Buddie, Can You Spare ... $13.5-Million to Rescue the North Manitou Shoals Light Station

T he restoration of the North Manitou Shoal Light Station, more commonly known to locals and old-timers as “the Crib”, is seriously in need of an “angel.”

The offshore facility is successor to the North Manitou Island Light. That first lighthouse, built on North Manitou’s Dimmick’s Point in 1898 proved ineffective in warning ships away from the hazardous shoal which extends far out into the passage from the island’s southern tip, so it was soon augmented by a light ship stationed at the shoal’s end. The Crib was commissioned in 1935 to replace the island’s lighthouse and light ship.

The U.S. Congress instituted an innovative program for lighthouse restoration and preservation with the passage of the National Historic Lighthouse Preservation Act of 2000. NHLPA recognizes the cultural, recreational, and educational value associated with historic light station properties by allowing these to be transferred at no cost to nonprofit corporations and other eligible entities. These groups must agree to comply with conditions set forth in the act, be financially able to maintain the facility, and must make it available to the general public for education, park, recreation, cultural or historic preservation purposes at reasonable times and under reasonable conditions. Only those light stations that are listed, or determined eligible for listing, in the National Register of Historic Places, can be conveyed under this program.

Government agencies involved in the process include the U.S. Coast Guard, the General Services Administration, the National Park Service and the State Historic Preservation Office. I’ve been in touch with the Coast Guard, the NPS NHLPA Coordinator, Michigan’s Lighthouse Preservation Project, the Great Lakes Lighthouse Keepers Association, Mihm Enterprises of Hamilton, Michigan (a historic restoration contractor with experience working on facilities of this kind) and with the DeTour Reef Lighthouse Preservation Society, a group which has successfully undertaken a project of this kind with a very similar offshore lighthouse near Drummond Island. Everyone is eager to see the North Manitou Shoal Light Station rescued.

I suggest that $13.5-million will be needed to save this historic light. That amount includes an estimated $3.5-million to restore the structure, equip it as a self-sufficient facility, and refit it with historically authentic equipment and furnishings. Beyond that, a $10-million endowment will provide for ongoing operation and maintenance expenses, and assured compliance with the State of Michigan’s bottomlands conveyance rules (which require removal of the structure in case of eventual abandonment.)

Although this lighthouse is within the boundaries of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, it is not owned by the National Park Service, and for the time being, at least, NPS has no interest in taking control of it.

Although this lighthouse is within the boundaries of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, it is not owned by the National Park Service, and for the time being, at least, NPS has no interest in taking control of it. That location, however, assures that its restoration and maintenance will be of great benefit to the public, since the light is visible from the mainland, and since ferry service to the Lakeshore’s South Manitou Island brings visitors immediately past the light station twice each day during the visitor season.

Off-Shore Lights are Tough Projects

Over recent years, two or three nonprofits have investigated the feasibility of taking over this off-shore light station. Offshore light stations are notoriously difficult projects even under the best of circumstances. But beyond that, two main problems have prevented that from happening.

The first, of course, is money; several millions of dollars being beyond the capabilities of most small nonprofits, especially now, when charitable donations might better be directed to dire human needs ... to victims of ignorance and poverty, and victims of natural disasters.

The second limitation is administrative and management capabilities. Projects of this size and scope are generally beyond the capabilities of volunteer boards of small nonprofit organizations. The exceptions are organizations with board members who have had significant experience in large-scale business and management situations (as is the case with the DeTour Reef project.)

Got money? You can save this landmark.

Why would you want to do that? Perhaps as a way to give something back to the American people; something that will endure over the coming generations. Perhaps as a monument to yourself; since this would not be a government-owned entity, you’d be at liberty to attach a bronze plaque commemorating your

Are you among those lucky bonus recipients in the financial sector? — Here’s a worthy use for those windfalls!

generosity. Or maybe just for the fun and adventure of doing something completely out of the ordinary. Whatever your reason, your consideration of this initiative will be most welcomed.

Were I rich enough, I’d eagerly do this project, for both of the above reasons. I’m not that fortunate. So I can only appeal in this way to you, and with a plege to provide whatever assistance I can ... administrative “grunt work”, volunteer recruitment, on-site oversight, etc.

If you are interested in talking about the possibilities, please feel free to get in touch ... any time — day or night.

Meanwhile, you might be interested in a “virtual visit” to the light station.

Quick Fix for Unemployment and the Economy

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (September 2009), there are about 154-million people in the U.S. labor force. Of those, about 139-million (90%) have jobs and are receiving a regular paycheck. About 15-million (10%) are officially listed as unemployed. These are people who do not have jobs, but are actively looking for work, whether receiving unemployment compensation or not.


This is the figure often cited as "the unemployment rate." However, there are another 82-million people who are listed as "not in the labor force." These are people who are not receiving unemployment compensation, and would be working if they could find jobs but, for various reasons, are no longer seeking employment opportunities. If these workers were included in the labor force, its numbers would be about 236-million, with 97-million (41%) unemployed. Somewhere between these two figures, lies the real numbers of people who are out of work.


But there's more to the story; these figures do not suggest the number of workers who are now under-employed, having been forced to take jobs paying much less than the ones lost through lay-offs, down-sizing, or shut-downs. Nor do they reflect the extent of earnings being lost as a result of wage and salary cuts and shorter hours.


Against this backdrop, data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics also shows that the average rate of job creation in the U.S. over the past forty years has been about 2% per year. That would produce about 3-million jobs at today's employment rate. However, each year about one-million young workers enter the labor force, with fewer older workers now retiring each year. At this rate, it would take over seven years — until 2017 — to get all those who are currently unemployed back to work.


But the bad news doesn't end there; private sector job creation over the past ten years has, in fact, been minimal,

Job creation over the past ten years has been minimal, and is presently zero.

and is presently zero. This suggests a cruel reality for the unemployed, and for young people coming into the labor force. Opportunities will be few and far between, with many never being able to find full-time work.


Even for those who do, it will be a buyer's market. With a large surplus of available workers, employers will be able to freely pick and choose, without having to compete with each other for quality people by offering incentives such as better pay and more generous fringe benefits. This is happening already. Job descriptions are stuffed with all sorts of inflated requirements for prospective candidates, often to the point of being ridiculous. Since it is unlikely that anyone could meet all the requirements in such grocery lists, the hidden purpose of this phenomenon seems more likely to be to provide employers with plenty of wiggle room when it comes to evading federal rules regarding discrimination and fair labor practices. But even in the unlikely event that an applicant would be able to bring all of the stated skills, capabilities and qualifications, the starting pay offered is usually in no way commensurate ... often laughingly inappropriate.


Thus, it seems quite evident that if we insist on business as usual, the decline of the American middle class will continue, with increasing numbers finding their future to be a story of hard times such as people in this country haven't seen for a hundred years, eventually winding up as a struggle between the haves and the have nots. This is not good for anybody. It is a formula for disaster. Nothing promotes economic growth, cultural development, and peace like a middle class that is healthy, vibrant and growing. Wide rich vs. poor disparities in a nation promotes unrest, discord, destructive violence, and ultimately, revolution.


Hard times and calamity can easily be avoided if we have the courage to face reality and implement some major paradigm shifts.


Changing the Shift Paradigm


First, the nation needs to shift from an eight-hour workday to a six-hour schedule ... from a forty-hour to a thirty-hour week. Businesses that presently operate around the clock will run four shifts,

The nation needs to shift from an eight-hour workday to a six-hour schedule.

instead of three, increasing their employment by 33%. Businesses that presently run eight-hour days, from nine to five, would then be open from seven to seven, increasing their employment by 100%. All by itself, this puts everyone back to work.


Second, we must shift to a universal health care system. This can be as simple as expanding Medicare to cover everyone. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average U.S. wage is presently $18.67 per hour, which amounts to about $37,340 per year. For a 24-hour operation to control employment costs while increasing employment by one third, wages would need to be reduced to $14 per hour. However, the average per employee health insurance cost for family coverage is currently $13,000, which amounts to about $6.50 per hour. Retired persons pay about $1,000 a year for Medicare. Assuming a family of four, a $4,000 contribution should be more than adequate, given that medical expenses for younger people, and especially children, are surely much less than those of the elderly. That leaves $9,000 available to wages which, if added back, brings average pay rates back up to $18.50 per hour.


Besides the obvious improvement in the general economy and the quality of our lives, full employment will go a long way towards solving Social Security financing problems and State tax revenue shortages.


Taking Control of Health care Costs


Third, health care expenses need to be more sensibly managed.


Over the past several years, wage increases have been diminished as the cost of government-mandated employer-provided health insurance has escalated. The same has been true for Social Security recipients, whose cost-of-living increases have been eaten up by higher assessments for Medicare coverage. No worker is going to embrace a six-hour work day at the expense of a quarter of their regular earnings. And, as shown above, that does not have to be the case. Pay will remain about the same, the difference being made up for by reducing the cost of health care coverage. But in order to permit that, the cost of health care itself must be reduced. Significant reductions are immediately possible through the implementation of a few sensible changes, mostly affecting things that are already widely recognized as wasteful nonsense.


• Misdiagnosis and treatment error is a significant burden on the present system. While it is obvious to any practical person that perfection can never be achieved, and while exact figures are difficult to come by, it would appear that the error rates are presently upwards of 40%. In spite of all the technological advances, this rate hasn't change much over the past 100-years. Health care presently costs the U.S. about $2.5-trillion per year. Reducing the error rate by half would potentially save a fifth of that — $500-billion — while at the same time actually improving the quality of care.


• Medical care during the final few months at the end of life presently accounts for about a tenth — $250-billion — of total U.S. health care expenditures, $110-billion of which is paid for by Medicare. Much of this cost arises from extraordinary treatment efforts on patients known to be terminally ill. Much of it is understandable, since when the decision is left up to them, it's difficult for anyone to decide the fate of older family members, and it's easy to put off the inevitable decision by hoping for a miracle. In other cases, it often appears that hospitals are quite willing to turn terminally ill patients into "cash cows," knowingly providing expensive treatments they know to be unnecessary or useless. Extra-ordinary efforts to prolong life often only prolong misery for patients who would not have approved such choices, but are no longer capable of speaking for themselves. Much of this misery and expense can be saved by developing a common practice of counseling and decision-making before the end-of-life crises' present themselves, much as people now commonly make arrangements for the settlement of their estates and other affairs.


• Elective surgical treatments, such as coronary bypass and joint replacement operations have long been known to be favored revenue generators for hospitals, with prices varying widely between different hospitals. Hospitals now host upwards of 500,000 coronary bypass operations per year, with an average price of $75,000. That's $37.5-billion worth of procedures which many consider unnecessary, and useless so far as prolonging life is concerned. Joint replacement procedures vary, but presently average about $45,000. According to American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons, hospitals are doing over 700,000 knee and hip replacements each year. That comes to another $32-billion, and again, the advisability of such procedures is often arguable. According to the same source, surgeons perform about 23,000 shoulder replacements. In his book The Healing of America, author T. R. Reid compared various approaches for dealing with an old shoulder injury by visiting other countries. In the United States, he found orthopedists most apt to recommend joint-replacement surgery, costing tens of thousands of dollars. In France and Germany, doctors were more apt to advise a regime of physical therapy, while in Britain, his complaint was summarily dismissed. In India, he was finally treated very effectively and inexpensively with herbs, massage, and meditation. With the numbers and prices of these dubious procedures drastically escalating — the present total $100-billion cost expected to soar beyond $500-billion within the next 20-years — it's obviously time for a serious value analysis.


• Malpractice litigation, in itself, may not be a highly significant cost item, with insurance costing the medical industry about $10-billion per year, and awards amounting to another $5.8-billion, according to the University of Michigan. What isn't accounted for however, are two other factors ... doctors and hospitals practicing defensive medicine by requiring extensive and usually unnecessary consultations and lab tests ... and their reluctance to recognize and admit error, and promptly engage in remedial procedures and treatments. The cost of these realities can never be known, but it is obviously not insignificant. It can be greatly reduced simply by requiring courts to limit awards to reasonably expected remedial costs, and by limiting attorney fees to fair amounts according to a published schedule.


The Courage to Adapt to New Realities


It should be clear that we are presently on the cusp of some major paradigm shifts. At the dawn of the twentieth century our American culture changed from agrarian to industrial. Now, a century later, we find ourselves at a similar moment, where what has worked well for the past few generations is clearly no longer serving us well. Insisting on business as usual and waving the flag is either lazy thinking, or succumbing to the fear of change. Worse yet, many of those whom we have entrusted with the

America is presently on the cusp of some major paradigm shifts.

responsibilities of leadership have fallen victim to the insidious lure of corruption that has become institutionalized in our political system, and are concerned first with protecting the interests of the those who are filling campaign coffers and supporting their regal lifestyles.


It always takes time for people to embrace new ideas and adapt to big changes. Government can lead by phasing in the six-hour workday in the military, for civilian government workers, and in newly created work programs similar to the WPA and CCC programs of the 1930's. There is plenty of work to do in America; eliminating the maintenance backlog in our national parks, cleaning up urban blight, serving as mentors and teaching assistants in school classrooms, and more. Temporary public works programs will provide immediate employment for idle hands, boost self-esteem, and teach skills that individuals can ultimately take into the private workplace, while also creating a body of experience with the six-hour workday paradigm.


Our choices are clear. We can muster the courage needed to try new ideas and work towards their successful implementation, or we can continue to accept defeat at the hands of lethargy, wishful thinking, fear and special-interest politics.


The time is ripe for some newly creative and uncommonly courageous leadership in America. Perhaps some of those presently serving will find themselves able to rise to this occasion. Otherwise our fortunes will depend solely upon the Grace of God.

One-Hundred Things — Family Values

Family life is usually lots of fun, until the first child crosses the threshold between childhood and adolescence. Then parents begin to regret the neurotic longings and romantic fantasies; those sirens that beguiled them into parenthood back when their love was new, and things used to be so peaceful and happy.

When it comes to their own children, parents are apt to misapply the "Golden Rule" ... to do onto their children as they wished their own parents might have done onto them ... rather than employ a more sensible approach. The result is children who feel naturally entitled to privileges and good things; children who haven't been taught anything about the principle of reciprocity — the relationship between input and output; the reality that privileges and good things are made possible by someone's having made an effort to enable such possibilities.

That's not a lesson children can learn by receiving privileges and good things. Nor can it be taught by lecturing. The only way a person learns that reward is the wages of effort is by experience, and the teaching of that lesson needs to begin at the earliest possible age.

Why the "Golden Rule" mistake?

Most of us grow up to be neurotic. We're discontented and unhappy with life. Because we are neurotic, we have to blame that on someone or something else. We therefore cultivate the belief that we're miserable and unsuccessful because our parents were thoughtless and mean ... that we were mistreated, exploited and deprived, and our childhood was the worst ever. As an unconscious strategy for proving to ourselves that this nonsense is indeed true, we resolve never do that to our own kids ... to be much better parents than the ones we were stuck with.

We therefore coddle our children, protect them from every stress and distress, and lavish upon them everything that we can afford to give, with the intention of enabling them to grow up as bright, happy and successful people. What we get instead, as our children move into their second decade of life, is more neurotics ... self-centered, discontented, contemptuous, disrespectful, brats.

At some point, we might begin to realize that perhaps our own parents were not so dumb after all. Perhaps they actually did a better job of preparing us for the realities of life than we are doing with our own children, who will all too soon have to leave the nest and enter into a highly competitive world ... a place where there are no free lunches, and where most of the people they encounter will be indifferent or hostile towards them until they are able to win their affection or better opinion.

So then what?

It's not a matter of tightening the screws, or straightening your kid out. It's more a matter of getting your own act together. You wanted to be an exemplary parent, but you didn't know how to do it. Nobody ever taught you, and what you probably read from time to time provided all sorts of whacky theoretical and conflicting advice.

The answer is simple, and clearly a matter of common sense. Your kid is heading for an adult world which is quite unlike the environment of childhood. It's an utterly lonely, callously uncaring and highly competitive place. Your kid will need to have mastered four skills:

         • caring of himself physically and emotionally,
         • valuing and caring for his personal property and interests,
         • interacting successfully with other people, and
         • honoring his family ties.

The first three of these are the subjects of many books, including my book for boys; Mind Over Monster. The importance of family is not something that is as popular to write about these days. That's unfortunate, for two reasons.

         • First, raising generations without an appreciation of that truth has led to the demise of family through easy divorce and multiple marriages. The result is lonely and vulnerable grown-up children who find themselves with no refuge. That's terribly unfortunate because ...

         • Second, in an adult world which is utterly lonely, callously uncaring and highly competitive, family abides as a safe harbor where one can always find unconditional caring and love.

As kids grow up, they naturally seek increasing autonomy and independence. Knowing how much to yield, and when, is always a challenge for parents. But even when that's handled intelligently and fairly, peer relationships encourage teenagers to disparage and distance themselves from their family.

Here's an idea that will help deal with that.

Next time your kid screws up to the extent that you feel obliged to extract a penalty of some sort ... such as taking away their cell phone, ipod, computer privileges, the car keys, or whatever ... give them a quick and easy way to fix the situation. Edit and print this note:

If you wish to have your _______________ privileges restored, you may make three lists, as follows:

1. Benefits that you personally enjoy from being a member of this family, and our particular household.

2. Things you personally contribute to make life easier and happier in our home and family.

3. Other things you could do, if willing, to show your consideration for, and appreciation of others in your in your home and family.

When your three lists contain a total of one-hundred items, your privileges will be restored.

Most kids will think this is a lame, but easy, assignment, and ... depending upon how badly they want to get off the hook ... will promptly produce the requested lists. They'll be expecting a discussion, but surprise them. Don't bother. Accept the lists with a "Thank You" and fulfill your part of the bargain right then and there.

Then use your word processing skills to type up nicely formatted letter size versions of their three lists in a style suitable for framing. Go to Walmart, Hobby Lobby, or your local discount department store, and buy three cheap "certificate frames." Frame the lists, and hang them neatly on the wall in your kid's bedroom.

The lists do not constitute a "deal" of any sort ... not a contract to continue the thoughtful and considerate contributions your kid might already be making for the family, nor a promise to do anything more. They simply serve as a reminder that "family" is a cooperative institution where members faithfully and unconditionally support each other, and can be depended upon to rightfully give as much as they receive.

Nothing more need be said about them.

Climate Change - It's A Good Thing!

o they teach kids folk tales like "Chicken Little" any more? Or fables like Hans Christian Andersen's "The Emperor's New Clothes?" In the pursuit of status and titles, basic life skills have been denigrated in favor of higher education and academic degrees.


Pundits, like Chicken Little, catastrophize, reciting all the prospective terrors of global warming, and blame mankind ... namely mankind in the developed countries ... and mainly the United States ... for causing the terrible cataclysm to come. Governments around the world have been worried into throwing billions of dollars into the urgent task of halting the spew of "greenhouse gases" into the atmosphere ... namely carbon dioxide. Meanwhile, anyone who has the bad manners to question the "science" driving this hysteria is dismissed with a vehemence and viciousness similar to that heaped upon "Holocaust deniers."


Folk tales like Chicken Little and fables like The Emperor's New Clothes were traditionally passed on to yesteryear's children as a learning exercise; not merely as entertainment. Kids soon learned to expect the question, "Now, what's the moral of this story?" And, indeed, such stories always made a point. They were a practical and highly successful way of teaching children some fundamental life skills … the stuff we call common sense and emotional intelligence.


Unfortunately, in today's educationally snobbish culture, nothing counts but the utterances of a "professional." Common sense is disrespected. Understandably so, perhaps. After having paid big bucks for a college degree, it's difficult to accept that a high school dropout well grounded in basic life skills might actually have a better handle on life.


And so on to the new holocaust … "Global Warming."


Famine and Pestilence - Wars and Rumors of Wars


I was brought up in a God-fearing family, and was therefore well indoctrinated with the idea that humankind is so fundamentally sinful that God gets sufficiently angered now and then to decide to just erase everything and start over. Last time around, as the legend goes, he flooded the whole earth, drowning everyone and everything, except for what Noah saved in his ark. I also learned that rainbows appear as a sign of God's promise that he'll never again vent His rage in that way. Sweet! ... Except our Sunday school teachers hinted that the next time around it would be fire, instead of flood. Being thus indoctrinated, we God-fearing persons, who constitute the majority of the human population, are therefore predisposed to believe in the global warming doomsday hype … that our wanton material gluttony will prove our undoing, and we will die in the heat of the planet we destroyed.


We seem to like doomsday-speak. During my life it's been one doomsday scare after another.


First it was World War II, where civilization as we knew it was at risk of being taken over and destroyed by those hatefully atheistic Nazi Huns, sexually insane gooks, and nutty Fascist wops. As kids in Traverse City, Michigan, we were frightened almost to death by air raid sirens and black-outs. "In Traverse City, Michigan?" you ask. Yes; it was ridiculous. In the early 1940's, enemy bombers were not that range capable, and even if they were, why would they waste expensive ordnance on a backwater place like Traverse? The propagandists claimed that they would be using city lights as landmarks, and commercial radio stations as navigation aids along the way to the strategically important Soo Locks. The propaganda also claimed righteous indignation; that the allies were totally innocent and the axis powers were totally evil. And so, the world chose up sides, ganging up on each other in an adventure that ultimately killed some 72-million people as we kids walked along sidewalks chanting, "Step on a crack; break Hitler's back." or singing, "Whistle while you work, Hitler is a jerk, Mussolini bent his weenie - now it doesn't work!"


"The Russians Are Coming!"


Having not-so-neatly dispatched that calamity, next came the Communist hysteria. These wicked and subversive nut jobs, zombie-like disciples of a creepy Vladimir Lenin and the evil Joseph Stalin, were bent on infiltrating every aspect of American life, and eventually taking over the whole world.


That reached a crescendo with Senator Joe McCarthy's infamous "investigations." Many influential institutions and personalities were sucked into the vortex McCarthy created, including the FBI, the House Un-American Activities Committee, the Catholic Church, the American Legion, the Kennedy family, and a young upcoming Richard Nixon.


A widely popular weekly television program during the mid-1950's called I Led Three Lives, which provided weekly, high-fictionalized episodes in the exciting, dangerous, and heroic life of Herbert Philbrick, an advertising executive who infiltrated the Communist Party as an undercover agent for the FBI, did much to promote McCarthy's cause with the general public. Eventually, anyone who dared doubt McCarty or question his witch-hunt was a risk of being fingered as a Communist sympathizer, "fellow traveler", or an outright Communist. After having destroyed the careers of many notables, McCarthy's rants about Communist infiltration in the highest offices of the government and the military … even accusing the Democratic Party of "twenty years of treason" … it became clear that the Senator's uncontrolled appetite for alcohol had evidently finally pickled his brain, and his colleagues finally voted to clip his wings.


But, not to worry … the next crisis was already at hand.


Mutually-Assured Destruction


Those damned Rosenberg's and their in-laws and friends had stolen our nuclear secrets and passed them on to "Uncle Joe" (Stalin). Those arch-evil Communists in the Soviet Union popped their first mushroom cloud, code-named "Joe 1," in late 1949, and the Cold War was on. As the McCarthy thing died, we began building bomb shelters in earnest, and us kids became unofficial members of the "Civil Air Patrol," constantly searching the skies for "Reds" (Russians in bombers). We just knew those evil, prisyka dancing vodka drinkers in the USSR were bent on taking over the whole world and converting it all to Communism.


The Cold War turned into an Arms Race, with each side scurrying to develop and manufacture ever more powerful nuclear devices. The A-bomb turned into the H-bomb, and even a Q-bomb was rumored … a small, but much more powerful device which somehow killed all the people without destroying their property. After twenty years of this madness, the doom sayers were ranting that we had developed enough nuclear explosive devices to destroy the planet, and were on the verge of doing so.

"I do not know with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."
              - A. Einstein

However, most practical people realized that the Soviet Union already had a full plate and was probably not really interested in taking over the world any more, and perhaps never were. Furthermore, by this time both the US and USSR had settled in to a defense strategy called "MAD" … Mutually Assured Destruction … both having far more than enough firepower to wipe out the other on a moment's notice, making any "first strike" highly improbable, even with lunatics in charge of the buttons. Meanwhile, some scientists began to point out that the power of the world's combined nuclear arsenals were puny in comparison to nature's potential fury, which is occasionally unleashed as earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanic eruptions … catastrophes that do happen from time to time, yet life goes on.


In a characteristic display of bad judgment, the American people, in 1980, decided to replace a sitting President with a movie actor. As luck would have it, that turned out to be a good thing, since Ronald Reagan, in a refreshing display of common sense, decided to fight fire with fire in dealing with the Soviets. Taking the arms race to the next level, which became know as the Star Wars initiative … intercepting and blowing up Soviet missiles in space well before they could reach their targets … he essentially drove the USSR into bankruptcy in their frantic effort to keep up. By the end of his Presidency in 1989, the Soviet Union was crumbling, and the Cold War was over.


Ozone Depletion - NASA's Folly


What next? Oh, my God there's a gaping hole in the ozone layer! We're all going to go blind and die of skin cancer! Those mad scientists and greed-crazed corporate magnates at Frigidaire, DuPont, and General Motors, the inventors, makers and distributors of Freon … chlorofluorocarbons or CFC's; the stuff used in air conditioners and aerosol cans … were the primary villains here.


The real culprit turned out to be NASA. Struggling to preserve its budget as interest in space exploration waned and interest in environmental science waxed, NASA mistakenly interpreted some unexpected findings of its TOMS (Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer) program and exuberantly published the bogus results.


This new crisis came just in time. Environmentalists were giddy, and the doomsayers had something new to ring their hands over. All the hype led to the famous Montreal Protocol in 1987, an international agreement restricting the production and use of ozone-depleting chemicals, mainly CFC's.


But eventually more rational thinking in NASA evidently began to surface, with the space agency having the bad manners to begin hedging its bets … reporting that the hole in the ozone layer was,

"As usual, once the cat was out of the bag, the experts and doomsayers quietly crawled back into the woodwork."

on average, more or less constant and predictable, varying with the seasons. But they continued to defensively assert that it was a new phenomenon, and caused by hydrogen fluoride released into the stratosphere through the use of man-made CFC's. Other scientists found it curious that the hole appeared over the South Pole, whereas most emissions of man-made gases occur in the Northern Hemisphere. Worse yet, other climatologists pointed out Antarctica's Mt. Erebus spews some 150,000 tons of hydrogen fluoride directly into the Antarctican stratosphere each year, whereas the breakdown of man-made gases world-wide would theoretically account for only about 2,500 tons at most.


And so, the multi-billion dollar direct and indirect cost imposed upon world economies by bureaucrats who became believers in bad science and who bowed to zealous environmentalism, amounts to nothing less than a silly, wildly impulsive intention to play God … to take control of a natural planetary phenomenon far beyond our poor powers to do anything about. As usual, once the cat was out of the bag, the experts and doomsayers quietly crawled back into the woodwork. Isn't it funny … we don't hear much about the ozone hole anymore.


"C-yo-tu" and Kyoto


But wait … there's an all-new crisis, and just in time.


It's Climate Change (a.k.a. "Global Warming"). There will be terrible droughts, wildly inclement and destructive weather, the glaciers will all melt, flooding coastal regions and destroying places like New York, Los Angeles, the Netherlands, and what not.


This "silly science" dates back to French mathematician Joseph Fourier who, about 185-years ago, was able to calculate that the planet's average temperature seemed to be slowly increasing. He thought the temperature rise was probably due to the earth's atmosphere trapping solar radiation and reflecting it back to the earth. About seventy years later, Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius theorized that this phenomenon was mainly the result of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and he coined the phrase "greenhouse gas." In the 1950's, English amateur scientist G..S. Callendar took an interest in the field, resurrecting the carbon dioxide theory and insisting that the greenhouse effect was dramatically impacting the atmosphere of the Earth. For his efforts, he won a place in science with global warming now being known in scientific circles as the Callendar Effect.


That really got the ball rolling. As average temperatures continued to slowly increase, other scientists got involved, and with new and improved high-tech instrumentation and hardware, they discovered lucrative new fields for research. As usual, this also came as good news to environmentalists and bureaucrats. It wasn't long before a coalition of scientists, environmentalists and bureaucrats decided that a United Nations Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) would be a great idea. That led to yet another big environmental powwow, and another international agreement similar to the Montreal Protocol, this time called the Kyoto Protocol.


After all the hubbub, it turns out that CO₂ is a relatively minor member of the greenhouse gas family. The big Kahuna … the elephant in the room, as it were … is H₂O. That's right; water vapor. The air is full of it, as any practical person knows. Greenhouse gases actually comprise only a small part of the atmosphere, and of this small part, over three-quarters is usually water vapor.

"Scientists who pay attention to history understand that global temperatures have fluctuated rather cyclically over the eons, and to much more extreme levels that what’s being worried about today."

It now appears that Fourier's original conjecture was wrong. Scientists who pay attention to history understand that global temperatures have fluctuated cyclically over the eons, and to much more extreme levels that what's being worried about today. It further appears that these fluctuations coincide perfectly with solar activity … sun spots, in other words. One explanation is that the earth is continually showered with cosmic rays which promote cloud formation through ionization of the atmosphere. This shower is modulated by the solar wind and is significantly attenuated during periods of intense solar activity, The result is fewer, and less dense clouds, which permits more of the sun's energy to reach Earth's surface, and hence periods of greater warmth. This theory is rabidly refuted, of course, and others suggest different ways to explain the relationship between solar activity and the Earth's temperature. But, regardless of the mechanism, these facts seem clear: (1) global temperatures have varied rather widely for as far back as researchers can measure (millions of years), and (2) the variations are cyclical and correspond rather precisely with the activity of the four primary solar cycles.


These should be facts enough for anyone with a little common sense to conclude that the current hysteria is the outgrowth of hype generated by bad science and science aficionados in the environmentalist community. Yet, here again we have governments around the world squandering the fruits of our labor … billions of tax dollars … in a senseless and futile effort to control Mother Nature. The situation spirals far beyond reason as researches begin to chase after those dollars, mindful of the reality that the spigot will likely be turned off if they fail to deliver what bureaucrats are paying for … evidence that corroborates their bad judgment.


What makes this particular saga pathetically ironic is the knowledge that, as far back as recorded history goes, human progress, in terms of intellectual and economic advancement … "Good Times," in other words … have coincided with epochs of increasing global temperatures. As a matter of fact, Callendar's attitude was positive, thinking that this slight warming process would be a good thing. So, not only is there no valid reason to fear these natural warming cycles, there is legitimate historic reason for the human race to look forward to them … much like those of us in the non-tropical latitudes greet springtime's dispatch of a long, cold winter!


Goodbye Warming - Hello Meltdown!

As luck would have it, something did indeed melt down, but it wasn't the polar ice caps. It was the worldwide economy. Thank goodness! Now we have a new reason to wring our hands and rent our garments … and just in time! This crisis should be good for at least another two years, and some say ten. Kiss climate change goodbye.


As usual, government is charging ahead, hell bent on pointing fingers and solving the wrong problems. The current economic flame-out is not really the result of banking and mortgage misbehavior, but rather the legacy wrought by the past several decades of government's micromanagement and misadventure. That has arisen from the silly philosophy that government is responsible for solving all our problems, and that any problem can be resolved by passing a law. In 1854, Abraham Lincoln ... then a lawyer in Springfield, Illinois ... wrote this:

"The legitimate object of government is to do for the people what needs to be done, but which they can not, by individual effort, do at all, or do so well, by themselves."

Perhaps the culprits have really been us. When I was a teenager in the 1950's, when bad things happened people often muttered, "There ought'a be a law!" Proving yet again the truism, "be careful what you wish for," we now have laws and government regulations for just about everything. Not only has that become very costly, it has destroyed American manufacturing, the only sector of our economy that actually creates value.


Lincoln also said ...

"I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts."

Indeed, like all the other crises mentioned above, the present economic "crisis" will pass ... not because of what the government does, but in spite of it.


Don't Worry - Be Happy!


This review of doomsdays that never came to pass should teach us to think for ourselves and respect our own common sense. Titles like "professional," "scientist," and phrases like "government report," do on lend information a godlike status of credibility. Human beings, regardless of educational or vocational achievement, always remain fallible, our works and utterances always subject to review and amendment. A knowledge of this is the beginning of wisdom.


The next time someone tries to worry you about the dire consequences of climate change, the economic melt-down, or whatever pseudo-crisis comes next, remember the tale of Chicken Little. The world is a complex place. Human minds are fallible and easily jump to conclusions based upon the evidence at hand. Beyond that point, they tend to interpret new evidence as needed to support what they already believe to be true. Thus is flawed thinking easily expanded and perpetuated


Human minds are also emotional machines. When you are criticised for not being a believer, remember the saga of The Emperor's New Clothes. Passions frequently overwhelm reason. Understanding this, and being capable of, and willing to, set facts apart from emotion, is the mark of emotional intelligence, and the hallmark of real leadership.


In the final analysis, all things do indeed seem to work together for good. Not only did none of these situations deliver the worst-case consequences projected, they rather quickly melted into history, with life going on, eventually bigger and better than ever before. History shows that over the long term, optimism is always appropriate.

Reunions and the Popcorn Years

I was never a fan of High School reunions. I was never sociable in my teenage years. As a strategy for staying away from home as much as possible, I worked all the time, and in jobs where I learned how to behave like an adult in order to interact successfully with adults. On returning to school each fall, I'd feel like a stranger in a foreign land. Coming back out of an adult world, I didn't share the usual teenage interests, so it was hard to relate to most of the other kids. They all seemed so ... childish. Their usual take on this was that I seemed so ... aloof. To me, other kids were mostly juvenile and boring; to them, I was a stuck up odd-ball. Hence, I made very few friends among my classmates - I thought.

What reason would there be for me to go to a class reunion?

This year was our 50th high school class reunion. I didn't participate. I had other obligations anyway, so that provided a convenient excuse. The real reason was the archaic feelings and perceptions left over from fifty years ago - all the awkward moments, the feelings of being different, of being on the outside looking in, of not really belonging or being accepted as part of the group. I never cared to revisit any of that. (More truthfully, I probably always feared that.)

But then, I got the bright idea of developing a class reunion website template and giving it away for free to promote a couple of my not-so-best-selling books. Part of that template was a "Remembrance" page. Building the prototype around my own high school class, I discovered that so far, forty-two of my former 270-some classmates have a spot on that page. Some I never knew, and others I barely knew.

But then there were the others.

I remembered Dawn, a flippant, flirty girl who often volunteered a teasing conversation with me in classes and hallways, in spite of my lowly place in the pecking order. Evidently, she saw something in me that I didn't know was there. I remember her as a fun person who frequently made me feel comfortable in that otherwise seemingly hostile environment.

Janice was a twin. I went all through school, beginning in the grades, with she and her look-alike sister. They were quiet. In the lower grades, when one became ill and vomited on her disk, so did the other. They were twins, after all.

Jim; good-looking and having an engaging way of always looking surprised and interested in what was going on. Peter, the son of some city fathers, and trying to carry on in that tradition. He married a girl I thought I was in love with in the Second Grade. Brent, the athlete, but crippled and doomed to never succeed in spite of credible athletic abilities. Then Perry; a rather strange and quiet boy who didn't seem to fit in - like me, maybe.

Then there was Albert, known as "Pug." I don't know why, except that his dad was also named Al. I knew him forever. As little boys we used to swap night-overs. His Dad took me to the first football game I'd ever seen. Sitting there on the side of the hill at Green Hill Field, I stupidly kept calling the guys in the black and white stripes "umpires." They thought that was funny. It turned out that I would know Al senior until the day he died. When we were operating our family manufacturing business, Pug's dad provided us with electrical maintenance supplies, and stopped by frequently. I think the last time I saw Pug was at my Dad's funeral. He was then called "Al."

Jane, William, Arlan - I really didn't know them at all. Dennis was almost a neighborhood kid, but lived just outside the boundaries of what we considered "our neighborhood," and inside the borders of a somewhat rougher territory. He seemed like a "boy's boy" who would grow up to be a "man's man." I think his parents were divorced, which was not a common thing then. Kids from "broken homes" were expected to be difficult. When I eventually got to know Denny a little better, I was surprised to discover that he was not all "tough kid." I liked him.

Sharon I was barely acquainted with; only knew her by name. Jerry stands out in my memory as an example of the perfect personality conflict. He and I somehow got along, although our ways of thinking about things were always different, and usually diametrically opposite. I don't know why, or why we got along in spite of that.

Jay; didn't know him. Always seemed like trouble, I don't know why. Then Bob - cripes! Bob is gone? I didn't know that. He was always a happy, highly personable type, as a kid and as an adult. I've passed him so many times in the past few years, usually at the Post Office, and that always left me with a good feeling - pleased that he'd recognize me with a smile and a greeting. After all, he was one of the "popular kids."

And on, and on, through Charles, my "smart kid" childhood playmate; Sig, who I really didn't know real well in high school, but who, years later, always somehow recognized me on the street, down to Durrell, another one who quietly slipped away; we often bumped into one another at the supermarket, and he'd always somewhat sheepishly say hello. He was like me; not one of the "popular kids."

These are all people whom I thought I didn't know - whom I thought I had little in common with. Going back through the forty-two pictures, I count twenty-one who were actually special to me in one way or another. Exactly half.

Somebody once wrote -

Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven … For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

I guess this is what he was talking about. These memories are indeed treasures - "golden" dividends of a person's investment in life. Opening this box to revisit one's treasures brings special feelings to the heart that somehow make life seem worth its trials and troubles after all. Meanwhile, if one does not dwell on the mud and lumps of coal, memories of unpleasant things inexorably sink deeper and deeper into the psyche, becoming ever more difficult to fetch back up.

What an ass I've been about class reunions!

Here's yet another example of the adage, "Ve get too soon olt, und too late schmardt!" Only now, at the twilight of my life, I've finally figured out what reunions are all about. I passed up fifty opportunities to polish some golden pieces of my life. Now many of those will have to remain as they are, perhaps somewhat tarnished with this new regret.

It took me a couple of days to put the Remembrance page together, using the class reunion's information, the SSDI (death index), and scanning portraits from the old high school yearbook. During that process, some very strong feelings about our human situation arose, bringing to mind from some corner of my memory the poignant truths of an old song written by Earl Wilson Jr:

We laugh, we cry, we live, we die;
And when we're gone, the world goes on.
We love, we hate, we learn too late;
How small we are, how little we know.

We hear, we touch, we talk too much,
Of things we have no knowledge of.
We see, we feel, yet can't conceal,
How small we are, how little we know.

See how the time moves swiftly by;
We don't know how, we don't know why.
We reach so high, and fall so low;
The more we learn, the less we know.

Too soon the time to go will come.
Too late the will to carry on.
And so we leave too much undone.
How small we are how little we know.

---

Then I got thinking about popcorn.

Somebody takes a handful of corn kernels and puts them into a bag. A little grease is added to facilitate the process, and a little flavoring, to improve the final product. This goes into the microwave for about four minutes. In a little while, there's a single pop, then a few moments later, another. During the first couple of minutes nothing much happens as that happy group of seeds turns round and round with the microwaves shining on them; just the occasional pop of the odd one, which for reasons unknown succumbs to the heat and pressure before all the rest. Then, in the third minute, all hell begins to break loose. Another pop, then another and another, popping in pairs, and finally an explosion of activity!

Then a few, a couple, a single pop or two - in four minutes, it's all over.

Classmates seem like a handful of humanity that, through happenstance, wind up in the same bag. We get a little upbringing and education in hopes of greasing our paths as we revel in the sunshine of life. Then there's the first pop. In our class that happened forty-eight years ago. A year after that came the second pop, then six years later yet another. Now, as my classmates and I are all pushing seventy, there are lots of pops. There will be lots of new pictures coming to my Remembrance page now; perhaps even my own.

In four score years, it'll be all over for us.

Is this aspect of life not like a bag of popcorn? Its duration is four score years, rather than four minutes, but its life story seems the same. I never could see why anyone would call these "The Golden Years."

I think "The Popcorn Years" is a caption more apt.

--=glw=-

Beauty is Wasted on the Young ...

... and wisdom is wasted on the old.

Here's the "before" picture. Compare it with the mug shot on the home page. Ain't it a shame?

What possible explanation can there be for nature's making us progressively less attractive as we grow older? (Yeah, I know ... keeps the gene pool fresh and vital.)

On the other hand, youth is a time of ignorance. While we're at our best physically, we're at our worst intellectually. What sense does that make?

Moreover, when we're at our best intellectually, we're at the least socially acceptable time in life ... "senior citizens," "in our golden years," and all that crap, which really means we get to be viewed as bumbling old farts who are totally irrelevant and just taking up space. Never mind that vocationally we're at the top of our game, and merely by virtue of our years of experience and hard knocks, wizened well beyond the younger generations. What sense does that make?

According to the demographics for "hi5," I'm much older (at 67) than almost everyone else on here, so I feel moved to share my wisdom with you all.

My message is that old age really suques. Thus far, I've yet to find anything good about it. Secondly, take warning – it happens much sooner than you expect. In just the blink of any eye, you'll be where I am ("If ever you should live so long.")

[-=glw=-]