Riverbend

Riverbend, the young blogger from the heart of Iraq, is leaving her home. She and her family are trying to decide whether to go to Syria or Jordan (no passport needed).

So we've been busy. Busy trying to decide what part of our lives to leave behind. Which memories are dispensable? We, like many Iraqis, are not the classic refugees- the ones with only the clothes on their backs and no choice. We are choosing to leave because the other option is simply a continuation of what has been one long nightmare- stay and wait and try to survive.

She's long been blogging about the decline of her country, and if you've been following her posts you've probably shared a bit of the pain and frustration. I'm a bit amazed it took her family this long to decide to leave...most of the moderates left long ago I'd think.

New Frontiers

Yesterday, physicist Stephen Hawking rode the Zero Gravity Corp airplane and experienced weightlessness for about 3 minutes total by my calculations (25 seconds per 8 passes). For a while, he was free of this planet and from his physical chains. Said Hawking, "Many people have asked me why I am taking this flight. I am doing it for many reasons. First of all, I believe that life on Earth is at an ever increasing risk of being wiped out by a disaster such as sudden global warming, nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus, or other dangers. I think the human race has no future if it doesn't go into space. I therefore want to encourage public interest in space."

…and that thought has nagged me for years…what are our options? What if the collective “we” destroy this planet? What then?

Two days ago we heard that European scientists had discovered a potentially habitable planet 20.5 light years away in the constellation Libra.

Now this is only about 120,509,246,957,068 miles away. So let’s see, with conventional rocketry we’d need to achieve 36,500 miles per hour to escape the solar orbit. I believe the fastest we’ve been able to go so far is 40,000 mph with the Apollo capsule…but that’s a bit cramped for a trip that would then take you 474 years to complete. Oh, we’d need fuel too.

So maybe we should set our sights on terraforming Mars, instead.

Kim Stanley Robinson wrote an astounding account of how we might actually transform Mars into a place where humans might live and prosper. Considered to be the finest living “hard” science fiction author, his Mars trilogy is a fascinating read.



Hard science fiction, by the by, is characterized by an emphasis on scientific or technical detail, or on scientific accuracy, or on both.

The colonization of other planets is scientifically and economically feasible. Being an optimist, I like to think that some day our Earth-bound hatreds may subside enough to let us look beyond our National borders and see something grander to achieve.

And if that makes you sad, which it should not, you can always look at this.

1977

7PM...oldest daughter and I are eating dinner in front of the TV when the phone rings. We roll our eyes (another salesman, no doubt) and continue to eat, waiting on the answering machine to pick up. The machine clicks on, and some strange voice says, "This is Joe Turner from Twin Lakes High School. I'm just calling to see if you're going to be able to make it to our 30th class reunion in West Palm Beach...."

Daughter's eyes got big as she turns to me, and she says, "30 years?!" I can only sigh...she's graduating high school this year.

1977 was so long ago...an easy year to remember since our country had just celebrated its bicentennial. Twin Lakes was one of those schools caught up in desegregation. It was downtown, a rather shabby part of downtown at that, and they bussed a lot of us suburban kids from the hinterlands. It was an old facility, but it was a short drive away to a famous subway sandwich shop and the beach...yep, we all missed a few classes. We had "The Wall" out in front of school that was the gathering spot for breaks, lunch, and rendevouz points for skipping. Twin Lakes closed its doors about five years after we graduated, and I hear it now serves as some sort of storage facility. The folks planning the reunion are offering a "ghost tour".

I hope their reunion works, but from the looks of it most of the folks from 1977 are 'missing.' They have 20 confirmed deceased, which seems pretty hefty given our class size. The close friends I had haven't been found yet. After 30 years, I doubt I'll ever hear from most of them.

30 years ago.

Eagle and Falcon Cams

Last year, on one of our trips to the Shenandoahs, one of the lodges had a video terminal in the lobby that showed a pair of nesting falcons up on Stony Man. We were fascinated. We also hiked to the summit to see them ourselves.

A couple of weeks ago I stumbled across this cam at the Norfolk Botanical Garden of a nesting pair of eagles with three chicks. Donna is especially hooked now on eagle cam-ing. The website says that the nest is in a 90 foot loblolly pine, and that the home is between 600 and 800 pounds and about 8 feet in diameter.

Take a peek. The parents feed the chicks regularly with fish. Just watch for motion sickness as the cam sways in the wind :)

Billy Pilgrim's Final Departure for Tralfamadore

Sad news this morning. Kurt Vonnegut has become "unstuck in time" and left us.

If you haven't read Slaughterhouse Five, I urge you to find a copy and do so now.

From Wikipedia:

In early 2006, while speaking at The Ohio State University, which he proclaimed would be the bookends of his college speaking career, as the first and last school he would ever speak at, Kurt Vonnegut said: "If you really want to disappoint your parents, and don't have the nerve to be gay, go into the arts."

RIP