right! From a distance.  Note that the distance isn't specified.  So, here is a close-up of the scene.  REAL close:

Some days, you just luck out.  Two lovely drawings, no charge!!!!

TV with a friend

Our longtime friend called after learning of Lynn's pottery show at Gallery Q and said she would like to attend the reception last Thursday night.  She came and it was great to see her and talk together.  She is a death and grief counselor and has interesting insights into the business of leaving life or having someone close leaving.  She stayed until noon today.  

Often, a longtime friend is a living piece of one's own history.  Remember that time when….  We do remember and we have memorable times in common and other memorable times to tell about.  

This friend is a sensitive person and it was fun to sit through the first episode of "Extraordinary Attorney Woo" with her.  Even though we have been watching the program on Netflix for a month, that first episode still brought tears to my eyes.  Likewise, we played the first episode of "Jane, the Virgin", also on Netflix for her.  I think both programs are excellent and we may watch all 100 episodes of Jane a 2nd time.  If by "virgin" one means a person who has not experienced sexual congress, Jane is a virgin.  However, Jane is a mother since, to her deep surprise, she is pregnant since she was artificially inseminated because of a mix-up the stressed gynecologist made about which patient was there for a pap smear and which for an insemination.  This show is based on a very popular show from Venezuela, I understand.

Writing here and there

My blog gets written most days.  Currently, I have 4660 posts online.  I started writing Fear, Fun and Filoz in 2008 with the purpose of advocating meditation.  At the time, the evidence that meditating helps the mind, the mood and one's relations with self and others was strong.  It is now much stronger.  Chade Meng-Tan's book, "Joy on Demand" has the shortest and most direct suggestion for a meditative session I have read: one conscious breath.  Many modern American authors suggest something like 10 minutes.

I email my blog posts to about 100 people each day I am home.  On the road, a day is often too mixed up to get around to writing and posting.  The blog appears on its own web page https://fearfunandfiloz.blogspot.com/

It is quite possible for someone to bookmark that page and never realize the possibility of getting posts in email.  And, vice-versa, it is possible to get a post daily in the mail and not know about the web page marked above.  The web page includes an index of all 4660 posts, in an orderly and compact form.  

Another stash of writing and ideas are my two websites.  I have a note on the page linked above to my first website.  Eventually, that grew too close to the size limit that Google allows and I started a 2nd continuation site. 

Birds and pictures

https://www.postcrescent.com/story/news/2022/08/31/wisconsin-weather-radar-catches-bird-migration-spike-summer-ends/7948023001/

The local paper ran an article by Rebecca Loroff of the Appleton Post-Crescent paper discussing the website "Bird Cast".  It is run in part of the Cornell University Ornithology Lab, along with the University of Colorado and the University of Massachusetts - Amherst.  She reports that radar found that more than 48 million birds crossed Wisconsin migrating south on the night of Tuesday, August 30.  

Fall officially comes with the autumn equinox at 8:04 PM, Central Daylight time, on the late evening of Sept. 22. Tree color, fall hunting, crisper temperatures and schools starting combine to make many people feel that autumn is a wonderful time of year.  At the moment of the equinox, the sun will be exactly at the mid-point between summer and winter.

On a different subject, the local Riverfront Art Gallery, located in Pfifffner Park near the Point bridge across the Wisconsin River, is running an exhibit of local photography.  Photography has been important in my life but it has suddenly bloomed with smartphones.  In many cases, your average citizen can not only whip out her camera and snap a good color (!) photo but can just as quickly send the picture all over the place.  You may recall that our internet was created by scientists who needed to share data and by the military who wanted to be able to stash important records in too many places for an enemy to destroy them all.  Photography, including videos with motion and sound, is part of everyday life these days, regardless of whether you can also draw and paint.

The book "Blue Zones Kitchen"

I was never very interested in food, nutrition and diet until I joined my high school wrestling team.  Wrestling and other one-to-one sports sometimes are divided into weight classes.  I wrestled in the 128 lb class and I would have been rejected for any match if my weigh-in showed me to be too heavy.  Body weight is connected to our food habits and I paid some attention to what I ate and my weight.  Being disqualified from a match costs the team some points.  I was never disqualified. But the experience got me thinking about food and its effects.

In my freshman year, I was required to write a research paper and I focused on food.  I learned that foods are often classed as carbs, fats or proteins, plus vitamins and supplements.  I read that the Japanese government recommends 30 different foods a day. On top of that, we both like variety.  I have read that food novelty and variety generally stimulates appetite and interest in eating.  

So, I am surprised at what reading through "Blue Zones Kitchen" by Dan Buettner has done to my ideas.  He is the author of several "blue zone" books, about places on earth where people tend to be especially long-lived.  That book and conversations with my wife have opened the door to greater repetition, eating the same food repeatedly.  Lynn has been leaning toward more vegetarian eating and Blue Zones Kitchens advocates little or no meat.  At the same time, I have been cutting back on alcohol.  The book says that red wine is an important part of diet in many parts of the world.  I like red wine but over the last couple of years, it seems a bit hard on my gut.  I thought I wasn't a fan of beans but we have been eating more of them and I am getting to be more of a fan.