Hurricane Ida

>> Thursday, November 5, 2009


There's a tropical storm down by Central America, right now, called Ida, born just yesterday. For most of the nation, battling snow and cold, the attitude will likely be a shrug unless it restrengthens later and heads for, say, New Orleans.

But, before we all shrug and go back to dinner, I'd like to remind you of some things. First, the people underneath this storm (that hit as a minimal hurricane with little/no warning today since it was just born yesterday) were the same ones devastated by Hurricane Mitch eleven years ago (almost to the day). Mitch, for those of you who forgot or never knew, is the deadliest Atlantic hurricane since the Great Hurricane of 1780. (For those of you who thought it was Hurricane Katrina, Katrina doesn't even make the top ten). Even though Hurricane Mitch (which reached Cat 5 in the Caribbean before dropping precipitously before landfall) impacted as a minimal hurricane, it did one of the most destructive things a hurricane can do. It parked itself over the mountains of Central America for several days and dropped ungodly amounts of rain. The unrelenting rain flooded cities and towns and triggered mudslides that buried whole villages.

To this day, my throat closes up when I remember reading about people trying to dig through thirty feet of mud to try to reach schools and homes where their families were buried. Death estimates were uncertain with whole towns erased by mudslides and rescue attempts stymied by entire road systems washed away. Deaths undoubtedly increased because of the inability to get to isolated areas with water and food. In this country, we barely heard about it (and I was scouring the news agencies to try to track it as the death toll mounted).

Mitch killed 11,000-18,000 people.

What does that have to do with Ida? Nothing except that same area is currently under a slow-moving storm that hit as a minimal hurricane, much as Mitch hit.

So, if you have a good thought to spare, why not send it down south to some people who are likely going through some level of nightmare they never had the slightest chance to escape.

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What I Love About Science

>> Wednesday, November 4, 2009


I love when someone all science-y says something I was saying (even if it surprises others). In this case, it was an evolutionary biologist (Olivia Judson) who writes a blog for the NY Times.

What did she say? Well, you can read it yourself, but she basically gave herself permission to say, "what if," reminded us that science was more than a set of facts and data and presumed theories that made sense of said data, but also involve speculation.

Personally, playing "what if" is what I think is the second coolest part of science (with the actual investigation and testing of that speculation ringing in at number one, but I rarely get to generate data myself - just look over other people's). Heck, most of my writing is a direct result of playing "what if," but I've mentioned all this before.

What it got me to thinking about, though, is why this is such a hard concept for people. There are whole groups of people (including many engineers and some scientists) who think that science is all about facts, facts, facts and that speculation is anti-science. There are other people, largely laymen, who think science is all speculation or that all speculations are created equal.

Both are wrong.

Without imagination and curiosity, we might still be in the dark ages. Without challenging established thinking, existing theories, we'd still be confused about gravity and having a solar system (as opposed to thinking our world was the center of the universe). Most of our big scientific breakthroughs have been the result of challenging conventional thinking or going down a different scientific path, even rampant speculation. Why? Because when people fall in love with a notion, whether they got it through scientific means or by channeling messages from aliens, they tend to discard any and all data that doesn't fit with "reality." And, yes, it happens to scientists, too, but not so much the good ones (in my opinion).

But speculations are not all created equal. In order for speculation to fit with science it needs three things - it has to explain some piece of data (often new), it can't violate existing data, and the limitations of the speculation (i.e. that it is speculation as opposed to existing theory or fact) must be clear. That means speculating that vaccinations cause autism (which has conclusively been proven otherwise) does not count as science. As an example.

Part of the problem for scientists, in my opinion, is that so much of the science regular people get comes from mass media. Mass media, when they pass along speculation or possible conclusions, don't include those limitations, those caveats or, in fact, the important distinction that the "conclusions" are speculation as opposed to facts. No matter how meticulous your statements, no matter how exact and caveated, once the media has it, it is no longer yours.

The other part, in my opinion, is that many "science shows" on science-touting channels (which I would otherwise love) are going for drama to make science more exciting and frequently have scientists (or those that play them on TV) blurring and erasing those distinctions and further confusing the general public. When people confuse Mythbusters with the scientific process, there's something seriously wrong.

Sigh.

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Sunday Soapbox: Short and, uh, Short

>> Sunday, November 1, 2009


*Steps on soapbox*

I love my family and sometimes things happen that require my attention all day. Yesterday, it was doing Halloween stuff all day (including taking the whole family to the Reading Circle) and, of course, trick-or-treating. It was our anniversary (my husband and I) and we spent the day with family. By the time everyone came home exhausted, I felt I had to blog since I'm been so spotty during the week. So, the novel, with a scene half finished, stayed unwritten.

Last night, I slept poorly, though not as badly as the night before when I woke up with migraines twice. However, when I woke up this morning (sort of late), I had figured out how I was ending my novel. But the kids were up already. After the daily saving time mind-frazzle, kids were confused and freaked and Lee decided to take all to the zoo to take advantage of the good weather. And we did (and it was quite nice), but, I came home and had to finish the laundry, and do chores and get the kids ready for bed, and blog and...

So, instead of spending a lot of time here telling you that you should take the time to do what's important instead of letting everything nickel and dime it away, I'm going to say, see ya! I got a novel that's calling out for more work on it tonight!

*Leaps off soapbox and runs to my Word Perfect where the novel is just waiting for me*

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Saturday Quotathon: Magic and Mysticism

>> Saturday, October 31, 2009


Since mysticism covers all thing religious and magic is WONDERFUL, I thought this would work for Halloween or Samhain if you prefer.

When the gods wish to punish us they answer our prayers.
--Oscar Wilde

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.
- Albert Einstein

Thar’s only two possibilities: Thar is life out there in the universe which is smarter than we are, or we’re the most intelligent life in the universe. Either way, it’s a mighty sobering thought.
- Walt Kelly

Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain.
- Friedrich Schiller

The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true.
- James Branch Cabell

The philosphies of one age have become the absurdities of the next, and the foolishness of yesterday has become the wisdom of tomorrow.
-William Osler, M.D.

The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn’t being said.
-Peter F. Drucker

Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future.
-Niels Bohr

The border between the Real and the Unreal is not fixed, but just marks the last place where rival gangs of shamans fought each other to a standstill.
-Robert Anton Wilson

Even as a tree has a single trunk but many branches and leaves, there is one religion — human religion — but any number of faiths.
-Mahatma Gandhi

He hoped and prayed that there wasn't an afterlife. Then he realized there was a contradiction involved here and merely hoped that there wasn't an afterlife.
-Douglas Adams

Everything that we see is a shadow cast by that which we do not see.
-Martin Luther King, Jr.

Thank God I'm an atheist.
-- Luis Bunuel

I want to reach your mind - where is it currently located?
- Ashleigh Brilliant

When you go to the mind reader, do you get half price?
- David Letterman

He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up.
- Paul Keating

There's nothing wrong with you that reincarnation won't cure.
-Jack E. Leonard

Double, double, toil and trouble
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.
- Macbeth


That ought to do.

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What Do You Stand For?

>> Friday, October 30, 2009



We'll see how my workout sets with my iffy stomach, but, in the meantime, I have earned the right to blog, which is good because I have something to say. And I'm going to do a sort of Thieving Thursday today because today is when I said it.

The Mother, who has a wonderful blog, well worth reading any day, does a special bit on Fridays regarding the history of motherhood, and all the scary tales therein. Today, in honor of Halloween, she talked about the transformation of the Dark Ages' most assiduous medical practitioners (midwives) to witches in the eyes of the powers that were. Now, I could talk about this as some length myself, but I think she's done a better job, certainly more research.

But, it got me to thinking. Western culture prides itself on values we presumably learned from an individual (Christ) some two millenia ago who reputedly embodied all that was kind, patient, forgiving, tolerant, educated, generous and peaceful (not unlike Buddha who came before), and yet... Governments and religious institutions have, over and over, villified kindness, education, compassion, tolerance, science and consensual copulation, and glorified torture, war, greed, ignorance, hatred, fear, and yes, even sexual predation.

That isn't to say most people were evil, just that the powers that be found ways to manipulate the populace into equating all that was evil with good and all that was good with evil - often by citing Christ who was, ironically, often much more like the people being persecuted than those who persecuted in his name. Don't believe me? Take the witch example. Imagine if Christ as he had been described had lived in Germany during the height of the anti-witch hysteria. He was kind. He was a healer. He did obvious magic. He challenged the prevailing wisdom. He was pacifist and tolerant to those who thought differently. I don't see how he wouldn't ended up burned at the stake, and those doing so in the name of all that was holy wouldn't have bothered to wash their hands first.

Ancient history you say? Really, for the past century or so, haven't we done many of the same things? I'm not singling out a religion or a nation, but, as a culture, how often have we revered greed and blind ambition, exalted violence, condoned dishonesty, sneered at tolerance and compassion? We frequently come up with rationales and explanations for calling bad things good. We call it defense, for instance, even if it hasn't been deployed except on foreign soil for literally decades. We accept clear dishonesty and blatant pandering to bribery and call it politics. We restrict people from being recognized for lifetime companions though that's what they are and call it family values. We watch people, through unmitigated greed and deceptive practices, bring a nation to the brink of financial ruin, then reward themselves with billions while taxpayers lose jobs and families lose homes and defend it as capitalism.

I think you get my drift.

My point is that we need to stop worrying about the buzzwords and the stories, what people tell us about what they want us to do and believe. Instead, we must ask ourselves what we really stand for. When we think about an issue or a stance, we need to ask ourselves are we on the side that's really good or are we telling ourselves that? Who are we really hurting? Who are we really helping?

I think, possibly because I'm a dreamer, that, if people really did that, really asked themselves what they stand for and compared it to what they want to stand for, they'd be much much harder to manipulate.

Maybe I'm wrong and people are naturally evil and self-deceiving. I don't think so. I believe that, if they were truly evil, they wouldn't have to deceive themselves.

I know what I want to stand for. Do you?

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Thoughts on Women

>> Monday, October 26, 2009


Stereotyping alert. I'm going to make some broad generalizations; try to bear with me.

I've read in the past that women aren't as happy as they used to be and I think it might be right. But the reasoning I've seen on why they think it's so doesn't ring quite right. I've read two articles recently here and here, both opinion pieces, and I don't think those opinions are without merit, but, I'm sorry, they both boil down to me largely to "men still don't treat us as equals." While I'm sure there are still aspects of that out there, I think we should be a little leery of assuming the finger of blame should just be pointed outward. Since there are plenty of people willing to blame men, let me list a few things I think women do to undermine their own happiness - myself included.

Actually, it's one thing. We took on all the responsibility and thinking of the "traditional" male role without giving up our old responsibilities. We want it ALL.

We want the same jobs at the same pay.
We want to be in charge.
We want to have a family.
We want to raise children.
We know these take time and effort 24/7.
We expect to keep our houses in order.
We want to look good for our spouses.
We want to look good for our other friends.
We need to stay in shape.
We know the importance of "me" time and so we need that too, often taking on dozens of hobbies (OK, maybe that's just me).
We want a social network for when we need friends, which means clubs, churches or just close friends.
We want to keep our options open, so we're often doing something we want to do instead of what we're doing OR pursuing higher education.
Did I mention we were raising a family?

Now, not to be too stereotypical, but I think I have to give the edge to men on smarts in this instance. Why? Name (to yourself) all the someones you know personally who are trying to do everything (or nearly everything) on this list, including yourself as applicable. Now, how many (if any of them) are male. Now, how many are trying to be THE BEST at everything on this list? Yeah, I thought so.

And that's pretty smart because you can't do everything and be the best. I suspect, long long ago, men and women realized that doing it all was too much for anyone, so they divvied things up. Since men won the arm-wrestling match, they took the easier tasks, running around looking for food and occasionally trying to kill other men. Women were generally left with the tasks of making whatever they caught palatable and raising children.

When women, millenia later, woke up to the notion that they didn't have to be limited to cleaning house and raising children, that they could do other things if they wanted to, that was a good thing (as was the ancillary notion that fathers could contribute more to family life than sperm and financial support). Men, who once might once have worked 80 plus hours a week to stay ahead of the pack started taking paternity leave and sickdays to care for sick kids (and, yes, I've seen it quite a bit). Many started cooking or doing laundry, but they did it realizing that 80 hours a week wasn't a good plan. They no longer demanded it all of themselves and were happy with a comfortable modicum at home (that they were happy with - not necessarily wives) and work. And they found that they could still bring home good salaries or, with the wife working, could live at least as well as before. And, despite a few exceptions, most men are much more comfortable looking like themselves than some idealized version of themselves (and good for them). Personally, I think that's a very healthy response to the roles women demanded and I'm pleased I'm living with today's men and not those from several generations back.

But, for many women, they haven't let go the notion of being Scheherazade, June Cleaver, Oprah and Gertrude Stein. They want to be the BEST mother and the sexiest woman and the best [insert career choice here] and, and... When I talk with men, some of definitely juggling things, but it will be a crush of business travel or working things without disrupting their marathon training schedule or some short term event. With women, on-line and in real life, conversation seems to be an endless litany of things they have to get DONE so they can do more. We want to be beautiful so we spend endless billions on makeup and impractical shoes and pantyhose, and fashion and jewelry and cosmetic surgery and diet regimes. I just saw a commercial for a drug to grow EYELASHES that can permanently muddy your eye color and damage your eyes. WTF? We want to be good parents so we commit to letting our children do every activity imaginable (so we don't feel guilty for the hours we're at work). We want it all and want to do it all fabulously.

Can't do it all, of course. Nothing wrong with being a mother and housewife, but it WAS a full time job and we shouldn't expect that we can still do all that and everything else we've taken on without some of the quality falling a bit.

Basically, we need to pick and choose and/or expect the overall caliber to drop a bit. And, folks, we're going to have to give ourselves a break before we can expect anyone else to.

At least, that's my opinion.

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Saturday Soapbox: Thankless Science

>> Sunday, October 25, 2009


*Steps on soapbox*

Since my blogging was so spotty last week, I'm combining my Sunday Soapbox with a Thieving Thursday, because I want to expand on a comment I made for Project Savior regarding the Swine Flu. Project Savior and I often see eye to eye and we're doing it on this topic as well, but I thought the topic (or at least my comment) was bigger than swine flu or even vaccinations, it was all about rewarding people for the wrong damn things.

I pointed out that scientists often have a thankless task. Take for instance, seismologists. Let's say, for instance, that we've been watching a volcano situated close to several small villages/towns and there's a very good chance, well over 70%, that it will blow to high heaven in the next few months. There are thousands of people at considerable risk. To my way of thinking, there are two options and four possible outcomes, three of which treat the scientist like crap.

First, let's say the scientists issue warnings and recommend evacuations. If anything less than their direst possibilities come to pass, everything from a mild eruption to a very limited loss-of-life thanks to the warnings to nothing happening at all, people will go up in arms for being dragged "needlessly" from their homes, suffering because of manufactured scientist panic and, next time, the warnings stand much less chance of being heeded.

But, even if their direst predictions came true, if the loss-of-life is minimal--even as a direct result of the warning--what people will remember was that there weren't nearly as many deaths as predicted and they will start thinking, often within months of the disaster, that the scientists were alarmists, far too quick to assume the worst. If people failed to heed the warnings, and the loss of life is extreme, scientists will be blamed for not warning more forcefully.

Believe me, it can be tempting to just shut up which is the other option. If the eruption isn't assured, it can be very tempting to just keep it close to the chest until there's more info. Unfortunately, there's always a chance that, while you were waiting, the worst case scenario unfolded and people, who might have left if they'd been warned, will die. That's a pretty hard thing to live with under the best of circumstances, and the news will be all over it because, of course, scientific data is almost always publicly available. Someone will realize scientists "knew" and will villify them in the media.

Which leads us to the only non-painful scenario--when one fails to warn and nothing happens.

You hear this sort of blather now, people who are all up in arms because there isn't a horrible Swine Flu epidemic dropping people like flies. Ironically, it's the same people calling the CDC alarmists who are screeching with fear at the thought of *gasp* getting a vaccination that might save your life if you would otherwise catch it (and there have been hundreds of thousands of swine flu cases world-wide and thousands of death; thankfully, though, not millions). Perhaps swine flu never had the potential of doing what the so-called "Spanish Flu" did in 1918, or perhaps the steps taken to date have made the difference between a nastier flu season than normal and an epidemic that cut a swathe of millions through the populace.

My point is that we have a skewed view of what effective safety, what effective medicine is. Doctors know that that little shot in the thigh or arms for millions of kids is some of the most effective medicine they'll ever do. No one will kiss their cheeks and send them gift baskets for saving their children, though the vaccines do exactly that, but parents might very well do that if the doctor pulls a kid through who managed to get chicken pox in his lungs. The second, easily tracked, readily paid for, quite flamboyant save gets the kudos, but it's the shots that are really doing the good for children who will never get measles or chicken pox or whooping cough. But we don't track the disease children don't get any more, at least not for the general public, so they become easily swayed by nebulous claims that vaccines are dangerous and we put our children at risk for deadly diseases (and we risk the children around them) because we don't realize that the most effective medicine is represented by the diseases we never get.

Food poisoning is rare today, largely because of improvements in food prep, refrigeration, and food standards. It happens, but it's far less frequently deadly and it's often prevented because everyone from the rancher to the slaughterhouse to the meat packing plant to the grocery story to the consumer has a better awareness of the potential risks. Ditto for cleanliness in general, particularly in doctor's offices and hospitals. Vaccines and hygiene are cheap ways of saving lives, some of the most effective medicine in the world - and people readily dismiss how important they are, how much good they've done us and at such a modest cost.

A thoracic surgeon peforming a triple bypass may be considered a hero when no one would think of saying the same for a GP who talked someone into some lifestyle changes so that he never needed any surgery at all. But, who's the real hero there?

I'm not a doctor, but I really understand this conundrum. As a safety person, I know that the best safety program in the whole world, by far the one that's most effective is the one that is all but transparent to the outside and, to some extent, the inside. A truly effective safety program involves communication and education at every level, where every technician, every engineer, every manager, makes it a priority in every decision they make. If everyone is doing this, there are no safety metrics to measure because the problems that might have occurred never happened, the failures to be corrected never manifested. It's easy, in such an environment to think your safety program is superfluous, even cut it, but that awareness is easy to set aside in high pressure situations when schedule and budgets are beating one down and, without the safety folks keeping you honest, it's easy to rationalize oneself into some pretty scary decisions.

Until we start giving the most effective programs and steps, like preventive medicine, safety processes, and even such things as education the recognition and respect they deserve, they will continue to be ineffective. After all, it can be mighty challenging fighting for the right thing, when you get pounded coming and going for doing so, without ever getting the thank you you deserve.

So, for those of you out there fighting for doing the right thing against all the odds, hey, thanks!

Someone somewhere appreciates it.

*Steps off soapbox*

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