Royal Wedding






Tongues are whispering across the land,
Will this work, can those two get along?
The ceremony and reception will be grand,
Vows and symphonies and songs to prolong…



Media have been beating the drums,
Whipping expectations into high pitch;
For this couple, nothing is humdrum,
Fine ceremony well attended by the rich.


Once the confetti has fallen from the skies,
And the adrenaline rush finally subsides;
The youthful couple will await baby cries,
And a multitude of new parental guises.
We will see if they do better than those before,
Or end up in the tabloids, which the Palace abhors.

-end

In honor of National Poetry Month, here is a Pantoum:

The Most Dedicated Monks



The monks of Mt. Athos in Greece are devoted,


Their whole lives focused on prayer and worship;

Ascetic ways and constant prayer promoted,

Eight-hour services every day are not a hardship.



Their whole lives focused on prayer and worship,

Surrounded by rare and ancient icons of saints;

Eight-hour services every day are not a hardship,

Difficult to join the monastery, not for the faint.



Surrounded by rare and ancient icons of saints,

Monks tend gardens, fish and serve meals;

Difficult to join the monastery, not for the faint,

Their purity of mission adds to their appeal.



Monks tend gardens, fish and serve meals,

An Ossuary holds all previous monks bones;

Their purity of mission adds to their appeal,

Once they join, it is their life and their home.



An Ossuary holds all previous monks bones,

These men need no ipads nor smartphones;

Once they join, it is their life and their home,

Joined with the Holy Spirit, they are never alone.



These men need no Ipads nor smartphones,

Ascetic ways and constant prayer are promoted;

Joined with the Holy Spirit, they are never alone,

The Monks of Mt. Athos, Greece, are highly devoted!

Earth Day 2011

     Here we are, 41 years later.   More populated than ever, using as much fuel as we ever did.  Well, maybe a slight dip after the price went above $3.00 a gallon.   Using up much of our corn for extra fuel, driving up the price of food as a result.  Importing oil from Canada, the Middle East, Africa and anywhere else it can be found.  Polluting the air with our SUV’s, Trucks, Crossovers and the like.  Have we learned anything?  Yes and no.

     We learned how to limit emissions on tailpipes, make more efficient engines and lighter car bodies.  We learned some tricks to get more oil out of old wells, like injecting steam into them.   We built many plants to make ethanol out of corn and other materials, to add to gasoline.  Various tricks and techniques have been added to increase or maintain our fuel supplies.

     But on the demand side, we haven’t done so well.   For some reason, a typical family today sees some kind of SUV as a birthright.    People cannot seem to wrap their heads around the concept of less is better.    So lightweight materials and efficient engines go into making bigger vehicles, and our net savings is still zero.

     I wish I had an answer to the insatiable human ego .   But there seems to be none.  So a suggestion might be to make many more vehicles all electric, and implement charging stations far and wide.  This way, at least some of our energy used for driving can be derived from renewable sources of electricity  (solar, wind, biomass, etc).   The government needs to take a strong role in this – people will not do it on their own in sufficient numbers.  This has been shown repeatedly – look at the sales figures for trucks and SUV’s, year after year.     If the government would Mandate a certain percentage of electric cars year after year, force it, we might get somewhere.    But there are too many leaders in Congress with their heads in the sand, that think we are sitting on an inexhaustible supply of oil, that it will last forever.  It is not so, and we must face facts, or be run over by our own foolishness.

     Anyway, as I type this,  the price of unleaded gas is around $3.69/gal for 10% unleaded, and heading to 4 by the summer.   Some people are talking about 5 or 6.00/gal gas, and they are probably right.  Because we keep having babies, and wanting the best for each and every one, and using up everything in sight.   Perhaps understandable, but NOT sustainable.    Something has to give.  Happy Earth Day, and see you out on the road!

Acceptance

We are what we are,
The die has been cast,
The mold has been shattered.

No matter what anyone else does,
Whatever anyone says or thinks;
You compete with only one person:
Yourself...

Strive to improve each day,
compared to your own yesterdays. 
There will always be greater and lesser,
Only your own internal benchmark matters.

Accept the vagaries of circumstance,
The cruelties and kindnesses of others,
Most of all accept yourself, love yourself,
Accept your uniqueness as a gift, and go on.

-end
 

April Chill (in Iowa)

The Radish seedlings flourish,

Pea shoots poke aboveground;

Sun rises earlier to help nourish,

Birds’ cacophony fills air all around.

Trees sprouting leaves aplenty by April,

Lilac shrubs catch up with early flowers;

Tulips, narcissus and crocus all in a jumble,

Tender sprouts occasionally sprinkled by showers.

Suddenly  clouds roll in, the temps drop fast,

Chill rains turn to snow in some places;

Five inches of winter fall on startled grass,

Icy sludge slows I-35 commuter paces.

Delicate early blooms shrivel and turn brown,

Springs promise changed into a withered mound.

-end

Electric bicycle

The other day I rode my electrified bicycle,

Braved cool winds and long trains alike.

Ate a ton of food at the Chinese place;

Then I returned home heavy and happy.

My friend had a seizure,

He was traumatized, hospitalized;

We finally talked and exchanged news –

He was interested to hear of the electric bike…

Well taken care of, and eating lots of food,

He feels guilty for eating so much.

Said he was envious of my electric bike,

I knew he meant the freedom to ride it.

Someday I will take it over to him,

Maybe he can try sitting on it,

Perhaps even riding it some.

His envy and my guilt assuaged.

One week,

One seizure,

One hospitalization,

One long E-bike ride.

Boredom has no home here.

Cisco is going to sell it's Flip camera division, according to the news.  No big deal, right - just another company getting rid of an unprofitable division.  But wait.

  It was profitable - there was a growth of somehwere around 15% over last year.  Fifteen percent growth would be more than adequate for many companies, it seems to me. 


     But not to Cisco, apparently.  They are closing down the division, and laying off 550 people.  All because the growth is donw to fifteen percent annually. 

     If every company operated like this, waiting for growth rates of better than 15% annually to invest in their workers, then No one would ever get hired.   I just wish that some of these companies would show just a sliver, a smidgen of social sensibility, and retain some of their workers.  Why are they in so much of a rush to drag us all into hopeless depression?   It is beyond ridiculous.  Nothing makes sense anymore. 

Shifting Personalities

Sometimes I am the wizened gardener.  Sinking my hands into dirt and growth, I lose myself and transform spaces into high-yield patterns.  

Sometimes I am the clown, buffoon, silly person as I play at work, lightening my load with levity and humor.  

Sometimes I am the clever accountant, who was able to log onto a new bank account and transfer funds.

Sometimes the jet fighter pilot, maneuvering his car through afternoon trafic and wondering why the "fire" button on the steering wheel won't work...

Sometimes the Libertine seducer, working meager plans down at the neighborhood nightclub...

Worldly wise in the morning, Frazzled by noon, silly in the afternoon, tired old man by early evening - toiling wordsmith at night, fuelled by coffee and B12.   Every weekday repeats.  weekends promise change but just deliver more Mondays.


How many people are inside me?  It's too hard to count when THEY are in control  :-)   
But at least it isn't dull, even if it is routine.  Have a Wonderful Day.

Farewell, Elizabeth

The queen of American film drama has made her last exit.  Her stormy relationships, her heartfelt causes, her lingering beauty - even her top-selling perfume all made a major impression on our lives.  She will be missed, but not easily forgotten.  


A link of interest:   http://authspot.com/short-stories/two-lives-2/

Happy reading, all.

Potential bombs

     The nuclear disaster unfolding in Japan right now is a real wake-up call.  There are 104 operating nuclear plants in the U.S. today.  If any one of them had a similar loss of power, and catastrophic build-up of heat the way the Japanese reactors did, the results would be terrible.   Especially the 23 that are of similar internal design.    We should seriously rethink our commitment to building yet more of these plants.

     One in particular, the Pilgrim station in Plymouth, Mass, has had many documented problems, including the release of radioactive Tritium into the groundwater!  This plant has been in license limbo since 2006, and has been dogged by problems.  Public statements by the operating companies always seem to assure the utmost safety – and then something like the Japanese Earthquake/tsunami occurs, and the ugly truth emerges.

     It is high time that we own up to the fact that nature will throw us disasters when we  least expect, that human error occurs, and that these large nuclear installations are all potential bombs that could cause massive injury and death if an accident occurs.    Sure, safeguards have been built into the plants, including the concrete containment towers.  But a large earthquake can still make short work of even a mountainous structure.  A few good shakes of the Earth, and all is naught!

     Some Internet research reveals the costs involved.  A new nuclear power plant, like some twin reactors being constructed in China, can run in the neighborhood of five billion dollars.  This includes site planning, construction, financing, licensing and the like.  Enormous capital costs, and relatively low fuel costs.     High initial costs, many years of construction, and onerous safety requirements and procedures.  All for a lousy 1,500 MW of electricity.    (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/economics_of_new_nuclear_power_plants)

     Wind Turbines similarly require a high capital outlay – around 3.5  million for a new 2 MW turbine. 

(www.windustry.org/how-much-do-wind-turbines-cost) .  But these can be erected faster, and interconnected.  The energy cost is free as the wind, since it is the wind.   Building an interconnecting grid adds to the cost.  But the safety hazards seem limited to avoiding the spinning blades!   A convenient storage method for this energy is still lacking.  But it is my strong belief we should commit research dollars to working to solve this issue, rather than building more last-century technology nuclear power plants.

     Nature holds one possible answer.   Living processes that occur, like those within plant cells, are decentralized.  Every plant produces its own energy.   If we humans could imitate nature’s design, we might decentralize our energy production down to the level of, say, a city block.   Small solar/wind combination towers could produce lots of power, and store some of it in battery banks located right next to the towers. ( A turbine would spin at the top, and the tower could also be draped with thin-film solar cells to generate additional power.)  This way, if one or a few were destroyed, the others might all contribute a small portion of their excess to the grid, and make up for the loss.  A fallen tower or damaged solar panels would not emit hazardous radiation that would threaten life for years and years. 

     There are a few problems with this idea.  Battery banks would need maintenance, and could be hazardous in cases of earthquake or tornadoes.    Building thousands of these towers would be expensive.  But the relatively passive energy collection performed by a facility like a “power tower” seems safe and easy by comparison to a typical nuclear plant. 

     In any case, the ongoing tragedy in the reactors at Fukushima Dai-ichi is a real jolt.  More earthquakes will happen; it is only a case of when.   Fifteen more countries want to build nuclear reactors.   Statistically this seems like a guarantee of more disasters in the making.   Surely we can do better than this?  We are a technologically advanced society.  We build spacecraft that leave the Solar System, we build computers that store trillions of bits of data, fiber optic networks that span the globe, and so on.    We should be able to come up with safer ways to generate the electrical power we need to continue our lifestyles.   The alternative is more disasters, more loss of life, more irradiation of the air and water we all need to survive.    This is unacceptable.   Thanks for reading.