EXACTLY WHOSE 100 DAYS ARE WE TALKING ABOUT HERE?

Norman Rockwell's Four Freedoms

Some folks sure have this interesting way of measuring progress. Who, exactly, came up with this 100 days evaluation of a presidential administration? That’s rhetorical. I can Google. I still have a problem with it.

I’m math challenged and I think that’s part of the problem. I see eight years of a previous administration, with two wars and a recession as a legacy. Even by No. 2 lead pencil and legal pad computation, that’s still 2,920 days to get us into all this. And Barack Obama has been on the job exactly how long again? I mean, come on here, gang.

On the other hand, I’m solidly behind what appears to be new attention focused on the performance of our elected officials by the population at large. While the constituency’s expectations may not always be entirely realistic, the voters have apparently decided that it’s not just enough to elect these people. We need to stay on them to make sure they’re doing what we’re paying them to do.

I look, as well, at the changes I’ve seen in the nation and in the international community since Barack Obama assumed office. There’s a new spirit of cooperation and “can do” growing in America and abroad.

Sometimes change needs the right environment. For the first time in perhaps more than eight years, we have a president who is not saying, “Follow and I will lead you to (fill in the blank)” but one whose message seems clearly to be, “Help me get us where we’ve together decided we need and want to go.”

I see these attitudes either flourishing among states and communities which already have them, and/or growing ~ albeit sometimes reluctantly and skeptically ~ among those who, in the past and for whatever reasons, have been unwilling or unable to adopt them.

So, as more comes out about the responsibilities assumed on the regional, state, county and community level, I’m inclined to believe the constituency has, as well, decided to give the doctrine of personal responsibility a go. And push it on up the line.

It’s like, “Together, we broke it. Together we’ll fix it. And the Good Lord willing and the crick don’t rise, we won’t have to do this again anytime soon.”

That too is also how history sometimes plays out. Even for Americans, eh?

SOMALIS ULTIMATE VICTIMS OF ADEN GULF PIRACY

Hi again folks. Like millions of Americans this week, I’ve been following Matt Lauer’s interview with Motorized Vessel (MV) Maersk Alabama captain Richard Phillips and his wife on NBC’s The Today Show.

It was a story of human courage, determination, decisive executive action, and brilliant military execution reminiscent of the Israeli rescue of the hostages of Air France Flight 139 at Entebbe, July 3-4, 1976.

It was, as well, a dramatic statement of American international policy and one for which the United States is legendary. We don’t care who you are. You will not do this to us.

For all of that, it should probably be noted that the Somalis are not the world’s best buccaneers. In this case, they were certainly not as informed as they needed to be. They saw this big unarmed American ship in what they considered their waters and went after it with a real simple game plan.

Board, capture, take it into a protected port in northern Somalia and hang onto it until the owners paid a ransom. That done, everybody goes on about their business and sorry for the inconvenience.

Good plan, by pirate standards, and pretty much like 1,000 or so others made and carried out in the several years the Somalis have been learning and refining the craft of seagoing hijacking and kidnapping.

The Maersk Alabama is owned by a Danish company but is homeported out of Norfolk, Virginia and is of American registry. When it was interdicted, it was bound for Mombassa, Kenya, with a cargo of food and agricultural supplies for both the United Nations and the US Agency For International Development.

Before the pirates could board, the vessel’s crew disabled it and alerted most of the known world that they were in imminent danger of capture. So what the pirates, former fishermen, most of them, got was a big vessel that wasn’t going anywhere and a tough proud crew who were no more about to surrender their vessel than John Paul Jones or David Farragut were theirs.

Well, as I mentioned before, the Somalis are not hardcore at this business. They quite simply haven’t been at it all that long. While the sea is definitely in their blood (some say they were there when the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean were created), they are Neptune harvesters in a part of the world dramatically overfished and predominantly by a modern international industry with no respect for Somali territorial waters.

The Somalis first began attacking other FISHING vessels in order to protect their way of making a living. There’s not a mariner from the Banks to Bristol Bay who can’t relate to that. There are only so many fish and every boat represents families and communities which must be fed, clothed, sheltered and otherwise provided for.

In the roughly 15 years or so they’ve been at it, the Somalis have discovered that piracy pays better than fishing, at least for now. Theirs is a chaotic land where tribe, clan, village and family mean much more and have far more impact that a strong national government and infrastructure.

The ransom collected by these pirates ~ and it is in the majority of the cases ~ pays overhead and is distributed along traditional power lines to all those involved. Regardless of the moral and legal implications, piracy is the major industry of northern Somalia and is run like one.

And in contrast to the Barbary Pirates of some three centuries ago and those of other nations which plied this craft during the European empire building period, the Somalis are remarkably well-behaved. In a report to the United Nations Security Council in November 2008, International Maritime Organization Secretary-General Efthimios Mitropoulos reported that:

Of a total of some 440 acts of piracy and armed robbery reported to have taken place off the coast of Somalia since IMO started compiling relevant statistics in 1984, more than 120 attacks have been reported this year alone. More than 35 ships have been seized by pirates and more than 600 seafarers have been kidnapped and held for ransom. Currently, 14 ships and some 280 seafarers from 25 nations are being held hostage in Somalia. Two seafarers have already lost their lives.

President Obama and the United States Navy responded appropriately, for even two deaths are unacceptable. America is certainly not alone in this sentiment and this is the second time her navy has apprehended Somali pirates.

The maritime military of other countries have interdicted Somali mother ships and assault boats. Last November, Indian Naval Ship (INS) Tabar attacked and sank a pirate 'mothership' in the Gulf of Aden when it refused to respond to warnings. The Canadians and the Dutch are among those NATO forces which have engaged. The Japanese are joining a growing internatioinal anti-piracy task force. The Chinese and the Russians are already there. This kind of combined operation does not bode well for the Somali bucaneer community,

The nature of that community, however, is changing as it grows to incude those whose motives have nothing to do with the loss of one livelihood at the hands of those who are now expected to make restitution.

Under the leadership of militants and organized crime, piracy will become what it was four hundred years ago. Crews will be slaughtered and hosed into the sea, along with passengers not fit for ransom or the slave trade. Cargos will be offloaded at the nearest protected port and brokered. The vessel will be either stripped for salvage or sold and the profits used to finance among other things, human greed and international terrorism.

If tolerated, piracy will become a major option for a lot of interesting people. Wherever boats and ships of value gather, there will be a bucaneer or several just waiting for the opportunity to swash, buckle, rape, murder, plunder and party with the gang back in the ‘hood. Along the Great Barrier Reef, the Mekong Delta, in the canals of Venice, the mouth of the Thames, a stretch of the Mighty Mississippi, a Great Lakes waterfront, the banks of the Hudson or the St. Lawrence Seaway, no one will be safe.

The world community is not going to let that happen. It’s not good economics. Just like it wasn’t good economics thirty years ago to help the Somalis protect their fisheries. I do hope someone gives just a little thought to what these desperate people might turn to next to keep from starving to death.

They are not likely to go gently into their good night.

For More Information
Pirates’ captive: ‘I didn’t think I’d ever get out’ - TODAY People
International Maritime Organization
Somali Pirates Are Getting Rich: A Look At The Profit Margins - TIME
BBC NEWS Africa Somali pirates living the high life
Who are Somalia's pirates? csmonitor.com
Somali Pirates Tell Their Side - They Want Only Money - NYTimes.com
U.S. Navy Apprehends Somali Pirates for the First Time - Political Radar
Indian Navy destroys Somali pirate ship as hijackers demand $10m ransom
Somali Pirates: Canadian Nato Forces Foil Attack On Norwegian Tanker U.S. Captain Is Hostage of Pirates; Navy Ship Arrives - NYTimes.com

DARWIN REVISITED - AN NSJ EXTRA

Editor’s Note:
Since this column was written, the black bear in question has been extremely and humanely relocated. We’re a little miffed that they didn’t wait until this column was published and it is for partly that reason that we’re running it as a Northstar Journal Extra.

Hi again, folks. I’ve been working on some commentary praising President Obama on several fronts but this is the Pacific Northwest and right now what’s got my attention is this black bear living in the median of Interstate 5, that federal north-south freeway which connects Mexico to Canada, via the American West Coast.

Aware that this column reaches people who live in places where medians are like inches wide, this probably begs some explanation. This particular median is the size of a backyard in British Columbia, a small ranch in Kentucky, a national park in New Jersey, a township in Suffolk or a post-Louis XIV estate in Normandy.

Except it’s in the middle of the heavily forested Pacific Northwest, with that on either side of the freeway. It’s not like this bear escaped from the Brooklyn Zoo in a blackout or charged into Chattanooga during a particularly heavy rainstorm.

It’s also a seasonal thing. A bear matching this one’s description was observed at the same location last year this time but was some shyer because there was a lot more traffic on both sides of the median back then.

Apparently this Recession has had some impact on him and his. There’s not as much traffic so he’s showing himself more often because he feels safer. What traffic there is slows down when it sees him, making him feel even more secure. Mind you now, he’s not put one paw anywhere near the freeway or anywhere close to it. He’s just doing his bear in the wild thing.

In the median. A BIG median. In a land where eagles nest in skyscrapers, mountain lions take shortcuts through suburban backyards, along with other black bears, and where raccoons make friends with domestic cats and raid the homes of their new friends with considerably less grace and a lot more noise than human burglars.

For this black bear, it’s got to be a little different than a savagely rushing river or a canyon where the Chinooks from the Arctic roil in like the frigid wrath of Valhalla. That bear’s got to cross at least one of them too in order to get back to where it lives the rest of the year.

Like most of the true “indigenous people” of this region, this bear has this weird riff going where everything that happens is caused by a force of nature, including us. I imagine he rests some easier knowing he’s got some control over this particular crossing. If this had happened to a human being, there’d be a new religion started behind it.

The Washington State Patrol’s got the median under aerial observation and humane traps have been baited with a disgusting mixture of peanut butter, etc. that would put an epicurean on a 40-day fast and cause most teenagers to go into fits of absolute pig out.

The idea is to catch this 225 + lb. black bear in what looks like a big cat carrier, then transport it some further back into the Cascade Mountains. Yeah, that’ll work. Sorry guys, this is NOT Jellystone and this is not Yogi and Boo Boo.

Considering the human nature of the Pacific Northwest and the budgetary constraints involved, we’re either going to ignore the media coverage and do totally nothing about it or we’re going to get some of our best and brightest back in the classroom by making that bear’s behavior a major university study and applying for federal funding.

There’s also a possibility that the local communities will promote it as a tourist attraction and an equal chance that the First Nations here will adopt the bear as a cause celebre and build a gambling casino in its honor. Both also, hopefully, with federal funding but if not, probably anyway.

It’s an interesting relationship in evolution here and probably somehow appropriate that in surfing the web for some academic justification for this weird stuff you guys let me get away with week after week, I came across a quote by Charles Darwin which contends that survival is not about who is strongest or most intelligent.

It’s about who is most adaptable.

I expect “y’all” can resonate with that some now, eh? Stay the course folks, have a great weekend, and thanks again for the ear.

Warmest regards,
Rusty

HAPPY EARTH DAY

Hi again, folks. This week’s column is dedicated to Earth Day and good news. Earth Day was first celebrated in 1970 but I missed it because it wasn’t quite the international event it is today and I was not living in the United States at the time.

Vietnam was not a particularly eco-friendly place back then and while I’m sure there were positive and happy things going on in the world, we were not exactly being deluged by news of them.

Both Vietnam and Earth Day have come a long way in 39 years and at a time when it seems like we’re foundering in a toxic media sea of layoffs and failing financial institutions, the evolution of global environmental awareness is producing its own positive headlines.

Wind turbines could meet all of America’s electrical energy needs, according to a report recently released by the U.S. Interior Department. While I’m certainly glad to hear that, I’m not surprised.

My family’s known about the power of wind ever since a very great grandfather contracted a dissolute Member of Parliament from Birmingham, an evangelical minister from Edinburgh, a noted Celtic philosopher and dramatist from Dublin and a famous solicitor (lawyer) from Cardiff to get him and his family out of Ireland during the Potato Famine.

This distant and long dead relative chartered a small ship and put his hired help behind the sails. Whenever the wind died, he plied them with poteen and got them debating about who was actually responsible for the deplorable state of the human condition.

The Atlantic Crossing was made in record time and such was the force of this human generated wind that The Molly McGuire was halfway up the St. Lawrence River before the anchor took hold and halted her western migration.

California continues to find new and better ways to harvest the sun. There’s a ten square mile solar generator plant under construction in the desert to the east of San Diego which is expected, when completed in five years, to provide for the electrical needs of 600,000. And in the Imperial Valley, near the Salton Sea, there’s a five story thermal generator producing enough electricity for 300,000 homes.

Both of these projects have, of course, created local jobs and proven yet again that green can work on a couple of different levels when it comes to environmentally appropriate technology.

Our neighbor to the north continues to take on an emerald glow as well. The British Columbia provincial government just gave $2-million to help fund construction of the first commercial-scale tidal current electrical turbine in North America.

The Canoe Pass Tidal Energy Corporation reports that the underwater turbine will be up and running in the tidal channel between Quadra and Maude Island, north of Campbell River, before the end of 2010.

The potential for the same energy generation in the Puget Sound has been confirmed by a study conducted by the University of Washington. The Sound’s strong currents have long been considered ideal for such technology and the Snohomish County Public Utility District is building three tidal turbines which will produce electricity for about 700 homes in that rural area between Seattle and the Canadian Border.

I wonder, once we have tapped into the same “limitless” sources of energy that have been available to the rest of life on this planet since it was created in primordial soup, what kind of world will we will build with it. Based on our track record so far, I believe that’s an issue which merits some concern.

Happy Earth Day, folks. Keep it clean and green. Until next week, take care, stay well and God Bless.

SOME CALLS TO ARMS ARE BEST TOTALLY FLIPPING IGNORED

Hi again, folks. Well, under the category “Just About The Time I Truly Think I Have Seen It All,” here in Washington State, a Mason County commissioner has come up with a rather “interesting” response to proposed cuts in the law enforcement budget. He’s urging the locals to arm themselves.

"It certainly is 'open season,'" said Tim Sheldon, chairman of the Mason County Commission. "There is no bag limit on criminals who try a home invasion in our communities."

Okay. There are also only around 50,000 people in Mason County, Commissioner. This is not Charles Bronson and New York City, where despite the fact that lots of criminals have guns, not very many of them are members of the NRA and even fewer of them spend time at the range polishing their proficiency in these regards.

This is the Pacific Northwest, the rural Pacific Northwest. Are we thinking pickup trucks and gun racks yet? Are we thinking people who work in the woods and go deer hunting every year? Are we thinking the American Legion and the VFW? Are we thinking male and female children who are taught to shoot about the time kids in Texas are taught to ride horses?

I started out in a mountain community and grew up in law enforcement. I covered crime and the courts for awhile as a newspaper reporter and editor. Burglary is a crime of stealth, not of confrontation. The majority of those who commit it are NOT armed. They don’t want to shoot anyone because that’s a lot more time in prison if they’re caught. They certainly do not want people shooting at them. Sometimes the result of that can be irreversibly life-changing. Most burglars don’t have a death wish.

Again, in looking at the numbers and the geography, I’m thinking that with a population that small and the whole county off the main north-sound (Interstate 5) corridor and not even close to any big highways headed east, any residential or commercial business establishment break-ins will likely be committed by someone somebody else in Mason County knows.

It comes as some relief that the Mason County law enforcement establishment is not real thrilled with the idea of an escalation of arms among the local citizenry. They expect the good people of their jurisdictions to remain law-abiding and to exercise appropriate vigilance, knowing that poverty ~ and particularly the sudden variety of it ~ can often motivate people to do things they would never, under any other circumstances, contemplate.

It means the citizens of Mason County will also be doing all those other things that responsible people in communities small and large have always done during hard times. They will not fill their personal arms lockers with all manner of deadly hardware and ammunition and thunder about like a herd of hard-charging Rambos.

They will look out for one another and do as much as they can to eliminate the need to steal in the first place. That’s how it’s done out here and, I suspect, elsewhere.

NO APOLOGIES NECESSARY

Seattle waterfront - MS(R)M

Well, hello again from the Bastion on the (Puget) Sound. It’s an interesting place from which to study the rest of the species. The drawbridge, the moat (also a sanctuary for abandoned water pets), and the panoramic sweep of two mountain ranges, two lakes and, on a clear day, two countries also lends a certain insularity to the enterprise. We have eagles nesting in our skyscrapers so the precedent’s already been set.

Nonetheless and despite the most sophisticated of defenses, stuff from Beyond the Pale does get through. It’s not always the apparently most important but it must have something going for it to get past all the contract security staff, food and media tasters, etc.

Internationally, one of the things President Obama apparently gets to deal with is a demand that Turkey apologize for the atrocities committed by the Ottoman Empire against its Armenian population. I’ve studied some on that and it’s as shameless a chapter in human history as ever was written.

I’m also mindful that the folks in Ankara and Istanbul now were not responsible, no more than the people walking the streets of Berlin today caused, sanctioned or participated in the extermination of some of my mother’s people in Auschwitz, Bergen Belsen, Dachau, Treblinka and the Warsaw Ghetto. In two more generations, the same will be able to be said of the English, with regards to the Irish, my dad’s side. And in one more generation, for Americans, with regards the Vietnamese.

It’s probably just me but I have a real hard time asking someone to apologize for something they didn’t do. I’m also Canadian-Californian but I’m not stupid. There’s enough around here now that all of us do that we should apologize for but a lot of times don’t.

I figure I’ve got enough to do to concentrate on improving my own track record in these regards without worrying about what a bunch of people who produced me without my consultation and whom I’ve never met did way back when.

I think it’s important to keep the memories alive because what we do now does impact what happens down the road. And maybe guilt serves as a reminder to do better so the next generation is freer to create and enjoy positive alternatives and options.

I don’t personally need the reminders. Life is precious enough to me as it is and I’m fully aware that other human beings are part of the richness and texture of it. I want to use both the bad things and the good of my life, in the now, for the now and to make things better for the future. I want to enjoy myself doing it and bringing to others a celebration of life and the incredible passion our species also has for compassion, decency and freedom.

I’d like to think that maybe if we all do this a little more, maybe there actually will come a day when no one will have any need to ask for apology, or feel the need to give one.

Until next time, then. And thanks for the ear.

HAPPY NOT APRIL FOOL'S DAY

Hi again, folks, and happy NOT April Fools Day. I hate to sound like Scrooge or the Grinch, but tricking people and possibly giving them cardiac arrest is not my idea of a real fun time. Sure, it’s a good laugh for the joker but not always for the recipient. To me, that’s a little liking making love when your partner’s not in the mood. Or giving the cat a bath.

I personally suspect that April Fools Day is another manufactured holiday invented by and lobbied into existence jointly by companies who manufacture whoopee cushions and handshake buzzers and by the Benevolent Society of Sadists and Masochists.

Speaking of dumb things, someone please explain to me the logic behind an electronic cigarette. It’s advertised as “cancer free” and while the user still inhales nicotine (which is not a direct carcinogenic), what’s exhaled is harmless water vapor. Nicotine itself, however, is still a major health risk and a contributor to the growth and spread of cancer, according to Columbia Encyclopedia.

I guess that means that if you want to slowly and publicly continue to shorten your life, at least there won’t be any second-hand smoke to spread the death wish around. Real interesting how that works. I’m not an advocate of suicide but if that’s your choice, it’s nice to not consider taking anyone along for that Last Great Ride.

Apparently they’re legal and a lot cheaper than the real thing, especially now that at least Washington State seems bent on taxing "the real thing" into a price range shared with several totally illegal drugs.

Well, under the category of “Happy Irony,” looks like loggers and mill workers in the Northwest are really going green and getting paid for it. According to the New York Times Weekender,

Some mills that once sought the oldest, tallest evergreens are now producing alternative energy from wood byproducts like bark or brush. Unemployed loggers are looking for work thinning federal forests, a task for which the stimulus package devotes $500 million; the goal is to make forests more resistant to wildfires and disease. Some local officials are betting there is revenue in a forest resource that few appreciated before: the ability of trees to absorb carbon dioxide, a heat-trapping gas that can contribute to global warming.

The U.S. Agriculture Department’s country-of-origin labeling program (COOL), went into total effect last month. It doesn’t include the ingredients in processed food but what it does mean is that if you’d like to support your local food producers even though it might mean paying a little extra, you can buy avocados that were raised in California rather than Mexico.

On the other hand, if you’re a fan of bacon from north of the American border, you can preserve your international culinary integrity now just by reading the package. I imagine that’s going to come as great news to millions of pigs the length and breadth of Canada.

In a continuing effort to reduce the size of The Bastion on the (Puget) Sound's carbon footprint, I came across a free (and Northstar tested) download which, according to PC World, “calculates your carbon footprint” by entering in “data to figure CO2 generated from activities including transportation, energy, trash or waste, recreation, purchasing habits, food, and more. Learn where you can go green by calculating your carbon footprint and then focusing on areas where you can make the most positive impact on the environment.” You can download it yourself by going here.

And to help with the internal environment, in terms of weighing enough to be healthy, I found a Body Mass Index calculator download which gives a range rather than a single ideal standard. I’m not just recommending this to people who might be packing a little too much, either.

Personally, I’m at the other end so this is good for thin people who have a tendency to skip meals and risk a variety of conditions that are just as potentially lethal as those associated with obesity. You can check that BMI calculator out here.

On that same download page is a Food Additives dictionary which indexes additives. When you click on one, it lets you know what the health risk is and other things I found pretty useful.

Until next time, then, take care, stay well and God Bless. And thanks again for the ear.

Rusty