Earth Matters: Obligatory weather

I watch as rain—hard rain—beats the puddles outside into froth. Wind periodically flashes water against the window and surfs across the puddles. It feels Pacific-Northwest but decidedly not maritime. The end of May at 9,000 feet at the head of the draw.

Henrietta reads weather on the radio; precipitation for days but snow accumulation expected to be less than an inch. It could be worse: I remember one Memorial Day with 18 inches of fresh on the yellow daffodils. Weather-wise folks predict one thing for sure is that the weather will change. Yeah? So change it.

Actually the weather is just fine, demonstrating again how it is foolish to write about weather. I decry cold and damp because so soon after winter, I’d like sunshine in bluebird skies. Typical monsoon moisture arrived early this summer; I wonder if we should anticipate late summer drought…better to just be here now.

There is any number of reasons not to write about weather. Certainly its relevance in the greater scheme of things is suspect; farmers and climatologists pay attention while the rest of us enjoy and endure. Although we affect climate, we are at the mercy of local weather. Inter-relationships between the two are complex.

During May year before last, weather was sunny and warm encouraging spring beauties and pasque flowers. Last year, May was cold and snowy, accumulating additional inches on an already overwhelming snowpack. We thought winter might never end. This year’s rain is at least falling on mostly snow-free ground; a mosaic of green contrasts with winter’s monochrome. This isn’t so bad.

Whether we prefer rain or shine, since we can’t do anything about it, it’s not worth getting exercised over. Yet we attend weather forecasts like religion. During winter, I devour information from as many sources as I can find. I pride myself on having discovered the resources and developed the vocabulary to understand them.

“Since we can’t do anything about it,” asked a friend, “why the hell are you writing about it?”

“Politics is boring,” I answered. “It’s the same old stuff.” The economy is in the toilet, one bunch wants torture, and another bunch doesn’t. Wars rage, politicians point fingers and give lie to anything that can be called post-partisanship. What is left to say?

Weather is a relatively safe subject unless I unwisely talk about climate change and global warming. I have one friend who steadfastly insists there is no such thing as climate change. I liken him to someone who some years ago, refused to accept the spherical nature of the Earth. And he doesn’t want to hear any Chicken Little carbon footprint bullshit from me.

It is futile to proselytize someone who doesn’t want to be convinced. Science tells me our climate is changing and my human actions are accelerating it. But one person’s science is another’s smoke and mirrors. I wonder when my friend last walked where a glacier used to be…probably never.

Climate is one of those macro things we will ignore until too late, and then we will suffer. Politics might someday affect the climate, but it probably can never change the weather. I will be already recycled when polar bears are extinct, when deserts claim our continents and oceans inundate our shorelines.

Weather on the other hand, provides common ground for complaint or approbation. We can debate whether climate is changing, whether or not we cause it, whether we can adapt or fix it. But we will agree that it’s raining or sunny, or whether we’d like it to stop snowing and melt. We can disagree about climate, but not so much about weather.

Moreover, in the ski and tourism business, we qualify as farmers of snow and sunny summer climatologists. Rainy days limit enthusiasts who want to get out in it, but rain serves to melt stuff out and make plants grow. Since the snowpack melted so quickly from under its winter red dusting, rain washes and greens it up.

My weather sources tell me it might rain for a while. But in my experience, only fools and those paid big bucks attempt to predict the weather. Moreover, in a few weeks, the days start getting shorter; that is totally predictable. In the meantime, duck the showers, dodge any lightning that might threaten and try to ignore the persistent wind. Rest assured: The weather will change.

Earth Matters: It's the spin

My head is empty. The space between my ears is a void where occasionally random thoughts scatter on the edge of perception. Good stuff that, if not entirely productive. My empty head is probably a be-here-now state wherein the soul moves spontaneously through life and time. Productive is good, too, though; the cursor summons.

The cursor can have no idea how difficult it is to answer its call. We pundits had it too easy for too long, when outrage spurred the cursor across the page. Now, instead of the left-wing bitching about the right, the right-wing is bitching about the left. Maybe it’s only liberal-leaning pundits who are scrambling for something to go off on.

Thankfully, at least from one perspective, the Bush Administration is staying in the news. George W. Bush himself is keeping a fairly low profile—thank the gods—mountain biking, nurturing his two longhorn steers and practicing not stepping in it.

Instead, former vice-President Cheney is trying to salvage some kind of legacy, or maybe just come clean and hope his ass doesn’t land in the slammer. While in office, Cheney was a quiet, behind the scenes kind of guy. He was an eminence gris who with Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Rove and the other neo-conservative whackos, pulled George W. Bush’s strings. Previously so laconic, it seems out of character for Dick Cheney now to be spilling his guts.

But spilling—and spinning—he is. Cheney told Fox News, “I don’t think we should just roll over when the new administration…accuses us of committing torture…” Cheney credited aggressive interrogation techniques with saving potentially “hundreds of thousands of lives.”

In another interview, defending policies he helped orchestrate, Cheney said Bush authorized the “enhanced” interrogation techniques. “I think those programs were absolutely essential,” said Cheney, “to the success we enjoyed of being able to collect the intelligence that let us defeat all further attempts to launch attacks against the United States since 9/11.” He expressed “no regrets.”

Cheney also criticized President Obama, saying America is not as safe under the Obama Administration. “He is making some choices that, in my mind, will, in fact, raise the risk to the American people of another attack.”

In yet another interview, Cheney spun himself off the deep end. According to Associated Press, Cheney expressed his preference for right-wingnut radio commentator Rush Limbaugh over former Secretary of State, patriot and soldier General Colin Powell. “If I had to choose in terms of being a Republican,” said Cheney, “I’d go with Rush Limbaugh.” Yeah, well I guess that figures since having had enough of the mendacious Bush-Cheney cabal, and after having essentially destroyed his career, Powell washed his hands of the whole mess.

For his part, Rush Limbaugh is in the position of having a wealth of material with which to rail against Barack Obama. Obama personally affronts Rush Limbaugh, the same way George Bush got under my skin. I know how Limbaugh feels; it’s scary.

Limbaugh wants Obama to fail, and it doesn’t matter whether Obama actually fixes anything or not. The means, according to Limbaugh, justifies no end. “I hope Obama fails,” said Limbaugh. “Somebody’s gotta say it… Why in the world do we want to saddle [our kids] with more liberalism and socialism? Why would I want to do that? So I can answer in four words, ‘I hope he fails’.”

Grasping hopelessly at a failed past, and for reasons I can’t begin to fathom, Dick Cheney and his minions are looking to the likes of Rush Limbaugh for leadership. Nothing could better demonstrate the failure of the Republican Party to find its ass with both hands. Spinning Obama to the dark side is a sorry effort to refute the determination of American voters.

For my part, I don’t want Obama to fail at fixing the world economy, restoring tenets of our Constitution and re-establishing moral high ground so readily abandoned by Bush and the rest. Furthermore, it is difficult to dislike a man whose own self-deprecating humor can defuse or enlighten a situation.

Still, I’m working to develop a sixth sense, a highly-refined and sophisticated bullshit meter, a functional sensory perception to filter information. It is important to occasionally calibrate my spin meter with the truth, whatever that is and wherever it might be found. The effort should keep my head full and not empty, which may be productive…or not.

Earth Matters: Wipe your nose

No question: more people are sick of it than are sick with it. This isn’t our first big rodeo, after all, so how can a flu virus throw us into such a tizzy? But a tizzy we are in, mass hysteria fueled by a news media intent on keeping us healthy, informed and on the edge of our seats. At the end of the day, though, the barrage of scare-mongering is better than not knowing.

People weren’t as well-informed back in 1918 when another flu virus spread throughout the world, to the Arctic, to remote islands…everywhere. The so-called Spanish Flu pandemic lasted two years, infecting more than half the world population and killing as many as 100 million people.

The Center for Disease Control (CDC) calls the 1918 influenza “the mother of all pandemics.” Almost all flu viruses since that bug got loose are descendants of the 1918 virus. In 1918, health care workers were too ill to tend the sick and grave-diggers too far gone to bury the dead.

So what’s the difference between epi-demic and pan-demic? Epi- means almost all; pan- means all. An epidemic spreads rapidly and extensively affecting many individuals in an area or population at the same time. A pandemic is a widespread epidemic over a great geographic area, affecting a large proportion of the population. A human pandemic in our global village could conceivably touch practically everyone.

Although we didn’t have television to rub it in back in 1918, we were scared. Rather than providing too much information like we have now, the government downplayed the influenza, spinning the country into confronting World War I cannons instead of the flu. Disinformation: some things never change.

Viruses do change, however, and the 1918 flu virus finally mutated into a less virulent and deadly beast. People stopped dying, got well and went about their business. And in the frenzy of world war, we the public forgot the whole thing. The CDC didn’t forget, though, and estimates about 36,000 U.S. deaths each year from flu.

We started paying attention again in the late 1990s when avian flu spread into our human population. Bird flu is a different breed of slime than our current swine flu. Instead of spawning in pigs it occurs in wild birds and can spread quickly to domestic fowl. In 2005, bird flu hit five states, Asia, Europe and Canada.

After bird flu, for the first time in modern history, we began to understand how easily seasonal flu outbreaks could evolve into epidemics. On our constantly shrinking planet, we could conceive of a pandemic, an unknown viral messenger carrying doom on international flights throughout the world. Scary stuff, that.

And in April when swine flu suddenly swept out of Mexico after killing scores of people, I admit: it scared hell out of me. Several circumstances contributed to my paranoia. This was the first time I had watched a pandemic spread on television, itself a viral medium. Watching people in masks was sobering.

Furthermore, the bug was an unknown strain of virus, something new that we couldn’t identify and for which we had no silver bullet flu shot. Lastly, this flu was killing people, not in Asia or some far-flung cauldron of contagion. Instead, people were dying right here in North America, just south of the border…too close for comfort.

Perhaps paranoia is too strong a word; after all, paranoids catch the flu too. So I am one of those who washes his hands until they chap. I don’t sign with public pens, I sanitize the grocery cart, I don’t use handrails and I touch doorknobs only with my outside fingers. As a result, I don’t get sick too often. Yeah, I know…I’ve been called that before.

Maybe I watch too much scare-television or maybe I read too many “outbreak” novels. Maybe it’s because up here at the head of the draw we aren’t continuously exposed to nasty viruses. And maybe it’s because I feel too readily the global nature of our modern lives; one minute you’re in Mexico City, eight hours later you’re anywhere in the world.

Undoubtedly, a nightmare pandemic will happen because historically influenza pandemics of varying severity occur at 20-40 year intervals. In 2004, one World Health Organization director described an influenza pandemic as “inevitable.” Don’t worry, though, and don’t be scared because that might weaken your immune system. But don’t cough, don’t sneeze and wipe your nose. Then go wash your hands.

Earth Matters: Payback

I had just been caught at the unspeakable, and we won’t speak of it at any length here. My father labeled my behavior unspeakable, a not unexpected departure from my teenaged business as usual. We often landed on different sides of the fence; no surprise there.


I knew I was in it hip-deep in front of the fan, though, and stood ready to withstand my father’s wrath. I was still a minor and recognized his ultimate parental authority over me…just barely. I settled back in a chair anticipating all kinds of black scenarios, but he surprised me.


“I do not approve of what you do,” he said, “but I am not going to judge you. I will leave that to a greater judge than me.”


My first thought was surprise that my lawyer father wouldn’t act the judge. My second thought was that my father’s religious faith must be substantial and his love for me great. Furthermore, if he wasn’t going to judge me, then he might not exact punishment. Whew! What a load off. My surprise was piqued because I had thought my father unerringly of the spare-the-rod-spoil-the-child persuasion.


Since I was often on the receiving end of punitive response, I grew with the perception that punishment should at very least be carefully tailored to the infraction. I figured the Catholics might have it pegged with mortal and venal sin. Mortal wrongs were really bad and mandated severe punishment. Venal stuff, on the other hand, was perhaps not so morally bankrupt, but instead the consequence of failings hardwired into human nature. And after all, I was nothing if not human. I still am.


I also remember one of my first high school research papers, a study of capital punishment. I barely understood what I was researching at the time, which makes it even more improbable that I should remember it all these years later.


The gist: Does capital crime like homicide warrant the death penalty? After weighing conventional wisdom on the matter, I came down somewhere in the middle, conflicted and ambivalent, but convinced for whatever reasons that bad actions can expect to be met with severe retribution. That realization kept me out of trouble…well, most of the time anyway. Yet the threat of retribution didn’t deter others from wrongdoing.


Without calling it either venal or mortal, in 1974 President Gerald Ford pardoned former President Richard Nixon. Nixon served as my first serious political whipping boy during those Vietnam days, and his blatant disregard for law during Watergate further incensed me. I was outraged that with the stroke of a presidential pen, Nixon would walk; he would escape punishment for breaking the law.


Years later, and on a different political tack altogether, President Bill Clinton got into all kinds of trouble. The payback was a partisan effort to exact retribution on Clinton for his dalliance, appropriate if only because a president should exercise propriety. But after all, what Clinton did wasn’t murder. No one died. Clinton’s impeachment lasted months and cost taxpayers millions. What did it accomplish? Not a hell of a lot.


So have you guessed where all this is leading? Yup, when we’re talking presidential malfeasance, all roads lead to George W. Bush.


The Justice Department recently released Bush Administration memos declaring interrogation of “high-value” detainees outside proscriptions of domestic law and the Geneva Conventions. The memos claim Bush had the authority to approve any technique needed to protect the nation’s security. Defense Secretary Rumsfeld outlined twenty-four interrogation techniques to be used, among them “walling,” waterboarding, sleep deprivation and slapping.


Over objections from human rights groups and even members of his own administration, President Obama at first said he would absolve CIA officers from prosecution for using torture. He wants to move beyond, “a dark and painful chapter in our history.” Then he equivocated, laying it on the Justice Department or whatever; the saga continues.


Like before, I am ambivalent. The excuse, “just following orders” seems less and less exculpatory, but that’s what military service is. The buck must stop up the chain of command, at the highest office that issued the order. Then go after that guy and make the punishment appropriate to the offense. The Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld cabal—someone in that hierarchy must answer. Taking those guys down, though, will require a greater judge than me…or maybe not.

Earth Matters: Obligatory green article

“You sold out,” accused my friend, a critic but friend nonetheless.

“I did no such thing,” I answered indignantly.

“What?” she asked. “Are these trees here different than those over there? How can you defend one bunch and not another?”

“I’ve re-evaluated my footprint,” I said. “I’m choosing my battles. I only have so much fight left in me, and I need to concentrate my energy where I think it’ll do the most good.”

I considered that a pretty good answer. It still sounded reactive and defensive, though. I call myself a treehugger and don’t like it when respected colleagues get in my face. Fifteen years ago I’d have been the critic. No one said it would be easy.

Easy or not, the wheel has turned from brown cloud to the vigorous green of awareness under the Obama Administration. The pendulum swings. Nor does it hurt that Earth Day morphed into Earth Week; only one week to be green. Suddenly—we are so psyched—everybody and everything is green.

This isn’t a bad thing. It is backlash from previous environmental wreckage. It could facilitate a return to sensible and scientific policy decision-making. What a concept. It is ironic though, to witness the turnaround from just a few years ago, when it was cool to be as greedy as we wanted to be, with little regard for the world in general. George Bush gave us that.

While enjoying our born-again green awareness, though, we must beware what we used to call “greenwashing.” Now we call it business as usual, whether green or not. Greenwashing is corporate and political slathering of a thin layer of green paint over the egregious brown cloud. It isn’t deep and authentic green; instead it is spin orchestrated to make the consuming public believe it’s all good. We’re on the path to environmental consciousness and a sustainable future. It’s a feel good thing, isn’t it?

True to my belief that balanced attention to television is a good barometer of popular opinion and conventional wisdom, green pixels flood from the glowing box. Green commercials are legion. Green products abound, whether or not their net impact on the planet is negative or positive. Green in the cash box is what counts.

On the internet I found green mortgages, green lenders, green politicians, green action funds, green learning sites and no lack of green spending sites. I visited MSN’s Lifestyle site where they encouraged me to “get my green on.” They invited me to tour ten coastal eco-resorts, and thoughtfully provided an Earth Day shopping guide. At Twitter I can join Generation Green to receive tips and tricks on how I can take action to protect my planet.

FOX News tells me sternly: “Green it. Mean it.” FOX wants to partner with me, “to help take simple steps that will help deliver a better planet to the next generation.” That makes me all tingly. These are the guys that bring us Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity and Greta Van Susteren. Green me up, Scottie!

NBC Nightly News featured an Earth Week series on the planet’s oceans: how we are filling them with trash and killing coral reefs. Part of the series described the crash of world fisheries by pollution or over-fishing. NBC neglected to mention a story reported a few months previously about Alaska’s proposed Pebble Mine and its threat to the Bristol Bay salmon fishery. Bristol Bay is one of the North Pacific’s most important fisheries. How green is that?

Green may be with us for a while. We will either figure out how to minimize our footprint or not. If not, we’ll keep pretending we are. Individual personal choices may yet be the best way to be green; those choices might mean not buying the green product, not buying anything at all.

I remarked on a friend’s new mid-sized pickup truck. Formerly she drove a big F-350.

“It’s my husband’s way of conserving,” she told me, “but I still have the other truck.”

Earth Matters: Obamaisms

It probably started with the Tower of Babel and a bonehead named Nimrod. After the Great Flood effectively reset the clock on technological enterprise, Nimrod and his crew decided it was time to put down roots. They directed a then-united humanity to build the city of Babylon.

At first, Babylon didn't have much of a public works department, and construction was higgledy-piggledy. But Nimrod gathered his engineers, and together they conceived the idea of building a ziggurat, a great tower so tall it would have its top in the heavens. Humanity has always conceived big.

The project might be no big deal today when God is busy elsewhere in the cosmos. But in Biblical times God was trying to organize religion here on Earth and He took exception to Nimrod's hubristic effort to touch the sky. Seeing what the Nimrod crowd was doing, God judged humankind too big for its britches. If we could build a tower tall enough to touch Heaven, what would we think of next?

"Let us go down," said God, "and there confound their language." Soon, unable to understand engineers (ya think?) or each other, workers quit building and scattered across the planet. God figured all was good and went off to create the Andromeda Galaxy and Crab Nebula, apparently still works in progress.

God confounded our tongues so thoroughly that we invented a science to figure it out. "Etymology" studies the origin and development of linguistic form; from its basic elements and earliest use, through changes in form to its current and common usage. Etymology studies the evolution of language.

While biological evolution is an imponderably slow process, linguistic evolution is a human construct and happens faster. Following our diaspora from Babylon, varying languages informed us and became as much who we are as epicanthic folds, curly hair or variously colored skin. At some level, each generation contributes its own iteration to the process.

Take the word "dude," for example. When I was a kid my father took us to a dude ranch in Wyoming. Dudes were basically everything cowboys weren't. We were tourists, clients and city-slickers. We demonstrated no horse sense and practically no common sense. We were mostly a nuisance, but ultimately we provided the beans and coffee. A generation later, "dude" is just another word for person, male or female, common-sensical or not. The word has changed; language evolves.

Given the informative nature of language, it is no surprise that leaders and politicians influence language. They are, after all, in charge of coming up with the tag lines, catch phrases and sound bites that inspire, instruct and threaten. Their words contribute to our language. Dwight Eisenhower coined "military-industrial complex." Sen. Joseph McCarthy got a whole argot named after his intolerant and unfounded anti-communist pursuits. "McCarthyism" has evolved to describe demagogic, reckless and unsubstantiated accusation, especially toward a political opponent.

Nixon's Vice-President Spiro Agnew was particularly adroit at evolving the English language. Agnew—his speechwriters—coined "nattering nabobs of negativity," and "radiclibs." Radiclibs were radical liberals guilty of "pusillanimous pussyfooting on the critical issue of law and order." Law and order under the Nixon Administration: what a concept.

Because of his inability to put words together or craft a complete and meaningful sentence, George W. Bush has contributed to the English language in unforgettable ways. "You teach a child to read," observed Bush, "and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test." He asked, "Is our children learning?" and later said, "The illiteracy level of our children are appalling." Bush defended his own mastery of the language: "...I do not need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being president." Bush was so cool.

Saint Obama is a different breed of cat, well-spoken and articulate. Detractors grew accustomed to continuous verbal bumbling during the former administration, and roast Obama for invariably using a teleprompter. But hey, if you're going to write a dynamite speech, you might as well get it right when you say it.

History and usage define and create evolution of language, so Obama's policies won't translate into the vernacular for some time. Whether he succeeds or fails at economic policy, the president will be known for Obamanomics. If he is successful at facilitating Middle East peace, we will have the Pax Obama. EnvirObama will address the grievous harm to our environment visited by the former administration. And if he somehow fixes health care and other entitlements, we will have RxObama. But I wonder, did Barack Obama ever call anyone dude?

Gravity Works: Spring tease

The fat lady is so over it. She finally had her say, and got to take off that itchy corset. It was doubly uncomfortable under her retro one-piece, and made it almost impossible to buckle her boots. To her credit, though, she looked pretty good flirting with the half-naked young stoners on Paradise deck. Who could blame her?


Besides, I know for a fact she wasn’t pounding down Phoenix Bowl or hiking Teocalli Bowl in that corset. Late season snow made for outrageous powder in all those favorite lines, and even motivated me to hike for it. I got fooled several times, skiing Morning Glory in the zone and forgetting the traverse back onto Headwall was closed. Oh well: the skiing invariably turned out to be great, and the hike out wasn’t all that onerous.


I am pretty sure, though, the fat lady made it to the peak of Crested Butte Mountain where a closing day party gathered to sing along. I’m not absolutely sure she made it to the party because I didn’t make it up there myself. Instead of hiking to the peak, and knowing I wouldn’t be able to enjoy the luxury until next ski season, I concentrated on skiing a few final lift-served runs. Why hike, I ask myself, when I should be skiing?


Unlike some of my more enthusiastic colleagues, exercise isn’t my sole motivation for skiing. I ski for fun and lifestyle, and if I must, I will commit exercise to accomplish that. I don’t entirely enjoy hiking up mountains, but the rewards are proportional to the effort. Regardless, I am honestly looking forward to skiing places where ski lifts will never turn. There is something to be said for that…besides the view and of course, the exercise.


One distinct phenomenon colored our final ski days: A great amount of Utah real estate blew into Colorado. Ski Utah, stay home. High winds carried red dust from Utah’s Colorado Plateau desert over our Colorado mountains. It was positively apocryphal; blood-red skies howled as red dust covered everything and colored the snowpack. It wasn’t the first time we’d witnessed Utah red—Taylor called it Navajo snow—but it was...memorable.


Skiing Navajo snow in flat light helped me distinguish the surface; slicing through it was a colorful experience. But it’s not all good. That stuff will make the snow melt faster since it absorbs instead of reflecting sunlight. It might make for good corn snow, but will probably also limit opportunity because the snow will get too warm and soggy too fast. Nor does Utah red bode well for summer water retention, since the snowpack will melt and flow back to the desert before its water has time to sink into the ground.


Red snow didn’t prevent the fat lady from warbling on the peak. She closed out eighteen months of skiing for me, the longest ski season of my life. It isn’t completely over yet, though, since I still anticipate skiing during May and June. But even the diehard in me recognizes a coda when he hears it. Hardly had her dulcet echoes subsided when chairlifts closed and ski patrollers pulled the ropes.


With ropes gone and closures vanished, the whole mountain is open again. Teo Two might offer decent powder, and the West Side will offer good corn to anyone with the energy to get up there. Moguls will vanish into the surface and the skiing should be good. For my part though, when I choose to hike, I’ll do it somewhere I haven’t ridden lifts all winter. Hiking makes me more discerning.


Always bittersweet, I concentrated my last few runs on not getting hurt, not getting hit. Sometimes I want ski season to last forever; sometimes it is entirely appropriate that it be over. One way or the other, over it is.


Once again, the cyclical nature of resort living defines my life. We lifestyle enthusiasts pack off into whatever off-season pleasure and adventure we can conjure. Winter passes, spring teases and summer beckons. Don’t complain about the heat.