A new adventure

When you purchase a used item from Ebay, there is a period of time when you wonder if you'll receive what you paid for. In the case of a film camera there are two levels of testing. The first is to try out all of the features while shooting film. The second is when you get your film back.

This is an odd situation now, though it was the default experience for almost all photographers before the year 2000. You shoot, then get your film developed, to find out if you have anything at all.

I've been spoiled by digital photograhy. The instant I take a digital shot, a quick peek at the screen tells me volumes (out of focus, bad composition, huge ISO problem, white balance is screwed). Now, I take a shot, and wind the crank having nothing but faith that anything is happening at all. Of course, the first roll of film is the worst. I have not yet received anything that convinces me that I've captured an image!

The first roll will be completed tomorrow and will be turned in to the camera shop that actually develops 220 film. I'll be holding my breath....hoping I don't turn blue.

Watching Too Much FOX "News" can make you Dumb and Dumber

It is always good to find substantial evidence to support an observation, even an unscientific observation. It has been quite obvious to me that people who gathered most of their news information from Fox "News" were in the dark about lots of facts. I strongly suspected for years, and then firmly believed after observations over time that Fox is a propaganda network.

This article, with it's many research sources, just makes it pretty clear. If you watch Fox all of the time, then you'll just be dumb and get dumber.

http://climateprogress.org/2010/12/17/fox-news-misinformation-policy-issues-climate-science/

As the comments posted below the article point out, there are many sublties that are important to consider as well. The notion that people who are obsessive about news in general, might enter into the calculations.

Ah, for the "good old days" when you only had to learn your ABC, CBS, NBCs. :)

One Minute Global Warming Speech -Refined

In a blog post here on January 6, 2010, I formulated a one minute global warming speech. After some thought and inspiration from the thoughts of others, the speech has been refined a bit. The purpose of both talks is to shatter certain assumptions and illusions caused by inexpert use of our native language.
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The new speech titled "Global Climate Change Re-perspective"

1) GLOBAL - Your backyard, your state, and even your country are tiny fractions of the entire Globe's surface. The lower 48 states comprise about 1.5% of the entire global surface. This tiny amount is not in any way representative of the entire globe.

2) CLIMATE - Climate is not Weather and Weather is not Climate. What you see in your front yard today is Weather. When snow floats down from the sky you are seeing Weather. When the rain wets your upturned face that is Weather. That freezing wind from the North is Weather. Climate is a 30 year average on conditions. You cannot see Climate. You cannot taste Climate. Climate cannot chill or warm your bones today.

3) CHANGE - Change is not necessarily random. We search for patterns in change to determine whether or not one exists. Searching for patterns is a meticulous detective story requiring serious intellectual effort and time.

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The entire purpose of the short speech is to provide a basis for a more intelligent discussion of global climate change. Once the definitions of the terms are clearly set, then a more fruitful conversation can ensue.

Happy conversations!



The old speech is here: http://blognimrod.blogspot.com/2010/01/cold-global-warming.html

While my page is by no means the best one out there it is a small effort to bring together references to the science in one location.
http://www.n1yz.com/Climate_Change_Matrix.htm

Election Day - Just another swing of a Pendulum

The harvest of efforts gone toward victory are difficult to repeat. When you've inspired someone to drop all pretense of not caring, and actually vote for the first time, how to you get them to vote the next time.

Politics will always disappoint, yet can sometimes inspire. It is a mid term election again, and the pendulum is swinging back, like it usually does. Pundits desperate to get their pay check insist that its the sign of the Second Coming. The historically ignorant, are not sure. You, who do your homework, or have lived long enough with a conscious attention to detail (or both), know better.

A Miracle Is

"A leap out of one’s seemingly determined fate (an act of charity) can come from any number of experiences as the novel, An Estate of Memory, labored to prove, and this message is offered to the twentieth century as something to be treasured. More than ever, now: to believe there is something that is not simply a norm.

In a sense, when this epiphany takes place, it is a miracle. A miracle is an event that changes the meaning of things. It is like a thought that floats free of the surrounding systems and conventions, and enters, uninvited, a sentence, a stanza, a conversation, a lab result, and sends it on another path. A miracle can be the appearance of another person rising out of an emptiness that we are beginning to accept as permanent.

As Paul Celan wrote, it is

A RUMBLING: it is
Truth itself
walked among
men,
amidst the
metaphor squall."

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/journal/article.html?id=240252

Eagle Poem by Joy Harjo

I came across this poem while perusing the books in the Religion section of the Samford University Bookstore...

http://www.panhala.net/Archive/Eagle_Poem.html


enjoy!

The new "Cold War" censorship

During the Cold War, people in Europe who lived behind the Iron Curtain had very limited access to news. The State controlled the media, controlled the content of the media, controlled the minds of the people. This was successful to a great extent as long as the News from the West was removed from access. Broadcasts from Western nations, including the US's Voice of America (the BBC, RFI, Radio Canada, Deutch Welle) tried to present the news from another perspective. Their broadcasts were jammed by the nations behind the Iron Curtain. Those oppressed behind the Iron Curtain hungered for News from different perspectives. Many radio signals made it past the jamming. The news of the rest of the world provided a clearer picture of what was happening.

When the Iron Curtain fell, those people were able to freely partake of the (unjammed) radio news from the rest of the world. They had been liberated from their prison!

Today, there are people who live freely in the West who have self imposed a censorship upon their media access. With access to the broadest scope of media in world history, they claim that only one source of news is correct, one source of news is true, and only one source of news is needed to discover how the world is.

It seems incredible that anyone could make such a mistake. In the past it was widely known that knowledge is gained by multiple perspectives. In the past it was widely known that being limited to one media outlet was tantamount to being in a dictatorship of the mind. In the past it was widely known that it was worth while to risk your freedom to hear other(even contrary) perspectives. That was defined as FREEDOM. In fact, there are hundreds of millions of people who believe that multiplicity in access to the media is the key to understanding and constructing a truthful knowledge of the world.

Today there are thousands (maybe more), who believe that FOX news is the only news worth watching. They believe that they are tapped into the only source of news worth watching. These people have (sadly) imposed censorship upon their view of the world. These people have put them selves behind a new Iron Curtain, and stripped themselves of Freedom.

What a sad sad tale...to see people I know who have placed themselves in bondage in this fashion is just almost unbelievable.

Cold Global Warming

I too joke with others about global warming, especially on record breaking cold days such as we have now. It's a clever play on language to explore oxymorons like "cold global warming".

But seriously folks, after enjoying the release of laughter...don't forget that global warming is as close to a fact as you can get.

Here is my one minute speech on Global Warming

1) Climate is not Weather and Weather is not Climate. What you see in your front yard today is Weather. When snow floats down from the sky you are seeing Weather. When the rain wets your upturned face that is Weather. That freezing wind from the North is Weather.

Climate is a 30 year average on conditions. You cannot see Climate. You cannot taste Climate. Climate cannot chill or warm your bones today.

2) Global Warming is not happening in your acre! Your acre is an infinitesimal spot on the immensity of the Earth. What you see in your neighboorhood is not what is happening on the Earth. Global warming is an average of the entire Globe, not your one acre lot. To think that the weather you see in your acre is representative of the Earth can be represented by this thought experiment.

The Earth's entire surface is equal to 126 billion acres. If you took 126 billion dollar bills and laid them end to end at the equator, the line of greenbacks would circle the earth 488 times. One of those 126 billion dollars has a specific serial number. The chance that the weather in your acre is representative of Global weather is the same as you picking the correct dollar bill out of that line of 126 billion bucks on the first choice.

You cannot decide whether Global Warming is true or false based on what you see out your front door.

Stay warm!