| Is it too late, to stop "global warming"? |
[Jul. 7th, 2009|09:08 am] |
The Dark Side of Climate Change: It's Already Too Late, Cap and Trade Is a Scam, and Only the Few Will Survive
By Alexander Zaitchik, AlterNet. Posted July 7, 2009.
(I wonder if the surname "Zaitchik" is related to the Bohemian name "Zajicek," which means, "Little Rabbit." When I took the 1954 Census of Agriculture in New Oregon Township of Howard County, I ran into one family with that name, living in the woods, straight north out of Protivin. Incidentally, around 1949, I helped make hay for a farmer whose name, "Mrachek," means, "Little Cloud," and of course "Jelinek" means "Little Deer." Jerry)
Father of the Gaia Theory, James Lovelock says we can't stop climate change, but that humanity will continue in some smaller form.
But Lovelock's "final warning" is more than a long and hectoring doctor’s talk about an advanced and inoperable cancer. He brightens up considerably when looking beyond the coming die-off. And once we assume the author’s Darwinian and planetary long view, it’s easy to share Lovelock’s cosmic wonder and long-term optimism. He is cautiously hopeful that as many as several hundred million humans will survive the century and carve pockets of civilization into the coming hot state. Our current global civilization is about to end, but there is every reason to “take hope from the fact that our species is unusually tough and is unlikely to go extinct in the coming climate catastrophe.”
Here enters Lovelock the playful futurist. Those who survive will be responsible for maintaining a high-tech, low-impact, low-energy society advanced enough to keep the flame of progress alive but small and smart enough to carefully husband what arable land remains in the new hot state. Lovelock guesses the rump human race will cluster around a few temperate islands in the far northern hemisphere, including his native U.K. He believes that if emergency preparations are made in time—he compares the present moment to 1939—and if the worst-case scenarios of geopolitical conflict are avoided—namely resource scrambles leading to global thermonuclear war—then something resembling a modern and even urban lifestyle may await the survivors. There may even be food critics in this future, which need not resemble a Soylent Green scenario of cannibalism and state-rationed crackers. This future civilization will synthesize food from CO2, nitrogen, water, and a few minerals. Simple amino acids and sugars, Lovelock cheerfully explains, can be used as feedstock for bulk animal and vegetable tissue created in chemical vats from biopsies.Yum!
A quarter century ago, Carl Sagan issued a strange and compelling plea for nuclear disarmament. He urged the superpowers to abolish their thermonuclear arsenals for the sake of mankind’s future evolution and eventual colonization of the galaxy. Echoing Sagan, Lovelock believes it is our duty as an intelligent race, the only one in the cosmic neighborhod, to survive. Only by carrying the flame of civilization into the next century will we have a chance to evolve beyond our current tribal-carnivore brains, which are dominated by short-term thinking and thus responsible for our current predicament. Whereas Sagan dreamed of alien contact, Lovelock's promised land is more humble: an evolved species capable of living in balance with Gaia. In the meantime, the Earth will grow and change, as it always has. Life will continue, humans included, even though billions will suffer and die. Gaia, an ageing planet, will roll into the new climate as best she can. In her wise generosity, she will even leave some hospitable land for us, the offending species, “to survive and to live in a way that gives evolution beyond us, into a wiser and more intelligent animal, a chance.”
More:
http://www.alternet.org/environment/141081/the_dark_side_of_climate_change%3A_it%27s_already_too_late%2C_cap_and_trade_is_a_scam%2C_and_only_the_few_will_survive/?page=3 |
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| Is "global warming" just another Wall Street racket? |
[Jul. 5th, 2009|05:45 pm] |
An article in the July 9-23 issue of Rolling Stone magazine, written by Matt Taibbi, lists five market bubbles that the Goldman Sachs investment bank helped create -- and one that Taibbi asserts the firm is currently working to make happen.
That last one is the "global warming bubble," namely, the proposed cap-and-trade legislation that would allow companies to trade pollution credits on an open market.
Taibbi suggests that the Wall Street bank may want to turn climate change policy into just another Wall Street casino game.
Because emissions caps will continually be reduced, Taibbi argues, pollution credits will constantly be growing in value, and Goldman Sachs wants to get in on the ground floor.
Goldman started pushing hard for cap-and-trade long ago, and last year the firm spent $3.5 million to lobby climate issues."
View the story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/141088/ |
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| An incident, at the Hy-Vee supermarket, yesterday. |
[Jul. 5th, 2009|08:18 am] |
Around 6 PM, on July 4, I was in my car, in the parking lot near the west entrance of the College Square Hy-Vee supermarket. I backed up, to leave my parking place, around the same time that another vehicle backed up, across the traffic lane from me, and we collided. I think the other vehicle was a late model SUV, or possibly a van, and the driver was backing from a handicapped parking place.
The driver got out, said he thought my car was damaged, and offered to pay for fixing it. He showed me the place where the left end of my rear bumper had been pushed downward, an inch or so, and the place where his vehicle came into contact with mine.
I kept saying that the damage to my car was just minor, and I didn't want to make him pay a lot more for car insurance, because of a minor accident. He kept saying he wanted to pay for the damage.
The last thing I said was, "You're a great guy!" Then I drove off, and he seemed surprised.
After I got home, I began thinking that I should have allowed him to compensate me, for whatever damage was done. If he sees this comment, and still cares to do that, he can phone me, at 266-8669. I'd certainly appreciate it!
Jerry Baker |
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| More about Knute and Sever Olson murders, in 1936 |
[Jul. 2nd, 2009|08:21 pm] |
Comments about this were posted on June 28
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The 1952 article from the St. Paul paper came today. It mentions something I never thought of, before. People who had observed heavy traffic, in and out of the Olson farm thought it may have been a transfer place for bootleg whiskey. That might help explain why the brothers had so much money.
Even though Prohibition had ended by 1936, and alcoholic beverages were legal, there was still a lot of profit to be made, by avoiding the excise taxes.
In the 1920s, before he was married, my father once got a job of hauling bootleg whiskey, from the Twin Cities, to Iowa. I never asked my father anything about the details of that job, such as what year he did it. He just did it one year in the cold weather, when he wasn't needed on the farm, and said he made enough money at it, to buy a new Buick car.
He never mentioned having any trouble with law enforcement agencies. All of them must have either taken payoffs, or else just ignored the situation. Nobody wanted to enforce any Prohibition law, it seems.
The farmstead where the Olsons lived was never occupied, after their murders. Today, it seems that all the buildings are gone, and there is little to show that anyone ever lived there.
According to an article published in the "St. Paul Pioneer Press," on October 12, 1952, "The Olsons had often had displayed wallets bulging with currency and it was rumored that they distrusted banks and had buried on the farm huge sums packed into jars. That accumulation of cash...was never found."
In 1933, the year of Roosevelt's first term, the federal government made the posession of gold currency a crime, and in December of that year, Prohibition was repealed. However, if the Olson brothers had stashed away some gold coins before 1933, they may have just decided to leave them in place. If so, they might be still there, and would be worth many times as much as their value in 1933. They might be as well-hidden as a "needle in a haystack." (It's possible that something could have been buried under a straw pile, since Knute, who reportedly once had a threshing-machine, could easily have arranged for some new straw pile to always cover the burial spot.)
The Pioneer Press article also said, "...the only real action in the case came in 1939, when a woman living in Fountain, Minn. informed authorities that a man in that town had confessed the crime to her just before he died. The man burned to death a few hours after allegedly making the confession. (A grand jury was impaneled to indict the dead man, but the jury after hearing the evidence in December, 1939 refused to indict.)"
That's getting close to my own Norwegian relatives. My mother's great-uncle Sever(t) Peterson lived at the tiny village of Fountain, after emigrating to America. Other relatives of mine also settled there. |
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| An interesting letter in tonight's Courier |
[Jul. 2nd, 2009|06:16 pm] |
WCF Courier, Thursday, July 2, 2009
A new breed of terrorism
ALAN BAINBRIDGE
WATERLOO --- It is official. What was once labeled as the war on terrorism," is now openly and officially the war on freedom. The nanny state now labels all protesters, constitutionalists, immigration opponents, anti-North American union organizations, Ron Paul supporters, PETA , Second Amendment supporters, veterans and many more groups as possible terrorists. So, it should be clear to all but the most brain-dead that this phony, war on terrorism, is nothing more than a red herring allowing the nanny state to turn the United States into a repressive police state. This just gets sicker and sicker each and every month. Before you know it, children who own BB guns will be deemed terrorists by the idiot government. Is there any end in sight to this insanity? |
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| There's a medical doctor named "Thomas Kafka," in Cresco, my home town. |
[Jul. 2nd, 2009|10:23 am] |
I remember, when he was Howard County Coroner, 15 or 20 years ago. I think there was some story about a strange disease, going around, there.
http://local.rochestermn.com/thomas+j+kafka+md.327670.70178634.home.html
It just occurred to me that there's a resemblance between something in Franz Kafka's short story
"Metamorphosis" and something in James Joyce's "Finnegan's Wake."
In "Metamorphosis," when Gregor Samsa wakes up one morning, he finds that he's been transformed into a gigantic insect of the "coleoptera" kind, resembling a June bug. He's on his back, and can't turn over.
In "Finnegan's Wake," Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker winds up on the floor of his tavern, transformed into a giant insect, on his back, and has difficulty trying to get up. Apparently he resembles an "earwig," a bug that's supposed to get into people's ears.
I think there's something like a circus museum, in the oddly-named town of Baraboo, Wisconsin. It always makes me think of a "bear-a-boo," which sounds like the name of a gigantic "bugaboo." |
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| Can plants think? |
[Jun. 30th, 2009|01:25 pm] |
This article, by Meg Marquardt, suggests that they can.
One might, perhaps, call it "Sagacious Sagebrush."
Almost a year ago, scientists from Goethe University in Frankfurt showed that magpies are self-aware, that one knows the creature it sees in the mirror is itself, not another bird. That discovery was big news, as self-awareness was thought to be a special trait found only in higher-order primates. But now there is even bigger—and stranger—news: self-aware plants.
That is the claim of Richard Karban, professor in the Entomology department at UC-Davis (UCD). He states that, “Plants engage in self-recognition and can communicate danger to their “clones” or genetically identical cuttings planted nearby.” [UCD] The research, published in Ecology Letters, would be the first suggestion of this kind, that plants are fully aware of themselves and look out for their own kind.
More:
http://www.examiner.com/x-1242-Science-News-Examiner~y2009m6d22-Scientist-suggests-that-plant-is-selfaware |
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| J.D. Kommelter, the Personnel man at Chamberlain, in the 1950s and 1960s. |
[Jun. 30th, 2009|01:05 pm] |
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When I first started work at Chamberlain, in 1959, Mr. Kommelter gave me some IQ and aptitude tests. I was somewhat hyper at that time, and was able to work fast, and complete the whole tests. It turned out that I scored above the 99.9th percentile, which I didn't know at the time, but it impressed my supervisors. |
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| L.L.Zager, the Chamberlain Company doctor, in the 1950s/1960s time period. |
[Jun. 30th, 2009|12:53 pm] |
His name was Lewis Lewellyn Zager. His last name seems to be the German for "Sawyer," while his first and middle names indicate that he was named after John Lewellyn Lewis, the Chief of the United Mine Workers union, from the 1930s to the 1950s. Lewis was an Iowan, who started his career in a mine in southern Iowa, in the same town where UNI professor Ron Roberts was born.
The way he got his name reminds me of the way that the father of Henry Lee Kirchner, a one-time pen pal of mine, apparently got his name. His father was named "William Jennings Bryan Kirchner," and he was living in Hardeman County Texas, near the Panhandle, when Henry was born, in 1930. He was a mail carrier, when Henry was growing up. |
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| Don Walton sent these nice comments. |
[Jun. 30th, 2009|12:43 pm] |
Thanks, Gerry for sending my message along to Betty. She sent me a very nice note in response to your forwarding. Betty, was truly a bit of "fresh air" in the Viking Pump Company Engineering Department which was composed of guys most all of whom held engineering degrees from Iowa State University. Down deep, I sensed they questioned how my Personnel Department judgments could really be meaningful in the absence of like training and the degree from Iowa State. Even their sensed doubting did not deter the high regard I had for them and the kind of work they regularly carried on. They were indeed a great bunch with whom I always enjoyed working. They all helped prepare me well for the years ahead at the University and the always challenging times dealing with people problems.
Expect I may not have responded to your writing in the proper technical manner for this computer business for me has always proven to be a challenge particularly with respect to maneuvers beyond the sending of basic email, word processing and a bit of excelling. Do appreciate all you do with your reporting. Take care of yourself...get well stay well, my friend. Peace, Don
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(Betty is also related to Mona Rahlf, who was my favorite nurse, when I was in Allen Hospital after my lung cancer operation, in 1989. She's still working there, and she's still my favorite nurse. Jerry)
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| Ian Binnie, a canny old Scot |
[Jun. 28th, 2009|04:07 pm] |
In 1978, on the basis of a 4-page feature story about me, in the "Northern Iowan,"
I decided to run for the US Senate, challenging the incumbent in his own Democratic primary. (The feature story is what enabled me to get on the ballot. I needed around 3500 people to sign my nomination papers, and was able to
get most of them at UNI, because the article introduced me to those who read the Northern Iowan.)
I got 12% of the State-wide vote in that election, and didn't have to spend a cent on advertising. If I remember right, my campaign contributions totaled $69. I got 14% of the vote, here in Black Hawk County, and 19 percent, in my home county, of Howard.
In Des Moines, another man that was also running against the incumbent in that election suggested that I visit Ian Binnie. He ran a small printing business there.
After briefly visiting with him, I was ready to go. However, he got out his check book, and wrote me a campaign contribution of fifteen dollars, before I left.
Mr. Binnie writes occasional letters, that the Register publishes. This is the last one, a couple of days ago. I might have written the same thing, myself.
Jerry
---------------------------------------------
Iran's nonelected Guardian Council, its Supreme Court, controlled by conservatives, has mandated a limited ballot review.
After a suitable period, it will say "enough already" and award the election to the more conservative candidate who, for all we know, might legitimately have won.
Why does this sound familiar?
- Ian G. Binnie, Des Moines
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2009906260350
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In another Register letter, not very long ago, Binnie said that we should "start calling things by their real names." He attributed that requirement, perhaps jokingly, to "an ancient Chinese philosopher."
Perhaps he said that because I, in a Register letter not long before, had jokingly attributed some wise comment to "Confucius." Jerry
---------------------------------------------- |
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| Re: The appointment of former governor Tom Vilsack, as Secretary of Agriculture. |
[Jun. 28th, 2009|03:36 pm] |
During the Depression of the 1930s, when Franklin Roosevelt got elected, he chose an Iowan, Henry A. Wallace, as Secretary of Agriculture. Wallace was a successful entrepreneur, who created a business of selling high-yielding "hybrid" seed corn, to farmers, who had always used the old, cheap open pollinated kind.
Wallace was also a succesful plant technologist, creating, by selective breeding, the hybrid corn varieties that he sold.
He named his company the "Pioneer Seed Corn" company, and he was a pioneer, one of the kind of people that built our country.
Today, the Iowan chosen to represent our State as US Secretary of Agriculture is a lawyer, trained and experienced in that profession!
A lawyer doesn't produce anything agricultural. All he can do to help our state is to ensure that Iowa gets more of the "loot," and less of the burden, than it would otherwise get, without legal representation. It's a hell of a note, when we have to rely on that.
A recent article, in "Successful Farming," discusses the danger, both to farmers and to hungry poor people, by "cap and trade" legislation. Such a bill just passed the House, and now goes to the Senate.
http://www.agriculture.com/ag/story.jhtml?storyid=/templatedata/ag/story/data/1242247248247.xml |
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| An article about John Stull, in today's Sunday Courier. |
[Jun. 28th, 2009|03:24 pm] |
In the picture that accompanies the article, John is the one with the mustache. He teaches English at UNI and also at East High, in Waterloo.
I knew John as far back as 1988. We both celebrated our common birthday, on 8/8/88.
Back then, John used to hang out at Pour Richards.
One day, Rick, the owner, making an allusion to the old movie "Rebel Without A Cause," referred to President Reagan as "Rebel without a clue."
John replied, that he represented "Babble Without A Pause."
http://wcfcourier.com/features/ |
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| Re: Knute and Sever Olson, murdered in November, 1936. |
[Jun. 28th, 2009|03:11 pm] |
This message was posted, on an Ancestry Message Board, in reply to one I posted in 2005:
There was a lengthy article about the Olson murders in the St. Paul Pioneer Press in 1952, 16 years after the murders. My late grandmother saved the article and I obtained it after she passed. You will find it of great interest I'm sure. I lived the first few years of my life in Bristol township, 2 or 3 miles from the Olson farm. The farm was on what is now Highway 44; I'd estimate that Granger is 5 miles away. Greenleafton, maybe 3 or 4 miles.
I would be glad to send you the article (either mail it or scan and e-mail) and would be interested in those you have.
I have always been intrigued by the Olson murders. I came across the article today and did a search on Google, thereby finding your inquiry. The mystery was never solved.
----------------------------------------------------
(They were murdered for their money, about the same time that the British King George V died. I think I read that George's doctor gave him euthanasia, during his terminal illness.
November, 1936 was also the time I had an almost fatal case of intestinal flu. There were no antibiotics at that time, but even just a few months ago, my cousin Kim Leichtman had a horrible case of that disease.
Jerry) |
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| My letter, in the June 25 Sunday Courier. |
[Jun. 28th, 2009|02:17 pm] |
GERALD BAKER
CEDAR FALLS --- Thomas Thompson's June 21 column is titled "Obama is facing sea of troubles." That's a good metaphor, which Shakespeare used in Hamlet's "To be, or not to be" soliloquy.
Professor Thompson writes that "Obama has to walk, chew gum, tap dance and twirl a baton simultaneously."
That reminds me of a letter of mine that was published in the "Northern Iowan" on Feb. 1, 1974, when Richard Nixon was president. Nixon's efforts to do numerous things simultaneously reminded me of a performance by a Dr. Seuss' character, as told in his rhyme, "The Cat In The Hat."
http://wcfcourier.com/articles/2009/06/28/opinions/letters_to_editor/11430411.txt
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(Note: One big similarity between Nixon and Obama is this. Nixon kept on, with the Viet Nam war that Johnson started, and Obama is keeping on, with the two wars that Bush started. The reasons seem to be that, in both cases, the wars are/were extremely profitable for some of their campaign contributors, and they are also important sources of profit, employment, etc., for regional special interest constituencies that have the support of people in congress. Jerry) |
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| More comments about street construction, in Cedar Falls. |
[Jun. 28th, 2009|02:08 pm] |
(The original comment about this was posted on June 25. A friend of mine sent this comment, today.)
Re: Remember the dry run creek bridge at Seerely and Main???
You must remember the good deal Cedar Falls street dept. got when they
engaged the company building Hwy 20 past CF, the same outfit gave them a
low bid on rebuilding the main street bridge at Seerely and Main. I
believe that intersection was closed for three summers and two winters.
Apparently there was no penalty clause in the contract. I lost all respect
for the CF street engineering department. Never had too much anyway due to
the Beisner Bumps...those dips across certain intersections (both sides)
because Beisner was too cheap to connect the drains on every corner...had
to drain across the intersection so the roads couldn't keep the same crown
elevation. |
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| A friendly note, from Pat Lucas. |
[Jun. 28th, 2009|01:49 pm] |
Jerry,
Thanks for sharing your blog. Interesting as you always are!
Sorry to hear about your health problems. Do let me know if I can help in any way.
Take care and keep cool,
Pat
(Pat lives in Sioux Falls. I met her through genealogical research, where she is studying the Leichtnam/Leichtman Family, to help her niece.) |
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| Too much obedience to the ruling class. |
[Jun. 26th, 2009|04:45 pm] |
Our problem is the numbers of people all over the world who have obeyed the dictates of the leaders of their government and have gone to war, and millions have been killed because of this obedience. And our problem is that scene in All Quiet on the Western Front where the schoolboys march off dutifully in a line to war.
Our problem is that people are obedient all over the world, in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves, and all the while the grand thieves are running the country.
That's our problem.
We recognize this for Nazi Germany. We know that the problem there was obedience, that the people obeyed Hitler. People obeyed; that was wrong.
They should have challenged, and they should have resisted; and if we were only there, we would have showed them.
Even in Stalin's Russia we can understand that; people are obedient, all these herdlike people.
— Howard Zinn
I believe they organized the Boy Scouts in 1913, just in time for World War I.
This is a good book, especially in the original version:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodbye_to_All_That |
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| Comments by Sherm, who was a manager and bartender at STEBS, about the reunion |
[Jun. 26th, 2009|03:26 pm] |
(Stebs Amusement Parlor was on College Hill, just north of where the Hill Street News is now. It opened in the summer of 1974, and closed some time in the late 1990s. In its heyday, in the 1980s, its patrons included some of the most influential young people at UNI, such as "Northern Iowan" editors, student body presidents, UNISA senators and student political activists. Such people also hung out at "Pour Richard's," which opened around 1980, and closed when Rick retired. It was where the "Mohair Pear" is, now. Many patrons didn't know all of this, but just knew that Steb's and Pour Richards were friendly places, and Stebs had good bands playing there. Also, especially in the Hayden Fry days, I remember that a lot of Stebites watched the Hawks on TV. They also watched basketball, as far back as Lute Olson days, and the Cubs' baseball.)
From: Sherm McNeal
To: "gerald baker"
Friday, June 26, 2009
Yeah Jerry you got to get to Spicoli’s on the evenings of July 24-25 for the Stebs reunion. I am going to urge people to show up Fri pm at 5 Spicoli’s does chix wings then and it would be a great time to reminisce before the din of the bands and the dumb of the beer.
Please post this message on your blog site.
S
There is a Spicoli's web site that mentions one of the Stebs reunion events. They call it "Stebstock," an allusion to "Woodstock," I suppose:
http://www.last.fm/event/1035263 |
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