Morning After the Storm

I suppose it's on to Blackberry Winter after this...

The Sunday Reader

From the book within Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World":

Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them. The Party intellectual knows in which direction his memories must be altered; he therefore knows that he is playing tricks with reality; but by the exercise of doublethink he also satisfies himself that reality is not violated. The process has to be conscious, or it would not be carried out with sufficient precision, but it also has to be unconscious, or it would bring with it a feeling of falsity and hence of guilt. Doublethink lies at the very heart of Ingsoc, since the essential act of the Party is to use conscious deception while retaining the firmness of purpose that goes with complete honesty. To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies -- all this is indispensably necessary. Even in using the word doublethink it is necessary to exercise doublethink. For by using the word one admits that one is tampering with reality; by a fresh act of doublethink one erases this knowledge; and so on indefinitely, with the lie always one leap ahead of the truth. Ultimately it is by means of doublethink that the Party has been able -- and may, for all we know, continue to be able for thousands of years -- to arrest the course of history.

And from the chapter on war...

The primary aim of modern warfare (in accordance with the principles of doublethink, this aim is simultaneously recognized and not recognized by the directing brains of the Inner Party) is to use up the products of the machine without raising the general standard of living.

Aldous Huxley wrote Brave New World in 1931. It is frighteningly analogous to today's events in the context where a Bush administration official stated that torture works because they saw it on the TV show, 24.

If you haven't read the book I have a present for you. Take it in pieces.

View from the Top

We've been working on the trails in Whites Creek Gorge and now have a rough in all the way to the rock overlook. The hill on the right is in Rhea County and is the backside of Walden Ridge as seen from Roane County. 

I guess this could also count as a bird blogging shot since it's looking down at a turkey vulture. Several of them flew right up to me as I sat on the rock. They were close enough that I could see their eyes but my little hiking camera couldn't make the shot work. More shots along the trail later. 

This bud's for you...a creekside azalea is about to bloom. There's still time for you to come out and take a walk with us.

This rock lies under the pedestal. We think it looks like a fossil of a dinosaur skull. 

This crossvine has climbed 50 feet up the rock wall of the cliff just to reach the sunlight so it could bloom. I have to admire its spirit. This picture is an act of danger by the photog, just so's you know.

We'll be hiking this trail often with friends.

Earth Day

Why I am an environmentalist...

I see two futures and I don't want the one that comes to pass to be this one...

So to rewrite Saint Marley just a bit...

Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery;
None but ourselves can free our minds.
Have no fear for alternative energy,
'Cause all of them can save our time.

How long shall they kill our prophets,
While we stand aside and look? Ooh!
Some say it's just a part of it:
We've got to fulfil de book.


Won't you help to sing
These songs of freedom? -
'Cause all I ever have:
Redemption songs;

Go outside and enjoy what there is of our natural earth. I really do believe that we could live well on this planet without destroying it and ourselves. So as we are assailed this 40th Earth Day with the paid for words of the deniers who serve those who profit from destruction, let us take heart in a few more words from saint Bob.... 

Let them all pass all their dirty remarks (One Love)
There is one question I'd really like to ask (One Heart)
Is there a place for the hopeless sinner
Who has hurt all mankind just to save his own?

Let's get together to fight this Holy Armageddon (One Love)
So when the Man comes there will be no no doom (One Song)

PEACE AND LOVE, YALL!

Steve

Red Shouldered Hawks

The nesting pair cross the gorge from our house are back at it. I don't have a lens long enough to get a decent picture so you'll have to go here to see what they look like and read up on them. The male was sitting at the very top of  pine tree all fluffed out this morning. He looked like a big ball of rufous feathers until I got out the larger binoculars. The fun part will be when the young fledge in a few weeks. I hope we can be here when the fun starts.

Check out the best pictures of a Red Shouldered Hawk ever!

Spring on the Creek

Last year's babies are this year's acrobats in the air above Whites Creek. We have two sets of eagle twins still hanging around while Mom and Dad care for the current crop of nestling(s?). The leaves have come out and we can't see into the nest any more. We'll have to wait until they fledge or I get the rim trail completed to the west overlook. At the rate I'm going right now this year's crop of eaglets will be making their own nests before I get it done. I have roughed in the Pedestal Rock trail to link up to the rock house and then around to the big overlook. I promise pictures later this week.

For now here are some more warning signs of Spring...
This red salamander got dug up Saturday morning when we were planting tulips. His chin color only has a hint of black so I assume he's fairly young and his stomach spots were the Whites Creek red color instead of the black ones typical of the species.

This Tiger Swallowtail appreciates this flame azalea just as much as I do. These are spectacular native plants. 

Ah Spring!

Hard Work

Gardening is hard. Hard work, I tell you. Plants have been in the ground since yesterday and I still don't have any tomatoes.

We decided to guarantee that we have another frost by putting about half our seedlings out three weeks early.  We'll see if we get homegrown tomatoes any sooner this way. Everything was late last year, but we're counting on global warming to be good to the garden this time.

Cheers!

I guess it's no secret that I love water. This little cascade was just the right flow to keep me staring into it and getting lost.

Closer...

RARE

RARE is a new photo book by Joel Sartore. Some of the photos were taken at Conservation Fisheries.


RARE from Joel Sartore on Vimeo.

Easter Turkey

A beautiful 20+  pound gobbler goes into the freezer. Wild turkeys might be the most beautiful ugly thing I know of. They certainly taste better than those store bought things.

Pedestal Rock

We've been working on our trails around the gorge. We cleared the route from the waterfall on Ford Branch up to what we call "Pedestal Rock". This is from the west side as the trail approaches it.

This is looking back at it from the east. The pedestal holds up a massive rock that has cracked away from the sandstone cliff. I tell myself not to walk under it every time I go there but I always do.

This is standing under the tabletop looking up at the crack. It's a massive chunk of sandstone supported by a crumbling pillar of a sedimentary pile of rocks that looks like it could go at any time.

The micro habitat on the rock faces support an interesting group of plants that I don't see other places. The cliff just above this is the last pitch to the Plateau and has a wonderful colony round leaf catch fly, a carnivorous plant related to Fire Pink.  

This is an old shot of the pedestal and the cliff above it taken from the far ridge.

Friday Funny

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
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From our "Global Warming is a Hoax" Department

Globally, this was the warmest December, January, and February ever recorded:

Fish Ark

From the new National Geographic Magazine:

"You keep the last fish in an ark because you never know when a river might come back," Shute went on. "If the Pigeon could, any river can. They'll have to drag me out kicking and screaming before I give up." 

I'm proud to be associated with CFI (Conservation Fisheries Inc) in the small way I am. They do work that is good for the world. We've had them out to Whites Creek Gorge for each of the last two years and are planning for this years WhitesCreekPalooza and as soon as we get a firm date we'll post it. In the mean time why don't we show them some love with a small monetary token of our appreciation?

Visit their site

 Pat Rakes photo taken at last year's WhitesCreekPalooza

Blue Boy

Last summer I put up an old bluebird house I had in the garage and forgot about it. It is on the far side of the arboretum I put up on the deck so it isn't seen from the house. It suddenly dawned on me this morning as to why this guy and his mate are hanging around the deck after they've eaten all the farkleberries. They are setting up house. 

"I Have Been to the Mountain--top Removal... And It's the Devil!"

I am a total fan of the Reverend Billy Talen and his Stop the Shop-Ocolypse movement. He's morphed from a one man performance artist into the envy of itinerant revival preachers everywhere, with his excellent choir, seven piece band, and hair reaching toward heaven so high that he has moved to reduced  its environmental impact by embracing green hair care.

Stunning my follicles into submission has been a consumer habit I’ve endured and my live-in wife has put up with the spray of effluent evil in our home as well. So this is time for a confession from the pastor who has these poisons in him, and who has cast-off the spraycans, famously unrecyclable. Suddenly I’m sitting here wondering how it was possible that I let this happen for so long? The sin is habituated, a programmed part of my inertia of desire. I’m maintaining my brand, and I beg for forgiveness – and I will change this immediately. I’ll never buy another White Rain or Aquanet as long as I live. Amen? ---Rev 

Now Rev. Billy turns toward something close to my heart and home and which promises to bring the aware among us to our feet shouting Hallelujah!

Have we been to the mountain-top? 

Did we do all we could do?

JP Morgan rains down rock

Exploding loans from the Devil came due...

 Well Reverend Billy shouts out to us, "I have BEEN to the mountain-top...And it is the Devil!"

Can I get an AMEN!

Amen!

I am thinking that Billy Talen is actually a genius crusader with schtick. For extra credit you should read this absolutely straight post by Reverend Billy.

Peace, Brothers and Sisters,

Steve

Bonus musical interlude...

All I know is that I have covered my web cam

I'll flip the cover off when I am Skype-ing my son in New Zealand or on conference calls. Other than that...

These people ought to serve some time. I don't care what their motives were.

The T-shirt

Say What? Say Who?

In the wake of another mind numbingly stupid comment from my ex-senator Fred Thompson on how "Glo-Warm" is the fault of some lost notes by a climate scientist, I thought I would share these visionary words from someone we all know:

addressing climate change will require massive investments in innovation aimed at creating the “energy miracles” needed to develop zero-carbon energy sources.

Finding carbon-free energy sources that will provide affordable power for people around the globe is a complex and difficult issue.

There is a six hour course called Earth’s Changing Climate, also by Richard Wolfson, that I recommend to people who want to learn about the science of climate change.

I spoke...about moving to zero-carbon energy, and our need to reduce CO2 emissions 80% by 2050. The talk was called Innovating to Zero...

Yeah my old buddy Al Gore is a climate change advocate and hero...Only these quotes are not from Al Gore. They are from this guy...

Bill Gates

Did Bill Gates Just Give the Most Important Climate Speech of the Year?

Happy Birthday Uppity Women

The 15th Amendment was ratified in 1870. It states that the, "right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude."

The women's movement had strongly supported the abolishment of slavery but split with the abolitionists movement when it supported dropping women's rights from that amendment.

It would be 50 more years before women would get their amendment allowing them to vote.

Susan B. Anthony died before the 19th Amendment was ratified. She wrote several thoughts that are often quoted today...

It was we, the people; not we, the white male citizens; nor yet we, the male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed the Union.

I always distrust people who know so much about what God wants them to do to their fellows.

If all the rich and all of the church people should send their children to the public schools they would feel bound to concentrate their money on improving these schools until they met the highest ideals.

Happy Birthday Susan B. Anthony  (Feb 15, 1820 - March 13, 1906)! You're looking pretty good for 190 years.

Cheers,

Steve

Climate Change...Bad for National Security

Whoa! This is from the Pew Research. I wonder how long it will be before we'll see all the media and public opinion manipulators have to switch to a new message?


Climate Patriots from Laura Lightbody on Vimeo.

Thanks to Kleinheider

Mystery Bird (new pic)

Is this a Pine Warbler? It has a rump patch of that same buff yellow that shows when it flies. I can't match this beastie up with any of my reference pictures. It ignores the seeds and loves the suet feeder.

Beautiful

Robin Hood Tax?

Winter Olympian

I've enjoyed watching this guy since the first time I saw him compete back in 2002. There's something about the bad boy head to head sports that sets them apart from glitter and judge events. His dad got him into sports to keep him from being a latch key kid after the mom left. He was chunky as a kid and still fights the weight problem if he's not training. He's been involved in international controversy and accused of throwing a race so a friend could make the Olympic team (exonerated totally). He seems to be one of those nice polite people who morph into an animal when the gun goes off. His sport is one of those where the slightest slip can cost you everything and yet he's tied for the most Olympic medals (5) won by an American male. He could easily pick up the two medals he needs to be the most successful Winter Olympian in American History or make the tiniest of errors and fall flat. It's like that for all of the head to head sports and it is agonizing for anyone close to an athlete, knowing how hard they train, how difficult it is to win, and how easy it is to lose.

Apolo_Anton_Ohno

It's too bad these kids have to shill so hard to pay the bills.

And because you probably missed Rachel Maddow's eviceration of the idiots who deny climate change because it snowed in Washington, D.C.



The Winter Olympics are facing a problem because it is in the 50's in Canada right now. All climate change models predict the extremes will get more extreme. Why is that so hard to get across to some people?

Damn the Stimulus...Full Speed Ahead!

There's a message, a moral, and a mission here. See this to the end.

Ernest Shackleton's Scotch Stash Recovered With Brandy Bonus

There's no limit to what some people will do in search of a good single malt Scotch:

The alcohol was removed from the ice by the New Zealand Antarctic Heritage Trust, which had initially believed there to be just two crates.
Al Fastier from the trust said: "To our amazement we found five crates, three labelled as containing whisky and two labelled as containing brandy."

Famed Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton led an expedition to be the first to reach the South Pole. He failed by 100 miles. When his ship was trapped in ice he took a small crew in a life boat and rowed 800 miles across the Arctic Ocean too South Georgia Island to obtain help and rescue his entire crew. He saved every man but tragically lost his stash of Scotch and Brandy. A distiller hopes to analyze the Scotch and replicate the recipe which has been lost to mankind until now.

Noble work, that!

Not Bad Shine Crazy...Nope, Nope, Nope

That's a Georgia accent if I ever heard one. Matter of fact, I'm from Georgia and I sound just like that...And if you believe that, I've got some TVA fertilizer I want to sell you.

Every Child Outdoors

With video game and HD Tv turning out kids into couch potatoes destined for an old age fighting type 2 diabetes, some folks are trying to reverse a really unhealthy trend. Yesterday the Tennessee State Senate adopted SR705 in support of:

Tennessee Children’s Outdoor Bill of Rights

With recent concerns about youth detachment from the outdoors, lack of physical exercise and increased health risks, “Every Child Outdoors – Tennessee” has adopted The Tennessee Children’s Outdoor Bill of Rights (TCOBOR).

“Every Child Outdoors – Tennessee” is a coalition of more than 100 supporting organizations including local, state and national organizations and agencies, governments, non-profits and businesses representing health, natural resource, education, hunting and fishing, recreation and youth stakeholders.

TCOBOR is a list of experiences from which every child in Tennessee would benefit.

Studies document that children who engage in these activities are healthier, perform better in school, have better social skills and self-image, and lead more fulfilled lives.

The Tennessee Children’s Outdoor Bill of Rights states that Tennessee every child, before entering high school, should have the opportunity to:

Walk in the woods

Play outside

Explore nature

Watch wildlife

Grow a garden

Splash in the water

Camp under the stars

Learn to swim

Climb a tree

Go fishing

Fly a kite

Visit a farm

Mission of “Every Child Outdoors – Tennessee”

To promote and support opportunities that encourage children to engage with and experience the outdoors.

Winter Light

The far ridge has put on a light show all day today.

In the sunset light the trees on the ridge top seem to have been plugged in. My photography does not do this justice. I guess you have to be glad I tried to capture it instead of just going for another glass of wine and the binoculars.

Obama Goes to the Lions Den (And Kick some Lion Rear)

President Obama went to the Republican retreat today. He stood there, took their questions (including a really stupid blathering from TN Congressperson Marsha Blackman), and fed them some humble pie. It was televised on CNN and several Republicans are complaining that was a big mistake.

Obama stands and delivers.

The spin started before Obama was even finished. The Republicans kept trying to end it saying, "Mr. President, We're sure you have other commitments."

"Nah, I'm having fun," said Barack Obama.

Listen

Back Home on a Winter Walk

So enough about New Zealand. We're home again after an epic flight and the delivery guy just brought our luggage home after the airline lost it. All is good and we cemented our homecoming with a little walk up the creek. Even though we've been hiking around glaciers the local cold is, um, refreshing.

Ice on the swimming hole...

In a very few weeks, several fish species will start their mating season in the creek. Deep in this pool the temperature is nearly the same year round, with the cold only affecting the upper 15 feet. Down deep it is always 58 to 64 degrees when the water flows are below those required to stir things up.

Ice on Ford Branch.

Cheers to all in the new year. Glad to be home!

Hanging with the Stars

Some stars wear sun glasses when they go out in public, this one wears clouds. Mt. Ngauruhoe, one of the cameo stars of "Lord of the Rings" known on screen as Mt. Doom, refused to put in an appearance for us. I think that Orc thing has left it a bit shy. We're on the sunny side so the snow cap didn't make the shot.

And now the big star...Mordor! Mount Tongariro gives its name to the National park that contains these volcanoes. One of them, Mt. Ruapehu, has erupted as recently as 2007 and killed 153 people in 1996. Doesn't stop the locals from building a ski village right up on the slopes in the volcanic detritus.

The Kiwis have a certain dry humor that abounds in everything, even the highway signs.

We never saw a live kiwi but the warning signs for their signature bird were everywhere in the parks. Introduced mammals, the possum and a weasel, may be the end of kiwis in the wild.

Home Stretch

We're on the way back to Aukland to fly home in three days. We gain back the day we lost crossing the date line but the jet lag will be the same. Here's a few more pix to make you jealous.

Sunset at Glenhu Bay near Mt Aspiring.

Reversible Falls going the right way. We named it that.

Here's why...

They had a trampoline at the campground near Mt. Cook. There were 140 kph wind gusts at 3000 meters that night. We were only at 1500 but our tent got flattened anyway.

New Year in New Zealand

This is the Glacier Burn track in the Holden Range across from Glenorchy. The glacial lakes are mind bogglingly aqua and massive. This was roughly a 1500 meter ascent through an ancient forest. We were sure we were going to have to start fighting Orcs any second. More pictures later when I get to an internet connection that actually works.