New Thoughts

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Who needs meditation and therapy?

Try open-brain surgery. Making a person laugh during awake open-brain surgery isn’t as simple as telling a really good joke. Instead, doctors went straight to the source: the brain, according to a report about the operation. To induce laughter, they stimulated a specific area in a long bundle of brain cell tails that run from the front of the brain to the back. The subsequent laughter helped calm the woman for the duration of the surgery.

“Immediately she had profound relief, she was happy, able to communicate and able to make jokes” said senior case report author Dr. Jon Willie, a neurosurgeon at Emory University School of Medicine. Willie was one of the surgeons who operated on the woman.

In fact, when the doctors tried this type of stimulation on two other patients with epilepsy (who had electrodes implanted in the brains for monitoring of their seizures but weren’t undergoing awake open-brain surgery), they found consistent results — stimulating this area of the brain caused a sense of well-being and relieved anxiety, Willie told Live Science.

– – – –

Rent in low income projects may include an apartment and a car

A new study finds that, over the past 50 years, owning a car has been among the most powerful economic advantages available to U.S. families. While that doesn’t mean everyone should start driving, it does lead the study’s authors to a policy prescription in cities built around the automobile: Treat vehicles like essential infrastructure, and subsidize them for low-income households. “We don’t want to try to balance our carbon emissions and budgets on the backs of the poor,” one researcher tells CityLab’s Laura Bliss. “All of these goals can be achieved if overall we drive less, even if we help some people drive more.”

That might not mean private ownership. Electric vehicle-sharing pilots like those seen in Los Angeles are one model. Longstanding efforts by nonprofits to distribute vehicle donations is another. [CityLab]

– – – –

Getting used to representative government may take time

Mariner wants to jump in on the noise about HR1 (stops gerrymandering), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her fellow new Representatives (should behave like grownups), and the conservative (GOP) efforts to rebrand ‘socialism’ as a curse word.

Mariner described HR1 in a recent post. In mariner’s memory, perhaps all the way back to the ‘60s, no bill has ever spoken as truly to the wants of the American citizenry: stop gerrymandering; stop messing with voter registration; automatically register 18-year-olds on their birthday; expose big money lobbying. Immediately the GOP branded it a grab for Democratic Party power in Congress. Well, yes – if one believes in democracy and equality. . .

Three cheers for the new bunch. Three cheers for any Representative under 40, not white professional class, and not interested in the establishment way of running government. Three cheers for skin color; three cheers for diverse income and profession; three cheers for diverse religious perspectives; three cheers for dismissing the ‘grownup’s view of representative government.

It was the McCarthy era in the 40’s and 50’s that had a significant impact on the citizen’s awareness of political philosophy as a threatening deterrent to personal wellbeing. McCarthy successfully turned public opinion against socialism – until then an equal player in party politics. Politicians still have trouble mentioning the word – but not the new bunch.

In 1905 it was the Socialist party that pushed through Congress the idea of an 8-hour day and a forty-hour work week and opened the opportunity for union representation; Charlotte Perkins Gilman was a prominent American feminist and socialist who fought for the equality of women and advocated equal pay and financial competitiveness for women in a time when the women could not even vote.

During Joe McCarthy’s Red Scare of the 1950s, Harry Truman had stirred conservative outrage by arguing that the government had the authority to impose anti-lynching laws on the states and by proposing a national healthcare plan. But what really bugged the Republicans was that Truman, who had been expected to lose in 1948, had not just won the election but restored Democratic control of Congress. To counter this ominous electoral trend, conservative Republicans, led by Ohio Senator Robert Taft, announced in 1950 that their campaign slogan in that year’s Congressional elections would be “Liberty Against Socialism.” They then produced an addendum to their national platform, much of which was devoted to a McCarthyite rant charging that Truman’s Fair Deal “is dictated by a small but powerful group of persons who believe in socialism.”

From that point on in American history the historical contribution of socialist ideas like universal health and other human rights issues were erased from political consciousness.

Mariner is more comfortable with a house metaphor that describes political specialties; the specialties are political philosophies like democracy, equality, socialism, capitalism, even communism and monarchy. The point is none of them work well without a mix of all of them. The house metaphor:

One doesn’t use living room furniture in the kitchen; one doesn’t have Thanksgiving Dinner in the bathroom; one doesn’t put a basketball court in the bedroom, etc. Capitalism has its place but should not have all the power in government; socialism is needed to ensure equality among the unrepresented; even monarchy has a role(remember John Kennedy – the Royal Family?) And further, even Christianity should not be the only ethical view.

Ancient Mariner

Of Our Time

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֎1/3 OF ITS GLACIERS

One-third or more of the Himalayan ice cap is “doomed to melt due to climate change,” according to a new report called The Hindu Kush Himalaya Assessment. They’ll be gone by the year 2100, the report finds, affecting hundreds of millions of people who rely on the glaciers as “a critical water store.” [The Guardian]

[[One might ask what the real price of a barrel of crude oil is.]]

֎59 NEW EMOJI

The Unicode Consortium, which is in charge of such things, has announced 59 new emoji along with 171 new variations on existing emoji. The new ones include a deaf person, people in wheelchairs, people with probing canes, a mechanical arm and leg and service dogs. They also include an otter, a sloth, an orangutan, an ice cube, garlic, falafel and a ringed planet. [The Verge]

[[Verbs! Where are the verbs? And adjectives!! Farewell, art of nuance.]]

 ֎DONALD IS GOOD AT SOMETHING

President Donald is first in his class . . . of worst Presidents in the history of the United States. Still adding to his achievements, already he tops several websites documenting US Presidential history.

A few others courtesy of WorldAtlas:

James Buchanan, Jr., a Democrat, was the 15th President of the United States, and held this prestigious post from 1857 to 1861. President Buchanan not only failed to broker peace between a divided nation, but also ended up alienating members of both warring factions. Many still blame President Buchanan and his ineffective presidency for failing to prevent the outbreak of the Civil War, with some even referring to the devastating national conflict as “Buchanan’s War”.

Warren G. Harding. The 29th President of the US was Warren G. Harding, who held office from 1921 to 1923. After his death stories of corruption and scandal became rampant. Aside from his actual political policies Harding’s personal life was marred by tawdry revelations of his extramarital affairs with numerous women. In terms of issues related to governing the country, President Harding ran into trouble with his mishandling of the Teapot Dome oil reserves which also proved quite scandal-worthy for his administration.

Andrew Johnson. After Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, Andrew Johnson was sworn in as the 17th head of state. Johnson, a native of Raleigh, North Carolina, governed the country from 1865 to 1869. Due to a violation of the Tenure of Office Act, he was impeached in 1868. Acquitted by the Senate, however, Johnson was able to remain in office. President Johnson was unpopular for opposing measures, such as the Fourteenth Amendment, which were aimed at affording ex slaves with US citizenship.

Ulysses S. Grant. Republican Ulysses S. Grant who served as the head of state from 1869 to 1877. President Grant’s accomplishments during his two terms in office include overseeing the reconstruction in the southern states, dismantling the Confederacy, as well as supporting civil rights for black citizens. Perhaps the most significant cause of Grant’s downfall and reputation as a poor leader is due to the many allegations of corruption and financial misconduct which plagued his administration.

Herbert Hoover. Herbert Hoover served as the 31st President of the United States during the Great Depression, serving between 1929 and 1933. Hoover was criticized for being a poor communicator who many Americans perceived as cold and uncaring. Although the timing of his presidency was unenviable, his political policies were accused of actually worsening the Depression. Interestingly, Hoover had won in a landslide victory.

[[The majority of the worst Presidents are on the list because they bucked the founding principles of equality, justice by law, and criminal activity on the side along with philandering. Donald appears to be an appropriate nomination.]]

֎Finally, mariner wants to suggest that measuring wages versus inflation, the popular way for pundits to determine wage quality, is misleading. In ordinary times, these measurements would reflect reality. However, the flow of profit is so skewed to the super wealthy that inflation becomes irrelevant. The measure of wage quality should be measured against the Gross National Product (GDP) – a value in which the US working class does not participate. Wages versus inflation has been out of kilter since the 1980’s and has little meaning. Salaries are a built-in overhead. All profits, virtually 99%, and a factor of GDP, are kept by corporations and oligarchs.

Ancient Mariner

 

Caught between Old and New

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Agriculture scientists report that the weaker one’s scientific knowledge, the angrier they are about genetically modified crops. Previous studies have found that, while genetically modified organism (GMO) opponents demand more research into the foods, no amount of science can convince them the products are safe. “We have to get people to recognize gaps in their knowledge before we try to teach them new things and have a meaningful discussion,” one researcher said.

Mariner notices that the phenomenon of rebelling because something is not familiar or seems to countermand established values is common across any discipline including behavior seemingly not becoming to the standard of the day. For example, mariner, a registered old fogey, resists the use of smart phones and social media. He claims social interaction is minimized, human importance is trivialized, and the loss of privacy also means the loss of independent thought. Yet, smart phones are universally used around the world and social media is how millions communicate – to the extent that POTUS uses Twitter to issue national policy, without talking to any human.

Similar to the detractors of GMO, mariner will never accept the values of future technology no matter how hard Neil Degrasse Tyson tries to persuade him. Mariner suggests Neil watch the Matrix movies. Mariner stands his ground as a primate, not as a digitized asset. Yes, he knows already he is becoming an anachronism but he is comfortable with that.

The pattern of resistance demonstrated by the GMO resisters and mariner is universal. One wonders how the Amish survive. The Amish are a group of traditionalist Christian church fellowships with Swiss German Anabaptist origins. They are closely related to, but distinct from, Mennonite churches. The Amish are known for simple living, plain dress, and reluctance to adopt many conveniences of modern technology. They place their beliefs on the Holy Bible, isolating themselves from the rest of society is one of the key Amish beliefs. They think secular culture has a polluting effect which promotes pride, greed, immorality and materialism. Therefore, to avoid the use of television, radios, computers, and modern appliances, they do not hook up to the electrical grid.

A hardy culture that equates religious value to physically working hard, it offers a slap at the “English” (non-Amish): “If a dollar doesn’t do what it used to, remember that hardly anyone else does either.”

Finally, in the midst of worldwide turmoil in politics, economy and human equality, one sees rebellion for similar reasons – shattered beliefs and protocols, cultural imbalance in economy, and ignorance of the reality represented by modern advances in science and technology. The reader is free to place blame on numerous causes both for ignorance and unpreparedness for new concepts.

Mariner chooses education. One cannot blame education in isolation because it is subject to politics and other resistance to newness by conservative reactions to radical thought. But one must take note that the core knowledge, that is, the curriculum, is no longer appropriate to the world that its students face. If one is to be up-to-date on scientific knowledge, one must at least be aware of the difference between Einsteinian reality and the reality of quantum theory. See, most of you don’t know but it is easily understood and sets the direction for all future science. Check your smartphone.

Ancient Mariner

 

 

A New Experience

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A day or two ago, mariner was watching Rachel Maddow on MSNBC. She mentioned that the democratic House of Representatives released their first bill traditionally called HR1. It had strange language in it that was clearly different. It said that, nationwide, gerrymandering would stop and redistricting would be controlled by impartial citizens; it said that election day is declared a holiday; it said that voters will be automatically registered; it forbade the purge of voter records, said that political action committees had to reveal their donors – all these changes applied to every state in the Union and the three branches of the Federal Government.

What happened? Had legislators found a conscience? Mariner could not believe his ears. When it reached the floor, a republican commented that the bill was nothing more than a power grab for the democrats. A democratic representative retorted, “You are right, it is a power grab – by the citizens!”

Amos scoffed. He said it had the same chance of passing as a snowball in hell. We shall see.

There is such commotion in our Federal Government: Everything Trump, identity politics splitting our nation apart, Putin and the Russians, Mueller, McConnell, climate change, unfair economy, and on and on. Behold, an honest, righteous HR1 begins its path through this mess. Care to offer odds?

Ancient Mariner

 

 

Changing World

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Mariner suspects that Venezuela may go the way of Cuba. In the future G5 computer world, liaisons between nations will become necessary for survival (TPP was an early experiment and the European Union even earlier). The continents form a natural divergence that suggests how future liaisons may develop. It is important to utilize continental influence; China with its Belt Road program already has made inroads including Russia, the Balkans, the Pacific Rim and Southeast Asia. Putin will participate with China as a subordinate unless he is able to reconstruct the Soviet Union. It behooves the US to be cooperative with Canada, Mexico, Central America and South America. The following news item puts the US on its heels in South America.

20 tons of gold

Venezuela, according to a lawmaker there and a Bloomberg source, has set aside 20 tons of gold, worth about $840 million, ready to load into a Russian Boeing 777 in Caracas. Where is the haul headed? No one seems to know. Venezuela does owe billions of dollars to Russia and China, and “also needs hard currency to buy food for its starving people.” [Bloomberg]

Which way is North?

It’s no news that the North and South poles are moving; long-term records from London and Paris (kept since 1580) show that the north magnetic pole moves erratically around the rotational north pole over periods of a few hundred years or longer, Ciaran Beggan, a geophysicist with the British Geological Survey who is involved in WMM updates, told Space.com in an email. He cited a 1981 study from the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London.

Will Santa have to move to Antarctica? This is a thought to consider if the Earth’s magnetic field continues to become more active. Mariner has written about pole reversal in previous posts, covering the news item that compasses in the South Atlantic don’t work accurately for airliners flying there. Note this news item from LiveScience, among many other sources, makes note of the phenomenon. For the reader’s search engine: earth magnetic field reversal.

But what’s really catching attention is the acceleration in movement. Around the mid-1990s, the [North magnetic] pole suddenly sped up its movements from just over 9 miles (15 kilometers) a year to 34 miles (55 kilometers) annually. As of last year, the pole careened over the International Date Line toward the Eastern Hemisphere.

 Ancient Mariner

Subscriptions

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Just a sampling from the many email subscriptions mariner receives. Perhaps one of them may provide new insight.

֎3-fold increase
If you’ve noticed something different happening these past 290 million years, it’s not just you — the rate of asteroids striking Earth and the moon have increased sharply, from once every 3 million years to once every 1 million years. Be careful out there. [The Guardian]

֎TOP LOBBYIST SPENDERS (FOURTH QUARTER ONLY)
National Association of Realtors: $19 million
U.S. Chamber of Commerce: $16 million
Open Society Policy Center: $10.9 million
U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform: $9.5 million
Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America: $6 million
Business Roundtable: $5.7 million
American Hospital Association: $5.5 million
Google: $4.9 million
American Medical Association: $4.7 million
Comcast: $3.9 million
Boeing: $3.9 million
NCTA — The Internet & Television Association: $3.8 million
Amazon: $3.7 million
CTIA: $3.6 million
National Association of Broadcasters: $3.3 million
AT&T: $3.3 million
Southern Company: $3.3 million
General Dynamics: $3.2 million
Altria: $3.2 million
ExxonMobil: $3.1 million

֎$100 million vs. $6 million
The federal government response to Hurricane Harvey in Texas and Hurricane Irma in Florida was “faster and more generous” than its response to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, according to new research out of the University of Michigan. “The variation in the responses was not commensurate with storm severity and need after landfall in the case of Puerto Rico compared with Texas and Florida,” the researchers wrote. Specifically, survivors in Texas and Florida received about $100 million in Federal Emergency Management Agency funds over a nine-day period; Maria survivors received about $6 million in that time. [CBS News]

֎There’s only about 10 years’ worth of helium left in Earth’s reserves, if humans don’t start changing their balloon-releasing behavior soon.[LiveScience]

֎Thousands of years ago, 50,000 acres of glacial ice crusted Venezuela’s peaks. By 1910, maps showed that these glaciers had shrunk to 2,500 acres. By 2008, fewer than 80 acres remained.[The Atlantic]

֎More than 70 percent of House members
The House of Representatives is, ostensibly, representative. I mean, it’s in the name. But its members tend to follow specific and elite career paths before joining the body. More than 70 percent of current House members, for example, were lawyers in private practice, businesspeople or medical professionals. As a result, the House is “much, much richer than the people it represents.” [The New York Times]

֎Senate Republicans have such little appetite for another dreaded shutdown that they may try to stop it from happening again, report Burgess, Bres and Sarah. Trump hasn’t ruled out closing down the government if Congress can’t reach a deal, which could spark an internal revolt in the GOP. “I did not love the shutdown. I wouldn’t think anybody would have another shutdown,” said Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.). [Politico]

Ancient Mariner

Mother Nature Continued

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The last post recognized how much and how rapidly change is occurring in our global society. It introduced four key areas that drive society: economics, sociology, religion and psychology. The last post addressed economics and sociology. The background theme was that humans are bound to behave the way Mother Nature created them no matter how sophisticated the extra-human inventions and liberties therefrom may seem.

Economics is based on a leverage of group behavior and its rewards – not mathematically but as a group of H. sapiens participants. Lifestyle and the conveniences of electricity, combustion and modern chemistry draw Mother Nature’s primates away from the normal physical environment for which they were designed. Each and every new invention, including telecommunication advances, which draw the brain away as well, have created a society that will change overnight to adapt to the newest contrivance. Yet ties to primate limitations cause stress on the relationship between basic human characteristics and omnipotent domination by a non-primate world. Mother Nature is watching.

This post will present the last two areas that drive society: religion and psychology.

– – – –

Religion, stripped of specific theologies, doctrines and rituals, is how humans relate to a reality that is beyond their understanding and control. Mariner’s use of the term ‘Mother Nature’ is typical shorthand for the Universe and its parochial characteristics on Planet Earth. In a subtle way, if one wants to stabilize one’s psyche, the individual must feel in unison with the universe; one must be linked to the power that permits existence. Throughout time, H. sapiens has developed interpretations for being in accord with the universe. Various interpretations have evolved in history depending on when and where and why – hence different theologies, doctrines and rituals.

Today, religion is caught in the same rampant change as the rest of society. The advancement of science, universal knowledge, an awareness of global issues, and instant communication has altered the reasons for religion in daily life. A human has been elevated from parochial wisdom and ritual to a point where a world view is available – even the kind of world among billions of other worlds in the Universe. Theologies are struggling.

Joseph Campbell, a renowned anthropologist, used the term ‘myth,’ suggesting that the myths or understandings between humans and the powers of creation that developed from 6000BC to 1000AD are no longer de rigueur. Wars in the name of religion (if only in name) have existed almost continuously because religion is as important as any human endeavor; religious sanctity is discriminatory in its ethics and morals. Today, however, situation ethics, a term coined in the 1960’s, is prevailing as a general doctrine. The new God is not anthropomorphic, it is the Universe.

– – – –

Psychology incorporates terms like behavior, personality, maturity, compassion, fear, greed, self-awareness, emotions, and many other terms including those that describe emotional disorders like neurotic, schizophrenic, arrested development, etc. For the purposes of this post, its broadest interpretation is used: psychology is the response mechanism that reacts to sensory input.

Despite more obvious influence on behavior by modern technology (don’t get mariner started on smart phones), the true threat is the displacement of human, plain old H. sapiens control over its own behavior and priorities. To keep from prattling on, mariner offers the global, environmental conflict between MN, her primates and that of the non-human influence of devices made from electricity and chemistry which discount the environment and the behavior of species within that environment: the John Henry syndrome.

As mentioned in the previous post, mariner suggests that the global war for humanity is represented as a battle for control between governments (A version of control that focuses on primate need first) and corporations (a version of control that uses primates as objects of profit). Even simpler, it is a battle between money and human liberties based on MN’s creations. This conflict is of immense proportions, truly a global conflict over the future of life on the planet.

Today, this conflict, hidden beneath keyboard games and meaningless conveniences, is fully engaged. It is a battle between the corporations and the common life of normal H. sapiens – who owns the rights to human life?

Ancient Mariner

 

 

Mother Nature

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No one can deny that the times they are a-changin’. They are changing in every corner of economic, sociologic, religious and psychologic areas. Mariner is a gardener and he relates cultural change in human societies to the seasonal cycle of plants, birds, insects and mammals of all sizes. What all these living things have in common is that Mother Nature is a bitch – it’s her way or the highway and often she makes the choice herself.

From a less extreme perspective, humans are unique among the flora and fauna and as such can manipulate Mother Nature (MN) just a bit. MN notices but is tolerant for a while until things obviously aren’t going her way. At first MN sits and smirks as humans pretend they are independent of their own biological place in her environment. Perhaps she hopes that humans will learn their place in the larger reality of things but alas, they never do. Humans have this disorder called hubris (excessive pride and self-importance).

Today, humans are in disarray, in conflict with MN and dismissive of the behavioral rules of the human species. To varying degrees most of today’s humans hoard if they can. That’s not the way it is supposed to be. Anthropologists have identified a characteristic in Homo sapiens that differentiated them from Neanderthals – H. sapiens was able to construct multiple roles for members of a small group which in turn generated more resources. Further, the rules for sharing reflected the amount of resources available. Had an individual hoarded in the face of group need, they would have been driven from the group and possibly killed according to primitive, H. sapiens roles of behavior. So in one sentence we can make a generalization about economics: If the rules aren’t fair, H. sapiens is going to take umbrage. That’s how MN designed her primates. That is a brief explanation why most industrialized nations are having difficulty with their citizenry.

It is also the reason why many humans are promoting the idea of income distribution that is, in over simplified terms, taxing the wealthy class to redistribute GDP to lower income classes. Whether governments can rein in corporate profits is the battlefield.

– – – –

Sociologically speaking, behavior didn’t change much in the good old days. The good old days ran from 90,000 years ago until electricity was invented in 1600 and combustion was harnessed around 1800. Before those dates, humans were permitted to toy with seven tools: lever, wheel and axle, pulley, screw, wedge, and inclined plane. There were simpler tools like the rock but the advantage of a rock can be distributed among the seven tools depending on how one uses it. The most significant change in the good old days was the enslavement of animals like horses and water buffalo. Still, the animals had to make do operating a lever, wheel and axle, pulley, screw, wedge, and inclined plane. This was fine with MN because the energy still came from H. sapiens or other MN creations. To quote Tennessee Ernie Ford, “muscle and blood and skin and bones, a mind that’s weak and a back that’s strong.” Or to quote Pete Seeger,

“The man that invented the stream drill

Thought he was mighty fine,

But John Henry made fifteen feet;

The steam drill only made nine. Lord, Lord.”

Alas, John Henry died and the glory of human capacity was forever diminished by combustion. How we measure our worth changed, ergo our social values changed and changed and changed ever more rapidly as H. sapiens forgot its MN roots and sought existence beyond primate reality. The path of combustion has been rude to MN. Beginning around 1850, humans began interfering with MN’s environment. She has noticed.

Manner often has pondered that the popularity of sports is because of a deep desire to have one’s value based on genuine human capacity – like John Henry.

Continued in the next post.

Ancient Mariner

 

 

Just to be Human

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Mariner and his wife moved to this small town when they retired about ten years ago. Culturally, they were dropped into a foreign country. Fortunately, mariner’s wife grew up in the town and had a sense of the culture. Mariner had been a consultant project manager who assisted corporations when they converted their management structures to take advantage of the new capabilities of multidimensional database technology.

His work took him all over the US and even to Taiwan for a computer upgrade so the Taiwanese could build modern jet fighter airplanes. Mariner and his wife owned a number of properties that kept them busy as well; and two children who took root far away. All this description is provided to give the reader some insight into the culture shock of moving to a small Iowa town of 900 folks in the middle of endless cornfields.

Let mariner say up front that the town folk are quite friendly and supportive. The town moves at a slow pace; the conversations and concerns do not march to a time schedule; a better term may be ‘timeless’. There are no complex responsibilities. Mariner had to learn how to live in his new town.

One interesting adaptation was to understand how residents referred to house and family locations. Large portions of the town can trace families back to the end of the 19th century. One is identified by their relatives and where they live or lived and whose house it was before that and before that when someone married someone else. Most older residents grew up in the town before it had street signs. Mariner, however, habitually mapped and organized the town by street names and sections so he could find his way around.

When mariner had conversations, the resident would say, “You know where Martha lives; she lives in Frank Merten’s house over a block from Aunt Dorothy’s house.”

“You have an Aunt Dorothy?” mariner inquires.

“No, everybody just calls her “Aunt.’

Mariner is further helped by the resident describing the color of the roof across the street. Haltingly mariner tries to convert the descriptions to a location with a street name, which block and intersection. It has taken some time for mariner to adapt to a new interpretation of both people and location. Even cemeteries are identified by who is buried in them rather than the official name of the cemetery.

To this day mariner is aware that he is not a ‘townie.’ But his independent view of the culture allows him to experience its charm and to understand what the national culture has sacrificed in the name of progress. Most notable is the importance of people as the primary definition of the town. One is not defined by terms like suburbanite or ‘west side’ or neighborhood class. The prime identifier is an individual and that individual’s role in the life of the town: “Remember when Frank worked at John Deere?” sets a timeline. There still is a residue of past generations when townie and farmer were discriminatory and whether one’s ancient town ancestors were movers and shakers but this is noticeable only among the town’s most elderly.

There is an advantage to growing up in this rural culture; it provides time just to be human. There’s an old tale about the plough horse, now retired and replaced by a young horse, who every morning still comes to the barn door to be harnessed. How one grows up is a life-setting experience. Do today’s young families have time just to be human?

Ancient Mariner

 

 

Let it Snow

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Mariner must mention that he is the recipient of a pass it forward experience. His town received a foot of snow yesterday. This morning, two neighbors knocked on his front door asking if it was okay to clear his driveway. He blessed them and said, “Of course!” Otherwise mariner would have been snowed in; his two vehicles were in a garage whose doors were behind a snowdrift much deeper than a foot. Pass it forward works for everyone – passer and recipient.

– – – –

Snow seems to encourage folks to work together to regain lost functionality. Snow falls, stays still afterward and is a composition that can be moved, melted or even taken advantage of if one is a winter sports person. Flooding on the other hand wreaks terrible destruction and will not be deterred from racing through towns, cities and open countryside. Wind, too, is unstoppable; hurricanes, tornadoes and shear winds quickly vent their energy on buildings, infrastructure and even large animals – then, like flooding, escape the scene leaving havoc behind.

Certainly snow is inconvenient given how we drive on hard surfaces that accommodate ice and slush. Today, snow is notably troublesome unless one keeps sled dogs, four wheelers and motorized plows around just in case there is snow; comparatively, few people live within walking distance of grocery stores, gas stations, churches, and other destinations. Once arrived, one hopes the establishment is open for business.

Many years ago when mariner and his family moved to the farm, there was an immense snowstorm. Even the snow removal truck could not clear the road beyond the frontage. Across the road, the farm sloped down into a hollow. It was a huge pasture and had no trees; one could sled down a 30° slope for 150 yards or more, having time to really experience sledding. If one took a route to the right, the sled ride ended by rolling through a stand of cattails and sliding uncontrollably across a pond. His family, despite subzero temperatures and a brisk wind, could not resist this new adventure offered by the farm. Everyone was, of course, dressed to look like Charlie Brown and after a handful of trips down the hill, retreated to the house with its large fireplace in the living room.

But it was snow that provided that memorable experience. Pouring rain, flooding and tornadoes deny positive experiences. Perhaps snow’s benevolence is why it is a major symbol for the winter holiday season and why Santa stays jolly even at the North Pole. Snow brings out the passing forward in us.

Ancient Mariner