Wither goest the House? Reading about the discussion among House Republicans about their upcoming leadership change should give everyone cause to pause and ask, "Just what does my US representative stand for?" Further, "What do I want her/him to stand for, what's important to me?" The fact that House Republicans are seemingly being dragged into this discussion says volumes about both their party and our national government in general.
Bill Gates and malaria. Conservative columnist Michael Gerson is not prone to giving credit where he does not think it is due. Hence, I read with interest his recent column on the Gates foundation's continuing efforts to eradicate malaria, polio, and HIV. As Gerson notes, Gate's money and efforts have succeeded in chasing polio to one "small," stubborn, area in Afghanistan. He hopes to similarly diminish the effects of malaria in Africa.
Fritz Scholder at the DAM. Walking through Civic Center Park to catch the Light Rail, you would not have guessed it was the last day of September. Absolutely balmy, many flowers not yet showing signs of the approaching fall! Last Wednesday's member's preview at the Denver Art Museum featured art by Fritz Scholder (one-quarter Luseino, a California Mission tribe). Interesting, to say the least. His aim is to present his Native Americans as anything but "red."
Who do you trust? As I watch and listen to all the presidential candidates, there is one question that is always "running in the background," a question most Americans have forgotten about, want to ignore, and/or pretend does not exist. Bluntly put, "To which of these candidates would you entrust the potentially world-ending "football"? The "football" is the slang term which refers to the briefcase that's never far from the president, the briefcase with the nuclear launch codes. Whose hand do you want on our nuclear trigger? The Donald? Bernie Sanders? Hillary Clinton?......You get the idea!
Cyber security, the new worldwide danger. In a recent Washington Post op-ed, Professor Joseph Nye wrote,
Whenever countries confront a disruptive new technology that they
cannot control, they eventually seek arms-control agreements. In the
nuclear era, it was 18 years after Hiroshima before the first such agreement was
reached. Today, cybersecurity is at a similar point. Although the
modern Internet was born in the 1970s, it was only during the past two
decades that it became an indispensable enabler of economic and military
activity that benefits us while also making us insecure. With the
advent of cloud computing and the “Internet of Things,” the area of
vulnerability is rapidly expanding....Is cyber arms control the answer? Not if it’s modeled on the treaties of the nuclear era.
Aspen gold in the hills. The fall progresses quickly in the high country, the aspen leaves turn golden, a visual delight. But, for how long? Rain and wind often hurry the process. On this past Friday's drive from Denver to Breckenridge, the wind was blowing briskly and gold rained down continually. The yearly re-paving of I-70 had traffic moving very slowly for over an hour, affording plenty of time to view this fall's progress.
Last week I commented on the "tongues" of gold that spill down the mountain sides amid the surrounding evergreens. Here's the botanical cause: aspen trees grow in groves from runners, not unlike strawberries. Hence it is common to see aspen groves side-by-side that are colored very differently.
In front of our cabin near Alma, CO, (since sold), we saw graphic proof every fall. As you approached the cabin, the aspen grove on the left was still green, while those on the right were already turning. The dividing line was straight as an arrow, too. It was as if mother nature had swept her hand over both groves, dividing them neatly, providing a wondrous visual display.
One tree expert writes, "...an aspen [with a 'surface' root system] can easily reestablish it’s root system with a propensity to grow saplings in a short period of time; a characteristic which enables a singular tree to become a grove of trees." There are added bonuses: aspens grow quickly, do not burn easily, and over its life-span each mature tree will absorb one ton of carbon from the atmosphere.
Who we are. Occasionally, Washington Post columnist George Will veers off the political path, writing columns about an assortment of human endeavors. His latest column, "The human quest to find our place in the universe" was about the Hubble telescope and its follow-on, the James Webb Space Telescope.
Will wrote,
....so a basic question of religion — where did we come from? — leads to another: Are we — carbon- and water-based, oxygen-breathing creatures — alone?....Earth revolves around our expiring sun, which is scheduled to burn out in just 5 billion years. At about that time, our Milky Way will collide with the neighboring Andromeda galaxy. This is not apt to end well. Meanwhile, however, the scientist-historians here will try to tickle from the cosmos information for its own sake. Space exploration began from Cold War imperatives, producing rocketry, intelligence satellites and national prestige. Webb, which only the United States could make happen, does not contribute to the nation’s defense, but, as its creators say with justifiable pride, it makes the nation all the more worth defending.
I use several Hubble-produced galaxy pictures as screen savers, my constant reminders of mankind's small place in an infinitely expanding universe. Also, from time to time, I enjoy Jody Foster's 1997 movie, Contact. Yes, the plot is certainly far fetched and speculative, but it serves to remind me of what George Will wrote about our place in the "breathtakingly beautiful and unimaginably violent universe."
South Carolina's 1,000-year flood. I rejoice that when necessary the internet allows me to "check up on" friends here and there around the globe. Hurricane Jaoquin veered off into the Atlantic, but effectively pinned a huge storm front to our eastern coastline.
I inquired about the safety of a former USAF colleague living in Columbia, SC. Being an expert geographer and hydrologist, Will gave me a picture of his situation. Short version: too much in too short a time. His house sits atop a stable, 125,000 year-old (his estimate) sand dune. He was pumping out the "basement" (actually a crawl space), but was otherwise unaffected. The dramatic TV coverage of flooding in what South Carolinians call "the low country" gave graphic proof of the damage caused by the torrential downpours. Bill, a former teaching colleague living in NC, had also weathered the storm, though he was contemplating having to replace badly waterlogged decks, stairs, and railings.
I wish them both a dry spell.
Thank you for reading.
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