Drought No More

 

Dry grass punctuated with long cracks,

withered snapdragons struggle to bloom;

Hibiscus barely withstands beetle attacks,

Thirsty Cannas with curled leaves still bloom.

This drought has gone on for long enough,

even the weeds are beginning to droop.

Normally tough when conditions get rough,

the raspberries and day-lillies look like poop.

Our nearby river was swollen for years,

even last spring swamped over its banks;

Now it is a trickle, stoking drought fears,

Beachcombers have mother nature to thank.

Until this week when a big system sweeps in,

many inches of rain will water parched lawns.

The river will fill and swell once again,

Fish and feeders given new room to roam.

Never underestimate the chance of sudden change,

Nature keeps us off balance, acting mighty strange.

Some Musings on Energy

 

Energy is the inherent capacity to do work;

it is stored and used in a variety of forms,

assortment of values not any quirk,

Joules, Watts, Volts, Amperes will perform.

Much energy is expended at work by

service employees doing their jobs;

calories converted by the cleaning guy,

serving, constructing or teasing out a bob.

Crystals are minerals that resonate,

apply a current and they vibrate.

They keep time and help coordinate,

improved electronics we appreciate.

 Crystal atomic symmetry reflects

four fundamental forces that occupy

our universe – electrons genuflect

as nucleic forces tug and amplify.

 Everything is connected to everything else,

squeeze a crystal and out comes a current,

shock a crystal and presto, it shakes itself;

One force brings the other, the same in reverse.

 In the many Star Trek shows and movies,

they control vast forces with casual ease;

Beaming around, Kirk finds women easy to please;

Warp Drive moves the Enterprise instantaneously.

And that blinded us to the reality that actual

space exploration is quite tough on humans...

Hard on bodies and minds, if one is factual;

it takes a lot of money to execute space plans.

The secret is in energy, power, motive force,

things that glow, burn and scatter obstacles like ashes.

Better materials to contain it, more power to make it,

greater understanding to know what it even is. Or is not.

We first made artificial diamonds in an anvil of

heat and pressure, finally, after 100 years of trying.

Now we are trying to fuse hydrogen into helium atoms,

and get free energy, like we got free diamonds in the 1950s.

Can we tease out a new force and utilize, modify, control it?

(That “free” gets more and more costly with every iteration.)

We have learned about the quarks that comprise neutrons

and protons inside an atom: how to smash and separate them,

observe and measure them and their energy outputs. Thus

gradually accumulating knowledge that can jolt our history.

Meanwhile we drive around in horseless carriages,

propelled by internal explosions driving pistons,

gears, shafts and wheels. They spit out a lot of pollution;

When Musk dangled Tesla’s in front of us, we couldn’t resist.

He wasn’t the first, of course, not by a century or so.

But Tesla made electric cars sexy, powerful and long-lasting.

And look at us electrify our fleets now – wow.

Why should we have to crack dinosaur goop, when all we need do

is generate streams of electrons in any number of ways instead?

Energy surrounds us and suffuses us.

Radio waves permeate our walls and our beings

to link our phones, inform and entertain us.

Our brains are the most powerful bio-computers known.

We are energy manifested as physical matter. But

in the end matter and energy are linked together tight.

It just doesn’t seem that way to our animal senses.

Just as we once sailed on ships in uncertain seas,

or drove ICE vehicles on bumpy, wavy roads, so

in the future we will float on waves of pure energy.

Pure to our present way of seeing things, perhaps

bumpy with particles not quite microscopic enough.

Even now we peer into distant galactic pasts with

telescopes that gather ancient light photons, and

register differences, anomalies, similarities, color shifts.

Larger and larger mirrors peer back billions of years,

revealing birth chambers of galaxies, of our universe.

When humans finally evolve into something more,

as we have slowly been doing over the centuries,

perhaps we will acquire a more direct method of

touching and manipulating energies both small and large.

Until that day comes, we are left with using our five

digits, opposable thumbs and all, to build solutions.

Wind turbines, solar panels, geothermal pumps,

even biomass and hydroelectric stations.

We just gotta have that juice to keep everything running:

Any given tornado, hurricane or Derecho reminds us,

with every downed power line and darkened home.

More and more, energy rules our lives.

No longer indirectly, physically, but now

more directly – through power to drive our

computers, cars, homes, and cell phones.

Just wondering when the day will come,

when we humans can “uplift” and become direct

energy beings, just flitting about without any

artificial aids or assistances.

I’m sure that we will still find something to complain about.

In the meantime, my atoms say “Namaste” to your atoms -

peace always.

 

Can we survive all of this

 

     It was so good to get the electricity back, after the recent Derecho storm blew through Iowa. The 130-MPH winds flattened crops, damaged trees and houses, and disrupted life in general, especially in Eastern Iowa. And this happened in the middle of a worldwide Pandemic, not too long after massive protest marches and rioting. Political upheaval continues, with corruption scandals at the top. Our economy is teetering along, trying to keep on in the midst of employment swings and mass closings. I think back to previous bad times in our country and the world, and figure this time ranks right up there. Some of our technology is as advanced as it ever has been, but people are still suffering with sickness, or unemployment, or other misfortunes.

     Parents in the future will probably be telling their kids about the awful year of 2020. I look forward to that time, because it means this crazy, terrible year is over with. What a year! Here is hoping that we can get back to some semblance of sanity in the years ahead. The present political struggles, along with the summer’s protest waves, remind me that a democracy is never static, or set in stone. Rather, we are always in a state of struggle between opposing forces. We are always in flux. And thus there exists always a certain anxiety, unless I am sensible enough to turn off or ignore the news. Sure, one should participate and not bury their head in the sand. But there is only so much anxiety one can stand. Will sure be glad to get election year behind us. Hang in there, everyone – it is one mad, mad, insane world.

That Pesky Newcomb-Benford Law

 

One is the digit that opens the door,

If you like it, you can try for more;

Two or three are less important,

but at times still quite significant.

The rest trail along like a tail on the dog,

with poor number nine bringing up the rear;

We wonder why all numbers have a curve,

instead of a flat equality of eleven percent.

Perhaps there is a yet-to be discovered

number method with a line instead of a curve…

Something to keep binary processors busy

for years, decades, or much of eternity...

Mathematics was never my strongest subject,

and that Benford Law just adds to the befuddlement!

Consuming ever outwards

      A vision of the far future might include humanity living on colonies on various moons, as well as in solar-orbiting habitats. These human colonies will need raw materials, including water, metals, and stock minerals and materials for soil to grow crops. Materials for various manufacturing needs, especially for fabricating large structures, will be needed. Asteroids rich in certain materials will likely become rare and precious, as more and more are sought out and used up.

It is not so hard to visualize a time when humanity must search ever outward, to the edges of the Solar system and beyond, in the ceaseless hunt for more raw materials to support human habitation. While the Kiuper belt will keep us busy for quite a while, it could conceivably become exhausted of certain ores and such in high demand – especially water ice.

Looking further in the future, it is not such a stretch that humanity will head ever farther out in search of raw materials. Perhaps all the way to neighboring star systems. And just perhaps, humanity is not alone in such a need for raw materials. Other civilizations might experience similar needs!

So if large moons or objects begin disappearing at the edge of our own Solar System, we may have an explanation of why. Every intelligent civilization/race needs room to grow, and raw materials to eat and consume.

I just hope we get out there first, before THEY do.

Xenophobia or Truth, you decide

The Chinese are going to Mars,

with help from a few other countries.

New territory to set up factories, perhaps;

plenty of virgin manufacturing space.

A new superpower is rising out of the dust

of "collective mao-ism" and five-year plans.

Capitalist institutions are being ruled

by communist committees.

And it seems to be working.

Could we have anticipated this monster?

After all, we helped create it!

Now we must find a way to make

simple items cheaply in the USA again:

Supply chains that start and end here at home.

With all that talk of robotics and 3-D

printers and automation, we are still

eating Chinese dust nowadays.

Everyone looks at everyone else,

wonders what the heck happened?

Someone sold someone else the rope

to hang themselves with.

I think Mao said something like that, once.

Last Tuesday's Weather Event

A super radar tracks wind velocity;

Some blow east and show angry red.

Others blow west and display green.

Lots of rain falls – up to 7 inches an hour.

Severe weather update captivates me tonight.

The altitude, wind-speed, shear, hail size;

data flows like rainwater from the TV screen.

They zoom in and zoom out, you can see it all.

Watches go in and out as the storm center moves,

cold front keeps storm chances low, and

gives us all a break from the heat.

The sirens wail to keep pace with it all,

it soon seems safer even though it is raining still.

Minutes crawl ahead with continuous updates,

and soon the rain tapers off, the angry red mass

moves eastward, slow and massive, inexorable.

A pink dusk gleams through, letting us know it

is finally over with – for tonight anyway.

More rain is forecast tomorrow. A lot more.

(August 10th was the Derecho - that Cat 3 land hurricane.)

(photo credit - Dave Wolz)

Iowa Space Program

     How about if we create a cross-institutional entity, the Iowa Space program. This would fund and increase materials science work at our universities, with a focus on using advanced composite panels and materials for construction of Moon bases. These materials could be built right here in Iowa, employing Iowans in high-paying permanent jobs. Other research could aid in communications between the Moon presences and Earth, and food science to help feed occupants of the Moon with viable sources of protein. 

      Starting with plants and perhaps fish products, some eventual animal proteins could be made available, perhaps via artificial protein culturing, and then subsequent meat flavoring and so forth. Iowa excels in food and veterinary sciences, as well as engineering. We could contribute our expertise to the Moon-Mars program, and also generate high-paying local jobs. The ISP could eventually be renamed and incorporated. A public-private entity, it might eventually spin off private companies – but mainly get Iowa full-on into space industrial development, to the benefit of NASA and the state of Iowa both.

     We are all dealing with the Covid-19 emergency as I write this, and it will take some time to contain this pandemic. Perhaps every scientific resource needs to be tasked to get on top of this epidemic. But someday we will get this behind us, and gain the upper hand. When when we do, we will be seriously working on going back to the Moon to stay. In fact, work continues along these lines despite the pandemic – NASA must look to the future. And at that time, Iowa would do well to get up front about offering our knowledge and resources to help in this effort, and help ourselves at the same time. Thanks for reading.

Links:

https://physics.uiowa.edu/research/space-physics U of Iowa space physics.

https://www.mse.iastate.edu/ Iowa State materials Science labs.

https://fshn.hs.iastate.edu/ Food sciences – Iowa State U.

Go Iowa

Summer Musings

No art festival this year,

no outdoor concerts, parties, soiree’s.

Bars are barely open, then close again…

Covid recedes, then spikes with ferocity.

This is going to be one miserable year,

and there is no guarantee about the next either.

People can only stand so much time isolated,

reclused with only a computer or phone.

Yet somehow humanity survived this before,

in 1919, and in earlier times too.

We emerged with better hygiene and medicine.

Perhaps this will happen once again.

It is just getting through it,

the long rough road intervening.

We sense that we will come through this,

just how much collateral damage will there be?

Time will tell,

we go through hell;

at the other end

everything will be swell.

Messiah Confabulations

When that stranger whispers in our ear,

promising to vanish all our doubt and fear,

how do we determine what is real,

what thought returned that he did steal?

Many magicians can read us, dazzle our minds

with some obvious facts read between the lines.

Suddenly we submit and yield to a new Him,

thinking all our concerns will but grow dim.

A new solution can arise to gullibility,

So obvious it escapes us in entirety.

There’s no supernatural beings out there,

no magical gods to ease all of our cares.

Just us humans, recently down from the trees,

stalking the Serengeti for a meal in the weeds.

Like always we have to make our own paradises,

whether in barren desert lands or ocean cliffsides.

Now together we have created vast cities,

lofted space telescopes to view distant entities.

Nothing can stop our determined human tribe

from visiting the stars, except maybe genocide.

If you have nothing to do

Come on over and let’s snuggle up together,

we can warm winter blues out of our bones.

Chat about nothing, catch up on everything.

Better to have company on this gloomy day.

If you are not busy, otherwise occupied,

why not join me, take a break from society?

We can sooth each others pain, ease the worries;

life’s path goes easier with a close companion.

But then again we all have plans laid in

long before, the way people must these days.

So perhaps you will chose not to, and

I will have to be satisfied with your memory.

There are other people, events, goings-on

that will satisfy most of my remaining longings.

But that little crevice, the nook labeled “you”

will just have to sit empty, and I’ll do my best

to overlook that tender gap

left in a small part of my being.

Hot Summer Days

The sun is hot in June,

a good day to seek out the water.

Cool rivers enrapture and sooth,

civil strife and pandemics won’t matter…

Shuck street clothes and anxieties,

cast off inhibitions and wade right in.

Splash and giggle and caper around,

feel joys buried for too many years.

Angry crowds bust out windows,

loot stores and smash out doors.

Teargas and rubber bullets are fired,

Screams of rage and panic combine.

“I Can’t Breathe! Black Lives Matter!”

Refrain echoes and reverberates around

an entire nation – racism no longer supine.

Needles of shame penetrate far and wide.

But today is a day to forget,

time to escape it all to a hidden river,

shucking the shame and feeling renewal.

Today the water, wind and warmth,

Tomorrow, the weight of the world.

Good luck to us all.

Two plus two equals five

What if you could invent your own math?

1+1=0; 2+2=5; and etc, and etc.

Who is to say your results do not matter as much?

What if some odd new math could determine

physical results, maybe bring about new forces to use.

1+1=0; 2+2=5; 3x3=19 and presto: Antigravity!

But there is still causal effect.

Thing A still causes Thing B;

Stones still fall down

when dropped, and water still splashes – downward.

We perceive what happens, but it does not change -

even if we really wish it to.

We can imagine it to change,

water to splash upward, stones to rise;

But others must also see what we see.

If we were a good enough hypnotist,

convince the world that black is white,

2+2=5, then it would indeed be so.

We could dine on our pink elephants and

coal dust souffle, and be completely satisfied.

But some alien from outer space would stop by,

and still see us eating crackers and soup,

think to each other:

‘Those odd humans, how can they live on such things?’

The physical world never changes,

but us wet computing units do – often.

We see a world, label it, interact with it...

Hopefully we do not destroy our

blue ark completely, be set adrift like

cold dead bones in an unforgiving universe.

Here’s two ya, fivers out there.

Have a great life.

Guard Inner Space Too

They are getting ready to launch two US astronauts from American soil again – the first time since 2011. After nearly a decade of relying on the Russians for a ride into space, the US will finally be able to send their own into orbit. Meanwhile, the country is gradually opening up, even as unemployment reaches new record levels. Locally, we make plans, do our shopping as best as we can, and play with our electronic devices. And work with them, and do pretty much everything remotely.

Since here we sit, right in the middle of a worldwide Pandemic.

Seems to me some experts are almost gleeful, since they have been sounding warnings for years. Ebola, Sars, the Zika virus all were supposed to be so bad – and they didn’t seem to materialize over here in the US. Not so the Coronavirus. That went from being a joke, oft-repeated meme on social networks, to a major crisis. Nursing homes and meatpacking plants were and are being decimated.

Hundreds are testing positive here in Iowa, and dozens are losing their lives every day to this. Even though the country is opening back up, there are still dozens of people dying every day. It is as if we didn’t want to acknowledge the reality, but instead turn back the clock to 2019. The virus does not care, it just keeps on doing what it does best – hitching a ride on humans, and then killing them. Wish that it was like Sars, or Zika – someone else s problem. Covid-19 is the whole world’s problem, and will be for the foreseeable future. May not be a case for glee, but perhaps a belated admittance that we let our guard down regarding microbial threats. With the Internet and our devices cocooning and soothing us all the time, who knew that some tiny damned virus would up-end our world so fast?

Now I hear that 100 separate teams around the world are working on a vaccine of one kind or another. No doubt they will find one that works, and can prevent infection, or rather serious illness. Sure hope so. Society in late May, of 2020 has become a grim, masked, fearful place. People are so ready for pandemic paranoia to end – so much so that many are flocking outside again, ignoring social distancing, gathering in bars and other places. They risk killing many more, as that virus just hitches a ride and keeps on spreading. We need patience and persistence more than anything else right now. We will beat it, we will find a solution. Just need to be patient and not throw caution to the winds.

I exist, therefore I can

A tiny thing, just 0.06 Earth’s mass.

Hot and eccentric,

like a fiery lover on a roll.

Water would boil off the surface

facing the sun, but deep-freeze on the backside.

Like a zit on the Sun it appears, then

transits the throbbing star, a tiny black orb.

Why is it still there?

The Sun cannot seem to pull it in, or

at least yank something else to impact it.

So there it orbits in high elliptical fashion.

People probably will not want to visit there,

unless perhaps some adventurous types go,

a thousand years from now,

on some jaunt or vacation lark.

Perhaps it exists just to say,

“look what is possible,

an insignificant little speck can survive,

in the face of an immense gravity well,

burning incredibly hot,

just a stone’s throw away.

If Mercury can put up with all that,

and stay the course,

keep on keeping on,

then just think what we can do

in our insignificant little lives?

Anything is possible,

says Mercury – just look at moi.

Painted Lady

A fiery temptress she is,

swirling with passionate streaks.

Heat and pressure at the surface

eats human spacecraft for breakfast.

At least one managed a few photos,

of a barren and uncertain landscape.

So much study has been accomplished from afar;

Temperatures and pressures at higher altitudes

would support more life forms.

That will be the target of the next probes.

Will she allow this new violation of her privacy?

Similar in size to Earth,

she is yet so different that our home.

Her uniqueness is novel and alluring;

we humans are bound to keep trying

to pierce her veil of mystery,

endure her harshness to attain

some amazing reward –

payback for decades of wooing.

Sure hope she is worth all the struggle!

These neighbor worlds to Earth seem

more trouble than they are worth.

Perhaps the ultimate reward lies elsewhere,

in the asteroid belt or even the Kuiper belt.

Time (and much effort) will tell.

Venus, meanwhile, still sings her siren song.

Ceres and Vesta (virgin real estate)

Twin glimmers in a telescope,

they twinkle a mystery at us:

‘What are we? What are we made of?’

So people just have to take a look.

A few hundred million later,

the DAWN mission orbits and scans one,

then fires up an ion engine to

head over to the other, and orbit that -

for years.

Data and images sent back to Earth show

a round, crater filled ball, typical at first.

Then one shows off a white glare –

What is that? Water ice? Carbon Dioxide?

Many photos are taken, and suppositions made.

A salt deposit, it is theorized.

Impossible to be sure.

To some, it is more proof of

an alien presence –

see, that is their base!

As in most other instances,

the only way to know for sure

is to send people to have a look.

Like always, the refrain sounds:

“Maybe someday, maybe someday.”

Meanwhile many other worlds entice

with just enough details to lure us out.

At least the DAWN mission took Ceres

seriously, and rewarded us with information.

War God

God of War,

symbol of action,

passion, activity, allure.

Promising so much,

delivering a bitter chill.

Irradiated, carved, scoured,

desiccated, dried, exhumed,

exhausted.

Lures innocent Earth-dwellers

so far, for so long, and for what?

To disappoint with what it really is:

Barren, dry, destitute.

“Want to live here?

You will have to bring everything,

and live underground like rodents.

Is it worth it to you?

Honestly?”

“Just orbit and run some robots around

my skin.

Cheaper,

safer,

and just as informative.”

“Save the rest of those tax dollars

for where they are really needed.

To clean up your mess at home.”

“Tidy up your own backyard,

before you clutter up mine.”

Mars has spoken,

better obey that God of War,

lest it get angry or something.

Irritating Presence

How irritable old man Moon must be,

since all he wanted to do was cruise

around the Earth and mind his own.

Not anymore, no way.

Pinpricked and prodded by lots of probes,

scraped and sampled and irradiated too.

No peace any more since human gnats

began to gnaw at his innards and outtards.

Poor old Mr Moon will never be the same,

with colonies and outposts dotting his surface

like so much human acne.

Too bad he doesn’t have arms to deal with it all.

However there are a lot of micrometeors

that impact the surface. Hmmmm.

Maybe if “he” threw up a bunch of rocky debris…

Perhaps it is time for some volcanic action to erupt?

Watch out, humans – the old man may be about to get even!

Of Geese and Humans

Mother goose kept a wary eye on me,

as her goslings waddled around nearby.

I passed and snapped a photo,

she stretched her neck,

and flapped her lips,

on “yellow alert” to the intruder;

I headed on down the trail.

A human boy was fishing along the bank of the lake.

His father, too, eyed me a bit warily, pivoted some,

darted glances my way just in case.

Also on “yellow alert” as a stranger walked

past his progeny.

Just in case.

But he said some nonchalant, vaguely insulting

remark, like ‘it’s just some vagrant.

Nothing to worry about -

I’ll keep you safe.’

Mother Goose was probably honking much the same thing...

Of course I knew in my heart,

I was no threat to goose or human.

I got what I was after,

snapshots of some wildflowers,

taken along a tiny lake in eastern

Polk county on a luscious day in May.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVJdRKmMPE4