The Toughest Task of Parenting

 

Copyright © 2020

by Ralph F. Couey

So, after ranting about yardwork the other day, today we went out to the backyard and raked up a two-day accumulation of mango leaves.  Again, the trade winds were blowing, and at times we were forced to re-pile leaves, after chasing them across the property.  But in the midst of that effort, something interesting happened.

As I was raking, something gray flashed by my leg.  I looked down to see a baby bird sitting on the ground.  Above our heads, we became aware of a couple of birds, parents obviously, hovering above and chattering loudly and frantically.  Apparently, it was time for the baby bird to learn to fly, and the lesson was not going well.  We were concerned because our neighborhood is home to a large population of feral cats, and the last thing we wanted was for this cute little birdie to become dinner.  

Of course, we kept our distance.  We know that if you try to put a baby bird back into the tree, the parents will ignore it because of the human smell now on the bird.  Eventually, the bird gathered it's courage and flew a few feet to latch onto the window screen.  We moved in quickly to gather the leaves and then retreated.  

The parents were flitting about frantically, squawking what I hoped were encouraging messages to their baby.  We felt an instant kinship with them, as anyone who has raised children would.  Instinctively, we realized that the time had come for the baby to grow up.

Thorn Rage

The Vanquished

Copyright © 2020

by Ralph F. Couey

I've never been a huge fan of yard work.  I know by that bold statement that I just alienated a whole bunch of guys for whom their grass is their life, but growing up in Missouri meant doing that kind of work when it was in the upper 90's with humidity levels north of 70%.  I mowed when I had to, watered and applied fertilizer when needed, but it was never a priority for me to have a yard that looked like the 18th green at Sawgrass.  I had four kids and a motorcycle, so my priorities were elsewhere.

I live on a tropical island now, so the lawn care -- and mango tree and coffee plant and banana tree -- season has no start or end.  It just is.  I remember how hard we had to work keeping rust off our ship in the Navy.  This is the closest thing to that endless task.

The big mango tree in the back yard drops leaves like there's no tomorrow.  In Pennsylvania, we had maples which, when they drop leaves in the fall, do it all over about three days.  After that, we were literally knee-deep in maple leaves.  Of course, once that was done, the branches were empty.  This mango tree drops leaves all year long but always has a never-ending supply on its branches.  I literally have to rake every day.  I can fill a 55-gallon trash barrel with leaves in five days flat, no problem.  There are times when I look up and swear its doing this just to annoy me.  The back yard is oriented so when the northeast trade winds are blowing  -- 20 to 25 mph -- the air just howls through the yard.  Not only does this add to the leaf droppage, but after many minutes of raking and gathering, the wind just spreads it all around again.  I have a device to put the leaves in the bin, but it seems just as I lift it up to the edge of the bin, the wind manages to empty it.  Grrr.

The banana tree doesn't drop leaves.  It does other things.  The tree is actually a collection of several trunks, each growing out of the ground by itself. When you harvest a bunch of bananas, the trunk dies, and either falls down, or has to be cut.  It's nasty work, as the trunk is sappy and sticky, which gums up the saw blade.  I guess that's the price to pay for fresh bananas.

Robots and the Dark Future of Labor

"Flippie" at work on the grill

The future of food service?

 

In addition to doing our jobs at least as well as we do them, 

intelligent robots will be cheaper, faster, and far more reliable than humans. 

And they can work 168 hours a week, not just 40. 

No capitalist in her right mind would continue to employ humans.

--Kevin Drumm

Copyright © 2020

by Ralph F. Couey

except images and quote.

Robots have always held a fascination for people.  Not for just the physical and computational labor that is done, but as science fiction has shown, as companions as well.  But the actual appearance of robotic technology in our daily lives hasn't been looked upon a just around the corner.  Always it was decades, even centuries away.  But recent developments, and anticipated advancements in robotics and artificial intelligence have put us on the cusp of a paradigm shift in technology and the impact on human labor.

Robots, androids, etc. have been sci-fi staple for as long as the genre has existed.  There was Robbie from 1956's "Forbidden Planet."  Then "Robot" from the original "Lost in Space."  ("Danger, Will Robinson!)  Although with Bill Mumy, it always came out "Robut".)  C-3PO, R2-D2, and BB-8 from the Star Wars franchise.  The cute Wall-E and the nuke-wielding EVE from the eponymous Disney movie.  My personal favorite was Robin Williams' beautiful portrayal of the android Andrew in "Bicentennial Man."  And who could forget those Terminators?

These were created for entertainment purposes, for sure.  But in these portrayals we saw both the good and the horrifying sides of machine intelligence.  Robots have been active in industry for years.  I used to work with one making clutch disks for Caterpillar tractors.  It had to be monitored, in case it lost control and started flinging steel rims around the plant, but other than the set up required to move from one size disk to another, it pretty much ran by itself.  My biggest job was making sure it was resupplied with materials.  But even then, some 20 years ago, I could see a point where another intelligent machine could do that job.  The introduction of robots into the retail world has been slow, mainly in response to human sensitivities, but make no mistake, the day when robots will fit you with clothes, help you find things at Walmart, repair your car or home, take your order, cook your food, and deliver it to your table is closer than you think.

A Badly-Needed Moment of Humor

 

Egret

Marine Life Photography

Copyright © 2020

by Ralph F. Couey

This beautiful snow-white bird is very common in Hawai'i, often seen walking the emerald-green grass of area parks.  While they are very pretty, I'd just as soon not have them around me.

Why?

Because I want to live a life free of egrets.

Oh, come on!  That ain't half bad for a Pandemic!

The Waking Nightmare

From Pinterest

Copyright © 2020

by Ralph F. Couey

Like most people, I have dreams.  In this context, not the goal-oriented life-focused kind of dream, but rather the gauzy ambiguous visitor that comes in the night.  Most times, I wake up with the images rapidly fading from my mind, never to be recalled.  But once in awhile, one arrives with enough impact to stay.

In my dream, I'm out walking, something I do while awake several times per week.  The sun is shining, but suddenly a shadow passes over me.  I look up to see a hawk circling, eyeing me in a disquietingly speculative manner.  I continue to walk, but suddenly there is a whoosh just over my head.  I look up again to see the raptor banking sharply for another pass.  In my dream, I cannot run or even dodge and as the bird swoops ever closer, I begin to feel afraid.  Somehow I know that eventually the hawk will strike home, its claws sinking into the back of my neck.

Yeah, I know.  Stephen King stuff.

Now, I rarely have nightmares, as I am generally speaking a happy and upbeat kinda guy.  But this was different.  Dreams and nightmares, according to the experts, are reflections of the subconscious, mirroring the unspoken and unrecognized fears that somehow never make it to the surface.  So, for the past few days, I've ruminated over those images, and I think I figured out what birthed the unwelcome nighttime visitor.  

Like everyone else on this planet, people in the U.S. in general, here in Hawai'i in particular are feeling for the first time, a very real sense of this Pandemic.  The feelings started with dismissiveness, and elevated to discomfort, then concern, worry, and now fear.  As with most events, it started as being something that was remote; happening far away.  But as time has passed, it has come ever closer and therefore, more personal.  The precise mode of transmission from person to person is still not fully known, as well as how long the virus particles can survived in the open air and on surfaces.  Sure, we engaged in mitigating activities -- masks, social distancing, staying away from large gatherings -- but the circle of infection seems to be closing in on all of us.  And as time passes, it seems almost inevitable that we will be infected.  

Hence, the dream.  The hawk is the virus, circling in the air around me.  Like a predator, it circles ever closer.  There doesn't seem to be any place to hide; no sanctuary, no wall of protection to stand between us and the virus.  With dread certitude, it seeks us out.

Spreading the Light of Joy In These Dark Days

 

From Pinterest

Sam:  "It's like in the great stories Mr. Frodo, the ones that really mattered.

Full of darkness and danger they were, and sometimes you didn't want to know the end.

Because how could the end be happy?

How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad happened?

But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow.  Even darkness must pass.

A new day will come.  And when the sun shines, it will shine out the clearer.

Those were the stories that stayed with you, that meant something.

But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now.

Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back only they didn’t,

they kept going because they were holding on to something."

Frodo : "What are we holding on to, Sam?"

Sam : "That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. 

And that's worth fighting for."

--J.R.R. Tolkien

Copyright © 2020

by Ralph F. Couey

These days it is hard to look around and not see darkness.  The Pandemic, the spreading of that other virus, anger/hate/violence.  It becomes easy to give in to the negativity, to just lay back and wait for the pending disasters to overwhelm.  It is particularly difficult when it seems the whole world is collapsing and we feel there is nothing we can do to stop it.  I've had those moments in the past couple of weeks, but today something happened.

I was out walking in the area of O'ahu known as Ewa (pronounced EVUH) this morning after delivering my mother-in-law to her activity center.  Since I'm down there once a week, I use that place for my exercise walk.  It's a nice break because it's all flat, none of the steep and difficult hills around Pearl City.  And plenty of shade.

When you visit a particular place at roughly the same time often enough, you see the same people out doing the same thing as you.  In this case, exercising.  We don't know each other by name, but we wave, salute, or tip the hat just the same.  As outdoor exercisers are still exempt from the mask rule, smiles were visible on just about every face I encountered.  I began to reflect on how my spirit was lifted by these simple expressions.  I thought about other times when strangers spoke to me, wished me well, made me laugh.  I realized that in a dark world, light can come from such small, random moments, brightening the world even just a little.

No one person can change the world.  But we all occupy a small corner, and I think we owe it to each other to try to make that small space better for us all.  The great thing is that this doesn't require a ton of effort.  All that is needed is an awareness of others, and perhaps some concern as well.  Fear is nibbling at everybody's lives these days and I think we underestimate the tremendous good that can come from small acts of happy kindness.  Night is scary sometimes.  But kindnesses bring the dawn that can light up someone's life.  Light dispels fear, and in these times, that is so very important.

Mourning Normal

Times Square, New York City

CNN.com © 2020

Copyright © 2020

by Ralph F. Couey

"What I've started, I must finish.

I've gone too far to turn back.

Regardless of what may happen,

I have to go forward."

--Michael Ende

It's late in the evening.  I'm at work and I've just finished reviewing the latest set of status reports on the Pandemic.  Globally, the case count is over 20 million, a quarter of those in this country.  739,000 people have died around the world, 163,000 in the United States.  The numbers are, by any measure or context, staggering. In the U.S. Civil War, the last round of historical reviews put the death toll, military and civilian, at over 700,000, and that out of a total population of 31 million.  I won't extrapolate that out to modern population numbers because 739,000 dead is a catastrophic number, regardless of why or when.

What makes such a number even more stunning is that this war, unlike the other one, isn't over.  In fact, it may never end.

We thought, back in May, that we had this thing nearly licked. But something -- and nobody knows exactly what at this point -- re-ignited the flame which has now turned into a global firestorm.  Some, perhaps most people are trying to do the right things, like social distancing, masks, staying home, becoming clean freaks. But there are others who aren't, who think that they can bring back "normal" by doing everything they used to do, regardless of the harm they are inflicting on others.  That selfishness, as much as any other cause, not only created the now, but has laid a grim path for the future.

We look around at a world completely changed.  We try to carry on, but the Pandemic has spun completely out of control, and we walk our streets fearing that moment, that random passing encounter when this virus' icy claws swoop in and clamp down.  It is a fearful time, one that has led to some highly contradictory decisions, like shuttering houses of worship while at the same time allowing protesters to swarm the streets, as if the First Amendment could be politically parsed.

The Cascadia Subduction Zone: The Very Real Threat

                                       

The "crumpled fender" zone marking the

location of the Cascadia Subduction Zone

Copyright © 2020

by Ralph F. Couey

Within the past 35 years or so, a new seismological and oceanographic threat was first proposed, and finally proven. This sleeping giant is the Cascadia Subduction Zone which lies beneath thousands of feet of ocean 60 miles off the coast of northwestern North America. The scale of catastrophe that will result from this fault cannot be underestimated. But the process that led to this discovery is a detective tale that is hard to beat. 

In 1960, a massive earthquake tore the earth apart off the coast of Chile. It was measured at magnitude 9.5 on the Richter Scale, and still remains the most powerful temblor ever recorded. Four years later, another large quake occurred off southern Alaska, that wrecked not only the capitol city of Anchorage, but dozens of smaller villages and ports along the coast. The similarity of the two events helped lead to the movement of plate tectonics from theory to fact.

Basically, the Earth’s crust is a 40 to 60-mile-thick layer of rock which floats on the semi-liquid of the next layer down, called the mantle. The crust is broken up into massive pieces, called plates, which float upon the very hot mantle.  Within the mantle, huge convection currents are generated which propel the plates around.  

Looking at a world map, it seems obvious that South America and Africa fit together like puzzle pieces. Scientists for years had seen other continents and islands that also had common edges. When brought to acceptance, plate tectonics proved that the continents and the plates beneath them had been in motion for hundreds of millions of years. The current configuration is the result of the breakup of the last great supercontinent, Pangaea which began about 175 million years ago. Now, scientists know that the motion of these separate plates create seismic zones where they crash together. These collisions have been responsible for the creation of most mountain ranges on this planet. Those boundaries became the objects of intense research, which led to the identification of subduction zones.

A subduction zone, or convergent fault, is where an oceanic plate is diving, or subducting under a continental plate. They are located all throughout the Pacific ring of fire, and nearly all of them have been responsible for the largest seismic events in history. What scientists discovered was the disquieting fact that when subduction zones rupture, they only generate earthquakes north of magnitude 8. Recently, two events, the Indonesian Boxing Day Tsunami and the Tohoku Tsunami were both born of magnitude 9 earthquakes generated by subduction zones. 

Empty Nights and Irish Music

Another joyful night at the fiddle shop.

"My feet always dance to Irish music."

--Ciaran Hinds

Copyright © 2020

by Ralph F. Couey

A few years ago, I stopped in an Irish pub near downtown Denver for lunch.  I had heard that there would be live music in the afternoon, so I stuck around.  Along about 3 o'clock, folks started coming through the door carrying instrument cases of various shapes.  They sat around a long table in front of the windows and after some conversation, they burst into music.  I was instantly hooked.  I went back every Sunday that I could after that until time came for us to leave Colorado for good.  A knowledgeable guitar player put me in touch with a group that was meeting in Honolulu, our eventual destination. I started attending the sessions, first as strictly an observer, and eventually an occasional singer.  I felt drawn to participate, so I ordered a Bodhran, which is an  Irish frame drum, from a craftsman in Dublin, Ireland.  

Learning the drum proved to be a bit of a challenge.  I have a good sense of rhythm, but the technical aspects of playing the drum correctly kept me practicing at home in private until I felt competent enough to join in the session.  I still had a lot to learn about volume and the types of rhythms which supported the other players.  Fortunately, thankfully, they are a patient bunch and they brought me along with a lot of encouragement.