Cocoa Coco

Well now that I am home in GA (from the Bahamas to West Palm Beach and) most recently from the Cocoa Beach area with a bunch of grandsons, four to be exact-two with Coco nicknames, I opened the paper and discovered another Coco!

Let’s get the Coco boys nicknames out of the way, Coco Puff is one that both of them learned to ignore throughout elementary school in Hilliard, FL and of all terms of endearment it is the one they find least endearing. Now that they are both in middle school (and wearing deodorant and styling their hair) they are more in favor of the nickname Hot Coco. I think they may like the idea now but if they hear it at school they may change their minds about it too. Hot Coco is the kind of nickname they will probably wish the girls would use for them behind their backs.

Now for Coco the Colossal Colon that I read about in the paper, this Coco is a giant crawl through model of a human colon 40 feet long and 4 feet tall. It comes complete with examples of healthy colon tissue, various diseases of the colon including polyps, and colorectal cancer and its various stages. This Coco is visiting Jacksonville next week at the Hyatt Regency Riverfront for the United Ostomy Association conference and admission is free! 

Beyond the Lily Pad

Frog music is the final crescendo each evening after the afternoon thunderstorms during the summer Andros and in South Georgia. Even though at times it may seem hard to believe these croaking amphibians are disappearing and more become endangered every day. There are some places where scientists are looking and planning to save these iconic summer songsters for future generations. The government of Ecuador started a project in 2005 that has been and will continue to be successful in saving species from all over the world. Don’t jump to conclusions about some vast expansive land mass full of creatures, it is actually a lab. It is specifically for frogs. There’s a disease out there called Chytrid disease and it is spread by a fungus among us. It is in the process of wiping out hundreds of species of frogs. Ecuador recognizing the impact this is having built Balsa de los Sapos – the life raft of the frogs.  Scientists collect frogs, all the different species they can find, and put them in these temperature-controlled, fungus free “rafts” or containers, feeding them and maintaining them in these environments until they die and then when they die, store their DNA. The hope is that perhaps one day with the cloning techniques becoming more advanced, they’ll be able to reintroduce the species back into the world. Personally, I don’t think it’s a bad idea and may be the springboard of an idea for at least saving some of the other types of species of animals and fish and birds that are on the rapid decline in the world. Perhaps to rejuvenate a species in the future, we’re only a clone call away.

Tongue of the Ocean

The Tongue of the Ocean is the name of a deep oceanic trench in the Bahamas separating the islands of Andros and New Providence. It is a U-shaped, relatively flat-bottomed trench approximately 20 miles wide by 150 miles long and as deep as 6,600 feet in one end. Its only open to the rest of the ocean at the northern end, and except for this ocean opening, the tongue of the ocean is surrounded by relatively shallow waters filled with numerous islands, reefs, and shoals which make a peripheral shelter isolating it from ocean disturbances, particularly high ambient noise. The noise part (lack of ambient noise) makes it a good place for underwater acoustic testing and the deep water makes it a good place for weapons testing, both of which are set up and supported from a small facility on Andros, Island called AUTEC, Atlantic Undersea Test and Evaluation Center.

While others work here to support the mission, I find this a lovely place to come and enjoy as a visitor and others do too. And as a visitor I was at the tennis courts by the playground with my grandson Brody and his Mom when I heard a familiar sound, a child’s voice calling my name. The voice belonged to a former student, she also called me her science teacher and remarked about an experiment we did on hot and cold air long ago, along with expressing back to school jitters concerning her upcoming entrance to fourth grade. I told her not to worry because I figure she will be fine, and to make sure she tells her teacher, probably one of my former coworkers, that she saw me in the Bahamas!

Weed Killer Drones

A drone killing on home soil is a hotly debated topic but in truth drones already are. They are involved in committing precision hits….on weeds. Using drones to map weed concentrations in Denmark helps reduce the use of weed killers by concentrating it were it is needed most. The drone flies over the field with a camera that looks for reflective signatures of weeds and crops. Using the light spectrum, the camera identifies which type of plant absorbs different concentrations of lights and identifies it as crop or weed and records the information by sending it to a central computer which in turn sends out a ground vehicle to look at where the “weed signal” is most concentrated so they can just expend herbicide in one particular area both reducing the amount of herbicide that has to be used and eliminating the needless over-spraying of an entire field. The only necessary human intervention is the identification of the boundaries of the field. Other uses can include information regarding soil nutrition, plant growth stages, and pest infestations. Of course, (no pun intended), there are a lot of bugs to work out first including conflict with the regulatory agencies. We can only hope that the good ideas take root and the bad ones get weeded out.

US Military Plans to Go Green

The internet and smartphone GPS technology began life as a US military project and now are a part of everyday civilian life. Another set of innovations that the military are working on could follow a similar path. The military are now working to get some pretty big percentages of their energy from renewable sources. The Pentagon’s goal is 25% by 2025 and the navy’s goal is 50% by 2020. Politics will play into this as law makers from oil and gas producing states and other states must approve the Department of Defense budget. The money they might spend on new fuels and other experimental technologies related to energy might play a big role in creating a market for these items. I thought about comparing the military’s green initiative to NASCAR’s but the military is poised to make an even bigger positive impact. If military investments could help save the environment and foster innovation in clean energy and their work in these areas influenced how we use energy in the civilian world that could be a really good thing.

Mustachioed Toad

Nope, this blog is not about any of my old boyfriends (this time) or my husband (who does happen to have a mustache). It’s about male Emei mustache toads that grow mustaches made of between ten and sixteen spines on their upper lips during the breeding season and are found in and around a river near Mount Emei in Sichuan, China. In their case the mustache is an essential, violent weapon. The male toads use the spines to gain control of the nest site. They head-butt each other in the belly with their spiny mustaches and the victor controls the nest site. The victorious toad continues to care for eggs that have been fertilized by his rival and of course fertilizes any further eggs laid in the nest site. The fighting ends at the end of the breeding season when the females leave and the males’ spiny mustaches fall out. 

Falcons and Gulls

California and San Francisco specifically, have conflicting yet related bird problems. Sea gulls have been dropping in and on Giants’ fans and players this year and it’s become a nuisance even though when a bird poops on your head it’s supposed to be good luck. I guess it’s not good luck from the recipient’s point of view. Apparently hundreds of gulls sometimes land on the field during the games. One solution would be hiring a falconer to scare the gulls away during games but the down side is the cost, $8,000 each game, and the possibility of a falcon gruesomely killing a gull at a family friendly event. On the other hand, peregrine falcons rescues in California have been so successful that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is no longer permitting peregrine chick rescues from bay area bridges which will probably lead to the cute fluffy chicks tumbling to their drowning deaths next spring, much to the chagrin of raptor rescuers. The rebound of peregrine’s numbers now poses a threat to other shorebirds, since the shorebirds (like gulls) are their main meal.

Too bad nobody’s figured out a way to get the rescued raptors free passes to the games. 

It’s Your Birthday! Fish Free!

In Georgia, the Wildlife Resources Division of Department of Natural Resources peeps think boat owning and fishing go hand in hand and I agree. Now in Georgia, boat owners fish free on their birthdays and the two days following. No special permits or coupons are needed to take advantage of this offer. The only requirement is to have your boat registration and driver’s license with you. In addition to free fishing in public areas on your birthday, you can also go to shooting ranges, hunt small game and hogs on private land, and access public lands where a pass is typically required.

So boat owners, when it’s your birthday, plan on getting outdoors to celebrate because after all, it’s your birthday and what better place to celebrate. 

ROUS (Rodents of Unusual Size)

Want a pet that acts like a dog, purrs like a cat, but eats like a hamster? I have already been through numerous hamsters and guinea pigs with my own kids and grandkids, especially when I was in the school science lab and. That was where I collected quite of few pet rejects in the rodent family. Mean Jean, Darth, and Chewy just to name a few. None of them acted like a dog or cat and the table scraps they enjoyed from school lunch included raw broccoli, carrots, and grapes, so yep, they ate like hamsters. The students kept the pizza, fries, and chicken nuggets for themselves.  

But back to the topic at hand, the ROUS, or rodents of unusual size, I read about that are now sometimes kept as pets are capybaras. A couple in Texas has one that weighs about 120 pounds and is about 2 feet tall and looks like a giant guinea pig. Named Gari, he likes to go on long walks on a leash like a dog and can shake hands like a dog. Like a cat he doesn't come when he’s called, and he uses a water pot in the family bathroom for a toilet rather than a litter box. His fur is coarse like broom bristles and unlike a cat, he likes to swim. And capybaras can hold their breath up to five minutes. As pets capybaras require a lot of attention along with fruits and vegetables since they are herbivores. Gari is also featured in a blog at gianthamster.com and his owners have started a foundation, the ROUS Foundation, dedicated to the study and care of capybaras.

The only question left I guess is, can I have one?

Phone Potato

Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, is the sound I listened to as I blogged this blog morning. It was rhythmical and steady like heavy huffing and puffing and I called out at first to my grandsons to find out if someone was having an asthma attack. I quickly realized it was going on too steadily for that. What I found out was that my most recent ‘phone potato’ was taking a ride on my stationary bike! This and the fact that he was even awake on a summer morning (any time before noon) was pretty amazing, and he’d hopped on without any encouragement from me after yesterday’s historic three minute ride and increased his time by several hundred per cent. Maybe there’s hope for at least one phone potato yet!

Research has tied the use of cellphones to inactivity, giving rise to the name phone potato, loosely derived from the passé term, couch potato. Instead of exercising the remote, phone potatoes exercise their thumbs and my grandsons have spent the last couple of days doing just that, and I mean that literally because they now have phones. These are not your basic call in case of emergency type phones either. They have all the things I have no idea how to use called apps. The younger one keeps changing his wallpaper and sticking different memes in my face for me to chuckle over, his favorite being an astronaut on a spacewalk claiming that his nose itches. If only he was as dedicated to changing the appearance of his bedroom by picking up his discarded dirty clothes and putting them in the laundry basket as he is at flipping through various sites on his new phone looking to change his wallpaper or for things to post on Face Book.

Well, maybe they aren't becoming phone potatoes exactly, because I just saw one on his phone riding my stationary bike.

Lightning Bugs

My distant cousins and one of their Mom’s, my Aunt Pat, held a family reunion this weekend and I was feeling bummed about being unable to go. I looked (lurked) on Face Book and saw some of their posts about how excited they were, their safe travel wishes to each other, and camping on the shores of Lake Superior and I got to wondering if they saw any lightning bugs. Whether you call them fireflies, or lightning bugs they are all the same little nocturnal beetles that never fail to delight me and make me smile over childhood memories of catching them. Lightning bugs are widespread and can be found on hot summer nights in many places all over the world. They have a life span of about two months. They use their signature blinking bioluminescence patterns unique to each species for attracting potential mates and kids up late, past their school days bedtimes. I remember pulling them apart and smearing their squished abdomens on my face like war paint that glowed in the dark, though not as long as glow sticks, but long enough to scare my twin brother. A more humane memory is one of keeping captured lightning bugs in a glass jar with some hastily harvested blades of grass tucked in there and holes in the lid under my bed only to find they’d escaped in the night. Either the holes were too big allowing them to crawl out or someone who consoled me as I cried over the dead ones in the jar from the night before set them free. I’d like to think the latter now even though I remember swearing my sister to silence over their escape knowing my mother would be extremely unhappy if she found bugs on the loose inside our house.

Over the years, I've seen lightning bugs in not only in Michigan and northern states but also in Florida, Georgia, and on Andros Island, Bahamas. I hope some made an appearance at the family reunion too. 

A Mermaid’s Tail

As I was reading the paper a story about a mermaid caught my eye and reminded me of the time we stopped in Weeki Wachee with some grand kids to cool off in the springs and see some mermaids. This was way back when they were still young enough to believe or at least politely consider that there might be real mermaids even though they gave us skeptical looks until they saw them with their own eyes.

Well recently, an aspiring mermaid has been banned from her community pool, I read in the newspaper, all this because they have a no swim fin policy. I will concede that a mermaid’s tail may be a bit more than just swim fins; the tail in question is custom made of blue silicon. Ms. Conti (the mermaid in the news article) calls herself Eden Sirene when she dons her mermaid persona and though she was not pictured in the newspaper article the adjacent column contained a photo of several other female 400 to 775 pound members of the order sirenia (manatees) being returned to their natural habitat by the SeaWorld Animal Rescue team, just an interesting co-inky dink, I think. Eden Sirene does dream of swimming in the Florida Aquarium, and I hope she gets to fulfill that dream someday.

So I called the pool here in St. Marys to find out whether or not they had a policy preventing the use of swim fins and the good news I found out is that they do not. I guess this blog is my personal siren call to all aspiring mermaids and Eden Sirene. Come on down to Georgia, the water’s fine!

Freegans!

Freeganism isn't just the practice of reclaiming and eating food that has been discarded, though dumpster diving is included and encouraged. Freegans and freeganism are often seen as part of a wider "anti-consumerist" ideology, and freegans often employ a range of alternative practical living strategies based on limited participation in the conventional economy and minimal consumption of resources. The word freegan is a blending of the words free and vegan. Vegans choose to avoid products from animal sources or products tested on animals in an effort to avoid harming animals. Freegans take this a few extreme steps further. As a part of embracing freeganism, freegans work to totally boycott our economic system where the profit motive has eclipsed ethical considerations and where massively complex systems of productions ensure that all the products we buy will have detrimental impacts most of which we may never even consider. Thus, instead of avoiding the purchase of products from one bad company only to support another, freegans avoid buying anything to the greatest degree they are able. Freegans are anti-sweatshop labor, rainforest destruction, global warming, displacement of indigenous communities, air and water pollution, eradication of wildlife on farmland as “pests”, the violent overthrow of popularly elected governments to maintain puppet dictators compliant to big business interests, open-pit strip mining, oil drilling in environmentally sensitive areas, union busting, child slavery, and payoffs to repressive regimes. Freegans are sometimes hitchhikers and squatters but not all of them are. There are varying degrees of participation in the freegan lifestyle, as one would commonly expect. Until I did a little research into this, I thought most dumpster diving homeless and street type people were considered to be a bunch of freegan bums but now I guess they’re just freegan.

Opposite Poles (the other previously mentioned war trophy)

No, this is not about magnetism, although it is attracting quite a bit of attention. Kristopher Gasior, an arms collector, purchased a wz.38M Maroszek rifle in 1993 for $9,500. Why so much, you ask yourself, and it’s because there are very few rifles of this caliber. It is one of only a handful of this type of weapon left in existence in the world. Mr. Gasior, grew up in Poland before coming to the United States in 1985. His grandfather gave his life defending Poland in World War II, his parents both served in the Polish Home Army, and this is a piece of memorabilia that he prized most. When he decided to sell his collection and listed this rifle, the government of Poland saw it and contacted the U.S.; claiming it is a “great piece of cultural and scientific significance” and they want it back. The U.S. government responded by sending agents to Mr. Gasior’s home who abruptly seized the weapon. Evidently this is a common practice. They didn’t even offer to reimburse Mr. Gasior for his loss. Hence we have the government of Poland and Mr. Gasior at opposite “poles” so to speak. Poland wants the rifle back for free so they can put it in a museum; Mr. Gasior would like to be reimbursed for what he spent on it at the very least. The question being wrangled over is whether or not the weapon is a war trophy which would allow Mr. Gasior to keep it or whether it’s a cultural artifact and should be returned to Poland. But wait, what about a bigger question? Should the government be allowed to enter your home and seize your personal property? Wasn’t that one of the reasons we fought a Revolution – to keep government from coming into our homes and taking our property? What about the Takings Clause of the Constitution?

The Takings Clause, one of the clauses of the Fifth Amendment, limits the power of what is known as “eminent domain” by requiring that "just compensation" be paid by the government if private property is taken for public use. The property doesn’t have to actually be used by the public; but, it must be used or disposed of in such a manner as to benefit the public welfare or public interest. In this case, to appease the government of Poland so they’ll be our friend and we (U.S. government) will look good. Even though this may be considered an “arms conflict,” let’s hope we can set our sights on doing the right thing for Mr. Gasior and the rest of our citizens

Opprobrium

Finally I have a place to use this word. It means harsh criticism or censure and can include public disgrace arising from someone's shameful conduct. I read this headline, Hoodies, signs, but little unrest, the day after the George Zimmerman verdict. I disagree. It should have read Hoodies, signs, and much deserved opprobrium for George Zimmerman and the rest of us that stand by and allow gun violence to continue to take the lives of children in this country every day. He may have received a not guilty verdict in our court of law but he still faces the much deserved opprobrium of the court of public opinion. My opprobrium isn’t about race, or racial profiling, or Angela Corey bringing the wrong charges against Zimmerman. I wasn’t going to blog about Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman either. I wasn't on the jury or in Sanford. I didn’t witness the struggle between George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin that might have been self-defense or standing your ground yet in the end resulted in a death. But I am a mother (of children), a grandmother (of grandchildren), and a human being conflicted and filled with opprobrium and unrest because a child is dead. There is no justice for the victim regardless of whether you think the victim was Trayvon or George. It isn't about whether or not the jury was right or wrong because the jury has spoken. However, a child is dead and his death poses questions. What if the races were reversed? What if Zimmerman had stayed in his vehicle and waited for the police? What if there was no escalating fight between an unarmed teen and an armed adult? And the question I ask myself, what if Trayvon Martin was my child? We need to use our opprobrium to bring us together so we can answer these questions and work to prevent something like this from happening again.

Obama –MAMA!- Care

I tried to write the title of this post like a shout out to Moms because I recently read that in order to make the president’s health care law a success healthy young people need to be signed up and one strategy being used is a call out to the one that we all recognize knows best, Mom. Basically there is a campaign to encourage Moms to get their loved ones signed up beginning Oct.1 (when sign ups begin), especially young men that might consider forgoing the insurance for just paying the $95 fine. The problem here is that young men are cheap to insure and critical to keeping the law on a solid financial footing. So those who want to see the law succeed are working to persuade people (young healthy people especially) to get insurance. There is still an abundance of skepticism over whether or not the insurance will be affordable but in 2012, 41% of 19-25 year olds were uninsured and that is a really big group. The plan is to initially sign up 2.7 million young adults for coverage and Moms will be the deciding factor for many of them.

I have some uninsured grandchildren and some grandchildren that found themselves needing emergency care during lapses in coverage due to their parents changing jobs and/or marital status. The kids were the ones most negatively impacted by Murphy’s Law rather than having the safety net of consistency in medical care that health insurance provides. These grand kids aren't in the targeted age group yet but I hope their Moms and Dads are listening. 

It’s OK to be seen doing WHAT in public now?

Whew! I was so relieved to read this because I do it in public all the time and wasn't even aware that it wasn't (at one time anyway) appropriate to be seen doing it in public! And even better news, from other stuff I've read it appears that it might even be becoming trendy once again. And finally, it’s no longer the redheaded stepsister to knitting, which I also enjoy. So yep, lately I find myself doing it in public, crocheting. And I have branched out from my mother’s favorite afghans, dresser shawls, and granny squares to all kinds of things thanks in a large part to friends and on line tutorials (You Tube) that have taken over showing me how to, like my mother used to. So I've created a bunch of animal hats and diaper cover sets for babies, really great bags for all kinds of things from laundry to groceries to beach stuff, and scarves with fashionable ruffles or pockets for carrying a cold one at outdoor sporting events or bonfires. But the next project I want to try is yarn bombing! Shannon, want to yarn bomb Babe the Big Blue Box? I hear it could use a bit of a makeover.

I’ll end this here by adding that I am not going around wearing the big yellow button my Mom gave me proudly announcing I’m a Happy Hooker! you can just figure that out from the crochet hook, yarn, and smile on my face whenever you see me doing it in public. And I will post an update on my yarn bombing project in the future.

Farms and Co-Ops

As a child visiting the UP (Upper Peninsula of Michigan) every summer, I remember sneaking into the cornfield across the road with my twin brother for corn that my Dad would roast in the husks. It might have been field corn but warm with the charred husks peeled back and brushed with melting butter..it was so delicious. And I remember picking and eating wild strawberries with my cousins.  For everything thing else food wise (watermelon especially comes to mind), it was a trip to the co-op, which I remember reading aloud (and being corrected on it) the coop. The Co-Op was the grocery store in town, the only one. This was some 50 years ago but from what I hear now Co-Ops are one way some family farmers in north Florida are trying to find a better market and make a profit today. The farmers I am referring to here run farms from 100 to 1,500 acres and often support four to six families. They need to generate a couple of million dollars in sales to produce a couple hundred thousand dollars to keep their farms going and one way to do it is by forming a cooperative and selling their produce under a single banner. If the Co-Op gets large enough it can go straight to the retailers. And there is the whole movement toward eating local foods produced within a 100 mile radius that works nicely in the cooperative marketing model.

I like the idea of knowing where my food is coming from and I hope the Co-Op in the UP from my childhood summers is still going strong too.  

Seaweed for Beach Renewal

Seems like seaweed isn't just for sushi anymore. There’s a pilot program being launched off the coast of Texas that will use seaweed to build resilient dunes, dunes that will help prevent erosion from high tides, storm surges, and hurricanes. The stinky dark muck (seaweed) that washes up on the shores each day will be collected, compressed, and covered with sand which in turn will be planted (the plants will receive nourishment from the decomposing seaweed) to create a strong storm barrier system. Here are some more interesting facts about the seaweed they plan to use in this program. It’s made of brown algae in the Caribbean and travels for three to four months via natural currents and winds into the Gulf of Mexico. It’s been tracked by a NASA satellite system called SEAS, which stands for Sargassum Early Advisory System, for the last two years and with the satellite imagery predictions can be made about when and where the Sargassum Sea seaweed will wash up days in advance.

Ok, using seaweed, a natural resource that serves to keep a beach healthy in the first place, for a project like this one designed to protect towns along the Gulf Coast seems like a no brainer to me. I wonder if it would work on other beaches too and when this idea will catch on.

To Arms – Three Actually

Third time’s charmed, is one of my regular sayings and I keep running into arms, yep, three times. If I believed in co-inky dinks it would be one thing, or even if not, I figured I’d blog about arms, at least three of them, so here goes.

The first arm is one that’s been chewed by a shark, kept in a restaurant inspector’s fridge, and reeled in on a charter fishing trip, in the book Bad Monkey by Carl Hiaasen. The book is on the best seller list but one reason I liked it is that a large part of it take place in a place I am familiar with, on Andros Island, Bahamas. The monkey in the fictional account was part of the cast of the Johnny Depp movie, Pirates of the Caribbean, and is also (in the book) a resident of Andros. His bad behavior is pretty funny, of course.

The second arm isn’t funny ha ha, instead it’s more funny weird. It’s an arm that was recently returned to Viet Nam. It was the infected arm of an enemy that had been amputated by an American soldier/doctor in order to save the life of the captured Vietnamese soldier. This soldier recovered and remained and worked with the Americans for the duration without an arm. Forty years later the doctor returned the skeletal remains in a reunion of the two, onetime enemy soldiers. This was probably one of the strangest war trophies I’d ever heard of and I first heard about it when I was discussing a different war trophy, a gun that had been confiscated and returned to Europe as an artifact, but that discussion is for another blog.

The third and final arm I thought I’d blog about is Arm-ie Hammer. Armie is the nickname of Armand Hammer, the star of the latest movie version of the Lone Ranger. Who names their kid Armand Hammer? His parents are the answer here and the name apparently runs in the family since Armie’s great-grandfather was the oil tycoon and philanthropist, Armand Hammer (not of Arm and Hammer fame-the stuff you find in my fridge!) As for his Lone Ranger movie, I thought Silver was the best actor by a long shot and I am glad they included the music from the William Tell Overture. Those were my favorite parts. 

Yankee Doodle and the Giant Purple Chicken

My kids used to have their own version of Yankee Doodle that started with Yankee Doodle went to town riding on a chicken… and ended up with finger lickin’ that never failed to make me laugh out loud. The more I laughed the louder they sang. I still smile when I think of it now, some thirty years later. When I heard about some older kids more recently that went for a joyride on a 9 foot, 600 pound, purple aluminum chicken it reminded me of my own rather irreverent boys so I decided to blog about it. Here goes. Three guys, ages 18 to 21, teamed up to hook the purple chicken statue to their pickup truck and take it for a drag. Two rode in the truck and one mounted the bird for a ride (Yeehaw!). After the ride they unhooked and abandoned the chicken, but detectives caught up to them and charged them with the theft the very next day. The ride took place at 6 AM on a weekday in an area with witnesses so it couldn't have been too difficult to figure out who the rustlers were. The chicken statue, valued at $2,300 was returned to its 71 year old owner with a lacerated leg, cracked claw, and some scraped paint. The owner took the incident in stride remarking that he was once a young man and the damage to the chicken was mostly cosmetic. I hope the charges are dropped but if not, I hope the ride was worth it.

Fracking

I hate when a red squiggly line appears under a word I am considering for my blog because as soon as I see it I have to wonder if it’s really a word. Fracking is and it’s synonymous with hydraulic fracturing. Fracking is the process of drilling and injecting fluid into the ground at a high pressure in order to fracture shale rocks to release natural gas inside. Yep, I have been watching those natural gas commercials that claim our energy future is bright but my skeptical nature got me looking into this process. It takes from one to eight million gallons of water to complete one fracking job. 600 chemicals, many known carcinogens and toxins, are added to make the fracking fluid which is pressure injected into the ground. 50% of the fluid (which is not biodegradable) is never recovered so those toxins and carcinogens along with methane leaches and contaminates the earth and water sources. Although there are no fracking sites near us here in Georgia or Florida, there are plenty of sites all across our country. And when you do the math, it adds up to equal 72 trillion gallons of water and 360 billion gallons of chemicals are needed to run our current gas wells. In the end, hydraulic fracking produces approximately 300,000 barrels of natural gas a day, and is exempt from the Safe Drinking Water Act but at what cost? Too fracking much if you ask me.

Reinsurance

Insurance has been on my mind since a tree fell on my house last month and then I saw this word, reinsurance, in the paper and my curiosity got the better of me. I looked up this definition for reinsurance: The contract made between an insurance company and a third party to protect the insurance company from losses. The contract provides for the third party to pay for the loss sustained by the insurance company when the company makes a payment on the original contract. Ok, I read this definition a couple of times and decided that it still needed clarification so what reinsurance is really all about is making sure the insurance company you keep has enough money to cover the losses you may need covered and in the case of big disasters (think hurricane season) the insurance companies may need their own insurance in case they don’t have enough money for you when they are contracted to give it to you. I think this is possibly the only way insurance companies can cope with the resulting big claims like the ones they might get when a hurricane like Katrina or Sandy strikes. Reinsurance equals reassurance for the insurers, I figure and also in turn reassurance for the insured. Apparently reinsurance isn't just for property insurance but also for life insurance too. And apparently reinsurance is good for Florida’s property insurance policyholders because it reduces the risk of them having hundreds of dollars of post event assessments added to their insurance bills. The part about having extra fees added to my insurance bill? That part I understand, it’s the part I want to be reassured won’t happen.

Citi Bike-New York City’s Bike Share

I love riding my bike around St. Marys and on Andros and it seems like New Yorkers like riding too.

Thousands of people (in NYC) have signed up for annual memberships for unlimited bike rides on any of the program’s 6,000 three gear cruising style bikes that can be unlocked, ridden, and returned at 330 docking stations (bike racks). There’s a cost to the membership but that hasn't stopped the program from growing, and New York City has laid down more than 300 miles of new bike lanes in the last five years in an effort to encourage healthy lifestyle choices and decrease the number of drivers on the road. The glitch mentioned in the article I read (the focus of the article actually) is the fact that helmets are not required. I get it because even though there’s a helmet law here it is hard to enforce and I have often seen kids leaving the school campus with their helmets dangling from their handlebars rather than their heads at dismissal. But back to New York, some studies have shown that the bike lanes are blocked, more often than not, yet there is also research supporting the theory that bike share schemes calm traffic because drivers are more cautious when cyclists are on the road.

I can’t ride my bike with no hands on the handle bars but I like bike share programs. Wish we had one here!

Illegal to Post Insults on FB and Twitter

Insults on FaceBook and Twitter Illegal!

Yikes! I guess it’s a good thing that the laws against insulting others on FB or Twitter aren't in place in the U.S. You and I and the NSA would understand if we looked at FB once in a while since it is replete with insulting stuff. I don’t tweet either, but the place to avoid sending insulting tweets and FB posts is Grenada. They have recently approved a measure against such as a part of an electronic crimes bill. Complaints about offensive online activity are filed with the police and then a judge determines whether or not the message was offensive. Has anyone verified the rumors that Paula Deen and Eric Snowden were recently sighted in Grenada? Might be the only place they can go and be protected from the onslaught of on line insult.

Also included in the legislation package are penalties for other online activities such as electronic stalking and identity theft. Distribution of child pornography is included in the bill too with fines of up to $111,000 and a maximum prison sentence of 20 years for that. 

Hidalgo

Hidalgo

So I was playing WORDS with friends, a rematch with my daughter Nicole, and my first set of letters made the word hidalgo, and I played it not knowing if it was a word or not. I wasn't truly surprised to find out that it was because after all WORDS with friends considered it one, and it was worth 52 points. Way to start the game, I thought and then I figured I’d look up hidalgo. Anyway a simple definition is not what came up first. Instead there were references to a horse named Hidalgo and the movie with Viggo Mortensen based on the legend of the American distance rider Frank Hopkins. There’s also a couple of places with the name Hidalgo, a state in Mexico and a Hidalgo County in Texas. I had to type in hidalgo definition to get a one and I found out that hidalgo is a noun that names the traditional title of Spanish noblemen or gentry. So now I know what hidalgo means, besides being a great seven letter word that will ultimately lead to another victory (also a seven letter word) in the game. Olé! 

NASCAR Goes Green

NASCAR Goes Green

This morning was a first. I know anyone who knows me and knows my birdcage is lined almost exclusively with the sports section (of the newspaper) would've been shocked. I was (and still am) pretty surprised myself. Up in the upper right hand corner of the front page I read, Solar power to mulch, NASCAR races ahead with green initiative-Sports C-1, and thus I actually opened the paper to the sports section first (that in itself is amazing) and read about how NASCAR is going green. Other than an occasional glance at the baseball stats (to commiserate over the Cubbies standings) I rarely unfold the sports section at all and this morning I checked it out before the Sudoku or Ann Landers (now named officially Annie’s Mailbox but forever Ann Landers to me). And I discovered that NASCAR, which has never held much interest for me before, is actually doing a pretty comprehensive job focusing on recycling and as they like to say, they are going full throttle. There’s a 25 acre solar power farm at the Pocono Raceway and most of crashed race cars are salvaged or recycled. No other professional sport recycles more. Daytona International Speedway alone collected seven tons of empty cans, 99 tons of cardboard, 23 tons of steel, and 28 tons of mixed materials and kept them out of landfills last year. This year already NASCAR and its corporate partners have planted enough trees to offset the emissions created at all their events and are committed to planting 90 more at each NASCAR facility this year.

Wow, I may start reading the sports section more often!

Happy Independence Day!

The Fourth of July

Fireworks, watermelon, apple pie,

Fly our flag, it’s the Fourth of July.

We've so many blessings, so celebrate and play,

Hope you have a safe and Happy Independence Day!

Climate Change....

Global Warming, I Mean Climate Change

After years of trying to get Congress to pass legislation to deal with climate change due to pollution, the President is by passing them and working to persuade the public to help him sell his plan that provides for new controls on new and existing power plants that emit carbon dioxide, greenhouse gases blamed for global warming. The program is intended to boost renewable energy production on federal lands and increase efficiency standards. The program also takes into account how communities will need to find ways to deal with higher temperatures like the ones we are seeing across our country already this summer. The President’s plan also calls for the cutting off of U.S. subsidies for coal fired power plants overseas with exemptions for the poorest countries where no better technology is available. And here is the kicker, in case it wasn't clear in my first sentence; none of the measures in the President’s plan require congressional action. Remember this quote (which is quickly becoming one of my favorites) by a tsunami victim who was tired of waiting for Japanese government assistance? “Rather than wait for government aid, we have to do it ourselves.” This quote seems holds true for our government too, at least as far as climate change legislation goes. They are either too gridlocked or have some other excuse that keeps them getting paid while they accomplish nothing. I’ll end here with President Obama’s Kennedy-esque quote regarding the importance of protecting future generations against the ravages of climate change and let you decide for yourself.

“The question is not whether we need to act. The question is whether we will have the courage to act before it’s too late.” 

Jacksonville, Florida

Jacksonville, Florida’s Latest Gun Buyback

I was reading the Sunday Times-Union newspaper when I came across a couple of things. In one column Frank Denton described Nicholai Vitti’s (Jacksonville school superintendent) Promising Efforts to Help Youths, especially young black males whose faces appear in disproportionate numbers in the Law and Disorderly section of the paper. In another column I read about the Jacksonville’s latest Gun Buyback event in which 539 guns were taken off the street. I was interested because I’d been wondering where the money to buy back the guns actually comes from, for this event $15,000. This time the money came from The Delores Barr Weaver Fund, The Community Foundation of Northeast Florida, and the Jacksonville Regional Chamber of Commerce. Thinking about gun violence that has plagued our country Delores Weaver, a longtime Jacksonville patron and philanthropist and former Jacksonville Jaguars owner, said, “I will not forget. I will do something.” And she has. There was also a group of private gun buyers and representatives of a Florida gun rights organization, Florida Carry, nearly blocking the parking lot exit calling out to the people bringing the guns to the Elks Lodge where the buyback was located in an effort to entice them to sell the guns to them instead of the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office. It seems like both sides of the gun debate are alive and well in Jacksonville, Florida, even if the victims of gun violence aren't.

TRNS

TRNS-A New Way to Put on Your Thinking Cap!

Once again I turned to my best blog brainstormer, Arnie, for ideas and here is an excerpt from our TRNS conversation on SKYPE the other day:

[1:24 PM] A Mount: I did discover an interesting article about transcranial random noise stimulation.

[1:24 PM] A Mount: TRNS

[1:24 PM] Jo Mount: Huh?

[1:25 PM] A Mount: They put electrodes on the scalp over areas including the prefrontal cortex and the result was that people who had it did mental calculations twice as fast as the control group.

[1:26 PM] Jo Mount: Wow!

[1:27 PM] A Mount: Their ability to recall arithmetic facts such as times tables improved five-fold and six months later they were still 28% faster than the control group. They think it would be helpful for children with learning difficulties or help to rehabilitate people after a stroke.

[1:28 PM] Jo Mount: I think they better beware or it will be the next chapter in the public school’s standardized test cheating scandal!

[1:28 PM] Jo Mount: Who thinks this stuff up anyway?

[1:28 PM] A Mount: Roi Cohen Kadosh at the University of Oxford and colleagues.

[1:29 PM] Jo Mount: Interesting. New ways to plug into technology at school!

[1:30 PM] A Mount: Absolutely...I was thinking it gives a different meaning to putting on your thinking cap or maybe a way to get "a head of the class."

Hmmm, transcranial random noise stimulation, and not the music from our kids garage band either, but rather a noninvasive technique using strategically placed electrodes in a device worn on the head like a cap that reminded me of the foam curlers I used when I wanted a curly do. I was intrigued so I took a look at the study (via PDF from the June issue of Current Biology) and found out that the results of their study demonstrate that, depending on the learning regime, TRNS can induce long-term enhancement of cognitive and brain functions. After a careful reading of the six page summary I am still unable to identify exactly what the random noise used in the study was but it must have been what the authors were referring to when they discussed what they were doing that was specifically associated with brain activation in response to a given stimulus, the random noise being the stimulus. The cool thing about this study which focused at the behavioral level on the performance of basic arithmetic tasks, are the implications for helping people through cognitive enhancement in both healthy individuals and those suffering from disorders characterized by arithmetic deficits. Teachers take note.