Bird Break - "True hope is swift, and flies with swallows' wings"

Should I organize the post around birds and flowers?  Or around the places I saw them?  How we categorize things affects how we see the world and whether people can find what they are looking for.

That's how I started this post, I had no idea how this was going to play out. Now that it's done, I see that you'll be able to follow the evolution of a post.  I decided to leave the camera notes for others who are having such issues, or can give me tips.

I did these four bird pictures from our trip. (The Goldeneye is the only one I didn't photoshop.)  But to justify that narrow focus I started thinking about the important role of birds in nature and in the lives of humans.  And that led me to finding references to these birds in art, literature, and music.

The birds' physical beauty, their songs, their eggs, and their ability to fly have charmed people from early on, and inspired some of the greatest artists of all times.

Here's a redwinged blackbird from Tyhee Lake provincial campground on the Yellowhead Highway - after Smithers, but before New Hazelton.  (These birds are all from the Tyhee Lake.)

Red Winged Blackbird

"Pack up all my cares and woes, here I go, singing low, bye bye blackbird."  Ray Henderson and lyricist Mort Dixon, Bye-bye Blackbird 

"Blackbird singing in the dead of night" - Beatles, Blackbird

"II
I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds."  Wallace Stevens, Thirteen Ways of Looking At A Blackbird.  

Eventually I'll get the hang of capturing flying birds with the Canon Rebel.  I did learn that some of it is luck.

Like these swallows (two different pictures melded into one.)  A couple of the many shots I took as they swooped around me actually came out.

"True hope is swift, and flies with swallows' wings"(From Richard III Act V, Scene 2)   [I'm sure Shakespeare knew, when he wrote this, that swifts very closely resemble swallows and that they are hard to tell apart. And after reading about the distinction at the link, I'm not sure these aren't swifts, or martins.  Or that they are the same type of bird.]

And if the birds are far enough away, it's easier to get them in focus like this loon.

"The devil damm thee black, thou cream-fac'd loon!"  (Macbeth Act V, Scene 3)

Again, this is just one loon photoshopped twice onto one picture.   It was a mere speck flying way on the other side of the lake.

Goldeneye in the reeds

Of course, if they aren't moving much, it's easier to get in focus, though the auto focus has trouble figuring out what to focus on in a picture like this one of the Goldeneye in the reeds.  I have to figure out how to tell the camera which of the 'spots' is the one to focus with.  I think this ended up manual focus.  And I realized that my old Pentax manual focus (all it had) was easier because it turned more smoothly and because it magnified the focus.  And as I write this I remember I read there was a way to do that on the Rebel too.  Need to look that up again.

It's harder to find a literary or art reference specifically to a Goldeneye.  Ian Fleming's Jamaica house was called Goldeneye, but it doesn't appear that it's named after the duck.  I did find a painting in my 1950 edition of Audubon's Birds of America that I've had since I was a kid.  Audubon killed his wild birds and then painted them so they are really pictures of dead birds.

The Roles of Birds

These birds aren't just 'pretty' (which they are).  They are important to the ecosystems they live in and even to the economy.  According to the Iowa Extension website:

Adding all wildlife watching equipment together, including bird food, binoculars, spotting scopes, film, carrying cases, etc., the nation spends nearly 20 billion dollars! In Iowa alone, we spend some 36 million dollars on bird food! Birds are not only important economically in Iowa and the nation, but also server a vital ecological role as well. Birds are critical links within the vast food chains and webs that exist in the ecosystem. Here are just a few of the many roles birds play:
Agents of Dispersal
Biological Controls
Bio-indicators

 At the link they go into each of the three roles. Basically, they spread seeds and even fish eggs and also help pollinate plants;  they keep insect populations down (and some small mammals and reptiles as well); and like the canary in the mine, they are early alerts to diseases and pollution.  That $20 billion is just what people spend directly to watch and/or feed birds.  I'm sure the $20 billion is a small amount compared to what the birds do for insect control.  They are part of the $33 trillion natural ecosystem services that E.O. Wilson writes about in The Future of Life.


Endangered Species International explains the birds' roles this way:

Birds occupy many levels of trophic webs, from mid-level consumers to top predators. As with other native organisms, birds help maintain sustainable population levels of their prey and predator species and, after death, provide food for scavengers and decomposers.

Many birds are important in plant reproduction through their services as pollinators or seed dispersers. Birds also provide critical resources for their many host-specific parasites, including lice that eat only feathers, flies adapted for living on birds, and mites that hitchhike on birds from plant to plant and even between countries.

Some birds are considered keystone species as their presence in (or disappearance from) an ecosystem affects other species indirectly. For example, woodpeckers create cavities that are then used by many other species. . .

Birds and humans

Birds have been integral to humans since prehistory. To birds’ detriment, they and their eggs have been an important human food source since humans evolved, and we have hunted many species to extinction. Feathers, usually obtained by killing their original owners, have been used as adornment in hats, headdresses, and capes. Birds are popular as “pets” throughout the world, and the pet trade has driven many species to the edge of extinction.

More benignly, birds appear in ancient art and mythology worldwide.

Just being pretty and singing beautifully, and showing us that flight is possible, might be value enough to justify birds.  We have studies that show contact with nature improves human mental health, but I couldn't find anything that specifically correlates birds to that, but I'm sure it will be shown eventually.  We can certainly document the huge impact birds have had on  artists, musicians, writers, playwrights, who have been moved to put birds in their works.

Shakespeare makes 606 references to 64 different bird species (and he may never have left the tiny British Isles.)  Here's a list of the birds he referenced.  

Above I referenced two songs about blackbrids, but here's a link to an essay on the influence of birdsong on human music in general.


Birds remind us that nature is a balancing act and that we have to protect their habitats because without them, our lives are diminished - not simply because of the loss of their beauty, but because of the loss of all the work they do to help maintain the ecosystems we depend on for life.  The more we know about birds, the more we understand the interrelationships in nature and our role in nature. 

July 4 and the Arab Spring

Egypt's military are back in charge.  Syria's civil war has killed about 150,000 and displaced millions.  The Arab Spring's spirit of democracy looks like a failure. 
Richard Youngs writes: 

Politics in the Middle East are increasingly polarized and fragmented. The Arab Spring’s citizen-led spirit of reform is still alive, but societies are increasingly torn apart by bitter tensions between Sunni and Shia, secular liberals and Islamists, and governments and civil society.

On this Fourth of July, we can recall some context from our own revolution and  remember that it took another 11 years and a revolutionary war from the

• July 4, 1776 signing of the Declaration of Independence to 
• September 17, 1887 signing of the Constitution on   and two more years until the 
• June 21, 1888 ratification (nine states were needed for ratification) 

It's also important to remember that the American colonies were just one part of the vast British empire and that the colonists fought rulers who were based across the Atlantic ocean.  It could take weeks to cross the Atlantic.  (Here's an interesting piece of Ben Franklin's writings on the Gulf Stream and how shippers could speed up their voyages.) 

The American revolt was a major blow to the British prestige, but it wasn't a fundamental challenge to the existence of the British monarchy and power structure.  The middle eastern protests were attempts to overthrow the existing power structures of their countries. 

And in 1812, the British were back and burned Washington DC.

The US democracy wasn't settled in a few years.  Reading history books, knowing 'the ending,' things always look much more stable and inevitable than they do as they are happening. 

There was still a civil war that would challenge the viability of the US.

And I put 'the end' in quotes, because 'the end' tends to mean 'today.'  But today we are in a major culture clash with some seriously challenging the United States from within.  The end is well into the future.

The Richard Youngs quote above isn't actually complete.  He goes on to try to reframe the Arab spring.  

As polarization has deepened, the concern with engaging in dialogue to bridge differences has intensified. The relationship between these mediation efforts and support for systemic reform will be a pivotal factor in the Middle East’s future political trajectory.

 This quote could apply equally to the United States today.  

After Eight Years, Looking Back At 10 Most Visited Posts Here

Rich Mauer recently referred to me in a piece on parents who are lobbying to get the legislature to fully fund public schools as

 "a writer who blogs on the Legislature,"

Technically, that is true.  Sometimes I do write about the legislature and in 2010 I spent three months in Juneau blogging about the legislature.  But I blog about a lot of other things, really a lot of other things.  The common thread is supposed to be 'ways of knowing' or getting folks to see something from a little different perspective than normal.  Sometimes that's a stretch.

But for people who think this is a serious blog on politics and government, and even ways of knowing, the statistics show something else.  Some of what I think of as 'serious' posts get a fair share of hits.  But some of the other posts keep getting hits long after they were posted.  These aren't 'unserious' posts, but they are on other topics.  The all time high now seems to be 2009 post that still gets lots of hits each day.

And since July 2014 marks the 8th anniversary of this blog's first posts, it seems appropriate to look back at some old posts.  Today, let's look at the ten most visited posts on this blog, according to Blogspot's analytics:

• Tiny Black Bugs - Fruit Flies or Fungus Gnats?
  26,954  page views -  Nov 14, 2009, 22 comments
• What does everyone seem to have in common?  Bugs.  Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, Atheist, they all have to deal with insects.  Libertarian, Republican, Democrat, all become just human when they find little black bugs in their kitchens.  At least that's my interpretation of the popularity of this post.  This 2009 post is still getting lots of hits in 2014 - 17 already today.

• Life's Little Surprises
  23,379 page views,   Apr 5, 2010, 4 comments
• And people all over the world hurt their feet and want to see x-rays and foot diagrams. The x-ray is my picture, but I found the foot diagram on-line.
  
  
  
• Detailed Redistricting Maps and Post Plan Public ...
  11,342 page views,  Apr 15, 2011, 1 comment
• Not sure why this redistricting post got the most hits.  It's not the final set of maps, but at the time people didn't know that.  
  
  
• Joe Miller: "If East Germany could, we could."
  6,871 page views,  Oct 17, 2010, 26 comments
• This post got the most hits in a single day for several days.  It's the post that probably could be said to have gone viral as the video quickly got onto Daily Kos, TPM, Huffington Post, Politico, CrooksandLians, Washington Post, even the Guardian, Paris Match, and Der Spiegel. 
  
  
• "Does you hotel have any vasectomies next week?" ...
  6,056 page views,  Mar 7, 2011, 1 comment
  
• When I need a laugh, I go to this post and the link to  Damn You Auto Correct which posts the messages people sent thanks to auto-correct.  Not sure why it makes me laugh so hard.  I think it's my imagining the people seeing these messages on their phone. 
  
  
• AIFF 2010: Features in Competition - The Temptati...
  5,645 page views, Nov 27, 2010, 4 comments
• It seems these folks aren't  coming to learn about the Anchorage International Film Festival, but rather to see a picture of Saint Anthony - particularly Salvidor Dali's painting of him, which I used to give some background of the Estonian movie The Temptation of St. Tony.
  
  
  
• Brown Bug
  4,897 page views,  Sep 28, 2009, 10 comments
• Bugs get two entries in the top ten.
  
  
• Victor Lebow's Complete Original 1955 Article
  4,878 page views, Dec 24, 2007, 57 comments
• This was probably my first 'big post' in the sense of getting lots of hits, and I'm pretty sure it has the most comments.  It was my reaction to a quote in Annie  Leonard's otherwise great video The Story of Stuff.  It involves not only the original article the quote came from, but research on Victor Lebow, and my adventures in the library tracking things down.

• 1 800 695 6950
  4,423 page views,  Sep 13, 2012, 10 comments
• People also want to know who's calling them.  In this case, a very aggressive and obnoxious collection agency.  
  
  
• Asiana Crash and Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers Chapt...
  4,336 page views,  Jul 6, 2013, 10 comments 
• When I heard about the Asiana crash in San Francisco, I immediately thought about Malcolm Gladwell's chapter on Korean pilots in his book Outliers.  I was also pleased that a commenter shared a link to Ask A Korean that supported a problem I have with Gladwell:  He gets an idea and seems to run with it, ignoring glaring questions.  In this case, Ask A Korean refutes a good part of Gladwell's chapter convincingly.    

But don't take this list too seriously.  I have real questions about the accuracy of the google statistics.  But the numbers are probably relatively accurate for the rankings - particularly the first two posts which far outdistance the rest.  I'd note that for the last month, Tiny Black Bugs is also number 1. 

Nick And Tyler Bike South

We saw a lot more people heading south by bicycle on this trip than we can remember on past trips to and from Alaska.  I talked to a solo biker at the bakery at Haines Junction Monday.  A key question that seems to come up for bikers is whether to take the Cassiar Highway.  The big negative for the guy in Haines was bears.

Tyler

Tuesday morning when I talked Nick (from Michigan) and Tyler (from Minnesota) at the Deadman Lake campground, I thought I ought to get a photo for a post on biking from Alaska.  They too were weighing whether to go Cassiar and they were also interested in how many bears we'd seen. (Three - two black and a grizzly.)

Nick

Tyler and Nick started out from Anchorage about a week ago and were within easy reach of the Canadian border at their 50 mile a day average.  They're headed for California, but sounded like they'd really like to continue down to Panama. 





We talked to the campground hosts a bit later and they'd heard about some travelers who came across a grizzly eating roadkill shortly after passing a cyclist so the turned around and escorted the biker with the car between the bear and the bike, past the spot.

I mentioned that we'd seen lots of people biking south, but not many north.  Tyler and Nick said that was their experience too.  They've got a couple of months ahead of them and I hope they had better weather heading east from there than we had heading west. 

I said I'd put these pictures on my blog and they told me they had a blog too.  You can get to it here.

Low Clouds and Rain Most of Last Day

We've been pretty lucky with the weather.  We've had rain most days, but just part of the day giving us plenty of time to walk around, takes some short hikes, and enjoy the beautiful scenery. 

This morning started out ok.  The rain that we encountered last night as we entered Alaska and the Deadman Lake campground didn't stop until this morning when we got up and checked out the birds on the lake and talked to some other folks at the campground, but soon it was raining and the clouds blocked out all the spectacular views. 

We'd finished our 24 CD's of The Illuminaries and the other CD's we had just weren't as gripping as the novel about the New Zealand gold rush in 1865 and 66.  It was so good, even after driving several hours, sometimes we stayed in the car to hear the end of the CD. 

Then a yellow light went lit up on my dashboard.  It said 'check.'  We had over 300 miles to go to Anchorage.

The manual said this was the 'malfunction indicator lamp" which goes on when you turn on the ignition and then goes out.  If it doesn't go out 

"or if it should come on while you are driving, this indicates that there is a malfunction in the engine system.  .  . continue driving with reduced power and have the cause corrected promptly by a [sic] authorised Volkswagen dealer or qualified workshop." 

Is 300 miles promptly?  That's probably the nearest qualified workshop unless we divert to Fairbanks which is almost as far.  I called the VW service center in Anchorage.   It could be something like not putting the gas cap on properly.  (I got gas just before it began.)  She asked if the engine was doing anything funny.  No. She said to just keep on driving.   Which we did, but it added a bit of anxiety all the way home.  Especially as I was braking on a long downhill and could smell a burning odor.  Probably the brakes, but that doesn't normally happen. 



After a while we got hungry and we were running out of food.  The US border guard had confiscated two Canadian bought tomatoes.  US ones would have been ok. 

So I got out the loaf of bread we bought yesterday at the Haines Junction bakery, some peanut butter, and cherry preserves.

Indian River Rest Area Alaska July 1, 2013

The rest stop wasn't great, and I have to send the dumpster picture to the governor and let him know that whoever the state has contracted to collect the garbage at this rest stop (at the Indian River) and the next one isn't doing their job. 

This isn't bear damage - the dumpster was just overflowing. 

As we were nearing Anchorage, the clouds lifted and there were even patches of blue and no rain.  It was nice to be out of touch for almost a week and to be spending our evenings and mornings camped in the woods.  We just had to drive, watch the views, stop to stretch our legs along lakes, rivers, and mountain trails, and to meet other travelers along the way.  I've got a lot of pictures that I'll try to add some shortly. 

Q: Who Was The Greatest Wrestler Of All Time?

A:  Milo of Croton (according to  listverse)

"Most historians agree that Milo remains to this day the greatest wrestler and fighter (from any combat sport) the world has ever known. Milo of Croton became an Olympic champion several times during his nearly thirty-year career. His size and physique were intimidating, and his strength and technique perfect—and many people accordingly believed that he was  the son of Zeus."

Perseus tells us more:

"According to our ancient sources, Milo enjoyed showing off his unrivaled strength. For instance, he would clasp a pomegranate in his hand and have others try to take it away from him. Even though he was holding it so tightly that no one could remove it, he never damaged the fruit. Sometimes, he would stand on a greased iron disk and challenge others to push him off of it. Another of his favorite exhibitions was tying a cord around his forehead, holding his breath, and breaking the cord with his bulging forehead veins. Other times, the wrestler would stand with his right arm at his side, his elbow against him, and hold out his hand with thumb pointed upwards and fingers spread. No one could successfully bend even his little finger. "

A Princeton webpage tells us he is supposed to have been close to Pythagoras:

"Milo was said to be an associate of Pythagoras. One story tells of the wrestler saving the philosopher's life when a roof was about to collapse upon him, and another that Milo may have married the philosopher's daughter Myia."

Driving Up The Violated Cassiar

Just a quickie from Dease Lake.


We stopped at Kinaskan Lake along the Cassiar Highway yesterday.  The weather was comfortably warm with more blue than clouds.







The sun went down about 10pm.  Here are some pictures of the lake from our campsite.

Late Afternoon

About Sunset

This Morning

It started raining before we got up this morning and this last picture is from the same spot as the previous two.

We first went up the Cassiar in 2000.  It was spectacularly beautiful.  Much of the road was dirt and our car got very muddy.  

Last fall when we drove down, we were startled by huge powerlines going up in the southern part of the road.

This time sickened is more appropriate than startled.  For 400 kilometers they've bulldozed huge areas along the road to put up powerlines.  I need to do more research - I did talk to two locals - but it really looks like this is about mining needs, not local needs.  Very few people live along this highway.  And the ugly, disgusting way they've trashed the landscape is appalling.  I hope to find out more about what this is all about.  This was once an incredibly beautiful landscape.  

 

This is one picture of the destruction along the once pristine Cassiar Highway.  It's like this for almost 200 miles.

Canada's New Anti-Spam Law and Supreme Court First Nations Land Claims Decision

Driving back to Alaska means seeing the world through Canadian eyes for several days.  A couple of big stories include a Supreme Court decision in favor of First Nations land rights that seems to have major consequences.  From the CBC:

The Supreme Court decision on Thursday granting the land claim of a B.C. First Nation is not only a game-changer for many aboriginal communities across the country, but also for the government and the resource industries.

• First Nations 'ecstatic' over historic Supreme Court ruling
• Visit CBC Aboriginal

The unanimous ruling granted the Tsilhqot’in First Nation title to a 1,700-square-kilometre area of traditional land outside its reserve, marking the end of a decades-long battle.
But it also clarified major issues such as how to prove aboriginal title and when consent is required from aboriginal groups, which will affect negotiations on major projects such as the Northern Gateway pipeline.

And Tuesday, which also happens to be Canada Day, a Canadian anti-spam law takes effect.  From the government's anti-spam legislation website:

When the new law is in force, it will generally prohibit the:

• sending of commercial electronic messages without the recipient's consent (permission), including messages to email addresses and social networking accounts, and text messages sent to a cell phone;
• alteration of transmission data in an electronic message which results in the message being delivered to a different destination without express consent;
• installation of computer programs without the express consent of the owner of the computer system or its agent, such as an authorized employee;
• use of false or misleading representations online in the promotion of products or services;
• collection of personal information through accessing a computer system in violation of federal law (e.g. the Criminal Code of Canada); and
• collection of electronic addresses by the use of computer programs or the use of such addresses, without permission (address harvesting).

Michael Geist at the Toronto Star looks at three issues people have with the new law, and points out that some of their issues suggest they may not be in compliance with a previous anti-spam law.

We're in the Skeena Bakery in New Hazelton.  We watched loons and swallows and redwing blackbirds at Tyhee Lake this morning early.  [Pictures up now here.] On up the Cassiar Highway when we leave here.

We Should Be Somewhere Between the Canadian Border and Prince George

We leave Seattle shortly.  Our little camper is packed and we're driving it home.  Don't know when we'll get our next internet connection so I'm scheduling this for later today.  It's US -0 and Germany - 0 as I write this. 

Looking forward to a relaxing drive home.  We've got The Luminaries on CD - 30 hours worth - to listen to.  Eleanor Catton's novel won the Man Booker Prize in 2013 which bodes well. 

Great Alaskan Walt Parker Departs

Walt Parker June 2011

I met Walt Parker when I first arrived in Anchorage in 1977 because he was active in the local American Society for Public Administration (ASPA).  He has been supportive of whatever I was working on since then and a constant inspiration of how to be a great human being.  


I just learned this evening that he died this afternoon.  I just need to say a few things here off the top of my head about him and what an amazing man he was and life he led.

He served in China and the Burma Road as a pilot in World War II.  He told me once that he got contact lenses so he wouldn't be kept out of the air force.  I didn't even know they existed back then.  They certainly must have been uncomfortable before all the fancy wetting solutions became available.

He came to Alaska from San Francisco as I recall, after WW II, and worked out in very rural Alaska with the FAA.  He was a bush pilot, lived in a log cabin, and mushed dogs.

He acted in the Anchorage Community Theater in the 50s and was on the Anchorage borough assembly.  He was head of the Exxon-Valdez Oil Spill Commission and has been on the Arctic Commission regularly flying to places like Siberia and Greenland and Iceland.  He helped the Australians develop distance education.  There was something else he did in Mongolia. 

You could mention any place in the world and not only had he been there, he'd done important projects there and could tell you about the politics and economy and history.  I consider myself extremely lucky to have had him in my life and as a mentor and guide as well as a friend.  He was my google before there was a google.

I'd bump into him out skiing with his dogs on the Campbell Airstrip trail in his late 70s and probably early 80s. 

Walt believed in honest government, justice, fairness, decency, and education.  He was smart and wise and always ready to stand up for the public and for reason.

I've had a fair amount of experience with people in their 80's and 90's in the last ten years and life can be good as long as you're reasonably mobile and still have your faculties.  Walt had all his faculties, but he was getting noticeably frailer in the last year, though he did drive himself over to our house not too long ago.  I'd like to think he checked out while he was still himself and before he became a burden on others.  But there's a big hole in my heart today. 

These are just a few quick random thoughts.  You can see a better organized bio of Walt here.

I decided I needed to double check on this and called another friend who knew Walt well and he told me Walt died at home with all his family around.