YNWA - = You'll Never Walk Alone

The iconic song has been sung by Liverpool Football Club supporters since the early 1960's. Its a perfect sentiment to contemplate and exhort during these corona virus times. 



This is the version that started it all, Gerry & the Pacemakers

You'll Never Walk Alone by Gerry and the Pacemakers


This version has to be included, the song sung after Liverpool's win over Tottenham in last years's Champions League Final.

After the 2019 Champions League Final



Liverpool and 95,000 football fans sing together in Australia. Feel free to skip to 4:07 for the song

Liverpool and 95,000 football fans sing together in Australia



Excerpt from the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra

Sung by Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra

Corona Virus Dashboards - Johns Hopkins and Samford University

Johns Hopkins Corona Virus Dashboard

Samford University Corona Virus Dashboard for ALABAMA

Warmest Recorded North American (land) Winter

The December 2019 through February 2020 timeframe experienced a 2.3 degree Celsius above normal. This ranks #1 in the list of winters over the past 140 years.

https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/climate-monitoring/global/nhem/land/3

2019-2020 European Winter far warmer than recent winters

The Copernicus Climate Change Service published this chart and a document on twitter on March 8, 2020.  The obvious conclusion from the data is that this past winter was extraordinarily warm compared to the data points indicated since 1850.

More details can be found here:
https://climate.copernicus.eu/sites/default/files/2020-03/Supplementary%20text%20for%20winter%202019_2020_0.pdf

Fifty Year Precipitation Patterns by Season

Data from Dr. Brian Brettschneider, PhD in Climatology. Posted from his twitter account on March 8, 2020.

Some of these climate changes over the past half century are worrisome since this trend promises to disrupt peoples lives.

Note, the chart labeled Mar-Mar should have been Mar-May. 

=====================================

This is the fifty year annual (as opposed to seasonal) trend. 

The Breath of Life

I lay on the gurney early one morning first looking up at the ceiling and then forward to the wall, the wall which contained the screens with the read outs from my sensors.  Covered in white blankets lying on the white sheet of the gurney it was like being a subject for product photography. (A recollection of setting up the light box where all of the interiors were white) and the item being photographed situated in the middle crossed my mind.)  Not having any sleep the night before had taken it's toll on my body, and perhaps my mind as well.

The nurses had busied themselves when my wheels stopped rolling, attaching the O2 saturation sensor on my finger, the blood pressure (BP) cuff on my bicep. An IV, already implanted, was prepped for the infusion of propofol. Other preparations swirled around me, taking for granted that I would not rise up like Lazarus and stalk out of the room recoiling from the upcoming procedure. The BP cuff automatically tightened, a feeling that causes me to clench in resistance, which heightens the discomfort. I glance at the screen and see that my systolic pressure (the higher number) is as high as I've ever seen it, 160 mmHg. Wow! My anxiety increases just looking at the number.

The nurse asks me if I want to retain my glasses until the doctor arrives. I reply in the affirmative. (Its always good to see the person with whom you are conversing.) Then the memory arises. Its actually a couple of memories, one of which dates back to 1969.  In 1969 I got my hands on a book describing hatha yoga practices.  After coming home from High School and returning to my room at home I'd practice some of the asana (postures) and some of the pranayama (breathing). Over the decades since I've practiced hatha yoga either in classes or on my own. It's never been a major commitment of my time. However, its presence, like that of a good friend, always brought comfort. Over subsequent years I sought out other teachings as well. Teachings that concentrated on helping the body/mind heal. Healing from trauma is a process that can be enhanced or diminished. The practices I learned enhanced my healing and helped make me whole. Recalling those memories was comforting, but a mere recollection would not make a difference in my BP.

I began a breath meditation on the gurney, with slow inhalations and slow exhalations. It was fun to actually participate in my own biofeedback experiment! I watched the systolic pressure decrease from 160 to 154. More breathing accompanied by a quiet visual meditation brought my BP down to 148, then to 140. By the time I saw it fall to 132 the doctor arrived which required me to focus elsewhere.

He explained the procedure in general terms and I verbalized my understanding and acceptance. The nurse removed my glasses. The anesthesiologist moved my arms so that the IV was easy to reach. She attached an additional line with the anesthesia and started the flow. She said, “now its time to go to sleep”.  I watched the drip into my IV and wondered, is it going to work, what if it does not knock me out? That was my last thought.

A couple of days later I was thinking about the experience of nothingness that occurs after anesthesia.  The passage is smooth, quick, and painless. Existence while in nothingness is, in a word, nothing. So, I was living and breathing yet utterly unconscious. It’s sort of like taking a nap, except it isn’t. When I take a nap I’m thinking thoughts as I transition slowly to sleep. Those dreamlike images float around and faintly swirl until they dissipate into sleep. A sudden noise brings my consciousness from a deep well into a shallow pool. I’m aware that the cat has jumped from the chair to the floor and then I’m back in the deep sleep well.  At night my consciousness rises and falls all night long as awareness fades in and out.

Under anesthesia noise does not disturb me. Under anesthesia a scalpel cutting through my skin does not startle me. Under anesthesia turning my body, or probing it in any way does not awaken me. I might as well be dead, but my breathing proves otherwise. This is a good death in the sense that I return from the dead an hour or so later. Returning is good. There is still much to do, and the return offers the opportunity to continue to live, to continue with Life. To avoid death one more time.

Global Surface Temperature Departures and ENSO Values

GLOBAL SURFACE TEMPERATURE DEPARTURES AND ENSO VALUES

https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/201903/supplemental/page-3


Entire quote below found on URL above.

"Monthly temperature anomalies versus El Niño

The graphic below (above in this case, Ed.) depicts the monthly global temperature anomalies—that is, each month compared its 20th century average—since 1980, and the influence of the El Niño - Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomenon.

The height of the bar represents the global temperature anomaly for the month. The color of the bar represents the ENSO status, as defined by the Oceanic Niño Index (ONI), which is the three-month average temperature anomaly in the Niño3.4 region centered on that month. Months colored in red had ONI values indicating an El Niño episode active (at least five consecutive months with the three-month Niño3.4 temperature more than 0.5°C (0.9°F) above the working "normal"). Blue represents La Niña episodes, more than 0.5°C (0.9°F) cooler than normal. Months in grey indicate ENSO-neutral conditions, when neither El Niño nor La Niña were present.

Several observations are apparent in the figure. First, nearly every month since 1980 has been above the 20th century average, and has generally warmed through the period. Second, El Niño-like conditions (those months in red) tend to be warmer than neighboring periods, and La Niña-like conditions (blue) tend to be cooler. Third, protracted El Niño-like episodes tend to warm through the event, while La Niña-like episodes tend to cool through the event. Fourth, and finally, there are exceptions to all of the above points."

Global Temperature Since the last Ice Age

Timeline

XKCD presents a timeline showing Earth's average temperature record for the last 22,000 years.

https://xkcd.com/1732/

Sent from my iOS phone.

The President of the United States Behaves Like an Immature Insecure Teenager

Good grief. Greta Thunberg wins Time Magazine's person of the year honors and the President of the United States (POTUS) goes after a 16 year old girl!  Only a person who wanted to behave like an immature and insecure teenager would do something like that.

From Donald Trump's twitter account:
"So ridiculous. Greta must work on her Anger Management problem, then go to a good old fashioned movie with a friend! Chill Greta, Chill!"


""What kind of president bullies a teenager?" tweeted former Vice President Joe Biden, a leading 2020 Democratic contender, adding that Trump "could learn a few things from Greta on what it means to be a leader."

"Does the President really not have anything better to do today than attack a 16 year old?" tweeted Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va.

Trump's tweet even came up at Thursday's House Judiciary Committee markup of the articles of impeachment against the president.""

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-mocks-greta-thunberg-after-she-wins-time-person-year-n1100531?cid=sm_npd_nn_fb_ma&fbclid=IwAR3hjGHFSLBxDy6YjbajSfSr7HkeiYPeFzP42oDrLZikLkf56VMJfA2HWNw

They Knew This - When ?

In 1982 the scientists studying climate changes wrought by The Industrial Revolution predicted that by the year 2020 the CO2 levels would be between 410-420 ppm.  At the time the number was in the low 300s.

The scientists worked for Exxon and they knew that the climate was changing.
The paper detailing their findings can be found here CO2 Greenhouse Effect

[the original link has gone dead, but here the information is discussed: https://www.whitehouse.senate.gov/news/speeches/time-to-wake-up-exxon-knew +

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/01122015/documents-exxons-early-co2-position-senior-executives-engage-and-warming-forecast/ ]

Their science was remarkably accurate and yet for 27 years Exxon funded climate change deniers so that no industry crippling regulations could be enacted.  It was an act of desperate corporate survival. By succeeding in sowing seeds of doubt, they helped fuel the “climate change deniers” of today who ambush people with “fake science” or cherry picked data to further their agenda of preventing any significant cultural and economic changes.

History will measure and reveal the significance of this delay in action by humans to rectify a chemical imbalance in the atmosphere. This chemical imbalance causes “The Greenhouse Effect” and guarantees that once it reaches a certain level it will generate planet wide changes in Earth’s climate. Whether we can make a significant reduction in the growth of CO2, or not, there is no harm in making the attempt. The attempt being our only hope in preventing catastrophic changes in climate that will affect the lives of hundreds of millions of people.

One figure from the Exxon report made in 1982:

The curve to the left is the prediction of CO2 rise, the curve to the right is the increase of temperature that is expected to match that rise. Both curves are almost dead on accurate to the present measurements.

An animation of the Keeling Curve (measurements of CO2 for decades) demonstrates the yearly "breathing" of CO2 where it is high in one part of the year and lower during the next.  Yet, the trend line continues to climb, like a stairway to heaven, only this stairway may lead elsewhere.

The Keeling Curve animation

Some of the other conclusions in the animation include that scientific evidence that human beings have never experienced an Earth with this high of a concentration of CO2.

The Global Fever in September 2019

This is not a happy Earth.  It is a hot planet. These are the September 2019 temperature anomaly’s all over the globe. Depending on how your algorithms calculate Arctic temperatures this month was the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd hottest September in the last 150 years.

To read more about it and play with a plotter to display a map for any time period you may be interested in go to:
 https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/global/time-series/globe/land_ocean/1/9/1880-2019

To display global maps with the data superimposed you can travel here:
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/global/mapping

The Extinction Symbol

To read more about it:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_symbol

https://grist.org/article/the-story-behind-the-extinction-rebellion-symbol-at-climate-protests/

https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/programs/biodiversity/elements_of_biodiversity/extinction_crisis/

Once you learn to read

I was attracted to this tile mosaic primarily because of the colors. The bright red, and deep blue invited me to come closer, to examine in detail what could only be seen in abstract from the street. Walking up the sidewalk the writing became apparent, then as I got closer it became legible.

                                "Once you learn to Read, you will Be forever free".

This motto made sense to me, yet it carries an implied caution. Learning to read is a ticket to a life time of possibilities that will not befall the non reader. However, learning to read is no guarantee that you will take the initiative to pursue those possibilities. Reading comes first, but one must couple the aspiration to the drive to achieve goals. One must study the roots of freedom to understand what it means to "...Be forever free."

Defying Gravity- Roger McGough.

Roger McGough's poem is deceptive, succinct, and to the point. One of the best poems on this subject I've ever read.


http://in-country-heaven.blogspot.com/2016/05/defying-gravity-roger-mcgough.html

The Greening of Financial Systems

The central banks and the financial structures they support are at risk when climate change is brought into the equation.  Here is what an umbrella organization of those central banks is saying .

https://www.banque-france.fr/en/financial-stability/international-role/network-greening-financial-system/press-events

Day One Entry: Mar 24, 2019

In honor of the 100th birthday of Lawrence Ferlinghetti.

When the wreaths of youth weighed heavily upon my form,
threatening to cast me down who knew where,
Lawrence,
like a Divine Wind
blew my wreaths away and
exploded my chains,
and taught me to sing out from my heart,
that deepest part that was hidden so deep,
Sing out the sky until I fall fast
Asleep.

63°F Partly Cloudy
953 Riverchase Pkwy W, Hoover, AL, United States

Sent from my iOS phone.

To Charity or Not to Charity

There are a lot of generous hearted folks who have used their FaceBook birthday celebration to offer you the opportunity for you to give to a charity of their choosing. Their motives seem pure, altruistic and very sweet. From conversations with several folks who do this it seems apparent that they mostly wanted to turn their birthday into something larger than themselves and wanted to “give back” to a community of deserving and needy folks.  This is a laudable perspective and a fresh reversal of a “me first” perspective touted in common culture.

Yet, there are reasons you might hesitate to support a charity with which you may be unfamiliar. Firstly, you may not have a lot of funds to toss around and are struggling to be frugal. Secondly, you may already have favorite charities to which you give money (or goods) every year.  Thirdly, it is possible that the charity is not a good steward of the funds received, and indeed, may run very close to being a fraudulent charity.

This essay will look at the third possibility and try to answer the questions about how to verify a charity, and determine its efficiency. Three organizations that have been involved with verifying, rating, and documenting charities are: Charity Navigator, CharityWatch, and GuideStar. This list is not meant to be comprehensive, and I’m not going to rate these organizations.  I’ve used one of these organizations for around 20 years.

One of the easiest ways to use these organizations to your advantage is to search on a charity that has caught your interest. If the charity has been in business for a while and been filing  F990’s for years then perhaps that charity has been rated. For example, Charity Navigator will only rate a charity that has filed 7 years of F990 forms.  For charities that have not been posting the F990 (required of tax exempt organizations) for years and years, then taking a peek at the F990 that did get filed can give you a window into how the charity is organized structurally and how they spend their money.

In this example of a less than exemplary charity I’m looking at a Native American charity. Before proceeding further I want to say there are some good charities doing excellent work for the Native American communities scattered around the country and I contribute to one of those. However, there are others that are rotten the core.

What criteria should be use to judge a charity? Well, each charity watch organization details the criteria they use and it is worth your time checking that out on their web page. One of the criteria mentioned by folks examining charities is monetary efficiency. That’s just my term for how much of the money taken in actually gets used for the intended recipients. Some writers have suggested that at least 75% of the money go to the recipients with the remaining 25% being allocated to marketing, salaries, infrastructure upkeep and the like. Some very efficient charities actually allocate over 90% of their funds directly to the people in need.

The Native American charity that I’m examining is not going to be named. However, the figures (rounded off) from its most recent F990 will be used.

This charity took $1,200,00 in charitable donations during the year 2016. Approximately half of that,  $620,000 went for marketing expenses paid to an LLC that is essentially one guy (named in other research) who lives and works from his home. An amount near $180,000 was spent on computer expenses and that money was sent to a condo in another state. There was one paid director who received a salary of about $60,000, and an additional $150,000 was spent for salaries and other related expenses.

If you are now wondering how much money is left over for the Native American recipients of the program money, you are not alone. Over one million dollars has been used for “expenses” all to provide just under $200,000 to the programs for the Native American recipients. This is not an efficient charity. Not only that, some might call it a fraudulent charity since it seems designed to provide two people with three fourths of the total funds for the charity.

For this reason I don’t ever contribute to a Charity that I’ve not researched. I recommend that if you are curious about your charity that you do a little detective work first. That kind of work can be quite interesting and a little fun.

Dreamtime

Upon awakening this morning these thoughts fell fully formed and flowing like a river.

I will tell you a puzzle. Perhaps it will be a puzzle of delight, one which unwinds its light as you wend you way wistfully through its maze. On the other hand the puzzle may be dimly perceived, perplexing, petulant.

The puzzle may morph a bit with time and effort, but that does not detract from the truths/frights within.

You see, for all of this time you have held a key unknowingly. This key would glitter in the sun and be rendered an object of curiosity , or other times it would lie unseen in a dark drawer.

Your life changes from day to day, from hour to hour and it is pivoting upon your thoughts, your judgements, your preferences, your disgusts. Every turn within your mind stream, conveys a new universe, each fork you choose propels one option closer to non existence and reinforces the other option.

You are the architect of all you survey, and the builder, and the inhabitant of your creation.  You make a world from which you cannot ever escape. Yet, the content and consequences in the world are completely within your power to control. 

Each time you entertain the thought (no matter whose voice is attached to the thought!) that you are suffering, or needy, or failing to achieve, you are laying down the cobblestones in a road on which you are walking.  Your paved path is easier to tread the next time and those thoughts will gain greater speed of transit. You  will have encouraged a habitual thought and made it easier for it to be re born and to carry you within its orbit. 

In a like manner if you carry thoughts of generosity, caring for others and entertaining a willingness to help others you lay down cobblestones to make this journey more predictable, more dependable. 

Each thought you embrace is like a candle. Sheltered from the errant  breeze it provides light for travelling the maze. Yet! There are times it would be better if you blew it out!

For an illumination easing ones path down the cobblestones of despair does you no good. In the dark you can find your way for you are the architect of all you survey. You can pivot on a dime  refuse the illumined path and stride forcefully through the dark toward another path, a better path, a brighter path. 

You can master the puzzle. You can choose the way of light, love, generosity, and peace and smooth over the cobblestones. As you return again and again to this path and bring more construction materials you can add streetlights, cafes, theaters, libraries, and most importantly friends who will be companions on your redemptive journey. Like the Phoenix you arise and fly again, simply because you choose another path.

Cats And Their Body Language

Don't you  wish you could understand what your cat is saying to you?  They are quite intelligent and they really know what they want. How can we eavesdrop into their thoughts and conversation, even if sometimes your cat seems to be talking to themselves?

Well, a true cat lover has posted some clues and based on my 30 year exposure to cats (of multiple breeds) he seems to have hit the nail on the head.

"The Body Language of Cats" is worth reading for entertainment and more importantly educational reasons. You will come to love and enjoy your four legged feline companion more when you are aware of how they are thinking both about the world around them and how they think about you!