Leatherback Sea Turtle nesting

Lying in my hammock, my awareness fluctuates between a tight focus on my reading to a wide general awareness of the surrounding environment. I find my current read totally absorbing, eyes on electronic pages for long intervals, but occasionally I must look up, if only to take a swipe of rum. Sipping slowly I notice a bird nesting in a palm tree only a few feet away, and I notice a female turtle just 3 meters from shore. The female turtle has been ghosting the coast line all day. After a moment’s thought I realize she will come ashore tonight and nest.

At sunset I move all the beach lounges back and remove any other possible obstacle that could impede the female turtle. With the beach cleared I return to my hammock for more literature and drink.

At about 1 AM the turtle comes ashore. She had waited for all lights to be turned off and for a lonely quiet to settle on the sandy beach, for now, only the night watchman walks the beach. Slowly and carefully she makes her way up the sandy incline, she waddles like a tortoise with her body clear of the ground. With a clear path and clear instincts she picks a spot to dig. She is a fully mature Leatherback sea turtle over a meter in length, this is not her first nesting, she opens a circular area the diameter of her body and 15 centimeters deep, then excavates a deep pit near one side. All this takes 20 or so minutes, now she is ready to lay her eggs. Over the next 20 minutes she lays more than a hundred eggs, I try to count the eggs but lose track at seventy. At first the eggs come fast and in bunches of a half dozen or more, the egg production slows, eventually ending, it is obvious this has exhausted her. She rest for several minutes then begins to shovel sand over her nest. Using her great fins she scoops and covers, moving slightly forward as she continues covering the nest. Once complete it appears that the nest is several feet from its actual location, we know this because we had marked the nest location while she was laying the eggs. Satisfied with her night’s work she returns to the sea.
     We lined the nest with rocks for protection from drunken tourist. The turtle had hidden the nest from her natural predators.

What I did on Vacation

This is not the end of the story, nor is it the beginning. The end is far in the future, and the beginning is deep in the pass. Some believe all is a circle, with no beginning or ending. However all stories need a start, and this one starts in a hammock. A lazy warm day with a light southerly breeze, not unlike yesterday, but, different. The sky is mostly clear with smallish white clouds, similar to yesterday, but, different. Lying in my hammock, like every day, something subconscious tells me, things are … well, different.

I put down my book and concentrate. What is bothering me? I relax and feel the local environment, close my eyes and listen. What has changed? Nothing registers, no ah-that-is-it moment occurs, all seems the same, just … different. It is only slightly different but troubling.

I connect my portable electronic device to the local Wi-Fi hotspot. I check newsfeeds and social media, finding war, famine, earthquakes, tidal waves, politicians shouting, and kitties with laser eyes. There is nothing out of the ordinary today, just the usual events.

I sit up in my hammock. Swing my feet out, then slide onto the sand. The sand is hot, too hot, my hammock is in the shade, and this sand should be cool. The sand starts to burn the soles of my feet so I run into the sea, the water is hot, too hot, much too hot. I have found what is different.

Running across the beach will be painful, but I must seek safety. I steel my mind to ignore the pain, and then run like some fire walker across glowing coals, reaching the relative safety of a Mexican palapa. Suddenly the sand starts undulating in great waves, driving boulders into people and buildings. My refuge under the palapa will be destroyed in seconds. I have to move, now. With a great leap I soar to the mangrove, then quickly spinning I watch the horror back on the beach. I struggle for understanding, suddenly the knowing is in me, and I know what is needed, and I know that only I can do what must be done. I carry responsibility heavier than the weight of a mountain, the prophecies must be fulfilled.

A bone chilling screech comes from the sky. Looking up I see the dragon, mounted by the Master of Demons, the Lord of Darkness, he has come to claim the souls of all mortal men. He holds his hands out, spreading his fingers, from each finger tip cracks spread across the sky, cracks in space and time itself. Anyone touching a crack is elongated, stretched, disappearing into nothingness.

Poncho Villa, one of my most trusted companions, brings my battle sword, the fabled sword of Damocles, a sword wrought by Merlin in the time of the great Magicians. I quickly scabbard the sword to my waist. My memory of the sword’s acquisition, the memory of prophecy foretold and prophecy fulfilled, these memories give me hope of survival. Merlin had created the Sword of Damocles for the Final Battle, and then he had driven it to the hilt deep into solid granite atop Mount Doom. Prophecy had declared only the Defender of Light and Truth would be able to pull it free. For a thousand years none were successful, when I had grasp the handle it came free, with no more effort that lifting a table spoon, the Sword of Damocles was mine. The Sword and I share a fate, a destiny; we are both tools for the Last Battle. The divination of Seer Nostradamus hinted that the great sword owned me more than I owed it, indeed, for none could own the Sword of Damocles.

Trigger, my flying horse, is now brought forward by Poncho Villa. Pushing all memories from my mind I bound into Trigger’s saddle, take the sword in hand and focus on my nemesis, the Lord of Darkness. Trigger is smaller than the Dragon, much smaller, but Trigger was also smarter than the dragon, and far faster. My battle plan is simple, be fast, be smart, hit hard. Trigger’s powerful wings stroke quickly, bringing me level with the Lord of Darkness. I stare into the dark, empty sockets that should have been his eyes. I cry out in the ancient warrior tongue.

“CARPE DEIUM. VENI, VIDI, VICI!”

Suddenly, something shook me, some unseen force grasping my shoulder, demanding my attention. I look up and …. My wife is standing over me?

“Wake up! Your snoring is bothering the other quest!” She almost shouts.

I blind my eyes, look around me, and shake my head slightly. “Huh --- What --- Where?”

One elderly, sun burned lady is applauding my wife while nodding her head in agreement.

I really need to cut back on some of those fantasy novels. I think to myself.

The Rightness of Hammocks

There is a rightness in hammocks, rightness with calm and balance. There is a natural melding, needless of any artificial effort. I lay in my hammock, allowing the rightness and harmony to claim my soul. The rolling sound of waves, the chirps of birds, the muted conversations of other vacationers, all combine into a complete existence, and the rightness of being here, the significance of now. This is not escapism, this is acceptance.

Thoughts of the mind form slowly with the gentle motion of the hammock’s swaying. The question floats lightly across my mind. Which book to read today? I enjoy reading two books at once. This allows for a difference in pace, an intellectual gear change. Today I select one scholarly book about anthropology, and secondly, a favorite genre of mine, a totally impossible SciFi story. I will read the SciFi book for hours, eventually growing tired of space battles, and then open the anthropology book to read of newly discovered cave man paintings.

Life is indeed good.

Most anyone can do this. That is, go on vacation, then lie in a hammock and read a book, the bar is low for hammocking. This simple and safe enjoyment was not always widely available. I imagine my ancestors relaxed with a sword close at hand; I imagine many of my ancestors could not read. The oral history of my family tells of military sergeants, Irish potato famines, horse thieves and war heroes. Yet, I lie in a hammock beside Caribbean waters. Mostly safe (there is always danger, usually when we least expect), mostly relaxed (situational awareness should always be maintained), and a little bit cocky (I would have been a good army sergeant).

So, here I am, an American on vacation, wearing the same shorts for days, bargaining the price of a new hammock, enjoying maid service and breakfast at noon, total relaxation, with the best of the modern world, all at very reasonable prices. My Caribbean vacations orbit around the hammock, some prefer the beach lounge, while others a towel on the sand, all excellent choices. The sand is clean, white and soft, almost powdery, perfect for bare-footing or, for turtles laying eggs.

The turtles come at night; dark shadows slowly raising from the water, calmly crawling ashore, then with some deep instinct they select a nesting spot. Using their hind fins they scoop out a pit the depth of your arm, lay a hundred or more eggs, cover the nest with sand, and then lumber back into the warm Caribbean waters. I am still amazed by all this, even after years of observation. Two to three months later the baby turtles will hatch. Both of these events are a natural wonderment that enchants children and captures adults.

To watch this marvel of nature you must go to the turtle, the turtles will not come to you. There are no onerous rules to follow this adventure, basically let things be, let things happen. Nature does quite well without us humans interfering. I find a hammock the perfect perch while waiting for the turtles, and a book passes time nicely.

I am just another American on vacation in Akumal, Mexico.

The purpose of bad grammar in politics

“The ancients wrote at a time when the great art of writing badly had not yet been invented. In those days to write at all meant to write well.” - Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, a most quotable German scientist, another of my Lichtenberg favorites, “With most men, unbelief in one thing springs from blind belief in another.” (The second quote is only tangential to this blog.)

Bad writing is prevalent today in political blogs and political speeches. The poor construction of sentences ranges from the pedestrian to a pure atrocity. This is a recent phenomenon, the writings of Thomas Jefferson, or the speeches of Abraham Lincoln, the addresses of FDR or JFK, all had style and clarity. Common Sense by Thomas Paine, while emotional and ideological, was nonetheless, will written.

Today’s right wing authors, such as Glen Beck or Ann Coulter, write as if they had failed their freshman class in writing. One would think they had never heard of The Elements of Style by William Strunk, Jr., or they had slept through the sixth grade class about diagramming sentences. My Texas Senator, Ted Cruz, composes sentences which can be interpreted with a wide range of meanings.

I don’t believe this is just bad grammar, I believe this is intentional. The use of code words in political arguments leads to insensible sentences. After the reelection of President Obama, one common sentence I encountered was, “Except for the stupid voters Romney would have won.” In this sentence “stupid voters” is a code word. Only those who understand the code word can make sense of this sentence. The right wing writers have improved the code word and now use “Low information voter”, shorten to LIV, and added punctuation, making the new sentence, “Without the LIV’s, Romney would have won.” This lack of clarity in writing allows readers to construct their own meaning, which is the point and purpose of the poor writing and the usage of code words. Like secret handshakes between bomb throwing anarchists, it gives the participants a feeling of belonging and group identification. The rest of us just stand around thinking WTF? (I haven’t decided whether WTF is good grammar, I am sure my college English professor would disapprove.) Poor writing, code words and dog whistles, will co-op the reader to encompass a conclusion that he/she finds agreeable, without the author having to clearly state their position.

This would indicate that clarity of the political position has been judged to produce undesirable consequences. If the political argument is sound, then make it with clarity and precision, as Lincoln did with the Gettysburg Address, good ideas win by being good ideas.

Of course, my writing is far from perfect, but, I do try to be clear and precise.

The Serendipity of Lice

(Guest Blog post from my Daughter)

Yes, you read that correct: lice. I am grateful for lice.

I’m sure many people have many different reasons to be grateful for lice, but let me explain mine. My five-year-old son brought home lice at the end of his Pre-K year. I have two small children, so I had no delusions; I knew that lice would eventually show up in my life. And so they did that fateful day last year just as summer began.

Lice are probably one of the ugliest, nastiest, creepiest looking bugs on the planet. I knew we had lice, but I hadn’t accepted it yet. My head had been itching, and I had seen my son scratching his head, but I refused to admit anything. I was terrified of lice. Then the morning came when my son actually said out loud, “My head itches.” I had to look.

And there, crawling all over his head was a terrible infestation of lice. Since I had let myself live in denial for so long, there were quite a few full-sized adults hatched and living in his hair.

I freaked out.

I properly freaked out.

Poisons terrify me, so the lice shampoos and prescriptions were not a choice. There was only one choice: shave our heads. No poison involved and lice killed instantly.

I need to back up a bit and explain that one of my best friends had just shaved her head the year before. She had dreadlocks (they were awesome!), but she was tired of taking care of them, so she shaved her head to get rid of them. And then she kept shaving her head for a couple of months because she was enjoying the very bizarre experience of being a woman with a shaved head.

I had wanted to shave my head for awhile. I wanted to go through the same experience, but I was very, very chicken. A woman with a shaved head in our society stands out. So much of our beauty is tied up in our hair.

Then I got lice, horrible, nasty, gross lice. After my husband shaved our son’s head (my husband is mostly bald and has been shaving his head for years, so he had all the equipment and knowledge necessary for this operation), I told my husband to shave my head.

He said, “Are you sure? You’re going to regret it.”

But I had seen the lice fall off into the sink as he shaved our son’s head, and I had seen the remaining lice crawling around his little bald head until my husband washed his scalp and removed all remaining lice. They were awful. It made my stomach turn.

I said, “Just shave my head! Get rid of the lice!”

So my husband shaved my head. And I was bald. Any pretenses of beauty or femininity I may have had fell into the sink and washed away with the lice and my hair. As I looked at my bald reflection, I was mortified, frightened and really, really sad. But the lice were gone.

Now, I had to go outside. I told my husband that if I didn’t go outside that day, I would spend the next month frightened and holed up in the house, waiting for my hair to grow back. So, being the unbelievably wonderful man he is, he held my hand and we all went out as a family for a meal and a movie.

I hated it. I knew people were staring at me just as I would stare at someone with a Mohawk or bright pink hair. I stood out, and not in a pretty way. I looked weird. I hadn’t been that crushingly self-conscious since I was a teenager.

And each day, with my bald head, I went out and did my errands. And each day, I hated it.

But in the end, the overall experience was liberating and exhilarating. I had to face fear, and embarrassment, every day for a month or two, until my hair started growing back. And the fear and embarrassment didn’t keep from living, or being, or even being awesome. And I learned, in a very intimate manner, two very valuable lessons:

1) Our looks do not make us amazing. Looks are incidental to our behavior, and behavior is what makes someone amazing.
2) I can face the fear. Bravery is not absence of fear; it’s acting in spite of fear. So even though I’m afraid, I can still make my feet move forward, and go through the actions, and make my will happen.

 

After my lice-induced baldness, I had the courage to face another fear. I’m 44 years old, and I’ve always wanted to learn violin. But I felt foolish walking into the lessons surrounded by all of the 8-year-olds and 10-year-olds that are also taking beginner violin lessons. I felt foolish and embarrassed.

But with my bald head, I had acted in spite of fear and embarrassment and, now had the experience tucked under my belt. So I picked up my violin, and even though my face was bright red and my stomach turned with embarrassment, I started taking lessons at 44 years old, the only adult among a sea of little kids. It was embarrassing, and it’s still embarrassing, as I go to my lesson every week. But I act in spite of my embarrassment and I’m finally learning the violin.

So I’m thankful for the lice and I’m thankful for the bald head. It was not a fun experience, but it was an amazing and enlightening experience.

The American free market

Free markets exist where buyers and sellers transact voluntarily, reaching a mutual agreement. In the “free market” a consumer can demand a better price, buy a similar item, shop elsewhere or forgo the purchase altogether.

The right argues that any interventions in the form of taxes, regulation or subsidies are detrimental to the “free market”. This is simultaneously proposed with the “supply side” theory which provides government support, and subsidies, to the suppliers and “job creators”. From this we can see that “supply side”, “job creators” and the “free market” are terms used to describe a political or ideological viewpoint on policy. None of these terms describe any field of economics. As policies based on ideological views, economic research and real world data is most certainly unwelcome.

The ideology of “free market” medicine will work if you decide to voluntarily have a heart attack, or voluntarily get injured in a car wreck. If the price is too high, you just forgo the heart attack, or postpone the injurious car wreck, until a better offer is available.

The inconsistency, fraud, deception and hypocrisy of the ‘free market” ideology becomes obvious. Capitalism based on a level playing field has proven successful for all participants, the “free market” ideology based on monopoly, taxpayer support and rigged rules (our too-big-to-fail banks), ultimately fails everyone. We have reached a point where too-big-to-fail exists for the rich, while too-small-to-save is the rule for the common citizen. The billionaires need a safety net, while grandma needs to become self reliant and tough it out. This is not a market failure because there is no capitalist based market.

This not an accident, this is not the natural evolution of capitalism, nor is this the way it has to be. This is the intentional result of power protecting power. This is the result of humans acting like humans. When we get lucky, we credit our intelligence, we all protect ourselves from perceived threats, and we all think we are the best drivers on the road. To these normal human traits add unlimited power and vast resources, and abuse will be the results. Temperance becomes wrath, charity becomes greed, and humility becomes gluttony. Only a great person can withstand great temptation, and great people are exceeding rare.

I push the speed limit on the highways, occasionally far beyond the legal limit, and if caught by police authorities I am punished. HSBC (a British mega bank) was found guilty of illegal money laundering, the laundry of drug money, terrorist money and organized crime money. The judge released the corporation, and all managers, without penalty. Too-big-to-fail is now too-big-to-jail, laws no longer apply to the mega wealthy. They are only policed by themselves, a very unreasonable expectation.

The rich have used their resources to create the ideology of “free market”, “job creators” and “supply side economics”. There are many apologist op-eds written supporting the crimes of HSBC, there are “think tanks” dedicated to creating supportive “research” for the rich, flattery by politicians is rewarded with “campaign contributions”, and lobbyist write legislation benefitting the rich at the expense of the common citizen. Being an apologist is very lucrative and secure profession.

You and I have no political representation, there is no lobbyist working on our behalf, no organization fighting for the middle class. The politician that claims to represent me in speeches, sponsors legislation that destroys my environment, laws that restrict my protection from corporations, and laws which give tax benefits to ship my job off shore. This bad legislation is explained as helping me, improving GDP, and increasing jobs. A message professionally packaged, market tested, refined in focus groups and then emotionally tinged. We are told that apple pie taste best with a little arsenic added.

You may not be shocked by any of this, but you certainly got the bill, with none of the benefits.