Being based at the moment in Sonora State in Mexico and this being my first summer, those immortal words in Robin William’s film Good Morning, Vietnam keep coming to mind. Here’s an excerpt from the script that covers that exchange between Adrian Cronauer (RW) and Roosevelt, somewhere out in the jungle.
Category: Musings
Betelgeuse
Sharpest views of Betelgeuse reveal how supergiant stars lose mass
Most of this Post is from a recent press release by ESO.
The strangeness of outer space is almost beyond comprehension. Read more of this Post
John Bachar, free-solo climber, RIP
For many years being a subscriber to The Economist newspaper has been a weekly pleasure. Strangely, it might be thought, one of the most appreciated sections of this newspaper is the weekly obituary. Frequently giving an insight into a well-known person but, not uncommonly, a beautifully written piece about a person not in the public arena.
Just so in the publication dated July 18th, 2009 (my copy always takes a couple of weeks to arrive).
It is about a climber, John Bachar, who loves climbing without any aids whatsoever. Apparently known as free-solo climbing, not free-climbing, as described in The Economist.
Unless you are a print or online subscriber you will not be able to appreciate the wonderful prose used to describe John’s life. If you are a subscriber the article is here.
For those that want some more background and do not have access to The Economist there is an obituary in the LA Times including a breath-taking picture.
What I can do (hopefully without treading on any copyright toes) is to quote just one of the comments that was attached to the online version of the article.
I was so enthralled reading this beautifully written piece that I suddenly felt living through one of John Bachar’s many climbs. This is a lively description of an intrepid life lived in full harmony with and in respect of rocky mountains to the very end. Understanding the risks this man single-mindedly stuck to his values on rock-climbing, dangling with death but not with his body whilst working his way up until one rock-face decided to claim the better of him to remain unconquered this one time.
An obituary that pays due homage to a specialist nature lover in the art of blending with the rock graciously.
Integrity appears in many forms.
By Paul Handover
What’s the Truth about Global Warming?
Let’s start with an admission. For a long time the arguments supporting global warming seemed irrefutable. Al Gore’s film An Inconvenient Truth seemed to popularise what was suspected. We aren’t doing enough to combat planetary warming and it is going to destroy man’s habitat on Planet Earth.
But over the years a few doubts have started to bubble up.
- Governments find global warming a great excuse to raise taxes (I know, call me a cynic!).
- Most of those taxes have little effect on changing behaviours, surely the point of government policy.
- Demographic changes mean that global population levels will fall drastically, of their own accord.
- Research into global warming is frequently funded by Governments so, perhaps, there is a natural bias in favour of giving Governments what they want to hear (see first point).
So it was interesting to read in a recent Fortune Magazine article about Professor John R. Christy raising some well-argued alternative views. But, hey, Fortune Magazine would promote an anti-global warming agenda, wouldn’t they!
But a quick Google search came across a fascinating lecture recorded on YouTube with the title, Global Warming – what do the numbers show? It runs for an hour but surely the truth about the state of the planet is worth at least an hour of your time. Watch it.
By Paul Handover
Flying
I just saw the video of Concorde taking off on it’s last departure from Heathrow. The first flight was in 1969. Man’s first landing on the moon was 40 years ago today. Hey, I remember that day! I left my home near Gatwick shortly after 3am to cycle some 100 miles to Bournemouth to see some relations. It was a beautiful clear night and I could see the full moon very clearly as I cycled along. Passing various houses I could also see people huddled round small black and white televisions watching man’s first landing on the moon. As I continued to cycle west the sun shone and it turned out to be a beautiful day. The other thing I remember is getting sun burnt on the left side of my body. Strange that, and I never worked out why dogs howl at a full moon….
By Bob Derham
The English are a funny lot
I refer to the English sense of humour. There seems to be nothing like it from any other part of the world.
The roll call of British comedians is long and glorious but some of the strangest humour (from a non-English perspective) is typified by Monty Python and David Adams, the latter writing The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
From which very funny book comes the following quote,
There is an art to flying, or rather a knack. Its knack lies in learning to throw yourself at the ground and miss. Clearly, it is this second part, the missing, that provides the difficulties.
By Paul Handover
Is it me?
It’s very fashionable to attack politicians for showing a lack of integrity. Or is it the whole political apparatus? But slowly over the years, as more and more water flows under the bridge, it’s becoming more difficult to come to any other conclusion than that politics is corrupt, dysfunctional (in terms of societal needs) and motivated by the need to gain and maintain power.
Is there any evidence to the contrary? It would be great to see it.
It all seems a very long way from:
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
By Paul Handover
Bighorn Sheep in the Coachella Valley Mountains
Integrity is the parent of Trust and having friends that you trust is one of life’s great riches. (Indeed, isn’t a friend, by definition, someone you trust?) Anyway, nearly 30 years ago I met this great Californian, Dan G., at a dealer meeting being held by Commodore Business Machines in New Jersey where their headquarters used to be. I was giving a sales pitch extolling the virtues of my word processing program that Commodore had agreed to market through their dealer network. I used the word “‘fortnight” which every good Englishman will know means two weeks. Dan interrupted me by calling out, “Hey Handover, what’s a fortnight?” The rest of the talk seemed to descend into a very funny expose of all the differences between our two versions of the English language. George Bernard Shaw is attributed as describing the Americans and the English as ‘two nations divided by a common language‘ which seems to me a very apt observation.
Anyway, this is a complete digression to the point of this posting. In my email box this morning is a most beautiful description of Dan coming across Bighorn Sheep. I can do no better than to reproduce it in full.
Learning from Dogs 