WhirledView

The California Fires

by CKR

My heart goes out to all those hundreds of thousands of people who have to leave their homes or who are terrified by the smoke and ash as multiple fires surround Los Angeles and San Diego.

Having had to evacuate twice during the Cerro Grande Fire in 2000, I know the terrible emotions of having to leave one’s home to possible destruction. Additionally, the speaker at one of my organizations yesterday was from that area and had to take phone calls from his family as they evacuated.

It looks like they won’t have respite any time soon. Santa Ana winds are caused by a high-pressure system inland and a low offshore. That high is giving us some bright clear weather now in New Mexico, and the morning weather guy said that it’s not going to change until the weekend. Here are some satellite images. Not looking good.

The Los Angeles Times and the San Diego Union-Tribune are providing good web coverage, including local information about school and road closures and how to get and give help. That kind of information was essential to us during Cerro Grande. The Union-Tribune website is getting harder to access, though.

And even as California burns, New Orleans is flooded.

Hoping and Praying for the Endeavour

by CKR

What none of us are saying about the space shuttle Endeavour is, "Haven't we heard this before?"

The frozen foam breaking off and gouging the heat-resistant tiles.

The assurances that no, it won't be a problem.

We're all thinking on eggshells, hoping and praying that it won't be a repeat of the Columbia disaster in 2003, but not daring to say that out loud.

I lost interest in the space program a long time ago, when it appeared to me that the only participants were middle-aged men. They've changed that, but I moved on to other things in the meanwhile. So I follow events only at a distance until disaster strikes. I would follow the successes, but they are modest and incremental, the kind of thing that requires more attention than I have spent on this subject.

The disasters, of course, grab everyone's attention. It was four years ago that the Columbia broke up on re-entry. Everyone had gotten accustomed to that hard frozen foam breaking off, sometimes hitting the shuttle. Not a problem, until it was.

Space flight is still exploratory and dangerous. The crews, I hope, are fully aware of that.

But serious engineers know that the best solutions to safety problems are engineered solutions. The kind of solutions that eliminate, oh, say, the possibility of frozen foam breaking off and gouging holes in the heat shield. That's much better than figuring out how to fix the damage in space.

It's hard to believe that NASA's engineers don't know this. I've been wondering, every time I read once again about that deadly foam, why it isn't gone from the assembly. Some of it breaks off every launch. I've never read a good explanation of why they haven't eliminated it.

The gouge is on a different part of the structure this time. We can only hope that the simulations are correct. Hoping and praying sem to be as good as anything NASA has been doing to eliminate the foam-damage problem.

Yo, Vova!

by CKR

Returning to one of my pet peeves...

"Vladimir--I call him Vladimir--" has been invited now, by President Bush, to visit the Bush family compound at Kennebunkport and to send his generals to examine the US missile defense system, maybe even buy one themselves from the US contractors that are currently taking in only nine billion dollars a year on that scam. Maybe they could do the same for the Russians...?

The protocol, until this guy with the cowboy hat showed up, has been to refer to foreign leaders by their titles. So in a press conference, a president of the United States would refer to Prime Minister Blair or Chancellor Merkel or President Putin. A head of state speaking as head of state about other heads of state owes them a bit of respect; at least that's how I see it.

With Mr. Putin (or any Russian) the lack of protocol is compounded by President Bush's lack of understanding of how Russians use names. "Vladimir Vladimirovich" might have sounded less bizarre in the above context, although it's still a bit too cozy for my understanding of protocol. First name plus patronymic (the -ovich name) is an everyday usage by Russians. If Mr. Bush is truly close to Mr. Putin, a diminutive like Vova (childish, I'm told, although I know an adult Vova) or Volodya or Vlad would be what he would call him or the way he would refer to him among close friends.

It could be that by referring to world leaders by their first names, Mr. Bush is trying to show us his closeness to those leaders. Or it could be a manifestation of his reported bullying, or a mindless submission to the false intimacy that causes call-center operators to ask me if they can call me Cheryl. Speculation about these subtexts is the reason for the protocol: when a head of state speaks, none of this should be included in the message. Avoiding error is useful in these situations. Mr. Bush's usage is striking enough that both the Washington Post and the Guardian have quoted it two days in a row.

In a tense situation such as that occasioned by the Bush administration's usual lack of consultation, it's better to avoid the needlessly annoying. If Mr. Bush were truly friendly with Mr. Putin, he would learn how Mr. Putin prefers his name used in public. Even the call center operators have the courtesy to ask for their false intimacy.

Picture credits
Bush driving
Putin driving

On Cats!

By PHK

I have a weakness for cats. For years we had Cleo, a camera-shy Bangkok-born Burmese who would never stay still long enough to be photographed. In Washington, DC her favorite perch was on top of the refrigerator. This gave her a commanding view of the kitchen, the can-opener, her food dish and a place where she could keep a wary eye out for her nemesis, our then young son, who really wanted a dog. He told me much later that it wasn't because he was fond of dogs, it was so he could sic it on my cat.

In Moscow, Cleo lived splayed out across the grill of the warmest radiator in the apartment. In Athens, her favorite sport was catching and eating backyard lizards. Since cats are allergic to lizards, she would return to the house just in time to throw up lizard remains on our bedspread.

We don’t have a cat in New Mexico because my husband discovered he’s allergic to cats or maybe the lizard innards got to him. Anyway, in lieu of a cat, our yard jumps with brown field rabbits of all sizes: Unfortunately, because I have a small vegetable garden. Meanwhile, I have developed immense sympathy for Mr. McGregor and lost all fondness for Peter. Baby bunnies are cute – but if it’s them or me munching the veggies, then the battle lines are
clear.

On my side are the neighborhood predators. I’ve heard we have coyotes, but I’ve only seen bobcats – and then on rare occasion. They eschew vegetables and adore rabbits – I just wish they’d finish the job and dispose of the carcass elsewhere. But they don’t.

Bobcats – despite their slovenly, stealthy, predatory ways - are cute. I first sighted one on a late summer’s eve as it blithely wandered across the patio. It even stopped to look at the lights inside our house – but it then turned and quickly disappeared in the the night.

A week ago, between fourth and fifth snowstorms of the season, a bobcat pair silently appeared. They perched on the tallest cement post on our back wall. We didn’t see them arrive; and we missed their departure.

They stayed in the same position for an hour or more in watch-cat position. Their alert bodies touched one another – back to back, head to rear and rear to head. They were so close to each other that from a distance they looked like a two headed animal with one head on each end of its body. One wary bobcat's head continuously surveilled our yard and the other faced the yard behind. Whether they were looking for food, keeping four eyes out for their own predators or both, I don’t know. And they certainly would not have told me.

Whether they even saw us I don’t know. And I haven’t seen the pair since. Why they appeared that cloud-filtered winter afternoon, where they came from, where they went or whether they’ll ever return remain mysteries that I'll probably never solve.

Photos by PHKushlis - 1) Bobcats - Albuquerque, NM January 2007; 2) Garden in early summer -2006; 2) Bobcats II - Albuquerque, NM January 2007.

The Friendly Skies

by CKR

I remember a long-ago flight to London from Dallas on American Airlines. My flying companion and I were called to the podium (as they say) to hear that we had been upgraded to first class. Just like that, no reason given, although in retrospect I think it must have been because they wanted to fit in some standbys, and we must have been fairly high in the newly-introduced frequent flyer miles.

That was when I could just ask for an upgrade and sometimes get one. No silver, gold, platinum.

I’ve always valued my frequent flyer miles most for the premium cards and the upgrades to first class. Then Delta decided to inflate their frequent flyer miles a few years back, late in the year, and screwed me out of the card I otherwise would have had.

But there was the time I decided to use those miles so I could attend a day-before-Valentine’s wedding in Tallinn. The Delta agent spent an hour or more on the phone with me to arrange frequent flyer miles plus a $300 fare for the Stockholm to Tallinn leg on Estonian Air. On the flight over, I chatted with the cabin crew during a midnight bathroom break, and they gave me a bottle of champagne to bring to the celebration.

Then Delta stopped flying to Stockholm and Vienna, the most convenient routes to Tallinn.

I love flying. I’m a pilot myself, pretty good at pilotage and have memorized the landmarks for the patterns into the cities I visit frequently. I usually request a window seat, and I love to watch takeoff and landing through the forward cameras and listen to the scant radio traffic during late nights over the Atlantic.

Loving flying is no longer permissible, however, in our fundamentalist fervor to beat the terrorists at their own game. When I recently renewed my passport, I hoped to get as good a photo as I’ve had for the last ten years: smiling boldly, the way I did when I strode through the Cincinnati Airport in the new winter boots I picked up at Gatwick. No, the young man at the photo shop told me. No smiles. Some of his other customers had had their passport photos returned for the crime of smiling; expressions are to be “neutral.” I had to go through some contortions to achieve that. When I had lunch with a friend that day, I noticed that his natural expression seems to be a smile, too.

Delightful musicians you won’t find through Amazon

By PHK

I’ve been surprised at the number of excellent classical musicians who sell CDs of their performances in the lobby after concerts. Maybe I’m a little slow, but I first ran across this marketing phenomenon a couple of years ago in the Washington, DC area. I thought I would be able to find their CDs later as easily on the web or in stores – like Borders, Tower Records or Barnes & Noble – that carry seemingly endless stocks. On a rare occasion this has proven true – but far less frequently than I expected.

But like blogging, there are ways around the stranglehold of the “superstar name only” fixation of the recording industry. The good news is that some artists are taking advantage of it: Not only through the sale of CDs at a concert, but also through their own web-pages whether maintained by their representatives or developed and launched on their own.

What I also have discovered is that their recordings are often far more interesting than the over digitally mixed ones designed for mass sales - perhaps because, as one performer told me recently, the edge is still there- the mixing and reproduction in a big-time sound studio by big-time sound technicians too often strips out the vitality, the humanness and the emotion of the performer flattening the dynamics and eliminating the texture in a misbegotten goal of apparently appealing to the greatest number and less so the discerning listener.

Here are links to the webpages of three excellent musicians – pianists Danae Kara and Hyperion Knight and guitarist Jeremy Mayne - whose work I particularly like and would not hesitate to recommend to others.

Danae Kara is a Greek pianist who lives in Athens and whose repertoire includes various Greek composers from the popular Theodorakis and Hadjidakis to the lesser known Skalkottas and Kalomiras. Kara has also recorded Brahms and Mendellsohn on the Italian label, Agora. I remember hearing Danae perform in Athens in the 1980s – she was not only a wonderful pianist with an unusual repertoire but a delightful person as well. Kara’s recording of “Johannes Brahms: the last piano works” (2000) is the only CD of hers that I was able to locate here – and that I did find through Amazon.

I first heard Hyperion Knight on August 5 perform Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” with the Santa Fe
Symphony and it was electric.

An Ultimatum

by CKR

Today I shredded the reminder from NARAL that my membership expired on some recent date in the past. Enough already.

I seem to get a reminder from NARAL or Planned Parenthood that they'd like money at least once a week. Sometimes they call, too. Even the organizations that are more moderate in their demands duplicate themselves far too often. Last fall I wound up joining Human Rights Campaign twice because they didn't stop their appeals after I sent the first check. Did I get a notice that now I was signed up for two years and wouldn't receive any more appeals? Go ahead, laugh.

Last fall I also sent money that I thought was going to renew my subscription to Harper's to some black hole that is preying on those of us who don't keep track of our magazine renewals. Now that they've found a patsy, I have gotten bogus renewal notices for Harper's Bazaar and Columbia Journalism Review. I don't even subscribe to Harper's Bazaar.

The legitimate subscription renewals come far too rapidly, too. And where are those crooks getting our names from? I'll bet they bought the subscription lists from the magazines, just as so many advertisers do. I've seen notices in the New York Review of Books, Scientific American, The Atlantic, and Harper's about this scam. In tasteful boxes at the outer bottom corner of the page, modest fonts, as though they're embarrassed that their own greed has brought this plague of junkmail locusts upon their subscribers.

So from now on, I'm going to be very careful and match up subscription renewal requests with the labels, if I can figure out the ever-more-obscure coding that shows when my subscription ends. And no more contributions to the overambitious organizations until their junkmail levels decrease. And I've got caller ID on my phone.

A message for NBC and the International Olympic Committee

By PHK

(Not that they’ll ever read it.)

The nice thing about blogging is that it is a license to write about anything and everything. So I’m going to write about the 2006 Olympics, not foreign affairs for a change – or, oh, well, just maybe a little.

I’ve spent parts of the last couple of weeks watching – or more accurately attempting to watch – the Twentieth Olympic Winter Games in Torino. That is, through the fog of inordinate number of commercials and, for the most part, the incessant blather of NBC’s sports commentators. The saving grace? The mute button on my television’s remote.

Given an option, I’d rather watch the games almost anywhere else in the world than the U.S. even if I have to get up at 3 in the morning to do so. Sure, tell me how new scoring systems work; explain the intricacies of any new sport, but for heaven’s sake, just show the performances and keep chatter to a minimum. As for the personal interviews that seem so popular with American viewers – they’re certainly better than commercials, but focus on the competitions, please.

My view: more live footage, fewer commercials and minimum personality profiles. Might also be nice to know the name of the music a skater is skating to – not every skater is fixated on replaying Katerina Witt’s show-stopping rendition of Bizet’s Carmen. Did I hear Prokofiev’s “Romeo and Juliet” at some point? Actually, this was one of the few times NBC announcers identified the music - so I’m sure I did. But what about the others?

Given the intersection of the web and the MSM today, why not just put the personality profiles on the NBC website – and let people click on them if they want to know more about a favorite – or unfavorite - athlete’s personal habits, family, trials and tribulations. Actually, some bloggers are doing this quite well with their behind the scenes Olympics looks - and the Olympians often have their own websites.

Also, forget about holding live footage for prime time. With the 24/7 news cycle, just show the competitions as they occur, then the excerpts which pass as Olympics coverage in these United States in the 7-10 pm slot. And if this is not cost effective for commercial television - why not let PBS do it - at least show the unadulterated, real time competition?

Let’s get this straight: we already know the results. Let’s also get this straight, it might be useful for the American public to see the many terrific athletes from other countries also competing in the games, and learn that the competition is far from just the 15 year old buried history of the Cold War US vs. Soviets head-to-head. In fact, why shouldn’t Americans be exposed to sports Americans do not excel in – might be an incentive to improve U.S. performances in those lesser known sports in the future.

Personally, I’m delighted that the Finns and the Swedes are vying for Gold in men’s hockey. There is nothing like a Finnish-Swedish competition to bring out the best – and the worst - from both national teams. Why the US men behaved so badly in their match against the Finns escapes me. I suppose the most likely reason was that they were outclassed and outplayed. No one should be surprised: Finnish kids are on skates from the time they take their first steps. And they train seriously.

Since the Finnish-Swedish match is a contest for the Gold, I assume this game will make NBC’s cut, at least I hope so. I remember being in Helsinki in 1980 watching Finnish TV coverage when the upstart U.S. team first beat the Soviets and the Finns at Lake Placid. That was pretty neat – and let me tell you, the Finns and Soviets were extremely gracious at the time. The Finns also showed both games from start to finish (no pun intended) even though they had been eliminated from the final match.

Rethinking the rules?

One of the things that struck me as I’ve been watching what I could of the Olympics - given the lousy coverage here - was how far parts of the world have come from petty national squabbles – the divisions upon which the modern Olympic Games are based.

Around the Web

by CKR

Some things keep happening over and over again, and we seem to learn nothing from them.

Prisoners at Guantanamo are being force-fed through nasogastric tubes in response to their hunger strike.

Wife totally commits herself to marriage. Husband leaves her in middle age for younger woman. She has no resources, no job history.

Free-market solutions to community problems don’t work. The idea that free markets are the answer to everything remains unquestioned.

Fisheries around the world are becoming less able to supply edible fish. Fishing techniques also kill inedible fish that might teach us something or may have a role in the ecological chains we so poorly understand.

Adolescent initiative is treated as a pathology. I guess I have a personal stake in this one. I did some outrageous things as an adolescent, although not to the extent of flying to Iraq. Perhaps it has to do, as this article suggests, with impulse control maturing later than intellectual ability. I know that what I did seemed quite reasonable to me at the time; in retrospect, I might have added small amounts of tact and safety precautions, but I have no serious regrets. Hopefully, neither will Farris Hassan.

Links to Science and Art

by CKR

A mathematical physicist’s view of what’s new and interesting. Some nice star photos and very geeky stuff.

Here’s a site about invasive plants, including recipes. That’s the way to eliminate them—make them irresistible to the gourmet set!

Saving the carnivores

Oppenheimer’s centennial

Invasive animals

Words for animals—singulars, plurals, collectives, young, calls, you, er, name it!

And here’s some fun art, animals, landscapes, and mushrooms. Yes, Navitrolla is Estonian. You are surprised?