October 15, PBS started a new series called “How We Got to Now.” It is a series about how simple but extremely important ideas made our current society possible. The premier researched the idea of ‘clean’ as in the need for clean streets, clean drinking water and many other comforts and technologies dependent on clean environments.

As regular readers may know, the mariner is vacillating about maintaining his blog. In his last post (What should we care about?), the mariner cashed his chips and turned the fate of the world over to the gods. That fate remains with them; the mariner has donned a fatalist’s cloak. Somehow Doris Day made fatalism appear attractive when she sang Que Sera Sera. In reality, the cloak is a drab color. Nevertheless, there are no questions to answer and no expectations.

How the mariner got to fatalism is the question in this post.

In the last 170 years we have sailed a course worthy of Jason and his Argonauts. While every discipline imaginable shared in the shape and direction of our course, the mariner believes communication has had the greatest influence.

Just a few quick touchstones: Ignorance is bliss. What you don’t know won’t hurt you. We do it because we can. Nothing in life is free. America; home of the free. The war to end all wars. Google. Yahoo. Microsoft. Netflix. Cable tv. Satellites. Hulu. Cell Phones. In a category all to itself, Internet.

Throw in day-to-day accounting of people losing their homes by the millions. Ineffective, greedy government. Beheaded journalists. A nonexistent recovery for anyone making less than $75,000 annually. Every fire of any size anywhere in the world along with every drought, every flood, every hurricane. Being forced to watch news programs showing how everyone except the top 10% of citizens grows poorer every year.

Dying ash trees. Increasingly colder winters and hotter summers. Crop status. Blood test results. Overstated scares about Ebola. Football concussions. We must evaluate the foreign policy of every country in the world whether we want to or not. Crazy news journalists with no regard for truth, taste or moral obligation to the viewer.

Had enough? Not only must you handle too much information, everyone else knows your information as well. Now, cloud technology will take from you the last bastion of privacy – your information will not reside on your computer but in a commercial, for profit data base.

I fear the demise of crocheting, reading paper newspapers, substantive education that enforces higher moral values for all citizens – including the knowledge to activate those moral values.

These touchstones are merely the foundation of a new age that goes far beyond the book 1984 except that uniforms will not be required. Jeans will suffice. Still, modern forms of slavery will become entrenched. There is nothing that can stop this nonsense and still we must be reminded of all of it from television, papers, cable, and, of all things, as if deliberately paradoxical, we will be able to view only information that data controllers want us to know.

The mariner gives up. Only the gods can right the ship. He feels his single ballot is useless to stem the tide. His age and energy prevent him from stirring the blood that was present when he was a young activist.

Sailing away to visit information-deficient places in the world sounds very healing to the mariner. And to put up his feet under a palm tree in some underdeveloped country (read minimal information capability) may heal wounds.

“Live in Donnellson,” my learned wife says. “It would not be hard to be an isolationist as well as a fatalist.” Ah, if there were only palm trees and open water….

Ancient Mariner

The mariner has experienced the hopelessness of righting the mighty wrongs of this world. Henceforth, he will trust in the vengeance of God as Armageddon is smote upon us.

He will abide the future ordained by the imminent asteroid.

He will bask in the warmth of whatever it is that is getting warmer but doesn’t exist.

He will ignore the burdens loosed by Pandora.

He will trust the horsemen to deliver the Apocalypse.

He will leave our resolve to the Sun.

The mariner will focus on matters of the mundane, inquisitive, whimsical and oddly irrelevant, all things considered:

Puppy farms persist in Iowa.

Cricket invasion in home town.

Mentioned to some readers, the mariner still is intrigued by unintended phenomena from genome manipulation.

Will Robert Downey Jr. find honor in “The Judge?”

Is the Catalina 22 sailboat a sporting model for the Gulf?

Why is coffee so important to the liver?

On World News Now, what happened to Reena Ninan?

It was mentioned recently that diabetes will kill someone before smoking does. Does this mean diabetics have nothing to lose if they smoke?

We’ll see how it goes…

Ancient Mariner

The mariner hasn’t posted for some time. As a reason, a good metaphor would be how you may feel if you have one cup of water and the uncontrolled forest fire rapidly approaches. You may “stand your ground” and throw the cup of water with great ferocity. Then. . .

So that is the circumstance: the mariner fills his cup of water and tosses it into the raging selfishness and stupidity of humanity. Pope Frank was right when he said the world worships the religion of capitalism when it should be worshiping the sanctity of every individual life – human and otherwise.

A book was published recently with a premise that every living creature, including humans, always will take the short win rather than act in behalf of the longer term circumstance. A clear example was the unwillingness to tackle global warming for fear of less profit, higher taxes, more regulations, and a redistribution of power across national boundaries. In other words, today’s short win profit counts more than tomorrow’s greater loss. Individual examples are eating the doughnut now and worrying about obesity later – if ever; using a credit card to satisfy immediate reward and worrying about debt later. The author predicted the demise of species, including humans, and a world ill fit for the current ecosystem.

A microcosm of that premise is the Mississippi River. The mariner was fond of the river even before he moved to the Midwest. The Mississippi is an amazing creature of nature that has flowed endlessly through the millennia. The ecosystems supported by the river make it come to life. The river has its own natural behavior, considering the floodplain part of its prerogative as a big river. The Mississippi River has been shackled by humans with hydroelectric dams, estuary-killing levees, greedy developers and disrespectful farmers and corporations that deliberately allow damaging chemicals to flow into the water, destroying many different ecosystems. There is a three mile stretch along the Louisiana shoreline that is not fit for painted hulls. Between the Mississippi delta and that of the Rio Grande, one third of the Gulf of Mexico is a dead sea.

The mariner’s lamentations will do no more good than the lamentations of the prophet Amos.

The mariner thinks he will go to the river’s edge to watch wildlife struggling as he to exist in the mire.

 Ancient Mariner

The mariner owns an Edwardian Victorian home in Colorado. It was built in 1901 and in its time must have been the queen of Old Colorado City. His advice to everyone is never to own an Edwardian Victorian home built in 1901. Long ago, before most construction regulations were created, the grand house was converted to apartments.

The mariner has owned the home for six years. To this day, house wiring wanders uncharted through the huge home. Eight circuit breakers, four outside and four inside on the third floor control current flow. Like most older homes, the building was grandfathered in and is legal unless the function of the building (apartments) changes. The gas lines are equally obscured from logic or direction. He has never seen two water heaters joined together side by side with at least a dozen elbow joints.

The gas furnace in the basement distributes heat to the entire building via ducts two feet in diameter – delivered to original, ornate iron wall registers.

My son and I have rebuilt a significant portion of the plumbing and must deal with broken septic tile that runs not to the street but under another home built on top of the tiles that run to an alley on the other side. Constant rotor rooter service is critical unless one want a septic backup in the basement.

Together with my son and wife – and contractors, we have patched, plugged, refurbished, and otherwise sustained the life of the building. We have hung doors, rebuilt cabinets, rehung ancient windows with broken weight ropes, replaced broken glass, light fixtures and carpet. The whole building, inside and out has been newly painted.

But the mariner will tell you the worst job of all is replacing venetian blinds. Yes, it seems like a simple and effortless job. But you are fooled. It is a combination of circumstances. First, the windows are very high under a ten foot ceiling; the corners of the lintel look like the building was hit by gunfire regularly since the First World War. Where does one make the next holes to hang the blinds? Some corners are made mostly of wood putty, leaving no firmness that wood provides.

The next circumstance is the step ladder. It is never convenient and requires dangerous leaning over furniture with a large sheet of old window glass inches away. Try leveling the mounting hardware with one hand stretched to its utmost while marking the spots with the other hand somehow reaching over the arm holding the level. Then try to drill holes and mounting screws. By now your legs and arms are growing fatigued, the ladder sways under you and you drop the last two screws to the floor.

The final circumstance is the mariner: mid seventies, palsey that makes using a screwdriver a long, struggling experience to join driver and screw. What should have been a morning’s work lingered toward suppertime. His aching back spoke of the strain of imbalance and the shoulders whimpered with soreness.

Fortunately, tomorrow’s chores are hanging a laundry room door, and repairing cabinets in the bathroom. Simple stuff anyone can do. Building porch decks and properly fitted stairs and rails is easy; the square does all the work.

If you have to hang all new blinds, sell the house!

Our last chore is to pack for the return to Iowa. Our truck was full on the way here. We are returning with a bit more. An inversion table, a lawn mower and perhaps a grill have been added to a truckload that was full on the way out.

Anyone want to buy a Edwardian Victorian home built in 1901? The venetian blinds ar new.

Ancient Mariner

The statistics on the mariner’s blog show that most readers are between the ages of 23 and 50. This post is advice to them from an old sailor whose participation with those 23-50 youngsters is long cast in bronze never to come again.

The mariner lives in a small town where many are, well, seasoned retirees. He has been able to watch himself age in others; he is fully aware how aging itself tugs the elderly further into isolation. Friends and family pass on; society has less need of the elderly; injuries and decrepit bodies limit flexibility and strength. The mind falls into disuse that is not related to dementia but weakens mental agility just as a muscle is weakened from disuse.

In many cases, there is a hard choice to make between daily pain and drugs that ease pain at the cost of cognitive clarity. As one confronts one ailment after another, drugs are piled on drugs, smudging the line between how healthy the body is versus how ravaged the body’s subtle functions are for living normally.

Often, the elderly live waiting for the illness they cannot afford, the illness that will incapacitate them, the illness that will be their end – a feeling similar to waiting for the second shoe to fall. Yet, faced with these circumstances, they survive. They rise each morning to face the day with self-respect and purpose.

To the vast majority of you in younger generations, these feelings and circumstances are alien. You have too much to do, too much to discover, too many dreams and goals – there is no room for the sensations of aging to coexist. You are blessed with natural exuberance. You are in the prime of your life. This is as it should be. Every seasoned retiree has had their turn at your lifestyle.

Many seniors, more than you may think, overcome isolation and fight pain and injury tooth and nail. Many are socially and intellectually active. Many by necessity or by choice work beyond circumstances where it may be better to ease off. And many seniors, more than you think, have healthy and enjoyable lives well into seasoned retirement. However, the norm is a daily battle against isolation and not letting their fading vitality prevent them from enjoying life.

The mariner’s advice to the younger set borrows an old phrase: “Respect your elders.” The elderly have fought well battles you do not yet face at odds that grow against them every day. Yet they live. They buy groceries. They have feelings and friends. Be in awe of them for winning the battles that you, too, will encounter.

The immense desire in our society to make the fast dollar, cut losses, and prefer the younger applicant, too many times is at the cost of a fine mind and proven dependability. The American culture in particular must embrace the age of wisdom. The elderly are like tempered steel, shaped by long experience. The elderly have demonstrated perseverance, persistence and dependability. They are a tempering influence. Their years are golden.

Ancient Mariner

Oh my. The mariner weighed himself this morning. 222 pounds. He has been growing like a potato, perhaps with the potato’s help. Quickly he has moved from 198 pounds last autumn.

No guilt involved. The mariner, as many others may do, blames it on the frigid weather, the terrible winter just now showing signs of faltering. Further, the mariner has a troublesome back condition that hurts just enough to deter normal activity. However, winter is over, the garden is stirring and spring labor cannot be avoided.

The vegetable garden will be doubled in size this year plus a fence must be built around that garden to deny access to rabbits. Rabbits are the scourge of gardeners, especially in the mariner’s small town where there are no predators. He has encouraged bow hunters to kill a few. That has worked well but with minimum effect on the hoards of rabbits still prevailing. The garden walk must be paved. It has sat undone for two years.

So there is a plan afoot to lose weight. It involves more exercise despite his back’s complaint and it involves selecting a diet plan.

The mariner believes any diet plan requiring special ingredients or exercises he could not do when he was fifteen should be discarded.

Promoters selling “better” diet methods can claim better success by using a mathematical process known as base expectancy analysis (BEA). This is a large table of selected items that may affect other items in the table. A successful use of BEA tied mesothelioma to asbestos. Lung cancer and smoking were linked using BEA. Base expectancy analysis, believe it or not, is the same analytical model as Bingo. The players (experiment participants) are given a limited population ∑ (the cards) then random values (balls) are applied that are restricted to the values within ∑. Eventually, a truth table emerges (someone shouts “Bingo.”) Many games are played until a pattern of winners emerges. These winners have something special that enables them to win more than others. Their cards are examined to determine which sequence of balls was most productive. That sequence of balls is the new insight that provides for better living.

Have you noticed there is a new result from some study every month that seems contradictory to a former study? The diet promoters are playing Bingo. Someone else may win Bingo more times on Thursday than they did on Wednesday.

For those who want to know more about bingo, the formula is Σ x_iP(x_i).

Back to the weight issue, the mariner’s history of weight gain/loss may provide insight into how to lose weight. When the mariner retired at age 63, he weighed 249 pounds. His work environment contained many meetings with donuts, similar sweet products and many lunches, dinners and lounges that were not exactly crackers and skim milk.

Once retired, the mariner lost 25 pounds in six months. The secret is to have major surgery like a knee replacement, which puts you on drugs that suppress hunger as well as most other activities in life. Then the mariner went on a diet; it was the Atkins diet. This diet requires that one eat nothing but meat. The mariner lost steadily to 200 pounds at a rate of 2 pounds per week. Since then, his weight has bounced around this number plus or minus 5 pounds. Until the winter made him gain weight.

Last night on the Aljazeera channel, a Doctor reported that a study showed that saturated fat did not cause heart and cardiovascular disease. Based on this round of Bingo, I have decided to start Atkins again.

This does not mean that the seemingly more rational diets like vegan, supplement and enzyme diets do not work. People on these diets are quite thin. Anyone who has the willpower to eat less than they wish will be thin. Try the canned sardine diet. One can have one tin each for breakfast lunch and dinner. One is allowed one different vegetable at each meal – preferably to provide fiber. You will lose weight. We can go on and on about antioxidants and other chemical analyses but it boils down to less eating. Here’s another diet: eat a hard boiled egg for breakfast, a small bowl of mixed fruit for lunch, and for dinner, have ½ cup each of two vegetables and 4 ounces of meat. Snacking is cheating. That should work. The point is we can invent endless diets if we had the time and desire to do so.

So the mariner has settled on Atkins until 190 is reached. Atkins worked before; it should work again. After all, the Doctor on Aljazeera said it was okay.

No one mentions that a sustained diet only of meat will not only lose weight, one will also lose a liver. Well, last time the mariner lost a knee. I guess losing something other than weight is part of the diet.

Ancient Mariner

There are a few who say spring is coming, then summer. The mariner is wary of these prognostications. Changing the time back to standard does not fool him. There is ice and snow all about and as he and his wife walked to the Post Office and back, the 2-knot wind had a sharp bite to it.

It was three years ago that summer came in February. It was 75 to 85 degrees for at least two weeks. Trees and bulbs began to bloom. The grass had to be mowed. Then March came. Coldest March in recent memory; killed many plants and all the buds and blooms. No apples, cherries or pears that year and no narcissus, either. Cost the mariner over a hundred dollars in ornamentals and landscape shrubs. Two years ago, the summer brought nine straight days of +100° weather – more plant kill-off. It is an old saying that owning a boat is like pouring money into a hole in the water. Try gardening in Iowa. Warning: you have to dig your own holes.

The mariner has always proclaimed that the Midwest, undisturbed for thousands of years, was a vast grassy plain because nothing but grass can tolerate the vagaries of the weather. In the southern plains, all the way to northern Texas, there wasn’t much of anything because of the frequent droughts. Visit Kansas, Nebraska, the Dakotas and Montana – and Iowa. Thomas Jefferson called the area The Great Western Desert alluding to the fact that nothing grew but grass.

Nevertheless, the mariner has hoisted his 17-foot Daysailer off the trailer for repair to a dozen spots. The poor thing has been in drydock for three years in an implement shed and is as dirty as a pig in _ _ _ _.

The first job is to put new lines on the centerboard so it can stay locked in the down position. Then it is a matter of giving the boat a bath in Ketone to remove streaks, stains and scum. Then its time to heal wounds and minor cracks with fiberglass work. Finally, the whole boat gets a 1000 grit sanding. Then the hull receives new paint trim and finally a complete waxing. That’s just the hull and deck. Working on masts, booms, deck hardware, new sails, and new sailing lines is another process.

This work will not be done by the spring equinox. There is hope, once the garden work diminishes, that the boat will be sail-ready for shakedown exercises at Lake Rathbun before it’s too late to sail in the Midwest.

If there’s time in October when the mariner visits the Annapolis Boat Show, the boat will be free to run on the Chesapeake Bay.

Screw the weather. Reef the mainsail and cast the mooring lines. He has a heated workshop.

Ancient Mariner