Posts Tagged → change
Has anyone considered unplugging Spring and plugging it back in to see if it will work right?
Not my creative headline, unfortunately, but a good one nonetheless, and well put in terms of how odd this Spring has been.
Except that this Spring has not been odd, if my memory serves me right. Not in the context of Spring happening over millennia and even over decades. Spring used to be a lot like the on-again-off-again odd weather we have experienced the past month.
When I was a kid, lo these many decades ago, Spring was a process. It was not a moment in time.
Spring took time to become Spring. It was the spaced-out staging of leaves and buds emerging, green poking up through the soil a bit at a time.
“April showers bring May flowers” went the old adage. Meaning that as a precursor to the warm weather with flowers was a sustained period of rain and cool or cold weather. That was Spring, spanning cold, rain, cold rain, and the gradual emergence of green things and then the crowning sign – flowers!
Showers, heck, I recall a snow blizzard in early April as I was casting a small dry fly on the lower reaches of Big Fishing Creek in Clinton County, near the Lamar trout hatchery. In my early twenties, in fact I might have been just twenty years old, I was stubbornly casting to “rising” trout despite a white-out snow storm blanketing the air and the stream’s surface with big white snowflakes. That a trout could tell the difference between a huge plump snowflake and a measly morsel of a vague-looking aquatic insect landing briefly on the surface was a leap of faith I was fully committed to taking, and making with every cast.
My youth’s crowning moment arrived when a much older man, probably someone my age now, stopped to watch me casting the dry fly amidst the snow storm.
“Pretty ambitious, dontcha think?,” he humorously called out from up above.
And right then a big fish whacked my drifting fly, and I hauled in one of the most colorful symbols of Spring, an iridescent rainbow trout. The guy looked at me slack-jawed, eyes wide in amazement, like I was some kind of fishing genius, and I looked up at the snowing heavens and mouthed a “Thank You.” One of the more memorable fish and fishing moments in a lifetime of fishing.
That day the air temperature was still spring-like, but the obvious above-ground temperatures were cold enough to generate snow. It was a classic symbol of the kind of gradual and slowly shifting, two steps forward one step back warming change that Spring used to be.
But that was thirty, forty years ago. A different world, a different climate.
Apparently the earth’s switching magnetic polarity is now playing a big role in the Winter-to-Summer “Spring” times we have experienced for a long time now. This switch happens naturally every 200,000 to 300,000 years.
Because the earth’s polarity is switching, which means the North Pole becoming the South Pole and vice-versa (but what we arbitrarily call North and South remain the same) the earth’s magnetic field-cum-shield is at its weakest. Earth’s magnetic shield is at its weakest because the poles are swapping positions and the magnetic field strung up between the two poles is stretched to its thinnest. The earth’s magnetic field-cum-shield is one of the reasons our planet has so much life on it; a great deal of harmful cosmic rays and powerful solar ultraviolet (UV) light are caught in the magnetic “net” and they are blocked from reaching the earth’s surface.
Therefore, a lot more solar radiation has penetrated to the earth’s surface over the past few decades, with the kinds of unusual heat, warming, and strong winds that we have witnessed. As well as a lot more quick sunburns under what appear to be pretty normal sunny conditions. The sun is not necessarily stronger, but a lot more of its energy is reaching us. For now.
And that takes me back to that unplugging Spring. For about 35 years Spring has been kind of unplugged, in a way, and it will remain so for about another decade, until the polar switch is complete. And then these gradual Springtimes, like the one we just had, will become normal again.
I can’t wait for that to happen, because I enjoy a real Spring so very much, the change from one season to the next. Normally temperate climes like Pennsylvania appeal to me for that very reason.
Everything hinges on the nickel-iron core inside the earth. And we won’t be unplugging THAT any time soon.
New York Times Invents Time Machine
The New York Times was once the flagship news source in the whole world. It was the standard by which all other news sources and newspapers were judged.
What happens when a trusted news source becomes an active partisan in politics is inevitable: The credibility banked over decades is spent in a fury of attacks, which then blow away like dust after the contest is ended.
Partisans of all sorts inevitably find themselves clawing for survival, as it is the nature of choosing artificial sides in a world of holism. Sliding over the cliff, partisans act like a drowning victim on the way down. They’ll do anything to keep from going under, no matter how futile or self-defeating. It’s like using the wood from your home’s walls to run the fireplace.
So back in January of this year, the NYT ran headlines about how Trump was wiretapped. Why not? The NYT was one of the partisan proponents alleging an official investigation into Trump, and wiretaps are part of those kinds of investigations. The NYT was doing its best to damage Trump’s credibility, his standing, his ability to act as president. The NYT was trying to delegitimize Trump, and reporting that he had been wiretapped had all the trappings of a bad guy being surveilled by official law enforcement good guys.
Fast forward a couple months, and now “wiretap” has a whole new meaning: Today it means that the Obama administration illegally wiretapped and conducted illegal domestic spying against political candidate Trump. We now know there was no investigation of Trump, ever. But we also know there was eavesdropping aka wiretapping of Trump. The leaked transcripts of his calls prove it.
In this context, “wiretap” sounds awful, even damning when an Obama ally like the NYT reports it, and if you are in the business of bashing Trump and protecting Obama, which the NYT is, then you certainly don’t want to support evidence of the greatest political scandal since Watergate.
So the clever NYT invented a time machine. They went back in time to their January 2017 headlines that screamed “WIRETAP” and digitally altered them, on their website. No kidding. I do not lie. Check it out.
They “fixed” the NYT headlines, which might have a double meaning that applies here quite well. The NYT “fixed” its own headlines from months ago, so that going forward it would appear that the NYT had never said that Trump was wiretapped by Obama. Because now that sounds like an admission that Obama was conducting his illegal domestic spying on a US citizen and politician. The NYT retroactively changed its own history to support the narrative it currently promotes.
Being partisan, and not a news organization, the NYT will do whatever it can to support its allies (Obama) and damage its enemies (Trump, America, traditional values, Christianity, etc.), so the record has been forged to preserve a current version of events that are most favorable to Obama.
Now the forged January 2017 NYT headlines say that Trump’s name came up in “data intercepts” conducted by the NSA while spying on Russian officials stationed here in America.
Data intercepts. Doesn’t that sound a lot more acceptable, more palatable? A lot less invasive? A lot more normal than the actual spying via wiretaps we witnessed going on against Trump by the US government under Obama’s stewardship?
Like a drowning man, the NYT is going down the tubes. Its credibility is shot, gone, spent wildly like a drunken sailor during the recent political contest which saw Trump elected over the NYT’s favored Clinton. Trying to alter what it wrote months ago is simply fakery, forgery, really, and the NYT has been caught red-handed doing what it would never allow anyone else to do: Go back in time and re-invent reality to fit today’s immediate purposes.
If this isn’t fake news and alternative facts, then what is? But this is surely news.
Hunting licenses, 1976 and 2015
Since my first hunting license adorned my back way back in 1976-1977, a lot has changed in the Pennsylvania landscape.
For example, wild game then so abundant that you could go out and shoot a couple for dinner is now practically extirpated.
Why pheasants and quail disappeared from Pennsylvania is a big debate with no clear answers. Loss of farmland to sprawl, low density development is one. Changes in farming practices is another; fallow fields had the best habitat. A plethora of winged and four legged predators cannot be discounted. Successfully rebounding populations of raptors like hawks and owls for sure ate a lot of plump pheasants. But why a sudden and dramatic crash?
Conservation successes since 1976 are plentiful and say a lot about wildlife biology. Wild turkey populations, fishers, bobcats and other animals once thought completely gone are now firmly in our lives, whether we see them, or not.
An interesting dynamic is playing out at our hunting camp. This year we have a virtual carpet of oak and hickory seedlings unlike anything we saw over the past 15 years we’ve owned it. Why?
Conventional wisdom is the deer population is low, and it’s true that it’s lower than it has been in 15 years. That is, deer are known eaters of acorns and tree seedlings. Fewer deer means more of both.
However, another factor seems to be playing out with these newly abundant tree seedlings. Where we once had an incredible overload of tree rats, aka squirrels, the new fishers have eaten them all. Like all of them. Not one tree rat remains in our carefully cultivated forest of white oaks. We see fisher tracks. We neither see nor hear squirrels.
As squirrels are known eaters of acorns and hickories, it stands to reason that their absence means more acorns and hickories hatching into baby trees.
Add a long icy winter that appears to have crushed our local wild turkey populations, also known for eating nuts, and the right conditions emerge to help a forest rebound and grow some new stock, a huge challenge we aggressively tackle every year.
So, my son getting his first hunting license yesterday is now entering a landscape that in some ways is just as dynamic as the one I began hunting so long ago. What a difference these landscapes were and are, and who would’ve guessed the fishers would be responsible for oak and hickory forests regenerating?
A lot has changed in our wildlife landscapes, and yet not much has changed in my lifetime. Different animals, same kind of population changes, variations, pressures. One thing I keep reminding myself: It’s all natural, these changes. And while some are painful to see, like the loss of pheasants, other opportunities open up. Never would I have imagined in 1976, nor would any PA Game Commission staff, that in 2015 my son would get a bobcat tag and a fisher tag with his license.
Totally different opportunity than chasing pheasants in corn fields, but still good.
Pennsylvania Society: If not then, why now?
Pennsylvania Society: Great idea, wrong time, wrong place
Every year in early December, Pennsylvania’s glitterati and politicos hobnob in Manhattan.
This gathering is known as the Pennsylvania Society, and it’s mostly invitation – only, or you can pay big bucks to throw your own event.
As fun and as useful as this gathering is, and yes, a lot of political sounding boards get twanged, plucked, drummed, and thumped here, it is still at the wrong time and the wrong place.
If you’re a Pennsylvanian, by God, you’re out deer hunting the second week of December. You’ve got no time for more chit-chat in black tie and bow tie inside yet another building (and with due respect to those people who spend their time indoors: Get outside. It’ll do you and everyone else a world of good). You’d prefer to be stalking some steep mountain ledge or sitting overlooking an oak flat, waiting for a deer to jump up or stroll through.
And Manhattan at Christmas time is great. Our family goes every year. Our kids have been raised on Fifth Avenue window shopping and everything that goes with it. Heck, movies have been made about this, it’s so special. It’s a fantastic time for anyone, and if the gathering was fit in to that experience, it’d make sense.
But that best time is at Christmas time. The week before and the week after. Not weeks before. So the Pennsylvania Society is missing the boat there, too, with timing that just doesn’t make sense.
But more to the point, aren’t Philadelphia and Pittsburgh pretty great cities, too? Why can’t we keep the Pennsylvania Society in Pennsylvania? Rotate it around the state, or at least switch between east and west.
I know the folks who really made the Pennsylvania Society take off, and I’m not picking on them. They’re good people, with great ideas. This is just a question of timing, if not venue. And if the venue stays, then change the timing, so our politicians conduct their off-line business in the atmosphere of holiday cheer, giving, forgiveness, and merriment.
Merry Christmas, everyone.
If you want freedom, you are going to have to fight for it
Nevada senator Harry Reid changed the US Senate rules last year, which may not sound like a big deal. But those rules had been in place for about 215 years, a significant portion of America’s existence.
The former senate rules ensured that a slim majority of senators could not win important votes by a slim majority of votes. Important votes like confirming federal judges, whose stamp on the nation’s character lasts for decades. Some federal judge nominees are extremists, nakedly partisan political activists who only wear the black robes for effect, not because they are truly dignified and above the political fray. The former rules prevented those extremists from being confirmed to the bench unless a super-majority of US senators agreed.
Harry Reid’s rule changes allowed his party to ramrod through a whole freak show of kooks, anti-American anarchists, and other assorted wing nuts. These are not people dedicated to serving American citizens; these people are at war with the America we grew up with. They think that Communism only failed because the Soviets didn’t implement it correctly, not that Marxism is a bad idea.
Last week I sat about ten feet away from where US Senator Pat Toomey was speaking at the Perry County Republican Committee Fall Dinner (kudos to county chairman Don McClure for getting Toomey to speak to us). Sure, Toomey said a lot of good stuff. But then he dropped a bombshell, even worse than his ill-fated anti-gun legislation last year: If the Republicans regain the US Senate in two weeks, they will return the Senate rules back to the old set.
Toomey said that this would be done to “prove” that Republicans are “better” than Democrats.
Well, what the hell, Patrick? The liberals are playing to win, to win everything, to win all the power, to take over the entire nation, and the Republican party establishment is engaged in a game of checkers.
In Houston we got to see what Liberals-Gone-Wild really looks like, as the new mayor there served subpoenas on many of the pastors in the city, who had dared to exercise their First Amendment rights and oppose the mayor’s policies. In other words, the only free speech under liberals is speech that they approve of, using the full force of government coercion to achieve their goal. In other words, we are in a fight for survival, for the basic core of American democracy. We have to win this fight, because if people like the Houston mayor win, if people like Barack Hussein Obama win, every citizen loses.
Here’s the thing that people like US Senator Pat Toomey just do not understand, that they will never understand: A gentlemanly duel with the liberals will not succeed.
Instead, a bar room brawl is what is needed, and frankly, it is what is desired by the disaffected grass roots activists who otherwise fuel the Republican party.
If you want to hold onto your freedoms, you’d better fight like hell to hold onto them, fight at least as hard as your opponent, if not harder. That means letting the people who changed the US Senate rules learn to live with that change under Republican administration. The Republicans should run the US Senate for at least one year, maybe two years, under Harry Reid’s new rules.
Any Republican senator who cannot support this stance is not really committed to winning back the America that the liberals have dramatically damaged over the past six years. Republican senators who are only committed to the meaningless game of checkers, to the effete gentlemanly duel, what are they doing there?
Step aside, Patrick. The rest of us are rolling up our sleeves and grabbing something solid and heavy to set this situation right. That’s right, that heavy lifting is always left to the grass roots activists, isn’t it….
ObamaCare…are unilateral changes to law legal?
Congress makes laws, the executive branch executes and implements them.
So how is it that Obama makes unilateral changes to his health care law? Isn’t congress needed to amend the law?
One of Obama’s chief flaws is his tendency to rule as a dictator. He shakes hands with and bows deeply to dictators. His willful disregard for American law is dictatorial.
When do congressional leaders corral this wayward president? Will he be impeached?
The end of 215 years of American tradition
Early in America’s youth, a rule in the US Senate was established that recognized minority rights.
By setting a higher threshold for confirming federal judges, US senators had a chance to seriously consider judicial candidates, who serve for life and can only be impeached for serious crimes.
Today, the US Senate majority changed that 215-year-old rule, no longer allowing filibusters for extreme candidates. Now, judges will be voted for confirmation by a simple majority.
When the other party had control of the senate, and the present majority engaged in filibusters, it was business as usual. Now, the majority wants absolute control. No forced debate.
Now what happens when this majority is in the minority? Will they whine, moan, and cry about not having the filibuster at hand to stop or slow down judicial nominees they strongly oppose? Probably. And the sense of irony will be ignored.
Their friends in the mainstream press will take their side, and it’s up to us citizen journalists to get the word out about how serious this is.
A political tradition lasting 215 years must have been worthy. Now we see a huge power grab by one party. What will you do about it?
Comeuppance 101
If you run for US president on a platform of blaming the incumbent for everything, you just might find yourself in the same position some years later, with far less to show than that “failure” before you had.
Obama’s failure to create even a small international coalition to surgically remove Bashar Assad’s weapons of mass destruction is a result of his mistreatment of America’s key allies (Britain, France, Israel, Poland), his confused messages (pacifism vs. ‘red lines’ etc.), willingness to toss old friends overboard for whatever end…(Mubarak in Egypt), and his arrogant personality.
None of America’s former allies know if they can really trust Obama, and all of America’s avowed enemies believe he is a paper tiger.
Ye reap what ye sow….and more children in Syria will be gassed by Assad as a result. If this is Hope and Change, so be it. Most people call it disaster. It’s an expensive form of Comeuppance 101.
Are Liberals the new conservatives?
After years of disproven Liberal theories and beliefs about specific policies (the effectiveness of gun control) and assumptions (all wars are bad wars), I was wondering if Liberals showed any sign of change. Talking with Liberal friends, debating politics on FaceBook, the conclusion is that Liberals are the new conservatives, in the sense that conservatives were asserted to be unwilling to change, or accept necessary change, back in the 1970s. Conventional wisdom was that conservatives were stodgy, stuck in their ways. But measured by that yard stick, it’s Liberals today who are unwilling to accept that their ideas are disproven and that change is good. Stay tuned for more on this subject.
Josh