Thoughts Before The Alarm Sounds

Over the next few days the President is going where no president has ever gone before: Alaska. The purpose of the trip is to upgrade and cement his legacy as the first president to make any substantial moves to fight climate change. To borrow a phrase from the song New York, New York , if he can make it there, he can make it anywhere. Why there? For one thing, one of the prime engines driving CC is man’s use of fossil fuels. Just weeks ago, Obama gave final approval to Shell Oil to drill in the Alaskan Arctic for the first time in 20 years. Alaskans are accustomed to receiving an annual dividend check from the Alaska Permanent Fund, which is funded in large part from oil revenues. In 2014 each eligible Alaska resident received a check for $1,884. To them, the President’s drilling approval is a big step in the right direction. On the other hand, CC is already profoundly affecting the lives and culture of people who depend on traditional ways of acquiring and storing their f...

The Smithsonian is presenting a traveling exhibit in 19 libraries across the country, asking What Does It Mean to Be Human? Fortunately, one of them is located nearby, and a friend and I visited it this past week. The primary subject of the exhibit is, of course, human evolution, and timelines illustrating skeletal changes, social gatherings, tool use, art, etc. are abundantly displayed. But I was more interested in just how the scientists have arrived at today’s body of knowledge on the subject. And I was not disappointed; explanations were plentifully supplied. For example:   Early African Homo erectus fossils (sometimes called  Homo ergaster)  are the oldest known early humans to have possessed modern human-like body proportions with relatively elongated legs and shorter arms compared to the size of the torso. These features are considered adaptations to a life lived on the ground, indicating the loss of earlier tree-climbing adaptations, wi...

I hate to say this, but there are times when I am ashamed to be an American. Fortunately the feeling doesn’t last very long because I can fall back on the 80/20 rule. Let me explain. The 80/20 rule says that 20% of the members of a group cause most of the problems for the other 80%. I wish we could amend the rule to 90/10 or even 95/5, but it seems to be going the other direction. Two events appeared in the news recently that illustrate what I am talking about. One involved a Hispanic lady who had the temerity to speak Spanish in a Los Angeles restaurant! You read that correctly, a Los Angeles restaurant. The City of Angels. In a state in which the non-Hispanic whites amount to less than half of the population according to the census bureau. Another customer took issue with the Hispanic lady, berating her, and even inferring that speaking Spanish was tantamount to an open invitation for the Nazis to take over the country. Huh? Nazis? Give me a break! But you can see for ...